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Monday, October 31st, 2011 12:18 pm
sherlockfic: only an afterthought, 2
Only an Afterthought, 2
Fandom: Sherlock/Inception
In which there is a secret history to explore.
Part I
"What the hell?" Arthur says, looking at the dingy, water-stained boxes stacked in the corner of the hotel, smelling of mildew and ruining the sleek carpet. Several others, some in the process of disintegration, litter the floor from desk nearly to the bed. Reaching inside, Arthur winces at the feel of the dampness, flipping it open to see the top sheet scrawled with SECRET and EYES ONLY. "Where did you get--how did you get these? I thought everything was destroyed."
"This is the American military we're talking about," Cobb says without looking up from the untidy sprawl across the foot of the ridiculously large bed, folder anchored by one elbow as he finishes the page and starts the next one. "When they said dispose of it all, they didn't say how, so it's probably still in committee. Got all the cameras?"
Arthur sets down his briefcase and resists the urge to tell Cobb where he's going to shove all ten thousand of those fucking little bugs. Between the government's CCTV and what appears to be a concerted attempt to catch their every move and every breath from any possible angle in every room he's swept so far, paranoid doesn't begin to describe his current state of being. Sherlock's oblique warnings had been almost as disturbing as John's casually vicious, "Pretty much everywhere, I’d say. Might try a desert of some kind? Excluding areas under satellite surveillance of course," at which time Sherlock had added, "I can give specific coordinates if you like. The closest is somewhat south of Bangladesh," which just confirms to Arthur this entire job was a terrible idea, even though his bank account is far more sanguine.
Their employers--via intermediary, that is--had seemed pleased with their results, which hadn't been the reaction that Cobb had obviously been expecting. Arthur had found himself curiously unsurprised, however, fingers wrapped around the hilt of his gun and coolly evaluating the benefit/risk of killing the intermediary out of hand and discovering the reason why later. There's something about this that makes no sense; the United States is full of former participants in the trials, and while the miraculous cure of mental illness is in itself valuable, even at these odds, their interest in the mental health of the participants had been entirely wrong for a company looking to capitalize on the possibility of medical miracles.
"We should have gone home," Arthur says, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, bringing the London skyline into view. "I don't know why you changed your mind on this one--" which is only half a lie, "--but whatever they want with him--"
"Us." Cobb glances up, a slash of unreadable blue eyes. "All of us."
Arthur hesitates. "No one knows you can do anything particularly unique." Other than Arthur, Saito, Ariadne and Eames maybe--scratch that, definitely. Ariadne's been with Cobb on three quarters of the jobs they've done in the last year, learning, and Eames pays strict attention. "No one knows who has any reason to say anything," he amends.
"Not until a job might need it," Cobb says carelessly. Arthur stiffens. "It's a matter of time."
"You think we'd sell you out?" Arthur says softly.
"Yes."
For a second, Arthur wants nothing more than to shove his gun under Cobb's chin, just to see what he'll do about it. Lay there and laugh, get away, pull his own and perform a performance-art grade standoff in their hotel suite, because in the end they really are just mercenaries who mindfuck for money and that's all they'll ever be.
"Ariadne took your kids to the museums today," Arthur says, surprised at the harsh sound of his voice, surprised by the faint tremble at the end. "Saito paid off every employer we ever fucked over. Eames--" he stops there, not sure what to add when that's more instinct than provable fact. Or maybe not. "For two years, you were a very expensive colleague, and it wasn't just the local police who were stalking you across the globe. If Eames--if any of us--wanted to sell you out, we would have done it when it was worth serious money. No one can outbid the American fucking military and they were very willing to prove that."
Cobb hesitates, fingers resting on the brown edged paper before he looks up. "I don't even know why you're still here."
He doesn't, Arthur realizes, something horrible clenching tight and bitter in his chest. This is where the man before Mal's death disappears entirely, even the faint, lingering traces of the young, idealistic student who learned how literal the mind containing multitudes really was. It can't be just her death, or the two years running, or the time since; it's something more complex that may have started earlier, perhaps when theory became practical application, when the dreams Cobb spun always smelled of old blood and the faintest breezes held sounds like voices too hoarse to scream.
"I get wanting to stay out of sight when the other option was the Marines bringing you in for questioning when I disappeared. You worked with me because this is what we do and it's not like there are enough of us to pick and choose. At least you knew I wouldn't shoot you when you weren't dreaming." It's a job hazard, Arthur admits. "We needed each other before. Now--"
"Ariadne's explaining to Philippa what those funny noises are that Daddy made the other night," Arthur says maliciously. Cobb pales. "Yes, your five year old is learning about sex from a woman who looks like she's never heard the word. Tell me you would have taken this job and left the kids anywhere miles of her--or any of us for that matter--if you really thought we'd fuck you over just for the money. For being a selfish dick, that's still pending."
Cobb rolls over.
"Dom? What the fuck is going through your head?"
"Did you know how many people were used in the trials?" Cobb says slowly. Frowning, Arthur leans over, reading the faded, yellowing paper upside down. "No, that's a requisition for a hot tub--don't ask, General Bonirolli's signature is on it."
Arthur jerks back, wondering if he needs a shower. Bonirolli hadn't had any scruples in requisitioning any resource available for his projects, and that included dreamers and projects based on the collected works of John Fucking Norman, but with even less class and a decided lack of narrative flow. It's not that Arthur judges people's fantasies (Christ, he burned that out the first year, and that includes his own) except he judges Bonirolli like fucking hell, because shit like that in the privacy of your mind is one thing, but making people build your dreams for you, too-vivid, sprawling, cloyingly detailed in oversaturated primary colors, forced to watch and listen and remember, because when lucid is the only way you dream, it's hard to forget.
"After all this time," Arthur says, easing away from the folder before he stops trying to pretend he cares this is childish and knocks it on the floor for later burning, "why are you thinking about this? Or for that matter, why do you care? We weren't in charge of those trials. We didn't even have the authority to be around when they were going on, much less stop them."
"Seven thousand," Cobb says, staring at the ceiling. "I mean, that I have hard evidence for. Fifteen thousand worldwide if I'm conservative about what I don't know. "Fifty thousand if I'm being improvably realistic."
Arthur forgets what he was going to say. Fifty thousand. "Fifty thousand--what--"
"There are seventy professionals in the world who trained under something that resembles a government authority and a nod at shit like humane testing conditions--oxymoronic now that I think about it--and accountability. And records, gotta remember those. So we didn't share well with others, or at least countries that we didn't like, so only half the UN security council got access to the technology and people who could use it. When the US shut everything down, they shut it down everywhere, and encouraged their allied countries to be very thorough in erasing this from history."
"They killed their dreamers."
"Oh, they wish; the one thing you don't want to do is go one last time to get off on your lizard woman from Mars porn and think your dreamer isn't going to pick up something's really wrong, and hey, while they're there, let's just go find out. Most got out because half the administers of the projects were goddamn addicts. You can't make this shit up; Japan lost every goddamn one of them dreaming Sailor Moon while they packed up everything they had and went out of the country in plain sight before vanishing. Half the R&D were found dead of dehydration in Moscow in empty labs, nothing left but them and one PASIV still running beside them. Call me crazy but I can count how many I trained before sending them home and that was a shitload more than seventy. Conservative estimate around five hundred, maybe a thousand who can do what we do, even accounting for the ones that didn't get away and the ones so underground they're afraid to dream in their own sleep."
Arthur stares out the window, the slowly setting sun limning London in orange-gold like the memory of a city on fire. "So where are they?"
"I could make a list," Cobb offers. "It starts with 'any country in the world' and narrowed by 'who can pay for them'. Maybe voluntary, maybe not so much. Maybe hooked up in the basement of some Greek magnate in the Caymens for the last three years, who the fuck knows, that's the thing, we don't know how many, or how to find them, or even have a place to start."
Arthur swallows, why does that matter lost beneath the numbers. If Cobb thinks fifty thousand could have been exposed to the PASIV, as guinea pig or potential dreamer, why not a hundred? Why not a million? In a planet with a population in the billions, that's not even a drop in the bucket.
"It wasn't the money," Arthur says abruptly. "This job."
"Arthur," Cobb says tiredly. "They paid us to break into the mind of a former experiment for the British government. My fingerprints were all over that place, how it was put together, what it meant. Wasn't me, but it was someone I trained, someone I knew, someone who worked on three trials in Britain where they guinea pigged to repeat results we already had, just to see the fuck what happened. Tell me corporate espionage even fucking compares."
"Not really," Arthur admits. "But neither does Guantanamo Bay or military training exercises or--"
Cobb sits up, eyes flat. "--pretty much anything we've done, right. Does it ever bother you?"
"No," Arthur says, and then pauses at the knee-jerk honesty of it, because it had never been real, no matter how it might feel. "After all this time, what, you're getting a conscience?"
"That's the problem," Cobb say slowly. "No. But now I want to."
