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Feb. 10th, 2013 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impishtubist"The Fall of Gods" (12/24)
Pairings: John/Lestrade; Sherlock/Victor Trevor
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Language, angst, mentions of suicide, implied past alcoholism, implied PTSD, religious themes, minor character death, sexual content, homicide, illness.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Also, warning for S & V doing some rather despicable things in this installment.
The phone call comes at three in the morning, and is exactly what John and Greg have been expecting.
Afterward, Greg goes to the kitchen and makes a cup of tea. It’s the only reaction he gives to the news from his mother, but it speaks volumes. He usually doesn’t often touch the stuff, despite John’s love for it. Greg prefers coffee, and there is an entire shelf in his kitchen that is stocked with a variety of--in John’s opinion, truly horrendous--blends. And the amount of coffee he drinks tends to be indicative of his moods. On the particularly difficult days, Greg will drink the vile stuff throughout the day and come home from work practically vibrating.
But tea is another matter entirely. Tea is reserved for the days before John, when Greg would sit up half the night with a grieving and high Sherlock. Or it’s reserved for days when there are dead children; when there is unspeakable loss.
The last time Greg had made a pot of tea, they had just buried Sherlock.
John joins him, but says nothing. He fixes his own cup of tea and bends to kiss the back of Greg’s head before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table.
“We knew this was coming,” Greg says after a moment, and John’s heart breaks, because even now Greg is trying to reassure him.
We knew this was coming. I’m all right. Don’t worry about me.
John reaches across the table for Greg’s hand, and sits with him until dawn.
----
The fourth name on Irene Adler’s list is one Jason Smith and, having burned their bridges in Milan, this is where Sherlock and Victor are forced to turn their attentions next.
Sherlock is able to track down a Jason Smith who has more-than-tenuous connections to Moriarty’s network, and he is living in Paris--the third location on Adler’s list. But careful, remote inquiries to this Jason Smith’s neighbors tell them that the address is a seasonal home, and that Smith spends much of his time abroad--but where, no one can say for sure.
The flat in Paris has a vast security system, however, and after an hour of work Victor is able to tap into the cameras remotely. Sherlock then spends an afternoon poring over the video footage, memorizing near every inch of Smith’s flat. It is spacious and sparse, with plain furniture of pale wood that looks as though no one has ever used it. Abstract paintings hang on the wall in near every room, their colours bright and obnoxious. Victor quickly writes off the flat as useless and impersonal; it doesn’t look as though there’s anything of use there.
But Sherlock doesn’t dismiss the images so easily, and he spends a further hour studying them while Victor moves into another room with his mobile. Jason Smith’s building is large, and he has multiple neighbors. Victor hopes that carefully-phrased and veiled questions will dredge up some more scraps of information regarding Smith’s private life. They need to find a way to get at the man so as to obtain whatever information he might possess, and if they can find someone close to Smith, it just might be their way in.
“Zurich!” Sherlock finally shouts in triumph as the afternoon wears into evening, slapping the table in triumph. Victor starts at the noise and quickly rings off his latest phone call. It was a waste of time, anyway--he has just spent the past half-hour listening to an elderly woman talk about poinsettias.
“What?”
“Obvious, so obvious, I should have seen it immediately,” Sherlock mutters under his breath as Victor comes to stand at his shoulder. He points at the screen, where he’s pulled up an image of Smith’s bedroom. “Look, that wall there. The painting.”
“It’s blue,” Victor says flatly. Due to the angle of the camera, only half of the painting is visible. Victor can’t see what use it is. “So what?”
“And it’s white,” Sherlock says, as though that’s supposed to mean something. “And the colours are at a diagonal, see? Only it’s not just a painting, it’s a coat of arms. Zurich, Switzerland.”
They are in Zurich by the following afternoon.
