Chapter Text
Sherlock’s body feels cold, and very heavy. His coat is sodden with stinking river water, and his curls are matted to his head. His shoes and socks are gone, and his long, pale feet stick out incongruously from his dark trousers, slicked with muck and brown blood from the sharp stones and garbage he now lies upon. He is very still.
He opens his eyes just as he feels the burning in his throat, and rolls himself over enough to let a stomachful of brownish grey water pour out of his mouth. He gasps and coughs and spits, and pushes himself stubbornly to sitting. He whips his head around, looking for someone – someone was just with him, he is sure of it – but he is alone. The sky is the steel grey-blue of impending dawn, and London is sedate. Sherlock takes a deep breath, then another, and then he tries his voice.
“John.”
He looks up into the sky. It is beginning to snow.
Sherlock is shivering like mad now, and he’s soaked straight through to his skin. But he gets his feet beneath him and wraps his coat around him, and staggers, dripping and shaking, up the bank toward the road. He is muddled, disoriented, and so recites to himself the solid facts:
“I am wet, and cold. And barefoot. And it is snowing. It’s –”
Sherlock stops.
“It’s Christmas day, isn’t it,” he says, and though he shivers, a bloom of warmth begins to unfurl in his chest. Somewhere close and getting ever closer, he hears the familiar wail of sirens. He climbs up from the riverbank and stumbles onto the road, and suddenly there are lights all around him, blue and red, and behind him the muted glow of the sun just peeking out from between the buildings of the city. He smiles.
“Sherlock!”
A cacophony of voices bursts out to his left, and out of a pair of police cars tumbles a motley assortment of people. John is the first Sherlock sees, and in that moment, the rest don’t matter. He stands up very straight and holds his hands out as if to say, ta-da!
But John is having none of it.
His face is set like stone, and he lunges at Sherlock’s middle, and for a moment he is sure John means to tackle him to the ground in anger again, but the tipping over never comes, and Sherlock finds himself wrapped around the middle by John Watson’s arms.
“John,” he says, and it earns him a tighter squeeze that feels so nice, he says his name again.
“Jesus Christ,” John mumbles into Sherlock’s chest.
“It’s Christmas, John. And I’m wet and cold and my nose is not broken and it’s snowing,” Sherlock rattles off excitedly, even though all of those things are completely obvious. It’s the most triumphant deduction he’s ever made, because it means he’s alive, and so is John, and John knows him again. Sherlock pushes John gently, just enough so that he can look at his face.
“I thought you were gone,” says John.
“I was,” Sherlock says. “But I’m not anymore.”
“Where’ve your shoes got to?” John asks, looking him over. Sherlock shrugs, but lets him manoeuvre them both to sitting on the kerb. “You’re in shock.”
“No, I’m not, things have never been more clear.” Sherlock reaches up and grabs John’s hands where they’re automatically checking Sherlock’s head for bumps and wounds. “You said you’d love me until the day you died.”
John’s hands finally go still. In fact his whole body goes rigid, and he stares at Sherlock with wide eyes.
“I –” John fumbles. “I didn’t –”
“You did. But I got you one better because I loved you ‘til the day I died, and now here I am, the day after, and I still love you, and I don’t think I’m ever going to stop. I just thought you should know.”
John’s eyes remain very big, though when he finally does blink, one big fat tear rolls out of each, which he hastily swipes away with the heel of his hand.
“John,” Sherlock sits back. “I didn’t intend to upset you, I –”
“I thought you were gone,” John says again, and the way his voice comes out this time pierces something deep inside Sherlock. He understands, remembers his black mood and what they’d said to each other and cannot think of a way to tell John it’s all right, cannot think of words that will make him know how sorry he is. He has never been good at apologies, and he owes John so many, thousands maybe. Just then Sherlock feels a pressure on his back, as if someone has placed their hands there and is pushing. So he leans forward, and John leans into him.
Their lips touch, soft at first, and then John is holding Sherlock’s head in his hands and pressing their faces together, his mouth smudging against Sherlock’s, hot and desperate and joyful. Sherlock’s heart is beating fit to burst, and he can’t keep up with it, so after a moment of bumping noses and teeth he just lets John kiss his face over and over, and his breath is a warm cloud that smells of home.