The problem is, Arthur thinks, when you know nothing is really real, all bets are off. No matter what they do dreaming, they'll wake up and everything's like it was before. Their target might remember them in hazy, indistinct images, but mostly, they remembered almost nothing at all.
It's easy to torture a man to death when you know when you open your eyes, he will too, and while he might take the quickly fading memories of a dream that was blood and anger and terror and death, he's still alive to take it. Nothing counts, because it will reset in the end.
Arthur is good with a gun, and he never hesitates to shoot because it's time to reset and they'll wake up. Funny thing is, the real world doesn't have a reset and Arthur's instincts and reflexes trained in a thousand dreams crossed over just fine. He was already military and CIA; it's not like he needed more conditioning to shoot without thought and always without mercy.
Cobb's on the phone with the kids, and with any kind of luck Philippa will ask him pointed questions about what two people do together that will haunt Cobb for the rest of his life. Maybe, Cobb will lock himself in the bathroom at the thought of his little girl growing up one day and adolescence and crushes, first dates probably on the living room floor with a PASIV and Cobb's enlightened sense of overprotection hitting new and frightening levels. What charmingly domestic memories in the Cobb household, and it's not like Arthur's not going along to monitor, because nothing says first love like a double date with your dad, his colleague, and his colleague's itchy trigger finger.
Suffice to say, they will never stop working, because it's not like they're both not responsible for paying Philippa's therapy bills and why fight it.
He listens as Cobb hangs up the phone and shuffles around the room in the approximation of activity that's more staring vaguely at random boxes and a suitcase of horrible clothing with no conscious realization that he can't dress himself and that's why Arthur shops for him.
"I don't actually think you're going to sell me out," Cobb says from the edge of the room, sounding reluctantly ashamed of himself. Arthur sighs. Cobb is an asshole and possibly has a major psychiatric disorder and is single-minded to the point of stupidity, but this is what happens to idealists when they hit the real world and have to live in it. Arthur thinks, a little bitterly, that he would have spared him so much of this if he could have, if he'd known the result would be this; Cobb couldn't be anything but brilliant and driven and ambitious and so fucking sure he could do anything if Arthur could, and the tragedy is, he could, but he burned out so much of himself to do it. The opposite of idealism isn't cynicism; it's this, a horrible living dichotomy of believing in nothing and knowing that once you did. "I mean, I really don't. I just don't get why."
Arthur thinks about it; there are no normal reasons that can be accepted and they aren't the real reasons anyway. The real reasons are layers that are time and energy and life and the ruthless, grinding familiarity of knowing someone so well that you know how they breathe. But most of it is, you don't meet a Dom Cobb and not love him; there's something fundamentally wrong with you when you don't see that shining brilliance and how hard he works to be less than he actually is and how he tries not to think in more than the next job and for two years pretended to do just that. Now he's trying to pretend this last job was all curiosity and not the fact that you don't pull a number like fifty fucking thousand out of thin air, and all along, all this time, God, maybe since before Mal died, this has been at the back of his mind, working toward a conclusion that's as impossible as it is utterly right.
You don't have to care to know when something is fubar'ed beyond words, but Christ, fifty fucking thousand people is a lot of not caring. Arthur's not entirely sure even he can manage not to care at all. Cobb's about two steps from a crying jag and a quest to track them all down like the rabid dog he really is under it all, and truth is, Arthur thinks, he can't think of a better use of his time, anyway, so why not tag along?
A lot of his life can be characterized by 'why not', and for all the parts that he could have lived without, knowing Cobb was the most wtf 'why not' of his life, that may have defined it, certainly changed it, and Cobb is not something you miss if you can help it.
"I like the kids," Arthur tells the ceiling. "If I killed you, I'm pretty sure your in-laws would be against visitation."
Abruptly, the bed lurches, and Cobb is beside him, staring up at the ceiling. "I just realized," he says, in that voice that's genuinely uneasy, "that you've lasted longer than my marriage."
"There was a reason Mal called me your first wife," Arthur says patiently. "And she agreed it was practical since you would inevitably die in some really strange and traumatic way, and since I was always around, she'd just marry me and no one would notice."
"That's sick."
"You wrote it into your will. Though I don't know why you thought I'd go along with 'and must take the name Dom Cobb,' but I had lawyers working on that."
Cobb makes a disagreeing sound, but that's because his lawyer really thought that shit would fly. Ignoring an already ridiculously wrinkled suit, Arthur rolls on his side. "You know, you've been phoning in for a while now, so let's just get it off our chests. We can keep doing this or we can stop, but that doesn't mean we can't also follow your next great vision. You were way too interested in this job and now I know why. You're not actually a sociopath when you don't feel deep shame and constant remorse for fifty fucking thousand people you didn't know about and had no control over to change their fates. But caring about what happened to this guy because some of your recruits were playing mad scientist with some idealist students, the homeless, and the clinically insane isn't what I'd call inconsistent."
"Maybe." Cobb stares the ceiling. "If they made navigators, even by accident, with these odds, you get that if the military finds out, they'll break open the project again right where it left off and take it straight to hell. Right now, only people in the highest tax brackets can even afford to hire us, much less pay for learning how to protect themselves. I always thought in terms of risk assessment, how long we could stay, but now that's not even on the table. When you can make infinity out of five minutes, there aren't any rules anymore."
Arthur stares at him. "How the fuck do you think this shit up? I know you don't dream when you sleep, and you do actually sleep. "
"So what, I'm wrong?" Cobb says petulantly. "Ask Eames; he's the one who got drunk on absinthe and decided we all needed a post-modern philosophic moment of thought last time we were in Paris."
"Right, tell him he brings any absinthe to London, I'll kick his ass," Cobb says sleepily. "And tell him to come to London, too, keep the details minimum. And Ari. I'm going need them to do this."
Arthur blinks. "What? Why?"
"A literalist who knows when he's dreaming isn't going to have his suppressed memories in the form of metaphoric flowers for us to find and pick," Cobb says, eyes falling shut. "We're going to need help, and I need at least one other Architect to help me figure out how to work with someone who will, and this is just a guess, critique every fucking detail of anything we dream."
It sounds reasonable (and the assessment on Sherlock sound depressing, though accurate), but Cobb often does, even when he's doing very stupid shit. "And Eames? We don't need a forger for this."
"No. But we may need a thief." Cobb's voice softens, already tipping over. "They're good at finding things."
"Been down here a while," Lestrade says from behind him. John jumps, nearly dropping the box. "Bit of a lull; I can help if you like."
Lestrade hadn't asked why John wanted to look at the cold case boxes, just sent him on with an absent warning about those marked for limited access that sounded more like a rehearsed speech than actual concern over what John's accessing; John's not entirely sure what he's doing is in any way normally allowed, but then again, nothing about their lives is normal.
Hesitating, he considers his options. Sherlock had said to consult Lestrade to find it, but he hadn't been sure how much of the reason why he needed it should be divulged. Not to mention the temptation to ask Lestrade about--well, all of it. Any of it. Sherlock, then, before and after. "An investigation you and Sherlock did a few years ago. The--"
Lestrade grimaces, shutting the door. "He called to tell me you would feel discretion the better part of valor and refuse to ask. And he assures me he swept this room for his brother's--" Lestrade grimaces more; how to say, one is worried about one's consulting detective's brother putting him under surveillance, when it's insane and yet, life? "In any case, I'm to show you to the boxes and then answer your questions."
John blinks, trying to gather his thoughts. Following Lestrade, they fetch three boxes, carrying them back to a table in the corner and setting them on the floor, then they sit to stare at each other, because John's not sure now where to even start.
"You asked how long I had known Sherlock," Lestrade says finally, steepling his hands on the surface of the table. "We met at a drugs bust. Of him, actually. Clean as a whistle, always is, but we had to try. He was always so obvious about it, you understand, because it didn't matter what anyone thought. When his brother pulled his trust fund, expecting him to return home, he went to St. Bart's and stayed there, stubborn." Lestrade pauses thoughtfully. "Two weeks in, the crime rate drops and we had a homeless population from a Dickens musical for five square blocks. He can't really help it, you know; he hates to see people so very wrong and not try to make them do it right. It offended his aesthetics, you see."
John shuts his mouth; all things considered, it's not a surprise.
"By that point, of course, he was a junkie and had decided to devote himself to achieving professional excellence in that field, as might be expected. He told me once that his habit had kept the deterioration somewhat in check; he was of the opinion by the time that it failed to do so and he became a danger to those around him, he would be irrational enough overdose by accident. Of course, this is Sherlock; he could not accidentally overdose himself if he tried. I think he knew that; it's not in him to give up anything, even if he wanted to."
"He was suicidal, then?" The word feels wrong in his mouth, dull edged and dark, unhappy. Sherlock with his endless fascination with all that the world was, who couldn't find anything in the world that could help him live it.
