Chapter Text
The first letter wasn’t even recognised for what it was until well after its arrival.
It turned up with all the other post in a neat envelope, first class stamp and handwritten address. ‘Doctor John Watson’, it read in a feminine scrawl. ‘221B Baker Street, NW1 6XE, London’. Curious, John opened it, read it, then quickly put the pink, heart covered card back in its envelope with an expression warring between flattered and embarrassed (embarrassed was winning). He slid it onto the living room table between some books and a stack of railway timetables, not quite knowing what else to do with it.
That night, looking for a book he’d misplaced, he unknowingly shuffled the card in with what he generally labelled as ‘Sherlock’s miscellaneous junk’. On remembering the next day and searching for it in the hope that he could hide or dispose of the thing so that no one else might find it – he didn’t even know if Mrs Hudson or Sherlock would be worse – he came away empty handed and stoically concluded that someone had already dealt with it. Sherlock had probably taped to the outside of the house in an experiment on humidity and ink, or something.
After that he mostly forgot about it, hoping that whoever had sent it would as well. Ten days then passed uneventfully.
On the eleventh day, arriving back home from the surgery John hung up his coat and toed off damp shoes, stretching his back with a gentle contented noise in the back of his throat. He reached over to grab his mug from the table, still with half a centimetre of tea left in it from that morning, and faltered at the sight of his flatmate bunched up on the sofa. The missing card he’d almost but not quite forgotten was in Sherlock’s hands and under merciless scrutiny.
“Do you know this person?” Sherlock asked, not looking up and saying the words in a sort of half-fascinated, morbid disgust.
John shrugged and put down his mug, reaching instead to grab the card as he tried to swallow down the rising bubble of embarrassment. “It wasn’t signed,” he said, as amiably as possible. Sherlock waved the card out of his reach.
“Dear John,” he recited, tone laced to saturation point with incredulity. “There are so many things I want to tell you. I really admire you. Kiss kiss kiss.”
“Yes well,” John said, and didn’t quite know how to finish. Sherlock made a nasal scoffing sound.
“Pass me a knife,” he said, holding out one lazy hand, palm up.
“What?” By now he really shouldn’t be surprised but his tone was still coloured with alarm, he couldn’t help it. “No. I won’t let you knife it. Somebody’s put a lot of effort into that. It’s – I mean I’m not keeping it, but – no. Someone’s just trying to express their feelings and I’m not letting you cut it up.”
“Wrong!” Sherlock snapped, and lurched off the sofa to rummage around in the mess on the table. He tossed the card back at John, who caught it reflexively. “Look at it!”
John looked at it. It was a card, pastel pink and a cut out red heart on the front. Inside the words were written in black ballpoint pen. It was a nice card, John considered, turning it over in his hands – pretty but not overtly so, lacking any tacky glitter and ribbon. More objectively it was small, made from an A4 sheet of good quality, thick card folded in half twice. It was handmade with no label or print but professionally done, judging from the neatness of the gluing and the perfect folds. The heart on the front was of some sort of lightly patterned paper with visible fibres. The writing was also immaculate in a curved, elegant hand and the ink was smooth and dark.
“Well,” he said, then trailed off. It was a card. From someone who was good at making cards. That ruled out very little. What else was he meant to be looking for?
Sherlock made another frustrated noise and snatched the paper from John’s hands, now brandishing one of the kitchen paring knives. “Folded twice!” he said, and started worming the knife into a crack between the two glued together sides.
“So?” John said, giving himself up only half reluctantly to Sherlock’s brilliance - he didn’t bother trying to get the card back. He’d resigned it to being lost the moment he’d seen it in Sherlock’s hands. “Loads of people fold paper twice when making cards. Maybe she only had an A4 bit of paper and an A6 envelope.”
