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It hardly deserved to be called a house, Sherlock thought critically—possibly tipping over into the category of shack; smaller than the flat, certainly. He left his filthy, slush-blackened hatchback parked haphazardly on the snowfield in front where the left front wheel had stuck, near some tracks from a massive Jeep. The door wasn't locked. He stopped just inside and drank in the flood of data, like the first rush of a cigarette after weeks without, or the even sweeter rush of heroin.
John had been working out nearly to excess; he'd strained his left shoulder a few weeks earlier, and had needed to take a break from practicing with his new rifle, which was under the bed, loaded. He still disliked the bitter cold of the winter in northern BC: that might be useful. He was in contact with his sister, but mostly by text and email; also with a few other friends back in London—Sherlock frowned, Lestrade, really?—and had made a handful of local acquaintances. Poker nights, for small stakes, and possibly he was seeing a dark-haired woman who worked at the local library—
Ah, no. Sherlock relaxed: an older woman, responsible for the knitted scarf in an over-elaborate pattern poking out of a corner of a dresser and the box of homemade cookies gone stale on the counter: the grandmother of the child under six whom John had spent three days attending to, a month or so ago.
He put the kettle on, more than a little desperate for caffeine, and ruthlessly went through the furnishings looking for more information. John had more clothing than Sherlock would have liked to see—too many pairs of longjohns, in particular, and socks in two thicknesses for layering. Enough to space out laundry over two weeks, going on three. There weren't very many books, but the Kindle cable in the desk drawer negated that advantage.
The tea was steeped to pitch colour by the time he had finished with his survey, and one repetition for good measure, just to be sure he hadn't missed anything. He hadn't, unfortunately. He took the cup and stood in the doorway to the sitting room. It was smaller than Baker Street: two rooms and a kitchen and a bathroom, nothing more, not a home—
No. Optimism was the death of reason. He forced himself to rewrite the thought. It was a home. John was not staying here; he lived here. He was content. Life here was difficult, and dangerous in some respects, but that was no great obstacle—indeed, in John's case, it was necessary. Very likely he would soon be happy, if left to his own devices. Of course, Sherlock had no intention of doing that, but he would have liked to have found John unhappy, and not just mildly annoyed by the cold.
He had ample warning: the wheels of John's car crunching on the snow, his footsteps coming to the door. John opened the door and stood there looking at him a moment.
"Hello, John," Sherlock said.
"You have nerve," John said, coming in and closing the door, beginning to shed layers. He looked better than deduction had suggested. The shoulder wasn't bothering him at all anymore, and he'd put on a good deal of muscle. "What do you want? Another punch to the head?"
"No, thank you," Sherlock said. His jaw still ached, even after the wires had been taken out, and John could probably hit with several more pounds of pressure now. "I've come to apologize."
"Have you." John sat down to take off his heavy boots. "Go on, then."
"I'm sorry," Sherlock said. The words tasted awkward and false in his mouth, and John's raised eyebrow indicated that his delivery had fallen flat. He jerked his head, impatient with both of them. "I am sorry," he said, sharply. "While at the time I thought I had made the most practical decision, in hindsight I realize my judgement was flawed, and relied on an incorrect assessment of your capabilities and your feelings. I sincerely regret any pain I caused you, throughout the entire incident."
John finished pulling off his second boot, and tucked it under the entry bench before standing. "Thanks ever so. Now you can go."
"John—"
"Go," John said, "or I'll put you out. And I'll be less gentle about it this time."
Sherlock went out and sat in his car. He hadn't really expected things to be that easy, but worth a try. He texted, Apology delivered. Thrown out.
Naturally, Mycroft texted back. Try not to end in hospital again.
"Yes, yes," Sherlock said to the mobile, irritated. He started the engine and turned up the heating. It was snowing again, thickly, as forecast. He texted John, Car stuck. No response came, but he hadn't expected one. He waited sixty seconds and texted again, Boring place to live.
He kept texting at sixty-second intervals even while his eyes drifted shut, then jerked awake a short while later, being bodily dragged from the car. He was disoriented enough to try and lash out, but his limbs wouldn't answer. "Bleeding imbecile," John was saying, savagely, and rubbed Sherlock's face with icy snow.
