Chapter Text
On a bleak Thursday in November, a car was waiting outside St Bartholomew’s for Dr John Watson.
It was dark green and driven by a woman who did not answer when John asked where they were going. She glanced at him in the rear-view mirror and then turned her attention back to the road. John had been carrying a flat white from the Costa Coffee on the hospital ground floor. He had been given no time at all to call Sherlock, only managed to get his phone halfway out of his pocket then suddenly the woman was removing it from his hand and placing it in the glove compartment.
'This is kidnapping,' John said. 'Yet again.'
'No, Doctor Watson.'
'What is it, then?'
She did not reply. John looked out at London moving quickly past the tinted glass and wondered, for possibly the thousandth time, how he had got here. Two years now, he'd been embroiled in the life of Sherlock Holmes.
They drove vaguely west. After about half an hour, they stopped outside an anonymous-seeming building. A polished government property.
The driver returned John’s phone and led him through two security doors and into a joyless room. There was a dead fireplace. Mycroft Holmes stood beside it, one long-fingered hand resting on the silver head of his umbrella.
He did not waste time with the usual pre-amble.
'I had you collected because a problematic, potentially calamitous situation has arisen which requires immediate attention.'
Mycroft seemed slightly different.
Mycroft revealed a slim paper file printed on cream paper and tied with black ribbon.
'Quaint,' scoffed John.'
Mycroft ignored him. 'A man arrived in London eight days ago. He entered through Heathrow accompanied by his sister. They have taken a house in Highgate on a six-month lease. He has made no attempt to contact Sherlock but I am operating under the assumption that he absolutely will.”
'Who is he?'
'Father Aleksei Pawlikowski.'
'Should I know who that is?'
'No.'
'Does Sherlock?'
'Yes.'
'How?'
Mycroft closed the file.
'Sherlock loved him. Irrevocably.'
For one absurd second John laughed; then he thought he had misheard. But he had said the word loved, there was no doubt, and the word fell into the room with the weight of an anvil.
John gave a second disbelieving laugh.
When Mycroft did not react, John felt a swell of deep unease. 'You’re serious.'
'Yes.'
'Sherlock?'
'Yes.'
'Loved someone?'
'Yes.'
'A lot.'
'More than he could bear.'
'A man?'
Mycroft smirked. 'Obviously.'
John paced towards the fireplace, then back towards the desk and wall, looking for some sign that this was one of Mycroft’s elaborate manipulations. There had to be something in it. Some joke.
'How long ago?'
'They met when they were in their early twenties. Aleksei was a Polish immigrant, studying at a theological college in London.'
John raised his eyebrows.
'A priest?'
'Not yet. He was in formation. A Shakespeare scholar and Victorianist, also. The college trained candidates from several Christian traditions and maintained a small interfaith academic centre. One of the resident priests was murdered. Sherlock was invited unofficially by a detective inspector who had already begun indulging him. Aleksei was close to the murdered man and assisted Sherlock. Within a fortnight, Sherlock would have jumped in front of a bullet for him.' John's mouth went dry. Why was his heart beating like this? Why was his stomach coiling?
Mycroft walked to the window. Outside, beyond the glass, a sole magpie moved over the wet concrete. His reflection floated across the view, almost sinister and ghostly.
'Aleksei was unlike anybody Sherlock had ever encountered; and no one he has encountered since. He was highly intelligent, but not competitive in the slightest. His intelligence seemed to come from some wholly innocent part of him, almost childlike, though he was experienced beyond his years. He did not wish to impress Sherlock, defeat him, expose him or rescue him. He had the patience of a textbook Christian. He possessed a remarkable gentleness and compassion, too selfless for his own good especially where my brother was concerned. Sherlock, uncharacteristically, never mistook this innocence for weakness. He revered it.'
John thought of Sherlock in his twenties: younger, thinner, probably even more arrogant. He pictured him strolling through a theological college with blood on the floor and nicotine in his bloodstream and dirtying his uncut fingernails.
'And they solved the murder?' John asked, though this was hardly the question on his mind. It felt safer to ask this than the other ones desperate to spill past his lips.
'In less than a week.'
'Then what?'
'Then Sherlock returned the following morning under the pretext of asking Aleksei an additional question. Aleksei had accompanied him throughout the investigation proving plenty useful. He had a gift for understanding people Sherlock deemed to be well beneath examination. He knew when witnesses were lying from fear rather than guilt and he was master remembered small personal details. He persuaded an elderly porter to reveal his truth after Sherlock had reduced the man to quaking tears. He also prevented Sherlock from being struck with a hot poker by the murderer’s lover.”
'Brave, then.'
'Exceptionally.'
John folded his arms. 'How quickly did this happen? The affair, I mean?'
'The attraction was immediate. They were sleeping together within days, the romantic elements of the relationship began as the investigation was reaching its climax–no pun intended.'
