4th Perdition.
The Perditions of John
4th Perdition
Author: Howlynn
Realm: Sherlock
Story Title: The 4th Perdition of John
Summary: Explanations , consternation , alliteration, remuneration: The Game begins. (This chapter is short, but this is just where I saw it end.)
Character/Relationships: John/Sherlock
John fussed singularly without interruption over Sherlock's head wound. Sherlock had protested the shaving, but had stoically silenced himself after John narrowed his eyes and dared him to continue. "Then we will call for an ambulance and the bobby brigade and I will identify you as an intruder and as they drag your unbearable carcass off, I will declare that I have never laid eyes on you. While you and your beloved brother are occupied sorting out those humorous details I swear on my soul you will never hear a whisper of me again. I will vanish in such a manner that you and Mycroft will discover something amazing. You will always wonder and yet I will show you the impossible, this time. Now shut up, unless you would like to begin delighting me with your, no doubt brilliant, plan of destroying your only friend for your sick version of entertainment."
Sherlock has not winced as John attended to him. "You have every right to be angry with me," he'd ventured softly.
John had said nothing, but began precisely putting his supplies away.
"You still intend to forgive me." Sherlock said with a secretive flash of his eyes and a curl at the corner of his lips.
John watches the movements, knowing he'd once found them utterly charming. This moment it just irritated him."Oh, yes. I forgot what a pleasure your arrogance provided in radiating sphinctal cramps. What makes you think I will ever forgive you?"
Sherlock reaches out slowly and gently wraps his cool fingers around John's wrist. He lets one of his pale elegant fingers slide across the face of John's watch. "You still wear this token of sentiment. Of my ridiculous inability to allow you to forget me when it would have been the logical and kindest course of action."
John doesn't pull away from Sherlock. He puts the puzzle together so easily. "It never belonged to your father, did it?"
Sherlock shook his head, face perfectly smooth of emotion and yet his eyes changed from cool slate to rain-slick sage as he rumbled in his deep purr, "How you must hate me, my dear John Watson."
John takes in a deep calming breath as his eyes roll up into his head leaving only soulless white visible for a split second. "Tea?" he croaks as he quietly leaves the bathroom.
Sherlock follows and stands uncomfortably between kitchen and parlor in his stiff mannequin stance of observance. Sherlock was taking in data. John always thought of it as if Sherlock was consuming his surroundings. He is like a tornado of mind simply sucking up everything in its path. He should have expected destruction, having stood in the storm's path in awe of its beauty. John Watson knew the squall was a heartless eater of obstacles, yet he had fooled himself into thinking the tempest noticed him.
"So, seriously Sherlock, to what miracle of design do I owe the honor of your company? You haven't reappeared at this moment simply by chance. It can't be some case of sentiment or misplaced foreknowledge of your intent to reveal yourself in the nick of time? You would have never left me like that in the first place if you honestly had any trickles of concern for my obliteration. You must have only come, out of some guilty whim that my demise would render me of no use to whatever sudden need you have retained for my bumbling valueless company. Do enlighten me, my good man? How may your dog serve you this time?"
"Your bitterness is annoying. Please, exhaust your need for affront quickly; I will make every effort to accept it without taking it in a subjective intention. It is quite appropriate for you to exacerbate the tension between us and test that I won't lash out at you for whatever pain I have instigated. " Sherlock turns and flops into his chair, coat pulled tight and face set in his leaden mask of fury.
John says no more, but finishes his tasks and carefully places Sherlock's tea on the table. He sits down quietly and coolly observes Sherlock over his mug as he sips the scalding hot tea.
Sherlock finally gives in with a sigh and asks softly as if still far away, "May I take your silence as invitation to offer my rational process of thought, that you might understand the scope of the burdens I have carried and the sorrows I have endured at your absence? I take full responsibility, but it has not been your exclusive heart at risk of agony. "
"By all means."
"I do know. I do recognize what I put you through."