"I'm awake," Sherlock managed, struggling for breath. Also: mild nausea, headache pounding. Symptoms of initial stages of carbon monoxide poisoning, not severe. Excellent. "Exhaust was blocked—"
"Yes, you idiot," John said. "By the snow." He pushed Sherlock up against the wall of the house. Sherlock drew in deep swallowing breaths, blinking up at the crispness of the stars. The wave of dizziness faded, and when he looked down, John's face came clear in his vision, hard and angry.
"Thank you," Sherlock said. "Shall we go inside now?"
"You think I'm letting you stay?" John said.
"Of course you are," Sherlock said. "The snowfall is increasing. I doubt emergency services will be able to come and assist me at this point, and if you were actually prepared to let me die of exposure, you would have left me in the car. Quicker, less unpleasant, and less chance of legal liability."
John looked away from him, jaw clenching a moment, and then let go and stalked for the door. Sherlock took a few more deep breaths and went in after him. He took off his own boots and coat, and went to sit by the heater in the corner. He glanced up and found John staring at him, arms folded, mouth downturned, from the kitchen door.
"Why are you here, really?" John said.
Opportunity and danger at once. Sherlock sorted through several alternatives and settled on the safest truth: bare fact. "I want you to come back to Baker Street."
"Yes," John said. "Why?"
Sherlock paused and said cautiously, "I—regret the loss of our partnership. It was—effective."
"Try again," John said. "It wasn't effective enough to keep you from breaking it up for a year."
"Only as a temporary—"
"No," John said flatly. "You're not that stupid about other people's feelings, whatever your own."
Sherlock drummed his fingers on his knee, irritated. The equation still seemed perfectly obvious to him: a John Watson who mourned sincerely was of no interest; of no interest, and therefore safe. Granted, Sherlock had anticipated that John would find this an uncompelling argument, but it still annoyed him.
"I thought the risk was acceptable," he muttered.
"Because, what was it you said, I'd come around eventually for my adrenaline fix?"
"Yes, thank you, that was stupid," Sherlock snapped; particularly as it might even have been true, if only he'd kept his mouth shut instead of drawing John's attention to it, and inducing him to go halfway around the world for that fix instead. "I didn't think it would matter."
"I don't believe you thought it wouldn't matter to me."
"Of course not," Sherlock said. "I thought it wouldn't matter to me."
John snorted. "All right, that I can swallow."
He turned away and went into the kitchen, stopping to look down with irritation as he stepped into a bit of melted slush Sherlock's boots had left on the floor, earlier. Sherlock rose from the sofa and went to stand in the doorway while John wiped it up.
"Why should it matter?" Sherlock said. "We are both alive and perfectly well; Moriarty and all his associates have been thoroughly dealt with; even my reputation has been cleared. The case was a resounding success on all fronts, far beyond reasonable expectations. If you choose to be resentful of my pursuing the most sensible course of action and run halfway around the world to sulk, I cannot see any reason why I should care."
John stood up and threw the wadded kitchen roll into the bin. "No, neither can I." He walked to the cabinets and took out a tin of tomato soup.
"That's not the one you want," Sherlock snapped, slouching back against the wall, arms folded.
John paused, glanced down at the tin, then heaved a breath and exchanged it for split pea. He continued not looking at Sherlock while he opened the tin and started heating it in the microwave.
Sherlock scowled at the floor and grudgingly confessed. "Very well. I miss you. I even find my cases uninteresting—I thought at first it was simply the contrast to the challenge Moriarty posed, but then a really splendid problem fell into my lap, half of a rat shipped to the British Museum from Sumatra, and I couldn't even be bothered. Does that satisfy you?"
"Not really, no," John said, then paused, knife suspended in mid-air over the loaf of bread. "Half a rat?"
"Yes," Sherlock said. "Obviously. It would hardly be interesting if it were a whole rat."
"Right, I—see the distinction," John said. "Well, I'm sure you can find yourself another Boswell somewhere—"
"I do not miss your puerile blog entries!" Sherlock said. "Or your very minor and incidental contributions to my cases, or your endless supply of astonished admiration over trivial acts of deduction, though admittedly the latter is occasionally satisfying—"
"You're not really helping yourself," John said. He took the bowl out of the microwave and went to sit at the small table with his bread and glass of water.
Sherlock watched him with the first stirrings of real anxiety. John was not merely cleaving to his routine defensively. He was eating the soup steadily and with appetite; his expression tired rather than annoyed, as though he were only waiting for Sherlock to run himself out. There was no sign of yielding. Even the question about the rat had been half-hearted.
