Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When the Lady Eleonora Marie Holmes (née Rutherford, better known to those close to her as Nora) was two months pregnant with her second child, she disturbed the final rest of an erstwhile lost soul who had, in life, dabbled in the Dark Arts. When this unfortunate still had warmth of breath and beat of heart, such things amounted to little more than pomp and circumstance and the scorn and annoyance of his neighbours who could not abide all the noise and the ungodly smell of Wormwood and Balmony burning in mass quantities; in death, however, he found such darkness as he had sought in his sorry life.

Thus when Nora's crotchety old cat and longtime companion Norbert twisted up unnaturally and died with a terrible noise one Thursday afternoon, she packed a bottle of goat's milk, fresh baked bread, and a handful of aniseed in a basket and set off with her old governess Martha for the far end of town, to a stone house mounted precariously on the edge of the cliffs by the sea.

When the Pirate Wild Will Watson (full name William Hamish Watson, or better known to his long-suffering Anna simply as My Idiot) escaped from an island that he had (quite erroneously) believed to be deserted while being chased by cannibals, the tribe's new shaman (the last had died from food poisoning from Will's second mate, poor man) set to work to cast a death-curse using a fallen lock of what he believed to be Wild Will's hair. The lock of hair was found on the ground near their sacred shrine after the tribesmen had returned from their ultimately futile chase, curling and golden in the twilight sun.

Later that night, the newly-appointed shaman began his revenge. For a rookie it was quite a complicated spell, and so he could have been forgiven for grinding in the Asphodel before the Asafoetida, which resulted in rather a different curse indeed. As the new shaman stirred the boiling pot and added twenty-three strands of sandy-gold hair as the final ingredient, Wild Will bemoaned his misfortune at losing his good luck charm: a single lock of his year-old son's hair, kept in a pendant with a now-broken clasp.

An ocean away, in a dingy basement flat in London and in his patient mother's arms, John Watson straightened as if stung, then giggled. Anna smiled with him and bounced him on her knee.

---

Nora walked slowly, ostensibly mindful of slippery rocks and steep falls but in truth enjoying the wind and the unparalleled view, one she had not enjoyed for too long a time. Beside her Martha Hudson kept an equally sedate pace, due instead to being more advanced in years and what she suspected were the beginnings of a dodgy hip. The sun was low in the sky by the time they reached their destination: a low limestone bungalow which had the winding path she was now walking on its one side, and the vast blue ocean on the other. Sitting just outside the house under the shade of an olive tree was a striking woman with clear hazel eyes; on her lap sat an equally striking four-year-old girl, her brow furrowed while reading a book.

“Hello, Alecto,” Nora greeted the woman, and motioned to the basket in her hand. “I've brought milk and bread, if you've tea and jam.”

The woman called Alecto sighed but nodded. “Tea's fine. Up you get, Anthea,” she murmured, prodding the young girl off her lap to stand, though the girl stood for just five seconds before sitting back down where her mother had been, all the time not lifting her eyes from her book. Her impoliteness was ignored as it always was, and the three woman went inside for tea and talk.

Inside, talk was idle chatter for the few minutes it took to set the table and prepare tea and afternoon snacks, until Nora said: “I fear Adrastos has done something foolish.”

Behind her Alecto snorted while slicing the bread. “He most definitely has done. There's little more foolish than standing in the middle of the street to be run over by a cart on market day.”

“Oh, not that. Something … after.”

The sound of steel slicing through bread paused. “After? You mean after he was trampled dead, then?”

“I … yes.” The kettle whistled and was ignored.

The bread knife was laid down slowly as Alecto turned to face her, face impassive and flinty. “What's happened, Nora?”

Nora paused to gather her thoughts, but could only bring to mind the look of fury that had twisted the familiar face of Alecto's brother. Adrastos, who had once played in the surf with them and who had always revelled in Nora's ghosts stories and who had loved her desperately when they were children, whom Nora had once again wronged after his death. She wondered how exactly you told someone about their brother's vengeful spirit without being either thrown off a cliff or locked up, when Martha stood and cleared her throat.

“I'm afraid I must share part of the responsibility, Ms. Petros, for going along with what happened. I only sought for my dear Nora to have closure, for she did grieve your brother quite badly. She had wished for a final conversation.”

The hard lines of Alecto's expression softened, but it was still some time before she spoke again. The kettle was turned off, and for a long while there was only the sound of the wind and the sea below. Finally, she sat down and took Nora's hand. “Surely you realise, these things, they aren't the people we knew. That wasn't my brother, Nora, just what's left behind. What could possibly possess you to call him back? Tell me, what's he done?”

