tourists in the waking world (2/3)

[mooging]

They keep to the road mostly, veering off to the fields at the side to make camp at night but always up early again the following morning. It's not that they're not dragging, not that they're not running out of energy and warmth in steady, equally worrying, amounts, but simply that there's nothing else to do. It's get to London or stay where they are, and if they stay where they are, their choices shrink down to finding proper shelter in another eerie, abandoned house by the side of the road and holing up until something changes, or maybe just not waking up one morning. God knows there are enough ailments that thrive upon the body growing cold and staying cold, and Watson is also trying not to think about the nagging ache in his lungs, the way he sometimes has to cough and cough in a way he can't stop or ease, ducking away among the trees lining the roadside so that Holmes won't hear. It's not denial. It's refusal. He won't let it end like this. It seems unfitting, and more than that, if - if he died, what would happen to Holmes?

Watson quite firmly doesn't think about that. Whenever he closes his eyes at night, shivering under their increasingly dirty blankets, he sees white bones on the white snow, red meat caught between white teeth. It would hold him awake more effectively than the bitter wind that picks up at night, howling and angry outside their flimsy canvas barriers, but he's too exhausted by the time they stop for anything to keep him from sleep. Sometimes, when Watson is lying so still on the ground that he can't be sure whether getting up again is even an option, Holmes flings an arm over him and presses up close so that the stubble growing haphazard and unbecoming down his neck and across his chin prickles the still soft skin behind Watson's ear. They've never spoken about it, and Watson never knows whether Holmes is even awake, but it helps. Sometimes, Watson wants nothing more than to lie completely alone, and on these nights, Holmes sleeps facing the other side of their tent. Holmes can somehow also divine exactly what it is that Watson needs, but in turn, he continues to refuse Watson's offers of extra layers or extra food. Watson has to keep remembering that Holmes has never been to war, and that even the most extreme espionage surely cannot have prepared him for similar conditions, but he continues to offer, because he would and will give Holmes the clothes from his own back, the food from his own plate.

Some days, they do stop. There are buildings standing empty near the road - rest stops for weary travelers or slightly grander coach-houses, sometimes - and Holmes and Watson wait out a day there if the weather is particularly inclement or one of them is lagging. They raid the pantries, and luxuriate as much as they can by sleeping on the mattresses, avoiding the ones gone green with mould and damp where the rain has drenched them through the blown-out windows. Watson thinks maybe they should want some time apart, or that he would have wanted some time apart had he ever considered spending this long without speaking to anyone except Holmes, but then comes the realisation that, pleasantries and patients aside, Holmes has been his main source of conversation since he returned from the war. Beyond that, though, there is also the simple truth that Watson just doesn't want Holmes to be out of his sight for very long.

They share beds even when out of the tent for a night: the world is bleak and empty around them, and as childish as it might be, Watson can't shake the feeling that if he falls asleep without Holmes's immediate presence, he might wake up alone, like the world might simply spirit Holmes away as it seems to have done everybody else. It's just another thing they don't talk about; the first time it happens, Watson lingers for a fraction too long in the doorway as Holmes drags the dry sheets he found in the unharmed linen closet at the top of the stairs onto a dingy double bed, and Holmes looks up, fractious and tired, and snaps, Do come on, Watson, and Watson settles down onto the mattress without another word.

The only way they have to ascertain how quickly or otherwise they are progressing down the country, not including the unreadable cracked or fire-scorched milestones they come across occasionally, is Holmes's own encyclopedic knowledge of rural Britain, but even that is less of a boon than they anticipated. Natural landmarks are sometimes gone and other times near unrecognisable, and Holmes is now going mainly on the buildings they pass rather than the landscape they are stuck in. At any rate, Watson knows that they are not covering ground at an especially galloping pace: it takes under a day to reach Yorkshire by train and only marginally longer by coach if minimal stops are taken and the horses changed as few times as possible, and people can and do walk this journey on the very same turnpike road if they must. Holmes and Watson must, but it is taking considerably longer than the expected handful of days. Watson estimates it has been a week, maybe two, since this all began, but the accuracy of his sense of time has been dwindling at the same rate as the feeling in his extremities; politely put, it is hardly reliable. They've passed York, Watson knows that much, and that was some time ago, but beyond that he can't be sure exactly where they are.

Most nights he doesn't dream; other nights he dreams of Mrs Hudson's cooking, or dry sheets, or, once, barreling up the stairs two at a time after hearing gunshots, only to find Holmes blowing patriotic holes in the parlour walls. That's as explicitly as he dreams of Baker Street, in quick, bright flashes between dreamlessness, like it's too sore a subject even for his subconscious to poke at. They don't talk about home, beyond how close they think they're getting, and definitely not about what they might find there. Watson isn't used to this level of theorising, which is to say, none.

Then, one night, completely out of the blue, Holmes looks up from his forkful of half-heartedly warmed, previously canned food and says, deadly serious, What if there were such a thing as magic?

Watson splutters a bit around his own tasteless bite of dinner. They are huddled just inside the tent, unwilling to give up and rest quite yet but equally unwilling to stay out in the drizzling rain. Watson says, Magic? Do you mean spiritualism?

Holmes scoffs, putting down his fork. No, Watson, that is a self-perpetuating charade employed for individuals to profit from the human inability to process grief. He pauses. But magic - what if there were truly such a thing? What if there were people with abilities beyond the natural range? Would you accept that one could hypothesize the existence of magic as readily as the idea of the railway was once suggested?

Watson frowns. In theory, I suppose, but there was a science behind the railway, Holmes, and engineering possibilty. What is there to suggest that there is any person capable of operating outside the limitations of nature?

Holmes gets to his feet. That's just it, he says, and he's pacing again, heedless of the rain. Who could have thought, years ago, that one day man would travel near two hundred miles in under a day? Or that a man could remain unconscious whilst his leg was sawn from his body? Is it any more preposterous to suggest that there are still things that we cannot even begin to conceive of, simply because we do not yet have the capacity to understand the intricacies of how they may be achieved?

