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Nobody knew exactly where the peddler had come from and by the time he left nobody seemed to remember he had ever even been there in the first place either.
All that had remained after his sudden departure had been the strange and unusual objects he had sold to the people of the city and the equally strange and unusual but also very vague promises that had come with those same objects.
But, wait, we might be getting ahead of ourselves here.
We are starting at the end instead of at the beginning.
And for every story to have an end there also needs to be a beginning.
So let us go about this the way that things are supposed to be done and start there.
But where exactly does this particular story start?
The beginning of something can be entirely different from one person to the next.
So, for the sake of this story, let's start with where it all began for one person in particular.
Let's start this story at the moment where the peddler enters John Watson's life.
*******************************************
The first time John Watson had seen the peddler in the city he hadn't thought much about him.
Having lived in the city for his entire life, John had seen many people come and go and hardly any of them ever stayed for long.
Or, at least, not the ones who stood out anyway.
To survive on the streets of the city he had found it was best if you blended in with its grey and drab appearance and made yourself just as unassuming, unappealing, unseen and unnoticeable as possible.
People who were colourful, who were bright and loud, who stood out in any way.......they usually got noticed by the wrong kind of people.......and getting noticed like that might get you arrested.....or hurt....or worse.
When John first noticed the peddler with his expensive looking great-coat, his tailored trousers and high boots, his colourful silken necktie, and his brushed and shiny tophat, shouting at the top of his lungs to the people passing by that he had wares to sell and charms for coin.........John did not think he would see him again.
People that bright and unusual barely ever lasted. The city had a tendency to swallow them whole, like the hungry, cruel and unforgiving predator it was.
So John did his best not to notice him.
Noticing things in the city got you noticed in turn and that, as stated before, was never a good thing.
And John would absolutely know about things like that.
He had been born on these very streets to a beggar-mother and an unknown father.
Soon after his birth his mother had given him up to one of the orphanages – feeding one mouth while you lived on the streets was hard enough, let alone two – and John had stayed at the orphanage until he had become too old for anyone to even still pretend they cared.
Having, at that point in life, lost his boyish charms, replacing it for the sharp edges of early manhood instead, John had been returned unceremoniously to the streets and all the misfortune and misery that went with it.
By that point John had certainly been older than he had been before but not really any wiser – the orphanage had not bothered with something as cumbersome as 'an education' and so, like his mother, John had become a beggar himself.
The past couple of years had been rough but he had managed to make a life for himself by blending in and not drawing too much attention.
It was a living.....albeit barely.
So when the peddler first appeared on those same city streets with his bright clothes and loud personality, John had not known what to do with it and so he had ignored him, firmly believing that he would probably not see much of the peddler again.
That the darker entities of the city would, inevitably, find his colour and light and snuff it out with their shadows and dark corners, suffocating him until all that was left of him was his broken, bruised and naked body somewhere in an alley, robbed of his wares and dignity alike.
But, very much to his own surprise, John had been wrong.
Because the peddler did not disappear.
He had remained.
Day after day after day.....week after week.....
John noticed him first on this street-corner and the next day on another.......the day after that on the town-square and the day after that near a bench in the park........always bright and always shining and loud and.........so very, very strange.
Against his own better judgment and instincts honed and sharpened over many years of living rough and sleeping with one eye open, the peddler had caught John's attention.
And so John had started to pay attention.
He had started to listen to what the peddler was actually saying, what he was selling.
“Wondrous wares and charms for coin!”, the peddler would shout, “Come one, come all! One of a kind items! Buy them while you can, because they will not come again!”
And the peddler's wares had been wondrous indeed. Too good to be true surely. Quite possibly a scam.
Skulking in the shadow of a large tree, John had seen him sell a pair of boots to a young man that the peddler swore would make him a better dancer. John had seen him sell a cup to a lady that would never empty once you filled it. Another man bought a handkerchief that absolutely would make the lady he deserved fall in love with him as soon as she saw him......and so on and so on.
Fantastical items accompanied by fantastical tales.
Tales that couldn't possibly be true.
But still the people bought into these fantastical tales of fantasy just as eagerly as they bought the peddler's many impossible wares – hook, line and sinker.
John supposed it had something to do with the peddler's natural charm.