Lestrade frowns, staring at his hands. "You cannot tell a man whose hold on his own mind that is forever slipping that it will get better; you cannot tell a junkie that once he's clean, there will be sanity on the other side. Neither of those things were true, and Sherlock does not respect those who will tell him obvious lies. I arrested him when I could catch him, of course, but I could only catch him when he was unable to get away. A few nights in the psychiatric ward before he escaped would be sufficient for food and sleep; they thought they were dealing only with an addict, not one whose addiction was only to his own sanity. If the side effects were increased susceptibility to psychosis, he was willing to pay the price."
"You liked him," John says, not terribly surprised, but thinks that he should be.
"A drug addicted sociopath with psychotic tendencies; might be something of a weakness of mine. He was, to be honest, an improvement on most of my colleagues at Scotland Yard." Lestrade sighs. "I never met anyone who fought so hard for so little reward. I think St. Bart's was one of the few places that made sense for him; a meal, a warm bed, sufficient sleep are all a battle to be fought for and often lost. It may have been the only place that he could go that understood that; they live it every day."
John nods, mouth tight.
"But you want to know of the recruitment of the homeless, of course." Lestrade's expression hardens. "Officers patrolling the area were--amenable to looking the other direction, despite the fact that it was not generally condoned. At the time, I was only one of many detectives and so could do nothing to reprimand them once I discovered it. Our superior was--not of a mind to enforce it and give the officers more work than they already had.
"Sherlock brought it to my attention when I was on patrol. It was the first time he ever sought me out directly. It was also the first time I realized he had ever noticed me as other than one of the many officers on patrol. My sentimentality, he said, would be useful for once. He wanted to know why a man who had no business representing a drug company would pass himself as one of their recruiters." Lestrade shakes his head. "It was the most cognizant he had been in my acquaintance; I took his information unsure if I were speaking to the same man I would leave to sleep in the psychiatric ward."
John smiles; Sherlock on a case is something to be experienced.
"The investigation was not particularly interesting to my superiors, even with Sherlock's verification of their absence; the homeless are known to drift occasionally, and taking the word of one of them was--not done. I was permitted to work on it, however, and between us, we had gotten as far as the Oxford connection when Sherlock was taken into his brother's custody." Lestrade swallows. "I did it; sometimes I think he waited as long as he could for me to be the one to find him. The last three episodes had ended in violence and were of longer duration each time; the officers on patrol paid little attention as such things were common. They would not recognize that if Sherlock truly lost his hold on himself, it would quickly turn uncommon. He had to be certain someone would know enough to stop him; I was the one he trusted to do so."
There are many things, John supposes, that are difficult to hear, but being trusted to stop a man who knew what he was capable of and who would kill Lestrade as quickly as anyone else must have been impossible.
"Sally, who had patrolled as well, was called as witness; I refused and was not asked again." Lestrade frowns. "It was necessary, and that I understand, and I agreed with it. But I could not testify against him, not if I had any other choice. His brother was very accommodating, of course. Sherlock had never spoken his name, but by that time I had enough information that I understood that Sherlock's family considered his state a source of shame, to be hidden and forgotten as quickly as possible. Which was the case, I suppose; custody and commitment were done at once. It was fast and quite private, to spare the Holmes family distress."
"Mycroft is--" John searches for the word. The odd thing is, John's seen him amongst normal people and the easy amiability seems to fool them all. The warm, caring, worried brother he'd be in court must have been comforting.
"Irritating," Lestrade says flatly, looking at John, mouth twitching at John's enthusiastic nod. "He assured me this was for the best; I believed that, but I still didn't care for it. I was rather hostile, actually."
Lestrade, John remembers abruptly, is also a younger brother.
"I spoke to Sherlock--"
"He told me," John says quickly. Lestrade blinks, looking surprised. "He remembers the hearing. Most of it, anyway."
"He called me sentimental," Lestrade says with a slight smile, unable to meet John's eyes. "We live in a world of medical miracles; something might be found to help, and he did not know how to give up. If anyone could find a way, he would."
John looks away, feeling as exposed by that glimpse of pain as if it were his own. "Right."
"Right." Lestrade clears his throat. "I made a habit of checking on him; his brother had me listed as an authorized visitor, but I knew Sherlock would not care for anyone to see him who had ever known him. I became friendly with one of the psychiatric nurses, however, and she was comfortingly indiscreet on all matters of his treatment. His progression through all known treatments had had little to no effect, and his periods of lucidity briefer. There was talk of this or than innovation from America, but then she mentioned the new trial, and when I searched, neither the company sponsoring it nor the man said to be the director were listed associated with any drug companies, much less those that developed anti-psychotics. The paperwork was done before I had returned the next day for more information, and Mycroft Holmes signature was on every page, all very correct, except for the fact none of it was."
"And you confronted him."
"More I was asked to enter a unmarked black sedan and taken to a tasteful office near Westminster," Lestrade says, glancing up at John. "Mycroft was careful to soothe my concerns, explaining they were a newly formed British subsidiary of an American company, though due to certain legal statutes, he was unable to name them. They had suffered a disaster with risperadone, which had caused Sherlock to enter a fifteen day psychotic state during which he was a danger to everything and everyone he came in contact with. Sedation had made it possible to restrain him, but there were several injuries before that was achieved, and their options were quickly narrowing. The new medication was experimental, but the studies seemed promising, and only those for whom there was no treatment available or possible otherwise would be selected. It was all very sensible, and I was able to find information about the company and confirm all that Mycroft said."
"You still filed a petition."
"Sherlock had given me a list of the men and women who had been taken for the trial; some had reappeared. I knew this because twenty were admitted in a single night to St. Bart's. The range of symptoms was quite limited, and specific; hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and insistence that they were not awake and this world was not real. Some claimed they had been awake for weeks. Two committed suicide before processing was completed. They said that they wanted to wake up."
John sucks in a breath.
"There was no proof of the trial but Sherlock's word and a stolen ID card; there was nothing concrete to verify these people had been taken, much less experimented on and then returned like so much damaged merchandise. I could not stop it if Mycroft permitted Sherlock to be enrolled, but I could make sure it was recorded, documented, became a matter of record by an officer of the law. Then I went to visit Sherlock, because much as it might pain him to be seen at less than his best, I no longer cared."
That room has haunted John's sleep more than he cares to admit. St. Bart's is not a terrible place, but a psychiatric ward can never not be what it is. A small, sterile, padded room, a bed to hold a man who no longer had even his own mind; he can imagine going there and seeing Sherlock--like that. He doesn't know what he'd say, or even if he could speak.
"I think he knew I was there sometimes; I tried to tell him things that would interest him, hold his attention. The return of the homeless, that I was investigating it still, that two of his pet dealers had become unbearable since he wasn't there to terrify them, but I'd sort it out." Lestrade stares at the table, face very still. "I told him that his brother had enrolled him in the trial--that got me a response, he looked quite disgusted, like he couldn't imagine I'd think even now he'd be so lax as to not know that. I told him about the petition and my interview with his brother and I'd come back when the trial was over."
Lestrade's hands tighten together, knuckles going white.
"I knew from the nurse that if this did not bring improvement, there was little chance he would have more than brief moments of lucidity in the foreseeable future, if that. It was probable that when I saw him again, there would be nothing left of him, even those moments I had now. Before I left, I told him that no matter what, I would find out what happened to those people at St. Bart's. I was not a genius detective, perhaps, but I do well enough."
John nods tightly.
"And I said," Lestrade says, looking up, "that it sometimes felt like a war, what I did--what we both did, really. That justice might be abstract to some people, but it was different for us, because injustice seeped into everything. Scotland Yard, the streets, the people, it felt like so much work for so little, because looking at it all, how could it all be fixed. Most never truly try, which fat lot of good that did; no war was ever won when no one would even step on the field. Then I wished him luck and felt quite sentimental indeed."
That makes two of us, and quite a sad pair at that, John thinks, wondering if there's any possible way they'll ever be able to look each other again, but luckily, the sudden itching in their eyes takes care of it.
"In any case, I continued my investigation and tried not to think more than I must. The nurse I had become friends with had no access to the patients, and the sudden disorder among the regular St. Bart's homeless took all of my attention. One month later, Sally reported on one of the patrol officers for ignoring an attack on a homeless woman and was demoted and reassigned, and when I protested, I was given permanent assignment to patrol it, seeing that it seemed best suited to my talents and interest."
That doesn't sound like a career move that went anywhere particularly good.
"It seemed as good a place as any. After all, Sherlock had quite cowed the criminals; it felt remiss to let his hard work go to waste."
John smiles at Lestrade's snort.
"It was less than two months later when my department was suddenly placed under investigation," Lestrade says. "Had no idea myself; came in from running off a rather talented graffiti artist when I was sure they were done; the work improved the look of the alley enormously, and no reason not to take advantage of it. Our computers were taken, our desks searched, and years of records were carried off, while everyone was individually questioned on a surprising variety of investigations that had been ignored or closed prematurely. Within forty-eight hours, three quarters of the officers were on involuntary leave and our DI was, from what I remember, being apprehended at customs carrying some rather important documents, a false passport, and a great deal of ready cash, not to mention the numbers to a Caymen Island account under a new name."
