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It was a quiet day at 221B Baker street when Sherlock doubled over, coughing and spluttering. John was in the other room, working on his manuscript, pen flying back and forth on the page. The coughing was normal, with the sheer amount of cigarettes that Sherlock smoked a day. Upwards of two packets, at the very least, something that John had tried very hard to curtail.
However, when the coughing didn't stop, John's worry began to increase dramatically. The sound Sherlock was letting out was raspy and thick, like an old crone on her deathbed.
He set down his pen on his writing desk and leaned back on his chair, calling out through the open door of his room. "Sherlock?" he called. "Is everything alright?"
Silence was the only thing that greeted his ears, only interrupted by the sound of three large hacks, and then a thud.
"Sherlock?"
The silence continued.
John stood up quickly, grabbing his cane and running into the adjacent room to his own. He shoved his hand against the door (swinging open easily, much to his surprise - Sherlock's door was often locked tight) with a slam.
His gaze darted around the room, searching for answers to the noise he had heard, only for his attention to be captured by Sherlock lying, almost spasming on the floor, surrounded by something unfamiliar - in this context at least.
It was not unusual to find Sherlock in some state. Oftentimes it would be the case that Sherlock had ingested some form of drug in his research for an investigation that would cause an outcome like this to happen, but what was on the floor was no powder or pill.
It was flowers.
More specifically, rose petals - a torn one here, a full petal there, an entire head, even, smushed on the ground next to Sherlock's head. But the sweet smell of the symbol of love was tainted, tinged, by the growing smell of thick, cloying iron.
"Sherlock!" John threw his cane aside, dropping down onto his knees. The man was breathing, but in gasping gulps for air that caused more blood to be spewed up with every broken exhale. His eyes were half lidded, and what little of them John could see was bloodshot.
"Sherlock, is-is this some sort of drug?" John's mind spun as he rolled the man onto his side to stop him from choking on the blood he was spitting out. It wouldn't be the first term that he'd seen Sherlock in dire straits - god knows he'd seen what lengths that the man was willing to go to in order to solve a case - but this was entirely unprecedented.
The dark haired man managed to roll himself further onto his side, grabbing onto John's shirt with a tightly clenched fist as he wheezed and coughed, pushing himself slowly onto his knees as he panted.
Eventually, the hacking subsided and the man was able to breathe, wiping his mouth on his shirt sleeve despite the offered handkerchief. John eased Sherlock against the wall. The dark haired man's mouth was stained red.
John let him sit for a moment, before the questions inevitably began to bubble up.
"Sherlock, what on Earth was that! You were coughing and spluttering - and what's with all of these flowers! Is this some sort of experiment? I thought we'd agreed that if you were to be dabbling with dangerous machinations we'd do it either downstairs where it would be safely enclosed or in my room where there's proper ventilation - Sherlock, Sherlock, hey! Are you listening to me?"
The words caught in John's throat, the vacant look in Sherlock's eyes stopping whatever tirade he was going to continue with.
The few times he'd seen that look in Sherlock's eyes had been either after a particularly unsatisfying case had reached its conclusion (e.g. there hadn't been quite enough twists and turns for Sherlock's liking) or when Sherlock was coming down from an especially bad high.
There was still enough light in the day, so John stepped across from Sherlock to the window where the sheers were drawn, pulling them open enough to allow light to spread across the wooden floor.
He quickly walked back over to Sherlock and knelt down in front of the man, who was beginning to come back to his senses, and opened his left eye with his pointer finger and thumb, and used the other hand to tilt Sherlock's face up towards the light that shone through the window.
His pupils were regular, if slightly wider than normal. John then conducted a variety of tests to check what appeared to be the case, every answer puzzling him more and more.
The man seemed to be perfectly fine, if a little winded.
John pursed his lips and shook Sherlock's shoulder slightly, catching the man's waning attention.
"Sherlock, what happened?" he asked, much more softly than his previous bombardment of questions.
The detective waved him off, pursing his lips together as he took deep breaths. "I'm fine, John. It must have been the result of one of our experiments." John reeled back, near scowling at Sherlock's words.
"One of our experiments? Sherlock, we haven't been doing anything involving seeds or flowers, certainly not anything that would cause rose petals to be coming out of your mouth!"
Sherlock shrugged and rested his head on the cool wood behind him. "It's fine, John. I'm sure my body will sort itself out." "Sort itself out?! What if you pass out again! Or asphyxiate! Sherlock you might-"
Sherlock fixed John with a piercing look, the kind he normally reserved for someone that was hiding the truth from him, making the blond freeze. "John. I said it's fine." "But Sherlock-" "John."
