In Plain Sight - AU - Locked to seaweed_writes

[ihadabadday]

No one knew how long Gods had walked among the mortals. They just knew they had. Some remained in their country of origin, some branched out and traveled. Others started business or charities. Some just went through existence simply being. Belief didn't have much to do with how the Gods chose to lead their lives.

This tale though, it focuses on the Greek Gods of old and Mount Olympus (which is a real place and traditionally is where Zeus is said to live with Hera).

John Watson didn't care for the politics of the Gods that surrounded them every day. He had other things to focus on, to pay attention to. Like medical school, and then the military. It wasn't until he was shot and laying in the desert, bleeding, did he whisper things to the God of Death, to Hades. To a god he didn't believe in. Blood whispers they were often called. And gods hardly paid attention to them, most believed they were the whispers of dying men.

But John Watson survived when others with the same injury had died. What was different about him?

He returned to London on an army pension and a cane. He shuffled through his life, a constant ache in his chest, like there was something missing. Though he had little to no idea of what was missing. He helped others where he could, donating his time and what little money. A homeless veteran (it boiled him so to see those who helped their country be left behind) once called him a beacon of light.

A beacon of light huh?

Most days he didn't feel like one. Most days his mood was dark and everything was shit.

One night when he was limping slowly back to his dismal bedsit, something caught his attention. He glanced down an alley and saw a tall man dressed in black, being mugged by some ratty youth. The man was far too posh for this neighborhood. So why was he here? But that didn't matter. John, on two strong legs, charged into the alley and used his cane to knock the criminal away. He didn't notice, but there seemed to be a light around him, an otherworldy aura to him.

He held the cane like a sword and pointed it at the would be thief. "You need to leave here." John commanded. It had been easy for some to forget that he had been Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers in Her Majesty's Army.

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[ihadabadday]

This was breaking him. Seeing the fragments of his love. He smiled.

"Yes. I do. It was given to me by someone special." He answered.

"Rest, I'll get you something to eat." He was up and moving, leaving the room.

[seaweed_writes]

"Oh.." He said softly. "Who was it?" He wasn't sure that John had heard him, because he was already turning around and heading out of the room.

Sherlock ran his hands through his hair What the fuck was happening? He was Sherlock Holmes, graduate chemist and all around arsehole. He wasn't a god... He was just a regular person.

Then why did he dream of Hell, and a three headed dog and a river of souls and a stone throne?

[ihadabadday]

John was in a tit. He stomped outside to find Molly, a frown on his face. "Molly!" he shouted.

They had been in the US for almost two months. Luckily Sherlock could run his company from here with a computer. But the man wasn't happy.

"Molly!" He never usually shouted for her like this. But he was... Displeased.

[seaweed_writes]

Demeter... Molly.. turned her head from where she was standing in front of her field of grain.. It was still early, and they were no higher than her ankles, but soon they would grow taller than them both.

She turned to him, worry showing over the slightly annoyance of him yelling at her.

:"Yes, John, what is it?" She asked. She had been most patient with him through these trying times, but even her patience had an end, and she got more and more worried as hte days and months went by, that John was getting worse, not better.

[ihadabadday]

"Sorry..." He rubbed his forehead when he stopped in front of her, "The Southern Hemisphere is calling for an early winter. I... I need to go early. Will you be okay with him?" He asked.

It had not been easy these past two months. Both he and Sherlock were being stroppy bastards.

[seaweed_writes]

Immediately, a warm smile filled her face. She touched his cheek gently. "Of course." She answered. "I would be proud that you trust me to look after him for you. I swear upon my life that no harm shall come to him. Go to Sydney, and do you job in the knowledge that he will be looked over by the gods."

[ihadabadday]

John stepped over and hugged her tightly. "I am sorry I have been so ill tempered lately. Zeus said it would take time. But I didn't think it would take this long." He glanced back towards the house and then kissed her cheek.

"I do love you Molly, you have been a wonderful friend."

He pulled back and smiled at her.

