Chapter Text
I expected to die, convinced my eyes would never enjoy the beauty of another Cordonian sunset. On the floor of a dusty warehouse surrounded by enemies, leaving behind the one person in the world I never wanted to leave, I was sure I'd found my last resting place. I lay there, partially preparing myself for the agony that was going to follow once the adrenaline rush passed, while the other part of me turned off a switch in my mind and engulfed me in darkness. I had hit my head pretty hard when I fell to the ground, which only added to my state of shock and general disorientation. Aside from my aching forearm and head, no pain came, but my mind refused to form a coherent thought, so I drew no conclusions from the fact alone. I was so disconnected from the reality around me that I couldn't tell if I hadn't died already. In those moments, I wasn't myself. I wasn't a person but a scared animal driven into a corner. I knew there was someone I cared for there with me, but his face slowly faded from my mind's eye. I believe I tried to cling to that thought - to the thought of him, but it slipped away like water between my fingers.
I felt I was being held upright while a hand wandered through my body. A strong odour filled my nostrils and made me grimace as I slowly dared open my eyes. It smelled like stone - stone that was melting and omitting a horrendous smell in its misery. It almost choked me. Black power, I thought, even though these two words had no specific meaning to me at that moment. And underneath the melting rocks, I smelled iron.
The first thing I saw was a face - a face beautiful but pallid and twisted from grief in a way that made my heart sink. The full lips were whispering something to me, but it took quite a lot of effort to connect the sounds I was hearing to words.
"Please," he was saying. "Please, Jon." Like a mantra, he was begging me to look at him, to say something, to come back to my senses. He held me upright with one arm, and my throbbing head leaned onto his shoulder. With the other free hand, he searched my body. His eyes were bloodshot and widened and filled with tears which occasionally ran down his cheeks, and they were eagerly following the movements of his fingers as they inspected my torso. He was searching for something - for a wound, I concluded. I would have released him from the torment much sooner had I known better. But I did not know better. "You will not die here, Jon, I promise, I swear to all that is holy, you will live-" frantic, even his very breath was trembling as it entered his lungs, and upon entering, it shook his entirety. The more I observed him, the more I knew this was not what he usually looked like. The distress didn't suit him as well as a cheeky smile on the lips.
"Sherry, the shooter- he is behind you!" It was suddenly dawning on me. That he was kneeling next to me with an armed killer on the loose. That there was no time to inspect my wounds; he needed to get the hell away! I tried to push him to the ground, but he did not budge. It was as if he hadn't heard me at all, completely lost in a trance, and my injured arm lacked the strength to move him an inch. "Get away, Sherry, you have to get away," my voice cracked. Again, nothing but his shaky hand, which grappled my shirt.
"Are you hurt? Aside from your arm, I can't see…"
"I don't think so, but please, the shooter-"
"That's good. It's good." I would have mistaken the sound for a chuckle had it not sounded so desperate. A deep sigh of relief came from his very core, and his body relaxed. I tried to animate him to move, to hide, to get away from this place, but instead, he pulled me close to his chest, cradling my head like a babe. "It's over," he whispered. "It's taken care of, Jon, it's over…"
"Sherry, what-"
"It's over. You are safe now."
I felt the strength leaving his body as he held me, and he kept repeating the same words over and over again, each time a little quieter than the one before. He was not being himself, but for the moment, I simply enjoyed his embrace. Being close to him felt like medicine for my soul after what had just happened.
But it didn't last long until I came to my senses entirely and understood what he had been saying all along. The silence around us betrayed it, and so did the strong smell of black power on him. "It's over," he'd said. He had meant it. The multiple gunshots I had heard had never missed me - they had never been aimed at me to begin with. My heart broke at that moment, but I had to look and see for myself, even if the strong smell of iron filled in the blanks.
And there it was - only a few steps away from where we were, a whole lake of blood had come into being. And in its middle lay the man who'd tried to kill me only a few minutes ago, lifeless. I couldn't stomach this view, but Sherry trembled so much, and how could I blame him? This horror in front of my eyes - it had happened for my sake. My eyes filled with tears, but I couldn't let him see. He was tortured by guilt already, even if he'd been given no other choice. I pulled him close - as close as my injured arm allowed me, and felt him further relax against me. He lay like a sparrow with broken wings in my arms.
"Sherlock, listen to me. You cannot blame yourself for this. Do you hear me?" I whispered in his ear, but he remained wordless. The strength had left his body entirely. "You had no other choice. He would have killed me. Blame me! I should have listened to you! Come on." I pushed him away from myself to have a look at him, but his eyes remained downcast. Every movement of my left arm hurt like hell, but I cupped his face with both hands and tried to force him to look at me. "I should have stayed at home and trusted you with this. This is not on you. Do you hear me?"
Finally, a reaction, but his gaze had glazed over in a way I disliked. Yet he was looking at me - looking at me for a while before he spoke. "I would do it again," he muttered, "If someone threatened you, I would do it again. I could never let anyone harm you." His lips formed a bitter smile, and his eyes closed again.
