Chapter Text
“I'll be back, hopefully sooner rather than later. Have to meet with that awful Riley woman. I wish another magazine would knock Liber Weekly from its throne so I wouldn't have to deal with her. Surely they have other people who work there.” Sherlock shook his head as he pulled his coat on, standing by the door in the living room.
“Funny you should say that. I'm meeting with her tomorrow.” This didn't surprise him. While they hadn't planned for their books to come out around the same time, it had worked out that way. John's book had required few revisions, and while Sherlock's hadn't required them, he had obsessively done them for months and months anyway.
“I'm sure you'll handle it far better than I will. My goal with her is to just not get baited into an argument every time I do one of these interviews.”
John laughed, grabbing Sherlock's scarf from the back of his own armchair, coming to wrap it around Sherlock's neck. “Don't be so sure. You've no idea the effort it takes to sound personable in those things.”
“I've never successfully masqueraded as personable a day in my life.”
“No sense in starting today, then, is there?” John threw him a smile as his phone began to ring. He fished it out of his pocket and said, “Ella,” by way of explanation, and Sherlock waved him on before turning to head down the stairs.
Over the many months, Sherlock had read and reread A Study in Scarlet more times than he could count, even when it was still just a file on a computer screen. Once the uncorrected proofs and advance copies began finding their ways into the flat, he had confiscated one and read parts of it enough times that the spine showed wear in certain places. He still wasn't sure John believed him when he said he had, in fact, written a wonderful book, but soon he would be forced to confront that fact when the book hit shelves.
Of course, he was biased, but that was beside the point.
It was objectively good, truly it was, but Sherlock was more concerned with the fact that parts of it felt like a love letter. When he'd read it the first time, when he saw a version of himself reflected on the page, it had become immediately apparent why John had seemed so nervous about showing it to him. It wasn't a matter of whether he had written an honest book or a properly fleshed-out character. No, the desperation for approval was solely a matter of did I write you correctly, are you okay with how I see you?
And he was. If anything, John saw him in a much kinder light than anyone else ever had, including himself. And he loved him for it.
When Sherlock had finished reading it that first time, he'd fallen back on show, don't tell before he was able to give John a coherent verbal opinion.
The general public would enjoy it on its own merits, would find all the characters compelling, the mystery enticing. But Sherlock knew there were two stories in this book, and one of them belonged only to him.
He was still thinking along these lines when he approached Kitty's table at the café she'd chosen. She was already settled with a drink and notebook, an advance copy of the collection, and a tape recorder positioned between the two seats. Sherlock ordered nothing, but sat down across from her, the sunlight coming through the plate glass windows a little too brightly, the café largely empty at this time of day. When she heard the scrape of his chair, she looked up from her phone, tucking a stray bit of coppery red hair behind her ear. “Mr. Holmes. Long time, no see.” He nodded, but gave no reply, hands folded on the table in front of him. She set the phone down, picked up the pencil. “Shall we?” she asked with a completely disingenuous smile.
“Yes, proceed.”
She reached out and hit a button on the recorder, the light flashing red, and tapped her pencil on her paper, a senseless gesture made out of habit rather than any plans to actually write something down. “So, finally back in the publishing game. What's that been like?”
“Tedious, mostly.” It came out as sarcastic, and to a degree, it was, but there was also a measure of truth to it. He'd forgotten what a slog it could be, the process of publishing, even when one was lucky enough to have an agent as experienced as Irene.
“What provoked you to start writing again?”
“I finally had something else to say.”
“Oh, Mr. Holmes, we both know you always have something to say,” she said with a smirk.
“Yes, but not all of that merits publication.”
“What did you do during your absence?”
Spiral out of mental control, mostly. “Very little, I'm afraid.” He would have to start giving better answers, but brevity was the best way to stay polite. He added a small smile in an effort to appear pleasantly self-deprecating. Had interviews worn on his nerves this severely in the old days, or was this a new development?
“I wanted to ask why you chose the title No Inherent Magic. I don't think I ever asked that about Sic Transit. Though I did look up the phrase once. Latin. I expect nothing less from you.”
