Work Text:
JW
‘I can’t go back to the flat.’
That’s what he’d told Mrs. Hudson at the cemetery. Yet here he was, at nearly three in the morning creeping up the stairs. He knew exactly which boards creaked in which spots, so he didn’t have to worry about waking Mrs. Hudson up—he wasn’t exactly prepared to explain why he was coming back. But he couldn’t stay away, not really. The mere thought itself was absurd.
John had been trying and failing to fill the Sherlock Holmes shaped void in his heart, yet there it remained, as black and deep as ever. It was like a black hole had ripped through the center of his heart, threatening to pull the rest of him into its inky, pitch-dark void.
It had only been a week—arguably the longest, worst week of his life—since he’d watched as his best friend flung himself from the rooftop of the hospital. John could still hear the resounding crack of Sherlock’s body hitting the cold pavement, his warm blood pooling into the concrete. It was a cruel image his mind couldn’t seem to shake.
John carefully opened the door of two-twenty one b, wincing at the creak that echoed through the hallways as it swung open. He paused a beat, holding his breath. When he was sure Mrs. Hudson was still fast asleep, he crept into the sitting room, eyes darting around the space. Just as Mrs. Hudson had said to him in the cemetery, she hadn’t touched a single thing, save for a bit of dusting.
John smiled to himself, though it was a hollow, sad thing, devoid of any emotion that resembled so much as a single modicum of happiness. His eyes were drawn to his chair—Sherlock’s. The chair he would never sit in again. The chair he would never make wildly inappropriate deductions about John’s life from. John trailed his fingers across the back of the chair as he circled around it, memories of what life was once like—and would never be like again—swirling unbidden through his thoughts. It was the happiest time of his life, really, if he was being honest with himself. Sherlock had saved him in a way—he’d been absolutely lost, trapped living a ghost of a life since coming back from Afghanistan. His world had been dark beyond belief; a colourless, soundless nightmare. And then he’d met the madman and everything had changed. Suddenly he was seeing everything in a plethora of colourful bliss, his world morphed into a glorious symphony of adventure, danger, and Sherlock Holmes.
Suddenly, his weight became too much for his legs to bear—his damn leg was acting up for the first time in ages—and he allowed himself to plop down into Sherlock’s chair. For a while, he just sat there, staring off into the distance with a gaze nearly as empty as his heart.
So this is what life was like from Sherlock’s eyes: he could see the entire flat from here. The whole of the sitting room, the kitchen, the top of the stairs, the door to Sherlock’s bedroom, and at the center point of his vision: John’s chair. John let out a small huff. He’d never been the center of Sherlock’s life: he’d always been too busy focused on the cases, the murders, the clues. Yet when John looked at the small flat from Sherlock’s perspective, there he would have been, every day, right in the center of it all.
John blinked, only just realizing his face was damp, his eyes spilling over with hot, salty tears. His heart clenched and he curled in on himself in Sherlock’s chair, pressing his face against the edge. He took one deep breath after another in a futile attempt to stop his sobbing lest he wake Mrs. Hudson and– oh.
The chair. It still smelled like him. John sucked in a deep breath, inhaling as much of Sherlock’s scent as he physically could, desperately trying to commit every ounce of it to his memory.
Once John had somewhat managed to pull himself together, he swiped at his puffy eyes, sore from all the crying he’d done—not just in the last twenty minutes, but in the last week. He reluctantly left Sherlock’s chair, letting his feet take him around the flat, occasionally reaching out to run his fingers along something—a forgotten experiment, an old set of notes Sherlock had made, case files Lestrade had dropped off.
John’s breath hitched as he suddenly found himself standing in front of Sherlock’s bedroom door. Since the door was shut, he assumed Mrs. Hudson hadn’t been in there since–
John swallowed as he turned the knob with a shaking hand and gave the door a gentle push. He squinted in the darkness; it seemed he’d been right, a thin layer of dust that wasn’t present in the rest of the flat had settled on everything in the room. John sucked in a breath as he stepped across the threshold into the room—and nearly tripped on a multitude of plant pots, each filled with a small, pure white flower. The pots all had a different amount and type of soil in them—experiment, then—and John found himself breaking out into a fit of slightly hysterical laughter. It was so utterly Sherlock.
As his laugher died down, it turned into hitching sobs that wracked through his entire body. He crumpled to the floor and dropped his head into his hands—hopefully Mrs. Hudson was not a light sleeper, because there was no way he was going to be able to stop himself now. John cried until he saw black spots dancing across the edges of his vision—perhaps he would simply pass out on the wooden floor for Mrs. Hudson to find him in the morning. Perhaps he would cry so much it would be impossible to breathe at all—he figured that would be much less cruel than what he was presently feeling in this moment. What he’d been feeling for the past week.
