Work Text:
art by mlysza
Sherlock walks up the seventeen steps to his flat slowly, clenching and unclenching his fists in his coat pockets. The sights and smells and deductions of the stairway are familiar, comforting in his dark mood. He thinks the feeling in his stomach might be nerves, if he were any other man. He opens the door and there’s John, sitting at his usual chair with a cup of cooling tea at his elbow and a copy of the newspaper. John looks up at him and smiles.
“Hello.” He says.
Sherlock is breathless, and somewhere in his chest there’s a tight twist and it’s a long, long fall down nowhere.
=
He returns more often now, and doesn’t leave the flat at all if he doesn’t have to, at Mycroft’s gentle and then not so gentle urging, solving this case, solving that case, national security, the known world in danger. Sherlock scoffed at all of them and stays in the flat with John, who quirks an eyebrow up at his odd behaviour but doesn’t comment, only offers to bring him some tea and biscuits and Sherlock is finally home.
=
Sherlock plays the violin sometimes, looking out over Baker Street and marking the notes down every now and then. There is rain outside, a million little droplets hurtling themselves down at five centimetres per second. His eyes reflect back at him like corpse-lights, leading travellers astray.
“Christ Sherlock, what are you playing?” John’s voice from behind him.
“Don’t you like it?” Sherlock turns around, his blue dressing gown brushing against his legs.
“I do, but it’s a bit… well it’s kinda breaking my heart.” John’s face folds into that sheepish smile, the one he gets when Sherlock’s explaining something but he still doesn’t quite get it.
Sherlock puts his violin down before he throws it. “I’d never break your heart.” He says to his violin, and John is in front of him, leaning close with a proper smile and it’s the only thing Sherlock ever wants to see.
=
“Sherlock, you have to stop this.” Mycroft says to him one afternoon, and he’s sitting on one of the couches, because even Mycroft isn’t stupid enough to sit in John’s armchair. Sherlock ignores him and eats mechanically from one of the takeout boxes he has delivered to his door now. John is nowhere in sight, and a prickle of anxiety steals up his spine. He picks up his phone.
Where are you?
SH
He puts his phone down and Mycroft heaves a heavy sigh from his fat form. He has gained at least ten pounds since he last saw him. Stress, Sherlock deduces absently.
“Sherlock, if you do not let go of your own accord I will have to step in.” Mycroft’s voice is dull, weary, and if Sherlock cared enough, he’d hear the undertones of grief. He does not answer, just stares at his phone and counts the seconds. “Brother, please.” Sherlock looks up at that, and is faintly surprised to see that Mycroft’s eyes are wet. He cannot recall ever seeing his older brother cry, not even at their father or mother’s funerals. Mycroft lived by his stiff upper lip.
“You can’t stop me.” Is Sherlock’s only reply. He can’t keep his eyes from flicking to his phone.
“I can put you under heavier surveillance. I can take away that infernal device – ”
Sherlock slams his fork down and glares at him. “I’d die first.” It would have been a childish retort, completely infantile in its obstinacy and petulance, except for the very real threat behind it. The seconds keep ticking by, the phone is silent, and Sherlock feels his skin prickle with cold sweat. Mycroft is staring at him, his mouth a taut line, angry, angrier than he’s ever been, with the tantrums, with the black moods, with the cocaine. With breaking their mother’s heart.
“From where I’m standing, it’s the same conclusion whether I interfere or not.”
Before he can reply, Sherlock’s phone chimes and buzzes, shattering the moment like a brick through a window, an indiscriminate reminder of the potential for violence.
I’m at work as you well know, you wanker. What is it?
JW
Sherlock breathes out, long and deep and feels the tight knot at the base of his skull unwind. He pulls out John’s firearm from where it’s been tucked into his back and shoots Mycroft between the eyes. It’s very satisfying.
=
John doesn’t complain when Sherlock grips him hard enough to bruise, nor when he kisses him too desperately; doesn’t breathe a word of protest when Sherlock just curls around him and holds on for hours and hours on end. They don’t go to crime scenes anymore, for reasons Sherlock knows but keeps deleting and even though John sometimes questions this, he is easily distracted, and Sherlock delights in distracting him. Instead they watch bad telly together and they laugh at quiz shows, with John pretending to be annoyed when Sherlock says the answer beforehand but he knows he enjoys it. And sometimes they both laze at home and John taps away on his blog while Sherlock lounges on the couch and just watches him quietly.
