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Sherlock had never understood Christmas. Or birthdays. Or really any occasion that required a card and a lot of sentimentality and obligated social gatherings. He simply did not see the point in it all. You were supposed to write meaningless greetings to people you saw every day and give them gifts they were perfectly capable of buying themselves. Christmas in particular was rife with bizarre rituals and traditions that held no bearing in Sherlock’s mind. As baffling as it was tedious.
But there was one thing that Christmas was. It was unavoidable. Even for Sherlock.
And this year, for the first time in a very, very long time, Sherlock found himself on Christmas Eve inexplicably attached to the anticipation of the event. This year, there was something that he wanted very badly. No, it was something he needed.
He shook his head and tried to drive all thoughts of Christmas from his mind. There were several things he needed. He needed to find somewhere to spend the night. He needed to keep his mind clear, alert and focussed. For that, he needed sleep. He needed to get out of the cold.
Sherlock had simply not factored for how bitingly cold this part of America could get in the middle of winter. John would have laughed at that. Knowledge of climates and weather patterns clearly went the way of the solar system.
No.
He should not have been thinking about John. Not yet.
Sherlock had learnt early on that thinking about John all the time was not helpful. In small doses, thinking about John was both powerful motivation and comforting salvation. But not all the time. It had to be controlled. All the time and it was destructive.
There was a bitter similarity to Sherlock’s addiction, drug dependant days. It was an irony not lost on Sherlock. It would have made him laugh, if it weren’t so achingly painful.
He kept walking, partly to keep warm, partly because movement helped that part of his brain shut off.
Concentrate, he told himself, angry at his brain for disobeying him. Prioritize.
First things first: that safe place to spend the night. The main streets of the city were bedecked with decorations, fairy lights and window displays as blatant reminders of the holiday at every turn. Late shoppers were crowding every pathway there. The further Sherlock walked into the increasingly rundown streets and alleys the less signs of festivity there were. In fact, there were less and less signs of anyone at all. Everything became darker, emptier. And that was how Sherlock wanted it.
Eventually he stopped on a deserted street outside a near-derelict building. The peeling paintwork of the sign above the door marked the ground floor as a second hand clothes store. The boarded up windows showed it as quite clearly, permanently, closed for business. A clothes shop was good. There was the potential for abandoned stock; more layers against the chill clinging to his bones. He walked to the side of the building and found what he had been hoping for; there was a gap at the window not covered by boards that he might, just, be able to squeeze through.
Cupping his hands against exterior light, Sherlock peered through the murky glass. There was no movement inside. Good. Sherlock had no desire to take up residence alongside other members of the city’s homeless community. He wanted neither a fight, which was likely, nor any other kind of interaction or companionship they may offer him.
Sherlock dropped the backpack he was carrying from his shoulder and delved a hand inside. His gloved fingers passed the few items of clothing he was not wearing, past his phone –not yet- and settled, momentarily on the cool metal of the gun. Moriarty’s gun. Sherlock had been carrying it solidly ever since that rooftop. A poetic justice that Sherlock was now using it to take down the web of its former owner. That irony really did make Sherlock smile.
At last his hand closed around the torch. It was large, and heavy, so much so that Sherlock had been tempted to just throw it away weeks ago. He could get a smaller one. But the torch had its uses. Just days ago, it had been that torch and a well-timed blow to the temple of a gunman that had allowed Sherlock to escape, more or less, unscathed. Sherlock glanced up and down the street just to make sure it really was deserted as he pulled out the torch and held it in position against the glass.
He looked briefly to the dilapidated apartment building across the street. No one was watching from any of the half a dozen or so lit windows, nor the many more darkened ones. Sherlock doubted anyone would have done anything even if they did see him. Break-ins to empty shops were surely the least of anyone’s problems in this street. Still, he did not want to risk being watched, or followed. He did not come this far by dropping his guard. Not ever. He drew back the torch and brought the handle down against the window, hard.
Twice and the glass cracked.
Three times and it shattered.
Sherlock was grateful for the thick gloves he was wearing as he pushed at the jagged shards, breaking a bigger hole. Pinpricks of pain flared where splinters of glass caught the back of his wrist but he ignored it.
One final glance over his shoulder and he pushed himself through the window, dropping down inside, pulling the bag after him.
Glass crunched beneath his feet as he stood up. The dim light of the streetlamp outside was his only illumination to the gutted interior of the shop. Just enough light to see the area where the cash register once stood and to know that anything of any value had been taken long ago. Fumbling slightly, Sherlock flicked the switch of the torch.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
Sherlock groaned low in his throat. He did not need this now.
