Chapter Ten: So Begins the Chase

Sherlock's second exit from the bedroom was almost as surprising as the first. Instead of the garments John had gotten used to seeing him in, the feminized evening suits with their long cuffs and soft fabrics, he was wearing a decidedly different, completely masculine style. He was in shirtsleeves and trousers; it was the first time John had seen him in only one layer of clothing. Of course, this was less of a statement than it may have been an hour ago. It was surprising to see him out of the waistcoat and suit jacket, but where it may have seemed revealing before, it was now just strange. Revealing tended to lose its meaning when you'd seen a person naked.

They were too big for him, the shirt and trousers, but he had on a belt pulled tight at his slim waist and he wore them well. They draped well. John liked how he looked, and he would have commented on it (the words 'You look nice' were just behind his lips) but Sherlock continued quickly forward from the bedroom doorway, businesslike and somehow more commanding than John had ever seen him.

"Do you have a knife?" Sherlock stepped up to him and held out his hand, not exactly impatient but not inclined to wait for too long. "I know you must, because you sharpened your charcoals with something."

"Um, yeah." Quickly so as to appease Sherlock, John patted his pockets—he stuck everything in his pockets, so he was never sure which one a certain object was in at any one time—and eventually found the knife in the right front pocket of his trousers. It was small and red, given to him long ago by someone he couldn't remember. Holding it out, he asked, "Why?"

"It's quite sharp, yes?" Just as John had suspected, Sherlock did not answer the question. He did not even look at John once he'd been given the knife. Instead, he continued on to the ornamental mirror over the mantelpiece and began tying up his hair. This only made John even more curious about the intended purpose of the knife.

"Yes…"

"Good."

Bemused, John watched Sherlock tie the ribbon tight into a ponytail further up on his head than he usually tied it. Then he took the entire bundle in his hand and cut it off just above the ribbon. It fell neatly into Sherlock's hand, bound at the top still by the ribbon. John knew he looked comically shocked—he could see himself in the mirror, after all—but had absolutely no power to change his facial expression.

So he just stood there in awe as Sherlock merely smirked, as though he chopped massive amounts of his own hair off every day, and held it out to John. Waved it. "A memento for James."

John opened his mouth and said the only thing that would come to mind. "You just…cut off all your hair."

"Problem?" Sherlock inquired. John shook his head the negative—and even if John had a problem, Sherlock made it quite obvious with just one stare that it was not his problem.

Nodding his satisfaction, Sherlock mumbled, "Well then," and picked all items of import—John's sketchpad, his keyring—before heading towards the door. "We have a few errands to run. Come along, John."

John went along, like a dog whose name had been called, and tried to connect the Sherlock of an hour ago with the Sherlock that had just walked out of that bedroom. He was a new man, almost unrecognizable, and not only because of the wardrobe change and the shorter hair. Something had changed in the way he held himself. It was subtle, and not something easily identified, but it was there. He was no longer vulnerable, he was no longer trying to hide who he was.

He was confident. Completely in charge. Sexy.

They did not go far. Only across the hall, where Sherlock opened the door—the second key on the ring apparently went to this door—and led the way into a stateroom that was remarkably similar to the other one. However, this one did not look lived-in. It at first looked as though Sherlock had somehow obtained the key to an unoccupied stateroom. There was not a single trace of human inhabitance.

However, it seemed as though Sherlock knew very well where he was going, as he hurried into the bedroom, positioned at the exact same place on the wall as in his own stateroom, and gestured for John to follow him. When he came into the room to see a big, black safe sitting on the dresser, John realized why they were in this room. This was James Moriarty's stateroom.

"Are you trying to get us caught?" John snapped, grabbing Sherlock's forearm even as he bent to get eyelevel with the dial on the safe. "Or are you just fucking insane? Why the hell would you bring us into this room of all places?"

"Calm yourself, John," Sherlock muttered, attention entirely on the dial. "I know exactly what I'm doing…" with that, the safe clicked and popped open, and Sherlock pulled it wide. He then took John's sketchpad from under his arm, and seemed to hesitate. He said, "Will you let me put this in the safe?"

