Chapter Text
It’s okay, it’s all right, it’s fine— it’s all fine, it is—
Except it’s fucking not.
Friends don’t let friends drive themselves to suicide.
Once dead, aforementioned friends most certainly do not spring back to life, like ungainly jack-in-the-boxes. Do not simply resurrect, like Jesus-bloody-Christ—
They’re hunched in the cellar of Angelo’s, and the support beam overhead casts a thin, fuzzy strip of shadow over Sherlock’s broad, pale forehead— like a crown of thorns—
A thump from above sends dust spiralling into their hair, and on their clothes. People are hooting upstairs, something is happening.
“…John? Are you listening to me?” Grey eyes roving his face— a hand outstretched, not quite touching, withheld on instinct— oh that’s good, that’s very good— even Sherlock, for all his meagre understanding of trite sentiment, dares not disobey certain innate etiquettes, like do not fucking touch me while I try and reconstruct everything I thought I knew—
How did John not see this coming? There’s always something, of course— sister-not-brother, botox-not-tetanus, but alive-not-dead, that’s not your garden-variety blunder. John crawled on hands and knees through the five stages of grief— raw skin, ragged fingernails and all. Turns out they were listed wrong, John should’ve swapped the first and last, and isn’t this a fucking epiphany, that he was closer to the truth when he was in denial—
John likes a good laugh, same as any bloke— within reason. He does not enjoy cruel jokes— the sick, twisted ones. It stands to reason that he is not very fond of his epiphanies.
“How— t-two years, Sherlock-” His trachea, lungs and diaphragm seem to compress and expand out of tandem, like an accordion played poorly, and he finds he is unable to speak without stuttering.
He can’t imagine what Sherlock sees in his eyes, because the man takes a small step forward, and his lips pop open in that way they do when he’s about to stop leading New Scotland Yard round and round the mulberry bush—
“I did it for you, John.” It should be a sin, for the timbre of his voice to click right back into John’s schema of cognition, as if John had not tried burying it six feet under, with the worms and soil and devastation. “For Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade— Moriarty had snipers on each of you, prepared to shoot if they didn’t explicitly see me-” John’s breath hitches, and Sherlock breaks off.
It’s a birthday celebration going on, the chanting is clearly audible, Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to-
“Sh-Sherlock— you left me, and I— I mourned you-” John pinches the bridge of his nose, inhaling deeply through his mouth.
Sherlock stares at him, solemn. “Believe me, John-”
“-don’t— don’t talk to me about believing in y-you, Jesus, just-”
He can hear a delighted child scream, somewhat muffled, over and over, make a wish! Make a wish, make a wish, make a-
John closes his eyes and lets out a small huff of breath, stepping forward until he can feel the lapels of Sherlock’s coat brush against his chest—
Sherlock’s lips are parted, shock and guilt and something unidentifiable, splayed messily across his face—
The emotions slide right off when John socks him in the mouth.
Something clatters to the ground. A vindictive shove to the shoulder— then a hard elbow to the stomach— Sherlock accepts it all, wordlessly, passively, which is incredibly infuriating— because not fighting back doesn’t make it even, nothing makes blood-drenched pavements and limp wrists even, and this knowledge of how Sherlock is trying to apologise makes him want to hit harder, but if he did, Sherlock might keep on letting him, and then what would stop the vicious circle—
Sherlock rests his head against the wall, eyes scrunched shut, a dribble of dark red inching down his chin. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down, his breathing as laboured as John’s, who has bent over, palms clutching knees.
When John looks up, Sherlock is already watching him.
“Please, John. You have to let me explain until you’re in full possession of all the facts-” A small pause, as if anticipating an angry interjection, and it thrills John to stay stock-still and silent— defying expectation, listening, “-otherwise, you may reach an erroneous conclusion.”
An eruption of applause from above makes both of them glance at the ceiling.
“Go on, then.”
“I—what?”
