Chapter Text
John barely remembers the journey here. He was worried — god, he’s always worried — and the emotion had pressed down heavy on his shoulders for the entire taxi ride. Something was wrong. Something indistinguishable, a hair’s breadth away from realisation, and it had settled ice cold beneath his ribs as they drove. Sherlock. Beautiful, untouchable Sherlock, cold-blooded and warm-hearted and, shatteringly, the best man John would ever know. The hospital looms, now, shadowed blue by the clouds drawn dense above him, and John’s out of the cab before he even clocks his limbs working. The feeling is getting worse. Tighter — drawing itself slowly throughout his entire body, thrumming white-hot through his veins.
His phone is ringing. Why is his phone ringing? Nobody ever calls him — only Harry, and only once a month on the third Sunday. It’s a Tuesday. It’s a Tuesday, and his phone is ringing, and something is wrong. His hands shake as he draws the device out of the pocket of his jeans: they never shake. Not anymore. Not since that first night with Mycroft, and his cold, instant deduction of exactly why his therapist was wrong.
The worst part is this: he knows exactly which name he is going to read on his screen. He dreads it. The sight of it is almost enough to send him to his knees anyway, and for the first time since Afghanistan, John Watson is afraid.
Sherlock. The phone reads Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes, mystery of a man who is, if anything, reliable, and reliably, he does not call people. Always a text. Always —SH to round it off, as though he doesn’t understand the concept of the contacts app. Maybe he’s deleted it. It doesn’t matter.
John picks up the phone, and he starts to run.
“Hello?”
“John.”
Instant. If not for his degree in medicine, John would attest to his heart literally stopping in his chest — in this moment, he feels it go. Feels the blood stop moving. Watches as, around him, the world draws itself into slow motion. Black and white. Sherlock. Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock, what have you done—
“Sherlock. Are you okay?” His question is frantic. Breathless. He only hopes that this man and his massive brain are enough to sense the fear in his voice and maybe, god, maybe, hold back from whatever it is that is about to happen.
“Turn around, and walk back the way you came.”
“No, I’m coming in.” Determination. That of a soldier, even now, and he supposes it makes sense that he has slipped back into the battlefield mindset. Poised, and alert, and terrified.
Sherlock can see him. How can he see him? The morgue is underground, windowless, and Sherlock has no reason to be anywhere else. (John hopes that he doesn’t have a reason. But of course he does. He’s the world’s only consulting detective — there is always a reason).
“Just do as I ask.”
John stops. There’s bile in his throat, and his vision is blurring even still. He might pass out. He thinks he will, for a moment, swaying as he stands, until the baritone of his best friend’s voice cuts through the panic.
“Please.”
Please. Maybe this is just a nightmare. Maybe these weeks of Sherlock growing steadily more frantic in his movements, more desperate in the way he tries to get his words across — maybe none of it is real. Surely, that has to be the case, because Sherlock Holmes does not say please. He is, in his own words, above it. Above it all. Claims not to be on the side of the angels, which maybe makes sense, because he must be either the antichrist or a god. Surely. John wants to yell something, through the phone, something manic and desperate like Jesus fucking Christ mate what the fuck are you doing please for the love of god will you just talk to me but he knows that this would wound Sherlock more than could ever be expressed. For all of his talk, and his turned up collars, and his fancy deductions — he could be made of glass. Unbearably fragile, and so vulnerable that nobody even sees it, except John. John, who wants nothing more than to take care of him. He wonders if Sherlock has ever deduced that particular piece of information.
He hopes not — it’s too late for that now.
“Where?”
“Stop there.”
So John stops. Wheels around, as if Sherlock will just be on ground level, and it could all just be solved like that. There is no solving this. John doesn’t think he has ever heard Sherlock sound so broken as this.
“Sherlock?”
John swallows past the lump in his throat which says Sherlock, I’m here. I care about you. You can give up on the act now, I promise. I swear.
So much regret. So many things to just say, or scream maybe, and so little time.
“Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.”
