stalking deer with the (earhat) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-03-08 20:59:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | door: sherlock, john watson, sherlock holmes |
Who: Sherlock and John
What: Resolving absolutely nothing.
Where: 221 Baker Street, Sherlock door
When: Right after Part 1
Warnings/Rating: No warnings.
Now alone in the living room of 221B, Sherlock found himself at the mercy of his own observations. There was such a kaleidoscope of changes in the room that it was absolutely impossible to concentrate on the Moriarty problem without being distracted. Bits and bobs that used to be over here were now over there. The state of the laptop said John hadn’t been blogging, though Sherlock already knew that, because he’d been watching his website for signs of activity. The number of dishes implied Mrs. Hudson hadn’t been up for her usual tidying in some time. Signs that John hardly ever left the flat were thick on the floor and furniture. Sherlock recognized the wet soil of the cemetery on the floor just after the stairway, and even in looking away he closed his eyes against all the details that hammered in for attention.
He pushed open the door to the kitchen a minute later. “...John?”
John had heard the sounds filtering through the door of quiet conversation and the echo of footsteps leaving - first Mycroft with a tread that was flat, masculine, and punctuated at times with the tap of the umbrella tip, and then Irene, sharp strikes of towering heels that faded as they descended the stairs. Their departure hadn’t drawn him out of the kitchen, or even prompted him to move from the counter, and when Sherlock pushed his way in, John was still standing with head hanging down loose between tense, braced arms. His eyes were closed as well, shutting out everything other than the always-familiar low voice. There was exhaustion, easily read, in the lines of his back and shoulders, as well as in the quiet sigh that slipped out into the renewed near-silence of the flat.
“I’m not entirely certain that I’m not having some sort of... episode.” It wasn’t something he would have admitted with Irene or (most especially) Mycroft still in the flat, but this was Sherlock. Or at least his mind’s hallucination of Sherlock. “...Just as a warning.”
"An episode," Sherlock repeated, looking quizzical. He moved all the way into the kitchen, leaving the sitting room behind and letting the surge of new observations pass through him before he focused again on the conversation. "I don't think my face would have damaged your knuckles if I was a hallucination, John." Sherlock slowly circulated the edge of the room, hands loose at his sides, his voice moving in that awkward quick-slow pattern he used when he was not sure what to say. He noticed John had turned the stove on, but the coils were heating nothing but empty air. Sherlock spared a thought to wonder what had happened to the electric kettle before he moved brusquely to John's side and moved the kettle onto the right burner. "You were never prone to episodes before."
He heard Sherlock moving around the kitchen, setting the old-fashioned kettle on the stovetop to boil (its electric cousin broken against the wall during a rather embarrassing private outburst shortly after Sherlock’s death), but he still refused to open his eyes or look over. “I could have punched a wall. The desk. If I am having some sort of break, my mind would justify it.” The tension slowly began to ease from his arms, if for no other reason than he was too exhausted to hold it any longer. “And everyone has their breaking point. I’m sure my doctor wouldn’t be entirely surprised if I did go completely round the bend.” He could feel Sherlock near his side though, hints of movement and the warmth of another human body in the space. The emotional side of him wanted to believe that all the strangeness was true; even if it did come with an annoying American girl as a host most of the time, it also came with the return of a friend. But the clinical side of him insisted that human mind was capable of inventing incredible things in order to cushion itself, and the sort of story he now found himself living seemed like a very good cushion indeed. He finally opened his eyes and turned his head just enough to look at Sherlock, too much in his eyes to read.
Sherlock was facing him, one hip against the counter, his head slightly skew, displaying one reddening cheekbone and an expression of mingled contemplation and hesitation, the kind he wore before he was about to make a wide guess about something. “You’re still upset about this.” Yes, a real shot in the dark, it was. “I expected that time would make it easier.” Sherlock shifted uncomfortably, twitching the fingers of his left hand, as if tapping on some invisible surface, impatient for these murky waters to be behind him. “That’s what everyone says,” he added, and then, obviously mimicking ‘everyone’: “time heals.” Sherlock lifted his fingers to prod at his cheek, like a child with a loose tooth. “...You’re not broken.”