John stared at him.
Mycroft continued. 'Sherlock spent most nights at Aleksei's rooms in the college, despite the beds being designed for one person and Sherlock being six feet tall. When Aleksei was permitted leave, they stayed elsewhere. They went on weekend trips together. To York, Edinburgh, Cornwall and Devon. I believe they once ventured to Conwy and the Lake District. Aleksei was a very cultured man–books, art house cinema, particularly the opera. He had Sherlock at the Royal Opera House forming opinions on Dido and Aeneas for crying out loud.'
'I don't believe you.'
'Why would I lie about this? What is there to gain?' Mycroft nearly laughed.
John felt something unpleasant and burning hot begin beneath his ribs. It was ridiculous. This had all happened years before John knew Sherlock even existed. It belonged to another London and another version of Sherlock. Yet the image of him folding himself into a narrow bed beside another man produced an immediate, visceral resistance despite the fact he had never once shared anything more than a handshake with the consulting detective.
'What sort of relationship?'
Mycroft turned from the window. 'I am not sure what answer you expect.'
'I mean, were they—'
'I have just told you that they were.' Mycroft’s voice remained level. 'Aleksei is the only person with whom Sherlock has ever had a sexual relationship.'
'You can’t possibly know that.'
'I can.'
John paused. Then nodded.
'Of course you can.'
Father Aleksei Pawlikowski. The name seemed too soft and elaborate and exotic to fit anywhere in Sherlock’s life.
'Did Sherlock tell him he loved him?'
'Oh, frequently. Sherlock was not then as disciplined in concealment as he is now. That was mostly down to Aleksei. Aleksei had very little tolerance for emotional dishonesty. He would allow Sherlock his silences, his rudeness and his theatrics, but not emotional cowardice never that. If Sherlock attempted to disguise affection as cruelty Aleksei asked him, in his usual soft-spoken Polish tones, "Please do not hide from me, Sherlock; we mean too much to each other for that; and your heart is too lovely for it".'
John laughed bitterly. 'And Sherlock put up with that?'
'Sherlock adored it.'
John shut up instantly.
He hated everything about that answer. He hated even more than the answer itself the certainty with which Mycroft gave it. John had spent two learning how to read scraps from Sherlock. Less than scraps sometimes. The idea that Sherlock had once said I love you frequently, had took someone for weekends in the Lake District, and had said it to somebody else, felt like a blow to the stomach and he had literally no idea why.
'What happened in the end?'
'I intervened.'
'You what?'
'I persuaded the theological college authorities that Aleksei's continued presence in London presented difficulties. They arranged for him to continue his studies in Poland.'
'You had him sent away.'
'I did.'
The simplicity of the answer was so brutal that John's resentment turned for a moment to disgust.
'You destroyed it.'
'I ended something inevitably troublesome.'
'Why?'
'Because Sherlock Holmes was not built for love, especially when that love was directed towards a severely epileptic, traumatised Catholic priest-in-training. Sherlock’s attention had narrowed. Aleksei's health was unstable. As I said, his epilepsy was already severe, and the episodes were not always brief. Sherlock began abandoning investigations whenever Aleksei became unwell. He missed meetings. He disappeared for days. Aleksei once had a status epilepticus episode in Sherlock's arms. Status epilepticus is when–'
'I'm a doctor, I know what it is,' John snapped.
'He had one in Sherlock's arms, frothing at the mouth. Sherlock wept at his hospital bed until he was sick. Physically sick. Over my shoes.'
Mycroft removed a photograph and passed it across to John. John looked down.
The picture had been taken outside a hospital. Sherlock was all sharp cheekbones, brown coat and straight posture. His hair was cropped close to his head and there was no coldness in his face. He was looking at the man beside him.
Aleksei was tall, though not as tall as Sherlock. He was slight and black-haired, thick curls that tumbled down his neck. He had a narrow, pale and bearded face and a single silver hoop in his left ear. He wore a clerical-looking black coat.
'When Aleksei was hospitalised, Sherlock demanded a bed be placed in his room after the immediate danger had passed. When the hospital declined, he slept on a plastic stool by his boyfriend's side.'
John nearly flinched at the word "boyfriend"–it was almost comical to hear it in relation to Sherlock.
John hated that he could see it in his head so clearly, so very very clearly: Sherlock young and half-mad with terror, moving through a hospital like a menace.
'He stayed there the whole time. Six nights. He washed Aleksei's hair and provided intimate care and help. He read The Imitation of Christ and Grahame Greene to him when he regained consciousness. He learned the dosage schedule for every drug he was prescribed and corrected several nurses. He fed him yoghurt and bread and soup. He slept with one hand around the young man's wrist so that he could feel his pulse.'
John’s mouth tightened. It took minutes before he had the composure to speak.
