What would John do?
Nov. 17th, 2011 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solrosanNotes: This is Damn it Harry! seen from Sherlock POV. I would recommend reading Damn it Harry! first since the explanations might be better there.
Summary: After Harry's sudden death Sherlock does his best to comfort John even though he feels he has no idea how to do it.
-x-
Finally something had come along to distract him from the fact that Moriarty was still running around in the world. To be honest, Sherlock had started to miss him; that was also something he needed to be distracted from. People could say whatever they wanted, but Moriarty was never boring. Still, Sherlock knew it was wrong to miss him.
Now this crime scene!
London had a new serial killer – yes, yes, John had told him it was a bad thing – who seemed to have a taste for American backpackers living at a specific hostel in Paddington. That really narrowed down the victim pool and one could think it would do the same with the suspect pool…but it didn’t! And that’s why it was so great!
Or bad.
Whatever.
The victim had been strangled with some type of noose – probably a belt just like the rest – and left three blocks away from the hostel. Nothing seemed to be removed from the body, but the watch was still on…let’s see, it was 16:28 GMT, so the watch was set on CST. Not been here very long, then. Was that important? Probably not, hard to tell and…What was that?
Annoyed he looked up at the sound of a ringing phone. John’s phone.
”John! Answer your phone!” he growled, “I can’t think with that – what on earth is that? It sounds like a child telly show! You’re supposed to be a grown man, use a proper ringtone.”
Sherlock saw John’s slightly amused smile and frowned. No respect, whatsoever. At least he left and Sherlock could turn back to the corpse, crouching by its side.
“At least use gloves,” Lestrade pleaded and held out a pair of latex gloves.
“Not touching,” Sherlock pointed out.
“Please.”
Sherlock gave the DI a look but snatched the gloves anyway.
“I’m not going to be the one contaminating this scene, and you very well know it,” Sherlock informed but put the gloves on – and not just to humour Lestrade. Once he had them on he traced the bruising around the victim’s neck; nothing extraordinary but he was quite sure he felt the marks of the belt-buckle. And there was a necklace, crucifix – motive? No.
“Well?”
“Don’t rush me,” Sherlock said, standing up and tossing the gloves to Anderson’s as he pulled them off, “You do want this out of the tourist brochures, right?”
“Personally I wouldn’t shed that many tears if the number of tourists decreases some, but I know a lot of other people who would find it tragic,” Lestrade admitted, “Well?”
Sherlock sighed, “So far I mostly have the information you can get from the passport I presume you have, or can get; he’s in his early twenties, from the south or central US, Christian – I’d guess catholic – obviously not a robbery. Strangled in the same way as the previous ones and I can’t see anything missing so far. The women were from North Carolina and Colorado, right?”
“Right.”
“Why Americans?” Sherlock shook his head, not actually addressing Lestrade, “Not even Mycroft is upset about the tea anymore.”
“Well, we’re in a war with them right now,” the DI said in an attempt to fast forward some in the history.
“Yes with them, not against them and if his discriminating factor is war alliances he’d been killing off most of our tourists.”
“Anything else?” Lestrade sighed.
“Obviously there’s something else,” Sherlock snorted, “I just don’t know what yet because I’m constantly interrupted, but make sure to check the transfers and I’d like to have a copy of the toxicology report.”
“You do remember we don’t work for you?” Lestrade wondered.
“But you do, I pay taxes.” Sherlock smirked – it became a bit wider when he saw the glare Lestrade gave him. This case became better and better by the minute. He turned around to see where John was off to. “John!”
Right.
Childish ringtone – he would change that for him as soon as they got home. While pondering what tune to choose Sherlock scanned the area to see where John had disappeared. As soon as he found his blogger he realised that something was wrong; the phone call was over but John hadn’t come back to the crime scene. Instead he was leaning against the wall and staring into space.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade tried to sound authoritarian as Sherlock left the scene and ducked under the yellow tape. It sounded more weary though.
An unsettling feeling spread from Sherlock’s gut as he approached John, something was most defiantly wrong; John looked devastated. Almost lobotomized in his blank stare. What had happened? He had been gone for five minutes, at most! The phone call, of course, but who had called him? What news had managed to break him?
Sherlock had been around messy crime scenes often enough to recognise shock and paralysing grief when he saw it, even if he mostly found it disturbing. Seeing it written all over John was tremendously troubling; John had lost something, a someone most likely.
“John?” Sherlock said in a low voice, strategically placing himself to hide John from the people at the crime scene. It always made John uncomfortable when people saw him during weak moments. Sherlock knew that from the times when the PTSD grabbed a hold of him and he didn’t want to add discomfort to the grief that almost made John slide down the wall. “What’s happened?”
“Please stop….” John asked, voice hoarse with tears, shaking his head and looking away from him, “Go back to Lestrade….”
Sherlock looked at him for a while; torn between a will to figure out what had happened so he could fix it and his wish to obey John’s request. If he didn’t want him around during nightmares and other episodes, this was probably worse. John wanted to, needed to, be alone. Sherlock should let him.
For now.
Without a word he turned around and walked back to Lestrade, who, apparently, had done nothing in the meantime.
“What’s happening?” Lestrade wondered like an echo of Sherlock’s own question and Sherlock had to look back at his friend.
“I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted, “Let’s wrap this up.”
“It’s you we’re waiting for,” Lestrade sighed, but Sherlock had tuned out already.
It took some time, and a real effort, to refocus but he managed and when they had turned the body for him he could see that the young man’s shoelaces had been tied by two different people. It was impossible to tell which one the victim had tied himself and which had been re-tied by the killer – or if either of them were tied by the victim.
Why?
“Remove his shoes,” Sherlock ordered Donovan who happened to pass by, but she just handed him a fresh pair of gloves accompanied with a ‘you-must-be-kidding-me’-look. Sherlock gave her an unimpressed smile but got down to it.
“What are you doing?” Lestrade wanted to know.
“Schy!” Sherlock waved him off and placed the shoes carefully by the side of the body. This…this was devastatingly interesting! Why had the killer bothered to put the shoe back on? Had the victim lost it during a chase? Had the killer done something to the foot? No, not that Sherlock could see. Maybe Molly could? He should pop by later, hear if she could let him examine it.
“Why bother to put the shoe back on?” Sherlock asked the crime scene, but no one answered. Of course they didn’t, only John did. John…. Sherlock looked over his shoulder, reminded of John’s phone call, and saw John squatting with his back against the wall and his hands hiding his face. Was he crying?
“The killer tied one of the victim’s shoes,” Sherlock told Lestrade as he got to his feet, “I have no idea why, I couldn’t get anything from the feet. I don’t even know if it’s important, but he did. The women, what type of shoes were they wearing?”
“Can’t remember,” Lestrade said. Sherlock snorted, but his eyes wandered off to John again. He needed to get him back to Baker Street.
“Send me the toxicology report and all of their travel logs,” Sherlock repeated as he started to walk away from the scene and when he lifted the yellow tape he turned to Lestrade again, “And ask the coroner to take a look at his feet. Preferably Ms Hooper.”
Lestrade didn’t call him back this time; he had probably seen John almost sitting on the pavement too.
As he walked over to John, Sherlock had the distinct feeling he had handled this poorly but he didn’t know exactly where and when it had gone wrong. Pondering this he stopped a foot away, just looking down at his hapless friend.
Right…just standing here would probably not make it better.
He got down next to John and reached hesitantly for his shoulder, pulling back as soon as John removed his hand from his face. Christ! John looked like a wreck. For a moment they just stared at each other, as deer caught headlights, none of them fully capable in the situation. It was strange, two otherwise so resourceful men both paralysed by feelings – one by grief and the other by unfamiliar insufficiency – until Sherlock realised he needed to be the one doing something.
