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Sherlock Holmes. (theconsultant) wrote in thedoorway,
@ 2012-12-09 11:43:00

Entry tags:

!log, john watson (bbc), sherlock holmes (bbc)

Who: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson (BBC)
When: Sunday morning
Where: Ground floor of Potts Tower
What: Coffee. Coffee is necessary.
Rating: Low, but possibly with discussions of suicide

The very superficially sufficient explanation Sherlock had been given regarding why precisely he'd just turned up in New York City bothered him somewhat less than he knew it ought to. It put a pretty large hole in his (well, not just his) understanding of the laws of physics, the integrity of which was of course necessary for every deduction he ever drew, as well as other smallish things like cell phones functioning (which his seemed to do), lungs operating appropriately (also check) and buildings keeping upright. The fact that being whisked off to another continent instantaneously appeared to have been a one-off anomaly - optics, gravity, and everything else seemed to be functioning pretty much as he knew it should - recommended setting aside, for the moment, the fact that something that should have been impossible had just undeniably inserted itself into his life. It was annoying, but all the evidence pointed to the world otherwise turning as it should, and getting hung up on one unexplained detail while trying to structure a solution was unproductive. There was an answer, because there always was. But nothing he could see just now allowed him to get at it, and as it hadn't otherwise impaired his ability to think, he would come back to it when - if - the time came.

Moving on to more immediately important matters, his first stop in the large tower complex he would apparently be calling home was the coffee shop on the ground floor. He needed a little fuel and - rare, strange feeling - needed to stall a bit. He'd been told whom he could expect to meet here, and both of them, unless he was very much mistaken, were still laboring under the impression that he was dead. He would have to disabuse them of the notion, probably today, and much to his annoyance he'd realized he didn't have a satisfactory plan. He knew, even if he was considering pretending not to, that it was a delicate matter. He wasn't looking forward to breaking the news. Even though he had absolute confidence in the necessity of his actions, he was very much aware that John and Lestrade - particularly John - sometimes didn't see eye to eye with him when it came to what was necessary. His current plan, allowing himself to sit with a cup of coffee and attempt to construct an iron-clad explanation, wasn't likely to produce anything actually useful; he lacked the data necessary to decide how his friends were likely to react. But ... well, he was dreading the confrontation, and at the moment he was prepared to take any possible excuse to kill some time.

But even that non-plan was thwarted before it really got off the ground - he'd only just turned from the cashier with his very large cup of coffee when he caught sight of John, and his urge to stall, to waffle, to duck round the corner and hide a minute became too ridiculous not to nip in the bud. He forced himself to stride calmly, purposefully up to him, hailing him when he was a few paces back: "Ah - John. There you are."

And then he paused to take a long and tactically considered sip of his coffee - stalling with his cup to his lips as his rather lame greeting hung in the air, vastly uncomfortable to have to rely on the dull hope that inspiration would strike, and considering it a pretty ill omen that he was at the moment quite painfully burning his tongue.

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doctor_watson
2012-12-09 11:35 pm UTC (link)

Though the last night had certainly been entertaining out with Stephen (other than when he started harassing poor Bertie Wooste, but he'd managed to handle the situation before they were kicked out of yet another place), it didn't negate the fact that he felt like shit this morning and needed to start focusing if he was going to help Sherlock with the suicides that weren't suicides. He really didn't want to think about why something like that would be happening here, if it was in fact a different version of the crime- he was just happy that it was something he could do to help Sherlock out and not let it get as potentially serious as it was last time, and save some other lives as well. To be honest, he was feeling good about his life here in New York, despite the hangover . . . which was minor enough that he felt it could certainly be helped with a cup of coffee.

And so, John found himself in the coffee shop on the ground floor of Potts Tower, laptop in hand to talk with Sherlock about all the details of the "Study in Pink" case . . . and staring directly at the person he'd experienced it with firsthand, the one that he'd been secretly wishing would show up here once he learned that more more than one person from a world could be thrown here, and not necessarily at the same point. That there were even some who had been taken the moment before their deaths. And he'd seen him die, had checked his pulse and seen the pools of blood on the sidewalk (and continued to see- the nightmares had been much better since he'd been here, but there had still been a few bad nights), but so had others, right? He had no bloody clue how it all worked, and didn't care about that at all when Sherlock called him by name. Definitely him, then. Not someone like Martin with the same face but an entirely different self.

