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Sherlock crushes the cigarette out against the step, pointless really, as it was soaked already and barely smouldering.
It’s difficult to know what else he’s expected to do, now. The first reaction is gone; the overjoyed relief, the anger, the fear, the humiliation. So he sits on the step. He sits in the middle of a rain-soaked midnight in a rainy country and he doesn’t even have enough sense to have an umbrella, and the water plasters his curls to his forehead.
“Smoking again, are you?” John says, as the light from the hall slices across the step and spills into the street.
“Seemed the lesser of two evils.”
“So is pretending to be dead, I suppose.”
Sherlock shrugs. It is what it is, no sense in arguing about it now. And if it really was the lesser of two evils he’d be damned if he could see it. It was all evil, all the way around, and he chose the price he was willing to pay, his tribute to the life he’s lived.
“You know I’ll be on your arse to quit.” John sits down next to him and the fact he doesn’t have an umbrella either makes Sherlock chuckle. The pair of them, ridiculous in their own heedlessness. John blinks up into the rain. “Though if you’re willing to sit out here when it’s pissing down, it’ll be a hard job.” He turns his face, bright with the sparkle of reflected raindrops, toward Sherlock’s. “God, three hours and here I am, already lecturing. Ignore me. It’s just so bloody good to have you home.”
His voice breaks on the last word, a little cough, and he turns away to look at the occasional car that rushes past with a splash.
Sherlock feels the recoil of that break all the way down to his toes. What it means. Grief, folding John in on himself so many times the creases wear thin and finally tear, edges left straight but frayed. Possibly repairable, but the scar of the tear would always exist, a ripple to catch unwary fingers on.
“It’s fine,” Sherlock finally says. “I’d be disturbed if you didn’t, actually.”
John snorts a laugh though he’s still looking away; a wry, dry sound that leaves Sherlock grinning. “Back to normal already. How like you.” He huffs a resolved breath, stands, turns toward the door. “Come on. Do you have anything? Because all of your clothes are gone. That posh wardrobe of yours is adorning the backs of newly-rehabilitated felons, by the way.”
Sherlock stops mid-rise. “You didn’t.”
“I did. Every last piece. They were grateful for it. Cameron the Cracker looked fantastic in that purple shirt of yours.”
Sherlock isn’t sure if he’s joking; it’s been three hours, not three days or three months, and there are limits to even John’s resilience. So he stares, waiting, until John finally breaks and starts to laugh. Sherlock can feel amusement tugging at his lips, and as John giggles in the rain on the pavement in the middle of the night, as his laughter begins to have a hysterical edge, Sherlock can feel the answering twist in his own heart and he joins him. They lean into each other, hands on each other’s shoulders, as the rain picks up intensity and their amusement subsides. The muffled quiet presses in on all sides, rain dripping down their necks and keeping them isolated within its grey curtain.
“Yeah,” John says, and shakes his head, and Sherlock is so close he can feel his breath. “Come on inside, you nutter. You’ll catch your death.”
………………………………………………………………
The next morning Sherlock blinks awake to a familiar ceiling and the smell of coffee.
He shifts onto his side, changing the view from the ceiling to the rest of the sitting room, cleaner and more organized than it had been the entire time he’d lived here.
“Here,” John says, walking out from the kitchen with a steaming mug. “I don’t suppose you’d do with eating.”
Sherlock takes the mug, breathes in the warm, rich smell. John’s changed coffees – where before he’d do with instant, this is fresh, ground yesterday, and made in a French press. Sherlock takes a sip, and the flavour unsettles him.
Penance, he reminds himself. Change is normal, expected. Understand.
“Good,” he says, and John nods. “I…thought we’d go buy you some—Sherlock?”
He can’t, he can’t sit in this too-clean flat with its too nice coffee and John’s quiet expectations. So he jumps up and clatters downstairs until he finds himself sitting on the front step with a lit cigarette in his hand, the slow burn of the nicotine in his veins calming his jumbled brain.
Of course: the money. All of Sherlock’s assets went to John when he was declared dead, a simple arrangement he’d taken care of within the first six months of their meeting. Mycroft had raised a single eyebrow at Sherlock’s request to change his will but had said nothing more, and now John Watson splurges on organic, dark roasted Guatemalan coffee and he, Sherlock, should be glad about that.
He crushes the cigarette against the step and vows with grim determination to buy Nescafe at the next opportunity.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Days turn to weeks and Sherlock finds he retreats to the step for a smoke at every tiny provocation, every twitch of temper, every threatening argument, of which there are many. He stomps out of the kitchen and down the stairs when he can’t find the sugar after John asks if he’d been abroad while he was away, or if he’d stayed in the UK. A simple question, deserving of a straightforward answer.
Penance, he reminds himself, and the look of crushing disappointment on John’s face when he tells him he’d rarely left the country in that entire three-year stretch sends Sherlock groping for the refuge of tea, until the sugar can’t be found hidden away in a box of rice as it had been when John had been pushing him to cut his sugar intake, but in a silver sugar bowl on the worktop.