“The facts, Sherlock, the facts. We have all night.” He feels his lips stretch into a tight smile, and lets the bitterness and anger seep unchecked, wanting the deep and ugly ochre of it to stain and soak Sherlock right down to the bone and settle in his marrow, like a malignancy, so that he understands the enormity of what he did to John Watson— “Wouldn’t want to reach conclusions erroneously, now, would we.”
He twist every syllable the way you twist an arm to land a punch.
It’s a very slight movement, but Sherlock flinches, face unguarded, looking very small— and it makes John feel glorious, and righteous—
And then, abruptly hollow.
He gestures to a group of empty crates. “Might as well be sitting for this.”
*
Angelo walks in, furtive and anxious, asking them if they wouldn’t prefer talking upstairs, now that everything is calm— well, calmer— it’s just so dim with that bulb short-circuited, and cramped with the new shipment of flour, and hand to god Angelo feels terrible that he couldn’t warn John before, and are they feeling peckish at all, because it would be no trouble at all to prepare something, maybe a nice pesto—
Sherlock stares at the floorboards and John stares at Angelo until his smile flickers and he wrings his hands, uneasily.
“So I will get a candle, yes?”
John lets out a shocked laugh as Sherlock says, forcefully, “No!”
After Angelo has gone it takes a few, desperate seconds to remember where they had left off.
*
There is a new scar on Sherlock’s face— a sliver of silver that bites into half his right eyebrow. It ripples along with his forehead, whenever he frowns or exclaims or widens his eyes in that earnest way of his— as if Sherlock’s two years alone are trying to push past skin and physically manifest themselves—
It’s nothing, really. A tiny, glossy gash. Practically unobtrusive. But then, midway through a sentence, Sherlock will pull a face that should be comfortingly familiar, except it’s not, it’s been changed— because of that little, wayward jog of healing tissue— into something distractingly different.
“What are you— it’s my hair, isn’t it, I knew it-”
“…I’m sorry?”
“My hair, John, my hair!” Sherlock says, impatiently. “My hair,” as if the emphasis will make things much clearer. John looks on, perplexed. “I’m losing it,” Sherlock explains.
“Yeah, I’d say.”
“Oh, droll. I meant, I’m losing my hair. It’s— it’s started to fall out,” Sherlock confesses, the gravest he has been throughout the entire conversation.
It’s strange to realise, then, that though a lot may have changed, irretrievably— like molten lava heaving great terrains across oceans, slowly and surely, into unrecognisable patterns— so much hasn’t.
*
“You’ll consider it?”
“I don’t know, Sherlock-”
“I’m not asking you to know, I’m asking you to consider, unless you don’t know whether to consider, which is a unique kind of indecisiveness-”
“What about Mrs. Hudson?”
“What about her?”
“Won’t she— oh.” John watches as Sherlock’s quizzical expression rearranges, now blank. “She already knows, doesn’t she? How long? No, don’t answer that, I don’t want to-” He strokes the webbing between his thumb and index finger. “’Course she knew before me,” he says quietly, almost talking to himself.
“John-”
“No, no, it’s— forget it. And besides, I have a bedsit now-” Sherlock lets out a derisive snort, before turning it into a cough.
John feels a sudden spurt of shiny, renewed resentment.
He clears his throat and stands up, pushing the crate back. Pins and needles retreat from his legs with slow remembrance, as if his limbs have been in disuse for a long time. Sherlock studies him, eyes narrowing. “I suppose I— I should be off now. Goodnight, then.”
“But I’ll see you tomorrow?” Sherlock asks quickly, in a tone so blatantly— something— that John cringes, and covers it by rotating his shoulder. He nods, stiffly, and turns to leave. John’s climbed three steps when the back of his neck prickles, something feels off—
“John, wait.” There is a soft, metallic scraping.
Sherlock puts one hand on the railing and extends the other, fingers curled around—
John snatches his cane and hurries up the stairs without looking back, through the chequered tables and into the night air, where he finally takes a deep breath—then another—
Cautiously, he kneads his thigh, testing and probing.
There is no pain.
*