"Interesting. Warning. Do not assume that you know the thing you yourself have created. Because those in the last stages of the journey you have planned with such precision are not as predictable as the faithful pet you abandoned to the forest. I am thankful that you are whole. Don't doubt that for one second. It gives me my sanity back to know I simply was a pawn in your games and not important enough to have affected your demise. But, there are wounds and scars. A whistle and a demand to heel will no longer warrant compliance."
Sherlock wilts. His head slumps backward to rest on the back of the chair. "Oh. John. What have I done to you? Please, I can't…I have so much to say. I have changed too, but I don't think I can see you like this and maintain my…" Sherlock stops speaking and seems to have blanked out.
John stares into his cup, heart pumping and stomach knotting. He can't let this cold man back in. He only wants to put his head in his lap and wail of his undying, uncontrollable, unfettered love. He must not give in to this. The man is like a drug.
It is the shivering that draws his eye. Sherlock is having some sort of spasm. John begins assessing at once then stops rattling through strings of ailments and side effects of cranial splinters from the impact of a bullet skittering off an idiots skull when he realizes what has really occurred. In anyone else, crying would be easily recognized. But, it isn't on the list of possibility when the symptoms involve Sherlock Holmes. John had been too far away and too shocked to really observe him the single time he'd shed a tear, so it is understandable that this odd new ability Sherlock is performing would need such hard scrutiny before allowing John's mind to connect it to something so average.
He freezes in a half stance, eyes wide and confidence shattering at this vision before him. He's made an angel cry. John Watson is certain he must be growing fangs and horns, because to have forced tears of sorrow from Sherlock, would take the power of a monster.
"Sherlock? Oh God, Sherlock. How can you be here? How can I say any of it now?"
"Please, please. My John. Just for a moment. Forgive me just for a moment, won't you?' he holds his arms out, fingers splayed exactly like that day the whole world ended. How many times had he dreamed of that distance closing and here it was, before him. What right did he have to test fate by caring why or how or by what power this gift had arrived?
Sherlock was here, and real and reaching out to him, begging for him to save him and John was too insanely aware of the miracle, in that moment, to question the means. John stepped off the ledge of right and justified anger and folded himself onto Sherlock's lap and buried his face in his neck, finally taking in the first breath of life in three years. The distant faint scent of rapture he'd gone to such lengths to preserve and savor in tiny gulps like a stingy alcoholic filled his pours with ecstasy and he sighed as the arms he'd needed for so long finally encircled him gluing the broken pieces and sealing them in warmth.
Sherlock was home from heaven and hell.
John had returned from Perdition.
Hours spent in perfect quiet and glistening joyful tears. Moments of near dreams and languid submission to the grateful nearness of the other.
Finally, John had to stir. He kissed Sherlock's forehead and blushed, "I need to visit the loo." He washed his hands and brushed his teeth, embarrassed that he hoped to not end the physical contact with Sherlock on a semi-platonic level. He wanted more.
Sherlock stood holding his violin, plunking strings and adjusting things, obviously displeased at the state of his beloved instrument.
"I would have kept it better, if I'd had some clue what to do. I just couldn't pack it away. I wanted to imagine it was waiting for you."
"And so it was."
John cleared his throat. "I found them. The music." He lifted the cushion and handed them to Sherlock, noting he noticed at once the smudges by the way his brow furrowed and his face darkened. "I know they aren't done, but, could you? What's there? I thought I would never hear them. If I haven't mucked them up too much…"
Sherlock looked down at him with that smirk he had always saved for just John. "John. I don't need them. They are not partial melodies any longer. And those are just the first three. There are now five more. You were on my mind constantly. You have your own palace in my mind, my John. It was not sentiment. It was my survival." Without another word, the violin snapped under his chin and John melted into his chair as love filled the room. It swirled on the restless waves of sonnet and the violin cried in joy for brave Sherlock and his faithful John.
Perdition is sometimes a deceptive place.
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