Three Is Company

Just More of Sherlock

Musgrave had promised to be there right away, and from the time it would take to get to the house from the office, well John could only imagine that his promise had been fulfilled. Right away. John stumbled away from the kitchen, not even bothering to check who it was through the window. Musgrave was the only one to expect, and when the door swung open it was indeed the grey psychiatrist. Grey was the only word John could use to describe him, as his trench coat was a deep fog color, his eyes were a swirling silver, and his hair was losing its color at the ungrateful age of forty.
"Sherlock, stop talking." Musgrave demanded. Sherlock looked up, his eyes growing wide and thankful to see his doctor stepping into the room. John stepped aside, not bothering to haggle for his proper greeting.
"I'm not saying anything." Sherlock defended.
"Well, say less anyway. I can see this is an interrogation, and he really ought to have a lawyer present." Musgrave pointed out. Greg rose to his feet, as if he wasn't prepared to begin arguing about legal ethics with a man who looked about as withered as a corpse. The microwave did its little song to announce the tea, though at the moment John was preoccupied with watching the psychiatrist face off with the police force.
"We're just talking." Greg defended. "He doesn't need to be arrested, not formally."
"I have to pay for the tooth." Sherlock explained quietly. Musgrave took a deep breath, his eyes working anxiously to figure out the best way to solve this. John could almost hear the wheels in his brain beginning to whirl, so well maintained there was hardly a creak. He was a cunning man, one who knew his way around almost every situation.
"No civil court." Musgrave demanded. "You can send the bill to my office, I'll be glad to pay it in his place. And please, make no record of this incident."
"I'm sorry, but who exactly are you?" the officer wondered. Greg looked just as confounded, though he seemed happy to let his dumber partner play his part.
"I'm his therapist. And being as though it's my responsibility to keep him in check I claim full responsibility for the incident." Musgrave announced.
"Well you weren't the one going berserk on the side..."
"Nevertheless." Musgrave interrupted. "Sherlock suffers blackouts. In this state he is easily manipulated, and prone to suggestion. Like hypnosis, in a way. Mr. Watson, can you confirm that the driver behind you was taunting him?"
"Yes...yes he was." John lied quickly. There had been no taunting, no verbal exchange. Though it seemed as if Musgrave was going down a cunning path, and John had no choice but to follow.
"Sherlock will obey a command in these states, even if the command is outrageous. I'm sure the driver of the car dared him to hit. I'm sure he took Sherlock's approach too lightly, and challenged him. Men are prone to inviting violence, as they always doubt that their opponent will go through with the act. Surely Sherlock was provoked, challenged, and in his blackout state, impressionable."
"You're saying he's not responsible?" Greg clarified.
"I'm saying it would be silly to charge a man with something he did not know he was doing." Musgrave admitted.
"That won't hold up in court." Greg scoffed.
"There doesn't need to be court." Musgrave pointed out. "Forward all bills to my office, I will gladly pay them. Erase this matter from your notebooks and just...scuttle."
"Mr. Musgrave, this is a risky game to play." Greg warned.
"Risky for you, or for me?"
"Both." Greg sighed. He took a quick glance at Sherlock once again, as if to clarify the feeble, helpless state the man had folded into. Sherlock didn't look like an aggressor; he didn't look as if he was able to get to his feet much less assault a man on the highway. Perhaps this frightened state was just an act to get off of the charge. John almost hoped so, though he doubted it.
"Come on Greg, cut him some slack." John suggested at last. "He's never done anything like this before. And he won't again."
"Alright...but on your head be it, Doctor Musgrave." Greg warned.
"My head is happy to oblige." Musgrave assured with a humorless, rather unsettling grin. Greg seemed to recoil at this, as if a stern man smiling seemed too much like a threat. And even a buff cop like Greg didn't seem to want to mess with Musgrave.