Because, even he had to admit, the peddler was charming.
The peddler was a handsome young man, probably close to John's own age, with slick and shiny dark curls that peeked out defiantly from underneath the rim of his top-hat. He had elegant features with high cheekbones and fierce blue eyes that seemed to sparkle with light as if they had been inlaid with some kind of expensive jewels. And, on top of all of that, the young peddler had a surprisingly deep and lush, somewhat melodic, voice, the sound of it reminding John of something soothing and warm, like a nice and familiar song sung by the fire or a good glass of whiskey.........and the sound of the peddler's voice had been just as addictive. Once he started, John had not been able to stop listening to him, finding and following the peddler around wherever he appeared in the numerous winding streets of the city, all the while pretending as if that was not in any way exactly what he was doing.
And so, it had been no surprise that the peddler eventually noticed John in return.
John had been hiding in the shadows beneath the awning of a shop on one of the busier streets in the city when the peddler suddenly spoke to him.
“Can I interest you in any of my wares, sir?”
John had been startled, now directed directly at him the peddler's voice had seemed even deeper than usual and John had almost fallen over and lost himself in it completely. He had only been able to right himself at the very last second.
“Erm, no, I'm fine, I don't need anything.”
The peddler had raised one of his eye-brows, elegant and sleek and....
“Are you sure? Everyone needs something.”
John shook his head, both in denial and also to try and clear the fog that had, suddenly, overtaken his mind.
“No....I.....no.”
The peddler had smiled at him then, the curve of his mouth and the wet shine of his plush lips sending a flush of heat through John's body despite of the overcast weather and the cold early-morning wind.
“I know what you need”, the peddler said then as he reached inside his expensive coat, pulling out a small object and offering it to John.
John squinted his eyes, trying to see what exactly the tiny thing wedged between the peddler's fingers was, and when he did he frowned in confusion.
“A single match?”
“Ah! But this is no ordinary match! This match will always light, under any circumstances! I think you will find it useful. I think you might need it.”
John looked down at his own shabby, dirty attire - the stains on his threadbare jacket and the scuff-marks on his worn down shoes - no longer able to look the flamboyant peddler in the eye, all too aware of his current lot in life and depressing lack of prospects.
“I'm afraid you're barking at the wrong tree, sir. I'm just a beggar. I have no money. I won't be able to buy anything from you or....anyone really, even if I wanted to.”
The smile on the peddler's face had not wavered and, while it might have just been a trick of the light, John could swear that the lights in his eyes had, for a moment, shone just a little bit brighter than before.
“You can trade it for something else then”, the peddler had said.
“I have nothing to trade”, John replied, feeling just a bit uncomfortable now, “everything I have I need. I have nothing to spare.”
The peddler had smiled again, one corner of his mouth lifting up slightly higher than the other, as he seemed to think for a moment.
“How about....we trade the match for a day of your life?”
John had laughed, incredulous, as he shook his head
“Trust me, you wouldn't want my life. Not even a day of it. It's not worth much.”
The peddler's smile had only widened.
“I'll be the judge of that. Now, do you want the match or not?”
John had shrugged as he had taken the match from the peddler's still outstretched hand.
Trading it for a day of his life really was a nonsensical bargain. It wasn't really something you could take away and gift to someone else. Your life was.....your own.
“How am I supposed to pay you now then?”, John asked, “Are you now going to follow me around for a day or something?”
The peddler shook his head decisively.
“If I followed you around the day would still be yours. I'll let you know when I plan to collect my payment.”
John had pocketed the match, not actually believing the peddler would ever come to collect the price he had set for it. Despite his showmanship and flamboyance the peddler seemed harmless enough. John also didn't believe the match actually had the amazing properties the peddler claimed it held. How could it after all? It just looked and felt like any ordinary match. But he still saved it for when he might need it, just in case. When you already have nothing, you tend to keep a close hold on everything that's not nothing that you can get your hands on. After safely pocketing the match in the inner pocket of his jacket, John walked away, thinking he had now finally sated his curiosity where the peddler was concerned and firmly believing this would surely be the last he would ever see of him.
*****************************************************
John had been wrong.
He would see the peddler again soon enough.