John didn't know why he stopped asking. Maybe it was the tone. Maybe it was the unnaturalness of the situation itself. But some time later, when he'd reflect on what happened, he'd come to the realisation that rather it was something in Sherlock's eyes that made him hush up.
— — —
Sherlock didn't know the feeling of love before he met Liam.
Sure, he'd known some elements of it - fondness, affection, care - but never true, proper love in and of itself.
That day on the Noahtic though, when they'd met each other for the first time - something had changed.
It hadn't been this large, shocking revelation that Sherlock had read about in books (though he would never admit he'd read such literature), no swell of an orchestra as they locked eyes, no chorus of angels singing their heavenly tunes - no.
It was more like a puzzle piece slotting into place.
Correct.
Simple.
With a click.
Sherlock had struggled to find someone of his own caliber and wit for a long time even platonically - Mycroft didn't count, he lorded victory after victory over Sherlock's head like a crown that was being constantly adorned with jewels. And besides, his brother was a complete dick.
William was…not soft. Soft was the wrong word. Approachable would be better. Intriguing the most suitable.
William fascinated Sherlock to the core. He was a foil to Sherlock's every move - but a compliment as well. The two were parallel, much like train tracks, going and going and going -
But never intersecting.
And so Sherlock coughed up roses he would never receive.
John's concern had been well intended, of course. He'd felt bad about being so brusque with the man when the doctor had just been worried about Sherlock fainting. Sherlock would never admit it, but he would have been equally worried, if not maybe more so, if the same thing had happened to John.
Sherlock had done research into what was happening to him, of course. He was a detective after all, and there was no greater mystery than the unknown. Eventually, he'd stumbled upon a little known medical journal, and hidden amongst the pages was a brief, one page article that had described exactly what he found himself experiencing.
Sudden and repeated pain around the heart upon thinking of a specific person.
Shortness of breath even when not engaging in physical activity when having thoughts of a certain someone.
And possibly the most damning evidence of it all:
Flowers being coughed up by the victim.
Sherlock most certainly did not being called a victim. Him? Sherlock Holmes? The great detective, the victim of some disease that an old fusty quack in a largely discredited medical journal purported? Ridiculous!
So, of course he investigated. He'd found the doctor (aged and decrepit, but with enough of his wits left about him to be useful) who had elaborated on the article further to Sherlock in between splutters of phlegm and frequent nose blowings.
The disease had first been discovered in Japan, and had been coined as the 'Hanahaki' disease - literally meaning to throw up flowers. It had been observed in the more ostracized members of society - most notably courtesans and homosexuals.
The doctor had paused upon mentioning this, glancing at Sherlock suspiciously, before the younger man had snapped at him to continue. Sherlock didn't particularly care whether or not this supported the man's suspicions, but he needed to know more, and he would be dame]ned if he left without knowing exactly what was happening to him.
The doctor had gone on to tell him how the disease was caused when strong, passionate love for somebody was unable to be reciprocated for whatever reason, causing rapid alternating spikes and drops of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. For some people, this had no physical impact at all - but for others, it was devastating.
Small, thin layers of the lungs would begin to flake off in the shape of petals, often individually at the start, but as the condition progressed they would clump together, coalescing into what, to the unobservant eye, would seem to be rose petals, or rose bulbs.
That was one of the reasons why Sherlock wanted John to not investigate the issue further. The idea of a doctor, one who Sherlock trusted but couldn't trust with this, finding out about his condition - he couldn't do it.
The doctor had told him that there were three pathways forward. One, they initiated surgery and cut the flakes out of Sherlock's lungs - but with the caveat that this could affect his ability to love in the future, as it would potentially impact his levels of happiness and enjoyment. Two, they leave the petals be and he would die. And three, Sherlock would confess his feelings, the petals would phase themselves out, and he'd be free.
However, this final option came with another issue to consider: if he was rejected, the petal build up would accelerate, and he'd die of asphyxiation within a week.
Cheerful stuff.
Sherlock had left the doctor's office with a mind wound up like a ball of yarn. Options, options, options. All with their flaws. All with their benefits. But most importantly, all revolving around one person.
William James Moriarty.
Liam.
For the first time in a long time, there was no clear path forward, no matter what avenue of logic Sherlock went down. Pros and cons. Pros and cons.
