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It was too easy to become accustomed to meaningless ritual.
Sherlock had no use for sustenance or politeness, but the day Moriarty was acquitted, there was simply nothing else to do but make tea.
Moriarty took a teacup when he arrived, sitting down in Sherlock’s chair. “Don’t tell me you’re not just the tiniest bit pleased,” he said. “Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain, after all.”
“This isn’t a fairy tale.”
“No, it’s something much more thrilling, isn’t it? Do you know the original purpose of fairy tales? Of course you do. They weren’t to entertain, you know, they were warnings. Warnings about the things in the dark. Things like us.”
Sherlock sat, taking a sip of his own tea. “Like you, perhaps.”
“Mm,” Moriarty hummed. “Yes, you and big brother are a bit of an aberration, aren’t you? Never played well with the others.”
“And I suppose you did,” Sherlock said, raising a brow.
“Other gods are so boring,” Moriarty complained. “So stuck in their boxes. Their roles.” He made a face that would have been disappointed were it not so theatrical. “Not like you and me.”
“I never had a role.”
“I did. And look at me now. No one ever gives me tribute anymore, not like they used to. But I found a way around all that.” Moriarty set his cup down. “Have you told your little friends yet, why I broke into all those places and never took anything?”
“You didn’t take anything because you don’t need to. You were showing the world what you could do. Advertising.”
“And you were helping, don’t forget.” Moriarty smiled. “But I know you can go deeper than that. What was I really doing?”
Sherlock rested his hands on the arms of the chair, taking a breath. “Every criminal organisation in the world is saying your name, all of them clamouring for your favour and admiring your brilliance.”
“Bingo! They all want me. I love to watch them all competing. Gives me a nice fuzzy feeling, right here.” He touched his chest. “Well, you should know; you’ve got John.”
Sherlock couldn’t help the way he tensed at John’s name. John, who thankfully should be at least twelve more minutes away.
“John keeps you in good health, doesn’t he?” Moriarty asked as he toyed with the buttons on his cuffs. “And you’re practically a celebrity these days. Still, it must be nice to have a live-in one…”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “There’s something else. Why are you doing all this, what is it all for?”
“Haven’t you worked out what it is yet? I did tell you, but did you listen? It’s been fun, really it has, but playtime is over.” Moriarty smiled. “All gods fall, in the end. And I owe you.”
-----
Mycroft came by two days later. He paused when he walked into the room, which was uncharacteristic, and actually sighed as he took a seat opposite Sherlock in John’s chair.
“Well?” Sherlock demanded. “Out with it.”
Mycroft’s expression was sombre, with none of his usual arrogance. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Sherlock.”
“It’s not as if I desired to play.”
“Nevertheless. The pieces are in motion, and there will be a conclusion. Jim Moriarty is out to destroy you. That is his only objective.”
Sherlock brought his fingers together. “We’re not that easy to destroy.”
“Still,” Mycroft said coolly. “It can be done.” He gave Sherlock a significant look.
Mycroft’s words held both a warning and an offer. A warning not to underestimate Moriarty, and an offer to—
“Have you ever done it?” Sherlock asked. “Killed one of our kind?”
“I always valued my own existence too much to begin something that would most likely end in retribution. But Moriarty has no brethren left. It wouldn’t be simple, but it would be feasible.”
Sherlock pursed his lips. “He’s after me, not you.”
“And if you fall? Who will Moriarty divert his attention to then? But as I told you before, your loss is not something I will tolerate.”
Sherlock accepted the sentiment without dwelling on it, and moved on to practicalities. “You’d never be able to capture him.”
Mycroft tilted his head, already considering possibilities. “Not unless he was extremely preoccupied, no.”
Sherlock felt his lips quirk. “Do you have a plan?”
“Not at present.” Mycroft steepled his own fingers. “Though I expect we’ll have several dozen before the end of the hour.”
-----
John was moving about the flat later that evening, doing what he assured Sherlock was called ‘properly tidying up’. The implication was that Sherlock had improperly tidied up.
“Are you worried?” John asked. “About Moriarty?”
“Mm?”
“You’ve got the face.”
“I’m thinking,” Sherlock said vaguely, eyes still unfocused.
“It’s the thinking-about-Moriarty face.” John stopped in front of the sofa and snapped his fingers in front of Sherlock’s eyes, bringing him back to the present.
