![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swissmargTitle: The Case of the Vanishing Pants; Part Five - The Pond
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swissmarg
Beta reader: LaDolceMia on AO3
Rating: R
Characters: John/Sherlock.
Word count: 14,850. Haha, oops.
Summary: Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the service of a case.
Warnings: Full male nudity, PTSD, possibly inaccurate medical information, roughhousing
Disclaimer: The original Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and are now in the public domain. The BBC version upon which this story is based was created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. This is a transformative fanwork which was created solely for fun, not material gain.
Notes: Many thanks to the indomitable LaDolceMia for advice and ego stroking. I hope this rounds things out for everyone, and thank you, dear readers, for sticking it out!
Part One - The Dehydrator
Part Two - The Plutonium Pellets
Part Three - The Resiniferatoxin
Part Four - The CLAN
Note Part Five is posted in two parts because it is too long for one LJ post.
"What does he need a wheelchair for?" Molly whispered to John. Her breath wafted out in a fine white cloud and she shivered in her thin lab coat. They were standing outside the service entrance to the morgue at Bart's. The sun had barely risen and the sky was overcast, making everything pale and grey.
John frowned through chattering teeth at the sight of Sherlock trying to force the bulky metal contraption into the hatchback of an orange and black Fortwo. "I've no idea," he said resignedly. Sherlock had woken him up at an indecent hour, more properly night than morning, with the news that they were heading north as soon as the car hire on Marylebone Road opened, to pack an overnight bag, and that he'd explain the case on the way.
"I should know better than to ask," Molly sighed. She wasn't working today, but she'd come down at Sherlock's summons just as readily as John had. "Um, Sherlock?" she said hesitantly. "You will bring that back in one piece, won't you?"
It honestly didn't look like the wheelchair was even going to make it out of the driveway intact, not the way Sherlock was applying his weight to it.
"They do fold up, you know," John commented.
"Are you referring to the chair or the car?" Sherlock sniped. "I told you we needed a bigger one."
"This is what we can afford," John replied calmly. They hadn't received payment for a case since the one from Mycroft a month ago. Mr Agarwal had said he'd send a cheque as soon as it was approved by the CLAN's board, but God knew how long that would take, and John had incurred additional expenses when he'd broken his lease and moved back in with Sherlock. Basically, they were running on empty.
"You never used to be so hung up on money," Sherlock grumbled as he poked aggressively at the recalcitrant chair.
"No, I did. That's why you started taking cases from my blog, remember?" John took a big sip of the coffee he'd grabbed from the cafe across the street.
"Maybe you should start writing it again, then." Sherlock scowled, then turned halfway to eye John with suspicion. "Why haven't you?"
John shrugged. "Mycroft wouldn't let me write about that one we had last month." It was true, but that wasn't the real reason. The real reason was, John was afraid of drawing attention again. He didn't want to give the Moriartys of the world any more information about their life.
Sherlock scoffed. "Oh yes: radioactive spill, national security. I can hear him now."
"Wait- What?" Molly said, her eyes darting between John and Sherlock with a hesitant smile, as if she wasn't sure whether he was joking. "There was a radioactive spill?"
"All contained, Molly, nothing to worry about," Sherlock said and closed the hatch firmly, having finally subdued the wheelchair. "Get in, John. We've a long drive ahead of us." He walked around to the passenger side and twitched his coat around his legs before squeezing himself in.
"Where are you going then?" Molly asked.
"Up north," John said. "Apparently it's cold enough now." Minus twenty that morning, after a solid two weeks of temperatures below zero, Sherlock had gleefully informed him.
Molly giggled nervously. "Have fun?"
John slid in behind the steering wheel and tucked his coffee into the cup holder. "How could we possibly have anything but?" he said dryly, and started the engine.
======
John tried to keep an eye on the road as he yawned broadly. He'd barely slept the night before.
It seemed like everything was happening so fast since that night in December when he'd started going on cases with Sherlock again. Their fragile re-acquaintance had snowballed into nude embraces and playacting at being boyfriends, which very much hadn't felt like playacting by the end of last night.
When Sherlock had first come back, John had tried to maintain a respectful distance as they'd awkwardly renegotiated where they stood with each other. He had been careful not to initiate anything that Sherlock didn't really want, but as with all things Sherlock, the boundaries were nebulous, and over the course of the past month or so, it had become fairly clear that Sherlock was at least interested. Perhaps even frustrated at John's lack of reciprocation. What it boiled down to was, at this point, it was more a question of what John wanted.
Back when John had thought his affections led down a one-way street, he'd adjusted pretty quickly to the fact that he had romantic feelings for a man. It wasn't like anything would ever come of it. Far from languishing in unrequited love, in fact, he'd been quite content with knowing that he was, as far as he could tell, the only person of significance in Sherlock's life. He didn't feel guilty, either – not exactly, anyway – when he dated other people. After all, Sherlock clearly wasn't interested in him in that way, and Sherlock had always been accepting, after his own fashion, of John's girlfriends.
Looking back now, John had to admit that Sherlock had probably been jealous, at least of the time that John spent with those women, and maybe even of the affection and attention he directed at them. But he had never demanded that John stop seeing them, hadn't threatened to move out or evict John over it. Had never issued a 'me or them' ultimatum. And John had never formed an attachment with any of them deep enough to require a painful choice.
Maybe those two facts were connected.
However, once John realised that this ... thing between them might be an actual ... thing, could become an actual thing with lips and tongues and arses and cocks – not that John was in any way put off by any of those, in any combination whatsoever; in fact, he was quite intrigued by several of the permutations – but once hearts were racing, hormones were surging, and developments were developing, John's proverbial fan had shut itself down before any shit could hit it.
Because, really, he and Sherlock: this was not a good idea.
Until it was.
Because last night, pretending to be Sherlock's boyfriend, he'd realised something: he and Sherlock were already in a committed relationship.
John might flirt with and be attracted to women, but he wasn't ever going to abandon Sherlock for one of them. That had become clear over the course of their first eighteen-month stint together, and even more so through the string of half-hearted dates he'd gone one since Sherlock had returned.
Last night, as he'd lain sleepless in bed, he'd tried to imagine living apart from Sherlock again. It had made his chest hurt. He'd thought about what would happen if he contacted Jen from the naturist club and asked her out. He was certain she'd say yes. But now he also knew that Sherlock wouldn't like it. And that was enough to stop him. Not that Sherlock would try and control him (well, he'd make snide remarks about her intelligence and pretend to forget her name, which amounted to the same thing, come to think of it), but the point was that John didn't want to do anything that would hurt Sherlock in that manner.
So, he was for all intents and purposes already pledging fidelity to Sherlock, even if they never slept together.
John glanced over at Sherlock, certain that his train of thought was screamingly obvious, but Sherlock was poking at his phone, holding it at various angles as if trying to find better reception. Honestly, the thing was practically a security blanket, John thought fondly before returning his eyes to the road and his thoughts to their current situation, which was unerringly heading in one specific direction.
Because regardless of how annoyed they might get at each other (and John was under no illusions that he didn't annoy Sherlock from time to time at least as much as Sherlock annoyed him), they were both happier together than apart. They shared a mutual affection (John wasn't sure exactly how far Sherlock's affection for him extended, but it was probably a safe bet that he felt more deeply for John than for anyone else he wasn't related to). They were good for each other - or at least, they were more good for each other than they were bad for each other.
