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ao3porcelainstorm · 3 years

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poison ivy & stinging nettles 10

On Ao3

Pairing: Sherlock/OFC

Rated: M

Warnings: eventual violence, torture, swears, adult themes (no explicit smut)

Chapter 9 - Chapter 11

Chapter 10- The

~~~

The dinner went well, all things considered.

~~~

Before anyone knew it, Sunday had arrived.

Greg and Molly had enthusiastically accepted Amelia’s invitation to dinner. Molly brought a plate of chocolate cookies, and Greg pulled a bottle of bourbon out of his jacket that Amelia hadn’t seen in the stores since moving to the UK.

Her uncle Max had spent the night with Mrs. Hudson, and helped set up the apartment for the dinner, dutifully setting out plates and making sure that Amelia and John didn’t burn the place down before guests arrived.

Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock had been ushered out of the way, with the former having broken into a bottle of champagne a little early and the latter just hovering and commenting on the chemistry of cooked meat- correcting Amelia and John every few minutes.

Ruthie and Frank arrived shortly after with little Tommy holding a plate of crudely decorated fall sugar cookies. He handed them to Sherlock, who stared perplexed at the little boy until Tommy proudly declared;

“I made biscuits,” before sprinting into Amelia’s arms with an excited squeal.

Mycroft was the last to arrive, passing Mrs. Hudson a bottle of pinot noir and taking a quiet seat in the living room to avoid that chaos of the kitchen.

“You need to tell me where you found this,” Amelia demanded of Lestrade, taking a long pull from the dark liquor with a satisfied sigh. “I can’t do gin anymore. I’m losing my mind.”

He laughed, promising to text her the address of the shop he’d found, while John turned his attention Tommy who was asking a million questions about the meal the doctor was struggling to prepare.

Molly asked Amelia how the case was coming, and the women soon fell into an intense conversation regarding some questionable toxicology reports the medical professional had come across on a recent murder.

With no one watching the lamb in the oven, the place quickly filled with smoke.

John, thankfully, caught the disaster before the place caught alight, and fortunately, the meat wasn’t too overdone (though Mycroft would have begged to differ).

The meal went well, and with drinks flowing and conversation bubbling, Mrs. Hudson convinced Sherlock to play a few songs on the violin. Ruthie, red faced and grinning over a hot toddy, demanded some drinking songs and wore the detective down until he started playing.

The upbeat music got the whole place singing along (even Mycroft muttered along to the familiar tunes).

Tommy danced around in circles until he practically collapsed from exhaustion.

It’d been a few hours, night falling outside, when Ruthie and Frank announced that it was time for them to catch the train back to Kent. Max offered to walk them to the tube, taking Tommy out of Ruthie’s hesitant hands and carrying him over his shoulder.

Mrs. Hudson dropped into John’s chair, taking a deep breath and sharing an embarrassing story of Sherlock with the remaining group.

Molly and Amelia were playing a drinking game involving plastic cups and coins, trying to explain its rules to Lestrade.

“Then you drink-,” Amelia took a swig of beer.

“Amelia-, Mycroft needs some of your drugs,” Sherlock called across the space, sending Amelia and Molly into a conspiratorial fit of giggles. She stood up, crossing the room, her mood bubbly and light from the good company and drinks.

“I’ll be honest Mycroft, you never struck me as the psychedelic type,” she hummed, sitting on the arm of Sherlock’s chair. “Maybe a big bag of weed.”

“I’m finding it difficult to track down the samples you tested in your report,” he reported dryly. “Apparently, most reputable drug dealers aren’t interested in meeting with government representatives, no matter the price.”

“I’m trying to picture you buying some mushrooms in Lambeth,” Amelia closed her eyes and grinned. “Yep. Phenomenal. Thank you for that.”

“Do you have extra samples?” he ignored her commentary and she hopped up.

“I do, but I’ll need some help moving the bins around,” she held her hand up above her head to indicate the height of the cultivation shelf she’d crafted in her closet.

