Author's note: Good morning! Here's a new chapter :)
Enjoy!
Chapter 3: I made rules to guide me, but then came you
Two days pass until the next victim is found in the same attire, only, this time the position of the body is different. The old woman is found on her left side, with arms stretched over her head towards a pile of iron shavings, and legs stretched out, bent at the hips so that she is almost doubled-over, pointing at a small metal container. Her wrists and ankles are bound by the same sort of chains like the previous victim's. They find her in another storage unit facility, owned by the same bankrupt company, slightly more to the east than the previous one, in a unit marked with number twenty-six.
The container turns out to be full of liquid oxygen, the sort found in oxygen tanks in hospitals. Sherlock's forehead might as well be transparent, because it is that easy for John to see the brilliant machinery of his brain come to life as he incorporates the new data in the existing scheme. They barely have the time to go through all the new reports, when another body is found, again only two days after the last one.
After the third victim (a bald, middle-aged man, placed on his left side, with arms stretched over his head towards a pile of iron shavings, and legs propped at a right angle to his torso and arms, pointing at a pile of aluminium bits), John can tell Sherlock has already figured the whole thing out. When he asks him about it, he is treated to one of Sherlock's rapid lectures.
"Look at it all John, really look", the consulting detective says, waving his hand to indicate the crime scene photos and files strewn across the floor (and the desk, and the sofa). "It's a clock! He is positioning the victims as if they were hands of a clock. The pile over their heads, the one we found when the first victim was discovered – iron shavings – represents 12. That's why it is always present, at each crime scene. Look at the photos – the distance between where each new element is places and where the previous one used was, is always equal, meaning that each consequent element found represents a number - 1, 2, and now 3. He can't use all of them every time, probably due to scarcity of some of them, or their unavailability at the moment of the murder, but if all the photos were blended together, it would be apparent. Even the chains he uses – why use expensive chains like that when ordinary wire would do?"
John just shrugs, waiting for Sherlock to point out the symbolic value of the chains.
"They are watch-chains! The sort used for old-fashioned pocket watches. It all relates to the clock pattern. If my assumption is correct, and it almost always is, there will be twelve victims in total. He is even spacing them out so that in the end the count ends on 24 days – which can be translated into 24 hours of the day, with each victim representing two hours, really – the same time am and pm."
John's gaze flickers over all the photos, capturing the scenes. Now that Sherlock has pointed it out, the pattern seems shockingly apparent.
"So, if you know the pattern, why can't we stop him before he kills someone else? Isn't it always them pattern that gives them away, makes them predictable?"
"Actually, what gives them away are mistakes, anomalies. Besides, this one is using the pattern as protection – clever, very clever. He is moving so fast that we barely have time to process the new data in order to incorporate it with the old one, thus preventing me from getting one step ahead. It's smart – turning what is usually the source of error into a shield. Brilliant, isn't it? Also, I think there might be another pattern, one the killer may be using to send a message – it's just a theory for now, I need more data. I'll have to see what he leaves on the next one."
John has to admit that they are working at a pace which would be considered quick even for Sherlock, with a new victim cropping up every two days, and the data just flowing in, threatening to flood them. Still, despite Sherlock's very logical explanation, John cannot shake the feeling Sherlock isn't as bothered by the fact that he hasn't stopped the killer yet, as he should be. Sherlock is by no means hiding his...rapture...over the ingenuity of the killer's modus operandi, but with every glint of excitement in his eye, John can tell he is one step further away from keeping in mind that these aren't toys (or sources of more data) being left for him in dingy storage units, but actual people with families to grieve them and lives that will now never be lived.
When Sherlock looks back down the microscope, muttering excitedly "I wonder which element he will use next", John tries very hard not to clench his fist. He can feel the sharp shards of what was once contentment, but has since turned into something much bitterer, poking at his insides like ragged-edged debris of some ruin.
If you are lucky, you get to have people in your life who make up the backbone of your world. They stand for most of the things you hold dear, they share similar values and believe in the same rules as you do. They fit those rules. If you are lucky, you get to live a normal life, with people who seem to fit you well enough. It's as much as one could ask for, really.
But, if you are very lucky (or very unlucky – it's all matter of perspective really, but I like to think of myself as an optimist, so let's go with very lucky), you get to meet people who manage to shatter the backbone of your world, only to reveal that it was not really what was holding your world up, in the first place. They become the new pillar, expanding the limits of what was once your world, and making a palace out of a shoebox. They are the exception to your every rule, and yet, they seem to fit you better than anyone who was ever within the rules' scope. If you are very, ridiculously lucky, you get to live an extraordinary life, with people who don't fit anywhere and yet, are the best match you could have ever hoped for.
