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The first time John encounters Sherlock, it goes like this.
A gang of five insurgents gets all the way to the camp's gate checkpoint before their cover story springs a leak, and the first hint anyone has that they're psychics is when the Screamers start wailing like banshees and one of the Movers is chucking men and Humvees around like toys. Add in the fact that the Division- in its infinite wisdom- will barely give the MOD the time of day, much less any psychics of their own, and you have all the ingredients for an epic level clusterfuck. Almost fifty casualties all told- five of those DOA and not a damn thing anyone can do to help- and the worst thing is that four of the five psychics get away clean.
John is in the mess, blankly shoveling in the calories he's missed while working a double shift in the camp hospital, when he sees a strange trio of men cruise in. Two of them have body armor and rifles, but they're wearing t-shirts and chinos underneath and nothing about them says military at all. The third is tall and pale, with a shock of dark, curly hair. He's wearing a pale blue shirt with the collar popped, denims, and a pair of worn leather gloves. He slouches into an empty seat with a tray of food while the other two stand by.
Bill Murray elbows John in the ribs. “Oi, d'you see that?”
“Of course,” John vengefully steals what's left of his fellow doctor's dessert. “VIP. So?”
“He's a Sniff,” Bill tells him in an undertone. John narrows his eyes at the stranger, who seems to be poking at his food without actually ingesting any. “There was an announcement while you were in that last surgery: he's here to take a look at the Screamer we've got on ice. All personnel to cooperate fully with the investigators, blah blah blah.”
“I'm not in charge of the morgue,” John says. “I doubt I'll have to get closer to him than this.”
“I'm just saying, mate, he's Division. Watch out.”
John shrugs. It's not like he hasn't met Assets before; not like they can tell he's one of them, unregistered and untapped, just by looking. All he has to do is act normal and he's fine, like always. He's not letting Bill's rampant paranoia infect him.
***
As luck would have it, John walks right past the Division men the next day on his way to the hospital building.
“The town's a bloody five minute walk,” the tall man is saying. “If I don't get hold of some cigarettes soon, I may actually die.” His tone and the way he's slouched on the bench against the wall remind John of a sullen teenager, although he's clearly too old to actually be one.
“I told you no,” one of the black-clad men replies. “After that stunt in Paris, you're lucky to be outside at all.”
John's next step falters; he shouldn't engage, it's safer not to address them. But the Sniff has already noticed John hesitating and is looking straight at him. What the hell. “You know, the threat level's down,” he says. “You'd be fine for the trip, as long as you all wear armor.”
“Mind your own fucking business,” the man snaps at John. The Sniff doesn't say anything, and doesn't make eye contact, just stares at John's stomach like he's studying his shirt buttons. Okay then.
John's no longer sure that the two guys in black are there for the Sniff's protection.
He walks back, fishing in his pocket for the crumpled packet of cigarettes he stuffed there the other day. He holds it out to the tall man, who finally makes eye contact. “Thank you,” the man says, sounding startled. He takes a cigarette from the packet and fishes a lighter out of his pocket, his motions precise even with the gloves on. Acting on impulse again, John lights one for himself and sits in the chair next to the man.
“A smoking doctor,” the Sniff says. “How prosaic.”
“Yeah, well. Lung cancer is way down on the list of health risks in Afghanistan.” John inexpertly flicks ash from the end of the cigarette.
“You've only been smoking for three weeks, you could easily quit.”
John whips his head round to stare. “How did you know that?”
“The way you hold the cigarette, and the tiny burns on your wrist.” The man shrugs one shoulder, as if this feat is nothing special. “You took it up because you've been especially stressed lately and it helps you to have something to do with your hands. Disregard for your own safety is an unusual trait in a doctor, isn't it?”
“Not in a soldier,” John says. “Almost everybody smokes out here.”
“Susceptible to peer pressure,” the man says, nodding in a self-satisfied way. “The same reason you started binge-drinking at uni, wasn't it? Although you quit during your first- no, your second- year of medical school. Bart's I assume? Your accent is London laid over something older- Scotland maybe. Someone you know developed a serious drinking problem and it scared you straight. Someone roughly your own age- family member not friend, close enough to have great emotional impact, probably a sibling.”
John is gaping now, the cigarette dangling forgotten between two fingers. “Holy shit,” he says. “That's amazing.”
The man peers at him suspiciously. “Really?”
“Astonishing, yeah. Incredible trick.”
The Sniff's mouth twists. “It's not a trick,” he says huffily.