"The entire pad?" John asked.

"Yes."

"I…don't think…" It was precious to him. Nearly all of his drawings since he'd rediscovered art were in there. The book connected him to Mary, and had both her name and his in it. It had drawings of her in it, and how else would he remember what she looked like years from now when he hadn't seen her in so long… "Why can't you just take out the drawing of you?"

Sighing, Sherlock stared at the sketchpad and muttered, "Because…I feel as though this represents you. You, as a person, are embodied in this sketchbook…and I realize that it's important, but I promise you that as soon as we get to New York, I'll buy you a new one. I just…" Now he seemed small again. John was amazed at what a difference in appearance a simple hunching of shoulders could make. He wanted to embrace Sherlock and tell him that it was okay if his brain moved faster than his mouth sometimes, that he didn't always have to know the exact words to express what he wanted. However, Sherlock found the words before he could. "You are a much better person than him. I can't be certain that it will translate to him from these drawings, true. But perhaps he'll realize that you'll treat me better than he ever would have."

John's breath caught in his throat. It was then that he realized, while Mary was an important part of his past, she was just that. His past. Sherlock was present and future. They were entangled now. Irreversibly.

He nodded. "Alright. Yes. Do it."

So Sherlock slid the sketchpad into the safe, along with his hair and ribbon, and a note he'd written that read Checkmate, darling.

John did not know what this meant, nor did he expect Sherlock to explain.

"Where to from here?" John mumbled, after they both wasted a moment staring in rapt fascination at the safe lock. "I don't think we can stay together. We certainly can't stay here, and it would look strange if you were to stay in my cabin. Do you think Irene Adler might be able to hide you? I can take care of myself, just stay in third class. We can meet up when we dock…"

"No."

"What?" John was a bit shocked at the vehemence with which Sherlock spat his objection.

"No, I don't want us to separate. It's the worst thing we can do, John. I've only just escaped and if you don't stay with me, they'll…" Sherlock stopped, and closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his mouth. He hissed. "No. We're not separating."

Slowly, placating, John nodded and patted Sherlock's shoulder. "Alright. We won't separate. Still, we need to move. We're sitting ducks."

"We're men, John."

"That's not what I—"

John found his mouth covered by Sherlock's hand. There were easier ways to tell someone to shut up, obviously, and John glared at him and began to remove his hand, until he realized that Sherlock was listening to a noise coming from the living room. Fear shot through John and he became immediately silent, immediately still, and strained to hear what Sherlock was hearing.

A man's voice came through the door. "Mister Holmes? Mister Moriarty is asking after your health."

"My fiancé's valet," Sherlock hissed into John's ear. "He's across the hall, I believe. He won't think to look in here…probably."

The way Sherlock said it sounded uncertain, and John bit down a retort—it would have been pointless to complain—to instead mutter, "What do we do?"

When Sherlock did not immediately reply, John felt his heart sink. Sherlock was the genius, the proverbial Man with the Plan. If he could not think of something, anything that would get them out of the stateroom undetected, they were pretty well fucked.

"We could hide," John said, in a desperate grab for salvation. He glanced at the closet, but Sherlock was already shaking his head.

"Moran is a bloodhound," Sherlock muttered. Across the hall, 'Moran' was still knocking on the door. "But if James has done what I think he's done, we may have an opportunity to escape. James has a key to my stateroom. If he's given Moran the key, we may be able to slip out of this room while he's in the other one."

Slowly, Sherlock inched towards the door. John followed along behind, hand gripping Sherlock's elbow. He felt a sense of dread, somewhere at the back of his mind. At the forefront was a thrill of adrenalin, a prickling in his finger and toes that made him hum with a kind of familiar energy. It was like he was back in India, approaching certain danger and refusing to heed any instinct of self-preservation he had. Although he had a feeling that nothing could end well, he did not make any attempt to stop Sherlock.