Later, when John pops out for some shopping, Sherlock takes a look at John’s blog and his newest entries. They are blank. Sherlock closes his laptop and [Deletes] again, and again, and again, and again.
[Error]
=
Sherlock dreams of himself killing Moriarty again and again and again in every single way possible, and some impossible ones too. Every permutation of murder, of slaughtering another human being has been explored by Sherlock Holmes upon the body of one James Moriarty. He has strangled him to death on a rooftop; he has shot him with every gun ever made by the poolside; he has cut away bits and pieces of his flesh until there is nothing but the pulsing dark of that monster’s black heart. He has poisoned him and stabbed him and hanged him just to watch his feet jerk like a macabre tap dance. He even had him drawn and quartered once, just because the classics never got old. He likes the one where he starved him and then burnt him to death.
Sherlock closes his eyes against the bright light streaming outside and wonders if that would fall into the category of ‘A Bit Not Good’.
=
Sherlock is alone in bed. He stares outside at the pale morning sky, Alice blue streaked with pastel pink and orange. It should be jarring, but it’s beautiful. There are even a few resilient stars still shining.
He reaches for his phone.
Come home.
SH
He waits.
And waits.
And waits.
He looks up. He was wrong. It hadn’t been morning at all. It had been a sunset. He curls onto his side, hiding his face between his knees. The sky darkens to a bruise and the stars glitter like broken glass. There is no text.
John is not here. [Delete – Error] He is a construct of your mind. [Delete – Error] He is a shade. [Delete – Error]
[Query:]
Why dream?
Why dream? Why dream?
Grief is a paralytic.
[Answer:]
Because, because, because –
Yesterday and yesterday and yesterday.
He reaches for the PASIV line.
=
Sherlock is sitting in his chair, staring into blank space, like he usually does when he’s thinking and has lost track of time. Where is John? He picks up his phone.
John?
SH
He waits.
Need you back here NOW.
SH
His leg jitters. He glares it into stilling.
Could be dangerous.
SH
There. That always got John running.
John where are you?
SH
Sherlock is pacing around the flat, chewing at his lip, an old childhood habit he’d always hated. Thought he got rid of it, deleted it.
I think you should quit work and never leave the flat. I’d entertain you.
SH
He’s wearing a hole into the rug, and he feels torn at the edges, unravelling like one of John’s ugly jumpers. How long has it been? Past the normal response time? He hasn’t been counting. Why hasn’t he been counting? His eyes flicker to the PASIV case, sleek silver and unobtrusive, shoved under the chair. He could go under right now, regardless of whether this is reality or dream.
Usually he only goes one layer deep, since his brain already processes everything at a phenomenal rate anyway, so his five minutes are significantly longer than others. Going two layers is reserved for his black moods and Mycroft visiting. How many layers is he in now? Doesn’t really matter, he could manage three layers, he’s sure of it. He calculates how much faster his mind would be working. He winces at the number. But he probably could do it. No, that’s how one woman in America died, wasn’t it? Too many layers deep and lost her mind. But Sherlock is different, Sherlock is brilliant. His compound is the purest and most stable available on the black market, his sedatives a work of genius. It would allow him to come back from all those layers easily; Mrs Hudson knows what to do. He fingers the line of the PASIV, loads one of the vials in, and preps his wrist for the needle.
His phone buzzes.
Christ Sherlock, calm down. While I’d be delighted to skiv off and go home to you, SOMEONE needs to pay the bills because SOMEONE won’t take any cases. Now you know I’m not allowed to text at work, so sod off and I’ll come home later and make it up to you.
JW
Sherlock drops the line and presses the phone to his face.
I love you too, you daft and utterly mad git.
JW
Sherlock is gasping into his hands, and he thinks he might be crying.
=
Mrs Hudson is pottering around the place again, tutting at the mess and the strewn boxes of food. Sherlock blinks up at the ceiling and fingers his left wrist. He pats his pockets.
“Mrs Hudson, where is my phone?” He says loudly, and her voice carries from the kitchen.
