It's Complicated, part 2.
Sep. 21st, 2010 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
r_scribblesHere's the @Cumberholmes-Verse inspired tale of Ye Teenage Angst and Ye Embarrassing Family Reunions 'It's Complicated', part 2. In which John comes out with some impressive Swears, Sherlock is an Air Kisser and a Shy Pisser and Mycroft is generally awesome.
Warning - Discussion of underage m/m sex (nothing graphic)
There were three people already sat at the ‘Kid’s Table’. John had learned enough from Sherlock over the past months to be able to tell who was who. Cynthia was obvious, but she was sitting between the two men, and had her arm around neither. Both men were wearing wedding bands. But one of the brothers was tall and toned and broke into a slick, confident grin as they approached. The other was stockier, with a once well muscled, Rugby Player physique that had since gone to seed somewhat, and hair closely cropped to make his Male Pattern Baldness less obvious. If John were a woman, which would he be tempted away from which by? The tall brother was Rupert, the brother with the shaved head had to be Victor. Besides which, the stockier brother wore a faintly worried expression. He looked like a man who knew that something was amiss. Did Victor suspect that his wife was having an affair, John wondered.
The taller brother got to his feet, still grinning, as they reached the table.
‘Bloody Hell,’ he smiled. ‘Dracula!’ He extended a hand towards Sherlock. ‘Christ, haven’t seen you since school.’
Sherlock shook the man’s hand. ‘Good to see you again, Rupert.’
John would have congratulated himself on getting who was who right had it not been a 50/50 chance in the first place, and had the casual use of the hitherto unheard-of nickname “Dracula” not thrown him. Sherlock indulging Cynthia in an air-kiss greeting threw him further still, although that was more due to him having to suppress a giggle at his friend’s expense. He was so distracted by these factors that he almost missed the strangest detail yet – a subtle movement of Sherlock’s hand just before he shook Victor’s – he wiped his palm on the side of his trousers. Just once.
John had never known Sherlock to get clammy palms before. In fact, if he didn’t know that it was a medical impossibility, he’d say that his friend didn’t sweat whatsoever. The thought struck him again – he’s nervous. Why the Hell is he nervous?
‘Victor,’ greeted Sherlock, politely.
‘Sherlock,’ came the reply; just as courteous, just as curt.
‘So, I hear you’re a Private Dick these days, Drac,’ continued Rupert, cheerfully.
‘Consulting Detective,’ Sherlock corrected him. ‘Private Investigators tend to spend most of their professional lives uncovering adulterous relationships…’
‘Ah,’ brayed Rupert. ‘I ‘ope zat eezent why you ‘ave gazzered uz all eento zees room.’
Cynthia giggled. Even Victor twisted a smile. Sherlock just gazed blankly at them, then at John.
‘Poirot,’ helped John. Sherlock still looked nonplussed.
‘Just a joke, Drac,’ added Rupert. ‘Don’t worry, we all know you’re off duty tonight.’
‘Oh,’ replied Sherlock. There was a brief, awkward pause.
‘Who’s your friend?’ asked Victor.
‘John Watson,’ replied John, as Sherlock said ‘my flatmate’ over him.
‘This is The Doctor’, added Grace, over both of them.
‘Oh!’ Rupert seemed a little taken aback at this. ‘In the flesh. I never thought I’d see the day. He shook John’s hand. ‘Hello, Doctor John Watson’.
John had by now gone beyond baulking at everybody at this damned party apparently having “heard all about him” already. Frankly, he was more perturbed by Victor’s reaction than Rupert’s or Cynthia’s. He watched out the corner of his eye as Victor silently gave him the once-over, then looked at Sherlock. Victor and Sherlock exchanged glances for a moment and then both looked away at the same time. After less than a second. Why would somebody do that, unless they were embarrassed? John frowned, faintly. He was sure that the words ‘Sherlock’ and ‘embarrassment’ should only be used in the same sentence if the words in between were ‘is an’.
There was something very wrong about this evening. Very wrong indeed.
-x-
Between Sherlock mingling and pretending to be amused by Rupert’s anecdotes – none of which, obviously, made any reference to certain Overseas Dealings – and John being told that people he’d never heard of had “heard all about him”, it was over an hour before John found himself able to catch his friend alone. He could hear Sherlock all the while – or at least his occasional grunts and hums as people talked at him – on his earpiece, the only result being that John now got to hear two lots of inane chit-chat at a time instead of just one. Sherlock was at the bar, buying a round when he finally got a moment with him. John had watched in amusement as Sherlock had repeatedly “accidentally” put down a full pint and picked up somebody else’s emptier one. Nobody had exactly complained, and it made it look as though the detective was drinking as much as everybody else. Still, he had had to drink the lager occasionally, for appearance’s sake. He handed two pints to Cynthia as she passed. She clinked glasses with him and with a ‘Cheers, Drac,’ took a swig, meaning Sherlock had to smile and drink too. As she went back to the table and John approached him, he saw Sherlock swallow with a grimace of distaste.