He tugged off his gloves with frustrated pulls, casting them to the floor beside his bag. He ran numb fingers over the torch. It was dented where it had caught the window frame on his first or second attempt to break the glass. A fine crack ran across the lens.
Sherlock swore under his breath and threw the useless object away from him into the dark. He should have kicked the glass in, had been stupid to do otherwise. But his left leg still bore cuts, deep and several inches long, from where he had crawled under barbed wire a week ago. He had been hoping to avoid injuring the other leg.
It took him longer than it should have done to remember that he did still have his phone. He had been thinking about it nearly constantly for days, in a compartmented part of his brain, and now he had nearly forgotten it. The weak light from the screen was nowhere near as bright as he would have liked but it was all he had. He moved the phone steadily through the air in front of himself, taking in everything he could and committing it to memory. He clicked off the phone and slid it back into the bag. He did not want to run the battery down unnecessarily.
He shuffled, still hesitantly, into the room. He kicked his bag along in front of him. It would at least alert him to any obstacles that he failed to see. In this way he steered himself around a table, an over turned chair and several broken clothing rails. He kicked his way through a small heap of t-shirts like a child wading through autumn leaves. His hopes were not high on there being anything in that pile of rags worth wearing. If whoever had gutted the place had seen them as unworthy Sherlock was pretty sure he would too, even when he was forced to lower his standards.
He was about to sit down against the back wall when he thought better of it. He made his way back across the room, this time pushing the table in front of him and placing it in front of the broken window. He placed the chair on top of the table. It would at least give him warning if anyone tried to enter during the night. Again he crossed the store that would be his home for the night and this time allowed himself to flop down, back resting against the wall. Here he could keep an eye on all the windows, and the door. He was as safe as he ever would be here.
He was once more reaching for the phone when he became aware of dampness creeping across his now bare palm. He blinked, trying to get his eyes accustomed to the gloom. He raised his hand and tentatively put out his tongue to taste whatever it was.
Blood. He was bleeding.
Of course, the window. A steady trickle of blood had been working its way down his wrist and over his hand for a good fifteen minutes. He had done a good job of putting the annoying twinging from his mind. But now he realised quite how badly it was bleeding he found it hard to ignore so easily. Again, Sherlock swore. He would have said the world was conspiring against him, if he was inclined to say anything as mundane and illogical as that. If he believed in fate or luck, good or bad, he would have despaired long ago.
He briefly considered the clothes scattered across the floor but decided against it. There was a faint smell of urine in here, either animal or human; it was hard to tell which. The last thing Sherlock wanted was an infection. He resorted instead to his own stash of clothes. He found a crumpled t-shirt already splattered with a faint blood stain he knew was his own. Using his teeth and the small knife he kept in his jeans pocket Sherlock ripped strips from the fabric and wiped the wound clear. Again using the light of his phone he could see there were in fact several small cuts where his sleeve had rolled up leaving exposed skin. One of them could probably do with stitches but that was out of the question. He would look at it properly in the morning. For now he simply wrapped more strips of fabric around his wrist and tied it off. He was at least grateful that it was the back, and not the inside, of his forearm that had seen the worst of the damage.
Another annoying necessity taken care of.
Sherlock briefly considered lighting a fire, but quickly dismissed the idea as stupid. Smoke in a confined space was neither enjoyable nor helpful when one wanted to be left alone. It was warm enough in here, out of the wind. There had been snow predicted for tonight and he had a space to see that through.
He could see no further reason preventing him from doing what he had been itching to do for so long.
And yet…
Now that the moment came, he found himself putting it off. He counted the loose change from the bottom of his bag. It was running low. Sherlock would have to put his pick pocketing skills into practice before too long. He did have enough money to buy himself breakfast in the morning, or at least a hot drink. Somewhere would be open, surely. He hoped so anyway. His food that day had consisted of two stale biscuits.
He had gone far longer without proper food in the past, could go on for days, so long as he kept his mind focussed and his body busy. But he was, for now at least, in a lull. A few days of peace before he had to move on to his next target. How strange. Even the criminal network seemed to shut down for the holidays.
He thought about what John might say at Sherlock’s lack of food. He remembered how John would nag at him to eat, even going so far once as to pin Sherlock down to the sofa and threaten to force feed him if he was incapable of doing it himself. As it turned out, that had been more of an exercise in getting them both laughing again after too many days strung along on a case full of clues that pointed nowhere. Sherlock had eaten that time, and many other times before and after, to stop John glaring, or clucking like a concerned mother hen.
