Work Text:
A Black Mood
I don’t know why he stays here with me.
I’m rude; an arsehole. He’s going to leave, and he’s going to take Rosamund, and I will have no-one to blame but myself.
I will not survive it. I will make sure of it.
I’m lying on our sofa, facing our sitting room, curled in the foetal position with my arms over my knees, and John is sitting in his chair, tapping away on his laptop. Catching up on a bit of paperwork from his job at his clinic. He does this often, so he’s able to be home with Rosamund. He’s also said he does it to keep an eye on me, as well. I don’t know what he means by that.
I watch him and wonder, as I usually do, why he’s still here. Why he hasn’t moved his daughter and himself away from me. I’m a cock, an addict; an annoying dick.
I tighten my hold over my knees, and I press them harder against my chest. I feel my ribs push against my heart, and wonder how quickly I could summon someone to bring me some things to make myself forget what a terrible person I am. That would be the fastest way to get John to go. I told him I’d never touch those things again. I promised him. I also don’t think it would surprise him all that much if I disappointed him. I do that an awful lot, usually in spite of myself.
I see him, as covertly as he’s able, glance at me from the corner of his right eye. Even that minuscule glimpse is enough for me to feel sick to my stomach. I don’t want him to see me this way, but I haven’t the strength to hide anymore.
“You hungry?” John unexpectedly asks, as he continues to peck away at the keys. “I got us some ginger biscuits at the Tesco a few days ago while I was there. For you, actually. I can take them or leave them, but I know they’re one of your favourites.”
I shake my head side-to-side. He must see the movement, and he turns to face me, his laptop sliding a bit closer to his knees.
“I replenished our tea supplies; got us plenty of milk. Shouldn’t have to leave the flat for very much for at least a week.”
I stare at his laptop, unable to react in a way he’s able to see. The room feels black, even though the sun is shining today. First day of sun after four days of misty rain.
“Unless we get a case, though. We always leave the flat for a good one, right? Have you checked your blog? Anything worth putting on decent clothes for?”
I shake my head again, still unable to speak to him. I warned him long ago that I might not talk for days. I hate this. And myself.
“Well, looks like nothing on yours, I’ll see if anything’s happening on mine. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll go through our emails, too.” I watch him type in passwords, scroll, and smile to himself at the same inanities I saw two hours ago when I went through the same routine. After a bit, he closes his laptop and sets it beside him on the table to his left.
“Well, that’s done and dusted. Nothing worth bothering ourselves with right now.” He pats his palms on his thighs, stands, and then looks at me appraisingly. He’s known me long enough to have picked up a bit of what I do in our work. I’m sure he sees plenty, but he says nothing as he makes his way into the kitchen. I hear him run through the ritual of tea-making, and hear the opening and closing of cupboard doors. I hear the sounds of biscuits beings placed on a dish, and the clicking of the kettle. I can smell the warmth and spice of the ginger biscuits from the sofa; he bought my favourite brand. He is too good for me.
I don’t deserve his kindness. I untangle my limbs, and flip to face the back of the cushion, but still manage to curl my knees up to my stomach again. I wish the sofa would swallow me down.
I hear his approach to my side of the sitting room, and wish he would gather me in his arms, but he instead places the biscuit dish softly on the table behind me. I can smell the Earl Grey he’s poured for me.
I startle at the proximity of his voice when he speaks next. I expected him to return to his chair or to put on his shoes before going to pick up Rosamund from her playgroup. He’s sat on the table behind me.
“You want to go with me in a bit to get Rose? I’m sure she’d love to see you. Would cut down on her going on and on about you on the walk home.” He chuckles at his own quip, and the warmth of it curls around my heart, but my brain tells me John only wants me to perk up so as not to ruin what’s left of his day off.
He is trying so hard and I’ve given him nothing. He might go to pick her up and not come back. Send someone to pick up their things and just leave. I’d deserve it, for all the horrible things I’ve put him through. He’s going to come to his senses one day; realise he doesn’t want his daughter to be around such an enormous bastard. Might as well be today.
I swallow hard and clear my throat. “No thank you, John. I’m feeling somewhat under the weather at the moment. Might go off to bed and lie down for a bit.”
He sighs in relief, thinking he’s overreacted to my display.“ John leans forward, and asks: “What’s the matter? What are your symptoms? I can run to the chemist on my way back with Rose.”
I swallow again and take a fortifying inhale. “A bit of an upset stomach, is all.”
“You need to eat more, you git. Your poor stomach is there churning away at nothing and making you sick.”
I don't respond. I can feel his eyes on me. He stands and places his left hand on my left shoulder, and says: “Tea’s behind you with a few ginger nuts. I can make us something light tonight for supper, if your stomach’s feeling up to it.”