"That must have been--unexpected," John says, blinking slowly. "What--"
"One week later, I was offered the position of Detective Inspector and Sally was promoted to assistant DI with a cleared record. There was a list of officers on my desk, most acquaintances and friends who had been transferred or removed for various offenses, such as disagreeing with our former DI and occasionally, attempting to do their duty when it was inconvenient for his dear friends. So I called Mycroft and asked him when Sherlock would be available for consultation, since the case load was quite overwhelming and his help might be needed on a few of the trickier ones; he said three months should be sufficient, but he would keep me informed."
"He--" John stares at Lestrade. "Say again?"
"During the investigation of Oxford and the St. Bart's trial, he was quite critical of the quality and morality of the patrolling officers. We spent a great deal of time together, and as I'm sure you are aware, what he lacks in subtlety as an interrogator he makes up for in observational skills. It was somewhat relieving, to speak to someone finally who disliked the current DI as much as I did. Maybe far more, as he was the recipient of the DI's favor, being who he was. The convenience, he explained, was quite useful, but that did not make the betrayal of an office meant to protect and seek justice any less reprehensible. And that such petty venality was, on the whole, quite boring."
For all Sherlock's lack of abiding by the law, he did respect it.
"I'm afraid I was indiscreet," Lestrade says, looking at John in amusement. "Far more indiscreet than I knew then; the investigation into our department was surprisingly adept at finding a great many things that it should not have even known of without a witness to tell them where to look. From what I told him, he was able to create an extremely accurate picture of the depth of corruption and how to root it out completely. No one was spared for political favor or friendship, and I suspect there are few men who could accomplish that. Three months later, I was investigating the death of one of the homeless from the trial and Mycroft left me a message that Sherlock was available if wanted; I left a message for Sherlock and went to the crime scene with Sally. Sherlock arrived, told us all that we had done wrong, and that was that."
John almost asks if they ever talked of it, then stops himself, trying to imagine even beginning such a conversation.
"In any case, we interviewed as many as we could of the Oxford study; I kept it open a year and a half before I could no longer justify it and gave Sherlock notice that if he wished for the records, to please do so when no one was about so I could confine the knowledge of my own petty venality to the two of us. I know he kept up the investigation, and his methods of tracking the homeless population I continue to wish to know nothing about, so please refrain from enlightening me. I take it something has happened to change that."
John takes a deep breath, wondering what he should tell Lestrade, or if he even should. The sound of the door opening, however, distracts him, and John watches Sally stomp toward them, holding her phone with an expression of profound irritation.
"I am to tell you," she says, staring at John like he's the cause of everything wrong with the world, "that yes, of course you will explain, otherwise, they'll be of no use at all." Sally stares at John. "And you are to turn on your phone and photograph our expressions, as he is quite bored. What is this all about?"
John looks at Lestrade and tries to think, but there's no way to make this sound anything other than insane. Absently, he turns on his phone, unsurprised to find a string of messages. Scrolling past them, he reaches the end, trying to ignore Lestrade and Sally's curiosity as he reads the last one.
They're quite used to the insane, so please hurry this along. And do remember to pick up dinner. There's nothing to eat and shopping is quite boring.
SH
John sighs, turning the phone in anticipation; the expressions are all he has to look forward to, really. "I really have no idea why I like him, to be honest. Do you know what lucid dreaming is? Doesn't matter, really. Apparently, it's all wrong."
"You realize," Sherlock says, apropos of nothing, "there is no guarantee how long I will remain in control of my faculties."
John starts, having lost time in an Absolutely Fabulous marathon; blinking, he pushes himself somewhat upright, studying Sherlock curled in the chair, limbs tucked in around him and still managing to give the impression of sitting upright despite the fact he's slumped well to the left.
"Say again?"
Sherlock gives John a disappointed look. "You do realize, I suppose, that my condition was not curable. The most that could be hoped for was to minimize symptoms; there was never hope of even partial recovery."
Yes, John remembers he's a doctor, thank you. "Misdiagnosis--"
"I confirmed the results myself," Sherlock says, as objectively as if he's speaking of some other person entirely. "While the DSMIV is regrettably quite subjective in some ways, it is sound enough when the diagnostic criteria are met under the supervision of an objective party. I was able to eliminate all external influences quite easily; there was very little doubt. Once the degeneration began, there was nothing to mitigate it; the most I could do was--find ways to carve space within it. There would never be enough time for me to do anything at all, so it seemed rather shortsighted not to do everything I could.
"Lowering the crime rate among the homeless and investigating their disappearances, yes, that's what most people would think to do," John agrees, pulling the blanket closer.
"St. Bart's was quite dreadful. Not at all what I was used to."
"Holmes snobbery isn't terribly believable from someone who still finds multiple forks a waste of time. You are a git, I admit, but St. Bart's meant you had easy access to a shower and laundry facilities, which are really all you care about, so pardon me if at this late point I find your living arrangements quite logical. I'm fairly sure the flat is actually a laboratory you happen to make us both sleep in, and that, I admit, would be a challenge to build in the alleys."
Sherlock gives him a faintly irritated look.
"There was always duty," Sherlock says, like it's a filthy word. "Duty and honor and the family name and how much I failed in it all. I never understood it, the abstract concept of the opinion of others being the basis of living life. I never thought of others as more than--"
"Lab rats, for use and convenience, but not of higher importance," John says comfortably. "I know my DSMIV criteria too, you know. And I know with the stigma attached, along with your family name, it had to be textbook to even be considered."
"Can't have that following a Holmes," Sherlock says, mouth curling in disgust. "I come from a highly self-obsessed family; trust me when I say, it took a great deal for it to penetrate that it wasn't simply the youngest child being quite naughty for attention. Mycroft was the first to understand it, of course; we were far too much alike not to recognize the sharp difference. He could not remake what I was, any more than I could imagine being anything else; he set himself to mitigation. He made me never satisfied with what I knew to be true; I must always ask why. No conclusion could be final, nothing could be true unless I could justify it. I must know why. If I could not prove it, it was not true."
John thinks about that, letting it settle in his mind. "Kept you busy, I expect."
"I could elucidate, but it becomes tediously gruesome during certain childhood phases, so we'll skip along to when I realized this to be true. Even for me, it was very difficult to disassociate myself when I could feel my own mind began to betray me. I was never not aware, John, not once. Not even will could stop it; cocaine only made the contrast greater. Psychosis, at least, was pleasantly bland, no thinking allowed, but disordered thinking was--horrendous. When I asked why, there was no answer; I wondered what it even meant. When I was lucid again, there were no answers because there were no questions left to ask. I knew--I was always aware of it. I simply couldn't stop it.
"No one seemed to--" Sherlock stops. "You may be surprised to know that no one outside Mycroft ever thought I was anything but charming, once I was old enough to understand the advantages of appearing concerned about the lives of other people. When I was in St. Bart's, I discarded it, finally, or so I thought, but the habits of a lifetime are not so easily dismissed."
"Had to go through all that just to say that it might have bothered you a bit that someone was exploiting people with no one to look out for them? Well done, you."
"You're impossible."
John grins. "So you say. Please continue. I won't interrupt again."
Sherlock snorts, curling up. "I wasn't curable," he says. "To return to the subject, I was not curable. The only thing now that I wonder is why until now, I never asked why."
John blinks, looking at Sherlock. "Never?"
"No. As impossible as it was, I took it quite well. I was free of hallucinations, disorganized thinking, psychosis, and apparently, that was enough. I never thought the diagnosis was wrong, you understand. I simply never--" Sherlock stops. "I knew. I don't remember anything of that time, but I knew. I didn't ask why because I had already answered the question. I just don't remember the answer."
John nods, mouth a little dry.
"It does make me wonder," Sherlock says thoughtfully, "how often I forget to ask why, however. How many questions I've neglected to ask because I knew the answer."
"I never thought to ask; what was it like? What you--your dream in there?"
Sherlock's expression doesn't change, but something does, though John can't quite name it. "One of the questions I had never asked. It was logical enough, I suppose. It explains you well enough."
"Answered--now you're being a bit of a git." John picks up the remote. "Right, then. You have the smug look, so how about a bit of Merlin? You love to point out the anachronisms."
"So I do." Getting up, Sherlock crosses to the couch, grabbing a blanket from the floor. "You realize we still have no idea if I will one day revert and you wake up as my latest experiment."
"Not terribly worried, but thanks for the warning." John changes the channel, settling himself, hiding a smile when Sherlock's cold feet slide surreptitiously beneath his thigh. Not subtle, detective Holmes.
"You're not?"