Careful piecing together of Victor’s fragmented interviews with Jason Smith’s neighbors reveals that Smith had a lively nightlife and a penchant for lovers half his age. They are able to track down a few of the bars that Smith was known to frequent, and they also know that he kept a lover in the city. Sherlock is the one who finally gives him a name.
“Andrew Bailey, originally from London, currently studying at the University of Zurich,” Sherlock rattles off from the information he’s reading on his laptop. One of Jason Smith’s neighbors had mentioned an expensive designer Smith used for his suits, and that scrap of trivial information allowed Sherlock to draw conclusions about Smith’s lover. Frankly, Victor thinks this is a stretch, even for Sherlock.
“You’re certain about that?” he asks with a quirked eyebrow. Sherlock glowers at him.
“Yes,” he says, standing and thrusting the laptop into Victor’s hands. He points to a photograph he has pulled up from the university’s website, that of an ebony-haired man just on the cusp of adulthood. “And you’re going to seduce him.”
Victor, who is no stranger to having to use his body as a persuasion technique, still blinks stupidly at him.
“Sorry, what?”
“We need to find out where Jason Smith is currently living. Or, at the least, what areas of the world he might travel to when he’s not living here in Zurich. People are more likely to reveal secrets when with a potential lover or during the act of sex, surely you know this. I’d do it myself, but your features are more common than mine. You will be forgotten more quickly,” Sherlock says quickly, waving a hand vaguely through the air. “Besides, you have always found a certain thrill in bedding men younger than you. What?”
Victor blinks at him.
“I think you just insulted me twice in one breath,” he says finally, setting the laptop aside. “That might be a new record.”
Sherlock smirks.
“Was anything I said untrue?”
Victor scowls half-heartedly.
“No, you prick,” he mutters, resisting a smile. “No, you’re correct, as usual. Where do you suggest we start?
They spend several nights frequenting bars known to be hotspots for those studying at the local university and attempt to track down this mysterious lover. It’s a long shot, but it seems to be their only hope at this point for finding the elusive Jason Smith. By night three, however, Victor begins to suspect that this is entirely the wrong way of going about it, and by night five even Sherlock is beginning to look discouraged.
And then, on night six, Sherlock quite literally runs into the man they’ve been looking for.
“Dark hair, six feet tall, wearing a blue jumper and standing by the door,” Sherlock hisses to Victor when he returns from the toilets. Victor glances at the door and spots the man Sherlock’s indicated almost instantly. Even in the dim light of the bar, he can see that Jason Smith’s lover is striking. “He bumped into me.”
Victor watches Andrew Bailey for a moment, as the man isn’t looking in his direction. The planes of his face are soft with the flesh of youth, and Victor suddenly feels the press of years upon his shoulders. It seems not all that long ago that he was in a similar position, exploring unspoken desires under the anonymity afforded to him by the pubs. He recalls dark-haired men and half-forgotten beds, and nostalgia strikes him. Those early days were bright with the unknown, exciting and unexplored, and he doesn’t regret a moment of them.
But those days are also much further away than he realises. God, when did he ever get to be this old?
“Christ,” Victor murmurs at last, “were we ever that young?”
Sherlock looks to Andrew Bailey, and the small knot of young men that surround him.
“We were younger,” he says softly.
Victor hums in response and takes another sip of his water. He leans back, propping his elbows on the bar behind him and cradling his glass in both hands. He’s facing the room fully now, eyes scanning over its patrons. The night is early; there’s no need to rush making contact with Bailey. If it comes to it, Victor will go over to him and strike up a conversation. Or perhaps he’ll be more subtle at first, and send Bailey a drink to begin with.
But before he’s fully decided on the best course of action, Victor feels the side of his neck prickle, as though sensing a gaze, and he takes a furtive glance to his left.
“Lucky break. You’ve caught someone’s attention,” Sherlock murmurs in his ear, on the pretense of reaching around Victor to leave a tip on the bar.