A whimper resounds through the silence of our flat. I am mortified and pray to a deity I don’t believe in to pull me through the floor this instant.
“Sherlock? What’s the matter? Are you all right?” He kneels on the floor and moves his hand to my flank and glides it from my hip to my shoulder in a motion so tender, another pathetic sound escapes my lips. A sob.
“Oh, no. Sherlock. What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need me to call 999?” He tries to pull on my shoulder to get me to turn over, but I resist.
“Please turn around. I’m getting scared now, Sherlock. Please. Let me see you for a moment, okay?”
I pull my face back from the cushion it’s been pressed against, and am mortified to feel tears on my cheeks. I make to shove my face back to where it had been, but John is faster. His left-hand cradles my face in his palm, and his face crumples.
“Can you tell me?” He wipes at my tears with his thumb, and I then, embarrassingly so, push my cheek against his palm. His right-hand joins his left and he’s wiping off my face, and then his right-hand pushes my hair out of my eyes.
“Please tell me, Sherlock. What’s happened?”
“You happened, John.”
He looks affronted, and that cannot be allowed.
He moves his hands to my shoulders. “What have I done? Are you upset with me? Please talk to me.”
My voice decides it finally wishes to be found. I flip to my back to see him better. “Of course, it’s what you’ve done. What you continue to do day in, and day out.”
Now he looks sad. I’ve hurt him again.
“What have I done to make you this upset?”
“You’re still here. And I don’t know why.”
He sucks in a breath, distress evident in the wavering of his impending question. “Do you not want me here?”
“Of course I do! Don’t be daft!”
“I don’t understand."
“You’ve said that before.”
“And I mean it every time.”
We are bantering a bit and this is the first I’ve felt like the weight on my chest was starting to ease off in the last twenty-four hours.
“Talk to me like I’m the idiot you think I am. Explain what is happening, because you are scaring me.”
I sit up and tuck my legs into a cross-legged position. John sits across from me, his left leg on the sofa between us, his right foot on the floor.
“You’re here, and I can’t figure out for the life of me, why. Why you stay with someone who has been abominable to you. Someone who has endangered you, belittled you, left you behind. A drug addict. A liar. An obnoxious arsehole. Yet, you’re here. Your daughter is here. You’ve been here with me for almost two years since Mary’s passing, and sometimes I wonder what it will take for you to see sense and save yourself, save Rosamund from me.”
Predictably, he looks confused.
“I’m confused. You’re surprised I’m still living here with you?”
I nod and roll my eyes. He laughs.
“Have I not made it clear how much you mean to me?”
I squint my surprise, and he continues.
“If you’re not aware of how much I care about you, how much I love you, then I have failed you more than you think you think you’ve ever failed me, Sherlock.”
I feel the sudden pressure of tears and they’re falling before I can stop them.
John leans forward, and sets his hands on my feet. “I do. Love you. More than I thought possible, you know.”
I sniff and swipe at my eyes to try to preserve whatever remains of my dignity.
“I am so sorry that I’ve ever given you a reason to feel this way.”
“It’s not all on you, John. I get a bit lost in here from time to time,” I said, as I tap my temple. “It can get a bit black in there sometimes.”
“Anything I can do? Can I help flip a light on, once in a while?” He rubs my feet with his strong hands.
“On days like today, even Mind Palace John isn’t able to talk me out of the things my brain’s telling me.”
“There’s a version of me in your Mind Palace? Please tell me he’s taller than real-me.” His smile is so soft, I can feel myself relaxing in spite of myself. His fingers are brushing along the arches of my feet. He is soothing to me, and has never realised it.
“You’re wearing that red cardigan from The Blind Banker case.”
He chuckles. “That is very specific.”
“We were working together, so seamlessly. I knew then that I would always want you there, to help me with my work. Before I knew it, ‘my work’, became ‘our work’’. We were so effortless. We shifted so easily, like we were fated somehow. And I don’t even believe in fate, so you can imagine my conflicting thoughts on that bit.” Tears continued to slowly fall as I twisted myself inside out in front of John for the very first time. In a turn for the surprising, the tears didn’t feel like they came from a place of sadness: They felt like a reckoning and a rebirth.
“We stood in front of our fireplace, and you looked like you were meant to be there with me at that moment. And every moment since, if I’m honest. You seemed contented. With the flat. With me. With us. With us being an ‘us’. I’ve not seen many others so comfortable around me before you or since. That cardigan somehow symbolised a peace I’d not realise I’d needed.”
“You gave me that, you know. That contentedness you’re talking about. I’m guessing you knew more about my state of mind when we first met than we’ve ever talked about. I'm sure you saw that I wasn’t well, physically or mentally, back then. Meeting you was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You saved me. Mike did too, I guess. Maybe he saw it, too. Knew you’d be good for me, when I didn’t think much else could ever be that for me again.”