His things are retrieved from wherever and whoever they’d been scattered to—Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, even Lestrade—and having them back in their proper places helps. But John is a puzzle, a tiny burst of differences that Sherlock can’t seem to get his mind around.
Over three years absence will do that to a man, Sherlock supposes, and he wonders if all the changes came on gradually, or if they happened all at once, like an explosion that clears away an old structure in preparation for building anew.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Despite the reasons that send him there, Sherlock enjoys watching the changes that come over the street as the grey slush of March gives way to the mild blush of April. Longer days, shorter nights, and warmish breezes instead of icy chill blows his ashes away and down the street. Children, with their predictable schedules, start noticing him as they pass on their way to or from school, and occasionally one of the older ones will nick a smoke.
“Told you I was going to keep on you about that,” John tells him as he walks up the pavement, arms laden with shopping. “Not only is it bad for you, but you smell terrible.”
Sherlock huffs and rolls his eyes, pulls his coat closer around him. The skies are grey even in the late evening light and it looks like it will rain soon. The streetlights click on one by one, adding an orange glow to the fading day.
John puts the shopping on the step. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier over the bones on the kitchen table. It’s just…look, it’s hard for me, okay, sometimes, to adjust. I’ve had my own way for so long now I don’t know what else to do.”
Sherlock looks down at John’s new shoes, bought less than six months ago. Wearing well, are comfortable. Slightly expensive but not overtly so. Quality, sturdy boots with the flare of overstitching across the toe, a bit more decoration than John usually goes for. Sherlock wonders distantly how many other pairs of shoes John bought in three years he doesn’t know about. That he wasn’t able to read and deduce where John had been, and with whom.
“I don’t like it,” Sherlock finally bites out, and lights another cigarette.
John frowns, his brows drawing together. “Well, that’s not exactly something you get to decide, is it?” John says, and his voice is quiet, but the words are steel.
The rain that had been threatening starts to fall, so Sherlock clenches his jaw and helps John carry the shopping upstairs.
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“I’d like to set the laboratory up again.”
“Not in the kitchen.”
“But where else am I supposed to—“
“I said, not in the kitchen. Your bedroom is big enough, use that.”
“I can’t—“
“You’re lucky I gave your bedroom back to you. I’m glad you’re back, Sherlock, but Jesus.”
“Why does everything have to be different?”
“Because it is different! Or am I remembering the last three years wrong? Where are you going now?”
“Outside.”
Fuck. Fuck.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
They dance around each other, John superficially pleasant and Sherlock feeling as if he’s walking in a minefield of disconnected experiences and only part of it is John. There’s anger simmering under the surface, and Sherlock is unable to give voice to any of it. John lives in the flat, Sherlock lives in the flat, but they’re as separate as any semi-anonymous flatmates have ever been. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, and the polite silence had Sherlock smoking almost a pack a day before the first week was out.
They don’t talk about it, this distance, and Sherlock swallows down every response he’s thought of to each of John’s bland smiles and accepts it as his due. They soldier on, neither saying a word but circling each other like lions staking out territory until one night, a little over a month after his return, it all goes to hell.
Sherlock had announced his return on his website, and among the startled congratulations and nasty anonymous hate messages was a tiny gem of a case, his first since he returned. He reaches for his coat and his wallet, and finds John carefully dressing in the bathroom.
“We have a case!” he announces and the joy of it sings through his veins. Finally, something to return to, something to ground him. “Come on, John!”
John looks at Sherlock’s reflection in the mirror, and his eyes look almost startled. “That’s…that’s great!” He turns back to the mirror and combs his hair and Sherlock stands there, stunned.
“You’re going out,” Sherlock says, flatly. The truth of it is obvious even in Sherlock’s haste.
John turns to him, carefully keeping his eyes on Sherlock’s face. “Yes. I promised I’d meet Bill for dinner. He’s bringing his wife. They just got married and he wants to introduce us.” John drops his eyes and studies the floor for a moment before trying to shoulder his way out into the hall.
Sherlock stands firm. “Are you telling me you’re not going to come with me?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Get out of the way; I’m going to be late.”
Sherlock feels the flush of anger, of frustration, creep up his neck. He feels hot, trapped there in the tiny bathroom with an increasingly agitated John who looks like he could throw a few elbows at any moment. Sherlock’s spoiling for a fight himself, and the pent-up fear that’s been eating him from the inside out bubbles over into hostility he can’t seem to get control of.
“I can’t believe you’d choose some ridiculous domestic scene over a case! You can…reschedule, or something!” he says, slapping his hand against the doorjamb.
“No, actually, I can’t. Bill’s heading back next week. Now get out of my way.”
John shoulders his way past Sherlock into the hall, and before he leaves Sherlock gets in his parting shot.
