AN. This is the first fic that I've ever actually posted so some feedback would be lovely :) hope you all like it even if it is a bit sad xx
John Watson sat on his favourite armchair by the fire in the living room of the legendary 221b Baker Street. Though it wasn't legendary to him, it was simply home. He sat waiting, as he had for the past 35 years, the only difference now being that finally his wait was almost over. It was strange he thought, knowing that today was the day. He'd thought about it sure, probably more than any sane man should have, but knowing that it was actually here brought a strange mix of emotions to the old army doctor, the least of all however, was fear. Why should he? Death was of course, something he was quiet familiar with.
His first encounter with death was when he was a mere 5 years old and his pet rabbit simply refused to wake up. It started as any other day had, his mother waking him up and telling him breakfast was ready, eating it, getting ready and then heading outside to say good morning to his very best friend. However, when he went to open the door to his little wooden hutch, Snowy didn't come to greet him as usual; instead he remained where he was, lying in his little bed of sawdust and hay. John, curious as to why Snowy seemed so unusually tired this morning, stuck his hand in and gave him a soft, gentle stroke. When this still didn't wake his pet, he tried poking and eventually just picked him up. After hugging the little ball of white fluff to his chest and realising how still, quiet and cold he was, the little boy started to worry. So he did what any other worried little boy would do when his pet refused to move no matter what he did. He started to cry and ran inside to his mother so she could make it all better. However, as it turned out she couldn't and that was the day John first encountered the devastating heartbreak and confusion that is death.
His next encounter came many years after, when he was 16. It was also the one that caused him to become a doctor. His Grandma was diagnosed with cancer and over the space of 9 months he had to watch her wither away and eventually die. He watched as her eyes, once so full of twinkling light and love, dulled. He watched her skin turn white and paper thin. He saw the laughter lines on her face ironed out, erased and stamped over with the deep, tired lines of pain. Although he would never ever day it out loud, the first emotion he felt when his mother came out of the hospice that last time and told him his grandma had died was actually relief. Not for himself of course, but for her. He'd seen the other way that death could catch you; not the quick peaceful death his rabbit had encountered all those years before, but the slow game of endurance that leached away your strength, your hope, your very essence before it eventually took pity and claimed you for its own. It was that night, as he finally allowed himself to cry silently into his pillow, that he vowed he would become a doctor. Because who else could better battle off death?
It wasn't until years later, as he knelt in the hot sand of the Afghanistan desert, the blood of his fellow soldiers and friends staining his hands that he realised no one could battle death. Not even doctors.
He sighed, pulling himself swiftly from his memories. Taking a swift glance around the still marginally cluttered living room he let his eyes fall on many of the strange, confusing and downright bizarre objects that he could never bare to part with. The scull affectionately named Yorick, the dagger in the mantel piece that still held some of his old documents, the violin...even after all these long years, the place still exuded Him. It was still agonising at times when he'd crawl to consciousness in the morning, still somewhere between sleeping and waking and for a few beautiful moments he was still there. How could he not be with his smell and warmth surrounding John like a cocoon? But when he reaches over to the other side of the bed, completely expecting his hand to encounter the warm, sleepy body he adores so much, it instead brushes over his beloved scarf and the world weary doctor feels his heart break all over again.
As he looked down at that very same scarf in his lap, hands clutching at it like a lifeline; he decided that it wouldn't really matter in a few hours whether or not it hurt thinking about a certain detective. He'd be seeing him soon enough anyway. With that warming prospect settling into the empty, hollow parts of his heart, he allowed himself to drift back into his thoughts.
In typical Sherlock Holmes style, the first time he died was not in fact the last. In fact it had not been real at all. Oh of course it felt real to John Watson, he remembers each and every second pertaining to that particular stunt in extreme high definition, etched onto the inside of his eyelids, but the truth of the matter was that the ingenious detective felt that faking his death after he and Moriarty had fought and plummeted over Reichenback Falls was the only way to keep his dear doctor safe. Even to this very day said doctor cannot believe that such a genius as Holmes could be so truly, unbelievably dense.
