Work Text:
He’s been back in UK airspace for two hours - an hour above the ground and an hour firmly on it - and yet he still feels the swooping sensation one gets when they’ve undergone a rather sudden and dramatic drop.
Well.
He would know.
He’d been debriefed and patched up - cuts and abrasions cleaned and bandaged, with antibiotics provided for the deeper ones that had already become infected. He’s grateful, he is, despite the level of disdain he’s displaying for Mycroft’s minions. He knows he was extracted just in time, nearly too late, in fact. A few scrapes and bruises and a low-grade fever is a small price to pay for a homecoming. A homecoming he’s ached for with every fiber of his being for the last seventeen months, three weeks, five days, and eight hours.
It could have been so, so much worse.
He grunts as he stands, buttoning his shirt at his wrists and admiring the grooming job the man had done in the mirror. It had been a while since his last appointment with a barber (in Seville, of all places) and his hair had grown considerably.
“Baker Street, I think,” he announces cheerfully, thrilled at the prospect of being out of Mycroft’s company.
“He’s not there,” Mycroft murmurs.
“What? Who isn’t?” His tone is nonchalant, even as his heart kicks into a gallop.
When all he’s met with is stony silence, he finds Mycroft’s gaze in the mirror. His brother is leveling him with a look that tells him in no uncertain circumstances that he isn’t fooling anyone.
Sherlock drops the act and sighs - frankly, he’s too tired for much else - and reaches for his suit jacket.
“Where is he?” he asks quietly.
“A flat out in Clapham.”
Sherlock is affronted. “Why the hell would he go and do that ?”
“Change of scenery?” his brother supposes, but Sherlock doesn’t need it spelled out. He knows why John left.
“How long?’
“He moved three weeks after you jumped.”
“Christ,” he mutters without meaning to. It’s a tell if there ever was one. He groans as he slides his arms through his sleeves and smooths the material down over his chest, opening his mouth to say something, but Mycroft beats him to it:
“There’s a car waiting downstairs.”
He flounders for a moment, unused to the compassion in his brother’s eyes, but manages a “Thank you” in return all the same. He hates how small it sounds.
The ride to Clapham is uneventful, which makes it all the more hateful because all Sherlock is left with for distraction are his thoughts. His memories.
His regrets.
He swiftly tamps down on that train and focuses on the rain drops sliding across the window as they turn down the streets leading away from Whitehall. It’s a Saturday evening - people are returning home from their daytime excursions or heading out for a night on the town. The weather is so typically English, his heart aches.
Before he’s necessarily ready for it, the car is slowing to a stop on a nondescript street in an even more annoying neighborhood. He climbs out and stands on the pavement at the junction where the path to the flat meets the sidewalk, staring around at the tediums of suburban life.
How on earth could John Watson end up here?
You know how.
He shakes his head and inhales deeply, about to take that first all-important step when the door to the flat swings back and the man himself steps out. He looks gaunt even from ten paces away, shakily sliding the key into the lock and turning the bolt.
“John?” he breathes, barely audible, but it’s enough for John to freeze with his hand on the knob, back rigid, shoulders hunched.
“Christ. Not today,” he growls after a moment, turning and stalking down the path so determinedly that Sherlock has to quickly move out of the way before John barrels into him.
That’s… odd.
Not quite the reception he’d been hoping for.
“John!” He hustles to catch up, but John steadily ignores him, hunching his shoulders and tugging his coat collar up around his ears. As if that’s enough to silence Sherlock’s calls. Thoroughly confused, he closes his mouth and follows at a distance, watching John’s back as he heads for the nearest Tube station.
Sherlock loses him when purchasing a new Oyster card (because Mycroft didn’t think to equip him with one - idiot) before finding him again, standing at the end of the platform, studiously staring at the rail. His heart gets lodged in his throat as John’s shoe toes the edge, but the rumble of the approaching train causes him to step back, but only just. The breeze whips the silvering hair off his pale forehead and Sherlock wants nothing more than to take him by the shoulders and make him meet his eyes.
This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
The doors slide open and John steps on. Sherlock uses the entrance at the end of the car.
John never once looks to see if he follows.
The harsh overhead lights do nothing to help John’s complexion. His skin looks sallow, throwing the purple moons under his eyes into sharp relief. He’s taken one of the few empty seats on a Saturday evening, hands clasped together between his knees, knuckles turning white.
