Naked
part eightThey grabbed breakfast in town at a small cafe where the gossip was plentiful and the eggs a bit runny. Noisy. Public. Distracting. The case was over as far as John could see it and the voices all around them seemed to preach further to the choir. 'Poor Leon' a pair of older women moaned among talk of the funeral arrangements rather than a wedding's. One of the women apparently was the town's primary source of decorative flora while the other played the piano in the church. Their waitress was a talker as well, a woman who 'never liked that Mortimer' and would bet her tips on him having something to do with what happened to poor Brenda. He 'got what he deserved' as far as a retired fisherman thought, having known the Tregennis family since their parents were alive and the four siblings young enough to be chased out of his front yard for eating the berries off his bushes. God's divine punishment or the devil's handiwork; the people of Tredannick Wollas didn't seem to care between the two or even see much difference in them. There was tragedy and there was justice and beyond the knocking of wood and the kissing of crosses there was little more care to be had in the horrors beyond the gossip.
"So that's it then, is it?" John asked, his coffee cup poised near his chin as he watched Sherlock stir his own. "Murder for money then suicide out of guilt?"
Sherlock ignored the question nearly as well as he ignored John in his entirety, stirring and stirring the coffee in his cup till purpose turned to idle.
He walked back to the shack. It was miles but Sherlock didn't seem daunted in the slightest, his desire to wander leaving John with little choice but to drive the Land Rover back himself. They couldn't leave it in town at any rate. The necessity of it made John almost sure the only reason Sherlock wanted the walk was to have a few hours time to himself. Well, he could have it. John had other things he could be doing other than spending time with his friend. It rather defeated the purpose of the trip with but storm clouds still brewing over their heads, nearly anything was preferable. His mother had always cautioned him that things had to hurt if they were to heal, patient words from a tender mother as the peroxide had bubbled away on another scrapped knee. It was hard to know whether he and Sherlock were simply picking at scabs, though.
Back at the shack, John found it very difficult to ignore the impulse to sit down at his laptop and type out their problems. There weren't many, really. They still had fun together, they still enjoyed each other's company, they still liked the same things they used to like and connected on them as they always had. Forgetting everything that was wrong, nothing had changed in their interactions. They, as a team, were okay. Each of them as part of something bigger than just themselves was... complicated. John wanted Sherlock to take better care of himself and Sherlock... Sherlock wanted a time machine. Or better advancements in human cloning. Or for Mycroft to make kidnapping legal in at least one circumstance. They were exaggerations, yes, but what Sherlock seemed to want was just as impossible. John wasn't going to leave Mary just to make Sherlock happy. Surely Sherlock knew that. If he didn't, John was almost sure the man would have made a monumental fuss, demanding what he wanted rather than allowing himself to fall to relative obscurity within John's new life. If Sherlock had any reason to believe he could usurp Mary, he'd be trying. Whatever the cause, Sherlock wasn't standing on their doorstep, coked out with a needle in his vein shouting 'Look what you made me do!' to demand his attention and concern. Sherlock was living his life as he was wont to do, keeping himself clear of drama, and despite his own professed lack of charity, giving John some peace in ignorance. If John wanted him to accept he was married now, by all accounts Sherlock had. But what John wanted most was for Sherlock to be happy about it and no man, no matter how greatly he wishes for it, could ever dictate how another person felt.
Well, that was one thing off the list, he supposed. It certainly didn't mean it was okay that Sherlock felt the need to turn to illegal substances--that was a topic all its own--but as far as John's marriage was concerned, there was nothing more to talk about. That included the baby and everything else that entailed, really. He could not expect Sherlock to feel one way or another for him even if the general expectancy for friendship said it should be one of empathy. So what else was there? Sherlock was alone now? That was just as much out of John's hands as the rest of it. Sherlock was alone because Sherlock was Sherlock and no amount of correction was ever going to be enough to enamor most people to him. He could be admired for his work and honored for his brilliance but as a man he had a long track record of disappointment and pain. Empathy yet again. Sherlock was rude and unfeeling but not generally unkind by intention. Lacking modesty as it was, it took a special kind of person to tolerate Sherlock and an even more outstanding one to love him. Neither John nor Sherlock had much power in the way of giving the consulting detective what he now lacked in John's absence. So that made two things they could do nothing about. It was an unflattering trend.