"You'd have to stop talking to get down to experimenting," John says comfortably. "And I'm rather good at getting you to talk."
Fandom: Sherlock/Inception
In which there is a secret history to explore.
Part I
"What the hell?" Arthur says, looking at the dingy, water-stained boxes stacked in the corner of the hotel, smelling of mildew and ruining the sleek carpet. Several others, some in the process of disintegration, litter the floor from desk nearly to the bed. Reaching inside, Arthur winces at the feel of the dampness, flipping it open to see the top sheet scrawled with SECRET and EYES ONLY. "Where did you get--how did you get these? I thought everything was destroyed."
"This is the American military we're talking about," Cobb says without looking up from the untidy sprawl across the foot of the ridiculously large bed, folder anchored by one elbow as he finishes the page and starts the next one. "When they said dispose of it all, they didn't say how, so it's probably still in committee. Got all the cameras?"
Arthur sets down his briefcase and resists the urge to tell Cobb where he's going to shove all ten thousand of those fucking little bugs. Between the government's CCTV and what appears to be a concerted attempt to catch their every move and every breath from any possible angle in every room he's swept so far, paranoid doesn't begin to describe his current state of being. Sherlock's oblique warnings had been almost as disturbing as John's casually vicious, "Pretty much everywhere, I’d say. Might try a desert of some kind? Excluding areas under satellite surveillance of course," at which time Sherlock had added, "I can give specific coordinates if you like. The closest is somewhat south of Bangladesh," which just confirms to Arthur this entire job was a terrible idea, even though his bank account is far more sanguine.
Their employers--via intermediary, that is--had seemed pleased with their results, which hadn't been the reaction that Cobb had obviously been expecting. Arthur had found himself curiously unsurprised, however, fingers wrapped around the hilt of his gun and coolly evaluating the benefit/risk of killing the intermediary out of hand and discovering the reason why later. There's something about this that makes no sense; the United States is full of former participants in the trials, and while the miraculous cure of mental illness is in itself valuable, even at these odds, their interest in the mental health of the participants had been entirely wrong for a company looking to capitalize on the possibility of medical miracles.
"We should have gone home," Arthur says, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, bringing the London skyline into view. "I don't know why you changed your mind on this one--" which is only half a lie, "--but whatever they want with him--"
"Us." Cobb glances up, a slash of unreadable blue eyes. "All of us."
Arthur hesitates. "No one knows you can do anything particularly unique." Other than Arthur, Saito, Ariadne and Eames maybe--scratch that, definitely. Ariadne's been with Cobb on three quarters of the jobs they've done in the last year, learning, and Eames pays strict attention. "No one knows who has any reason to say anything," he amends.
"Not until a job might need it," Cobb says carelessly. Arthur stiffens. "It's a matter of time."
"You think we'd sell you out?" Arthur says softly.
"Yes."
For a second, Arthur wants nothing more than to shove his gun under Cobb's chin, just to see what he'll do about it. Lay there and laugh, get away, pull his own and perform a performance-art grade standoff in their hotel suite, because in the end they really are just mercenaries who mindfuck for money and that's all they'll ever be.
"Ariadne took your kids to the museums today," Arthur says, surprised at the harsh sound of his voice, surprised by the faint tremble at the end. "Saito paid off every employer we ever fucked over. Eames--" he stops there, not sure what to add when that's more instinct than provable fact. Or maybe not. "For two years, you were a very expensive colleague, and it wasn't just the local police who were stalking you across the globe. If Eames--if any of us--wanted to sell you out, we would have done it when it was worth serious money. No one can outbid the American fucking military and they were very willing to prove that."
Cobb hesitates, fingers resting on the brown edged paper before he looks up. "I don't even know why you're still here."
He doesn't, Arthur realizes, something horrible clenching tight and bitter in his chest. This is where the man before Mal's death disappears entirely, even the faint, lingering traces of the young, idealistic student who learned how literal the mind containing multitudes really was. It can't be just her death, or the two years running, or the time since; it's something more complex that may have started earlier, perhaps when theory became practical application, when the dreams Cobb spun always smelled of old blood and the faintest breezes held sounds like voices too hoarse to scream.
"I get wanting to stay out of sight when the other option was the Marines bringing you in for questioning when I disappeared. You worked with me because this is what we do and it's not like there are enough of us to pick and choose. At least you knew I wouldn't shoot you when you weren't dreaming." It's a job hazard, Arthur admits. "We needed each other before. Now--"
"Ariadne's explaining to Philippa what those funny noises are that Daddy made the other night," Arthur says maliciously. Cobb pales. "Yes, your five year old is learning about sex from a woman who looks like she's never heard the word. Tell me you would have taken this job and left the kids anywhere miles of her--or any of us for that matter--if you really thought we'd fuck you over just for the money. For being a selfish dick, that's still pending."
Cobb rolls over.
"Dom? What the fuck is going through your head?"
"Did you know how many people were used in the trials?" Cobb says slowly. Frowning, Arthur leans over, reading the faded, yellowing paper upside down. "No, that's a requisition for a hot tub--don't ask, General Bonirolli's signature is on it."
Arthur jerks back, wondering if he needs a shower. Bonirolli hadn't had any scruples in requisitioning any resource available for his projects, and that included dreamers and projects based on the collected works of John Fucking Norman, but with even less class and a decided lack of narrative flow. It's not that Arthur judges people's fantasies (Christ, he burned that out the first year, and that includes his own) except he judges Bonirolli like fucking hell, because shit like that in the privacy of your mind is one thing, but making people build your dreams for you, too-vivid, sprawling, cloyingly detailed in oversaturated primary colors, forced to watch and listen and remember, because when lucid is the only way you dream, it's hard to forget.
"After all this time," Arthur says, easing away from the folder before he stops trying to pretend he cares this is childish and knocks it on the floor for later burning, "why are you thinking about this? Or for that matter, why do you care? We weren't in charge of those trials. We didn't even have the authority to be around when they were going on, much less stop them."
"Seven thousand," Cobb says, staring at the ceiling. "I mean, that I have hard evidence for. Fifteen thousand worldwide if I'm conservative about what I don't know. "Fifty thousand if I'm being improvably realistic."
Arthur forgets what he was going to say. Fifty thousand. "Fifty thousand--what--"
"There are seventy professionals in the world who trained under something that resembles a government authority and a nod at shit like humane testing conditions--oxymoronic now that I think about it--and accountability. And records, gotta remember those. So we didn't share well with others, or at least countries that we didn't like, so only half the UN security council got access to the technology and people who could use it. When the US shut everything down, they shut it down everywhere, and encouraged their allied countries to be very thorough in erasing this from history."
"They killed their dreamers."
"Oh, they wish; the one thing you don't want to do is go one last time to get off on your lizard woman from Mars porn and think your dreamer isn't going to pick up something's really wrong, and hey, while they're there, let's just go find out. Most got out because half the administers of the projects were goddamn addicts. You can't make this shit up; Japan lost every goddamn one of them dreaming Sailor Moon while they packed up everything they had and went out of the country in plain sight before vanishing. Half the R&D were found dead of dehydration in Moscow in empty labs, nothing left but them and one PASIV still running beside them. Call me crazy but I can count how many I trained before sending them home and that was a shitload more than seventy. Conservative estimate around five hundred, maybe a thousand who can do what we do, even accounting for the ones that didn't get away and the ones so underground they're afraid to dream in their own sleep."
Arthur stares out the window, the slowly setting sun limning London in orange-gold like the memory of a city on fire. "So where are they?"
"I could make a list," Cobb offers. "It starts with 'any country in the world' and narrowed by 'who can pay for them'. Maybe voluntary, maybe not so much. Maybe hooked up in the basement of some Greek magnate in the Caymens for the last three years, who the fuck knows, that's the thing, we don't know how many, or how to find them, or even have a place to start."
Arthur swallows, why does that matter lost beneath the numbers. If Cobb thinks fifty thousand could have been exposed to the PASIV, as guinea pig or potential dreamer, why not a hundred? Why not a million? In a planet with a population in the billions, that's not even a drop in the bucket.
"It wasn't the money," Arthur says abruptly. "This job."
"Arthur," Cobb says tiredly. "They paid us to break into the mind of a former experiment for the British government. My fingerprints were all over that place, how it was put together, what it meant. Wasn't me, but it was someone I trained, someone I knew, someone who worked on three trials in Britain where they guinea pigged to repeat results we already had, just to see the fuck what happened. Tell me corporate espionage even fucking compares."
"Not really," Arthur admits. "But neither does Guantanamo Bay or military training exercises or--"
Cobb sits up, eyes flat. "--pretty much anything we've done, right. Does it ever bother you?"
"No," Arthur says, and then pauses at the knee-jerk honesty of it, because it had never been real, no matter how it might feel. "After all this time, what, you're getting a conscience?"
"That's the problem," Cobb say slowly. "No. But now I want to."