“350 gsm paper – no one professional or familiar with handicrafts would fold that twice. And honestly John, she’s ruled in then erased pencil lines so her writing would be straight, the type of paper on the front for the heart is highly expensive, from the amount of handling its had it’s hardly likely she scribbled the thing down in half an hour. It’s handmade; she wants it to be personal, important. I highly doubt she couldn’t just pop down to the nearest WHSmith to get something the right size. That and the glue on the heart is a completely different type to the glue sticking the halves together. It’s stronger, much stronger. Someone wants this opened.”
He gave a wild grin of triumph as the knife slid in and the edges of the card were teased apart, revealing more handwriting. “A secret message, how fascinating. Not very secret of course but then they did send it to you and only assumed I’d be paying attention. That makes it personal, something for the both of us. They knew I wouldn’t leave it alone. Reader of your blog perhaps, must be someone who’s done at least a little homework.”
John sighed and gritted his teeth but mostly against his rising smile. “Go on then, enough suspense,” he said. He watched as Sherlock finished slicing open the edges, tossing the knife back down carelessly and flipping the paper open to read.
And he’d been too optimistic, hadn’t he? John pressed his lips together, felt the all too familiar sinking feeling as Sherlock’s smile dropped abruptly and his eyes narrowed, scanning the writing. “Well?” he prompted, because he could already see Sherlock retreating back into that unfathomable mind of his and likely not returning for hours. “You just said it has to do with the both of us.”
Sherlock’s eyes refocused, flicked over to John. Assessing. His lips moved minutely, silently. It was something to do with John. “Look,” John said, starting to feel anxious. “Just let me see.” The card tilted two hesitant inches towards him and he plucked it out of Sherlock’s hand before he could change his mind and take it back. John glanced at Sherlock, who only stared at the card in his hand. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know the message. He looked down to read it anyway.
Dearest John, he read, before Sherlock spoke. “Moriarty,” he murmured, flopping down onto the sofa. “It’s Moriarty’s hand.”
Somehow John didn’t quite register that, kept reading despite his eyes telling him: stop, stop.
I want to skin your hands and make you crawl to me over sandpaper, John, and when you reach me I’ll give you a cuddle and let you choose between getting me off with your hands and getting me off with your mouth. You’ll be so brave and I know you won’t cry or beg, though your face will crumple a bit. I think you’ll try to use your hands at first but even though I’ll be so turned on it will be painful enough that you’ll just have to finish with your mouth. Then when it’s over you’ll have your own blood and my come in your mouth and on your lips, John, and that’ll be the most beautiful sight in the world.
I’ll send you home after making sure you know not to clean yourself up before you get back. I might even give you a camera so you can take a picture to send to me of Sherlock’s face when he sees you. If you do I’ll keep it forever.
xxx
There was an awkward, crawling silence. John swallowed, though it did nothing to dispel the nausea sitting in the back of his throat. Fuck. He swallowed again, offered the card back to Sherlock who stared at it blankly for a second before taking it. Was this a threat? Did Moriarty really mean this or was it just another sick way of – of what? Was it a clue of some sort? Simple harassment?
It had to be harassment. Moriarty was twisted but he’d shown no interest in John the last time they’d met. He wouldn’t start now. Or it was a clue, except that he really didn’t want to know what it was a clue for.
“I’ll start with dinner, then?” he said, the first thing that came to mind. Sherlock didn’t even look up from the card, but he wasn’t reading it. His eyes were out of focus; he would have memorised it from the first time he read it anyway. “Sherlock, don’t -” don’t worry, he’d meant to say, but really? “Look, if it doesn’t mean anything, if he’s just being a sick fuck, then ignore it. He probably just wants a reaction. Or give it to Lestrade. It might be a clue for something important, or something. There’s nothing this could connect to? No – well – rapes or anything?
Sherlock didn’t say anything, still staring into the middle distance even as he carefully refolded the card and tucked it away in his jacket pocket. He turned his eyes to John, cataloguing from hair down to socks, then lay back down across the sofa and refused to talk for the rest of the night.