The question was, would adding sex to their repertoire change any of that?
From John's point of view, sex had, up to now, always been a good idea. He'd never had a relationship ruined by having sex. Lack of sex, yes. Lack of commitment. Lack of emotional investment. Lack of common interests. Lack of interest full stop, for that matter. Lack of shared goals.
As John ticked off the reasons for each of his past failed relationships, he realised with a mixture of trepidation and cautious hopefulness that he and Sherlock would pass on each and every point.
Oh, John knew that good, solid friendships had been known to fall apart when the people involved decided to sleep together. But in his experience, that was because expectations changed. One or the other person wanted to spend more time together, or get married, or thought they now had a say in who their partner associated with, or felt that blow jobs were currency to be traded against housework, or expected to hear declarations of affection every day.
Again, John was under no illusions regarding any of those points, and he didn't imagine that Sherlock would be, either.
When all was said and done, he couldn't deny that they had a strong physical attraction. John didn't know if it was pheromones or a result of his long dry spell or something much more Freudian, or really, just the plain and simple natural consequence of having fallen in love, but the physical desires he (and, apparently, Sherlock) were experiencing had reached a crisis point. It was starting to affect both their friendship and their working relationship in a negative way. John could barely look Sherlock in the eye anymore. He couldn't focus properly on his job or their cases, and he suspected Sherlock was suffering in the same manner, if to a lesser degree. It was clear that things couldn't continue like this.
The thing was, how did you come out and say you were pretty much over your sexual identity crisis and wanted to have a bit of a ride?
John looked over at Sherlock. He had stopped playing with his phone and was staring out the side window, one hand tapping nervously against his wedged-in knees. He had pushed the seat as far back as it would go, but it wasn't quite far enough to accommodate his legs, due to the wheelchair behind them.
"You want to stop for a bit? " John offered.
Sherlock frowned. "Don't tell me you're hungry already."
"I just thought – I don't know, you could stretch your legs or something."
"I'm fine," Sherlock said in that tone of voice that meant he was very much not fine. It wasn't his demanding 'I'm bored' tone or his exasperated 'you're an idiot' tone or even his sham-cheerful 'bugger off' tone. It was low and tight and it made John want to shake him by the collar until he owned up to what was going on.
John drove on in silence for another couple of hundred metres, then on impulse reached over and covered Sherlock's tapping fingers with his.
Sherlock glanced at him in irritation. "What?"
John took a breath. "Nothing, I just..." He squeezed Sherlock's hand gently. "Okay?" His heart was beating very fast and he kept his eyes straight ahead on the road.
Sherlock didn't reply for a moment, but he didn't take his hand away either. "Okay," he said finally, softly.
John's stomach swooped. He smiled and chanced another glance at Sherlock, but he had his head turned to the side again.
It was another five kilometres before Sherlock turned his hand over to grasp John's in return.
Jesus, John thought, as his cock stirred; he hadn't been this turned on by holding hands since he was fourteen.
"So, um," John ventured, acutely aware of his hand beginning to sweat despite the fact that the heater was just barely able to raise the temperature in the car from frigid to nippy, "why don't you tell me what we're doing." He felt Sherlock tense briefly, and realised what that had sounded like. "With the case," he clarified. "And the-" He jerked his head toward the rear of the car.
Sherlock shifted, angling his body back against the door so that he was half turned toward John, but didn't let go of his hand. "It happened a few years ago. A couple of teenagers snuck onto a private estate for a swim in the lake and found a badly decomposed body on an island in the middle of it. Well, I say island, but it's just a bit of land with a weeping willow and some scrub. There's barely room to stand. Forensics found evidence of cytolysis consistent with freezing, placing the body there at least since the previous winter."
John nodded and rubbed his thumb against Sherlock's hand to show he understood.
"I take it it wasn't simply a case of accidental death by exposure," John said.
Sherlock shook his head. "He was shot in the chest. The bullet was recovered, lodged in the tree, along with the rifle, lying near the body. There's no question that the shooting took place there and that it was set up to look like a suicide."
"But of course it wasn't."
"Obviously," Sherlock scoffed. "Even the local police saw that. It would have been a fairly open and shut case at that. The rifle belonged to the estate owner, a man by the name of Jones, and the victim was one of his employees, Robert Biggs. It was common knowledge in the village that the two men had a long-standing disagreement about the running of the estate. And Jones had shot at trespassers before."
"Could it be a case of mistaken identity? Jones mistook his employee for a trespasser and shot him, panicked when he realised what he'd done, and tried to make it look like a suicide?"
"Or wanted it to look like that, when in fact it was planned all along. That way, even if he did get caught, it would be the difference between a charge of manslaughter and murder."
"So, clever?" John asked hopefully. Sherlock needed something to challenge him after the string of disappointments their last few cases had been.
"Oh, it's more than that." John was pleased to hear the hint of excitement in Sherlock's voice, accompanied by a tightening of his fingers around John's. "You see, Mr Jones couldn't possibly have done it. That's why he's never been charged, even with manslaughter. But of course he did do it, which is the brilliant part."
John grinned. "How do you know?"
"Because the murder took place on that island. There was no conceivable reason for either of them to be there. If it had simply been a matter of wanting to commit the murder in an isolated place and keep the body from being found, there are any number of places less exposed than the lake. The local kids sneak in all the time. Ergo, there was another reason for being on that island. And the reason was, because it would completely remove Jones from the list of possible suspects."
Now John was becoming intrigued. "Why?"
Rather than answering straight out, Sherlock countered with a question of his own: "How did they get to the island?"
John obviously didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of figuring out the answer, but Sherlock was waiting for him to play the straight man, so he obliged.
"Boat?"
"There are no boats on the lake, never have been," Sherlock answered with glee. "Yes, it's possible that he brought in a boat and got rid of it afterwards, but he would have needed an accomplice. I forgot to mention, Jones was eighty-three years old at the time of the murder and has been in a wheelchair since contracting polio at age fourteen. He was also in no physical condition to swim, much less drag a fourteen-stone man to the island with him. So, due to the fact that it was quite impossible to place him on the island for the murder, he's gone uncharged."
Ah. That began to explain why they were hauling a wheelchair with them, although John didn't quite see yet what they were going to do with it.
"Right," John said, "and there was no accomplice because..."
"Immaterial," Sherlock said, waving his free hand. "They couldn't have used a boat anyway."
"Why not?"
Sherlock gave John a mysterious look. "That is exactly what we are going to see."
John chuckled and shook his head good-naturedly. He knew it would be useless to try and get Sherlock to reveal his theory before he was good and ready to. Instead, he gave Sherlock's hand one last squeeze and returned both his hands to the wheel so he could concentrate on the traffic again, as they were coming up on a stretch of roadwork. All in all, this was shaping up to be a rather good day, despite the inauspicious start. Sherlock was mentally engaged, they were getting out of the city, there was absolutely no danger imminent, and they seemed to be moving toward a mutually pleasurable juncture in their relationship. And tonight...
Oh God, tonight.
His stomach gave a twinge of nervous anticipation. Sherlock had made a reservation at a B&B, as it might be late by the time they were done and it was a long drive. John wondered whether he'd booked one room or two. They'd had to share a room on more than one occasion before, but only when they were forced to by circumstances. John hardly thought that a bed and breakfast out in the back of beyond would be full in weather like this. So probably two rooms. Unless Sherlock had planned on... but no. Of course not. He'd certainly booked two rooms. Which was fine. Good. John would just see what happened. Let things take their course. And this time, he wouldn't stop them.
