Work Text:
The night John left his wife, it was pouring rain.
That seemed like a bit of a cliche. The streets of London were streaked with rushing water, stoplights and streetlights reflecting alike across the wet cobblestone. John had forgotten his umbrella at the house. He had forgotten almost all of his belongings at the house other than a small, hastily packed bag that he'd slung over his shoulder before hurrying out the door. He had to take the tube, cabs often disregarding the little urban neighborhood that he had moved into with the hopes of living a domestic, normal life. Not that normal life had ever truly been in the cards for him. Not when he had simply switched from running after a self-proclaimed sociopath to living with an actual psychopath.
Eventually 221 Baker Street loomed threateningly before him. Everything was damp. His hair began to weigh down on him, still half-soaked from the time spent walking to the nearest tube station. A stray cab's tires screeched as the driver flew through the single-lane traffic. The noise jolted John out of his musings; forced him to pull himself together enough to walk up the familiar steps.
He still had his key. He kept it with him everywhere, even after Mary moved into his lifeless little house, and even after Sherlock returned from the dead and John painted his face with streaks of blood. He supposed it was only a matter of time until he'd return, and perhaps deep down he had recognized that all along. Certainly Sherlock would have predicted it. Certainly he'd known, as soon as Mary shot a hole through Sherlock's chest, knowing damn well what the man's "death" had done to John last time.
Finding out the unborn child wasn't John's was truly just the cherry on top of their strained, perpetually loose-fitting relationship. A deep, furious suspicion bloomed in the deepest crevices within his chest; concern over the possibility that Sherlock had picked up on this all along and chosen not to say anything. He didn't want to consider that. He wanted to believe in Sherlock Holmes and that little strand of goodness that he hid so well from the rest of the world.
John took a deep breath. Raised his hand to the knocker.
The door flew open before his knuckles could graze it.
Sherlock stood on the other side. He was wearing a maroon dressing gown over his white button-up and gray trousers. The outfit was completed by tattered black slippers rather than his usual black dress shoes. He looked like a cross between comfort and professionalism, but it was the look in his eyes that made John take a small step back.
There was a burning confusion in his gaze that John had only ever associated with Irene Adler. She had been the only person that Sherlock was almost incapable of reading. Aside from that one evening before John's life shattered, when Sherlock was so strangely unable to comprehend why John would worry about whether people would perceive him as a fraud.
The words had stuck in John's throat that night. Because I care about you. He likely would've added "git" at the end of the confession if he'd said it, something to lessen the blow of such bleeding honesty. But he couldn't force the words out, and by the time Sherlock came back to life, he'd buried them deep down inside.
"Um. Hello," John said. It was unusual to feel so hesitant around Sherlock. They had become so achingly familiar with each other when they'd lived together, and even in the aftermath of their own personal apocalypse, some of that lingered.
"You have a key and yet you were going to knock. Shows you were uneasy about just coming inside. Not to mention, your bag." Sherlock's gaze flicked to the bag slung haphazardly over John's shoulder. "Packed quite full for its size."
John pressed his lips into a hard line. "You already know, Sherlock." His voice came out flat. "I don't need to hear your list of observations. Can I just-- I just want a cuppa and maybe to sleep for awhile. D'you mind if I do that much? And we can figure out the rest of-- of this later," he said, waving a hand towards his bag, then back towards the building.
Sherlock swallowed. It was unnaturally audible. He gave a small nod, stepping back enough to allow John inside. "Should hurry. Mrs. Hudson will have questions if you loiter around for too long."
John nodded, shutting and locking the door behind himself. He was competent enough to achieve a few deductions of his own. He noticed how difficult it was for Sherlock to hold himself upright, how he leaned slightly against the wall, how uneven his indrawn breaths were. He was barely holding himself together.
After John's wife put a bullet in his chest, that is.
John tasted bitterness in the back of his throat. Without another word, he brushed past Sherlock, somehow making it to his former bedroom and getting the door locked before sinking to the floor like a crumpled piece of paper. He did not rise for the rest of the night.
