Work Text:
St Petersburg.
It takes you one second to read the text. You don't need to know what it means. You know who it's from and what it's about.
You feel your stomach bottom out.
Your brother pays for the plane ticket. He attaches it in an email titled "St P" that only reads "I'm sorry." You hate him, more so now than before, but you use the ticket anyway.
The flight is long and boring. You can't sleep. You can't even close your eyes for a moment. If you do, the images and memories come back, and those burn worse than your eyes, bloodshot and watery. Something in your chest aches, a deep pain you've never felt before, and it blossoms out to cover your entire body in a shroud of hurt.
You don't even know what's wrong. But that doesn't matter.
The plane lands. Your mobile chimes, and you receive another message with an address.
A hospital address.
You immediately hail a cab. It’s been so long since you’ve seen him, and in two weeks he would have been back in London, in your flat, in your bed, in your arms. You would have protected him then. He is all you have left, the one piece that can never be allowed to go missing.
And yet he had been.
When your cab pulls up to the curb, your get another text.
214.
You shove nurses and doctors and other patients out of the way. People are yelling at you in Russian, but you can't be bothered to reply. You commandeer the lift, but the damned doors won't close, so you run out and take the stairs instead. You're out of breath when you reach the floor, but you can't stop because ohgodnoheishurt.
You almost run past his room. But you don't, and when you see him—
____________________________
The first time you meet him, his dog bites your ankle.
It doesn't hurt; the dog is just a puppy and had apparently gotten off its lead. It's freezing outside, and the creature probably just wanted to get somewhere warm. A tall young man about your age runs after it, apologizing profusely to you as he bundles the creature in his arms and clicks the lead securely onto its collar.
"I'm terribly sorry; I don't know what's gotten into him—“
You lock eyes for a moment. He gives you a meager smile, and you can't help but do the same.
“Are you hurt? Is it bleeding?” He crouches down, still balancing the dog in his arms, and looks up at you.
You raise your trouser leg. There isn’t any blood, just two small indentations that would fade away in a couple of hours. “Apparently not,” you say, and he stands up and smiles again.
“Have we met? I'm Victor. Victor Trevor." He offers a hand out from underneath the mass of fur, holding the puppy in his other hand.
"William Holmes," you manage, clearing your throat and shaking his gloved hand. "I don't believe we have."
"No." Victor wags his finger, still grinning at you. "No, I know you. You're in my chemistry class, right? The one who always points out Dr. Turner's mistakes?"
Your smile fades. Of course he remembers you as the freak from class. That's how everyone remembers you: the tall, pale, annoying freak. "Yes, that's me," you say, and you can't help your gaze from drifting away.
"You're brilliant."
You immediately look at him, bewildered. Brilliant? No one’s ever called you that before, much less complimented your intelligence. Except for teachers, but sometimes even they become angry with you. "What?"
Victor smiles. "You're brilliant. I mean, just yesterday—the fact that you balanced that equation so quickly and realized her mistake. It was..." He shrugs, biting his lip. "It was amazing."
"Oh." You aren't sure what else to say, so you stare at each other again. For some reason, it doesn't seem so cold anymore.
The puppy in his arms wiggles, and he sets it down gingerly.
"Sorry, I think he wants to get going again. But I'll see you in class, yeah?" He stands back up and beams at you with a smile—a genuine one, not a sympathetic one.
“Yes,” you say, still stunned. Victor walks away, but before he can get too far, he turns back and waves at you, the same smile still on his face.
You wave back, a strange but not unpleasant feeling in your stomach.
____________________________
The machines are buzzing and beeping loudly, but you can't hear them. Even if you could, it wouldn't matter, because Victor tells you everything you need to know. There is a bandage over his heart, and his eyes are closed. His hair—the hair that he’s vain about, so much so that you constantly tease him about the amount of product he puts in it—is a tangled mess, and he has several days' worth of growth on his face.
You want to hold him, to touch him, but there are wires and cords everywhere, and if you pull the wrong one he might not wake up. So you settle for scooting a chair toward his bed and place a hand on his stubbly cheek, and, God, you want to kiss him and hold him and tell him it'll be all right—
But not even you know if that's true.