The problem is, Arthur thinks, when you know nothing is really real, all bets are off. No matter what they do dreaming, they'll wake up and everything's like it was before. Their target might remember them in hazy, indistinct images, but mostly, they remembered almost nothing at all.
It's easy to torture a man to death when you know when you open your eyes, he will too, and while he might take the quickly fading memories of a dream that was blood and anger and terror and death, he's still alive to take it. Nothing counts, because it will reset in the end.
Arthur is good with a gun, and he never hesitates to shoot because it's time to reset and they'll wake up. Funny thing is, the real world doesn't have a reset and Arthur's instincts and reflexes trained in a thousand dreams crossed over just fine. He was already military and CIA; it's not like he needed more conditioning to shoot without thought and always without mercy.
Cobb's on the phone with the kids, and with any kind of luck Philippa will ask him pointed questions about what two people do together that will haunt Cobb for the rest of his life. Maybe, Cobb will lock himself in the bathroom at the thought of his little girl growing up one day and adolescence and crushes, first dates probably on the living room floor with a PASIV and Cobb's enlightened sense of overprotection hitting new and frightening levels. What charmingly domestic memories in the Cobb household, and it's not like Arthur's not going along to monitor, because nothing says first love like a double date with your dad, his colleague, and his colleague's itchy trigger finger.
Suffice to say, they will never stop working, because it's not like they're both not responsible for paying Philippa's therapy bills and why fight it.
He listens as Cobb hangs up the phone and shuffles around the room in the approximation of activity that's more staring vaguely at random boxes and a suitcase of horrible clothing with no conscious realization that he can't dress himself and that's why Arthur shops for him.
"I don't actually think you're going to sell me out," Cobb says from the edge of the room, sounding reluctantly ashamed of himself. Arthur sighs. Cobb is an asshole and possibly has a major psychiatric disorder and is single-minded to the point of stupidity, but this is what happens to idealists when they hit the real world and have to live in it. Arthur thinks, a little bitterly, that he would have spared him so much of this if he could have, if he'd known the result would be this; Cobb couldn't be anything but brilliant and driven and ambitious and so fucking sure he could do anything if Arthur could, and the tragedy is, he could, but he burned out so much of himself to do it. The opposite of idealism isn't cynicism; it's this, a horrible living dichotomy of believing in nothing and knowing that once you did. "I mean, I really don't. I just don't get why."
Arthur thinks about it; there are no normal reasons that can be accepted and they aren't the real reasons anyway. The real reasons are layers that are time and energy and life and the ruthless, grinding familiarity of knowing someone so well that you know how they breathe. But most of it is, you don't meet a Dom Cobb and not love him; there's something fundamentally wrong with you when you don't see that shining brilliance and how hard he works to be less than he actually is and how he tries not to think in more than the next job and for two years pretended to do just that. Now he's trying to pretend this last job was all curiosity and not the fact that you don't pull a number like fifty fucking thousand out of thin air, and all along, all this time, God, maybe since before Mal died, this has been at the back of his mind, working toward a conclusion that's as impossible as it is utterly right.
You don't have to care to know when something is fubar'ed beyond words, but Christ, fifty fucking thousand people is a lot of not caring. Arthur's not entirely sure even he can manage not to care at all. Cobb's about two steps from a crying jag and a quest to track them all down like the rabid dog he really is under it all, and truth is, Arthur thinks, he can't think of a better use of his time, anyway, so why not tag along?
A lot of his life can be characterized by 'why not', and for all the parts that he could have lived without, knowing Cobb was the most wtf 'why not' of his life, that may have defined it, certainly changed it, and Cobb is not something you miss if you can help it.
"I like the kids," Arthur tells the ceiling. "If I killed you, I'm pretty sure your in-laws would be against visitation."
Abruptly, the bed lurches, and Cobb is beside him, staring up at the ceiling. "I just realized," he says, in that voice that's genuinely uneasy, "that you've lasted longer than my marriage."
"There was a reason Mal called me your first wife," Arthur says patiently. "And she agreed it was practical since you would inevitably die in some really strange and traumatic way, and since I was always around, she'd just marry me and no one would notice."
"That's sick."
"You wrote it into your will. Though I don't know why you thought I'd go along with 'and must take the name Dom Cobb,' but I had lawyers working on that."
Cobb makes a disagreeing sound, but that's because his lawyer really thought that shit would fly. Ignoring an already ridiculously wrinkled suit, Arthur rolls on his side. "You know, you've been phoning in for a while now, so let's just get it off our chests. We can keep doing this or we can stop, but that doesn't mean we can't also follow your next great vision. You were way too interested in this job and now I know why. You're not actually a sociopath when you don't feel deep shame and constant remorse for fifty fucking thousand people you didn't know about and had no control over to change their fates. But caring about what happened to this guy because some of your recruits were playing mad scientist with some idealist students, the homeless, and the clinically insane isn't what I'd call inconsistent."
"Maybe." Cobb stares the ceiling. "If they made navigators, even by accident, with these odds, you get that if the military finds out, they'll break open the project again right where it left off and take it straight to hell. Right now, only people in the highest tax brackets can even afford to hire us, much less pay for learning how to protect themselves. I always thought in terms of risk assessment, how long we could stay, but now that's not even on the table. When you can make infinity out of five minutes, there aren't any rules anymore."
Arthur stares at him. "How the fuck do you think this shit up? I know you don't dream when you sleep, and you do actually sleep. "
"So what, I'm wrong?" Cobb says petulantly. "Ask Eames; he's the one who got drunk on absinthe and decided we all needed a post-modern philosophic moment of thought last time we were in Paris."
"Right, tell him he brings any absinthe to London, I'll kick his ass," Cobb says sleepily. "And tell him to come to London, too, keep the details minimum. And Ari. I'm going need them to do this."
Arthur blinks. "What? Why?"
"A literalist who knows when he's dreaming isn't going to have his suppressed memories in the form of metaphoric flowers for us to find and pick," Cobb says, eyes falling shut. "We're going to need help, and I need at least one other Architect to help me figure out how to work with someone who will, and this is just a guess, critique every fucking detail of anything we dream."
It sounds reasonable (and the assessment on Sherlock sound depressing, though accurate), but Cobb often does, even when he's doing very stupid shit. "And Eames? We don't need a forger for this."
"No. But we may need a thief." Cobb's voice softens, already tipping over. "They're good at finding things."
"Been down here a while," Lestrade says from behind him. John jumps, nearly dropping the box. "Bit of a lull; I can help if you like."
Lestrade hadn't asked why John wanted to look at the cold case boxes, just sent him on with an absent warning about those marked for limited access that sounded more like a rehearsed speech than actual concern over what John's accessing; John's not entirely sure what he's doing is in any way normally allowed, but then again, nothing about their lives is normal.
Hesitating, he considers his options. Sherlock had said to consult Lestrade to find it, but he hadn't been sure how much of the reason why he needed it should be divulged. Not to mention the temptation to ask Lestrade about--well, all of it. Any of it. Sherlock, then, before and after. "An investigation you and Sherlock did a few years ago. The--"
Lestrade grimaces, shutting the door. "He called to tell me you would feel discretion the better part of valor and refuse to ask. And he assures me he swept this room for his brother's--" Lestrade grimaces more; how to say, one is worried about one's consulting detective's brother putting him under surveillance, when it's insane and yet, life? "In any case, I'm to show you to the boxes and then answer your questions."
John blinks, trying to gather his thoughts. Following Lestrade, they fetch three boxes, carrying them back to a table in the corner and setting them on the floor, then they sit to stare at each other, because John's not sure now where to even start.
"You asked how long I had known Sherlock," Lestrade says finally, steepling his hands on the surface of the table. "We met at a drugs bust. Of him, actually. Clean as a whistle, always is, but we had to try. He was always so obvious about it, you understand, because it didn't matter what anyone thought. When his brother pulled his trust fund, expecting him to return home, he went to St. Bart's and stayed there, stubborn." Lestrade pauses thoughtfully. "Two weeks in, the crime rate drops and we had a homeless population from a Dickens musical for five square blocks. He can't really help it, you know; he hates to see people so very wrong and not try to make them do it right. It offended his aesthetics, you see."
John shuts his mouth; all things considered, it's not a surprise.
"By that point, of course, he was a junkie and had decided to devote himself to achieving professional excellence in that field, as might be expected. He told me once that his habit had kept the deterioration somewhat in check; he was of the opinion by the time that it failed to do so and he became a danger to those around him, he would be irrational enough overdose by accident. Of course, this is Sherlock; he could not accidentally overdose himself if he tried. I think he knew that; it's not in him to give up anything, even if he wanted to."
"He was suicidal, then?" The word feels wrong in his mouth, dull edged and dark, unhappy. Sherlock with his endless fascination with all that the world was, who couldn't find anything in the world that could help him live it.