Sherlock holds tight to the bar and just watches. He knows John knows he’s there because those haunted eyes keep darting in his direction, even if his head doesn’t turn, before skittering away once more. He looks almost anxious. Annoyed too, but mainly uneasy. Scared, even.
John Watson doesn’t get scared.
Sherlock continues to catalogue the changes in his blogger since they last parted. He wishes his last glimpse of him hadn’t been from so far away - he on the roof and John on the ground. Though that wasn’t really the last glance, was it? Sherlock’s eyes were open when John stumbled over, voice wrecked, begging to be let through.
It’s the first time Sherlock’s allowed himself to think of that moment in a year-and-a-half. Its pain still feels as fresh, which is his first insight into how exactly John may be feeling though not why he won’t even acknowledge him.
Sighing, he glances at the map and tries to guess which stop John may be getting out at. Chances are Waterloo if he’s transferring, but they may ride it all the way into town. After they cross the river, it’s anyone’s guess: Embankment? Charing Cross? Leicester Square?
Waterloo passes without incident and Sherlock shifts his weight, annoyed with himself that he can’t read John like he used to. He’s not dressed for the theatre, but he’s obviously put thought into his outfit. His shirt is ironed and his shoes are shined, but he’s wearing jeans. He usually opts for nicer trousers if going to a show or concert. Or at least he used to.
The stations continue to pass and they end up disembarking at Tottenham Court Road with John bolting out of the carriage with more speed than Sherlock thought him capable. He follows at a distance again, keeping a firm eye on him given the crowded, city-central station.
Once above ground, John turns into a tiny alcove holding a cash machine. Sherlock decides to try his luck one more time, standing far enough off to the side for John to see him in his peripheral vision, but not so close that it could be called ‘hovering.’
“John.”
“No,” he whispers, shaking his head and closing his eyes tight, brow pinching in pain. He blindly shoves the notes he’s withdrawn into his wallet and roughly jams the offending piece of leather into his back pocket before taking off past Sherlock, careful not to let their coats even brush.
With a barely concealed groan, Sherlock takes up the chase again, keeping at least four or five meters between them as John stalks down the pavement. He makes a right onto Great Russell Street and Sherlock truly has no idea where he’s heading until he makes another right into a large brick building with an enormous white overhang: The Bloomsbury Hotel.
Frowning (because what the hell is John going to a hotel for?), Sherlock sniffs as he lifts his chin, hoping he can frighten off any overly helpful bellhops as he makes his way into the lobby.
But John is nowhere to be seen and Sherlock immediately panics, grabbing the concierge he had sent skittering in the other direction with only a look just a moment ago.
“A man just came through here, my friend. Jeans, black coat. Did you see where he went?”
“Uh - “ the concierge takes in Sherlock’s wide eyes and no doubt desperate expression, probably wondering if he’s not a tiny bit insane. As it is, Sherlock feels the tether on his sanity straining with every passing moment. “I think he went to the bar. Bloomsbury Club, just down there.”
“Thank you,” Sherlock replies, straightening the man’s jacket where it had wrinkled in Sherlock’s grip.
The club, much like the hotel itself, is sleek. Posh. All polished hardwood floors and turquoise velvet ottomans and small marble tables built for two. Sherlock passes it all with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
He finally catches sight of John being led towards the bar by a maître d' but he stops just shy of reaching it -
As a woman with bottle-blonde hair and an annoyingly charming smile stands from a small table to receive the kiss John places on her cheek.
Sherlock stops breathing.
No.
John’s eyes light up for the first time that night as he sheds his jacket and takes the tiny leather booth that faces out to the bar while whatshername sits primly on the velvet ottoman facing him.
Sherlock gets closer, scowling at the maître d' who tries to greet him, and hears the tailend of John’s sentence:
“... ry I’m late. Something came up.”
Or someone, his mind unhelpfully provides.
“No problem at all,” she replies, already nursing a revolting-looking pink drink with a dainty, all-too-happy flower sticking out of the top.
John smiles (it doesn’t reach his eyes, but he smiles) and picks up the menu in front of him, ordering a pint from the waitress as the woman across from him warmly mocks his choice.
“John, it’s a cocktail bar!”
“And I’m branching out by getting a stout instead of an ale!” he retorts and she laughs to the sound of Sherlock’s shattering heart.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
He’s got on with his life, you stupid sod. How could you possibly think he’d wait when you made sure he thought you were never coming back to begin with?
He’s hot and his skin is clammy, so he sheds his coat and throws it over his arm as he passes John’s table, resolutely not looking at the woman occupying a seat that should be his. The club is crowded, it being a Saturday night, which allows Sherlock to slip in between the bodies and lean casually against the half-moon shaped bar.