“I haven’t seen it dear.” A lie. He swings his legs over and sits up.
“Mrs Hudson, where is the PASIV?” His voice is low.
Mrs Hudson is quiet, then, “Mycroft has them.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He scrambles up and runs into the kitchen, and she’s standing there wringing her hands together, a guilty but defiant expression on her face, the usual look for a moron who thinks they’ve done the right thing.
“Where is John?” He demands, and his fingers are hurting terribly with the grip he has on the doorframe. Mrs Hudson lifts her chin a little.
“You have to let him go, Sherlock.” Her voice wavers, and her eyes fill with tears. “Please, Sherlock. You can’t keep doing this. I can’t come up here and find you dead, not you too, please.” She’s crying softly, but Sherlock doesn’t see it. He’s too busy observing, analysing, deducing. He gets nowhere. Without John physically present, his subconscious wages a constant war with him over what’s real and he can’t tell if Mrs Hudson is merely a projection or flesh and blood. He needs John. He closes his eyes and he wills John to be there, every fibre of his being straining to remember John, to summon him. Nothing. The landline, of course! He can’t call or text John from any other phones except with his in dreams, but if this was reality it would at least tell him the phone was not in use.
He runs to the landline, almost rips it off the cradle as he tries to dial through his shaking hands. But there is no dial tone, just blank silence. Mycroft has cut off his phone line. He throws the device against the wall, and it shatters with a crack like gunshot into a thousand pieces. Mrs Hudson gives a jump and a little cry, and she’s pressing herself against the wall while stretching a hand out to him.
“P-please, Sherlock.” She says with a choking sob, but he whirls away from her.
This doesn’t mean anything, he thinks to himself almost savagely, this could be another person’s dream. He tries to move the architecture, to change anything, but with the doubt niggling in his mind he can’t be sure he’s in reality or a dream, and the structure around him refuses to comply. The doubt cripples him, renders him useless. He shrugs on his coat and runs out of the flat, ignoring Mrs Hudson’s weeping as he slams the door shut.
He stares around him, wild-eyed. Nothing. Nothing on this godforsaken street looks unfamiliar. Everything is perfect. All the people – or his projections tell the various mundane stories of their lives, if they are even his and not Mycroft’s, because who else could have the brilliance to craft a London replica good enough to fool Sherlock Holmes? Sherlock grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches.
If he’s the subject, then as long as Mycroft doesn’t do anything drastic his projections won’t harm the fat bastard. He snarls, and pushes his way through the people – projections – people – he shakes his head and focuses on moving forward. The first payphone he comes across is out of service. So are the next three.
He is about to do violence to one of the people – projections – when a sleek and familiar car pulls up to the sidewalk. Sherlock gets in with no complaint and finds himself next to Mycroft’s assistant. He glances at her – still the same story, except she’s slightly nervous. That could be a tell or it might not, because he doesn’t have to see it in the reflection of his window to know that he’s a hairsbreadth from killing someone. Sherlock closes his eyes, and feels his hands start to shake. He refuses to compare this to a cocaine withdrawal.
They arrive in a dilapidated building damp with mildew and coloured with rust; Mycroft’s usual intimidation M.O. and Sherlock is out of the car almost before it stops moving. Every second without John is bearing down on him, a weight like a grey existence, crushing him down, squeezing his lungs. Every second without John is like losing him again, like watching John fall over that roof, a bullet meant for Sherlock lodged in his chest and the look in his eyes I'm sorry/I love you/it’ll be okay/worth everything and the whiteness that came after. But Sherlock can neither delete John’s death from his mind nor the truth of the lie that tells him John is alive. He can’t delete anything about John.
The fat fuck is sitting at a table, legs folded primly and his umbrella resting at his side. Two cups of tea with a fresh pot are steaming, and Sherlock sneers at Mycroft’s fetish with tradition and etiquette. He sits down and presses his fingertips together hard to hide their trembling.
“This is what it comes down to, is it? Force me to realise I can no longer tell dream from reality?” He says, venom curdling his words.
“Can you?” Mycroft asks quietly, and gives him that irritating head tilt, Sherlock hates that head tilt.
“If I had my phone I could make sure.” Sherlock replies meaningfully.
