Chapter Text
Recovery was swift, and it wasn’t long before they removed the packing from his sinus cavities. It was incredibly painful, to the point of outright agony, and Sherlock marvelled (through sniffles and watery eyes) at the sheer amount of gauze they pulled directly out of his face.
Strangely (or perhaps not so), little was mentioned about the incident while he was in the recovery ward. No one seemed inclined to answer any questions related to, or even remotely leaning towards, why he awoke screaming the name ‘John.’ If Sherlock hadn’t been concerned with splitting headaches and recovery issues of his own, he would have pressed the matter with his own particular brand of tenacity. As it was, he was having more trouble merely tending to his own personal needs to care.
Even after a week, and even after a round of intravenous antibiotics and one miserable steroid shot to the fleshiest part of his bum, his nasal passages still refused to obey and cease their incessant, hateful swelling.
When first he glimpsed his post-procedural visage in the toilet mirror, he scowled in self-conscious dismay. While he liked to think his body was just transport, a simple and moderately useful carrier for his brain, he soon came to realize an unkempt personal appearance just didn’t sit well with his ego (he didn't artfully apply expensive product in his hair for nothing, mind).
Like his Sentinel abilities, his transport was a tool, nothing more...but even the simplest of tools required regular care and maintenance.
It was difficult, at first, but he healed - and with healing, he became aware, slowly, and without much fanfare, that he was no longer the same as he was before.
"Where do you come from?" Sherlock sat before the roaring fire of Baker Street, warming his conceptual toes in the glow. Across the frayed rug, the brocade chair remained empty but for one steaming mug of tea sat like a beacon on the wooden side-table.
"Honestly? Difficult to give you an easy answer to that one. I guess you could say I am a bit of someone else that was placed inside you. So, theoretically, I come from inside you now.”
“I meant originally. You came from my donor, who is he?”
“Look now…I’ve given you all the information I can.”
"Well obviously you haven't answered to my satisfaction."
A laugh, and the empty space in front of the chair shifted, light travelling through heated air. "When are you ever satisfied, Sherlock?"
He shrugged, "it's been known to happen."
The level of tea decreased slowly, invisible sips draining the cups' contents. "I think you'll find it doesn't. Besides, the rest will come with time, when the bond grows, solidifies.”
“I thought the purpose of this entire debacle was that there wasn’t supposed to be a bond at all!” Sherlock groaned, frustrated, and leant forward, painfully digging his elbows into his knees.
His vexation met with loaded silence.
"Fine,” he glared from the teacup to the empty seat, “where does he come from then?"
"Sherlock!" Mrs. Hudson tutted as she slipped through the door to his apartment – absolutely uninvited (and therefore tedious in the extreme), "enough with this tantrum and come downstairs with the others."
"No," he barked, rolling over in the bed and wrapping the paltry excuse for a blanket once more round his wiry frame. “I’m exceedingly ill. Can’t you see? I’m wrapped in a blanket!"
"You are most certainly not that ill young man, unless you want to make a case for terminal stroppiness!" She pinched at his flank and he bucked immediately, looking out over his shoulder with a pointed glare.
"Oh for God's sake! What do you want? Has my imprisonment in this torturous facility not a punishment enough? Now I am expected to - to socialize, to canoodle?!"
Mrs. Hudson ignored the outburst, searching instead through the Sentinel's modest closet for an appropriately clean get up. "Oh stop your whinging, drama queen."
The click and clack of the wire hangers banging against each other was almost too much for Sherlock's sensitive ears and he flipped back over onto his side, "go away and leave me alone."
"Nothing doing, darling." Finally satisfied with her selection, she deposited the clothing onto Sherlock's bundled torso. "Now, I want to see you downstairs in no less than twenty minutes, otherwise I'll have Kate come and drag you out by your ear – and I do not make idle threats!
Sherlock wrinkled his nose, searching his mind palace for a 'Kate' - oh yes - Kate Whitney, oh she of the absurdly pumpkin pantsuit. Well, he'd rather avoid another retina-searing encounter with that woman at all costs.
Mrs. Hudson fluttered about for another long moment before leaving (finally) and shutting the door behind her with a resounding (and ear-shattering) thud. Sherlock's senses remained painfully attuned to the world around him, and he was still waiting for the full effects of his implant to become apparent.
Slowly, he shimmied out from under his duvet wrap and inhaled, opening his abilities to the world around him. He expanded his senses no further than his own room, having already been through the pain of overreaching a few days ago.
