A/N: I was writing a different story and then this one intruded sharply and demanded my penmanship. It's turning dark of its own accord too. Given my recent track record for completing storylines, let's all just hope for the best... -csf
1.
Living with an investigator requires relentless deception if you don't lead an open book sort of life. Sherlock knows all about my habits, my possessions, my everyday life. He knew most of it from that first glance across the lab at Bart's anyway, when Mike Stamford had me cross that threshold into a completely transformed life.
The little Sherlock doesn't know is mostly forgotten patches from my past. Some he reads off as traces on my mannerisms and clothes, others I buried so deep inside as to forget them that I don't think Sherlock himself can reach – and that is a relief, one should have the chance to keep something in the deepest dungeons of one's mind.
'You're thinking about it again.'
His mellifluous voice makes me jump. I didn't see him lurking in my armchair, the back of it facing the kitchen where I stand awkwardly, slightly lost at what I was doing.
'Thinking?' I repeat, to buy time.
'When I say thinking concerning you, John, it might be more accurately described as inner mutterings, I suppose.' He cracks a Cheshire cat grin for me. 'You were contemplating something in your past', he adds, fluidly getting up from my chair, grey eyes rooting me to the spot. He tilts his head. 'I can't read it, you know? You don't come with subtitles – not all the time, at least. I can tell there are undisturbed depths in you, John Watson, waiting to be explored.'
I shiver involuntarily. Say monsters and you'll have fairly grasped it. I break eye contact first.
'Don't let your fame get to your head, mate! We can't all be so bloody interesting as you would wish.'
'John.' He calls me as I try to make my exit. I turn, our gazes meet. His is trusting, hopeful, young, naïve. Mine is broken, tarnished, old and guarded. 'John', he repeats, seemingly at a loss for words. Appeasing, soothing. Saying sorry.
I shrug and raise my chin. Somehow I find myself at parade's rest. Waiting for my marching orders.
He sighs, recognising the instant walls I've erected around me. A sideways fond smirk crosses just one side of his face, and he waves his hand dismissively. 'At ease, John. How about some tea?'
My eyes flicker to the kettle, and I salivate. Damn my tea addiction! I know Sherlock wants to keep me in his sight, study me in search of my elusive secrets, but the promise of warm tannins beats the discomfort of Sherlock's over-the-top scrutiny so I stick around.
This time he relents, and comes to collect mugs as I go through the tea ritual. I like when he does that. We are a silent, well oiled machine, working in perfect synchrony and harmony. It settles me at last. Only some small worry remains lodged in the back of my mind. That one day Sherlock reads too much into me, reaches those hidden monsters, and reels away in shock and horror, I'd lose my friend and this we have now. That would be—
'Steady on', he tells me, pulling me back from the mug I've just cracked on the worktop, its sharp porcelain remains bleeding out hot water around a soggy tea bag.
'I must mop the mess.'
'Soon, not yet. Have a seat first, John. Please, you're shaking.'
I raise a confused look, but I can tell he's right, I am shaking. Firm hands with a gentle grip guide towards the closest kitchen chair. He has me sit down, and he squats in front of me, again grasping my biceps with strong hands. Caging me in his protective scrutiny again.
'John?' he calls me, through the folds of Time and Space. 'John.'
'I'm alright.'
'I know you, John. Whatever you want to keep hidden from me, could never make me think less of the man that has saved my life on a regular basis from the first day we met.'
'No, I—'
'I'm like this. I need to know. I can't help it. But I can wait until you're ready. I can wait. There's no pressure. However, I must be truthful, John, I will find out, I promise you that. And I will show you then that your fears were in vain. That you don't know yourself like I do. There's nothing you can't share, nothing that could make me think less of you.'
A dry laugh bursts from my dry lips.
'Really? I've been through the bloody war.'
His gaze saddens for a moment. 'But this isn't about the war, is it? Your war has started long before. You are so honest that you drifted to a scenario that matched you inside, aligned you with a perceived nightmare you already were so familiar with.' His fingertips come to brush away the sweaty hairs plastering on my forehead, they feel blessedly cool and forgiving. My eyelids flutter of their own accord.
'John, you're got a fever. You core body temperature is raised by approximately 2.3 degrees centigrade. You should take medication and go to bed.'
'I'm fine', I protest.
'We will carry on this conversation at a later date. Please, John.'
I finally nod. The man who never learnt polite responses has just said "please", and I can't wilfully ignore that.
He helps me up. My knees want to buckle and I don't understand where all this is coming from. A little kip is all I need. I'll be right as rain in the morning.
Sherlock directs me towards the sofa, despite my protests. I sink on it as my eyes drift shut. A little kip will help.
.
John's uncoordinated walk towards the sofa is shepherded by the towering detective with the iron grasp. The soldier collapses on the sofa as if his very construction was crumbling towards it. His consciousness wavers and Sherlock hastens to direct the fallen monument to stoicism towards the comfortable cushions. He holds John's blond head as he settles a fleur-de-lis pattern under it. Finally he lays a thin blanket over John as soon as he has raised his legs to horizontal.
A concerned look takes over Sherlock's features as he again checks John's forehead. Core body temperature still rising fast. John's developing a bad fever. Only a bad fever could keep John from his tea.
Feeling a bit unsure now, not wanting to leave the room, but knowing he should shake John back to consciousness and force him to take medication (and perhaps force a diagnosis out of him while John can still keep his medical wits about him), Sherlock settles back on his ankles, momentarily watching the disturbed sleep features on his friend.
Sherlock knows John was once a happy child, even if his childhood wasn't always easy in a turbulent household. He was the popular teenager with a romantic penchant, and a keen student. Later he embodied the reliable soldier and medical man. John's life has been marked by hard work, compassion, drive.