It’s classier than John usually prefers. He likes dark pubs with cheap beer; not trendy hotspots serving pricey (if cleverly named) cocktails. Sherlock figures he should get a drink and blend in, but the bartender (mixologist per the menu - whatever) seems to be lining up at least eight beverages into a queue so he bides his time.
The waitress returns with John’s beer and he glances up, catches Sherlock’s eye, and pales significantly. Perhaps he thought Sherlock had left. John swallows thickly and manages a “thank you” for the server, before returning his focus to the woman in front of him and trying very hard to pay attention to what she’s saying.
He’s failing.
Having studied at the University of John Hamish Watson, Sherlock would know.
But this John is… not his John. He’s not at Baker Street. He’s at least a stone lighter. His expression isn’t exasperated, but fond. His eyes aren’t narrowed in anger, yet dancing with mischief.
“John, are you all right?” The woman’s voice breaks through the din of the other imbibers and Sherlock rouses himself from his morose musings in time to see John hastily wipe something from his eye.
“Yeah, sorry. It’s just… rough day.”
The woman places her (hateful) hand on his arm and squeezes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
John takes a swig of his beer for fortification and shakes his head. “No. But thanks, Mary.”
Mary. How plain.
“Is it about your friend?” she asks and, plain or not, that has Sherlock standing up straight. “The one who died?”
John looks ill as he stares into the froth of his Guinness. “Yeah. A bit.”
“You can tell me about him, you know. If you want,” she offers and Sherlock, for the first time in the entirety of their acquaintance, finds himself on the side of one of John’s dates.
“He was…” John trails off and resolutely avoids looking in Sherlock’s direction, even though Sherlock can tell he wants to.
He wonders how deep John will go, knowing he’s standing right there, or if this silent treatment will extend to pretending he doesn’t exist altogether.
“He was brilliant,” John continues and that makes Sherlock pause. Sure, John had no shortage of compliments when Sherlock had just solved a case, but he rarely talked him up to others when he was present, lest Sherlock’s already admittedly large ego grow. “Best man I’d ever known. Pompous as anything, but… the best.”
Mary’s hand tightens on John’s arm and he gives a sardonic smile as he takes another sip. Sherlock finds his throat’s gone tight and yet he cannot look away.
“What happened?” Mary asks.
“He, uh,” John clears his throat. “He killed himself. Year-and-a-half ago.”
“Christ, John, I’m sorry.” She takes his hand and Sherlock tries not to bristle as she caresses knuckles that have punched murderers, palms that have held guns, and fingers that have patched up all of Sherlock’s hurts.
“Sometimes I think I see him.” He laughs at himself and shakes his head. “I swear I’m not crazy. But I thought I saw him today and - anyway, that’s why I was late.”
“What can I get you, mate?” the bartender asks, startling Sherlock, and he glances at the menu propped up on the bar one more time.
To hell with it. “An E.M. Forster.”
“You got it.”
Inspired by The Bloomsbury Set, Sherlock can appreciate the fact that the cocktails are all named after the writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists that made up that famous group. He spares a moment to wonder what exactly the combination of chilli oleo saccharum, gin, mastica, lime and grapefruit juice will taste like before he returns his gaze to John -
To find the man staring at him like he did seventeen months, three weeks, five days, and nine hours ago, when he said “You could” and Sherlock repaid him by stepping off the ledge.
“Are you all right? John - ” Mary says with some urgency, suggesting it isn’t the first time she’s tried to get his attention.
Oh has John finally decided to pay attention to him? To acknowledge his presence?
“Cheers, mate,” the bartender says as he places the drink in front of Sherlock with increasingly impeccable timing.
Sherlock drops some money on the bar but he’s startled from even taking a sip as the sound of metal scraping across wood echoes throughout the club. He turns to find John standing and steadying himself on the table in front of him, whose tiny, mood-setting lamp wobbles back and forth. His wide, shocked, disbelievingly eyes don’t waver from Sherlock’s own as he inches his way forward on unsteady legs, ignoring Mary’s pleas.
Sherlock frowns and cocks his head, studying him, because why now? He’s been following him for nearly an hour. He’s tried to talk to him no less than three times. Why is John looking at him like he’s the Ghost of bloody Christmas Past now?
But then he recalls John’s words from just a moment ago, spoken to Mary in hushed tones. An admission willingly if reluctantly given: “I thought I saw him today.”