It was less of an assault than it was before the implant, and even still it was less of an overload than merely the day before. Sherlock could smell the smoke from the petrol lawnmower over the lawns near the side of the building seeping in through his window; he could smell the newly shorn grass and the washing powder used to clean his trousers. Cleenzyme vapours wafted upwards from the carpet, lemon-scented, burning the nostrils and mixing with some brand of glass cleaner (something industrial, Novaclear possibly). Housekeeping tidied his room daily, when he couldn't scare them away, and though these scents were meant to be gentle and forgiving to most Sentinels, they were bright as fairy lights in Sherlock's mind...and steadily growing brighter.
Alright, that's enough of that - stop holding your breath and rein it in.
Sherlock opened his eyes, only just now aware they’d been closed. The scents around him muted, dulled, drifted away and settled into a comfortable miasma of the unimportant. John did that for him now. John reminded him of his boundaries and reeled him in when he was wont to push himself too far.
It was as if John actually spoke to him, but it was also more than that. It was a feeling...sentiment, if one was feeling quite maudlin. If Sherlock extended too far, John washed over his mind with calmness, security, and strength.
It was appalling – and while Sherlock had never gone so long without the urge for a hit, a bump, or a line, he missed the chemical bliss that allowed him to disconnect from the world and revel in the cold deductive reasoning he valued above all.
Sherlock felt like a child, chafing against his finest new school-clothes. It was true that stimulus from the outside world was no longer outright painful, but life had only just become that much more boring. He never did like to be mollycoddled and this felt far too much like being babysat from a tiny little tyrant inside his own mind.
Poncy prat. Go on with you.
Sherlock sniffed and stood from the bed, catching his wan reflection in the opposite wall mirror as he did so. He gave himself the two-fingered salute, complete with a rather juicy raspberry.
Implant or not, he didn't always have to obey his new-found guide.
The sun was high in the sky, green grass dappled and fragrant beneath his feet. Somewhere, Sherlock could hear the buzzing of a bee hive and he sighed, the amber colours of honey thick in his nostrils. John was near, he could feel him, and yet still Sherlock could sense he was avoiding the question.
“I dislike repeating myself.”
“I want to tell you, really I do, it’s only – I’m not exactly sure where he comes from. Me, I suppose.”
“But you already stated you came from me.”
“I suppose then he does as well, now.”
That wasn’t a particular comforting thought, “he smells of chlorine, always. Why does he?”
A cool breeze lingered across the meadow, ruffling Sherlock’s curls and toying with the steam from John’s mug.
“He died, killed himself, at a pool. It must be some kind of subconscious spiritual contamination, of a sort.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes, running the long tips of his fingers against his bottom lip, “you’re saying he’s, what, tainted?”
“Perhaps? There’s not really a precendent for such a thing, even such a thing as we have. Not really.”
“I need a name then, John.”
“Sherlock,” a gust of heat blew across the back of his shoulders, prickling his nerves and setting the hair at his nape on end, “I can’t.”
“I need a name!”
The heat rushed around his body, billowing about his torso, and moved away to settle in a semi-opaque, slightly humanoid cloud in front of him.
If it was a man, it was certainly shorter than Sherlock, and much slighter in frame.
“He’ll hear us.” The cloud, John, pleaded.
Sherlock would not be deterred, annoyance mounting. “A name, John!”
Then at once the cloud dispersed, leeching away into the sunset as if it were never there, as if its warmth never existed and never caressed the back of Sherlock’s hands.
“Moriarty.”
There were far too many people in the common dining area.
Between the clink of forks and the constant, dampish, too-loud brush of lips against cheap glassware, Sherlock could feel the beginnings of quite a spectacular migraine.
Oh good, a turkey curry buffet.
Steady on, Sherlock. A single meal won’t kill you.
Probably not, but prolonged contact with the vacant-faced drones of the Serenity Cottage just might – or the turkey curry, fifty-fifty chance really.
“Mr. Holmes? Sherlock Holmes?”
Lovely, someone wanted to converse with him. Well, this certainly won’t end in misery and consternation.
Sherlock turned, smoothing his hands down the lapels of his sixth best suit, readying himself for the common barrage of questions he’d been subjected to since beginning his treatment at the cottage.
