Chapter Text
A cloud of warm air arose from my lips and disappeared into the grey of the cool September dawn. Cordona was sleeping soundly - only the echoing steps of the early dockworkers betrayed that we weren't all alone on its streets. Stretching my stiffened neck, I inhaled the cool air while wishing I'd had the chance to rest a little before having to welcome another day. My head was buzzing with sounds that hadn't been there a few hours ago; I couldn't chase them away. A pair of haggard cats fought over a stale piece of bread right in front of us. After a while, a man in a blue nightgown threw a glass bottle out of his window to shoo them, and it ended up shattering loudly only a few feet away from where we stood. Exaggerated by my exhaustion, the sound put a strain on my ears and mind, and I groaned in displeasure.
But my discomfort, albeit not small, wasn't a match for what the young man next to me seemed to be going through. The feeling of dread had distorted his features so much that he appeared to have aged by a decade overnight. I had no doubt in my heart that, after hours upon hours of talking sense into him, I had convinced him to do the only right thing. Still, he looked so defeated that I took no pleasure in feeling right at that moment. Every step he took, he took as if walking the path to the noose, and no words of consolation could take away his fear. I saved mine - I was feeling sore from all the talking either way – my vocabulary entirely spent.
Fabio...
Once we had left the manor through a back door I had missed on my way in, we'd rushed to the small room he owned near Harbour Ave. I didn't go there freely, but the knife in his hand motivated me greatly not to resist too much. After we sneaked into his home, he locked the door and buried the key in the pocket of the robe I'd stolen from Manchios' wardrobe and handed over to him to cover himself. Then, he took a seat on the floor, blocking the exit. The knife didn't leave his hand, so provoking him by screaming for help wasn't an option, even if I doubted he'd actually harm me.
And like this, I became his prisoner for the following hours. At first, he ignored my attempts to convince him to let me go. Still, it didn't take long for him to acknowledge that running away was not a sensible option. Over the course of the night, he opened up more and more, revealing his reasons for having second thoughts on abandoning everything despite his initial and very rushed reaction to flee the crime scene. He told me there was a young woman he couldn't leave behind, but he also didn't want her to live on the run, for they'd already done that. And that they had been through too much together to part ways like this over a crime that wasn't one. After the shock of what had happened progressively faded away, Fabio recognised how guilty running would make him look and how he'd never be able to return to this place he'd learned to see as a home in one way or another.
I, for my part, told him about Sherry - about all the cases we'd solved together and the justice we'd brought to Cordona on so many occasions. I told him that neither of us would let anything happen to an innocent person. I swore on my life that I'd take his case to the government (and with that, I meant Mycroft) if that's what it took to make sure that he never saw the inside of a prison cell.
Hour after hour, his resolve to do something foolish and rushed crumbled. Oddly enough, my words became more and more confident through the course of that night and by the time he finally let go of the knife, I had almost forgotten that I wasn't a real person but an anomaly acting like one. I suppose being thrown into the cold water like this helps us all, real or not, adapt faster.
By the time we finally left his place to tell the police what had happened, a new day had begun. But if seeing the blue police barriers placed around the entrance of Kurt Manchios' debauchery manor didn't surprise me a lot, considering the corpse we'd left behind, the news that all guests had been arrested made the blood in me run cold.
The image of Sherry in a cell, treated like a vile criminal - it was unbearable.
Eventually, we ended up on the street facing Cordona's police station and watching the two cats enter round two of their fight for The Bread. I knew that Fabio had come to believe in my words by then, at least when it came to his case, but the sight of the white door made him falter nevertheless. The fear that he was making a mistake weighed heavily on him, so I gave him a moment to gather his courage, while I was left to deal with my thoughts all alone.
I thought about how Sherlock had spent the night surrounded by twisted people like Manchios - how the likes of them preyed on attractive young men once they got their hands on them. He'd spent so long at the accursed party that I'd felt the need to crash it (and how badly that backfired!)
On the other hand, I knew him - and trusted him enough to know he'd know how to deal with the puny old perverts. And if I looked into myself, I also reckoned that Verner Vogel wasn't driven by feelings of lust when it came to my friend. I disliked him, and had no doubt he was playing a false game with us, but it wasn't like that - I was certain of that.
Still, the tension in me grew - the longer we waited and listened to the commotion inside, the bigger my aversion to entering the station became. By the time I took a step forward, it had reached a level only second to Fabio's, but I couldn't tell why.
