"Now don't you just look like shit?"
Sherlock, managing an upright position and consciousness only by squatting in the shadow thrown by the mud brick wall at his back, opens his eyes just a slice. There is nobody near him, certainly not an overly-familiar American determined to blow his cover. A stray cat saunters over and sits down next to him, gazing out towards the road and looking about as interested in Sherlock as it is in the dirt under its paws. It's a miniature panther of an animal, all sinew and muscle over a broad, heavy frame encased in a scarred black pelt. Both ears are shredded and one eye is milky and half-closed.
Sherlock sighs and closes his eyes again. He must be hearing things.
"Got milk?"
For days now Sherlock's been trying to keep the amoebas colonizing his gut from making an empire of it with oral doses of antibiotics and massive applications of the best British bowel cement money can buy, but he knows he's going down under a relentless onslaught of invaders. He's been hallucinating off and on for the last twenty-four hours. Earlier in the day he could have sworn he saw Mycroft standing in a poppy field, leaning on that ridiculous umbrella of his like a soft shoe dancer or somebody's demented idea of a scarecrow.
Something bumps lightly against his knee.
"Don't be an ass, motherfucker. I am so on to you."
Sherlock squints his eyes open again and looks down at the cat. It gives him a brief, assessing stare and then looks away. "If you're an Afghan I'll hump a pooch."
Sherlock blinks his eyes wider, then takes a quick look around. Nobody else seems to have heard anything. A few men and boys pass by in the street and head into the bazaar just beyond. They pay no attention to a lone man and a stray cat resting in the shade of a compound wall. It's lucky enough for Sherlock that in these smaller Afghani towns, it often doesn't pay to be overly curious about strangers passing through.
Sherlock keeps his eyes on the cat. It glances at him briefly. "Look, motherfucker, Afghan men sit on their asses with their legs crossed, they don't squat. Only time a man sits like that is when he's taking a dump, which, by the way, is exactly how you smell."
Sherlock thinks this one through for a long minute. A part of him realizes how spectacularly impressive this hallucination is. The cat's mouth moves when it speaks. He figures he cannot be that ill if his fever dreams have some sense to them. If the cat was communicating with him via telepathy or something outrageous like that it would be a signal that his brain is too fried to make living worthwhile. He might as well just turn himself in to the Taliban right there.
As for the tell, another glance around proves that the cat is right. The men in the shops nearby sit cross-legged on carpets or low stools. None of them squat on their haunches like he does. He slips a bit further down the wall, crosses his ankles and spreads his knees. The talking cat, he reasons, is a projection of the survival part of his brain, giving him a way to keep focused despite his fever and dehydration.
Either that or Doctor Doolittle will have to be moved out of the fiction section of his personal library.
"Got anything to eat, motherfucker? MRE's? Peanut butter? I like the peanut butter ones. The jalapeno cheese ones are good too, but they give me ass problems." When Sherlock doesn't say anything the cat leans forward and butts his knee with its head again. "What's the deal here, motherfucker? You owe me, man. I probably just saved your sorry ass from some serious al-Qaeda inspired screwby."
"You're an hallucination," Sherlock murmurs without moving his lips, just to see what happens.
The cat considers this for a moment and then, in a flash, lays back what's left of its ears and bats at Sherlock, tearing a claw down the back of his hand and bringing up four dotted lines of blood. It leaps sideways out of reach before Sherlock can even react.
"Hallucinate that for a while, motherfucker." The cat sits down glaring and switches its tail angrily in the dust.
Sherlock presses his bloody hand into one of the less dirty folds in the baggy trousers he has on under his long tunic. He studies the cat as it twitches its skin until the fur on its back lies flat again and then sets about meticulously washing its face. After it's thoroughly dampened and wiped through the right side of its face and chest it goes to switch paws and freezes when it catches Sherlock's eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Christ, you're a Brit, aren't you? Figures. You goddamn Brits always think you know everything. Nobody can tell you nothing. Still walking around acting like you own the whole fucking world. Can't learn from your own damn mistakes. I mean, just look at what happened in 1880 at Maiwa—"
"Oh, don't start," Sherlock sighs and starts to close his eyes again.
"No English, motherfucker!"
Shuhab appears from nowhere to stand beside Sherlock. He's holding a clay cup of tea and a round of flatbread in his grubby hand. The boy squats down next to Sherlock and offers the tea while looking suspiciously at the cat. Shuhab is the latest and dodgiest in a string of decidedly questionable minders that have accompanied Sherlock over the border from Peshawar, Pakistan and south towards Kandahar. Mycroft assured Sherlock of the loyalty of his contacts, but that was a dubious place to start from itself. Sherlock can't decide if his doubts about Shuhab have merit, or are the result of the general uneasiness one is likely to feel when one is somewhat dependent on a surly thirteen-year-old carrying a Kalishnakov.