With retrospect he should have known that it had been a trick, if only for the fact that he simply hadn't felt it. For some reason both he and Sherlock had come to the bizarre and rather secret conclusion that if one of them died, the other would just know. There was also the fact that Sherlock's brother Mycroft had seemed utterly unaffected by the whole affair, instead giving of the feeling that it had all been rather a large inconvenience for him. It was most certainly not like that the next time.
On many occasions, usually late at night or first thing in the morning, John would give in to the deep, dark pit of angry despair he carries around with him and lament at how cruel the universe in all it's 'infinite wisdom' really was. It took Sherlock away for three years, then by some glorious twist of fate it brought him back. Only to tear him away again four and a half years after. It was beyond cruel, giving him once again a taste of how wonderful and whole life could be with his beloved by his side after being parted for so long, before finally claiming him permanently. That was the worst part John thought, the fact that this time, it wasn't a trick. He really wasn't coming back.
The day had started much like it had the first time he ever encountered death. He woke early as usual thanks to the deeply engrained military habits of his and spent a good few moments simply watching his beloveds face. When awake, Sherlock was like a tightly coiled spring, a dynamo of barely contained energy and curiosity. Even when he was sprawled lazily on the couch he was still doing something, eyes glossing over and moving across the ceiling, seeing and reading something that ordinary humans just couldn't. Yet when he was asleep, on the rare times he actually gave in to such a 'boring' necessity, he was so completely still and peaceful. His slanted eyes closed and unobservant for once, the delicate butterflies that were his eyelashes standing out in stark contrast to his ivory skin. All of the tension left his face and John was struck with just how young and almost childlike he looked, long legs tucked up to his chest, entire body subconsciously moulding itself around johns much smaller one. Though he loved him regardless of what time it was, where they where, what was happening and whatever state he was in, this was definitely one of his favourite sides to Sherlock. Perhaps it was because this was one that no other person had ever seen and, if John had any say in it, never would. As though sensing he was being observed, the object of this adoration slowly opened one of his grey blue eyes and let a soft smile grace his features as he read the sheer love on his dear doctor's face. After kissing and cuddling for a while they dragged themselves from bed and headed off to prepare for the day ahead.
The rest of the day passed slowly and peacefully, they had no case on at the moment and it was a Sunday so John had no need to be in work or do anything at all. Normally Sherlock would be bouncing off the walls or even shooting them if he was particularly bored, but today was different. It was one of those days where he seemed perfectly content to simply lounge about the flat playing soft violin pieces whilst John read in his favourite armchair, and then later, curl up on the couch with him and watch a film. These days were few and far between and with hindsight, you could theorise that it was the universe giving them a truly wonderful day together uninterrupted before it all came to an end. The calm before the storm as they say.
The skies started to darken with the unannounced arrival of Mycroft looking a shade less composed than normal. In the Holmes family that manifested as him skipping his usual sly pleasantries and jibes, which was immediately the equivalent of any normal person running in screaming, and instead striding straight over to where they were hastily sitting up, trying in vain to disguise their cuddling and getting straight to the point of why he had come. "We've found him".
With those three words the atmosphere electrified, the air was becoming close and heavy. Sherlock, all traces of his previous easy going mood gone, stood swiftly nodding at his brother and stating with a fierce glint in his eyes, "Then the game is on. Once and for all".
The next few hours passed in a blur of information and apprehension for John, as he listened to the information Mycroft and his army of undercover minions had gathered on Moriarty and his whereabouts. After Sherlock's last encounter with that vile snake, he had slowly and meticulously traced every lead, every whisper, anything at all and had quashed almost all of Moriarty's associates, effectively depriving him of all his means of staying above it all. Sherlock had known that eventually he would be forced to get his own hands dirty and rear his well groomed head and when he did, they would be waiting for him and would take him out permanently.
He had been right of course, when wasn't he, and it seemed that Moriarty in a move of desperation, had come back to London from wherever he had run off to in order to try and form a deal with the cities notorious gangs and criminal organisations. The mere fact however, as Sherlock was quick to point out, that Mycroft's people had been able to discover this, let alone the fact that he had returned to London of all places, screamed of a trap. A final game where the winner takes it all.