They crept across the living area, until they reached the stateroom's door and Sherlock pressed his ear against it. John could no longer hear Moran knocking on the door, or calling through it, or even moving.

"He's gone," Sherlock muttered. "I think. Come on. We've got to leave." John reflects that Sherlock has been saying a lot of maybes and probablies and 'I think's in the last few minutes, and when Sherlock Holmes is uncertain it seems no one really can be, but John also knows that Sherlock Holmes' 'have to' and 'got to's are certainties in and of themselves, and should not be ignored if at all possible.

So although going out in the open was the last thing he wanted to do, he squared his shoulders and nodded. Sherlock backed away from the door to turn the knob and poke his head around the door. Without looking, Sherlock stuck a hand out behind him.

"People will talk," John murmured, yet took the hand anyway and squeezed reassuringly.

Sherlock scoffed and glanced back at him. "People do little else."

John's lips quirked in a smile that was more a spasm than an actual expression. He and Sherlock stared at each other for a moment, then Sherlock bowed his head to kiss the corner of John's mouth. When he pulled back, he suddenly looked vulnerable. John licked his lips and Sherlock said, "Don't leave me," firmly. Firmly, but his eyes said please please don't desert me.

"I won't," John said, and decided right then and there that, when the ship docked, he and Sherlock were going to get as far away from James Moriarty as was humanly possible and figure out some way to live that involved Sherlock being able to do what he wanted, what he really wanted, and neither of them being lonely ever again.

They walked out of the stateroom, only to realize that Moran was no gone, per say—he had, as Sherlock suspected he might, gone into the stateroom across he hall. The door was ajar, and although John could not see far into he room, it was the only conclusion.

"Hurry," Sherlock hissed, gripping John's hand tight. "Get around the corner before he comes back out the room."

They sped up. When they were near the end of the hall, a deep, gravely voice came from the other end.

"Mister Holmes?"

Sherlock ignored him. John used all of his considerable willpower to resist glancing over his shoulder.

"Mister Holmes!" came again, and the pounding of shoes on the carpet.

"Shit," Sherlock growled, and then said, "Run."

"What?"

"Run!"

All of John's instincts reacted and, just before taking off at a run, he glanced over hi shoulder to identify his predator.

Moran was a huge man. He would have towered over John, should they ever stand next to each other—a possibility which John sincerely hoped never came to fruition. Moran's arms and chest were thick and strained the tux he was wearing; James Moriarty must have dispatched his bloodhound right from the dinner table. He didn't have short legs either, which was sometimes an advantage when men had such huge trunks. In short, Moran looked like he could tear anything in his path apart, including John Watson.

It took his brain and eyes a moment to catch up with his body, and by that time he and Sherlock were already skidding around the corner. There stood the door to the stairs, which Sherlock flung open and dragged John thought. They did not stop until they were three floors down and back out the stairwell, somewhere in a second class corridor on D deck.

For a second, they leaned against the wall and caught their breath. Then, one of them—John wasn't sure which—began to chuckle. It was infectious, and they leaned there for quite a while, gasping out laughs and clutching stitches in their sides and essentially being one enormous mess.

John said, "That bloke was huge! You say he's a valet?"

"Technically," Sherlock snorted, and they laughed again. "Although I'm sure he wasn't hired as merely a valet." Then, glancing back through the window in the door, Sherlock said, "Do you think I's safe? Perhaps if we work our way to Mrs. Hudson's cabin, she'll allow us sanctuary."

"Maybe," John said, although he couldn't quite remember who Mrs. Hudson was. "Where is it, though? If it's—"

To his horror Moran ran onto the landing from the stairway from C deck. He and John met eyes through the window for a bare split second and at the same moment Moran began to advance, John grabbed Sherlock's forearm—he didn't have the time to actually look down and locate his hand—and yelled, "Run!"

Sherlock yelped, and John felt him nearly trip. He stayed up, though, probably out of sheer dumb luck and John's force being stronger than gravity at the moment. Together they ran down the length of the corridor, turned the corner, and fled into what John recognized as a crew passage.

