As always, heartfelt thanks to snogandagrope and ScienceofObsession for all their help and support. I could not ask for better betas! Also, jillandsarah did a lovely interpretation of Sherlock as a genie, which you can find at the bottom of the AO3 version of Ch. 3.
Chapter 3 - A Discussion About Improbable vs. Impossible
Sherlock leans around the desk and pulls open the top drawer. He plucks out the ammo box and tosses it to John without looking at him.
"Feel better with ammunition?" His voice is rich and low. "Now you can shoot me if you need to," he smirks.
John does feel better. He's shared a laugh with this beautiful escaped lunatic, and something is happening to him. He fields the box out of the air and swiftly loads the magazine, snapping it into his gun. He chambers a bullet before tucking the gun against the small of his back. "Thank you," he says without sarcasm.
Sherlock acknowledges, and dismisses, the comment with a flicker of his eyelids. He pulls John's stethoscope from the top drawer and slides it through his fingers. "I noticed this when you grabbed your weapon," he says, examining it curiously. "I've seen these, but never got my hands on one. May I?"
John blinks, surprised. "Ok," he says slowly.
Sherlock puts the earpieces in his ears and his eyebrows immediately go up. John grins. Sherlock taps the diaphragm and nods at whatever he hears. He places it on his own chest and listens intently. He holds it against his throat and swallows. He listens to his lungs. He stoops and places it over his stomach and then does an amazing shimmy (Jesus Christ, is he a belly dancer, too?) and looks satisfied.
"Interesting," he judges, finally.
John suppresses a smile. "Yeah. O-kaaay." What is he to make of this man? And how did he get inside? He takes two steps over to examine the door of the bedsit, but the interior bolt is still engaged and the door still locked. "Leaving aside the medical experiments for a moment. How did you get in here?"
Sherlock looks annoyed. "You brought me here. How else could I have got in? Your one window is obviously painted shut. There can't be a window in your bathroom, as it's towards the interior of the building. Given the proper tools, I could pick the lock on the door, but that wouldn't help against the slide bolt. I suppose I could have been hiding under your bed. But how would I have got there in the first place? You see? Dead end logic. Ergo: I came in with you."
John shakes his head, bewildered.
Sherlock gives an exaggerated nod at the lamp. "You. Brought. Me. Here."
John snorts. "What, you came out of the lamp?"
Sherlock raises a patronizing eyebrow and tilts his head. "Yes, Dr. Watson. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
"Because I was polishing it, then? That's how it works? Rub the lamp and a genie comes out? You must think I'm mad."
"No, I do not think you're mad. Stubborn and obtuse, certainly. Lonely, yes. Suicidally depressed, up for debate. Not insane."
John gritted his teeth. "I didn't ask you to psychoanalyze me."
"No. You've got someone else to do that, don't you? I do hope you're not paying out much, because whoever it is, you obviously haven't been cured of your psychosomatic limp."
"What? How did you know-?" Conversation with this man leaves John reeling and confused.
Sherlock impatiently huffs. "Your desk calendar shows an appointment with Dr. Thompson for Wednesday. You've got a cane here, but haven't limped since I came out." He flickers his fingers over his chin for a moment, thinking. "For that matter, I haven't noticed your hand shaking, either, which it was doing intermittently at the antiques shop and on the way home. Is it excitement? Is it danger that you crave? There definitely seems to be a correlation. I'll need more data."
John eyes widen and he hunches in a little. He's not comfortable with this clearly mental stranger reaching inside his head like that. "Just. Forget about that. If you're from the lamp, show me, then," he challenges.
Sherlock pulls an exaggerated moue. "I hate it in there. Dull! Can I come right back out?"
"Do I need to rub it again?"
"It is only necessary to want me." Well, there was a loaded double entendre. But John could see that wasn't what the svelte man before him intended, and he shoved the lascivious, inappropriate thought aside.
"Ok, then. Yeah," John figures that's easy enough: just call him back. If it should come to that. Which he very much doubts, of course, because it's completely irrational.
Sherlock is looking at him narrowly. "However improbable, remember? Here, I'll show you."
John watches, alert and faintly amused. And something very odd happens. The air around his 'guest' turns hazy, like the rippling over hot rocks in Afghanistan. So with the shimmer around him, Sherlock holds his gaze, and then... fades. And when John just begins to perceive the line of the window through his body, he vanishes completely with the same subtle susurrus.