“Somehow I doubt that.” Mycroft says evenly.
“You never reacted this way to the cocaine.” Sherlock accuses.
“The cocaine was but a distraction, dear brother.” Mycroft arranges the crease of his trousers meticulously. “But grief… is a war. A war between living and dying, remembering and forgetting. I am simply helping you win.”
“Do you expect me to suddenly realise the error of my ways and repent?” Sherlock laughs nastily. “Even you cannot be so optimistic.”
“No.” Mycroft says slowly, heavily. “But I can make you choose.” He places a handgun – John’s gun – between them, the grip towards Sherlock, and the barrel towards Mycroft himself. Sherlock’s eyes flicker from the gun to his older brother. “Reality or dream?” Mycroft asks quietly.
Sherlock stares. “It’s a fifty-fifty chance.” He enunciates slowly, feeling the old memories stir like hungry beasts.
“No, it’s not.” Mycroft says with a sad smile.
“Why are you doing this?” Sherlock hisses, leaning forward suddenly, quick as a snake. “You don’t need me if you’d just do legwork of your own. And I'm not your only minion. So why risk yourself?”
“Because I sang you to sleep when you were five.” Mycroft’s voice is sharp, almost a snap. Sherlock recoils, and Mycroft presses his lips together into a thin line. Mycroft didn’t mean to say it, and that makes it true. "Because you're my brother." Mycroft says, quieter this time.
Sherlock narrows his eyes. “This has to be a dream. You would never put your own life at risk. Too much depends on you. You’d never do this to mummy; you’d never disappoint her like I did.”
“You were the one she loved, Sherlock. And so the only one who could break her heart.” Mycroft doesn’t move. He had long since accepted their mother's favouritism, had held her hand when she was on her deathbed and pleading for Sherlock to come home. He had been unable to explain to her his failure in bringing his younger brother home, and she had at last pulled her hand from his with a sigh, turning her head away.
Sherlock glares at his brother, and looks down at the gun again. He’s seething.
“Alright, say I choose. What are you trying to accomplish?”
“You don’t shoot me, and choose reality over dream. You shoot me… well it depends on whether we’re dreaming, doesn’t it?” Mycroft’s smile is lukewarm.
“What if I don’t choose.” Sherlock demands, speaking through clenched teeth. “What if I remain here?”
“Without your phone? Without John, without a PASIV?”
Sherlock grabs the gun and points it under his chin. “What if I kill myself?” He’s trying to gauge Mycroft’s reaction, but he’s still as stone. “It’s the same conclusion whatever I choose: I end up alone.”
Mycroft regards him with an unreadable look. “You would rather die, or fall to Limbo and brain death than choose a reality without John.” He sounds unaccountably sad, like he’s lost something precious.
Sherlock freezes. The trigger is ice cold and burns his finger. Every inch of the gun feels real. But so did John. He closes his eyes.
[Path:]
Reality
All hearts are broken
Dream
All lives are lost
Memories
Caring is not an advantage
Limbo
I’ll burn the heart out of you
Forever
Love… is a much more vicious motivator
John.
“I.” Sherlock stops. Something is stuck in his throat, and he cannot get it out.
The two brothers stare across at each other, locked in a battle of wills. Sherlock swallows, feels his Adam’s apple ride the barrel of the gun. The tight twist in his chest that started so long ago reaches an exquisite peak of pain – or relief? - and this time the fall seems to have a more permanent destination in mind.
Sherlock smiles, and eases the word past the shameapologiesreliefguiltfeardoubtangersorrowachegriefgriefgrief in his throat. “Yes.”
[Shutdown]
Or:
[Restart]
Ending One: Shutdown
(Warnings: Character death by suicide, too much angst and all the creys)
Sherlock pulls the trigger.
Mycroft wakes up, and there are tears running down his face. Today she is Eurydice, and she hands him a handkerchief with sorrow in her eyes. He wipes at his face, but the tears do not stop. They sit together in silence for long moments, too long to count in the spaces between heartbeats. Sherlock is lying on the bed next to him, and he is breathing peacefully, asleep. Mycroft does not think he needs to sing this time, he is no Orpheus.