He might have mumbled something along the lines of "Oh God" or "I'm so sorry," but he really wasn't aware of it. John just knew that closing the space between him and Sherlock was the most important thing in the world at the moment, and then John was hugging him and trying to let himself get any more emotional than he already was.

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theconsultant
2012-12-10 12:16 am UTC (link)

Sherlock pulled the coffee quickly away from his mouth and held it out to the side as John attached himself to him, the better to keep it from slopping over onto his friend. He was surprised - of course he was, because it wasn't every day John Watson threw his arms around one without then proceeding to try to take one to the ground - but more than that, he just felt his dread thickening into something almost like guilt. It sunk into his stomach and took the edge right off his craving for caffeine. If he'd been considering pretending not to know why John was so affected to see him, that half-formed idea went out the window at once. There were certain things that just felt a little too ... low. He couldn't scrape himself up to it, not with John.

"All right - all right," he muttered, gripping John's shoulder with his free hand - not exactly trying to pry him off, but just to ground him. "I know. It's good to see you." And really, he told himself, this was as good as it was ever going to be - he would have had to have done this eventually, one way or another. A place like this would have to soften the blow a little, playing as it did with what was impossible and what wasn't.

Drawing back just enough to be able to tuck his chin to his chest and look down at John, Sherlock tried a stiff, not entirely confident smile. "You came for coffee, didn't you? And - to work." Laptop. Interesting. But they could discuss that later. "Come on, let's - sit. Here." He gestured - carefully - with his full cup to the adjacent table. This was almost certainly a discussion that would go better with a table between them. He was glad to see John; he'd found himself missing him more than he expected to do, given he'd only been away so far for about a week. But the knowledge that everyone thought he was gone made the separation weigh more heavily on him than it would have ordinarily. He could tell himself it was because of the inconvenience of having to live so cautiously undercover, but the truth of it was that the way John had sounded during that final phone call had never quite left him. Even now, he wasn't sure he wanted the other man to speak; given how tightly he was holding on, Sherlock imagined he'd sound roughly the same.

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doctor_watson
2012-12-10 06:52 am UTC (link)

"Yeah, yeah that's fine," John said, his voice close to cracking. He must look a right mess, he realized. Grinning and closer to crying than he'd like to admit. Letting go of Sherlock, he sat down across from him, already slightly embarrassed at his reaction. He supposed that even if Sherlock didn't know about his suicide, it would have been fairly easy to figure out that he'd been here for a while and didn't know if he'd ever see him again . . . which was also true. It was a bit hard to feel that his actions were unjustified, though, when he felt this . . . light. Because he had the second chance he'd wanted, to not let his friend down where he'd failed him before . . .to just have his best friend back. And all the little doubts he'd started having over the past few weeks about himself, about letting Sherlock down, about whether he really should feel so intensely about this without it bordering on unhealthy, about who he really was without Sherlock Holmes in his life . . .were as insignificant as dust floating through the air.

Now just where to begin with everything. John actually laughed at the feeling of having as much time with Sherlock as he wanted now. Completely impossible... five minutes ago? Maybe best to get the more serious things out of the way first, though. He calmed himself down as much as he could in a few seconds.

"When was it back home, before you were pulled through?"

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theconsultant
2012-12-10 08:13 pm UTC (link)

Not usually one to find others' emotions particularly infectious, Sherlock was always caught off guard when someone's face or gestures or the sound of their voice touched something in his brain that made him sympathize - sympathize in every sense of the word, involuntarily mirroring them as well as feeling what he supposed to be the driving emotion. It was happening now; he couldn't help smiling, try as he might to stamp it out (which gave him a twisted, not terribly dignified expression). Seeing John this unabashedly happy - and about him, of all the ridiculous things - made it impossible not to feel at least a shadow of the same thing. He knew it was probably based in wishful thinking as much as anything else, because of course he'd never even thought to hope for a reunion this purely positive.