Lestrade frowns, staring at his hands. "You cannot tell a man whose hold on his own mind that is forever slipping that it will get better; you cannot tell a junkie that once he's clean, there will be sanity on the other side. Neither of those things were true, and Sherlock does not respect those who will tell him obvious lies. I arrested him when I could catch him, of course, but I could only catch him when he was unable to get away. A few nights in the psychiatric ward before he escaped would be sufficient for food and sleep; they thought they were dealing only with an addict, not one whose addiction was only to his own sanity. If the side effects were increased susceptibility to psychosis, he was willing to pay the price."
"You liked him," John says, not terribly surprised, but thinks that he should be.
"A drug addicted sociopath with psychotic tendencies; might be something of a weakness of mine. He was, to be honest, an improvement on most of my colleagues at Scotland Yard." Lestrade sighs. "I never met anyone who fought so hard for so little reward. I think St. Bart's was one of the few places that made sense for him; a meal, a warm bed, sufficient sleep are all a battle to be fought for and often lost. It may have been the only place that he could go that understood that; they live it every day."
John nods, mouth tight.
"But you want to know of the recruitment of the homeless, of course." Lestrade's expression hardens. "Officers patrolling the area were--amenable to looking the other direction, despite the fact that it was not generally condoned. At the time, I was only one of many detectives and so could do nothing to reprimand them once I discovered it. Our superior was--not of a mind to enforce it and give the officers more work than they already had.
"Sherlock brought it to my attention when I was on patrol. It was the first time he ever sought me out directly. It was also the first time I realized he had ever noticed me as other than one of the many officers on patrol. My sentimentality, he said, would be useful for once. He wanted to know why a man who had no business representing a drug company would pass himself as one of their recruiters." Lestrade shakes his head. "It was the most cognizant he had been in my acquaintance; I took his information unsure if I were speaking to the same man I would leave to sleep in the psychiatric ward."
John smiles; Sherlock on a case is something to be experienced.
"The investigation was not particularly interesting to my superiors, even with Sherlock's verification of their absence; the homeless are known to drift occasionally, and taking the word of one of them was--not done. I was permitted to work on it, however, and between us, we had gotten as far as the Oxford connection when Sherlock was taken into his brother's custody." Lestrade swallows. "I did it; sometimes I think he waited as long as he could for me to be the one to find him. The last three episodes had ended in violence and were of longer duration each time; the officers on patrol paid little attention as such things were common. They would not recognize that if Sherlock truly lost his hold on himself, it would quickly turn uncommon. He had to be certain someone would know enough to stop him; I was the one he trusted to do so."
There are many things, John supposes, that are difficult to hear, but being trusted to stop a man who knew what he was capable of and who would kill Lestrade as quickly as anyone else must have been impossible.
"Sally, who had patrolled as well, was called as witness; I refused and was not asked again." Lestrade frowns. "It was necessary, and that I understand, and I agreed with it. But I could not testify against him, not if I had any other choice. His brother was very accommodating, of course. Sherlock had never spoken his name, but by that time I had enough information that I understood that Sherlock's family considered his state a source of shame, to be hidden and forgotten as quickly as possible. Which was the case, I suppose; custody and commitment were done at once. It was fast and quite private, to spare the Holmes family distress."
"Mycroft is--" John searches for the word. The odd thing is, John's seen him amongst normal people and the easy amiability seems to fool them all. The warm, caring, worried brother he'd be in court must have been comforting.
"Irritating," Lestrade says flatly, looking at John, mouth twitching at John's enthusiastic nod. "He assured me this was for the best; I believed that, but I still didn't care for it. I was rather hostile, actually."
Lestrade, John remembers abruptly, is also a younger brother.
"I spoke to Sherlock--"
"He told me," John says quickly. Lestrade blinks, looking surprised. "He remembers the hearing. Most of it, anyway."
"He called me sentimental," Lestrade says with a slight smile, unable to meet John's eyes. "We live in a world of medical miracles; something might be found to help, and he did not know how to give up. If anyone could find a way, he would."
John looks away, feeling as exposed by that glimpse of pain as if it were his own. "Right."
"Right." Lestrade clears his throat. "I made a habit of checking on him; his brother had me listed as an authorized visitor, but I knew Sherlock would not care for anyone to see him who had ever known him. I became friendly with one of the psychiatric nurses, however, and she was comfortingly indiscreet on all matters of his treatment. His progression through all known treatments had had little to no effect, and his periods of lucidity briefer. There was talk of this or than innovation from America, but then she mentioned the new trial, and when I searched, neither the company sponsoring it nor the man said to be the director were listed associated with any drug companies, much less those that developed anti-psychotics. The paperwork was done before I had returned the next day for more information, and Mycroft Holmes signature was on every page, all very correct, except for the fact none of it was."
"And you confronted him."
"More I was asked to enter a unmarked black sedan and taken to a tasteful office near Westminster," Lestrade says, glancing up at John. "Mycroft was careful to soothe my concerns, explaining they were a newly formed British subsidiary of an American company, though due to certain legal statutes, he was unable to name them. They had suffered a disaster with risperadone, which had caused Sherlock to enter a fifteen day psychotic state during which he was a danger to everything and everyone he came in contact with. Sedation had made it possible to restrain him, but there were several injuries before that was achieved, and their options were quickly narrowing. The new medication was experimental, but the studies seemed promising, and only those for whom there was no treatment available or possible otherwise would be selected. It was all very sensible, and I was able to find information about the company and confirm all that Mycroft said."
"You still filed a petition."
"Sherlock had given me a list of the men and women who had been taken for the trial; some had reappeared. I knew this because twenty were admitted in a single night to St. Bart's. The range of symptoms was quite limited, and specific; hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and insistence that they were not awake and this world was not real. Some claimed they had been awake for weeks. Two committed suicide before processing was completed. They said that they wanted to wake up."
John sucks in a breath.
"There was no proof of the trial but Sherlock's word and a stolen ID card; there was nothing concrete to verify these people had been taken, much less experimented on and then returned like so much damaged merchandise. I could not stop it if Mycroft permitted Sherlock to be enrolled, but I could make sure it was recorded, documented, became a matter of record by an officer of the law. Then I went to visit Sherlock, because much as it might pain him to be seen at less than his best, I no longer cared."
That room has haunted John's sleep more than he cares to admit. St. Bart's is not a terrible place, but a psychiatric ward can never not be what it is. A small, sterile, padded room, a bed to hold a man who no longer had even his own mind; he can imagine going there and seeing Sherlock--like that. He doesn't know what he'd say, or even if he could speak.
"I think he knew I was there sometimes; I tried to tell him things that would interest him, hold his attention. The return of the homeless, that I was investigating it still, that two of his pet dealers had become unbearable since he wasn't there to terrify them, but I'd sort it out." Lestrade stares at the table, face very still. "I told him that his brother had enrolled him in the trial--that got me a response, he looked quite disgusted, like he couldn't imagine I'd think even now he'd be so lax as to not know that. I told him about the petition and my interview with his brother and I'd come back when the trial was over."
Lestrade's hands tighten together, knuckles going white.
"I knew from the nurse that if this did not bring improvement, there was little chance he would have more than brief moments of lucidity in the foreseeable future, if that. It was probable that when I saw him again, there would be nothing left of him, even those moments I had now. Before I left, I told him that no matter what, I would find out what happened to those people at St. Bart's. I was not a genius detective, perhaps, but I do well enough."
John nods tightly.
"And I said," Lestrade says, looking up, "that it sometimes felt like a war, what I did--what we both did, really. That justice might be abstract to some people, but it was different for us, because injustice seeped into everything. Scotland Yard, the streets, the people, it felt like so much work for so little, because looking at it all, how could it all be fixed. Most never truly try, which fat lot of good that did; no war was ever won when no one would even step on the field. Then I wished him luck and felt quite sentimental indeed."
That makes two of us, and quite a sad pair at that, John thinks, wondering if there's any possible way they'll ever be able to look each other again, but luckily, the sudden itching in their eyes takes care of it.
"In any case, I continued my investigation and tried not to think more than I must. The nurse I had become friends with had no access to the patients, and the sudden disorder among the regular St. Bart's homeless took all of my attention. One month later, Sally reported on one of the patrol officers for ignoring an attack on a homeless woman and was demoted and reassigned, and when I protested, I was given permanent assignment to patrol it, seeing that it seemed best suited to my talents and interest."
That doesn't sound like a career move that went anywhere particularly good.
"It seemed as good a place as any. After all, Sherlock had quite cowed the criminals; it felt remiss to let his hard work go to waste."
John smiles at Lestrade's snort.
"It was less than two months later when my department was suddenly placed under investigation," Lestrade says. "Had no idea myself; came in from running off a rather talented graffiti artist when I was sure they were done; the work improved the look of the alley enormously, and no reason not to take advantage of it. Our computers were taken, our desks searched, and years of records were carried off, while everyone was individually questioned on a surprising variety of investigations that had been ignored or closed prematurely. Within forty-eight hours, three quarters of the officers were on involuntary leave and our DI was, from what I remember, being apprehended at customs carrying some rather important documents, a false passport, and a great deal of ready cash, not to mention the numbers to a Caymen Island account under a new name."