Then John wraps his arms around Sherlock squeezing him so nicely again, and buries his face in Sherlock’s neck. So Sherlock does the same, even though he is wet, and getting John wet as well. John doesn’t seem to care.
“I don’t want to know what a world without you in it is like,” John says. His stubble is pleasantly scratchy against the side of Sherlock’s face, and his breath is warm on his skin.
“You really don’t,” agrees Sherlock.
Sherlock cradles the back of John’s neck in one of his big hands, letting his fingers rake up through his short, wispy hair. He likes the feeling of John against him like this, and hopes it is something they are allowed to continue to do even when Sherlock’s life has not just been endangered. He closes his eyes to enjoy it.
When he opens them again, he sees a boy across the road, sitting on the concrete steps that lead to the courtyard of a block of flats. He’s mousy and freckled, and tall for his age, and at the moment fully engrossed in tying perfect bows on his brand new pair of trainers. When he tightens the last knot, he sits up and admires the way they fit his feet. Then he jumps down the stairs onto the pavement.
He catches Sherlock’s eye and points down at his newly bedecked feet, tilting his head and grinning as if asking, What do you think?
Sherlock smiles, wide and real, in answer. They’re perfect.
He gives Sherlock a little nod and bounces happily on the balls of his feet.
In the space of a blink, Carl is gone.
“What are you looking at?” John asks. He’s pulled away a bit, looking up at Sherlock’s face, amusingly puzzled. Sherlock grins and shakes his head.
“Nothing. Just a thought.”
John kisses him again, just lightly, on the corner of his mouth.
“Come on, then,” he says. “Let’s get you home.”
Sherlock just barely stops himself from saying, I already am.
---
It’s not the best Christmas party 221B will ever be host to, but it is by far better than last year. Much less death. Sherlock pads around the flat in his tartan dressing gown, letting John make a fuss over him. He is on his best behaviour since he’d convinced John not to cancel. Lestrade and Molly show up, and Sherlock makes a point of telling her that the shade of her red dress compliments the blue undertones of her skin. She only looks puzzled for a moment before understanding it as a compliment, and bends down to give him a small, fond kiss on his cheek.
Sherlock is at his desk, being contentedly unsocial as he scrolls through tabs and tabs of articles. John’s blog is open in a separate window, and he goes back to it every now and again, just happy that it is there in its entirety, and that it matches up with each date of each corresponding news story.
His email pings when John sits down next to him. John is pleasantly drunk, ruddy in his cheeks and all of his smiles come soft around the edges. Beneath the table, Sherlock feels John’s warm hand rest on his knee. He slips his own hand down and covers John’s with his own. He wants that weight, that anchor to stay just a moment longer. Next to them, Mrs. Hudson sips her glass of wine and listens as Harry trades her a story about a trip to California for the one Mrs. Hudson had just told about her time in Florida. Lestrade and Molly are settled on the couch, sitting much too close and laughing far too often.
Sherlock opens the email.
You’re quite right about the unexpectedness, but it’s not at all unwelcome. I had honestly been meaning to ring you up since seeing your name in the papers. Cheers to that, by the way! Always had a knack for it – glad to see it’s come of good use.
Things have been rather different since dad passed away. He’d changed since he had the stroke that summer. But toward the end I do think he came around. More, at least, than I’d expected. He even attended the ceremony. I still feel guilty for not speaking my mind sooner, but as I’m sure you know, things have to happen in a certain way in order for the outcome to be right. I have to say again how sorry I am, even though it’s just words.
In any case, if you’re not averse, I’d like to meet up. Alexander and I will be in London come the end of January. Perhaps we can treat you to a belated birthday dinner. (He can tell you all about his apis mellifera specimens. Seems like something you’d like, and I hope you do because he won’t shut up about them anyway, the darling git.)
Merry Christmas to you (and John),
Victor
A throat cleared in the doorway snaps his attention away from the screen.
Mycroft is standing primly framed there, umbrella dangling from his elbow as he tucks away his phone with one hand and holds up a box with the other.