John drops the butt of his cigarette and holds his hands up, open and placating. “Sorry, no offense. I've just never seen anything like it.” The man turns his face away and doesn't answer. John waits a second for his apology to be acknowledged, then shrugs and stands up. On a whim, he shoves the packet against the man's chest. “Here, you're right. I can quit, and I should.” The man slowly wraps his fingers around the packaging, and John lets go. “It was nice meeting you- what's your name?”
A lengthy pause. “Sherlock.”
“I'm John. Nice meeting you, Sherlock.” Silence again. A sullen teenager through and through, then. John walks off to his shift, leaving Sherlock slouching there in the shadow of his Division babysitters.
***
“The Sniff's gone,” Bill tells him in the staff room- more like a staff closet, really- near the end of the shift. He's a notorious gossip hound, and he spends most of his shift hoovering up the unofficial camp news and spraying it back out in as wide an arc as possible.
“He located those Taliban psychics already?” John asks. “That was quick.”
“Yep. Base commander is pleased as anything.” Bill gives him a significant look, as if expecting John to be pleased too, but John just shrugs.
“Not any more,” Dr. Kerrigan says. She just came on and is pouring herself a cup of coffee. “You owe me a fiver, Bill, my news is newer than yours. Turns out the Sniff is gone because he ditched his bodyguards and left the camp.” Bill whistles.
“Half a platoon's out looking for him,” Kerrigan says with relish. “Some Division nob is on his way out here to eat us all for breakfast for letting one of their precious Assets run off.” John can't decide whether his prevailing sentiment towards Sherlock is "good for him" or "what kind of a moron is he."
Apparently the Fates are voting for "moron." Within twenty-four hours the errant Asset is back, in the company of his two silent guardians and the half-a-platoon. No one looks very happy, least of all Sherlock, who has somehow acquired a gunshot wound to his right knee. John can see from the x-rays that the kneecap is completely fucked, the patella in so many pieces that the only worthwhile solution is to just take the whole thing out. Sherlock is not going to be doing any more running for a good long time. He obviously knows it, too, as evidenced by his bitchy sniping at anyone who comes within range.
For some reason that John can't explain even to himself, he volunteers to do the pre-op physical. Sherlock is surprisingly compliant, and John would almost think he was cowed by the bodyguards, except for the fixed scowl he's wearing.
“Unnecessary,” he says, when John flips his arm over to search for a vein. “I have a venous port.”
“Really?” John says skeptically. From the medical history Sherlock gave the nurse in between abusive remarks, he doesn't have any health problems that would demand one. Sherlock rolls his eyes and pulls the collar of his shirt aside, revealing the tell-tale line of the catheter snaking up his neck. “Okay then.” Sherlock lapses back into watchful silence while John disinfects the site and inserts the winged needle. He sighs a little bit and closes his eyes when John pushes the sedative and the morphine, but doesn't say anything else.
John is just taping a dressing over the port when he hears the door open behind him. The bodyguards straighten almost imperceptibly. The person who enters is by all appearances a perfectly ordinary businessman, if anyone in a tailored suit or carrying a tall, dark umbrella can be said to be “ordinary” around here. Average height, so a bit taller than John, medium build, short, dark hair, receding hairline, sharp features. John swears he feels a chill when those eyes flick over him; he has a sudden, visceral understanding of what it means to be pierced by a look. The eyes settle on Sherlock for a lengthy five seconds, then snap back to the left-hand bodyguard.
"Mr. Ralston. How exactly did you manage to contort the definition of protection to encompass shooting your charge?"
The bodyguard swallows, hard. "Sir, he's an Asset. The protocol in the event of escape indicates-"
"You're fired," the man in the suit says. "Get out."
"But sir- I- how am I supposed to get back to London?" The man just looks at him placidly, and the former bodyguard quails. He edges around the suited man, who does not move, and out the door.
The man in the suit frowns at Sherlock. "There you are, another employee sacked due to your intransigent posturing. Are you satisfied?"
Sherlock slits his eyes open and glares. "I wonder wherever he might have acquired the idea that kneecapping me was preferable to allowing me to escape," he says. "Perhaps you should save time and do the other leg now? I'm sure Atwater here would be happy to loan you his sidearm."
"Don't be childish," the man in the suit says.
The remaining bodyguard keeps his back straight and his eyes blank and fixed straight ahead, as if none of this is happening. John lacks that level of acting ability. He starts to sidle very casually towards the exit.
Those cold eyes latch onto him again. "Please stay, Doctor Watson. This conversation does pertain to you."
