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And clearly I don’t see myself upon that list
But she said “where’d you wanna go?
How much you wanna risk?
I’m not looking for somebody with some superhuman gifts
Some fairytale bliss
Just something I can turn to, somebody I can kiss”
I’ve been reading books of old
The legends and the myths
The testaments they told
The moon and its eclipse
Somebody I can miss
I want something just like this.
-Something Just Like This by Coldplay and The Chainsmokers
A house inside the boundaries of London would draw too much attention. Perhaps that is why Mycroft elects you to be the one. The chosen one, you think once or twice, numbly, before you put the thoughts away, in a box labelled for later, because for now there are more important things to do.
A dead man is stiff and silent, by all rights of the universe, and Sherlock Holmes is a dead man now. Stands to reason, that he is stiff, and silent, when the black car brings him to your suburban doorstep. When he walks up the path in a coat that isn’t his. He seems different. You let him over the threshold. The car pulls away, and the silence remains.
You don’t know what you expected. The same manic energy he had done his best to contain, perhaps. Playing the game for all he was worth, while you stood back and watched in despair that manifested as sobs and waking up breathless and trembling. Despair for him. For the life that was being pummelled by people who didn’t know him. If Sherlock Holmes is a cheat, then everybody’s smart, he’d said to you, trying to explain it. You get it, you do. But Sherlock Holmes isn’t a cheat. And nobody was smarter than him. Not even Mycroft, regardless of whatever the brothers might say. Because Sherlock Holmes was a great man, and he was a good one.
And now he was a dead one.
He played the game. But did he lose? Did he win? Does he even know? Does it count as a victory when you lose everything?
The evening sun slides down through your suburban garden. Tints the pale green walls of your kitchen and pulls out golden tints in the oven door, the digital clock proclaiming the time in a manner more subdued than normal. You want to ask him questions, but you can’t. You don’t know what he did for the last ten hours. The fall happened this morning. It’s all anyone can talk about, over the news everywhere. You hate it. You hate it.
Sherlock sits quietly, first in your kitchen and then in the lounge. Looks at his phone once or twice. His arm hangs limply off the sofa, fingers motionless. It gets to you. Sherlock isn’t a quiet person. He doesn’t stay still. He’s manic. He jumps over sofas and strides across tables.
To Mycroft, perhaps, you are only the stopover. A temporary solution, someone to babysit Sherlock overnight - and then he will go, and he will, for all intents and purposes, be truly dead. You’ll go to his funeral. You already know the coat you’ll wear. You’ll cry. You’ll hug all his friends, the people you care about. You’ll come home, and remember…this. Right now. These moments, they’re all you have left.
And to Sherlock, you’re more than a stopover, a place to stay. Aren’t you? You’re his friend. But that’s not why he chose you. He’d choose John Watson over you.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is him. And he isn’t okay.
“Food?”
“No.”
No. Dead men don’t need to eat.
You end up snacking on some cheese and crackers. You’re not very hungry either.
Afterwards you come back to the lounge. The sun has set fully. Sherlock has shut the front curtains, pulling them tightly shut until there isn’t a single gap. Asides from the small lamp in the hallway, the room is in darkness. You can only see the shape of him on the sofa, sitting upright. No glow from a phone screen. You can barely hear his breathing, not over yours.
Something’s changed. It feels fragile. Small.
It occurs to you, in that moment, that dead men don’t have possessions. They don’t have homes. Baker Street and its contents are only an hour or so’s drive away. They’re out of reach, they might as well be on Mars.
“Would you like the light on?” Your voice is soft.
“No.”
“Okay.”
Making your way across to him is easy enough. You kneel on the sofa next to him. He smells of someone else’s cologne; whoever provided the clothes he’s wearing now, the ones that aren’t his.
“Anything.” You look at him earnestly. “Is there anything I can do?”
A moment. Then another. He doesn’t say anything.
You take a deep breath and put your hand on his shoulder. You miss by a few inches, your fingers just brushing his neck before you adjust. He inhales. It’s the loudest sound he’s made.
“You’re okay.” You shuffle closer. His face turns to you. He can’t be able to see you, any more than you can him. Just silhouettes, profiles, edges in black and white. There’s a rumble of a car outside, a muted hum of a TV through the wall of your semi-detached house. A click of your fridge from the kitchen. Your breathing. And Sherlock’s.
He leans in, closer, just a little. Not mad, then. You aren’t overstepping. You’re feeling your way blindly in the dark, but you’re going the right way, so far.
“Are you in shock?” you whisper. “I know that’s not a very helpful thing to ask someone who’s in shock. But I don’t - I need to know what you’re feeling, Sherlock, to be able to…be helpful.”
“Nothing.” His voice is like an old brick wall, crumbling, fragmented, turning into crushed red dust. “I feel nothing. I’m not in shock.”
“Okay,” you breathe. You squint at him. “You’re not in shock, then. So no blanket? No need to dig up an ancient orange blanket and make you wear it?”
“No.”
You edge nearer. Bringing your other hand up. Across his front, reaching for his other shoulder. He’s still stiff. And cold, you realise. Surprisingly cold.
You make up your mind, like you hadn’t already, and pull him in tightly against you, burying your face on top of your hand, against his shoulder.
He’s rigid at first, pulled in at a strange angle, bent from the waist like he’s about to snap. Then he softens and goes pliant, turning to you. You feel his hand spreading awkwardly across your back, his palm a firm pressure against your spine. His breathing quickens.