They could have gone up and looped back around. It appeared that Moran's weakness came in his lumbering steps and inability to run very fast, and even dragging each other around he and Sherlock were faster than him. They also had a good head start, so it was entirely possible that looping back around would be the best plan, given that they were not really familiar with the ship and, at least going up, they knew they were going to end up on A deck at some point.

But Sherlock looked down at the steep steps and said, "How far down do you think it goes?"

"As far as the engines, I'd imagine," John replied, and Sherlock looked at him with a certain look in his eyes, which flew all the way to John's stomach.

"Could be dangerous," said Sherlock.

John responded by grabbing the railing and swinging himself over and onto the steps.

An irrepressible thrill of excitement went down his spine as John swung himself onto the stairs. He held a hand out to Sherlock, an obvious offer of assistance, but Sherlock waved the hand away and swung himself over—because he was not an invalid, thank you, nor was he the fragile crystal glass his mother tried to make him seem. Below him, John chuckled and said, "Well you're just a bundle of surprises this evening."

Sherlock knew what John meant—cutting off his hair had been a shock, as had the drawing commission, as had several other things, and he honestly didn't think he was done doing insane things this evening, but it really wasn't surprising anymore—but, to one who had just won back his freedom by fighting tooth and nail for it, it was an incredibly sore spot to hit.

"I told you I was a boxer," Sherlock snapped, as they began their descent into the bowels of the ship. "What makes you think I'm not athletically inclined?"

Again John chuckled and just responded, "I just forgot, is all."

Sherlock huffed without any real grudge, all of the anger flying out of him as soon as it had arrived, and for the next little while they were quiet, climbing down the step ladders and switching at landings. Every once in a while they would run into a crew member, who barked that they were not allowed in the crew passages. They were ignored.

They kept their ears open for sounds from above, for any indication that Sebastian Moran was still in hot pursuit. They listened until they could no longer, when the constant dull hum from below turned into a fully-fledge roar that made their eardrums vibrate in their heads, and the red-hot heat from the engines radiated up to sting their faces.

Heedless to the common sense tapping at his brain, telling him to go no further, Sherlock swooped past the point of no return and down into the bowels of the ship. There was a three-foot drop from the end of the latter to the floor, and right after he hit the ground he was forced to step back, lest John come down on his head as he, too, jumped down without hesitation.

"What now?" John screamed over the engines. "We can't stay here!"

"There has to be a door somewhere!" Sherlock yelled back, and glanced up and down the rows of boilers. It was massive and hot and loud. He felt his recently-shortened hair plastered to his head with the sweat that instantly erupted on his forehead and temples. It was appropriate, he thought wryly, both that this was as far down as you could go, and that he and John had ended up here, because if Sherlock was ever going to get a taste of Hell before he was dead and gone, this was it.

"We're at the stern, if that helps," John yelled. "Engines need to be as close to the propellers as possible to power them."

"I realize that," Sherlock replied, more out of irritation at the situation than John. The heat and noise had taken the excursion from exiting to irritating remarkably quickly.

One of the crewmen had finally noticed them. He approached, and before he could say anything, Sherlock asked, "Excuse me, but is there an exit back up that isn't this one?" and pointed to the ascending ladder that he and John were still standing directly below.

The crewman stared at him for a second, as though confused by Sherlock's very existence, let alone his inquiry. Eventually he said, "There's one in the cargo, but you can't be here!"

As he said this, he pointed, and Sherlock knew what direction to go in. he nodded, thanked the man, and assured, "Oh, we won't be here much longer."

John laughed as Sherlock turned around and started in the designated direction. The baffled crewman yelled, "But you can't be here!"

They ignored him—and the shouts of his coworkers, who began taking notice of them as they ran through the rows of boilers without any regard for subtlety—and ran in the direction he'd specified, eager to get out of the hellish conditions of the boiler room.