Watson stands too, goes to grasp Holmes by his elbow and pull him back out of the rain, but Holmes shakes him off.

Don't you see, he says, insistent and impassioned, it would explain everything: why we meet no-one on the road; why there was no warning. It would explain even why there seems to be no explanation! How could there be, when we do not consider every possibility? You do see, don't you, Watson? You see that magic would explain this?

What I see, Watson says, gently, is that you are at a loss, and no new information is yielding itself to aid you. You have been in situations like this a hundred times before. He takes hold again of Holmes's arm, and Holmes lets him. Watson continues, Certainly, magic is one theory. But, Holmes, I am certain there are other explanations that we do not yet have sufficient facts to form. He pauses. The rain is the light, deceptive kind that initially suggests that you will not get too wet up until you leaves the house without an umbrella and arrives at your destination in clinging, clammy clothes and chilled right through to the bone. They have not yet dried out from the shower earlier in the day, from when they were walking past frosted-over, unsown farmland and had seen a lone scarecrow still standing guard over a wardless field.

We will keep on, Watson tells him, firmly. We will return to London, and -

And what? snaps Holmes. Just what are you expecting to find?

There are several things Watson would like to say in reply to this. Presenting itself most vehemently is I don't remember it being my idea to set out for London. Why are we bothering if you hold out no hope of reprieve? is another, meaner, contender. What Watson says is, Come out of the rain, Holmes.

Holmes looks up at him from under rain-slick hair. He holds his gaze briefly - searching, Watson can assume, for something Watson apparently does not provide - and then nods, minutely, and they duck back under their canvas roof.

Later, when Watson is half asleep, Holmes says, Those men we met. Neither of us could explain how they could simply vanish. They are withholding something from us, without question: perhaps they would also suggest the art of magic?

Watson lies still. They have seen Harry and Draco on several occasions since their memorable first meeting in the abandoned Yorkshire house. They are never close, and never stay for long, but Holmes will point them out as standing on a hill some fields away, or the flash of Harry's red shirt through a barren set of trees, or running somewhere unknown just on Holmes's and Watson's horizon. Watson will admit to being curious about them - they do not seem to be from anywhere he has ever visited and they are certainly not as bound to the rigueur of formal social conventions as most, though certainly not all, of the men in Watson's acquaintance - but he is also willing to admit that these are not the most explicable times, and for anything he may be finding odd about these men he is sure there are a dozen things they themselves are questioning about him. For example, a few nights back, he had to bind his and Holmes's shoes with torn strips of sacking to try and hold them together: though impeccably made, shoes from before were not made for this particular after. Watson thinks that peculiarities are to be expected with the way the world seems to be working now, functioning in a near constant haze of precipitation and ash blowing in numbing winds, but he doesn't say any of this aloud. Instead, he remains still, and keeps quiet.

All right, says Holmes, softly. Goodnight.

Watson waits until Holmes's breathing has evened out into the steady, dependable rhythm that means he is asleep. It is one of the few times, Watson muses, somewhat detachedly, that anything about Holmes can be described as steady, or dependable. This night, it is Watson who rolls to lie at Holmes's back, letting his arm drape across Holmes's chest. It is not even the coldest of nights they have suffered, but something slow and sleep-fuelled in Watson is suggesting it is the right thing to do, and something else is saying, if there is comfort to be sought now, he should seek it.

Then his body decides that is entirely too much thought for one night, and he falls asleep himself.

When he wakes to a dawn-grey and thankfully rainless sky, Holmes is already up and offers him a lukewarm breakfast with a hint of a sheepish smile.

Thank you, says Watson, and Holmes says, Also, I may have broken the pan.

How is that even - Watson reconsiders. Naturally, he says, instead, and Holmes inclines his head in placatory, self-deprecating agreement, and they eat, and pack up, and set off again.


*

Watson wakes in the early grey hours of dawn. They stopped the night before in what was once a church, an old church, all old, worn stone the colour of the new, worn sky. The whole front has gone, but it's big enough that far enough towards the pulpit, they're dry. On his right, Holmes sleeps, lying on his side under his coat and the sheets they've been using as a tent. His face is slack in rest. Watson stays still for a moment, and looks, and doesn't think.

There's a rattle in his chest, and he gets up, propping himself on his elbows first, stiff in the cold of the morning. The wind whips through the open front of the church like it has done all night, like it's looking for them.

Found us, Watson thinks, but then again, they're not the ones who've been lost.

The rattle comes back. He can hear it when he takes a breath in. There's an antechamber further back, and he goes there slowly, bad leg uncooperative and dragging slightly in the layer of ash and ruin on the consecrated flagstones. He'd go outside, but it's raining too hard. He might suggest they wait out the day here, but Holmes will most likely object. It's not been long since they last paused their journey, a few days ago in a stable left standing whole by the wreck of its coach-house. The rain hammers down on the church roof that held out the apocalypse; Watson idly thinks that he'd quite like to thank the architect. Then he coughs. It hurts, in a dull sort of way, and then it burns enough that his eyes water and he bends double, hands on his knees for balance. He coughs and coughs until he has to spit and it comes out mucus and blood in the blown-in, unswept leaves.

It's hardly a surprise, but it's not exactly welcome, either.

When he's done - and he kicks some of the fallen bracken over the mess, because it frightens him a little, to be facing something as mundane as illness, here - he walks to the broken window that overlooks the graveyard. He leans his arms on the windowsill. The wind blows rain into his face; drops of it streak through the grime on his face, through the ash on the floor of the church. He wipes his eyes dry and watches the bare tree branches moving, like they're searching out their leaves, clustered and dry around Watson's wet feet. Then - though he's certain they weren't there even a moment ago - there are two men, stalking through the rain like it's of no concern, a secondary priority to continuing the blazing row they seem to be conducting. Watson can't hear them properly. They haven't seen him.

Malfoy, Harry spits, exasperation clear even this far away.