“I need to pick up some more crisps,” John dusted off his pants, standing up. “I’ll help you before I step out.”

“Don’t drop them on yourselves,” Sherlock called after the pair. “If you need someone over 5’8’’, give me a ring.”

He returned to his brisk conversation on where Mycroft had tracked Lydia Brenner when there was a distinct crack of a gun from the lower level.

“Gunshot,” he stated, looking between Lesterade and Mycroft, leaping to his feet.

Taking two steps at a time, he could hear the sound of al altercation, some more thuds, before he kicked open the door to Amelia’s flat.

The room was in disarray. Someone had been tossing drawers and throwing things off of Amelia’s bookshelves, searching for something.

Near the fireplace, there were signs of a more traditional confrontation, Amelia’s reading chair had been overturned, clothes kicked up and on the ground…

Amelia was kneeling next to John, pressing a towel into his abdomen. Nearby, Maxwell Brenner lay unconscious with a broken porcelain pot next to him, dirt and flower petals scattered about.

Between them, a single pistol. The source, Sherlock surmised, of the gunshot.

“I don’t know what to do,” Amelia pressed down as hard as she could where the bleeding was coming out with a towel she must have grabbed from one of the overturned drawers.

“Oh,” Mycroft appeared in the doorway, Lestrade over his shoulder. The inspector whirled around, pulling out a radio and calling for medics and officer backup to Baker Street,

“Get Molly!” Sherlock ordered his brother, dropping next to John’s head, checking his pulse in the neck. “John, John can you hear me?”

“Unfortunately,” the doctor grunted through pained breaths. Even though Amelia was pressing with all of her strength, the blood from the wound was blossoming out, staining John’s sweater.

“I went for the gun,” Amelia explained, her voice cracking in panic. “I’d almost gotten it, but he panicked and fired.”

“Is he awake?” Molly entered the room, taking over from Amelia. She leaned into John’s wound, earning a low hiss of pain from the doctor.

Amelia just stood aside, her hands coated in blood, her eyes widened in horror, trying to keep up while Molly worked.

“If someone else bloody asks that-,” John started, wincing when Molly reached under his torso to check if the bullet had gone through.

“Didn’t pass,” she informed Sherlock, her brows knitted in complete focus. She was asking about the type of gun, which John did his best to choke out between deep, breaths.

“Medics are three minutes out,” Lestrade called into the room.

“John, I’m so sorry,” Amelia had his hand in hers, drawing circles with her thumb over his knuckles. She looked up at Sherlock, shaking her head. “It was him the whole time. You were right about Moriarty being an investor. They were working together. Not my mom.”

“Don’t act like I’m dying,” he huffed, eyes squeezed shut in pain. Molly leaned into the wound again to try and stop the bleeding. “Not the first time I’ve been shot.”

“I think that’s the problem,” Sherlock supplied with a snort.

“I just assumed it would have been your fault,” John shot back. “You know, the final gunshot wound."

“Are you two seriously bickering right now?” Amelia swallowed back the start of a small sob.

“They’re here,” Lestrade was leading an EMT and a gurney into the room. Molly started listing off what she knew, with Sherlock peppering in any details, and John slurring out his blood type.

The doctor was unconscious by the time he was loaded into the back of the ambulance.

Amelia was clutching onto Sherlock’s arm, staining the material with their friend’s blood, though neither paid it any mind. They were both too focused on John. Sherlock felt a lump in his chest. How had he missed Max being the true villain of the Chemo scheme? Certainly there had to have been some clue?

When they returned to the flat to grab clean shirts, an officer was helping Maxwell into the hall of Baker Street, the old man complaining of a cut in his head. Amelia spotted him immediately, her grasp on Sherlock dropping.

Before Sherlock could stop her, she bee-lined for her uncle, her expression wild.

“Do you know what you’ve done!?” she caught him by the front of his jacket and threw him back against the wall, a loud thud denoting the strength with which she hit him. “You sorry excuse for a human, if anything happens to him-!”

Mycroft, surprisingly, was the one who pulled her back, her arms struggling against the older Holmes. She looked ready to rip Max’s spine clean from his body, her eyes filled with pure rage.