John is almost sick. God, he wants to just wake up from this, wants to pad into the kitchen in his stupid pyjamas and see Sherlock slicing into another set of eyeballs for an experiment. He wants to go home, and he wants to take this beautiful, terrified man with him. The man on the rooftop. The man out of time. Oh, god.
Did he say that out loud? He thinks so. His vision swims, and Sherlock looks so unbearably small up there, so separate, and so alone. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock. His best friend. Desperately graceful, even now.
Sherlock says something else. John doesn’t really process it — he can’t. The pulse in his ears is too loud, and there is too much attention being devoted to the mere act of just staying conscious. He thinks, again — prays, maybe — that this has to be a nightmare, and he has to just wake up soon. Bolt upright, thrashing about like he does with the war dreams, because this cannot be happening. He cannot be seeing this play out in real life. He’s breathing too fast, and maybe this will turn into a panic attack, and maybe Sherlock can see that, from up there, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Not like this.
“What’s going on?”
He knows what’s going on. Of course he does. Even now, through this haze of grief, and panic, and guilt, he knows. He’s no Sherlock Holmes, but he understands enough of the world to know that a man standing on the edge of a rooftop is not a good sign.
There’s not enough time. There was never enough time for them.
“An apology.”
No.
“It’s all true.”
Of course, Sherlock is speaking in fucking riddles. John wants to scream. To throw his phone at the ground and race up the stupid hospital stairs and take hold of this man and never let him go again. Come home, Sherlock. I’ll take you back to Baker Street. Please.
“Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.”
Wrong. That’s not true. John knows it — here is Sherlock, on a rooftop, feeding him this lie, and he doesn’t understand why.
“Why are you saying this?”
His best friend. Sherlock would never, ever have lied to him, and he knows this. The man isn’t capable. Even a god has his tells, and Sherlock does not tell lies. Almost selfishly, John lets the misery seep into his voice, lets every syllable drip with this sense of confusion — and guilt. He sees the way Sherlock flinches. He knows that he’s getting through to him.
Okay. Alright. He can do this — he can save this. He just has to buy them both some time. Has to ask questions.
He has to know.
“I’m a fake.”
Sherlock is lying, then. John does not understand why, but for some reason, the most honest man in the world (to a fault, most of the time) is not telling the truth and John needs to know why. His jaw aches with the weight of everything left unsaid. He cannot let Sherlock do this. He won’t. Nothing in the world is going to get to this man without John beating it to death first.
“Sherlock—”
“The newspapers were right, all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, and I want you to tell Mrs Hudson. And Molly.”
John feels the urge to cry rising up strong again. All of these names, all of these people who care about Sherlock despite the man’s every effort, and there has to be something he can do to save him. Sherlock Holmes.
I love you. He cannot say that. Not yet. God, not like this.
“In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you,” he stammers through the sentence, the least eloquent that John has ever heard him, and every word is unbearably slow as though Sherlock can barely force himself to keep speaking, “that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”
Wrong. Wrong again. Jesus, that stupid Irish bastard strapped enough explosives to John to blow up half of Marylebone, and for all of Sherlock’s shortcomings he would not put John through that for his own gain. Unless John is deeply, intrinsically wrong about the man on the rooftop, he does care. He always has. He wouldn’t do that. John feels the words tripping from his mouth before he can even stop them. Anger. He knows Moriarty is behind this, because of course he is, and there is so much rage flooding very suddenly into John’s chest that he might just keel over.
“Okay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up.”
Anger turns into desperation. He needs to keep speaking, against everything, against this wave of emotions which threatens to bowl him over entirely and throw a wrench into this whole thing. He hopes that Sherlock can hear the tears on the edges of his words. They’re real, is the worst part. He’s never cried in front of Sherlock before.
“The first time we met. The first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?”
Right. That wasn’t a lie. He remembers it so clearly, having his entire life story being dictated to him by this insane, gorgeous man in his stupid three piece suit, and nobody could make that up. There isn’t a single person on this earth who could be so bloody pretentious, for one. Sherlock’s voice, again, slices clean through his thoughts. He sounds so tired.
