Chapter Text
Sherlock fought the itch to jump up and wrap his arms around his best friend as he lay still on the cold concrete of the sidewalk. He knew the fake suicide would hurt his friend, but he hadn’t imagined how much more it would hurt himself to hear John cry out for him, rough fingers wrapping around his wrist to check for a pulse. Sherlock knew the ball lodged against the artery under his arm had temporarily stopped the pulse, but a tiny part of him wanted John to feel it anyways.
He listened carefully as someone pulled John away and kept his body limp while the paramedics lifted him onto the stretcher. John’s voiced faded out behind him as the gurney rushed into the hospital. None of these doctors knew, and there were a few moments of limbo before he heard a door shut and everything went quiet.
“I can’t believe you put him through that, Sherlock.” Molly whispered.
Sherlock opened his eyes and pulled the ball out from under his numb arm. He slid off the gurney. “I had to,” Sherlock said, meeting her eyes. She looked sad. He reached out and took her hand, hoping it to be a reassuring gesture. “Thank you.”
Molly looked away and pulled her hand from his. “How long are you going to keep this act up? I know you heard John out there. What of your parents? Your brother?”
Sherlock moved away from her, letting the logical part of his brain put away the emotional side, like it had been trained to do. He pulled off his coat and put it on the table next to them, then worked on his shoes. “They’ll manage. Hurry, we don’t have much time. Retrieve the cadaver, we’ll start dressing it.”
Molly didn’t move for a moment, then he heard her sigh - a soft, defeated sound - before she left the room. She came back, with a body under a sheet, locking the door behind her. Sherlock finished striping and pulled on the clothes Molly found for him. He’d be eternally grateful to her and the twenty something men and women in his homeless network that helped him pull this off. Really, she’d be the only one with the burden of keeping his secret from everyone, even his brother. He trusted her, and knew she could do it.
They finished everything they needed to do, and Molly (albeit reluctantly) promised she’d take care of what needed to be done. Sherlock had full confidence that she would.
It took Sherlock a long, draining fortnight to get to where he needed to be in East Russia. He knew where the main bases of operation for the people working under Moriarty were, and he had a plan to take them out. In the time it took him to get started under a masked identity, he caught wind of people working for his brother already dismantling the web. He used them as cover.
Working around Mycroft’s people and through a series of others, he began his mission. Often to stay out of the limelight he had to disappear for a few day at a time, or put a pause on the people and operations he was hunting. Despite his intentions, his nature drew him to solving cases as far on the down low as he could manage. He had to be careful, but his addiction to puzzling crimes won him over sometimes.
Time passed when Sherlock became consumed in his work - lots of time. He wanted to go home, but knew he couldn’t until his job finished. He had people to take down, places to find and plots to unravel. Cases he took sometimes ended up dangerous and bloody. Others connected to the vast kingdom Moriarty had created for himself. More than once Sherlock had narrowly escaped capture or recognition.
It took months. Time flew by without him noticing, because the work always ended up slow but busy. Often, he found himself collapsing in sketchy alleys or on the sofas of the few people he met and could trust. He forgot to eat or couldn’t find food sometimes, and on days like those he had to fight off images of a crackling fire and two armchairs. He couldn’t let himself think. He had to push through everything - then maybe he could return home.
One a particularly bad night, when his stomach had knotted itself and one of his lips had burst in a fight, he lay curled up and hidden in behind a rundown building, a tarp thrown over his head the only shield from the rain. Everything hurt and he was tired, and somehow the broken phone he stole still worked and he found himself on John’s blog. It hadn’t been updated in months, and though Sherlock knew it never would be again, that pesky emotional side of himself wanted to read in that familiar voice once more - just to hear John in his head.
Months, and long, deadly months later Sherlock found himself hot on an organization's trail to Germany. His heart pounded as he hid in the back of a cargo truck for hours, knowing that Moriarty’s people had almost come undone. The bits of the crime group left in Russia had just about been taken out by Mycroft’s people and if had stayed there longer, some of those men might be suspicious as to who else was helping. He heard there were a few people based out of Germany, and he hoped that if he could take them out quick enough, he might get home by the end of the year without anyone catching onto him (even if it was a year longer than he wanted o stay). But it was getting riskier.
Sherlock desperately wanted to go home, but as that option seemed to approach him, he started to realize he may not be welcome. It didn’t matter. He had to stay focused.