“I’m not worried about Moriarty.” Sherlock neglected to mention that Mycroft was worried about Moriarty.
“Well, I’m worried about Moriarty,” John said.
“Don’t be. At least not now. We won’t hear from him again for a while. He won’t move that quickly.”
John sighed. “I guess you’re the expert.” Then he said, “Are you coming to bed?”
“Not tired.”
John bit back a smile. “Let me rephrase that. I’m going to bed, and you can lie next to me and think about Moriarty just as well as you can lie out here and think about Moriarty.”
“Ah.” Sherlock stood and followed him to the bedroom. His relationship with John was still fairly new, but he would never pass on an opportunity to be close to John, particularly if John requested it.
John, of course, thought he’d realised Sherlock simply had an erratic sleeping schedule, but there was no way for him to grasp the reality of how little Sherlock truly needed to sleep. They often didn’t share a bed, though John had moved down to sleep in Sherlock’s room. Their room.
Being with John even when John was asleep was steadying. There was a peace that came to his mind simply from being in John’s presence. Many nights he stayed up doing experiments or looking at case files, but if the din in his mind became too unproductive, he would crawl into bed next to a sleeping John and turn his thoughts to simpler but more pleasing topics.
He wondered if John knew how incapable he was of thinking about anything other than John while this close to him.
John got into bed and spooned up behind him, a warm weight at Sherlock’s back. “Still thinking about Moriarty?”
“No.”
John smiled against his neck. John probably did know, after all.
-----
Things went along regularly and agreeably until two months later, when Moriarty reared his head again.
The kidnapping case was tailor-made for Sherlock. Clues that only he could have solved, children that only he could have found—which was the point, of course.
Sherlock realised it long before John did, but John got there soon enough when he saw the police car pull up outside. Lestrade left, but Sherlock knew he’d be back.
“You should have gone with him,” John said, looking out the window. “People will think…”
“I don’t care what people think.”
He didn’t. But Sherlock could feel it, could feel the doubt, the disbelief that was already settling in. It was only Lestrade and Donovan so far, but it was like a punch to the gut. As faith in him was shattered, it did so much more than just damage his reputation.
However, it wasn’t until after he and John had escaped from the police and were standing on a deserted street corner that he comprehended the whole picture, the solution to Moriarty’s final problem. Moriarty hadn’t just framed him for a single crime; he’d made Sherlock look like a con artist who had engineered everything from his cases to his nemesis.
None of it was provable, but an idea couldn’t be killed. Tomorrow, Sherlock would make headlines, and public belief in him would fall. As would his power.
Then there would only be one thing left to complete the story—
Sherlock’s death. No, suicide. Moriarty would destroy belief, and then destroy Sherlock himself. Any lingering uncertainty over the story would be quelled by Sherlock apparently taking his own life out of guilt.
Even John—
Like a picture, Sherlock saw it in his head. John’s shattered faith in him was to be his final undoing.
Sherlock blinked, and the picture reasserted itself. Out of all the things Moriarty could predict, John Watson was not one of them.
No, John would be his salvation.
-----
Sherlock left John alone on the street, claiming there was something he needed to do on his own. Which was more or less true, as Mycroft would not have welcomed John’s presence at this juncture.
Mycroft was less than pleased with the particular turn that events were taking. He grudgingly acceded to Sherlock’s revised plan, but only after a heated argument.
“I must say,” Mycroft said acerbically, “it would be much more practical to intercept Moriarty in a different way and simply leave Dr. Watson to his fate.”
“Mycroft!” Sherlock barked. “Never speak that way about John again.”
Mycroft shook his head with as much good grace as he could muster. “Apologies.”
“Don’t forget, brother dear, that you were the one who wanted to plot Moriarty’s demise.”
“We never intended for you to hazard your existence in any version of this scheme,” Mycroft said coldly.
“And as I already explained, I’m not.”
“Forgive me, brother, but I haven’t survived by having faith in others. You have it backwards, I believe.”
“Perhaps.” Sherlock gave a miniscule shrug. “But I’m stronger with John than I’ve ever been.”
“I do hope so.” Mycroft fixed him with a stare. “Your life depends on it.”
-----
Sherlock had already determined that Moriarty would threaten John in some way to make him kill himself. His life for John’s and John’s faith destroyed in the process. That was the part he was prepared to play.