“Nobody could be that clever.”
John wants to scream. Sherlock could. Sherlock fucking is, and this cannot be real, and there is a good man standing on the edge of a rooftop with a phone in his hands and a shake in his voice and a friend on the ground below him who loves him too much. There is nothing worse than a boy who loves you. Nothing hurts like almost. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock.
“You could.”
The words echo between them, and John watches as Sherlock stills. He’s getting somewhere, and he has to keep talking, and maybe, suddenly, he has a chance with this.
“You could, yeah? God, you stupid man, of course you could. I need you — Sherlock, hey, listen to me, I need you to get off that roof. One last miracle, Sherlock, for me. Step back. I’ll be up faster than you know it, I’ll be right there—”
“John.”
John stops. He has to.
“Sherlock.”
“I have to do this, John. I cannot tell you why.”
He doesn’t have to tell John why. Moriarty is fucking why, and John is going to beat that man to a pulp if he ever gets his hands on him again.
“You don’t, Sherlock. Whatever it is, I can help you, I shot a man dead the first fucking day that we met, you know I can help you.”
He can hear the smile in Sherlock’s voice. It’s so soft. “So that was you.”
“You knew that.”
“I did.” Sherlock pauses. “It’s always been you, John.”
John takes a step backwards. Always you. Maybe this is the closest they’ll ever get to a confession. Except he can’t bear that. He will not stand for surrendering like this — he’s a soldier. He does not know how.
“You can come down, Sherlock. Whatever this is, we can sort it out. Together, yeah?”
“It isn’t possible, John. I’ve considered every option. You know I have.”
This is true — Sherlock wouldn’t be doing this if there was another way. Slowly, John is putting the pieces together, as best he can.
“There must be something. Use that massive brain of yours, Sherlock, come on.”
A minute shake of the head, but John can see it, even from here. He’s given up. For whatever reason, it strikes John just how much he uses Sherlock’s name in conversation, and how much the same thing is reciprocated. He’s never thought about that too much before, and his heartbeat is thudding too loud in his ears to give it much thought now, either. There are so many things he hasn’t considered. So much to be said, and done.
“You’re not a fraud.”
Sherlock, up on the roof, sways a little.
“This would be a lot easier for you if you thought I was.” He inhales, deep and shuddered through the phone. “You have so much faith in me, John. Why?”
It’s a big question. Jesus, it’s huge, and John could spend hours and hours detailing his exact answer but there isn’t time. He thinks back to just last night. Thinks about sprinting hand in hand through the streets of London with the man he’s shared two years with, breathless and desperate and flooded entirely with this new sense of promise. Sherlock. His Sherlock. Nobody knows this man like he does, and John finally starts to cry.
“Sherlock, please.”
“John.”
“No. Alright, stop it now. Come down, Sherlock.”
John can’t let this happen. He feels his feet moving beneath him, and then he’s half walking half jogging towards the building, and Sherlock is calling through the phone to him but he has to help him. He has to. Jesus, he’s got to, and he’s sprinting now, full-pelt until he finally processes the sheer desperation of Sherlock’s voice pitched in his ear.
“Stay exactly where you are.”
This is happening, then. No.
“Don’t move.”
He sounds so scared.
“Alright.”
It’s all that John can bring himself to say, some semblance of reassurance as the man on the rooftop — the man he loves — tips himself ever closer to the edge. Sherlock reaches an arm out, and god, he could be a painting. John feels the guilt gnawing at him for marvelling at his beauty, even now, but up there, framed by the clouds, he’s this picture of divinity. A complex of shadows and light, all which meet across his face and pool under his cheekbones in this truly inhuman way. Don’t do this to me.
“Keep your eyes fixed on me.”
Forget scared, the man is terrified. John can see his hands shaking from here, and more than anything he wants to just be there next to Sherlock, and to hold him, and the need is so desperate and sudden that it almost knocks him over.
“Please, will you do that for me?”