Nora squared her shoulders and looked at her friend's face, so similar to her brother's. “Yes, I called him, but it was apparent from the first that I shouldn't have done. All I did was disturb his final rest, and it was terrible, and it's just bollocks, what everyone says about death being peace. He told me as much, and told me that if the dead so interested me then I would always know death. And he left and I haven't seen him again, and I should be relieved but I keep looking for his face lost in the crowd and I don't know what's worse, seeing him looking at me like I was a monster or never seeing him again for eternity—”

A gentle squeeze on her hand stopped her increasingly rambling speech. Unexpectedly, Alecto opened her mouth, paused, then declared flatly, “You're with child again, you're aware?”

“Well, yes, but only just. I haven't told Siger yet, only Martha here and August Stamford.”

“Ah. You should know that nothing has happened to you. At least, not so far as I can tell.”

Nora shook her head emphatically. "Something's happened, I know it. I've seen sparrows dropping dead at my feet, and just this day poor Norbert died most terribly, yowling in the parlour. You can't tell me that's all chance, not with everything we've seen and done. I'm hardly that daft.”

Alecto let out a breath as she inwardly cringed at the thought of the old cat dying, of other things as well. “No, there is something at work, though heaven knows how my talentless brother managed that. It's on the child, though, not on you, otherwise you'd have lost the child already. I would say that my brother had meant to do so out of sentiment, but most likely it was because he was incompetent, even in death.”

“No, that cannot be.” Her hand tightened unconsciously on her belly. “How do I fix it?”

Alecto's face grew pensive as she thought. “There are things I can do to subvert the curse somewhat, but I can only do them when the child is born. But Nora, you cannot let that happen. There is too much danger. There are draughts I have for—“

There was a snap as a chair skittered backwards, and Nora stood in all her graceful fury as Martha followed, alarmed. “You did not just suggest I kill a child whose only fault was having a foolish mother, I could not possibly have heard that from you. Did you not just say there were measures you could take?”

“My dear, please, you mustn’t get too excited—“ Martha put out her hands in an attempt to soothe even as Alecto's voice cut through her anger.

“Nora, you don't understand, there are measures I can take after the child is born, but not before you birth this child. Not before you birth this child and die, do you understand?” Her face contorted into something ugly and Nora shivered involuntarily, remembering her brother. “You will die, Nora, and Adrastos is already dead, and you cannot die as well, you cannot, do you understand? If I cannot save you then this child will grow up knowing death all his life but never knowing you, never even laying eyes on you, and why would you condemn anyone to that?”

“We are all condemned to that,” Nora bit out, furious and sad. “We know loss all our lives, every one of us, yet still we continue to live and breathe regardless. It's what being human means. I will die if need be, and you will save my child and take care of him as best you can because that will be all you have left of me. And if you allow him to come to harm, I swear, this curse won't end with him anyway because I will find a way, you know I will. And he will know death, but there is beauty in that, and that is what being human means also.” Nora breathed out, suddenly like a sailing ship that had lost its wind, and then breathed in again, and in that moment she was ascendant.

“It's getting dark outside," Nora said abruptly, as if the past twenty minutes had never been. "I should go fetch Anthea, she'll be wanting to come in now. Will you let us stay the night?”

Alecto swallowed once, as if swallowing a pill, and said, quietly, “Of course. I've never refused you, Nora.”

As Nora left to fetch Anthea, Alecto turned to regard Martha Hudson, who had stood at attention the entire time, like a guardian beast at a castle. “And what is your role here? Will you just stand aside and bear witness to her foolishness then, Madam Hudson, as you have done before?”

Martha Hudson's eyes were tired but resolute. “Not stand aside, but by her side. I will stand by her when she needs me, as I have done, and as I have stood by you, dear, and will continue to do so.” Night fell around the two women, and outside the waves crashed against the side of the cliffs, as they had done for centuries, and would do for centuries hence.

On the 6^th of January of the next year, the Lady Eleanora Marie Holmes (née Rutherford) died in childbirth, and was survived by her husband, Lord Siger Holmes, and their son, Mycroft.

Twelve seconds after her death, she was also survived by her second son, and so Sherlock Holmes opened his eyes, and breathed.

Chapter Text

Five months past his fourth birthday, the red snake amulet Sherlock never removed (“Now dear,” Madam Hudson's voice said in his head, “you must never lose this, and always keep it with you,” and his father disapproved deeply of superstition, but Madam Hudson understood the words he didn't say and never treated him like a child, so he wore the amulet) snapped its chain and fell. He'd climbed to the top of the outer wall in order to examine a sparrow, and the chain caught on piece of rock that jutted out, held for a few seconds as if to keep the suspense, snapped, and flew through the air, glinting in the midday sun. It bounced off the edge of the wall before finally falling to the other side.

