Chapter Text
The days in Constantinople after Silas Holmes’ timely and unfortunate plunge to his death were tense and frantic. Each member of the Holmes family had to fulfill their obligation to feel deeply mixed emotions, and more pressingly attend to the mess the man had left behind. Telegrams needed to be sent to lawyers in England, papers in offices sorted and filed away. James was kept endlessly entertained by watching the Holmeses in crisis.
His natural penchant for observation and being a general nuisance were allowed to flourish here; at any given moment he could, with a few choice words, inspire a heated debate between the three siblings that burned hot enough he’d almost need to leave the room. He never did, of course, for the sole purpose of seeing Sherlock even slightly off-kilter, unpolished.
He liked it best when Sherlock started loosening his tie, or even shedding layers. For a young man who had spent most of his life in uniforms, be it boarding school or prison, Sherlock had an impressive wardrobe. He perhaps dropped dead if found in anything other than a well-tailored three-piece suit.
James justified his eyes’ tendency to wander over the taller man’s beautifully attired form as a way of entertaining his mind with math: The sharp lines and angles of Sherlock’s suit jacket created a new sort of geometry that James could puzzle over forever, making up equations to calculate the exact breadth of the shoulders, the length of lapels begging to be grabbed, how far apart he must place his hands to encapsulate the waist.
On the fourth morning after the explosion in the mountains, Sherlock entered the dining room with an urgency that demanded James’ attention. There was a new air about him, as if something had shifted. No one else seemed to notice, though Mycroft glanced up briefly with an exhausted look in his eyes. Cordelia was in her own world as always, and Beatrice was far from an open book, quiet in an unsettling way most of the time.
“Sherlock,” James greeted him cautiously. Who knew what would come out of that mouth in reply? How thrilling!
“James.” Sherlock sat and went about making himself a cup of tea, the same way he did each morning without fail ever since James had known him. This was not suspicious, though James knew there was something Sherlock was preparing to announce.
James tracked the movement of the spoon in Sherlock’s grip as it circled his cup, counting seconds in his head – wondered if Sherlock did it too, or by now had completely perfected the science of this routine and didn’t need to. The spoon stopped. It was placed very gently on the saucer. Sherlock, just as gently, raised the teacup and took a slow draw from it. Sometimes the care that the man put into things was almost unbearable to watch for James, who preferred to barrel through life and couldn’t comprehend the necessity for immense patience and diligence in such small acts.
But forget why Sherlock did these things – he did them, very predictably, and that was more useful to know. And as James predicted, he would say something right about…
“I think it’s time to return to England.”’
Now, James thought to himself quite smugly. These little predictions never failed to bring him jolts of self-assurance. He prided himself on being an accomplished scholar, and Sherlock Holmes was his latest and most interesting area of study.
Every gaze about the table had come to fix on the poised young man still holding his teacup.
“It’s time to move forward,” Sherlock announced, shifting his attention between them all, lingering on James, which he refused to read into.
Mycroft was the first to agree, though absently, mumbling something about his career. Cordelia looked amiable to the idea. Beatrice rather looked like a fox caught in a trap and weighing whether or not she’d have to gnaw her own leg off.
“No one’s arguing with you, Sherly.” James pointed out helpfully. “Back to Appleton Manor, is it?”
He was surprisingly content with the idealized image he had of the two of them returning to romp across Appleton’s sprawling green lawn, chase one another down narrow hallways, disappear in dark corners. It was all sickeningly domestic.
“Certainly. For us and Mother, of course. Mycroft will be off to London at the earliest opportunity to piece together his repute with the foreign office, and Beatrice…” Sherlock hesitated, glancing at his sister.
“She’ll come home with us!” Cordelia said with a hopeful smile. “Right, Beatrice?”
The young woman sitting across from James was starting to gain an unpleasant shade to her complexion. Her skin seemed torn between paling and reddening, resulting in a very unflattering splotchy situation. If James wasn’t currently preoccupied with the warmth that had flickered to life in his chest when Sherlock had said the word ‘us,’ he’d feel sorry for Beatrice. Her life had been turned so upside down in the past week. It seemed Sherlock had that effect on people.
“I was thinking I’d stay here,” Beatrice finally said. “For a short time. To clean all this up.” She gestured vaguely at the house around them.
Cordelia’s crestfallen expression pained to look at.
“I know, better than any of you, the nature of Silas’ business here. It’ll be easier to let me handle it and come back to England when everything is settled.”