John picked up a book to pull himself out of depressing contemplation, setting the fire to burn again as he sat and waited for Sherlock to finish his long return. They could talk about the weather, he supposed. Plan a trip out onto the sea in a hired boat. Fishing. Boring things that neither of them really fancied but were better than the silence of a million things they could but shouldn't bother with. He'd nearly fallen asleep by the time Sherlock fumbled his way in, wiping his feet off at the door as he hung up his coat.
John checked the clock, wincing at how much daylight he'd spent in repose. "Three hours. I told you it was a long walk."
"Three hours enjoyed all the same." Sherlock pulled a small, white envelope from the coat pocket before taking his seat at the fire. His nose and cheeks were rosy with windburn. "Mortimer Tregennis wasn't suicide; it was murder."
John sat up in his chair, face pinching with confusion. "Hang on, then does that mean--"
"No, I'm quite sure it was still Mortimer who killed his siblings," Sherlock interrupted, knowing his question before he'd ever had a chance to formulate it.
"So we now have two killers who both had access to the same strange murder weapon?" John put his book down on the table beside his chair, not sure whether he should be surprised or not that Sherlock's walk had been focused on the case and not their own problems. "You think that sounds more likely, do you? You saw Mortimer yesterday. That was the face of a man in mourning, not of a man who was glad to have killed. It makes much more sense to me that he couldn't live with the guilt in the end and took his life the same way he took his sister's."
"It makes sense only if you didn't break into Leon Sterndale's home to find a cabinet of souvenir bottles from several European and African ports along with one dust ring where a bottle was obviously missing and recently at that." Sherlock held up the envelope to John's stirring indignation. "Breaking and entering is a solitary sport. The Land Rover leads right back to us as well. You'd have only wanted to come had I told you."
John crossed his arms over his chest, lips pursed as he tried to calm his annoyance at his friend. "So you broke into Leon's house and found evidence of a missing bottle. And that's related to whatever it was you collected from the fireplace, is it?"
"In all likelihood." He passed the envelope over for John to inspect. The clay-colored powder inside smelled of ash and nothing more, itself a powdery substance clumping in the fold of the paper. "Among the other bottles were things marked as 'zombie dust' and some sort of voodoo pulverulence. Without the bottle or my instruments I can't be sure at this moment but I still believe it to be our murder weapon given all the other facts between the two cases. Similar in both was the time of day, a fire burning, and the doors and windows being shut. In the first murder, Mortimer said he and George were sitting opposite the window so it had to be either Owen or Brenda who was sat nearest the fire. The police markings in the room suggest it was Brenda. Now in the second murder we have Mortimer also sitting near the fire when he dies in the same fashion. If we consider that proximity as the defining difference between death and insanity then the vehicle for administering whatever toxin it was would have to be the fire as well. It would only be too easy for Mortimer to toss something into the flames without raising anyone's suspicion before he left his siblings that night. Without their knowledge it burns and releases something into the air, the toxin trapped in the room with all the doors and windows shut. And in the end there are only two people who know what that murder weapon is: the thief and the man he stole it from who much to Mortimer's misfortune was informed of Brenda's death before heading back out to sea."
John handed the envelope back, his eyes slightly wider for the stretch of Sherlock's tale. "Leon certainly looked ready for a fight when he was here yesterday. Police didn't have answers yet, we only had suspicion, he's got a boat to catch and a dead fiance so the poor sod goes off to take matters into his own hands."
"Exactly."
"Have you told the police your suspicions?"
"No. Why should I?" Sherlock reclined back in his seat, tapping the paper to his chin. "There's no trace of the bottle in Leon's home and very little evidence left of his intrusion at the vicarage. The bits of dirt on the windowsill will likely be overlooked and the vicar certainly won't be able to offer them much help either."
John wasn't quite sure he was following anymore. Sherlock's flippant tone, his easy acceptance, his disinterest in apprehending the criminal were all something of a surprise. "So that's it, then?" he asked, still waiting for the call to arms that seemed to have slipped Sherlock's mind. "You're sure Leon killed Mortimer Tregennis out of revenge and you're going to let him just sail away?"
The detective gave a lazy nod. "The person he loves is dead. There's not exactly any joy in his freedom. Why strip even that away?"
"You.. feel sorry for him." John laughed darkly, shaking his head from side to side as his chest slowly started to cave in around his heart in a protective squeeze. "That's.. funny, actually. Very funny. I was just thinking a bit ago how largely impossible it is to expect you to have an empathetic response to... anything. Certainly not when it comes to your best friend. But for this guy? This.. absolute stranger? Well, that just brings the big softy right out of ya." He felt amazingly calm for all the pain shooting through his body. Calm was perhaps the 10 on a scale from dispassionate to furious. Shouting meant he wasn't really thinking too much about it. Calm meant he'd thought about it far too much.