____________________________
"Show you mine if you show me yours."
You turn to look at him. His eyes are sparkling, and his eyebrow is raised. He takes a drag from his cigarette and tosses the butt off the roof.
God, if he doesn't make you want to.
But you've never shown anyone before. You always wear long shirts with collars buttoned up to the top. It's not something you want to show off, but it's not something you have to hide, either, and he's the one person you trust most in the whole world...
So you roll your eyes and unbutton your shirt. He has a devilish grin on his face, and he yanks his own shirt off. You try to turn away so he can’t see how bad it is on your left side, but he walks around you anyway to look.
His hands are gentle, so gentle as they run along your side, following the pink line that leads from your waist to below your trousers, then the smaller, white ones on your arm, and even the ones further up on your chest. To your surprise, you don't shake at the touch or push him away or even want him to stop. Your skin tingles, but in a good way. A strange way.
He doesn't ask questions. He doesn't comment. He doesn't look at you with disgust or anger or pity. There is a question in his eyes, but he does not speak it.
Instead, he takes your hand and places it against his chest. You were so focused on covering yourself that you hadn't thought to look at him.
Your hand is between his breastbones, over his heart. You feel a small, raised vertical line, only a few inches long. You give him the same courtesy he gave you: no questions, no speaking, no pitying looks. You run your fingers over it, soaking it in, wondering who had put it there and why.
You look up, and he catches your gaze. You stare at each other for a moment before you hear yourself speaking.
"I fell out of a tree trying to hide from Mycroft," you tell him. "I happened to land on a pile of branches that had been cut down.”
He smiles, but only slightly; his voice is soft. "That sounds like something you would do."
You smile, too, because you always smile when he does.
"Mine was from surgery," he explains softly. You hadn't realized your hand was still over his heart until he puts his own over it. "I was born with a heart defect. When I was twelve, they tried to fix it."
"Did it work?" you ask.
"No." He sighs. "Only left me with a scar and a heart just as bad as before."
____________________________
Doctors and nurses rush in and out. They don't pay any mind to you, except to motion for you to get out of the way. You force yourself to listen to them and do as you're told, but only because they're going to help him.
They say they will, anyway.
Your mobile rings. You ignore it. It rings again. You ignore it again. Your brother can wait.
When the bustle has settled down, you rest your head on his pillow and take his hand. There is an IV on the back of it, so you're careful to avoid touching it as you lace your fingers together.
He's so close.
Underneath the smell of hospital and medicine and sterility is his own scent. You haven't smelled him for so long. You never thought you'd miss something as dreadfully sentimental as that, but you learned a long time ago that you missed everything to do with him while he was away.
The pain in your chest loosens as he begins to stir. You immediately sit up, still holding his hand and maybe squeezing it a bit too tightly, but he's waking up and it's been six months and those eyes open—
"Boucles?" he mumbles, his head turned away from you.
You squeeze his hand tighter. "I'm here."
____________________________
“D’you ever think about the future?”
You roll your eyes. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Yeah.” Victor rolls over onto his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows. “But I mean really thinking about it.”
“Is there a way to not really think about it?”
Victor pats your shoulder with the back of his hand. “Oh, how I’ve missed Mr Literal.”
“It’s been one month,” you huff. “Hardly enough time to miss someone.”
He raises an eyebrow. “So, you haven’t missed me while you’ve been cooped up in Sussex all summer?”
You smirk. “Not a bit. It’s peaceful, not having to listen to poetry and Shakespearean quotes every waking moment.”
“‘The man doth protest too much, methinks.’” Victor smiles. The sun hits his eyes just right to make his usually-dark irises turn a golden honey.
The grass stains on your clothes might just be worth the sight alone.
“No, but, I mean seriously,” he continues, apparently not noticing the effect he’s had on you. “What you’re going to do in ten, twenty years; who you’re going to spend your life with.” He grabs a few strands of taller grass, rolling the stems between his fingers before breaking off inch-long bits and tossing them aside. “It just seems…really interesting.”
