Reunited in The End
A/N: So this is my first ever fanfiction and am super nervous to see how you all will view my work.I have the proof-read the chapter but do apologise for any uncorrected grammar or spelling error. Please review to let me improve my writing in any way. This chapter has been posted for the second time after fixing some inital errors. Enjoy.
"I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them."
But John was. He was the perfect angel complete with deep blue eyes, light blond hair and a fair,fair heart. To the man who could not find it in himself to love and let love rule him John was his perfect angel.
So when Sherlock first put others before himself it was for John. Jumper-clad, steely-eyed John who had swept his morals under the carpet temporarily for a stranger when he killed a man outside the battlefield.
At one point they were just that. He could have refused Mike Stamford earlier their meeting day and that was all that they would be- strangers. The word "No" was already on the tip of his tongue by the time he heard the heavy footfalls of Stamford echo in Bart's hallway. He knew he would hear another set of steps that belonged to his potential flatmate knew he promised to look for a flatmate yet the highly-functioning sociopath was not exactly overzealous about sharing his living space with another person.
Until…
A step, a sharp rap against the floor from a cane, a pause and another step.
A psychosomatic limp.
Interesting.
"But he wasn't a good man", John had told him. No guilt and not the slightest trace of regret. It wasn't for the blood-lust or the ex-soldier's need for chaos. It was for him. No more no less than that. When John bid him the customary 'good night' when they returned to their flat the adjective disturbed him.
Hmm.A good man.
Moving to the stairs, head tilted and eyes trained on John's door Sherlock whispered into the quiet darkness, "Neither am I."
Now was almost a parallel universe from then. Now, Sherlock held his tongue when things were 'a bit not good', apologised and meant it, found it in himself to care and love since he was being unaskedly supplied with so much from his blogger. What ever would he do without his blogger.
Most probably be lost without ever knowing that he was.
He schemed, he jumped, grieved, killed and groomed left and came back. All for the happiness of one John Watson because when Sherlock did love he loved wholly, unabashedly and obessively.
He hadn't been expecting to be showered with kisses upon his return, though he would not have minded that too much, but he could not accept that his best friend had moved on and found his replacement.
As a result, Sherlock Holmes ventured to do the same. Cocaine couldn't replace John but it could deceive his senses into feeling short stubble on a smooth chin, could cloak the flowery rich perfume for the scent of home and tea, enabled him to stare into Janine's brown eyes and see blue achingly familiar orbs gaze back.
The ring glinted sharply commanding the attention of the party present. Rebelling, he could not help glancing at John who stood in his peripheral vision. There he saw raw pain in the eyes of the one man he vowed to protect. It was like staring at his reflection on John's wedding day as he buttoned up his best-man late had he realised his angel loved him back. If he held any qualms about the possessing any goodness in him, they were throughly trodden now. For with every cell of his being, he'd rather be angled thrity-eight point seven degrees more to his left as he held open the diamond ring to Janine in the monitor. Completely disregarding the gold band on John's finger that wedded him to another.
But Sherlock didn't because he was trying. At the end of all this Magnussen would be an elminated threat and John would have Mary and they would have that perfect white picket fence life. That.
That fell into the category of 'good'.
Irene wasn't the woman who beat the end setiment ruined her chance of success, gifting Sherlock the final victory in their little game. No that title did not belong to Irene for it did to Mary. Mary who got to keep John's heart, carry John's child and love him openly.
And then she died.
He took now that he could. Sherlock cannot help but be selfish when it came to John. He soaked in John's tears of grief, his love, his frowns, his steady hands, his eyes, his arms, his lips and his body. Sherlock surrendered too, to John, his flaws, his passions, his pouts, his heart, his body and mind. He was so very selfish but equally selfless when it came to his paradox of a mate.
Patience paid off. The angel was his. It was, at long last, them against the world: besting arch-nemeses, dogding Mycroft's nosiness, scaring off any boyfriend that did not derserve Rosie( No man did.), setting Lestrade up on an online dating site, by the name of 'Gary the Cop'(That is his name, correct?) and receiving a message from an interested, annoymous male whose profile portrayed a face partially hooded with a sleek, black umbrella.
The days crawled by as the years flew past.
John limps across the well-worn path and Sherlock cranes his head up from where he is seated to see his love's lumbering posture. His grey eyes receive, his brilliant mind processes and the effect is his lips streching over pale skin grinning the grin reserved for family. The chasm in his chest is filled.
Rosie walks with John. Has her arm looped around his, holding him but not supporting the stubborn greying doctor who can 'Darn well still walk on my own thank you very much.' John is only a few meters away and still with 'the mentality of an immature prat' to quote John, Sherlock goes to hide behind one of the tall looming trees. He is briefly overcome by a sense of deja vu.
He is well-hidden by the time the duo arrive in front of a greyish-black stone slab and Sherlock sees John's face fall a little. Rosie's arm slips out, clutches her dad's hand for a brief moment and understanding that he needs time alone with his husband, shifts her eyes forward, utters "Papa" turns and leaves. She will return to collect John in twenty-two minutes and ten seconds.
Sherlock knows she will visit him a different day on her own because his little girl picked up from him the need to be alone sometimes. She would yell to him concerning her frustrating peers at St. Bart's because the other thing she got from his was her flair for dramatics, she would whisper her anxiety about the upcoming third date with the shy lanky florist(He is worthy.) later on that week and gush about John because she knows it's his favourite subject.
For now, the said man has been standing on his own for a while. But he looks up right at Sherlock, right into his chuckles. Sherlock does not doubt his husband's ability to surprise him and finds himself pleasantly shocked at this odd behaviour. He steps out from the trees.
"God, I'm old." John light-heartedly says knowing Sherlock would scrowl for-one, believing in a higher being and two, being obvious.
Sherlock finds himself saying," Ever stating the obvious John."
"Sherlock, love." John speaks and Sherlock worries if John has lost the capability to string together sentences longer than three those few words are enough. Enough to convey that John is tired- tired of being trapped in an aging body, tired of being baggage, tired of just exsiting not living and tired of missing Sherlock.
John touches the engravings on the slab. As though he received massive jolts of sorrow from that feather light touch his knees buck and tears flow.
Sherlock runs to him and reaches out. His fingers cannot hold nor touch and they slip through the kneeling man's form. He can feel the gaping hole in his chest return now, reality hitting him with the bolded sure font in front of his eyes 'dead'.
Sherlock quietly observes John. Can't stop him or does he want to when jumper-clad, teary-eyed John removes an object uncomfortably familiar to Sherlock hidden in his clothes and injects a syringe-full of whatever drug into his arm. Ironic though, Sherlock muses, that the drug addict dies from a bullet to the chest and the soldier from overdose. A few beads of blood escapes. John pressed on the punctured spot for a while with his left thumb and he smiles.
Sherlock cups the angel's face in his hands though both cannot feel the sensation. John rubs his same thumb along a line on the cold slab, feeling the drug take its effect and highlighting with his blood the engraved words,' A good man'.