Oh, God.
They stopped shortly after twelve at a service area along the motorway. Sherlock only ordered a coffee at the little self-service restaurant, then proceeded to steal more than half of John's chips while deducing the other travellers. John laughed, and didn't move his foot away when Sherlock bumped into it when stretching his legs. Sherlock didn't move his foot away either. John could hardly meet Sherlock's eye without a ridiculous grin appearing on his face. Sherlock pretended not to notice.
After they finished eating, John browsed the racks in the travel shop while Sherlock went to the loo. Without any conscious thought to the matter, he found himself standing in front of the condoms with his heart in his throat. His eye ran over the little boxes of Durex, Mates, the familiar Pasante brand they stocked at the surgery. Were there special gay condoms? John realised he had no idea. But what he did know they'd need was... yes, there, the shop even carried lubricant. And oh God, again, he had no idea. Pleasure Waves or Life Styles? Was it the same kind for men and women? He knew that oil-based was bad, but were the ingredients listed on the box?
The reality of the situation suddenly loomed large and in overly sharp focus. Was he really going to do this? He wanted to be close to Sherlock, he wanted to share physical intimacy with him - Jesus, just the thought of it now was making his chest tingle and his groin throb - but he didn't want it to be like his first few less than stunning performances with a woman. Oh, it had felt fantastic, and he thought his girlfriend at the time had mostly enjoyed it too, but it had been messy and awkward and he was nursing something of an inferiority complex regarding Sherlock already. He didn't need to worry about bad sex on top of everything else. Of course, they didn't have to jump right into intercourse. Not tonight, anyway. They hadn't even kissed yet. Although maybe Sherlock wanted to. Have penetrative sex, that is. If Sherlock were a woman, they'd probably be having sex tonight. After all the buildup over the past few weeks, now that the admission had been made (hadn't it? Had John made it clear enough yet, with the touches and the looks?), it would be only natural.
John was well on his way to a minor nervous breakdown when he heard Sherlock's voice: "Ready?" He was standing immediately behind John, his body brushing against John's back.
John started and redirected his gaze to the next shelf down. His heart was hammering so hard he was certain the movement was visible, even through his jacket. "Erm, yes," he stammered, "thought I'd … Razors." His hand darted out and grabbed a plastic-wrapped packet.
"That's not your brand," Sherlock said, amused.
"Well, it's just one day, I think I'll survive." John stepped away from Sherlock, ready to beat a hasty retreat to the till, before he realised he was doing exactly what he'd told himself he wasn't going to do anymore. He stopped, took a breath, and turned back to Sherlock with a tentative smile. "Coming?"
Sherlock let his gaze flick once over the display, then followed John.
"I would have had one you could use," Sherlock said once they were outside again, on their way to the car.
"Sorry?"
Sherlock looked pointedly down at the package in John's hand. "A … razor. You could have used one of mine."
John frowned. "But you don't... You use an electric shaver."
Sherlock nodded, a smug smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Yes."
Oh, God.
======
They arrived at the village just before two. It looked like they'd entered the tundra, and the ice crackled under their tyres as they drove slowly up the High Street. They ended up having to ask for directions to the B&B at a pub; it turned out the hand-lettered sign signalling the turnoff had been obscured by a cap of snow.
The house was narrow and rustic, and their rooms - Sherlock had indeed booked two - were up in what must once have been the attic. They each had a tiny en suite toilet and shower, and it looked like they would be the only guests for the night. It was on the tip of John's tongue to say they'd only need one room after all, but he figured they'd end up having to pay for two anyway, and it would just make for complications and discussions in front of the landlord. Besides, who knew what would happen between now and this evening?
Sherlock only gave John enough time to deposit his bag in his room and use the lav before insisting they set off for the lake.
About fifteen minutes outside of the village, they left the car at the side of the road, half in an icy ditch, and made their way across an open field. It was still bitterly cold, and the brittle, frozen grass crunched under their feet. John, of course, was carrying the wheelchair, while Sherlock directed them by means of his phone's GPS.
When they reached a waist-high stone wall, Sherlock easily vaulted over and hurried on without waiting.
"A little help, Sherlock?" John said as he tried to heave the wheelchair over without letting it fall.
"No time, John! We don't have much daylight left!" Sherlock called back over his shoulder.
John considered - not very seriously - what would happen if he turned around and went back to the car. But of course he wasn't about to do that. He was too interested in seeing the solution to the puzzle.
Several minutes later, John had managed to get both himself and the chair over the wall, but not without a considerable amount of snow ending up inside his shoes. Luckily, Sherlock was still within sight, standing with his back to John and surveying the landscape.
As John came closer, he realised that what he had thought was just more open meadow was in fact the frozen surface of a small lake. Some distance away from the shore, the skeleton of a tree drooped forlornly, alone in the icy expanse.
"So, this is it?" John asked as he set the wheelchair down. He was panting from the effort of carrying it, and sweating slightly under his collar.
Sherlock turned to him with a triumphant expression. "It's frozen, John," he whispered.
John nodded and licked his dried-out lips. "Yep." That it was. No doubt.
"Don't you see?" Sherlock jabbed an arm impatiently at the lake. "It's frozen. It doesn't always freeze over. In fact, it hasn't since the year of the murder. And of course no one thought to check whether it froze that winter. Idiots."
John tried to piece together what Sherlock was getting at. "So, the lake was frozen when Biggs was killed."
"Yes, obviously! How else would Jones have been able to cross to the island?" Sherlock hopped down the embankment and kicked at the frozen surface of the lake. "Bring the chair down."
"What, you're-" It dawned on John what Sherlock was planning to do. "You can't- You don't know whether that ice will hold."
"I will in a moment, as soon as you bring that chair down."
"But you're- I mean, someone's going to have to sit- Oh, no." John crossed his arms. "Sherlock. No. Both of us must be heavier than Jones anyway."
"If it holds us, it will certainly have held him and Biggs."
"This still won't prove anything," John pointed out. "Even if the ice does hold us now, you don't know how thick it was that year."
"Then the police and the crown will have their work cut out for them," Sherlock said through his teeth. "But at least they'll have a way to place Jones at the scene. Now give me the chair!"
John knew that if he refused, Sherlock would just go ahead on his own, so he sighed and picked the wheelchair up again. "All right, but I'll be the one who sits in it," he said as he picked his way down the slope. That way, if the ice did crack, it wouldn't be Sherlock who went down.
John stepped carefully onto the blue-white surface of the lake. It was covered with a thin layer of snow, but felt solid enough. He put the chair down and set it up, locking the supports and footrests into place, before settling down onto the seat.
"How would Jones have got down onto the lake anyway?" John wondered. "You don't think Biggs carried him and the chair?"
"There's a paved footpath on the other side." Sherlock gestured vaguely to the far side of the lake.
John whipped around to stare at Sherlock. "Hang on, why didn't we go that way then?" He half suspected the answer was because that would have been too easy, but Sherlock just said, "We would have had to go past the house."
John groaned. "Let me guess. Jones doesn't know we're here."
"Of course not. Well, I did ask for permission to view the site, but he refused. Can't think why." Sherlock grinned.
John's reply - something about being shot for trespassing - was pre-empted by Sherlock giving the wheelchair a mighty push, sending it careening across the ice.