That deep shadows can hide in this man are abhorrent to Sherlock, yet he can sense John would disagree with that assessment. John would insist all men carry their burdens, and he'd stretch his thin lips into a pained smile. Sherlock hates that smile. The one that tells Sherlock of inner darkness and pain fluttering inside John in a macabre dance.
Finally Sherlock breaks the established connection by getting up to fetch John's old medical volume on tropical infections. Not for the first time he wonders if this well thumbed volume holds the answer to John's post surgery near fatal infection. From malaria to mrsa, a journey through time in possible scenarios, as John will not disclose what befell him. Sherlock suspects John blames himself for succumbing to a bad infection that nearly cost him his life after the bullet that betrayed him. Because the infection, not the bullet, was the reason for the med evac away from his fellow soldiers, the reason John still blames himself for leaving them behind.
The consulting detective settles in vigil in this armchair, while studying John's possible pasts from the yellowed pages of John's grandfather's book. The Watson ancestor was a practitioner too, and the little boy John was when he lost his grandfather would always treasure the old man as a heroic figure, a loving man and a righteous hero. Sherlock at times wonders if John realises how much he carries of the old man in himself, from the choice of dated button up shirts to the battered vintage valise impregnated by the smell of iodine John keeps as a memento at the back of his wardrobe. And, yet, in the midst of all this, John is still mostly his own made-up enigma, a puzzle or a riddle for Sherlock to solve. And solve it Sherlock will. He's savouring this puzzle, he's in no hurry.
.
A young child crosses the threshold. A serious looking blonde boy, searching for his grandfather. The warm summer days are approaching, the air is thick and sweet from nearby honeysuckle. A cool breeze, hardly enough to agitate the air, today making it more bearable away from the small creek where John passed his afternoon hunting for slippery frogs he would catch with his own hands, study, then release.
This little boy calls out for his grandpa to come home to dinner, as he crosses the garden onto the shed at the back of the house where they are living now. They moved towns again. John is used to it. Meet a new set of faces, a new set of friends. He still misses the old ones, whose faces and names blur out in the maelstrom of time. But he's also good at this. Making new friends. Surrounding himself in adventures and games with new children. Making connexions that again will fade into alternative timelines. His family will move away again. They always do. His grandpa always comes along, following them to every new town.
He approaches the shed with some trepidation. The shed is always locked. He knows he is not allowed to go in there. He knows that this is a forbidden place. His mom told him not to go there. His father made sure he wouldn't. His grandfather never explained what he does locked up in there for hours on end, never coming out, never seeing the sunlight until long after the day settled down into sunset. It's a mystery of sorts. But John, the blond boy, he loves his grandfather. And he accepts that this grandfather wants to keep secrets. And he hopes that one day his grandfather will trust him enough to let him know what goes on behind the door painted green, the door that is always locked.
Today the door isn't fully shut. This causes John to pause. Part of him wants to go and have a look and see what riches and adventures can lay behind the door. He wants to know what keeps his grandfather's attention from him, from the family. From them all. He wants to know what his grandfather swapped his life's work as a family doctor for, and made them all move time and time again. From city to city, crisscrossing England. Trying to settle down in other houses, with garages and sheds and annexes somewhere in the grounds. John wants to know. John is just a boy. A curious little boy. He really wants to know.
Even though it's wrong. He's breaking a promise in a way. John makes himself not think about that as he approaches the green painted door under the corrugated steel roof. He just wants to take a look quick look. Nothing wrong with that. There couldn't be any wrong in his grandfather's affairs. There must be something, something that makes John unworthy of knowing what nice things his grandfather spends his time doing behind the green door of the old shed.
The little boy sneaks his head past the opened door and peeks inside. He finds his grandfather brooding over a long wooden table, rooting around a bunch of discarded clothes bundled up in a strange, small human shape. John stills a gasp. He can't understand it. It looks like a little boy, just like him, laying on that table, and his grandfather's hands reach deep into the boys belly for something. A small sock cladded foot twitches at the edge of the table. John screams and his grandfather drops some metal instrument, and spotting him, shouts at him to leave, violence and ire marring his features into a demonic gargoyle—
.
Sherlock nearly jumps out of his skin as the first cry shatters the stillness of the night. He finds himself awoken from his doze in the armchair. The source of the shout soon repeats, vigorously, the anguished cry.
'John.' What's happening? Nightmare. Not John's usual ones. 'John!'
Sherlock bounces forward from the armchair to the very last leg remaining of the red rug. Just inches away from the sofa. He stills there, allowing himself to drop to his knees, worrying about John. Not quite sure he should awaken the troubled soldier. Maybe he should wait for the nightmare to subside. Just protect the troubled man until he regains full consciousness. Sherlock watches on. Lays a hand on John's clammy forehead.
Hyperventilating and slightly dazed, John eventually resurfaces. He gasps. Out of air as if he's just run a marathon. He looks around wildly as if he still felt caged in that nightmare. His eyes settle on Sherlock and he instantly begins to relax.
'John.'
They look at each other in a silent pact of shared troubles. Words are unnecessary. John searches Sherlock's features over and over again, the fever still lingering in the contours of his mind, until he assures himself of safety. He blinks, and his tired eyelids start to droop.
'Call Doctor Chandler. He'll know what to do', John whispers tiredly, before shutting his eyes as if the world was weighing him down again.
Chandler? Who's that?
Sherlock sits back on his haunches and stares dazed at the man that surprises him once again.
Who's this Doctor Chandler?
Why would John need a doctor. He is a doctor.
.
TBC