“So I’ve noticed,” Victor says. Andrew Bailey is staring at him. He turns to look at the younger man, and they lock eyes for a charged moment before glancing away from each other. Victor half-turns to Sherlock. “I can take it from here. Lay low for the night. I might not be back until morning.”
He feels Sherlock’s nod and the sudden, cold emptiness at his side when Sherlock slips away.
Victor orders Andrew a drink, and for half an hour they exchange tentative, electric glances from across the room. Eventually, Andrew moves closer and they strike up a conversation. By the time the bar closes, Victor has managed to cop a few feels of Andrew’s backside, and his touches are far from unwelcome.
They end up back at Andrew’s flat.
Andrew has just barely shut the door before Victor is upon him, and he presses Andrew up against the wall. He mouths over the swell of Andrew’s Adam’s apple and drags his teeth across Andrew’s collarbone. Andrew’s breath hitches as Victor’s lips ghost across his skin.
“You like that, son?” Victor murmurs into his ear, chuckling.
“Yeah," Andrew whispers breathlessly.
Victor ducks his head and mouths the hard cord of muscle at Andrew’s throat; sucks a bruise into the junction between his shoulder and neck. Andrew lets out a whimper and pushes a hand into Victor’s hair, cupping the back of his head.
“And don't call me son,” Andrew says as Victor finds a particularly sensitive spot just under his jaw. “I’m twenty-four, for Christ’s sake.”
He’s not, there’s no way that he is, but Victor lets it pass. He presses a leg between Andrew’s, feeling the man’s growing erection against his thigh, and nips at the curve of his jaw.
“You’ve got a lover,” Victor purrs against Andrew’s skin. He captures both of Andrew’s wrists in his hands and presses them against the wall. Andrew lets out a breathy gasp. “Just how disappointed should I be?”
Andrew, for his part, doesn’t even try to deny it.
“He’s only here for a few months every year,” he whispers. He turns his head to nudge Victor with his jaw and finally gets the proper kiss he’s been seeking all night. When they break apart, he whispers, “How’d you guess?”
“I never guess,” Victor says with a smirk. He reaches a hand between them and cups Andrew through his trousers. Andrew gasps and bucks into his hand; Victor feels his smirk widen. It sends a thrill through his spine to realise that he is the one having such an effect on this man who is nearly half his age. “So tell me... just how worried should I be, then? Your lover wouldn’t happen to be in town, would he?”
“Not tonight...” Andrew trails off as Victor palms the hard length of his cock. “He has a flat elsewhere.”
“Will he be there for long?”
“What does it matter?” Now Andrew sounds impatient, even with Victor’s hand working at the fastenings on his belt. “He’s gone for the night.”
“I just want to make sure we’re not interrupted,” Victor says in a low purr. “I don’t suppose his flat is... too close.”
But Andrew is having none of it, and he stills Victor’s hands.
“What do you care?” he asks, now suspicious and irritated.
Victor moves too quickly for Andrew to react and pins his free hand to the wall, rendering him virtually immobile.
“I care very much,” Victor says in a low, deadly voice. “Now. Where is he? Where is Jason Smith, Andrew?”
Andrew’s face flashes from confused to deeply hurt to furious, all in the space of less than three seconds. He wrenches his wrists from Victor’s grip with a surprising strength, punches him in the nose, and is out the door and down the stairs before Victor has a chance to recover himself.
Victor, spitting curses, tears after him.
Andrew has the advantage of knowing this city well, and he almost loses Victor with a series of seemingly senseless detours. But then he makes for one of the beaches, running for one of the piers. Victor has no idea what he hopes to accomplish--does he mean to swim the expanse of the vast, black lake?--but he has no intention of allowing Andrew to succeed. Andrew has the advantage of youth and agility; Victor has the advantage of endurance. Andrew begins to tire as they both sprint towards the nearest pier, and Victor is able to catch up to him by the time they reach it.