The sudden movement of cold air across his face knocked John's breath away, and it took a moment before he was able to recover enough to fumble for the wheels with his gloved hands in an attempt to take some control over his course. "Sherlock, what are you- Jesus, a little warning!"
Sherlock smirked. "You're the one who wanted to sit in the chair."
John was finally able to stop himself by dragging his feet over the ground. It took him a few tries, but he managed to get moving again by pushing the wheels with his hands. He clumsily manoeuvred the chair through a few curves, stopping and starting periodically, before heading back toward Sherlock, who was by now openly laughing at his antics.
"John, what are you doing? The island is that way."
John had an expression of determined concentration on his face. "Just getting the hang of this thing." He accelerated until he was just a couple of metres away from Sherlock, then turned abruptly, sending a small spray of shaved ice and snow onto Sherlock's coat.
"Childish," Sherlock drawled, but he reached over and shoved the chair again.
"Oh, fuck you. Fuck you very much," John said, laughing through his words, as he skidded away. This time, he recovered quickly, wheeled around and rolled toward Sherlock again, gaining momentum as he went. Instead of stopping, though, he reached out and pushed hard against Sherlock's hip as he went past. Sherlock stumbled, but didn't fall.
"All I need to do is step off the ice," Sherlock said. "You can't get me on the grass."
"Go ahead," John taunted him as he dragged his feet again to stop. "You can't get me then either." He set himself up again, facing Sherlock, and began slowly rolling toward him once more with a predatory look.
Sherlock feinted to one side, but John just shook his head, grinned, and continued bearing down. "Not going to fool me that easily, Holmes. I was a flanker on our casual team before I was deployed."
Sherlock waited, keeping his eyes fixed on the wheels, his hands twitching at his sides, until John was slightly more than an arm's length away and starting to reach for him. Immediately, Sherlock dove to the left, landed on his shoulder and rolled once, then came up behind John, who was still moving forward. Sherlock lunged toward the chair but ended up slipping on his patently inappropriate footwear and landed on one knee. He recovered before John was able to get turned around all the way, though, and got one hand on the back of the chair. The lopsided pressure, combined with John's attempts to turn, resulted in the chair tilting to one side and two of the wheels losing contact with the ground momentarily. It thunked back down onto the ice with a metallic sound.
"Sherlock, you- If I fall over," John spluttered before pressing his lips together. "All right. You've asked for it now." He backed off again and rolled some distance away from Sherlock. When he felt he was far enough to get a good momentum going, he set the chair in Sherlock's direction once more and started advancing.
Sherlock was on his feet again, breathing heavily and watching John with wary curiosity. He didn't try and second-guess John this time. In fact, once he saw that John was headed straight for him, he set his stance even more firmly, leaning slightly forward for good measure.
John was fairly certain that if he rammed him, he'd be able to take Sherlock down, but there was also a good chance that parts would be broken: either on him, Sherlock, or the chair. That wasn't his plan anyway. Instead, he got up as much speed as he could, his gloves - now wet from melted snow and ice - slipping over the wheel rims, and adjusted at the last possible second to just skim past Sherlock. He didn't even see Sherlock sneer at John's breaking off his attack; he was too focused on making a grab for the flapping edge of Sherlock's coat.
Sherlock, for his part, unwilling to give even a centimetre of ground and flush with premature triumph, failed to notice the hand lodging itself deep in his pocket until he was being yanked sideways. He tried to counterbalance and throw his weight in the opposite direction, but he had no traction, and only hastened his feet once again slipping out from underneath him. Unprepared as he was, he landed unluckily on his left elbow and bit his tongue hard.
There was a slow-motion moment then when John's forward momentum was abruptly halted, his arm stretched back to where he was still attached to Sherlock's coat; if he had disengaged his hand from the pocket right then, he probably would have got away with not much more than a slightly overextended shoulder. However, there was no time to react, his hand stayed where it was, and the chair slowly tipped backward. He hovered on two wheels for an interminable second, fully aware of what was about to happen but helpless to stop it.
"Shit," was all he got out before the air was knocked out of him when he landed flat on his back on the ice. His head punctuated the statement with a heavy thump.
There was absolute silence for the space of several heartbeats.
Then they both started to laugh. For a couple of minutes, anyone passing by the lake would have been excused for thinking they'd happened on a pack of hyenas. John finally had to curl to one side to have any hope of getting oxygen into his lungs. "Oh, oh God," he gasped, trying to draw breath between fits. "Jesus, are you- are you all right?" He turned his head from where he was lying to get a look at Sherlock, who was still chuckling deeply.
Sherlock touched a finger to his tongue. "I think I'm bleeding," he noted with a slight lisp.
This set John off again. It was a good minute before he was able to speak. "That was- What was that even about? Molly's going to kill us."
Sherlock smiled at him. "No, she won't."
John looked up at the empty sky, grinning like a fool. "You're right." He huffed out a few last amused breaths, then started to untangle himself from the chair. "Seriously though, are you all right?" He prodded carefully at the back of his own head where it had hit the ice.
Sherlock sat up and bent his elbow experimentally. "Fine," he concluded. "You?" He glanced over at John, who was getting stiffly to his feet.
"Yeah, just got the wind knocked out of me," John said, coughing lightly as if to prove the point. He waved a hand. "It's fine."
John got the wheelchair righted and after a brief inspection deemed it to be miraculously undamaged, aside from some scratches on the back.
"Still, you'd better leave the steering to me," Sherlock said once John was seated again. He stood behind the wheelchair and grasped the handles.
"Right, because that's worked out so well so far," John retorted and tried to turn the wheels to get away.
"Maybe it would if you'd give me a chance," Sherlock said. His voice had an edge to it that gave John pause. Sherlock was only talking about pushing the wheelchair... wasn't he? John twisted his neck around to look up at him.
"What do you-" he started, then stopped when he saw the way Sherlock had his lips pressed together, his gaze fixed down at a spot on the ice. John waited, his toes slowly turning numb.
Finally, Sherlock said, in a low voice, "Neither of us can predict what will happen, John. I'm reasonably certain we'll be all right, but there are no guarantees. I'd like to-" Sherlock crouched down and put his hands on the arm rest so that he was on eye level with John. "John, you sat in the chair," Sherlock appealed to him.
John studied Sherlock's face for some clue as to what he was getting at. "Yeees, I did," he said slowly.
"You sat in the chair, and now you won't let me push."
John was about to start laughing, because when did Sherlock turn into a whingy five-year-old? One side of his mouth was already quirked upward when it hit him what this was about. Sherlock was asking John to trust him, and not just with the chair. How many times had they been on the cusp of something over the past few months, and John had pulled back? How many looks and touches had John engaged in, how many invitations had he accepted, only to run away before the moment of truth?
A not altogether unpleasant fluttering made itself known in his belly. This is what he had decided he wanted. He just had to let it happen. He had to stop blocking himself from feeling what he already knew he was feeling. He had to allow himself to … maybe get hurt, but maybe have the best experience of his entire life. And the relatively short time he'd been involved with Sherlock (however you wanted to define that) had already been a series of bests.
He licked his lips and nodded. "Okay." He took his hands off the wheels and laid them in his lap. "Okay," he repeated, more steadily.
A genuine smile spread over Sherlock's face. "Don't worry, John," he said as he straightened up and took his place behind the chair again. "This is going to be fun. Hold on!"