For a moment, no one spoke. James couldn’t help but feel, not for the first time, that he was interrupting an intimate family moment with his presence as an outsider. He glanced at Sherlock and registered his neutral expression. He was not surprised by Beatrice’s decision, then. James busied himself with the remaining scraps of his breakfast while the rest of them came to terms with Beatrice staying, though they were unable to agree for how long.
Meals with this family had so far always been… interesting, but it beat the dinner they’d all had as veritable prisoners under Silas’ supervision.
When Sherlock stood, he followed only a beat later. He stayed right on the other man’s heels the whole way to Sherlock’s room. It had taken a remarkably short time for them to expertly navigate the maze-like twists and turns of Silas’ sprawling stronghold. The place was very much to James’ taste: the infinite stone corridors margined by exotic plants, laid with woven rugs, the walls studded with ornate wooden doors hiding unknown treasures.
Sherlock’s silence the whole way to his quarters was a new rule the past few days. James could feel the tension between them keenly during every moment they occupied the same space, and also sense that it was entirely his own fault. There had been a perceived betrayal, and James would have to win back his footing in Sherlock’s esteem.
He perched on a writing desk that had been pushed against the far wall of the modest room, that he may have a vantage point and spot to sit out of the way while he watched Sherlock pack.
“All aboard the Orient Express we go then,” James said cheerfully. “Back to the motherland. For you all, at least.”
Sherlock glanced at him sidelong while he meticulously folded a white shirt. “I’m choosing to interpret that as a joke playing on your nationality, not a hint that you’re staying here.”
“Why ever would I?” James lilted.
Sherlock stiffened, pressing his lips together in a brief, disconsolate expression. “Why, I don’t know, James,” he replied in a mocking tone. “You wouldn’t want to keep Beatrice company, would you?”
Realization struck James. So that’s what this is all about, he thought. How foolish to think anything could escape Sherlock’s notice, to attempt to conceal and move past his assignation with Beatrice. That had been his betrayal, the thread snipped to weaken the bond between them. Sherlock must have known about it almost instantly and had to move forward and carry out their plan to confront Silas. Had spent long hours on horseback riding beside James, knowing that a line had been crossed and pretending it hadn’t.
“Sherlock, you can’t possibly be upset with me for getting along with your family.” James registered before he spoke that it was a cheap shot. He’d done a lot more than get along with Beatrice, and they both knew it.
“I can’t possibly? I can’t?” Sherlock was visibly furious now. “Do you think it’s unreasonable for me to be upset that you slept with my sister?”
“I mean, really, she slept with me. It wasn’t my idea in the slightest.”
“I don’t care who initiated it, you both went through with it! And that was before you knew that she was on our side!” Sherlock threw his hands into the air in frustration.
“Sherly, you know the ethics of the matter didn’t bother me. You and I don’t always follow the same morality rulebook.”
“Do NOT call me Sherly right now, James.” Sherlock said his name rather pointedly with a glare. “Honestly. I brought you here, and this is how you repay me.”
“You brought me here,” James repeated, feeling his hackles raise. “And why did you?”
“To help me! To see it all through! To be here, by my side, while we dealt with Silas and put an end to this whole thing. Not to screw around with someone –” he cut himself off, looking the closest to flushed that James had ever seen him. They were nearing a sensitive topic, then.
James gave him a nudge. “Someone what?”
Sherlock flustered. What a rarity. “Someone you just met. Someone related to me.”
“Ah. So you’re sure you didn’t want to say ‘someone else,’ then? Feeling territorial, are we, Holmes?”
Sherlock turned his back, standing rigidly there just a few paces from James but feeling miles away. Even now, in the middle of an argument, James couldn’t help admiring the way Sherlock’s shoulders were imperceptibly rising with each agitated breath.
“I’m done with this conversation.” Sherlock said, quite matter-of-factly, his voice steadier now.
“What a shame. I thought it was just starting to get interesting,” James drawled as he leapt down from the desk and sauntered out. If he paused at the door, hoping for a reply, even a nasty one, he wouldn’t admit it.
Sherlock watched Moriarty leave with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances. He couldn’t help but feel that cutting the argument off at that point was a concession, and he hated defeat. But there he was, in a lavish room in a foreign country, waving a white flag. Because if they had gone any further, he might have said something irredeemable. Dangerous words might have slipped from his never-ceasing, can-only-get-him-into-trouble mouth.
Fortunately, (or unfortunately, it depends on how you look at it), Sherlock managed to avoid being alone with James until their departure from Constantinople, and took pains to maintain that distance afterwards. It meant that he was in for long hours in his mother’s company, or Mycroft’s, and ensuring that one of them was always there if James was.