“I know what I’m going to do,” you say confidently. “Consulting detective; even you know that.”
“Yeah,” Victor sighs. “But I mean more than just that. Like…what sort of person do you think you’ll be? Will people like you? Will you be successful?”
You think for a few moments before answering. “I’ll be a morally-absent person. People will, in general, dislike me, but I’ll still be successful because I’m a genius.”
Victor chuckles. “Not quite sure I agree with that, but it definitely sounds like you.”
“What do you think you’ll do?” you ask, and it isn’t until the smile is gone from his face that you realize you’ve made a mistake.
He doesn’t expect to live that long.
“I don’t know,” he answers finally. His grass has been disintegrated, so he reaches for more and breaks them off piece by piece. “I always sort of thought I’d write. You know, poetry. But… I also want to see the world, do something exciting. Fight for something important.”
You aren’t quite sure what to say to that. There’s a long pause, and you only speak once Victor sits up on his knees.
“What would you fight for?”
He smiles sadly. “You.”
____________________________
It takes a few moments for Victor to notice you're there. His head tosses and turns on the pillow until he's able to process what he's seeing properly.
He's looking right at you when he does. The ache in your chest returns.
"Victor," you breathe.
"Boucles," he repeats, and he tries to pull your hand to his lips—his ridiculous habit—but he winces and puts a hand over the bandage in the middle of his chest. "Sorry, love, I—“
"Doctor,” you bellow in Russian, running for the door. "Get this man some pain medication.”
Within moments, there is a rush of people inside the room, pressing buttons and taking samples. If you didn't care so bloody much about him, you would have told them all to just get out once the morphine was administrated. But the sooner all this was over with, the sooner he would be able to leave, and so you let it happen.
Half an hour later, the last doctor leaves, and Victor is staring at you angrily.
"You could have waited, you know," he says as you sit back down. "We could have had a few minutes to ourselves."
"And now we have all night, and you have all the morphine you could ask for." You raise an eyebrow.
He smiles and closes his eyes. "I just want to go home."
You lean forward and press a soft kiss to his forehead. "You will."
____________________________
It wasn’t really something you had considered before. You’d assumed that you had evolved above your baser urges, as to be expected with an intellect like yours, and you’d never questioned what or whom you might be interested in because you knew you would never be attracted to anyone at all.
But tonight, you discover that really isn’t the case.
You aren’t prepared for it. Had the subject not come up, you probably wouldn’t have ever acted on the lingering, indescribable feeling in the back of your mind.
Victor insists that you both should go out for dinner at an overpriced restaurant on Saturday night because apparently that is what friends do. Noticing your looks of general distaste, he assures you that the food is excellent, but that isn’t what’s bothering you, anyway. The waiter brings over a candle, which doesn’t help things, and the light hits Victor’s face in just the right way that, sod human anatomy, you are certain his skin glows.
You shake off the stupid thought as you realize he’s been talking for at least five minutes and you haven’t heard a word of it because you were too busy staring. You give him a light nod, and that seems to do the trick, because he smiles—how have you never noticed how beautiful his smile was before?—and asks you a question you can’t hear.
“William?”
Your gaze immediately snaps to his eyes. He’s got a concerned look on his face, and he leans forward slightly. “Are you all right? We can leave, if you want. Stupid of me, anyway.”
The question is asked like an impulse. “What was?”
Victor looks away, a shy smile on his face before he glances downward and then up at you. “Well, I sort of hoped I could talk you into making this a date.”
A date. Is that a good thing? It doesn’t sound like a bad thing; in fact, the idea sits well with you for some reason. Your usual reaction—well, the reaction you always thought you’d have if someone wanted to pursue something as mundane as dating—would have been to laugh them off and say something rude. But if Victor wants this to be a date, then…
“You fancy me,” you say, and he laughs.
“Yeah, if you want to put it like that, I do.”
“And you want to date me,” you say slowly.
Victor raises an eyebrow. “If you’re agreeable.”
You can’t stop the words that come out of your mouth.
“I am.”
