Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sidney winced and leaned on the cane she was carrying.
Fuck.
How did people put up with this shit? She stared down at “her” bad leg. It wasn’t really her bad leg, it was Watson’s bad leg, but it was now her bad leg, as she was now apparently Doctor John H. Watson.
This was getting ridiculous.
But there she was, having just snapped into awareness, standing in a Victorian flat. Wearing men’s Victorian clothing—at least she got out of having to wear a corset and heels and all the petticoats and shit—and leaning on a cane.
She’d tried to walk across the room without it, made it two steps, and realized that, nope—it wasn’t a prop. Her knee had threatened to give out and sent a stab of pain up her right leg.
“That old wound giving you trouble again, John?” Someone across the room caught her attention.
Looking over, she’d missed him at first, standing amongst a collection of plants and what looked like a museum’s collection of statues and other items that came from all over the globe. There was no need to guess who it was. Or who it was also supposed to be.
The man was tall, handsome, with sharp features that looked as though they could cut glass, and brown hair that looked in bad need of a comb, sticking out in wild curls and at unruly angles. He was studying a book in front of him, not having even glanced over at Sidney.
But he wouldn’t need to have looked over to hear her stumble and slam the tip of her cane down into the floor, would he? He wouldn’t have needed to ask to figure out what was going on.
Because he’d easily be able to deduce the answer. That was his whole shtick, wasn’t it?
Sherlock Holmes. Virtue. Again, blazingly attractive and climbable. Much more tempting than his showing as Peter Pan, which had just felt ew. But this? This, Sidney could get behind.
And Victorian mens’ suits did nicely show off his behind.
At her long silence, Sherlock finally turned to look at her, eyebrow raised.
Sidney coughed, clearing her throat. “You know how it is.” Play along, Sid. Play along. “Change in the weather, and all.” She limp-caned her way to a sofa—or whatever the fuck they were called in this time period—and sat down.
“If it were not for your insistence that the surgeon who assisted you in Afghanistan, pulling that bullet out of your own leg, was one of the best in your unit? I would think it was his first day, with how often that pains you.” Sherlock turned his attention back to the book in front of him.
“Should I ring for Mrs. Hudson to bring you some opium?”
The idea of doing opium and being high as balls while she tried to stagger-laugh her way through the insane bullshit that had befallen them made her bark out a laugh. When Sherlock looked at her again, as if to ask if “he” was quite all right, she coughed again.
“Sorry, no. I’m quite fine.” Maybe later. It was still so hard to wrap her head around what was happening to her. To them. If she was here with Sherlock, that meant that Sasha was off contending with…Moriarty, probably?
She wasn’t a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, if she were honest. Well, not past the recent movies and TV shows. She’d never read any of the stories. That was probably going to get her into trouble.
But it seemed Sherlock—or rather, Virtue—was being kind enough to feed her clues. Afghanistan. Bullet. Unit. So Watson was an ex-military doctor. It was quite thoughtful of him, actually.
“The lead has gone cold. Again.” Sherlock closed the book with a thwack and tossed it onto a pile of them in the corner of the room. “No matter how many times I look at the pieces, no matter how obvious it is that Moriarty is involved, I cannot prove it.”
“And without proof, we can’t go to the Yard.” It was Scotland Yard that he worked with, right? Sidney was trying to remember. But this all did confirm that they were working against Moriarty.
Poor Sasha. Sidney could only hope that her sister was okay. First Hook, and now this? Though, she didn’t look like she was terribly upset when Vile was kissing her.
But Virtue had made a good point when he said that was Vile’s whole game plan. Split them up. And…Vile was hot, Sidney had to admit. So was Virtue. And her sister was extremely repressed. Maybe she’d get some hot villain action before…
Before one of them died.
Wincing, she looked away. It was hard to play the game or find any kind of entertainment in what was happening around her when she had that looming over her.
They were supposed to be trying to kill each other.
Or find some way to tell a unique story—which seemed more and more daunting the more she learned what that actually meant.
The sofa cushion under her lifted as Sherlock threw himself down rather violently onto the spot next to her, sighing dramatically. “The bastard simply cannot be idle, can he?”
