Leap
A/N: Thank you all once again for the favs, reviews, and alerts! :) I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Three weeks later, and he's met Sherlock Holmes. Moved in with him; even killed a man for him. A healing ability brings several things into focus when one holds a gun – you know exactly where to aim, where the best points of entry lie. John knows the weakest chinks of the human body like he knows how to flick the safety off on his gun.
But he doesn't quite know what to think about Sherlock, this man with piercing, haunted eyes that see everything. Well, almost everything. John smiles to himself, a worried smile, and looks out the rain-dusted window of his new flat. Sherlock is downstairs in the sitting room, plucking at his violin; John is upstairs in his bedroom, listening to bursts of incoherent pizzicato and wondering about his newfound luck.
A flatmate, an adventure. A chance.
A chance to use his power again, the power that is bubbling up in his bones, struggling like shot-off fireworks under his skin, banging around in his skull. He stares out at the London rain, smiling unconsciously now at the grey downpour. Truly smiling. Downstairs Sherlock is still plucking frenetically at his violin, and John is smiling like a fool.
Don't be an idiot, he thinks. Go downstairs and see if there's anything to eat. You don't know yet, you don't know if you will have the chance to use your magic. There's no reason for you to be so happy.
What John doesn't know, what he can't understand, is that this happiness curled in his chest, warm like a sleeping fox, is not without cause. And it is not simply because of the new flat, the kind landlady ("Not your housekeeper, dear"), the rude, fascinating flatmate ("What is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring"), the missing cane, the blog entries, or the Work, as Sherlock likes to call it. No, it's not really any of that, though they do have their bearings.
What John doesn't know is that he's found an Anchor.
What John doesn't know is that he's going to be all right.
It is a few weeks later, after the Blind Banker case. John is sitting in his chair, contemplating the book open on his lap. He's not reading it.
Sherlock is rhapsodizing about a hypothetical manner of finding fingerprints even underwater (it involves gel or something), and John is trying to think. He'd gotten out To Kill a Mockingbird in hopes that Sherlock would leave him alone, but this was clearly a terrible plan. He should have gone upstairs, but Sherlock would probably have followed him up there and gone on for ages anyways.
John stares down at the words, not reading any of them; Sherlock's voice slows to a wordless, deep drone in his ears, and finally he finds the trail of his thoughts again.
He remembers two months ago, when he first met the Holmes brothers.
Mycroft (bizarre, belittling Mycroft) had told him, in a manner John was sure he'd meant to be all-knowing and mysterious, that when John walked with Sherlock, he saw the battlefield. He had taken John's unwilling hand in his own and looked down at it as if he was a soothsayer discerning a lifeline's end.
You miss it, he'd said.
He clearly thought he'd figured John out, pinned him down with his deepest secret; it was why he'd allowed John to leave.
Sherlock had done the same, though without the brusque invasion of privacy or the dramatic, heavily staged kidnapping. He'd not even tried to pry, because he had known everything already. Or so he had thought. He'd only mentioned war and death and corpses, asked if John would like to see some more. (Such a genteel way of asking such an awful, alluring question.) And John had agreed, agreed with real eagerness to follow the mad detective into this new battlefield.
But the Holmes brothers were both wrong.
John was not interested in war, though the pull of battle was definitely tangible; perhaps if he had not been Withe he would have fought for this yearning alone. No, it was not the war itself that pulled John into place besides Sherlock. War was not his lodestone.
No, John thinks, as Sherlock prattles on behind him, still talking about fingerprints; no, it was because in a war, one could work magic undetected.
War was chaos. Chaos made men blind.
And so did Sherlock and his cases. Around his glaring figure all surroundings dimmed, and John worked best in the shadows. In the hidden area besides Sherlock, John would have a chance to use his power.
At least, he hopes he will.
And he thinks that this chance is the only thing fuelling his happiness.
"Although modern science hasn't yet caught up to-"
John, realizing Sherlock is still speaking, snatches his thoughts away from his healing. He turns his attention to his friend, smiling faintly without realizing it.
