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The crime scene was a mess. One of these days Sherlock was going to have the entire forensics department fired and replaced with people he personally chose for the job. People who knew that they shouldn’t tramp all over the evidence just because it may seem irrelevant.
There is glitter around the body, he texted John. It formed some kind of pattern but the morons stepped over it and now it’s ruined. You might as well come and examine the body. —SH
John’s phone chimed with an incoming message and, after a while, he stepped around Sherlock to look at the corpse of a young woman, naked but for the paint covering her body (emerald, definitely not body paint).
“Not everyone has your powers of observation, Sherlock,” John said, putting gloves on.
Sherlock glared at him and shook John’s shoulder to get his attention.
“Obviously,” he signed. “But it is their job.”
John sighed and examined the girl’s mouth.
“I know,” he said. “And they’re good at it, objectively.” John glanced at Sherlock, who would like to murder him with a look right at this moment. John only shrugged and went back to studying the body. “The glitter’s barely visible around the paint that’s also green. I’m sure it’s even more difficult to see a pattern in it.” John snapped his gloves off and smiled at Sherlock. “I bet you can still figure it out, though."
Sherlock should be annoyed at him after taking the police’s side. He really was. And yet, he found himself, quite inexplicably, returning the smile. A warm sensation blossomed in his belly while John rattled off cause and time of death, along with a couple of (wrong) deductions.
“Obviously,” he signed when he had John’s attention again.
John beamed at him and went to talk to Lestrade, cautiously stepping over the glitter. Sherlock turned to look at him fondly and the warm sensation travelled up his chest until it started tingling.
Sherlock turned back to examine the glitter pattern but the warm feeling didn’t subside. Instead, it travelled even higher and took residence in his throat like a great vibrating ball trying to break free.
He clawed at his throat, trying not to panic. Nothing terrible was happening. He wasn’t going to lose that little part of his voice that he could still use. It was unthinkable.
He stood up and, without a word to anyone, marched away from the crime scene. He ducked into a lonely alley and leaned back on the wall.
“My name is Sherlock Holmes,” he said and sighed with relief when his larynx produced actual words. “I am partially mute but I don’t let it affect my work, which is essential.” Then he added, just to check, “My brother is a fat interfering bastard and I hate him.” He hesitated before saying the next part. “John Watson is invaluable and I shall do whatever I can to keep him.”
He closed his eyes and nodded to himself before reciting a few of his favourite words (staccato, luminescence, morbidly, vertebrae...). He stopped when poisonous came out as nothing more than a whiff of air.
A second later John’s tense silhouette appeared in the alley. His shoulders dropped when he spotted Sherlock but he still looked at him with concern.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Sherlock took in John’s slightly creased forehead and the worried line of his mouth, and he smiled at him fondly. John frowned even more and the ball of warmth settled back in Sherlock's throat. He closed his eyes and signed, “I am not sure.”
John was quiet after that, even though Sherlock could hear him thinking. Finally, he sighed.
“Let’s get you home,” he said.
***
It was all Mycroft’s fault.
At least Sherlock chose to think of it this way, though even he knew it wasn’t exactly fair.
After all, if not for Mycroft, Sherlock might not be alive to complain.
***
The taxi ride home was silent, as was often the case, but this time there was a palpable tension in the air that made both John and Sherlock squirm in their seats. Sherlock took off his scarf but it didn’t help much. The warm feeling came from inside and no amount of external measures could make it disappear. Sherlock rubbed absently at his throat and concentrated on his breathing. John kept sending him worried glances but he refrained from commenting, for which Sherlock was extremely grateful.
When the taxi stopped, Sherlock ran out of it, leaving John to pay. As soon as he was safely ensconced in his bedroom, the ball in his throat dissolved and he could speak again.
His phone chimed with an incoming message from John. Sherlock appreciated that he didn’t try to push, that, by sending a text, he let Sherlock take control over the situation. Gave him the chance to ignore it.
You okay?, the text said.
Sherlock took a deep breath and stepped out of his room.
***
He didn’t remember The Accident, as his parents and Mycroft always referred to it. He was just a toddler, barely started walking, but he already had a need to share his brilliance with people. Or, as it was, with toys he positioned in front of himself and explained to them his latest discovery in incomprehensible baby talk.
One day, his mother dozed off while watching him in the living room. She’d left her big shiny earrings on the coffee table. Sherlock loved those earrings in a way that small children loved sparkling jewellery.