[seaweed_writes]

Gently, she touched the spot where he kissed her. She cared for him deeply. She would do anything to see him happy again. Molly could only hope that something would unlock the final key to letting Hades out, but even as an Old God, she didn't know what it was. And if Zeus did, he couldn't, or wouldn't say.

It seemed that the Fates deemed that Sherlock was on his own, on this journey.

"Go, my little one." She called to him. "Go be with your winter, and when the first springs come, you will be reunited with your love."

[ihadabadday]

John waved at her as his power took him from the grain belt to Sydney in a moment.

He sat down on the couch he kept in his flat here and sighed. He wanted to be with Hades and help him through this. But it seemed Fates had other plans.

--

Molly brushed her hands off and went into the house. Sherlock was often found in the sunroom, working. So she headed over there. "Did John talk to you?"

[seaweed_writes]

Sherlock had been working at his computer. As soon as she came in, he closed the lid and turned to her, a scowl on his face. "Yeah, he said he had to leave, and that I wouldn't see him for months." Okay, that wasn't exactly what he had said, he thought to himself, but that was all she needed to know

He was in a nice little strop, arms crossed, mouth turned down in a frown, body posture stiff.

"You don't have to babysit me. I'm a grown man.. and a god it seems.. I am quite capable of handling myself." He said, dismissively.

[ihadabadday]

Molly shook his head. "Unfortunately for both of us, I do have to babysit you." She chuckled, "In your weakened state, you would be easy target for those who wish to do you harm."

"I know you and John are both upset at this. But it is for the best." She smiled softly.

[seaweed_writes]

"Upset?" Sherlock jumped to his feet, stalking over to her. "What the hell does John get to be upset about? I was perfectly fine being a chemist with his own company the youngest in London, thank you very much!" He flailed his arms about and gestured wildly as he spoke.

"Then this... handsome man shows up one day and tells me that he is a god and that he lost his lover and then he..he.. seduces me.. and tells me that I am his long lost lover.. and now I dream of Hellfire and Cerberus and rivers of dead souls and I'm supposed to be okay with this?"

His voice ramps up as he speaks until he is almost screaming. "How do I know this isn't some trick of his, telling me that I am a god.. putting these.. memories in me.. and you are in on it too one big joke, lets fuck with this little human, his life is insignificant. We an play with him and when he's broken get a new toy!"

Sherlock had no idea that as he spoke, his eyes grew red, or that his body was cast in a soft halo of flame.

As soon as he stopped speaking, they were both gone.

[ihadabadday]

Molly walked over to slapped Sherlock across the face. "You obviously do not know John or have cared to get to know him. He is a kind man and one I am pleased to call my friend. This is not some elaborate sick joke." She snapped.

She stepped back and held out a hand, an image appeared, of Sherlock just moments ago, half transformed into the God of the Underworld, Hades himself.

"You are Hades and Hades is you. You have a choice, to awaken and accept your duties or die. Because there are others out there that would sooner see you dead, the cycle broken and Hades become no more. And if you die permanently, it will be an eternal winter here on Earth, because John will have lost control."

[seaweed_writes]

"Hey!" Sherlock rubbed his cheek where she had slapped him, it stung. His eyes burned into hers.

"Don't you dare say that I don't care for John. You don't know the things he says to me, the way he holds me or kisses me or.." He stopped, his face immediately turning red. He had almost said way too much.

As soon as the image appeared, he took a step back. "No, That can't be me. You're making this up. My eyes aren't red, and I most certainly don't' have flames around me." He looked at his hands and arms, just to double check, but nope, no flames.

For a moment, he was quiet, contemplative. "If..." he started hesitantly. "If.. this was true.. and if.. IF... I .. if Hades were to awaken, how.. would it be done?"

He most certainly didn't want the earth to freeze over, or anything to happen to John, or himself obviously.

"Wait, wait.. you are saying.. there are people.. trying.. to kill me... right now?"

[ihadabadday]

"Honestly... No one knows. Nothing like this has happened before. A god, a true god, has never been killed and reborn." She said truthfully, "There has to be a way to awaken it, but we don't know how. It seems Fates as settled that you must endure this alone."

