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Some days he had to remind himself to breathe.
The scientist in him knew that the pressure in his chest wasn’t real, physically. The human being in him told him he was choking, and maybe that was alright by him.
Maybe it would be easier not to carry on with this intake of breath.
He closed his eyes again, pressing away tears. Maybe this time he would be lucky. Maybe this time he wouldn’t wake. Maybe this time the dream would be reality. Maybe this unrelenting ache wasn’t really his.
***
He dreamed again.
Dreamed that Sherlock was perched on the edge of his bed, telling him about his day’s research. He tried to smile, tried to rest his hand on Sherlock’s leg to reassure himself that his friend was really there. He was just so tired. If he won the battle to keep his eyes open, maybe this time...
He couldn’t.
***
Eyes opening in the morning, crusted with the tears from the night before. His room was empty.
***
He couldn’t eat. Every biological imperative felt superfluous. The idea of more than the occasional slice of toast or cup of tea that Mrs. Hudson pressed on him made him feel ill.
He knew he was losing weight, tried to make jokes about how fit he was looking when Mrs. Hudson came to visit. Choked on his attempts to laugh.
Glimpses in the shaving mirror when he showered. Not fit, not really. Just... hollow. There were shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks looked gaunt. The appearance matched how he felt. So maybe that was good.
***
Whenever he managed to sleep, the dreams would come. So he slept more. It was the only time he felt warm, lately.
Harry stopped by and made worried sounds, worried faces. She and Mrs. Hudson would confer when they thought he couldn’t hear them. When he wasn’t really paying attention to the quiz show on the tv. He knew he was worrying them.
He tried to care about that.
He really did try.
***
Next time the dream came, it came with news.
Sherlock telling him enthusiastically that he had tracked down some associate of Moriarty’s. That he’d be gone for a while. John tried to protest, but still he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. The guilt-ridden attempt at a chiding look in Sherlock’s eyes when he told John that it was John’s job to remind Sherlock to eat, not the other way round. That he really should quit that.
Sherlock took his hand and squeezed it until John’s eyes drifted shut, like they always inevitably did.
He thought he felt warm breath and the slightest pressure of lips on his forehead, but he could have been imagining.
Then again, wasn’t that all dreams were?
***
In the morning, his bedroom was empty. Of course.
***
A package showed up while he was in the bath. The doorbell ringing brought him surfacing from under the water with a gasp.
Again with that breathing problem. Underwater, he thought he might have found the solution.
Towel around his waist, he padded to the door. Opened it. A small box fell from where it had been propped.
It was very light. Soft sliding sound when he shook it. Fabric on cardboard.
He grabbed a pocket knife and opened it. A puddle of blue spilled out into his lap. Dressing gown? Familiar one. He shook it out and smelled Sherlock on it.
Eyes burning, heart racing, he flew to the door and looked to either side.
No one.
***
He made himself tea, for the first time, wrapped in blue.
He brewed it strong. Thought about maybe having some biscuits.
***
Next morning he rang Sarah. Told her that perhaps he could come in to the clinic this week.
He could hear the smile and relief in her voice when she agreed.
“Alright?”
“Not sure.”
***
He didn’t tell Ella about the package. She’d definitely say that he was hanging on to the past. That he needed to let it go.
That bit of the past that was the only thing that got him hanging on again. He couldn’t explain why. The irrational hope-against-hope that it was a sign, right at that critical moment.
Signs he could still vaguely believe in, even if miracles were out of the question.
***
He never smiled, but that was alright.
He was breathing again without thinking about it, most of the time. Every now and then, though, he’d see a tall, dark haired man in a long coat, and it would catch. They always turned. They were never him.
Mrs. Hudson came round to his new flat less often, now that he could be trusted to eat at least once a day.
Most of his days off, though, he still just slept.
He badly wanted the dream to come back. He hadn’t been ready to give that up. He clenched the hand that the dream had held. His throat clenched, too, and he swallowed hard.
It was just a dream. He had better things to cry over than that.
***
He learned how to pretend, and the worried scowl showed less and less between his friends’ eyebrows. He knew that they cared. He also knew that they thought it had been long enough, that he should be getting over this.
He couldn’t get over anything. He could put on a better charade.
So he did.
His friends smiled to one another in relief. He pretended not to notice.
***
The dream came back, a month later.
The associate was dead too, now, but there were more. This vast network would take time. He wanted to remind Sherlock that the dead had nothing but time. Still he couldn’t move.
That careful grip on his hand. That careful breath on his face.
The sound of his alarm clock going off as he opened groggy eyes.
Still no one.
***
Months passed. He ate more. Cheeks filled back out, dark circles paling.
He caught himself laughing at a colleague’s joke, at lunch. He marvelled at the newness of not feeling guilty about it.
The dream came and went.
It seemed so very Sherlock, ferreting out a network of spies.
Sometimes he forgot it wasn’t real.
Sometimes he found himself composing a text or an email to someone who would never receive it. Or waiting to receive one himself: “I’m not dead. Let’s have dinner.”