‘How’s the lager?’
Sherlock stuck out his tongue like a small child eating broccoli. ‘It’s how I imagine Milton Keynes must taste. But Rupert’s suspicious that either Victor or Grace has hired me to prove he’s having an affair. Going to make things difficult if he’s watching me all the time. Not joining in with the alcoholism’s just going to make that worse.’
John settled himself at the bar with his own orange juice, and gave his friend a wry smile. ‘”Dracula”…?’
‘Actually one of the fonder nicknames I had at school,’ Sherlock told him. ‘It’s their way of being friendly, if you can believe that.’
‘Suits you.’
Sherlock ignored him.
‘You would not believe all the people who know all about me,’ added John. ‘Funny, that.’ He paused. Still no reaction from Sherlock. ‘Funny, since these are your family friends, but nobody here seems to know much about what you do.’
‘Well, isn’t that for the best, in this circumstance?’ Sherlock asked. ‘More discreet. Nobody suspects why it is we’re here.’
‘In this circumstance, maybe,’ John replied, ‘but Sherlock, you’re brilliant. And, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re not exactly modest about it. How can you possibly be OK with family friends thinking you’re just an ordinary copper and your childhood peers believing you’re some seedy Private Eye?’
‘They’re all in the past,’ Sherlock replied. ‘All these people. They pay little attention to me these days and I pay little attention to them. They’re irrelevant.’
John watched his expression. ‘Yeah, but they’re not though, are they?’
Sherlock snapped an annoyed glance at him. ‘Don’t try to read me, John. You’ll only embarrass yourself.’ He huffed, and pushed himself away from the bar. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Go? Go where?’ John lowered his voice to a hiss. ‘You’re not leaving me alone here!’
‘Well, I’m not taking you with me to the toilet, John.’
‘Oh! You’re just…’
‘Yes.’
‘So when you said you had to go…’
Sherlock rolled his eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Beer’ll do that to you.’
‘Can we stop discussing it, now? I’ll be back in a minute.’
John waited at the bar as Sherlock disappeared off towards the function room’s toilets. It was only as he heard the click of the lock in his earpiece that he realised he was about to have the dubious honour of being an aural interloper on the whole event. He wondered about taking the earpiece out, but decided it would attract too much attention to the device. At that moment, there was a gruff cough through his earpiece.
‘Would you mind whistling to yourself or something, John?’ muttered Sherlock, sotto voce, over the wire. ‘You know I have trouble… releasing pressure if I know somebody’s listeni…’
Sherlock broke off suddenly as the sound of a door opening was heard through the earpiece. There were heavy footsteps and a nearby, soft rustle. John shook his head to himself. Sherlock was not a urinals man. He’d have been in a stall. And now a new person had gone into the men’s, his friend was blatantly pulling himself up onto the toilet so that his feet didn’t show. Hiding in the loo. Very glamourous. Very mature.
John could hear the interloper begin to urinate.
‘Delightful, Sherlock,’ he muttered to himself.
Then the door opened again and Rupert Trevor announced his entrance with his now all too familiar bray.
‘All right Victor, you old tosser! Where the Hell have you been?’
‘Nipped out for a fag,’ Victor replied.
‘Anything to escape the Kids Table, right?’ added Rupert.
Victor sighed, audibly. ‘Right. I mean, who’s idea was it to invite bloody Dracula?’
‘My Mother In Law’s insistance, I’m afraid,’ Rupert replied. ‘Got to have an envoy from the Holmeses.’ Rupert paused for breath, but not for long enough for his brother to interject. ‘Still, bit of a turn up for the old books, eh? This Doctor being real after all. Means I owe you twenty sheets, doesn’t it?’
‘Mm?’ muttered Victor. ‘I never said that Doctor would turn out to be real. I was the one who said he was probably made up by his Mummy to stop people asking about why he’s still on his own.’
‘No, but you were right about Drac being a bender, though. We bet twenty quid on that back in ’92, I think.’
Victor grunted a humourless laugh. ‘Still not convinced about Doctor Deafaid.’
‘Sybil said she’d heard he was out of the army on disability,’ said Rupert, ‘but she said he had a gammy leg, nothing about being deaf.’ Rupert snorted. ‘Blind, I’d understand.’
‘I don’t reckon they’re together, you know,’ added Victor. ‘They never say “boyfriend”, you notice that? It’s always “friend” or “flatmate”. And you look at this Doctor, at his face… he’s embarrassed. He’s embarrassed to be here. I bet this is the first he’s heard about it.’
