Bleeding Love

Sherlock returns from the dead with trepidation. Inspired by the song 'Bleeding Love' by Leona Lewis, and Marie's marvellous painting of the scene of return, '3 Years'.

A/N: I'm a bit anxious about posting this because its rather different from what I normally do, but on the other hand, I would really like some feedback... Be nice?

Also, not mine, Moffat, Gatiss, Conan Doyle etc etc you know the stuff.

When I woke up this morning, I had it all worked out. What I would say to you. My speech prepared. But now, standing here in Baker Street, waiting, my mind has gone blank. Imagine that, John. My mind a blank. It must be a first.

Molly told me you have started coming home from the surgery late. She knows because she has text exchanges with you when you are on the bus. So I have timed my arrival carefully. I don't want anyone else to see me before you do. Not the gang at Speedy's, or Mrs Hudson, though I do so want to see her face again. But not before you, John.

You are late.

I've been standing around in the cold for nearly an hour. A fine November mist has gathered off the river, hazing the street lights. And I've only got this stupid khaki jacket. Its too short. I miss my overcoat. I can't wear it. Someone might recognise me. I wonder if you'll recognise me, with my hair shorn, and in these ghastly clothes? Me, with my stomach flipping and my teeth chattering. Not the cold, though I try to pretend it is.

I wonder how hard you are going to hit me. I wonder how loud you'll shout. I wonder if you'll even speak before you slam the door in my face.

All I know is that I have to see you. Even if it is one last time.

There are people about, even this late. People passing. Empty, dull faces. None of them is you. I wonder if you have longed to see my face as much as I have longed to see yours. Molly says you have been wretched. The thought of your suffering has tortured me. At least I knew you were safe. Safe while I kept away from you. But now that I have made sure you will always be safe from Moriarty, I can return to Baker Street.

You emerge around the corner suddenly, taking me by surprise. You are hobbling – your leg has been bad since I fell, Molly says. You are struggling with Tesco carrier bags, one in each hand. I can see from the way you move that your shoulder is bad too. Oh, John, what have I done to you?

You don't look up until you are almost upon me, almost outside the front door of the flat. And then you freeze.

The bags slither from your fingers. Corn flakes and a jar of cook-in sauce roll onto the paving flags.

My heart twists in my chest. The pain is acute.

Your mouth opens, just a little. Your eyes flood.

I realise my eyes, too, are blurred.

You look so exhausted. So grey and old.

What have I done?

Then we are both moving, and you reach out to me, and I reach out to you and we hit each other, chest to chest, arms wrapping around each other, clinging on like drowning men. I press my face into your neck. You smell so good. How could I have forgotten the scent of you? You bury your face in my chest. You are shaking. I am shaking. The world disappears and there is only us. Holding one another. Holding on tight.

Then you pull away a little, snake a hand up to cup the back of my skull, press a kiss to my cheek, look up into my eyes.

I want to kiss you.

I have never wanted anything more.

I know I can't.

But then you do. You kiss my lips, a searing kiss. You make stars behind my eyelids and diamonds in my mouth.

Oh John.

Then we are staring at one another. Taking each other in. Still disbelieving.

I don't think you even realise you have kissed me. But you stroke your fingertips along my cheek, over and over again, and all I want to do is to press back against that touch. Instead I raise my own hand to brush the tears from your face.

I have no idea how long we stand there, just looking at one another, holding one another. It could be seconds or hours. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you are here and I am here.

Then you say, 'We should go inside,' and your voice is hoarse, but to me it sounds like Heaven.

And I say, 'Your bags,' and we gather them up, and I hold them while you fumble with your keys. And then we are inside and the familiar, comforting smell of Baker Street envelops me, the smell of you, and of Mrs Hudson's cooking, and it's all I can do not to stop at the bottom step and collapse into sobs because I have missed home so much, and I didn't even know that I had a home to miss until this moment.

We go into the living room. Put the bags down on the floor. Nothing has changed. The skull is still on the mantle, despite all your threats. The knife still skewers the unanswered mail.

Pain flickers over your features.

'Just tell me why,' you say. It is awful to see you like this, in such agony.

So I say, 'To keep you safe.' And then I tell you about the sniper, the assassins Jim left as his insurance policy. He said he'd burn the heart out of me, and he meant it, John. He got me coming and going. He made me choose between my pride and the people I love. I don't regret the choice I made. I'd make the same one again, right now, even seeing what it has done to you, because at least you are alive to feel the pain. A world without you in it would be empty indeed. Then I really would have to jump off a roof.

I don't need to tell you what I have done in the last three months. I don't need to fill in the gaps. You know I wouldn't have broken cover if I thought for one minute it would threaten your safety. You don't ask me what I did to them. You know what I am capable of when those I love are threatened. You saw that CIA agent, after all. And I know you would have done the same. Without hesitation. After all, I saw the cabbie.

You stare at me, and I can see you are wrestling with yourself.

'You can hit me if you want,' I say. 'I'll understand.'

You give me a weak smile. 'Not today. Tomorrow, maybe.'

Then you turn and go into the kitchen. I hear you filling the kettle and I follow. You are standing with your back to me, facing the counter top, putting teabags in two mugs. I can't help myself. Nearly four months away from you has left me needy. Not touching you leaves a gaping hole in me, and I can't bear the loss of your warmth. I stand behind you, put my arms around your waist, press my body against your back, rest my cheek on your shoulder. Only then am I anywhere near happy.

You say nothing. Just lean back against me, very slightly. And sigh.

The kettle boils. You fill the mugs. You add sugar. Hook out the teabags with a teaspoon. Your hand shakes.

I reach for the milk inside the fridge, but there is none.

'No milk?' I ask.

And then you tell me.