The woman who’d addressed him offered a closed mouthed smile, stretching her full lips, cautious in manner and closed in her body language. The smile held neither mirth nor genuine pleasure, but what it did convey was a certain kind of curiosity of which Sherlock was very familiar. She was rather tall, well-built, and held herself in a defensive stance that made Sherlock think twice about blowing her off completely. She looked him up and down, apparently unimpressed, and tucked a lock of tightly curled hair behind one ear.
“Sally Donovan, we’ve met, do you remember?”
He flipped through his contact list in his Mind Palace, each name a blur, whizzing past the multitudes before he came to a quite resolute blank. Cocking his head, he forced a smile that looked rather, well, forced, and moved towards the buffet.
“Actually, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
She matched his pace, unwilling to be brushed off so easily. They each grabbed a plate and managed not to act too uncomfortable around each other as they were served their portions.
All at once the smell almost knocked Sherlock back into the horrid plastic ficus situated just behind the serving queue. He wasn’t entirely sure this was food, it couldn’t be food, could it? Sherlock could smell all manner of chemicals that certainly did not belong in a traditional curry and inwardly cursed his Sentinel senses – they’d put him off cheap take-out and lesser quality food since puberty.
“We have, you know. I met you on your very first night. I was the one guided you out of your zone.”
He scoffed, letting the server plop yet another unknown bit of mystery vittles on his plate (he had no plans to really eat any of this slop, but appearances must).
“Zoned?” He laughed; of course he’d never zoned a day in his life.
Sherlock…
John’s voice was a warning, a reminder, and it came entirely too late.
Sherlock turned away from Sally abruptly, but she followed him as he made his way to the only empty table in the common room – right next to some godawful statue that vaguely mimicked the Renassaince greats – it was a poor comparison.
“Yes,” she set her plate down a little too loudly, a wrinkle of concern appearing between her brows, “I pulled you out myself. I know what I saw.”
“You know what you saw?” This was almost spoken like a challenge, and Sherlock sat, leant back, and took Sally in fully.
Her hair was perfectly coifed and held back in a clasp that had clearly seen better days, once brassy but dulled with time and one too many liberal coats of hairspray. It was naturally curly, distinctive, but frizzed along the ends, so it had been quite a while since her last haircut. Her makeup was sparse, calling upon her natural comeliness rather than manufactured beauty, but her mascara caked and scaled along the eye-line, sending flakes below her eyes like tiny, dirty flecks of soot. The blouse was new, as evidenced by the sheen on the buttons, but her pants frayed at the hems. Her shoes were ill-fitting, veritably bursting at the sides as the narrow fit did a wide foot no favours. All in all she was a working Guide, no Tower favourite here and…oh yes, absently fingering a small-chained gold-plated bracelet worth hardly anything at all.
“Tell me, Sally, how did you find yourself working for the Cottage? You’re a Guide of no-inconsiderable skill and yet I see you here, working off, what, several Tower fines? What exactly did you do to fall out of the Tower’s good graces?”
“Sorry, what?”
Sherlock…timing!
He ignored John’s voice in his head, letting it fade into the distance, leaning in for the kill. If this woman wanted to cozy up to him after meeting him only once, well, he was more than happy to disavow her of the notion. It was too late now, the truth was out, and Sherlock could never completely say his powers of deduction were solely based on his Sentinel abilities.
To his surprise, after her initial response, she remained impressively calm.
“You know, I’ve heard about people like you. Those who think they’re too good for the Tower. People who think they don’t need the teachings, that they can survive on their own and not be a burden or a threat to everyone else. People like you are always wrong.”
She gripped the sides of her plate, knuckles white against the faux gold gilding.
I can fix it for you.
What?
Sherlock no! Don’t listen –
Sally lifted her plate and dumped her piping hot serving of turkey curry into Sherlock’s lap, looking quite pleased as it oozed and ruined his sixth best pair of trousers.
I can fix it for you.
“You can go fuck yourself, freak. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”
His mind raced between thoughts, between voices.
I can fix it for you.
But then a wave of true, blessed calm washed over his mind. It was singular, different, an erratic energy that suffused his body and brought him to real, final purpose.
I can fix it for you.
“Sally, wait, wait!” He pleaded as she stood, prepared to storm away in righteous anger. “Tell me who it was, tell me what happened.”
She faltered, unsure, “why? What could you possibly say after that?”
“I could,” and Sherlock smiled, his first real smile since he’d been forced into this horrid place, “I could fix it for you.”