Sherlock Holmes is not a small man. Sure, he’s not massive, either. Mycroft is taller; Greg is broader. But Sherlock is far from being weak. He can be quite intimidating when he wants to be, quite imposing - especially when he’s unsure. The first time he’d visited you in this house, he’d seemed massive enough to need to - figuratively - duck through the doorways; yet in Baker Street, such a smaller place, he fits perfectly.
Tonight he isn’t. Tonight he seems to be made of cut pieces. A work of art, already broken. All it would take is one touch too hard, and he would shatter across the floor, a cacophony of something falling apart when it had fragmented light years ago.
His curls brush your temple, your hair over your ear, as he hunches over, closer. Small. Broken.
Your heart almost rips itself in two with the enormity of what you feel. You can’t imagine it. You can’t. Whatever happened to him, however he survived - he died, too. There was a body wearing his coat, and John Watson yelling for him. There was Moriarty, dead on the rooftop. There was everything, that was too much.
“You’re-” You shake your head. His fingers tighten, curling into the fabric of your shirt. “You’re not okay. But it’s okay, Sherlock. I-” You both inhale in the same heartbeat. “I’ve got you.”
*
Somehow there was never any question about it. Maybe the awkwardness had been dispelled by the fact that Sherlock Holmes was dead. He eats - at last - follows you into the kitchen when you get more cheese and crackers and silently takes the one you hold out; standing there, side-by-side in front of the sink, staring meaninglessly into the dark garden through the dark glass, your reflections expressionless and munching. He waits there, finishing the tea you make him, while you brush your teeth and change into pyjamas. You come back for him, and go upstairs together, your bare feet and his socked ones, two steps apart.
This suburban house has guest bedrooms. Of course it does. You live alone. And yet there is never any question about it. Obviously, your heart races when you shut the door and turn to see Sherlock looking dully at the neatly-made bed. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t thought about this, once or twice. Sherlock Holmes is an attractive, magnetic, insensitive, kind, weird, endearing arsehole. He’s safe to crush on because he’ll never reciprocate it.
But first and foremost he is your friend. Dead, you remind yourself.
“Come on.” You touch the back of his hand and walk around the bed to your side, sliding in.
Sheets rustle. The mattress dips. He lies there, inside the duvet, staring up at the ceiling.
“Shall I turn the light off?”
“Yes.”
You flick it off. Then you reach over, searching for his hand.
“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep, Sherlock?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I suppose not. Do you…” You sigh. “Is there anything else you’d rather do?”
“I can’t leave the house.”
“You don’t need to. Movies. A…board game?” You wince. You idiot. Like he wants to even play Scrabble with you now. “No, I’m being silly. It’s just…If you don’t want to…” Lie there and relive the events of the past twenty-four hours-
“You’re tired.”
Your heart gets stabbed by little warm needles. How rude of your internal organs. “That doesn’t matter, though. And - I don’t need you to, like, tell me in the morning that I snore or something, and you had to lie there all night and listen to-”
“You don’t snore. And,” Sherlock adds definitively, “I don’t mind. Go to sleep.”
His hand is limp in yours. “Okay.” You pull your arm back. Then his fingers curl through yours, tight enough to almost hurt. You squeeze his hand briefly. “Goodnight. Kick me if I go all clingy-koala.”
He exhales a snort. The last thing you think, before you fall asleep with Sherlock Holmes, a dead man, an awake man, a haunted man, a man you care about, is that you made him laugh. Almost.
*
It’s twenty-three minutes past two when you wake up and find the bed empty. The door is slightly ajar, and a thin point of bright, white light pierces through the gap, stopping just short of the bedposts.
You raise yourself up on an elbow, sleepily patting the area where he’d been. He’s gone. Okay. You need to find him, then.
You rake your fingers through your hair as you cross your bedroom. The bathroom door, over on the far side of the landing, is half-open; the light’s on. It’s utterly silent.
You pad over, and then stop. It’s too quiet to knock; almost too quiet to disturb with a voice, but needs must.
“Sherlock?”
Nothing. You cautiously poke your head around the door, ready to duck back if he’s undressed or something.
He isn’t. He’s standing in front of the sink, ramrod straight, staring into the mirror.
The light is a harsh white strip, something that makes the bathroom feel like a business office combined with a room where people meet to go into war. Great for waking up in the mornings; great for feeling powerful and Ready For Shit. But not so great at 2am when your guest is having an existential crisis.
White lighting doesn’t do Sherlock any favours. He’s pale, his hair curly and mussed from - well, not from sleeping. From lying there awake. And his eyes are wide, too wide, staring into the mirror.
He doesn’t grip onto the sink’s edges like a dramatic hero in a Bond movie. He doesn’t gasp or stare at himself in disbelief. Dead men don’t do that, do they? They just stare.
There’s random streaks of dark red across his face. His neck. Blood.
You inhale and move closer.
“It’s not real.”
His voice is almost too deep to be heard.
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” It’s fake. It’s not running, and it’s glistening too brightly to be ‘dried’ or old. Fake blood. Obviously. As fake as his death.
“Okay,” you say, and move around him. Inside a cabinet are three flannels. You lean past him, turning the tap on. He doesn’t smell of the cologne anymore. You wait for the water to be hot, periodically flashing your hand under it until it’s pleasantly warm. You wet the flannel, scrunching it up and squeezing, excess water dripping down after you turn the tap off.