. . .
That evening, all of John's dreams blurred together. He dreamed of Mary, strikingly lovely in her white wedding gown, pale fingers curled around the barrel of her gun. He dreamed of Sherlock, wet streaks of maroon gushing down his face and along the gray cobblestone outside Bart's. He dreamed of a crying baby girl with Mary's blonde ringlets and his own sky blue eyes; she was screaming, screaming, screaming until she faded entirely.
After that, it was just a scattered mess of images and memories: shooting that cabbie through two windows on his first case, being handcuffed to Sherlock and running as a fugitive through the darkened London streets, sitting across from Sherlock in a cheap restaurant the night he returned from the dead and choking on grief for both everything he had lost and all he had regained. A low baritone, layered over a string of rapid-fire gunshots, echoed in John's head as he jolted upright. Awake at last.
Everything felt jumbled.
His surroundings were somehow equally familiar and unrecognizable. John blinked a few times, rubbing away the sleep still lingering in his eyes, as he took in the sight. He was sitting on his old bed in Baker Street. Golden morning light scattered haphazardly across the walls, illuminating where the wallpaper was beginning to fray from age. It was more faded than he was used to, but then again, he hadn't slept here in over three years.
Why was he here?
Memories from the previous night slowly came to mind. John groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as he took a deep inhale. Right. He had finally left Mary and ended up on Sherlock's doorstep, damp and exhausted and desperate for a place to stay. He hadn't let Sherlock deduce the details out loud, but he was certain the detective had put the puzzle pieces together. It would be ridiculous to presume otherwise. And John felt ridiculous enough as it was. How pathetically predictable, to end up crawling home to Sherlock when his marriage finally crumbled at the seams. His string of unsuccessful ex-lovers wouldn't be surprised in the slightest.
John rummaged through his old drawers, surprised to find a soft cream-colored jumper and a few plain white button-ups were still neatly folded inside. There was even a pair of navy blue jeans to replace the ones still clinging damply to his skin, not fully dry yet even after the last few hours. He changed quickly, kicking the pile of vaguely wet clothes into the corner of the room. He started to head to the door before hesitating.
His gaze caught on his reflection in a medium-sized mirror. His eyes looked hollow, dark circles carving into his skin. His hair was matted, half-dry and half-soaked, sticking up in strange areas and laying completely flat in others. He looked almost feral, more like a lower class of criminal than a blogger.
That suppressed rage boiling in his stare didn't help his case much, either. John set his jaw, nodded once to himself. He could accept this. After the night he'd had, it was normal to look so . . . untamed. Bloody hell. After the last three years he'd had, really.
Each footstep down the stairs seemed to echo like a gunshot in the crippling silence. It was unlike the flat to be so quiet, which meant it must be intentional. Sherlock tiptoeing around landmines with John, per usual. It made him want to shout. To throw things. To shoot a hole through the wall. Maybe he understood Sherlock before the fall a bit better now.
Despite the suffocating silence, Sherlock was awake when John reached the sitting room. He was perched in his chair, hands steepled beneath his chin, staring expectantly at the place where John emerged. He did not react outwardly to John's appearance, though, instead remaining perfectly still. The drop of a pin could be heard within 221B Baker Street in this moment.
John broke the silence, clearing his throat. "I'm leaving Mary."
Sherlock stared. "Yes," he murmured. "Obviously. But why?"
"Wh-- You're asking me why?" John's words came out like a disbelieving scoff. Sherlock finally reacted, genuine surprise flickering across his features. It only fueled John's frustration. "Sherlock, she shot you. She could've killed you."
"Haven't we gone over this already? There's -- something. Something else, something worse." Sherlock lowered his hands, tilting his head as he stared John down. And God, how John hated being pinned beneath that watchful stare. It made him feel like a test subject more than a person. "Does it have to do with the child?"
