Archive of Our Own

Upstairs, in the client's bedroom, she stopped to stare at a hairbrush on the nightstand on the left side of the bed. She pointed at it with a shaky hand.

“The hairbrush.” Her voice had grown more and more alarmed during the walk-through.

“Where do you usually place it?” John asked, knowing it was what Sherlock wanted to know, but was too annoyed to voice. When Sherlock was annoyed enough everything that came out of his mouth was an insult and apparently that was to be avoided during cases with panicky older women.

“On my- here,” she said, walking over to her dressing table, then sitting on the stool with a groan and leaning her forehead on her right hand. Her left hung limply in a sling. She had been greatly affected by the death of her husband in a recent car collision and the stress had accumulated until the fact her things moved around on their on in her house had caused her to contact the police. But since nothing was missing—only misplaced—they hadn't had much of an interest (or budget).

Sherlock eyed her and the hairbrush. He thought back to the other items that had been moved. “There is no ghost,” he intoned. “There is no burglar visiting you every night to rearrange your possessions. It's you.”

She looked up. “You- you can't be serious. There's a ghost! Something's wrong!” She got up and started wringing her right hand.

“I- I'm sure he has an explanation. Sherlock?” John used his calm-down voice and made placating gestures at the woman nearing hysterics.

“Yes. OBVIOUSLY,” Sherlock said, louder than normal. “You say you've lost the use of your left arm since your husband died in the car collision? And soon after things started moving around the house without you moving them.”

The client nodded. She hadn't thought it was her husband's spirit but rather something malicious tormenting her. Sherlock had assessed her as a person easily brought to nervous fits by anything or anyone.

“Alien hand syndrome. Likely a combination of the collision causing brain damage that went undiagnosed and post-traumatic stress disorder. The items have all been placed near their original spot, but around your left side, on a horizontal space below your hip. There are no signs of forced entry and neither are there any signs of any paranormal or extraterrestrial activity. Contact your doctor.” With that he turned and headed downstairs for the exit, leaving John to scramble behind him as usual. Upon reaching the street he lit a cigarette and had a blissful first inhalation before it was snatched from his fingers by John who threw it down and ground it out with his heel.

“Contact your doctor? Really?” he said with the intonation of a man who really wants to curse.

Sherlock tried to light another cigarette but that was plucked from his fingers as well and then John dug into Sherlock's coat pocket to get the pack. “No,” he said, crushing the pack in his hand and throwing it in the nearest bin.

“I solved it. I don't have to be involved in the aftermath. Or did you want me to officially diagnose her as well?” Sherlock pouted. He'd really wanted it to be more. He'd wanted ghosts or demons or even aliens. Or anything interesting. And then it was only an old woman with neurological issues. It was such a let-down, such a disappointment, such a boring reality.

“But it was fun for a bit, yeah?” John's voice cut through Sherlock's loud mental petulancy.

And yes. It had been fun until the obvious truth had come around like a particularly unpleasant family holiday. Sherlock sighed and squared his shoulders, looking across the street and through the façade of human hurry and life. He wanted more. Just more. He could feel the hunger, one he'd attempted to placate with legal and illegal substances, with adrenaline and solving cases. He'd even tried companionship, which had turned out to be rather agreeable (to his surprise).

Said companionship was looking at him, head tilted slightly, chin pushed forward, emoting something that Sherlock couldn't quite place. Perhaps belligerence? He wanted to ask and at the same time he didn't want to know because it'd just end up filling his brain with irrelevant noise.

“I'm tired, John,” he said. He knew what to do to get back to Baker Street, but he didn't want to do it. “Everything is too mundane and banal. It makes me tired.”

“How can anything be mundane with you around?” John asked, hailing a passing taxi. “You've the least mundane life of anyone I know.”

“I want more,” Sherlock muttered while being loaded into the taxi. He didn't quite know what was the more he wanted, he just knew he wanted it. The recent case slump was of no help. There were cases but they were inherently uninteresting. The same murders, kidnappings, tax frauds, burglaries, arsons and robberies as always. The motive was always one of three things: greed, lust or wrath. The crimes of logic and crimes of passion of Albert Camus. Humans bored him. And, to an extent, disgusted him.

“John,” he said, but the voice that came out of his mouth was far more guttural and needy than he'd expected.

“When we get back home, yeah?” John glanced at him with a little frown (of worry? restraint?), but then looked back out the window of the taxi.

“John,” Sherlock said again, still failing to modulate the rawness out of his voice. Distractions were required and currently sorely missing, at least until John (not an openly affectionate man) put his hand on Sherlock's knee and slowly stroked it with his thumb. John said nothing and hadn't even turned to look at Sherlock again, but the gesture arrested Sherlock in a state of perpetual fascination.

Mutual fascination was the key to their relationship. Fascination (from Latin fascinare, “to bewitch, enchant”) was a word Sherlock had carefully chosen for this particular context. He strove to communicate precisely and effectively although often it seemed it was an effort well wasted. The sheer inadequacy of trying to communicate something accurately by creating vibrations in the air for another to receive aurally was often frustrating and led Sherlock to give up trying to describe his experience with anything because people (John) were unable to relate to it on an almost daily basis.

But Sherlock was also enchanted by their differences. John communicated easily but often without meaning. He embodied learned senses which Sherlock struggled to comprehend, such as sense of justice, sense of disgust, moral sense, common sense—while Sherlock lived in a world of physical senses, balance, proprioception, sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch. Like John touching his knee, warm even through the cloth of Sherlock's trousers. He looked at John's face which was turned away, towards the outside.

It was difficult for him to see the whole of human faces, not because he had prosopagnosia but because he tended to hyperfocus on the minutiae of everything he saw. Micro-expressions became visible, but the macro-entity became blurred. Still pictures were easiest because eventually the flow of information stopped. Even so he enjoyed watching John's face very much, every tiny twitch and thought that crossed his features.

“Stop breathing in my ear,” John whispered and Sherlock realised he'd leaned in very close. Close enough to see the faint stubble on John's cheek. It was so light in colour it was almost translucent. Sometimes Sherlock got to feel it.

“John,” he said again, withdrawing back into his own space. John squeezed his knee in response but said nothing. And again it engaged Sherlock's interest. Their differences were vast, both physical and psychological, and sometimes too vast to bridge in any meaningful way. But it had turned out it was enough they shared one thing: a sense of adventure.

“Tea?” John asked then and Sherlock found they'd arrived back at 221B again. He was stood in the doorway and facing the sitting room, still wearing his coat. John was already in the kitchen making the tea (so a reply was unnecessary as it was forthcoming anyway). Sherlock slowly took off his coat and proceeded into the sitting room. It was still early-to-mid-morning. The case had been much less of a challenge than Sherlock had expected, which was the whole reason for his current disenchantment with the world.

He was so distracted he barely even noticed John inserting a cup of tea in his hand and a Jaffa cake in the other. But he did notice when John gave his cheek a rather diffident touch before getting his own tea and treat.

“All right?” he said and then cleared his throat. “You were… more needy than usual.”

“And this is how you medicate it?” Sherlock raised the cup of tea and gave it a look. Actually, it was rather rare to get John to make tea and bring it over (it was a wonder he knew where the kettle was). So, yes, this seemed to be the way John cared for Sherlock's extra neediness.

John shrugged. “Is there anything else I can do?” he said with a philosophical bent Sherlock wasn't sure he appreciated. This was one of the times he found himself completely unable to explain to John how he felt (or how he imagined he felt).

He opened his mouth to produce a scathing remark but all that came out was a harsh inarticulate sound. It made John look up and then lean forward to place his hand on Sherlock's knee.

“Sherlock?” he said, now with a worried creasing of his face.

Sherlock stared at him desperately. He was so tired and bored and utterly disappointed that he couldn't even form words.

“Hey. Hey…” John quickly put his cup aside and snatched Sherlock's away before he spilt it. Then he placed his hands on the sides of Sherlock's face and held him in orbit.

Sherlock sat still, feeling paralysed and boneless. The warmth from John's hands and breath seeped into his skin and he could count the hair follicles on John's face. He could see the blood vessels in the sclera of John's eyes and separate the pigments in the iris (blue-brown central heterochromia).

“I got you,” John murmured. His fingertips were rubbing into Sherlock's scalp just behind his ears, easing tension that was creeping up from Sherlock's shoulders. “Look at me.”

The tone of John's voice was surprisingly demanding and it made Sherlock focus on him even more, reading every imperfection of his skin (sun damage), watching every micro-expression (disquiet), picking up on the length of his stubble (two days). He carried a multitude of scents (lavender-tobacco-orange jelly) and the weight of his arms was pressing Sherlock's shoulders down and his body was blocking Sherlock from exiting the chair. His breathing was calm and deep and his clothes rustled faintly as he breathed. Sherlock only realised John had been slowly leaning forward when their foreheads touched briefly, then John tilted his head to the left and kissed him.

John's mouth wasn't holding much tension so his lips remained soft. It was a kiss that demanded nothing—and everything. It demanded no action but it demanded attention. And in Sherlock's world attention was everything, whether directed at him (preferable) or directed at someone/something else. Right now his attention was on John, but conversely John's attention was on him. An attention loop from which he benefited. John knew what he was doing.

Sherlock found himself clutching at the elbows of John's gingham shirt, pulling at him. After a bit John tilted his head again to separate their lips, breathing a puff of warm air on Sherlock's mouth. He rubbed his thumbs over Sherlock's eyebrows and held his face a little longer.

“All right?” he said again. His pupils had dilated a bit.

“It's cold,” Sherlock replied, barely a whisper.

“Do you need your robe?”

“The case. The case is cold!” Sherlock expulsed the words with more force. “I can't make sense of it!”

John's face took on a look of slight disappointment instead of the tenderness that had been inhabiting it a moment before. For a split second Sherlock felt sorry for it as John pulled away and sat back in his chair.

“You just solved the case.”

“That was A case, not THE case,” Sherlock groused. Annoyed both because John didn't immediately know and because he had the distinct feeling he'd ruined a moment. Moments in general were fleeting and ephemeral and not worth the effort but on occasion Sherlock felt some moments should last longer. Which was irrational because moments by definition didn't last long as the present was constantly becoming the past—except in the unlikely scenario of beings able to experience time in a non-linear way.

“Remind me,” John said. He picked up his laptop and opened it, which was a sign that the moment was truly over.

“The book. The manuscript,” Sherlock said loudly. He sunk deeper into his chair. He hadn't been able to make sense of much of it, even with the ability to translate the strange lettering.

“Maybe it isn't anything,” John said. He remained steadfastly unimpressed by the whole book and the house they'd found it in. Sometimes aggressively unimpressed to the point of refusing to talk about it.

“It's SOMETHING,” Sherlock argued. It had to be something because he'd put so much energy in it. And because it wasn't a coincidence that Mycroft had showed up to the same uncanny house at the same time as them. Not to mention the house was gone now. There was no sign of it on even old Google Earth satellite images.

“What do you think of ‘The Visitor’ for a title?” John asked instead, showing his aggressive unimpressed-ness.

Good thing Sherlock didn't need his cooperation or interest in this particular area to continue trying to solve it. “Isn't that misleading?” Sherlock had a vague grasp on poetics. Vague to the point of non-existent.

“It leaves space for mystery,” John explained. “And since when are you against misleading people?”

“Yes, but the…” Sherlock made a lax gesture, his mind elsewhere and for all intents and purposes letting his mouth do the talking instead of his brain. “The plot.”

“You should leave the writing to me.” John was somewhat smug.

“Yes, and you should leave the crime-solving to me,” Sherlock muttered, annoyed by the smugness.

“Oh, now… now you're just being petty.” John lifted his eyes to scowl at Sherlock.

“You're just my blogger.” He couldn't let John have the last word.

“Then you're just my detective,” John replied instantly.

“I have international fame.”

“And yet my blog made you approachable enough for it to matter.”

Sherlock's open mouth snapped shut because no words were forthcoming. Had John finally had the last word?

“Gotcha,” John said softly and smiled. He wasn't smug like Sherlock had expected (or like Sherlock would've been). “When did you last sleep?”

Sherlock considered a sullen silence. “Depends on what day it is,” he said then. John was implying he only got the last word because Sherlock was sleep-deprived. It was... kind. Frustratingly so. People who needed kindness were weak, dependent on others. It was only recently he had realised that not everyone else viewed kindness (given or received) that way.

“It's Tuesday morning,” John replied with a sigh.

“Oh. Then Saturday night.” Sherlock's eyes wandered across the landscape of the sitting room, unable to settle on anything. Days of the week held little meaning to him so he didn't always pay attention to them.

“I hope last Saturday and not the one before,” John muttered. “Memory loss, irritability, stress, psychosis… only a few of the effects of sleep deprivation.”

“You're not my doctor.” Sherlock closed his eyes and listened to John's slow tapping of his laptop's keyboard. John probably was his doctor. Even if he wasn't as observant as Sherlock would've liked, he did have some professional ability in diagnosis.

“Yes, I am. And I know you use drugs when you stay awake for longer than 24 hours.”

Well, that was factual. “Not drugs,” he argued anyway, out of habit. “Not drugs, plural.”

“Really makes no difference, Sherlock,” John said and closed his laptop. “You need sleep. I'll even come sleep with you.”

“Don't use me as a crutch when you want a nap,” Sherlock mumbled, but he was boneless and slack and there was comfort in what John was offering. He didn't resist when John got up and pulled him up as well by his arms, then wrapped one arm around Sherlock's middle while snatching up his uneaten Jaffa cake and popping it in his mouth.

But in the downstairs bedroom John didn't put him to bed and instead caught his face between his hands and leaned up to kiss him again. It was not unpleasant. It was also borderline taking advantage of Sherlock's unguarded state but Sherlock didn't hold that against John. It's what he would've done too. His minimal response didn't seem to bother John either, so Sherlock concluded it was a show of affection. Curiously enough, when John kissed him Sherlock did feel more affectionate towards him. His brain, quite new to the feeling, rationalised it by saying he was just creating more oxytocin.

John pulled back a bit and squinted at Sherlock's face. “Yeah, you're still thinking,” he muttered. “Never stops, does it?”