Sherlock bit his lip and shifted to go after it; he could see where it landed and he was sure he could climb down and get it—

“Sherlock! Stop messing about up there, Father wants us back for lunch with the Admiral.”

“I'm not messing about, it's observation!” Sherlock shouted back petulantly and turned back to the sparrow, which hadn't flown off, he noted in surprise. It had lain down and—wait. The bird was—

“Sherlock, this is tedious. Come on, we're needed.” Mycroft's tone was bored, but Sherlock thought he was learning to tell if his brother was annoyed. He did a thing with his hands. He'd probably be better off holding something all the time to hide it.

Sherlock ignored him and reached up to grab the sparrow and see if it would fly away. It remained where it was, open eyes and beak, even as his small hand closed over its head. The bird was dead. It had exhibited all the normal signs of health previously, so why—?

A mystery then. Sherlock grinned, pocketed the now-deceased animal (it bulged noticeably, but Mycroft usually let him get away with bringing all sorts of things in the house), and followed his brother back, all the while keeping his hand in his pocket. He'd sit through the tedious lunch, examine the sparrow, and then he could go back for the amulet later, he decided.

In the chaos that was Sunday lunch, wherein Sherlock threw the dead sparrow at the Admiral's face in a fit of pique and at least three different dishes were broken (“It was justified,” Sherlock said sulkily. “He thought dolphins were fish.”), the lost amulet wasn't retrieved until Monday.

By that time a rat in the cellar, a blackbird, and the Anderson's month-old puppy had died as well, and Sherlock, who was a very intelligent child indeed, locked himself in the attic and sat cross-legged on an old box of records, thinking. By the dingy attic window a bee buzzed, and then dropped out of the air.

When Madam Hudson returned to the manor the next day after visiting the witch by the cliff (that was what the local children called Ms. Petros, but Sherlock never actually saw anything particularly witchy going on, and Mycroft was for some reason enamoured with her distracted daughter), Sherlock met her at the courtyard and said, in his most authoritative four year old voice (which wasn't all that authoritative, he admitted; when he grew up he'd work on getting it deep and dark like father's), “You knew what you were giving me when you told me to wear that amulet. Tell me what it was.”

“Sherlock.” Madam Hudson sounded sad but resigned. “Did you remove it, dear?”

She wasn't scolding him, not exactly, but even so Sherlock felt like ducking his head and scuffing his feet against the floor. “No, the chain broke and it fell. I got it back later, though. What is it? Rather, what am I?”

Madam Hudson glanced down at him sharply, and he knew she really was scolding him now, but she only said, “You're Sherlock Holmes, dear, nothing more, nothing less. Sharp as a tack, oftentimes infuriating, but always well-meaning.” Sherlock bristled and looked about ready to launch into one of his famous strops, but she cut him off quickly. “I will tell you about it, but not before we fix the chain and get you some supper. Come, now.”

Madam Hudson went and had Billy fix the chain, took some bread and cheese to Sherlock's room, and spoke for an hour. Sherlock remained silent apart from nods or shakes of his head, until she ran out of words and grew silent as well.

Sherlock looked even smaller than he was, curled in on himself and his blanket. Finally he said softly, “Not a very interesting mystery after all.”

Martha Hudson had been there when Sherlock was born, had taught him how to read when he was but two, and she knew when the words he said wasn't what he meant at all, so she wrapped an arm around the child and pulled him close, and he hid his face in her chest and breathed out, and then in again, over and over.

---

London, thought John, was bloody marvellous. It was absolutely rank, the smell of piss and blood and sweat mixing with smoke and decay while the fog perpetually blanketed the city in rolling mists. And oh, the people! They were everywhere, getting underfoot and calling out and screaming and stealing and living. There were public executions and corpses in the poorhouses, and one could run through the streets all day and not run out of alleys to explore, and every day was a challenge and a battle, and he was never, ever bored.

He didn't know why his dad ever left. Being some merchant on some ship with a stupid name sounded so uninteresting in comparison.

He slid down a pipe, ran through a thin gap in the local tavern's fence, and took off down the street to head back home, running all the way.

“Johnny!” A voice called out shrilly, and John slowed just enough to turn his head. “I'm going out tonight, do you want to tag along?”

Lucky Lou liked having him along, because he was small and quick and fit through holes much better. He threw a grin at Lou and called out over his shoulder, “I'll be by after mum falls asleep!” Lou said something else, but John had already turned down their street.

He banged the door to their flat open without slowing down. “Mum! Mum! You won't believe what I saw.”

The man who had his feet on the table leaned back precariously on his chair, his arms folded behind his head. His face was weathered and darkened by the sun, and his hair bleached, but his eyes were warm and blue like the ocean. “What did you see, John?”