“I thought I saw him today.”
Oh God.
Sherlock remains completely still as John draws up in front of him, breathing so hard he’s nearly panting, and reaches out a shaking hand that hovers in the air, unable to go further. And, just before Sherlock steps forward to press his thunderous heart to John’s outstretched palm, he decides to try one final time:
“John?”
John gasps like a drowning man breaking through the surface and stumbles backwards, clutching his hand as if burned. He ignores Mary, ignores the maître d', and bumps into at least four people as he blindly limps out of the club.
Sherlock stands there slightly stunned, before forcing himself into action. Oh John.
He grabs John’s forgotten coat, offering Mary a tight (and not at all smug) smile as he slides a note into the hand of the slightly hacked off maître d' to cover John’s bill before bolting after his wayward blogger.
He makes it outside just in time to see John collapse on the pavement and clutch his hair with his hands. He’s never run faster in his life than he does to fall to his knees at John’s side, new suit be damned.
“I’m going insane,” John groans and Sherlock drapes his coat around his shoulders and lets his hands hover for a moment, before placing them firmly on John’s shoulders.
“You’re not insane,” he murmurs, lips nearly brushing John’s ear as the man dry heaves on the pavement. “And I’m taking you home.”
He motions for the doorman, who’d been standing there at a loss, to hail a cab. Sherlock could probably do it faster, and is in fact eager to see if he still has that power after his time away, but John is more important. John will always be more important. (Though he would like to bundle him away before this Mary person makes a reappearance.)
A black cab pulls up to the kerb and Sherlock murmurs a “Come on” as he gets his arms under John’s and helps hoist him to his feat. Slinging one arm over his shoulder and getting his other around John’s back, he maneuvers him to the idling car and tries to lower him into the backseat as gently as possible. Whatever strength or adrenaline John had possessed has thoroughly deserted him.
“Oi, he looks a bit peaky,” the cabbie comments. “He gonna make it?”
“He’s fine. Baker Street as quick as you can,” Sherlock barks before soothing his voice and running his hand up and down John’s back. “Head between your knees.”
John, shockingly, does as he’s told, but the words that leave his mouth offer little comfort. “Am I dead?”
“No,” Sherlock whispers, heart constricting as he continues to rub his hand up and down that entirely too-bony spine. He has a feeling John’s going into shock and he’d like to get him wrapped up and in front of a fire as soon as possible.
“Are you dead?”
“No, John, I’m not.”
“Hafta explain that one to me,” he slurs and Sherlock knows it’s not the half a pint he drank causing it. He curses under his breath and silently begs the cabbie to drive faster.
Before they have any right to on a Saturday night, they pull up in front of 221B and it’s fast enough to make Sherlock wonder if Mycroft tampered with the traffic lights (the fact that he wasn’t paying attention proves how compromised he is). Sherlock throws entirely too much money at the driver who blurts out “Ta very much” in response.
The flat’s windows are dark and he finally spares a moment to wonder what state it’s even in as he opens the door and steps out. John doesn’t live there anymore and Sherlock hasn’t set foot in it in over a year. He doubts Mrs. Hudson has kept up with the hoovering - oh.
Mrs. Hudson.
Okay, he can burn that bridge when he comes to it.
“Can you stand?” he asks and John manages a nod, taking Sherlock’s proffered hand and using it to lever himself to his feet.
Sherlock fishes the key Mycroft gave him out of his pocket. It’s not the original one he owned - that one was given to John along with the rest of his valuables in the morgue of St. Barts.
He pushes that thought to the side and slides the shiny piece of metal into the lock, turning the deadbolt. Shifting John so more of his leaden weight rests against his side, he kicks the door back and it bangs against the wall. Well, if Mrs. Hudson is home, she’ll certainly have heard that. Indeed, there is low music coming from her flat and a shadow that appears in the frosted window a moment later.
John groans in a mournful way that makes Sherlock wonder when the last time was that he’d seen their landlady.
Her door opens and she appears silhouetted by the kitchen light, thin arms encased in entirely too large cleaning gloves. Her eyes clock the situation before she lets out an unholy scream.
“Don’t you start, too,” Sherlock manages, nodding down to John who’s slowly slipping to the floor. “Help me?”
Despite the surprise, she bustles into action, stripping off her gloves and taking hold of John’s other side. “Is he all right?”
“Had a bit of a shock,” Sherlock grunts as they make their way up the stairs to the landing.