And he wasn't going to get one, he reminded himself. As nice as this felt, as tempting as it was to lie and prolong it, he really, really couldn't. He sat, the unbidden smile flattening out into something a bit less sincere as he set his cup of coffee before him and wrapped his fingers around it almost defensively. His eyes kept flickering back over to John's face, almost as though he were trying to prove to himself that he shouldn't feel guilty, because look how pleased he was - but naturally it couldn't work. His toe was tapping quietly under the table. "It was, ah - about a week," Sherlock said, dawdling as though he didn't know perfectly well how many days it had been. "About a week since I last saw you. The twenty-fourth, I believe. Of June." And that would start putting paid to the festive atmosphere, wouldn't it?

"I don't suppose I need to ask you," he rushed on, unwilling to allow for very much silence and all the opportunities it brought for unpleasantness. "That is, I don't know precisely, but I suppose you arrived some time after I - after you saw me - well." Jump; no need to say it; move on. "But that was all a bit more complicated than it may have seemed, I'm afraid." He cleared his throat. "Obviously." He was sure he'd never in his life given such a scattered pseudo-explanation. Frustrated, he peeled the lid off his cup, wondering how much of it he was going to need to lay out - how much John had worked out on his own. He couldn't tell by his friend's face, because he sure as hell wasn't look at him now.

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doctor_watson
2012-12-11 07:11 am UTC (link)

John wished Sherlock would look at him, because none of this seemed good. His restlessness, his incoherent sentences, his fluctuating emotions did nothing to ease John about what he was saying- that he came a week after John saw him die. The exhilaration he'd felt a moment lingered in its effects, but his mind was switching over to worried.

He reached out for Sherlock's wrist without really thinking too much into it, just wanting to reassure himself that this seemingly animate person in front of him was really and truly alive. He grabbed the side fiddling with the coffee lid and pressed his middle and pointer fingers over his radial. Definitely a pulse, and a fast one. Definitely alive.

"That wasn't there." He stared down at their hands. "When I got there. You-" He stopped talking, a trace of panic slipping in that he'd actually gone mad. And if that was the case, who was to say that talking about the details wouldn't make them come true again? John kept his fingers on Sherlock's wrist. Still there.

If he really was here and alive, then how? If he was dead back home, and his spirit or whatever else had lingered, could he have been given a new body when transported here? He knew some of the people here definitely weren't human where they came from, it couldn't be too far of a stretch. Or had he actually survived the fall? And if that was the case, why didn't he know about it a week after?

He tried to meet Sherlock's eye. "Are you alright? What happened?"

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theconsultant
2012-12-12 04:09 am UTC (link)

Sherlock's arm froze under John's fingers; but after a second he let his hand fall, his wrist turning open to the ceiling. That had been one of those little details, one of the minutiae he'd considered and solved and set aside as a matter of course - and even in the moment when John's hand had closed around his wrist, he hadn't found it all that difficult to lie still. To keep his arm positioned just so. Not nearly as hard as it should have been.

"It was there," he corrected him, bringing his coffee up again to take a tentative sip. "I just didn't let you feel it. Simple, really." It had been. It had all been simple - and part of him felt as though he'd been shouting it literally from the rooftops, that everyone, that John especially, should have been able to put two and two together. But that was stupid, self-serving; he'd counted on him not doing so, of course. The entire plan had hinged to some degree on John believing his eyes even if he was too stubborn, too good to believe what he was told. Sherlock glanced up at him now, from behind the safety of his paper cup, and thought, not without some irony, that just jumping straight in might be the best way to go about things. Off you pop.