Cab. Baker Street. Go.
To his surprise, John followed when he got up and stood swaying beside him as he flagged down a cab. Sherlock wanted to look, wanted to peer at John until he figured out what news had hurt him so, but he resisted, remembering that John didn’t wanted to be goggled at when he was upset.
Back at Baker Street, where John had more possibilities to hide than he’d had in the cab, Sherlock allowed himself to take a closer look. Unfortunately, the source of the grief was impossible to unravel by just looking. There was always guessing, but getting it wrong seemed as too big a risk to take. The situation was delicate and Sherlock knew he was miles away from his comfort zone. He had started to rely on John to tell him what to do (or rather what not to do) in these kinds of situations, but it was quite obvious that he was on his own today.
What would John do?
Tea.
John would make tea. It was a very interesting tic he had, almost a cliché. Like the Queen or the local pub. Well, the average adult Britt had almost four cups of tea a day. Wonder how many John had had already today, two? Maybe he wanted coffee instead? They had coffee. Did they have a coffee maker?
Sherlock had a box of ginger tea in his right hand – Pah…he hated that tea, it should be tossed! – and coffee in the left when he heard John’s voice from the sitting-room. He froze and, unknowingly, leaned a bit towards the sitting-room to listen in on what had to be a phone conversation.
“Can I speak to Dr Sage?”
John’s voice sounded very pressed but still professional. John Watson, the doctor. A trained role, a façade he was used to. Sherlock knew that version of John. It was the John who patched him up when he had got himself into trouble; the one that existed before John either started to scold him or became completely silent. Both secondary reactions meant the same thing Sherlock had come to understand – John cared about him and his risky behaviour upset him.
“Yes, hello…er…this is John Watson again.”
No doctor? He called a hospital but not as Dr Watson, this was personal. Well, Sherlock might have known that already but now it was confirmed beyond doubts. It was also quite clear to Sherlock that this Dr Sage was the one calling John earlier.
“Pretend I’m not her brother, pretend I’m her doctor.”
Harry.
Why hadn’t he figured that out?
Frustrated with himself Sherlock disposed of the ginger tea – maybe he should ask Mycroft to arrange a tea party in Boston, Lincolnshire – and took out fruit tea instead. What was wrong with just regular tea, John?
“Have you had time to do a tox-“ John’s voice broke off but Sherlock couldn’t tell if he was unable to continue or if he had been interrupted. He hoped for the latter, but that would indicate a rude person on the other end. John didn’t need that now.
He should really boil some water, it was crucial for the tea-making-process.
“Is it possible to….Can you have her sent to Bart’s? Ehm…. Preferably Molly Hooper. No she’s an assistant coroner; she’s a friend. Of-of mine…not of Harriet’s.”
Sherlock couldn’t help that he smiled briefly. They were just sending bodies to Molly from all over the place tonight. Involving Molly could just mean one thing though: Harry was dead. How unfortunate.
“No there’s no one else, our parents are dead.”
That was a lie! Not that they had any part in John’s life, but Sherlock knew for a fact they were still alive – he had tracked them down during a slow weekend.
Why did John lie? That wasn’t like him.
Baffled and confused Sherlock finished his tea-making (two cups, even though he had no intention of drinking his) which made him miss the last bits of the conversation. It probably wasn’t more than some thank-yous and some good-byes.
Making tea was meditative he had to admit. Maybe that was why John did it so often; to clear his head from all the things Sherlock constantly got them into? No, John enjoyed most of the things they got into. Not that he would admit to it if asked, but Sherlock knew.
At the same time as Sherlock picked up the mugs to bring them to the sitting-room John slowly entered the kitchen, phone still in hand, so instead Sherlock placed the mugs on the table. The table was cluttered with papers and books but Sherlock did a swift job clearing it. Throwing, piling, even a quick wipe with a dishcloth that smelled acceptable, because cleaning was a task he knew how to do (even if he rarely engaged in the activity). Looking at John right now made him insecure and he couldn’t stand that.
John sat down (maybe “fell” or “collapsed” would be more suitable verbs to describe the action) at the table; he let go off his phone and slowly wrapped his hands around one of the mugs. The green one, for some reason he had grown rather fond of that mug Sherlock had noticed and he made a mental note about that for later.
Sherlock peeked at the article at the top of the cleaned-away pile. A perspective of the binding change mechanism for ATP synthesis by PD Boyer, it was a classic – Sherlock liked this paper, a well-earned Nobel Prize if he had ever seen one. Would be nice to curl up in the corner of the sofa with the mug of tea he had made and re-read it. Even nicer to accompany the dead American tourist to Bart’s. He would settle on just getting John to not look as if he was falling apart.
He sat down at the opposite side of the table form John, mimicking his treatment of the tea mug. It was obvious by the short glance John gave him that he knew Sherlock knew what had happened.
Sherlock hopped John was fine with that.
The silence grew long; the only thing breaking it was the sporadic dripping from the sink tap. None of them touched their tea and while Sherlock forced himself to look at John – hopeful he’d see something to help him figure out what to do next – John just kept staring down the mug.
It was obvious he was supposed to do something, that John wanted him to do something, otherwise he would leave.
Sherlock wasn’t good at comforting people. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he knew how to and the last thing he wanted was to make a mistake and make everything worse. Still he had to do something because this, this didn’t work.
Tentatively, he reached across the table and gave John’s hand a light touch. Since they both had been gripping the tea mugs for a while, and their hands therefore had the same temperature, Sherlock could just barely feel the touch at all due to the calluses the violin playing had created on his fingertips. John must have felt it though, because as soon as their hands touched a sob went through John’s entire body. It was as instant as pressing a button and had it been someone else than John, Sherlock would have found that rather fascinating. Instead it generated a trembling breath as John let go of the mug and covered his face with his hands, his whole body shaking at every suppressed sob.
Why did he try to muffle the sounds? Was it a masculinity thing? Crying was a natural effect of grief; John shouldn’t feel ashamed by it. It was inherent response, even though it – to Sherlock’s present knowledge – wasn’t proven to have any positive effect.
John shouldn’t feel the need to hide it.
To prove this, and reacting to an impulse he didn’t know he had, Sherlock got up from the chair and went around the table. With none of his earlier hesitation, Sherlock placed an arm over John’s shoulders and pulled him into a hug.
John’s response was immediate and he wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist and cried into his shirt. Sherlock made sure to place both of his hands on John, one on his shoulder, one on his back; light enough for John to be able to withdraw whenever he wanted but still something for comfort or acceptance or whatever John needed it to be.
The time passed slowly as John shook under his hands, but Sherlock was afraid to move even the slightest. He got the distinct feeling that he was doing something right. John didn’t let got and his crying grew louder as Sherlock’s shirt became wetter. It was far from a perfect situation, but at least Sherlock felt a bit useful.
Sherlock forced his mind to wander – to think about the re-tied shoe, to list the electron configuration of the elements in the periodic table, to plan his limited time in the laboratory next week – because lingering in John’s sorrow and grief was overwhelming.
Twelve drops from the sink later – roughly 20 minutes Sherlock estimated – John ran out of tears, but obviously not of crying. It was a fascinating, but sad, fact that his body couldn’t produce enough tears to cover his sorrow. A prolonged cry could lead to hypoxia though, so maybe it was better to just have it ebb away?
When John’s grip around his waist loosened Sherlock let his hands slide away and he tilted his head to see if John felt better or worse now. It was impossible to tell; John’s eyes were red and puffy, there were tears and snot everywhere and, quite frankly, he looked like a complete mess. He looked tired and sad, like he had given up, but he didn’t look as tortured as before. Nor as restrained.