You glance up at the mirror. He’s looking at you, now. At the back of your head.
“Sit down,” you murmur, your arm brushing across his midriff in guidance.
He sits obediently, on the closed toilet. You push his hair back with your fingers. There’s a genuine scrape across his forehead, but it hasn’t even bled, only grazed. He closes his eyes at the first touch of the flannel against his skin, sitting still and quiet while you wash away the fake blood, the pieces he missed. There’s encrusted curlicues behind his ears, the edge of his chin, at the base of his neck. Along his hairline. There’s a tiny smudge in the inside corner of his right eye.
You lift the flannel away. He looks up at you. How does anyone have such blue, blue irises? They’re not always blue. Sometimes they seem green or silver or grey. But right now they’re blue, tiny metallic silver flecks interspersed through there.
You rub a clean part of the flannel over the pad of your finger until it’s damp, and then lift your hand, slowly, carefully, biting your lower lip. Sherlock doesn’t look at your hand. He watches your face as you watch his; doesn’t blink, even when you rub the smudge away. Then it’s gone.
You wash the flannel, wringing and rinsing it, and look for a simple comb. Sherlock stays put; doesn’t argue when you ruffle up his hair again, the curls falling over his forehead. His hair is impossibly tangled, and you work through one by one, front section first.
You want to ask how it felt. How was it, to jump, or whatever it was, that he did? But you can’t be that insensitive.
You can’t bear the idea that he’ll be gone tomorrow. You can’t bear the idea of him being out there. Not like this. And you wonder if he’ll ever be anything but this, when everyone believes him to be dead. When John Watson thinks he’s said goodbye to a corpse that wasn’t his; to a coffin most likely empty.
His skin is too pale. Lifeless, you think. He’ll need a shave tomorrow. He’s slumping, now, slouching over, elbows on his knees.
“I’ll miss you.”
Maybe you didn’t mean to say it. Maybe you needed to.
His eyes flicker up to you again.
“Please come back.” You pause in your combing, meeting his gaze. “Please. I - I know it’s hard, it’s got to be absolute hell, what you’re feeling right now. I know everyone else thinks that’s it, you’re gone. But I don’t. I know you’re still here, and I’m going to be worrying, every day, keeping my fingers crossed that you’ll come home safe. So do it. Come home. Please.”
His eyes flit between yours. He licks his lips before he answers. Two words; seven letters.
“I’m sorry.”
“...You’re sorry? What for?”
“I should have insisted Mycroft kept you out of it.”
“What do you mean? I’m not in danger, am I? I don’t care if I am, by the way, I-”
“No,” Sherlock says sharply. “No danger. You’re safe, I promise you. Moriarty overlooked you - you and Molly. Not sure why; some latent strain of sexism, perhaps. No. It would’ve been better if you thought I was dead. For you.”
You stop combing his hair altogether. “How? I’d be-”
“Happier.” Sherlock’s voice is sharp. “You could move on.”
“I-”
He stands up. His eyes are alive, now. He’s Sherlock Holmes again, as though you washed the film of shock away along with the glistening traces of fake blood. “You just said it, Y/N. You will worry for me as if I am your husband at war-”
(You can’t hide a flush at that. He doesn’t notice. Or doesn’t care.)
“And that will affect you,” he continues. “Nobody will understand why. They will all move on. And-” He takes a deep breath, throat bobbing, looking down at you. “Moriarty’s network are not to be underestimated. I have the element of surprise on my side, but only for a matter of time. There’s no guarantee I’m coming b-”
“Stop it.” Your voice is suddenly thick with unshed tears. Weirdly, your eyes are dry. Sherlock’s mouth snaps shut. “You’re coming home, Sherlock Holmes. You are.”
“You can’t-”
“You will,” you interrupt ferociously, brandishing the comb at him. “Otherwise? Otherwise I’m not even letting you leave tomorrow. I’ll keep you hostage.”
His lips quirk. “Hmm.”
“Are you underestimating me? Believe me, I could do it. I’d keep you here and keep-” You wave your hand vaguely - “them out there. I’d keep you safe.”
There’s definite amusement dancing in his eyes. “I see.”
“We’re clear on that, then? Good.”
He nods slowly, the hint of a smile still there.
“Now,” you say. “Half your hair resembles an angry hedgehog, and half a peaceful hedgehog. So, you look back to normal. Now come back to bed.”
You take his hand and lead him back across the landing. He reaches for your hand again, curled in the space between your pillows.
This time, he falls asleep first.
(He doesn’t snore.)
****
He comes back every now and again, sometimes for a short day, sometimes for almost a week. He shows up on your doorstep, with sleekly anonymous cars that leave him there; pick him up and take him away. He looks a little different every time. A different hairstyle, a slight ginger tint, a beard, a moustache, clothes, various postures - disguises he hasn’t quite shrugged off. He comes in, a silent routine, and stays, and you realise that this is his way of feeling normality. A respite from whatever he has to do. He goes out to do various things in London, and you chew your nails down to the quick, a habit you’ve picked up and that he notices. He pries your hand free from your lip and tuts. You’ll offer a guilty smile. He’ll offer you a look equally culpable.
