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He thinks this must be what it feels like to have a terminal disease. This slow separation of SherlockandJohn JohnandSherlock into Sherlock, and John and Mary. They need an Oxford comma now, to explain what they are, to keep them apart. He despises Oxford commas. Yes, he thinks, this must be what cancer feels like. John would hate the analogy, would think he’s being melodramatic and taking something that causes so much suffering far too lightly. But there’s nothing about this he takes lightly. And it is like cancer, he can be as stubborn as he likes in his own mind.
There was the prognosis; when he came home from running some tests at Bart’s and John was sat on the sofa staring at his hands. He knew, of course he knew. For a brief instant he’d worried that the tremor in John’s hand had returned but dismissed that thought almost instantly. No, this was a surgeon hoping his hands would get him through the difficult task before him. And he was sitting on the sofa, a shared space, but at the extreme left end of it rather than towards the centre. So John was planning a difficult conversation and wanted to reassure Sherlock with physical closeness but had unconsciously distanced himself as far as possible from where he imagined Sherlock would sit. It had also been the fifth week in a row that John had spent at least three nights at Mary’s. John had looked up with worried eyes and a far too wide smile.
‘Sherlock, you’re back …’
‘Yes, obviously. When are you moving out?’ He’d interrupted unable to bear listening to whatever awkward monologue John had planned.
John had looked irritated then ducked his head and chuckled. ‘Of course you know. Stupid to think I needed to say.’ He’d looked back up at Sherlock, stretched his arm out to pat the sofa. ‘Would you sit down for a minute?’ Sherlock had huffed to cover the nausea burning its way up his chest but sat at the other end of the sofa and raised his eyebrows to indicate John should get on with it.
‘So yeah me and Mary, um Mary and I, talked and thought we should. I mean it’s got nothing to do with you, I hope you know that. It’s just I’m there half the time anyway and I, we’re, I mean you know.’ John gestured helplessly, jumbled in clauses.
‘You’re in love.’ He’d supplied softly.
‘Yeah, we are.’
‘Well I cannot congratulate you, but I understand.’
John had looked into Sherlock’s eyes then, his smile grateful and real. ‘Thanks. I don’t want this to change things between us. You’re important to me.’
How he’d wanted to hurt John for that, wanted to tell John that it didn’t matter what he wanted, he’d wanted to be cutting and cold leaving John in no doubt that he wouldn’t be missed, that his absence would barely be noticed. But he didn’t because this was John, and Sherlock had to keep him in some capacity, couldn’t lose him entirely. He’d simply nodded and attempted nonchalance. ‘Of course. And anyway I’ll still need your assistance on cases, you know what Anderson’s like.’
Listening to John’s derisive snort had made his throat close up and he’d cleared his throat hoarsely before speaking again. ‘When?’
John sobered and sighed a little. ‘I thought. A month? Would that be fair?’
Sherlock had nodded again, too exhausted to keep up much of a façade now. ‘That’s very fair.’
John would still come on cases for a year, maybe two but eventually Mary would want a baby or at least a proper house, maybe something out in the country. That would mean more money than John could make in a couple of shifts at the clinic. That meant a job that didn’t require working for free most of the time. They’d stay in contact for a while after that but seeing each other a few times a week would become once a month then a few times a year.
There are periods of remission in the weeks following, moments when it seemed like nothing had changed, like nothing would change. When they came home from a case exhilarated and stuffed with Chinese food. Or when John had thrown the empty milk-carton at him when he’d called for tea the next morning. There was a night when John came home from a pub night with Lestrade, drunker than normal, fumbling with his keys. Sherlock had put down the lap-top and opened the door for him. John had stumbled and Sherlock had caught him. In that moment with John leaning into him, chin on his shoulder, warm breath on his neck Sherlock had let himself believe that he had a right to this, imagined a world where this small intimacy could be enough for John.
There’s a list he wrote months ago between cases; 'Things I would do with John' and he’d wanted more than anything to ask if the short list could satisfy, to offer more if it will help. There is an urge to offer everything and hope all the imbeciles who’d told him ‘you just haven’t met the right person’ were right and that this time he wouldn’t be filled with the familiar mix of boredom and revulsion during the act. But it’s not true and he dislikes lying to himself, so he’d swallowed down the need to ask John what it would take to make him stay, to show him the list.
The flat becomes a constant riddle of missing items as John takes things over to Mary’s. John’s DVDs disappear and his books are slowly separated from Sherlock’s. John’s RAMC mug is no longer in the cupboard. Every time he comes home and sees something else has gone it feels like another piece of John has been cut away from him. Worse though are the times when he expects the now familiar pang and instead feels nothing. His heart is icing over again and oddly he doesn’t want it to happen. He wants to keep these feelings, painful as they are, doesn’t want to delete John.
Before John whenever he’d thought about a distant retirement he’d imagined himself in a blue-stone cottage alone but for his bees. The idea had kept him sane on days when the idiocy of the general population got to be too much. Somehow, though, John had colonised his imaginings with walks along country lanes and warm hands caring for the inevitable stings. His longed-for retreat from the morass of humanity now seems cold and dull.
*
He sits on the stairs watching John pack the last of his things. John packs efficiently, stuffing socks and vests in the small gaps around the books and small objects already in the boxes, using every possible space. He should have known John would pack like this, like a soldier, aware that every piece of space is valuable.
John’s excited and nervous, keeping up an exhausting stream of consciousness about Mary that Sherlock has had to mostly block out. This disgusting anticipation of their domesticity. They intend to invite Sherlock to a dinner party of all things. John has the brains to laugh at himself for that idea at least.
‘I know you probably think it’s rubbish but I’d like you to have the chance to spend time with Mary. Besides, it’ll be fun to act like grown-ups for once. No sheets yeah?’
Sherlock snorts, ‘Really John I’m flattered, but naked dinners? I thought we had established I’m married to the work.’
John giggles, a ridiculous endearing sound. No-one had ever thought he was funny before John. His John. No, Mary’s John now, and he’s been so good, hasn’t he? He hasn’t even told John any of his deductions about her, though to be fair a promiscuous stage during high school and humbler origins and education than she likes to admit are hardly damning secrets. He wants to lie, to tell John about chronic infidelity or a past as a dominatrix⎯John couldn’t stand Irene after all and perhaps the feelings would transfer. There’s even a small chance that John would believe him. He’s always trusted Sherlock too much. But she’s genuinely nice. And kind. It should be sickening and more than enough reason to try and drive her off. He knows he’s a selfish man but he finds himself unable to even attempt to take away something that John wants so badly. Besides, there’s too much risk now. He’s calculated that there is a forty-nine to fifty-one percent chance that, if he pushed, John would choose Mary.
He helps John carry the last boxes down to the street and into a cab. John starts to speak then just smiles and nods at the boxes. Sherlock detests the sentimentality his out of character helpfulness has displayed so he mumbles ‘I’ll text’ and hurries back upstairs.
He watches the cab drive away from Baker Street and he thinks about the future. He sees a series of dinner parties with John, Mary and a succession of Olivers, Toms, Benjamins and Heaths. All intelligent, on a relative scale which removes himself and Mycroft as statistical outliers, and no doubt charming if one enjoys inanity. John will be embarrassed that Mary doesn’t understand and wary of Sherlock’s reaction. Sherlock will be polite and feign interest in the gathering to keep John happy. He wonders how long it will take before he begins to hate John for his descent into normality.