Food had always been simply a means to an end, fuel to keep the transport that was his body working. But he found sometimes that eating with John was in itself a simple pleasure. He would have given anything in the world to be with John now, in their flat with a take away and bad Christmas telly. Or else, at Angelo’s, being mistaken for a couple even after countless attempts by John to set the record straight.
Sherlock wanted to smoke, badly, and knew again exactly what John would have to say about that. He remembered John’s amusement at Sherlock’s attempts to bribe and coerce a cigarette from him. He remembered John’s barely stifled rage when he had found Sherlock smoking from his hidden stash. Sherlock had found this comical at first – “Anyone would think you were my mother, John”- but it had ultimately been the disappointment that had flashed in his friends eyes that made Sherlock throw out the rest of the cigarettes that very day.
This reminiscing was getting him nowhere.
The stalling was self-preservation, really. No point in getting his hopes up. He might not even get reception here. The battery may die. There probably wouldn’t even be anything to see. There had not been anything in months and there was very little reason it should change now. Except…Molly had promised she would try.
Those had been her words to him the last time they had spoken, back in November it must have been. Sherlock had been hunched over a pay phone in the middle of the night to compensate for the time difference. And that was what she had said to him.
“I’ll try, Sherlock. It can be my Christmas present to you.” And she’d laughed, softly. “I can’t promise it’ll work but I promise I’ll try my best.”
And Sherlock did trust Molly. He knew that her best was quite a lot.
There was no sense in putting it off any longer. Before his nerves failed him altogether Sherlock tapped onto the phone’s web browser. His heart pounded faster as he realised it was actually connecting. His finger shook as he typed in the familiar web address. The phone was slow at best. He had a minute or so to wait. His eyes flicked to the clock in the corner of the screen. His stomach lurched.
It was already Christmas day in London, if only by a couple of hours. John would probably be sleeping.
Sherlock could not help but think of last Christmas. What with the whole Irene Adler fiasco it wasn’t exactly what you could call a perfect Christmas. But out of a lifetime of celebrations deleted from his mind, Sherlock clung on to that one. He had bought John’s present online, not because he knew it was expected, but because he wanted to. If he didn’t know better he would have identified the fluttering in his stomach as he wrapped it as the first markers of excitement, anticipation to see John unwrap it. Of course that was just silly. Sherlock didn’t get excited about things like that. A good murder case, yes. But not Christmas.
He had helped John decorate the tree, after watching John drag it up the stairs huffing and muttering as he went- “oh no, Sherlock, don’t get up I don’t need your help at all” “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, John”. He had even strung a spare set of fairy lights along the curtain rail and a sprig of mistletoe above the doorway while John was out. It was merely because it was easier for Sherlock to reach, and the last thing he needed was John toppling off the back of the armchair and winding up with some kind of injury. It had nothing, or very little, to do with the surprised and pleased look on John’s face when he came in to find the living room glowing.
Sherlock had forgotten altogether that there was anything so ridiculous as a kissing custom associated with mistletoe. John had to explain it that night after Sherlock had stared blankly, nonplussed as John joked that they’d have to be careful not to meet in the doorway. Sherlock had been mortified and had been about to pull the stupid thing down when john stayed him with a hand on his arm.
“Leave it Sherlock, it looks nice. And anyway, we don’t routinely go through doors together like some sort of…comedy double act or something.”
Even so Sherlock timed going through that doorway very carefully and on the one occasion where he misjudged it and met John halfway he faltered for a moment before brushing past as though nothing at all were different. He could always say he had deleted that piece of trivia as soon as he heard it. Not that John commented.
He had blushed though, Sherlock realised now as he replayed the scene. John had gone faintly pink. He had been looking up at the mistletoe, and then at Sherlock, almost as though…he surely couldn’t have been expecting…No. No, John had been…relieved! Good old Sherlock. Could be relied upon to recite every bone in the body and the various ways in which their fracturing could affect you but couldn’t hold the simplest bit of tradition for more than a minute. Surely that’s what John must have been thinking.
Sherlock focussed his eyes again on the screen in front of him.
John’s blog had one new entry.
The air in the room was suddenly difficult to breathe. His hands were shaking worse than ever now as he held the phone close to his face. He found himself illogically huddling up, curling over the phone as though trying to shield it from harm.
He read the first words carefully, drinking it in. He could almost hear John’s voice.
I know I haven’t posted anything in a while. Thank you everyone who sent messages while I was gone.
