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The fallen leaves on the forest-floor crunch underfoot as John steps on them.
With the hour already being close to midnight in late October he finds it difficult to make his way in between the shadows of the trees.
If it weren't for the full moon overhead, casting a sickly glow across the eerily quiet landscape every so often whenever she is able to drag herself out from behind the dense covering of clouds above, John is pretty sure he wouldn't even be able to see anything at all.
Not that it matters.
John is pretty sure that, what he is looking for, will find him regardless.
It is 'All Hallows' Eve' after all.
John had heard the local town's people talking about it. About him.
The Black Fox.
Well, they hadn't been talking about him to John directly, of course, but he had been close enough to overhear their hushed conversation anyway.
Near the town, in this very forest, close to 100 years ago a young but powerful warlock had lived.
He had had a lover, another young man from the town, but, one fateful day, this lover had left him and the warlock had come to the town – scorned, enraged and out for revenge – with accusing lightning at his fingertips and damning fire on his tongue.
The townspeople, however, had been able to trap him and capture him and, in an attempt to free their town from his evil, had tied him to a stake atop of a pyre and had set the kindling aflame.
But the warlock had not burned.
At the very last moment he had been able to make a deal with the Devil, bartering for his life and trading his eternal soul in the process for it.
The Devil had turned him into a fox, but not just any ordinary fox, this creature had been as black as night and as dark as the warlock's soul. An animal with a coat the colour of dirty soot and ash and clouds of pyre-smoke.
This small and nimble creature had easily slipped free from the ties that had been used to bind him and he had made himself a way back to the forest.
And that's where he still remains.
Spending all the days of the world in the shape of a lonely immortal black fox.
All days.....except for one.
On All Hallows' Eve the fox is briefly able to transform back into the man that he once was and if any unlucky young man were to find himself in the forest at the same hour, the warlock will seduce him and kill him.
Killing every young man he finds in the process until his former lover returns and he can kill him too. Finally able to rest after he's had his revenge on the one that left him so many years ago.
But it's already been 100 years.
The lover, wherever he had gone to on that fateful day, is no longer likely to return.
And so the unnatural Black Fox prowls his forest, hiding in its shadows, waiting in vain, for someone that will never come.
That's how the townsfolk had told the story anyway.
Stretched across so many years most of the details of a story like that will probably have gotten changed, embellished, lost or just merely forgotten.
But at it's core John has no doubt that the story is true.
And so that's why he is now, finally, here, at 'All Hallows' Eve'.
Here to find the Black Fox in his forest and see for himself if what he thinks is true.
The nights are cold at this time of year. The edges of browning autumn leaves sparkle with threads of frosty diamonds as the silver moonlight hits them and the chill of oncoming winter tries to take a hold of the world with greedy fingers.
It doesn't really bother John. He doesn't mind the cold.
He is starting to worry just a little bit though. He's been in this forest for hours by now, venturing deeper and deeper underneath the trees as time ticks him by, and he hasn't caught so much as a glimpse of the Black Fox yet.
Come to think of it, he hasn't seen or even heard any animals at all since he came here.
As if the forest and all its inhabitants are holding their breath along with him.
Waiting.....waiting.......waiting for......
A rustle of leaves to his right suddenly catches his attention.
At first he thinks there's nothing there after all - just a combination of the wind, the late hour and the darkened corners of the night playing tricks on his mind – but then one of the shadows dislodges itself from the rest, slinking towards him in a most unnatural way, and forms itself into the shape of a fox.
A black fox.
The Black Fox.
An elegant creature with a midnight coat and unsettlingly vacant moonlit eyes now sits on the path in front of him and.....watches him, its head slightly cocked to the side as if it's assessing him, judging him.
John holds his breath.
And then the creature changes its shape again, the process fluid like the water of a forest-brook and elusive like the smoke of a pyre.
One moment there is a fox sitting on the road and the next a young man stands where once the fox had been.