For me. John, again, thinks he might be sick. He hasn’t spoken in too long, and he can feel himself going into shock: the edges of his fingers are going ice cold, and he cannot feel his own pulse. Maybe he’s just dead. That would be better, surely, than this. He needs to say something. Anything. Anything to coax Sherlock down.
(There is one thing, he thinks, that could work. The words in the back of his mind which have been there since that night at the pool. Red-hot and aching to be touched, and unbearable. For a moment, John doesn’t think he’s brave enough. Then he remembers that he went to war.)
Have to say something. Come on, John. Something to hold him back. Something dangerous, like—
“I love you.”
He hears Sherlock’s gasp over the phone. A small, sharp intake of breath, and god, he hopes that it’s enough. The silence between them echoes, endless. Sherlock, on the roof, who has never once second-guessed himself in his entire life, seems to be torn. He watches the taller man's features, watches his mouth form a silent word which might just be John, watches the way Sherlock’s entire frame stiffens in the way that it does when he deduces something huge.
“John?”
Too late now to take anything back.
“I love you, Sherlock.”
Again. Twice now. Two times more than John ever thought he’d utter the words to Sherlock in the first place. The confession shocks him, twists around every bone in his skeleton like ivy, constricting. Rooting him in place, eternally. John’s feet are heavier than they’ve ever been, and for a moment, he can’t breathe, and then Sherlock is speaking. Words coming out thick and fast, honeyed, as though he’s on some sort of time limit. Maybe he is.
“Alright, John, don’t speak. Stop talking. Stop breathing, I need you to listen to me now. Do you understand?”
John does. He nods, and Sherlock sees it.
“In about thirty seconds, I am going to throw myself off this roof.”
He pauses, for just a moment, to see if John will interrupt. He doesn’t, though the sentence nearly takes his legs out. There has to be a reason. Sherlock will explain, and if he doesn’t, then all of this was for nothing.
“You are going to watch my body fall to the ground, and it is going to destroy you. You will begin to run over to me, and then you will trip over. You will trip over, John, do you understand? On the curb. You must. You are going to stay down, winded, for as long as you can allow yourself. Then you will be up and running again, towards me, and there will be people around me, yes? Nurses from the hospital, passers-by on the street. I need you to force your way through them, John. Use any excuse you have. That you’re a doctor. That you know CPR. That you’re — my friend.”
John notes the pause, at that. Friend. Not such, maybe, anymore. He does not speak, but he’s struggling to breathe, now, because it seems almost as though Sherlock is just detailing his own suicide and the events which will follow. There is no plan. Sherlock will hit the ground, and he will die.
“You will make a show of feeling for my pulse, John. Make sure it is a visible action. Overplay it. Stumble backwards as if shot, when you don’t feel anything. There will not be a pulse. Understand this, John. There will be no pulse.”
There will be no pulse. Sherlock will be dead. John doesn’t understand. If there is no pulse, then of course he’s going to have a visible reaction, because his best friend in the entire world will be a corpse and it is going to tear him to pieces.
“And then go home, John. Straight home. Find Mrs Hudson, and make sure she is okay. Promise me that you’ll check on her.”
John can only nod. He promises.
“Okay. Alright. I’m going to jump, now.”
That — hold on. There’s nothing else? John blanches. That doesn’t make sense. Sherlock is going to jump off a fucking building. Nobody survives that, not even him. He’s going to die. There was no plan. Sherlock was just stalling. He is going to jump off of this hospital roof and die.
“Wait, Sherlock, hold on—”
“Goodbye, John.”
The next few seconds unfold in slow motion. He hears Sherlock’s name tearing itself from his throat, feels it splinter into the air like shards of bone, feels himself breaking into a sprint at the sight of the man on the roof dropping his mobile somewhere behind him. Maybe he’s delusional, but he swears he hears the sound of it hitting the ground. And then, oh Jesus Christ, Sherlock, he’s taken a step forward but there’s nothing there, he’s pitching into thin fucking air with his stupid gorgeous coat flailing hopeless behind him, and he’s falling, and John is running but he cannot be fast enough and he will not make it, and then three things happen almost all at once.