Victor brings his fist down on Andrew’s back, landing the blow squarely between his shoulder blades. Andrew stumbles and goes down, smacking into the edge of the pier with a sickening crack and landing in the water. Victor skids to a halt and drops to his knees. When Andrew resurfaces, sputtering and enraged, Victor grabs him by the front of his shirt with one hand and grips the edge of the pier with his other.
“Give me a name!” he bellows.
“Fuck you,” Andrew spits. Victor shoves him under the water and holds him there, heedless of Andrew’s sudden frantic struggle and the hands that claw uselessly at his wrist. He counts to ten and then brings Andrew up for air.
“Tell me a name,” he hisses at the sputtering man. “Anything that will lead me to Smith’s whereabouts. A street, a neighbor, anything.”
“No,” Andrew gasps, and he goes under again before he’s had a chance to catch his breath.
Victor repeats this twice more, until finally Andrew hisses, “Reichenbach.”
“What was that?” Victor demands. Andrew spits out a mouthful of water and stares at Victor through eyes that glint in the darkness, reflecting the light of a nearby lamp.
“Reichenbach,” he snaps. “And... and Richard Brook.”
“Is this a joke?” Victor growls.
“That’s all I know!” Andrew insists between coughs. “I heard him - I heard him talking once on the phone. The first could - could be the name of a street, and maybe the other one is a neighbor.”
“Where?”
“Kilchberg,” Andrew snaps finally. “I swear to God, that’s all I know.”
Victor gives a grunt of frustration but releases Andrew and jumps to his feet. The stunned man treads water and sucks in deep, grateful lungfuls of air.
“What do you want with him, anyway?” Andrew asks, but his voice is no longer sure. It wavers with unease, and Victor feels a sharp stab of regret. “He’s never done any harm.”
“Not to you,” Victor says bitterly, realising what needs to be done. “Not until now, that is.”
He reaches for his gun, whispers, “God forgive me,” and fires. Andrew slips beneath the surface of the water.
It happens so quickly, he doesn’t even look surprised.
Victor doesn’t notice he’s trembling until he gets back to their rooms. He fumbles with his keys, and it takes him several long seconds to finally open the door. When he does, he finds that Sherlock is standing on the other side, still fully dressed, a gun in hand.
“Oh, it’s you,” he says, lowering the weapon.
“Jesus, careful with that thing,” Victor mutters. He pushes past Sherlock and kicks the door shut behind him. “Of course it’s me, what’d you take me for, the world’s noisiest burglar?”
“You’re injured.”
Victor presses the back of his hand against his nose; it comes away bloody.
“I’ll live.” Victor sniffs and tastes blood. He wrinkles his nose in disgust. “We need to get to Kilchberg as soon as possible. I think you’re going to find evidence of Moriarty there.”
“Tell me,” Sherlock says briskly, setting the gun aside and grabbing a towel for Victor’s nose.
Victor relays his story as quickly as he can, knowing Sherlock would appreciate nothing less than absolute haste.
“The only words he could think of were Richard Brook and Reichenbach,” Victor says as he comes to the end of his tale. “He heard Smith talking about it once. He didn’t seem to make the connection between the two. Anyway, it means that Smith at least knew about Richard Brook. And if he knew about Brook...”
“He might have some solid evidence proving Moriarty’s existence, or Brook’s fabrication.” Sherlock’s eyes are wide with delight and no small amount of hope. A fist seals itself around Victor’s heart. He hopes desperately that this will prove to be true, and they will at least be able to put some of Sherlock’s worries to rest. “Oh, Victor, this is brilliant.”
“Have a heart, Sherlock, a boy died tonight.”
The words are out before Victor realises he’s even had the thought, and he bites the inside of his cheek.
“Sorry,” he mutters when Sherlock turns to look at him. “I didn’t mean...”
“You suspected this would happen,” Sherlock points out, though he sounds almost gentle about it.
Victor nods.
