[Author's Note: Look, a nice quick update for you! Amazing how much more quickly the non-smutty chapters go. Heading into the final stretch here. Thanks so much for all your comments and reviews! The description of Victor Trevor is heavily lifted from ACD canon. Also, how do I keep forgetting to thank my amazing beta, lachlanrose? She never actually agreed to beta for me, but I make her read all my stuff anyway. Plus everything I bookmark. I'll win her over to this fandom yet! Thanks, dear!]
The smell of chlorine burned his nasal passages. The weight of the bomb vest dragged on his shoulders. The voice whispering mockingly in his ear made bile rise in his throat.
He stepped out of the changing room. Sherlock's face was starkly lit by the fluorescent lights above, ripples of blue reflecting up at him from the pool's surface. Clear enough for John to see the moment of recognition, that automatic spark of happiness that always lit Sherlock's eyes when he first saw John. And then in the next moment the blank confusion, and then finally the look of utter wounded betrayal. Sherlock, who carefully guarded his every expression, was suddenly so vulnerable, so transparent. John had done that to him.
John felt his heart lurch. He gritted his teeth, biting back the desperate need to say something, anything, to take that expression off Sherlock's face. But he couldn't. His words were not his own, not unless he wanted to kill them both. The only words he could speak were those whispered venomously in his ear.
"Evening," he said. His hands, hidden in the damned pockets of the parka, clenched into fists. "This is a turn-up, isn't it, Sherlock?"
"John," Sherlock said. "What the hell...?" His voice trailed off as if the breath had suddenly been squeezed from his lungs. He looked at John as if John had broken something inside of him.
"Bet you never saw this coming," John gritted out, stomach turning as he realized what the voice in his ear was trying to make Sherlock think.
Worse than the confusion, worse than the betrayal, Sherlock's face changed once again. Now it showed nothing but resignation. "I had a friend once," he said.
"What?" John lurched awake, his heart pounding. "Oh, Christ." He opened bleary eyes. Sherlock was in bed next to him, looming over him, balanced on one elbow. "Sherlock?"
"I had a friend once," Sherlock repeated, his voice oddly stilted. "Not Seb. A real friend, or at least I think he was."
John scrubbed a weary hand over his face, his heart still pounding in his chest. He should have grown accustomed by now to Sherlock's sudden need for conversation in the wee hours of the night, but he had never been less in the mood. He tried to sit up and winced as every ache and pull from last night's activities made itself known. Stifling a pained groan, he settled for rolling up on one elbow instead.
"Christ, did you sleep at all? What time is it?" he rasped, his voice muddied with sleep.
"Half past seven."
"What?" John scrabbled for his phone, squinting at the display. "Can't be, I have a morning shift, I set my alarm for..."
"I turned it off," Sherlock interrupted imperiously. "You were tired. It takes you six minutes to dress and fifteen minutes to walk to work, which leaves us nine minutes to converse. Assuming you stop interrupting."
"I need to..."
"We showered early this morning. You needed sleep more than you needed to repeat another useless step in your morning ritual. Now, any more time you wish to waste, or can we use our remaining eight minutes to converse?"
Oh. Right. John's flustered irritation with being woken so abruptly faded somewhat at the memory. Exhausted and sated, they had finally dragged each other into the shower, unable to do more than lean heavily together, arms wrapped around each other in a loose embrace as the hot water streamed over and between them.
John's mind belatedly replayed Sherlock's words. His head seemed to clear instantly as he took in Sherlock's averted gaze, the way his shoulder was hunched as if his body was curling in on itself protectively.
He stroked a hand down Sherlock's back soothingly. "Your friend. Who was he?"
Sherlock seemed to ease at John's touch, his voice softened by nostalgia when he spoke again. "His name was Victor. Victor Trevor."
Sherlock rolled over onto his back, steepling his fingers under his mouth thoughtfully, gazing at the ceiling.
"If you think people find me...unnerving...as an adult, imagine if you will the unnatural child and adolescent that I was. I found people to be unrelentingly dull, and they found me to be unrelentingly...discomfiting. That caused the best of them to keep their distance from me, and the worst of them...well, the worst of them took pleasure in tormenting me."
John did not want to interrupt, but he couldn't help reaching out, a quick reassuring brush of his knuckles against that pale cheekbone. Sherlock's eyes fluttered shut, his face pushing into the touch briefly before he resumed.
"I thought that Seb was different, but his interest in me soon turned out to be...insincere."
John gritted his teeth, wishing for the hundredth time that he had put a fist to Seb's smug face when he had the chance.
"After things with Seb ended badly, I stayed to myself for the most part. And then one day as I was walking in Chapman's Garden, Victor's bull terrier sank his teeth into my ankle and refused to let go. I was laid up for ten days. Victor came to apologize, and then...he continued to visit, even after I was healed." Sherlock's voice was tinged with remembered confusion, and John's heart lurched at the idea of Sherlock, so puzzled that someone would voluntarily seek his company.