John flinched.
Recognition flashed across Sherlock's features. John hated it. Hated watching every piece of the puzzle click together, reminiscent of his own suffering flashing before another individual's eyes. Sherlock swallowed, a hard sound that John could hear from across the sitting room. "I--"
"Don't." John's voice was monotone. It seemed almost as though Sherlock was about to apologize, for whatever reason, and John couldn't bear to hear it. "I don't need etiquette, and you've never been very good at it, anyway."
"Yes," Sherlock murmured, "I suppose you're correct."
Uneasy silence filled the flat once again. It made John feel like he was shaking beneath his own skin. It was unnatural and it made him want to fight, to jump, to act or react somehow. The last time he had experienced this feeling was when Sherlock was helping Mary plan their wedding. While it had been Mary's suggestion to find a good case, John had probably been more attached to the investigation than Sherlock. It was the only way to shake the sense of . . . wrongness.
But Mary wasn't here now. Likely would never be here again, if John had it his way, Magnussen investigation be damned. There was no reason to allow the ghost of who he thought his wife was to continually haunt the room.
John sat in his former chair, which had magically appeared after Sherlock's near-death experience. Very little made sense to John, an opinion that Sherlock would surely agree with, but here, in this flat, everything made sense. Everything was simple in the most complicated way possible, and despite the little lies he told himself every night, he'd missed it desperately.
"Did you know?" John asked. He wasn't certain if he could stand the answer, but the question wouldn't quit echoing in his head.
Sherlock's expression appeared blank, but there was the most fleeting flicker of emotion in his unwavering stare. A stranger wouldn't have noticed. But John did. "About the . . . child?" It seemed that Sherlock was choosing his words with unusual care.
John didn't bother responding. There was nothing else he could be asking about.
Sherlock shook his head once. It was a slight, jerky movement, emphasizing just how tense the detective truly felt. John wasn't able to read people like a novel in the manner that Sherlock did, but he did know how to pick up on his best friend's mannerisms. It would be impossible not to notice everything about Sherlock. So John believed him. Trust issues aside, Sherlock was taut as a live wire. He was always more relaxed while lying than telling the truth.
John pressed his lips into a hard line, feigning interest in the fading red fabric of his chair as he picked at a loose thread. He still desperately needed an outlet for all of the tension building inside of him. It must make him a horrible person, but he'd half-hoped that Sherlock had been keeping it from him so he would have an excuse to scream, knock something over, let it all out. He'd had enough years of therapy to recognize that was an unhealthy coping mechanism. But rage was all he had at the end of the day. It was his safety net when other emotions were too overwhelming. Like discovering the truth about his fictional life with Mary.
Like being in this flat again with Sherlock as deafening silence surrounded them. Like everything, everything in the past three years after Sherlock's traumatic fall. And the weeks building up to it, as well. Mary had been the perfect distraction, but now with their life together torn to unfixable shreds, John's truth was intent upon confronting him once again. He remembered Molly's voice, soft and tentative, just two weeks before Sherlock's fall.
Will you ever tell him?
John had pretended to be oblivious, but Molly Hooper was not an easy person to fool. She saw right through him. Of course she did -- she felt the same way. While she hadn't pressed as he remained silent, her question consistently rang through his thoughts with the slightest tinge of hope. And once Sherlock was gone, seemingly forever, the hope was lost. Only anger and self-loathing remained. Until Mary. Until he'd convinced himself to believe his own lies.
"John?"
Sherlock's low baritone snapped John out of his musings. He was unsure how much time had passed, as the sunlight seemed just a little brighter behind the dusty curtains. Vaguely, he wondered if this was how Sherlock felt as he got lost in his "mind palace."
"Sorry, what?"
The concern on Sherlock's expression was difficult to ignore. It looked out of place on his features, often so impassive and unreadable. "I asked what you need."
"What I need?" It was such a simple question, but the words were suddenly senseless to John.