‘You’re acting like you don’t want my twenty quid.’
‘I’m not saying he’s not a poof,’ Victor replied. ‘I’m just saying, that is a Pity Date. Under duress.’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised,’ Rupert added with a laugh as he walked away. ‘I mean – Dracula. Even Queers have standards. Who’d want to put his cock in that?’
The door swung shut. There was an overly long pause. Victor obviously hadn’t left yet. John heard Victor let out a long, slow exhalation, then walk to the door.
After Victor had left, there was yet another awkward pause. After a moment, Sherlock cleared his throat again.
‘Yes, well, I think you can probably mark that exchange down as “non-pertinent”.’
John just frowned down at their drinks until Sherlock returned.
‘You all right?’ asked Sherlock as he slid next to him at the bar again. ‘You’ve gone a rather odd colour.’
John stared up at him. Sherlock was completely unfazed by what they’d both just overheard, or at least was putting on a very good act of appearing so.
‘These your old childhood pals, are they?’ John fumed. ‘Didn’t you say the Trevors were old friends of the family? And this is how they talk about you?’
Sherlock shrugged, faintly. ‘We had a bit of a falling out in our teens.’
‘I’m not in the slightest bit surprised,’ John told him. ‘God – if they’re like this now, what must they have been like at school?’
‘It really doesn’t matter,’ Sherlock replied, but lost eye contact with John as he did so, casting his gaze down into his detested lager.
‘But, it does,’ said John. ‘Doesn’t it?’
‘I told you…’
‘I’m not making this up, am I? I’m not going completely mad. You actually care!’
Sherlock just scoffed in reply.
‘You do.’ John gave a quiet, baffled laugh. ‘So much in this world that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t care about – so many peoples’ feelings, peoples’ opinions… but these two dickheads – and they are monumental dickheads – you actually give a damn for once that they hate you… No. It isn’t just that they hate you. They pity you. They think you’re sad, the deluded idiots. And that’s even worse, as far as you’re concerned, isn’t it?’
‘Have you quite finished lecturing me, yet?’ Sherlock’s tone was definsive, muted.
John softened his voice. ‘I’m not lecturing you. I wouldn’t mind knowing how it is that that pair of bellends have managed to achieve the unachievable and actually bother you with their moronic opinions.’
Sherlock shook his head down at his drink. ‘They don’t bother me.’
‘You’re lying.’ John paused. ‘They bullied you, didn’t they? At school.’
Sherlock barked a staccato, humorless laugh. ‘No, they didn’t bully me. Rupert’s always been Rupert – we’ve never “got on”, as such, but we were amicable enough.’
‘And Victor?’
‘Victor’s a different matter.’
‘Tell me about it,’ muttered John. ‘I knew blokes like him in the army. Quiet enough on the outside, but there’s something lurking there. Something really unpleasant. His type are worse than Rupert’s, if you ask me…’
‘Must you categorise everyone you see?’ Sherlock snapped.
‘Why not? That’s what you do…’
‘It’s not that simple, John. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know the first thing about Victor Trevor.’
‘Well then, why don’t you tell me?’
‘Because it’s none of your business!’ Sherlock paused, avoiding John’s gaze, still. ‘He was you.’
‘What?’
‘He was to the teenaged me, what you are to me now, John. He was my friend. My confidant. We were very close.’
John frowned. That made no sense. John couldn’t imagine what sort of fallout could ever cause somebody as close to Sherlock as he was to exhibit the sort of bad feelings that Victor did towards him. Whatever it was would have to be something big.
‘So,’ asked John, ‘what happened?’
-x-
‘What happened?’ Mycroft asked.
His brother shrugged, with an over rehearsed air of nonchalance. ‘It appears that I crashed into a Sycamore tree. Perhaps driving a car isn’t as easy as it looks, after all.’
‘Don’t,’ Mycroft warned. He walked around the car, surveying the damage. The thing was a total write-off. For God’s sake, Sherlock! ‘What did you do with my car?’
‘Crashed it.’
‘Before that!’
‘Drove it?’
Mycroft stalked back to the open driver’s window. ‘You really want me to do this?’
Sherlock took a drag from his cigarette. ‘Give it your best shot.’
Mycroft folded his arms. ‘The scratches on the paintwork on the side of the car suggest that you’ve had at least two scrapes before ploughing into the tree – maybe more. Never mind the fact that the car is facing towards home, not away from it. You didn’t just take her for a spin and wrap her round a tree immediately. You’ve been out. You’ve probably managed to drive her miles, somehow. You were on your way back when you lost control of the car.’
Sherlock wedged the cigarette between his teeth and began a slow, sarcastic hand-clap.