"When you left," he began, before stopping himself - better not to pass too glibly over the circumstances. "When I sent you away from Barts, I met Moriarty. He was there. You know the game he was playing - Richard Brook." He started to wave his hand, a dismissive gesture, but stopped. "The storyteller. He knew the ending he wanted; he had to cap off his performance with something appropriately sensational. So he met me on the rooftop." Now that he knew what he had to say, it was coming almost easily. He knew his words were coming out too smoothly, too flat and hard, but these were the facts, and those he was comfortable with, at least in the short term. It was almost comforting, following the cause and effect to the next inevitable step, just like tracing a pattern over which he had no real control - even if, at the end, he would only find himself back in the foundering realm of ... apology. "I had to give him his ending. I had to kill myself, or he'd have escalated. He'd have had you killed. I had to make it look good, and I did. I did." He was holding John's eyes now with a little of his usual intensity, almost hopeful. He pursed his lips. "But I never hit the ground, John. I didn't die. I'm sorry if -" No, no if. Better without the if. "I'm sorry you had to see it, but if you hadn't believed it, they wouldn't have. It had to be convincing." And it sounded good to him - convincing, indeed. Almost good enough.

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doctor_watson
2013-01-11 03:56 am UTC (link)

"Oh," seemed to be the only thing John was capable of saying at the moment. He released Sherlock's hand to bring his own to his face.

"Now why didn't I think of that. Obvious, really." John could feel how flat his voice sounded, but trying to pretend nothing was wrong was a far better alternative at the moment than giving in to the confused and increasingly hurt mess on the inside. He knew Sherlock perhaps better than anyone else (well, he thought he did before), and he knew how the man worked. Sherlock was detached from his emotions as a general rule, but to hear him talk about an event that had absolutely devastated John in such a matter-of-fact manner made him feel embarrassed about the way he'd acted. Not just a minute ago, when he might possibly have been the happiest he'd been in memory (and the acknowledgment of that was only furthering how uncomfortable he felt in his skin), but everything since he'd thought Sherlock dead. The way he'd acted here only a short time ago with Stephen and the other Sherlock on the network would be easily accessible.

John sighed and rubbed his hand over his eyes. More than anything, he'd just wanted to think that Sherlock cared about him in the same way he did, and as bloody sentimental as that sounded, he’d learned that he didn’t care about lying to himself anymore. Even on John's worst days, when he'd go over the ways he could have prevented Sherlock from killing himself, he'd selfishly hang on to the hope that it wasn't his actions that had quite literally pushed him over the edge. But now, even with Sherlock mentioning that his jump had partially been on John’s behalf, it all still seemed like he was just talking another past case, cut and dry and put to rest.

He realized that he’d been staring at the table for an awkward length of time, and snapped his eyes back to Sherlock’s. “It really was good, convincing. From what I saw.” John pulled out his phone as if to check the time, but he really couldn’t stand looking at Sherlock’s face any longer.

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theconsultant
2013-01-15 10:16 pm UTC (link)

Sherlock's mouth set into a tense line as the silence extended. He'd forced himself to stop fidgeting, but that determination was only translating into strain, his hand too tight around his coffee cup, his toes curled oddly in his shoes. He hadn't known what to expect when he'd settled on this plan, but he'd thought, somehow, that once he came clean he'd find out - but now there was just more waiting, more uncertainty, and when John finally spoke it was ... Well, it wasn't anything. Calm. Closed. And even if Sherlock was no master of reading emotional responses that weren't fear or some other indicator of a lie, he knew John well enough to understand it wasn't good.

"It wasn't obvious," he replied, something defensive stealing into his voice before he could stop himself. "That was the point." His heel was tapping against the floor again. "I didn't -" He paused a moment, frustrated, to make himself try to wrap his head around it, rather than just his nerves. He had lied and he had caused John a lot of grief; those, he had no doubt, were the things causing this response. He spent a few moments trying to do something useful with that information before plowing ahead little better off. "I didn't want to upset you. I knew it would. I am sorry."

And a little lost, now that John wasn't looking at him. An apology was unfamiliar enough to him that he wasn't even sure where to direct it when it wasn't being heeded. He faltered, not entirely sure what that meant. "And I was going to - that is, I would have explained. When it was safe. Now, of course, it doesn't matter, now we're here and it's over, but when I could, I was going to ..." It was a strange reversal, to be the one talking at somebody who appeared to be pretty absorbed in his electronic device. "I didn't want to make you unhappy." Of course, it didn't take anyone as ruthlessly practical as Sherlock to know how much good that did anyone.

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