“You received one of the advance copies. You've read the collection, Miss Riley, or we wouldn't be here, so you know why. I rather thought the title poem made that clear enough.”
“This is an interview, Sherlock, and they haven't read it yet, or do you not remember how this works?”
He let out a frustrated sigh before he could stop himself, but at least he had prepared answers to such questions. Interviewers were always so predictable, always operated from the same playbooks. “A family friend is an astronomer, and I became preoccupied with how people ascribe so much mysticism to night and the stars when the science of it doesn't lend itself to such romanticism. I could not believe in the magic they all saw.”
“And do you now?”
“The fact is, I believe I was right. There is no inherent magic. But human beings are experts at assigning extrinsic value to all sorts of things, all aspects of their lives. I suppose the real question at hand was: is inherent fundamentally more meaningful or valuable than extrinsic? Does it matter if something has inherent worth, so long as we can assign it worth ourselves? I'm inclined to believe that the extrinsic is, in fact, the option that matters far more.” Kitty had liked the vaguely philosophical angles in past interviews with him. Hopefully, it would suffice now, too.
“And what makes people assign worth to something, or someone?”
“There are far too many variables involved to answer that.”
“And what about you? Would you consider this collection one long exercise in extrinsic value? Aren't romantic works always just that? A person is significant only because you love them? Or, in your case, because you love him?”
Sherlock looked up from from where his eyes had followed Kitty's ever-tapping pencil, annoyed. “Your attention to pronouns lacks subtlety, Miss Riley. Transparent insinuation, in fact, and a weak attempt at a cheap shot. You read Sic Transit. That was never a secret.” He made every effort to keep his tone civil despite wanting to knock the pencil out of her hand.
She stared at him so intensely, and was quiet for so long, that Sherlock couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted in the conversation, and not just due to his typically curt responses. “I think one could argue that a book's dedication is a way of assigning value to an extrinsic factor in the book's creation, too, don't you?”
He took a deep, measured breath, even as the warning alarms began going off in his head. The sun coming through the glass was suddenly uncomfortably hot. “That would depend on the book. And the author.”
Kitty picked up the advance copy, carefully examining the blue cover as if she hadn't seen it until now. “John Watson. Common enough name, I suppose, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who have it. But it's the novelist, yes?”
“Yes.”
She smiled at him, the lettering on the book's cover catching the light. “How do you two know each other? Odd paths to cross, a poet and a crime writer.”
“A mutual friend of ours owns a bookshop here in London,” he said carefully as he realized he was unsure just how public John wanted to be. While Sherlock's literary circle wouldn't care and was small enough, John had a much wider platform, and they'd never discussed that aspect of all this, didn't occur to them to do so, and still wouldn't have, if this woman hadn't decided to pursue her line of questioning.
“How does a crime novelist earn himself a place in a poet's dedications?”
Sherlock shrugged, running through technical truths in his head. “He is the one largely responsible for convincing me to write and publish again.” He eyed Kitty, hoping he was right in thinking her a coward who wouldn't have the guts to outright ask what she so clearly wanted to, but her gaze felt predatory. At last, she set the book back down on the table and resumed tapping her pencil.
“Do you know much about his upcoming work?”
“Plenty. And based on your other leading questions, I'm going to assume what you actually want to know is if I'm aware of the dedication in his book, which I am.”
“And how does a poet earn himself a place in a crime novelist's dedications?”
“I was an early reader, a sounding board. That's often the case with novelists' dedications, I've found.”
He watched as she tried to find a way to steer the discussion in the direction she wanted, mildly surprised when she instead said, “You told me once that even writing itself only had extrinsic value, in one of our old interviews.”
“I stand by that, but why bring it up?”
“In that same conversation, I rather accused you of...we'll call it emotional insincerity.”
“You and many others.”
Kitty picked up the book and flipped through it, hunting for a specific page. When she found it she turned the book so Sherlock could read the text and held it out to him. “This one feels unapologetically sincere.” For some time, Sherlock refused to look down at the page to see which one she was using in this fight, but he relented when she showed no sign of dropping the matter or closing the book until he complied. It was the one Irene had liked. They'd argued about whether to include it or not for about six weeks. Now he wished he had fought for seven.