‘Besides which,’ added Mycroft, ‘the injuries on your face can’t have been from the crash. They’re too old. The blood has dried. You’ve been in a fight, or… or something.’ Something else caught his eye. Something he should have noticed before. It was only a few spots, but on the cream leather seats it was all too visible.
‘There’s blood on the back seat,’ said Mycroft. ‘How does somebody get blood on the back seat when they’re driv…’ he trailed off, thinking. Sherlock just stared at him, as though daring him to get it right. ‘Oh, Sherlock. You took the car to pick a girl up, didn’t you?’
Sherlock began to laugh, joylessly.
‘Who is she? What did you do to her? You’re only 15…’
‘I didn’t meet a girl,’ Sherlock interrupted.
‘You didn’t?’
‘I drove your car to the Trevor’s house,’ Sherlock told him.
‘Victor,’ sighed Mycroft, relief washing over him. Sherlock’s best friend. His only friend, really. Not the best influence upon his younger brother – a University student should know better than to smoke cannabis with a 15 year old boy in the holidays, but there you had it. The reliable social interaction was good for Sherlock and it kept him out of any real mischief, Mycroft supposed. ‘So, how does that explain the battered face and the blood?’
‘We had a fight,’ Sherlock told him.
‘You and Victor?’
Sherlock nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Because I said I’ll tell Cynthia.’
‘Tell her what?’
Sherlock took another deep drag from the cigarette and gazed vaguely off into the distance. ‘I said I’d tell her that I’d driven to his house, picked him up, taken him to the woods, smoked several joints with him and then allowed him to sodomise me on the back seat of your car.’
Mycroft felt his stomach tighten. ‘Sherlock, that’s not funny.’
‘I know,’ I know,’ sighed Sherlock, theatrically. ‘Cream leather upholstery. Whatever will get those tricky stains out…?’
‘Sherlock, you’re 15.’
‘As you keep mentioning.’
‘It’s illegal.’
‘So’s 19.’
‘You’re a child!’
Sherlock shook his head, taking another drag. ‘No. Haven’t been one of those for a very long time.’
Yes, wasn’t that what they always said, thought Mycroft as he pushed his hand through the open window and unlocked the driver’s side door – “15 going on 50, 14 going on 40, 13 going on 30” and so on. Pretend the abused child is an adult on the inside to make it more palatable.
He opened the door. ‘Get out.’
‘Why?’
‘So that I can see what sort of state you’ve been left in.’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘You made it my business, Sherlock! You told me!’
‘Only so you wouldn’t have the satisfaction of working it out for yourself.’
‘You used my car and then smashed it to pieces. Attention seeking. You obviously wanted me to know about this…’
‘Don’t try to read me, Mycroft,’ Sherlock snapped.
Mycroft rubbed his face in despair. He knew better than to try to psychoanalyse his brother if he didn’t want Sherlock to clam up completely for days on end. Stick to practicalities, for now.
‘Are you still bleeding?’ he asked.
Sherlock nodded, taking another puff. ‘Not much, though.’
‘You could still need sutures.’
‘Don’t be such a Drama Queen. It’s fine. I just want to go home.’
‘You’re going to hospital.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Of course you’re going to hospital!’ Mycroft hoped that Sherlock had been wearing a seatbelt when he’d crashed the car and had taken it off afterwards for show. Whatever the reason was, the boy wasn’t wearing one now. He grabbed his brother’s forearm and pulled him out of the car. Christ. He hadn’t been lying. There probably wasn’t enough blood to warrant the added pain and indignity of stitches, but any blood at all was too much.
‘Tell me you used protection.’
Sherlock’s eye widened in a mockery of virginal innocence. ‘Might I get pregnant?’
‘AIDS, you stupid bloody idiot!’ Mycroft shook his brother by the forearm that he still gripped. ‘AIDS, Hepatitis…’
‘And where would he have caught something like that?’ Sherlock asked, incredulously. ‘Off Cynthia? Please.’
‘I’ve heard enough.’ Mycroft leaned into the car and grabbed the car phone. Despite the crash, that at least was still working.
‘Who are you phoning?’
‘I’m phoning the police, Sherlock.’
‘Why? You don’t need to do that.’
‘Look at yourself! Victor’s an adult and you’re a child. He isn’t going to get away with this just because he’s shown you friendship in the past…’
And then, Sherlock did something very surprising. Something that was actually enough to make Mycroft stop, and put the phone back down.
He said ‘Please, Mycroft’. His tone was genuine, his expression one almost of embarrassment. ‘Please, don’t. It isn’t what you think. I made a mistake, all right? Clever, clever, Sherlock made a mistake, and now I don’t want questions about it from the Hospital staff, and certainly not from the Police – I just want it to go away.’
That’s when Mycroft realised. Maybe it was the way Sherlock had just spoken to him. Maybe it was the look in the boy’s eyes, but suddenly he realised something that made everything make sense.
