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From very close by, he could smell the scent of grass dried yellow. Spring and all its freshness were gone. It was August now, and nature, with all its strength, was trying to cling to life that the heat and the relentless sunlight were slowly trampling and consuming. The world treated itself with cruelty, almost as cruelly as Sherlock’s opponent had treated him, while those yellowing blades of grass pricked his face as he lay on the ground, and filled his nose with the bitter smell of decay.
He was unable to turn his head, but he tried to keep his breathing as slow and even as possible, because his mouth was full of blood and it was difficult for him to breathe. When he first regained consciousness, the sun was still high in the sky, but by the second time, when the blood had already begun to spill from between his lips for the earth to drink in, and his limbs had gone completely stiff, dusk was drawing near.
He knew he was playing a dangerous game, and that it had only been a matter of time before he ended up here, but he had never imagined he would be left so utterly alone in the middle of nowhere. His injuries were not fatal, so all he could do was wait, hoping that hours later he might be able to rise and stumble out of the wasteland, through the forest and back to the road. The blow to his head left his vision blurred, the outlines of the sea of weeds before him splitting into two. He blinked hard, hoping it would pass, but nothing changed, and he was forced to admit that the trouble was just as serious as he had first suspected.
He tried to push himself up, but his wrist could not bear the strain and gave way beneath him. A sharp pain tore through his ribs from the effort, and suddenly even that small amount of air seemed to vanish. Sherlock panicked, squeezed his eyes shut, and lowered himself back down. His heart pounded violently from the agony, and he began to gasp from a pain unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Once again he tasted blood in his mouth, and in desperation he spat onto the ground, afraid he would suffocate. Every time he coughed, the world darkened before his eyes, and he could only hope it would stop, because if it did not, he would lose consciousness.
Sherlock was exhausted.
The last rays of the sun painted the grass gold, and gave one final warm caress to his head and face. Crickets chirped in the distance, and somewhere the sound of frogs rose through the air. All the beauty of a late summer sunset lingered around him. Perhaps nature itself felt offended that he had not paid it enough attention.
One half of the sky still shimmered blue, while the other burned with fierce orange, then slowly both were overtaken by the greyish veil the setting sun dragged behind itself. The song of the crickets grew louder, and for a long while it ruled the landscape, until at last the blades of grass were broken beneath a pair of shoes.
Sherlock opened his eyes, but everywhere he looked, everything remained untouched. The footsteps had come from the other side, and at last stopped beside him. A strong, gloved hand seized his hair, and the movement was both careful and rough at once, as though the man who wished to keep him unharmed knew nothing of gentleness.
Not a single word was spoken. The enemy had not returned to make sure he was truly dead. Sherlock knew they would have come with a weapon to shoot him, but this man merely looked him over, then turned him over onto his back.
He caught sight of the dark blue sky strewn with stars before the pain tormenting his side dragged him into unconsciousness.
*
The damp air and the quiet, monotonous dripping woke him once more. The light hurt his eyes, and no matter how hard he tried, his vision improved very little. Above him he saw a ceiling once painted white, now yellowed by cigarette smoke, while the edge of the bathtub cooled the back of his neck. He lifted his head so that he might align himself with reality, with the unfamiliar bathroom where something important was happening.
He stared into murky water reddened with blood, his body barely visible beneath it.
The man who had saved him stood to his right, his back turned toward him. The bathroom resembled a doctor’s office, or perhaps an operating room, but Sherlock was certain he was not in a hospital, and that his rescuer was no doctor. He stood beside a metal table, with a few bloodstained bandages and pieces of gauze scattered nearby. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. Sherlock watched the muscles tighten in his forearm as he cleaned something, and tried to understand why he was there beside him.
He wanted to call him by name, but instead of anything intelligible, a rasping groan escaped his throat. The man flinched and turned around. Sherlock raised a hand to his mouth, afraid he would spit blood again, but this time it did not happen.
He saw two blond heads, two pairs of red eyes, but he no longer allowed his vision to deceive him. There was only one Moriarty in the room.
“Don’t speak,” the man said to him, then turned back to what he had been doing.