That must be a good thing, right?
“I’m going to bed,” John muttered after drying his eyes and blowing his nose in the paper towel Sherlock handed him and Sherlock couldn’t other than nod, reflecting over the fact that he hadn’t said a word since he left Lestrade at the crime scene.
Was that something he had done right or something he had done wrong?
It didn’t matter, John went to his bedroom and left Sherlock alone in the kitchen with his soaked shirt. The cleaner would probably be able to do something about that Sherlock thought as he removed it and hung it over the chair where John had sat. Not that it mattered, he had more shirts.
After fetching his robe (he found it under the desk) he re-heated his tea and brought it back to the sofa along with John’s phone. To be able to help John – and he had to help John – he needed more information. What better way to get that than calling Dr Sage again?
-x-
New tip. Lift. Fill. Empty. Dispose tip.
Repeat.
New tip. Lift. Fill. Empty. Dispose tip.
Repeat.
Pipetting also had something meditative about it and Sherlock did this forty times now. Mechanical. Muscle memory. Only brain work necessary was to adjust the settings in the beginning and remember which well to put the content in. Maybe keep in mind to change the tip too. A trained monkey could do it.
It was not a completely unnecessary test he was conducting, but there were far more interesting things to do. Like going to the crime scene Lestrade had wanted him to see. There had been another murder. Sherlock would lie if he said he didn’t want to be there, but he was here, at Bart’s, pipetting; mindlessly repeating the same motion over and over again while John was downstairs in the morgue.
His phone buzzed.
Lestrade was sending him crime scene pictures, that man was such a tease! Well, Sherlock had asked him to send pictures when he finally had answered the DI’s calls to make him stop calling. It was very hard not to go there, but he knew he needed to be here for John and so did Lestrade. Therefore, pictures came buzzing with an uneven frequency.
Would he be able to stay if he allowed himself to look at them?
Lestrade would probably not photograph the right things anyway. There would be more murders; he’d get the chance to catch up. John would most likely find that thought disturbing. Maybe not at the moment.
Better not try to find out.
“Knock, knock,” Molly said as she opened the door and actually knocked twice on the door. How very redundant.
“Where is John?” Sherlock wondered as he disposed of a tip.
“Downstairs,” Molly informed, she looked sad. Why was she sad? Because Harry was dead? Because a woman she had never met was dead? Her empathy was remarkable! Unpractical, but remarkable.
“Have you examined the body?”
“John’s sister?” Molly looked quite shocked and Sherlock felt a bit confused.
“No, the American.”
“Oh…. Right.” Molly walked over to him and took a notepad from her lab coat, “Not much, had just released the report when, well, John’s sister came. Checked the reports on the women though, to see if there were any similarities….On the feet I mean.”
God she talked a lot.
“On the first one there was nothing noted, but both the second one and the man you sent me had fallen arches. That can’t be relevant, can it?”
“No, it probably isn’t,” Sherlock shook his head and looked at his phone which buzzed again, “Thank you anyway.”
“Are you done soon?” Molly wanted to know.
Odd, she never asked him things like that. Why this time?
Oh. John.
Sherlock looked at the test he had started. He needed to fill up five more wells, incubate it half an hour and then repeat everything again. It had taken time to get to this point and the process had been tedious, aborting now would make it a complete waste of time.
John was alone downstairs with his dead sister and Lestrade was sending crime scene photos to his phone. The wasted time was a very low priority.
“I’m done now,” he decided and handed her the tray of wells, “Can you dispose of this while I wipe down the table top. It’s just ovalbumin and gliadin diluted with PBS.”
She obeyed in her usual manner as Sherlock made sure he’d corked every bottle and then he wiped the table top with disinfection solution.
“He looked so lost,” Molly said when they walked down to the morgue. She was not very good with silences, no, “Can’t imagine what I would do if one of my sisters died like that. Brothers and sisters you know; you love them and you hate them and you love them all at once.”
Sherlock made a point out of not answering; would be insane to encourage her chattering. Did she have a point though, about sibling relationships? John had specifically told him that he and Harry never had got along, but could he still love her? Obviously her death affected him a lot, so he did still care for her in some way.
“Want some more time?” Molly wondered as she knocked on the door to the morgue. Why did she knock if she had already opened the door?
“No it’s hrm…. It’s okay.” John answered from inside and as their eyes met, Sherlock felt a strange relief when he saw the gratitude in John’s. He had made the right decision, both when he had declined coming to the crime scene and when he had abandoned the test upstairs.
He was almost getting good at this!
-x-
Sherlock sat next to John on the sofa, pretending to read Caenorhabditis elegans: the cell lineage and beyond by JE Sulston while John zapped through the channels for the fourth time without finding anything he deemed worthy his time. From time to time Sherlock gave him concerned looks from the corner of his eye; John didn’t seem interested in anything anymore and it worried him.
Every time he had glanced at John, his eyes wandered over to the mantle where John had placed Harry’s ashes next to the skull. She had been there for three weeks now. Three weeks, next to the skull. Even though they had joked about it, Sherlock found it morbid. Sure, he had the skull and sure, he called the skull his friend, but he had bought it like that, he had never known the actually person.
This could not be healthy!
Sherlock just didn’t know what to do to help John anymore. It was obvious that he wasn’t the right person for this, at all, and he was painfully aware of his shortcomings. It was very stressful to not be able to do anything to ease John’s pain, but at least he had managed to get him call Clara. Clara could probably be of better help, all Sherlock did was to make tea and make sure there was food in the flat (Mrs Hudson reminded him from time to time). Clara was probably the reason they were going to have a burial tomorrow.
Maybe that was why John kept changing channels?
The tourist case was over and Sherlock and Lestrade had come to the agreement that the DI was to keep all further temptation from Sherlock for the time being. Disappointingly, they had never got an answer about the shoes – not that Lestrade cared. It had ended with suicide-by-cop. Sherlock hated when that happened.
They both jumped when Sherlock’s phone rang.
“I have to take this,” Sherlock excused himself when he saw the name on the screen. John looked back at the telly and nodded with the same amount of lacking interest as he watched the commercial about juice.
It hurt Sherlock to see, but he didn’t have time to ponder the subject for long since the phone was still ringing.
“Thank you for calling me back,” he used as a greeting when he closed the bedroom door behind him.
“Of course,” Mycroft answered, “Sorry it took so long, there was a…well, I guess you don’t really care.”
“No, I really don’t,” Sherlock said as he sank down on the edge of his bed, feeling a strange knot forming in his stomach.
“So, what’s the occasion?” Mycroft wondered and Sherlock was sure he detected a trace of worry in the voice. Not completely groundless Sherlock had to admit; the times he had called his brother without being in trouble these last years were few.
“I….” Sherlock tried but was unable to say what he had planned. He had actually no idea what he had intended to say anymore and he was fairly sure it wasn’t because it had taken his brother seven hours to call him back. It was just…something. These last three weeks had been…. He was so tired and he felt so helpless and terrible.
All he wanted was for John to be all right but he saw how the guilt almost suffocated him. For the life of him, Sherlock couldn’t see why John blamed himself so. He just couldn’t see it, probably because he didn’t care the way John did.
Not even the way Mycroft did.
“Yes?” Mycroft prompted.
“I’m all right,” he said in a low, slightly trembling voice that he wasn’t sure would be audible on Mycroft’s side of this conversation. A long silence followed which Sherlock had no intention to break; he honestly didn’t know if he could.
“Is there a reason you shouldn’t be?”
It was impossible to get anything from Mycroft’s voice this time, but Mycroft was always disturbingly hard to read.