And so came the beginning of the end. Sure enough it had been a trap, he wanted to lure both John and Sherlock into the cities gritty criminal underworld and destroy the only things standing in his way of once again becoming the great puppeteer of the criminal world. They both fought bravely, side by side and back to back, determined that if this be the end then they would both go down fighting and more importantly, together.
But it didn't work out that way in the end. No, in the end it was Sherlock who lay dying in his doctors arms after finally ridding the world of the evil psychopath that was Moriarty. The fight itself passed in a hazy, pain induced blur for him, as he had been shot in the thigh and rendered useless. He watched, barely conscious as the two geniuses faced off in a battle of wit as much as strength, neither seeming to be able to find a way of hurting the other without getting themselves hurt as well. In the end, Moriarty made the idiotic move of aiming at John, collapsed on the floor bleeding and unable to protect himself, in the hope it would either distract Sherlock or cause him to stop fighting altogether. In a way, he got what he wanted because as he aimed at John he left himself open to attack from Sherlock, but the only way to prevent the bullet from hitting his beloved whilst also being able to kill Moriarty was to step in the bullets path and take it himself. So he did, but not without shooting at the same time. The look of surprise on the psychopath's face as he was hit, point blank in his damn Westwood suit breast pocket was a look John would always treasure, even though the cost was so unimaginably high.
Just as Moriarty had been shot at point blank range, so had Sherlock and it didn't take a genius or a doctor to know that there was just no surviving a wound like that. John tried of course, he dragged himself across the floor to where Sherlock had fallen, pulling his head into his lap and brushing his ebony curls out of his even paler than usual face. He tore off his sweater and put as much pressure on the gaping wound in his lovers chest as he could without causing him to cry out in agony in a fruitless attempt at stemming the torrent of precious blood pouring out and staining the floor around them. He begged and pleaded with the detective to just hold on a little longer but it was no good. Once again death was hovering over head like a vulture, preparing to pick off another one of John's loved ones and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
In the end, Sherlock managed to raise his hands and gently remove John's from the bloody mess that was his chest and clutch them with a strength that surprised him no end. He pulled John in and claimed one final soft kiss before telling him in a pained whisper that it was worth it to save him and he was sorry. He also told him to hold on and that he would wait for him whatever happened next. Then he simply locked his eyes with John's and all that was left for the doctor to do was curl himself around his lovers shivering body and hold him whilst he drifted away to somewhere he couldn't follow. He kissed his face and whispered 'I love you' over and over again until he felt the detective take his last shuddering breath and saw those impossible eyes close for the last time.
Blinking the tears from his old and tired eyes as he emerged from his memories, the much older doctor picked up the scarf in his lap and held it to his face, softly inhaling the faint but still detectable scent of his beloved. He also reached down the neck of his favourite sweater and removed the locket that hung forever near his heart. John was still a manly man through and through and despised wearing any kind of jewellery, but for this particular item he would always make an exception. It was small, silver and flat, and no one but he knew of its existence. Flicking the latch at the side he opened it with wrinkled, shaky hands and gazed with watery eyes at the image of his beloved it contained. It was a beautiful picture of Sherlock, one that nobody else had ever seen, taken on another of their rare and peaceful Sundays after John had found a beautiful old camera of Sherlock's hidden away in his room. He had spent the day snapping images of their flat, their sanctuary and whilst his lover had been preoccupied playing a stunning piece of music on his beloved violin, John had also taken a sneaky picture of him. In it he was smiling softly, eyes closed as he slid the bow over the strings and it encapsulated everything hidden, peaceful and calm about his detective that he loved.
John brushed the tips of two fingers over the worn and beautiful image and whispered "See you soon my love" before letting his head fall back onto the headrest of his armchair and closing his eyes, a small smile gracing his tired, lined face as he finally drifted into that peaceful, never ending slumber.
"Hello John, welcome home"
And home he was.