The cargo hold was much cooler. I was, in fact, quite chilly. Sherlock spared a moment wondering how in the world the cargo hold was so cold, when the boilers were right next door and shared a thin wall. One would have thought even ambient heat from a room with such a high temperature would warm up the place somewhat. Then, he realized that he really did not care—as long as they were out of the boilers, and far enough away from Sebastian Moran for them not to be easily locatable, he was fine with their current circumstances.

"Well," John muttered, "we can't really stay here either."

"No, but we can at least take a moment to rest." They'd been running, Sherlock could only assume, for at least twenty minutes. John had a bad leg which, although psychosomatic, could be paining him at this point. Curiously, however, John seemed to no even acknowledge the problem with his leg. He was more out of breath than anything, and nodded in agreement with Sherlock's suggestion.

"Only a few minutes," John muttered. "I don't know where we're going, but until we get somewhere where Moran can't follow, I don't want to stop for too long…and I think our little jog through the boilers proved that he can definitely follow us down here." John glanced around, somewhere behind Sherlock's head, and then pointed to a spot vaguely over his shoulder. "Over there. We can rest and keep out of sight."

It was a car; Daimler, Sherlock believed. Similar to the one that James owned and Sebastian Moran drove for him. This one was red, however, instead of green, and had the distinct advantage of never having contained a Moriarty. So they lifted themselves up into the cab and sunk down in the seats, with John rubbernecking around and running his hands along the velvet seats.

"Have you never been in a car before?" mumbled Sherlock. He stared out the window into the cargo hold beyond. It felt odd to be sitting in a car, and instead of trees and buildings seeing crates and bags and the large, metal rafters and pillars. The sounds the ship made were in a deep decibel, disconcerting even to the strongest disposition. Sherlock sunk down further in the seat, eyelevel with the bottom of the window, and kept his eyes on the door to the cargo hold.

"I hitched a ride on the back of a lorry a few times. Does that count?"

"No."

He heard John's low chuckle in response, and Sherlock smirked at the window.

"I can see you."

"See me doing what?" Sherlock asked, even though he knew the answer and could see John reflected in the window, grinning over his shoulder.

"Smiling. You think you're hiding it, but I can see you."

"I smile often."

"Do you really?" Now the smile was gone, and John came closer on the seat. Sherlock watched him in he window, eyes no longer focused on the door, but on John's transparent image superimposed over the dark cargo hold. Saw John's arm move and felt his hand, lightly and gently, on his hip, and to his own surprise didn't feel the need to shift away, to rotate away. John's hand was warm and his eyes were soft.

Sherlock bit his lip, and looked down. "I used to."

"Can't even begin to imagine what happened. Surely it has nothing to do with your lovely fiancé."

Again, Sherlock snorted, although without humor. "I wonder, sometimes, if it really is that. My engagement may just have been the trigger for something…inevitable." He looked away from the window, to stare at the back of the driver's seat.

"You're afraid you're going to turn into your father."

"Essentially…yes. My father's death was…" He sighed, and tilted his head back to stare at the roof. "It was…painful. Watching him fall apart was painful. He started declining when I was young, ten at most, but it wasn't until I was thirteen that it started making a marked difference in his behavior. He became…a stranger. A stranger to us, and a stranger to himself. He would go long periods of time without speaking, without eating. Just looking straight ahead and not speaking to anyone. He was volatile, he would lash out…" He breathed against the onslaught of bad memories and murmured, "I think I'm turning into him."

He tilted his head to the side, to look at John, and found him much closer than expected. He wasn't uncomfortable with it, strangely enough. Nor was he uncomfortable when John haltingly came closer, kissed his mouth. He wasn't uncomfortable, or nervous. It felt good.

They pressed their foreheads together and breathed, and John murmured, "Are you okay?"

"Yes." For the first time in a while, he wasn't lying. His hand rose and found John's and their fingers intertwined, and for a moment Sherlock processed the magnitude of what was about to happen, of what they were doing. Sherlock whispered, "I think…I'd like it if you'd touch me."

