Chapter 4: Tide Slowly Turning
"How is it that you have known about this all this time and never once mentioned it to me?" Sherlock's voice is drawn out of his mouth in an angry but soft hiss, reminding John strongly of a Saw Scaled Viper. He has narrowed his eyes towards his brother, completing the resemblance to the poisonous snake. With the flick of one of Sherlock's wrists, the manila file folder goes flying across the kitchen, spilling papers and photographs into a spastic heap as it arches into its parabola before finally coming to rest in the center of the floor.
Mycroft glares down at the mess and then up to his brother as he pushes his chair away from the table. He slams both hands palm down against the heavy mahogany top hard enough to make the entire thing shake. John watches them carefully, picking up his cup before the tea can be sloshed all over the place. He sighs loudly, knowing full well that when one Holmes brother is in a full out strop he's going to be ignored; but both of them? He might as well not even exist.
"I did not enlighten you, dear brother, because I had no evidence that it was the same arsonist! All I had to go on were all of these…" he uses his entire hand to point at the file, then moving it towards the pile, "isolated fires, many of which were never reported through the proper channels; and of course my own theories. Before now, this would not have even been a "two" on your boring to interesting case scale!" Mycroft is shouting now and the two of them are nose-to-nose, Sherlock's head tilted downward just a fraction to make up the several centimeter differences in their heights. "Did you and your massive intellect even read that Wickersham starts each and every fire with different propellants, different materials?" Mycroft's face is red even under the thinning hair on the back of his head that John can see clearly since he is facing Sherlock.
John sips his tea and calmly waits for the inevitable jab at Sherlock's sex life, their sex life. Somehow, it never manifests itself. Strange for Mycroft to be so restrained, John ruminates on that for a second. Mycroft is holding his hands completely still at his sides, though the fingers that usually rest on the top of his umbrella are moving, searching for the handle. Sherlock is manically waving his hands in the air, of course making a dashing spectacle even surrounded by such a small audience. With his crown of Einsteinean locks and high color on his razor-sharp cheekbones, John thinks that his lover looks quite deranged at the moment. He leans against the high wooden back of the chair and wonders if this is how mortals would feel if they were ever to get to watch the Titans battle for dominance of the universe.
"Yes, but your educated guesses are usually much better than anyone else's concrete evidence." Sherlock spits out. He suddenly freezes and looks in John's direction, a helpless expression his face. John understands that Sherlock just complimented his brother, quite the momentous occasion—and, judging by that completely out-of-the-blue expression, quite by accident, too. He takes another sip of his fast cooling tea. You are on your own, hot stuff, John thinks in Sherlock's direction.
The kitchen remains absolutely silent for exactly seven heartbeats and then Mycroft seems to shrink in his own skin a little as he steps back from his sibling, adjusting his neat waistcoat with both hands and rolling the sleeves on his crisply ironed shirt back down to his wrists primly. He silently fastens the platinum cufflinks while giving John a neat little grin. John has to fight the urge to fall down and roll around in the floor and laugh his ass off, though he cannot tell which of the two of them is more amazed by Sherlock's words: Mycroft or Sherlock. That would give him away, though; he doesn't want the Holmes brothers to know just how close John observes them.
Sherlock is now standing completely still with his hands buried in his hair. His breath is coming quickly through parted lips and John is pretty sure that if he looks close enough he will see Sherlock's heartbeat clearly beneath the thin gray T-shirt he's wearing. Mycroft clears his throat as he moves towards the front door. He opens it and says quietly without turning around in a voice that on anyone else would sound a touch hurt. "Besides, you will never take one of my usual cases." He clicks the door shut quietly as he steps through it.
Sherlock grabs the first thing he can reach, which turns out to be a rather dramatically large kitchen knife, and hurls it in Mycroft's direction with a perfect knife-thrower's aim; it moves so fast that John can barely see the wink of light against the shiny steel blade before it hits the back of the door just as it closes with a solid thud. The knife is buried an easy seven centimeters into the highly-polished wood. For some reason, the sight of the blade sticking out of the door sends shivers down his spine. Just when did Sherlock learn to aim a blade with that much deadly accurate precision?
Sherlock's attention is on the door and his vanishing brother, though he turns to face John with a look of pure horror when he realizes what he has just done. Crimson flushed lips that were parted earlier are now open in a perfect "o." In all the years since he's been back with John, he has never really given his lover any specific details on how he eliminated the many threats he was facing. John just stares at him with wide eyes; he can find no words to say. Sherlock tenses up again and waits for what he thinks will be the inevitable outcome of his instinctive action.
