This Man's Heart - Chapter 8

[ellie_hell]

Title: This Man's Heart - Chapter 8
Rating: PG Warnings: None.
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John.
Word count: 3305
Summary: In the latter part of the 19th century, a peculiar solitary man and an ex-army doctor disfigured at war live in a small village, surrounded by breathtaking landscapes. When they first meet, they have no idea their lives are about to change forever and, over the months, they will form an unusual friendship, discover more about each other and themselves, and maybe fall a little in love along the way.
Disclaimer: See first chapter.
Beta: A huge thank you to atlinmerrick who offered to beta this chapter at the last minute. You're a fic-saver and I want to win you a dozen teddybears at one of those shooting games.

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Chapter 8

About two weeks after their night-time meeting when they had observed the moon, Sherlock saw the red scarf again. Even if winter was slowly turning into spring, the ice field was still solid enough for a grown man to stand on and he walked to the rendezvous point, feeling his heart beating abnormally fast in his chest. For the first time, John met him halfway close to Round Mountain. Sherlock had never seen him without his red scarf before; he had left it tied to the usual branch in West Birches Bay.

“What I want to show you is over there,” John said, pointing at the open sea.

They headed north and walked on the ice field until they reached the edge. There was a low wall of ice blocks they swiftly climbed to discover free water as far as their eyes could see. Close to where they were kneeling, a flock of seals were frolicking about in ice-cold water. Sherlock had often seen seals playing in bays during spring; their playfulness was the reason they were nicknamed sea dogs. But this was unlike any seal game he had ever seen before; in the black sea where parts of ice plates still floated around, they looked ecstatic with joy. They rolled on the surface, splashed one another with big fin blows and jumped over each other before swimming forward at full speed just for the pleasure of causing collisions, before apologizing by rubbing their noses together. Some of them were climbing onto ice rafts and putting all their energy towards defending their tiny territory, until another seal successfully made them fall in a concert of lapping.

They seemed to be laughing and John was laughing with them, a sound so contagious Sherlock couldn’t help joining in. For the biggest part of the afternoon, they watched as the seals played with each other, and they only returned to shore once it was too dark to enjoy the spectacle.

On that day, they talked as they had never talked before. Sherlock told John about his mother and her restlessness that had led her out of Sainte-Cécile. He told him about his father who had loved her so much it had destroyed him. He talked about his aunt Martha, her very short marriage and her love of the sky. He told him what it had been like growing up in Sainte-Cécile, about the violin and the science textbooks, about his deductions and the trouble they had gotten him into over the years, and about his first friend; Gregory Lestrade. John was an excellent listener and he managed to make Sherlock talk about topics that usually made him uncomfortable, but without the feeling of uneasiness he usually experienced. However, that wasn’t the best part. The best thing about that evening was how much John opened up too and how fascinating his previous life had been, so much more than what Sherlock had deduced.

John was born in London in one of the richest families of England, he was four years younger than Harry and, even as children, they had never gotten along. Their father had always displayed flagrant favouritism towards his oldest child and, as soon as she had been old enough, he had started taking her everywhere with him. Like their father, Harry had a real passion for hunting and she was very skilled at it. John, on the other hand, couldn’t understand why some people were interested in killing animals for pleasure, and he had spent most of his free time as a young student poring over books and playing rugby with his schoolmates. Life had been simple and quiet until their parents had been killed in a train derailment.

After that, it had been just Harry and him, but Harry had had Clara. She had met her while on a hunting trip in France and had been seduced by her pale skin and fiery red hair. Before Harry had brought her back to London, she hadn’t even noticed that Clara’s breasts had been full and her mouth inviting, that she had been kind, generous and funny. Always a hunter, she hadn’t seen further than skin and fur. The three of them had lived in the huge family manor and, when John and Harry hadn’t been shouting at each other, the atmosphere in the manor had been relatively peaceful. John had gone to the University of London where he had gotten his medical degree before starting his training as an army surgeon. Soon after, he had left for India to join the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as an assistant surgeon, but upon his arrival in Bombay, a war had broken out in Afghanistan and he had been redirected to Kandahar. Following his arrival, he had entered his new duties immediately and, for a while, he had been happy doing his work and had enjoyed the daily dose of action. He was a very good surgeon with steady hands and nerves of steel, but the campaign that could have brought him promotion and honours turned into disaster during the battle of Maiwand.

A soldier of his regiment had been wounded and John had been trying to stop the blood flow. His attention had been completely focused on the dying man under him and he therefore hadn’t seen the Jezail bullet coming. It had hit his cheek between his left eye and ear, shattering the cheekbone in the process. There had been so much blood covering the mess of bone, muscles and skin that they had believed him dead. Luckily, his orderly Bill Murray had realized John was still alive and he had thrown him onto a packhorse, ensuring his escape from the battlefield.