I didn't know how to respond. I shook my head and pulled him close once more. He rested against my shoulder immediately, seemingly too exhausted to stay upright for a second longer. "No, Sherry. I wouldn't want you to hurt anyone for me. But you never have to do this again. I will do better, I promise. I won't get in your way anymore. "
After a few moments of silence, he attempted to raise his head and turn back to look at the remains of that man, but my grip around him tightened, and he could no longer move. I knew he had to come to terms with it in his own way, but everything in me rejected the idea of letting him torment himself over something that wasn't his fault. And so many things that had happened to him weren't his fault - the thought made the pit in my stomach grow. "No, don't. I will get you out of here. You hear me? Let us get away from here. Let us get away and forget. We will go home, and everything will be alright again. Come on, Sherry." He didn't respond.
The following minutes remain blurry in my mind as well. I pulled him back on his feet, and although he didn't seem eager to move, he did not protest either. Together, we headed to a door on the right side, but we were both moving in a nightmare-like state - I suspected he had shut down entirely for most of it. Bernadotti's remaining henchmen did not regain consciousness before we left the large warehouse and found ourselves in much fancier-looking rooms - in this regard, we were quite lucky. There were people in the new place as well, but they seemed frightened and did not stand in our way - something neither of us felt like commenting on, but I felt Sherlock tense up against me. Soon, the entrance to Bernadotti's company stood large in front of us, but instead of leaving this hellhole behind, Sherlock hesitated. He insisted on talking to the man who owned this place - he said he had gone there to finish the case, and leaving without doing so was not an option. I understood his reasons, but I was worried for him. I didn't think he was capable of having a discussion with anyone. Still, I agreed and followed him to the man's office.
Despite my worst fears, Bernadotti didn't seem to care a lot about the man my friend had killed. I know I should have been happy that we'd be let off easy, but it upset me - the lack of care for the deceased felt inhumane, and even though I prayed Sherry would forget the events as soon as possible for his own sake, at that moment, I was glad that he wasn't as callous as to brush them off like the man's boss. He ended up striking a deal with the businessman - one which was supposed to benefit Neila the most, and then we left.
And that was the end of it - of our first case together since my transformation. Or it should have been the end had things not gone so terribly wrong, but of course, neither of us was going to forget this day for some time.
We took a rickshaw to our home. Neither of us felt like speaking, yet I kept watching Sherry at all times. The events had taken a great toll on him, and I wished I could undo them. I wished I could make him forget, but alas. I was powerless. Despite my new physical body and my new way of living, which I generally considered to be good things, I felt more powerless than I had ever felt in my entire existence. It frightened me to know I could no longer shield him from harm in the only way I knew, that I was now a limited person who could only offer him words of consolation and a hug - both of which did not seem to reach him at the moment. It was almost like my new form had become a barrier which separated us, making it impossible for me to touch his soul in a way that had once been my privilege. I could no longer be what I had always been meant to be.
I don't know why I hadn't noticed this before - that I couldn't feel what he felt. I looked at him, read his expressions, and made assumptions about the thoughts that went through his mind, but aside from this empathy, which is typical for most humans, I no longer felt his feelings inside me. I still felt sadness when I saw it written on his face. Only, it was my sadness now. I no longer felt it because I was a part of him, and he - a part of me, but rather because I hated seeing him sad.
It terrified me. It made me feel disconnected from him. As a new human, any form of disconnection was unwelcome - every little change I noticed in myself and in the way we related to each other frightened me to my core. And at that moment, when he needed me most, the disconnection became an unbearable burden.
I was still bleeding profusely. I was hurting in multiple places. Had I not been there on that day, he wouldn't have shot a man for me - these thoughts kept rushing in, and all of a sudden, I couldn't see why I had wanted to become real in the first place. I had been quite naive and never considered the damage this transformation would do to our lives, but I couldn't go back now. I could only sit next to him and watch his deep sorrow without being able to help him.
"Please, say something," I pleaded. Whether he heard me or not, he did not move for a while, and I believed I would go mad. Hopelessness clawed at my soul. If shooting a man - a bandit who had wanted to kill us - weighed on him so heavily, then how was he supposed to handle the truth he so hoped to discover? And how was I to help him through the pain that awaited him?
"You must not think that I regret it, Jon. I simply wished it hadn't come to this." He had placed a hand on my shoulder. Without realising it, I had hidden my face in my palms, which must have alarmed him. I have never been very good at concealing my feelings, and I was feeling only despair and complete devastation back then. I felt him slip away from me, going somewhere I could no longer follow. And I regretted it - I regretted ever wanting to become a being separate from him, for he was my home.
"Yeah, I know." My voice cracked again and I straightened my back. He wanted to reply something, but our rickshaw had stopped - we had arrived home.
"Let us go and bandage that arm of yours, shall we? It seems the bullet has passed right through it." He gave me a sympathetic smile and a pat on the back. Always the strong one, always the prideful one. I did not believe for a second that he was feeling better so suddenly, but my visible distress had animated him to act like it.
I hated it, but I could say nothing. He wasn't wired that way - he would not budge under pressure even if I confronted him and begged him to open up. I could only nod and exit the vehicle while hoping this day hadn't traumatised him for life.
"We'll get through this together. I promise." It was all I could give him back then. And while I was still terrified, I tried my best to believe it.