“You’re a piece of shit! I fucking hate you!” she screeched, clawing at the air.

“Try to better contain your feral little beast, Holmes,” Maxwell snorted. “Lord knows I couldn’t.”

Sherlock, who’d moved to intercept Amelia whirled around, and planted a fist in the center of Maxwell Brenner’s face. The was definitive crack as a result, and a policeman cut in, shoving Sherlock aside and hustling Brenner out of the place.

He stood back, hands up, while her uncle sputtered through blood and bemoaned that the detective had broken his nose.

“Too bad it didn’t go into his brain,” Amelia tutted under her breath

Sherlock smirked, grabbing a pair of shirts from his room (as Amelia’s was now a crime scene).

When he returned, she’d washed her hands and gratefully took the clean dress shirt from him.

“Bastard ruined my favorite cardigan with my friend’s blood,” she hissed, angrily buttoning down the shirt.

“He has to spend hours with Mycroft interrogating him,” Sherlock tried to reassure her, though he too was seething under the surface. It did little to calm the fuming woman, who just slammed her way outside, flagging down a taxi to the hospital.

~~~

John was in surgery when they arrived. Molly Hooper met them in the waiting area, looking none too optimistic about what little news she had to share.

“He lost a lot of blood,” she explained softly, her fingers nervously intertwined in front of her. “They think there’s internal damage. He was still unconscious when we arrived.”

Amelia chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes cast down, a strange mix of anger, fear, and sorrow. It should have been her in the OR, not him. John Watson didn’t deserve this. He was too good.

Sherlock stood still, though Amelia was certain he was trying to walk through every step of their case, trying to catch what he’d missed. Looking between them, Molly cleared her throat.

“I’m going to head home,” she gestured to her bloodied clothes. “I didn’t have anything in my locker. I’ll call?”

“Thank you, Molly,” Amelia took her hands gratefully. Sherlock just nodded, barely registering the interaction, so Amelia took it upon herself to walk the exhausted Molly Hooper to a taxi.

“Where’s your head?” Amelia asked when she returned, guiding him to one of the chairs in the waiting area.

“Where did we miss it?” He asked in frustration.

Amelia had been asking herself the same question since Max pulled the gun on her and John. He was one of the few people she’d trusted completely, and when she found out he’d been the one to betray her. That he’d been the one to call for her death.

Her heart had crumbled.

“He slipped under the radar,” Amelia muttered bitterly. “Played the game with Moriarty whispering in his ear.”

~~~

“I feel like someone shot me,” John mumbled, his eyes cloudy from the pain medicine.

It’d been hours since he’d been released from surgery, groggy and barely conscious.

But he was awake and alive.

Outside, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon.

“We’re just glad you’re okay,” Amelia replied, holding his hand to her chest. “You had us worried.”

“Mmm,” John chuckled softly. “I don’t see why. You two would have convinced God himself to give me back.”

“The Reaper wouldn’t have been able to leave the room, who are we kidding?” Amelia chided back. “I’d be yelling at him, and Sherlock would pull some deeply buried secret up to use it against him.”

John smiled, giving her hand a final squeeze before sliding it back under the covers with a shiver.

“I’m gonna try and sleep a little more...” he said, his eyes already shutting and his body falling limp. He was breathing steadily moments later, sound asleep.

“He’s really the best out of us,” she commented, watching him breath peacefully.

“I know,” Sherlock agreed in a low rumble.

“Your brother has Max in custody, right?” she moved to sit down next to him, her arms crossed, and body rigid.

“He had to have his nose treated,” he shared a sly grin with her. “But, they should begin the interrogation soon.”

“What a fucking asshole,” she muttered under her breath, her fists squeezed at her sides. “I trusted him.”

“Apparently not enough to give him a hard drive,” Sherlock mused.

“I didn’t want to bring him in too deep,” she sighed, distorting her face in disgust. “I was worried he might get hurt.”

“Did you tell him about the hard drive you sent to Ruth?”