Sherlock was less prepared for Moriarty to incapacitate himself with a gunshot to the mouth, ensuring that Sherlock had no option but to follow the script. The wound wasn’t fatal for their kind, but Moriarty was already playing a risky game. Undoubtedly that was the fun of it. Moriarty had painted himself as a construct of Sherlock’s fraud, shattering his own public reputation as well. But there were at least some who knew otherwise, who would inadvertently give Moriarty the power to rise and rebuild himself anew.
Those were the ones watching him even now, and Sherlock took out his phone to make the final call to John. Holding the phone like a lifeline, he stepped up to the ledge. Immortality did nothing to lessen the visceral stagger he felt while looking down. Even gods were never meant to fly.
He suddenly saw John on the end of the street, getting out of a cab. Damn John for being too clever and seeing through the fool’s errand Sherlock had sent him on. With hands that were suddenly shaking, Sherlock pressed the number to dial John. He hadn’t meant for John to be here, but now he had no choice but to complete the story while John watched.
John answered, and Sherlock directed him to look up. “I can’t come down, so we’ll just have to do it like this.”
John had stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes fixed on the point where Sherlock stood. “Sherlock, what’s going on?”
“An apology. It’s all true. Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.”
“Now hang on, why are you saying this?”
Sherlock couldn’t help the way his voice started to tremble. “Because I’m a fake.”
“No, you’re not. Sherlock—”
“The newspapers were right. I want you to tell everyone, tell anyone, that it’s true. I’m not clever. I only wanted to impress you. All of this, it’s just a magic trick.”
“No. All right, stop it now.” John’s voice was creeping into panic.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. This phone call, it’s my note. That’s what people do, don’t they?” He was crying, he realised. “Leave a note?”
John had already started moving toward the building, and he only sped up at Sherlock’s words. “Leave a note when?” he asked, breathless.
“You’re my note, John.”
“Sherlock, no, don’t—”
“I love you. Goodbye.”
Sherlock dropped the phone, even as he heard John scream his name from below.
Then he spread his arms, stepped forward, and fell.
The last thing he saw before he cracked his skull open was John desperately, pointlessly running towards him.
A small crowd of gawkers soon gathered around his body, taking in the spectacle while at the same time reluctant to get too close. It was John who pushed through them, John who reached for Sherlock, John who turned him over and desperately searched for a pulse.
John who broke into tears and collapsed, clinging to Sherlock’s chest.
-----
John remained, motionless, until emergency responders pulled him away.
Sherlock was taken to the morgue.
Molly cried over him on the table, as she professionally but sadly cleaned him up. There was to be no autopsy, as cause of death was apparent.
Mycroft wouldn’t have allowed one, anyway.
Mycroft came by to officially identify him. Molly left him alone with Sherlock’s body in the misguided notion that Mycroft would like to say goodbye to his brother. The second the door closed, Sherlock could feel the shift in Mycroft’s visage as clearly as if he’d been able to see him.
The impact of the fall plus the blood loss had been enough to kill his body, to send that single divine spark of his being into hibernation. Sherlock was aware, but there was no human test that would show life.
“That was rather more spectacular than I had anticipated,” Mycroft said. “Not to mention reckless. I do hope, brother mine, that your faith in John Watson is not misplaced. If he doesn’t prevail, this recovery will be decidedly unpleasant for you. You will recover, even if other methods have to be employed. You’ll be buried, of course, though for how long remains to be seen.” There was a clicking noise that Sherlock knew was Mycroft tapping his umbrella against the tiled floor. “However, the threats to John have been taken care of, and I’ve collected Moriarty. I must say, he inadvertently made that incredibly convenient. He damaged himself rather badly, I’m afraid. He’s rather in your predicament at the moment.” Another umbrella tap. “But properly confined—and soon to be in separate pieces—I give him a hundred years, and no more than two hundred, certainly.”
There was no way to truly kill a god besides lack of belief. Even the most fatal injuries were impermanent where there was belief to give ascension. But if one injured a god and confined them where they couldn’t help themselves, kept them from their believers, they would eventually wither and die, stuck in the earth with all the other lost skeletons and corpses. There were precious few who had the belief to stay alive for millennia, who would rise no matter how they were confined.
Moriarty, who had shaped his power from unsuspecting means instead of genuine worship, would be forgotten within a human lifetime. It was the fate he had planned for Sherlock, and now he would share it.
“Your funeral will be in two days,” Mycroft said. “A bit soon, as these things go, but in this case, I think it’s best to avoid the press, don’t you?”