On a logical level, it made little sense. When I lay out all my reasons to dread this confrontation, I couldn't pinpoint what bothered me most, but there was a lump in my throat as I grabbed the doorknob and pressed it down to open the door. My heart sank for no apparent reason.
"It will be alright," I muttered, both to myself and my new companion.
"I hope you are right." Fabio's voice had grown thin and weak, but even though he was scared to death, he followed me in.
It took me only a step inside to confirm my hypothesis that I didn't want to be there at all. Despite the early hour, the station was swarming with foozlers in police uniforms with dark shadows under their eyes, and masked kooks who didn't seem to care enough about their own dire circumstances to keep quiet. Laughter and inappropriately jolly chatter assaulted my senses from all directions; the place reeked too much of alcohol, the lights - too bright for my tired eyes, the sounds - too messy and loud. If I'd followed my instincts, I'd have covered my ears and eyes and curled up in the first dark corner I'd have found, but I hadn't gone there to rest.
"You look as if it's not I who will hang for murder but your windy self. Get it together," I heard Fabio hiss from behind, but even if I'd wanted to say something witty in return to ease the tension, we were interrupted by a nearby officer who'd seen us standing by the door and taking too long to decide how to tackle the situation.
"Good evening, I mean... good morning, gentlemen. Have you been interrogated yet?"
If there were a contest for the most tired-looking person present, then the twenty-something young officer would have won by a mile. By the look of his gaunt face and the stains on his uniform, he'd not been at home for a while. He also smelled funny. I might have felt sorry for him and the way he was being exploited - probably for a pitiful salary on top of it all - but I still couldn't stop myself from answering the question clearly aimed at Fabio.
"If we say yes, would you let us go home? -'s not a very efficient way to catch a murderer, if you ask me." The remark made him stare at me with confusion and a dash of humiliation, and I wondered if I had been briefly possessed by Sherlock's cynicism as I cleared my throat.
"Of-of course not," he stuttered, pretended to straighten his jacket, and gestured for us to move along past a small group of cloaked degenerates. "You have been at the gathering at Manchios' manor, I suppose," he tried again, while scribbling something into his notebook.
"Not at all. My friend here,-" I allowed myself another jest, pointing my thumb at the frightened Fabio behind me, "-simply likes dressing like a creepy cult member and roaming the streets all night for fun."
My remark was not well-received; it got me a glare and a muffled "Stop this!" from Fabio. I knew a person who'd have appreciated my sense of humour, but that person was nowhere to be found, and I had scanned the foyer half a dozen times already. Not finding him there made the lump in my throat grow bigger and bigger, and I found myself not paying attention to whatever the officer was instructing us to do next.
I needed to see him - needed to confirm that he was alright above all. But a small part of me also needed to confirm that he hadn't...
No, these thoughts were absurd. Breathing in sharply one more time and closing my eyes to blend out the station for a brief moment of much-needed privacy, I fought with myself, trying to shake them away. They were driving me mad.
"Is there a man called Sherlock Holmes among the arrested?" I finally blurted out a tad louder than before. The past ten hours and all the ordeals I had been put through were slowly catching up to me and making me bristly and progressively more impatient than usual. Besides, none of these peelers could be trusted to take our statements without finding a way to turn them against Fabio. Or myself, for the matter. Especially not when tiredness had worn down their already slow minds.
And I wanted to see Sherlock so badly... to give up the reins I'd never been meant to take for so long... to feel him close to me again. I felt like I'd been lost in the woods for countless weeks and was yearning to return home.
"I knew your face was familiar," the officer exclaimed after looking at me thoroughly, pulling me away from my thoughts. "You are Jon - Mr Holmes' assistant!"
"I prefer the term partner, but that would be me, yes."
"Well, he is in the back, interrogating the arrested. Is this man-"
"We would like to talk to Sherlock and nobody else. Good day." I shot a glance at Fabio to make sure he'd follow, then rushed to make my way through the crowd to where I believed Sherlock would be. I had been rude not to let the officer finish, but I could lament my bad manners later.
Only a little more - he was not in the head office, not with the rest of the officers. I'd never spend so long without him, never had to make so many crucial decisions without his guiding hand. It had been less than a day, but I missed his face, his beautiful voice, his piercing grey eyes that softened whenever their gaze fell upon me. From the perspective of anyone ordinary, I likely seemed too dependent on him, but as I walked the corridors and looked for my Sherry, I couldn't think of anything other than how badly I wanted him back at my side.
The archives.