The table was too tall for him to reach them but Sherlock wasn’t called a genius for no reason. He found a way to climb on the coffee table and somehow, in the middle of getting the earrings, he lost his balance and fell, hitting his head on the edge of the table on his way down.
It startled his mother awake. She found him unconscious on the floor and she called the doctors immediately but there was little they could do. Little Sherlock was in a deep coma and they weren’t optimistic about his chances of recovery. A week, maybe two, they said, before his body gave up.
That’s when Mycroft decided to take matters into his own hands.
***
Sherlock stepped directly into the kitchen and put the kettle on. John might have already made them tea but Sherlock doubted it. Their usual mugs were still in the sink and he hadn’t done anything unforgiveable to them. Sherlock rinsed the mugs, set them on the counter and waited for the water to boil.
The ball of warmth disappeared from his throat and Sherlock tried to convince himself that it was nothing. It probably was nothing. He was partially mute, a minor problem with his throat shouldn’t come as a surprise. Or maybe it was even something simple, something tedious like a common cold. He should probably let John check for that.
The kettle switched off and Sherlock let the tea steep for a moment before taking it to the living room. John was there, sitting in his armchair with a book he only pretended to read (he wasn’t as obvious as to hold it upside down, John was too smart for that, but Sherlock could tell).
“Oh, cheers!” John said when Sherlock handed him his mug. Even though he looked surprised, Sherlock knew he kept track of his every movement, in case he could help. John took a sip of his tea and made an appreciative sound. “It’s perfect.” He beamed.
Sherlock rolled his eyes and sat in his own chair.
“Obviously,” he signed.
“Yeah, don’t let it get into your head,” John said with a smile.
They drank their tea in silence, though Sherlock knew it was only a matter of time until John broached the subject. Soon enough, John leaned forward and cleared his throat.
“So what’s going on?” he asked. “And don’t even try to deny it. I can see something has you all worried.”
Sherlock would gladly dismiss the ridiculous affair altogether but John was directing his stubborn look at him. He wasn’t going to let it rest and he was guaranteed to ask later. Sherlock was tempted to delay the inevitable but eventually the worried lines between John’s eyebrows made him decide otherwise.
“It’s my throat,” he signed.
John immediately put his tea away and looked even more worried. Sherlock rarely had people worried on his behalf (unless you counted Mycroft, which he absolutely didn’t) and if it happened, he found it difficult to tolerate. People tended to accompany their worry with pity, which Sherlock did not need or invite.
It was different with John. He seemed to genuinely care about Sherlock’s wellbeing, adjusting easily to Sherlock’s muteness without making him feel as if he was somehow incomplete. It was only one of the reasons why Sherlock wanted to keep John with him forever.
“What is it?” John asked, concerned. “Does it hurt? Is it your vocal cords?”
Sherlock was about to sign him the answer but thought better of it. John had surprised him when he’d expressed his desire to learn the sign language the very first week they knew each other and he’d made a steady progress since then. His vocabulary was still limited to basic words though. Sherlock could probably make him understand, but it was easier to just write him a message.
He reached for his notebook and started writing:
It might just be a sore throat. Beginnings of a cold, perhaps. I’d like you to check it, if you’re amenable. It’s the weirdest sensation. As if a gigantic ball of warm energy got stuck in my throat. Do you know of any diseases with similar symptoms?
He finished with a flourish and presented the message to John.
“Um...” John frowned at the note. “Okay, let me see. But if it has anything to do with your larynx, you should go and see a specialist.”
“No use,” Sherlock signed, ignoring the glare John directed at him. He waited for John to fetch his kit and smiled bitterly.
No doctor could fix what had been done to him.
***
Mycroft told Sherlock about his miraculous recovery exactly once, and it didn’t go well. Sherlock didn’t appreciate Mycroft making such a huge decision for him. But they were both children at the time and even with Mycroft’s superior intellect, he was bound to make some mistakes.
After The Accident, Sherlock wasn’t getting better. Either his mother or his father was always in Sherlock’s room, watching over the boy in case he woke up. One night, Mycroft talked his way into staying near Sherlock’s cot and pretended to fall asleep. He waited for their father to doze off in the armchair they’d dragged from the living room. Then he snatched baby Sherlock from his cot and took him into the woods where he demanded an audience with the forest spirits.
A pleasant light came from the old oak in the heart of the forest. It surrounded them both and then numerous voices started speaking in unison.