***
He saw a familiar silhouette outside the train window at a tube station, and glanced after it. Reminded himself that it couldn’t possibly be. Shook his head to clear it.
Wrong coat, anyway.
***
The dream told him of another death. It was getting close, Sherlock told him, grasping his hand and hanging on. The look of anticipation felt so real, so like the end of a real case. John wanted to smile. Managed to turn up the corners of his lips.
Sherlock looked both astonished and proud. Pressed angular cheekbones to John's own and whispered, “Soon.”
***
He opened his eyes and blinked a few times. Realized that his eyelids really were open. It was still night, was all.
That had never happened before.
He went to his window and flipped the latch to get some air. He was covered in sweat, for some reason.
The forlorn strains of a violin filtered in through the screen.
He shivered and shoved the window closed. Laid back down. Tossed and turned, but couldn’t really sleep. Watched as the sky turned lighter, shade by shade.
Rolled out of bed to put on some tea.
***
Months in a row, now, the dream had been gone.
“Soon,” it had said. Soon what? Soon it would disappear. Too soon. It didn’t seem so real any more.
On the anniversary of... that day... he visited the cemetery again. He hadn’t been back except the once. Asking for one last miracle. Receiving no such mercy.
He laid the small bunch of flowers on the headstone. His eyes prickled like they hadn’t done in weeks.
“So much for a miracle, eh?”
He couldn’t stand to be there, so he fled, leaving only alstroemeria lilies on a headstone. Footprints on a muddy grave.
Thunder rumbled overhead and the rain began again.
***
Ella couldn’t understand the relapse - he’d been making such progress.
He couldn’t explain to her that it was the simple absence of a dream. The dream had been his security blanket. Now he was lost and alone again in the dark.
He told her that it was just the anniversary, and she let it go.
***
He took a week and visited Harry. She’d been sober for nearly a year now. She had been there, when he needed her to be, and it meant a lot. He went to see her now. Everything was too fresh again to stay in town.
She took him to a concert. He excused himself to the bathroom when the violin concerto was next on the program. Pretended not to hear it anyway from where he sat on the edge of the sink. Pretended he hadn’t been crying when it was over and he returned to his seat.
Harry let him pretend, and if she slipped her hand comfortingly into his and held it for the next piece, well. She was his sister, after all.
***
Back to work, like nothing ever changed.
Same tedium, day in and day out. The world moved, but he felt like he was standing utterly still. Sometimes days passed like seconds, a rush of fast forward. Sometimes he wondered whether the clock hand moved at all.
Nothing ever happened to him... except the once that it had.
But that was over, now.
***
This dream was different from the others.
The Sherlock sitting on the end of his bed looked like he had taken an intense beating and was tired. Tired but supremely pleased - he had done it. Taken out the top levels of the organization Moriarty had set up, and now they were too broken to re-form. As he detailed his triumph, John watched his glee drift progressively toward exhaustion. John’s eyes, too, were growing too heavy to support.
“Y’should lay down,” John muttered drowsily.
Sherlock yawned and nodded, tucking himself along John’s side. Leaned his head against John’s shoulder.
They were both too tired to notice if the other snored.
***
John woke again and stretched, eyes still closed. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to revel in the singularness of that dream, or cry from the frustration of wanting it to be true.
His dilemma lasted for the fraction of a second it took him to realize that he’d just bumped something warm and heavy with his outstretched arm.
Naturally, John shrieked and jumped out of bed.
Sherlock’s eyes blinked blearily open. “What is it, what’s wrong?”
“You... you daft git!” John ran his hand distractedly through his hair.
Sherlock sighed and sat up. “Well, I couldn’t very well have you running about telling people I was alive, now could I? Would have endangered you and ruined my... surprise... for them.”
John sputtered. “I thought you were DEAD! Those dreams... hang on...” his eyes lit with a mixture of fury and amusement that only Sherlock could elicit. “You’ve been DRUGGING me?! You right BASTARD!”
Sherlock chuckled.
John leapt onto the bed, knocking Sherlock flat on his back again, and punched him in the face. Another bruise wouldn’t be particularly noticeable in the jumble.
“THAT is for letting me think you were dead, all this bloody. time.”
He used his forearms to pin Sherlock to the bed. He had to do this before he had time to think, to second guess. He leaned in and breathed across Sherlock’s lips, “And this is for how much I’ve missed you.”
Feeling Sherlock’s lips on his, warm and alive, stole John’s breath and replaced it with something warmer. Some part of himself, joyful and vivid, that he hadn’t realized he’d lost months ago. John released Sherlock’s arms to slide his fingers through his best friend’s hair, thawing away the numbness with the heat of skin. When he pulled away, he could feel his own pulse in his neck, and Sherlock’s under his thumb.
For the first time in over a year, he felt alive again.
Things never happened to John Watson.
Except, John thought, as Sherlock pulled him back into his arms for a fierce hug, for Sherlock Holmes.