I've sat beneath its golden reaches
a hundred times before,
the pool of amber light, the warmest thing to touch me
in a room where dark wood swallows shadows whole,
the ivy constant in its threats to break the windowpanes.Deluded that I am,
I am certain that the light will shelter me
from the room's bleak corners,
all the while aware
of the limits of its illumination.
It is not enough,
to let this light fall on me alone,
to cater to its gilded demarcations.But finally, it illuminates him, too,
my own gold words reflecting in its glare.
I know the shine is not strong enough to reach his face,
and yet, it seems those words are etched upon him there.
Were he to reach out to my uncovered hands,
would those words bleed somehow back to me?
No, they are reclaimed by air;
he has selected something else
for those blue fires to see.
Sherlock sat back in his chair, waiting as Kitty withdrew the book. “I might answer your questions if you had the nerve to actually ask them, Miss Riley. Thank god you work for Liber Weekly. You would make a terrible investigative journalist, though I get the impression that's what you desperately wanted to be in your more impressionable days.” At last, it was impossible to disguise the simmering anger, the clipped quality of his words, and he probably should have cared that they were recorded, but he had abandoned any pretense of civility once she'd opened that book.
She reached out and shut off the recorder, and said with a very self-satisfied grin, “I don't think you like me much, Mr. Holmes.”
Standing from his chair, Sherlock glared down at her, and in lieu of farewells, said, “That, Miss Riley, has never been a secret either.”
* * *
Outside, as he stormed down the pavement, he pulled his gloves off, typing a message to Irene on his phone with precision: “I will never do an interview with that Riley woman ever again.”
He shoved the gloves and phone roughly into one of the pockets of his coat, trying to breathe less heavily, hoping that by the time he reached home he would stand some chance of looking calm and unfazed.
He did not.
“It's a trap, by the way,” he said as he walked in, throwing his coat on the sofa, his phone sliding from the pocket, clattering on the wood floor at the edge of the rug. He could feel John's eyes on him as he collapsed, more than sat, in his chair, leaning forward with his arms braced on his thighs, staring at the floor. When he finally looked up, John remained in his own chair, silently watching him from behind a copy of The Big Sleep. He slowly closed the book, his finger sliding into the pages to hold his place.
“You going to tell me what on earth that means?”
“Perhaps trap is a bit...intense of a word to use. But Riley, she scheduled these interviews the way she did deliberately.”
John set the book down on the side table, now unconcerned with marking his page. He rose from his chair and crossed the room, saying over his shoulder, “Why would she do that?” He knelt down and retrieved Sherlock's phone before walking back and stopping in front of him, holding it out. Sherlock took it from him, setting it aside as John put his hands in his pockets.
Sherlock made an effort to speak more quietly, more calmly, and after a lengthy pause, said, “Word must have gotten around that we know each other, and she pays enough attention that she noticed the dedication in your book and –” He barely caught himself, barely avoided saying and the matching one in mine. “And she asked a series of extremely loaded questions based on her assumptions. So be forewarned, I'm sure she'll give you the same treatment.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I am skilled at navigating leading questions. Admittedly, I was rather terse towards the end. But that's not unusual, even under the best of circumstances.”
John nodded, slowly, staring off into the middle distance, expression unreadable. “You know, you don't have to do any interview gymnastics if you don't want to, right? I mean, I know you're a private person, we both are, and if that's what this is about, that's fine. But you don't have to lie for my benefit. It's not something I'm worried about people finding out.”
“Poetry is read primarily by liberals. Thrillers are read by everyone. You stand to alienate a large number of readers.”
John laughed under his breath. “Sherlock, I could lose every right-wing reader and still be more than fine. I'm not worried about it.”
“You've always closely guarded your private life, to an almost evasive degree. They never realized you were doing it, of course, but you were. Why would you want to alter that approach now?”