“...So says the possible hallucination standing in my kitchen.” John shifted his weight forward to rest hips against the counter, hands coming up to rub over his face. His next words snuck out from between fingers that had so recently held traces of damp from a simple headstone, the scent of cemetery air still clinging to him. “I watched you jump off a building, Sherlock. I saw you--” His words wavered and he caught them behind clenched teeth, looking up and away, as if the answers were somehow lingering in the corner near the ceiling. The line of his jaw was tense and the breath he pulled through his nose was sharp and shaky. When he’d finally wrestled for control, he continued, words clipped and flat. “I don’t appreciate watching friends die under my hands.” It was a statement born of more than one experience, too revealing in its honesty. He’d taken so long fighting for control over his own emotions that the kettle was already wailing, and he removed it from the burner with a stiff efficiency, again refusing to look at Sherlock.
“You are not hallucinating.” Sherlock watched the struggle on John’s face without apparent understanding. He didn’t look lost, but neither did he look sympathetic. He just stood there and watched John’s face move, the slight crease of his brows betraying the effort he was putting into this conversation, at least equal to what he’d put into contemplating Moriarty’s next move. “I know. But it was necessary. You didn’t do what I asked.” The criticism was not veiled, not contemplated, just a march of words after other words. “If you’d done more to denounce me, we’d be better off right now.” He meant safer, but it was a nuance that he didn’t think to clarify.
"Necessary." The word came out as a statement, still flat and clipped as he pressed fingers above one eyebrow to try to ease the ache that had begun to set in the second he'd crossed the threshold from the street into the building. It didn't help. His voice began to gain an edge again, a tremor that bled into increased volume. "No. You do not get to blame this - any of this - on me. I was here. I was willing to help. Not denounce you because you were my friend, Sherlock. And you just... went off on your own! And it ended up with you on the sidewalk! And that’s not- no!” John was well aware that barely any of that had made sense, and that he was shouting again, but the things that he’d been saying to himself for months finally had an outlet.
Sherlock tipped his chin back, taking a deep breath up through his nostrils, finding a sense of balance. “I should have known you would be stubborn about it.” He saw the signs that John was going to start shouting incoherently again and seemed to lose the balance he’d managed to acquire. “You can’t help. You couldn’t help me. Being on my own gets the job done.” Sherlock pushed away from the counter and paced away from the stove. “You will insist on making this difficult!”
It was a struggle for John to bring his voice back down, and disbelief was evident across his features. “I’m not making it anything. It is difficult.” For a moment, it appeared as if he would say something more, likely another shouted rant, but he reigned in the words and turned away. Making sure the burner was off first, he stepped away from the stove and returned to the sitting room. He found his coat on one of the chairs where he’d dropped it, and began pulling it on again with stiff, almost jerky motions.
Sherlock wasn’t struggling at all, but then again, Sherlock wasn’t as good at pretending as most people. Right now he wasn’t even trying. He rounded the center of the room, dodging familiar chairs and the table, and blocked John’s exit in front of the coffee table, blue eyes keen, head turned slightly to the side as if he was hearing something very far away. “You shouldn’t wander right now.” Sherlock knew that Moriarty, the man, was gone. He could not be absolutely convinced that he wasn’t coming back--the doors were an unknown factor, and though he and Irene hadn’t been dead when they arrived here, that didn’t mean it was impossible. Even if Moriarty was gone, Sherlock had not yet managed to successfully find the man behind his operations; not in the Middle East and not here in London. Being alive was dangerous to those he cared about, but it was too late. The door had dropped him here, in the center of London, and it was too late to avoid sightings now.
John came to a sudden stop as Sherlock stepped in front of him, looking up with a sigh and rolled eyes. “Get out of my way, Sherlock. I don’t plan on wandering, I plan on leaving. I have-” He checked his watch. “-an hour and a half left in London.” He stepped to the side, angling himself around the slender form in his way. “And I can’t spend it here.” He opened the door and began heading back down the steps. “I’ll leave you alone in the flat to... get your job done.”
Sherlock stood in the doorway, shifted back and forth on his patent leather shoes, and then lifted his head to call after, “Don’t tell anyone I’m here, John.” The man was nearly gone. “John!” Sherlock let out a frustrated breath, and then in a frantic chorus of movement, hunched his shoulders, ground his back teeth together, and shook his arms out. Right. He turned to face the room, and then took a determined step back toward the desk. He had to get that phone working... had to be around if Moriarty came back, because if Moriarty didn’t have anyone to play with, things wouldn’t go well for John, or any of them.