They stop just as the wind drops for a minute; without the rain in his eyes, Watson can see quite clearly as they kiss, gripping at each other's faces, the hems of their wet shirts. There's nothing shocking to it, like Watson always expected there to be when he was younger and hearing whispers about soldiers far from home, and it's nothing like how he has kissed the women he's courted, the few that there have been. It makes his heart pound, and his chest tight, and he turns away.

Watson? Holmes is awake now.

I'm here, he calls back, and he leaves the window and the rain and the men outside.

They do spend the day there. Holmes looks him up and down appraisingly when he returns, just like when Watson would come home after losing the next two months' rent and Holmes would just know, and blessedly keep silent until Watson had either slept it off or had had another a drink.

It won't do us any harm to take a rest, Holmes says, sounding out the words with uncharacteristic care, keeping his eyes low to the ground.

Ordinarily, Watson would protest that he's not that delicate, or maybe make some remark about Holmes finally seeing reason and embracing his own limitations, but his lungs hurt, and his head thumps, and he's slept in the cold for weeks now.

You're right, he says, because everything is always easier if Holmes thinks it was his idea. We'll wait till tomorrow. Maybe the rain will stop.

Maybe, Holmes agrees.


*
A couple of nights after they leave the church, it isn't raining, for once, and Holmes declares with a sweeping air of grandeur, that he is going to put up the tent that night and it will be the warmest, driest tent that they have slept in thus far.

Watson humours him - because, yes, Holmes has many and varied practical skills, but there is a reason Watson has been the one to erect their sleeping quarters every night so far in the driving rain or the blinding snow and that is simply because he is less prone to violent fits of frustration if his fingers slip and the whole thing collapses. Also, Holmes has a worrying talent for starting a fire under any conditions, which has come in extremely handy in the incessant gales.

Holmes is under a mound of canvas and sheeting, hefting the tent poles about with unnecessary vigour so that they poke up through the fabric on occasion like an unborn child kicking at its mother for attention. It's equally unnerving to behold.

Stop showing off, Watson says, loudly.

It is at this moment that Harry appears without warning about a yard away from the fire. Watson jumps.

Sorry, Harry offers, coming closer. Malfoy's on his way. Just thought we'd drop in and see how you were doing. He shifts a little from side to side, suddenly awkward. We've been sort of keeping track of you.

I thought so, Watson says. Something had to explain why we keep catching sight of you. He doesn't ask where Harry just came from. He might as well ask why it won't stop snowing: he's just not going to get an answer.

Curious, Harry says, You did?

We've seen you a few times, Watson tells him. You're in the distance, mainly. You don't seem to stay very long in the same place. You come and go too quickly to - he stops.

What do you mean? Harry asks, but something in his voice tells Watson that he's postponing rather than avoiding the explanation. Watson likes straight answers; he likes Harry. He thinks about the best way to say what he's been wanting to say since that night in the church but though he's the writer, the right phrase won't come.

I saw you with Malfoy, he says, clumsily. In the graveyard, two nights ago.

You did? Harry goes pink. Then he sort of blanches, and it's only in thinking how young it makes Harry look young that Watson really realises Harry can't be that much younger than Watson himself. Harry says, Oh, God, isn't that, like, illegal now? And he's - he waves at the tent - a detective. Watson thinks automatically, private consulting detective.

Harry narrows his eyes. Not that it can really matter, what with, you know, the untimely apocalypse falling and everything.

No, Watson says, and then, feeling sick: It doesn't matter, of course it doesn't matter. He hesitates, and that makes his stomach churn harder; the world lies smitten in ashes around his feet and he can't talk about this one, petty little part of himself without his heart hammering like he's going to be rattling a tin cup across iron bars if he says another word. He struggles for a moment, and then he says, quietly, Especially not to me.

Harry looks at him for a minute. He looks over at the tent. Inside, Holmes swears and calls out, after a moment, Watson, rest assured that I am a man of many talents and I will erect this tent in no time. I can only hope that you are making as merry with the fire as I am with in the art of tent construction.

Watson shouts back, You know how to put up a tent.

Holmes shouts, I know I know how to put up a tent.

You know I know you know how to make a tent, Watson calls, turning away from Harry. Stop telling me you know you know how to put up a tent and just put one up.

When he turns back, Harry looks sympathetic and a touch reminiscent. It probably doesn't matter to him either, you know, he says.

I, Watson starts. I don't - but then he is interrupted by two things happening simultaneously: there is a cry of jubliation from the direction of the slowly rising tent; Draco taps Watson on the shoulder.

Your fire's going out, Draco tells him.

Shoddy workmanship, Holmes opines, ducking out from inside the newly constructed tent and striding over to meet them. Hello again. Have you come to reveal the wonders of the apocalypse to us at last?

There is a distinct change in the atmosphere with Holmes's arrival. Watson is almost glad of it. Draco tenses up; Harry looks slightly rueful and fidgets with the belt loop on his trousers.

Not at the present time, says Draco, coldly.

Malfoy, Harry warns.

Look, says Draco, shifting his weight to his other leg and scowling in Holmes's general direction, there's no point in us explaining any of this to you. Either you won't believe us, or you won't understand, and I've got far more valuable things to be doing with my time than dealing with a pair of Muggles having an existential crisis. For one, I've sort of got my hands full trying to reverse an untimely ice-age, so if you don't mind -

Watson finds himself getting inexplicably defensive. You might be surprised what we can believe, he says, trying not to bristle. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Holmes grin wickedly at him.

I'd listen to the good doctor, Holmes tells them, folding his arms, and, perversely, he seems to be enjoying this. These handsome exteriors truly do disguise our rapier-like intellect and devilish powers of deduction. For example, I trust I would not be mistaken in saying that you are about to reveal to us that you have the ability to perform magic, or some such chicanery. He's clearly relishing the moment: briefly, he looks like the Holmes of before, pacing up the floor of Scotland Yard to give London's finest a dressing down.