John's inner medic assesses the situation quickly and he decides not to push his luck. For some strange reason, John gets a mental picture of a little guy in a white lab coat standing on one of his shoulders and a soldier in full-out fatigues on the other. Now is not the time, however, Sherlock is already in a bad way and pushing further might be a huge mistake. Instead he silently pushes away from the table and carefully lays his cup in the sink, controlling every single in muscle in his body. He turns away from Sherlock, forcing himself to not feel the sudden rash of goose bumps that wind down his back and across his shoulders from presenting Sherlock with his a target as he walks to the sitting room. He sits down on the sofa, crossing one denim-clad leg calmly over the other and watches Sherlock carefully. He is thankful that his movements do not betray him.
For an instant there is the flicker of understanding on Sherlock's face. He wonders how he's managed to keep something like this under wraps for six years. Looking at John's closed-in, wary expression, however, he decides to file it away for now. He starts picking up all the various entrails of the file and stacks them on the table. He reaches out to pull back a chair but is interrupted by John's voice.
"Sherlock. Leave it for now." Sherlock looks in John's direction and then back to the file, like a barefooted, gangly child conflicted when faced with two equally lovely desserts to choose from. "Sherlock, leave it."He complies and moves into the other room to stand in front of John waiting for his scolding.
John knows better, though. Of all the things that they really don't discuss, the intimate details of Sherlock's time abroad, as he has come to think of it, is probably the largest white elephant of them all. Perhaps they need to change that. John isn't stupid: Sherlock gave him scant details of what he had to do; John did not ask for the "how."He pats the cushion next to him, an invitation that Sherlock understands that he can accept or ignore at his leisure. He chooses to accept and sits down, pressing his thigh against John's, the heat is reassuring. John rests his hand on Sherlock's leg above the knee; Sherlock covers it with his own. "Tell me about the arsonist, Sherlock." John requests.
"Charles P. Wickersham, currently age twenty. He's got quite the record for fires, starting his first one at age seven, each one progressively worse until the one that claimed his parents' lives when he was nine."
John is most certainly a man of the world; even so, he cannot control the gasp of shock when Sherlock tells him that a nine-year-old child killed his parents. Sherlock continues his rehashing of the pertinent information of the case, information that John knows he had studied for less than ten minutes before the sibling squabble broke out and Sherlock attempted to repaper the kitchen in printer paper. By the time Sherlock wraps it up, the little orange and white kitten has jumped up into his lap and is resting against his stomach purring. John is slowly petting her on the head listening to Sherlock. He knows this is a great way for Sherlock to make the information concrete in his head, he will probably not even need to look at the file again. As he listens to his lover, John contemplates a name for the kitten.
Sherlock's voice comes to a complete halt as soon as he realizes John is no longer hanging on every single word as if they were the greatest thing to ever happen to him. He looks down at John's arm stretched across his thigh, John's hand on the kitten's back and makes a hmprf sound in his throat. John startles out of his reverie and sits up. Sherlock's gaze is open, questioning. John shakes his shoulders a bit, giving a brief, tight smile.
"No, John. Tell me." Sherlock orders, using his best melted-chocolate baritone that he knows usually gets him anything he wants from John.
"Ah, Sherlock, you'll think it is stupid and call me an idiot." John's expression is guarded; really he has nothing to go on in this situation; they have never even discussed having a pet before.
"You want to give the kitten a name but for some reason you hesitate to ask me. Again, tell me." Sherlock crosses his arms carefully so as not to upset the sleeping, purring fuzz ball tucked up against his stomach. It is far too interesting a feeling through the thin cotton of his shirt to push her away.
"Well, for all that, I've already given her a name then." John looks away towards the television.
"Do tell." Sherlock is pretty sure it's going to be something silly like "Daphne" or "Molly."
"I want to call her something that reminds me of you...well, of us, really." John still isn't looking at him.
Sherlock uncrosses his arms and reaches out a hand towards John's, resting his palm under John's chin and coaxing his lover to look him in the eye. He doesn't say anything, just waits. For everything that they have said to each other with words, with touches, with their bodies; there are still those things that are unsaid; possibly enough to fill up the entire set of World Encyclopedias-online edition. Sherlock waits.
John rolls it over in his mind, hoping that Sherlock will understand. He was hurt when Sherlock reappeared, but there was so much gratitude. Why, after all this time has he never told Sherlock any of this? How can he explain what their relationship is to him? How can he ever make it clear that it was like he was given his life back, all wrapped up in purple velvet with a big bow on top? He sighs and mumbles, knowing full well that Sherlock could not hear him, gently stroking the kitten with the palm of his hand. She arches her back just slightly, obviously enjoying John's gentle touch.
Sherlock leans in close, keeping his hand on John's chin. He is close enough to kiss, close enough that John could just end this uncomfortable conversation right at this second by leaning in and…
Instead he searches deep into the depths of the jade green orbs for a promise. When he finds it, he states simply:
"Phoenix."
Sherlock nods once and closes the gap between their faces.