Finally, John looked back at him. “Because all those things I never talked about? They were all things that made me angry, or frustrated. My fucked up family, all that time in the military, the failed relationships, the problems with my own work...why would I have wanted to get into a conversation about all that in interviews and at signings? No one wants to discuss all the things they hate about their life with strangers for the public to pick apart. I didn't have anything good to say, so I told them nothing.” John gave this time to properly sink in, as he always did when making a point, a tendency Sherlock had both noticed and oddly appreciated. “I'm more than fine with people knowing, if you are.”
Of course he was. But mostly, Sherlock just fought back the awe he felt creeping onto his face at John's implication that in a life full of things he hated, Sherlock was something good.
* * *
John was glad he had suggested the Laurelwood shop as his meeting place with Kitty. When they had scheduled the interview, he chose it largely out of nostalgia, but after seeing the distress this woman had put Sherlock through, it felt more like a home field advantage. This was a place that, in his mind, belonged to the two of them. Even as Kitty made her pleasantries, seemingly oblivious to John's crossed arms and cool replies, John could almost make her dissolve in his vision, could look through a veil to that night Sherlock had crashed his signing, when they'd sat at this very café talking, when John's impulse control had failed so wonderfully in the poetry section. But he repeatedly dragged himself back to the less appealing present, trying to stay focused on Kitty's questions.
She took a sip of her coffee, leaving a dark lipstick mark behind on the white paper cup. “There's more of a character focus than plot focus, similar to The Silent Child, which never had the procedural feel of your other books,” she said.
“Yeah, well, that was deliberate on my part, call it a shift in style or what have you, but sometimes the people are more interesting than the cases. Not everyone can tell you the plot of a Poirot story, but everyone can tell you about Poirot.”
“And I'm sure your life is full of interesting people.”
“Isn't everybody's?”
“Theoretically, though you never mention anyone outside of a dedications page.” There it was, the line of questioning he knew she would be unable to resist. He gave her a tight smile that he hoped didn't come off as even remotely amicable. It was rare that someone gave him such a knee-jerk negative reaction, but whenever he looked at her, he just saw Sherlock half-doubled over in his chair, wound tight with anxiety, and he hated her a little for it.
“It's not my place to betray their privacy. I'd like to think they'd extend me the same courtesy if our positions were switched. They didn't sign up to have details of their lives publicized to satisfy a curious interviewer.”
“So I take it that means if I ask about Sherlock Holmes, you won't tell me anything?”
“That depends on your question. We've discussed you. He called you intrusive.”
“I couldn't help but notice your book is dedicated to him, of course.”
“I don't think that's interesting in and of itself,” he said, picking up his own drink.
“No, but it is when you consider that his book is dedicated to you.” His hand froze halfway to his mouth, and slowly he set the cup down again, having never taken a single sip from it. Throughout the interview John had maintained a determined if slightly militant mood, but her words had a wrecking ball effect on him that he was unable to immediately conceal. He made an effort to recover, forcing his face into something like blankness, unwilling to give her the reaction she wanted so badly, and had nearly successfully elicited. Sherlock had kept so much of his work wrapped up tight. John hadn't read a single word of it, and he certainly had no idea it was dedicated to him. Part of him said that should have been an obvious and logical conclusion, but the other part of him struggled to believe it anyway. “He said you met through a mutual friend of yours,” she added with a grin that told him he hadn't entirely hidden his reaction from her.
“Yeah, at a signing. I have a book dedicated to that friend too, but you aren't asking me about him.”
“I get the sense that you and Mike Stamford versus you and Mr. Holmes are two very different dynamics.”
John clenched his jaw, wrapped his hands around his cup to buy himself a few seconds, staring down at the tabletop. He took a deep breath and finally said, “I think you've convinced yourself you're in a detective story, Miss Riley.”
“What?”
“You know, that bit in all those stories, where the detective stands in a room of people telling everyone how he solved the murder and points out who in the room is guilty? That's what you're trying to do. But we're the only ones at this table, and no one is dead. So ask what you want to ask, and quit acting like you've unlocked a secret that was never secret to begin with.”