“I suppose it’s better that you don’t come, then. You’ve changed, John. And not for the better.”
John whips around at the door, expression stony and dark. “If I’ve changed at all, Sherlock, I think we know exactly what – and who – to blame for it.” He pulls his coat from the hook and slams out of the flat, pictures shaking on the wall as he goes.
………………………………………………………………
The zest has gone out of the performance by the time Sherlock looks at the comment on his blog again to note the address and contact details for the case and walks downstairs, figuring he may as well at least see what Mr. Archibald Grey could offer him.
But when he gets outside the front door he stops, shakes a cigarette from the pack, and lights up. He draws deep, sits down on the step and thinks.
Serves him right for keeping some ridiculous, sentimental dream of Baker Street in his heart all this time; an untouched life kept safe in a jar for him to open whenever he was ready. Knowing that things would change, at least a little, but that the one constant he could always rely on was John Watson.
Until now, that is. There’s something behind this, a change so fundamental it’s like John’s become a different person. He flicks off the ash and wraps his coat around him against the cool breeze, and settles in to puzzle out what it is that’s got them both into such a purgatory of a life.
John’s made no bones about the fact he’s had three years to get used to living on his own, to be happy in his quiet, staid, ordinary life. Sherlock’s tried hard to respect that, to understand it, but it seems John’s so thoroughly over him that there’s no more room in his life left.
But there’s something else, too, Sherlock realizes, as the rain starts to fall, pattering against the awning covering Speedy’s’ door and dripping down Sherlock’s nose, clinging to his eyelashes. John had seemed so overjoyed when he had returned, so pleased to see him and so accepting of his explanations that Sherlock was sure things would go back to normal fairly quickly. But they didn’t.
He turns his collar up and gets a douse of rain down the neck for his efforts. He should just go inside, take a shower, and go see Mr. Grey tomorrow. He’s just not in the mood for it tonight.
Just as he stands, a cab pulls up and John climbs out, one arm pulling his jacket lapel awkwardly over his head in a futile effort to keep his head dry.
“I’ve been texting you,” he says, once the cab is paid and pulls away, and lets his jacket resettle on his shoulders.
Sherlock looks at his phone quickly, surprised to see that yes, there are four texts from John, asking where he is and where to meet him, except the last that simply says, “going home.” Sherlock drops the mobile back into his pocket, chest feels too tight to form proper words.
“I couldn’t let you go alone,” John says. “Not—after all this.”
Sherlock nods. “I would have been grateful for your assistance.”
“But you don’t need it, anymore,” John replies, shoving his hands in his pockets.
The force of sudden clarity slams into him, leaves him agonizing over his own stupidity. “I’ve always needed you, John,” he says quietly, and tentatively reaches out, unsure yet wanting to touch, to reassure. “Always.”
“But you didn’t—you never said,” John starts, then clears his throat. “You never said why you didn’t take me with you.”
“I—was trying to protect you,” he says, and it sounds lame, even to his own ears.
“I didn’t need protecting! I needed – dammit, I needed you, the life we had. It was hard twice over, don’t you see? And then you come back and…it was like it was nothing to you.” John takes a step toward him, rain darkening his blond hair, rain dripping from his nose. Sherlock gets a flash of a month ago, when John caught Sherlock smoking in the rain that first day and everything seemed like the best part of a long-remembered dream.
“It was never nothing, John. Never nothing.” Sherlock puts his hands on John’s shoulders, wants to shake him, make him see. “Everything here, everything about you, I kept in my mind, how you smelled, the taste of the Indian takeaway you always buy, the sound of your tread on the stairs. I wanted to keep you safe, keep you here like this, alive and…happy. And when I came back it was difficult. You’ve moved on, John, that’s clear. And I absolutely hate it, but I don’t blame you. I shouldn’t have expected anything, but I did, and I’m sorry.”
John stares at him, takes a deep breath, and pulls Sherlock in to hug him, tight. “I had to move on, as much as it damn near killed me to do it. But I am sorry, mostly for making you think I was less than thrilled to see you again.” John rests his forehead on Sherlock’s lapels. “It was shit without you,” John says, voice muffled, each word almost forced from his lips. “Stupid fucker, I’d have gone around the world with you if you’d only asked.” He reaches up to cup Sherlock’s cheek and gives him a wry half-smile.
The clench in Sherlock’s chest grows tighter, words trapped in his throat. He looks down into John’s face, cheeks wet and nose red from the chill, and sweeps his thumbs across John’s jaw. There’s one thing still familiar in all this—John’s eyes are bright, tinged with amusement and exasperation and affection, and still, no matter what else has changed, encompass the entire world. Sherlock’s entire world.
“I knew you would have. Which is why I couldn’t,” Sherlock says, and dips his head.
John’s kisses taste like rain and streetlights and, finally, home.
…..........................................................................................................................................
Title from: Bloc Party, This Modern Love