Sherlock realized there was no point in forcing it, so he returned to studying his own body and condition, though the bloodied water covered him up to the stomach. The movement of his head made him dizzy, and nausea rose within him. He closed his eyes, hoping the darkness might help, but it was useless.
He still had enough strength left to lean over the edge of the bathtub and vomit onto the floor instead of into the tub.
*
There was no trace of the water anymore. In its place, soft fabric rested against his body, while the pressure of bandages held him together. Searching fingers against his face brought him back to awareness.
“Does it hurt?” Louis asked. His voice was matter-of-fact, reminding Sherlock of the police. He had not yet been subjected to an interrogation that day. He would have smiled if he could, but Louis cupped his face in both hands and pressed his thumb firmly against the swelling beneath his eye. Sherlock hissed in pain, instinctively trying to turn away, had the man allowed it.
“Open your mouth,” came the next instruction.
Sherlock obeyed him as he had never obeyed anyone before. He had not submitted to the five men he had fought alone that day, men against whom he had stood no chance.
But Louis, who had brought him home, bathed him, and bandaged his wounds, asked him to open his mouth.
The man’s thumb pressed against his lip, perhaps he was checking his teeth. For once, Sherlock could say with certainty that he had not lost a single one.
By now he could make out Louis’s outline. He saw the candlelight flash against the whites of his eyes. He was not wearing his glasses, nor did his hair fall into his face. Sherlock would have smiled again, had he been able. It seemed the younger brother of the Lord of Crime had not reserved the disguise of innocence for him.
Louis removed his hand from his face. He pressed together the lips Sherlock had so often found beautiful while he looked him over, then turned away and returned with a small bottle in his hand.
“Drink.”
Sherlock wanted to protest, but Louis touched the bottle to his lips, and the liquid reached his tongue at once. He swallowed, and the bitter taste of the painkiller made the nausea rise again.
“I’m sorry I threw up all over the room.”
It was the first sentence he had managed to force out now that there was no blood left in his mouth. Louis’s expression twitched slightly, but he showed no other emotion, not even when he replied,
“I’m beginning to think you did it on purpose.”
Sherlock realized that coughing was not the only thing that sent pain through his side, he would have to be careful with laughter as well.
“I got into trouble for you to save me?” he asked once he was able to breathe again.
“I told you not to speak.” Louis watched him with narrowed eyes, then touched his ribs where bandages already covered the injury.
Sherlock cried out.
Louis pulled his hand back, his eyelashes fluttering as though a hidden dove had suddenly taken flight before him. Sherlock thought that perhaps he might even be right: if this was what it took to draw something out of him, then so be it.
He would break himself apart, scream, and bleed.
“My brother needs you.”
Louis held a handkerchief in his hand and leaned toward him, and Sherlock did not understand why. He only felt the tears on his face when the cloth brushed gently against his skin.
“Your brother could come in person,” Sherlock said, though his voice had lost its former strength.
Louis cast him a flat, disappointed look, as though his sensitivity regarding William belonged to the past. Sherlock had stretched that particular string to its limit, and perhaps Louis had become completely indifferent to it. In truth, Sherlock was much the same. It had never even crossed his mind to try to set him aflame through his brother.
“My brother does not need the burden of wiping up your vomit and washing the blood off you.”
Louis’s voice was so raw that Sherlock felt another invisible knife slide between his ribs.
“So I’m the dirty work,” he concluded.
Louis looked up at him, but if he had intended to say something, he ultimately remained silent. Sherlock could feel the laudanum slowly clouding his mind. Louis’s blond hair blurred together with the darkness of the room and the faintly flickering candlelight in the distance.
Strangely enough, the crickets returned as well, and as the medicine dulled his senses, he found himself once more upon the scorched grass beside the ruined old manor where not a soul ever wandered, and where the sky had already gone completely dark. Only those few stars flickered overhead, along with the moonlight in the distance. The wind now carried a cooler scent, one that no longer spoke so strongly of death. It was the thrilling smell of late summer nights that promised cold, stirring his hair and slipping beneath his clothes. The grass had become soft as silk, cool against his face, and slowly Sherlock drifted into sleep.