How you came home from Barts that last day and found the milk I had bought from the corner shop. I had forgotten I did it. I left a little note:

Forgot it was my turn.

This should keep you going for a while.

S.

It was one of the last things I did that night, before I left the flat.

You tell me how you crumpled to the floor in front of that open fridge and sobbed for two hours. You tell me how you haven't been able to look at a milk carton since.

If I wasn't broken before, I am now.

I turn you to face me, and hold you tight. I tell you how sorry I am. I tell you over and over again. I cry.

You stroke my hair.

You say,' are you staying?'

I am confused.

You say, 'I need to know. Are you staying? Are you going to leave me again?'

I say, 'I never want to leave you again.' And then, after I have thought a little, 'But it's your choice. This is your home. I abdicated any say when I left you.'

You say, 'but this is your home too.'

And I say, 'No. Not unless you say you want me to come back. Not unless you feel you can face me after what I've done to you.'

You hug me almost savagely.

'Don't leave me,' you croak. 'Don't ever leave me again. Come home, Sherlock. I don't work without you.'

I don't think there were ever sixteen more beautiful words said by any human being in the history of the world.

You say, 'your tea is getting cold.'

I say, 'I hate tea without milk.'

You look up at me and I swear, John, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.

You say, 'we had fun, didn't we?'

And I tell you, 'We'll have fun again, I promise.'

You say, 'Do you remember that time at Buck House?'

I say, 'Me on the Queen's sofa, bare arse naked.'

And we laugh. I laugh. I can't remember the last time I laughed. And the words just bubble up out of me, as if the cork has been cracked off the top of a bottle of Bollinger, and the moment they come out of my mouth, those treacherous three words, those words I swore I would never say to anyone, that I promised myself I would never breathe to you in case you ran, the moment I say them, I regret it because I know you don't want to hear them, but when you do finally hear them from my lips, you touch my cheek and say,

'Me too.'

And I stare at you. I can't believe it. And even you, dense though you are, can see I don't believe you, so you say it again, just to be sure, just so I know.

'I love you too, Sherlock.'

There we are standing in the middle of our untidy kitchen, holding one another, and my heart bursts.

I rest my forehead against yours and close my eyes. I am spinning.

And I whisper, 'Is it possible to explode with joy?'

And you laugh and say, 'if it is, this is going to be a very messy kitchen!'

And then you kiss me again. It is overwhelming. Your mouth, your lips, so perfect. You taste so sweet. Your tongue finds mine. I gulp you in, desperate that this moment shouldn't end. I don't want to fight with you like we used to, all that bickering. I want this, this beauty, this voluptuous submission to the senses. The smell of you. The feel of you. The taste of you. The sound of you. The sight of you. Everything of you. I want you to make me yours. Entirely.

'Oh God,' I moan into your mouth, and you grip me tighter, push me against the worktop. You are so strong. I never knew. How could I not know?

But I have to pull away.

I say, 'But you're straight.'

You say, 'it appears not. At least, not when it comes to you.' You brush the hair back from my forehead with your strong hand. 'This is a terrible haircut,' you say.

'I know.'

And then, 'But you are straight.'

And you look at me, that sardonic look you use when you think I'm being a prick, and you say, 'Look, when you've been wounded in action and nearly died on the operating table – twice, I may add – and then lost everything you loved because of a psychopathic criminal, things really seem a lot less black and white than the rest of the world might have you believe. And an awful lot simpler.'

'But you always told everyone who'd listen that we weren't together,' I protest.

And you grin, that wonderful, wonderful grin of yours, and you say, 'You can be so clever and so stupid at the same time. Did it ever occur to you that it wasn't them I was trying to convince?'

Which stumps me entirely.

Then you go on, 'Besides, you never said you were gay.'

This gives me some pause for thought.

You say, 'In fact, at Angelo's you were quite keen to impress upon me that you were married to your job.'

And I say, 'yes.'

So you say,' would you like to tell me a little about that?'

Which irritates me in the extreme, and I say, 'don't do the psychiatrist routine on me, John.'

Which makes you laugh. But you are still giving me that intense look, that questioning look, and I know I have to answer.

'I tried out alternative modes of sexual expression when I was at university. They did not satisfy me. I concluded, based on the evidence I had collated, that I was asexual. After that, it never occurred to me that I was anything else. Until we met.'

And that's the point, John. Until we met. My life divides now into the part 'before you', and the part 'with you'. And I don't ever want there to be a part 'after you'.

You look deep into my eyes, and you seem suddenly serious. Your irises have lost that bleached look they had, sucked to husks by grief. They are that old, familiar indigo again. And the way you look at me, I feel like you can see right into my soul.

You whisper, 'What is this love?' There is a strange awe in your voice.

My tears are ganging up on me once more. Your hands are on my cheeks, rumpling up my face, pulling me close.

I answer you, 'I don't know. All I know is that it is not a choice, it is as much an irreversible fact as gravity. You are my gravity, John.'

You breathe, 'I missed you so much. I don't think you will ever understand how much.'

I say, 'I'm so sorry I hurt you.'

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. And sigh it out slowly.

You say, 'You really hurt me, Sherlock, and I will be angry with you. I will have to find a way to trust you again. But right now, I'm just so glad you're alive that I don't care about any of that.'

You sink down into a chair, exhausted.

I say, 'tell me what I can do.'

You say, 'I don't think you can do anything.'

A proud man will abase himself for love. A vain man will gladly look a fool, an arrogant man will submit to any humiliation for the one he adores. I am all of these things. And I still get down on my knees and crawl across the kitchen floor until I am right at your feet. Then I bend my head, and with as much reverence and tenderness as I can muster, I take your trembling hand in my own and press it to my lips.

And then I say what is in my heart.

'You're the bravest, best man I know and I'm not good enough to even kiss your feet.'

There might be more, I haven't decided yet...