Part Five (2nd half)
Author:
swissmargBeta reader: LaDolceMia on AO3
Rating: R
Characters: John/Sherlock.
Word count: 14,850. Haha, oops.
Summary: Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the service of a case.
Warnings: Full male nudity, PTSD, possibly inaccurate medical information, roughhousing
Disclaimer: The original Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and are now in the public domain. The BBC version upon which this story is based was created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. This is a transformative fanwork which was created solely for fun, not material gain.
Notes: Many thanks to the indomitable LaDolceMia for advice and ego stroking. I hope this rounds things out for everyone, and thank you, dear readers, for sticking it out!
Part One - The Dehydrator
Part Two - The Plutonium Pellets
Part Three - The Resiniferatoxin
Part Four - The CLAN
Note Part Five is posted in two parts because it is too long for one LJ post.
Part Five – The Pond
"What does he need a wheelchair for?" Molly whispered to John. Her breath wafted out in a fine white cloud and she shivered in her thin lab coat. They were standing outside the service entrance to the morgue at Bart's. The sun had barely risen and the sky was overcast, making everything pale and grey.
John frowned through chattering teeth at the sight of Sherlock trying to force the bulky metal contraption into the hatchback of an orange and black Fortwo. "I've no idea," he said resignedly. Sherlock had woken him up at an indecent hour, more properly night than morning, with the news that they were heading north as soon as the car hire on Marylebone Road opened, to pack an overnight bag, and that he'd explain the case on the way.
"I should know better than to ask," Molly sighed. She wasn't working today, but she'd come down at Sherlock's summons just as readily as John had. "Um, Sherlock?" she said hesitantly. "You will bring that back in one piece, won't you?"
It honestly didn't look like the wheelchair was even going to make it out of the driveway intact, not the way Sherlock was applying his weight to it.
"They do fold up, you know," John commented.
"Are you referring to the chair or the car?" Sherlock sniped. "I told you we needed a bigger one."
"This is what we can afford," John replied calmly. They hadn't received payment for a case since the one from Mycroft a month ago. Mr Agarwal had said he'd send a cheque as soon as it was approved by the CLAN's board, but God knew how long that would take, and John had incurred additional expenses when he'd broken his lease and moved back in with Sherlock. Basically, they were running on empty.
"You never used to be so hung up on money," Sherlock grumbled as he poked aggressively at the recalcitrant chair.
"No, I did. That's why you started taking cases from my blog, remember?" John took a big sip of the coffee he'd grabbed from the cafe across the street.
"Maybe you should start writing it again, then." Sherlock scowled, then turned halfway to eye John with suspicion. "Why haven't you?"
John shrugged. "Mycroft wouldn't let me write about that one we had last month." It was true, but that wasn't the real reason. The real reason was, John was afraid of drawing attention again. He didn't want to give the Moriartys of the world any more information about their life.
Sherlock scoffed. "Oh yes: radioactive spill, national security. I can hear him now."
"Wait- What?" Molly said, her eyes darting between John and Sherlock with a hesitant smile, as if she wasn't sure whether he was joking. "There was a radioactive spill?"
"All contained, Molly, nothing to worry about," Sherlock said and closed the hatch firmly, having finally subdued the wheelchair. "Get in, John. We've a long drive ahead of us." He walked around to the passenger side and twitched his coat around his legs before squeezing himself in.
"Where are you going then?" Molly asked.
"Up north," John said. "Apparently it's cold enough now." Minus twenty that morning, after a solid two weeks of temperatures below zero, Sherlock had gleefully informed him.
Molly giggled nervously. "Have fun?"
John slid in behind the steering wheel and tucked his coffee into the cup holder. "How could we possibly have anything but?" he said dryly, and started the engine.
======
John tried to keep an eye on the road as he yawned broadly. He'd barely slept the night before.
It seemed like everything was happening so fast since that night in December when he'd started going on cases with Sherlock again. Their fragile re-acquaintance had snowballed into nude embraces and playacting at being boyfriends, which very much hadn't felt like playacting by the end of last night.
When Sherlock had first come back, John had tried to maintain a respectful distance as they'd awkwardly renegotiated where they stood with each other. He had been careful not to initiate anything that Sherlock didn't really want, but as with all things Sherlock, the boundaries were nebulous, and over the course of the past month or so, it had become fairly clear that Sherlock was at least interested. Perhaps even frustrated at John's lack of reciprocation. What it boiled down to was, at this point, it was more a question of what John wanted.
Back when John had thought his affections led down a one-way street, he'd adjusted pretty quickly to the fact that he had romantic feelings for a man. It wasn't like anything would ever come of it. Far from languishing in unrequited love, in fact, he'd been quite content with knowing that he was, as far as he could tell, the only person of significance in Sherlock's life. He didn't feel guilty, either – not exactly, anyway – when he dated other people. After all, Sherlock clearly wasn't interested in him in that way, and Sherlock had always been accepting, after his own fashion, of John's girlfriends.
Looking back now, John had to admit that Sherlock had probably been jealous, at least of the time that John spent with those women, and maybe even of the affection and attention he directed at them. But he had never demanded that John stop seeing them, hadn't threatened to move out or evict John over it. Had never issued a 'me or them' ultimatum. And John had never formed an attachment with any of them deep enough to require a painful choice.
Maybe those two facts were connected.
However, once John realised that this ... thing between them might be an actual ... thing, could become an actual thing with lips and tongues and arses and cocks – not that John was in any way put off by any of those, in any combination whatsoever; in fact, he was quite intrigued by several of the permutations – but once hearts were racing, hormones were surging, and developments were developing, John's proverbial fan had shut itself down before any shit could hit it.
Because, really, he and Sherlock: this was not a good idea.
Until it was.
Because last night, pretending to be Sherlock's boyfriend, he'd realised something: he and Sherlock were already in a committed relationship.
John might flirt with and be attracted to women, but he wasn't ever going to abandon Sherlock for one of them. That had become clear over the course of their first eighteen-month stint together, and even more so through the string of half-hearted dates he'd gone one since Sherlock had returned.
Last night, as he'd lain sleepless in bed, he'd tried to imagine living apart from Sherlock again. It had made his chest hurt. He'd thought about what would happen if he contacted Jen from the naturist club and asked her out. He was certain she'd say yes. But now he also knew that Sherlock wouldn't like it. And that was enough to stop him. Not that Sherlock would try and control him (well, he'd make snide remarks about her intelligence and pretend to forget her name, which amounted to the same thing, come to think of it), but the point was that John didn't want to do anything that would hurt Sherlock in that manner.
So, he was for all intents and purposes already pledging fidelity to Sherlock, even if they never slept together.
John glanced over at Sherlock, certain that his train of thought was screamingly obvious, but Sherlock was poking at his phone, holding it at various angles as if trying to find better reception. Honestly, the thing was practically a security blanket, John thought fondly before returning his eyes to the road and his thoughts to their current situation, which was unerringly heading in one specific direction.
Because regardless of how annoyed they might get at each other (and John was under no illusions that he didn't annoy Sherlock from time to time at least as much as Sherlock annoyed him), they were both happier together than apart. They shared a mutual affection (John wasn't sure exactly how far Sherlock's affection for him extended, but it was probably a safe bet that he felt more deeply for John than for anyone else he wasn't related to). They were good for each other - or at least, they were more good for each other than they were bad for each other.
The question was, would adding sex to their repertoire change any of that?