The young man is beautiful. He is tall and slender and elegant with fair skin, full lips, high cheekbones and a face framed with artful curls in the same inky shade as the fox's coat had been.
Everything about him is beguiling and alluring and lovely. Everything.....except for his eyes.
His eyes make John shiver.
They seem dull and glassy, the hue of drowned moonlight at the bottom of a lake, something forgotten and forever out of reach. They don't seem to fit in a face as lovely as his.
They don't seem to fit in general.
They don't appear as if they are something that belongs in this world.
Looking at them now, like this, makes John's chest tightens unexpectedly with something small and sad.
After a couple of quiet moments where they both just look at each other, maybe trying to remember something or, maybe, just trying to forget, the young man stretches out one of his elegant hands – long and pale fingers that reach for John's own – and John takes it, letting the young man lead him away even deeper into the forest.
*******************************************
They sit in a clearing in between the trees.
John can't remember for how long exactly they had been walking before they got here.
Traveling silently hand in hand with this enchanted man – with the moon cloaking him in silver and weaving its light in between the dark satiny strands of his hair, stars blinking in and out of existence around them like diamonds stitched in a curtain, the forest still eerily quiet, as if it didn't even dare exist in this young man's presence – it had been an otherwordly experience. It had been hypnotizing. The young man had been hypnotizing.
A hundred years could have passed in the blink of an eye and John would not have noticed.
And now they sit here in an unassuming clearing in the middle of the forest that somehow seems familiar. As if something important might have been here once that has long since gotten swept away by the passage of time.
The young man moves closer, one of his hands coming to rest on John's thigh while the other strokes the side of John's face, gently, softly, the touch of his fingers reminiscent of the caress of a summer's breeze.
Warm. Fleeting. Something of the past. Of another life.
“I know why you're here”, the young man says, his voice a low and heavy melody, and John closes his eyes as he lets the weight of it settle itself somewhere deep inside of his body.
John doubts whether the young man really knows why John is here because, when he opens his eyes again, the young man's own eyes are still just as cold and vacant and unnatural as they had been before. There is no recognition, no......
The young man climbs into John's lap, his slender and elegant legs straddling John's own thighs, and John lets him. John holds on to him, his palms shaping themselves around the curve of the young man's hips effortlessly.
Naturally.
Familiar.
The young man's eyes still betray no emotion. Placid lakes of forgetfulness where John keeps trying and failing to find something worthy of remembering.
The young man leans himself forward, the heat of his body something John should be aware of but, just like the cold of the night, not something he actually feels.
And then the young man's lips are on his, soft and full and pliant and something that should taste incredibly sweet but, try as he might, John tastes nothing. And so John's arms tighten desperately around his waist as he still tries to taste him for as long as he can.
The young man keeps on kissing him in returns as he presses himself against John and for a moment the sensation tricks him and John imagines himself to be somewhere else, somewhere where the sun shines bright and the deep green grass underfoot is riddled with colourful dots of flowers as birds sing in the trees around them and the young man's eyes shine like deep blue crystal lakes of the clearest water filled with a summer's heat and bottomless emotions and.....
Suddenly a sharp and searing pain shoots through John's chest.
The young man is no longer kissing him, he is no longer sitting in John's lap, he has moved himself away from John's lap and he now stands a couple of pases away.
Towering over John, who is still seated, he appears even paler than before as all his colour gets washed out by the white light of the moon, and as John looks at his eyes they are still as glassy and unfeeling and cold as they had been before.
John looks down at himself then, at his body, at the part of himself where it feels as if he is slowly being pried open, his vulnerable insides laid bare for all to see.
The hilt of a knife sticks out of his chest, the blade firmly lodged in his skin, his muscles, his lungs, the sharp tip of it scraping painfully across the fragile surface of his heart.
The face of the young man still doesn't show any emotion as he gives John one last look, turns around and starts walking away, the shadows of the forest welcoming him back with open arms as he leaves John behind to die a slow and painful death.