“I was thinking of you,” Sherlock said. He was fairly certain people liked to hear that. Although a lot seemed to depend on the facial expression when saying it.

“Uh-huh,” John replied with a hint of skepticism and started unbuttoning Sherlock's shirt. An intimate deed that was still unthinkable to both of them a year ago. To Sherlock because intimacy had seemed not worth the effort and to John because intimacy with other men had been about clapping them on the shoulder after a few beers instead of undressing them (which Sherlock had begun to think was because John was actually also attracted to men but didn't know how to handle it).

This time it was Sherlock who put his hand on John's cheek with his fingers curling along the side of his head and kissed him. For someone as tightly wound as Sherlock even a few simple kisses could be intensely de-stressing. Particularly when he was tired and there was no active case and he was able to let go of that part of his brain. But he could also see how distracting it could be when there was a case.

“An object in motion stays in motion,” he muttered, resting his forehead against John's. “An object at rest stay at rest. Physics is the reason why I shouldn't sleep.”

“Good try,” John snorted with amusement. “The law of inertia doesn't apply to sleeping.”

John had an expression which Sherlock realised with a lurch of his heart was adoration. An expression saying he was looking at something amazing. Sherlock liked it when he could see the proof of that adoration on John's face even if he knew it existed when he couldn't as well. He'd realised that knowledge wasn't always enough, which was a whole other sinkhole to fall into. Knowing was supposed to be better than feeling.

But because of this single expression Sherlock was ready to crumple into bed and let John have his way about sleeping if nothing else. His head wasn't buzzing as loudly. If his brain was a beehive then most of the bees were asleep and he could hear the individuals dancing up information. Peaceful. Enlightening.

John was a very engaging kisser. It felt good in a manner Sherlock was unaccustomed to attributing to touch. Warm and soft and wet.

Sherlock was already in bed, pulling up the covers when his phone beeped. He stopped and looked towards his jacket. He had almost been lulled into not caring by John's adept administration of affection.

“I'll get it,” John said, clearly disturbed. He moved to grab Sherlock's mobile and his expression upon reading the text made Sherlock sit up.

“Yes,” he said, excitement driving away the languor.

“No.” John shook his head. “No, Sherlock. You need sleep.”

“I'll sleep later. Give it to me.” Sherlock stretched out his arm for his phone. That expression meant case. It meant murder. John's face spoke entire libraries on the subject. It scintillated with words in Sherlock's vision, fondness and frustration at the fore as he handed over the mobile. Thrill and turmoil at the prospect of a (murder) case. Sherlock wanted to tell him to let go already. Be excited, be unapologetically elated about the work, murders happen anyway.

Sherlock swung himself into motion after reading the text (body in a box). They needed transport to get to the location on the northwestern outskirts of London but everything was so inefficient. Distance and time separated him from his desire, making distance and time an annoying liability he only attended to because physics dictated it so. It was a recurring problem he faced. The inability to move as fast as his thoughts, to be nothing but thoughts, a synapse, a vibrating electron- He glanced at John while getting dressed, seeing John's face turned up to him. A precious few things in this physical existence made said physical existence worthwhile but John's rapt attention was one of them.

Sherlock stopped briefly, having buttoned up a fresh shirt. “This…” He gestured at the bed, encompassing (hopefully) the whole spectrum of activities they might have undertaken along with sleep. “Good. But later.” It was as much of a concession as he knew to make about the importance of extracurriculars like that.

“Yeah, I know,” John said with a nod. He didn't look entirely pleased that Sherlock chose a case over him (and without much debate) but it was a choice he'd made as well.

In the end it was a cab that took them the thirty odd kilometres to the site and not a helicopter. Sherlock had given some serious thought about calling one when they were caught in a mid-morning rush (one of the downsides of residing mid-London). Their eventual approach to the site (many tedious years later, if one asked Sherlock) was marked by some dog-walkers from the nearby suburbia loitering around the edges of the police perimeter and Lestrade standing in the car lot waiting for them. There was an old priory building on the other side and some nature surrounding it, the target for the now denied dog-walkers.

“This way,” Lestrade said immediately upon Sherlock disembarking from the cab and led him south. At least he knew not to waste time. “The box was found approximately three hours ago by-”

“A dog-walker,” Sherlock interjected. Obvious from the crowd.

“Yeah, the area's a nature reserve of some sort,” Lestrade kept going, accustomed to the interruptions. “Popular spot for them.”

Donovan was outstanding beside a box (approximately 1 square metre in size), looking down at it, at least until they realised Sherlock was approaching the scene with all the subtlety of a train. Lestrade waved him over and Donovan scowled slightly. She disliked Sherlock, but the dislike wasn't mutual. That would have required that Sherlock think of her at all. She was inconsequential to him and Sherlock was aware that she probably knew it, which made her dislike him even more.

“What's this? Murder presents?” Sherlock looked around with a grin. No one smiled back so he turned to look at John who was jogging up to them instead, fishing for a hint.

“Maybe… don't joke about murder?” John shrugged a little at him as he arrived, then made one of those apologetic expressions at Lestrade and Donovan. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“It's a murder. It's a box. It's Christmas. It's a joke!” he insisted.

“It- it's not.” John shook his head at him, but he wasn't cross. “The first two things, yes, the last two things, no.”

Sherlock made a face, part of his good mood vanishing into the frigid atmosphere of the crime scene. Humour was used for lubricating social interactions, wasn't it? The presence of death made people tense and humour was supposed to help. Were crime scenes exempt from this? So many rules. (Like don't speak ill of the dead. Why not? A corpse could hardly be offended. Why did other people take offence at the corpse's behest?) It was pointless to try and act according to the rules when they changed so much across situations.

He circled around the crate (wood), then stepped in closer to peer into it. The corpse inside was in a discombobulated state, taken to pieces and wrapped in plastic. He felt John move in and take a look as well, snapping on a pair of nitrile gloves so he could lift one of the plastic packages and peer in it.

“Time of death: not that long ago. Last 24 hours. No obvious signs of trauma,” John muttered. Sherlock allowed him casting this wide a net because he trusted John (and liked him). John tended to give Sherlock his first impressions and sometimes they were useful. “She looks familiar…” He had caught the bit with the head.

That part Sherlock ignored. John paid more attention to women than he did. Sherlock paid equally little attention across all sexes and genders. He was fascinated by the box the corpse was in. People tended to be reluctant to approach or open random boxes in the landscape so he deduced the box had been left open and it was placed quite near a clear path. So it had been left there to be found. Or, as Sherlock surveyed the immediate area, noting the unevenness of the path and the clear marks of struggle in moving the box, it had been left there because whoever had brought it hadn't been able to move it farther along.

“Sherlock.” John's voice broke through the overcrowded landscape of Sherlock's thoughts. “I know this girl. Look,” he said, holding up his mobile. There was a picture, one taken of two rather orange-faced girls. The one with blonde hair looked somewhat similar to the corpse. If one could look past the make-up and fake tan.

“Ah, yes,” Sherlock replied, memory dawning on him. “The friend of the client who insisted said friend had been sold into white slavery.”

“Not really a client when we didn't even take the case,” John pointed out. “And look what happened.” He gestured at the box, guilt beginning to make its scrawl across his face. ‘I trusted you,’ his face said. ‘I trusted your judgement,’ his body echoed.

“You know the victim?” Lestrade sidled in. He could sometimes be unobtrusive.

“No-” Sherlock began, but was then interrupted by John.

“I'm late for another dis-appointment,” John said, glancing at his watch. He didn't look at Sherlock as he turned to leave and Sherlock (briefly proud of John's pun) let him leave. This wasn't the place or the time to air out any personal grievances and he was glad John understood that. And John would come round, he always did.

“What was that?” Lestrade looked after John, then turned to Sherlock.

“You heard him,” Sherlock replied, pre-occupied with the box and its occupant. He refused to feel guilty (which was probably what annoyed John). It wasn't his fault. Murders in general weren't his fault, even if he took great pleasure in solving them. Even if people like Sally Donovan believed he committed a murder every day between tea and supper. People really didn't give him enough credit for actually not committing murders. However, sometimes he felt it would be easier to live up to their negative expectations of him.

“I'm confused,” Lestrade muttered, shaking his head a little. It along with the look he gave Sherlock was some sort of social code that Sherlock could have interpreted had he chosen to put his mind to it, but not now. He'd ask John later.

“Isn't that the standard for Scotland Yard?” he remarked, somewhat absently as he walked around the crate. He was recalling facts about the visit of the corpse's friend. Yes, it had happened in the middle of that slump which involved the strange house and that frustrating book. Sherlock had deciphered parts of it with the help of the abecedary from the house but that had only revealed another layer of decryption. Thus in the end he had no idea of what the contents actually were. He also had no idea why this girl had turned up dead in a box in a nature reserve, either. But he didn't believe in coincidence.

It would have been better if John had stayed.

“I have a theory,” Sally Donovan was standing on the other side of the box, looking at Sherlock. This type of interruption was the reason why John was invaluable. He was a social buffer.

“A hypothesis,” Sherlock corrected her, not looking up.

“No, a theory, it's backed up by facts,” Donovan snorted.

“Is this really necessary?” Lestrade asked in an aimless manner, which Sherlock interpreted as meaning the question was rhetorical and meant for both him and Donovan. He resisted replying with ‘she started it.’

“A freak sees another freak on the telly. The freak thinks, well, if he can do it, I can do it. The freak proceeds to challenge the other freak by playing murder games.” Donovan gestured at the corpse. “Haven't you noticed that this type of thing has gotten much more common around here after this one got famous?” Her following gesture was at Sherlock, although she looked at Lestrade.

“Your subjective interpretation of murder statistics, which I doubt you've actually even checked, is irrelevant and only meant to shake me up. Which it hasn't,” Sherlock remarked. Now he was glad John was gone. He didn't mind being called a freak by someone he didn't care about, but he would've hated to see John not defend him on account of being cross with him.

Lestrade cleared his throat. “So,” he said loudly to cover the annoyed noise Donovan made. 2Anything?”

Lack of John meant he couldn't dive into his mind like he wanted to. He needed to be able to navigate his way back into the city by himself and he was briefly annoyed at John for abandoning him there. Then he recalled the many occasions he'd done the same to John and struggled with that for a moment. But it was a responsibility he felt he was exempt from. In order for him to work he had to be allowed to work the way he wanted to.

But his annoyance was interrupted by an image jumping to the foreground of his mind. He turned on his heel and looked at the crate. Yes. There was a smudge on the side. A familiar smudge. “Cambridge University,” he said to no one in particular, but noticed Lestrade making notes from the corner of his eye.

He'd seen the Cambridge University crest enough times to have it had burned in his mind. He'd attended Cambridge (Trinity College) for a number of years. Their crates had been hard plastic, reusable. This one was wooden and the crest was faded. An old crate then? Obviously a lot of people now and before would have had access to such crates.

It was a damp morning. Overcast. It had rained. The ground was now a soggy mess from all the people churning it with their feet. The top of Sherlock's coat was damp as well. The crate was damp—from the outside. It hadn't been there long because the wet hadn't gone through the porous wood of the crate yet. It was in the middle of a path. Had it been intended to be dragged further along into the copse of woods? A single person had brought it, someone who'd overestimated their strength and abandoned the crate and its sad occupant when it became obvious it was stuck in the mulch.

“John,” he said. “How far is the car lot?”

There was no reply and when he looked up he only saw Lestrade looking at him with uncertainty and Donovan glaring at him with disdain. It hit him that John wasn't there so he turned on his heel and strode to the start of the path to measure for himself.

“Sherlock,” he heard from behind, followed by the sound of footsteps. Lestrade caught up to him. “So what d'you reckon?” he asked. “Killer wanting to show off his victim? I mean, she was in the nude and all.”

“Please,” Sherlock scoffed. “I know showing off and that's not it.”

“You got me there,” Lestrade said. “Care to ela-”

“It's OBVIOUS,” Sherlock cut him off with no small amount of derision. “Showing off would be leaving the corpse somewhere immediately visible and not chopped up into pieces. This is hardly the spot. It's been here hours, but not over twelve. The victim has been dead for less than twenty-four. It's an inept body drop by an inept killer.” He'd seen enough of the cuts on the separated body parts to spot the hesitation marks. Very little blood, however. Drained before being packed up and transported.

John's voice in his head, for lack of actual John, told him that made her death even sadder. (And that was the thing; why were some deaths more acceptable than others? Why was ‘it was his time to go’ acceptable when referring to a non-violent death but not when referring to a violent death? Weren't both the result of the increasing entropy of the world?)

“Shut up,” he said.

“Wha-? I didn't say anything,” Lestrade (whose presence Sherlock had, frankly, forgotten) protested.

“I was talking to John,” Sherlock snapped.

“But he's not even he-”

Sherlock scowled a bit, interrupting Lestrade again. “Irrelevant. I need a better look at the corpse. You have the victim's identity, I need cause of death. Get it to Barts.”

Lestrade stopped following him and Sherlock faintly heard Donovan say something unflattering but the words fell out of his mind almost immediately, leaving no sign they'd ever existed in the first place. If he'd minded all the negative things said about him he would never get anything done.

The fastest way for him to get back to Central London was by taxi (or helicopter, that wasn't still completely ruled out). Depending on route (shortest via A1) the trip was between thirty and twenty-five kilometres. He had considered walking, but even for him that would take hours. Even the car trip would take in excess of one hour. Public transport even more.

There were no messages or calls while he waited for the cab (although he didn't expect any, really, why didn't John contact him) so he had plenty of time to stew. The corpse was not really of interest to him at the moment. The victim had been identified, although cause of death hadn't. Sexual violence was always a suspect when a victim was found sans clothing, but determining that was the job of the medical examiner. The crate, on the other hand, might have some evidence left. Evidence of what, that was still under speculation.

Not having John there was creating a maelstrom of discontent in Sherlock. He both resented and enjoyed being alone. He knew John was temperamental but it was usually overshadowed by Sherlock's even greater temperament. He also knew John wanted to make him feel guilty but Sherlock's grasp on such emotions was flimsy at best. Guilt was a product of believing moral standards had been broken and Sherlock didn't think anything was intrinsically moral or immoral and the an idea of morality applicable across all cultures was as flimsy as his grasp on guilt.