John blinks. He looks suspiciously around the tiny room, but clearly Sherlock hasn't hidden under the bed or ducked into the bathroom. He's quite simply disappeared, and John watched it happen. It is improbable, but evidently not impossible.
He walks over to the desk, noting as he does that Sherlock was right: he isn't limping at the moment. He picks up the lamp with a steady hand. It is cool, and heavy, and feels good in his grip. He weighs it briefly, then lifts the little cap and stares inside. "Are you in there?" he asks quietly, feeling foolish beyond belief. There's no answer.
John pokes his finger inside, wiggles it to explore the distant edges of the inner chamber carefully, in case Sherlock is somehow shrunk down and actually lounging around down in there. He rolls his eyes at the influence of his formative years spent watching I Dream of Jeannie, and wonders uncertainly if this is just a PTSD hallucination spawned from that more idyllic time. Actually, he thinks, a hallucination might be easier to accept.
The lamp is vacant. Of course it is. The walls are slightly oily, with a pleasing lack of grit and grime. He squints down the spout, and sees nothing. Just to be complete, he drops to his knees in front of his bed. The only thing there is a flat box that houses military papers and sundries. He looks in the tiny bath. No Sherlock in the shower. He walks over to the door and leans back against it, absently caressing the lamp.
"Ok." He says, wondering if he's finally succumbed to mental breakdown. "Come back."
John hears the expected, rustling, whisper of a sound. The air shimmers, he can see the faintest outlines of a slender man, the sparkle of gold bangles; and then it's Sherlock, whole and opaque, standing there smirking.
He gives a little shiver and then dips his head to stare adamantly into John's eyes. "Believe me, yet?"
"Why didn't you answer me?"
"I can't, when I'm inside. It's... different. I'm aware, off and on. Most of the time, I float. Or maybe sleep. It's pathologically boring. Sometimes I can tune in, learn about the current era. It's random."
John frowns, a bit overwhelmed and bewildered. What Sherlock is describing sounds like hell, really. Also, and more importantly, bullshit. He remains unconvinced.
"Do it again." They go through three more iterations, and after that Sherlock is thoroughly annoyed. Going back into the lamp seems to agitate him. John wonders if it is because he fears he won't get back out.
"No more! There is no new data here. What else do you need?" Patrician features are drawn up into an impatient snarl.
John ignores it. "Can I touch you?" he asks, feeling that it is presumptuous and inappropriate to ask. He's abandoning his British reserve. But everything about this situation is bizarre, and he wants to know.
"Fine. Do what you need to." Sherlock does the shrug thing that involves all the muscles of his torso. They stretch and slide under his skin, and John licks his lips.
John warily approaches Sherlock for the first time, and is distantly relieved that he isn't attacked. He's much taller, and John has to tip his head back as he closes in. Sherlock seems to enjoy the height difference, straightens his spine and looks down his nose instead of inclining his head. John goes military stiff in response, and defiantly holds that provocative stare. He stands for a moment, and they are only inches apart. Sherlock's strangely slanted eyes are astonishingly light, an ethereal sea color tinted with challenge. John finally drops his gaze, and sees the pulse flutter at Sherlock's neck.
When he reaches out to touch, he surprises both of them by aiming for Sherlock's waist, rather than arm or hand or even face. Milky skin is taut and warm, stretched pleasingly over firm and limber muscle. John's palm is on the edge of Sherlock's stomach, and there is so little meat under it that John's short fingers can curl around to his back. He has the odd urge to feed the strange man up a bit. He looks down at what he's grabbing; the henna tracework is partially obscured by the heel of his hand. A small mole is just above his thumb; he brushes up fractionally to feel its gentle bump. Just a couple small whisks back and forth, savoring the small imperfection.
His lizard brain makes him want to reach out with the other hand, provide symmetry, and pull this lissome swizzle stick of lean muscle against him. Wants that dark head to drop down. Wants to smell the base of his neck, lick his way up to an ear, decorated with a droplet earring of amber jewels. Wants to taste and feel and smell. He licks his lips. His hand flexes, denting the warm flesh underneath it.
But then Sherlock steps back, and Johns hand falls to his side. The loss of contact leaves him feeling curiously adrift. "Real enough for you?" Sherlock asks. It's meant to sound sarcastic, but comes across as more hesitant and a little breathless.
"Right. Well, yeah. I suppose. I don't know what else you could be. I figure that if you're a figment of my imagination, that's still safe enough."