His grin only grew wider, and Will Watson toppled backwards when he suddenly had to contend with an armful of six-year-old boy. “Dad!”

His dad just laughed and kicked the fallen chair out from under his feet. “Been a good boy then?”

“That's a stupid question, Dad.”

“Yet you never give me a straight answer, boy.” The routine was familiar and well-worn but still altogether comfortable.

“Where's mum? Has she seen you?”

“Aye, she went to call Harriet over from Mrs. Rogers.” Will pushed John off unceremoniously and then rummaged for something in his pack on the floor. “Before they get back though, I have something to give you.”

John sat up in anticipation. His dad always brought home weird things with long, convoluted histories. John was sure his dad made it all up, such outlandish stories couldn't be real, but they always made him laugh anyway.

There was the whizzing of a drawstring, and then something gold was pulled from the brown leather. It looked to be a gold coin on a chain with some sort of imprint on it. A skull, John realised as he ran his thumb over the grooves. He had seen one when Lou dug up the wrong grave one night, and it had stared up at him through the dirt. He'd seen a number of corpses before that, but not really bones, and Lou thought John would be scared, but John had just gone still like an oak, and then giggled because the jaw fell off when Lou picked it up.

“Did you just get this from some fair somewhere, then? Or from the shop by the river that sells trinkets to tourists?”

“Such cynicism in my child, the absolute tragedy breaks my heart,” Will said in mock-horror. “No John, that's real, and I'm trusting you to take care of it.” His eyes turned serious, which John only saw when his dad and mum talked late at night, by candlelight. “It's important. Keep it.”

“Why give this to me, then?”

There was an expression on his dad's face that he didn't recognize. On another person he might have called it sadness, grief, even, but such things didn't belong on his father's face. “Because you're important too. Keep it, all right? Just wear it under your shirt and don't tell anyone.”

John just nodded, and slipped the coin's chain over his neck. “Dad, is there something wrong?”

Will smiled at his son, but his eyes were tight. “No, nothing at all. It's fine. It's all fine.”

William Watson left the next day and never returned. John wanted to chuck the coin in the Thames, but never could bring himself to do it.

“John! John Watson! Get back here! Oh, for God's sake.”

By now hearing that screamed refrain and its many variants was a common occurrence, and so most of the denizens of London's East End paid the blur that rushed past no mind. John barely heard it anyway, what with the noise of homemade fireworks and the rowdy cheers of people drinking and celebrating in the streets. Bonfire Night was prime for collecting windfall, and tonight had been a good night. He slid down a pipe, jumped over the local tavern's fence, and took off down the street to head back home, running all the way, as he had done since he first could run.

“Mum! Mum! You'll never guess what I have.” He had managed to pocket quite a bit of money and get a variety of foodstuffs, but he had also managed to filch an entire bar of chocolate. His mum hadn't done all that well since Harry had run away last month, but chocolate always did the trick. Dad used to get her some whenever he had visited, though the last time had been more than six years ago—

John pushed the thought aside, and banged the door open.

The flat was silent, and a single candle flickered by the window. His mum was on the bed. John closed the door more slowly, and silently put the satchel down on the table. “Mum?”

John knew when he came closer, but still he took her wrist loosely and put two fingers on the pulse-point, as he had seen the barber-surgeon do after the man he'd been working on had stopped convulsing. Her skin was cool and there was no movement under his fingers. Her other hand was still curled around a glass, and the smell of bitter almonds lingered faintly.

His hands were perfectly steady. The were steady when doing a job, and steady when picking a pocket. He despised that they were steady now as well.

John moved away, lifted the corner floorboard, and he pulled out the purse that was hidden there and placed it inside the satchel that was still packed on the table. He then closed his mother's eyes and tipped the candle onto the bed. The night was dry, and it caught fire easily. Soon the bed resembled the bonfires he had passed outside, and then the fire started spreading outwards.

He slipped out the door, called out “Fire! Fire!”, ran into the night, and left London far behind. Under his shirt, the coin felt like it was burning as well.

Chapter Text

This, thought John Watson as he tried to adjust his arms and legs for the umpteenth time, was quite possibly the most ridiculous thing he'd ever done. Possibly also the last, if he didn't figure out how to get out before he ran out of air.

Giving it up as a bad job and resigning himself to being discovered as a stowaway, he started pounding on the inside of the barrel. “Oi! Is anyone out there? A little help, please? Hello?”

No one answered, and as before, the only sounds he could hear were the creak of old wood and and the perpetual rolling of the ocean. The ship had left the port more than an hour ago, he knew. There weren't any clocks to keep the time, and no sky he could see, but John had always had an excellent internal clock. They always liked him as a lookout when pulling jobs for that reason.