"Come on then." Greg muttered to his partner, grabbing his hat from the coffee table and giving John a rather insistent look, as if trying to make him realize that this was something to be put on the books. This was something John now owed him. Sherlock looked too afraid to thank the officers, his dark eyes pointed up towards them with such a hollow, unintelligible look. He might not even be able to comprehend the situation that he had just avoided. John didn't feel safe until Greg was safely out onto the porch, though even when the door slammed behind the two officers he still felt as if his nerves were tangled into complicated knots. He went to fetch the tea from the microwave, allowing the Doctor and patient some alone time. Even as he turned towards the kitchen he could see Musgrave moving towards the couch, his voice dropping into a more comfortable octave that Sherlock might respond to. The man had already started crying again. As John approached with the cup of tea, warm between his hands and steaming a gentle heat onto his face, he saw that Sherlock had finally straightened up into a more humanlike posture. Musgrave was sitting on the coffee table, firmly upon Mary's ever growing stack of magazines, with his posture bent so close towards Sherlock's that their knees were interlocking, their legs tangled. The Doctor's circular glasses were translucent from this angle, and John could see straight into the grey eyes that rung with so much passion, so much ferocity. He was a warrior inside and out, and by his lingering John could immediately see that the Doctor had chosen a patient to favor. To nurture, perhaps would be the better word. His words were soft and quiet, seeming to descend upon Sherlock in a blanket, allowing the man to come crawling out of the shell he had receded into. When compared to Musgrave, John felt quite pathetic.
"Tea?" he muttered, dropping the tea bag in and out of the water and causing some of the boiling water to brim over the mug and splash painfully across his hand. John winced, though Sherlock's eyes widened.
"Thank you, John." he muttered, extending his hands towards the warm mug. Sherlock's fingers overlapped John's, and for a moment they held both the tea and the other, warm fingers interlocked with cold ones, cold hands acquiring heat from the steam which was billowing in all directions. John slid his fingers carefully from underneath Sherlock's, allowing the man to take full possession, though he sat down closely, trying to maintain the same proximity that Musgrave enjoyed. For some reason John thought he could help Sherlock most beneficially from this angle, from this distance. Where his words could be felt not only in their vibrations but in the breaths that uttered them. Where his exhales would string against the skin.
"So they're gone?" Sherlock confirmed. "Greg Lestrade isn't going to take me away after all?"
"No of course not. I've said time and again, they can't charge you for something you didn't do. Now that wasn't you, Sherlock. It wasn't you." Musgrave promised.
"But it was me! My body, my actions. My fists...still bruised." Sherlock whispered, taking a sip of tea with his cut knuckles exposed against the white ceramic.
"In your blackouts you are susceptible. Your common sense vanishes, your self-control disintegrates. You are subject to your surroundings, and only those. It was your body, but not your mind." Musgrave assured. "And a mind should never be wrongly accused."
John studied Musgrave closely, taking note of the Doctor's attitude towards the situation. He wasn't lying about Sherlock's issues, though he wasn't being particularly truthful. If Sherlock was being told the complete truth he would be explaining Victor, not just a state of uncontrollable actions.
"I'm afraid." Sherlock whispered.
"There's nothing to be afraid of." John insisted, trying to input himself into the conversation before he was treated as inanimate as the throw pillows. Sherlock's startled eyes turned slightly towards him, the familiar irises with their deep, pungent hues. He looked just like he did as a child, sitting on the couch with that look, that look that tried to display things he couldn't put to words. He was being hurt in some way, some indescribable way. When they were children the root cause of this pain was his father, though now that they were adults John was unable to pinpoint the issue. It was his brain, was it not? His brain and his lack of control. How was John supposed to help him with that? How could he, without the advice of Reginald Musgrave? Sherlock Holmes was in the care of two of the most passionate men, two men who wished nothing but the world for him. Could it be that even such a team could not erase that look from this face, could not save him from slowly disintegrating into a shell of a man, a mere husk? John touched his hand carefully upon Sherlock's shoulder, trying to comfort him in the only way he knew how. Musgrave was better with words, though John guessed he might be softer, gentler, in way of touch. Sherlock shuttered, the small frame shaking under the blanket and creating ripples within the tea. Yet he did not say anything against it, and he did not back away.