____________________________
“Have they told you anything?” he asks, and you realize that whatever this was, whatever happened, Victor doesn’t remember.
It doesn’t make you feel any better.
“No,” you reply, a smirk playing on your lips in an attempt to seem nonchalant. “But I could probably find out.”
He casts you a disapproving look. “They’ll tell us when they’re ready.”
“And why shouldn’t it be on our timing?” You notice your voice get only slightly higher, but you ignore it. “You’re the one who needs to get home and—“
“Will, love.” He takes your hand and smiles, that bright smile you haven’t seen in six months, and your heart feels full, but then you remember why you’re both here, and it hurts again. “Go find that file.”
You beam at him and run down the hall.
____________________________
When Victor had first told you he wanted to go dancing, you’d assumed he meant some sort of ballroom dancing, and you’d given him a resounding yes. You’d even practiced your waltz and foxtrot in your crowded dorm room the night before.
Instead of a ballroom, however, you find yourself at a club that is blasting music and pulsing bright colours, and you can barely see Victor in front of you. But he’s holding your hand, leading you through the crowd until you arrive at a secluded corner filled with tables and booths.
As you acclimatize yourself to the music, Victor bobs his head and mouths some of the words in between sips of his drink. You don’t recognize any of the songs; then again, your musical interests lie elsewhere. You can tell, however, that they aren’t recent songs, and judging by the outfits of most of the people here, they aren’t very new, either; you and Victor are likely the youngest people there.
The song changes to one with a violin intro, and Victor’s face instantly lights up. This song seems halfway familiar, and when he stands up and starts doing a ridiculously-exaggerated improvisational dance, you can’t help but laugh. He sings the lyrics at the top of his lungs, and when he gets to the chorus, he points at you with a come-hither look and a crooked finger, replacing your name in the lyrics.
“Come on, Willy, oh, I swear
At this moment, you mean everything
With you in that coat, my thoughts
Verge on dirty
Ah, come on, Willy…“
Much as you hate the nickname, you can’t very well ignore him after all that, so you roll your eyes with a smile and stand up. He takes your hand, and you rush off into the crowd, where he whirls you around and starts his absurd dance again. You huff at the stupidity of it, but as the song slows down, he takes your hands and raises one at a time in rhythm to the beat.
“Victor.” You scoff.
“Try having a bit of fun, Will,” he whispers, and suddenly he releases you and continues his dance.
For whatever reason, you find yourself mimicking his movements, albeit hesitantly. Noticing your effort, he moves closer, and you simultaneously speed up your steps until you’re both laughing so hard your sides hurt, but you keep dancing anyway. By the end of the song, you’ve got your hands on each others' shoulders and huge smiles on your faces.
Victor’s eyes flit over your face for a moment before focusing on your eyes again. He’s about to do something, you can tell, but you’re not quite sure—
And suddenly his lips are against yours, and it’s strange because you’ve never done this before, much less had it done to you, but before you even realize it’s happened, Victor has pulled away and you already miss him.
You stare at him, stunned, and his mouth quirks into a smile.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, and you follow him out of the club.
____________________________
You storm down the hallway, glancing at every doctor you see, looking for blond green eyes married two daughters. You’re glancing down another hallway when you almost run into him.
“Are you family?” he asks.
“Yes,” you lie.
He gives you a once-over and shakes his head before continuing down the hall.
You race after him, because that look could have meant many things. It could have meant he saw through the lie, but it could also have been the diagnosis. Still, you are in Russia…
You stay a good three feet behind him, trying to see over his shoulder at the files in his arm. Luckily, the one on top is Victor’s, and when the doctor stops at the nurse’s station, you seize your opportunity and nick it from the top of the barrier where he'd placed it.
Before you can even open it, however, another doctor grabs it from your hands.
“Victor Trevor,” she reads with a smile. “I was just on my way to his room. Thank you for picking up his file for me.”
You glare at her, but follow her down the hallway anyway. Victor raises an eyebrow when he sees both of you.
“Didn’t get it then, mm?” he asks you with a bit of a grin.
