prettybirdy979

Titles: Saving Face
Setting: BBC! Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: John, Sherlock
Genre/Warnings: Angst, Drama, Supernatural
Summary: For a witch, John's greatest fear is a little...odd. Eigth in the Witch Verse.
Written as part of NaNoWriMo... And for a prompt from fanfiction.net by Elvendork.Infinity Betaed by

grinnyp Thanks!

Prompts for the series are great for this! =D

I'm done most of the previous prompts and am working on the new ones. =D

Serires starts Here

John was a brave man. He could stare down the guns of killers, survive endless nights of battles in Afghanistan and live with Sherlock Holmes for longer than a week without running away screaming. Everyone at the Yard knew this, and frankly no one there thought that he could be afraid of anything. Especially not after they performed a drug-raid or two and saw what Sherlock kept in his flat.

So when John’s greatest fear was revealed it was a big shock to everyone.

They were at a new crime scene, one where a young child, a pretty little girl with pigtails and wearing a pink tutu, had disappeared. Her parents were off to one side, having been looked over by Sherlock and declared to be innocent. He was now darting all over the scene, searching for clues as to where the girl had gone while John was talking with Lestrade.

Suddenly John stopped talking and went stiff, his eyes frozen on something just behind Lestrade’s shoulder.

‘John? What is it?’ Lestrade turned around, but was unable to see what had caused John to freeze. All that was there was the girl’s collection of stuffed toys by the cupboard, her pet cat which was sitting on the window still cleaning itself, and her unmade bed with its frilly pink doona and yellow sheets.

John just shuddered and turned to Sherlock. ‘Meet you outside.’

Sherlock’s eyes snapped to John, his focus diverted. ‘Nonsense. I need you here.’

‘No you don’t.’ John quickly made for the door, when Sherlock yelped in delight. ‘What is it?’ he asked, turning back around, lowering his hand which had been reaching for the door.

‘The cat!’ Sherlock pointed at the black cat sitting on the window sill. He rolled his eyes at everyone’s blank stares. ‘She had the cat with her, tries not to go anywhere without it. It will have evidence about her kidnapper.’

‘Right.’ Lestrade said. ‘Come on then, we had better catch that cat. John?’

‘I would rather not.’ John was still standing by the door, his eyes watching the cat’s every move.

‘You allergic?’ Lestrade asked with sympathy in his voice.

‘You’re not allergic.’ Sherlock answered for John. ‘And you’re not scared of cats, you didn’t mind the one at Connie Prince’s…’

He trailed off at John’s guilty look. ‘You are scared.’ Sherlock said with disbelief.

John smiled awkwardly. ‘I don’t like cats, never have. But black cats…’ he shivered. ‘They just creep me out completely.’

‘I didn’t take you for the superstitious type, John.’ Sally said gleefully, having entered the room in time to catch the tail end of the conversation.

John smiled nervously, his eyes still on the cat. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me detective.’

********

‘So?’ Sherlock asked later, when they were back in their flat. They had found the little girl in a neighbour’s basement. She had taken the girl to stop her beating the woman’s daughter in the public speaking competition the next day. John had shaken his head at the cruelty and pettiness of people.

‘So what?’ John replied from his chair where he was typing up the case on his laptop.

‘Why black cats? I assume there’s a magical reason why you’re afraid of them or you would have explained your fear to the Yard.’

John looked sheepish. ‘Well...yeah.’

‘So? What is it? I don’t like having to guess, but I will do it if you don’t tell.’

‘What, you can’t deduce it?’ John smirked like this was amusing.

Sherlock huffed. ‘I’ve found that in the world of magic, logic rarely applies. But I can try, if you wish.’

John nodded his assent. Sherlock began to stare at his friend, running his eyes up and down. ‘You’ve had the fear since you were small, no older than ten for it to be so deep rooted that you still have it now and are unwilling to desensitise yourself to it.’

‘Right. I was six when...’

‘No, no don’t say anything.’ Sherlock cut in and John slammed his mouth shut. ‘Hmm… it has something to do with magic, as I’ve already established or you would have been more forthcoming with an explanation.’ Sherlock stopped there and looked at John with expectation.

‘That it?’

‘I couldn’t possibly deduce any more without being a witch myself or far more acquainted with your world.’

‘You’ve managed to piss off every magical creature you’ve met except me and Cat. I don’t think you need to be any more acquainted with my world then you already are.’ Sherlock just stared at John, ignoring his rant, waiting for his answer.

‘Fine. When I was six I found this black cat on the street. I was alone, just outside our house. I went to pat it and it…changed.’ John shivered, pausing for a second.

How?’ Sherlock demanded.

‘I’m getting there! It became this monster, all black and with eyes…’ John trailed off, clearly caught up in his memories.

‘What happened then?’ Sherlock asked after a second when it became clear John wasn’t going to continue without being prompted.

John shook his head to clear it of the memory then continued. ‘It grabbed me and teleported. Took me to some tunnel somewhere. Turned out to be the sewer, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was only just coming into my powers and I really didn’t have any way of fighting it -- the demon -- off. It locked me in a box with a couple of other children. I didn’t know any of them, but I remember the little girl from the paper Daddy had been reading that morning.’ John was clearly getting caught up in the memories again, his voice regressing slightly.

‘How did you get out?’ Sherlock asked quietly. John started slightly, seemly having forgotten Sherlock was there.

