He raced out the door, into the hallway that he hadn't seen for so long, and swam as quickly as he could through the halls, passing merpeople like bowling pins, trying to avoid them the best he could but not stopping to apologize to the ones he plowed over. The potions room, where might the potions room be? It wasn't like Mycroft kept a map anywhere, he wasn't that helpful, he was going to ask one of the locals, one that was educated enough in the layout of the house but not in the loop enough to know why Sherlock shouldn't be pointed in the right direction. Aha, a maid, perfect. Sherlock saw up to a mermaid with her hair tied back into a bun and covered with a white seashell, the mark of a housemaid, pushing a large cart full of dirty towels.
"Excuse me, could you tell me where the potions room is? My stomach doesn't feel too well and I know Mycroft has something for stomach aches in there." Sherlock asked, trying to look as pained as possible, which really wasn't hard. He just called upon his breaking heart and tried to reflect it as much as he could in his facial expression. The maid paused for a moment, studying his face as if trying to tell if he was lying or not.
"You're the prince, right?" she asked with a small smile.
"Yes, I am, potions room please? You don't want to have to clean up my vomit, do you?" Sherlock insisted. The maid made a rather disgusted face, shaking her head and pointing down one of the hallways, running adjacent with the throne room.
"Down that hall, last door in the middle, can't miss it. I think there's some guards there too, so just explain your...." She started, but Sherlock didn't wait for her to finish. He knew that there was going to be guards there, and they weren't going to be as clueless as the towel collector. He would have to use brute force, as he had done with Moran. The clock was ticking. Sherlock flew down the hallway as fast as he could, following her directions and seeing from afar the room, flanked by two guards wearing helmets, as if the potions room was going to get attacked. Maybe it was ceremonial, but they were both holding long spears, topped with sharpen rocks that could really do damage. Sherlock needed to make sure not to get speared in the process of breaking in. As he approached he tried to slow down, holding his stomach and trying to look as sick as possible.
"Hold on your majesty, where do you think you're going?" asked one of the guards, unidentifiable because of his helmet. Sherlock just moaned, looking up hopefully to see if they were buying his story. Their helmets remained expressionless, but then again, he would be more worried if they had smiled at him.
"My stomach...I need something." he groaned, stumbling into the wall and pretending to hold back his own throw up.
"We need to get Mycroft's permission, he said you're not to enter this..." the guard's words were cut off, however, when the other guard slammed the butt end of his spear onto his helmet. And just like that another merman crumbled to the floor, his helmeted head still ringing like a gong. Sherlock straitened up, too confused to play his role anymore, staring up at the guard that had attacked. Was he trying to get the other one out of the way so that he could kill Sherlock himself and claim self-defense? Sherlock was just about to start retreating when the guard reached up and pulled his helmet off, revealing the flawless face and sweeping brown hair of Victor Trevor.
"Victor?" Sherlock muttered in amazement. Victor just smiled, pulling a key off of his belt and starting to unlock the door.
"You seemed surprised." He pointed out. Sherlock could only stare, this might be easier than he had previously imagined.
"When Mycroft said demote I thought you would be scrubbing the bathroom floors." Sherlock admitted.
"Well, I guess he thinks I'm more valuable than a maid. No, I was put on guard duty, right on time I see." Victor muttered, turning the key and pushing the door open. Sherlock nodded, swimming inside and scanning the shelves. There were hundreds of different potions, all organized on long shelves like a library, all looking different. They were of different colors, textures, scents, some were bubbling over, some looked gaseous, some you had to eat with a spoon while other glowed like their own sun.
"You're looking for an antidote I image? For John's memory loss?" Victor guessed. Sherlock nodded, browsing the shelves and noticing they didn't have any tags, only numbers, like some sort of impossible Dewey Decimal System.
"Do you know where I could find it?" Sherlock asked hopefully. Victor just laughed, wandering over beyond Sherlock's line of vision. Sherlock kept eyeing the open door nervously, wondering just who might walk in and find the two of them breaking the rules again.
"Thankfully I had some time to explore, and I found it a couple of days ago. I kind of thought you'd want it, but I can't imagine how you got past your new body guard." Victor muttered, reappearing with a small red bottle in his hand. It was very small, one sip at most, in a circular round bottle with a stopper on the end. This little potion might just save Sherlock's life, and his happiness as well.
"Thank you." Sherlock muttered, grabbing at the bottle. Victor just laughed, keeping it out of his reach just long enough so that he could get one last word in.