Just for a moment John almost believes that the stories he has heard in the village are true.
That this is all that this young man is now. A creature driven by immortal and unnatural hate, cooling his heart and keeping his once warmer memories frozen deep within its icy walls.
That he no longer cares or feels or loves or...........remembers anything at all.
John shakes his head.
No.
This isn't why he came here.
This isn't how it is supposed to end.
This isn't what he deserves......what they both deserve.
Breathing is difficult with the knife still stuck in his chest. Only some of the air gathered in his lungs seems to be able to make it back past his now dry lips where it rasps and grates in short and painful gasps.
Speaking is even harder. But somehow he manages it.
“Sherlock.....”
The word is fragile and delicate - a broken plea from a damaged body - and the heavy and thick night around them snuffs it out all too eagerly.
So he tries again.
A little bit stronger this time.
“Sherlock!....”
This time the sound of his voice manages to slip through midnight's inky fingers, traveling on, reaching out, and....
The young man – Sherlock - stops moving and turns around. His face not quite as emotionless as it had been before.
“How do you know my name?”, he says, his voice slightly shaky with the first cracks in the ice that had been surrounding him for such a long time.
“Because I know you”, John says, “and you know me......or......you knew me.......long ago. It's me, darling. I've come back. I would never leave you. For you I will always come back. Because.....I love you.”
The ice that had frozen over Sherlock's eyes, clouding his vision, cracks just a bit further as the very surface of it melts away in tears.
“John? Is it really you? I......I had forgotten.....I had been made to forget.... I have forgotten so many things......But......”, his elegant brow scrunches up in confusion and hesitant doubt as he thinks what John has just told him and what he has just started to remember over: “But that's impossible.......when you left.....that was so long ago and.......even if you are you.....if you are him......you wouldn't still look like him.....like this......this young and........just as lovely. The same as the day you left me. Is this a trick? Am I being tricked again? If this is another trick I have to say that, without a doubt, this is the cruelest one of all........So, please, tell me honestly: Who are you? Really?”
John smiles, something warm and hopeful but at the same time full of regret hidden in the corners of it, as he wraps both of his hands around the hilt of the knife and pulls it back out of his body, grimacing as the sharp blade slices him open anew.
“You should be bleeding”, Sherlock says, sky-blue eyes wide and just a little bit frightened, “That should have killed you. You should be dead. Who are you?”
John lays the blade on the forest-floor between them. It is still clean, the metal of its surface reflecting the moon above like a mirror. There is no blood. He has already lost the ability to bleed a long time ago.
“I'm already dead”, he says, “I'm so sorry, Sherlock. That day where you thought I left you I went into town early in the morning and ran into the wrong kind of people, a press gang. They outnumbered me and took me with them, forced me to sign on as a crew member to a ship. We sailed away that very same day. I became ill four months into the journey and died within a week, before I even had the chance to write a letter to you or let anyone know what had happened to me. They threw my body overboard and I think I sank for a very long time, my memories of that particular time are hazy at best, and It took an even longer time to find my way back to the surface, to gather all the parts of me that had scattered in the wind and the waves, re-order my thoughts, and shape my body back into something usable.
I had died but.......I was, somehow, still here.
I think it might have been because I still had had unfinished business.
I still had to find a way back to you and explain to you what had happened and........ I've been roaming the lands for such a long time, trying to find you, living as a ghost that nobody could see or hear or feel or........until I found you. You could see me. You always saw me. Even before......
Sherlock.....
I was made to be with you and you were made to be with me. We were made to be together. In this life or the next.”
“John....”, Sherlock says, nothing now remains of the cold spell of forgetfulness that had previously chilled his heart and clouded his mind, and then he is there, in front of John, and the palms of his hands now feel warm and familiar as he pulls John to his feet.