You roll your eyes and sit down in your chair. Victor’s hand immediately reaches for yours, and, though you’re not fond of hand-holding with others around, you give in, because you’re not certain you can hear whatever she has to say without holding onto something.
The doctor waits for you to get settled before speaking. “I’m afraid I don’t have great news,” she sighs.
____________________________
You don't learn about his native language until he starts speaking it around you. Of course, you can tell English wasn't his first language; he has just enough of an accent for you to be able to tell. Others wouldn't, though. You're the only one clever enough to hear it.
It's a bit of a surprise, really. You’ve been living together for a couple of months, and he, ever confident in his body, emerges from the shower wearing nothing but the smile on his face. You just happen to look up, and when you notice him, you turn a bright scarlet.
You’ve never seen him naked before.
He sits down across from you at the kitchen table and takes the mug of coffee you haven't even touched. Your eyes can't leave him, and he laughs when he notices.
"Would you rather I put something on?" he asks.
You shake your head.
He smiles. "Good. I guess I should have mentioned that; sometimes I walk around in the nude. That won't bother you, right?"
You shake your head again.
He giggles—the sort of giggle he reserves only for you—and leans forward to kiss you.
"Mon petit Boucles," he mumbles against your lips. You don't understand the words, but he speaks them with such reverence that they can only be good, and it's French, you can tell, and oh god, French—
And so you kiss him again, and he pulls away and laughs his big, grand laugh, and he looks at you with those beautiful brown eyes and everything is perfect and wonderful and how could you ever exist without him.
He knows what you're going to ask, so he tells you before you get the chance. "My mother is French. We all speak it at home."
You nod, because you're afraid if you open your mouth you'll say something ridiculous.
He reaches across the table and grabs your hand, a concerned look on his face. "You all right, darling?"
"Y-you're not wearing pants," you manage in a shaky voice, and he bursts into laughter.
____________________________
Victor squeezes your hand. He’s been expecting this, and you suppose you have, too. He’s living on borrowed time. You never forget that fact.
“Mr Trevor, your coworker called us because you were unconscious. Do you remember this occurring?”
He nods.
“And you’ve had heart troubles in the past?”
He nods again.
The doctor sighs. “Well, I have some worse news for you. What you experienced yesterday wasn’t simply a blackout, but a symptom of ventricular tachycardia.”
Takhus, Greek, fast. Kardia, Greek, heart. Ventriculus, Latin, belly (of heart).
“What’s that?” Victor asks, his voice raspy.
“Arrhythmia in the ventricles,” she explains. “You’re very lucky you’re alive right now, Mr Trevor. However, we’ll need to begin a rigorous treatment plan for you.”
“How rigorous is rigorous?” he asks with a halfhearted chuckle that doesn’t fool anyone. You should be the one asking the questions, you know that, but all you can do is sit there numbly.
You almost lost him.
“Well, considering the fact that you have a history of heart issues, we don’t want to risk anything. We’re looking at a long-term drug regimen along with a defibrillator implant.”
Implant.
Surgery.
You immediately glance at Victor, the feeling of panic rising up inside you, but his expression hasn’t changed. “And when do I… need to have the implant?” he asks.
The doctor raises an eyebrow. “As soon as possible.”
____________________________
Trembling hands fancy dinner quiet eating awkward conversation avoiding eye contact hunched shoulders—
Victor has something to tell you. And it’s not good news.
“It would obviously be easier for you to go ahead and tell me whatever it is instead of forcing yourself to wait until after dinner,” you say, watching as he brings a forkful of fettuccine alfredo to his lips.
“What?” he asks, but you both know better. You give him a withering look, and he sighs and sets his fork down. “Sherlock, it’s—“
“Not good, I know.”
You look at each other. Victor is the one to break the tension. “I’ve got a job offer, and I think I’m going to take it.”
“That doesn’t sound like bad news.” You smile a bit.
“Well, see, here’s the thing, Boucles.” He looks up at you through his lashes, his expression almost meek. “I know I said teaching with a bit of writing on the side before, but—that’s so boring. Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” you say cautiously.