Oh, Sherlock, he thought in dismay, you’re in love with him, aren’t you? Oh, you poor, stupid boy.
Warning - Discussion of underage m/m sex (nothing graphic)
There were three people already sat at the ‘Kid’s Table’. John had learned enough from Sherlock over the past months to be able to tell who was who. Cynthia was obvious, but she was sitting between the two men, and had her arm around neither. Both men were wearing wedding bands. But one of the brothers was tall and toned and broke into a slick, confident grin as they approached. The other was stockier, with a once well muscled, Rugby Player physique that had since gone to seed somewhat, and hair closely cropped to make his Male Pattern Baldness less obvious. If John were a woman, which would he be tempted away from which by? The tall brother was Rupert, the brother with the shaved head had to be Victor. Besides which, the stockier brother wore a faintly worried expression. He looked like a man who knew that something was amiss. Did Victor suspect that his wife was having an affair, John wondered.
The taller brother got to his feet, still grinning, as they reached the table.
‘Bloody Hell,’ he smiled. ‘Dracula!’ He extended a hand towards Sherlock. ‘Christ, haven’t seen you since school.’
Sherlock shook the man’s hand. ‘Good to see you again, Rupert.’
John would have congratulated himself on getting who was who right had it not been a 50/50 chance in the first place, and had the casual use of the hitherto unheard-of nickname “Dracula” not thrown him. Sherlock indulging Cynthia in an air-kiss greeting threw him further still, although that was more due to him having to suppress a giggle at his friend’s expense. He was so distracted by these factors that he almost missed the strangest detail yet – a subtle movement of Sherlock’s hand just before he shook Victor’s – he wiped his palm on the side of his trousers. Just once.
John had never known Sherlock to get clammy palms before. In fact, if he didn’t know that it was a medical impossibility, he’d say that his friend didn’t sweat whatsoever. The thought struck him again – he’s nervous. Why the Hell is he nervous?
‘Victor,’ greeted Sherlock, politely.
‘Sherlock,’ came the reply; just as courteous, just as curt.
‘So, I hear you’re a Private Dick these days, Drac,’ continued Rupert, cheerfully.
‘Consulting Detective,’ Sherlock corrected him. ‘Private Investigators tend to spend most of their professional lives uncovering adulterous relationships…’
‘Ah,’ brayed Rupert. ‘I ‘ope zat eezent why you ‘ave gazzered uz all eento zees room.’
Cynthia giggled. Even Victor twisted a smile. Sherlock just gazed blankly at them, then at John.
‘Poirot,’ helped John. Sherlock still looked nonplussed.
‘Just a joke, Drac,’ added Rupert. ‘Don’t worry, we all know you’re off duty tonight.’
‘Oh,’ replied Sherlock. There was a brief, awkward pause.
‘Who’s your friend?’ asked Victor.
‘John Watson,’ replied John, as Sherlock said ‘my flatmate’ over him.
‘This is The Doctor’, added Grace, over both of them.
‘Oh!’ Rupert seemed a little taken aback at this. ‘In the flesh. I never thought I’d see the day. He shook John’s hand. ‘Hello, Doctor John Watson’.
John had by now gone beyond baulking at everybody at this damned party apparently having “heard all about him” already. Frankly, he was more perturbed by Victor’s reaction than Rupert’s or Cynthia’s. He watched out the corner of his eye as Victor silently gave him the once-over, then looked at Sherlock. Victor and Sherlock exchanged glances for a moment and then both looked away at the same time. After less than a second. Why would somebody do that, unless they were embarrassed? John frowned, faintly. He was sure that the words ‘Sherlock’ and ‘embarrassment’ should only be used in the same sentence if the words in between were ‘is an’.
There was something very wrong about this evening. Very wrong indeed.
-x-
Between Sherlock mingling and pretending to be amused by Rupert’s anecdotes – none of which, obviously, made any reference to certain Overseas Dealings – and John being told that people he’d never heard of had “heard all about him”, it was over an hour before John found himself able to catch his friend alone. He could hear Sherlock all the while – or at least his occasional grunts and hums as people talked at him – on his earpiece, the only result being that John now got to hear two lots of inane chit-chat at a time instead of just one. Sherlock was at the bar, buying a round when he finally got a moment with him. John had watched in amusement as Sherlock had repeatedly “accidentally” put down a full pint and picked up somebody else’s emptier one. Nobody had exactly complained, and it made it look as though the detective was drinking as much as everybody else. Still, he had had to drink the lager occasionally, for appearance’s sake. He handed two pints to Cynthia as she passed. She clinked glasses with him and with a ‘Cheers, Drac,’ took a swig, meaning Sherlock had to smile and drink too. As she went back to the table and John approached him, he saw Sherlock swallow with a grimace of distaste.