Until he messed up. Exhausted, he sloppily took out a target and left too much evidence behind - soon after it became obvious that Mycroft and his men were onto Sherlock. He had to be more careful, one more slip up and he’d be caught. Sherlock was sure Mycroft didn’t know it was him yet. He’d have to finished up quickly and get out of Germany soon.
It took a few more months than he had expected, but when he felt satisfied that he’d done what he could, he started making his way farther west.
Crossing into Belgium is where Mycroft caught him. Whoever Mycroft had been expecting, it obviously wasn’t Sherlock. He couldn’t recall a single other time that Mycroft had been rendered speechless. Sherlock’s instincts told him to run, that Mycroft hadn’t recognized him in his ratty appearance; but his mind told him stay . It’s over now .
For the first time in a very, very long time, his brother pulled him into a hug and Sherlock accepted it, letting his tired body collapse and for the first time in two years, allowing someone else to hold his weight. His hair was too long and greasy, covered in dirt and he hadn’t eaten in days but it’s one of the few times in his life he’s relieved to let that someone else take care of him for a little while.
After a while, his brother let go of him, but Sherlock could feel the reluctance in his loosened grip.
Mycroft put them both on a private flight back to the UK, and toward the end of it, Sherlock found his voice and inquired about their parents. They flew over the dreary grey city that Sherlock found comfort in seeing again, and Mycroft expertly avoided his question and almost perfectly deduced how he faked the suicide and where he’d been.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Mycroft asked in a softer voice than Sherlock had ever heard.
Sherlock stared out the window as they neared the airport. “Brilliant,” he murmured.
They didn’t speak while Mycroft brought Sherlock to one of his many tiny flats scattered about the country. Sherlock thoroughly enjoyed his first hot shower in months, and took extra care in washing all the grime and dirt out of his long hair, tugging his fingers through the knots and relishing in the feeling of the burning water. When he finished and left the shower, he leaned over the sink and shaved off his beard and cut his hair. It fell a little longer than his usual cut, but he was too tired to keep going.
Mycroft brought someone in to address Sherlock’s injuries (which were more than he expected them to be). A finger on his left hand that healed wrong had to be reset, the wrist on the same hand had a sprain, an infected cut on his leg from trying to stitch it himself, multiple half healed whip marks on his back from being caught a few weeks back. That had been a tricky one to escape. Bruises and random little scars decorated all of his skin.
Hours after returning to London, Sherlock sat across from Mycroft at a small table, eating the first proper meal he’d had in months. It’s quiet, they both have questions, and they both know there are things to do and people Sherlock needed to talk to.
Sherlock settled on the one question they both know he would ask sooner or later. “John?”
Mycroft looked away, Sherlock’s heart sank and his mind went into overdrive, outlining every possibility of anything that could have gone wrong and where he could be and what -
“John’s fine,” Mycroft interrupted his thoughts because he knew how Sherlock’s mind spiraled. By the way he said it, Sherlock knew there was more but his brother had always been better at keeping things from him. “We’re going to see our parents first; tomorrow.”
Violet sobbed and Sigar wouldn’t meet Sherlock’s eye while he swallowed his pride and sat across from them at a table, apologizing and explaining everything, and answering their questions. When his mother eventually did stop crying, she held him for a very long time. His father did the same.
He was at the estate for a few hours due to Mycroft not-so-subtly telling him that he owed his parents the time. Sherlock’s mind started to wander while he’s forced to stay there, and all the talking was giving him a headache so he got up to walk around the house alone for a while. He passed his old room, then Mycroft’s, and paused when he reached the boy’s. It hadn’t occurred to him, but he hadn’t seen Oliver anywhere in the house yet, nor any traces that he’d been there in a while. He nudged the door open, and looked around at the obvious missing things. Sherlock didn’t go in, he’d never felt welcome in the room, but he could see the missing clothing and books.
Sherlock made his way back down the stairs and paused in the doorway of one of the drawing rooms, his hand resting on the frame. “Where’s Oliver?”
His parents and Mycroft looked up, an awkward pause lingering in the air. In those few seconds, Sherlock realized exactly where Oliver was. The one place Sherlock wanted to be right now - with the one person he wanted to be with.
Mycroft must have seen it in his face, because he said, “Sherlock, now is not the time. Neither of them are ready to see you. You can’t show up out of the blue.”