Sherlock's stare was sharp, attempting to deduce whatever thoughts were racing through John's mind, pick him apart like an experiment on a petri dish, per usual. But John got the impression that it wasn't working as effectively as usual, because Sherlock appeared frustrated. Irene Adler came to mind once more, against John's will. He wanted to forget that entire debacle, as well. It had pushed him too close to the edge of his own white lies.
"What do you need?" Sherlock repeated. Each word was emphasized slowly, as if John was incapable of understanding basic speech.
Perhaps that wasn't such a far-fetched assumption. John finally met Sherlock's expectant gaze, something like despair and hopelessness and unyielding anger boiling in his chest all at once. "You're the great consulting detective. Tell me, what do you think I need?"
John felt a sense of dark satisfaction over the flash of surprise on Sherlock's face. It was difficult to catch such a brilliant mind off-guard, but he knew Sherlock had never been too good with people. Emotional context always destabilized him in the end. "Well. Clearly you needed to get away from Mary. You may have paid the down payment for your boring little house in the suburbs, but despite everything, Mary is still a pregnant woman and you wouldn't discard her onto the streets. Despite her . . . skills. So you ended up here, in dire need of shelter, due to--"
"No, Sherlock." There was a familiar edge of exhaustion in John's voice. "Don't tell me what I needed. Don't explain my actions to me. Tell me what I need. Present tense. What do I currently need?"
Sherlock frowned. John felt his electric stare, raking over him like a particularly intriguing museum exhibit. Despite his discomfort, he didn't move, instead allowing Sherlock to continue his process. After a moment, Sherlock hummed, low in his throat. "You need company. You don't want to be alone."
John's lips twitched, though he didn't feel amused. "Is that all, then? Only my desperate need of other people, is that all there is to this? Because, Sherlock, I could have gone to a hundred different places for company. We do live in London. And it may not be the best company, but it would suffice, if that was all I needed."
His annoyance continued to increase with every word. Sherlock winced, just barely, as if John had struck a nerve. But then he narrowed his brows, pale eyes gleaming in the poorly illuminated flat. "Do you truly want me to say it?"
John didn't speak. He didn't trust himself to.
Sherlock seemed to accept that as affirmation, however. He sat up straighter, long fingers perched beneath his chin. He did not look away from John. "Me. You need me. Is that right?" Despite the confidence in his posture, there was uncertainty lurking in his tone.
It reminded John of when he'd asked Sherlock to be his best man at the wedding. I'm your . . . best friend?
Of course you are. Of course . . . you're my best friend.
It was only a few short months prior, but it felt like lifetimes ago. Right now, in this perpetually familiar flat, the last three years felt a thousand miles away. Right now, John felt closer to the past than the present as he remembered Molly's inquiry once more: Will you ever tell him?
Subtle panic bloomed in Sherlock's gaze when John didn't respond. Quickly, John cleared his throat, breathing in deeply before offering a hesitant nod. "Yes. Yes, that's right." Such a mindless answer, and yet it felt as though it carried endless weight.
Panic shifted to another round of surprise. Sherlock lowered his hands, slowly rising from his chair and taking a step towards John. "Why is that?" he asked. "Why do you . . . need me?"
Sherlock was offering John an escape route. He knew it. He knew how effortless it would be to simply remind Sherlock that he was his best friend, and that was all there was to it. Nothing more. There was nothing behind his inquiries at Angelo's the very first evening, or his frustration over Irene Adler's incessant texts, or his inescapable grief after Sherlock's fall, or his hand's careful placement upon Sherlock's knee as intoxication overcame the both of them. It had always been nothing.
Except John was growing exhausted over lying to himself. Especially when those lies only crumbled to pieces, time and time again.
John swallowed as he stood. It was harshly audible in the quiet of the flat. There was too many possible answers to Sherlock's question, even if he entertained the idea of telling the truth. If anything, that only created so many more responses. He could chose denial, lies, honesty, endearment, anguish, frustration, anger, yearning, kindness. There was too many variables and he struggled to uncover the best option. This was why John was not the investigator in their dynamic.