‘How’s the lager?’
Sherlock stuck out his tongue like a small child eating broccoli. ‘It’s how I imagine Milton Keynes must taste. But Rupert’s suspicious that either Victor or Grace has hired me to prove he’s having an affair. Going to make things difficult if he’s watching me all the time. Not joining in with the alcoholism’s just going to make that worse.’
John settled himself at the bar with his own orange juice, and gave his friend a wry smile. ‘”Dracula”…?’
‘Actually one of the fonder nicknames I had at school,’ Sherlock told him. ‘It’s their way of being friendly, if you can believe that.’
‘Suits you.’
Sherlock ignored him.
‘You would not believe all the people who know all about me,’ added John. ‘Funny, that.’ He paused. Still no reaction from Sherlock. ‘Funny, since these are your family friends, but nobody here seems to know much about what you do.’
‘Well, isn’t that for the best, in this circumstance?’ Sherlock asked. ‘More discreet. Nobody suspects why it is we’re here.’
‘In this circumstance, maybe,’ John replied, ‘but Sherlock, you’re brilliant. And, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re not exactly modest about it. How can you possibly be OK with family friends thinking you’re just an ordinary copper and your childhood peers believing you’re some seedy Private Eye?’
‘They’re all in the past,’ Sherlock replied. ‘All these people. They pay little attention to me these days and I pay little attention to them. They’re irrelevant.’
John watched his expression. ‘Yeah, but they’re not though, are they?’
Sherlock snapped an annoyed glance at him. ‘Don’t try to read me, John. You’ll only embarrass yourself.’ He huffed, and pushed himself away from the bar. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Go? Go where?’ John lowered his voice to a hiss. ‘You’re not leaving me alone here!’
‘Well, I’m not taking you with me to the toilet, John.’
‘Oh! You’re just…’
‘Yes.’
‘So when you said you had to go…’
Sherlock rolled his eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Beer’ll do that to you.’
‘Can we stop discussing it, now? I’ll be back in a minute.’
John waited at the bar as Sherlock disappeared off towards the function room’s toilets. It was only as he heard the click of the lock in his earpiece that he realised he was about to have the dubious honour of being an aural interloper on the whole event. He wondered about taking the earpiece out, but decided it would attract too much attention to the device. At that moment, there was a gruff cough through his earpiece.
‘Would you mind whistling to yourself or something, John?’ muttered Sherlock, sotto voce, over the wire. ‘You know I have trouble… releasing pressure if I know somebody’s listeni…’
Sherlock broke off suddenly as the sound of a door opening was heard through the earpiece. There were heavy footsteps and a nearby, soft rustle. John shook his head to himself. Sherlock was not a urinals man. He’d have been in a stall. And now a new person had gone into the men’s, his friend was blatantly pulling himself up onto the toilet so that his feet didn’t show. Hiding in the loo. Very glamourous. Very mature.
John could hear the interloper begin to urinate.
‘Delightful, Sherlock,’ he muttered to himself.
Then the door opened again and Rupert Trevor announced his entrance with his now all too familiar bray.
‘All right Victor, you old tosser! Where the Hell have you been?’
‘Nipped out for a fag,’ Victor replied.
‘Anything to escape the Kids Table, right?’ added Rupert.
Victor sighed, audibly. ‘Right. I mean, who’s idea was it to invite bloody Dracula?’
‘My Mother In Law’s insistance, I’m afraid,’ Rupert replied. ‘Got to have an envoy from the Holmeses.’ Rupert paused for breath, but not for long enough for his brother to interject. ‘Still, bit of a turn up for the old books, eh? This Doctor being real after all. Means I owe you twenty sheets, doesn’t it?’
‘Mm?’ muttered Victor. ‘I never said that Doctor would turn out to be real. I was the one who said he was probably made up by his Mummy to stop people asking about why he’s still on his own.’
‘No, but you were right about Drac being a bender, though. We bet twenty quid on that back in ’92, I think.’
Victor grunted a humourless laugh. ‘Still not convinced about Doctor Deafaid.’
‘Sybil said she’d heard he was out of the army on disability,’ said Rupert, ‘but she said he had a gammy leg, nothing about being deaf.’ Rupert snorted. ‘Blind, I’d understand.’
‘I don’t reckon they’re together, you know,’ added Victor. ‘They never say “boyfriend”, you notice that? It’s always “friend” or “flatmate”. And you look at this Doctor, at his face… he’s embarrassed. He’s embarrassed to be here. I bet this is the first he’s heard about it.’
‘You’re acting like you don’t want my twenty quid.’