“I had to kill him,” he says quietly. “He was too close to Smith; he would have relayed our conversation immediately. And he saw my face... saw more of me than he should have, really. He would have identified me on the spot, common features or no.”
“Not to mention the fact that he would have perished immediately after identifying you,” Sherlock says, and it takes Victor a moment to realise that Sherlock is trying to comfort him. “They would have killed him anyway, if he was lucky.”
“He said he was twenty-four,” Victor mutters. “But he was twenty if he was a day. Merde.”
“What do you think they would have done to him when they found out he gave us Richard Brook?” Sherlock asks. “Because you know they would have found out, Victor, there’s no way he could have kept it secret. He had no idea it was a secret that was supposed to be kept. The fate you offered him was far kinder.”
Victor sighs.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Sherlock, but don’t,” he says in a hollow voice. “I’m not a good man. Most days, I’m not even a decent one. It’s no use trying to pretend otherwise. Come on. Let’s get packed.”
They are in Jason Smith’s Kilchberg flat within a day.
Smith has a series of encryptions on his laptop. They’re more than a normal person would need to protect his work but not enough to keep Sherlock out. He takes a few glances around the living room before cracking all the encryptions. It takes less than ten minutes.
Victor keeps watch, though it’s the middle of the day and most of the residents in this building are at work. His hand twitches, fingers never very far from the trigger on his gun, but the world outside remains quiet.
It is too easy.
“Find anything yet?” Victor asks after half an hour, uneasy. Sherlock shakes his head, the crease between his brows deepening.
“No,” he says, and pulls a USB stick from his pocket. “And there’s no time to search further. We’ll have to download the contents of his computer and take them with us.”
“Make it quick,” Victor says, pacing the room and continuing to keep an eye on the windows. “None of this feels right.”
Sherlock pulls the USB stick from the laptop and opens his mouth to reply, but he is interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the stairwell outside. He moves to the door, and Victor reaches for his gun.
The door flies open before either of them can react further, and Jason Smith steps through. If he is surprised, he does not show it. Hand still on the doorknob, he shoves his shoulder into the door and rams it fully open. It catches Sherlock full in the side before he can sidestep it, and sends him sprawling.
The USB stick flies from Sherlock’s hand and skitters across the floor. For a moment Victor is torn between it and Sherlock--stupid, stupid!--and that moment is all it takes before Jason Smith is upon a still-stunned Sherlock. He cracks a fist across Sherlock’s face and lands a blow to his stomach. Sherlock, who had tried to struggle back to his feet, doubles over. Smith slams the heel of his foot down on Sherlock’s left hand, and Victor knows even before the crack that the bones are broken.
But Smith doesn’t get any further than that before Victor has barreled into him. They both tumble to the floor, but Victor is the more nimble of the two and in an instant has forced Smith to his knees, his hands behind his back. Sherlock, pale from the pain, remains kneeling. He reaches over with his good hand and grabs Smith’s hair, forcing his head back.
“I won’t tell you anything,” Smith growls before Sherlock can say anything.
“That’s just fine,” Sherlock hisses. “I have your records.”
“I knew you would be coming,” Smith goes on, heedless of the fury in Sherlock’s face. “What makes you think you’re going to find anything of use on that computer?”
Sherlock’s eyes widen fractionally.
“How did you know we were coming?” he hisses. When Smith doesn’t answer, Sherlock strikes him across the face. "You’re going to be wanted by Moran’s people the moment they find out someone has stolen your computer records, and that’s not a very safe place to stand right now. It certainly won’t make you any friends. So I ask you again--who gave you that information?”
Smith’s nostrils flare, and he spits in Sherlock’s face.
“They found a body on the shore of Lake Zurich this morning,” he hisses as Sherlock’s hand tightens painfully in his hair. “Someone murdered Andrew Bailey; it wasn't much of a stretch to realise that whoever did it would be coming for me next. But you’re right. We know that someone out there has been questioning Moriarty’s clients, and a select few have been told to keep an eye out for you two.”