'What else did Sherlock do for him?'
Mycroft gave a dry, little laugh.
'He took him to Rome. Aleksei had never been but of course, as a devout Catholic, had always wanted to. Sherlock surprised him with the trip when he was back to health.'
'Just the two of them?”
'Obviously, John.'
'You said Aleksei wears an earring.' John's voice carried so much disdain he almost felt embarrassed.
'A silver hoop, bought by Sherlock. A slight joke, in reference to William Shakespeare, Aleksei’s idol. He was never without it.'
Mycroft removed another photograph. This one showed Aleksei alone, standing outside a church. At his throat hung a silver cross on a dark chain.
'Sherlock commissioned this crucifix necklace. Eighteenth-century silver, set with a fragment of jet and rubies at the stigmata areas. It cost several thousand pounds.'
'Sherlock doesn’t care about jewellery.'
'He cared that Aleksei wore it.'
John stared at the crucifix.
“Where did Sherlock get several thousand pounds?”
'He sold several violins.'
John was beginning to feel trapped in this room which seemed to him suddenly vile, one of the worst rooms he had ever been in. 'How serious was it?'
Mycroft met his eyes. He held the doctor's gaze for a long time. It was the longest, somehow the most pregnant silence the two had ever shared.
'Sherlock intended to marry him.'
John staggered back a single step.
'What?' he laughed.
'He was planning a civil ceremony. Aleksei had decided that he would remain with Sherlock even if it meant abandoning ordination. A homosexual Catholic priest–he did not stand a chance. It goes without saying. He would have been despised. He would have been accused of all sorts. He would have been destroyed. He wished to devote himself to Sherlock over God. Sherlock had begun inquiries into venues and legal requirements. I believe he had selected rings.'
'No.'
'Yes.'
'Sherlock Holmes was going to propose marriage. You're taking the piss.'
'If you wish to believe that you may, if that makes you feel better, for whatever reason–but it is the truth.'
John rubbed both hands over his face. It was too much. Too much too much too much. Sherlock, who mocked weddings, who described sex as irrelevant and romantic attachment as chemistry with theatrics, had chosen a ring. He had planned a ceremony. He had imagined a future with a homosexual Pole and staked his heart on it.
'If they were so madly in love,' John said with barely contained spite, 'why did Aleksei leave? How did you manage to send him away? Convince him, I mean. What did you do, Mycroft?'
'I spoke to Sherlock. I reminded him of the practical realities of the life he was embarking on. Aleksei's health, his religious vocation, Sherlock’s own temperament. I told him that he was confusing novelty with love and that his dependency had become embarrassing.'
'You humiliated him.'
'I attempted to give him back some perspective. I told Sherlock that Aleksei would eventually discover what it meant to build his life around a man incapable of ordinary human behaviour. I told him the man's epilepsy would become iron chains around his ankle. I told Sherlock that his infatuation had made him weak, predictable and ridiculous. I said Aleksei would come to loathe him for making him abandon his Catholic calling. I described his behaviour at the hospital as comical. I described the Rome trip as juvenile. The college informed Aleksei that he was being transferred. He went immediately to Sherlock and told him he would refuse. He said he had made his decision. He would stay in London. If the Church required him to choose, he would choose Sherlock every time. But Sherlock had been drinking,' Mycroft's voice had lost its polished coolness. 'He had consumed a large quantity of alcohol and had also taken cocaine earlier that day.'
John shut his eyes.
'He was frightened and ashamed,' Mycroft said. 'He had my words in his head. Aleksei was offering him precisely what his heart wanted, and Sherlock understood that accepting it would make the loss of it possible. So he made himself vile and wicked enough to prevent Aleksei staying.”
'What did he say?'
Mycroft looked towards the wall.
'Every single little thing he knew would wound him. He told Aleksei that his illness had become tedious. That he was tired of waiting for the next seizure and tired of pretending not to be disgusted by the contortions, the many losses of control. He said his body was unreliable and so was his mind. Aleksei had been abused as a child. Badly. Sherlock knew the details because Aleksei had entrusted them to him. In that moment, he referred to them. He suggested Aleksei's attachment to him was a predictable consequence of what had been done to him, that he was broken, a victim through and through, a weakling. He told him that any man who had endured what Aleksei endured as a little boy would obviously cling to the first person who appeared powerful enough to protect him.”
'Jesus Christ. Why are you telling me this like it happened by itself? You put those ideas in his head. You knew Sherlock. You knew exactly what he would do when afraid. Did Aleksei leave after that?'
'He left the following morning. He and his sister Victoria travelled back to Poland.'
'And Sherlock?'
'Sherlock went to the airport. He changed his mind at the last minute. He was willing to risk it all, he was willing to make the leap. But Aleksei was already on the plane. I believe that broke him. I believe he is the way he is today, because of that single moment, watching the plane lift off in the air. Of course he could have got the next flight. He could have followed him. But he was shattered. He believed that Aleksei deserved more than him.'
