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The door stood open, beckoning Sherlock to step through to the next room of horrors. Mycroft was already heading into it and John was only a step behind. But Sherlock could not take the steps necessary to follow them, could not move at all past the dark emotions rising up inside of him. He was being filled slowly with rage and helplessness and an overwhelming feeling of wrongness, the emotions raging out from his stomach to slide down his legs like boiling water and up his chest and throat like steam.
With a roar that only expressed a small measure of his fury, Sherlock turned to the cheap casket where it rested in silent mockery on the workhorses behind him. The plaque on the lid was labeled “I love you” and Sherlock had been forced to say those sacred words to torment an innocent friend, a woman who had gone out of her way again and again to help him in his mad adventures. He had wrong her, desecrated their friendship with a lie.
But worst of all, he had said those important, sacred words to someone who wasn’t John.
There had never been a right moment. First there had been too many women distracting his doctor from him, and then Moriarty had made a love confession too dangerous, and then there’d been John’s fury at being abandoned for the long years that Sherlock spent dismantling as much of Moriarty’s web of confederates as he’d been able to track down, and then Mary had stood in the way.
Sherlock had been saving those words, but he had been saying them silently with looks and the choices he made for years. And now they were wasted.
He slammed both fists into the thin wooden lid of the casket, ignoring the pain of shattered wood scraping along his knuckles and the backs of his hands. Again and again he battered at the wood with his hands and arms, breaking it into bits and then shattering the broken bits until his arms ached from the strain and his hands were bleeding from a multitude of tiny nicks and scratches.
Sherlock stumbled back from the kindling he’d created from the casket, his back slamming into the dark grey walls of the room with a final-sounding ‘thump.’ He slid to the floor, knees up and bracketing him as his head sank towards his chest. The rage was gone, replaced by a feeling of complete defeat and drowning sorrow.
There was a long silence before John’s voice, cautious and soft, spoke his name. “Sherlock?”
“They were meant to be for you.” He hadn’t meant to say that. The words had just popped out unbidden, and for a moment, panic surged up inside of him. But his defeat was too absolute for the panic to get a good grip on him, and it slid away to leave him hunched and miserable and silent.
He could hear to soft shush of John’s shoes as the man shuffled from foot to foot, trying to make sense out of Sherlock’s enigmatic statement. Finally, John took a step closer. “Sorry, what?”
“Those words. They were meant for you, not Molly. I was… I’ve been wanting… for years.” Sherlock took a breath and raised his head slowly, eyes tracking across the grey concrete of the floor to John’s familiar shoes, up his trousers and shirtfront until they met the familiar lined and weathered features of Dr. John Watson, currently creased with puzzlement. “I’ve wanted to say so many times… I love you.”
John’s eyes widened for a moment and then slowly, understanding and acceptance drifted over his face. John stepped over, his face soft and a tiny smile ticking up one corner of his mouth. Slowly, John slid down the wall until he was sat beside Sherlock on the cold cement floor, their sides just touching. And they sat there, together, in companionable silence for a moment before rising to face the next room. Just the two of them against the rest of the world.