‘I’m not saying he’s not a poof,’ Victor replied. ‘I’m just saying, that is a Pity Date. Under duress.’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised,’ Rupert added with a laugh as he walked away. ‘I mean – Dracula. Even Queers have standards. Who’d want to put his cock in that?’
The door swung shut. There was an overly long pause. Victor obviously hadn’t left yet. John heard Victor let out a long, slow exhalation, then walk to the door.
After Victor had left, there was yet another awkward pause. After a moment, Sherlock cleared his throat again.
‘Yes, well, I think you can probably mark that exchange down as “non-pertinent”.’
John just frowned down at their drinks until Sherlock returned.
‘You all right?’ asked Sherlock as he slid next to him at the bar again. ‘You’ve gone a rather odd colour.’
John stared up at him. Sherlock was completely unfazed by what they’d both just overheard, or at least was putting on a very good act of appearing so.
‘These your old childhood pals, are they?’ John fumed. ‘Didn’t you say the Trevors were old friends of the family? And this is how they talk about you?’
Sherlock shrugged, faintly. ‘We had a bit of a falling out in our teens.’
‘I’m not in the slightest bit surprised,’ John told him. ‘God – if they’re like this now, what must they have been like at school?’
‘It really doesn’t matter,’ Sherlock replied, but lost eye contact with John as he did so, casting his gaze down into his detested lager.
‘But, it does,’ said John. ‘Doesn’t it?’
‘I told you…’
‘I’m not making this up, am I? I’m not going completely mad. You actually care!’
Sherlock just scoffed in reply.
‘You do.’ John gave a quiet, baffled laugh. ‘So much in this world that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t care about – so many peoples’ feelings, peoples’ opinions… but these two dickheads – and they are monumental dickheads – you actually give a damn for once that they hate you… No. It isn’t just that they hate you. They pity you. They think you’re sad, the deluded idiots. And that’s even worse, as far as you’re concerned, isn’t it?’
‘Have you quite finished lecturing me, yet?’ Sherlock’s tone was definsive, muted.
John softened his voice. ‘I’m not lecturing you. I wouldn’t mind knowing how it is that that pair of bellends have managed to achieve the unachievable and actually bother you with their moronic opinions.’
Sherlock shook his head down at his drink. ‘They don’t bother me.’
‘You’re lying.’ John paused. ‘They bullied you, didn’t they? At school.’
Sherlock barked a staccato, humorless laugh. ‘No, they didn’t bully me. Rupert’s always been Rupert – we’ve never “got on”, as such, but we were amicable enough.’
‘And Victor?’
‘Victor’s a different matter.’
‘Tell me about it,’ muttered John. ‘I knew blokes like him in the army. Quiet enough on the outside, but there’s something lurking there. Something really unpleasant. His type are worse than Rupert’s, if you ask me…’
‘Must you categorise everyone you see?’ Sherlock snapped.
‘Why not? That’s what you do…’
‘It’s not that simple, John. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know the first thing about Victor Trevor.’
‘Well then, why don’t you tell me?’
‘Because it’s none of your business!’ Sherlock paused, avoiding John’s gaze, still. ‘He was you.’
‘What?’
‘He was to the teenaged me, what you are to me now, John. He was my friend. My confidant. We were very close.’
John frowned. That made no sense. John couldn’t imagine what sort of fallout could ever cause somebody as close to Sherlock as he was to exhibit the sort of bad feelings that Victor did towards him. Whatever it was would have to be something big.
‘So,’ asked John, ‘what happened?’
-x-
‘What happened?’ Mycroft asked.
His brother shrugged, with an over rehearsed air of nonchalance. ‘It appears that I crashed into a Sycamore tree. Perhaps driving a car isn’t as easy as it looks, after all.’
‘Don’t,’ Mycroft warned. He walked around the car, surveying the damage. The thing was a total write-off. For God’s sake, Sherlock! ‘What did you do with my car?’
‘Crashed it.’
‘Before that!’
‘Drove it?’
Mycroft stalked back to the open driver’s window. ‘You really want me to do this?’
Sherlock took a drag from his cigarette. ‘Give it your best shot.’
Mycroft folded his arms. ‘The scratches on the paintwork on the side of the car suggest that you’ve had at least two scrapes before ploughing into the tree – maybe more. Never mind the fact that the car is facing towards home, not away from it. You didn’t just take her for a spin and wrap her round a tree immediately. You’ve been out. You’ve probably managed to drive her miles, somehow. You were on your way back when you lost control of the car.’
Sherlock wedged the cigarette between his teeth and began a slow, sarcastic hand-clap.
‘Besides which,’ added Mycroft, ‘the injuries on your face can’t have been from the crash. They’re too old. The blood has dried. You’ve been in a fight, or… or something.’ Something else caught his eye. Something he should have noticed before. It was only a few spots, but on the cream leather seats it was all too visible.