The next time John would meet the peddler was just a couple of days later in the early evening, the cloud-filled sky greying with oncoming night as rain started to steadily drench the earth and a strong wind made sure to sweep it in all the nooks and crannies it could find.
John sat huddled up in his coat underneath a bridge, trying to get warm and trying to stay dry but failing miserably on both accounts.
The area under the bridge was dark, dirty, cramped and well hidden, and so usually nobody joined him whenever John was seeking shelter here, so it was only natural that the sudden sound of another voice made him jump and startle.
“Mind if I join you?”
When John looked up his surprise only grew when he saw the peddler leaning into his shelter, his familiar top-hat held firmly in one of his gloved hands as wearing it made him too tall to fit underneath the bridge.
Despite the weather, the peddler still looked as colourful, pristine, and radiant as he always did and for some reason that only managed to sour John's already very sour mood even further.
“You'd better not sit down in here, it'll get your fine clothes filthy”, John said.
The peddler shrugged and sat down anyway, placing his too tall top-hat at his feet, the limited space underneath the bridge causing his shoulder and leg to rub up against John's own.
“Oh, that's fine, these clothes are special, they never get dirty, no matter what I do to them.”
At the peddler's too good to be true words, John rolled his eyes and let out an annoyed groan.
“Of course they are.”
There was a moment of silence between them then that was only broken by the sound of the rain turning from a drizzle into a downpour and the howling wind whipping it across the city's streets, wielding it like a weapon.
“I say, you would probably be a lot cozier down here if you lit a fire.”
John gave the peddler an annoyed look but didn't reply.
“You should use the match you got from me”, the peddler supplied helpfully.
John continued to glower.
“Everything's wet. Nothing will light in this weather. Trust me. I've been in this situation many times before.”
Far too many times, but John didn't tell the peddler that.
The peddler just smiled back at him, the sight of it far too bright for John's current mood.
“Try it anyway.”
At that point John figured that the satisfaction that would come with proving the peddler wrong might not warm him up nearly as much as an actual fire would but it would surely help and make him feel better so he got up as best as he could underneath the bridge, hunched over and awkward, and spent a couple of seconds gathering every piece of wet paper and driftwood within reach.
With his soggy and sorry pile at his feet John now sat back down, took the – no doubt useless – soggy match that he had almost forgotten he had from inside one of the pocket where he had been keeping it, doggedly struck it on the equally soggy ground and........watched in amazement as immediately a bright and strong flame sprang to life.
“Now go on and light your fire”, the peddler encouraged John who still stared at the flame in motionless amazement.
Surely the wet branches and paper wouldn't........
But they did.
The pile at his feet blazed and burned just as bright as if it had been a hearth in some kind of grand mansion, immediately warming John and drying his drenched clothes in the process.
“How.......”, John started but he was still too stunned to finish what he had wanted to say.
“I only sell things that people need”, the peddler said, “now extinguish your match and put it away for the next time.”
“But....I've already used it.”
“It will work when you need it.”
John did as the peddler told him and, sure enough, as he extinguished the match there was no blackening of the head or charring of the wood visible......it still looked brand new, as if it hadn't been burned at all.
Still stunned into silence and very very confused, John put the match back in his pocket.
The peddler was.........well......who exactly was he?
“Who are you? What's your name?”, John asked the peddler then as the impossible fire still blazed brightly and happily at their feet.
“My name's Sherlock, and yours?”
“My name's John, but.....'Sherlock', huh? That's kind of an odd name.”
The peddler – Sherlock – shrugged.
“It's only odd if you've never heard it before.”
“Well”, John said, “I haven't.”
“And I find that quite strange, where I come from it's a very common name.”
“And where do you come from....exactly?”
The peddler gave another non-committal shrug as he replied:
“Oh,very far away....but also very near, right here, and also nowhere at all.”
John spent a moment trying to make sense of Sherlock's strange reply but quickly realized he couldn't and decided it was just nonsense.
“Fine, don't tell me then.”
Sherlock just laughed and at the sound of his deep and melodic voice the flames of the fire momentarily blazed brighter.
**************************************************
John saw Sherlock often after that evening.