-----
Mycroft didn’t come to the funeral.
That must have looked strange to John, if John gave it thought at all. There were only four people in attendance at the funeral—John, Mrs. Hudson, Molly, and Lestrade. It wasn’t publicised for obvious reasons, and was a simple affair.
Sherlock could hear the words said about him, said to him, by the others, though their words did little for him. John remained silent throughout.
But Sherlock could feel the steady ember that was John’s belief in him. It had never wavered. Day by day, John was sustaining him, slowly building the power within him. John was the only one in a sea of humanity whose thoughts he was constantly in. It was nothing compared to direct praise, but it would be enough to regain himself, and after that, he could live on John alone, if necessary.
Whenever Mycroft deemed it time to unearth him, Sherlock would have no problems moving under his own power. It hadn’t been strictly necessary to bury him, of course, but there was also no particular reason not to. At its most basic, burial was a ritual, and ritual of any sort brought power. Rising from the earth itself brought even more.
A few days after the funeral, John came back to his grave alone. He stood silently for a moment, before he began to speak.
“I’ll never understand why you did what you did, but I know you must have had a reason. Because you don’t do anything without a reason. And then I wonder what reason could have made you do that to—to me, to us, and I lose it all over again. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You were the love of my life, and—and now you’re just gone.” John’s voice broke, and he took several shaky breaths before he pulled it together again. “But let me tell you this: you’re the best man I’ve ever known, and even though there were times I didn’t even think you were human, no one will ever convince me that anything you said was a lie.”
John stepped forward and laid the flowers on the grass—an offering—then touched the headstone—an altar. “You’re amazing and brilliant, extraordinary and real. I believe in you, and I’ll believe in you until the day I die.”
A surge of power coursed through Sherlock. Every atom of his being vibrated with life that it had lacked mere seconds ago.
John dropped his hand. “I love you, but you knew that. Still, I should have said it more. I wish I’d told you every day.” After a moment of silence, John turned to leave. He took three steps before he turned around again. “Please, there’s just one more thing,” he said, voice shaking uncontrollably. “One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t be dead. Would you do that? Just for me, just stop it. Stop this.”
Six feet below, Sherlock’s eyes opened. Dead air filled his lungs, and his heart raced in his chest.
A prayer fulfilled.
-----
Sherlock found some sort of pager in his pocket. Mycroft’s doing, no doubt. He pushed the button and settled in to wait. He didn’t need air to live, only belief.
To pass the time, Sherlock imagined various reunions with John.
He heard the machine long before it unearthed him. When there was a lull in the digging and he was finally able to push open the lid of his coffin, a shower of dirt rained down on him from above. He saw Mycroft standing at the top of the grave, silhouetted against the night sky.
Sherlock stood, but was still unable to get out of the grave himself. Mycroft went to one knee, ruining the trousers of his suit. He extended his hand, and Sherlock gripped it and used the leverage to haul himself up, raised by his brother. There would have been slightly more power in the act had a goddess done it, for they were more connected to any sort of birth, symbolic or otherwise.
But Sherlock despised symbolism, and Mycroft was too efficient to waste time with trivialities. And they had never been welcomed by the others.
Once topside, Sherlock glanced at the backhoe used to unearth him. There was no one nearby to operate it. “You used that? You?”
“It’s hardly difficult, Sherlock. And there are some things one simply does not delegate. Exhuming the reanimated corpse of one’s brother is one of those things, strangely enough.”
Mycroft started walking towards the car, leaving the backhoe, the pile of dirt, and the conspicuously empty coffin behind him. Obviously it was no longer necessary to keep up the pretence of Sherlock’s ‘death’.
“Richard Brook has been proven to be a fraud,” Mycroft said, reading Sherlock’s mind. “And there was, unfortunately for him, a full autopsy done on Jim Moriarty. It shouldn’t pose any difficulty for you to be back in the media’s good graces within forty-eight hours.”
“Mm. It does help with the work, I suppose.”
“Yes, you’ve become quite attached to your work. Though I don’t suppose you strictly need it, not when you have John.”
Sherlock raised an eyebrow.
“Despite my reservations, I will admit that your confidence in him wasn’t mislaid. Indeed, he seems to have become essential to your existence,” Mycroft added dryly.
“I could manage without his praise. I did before.”
“That’s not what I was referring to. I do know why you risked letting Moriarty destroy you. And it wasn’t simply to end the game.”
