Chapter Text
Part One
The Curious Case of Alisa Shevchenko
"I have never made a secret of my distaste for forks" said Sherlock, with a complex sort of smile.
"What in the hells are you talking about Holmes?" said Watson, in an uncouth way.
"I'm talking about forks, Watson," Sherlock lied, "and the quote is from Hemingway. Though ghost-written, I believe."
"Oh," said Watson. "Then I suppose it's probably a good quote."
"Mostly certainly," said Holmes. "A very good quote indeed. One of the finest in the English language."
Holmes tapped out the contents of his pipe into his hand and then poured the ash into Watson's upward facing palm. Watson looked at him, aghast. Holmes continued.
"Now, if you'll excuse me we really need to talk about Alisa Shevchenko."
"You mean Alisa Esage," Watson said with a look of a proud dog who's just finished pooing. Holmes ignored the smell.
"The Russian spy?"
Sherlock gave Watson a look of loving disdain.
"Yes yes, whatever you say Watson. The problem is I'm not entirely sure if the person who runs her Twitter account really is her anymore. And we need to find out where she is."
"I see," replied Watson. "How will we do that? I suppose I could put out a trace on her IP address and maybe set her webcam to switch on remotely..."
"Oh, no Watson," said Holmes, "that won't work at all. We'll need to start with her grammar."
"Or," continued Watson, deep in thought, "we could go onto her Instagram and cross-reference any new pictures with one of those location triangulators they have at the MET. The ones that use the image information to figure out weather, air pressure, things like that."
"Nope. Because I got most of London banned from her Instagram."
"How did you manage that, Holmes?"
"Quite simple really, I tried to install her as head of Шалтай Болтай."
"Humpty Dumpty?" said Watson, instinctively translating the Russian outloud.
Holmes paused a little while to let the information sink in.
"Yes, quite."
"Pardon?"
"I have a flight booked to Twitter HQ and we have to be there in an hour, so you're coming with me."
"Shaltay Boltay, are you certain?"
"Yes."
"Then I suppose I am. Coming with you, I mean. Yes, I suppose I am."
...
The plane journey took much longer than Watson was expecting. He had been thinking a lot about the case but didn't want to let Holmes know he had any real information or hunches. This was mainly because he was trying to avoid trampling on Holmes' feelings. He had been secretly thinking about the competition element of their relationship, which he had always been aware of, but had never been entirely sure how to place himself within. He thought that they had become too intense, and had taken on an aspect he was not entirely comfortable with. Though of course he would never let on, he found himself wondering if perhaps Sherlock was homosexual. He thought that he shouldn't mind but when he was honest with himself maybe he did.
Sometimes Watson thought about looping his arms around Sherlock's toned, masculine waist and wanking him off silently. He didn't much like the thought, but still he could not entirely erase it from his mind. Other times Watson would lay in bed at night and he'd feel the phantom impression of Holmes' penis against his buttocks, and then inside the soft tissued circle of his anus. He didn't much like that thought either, and sometimes when he looked at Sherlock's admittedly extremely attractive, almost alienly pretty features, he found the images flooding involuntarily into his mind and he felt violated. Violated by the mere presence of his oldest friend without whom... without whom there would be no adventure or intrigue? No, that wasn't true. He alway knew he could make his own...
"Gizza kiss love."
The phrase drew Watson from his contemplation with a jump that was not unlike the jolt of an aircraft taking off, though of course he was already on one, so the metaphor became confusing.
The voice was coming from an elderly lady two seats in front of him. She had been relaying the story of the first ever interaction she had with her now husband.
"I'm being absolutely truthful with you now, Anne. He walked right up to me in the street and said 'Gizza kiss love'. As if he didn't feel any shame at all. I told him to get lost of course, and he didn't try to follow me or anything like that, so it wasn't actually creepy. But afterwards we were walking back down by the beach again and I bumped into him. Literally bumped into. He said he was sorry and..."
Watson lost interest in the conversation at this point and turned to Holmes.
