SwissMiss' Creativity Outlet

Title: Cracks in the In-Between Places
Author: swissmarg
Beta readers: ruth0007, billiethepoet
Rating: PG-13
Relationship: John/Sherlock
Word count: ca. 93,500 when complete, this chapter 3,748 words
Summary: AU set in the universe of nox_candida's Getting Better. John and Sherlock work together to flush out Mary's killers, and Tristram has to come to terms with what his father's new friend means for him. No series 3 spoilers (or series 1 or 2, for that matter).

See chapter one for the complete header with warnings, acknowledgments, disclaimers, and notes.

Chapter 10 on AO3


Chapter Ten

Tristram can't sleep. He's been lying in the dark for a long time. He's not used to this complete blackness. Even with the curtains drawn tight in his room back home, there's enough light from the street lamps outside for him to see the outlines of every piece of furniture, the globe Uncle Mycroft gave him for his birthday after he'd seen how fascinated Tristram was by the big one in his office, the row of glass jars on his window sill where he was testing evaporation rates. Here, the only illumination is from the moon, and the heavy green drapes are doing a very thorough job of blocking even that faint light. He can't even see the lamp on the night stand right next to him, impractical if he needed to turn it on in a hurry.

It's also too quiet. He's used to the sounds of the city outside his window: the grumble of cars down in the street; the laughter of teenagers dosed with bravado and alcopop; the sudden whine of a motorcycle revving past; the shrill whistle of someone trying to get his mate's attention from a block away; the intermittent, distant (and sometimes not-so-distant) blare of emergency services. And of course his father downstairs playing the violin, or shouting at someone on the phone, or clanking around in the kitchen, working on experiments that he only gets out once Tristram is in bed.

Now, he strains to hear something - anything. He fancies he hears voices; probably his father and Doctor Watson, discussing whatever they couldn't discuss before with Tristram and Emily around. Something about the reason they're here. He listens harder, but now he can't hear anything at all. Either they've stopped talking, or they've gone somewhere else to continue. The silence presses in on his ears.

Tristram tosses and turns a bit, but it feels like there is a current buzzing through his body, making it impossible for him to lie still. (He knows, following an experiment with batteries and circuit boards, what the buzz of electricity feels like. It's unexpected and makes him want to twist away from it, but not painful.) He sighs and sits up. He considers turning on the light and reading some more, but he doesn't think he could concentrate on the story. He needs some kind of stimulation, though, something other than this black cotton-wool he feels the room is stuffed with.

He gropes his way slowly to the window and pulls back the curtain. This room looks out on the side of the house, where there's nothing but some trees and a gravel path leading to the garden in the back. It's a relief for his eyes to have something to focus on, even if it is only the black shapes of the trees and the lighter grey of the path. Maybe he will see a fox or a badger. He knows there are some on the grounds, or at least used to be; his father took him out early one morning when they were here in the summer and pointed out the droppings and tracks they'd left during the night.

He's been standing there for several minutes when he catches movement in the corner of his eye. He tries to make out what it is, but staring directly at the spot makes it disappear. He looks away, and catches the movement again. It's bigger than a fox or a badger. In fact, Tristram is fairly certain it must be a person. Whatever (whoever) it is, it's skirting the edge of the path, keeping just within the shadow of the trees. Now there is a brief flash of light, tiny and yellow, followed by a much duller orange spot and then nothing again. It doesn't take long for Tristram to realise that the strange figure has lit a cigarette.

If this were Baker Street, he wouldn't think twice about someone passing by - or even lingering for a cigarette - outside his window, but this is all private property. In his mind, he runs through the people he knows of who might be here by rights - Grandmother, Mrs Bowen, one of the gardeners - but it's pretty late for any of the staff to be around, and anyway, any of them would be on the path proper. It occurs to him that it might be his father, poking around in the underbrush, or just gone outside for a smoke. Although he almost always stands on the terrace outside the green parlour to smoke when they're here. And then it occurs to him even more strongly that his father told him to report anything unusual to him right away.

Tristram takes one last look, but he can't see any movement any more, nor any sign of a cigarette. He makes his way across the room in the dark, not wanting to alert whoever it is to the fact that someone's observing him (or her) by turning on the light. He has to move slowly, feeling his way from one piece of furniture to the next until he finds the door.