If either of his family members noticed, they were kind enough not to comment on the apparent shift in the dynamic between the two young men who had been quite inseparable leading up to this point. It was impossible that they hadn’t noticed; Sherlock was heavily tasked with not just civility, but even acting friendly with James, all done in a stiff, studied manner.
The ease of conversation between them was gone.
When Mycroft split off from them in London, it meant there was one less buffer to hide behind. The following journey by carriage back to Appleton Manor was nothing short of torturous for Sherlock. He was forced to choose between sitting beside James, which wouldn’t do at all, as the chances of accidental physical contact were far too likely, and sitting across from him, which meant watching James cozy up to his mother. Cordelia Holmes, apparently, hated her son and did not intend on doing him any favors. Instead of sitting beside Sherlock, and solving all of the above problems, she invoked the latter arrangement.
At one point, closing his eyes in an attempt to drown out the chime of his mother’s laughter at yet another one of Mr. Moriarty’s clever jokes, Sherlock wondered if it was possible that he’d in fact died in Paris and that everything that had happened since was punishment for his sins.
Speaking of the bullet that Xiao Wei put into his abdomen, the wound had become aggravated by so many days of travel. Jostling train cars and carriages and nights with little sleep had hardly afforded him time to aptly recover.
“Are you alright, Sherlock?” His mother startled him out of his reverie.
It seemed his hand had come to press against the spot on his stomach that ached furiously.
“Yes, quite,” he responded airily. The forced lightness in his tone came out all wrong. He couldn’t seem to move the errant hand. As if he was holding himself together, stopping a seam from coming unraveled.
“Sherlock,” James began, a look of genuine concern taking root in his features.
Sherlock silenced him with a look. “It’s nothing,” he insisted.
Nothing – the same way he had dismissed the key that now lived fixedly in the breast pocket of his jacket, not too far off from his tiresome injury. He swore he could feel the coldness of the metal leeching into his skin through layers of fabric.
“We’re almost home now anyway.”
He determinedly ignored the wary glance that James directed at him and instead fixed his gaze on the greenery rolling by. He could recognize that they were very close to home indeed. A wave of trepidation made its way down his spine. Returning to Appleton Manor, leaving Constantinople and Beatrice and Mycroft behind, not to mention his father, meant figuring out what happened next. He supposed he’d have to handle Silas’ affairs, talk to his lawyer, and do probably a lot of letter writing and paper sorting.
It would be dull work. His gaze shifted to James for a heartbeat. Would James stick around when things got dull? Or did he demand endless adventure and entertainment? Would sending telegrams and clearing out offices be so uninteresting to him that he’d leave? And if he did leave, how on earth was Sherlock supposed to get him to come back?
By the time the carriage turned the last familiar corner and started down the drive, Sherlock’s anxiety had swelled in his stomach. It crept up like bile in his throat. He stumbled out of the carriage, waving off the concerned protests of his mother and Moriarty.
For a moment he stood in the gravel, hunched over with his hands on his knees, gulping in breaths of fresh air. He was thinking that perhaps he might start dry heaving when a warm hand landed on his shoulder.
“You’re clearly unwell.” It was James. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
When Sherlock straightened, he caught a glimpse of bright red on his waistcoat. That’s not good, he thought distantly. He staggered up the stone steps, trying not to put too much of his weight on James.
The entire situation was mortifying yet apparently unavoidable. They made it into the house, Sherlock wishing throughout that they were not fighting and James would distract him by saying something stupid. Instead, his attention was torn between the immediacy of his physical pain and the oppressive silence between them.
“Say something,” Sherlock gritted out.
“I was just about to ask… Can you make it up the stairs?”
Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and took as deep a breath as he was able. “Yes.”
Each step was a labored affair. Sherlock could hear Mother somewhere behind them asking Mrs. Crowle for supplies.
“You should’ve said something sooner, you fool.” James chastised.
“If I shall die, it will be in this house,” Sherlock pronounced, though his mock-haughty tone was put off by the strain in his voice.
James snorted. “A proclivity for the comedic and theatrical, up to your last breath.”
And so he found himself nigh on his deathbed – dramatics ran in the family, it’s hardly his fault – in his childhood bedroom. Mrs. Crowle and Cordelia patched him back up, while James leant over their shoulders and made unhelpful comments. He was only left to rest when all three were completely satisfied that they’d done all they could. Each fretted in their own way, but surrendered the room in time.
When Sherlock woke, his first complaint was the lack of novels within reach. If he was bound to a brief period of enforced quietude, he’d need to keep from going completely mad.
