[Author's Note: This is two chapters posted in two days, so make sure you've read the previous chapter if you're just tuning in. I just couldn't resist, because this stupid plotiness is getting in the way of my FEELS and I just want to get it out of the way so I can get on to the good stuff! ;-) Enjoy!]
"Mycroft," John said mildly. "D'you take sugar?"
"Just milk," Mycroft answered, self-consciously smoothing his waistcoat.
John handed Mycroft's cup to him. Sherlock tried to wave John away but John adeptly plucked the waving hand out of the air and wrapped it around the handle of the cup. Sherlock scowled but took an absent-minded sip, continuing to tap away at the keyboard one-handed.
John settled back on the end of the bed, sipping his own tea.
"So if this isn't about Moriarty, who exactly has me under surveillance?" He addressed his question to Mycroft, knowing better than to expect further explanations from Sherlock now that he was engrossed in his task.
Mycroft nodded toward the satchel, and John pulled it over to him by the strap, retrieving from its depths a dossier.
Sherlock flicked a quick glance at it. "Paper," he sniffed disparagingly.
"And fortunate for us that it was," Mycroft countered calmly.
"Colonel Sebastian Moran," John read aloud.
"'The Man Without a Face,' he has been called," Mycroft said, and John just barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Mycroft did always have a flair for the dramatic.
John scanned the dossier quickly. Former Colonel in the South African Army, although his talents were recognized early on as being more suited to assassination than to field command. Seemed like the man was something of a prodigy with a sniper rifle, distinguishing himself in the war in Sierra Leone in some very unofficial capacities, before being dishonorably discharged in 2004.
John raised his eyebrows. "Exactly what does an assassin do to earn himself a dishonorable discharge?"
Mycroft's mouth formed a moue of distaste. "He does not confine his activities to the killing field. Colonel Moran has a penchant for sadism, bordering on the murderous. Atrocities of war can obscure a string of young female corpses for only so long. Even in West Africa, tolerance for that sort of thing has its limits."
"Charming." John returned to reading. Mercenary since his discharge, tied to a string of assassinations internationally, and then...
John flipped the last page over, just to make sure, but there were no more pages. "It ends in 2008."
Mycroft nodded. "In 2008, we believe, Moran met James Moriarty."
John's eyebrows raised again. "A merc like this with a single employer for years? That's about as rare as a merc living past 40."
"Moran seems exceptional in several aspects," Mycroft sniffed. "Most notably, the complete paucity of information regarding his appearance. The South African National Defence Force, recognizing his way with a long-range rifle early on, saw fit to obscure his identity as much as possible. Records from his enlistment, even his school records, were scrubbed clean. He was equally scrupulous about leaving no traces throughout his freelance mercenary career. And apparently when he met Moriarty, his talent for anonymity only heightened. Electronic records simply vanished."
"The Man Without a Face," John repeated, much less amused by the dramatic title now. "How about his...victims?"
"Those who survived are in no condition to be making statements, unfortunately."
John felt a shiver creep down his spine.
"If Moriarty was his employer, though, and he's been dead for almost a year, why is Moran still a threat? Why have me under surveillance at all?"
Mycroft nodded approvingly, looking like a teacher whose exceptionally dull student had finally hit upon the right question. "The lack of information has been an obstacle, but it is clear that Moriarty and Moran were more than employer and employee. At the very least, Moran was Moriarty's second-in-command and most trusted associate. At the most...well, the depth of Moran's devotion to Moriarty suggests that they might have been...involved in some way."
John felt his eyebrows hit his hairline again. "But I thought...the girls..."
Sherlock spoke for the first time since their conversation had begun. "Come now, John, surely your understanding of sexual preferences is not so black and white?" His pale eyes seemed to look right through John, and John resisted the urge to shift uneasily under that penetrating gaze.
Sherlock looked back at the laptop, to John's relief. "Moriarty was an expert at being all things to all people," he added. "Whatever he did to keep Moran at his side — whether it was dominating Moran himself, or simply being a gleeful accessory to his ongoing sadism — it would have bound Moran to him like a dog on a leash." The grey eyes flitted back up to look at John. "And a vicious dog who loses his owner only becomes more dangerous."
John nodded his acknowledgement. "So this is the man we're after," he said to Mycroft.
"No, John. This is the man who is after you. Or will be, if he can be sure that Sherlock has returned. Moran escaped several times as we closed in on other parts of Moriarty's web. He knows now that someone is taking it apart, and he likely suspects that individual is Sherlock or myself. Only he and at the most one or two of his associates are left. He is watching you, hoping that Sherlock will return." Mycroft's gaze was calm and impassive as he added, "Most likely so that he can torture and kill you while Sherlock watches."
"Jesus, Mycroft! Break it to me gently, why don't you?"