John would still watch Sherlock sell his wares, listen in amusement to the strange and fantastical tales that went with them – 'here is a map that speaks', 'here is a comb that will make your hair longer every time you use it', 'here is a mirror that shows you how other people see you',....and so on and so on......- but now John would actually let Sherlock know he was there and when Sherlock was done for the day they would walk around the city together and just......talk.
It was surprisingly nice to talk to Sherlock.
Sherlock seemed to actually listen when John talked, not something a lot of people ever did, and, perhaps the most astonishing thing of all, Sherlock never seemed to judge.
John felt safe talking to Sherlock.
And so he told him everything.
It was on another dreary night where Sherlock and John found themselves in the relative shelter of an alleyway, huddled together by a fire that John had started with the same peculiar match that, against all odds, still worked. John had decided for himself to just stop questioning why at this point.
The match was just......
And Sherlock was.........
On that night the city quiet and the wind still, leaving the sky open and wide and cloudless, a black velvety tapestry threaded with diamond stars. For some reason the vast sight of it made John want to open up too.
And so he told Sherlock about the trials of his life and about his mother who never wanted him and who he never really had been given a chance to want, his father who nobody really knew and who John didn't even want to know, and also about his first days out on the street and how they had changed him.
“My first winter on my own”, John told Sherlock, “I nearly froze to death because I had fallen asleep and, while I dreamt of being warm, someone stole the blanket I was sleeping under and I woke up with frost on the tips of my fingers and toes.......something like that....it teaches you to stop dreaming quick enough.”
“Oh, but you should never stop dreaming, John”, Sherlock said, somehow completely sincere.
“Easy for you to say”, John scoffed, “but I've found that, if you've already got very little, dreams and flights of fancy are not something you can still afford.”
Sherlock shrugged, leaving it up to John's own interpretation whether that meant if he actually agreed with him or not.
So John decided to ask him a question. Something he had been wondering about for a while now.
“I was wondering”, John said, “I've seen you sell your wares and....you sell a lot. How come you aren't rich? How come you're sleeping with me out in the cold on the dirty street and not in some kind of luxurious mansion?”
Sherlock crinkled his nose in disgust at John's words.
“I would hate to live in a mansion.”
It hadn't really been an answer to John's question but, by now, John had gotten pretty used to Sherlock's usually evasive and enigmatic answers.
“At least a mansion would be warm”, John said, “and comfortable.....and it would have a bed.”
Sherlock stretched his hands out towards the fire in front of them and proceeded to rub them together, seemingly very content in his current poor and abysmal situation.
“A cage will always be a cage, John”, Sherlock said, “even a gilded one. I like where I am right now. I like being with you.”
John wanted to say something else then but.....he found he couldn't. He had never met anyone who liked to be with him. Who chose to be with him and.......who like him.
Who cared about him.
John looked up at the stars, blinking, a sudden wetness in his eyes. There were so many stars up there. Far too many to count, bright and vast and breathtaking.
“I bet there isn't a mansion in the world that has a ceiling as beautiful as this”, Sherlock said.
John smiled as he silently agreed.
******************************************************
The days passed them by almost unnoticed. The passage of time usually is. You only tend to notice it when it has already happened. When you realize time has quietly replaced its many minutes and hours with timeless memories.
Just so did it happen for John and Sherlock.
During the day John would watch Sherlock sell his wares, John would secretly smile at the fantastical tales Sherlock told as he did so, and he would shake his head at the gullibility of Sherlock's many customers.
By the end of the afternoon Sherlock would usually use his earned coins to buy them both a proper meal or anything else they liked and, by the time the cold shadows of night started melting through the warm colours of the day, they would go and find themselves a place to rest and sleep together.
It was a nice life.
An uncomplicated life.
Made all the sweeter by the fact that John now no longer had to go through it alone.
It was a break from the loneliness that John had gotten so used to wearing like an old and familiar coat.
It was.......
It was still temporary.
Because, like I told you before, one day the peddler disappeared.
One day he was there and the next day he wasn't.
Nobody remembered him ever having been there in the first place and......
Here now is the reason why I've chosen to begin this story with John Watson.
Why it is his beginning that matters.
It is because, out of all the people in the world, he is the only one who knows where, once he disappeared from the city, the peddler went.
********************************************************
When, a couple of days later, the city guards approached John in the early morning his first instinct was to run, assuming he was in trouble.