It starts to snow again. The night is getting darker. Watson involuntarily glances up at the sky, and when he looks back, Harry catches his eye, gives him a small, contrite smile.

I'm sorry, Harry says, but we really don't have time for this.

Of course not, Holmes demurs, turning away. Watson knows this tactic: this is supposed to entice his conversational opponent to show their cards. By this point, most people are eager to aid or outsmart the great Sherlock Holmes, and a moment of pandering to their vanity usually gets them talking. Then again, these two don't seem to fall under the category of 'most people'.

Holmes turns back. Harry and Malfoy have disappeared. Unlike the last time, there is no chance they could have slipped away: Watson was looking straight at them, and then they just weren't there to look at. Watson blinks, not quite able to take this in. Holmes's face is blank of anything other than absolute shock; it's the first time, Watson thinks, that he's seen Holmes this off his guard. Of course it is: the end of the world has given him few problems, the cannibals and endless, endless walking nothing but trivial concerns when faced with this. There are no footprints leading away. Harry and Malfoy are simply no longer standing where they just were.

I'm right, Watson, Holmes breathes, something almost reverent about it. Magic, Watson, think about it -

Watson interrupts. It's only a noise in the back of his throat, a negation, but Holmes falls silent. There is hope shining in his eyes, and Watson, unable to look upon that, here, has to duck down on the pretext of rekindling the ebbing fire. He had thought their hope gone; perhaps, if he had not, he had wished it gone. He knows how to endure the unendurable but he cannot suffer it under the burden of expectation.

Holmes drops onto his haunches beside him, something fierce blazing in his face that Watson associates with the smell of sweat and blood, watching Holmes in the precise moment before he claims unapologetic victory in the sparring ring.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however impossible, must the truth, Holmes says, fervently. It makes Watson's chest hurt in a way that has nothing to do with the persistent pain in his lungs.

Holmes pitches his voice lower, softer. Watson, he says, rolling it out like he did the night the world burned outside the window.

Watson can't listen to it. He twists up and away in a movement that makes his leg cry out, makes him have to limp hard on the few steps that take him back into the tent. Lying down, he stretches out until he's sore with it, and then he turns over onto his side, and all he can hear, over and over in his mind, is Holmes saying his name


*


They come across a house out of nowhere late one afternoon. It sits in a small clearing; wooden, the same colour as the dying trees around it, it is all but hidden until they're almost pressed against its porch. They've left the road behind for the night: Watson can't sleep too close to it anymore. It is foolish, he knows, but it has an inexorable presence and in the dark, listening to Holmes sleep, or pretend to sleep, it feels like the road will keep going on, and on, and they will never see its end.

The house seems to be empty. They exchange glances: Do you want to go inside; We need supplies. The door is jammed shut, and Watson can't spare the energy to break it down, won't suffer Holmes to either, so they break a window instead. The glass breaking is one of the loudest noises they have heard since the last crack of wrathful thunder. Holmes hooks a leg over the window sill and hops on through, lithe and effortless, and Watson hefts his pack higher on his shoulder, sighs, and clambers through after him.

They are standing in a kitchen; they turn, slowly, taking in the pantry door to the left and a large oven in front of them, cupboards with singe marks black on the light wood higher up on the walls. There is dried blood on the floor, and gouts of its fresher, brighter twin smeared across the stone counters.

Let's make this quick, Watson suggests, saying it like it's a foregone conclusion, but Holmes is still revolving on his heel, scanning the room. Horror prickles up Watson's back, and he holds it back, standing his ground.

Check the cupboards, Holmes tells him, and Watson grits his teeth, seeing Holmes do the same. Something falls at his feet the moment he pulls open the first door, and he jumps back on an adrenalized instinct before he even recognises what it is.

How delightful, Holmes murmurs, suddenly close behind him. His voice is low, and rough, and brushes across the bare skin at Watson's neck, just where his jacket has ripped. I see we have stumbled in on some of the more civilised dregs of the human race. Perhaps it would be best if we did not rely too long on their unknowing hospitality.

Perhaps, agrees Watson, calmly, and he kicks the severed arm off his shoes.

Holmes throws open the rest of the cupboards with a practised disinterest, and Watson follows behind to scoop up any cans that stand untouched behind their more gory neighbours, ignoring the smudges of human remains on the faded labels.

We should check the pantry, Watson says, and moves to do that.

Wait. Holmes catches his arm. Standing a couple of paces back from the door, he takes Watson's cane from his hand and uses it to work the door handle. The door comes ajar by degrees until Holmes gives a tug, and it ricochets open. It is not a pantry; there are no shelves inside, only a trapdoor that's peeling faded, white paint. In a hot and unexpected rush of cowardice that makes him swallow with guilt, Watson knows, knows he can't open it.

Holmes's hand tightens around Watson's forearm. Steady, old boy, he says.

We should, Watson says, trying to keep the sick nerves in his belly out of his voice, we should check upstairs. There might be something up there we could use.

All right, Holmes says, after a moment. We'll check upstairs. As they turn away from the open pantry door, Holmes handing Watson's cane back as they go, Watson feels the sweat cool along his spine, and wonders whether Holmes is anxious too. His heart is racing like a sternly wound clock, telling him to get out, get out, get out. Whoever is staying here can't be too far away, judging by the blood drying slowly in thick, tacky stalactites on the counter edges, and Watson thinks, half panicked and half wry, that it would probably be to their advantage if they were not caught here.

The stairs are blanketed in a carpet too close in colour to the macabre display in the kitchen, and they creak as Watson climbs them. They find bedrooms with rumpled, stained sheets upon the bed, and a bathroom with sordid, cracked tiles, and Watson wants neither to touch nor take anything they find.

Let's go, he says, stopping Holmes as he peers out through the frosted-over bathroom window. We should go.

