Potential
It is easy enough to answer Sherlock's questions, to explain about the finer points of healing magic and its complexities or confusions. It is much harder to live this new way, with each of them affected by the sudden introduction of an Anchor's power and the truth of John's magic into their lives. They struggle for a time, and both have to find a balance, a centre of understanding, where they can comprehend the struggles of each other. Some of it is difficult, but some of it is wonderful.
When John thinks back over this period of time, he remembers several scenes in great detail; the rest have faded into murky obscurity.
First Memory
It is snowing outside, and London is silent under the white expanse.
Inside 221B, Sherlock is staring motionless at a lit, fat blue candle on the kitchen counter. He stands directly before it, his hands flat on the counter, his eyes narrowed. Tiny candle flames glimmer in his pupils.
John looks up from his blog, startled by the sudden silence. Quiet equals peril in this flat.
"Sherlock?" He turns. "Oh. There you are. What are you doing?"
The detective says, hardly moving his lips, careful not to breathe heavily, "John. Come look at this."
"What?"
"This candle flame," Sherlock murmurs. "John, it's beautiful."
John ignores the tiny voice in the back of his head nattering about drugs and needles, and gets up, setting his computer aside. He pads over the rug and into the kitchen, shoving his cold hands into his pockets.
Sherlock lights a second candle of the ten standing on the counter, this one black, and shoves it across the counter to John. "Look."
He looks at the gold-red flame, sees nothing stunningly gorgeous about it. Shrugging, he glances sideways at Sherlock's eyes. Good; his pupils aren't dilated. No drugs, then. "It's just a candle, Sherlock."
"No, no, no," the detective hisses, glaring at him. "It is not just a candle! Look at it closer."
Resisting the urge to blow the candle out and thus end this madness, John leans slightly closer, squinting at the flame. It flickers happily in the small breeze of his movement, and yet he sees absolutely nothing strange about it. Sherlock is losing his – Oh.
He straightens up and looks back at his flatmate, whose dark eyebrows are raised expectantly.
"You're an Anchor," John explains patiently. "Whatever you're seeing in this candle is because of that." He pauses. "What are you seeing in it?"
"Oh." Sherlock looks mildly disappointed. He leans over the black candle and blows it out, turns to the second one as if to do the same.
Then he hesitates, staring sadly into the flickering flame. "I thought it was something else. You see, I made these candles from the earwax I've collected from various corpses over the years; I thought that maybe – but clearly not."
He sighs deeply, obviously very disappointed.
John tries to not imagine Sherlock digging wax out of dead people's heads. "Right. So what do you see, then?"
Sherlock leans towards the remaining light, the end of his nose so close it almost touches it. Then he exhales suddenly: the candle flame spurts away into smoke. He steps back and glances at John, his forehead furrowed as he tries to find words for what he'd seen.
"I don't really know," he says at last, leaning against the cabinet. "But it was beautiful."
They stand together in the kitchen, watching smoke trail upwards in grey spirals from the blown-out candles, and John remembers a time when no one understood him, either.
"I see."
The detective flickers a grey-blue eye sideways at him, decides he's being generous, and nods. Then he spins on his heel and flaps into the sitting room, where he throws himself on the couch, groaning dramatically.
"Give me something to do, John," he begs.
"It's dinnertime," John says. "And you haven't eaten since yesterday. Takeout?"
Sherlock buries his head in the Union Jack pillow. A muffled gurgle issues from its depths.
"Eurgg."
"I'm taking that as a yes," his flatmate says, cheerily, and reaches for the phone.
Second Memory
The world is on fire.
Sherlock lies staring upward at the blue ether, watching six ravens circle and cry to one another above the high buildings, six fragile black shapes writhing against the burnished disk of the sun. Beneath him blood spreads in a widening circle, a meandering puddle of sunset colours. His hands are clamped over his side in an attempt to stem the gushing bullet wound.
He hasn't yet realized what has happened.
A hundred feet away, his attacker vanishes around the corner, gasping for air.
Sherlock lies still, trying to recall where he'd last seen his phone. He doesn't know. He drops the subject, and lets himself be grateful that the bullet darted past the folds of his wide-flared coat and through his shirt instead.