“You ask a lot of us, boy,” the spirits said, without being told the reason for the boys’ arrival.
“He’s my brother,” Mycroft said.
“Quite a curious little one, too,” the spirits kept chanting. “Such a shame.”
And then Mycroft begged. Sherlock should probably feel grateful that his brother would do that for him. He did not.
“We can cure the little one,” the spirits said. “But it will have a price. Are you sure it’s what you want, boy?”
Mycroft said yes, thinking the price was his to pay.
He was wrong.
***
"Could you stay still for just a moment?” John snapped at him, trying to take a good look at Sherlock’s throat. Sherlock didn’t much care for the uncomfortable sensation. “Christ,” John muttered, actually pinning Sherlock to the chair and flashing his pocket torch into Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock made a protesting noise. “Well, I can’t see anything unusu—” John stopped mid-sentence and stared at Sherlock with wide eyes. “Did you just—“
Sherlock inhaled sharply. He had just made a sound. He could never do that when there was someone listening!
He swallowed and tried again.
“J—” he started and coughed. The ball of warmth in his throat travelled up and compelled him to speak. “John,” he said effortlessly, his wide eyes fixed on John’s face.
“Oh my God!” John said with wonder. “Sherlock, this is...”
“Different, I know,” Sherlock said, still without any problem. He grinned.
“Oh my God!” John said again, but this time he was beaming at Sherlock. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted. “I suspect there had to be a loophole in Mycroft’s deal with the spirits.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” John said with the biggest grin on his face, and then he kissed him.
***
Sherlock didn’t believe Mycroft’s story. Forest spirits, honestly! He might have been eight but he wasn’t stupid. Sherlock made his displeasure known and demanded real answers. Had they found a drug that cured him but left him unable to utter a sound in other people’s presence?
But Mummy said there had been no drug. She said they had almost lost hope of Sherlock ever waking up but then, practically overnight, he got better. Well enough to sit in his cot and demand attention, only he couldn’t cry out, so he rattled the bars and glared at the world.
There was nothing physically wrong with him, as a horde of doctors was happy to announce. They thought the cause was psychological, that he stopped talking to others as a result of trauma. Sherlock knew they were wrong and he would happily explain it to them, only he couldn’t, of course.
As a teenager, he was still searching for real answers, believing Mycroft’s story to be just a fairytale that was meant to make him feel better. When he got caught breaking into a drug research facility, Mycroft took him by the wrist and, without a word, dragged him into the forest. He sat Sherlock in front of the oak, called the spirits and left.
Sherlock was going to follow him but the tree actually started glowing. He watched with wide eyes as the light surrounded him.
“Ah, isn’t it our little friend?” the spirits teased. “Too curious for your own good, no wonder your brother had finally lost his patience.”
Sherlock opened his mouth to protest but no sound came out of it.
The spirits’ chuckle echoed around him.
“We warned him,” the spirits said, amused. “We told him the healing would have a price.” The light swirled around him. “But is it really so bad?” they whispered in his ear. “A boy like you, with a big audience of imaginary friends, why would you even need the real ones?” Another bout of laughter. “Why waste your breath on idiots who won’t understand you anyway?” The light flickered. “We did you a favour.”
The spirits disappeared with a loud pop and left Sherlock completely alone.
***
Sherlock was too startled to do anything at all when John’s lips touched his. He just sat there in shock, eyes wide open. John misinterpreted his lack of reaction and practically jumped away with a hand clapped over his mouth.
“Oh God,” he muttered and closed his eyes with a pained expression. “I’m so sorry, Sherlock, I—”
But Sherlock had already recovered and now he had a new way of making John stop talking.
“Don’t,” he said and pulled John closer by his jumper.
“Sherlock?” John said, looking him in the eye. Something like hope came through the uncertainty.
“Did you mean it?” Sherlock asked. He put his hands on John’s chest, then let them travel up to his shoulders and down his arms until they encircled John’s wrists. John’s pulse was fast and strong.
John huffed a little laugh.
“Yes, I did,” he admitted, slightly breathless. He cleared his throat. “God, now you’ll never shut up again. I won’t need to have the telly on for background noise because you’ll be there, muttering about corpses over my shoulder and—”
Sherlock pulled him by the wrists and silenced him with another kiss.
“Too much talking,” he breathed against his lips.
John giggled and leaned in for more.