Holmes turns back to him, eyes glittering. Watson's heart gallops past a couple of beats. We should, Holmes agrees, but then that would mean passing the occupants of this house, who are just returning home bearing axes, and knives, and that seems like the more inadvisable course of action to take. The other option, I feel, is to hide - and he drags Watson into the dirty bathroom and pulls the door shut enough that it brushes against the doorframe. If Watson wanted to be dramatic about the situation - although he will allow that it is not exactly without tension - he would say that he could almost feel Holmes's pulse against the back of his own wrist, caught up still in Holmes's grip as he held Watson back behind him.

Voices carry up from downstairs. Watson hears the thud of weapons hitting the floor. He holds his breath, knowing Holmes is doing the same by the way his shoulders stay high and wire-taut, but lets it out in a rush of dread when he hears footsteps on the creaking stairs, muffling the exhale into the damp fabric of Holmes's tattered coat.

Holmes twists over his shoulder to find and keep Watson's gaze. Just like old times, he whispers, lips curling with a misplaced humour.

Indeed, Watson says, and waits for the tug on his wrist that means, simply, go.

They do go, fighting like they're in one of London's dark, overlooked alleyways rather than a house at the end of the world. Holmes sends the door out into the corridor, and the man doubles over with the impact; Watson kicks him in the back of the knees; Holmes punches him, twice, in his kidneys and shoves him to the ground. He goes down hard, and stays down, and Holmes straightens up to move to the top of the stairs.

How many? Watson mouths, flattening himself against the opposite wall.

Holmes holds up six fingers, then grimaces, and flashes four more. He pulls a face: he can't tell from here.

Watson spares a moment to pull a face of his own, and Holmes grins, manically, back.

That's about as long as Watson gets to reminisce, though, because an arm shoots out from the open door behind him - and he thinks, dully, somewhere in the back of his mind, but I checked that room - and he is dragged backwards down the stairs, kicking and bucking and struggling, but he can't gasp in the air he needs for the strength that will free him. His vision starts to black out, in patches, but he can still see Holmes, furious and coldly vengeful, pounding his way down after him.

Someone else cracks something over Watson's head, and he blacks out properly. When he comes round - he is sure it has only been a minute - he is lying on damp earth in the pitch black. It had been daylight only moments ago, so he heaves himself to his feet, forcing aside a stab of longing for his cane, and feels around for a wall. His hand finds something smooth and wooden, and he gets his other hand on it too. He bumps into something else, something that makes a wounded, animal sound, and he freezes. His jacket brushes his side, and he feels the shape of a forgotten box of matches in his pocket; he fumbles for it, strikes one and holds it out in front of him.

He is not alone in this cellar.

There are maybe twenty other people packed in with him, as thin as skeletons barely clad in the stained remnants of clothing, staring at him with what is unmistakably raw hunger.

It's, Watson tries, breath coming fast from fear or pain, it's all right, I'm not going to hurt you.

One of them lunges for him, and just before the match reaches his fingers and burns out, Watson sees the marks of human teeth on her arms. He gets another match lit even as he works his way backwards, and the others are coming for him too. Some of them don't have all their limbs; one, a child, has slices carved out of his cheeks; another is still bleeding slowly, viscously, from a gaping wound in his side.

Watson's back hits a wall; he turns his head to the side to avoid the closest hands and he sees what he was clutching before: the bottom of a staircase. His own feet seem to get in his way as he darts for it, dropping the guttering match and finding his way up with hands clutching at the edges of stairs. He hits a roof, and he swallows round something caught in his throat that feels like his heart is trying to abandon this place as fast as he is, but then he remembers the pantry that wasn't a pantry and the trapdoor that he couldn't face opening, and he works his shoulder up underneath where the stairs meet the roof and shoves.

Nothing happens, and he can feel bony fingers scrabbling at his feet now, ripping at the hems of his trousers as he lashes out to break their grip. He shoves at the trapdoor again, holding his breath, and this time it flies open and Watson half falls onto the smooth tiles of the pantry floor. Holmes is above him, red in the face and completely out of breath - and behind him Watson gets the dim impression of people bearing down on him too, about to snatch him away - and he grabs onto Watson's arm and pulls.

Something pulls him back. He stares frantically down, and the empty, haunted faces of the bitten and scarred stare right back, tugging him down by the ankles, down to the darkness and the terror right gaping right beneath his feet.

Watson kicks out behind him, hard and frantic, and feels the bones of someone's face crack and give under the heel of his dress shoe. Holmes still has an iron grip on Watson's forearm - Watson can already feel it bruising - and he leans all his weight back into the pull; without the hands of the hopeless and consigned clawing him back, Watson scrapes up and out of the trapdoor in one immediate move, legs bumping on every wooden step and then again, harder, on the edge of the hole in the ground. He swings his body out and round as fast as he can - behind him, Holmes swears viciously and Watson hears him landing punches - and slams the door down flat, purposefully looking away from the gaunt hands still grasping for purchase, the eyes of people who have seen their own death visited viscerally on others right before their eyes.

He braces himself against the pantry wall and eases his way up to standing; his legs are shaking, his eyes aren't focusing, but when he blindly reaches out he grabs onto the sleeve of Holmes's jacket like he would always be able to find him, and together they kick and duck and elbow through the blood-stained men trying to force them back. They reach the hall, and Watson swings a candlestick down hard over the head of the man that's clawing for his eyes. He'd use his cane, but that's gone now, lost somewhere between Watson blacking out and waking up in the basement. There's only one more person in the hall with them, a woman, as crazed-looking as her male counterparts, and Holmes smacks her around the side of her face without even hesitating and then, on the pull of momentum, pushes her into the stair banister. The woman flips up, and over, and there's a muted, fleshy crack that Watson assumes is her neck breaking, but he doesn't stop to check because Holmes is at the door, bracing a foot against it and heaving on the handle, and it gives from this side and they are out, almost tripping down the wooden stairs of the porch. Watson isn't sure how many people are left in the house to follow them, and he doesn't dwell on it; movement is more important than thought at this stage, and so he moves, and he doesn't think about it.