“Told by who? Who knows about us?”
Smith’s smile is sickening.
“It was a poor move, shooting Andrew. Do you really think you'll get any answers out of me? I've nothing left to lose now.”
Sherlock stumbles to his feet, glaring down at Smith.
“It’s a pity you saw our faces,” he spits finally. “You might have lived, otherwise.”
Sherlock turns away to go retrieve the USB stick.
Victor snaps Smith’s neck.
“It was still too easy,” Victor says later, when they’re back in their rooms. “All things considered.”
He has gathered what few medical supplies they have and forced Sherlock to down a few stiff shots of the room’s stash of alcohol. Sherlock looks away. When Victor sets the broken bones, he sinks his teeth into the base of his thumb on his good hand to stifle his sharp cry of agony.
“All right?” Victor asks some moments later, when Sherlock has had a chance to compose himself. He wraps bandages around Sherlock’s hand, binding it tight. A thin sheen of sweat has broken out across Sherlock’s brow and his upper lip is damp. He accepts Victor’s handkerchief and wipes his face. He then downs a handful of weak painkillers and finally speaks.
“It was too easy,” he agrees quietly. He pulls the USB stick from his pocket and turns it over in his good hand thoughtfully. “Nevertheless... we still have this.”
“Do you think he was bluffing?”
“I’m almost certain of it,” Sherlock says, reaching for his laptop. “There was virtually no time for him to have wiped all the records if his suspicions truly were aroused just today. By the time news of Bailey’s death would have reached him, it would have been too late. Even if he did manage it, however... it would have been a sloppy job. No doubt any files that were wiped can still be recovered.”
“Here, let me have a look,” Victor says, holding out his hand for the computer. “It’s more my area of expertise, anyway.”
Sherlock hands the laptop over without protest, which in itself is indicative of the amount of pain he’s still in. He then stretches out on one of the beds while Victor starts to pick away at the files he managed to pull from Smith’s laptop. Progress is slow because he scours each one, looking for a mention of a name or evidence that the file had actually been altered. He eventually comes across a handful of fragmented documents that pertain to Brook--half of a resume, part of a lease, a portion of a medical record. It appears as though someone did indeed try to be rid of the files, and ran out of time.
“Sherlock,” Victor says. When he receives no response, he glances up from the screen. The lights in the room have been extinguished, and Sherlock is unmoving on the bed, an arm thrown across his eyes. Victor checks the time; it’s well after midnight. He tries again anyway, because this can’t wait: “Sherlock.”
Sherlock rouses then, and groggily pushes himself into a sitting position with his good hand.
“Do you have something?” he rasps. Victor comes to sit at his side.
“These records have all been faked,” he says, setting the computer on Sherlock’s lap. “Everything pertaining to Richard Brook on Smith's computer was a complete fabrication. The records themselves are real enough, but Moriarty’s information has been written over the man they used to belong to.”
“Wrapping up a lie in the truth,” Sherlock murmurs. “We've always known the records are fake. The real question is, can you prove it?”
“That they’re fake? Absolutely.” Victor shifts closer; their shoulders brush. “You know what this means, don’t you? You can go home, Sherlock.”
“We can go home,” Sherlock says automatically, and Victor doesn’t bother to correct him. Now isn’t the time for that discussion. “Once we finish dismantling the rest of the network.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, looking weary and dejected even though this information is what he's been searching for these past few months.
“Where do we go from here, Victor?” he mutters at last, though it’s clear from his cadence that he doesn’t expect an answer to that question. They are running out of names on Irene Adler’s list, and are no closer to bringing down the network.
As it happens, though, Victor has an answer for him. He reaches for the laptop once again and pulls up another file--this one, completely unrelated to Richard Brook.
“I think,” he says, “that I have an idea about that, actually.”
---
Part 13
----