John should’ve died; a minor change in the bullet trajectory would have been fatal, but death wanted nothing to do with him. For long days he had rested in a hospital bed, trashing around as if he had been prey to a dozen dangerous creatures. It had been bad enough when it had only been the bullet injury, but when infection had taken hold of his wounds, it had gotten even worse. He had been delirious because of the fever, his eyes had been rolling almost constantly, and he had shouted himself hoarse like a wounded animal. The surgeons had tried their best to put his face back together, but there wasn’t much they could do with the infection destroying more tissue every day. They had tried decreasing his pain with morphine and laudanum, but nothing had stopped his anguished screams.

Once he had been stable enough to be moved, he had been sent back to England on the HMS Orontes. In London, he had spent many months in the hospital until he had been discharged and had gone to live with Harry and Clara. He had endured sleepless nights of agonizing withdrawal before finally emerging from his personal hell and, at last, it had looked as if the worst days had been behind him. The road to recovery had been a long one, but eventually he had been well enough to leave his bed. Nonetheless, his face would never be the same again and while his body had recovered, making peace with his new appearance was easier said than done.

On a pleasant sunny morning, while he had been having tea with Clara, Harry had come back from another one of her hunting trips. When she had entered the room, John had turned around to greet her and she had let out a disgusted cry before stumbling out of the room. It had been the first time she had seen her brother without any bandages and the sight had horrified her. For John, it had been worst than being shot. At least after the injury there had been proof of physical harm, an open wound to show that he had been hurt. Harry’s revulsion had been something else entirely; it had hurt almost as much as the bullet piercing his face, but it was all in his mind, he couldn’t physically justify that kind of pain.

After that, John had locked himself up in his room and hadn’t left for two days. Clara had talked to Harry, tried to get her to see that she still had a young brother under the injury and that he needed their support, but Harry had refused to listen. She had kept saying her brother had died at war and that she was in no way related to the monster that had come back.

When John had emerged from his room, he had been wearing a mask he had cut into a thin piece of leather Harry had bought and had intended to use to make a pair of gloves. John wanted to live, but he never wanted to see that hatred and disgust in anyone’s eyes ever again. With the mask firmly in place and covering his injuries, Harry had gotten slightly used to his new appearance. However, their already bad relationship was broken beyond repair and they never interacted unless they had to.

“One day, Harry came back from a trip in Sainte-Cécile and announced we would be moving there a few months later. She never asked for my opinion, but I didn’t mind, it’s not as if I was leaving pleasant memories behind,” John finished.

“Was it hard moving from a big city to a small village?” Sherlock asked, thinking about his mother who had done the same, but hadn’t been able to stand the peace and quiet for very long.

“London was fun when I was a handsome bachelor, there was always something new to try, somewhere exciting to go. But in the end, when I wasn’t leaving the house, it often felt suffocating. There are many places I can go here without running into anyone; it’s a big improvement.”

Only then did Sherlock truly understand that John really wasn’t a prisoner of his sister. Not leaving their London house must have felt horrible in the end and, compared to that, the life he was living in Sainte-Cécile seemed infinitely better. It was hard for him to imagine John as a handsome bachelor with a swarm of ladies at his feet. Hard to picture him as a student on a university bench, or as a soldier laughing with his peers. After all, he had only known him as The Beast, but he had lived so many lives before moving here. Again, Sherlock was riveted.

They were sitting in the cold sand of the shore when John finished his story and, without the heavy weight of blankets on their shoulders, they were freezing. Still, they were both reluctant to leave, but it was getting very late and they got up after a little bit of stalling to go their separate ways. Sherlock had only taken a few steps when John cried out after him.

“Yes John?” Sherlock said as he turned around to look at his friend. In the darkness, he could barely make out his silhouette.

“I’m not glad I got shot. But I’m glad it brought me here,” John let out.

Sherlock paused for a moment, drinking in John’s words before smiling.

“I’m glad you’re here, too.”

:::

For many weeks, no scarf was spotted between the trees of West Birches Bay and Sherlock was growing impatient as he tried to guess what the next treasure would be. Around that time, Gregory finally gathered enough courage to ask for Sarah Sawyer’s hand in marriage, and no one was surprised when she accepted. However, many were astonished when Sherlock agreed to be Gregory’s best man (as long as the wedding wasn’t held on what he called a ‘scarf day’). He wasn’t that hard to convince; all Gregory had to say was that it was part of The Friendship Code and that he would not be forced to dance with Molly – the maid of honour – even if it was encouraged.