When he looked up at her, he could see his words were effective, but also saw her expression shift from disbelief that he would talk to her that way to something spiteful. “Given the content of his work, and the paired dedications...well, it doesn't read as platonic.”
“Because it isn't.” Those three words seemed to knock Kitty more off guard than anything else he had said. Perhaps it was the simple finality with which he said them. “What, were you expecting some kind of 'gotcha' moment? I told you you hadn't unlocked a secret, Miss Riley. You just have decent reading comprehension.” He thought back to the way Sherlock had talked to his father, knowing he couldn't pull off some detail-oriented deduction the way he had, but still, he thought he was doing a decent job. “Do you have any other actual questions for me about the book or my work, or is the rest of your list just invasive questions about my relationship?” Kitty didn't answer him, but stared at him blankly, mouth ajar. He echoed the words of a man who hated bullies and asked, “Are we done here?” And when Kitty nodded dumbly, John only said, “Good,” before gathering his things and walking off, fighting the urge to look back and check her reaction.
He expected to feel angry, frustrated, panicked, but for the first time in what felt like years, he was instead overcome with a total calm, and as he passed the aisle that he knew held Neruda, he smiled.
* * *
Halfway home, John pulled out his phone and dialed Ella.
“Heads up, I don't know how that interview with Liber Weekly is going to play.”
On the other end of the line, he heard Ella set something down her desk, or rather, drop it, as she sighed in a dismay he had grown intimately familiar with over the years. “Why?” she asked, slightly muffled, which likely meant she had put her head down on her desk.
“Oh, pick a reason. Wasn't particularly nice to that Riley woman. Sort of got another writer involved.” He hesitated before adding, “Outed myself in the process,” trying to make it sound like an afterthought as he crossed the street.
“Oh, like you're outing yourself to me right now?” Her voice became clearer. Must have sat up in surprise. “Jesus, John, which other writer?”
“Um, a reclusive poet who's about to come back from the literary dead?”
Another sigh. “I have a meeting, but we're not done with this, hear?”
When John got off the phone with her, he was relatively convinced they would in fact be done with it, at least, until the interviews ran. Then there would be another phone call filled with why have I worked with you for a decade sighs.
“Was she wretched?” Sherlock asked when John came in from his place stretched out on the sofa. He lay on his back with his eyes closed, a book beneath his clasped hands on his stomach.
“She was absolutely charming,” John said, watching the smile curl the edge of Sherlock's mouth. “The loveliest company anyone could ask for, truly.” He shook his head and side-stepped into the kitchen, dropping his keys on the counter. When he came through the other doorway back into the living room, Sherlock had sat upright, book still in hand. “She did catch me off guard once, though.”
“How did she manage that?” John watched the hint of a frown bloom on his face.
“She told me your book was dedicated to me.”
Sherlock's face fell, like he had been implicated in some horrible crime. He stared down at his hands, slowly turning the book over in them. “It is. There wouldn't even be a book, had I not met you,” he said softly. John could almost physically see what it took for him to make that admission. Sherlock winced and added, “I knew she wouldn't be able to resist telling you that. I...I wanted to...” He shook his head, unable to find the words.
John came to sit beside him, ready to reassure, and he had opened his mouth to speak when Sherlock held the book out to him, wordlessly, and never looking at him. When John finally took it, Sherlock folded his hands like someone praying and sat very still, all his usual nervous fidgeting transformed into a statue-like quality that frankly conveyed more nervousness than the former ever had. John turned his eyes to the book, blue with silver lettering that flashed like starlight on water even in the flat's dim light. And as his eyes scanned the title and author, he realized what he'd been given, the permission he had just received.
“You know you don't have to let me read this, right? You know I won't if you don't want me to.” He almost expected Sherlock to take him up on it, to go back to pretending that the book only existed in theory, to hold up the pretense that it had nothing to do with John. But eventually, he tore his gaze away from his hands, and while he couldn't quite look John in the eye entirely, he did his best.
“It turns out there is one person entitled to my heart.”