Sherlock sighed. “Your point?”
“If you insist on continuing this relationship, perhaps you should enlighten John as to the advantages of it. Future complications could perhaps be avoided, were he aware of certain things.”
Sherlock halted in shock. That was as close as Mycroft would ever come to saying that he should tell John, but the meaning of the words was unmistakable.
Mycroft opened the driver’s side door of the car. He’d even driven himself.
Sherlock folded himself into the backseat, lost in thought.
-----
Mycroft dropped him off in front of Baker Street without a word. It was the dead of night, and Sherlock stared up at the darkened windows. Should he wait for morning? Should he go in now?
Sherlock wanted to see John immediately, and it was logical that John would want to see him too, if John knew that he was alive. But Sherlock also wanted to greet John on the best possible terms, given that he knew what would follow was going to be a shock.
He had finally resolved against waking John up, and was debating the merits of simply being in the flat when John woke versus entering after John had his tea, when the living room lights switched on.
Sherlock was at the door before he thought twice about it. He pulled his key from his pocket—Mycroft had helpfully returned his personal effects—and slipped it into the lock. The stairs were silent under his feet, and then he stood in the doorframe of 221B, just outside of the light that spilled out from the room. The door was open, even though it was the middle of the night.
John was sitting in his chair, staring blankly at Sherlock’s own chair while he waited for the kettle to boil.
“John.” Only as the word left Sherlock’s mouth did he realise he’d actually spoken it. He was also already in the room; he didn’t remember stepping in.
John didn’t immediately turn around. Then he slowly looked behind him. When he saw Sherlock, he stood.
He shook his head with a sad smile. “I’m dreaming. I’m going to wake up, and you’re going to be gone.”
“No.”
“It’s happened before.”
“I’m sorry.”
John laughed. “For what?”
“For dying. For making you think—I told you it was a trick, but I had to follow through. Moriarty was going to kill you if I didn’t jump. I had to die, at least for a little while, so you could live.”
Something in that seemed to sober John up, figuratively speaking. He took a step forward, swallowing. “Sherlock?” Then he was in Sherlock’s space, hesitating a bare second before throwing himself at Sherlock and holding on like his life depended on it.
When John pulled away, he tried to hide the fact that there were tears in his eyes. “God, it really is you. And I’m not asleep.” He laughed again. “I was at your grave today. I asked you to stop being dead, but I never thought—”
“I know. I heard you. You also said there were times that you didn’t think I was human.”
“Now hang on—what’s going on?”
“John, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“All right.” John looked at him evenly, waiting.
“Come here.” Sherlock took John’s hand, leading him to the kitchen. “I have to show you. You won’t believe me otherwise. I wouldn’t believe me.” Sherlock took out a sterilised scalpel from his collection of dissection tools and handed it to John. “I need you to cut yourself.”
“Sherlock, what—”
“I would do it on myself, but you’re the one who needs to feel it. No tricks, no other possibilities. It doesn’t have to be deep or long—just a cut. Please, John, it’s important.”
John stared at him for a long moment, measuring Sherlock with his eyes. But he must have found something that satisfied him, because he slowly took the scalpel from Sherlock’s hand. Then he held his arm over the sink and nicked the back of it with the scalpel. The cut was barely an inch long, and just deep enough for a few drops of blood to drip into the sink.
“All right,” John said. “I’m trusting you have a good reason for this.”
Sherlock stepped into John’s space. “Ask me to heal you,” he said quietly.
John’s mouth opened as if to ask what Sherlock was on about, but whatever he was going to say died in his throat when he saw Sherlock’s face. A slight frown creased his brow. “Sherlock, please heal me.”
Sherlock put his hand around John’s arm and squeezed. Simple to do something so small; it was barely any effort at all, even depleted as he was. Then he turned on the faucet and held John’s arm underneath, washing the blood from both of them.
John’s brows rose to his hairline as he looked at his arm. Then he was pushing and pulling at the skin where the wound had been. He gaped at Sherlock. “But I just—I was bleeding—that’s—”
“Impossible? Yes.”
John calmly reached for a towel, though his eyes never left Sherlock’s. “Okay, I’m listening.”
Sherlock took a breath. “I’m a god.”