— — — — — — — — —
It had been some time since Sherlock had first coughed up flowers. It had started off as nothing more than a tickle in the back of his throat. He'd been irritated, initially, at the thought of getting sick, especially as the number of (interesting) cases happening in London with the emergence of the Lord of Crime ramping up significantly.
God, he wished it was just a tickle in the back of his throat now.
It was three or so days after the case on the Noahtic concluded that he hacked up the first petal. Sherlock remembered it vividly, looking down at the floor to see a single pink petal drifting downwards. Strange, that he could recall the event so clearly in his mind's eye when he couldn't even remember the exact day that it happened. Perhaps that was a testament to how long this had been going on for.
He'd just finished playing the violin - Schubert's Wild Rose, ironically enough - with a resounding flourish, though it wasn't as good as he would have liked it to have been. His mind had been swirling over the enigmatic blond that had been on the ship with him - the first true match to his mental prowess.
There had been no clear display of it at the time, of course, but wise men never announced their minds to the world if they were truly intelligent.
It had been a small cough. A little scratch, a hand lifted up in a first, an expelling of breath -
And a small petal.
Sherlock had been perplexed. His initial thought was that he had indeed inhaled some sort of plant that had sprouted inside of him, but then it happened two days later. And again. And again.
It was after his and Liam's encounter on the train that the blood had begun to come.
Sherlock had been surprised that it had not come sooner, as a matter of fact. He'd been spluttering so much that Miss Hudson had forced John to give Sherlock cough syrup, saying that she "wouldn't have the plague be spread by her tenant!"
Which was her saying that she cared. In her own, very special way.
It had only been a couple of drops to start off with, a light pink in shade. But over time, the blood had grown deeper and darker in colour, and as he and Liam's paths overlapped more and more, and as he spent more and more of his time preoccupied with the Lord of Crime, the blood grew nearly black in colour and the blooms grew larger and larger.
It had partially been the evidence that William was the Lord of Crime, but really, it was the fact that the coughing started whenever Sherlock pondered the identity of who the Lord of Crime really was that solidified his theory.
He was in love, desperately, like a moth to flame, with the man who was turning London right on its head.
— — — — — — — — —
Murder. Death. Bloodshed.
And so the Final Plan had reached its climax.
Two men.
Two opposites.
Two sides of the same coin.
Two valves in the same heart.
And so they were trying to stick to the plan. Their own plans.
The smell of smoke and chemicals permeated thickly throughout the air, crawling up through Sherlock's nose and stabbing his brain with a knife repeatedly. Part of him wondered if this was how John felt when Sherlock smoked and choked on the fumes, like someone had come and wrapped their hand around his brain, infusing panic into every cell.
Liam stood there, on the edge. His brilliant, beautiful, bold Liam.
The Lord of Crime.
Sherlock knew what had to be done. He had to uphold his promise to Fred and Louis, to save Liam himself, to stop this final death from occurring.
But as the words bubbled up in his throat, desperate, begging, he felt a coughing fit settle upon him. Sherlock began to wheeze and hack, dropping to his knees as he did, desperately trying to find some sort of purchase, something that he could cling to that might make the coughing seem to subside faster.
When he managed to look up, through the smoke and his own half lidded eyes, he saw Liam looking down at him with wide, wide eyes.
It was rare that he'd ever seen the blond be honestly shocked, more often than not it was simply a part of the role he played, but in that moment Liam looked horrified.
His situation must have managed to cut through Liam's desire to fulfil his mission to the city of London, because he took, one, two, three steps towards Sherlock, reddish brown eyes meeting squinted blue ones.
Sherlock grinned up the blond, his hopeful smile marred by the blood undoubtedly staining his chin and teeth. "Exactly, Liam, come with me, step away from the edge, we can solve this together. No one else needs to die tonight-"
"What the devil is causing you to - are those flowers?" Despite the circumstances, Sherlock grinned, a proper cocky smile stretching over his face, exposing how stained his teeth were with the red liquid.
"Finally stumped the great professor, have I?" The blond's gaze cut through Sherlock like a knife, silencing any witty remark that may have passed through Sherlock's lips.
He sighed. "It's called hanahaki. It's a disease where-" "-the victim is subject to flakes of their lungs coming off in petal like shapes, culminating in the victim dying due to a lack of oxygen and adequate amount of lung left to continue respiration, resulting in their death." William interjected, his gaze furrowing. Sherlock nodded. "It appears that the mathematician is also a biologist," he quipped, entirely inappropriately for the situation.