Finally, John managed to find the strength to crawl to the side of the bed and hoist himself up onto it. He collapsed into the sheets—a gorgeously soft cotton blend, of course—and gasped for air, forcing it into his burning lungs.
Here, in Sherlock’s bed, his all-too familiar scent was everywhere along with a hint of whatever chemicals had been used in his last experiment. It enveloped John like a blanket, wrapping him in warmth, comfort, and a multitude of other feelings he didn’t quite know how to place. John pulled the covers up around his shoulders, buried his face into Sherlock’s pillow and quietly cried, letting the tears run in rampant paths down his cheeks before soaking into the dark cotton.
‘John, you’ll ruin my sheets. Do you know how expensive those were?’ he could imagine Sherlock whining. The thought only made him cry harder, spilling more salty tears onto the pillowcase.
John cried until he felt he had no tears left, and then cried even more, until finally he slipped away into a grief-stricken slumber, not at all peaceful by any means, but made somewhat bearable by the constant scent of pure Sherlock wafting into his nose with each inhale.
******
SH
Sherlock winced as he turned the key, the lock mechanism clicking loudly as it opened. Curious; Mrs. Hudson didn’t change the locks. An odd way of coping with grief, he thought to himself—simply hoping he would return one day as if he wasn’t supposed to be dead. How he wished he could. He wasn’t supposed to be back here, Mycroft didn’t even know he was here—someone could see him. But he had to collect some of his things; just enough that no one would notice they were missing, not even John. John. He was doing this for John. For Mrs. Hudson. For Molly. For Lestrade. For everyone. Hell, maybe even for Anderson, though the thought sent quite a conflicting, confusing pang of unnamable emotions through him.
Sherlock Holmes was getting soft. He grimaced at the thought. He wasn’t supposed to feel things. He was a genius of nearly unmatched standards, he wasn’t supposed to have such tedious things as emotions to distract him. To make him weak. Yet that had all changed the day John Watson had waltzed into his life, turning things upside down and causing Sherlock to feel emotions he was sure he’d never felt before. Confused as he was by them, if he was being honest, he didn’t want to go back to his life before John.
John had saved him, really. Sherlock wasn’t much one for admitting that he needed help, but he had. He was stuck in a bad place—if he wasn’t able to have a case to get his high from, he’d turn to other, considerably more dangerous means. But not with John. John kept him in line, had sat with him for hours, days even, on end when there were no new cases to solve. No people to deduce. When Sherlock normally would have turned to drugs to fill the void, he began to turn to John Watson instead. The latter was arguably better, anyhow. Far more interesting.
Sherlock crept up the stairs, studiously avoiding the left side of the second step, middle of the sixth, right of the eighth, and the tenth step entirely—the less noise he made the better. He was surprised to find the door of two-twenty one b open a jar—Mrs. Hudson must have got distracted and forgotten to close it; she was rather scatterbrained at times. As he’d deduced—more like overheard at the cemetery—she’d continued to clean and dust the flat, yet hadn’t moved any of his things.
His eyes landed on the two chairs. For old times sake—when had he become so hopelessly sentimental?—he sat down in his chair. He searched through his mind palace before finding exactly what he was looking for, carefully catalogued into the recesses of his mind: John, sitting across from him in his chair pretending to ignore Sherlock and read the newspaper. But he was actually listening intently as Sherlock described the best ways one could be murdered using only a toothbrush, occasionally sneaking glances at Sherlock over the top of his paper when he thought he wasn’t being watched. But Sherlock had been watching. He’d noticed—of course he’d noticed. He always noticed John.
Sherlock allowed himself a few more precious seconds to bask in the moment before he reluctantly stood, making sure to safely tuck the memory away in his mind. He headed to the kitchen table, inhabited with most of his equipment and experiments, and started quietly packing things away into the small bag he’d brought.
It was lucky, he supposed, that John didn’t live here anymore. It certainly made it easier to break in and collect his things, though a part of him kept glancing towards the stairs, heart inexplicably leaping into his throat at the thought of John walking down them at any moment.
Sherlock made sure the table was arranged exactly as he’d found it—minus the things he taken, of course—not that Mrs. Hudson’s dull mind would ever remember, but better safe than sorry. He was just about done; he only needed a few more things from his room.
He paused, realizing with a start that the door to his room was open—he hadn’t thought Mrs. Hudson would go in there at all, not even to clean. He usually wasn’t that wrong in his deductions. He crept forward slowly until he was standing in the doorway. His heart lurched, feeling quite unpleasant, as though someone was quite effectively trying to squeeze the life straight out of it.