----
They started out in the living room with each of them in a chair, and ended up hours later on the floor, sprawling in different diagonal directions and staring at the ceiling. Sherlock talked about anything and everything he could think of to tell John, the details of being a god that he had never explained to anyone. Currently, Sherlock’s legs were propped up on the seat of his chair. John had started out with a pillow beneath his head when he’d first moved to the floor, but ended up abandoning it to rest his head on Sherlock’s middle.
Outside, the sky was just beginning to lighten.
“But what are you the god of?” John persisted.
“I told you, it doesn’t work that way. Not with us.”
“You and Mycroft.” John shook his head slightly. “Your brother was bad enough when he was just the British government.”
Sherlock huffed.
Silence fell between them, and Sherlock hesitated, knowing he was about to begin the part of this conversation that John could take the wrong way.
“I told you what we need to survive—some sort of belief. Mycroft and I have rarely had that. We were never worshipped, as such.”
“So what do you do?”
“Praise of any sort is worship by proxy. The commendation I receive from solving crimes, for example.” Sherlock paused. “Or from you.”
“Ah.” John stilled. “So I’m not just feeding your ego, then.”
“Your admiration is incredibly convenient for me, yes. But that has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”
John was silent.
“Do you remember when you were shot last year?”
“Tends to leave an impression, yeah.”
“What you don’t remember is when you were lying in the alley and were seconds away from death. I made you pray to me, made you beg me for your life, because it was the only way I could save you. I assure you, I wouldn’t have been devastated by your potential loss were you merely a reliable power source.”
“The first time you told me you loved me was the next day,” John said slowly. “In hospital. Except you didn’t tell me what you actually said that night. In fact, I’m not sure you ever did.” He turned his head to the side, looking at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye.
Sherlock’s lips quirked as he glanced down at John. “I’m telling you now. That was the first miracle I ever performed. The second was tonight. Both were for you. And neither would have been possible without you. If you cease to express wonder at my methods, nothing will change between us. Except I’ll no longer be able to heal any mortal wounds you incur.”
John abruptly laughed. “So what you’re saying is, you’re like a divine slot machine. I put some in, I get some out.”
“Just.” Sherlock smirked, then said, “But only because you’re my favourite.”
“So this isn’t the usual way things work with—er, your kind?”
“No. Generally, gods ignore most who clamour for their attention, only dispensing their favours when it’s beneficial for them to do so, or even never.” Sherlock reached for John’s hand, holding it upright as he bent his elbow. He threaded their fingers together. “But we could be in perfect balance, John.”
John squeezed Sherlock’s hand, moving his own arm slightly so that their hands swayed back and forth in the air, never quite falling to either his side or Sherlock’s. “I suppose,” he said, “that if you keep being amazing, I probably wouldn’t be able to stop from telling you so anyway.”
Sherlock smiled, and John pulled his hand back, bringing their intertwined fingers to rest on John’s chest.
“Because you are incredible.” There was a teasing tone to John’s words, but there was also firm belief behind them that made Sherlock’s body hum.
“Flatterer,” he said dryly.
John snickered.
“On a more practical level,” Sherlock said, “if you pray to me, aloud or internally, I will hear you. If you needed to convey something and couldn’t speak openly, I could hear you. If we were separated or you were taken, I could find you. Almost any help you need, I could give you. But I can do nothing if you don’t ask. I suppose, if you were incredibly desperate, you could pray to Mycroft as well.” Sherlock paused. “In fact, you should pray to Mycroft, every now and then, just to annoy him.”
“I think I’ll pass, thanks.” Then, “He’s going to know you told me.”
“Mm, yes. He actually told me to, more or less. Though in his mind, it has nothing to do with your deserving to know the truth, but only with keeping me from needlessly risking myself on your behalf.”
“I’m not sure, but I think I should be insulted by that,” John said.
“Probably. But he’s right. I would go mad should something happen to you that I easily could have prevented.”
John exhaled, rolling his shoulders and adjusting his position. When he was comfortable again, he said, “You killed yourself because you trusted that I’d bring you back.”
“I did, though you exceeded even my expectations. I imagined you would keep me alive, nothing more, but you not only directly revived me with your declarations, you then demanded I return to you. You are a wonder.”
Sherlock could feel John’s heart beating under his hand. He counted fourteen beats before John spoke again.
“The last five days, when you were gone, were the worst five days of my life. I never want to feel that way again. Promise me I’ll never have to. Can you do that for me?”
“As long as you believe in me, I can.”
John brought Sherlock’s hand to his lips. “Then I’ll never stop.”