"Do you know why you want to find Alisa Shevchenko? I mean, no-one's paying you, are they? And you really don't have any other reason to be chasing after her. It might come across as..." As the elderly lady had just used the word it was fresh in his mind so he used it too: "a bit creepy?"
Holmes seemed on edge, deeply offended and barely trying to hide it, he snapped.
"Yes, thank you Watson. I'm pretty bloody aware of how it might seem thank you very fucking much."
Holmes slammed his fist down on the table. Watson, taken aback, did not respond.
"Do you ever think for one fucking second about the effect your pretty little insinuations and stupid remarks might be having? I want to find out because I'm interested. In her, in Shaltay Boltay, in the whole bloody thing. Because I don't want to waste my entire fucking life with you acting like I'm some bloody retarded autist you have to tip-toe around all the time just because you want to be fucking "likable"! Because you want to be safe and dependable while I have to always be the fucking crazy wingnut."
Watson took a swig of the complimentary airline gin a little too quickly, then bit down very subtly too hard on the olive standing naked on the cocktail stick above it.
"It's not that I don't like you Watson. It's just I think we should see other people. Professionally, interpersonally, in an investigative sense, you know."
Watson did not know. He looked blankly, but not stupidly at Sherlock. Who seemed suddenly calmer, more composed.
"Look, I'm sorry..."
"For what? What have you done wrong?" Sherlock seemed suddenly and strangely angry again, and Watson could not quite fathom why. "You don't even know what's going on in the background, Watson. You don't know what they've been doing to me, to my reputation, to everything. Moriarty doesn't stop John, ever. He's always fucking there. Obsessive, cold, impossible to deny. If you don't counter every move he's always there with his words... Creepy, crazy, nasty, vicious, all of them. He'll use them over and over. He'll take anything you say or do and he'll make it wrong, evil, bad because that's how he sees himself. And you can't change him, you can't make him better, you can't convince him of the error of his ways because he... because he just is, and he's obsessed with me John, with me! Don't you see it?"
"No, Sherlock," replied Watson, in a tone that implied quiet and unpleasant judgement, "I don't think I see at all."
Watson felt the wheels of the plane touch down on the tarmac of St Helena International Airport, a small strip laid over the dust and sand of the remote British colony, so close to the coastline that it had already been flooded three times that year. It suddenly occurred to him that Twitter Headquarters was in California.
"Wait, Holmes, why are we in St Helena?"
"Because Alisa Shevchenko's here." Holmes said this without a hint of guilt or embarrassment.
"You fucking fool."
Watson almost spoke the thought aloud but he restrained himself. Instead he began to collect his belongings.
"John look. It's not your fault. I just. I need to change, that's all. And while you're still here I can't. You always need me to be the same Sherlock and I'm not him anymore. I'm just not. This one last case and then it's over. It has to be."
Watson continued packing. They didn't speak for the rest of the night, and Holmes insisted they take rooms on opposite sides of the hotel. For safety, he said.
...
The woman at the police station seemed distressed.
"No, but what if you tracked it back afterwards and realised it was rape?"
The heavy-set, stern but kindly looking policeman seemed confused but at least partially sympathetic.
"I don't think that..."
"I mean I did track it back is what I mean. But what I'm saying is afterwards I realised it was rape."
"So you were raped? You didn't give consent at the time?"
"No, yes... I didn't want to."
"Did you tell him you didn't want to? Did you say no?"
The woman paused for several seconds before seeming to arrive at a conclusion.
"Yes," said the woman.
The heavy-set policeman motioned to a female officer who came over to the lady, placed her hands gently and comfortingly on her shoulders and wordlessly escorted her towards an interview room to take a statement.
Sherlock turned to Watson.
"I'm not sure if this is a good idea. What would I even say?"
"Just let them know you're here and why," said Watson.
"Just waltz up there and say..."
"Mr Holmes." The police officer at the desk called his name. Sherlock stood and walked up to the desk.
"Hi." Holmes looked awkward.
"I'm a sort of... amateur detective. I solve crimes for a hobby and..." Sherlock looked to Watson for support, who pretended not to have seen him at all.
"Go on..." The policeman said this with a note of suspicion.