“Of course not,” she frowned. “Less he knew and all that. Why?”

“She didn’t seem close with him at dinner,” he replied, leaning back. “I thought it was strange, given how often he visited. I chalked it up to a recent quarrel.”

Amelia hummed, trying to recall the dinner that had only happened a few hours before.

“He walked them out,” she reasoned. “Though, that was probably so he could get into my apartment without anyone noticing.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock nodded. “Ruth and Frank both seemed perplexed by it.”

He closed his eyes, his fingers steepled under his chin. He didn’t speak again.

Mind Palace, Amelia thought to herself, left a little uneasy by the sudden loneliness that swept the room with her two friends. It was the first time she’d truly been alone in weeks.

She didn’t like the silence. It meant she had time to think, and that’s when she was able to take an introspective look into her life. It was awful.

Now that Chemco had been stopped, the true villain revealed, what could she do next? There was of course helping John recover, and whatever Moriarty was up to.

But eventually John would be fine, and frankly, Moriarty would always linger above them, so planning around that was impossible.

Was it time to consider going back home to New York?

She’d thought about it once or twice. Going back to a normal life.

A friend of hers from college had reached out about an amateur art exhibition in the Village she was running. She’d wanted to see if Amelia had anything she wanted to contribute.

It’d been almost a week and Amelia still hadn’t replied, unsure of what exactly to say.

How could she even begin to explain the chaos that her life had been for the last year?

Certainly, the papers and the news would reach New York once Chemco stock started to plummet. It was too big a company to just brush aside. Her friend would probably piece it together given enough time. There was really no point in hiding it, but Amelia wasn’t ready to pull off that bandaid.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to start a contingency plan. She did have an idea for a portrait she could send a picture of… just for some input at the very least. At the most? Having a painting up didn’t mean she had to live in New York.

She could visit during the exhibition.

Maybe Sherlock and John would go with her? It could be a fun trip, a little vacation after this whole hellish ordeal.

She tried to picture her friends in the streets she grew up on. The parks she frequented or the coffee shop she’d typed her thesis in.

Her friends would be jealous that she’d found such handsome Brits to settle in with, she smiled to herself.

It’d be hilarious until Sherlock started picking away at them. She could almost hear John reminding him not to be rude. That they were her friends.

“Idiots,” she was confident Sherlock would mutter. And he’d be right. The majority of her friends from New York were from old money like she was.

They weren’t very interesting or were very well-read.

They had their money, and their trusts, and their wildly popular social media accounts. Amelia was pretty sure one of her ex-boyfriends was on a reality show now.

Maybe she wasn’t as homesick as she’d thought.

“Canterbury,” Sherlock’s eyes slowly opened and he looked to Amelia. “You told Monty not to say anything to your cousin because you had to get home to London.”

“Yeah,” she pulled herself from her daydream in Central Park, back to the hospital room.

Back to London. Back to home.

“But, when we got back, Mrs. Hudson mentioned that Ruthie had told her father that she was disappointed we hadn’t stopped over,” he continued. “But if Monty never mentioned it...”

“Max was trailing us,” Amelia finished the thought, scowling. It made so much sense. How else would Max have been able to report so confidently back to Mrs. Hudson. Amelia certainly hadn’t told him about their excursion.

“It also explains how Moriarty knew exactly where to find you,” he added.

“They sent the arsonist as a decoy,” she realized. “To distract you.”

“Moriarty would have wanted to see you fall,” he nodded. “He must have realized that Maxwell hadn’t been totally honest when he saw John and I.”

“The decoy was Max’s idea,” Amelia surmised.

“To keep Moriarty on track,” Sherlock nodded. “He tried to play the most dangerous man of all.”

“Moriarty gets mad, brings me back, demands something he knows Max won’t be able to find,” Amelia was sitting up. “But had he accounted for this?”

They both looked to where John was still sleeping soundly in bed.

“We’ll have to find out,” Sherlock’s expression brightened considerably for the first time that day. “The game is on.”

Chapter 11

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