Sherlock sat up slightly in his chair, his thick brows furrowed. "There is no correlation between my attempts to remain indifferent towards your situation and demonstrating compassion to a suspect."
"Situation?! Compassion! Sherlock, you are a riot." John didn't want to laugh but it was hard not to. It was laugh or cry and crying was never an option. It ripped through his throat like barbed-wire, each chuckle another razor knot slicing past his tongue. "I am your best friend and you can't so much as pretend to care about my life but you can pardon a murder on your own terms because you feel sorry for him. Do I need to murder someone? Is that how this works? Do I need to commit some sort of crime in order for you to look at me in a way that makes you remember I'm human and invoke some kind of feeling? You give a stranger preferential treatment to me!"
"Believe me John, it is hardly a stretch to sympathize with a man who has lost everything but his work."
John had his coat in his hands and was out the door before much more than few tense seconds locked in an uncomfortable staring contest. He needed air. He needed space. He needed Mary. He needed someone to tell him things were going to be alright, that things could be fixed, that he wasn't being irrational and that it was okay to feel hurt by it all. He needed a cigarette and he didn't even smoke. His hands were shaking, his pulse pounding as though he'd run from the doorway and down the drive rather than just taken several fought-and-won steps out as far from the front door as his limbs could bear him. There wasn't enough air in the world to breathe and even to his own ears he sounded like a raging bull standing furiously behind the gates. All this just so as not to cry.
He breathed in deep, feeling it quiver through his nostrils on the exhale as he fought for that control that limited his expressions. Boys don't cry. Neither do soldiers or men trying to be strong for their wives. Crying meant breaking down, losing hope, giving in to despair without the resolve to simply push through it. John Watson did not cry when there was still a battle to be won. But he seemed to do an awful lot of running away.
Not this time. No matter what, it had to end. No distractions, no escapes, no retreating until it stopped hurting. They had to sit down, fight it out however they needed to, and if he cried so be it. There were few things in his life worth the shedding of a few tears over and Sherlock was high among them. He let his head fall, breathing till the tremors stopped shooting down his arm, letting the cool air calm his hot head as it cleared away his own selfishness which was busy piling itself up again. Not one more try but the try. The success. Or the failure. With one last thought-clearing breath John turned back to the shack and walked inside.
Afghanistan or Iraq?
John's head swam with the sudden painful slam against his senses. Everything seemed bright--too bright--with his steps hard to take against the shifting sands. Why was the desert in their den? John's mouth felt dry and he could hear the sires screaming. Bombs, dear God, bombs. He hit the deck, covering his head, listening as he could hear the sirens growing louder, people screaming in the distance as metal collided against metal in catastrophic explosions. Where was Sherlock in all this mess?
He looked up for just a moment, peaking through his arms past the blowing sands at the pavement outside Barts. Head wounds bled terribly, filling in the cracks of stone, pouring down the gutters. He was screaming. Sherlock was screaming. John army crawled across the desert towards the thrashing figure on the street, swimming through the blood as he tried to grab him and drag him down where the bombs wouldn't destroy him. Sherlock fought him but John had always been stronger. He grabbed him around the neck with one arm, dragging him back towards the base. If he could get them inside the base, they might make it. He could see the door, see their salvation. Sherlock bit down into his arm, his fingers clawing at him to break free, but John only held on tighter. The door was right there. Inside, safe, help, free. He reached up for the doorknob and turned it, pulling against it with his weight and his friend's as it threw itself open to them.
But it wasn't the base. It was pebbles and grass and sunlight. John coughed as he dragged them further into the yard, finding the desert sirens growing fainter while Sherlock's screams echoed all the more loudly in his ears. They collapsed in the grass. John let go of his choke-hold and wrapped his arms around him tight from behind, holding Sherlock's arms down at his sides while the detective thrashed and coughed in his fit. He pressed his forehead to Sherlock's back, breathing away his old nightmares while he clung to a new one.
It didn't feel as though it would ever stop. John held on to Sherlock with all his strength, his muscles shaking at the strain even as the man calmed himself and stilled. His screaming died to coughs and panting but John still would not let go. His heart was beating so fast he could feel each ventricle moving. He could deal with the bombs, the sirens, the screaming, and the blood but feeling Sherlock fighting for life beside him was a horror unlike anything he'd ever witnessed before. He breathed in deep, smelling the sea and their soap, a prayer still heavy on his lips as he begged for it all to pass.
