A/N: Where Sherlock and John take to the road, following the last one.
If you want to view this plot as a travel story, it is set in Llandudno, North Wales.
Still not British, a doctor or a detective. -csf
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Sherlock Holmes, sitting at a regular business, a family run café? Sherlock Holmes, ordering something as mundane as a buttered scone and an espresso? Sherlock Holmes, lazily pondering the "free to read" shelf of rejected books, all pre-loved (here, he interjects, it's more like pre-hated, if the owners dumped them, and most books don't even have a cracked spine yet)?
Any other time, the one and only consultant detective from 221B Baker Street would scorn off the idea.
Now he'll eagerly take up mundane tasks – distractions – while he awaits his partner's arrival.
Doctor John Watson has been delightfully unpredictable and erratic ever since taking up a sabbatical leave from his work at some surgery as a GP, and then declaring his wish to cut ties with the habits and routines of such life and just take off to see the world.
The world, so far, has turned out to be Great Britain. Sherlocks supposes all those deployments overseas made John an oxymoron; in order to "see the world", he brings out one of Mrs Hudson's old, faded tea towels, the one with the Great Britain map printed on it, and he selects a new location every few days.
Sherlock follows, determined to protect John from the dangers of the world, and, mostly, from himself. John is currently less than rational. Where he keeps up the appearances of a classic Englishman, inside, he rebels against the boring, the predictable, the routine.
Much like Sherlock himself.
John is also unpredictable himself. He'll sleep less, be up at the crack of dawn for a five miles jog, he's got a short fuse once again, and he's taking no crap from Sherlock. The detective is in awe of the new heightened features on his old partner, mesmerized by John's firecracker choices and nature coming to the fore.
Sherlock is attracted to John's cracked nature. It reflects something far too familiar in himself.
Nowadays, John takes the lead and tolerates Sherlock's faithful following (how he tables have turned!) while he tries to find "a part of himself". John's own words. Sherlock knows his own assurances that no part of the doctor has been lost are falling in deaf ears. So he stays. He will not have John go through dark inner turmoil alone.
Except for small necessities, of course. Their van stalled. And they have delivered 221 Baker Van to a mechanic. Actually, John did that. He texted a qualified mechanic is looking at the engine; that the order of the specific part is needed; that it will arrive tomorrow; that they are stranded for the next 24 hours.
All throughout the slow updates, Sherlock waits at an independent café, eyeing the random book titles, sure that John alone could make them interesting for him.
A glance at his smartwatch and Sherlock orders John's lunch, timing it with his predicted ETA.
I'm bored without you, John. Come rescue me.
He texts that thought, disguised as banter for good measure. It doesn't take long for John to text back the bus service is taking to return. Sherlock already knew, of course, wasn't a difficult deduction given the balance of probabilities of the options.
John further suggests he reads a book.
Sherlock snaps a picture of the "bookshelf of rejects" as he calls it, hoping his doctor alone can make it better.
Ten seconds later comes John's response.
2 10 5 1 40 20 3 2 1
Sherlock smirks. John is in a feisty mood, then. Challenge accepted. He gets up, picks up the 2nd, the 15th, the 7th and the 3rd books and spreads them out on the table in front of him. He distractedly nibbles his scone while looking at the titles. No clues there. A cipher, then. Second book, tenth page, fifth word.
Elegant fingers flip the pages, wondering how John knew to set up the code. Behind.
The answer is obvious. John didn't. Fifteenth book, coincidentally the last, third page first word. Pier.
Luckily, they got stalled in a coastal town, with a pier designed in the glorious days of Victorian promenades and seaside attractions. A lucky coincidence, nothing more.
Seventh book, twentieth word in page forty. Under.
It occurs to Sherlock he's being goaded for a ridiculous and impossible chase based on randomly selected words. Yet this is John, and John carries an impossible magic within him.
Third book, second page starts with telescope. No surprise given that it is a manual on astronomic findings for amateurs in the night skies of three years ago.
Behind peer under telescope.
There's a coin operated viewing telescope at the pier. A simple reflective set of two lenses, to be directed at the coastline and the skimpy clothed beachgoers. A clear success for both types of bird watchers.
The young woman brings a hearty late breakfast for John just as the café door opening dings a brass bell secured from the ceiling. Sherlock looks up.
Lately, John captures easily all of Sherlock's interest. He's intense even in the mundane tasks, economic gestures led by flexible muscles, blonde-grey hair slightly too long sticking out of the military cut, hot temper dancing in the shiny dark eyes that rival any night sky.
'Behind peer, under telescope, John?' Sherlock opens.
He shrugs and takes up the chair opposite to the detective. He smells faintly of motor oil, and Sherlock's heart lurches as he misses that whiff of gun oil that John's hands used to carry as he patched up the detective after a bad run in with dangerous criminals.
'Brilliant. I knew would crack it. Too easy, huh?'
Nothing's ever easy with you, John. I'm forever decoding the messages you give me.
'I suppose we've got time for a wander down the pier today.'
John hums in appreciation through a mouthful of sausage that Sherlock has mesmerised by the apparent gusto in the way John eats.
'Aren't you drinking your coffee before it goes stone cold?'
Sherlock snaps out of it, redirecting his eyes anywhere else, feeling his cheeks warm up.
It's not just John who's out of sorts.
They always seem to mirror one another anyway.
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The two inseparable friends walk side-by-side at the rising tide over the wet sand. Leaving delible footprints, soon to be washed out to sea. From time to time, John picks up a pebble or a shell and throws it back into the crisp blue waters beside them. Sherlock does not partake, instead keeping a narrow focus on the pier's support beams, tracing carefully the vertical line to the telescope above, being disputed by a couple bickering children.