They stagger out onto the frozen grass, bags still strapped around them and thumping into their sides, and Holmes's face is paler than the snow that crunches, the colour of old bones, under their feet. Watson reaches out and grabs his hand because they need to run, and they do, fast and terrified, into the woods. They're still too visible. Watson is working on instinct, on muscle memory, and he drags Holmes to the ground, heaping leaves and ash over them both, keeping them down low behind a fallen oak. The tree has come up from its roots; they reach desperately to the sky, growing into the wrong space, finding light and cold where dark and warm should be.

They'll have to wait for dark, pray that they're not followed. Watson's wrenched arm throbs, and he presses it down into the chill grasp of the snow. He shivers.

All right? he whispers, huddling close to Holmes, close enough that he can feel Holmes's breath panting raggedly across the side of his own unshaven cheek.

Holmes shoots him a highly incredulous look. Sometimes, Watson, he says, keeping his voice as low as Watson's but unable to hide how it shakes, you ask the most staggeringly pointless questions.

*

Watson doesn't want to think about Baker Street anymore.

*

Night falls. A candle, a gaslight, something is lit in the house. Watson thinks, well, there's a waste of available resources.

They ease themselves up slowly, staying bent double for the first stretch away from the tentative beginning of the woods and into the thick of it. Then they run, full out, Watson counting down the strides he thinks his leg has left in it. Branches catch at their clothes; Watson, running second, catches the brunt of the snow falling from where Holmes disturbs it in the trees. The noise of their bags bumping against their backs, their legs, sounds shotgun loud.

They stop after a mile, two miles, both trying to keep their breathing locked quiet and hammering in their chests, and listen.

I think, Watson breathes out, bent over with his hands on his knees, I don't think they're following us.

Of course, just as he says that, he hears footsteps pounding determinedly behind them.

Come on, Holmes hisses, and Watson straightens up immediately and they dart off again.

The sound of footsteps follows them, and then, very distinctly, Watson hears a well-spoken male voice say, Fuck this.

There's two loud cracks directly in front of them, and Harry and Draco appear.

Draco is flushed and angry. You two are such morons, he spits. How did you even end up there, I don't - He grabs Holmes's arm; in the same instant, Harry gets hold of Watson's shoulder; Watson hears Holmes say, affronted, If you don't mind -

- and then they are standing somewhere which is very definitely not the oppressive, cannibal-infested forest they were just in. It's certainly an improvement, but it's not what Watson would call an explicable one.

My God, Holmes says, under his breath. Watson is still trying to catch his. I was right.

Yes, all right. Draco is still impatient, checking his watch. It sits on a band on his wrist, not a pocket watch like Watson's, now broken, or Holmes's, which never came with them to begin with. Okay, so, this is what's going to happen now: we're going to tell you what you need to know, you're not going to ask us any questions so that my head doesn't just explode all over this charming white expanse of misery, and then we're going to go back to trying to get us all out of this highly unpleasant situation. Sound good?

Shut up, Malfoy, Harry says. He addresses Watson. You probably want to know a few things now, and - well, we can give you the answers.

There's a light in Holmes's eyes, that same fervor that so unsettled Watson before. What happened, he asks. What has happened to us?

Draco crosses his arms in a way that suggests he isn't amenable to this precise line of questioning.

Harry says, fast, It's not just you.

Watson says, We know. Holmes stares at him, inscrutable for a long moment, but Watson doesn't keep his attention long. It isn't a lie: Watson knew. He knew, something this size, it couldn't just be England. It felt too big for a retired army doctor and his brilliant rapscallion of a friend to be enduring alone.

Not that it matters, Draco mutters, not quite under his breath. Watson makes an indignant noise of protest. Harry seems to understand.

He doesn't mean that, he says. He's - he's a bit special, don't mind him.

Draco sounds like he's clamping down on a howl. I'm special, he mutters, he says I'm special and he wanders around with a hedge on top of his head. Oh, how glad I am, in a daily sort of way, that he turned out to be the Chosen One and had statues made in his image. Not even artists could do anything about that hair.

Harry says, What he means is, it won't matter. Watson recognises that gleam on Harry's face. It says, I can do this. Harry continues, We can change this.

Watson coughs; beside him, Holmes is getting twitchy, and that will either lead to violence or something else equally undesirable. Harry shivers noticeably in front of them, and Draco rolls his eyes harder and points at a heap of bracken on the ground with something he snatched from his back pocket. It looks like a stick, but Draco mutters incendio and the bracken bursts into flame. It casts volatile light around them, which flickers in and out of shadow like it hasn't quite decided whether it's going to stick around.

Holmes drags his attention away from the new fire and back to Harry, asking, sharply, How?

Go on, then. Harry nods at Draco, a shared joke plain in the way his mouth quirks up. Tell them. You know you like the big important moments.

And you don't? Draco sounds incredulous, but apparently the lure of being the centre of attention is stronger than his love of bickering. Watson thinks, unexpectedly, thank God, thank God we met these men, and doesn't know where it comes from.

Draco explains: I could spin this out for proper effect, but it's far too cold for that and we can't really magic up anything useful like things for getting me warm or making me some toast until we're away from you, so listen up because I don't want to have to say this again. We're wizards. We're from the year 2010.

Holmes raises an eyebrow sharply, but gestures for him to go on. Watson's lungs stab from lying chest down in the snow for hours and then their brief, aborted sprint. He ignores the ache as best he can, and listens.

We work for the Ministry of Magic - That's sort of like the government, Harry interjects, but for wizards - yes, fine, Draco continues, tetchily, like your Muggle government.

What's a Muggle? Watson asks, and Holmes shushes him.

Draco looks amused.

Someone who can't do magic, Harry tells him, quietly.

Anyway, Draco starts up again, pointedly. We work for the Ministry as Aurors - Harry says, Sort of like spies, and Draco ignores it - and our wonderful job at the moment is not, I don't know, solving crime or foiling international plots of mayhem or rescuing pretty damsels in distress from ravenous sea monsters or anything productive like that - and, what, one little slip and you get sent to A Monkey Could Do This, Third Floor -

Malfoy, Harry says, with the same tone of unending patience that is nevertheless on the wane that Watson hears himself using more often than not around Holmes. They don't need to know these things. Don't you want to be warm again?