But when he turned quickly on his heels at the sight of them he only found more guards at his back, closing him in, seizing him, and....
Once they had him the guards assured John that he was not in any kind of trouble.
Once John stopped fighting them and he let them speak, they told him that they had a prisoner, condemned to death by hanging, the sentence to be carried out this very evening, the trial that had taken place just hours before had been swift and without mercy. When John asks them about it they also tell him they cannot elaborate any further on it, but what they can tell him is that the prisoner had requested to see John and speak to him as a final wish.
That that was why they were here now and that that was why they were looking for him.
John had still not been entirely convinced by the strange tale the guards had just told him.
“Why would you trouble yourselves with the wishes of a lowly prisoner? A man who's crimes have been so severe that he has been condemned to death?”
The guards had all looked a bit embarrassed then. As if they actually didn't really know either. As if they had just realized the nonsense of their actions, as if.....
“He was very persuasive”, one of the guards meekly said.
John had had a horrid suspicion about who the poor condemned man who so desperately wanted to see him could be then.
****************************************************************
When, not much later, John entered Sherlock's prison cell he had needed a couple of moments to get his eyes accustomed to the gloomy and oppressive darkness that clung to the thick walls of the small room like a shroud.
When he finally was able to see something again John's eyes immediately fell on Sherlock, a nasty gash along his cheek, his clothes torn and ripped, seated against the far wall with hunched shoulders and shackles on his wrists, tying his arms to the floor with iron chains.
“Sherlock.....what.....how....what happened?”
Sherlock shrugged, as if all of this didn't really bother him in the slightest.
“Somebody didn't like what I sold them.”
John sighed, defeated.
“Sherlock......You always make your wares sound like more than they are. You promise too much. You......”
John bit his lip. Not knowing what else to say. Remembering the everlasting match that he still kept in his inside pocket. Maybe not all of Sherlock's wares were as impossible as they seemed......maybe........
Sherlock didn't deserve this, no matter how tall the tales he told were, and John felt sorry for him.
To see the only bit of brightness he had ever known in his entire life get snuffed out so cruelly.....
“Who put you here?”, John eventually just asked.
Another shrug from Sherlock, the movement unintentionally causing his chains to rattle ominously, like the chains of a ghost....
“The king.”
“The king?!”
Sherlock hummed but said nothing else.
“What on earth did you sell to the king?”
“I sold him the most beautiful jewel in the world to set in his crown.”
John was confused for a moment.
“That.....that doesn't sound too bad. Not worth sentencing you to death over anyway.”
“It was the most beautiful jewel in the world but.....only clever people could see it.....apparently nobody at court could see it and......they did not really care for that.”
Sherlock tried to lift his hands again, the rattle of the chains this time almost comical.
John couldn't help but laugh as he sat himself down next to Sherlock on the dirty prison floor.
“Oh, Sherlock......are you really in here because you called the king stupid?”
Sherlock twisted a strand of dirty hay he had picked up from the floor between his long and elegant fingers.
“I only sell what people need, John. Sometimes the things people need......they aren't exactly the same thing as what they want. Some self-reflection would have done the king a lot of good in my opinion.”
John chuckled at Sherlock's words but then the seriousness of the situation hit him all over again and he just got sad.
“They're planning to hang you this evening you know.”
Another non-committal hum from Sherlock. As dire as his current circumstances were......somehow he did not seem worried in the slightest.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”, John tried, desperately, desperate to keep his friend.......his only friend, “maybe I could try and talk to the king? Or smuggle you out somehow, or.....”
“John...”
The now slightly panicked flow of words across John's lips halted and dried up at the touch of Sherlock's warm fingers on his face.
Sherlock was close.
When had he even gotten this close?
How come the shackles hadn't rattled?
When.....
How.....
“It's finally time to repay your debt to me”, Sherlock said then, his voice melodious and hypnotizing and with an eerie quality that did not seem to belong to this world and.....
Sherlock's lips were on John's then, a tender kiss that made John close his eyes and sigh and savour the sweet taste of it but.....behind his closed lids it somehow also felt as if the whole world was somehow turning, tilting itself upside down, changing, changing him in the process, giving him a nauseous sense of vertigo and.....
John opened his eyes again and......he was not where he was moments before.