It's dark in the hallway too, but there is a line of light showing under the door of his father's room. He knows what to do when he needs to speak to his father but the door is closed. He's to knock, wait for an answer, and if there isn't any, he can go in. This may seem counterintuitive, but the reason for a closed door is generally to shield Tristram from noxious chemicals or particularly gruesome dissections. Or, obviously, if Father is using the toilet or something like that. If Tristram isn't to enter yet, Father will say so. If Father can't answer due to incapacitation, it may in fact be vitally important for Tristram to open the door and find out so he can alert Mrs Hudson (that only happened once, when Tristram was six, but they got the room aired out and didn't even need to call an ambulance). Sometimes, Father has simply fallen asleep or is thinking and can't be bothered to respond, and then it doesn't really matter if Tristram comes in. Chemicals and body parts are unlikely here in the bedroom at Llanbroc.

Tristram knocks once, lightly, and says, "Father?" as loudly as he dares, not wanting to wake Emily and Doctor Watson in the next room. He waits a moment, then, not hearing any response, opens the door.

He freezes, blinking in the sudden brightness, completely unable to process what he sees.

In the next second, Doctor Watson has sprung up off the bed, saying a bad word. He doesn't have a shirt on.

Tristram's father props himself up on his elbows where he is lying reclined on the bed. He does have a shirt on, but it's unbuttoned all the way and hanging off his shoulders. His face is red and puffy, like... as if he'd been crying, or something, but his eyes aren't wet. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, so maybe he really was crying.

"What is it?" Father asks as he swings his legs around to sit up properly. His voice comes out deep and rough.

Tristram cannot possibly make a sound.

Doctor Watson has come up with an undershirt from somewhere and is trying madly to get it on, which is only resulting in it getting twisted around the wrong way. "It's all right, Tris. We were just tired, and..."

"For God's sake, John," Father says tetchily. "He's not an imbecile, he can see what we were doing."

"And he shouldn't have seen-"

Father interrupts him: "Something's wrong." He gets up and walks over to Tristram, keeping his eyes firmly locked on Tristram's. "What is it?" He puts his hands on Tristram's shoulders and leads him to the bed, making him sit down on the edge. Right next to where -

Tristram's brain is only now catching up. Doctor Watson was lying on top of Father. He was kissing him. Kissing, not crying. That's what they were doing. Father was holding onto him. He wanted him there. Tristram feels like he's the one that's going to cry. He knows that what he saw was more than kissing. Putting your mouths together, that's kissing (which is kind of gross, but his father does lots of things - enjoys lots of things - that most people would consider gross; also, the people in Mrs Hudson's shows on the telly kiss, sometimes a lot, so Tristram knows it's normal behaviour for adults. Maybe they get used to the grossness, like they do the taste of coffee). But Doctor Watson and Father were in bed together. Their bodies were touching. All over. They had their clothes off - some of them, anyway. They both still had their trousers on. Were they … doing it? He knows it's called something else, but he doesn't even want to use that word in his head. Tristram also knows, technically, abstractly, how a man and a woman make a baby, and that two men can do something similar, even if it doesn't result in a baby. He can't think that thought through any further. He tears his eyes away, unable to look at his father anymore.

"Tristram..." Tristram knows that tone of voice. It means that Father is trying very hard to be patient. He almost never succeeds. "What - is - wrong?" His hands squeeze Tristram's shoulders, as if he's trying to squeeze the answer out of him.

Tristram's mind is completely blank. Why did he even come in here?

"Tris..." It's another voice. Gentler, softer. Then it gets sharp as it says, "Sherlock, let go of him, Jesus, that's not helping." The grip on his shoulders disappears. Tristram feels unmoored.

Another touch lands on his upper arm. Tristram looks down at the hand - square fingers, light brown hairs on the back, an old scar faded white on the knuckle of the thumb. He follows the line of the arm it's attached to until he is looking at alert blue eyes in a weathered face. Doctor Watson is crouched down next to him. He's wearing an undershirt now, but it's inside-out.

"Are you feeling sick?" Doctor Watson asks.

Yes, Tristram thinks, but that's not why he's here. He's here to-

It all comes back to him in a rush: the path, the shadowy movement, the flash of light. "There's someone outside," he blurts out. He turns to his father, suddenly full of urgency as his brain whirs back online. "I saw them out my window, next to the path. They lit a cigarette."

Father's eyes flash to Doctor Watson, then back to Tristram. "What were they doing?"

"I couldn't tell. I couldn't even really see them. I just saw something moving next to the path, under the trees. Bigger than an animal."

"And the cigarette?"

Tristram tries to describe the two different kinds of light he saw, and everything else he can recall about the figure. While he's speaking, Father is already typing something into his phone.