“The human ability to distinguish between right and wrong is the basis of morality.” John coalesced into existence in Sherlock's brain as he waited for the taxi. “Empathy and guilt are the basis of distinguishing between right and wrong.”

“Implying I lack all of those things,” Sherlock muttered.

“Implying morality is built into humans at an evolutionary stage and is the reason why humanity was able to uplift itself,” John rebuffed.

“But both morality and the difference between right and wrong are selected by a group and thus vary across several groups. That means there are no moral absolutes and that moral absolutism as a stance is irrational and irrelevant. At best the morality of an act is dependent on the consequences of said act.”

“Ah, of course. The end justifies the means,” John sighed. “Moral consequentialism.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Sherlock said, understanding the irony of using that word in this context. “No deed is intrinsically moral or immoral. People without empathy or guilt are the only ones who are truly free.”

“And yet evolution hasn't made them the dominant type of people.”

“You're wrong,” Sherlock declared, gaining on victory. Being right was the most important part of any conversation. “They are exactly the type of p-” He was startled by a touch to his arm.

“Are you all right?” A worried middle-aged woman asked, peering up at him (overweight, wearing pressed trousers but with blousing on the knees meaning she sat a lot). “You looked like you were having a seizure.”

Sherlock realised he'd been standing on the side of the road, gesticulating and arguing wildly with an imaginary John. “Yes, I'm fine,” he snapped. “What do you want?”

“You called a cab?” The woman raised her eyebrows and her intonation, indicating a question because at this point she was unsure if this seemingly insane man had actually wanted a cab.

Sherlock looked around and realised she was the driver of said cab. He strode to the car and opened the door to get in. “Barts,” he said and when the woman was still just standing there he added: “Now!”

People were slow and unprepared for everything. Watching them fumble with simple tasks they performed every day was so disappointing and discouraging. It was almost incomprehensible that the same beings struggling (and often failing) in everyday life were also capable of creating art and science that uplifted the mind. This controversy between cynicism and idealism occupied Sherlock's brain until the cabbie told him they'd arrived.

Since there was pointless protocol and procedure before the corpse actually made it to an examination table, Sherlock spent the time waiting for a text from John. There was none. Sherlock felt mildly agitated about it.

“What would you say if I told you I could have prevented her death?” he asked Molly once she was unwrapping the plastic from around the body parts. Actually there was no guarantee he could've saved the victim even if he'd taken the case because tracking someone who'd been either kidnapped at a club or left with someone voluntarily before being kidnapped was rather difficult. Even for him.

“Then why didn't you?” Molly looked up at him, also showing the same disappointment John had.

“…It wasn't interesting enough,” he said and Molly's disappointment rose to palpable levels. No shock, just utter disappointment.

“And now it is?” she asked quietly. She didn't get disappointed the same way John did, there was no aggression, just a deep and quiet coldness. And sorrow.

“Yes, but not because of her,” Sherlock answered. “John estimated she'd been dead less than 24 hours and there is noticeably little blood for someone who's been dismembered.”

“I'm doing this for her, not for you,” Molly said, lifting her chin and giving him a look which she must've thought was withering.

“Are you nauseous?” Sherlock asked upon seeing that look, partly because she had annoyed him. “Pregnant perhaps?” A direct hit on her faltering relationship with Lestrade.

She grabbed an arm angrily and arranged the body parts on the table in an imitation of the human body. They both leaned over the remains in the freezing silence and hum of the morgue. Sherlock was able to confirm the presence of hesitation marks and the amount of effort it had taken to take the body apart. The trauma indicated a small axe and someone with not much strength.

Sherlock moved to inspect the crate. The outside was stained with mud and the inside was stained with a few droplets of blood, but it was otherwise in fairly good condition. The wood was darker on the outside, meaning it'd been exposed to sunlight for a relatively long time prior to being used as a body dump. Other than that there was nothing remarkable about it. There was a collection of dust at the bottom with a few larger pieces of dry and brittle paper. So it had been used as a storage container as it was meant.

“She's very… clean,” Molly said then, looking at an arm. “Almost sterile. Except for these marks in her antecubital fossa. She was injected with something but the person doing it wasn't very good at it. No obvious cause of death and the dismemberment happened either perimortem or immediately post mortem.” She looked up at Sherlock. “You should leave.”

Sherlock had what he wanted so he left. It had nothing to do with Molly's disapproval or his lack of sleep or the ache in his mid-torso which he assumed was hunger. Certainly not an emotional response (such as the previously discussed guilt). The victim's journey from a nightclub into several plastic baggies in a nature reserve was a pleasant puzzle for his mind to masticate on as he made his way back to Baker Street.

-

There was a subtle air of change at 221B. Sherlock paused at the door and took a deep breath. Unsettled dust still hung in the intra-flat air currents. Laundry had been disturbed and the dishes had been done. Were those to hide the obvious disturbance of Sherlock's private stashes? Cleaning as an alibi? Or had Mrs Hudson been in? No, he couldn't smell her perfume. He walked in, stopping in the doorway to the sitting room. John was on his chair, not turning to look. Still angry.

“You've become narrow-minded,” Sherlock remarked calmly, removing his coat and scarf. He'd regained control of his aching body on the way over. His brain always won.

John snorted.

“Destroying my stashes because you're angry at me. I'd call that an insignificant waste of time.” Sherlock walked over and took his place in his chair across from John in an echo from earlier in the same day. It was late afternoon now—almost tea-time.

He looked at John. Furrowed brows: anger. Down-turned mouth: disappointment, sadness. Avoiding eye-contact: guilt. Tense body: feeling righteous.

Sherlock steepled his fingers. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

“You could have saved her.”

“It's possible,” Sherlock admitted. “But I'm not obligated to save everyone, not even everyone who is a client.”

“You could've tried.” John put his face in his hands. Was it intentional to hide his expression from Sherlock or was it just a sign of resignation?

“People die all the time. Why is this different?” Sherlock asked.

“Because we could've done something. You could have done something,” John mumbled.

“Ah.” Sherlock understood suddenly. “You feel guilty.”

“'Course I do.” John looked up again, his brow still just as knotted.

“And you expect me to feel guilty as well.” Sherlock leaned forward. “You want me to admit I made the wrong decision when I decided not to take the case because you want me to have made that decision for the both of us. Because that'd exonerate you from not having pursued the case on your own.”

John stared at him.

“I don't regret my decision,” Sherlock continued. “But you regret your indecision. That isn't my fault.”

“You're such an insensitive prick,” John growled instead of accepting Sherlock's impeccable logic which surprised Sherlock. “You always think you know better.”

Didn't he? “Don't I?” Sherlock said. “I'm an objective observer.”

“There is no such thing as an objective observer!” John's voice rose and he bashed the arm of his chair with an open palm to emphasise his words. “You can't be an objective observer of the human nature when you ARE human.”

“Not by choice,” Sherlock retorted. He didn't enjoy his humanity. It was unnecessary at best and painful at worst.

“You really don't think you're human,” John said, a little calmer. There was an underlying hint of sadness as well.

Sherlock shrugged. “Humans are fascinating creatures. Simple on their own, but a complex collective.”

“Like bees?”

Sherlock looked at John with more care. “Yeah,” he said quietly. Sometimes John's perceptive abilities slipped under his radar because they weren't as good as his. They also weren't tuned the same way as his so the results weren't the same either. It wasn't that humans were the same as bees, it was that Sherlock considered them the same and John understood that.

John sighed and most of the anger he'd held in his body left with the exhalation. “You are human,” John repeated softly, seemingly more to himself than Sherlock. “It's why I-” John paused, then started again, clearly having only worked out what he wanted to say. “It's why I think you're extraordinary, it's why you are extraordinary. Because you're human.”

“I don't understand,” Sherlock admitted, an admission only to be made in John's presence. But he was fairly sure John had been about to say it was the reason why he loved him. Sherlock realised he would've liked to hear the words after all. Even if romantic love was merely a product of hormones and biology and ultimately too ephemeral to be a basis for anything.

“Don't get me wrong, you're still a bag of dicks,” John hurried to add. “But you're also… something amazing.” John had used these words before. They came up whenever he attempted to describe Sherlock in some manner and to be honest it pleased Sherlock to no end that John still didn't have other words to do so. It meant the amazing part hadn't changed even if it was often appended by some version of the word ‘dick.

However, it didn't make John's argument make any more sense to Sherlock and he didn't really like John thinking he was that special (even if he was, obviously) because John loaded it with expectations that Sherlock never met. Not because he actively avoided meeting them, but because they originated from the hope that he'd suddenly transform into the idol John had placed on some sort of pedestal. It struck him John viewed him in much the same way as he did the whole of humanity—with a disappointed hope they'd see what they were capable of instead of wallowing in the worst of their nature.

“You expect too much of me,” he said, but then continued immediately: “Do you still want to sleep?” He wouldn't apologise. He'd done nothing wrong, but he could offer this conciliatory gesture. He got up and headed towards the bathroom. A bath and then some sleep would serve his abilities well. Operating under sleep deprivation was the same as operating drunk and John had flushed his cocaine so he couldn't rely on that for clarity. Maybe John would join him. In bed. The tub was too small for two people.

-

Even though both Sherlock and John preferred to keep their separate rooms and separate beds a recent development in their relationship was intentionally sleeping in the same bed. It had changed Sherlock's routine somewhat where instead of getting up when he woke up, he tended to stay in bed a little longer, sometimes working, sometimes just sitting there watching John. Right now he was sat up against the headboard of the bed with his laptop, looking over the preliminary autopsy report Molly had sent him.

The victim's bloodwork had revealed high cortisol levels (indicating stress and possibly fear) as well as trace amounts of hyoscine or scopolamine (indicating the victim had been sedated or possibly medicated against nausea). There was no sign of other intoxicants or drugs or of sexual assault. A few antemortem bruises on her wrists and ankles, already weeks old, meaning she had probably been bound for a while around her kidnapping.

Molly had ruled severe hypoxia as cause of death, based on oxygen levels in blood, brain tissue and heart tissue. The curious part was that she'd found no obvious signs of what had caused said hypoxia. She hadn't been strangled or drowned which were the usual causes. It was like she had just stopped breathing.

It was clear she hadn't been taken into white slavery or any other colour of slavery, nor had she been forced into prostitution. She had, however, been taken against her will and killed. Although Sherlock wasn't sure she'd been murdered. Her death seemed… accidental. There was something satisfyingly odd about the whole thing.

Sherlock glanced over John who was still buried between the pillow and blanket with his back to Sherlock. They didn't cuddle. Or kiss goodnight. Those seemed like activities that were more trouble than they were worth. Sherlock reached over and touched John's hair. It had begun to turn from an oatmeal colour to more silvery and it was fascinating.

“John,” Sherlock said relatively softly, stroking his hair. He particularly liked waking John up because sleepy John wasn't cross with him. He remembered the crossness usually around breakfast.

Sherlock didn't enjoy disappointing John on a regular basis, but neither did he enjoy the expectations laid at his door on just as regularly. An equilibrium was the desirable outcome. And even though Sherlock was not prone to introspection and what-ifs he wondered, as he stroked John's hair, if that equilibrium would cause John to stop looking at him in that distinctive way he did when he was pleased.

“John,” Sherlock insisted and was rewarded with a low grunt. He located an ear and stroked it instead, which made John turn his head and squint at him with one half-open eye.

“She wasn't murdered,” Sherlock whispered. He'd have loved to watch John's face as he worked this out first thing in the morning, but he was interrupted by his mobile ringing. Upon picking it up he was faced with a number blocked.

“John!” Sherlock shook him. “A blocked number!” He loved the possibilities blocked numbers offered. It could be anybody! In his case it was often death threats, either meant personally for him or to those few he considered friends.

John, like the others near Sherlock, didn't appreciate the death threats as much and groaned as Sherlock pushed the mobile at him. Sherlock hated to answer his calls. “Sherlock Holmes,” John muttered into the phone, then listened for a while. “It's not Mycroft,” he said then and dropped the phone for Sherlock to fish out of the sheets.

“Mr Holmes? Mr Holmes, are you there?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said after snatching up his mobile. The voice on the other end was slightly gravelly but also affable.

“Ahh…” There was a brief hesitation and a few dry coughs from which Sherlock deduced the caller was on the elderly side. “I saw on the news this morning you were involved with the box full of human remains found in Harrow.”

Sherlock said nothing. No confirmation, no denial.

The old man continued: “I've no doubt in my mind you would have found me out sooner than later so I decided I'd rather invite you to see my process. Perhaps we could work out the particulars of guilt and punishment.”

The man was rather polite. Sherlock had been invited to several battles of wit against killers and other criminals but so far no one had invited him along for the “process.” He also didn't explain that he didn't hand out punishments and he was only interested in guilt as it correlated with his deductions.

Sherlock flapped his hand at John, trying to get his attention and make him wake up. “What a treat,” he intoned into his mobile.

“So you'll do me the courtesy?” The old man sounded delighted. “Today?”

“Yes,” Sherlock affirmed, getting out of bed to grab a fresh suit out of his wardrobe. “Where?”

“To the point. I like that, Mr Holmes,” he man said. “I will give you the address of my workshop and we can meet there in two hours.”

“John!” Sherlock said as soon as he'd ended the call, grabbing the blanket off him to the sound of complaints. “We have to go!”

John sat up, looking disgruntled, but he knew how rare it was for Sherlock to receive a phone call from someone he didn't know. He had a suspicious cast to his sullenness.

“What?” Sherlock said, shimmying into a pair of trousers.

“Just… nothing.” John got up, rubbing his face and headed out of the room. Hopefully to wake up and get dressed. Sherlock considered leaving him behind, but only for a brief moment. He would need John to ground him. The fact he even thought about that meant there had been change. He'd changed. But not enough to alert the police to the address. Yet, anyway.

-

They were met with an old man when they exited their cab. The man was bald and wore a knit cardigan (much in the same manner as John did which amused Sherlock). He smiled and shook their hands, slightly perplexed about John and John was just as perplexed, not having much idea why they were there. Behind the smile and crinkled grey eyes was something else: conviction. And no sign of guilt.

“Doctor Arthur Gibson,” he said while shaking their hands.