"My colleage here said I should report in, so we can get support if anything goes wrong."
"I see..." The policeman took a sip of tea with an overly deliberate motion, to show Sherlock he was very much in the process of considering something he might eventually not find to his liking. "We can't provide access to any police databases or information, and we can't provide backup... Wait, you said... Sherlock Holmes, right?"
"Yes, but..."
"Wait here." The policeman barked this in a manner that made Sherlock want to do exactly as the man said. The policeman walked over to another desk, just behind, carrying a file and began speaking to two other policemen in hushed and slightly urgent tones. It appeared there was some disagreement. At length he returned.
"You're an... interesting man, Mr Holmes. Your friend: Doctor Watson, is that correct?"
"Yes... I... how..."
"We hope you're not quite the man some people seem to think you are, Mr Holmes, but we're glad you're with the doctor, at any rate. If you're here about the Shaltay Boltay case specifically we won't interfere, but we will absolutely not intervene on your behalf if there are any problems. I understand the London MET and associated police forces have in the past. We don't hold with that here. In our eyes anyone who decides to investigate crime for no apparent reward usually has other motivations, and I can't say I entirely trust yours. Also, there are elements of the secret service, CIA, GCHQ and a few others who are likely to be interested in anything to do with Shaltay Boltay and even if we wanted to give you support with them it's just not something we're equipped to do."
"I understand that officer... I..."
"We're glad you came to see us, I will admit. There's quite a story surrounding you, if I believe the files, and I am fairly sure I do, but if you get into any trouble, if you even come close to something that might be seen as breaking the law we won't hesitate to support anyone bringing charges."
"I understand officer." Sherlock turned and began walking towards the door. The officer returned to sipping at his now luke-warm tea. Just before leaving, Sherlock turned again:
"It may come as a surprise, but judging by the upturned corner of that file someone's added a page or two in the last few hours. I don't suppose you'd noticed that yet..."
By the time the officer looked up from his tea, Sherlock had already left the building.
...
It was 3:15pm when Moriarty checked into the doctor's office. The wait was at least an hour but the look on Moriarty's face was one of quiet anticipation rather than outright boredom. People with various ailments coughed and wheezed, and a young girl played half-heartedly with a set of building blocks on the floor of the waiting room.
"Doctor Wilkinson will see you now... Mori... er... Professor."
The woman looked at Moriarty with the learned kindness of a veteran of her profession, but a look that nonetheless carried with it a slight edge of irritation, and pity coloured her outwardly sympathetic demeanor.
"Have you been feeling any better?"
"Not since the operation. I'm disabled now, you know. It takes some getting used to."
"Well, you seem much better anyway", said the nurse. Professor Moriarty supposed this was meant to sound curt, but in fact seemed more tender than the lady's initial greeting.
"Also," Moriarty continued, "I found a lump, and I've come to renew my prescription for the pills."
"Of course, come this way."
"Oh, hi M... R... Professor Moriarty." The doctor was a youngish male, with a dark, slightly asian complexion and a weary look in his eye. "I suppose you'll be needing more of the Zoloft."
Moriarty looked weary as well. "Yes. But it's more than that. There's other things, my knee after the operation. And I've found a lump on my chest that wasn't there last week... also there's been lot of stress... I think... I think someone's trying to kill me."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes, well, I think so. It's this crazy man; he thinks he solves crimes and now he's convinced he's in the secret service and he thinks... he thinks I told this woman and I think he's in love with her!"
The words spilled out of Moriarty's mouth like Tesco bubbly wine that's been shaken a little too much after being removed from the fridge.
"I see," said the doctor, clearly not at all impressed. Professor Moriarty scrambled to respond.
"No, I mean really, it was Sherlock Holmes!"
The doctor's expression changed immediately to one of worry and concern. "Oh. I see. Is there anything else I can do to help?
"Yes doctor. Please. My knee first. I think something's wrong with it again. Could you have a bit of a look and maybe feel and see if everything's alright?"
Moriarty drew the trouser-hem right up past the knee, exposing bruised flesh. "There, doctor, right there."