Sherlock rolled his head to the grass, breathless but alive. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I had no idea it would be that potent--it was just a small amount."
John swallowed, his face still pressed to the other man's back. "What are you talking about?"
"The drug. The weapon. I didn't know."
John felt sick, his arms growing slack in their hold at last. "You threw the sample into the fire?"
"I don't have my equipment, I needed to test--"
"You idiot!" John screamed even though his ear was just right there. He could feel the jolt of his surprise down the length of his torso where it spooned against his own. He beat against Sherlock's chest with his fist. "You could have killed yourself! You'd be dead right now if I hadn't come back in!" He pushed Sherlock away, beating against his shoulder as he shoved greater distance between them. He was shaking in earnest now, the knowledge of just how easily that could have been one or both their deaths sapping the strength from his body.
"I'm sorry!" Sherlock sat up, wiping drool from his chin and leaving dirt from his hands. "I didn't think--it was a small amount!"
"You don't think! You never think!"
"I needed to know!"
"No, you didn't!" John could hear his own voice echoing off the cliffs but his pounding heart still felt louder. "There is a difference between need and want! No one ever needs to put himself in harm's way for the sake of curiosity!" He felt dizzy, his lungs still protesting to not enough clean air but it couldn't wait, it was the last thing that could ever wait. "I can't do this! God, Sherlock, I can't! You are going to get yourself killed and I can't just sit back and watch it happen!"
Sherlock's own near-death experience had done little to tame his own fires. He attempted to stand on his shaking legs only to sink once more to his knees. "And you think it's easy, do you, for me to watch you with your wife, your friends, your job, your whole new life? You think just because you're happy and safe and healthy that I should be happy for you? I dream of the day she leaves you! I couldn't care less about your perfect little future with a mortgage, two kids and a dog! Every day you're happy it's because I'm not there! Every blessing you welcome into your life exists only in my absence! I am not a good enough person to believe that my feelings for you should favor your own happiness above my own!"
"Grow up! Will you just grow up!"
"What for? So I can be like all the other friends you have? I'm not like them! I'm better than them! I am better than her!"
"I. LOVE. HER."
"So what are we doing out here!?"
John let out a long, shaky, heave of a breath, his body demanding the pause with threat of unconsciousness if he did not obey. His cheeks felt wet, his legs were complaining from sitting on them but he could not move nor tear his eyes for one second off of Sherlock's face. If ever John felt for one moment that Sherlock did not know or understand the depths of pain in love then he had only to remember his face as they crouched on the headland, clawing as they were at the grass for something tangible to hold on to.
Sherlock sniffed back on his running nose, rolling the back of his hand across his upper lip. "What we had in common, John, what made us friends? It's always been me but it was always more than that. You though I was brilliant. And you didn't mind at what cost. What made you special was your love for me. And that's changed. So we have to change. We're not friends anymore, John; not like we used to be. I am the ruin of everything you want now. That's just the way it is." He pursed his lips, swallowing with some difficulty as he continued to meet John's eyes. "Thank you for this, John. It's a much better goodbye than what we had before but that's all it is. I don't want to hear about your wonderful, perfect life and you can't take the stress of hearing about mine. But you should know that there is nothing, not even this, that you can do to make me not care about you let alone hate you."
John shook his head, his shoulders caving around his ears as he curled in on himself, pulling the grass from the earth. "You and your stupid goodbyes. So, what, we just avoid each other? Pretend we don't know each other? Just.. off the radar, never to be seen from or heard of again? I can't do that."
"Nor can I." Sherlock somehow found the strength to stand, his legs still shuddering under his weight as his balance slowly returned. "You can text me," he said. "You can call if you want. We can play Words With Friends or whatever other time-wasting games they come out with on our phones. Just... you don't talk about your life and I don't talk about mine. Things can go back to the way they had been before now: blissful ignorance."
John shook his head, a tear dripping off his nose to his ground. No Eden was ever saved by a blind eye. Even feigning ignorance, it didn't change the fact that they were naked. He took a deep breath, raising his face to see an outstretched hand offering help up off the ground. "So what do we talk about then?" he asked, slipping his palm against his palm.
Sherlock closed his fingers around his hand and stood sturdy as he rose. "The past."