Doctor. Of course. “Sherlock Holmes. PhD in physics? Previously a professor at Cambridge?” Sherlock greeted him. He had set his mobile to record voice in the cab; a precaution he'd learned early on.

“Yes, quantum physics! And yes, for forty years! How did you know?” The man beamed up at him. He was about the same height as John, but made crooked by age.

“Educated guess,” Sherlock muttered. They were stood on a gravel yard between three large oblong-shaped sheds.

“I see. Well… welcome to my facility!” the doctor said, gesturing at the unassuming buildings.

“Thank you. Can you show us around?” Sherlock remained polite and calm, glad that John trusted him enough to do the same, despite obvious misgivings.

“I'd be delighted.” Gibson clasped his hands together and nodded. “Follow me, please. I'll take you right to the heart of the operation. Truth to be told, I've been waiting to show it off to someone who'll understand the importance of my attempts.”

With Sherlock and John falling behind the doctor as he led them towards the leftmost building, John walked his elbow into Sherlock's side and shot up a look. Sherlock just shook his head at him. Not now.

The corrugated sheet metal walls belied the highly finished interior of the building. There was a thick door and thick walls. It looked a well-funded laboratory that split into two parts. A larger room with a strange cylindrical glass chamber in the middle, surrounded by machinery, and another smaller room with more machinery and monitors. A window separated the two rooms. The chamber was at least human size. Everything was spotless and brightly lit.

“What do you think?” The doctor had taken them into the smaller room. “This is where I monitor the process.”

Sherlock didn't have any idea what he was looking at but it wasn't something he was about to admit. John seemed alarmed. He didn't have such good experiences with strange laboratories.

The doctor looked at them both with an expectant face, but when nothing happened and when understanding didn't dawn on their faces he asked: “Would you like to see it in action?”

“Yes, show me. I'm curious.” Sherlock stepped forward. “You can do it without using a test subject?2 The glass chamber was big enough for a human so it wasn't much of a leap to deduce it was used for human testing in some capacity (filled with liquid? gas?).

“Oh yes, I can show you the mechanics.” Gibson nodded and beamed at him again in a way that made him seem harmless, but nothing removed that determination Sherlock had first witnessed. John stood near the door, repeatedly gathering his hands into fists and releasing them—a preparatory nervous tic Sherlock had seen countless times. It helped John concentrate and stay on top of any mounting stress he might be feeling.

“It's really rather simple. The first step, of course, is to procure a test subject,” Gibson explained. “The subject is then cleaned and sedated and placed in the vacuum chamber.” He gestured towards the glass cylinder in the other room. “After full vacuum has been achieved and the temperature has been lowered to a sufficient degree, I begin the vibration stage. The plate in the chamber on which the subject lies vibrates in an attempt to reach superposition. That is, for the test subject to exist equally in all positions. Or to be nought and one at the same time, if you prefer to simplify it to binary states. You are familiar with Schrödinger's thought experiment on the subject, yes? The cat?”

Sherlock nodded. “But the human body isn't a single entity, how can you reach a distinct quantum stage on a macroscopic level?”

“Well… yes, that is something I'm struggling with,” Gibson admitted, patting one of the monitors sadly. “At any rate, so far no one has been able to withstand the vibration and their bodies have… liquefied.”

Sherlock couldn't even grasp all the requirements or ramifications this type of attempt required. He frowned, having somewhat of an idea what superposition was and how much energy was required to vibrate something so fast it reached superposition. It had only been accomplished with very small objects so far and nothing that was alive.

“Why would you do that?” John asked then, voice loud and accusing. He was disposed to disagree with all use of human test subjects (less with already dead ones, depending on where in the flat he came across them).

“Oh?” Doctor Gibson turned to look at John for the first time since greeting him. “Teleportation and time travel, naturally.”

The expression on John's face was priceless. There had been much in their lives that had deviated from the norm and even more so in the last few months but it was obvious John was not okay with it coming to this point. His hands were permanently clenched into fists now and stiff at his sides, possibly trying to keep himself from punching Gibson. Instead of a punch, John surged forward, grabbing Gibson's cardigan and slamming him against the window.

“Time travel!” he almost shouted. “What you're doing is MURDER!”

“Oh… well, human lives are cheap,” Gibson said, uncomfortable and clearly in some pain from being hurled against the window. It was the wrong thing to say. “Using animals would get the attention of animal abuse agencies and that would be a horrible pain. Human advocates are far fewer in between.”

“John,” Sherlock said when John looked like he might strangle the old man on the spot. He put his hand on John's shoulder. “Let go. Let him explain.”

Doctor Gibson looked at Sherlock over John's shoulder as if to ask why he'd brought someone like John to a meeting of minds. “Yes. Yes… thank you,” the doctor said as John let him go slowly, slipping away and smoothing his cardigan. “I'm sure I don't have to explain the principles of time travel to you.” He was speaking to Sherlock again. He wasn't particularly shaken by John's burst of violence.

“No.” Sherlock made sure to stand between Gibson and John, but he could feel the rage radiating from John like heat. “Explain the body found in the woods.”

“Mm, yes,” Gibson sighed. “Sad to say I panicked with that one. Until that all the text subjects had liquefied at the vibration stage but this one expired in the preliminary vacuum stage. I posit a circulatory problem.”

It explained the severe hypoxia. It explained the unskilled body dump.

“And the test subjects are brought to you by someone else,” Sherlock concluded. He held his arm back, feeling John bump into it when he used the words ‘test subjects.’

“Yes, I have a procurement agency with which I was set up by a friend. The same friend who provided me with your number. They've worked out well so far, always providing me with what I needed. However, I am willing to reveal their identities in exchange for a deal with the police.”

“I'm not with the police, why did you contact me?” Sherlock asked although he had a fairly good idea of the why. He was clever enough to understand the science and detached enough to appreciate the science without making a scene about the process.

“Because you've already caught one of us.” Gibson looked up at him and smiled again. “You must remember, it wasn't that long ago. She was doing pattern research.”

It sent Sherlock into his mind to scour through his cases, coming up with only one answer. “The yellow wall-paper,” he said and felt John push against his arm again. The connection between the killer with the yellow wall-paper and doctor Gibson wasn't obvious to him yet. But ‘us’ meant a group and by the sound of it an organised group (with people in interesting positions if they were able to dig out Sherlock's phone number, unless Mycroft was in on it which was also possible).

“Yes, I do believe she incorporated elements of interior design into her research,” Gibson nodded, hands behind his back. “Would you follow me again, please? I'd like to show you my study. I believe you'll understand after I show you some documents.”

“Please,” Sherlock said and gestured towards the door. He then turned to look at John who was red in the face with suppressed emotions. John looked back at him and grasped his arm to which Sherlock replied with another little shake of his head. It made John's eyes widen and his jaw move as he ground his teeth together, but he held it in as they both followed the doctor out into the gravel courtyard and then into the opposite barrack-like building.

This building seemed a little more temporary. It was filled with electric radiators for heating, a rudimentary set of cooking appliances as well as chairs, tables, stacked up crates (very familiar wooden ones) creating makeshift bookshelves. A few laptops, a server, and papers spilling onto the floor.

“I want you to have this.” Gibson picked up a binder and handed it to Sherlock. “I hope my show of goodwill is enough for a more lenient sentencing.”

“That isn't up to me,” Sherlock said without opening the binder (despite burning curiosity to do so).

“I know you have contacts with Scotland Yard,” Gibson replied calmly.

“Yes, I do,” Sherlock admitted, then glanced at John. “And it's true that out of intellectual curiosity I might consider speaking on your behalf.” John stiffened upon hearing that, but Sherlock smiled at him a bit before looking at Gibson again. “But he won't. Go ahead and call Lestrade, John.”

“Ah-” Gibson slumped a bit with some of his self-confidence going out of him.

“You can plead your case to the Detective Inspector once he arrives,” Sherlock said as John stepped out of the building with mobile in hand and a grim look on his face. “But I know men like him and my John don't see the scientific value of what you're doing, if there indeed is any. They will only see the people you killed.”

Doctor Gibson went behind his desk and sat down. “I had high hopes for you, Mr Holmes,” he murmured. “And you've disappointed each and every one of them.”

It amused Sherlock greatly to hear that. He disappointed hopes and expectations on both sides of the law and across the whole spectrum of morality. “Your… group,” he said instead. “Tell me about them and I may consider speaking on your behalf.”

“All I can tell you is that you're on the short list. That's all I know. I was never one for administrative tasks.” Gibson looked up at him with no geniality this time but filled with resolve. “I heard you visited the house that doesn't exist and obtained a manuscript. We'll come to you.”

The doctor spoke no more after that, not until he was in cuffs and Lestrade was taking him out. Then he looked at Sherlock and said: “Exploratores usque ad finem, Mr Holmes.”

John, standing at Sherlock's elbow, grunted. “What was that?”

“Explorers until the very end,” Sherlock translated but he didn't know the meaning of the words beyond the translation.

-

The first page in the binder bore a black and white image of a coat of arms, black and white, of an open book. On the left side was a falcon and on the right side a snake, on top were leaves of what seemed to be holly and a key. Beneath the crest was a ribbon that held the words exploratores usque ad finem.

“So it's their motto,” Sherlock murmured as he sat in the cab that was taking them back to Baker Street.

“What?” John said, turning to look. He'd been rather quiet since they'd left the scene of crime. “Whose motto?”

“I don't know yet,” Sherlock replied, tracing his fingers over the crest. He'd have to look up symbology in heraldry.

“He was trying to recruit you,” John huffed, changing the subject somewhat. “I don't like it when they think you're the same as them.”

Sherlock gave John a look with a raised eyebrow. “You do the same,” he mentioned. “And I'm not the same as you either.”

“No, you really aren't,” John muttered. He didn't speak further on the subject and Sherlock could tell from the expression of worry on his face he was trying to digest what Sherlock had said.

Sherlock just watched him a moment. “That's why I need you.” Had John not realised that?

“Do you?” John asked, not turning to look at him.

Ah, a crisis of self-worth. Or a tantrum.

Or fear.

The issue at hand was that, deep down, Sherlock shared many similarities with the people they caught and committed to the gentle care of the police. And it wasn't even that deep down. Certainly not as deep down as Sherlock knew John would've preferred. Perhaps it was a flaw in Sherlock's psycho-social matrix that he preferred consequentialism and could understand that not everything came easily, peacefully or without pain and sacrifice. Even if the sacrifice was other people's lives.

“I continue to choose you,” he said, flipping to the next page of the binder. He kept his voice quiet and his attention on the treasure of information in his hands. Perhaps one day he would cease to choose John but it wasn't today and it wasn't because a somewhat unstable doctor of quantum physics wanted to vibrate people in and out of time (even though time travel was mathematically possible).

John remained silent so Sherlock immersed himself in the contents of the binder. The first pages after the crest were equations and scribbled notes which Sherlock skipped, looking for whatever it was why the doctor had entrusted the binder to him. Even after Sherlock hadn't helped him. It must have been to secure his interest. We'll come to you.

A more troubling facet of the group behind the doctor was that they knew too much about Sherlock's business. His phone number, for example. And the fact he had been to a strange manor house a month ago, a house that he'd been unable to locate ever since. Satellite images showed no trace of it and revisiting the site had revealed a park in its stead. And Mycroft, usually smug when he knew more than Sherlock, remained quiet. ‘The house that doesn't exist,’ the doctor had called it.

Sherlock wasn't wont to doubting the input of his senses because that was the principal way he interfaced with the world around him. That was why he was sure the house had existed and it wasn't just some hallucination which is what John preferred to think.

The pages following the equations and notes were typed pages with familiar medieval illustrations tacked on. The Voynich manuscript, the very thing Sherlock had struggled to translate, was laid bare. (And he felt briefly bitter towards the doctor for taking away the most interesting case he'd had for a while as well as the mystery of the manuscript.) The binder didn't include the whole manuscript but only a part of it dealing with the particulars of teleportation and time travel. It must have been the source the doctor had followed in his experimentation and perhaps the manuscript provided many such sources for experiments in different disciplines. And these experiments clearly weren't sanctioned by any public group.

“John,” Sherlock said and looked up, only to realise they were in a pub serving English breakfast instead of a cab. There was a plate of food in front of him as well as John who was already eating.

John swallowed his food. “Yeah? Eat. We're not on a case any more.”

Sherlock picked up a piece of toast and dipped it in some egg yolk before gnawing on the corner of it. “I must find out how to infiltrate this secret society.”

“Secret society, is it? You lead a charmed life.”

“I know,” Sherlock agreed with a little grin despite John's sarcasm. His life really was charmed. Not everyone ended up on a secret society interest list. He'd been on a few, including some governmentally sanctioned ones. Both MI5 and MI6 had requested he join them as an intelligence asset but he'd declined because he didn't want political interests to dictate his actions.

“John,” he said again because he liked to make John look at him and because he liked saying his name. “Her death has led us to a greater conspiracy. Isn't that enough?”

John lowered his fork and licked his lips, removing specks of food. The look he gave Sherlock wasn't entirely pleased, but then he nodded. “Yeah, but it isn't your personal triumph.”

Sherlock ignored that. John's reluctant forgiveness was enough. He ate some more while going through the binder again, but then slammed it shut and got up. “I need to get back home,” he announced.

“Go ahead, I need to finish my breakfast,” John informed Sherlock in return, but he was no longer combatively displeased.

Sherlock gave him another grin and grabbed another piece of toast off his plate and headed out. He could finally translate the book properly and unveil what was most certainly an international secret society performing experiments (on humans!) that even he hadn't dreamed of.

-

An odious surprise awaited Sherlock at Baker Street: a gangly and doughy ginger in his sitting room. Mrs Hudson had been keeping him company and for that at least Sherlock was grateful. The expression on his brother's face was pricelessly annoyed while trying to maintain composure. Upon demanding Mrs Hudson why she'd even let Mycroft in and not informed Sherlock she shrugged and blithely said “I'm not your secretary” and left the room.

“What do you want,” Sherlock inquired with all due disinterest. Mycroft had been looking at the manuscript.