He tells you when he has to leave again, ‘for good’; a warning, a grace you’re thankful for. You never expected to be roped into a secret overseas mission. A safehouse for, essentially, an agent. An operative.
Your friend.
Sometimes large sums of money find their way into your bank account. Mycroft never takes credit for it. He never denies it. He makes it clear that the money is yours and can go to nobody else. You make a stubborn point of donating at least half, but you keep the other half. Because maybe one day, you’ll need it, for Sherlock.
You never ask questions. You don’t want to know the answers.
****
The first time he returns out of the blue, only nine weeks after you’d watched him leave, you’d set up the guestroom; shown him the way there, somewhat awkwardly. You’d only shared a bed before because…because he was in shock and he needed to be held. Needed to be comforted by someone. But surely he doesn’t want that normally. Right? He’s a grown man and he isn’t your…anything. So, he needs his own room. It’s not like you share your bed with any of your other guests.
It’d been obvious he wasn’t back. Just a temporary stop. He doesn’t look so different, not that first time. Tired, holding his shoulder stiffly as if in memory of a barely-healed injury. You make an extra portion of dinner while he showers. He’s quiet. Polite, almost unnervingly so. And quiet. No deductions on your fridge magnets. No snarky comments about your new curtains. You wonder if he regrets the hug you bestowed on him, out of relief (he wasn’t dead. He isn’t dead. It was just a bad dream, a nightmare for everyone else, but I know the truth-) when you first saw him standing there in the glow of your outdoor light.
You show him upstairs. Slide between the familiar sheets of your own bed, and stare at the ceiling, jittery and nervous. Sherlock’s presence across the landing is so silent, he might as well not be there. But he is. You can sense him.
You turn over, shove your hand under the pillow, and count flamingos until you go to sleep.
You’re awoken by the abrupt movements of the bed, rustling, bedsheets shifting, the mattress dipping rudely in a way that probably broke the bedstore’s pre-purchase guarantees.
It’s Sherlock. You know it even before you wake up, but the flood of adrenaline wakes you up enough just to confirm it. Sherlock, plopping himself down next to you as casually as if he’s meant to. You flinch involuntarily when his leg touches yours, his arm draping across your waist and pulling you back towards him.
“Sh’lock? What’s-”
“Nothing.” He sounds offensively awake. Alert. “Go back to sleep.” A thoughtful moment. “Sorry to wake you.”
You take a deep breath and force your eyelids fully open. There’s not much light in the room, only a glow seeping around the curtains from street-lights outside. “Are you-”
“I’m fine. Go to sleep,” he orders, and his hand comes up, entangling in your hair and pulling several knots free with the downwards motion.
“Are you talking to me, or yourself?”
“Don’t be cheeky.”
You snort. “Oh, definitely yourself, then.”
Apparently, it’s possible to hear when someone rolls their eyes. Sherlock lets out a sigh, his body slowly subsiding into the mattress. In an unconscious response, your body follows suit. You’re not sure if he’s still awake when you drift off again, but he’s definitely pretty well-rested the next day.
No more questions are asked. But from that moment on, every time he comes back, he shares your bed and uses you like a life-size teddy bear.
****
Six months go by without a single word. A single fucking appearance. Through sun and rain and hail and fog and even dust that comes from the Sahara desert, you wait and wait and keep your fingers crossed. Let today be the day. Let today be the day Sherlock Holmes pops up on your doorstep. Let the haze of insurmountable grief, the same one that chokes your friends and is slowly, but surely, catching you in its suffocation, go away. You want to hold him.
What if he’s dead?
This is the longest he’s ever gone without returning back. What if he’s dead?
Surely Mycroft would’ve told you.
But what if he is?
What if you have to visit the gravestone for real? A wrong date of birth, a body that wasn’t his, his name etched into a stone, and perhaps that is all you have left of him.
When the knock comes, familiar and strange and although you’ve been anticipating it for months it still sends a shock ricochetting across your body, you run to the door. Hands fumbling. Unlock it.
Sherlock Holmes never initiates the hugs. They’re a part and parcel of the tradition you carved out, along with the bed-sharing and the no questions and the way he pats your hand when he leaves for good.
But this time you’ve barely taken him in before he’s grasping at you. Your socked feet trip on the threshold. It’s pouring rain outside, mercilessly cold October rain, lashing down. He’s soaked, and he can’t have been here for more than a minute. Parked on the kerb is the same sleek black car as always, red lights bright through the rain, and it pulls out and away. You see it through the tiny gap over Sherlock’s shoulder.
He’s gripping onto you, head bent down against your shoulder, crushing you against him. Is he trembling? Your arms come up, interlacing on the back of his thin, barely-waterproof jacket.
“You’re okay,” you whisper, because it seems like the only thing to do. Sherlock makes a noise and holds on tighter. You sway. An instinct older than you’ll ever be, more soothing than you’ll ever be able to understand.
“Come in,” you whisper. You pull back and look at his face. His eyes are tired. The left one is puffy and bruised. There’s no manic energy. No relief. Nothing but a kind of dullness that scares you, an emptiness that belongs to a dead man.
Rain runs in rivulets down your back, hair plastered to your scalp. “Come on, it’s too wet. Come inside. You’re okay. I promise.”
*
The shower he takes is unusually swift. He stands there, in your kitchen, watching as you microwave a ready-meal lasanga for him. You’ve already eaten; you were about to go to sleep when you heard the knock.