“Mike probably saw it in me, as well.”
“I don’t think either of us was long for this world, at that point in our lives. We were lucky. I don’t want to say ‘fated’ either, but it sort of feels that way, yeah?”
“Our co-dependency probably isn’t healthy, is it?”
“Better than the alternative, though, right? You in a drug’s den, or me swimming through a bottle of whiskey. Or worse.” Our eye contact is intense at this moment. We are saying so many things to each other, without any words being spoken.
“Can you do something for me, Sherlock?”
“You said you already bought milk at Tesco.”
He winked at me. “I’m being serious, now, okay? If you feel yourself starting to fall into one of these dark moods again, can you reach out for me?”
“I hate to bother you.”
“No, you don’t. You love to ‘forget’ to do the washing up after supper, or throw away my bacon because one of your experiments oozed all over it. You are never a bother. Just some of the things you DO, but never YOU. Got it?”
“Yes, John. I’ve got it.”
“And if there’s a time when you don’t ‘got it’, what can I do to help you?”
“I need your voice in my Mind Palace.”
A look of hesitance passes over John’s face. He spent three seconds debating something in his head, and then he smiled at me. “Come closer for a moment, Sherlock.”
I lean forward, and John turns my head, and he presses his lips to my left ear and whispers:
“I don’t know how you do this, Sherlock, how this works in your beautiful brain, but do me a favour: Record this and save it for future reference: I love you. You are loved, infinitely, by so many people. Your loss would end me for good. Please be good to yourself, and let others be good to you.”
John pulled me into his arms and held me there as he spoke nonsense into my hair. I absorbed his tenderness. I felt like a wilted flower soaking in the sun for the first time in weeks. I closed my eyes and rewound John’s words. And then played them again and again.
We stayed that way on the sofa for a much shorter time than I’d have liked. We straightened ourselves and John held my face in his hands and tilted my face towards my neck. He kissed my forehead. My heart skipped a beat.
“We should do this more often. Talk about things. Important things. Hug. We’ve been through so much. So much of it together. There’s no-one better to understand our feelings than each other, yeah?” He nods and smiles. I can see his expectation of rejection in the way he cannot meet my gaze.
I set my palm on his left knee and squeeze. His eyes finally meet mine, and I say, “I agree. This was lovely. Thank you, John.”
He pats the top of my hand twice, his way of acknowledging what I’ve said, without dragging out the moment. Small steps. We are men who have seen and done things we’re both not proud of. Today was momentous for both of us.
“Well, your tea’s gone cold, and these biscuits will dry out if you don’t eat them or put them away. I’ve got to go pick up Rosie from her playgroup before they think I’ve abandoned her. Would you like to join me?”
“I think I’ll stay here and straighten up a bit while you’re gone. Collect myself and maybe renovate my mind palace.”
“Suit yourself. It’s a lovely day today. We deserve it, after all that shit rain this week.” He stood and made to step towards the door leading to the stairs, but he stopped himself short. He walked back to me and placed his left hand on my right ear. “We’ll be home in a bit. Be good to yourself. I’ll see you soon.”
I watch him tap his pockets to check for his phone and his keys. He steps over to the table by his chair and retrieves them, before flashing me a smile that could’ve brightened all of London on her dreariest day.
“We can talk more tonight, if there’s anything else you want to tell me?”
“Bring some wine home with you, in case I need some alcohol-induced fortitude.”
“Will do. See you later!”
He closed the door behind himself, and I listened to his footfalls as he made his way down the stairs to the street. The heavy black door closed and I let out a relieved sigh.
I collected the cold tea and plate of biscuits and went into the kitchen. I poured the tea down the sink and refilled it with some water from the tap. I inhaled the biscuits, even though John was correct about their condition. I ate them, with the full knowledge that John loves me. Loves me enough that he bought these specifically for me, because he knows I enjoy them. I finish off the last of them, as well as the water.
I make my way down the hall towards my bedroom, but detour into the bathroom. I am exhausted. My eyes are raw from crying, and my head is sore from congestion. The knot in my stomach is slowly loosening, but I am still not feeling myself. A steamy shower is in order.
I undress and step into the shower. I can still feel John’s lips on my forehead.
There’s another conversation I think that needs to happen. With any luck, it will go as well as the illuminating one we just had. I close my eyes, as flashes of John’s recent facial and verbal expressions play across the insides of my eyelids. My forehead tingles.
I suddenly realise that luck will not be required. John and I have made our own luck, even though it hasn’t always appeared that way. The things that have happened to us would’ve broken most people. Our relationship, whatever we may end up calling it, is stronger than ever.
We’ve been guiding ourselves, navigating our life together until we were ready for this to happen. We’ve taken our time to get here, but it’s our time now. I’m sure of it.