Mycroft turned to look at him with that face that either meant concern or constipation (Sherlock always got those mixed up.) “You're mixing with the wrong crowd,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock snorted. He felt his scorn could've powered half of Greater London. “For God's sake, Mycroft. Have we taken a step back to when I was seven?”

“The Explorers,” Mycroft replied, tapping his finger on the manuscript's cover.

“I've already caught two of them.” Sherlock rolled his eyes and threw down the coat and the binder. Of course Mycroft knew about them, he'd been there to catch him stumbling out of the house that ‘didn't exist.’

“One,” Mycroft corrected him. “You've caught one, the other one surrendered. I'm quite astonished they allowed in someone so… gormless.”

Sherlock went to make tea just to avoid standing in the same room with Mycroft. The largest living organism on Earth was a fungus (armillaria ostoyae) and Sherlock suspected Mycroft was the ambulatory part of it. He'd always considered fungi to be fundamentally conniving because they were neither flora nor fauna. Mycroft fit right in, also being neither flora nor fauna.

“Have you informed Dr Watson of his upcoming abduction? Isn't that what ordinarily happens when you become entangled with a criminal organisation?” Mycroft stood by Sherlock's chair in the sitting room, sweeping the clutter with his eyes. (Sherlock was a thing-acquirer.)

It was true John got kidnapped alarmingly often in criminal attempts to rouse Sherlock's interest and Sherlock briefly considered texting him. But the man was a soldier and a doctor (as he liked to remind Sherlock) and he wasn't going to get killed. Sherlock stared at the light on the electric kettle so he didn't have to look at Mycroft. A dead John was a thought he didn't dwell on. It made his senses want to shut down.

“I have an intelligence asset that has gone missing on the border between Russia and Ukraine,” Mycroft continued when Sherlock refused to engage him. “She is a part of the Bolshoi Ballet company. I would… appreciate your expertise.”

Sherlock's interest was piqued only because he realised it was a classic misdirection tactic. Mycroft, for some reason, really didn't want him to deal with the Explorers and was trying to redirect him. But so heavy-handed? He gave Mycroft a surreptitious glance but learned nothing new (still sallow and still flabby and still with that pinched expression that signalled nothing at all).

“Don't you have dozens of operatives trained for that sort of situation?” Sherlock said. “Can you just get to the point? I've reading to do.” The water had boiled so he took out a tea bag and laid out a single cup.

“I regret your decision to not assist me, Sherlock,” Mycroft sighed but picked himself up and moved towards the stairs. “And I regret your decision to keep to your course. I sincerely hope you don't come to regret these decisions as well. They will take what you know and turn it inside out.”

“Regret is for people who can't handle their own decisions!” Sherlock called out after his brother despite the ominous warning. He had no time for regret. Regret meant looking back and the past was already done, that's why it was in the past. And so far humans were only able to travel to the future when it came to time.

Since the tea had been just a pretence to be interested in something else than Mycroft, Sherlock abandoned it immediately after Mycroft had left and got out the binder. He sat at his desk and opened both the binder and the manuscript, laying them side to side (which pushed off some of John's papers). He could feel his face stretching as a grin pushed his mouth wide and engaged the muscles of his eyes (zygomatic major and orbicularis oculi) to create a true expression of happiness. He was going to find out the secrets of this no-longer-secret society.

-

The thing that brought Sherlock out of his translating frenzy was John's hand on the back of his neck, a touch that was possessive and intimate at the same time. “All right?” John asked, looking over Sherlock's shoulder but not expressing any real interest in the translation. So he hadn't been kidnapped after all.

“Yeah, fine,” Sherlock said without looking up. He had no idea of how much time had passed. And he didn't care.

“How's the- that?” John nodded towards the book, curious but apprehensive.

“Fascinating,” Sherlock replied with enthusiasm. “The breadth of subjects covered-”

“Brilliant,” John cut him off bluntly (rather uncharacteristic of him). “I'm going out.” He gave the back of Sherlock's neck a brush with his thumb and then took his hand away. Sherlock said nothing but he did notice the weight of John's hand disappearing and he was vaguely aware of John leaving the flat after that.

The manuscript was a treatise on nature and natural sciences, which was as much as Sherlock had already deduced from the illustrations in it. Many of the drawings depicted plants that didn't exist, but there were also portrayals of astrological and even astronomical in nature. Whether they existed or not was not something Sherlock had knowledge of. Representations of nude women were also in abundance but Sherlock hadn't yet understood their significance—he inferred it could have something to do with medical science. However, the drawings were of secondary interest to him as the text itself was his primary focus.

The ideas presented in the text were far more advanced than the time period of its provenance (early 15th century) should have allowed. Sherlock was both impressed and curious, particularly because the details eluded him due to his hasty translating process. Towards the evening, after some eight or so hours of work, he also came to the startling conclusion that the manuscript and the pages in the binder didn't match in their entirety. Either the ex-professor had done work of his own (likely) or there was another source aside from the Voynich manuscript (also possible).

But Sherlock didn't have a way to verify the ideas presented in the text so his translation fervour waned and he ended up sitting back in the chair and staring at the pages with a frown. The information alone wasn't dangerous because very few people had the mental acuity and the resources to study them further. And, perhaps more importantly, the moral stance that permitted human experimentation. The danger was in societies like the Explorers who clearly sought out individuals with the abilities and capabilities required and then provided them with the resources (including the test subjects). And thus they ended with people like Dr Gibson and Miss Price, who were able to take the ideas and expand on them. Or try to. So obviously they would be interested in Sherlock. His growing public figure (unfortunately) and his part in the case against the late Miss Price would've brought him to their attention. If he hadn't already been noticed before.

The ringing of his mobile eventually roused Sherlock from his thoughts. The display was flashing John at him when he pulled the phone from his jacket pocket. “What?” he said in lieu of an actual greeting.

“Arthur Gibson is dead,” John replied immediately.

“I thought he was in police custody,” Sherlock said.

“He was.”

“Did you kill him?”

“What? No.” John sounded only mildly offended. He had a history of dispatchment, after all. Although mostly just when Sherlock was in danger of losing life or limb.

“Suicide?”

“No. Yes. I don't know.”

“Murder?” Sherlock's voice went up a little higher than regular intonation at the end of his questioning word. Murder got him worked up.

“You should come have a look,” John sighed at the other end of the line. He knew murders had the potential to become the best cases just as well as Sherlock did but still refused the happiness.

“I'm on my way.” Sherlock had already gained his feet and went to grab his coat. The manuscript and its inscrutable contents could wait. At least a little while. The murder of a murder suspect took precedence.

The atmosphere was chilly at best when Sherlock arrived on the murder scene. He was a bit smug because the crime scene was rarely inside the Met's headquarters. John was actually waiting for him outside the main entrance and there was a very delicate shift of mood and expression on him. Sherlock paused to study the phenomenon and after about a second could deduce that John was happier than the previous few days. There was no smile but a subtle variation in the pattern of the creases on his face and posture told Sherlock everything he needed.

“John,” he said and felt strangely drawn to him, even so far as to want to kiss him in public.

“Strange, isn't it?” John replied, eyeing Sherlock up and down. “The cases we've had lately.”

“Yeah,” Sherlock agreed, still somewhat perplexed by this transformation. Not that he was going to question it. Was he happy Gibson had been murdered? So actually he was going to question it. “You look… relaxed.”

“Oh?” John's eyebrows shot up, but then he shrugged and rolled his head in a gesture of unconcern. “Yeah. I'll tell you later.”

Sherlock nodded and headed into the building. Yes, John was right. It was personal and could wait. Murder at (New) Scotland Yard couldn't.

“Don't skip. Too happy,” John murmured when Sherlock skipped into the HQ and along the corridor.

Lestrade was waiting outside a particular holding cell, looking like was about to come undone at the seams. He was usually in some state of frustration when Sherlock saw him but this was more pronounced. Murder in his garden and he couldn't figure it out. Lestrade opened the cell door without a word and gestured Sherlock inside.

What remained of Arthur Gibson was a husk of meat on the floor behind the table and the chair that had been pushed aside. A cup of water was turned over and splashed on the floor. His clothes were in disarray.

“You sure he's dead?” he asked.

“I am a doctor,” John replied.

“Fair enough,” Sherlock said. “So this is where you were.”

“Yeah, I'm surprised you didn't follow me. That book means a lot to you.”

“Manuscript,” Sherlock corrected idly. “It's bound in leather covers, which is why you call it a book but it's manu scriptus. Written by hand.”

“Yeah, let's not forget to define what's a book and what's a manuscript while there's a dead man right there!” Lestrade protested. Sherlock didn't take his eyes off said dead man. He knew Lestrade's crossness was caused by the dead man being in his place of work. Supposedly the safest place he knew.

“What happened?” Sherlock changed the subject.

“He was calm, then he wasn't. And then he was dead,” Lestrade supplied, somewhat more composed. “You want to watch the security tape?”

“Not yet, just give me the highlights.” He'd watch it later if required.

“It's like he… woke up,” Lestrade sighed. Sherlock, standing in the room with his back to John and Lestrade who were by the door, could hear Lestrade's jacket shuffling as he rubbed his face. “First he was asleep, really calm at everything that was happening. Didn't seem to mind at all he was being brought in for multiple homicides.”

John made a vaguely affirmative sound which meant he'd also witnessed the events. “But then he-”

“He got really upset,” Lestrade cut in. “Started shaking and saying he was innocent.” He paused. “He said he hadn't done any of it, that his- his body had been stolen.”

There was a silence until Sherlock prompted Lestrade impatiently: “And then? How was he murdered?”

“Well…” Lestrade shifted on his feet. “We don't know. Tried calming him down and talking to him about it, but he started to choke.”

“Oh my God,” Sherlock muttered, unable and unwilling to accept the slowness of the story. “Get to the point so I can listen to myself instead.”

“Someone strangled him. Except no one was there,” Lestrade finished quickly. “The bruises just appeared and he just died.”

Sherlock moved forward and crouched by the corpse, using a gloved finger to move aside the collar. There were hand-shaped bruises around the neck, as though someone had stood right in front of the late Arthur Gibson and strangled him in a room full of police. Except no one had been there.

“Brilliant,” Sherlock said, taking out his pocket magnifier. He heard John walk over and stand close to him, just brushing his coat. He looked up to see John giving him just the hint of a smile. “Are you happy because he's dead?” he asked loudly to which John gave a sigh in reply and stepped away.

“No,” John said, glancing at Lestrade who was used to their crime scene flirting and fighting and didn't interrupt. “Why would I be happy someone's dead?”

“Because, by all accounts and purposes, he was a serial killer. You don't like those.”

“No, most people don't. Do you have any idea who killed him? Or how?” John evaded the conversation and moved back to the case at hand. Sherlock didn't mind. It was mostly a philosophical argument that started over and over again at murder scenes and when the murderer was caught.

“No,” he said and stood up. And since all conventional means of entering the room and killing the late doctor had been secured he was forced to look into the unconventional. “What exactly did he say before he died?”

Lestrade consulted his notebook while John stood to the side and stared down at the corpse with a frown. But not a frown of displeasure, more one of thoughtfulness. “He, uhh… he said he'd been ‘taken’ by someone called Alice. Then he started choking and clutching at his neck,” Lestrade read his notes, then closed the notebook again. “Could it be multiple personality disorder?”

Sherlock made no comment to that. All people deviated from the mental and physical norms in some way (a norm being shorthand for something that didn't actually exist until masses were condensed), but in his experience it rarely led to auto-asphyxiation like this. If it was indeed auto-asphyxiation. He was inclined to think no. Not with bruises like that on the corpse's neck. Bruises were signs of internal bleeding, usually caused by blunt force trauma from the outside. And sometimes they were just signs of internal bleeding without said trauma.

“Any idea what it could be?” Lestrade pressed, obviously more anxious than usual.

“Yes. Let me watch the security tape.” Sherlock headed out of the room. “Get the corpse to an ME. John, go with the body and find out everything you can.”

“You sure?” John intoned, but it was more of a courtesy than real objection. Maybe surprise. Did he still think Sherlock didn't value his opinion and input?

Sherlock looked at him and nodded, then made a grand gesture towards the door. “Yeah. Go. Observe the chain of custody on the remains.” The words made John roll his eyes. Neither of them was in any way able to uphold the chain of custody of anything. The difference was that John (and the legal system) cared about it while Sherlock didn't.

The first viewing of the tape prompted another diagnosis from Lestrade. “Schizophrenia?” he uttered, giving Sherlock a glance. And when Sherlock didn't respond, a third one during the second viewing: “Drugs? I mean, that's not normal.”

What Sherlock saw on the tape was indeed quite out of the ordinary. He loved it. When Arthur Gibson was brought in he was mild and unanxious, looking around with that same gaze Sherlock had noted at his laboratory. No remorse, no responsibility. He answered questions, but in an oblique, disinterested way. And then, after asking for water, he suddenly flinched. When he looked up again his expression was very different: he had become alarmed and confused. His whole body shifted in character in a way that had made Sherlock consider a mental illness at first, but the man was entirely lucid. Just suddenly frightened.

“No,” he verbalised upon further questioning. His voice, though distorted by the mono sound system of the security office, was noticeably more reedy than it had been earlier. The voice of an old man.

“She took me,” he tried to explain, looking desperate. “She took me again!” he cried. “She did all those things! It wasn't me! You have to stop her! She'll take me again!”

His words disintegrated into hoarse and discordant ‘no’s and he began to shake. He began to choke suddenly and stood up, pushing his chair over. He had lifted his hands to his throat and pulled at the collars of his cardigan and button-up. “Alice..!” he groaned. “Alice, no, please, no!”

Lestrade and another police officer were in the room with him and attempted to restrain him by pulling his hands away from his throat. Gibson struggled but not against the men holding him, but against something unseen and eventually slumped over, the last of his breath gurgling out of him. Lestrade and the accompanying officer laid him on the floor and then stood around in confusion.

“Drugs, right?” Lestrade was looking at Sherlock rather despondently, hoping he'd agree, maybe exonerate the whole division of guilt and responsibility regarding the dead man. “Or insanity? Give me something.”

“Since you're not the most hopeless of detectives, do you job and get a tox screen to rule out drugs,” Sherlock said with heavy emphasis. He wasn't one to tell others how to do their job (except all the time) but this was ridiculous. “And as for insanity… Are you aware of any conditions where the sufferer is able to strangle himself with invisible hands?”