In May, seagull cries were once again resounding in the bright spring sky, cormorants were drying off their wings on the rocks uncovered by the tide, seals were growling and biting just for the fun of it while ducks were parading. The bays of Sainte-Cécile were vibrant with a renewed life. More than ever, Sherlock was drawn to the shore of Sailboat Bay where he could easily see the tree to which the scarf had been tied before.

Gregory and Martha had seen some changes in Sherlock since the treasure hunt had begun. He was still conducting various experiments, but his senses seemed sharper and he genuinely paid attention to the colours, sounds, scents, and images surrounding him. Nature was not only data; it had become something worthy of his full attention. He was also talking more, albeit only to the small group of people close to him, and it wasn’t unusual to see him lost in thoughts, smiling to himself. He wasn’t as restless as he used to be, and he could easily spend long moments sitting on a rock by the sea, eyes closed and deep in thoughts while enjoying the feeling of sea spray hitting his skin.

Sherlock had to wait until June for the red scarf to fly again in West Birches Bay and, when he arrived at the meeting point in his rowboat, John was untying his scarf from the branch. He wrapped it around his neck despite the warm weather and when he didn’t say anything to justify the long wait Sherlock frowned.

“I almost sent you a new scarf, I thought you might have lost this one,” he said, sounding more like an offended child than the grown man he was.

John ignored the comment and led Sherlock to Lover’s Island, choosing the same path they had taken during their first visit together. The eiders had vacated their nests and the feathers had been scattered around by the wind. They managed to spy on a few ducklings as they stumbled down a small rock mound to catch up with their cousins in the water. Quickly dizzied by their first outing, most of them ended up tumbling head over tail into the water, quacking victoriously to express their pride.

Behind some bushes, John found a female too weak to leave her nest. With Sherlock’s help, he fed her clams and gave her water before searching the rest of the island’s beach for more helpless females. They helped four more, feeding and rehydrating them with hope they would eventually be strong enough to return to sea.

“Do you do this every year?” Sherlock asked once they were done.

“Yes,” John answered, “the females sacrifice themselves for their ducklings, I think it’s only fair to help those who are too weak to leave their nests.”

“Sacrifice? It’s in their nature to do so.”

“If the females leave their nests, seagulls will eat their eggs, so they starve themselves during the brooding month to protect them. Most of the females loose half their weight in the process, they leave the nest temporarily only if the seagulls are busy elsewhere, but as long as the sky is swarming with birds, they do without water. I call that a sacrifice. The ducklings of the too weak females usually survive and manage to reach the water where another duck takes care of them.”

Sherlock nodded thoughtfully and helped John gather some clams for themselves. Like he had done the first time, John opened them on a small fire and they ate while chatting pleasantly. Once they were done, John got up and extended his hand to help Sherlock to his feet.

“Come, I want to show you something. I think you’ll like it.”

Sherlock followed John to his hut, closing the door behind them. Things had changed since their last visit. The table was still there, but a second chair had been added and Sherlock couldn’t hide his smile as he thought the chair may have been placed there specifically for him. The porcupine skeleton wasn’t on the table anymore, having been replaced by a human skull.

He had read about human anatomy in books he kept in the many bookshelves in his and Aunt Martha’s living room, but this was the first human skull he was seeing with his own eyes and he was fascinated. Without waiting for an invitation to touch, Sherlock sat down on ‘his’ chair and delicately picked up the skull, treating it like the most precious thing in the world.

“Where did you find this?” Sherlock asked.

“In Salty Swamp. I didn’t find the rest of him; there was only the skull with very little still attached to it. It must’ve been there for many years, but I can’t tell exactly how much. I brought it back and boiled it, like the animal bones I find.”

“It’s beautiful. Tell me about it."

John smiled at Sherlock’s admiring expression and he sat down beside him. He put his left hand on the skull, where the forehead would’ve been and started reciting the names of the different bones.

“That’s the frontal bone,” John said before moving his hand to the back, “the parietal, then occipital bone.”

His hand shifted again to rest on the side of the skull.

“Temporal bone.”

Sherlock was listening, fascinated. He had seen many images showing the different cranial bones, but it was nothing compared to observing them on a real skull. He felt as though his anatomy textbooks had come alive and he wished John had found a whole skeleton, but this was good. He was still holding the skull when John’s hand brushed over his as he said:

“Maxilla, mandible…”

Once John was done reciting the names of the bones, he let go of the skull but Sherlock continued to caress it.