"That must have been--unexpected," John says, blinking slowly. "What--"
"One week later, I was offered the position of Detective Inspector and Sally was promoted to assistant DI with a cleared record. There was a list of officers on my desk, most acquaintances and friends who had been transferred or removed for various offenses, such as disagreeing with our former DI and occasionally, attempting to do their duty when it was inconvenient for his dear friends. So I called Mycroft and asked him when Sherlock would be available for consultation, since the case load was quite overwhelming and his help might be needed on a few of the trickier ones; he said three months should be sufficient, but he would keep me informed."
"He--" John stares at Lestrade. "Say again?"
"During the investigation of Oxford and the St. Bart's trial, he was quite critical of the quality and morality of the patrolling officers. We spent a great deal of time together, and as I'm sure you are aware, what he lacks in subtlety as an interrogator he makes up for in observational skills. It was somewhat relieving, to speak to someone finally who disliked the current DI as much as I did. Maybe far more, as he was the recipient of the DI's favor, being who he was. The convenience, he explained, was quite useful, but that did not make the betrayal of an office meant to protect and seek justice any less reprehensible. And that such petty venality was, on the whole, quite boring."
For all Sherlock's lack of abiding by the law, he did respect it.
"I'm afraid I was indiscreet," Lestrade says, looking at John in amusement. "Far more indiscreet than I knew then; the investigation into our department was surprisingly adept at finding a great many things that it should not have even known of without a witness to tell them where to look. From what I told him, he was able to create an extremely accurate picture of the depth of corruption and how to root it out completely. No one was spared for political favor or friendship, and I suspect there are few men who could accomplish that. Three months later, I was investigating the death of one of the homeless from the trial and Mycroft left me a message that Sherlock was available if wanted; I left a message for Sherlock and went to the crime scene with Sally. Sherlock arrived, told us all that we had done wrong, and that was that."
John almost asks if they ever talked of it, then stops himself, trying to imagine even beginning such a conversation.
"In any case, we interviewed as many as we could of the Oxford study; I kept it open a year and a half before I could no longer justify it and gave Sherlock notice that if he wished for the records, to please do so when no one was about so I could confine the knowledge of my own petty venality to the two of us. I know he kept up the investigation, and his methods of tracking the homeless population I continue to wish to know nothing about, so please refrain from enlightening me. I take it something has happened to change that."
John takes a deep breath, wondering what he should tell Lestrade, or if he even should. The sound of the door opening, however, distracts him, and John watches Sally stomp toward them, holding her phone with an expression of profound irritation.
"I am to tell you," she says, staring at John like he's the cause of everything wrong with the world, "that yes, of course you will explain, otherwise, they'll be of no use at all." Sally stares at John. "And you are to turn on your phone and photograph our expressions, as he is quite bored. What is this all about?"
John looks at Lestrade and tries to think, but there's no way to make this sound anything other than insane. Absently, he turns on his phone, unsurprised to find a string of messages. Scrolling past them, he reaches the end, trying to ignore Lestrade and Sally's curiosity as he reads the last one.
They're quite used to the insane, so please hurry this along. And do remember to pick up dinner. There's nothing to eat and shopping is quite boring.
SH
John sighs, turning the phone in anticipation; the expressions are all he has to look forward to, really. "I really have no idea why I like him, to be honest. Do you know what lucid dreaming is? Doesn't matter, really. Apparently, it's all wrong."
"You realize," Sherlock says, apropos of nothing, "there is no guarantee how long I will remain in control of my faculties."
John starts, having lost time in an Absolutely Fabulous marathon; blinking, he pushes himself somewhat upright, studying Sherlock curled in the chair, limbs tucked in around him and still managing to give the impression of sitting upright despite the fact he's slumped well to the left.
"Say again?"
Sherlock gives John a disappointed look. "You do realize, I suppose, that my condition was not curable. The most that could be hoped for was to minimize symptoms; there was never hope of even partial recovery."
Yes, John remembers he's a doctor, thank you. "Misdiagnosis--"
"I confirmed the results myself," Sherlock says, as objectively as if he's speaking of some other person entirely. "While the DSMIV is regrettably quite subjective in some ways, it is sound enough when the diagnostic criteria are met under the supervision of an objective party. I was able to eliminate all external influences quite easily; there was very little doubt. Once the degeneration began, there was nothing to mitigate it; the most I could do was--find ways to carve space within it. There would never be enough time for me to do anything at all, so it seemed rather shortsighted not to do everything I could.
"Lowering the crime rate among the homeless and investigating their disappearances, yes, that's what most people would think to do," John agrees, pulling the blanket closer.
"St. Bart's was quite dreadful. Not at all what I was used to."
"Holmes snobbery isn't terribly believable from someone who still finds multiple forks a waste of time. You are a git, I admit, but St. Bart's meant you had easy access to a shower and laundry facilities, which are really all you care about, so pardon me if at this late point I find your living arrangements quite logical. I'm fairly sure the flat is actually a laboratory you happen to make us both sleep in, and that, I admit, would be a challenge to build in the alleys."
Sherlock gives him a faintly irritated look.
"There was always duty," Sherlock says, like it's a filthy word. "Duty and honor and the family name and how much I failed in it all. I never understood it, the abstract concept of the opinion of others being the basis of living life. I never thought of others as more than--"
"Lab rats, for use and convenience, but not of higher importance," John says comfortably. "I know my DSMIV criteria too, you know. And I know with the stigma attached, along with your family name, it had to be textbook to even be considered."
"Can't have that following a Holmes," Sherlock says, mouth curling in disgust. "I come from a highly self-obsessed family; trust me when I say, it took a great deal for it to penetrate that it wasn't simply the youngest child being quite naughty for attention. Mycroft was the first to understand it, of course; we were far too much alike not to recognize the sharp difference. He could not remake what I was, any more than I could imagine being anything else; he set himself to mitigation. He made me never satisfied with what I knew to be true; I must always ask why. No conclusion could be final, nothing could be true unless I could justify it. I must know why. If I could not prove it, it was not true."
John thinks about that, letting it settle in his mind. "Kept you busy, I expect."
"I could elucidate, but it becomes tediously gruesome during certain childhood phases, so we'll skip along to when I realized this to be true. Even for me, it was very difficult to disassociate myself when I could feel my own mind began to betray me. I was never not aware, John, not once. Not even will could stop it; cocaine only made the contrast greater. Psychosis, at least, was pleasantly bland, no thinking allowed, but disordered thinking was--horrendous. When I asked why, there was no answer; I wondered what it even meant. When I was lucid again, there were no answers because there were no questions left to ask. I knew--I was always aware of it. I simply couldn't stop it.
"No one seemed to--" Sherlock stops. "You may be surprised to know that no one outside Mycroft ever thought I was anything but charming, once I was old enough to understand the advantages of appearing concerned about the lives of other people. When I was in St. Bart's, I discarded it, finally, or so I thought, but the habits of a lifetime are not so easily dismissed."
"Had to go through all that just to say that it might have bothered you a bit that someone was exploiting people with no one to look out for them? Well done, you."
"You're impossible."
John grins. "So you say. Please continue. I won't interrupt again."
Sherlock snorts, curling up. "I wasn't curable," he says. "To return to the subject, I was not curable. The only thing now that I wonder is why until now, I never asked why."
John blinks, looking at Sherlock. "Never?"
"No. As impossible as it was, I took it quite well. I was free of hallucinations, disorganized thinking, psychosis, and apparently, that was enough. I never thought the diagnosis was wrong, you understand. I simply never--" Sherlock stops. "I knew. I don't remember anything of that time, but I knew. I didn't ask why because I had already answered the question. I just don't remember the answer."
John nods, mouth a little dry.
"It does make me wonder," Sherlock says thoughtfully, "how often I forget to ask why, however. How many questions I've neglected to ask because I knew the answer."
"I never thought to ask; what was it like? What you--your dream in there?"
Sherlock's expression doesn't change, but something does, though John can't quite name it. "One of the questions I had never asked. It was logical enough, I suppose. It explains you well enough."
"Answered--now you're being a bit of a git." John picks up the remote. "Right, then. You have the smug look, so how about a bit of Merlin? You love to point out the anachronisms."
"So I do." Getting up, Sherlock crosses to the couch, grabbing a blanket from the floor. "You realize we still have no idea if I will one day revert and you wake up as my latest experiment."
"Not terribly worried, but thanks for the warning." John changes the channel, settling himself, hiding a smile when Sherlock's cold feet slide surreptitiously beneath his thigh. Not subtle, detective Holmes.
"You're not?"
"You'd have to stop talking to get down to experimenting," John says comfortably. "And I'm rather good at getting you to talk."
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