“No,” Sherlock fell back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He wondered what Mycroft knew about what had happened at Baker Street these last weeks; if he knew enough to understand what Sherlock thought he was trying to say. Hopefully Mycroft had other hobbies than spying on him, but Sherlock saw a disturbing parallel between John keeping Harry on the mantle and Mycroft’s surveillance.
He hoped Mycroft wouldn’t keep him above the fireplace if he died.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
There was the trace of worry again. Had he been wrong to call without a manuscript?
If he should be completely honest, then maybe he wasn’t all right. In all ways Mycroft needed to worry he was fine though.
“Yes,” he snorted. This had turned out to be a rather strange conversation. “I shouldn’t keep you. I’m sure you have people to extradite.”
“Not this week.”
Sherlock snorted again. Mycroft’s sense of humour was odd, had always been odd, would most likely always be odd. Problem was, he wasn’t sure his brother was joking this time.
“Good bye, Mycroft.”
“Sherlock….” Mycroft’s sigh was the last thing Sherlock heard before hanging up and he tossed it beside him on the bed. Still with his eyes focused on the same spot on the ceiling he started to count backwards from 100. At 71, his phone rang and he fumbled with his hand to find it again.
“What?” he sighed.
“Did you need anything?”
“Not from you.”
“Well if you do….”
“…I just have to ask as long as it’s not illegal,” Sherlock finished the sentence. Not that Mycroft was a stranger to bending the rules to fit his purpose (even a law or two if Sherlock wasn’t wrong) but he had never been keen of Sherlock doing the same.
“Good bye, Sherlock.”
“Yes.”
He heard Mycroft hanging up and he let the phone slip out of his hand. A moment later he picked it up and dialled Mycroft’s number again. This was ridiculous and even though he was aware it was partly (or entirely) his fault, he got annoyed.
“Yes?” Mycroft sounded so irritatingly smug that Sherlock hung up right away.
Mycroft called him back; he waited four signals before picking up, but he didn’t say a word.
“Entertaining as this is Sherlock….” Mycroft didn’t sound entertained, he sounded weary. On purpose to get something or genuinely tired? Sherlock couldn’t tell.
He remained quite even though he had realised what he wanted to tell Mycroft. What he needed to tell him. Unfortunately he couldn’t. No way could he tell his brother that if he died he shouldn’t blame himself. His death would not be Mycroft’s fault but he couldn’t free him from a guilt he didn’t yet have.
“I have been clean for six years,” he said, admitting to an unsettling similarity between him and Harry; they were both addicts. He wasn’t sure his death would put Mycroft through what John went through right now, but he knew he didn’t want to do that to anyone. Not even his brother.
Maybe especially not his brother.
“Are you having trouble staying that way?”
Now there was real concern there. Worry and concern. Perhaps he could put Mycroft through what John was going through.
“I said I was fine,” Sherlock muttered, “You don’t have to worry.”
“It’s not a choice, it’s a privilege.”
“Have I told you lately what a tremendous idiot you are?” Sherlock sighed deeply.
“Not in a while, no.”
“You’re a tremendous idiot.”
“You too.”
Sherlock waited a moment before hanging up. Once more he counted backwards from 100 and when he reached 0 without his brother calling him back he knew the phone call was over. He felt strange and couldn’t figure out why.
There was no time to think about it though, he had left John alone for too long. He didn’t like the thought of John being alone, especially not in a room with Harry’s ashes and his skull. Again: morbid.
Tea, he should make tea. John always made the tea before, but never now. He should go out and make John tea and force him to watch one of the stupid films he liked. Had they eaten tonight? Yes, he had made pasta. Or was that yesterday? No it was today. He was fairly sure.
Just tea then.
John hardly even looked at him when he came back; Sherlock wondered if he had noticed that he had been gone at all.
-x-
This funeral – or whatever it was called – had taken too long; John should be back by now. Sherlock stood in the window and looked out over Baker Street, hoping to see John come at any moment. He had been standing there for close to one hour now. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
Somewhere in the planning process they had come to the silent agreement that Sherlock wouldn’t accompany John and Clara to this; his presence there would, without a doubt, have made all of them uncomfortable. Now Sherlock regretted that he hadn’t followed, he was a master of disguises, John would never have known.
Should he call Lestrade and report John missing?
Should he call Mycroft?
Finally John became visible and Sherlock felt relieved when he saw that John was just as neatly dressed and moved unharmed along the pavement. Nothing had happened. At least nothing involving criminals or suicides or accidents or anything else terrible Sherlock had had the time to come up with as reasons for the delay.
To not be spotted in the window Sherlock hurried over to one of the chairs and picked up the first thing he happened to reach; The logic of chemical synthesis by EJ Corey, another classic. That would do. John would never notice that he had read this same article earlier this month.
“How do you feel?” Sherlock wondered as soon as John walked into the sitting-room and practically fell onto the sofa. He didn’t look to be in any more pain now than when he left. Good.
“I’ll be okay,” John sighed with a nod and stared at the place where Harry had been sitting until today, “Me and Clara actually went out and had a drink in her memory. It felt…strangely appropriate.”
Yes, ‘strangely appropriate’ might be a good description for when the brother and ex-wife of a deceased woman who died of alcohol poisoning had a drink after her funeral.
“Do you want some tea?” Sherlock put down the article and did his very best not to stare and deduce anything that John didn’t want him to know. It was painfully hard because he couldn’t do the right things if he didn’t have all the facts.
Therefore he had to make tea.
Again.
“Yes, please,” John then answered and gave him an almost peaceful smile. Sherlock felt a jolt of relief at the smile. John smiled. A good smile. A real smile. A reassuring smile.
“You’ve been pretty good at making tea lately.” John added as Sherlock made his way to the kitchen.
“Basic chemistry,” Sherlock shrugged, still caught in the relieved knowledge that it would all be all right again. Just because he hadn’t made that much tea before didn’t mean he didn’t know how to. John’s wants and needs for tea always forestall his own and therefore he had never been the one suggesting it before. Simple as that. Lately it just had become his duty to make sure John got his tea. Because John hadn’t cared about that lately.
In the kitchen Sherlock was quite pleased to find that there was no ginger tea in the flat anymore. Hardly any of the teas with flavouring remained since he had taken over the purchases. Hopefully it would soon go back to normal.
“Thank you,” John said when Sherlock came back with the tea.
“It’s just basic chemistry,” Sherlock repeated and shrugged, he saw no reason to make it into something more than it actually was.
“No, Sherlock,” John shook his head and held onto his gaze as if he was trying to really emphasise something, “Thank you.”
Oh.
Sherlock thought he understood. It wasn’t the tea John thanked him for; it was these last three weeks. Apparently he had done it right. Good. He had to remember that, even if he hoped he wouldn’t have to use this gathered knowledge again.
“You’re welcome,” he said, but added after a short silence, “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
John really shouldn’t. It wasn’t his fault, not even close. Harry had made her own choices and even if she might have relied on John to fix certain things now and then it was still all her fault. He hoped John would tell Mycroft that if it was ever a need for it, because, even if he wanted to, Sherlock wasn’t sure he would ever be able to do it himself.
“I don’t.”
Sherlock just looked at him, why did people who knew him even bother lying?
“So much….” John tried to correct his answer, “Anymore.”
That would do. Sherlock brought his own tea back to the armchair and picked up the article again. He didn’t get very far in his pretend-reading before John interrupted.
“Do me one last favour?” John asked and Sherlock looked up with raised brows, didn’t he know by now that he would do practically everything for him? “Call Mycroft.”
It was an odd, but not unexpected request. It was a John-request, the John who thought about other people. The one who cared. The one Sherlock had tried to act like every single second for the last weeks. Maybe that was the reason it felt really good to be able to turn back to the article with the words:
“I did that yesterday.”