Lestrade shrugged. He was uncomfortable with the whole thing. He was a solid detective—when it came to ordinary crime. “You keep telling me that the mind is a powerful tool. For or against a person.”

Lestrade's willingness to believe was in diametrical opposition with John's ability to disbelieve and Sherlock could not deal with either of them. Both ends of the spectrum locked out the possibility of the other end having the answers. Sherlock clicked his tongue and made a disgusted face, then turned to leave.

“Donovan was right,” Lestrade said, stepping in front of Sherlock to stop him. “Not about you being a murderer or anything, but the weird stuff. The weird stuff revolves around you. John told me a bit about this book thing and how it got started and you're actually making the world around yourself weirder. More dangerous. No one else I know does that.”

There was an undercurrent to his words and stance that Sherlock took as a warning. Or worry. And it was a bit of a surprise. Sherlock had thought Lestrade appreciated being able to take credit for most of the cases he solved, even the weird ones. Was he worried Sherlock wouldn't be able to solve this one? Or was he worried about Sherlock personally? John would know the difference, Sherlock just frowned.

“What do you want?” he asked. “If it's just to tell me you agree with Donovan, you could've saved your breath.”

“If you need help-” Lestrade started but this time Sherlock pushed past him. He wanted to see the body (and John to be honest). Besides, Lestrade was the one who needed help. Sherlock, still partly convinced that needing others was weakness, didn't ask for help. And rarely took advantage of any help that was offered.

-

John was at the morgue, respectfully standing away from the official autopsy. He shifted and looked up at Sherlock when he arrived. “Looks like leading cause of death is strangulation. I haven't told them there was no one there strangling him.” John lowered his voice on the last comment.

“How clever to preserve their objectivity,” Sherlock said and rolled his eyes. John only nudged him in the ribs with his elbow (strangely sharp for a man with such a lack of angles and points).

“You watched the recording?” John asked instead of getting into another conversation about objectivity.

“Yes. It was… educational.”

“Any ideas?”

“Plenty. I need to go back to Gibson's.”

“The woman he mentioned.”

Sherlock looked at John and nodded. “Yes. Who is she? And what is she capable of?”

“Sherlock, no. You don't think..? No one can strangle people without actually being present.” John was apprehensive. “It's much more likely it was the stress of the situation catching up to him. Straining can cause the capillaries to burst and create bruises and bleeds in the eyes.”

“And fracture the hyoid bone?”

“It's possible. If the muscles surrounding it contracted enough…” John said but sounded even more apprehensive. He hadn't mentioned that happening on Gibson but Sherlock had made the deductive leap from the strangling. It was common enough.

“Come on,” Sherlock said and tilted his head towards the exit. The autopsy wasn't going to give them anything until the tox screen (and even then it was highly unlikely in Sherlock's estimation; he could tell when someone was on drugs).

On their way back to the laboratory that had jump-started their day earlier John leaned closer to Sherlock and said: “You were right.”

Sherlock didn't look up from his phone. “Yes, I know,” he replied. He was (almost) always right about everything.

John sighed, but it wasn't the deep sigh of disappointment or annoyance. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered as his hand found a spot on Sherlock's knee once again. “I know you care about some things, just not always the same things as I do. And you were right about me expecting things of you. Of course I do because you can do so much. But… sometimes you're too much like the people we try to catch. You don't think people are human. That's a bit dangerous.”

The best way to get anyone to talk was to stay quiet and perhaps look at them with a carefully chosen expression that was relevant to the situation. But Sherlock wasn't above a told-you-so. “You were upset at yourself for not caring any more than I did. And then you took it out on me.”

John squeezed Sherlock's knee sharply and sighed again, this time with displeasure. But at least that displeasure was mostly aimed at himself and only a little at Sherlock for stating the issue. “Yeah. You're right. Again.”

“I kno-”

“Shut up.”

Sherlock smirked a little at the sound of John's growl. They really could frustrate each other to no end with opposing points of view but having an easy relationship wasn't something Sherlock was particularly interested in. He'd never had an easy relationship in his life so admittedly he wasn't that familiar with how one felt. But he imagined it'd be boring. Anything without a challenge was boring.

And honestly? A personal (semi)romantic relationship with an adrenaline junkie ex-soldier doctor with anger issues was a multi-level challenge (particularly for someone unaccustomed to relationships in general). Granted, their relationship was still fairly new, barely two months. Something bubbled up from Sherlock's subconscious, but took its time to form to a coherent thought. By the time the words were clear they had exited the cab and were standing in the courtyard of Gibson's makeshift murder laboratory.

Sherlock looked at John. “Is this- is this the honeymoon phase?” he asked, only slightly uncertain of the phrasing.

“Oh God,” John said and squeezed his eyes shut briefly, shaking his head. But it wasn't a shake indicating denial, just John's physical reaction of incredulity at Sherlock's question.

“That's what the starting phase of a romance is called, isn't it?”

“Of a romance?” John heaved a deep breath and looked at Sherlock as though it came as news to him they were in a romance. “Yeah, it is,” John said then and as the surprise of the question diminished an expression of satisfaction slowly replaced it. “Yeah,” he repeated with more force and grasped Sherlock's elbow, squeezing it. “We're in the honeymoon phase. I hadn't thought of that.”

Just as his question may have surprised John, John's admission surprised Sherlock. The way he said it and the way he took Sherlock's arm, as well as his expression all conveyed ownership of a kind. No one had ever claimed him like this before and neither had John ever claimed their relationship so strongly. Because despite everything Sherlock still expected John to skirt the line with their relationship and eventually drop it for a woman of some sort.

The little courtyard wasn't exactly bustling with people but there were police vehicles, a few men standing guard and more people inside the semi-permanent study and laboratory constructions. A little bit of late afternoon sun cleaved through the grey clouds to leave dapples of light on the damp gravel and a slow wind brought the scent of the river to Sherlock's nostrils. He looked at John, feeling the warmth of his grasp even through his thick coat, and took the briefest of moments to appreciate the expression of indulgence on John's face.

“You were right about something else too. I am happy he's dead,” John said. “What he's done is vile. Science isn't some all-purpose pass to killing people.”

“It's a better reason than land or oil rights,” Sherlock muttered and headed into the study where Gibson had kept his documents. To be honest he wasn't certain what he was looking for, but he'd know when he saw it. Whether it was multiple personality disorder or… something else, there'd be signs of those separate personalities. Little things.

-

Their return and resettlement at 221B after a disappointing look-around in Gibson's study was only interrupted by Lestrade ringing John and demanding (because he was talking to John and not Sherlock) to know what was going on and who was he going to pin for the murder. Sherlock refused to say anything because it would be admitting he didn't know anything but left John to convey that in a humane way.

Sherlock found himself unable to calm down. He passed by the windows of the sitting room over and over again, ambulating across furniture if it happened to be in the way. John remained unaffected and sat in his chair with his laptop, rewriting his notes. He was of the mind that the case was as good as solved with the death of Dr Arthur Gibson but Sherlock had a different opinion.

“What's the matter?” John asked as Sherlock stared out of the window again. A man was leaning against a shiny black car on the street. “What's there to solve? How an invisible person killed a man in police custody? Is that really an option?”

Sherlock scowled a bit. “You saw the marks of strangulation. Did stress do that?” Once again John's medical expertise was underwhelming.

“I did and I don't know,” John replied, looking at Sherlock over the top of his laptop. “But what's more likely? A death with natural causes or a death with supernatural causes?”

The man on the street was looking up at the windows of 221B. “I'm leaving,” Sherlock declared and headed to grab his coat again.

“Where are you going?” John asked with mild to moderate interest. Sherlock made no reply as he wound his scarf around his neck and rattled down the stairs.

There was more to this whole thing, starting with the polyphagic man and the key, but he wasn't about to waste his time trying to convince John of it if he didn't want to see it. Even if it was blatantly obvious. But clearly John was taking the route of following the case of the kidnapped and now dead young woman which had now come to an (apparently satisfactory) end.

As soon as the door was shut behind Sherlock the man by the car moved to open the back door of the shiny, shark-like car and gestured for him to enter. Sherlock hurried across the street but paused just outside the car. The man, obviously the driver, nodded to him.

“Exploratores usque ad finem,” the driver said. And with that Sherlock entered the leather-upholstered interior of the car. It was one of those vehicles that were suspiciously quiet on the inside, similar to what Mycroft was ferried around in.

Sherlock didn't bother trying to chat with the driver. He didn't need to ask where they were going since he could easily follow the route with his own eyes through the window. So whoever wanted his presence wasn't afraid to reveal their location, meaning they probably weren't going to stay there for long. No matter. Sherlock understood suspicion and even paranoia, not to mention simple rational behaviour like protecting oneself (protecting others was the tough one to figure out).

He marked the route of damp streets and darkening night in his brain and was only slightly surprised when the car stopped in front of a what seemed to be a manor house in faux-Victorian style quite a bit outside of Greater London. The grounds were lit and a few people were walking about on the kept gravel paths between hedges and decorative trees (with the beginnings of new leaves already appearing) despite the weather that was heavy with the promise of rain. Two elderly women in wheelchairs were parked outside on the porch by the main door, which was glass and automatic, very unlike the rest of the architecture. It seemed he'd been brought to an assisted care home of some sort. For wealthy people. Interesting.

Few took note of Sherlock and the driver as the latter escorted Sherlock across the yard and into the entrance hall of the manor-like facility. A receptionist sat in the middle of a circular desk situated near the entrance. She wasn't a nurse and she thought she was above said nurses, looking to attain a senior administrator position. Her ambition was clear to anyone with eyes. She only nodded to the driver as they walked past her and to the grand stairs heading up. Despite the hospital-like doors, the hall was more akin to a hotel lobby than a hospital.

They took the stairs twice despite there being lifts and ended up on the second floor. From a small lounge-like area Sherlock could look down two corridors leading to the residential wings of the building. Suite numbers were noted at the beginning of each corridor (301-306 and 306-310). The driver turned left and Sherlock followed him to a door of dark lacquered wood and a brass number of 310 on it. The driver knocked.

A female voice reacted to the knock by saying: “Enter.”

The room behind the door was opulent but not cluttered. An elderly woman sat in a wheelchair by a large window but facing the door. Her grey hair was in a loose braid and she had an alert expression. She wore a sharp white button-up with a tall collar with a pair of black slacks on her unmoving legs. She was also gaunt and her lower body was clearly withered. Her expression was the same as Arthur Gibson's had been that morning when Sherlock had met him. She smiled—but it was a studied expression.

“Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “Finally we meet. May I call you Sherlock?”

Sherlock shrugged. “Yes, fine. May I call you Alice?”

She laughed, but that too was as though she'd learned it from a teacher rather than a natural reaction. “Please do,” she said. “Herbert, wait outside,” she added and the driver did so, closing the door quietly behind himself which left Sherlock alone in the room with the woman.

Another door led to what Sherlock found likely to be a bedroom. There was no kitchen; the place was a full care facility. The sitting room was furnished with a few small ornate armchairs, a delicate coffee table like a rose and a grand piano in the corner by the large bay window that gave out to the well-kept grounds mostly hidden by the darkness in the back of the building. Rain had dotted the window glass behind the heavy drapes that had been carefully arranged aside. There was a vase of fresh cut flowers (calla lilies) on the coffee table. The chairs faced a small working fireplace which had been lit which was the only source of light in the room. There was another vase of flowers on the mantle. More lilies.

“Tea?” Alice Waite asked. She moved to a side table with a tea service on it. “It's just been brewed,” she continued with a little non-amused smile as she poured two cups and carefully moved them to the coffee table. “Do sit down.”

Sherlock took a seat in one of the armchairs and studied Alice Waite a little longer. She had clearly lived a comfortable life but possessed a restless mind in a restless body, very much like Sherlock. It had left her with a thin and pointy figure.

“No doctor Watson?” she asked with that same humourless smile. “Milk? Sugar?”

“He wouldn't understand,” Sherlock responded. “Two sugars, no milk.”

“Ah, yes. You're quite right,” she admitted and administered sugar to Sherlock's tea before pushing the cup towards him. “Would you like to ask me anything?”

Sherlock took the cup. It had a gold trim and a pattern of flowers. The porcelain was so fine it was almost see-through. He tasted the tea which had a deep colour and a mellow, pleasant taste. Black tea flavoured with bergamot. “Is this Earl Grey?” he asked. It was against his nature to let anyone know the things he didn't know and he needed to weigh the situation against his curiosity.

She chuckled a little, closing her eyes for a bit. “Yes, it is. From my own plantation.” She put her cup down carefully on its saucer. “But let's forget the pleasantries, shall we, Sherlock? I feel as though I know you already. After all, I spoke to you at length this morning.”

Sherlock had been with John and Arthur Gibson this morning. Unless the impossible was possible and the improbable was probable. “You bankrolled Gibson's experiments. How'd you kill him?”

She showed no sign of surprise or sorrow at his question. “Why do you think I killed him?” she asked instead, moving her cup around on its saucer.

“Because he begged you not to with his last breath.”

“So dramatic,” she sighed. The fire was dimmer in the fireplace and her expression was not as clear. “Poor old Arthur. I believe his guilt got to him in the end.”

Sherlock hadn't expected her to give a straightforward answer but this non-answer was just as good. She didn't deny anything and now it fell to Sherlock to figure out what had actually happened. He preferred it that way. “What do you want?”

“I've brought you here to make you an offer, Sherlock,” she replied. “If you say yes, I will share everything I know.” Her voice had taken on a strange quality as though the words were repeated a fraction of a second later on another sound channel.

Sherlock wet his lips in the tea again. “What's the offer?” And this was the reason why Sherlock hadn't told John when he'd left. He'd known something would come up that John wouldn't be able to see past and that would impair Sherlock's ability to make decisions for himself. This way he could pretend he needn't take anyone else into question.

“In order for you to understand the offer I'll have to start a bit further back.”

Sherlock leaned back in the antique chair and crossed his legs. “The middle ages when you were born?” He was being somewhat supercilious.