"He was opposite to me in many ways — hearty, and energetic, but for some reason he was as friendless as I. It created a bond between us." Sherlock's voice trailed off.
John waited as long as he could, his heart aching in his chest for the young man Sherlock had been, before finally prompting. "What happened?"
"Hmmm?" Sherlock seemed to rouse from his thoughts. "Oh, it was disastrous. He asked me to visit his father's estate, in Norfolk, and I did. I was under the impression that Victor shared my...inclinations. I had grievously misread the situation. He was...shocked, and repelled by my advances."
John flushed with empathic humiliation. If Sherlock's approach to John was any indication, Sherlock had probably gone straight for Victor's belt buckle, or some other equally unsubtle overture. The set-down must have been crushing.
John remembered his first romantic rejection. Little Sunita Kelly, the Indian-Irish girl next door, had dashed his 13-year-old hopes and it had taken him weeks to recover from the sting of her dismissal. He could only imagine how much worse it had been for Sherlock, gathering the courage to try after Seb and finding not only a rejection of his romantic advances but of his very sexuality, as well as losing his only friend in the process.
"Christ, Sherlock," he said feelingly. He lifted Sherlock's hand, placing a kiss on the back of it. "I'm so sorry, love."
The twitching frown of Sherlock's mouth showed that he was not nearly as unaffected as he was trying to appear, but he managed a careless shrug. "After the initial awkwardness he tried to insist that it would not affect our friendship, but of course he was just being kind. The next morning there was a train schedule on my breakfast plate, and we only crossed paths inadvertently after that."
John felt his jaw set with rage, forcing his hand to unclench where he still held Sherlock's slim fingers. "That wasn't kindness, Sherlock. That was cowardice."
Sherlock seemed to think that over, and then finally dipped his head in acknowledgment. He was silent for a long moment, still staring at the ceiling thoughtfully, before he seemed to dismiss the entire episode with an eloquent gesture. "It was a blow, but I felt a learning experience. Twice I had lacked basic insight into the emotions of others. Twice I had inferred deeper feelings where they did not exist."
He finally looked at John, his grey eyes piercing. "I am well aware that I have...limitations in understanding the nuances of emotion in others. If I ever thought at times that your regard for me surpassed friendship..." He shook his head, as if frustrated with his ability to express his thoughts. "That was not a risk I was willing to take again, especially...especially if it meant the end of our friendship. I would not have jeopardized that for anything."
"Come here." John finally gave in to his need to pull Sherlock close, settling his head against his shoulder. He traced his fingers through Sherlock's short curls. "I know," he finally said. "I was worried about bollixing everything up too. But that's behind us now."
There seemed to be some strange tension still in Sherlock's body...something not quite right. John felt his brow furrow. "I'm glad you could tell me this, but...why now? What brought all this up?"
Sherlock rolled away, slowly sitting up, his back to John. "No reason," he said, his voice striking John as just a little bit...off. "I felt...strangely compelled to tell you, John, how much I...value what we have. It is never something that I expected, but now that I have it..." Sherlock's spine seemed to straighten with resolve. "...I will do whatever I have to in order to keep it."
"What?" John sat upright as well. "Of course we'll keep it, Sherlock." He pushed himself to his feet, starting to round the bed to where Sherlock was sitting, but Sherlock jumped up abruptly.
"You have only five minutes remaining to dress, I'm afraid. I'll make you tea and toast to take with you."
"You'll..." The idea of Sherlock sending him off to work with a cuppa and a kiss like some parody of a 1950's housewife only deepened John's feeling of unease. "Sherlock, what's going on?"
Sherlock began making unnecessary amounts of noise in the kitchen — there was no way that tea and toast, even in whatever bizarre way Sherlock might prepare it, would require such banging of pots and pans. "Get dressed, John," he snapped over the noise. "Any delay will be a change in your routine."
John grimaced, yanking clothes from his drawers at random and pulling them on in jerky movements. "Don't try to manipulate me like that, Sherlock, we're both all too aware of the damned routine." He gathered up his wallet and keys, shoving them in his trouser pockets. He reached for his phone, and his eyes suddenly narrowed in realization. "You did this on purpose — turned off my alarm and timed this conversation so that you could shove me out the door right afterwards. You're trying to keep me from asking questions, which only makes me suspicious as hell."
John sat on the bed, pulling his socks on and shoving his feet roughly into his shoes. When he looked up again Sherlock was standing in the kitchen doorway, his eyes wary.
John froze, doubt blooming like ice in his chest. "Is this about last night? Was it — did I push you too far?"