He was still in the same prison-cell, sure, but......not exactly in the same place inside of it.
He felt different.
He was different.
He no longer was who he was before.
He no was where he was before.
He felt different.....he had changed.......he.....
John was still sitting with his back against the prison wall but now there were shackles on his wrists instead of Sherlock's, he could also feel a bloody gash on his cheek that hadn't been there before, a stinging wound on a face that no longer felt as his own. When he looked down at his body his clothes were now damaged and torn as if he had been in a fight......his fine great-coat, his silken necktie, his tailored trousers, his …...
Sherlock's
Sherlock's clothes...Sherlock's clothes on Sherlock's body......
Sherlock....
When John looked up he saw his own face looking down at him.....he saw his own body stand and step away from him but......he was no longer inside it...... but..........no......he still couldn't believe it...that was impossible.......or......was it?
“I only need it for one day”, Sherlock now said with John's voice coming from John's body.
This was.......this was impossible.......this was.......magic......this was.....
John had been tricked.
It had all been a trick.
Sherlock had tricked him and.....
John pulled with all his might on the chains that held him securely bound to the prison floor – sherlock's chains, sherlock's body - as he watched his own body calmly walk towards the cell-door and give three short knocks.
“I'm ready to leave now”, the body that Sherlock had stolen from him said, loud and clear in John's own voice......but....no......not stolen......but bought. For the price of a match. We can trade it for something else then...... Just for one day. One day of his life. That day just happened to be Sherlock's own execution day.
John ranted and screamed as the guards let Sherlock who was now, somehow, magically wearing John's skin out of the cell. John tried to tell them that they'd made a mistake, that he was not Sherlock, that they'd all been tricked........but......since John looked like Sherlock now and Sherlock looked like him......they didn't believe a word he said.
The door closed with an audible click, leaving nothing behind but quiet and dark misery, sealing John in, sealing his fate and forfeiting his life for the price of a single match.
A match he kept hidden inside of the pocket of a coat he now no longer wore.
He had been a fool.
A blind fool.
John cursed himself ten times over then.
Cursed himself for letting himself trust someone else so easily.
For letting himself be charmed and fooled by Sherlock's bright colours and the lights in his fantastic emerald eyes.
Nothing that glitters in the city is ever actually gold.......the only gold in the city is fool's gold.
John had forgotten that..........and it had cost him dearly.
He had been such a fool.
Sherlock hadn't cared for him in the slightest.
Sherlock had only cared about what he could get from John, what he.....
When John closed his eyes now he could still faintly taste the sweetness of Sherlock's kiss.
It had felt real.
For just a moment it had felt as if Sherlock had actually cared just as much as John had, as if.......
As if......
“John? Are you coming?”
John's eyes shot open at the sound of Sherlock's voice.
But.....
Sherlock had left, hadn't he?
He had left John here like the fool he had been to rot and be hanged in his stead and.....
When John now looked down at his body he was miraculously himself again.
He was no longer shackled to the dirty prison floor, his limbs were his own, his face, his voice.....
It had been as if nothing had happened at all.
Nothing at all.
Except.....
The shackles still lay next to him on the floor, but they were now open and empty and unassuming and useless.
A quick glance around the room showed him that the prison-cell door, however, remained firmly closed and locked, but....
He had heard.......
Hadn't he?
“John?”
John jumped at the sound of Sherlock's voice, his eyes scanning the too dim and depressing room frantically, surely he had gone mad, he must have gone mad, he must have......
Sherlock, also himself again, could just be seen peeking around the corner of a door in one of the prison-cell walls that definitely had not been there before.
There had only been one door before and now suddenly there were two and....
Sherlock frowned at John's obvious shock and confusion.
“You did not seriously think I was just going to leave you here, were you John?”
John didn't know what to think at this point.
Shaking from head to toe he stood up from the floor and took a hesitant step in Sherlock's direction.
Despite everything he still moved towards Sherlock. He couldn't help it.
Despite everything he still wanted to be with Sherlock.
He still wanted to believe.....
“I only needed to borrow your life for a bit so I could get my key. I really should know better than to go anywhere without it”, Sherlock said.
John was still just very, very confused. Not quite daring to feel the relief that so desperately wanted to flood in quite yet.