“Well that’s the understatement of the century,” she mutters, slapping the back of his head before soothing the sting with a short caress to his hair. “Sofa or chair?” she asks as they enter the living room. Thankfully, it looks relatively the same. Not even a layer of dust.
“Chair, I think,” he replies. “Closer to the fire.”
Mrs. Hudson hums and they get John situated. She disappears to the kitchen for a glass of water as Sherlock pulls the blanket off the back of John’s chair and drapes it over his shoulders.
“All right?” he whispers and he gets no reply. John’s eyes remain fixed on the floor, at some knot on the hardwood between his perfectly shined shoes. “Right,” Sherlock murmurs, standing with a grunt and getting to work on building a fire.
Mrs. Hudson returns with the glass of water, but John doesn’t take the outstretched glass. She glances at Sherlock for advice and he sighs as the logs catch light.
“Something stronger, perhaps.”
She nods and places the glass on the table next to the chair and disappears back into the kitchen. Sherlock remains crouched on the ground in front of him, hands on the arms of the chair, but not touching him.
“John,” he whispers but the man merely shakes his head once more.
Mrs. Hudson returns with a tumbler of whisky a moment later and holds it out in front of John. He finally lifts his gaze from the floor and stares at the amber liquid for a moment, taking the glass with a shaking hand and downing half of its contents in one. Only then does he dare to look up into Sherlock’s face. His eyes dart from feature to feature, clocking the bruising around his right eye and the butterfly closure by his hairline.
“You’re real,” he croaks.
Sherlock swallows hard and wills the pricking behind his eyes away. “Yes.”
He desperately wants to reach out, but now that John no longer needs his help to keep upright, he doesn’t think the touch would be welcomed.
“I should hit you,” he rasps, downing the rest of the whisky and holding the glass out for more, which Mrs. Hudson takes without even a tsk in his direction for the lack of manners.
Sherlock supposes their absence is warranted.
“You can if you’d like.”
John looks up at him again, staring at the bruising on his brow, and his face does that terrible crumpling thing that it does when he’s trying to hold back his emotions. Trying not to cry. It makes a lump the size of John’s stupid solar system lodge in his throat.
“Looks like someone beat me to it.”
Sherlock hums. “Yes. Well.”
And of course Mycroft, because he can’t resist sticking his unreasonably large nose into other people’s delicate business, chooses that moment to appear in the doorway. Sherlock glares, this is a private matter, but then remembers his brother’s help with the traffic lights and softens his expression into a haughty sneer.
“Gentlemen - ” he begins.
“I don’t want to fucking hear from you, Mycroft,” John snaps. It’s the most coherent he’s sounded since the Bloomsbury Club.
There’s a moment of stunned silence on behalf of all parties and then Mycroft’s eyes narrow.
“Tough,” he spits. “If you’re going to be mad, be mad at me. Not at him. The plan was mine and mine alone. He had no choice in the matter.”
“Well that’s not true, is it,” Sherlock murmurs.
Mycroft leans on his umbrella hard enough to dent the floor, his tone as sharp as a lash. “Your choices were to actually die, to appear to have died, or for Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and Detective Inspector Lestrade to die. I believe we made the right decision, don’t you agree, Doctor?”
John looks like someone’s punched him in the mouth, jaw hanging slack as he stares at Mycroft. “What?”
Mycroft fixes Sherlock with a look as if to say, “You’re up, brother mine.”
He clears his throat and inhales deeply, glancing first at Mrs. Hudson and then at his brother. “Could we have a moment?”
Mrs. Hudson is the first to nod, squeezing John’s shoulder as she passes by the back of the chair before offering Sherlock a quick pat on the arm. He supposes he should count himself lucky that he got any acknowledgment at all, given what he’s put them through. The enormity of which he’s only just now beginning to grasp.
Mycroft surveys the scene for a second longer, before following Mrs. Hudson down the stairs leaving Sherlock alone with John for the first time since he approached him outside of his hateful flat.
Unsure quite what to do with himself, he stands stiffly from his crouch on the floor and sits in his chair. Despite a year-and-a-half away, it still molds to the shape of his body as if he never left.
“Is he right?” John asks, breaking the suffocating silence.
“Almost never.”
“Sherlock.” It’s exasperated and perhaps a bit fond. Or maybe Sherlock is just projecting. Regardless, it’s the first time he’s sounded like his John all night.
“Right about what?” he asks softly.
“About the choices.”
“Ah. Yes, well…” He picks at a peeling piece of leather and refuses to meet John’s eye.