“So Mycroft and I were talking—he called to ask about you, you know how he is—and”—Victor takes your hand from across the table gently, a half-smile on his face—“and he offered me a job.”
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
“You aren’t seriously considering it,” you scoff, trying to off-play any uneasiness that he might be keen enough to pick up on.
“I am,” Victor replies. “Look, I want something exciting, and he says I’ll get to travel the world—India, love, can you believe it?” Victor’s eyes are aglow, and it would be heartwarming if it hadn’t just shattered your world to pieces.
“What is he having you do?” you rasp.
His expression darkens, and he looks away. “Well, you know. What do his employees normally do?”
Spy. Kill. Get killed.
It takes all the power you have inside you not to scream, not to demand that he stay because he is supposed to be with you, not off running around in foreign countries getting shot at for your brother—whom you will be killing the next time you see him. You are just about to open your mouth to say so when Victor interrupts.
“Look, Boucles, I know you don’t want me to go. But the truth is…” He looks up at you, tears in his eyes. “I don’t know how much time I have left. I can’t just stay here in London when I could die tomorrow—“
“Don’t say that,” you whisper, something twisting in your gut like a knife.
“It’s true. And Mycroft said I’ll be able to help you, too, with your international criminals and such. And we’ll see each other—I made him promise I’ll have loads of time off.” Victor brings your hand to his lips and lightly kisses it. “Let me do this, love. Please.”
“What if you die?” you ask quietly, not even able to look at him.
“Then I’ll die a happy man,” he answers. “I’d have had the perfect boyfriend and the perfect job and the perfect life.
“What if—you don’t come back?” you finally manage. “You go off, and you don’t want to come back to—London?”
To me, you think.
He looks up at you, a fire in his eyes you’ve only ever seen once before. He knows what you’re thinking; he always does.
“I will always come back for you, William. Always.”
____________________________
They prep Victor for the surgery. He’s allowed a shower and a shave, his IV is replaced, and he’s given a clean hospital gown. He climbs onto the gurney they’ve set up for him and looks over at you.
The doctor comes in one last time. She delivers statistics that don’t make you feel any better. One in three chance of living through the surgery. One in four chance of living more than a year after it’s over. One in thirty chance of living to forty. 100% chance of death in the next year without it.
She asks if Victor is certain that he wants the surgery, knowing his chances of survival.
He says yes.
There’s been a pit in your stomach ever since “implant” was mentioned. But the numbers make it more solid, more palpable. You can hold on to numbers. They don’t fail the way humans do, and the numbers aren’t being very kind.
“Shh,” Victor says, and your mind does.
The doctor leaves, and you are both silent until the anesthesiologist comes by a few minutes later, fiddling with the small mask. Victor makes a joke, and the both of them laugh. You can’t really hear them.
You know this could be the last time you see Victor. Still, you can’t do anything but stare at him, and hope that he understands. You are the worst boyfriend in existence, and all of the things you’ve done, every last one of them, good and bad, they don’t—
“Boucles.”
His voice is muddled through the mask, but it cuts through your thoughts instantly.
You turn to look at him. His eyes are drooping, and it looks like it’s taking a considerable amount of concentration for him to keep them open and stay awake.
“Yes?” you say, taking his hand.
“Love you.”
The words are caught in your throat. You open your mouth to speak, but by the time you force out a whisper, he’s asleep.
“Love you, too.”
____________________________
Something is up, and you’re determined to find out what it is.
Ever since Victor arrived back at the flat, he’s been acting strangely. He was right-handed, but he’s doing everything with his left hand—pouring water for tea, handing you your cup, grabbing a notebook from the shelf—and so you’ve taken it upon yourself to investigate.
Nothing seems wrong with his hand. There isn’t a bandage or any visible injury. His arm, then.
He stands up from his chair, and you reach up to grab his upper arm from your own seat. He doesn’t move or jerk or seem surprised at all; instead, he gives you a questioning expression.
“Nothing,” you mumble with a huff, letting him go.