I finally heard a familiar voice coming from there, and it made my heart jump. The voice seemed angry, but this was another thing I could question and deal with later, once I'd finally found him. My Sherry. I shot a quick glance behind to make sure that Fabio was still following me, then I sped up to open the door.
My eyes fell on his frame almost immediately upon entering, noting that he was still wearing the black attire Vogel had sent him. My entrance seemed to have interrupted him mid-sentence, and it took him a short moment to process that it was I who had walked in. Our eyes lingered on each other, making my breath catch. Because upon seeing him stand there, utterly exhausted and pale in the light of the lamp, I could only think how I'd never seen anyone so devastatingly beautiful in my life. Just looking at him made my pulse quicken. My remarkable, radiant Sherlock!
Without regard to the elderly man he'd been talking to so angrily right until then, he dropped all he was doing, rushing to me and pulling me close into his arms. This is when I knew that I had arrived at my destination - that I'd found my way back home. In the meantime, the man cleared his throat, muttered something along the lines of "I assume that's him" and about giving us a minute, then walked past us, leaving the room.
"Jon...," Sherlock called my name like a prayer. I sensed that a great weight had fallen off his shoulders the moment he'd seen me. I hated knowing that I'd troubled him again, but in that moment, all that mattered was that I'd finally gotten to him. He buried his face in my neck, which gave me goosebumps and made my heart ache with love that was too great to contain. I could have stayed like this for hours, all the tension suddenly gone from my body and replaced by warm feelings of happiness and infatuation. It was funny how only a few hours away from him had this effect on me, but I didn't mind it at all.
But the sweet reunion didn't last long, and I'd barely gotten to enjoy it properly. Because only after a second, he let go of me, his whole body stiffened all of a sudden and a mask of hostility falling over his face. This sudden change baffled me, thinking it had been I who'd provoked it.
"You... How dare you?" he snarled.
Instinctively, I followed his gaze - it was now piercing a hole through Fabio, who was still standing behind me. In the next moment, before I'd had the chance to understand the situation or react, Sherlock took a step towards the young man, planting himself in front of him and barely leaving any room for him to escape confrontation.
"Whoa! Calm down!" Astounded by the unexpected and uncharacteristically aggressive approach, I stepped to the side, placing myself in front of Sherry to form a barrier between the two. "He isn't an enemy! What's gotten into you?" I exclaimed, putting a hand on his shoulder and making him face me again, but he would barely budge.
"Not an enemy? Then, pray tell, what was the order of tonight's events?"
Pause. I was too stunned to know how to respond.
"I know you broke in and watched Kurt Manchios fall, and then… What then?" He raised an eyebrow, gave me a moment to answer, but only a huff left my mouth.
"Did you flee the manor at his side, because you value his company so greatly?" he sneered, making it crystal clear how much he doubted that possibility. "Verner told me of his appeal to others, but I find it hard to imagine that he would possess such extensive powers over you, Jon."
The implication, albeit soaked in sarcasm, embarrassed me. In the meantime, Sherry had taken a step back and stared me down like a hawk watching its prey. It was I who was being interrogated, and if I were a stranger to him, I would have broken into a sweat. Seeing me defend Fabio had only added fuel to a fire that had been burning for some time in his chest. He knew how it had played out - he'd likely known for hours.
What he hadn't known all this time was where Fabio had taken me and what he'd done to me once we'd left.
"How do you even know..."
"Your footsteps. You have not merely disturbed the dust on the cellar floor, but also stepped into red wine, leaving a perfect imprint of your boot soles on the carpet. Do you believe I would fail to recognise the traces you have left behind, or that I would mistake you for somebody else?"
His words were a slap in my face, and my mouth fell open in disbelief. But I couldn't deny that his unparalleled display of deductive skill stirred something in me, thrilled me, even if it was I who was at the receiving end that day. I'd not even noticed the spilt wine next to the dead Manchios. Had the bottle broken during his fall? I couldn't tell.
"Brilliant..." I muttered in awe. Even in intense situations like this, I couldn't help feeling inspired by him. There was truly nobody like him.
My compliment seemed to come unexpectedly, but he recovered so fast from its effects that I didn't get to enjoy his bashful face for longer than the fragment of a second. With eyes fixed on Fabio again, he continued talking to me. "How did he get you to follow him? Was it a gun? Or a knife?"
"I would never have hurt him. I'm not a murderer!" Fabio's voice cracked so severely that it made me feel helpless. I hated being the reason for his distress. I didn't need to turn around and see him to know he was on the verge of breaking down - that he'd already concluded he'd hang for his wrongdoings. He'd not acted smartly, but he'd been beyond scared for his life - still was. It had been my persuasiveness that had made him come to the station and face the police, and I hated that he was coming to regret it.