Or maybe he just dared to believe that it would be all right now.
Summary: After Harry's sudden death Sherlock does his best to comfort John even though he feels he has no idea how to do it.
-x-
Finally something had come along to distract him from the fact that Moriarty was still running around in the world. To be honest, Sherlock had started to miss him; that was also something he needed to be distracted from. People could say whatever they wanted, but Moriarty was never boring. Still, Sherlock knew it was wrong to miss him.
Now this crime scene!
London had a new serial killer – yes, yes, John had told him it was a bad thing – who seemed to have a taste for American backpackers living at a specific hostel in Paddington. That really narrowed down the victim pool and one could think it would do the same with the suspect pool…but it didn’t! And that’s why it was so great!
Or bad.
Whatever.
The victim had been strangled with some type of noose – probably a belt just like the rest – and left three blocks away from the hostel. Nothing seemed to be removed from the body, but the watch was still on…let’s see, it was 16:28 GMT, so the watch was set on CST. Not been here very long, then. Was that important? Probably not, hard to tell and…What was that?
Annoyed he looked up at the sound of a ringing phone. John’s phone.
”John! Answer your phone!” he growled, “I can’t think with that – what on earth is that? It sounds like a child telly show! You’re supposed to be a grown man, use a proper ringtone.”
Sherlock saw John’s slightly amused smile and frowned. No respect, whatsoever. At least he left and Sherlock could turn back to the corpse, crouching by its side.
“At least use gloves,” Lestrade pleaded and held out a pair of latex gloves.
“Not touching,” Sherlock pointed out.
“Please.”
Sherlock gave the DI a look but snatched the gloves anyway.
“I’m not going to be the one contaminating this scene, and you very well know it,” Sherlock informed but put the gloves on – and not just to humour Lestrade. Once he had them on he traced the bruising around the victim’s neck; nothing extraordinary but he was quite sure he felt the marks of the belt-buckle. And there was a necklace, crucifix – motive? No.
“Well?”
“Don’t rush me,” Sherlock said, standing up and tossing the gloves to Anderson’s as he pulled them off, “You do want this out of the tourist brochures, right?”
“Personally I wouldn’t shed that many tears if the number of tourists decreases some, but I know a lot of other people who would find it tragic,” Lestrade admitted, “Well?”
Sherlock sighed, “So far I mostly have the information you can get from the passport I presume you have, or can get; he’s in his early twenties, from the south or central US, Christian – I’d guess catholic – obviously not a robbery. Strangled in the same way as the previous ones and I can’t see anything missing so far. The women were from North Carolina and Colorado, right?”
“Right.”
“Why Americans?” Sherlock shook his head, not actually addressing Lestrade, “Not even Mycroft is upset about the tea anymore.”
“Well, we’re in a war with them right now,” the DI said in an attempt to fast forward some in the history.
“Yes with them, not against them and if his discriminating factor is war alliances he’d been killing off most of our tourists.”
“Anything else?” Lestrade sighed.
“Obviously there’s something else,” Sherlock snorted, “I just don’t know what yet because I’m constantly interrupted, but make sure to check the transfers and I’d like to have a copy of the toxicology report.”
“You do remember we don’t work for you?” Lestrade wondered.
“But you do, I pay taxes.” Sherlock smirked – it became a bit wider when he saw the glare Lestrade gave him. This case became better and better by the minute. He turned around to see where John was off to. “John!”
Right.
Childish ringtone – he would change that for him as soon as they got home. While pondering what tune to choose Sherlock scanned the area to see where John had disappeared. As soon as he found his blogger he realised that something was wrong; the phone call was over but John hadn’t come back to the crime scene. Instead he was leaning against the wall and staring into space.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade tried to sound authoritarian as Sherlock left the scene and ducked under the yellow tape. It sounded more weary though.
An unsettling feeling spread from Sherlock’s gut as he approached John, something was most defiantly wrong; John looked devastated. Almost lobotomized in his blank stare. What had happened? He had been gone for five minutes, at most! The phone call, of course, but who had called him? What news had managed to break him?
Sherlock had been around messy crime scenes often enough to recognise shock and paralysing grief when he saw it, even if he mostly found it disturbing. Seeing it written all over John was tremendously troubling; John had lost something, a someone most likely.
“John?” Sherlock said in a low voice, strategically placing himself to hide John from the people at the crime scene. It always made John uncomfortable when people saw him during weak moments. Sherlock knew that from the times when the PTSD grabbed a hold of him and he didn’t want to add discomfort to the grief that almost made John slide down the wall. “What’s happened?”
“Please stop….” John asked, voice hoarse with tears, shaking his head and looking away from him, “Go back to Lestrade….”
Sherlock looked at him for a while; torn between a will to figure out what had happened so he could fix it and his wish to obey John’s request. If he didn’t want him around during nightmares and other episodes, this was probably worse. John wanted to, needed to, be alone. Sherlock should let him.
For now.
Without a word he turned around and walked back to Lestrade, who, apparently, had done nothing in the meantime.
“What’s happening?” Lestrade wondered like an echo of Sherlock’s own question and Sherlock had to look back at his friend.
“I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted, “Let’s wrap this up.”
“It’s you we’re waiting for,” Lestrade sighed, but Sherlock had tuned out already.
It took some time, and a real effort, to refocus but he managed and when they had turned the body for him he could see that the young man’s shoelaces had been tied by two different people. It was impossible to tell which one the victim had tied himself and which had been re-tied by the killer – or if either of them were tied by the victim.
Why?
“Remove his shoes,” Sherlock ordered Donovan who happened to pass by, but she just handed him a fresh pair of gloves accompanied with a ‘you-must-be-kidding-me’-look. Sherlock gave her an unimpressed smile but got down to it.
“What are you doing?” Lestrade wanted to know.
“Schy!” Sherlock waved him off and placed the shoes carefully by the side of the body. This…this was devastatingly interesting! Why had the killer bothered to put the shoe back on? Had the victim lost it during a chase? Had the killer done something to the foot? No, not that Sherlock could see. Maybe Molly could? He should pop by later, hear if she could let him examine it.
“Why bother to put the shoe back on?” Sherlock asked the crime scene, but no one answered. Of course they didn’t, only John did. John…. Sherlock looked over his shoulder, reminded of John’s phone call, and saw John squatting with his back against the wall and his hands hiding his face. Was he crying?
“The killer tied one of the victim’s shoes,” Sherlock told Lestrade as he got to his feet, “I have no idea why, I couldn’t get anything from the feet. I don’t even know if it’s important, but he did. The women, what type of shoes were they wearing?”
“Can’t remember,” Lestrade said. Sherlock snorted, but his eyes wandered off to John again. He needed to get him back to Baker Street.
“Send me the toxicology report and all of their travel logs,” Sherlock repeated as he started to walk away from the scene and when he lifted the yellow tape he turned to Lestrade again, “And ask the coroner to take a look at his feet. Preferably Ms Hooper.”
Lestrade didn’t call him back this time; he had probably seen John almost sitting on the pavement too.
As he walked over to John, Sherlock had the distinct feeling he had handled this poorly but he didn’t know exactly where and when it had gone wrong. Pondering this he stopped a foot away, just looking down at his hapless friend.
Right…just standing here would probably not make it better.
He got down next to John and reached hesitantly for his shoulder, pulling back as soon as John removed his hand from his face. Christ! John looked like a wreck. For a moment they just stared at each other, as deer caught headlights, none of them fully capable in the situation. It was strange, two otherwise so resourceful men both paralysed by feelings – one by grief and the other by unfamiliar insufficiency – until Sherlock realised he needed to be the one doing something.