From John's point of view, sex had, up to now, always been a good idea. He'd never had a relationship ruined by having sex. Lack of sex, yes. Lack of commitment. Lack of emotional investment. Lack of common interests. Lack of interest full stop, for that matter. Lack of shared goals.
As John ticked off the reasons for each of his past failed relationships, he realised with a mixture of trepidation and cautious hopefulness that he and Sherlock would pass on each and every point.
Oh, John knew that good, solid friendships had been known to fall apart when the people involved decided to sleep together. But in his experience, that was because expectations changed. One or the other person wanted to spend more time together, or get married, or thought they now had a say in who their partner associated with, or felt that blow jobs were currency to be traded against housework, or expected to hear declarations of affection every day.
Again, John was under no illusions regarding any of those points, and he didn't imagine that Sherlock would be, either.
When all was said and done, he couldn't deny that they had a strong physical attraction. John didn't know if it was pheromones or a result of his long dry spell or something much more Freudian, or really, just the plain and simple natural consequence of having fallen in love, but the physical desires he (and, apparently, Sherlock) were experiencing had reached a crisis point. It was starting to affect both their friendship and their working relationship in a negative way. John could barely look Sherlock in the eye anymore. He couldn't focus properly on his job or their cases, and he suspected Sherlock was suffering in the same manner, if to a lesser degree. It was clear that things couldn't continue like this.
The thing was, how did you come out and say you were pretty much over your sexual identity crisis and wanted to have a bit of a ride?
John looked over at Sherlock. He had stopped playing with his phone and was staring out the side window, one hand tapping nervously against his wedged-in knees. He had pushed the seat as far back as it would go, but it wasn't quite far enough to accommodate his legs, due to the wheelchair behind them.
"You want to stop for a bit? " John offered.
Sherlock frowned. "Don't tell me you're hungry already."
"I just thought – I don't know, you could stretch your legs or something."
"I'm fine," Sherlock said in that tone of voice that meant he was very much not fine. It wasn't his demanding 'I'm bored' tone or his exasperated 'you're an idiot' tone or even his sham-cheerful 'bugger off' tone. It was low and tight and it made John want to shake him by the collar until he owned up to what was going on.
John drove on in silence for another couple of hundred metres, then on impulse reached over and covered Sherlock's tapping fingers with his.
Sherlock glanced at him in irritation. "What?"
John took a breath. "Nothing, I just..." He squeezed Sherlock's hand gently. "Okay?" His heart was beating very fast and he kept his eyes straight ahead on the road.
Sherlock didn't reply for a moment, but he didn't take his hand away either. "Okay," he said finally, softly.
John's stomach swooped. He smiled and chanced another glance at Sherlock, but he had his head turned to the side again.
It was another five kilometres before Sherlock turned his hand over to grasp John's in return.
Jesus, John thought, as his cock stirred; he hadn't been this turned on by holding hands since he was fourteen.
"So, um," John ventured, acutely aware of his hand beginning to sweat despite the fact that the heater was just barely able to raise the temperature in the car from frigid to nippy, "why don't you tell me what we're doing." He felt Sherlock tense briefly, and realised what that had sounded like. "With the case," he clarified. "And the-" He jerked his head toward the rear of the car.
Sherlock shifted, angling his body back against the door so that he was half turned toward John, but didn't let go of his hand. "It happened a few years ago. A couple of teenagers snuck onto a private estate for a swim in the lake and found a badly decomposed body on an island in the middle of it. Well, I say island, but it's just a bit of land with a weeping willow and some scrub. There's barely room to stand. Forensics found evidence of cytolysis consistent with freezing, placing the body there at least since the previous winter."
John nodded and rubbed his thumb against Sherlock's hand to show he understood.
"I take it it wasn't simply a case of accidental death by exposure," John said.
Sherlock shook his head. "He was shot in the chest. The bullet was recovered, lodged in the tree, along with the rifle, lying near the body. There's no question that the shooting took place there and that it was set up to look like a suicide."
"But of course it wasn't."
"Obviously," Sherlock scoffed. "Even the local police saw that. It would have been a fairly open and shut case at that. The rifle belonged to the estate owner, a man by the name of Jones, and the victim was one of his employees, Robert Biggs. It was common knowledge in the village that the two men had a long-standing disagreement about the running of the estate. And Jones had shot at trespassers before."
"Could it be a case of mistaken identity? Jones mistook his employee for a trespasser and shot him, panicked when he realised what he'd done, and tried to make it look like a suicide?"
"Or wanted it to look like that, when in fact it was planned all along. That way, even if he did get caught, it would be the difference between a charge of manslaughter and murder."
"So, clever?" John asked hopefully. Sherlock needed something to challenge him after the string of disappointments their last few cases had been.
"Oh, it's more than that." John was pleased to hear the hint of excitement in Sherlock's voice, accompanied by a tightening of his fingers around John's. "You see, Mr Jones couldn't possibly have done it. That's why he's never been charged, even with manslaughter. But of course he did do it, which is the brilliant part."
John grinned. "How do you know?"
"Because the murder took place on that island. There was no conceivable reason for either of them to be there. If it had simply been a matter of wanting to commit the murder in an isolated place and keep the body from being found, there are any number of places less exposed than the lake. The local kids sneak in all the time. Ergo, there was another reason for being on that island. And the reason was, because it would completely remove Jones from the list of possible suspects."
Now John was becoming intrigued. "Why?"
Rather than answering straight out, Sherlock countered with a question of his own: "How did they get to the island?"
John obviously didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of figuring out the answer, but Sherlock was waiting for him to play the straight man, so he obliged.
"Boat?"
"There are no boats on the lake, never have been," Sherlock answered with glee. "Yes, it's possible that he brought in a boat and got rid of it afterwards, but he would have needed an accomplice. I forgot to mention, Jones was eighty-three years old at the time of the murder and has been in a wheelchair since contracting polio at age fourteen. He was also in no physical condition to swim, much less drag a fourteen-stone man to the island with him. So, due to the fact that it was quite impossible to place him on the island for the murder, he's gone uncharged."
Ah. That began to explain why they were hauling a wheelchair with them, although John didn't quite see yet what they were going to do with it.
"Right," John said, "and there was no accomplice because..."
"Immaterial," Sherlock said, waving his free hand. "They couldn't have used a boat anyway."
"Why not?"
Sherlock gave John a mysterious look. "That is exactly what we are going to see."
John chuckled and shook his head good-naturedly. He knew it would be useless to try and get Sherlock to reveal his theory before he was good and ready to. Instead, he gave Sherlock's hand one last squeeze and returned both his hands to the wheel so he could concentrate on the traffic again, as they were coming up on a stretch of roadwork. All in all, this was shaping up to be a rather good day, despite the inauspicious start. Sherlock was mentally engaged, they were getting out of the city, there was absolutely no danger imminent, and they seemed to be moving toward a mutually pleasurable juncture in their relationship. And tonight...
Oh God, tonight.
His stomach gave a twinge of nervous anticipation. Sherlock had made a reservation at a B&B, as it might be late by the time they were done and it was a long drive. John wondered whether he'd booked one room or two. They'd had to share a room on more than one occasion before, but only when they were forced to by circumstances. John hardly thought that a bed and breakfast out in the back of beyond would be full in weather like this. So probably two rooms. Unless Sherlock had planned on... but no. Of course not. He'd certainly booked two rooms. Which was fine. Good. John would just see what happened. Let things take their course. And this time, he wouldn't stop them.