"Ours?" Doctor Watson asks Father.

"Most likely, but if so, Mycroft should have him drawn and quartered for being so stupid as to give away his position for a nicotine fix."

Tristram doesn't understand most of that, but he does get the feeling that perhaps Father isn't as surprised by Tristram's report as he thought he might be. "Do you know who it was?" Tristram asks.

"We'll know shortly." His father finishes his text and sends it, then stands and walks to the door, buttoning his shirt as he goes. "Come and show me, Tristram," he says.

Tristram is about to get up, but Doctor Watson's hand on his arm holds him back, albeit gently.

"Are you sure you're okay, Tris?" he asks.

Tristram nods. He feels stupid now, his shock giving way to embarrassment.

"We can talk about it... about everything, tomorrow," Doctor Watson says.

Tristram knows he means what Tristram saw him and Father doing. He would rather forget about it entirely, but he mumbles, "Okay," so that Doctor Watson will let him go.

Tristram gets off the bed and Doctor Watson straightens up.

"I'll go check on Emily," he says.

Tristram follows his father back down the hall to his room. They don't turn on the light, but Father uses his phone to light the way so they don't run into anything. Once they get to Tristram's room, though, he turns it off before going in, and now Tristram is truly walking blindly, his eyes not yet re-adjusted to the darkness.

Father stands carefully to one side of Tristram's window and holds the edge of the curtain back so he can look past it.

"Where did you see them?" Father asks in a low voice.

Tristram starts to step forward to show him, but Father stops him with a hand on his chest.

"Never put yourself in the direct line of fire," Father says fiercely and pulls Tristram in close against his hip. Tristram likes that. It makes him feel safe. Father then asks Tristram several questions - which direction the person was coming from, how fast they were moving, whether Tristram heard anything - which Tristram tries to answer competently. All the while, they are both looking intently at the area down below, but try as he might, Tristram can't see anything more than the unmoving path and the black hulks of the trees.

"Is it the bogeyman?" Tristram ventures to ask, once his father is finished with his own interrogation.

"Wherever did you- Claire," he mutters in answer to his own question. Then he says more briskly, "There's no such thing as a bogeyman. There are criminals motivated by greed, and there are men and women deluded by their own sense of importance, but they are all quite ordinary, I assure you, and I will make sure that none of them come near you ever again. And as for what you saw, it was with near one-hundred percent certainty someone in your uncle Mycroft's employ, sent here to protect you."

"Oh." He is even more embarrassed now, having made a fuss over nothing. He should have known. It isn't the first time Uncle Mycroft has sent bodyguards after his father.

As if his father could hear his thoughts, he says, "It was right, though, to come get me. I want you to do exactly the same thing the next time something seems off to you."

While Tristram is pleased by the praise, he thinks he would probably be a little more circumspect the next time. Both in judging whether a situation really warrants alarming Father, and in avoiding walking in on something like that again. Which he really hopes will never be repeated, either in or out of his presence.

They stand there long enough that Tristram starts to get sleepy again. He's still pressed up against his father's side, and it's lovely and - while not exactly comfortable - comforting. He leans in a bit more and lets his head rest against his father's arm.

Father stirs, gently nudging Tristram back upright. "I think you can go back to bed now," he says. "Nothing's going to happen tonight." He steps away from the window and lets the curtain fall back over the window. Then he turns his phone on again and directs the blue glow at the floor so Tristram can get to the bed without running into anything.

As soon as he is under the duvet, the phone blinks off, allowing the inky blackness to return. For a moment, Tristram has the notion that Father disappeared along with the light from the phone, but then he hears him moving through the room. When he opens the door, Tristram is seized by a momentary panic at the thought of being left alone in the dark.

"Father?" he says, his voice coming out more tense than he'd like.

Father pauses in the doorway. "Hm?"

"Will you be in your room?" He feels like a baby, wanting the reassurance, but he would just feel better knowing that his father is two doors away.

"I'm going to have a look around outside. Stay away from the windows." He pulls the door shut behind him. Tristram hears him walking away - faintly - and then the cotton-wool blackness is back again. Tristram doesn't dare do anything but lie stock still under the blanket and try not to think about what's outside the window, or what he saw in his father's room. Not to think about anything at all.

&&&&&&

"And?" John hovers in the bathroom doorway again, having heard Sherlock returning over an hour later. He squints as his eyes adjust to the light.

Sherlock flops down on his back on the bed and holds a baggie containing what looks like dirt up to the light. "They swear it wasn't one of them. None of them were on that side of the house at the time."