Cab. Baker Street. Go.
To his surprise, John followed when he got up and stood swaying beside him as he flagged down a cab. Sherlock wanted to look, wanted to peer at John until he figured out what news had hurt him so, but he resisted, remembering that John didn’t wanted to be goggled at when he was upset.
Back at Baker Street, where John had more possibilities to hide than he’d had in the cab, Sherlock allowed himself to take a closer look. Unfortunately, the source of the grief was impossible to unravel by just looking. There was always guessing, but getting it wrong seemed as too big a risk to take. The situation was delicate and Sherlock knew he was miles away from his comfort zone. He had started to rely on John to tell him what to do (or rather what not to do) in these kinds of situations, but it was quite obvious that he was on his own today.
What would John do?
Tea.
John would make tea. It was a very interesting tic he had, almost a cliché. Like the Queen or the local pub. Well, the average adult Britt had almost four cups of tea a day. Wonder how many John had had already today, two? Maybe he wanted coffee instead? They had coffee. Did they have a coffee maker?
Sherlock had a box of ginger tea in his right hand – Pah…he hated that tea, it should be tossed! – and coffee in the left when he heard John’s voice from the sitting-room. He froze and, unknowingly, leaned a bit towards the sitting-room to listen in on what had to be a phone conversation.
“Can I speak to Dr Sage?”
John’s voice sounded very pressed but still professional. John Watson, the doctor. A trained role, a façade he was used to. Sherlock knew that version of John. It was the John who patched him up when he had got himself into trouble; the one that existed before John either started to scold him or became completely silent. Both secondary reactions meant the same thing Sherlock had come to understand – John cared about him and his risky behaviour upset him.
“Yes, hello…er…this is John Watson again.”
No doctor? He called a hospital but not as Dr Watson, this was personal. Well, Sherlock might have known that already but now it was confirmed beyond doubts. It was also quite clear to Sherlock that this Dr Sage was the one calling John earlier.
“Pretend I’m not her brother, pretend I’m her doctor.”
Harry.
Why hadn’t he figured that out?
Frustrated with himself Sherlock disposed of the ginger tea – maybe he should ask Mycroft to arrange a tea party in Boston, Lincolnshire – and took out fruit tea instead. What was wrong with just regular tea, John?
“Have you had time to do a tox-“ John’s voice broke off but Sherlock couldn’t tell if he was unable to continue or if he had been interrupted. He hoped for the latter, but that would indicate a rude person on the other end. John didn’t need that now.
He should really boil some water, it was crucial for the tea-making-process.
“Is it possible to….Can you have her sent to Bart’s? Ehm…. Preferably Molly Hooper. No she’s an assistant coroner; she’s a friend. Of-of mine…not of Harriet’s.”
Sherlock couldn’t help that he smiled briefly. They were just sending bodies to Molly from all over the place tonight. Involving Molly could just mean one thing though: Harry was dead. How unfortunate.
“No there’s no one else, our parents are dead.”
That was a lie! Not that they had any part in John’s life, but Sherlock knew for a fact they were still alive – he had tracked them down during a slow weekend.
Why did John lie? That wasn’t like him.
Baffled and confused Sherlock finished his tea-making (two cups, even though he had no intention of drinking his) which made him miss the last bits of the conversation. It probably wasn’t more than some thank-yous and some good-byes.
Making tea was meditative he had to admit. Maybe that was why John did it so often; to clear his head from all the things Sherlock constantly got them into? No, John enjoyed most of the things they got into. Not that he would admit to it if asked, but Sherlock knew.
At the same time as Sherlock picked up the mugs to bring them to the sitting-room John slowly entered the kitchen, phone still in hand, so instead Sherlock placed the mugs on the table. The table was cluttered with papers and books but Sherlock did a swift job clearing it. Throwing, piling, even a quick wipe with a dishcloth that smelled acceptable, because cleaning was a task he knew how to do (even if he rarely engaged in the activity). Looking at John right now made him insecure and he couldn’t stand that.
John sat down (maybe “fell” or “collapsed” would be more suitable verbs to describe the action) at the table; he let go off his phone and slowly wrapped his hands around one of the mugs. The green one, for some reason he had grown rather fond of that mug Sherlock had noticed and he made a mental note about that for later.
Sherlock peeked at the article at the top of the cleaned-away pile. A perspective of the binding change mechanism for ATP synthesis by PD Boyer, it was a classic – Sherlock liked this paper, a well-earned Nobel Prize if he had ever seen one. Would be nice to curl up in the corner of the sofa with the mug of tea he had made and re-read it. Even nicer to accompany the dead American tourist to Bart’s. He would settle on just getting John to not look as if he was falling apart.
He sat down at the opposite side of the table form John, mimicking his treatment of the tea mug. It was obvious by the short glance John gave him that he knew Sherlock knew what had happened.
Sherlock hopped John was fine with that.
The silence grew long; the only thing breaking it was the sporadic dripping from the sink tap. None of them touched their tea and while Sherlock forced himself to look at John – hopeful he’d see something to help him figure out what to do next – John just kept staring down the mug.
It was obvious he was supposed to do something, that John wanted him to do something, otherwise he would leave.
Sherlock wasn’t good at comforting people. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he knew how to and the last thing he wanted was to make a mistake and make everything worse. Still he had to do something because this, this didn’t work.
Tentatively, he reached across the table and gave John’s hand a light touch. Since they both had been gripping the tea mugs for a while, and their hands therefore had the same temperature, Sherlock could just barely feel the touch at all due to the calluses the violin playing had created on his fingertips. John must have felt it though, because as soon as their hands touched a sob went through John’s entire body. It was as instant as pressing a button and had it been someone else than John, Sherlock would have found that rather fascinating. Instead it generated a trembling breath as John let go of the mug and covered his face with his hands, his whole body shaking at every suppressed sob.
Why did he try to muffle the sounds? Was it a masculinity thing? Crying was a natural effect of grief; John shouldn’t feel ashamed by it. It was inherent response, even though it – to Sherlock’s present knowledge – wasn’t proven to have any positive effect.
John shouldn’t feel the need to hide it.
To prove this, and reacting to an impulse he didn’t know he had, Sherlock got up from the chair and went around the table. With none of his earlier hesitation, Sherlock placed an arm over John’s shoulders and pulled him into a hug.
John’s response was immediate and he wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist and cried into his shirt. Sherlock made sure to place both of his hands on John, one on his shoulder, one on his back; light enough for John to be able to withdraw whenever he wanted but still something for comfort or acceptance or whatever John needed it to be.
The time passed slowly as John shook under his hands, but Sherlock was afraid to move even the slightest. He got the distinct feeling that he was doing something right. John didn’t let got and his crying grew louder as Sherlock’s shirt became wetter. It was far from a perfect situation, but at least Sherlock felt a bit useful.
Sherlock forced his mind to wander – to think about the re-tied shoe, to list the electron configuration of the elements in the periodic table, to plan his limited time in the laboratory next week – because lingering in John’s sorrow and grief was overwhelming.
Twelve drops from the sink later – roughly 20 minutes Sherlock estimated – John ran out of tears, but obviously not of crying. It was a fascinating, but sad, fact that his body couldn’t produce enough tears to cover his sorrow. A prolonged cry could lead to hypoxia though, so maybe it was better to just have it ebb away?
When John’s grip around his waist loosened Sherlock let his hands slide away and he tilted his head to see if John felt better or worse now. It was impossible to tell; John’s eyes were red and puffy, there were tears and snot everywhere and, quite frankly, he looked like a complete mess. He looked tired and sad, like he had given up, but he didn’t look as tortured as before. Nor as restrained.
That must be a good thing, right?