His sheets were rumpled around a small bulge down the middle of his bed. Judging by the length of the legs, it could only be one person: the one person he wished he didn’t have to leave. The one person he cared for.
“John,” Sherlock breathed, unable to stop his name from escaping the confines of his lips.
Sherlock backed away, mind reeling. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. He had to leave. Now. John couldn’t find him here, he couldn’t–
There was a rustling of sheets in the dark before he heard a faint gasp of, “Sherlock?”
******
JW
“Sherlock!” John shouted, running forwards. He heard the sickening crack of his best friend’s skull against the pavement, of his bones breaking against the harsh, unforgiving concrete. John couldn’t think a single coherent thought beyond ‘no God, please no.’
“Please,” he begged, trying to rid himself of the hands holding him back. “Please, he’s my friend.” John could barely even recognize his own trembling voice. It sounded so small. So helpless.
And he was, as he sunk down to his knees, grasping Sherlock’s limp wrist between his fingers. John’s heart nearly stopped beating: no pulse. There was no pulse.
Deep crimson blood pooled around Sherlock’s head, sinking into the cracks of the pavement and soaking his dark curls. The red of his blood contrasted with the paleness of his face making John’s stomach twist, Sherlock’s steely blue eyes unblinking. Unseeing.
Normally, this would be where John’s nightmare took an even darker twist as he screamed and screamed for Sherlock to wake up. Begged and pleaded with him as the pool of blood grew bigger until it reached John’s feet, rising up his legs until he was drowning in it, filling his lungs until he was unable to scream at all.
But this time was different.
John gasped for air, trying to suck in as much as he could before he was drowning, but suddenly the blood was gone, along with Sherlock. John nearly felt peaceful. With each breath he took, he could smell the unmistakable scent of Sherlock, as if he were right there with him, where he should be. Not buried six-feet under the ground, forgotten by all but his few friends. Not dead.
Not dead, indeed. The madman was suddenly standing right beside him—the rest of the world had long since fallen away, deemed completely insignificant by John’s mind. Sherlock leaned forwards to whisper a soft “John,” into his ear.
John startled awake, his throat tight and eyes bleary. He sucked in a breath, relishing in the comfort Sherlock’s scent brought him. Perhaps if he just stayed there, in Sherlock’s bed for the rest of his life, he’d somehow be able to survive this.
John rubbed gingerly at his eyes, still red and puffy from crying for who knows how long before he fell asleep. He blinked, letting his eyes gradually adjust to the darkness of the room. His gaze wandered to the flower pots. This was all he had left of Sherlock Holmes, his mind told him. His bloody experiments. His chair. His bed. His memories. For the first time, John wished he could have a mind like Sherlock’s, so he could imprint their time together permanently into his mind. He’d never want to leave it.
He let his gaze wander lazily across the floor until it reached a pair of shoes. John blinked. His eyes moved up the attached legs, past the flowing coat to the glorious mess of dark curls. John’s heart nearly leapt straight out of his chest.
“Sherlock?” he gasped, struggling against the sheets to sit up.
The figure stopped backing away, swaying tentatively in the doorway.
“Sherlock?” John repeated, ignoring how his voice cracked with raw emotion.
The curls gave a slight bounce that John took to be a nod of his head. The room was seemingly suspended in a state of deafening silence, the sound—or lack thereof, rather—rang hollowly in John’s ears.
John swallowed. Took a breath. Pinched his arm. Pinched it again, just to be sure. In a flash, he shot from the bed, tripping across the floor as the sheets wound around his legs.
“Sherlock,” he managed to choke out as he stumbled towards the figure in the doorway. He collided into Sherlock, the force of his small body throwing them both backwards against the doorframe. In an instant, John had his arms wrapped around Sherlock so tightly he nearly risked smothering him.
After a moment, John felt Sherlock’s arms tentatively encircle him, gently pulling him even closer—John wasn’t sure if Sherlock was aware he was doing that or not. They stood there like that for a long while—much longer than either of them would ever care to admit, before John managed to find his voice.
“I really thought– You were– Christ, Sherlock you were dead,” John muttered into Sherlock’s shoulder.
“John,” Sherlock breathed.
John could feel Sherlock’s heart beating wildly against his chest, threatening to break straight through his rib cage at any given moment.
“It was– Oh God. It was fake. I faked it. I had to– Please forgive me. You were– Danger– I– No choice– John,” Sherlock’s breath came out in large gasps that wracked tremors through his entire body.
