Thanks for all the love! Onward!
Act 3
"The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image." -Michelangelo
Sherlock woke up in Watsonville with the taste of cotton in his mouth. Sherlock did not like it. He did not see John. He was alone except for the citizen that was obviously just outside his door, spying. He started screaming until something pulled him under again.
When Sherlock next woke up, everything seemed sharper. His wrist hurt underneath the gauze bandage and sunlight streamed through the window. The low thread count sheets scratched a bit, but were warmly wrapped around him. A needle was in his arm, pumping in fluids Sherlock probably did not want. Sherlock heard someone shift into a chair close by. Someone coughed.
Sherlock's eyes flew open onto John. John, who was sitting in a lab coat next to his bedside. He had been moved to the Watsonville hospital, he realized. The heart monitor bleeped loudly. John smiled and took Sherlock's hand from under the blanket, giving it a squeeze.
Hey.
Sherlock returned the greeting.
How are you feeling?
Sherlock said that he was glad John was here. He squeezed John's hand tightly.
Can you answer a few questions for me? Sherlock nodded. For the next five minutes, John asked rather dull questions about Sherlock's identity and location. He had done this every so often during the course of their friendship, as if seeking reassurance of reality. As Sherlock answered, John's smile seemed to falter, his eyes swimming with some unknown emotion. Good then. Looks like you're alright, Sherlock.
Sherlock wanted to know that the emotion in John's eyes was. He asked if perhaps John had lost something. No, no. I'm...glad you're back is all. Gave us quite a scare.
Sherlock's eyes wandered to the bandage on John's head. He reached out and lightly ran a hand through it and the surrounding hair, letting his fingers play with the fine strands. Sherlock remarked that Moriarty had hurt John. This was not allowed.
John's eyelids fluttered. We gave them a good fight though, didn't we. But he was a bit tough in the end. Let's stay away from him. Not travel there.
A black cloud suddenly came over Sherlock's heart, a clenching sensation, a fear. He told John to come here.
The other people will see us. It's not very professional, Sherlock.
Sherlock told John to stop being an idiot and to close the fucking door. John gave a weak laugh, got up, closed and locked the door, took off his lab coat, and slipped in besides Sherlock. Sherlock tucked both of them in and touched his forehead to John's. "You're not allowed to disappear."
John startled. Sherlock wrapped himself around the shorter man, soaking in his warmth and solidness, letting the pleasant hum of the Watsonville wash over him, the soothing buzz of its citizens and roses. He fell asleep.
But the next day, it took Sherlock longer than usual to find John. He had woken alone in the hospital and wandered its empty corridors near an hour before finding his companion. The ground floor still echoed and the mystery of it still called out to Sherlock to solve. Perhaps he and John would investigate it today. Or perhaps go to Lestradeville and solve some puzzles. Just a dose of normalcy before they went off to John's hometown. Because surely John would take him there now.
Once they were together, Sherlock asked John for his opinion on the day's activities and John said to leave the echoing alone and that they should go to Lestradeville for puzzles.
Sherlock feared John had a cold or some other disease that was inhibiting his vocal chords. John's voice was muffled, vague, almost indistinct as if Sherlock was hearing it underwater. He told John this and John's eyes went wide with surprise and probably fear. Sherlock did not want John to lose his voice either. Sherlock took his hand and led him to a cafe, feeding John tea and telling him to talk to Sherlock, say something, anything, just get his vocal chords lubricated and working.
John did as Sherlock asked and started telling Sherlock the intricacies of rugby. But as he spoke, his voice only grew duller, fading until Sherlock could only make out the vibrations. As if, instead of rising to the surface to better hear John, Sherlock had swum deeper, putting more aqueous distance between him and the John creature. No, no, his name was John. He was a traveler, human, like Sherlock. Not a creature or a stranger. But then John's talking faded to silence. Sherlock watched John's lips move in speech without any sound coming out for a full twenty minutes before telling John what had happened.
John was alarmed. He started moving around, gesturing, leading Sherlock back to the hospital. The clouds of Watsonville were turning stormy, uncertain, dark. John was tugging Sherlock by the wrist, pulling him. Sherlock felt sluggish. The humidity was increasing rapidly, making it so Sherlock could drink the air instead of breathe it.