I'm so sorry, John wants to say, I'm sorry I didn't find my way to you sooner, I'm sorry I ever left you, but before he gets a chance to do so Sherlock kisses him again and any words he might have wanted to say get swallowed up by a warm and eager mouth. The taste of it both familiar and still far sweeter than he ever could have imagined.
And under the curve of Sherlock's supple lips his apologies are reformed into wholly new words and sentences like: I love you and I've always loved you and I always will.
When, after a couple of moments more, they stop to catch their breaths, arms still wrapped tightly around each other, both very reluctant to let go now that they have found one another again, John asks: “what happened to you?”
Sherlock manages to look slightly bashful, a slight tinge to his cheeks, and it reminds John of better days, of waking up together, of sleepy kisses and tea in bed on early mornings.
“When you didn't come back”, Sherlock says, “I went into town to look for you but, because of what I am or......what I was..... because I was a warlock, I couldn't really get anybody to give me a straight answer. They all seemed to be afraid of me. And so, instead of helping me, people started accusing me of having done something to you, of spiriting you away, of putting a spell on you, of transforming you into some kind of forest animal......or a toad..........ridiculous really but.....the more people started saying it.......the more believed it. Fear and superstition took over and.....eventually there were so many of them that they overpowered me and captured me and tried to burn me but.......I managed to get out of it.”
John waits for Sherlock to elaborate further but when he doesn't he gives him a small nudge of encouragement with another question: “Did you really make a deal with the Devil?”
Sherlock's now very expressive and colourful eyes manage to look anywhere but at John.
First John is shocked and then he just laughs in amused disbelief as realization kicks in.
“You did, didn't you?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. A gesture so familiar and so perfectly him that it just makes John want to kiss him again but he decides to wait until Sherlock has at least explained himself a bit further.
“It was only a small deal”, Sherlock says as if, when it comes to the Devil, small deals even exist, “he agreed to save my life and I agreed to be confined to the forest for the rest of it. He just.....sort of forgot to mention that I would be living out most of it as a fox and I would remain that way and keep on living indefinitely until I had managed to avenge your abandonment of me....by killing you. John......he made me believe you wanted to leave me......that you didn't want me anymore......that.......”
“I know”, John says, “hush, darling. It's alright. He is the Devil after all. I would never leave you willingly and now that I've found you again nothing about that has changed.”
“John.....”, Sherlock says but this time it's John who steals whatever other words he had wanted to say from his lips as he pulls him close and kisses him all over again. The sensation of it becoming more and more familiar with each moment that passes, the years lost between them evaporating in its heat as John imagines Sherlock tasting like summer sun, home-cooked meals from a well tended garden, shared thoughts and shared space, sleeping in together and staying up late, and two souls who are always meant to find their way back to each other.
“So”, John eventually says, “what happens now? I mean, you've got your revenge, you've stabbed me through the heart, to me it seems like you've upheld your part of the bargain.”
Sherlock looks thoughtful for a moment.
“I don't know.....I guess.......I've been lost in this forest for so long......I don't think I remember much else anymore.”
John just smiles at him, warm and adoring and full of love and promise.
“Then let me help you remember. Do you want to try and leave the forest together?”
Sherlock nods.
“Yes. I think I would quite like that.”
This time it's John who reaches for Sherlock's hand and Sherlock takes it without hesitation.
Their fingers twine together perfectly and effortlessly, just the same as they had always done so many years ago. The world around them might have changed and there are now parts of them both that might have been irrevocably changed as well but still, where their hearts and souls are concerned, a century of time and even death itself doesn't seem to have been able to make any sort of difference there at all.
They walk on just like that, finding themselves a way through the trees and towards the ever changing world that waits for them beyond. New and exciting.
The road below their feet stretches out like a ribbon of silver as the moon drowns itself in the dew of early dawn that now clings to the grass and plants that line its edges.
And beyond, even further still: birds sing as a new sun rises in glorious gold. Heralding the beginning of a new day, a new life, and no matter what it holds, now at least they will be facing it together.