“Is that – a tin of biscuits?” John says, and the bemusement on his face at this sight is the best gift Sherlock could have asked for.
Mycroft merely gives one of his wry smiles and places the tin down on the coffee table.
“Oh my – Peyton and Byrne?” Molly says, eyeing the lid. “They’ve been sold out for days, and all booked on special orders for a month!”
“Yes, well,” Mycroft says nonchalantly as he takes a seat in John’s chair, resting his umbrella carefully against the arm. “My position holds a few sterling perks.”
“Understatement of the decade,” John says to Sherlock, low but loud enough for Mycroft to arch an eyebrow at him.
“Of course you would use said perks to procure desserts,” Sherlock says. But there is no spite in it, no barbs upon the words, and Sherlock knows Mycroft has noticed. He sits back in John’s chair, crossing one long leg over the other and setting his arms upon the rests. He looks like a captain at the helm of a ship, but his expression is serene and a little embarrassed for being so. John goes to offer him a drink, and Sherlock says nothing further to him.
They merely exchange a look, and it says more than a hundred paltry words could.
Mycroft is forty-two and sitting in his flat, and for the first time Sherlock is almost happy to see him there. He closes the laptop and crosses over to the window, on which his violin case rests. He draws it out and tucks it under his chin, places his bow lightly upon the string. The room, which had been filled with chatter and laughing, falls slowly quiet.
He plays.
---
Later, when everyone has gone and he has convinced John to leave the tidying for Boxing Day, he will listen to the sound of John in the shower. Sherlock will be sitting on his bed, the soft fabric of John’s bathrobe bunched in his hands. It smells of him, and Sherlock steals a moment to bury his nose in it, to bask in the warmth of familiarity and silly sentiment.
He thinks perhaps sentiment isn’t as silly when it comes to John. It is also Christmas after all; he can blame his momentary lapse on that distraction.
He will look up when he realises the shower has stopped, and John will slide the door open and pop his head and one arm out from behind the pebbled glass.
Sherlock will stand with a flourish and go toward the far window, holding up the old blue thing by the shoulders like a matador’s cape.
“Oh,” he will say, “This is an interesting situation.”
“Sherlock,” John will say, giving him that look that is only half-menacing. “Give me my robe.”
Sherlock will pout and shake his head.
“I swear I’ll start shouting if you don’t.”
“Of course you won’t. You’d wake Mrs. Hudson.”
John will grump and plead and threaten and huff exasperatedly, and it will become harder and harder for Sherlock to keep a straight face.
“Fine,” John will say, “I’ll just march back up to my room in the nude, but it’ll be on you if I catch my –”
“Stay with me tonight,” Sherlock will say abruptly, trying to make it not sound so unsure, just so slightly tinged with a need he can’t name. He won’t quite succeed, but it will make John smile nevertheless. He’ll dip his head bashfully and slide the door open.
Sherlock will stare.
Then he’ll come back to himself with a shake of his head. He’ll hold out the robe to John. John will walk across the room to him (this will only take a few seconds, but it will feel like much, much longer) and take the robe without letting his eyes leave Sherlock’s.
But he won’t put it on.
They’ll pass the night in Sherlock’s bed, folded into each other, skin against skin. Sherlock will breathe quietly against the slope of John’s sleep-warm shoulder. He will marvel at this man, this one human out of so many that has come to mean so much to him. Who shined light into the empty spaces in himself he didn’t even notice were there. Who filled up his life and his mind with things he never thought he needed, or deserved to have.
Friendship, love. Care.
Sherlock won’t remember falling asleep, but he’ll wake up and John will still be there.
---
That all comes later, however.
Right now, he plays, eyes closed, slowly navigating around furniture and guests seamlessly. He belongs in this place; his life wraps around him like a well-made suit of clothes. He knows he’ll be haunted by the memory of what it was like without him, what it was like without them, and though he keeps thinking that it should have been an ego trip to see how many lives he alone had impacted – it doesn’t actually feel that way. He’s been given something: it was as much a gift as it was a warning, and he is smart enough to know what that means.
What Sherlock does feel is a humble gratitude that he fits, and that out of all possible and probable outcomes, the picture of his life has come to look like this.
- the end -