John's image flickered.
That got Sherlock moving. He tackled the John to the ground, twisting so as to hit his head against the concrete instead of John's. John started gesturing wildly, putting a hand to Sherlock's head to staunch the blood flow. Citizens gathered around. John flickered again.
No no no no nononononononono.
John's person was going like a worn out light blub. As one citizen bandaged Sherlock's head, John faded in and out, dimming and brightening until, with one last desperate look at Sherlock's face, John was gone. Sherlock was clutching at empty air.
Sherlock said goodbye.
Citizens made Sherlock eat his meals for the rest of the day and sleep at night. In the morning, Sherlock went to the oak tree where he had first met the John. He stayed here, hoping against hope John would come back. He didn't.
He didn't the next day either. Or the next. Or the next after that.
Watsonville seemed to grow in population or perhaps it had been decreasing and was now back to normal levels. Red roses grew all around the oak. All the details of the buildings grew sharper, more distinct. Maybe Sherlock needed vision correction.
Eventually, Sherlock left. He left a few of his things there, but most was packed up onto his motorbike and taken back to Lestradeville, much to the Andersonville and Donovanville citizens' derision. At least the puzzles were there to distract him. On the first puzzle the citizens gave him, the case file had the words 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction' in a resigned sort of handwriting. Somehow that was relevant.
Three months passed. He was a traveler: he traveled. He went to new cities like the feminized, luscious, wealthy, and slightly deceitful Adlerville and the melancholic, nervous Baskerville. They had puzzles for him, tiny little problems that intrigued and distracted him, kept him from getting bored. But he couldn't shake the question of Watsonville, of the comfort it had given him, or how from it the John companion had inexplicably sprung. John would have enjoyed the Adlerville and Baskerville puzzles. Sherlock hadn't solved the echo. Upon occasion, Sherlock would stop whatever he was doing, stand very still, reach out a foot, and tap the ground a few times. Just to make sure it wasn't a recurrent phenomenon.
On the four month mark, Sherlock decided that he would go back to Watsonville. Lestradeville had temporarily run out of puzzles, he had no experiments to tend to, and it wasn't the right weather to play the violin. He thought he had glimpsed Mycroft in Lestradeville and now it was too sunny.
He couldn't find it.
Driving back to Lestradeville, he stopped a couple citizens to ask for directions. They seemed surprised that he wanted to go back there, after all that had happened, but refused to help him (they obviously knew the location but weren't telling: interesting). He tried to find Moriarty City, the unsavory characters inhabiting it perhaps knowing and telling more. He tried to find the Place of the Green Hills, as he'd come to call the place Moriarty had taken him. He couldn't. It was as if all three locations had been wiped off the map.
Sherlock increased his search area. He re-explored every known inch of Lestradeville, looking for clues. He found an address on a file for a 'Dr. John Hamish Watson' but the location was gibberish to him. He showed it to a group of citizens, even plying the father-like ones for sympathy, but they snatched the paper out of his hands, yelled at him for peeping in other people's files, and threw him in jail for a day.
He visited Hooperville, which he hadn't done in a long time. It was one of the first cities he'd explored after leaving Holmesville and had actually given him directions to Lestradeville. However, the citizens there would tell him nothing, even if he flirted with them. He had much the same results in Holmesville and with Mycroft, who only asked him about his health.
As a last peaceable effort, he rode to Andersonville and Donovanville, but they shut the gates in his face.
So he repeated his previous actions, but with a little help.
First, he paid a visit to Adlerville, calling in a favor that the important members of its populace owed him. Through the said favor and other persuasion, they listed the exact cause of Sherlock's run in with Watsonville: his boredom with the presented mysteries, the new violent tendency of blowing up infrastructure, Lestradeville being overburdened other citizens and duties, Andersonville and Donovonville wanting to rid themselves of Sherlock's presence. Not exactly directions as the crow flies and he despised that they implied that Lestradeville was in control of where he visited. Preposterous. Sherlock took them into account though.