He'd give it twenty minutes, he decided, then he'd try to tip the barrel over to get more leverage and try and kick the top open. Maybe someone would hear him then, or maybe he'd manage to get out. The third possibility didn't bear thinking about.

Fifteen minutes later he heard a noise apart from the wood groaning and the waves crashing against the ship's hull. It was the far-off sound of voices raised in argument, or perhaps command. John pounded on the barrel with renewed vigour and called out. “I'm here! I'm here!”

There was another sound, like a loud pop, and then there was something whistling through the air. Somewhere farther up there was a crashing sound, like wood splintering and exploding.

He could hear running feet pounding outside as well as increasingly frantic shouts, and John renewed his efforts. “Hello? I'm here! Let me out! I'm here!” It was futile, as he could barely even hear his own voice in the chaos.

He barely registered another whistling sound, and then there was a deafening crash, and his barrel was tipping over, and then rolling.

“Ow! Ow! Fuck-OW!” Dammit, he was going to have so many bruises, John grimaced, and then a particularly vicious bump took his breath away, and he felt like he was flying.

The landing wasn't as bad as he expected, though it still hurt like hell. John realized that the barrel was now floating on the water, bobbing violently up and down. Outside the sound of cannons firing was much louder than it had been in the ship, and John could hear screaming in the distance.

His stomach roiled, turning with the movement of the water, his arm was throbbing in pain, and his head was spinning. John wasn't sure whether he had hit his head, was nauseous due to the waves, or was running out of air. Bile rose up in his throat and he threw up on his hands and over the satchel on his knees.

Outside, it had gone quiet again.

---

The sea, Sherlock decided, was marvellous. It never ended and you could go anywhere you liked. There were no roads you had to keep by, no walls to stop you moving forward (unless they were towering stone cliffs, and those were marvellous as well). There were no corner shops for milk and bread, no way to just buy what you needed or send Billy out to get the mail. No tedious dinner parties, no Mycroft to pester him, no father to shoot him disappointed, painful looks.

It was freedom.

A soft rustling and arrhythmic tapping (a gloved hand brushing over expensive wool, a distant corner of his mind reported methodically, and a steel-tipped umbrella clacking against cypress planks) was his only warning before his brother appeared at his side. Sherlock scowled, but otherwise paid Mycroft no mind. In the distance, something dark floated in the water, obscured by the thick fog that blanketed everything.

"You seem quite subdued today," his (fat, pompous, positively dull, and what was he even doing here? He had made no secret of his contempt of Sherlock's maritime interests) older brother remarked casually. "Have you finally tired of terrorising the crew?"

"Their incompetence is hardly my fault. Any half-decent sailor would have known to lower the sails immediately to counteract the—"

"The crew's job description doesn't include dealing with you when you're bored. Warrant Officer Anderson broke his wrist, Sherlock.”

Sherlock turned his head to look away at the distance, but could still feel himself smirking. “I'd hoped for more, but that will do.”

Mycroft sighed but seemed to be tired of berating him that day, and leaned down beside him to look at the water. “Just what is it you find so fascinating here, brother? It's monotonous and unending, and ships are so inconvenient.”

Mycroft always made his hackles rise, but something about the air and his brother's genuinely curious tone stayed his temper. “It's only monotonous because you don't see. Everything is always changing, there's movement. Though I suppose you wouldn't like that either, given your longstanding war with exercise. If I built you a chair with a motor would you ever even get up?”

“I don't need a chair with a motor, little brother, I have you.”

Sherlock snorted. “You're delusional, you and father both.”

“Are you still persisting with this seafaring childishness? You're turning eleven next week. You are no longer a child, Sherlock—Sherlock, you could at least pretend to listen. You wouldn't receive half as much grief from father if you at least acted contrite from time to time."

"Boring," Sherlock muttered. "Shut up Mycroft, there's something in the water."

"There's always something in the water, now don't try changing the subject again—"

Sherlock frowned. “It's a water barrel.”

“Well done, obviously your powers of observation are unparalleled,” Mycroft snarked, but then he paused as he saw it and leaned down further over the rail. “It isn't just a barrel. There's debris in the water, like from—”

“An attack. Cannon fire. Pirates,” he breathed out. Then the fog rolled away and Sherlock felt his chest tighten uncomfortably, for what it left behind was a scene of carnage unlike any he had seen before. Involuntarily his hand went to his chest, grasping something beneath his shirt.

At Sherlock's side there was a small indrawn breath and the subtle sound of leather-clad fingers tightening on an umbrella handle (fourteenth century oak, hand-carved), and then his brother was calling for Lieutenant Lestrade, and the ship flew into a flurry of chaos. In Sherlock's head there was a persistent thumping, tagdagdag-dag-dag-dag-tagdagdag, it had been at the background of his mind for a few minutes, and Sherlock realised that the thumping wasn't coming from inside his head at all.