"Sherry-"
"But you are a murderer, are you not, Fabio? I questioned Matista - I know that the two of you disposed of-"
"No!" I cried, loud enough to stop Sherlock from finishing his sentence. I knew enough of Fabio's past to understand how far he'd been pushed - far enough to take a life to regain his freedom - and I couldn't let Sherlock use something so dreadful to inflict pain. "Please. Don't go there. Not for me or anyone else." Cupping his face and meeting his gaze, I spoke so softly that only he could hear my words. "He did nothing to harm me. He is simply a young man who's terrified out of his mind. He has done nothing wrong, and you know them. You're aware of the sloppy work they do and the number of innocent men they've wrongly accused. He has every right to mistrust them. He is also a victim here, Sherry; he is at the bottom of the chain, unlike you. Please, don't be vindictive. I'm alright, I swear."
Sadness and vulnerability replaced the anger in Sherlock's eyes, and suddenly, I could see everything reflected in them. My transformation. My first cold, my fears, my attempts to fit in. The night of the storm. The gunshot. The man he'd killed for my sake. Co-existing with me had been a constant battle for him. It still was. It was taking its toll every day. Asking for leniency for Fabio was a lot, and I knew he never intended to go further than lashing out at the man for what he had done to me. I knew he'd never have Fabio arrested. He'd simply been too scared for the life of a person he loved to handle this better.
"I'm so sorry," I said again - for the hundredth time. It gained me a tired nod and an exasperated sigh that came from the depths of his heart.
"You are a free man, Fabio," Sherry spoke again after a moment he'd needed to gather himself. His tone was more composed now, but his eyes never left mine. He was a fair and compassionate person - a lover of truth. But that night, he hadn't wanted to be compassionate. He was doing it only for me. "I had solved the case long before you appeared - every clue implied an unfortunate accident and a paranoid witness fleeing the scene with a hostage. Admittedly, I was merely waiting to ensure that Jon is safe before having my final word with the chief inspector. You were quite clever to not harm him."
Or I would have made you regret it - he didn't need to say this part out loud. In moments like this, he was Mycroft's brother, and he'd already shown how far he'd go for me. And to say that didn't flatter the selfish part of my being - it would be a lie.
I turned to Fabio, offering a comforting smile - I didn't have it in me to look for the proper words to bid him farewell after everything we'd been through. He looked entirely drained, but there was a hint of relief on his face as he murmured a "Thank you, Jon," and gave Sherlock a silent nod.
Then, he turned and left the archives and the two of us alone. Despite having become his prisoner for the night, I had no negative feelings towards the young man. I believed he deserved happiness more than most people I'd met. It was unfortunate that we hadn't met under different circumstances, for I could see myself becoming his friend.
Sherlock's eyes, too, followed Fabio as he walked out, his expression - unreadable. When the door closed, and he'd made sure we were truly alone, he turned back to me, sighing and shaking his head; it was his way to finally release all the bottled-up tension.
However, before I'd gotten the chance to say or do something, his hand pressed against my chest, right above where my heart was, demanding my immediate full attention. A second later, that hand was pushing me backwards towards the door until I felt its flat surface press against my body. Wordlessly, he caught my face between his palms and pressed his lips against mine with a force and a need I'd not known he possessed. Not wasting time, his hands began trailing my shoulders, arms, and chest, and before long, my head started spinning.
It wasn't the time, nor the place, but knowledge and logic did not work well against my desire to be with him. Instead of setting him straight, I pulled him flush against me, caging him in my arms - and took my turn to press him against the hard wooden door with the entirety of my body. Delightfully high on my feelings, I revelled in the taste of his plump and soft lips and the quiet gasps against my mouth as his fingers ran through my hair.
Then, he pushed me a step back. Flushed and fighting for breath, with lids half shut and a hint of a smile, he studied me wordlessly until he'd collected himself.
"Doing this here was new, but much needed," he stated.
I could only chuckle - the sight of him like this awakened feelings in me that left no room for a verbal response. I'd been confronted with human desires too much in the past hours to not have my mind wander in that direction and pose questions I had no mental capacity to tackle yet. A tinge of guilt remained, though - the context of my thoughts, no matter how indulgent they were, was everything but pleasant. I hated feeling so dirty for wanting him - I loved him more than life, and my feelings were worlds away from whatever the deceased Manchios had felt for Fabio. I only hoped he saw it this way, too.