Unless he already was, and recent events didn’t disprove it as much as he’d like. In fact, his second complaint – the absence of a James Moriarty – convinced him that he truly was witless, as Mycroft had foretold so many years ago. He laughed to himself; had he expected James to never leave his bedside, despairing over his prone form like the wife of an injured soldier?
The lamp flickering on the bedside table had fooled him momentarily, still groggy from sleep. Further investigation suggested that it was the middle of the night. Which explained why no one was eagerly waiting for the patient to open his eyes so that they could cry out with joy.
He was being treated much more callously than after the initial shooting. How dare they all sleep! He could be dead in here, for all they knew!
Rankled, he made himself comfortable and set about finding a suitable read. His search was an archaeology dig more than anything. This room was a reflection of a Sherlock from long ago, thus sparse of any reading material that would interest him now. After turning up an encyclopedic tome on honeybees, a true relic, he gave up the search and retired to the bed.
He’d have to ask James to bring him something tomorrow. Surely that wasn’t too much of a strain on their tenuous friendship.
The second time Sherlock was pulled from the depths of sleep, it was with a quickly-regained clarity that suggested he might be, for once, rather well-rested. And another pleasing discovery: James was sat beside him, nose buried in a book no doubt pilfered from his father’s study.
A passable image of a despairing wife. When did this harebrained fictional wife notion even occur to Sherlock? It was yet another grim confirmation that his mind had gone. Before he could follow that train of thought any further, the wife in question was made aware of his conscious state.
“He wakens! And thus we are blessed, for it would have been a tragedy to lose so brilliant a mind.” James’ oration fell flat in front of an unappreciative audience. He sighed. “Good morning, Sherlock.”
“Good morning James.” Sherlock adjusted his pillow and sat up a bit.
“So you’re alive,” James grinned teasingly. “I’m starting to think you enjoy this. It makes you feel important. Or perhaps ending up in this position is just a natural result of your foolhardiness.”
“Both very engaging theories, I’m sure,” Sherlock couldn’t resist conceding the smallest grin back. “I’m inclined towards the second, but I can’t offer an unbiased perspective.”
“No, indeed you cannot. Good sir, I will have to humbly request that I carry out any further research on the topic independently. Know that I still hold your opinions in the utmost regard, and spurn them only in this particular area of study.”
It had been so many days since they’d engaged in banter of this nature that Sherlock was wholly unprepared for James’ enthusiastic and florid display of preference. Had he somehow regained his good standing simply by virtue of his injury? If so, he must take note and prepare to be mortally wounded each time they fell out.
“James, I beg, I cannot name a headache as a symptom of an abdominal wound,” he complained. “You’re supposed to be letting me rest.”
James didn’t seem offended at Sherlock’s gentle refusal of the old game. “Ah, right, resting. Tell me, do you ever let yourself rest?”
“Up until now, I will admit it was rather an unfamiliar concept.” Sherlock could not remember the last time he had been still for this long. “I always felt that I did not need it.”
“Aye, you’re much too clever to waste a day under the covers. A genius such as yourself exists outside the limitations imposed upon a regular man.”
“Well…”
“I wonder, Sherlock,” James began in a more thoughtful tone, “whether you don’t spend so much time in your head that you forget you have a body.”
With this last comment, he glanced down at the hazy silhouette of Sherlock’s lower half outlined beneath the sheets. He reached out and brushed a hand ever so lightly against the edge of Sherlock’s hip.
“It would serve you well to remember that every once in a while,” he continued, voice quieter. “Even when you haven’t just been shot.”
Sherlock could feel the warmth of James’ hand even with a barrier. Something told him not to look down or acknowledge it, lest he disturb whatever was playing out. This felt different from the necessitated touches when he’d been using James as support to make it up the stairs, or the accidental grazes in the history of their acquaintance. It was intentional, purposeful. It carried a suggestion of want, but he could not decipher whether it was for the physical closeness itself or simply for his company.
“Is this your way of saying you were worried about me, James?” Sherlock ventured, watching the other man’s face carefully.
James smiled wryly. “I’d hate to build upon your already towering ego, Holmes.” His tone was normal, and he pulled his hand away. “I’ll go get your mother and let her know you’re awake.”
And so James left the room quietly, leaving the door slightly open behind him. It was as if that brief moment had never happened. Perhaps he’d responded wrongly, had accidentally rebuffed the invitation, whatever it was. He was left lying there with the ghost of a touch. Perhaps he was complicating things, and James had meant nothing by it. Either way, it meant that the dance continued; Sherlock would have to keep watching his step, taking care not to disrupt the pattern they fell into time and time again.