“What else can you tell me about it?” Sherlock asked.

“Look at how smooth it is, the obliterating process of the sutures was well advanced; the man was most likely over sixty when he died. I suppose it was a man because of the prominent brow ridge, the slanting frontal bone and the squared mandible. I can’t tell how he died, but the skull shows no signs of trauma, so he wasn’t hit over the head.”

Sherlock was amazed; John also had deducing skills. But, while Sherlock used his powerful observation techniques on the livings, John could deduce a lot just by looking at a skull.

“Fascinating,” Sherlock exclaimed.

“I thought you would like it,” John told him, “I picked it up for you. I want you to have it."

Sherlock had never received a better gift. His eyes were shining with a thousand sparks and his smile had rarely been so wide. Unsure of how to express the extent of his gratitude, he put the skull back on the table, grabbed both of John’s hands between his and thanked him multiple times. John was delighted by Sherlock’s joy and flashed him an equally wide smile.

The rest of the day was spent observing the skull some more, Sherlock taking mental notes on the thickness of bones, number of remaining teeth, circumference of orbits, and more. He could already think of seven experiments he wanted to do with his skull – nothing damageable – and he relegated them into the back of his mind for days when waiting for John’s signal would get particularly tedious. Before they parted, John told Sherlock he intended to raise the signal in the following days and that they were to meet in Salty Swamp.

While he was rowing back to Sailboat Bay, Sherlock could see that John was still on the shore, watching him leave, and the sight made something flutter in his stomach.

“Can I bring the skull?” he yelled, and he thought he heard the other man laugh, but it could’ve been the lapping of the waves around him.

Next chapter

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Comments

[eightnoon.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely gorgeous imagery and such wonderfully subtle moments together. I'm so glad to see more.

[ellie_hell.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You leave such lovely comments, they always make me warm and fuzzy.

I'm so glad you enjoyed this chapter and, judging from what you say you liked about it, I think you will like the next one too.

[southerngaelic.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy you updated!

[ellie_hell.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy I updated too! I'm now back on track and the next chapter will be posted soon :-)

[kholly.livejournal.com]

I love that ending image. There's a lot of joy in the entire chapter. But I can really picture John on the shore getting smaller as the boat rows away and laughing at Sherlock's enthusiasm.

Nice back story too. Letting Sherlock see that one man's prison is another man's freedom.

[ellie_hell.livejournal.com]

It's like you crawled inside my brain and saw what I had in mind for this chapter, especially the last scene :-)

Letting Sherlock see that one man's prison is another man's freedom.

That's something Sherlock needed to learn, and I think he knows now.

Thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to comment. There's nothing that pleases me more than hearing back from readers and knowing what they liked or perceived. You made me very happy :-)

This story makes me happy.

[atlinmerrick.livejournal.com]

I was so thrilled that they physically touched I can't even tell you. And it was so good (in a sad way) to finally understand what happened to John. And also, may I thrash Harry? Harry needs to be thrashed. I can do that for you, just say when.

I love, love, love not knowing where this is going, I love wandering the shore with them and hoping that what I'm seeing is them falling in love. 'Cause it sure feels like that's what they're doing. I hope I hope I hope.

[anarion.livejournal.com]

Finally! Now only a fire in the house could stop me from reading! :)

Oh God, and you get me right from the start! The scene with the two of them watching the seals and laughing at the pure joy the animals are having is so powerful!

And of course John is a very good listener! :)

John's story is fascinating and boy, do I dislike Harry or what?

Yay for Lestrade asking Sarah to marry him!
And I really like the whole Friendship Code thing! :D

Oh, Sherlock's change made my heart flutter! John did something really good here!

“I almost sent you a new scarf, I thought you might have lost this one,” he said, sounding more like an offended child than the grown man he was.
Haha!

OMG, a skull! He gave him a skull as a present! That's perfect! Only the two of them could have a date that includes a skull. *lol*

PS: When you talk about John in the hospital had shouted himself horse like a wounded animal. I think horse = hoarse!

[ellie_hell.livejournal.com]

Oh god, that's mortifying! Thank you for pointing it out, I love how you're always saving me from embarrassing mistakes! I've read that chapter dozens of times, how could I miss that? I'll just hide under the shame blanket for a while.

I love seals, I'm glad you liked them too. In fact, I love anything that will bring a bit of joy in John's existence.

I just had to include the skull, because a date isn't a date if it doesn't involve a skull ;-) And that bone-naming thing really made an impression on Sherlock, as you saw in the next chapter.

Again, thank you for spotting my mistake! Also, thank you for reading (I'm glad your house didn't caught on fire).