Work Text:
Seeing The Signs
4 th May 2025
Sherlock can always see it before it happens. There will be something off about John’s posture. His shoulders will be tensed, lifting his shoulders closer to his neck. Then he’ll start rubbing his left shoulder, the shoulder where he was shot in Afghanistan. There would be something during the course of John’s day that triggered his darkest memories. Sometimes, it happened on a case. Something about the victim or someone close to them would awaken it. It could be a careless word or phrase said without the intention of being malignant. It might even be an overheard conversation in a shop or restaurant.
John lives a large percentage of his current life in a state of uncomprehending joy. Growing up, John never thought he’d have this life. Never thought he’d really take to it. He was a danger junkie. He thought he’d join the military after becoming a doctor, and be a soldier. A medic who also carried a rifle. Someone who could take a life as easy as save one. A paradox. He thought he’d make a career of it. Travel; have a lover in every port around the world. Never stay in any place for very long. Unfortunately for John, life had a different plan for him. It restarted with a bullet to the left shoulder, gunfire raining down around him, and an infection so life-threatening, and the disabling, he left the Army with an honorable discharge, a limp, and a cane. Then the most miraculous thing happened. But, even though someone’s life appears to be perfect on the outside, some people have demons to kill. John most certainly does.
This time, it was a case. Pretty innocuous to Sherlock, but not to John. Just another person lying dead on the ground. The person had eyes similar to Sherlock's, but he hadn’t noticed that part.
For the rest of that afternoon, and evening, John managed to put on a good show for his husband and daughter. He even managed to help her with some of her school work. She was only eight, after all.
Sherlock and John got Rosie cleaned up and tucked into bed, then cleaned up the dirty dishes from supper, packed Rosie’s lunch for school the next day, and watched a bit of telly before John headed to bed. Sherlock had some case notes to organise in his mind palace from their recently completed case and he also wanted to sterilize his lab equipment. (Rosie, while doing her own experiment on how long it would take for milk to curdle, accidentally spilled some milk on the table and contaminated his paraphernalia.)
Three hours later, a bit after three, Sherlock was lying, supine, on the sofa, hands steepled in thought in his usual thinking pose. For an unknown reason, he was thrown from his mind palace and back to the real world. He laid there stunned. He stayed silent and still. And then he heard a cry from down the hall. His eyes immediately registered the sound. He sat up and leaned his body towards the noise. A few moments later, he heard it again. It sounded more animalistic. A bit primal.
“Not both of you! No! Please no! I can’t not again. Sherlock! NO!!!”
Sherlock was up from the couch and running before he realised it. He opened the door, and there was the squeak of a hinge. (He forgot to oil it again.)
John was sitting in the center of their bed, shaking his head from side to side, as if seeing something very real. And very horrible.
“John.” Sherlock sat on the bed by John’s feet. He lightly rubbed John’s ankle and foot and kept saying his name. He stayed far enough away in case John became violent in his current state.
“John. You’re all right. You’re home. You’re safe. You’re in London with me. Rosie is upstairs sleeping. You’re in our flat on Baker Street. You’re okay. Just wake up for me.”
He kept up his hands' motions, eventually trailing a soft, lingering trail up his right calf to his knee. John was waking up. A rough breath startling his body to wakefulness. Sherlock slid further up the bed to catch John before he tumbled to the bed.
“I got you. Come here. Just sit here with me and wake up a bit, okay.” Sherlock tried to blink the tears away before John could see, but, as always, John did see.
“Sherlock! Oh, Christ. Shit. Let me see you! Let me see your eyes! I need to see the light in them. I need to see you’re you and that you’re alive!” John’s hands made their way to Sherlock’s face, pushing his greying hair off of his forehead, peering into his eyes with his own. He was seemingly unaware of his own anguish, just fueled by adrenaline and fear. His hands roamed free then; running haphazardly over Sherlock’s body. He checked Sherlock's neck for a pulse; ran his hand over his heart and let it drift there. He smelled Sherlock’s neck and then his body began to realise the false alarm. The adrenaline that spiked his energy left almost as quickly as it came and he slumped against Sherlock’s chest.
Once he felt it was safe to do so, Sherlock put his arms around John and pressed him close against himself. John spoke against Sherlock’s neck:
“I dreamt that you and Mary were both lying on the ground, both of you shot, and I had to try to help you both. I sat between you two, working on one of you and then switching to the other. I was losing both of you, and then I had to choose one of you to save and one of you to let die. I just sat there, trying to choose between you: The mother of my daughter, or the man that I loved. I lost you both in the dream. And then I woke up. It was horrible, Sherlock. When she died, she looked like she did when she died in my arms. Hole in the middle of her chest. You looked like you did the afternoon you fell: Your eyes were glazed over. I kept trying to touch you, but my arms couldn’t reach you. I just sat between you both and wailed and sobbed. Like a useless nob.”
“Oh, John. I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay, love. Really. We’ve talked about this, you and I, at length, so many times. It’s been settled. Apologies for our past transgressions have been made and accepted. This is me. It’s a psychological thing for me. Most likely will be forever. I saw the mother of my daughter die. I watched you almost die three times. Not to mention the shit I saw in Afghanistan. This is all my fucked-up brain telling me something was wrong. My subconscious tried to work it out, but since that’s impossible, here we are. Being here like this with you is infinitely better than the ending of my dream.”
He smiled, an exhausted, watery thing, and slid his own arm around Sherlock’s back. He kissed Sherlock's throat and lingered, his lips pressed to Sherlock’s carotid. While taking his pulse with his lips, he fell asleep in Sherlock's arms. He guided John back underneath their bedclothes and tucked in beside him. The mess in the kitchen could wait until morning.