Now Sidney wasn’t sure which one of them they were talking about. Vile? Moriarty? She supposed the answer was yes. “When you think you’re better than everyone—when you think you’re a god—the whole world is just filled with toys to play with.”
Sherlock let out a breath. “What do you think separates the two of us? We could be the same man, in so many regards. When you speak of his disregard for those around him…am I not guilty of the same?”
“Sure. You can be irritating when you decide to spout off about how much smarter you are than everyone else.” She leaned back, propping her bad leg up on the coffee table in front of her, wincing as she did.
Her knee was stiff, and it ached. And if she didn’t move it every now and then, it got worse.
She also knew she was doing a shit job of matching the period language, but she had no idea how to just…fake that. So she didn’t even bother trying. “But you still try to be a part of society, even if you roll your eyes at us all the time.”
Sherlock—Virtue—whatever—didn’t seem to be bothered by her anachronistic speech patterns. Probably to keep the illusion going, she figured. “How so?”
“You associate with others. Moriarty doesn’t. You have…well, me.” She smiled at him. “Your trusty Dr. Watson. Your friend and sidekick. Who does Moriarty have that he could call a friend? Anyone?”
Sherlock’s shoulders slumped slightly. “He is entirely alone.”
“That makes all the difference, I think.” Sidney was really starting to rethink the opium. Seriously, how did people put up with chronic pain? This sucked. “You haven’t gone cold and dead inside. Well. Not entirely, anyway.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Sherlock scoffed. “This conversation was not meant to turn into an excoriation of my own personal character, you realize.”
“Too bad. You walked into it.” She leaned her head back against the patterned wallpaper. The room smelled comfortably of smoke and incense. “Would it kill you to get into a romantic relationship with someone?”
“It might. More likely, it would end up with them paying that price.” Sherlock winced, standing from the sofa to walk across the room. “Do you think Moriarty would not use such a thing as leverage against me, given the opportunity? Or any of the criminals in the city he commands?”
Rolling her eyes, she sighed. “You’re not James Bond.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Right. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re a private detective. You’re not a spy or in the secret service. Your life is only as dangerous as you’re choosing to make it. Your life has room for a little romance in it. You’re simply choosing not to let it happen.”
“It is…difficult for me to express in words how unappealing the idea of a romantic entanglement with anyone is to me.” Sherlock’s expression was comical. Like he’d stepped in dog shit and she’d just told him to eat it.
Fair. Fine. Whatever. She was asking him to act out of character, she supposed. “Suit yourself. My point being is that you at least allow yourself some company in your life. He doesn’t. Either because he can’t or he chooses not to.”
The conversation lulled for a moment as Sherlock went back to a stack of papers on a desk in the other room, sorting through them as if hoping to see another detail he might have missed the first time.
But something told Sidney that they were waiting for Moriarty—and Sasha—to make the first move on this one.
This was just a get to know you moment between Sidney and Sherlock. A setting of the chessboard. “Do you ever get lonely, Sherlock?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in the existence of love?”
That had him looking up from his papers. That had him furrowing his brow in deep thought, as if he’d never actually contemplated the question before. His eyes darted back and forth, reading and searching for something in front of him that wasn’t there.
After a long pause, he let out a quiet huh. “The existence of it? Perhaps.” That seemed to both amuse, fascinate, and worry him all at the same time. “I suppose I never paid much attention to it, as it was always the domain of others. I have no interest in such frivolities.”
“Too pedestrian for you. I get it. It’s just what us normies do.” She snickered. “We’re too stupid to understand it’s a waste of time or isn’t real.”
“I am not insinuating that I believe that such things are due to a lack of intelligence or—” Sherlock paused.
If he registered her odd speech, he ignored it like it hadn’t happened.
“I suppose yes, that is what I’m insinuating, but that isn’t what I mean.
” He shook his head. “I am simply saying it is a philosophical topic I have not given much weight to, as I have never had it come to the forebear. Most of the time it is brought up in the context of my avoidance of it, not its existence in a Platonic sense.”
“I was just—” Cringing, she broke off as pain lanced up her leg. Shifting, she turned to put her bad leg up on the sofa with a whine. “This fucking blows!”
“John, shall I send for—” Sherlock already had that nagging wife tone in his voice that told Sidney that she was going to lose the conversation.