“Lestrade!” Sherlock jumped up and grabbed the young Lieutenant's arm as he rushed past. Lestrade was one of the few officers on board that tolerated Sherlock and Sherlock tolerated in turn. He had been the only one who had listened when Sherlock had insisted the main mast had a dangerous hairline fracture, after all, back when he was still a Midshipman on Sherlock's first time on a ship, and in return Lestade taught him about sailing, and the sea, and let him hide out when the ship was docked in the port.

“Sherlock, you should go inside, it may be dangerous out here. We don't know what caused this.“

“It was a pirate attack, obviously, and it's been over for some time now, the perpetrators are long gone.”

“How—“

“Never mind that, look, you have to get that barrel! Quickly!”

“We can't really waste the time now to go get a barrel—“

Sherlock pulled at his hair, agitated. “Why can't you just do what I say and not waste time waiting for explanations? Fine! Look,” Sherlock grabbed Lestrade's sleeve again and yanked him to the edge, “It isn't floating regularly, like it would if it were filled with liquid or some other substance, it keeps rolling about, and not because of the waves, can't you see? And you can't hear the pounding? Are you completely blind and deaf?”

“What the hell are you on about? What pounding?"“

The constant rhythm in Sherlock's head was interrupted by a last loud knock, and one end of the barrel popped off, two legs kicking out. A boy slid out, sputtered for a minute in the water, and grabbed on to the lid to keep afloat.

To Lestrade's credit, he gaped for only two seconds before acknowledging Sherlock's smug smile and calling out, “Man overboard!”

The boy was barely conscious when he was brought onboard, and the crew were still running around like headless chickens, so Lestrade had lain the boy gently on the deck and admonished Sherlock to take care of him before running off again to reinstate some semblance of order.

The boy's sandy hair was plastered to his face and was badly in need of a trim. His grey coat was soft and well-worn, but a size too small; the strap of a plain brown bag was still slung across his shoulder. He was slightly older than Sherlock had initially thought (small for his age, then), and smelled of salt and vomit. Underneath his grubby white (closer to grey, now, and stained with a variety of substances) shirt, something golden shone.

He picked it out of the boy's shirt gingerly; it slipped out easily, the chain having been broken even though the shirt kept it in place. A skull grinned up at him, etched in gold, and then there was a different face looking up, confused.

Sherlock pocketed the trinket quickly and moved in the boy's line of sight. “Don't try to get up, you're hurt. Bruises, mostly, but you also look to have a mild concussion, and it's possible that you might have broken an arm, since you're obviously holding it in pain.”

“Mm, yeah,” the boy said hazily. “Fractured ulna.”

Sherlock blinked. “I wasn't aware petty thieves knew anatomy—oh. Oh. You've worked with bodies before—I'd heard grave robbing was endemic in London, but I never realized they involved children.”

“M'not a child, you are.”

Sherlock ignored him, deep in his deductions. “Obviously you've been around medical personnel, you sold the corpses to them, and you know basic anatomy because you needed to be aware for specialised requirements—but no, your knowledge goes deeper, so there was an actual interest. You asked them to teach you, as part of their payment, then.”

The boy blinked up at him, and, unexpectedly, gave him an absolutely dazzling smile. “That was brilliant.”

Sherlock stared at him, flummoxed. “Um. Well. Thank you. I mean—perhaps your concussion was rather worse than initially thought. I should get Doctor Stamford.” Sherlock rose to his feet, still feeling rather thrown.

“Wait, hold on—I don't know where this is, I don't even know your name.”

“Oh—Sherlock Holmes. You're on the Medusa, headed for Port Royal.”

“John Watson.” The boy nodded in greeting, then winced. “Right, I think I'm going to pass out now,” and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Lestrade looked up in alarm as Sherlock shrieked for a doctor, and there was pandemonium for a few minutes until August Stamford could reassure Sherlock that the boy had only passed out in exhaustion. Even then, Sherlock was strangely agitated, and pestered Doctor Stamford to let him see the boy—John Watson, according to Sherlock—after he had been taken to the infirmary and had his bruises treated and arm splinted.

In an uncomfortable chair by the infirmary bed, Sherlock stared at the sleeping John Watson, and thought. In his hand he slowly turned a golden coin with a skull on it. On his chest, under his shirt, the snake amulet felt like it was burning.

Chapter Text

Michael Stamford was a perfectly pleasant, friendly boy—unfailingly affable, some might say. There were limits, however. He stared furtively at the boy his father had brought back with him that morning, who was now poking at his father’s life-sized wax anatomical model of the human body.