“I’m going to bed,” John muttered after drying his eyes and blowing his nose in the paper towel Sherlock handed him and Sherlock couldn’t other than nod, reflecting over the fact that he hadn’t said a word since he left Lestrade at the crime scene.
Was that something he had done right or something he had done wrong?
It didn’t matter, John went to his bedroom and left Sherlock alone in the kitchen with his soaked shirt. The cleaner would probably be able to do something about that Sherlock thought as he removed it and hung it over the chair where John had sat. Not that it mattered, he had more shirts.
After fetching his robe (he found it under the desk) he re-heated his tea and brought it back to the sofa along with John’s phone. To be able to help John – and he had to help John – he needed more information. What better way to get that than calling Dr Sage again?
-x-
New tip. Lift. Fill. Empty. Dispose tip.
Repeat.
New tip. Lift. Fill. Empty. Dispose tip.
Repeat.
Pipetting also had something meditative about it and Sherlock did this forty times now. Mechanical. Muscle memory. Only brain work necessary was to adjust the settings in the beginning and remember which well to put the content in. Maybe keep in mind to change the tip too. A trained monkey could do it.
It was not a completely unnecessary test he was conducting, but there were far more interesting things to do. Like going to the crime scene Lestrade had wanted him to see. There had been another murder. Sherlock would lie if he said he didn’t want to be there, but he was here, at Bart’s, pipetting; mindlessly repeating the same motion over and over again while John was downstairs in the morgue.
His phone buzzed.
Lestrade was sending him crime scene pictures, that man was such a tease! Well, Sherlock had asked him to send pictures when he finally had answered the DI’s calls to make him stop calling. It was very hard not to go there, but he knew he needed to be here for John and so did Lestrade. Therefore, pictures came buzzing with an uneven frequency.
Would he be able to stay if he allowed himself to look at them?
Lestrade would probably not photograph the right things anyway. There would be more murders; he’d get the chance to catch up. John would most likely find that thought disturbing. Maybe not at the moment.
Better not try to find out.
“Knock, knock,” Molly said as she opened the door and actually knocked twice on the door. How very redundant.
“Where is John?” Sherlock wondered as he disposed of a tip.
“Downstairs,” Molly informed, she looked sad. Why was she sad? Because Harry was dead? Because a woman she had never met was dead? Her empathy was remarkable! Unpractical, but remarkable.
“Have you examined the body?”
“John’s sister?” Molly looked quite shocked and Sherlock felt a bit confused.
“No, the American.”
“Oh…. Right.” Molly walked over to him and took a notepad from her lab coat, “Not much, had just released the report when, well, John’s sister came. Checked the reports on the women though, to see if there were any similarities….On the feet I mean.”
God she talked a lot.
“On the first one there was nothing noted, but both the second one and the man you sent me had fallen arches. That can’t be relevant, can it?”
“No, it probably isn’t,” Sherlock shook his head and looked at his phone which buzzed again, “Thank you anyway.”
“Are you done soon?” Molly wanted to know.
Odd, she never asked him things like that. Why this time?
Oh. John.
Sherlock looked at the test he had started. He needed to fill up five more wells, incubate it half an hour and then repeat everything again. It had taken time to get to this point and the process had been tedious, aborting now would make it a complete waste of time.
John was alone downstairs with his dead sister and Lestrade was sending crime scene photos to his phone. The wasted time was a very low priority.
“I’m done now,” he decided and handed her the tray of wells, “Can you dispose of this while I wipe down the table top. It’s just ovalbumin and gliadin diluted with PBS.”
She obeyed in her usual manner as Sherlock made sure he’d corked every bottle and then he wiped the table top with disinfection solution.
“He looked so lost,” Molly said when they walked down to the morgue. She was not very good with silences, no, “Can’t imagine what I would do if one of my sisters died like that. Brothers and sisters you know; you love them and you hate them and you love them all at once.”
Sherlock made a point out of not answering; would be insane to encourage her chattering. Did she have a point though, about sibling relationships? John had specifically told him that he and Harry never had got along, but could he still love her? Obviously her death affected him a lot, so he did still care for her in some way.
“Want some more time?” Molly wondered as she knocked on the door to the morgue. Why did she knock if she had already opened the door?
“No it’s hrm…. It’s okay.” John answered from inside and as their eyes met, Sherlock felt a strange relief when he saw the gratitude in John’s. He had made the right decision, both when he had declined coming to the crime scene and when he had abandoned the test upstairs.
He was almost getting good at this!
-x-
Sherlock sat next to John on the sofa, pretending to read Caenorhabditis elegans: the cell lineage and beyond by JE Sulston while John zapped through the channels for the fourth time without finding anything he deemed worthy his time. From time to time Sherlock gave him concerned looks from the corner of his eye; John didn’t seem interested in anything anymore and it worried him.
Every time he had glanced at John, his eyes wandered over to the mantle where John had placed Harry’s ashes next to the skull. She had been there for three weeks now. Three weeks, next to the skull. Even though they had joked about it, Sherlock found it morbid. Sure, he had the skull and sure, he called the skull his friend, but he had bought it like that, he had never known the actually person.
This could not be healthy!
Sherlock just didn’t know what to do to help John anymore. It was obvious that he wasn’t the right person for this, at all, and he was painfully aware of his shortcomings. It was very stressful to not be able to do anything to ease John’s pain, but at least he had managed to get him call Clara. Clara could probably be of better help, all Sherlock did was to make tea and make sure there was food in the flat (Mrs Hudson reminded him from time to time). Clara was probably the reason they were going to have a burial tomorrow.
Maybe that was why John kept changing channels?
The tourist case was over and Sherlock and Lestrade had come to the agreement that the DI was to keep all further temptation from Sherlock for the time being. Disappointingly, they had never got an answer about the shoes – not that Lestrade cared. It had ended with suicide-by-cop. Sherlock hated when that happened.
They both jumped when Sherlock’s phone rang.
“I have to take this,” Sherlock excused himself when he saw the name on the screen. John looked back at the telly and nodded with the same amount of lacking interest as he watched the commercial about juice.
It hurt Sherlock to see, but he didn’t have time to ponder the subject for long since the phone was still ringing.
“Thank you for calling me back,” he used as a greeting when he closed the bedroom door behind him.
“Of course,” Mycroft answered, “Sorry it took so long, there was a…well, I guess you don’t really care.”
“No, I really don’t,” Sherlock said as he sank down on the edge of his bed, feeling a strange knot forming in his stomach.
“So, what’s the occasion?” Mycroft wondered and Sherlock was sure he detected a trace of worry in the voice. Not completely groundless Sherlock had to admit; the times he had called his brother without being in trouble these last years were few.
“I….” Sherlock tried but was unable to say what he had planned. He had actually no idea what he had intended to say anymore and he was fairly sure it wasn’t because it had taken his brother seven hours to call him back. It was just…something. These last three weeks had been…. He was so tired and he felt so helpless and terrible.
All he wanted was for John to be all right but he saw how the guilt almost suffocated him. For the life of him, Sherlock couldn’t see why John blamed himself so. He just couldn’t see it, probably because he didn’t care the way John did.
Not even the way Mycroft did.
“Yes?” Mycroft prompted.
“I’m all right,” he said in a low, slightly trembling voice that he wasn’t sure would be audible on Mycroft’s side of this conversation. A long silence followed which Sherlock had no intention to break; he honestly didn’t know if he could.
“Is there a reason you shouldn’t be?”
It was impossible to get anything from Mycroft’s voice this time, but Mycroft was always disturbingly hard to read.
“No,” Sherlock fell back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He wondered what Mycroft knew about what had happened at Baker Street these last weeks; if he knew enough to understand what Sherlock thought he was trying to say. Hopefully Mycroft had other hobbies than spying on him, but Sherlock saw a disturbing parallel between John keeping Harry on the mantle and Mycroft’s surveillance.