Oh, God.
They stopped shortly after twelve at a service area along the motorway. Sherlock only ordered a coffee at the little self-service restaurant, then proceeded to steal more than half of John's chips while deducing the other travellers. John laughed, and didn't move his foot away when Sherlock bumped into it when stretching his legs. Sherlock didn't move his foot away either. John could hardly meet Sherlock's eye without a ridiculous grin appearing on his face. Sherlock pretended not to notice.
After they finished eating, John browsed the racks in the travel shop while Sherlock went to the loo. Without any conscious thought to the matter, he found himself standing in front of the condoms with his heart in his throat. His eye ran over the little boxes of Durex, Mates, the familiar Pasante brand they stocked at the surgery. Were there special gay condoms? John realised he had no idea. But what he did know they'd need was... yes, there, the shop even carried lubricant. And oh God, again, he had no idea. Pleasure Waves or Life Styles? Was it the same kind for men and women? He knew that oil-based was bad, but were the ingredients listed on the box?
The reality of the situation suddenly loomed large and in overly sharp focus. Was he really going to do this? He wanted to be close to Sherlock, he wanted to share physical intimacy with him - Jesus, just the thought of it now was making his chest tingle and his groin throb - but he didn't want it to be like his first few less than stunning performances with a woman. Oh, it had felt fantastic, and he thought his girlfriend at the time had mostly enjoyed it too, but it had been messy and awkward and he was nursing something of an inferiority complex regarding Sherlock already. He didn't need to worry about bad sex on top of everything else. Of course, they didn't have to jump right into intercourse. Not tonight, anyway. They hadn't even kissed yet. Although maybe Sherlock wanted to. Have penetrative sex, that is. If Sherlock were a woman, they'd probably be having sex tonight. After all the buildup over the past few weeks, now that the admission had been made (hadn't it? Had John made it clear enough yet, with the touches and the looks?), it would be only natural.
John was well on his way to a minor nervous breakdown when he heard Sherlock's voice: "Ready?" He was standing immediately behind John, his body brushing against John's back.
John started and redirected his gaze to the next shelf down. His heart was hammering so hard he was certain the movement was visible, even through his jacket. "Erm, yes," he stammered, "thought I'd … Razors." His hand darted out and grabbed a plastic-wrapped packet.
"That's not your brand," Sherlock said, amused.
"Well, it's just one day, I think I'll survive." John stepped away from Sherlock, ready to beat a hasty retreat to the till, before he realised he was doing exactly what he'd told himself he wasn't going to do anymore. He stopped, took a breath, and turned back to Sherlock with a tentative smile. "Coming?"
Sherlock let his gaze flick once over the display, then followed John.
"I would have had one you could use," Sherlock said once they were outside again, on their way to the car.
"Sorry?"
Sherlock looked pointedly down at the package in John's hand. "A … razor. You could have used one of mine."
John frowned. "But you don't... You use an electric shaver."
Sherlock nodded, a smug smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Yes."
Oh, God.
======
They arrived at the village just before two. It looked like they'd entered the tundra, and the ice crackled under their tyres as they drove slowly up the High Street. They ended up having to ask for directions to the B&B at a pub; it turned out the hand-lettered sign signalling the turnoff had been obscured by a cap of snow.
The house was narrow and rustic, and their rooms - Sherlock had indeed booked two - were up in what must once have been the attic. They each had a tiny en suite toilet and shower, and it looked like they would be the only guests for the night. It was on the tip of John's tongue to say they'd only need one room after all, but he figured they'd end up having to pay for two anyway, and it would just make for complications and discussions in front of the landlord. Besides, who knew what would happen between now and this evening?
Sherlock only gave John enough time to deposit his bag in his room and use the lav before insisting they set off for the lake.
About fifteen minutes outside of the village, they left the car at the side of the road, half in an icy ditch, and made their way across an open field. It was still bitterly cold, and the brittle, frozen grass crunched under their feet. John, of course, was carrying the wheelchair, while Sherlock directed them by means of his phone's GPS.
When they reached a waist-high stone wall, Sherlock easily vaulted over and hurried on without waiting.
"A little help, Sherlock?" John said as he tried to heave the wheelchair over without letting it fall.
"No time, John! We don't have much daylight left!" Sherlock called back over his shoulder.
John considered - not very seriously - what would happen if he turned around and went back to the car. But of course he wasn't about to do that. He was too interested in seeing the solution to the puzzle.
Several minutes later, John had managed to get both himself and the chair over the wall, but not without a considerable amount of snow ending up inside his shoes. Luckily, Sherlock was still within sight, standing with his back to John and surveying the landscape.
As John came closer, he realised that what he had thought was just more open meadow was in fact the frozen surface of a small lake. Some distance away from the shore, the skeleton of a tree drooped forlornly, alone in the icy expanse.
"So, this is it?" John asked as he set the wheelchair down. He was panting from the effort of carrying it, and sweating slightly under his collar.
Sherlock turned to him with a triumphant expression. "It's frozen, John," he whispered.
John nodded and licked his dried-out lips. "Yep." That it was. No doubt.
"Don't you see?" Sherlock jabbed an arm impatiently at the lake. "It's frozen. It doesn't always freeze over. In fact, it hasn't since the year of the murder. And of course no one thought to check whether it froze that winter. Idiots."
John tried to piece together what Sherlock was getting at. "So, the lake was frozen when Biggs was killed."
"Yes, obviously! How else would Jones have been able to cross to the island?" Sherlock hopped down the embankment and kicked at the frozen surface of the lake. "Bring the chair down."
"What, you're-" It dawned on John what Sherlock was planning to do. "You can't- You don't know whether that ice will hold."
"I will in a moment, as soon as you bring that chair down."
"But you're- I mean, someone's going to have to sit- Oh, no." John crossed his arms. "Sherlock. No. Both of us must be heavier than Jones anyway."
"If it holds us, it will certainly have held him and Biggs."
"This still won't prove anything," John pointed out. "Even if the ice does hold us now, you don't know how thick it was that year."
"Then the police and the crown will have their work cut out for them," Sherlock said through his teeth. "But at least they'll have a way to place Jones at the scene. Now give me the chair!"
John knew that if he refused, Sherlock would just go ahead on his own, so he sighed and picked the wheelchair up again. "All right, but I'll be the one who sits in it," he said as he picked his way down the slope. That way, if the ice did crack, it wouldn't be Sherlock who went down.
John stepped carefully onto the blue-white surface of the lake. It was covered with a thin layer of snow, but felt solid enough. He put the chair down and set it up, locking the supports and footrests into place, before settling down onto the seat.
"How would Jones have got down onto the lake anyway?" John wondered. "You don't think Biggs carried him and the chair?"
"There's a paved footpath on the other side." Sherlock gestured vaguely to the far side of the lake.
John whipped around to stare at Sherlock. "Hang on, why didn't we go that way then?" He half suspected the answer was because that would have been too easy, but Sherlock just said, "We would have had to go past the house."
John groaned. "Let me guess. Jones doesn't know we're here."
"Of course not. Well, I did ask for permission to view the site, but he refused. Can't think why." Sherlock grinned.
John's reply - something about being shot for trespassing - was pre-empted by Sherlock giving the wheelchair a mighty push, sending it careening across the ice.