He hadn't been expecting John to laugh, but it wasn't insulting. It was a warm, lighthearted chuckle. It relaxed the last bit of uncertainty he had. "I think I'd like that too." Their fingers continued to twist over each other, and something like anticipation built up in Sherlock's lower back. John murmured, "Nervous?"

"No."

"Really?" laughed John. "Because I am."

Sherlock smiled against John's cheek, took John's hand and lowered it to his thigh. Warmth radiated from him, from his hand and his leg pressed against Sherlock's and his side and his forehead and his breath on Sherlock's face. John's hand sipped between his legs and he drew the heel of his hand over Sherlock's burgeoning arousal, all the while staring into his eyes. It was the most erotic thing Sherlock had ever experienced.

The expanse of pale skin below him was glowing, ripe for the kissing. John's lips trailed their way his way up the side of Sherlock's neck as he basked in the afterglow.

"You alright?" John whispered.

"I'm…I'm more that alright."

So John grinned against Sherlock's neck, and twisted their fingers together and determinedly did not think about the fact that the man below him had been a virgin thirty minutes ago. Because he would start regretting what he'd done, and he didn't want to.

It had been beautiful.

"When we're done catching our breaths," John murmured, "we should go."

"Alright." Sherlock ran his long fingers through John's hair, and kissed his forehead. His chest was heaving underneath John's cheek, so he knew they would not be moving for a while, but he wasn't bothered. He stared out of his peripheral vision at the roof of the car. Sherlock had left a handprint on the window, sometime between releasing his purchase on the fabric of the seats and finding his way to John's back. Sometime while he was wrestling against his orgasm tooth and nail and trying to find something to hold onto, to bring him back from the edge.

Then the door to the cargo hold opened and John did not know he could sit up and get dressed so fast. Sherlock swore and grabbed his clothing, climbed over John to get out of the car and run across the hold floor, behind a crate. John, braces in hand, followed him.

"What the fuck," John hissed. He clipped his braces to his pants and lifted them over his shoulders, watching Sherlock pull his trousers up over his modesty and determinedly not thinking about the way Sherlock's bare bum felt under his fingers. "I thought we lost him!"

"It could be anyone," Sherlock mused—John thought he was being a little calm given the situation—and pulled his shirt on. He'd never unbuttoned it, but nor did he bother tucking it in. "But I didn't fancy the idea of being stuck in that car, naked, if someone happened to walk by." Then, glancing over John's head, gestured. "There."

Ten yards away, there was something white hanging from the ceiling. As John's eyes adjusted, he realized it was the ladder back up. They inched towards it, as footsteps neared them, and Sherlock helped John get up to the ladder—three feet off the ground might not have been a lot, but it was hard to pull himself up with his shoulder—and then climbed up himself.

Near the top, John glanced back down. Two stewards stood in the door to the car, looking utterly confounded, and John realized they were looking for them. That Moran had reported back, reported Sherlock running, and someone—most likely Moriarty—sent two of the stewards in pursuit.

They climbed, up, up until they reached D deck, where they fell out the door leading onto the bow. It was cool out, and completely dark out now. The wind felt wonderful against John's hot skin.

"That was close," John sighed, rubbing his forehead. "He's got people looking for you. Shit, what are we going to do?" He glanced over at Sherlock, who had a strange look on his face. "What?"

"I'm disembarking with you," Sherlock whispered, as he drew closer. "I have some money. When we get to New York, I want to get as far away as possible. I'm disembarking with you…and I'm never going to look back."

John didn't know what to say, so he just kissed him, pressed his hand against the back of Sherlock's head and held on tight.

That's when the world shook underneath their feet.

End Chapter

Notes: Okay, so I decided that a full sex scene was not appropriate for this story. I did, however, write one; I'll probably post it as a deleted scene when I'm done with the entire story. Sorry if you were disappointed, but I felt it would detract from the sobriety of the plot so far if I were to write a love scene.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!