I suppose my discomfort at the unintentional parallels my mind had drawn was visible to him. As the lump in my throat grew again, his expression changed.
"Why did you stay in there for that long?" In the end, I couldn't leave the topic untackled, even if it threatened to ruin the mood. It was eating at me.
His eyes widened upon hearing my question - in surprise, amusement, and disbelief. "You cannot think that I would ever join this degeneracy."
"No," I sighed. In the end, and despite my irrational feelings of jealousy, I knew that. However, something else haunted the back of my mind. "But I think he has a hold over you. It scares me. Why would he invite you to that place? And why would you stay?" I watched his reaction - saw him speechless, then struggling to find an excuse that might absolve Vogel, but he found none. In the end, he knew as well as I did that Vogel was playing a game. He'd always known. The truth was simply that Sherlock wanted to play along. The issue - that he became reckless when a game was too good.
"We spoke," he said after a moment of silence, "of my mother, of how I see life… and somewhere along the way, I lost all sense of time. In retrospect, it was a mistake, but I could never have imagined it would lead to this."
Confiding in the devil, making himself vulnerable to a vulture that'd taken him to its nest. I wanted to say something, but a voice inside told me he'd not listen to reason when it came to Verner Vogel. It would be like admitting he was out of his depth - like admitting defeat. And at the end of the day, he enjoyed the older man's company, too. He challenged him in ways that I couldn't. Whatever they had going - it was undeniable. The only thing I could do was to offer a comforting hand, even if everything in me recoiled as I struggled to simply accept that Vogel had irreversibly gotten under his skin.
"Well..." I walked over to him and placed my palm on his shoulder. "It turned out well in the end. For now. Except for Kurt Manchios. Just don't let your guard down too much, Sherry. I fear he might hurt you."
"I will not."
We stayed like this, with our backs against the door, too many things going through our heads to allow us to move yet. The sounds outside quieted too, Manchios' guests - likely having already left. A new day meant a new beginning - something I desperately needed.
"And, Jon, the things that happen in that place, what they do there..." Sherry spoke again, turning to face me. He tried to hold my gaze for the time being, but his sensibilities wouldn't allow it. He went back to staring at the ground instead.
"We don't have to..." I whispered as I watched him struggle to find the right words he wanted to say. No matter how much I wanted him, his needs always came first to me, and I wanted him to know that. Reaching out, I ran a thumb along his jaw, making him look at me again.
"I know," he smiled. "But I came to the conclusion that I would like to. Someday. With you."
My heart fluttered, and thousands of butterflies took off in my stomach, making me lightheaded. The urge to kiss him again was impossible to resist. This time, there was no urgency when my lips brushed over his. Tired and raw, I simply enjoyed the soft, sloppy kiss for what it was.
A thud at the door put an end to our intimate moment. It was about time for us to stop blocking it either way. Taking a step back, Sherry let the elderly gentleman, who was presumably the chief inspector, enter the archives again. The man looked like all of us - exhausted beyond the healthy point and eager to put an end to this case and go home. There was a brown folder in his hand that he held up for us to see.
"Mister Holmes. I take your suspicions were finally confirmed, and we can classify Kurt Manchios' unfortunate death as an accident," the man stated. Once he'd received a brief confirmation from Sherry, his attention turned to me. "What about you? To my knowledge, you are a witness, but didn't flee the scene on your own terms. Would you like to press charges against the man named Fabio?"
Not even in a dream, I thought to myself, but instead, I simply said "No."
Nodding, the man handed over the folder to Sherlock, said a few words about how pleased he'd been to join forces with my brilliant friend to solve the case and how he should try to stay out of trouble from now on. Then, he excused himself and left once again.
Sighing in relief, I believed it was over once and for all. I believed we'd now head home and finally get the rest we both needed.
But a glance at my friend and the sight of his shaky hands as he stared at the brown folder raised a few questions. I'd not paid much attention to the object until then, dismissing it as a protocol of the case or something equally uninteresting, but the emotional response baffled me.
"What is that?" I posed the question, not yet grasping the severity of the matter. I still needed time to process the past twelve hours and how they had ultimately helped us become closer.
I did not expect the reply. In retrospect, I should have.
"It's my mother's police file," Sherlock replied in a trembling voice. "Everything regarding her death is in here. This is what I have been looking for, Jon."
The noise of the station slowly faded away, and I didn't know how to respond. The long night was over. The worst - yet to come.