Then the pain opens up like a red-hot switchblade and carves into his side.
Amidst the writhing, twisted howls in his mind (or are they aloud?) he registers the dim beat of running footsteps. Someone coming down the alleyway, moving quickly. A precise, furious pace.
John.
The howling overtakes his consciousness.
Sherlock blinks his burning eyes open, sees the sunlight dazzle in brilliant teardrops of gold across the smeary old stonework. He is curled on his side, facing the left wall of the alley, his hands trapped under his weight. They press into the wound, as numb and useless as stone.
Everything, even his bones, seethe with pain. Someone is bent over him, cursing.
It must have been only a few seconds that he was unconscious.
"-lock, you idiot," swims into his hearing, and then the words trickle into place. "You weren't supposed to be going after him without me!"
John's hands fumble over his coat. Confused, Sherlock tries to lift his head. Pain rockets up his side and into his skull so quickly he gasps.
"No," John snarls. "Lie still. Lestrade is almost here; I have to do this fast. Brace yourself."
He doesn't tell Sherlock what he's going to do; only curls his strong military hands around Sherlock's shoulders and pulls hard, relentlessly, turning the detective over onto his back in one torturous movement. Sherlock can't help himself – he gasps again, almost cries out, as the wound strains open wide.
"I'm sorry." John's voice is kind; Sherlock latches onto its gentle sound and doesn't let go. "It's alright. It's alright."
He reaches down, pulls Sherlock's hands free from the gaping, deep-sunken wound, and digs his own fingers into the detective's mauled side.
Moments later, they stand, Sherlock fully mended, John breathing too fast, at the entrance of the alleyway, waiting for Lestrade. The DI almost hurtles past them – but then he stops and turns and registers the two men. Sherlock's blood-drenched shirt is hidden under his buttoned coat, invisible.
"Where's our suspect?" Lestrade gasps, between snatches of air.
"Yes, and he's quite gone," Sherlock says laconically. "But he left these in the gutter."
He holds up a keychain bristling thick with old, gummy keys, and launches into a lightning-quick explanation. By the time it is over Lestrade knows the best places to find his suspect, that he is armed, his favourite flavour of bubble-gum, his hatred and fear of his elderly mother, and his motive for the crime. Lestrade goes away, taking the keys with him for the police dogs, and John, citing exhaustion, takes Sherlock home.
After this they lay out several rules. Well, John does; Sherlock is occupied with an experiment involving the tattered remains of his shirt.
Our Rules:
1. I will heal any life-threatening wounds acquired by you, Sherlock, if possible (i.e., if no one is watching). Otherwise, we are going to hospital.
2. We have to be very careful, and that includes searching the flat weekly for new bugs. Healing can never take place in view of a CCTV camera.
3. Lesser injuries are not to be healed. Ever. It's too dangerous.
4. If I, John, am caught healing; you, Sherlock, cannot explain that you are my Anchor. Not even if it will help me. The less the authorities know about you, the better.
John hands the paper to Sherlock to read. He's signed his name across the bottom.
Sherlock's eyes trace swiftly across the page.
Slowly, deliberately, he nods. He reaches for the pen and signs his own name in a sprawling, elegant scrawl beneath John's.
Then he goes to the mantel, taking the paper with him, and reaches up to take down a lighter. Flicking it open, he holds the flame to the paper. It catches instantly: light licks up the side of the page. Sherlock lets it fall into the fireplace, and under his gaze the tiny fire sparkles with a myriad of indescribable colours.
Behind him, John sighs. Sherlock hears the refrigerator creak open, then shut.
"There's no milk."
The paper has wrinkled away into ash. Sherlock closes the grate.
"No. Would you like to buy some?"
"No."
Sherlock shrugs, and goes to tune his violin.
John collapses into his armchair, opens his laptop, and creates a new blog entry.
I'm going to break up this chapter and post the rest later, because this one is so long. I think it will probably be one more chapter before I reach my next full chapter and post that. I hope that makes sense.
Thank you for your reads, favs, alerts, and reviews! You guys are great!