“Sherlock - ”
“What do you want me to say, John?” he snaps but it contains no heat. After the day he’s had, he’s just… tired. “Yes, those were the choices. I die or you all die. Mycroft swooped in at the final moment and presented a third, much more alluring alternative. Granted, it meant having to make you think that I was dead for as long as it took, but that was the deal and I took it.”
John stares at him and, despite the charged moment in the Bloomsbury Club, it’s like he’s finally actually seeing him. “As long as what took?”
Sherlock sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, thoroughly wishing he’d downed the E.M. Forster cocktail the mixologist had made him. “Dismantling Moriarty’s network. The final cell fell last night.”
John’s lips form the words, “Last night,” but no sound comes out.
“Germany first. Then the Czech Republic, Croatia, Turkey, Russia, Italy, Spain, all over really.” He’s rambling. “Not very nice places, truth be told, though Greece had its charms.” His knee is bouncing and sweat is beginning to bead at his temple. “I came straight back as soon as I could, as soon as I was cleared, but I didn’t mean to - I didn’t expect,” he groans and fists his hair in his fingers. “I didn’t know you wouldn’t…”
“Think you were real?” John supplies, voice hoarse.
He swallows and nods.
“Why didn’t you take me with you?” John finally whispers, voice cracking on the final word.
The tears that Sherlock has valiantly kept at bay finally spill over onto his cheek, but he daren’t look away. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” John bites, brokenness quickly replaced with a hot anger. “Why do I always get left behind, hm?” He stands and Sherlock shrinks back, thinking that John really will hit him this time, but he merely paces the room, from the crackling fire to the sofa and back again. “Why am I so disposable?”
“John,” he nearly gasps. “You’re not disposable. You’re indispensable. Which is why you had to live. Why I had to… go away.”
John stops pacing in front of the hearth, backlit in silhouette by the fire. “Did you ever stop to think that you’re indispensable to me?”
Sherlock is struck silent. “No,” he eventually whispers.
“No, you didn’t stop to think?”
“No, I did, but I apparently came to an erroneous conclusion.”
John scoffs lightly and shakes his head. “You ruined me. So often I nearly…” he stops himself and clears his throat, pinching the bridge of his nose before pressing his thumb and forefinger into his eyes.
Sherlock holds his breath because he thinks he knows the end of that sentence but he hopes to every deity he doesn’t believe in that he’s wrong. “You nearly what?”
John drops his arm and tears tumble onto his checks. “I almost followed you. I wanted to. Greg had to take my gun.”
Sherlock drops to his knees at John’s feet and grabs hold of his legs, fingers digging into the denim at the back of his thighs as bile rises in his throat. “Don’t you ever, ever consider that again.”
And John erupts. “You fucking me left me first. ”
“And I’m sorry! I’m sorry, John! I will grovel on my knees for the rest of my life if you will just - let me be in yours!” The panic is making him hyperventilate; the growing fear that he got this all so spectacularly wrong. John will leave him. John won’t want to see him again.
But I’ve waited so long.
His ears are ringing and black spots are dancing in his vision. He reaches for his collar, but steady fingers beat him there and undo the top few buttons.
He was the only thing that kept me alive.
“Okay, breathe. Breathe for me, Sherlock. That’s it.”
By the time his vision clears, John is kneeling on the floor in front of him, one hand at the back of his neck and the other cupping his cheek. “There you are,” he murmurs. “Just breathe for me. Slowly. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
“Feel like I should be doing this for you,” Sherlock replies, words slightly slurred.
“You did. Earlier,” John concedes.
“Nearly gave you a heart attack.”
“Yes, I remember. I was there.”
Sherlock smiles and his face is stiff, muscles unused to moving that way. His skin is clammy and he should feel self-conscious since John’s fingers are currently threading through the damp hair at his nape, but he can’t be arsed to care as he nuzzles into the palm cupping his cheek.
Blinking his eyes open, he finds John’s warm but still guarded gaze flitting about his face, as if committing him to memory. He could drown in that gaze. Or perhaps wrap it around himself like a blanket on a winter night. Maybe he also just needs more oxygen to his brain.
Still. There are more things to say. Or, things to say again. Softly, this time. With feeling.
“I’m so sorry, John,” he whispers, listening to John’s inhale as he holds his breath. “I don’t regret it because it meant saving your life, but if I could have spared you the pain - ” he stops and licks his lips, willing himself not to cry again, “I would have saved you from that, if I could.”