Sherlock had noted that the Lestradeville citizens listened to Adlerville's with curious interest, which always disgruntled Mycroft for some reason. He led a march of Adlerville citizens to the highest echelons of Lestradeville, all recommending that Sherlock be given access to Watsonville, that he was (of course) ready to see it again, that Sherlock wanted to see John. Sherlock said he was bored. Sherlock said he had thought about blowing up more infrastructure. Sherlock said that if he went to Watsonville, Lestradeville would have more time for Mycroft. Sherlock said he hated Andersonville and Donovanville and that they smelled like male deodorant. As icing to the cake, Sherlock calmly stated that he knew how to pick the lock on the Roof Access door on the tallest Lestradeville building and that if he did not see John again he would absolutely jump. Then the waiting would certainly end.
That made all the citizens' faces blanch and pale. He was scheduled to go on his motorbike in the morning.
The following day, just as the sun was hitting midmorning, Sherlock touched Watsonville soil.
Being back, however, made Sherlock feel empty. There was no John here. For some reason he thought John would be here, waiting for him, offering him a cup of tea, reading the newspaper, following him around while he explored. The streets echoed louder than ever. The citizens were wary of him, keeping away. There were no more roses. Sherlock bought a beige cable-knit jumper, put in on under his coat, sat on the street corner, and hugged his knees to his chest. He allowed himself to remain so for an hour, but then he stood. He had come here for a reason. There was a puzzle to solve and a friend to be found.
Sherlock scoured Watsonville relentlessly. Everyday he was up at dawn, quizzing citizens, examining the spoiled fruits of the trees, studying the whorls of the oak. He ate when food was put in front of him and cleaned up when a water closet happened to be nearby. Sometimes the city itself seemed to think he went too far, quaking and shaking, and yelling. But Sherlock was determined. The echoing grew louder. The thought occurred that John's whereabouts might be connected to it. Where else could he be? If he wasn't here in Watsonville, he was in his (damn it) hometown, which Sherlock didn't even know the name of. The source of the echoing seemed like the only thing Sherlock hadn't seen in the city. Ergo, if John was here at all, he would be there.
Sometimes, Sherlock thought he heard voices far away. It was again like he was underwater, some cadence of notes playing above him, their barest bass vibrations only making it to his ears.
Sherlock had the idea to re-create the circumstances in which he met John. But no matter how late he stayed up (sometimes the whole night through), it never rained. Watsonville was still at night, nothing at all happening.
All this searching was getting him nowhere. Sherlock went on a hunger strike.
Once it realized what was happening, Watsonville's distress was immediately apparent. Hordes of citizens brought Sherlock food, which he refused no matter how good it smelled or how favorite the dish. They brought him fans to cool him, IVs to stick in his arms (which Sherlock pulled out). Some citizens physically assaulted him: shaking him whilst verbally insulting his intelligence. He drank tea with sugar, which kept him from dying of thirst, but the caffeine also made his nervous system go berserk, his heart skipping beats.
He promised the citizens he would continue to do this until John appeared (preferable) or they showed him the echoing (less preferable but interesting and could lead to John).
The earth quaked, the trees shook, a fierce wind howled, the sun scorched. Citizens from other towns tried to interfere. Sherlock enlisted Adlerville to prevent them.
Finally, finally, finally, it rained. Sherlock ran outside. Show me!
He ran to the oak tree and a voice seemed to boom down like thunder, clear this time, ringing in Sherlock's ears. The very city seemed to be speaking.
Is it really so bloody important to you? Is that all you care about? The fucking goddamn puzzle of what I fear? What I don't want any other bloody person to know? And it's not because of me, but because you can't fucking deduce it on your own? How dare you! How dare-!
Sherlock felt a seizing sensation on his forearms. Why do you care? Why? Why do I even care? I should have refused-
Sherlock wondered if this was a sign of John coming back. He grasped wildly into the rain in front of him, trying to grab whatever entity of John would manifest.
No! You don't get to. You know what? Fine! You want to know my secrets? Here you go!
The ground rumbled. Sherlock ran to the oak, shouting John's name, hoping the city would understand. I'm trying to find John! Sherlock was drenched, soaking and shivering, dizzy with lack of food. The ground split open in front of him, cracking and breaking to form an underground passage. I'm right here, you idiot! Let me tell you. Let me show you my monsters.
Wake up!
As Sherlock descended, the sounds of the city's last message chased after him. Sherlock remembered what Moriarty said. How he too had shouted at Sherlock. How he said the cities weren't real.