"I don't see how," John says.
"Agent Vernet is difficult enough when he is fully mobile. I can't imagine that convalescence will improve either his temper or his utility." John feels locked under that gaze, a specimen on a slide, trapped under a cover slip. "You're going to fix his leg."
"Right," he says gamely, ignoring the feeling of alarm prickling under his skin. "As soon as I get the rest of the team together-"
"No, Doctor Watson, you misunderstand," the man says. "You are going to fix his leg." This time the emphasis is unmistakeable. John begins very quietly and unobtrusively to panic.
"I'll do my best, certainly, although I'm not strictly speaking an orthopedic-”
The suited man breaks his gaze to look down at the handle of his umbrella. His voice as he cuts John off is polite and conversational. "You know, it's not as difficult to recruit Assets who are living off the grid as most people imagine. The reason we don't pick them all up is that it's simply not cost-effective." John feels ice cold. He hopes it's just nerves and not the blood draining from his face, which would be rather a giveaway.
"Take your sister Harriet," the man says, looking up again, and now John knows his face has gone white. "Living in Cordes-sur-Ciel- the Rue de Neguy I believe. She's a Shadow. Like your mother."
"Who the hell are you?" John barely recognizes the voice rasping harshly out of his throat. He clenches his hands at his sides; every atom in his body is thrumming with fight-or-flight reaction.
"Mycroft Holmes," says the man in the suit. "Deputy Director, Her Majesty's Division of Asset Management."
John's control shatters entirely and he stumbles backward and rips the door open before he's even thought it through. But no, this is stupid. He can't run from this man, there's nowhere to go that he won't be found. Better just face up to it here. He shuts the door and turns back to face Deputy Director Holmes.
Whose pupils are blown so wide that the black has spread out of the iris and into the whites of his eyes. John's panic is eclipsed by fury. "God damn it, stay out of my head!" he snarls, and takes a step forward, fist clenched.
Holmes blinks twice and his eyes return to normal. "A Stitch working as a doctor,” Holmes says. "Hiding in plain sight. It's very clever, Doctor Watson, but there are a hundred little tells if you know how to look for them." He gestures expansively at Sherlock, who is still watching from under half-hooded eyes, silent. "Begin."
John walks slowly to the bedside and lifts the sheet off Sherlock's legs, then begins to remove the dressing on his knee. Holmes stands very still, watching with polite interest. John briefly considers botching the repairs, doing such a piss-poor job that Holmes decides he's utter crap and not worth drafting into the Division.
But John isn't going to win his freedom by crippling a man who's done nothing to him. He's going to have to play it straight. Which is bad for him, but good for Sherlock, because this is not his first psychic surgery.
Sherlock hisses in pain when John lays his ungloved hands on: one pressed firmly against the torn and ruptured skin of the wounded knee, and one just below the wound. John closes his eyes, tuning out the room, the patient, Holmes' searing stare, his own sick dread, and focuses inward.
John knows the anatomy of the knee and can call up a picture in his mind, compare it to what's here, but he doesn't necessarily need to. Every cell of Sherlock’s body is inscribed with a perfect blueprint of what his knee should look like: a blueprint John knows how to read.
The bullet entered the back of the knee, piercing the menisci and blasting out through the patella, shattering it into multiple fragments. John finds the bits of bone scattered and isolated in the muscles and ligaments of the knee and patiently reassembles them. The body wants to be whole, and it's almost helping him, signaling him when he brings a piece in line with the blueprint. As John slots each fragment into place, he seals the edges, encouraging the cells to adhere and become part of a functioning whole again. When he has sought out every last tiny bone fragment, there is still a hole in the center of the patella. John goes into the nearest cells and switches them on, accelerating their natural reproduction so that they divide and divide, creating new cells to fill the gap until the bone is whole again.
He traces each capillary and vein, finding and repairing tears to stop the bleeds caused by moving fragments of bone back to their proper places. He fixes the ligaments and cartilage in the same way, spurring the creation of new cells to repair what he can't reassemble. When the bones and joint are complete again, John can feel it like a steady, reassuring hum in the tips of his fingers. He moves on to the muscles, but those are easier, just cell division in the proper places, shut off at the proper time. Then the nerves, a spider-web of slender fibers he twitches delicately into place. Finally, the skin. The wound was already cleaned, so there are no more than a few cells of foreign matter to expel before he crafts new cells to seal the lacerations and the jagged hole where the bullet exited.
