Work Text:
Sherlock has been in this cell for two days, seventeen hours, fourteen minutes and seven seconds. Eight seconds. Nine seconds. Ten seconds. Eleven seconds -
He has to find another way to occupy his mind! The Serbians had discovered who he was a few days earlier, despite the hair and the accent, but had kept playing along in the hopes of catching him at it. He, for once not seeing what was around him, had only noticed the change in their demeanor two days ago, and had tried (much too late) to escape. He hasn’t let himself sleep since they put him in this dank, underground prison, but he’s not going to be able to stay awake much longer. He’s already inspected every crack and corner of this room, but he still hasn’t found a way out, and time is becoming a very precious commodity...
Thirty-three seconds. Thirty-four seconds. Thirty-five seconds. Thirty-six seconds... His head sinks to his chest and the countdown finally, finally stops.
He awakes feeling like a child again. He’s blissfully happy, stroking the furry head in his lap, and Redbeard contentedly licks his face in thanks. He lets himself lie there like that for a while, enjoying the company of his dog, until reality sets in. Five minutes in, however, he’s... still enjoying the company of his dog. He finally jolts himself awake, and looks down. Redbeard looks up at him, cocks his head to one side, and says, “You need to go home, Sherlock.”
Sherlock takes it in stride that his former childhood pet is speaking with him.
“I can’t, I haven’t finished what I started.”
Redbeard makes a sound like a sigh, and he looks solemn (how can a dog look solemn?) as he replies, “You will be haunted by three spirits. Expect each one at the same time as I have come today.”
Sherlock doesn’t understand. He is about to say as much, but Redbeard disappears and leaves him collapsed against the side of the cell, alone.
***
The next time Sherlock awakens, Mycroft is in his cell. Not Mycroft the government official, not Mycroft the meddling, awful older sibling, but fifteen-year-old Mycroft. He looks just the same, and has the same love and happiness in his eyes as Sherlock grudgingly remembers. Sherlock remembers Redbeard’s warning from the night before, but is still having trouble wrapping his head around all this. Perhaps the Serbians have given him hallucinogens. He never gets the chance to ask Mycroft, however, because it turns out (obvious) that this isn’t Mycroft.
“I am the ghost of Christmas Past. We thought it would be less alarming if I came in a form you were comfortable with... I have come to convince you it is time to go home.”
Sherlock puts his face in his hands. Of course he wants to go home, but there is still the rather large matter of Moriarty’s web to take care of. “I already spoke about this with Redbeard! I haven’t finished what I started, I need to get rid of the rest of Moriarty’s network --”
He is interrupted by the feeling of being flung sideways and landing rather hard on... His own sitting room floor. He looks around, noting that young Mycroft is still standing behind him, observing. He realizes he’s at the Christmas party he and John hosted not so long ago. He watches himself starting to deduce Molly as she flushes redder and redder, sees himself turning, but then the entire scene pauses. Mycroft takes him by the shoulder.
“This is not what you were meant to see. Observe, Sherlock. Observe Dr. John Watson.”
The scene starts up again, as if nothing had happened, and Sherlock turns to look at John. John has his arm around Jeanette, but even she can tell that his attention is not on her at all. John’s every unconscious move tracks Sherlock’s, and he is looking at him in rapt attention with something unfathomable in his eyes. He looks almost regretful, like he is looking at something he could never hope to have.
“What can we deduce about John Watson, Sherlock? If he was anyone else and your judgement was not so clouded by sentiment?” Mycroft scowls as though he has just uttered a curse word, and before Sherlock can answer, before he can start to understand the look in John’s eyes, he is flung sideways again, and finds himself once again alone in his dark cell.
***
The next night, he is waiting for him, hallucinogens or not. When he blinks and suddenly young Mycroft is standing next to him, he is only a little bit startled.
“To what do I owe the pleasure this time, Mycroft?”
The apparition gives a perfectly Mycroftian put-upon sigh before replying, “Tonight, I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. I have come to convince you it is time to go home.”