She laughed again and shifted somewhat in her wheelchair. “You're closer to the truth than you can even imagine,” she said with mirthless merriment. “But no, not that far. Only about six months.”

“Price,” Sherlock said. The chair was uncomfortable and the lack of illumination in the room made its dimensions indefinable.

“Yes, she was working for me. For my little society of explorers,” she nodded. Again, no denial. “And then I found out about you. I was fascinated. You're quite a brilliant man.”

Sherlock eyed her. “Thank you,” he said. Something about her admiration made him uncomfortable and that was strange. The rain was rolling very slowly down the panes of the large window behind her and the room was even darker. The fire was even smaller. She looked at him with… desire. But it wasn't the same kind of look John gave him which meant it wasn't the same kind of desire.

“And then you involved yourself in the matter with poor Edward,” she continued and picked up her cup of tea. The steam rose around her face in vortices. (How was her tea still that hot?)

“The polyphagic man,” Sherlock deduced from his limited pool of options.

“Edward,” she said and looked away for a bit. Had she been fond of him? “He was my… pet project.” She looked back up at Sherlock and shrugged slightly. “For a time. I had to let him go and he tried to eat a hand. That was unfortunate but it also brought you into the picture again.”

“He didn't just try, he swallowed the hand and choked on it. He also ate a whole rat. Well, I say ate but he just swallowed that too.” Sherlock remembered that autopsy very well. He shifted in the chair and glanced around, trying to pinpoint the fluctuating edges and corners of the room. The scent of flowers and fire was mixed with a slowly rising smell of damp. Rain moved in sheets outside, creating an undulating scenery. Even Alice's shape didn't remain unchanged but gained exaggerated features. Sherlock blinked.

“Oh, Edward,” Alice said with a hint of exasperated amusement. The polyphagic man had been more of a toy to her than a pet or a project. “He was so enthusiastic about joining us but had nothing to offer except his body.”

That was everything to some people. “And others? What do they have to offer?” Sherlock resisted the urge to rub his eyes.

“Money, usually. More rarely their intellect. But money is fine too. It gets a lot done.” She moved her wheelchair slightly which made shadows careen off of her and into the walls. “Fiona Price had family connections and ambition, Arthur Gibson had his career and experience, Viktor Ljuga had deft hands and a need to please.”

Well, that spelled out why she wanted Sherlock. For the processing power. It was nothing new so he snorted a little. The rain seemed to have reached some extremely heavy and slow spot where thunder kept rolling and the drops hitting the glass sounded like gongs. Alice Waite seemed almost wraith-like in her thinness and paleness.

“And you found Viktor's house and led the government dogs there so it had to be purged. I knew you had one of the manuscripts, but that was not a problem. It's the one that I leaked on purpose to Wilfrid Voynich back in the late 19^th century.” She paused a little and looked at Sherlock carefully as if gauging his attention or interest. “And then I used Arthur to contact you. I want you to join us. I want you to be my body.”

The steam vortices had spread and the air was filled with slowly rotating vapour spirals. The fire had become feeble and its crackles were low and faint. Colour had drained from the flames and they were almost grey.

“You've drugged me,” Sherlock said.

“Only a little psilocybin in the tea,” she replied. Calm, but holding back some force. “You've had worse, I'm sure.”

It was true, at least. It wasn't the worst drug-induced trip of Sherlock's life and psilocybin was relatively low-impact and low-toxicity.

“In exchange for unlimited use of your body I will give you all the knowledge we have gathered over millennia,” she said, her voice tremulous with that same desire. “No one needs to know. Not even those closest to you. I assure you they won't notice any difference.”

“Why?” Sherlock gave into the need to rub his eyes and then ran his hands through his hair. He stood up. The walls seemed to be reaching for him and the continuous thunder made it difficult to hear anything else.

“Because I'm tired of being trapped in my body and you view yours only as a necessary evil.”

“Why the psilocybin!” Sherlock said louder than he meant. There was another crack of thunder right then and he felt it rattle through the house and up through his feet. The hair on his body was standing on end.

“Because your mind is extremely strong and I needed something to lower its defences and to smooth the transition,” Alice replied serenely. Her face was barely a face any more, just three black holes in a pale oval. “It's an entheogen as you know, it induces spiritual experiences. It works so well for spiritual transposition.”

Amorphous finger-like shadows were creeping up the walls from the corner of the room and across the floor. “What if I say no?” Sherlock asked. Even his own voice sounded wrong. Trying to move felt as though he was underwater.

“I'm afraid the point is moot,” she whispered. She had drunk the tea too. “You're what I've been looking for. Clever, strong, healthy. Male. I think I'll do well. And you'll be compensated.”

Sherlock had rarely felt panic or even outright fear. And he knew, somewhere in his rational brain, that the fear and paranoia he felt now resulted from the ingestion of the psilocybin and the unsettling old woman. And he seldom considered anyone or anything unsettling but this (she) made him very ill at ease.

Somehow it seemed like the thunder was coming from her.

“No,” Sherlock said even though he had considered it for a second. Longer than that. His desire to know was bottomless. He reached for his phone-

-but then he was reaching for nothing with a dry and wilted hand. He saw himself standing on the other side of the table. Disorientation and anxiety washed over him with the endless bass-booms of the thunder. “No,” he croaked again with unfamiliar vocal cords, with a body that barely drew breath. He reached for himself (Alice?) and fell forward out of the wheelchair when the legs of this waning frame didn't carry his weight at all.

He saw himself smile. “Don't worry, Sherlock,” his voice said. “Don't worry. Sherlock,” she tried again with his voice. It sounded so different with her operating his body. “Such a nice voice,” she purred and Sherlock spasmed on the floor, reaching up to grasp the coffee table to pull himself up.

He wasn't sure if there was another crack of thunder or if it was the sound of the door slamming open. The corridor beyond was far brighter than the room and light spilled in like a non-Newtonian liquid, sluggish and LED-white. She turned in his body and the light touched her (his- HIS) face and etched his borrowed features in great relief between the light from the corridor and the dark of the storm in the room.

From the middle of the light came a voice. “Sherlock!” it said. Its familiarity cut through the thick soup of sound created by the rain and thunder.

“J-John,” Sherlock croaked, reaching towards the light which slowly radiated into a halo around a shape standing in the doorway.

John stepped in, transferring himself from the light into the blue dark of the room. “Sherlock, what's going on?” he asked with rising consternation. Alice shifted towards him and Sherlock felt a surge of possessive need that collided with a sheet of lightning which allowed him to see John's expression. That dismay was for him. That trepidation on John's illuminated face belonged to him.

“Oh,” Alice began, using every fibre of Sherlock's deep voice to her obvious delight. She pulled out the vowel as long as she could until it mixed with the constant thrum of the thunder in Sherlock's ears.

He struggled on the floor. Struggled to get up, struggled to get to John. His eyes watered, making his view undulate with waves of light and colour. Then, with another crash of sound, his eyes cleared and he was staring at John from higher up, from his standard height. The shock of what had just happened made his knees buckle and he gasped in surprise.

“Sherlock!” John said, reaching over to keep him on his feet. “What's going on? What'd you do to her?”

“Get me out,” Sherlock said without breath. “Get me out. John.” He'd rationalise this later. He'd understand this later. Psilocybin was a hallucinogenic.

The woman on the floor had sat up, looking rather displeased and called for Herbert. There was no answer and Sherlock could see the driver on the floor of the corridor beyond the door. He hadn't heard the man go down but it didn't surprise him. His senses were working overtime just to keep him afloat in the ocean of nebulous signals.

“Herbert!” she said again, not able to see Herbert was down on the floor because the chair blocked her view. To Sherlock, who as a rule stayed away from religo-spiritual allusions, she looked demonic, faceless. Darkness was growing out of her in an aura that the lightning couldn't absolve and Sherlock felt that disorientation again, his consciousness going dark at the edges, but he grabbed John's shoulder and squeezed hard.

“John,” he gasped and John supported him. “Get me the hell out of here.” Sherlock glared at him and shoved him towards the door. John hesitated, but only a little.

“Sherlock,” Alice said just then, with her voice carrying more strength than it had before, making Sherlock's eyes see black for a moment. “You are perfect for me. If you walk out that door I will come after you. I will have you.” Despite the rage in her voice and the darkness she radiated she remained composed, sitting like a mermaid on the floor with her useless legs.

“What-” John started but Sherlock lurched towards the exit. He stumbled over Herbert's body and fell on his hands and knees but crawled forward. He needed to get away from her. For a brief moment he saw the room again from her point of view, looking up at the bright outline of the door. When he came back to himself he had collapsed on the floor. Then he felt John's hands on him, trying to help him up to his feet.

Her fingers were at the back of his brain, grasping and pulling.

“Get me out. Get me out!” Sherlock repeated, falling against John.

“All right, I got you,” John said and held him up.

Sherlock's legs barely worked so John had to drag him down the corridor to the lift. He knew John was asking him something, could sense the vibrations of his voice through his body and knew his ears could hear them, but his brain refused to process anything than the horror. The bone-eating, muscle-tearing fright he'd never felt before. It was textbook fight or flight and he was fleeing.

He knew he made it into the lift but he couldn't remember how and he had no idea of what happened then. In the inky black of his subconscious he ran down endless helices of stairs, the hem of his coat lapping at his legs and his breath pouring out of him as fog in the unnatural cold.

The visions came like the lightning before with the pulsating and strumming thunder, drawing scenes from somewhere else. Dainty hands resting on the edge of a table, a moving landscape behind a window, a train ride across English countryside. A train station somewhere, sliding through insensate people without looking at their faces. A car, another relocation. Trees, a park, the delicate hands resting passively in a lap covered with a merino wool blanket.

At the bottom of the stair-helix he stopped and opened his eyes.

-

The stars were incandescent.

Then, one by one, they became supernovae.

It was bright enough for Sherlock to first close his eyes and then open them. A lamp was shining into his face. John's reading light. He closed his eyes again but there was no darkness, just the light becoming red through his eyelids.

He turned his head away. It was heavy.

Then he felt a hand on his hair. “Sherlock,” John said. His voice was very soft. “You awake?”

John's thumb stroked his temple. Sherlock flexed his face, drawing his brows together and wrinkling his nose. He moved his jaw side to side and then opened his eyes. John was in front of the lamp which made the light scatter around him.

“There were traces of psilocin and ketamine in your tox screen.”

For a split second Sherlock felt like he was falling and his whole body jerked. His heart lurched almost painfully and he gasped, suddenly needing to breathe faster. He lifted his hands and looked at them but they were his hands. Familiar. A small scar on the back of his left thumb, the fingerprint burned off his right forefinger and middle finger.

“Sherlock?” John sounded mildly worried. “Do you know who I am?”

Sherlock sat up and ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He realised he was in his own bed. It was dark outside but there was no rain or thunder. Not even a wind.

“John,” Sherlock rasped. His throat was dry and his tongue was like wool. “Water.”

“Right, of course,” John said, shifting away behind the light for a bit. He came back with a glass of water and helped Sherlock sit up. “Here.”

The water tasted tepid. Had been there a while. Sherlock drank it all anyway, then pulled his knees up and realised he was under the covers, wearing his pyjamas. He wrapped his arms around his knees and clutched at his own elbows. He curled his toes into the mattress and relaxed them again.

“Want to tell me what happened?” John asked. He spoke softly, but there was underlying tension. A subtle expectancy.

“No. You tell me,” Sherlock grunted. “I don't… remember.” He looked at John from the corner of his eye and set his chin on his knees. He kept tensing the muscles in his legs, making sure they still responded.

“Oh? Which part? The part where you left alone? The part where you took drugs? The part where you pulled an old lady out of her wheelchair? And then laughed about it? Or the part where you lost consciousness for two days? And didn't recognise me the few times you came out of it? All that?”

Sherlock didn't argue. It was pointless to try and explain anything that had happened because he couldn't even explain it to himself yet. And his history with recreational narcotics made the someone-gave-them-to-me -story rather suspect. But it was interesting (and fearsome) to find out he had awoken previously. Had it been those times when he'd visited Alice Waite's consciousness?

He felt John's eyes on him and turned his head a fraction to look at him. John's face was still obscured by the light shining behind him so Sherlock couldn't see his expression clearly. It made his stomach churn suddenly and he struck across John to turn the light towards the wall. John leaned back to let him but also put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

“Sherlock.”

At least now Sherlock could see John's face. His expression was inscrutable.

“You were out for two days,” John repeated.

Sherlock looked at John, seeing the hints of worry and incomprehension behind the blank look. He couldn't hide. It was reassuring. “Just tell me what happened,” he muttered.

John sighed a bit and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You got into a strange car with a strange man so I followed you.”

It was actually a bit impressive that John had been able to do that but he'd obviously learned from the best. “Yes, I deduced that,” Sherlock said with all the sarcasm he could muster. He didn't feel like being nice right now.

John either ignored it or didn't notice it. “I got there and the man wouldn't let me in, but I persuaded him.” John made a fist with his left hand and Sherlock looked at it, noticing it was bruised. He'd taken Herbert down with his bare hands? “And then… then I opened the door and you acted really weird.”

“How?” Sherlock demanded.

“You just stared and moved very slowly. You didn't even say anything and there was an old lady on the floor next to a wheelchair. I tried asking you what happened but you just smiled.” And here John looked uncomfortable. “It was like you didn't even recognise me.”

“She drugged me,” Sherlock told him. That was all he was certain of, considering there'd been blood tests confirming the presence of at least two substances.

“Yeah,” John said. “I thought so.” He looked at Sherlock and reached over with his left hand to touch Sherlock's shoulder again. Despite everything it was gratifying to have John want to touch him.

“You didn't think I took them myself?” Sherlock asked. He was a little surprised which overrode his anxiety about what had happened to him.

“You don't do hallucinogenics,” John replied. “I know that. Give me some credit.” He smiled very slightly, not out of amusement but rather out of fondness. Or maybe it was self-satisfaction. But it wasn't that empty mimicry of a real expression Alice had used.

Sherlock closed his eyes, chilled by the memory. He must have shivered because John moved his hand across his shoulders and sat closer. It was a little awkward but Sherlock could appreciate the gesture. “Keep going.”