Putting his doubts aside for a second, Sherlock sips carefully at the tea. He hopes it has been boiling long enough to kill whatever lives in the local water. He hasn't been very lucky on that score so far. He swallows a mouthful and grits his teeth against the protesting clench in his belly.
"Why are you speaking English to an Afghan cat? Afghan cats only speak Pashto," Shuhab demands in his spoiled brat way and then shouts at the cat. "Drumma! Zarak shaw!" The cat ignores him, oozing utter indifference.
"Maybe he only speaks Farsi." Sherlock says in Farsi because his Pashto is shaky and, more to the point, his classic Persian irks Shuhab. Usually the two of them communicate in a patois of Farsi, Pashto, English and sign language interspersed with Shuhab's truly impressive multilingual collection of curse words. Shuhab scowls at him and fingers through the dust for a stone.
While it can't be bothered with him unarmed, the cat clearly knows better than to take its chances with any kid holding a rock. In a sudden scatter of dust and pebbles it shoots off along the wall and disappears under a gate before the boy can even cock his arm.
Sherlock feels strangely disappointed at the loss of a focus point for his hallucinations. He frowns.
"Drink, motherfucker. We go to my cousin's house for the night in the next village. These people here are bhenchad. They will kill us if we stay here."
Sherlock knows perfectly well that Shuhab has no cousin in the next village, just the name of a contact with a safe house. Furthermore, he doubts a sister-fucking penchant exists here more than in any other place, but Shuhab is probably right about how the people in this village regard them. It might not be safe to ask strangers questions around here, but it's often perfectly acceptable to shoot them.
"How far?"
Shuhab shrugs. "Two, three kilometers is all."
Shuhab doesn't have the slightest idea how far a kilometer is. He could mean anywhere from ten feet to twenty miles. Sherlock drinks the dregs of the tea and breathes slowly through the new set of cramps it causes. Sweat breaks out on his forehead at the same time that he shivers.
"Alright," he grunts and reaches out. Putting his hand against the wall he levers himself up off the ground. He keeps his hand pressed to the mud brick. He waits for the world to stop tilting.
"Okay, motherfucker, no more English, now. Got it?" Shuhab asks, trying to look around as stealthily as possible and only managing to look exceedingly suspicious.
If Sherlock had the energy, he'd roll his eyes, but he doesn't.
Shuhab hands him the walking stick he carries as a guard against dogs and increasingly now, as a prop against stumbling. He glances back, hoping the cat might be willing to follow, but it has vanished and with it, Sherlock worries vaguely, whatever is left of his sanity.
Of course everything is worse at night. The fever climbs and it's harder for him to keep straight what is real and what is the result of electrolyte imbalances, misfiring synapses, his brain overheating in the caldron of his skull. Dreams and reality chase each other in circles across his conscience like glinting fish in a bowl. He wakes sweating and overheating under the blankets Shuhab's "cousin" lent him.
Shuhab and his "cousin", a man who appears old enough to be Shuhab's grandfather several generations back, argue in whispers on the other side of the room, their faces made monstrous by the long, yellow light of a kerosene lamp on the floor. The tiny dung-fueled brazier between Sherlock and the two Afghanis throws out more smoke than heat and Sherlock coughs and stirs. The coughing raises the lump of nausea in his throat and he feels a warning kick in his belly, his mouth flooding suddenly with saliva.
Shuhab hushes the old man and comes to stand over Sherlock who struggles out of his bedding.
"My cousin says you cannot stay here," Shuhab says. "There is a storm coming and the Taliban come to stay with the storm. My cousin says take you to the British army base. My cousin is una puta cobarde. He should wear burkah and daga me ra wazbaisha."
"Help…" Sherlock ignores Shuhab's words for now, but grips the boy's arm and gets him to lift him from the ground and lead him out the door. The night is clear and the cold helps him hold back for another minute as Shuhab steers him to a narrow alley between the building and the compound wall where he can retch without making a mess of the courtyard.
"Go 'way."
For once Shuhab readily obliges and Sherlock is vaguely aware of the sound of his retreating feet and the creak and crunch of the door closing.
Sherlock squats, leaning forward into the wall his fingers scratching into the crumbling mud surface and vomits onto the ground between his knees. The bit of bread and yogurt he'd forced down before bed comes up in a gout of water and bile. His stomach continues to heave even after there is nothing left inside him, leaving only a bit of spittle stringing out of his mouth.
He waits it out. Even though his heart is pounding and he can barely catch his breath he knows he just has to wait it out until the convulsions in his gut start to lessen and he can close his mouth again and gather up enough saliva to spit at least a bit of the bitter taste from his tongue. He keeps his hands on the wall and leans forward until his cheek settles against it also. He groans again and gasps great draughts of cold air, trying to settle himself, trying to get a grip. He is shaking uncontrollably.