He lowers his eyes to the rug, awaiting his judgement from the only person who can bring it down upon him, but the words that leave John’s lips are the last that Sherlock expects to hear tonight:
“God, I missed you.”
He snaps his head up and his jaw drops, but John merely shakes his head fondly.
“So much.”
“I missed you too. More than you could ever know,” he admits, which is hitting the nail a little too close to the head. He only just got back. One thing at a time -
But then John pulls him into his chest in a rib-crushing hug and Sherlock thinks sod it all to hell as he grips back just as fiercely, burying his face in the warmth of John’s neck and inhaling home for the first time in too long.
He doesn’t know how long they stay like that. Long enough for his knees to ache and a slight awkwardness to hover in the air. Because they don’t do this, the two of them. They don’t show affection, at least not in the normal way; they snap and gripe and tease and harangue. They don’t hug or hold; they push and shove and swat and poison. They don’t admit their feelings aloud; they buy takeaway without being asked and agree to be experimented on and clean the kitchen after a particularly corrosive experiment and patch up burns without a lecture when said experiment explodes.
No, they don’t do this.
But they are.
John smiles shyly as he pulls away and wipes a hasty hand over his eyes. “So. Greece, huh?”
“You think I was on some holiday,” Sherlock accuses, but a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.
John gently runs a thumb over the cut at Sherlock’s hairline, drawing a hiss from the injured man. “Mm. Perhaps not.”
Sherlock closes his eyes and leans into John again as only a touch-starved man can. “You didn’t think I was real.”
“No,” John admits, voice going rough again. “No, I didn’t.”
Sherlock studies him, coming to the only conclusion that makes any sense. Standing with a grunt, he holds out his hand for John to take. “Then let me show you what is.”
John eyes his palm for a moment, gaze narrowing slightly as if trying to figure out the trick, and the fact that he’s thinking that at all makes something sharp and swift twist behind Sherlock’s sternum.
With a stiff nod, though a soldierly one, he grips Sherlock’s hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. He massages his thigh, the one he once used a stick for, and Sherlock pretends not to notice. Luckily they’re still wearing their coats, so all they have to do is head downstairs and steal Mycroft’s car. He won’t mind. A delay means more of Mrs. Hudson’s cakes.
“Where are we going?”
“A bolthole.”
John doesn’t ask why or where specifically it is. He’s just along for the ride and it’s such a John thing to do that Sherlock finds hope rising within him for the first time. Even with that rather lengthy hug they shared, it’s not something they typically do.
But it could be, whispers that hateful voice in the back of his head.
No one stops them as they slide into the back seat of Mycroft’s sedan. “Fleet Street. You know where.”
The driver nods before putting the divider up between them, leaving Sherlock and John in silence. It’s not uncomfortable or suffocating, as it was earlier. There’s a sort of peace to it. They pass Russell Square and get held up a bit in the traffic trying to get to the opera house. After about 20 minutes, they arrive in front of a darkened Pret, and Sherlock hops out, holding the door open for John as he steps onto the pavement after him.
They head down an alley just to the side, bypassing one of the oldest pubs in London, before coming to a nondescript door. Pulling a well-worn key from his pocket, Sherlock unlocks it and mounts the steep staircase gingerly, joints still protesting. John follows a pace behind, saving the questions Sherlock can tell are bubbling just beneath the surface. He opens the door at the top and reveals the dusty room just beyond. Mycroft has left it as is, and Sherlock supposes he should be thankful that no minions were here rooting through his meager belongings.
“Ah. One of the infamous boltholes,” John finally murmurs, before finally looking up. “Why are we here?”
Sherlock shrugs and kicks at the blanket that had fallen off of the cot. “This is where I spent my first night away from you.”
“Oh,” John whispers.
“Yes, it’s not much,” Sherlock says rather sheepishly. “But it is what it is. Most of my lodgings looked like this. As I said, Greece was a step up, but that might have been the view more than anything else.”
John remains quiet, carefully studying everything around them. There’s a blood stain on the floor that he lingers on and a pile of hair still in the sink from when Sherlock had shaved it off.
Sherlock watches him see it all. Just as it hurt to live it then, it hurts to witness John living it now just as much.
“I was in a hostel in Munich when I read your final post. On the blog.” He swallows and looks down, watching his breath mist in the cold air around them like smoke. “He was my best friend and I’ll always believe in him.”
John nods but doesn’t say anything.
“Did you mean it?” He hates how small his voice sounds. John tries to laugh but a strangled sob comes out instead.
“Yeah, yeah I did. Still do, in fact.”