“Your key?”
“My key that opens any and all locks, even those you can't see, comes in quite handy from time to time. Now, are you coming or not?”
Sherlock stretched his hand out to John then, inviting, trusting, offering.......offering so much, perhaps not exactly what John thought he wanted, but, he was starting to realize, possibly everything he might ever need. And, before he had even realized what he was doing, John had taken a hold of Sherlock's hand, letting Sherlock pull him through the strange new door and to whatever lay on the other side.
**************************************************
Seconds later John stood together with Sherlock on a dirt path in the middle of a beautiful but strange forest. The trees around them were green and lush and the air was warm and thick and full of birdsong and the scent of sweet fruits and flowers.
The sky above their heads was colourful, a painter's palette of the richest hues blending together in the most luxurious sunset.
The door they had stepped through had disappeared in thin air as soon as Sherlock closed and locked it behind them, pocketing the special key he had told John he had needed to get to open it and free them both.
“Where.....where are we?”, John asked, still thoroughly confused.
“These”, Sherlock said, sweeping his arms out wide, encompassing the entirety of the strange lands that now surrounded them, “these are the Other Lands. They are my home. It is where I come from.”
“It's.....it's lovely but......where is this place........who are you....really?”
Sherlock gave him a slightly mischievous smile then.
“These are the lands that exist outside of the human-realm. It is the land of the fey.”
The Fey......
Of course.
Fairies......
When he was younger, when he still lived in the orphanage, John had listened with bated breath to stories about fairy tricksters who tried to make a deal with unsuspecting humans.....a deal that never worked out well for those poor unfortunate souls who made it.
Never make a deal with a fairy.
Never promise them anything.
Never.....
He had always thought they were just stories then. Fantastical tales to help lighten the heavy monotonous boredom of daily life.
Everybody knew that fairies did not exist.
Although......
Maybe they were just very good at tricking people into thinking they didn't.
Fairies were tricky by nature.
You should never make a deal with a fairy......
John had another good and long look at the magical and marvelous lands that now stretched out all around him.
In the end John's own deal hadn't worked out quite so bad........
Although....
“Is this the end of our deal now?”, John asked. Somehow the thought of that......of this entire adventure coming to an end, of having to go back to his previous life, of having to leave Sherlock behind.....of never seeing him again......it all just made him feel incredibly sad.
Sherlock just shrugged, still just as easy and unbothered as John had gotten to know him, and maybe that was just how all fairies were, maybe....
“It doesn't have to be”, Sherlock said, “we can make a new deal if you want.”
Something inside of John felt lighter at Sherlock's words, relieved, bright and colourful.....excited.
“Well, what do you suggest?”, he said, already feeling a smile start to form on his face, it was always so easy to smile when Sherlock was around. Everything was always easier with Sherlock around.
“I could show you around these lands”, Sherlock said, “give you a full tour, show you everything there is to see....”
“And as payment? What would you want from me in return?”, John asked, because, now that he knew who or, rather, what Sherlock was, John would be a fool not to ask, “I've already given you a day so.......”
Sherlock stepped towards him then, the lights in his eyes somehow seeming brighter and even more colourful in these strange and unfamiliar lands than they had ever been before, hypnotizing, mesmerizing, beautiful, the most beautiful jewels in all the world.
“Oh”, Sherlock said, “I'm sure we can think of something”, and then he just kissed him.
***************************************************************************
Epilogue:
Neither Sherlock nor John were ever seen again in the mortal world.
And nobody who I ever asked about them ever even seemed to remember them.
That is usually how it works with fairies. They put a spell on you and once they leave......they take their spell with them.
The people who have had dealings with them are left with now suddenly ordinary objects and fantastical tales.
Tales so extraordinary and unbelievable that they cannot possibly be true.....
But.....beware, because there are many doors that lead to the fairy lands. All of them invisible. All of them hidden until you know exactly where to look......until one of the Fey wants you to see it.
One of those magical doors might open into your city.....your street.....and you would never know.
So, if you ever meet a strange and alluring man on the side of the road with colourful clothes and diamonds in his eyes who tries to sell you something he swears will be just what you need........also consider what it might end up costing you in return, what exactly you are willing to lose for it, before you strike a deal.