Draco resumes, slightly faster. So, there was a minor incident involving a suspect and possibly we were somewhat thorough in our confession-eliciting procedure but Potter has apparently decided that this isn't important information for you to know - even though I hate the third floor lift and it smells more like owl down on third than on any of the nicer, higher floors - and we ended up working for the Department of Magical Incident Interventions.

Time sometimes goes wrong, Harry tells them, which is marginally more informative. We fix it.

What do you mean, Holmes demands. He is standing very, very still.

Things like this, Harry says, gesturing to the ruined, snowy expanse around them, they're not supposed to happen. I mean, they don't happen. There's another whole department of Alternate Histories; they help us figure out what might be going wrong and when. He pulls a rueful expression, like he's saying it's not his fault none of this makes any sense, but there it is despite that.

And, what? Holmes says, slowly, thinking aloud. This is time going wrong?

Well, duh, says Malfoy, at the same time that Harry says, Yes.

Can you fix it? asks Watson. It bubbles up and out before he's thought about it. Out of nowhere, Holmes reaches out and catches hold of his wrist, though he doesn't look away from where Harry and Malfoy stand, Harry looking as though he's aiming for sympathetic and Malfoy looking like he's actively trying otherwise.

That's what we're trying to do, Harry tells him, more gently than Watson feels he has to.

This opinion is apparently popular, because Malfoy says, Not that you'd know we were trying to save the world or anything, because we keep having to take detours to have these delightful conversations with you two cretins.

Why us? Holmes asks, suddenly. And what happened to everyone else? He asks questions like he's not used to not having the answers to them, irritated and edgy.

Watson adds, clumsily but thinking it needs to be said, Not that we're not grateful not to be dead.

Draco rubs a hand over his face. Like it isn't bad enough that I got stuck with Mister Self-Esteem Issues over here. Of course I'd end up with more of you.

Oh no, Watson says, dryly, Holmes's self-esteem is just fine.

Harry laughs; Holmes and Draco don't.

Holmes asks, abruptly, What about the Queen? Is she -

Dead? Draco interrupts, off-handedly. Yes, probably. We haven't checked this time.

What do you mean? Holmes's voice is careful, and dangerous.

Harry jumps in. It's just, he says, when time goes wrong, it can either just disrupt timelines - cavemen invent the wireless, things like that - or end them too early, like this. Either way, magic gone wrong like that, it takes things with it. People tend to disappear. I mean, it takes a lot of energy for things to go this wrong, and there's not enough of it to keep people around as well.

Draco stares at him. Who told you that? he demands. It must have been someone very young or very stupid, because that's only just right, Potter.

Harry says, It was Hermione, actually.

A charmed look comes over Draco's face and he says, in a lighter, softer tone, Ah, Granger. It's so good to know she continues to treat you at your own special intellectual pace. I suppose she's used to it now, living with Weasley for so long.

Harry gracelessly ignores him. Anyway, he says, certain people tend to get spared. It's usually the important ones, though you'd think they'd go first. It's like time can sense what needs to be saved. He shrugs, self-apologetic. Hermione tells it better.

That's all right, Watson tells him, at the same time as Holmes says, We're important?

That's enough, Watson says, rolling his eyes, and turns back to Harry. Tell us how you're going to solve this.

Harry looks conflicted. There's a kind of - magical reset button, he tries, and then starts again. No, sorry, that's - what I mean is -

Draco says, Shut up, Potter. He adds, Try and keep up, Watson, and Holmes elbows Watson in the ribs, smirking. Watson elbows him back.

Draco continues, The department of Alternate Histories has a list of the location of every temporal malfunction, and the Unspeakables - another department - take that list and leave a modified Portkey in the area. Rumour has it they cross it with a timeturner, he says, which doesn't make any sense to Watson at all. Comfortingly, for once Holmes looks equally lost.

A Portkey does what we just did when we moved you here out of the forest, Harry clarifies. Only, these Portkeys have been modified by the Unspeakables to transport not only the people who touch it but the rest of the disturbed time field back to when the trouble started, and no-one remembers a thing. Dumble - he stops. Malfoy shoots him a worried sideways glance like he doesn't really mean to and glowers at Watson when he sees Watson noticing it. Harry says, in a different, forcedly lighter tone of voice, An old headmaster of mine once told me that time was a mysterious thing. Harry shrugs; it looks determinedly casual.

Draco looks away from Harry like it costs him something to do it. So, he says, normally what happens here is the Unspeakables get the list and drop an amped-up Portkey in the vicinity of the problem, and the Third Floor Department of Why Is This a Paying Job sends out two poorly educated idiots from Hufflepuff who always fancied themselves a bit Gryffindor at heart to, cross my heart, touch the Portkey and everything resets itself.

You're lying, says Watson. Holmes squeezes on tight, and Watson jumps, forgetting Holmes's fingers were still closed around his wrist. Aside from anything else, Watson's numb skin appreciates the offer of heat from another frozen hand alongside it.

And? Holmes prompts. Evidently something went wrong with your assignment, or you two are more incompetent than I had realised, because if matters had progressed as you describe, we should at this very moment be sitting in our rooms and bickering over whether the curtains should be opened before noon, not standing in ankle-deep mud discussing the possibility of travelling through time with two self-confessed wizards living in a world two hundred years older than our own.

Draco goes a deep, injured red. It shows up even in the dim firelight, harsh against his pinched face, his pale hair. We are not incompetent, he hisses, and even Harry looks insulted by this accusation. We're just on probabation. Normally, the clean-up monkeys get direct instructions on where to find the Portkey, but, being as we're so deeply beloved in the Ministry at the moment, some under-caffeinated lunatic thought it would be a lark to send us in without directions. And let me tell you, Malfoy says, eyes flashing, we do not appreciate it.