He stares at his baby brother. He thinks about their mother, who died of a broken heart, and their father, who never had one to begin with. He thinks about their childhood, when Sherlock used to adore him, and how that turned to hate and resentment when Mycroft wanted more from him than he could give. He thinks about the years he spent trying to mend broken promises and watching his brother trying not to break. He thinks about John. He turns his head slightly to Eurydice.
“Brain death in 9 hours, sir.” She says quietly.
Centuries then, with the shade of John. At least he’s happy. He sits beside Sherlock’s bed and takes his cold hand. Eurydice closes the door behind her.
Hundreds of years go by in hours. Mycroft ages with all of them.
Eventually, Sherlock stills. Mycroft brushes his hand over his curls, then leaves. He does not look back.
=
Ending Two: Restart
(Character resurrection, because I am the world’s biggest schmoop)
Sherlock’s finger is tightening on the trigger.
“Sherlock.” Mycroft says. Sherlock waits for him to finish, because at the end, he owes his brother this much. “John is alive.”
[Error]
[Error]
[Error]
[Refresh]
He lowers the gun and points it at the ground, because his hands are shaking so hard he doesn’t trust himself.
[Query:]
“What?” He says, and his voice sounds nothing like himself. His chest feels like a shipwreck. He feels like he would be screaming if he could breathe at all.
“He and I have been working to bring down the rest of Moriarty’s criminal empire this past year. It was necessary.” Mycroft isn’t looking at him, focused instead on the cold teacup in front of him. Sherlock isn’t saying a word. He’s staring through Mycroft, trying to make sense of the shrapnel in his chest. “I am sorry you were deceived so. It is entirely my doing. But you will forgive me if I acted in your best interests. You are not… discrete, nor do you have the luxury of anonymity. But John does, and he is insignificant to Moriarty’s men. They have not given him a second thought since his death; but they should have. John is a very competent soldier indeed.” Mycroft nods like he approves.
“If you had any knowledge of John’s survival, you would have ruined plans crucial to both you and John’s continued survival. You may be unaware, in your condition, that you have been watched by Moriarty’s right hand man since John’s faked death.” Mycroft taps his umbrella once. “But he has been content in your… lethargy. He has dropped his guard. And as we speak, John has probably already dispatched him.” Mycroft glances at his watch, then falls silent. The umbrella twirls to and fro between his fingers.
“No.” Sherlock says, gasping.
“No?” Mycroft raises an eyebrow.
“No, I won’t forgive you.” Sherlock lifts the gun and he’s pointing it at Mycroft, his brother a hazy blur in his vision. His hand is shaking still but even at this range he won’t miss. “You – you had no right – no idea – I – what I –” Sherlock’s grip is punishing, the grooves of the gun he knows so well etching themselves permanently into his skin. He feels punch drunk, the world whirling by him in a screaming cacophony of details and deductions and colours. It's almost worse than the whiteness was. He can’t think at all, and the only thing he can do is to hold on to that one shred of hope. John is alive.
“I do have an idea, Sherlock. I witnessed it first hand for a year. But I would rather have you alive and hating me than dead.” He’s not even looking at the gun, focused instead on Sherlock who is shaking apart.
“Is this a dream?” Sherlock asks in a small voice. There is a yawning gap within his chest, and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so lost, not since John died. Since Mycroft stood before him in the cold dark of that hospital and said “I’m sorry, Sherlock.” Since he saw that mangled body lying on the slab and Molly’s pathetic weeping like a demented soundtrack to the collapse of his world.
“What do you think?” Mycroft tilts his head again. “What do you believe?”
“I want to believe John’s alive.” Sherlock mutters, cradling his head in one hand as he looks down at the tabletop. “I can’t do it otherwise, Mycroft. Everything I do reminds me of his absence.” Sherlock’s voice is a harsh whisper, his eyes squeezed shut. He hates that he’s like this, that he’s breaking down in front of someone. But this is Mycroft, and he’s seen him at his lowest, high as a kite lying in the gutter of some alley way, listening to his big brother telling him their mother just died and laughing. “So I dream. But I can’t imagine all of his complexity or his spontaneity, his brilliance or even his stupidity, the way he responds and all the ways he makes me glad to be me.” Sherlock drops the gun. “Tell me this is real, Mycroft. Please.” He closes his eyes because he can’t look at his brother anymore. Maybe this will be easier to delete if there are no visual stimuli.
