Sherlock Holmes in New York (pt 8)

[sunken_standard]

Title: Sherlock Holmes in New York

Rating: R for language, violence, allusions to sexuality, drug use

Pairing: Sherlock/ Irene Adler (past), Sherlock/ John bromance (or pre-slash, if you have your slash goggles on)

Warnings: Nothing extremely graphic, see rating.

Spoilers: All three episodes to be safe.

Wordcount: 24,400

Summary: When Sherlock tracks Moriarty to New York City, he's drawn in to helping an old friend. John isn't sure what to make of any of it.

Betas/ Britpickers: pantropia, herovillian, brewsternorth, marshmellowed

 

Continued from pt 7

Irene was in her studio, sprawled on the sofa with an unplugged electric guitar. She smiled wide when they came in. “Hey guys! Is Agent Lafferty back? I told him to get me some gummy worms on his way back.”

“Lafferty's dead. We need your car.”

Irene's eye wandered over Sherlock lazily. “Oh, bummer. Where we goin'?”

“We aren't going anywhere. John and I are going to get your son.”

Irene stumbled to her feet. The mention of her child seemed to penetrate the opiate fog somewhat. “I'll get my purse. I don't think I should drive though...” She stumbled past them, guitar still hung around her shoulder, and tottered down the hallway to what John assumed to be her bedroom.

Sherlock followed after her. “Irene, you're not going. You'll only get in the way and end up getting someone killed.”

“It's cool. I've got some Ritalin. It'll offset the comedown and I'll be straight as an arrow. You can have some if you want.” She rummaged in her top dresser drawer, producing a bottle.

John pushed past Sherlock, who was standing in the doorway. He intercepted Irene's hand before she could put the pills in her mouth, his hand gently but firmly closing over the top of her fist. “That's not the best idea.”

“Nah, dude, it's cool. They don't interact. It's all good.”

“No, it's really not.” He tugged gently on her hand.

“Oh for God's sake!” Sherlock strode over and grabbed the bottle from the dresser, pocketing it. He then grabbed Irene's wrist roughly, digging his thumb into the soft spot. She dropped the pills into Sherlock's waiting hand. He eyed them for a moment, then tossed them into his mouth, dry-swallowing. “Irene, get your keys and get in the car. John's driving.” Sherlock swept out of the room and down the stairs.

Irene peered at him for a moment, then shrugged and followed Sherlock.

John stayed in the bedroom for a moment, trying to get his sudden flash of anger under control. He'd seen Sherlock abuse over-the-counter medications frequently. Two Ritalin weren't nearly as bad as knowing the things Sherlock would sometimes do with decongestants. They'd had a spectacular row about it in June and to John's knowledge, Sherlock hadn't done it since. His urge to blame Irene was irrational, he knew that, but he couldn't help feeling that if this was any other case, any other person, Sherlock wouldn't have just caved in and taken the pills or started smoking again. John hadn't felt this disappointed in the detective since just before the swimming pool incident. Since the last game.

Sherlock called up the stairs for him, impatient as always. John mentally shook himself and started moving. Later. Later, later, later. When the boy was safe, he would confront Sherlock.

***

John hadn't driven since before he'd been deployed. He found adapting to left-hand drive easier than he had expected. Navigating New York was easier than London, even if it was the tail end of rush hour. Irene gave fairly coherent directions from the back seat, where she had sprawled with her guitar. Every few minutes she would hum and pluck out part of a tune, lost in her own world. Then she would bark out a string of directions and fall silent again. Just after crossing the George Washington Bridge, she said “It's a straight shot on Eighty 'til you cross into Pennsy, then it gets weird. I'm'na crash out 'til then, okay?”

Sherlock mumbled, “Thank God,” his eyes never leaving the laptop balanced on his knees.

Halfway through New Jersey, John felt it pertinent to ask, “You do know where we're going, right?”

“More or less,” Sherlock replied, absorbed in whatever he was reading.

“You have an address, right? Please tell me you've got at least that.”

“I have a mailing address. They use some kind of antiquated system of assigning an address to a carrier route. It's not recognized by Google.”

“So we're just going to drive around until we find the place?”

“We'll stop at a petrol station and ask.” The 'don't be an idiot' was implied. “They must have at least one there. I've narrowed it down to three possible locations. The deed stated it was a small-scale commercial hunting lodge before Moran converted it to a private residence.”

“Wonderful,” John replied. The inside of the car fell into silence again.

If John didn't know any better, he'd assume Sherlock was sleeping. He'd closed the laptop after forty-five minutes or so, shuffling himself down the seat, knees propped on the dash. His head was tilted back against the headrest, eyes closed. His breathing was regular and even.

John felt himself lulled by the tedium of driving and the semi-regular pattern of oncoming headlights. The traffic had thinned somewhat on the highway. No cars had passed him for the last ten minutes, and the car in front of him was far enough away that the tail lights were a soft glow. He blinked his eyes a few times, willing them to open wider. He tried sitting up straighter in his seat. He cracked his window to let the cool air stream over his face.

“Try the radio. The sound will give you something to focus on,” Sherlock said.

“Didn't want to wake you.”

“I wasn't sleeping. I was thinking about the counterfeiting case.”

“Come up with anything?”