‘My Dad. He had seen all the disappearances in the papers and realised what was behind it. He came after the demon. Didn’t know until after he had beaten it that I had been its next victim. I’ll never forget the look of shock, fear and relief on his face when he came to rescue the children and saw me hiding in the corner with them. Neither he or Mum let me out of their sight for a solid month after that.’

‘And the nightmares?’

‘Lasted another year after that. And I’ve never liked cats, especially black cats since.’

Sherlock nodded. He went to collapse on the sofa, happy now he knew but he saw the look on John’s face.

‘Tea?’ he offered.

John smiled. ‘Love some.’

Sherlock nodded and headed into the kitchen. Seconds later, he popped his head out. ‘Where’s the tea?’

Smirking, John went to help.

********

The gossip of John’s greatest fear went around the Yard like wildfire. Within a week, every copper who knew him had heard the story and they were all laughing, if slightly shocked a man as brave as John was afraid of something so small. Some of them, Anderson among them, thought John had just been trying to get sympathy, and so had decided to have a bit of fun with it.

So at the next ‘drugs-bust’ Anderson had brought along a small black cat stuffed toy. John had been upstairs when they arrived and Anderson volunteered to search the living room. Ignoring the safe as per orders, he had hidden the cat beneath John’s Union Jack pillow while Sherlock and Lestrade had been arguing over evidence and Sherlock’s habit of leaving everyone in the dark. Smiling, he had moved into the kitchen to search there.

John had come downstairs, sighed at the scene he found and sunk down into his chair. Frowning at the slight bulkiness of the seat beneath him he had reached behind him and pulled out the black cat.

He froze. Sherlock caught the movement out of the corner of his eyes, looked up and spotted the cause. In a second he was across the room and had grabbed the offending toy. Everyone in the room stopped their search as they realised John was hyperventilating.

‘John, John. You’re fine, there’s nothing here to hurt you.’ Sherlock muttered into his friend’s ear softly, his hands on John’s shoulder. John’s eyes moved to the cat still in Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock spotted the movement.

He smiled grimly. Then he calmly walked into the kitchen, shoved the toy into the microwave, slammed the door and pressed start. One policeman made a noise of complaint, but Sherlock glared briefly at him and he shut up.

John stood shakily. ‘I’ll just go…the bathroom…’ he trailed off and after an awkward moment he fled from the room. As soon as he was gone, Sherlock rounded on Anderson.

‘Why did you do it?’

‘You don’t...’ Anderson began to protest.

‘Yes, I do. Why did you do it?’ Sherlock said dangerously.

‘I…I thought it was a joke. That he was acting…or playing up the strength of his fears.’

Sherlock’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t ever do that again. And in case the rest of you Neanderthals even think about trying this trick again, remember this. John was abducted as a child by a serial killer who liked children and used a black cat as his lure. And I will personally destroy anyone who reminds him of that part of his life again.’

With that, Sherlock swept out of the room, heading for the bathroom, leaving a group of shell shocked policemen behind him.

The microwave beeped, breaking the silence, the toy inside flaming and melting in the heat.

********

Sherlock found John standing in the bathroom with the tap running, splashing water on his face. He was still breathing deeply and the shampoos in the shower were all floating sideways. Sherlock stared at them for a second, noting how they kept bopping up and down as John breathed in and out then turned to look John in the eyes via the mirror.

‘Is the part where I ask if you are alright, despite knowing for a fact you aren’t?’

John smirked humorously. ‘Yes.’

Sherlock nodded. ‘Right then. Are you alright?’

‘If I said I was would you believe me?’

‘No.’ Sherlock raised an eyebrow, clearly questioning John’s intelligence.

‘Then no, I’m not alright.’

‘Why not?’

John looked shocked. ‘Why not?! I don’t know, maybe because I was made to look a weakling in front of all of Scotland Yard. Or maybe because I forced to relive one of my worst memories because some idiot thought it would be funny. And I know it’s going to happen again.’

‘It won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I informed them of the reason behind your fear… an edited version of course.’

John groaned. ‘Great. Now they’re going to look at me with pity.’

Sherlock was confused. ‘Isn’t it better they know the reason behind your fear so they won’t decide to do it again?’

John heard what he was really asking; did I do something not good? ‘Yes… I just wish…’ he trailed off not quite sure what to say.

‘You wish it hadn’t happened.’ Sherlock, as usual, got to the heart of the matter. John nodded. Sherlock seemed to think this over for a second, and then turned to go downstairs, a determined look on his face.

‘Where are you going?’ John asked.

‘I’m going downstairs to rip Anderson’s heart out.’ Sherlock said seriously, without a drop of humour in his eyes.

‘What, why?!’ John turned away from the sink as the items in the shower dropped to the ground.

Sherlock stopped in the doorway, and John grabbed his arm to stop him leaving.

‘He hurt you, so I’m going to hurt him. It’s logical.’

John was touched. He was also a little disturbed, but the sentiment was there. ‘Sherlock, I’m touched you care so much, but I don’t want Anderson dead, or even for you to hurt him.’

Sherlock frowned. ‘Not at all?’

‘Not at all. Besides, I would rather watch him squirm through whatever punishment Lestrade doles out.’

‘And Mycroft as well.’ With that, Sherlock pulled his arm out of John’s slack grasp and headed downstairs.

‘What’s Mycroft got to do with it?! Sherlock!’

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