"I'm not anybody's figment," Sherlock retorts. "I grant you a wish. That's what I do." He looks unhappy when he says that, and John feels the discordant ring of something false and begrudging.
"You don't like granting wishes?" Not that he believes he'd get a wish granted. This is merely a theoretical conversation.
"Well, it's hardly fulfilling Work, is it?" Sherlock says snidely. "Except in the strictest sense of the word."
What? Oh. Fulfilling. John laughs briefly, and Sherlock frowns at him. "Well. I guess I wouldn't know. Hasn't anyone wished for world peace?"
Sherlock gives him a look. "Obviously not, as your war wound can attest. I can't grant wishes like that. They're a personal thing. There are limits to even what I can do."
"What if you wanted to wish that your enemies had taste buds in their arseholes?" John says, after a moment's consideration.
That surprises a crack of laughter out of Sherlock. "I might could manage that. Do you have many enemies?"
"No, no. I was just asking."
"Well. Whatever it is, you might want to think on it for a while. Usually, when I grant a wish, the beneficiary winds up unhappy." He pauses, a feral smile ghosting over his face. "Or dead. So... have a good, long think." He's looking around the room while he speaks, and tugs the desk drawer out again.
"I've seen these," he says to John, removing and opening up his laptop. "It contains many books and other, newer media forms, correct?"
"The Internet," John replies. "If you can dodge your way through the porn, it can be educational."
"I'd like to look through it, while you sleep," Sherlock's long fingers play delicately with the lid. "I'm aware of this time period, of course, but there's a lot of detail I need to catch up on."
John blinks. Slowly. Sherlock's still there, one slim hip relaxed on the edge of the desk, sheer gray trousers floating around the curves of his flesh. There's a fold in the skin of his stomach, as he twists to look at the laptop, and John's eyes linger there longer than they should. Guiltily, he looks at the screen, grinding mental teeth at his unseemly lust for a stranger in his home.
He logs on, with Sherlock looking curiously over his shoulder. He blocks the view while he taps in his password. Sherlock hisses in frustration. "What are you doing?"
"Typing my password. It protects my account. I am setting up a Guest account for you." Sherlock has a calculating expression on his face. John gives him a dirty look. "Forget about it, ok? Here, I'll pull up Google, and you can just cruise around."
When John comes back from showering and brushing his teeth, Sherlock is reading headlines in the Daily Yell. He rolls his eyes. "I'm not sure whether that's going to give you the most accurate insight into our times or not," he muses. Sherlock flicks his eyes sideways briefly, taking in John's expression, his bearing, the robe over his pyjamas; the damp lips and fleck of overlooked toothpaste. He doesn't respond, just goes back to reading. John silently plugs the machine in for him, assuming that Sherlock may be on longer than the scant two hours the battery will support. Sherlock continues to ignore him, scrolling rapidly through the articles.
John turns off the light and settles in to bed by the blue glow of the screen. "Need any help?" he asks, yawning. Sherlock grunts at him, which he takes as a No. John is tired. It's not so very late, but he presumes it's the need to process. He wonders at himself that he can just nod off like this. Vulnerable. In pyjamas! With a stranger in his room. But, he has tucked the gun under his pillow, loaded and ready. And Sherlock no longer registers as a danger to his instinct, for whatever bizarre reason. John doesn't believe that he's a genie. That's irrational. Preposterous. Although he had certainly done a foolproof disappearing act earlier. Perhaps an insane magician? A David Copperfield gone off the grid? But whatever he is, he has shaken John's gray, moribund life, breathing vitality into the room; and that, along with the element of risk, is worth keeping him here.
He looks at the man through his eyelashes. Sherlock is silhouetted against the laptop, outline limned in blue. One hand is scrubbing through his hair, wildly tousling the locks, and the other is increasing in pace as he taps out letters on the keyboard. He's picked up the touchpad right away, damn him, and within the space of 20 minutes seems to navigate with ease and confidence. John sighs in disgust. It had taken him longer than that with his laptop, and he'd had the advantage of having actually interacted with a computer before.
Sherlock has pulled his feet up to the seat, and balances the laptop on his knees while he reads. His eyes dart back and forth intently. His cheekbones are sharpened by shadows, and the soft glow renders the line of nose and jaw both brittle and fragile.
John watches the stranger surf until he slowly sinks into sleep.