"Yes. There is a man, named Moriarty, he killed Hades. Poisoned him. If word was to get to him that you were reawakening, he would try to kill you."

[seaweed_writes]

"Well what good are you as a babysitter then?" He thew up his hands in disgust and frustration.,

"You can't help me become a god, and it sounds like you cant stop this.. Moriarty person from killing me if he really wanted to." He started pacing around the room like a caged tiger.

No one can, or will help me, and I have no idea if this is even real, much less how to let this... god whatever he is awaken, so what am I supposed to do, sit here until I either magically wake up one day and decide that I am Hades, or sit around and wait for Moriarty to come and kill me? Neither of those sound very appealing right about now."

[ihadabadday]

Molly snarled. A strange sound coming from her. She waved her hand and slammed Sherlock into a chair. She turned to pace over to him. "Do not doubt for an instant I cannot defend you against the likes of Moriarty. I am an Old God. The only one older than I am is Cronus!"

"Now you will figure out how to unlock the power inside you before I take you out and make you work the fields until the power breaks free!" She snapped at him. The anger backed by her power, her age.

[seaweed_writes]

For the first time since he had been there, Sherlock was, truly afraid. He was scared that he had overstepped his bound, and he lay back as far as he could in the chair, as far as he could from the woman in front of him that no longer seemed like the pretty and gentle Molly that he knew.

He was silent for a long time, he had no idea what to say. When he did finally speak, his voice was low and meek, almost a whisper.

"But.. if even the gods don't know how to unlock... whatever this is inside of me.. how am I supposed to do it?" His question wasn't defiant, like earlier, it was truly curious, and contrite, and unsure.

[ihadabadday]

"It's inside you." She tapped his chest, where his heart was, "Unfortunately it is different for each one of us."

"For me... It's the smell of the earth after it's rained and the feeling of new life growing come spring."

[seaweed_writes]

Sherlock took a deep breath. I dream... "He paused for a moment, this was hard to talk about.. "Sometimes I dream about fire, and rock, and a three headed dog, as big as an elephant." He sighed.

"I don't think I'll find a dog like that around here, but.. what about fire and rock." Sherlock looked outside the window. "There are no volcanos near Oklahoma, sadly. So I guess that's out of the question as well." He got up from the chair and paced back and forth, tugging at his hair, frustrated.

"I don't know what to do!" He roared, not angry at her, just angry in general.

[ihadabadday]

Molly sat down. "John told me he gave Hades a plant before he left the last time..."

She looked at Sherlock, watching him move back and forth.

[seaweed_writes]

Sherlock stopped pacing as soon as Molly said that.

"Yes, he showed me, he created a flower for me, out of his bare hands. I assume that it was like the one he gave... Hades." He couldn't say 'gave me', because he had no idea about anything that John and Hades had said or done together, other than the little parts John had told him.

"What about the flower?" he asked.

[ihadabadday]

She shrugged a bit. "I thought it might be a trigger to wake up whatever was sleeping inside you. I promised John when he returned from Sydney, that you would have woken."

Molly yawned a bit, that burst of power had left her a little zapped. John's habit of resting after such an outburst was catching.

"I am going to lie down for a bit. Please don't bring the house down around us." She winked at Sherlock and then went back to her room.

[seaweed_writes]

Sherlock watched her go, then slumped into the chair that she had almost tossed him into.

He hadn't had the heart to tell her that him and John had had a huge fight, right before they left for the US. John had taken the flower and crushed it in his hands. Apparently, John had not told her about Sherlock's flower at all, only the one for Hades, however long ago that was.

He got up and went outside, walking through the dregs of the wheat fields. It was almost winter, and the wheat had been collected already, but he loved the way it smelt. He sat, cross legged i the field and closed his eyes letting his mind wander.

[ihadabadday]

John was sitting in his own little flat, staring out the window at the sky. He touched the pendant he wore, eyes closed. "Sherlock... I love you." He whispered, "I... I would do anything for you. To make you remember and stop the pain that you're in."

He clutched the stone, feeling his power wrap around it. But it could not bring it to life like Hades once had.