"Just look at you now, little brother," Mycroft says out of the darkness.
"Go away, Mycroft."
"I should have sent one of my people."
"Go away. I'm fine. I can do this. You know I'm the only one she'll listen to."
"There you go overestimating yourself again. Am I forever going to be pulling the two of you out of the mud you throw yourselves into before you drown?"
"We're quite capable of swimming on our own."
"It certainly doesn't look like it from here."
"You always do only see what you want to see. Piss off, Mycroft. I mean it."
"And you only hear what you want to hear."
"Fuck off!" Sherlock roars.
Something small and soft thumps up against him. "You are hands down the worst goddamn spy I have ever seen." It's the cat. It rubs its flanks against his thigh.
Sherlock starts to laugh out loud.
"Will you shut the fuck up you goddamn fool?" The cat hisses, crouching beside him. "Or do you just want me to take you down to the local mosque so you can march around singing Onward Christian Soldiers at the top of your jackass lungs?"
Sherlock tips backwards until he's sitting with his back to the outside wall. He puts his arm to his mouth and bites down hard into cloth and flesh, trying to stifle his hysteria, hoping the pain will give him focus. His other hand falls down beside him and the cat steps over and, surprisingly, shoves it head under his palm like a pet wanting to be stroked.
Sherlock curls his fingers around the cat's shoulders and chest. It's purring. He feels the vibration in his fingertips. The tension in his shoulders and back drains reflexively at the soft, warm touch of the animal's fur. It's the first live thing Sherlock has touched since leaving England.
The cat leans forward and sniffs at the mess near Sherlock's feet. "Hey, is that yogurt? You got any left?" Without waiting for an answer the cat bolts around the corner and starts crying desperately at the door.
Sherlock unfolds slowly from the ground and eases his way around the corner. He stops with his back to the wall by the doorway. He knows he should go in and rest and try to figure out what the hell Shuhab was nattering on about, but the room is only marginally warmer than outside and the air rank, the dark claustrophobic. He slips down to his haunches again and leans his head back, staring up into the vast, bright heavens heavily streaked grey with fast-moving clouds. He breathes in long, slow sips of cold air as if it was cool, clean water for his parched body.
He has no idea how long he's been sitting there when Shuhab flings open the door so that it bangs back against the wall and almost slams closed again. The old man catches it and follows him out while the cat slips by unobserved by anyone except Sherlock. The old man starts speaking gently and earnestly to Sherlock, but his Pashto is slurred by his lack of teeth and obscured by the cicada-like hum screaming in Sherlock's head. Shuhab tries translating in his usual enigmatic way and Sherlock cannot make heads or tails of any of it beyond "British Army base".
"No British Army base," Sherlock says in Pashto, panting between phrases. "I cannot go to the British Army base. Kandahar. I must get to Kandahar."
"Is days to Kandahar, motherfucker. And you are very sick. And the big storm is coming and the Taliban will come shelter here in this house any time and so you must go to the British Army base now or you will die."
"I'm fine."
The old man starts to speak again, leaning over Sherlock, talking louder and more urgently, as if that would make him understand better. Shuhab tries to translate but all Sherlock can manage is to stare vacantly into the middle distance and listen to the hum in his head. The two Afghanis start to argue with each other since neither can get a response out of Sherlock.
The cat, licking its lips, saunters out of the room, past the two arguing men, around Sherlock and settles down next to his thigh. "What's their damage?" he asks Sherlock after a long moment. Sherlock starts, shrugs and rolls his eyes.
The cat burps and licks its lips again. Then, it turns its full attention on the two men, squaring its ears upright and forward for a long moment. It gets distracted by a falling snowflake. Then another. A dog barks distantly in the valley behind them and the cat turns its head that way. It looks back at Sherlock. "Seems you're a liability."
"I am fine," Sherlock hisses between gritted teeth.
The dog barks again, answered by another that sounds a bit closer and the cat's ears radar around to listen. Then it looks up into the sky as more snowflakes tumble down. A wind gust swirls a cloud of dust through the courtyard and pushes the snow slantwise.
"You're shit out of luck, big guy," the cat declares. "Old man's right – Taliban's comin' to town for the duration and from the smell of you you're half-dead already so it's the Army base or Nirvana with 42 virgins, which always just seemed like hard work to me. Ever fuck a virgin? Booooring. And all that emotional crap afterwards….I'll take a pussy that's been around the block a few times any day, especially if she's got extra toes…."
"I don't know whether to be reassured or terrified that you are just a figment of my imagination," Sherlock responds tiredly. If a cat could smirk, that's what it does. Sherlock's about to shoo the animal away when he realizes the arguing has stopped and he looks up to see Shuhab and the old man staring at him.
"I'm fine," Sherlock says, lunging to his feet and tottering like a drunk. "No British Army base." He declares, takes two steps out into the courtyard and drops like a stone.