John imagined him there, too proud to get on the next plane, too broken to pieces, watching the one person he had ever asked to stay being carried out of England.
'What happened after?'
'You know what happened after, Dr Watson.'
John thought of the drugs. The isolation. The manic cases and shallow empty intervals. The contempt for sentiment sharpened into a second blood for the consulting detective. Yes. Sherlock’s insistence that love was a defect, caring a disadvantage, marriage an exercise in total futility. Laughable. John had thought those ideas belonged to Sherlock’s constant and inherent nature. Now he saw them for what they might have been: scars and trauma.
Extraordinary heartbreak.
'He never saw the man again?'
Mycroft avoided John's eyes. He shook his head.
'Never wrote? Emailed?'
'Sherlock wrote many letters. He sent none. One of them was twenty-seven pages long.'
John paced once across the room and back. He was furious with Mycroft, furious with Sherlock, and furious with Aleksei for having walked into Sherlock's life and claimed him like that. He was furious with a long gone past. Beneath the anger sat something more intimate.
Jealousy was a childish word. It was the only one.
'As I said,' Mycroft sighed. 'Aleksei has returned.'
'You think he’ll go to Sherlock.'
'I think it is inevitable. Don't you, after everything I have told you? Aleksei is not like the average person. He is the Platonic ideal of a Christian. He could forgive anyone. He forgave his father who raped him and his twin sister continuously since they were infants. His father who would beat and assault him while he was mid-seizure.'
John's eyes went huge and sick in the firelight; and he winced. After an uncomfortable quiet, John sighed. He tried to hide how shaky that sigh sounded.
'You’ve brought me here because you want me to manage Sherlock.'
'I have brought you here because he may shortly encounter the person whose loss shaped the worst years of his life. I have no idea whatsoever how Sherlock is going to react to this. It could be the making of him. It could destroy him utterly.'
'And you want me to do what exactly, Mycroft? Lock Sherlock in the flat? Tell Aleksei to stay away?'
'I want you to understand what you are looking at when it begins.'
'When what begins?'
'My brother becoming twenty-four again.'
Mycroft looked tired now. There were aged lines in his round face that John had never noticed before.
'The bottom line is, Sherlock will not respond rationally. He may become euphoric, vicious, reckless or entirely silent. He may pursue Aleksei. He may shun him, be cruel. He may relapse. He may attempt to solve Aleksei's epilepsy, which I have found from hospital records is still severe, as though it were a case.'
John wanted Baker Street. He wanted the skull, the violin, the tea and coffee cups littered everywhere, mould on plates in corners. He wanted Sherlock irritating and impossible and untouched by Father Aleksei Pawlikowski...
Instead there was Rome. There was a hospital bed. There were seizures. There was a silver hoop, a ruby crucifix and an aborted wedding. There was Sherlock asleep with his fingers around another man’s pulse. Sherlock weeping on the floor.
'The last time Sherlock said Aleksei's name was during a heroin overdose a year before he moved in with you.'
'What did he say?'
'That he was sorry. Then he said, "Forgive me, my love".'
'Sherlock would never say "my love".'
Mycroft started to laugh somewhat cruelly. 'Oh, believe whatever you wish, Dr Watson. You'll see the truth in time.'
When John finally checked his phone, he had a barrage of messages from Sherlock.
WHERE ARE YOU
MYCROFT
OBVIOUSLY MYCROFT
'Does Sherlock know he is in London?' John asked.
'Not yet. He'll find out soon enough, though. As I say, Aleksei will have forgiven him years ago, and I imagine will be eager to see him.'
'He’ll read it on my face the second I walk through the door.' As soon as those words left John's mouth that was when he realised. 'And you knew that. That is exactly why I am here. It's got nothing to do with you warning me or preparing me. You want Sherlock to know and you're too cowardly to say it to his face, after you destroyed his life.'
Mycroft’s expression did not move but John in a moment knew he had struck a chord. He walked towards the door.
'Doctor Watson.'
John stopped without turning.
'I did my best.'
John turned.
Mycroft was looking at the file.
'I should have left them alone.'
John left without answering.
*
In the car back to Baker Street, he sat with his phone in his hand and read Sherlock's messages again. He could not decide what he felt most strongly; it was hard to think on. Horror for Aleksei, the kind priest, who had offered up his future and been repaid with betrayal and cruelty. Anger at Mycroft. Pity for Sherlock. Curiosity so intense it honestly embarrassed him.
Most of all, John wanted to know whether Sherlock would look at the priest the way he had looked at him in the photographs.
He hated Aleksei already for possessing a version of Sherlock that John had never been allowed to know.
John hated himself even more.