He hoped Mycroft wouldn’t keep him above the fireplace if he died.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
There was the trace of worry again. Had he been wrong to call without a manuscript?
If he should be completely honest, then maybe he wasn’t all right. In all ways Mycroft needed to worry he was fine though.
“Yes,” he snorted. This had turned out to be a rather strange conversation. “I shouldn’t keep you. I’m sure you have people to extradite.”
“Not this week.”
Sherlock snorted again. Mycroft’s sense of humour was odd, had always been odd, would most likely always be odd. Problem was, he wasn’t sure his brother was joking this time.
“Good bye, Mycroft.”
“Sherlock….” Mycroft’s sigh was the last thing Sherlock heard before hanging up and he tossed it beside him on the bed. Still with his eyes focused on the same spot on the ceiling he started to count backwards from 100. At 71, his phone rang and he fumbled with his hand to find it again.
“What?” he sighed.
“Did you need anything?”
“Not from you.”
“Well if you do….”
“…I just have to ask as long as it’s not illegal,” Sherlock finished the sentence. Not that Mycroft was a stranger to bending the rules to fit his purpose (even a law or two if Sherlock wasn’t wrong) but he had never been keen of Sherlock doing the same.
“Good bye, Sherlock.”
“Yes.”
He heard Mycroft hanging up and he let the phone slip out of his hand. A moment later he picked it up and dialled Mycroft’s number again. This was ridiculous and even though he was aware it was partly (or entirely) his fault, he got annoyed.
“Yes?” Mycroft sounded so irritatingly smug that Sherlock hung up right away.
Mycroft called him back; he waited four signals before picking up, but he didn’t say a word.
“Entertaining as this is Sherlock….” Mycroft didn’t sound entertained, he sounded weary. On purpose to get something or genuinely tired? Sherlock couldn’t tell.
He remained quite even though he had realised what he wanted to tell Mycroft. What he needed to tell him. Unfortunately he couldn’t. No way could he tell his brother that if he died he shouldn’t blame himself. His death would not be Mycroft’s fault but he couldn’t free him from a guilt he didn’t yet have.
“I have been clean for six years,” he said, admitting to an unsettling similarity between him and Harry; they were both addicts. He wasn’t sure his death would put Mycroft through what John went through right now, but he knew he didn’t want to do that to anyone. Not even his brother.
Maybe especially not his brother.
“Are you having trouble staying that way?”
Now there was real concern there. Worry and concern. Perhaps he could put Mycroft through what John was going through.
“I said I was fine,” Sherlock muttered, “You don’t have to worry.”
“It’s not a choice, it’s a privilege.”
“Have I told you lately what a tremendous idiot you are?” Sherlock sighed deeply.
“Not in a while, no.”
“You’re a tremendous idiot.”
“You too.”
Sherlock waited a moment before hanging up. Once more he counted backwards from 100 and when he reached 0 without his brother calling him back he knew the phone call was over. He felt strange and couldn’t figure out why.
There was no time to think about it though, he had left John alone for too long. He didn’t like the thought of John being alone, especially not in a room with Harry’s ashes and his skull. Again: morbid.
Tea, he should make tea. John always made the tea before, but never now. He should go out and make John tea and force him to watch one of the stupid films he liked. Had they eaten tonight? Yes, he had made pasta. Or was that yesterday? No it was today. He was fairly sure.
Just tea then.
John hardly even looked at him when he came back; Sherlock wondered if he had noticed that he had been gone at all.
-x-
This funeral – or whatever it was called – had taken too long; John should be back by now. Sherlock stood in the window and looked out over Baker Street, hoping to see John come at any moment. He had been standing there for close to one hour now. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
Somewhere in the planning process they had come to the silent agreement that Sherlock wouldn’t accompany John and Clara to this; his presence there would, without a doubt, have made all of them uncomfortable. Now Sherlock regretted that he hadn’t followed, he was a master of disguises, John would never have known.
Should he call Lestrade and report John missing?
Should he call Mycroft?
Finally John became visible and Sherlock felt relieved when he saw that John was just as neatly dressed and moved unharmed along the pavement. Nothing had happened. At least nothing involving criminals or suicides or accidents or anything else terrible Sherlock had had the time to come up with as reasons for the delay.
To not be spotted in the window Sherlock hurried over to one of the chairs and picked up the first thing he happened to reach; The logic of chemical synthesis by EJ Corey, another classic. That would do. John would never notice that he had read this same article earlier this month.
“How do you feel?” Sherlock wondered as soon as John walked into the sitting-room and practically fell onto the sofa. He didn’t look to be in any more pain now than when he left. Good.
“I’ll be okay,” John sighed with a nod and stared at the place where Harry had been sitting until today, “Me and Clara actually went out and had a drink in her memory. It felt…strangely appropriate.”
Yes, ‘strangely appropriate’ might be a good description for when the brother and ex-wife of a deceased woman who died of alcohol poisoning had a drink after her funeral.
“Do you want some tea?” Sherlock put down the article and did his very best not to stare and deduce anything that John didn’t want him to know. It was painfully hard because he couldn’t do the right things if he didn’t have all the facts.
Therefore he had to make tea.
Again.
“Yes, please,” John then answered and gave him an almost peaceful smile. Sherlock felt a jolt of relief at the smile. John smiled. A good smile. A real smile. A reassuring smile.
“You’ve been pretty good at making tea lately.” John added as Sherlock made his way to the kitchen.
“Basic chemistry,” Sherlock shrugged, still caught in the relieved knowledge that it would all be all right again. Just because he hadn’t made that much tea before didn’t mean he didn’t know how to. John’s wants and needs for tea always forestall his own and therefore he had never been the one suggesting it before. Simple as that. Lately it just had become his duty to make sure John got his tea. Because John hadn’t cared about that lately.
In the kitchen Sherlock was quite pleased to find that there was no ginger tea in the flat anymore. Hardly any of the teas with flavouring remained since he had taken over the purchases. Hopefully it would soon go back to normal.
“Thank you,” John said when Sherlock came back with the tea.
“It’s just basic chemistry,” Sherlock repeated and shrugged, he saw no reason to make it into something more than it actually was.
“No, Sherlock,” John shook his head and held onto his gaze as if he was trying to really emphasise something, “Thank you.”
Oh.
Sherlock thought he understood. It wasn’t the tea John thanked him for; it was these last three weeks. Apparently he had done it right. Good. He had to remember that, even if he hoped he wouldn’t have to use this gathered knowledge again.
“You’re welcome,” he said, but added after a short silence, “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
John really shouldn’t. It wasn’t his fault, not even close. Harry had made her own choices and even if she might have relied on John to fix certain things now and then it was still all her fault. He hoped John would tell Mycroft that if it was ever a need for it, because, even if he wanted to, Sherlock wasn’t sure he would ever be able to do it himself.
“I don’t.”
Sherlock just looked at him, why did people who knew him even bother lying?
“So much….” John tried to correct his answer, “Anymore.”
That would do. Sherlock brought his own tea back to the armchair and picked up the article again. He didn’t get very far in his pretend-reading before John interrupted.
“Do me one last favour?” John asked and Sherlock looked up with raised brows, didn’t he know by now that he would do practically everything for him? “Call Mycroft.”
It was an odd, but not unexpected request. It was a John-request, the John who thought about other people. The one who cared. The one Sherlock had tried to act like every single second for the last weeks. Maybe that was the reason it felt really good to be able to turn back to the article with the words:
“I did that yesterday.”
Or maybe he just dared to believe that it would be all right now.