Sherlock dug his nails into the doorframe. “I have to. I want to see John.”
Mycroft stood up. “You have no idea what that will do to him. You don’t know what it was like after you left.”
“John is strong.”
“Sherlock.”
“Fine!” Sherlock snapped. He wasn’t a child.
But he snuck out the next day.
He made it to Baker Street, hoping John still lived there, because he had no idea where the man would be. Reaching out to take the door handle, he noticed a tremor in his hand and opened and closed his fist a few times before pushing the door open. The light from Mrs Hudson’s flat was off, and a note he didn’t bother reading was taped to the door. She must be out. He crept up the stairs quietly, avoiding the creaking fifth step and the loose banister.
The door to 221B was locked and the lights were off - nobody was home. Sherlock moved the mat on the ground with his foot, then ran his fingers along the edge of the door frame, looking for a key. The phone Mycroft gave him started ringing, and he put his hand in his pocket and silenced it. His fingers slid down the wallpaper next to the door until he found a bump and a tear in the paper. He pulled the key out and unlocked the flat door, then closed it behind him.
He flicked the light on and thoughts and observations flooded his senses. He blinked them all away in favor of a tight pain at the back of his throat that tasted a lot like nostalgia and regret.
At first glance not much had changed, but the longer he took everything in, the more apparent it became how much actually did change. Aside from a book or two, most of Sherlock’s things were gone - which he expected. New books populated the shelves, different random little objects sat upon once busy surfaces. The ever-present newspaper clippings and case notes were gone from the walls. Everything looked neater yet still well inhabited. It still had that familiar smell of home though - one that made his chest feel tight.
His worn leather armchair still sat proudly by the fireplace but had been pushed back towards the window. It somehow managed to look filled though empty. The desk between the windows looked significantly cleaner than he was used to, a laptop closed on one side and a thick notebook with pencils scattered across the cover on the other. The curtains he remembered to be a dusty brown were replaced by a soft cream. Those too-dim lightbulbs had finally been changed. A beautiful drawing of the armchairs in front of the fireplace had been pinned above the sofa at the back of the room, next to an incredible painting of a beach at night.
A half-solved rubik’s cube sat on the mantle, it looked like it hadn’t been touched in awhile. Above it, next to the mirror he avoided looking into, were pictures. He recognized Oliver in the first one, though he hadn’t seen the child in more than a few years. The boy was sitting in front of a window, bulky headphones on, drawing in a notebook while snow gently fell out the window. Another, silly photo, of the boy posed mid-dance move, his head thrown back and pretending to hold a microphone. Sherlock’s throat tightened when his eyes moved up to the next one; John grinning up at whoever had taken the photo from the table he sat at, a party setting behind him. A few more scattered the wall next to those, one of Mrs Hudson covered in flower and Oliver holding an empty bag with a look of shock on his face. Another of John standing next to an attractive woman with similar features who must be his sister. He wondered why he had never bothered to meet her.
Sherlock tore his eyes away from the photos, and his feet moved him towards the stairs that would bring him to John’s room. The third stair still creaked and the bedroom door still had the rusty hinge Sherlock heard when he pressed his palm to the wood and the door swung open slowly. The room looked almost the same. The bedspread, once green, now a muted red. The curtains matched the ones in the sitting room, and the empty surfaces now had books and other trinkets. More pictures hung on the wall that Sherlock didn’t look at. His violin case peeking out from under John’s bureau made his chest heavy and he retreated out of the room, not touching anything.
The kitchen - cluttered with normal kitchen things instead of science equipment or half-finished experiments. Regular food inhabited the fridge instead of occasional body parts and Sherlock couldn’t find mold in any of the cabinets. He wondered if John checked regularly to make sure none ever grew. He made his way down the hallway and lightly pushed open the door to his old room, knowing it now belonged to someone else but the sight still made him somewhat sombre. He knew very little about the boy’s interests, but knew it belonged to Oliver because that’s what made sense.
Sherlock walked back into the sitting room, unsure what to do and feeling like a stranger in a place he once called home. The downstairs door opened and he stiffened. The urge to run overwhelmed him, but he fought it and took a breath when he heard two muffled voices then laughter come from the floor below. I shouldn’t be nervous. I’m Sherlock Holmes. He shut his eyes for a moment, willing the tremor in his hands to stop.
The door behind him creaked open.