‘There’s blood on the back seat,’ said Mycroft. ‘How does somebody get blood on the back seat when they’re driv…’ he trailed off, thinking. Sherlock just stared at him, as though daring him to get it right. ‘Oh, Sherlock. You took the car to pick a girl up, didn’t you?’
Sherlock began to laugh, joylessly.
‘Who is she? What did you do to her? You’re only 15…’
‘I didn’t meet a girl,’ Sherlock interrupted.
‘You didn’t?’
‘I drove your car to the Trevor’s house,’ Sherlock told him.
‘Victor,’ sighed Mycroft, relief washing over him. Sherlock’s best friend. His only friend, really. Not the best influence upon his younger brother – a University student should know better than to smoke cannabis with a 15 year old boy in the holidays, but there you had it. The reliable social interaction was good for Sherlock and it kept him out of any real mischief, Mycroft supposed. ‘So, how does that explain the battered face and the blood?’
‘We had a fight,’ Sherlock told him.
‘You and Victor?’
Sherlock nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Because I said I’ll tell Cynthia.’
‘Tell her what?’
Sherlock took another deep drag from the cigarette and gazed vaguely off into the distance. ‘I said I’d tell her that I’d driven to his house, picked him up, taken him to the woods, smoked several joints with him and then allowed him to sodomise me on the back seat of your car.’
Mycroft felt his stomach tighten. ‘Sherlock, that’s not funny.’
‘I know,’ I know,’ sighed Sherlock, theatrically. ‘Cream leather upholstery. Whatever will get those tricky stains out…?’
‘Sherlock, you’re 15.’
‘As you keep mentioning.’
‘It’s illegal.’
‘So’s 19.’
‘You’re a child!’
Sherlock shook his head, taking another drag. ‘No. Haven’t been one of those for a very long time.’
Yes, wasn’t that what they always said, thought Mycroft as he pushed his hand through the open window and unlocked the driver’s side door – “15 going on 50, 14 going on 40, 13 going on 30” and so on. Pretend the abused child is an adult on the inside to make it more palatable.
He opened the door. ‘Get out.’
‘Why?’
‘So that I can see what sort of state you’ve been left in.’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘You made it my business, Sherlock! You told me!’
‘Only so you wouldn’t have the satisfaction of working it out for yourself.’
‘You used my car and then smashed it to pieces. Attention seeking. You obviously wanted me to know about this…’
‘Don’t try to read me, Mycroft,’ Sherlock snapped.
Mycroft rubbed his face in despair. He knew better than to try to psychoanalyse his brother if he didn’t want Sherlock to clam up completely for days on end. Stick to practicalities, for now.
‘Are you still bleeding?’ he asked.
Sherlock nodded, taking another puff. ‘Not much, though.’
‘You could still need sutures.’
‘Don’t be such a Drama Queen. It’s fine. I just want to go home.’
‘You’re going to hospital.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Of course you’re going to hospital!’ Mycroft hoped that Sherlock had been wearing a seatbelt when he’d crashed the car and had taken it off afterwards for show. Whatever the reason was, the boy wasn’t wearing one now. He grabbed his brother’s forearm and pulled him out of the car. Christ. He hadn’t been lying. There probably wasn’t enough blood to warrant the added pain and indignity of stitches, but any blood at all was too much.
‘Tell me you used protection.’
Sherlock’s eye widened in a mockery of virginal innocence. ‘Might I get pregnant?’
‘AIDS, you stupid bloody idiot!’ Mycroft shook his brother by the forearm that he still gripped. ‘AIDS, Hepatitis…’
‘And where would he have caught something like that?’ Sherlock asked, incredulously. ‘Off Cynthia? Please.’
‘I’ve heard enough.’ Mycroft leaned into the car and grabbed the car phone. Despite the crash, that at least was still working.
‘Who are you phoning?’
‘I’m phoning the police, Sherlock.’
‘Why? You don’t need to do that.’
‘Look at yourself! Victor’s an adult and you’re a child. He isn’t going to get away with this just because he’s shown you friendship in the past…’
And then, Sherlock did something very surprising. Something that was actually enough to make Mycroft stop, and put the phone back down.
He said ‘Please, Mycroft’. His tone was genuine, his expression one almost of embarrassment. ‘Please, don’t. It isn’t what you think. I made a mistake, all right? Clever, clever, Sherlock made a mistake, and now I don’t want questions about it from the Hospital staff, and certainly not from the Police – I just want it to go away.’
That’s when Mycroft realised. Maybe it was the way Sherlock had just spoken to him. Maybe it was the look in the boy’s eyes, but suddenly he realised something that made everything make sense.
Oh, Sherlock, he thought in dismay, you’re in love with him, aren’t you? Oh, you poor, stupid boy.