"Because I do," John said. In the end, none of the possible answers were good enough. No single response could encapsulate all of the emotions warring within his chest. It had been too many years of repression, all bubbling to the surface within ten minutes. "I've always needed you, hasn't it been obvious? You-- you saved my life, you cock, you absolute cock. You're supposed to be so brilliant, and yet you are the most oblivious person that I have ever--"
John's rant was cut short as Sherlock latched onto the worn fabric of his jumper, tugging him several steps closer. There was a beat, just a single breath, where their eyes met. Before John finally abandoned his self-control.
When their mouths collided, it was messy and uncoordinated. Their teeth clanked painfully, Sherlock was gripping hard enough onto John's jumper to tear a seam, and John struggled to latch onto the slippery fabric of Sherlock's excessively posh suit jacket. But gradually, they found a rhythm. Sherlock's hand rose to cup John's face with surprising tenderness, and John's grasp curled perfectly around Sherlock's waist, both fragile and muscled at the same time. Sherlock's mouth opened beneath John's lips, and suddenly it was too much.
John yanked away, stumbling back several feet and breathing heavily. He hardly noticed as his ankle clashed into his chair. He felt like he couldn't catch his breath, like no amount of oxygen would ever be enough. He'd imagined this scenario hundreds of times over the years and hopelessly tried to banish it from his memory. But his imagination had not prepared him for reality.
Sherlock looked unsteady, porcelain hands trembling at his sides. It seemed as though his chest might shake out of his own skin. "I apologize," he said slowly.
John recognized that Sherlock had nothing to apologize for -- after all, John had kissed him -- but he found himself incapable of speech. Sherlock's jaw tightened as the silence between them lingered. Time passed, either seconds or hours, before Sherlock spun on the heel of his shoe and picked up his beloved violin, abandoned on their dining table. Before John could even consider inquiring, the bow tore violently against the strings, causing a melody that was both sporadic and angst-ridden.
It reminded him, vaguely, of the melody that Sherlock had composed for his wedding to Mary. Now, the memories were tainted and tarnished by darkness. He remembered his joy, unabashed and endless, over the thought of Mary bringing a baby Watson into the world. Just the same, he recalled the lingering terror over Sherlock's insistence that they wouldn't need him anymore. He'd lost so much.
John was tired of losing things.
His hand latched onto Sherlock's shoulder. It was not a conscious decision, but he did not regret it, either. He felt Sherlock grow still beneath his touch, and it seemed as though they breathed in at the same time, unsteady and hesitant. "Sherlock."
There was no response, though John felt Sherlock quivering slightly under his hand. Touching Sherlock brought back endless recollections: running together as fugitives through the darkened streets of London; giggling like schoolchildren in the hallway of Baker Street their first evening together; watching him fall, fall, fall for what felt like ages and pointlessly checking his pulse in the feeble hopes that he'd survived; seeing him against in that posh restaurant after two years and feeling rage and relief all at once. After awhile, everything blurred together. Their history was extensive.
Perhaps, in some manner, all of it had led to this instance.
John knew Sherlock would dismiss that sentiment as illogical and overly romanticized, as he often used to whenever ceaseless compliments escaped from John, but that was fine. Everything was all right.
"It's fine," John continued. "It's all fine." Finally, he felt Sherlock stir from beneath his grasp, slowly turning to offer an uncertain look. His blue-grey eyes seemed to pierce through John wholeheartedly, and he couldn't resist allowing his lips to twitch. "I do have one question, though."
Sherlock blinked in rapid succession. It was unusual to witness the consulting detective acting so unsure of himself. John felt a brief burst of pride. "Yes?"
"D'you happen to be looking for a flat mate?"
Sherlock grinned, almost childlike in his happiness, and John felt the thrill of the chase coursing through his veins once more.