Victor continues like that for another hour. It’s his turn to cook, and he always makes chicken on Wednesdays—“How domestic,” you’d sneered once, and then he threatened to take your food away, so you apologized quickly and said it was lovely—but his usual finesse and flair in the kitchen is gone. He again relies on his left hand, not his right.
Perhaps it is something with his forearm, you think as he carefully cuts into his chicken breast. You watch him intently for a moment and notice that he is keeping it flat, the inside of his arm facing downward.
So, something on the inside of his forearm. Likely suspects: skin damage of some kind, probably minor, especially since he hasn’t told you yet. Or maybe he’s waiting until after dinner; he tends to do that and make you wait through a miserably long meal just to hear whatever news he has for you.
But dinner comes and goes, and Victor doesn’t seem to have any intentions of telling you a thing. He strolls back into the sitting room after doing the dishes and collapses into his chair, picking up his current read from the coffee table without saying a word to you.
No. You’re going to find out what’s going on.
So you stand up and cross over to him in two strides, grabbing his right forearm and eliciting a yelp from him. You pop the buttons on his sleeve and yank the fabric up to find—
A tattoo.
It’s covered with a thin plastic film taped on the edges, and it runs from just below his sleeve to an inch shy of his elbow. Victor had been talking about getting one for ages, but his job requires that he not have any identifying marks. You look up at him in surprise.
“Why—“
“I got a promotion, Will.” He smiles. “Mycroft got me a better position, and I didn’t have an excuse not to.” He peels back a bit of the tape slowly and then looking up at you. “Do you want to see it?”
You nod, because yes, of course you want to see it; you want to know what was so important that Victor had to get permanently inked into his skin. You aren’t against tattoos, per se, but you’ve never seen the appeal. Still…
Victor winces as he peels back the tape, and he casts you a wary glance before pulling the plastic up.
Most of the tattoo is a honeycomb pattern in various shades of yellow, orange, and black. There is a honeybee on either end; one with a tiny book and the other—
The other with a miniature deerstalker.
“So?” he asks, looking up at you hopefully. “Does it get the Sherlockian seal of approval?”
You stare blankly at the tattoo, your eyes blinking uncontrollably. You realize you’re doing it, and you know you look an idiot, but you honestly can’t find the words. A scathing remark, a compliment, a well-hidden “I’m flattered…”
Victor stands, and he puts his left arm around you while looking at the tattoo. “You and me, Will,” he whispers, kissing your cheek. “You and me.”
____________________________
Everything is so loud.
The clock ticks behind you, and with every passing second it gets louder and louder. The nurses have all gone home save for one, and he’s sitting at the nurse’s station. He keeps offering you coffee or tea or even something a bit stronger. You don’t question why a health care professional would be offering you alcohol. You turn all of them down.
It’s a routine operation, you tell yourself. Just an implant. He’ll be fine.
But you don’t know that. Not really. And neither do the people operating on him right now. Anything can go wrong; this is heart surgery. The numbers don’t help, either, and they’re constantly running through your mind. One in three, one in four, one in thirty—
No.
Think of something else. Anything else. There has to be a way to make it stop. You’ll find a way to make it stop.
Something buzzes loudly, and you realize it’s your mobile. You had set it on the small table next to you. Upon checking, you see it’s Mycroft, and you throw the phone on the ground.
It’s his fault. It’s always his fault. He always ruins everything, and he’s already ruined the one good thing you’ve ever had. His false apologies mean nothing, because that’s what they are—false. You know it. He knows it. So why can’t he just bloody well stop—
“Bad day, eh?”
The nurse is sitting across from you. He offers an apologetic smile, then picks up your mobile. “Fancy thing. Probably shouldn’t be throwing it around.”
You snatch it from his hand. He doesn’t know. He wouldn’t know. No one knows except for you, and Victor. Why are all these people trying to act like they understand? They don’t. They don’t have a Victor. You do. They’re stupid, all of them.
After an extended silence, the nurse walks back to his station. You exhale a breath you didn’t notice you’d been holding and reach into your left pocket.
There, folded into a small wad, is a piece of paper you found as you rifled through Victor’s things. That was the first thing you’d done, before getting bored and coming to the waiting room. Not that it was any better, but there was always the chance of someone passing by that you could deduce.