Sherlock could just picture John’s painfully slow typing of those sentences. Had he retyped them? Had he ended that second sentence differently, but found even typing out ‘after Sherlock died’ too painful? Or maybe Sherlock was just reading far too much into this. He would be here all night if he spent this long over analysing every line. Not that that seemed like such a bad thing.
His eyes raced across the screen, random words and phrases leaping out at him.
It was Molly’s idea I post this.
Sherlock smiled. Of course, brilliant Molly. He knew he could rely on her.
She said it might make things easier. Moving on. Or at least, looking at the present.
Not that I could ever move on really. It’s not like I’m forgetting.
Sherlock swallowed hard. It was almost like John was apologising. Guilt stabbed at Sherlock’s insides.
We went out tonight, me and Molly and some others. We went for a meal. Somewhere new.
Sherlock read ‘somewhere new’ and knew it meant ‘somewhere I don’t get reminded of him’.
He wanted to know who else was included in the ‘we’.
It was good, really. I laughed more than I can remember doing in a long time.
Sherlock kept reading. Every word was like a tiny firework going off inside him. Everyday information, little updates about John’s life, his work, his health. Sherlock winced when John said his limp had returned, cringed at the mention of nightmares. New nightmares, not about the war.
He smiled as he read John had not been back to his therapist.
Sherlock was right. She’s useless.
He didn’t even remember saying that, but John did.
I nearly bought him a Christmas card the other day. Had it in my hand in the shop and everything. Isn’t that stupid?
No. Sherlock thought. It’s not stupid. He’d nearly done the same thing.
I keep thinking I see him places. Not even places he went when he was here.
He was writing like Sherlock had just moved away. Maybe that was the only way he could deal with it.
Stupid places, like the bus or the tube. I even thought I saw him in the supermarket once, standing next to the milk. Which is really stupid because I don’t think he ever bought milk once in the entire time I knew him.
The last words of John’s post stopped him completely.
Merry Christmas, Sherlock.
Merry Christmas. John was wishing him Merry Christmas. Without knowing that Sherlock could, let alone would, read it, John was wishing him a Merry Christmas.
This was better than anything Sherlock could have hoped for.
Sherlock scrolled right to the bottom, read the comments.
I’m glad you’re doing ok, John.
It’s nice to hear you’re doing ok. Merry Christmas!
Yeah tonight was great, we’ll see you tomorrow!
That ‘we’ again. Who would John be spending the holidays with? His sister, maybe, if they were on speaking terms this month. Mrs. Hudson, probably, unless she was at her sister’s. Molly had said she’d stop by. Not Lestrade though. Sherlock could read through the lines enough to know that John was not in contact with anyone from Scotland yard.
He still blamed them.
Better than John blaming himself, Sherlock supposed.
He scrolled back to the top of the page and began reading again. This time he did it slowly, not wanting to miss anything.
He read it a third time after that. He kept reading until his eyes blurred and the screen died. He didn’t mind. He’d already memorised every word. He fell asleep still holding the phone in one hand.
When he woke the next day snow had blown in through the broken window and settled on the floor. Sherlock picked his way through the abandoned clothes, just to make sure he was leaving nothing behind, before heading outside. The streets were once more deserted, but now turned white. The effect was to make even the grim neighbourhood look almost magical.
Sherlock swallowed his pride and visited a homeless shelter. It wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated at least. He got food- See John, I can look after myself- and warmth for at least an hour or two.
He left after one of the volunteers, a young woman, spotted his wrist. He knew that sad, understanding look that she gave him. She reminded him very much of Molly, and how she had looked at him as she had said “what do you need?”
This woman, like Molly, was so sure she could fix whatever was wrong with Sherlock. So willing to try at any rate. This time however, Sherlock was not at all interested in anything this woman could offer. He tried to explain, gave an edited version of the truth. She just smiled and patted his good hand and said she was there to help.
Sherlock made his exit soon after that.
All the while, Sherlock held John’s words inside him like a talisman. They warded off the cold and pain from his new cuts. They were the motivation that drove him to go to the shelter in the first place. And when he was again alone, wondering the streets, they kept him company.
Merry Christmas, Sherlock.
Sherlock repeated those words over and over to himself. He tattooed them into his memory, lined the walls of his mind palace with him. He did not know how to repay John for this.
Eventually, on New Year’s Eve he decided. He stole a new phone and loaded up the blog post he already knew line for line. As an anonymous guest he left four, simple words.
And a Happy New Year, John.