You turn around, leaning against the counter. His hair is wet, and it makes his face look disproportionate, somehow. Possibly because of the bruised eye.
“I was worried,” you say quietly, meeting his gaze. “You were a pretty long time, Sherlock. What-” His expression shutters. “Are you…Is it…”
“It’s not over.”
You exhale slowly, nodding.
“Mycroft has orders to tell you if something happens to me.”
“Okay.”
“He has orders to tell me if something happens to you.”
You blink. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. …Is it?”
“No,” Sherlock shoots back. His hands are fisted. “No. You’re perfectly safe. I did not mean threats.”
“What did you mean?”
His eyes drift away to the microwave. “Anything,” he says elusively.
“And…and then what? Isn’t that a bit distracting? I stub my toe, Mycroft with his extraordinary omniscience somehow knows, and tells you, and you….I dunno. Freak out and worry or something?”
He rolls his eyes. “I would come back.”
Your lips curve up. “Really? Right. Mental note to self: stub my toe deliberately whenever I miss you too much.”
He snorts.
He eats the lasanga like a ravenous man, and you sit opposite him and worry.
****
“No. No. You- I told you! You are not- Who are - NO-”
You lie there, holding your breath, your entire body taut. Beside you is a writhing, muttering, almost-shouting Sherlock. Who also happens to be unconscious. You cross your fingers (the hand farthest from him) and hope he doesn’t accidentally punch you in the face. Or kick you in the shin.
He’s gasping for breath. You don’t know what to do. You want to hold him, but your preservation instincts tell you that’s a bad idea. Waking him up won’t be great either. But hasn’t he suffered enough?
It stops. Silence falls for all of a second before Sherlock gasps, great big inhalations that make your heart start to race.
“Sherlock?” you say cautiously. “Hey. You’re okay.”
His breath hitches at your voice; evens out slowly. You can feel his body tensing and relaxing. Probably deliberately. His fist, under the duvet and not far from yours, stays clenched.
Minutes pass. The emotions simmer. Confusion. Residual fear. Resignation.
It solidifies into anger.
Anger so palpable you can feel it. And you know it’s not directed at you, but still. You stare up at the ceiling, eyes wide open in the dark.
“A nightmare,” he says. His teeth are gritted. “I’m not a bloody child.”
“Everyone has nightmares.”
“No. They don’t.”
“Everyone can have nightmares. It’s not an age thing. You know that, right?”
“It’s weak,” he spits.
You nod against the pillow, helpless. His breathing is strictly regulated. Too strict to be normal. “Do…do you want me to - leav-”
His hand whips out, uncoils, grabs hard onto your wrist. His hand is clammy. “No. For God’s sake, don’t leave.” His voice softens. “Anything but that.”
“Okay.” Your hand shifts, pulling away enough to rotate so you can slip your fingers through his. He grips on tight, and you try to match the pressure. “Okay. I won’t.”
You lie there in silence, flat on your backs and watching the ceiling. No more anger, now. Just grief. God knows that you recognise the emotion, but this is different. It’s grief and pain. So much hurt, and it bleeds into the air around you, enough that if it was a wound, it’d need fierce staunching.
Then it comes out. You get a split-second of warning, his hand tightening still more, before his voice splits through the air.
“I killed someone.”
You turn your head to look at him, but stay quiet.
“It was…the first time. I shot them. A kill shot. It was purposeful.” Sherlock’s voice is controlled. Calm. Clipped. Just like he was when he pulled the trigger. And inside, you know that he is a child, broken, and he is screaming.
“What was happening?”
“I needed to interrogate him. I attempted to lay a trap. He was - I underestimated him. We fought. I managed to get the gun. I could have incapacitated him. But he needed to be…” Sherlock takes a deep breath. “I knew I would have to kill him after interrogation. If I didn’t, someone else would. Another operative. He wouldn’t talk. It was obvious. No amount of…coercion - could convince him. So I.”
He stops.
“You’re okay,” you say softly.
The tremor in his voice breaks your heart. “No. I’m not.”
“Sherlock, you - I - Look. I know this feels too much. And it is. It totally is. And you need to take time to recover. You’re not going to get over it in - When did it happen?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Exactly, right. Not in hours. And probably, maybe, not ever. And that’s okay, Sherlock. It’s okay.”
“It’s weak,” he spits. “I can’t even kill someone without acting like a goddamn - a - a wuss afterwards-”
“Sherlock.” You raise yourself up on one elbow, frowning. “Do you even hear yourself? Are you trying to say that the fact you’re upset by taking another person’s life is weak? What are you trying to be? Because you’re one of the good people. Only the bad ones would kill someone and not regret it. You know, he would’ve killed you. Right? Without any regrets? But you - you were acting in defence, and-”
“Don’t.”
The fury in his voice shocks you into silence. He sits up, and you scramble into a proper seated position, heart hammering.
“I’m not a hero.” He’s faced towards you, but you can’t make out his face. “Don’t try to pretend I am. Don’t make me into a hero, Y/N, some dashing knight fighting evil. I am-”
“I know who you are!” Your voice is suddenly, equally forceful. “Sherlock, I never needed you to be a hero. I know John hero-worshipped you. I know people detest you or admire you for your skills. I know you’ve never felt normal. But I’ve never needed you to be anything you aren’t. Like a hero. I just - I just need you to be you.”