"I'm not coming back, Sherlock," John said. "I'm perfectly satisfied here, and I'm sure you can manage without me."
"Of course I can manage!" Sherlock said. "What sort of idiotic thing to say is that? I don't want to manage! I want you."
"For no apparent reason, as far as I can see," John said.
"Yes!" Sherlock said, relieved, taking two quick steps to the table, leaning on it. "For no reason whatsoever! Now you see."
He paused expectantly, but John only stopped eating and stared up at him. "No, actually, I don't."
Sherlock smothered the surge of renewed frustration. "How could I possibly have anticipated that I would long for you irrationally?" he said. "Naturally I didn't take that into account when deciding to risk your leaving me. If I had, I would have developed a different strategy."
"Oh?" John said, leaning back in his chair: an expression of interest, at least, so despite the inanity of the approach, Sherlock drove onward.
"I would have arranged for us both to appear to have died," Sherlock said. "Naturally, that would have been more suspicious, and as two men traveling together we would have been easier to track, so we would have been at greater risk, but at least I wouldn't have had to endure this intolerable situation."
John was looking even more fascinated. "So you're saying, you'd have found it acceptable to risk our lives if you'd known how unhappy you'd be, over my leaving you."
"Yes, obviously," Sherlock said. "Certainly better than relying on you to fake mourning. No one would have believed that for an instant."
"No, I suppose they wouldn't have," John said. "And now tell me, what, in all our association, what in everything you know of me, made you think that I would have minded risking my life to know you were alive?"
Unanswerable point, unfortunately. John's standards for risking his life were significantly lower than any ordinary person's, a circumstance which had landed him in multiple extreme environments, among them Sherlock's company; it would be the most pathetic sophistry to pretend he hadn't had that particular piece of data to hand when making the decision.
"I could scarcely find out without asking you and rendering the question moot," Sherlock said, pathetically.
And worse, to no purpose: John's mouth quirked, too briefly to call it a smile, and he didn't bother to respond. He gathered his plates together and carried them to the sink. "Why don't we just go to sleep," he said. "In the morning, I'll call you a tow."
"No," Sherlock said, standing up. "John—"
"Or," John said equably, turning around drying his hands, square and competent, "I can knock you down a few more times, let you lie on the floor all night, and ship you off in the morning."
At least an 80% chance John wasn't bluffing. On the other hand, a minimum 12 hours to successfully get a tow in, depending on the extent of the snowfall; possibly as many as 36. Sherlock reserved the rest of his arguments and went back into the sitting room, sat down on the sofa and wrapped himself in a blanket. John regarded him another minute and then turned and went into his bedroom and shut the door.
Sherlock allowed fifty minutes—five minutes for toothbrushing and pajamas, forty-five to enter third stage of NREM sleep—and then experimentally said, "John," in a normal speaking voice. There was no response. He went and got the screwdriver from the utility drawer in the entry table. It was the work of a few moments to fray a couple of wires and disable the heater. He closed it up again and blew gently over the surface to redistribute the remaining layer of dust.
The syringe was in the inner pocket of his coat. Change the dosage to account for John's increased muscle mass? Sherlock contemplated, then ruled it out. He turned off the lights and quietly opened the door to the bedroom. John was heavily asleep, on his side, and didn't stir when the fine needle went in. Splendid.
Sherlock went back out, closing the door quietly, and put the syringe away. There were some biscuits in the kitchen cupboard; he didn't feel particularly hungry, but a little blood sugar would likely be useful. Then he lay down on the sofa wrapped in the blanket again and waited impatiently until his breath fogged in the rapidly chilling air. It seemed to take a very long time, a stupid illusion. Of all the things to be reduced to: checking his mobile every three minutes. He tried not to contemplate what else he might be driven to, if this didn't work.
At last a long open-mouthed exhale hung faintly white for a moment before him. Sherlock flung off the blanket and went back into the bedroom.
"John," he said, bending over the bed and gently shaking him.
"Mm," John muttered. Still in deep sleep. Sherlock shook him a little harder.
John opened his eyes a moment. He sighed heavily, and finally said, "What?"
"The heater's gone off," he said.
John didn't answer for a moment, and then said, "Really."
"Yes," Sherlock said. "There's no—"
"I mean, that's really—the plan," John said.
Sherlock stopped.