“Shh, it’s okay Sherlock. Breathe. I need you to breathe for me. Can you do that?” John mumbled, trying to reassure Sherlock before he started hyperventilating.
John felt the slow nod of Sherlock’s head, the rise and fall of his chest finally slowing down to a more steady, less alarming pace.
“Why Sherlock? Why would you do that?” John asked once he felt Sherlock was not in immediate danger of losing consciousness from his panicked, sporadic breaths.
“For you,” Sherlock said softly, offering no further explanation.
“Explain. Please. I need to understand why.”
“Moriarty. He threatened your life. Mrs. Hudson. Gavin– no uh–”
“Greg,” John supplied.
“Yes, of course,” Sherlock said, the faintest smile ghosting across his lips at the slight comfort of the familiar normalcy.
“He left me no choice, John. I hope you can understand that.”
“Yes, I think I can,” John said, finally releasing his grip on Sherlock enough so that he could look at him. Sherlock refused to meet his eyes.
“I have–” Sherlock’s breath hitched and he gave a small gasp before hastily clearing his throat and continuing. “I have to– His network. It’s vast. As long as it exists, you’re all in danger. Because of me. I have to dismantle it, from the inside out.”
John’s breath stuttered to a halt. “What– What are you saying?” he asked, though he was quite sure he already knew what Sherlock’s answer would be.
Sherlock remained silent, gaze focused intently on a spot to the right of John’s head.
“Sherlock?” John prompted, his voice breaking.
“I’ll be back, John,” Sherlock assured him. “Won’t even notice I’m away.”
“Yes I will,” John replied without missing a beat.
Sherlock’s eyes glistened, the meager light from the street lamps coming in through the window reflecting off of the wetness that was now rapidly gathering there.
Sherlock let out a shaky breath. “Wait for me.”
John shook his head. “No. You’re not going. Not alone. We do this together.”
Sherlock gave him a small, sad smile. “I’m sorry John. That’s not possible. Believe me, if it were–”
“Don’t go,” John demanded weakly.
A single tear ran down Sherlock’s cheek, shining in the dim light like a shooting star across the darkness of the night sky.
John forced himself to suck in a deep breath. “Promise me,” he whispered. “Promise me you’ll come back.”
“I promise,” Sherlock let out a breath. “I’ve been here too long. I can’t be seen.”
“No,” John said, his voice nearly a whimper. “Please. Please don’t go,” John gasped as he clutched at the fabric of Sherlock’s coat in desperation.
Sherlock only gave a sad shake of his head. He reached up and placed his hands over John’s, gently prying his coat free from their ironclad grip one finger at a time.
Sherlock replaced John’s hands back at his side and let his fingers slip from John’s. He backed away slowly, feet shuffling across the wooden floor as though he might risk changing his mind if he moved any quicker.
John should have done something then. Should have done anything. But his blood had gone cold, freezing him in place like a marble statue. He should have told him, but then Sherlock surely would’ve stayed. And of course that was what John wanted, but he trusted Sherlock. Trusted him with his life. He’d never trusted anyone more, not even the other members of his team in Afghanistan, and that was saying something. If Sherlock truly felt he needed to leave, then he probably did, as much as it pained John to think about.
“Goodbye John,” Sherlock said, his voice trembling something fierce. John could have sworn he saw a steady stream of tears falling down Sherlock’s cheeks, but it was far more likely that he was just seeing things in the pitch-black. The alternative made his heart clench and rip and tear in an attempt to escape the bounds of his chest.
“No,” John whispered, so quietly he could barely even recognize his own voice.
“I’m sorry.”
He blinked and Sherlock was gone, vanished as quickly as he’d come, nothing but vast, empty darkness staring back at him, silently laughing in his face. He wasn’t sure how long he stared it down, but eventually, his legs gave way and he collapsed to the floor in a boneless heap, crying for what felt like the hundredth time that week.
******
SH
Sherlock clutched his bag to his chest, silently willing his lower lip to stop its violent trembling. This was exactly why he despised emotions. The singular thought of it alone was enough to make him curl his lip up into a sneer and run quite quickly in the other direction.
Damn emotions. Damn Moriarty. Damn everything.
Sherlock’s heart pounded in his chest, begging to be set free from the confines of the jail cell that was his rib cage. He found he was struggling to breathe—how unpleasant—and was stricken with the inexplicable feeling of his heart being torn to shreds, stomped on and thrown away, with the whole process in a constant cyclical repeat.
He heard the crunch of gravel beneath the tires before he saw the sleek black car, pulling up to the curb beside him. He hastily swiped at his cheeks before clambering into the back seat of the car.