William ignored the jibe and took a deep breath. "Who?" Sherlock blinked. "Who?" William asked, more demanding this time. The two stared at each other, surrounded by a steadily growing blaze, but now it was confusion that was palpable as opposed to the smoke.
Sherlock snorted. "I thought that you were meant to be the equal to my smarts, Liam. Come on. You know who it is." The blond folded his arms. "I really don't, Sherlock. But I'd advise that you come out with it so that you can come to your senses and come down from this bridge and go tell the person that you love them."
With that, William turned and stood at the end of the burning bridge, looking through the sparks and embers on the bridge to the city beyond.
Before he could say anything though, Sherlock spoke.
"You."
William froze. Surely…no. He must have misheard.
Sherlock repeated it with more conviction, banishing any doubt that William might have had in his mind. "You, Liam. I love you. I've loved you for so damn long. I've loved you since I laid eyes on you as you looked up that staircase and saw you think. God, I love you. I never could say it. You know I never could. And if you die tonight, I'll be dead and gone too."
William turned and looked at Sherlock, who was slowly pushing himself back to his feet. "It's always been you, Liam." William looked to the side, and then back at Sherlock. A smile stretched across the blond's face, possibly one of the few authentic ones anyone had ever seen him do.
"It's always been you too, Sherlock."
Sherlock felt the knot in his chest that had persisted for so many months loosen, just a little bit. As William continued to talk, he felt it loosening more and more.
"I admire your standoffishness. How you don't let bureaucracy get in your way of saying what you think. How you say what you think but know when to not say anything to protect the people you care about."
As Sherlock looked at the other man, he could have sworn he saw a single tear trace its way down Liam's cheek. A small part of him whispered that it was just the smoke making the man cry, but in his heart he knew different.
The knot in his chest surged with a vengeance though as William turned away. "But not in this life. Never in this life. Not because we're both men, that's not of any concern to me. But because of who we are. You are the light, the hope of this country, Sherlock. And I am the dark."
The fire seemed to roar louder as William fully turned away from him. "And that is all we will ever be able to be in this world."
With that, the blond stepped off the edge. Sherlock surged forward, his heart in his mouth but the knot easing, unravelling, making it easier for him to run, easier to breathe, easier to skid to the floor and grab William's hand, stopping him from completely falling over the edge.
"Liam, what the hell are you saying?! Your plan can work without you actually dying. Your family needs you. Your friends need you. I-" His voice cracked, once almost imperceptibly, and then once more much more audibly. "I need you, Liam. I need you like a flower needs sunlight. Liam, I've been coughing up roses for you. I love you so much that my body is trying to make a symbol of love for you."
William opened his mouth, most likely to counter Sherlock's argument with some scientific evidence to the contrary, but Sherlock beat him to the next point.
"I know that there's probably some scientific reason why they're shaped like petals, Liam. That isn't the point. The point is that I love you, and I need you, and I'll die, really, actually, without you."
William swung above the river below, the boards that Sherlock was on top of creaking as the dark haired man clung to William's hand, a cane in the blond's other.
"Let go of the mission, Liam. We can sort this out. I know that you can make things happen. I know that your associates can make things happen. We can make this work, Liam. We can."
William let go of the cane cane with one hand, a flare of hope sparking to life in Sherlock's chest as a result. "Yes, yes, now grab onto me with both hands and I'll haul you up!" he said, excitement slipping properly into his voice.
William looked up at him, eyes meeting, and with his now free hand pressed his palm to his lips and then pressed it to the back of Sherlock's hand, where it was grabbing his own.
Sherlock's eyes widened.
His first kiss, and they were surrounded by fire.
He wouldn't have had it any other way.
Before he could process or acknowledge it however, the soft, gentle hand of his Liam slipped out of his, causing the man to begin to free fall towards the Thames.
Sherlock watched this for a long moment, fear, horror, and panic spiking in his chest. His body moved of its own accord before he could even rationalise what he was doing, throwing himself off the bridge with outstretched arms, wrapping a hand around Liam's head to protect him from the inevitable impact, and holding the man tight in his arms.
Despite the adrenaline finally catching up to him, and the part of him that was screaming in fright, Sherlock felt…calm. This was where he was meant to be. With Liam. In each other's arms. Keeping him safe. Making sure he knew that he was loved, so utterly and surely, up until the very end.
And even as the two crashed into the water, the brackish, polluted water filling Sherlock's lungs, eyes, and nose, he realised that for the first time, he could breathe easily.
The flowers no longer hindered his lungs, expelled in that final coughing fit.
Even if Sherlock did die tonight, it would be with his love in his arms.