Sherlock waits patiently (patiently?) for Mycroft to show him something. He is rewarded when he once again feels the sideways pull and he opens his eyes to a rather plain but clean (safe, boring) flat. It is decorated for Christmas, but Sherlock sees from the calendar on the wall that it is not quite Christmas yet.
“Mycroft? Where did you bring.... me...” Sherlock trails off as he catches sight of John coming out of the bedroom to his left. John looks... wrong. Very wrong. This time, he deduces him without Mycroft’s urging.
Weight loss. John looks haggard and thin, and has finally lost his Afghanistan glow. Grey hair. John no longer has even a trace of blond about him. Flat eyes. John has recently felt an enormous amount of grief, and he now keeps it just under the surface, never allowing it to show itself.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s wrong with him, and Sherlock turns to Mycroft, hoping upon hope that he isn’t the one who did this. The one who broke John Watson.
It doesn’t make any sense to him. John didn’t love him. John was his flatmate, his doctor, he was everything to Sherlock, but he had his own life! He had his girlfriends, his friends, his job! But here he is, looking like... Looking like he has just lost the love of his life. Sherlock doesn’t understand. He really doesn’t.
He’s still reeling when a small blonde woman comes out of the bedroom, walks over to John and puts her arms around him. He’s about to start deducing her when Mycroft yanks him back to the present.
***
Sherlock doesn’t sleep while waiting for Mycroft, this time. He paces restlessly in his cell for hours and hours, tearing his mind palace apart for clues. He’s trashed John’s room, pulled apart every drawer, cupboard and wardrobe, trying to find something, anything, while the John of his mind palace sits in the background and tries to clean up a bit wherever he can. He’s so fixated on his task that Mycroft has to actually tap him on the shoulder when he arrives.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.” He says nothing else, as if knowing that Sherlock will not object this time. He knows that Sherlock needs to see what is coming next.
Sherlock opens his eyes to see two impossibly old men sitting together before a fireplace. They have their arms around each other, and when the shorter one presses a soft kiss to the taller’s one’s lips, Sherlock realizes he’s never seen two people more at peace with each other and themselves. He is about to ask Mycroft who they are when he finally observes (he always seems to be so slow during these visions) a small Christmas tree on the kitchen table next to a microscope and several flasks and beakers. There is also what appears to be a bowl full of thumbs under the tree, and the truth hits him like a lorry. He’s in 221b. He whips his head back to the two old men, the information now flooding in. The short one is wearing a cable-knit oatmeal jumper (horrible, a horrible jumper) and jeans. His eyes are a startlingly deep blue, and his face is full of laugh and smile lines. The tall one has the remains of a head of curls, completely grey now. He’s wearing old pyjamas and a dressing gown, and his face is also full of laugh lines.
He is so hypnotized by the two of them that he almost misses what Mycroft says next.
“You can still have this, Sherlock. But it is slipping from your grasp. Soon, Dr. Watson will simply be too angry with you to allow you back in his life.”
It takes a second for Mycroft’s words to sink in, and when they do, it hurts Sherlock to a degree he had never thought words could. He never thought he could have this. He never thought he would be allowed to have this, never thought John could ever want this. He needs this more than he can even begin to understand.
“Mycroft... I need to go home! I need to go home! How could I not have seen this? How could you not have told me this? I need to go home!” He doesn’t care if he’s yelling, hands grasping as his hair, he doesn’t care if he’s making a sentimental scene in front of Mycroft. He’s just seen that the two old men are wearing matching gold bands on the fourth fingers of their left hands (regularly cleaned, well taken care of, nearly never removed!), and he needs to go home.
Mycroft calmly observes the wreck of his brother, before replying, “What do you think we’ve been trying to tell you all this time?”
Everything goes black.
***
When Sherlock awakes next, government official, horribly meddling older sibling Mycroft is there, holding his head up and telling him, “Back to Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes.”
And under his horribly overgrown hair and his wounds, Sherlock allows himself to smile.