He'd appeared that morning in a shirt he recognised as borrowed from his closet and with his left arm in a cast, introduced himself simply as John, and proceeded to ignore him all throughout breakfast and the rest of the day, even after Mike had invited him to play Pirates with the other children. Instead he wandered around the house as if in a daze, running his fingers across the spines of books, fingers ghosting over leather bindings and golden lettering. He had been examining and touching one of his father’s more grotesque wax models for the past half hour, seemingly fascinated. That particular model, with its open torso and grinning half-skull, always gave Mike the creeps, but his father liked having it in the parlour as a conversation piece.

“Oi, that’s expensive, don’t go breaking it,” Mike finally snapped, not able to stand being ignored. “It’s all the way from London.”

John snorted as if amused. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“What? It is!”

“No, I believe you. I just don’t see what coming from London has to do with it being expensive or anything. I’m from London, after all.”

“What, you are?” Mike perked up, forgetting his earlier annoyance. “Cor! Really? Are you going back to London?”

“No.” John’s voice was clipped, his expression shuttered and closed off, but Mike barreled on regardless, simply happy for the response.

“What, so you’re staying here? Why here, of all places?”

John looked slightly uncomfortable as he raised his good arm and ran his hand through his hair, which was sticking up rather atrociously. “I have no idea, actually. I think—Sherlock talked to Mr. Stamford, and then he told me to come back with him here. Well, here is as good as any other place, I expect.”

“Doctor Stamford.”

“Sorry?”

“Father’s a doctor. I’m going to be one too.” Mike puffed out his chest proudly.

“Oh, right. Oh—oh.” John blinked, and then a strange expression took over his face, a mix of wonderment and determination. “Of course, I should have known, what with all this,” John indicated this to include the various books and bric-a-brac adorning the parlour, not to mention the model he had been examining so closely earlier.

“Yes, father likes collecting things. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re out at sea so often. He’s a doctor for the navy, you know.” He led John around the room and showed him all of his father’s ancient anatomy texts, the sculpture on the chimneypiece made out of twisted wire and coloured glass that formed a realistic mechanical heart, and the little steel pieces in the ashtray that were, on closer inspection, close approximations of various types of human teeth, all of which John could name. Mike’s amiable, easygoing nature won through easily, John’s earlier slights forgotten.

It was only later, after the two boys had finished with supper and were lounging in Mike’s bedroom, that Mike remembered what John said. “Hang on—earlier, you said Sherlock? You mean Sherlock Holmes?”

John’s face inexplicably brightened at the mention of the other boy’s name. “Yes, that’s him. He was on the ship when they fished me out, but I haven’t seen him since I’ve been back here. Does he live around here?”

Now, part of what gave Mike his eternally affable reputation was Sherlock Holmes. Mike was one of a handful of people who weren’t perturbed by the strange child, and actively liked him, even. Sherlock was not by any measure particularly nice to him, but his barbs were half-hearted at best when it came to the Stamfords. In any case, Mike just grinned and let Sherlock’s prickly behaviour flow over him like waves over a rock, not just because he was naturally good-natured, but because Mike remembered visiting with his father when he was smaller. When August Stamford would still do the bi-annual check-ups for the Holmes children, during one such visit he found Sherlock in the attic sabotaging his father’s fox traps. Perhaps his motives weren’t necessarily altruistic, most likely he had been trying to wind his father up (which, if the tales were to be believed, was practically Sherlock’s life-quest) rather than having had any concern for the local wildlife population, but Mike remembered his mullish, openly defiant expression and wild curls, and couldn’t help being fond.

He was well aware, however, that this was not a common sentiment, so he gawped for several seconds at John’s open, eager expression before finally gathering his wits about him. “Well, sure, about fifteen minutes away, I should say. I suppose we can go ask father if we can visit tomorrow morning.”

John Watson positively beamed at him, and Mike thought smiling rather suited the boy better than the blank expressions from earlier that morning.

As it turned out, they didn’t have to wait for morning, as Sherlock Holmes found them later that night.

Mike slowly came awake at the tapping on his window, tagdagdag-dag-dag-dag-tagdagdag, and blinked his bleary eyes open. Below him, on the cot his mother had made up on the floor, John was already wide awake and standing up to approach the window. His room was on the first floor, true, but no-one had ever gone and knocked on his window before. Mike sat up, stiff-backed and nervous, and wondered just how threatening eiderdown pillows were to would-be burglars. He could probably smother someone with them.

The moon was bright out tonight, and he recognised the head that peered in before John grinned and opened the window one-handed. Sherlock Holmes stuck his head in and grinned back at John before spotting Mike, still frozen on the bed and clutching his pillow. “Ah, Michael, I was going to ask you where John was staying, but I see Doctor Stamford doesn’t have the other room ready yet.”