John comes in and closes the door behind him. "Shit."

"Possibly. They may be lying to cover themselves."

"Or it could have been someone local, cutting across the property on their way home," John offers.

"Why would someone on their way back from a pub crawl stop right under Tristram's window for a smoke?" Sherlock holds the baggie out to John.

John comes over to take it. "What's this?"

"Cigarette ash."

John frowns at the contents. "You found this outside?"

"Obviously," Sherlock drawls.

"Pretty impressive," John acknowledges. He hands the baggie back to Sherlock and sits down on the edge of the bed. "It could still have been someone passing through. Maybe they just stopped long enough to light up, then kept going."

Sherlock tosses the baggie onto the small table next to the bed. "They would have had to stand there for at least a couple of minutes to generate that much ash. I couldn't find the butt, though. Which means they either left before they finished, or they took it with them."

"Do you think it was one of Moran's men?"

Sherlock runs his hands through his hair, making it stand up wildly. It looks like it's been a couple of days since it's been washed. He tips his head back, exposing his throat, and presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. "I don't know. I had Mycroft's team narrow their perimeter around the house, at least until daylight."

"I don't like it. We're too exposed," John says tightly. "We're leaving as soon as it gets light."

"Agreed." Sherlock lets his hands drop to his sides, but keeps his eyes closed. He might be resting, or thinking.

John waits. When nothing further is forthcoming after a bit, he asks quietly, "Was Tristram all right?"

Sherlock opens his eyes and frowns as if he can't fathom why John would ask. "Fine."

"Because when he came in... He seemed pretty shocked."

"He's fine," Sherlock repeats curtly.

"Did you talk to him-"

"I said he's fine, John!" He slaps his hands down on the bed for emphasis. "There's nothing to talk about. He didn't see anything he wouldn't be able to see on the side of a bus."

John turns to look at Sherlock, his eyebrows raised. "Oh, you're featured in the latest Calvin Klein campaign then, are you?"

"He's seen me in considerably less than an open shirt before."

"I hope to God watching you in bed getting off with another man isn't a regular feature in his life. But I had the impression from his reaction that it really isn't."

Sherlock shifts so he can see John better and folds his hands across his stomach. "Tell me, John, I'm curious: is it the other man part or the getting off part that is supposed to scar him for life?"

"You know, I don't even know. Why don't you tell me? I mean - my God, I really know nothing about you." John puts his head in his hands and laughs humourlessly. "Are you.... I mean, you seemed as surprised by all this as I am, but for all I know I'm just your boyfriend of the week."

"I don't have 'boyfriends'." Sherlock sounds both disgusted and offended. "And we've known each other for considerably longer than a week, surely even you would have noticed if I were in a relationship with someone else by now."

"No, okay then. So, what, are you- Jesus, this is hard." John rubs a hand down his face. "Have you ever been attracted to a man before?"

"That has nothing to do with it," Sherlock retorts, still testy.

"I really think it does. I mean, look, are we talking about - Never mind, let's stick to Tris for the moment. Is the idea of two men together something new to him? Or a same-gender couple in general? He's met Harry and Clara; I assumed he understood that they're married and what exactly that means-"

"I haven't explained the mechanics of lesbian sex to him, if that's what you're getting at," Sherlock snipes.

"No, Sherlock," John hisses, "what I'm getting at is your son very clearly has some issues relating to intimacy, and after this weekend I think I'm beginning to see why."

Sherlock sits up and swings his legs around away from John. "I've had enough of this."

John points at his back. "Exactly. That, right there, that's- Exactly."

Sherlock stands up and goes to the desk, shuffling things around haphazardly. "You can leave now. I need to think. We may have actual killers pursuing us. We don't really have time for your sexual identity crisis."

John watches him for a moment, then stands slowly and speaks to Sherlock's back. "I've always known I was bisexual. Well, since my late teens, anyway. So, no, not so much a sexual identity crisis as such. Although it has been a long time. Since before I met Mary, obviously. There hasn't been anyone since. And I know the timing couldn't be any worse, but the thing is... " He takes a steadying breath. "The thing is, Sherlock, I have never done casual sex. Ever. And I didn't think I was this time, either. So." He waits, but although Sherlock has stilled, there is no answer. Eventually, he goes to the bathroom door and opens it. "Seven o'clock?"

Sherlock nods stiffly but doesn't turn around.

John goes out and shuts the door behind him.

&&&&&&

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