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The worst part of being so intelligent is the way you can never stop thinking.
Sherlock thinks and thinks and thinks. He lies in bed and for hours he stares at the ceiling as his thoughts involuntarily follow the twists and turns of his mind. And when he’s thought long enough, the maze always leads back to John. Always John.
The second worst part of being so intelligent is the immaculate memory. Every recollected moment is so crisp that it’s as if John is in front of him once more.
Tonight is especially painful and a handful of sleeping pills isn’t helping. Sherlock attempts to drag his mind back to the case he’s working on and to some floating ideas for an experiment but it’s all watermarked with John, John, John.
But the thoughts aren’t subsiding anytime soon, so Sherlock finally gives in and allows himself to be engulfed in them. Perhaps if he focuses on remembering, he can get distracted by something else.
Suddenly he is immersed. It’s a day he hasn’t recalled for a long time – the first day he met John’s sister. It had been a few weeks after they’d officially became a couple and John decided it was time to finally let his sister meet the legendary Sherlock.
Sherlock lets out a deep sigh. It’s a cold, late November and the air is biting at their cheeks and at gloved fingers stuffed into warmer pockets. John is worrying aloud, his words drifting away in little puffs of steam, and Sherlock is smiling because of course John shouldn’t worry, his sister can’t possibly be as terrifying as John claims.
They arrive at the door and wait impatiently and Sherlock tells a forgotten joke that manages to get John to laugh. Then the door opens and Sherlock realizes he’s miscalculated horribly.
Sherlock spends the rest of the afternoon being alternatingly interrogated and threatened by Harry as John paces the room and occasionally offers a “Please, Harry.” It’s unnerving and Sherlock hopes he’s made a good impression. Or at least as good of one as you can make on a woman like that.
Finally John decides this is enough and he escapes Sherlock to his bedroom there, where he apologizes over and over until Sherlock kisses the words from his tongue.
Back in bed, Sherlock remembers something else. He’d left his scarf there, in John’s room. He’d remembered after the excursion but John had told him that he liked to keep it there because it smelled like Sherlock and that had been enough to make Sherlock want to give John every scarf he’d ever owned. He’d forgotten about the scarf until now. John must still have it. Suddenly remembering is becoming physically painful and Sherlock rolls over beneath his sheets. John must pull out the scarf sometimes and think of him. He must remember too, Sherlock assures himself.
Before he can stop it, another memory emerges. It’s a few months earlier, before even they know that they’re in love. They’re driving through the countryside for some case that doesn’t matter anymore and the trees around them are in varying states of shedding their golden plumes. Every once in a while John begins to hum a tune along with the radio. It’s so endearing that Sherlock wants to just close his eyes and save a recording in his mind.
He glances over with a knowing grin every so often which unfortunately makes John stop until Sherlock acts like he’s not paying attention anymore. Sherlock keeps smirking at him and John keeps asking him to keep his bloody eyes on the road so help me God and there’s nowhere else Sherlock would rather spend his life.
Funny how naïve he’d been. He chases the recollections away and turns over a couple more times. John won’t get out of his head.
~
The vision comes to John all at once. He’s in the living room of the Holmes house and there are photo albums spread all over the coffee table. After running out of excuses, Sherlock had finally agreed to introduce John to his mother, and he’s regretting it fast.
Sherlock is adorable as a four-year-old and adorable as a five-year-old and even more adorable as a little kid defending his bed with a little wooden sword and a plastic eye patch. Mrs. Holmes and John are cooing together over the old photos as Sherlock broods in the corner. It takes a couple hours of flattery to stop Sherlock from pouting.
John blinks. Why has he remembered all that so suddenly? He’s been pushing Sherlock out of his head for months. He hasn’t let himself remember anything. Remembering won’t help anything.
It’s obvious now that he won’t be getting any sleep. He sits up in bed and rubs his face a few times before opening the top drawer of the nightstand and pulling out the scarf.
He hasn’t let himself look at it since everything happened. It’s as soft as ever and still tied in that silly little knot. He holds it carefully to his nose. It still carries the scent of the shampoo Sherlock used to lather his hair with and the tea he used to drink.
Right now John wants to burn the bloody thing.
Another memory strikes him before he can stop it. It’s their first anniversary and John comes home to a candlelit dinner and flowers. They finish their food and they spend the rest of the night slow-dancing in the light of the refrigerator. In that moment, John never would have suspected the way they’d end.
~
The train is off it’s tracks now and Sherlock can’t go back to blocking it all out. He wonders how, after all his calculations and careful translations, it still went wrong. The snappy comments and the heated arguments started becoming more and more frequent and John started spending more nights at his sister’s house than at the flat. Maybe Sherlock had been too cruel but maybe John had been too critical. Sherlock tries to graph out the blame but it’s just vertical line after vertical line. They both contributed that night, screaming at each other until John had picked up his skull and thrown it across the room. It shattered, but Sherlock was too busy shouting ultimatums at John’s retreating back to care. John hailed a cab and he was gone from Sherlock’s life.
~
With building fury, John recalls a week after his grand exit from the flat. He’s been staying at his room and hating everything and missing Sherlock and then suddenly his phone rings and that’s Sherlock’s caller id that he knows by heart.
His heart is practically breaking his ribs. Sherlock wants him back. This is it. He can go home. He’s so relieved he could cry.
But instead all Sherlock says when he picks up the phone is, “I’ll be sending along your things by mail.”
Before John can frame a coherent reply, Sherlock continues, “Don’t come back to the flat again. I don’t need you anymore.”
He hangs up before John can reply.
Since then, time passes sluggishly. It’s quicksand that John can’t quite escape. Every once in a while John remembers the days and nights he used to spend in bed with Sherlock as they laid bare every part of each other and John claimed Sherlock’s skin with every brush of fingertips and tangle of limbs. Surely Sherlock can’t have forgotten that. He half prays to God that one day Sherlock will call his up and beg for him back, and half wishes they’d never met. Nothing could be worse than this feeling, right? But he can’t even remember who he was before Sherlock. He doesn’t know who he is now.
No matter how much he misses Sherlock, he can’t get himself to dial the number. There is too much to lose. Instead, he watches as the boxes of his old clothes arrive at the door every so often. No note, nothing to signify the packages come from anyone who cares. They remain unopened.
~
Sherlock knows it’s hopeless. He knows it’s never going to happen. He knows there is nothing more for John and him and he knows that things will never be the way he wants them to be.
But the scarf.
John’s sent back coats he’s borrowed and old socks and mugs but he still has the scarf from those first couple weeks. That has to mean something. John remembers it all too well, Sherlock is sure.
And for the umpteenth night Sherlock convinces himself that John is up somewhere, pining for Sherlock just as Sherlock is wasting away thinking of John. Nothing will ever convince him otherwise.