John opens his eyes and lifts his hands, then staggers backward and leans against the wall of the room, blinking fog from his eyes.
Sherlock is already lifting his leg, flexing the knee. Holmes is holding a watch, an honest-to-god pocket watch, and smiling tightly. “Impressive,” he says, and John knows that he has well and truly fucked up. He was too good, too fast, but he doesn't know how to go slower; when he uses his ability, everything else disappears and he just does it.
John turns and walks out; Holmes doesn't try to stop him. John can feel everyone's eyes on him as he blindly pushes his way into the staff room and shuts the door; he knows his skin is still chalk white, and his hands have started to shake. He's leaning against the counter they keep the coffee maker on, trying to compose himself, when Bill sticks his head in.
“You look like shit,” he says. “Are you still okay for Vernet's surgery?”
“Surgery's canceled,” John says. “I took care of it.”
Bill takes his meaning instantly; he was there at Sangin when John had suddenly found that keeping his secret wasn't worth letting another soldier he could take care of die under his hands. “You-” Disbelief breaks across Bill's face and he slides inside and shuts the door. “Are you insane?” he demands.
“Bill, they know. Division knows about me,” John says, unable to meet his friend's eyes. “The guy they sent out is the deputy director, and he- he just knew. About me, Harry, my mum.” Not about Dad though, which is something John will have to think about. Later, when he's not flipping out.
“Christ on a cross,” Bill says.
“I don't know what to do,” John says. He leans heavily on his forearms and takes deep breaths.
“Well maybe you'll get lucky. I mean, the guy's got a lot on his plate, right? He'll probably get back to London and forget all about you.”
“Maybe,” John says hollowly. But he remembers the self-satisfied look on Holmes' face and really, really doubts it.
***
Holmes and Vernet fly back out. The compound Vernet identified as housing the psychics is raided. A week passes, and John stops lying awake all night wondering if it would put Harry in more danger to warn her or to say nothing. He starts to think that he dodged the bullet; Holmes didn't strike him as the sort of man to put things off.
So John is pretty shocked when his CO tells him he's being discharged.
“What?” John says.
“It's an honorable discharge,” Bivens tells him, as if he expects that to be reassuring.
“What?”
“Division wants you back in England,” Bivens says. He doesn't even have the grace to look ashamed. “You enlisted before you were registered as an Asset, so if we take it to court we might win. But that business of calling in the Sniff last week...it left the Army with a debt.”
John's rage emerges victorious over his shock. “You're ruining my life because you don't want to owe the Division a favor?”
“There are worse ways to get sent home,” Bivens says. John bites back the impulse to say he'd rather go back in a body bag; it's a little too frighteningly true to say out loud. “I'm sorry, Watson. I know it's a blow. But you've got a brilliant second career ahead of you.”
A career on the Division's leash. “Sir-” John tries, but Bivens cuts him off.
“I'm sure you'll do just as well there as you have here.” Bivens stands and holds out the written discharge, an obvious invitation for John to get out.
He gets halfway up the hall before Bivens calls him back. When John reenters the office, he's holding the handset to his office phone and looking somewhat confused. “It's for you.”
“Hello again, Doctor Watson. You will just have heard the news, I believe.” It takes John a moment, but he recognizes the inflections more quickly than the voice itself.
“You son of a bitch,” John says. “You have no right to do this!”
“Of course I do,” Mycroft Holmes says. “You'll find my legal authority over you is very near absolute. And one could posit that I have a responsibility, from an ethics standpoint, to ensure your safety to the greatest extent possible.”
“Sod my safety!” Bivens, listening from across the desk, looks scandalized by John's attitude towards his new boss.
“I act in the national interest as well. You're wasted in your current position, Doctor Watson. I can offer you not only greater material benefits, but an opportunity to do deeply meaningful work.”
John squeezes the phone so hard that the plastic creaks. “I don't want material benefits. And I'm doing meaningful work here,” he says. Sudden inspiration. “If you have me discharged, I won't take the transport back to England,” he says. “I'll go somewhere else, somewhere you haven't the power to run my life.”
“Your passport has already been revoked,” Holmes says. “I admire your spirit, but you are wasting your time, Doctor Watson. Come home.”
Bill finds John in his quarters, furiously packing his things. "What are you doing?" he demands. "Don't tell me you're getting transferred again already."
"Yeah. Back to England," John says. "They kicked me out."
"What are you talking about?" Bill demands, stepping fully into the room.
John snatches up the paperwork and all but flings it at Bill, so he has to stoop to pick it up from the floor. His brow furrows as he reads. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," he says, voice absolutely flat.