Sherlock sees this, and thinks John is smiling at something he's said; he hadn't intended it to be funny, but perhaps he'll say it again. In another manner, of course; no need to be repetitive. Let's see... there we go.
John continues to smile, and Sherlock grins in appreciation. He is being funny, then.
Startled at Sherlock's changed expression, John grins uncertainly back. Both men forget what Sherlock is saying; the detective slams to a full stop.
"Something wrong?" John says, trying frantically to remember the last thing Sherlock said. Something about pond water, wasn't it? No, that isn't right...
"Nothing," Sherlock says. He frowns and glances out the window. "Right, so about the acidity of the water – it has to be lower than..."
He falls back into his monologue, and John takes a sip of warm tea, half-listening. He's more interested in the clear joy on Sherlock's face (how the man loves to wax on and on for hours about things when there's someone to listen) than in the detective's subject.
No, John Watson has no inkling of what he's found.
A Withe won't know they've found an Anchor, not immediately, unless they tell the Anchor of their secret (then the magic sparks like a live wire and is clearly seen by both). But if the Withe does not tell the Anchor, or if the Anchor doesn't discover their secret, it doesn't really matter – the Burning will never happen, now that the two have met.
But it is best if the Anchor knows at once. Best for both of them. For after the Withe and the Anchor meet each other, after they form a bond, any bond, things begin to change.
First it is the strengthening of the bond. If the Withe and the Anchor are enemies, they become enemies for life. If it is love, they love each other until death. And friendship - oh, the friendship between an Anchor and a Withe coils into something so strong that it is unbreakable. A friendship between Withe and Anchor will last for eternity.
This strengthening can grow for years; even after the latter signs are apparent, the binding will remain incomplete for a long time.
The second sign is the slow relaxation of magic in the Withe's bones, the gradual draining away of headaches, knee pains, twinges in the hands and fingers. The Withe is released from his daily burden of pain, if he is the type who has hidden his magic away.
Along with this alleviation comes the Anchor's sudden awareness of magic in the world. The edges of leaves glimmer, trees gleam faintly even in the night, stones seem more than mere bits of rock. Everything glows outside; the evening wind is filled with tiny particles of light.
Finally, the last segment of the chain arrives, the link that awakens both the Anchor and the Withe to the truth of their joining. It is when the Anchor finds that some of the Withe's magic has streamed into his own arms and hands and fingers, and that he now carries the Withe's power within himself.
On Tuesday, at ten-fifteen p.m., after John has stumbled downstairs to complain about the screeching violin, wringing his hand unconsciously where he caught it on the doorjamb, Sherlock finds himself standing dazed in the middle of the sitting room. John has not gotten one word out. The slender neck of the violin is tight in Sherlock's left hand.
And healing magic is growing like a vine from the outstretched fingers of his other hand, the white hand that extends now towards John. The vine grows steadily, green-blue and brilliant, curling outward in slender streamers of clear light, and they wrap around John's forearm and wrist and fingers.
Sherlock doesn't know how to breathe. He had reached out without forethought, without decision, as he'd turned at the sound of aggravated footsteps and seen the blood on John's hand. A strange buzzing feeling had pulled itself loose from his bones and streamed into his right arm.
Both men stare at the truth of this magic. John's fingers close around the unearthly streamers, so familiar and yet so strange, forming from Sherlock's hand. He reaches with his left hand and peels one loop from the curve of his wrist, looks down to see the callused skin smooth and new where the cut had been.
And Sherlock, understanding this, understanding the wonder of it, looks at John in awe.
John stares down at his replicated magic.
"You're an Anchor," he whispers.
He looks sharply up at Sherlock. In the reflected glow of the streetlamps, his eyes are full of tears. Sherlock stares into his flushed, bewildered face, unable to speak. The magic buzzes in his ears like miniscule bees.
John whispers over the sound, his voice low and cautious, "You're my Anchor."
And – "You're a Withe," Sherlock says.