The detective inches forward as they are relatively close. He cannot miss the thick tape around the beam, holding something up on the other side. He rushes to it, almost vibrating in uncontained excitement, only to find the tape cut and the object missing.
Looking around him, there is an empty box tossed on the sand, suspiciously similar to John's favourite brand of tea bags.
'It's gone. It got stolen, John!'
The doctor no longer pays attention. 'Oh, well.'
'You set this mystery up, John. What did they take? What was the solution? What am I missing?'
'It hardly matters, you solved it.'
'No, there was more.' There was your choice of recompense. 'I need to know what it was.'
The doctor looks puzzled now, as he faces his friend, his eyes are blue, deep and unfathomable, like the sea behind him.
'You solved the mystery. It's finished,' he insists.
Sherlock rolls his eyes as a man attempting to find some patience anywhere above him to hold onto. 'Tell. Me. What. It. Was.'
John chuckles, suddenly amused.
'It was a bit of tat from the pier's stalls above. It's not like I had a lot of time to set it up, Sherlock.'
'Your morning run. You saw the books through the café windows. No, it was still closed, you couldn't set up the cypher then and we only arrived today as the van broke down. You wouldn't be able to tell which pages contained the words you needed for the message from an internet search for four different books with varying number of editions published. Ergo, you had an accomplice at the café.'
'Hardly. The four books were left atop a recycling bin in town. Someone did not want them, but hoped someone else would take them. I decided to drop them at the café. On the way there, it occurred to me I could mess with you. I dropped the books at the closed door as an anonymous offering, but with a note asking for their specific positioning on the reading bookshelf. Luckily, they obliged.'
'And if they haven't?'
'We'd be following a very different mystery if they haven't.'
John's honest smile is devious, like a child's. Sherlock is tantalized as ever.
'Then you ran here.'
'Eventually. Pier first. I already knew of the telescope, got some tape from the shopkeeper, just like the teabags box. I'm not the only one who drinks that brand, mate.'
Sherlock smiles slowly. John is still the wild card, looking out for him; even as he spins away from his London, Sherlock is always cared for.
'You said you got me something from the pier. Let's go up and I'll select something from you.'
'We don't have a lot of space in the van,' John cautions.
'That's all right. Right now, we don't even have our van.'
They chuckle, walking away together.
Sherlock won't point it out, but he's admiring his best friend. Only John can chase away the detective's boredom in so many easy ways. He only hopes he can help John back.
This is good for now, and Sherlock will never turn away from John. Yet one day they must return to London, to their old life. Once John is ready.
Meanwhile, they have this simpler life together.
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'John?'
It's the middle of the night, the van is dark and tepid. From the top of the bunkbed, Sherlock immediately spots John, silently pacing back and forth. Two steps down, sharp military turn, three steps up avoiding Sherlock's heap of discarded clothes, sharp turn, three steps down, repeat. The static electricity built up from John's socks on the wool shoddy rug would be enough to power the van's headlights. The repetitive motion seems to fully absorb all of the former army doctor's attention, like a survival mantra.
Sherlock takes no time to recognize the underlying emotion: desperation. He's felt it times enough in his youth, before a healthier life, before the cases, before John.
'Hey, trouble sleeping?' he asks gently.
'What d'ya think?' is the bit back answer. But John slows down, mercifully.
'Do you want to talk about it?' he asks, bewildered, echoing one of John's own favourite lines of inquiry.
'Not really, no.' But John smiles. A tiny smile to take off the edge.
'Then perhaps you are not opposed to me playing the violin, seeing that you are awake and all…'
John stops finally. Muscles still tense, yet all his attention is now focused on Sherlock.
'Nonsense, you need sleep.'
'Playing is relaxing for me.'
'Too bad I can't play the violin. I could do with something like that,' the doctor shakes his head, as if trying to dispel the thoughts bubbling inside.
'I can't reasonably teach you to play nicely in one night, John,' the detective starts as he takes the violin John picked up. He wouldn't let anyone else handle it, but the man he trusts with more than his life – his head too. 'How about we start by looking at it together?' And he pats the top bunker's blanket by his side, inviting the lost man.
John follows his movements, now becoming lethargic and slow, as if under a powerful hypnotic spell.
They sit side by side on the top bunker, Sherlock's head grazing the van's ceiling, John's not quite so much. The musician points to a string and invites graciously: 'Try this one and tell me what you hear.'
John pulls on the string.
'I hear the stars in the night sky and the edgy tension of war over desert sands,' the army doctor reports. Sherlock's brow rises, making its way up his tall forehead.
'How about now?' He fingers a few more strings, bringing together a sequence of simple notes bunched together to form something extraordinary as a chord. John's chord.
The doctor's lets his head slide towards the detective's shoulders. 'I like that better, but it's still quite plain.'
'Deceptively so,' Sherlock says, and to respond to John's tilt of the head to face him, he just hums. John leans back and closes his eyes, wrinkle lines still bunched like strings pulled together by force.
'How about now?' Sherlock can't possibly play. John hinders this by their closeness. All he does is try different sounds, separating each note, untangling the confused emotions bubbling in John by laying them out musically.
At some point in their silent yet musical communication, the doctor yawns. Sherlock feels a small body shiver that runs through John as he falls deeper asleep, A strange trait that Sherlock has become accustomed to notice late each night. He is learning so much about John on the road, enough to write volumes to keep in a library of his Mind Palace, like the rhythmic whispers of John's breathing when he sleeps peacefully.
Sherlock carefully puts away the violin in its case before pulling a blanket over both and letting himself drift back to sleep, lulled by John's newfound calm. As he falls asleep, he's imagining the melody line over John's steady sequence of notes. Together, the two formed the most beautiful symphony Sherlock has yet to finish composing.
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