No one did.
On the paper is a sketch. It isn’t finished; it doesn’t have any defining lines, and it’s drawn in pencil with stroke after stroke scratched onto it in varying degrees of pressure. The paper is from a book, going by the texture, and the pencil used was a wooden one of questionable quality. But the most interesting thing about it is the drawing itself.
It’s an anatomical heart, covered in scars and sutures. There is a banner around it, and although the script on it is a bit rough, you can just barely make out the text.
Boucles.
Your eyes skim over the sketch again. You have it committed to memory, but it calms you, if only momentarily. You shove the torn-off paper back into your pocket, welcoming the warm feeling that starts to creep up on you.
It doesn't last long, but you'll pull it out of your pocket again in a few minutes, and it'll be back.
The nurse returns, two cups of coffee in his hands. He doesn’t speak, but sets down a cup on the table and walks away.
Mid thirties size 10 1/2 shoe couldn’t afford medical school three dogs one child estranged wife pending divorce three nights’ overtime binge drinker chain smoker—
“Thanks,” you say, far too quietly for him to hear.
____________________________
"I'm not going to live to thirty-five."
You turn to look at him. Victor's hair is tousled and mussed; his body has a light sheen of sweat across it. You're fairly certain you're in the same state. "What?"
Victor puts an arm behind his head and takes another drag from his cigarette, not looking at you all the while. "Went to the doctor yesterday. Says I've only got another five years left." He turns to face you, and you realize he has tears in his eyes.
You don't know what to say, so you don't say anything. You reach out for him and pull him close, your ear against his heart. You can hear it beat, hear the rhythm change as Victor's breath catches in his throat, feel it reverberate through your body and match up with your own.
"I thought I'd have forever with you," he whispers, wrapping one arm around you and resting his head on top of yours. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."
You're not good at this sort of thing. You try to pull him closer in lieu of speaking, because you know if you say something it will be the wrong thing, and you can't say the wrong thing; not now, not to him.
You're surprised when you feel something wet slide down your own cheek.
"I love you, William," Victor breathes, his voice just loud enough for you to catch. "I love you so much."
"I love you, too," you croak, and bury your face into his chest.
You don't realize it at the time, but it's the first time you've ever said those words to him.
____________________________
You can’t hear the clock anymore. Now, the loudest thing in the room is the beating of your heart.
One of the doctors has just come out of the operating room. He can’t tell you anything because you’re not family, but he doesn’t seem overly upset. You can tell the type of hand soap he used before performing the operation, but you can’t tell what happened.
What use is being a genius when you don’t know if your boyfriend made it through surgery alive?
Eventually, though, you see him wheeled through and taken back to his room. You immediately stand up and follow the gurney, keeping a decent distance from the nurses pushing it. You can’t tell from behind whether he made it. Your heart pounds in your ears as you follow them down the hall—how the hell did it get so long?—and he’s wheeled into his room. Everyone except the anesthesiologist leaves.
You study Victor for a long moment. You can’t tell if his chest is moving—if it is, it’s only by centimeters—so you press your fingers against his wrist. The tattoo on his arm makes you smile a bit, and then you can feel it: the faint throbbing of blood.
He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive—
“How was it?” you ask, your voice shakier than you’d expected.
“He did well,” the anesthesiologist tells you. “Shouldn’t have any complications.”
You nod and shove your hands in your pockets, a nervous habit. You clutch at the sketch with your left hand. Your right wraps around the small box you’d picked up only this—no, yesterday morning.
They are your anchors, your connections to him, the only things you can truly hold on to.
Your eyes droop closed for only a moment, but it is in that moment that someone grabs your right arm. Victor is looking up at you hazily while the anesthesiologist removes the mask and begins asking him questions. Your heart pounds, and it feels as though it’s nearly full to bursting as Victor answers all the questions in an exhausted voice.
Finally, the anesthesiologist walks out, and you’re left alone with him.
“How do you feel?” you ask softly.
Victor gives you a tired smile and closes his eyes. “Alive.”