John is a man whose whole life has been branded by oaths, vows, rules. As a doctor and a soldier, he is familiar with order, understands the importance of rules. Firm morals – that's what he is made of, that's what he appreciates in others. John has always found himself attracted to people similar to himself, as is only normal. His friends – doctors, soldiers – and the women he found interesting, were always people who shared John's view of the world. Caring, warm people. Caring, warm, ordinary people. It was a rule – not a strict, written one, but an implicit one that John felt helped him through life, making choices easier when times were hard.
And then came Sherlock.
Sherlock with his quick-silver tongue. Sherlock with his fortune-cookie guesses, which are (almost) always correct. Sherlock with a smiley face on the wall. Sherlock with his chaos and abandon. Sherlock with his inappropriate tendency to fall just a bit in love with exquisite murderers – or, to be precise, with their minds.
Sherlock came into John's life, carrying suitcases packed tight with rhapsodies and disarray, which spilled over John's rules and oaths, and created a lovely anarchy out of what was once John's ordered life.
Sherlock came in and shattered the backbone of John's world, and John realised he didn't mind. Sherlock became the new central motif that held John's world upright, expanding it, stretching and testing the limits – Sherlock being Sherlock. And John let him, because he knew he would suffocate in the claustrophobic box of his old life, now that he has felt the vastness of this one. He also realised that that was it – he found himself bound to the one exception to his every rule more tightly than he ever was to all the things those rules encompassed.
Because, really, who could ever compare to Sherlock Holmes?
John worries – worries about what it means that he is willing to forgo, if even only partly, some of Sherlock's faults. It's not the little ones, such as arrogance or spectacular ignorance of certain basic facts or even the man's petulance, that make John re-evaluate himself. Everyone has faults, John included, and expecting Sherlock to be flawless would be not only ridiculous, but also hypocritical.
No, what John worries about is the fact that some of the things he always considered vital – empathy, sensitivity to the pain of others – he is now willing to compromise on, when it comes to Sherlock. And still, this doesn't impair the way John views him... how is it possible to find someone who defies so many of your convictions brilliant? Why does he care so much for a man who, in such important ways, doesn't fit the bill of what John considers to be virtues? And, what does it mean that John does care, despite all this? It feels contrary, like a living, breathing paradox. Look at it closely, and you may notice it feels much like Sherlock himself.
As John looks at Sherlock, he wonders how it is possible for an exception to feel so much better than then rule it applies to.
The victims keep on cropping up, following the schedule flawlessly. Every two days, there is a new body, positioned slightly differently from the previous one, with iron shaving above their arms and a new element at their feet.
After the aluminium bits on the third, the killer leaves some nickel with the fourth victim. The fifth is again found with a metal container, this time filled by liquid nitrogen. Then it's some erbium-doped fibres on the sixth victim found in South London ("Erbium is used in optical fibres for communication systems, as well as having multiple medical uses in dermatology, dentistry, ophthalmology...really John, you should keep up with the latest research concerning your profession..."), followed by some foul-smelling sulphur powder on the seventh.
Sherlock behaves as if it is Christmas, his birthday and all the pagan holidays ever celebrated from the dawn of time, all wrapped up together. He is a boundless concoction of energy, and John marvels repeatedly at the ends to which Sherlock can stretch the human need for sustenance and sleep. Through his marvel, he tries to ignore the expectant look on Sherlock's face that dawns on the detective's face every other morning, as he waits for the newest victim to be found. Sherlock has always reacted to murders the way other people would to happy news of weddings or childbirth, but this latest case seems different somehow – Sherlock is no longer just inappropriately excited, he is eager, treating the case like a macabre Easter-egg hunt, enjoying the whole thing to the point that John sometimes wonders whether he is really doing all in his power to stop the killer, seeing as the case is so enjoyable, and ending it would certainly mean a round of boredom that could never compare to the present thrill...John admonishes himself for such thoughts only instants after they emerge, but it doesn't help with the sharp edges of his broken happiness that pierce through him more persistently with every new victim. By the time the seventh one is found, John finds himself as conflicted as ever, saying "Brilliant!" to Sherlock (and meaning it. Always meaning it.), while at the same time wondering what the price of such brilliance is.
The body-count doesn't stop at seven, but let's take a break from all the math and chemistry and death. I would much rather revisit the earlier topic of rules and exceptions.
Yes, I think that's what I'll do.
Sherlock, for one, despises dependency – that of his body on food and sleep, that of his mind on the said body. If it were up to him, his mind would be able to exist as a separate entity from his body. It is rather ironic, really, this contempt of depending on something, considering his past addictions. Sherlock doesn't like dependency, because it stems from need, and need is dangerous. Need can so easily transform into something else, something that cannot be warded off by a round of horrible detox. Need becomes inclination, which becomes affection, which becomes... well, it becomes something. It might seem up-side-down to most to need something (or someone) before caring for them. Most people need the ones they care for because they care but then, most people are usually not guided by the rational mind when dealing with such things as need and affection. To Sherlock it makes perfect sense - need ranks the lowest on the scale of both complexity and risk. Needs are usually easily satisfied (sleep, food, drugs, stimulus, assistance, etc.) and require least emotional involvement. Need is relatively harmless, as long as it is kept from developing into something more.