"Bivens says he's sorry," John snarls, twisting the wadded-up shirt he's holding. "He's handing me over to the Division with a fucking bow on, and he's sorry."
Bill sets the papers back on the bed. "You don't have to go back to England, though." He purses his lips thoughtfully.
"They yanked my passport," John says. "What am I going to do, hijack a plane?" Bill raises an eyebrow. "I have to go back, there's nothing else to do."
"I wonder what the rumor mill is going to make of this," Bill says thoughtfully.
John looks at him, startled. "What?"
"Well you've been outed now," Bill says. "The Army never gets assigned any psychics, and now we have one and Division's taking him away? People aren't going to like that."
John can see the shape of Bill's thought, but it isn't going to work. "There's a big difference between bitching about politics in the mess and risking your career," he says dismissively. "Who's going to stick their neck out for me?"
Bill groans. "Are you actually fucking brain-damaged, Watson?" he asks. "Everyone in this camp has had his ass stitched up by you, or knows someone who has." John stares blankly. "Everyone likes you, you stupid bastard," Bill says. "And when they hear what's happening, they are going to be mad as hell."
***
John knows word is spreading, because he sees the way people are looking at him in the common areas and in the hospital. He ends up going to his shift at the surgery anyway, because that's who he is, and it's not like anyone's going to stop him. There's nothing to hide any more, so John stops trying. He clears the entire surgical schedule in half a shift and leaves himself a wrecked, panting mess.
"This is actually helping a lot," Bill tells John. "People are seeing the full extent of what they're losing in you."
"That's not why I'm doing it," John says, massaging the back of his aching neck.
"I know," Bill says. "But it's true."
The pressure is working in another way as well: Bivens calls John to his office and tells him he's flying out day after tomorrow. John feels sick, but Bill smiles when he hears. "Good. Pack up the shit you want to keep, separate from your uniforms and everything else," he orders.
The morning of his departure, Bill rolls him out of bed before sunrise and starts ripping off the sheets. "Up," he commands. "We've got to get all this through the laundry and back in stores." When John starts bundling up the sheets on his own, Bill goes to the doorway and fetches back a bundle of gear and body armor.
"You gonna tell me what's up?" John asks. "Or am I supposed to guess?"
Bill smiles triumphantly. "You remember Sergeant Rufalo?" John does. He patched the man back together in a grueling seven-hour surgery, after a lengthy firefight took him apart. Apparently he'd caught most of the bullets covering his unit's withdrawal under heavy fire. They'd visited him every, every day.
"His squad's back in town, only they're headed out today. Back to their post, clear to the Pakistan border almost. The thing is, Private O'Connor, who happens to be about your size, is down with a nasty bout of flu and can't travel. And there's about to be an unfortunate confusion of paperwork that results in no one noticing that O'Connor is both in hospital here and traveling with his squad at the same time." Bill thumps the gear onto the bare mattress.
John is laughing, but already shucking his trousers and sliding into the uniform. "You're insane," he says.
"Don't cheek me, O'Connor, I'm a fucking officer," Bill says, grinning madly.
They set the bags by the door and splash a lot of bleach around. The name Sniff isn't completely accurate- they make heavy use of touch, and some get the best impressions from taste- but they all rely on smell to some degree, and the bleach will help din the traces of John that linger in the furniture. If they set Watchers on him, his only protection is to be far, far away; there's no really effective way to hide from a precognitive, other than getting out of range.
The bag to keep- civilian clothes, his dog tags, his sidearm, what cash he has on hand and that Bill has donated, not much else- will go with John on the transport. The rest of the stuff, his uniforms mostly, will go with Bill, who is supposedly taking John to the airfield. He's going to report that it's John who has the flu and is too sick to travel, then come back to base and report that John's on his way back home; with a stop along the way to burn everything John's leaving behind that might be used to track him.
It's a flimsy ruse, but it only needs to last a couple days, long enough for John to get south and cross the border into Pakistan. John keeps laughing at the absurd optimism of the whole thing. "I'm going to get my arse killed," he says to Bill as he's climbing into the transport with the rest of his temporary unit. "There are so many ways this can go wrong."
"Yeah," Bill says. He looks unusually reflective. "But I know you, John- you'd rather be risking your arse and free, than safe and pinned down."
It's a pretty accurate summary. But John wonders, as they glide through the checkpoint and onto the first leg of what for John is going to be a long, long, long trip, if he's escaped the Division's trap only to climb into one of his own making.