"Don't do anything stupid Sherlock." Victor insisted. Sherlock just laughed, shaking his head and snatching the little red potion out of Victor's fingers.
"Me? Do something stupid? It's like you don't even know me." he insisted, and with that Sherlock grasped the small potion in his fingers, warmth flowing through his veins as he swam towards the door, as fast as he could through the halls and out the main door, swimming into the ocean with little intention of going back. He was going to get John, he was going to get his love and reclaim the heart that was rightfully his. Sherlock couldn't see the shadow in the water, which worried him a little bit, but he had been quick, it couldn't have gotten too far and he was sure he could out swim any man made boat any day. He just needed to find it. So Sherlock swam up to the surface as he had done many times before, his head bobbling through the waves as he scanned the ocean. He could see the land, the dock, the town once more, but he knew that John wasn't there, John was on the boat, just where that boat was, well that was the issue. Sherlock swam a little bit north, starting to panic now, what if it was just gone? What if John got away, slipped through his fingers right as he was about to grasp onto his hand once more? But no, as he swam closer to the horizon he noticed a small speck in his line of vision, a boat, seemingly tiny from where Sherlock bobbled in the ocean but massive up close. John was on that boat, and therefore Sherlock had to get it. He sank into the water, not deep enough so that he could be easily spotted by his fellow merpeople but not too high so that he could swim freely, not worrying about human ships and telescopes and all of their fancy contraptions. Sherlock swam as fast as he could, he needed to get that boat and his own personal health didn't seem as important. He didn't care if his tail was struggling to do so much as twitch, he didn't care if his arms were aching so much it felt like they were made of rocks. All that mattered was this warm potion in his hands and the boat that was getting closer and closer on the horizon. Sherlock swam farther into the ocean than he had ever been. Mycroft had never let him wander too far from the castle walls because of what had happened to their father, he was worried that Sherlock would get trapped in the nets as well. They never went on vacation to other merpeople towns, as some families did, and Mycroft made all diplomatic trips by himself. He had been all over the ocean while Sherlock had spent this past week trapped in his own bedroom. It wasn't like the ocean changed though; it wasn't like there were new and exciting things to look at. The same fish wandered lazily around, the same boring types of coral and sea weed and kelp grew underneath. Sherlock kept swimming through, the ocean getting calmer and calmer the farther he went out, and soon the ship was almost life sized, sailing smoothly across the glassy ocean surface. As Sherlock got closer he went farther and farther down, until he could see the ship above him but feel the tops of the coral tickling his tail. He honestly didn't know what to do now. Everything burned and he felt unable to go on, but he knew he had to. Somehow he had to get John one on one, somehow John would have to get off the ship or Sherlock would have to drag himself on, either way they had to have a conversation before the ship reached the docks. The little potion in his hands was still incredibly warm, his fingers were clenched so tightly around it that they were cramped and sore; he needed a better way of carrying it. So as he floated by, Sherlock uprooted a piece of thin kelp and fed it through a very convenient hole on the top of the cork, enabling him to string it around his neck and wear it as a necklace, that way he could swim freely but still make sure the potion didn't go anywhere. So Sherlock kept on swimming, deciding to go investigate the ship as much as he could without getting spotted. As he rose to the surface he tried to get as close to the ship as he could, so that the only way the sailors could see him was if they looked directly down, which was very unlikely. But then again he also needed to make sure he wasn't going to get run over by the ship, which would be a rather unfortunate way to reveal his existence. Merpeople are real, look, we have the squashed remains of one stuck to the bottom of our boat! Sherlock rose to the surface and stuck his head right above the water, clutching to the side of the wood and digging his fingernails into the hull, letting the ship drag him along the water. This was a nice break from swimming, although he was going to have to find a better way to hold on than his fingernails, it was kind of painful. The ship was loud; as he surfaced he could hear the men up top talking loudly and singing drunken songs, their footsteps loud and obnoxious with their legs and their feet. Sherlock sighed in longing, if only he could walk again. He knew that this was where he would find his John, there was something inside of him, it just told him that John was near, a tugging on his heartstrings maybe. Their souls were magnetic, and when they were close enough together they could feel the pulling. Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment and picture his happy reunion with John, he pictured the two of them, both conveniently human, sitting on the docks and dangling their feet in the water, hands interlocked, staring at the sun going down and watching as the waves lolled lazily over the place Sherlock once had to call home. He imagined John kissing him once more, kissing him as humans did, with passion and with love. The only two kisses Sherlock had shared with John were both too stressful to be considered carefree and loving. The first one they both had been terrified and John ended up running off, leaving Sherlock to sit on a balcony in the dark and contemplate his entire existence. The second one had been their final one, John had been on the docks and Sherlock in the water, as a mermaid, and it had been more of a goodbye than a proper kiss. Sherlock imagined in his fantasy John kissing him knowing it wouldn't be the last, with his soft hands on Sherlock's neck, their legs intertwining like only legs could. It would be perfect, except Sherlock was a merman, and he still had a long way to go before he sat carelessly on the docks with John. First he had to make sure John loved him back, and that would require more than just an active imagination. As the boat kept sailing Sherlock found a more convenient place to hang onto, the boat had a small ledge near the bottom, just big enough for Sherlock to sit on and let his tail dangle into the water and keep his head above. He sat there and let the water rush past his tail, the wind push through his hair, the sun burn down on his bare skin and the wooden hull scratch against his back. He listened to the sailors talking, walking, singing, he could sometimes hear sentences and words but they never made much sense, sailor talk probably. It didn't seem like they were anywhere close to their destination, it had only been a day or two and this princess was certainly farther out than that. Sherlock caught and ate fish for his meals, which was kind of horrible but he had to do it to survive, it wasn't like the sailors were giving away free food to their merman stowaways. Never the less, Sherlock wasn't able to catch any big meals, and most of the time his stomach growled in annoyance. His throat was getting dry, his skin was starting to turn an unflattering shade of red, and his back was hurting from sitting on the ledge for so long. But never the less, he stayed there. Occasionally Sherlock would dive into the water and swim after the boat, but that took a lot of energy he simply didn't have, and he would flop back onto his little seat and wonder just what he was going to say to John. There were so many options, from talking him into drinking the potion, to forcing it down his throat, to trying to make John fall in love with him as he was and then making him drink it. But Sherlock couldn't think of which one would be better, he couldn't think of any way he could get onto the boat on his own, it wasn't like he could climb up the side and walk along the docks as a human. No, if a half man half tuna flopped onto your ship, you would be pretty quick to kill it as well. The only possibility were the portholes on the bottom of the ship, they looked into the crew's quarters, where they slept or something like that, to shed some murky sea light into the bedroom. Those windows were much too small, and if opened they would leak water into the ship and eventually sink it, so Sherlock couldn't use one of them. But they were an option, he might be able to talk to someone, maybe convince them to let him in another way. Right now Sherlock knew he couldn't sink the ship, he wouldn't dare try now that John was aboard and would most likely drown. He needed to talk to him somehow, but how to do that and what to say was the issue. So Sherlock just sat in his little seat on the boat and watched as the ocean passed by. The boring waves, the different cloud formations, the sun beating down on him, but not much else. There were no birds flying overheard, they dared not come this far into the ocean, there were no other humans than the ones he could hear above him, and the sea life was all pretty much the same. Occasionally Sherlock would see dolphins jumping and splashing around in the sea, and once he saw a breeching whale, but other than that it was startlingly still. Sherlock didn't want to worry about sharks but he knew they were beneath him somewhere, swimming around and inflicting terror on the sea life. Sharks usually weren't an issue back home, they didn't dare go into the kingdom walls and if they did they would never make that mistake again. But out here Sherlock was in their territory, and those toothy beasts wouldn't hesitate to rip Sherlock apart and eat him. That was one of the many terrors about the open sea, coupled with exhaustion and getting lost, no merpeople really dared the journey unless they were properly equipped and had a real reason to leave. Sherlock was being just stupid, trying to follow a ship just to talk to a single human; he would be laughed at if he ever went home. If he ever made it home. Honestly if John loved him as he was, Sherlock would never go back to that castle again. He was perfectly willing to stay with John forever, somehow brew up his own potion to become and human and live with the humans without ever telling Mycroft where he went. They could move away, far inland, away from the ocean where Mycroft couldn't find them, give up their royal duties and their thrones and live a normal life, in love and far from danger. Maybe they could adopt children, raise a family and be normal civilians, and maybe Sherlock wouldn't have to convince John to drink the potion at all. Maybe it didn't matter what happened before hand, maybe he could fall in love with Sherlock and forget the consequences their love had previously inflicted.