This is all a bit much for Watson to take in. He can still feel phantom fingers wrapped unbreakably around his ankle and he shifts, rubbing the toe of his other shoe against it.

Harry sees him move, and even if he doesn't understand entirely what Watson is feeling, he seems to have some notion. I'm sorry, he says, again, and it does just as little to help as it has the other times he's said it. But as soon - as soon as we find it, we'll come for you. We'll come and get you.

Let us come with you, Holmes says, on one long rush of breath. Watson turns to him, startled. We can help you look.

Draco snorts. Harry looks suddenly pitying, and embarrassed. It's an incongruous mix. I'm sure you could, he says, gently, and Holmes bristles at his tone. Harry says, It's just - you're Muggles. You wouldn't know it if you saw it.

How can you be sure? Holmes demands, angry for the first time. His hand slips from Watson's wrist. If you really can reverse time as you say, which in itself should be an impossible task, how is it any more impossible that we should be able to help?

You're Muggles, Draco repeats, in the same tone that certain members of old London society might say homeless, like that is an end to it. He wheels on Harry. Come on. We've spent enough time here.

Harry says, Yes, and then he adds, to Watson, I really am sorry. We've checked almost everywhere, though, so we must be getting close.

I wouldn't count on that, Draco mutters, petulantly, and Harry stiffens like he's trying not to hit him. Watson recognises the strings of muscle holding rigid under his skin from the times he has had to lay a hand on Holmes's shoulder and usher him away from an obstinate or bureaucratic member of the constabulary. He coughs again.

We are doing our best, Harry continues, tightly. We'll come back for you soon, I promise. I promise. There's something blazing and honest about him, and Watson thinks, he's too young for this, and then he thinks, I believe him.

Not that it matters whether or not he believes him, because Harry and Draco disappear with a sound like a gunshot, and then he is left standing under a clear, cold sky next to Holmes, who is holding himself sharply motionless.

Well, then, Watson says, pointlessly. Magic.

Holmes doesn't say anything, which is never a good sign.

Watson lets the silence stretch out until he starts to worry that his fingers will be too cold to work the tent pegs.

We, he starts, surprised by how strained his voice sounds, we should put up the tent - and he coughs and coughs until he slips to his knees, hands freezing in the ever-present layer of snow. The blood that he spits out is harsh and dark against it in the angry light of the fire. As much as pride and stubbornness would have him deny it, Watson's head is spinning, and, undignified though it may be, he's suddenly thankful to be so close to the ground. Preoccupied with his lungs trying to shred themselves out of him - medically impossible as it is, that is what it damn well feels like - he barely even notices when Holmes thumps to the ground beside him, and only actually gives this any attention when Holmes puts a careful hand just below his shoulder blades, his other firm around Watson's waist.

All right, he says, more gently than Watson can ever recall him speaking, all right. Easy, old boy. Holmes's voice is shaking with an odd mixture of impotent ire and suppressed jubilation, but he stays there, holding Watson firm, until Watson has stopped retching and coughing into the snow.

Watson sits back on his heels. His shins are frozen now too, and they still haven't got the tent up.

Holmes draws his hands away. I'll make up the tent, he says, carefully looking away from Watson, and Watson is grateful for it. He starts to get to his feet to help, but only when he reaches out instinctively and his hand closes on nothing at all does he remember that he lost his cane somewhere in the skirmish earlier on, and he's forced into fumbling upright, nothing to lean on. Then Holmes is there, again, bracing an arm under Watson's, flashing a bright, sharp smile up at him, and Watson leans in to him, automatically, because he will always lean in to Holmes.

Watson wakes to Holmes shaking him awake, and for a moment he thinks he's in his own bed and he's got patients in the morning, and it's far too early but Holmes nonetheless wants him to clamber up and down dirty dock passageways to join the search for someone who may or may not have run straight out of the country by now, the whole cockamamie idea based squarely on Holmes's entirely sleepless night, a draught more alcohol than would ever be advisable, and a tip-off from an Irregular, whom Watson has always, secretly, slightly distrusted. Then he shifts disgruntledly, and he's not lying on a mattress but the wintery ground, and he's not in his own bed but a heap of stolen sheets, and Holmes doesn't want him to do something ridiculous but he - and then Watson realises he doesn't know what Holmes wants, which is not a new sensation for him to have.

Watson, Holmes breathes, and the sound of it gives Watson the sudden, insane feeling that if he looks up right now, Holmes will be lit by fire roaring outside a window in the corridor at his back. He looks up. Holmes is just Holmes, face pinched and pale in the early morning frost, but something is lighting him up.

Watson, come on, Holmes urges, crawling backwards out of the tent, and Watson rolls over with a groan and heaves himself after him.

What is it? he says, rubbing at his sleep-sore eyes. Holmes, staring at something just behind Watson, merely nods for him to turn around.

Watson turns around.

There, in the clear air of the crisp, rainless morning, is the backlit cityscape of London herself.

*

(Part Three)

Comments

[whichwanderer]

I haven't finished reading yet but I have to say that I love this exchange so much:

Thank you, says Watson, and Holmes says, Also, I may have broken the pan.

How is that even - Watson reconsiders. Naturally, he says, instead, and Holmes inclines his head in placatory, self-deprecating agreement, and they eat, and pack up, and set off again.

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That bit's been there since way back when, so it's good to know someone else likes it too :D

(also, as the first person to comment, you get, like, many, many internet cookies)

[protectorgf.livejournal.com]

Good night, I adore this! How have you managed to throw Holmes and watson into such a beautiful recreation of the Road narration?

Its like the book, but they're completely ic.

And you throw in HP universe as well and show us all how thoroughly muggle we all are with an explanation poor Holmes can't even undertand.

This has made me shiver, laugh, ill, and quiver with excitement already. It is gorgeous and I am going to read the rest now.

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, that's such a lovely comment! I was very wary both that a) Holmes is such a cerebral guy and b) The Road is such a beautiful book, so your comment means a lot.

I hope you enjoyed the end too :D