“Everything points to a print shop owned by Lysander Stark, a German immigrant. Moved to New York from Dresden in 1998.”

“Eastern Bloc,” John nodded.

“The FBI planted a mole a few months ago, but they couldn't find anything. The shop uses state-of-the-art laser printers. The counterfeit bills are laser-printed with a letterpress overlay. The FBI is working under the assumption that they do the pressing off-site, but they've been monitoring the shop and no unaccounted-for deliveries have been made. They've hit a dead end.”

“And your theory?”

“Need more data, but I suspect that there's a shop nearby where the bills are finished, connected to Stark's print shop by a tunnel. The Lower East Side is still riddled with them from the days of Prohibition.”

“Still brilliant,” John said, shaking his head. Sherlock remained quiet next to him. John switched the radio on and searched for something to listen to. Every time he settled on a station, it would cut out after a few moments.

“It's the mountains,” Sherlock supplied.

“Yes, I am familiar with the unpredictability of radios in mountainous terrain, thank you.”

Sherlock huffed and sat up in his seat. He rummaged in the centre console for a moment and produced a CD wallet. He flipped the pages with the running commentary of, “Dull, dull, horrid, dull,” until he stopped and extracted a CD. He slipped the disc into the radio, tapping the button to advance the tracks and settled back.

John expected something classical, symphonic. Instead, the sounds of heavy synth and a repetitive beat flooded the car. “Dear God, what is this?”

“Something to keep you awake.”

The music did the job admirably, too well in fact, as it roused Irene from her drug-induced slumber in the back seat. She leaned over the front seat, elbows akimbo. “Ooooh... The Downward Spiral. Good job.” She tipped forward over the seat and fumbled the buttons of the radio, skipping forward two tracks. “Dude, I remember how much the video for this gave me the creeps... It really influenced our early aesthetic, before we got into the whole American Gothic carnie act thing. I really like sepia. It gives everything a kind of worn feel, you know?”

“Irene, could you please sit back? You're blocking the rear-view.”

“Sorry.” She pulled back to her former position, her elbow nearly missing a collision with John's temple. “So where are we anyway? I have to pee and I could totally go for a Red Bull or three right now.”

“Three exits from Pennsylvania,” John replied.

“Wow, how long was I out?”

Not long enough, John thought, but at least I'm fully awake now. “A little over an hour.”

“Ooh, here comes the best part. Turn it up!” Irene sang along with the music, a full octave lower than her speaking voice. “I wanna fuck you like an animal, I wanna feel you from the inside...” She paused a moment. “You know, now that I think about, Nero was probably conceived to Pretty Hate Machine.”

“That is way more than I needed to know,” John grimaced. He really hoped she wouldn't go into any more detail.

“I love your face. It's like silly putty.” She turned her head on her arms and looked at Sherlock. “Don't you ever just want to smoosh his cheeks? Or poke his nose? He's so cute.”

“Please don't poke me when I'm driving. Or ever.”

Instead, Irene wound her index finger in one of Sherlock's curls. Surprisingly, he didn't swat her away. He sat still, staring out the window. “I miss your long hair. I like your hair now though, it makes you look older. God, I feel so old sometimes. I mean, older than 34. Sometimes it's so surreal... I mean, I have a kid who's as old as I was when I had him. How fucked up is that? Do you think he's okay? I mean, really? He's not dead already, is he?”

John watched Sherlock from the corner of his eye during Irene's monologue. The man's face was a mask of stone, his eyes trained straight ahead. Before Sherlock could say something upsetting, John cut in. “Moriarty doesn't work like that. He always leaves the possibility of rescue.” He left out the part about Moriarty not doing it in order to give a sporting chance, but to be crueller if Sherlock failed at his task. “If anyone can do it, it's Sherlock.” The last part John said with utter conviction.

The car was quiet for a few moments. “Put on something else, I'm getting maudlin,” Irene said, still toying with Sherlock's hair. Sherlock flipped through the wallet and produced a disc. He exchanged it for the one in the CD player and skipped forward a few tracks. Irene chuckled when the opening strains of “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da” filtered through the speakers.

John saw the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitch into a smile as he slid his eyes closed. He found himself tapping the beat out with his thumbs on the steering wheel.

They stopped at the only petrol station still open. Irene excused herself to the toilets while John and Sherlock played hapless tourists. They obtained vague directions (“Yeah, that's up a-ways by Saw Creek. Ya wanna take 402, prolly. If ya hit the state forest, ya went too far, out that way's a dif'rent RR...”) and waited in the car for Irene. She came back with a plastic carrier bag full of sugar and stimulants.

“I got you a Power Bar and water since you're straight-edge, but if you want a Monster or a Red Bull you can have one of mine.” She dropped them over the front seat. She passed a lager-sized can of energy drink to Sherlock. “You guys want some gummy worms?” John declined. Sherlock held out his hand and Irene deposited a handful in his palm.

“Thought you didn't eat while you were working,” John asked, allowing just a hint of sarcasm to slip into his tone.

“Carbohydrates.” Sherlock didn't look up from studying the satellite images of the area.

John stopped himself from telling Sherlock he sounded exactly like Mycroft in tone and inflection. It would only be met with a sharp comment, if acknowledged at all.

Continued in pt 9