Sherlock blinked, his wary expression suddenly crumbling into tenderness. In two swift steps he was sitting next to John, his warm hand clasping John's suddenly numb fingers.
"John — no, no, don't ever think that," he said, his voice low and fervent. He pressed his face into John's neck. "Last night was...profoundly affecting," he muttered.
John felt almost limp with relief. He wound his hand in Sherlock's curls. "What is it, then? What's wrong?"
"John." Sherlock's voice was the barest whisper against John's skin. "I cannot endure without you. I am afraid of what I might become."
John pulled in a startled breath. "Sherlock — this isn't like you. Your behavior, you're — you're worrying me."
"It's nothing." Sherlock abruptly pulled back, shrugging, his face suddenly composed again. "I'm — I'm just irritated that the footage has not yielded any results. I need...I need space to think. The information is there, I know it, it is all in my mind now, I just have to think. That's all it is."
"Oh." He still felt a little uneasy, but Sherlock's explanation made sense. John had been in the flat all weekend, and god knows Sherlock didn't have the option to get out if he wanted a little time alone. Maybe Sherlock was actually trying to be tactful with the tea and all that, instead of just telling John to get the hell out already so he could have some peace and quiet for his thoughts. John smiled a bit at the thought that attempts at tact coming from Sherlock just translated into incredibly creepy behavior.
"You'll find it." He squeezed Sherlock's hand.
"I will," Sherlock replied, a little too quickly. "I have to."
John's eyes scanned Sherlock's face. "Sherlock..."
"John!" Sherlock pushed quickly to his feet, dragging John up by his arm as well. "You are inexcusably late now, you'll have to forego the tea and toast." He practically shoved John toward the door.
"I'm going, I'm going..." John allowed himself to be herded forward. Sherlock opened the door just enough for John to slip through and John stopped in the hallway, one hand braced on the door to hold it open. "Just...you're not going to do anything rash, right? Just...thinking?"
"Of course, of course," Sherlock replied impatiently. "I'll see you this evening."
The door closed firmly in John's face. He ran a hand through his hair, still feeling uneasy, but turned and started down the hall. He checked the time on his phone and cursed. He would have to rush if he was going to make the start of his shift on time.
John buzzed for his next patient. He waited a few moments, but no one came through. Kathy must have stepped away from the desk. One more patient until his lunch break, and he was impatient to get finished. He stepped outside the exam room, pulling the file for the next case from the plastic holder and glancing through it on his way to the waiting room. Another case of the 'flu.
He idly scanned the waiting room, wondering in the back of his mind how many of the patients Sherlock could diagnose in a single glance. A few cases of the flu, poison ivy rash, allergic rhinitis, liver disease in that one based on the level of jaundice...
John's eyes landed on a young man, probably fifteen or sixteen, who seemed to have been dragged here very reluctantly by his mother based on the tense, hushed argument going on between them. He was twitching nervously in his seat, hands fluttering in jerky motions. Sexually transmitted illness? No, John suddenly placed what he was seeing. Not something that came up that often in family practice or in the army either for that matter, he was more used to seeing the effects of marijuana or amphetamines, but he remembered this from his training rotations in the emergency department. Glassy eyes, restless movements of the hands, profuse sweating. Such a shame, his mother probably just thought he had a fever or something, and someone would have to tell her that her son was an...
The shock of it punched through him. Like a bullet to the shoulder, like the first time he tried to stand and his right leg suddenly folded underneath him. Like the moment Sherlock threw his mobile away and John realized that he was truly going to jump.
It had been right there in front of him, and he had missed it, completely and totally missed it. Like the idiot Sherlock so often called him, he had seen but he hadn't observed. The way Sherlock had looked in the first few days after his return, twitching and startling at every noise. John had been so blind, chalking it all up to ten months on the run, but it wasn't only that, was it? He just hadn't wanted to see what was right in front of his face.
Quick on the heels of that realization came another.
["I will do whatever I have to..." Sherlock had said. "The information is there, I know it, it is all in my mind now, I just have to think."]
"Oh, Christ." John barely realized he had mumbled it aloud.
"John?" Sarah's voice over his shoulder made him jump. She was looking at him with concern. "Everything all right?"
"Sarah..." John's mind was racing. "I...I just realized, I think I left the stove on at home. Can you take one patient for me? I'll just nip back to the flat and be back before my lunch ends..."
He was already shoving the file into her hands, turning toward the door.
"John!" Her voice was sharp. "Are you sure you're all right? I do need you back after lunch, we're swamped."
John plastered a smile on his face. "Yeah, definitely. Back after lunch. I just have to..."
He was already moving for the door. He had no idea if he were lying or not, and he didn't care in the least. He had to get back, had to see Sherlock. He only hoped that he would be in time.
[Please review! :-D]