Sherlock gives him a tight, grateful smile and nods, throat working around the lump that’s lodged itself there again. “One day I’ll take you there. I’d prefer to have happy memories of that place.”
Instead of lying in the middle of the floor. Crying, his brain unhelpfully supplies.
“To Munich,” he clarifies after a moment. “Not the hostel. Dreadful service.”
And John, thankfully, snorts and Sherlock counts it as a victory.
“There’s, um, one more place I’d like to take you.”
John glances at the blood on the floor and the hair in the sink one more time before nodding. “Okay.”
When they get back out to Fleet Street, the driver is waiting by the car, hands clasped behind his back. Sherlock murmurs something in his ear as he opens the car door for them and he receives another perfunctory nod in return.
He honestly doesn’t know how this next leg of the journey will go and he finds his palms getting clammy the closer and closer they drive. And when they finally pull up in front of the cemetery, even in the darkened car, Sherlock can see John’s face pale.
“Sherlock, no.”
“Please. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but please.”
John is shaking his head, but he opens the door anyway, body rigid and fists curled as if bracing for a fight. Sherlock watches him as he comes around the boot of the car, checking to make sure he’s not going to hit something or be sick or any other extreme reaction he’d be warranted to have what with Sherlock springing this on him and all.
Deciding that John has had enough time to get his bearings, he turns and begins the trek to the headstone he knows bears his name, stepping over fallen branches and around stones that mark graves that are actually full.
“You know the way,” John grits out. It’s an accusation if there ever was one.
“Yes,” Sherlock replies, semi-contrite.
Bringing his mobile out to use as torch, he lights up the imperious black marble that simply states, SHERLOCK HOLMES. No epitaph. No loving quote. He wanted it that way.
“Always did wonder why it didn’t have dates on it,” John spits. “Silly me.”
“Not silly,” Sherlock murmurs, placing his phone on the ground, torch side up and illuminating the space around them.
“Why are we here, Sherlock? Unless you tell me you’ve got another sodding bolthole in that tree over there.”
Sherlock inhales and meets John’s gaze. “This is where you stood when you asked me not to be dead.”
John sucks in a breath. Sherlock reaches out and gently, carefully, takes his cold hands.
“This is where I’m standing now, telling you I heard you.”
And that’s what does it - John buckles from the emotional weight that Sherlock has steadily placed on his shoulders all night, nearly hitting the ground, before Sherlock gets his arms around his waist and gently lowers them both down together. As it should have been.
As it always will be.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” is John’s response, mumbled though it is where his face is smashed against Sherlock’s chest. His fingers grip the lapels of the Belstaff as he presses closer, as if trying to burrow into Sherlock’s very body.
Sherlock can’t say he’d mind in the slightest.
And it’s this proof, this assurance that he holds a place of importance in John’s life, that makes him bold enough to press a kiss in John’s silvering hair. John freezes and pulls away just far enough to look into his face. Even with tears on his cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, he’s still the most beautiful thing Sherlock has ever seen.
He doesn’t say anything though. He studies Sherlock the way Sherlock studies the world and it’s more than a bit unnerving. Sherlock wonders what John can see: can he see the terror he feels at having done that? The love he’s tried so hard to hide? The desperation he felt every day trying to claw his way back to him?
John must see something because all he offers is a soft smile and a firm, but gentle hand on his cheek as he guides Sherlock forward and presses a lingering kiss to his forehead.
Sherlock’s breath hiccups and he closes his eyes, leaning further into the press of John’s lips and gripping the wrist on the hand that cups his face.
It’s a promise. A forgiveness. A beginning.
John pulls away and smiles that soft smile again. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Sherlock can’t agree fast enough considering their trousers are wet where they kneel in the grass and the night’s chill has seeped down to the very marrow of his bones.
The walk back to the car is slow and careful, as if neither quite knows how to navigate these new waters. But because Sherlock is Sherlock, he just can’t help himself:
“You’re not going to see that blonde again, are you?”
“Sherlock!”
“What? It’s a perfectly valid question!”
“Christ,” John laughs. “Back not 24 hours and already running my girlfriends off again.”
Oh he does not like that word. “Girlfriend?”
“Mm, I suppose it’s a stretch,” John acquiesces. “It was only our first date.” He nudges Sherlock’s shoulder, leaning into him more than necessary, letting their hands brush and their fingers tangle as they walk side-by-side. “I guess it was also our last date.”
Sherlock smiles.
“Better.”
Yes, yes it is.