You blink back emotional tears, trying not to start blubbering. That would be even worse.
“But.” Sherlock’s tone is softer now. “Who am I?”
“I-”
“You are the only person who knows that. Well, you and Mycroft, but he hardly counts. I’m not Sherlock Holmes anymore, Y/N. I don’t know who I am.”
Not without the coat, the flat, the things that make him who he is. You shake your head helplessly. Tears are spilling now. Hopefully they’re obscured. “Okay.” Your words are unmarred by a tremble. “That’s okay. I’ll…I’ll keep it for you. Your identity, I mean.” His head snaps up at that. You feel the pierce of his blue eyes. “And I’ll give it - you - back to you, when you’re ready. When you come home.”
****
Christmas Day was for sentimental idiots, right? That’s probably why you keep the day free of plans. No mingling with other people. You’d prefer to spend it alone.
(And you hope you won’t be alone. Doesn’t that make you the sentimental idiot?)
(You hear it in Sherlock’s voice as you decorate the tree, by yourself, and the melancholia creeps in like the frost outside.)
He doesn’t come. Well, you’re too old to believe in Santa anyway.
*
It’s 9pm on Christmas Eve when you hear the knock, the same, always the same, a sharp singular rap, a plea for entry expressed through curtness and knuckles.
You shuck the blanket - red and green and fringed with gold - off your knees. You don’t quite run to the door. You speed-walk, and pull it open.
God, it’s bitterly cold outside. Sherlock steps in, reaching for you automatically in the same moment your arms extend out. But the hug is shorter than normal, because you’re abruptly terrified.
“Ohmygod, you’re so thin.”
He is. He’s always been lean, but this is-
“I’m fine,” Sherlock says brusquely. “No need to worry. I need a shower. Mycroft is trialling a new cologne, it’s appalling.”
“You’re grand, I can’t catch any whiffs of it. But sure, have a shower. I’ve got beef burgers. Fancy a burger sandwich?”
Sherlock gives you a smile. It’s unexpectedly warm, his eyes crinkling in his too-narrow face. “Please.”
*
He eats his sandwiches, plural, on the sofa, plate tucked onto his blanketed knee while you both watch grainy reruns of old quiz shows, where the hosts have curly hairdos and flamboyant trousers.
The gap between the slices of bread are almost about the same as the gap between the train and the platform edge. You’ve stuffed lettuce and radishes and stuffing and dressing and cold boiled egg and burger in there, and balanced a mince pie on the edge of the plate; a steaming tea on the table. Sherlock doesn’t make fun of your extravagance. He eats all of it, slowly, like he’s holding himself back. You watch the steady movements of his jaw and throat, the crunch of a radish, the almost-silent hum of appreciation when he bites into the tangy spiced fruit of the mince-pie. He keeps his eyes on the TV, his plain pale blue t-shirt - from the supply of clothes you’d bought him, in bits and pieces over the months, like if you kept buying him new clothes he’d have to come back to wear them - hanging off his shoulders.
“Why?”
He glances at you. “Hmm? Why what?”
The worry must be written all over your face, because he shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re really fucking thin, Sherlock. What happened?”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “Been living rough. Undercover. It isn’t all five-star hotels. Unlike Mycroft, I actually do the legwork.”
You give into the urge and shuffle over then, wrapping your arms tightly around him in a sideways hug. He makes a surprised noise. You press your face against his chest.
“Sherlock? I’m so glad you’re ho- here.”
“Hmm.” He shifts slightly. You feel the prickling sensation of a burger sandwich passing above the back of your exposed neck. He takes a bite, says a casual garbled answer in response to the TV quiz. You press your ear against his sternum, listening to his heart, head jolting with the motion of his chewing, and wish you could keep him here, safe, forever.
****
He spends Christmas Day with you. You play board-games. You don’t have a gift for him, he doesn’t have one for you, and neither of you care. He eats Christmas cake and the box of chocolates Lestrade gave you and an unholy amount of mince pies. Then again, maybe you’re at fault for even having so many in the first place.
You both egg each other on and set fire to the pudding and laugh like idiots at the drama. He ‘helps’ (mostly, tries to boss you around and makes dubious decisions) with a makeshift Christmas dinner. Neither of you leave the house. It’s cold outside, and the electric fire is warm, and Sherlock eats so much that you forget to worry about how thin he is. And in a strange way, it is perhaps the best Christmas, one of the best, you’ve ever had.
You’re doing the dishes, late in the evening, lulled by too much sweet food and the hum of the TV in the other room, some terrible Christmas movie that Sherlock had a passing fascination with. Warm water gushes over your bubbly hands, stains slipping dreamily off the plates. You start humming, quietly, remembering a Christmas song you’d heard earlier, when Sherlock had commandeered your radio for the chopping of the brussels’ sprouts.
“If I wanted to know, who you were hanging with, while I was gone, I would’ve asked you
It’s the kind of cold, fogs up windshield glass, but I felt it when I passed you
There’s an ache in you, put there by the ache in me…” You hum along, switching to a spongier scourer for a frying pan.
“But if it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me…We could call it even, you could call me ‘babe’ for the weekend…”
Your voice is soft, quiet, and barely in tune. Barely audible, even to yourself. You reach for the last plate; stack it with the others and run your hands under the water, the final objects to be washed, before switching the tap off.
“Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires, now I’m missing your smile, hear me out…We could just ride around, and not the road not taken looks real good now…and it always leads to you, in my hometown-” The teatowel is mildly damp, coarse and soft all at once as you rub your fingers dry. You hang it on the oven handle to dry and look around for any last things to do. The kitchen is lit only by the soft golden lighting under the overhead cupboards, extra light seeping in from the fairylights strung along the banisters in the hall.
“And wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking - and the heart I know I’m breaking is my own, to leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known…We could call it even, even though I’m leaving-”
You turn and your words peter out, gently, to a halt, like the streams on beaches that taper out long before they reach the sea, rivulets draining softly into the sand.
Sherlock stands in the doorway with his empty mug hanging from his hand. He looks soft, hair rumpled, t-shirt slightly puffed from everything he’s eaten, bare feet under his joggers. He looks tired. Happier, healthier, than he did twenty-four hours ago.
The quiet look, a glint like a caress, in his eyes is something you know. You know it like you know yourself, because that’s how you look at him. Used to look at him, too, when he was Sherlock Holmes, back before he became simply Sherlock, a man that exists in the space between life and death; designated address: your house.
Two words. Eight letters. You can split it into three words, too, and it is also eight letters, and in this instance it will mean the same thing.
“Thank you.”
*
He leaves three days later. You stand on the last stair and watch him leave, walking to the door wrapped in a big puffa coat that someone dropped off for him. Wires of Christmas lights are twined under your hand, contrasted with the smooth-polished wood, but you hardly need the balance. It isn’t a fall, from here to the ground.
Sherlock’s almost at the door when he turns around. Walks back to you. He stands there, brought to an equal height with you now. His eyes are like the glow of ice outside, ice and blue skies. He watches you for a second, lips quirking briefly into a cheek that is still too thin.
He reaches out.
Gently, so gently, he leans in, his lips brushing against yours. There isn’t mistletoe, and no compulsion. Your head tilts into his, and then he pulls back.
“Happy New Year, Y/N Y/L/N,” he murmurs, and walks away.
****
You wish you could’ve visited Rome in pleasanter circumstances. Then again, maybe it isn’t too bad. Mycroft came to see you himself about this; sat down in your lounge and explained everything clearly, like you’d need convincing.
And now here you are, waiting, sitting on the edge of a hotel bed with your leg bouncing up and down nervously. Surely you’re jetlagged. You can’t even feel it.
Mycroft hadn’t even arched an eyebrow when you’d said only one bed would be necessary. Maybe, in his own way, he’s too concerned to care. Sherlock working himself up, working himself into a rut, with no choice but to turn to nicotine patches (and then something more? Cigarettes? Or worse?) while undercover and in a different country, is too serious to be bothered about trivia like beds and their occupants.
As far as Sherlock knows, he’s being dispatched to another, more useful hotel. You chew your nails, and feel the phantom of his touch lowering your hand, and switch to your lip instead. The hotel room is bog-standard, too much grey and cream, shades that could never hope to be pure white.
The door swings open and Sherlock walks in. His jaw is tight, and his hair is weirdly long, falling past his ears.
You stand up and his arm jerks and the door slams shut. He stares at you.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Oh, hey, nice to see you too.” You scan him for injuries. He seems fine. A bit manic, maybe. Frustrated. And now, annoyed at your presence.
“What are you doing here.” His tone is flat.
“Mycroft sent me.” You just about avoid the questioning inflection.
“It’s not safe.”
“He seemed to think it was.”
“He’s an idiot. It isn’t.”
You smile involuntarily. Sherlock’s face doesn’t soften. “I don’t need you here. Go home.”
“I just got here!” You take a deep breath.
“You’re not coming with me. I can solve this by myself. Mycroft only sent you to spur me on, do you realise that? By placing something I hold dear in the proximity of danger, he ensures that I will devote my best efforts to solving it and eliminating the threat.”
You put your hand on his arm. It’s taut, like he’s barely restraining himself from shrugging you away. “I think he thought I could help you.”
“I don’t need help,” he snarls.
You roll your eyes. “Of course you don’t. How stupid of me to assume you might actually be glad to see a friend. Never mind. I’m fucking knackered. Have a nice time solving your case now that you’re all edgy because I’m dear to you and now I’m in danger.” You take a step backwards and fall dramatically onto the bed, letting your limbs bounce and your head hit the pillow. You close your eyes.
You feel Sherlock watching you with growing irritation. You don’t move.
He lets out a growl that sounds weirdly Italian in inflection and comes around the bed. “Budge over,” he says curtly. You shift your right arm and leg by a few minuscule inches. He lies down next to you, careful to keep a pointed distance.
You yawn, suddenly genuinely tired. “I’m really glad to see you, y’know,” you mumble, and roll away, curling up.
Sherlock lets out another martyred huff, and you finally fall asleep.
*
He makes his peace with you that evening, when you wake up and find him at a desk on the far side of the room, scrolling through google maps on a laptop so unidentifiable it almost blends into the scenery. He’s muttering away to himself, scrolling and clicking and Doing Things with more red pins than you ever thought possible.
You lean in over his shoulder to inspect it closer. His left hand comes up, groping blindly for some part of you. He pulls your head against his, leaning into the touch, and casually turns his face and nuzzles against your hair for a moment before looking back to the computer, his neck still at an angle.
“Pax?” you ask.