John trips on the fucking curb.
The sun slips out from behind the cloud cover.
Sherlock hits the ground.
Dead. No plan. Sherlock Holmes is dead, and John Watson just let it happen. He didn’t even mean to trip on this stupid curb but of course Sherlock predicted it. Of course the dead man’s final words were a fucking deduction. Disoriented, and shaking, and maybe bleeding from somewhere on his forehead, John pulls himself up from the ground and forces himself on towards Sherlock’s body. His corpse. As predicted, obviously, there are a dozen people milling around him, some in scrubs and some in suits but they’re all in the way, and per Sherlock’s request John is shoving his way through all of them. Either the adrenaline has made him stronger, or everyone is just eager to get out of the way of the sobbing man with the ugly gash on his forehead. Please, he hears himself saying, maybe, let me through, please, I’m a doctor. I’m his— his friend. I know him, please, let me through. The crowd parts. The corpse remains. It is, tragically, unmistakably, Sherlock. Down to the cheekbones, it’s him, and John almost cannot bring himself to check the pulse. As if until he does that, Sherlock is still alive.
Maybe he is. Blindly, utterly numb, he feels for a hand, and it’s all so cold, and he finds a wrist and presses two fingers two it and stays there for what feels like years.
There is nothing.
John pitches forward, and someone is screaming, and maybe it’s him. He keels into Sherlock, into his beautiful chest, curls into the man, threads their fingers together as if holding hands with a dead body has ever brought anyone back, and then he can’t really see anything at all. Through the darkness, he inhales, and it’s Sherlock, because of course it is. Old leather and oak and the distinct smell of a pressed suit, and it’s him. It’s always him.
When John wakes, he is in a hospital bed. He cannot feel a thing, and he welcomes it. The world around him is cast in shades of grey, and there is a concerned-looking nurse at his bedside, who brightens slightly when he wakes.
“You’re up!” The nurse’s voice is far too cheery. John wants to punch him in the face.
“Sherlock. Have you seen him?”
He knows that this is mean. He knows that. He knows that it is meaner, still, to watch as the nurse fumble for an answer, because of course there isn’t one, because Sherlock is dead.
“I’m leaving.”
The poor nurse is calling out behind him, something about staying for observations and a form which John should really sign, but he truly does not have the strength. The walk home is unbearable: he cannot face a taxi right now. His head hurts, and his mouth is dry, and his voice is almost completely gone. Not that he needs it. There is nobody else in the world that he will ever want to talk to again.
He’s back at 221B before he can truly process it. The knocker is at an angle. Sherlock hated it straight. He is everywhere, traces of the man throughout this entire city, and John knows that he is going to have to move out as soon as he is able. He cannot bear this, and the thought of actually walking inside is enough to knock him over for a minute. Maybe he receives a few strange looks: a grown man, sprawled out over a street in London, but he doesn’t care. Nothing matters. He wants Sherlock back.
God, how stupid he’d been, to think that loving a person could ever be enough.
John blinks, and he’s in the house. He doesn’t remember doing that. The stairs are a whole new obstacle, though he manages to stumble up each of them without an overwhelming amount of difficulty, finally making it into their flat — his flat — and collapsing into Sherlock’s chair rather than his own. It feels horrendously wrong, but then again, so does everything. He closes his eyes, partly because he is exhausted and mostly because this entire place looks and smells like Sherlock and he needs to escape it, if only for a moment.
When John wakes, there are two things that are different about the apartment.
One: it is dark. Dusk has come and gone, and the streetlights are on outside, lighting up the apartment in this dull, haunting glow.
Two (and this one is probably of slightly more note): there is a man stood in their kitchen. A man in a ridiculously long coat. A man whose hair is perfectly tousled and whose voice is slightly lower than average and who, most importantly, is alive.
“John.”
“Sher…lock?”
“You didn’t follow my instructions very well.”