“Thought we’d find you here,” Mycroft greeted him.
Sherlock didn’t respond. He stared blankly out the window, craning his neck to look at the door to the flat one last time as the car accelerated and pulled out into the street. A stray, unbidden tear rolled down Sherlock’s cheek and he hurriedly wiped it away, silently cursing himself for what laughable control he had over his emotions.
“–must not risk being seen. You are meant to be dead and stay that way– Sherlock, are you paying any attention?”
Oh, Mycroft had been speaking. No matter, it likely hadn’t been too important, Sherlock thought to himself. Much to the dismay of a fairly irritated Mycroft, he resumed his idle staring out the window—it had far more promise of being interesting than what his brother was saying, anyhow.
“Brother mine, Moriarty has spun quite the intricate web. It will be quite the grueling task to unravel it. Are you sure about this?” Mycroft asked. It was the closest to caring Sherlock had ever seen his brother.
“Of course I am,” Sherlock retorted. “This was my idea.”
Mycroft scowled, but remained surprisingly silent.
“Besides,” Sherlock continued. “If I don’t, they’ll all be in danger.”
“John.”
“Everyone.”
“I’m not blind, Sherlock.”
“Debatable.”
“Arse.”
“Cock.”
The remainder of the drive to Mycroft’s private plane was in a grim silence that filled the whole car, entwining itself around each occupant as if it were death itself.
******
JW
John dropped his head into his hands, squeezing his eyes shut in a futile attempt to block out the din of the guests. He was incredibly grateful to Mike Stamford for letting John stay with him for the past week so he didn’t have to face the empty loneliness of two-twenty one Baker Street, but right now, he wished he could be anywhere but here.
Nearly everyone John knew had come over to offer support and anything else he might need—though apparently silence was not included in that offer. John had tucked himself away into a chair in the corner of the sitting room, trying to avoid the furtive, sympathetic glances everyone was throwing his direction. They all thought Sherlock was dead and that that was the reason that John was so despondent. But as of last night—or early that morning, rather, John knew the truth. And that was a weight he’d have to bear alone, which was how he was used to doing things anyways—before Sherlock, that is.
It was rather funny, thought John, how he could feel so alone while surrounded by so many people. But in a room filled with all the people who loved him most, the one man who truly mattered was missing, his absence leaving a large void in John’s heart that only seemed to grow by the second. It hurt so much it was positively unbearable.
How could he be expected to go on and live like this? No more body parts in the fridge. No more cases. No more strange experiments. No more wildly inappropriate deductions about his life. No more texts demanding his immediate presence, whether convenient or not. No more Sherlock. His best friend.
The room suddenly felt all too loud for his liking, his ears ringing a high pitched sound that droned incessantly on and on. John clutched at his head. Raked his fingers through his hair.
He swiftly made his escape, grabbing an unnamed bottle of some type of alcohol from Mike’s kitchen cabinet—at this point, he wasn’t really concerned about what it was, only that he could get drunk from it. John snuck out onto the fire escape of Mike’s flat with his bounty in hand.
The alcohol burned pleasantly as it made its way down his throat, contrasting against the chill of the night air.
John lost track of time as he made a feeble attempt to drink away his consulting detective-shaped sorrows. Unfortunately, the alcohol only succeeded in making his head spin and his vision blur, doing little to dull the sharp pain in his heart.
John tipped his head back to look up at the sky. The stars were rather beautiful tonight, shining much brighter than normal against the intensely luminous lights of London.
Overhead, a small plane passed through the starry sky like a sleek silver bullet, the cacophonous rumbling of its engine intensified by the alcohol roaring in John’s ears.
******
SH
The plane had one single passenger, staring forlornly out the pristinely polished window, not bothering to stop the tears from flowing freely now that he was alone. He was lost in the depths of his mind palace, the last encounter with his best friend stuck on repeat.
Sherlock blinked, inexplicably returning to reality for a brief moment. Odd, he thought to himself, how bright the stars are tonight. Under any other circumstances, he would’ve thought they were rather beautiful.
******
JW
John waited. And waited. And waited. He heard nothing from Sherlock. He wasn’t even sure if he was still alive. Try as he might—and try he did, indeed—he was unable to get any information out of Mycroft. And still he waited. He waited until the question of when became the question of if. And then he met Mary Morstan. He didn’t want to give up on Sherlock Holmes, but with each passing day—each hour, minute, second—he wondered if Sherlock was still alive. If he remembered his promise, whispered in the darkness in that single stolen, vulnerable moment. Eventually, John moved on—with his life, perhaps, but never his heart, for his heart would belong to the great Sherlock Holmes until the end of time itself.