“I brought you here to try to stop you from dreaming. I was afraid you’d lost yourself too deep in the illusion to accept reality. But dreaming was never the problem, it seems.” Mycroft says softly, wearily. “And it turns out the cure is the cause afterall.” Mycroft is silent for a long moment, then with a drawn-out sigh, he turns his phone on and sends a message.
Sherlock looks up at him. Mycroft smiles back.
“Sherlock?”
The detective snaps his head around and there’s John, standing in the doorway, a year older, a year wiser, a year sadder, a year harder. Sherlock stands up so quickly the chair falls over. He takes a shaky step, then two, towards John, and John is moving forward too, his wonderfully, beautifully rumpled face folding into a heartbreaking smile. The tight twist in Sherlock’s chest is dissolving now, melting through his bones like liquid gold. Sherlock stumbles at the last moment, one knee suddenly giving out beneath him and he’s falling again, but John catches him, laughing.
“Christ Sherlock, you’re like a giraffe on skates.”
Sherlock laughs a little at that, because the John in his mind would never have said that, would never feel like this or look like this or smell like this, like rain and thunder and warm bread. The John in his dreams had been static, but this John, the real John is brimming with life and energy. He wraps himself in John and breathes quiet and broken into John’s hair. His doctor has curled his arms around Sherlock firmly, and it is far better than anything Sherlock has ever imagined. Could ever have imagined. Sherlock struggles to breathe, to keep thinking beyond the prayer in his head of Never let me go never let me go never let me go.
“Your brother tells me you’ve been dreaming some rather dodgy dreams about me. Didn’t know you were that kind of bloke.” John’s voice is amused and muffled. Sherlock turns to glare at Mycroft, but he’s disappeared. “I thought you were married to your work.”
“You are part of my work now, John.” It feels wonderful to say his name to him again.
John is laughing. “Oh and now we’re married! We haven’t even gone on a proper date.” Sherlock’s shirt is getting wet. John’s crying, and he’s unashamed to shed them. John has always been a better man, a good man.
“Yes we have.” Sherlock murmurs to John.
“Crime scenes don’t count.”
“They do for us.”
“God, well yes I suppose. No snogging at crime scenes though.” They’re giggling together, and if either hugs each other just a bit too hard, they don’t mention it. A year separated their bodies and their minds but they’ve joined back together now like they were never parted. Sherlock has no doubt that this is real, because everything about John is the proof that he needs; there are new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and a new tired tilt to the smile of his lips. His skin is tanner and his hair is longer, smelling of hot sand and dust. Something beautifully agonising is blooming in his chest, and he simply presses John closer.
Outside, Mycroft taps his umbrella twice, and he looks out over the meadow beside the abandoned building. He thinks about what it means to love and what it takes to forgive oneself. Today she is Psyche, and she smiles at him over her phone.
“Shall we go sir?”
“Yes.” He smiles back.
=
[Restart – Redux]
(Schmoop woop de boop)
Sherlock is lying on the couch as he looks over John’s blog and loudly scoffs at certain parts. “Moran killed man-eating tigers and that makes him intimidating? Please, this is ridiculous. Man-eating tigers are usually the ones who are too old to hunt anything else; they’d hardly present a challenge to even the most amateur of hunters.”
“Overestimating mortals again, Sherlock.” John quips from the kitchen table, eating jam on toast while reading his newspaper. “And don’t think I can’t see you smiling at my posts either. Admit it, you like them.”
“I do not. They are sensationalised, overdramatic and contain no scientific analysis whatsoever.” Sherlock sniffs.
“Remember how your analyses get you punched, almost killed, and thrown in jail? Yeah. Also, you realise you live in the largest glass house when it comes to overdramatic yes? Mr. Flappy Coat and Sharp Cheekbones?”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, John.”
There is a grin in John’s voice. “I love you too, you daft, maddening git.”
Sherlock smiles helplessly up at the ceiling, and closes his eyes.
[Restart - Glitch???FileError]
Sherlock doesn't get his phone back from Mycroft.
[Path:]
Unknown.
x