“I don't know who the old woman was but she knew who I was,” John continued. “Said my name. Then you panicked, I suppose. I don't know what else to call it. Never seen you do that.” His voice was tinged with worry and disbelief. “You passed out in the lift.”

“And you took me to Barts,” Sherlock concluded.

“Yeah, but there wasn't anything wrong with you except the drugs so they let me bring you home.”

“And you told Mycroft.”

“He rang me,” John defended.

“Of course he did,” Sherlock muttered. He didn't hate his brother as much as he was eternally annoyed that Mycroft's pointy nose was too often in found in Sherlock's business.

The problem was that John's artless version (how was he making a living as a storyteller?) of the events still didn't explain what had actually happened because for once Sherlock couldn't trust himself or his perceptions of the world. And even if his perceptions were correct on the sensory level, was his brain transforming the signals correctly? The out-of-body experience must have been a hallucination. A very strange shared hallucination.

“Folie á deux,” he muttered.

“What's that?” John asked. He was still there, accustomed to Sherlock's absences and non-sequiturs. Oddly he hadn't demanded Sherlock explain anything yet. Perhaps he was just biding his time.

“Shared psychosis.”

John was quiet for a bit. “Are you going to tell me about- well, anything that happened?”

Sherlock didn't feel like disclosing the matter yet. He kicked away the sheets and got up from bed. He walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind himself and started the shower, but instead of getting into the water he looked at himself in the mirror above the sink. Even though the light in the bathroom was dim it was well brighter than 25W and Sherlock didn't expect to experience the strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion (Caputo 2010) the way he did. For the briefest of moments his face shifted and Alice Waite stared back at him. He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut tightly and gripped the sides of the sink.

“It's not real,” he muttered. He'd only had a sip of the tea. How much psilocybin and/or ketamine could he have ingested from just that? Not enough to last an hour, certainly not enough to last for days.

Despite what he'd told John about the second law of thermodynamics he didn't think that was a convincing argument for (so-called) intelligent hauntings. Or even unintelligent ones. Energy couldn't be destroyed but it didn't stay in the shape of a human consciousness after the bioelectric motor of a human body stopped. A mind didn't exist separate of a body.

But if that was the case (and it was) what had happened in that room with Alice Waite? It wasn't just improbable (something that Sherlock loved) but also impossible. Transposing a consciousness (‘A soul,’ said John's echo in his mind) was an absurd thought. Shared psychosis was the only real possibility because while it was improbable it was at least possible. But how could she have triggered it so easily? How could she have triggered it at all?

Sherlock rested his forehead against the mirror and clutched at the sink harder, hands tingling with oncoming numbness. The sound of the shower had turned to comforting white noise and steam billowed up from the tub to fill the small room.

The mirror groaned as Sherlock thunked his forehead against it again. He did that a few times although not hard enough to break neither the mirror or his head. Whether it was shared psychosis or whatever else Sherlock knew he didn't want to experience it again. Or see that woman.

But with thoughts of what had happened came also the sensations and momentarily, while he was blinking his eyes open, blurry with light and steam, he felt as though he was somewhere else. He was sitting down, looking at a cup of dark tea with his fragile and withered right hand by it on the table, wearing a signet ring.

What brought Sherlock back to himself was his legs giving out from under him. His ribcage caught him on the sink and his forehead smashed into the mirror. The pain, although uncomfortable, was enough to ground him. He wiped condensation off his face (no blood, mirror unbroken) and took a breath filled with steam, wet and heavy. He pushed off the sink and staggered to the door. Opening the door caused an indraught of cold air which made him shiver and his skin erupt in goosebumps. Even his hair was damp from the steam.

“John!” he called out immediately.

“Long bath,” John replied from the sitting room. Had it been long? How long? The only sense of time Sherlock had at the moment was that it was dark outside.

Sherlock ran his hands through his damp hair (it curled even more) and stomped into the sitting room, making sure to hit his heels on the floor hard enough to jar himself with every step. “John,” he said again.

John looked up from his mobile, sitting in his chair. The harsh blue light of the phone screen made his face glow in the dark room. His hair looked white and his eyes colourless. “You left the shower on.”

Sherlock ignored that because his attention had been caught by something else. “Where's the manuscript?”

“I gave it to Mycroft,” John said. “Also everything we got from the house and whatever Gibson gave you. It's all gone, it's done.”

A shiver went through Sherlock.

“Mind explaining… anything?” John leaned his chin on his hand, idly spinning his mobile in his other hand. A habit learned from Sherlock (gratifying). “Anything at all?”

Sherlock rubbed his arms and noticed for the first time the remains of adhesive and needle marks on the back of his hand. IV drip at the hospital. He went for his violin and grabbed it with somewhat shaky hands. He lifted it to his shoulder and started playing but he could only draw out one note which he kept sawing at, fingers numb and brain non-compliant.

Was he relieved? Was he angry? Frustrated? He couldn't answer any of the questions. He wasn't even sure he could ask the questions. Had everything he thought he knew been called into question or had he met someone so brilliant at manipulation that he'd been made to think that? Both options were unsettling. Unfathomable.

Oceans swelled and ebbed inside Sherlock's brain. Was it regret he felt? Impotence? Fear? Then he felt a different thing, a hand on his arm.

“Sherlock,” John said. He was standing very close, looking up at him with troubled waters in his eyes. “It's been fifteen minutes of this and I might snap if you don't stop.”

Oh. The violin. Sherlock lowered it. John's touch radiated visceral memory up his arm and into his body. His body shivered in a violent reaction to the clinging damp and new cold sweat on his skin. His t-shirt was soaked in the back and to clung to him uncomfortably, his extremities ached in the frigid air and his heart was reeling in the cavity of his chest.

“What happened to you?” John asked. He wore concern on his brow and around his mouth in deep lines. Even his shoulders were slightly canted forward with uneasiness. He squeezed Sherlock's elbow a little, then moved to take the violin and its bow from Sherlock's hands. “Take an actual bath and clean your teeth, I'll make- I'll get some food from Mrs Hudson.”

With that John slipped his hand around Sherlock and onto the small of his back and guided him back towards the bathroom where the water still ran. Afterwards Sherlock was quite certain John didn't undress him or help him bathe but somehow those things still happened. John also procured a meal for him but Sherlock had no idea what it was even while eating it he couldn't have told what the ingredients were. And John was patient. Worried—but patient.

“Would you know if I wasn't myself?” Sherlock asked after chewing down a piece of the unrecognisable food. They were sat in their chairs, with the coffee table having been pulled between them. John was having a drink.

“You got a pretty special personality so yeah, I think so,” John replied. He was running his forefinger along the rim of his glass while holding it. “It's happening right now.”

“She was it,” Sherlock said and put the plate down. “That old woman. She's Alice Waite.” Or was she? Perhaps Alice Waite had been someone who'd been taken over as well.

“Figures. She was so goddamn civil,” John muttered and had a sip. Smelled like whisky.

Sherlock looked at him for a bit. “Profanity correlates with honesty. Feldman, 2016.”

John rolled his eyes. “Of course. Makes sense. Yeah. When do you have the time to read all these studies?”

“When you sleep and do other human things.”

John had another sip, sinking deeper into his chair. He propped his free fist under his chin. “I don't swear and I think I'm pretty honest.”

“You swear. Just not out loud every time. I can see it in your face.” Sherlock didn't bother repeating his stance on how John was only honest as far as it correlated with an inability to lie convincingly.

“Sherlock,” John said. “What'd she do to you?” Consternation was obvious in both his words and body language. The sitting room was still dark but there was a light on in the kitchen and John was back-lit again. Fretful wisps of dust flowed around him and Sherlock was reminded of the vortices of steam around Alice. But there was no rain this time, no thunder, just John quickly licking his lips and faint telly noise from Mrs Hudson's.

Sherlock realised John had asked him the same question several times already but Sherlock hadn't responded. He needed to explain but to explain meant to make clear, to render intelligible and he couldn't—wasn't able to do that. And this wasn't one of the times when something was obvious to him but unreachable by John's intellect (such as nothing being intrinsically moral or immoral). This was beyond Sherlock as well and he resented that. He could rationalise but he couldn't explain.

“She offered me an exchange of assets,” he finally said. “Her knowledge against my… body.”

“What-” John lifted his head a bit, mouth wrinkled in objection. The nature of said objection remained ambiguous (probably something to do with sex).

“The use of my body,” Sherlock clarified. “The way she used Arthur Gibson.” And others probably. Many others. She had said she'd leaked the manuscript in the 19^th century

“What-” John started again, this time with annoyed disbelief. “Sherlock, that's impossible. It must've been the drugs-”

“John!” Sherlock interrupted him, leaning forward in his chair and scowling at him. “I didn't say it was possible, I said it was what she offered.”

John looked back at him, doubt worming new lines across his face and tensing his shoulders. He shifted his grasp on his glass and had another sip. “And you took it?”

“No,” Sherlock said and saw John relax. “She didn't give me the chance.”

John sunk even deeper into his chair and rubbed at his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. “Sherlock…” he murmured in a resigned manner. He didn't need to say more because Sherlock understood. He understood John didn't trust him to not run off and join an obscure secret society. Which now shed light on why John had given all the documents relating to the Explorers to Mycroft.

Despite the seriousness of the matter at hand Sherlock felt relatively good. John engaged him on multiple levels and that reminded him of who he was. That was what he needed right now. “She will come back for me.”

“They always do. You're a freak magnet,” John replied with a little bit of acid in his voice. Then he sighed and put his empty glass on the coffee table. “Which isn't to say you're a freak.”

“I don't need that clarification from you,” Sherlock said. He really didn't. John enjoyed him. He rubbed his hands together and looked aside, thinking. She'd be back and he had to be prepared. Whatever her technique was to take over malleable minds Sherlock wouldn't be caught unaware again. It was a pity John had handed over the manuscript but it was no great loss. From what he'd learned from Alice it wasn't particularly important when it came to the writings of the Explorers, not to mention complete scans of the Voynich manuscript could be found as a PDF on the internet. A far greater loss were the papers handed to him by Arthur Gibson (or had they been given to him by Alice?).

“Next time I'll be ready,” he muttered.

“Great,” John said and got up with a grunt. He vocalised a lot when doing things. He belittled Sherlock's encounter with Alice Waite because he didn't understand it. That was fine, he rarely understood anything anyway.

Sherlock stood up too and arrested John's departure by placing his hands on John's shoulders. Perhaps he didn't understand many of the things Sherlock said or did but he did have a singular understanding of Sherlock himself as counter-intuitive as that was. “John,” he said.

John looked up, an array of slight confusion and expectancy on his face. The bags under his eyes were bigger than usual and he wore his clothes ill. He was tired and when John was tired nothing fit him. Coffee gave him heartburn and all his clothes seemed like they were meant for someone of a different size. To Sherlock it was a brilliant example of a person fully inhibiting his body and telegraphing status effects (such as emotional states) through it.

And because John was so wearied and worried Sherlock struggled to find the right words to tell him of his gratitude and appreciation. “You did the right thing,” he finally said, trying to fill his voice with sincerity.

Despite his efforts John's expression went somewhat suspicious, which Sherlock then attempted to dissuade by leaning down to kiss him. “You did the right thing,” he repeated although he disliked repeating things. “Which is what I need you to do,” he added to explain. He had barely moved his head so he spoke from his lips to John's lips.

“Thanks..?” John's reply was a little hesitant but he had placed his hands lightly on Sherlock's hips.

Sherlock kissed him again, harder and longer this time. He enjoyed the way John had to tilt his face up for the kisses. It reminded Sherlock of heliotropism in plants, the diurnal motion of flowers towards the direction of the sun. It was the way he imagined John followed his movements, face turning into his direction wherever he was.

“All right,” John said. His voice had that rough edge which meant Sherlock had gotten under his skin. “What am I? Sandpaper?”

Sherlock realised he'd been rubbing his lips against John's stubble and pulled back a bit. “You haven't shaved for two days.”

John's arms encircled Sherlock's middle now, hands resting on the small of his back. “Of course not. I was worried about you. You-” He paused, worry darkening his eyes. “This time was different. That woman scared you.” John was frowning and his grasp on Sherlock was a little tighter. Protective, Sherlock realised, but in a manner that didn't annoy him—unlike Mycroft's overbearing over-protectiveness.

“Yes, but it won't happen again,” Sherlock replied which was a blatant lie and only meant to soothe John. He had no idea what would happen if he came face to face with Alice Waite again. “I know her tricks now.” Another lie.

“You sure?” John tilted his head.

Sherlock nodded and played with the short strands of hair on the sides of John's head. Yes, they had turned grey. Even John's stubble was grey and Sherlock did like the feel of it against his lips or cheek. He liked the feel of John holding him so they stood connected from knee to chest.

“You should get some rest,” John said after a bit.

“Absolutely not. I've been in bed for days, the last thing I need is rest,” Sherlock replied immediately. He cupped John's face between his hands and kissed him again, taking his time to enjoy the sensation. He could feel John's pulse move quicker against the side of his palm as they kissed.

“Fine, what do you want to do then?” John asked in a whisper. Was that a hint of excitement in his voice? What did he expect?

“Talk about melipona capixaba,” Sherlock answered smugly, knowing it was a response John definitely hadn't expected. The confusion on John's face was priceless. “They're stingless eusocial bees from Brazil. I want some.”

John just leaned back raised his eyebrows in an expression of ‘are you fucking kidding me?’

Sherlock smiled a bit. There it was. The swearing face. But the smile disappeared because what he wanted to say was something serious. “John. In the future, at any time you feel like I'm not being myself, I want you to talk to me about melipona capixaba. If I respond by saying they're stingless eusocial bees from Brazil there is nothing to worry about. If I don't… keep an eye on me but don't do anything overt. I will try to come back to you as soon as I can.”

“What are you talking about?” John leaned even farther back, shock tensing his previously relaxed expression. “Why wouldn't you be yourself?”

Sherlock squeezed John's head between his hands a little. “Just promise me.”

“Ah… I do, I promise,” John said, still bewildered.

Sherlock held John a moment longer, then released him, satisfied John would do what he'd asked of him if the need arose. He moved to grab his laptop off the desk and opened it, folding back into his chair. “All right then, let's find a new case.”