John slowly and awkwardly struggled up out of the covers and scrubbed his hands over his face. He looked at Sherlock, tired, pupils slightly dilated, cheeks mildly flushed. "Heater broken, huddling for warmth, bit of a grope, suddenly we're overcome with passion—honestly?"
Sherlock didn't answer; he hadn't considered this possibility: John had no data at all, he hadn't even looked over the—
John was rubbing his face again, blinking. "I don't think I'm lucid enough for this conversation," he said, and then frowned. He turned and looked at Sherlock, outrage visible even in the dim light of the clock radio. "Wait a minute, did you drug me? Did you—what did you give me?"
"Bremelanotide and diphenhydramine," Sherlock said, blankly. There didn't seem to be any reason not to tell him.
"Oh, for God's sake," John said.
"A small dose."
"Well, that's something!" John said. "And this is your plan, your brilliant genius fucking plan—"
"It's a splendid plan!" Sherlock said, rousing in its defense."You've been abstinent for more than a year and you remain angry at me: sexual activity is a common method for sublimating an impulse to violence—"
"I'm perfectly fine with actual violence!" John said.
Sherlock paid no attention. "—and you've generally had a traditional attitude towards your sexual relationships, you view your partners as having granted you their favors, and display guilt when you fail to make them happy emotionally in exchange—"
"Yes, though mostly they haven't drugged me!" John said. "For that matter," he added, voice rising, "they also haven't nearly killed themselves on my doorstep, broken my heater, barged into my bedroom and tried to molest me—" and Sherlock seized the opening and kissed him.
He thought for a moment it had worked: John's mouth, open, softened beneath his own, instinctively welcoming, still sweet with the last traces of mint from his toothpaste. His own reaction distracted him, however, and John caught him by the arms and held him away.
"Sherlock," John said, and Christ, no, it was kind, he was about to be kind—
"Please," Sherlock said, interrupting him, in desperation. Odd, how easily pride could be sacrificed. Very likely to no effect: why should pleading change John's mind? And yet a mere fragment of a chance was worth anything.
"Please," he said again: John had paused, at least. "I beg you."
John said nothing a moment, and then he looked away. Jaw clenching, by the small shift in the shadows upon his face. Impatience, bewilderment, something—
"I can't come back," John said.
Sherlock felt the words strike: almost a physical sensation. Conceivably like watching a beloved friend die. A useful piece of information. He couldn't use it at the moment; his mind wasn't working properly.
"I've signed a contract for six months," John said.
"What?" Sherlock said. Then he jerked and looked at John.
"They can't get doctors out here easily," John said. "I'm not going to leave them in the lurch. In six months—we'll see."
Six months. His mind was functioning again, lurching forward like a car dug out of the snow. Six months, that was absurd. Anything could happen in six months: the next grateful relative might be a luscious divorcee. "Very well," he said. "I'll stay."
"You'll—what?" John said.
"Until you come back with me."
John stared at him. "What are you planning to do? There's not really much call for a detective out here."
Sherlock waved a hand impatiently. "I may not have a medical degree, but I'm certainly capable of assisting you."
"If any of my patients die, yes," John said. He paused. "You're serious."
"Of course," Sherlock said.
"There was a hallucinogen in there too, I suppose," John said, half to himself.
"There was not," Sherlock said. "Is that acceptable?"
"I, er, well," John began, still staring, and Sherlock thrust him back down against the pillows.
John finally managed after a few minutes to roll them over and pin him down. "Wait! Just—wait," he said, panting. "This isn't—I'm still angry, you—"
"Yes, yes," Sherlock said distractedly, staring up at him in revelation. John's hands gripping his shoulders were fantastically strong. Sherlock had anticipated needing to self-stimulate to get an erection, but evidently that wasn't going to be at all necessary. "Why are we talking?" He shoved John's knee out from under him.
John fell on top of him—also erect, excellent—and Sherlock managed to eel a hand between them and get at his pajama waistband while biting at John's neck.
"Oh, fuck it," John said, and wrestled open Sherlock's trousers.
Satisfied that John was properly engaged, Sherlock let him take over—"Yes," he said urgently, closing his eyes to better appreciate the united sensation of success and physical pleasure as John's hand closed around his cock—and got the mobile out of his pocket as he shoved the discarded trousers off the bed. Back in 6mon, he texted Mycroft victoriously, one-handed, and let the phone drop on top of the pile of clothing as he sank his hands into John's hair.