Usually, Sherlock manages to stop everything at the first step – need. He needed the drugs and the nicotine. He needs food and sleep. These are needs which can be managed, and he never lets them progress any further. He never enjoys them (well, the drugs came close) – they are simply tools he uses for his Work, means to an end. Need, but never more. Never inclination or affection. Never that higher something that comes after affection.
It is easy to keep all the things he depends upon at arm's length, seeing as they are precisely that – things. Just like he never allows for anything beyond simple need, he makes a rule of not depending on people. That is simply too unpredictable and too messy, in too many ways to count. He will make allowances if they prove convenient – like Lestrade informing him about cases – but he never really depends on them. Those are the rules – nothing more than need, and no dependency on people.
But what are rules, if not just grounds for exceptions? And Sherlock, being the extremist he is, picks the one person who manages to embody the exception to both his rules, simultaneously. Do I really need to name the person? I might as well, he does play a rather significant role in this story, after all.
At first, John is an interesting addition, stimulating and convenient. After a while, Sherlock realises that he functions better with John around, and that's the first link in the chain – need. John brings about an improvement in Sherlock, adds a level to Sherlock's performance, and Sherlock, ever the perfectionist when it comes to his performance, finds himself needing John in order to maintain this new high. By then, John is a requirement, and thus the first exception to be made to Sherlock's rule of not depending on people.
Still, the second rule still stands intact, and Sherlock decides to keep it that was. He knows how to deal with this – he has done it, repeatedly, with other things. And there lies the problem – for the first time, Sherlock is not dealing with a thing. John, being the stubborn not-thing that he is, appears to have a will of his own, making Sherlock's efforts all the more strenuous. With time, Sherlock finds that he no longer just needs John. He likes him. Then, he cares for him. Then - . No. Care is enough. More than enough. Too much.
It is too much, because John is no longer just a catalyst. With time, Sherlock starts to care – about John, about John's needs and feelings and opinions. He feels a stab of something unpleasant (regret, that's what it is. Regret; name it –take away its power) when he catches a glimpse of disappointment on John's face every time Sherlock does or says something outstandingly insensitive. He cares that John is disappointed, and that is not acceptable. Other people's opinions never mattered (well, that's not entirely true – they have, once, long before), and that was the right order of things. One cannot go around, deducing and functioning at a higher level of mental efficiency, if they have to constantly worry about opinions and feeling and social norms and similar nonsense. But John's opinion does matter, and that makes things complicated in a way Sherlock doesn't appreciate. Other people never mattered, but John does, and that makes things beyond complicated.
John is an anomaly, seeing as he seems to be the exception to most of Sherlock's rules, and despite Sherlock's adamant belief that exceptions do not confirm the rule, but rather prove it faulty, he cannot deny the fact that John is a more functional part of his life than any rule Sherlock ever came up with ever was. He cannot deny that he is more functional with John, than he ever was without him.
One of the perks of being a storyteller is that I get an exclusive insight into everything that is happening, everything that is done and, what is more, everything that is felt. So, I know what comes at the end of that unfinished sentence ('Then –'), and it is most certainly not 'No'. It's that elusive something that follows affection. Yes, I do know what the something is, yet, my own consciousness prohibits me from betraying those whose story I am telling. Some revelations are not mine to be made. I am only left hoping that those who lay claim on them reach them in time...before it's too late.
What I will tell you is this – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were never cut out for just lucky. They are each other's exceptions, shattering the well-established forms of each other's worlds. They were always meant for the very lucky, the extraordinary life. Only, if you shatter the backbone of someone's world, establish yourself as the new pillar, what happens if you shatter as well? What is left to hold up the world then? I never said extraordinary lives were necessarily happy ones. I still think people are very lucky to get to live them, but then, I'm an optimist.
I will tell you something else – it is something about 'almost always'. Sherlock's assumptions are almost always correct. I always thought exceptions and uncommon events made the best stories, wouldn't you agree? Well, this is one of those stories, because what follows is one of the rare cases which falls outside of Sherlock's almost always. Sherlock doesn't know it yet, but he will be proven wrong in his assumptions, because the final count of the victims won't be twelve. It will be thirteen.
So, what I am telling you is this – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson belong in the group of people who are very lucky. Or very unlucky – it's only a matter of perspective.
Thank you for reading! See you Tuesday :)