The sudden movement of cold air across his face knocked John's breath away, and it took a moment before he was able to recover enough to fumble for the wheels with his gloved hands in an attempt to take some control over his course. "Sherlock, what are you- Jesus, a little warning!"
Sherlock smirked. "You're the one who wanted to sit in the chair."
John was finally able to stop himself by dragging his feet over the ground. It took him a few tries, but he managed to get moving again by pushing the wheels with his hands. He clumsily manoeuvred the chair through a few curves, stopping and starting periodically, before heading back toward Sherlock, who was by now openly laughing at his antics.
"John, what are you doing? The island is that way."
John had an expression of determined concentration on his face. "Just getting the hang of this thing." He accelerated until he was just a couple of metres away from Sherlock, then turned abruptly, sending a small spray of shaved ice and snow onto Sherlock's coat.
"Childish," Sherlock drawled, but he reached over and shoved the chair again.
"Oh, fuck you. Fuck you very much," John said, laughing through his words, as he skidded away. This time, he recovered quickly, wheeled around and rolled toward Sherlock again, gaining momentum as he went. Instead of stopping, though, he reached out and pushed hard against Sherlock's hip as he went past. Sherlock stumbled, but didn't fall.
"All I need to do is step off the ice," Sherlock said. "You can't get me on the grass."
"Go ahead," John taunted him as he dragged his feet again to stop. "You can't get me then either." He set himself up again, facing Sherlock, and began slowly rolling toward him once more with a predatory look.
Sherlock feinted to one side, but John just shook his head, grinned, and continued bearing down. "Not going to fool me that easily, Holmes. I was a flanker on our casual team before I was deployed."
Sherlock waited, keeping his eyes fixed on the wheels, his hands twitching at his sides, until John was slightly more than an arm's length away and starting to reach for him. Immediately, Sherlock dove to the left, landed on his shoulder and rolled once, then came up behind John, who was still moving forward. Sherlock lunged toward the chair but ended up slipping on his patently inappropriate footwear and landed on one knee. He recovered before John was able to get turned around all the way, though, and got one hand on the back of the chair. The lopsided pressure, combined with John's attempts to turn, resulted in the chair tilting to one side and two of the wheels losing contact with the ground momentarily. It thunked back down onto the ice with a metallic sound.
"Sherlock, you- If I fall over," John spluttered before pressing his lips together. "All right. You've asked for it now." He backed off again and rolled some distance away from Sherlock. When he felt he was far enough to get a good momentum going, he set the chair in Sherlock's direction once more and started advancing.
Sherlock was on his feet again, breathing heavily and watching John with wary curiosity. He didn't try and second-guess John this time. In fact, once he saw that John was headed straight for him, he set his stance even more firmly, leaning slightly forward for good measure.
John was fairly certain that if he rammed him, he'd be able to take Sherlock down, but there was also a good chance that parts would be broken: either on him, Sherlock, or the chair. That wasn't his plan anyway. Instead, he got up as much speed as he could, his gloves - now wet from melted snow and ice - slipping over the wheel rims, and adjusted at the last possible second to just skim past Sherlock. He didn't even see Sherlock sneer at John's breaking off his attack; he was too focused on making a grab for the flapping edge of Sherlock's coat.
Sherlock, for his part, unwilling to give even a centimetre of ground and flush with premature triumph, failed to notice the hand lodging itself deep in his pocket until he was being yanked sideways. He tried to counterbalance and throw his weight in the opposite direction, but he had no traction, and only hastened his feet once again slipping out from underneath him. Unprepared as he was, he landed unluckily on his left elbow and bit his tongue hard.
There was a slow-motion moment then when John's forward momentum was abruptly halted, his arm stretched back to where he was still attached to Sherlock's coat; if he had disengaged his hand from the pocket right then, he probably would have got away with not much more than a slightly overextended shoulder. However, there was no time to react, his hand stayed where it was, and the chair slowly tipped backward. He hovered on two wheels for an interminable second, fully aware of what was about to happen but helpless to stop it.
"Shit," was all he got out before the air was knocked out of him when he landed flat on his back on the ice. His head punctuated the statement with a heavy thump.
There was absolute silence for the space of several heartbeats.
Then they both started to laugh. For a couple of minutes, anyone passing by the lake would have been excused for thinking they'd happened on a pack of hyenas. John finally had to curl to one side to have any hope of getting oxygen into his lungs. "Oh, oh God," he gasped, trying to draw breath between fits. "Jesus, are you- are you all right?" He turned his head from where he was lying to get a look at Sherlock, who was still chuckling deeply.
Sherlock touched a finger to his tongue. "I think I'm bleeding," he noted with a slight lisp.
This set John off again. It was a good minute before he was able to speak. "That was- What was that even about? Molly's going to kill us."
Sherlock smiled at him. "No, she won't."
John looked up at the empty sky, grinning like a fool. "You're right." He huffed out a few last amused breaths, then started to untangle himself from the chair. "Seriously though, are you all right?" He prodded carefully at the back of his own head where it had hit the ice.
Sherlock sat up and bent his elbow experimentally. "Fine," he concluded. "You?" He glanced over at John, who was getting stiffly to his feet.
"Yeah, just got the wind knocked out of me," John said, coughing lightly as if to prove the point. He waved a hand. "It's fine."
John got the wheelchair righted and after a brief inspection deemed it to be miraculously undamaged, aside from some scratches on the back.
"Still, you'd better leave the steering to me," Sherlock said once John was seated again. He stood behind the wheelchair and grasped the handles.
"Right, because that's worked out so well so far," John retorted and tried to turn the wheels to get away.
"Maybe it would if you'd give me a chance," Sherlock said. His voice had an edge to it that gave John pause. Sherlock was only talking about pushing the wheelchair... wasn't he? John twisted his neck around to look up at him.
"What do you-" he started, then stopped when he saw the way Sherlock had his lips pressed together, his gaze fixed down at a spot on the ice. John waited, his toes slowly turning numb.
Finally, Sherlock said, in a low voice, "Neither of us can predict what will happen, John. I'm reasonably certain we'll be all right, but there are no guarantees. I'd like to-" Sherlock crouched down and put his hands on the arm rest so that he was on eye level with John. "John, you sat in the chair," Sherlock appealed to him.
John studied Sherlock's face for some clue as to what he was getting at. "Yeees, I did," he said slowly.
"You sat in the chair, and now you won't let me push."
John was about to start laughing, because when did Sherlock turn into a whingy five-year-old? One side of his mouth was already quirked upward when it hit him what this was about. Sherlock was asking John to trust him, and not just with the chair. How many times had they been on the cusp of something over the past few months, and John had pulled back? How many looks and touches had John engaged in, how many invitations had he accepted, only to run away before the moment of truth?
A not altogether unpleasant fluttering made itself known in his belly. This is what he had decided he wanted. He just had to let it happen. He had to stop blocking himself from feeling what he already knew he was feeling. He had to allow himself to … maybe get hurt, but maybe have the best experience of his entire life. And the relatively short time he'd been involved with Sherlock (however you wanted to define that) had already been a series of bests.
He licked his lips and nodded. "Okay." He took his hands off the wheels and laid them in his lap. "Okay," he repeated, more steadily.
A genuine smile spread over Sherlock's face. "Don't worry, John," he said as he straightened up and took his place behind the chair again. "This is going to be fun. Hold on!"
Part Five (2nd half)