He hums, his hand moving idly through your hair, above your ear. “Pax. I will be having words with Mycroft.”
“But? I sense a but.”
“He was not wrong,” Sherlock says, with clear reluctance. “Your presence has helped. Significantly.”
A moment.
“Thank you.”
****
“I can’t take it anymore.”
Greg Lestrade is Annoyed with a capital A. You frown at him over the tops of his drink and yours. “What’s wrong? Work?”
“Sherlock,” he says with a heavy sigh, and your heart almost misses a beat.
“Sherl - What? Why?”
“Anderson,” he clarifies. “Bloody Anderson, wasting his…” He shakes his head. “He’s deluding himself, Y/N, him and the rest of them. Sherlock Holmes is dead. He jumped off that building, and he died. And anyone who believes otherwise, they’re just feeling guilty. That’s all there is to it. But if Anderson keeps coming round, trying to nag on at me about his stupid theories-”
You must look upset, because he stops and take a deep sip of his beer. “Sorry, didn’t mean to start ranting. It’s just bloody infuriating, you know? Now they’re acting like they were always his biggest champions, and they - they drove him to it, trying to say he imagined Moriarty, that he was some kind of fake-”
“Moriarty was clever.” Your voice is small. You press the pads of your fingers against the cold, condensed glass.
“Yeah.” Greg’s voice is full of regrets. “Cleverer than Sherlock. Christ, the poor sod.”
No. It’s so clear in your head, you’re surprised the whole bar doesn’t hear it. Not clever than Sherlock. No one was, or is.
He isn’t dead. I’m keeping him for all of you. I’m going to give him back, back to himself, back as Sherlock Holmes.
“Anyway,” Greg continues, oblivious, “Anderson’s got this whole theory. A string of cases, inexplicably solved. Coming closer.”
You look up. “Closer? To where?”
Greg points. To the building, the outside, London. But, also, straight at you.
“Home.”
****
Mycroft’s voice is too calm and not nasal enough. That, and the fact it’s 1.58 in the morning, is how you know it’s an emergency. Which isn’t helpful for your cardiac system; it goes from a peaceful slumber to a full on heart attack in thirty seconds.
“Sherlock has gotten into difficulties,” Mycroft says. There’s a noise behind him. Like a car engine, but too loud. Helicopter? Plane? And the rush of wind, other muted voices. “A very sticky situation indeed. I am going to retrieve him.”
You? you almost say. But everyone cares about Sherlock, in their own ways, don’t they? So instead you bite out, “Where?”
“Serbia.”
“What can I do?”
“Presently, nothing. Be ready for our return. I imagine he will want to come to you.”
There’s a note of farewell. You know the ended call is imminent.
“Mycroft? Good luck.”
****
You wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. It’s almost 12pm, a bright afternoon that feels offensively fresh when you’re sitting in your lounge with unbrushed hair and nails bitten down to bleeding quicks, when your phone buzzes.
An unknown number. You stab the Answer symbol.
“Hello?”
“Hello.” It’s Sherlock. You press the phone hard against your ear, heart hammering.
“Are you okay?”
“Back in England. Just arrived.” His words are sluggishly slow. Is he drugged?
“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you coming here?”
“Yes. Going to get a haircut and shave before that. I’m currently unrecognisable.”
“I don’t mind.”
He huffs a weak laugh. It sounds so tired. “My hair is past my shoulders.”
“It’s only been four months, Sherlock. Just how fast-growing are those curls?” Maybe humour is ridiculous, in this situation, but right now you think he needs it as much as you do.
Another exhaled laugh. “Still. I would prefer to be…myself.”
“Fair. I’ll get some food ready. Takeaway?” It feels so criminally normal, this conversation.
“Alright.” Still so quiet. He sounds different. He sounds something that Sherlock Holmes never sounds.
Defeated.
You open your mouth, something to say goodbye, a temporary farewell, some kind of consolation, but he gets there first. A ghost of a breath, a timbre too low for the phone. “I want to hold you.”
It sounds more like an I love you than anything else, from anyone else, ever has.
*
He arrives several hours later. From the moment you open the door, you know the truth. Black trousers, a white shirt, a long blue coat, freshly-cut already-wild curls, and tears are in your eyes.
“Hello,” Sherlock Holmes says, with a half-smile.
“You’re back.” You can barely speak, letting him in. The black car drives off for the last time, and the door clicks shut. “You’re back?”
Another half-smile. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
Tears are streaming down your cheeks. “Oh, thank God.” You pull him in, reaching up to cradle his face in your palms. Sherlock Holmes.
His arms come slowly around you. “Please,” he says, studying your forehead for a moment. “Don’t touch my back. Or - be careful.”
“The…” You take a deep breath. There are so many questions. Now that he’s back, will he stay, at least for tonight? Will this, the connection you’ve built with him, will that shatter now you’ve given him back to himself? You need so many answers, but you can’t even find the words.
“Torture.” Sherlock nods.
You close your eyes for a moment. Be strong. You have to be.
“It hurts.”
And then you know, you know that whatever happens, you and him will not be any different, not truly. Maybe different, but in a good way. You won’t lose him, because he won’t let you.
You bring his head down to yours. He comes willingly, noses brushing as you stand on tiptoe.
“I love you,” you say, because it’s true. It’s always been true.
Perhaps that is why Mycroft chose you to be the one.