Mike sighed, and relinquished his iron grip on the poor pillow. “Ah, right. It’s storage now, I think, Mother said they’d have it cleared out in a few days.”

John sat back down on the cot on the floor as Sherlock imitated a worm and wriggled into the room through the open window. “So, you do this often, then, just drop into people’s bedrooms?” John asked, raising an eyebrow in reprimand, but the smile that threatened to escape his lips betrayed him.

Sherlock was busy wiggling his hips inefficiently in order to free his pockets from having snagged on a loose nail, so Mike answered for him. “Oh, no, at least he hasn’t been here before. He likes sneaking around the ships in the port, though.”

Sherlock finally made it all the way through and landed unceremoniously beside John. “Astute of you, Michael,” Sherlock said, and his smirk was almost approving, before he turned to John fully. “In fact, there’s something near the docks I might need your help with.”

John frowned. “What, at this time of night? And what could you need our help for?”

Sherlock stared at John for a moment, assessing. “Well, you’ve robbed people before, correct? Possibly smuggled stolen goods as well?”

Mike gaped as John grew red and sputtered before throwing his own pillow at Sherlock with his good hand. “I’m not helping you steal something, idiot!”

“I’m not asking you to steal anything, idiot. I could do that without you. Rather I was thinking you could prevent a crime, for once.” Mike observed with amusement that Sherlock had gone red as well; he had always taken any slights to his intellect badly. There was a telltale shuffling just beyond his wall, though, and he was going to get in trouble if this went on any longer. Mike cleared his throat nervously before speaking.

“Sherlock, my room isn’t exactly soundproof, you know. If you two are going to argue, you should take it outside. Or, um, hide somewhere. I think mother’s awake.” Probably the only reason she hadn’t checked on them yet was because she knew John was there and assumed it was just the two of them telling stories in the night.

Sherlock scowled, but he stood up quickly and stepped to the window before turning back to John coolly. “The docks in an hour.” He slipped out the window with a bit more grace than when he’d come in, before sticking his head back in. “Could be dangerous,” he said with a final wink, before darting off.

John, who was still a bit red in the face, turned to Mike helplessly. Mike just sighed again before flopping onto his bed and pulling the duvet over his head. “Yeah, he’s always like that.”

“But it’s the middle of the night! And what sort of help would I even be, with a broken arm?”

“Um. Consultant?” Mike peered out of the top of the duvet at John. “Just what do you know about robbing people, anyway?” Mike’s tone was purely curious, but John still reddened in embarrassment.

“Well, I didn’t steal from people. At least not live ones. Mostly.”

“...Erm. Dead ones, then?”

“Yeah, lots of those in London.”

Forbearance and a general laissez-faire outlook had served Mike well all throughout his life and in his dealings with Sherlock Holmes, and damned if he was stopping now. “Right then. Let’s hope we don’t see any of those here tonight.”

In the end, John slipped out the same window with Mike who, despite his trepidation, couldn’t let John go down to the port alone.

It was a warm night, almost humid because of the ocean. Mike wondered briefly what London would look like, this time of year. It’d surely be snowing there, or at least be unbearably cold. He’d never seen snow himself, never having been out of Port Royal, but he suspected he wouldn’t like it at all. He had never had a particularly adventurous spirit, had no wish to work for the navy like his father, and was generally happy staying in town and away from ships.

John, though, well. John was positively glowing, his cheeks ruddy and his entire demeanor lit up from inside, shining like the lighthouse on the eastern border. John seemed like he was fueled by movement, even if they were just sneaking into the docks at two in the morning.

They were ten minutes from the agreed time, but they found Sherlock skulking by the side of the naval warehouse easily enough, almost as if he had known that they would pass that way. Mike thought that he probably had, and nervously wondered who else might expect them.

“All right, fine, so we’re here. What’s going on?” John asked impatiently. His hair was still sticking up, sleep-mussed, his broken arm in a sling tucked at his side, all of which served to make him look far younger than Mike knew him to be.

Sherlock just shushed him and motioned for them to follow him as he crept up towards the bluff overlooking the harbour. John didn’t even hesitate, broken arm and all. They moved naturally together, despite meeting barely three days before, John flanking Sherlock’s right and Sherlock staying by John’s injured side. On any other person, Mike would have called the expression on Sherlock’s face protective.

John paused, and turned back to grab at Mike’s sleeve. “Mike!” John hissed through his teeth. “Come on!”

Sherlock glanced at him from a few paces beyond John, looking mildly annoyed. “Well, Michael? We’re just getting to the good part.”

Mike let out a slow exhale, letting his apprehensions out with the air, and followed the two boys. Even so, Mike couldn’t help but keep a loose grip on the ends of John’s nightshirt.