"I want to be certain that you — that both of you — understand the seriousness of the situation," Mycroft stated ponderously, shooting a pointed glance at Sherlock. "The only reason you are still alive, John, is because Moran is using you as bait. If you have any change in your routine, if he gets any indication that Sherlock is alive, let alone in this very flat, he will kill you both. Slowly."
"I get it, Mycroft." John drained the last of his tea, slamming the cup down with frustration. "I understand my role in all this. I stroll along, back and forth to the surgery like nothing's changed, hoping to draw this bastard out. And if we identify him, we — what? Hand him over to you?"
Sherlock looked up from his computer again, the screen casting an eerie light on his pale face. "He looked at you through a rifle scope, John," he said, his voice arctically chilly. "If he's lucky, we will hand him over to Mycroft."
John looked back at Mycroft, expecting protestations. Instead all he saw was the barest twitch of a smile.
John showed Mycroft out the door, closing and locking it and then resting his back against it. Christ, it was only late afternoon and he felt exhausted.
Sherlock was still engrossed in the computer, but he seemed to have shed the facade of indifference he had put on for Mycroft. His face was more mobile somehow, and he had let his spine slump a little. As John watched Sherlock resettled the computer in his lap, a twinge of pain passing over his face.
John fetched a glass of water and two paracetamol. "Here," he said, thrusting them unceremoniously at Sherlock, who swallowed them without even taking his eyes from the screen.
John watched the nicotine-stained fingers fly across the keyboard. "I'll get you some nicotine patches from the surgery tomorrow. I have an afternoon shift."
"Fine," Sherlock said, tapping away from the keyboard. As John continued to stand there, he finally looked up, his face petulant. "For God's sake, John, stop hovering. Whatever you normally do on a Saturday — go do that." He waved a hand dismissively at John.
Right. No problem. John usually spent Saturdays moping around the flat, unable to pull himself from his bed, castigating himself for having romantic lucid dreams about his deceased flatmate. He would just carry on with that, then, yeah? Never mind that said resurrected flatmate was currently hogging the bed with his gangly legs crossed, tapping away on his computer inches away.
Sherlock's eyes were on him again, and — oh, bloody hell, he was deducing.
"You were hopelessly drunk last night, which means that you would spend today hungover. Maybe you would stir yourself for a trip to Tesco's, but — no, the milk in the refrigerator has an expiration date of a Sunday and you always take the freshest one from the back, so you grocery shop on Sundays. On your way home from your afternoon shift at the surgery then. Saturdays you stay in, and nurse your hangover. So..."
Sherlock looked a little disconcerted. "Oh. Here." He shifted over a bare micrometer. "Take a nap, John."
John snorted. "You telling me to get some sleep for a change. That's rich." The bed did look inviting, though, and God knows he was exhausted. He sat down gingerly on the edge. Sherlock was engrossed in the computer again, and...
"Is that...?" John leaned in closer. "Is that...video footage of me?" As Sherlock opened and closed windows on the left side of the screen, three separate video feeds were running along the right-hand side of the screen, each with different time and date stamps.
"Of course," Sherlock said absently. "Moran has had you under surveillance this whole time, but he was there personally on the day...the day that Moriarty died, and he will be here personally now. We can only hope that he slipped up somehow, that he was caught in CCTV footage. Something that would set him apart from the hundreds of people you pass every day..."
Sherlock's words trailed off into an absent-minded hum, as he clicked on one of the video feeds, enlarging it for a moment and then pausing it. John saw himself, walking to the surgery no doubt. He looked small and sad, his shoulders slumped and head ducked as if against a hard rain, even though the sky was clear. Sherlock zoomed in on a figure walking by John for a moment. He apparently dismissed the bystander as a suspect, minimizing the window and resuming the footage.
John blew out a disbelieving breath. "So, I'm just going to lie next to you and take a nap while you watch videos of me on your computer. That's not weird at all," he mumbled grumpily.
"Normal is boring," Sherlock said carelessly, and John couldn't help it. It was just so...Sherlock...and he was suddenly giggling helplessly, tears in his eyes, half laughing and if he would admit it to himself half crying.
He finally flopped back on the bed, closing his eyes, still giggling from time to time.
He let his hand drift outwards from his body until it made the barest contact with Sherlock, his knuckles grazing the material of the trousers at Sherlock's bony knee, feeling just a trace of Sherlock's body heat. Sherlock, warm and alive, and here.
"I did miss you," John murmured, feeling half-asleep already, exhausted by the emotional morning and strangely lulled by the steady clicking of Sherlock's fingers on the keyboard.
He lay there, lingering on the edge of sleep, so close that the feel of Sherlock's fingers brushing gently over his hair may have been a dream.
"Sleep, John," that deep baritone voice said, and John slept.
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