I know I have other stories to finish but...
I just couldn't resist...
Look at us both
Chapter 1 – The escape
The sound of the violin was filling the apartment. This tune again. This tune John couldn't stand any more. THE Woman's tune. He climbed down the stairs and stopped at the sitting room's door frame. He was about to throw his frustration at the detective's face but when he saw the man's expression of plenitude, his eyes closed, his body moving in unison with the sad sound of the violin, he didn't.
"I've never owned him, but still, I lost him..."John said to himself knowing the detective wouldn't hear him. He turned his back to the room. And left the apartment.
Sherlock opened his eyes, looked at the door but didn't stop playing.
Six months. Six months she "died". Yes, even in his thoughts there were quotes. Was she dead? Mycroft said so, but dead or not she was still there filling the space between him and Sherlock. Six months they avoided talking about her, about what Sherlock felt, about what John felt, about what John feels, about what Sherlock doesn't.
The doctor felt so tired of waiting. Not that Sherlock ever asked him to. Not that he lured him. Nor with words nor with acts. No, John let himself believe he was important to the detective, even, some days, essential for him. Oh yes, he used his medical knowledge, his protective nature that made him kill evil cabbies and cook beans on toasts. He took everything John offered freely. The doctor only had to ask nothing in return. And John was okay with that. Until Irene came and burned everything to the ground turning his unspoken, and at the moment he spoke to her undiscovered, hopes into ashes.
She touched Sherlock in a way nobody ever did, and nobody ever will any more. Sherlock's heart woke and died with her. She just left emptiness. And this tune...
He tried, oh god he tried to fill the space, delicately, without noise. He was there, always useful, always attentive, more than ever. But he kept unnoticed, "unthanked", unloved.
John ignored the texts he received that day.
"Leave me alone." He said out loud as he felt his phone vibrate in his jacket pocket "Can't you set me free? I wish...I wish...Oh god that's not what I wish. I'm such a fool."
"Am I going to endanger myself, slowly destroy my sanity, turn myself into a slave? Am I going to slowly disintegrate into nothingness?" He asked to himself "React John, you're sliding dangerously into depression. React, move, for god's sake! Do something NOW!"
And so he did react, he decided to leave. Not forever, just for a week or two, maybe more, the time he needed to feel better. And then? Maybe he'd come back to 221B. Too early to tell.
"What are you doing?" Sherlock said while coming inside John's bedroom and looking at the bed where a large travel bag was waiting to be filled.
"I'm going away for a while." John didn't turn around to answer his flatmate.
"Where?" The detective said coldly.
"Away. I need fresh air." John put a large pile of tee shirts in the bag and Sherlock frowned.
"How long?"
"As long as it will take."
"What about the cases?"
John finally turned to face Sherlock "You'll have to deal with the cases and take care of yourself without my help. You've done it before. Just remember how you lived before I popped into your life." The doctor had a sudden flash of their first encounter at Bart.
Sherlock stayed still and silent until John zipped his bag.
"Will you be reachable?"
"I don't know." John grabbed his bag, looked around to be sure he didn't forget anything then faced his flatmate "Take care of you." He said flatly then walked out of his room.
"Stay, John." The detective said his voice steady and low.
"Not this time, Sherlock."
A minute later he was on a cab.
It's only the third day of his exile that he received a text from the detective.
Where do you hide the first aid kit? SH
John was sitting on a bench in the garden of the cottage he rent. Firstly he got scared by the content of the text but he forced himself to calm down. If Sherlock was able to text, he was okay. Then he remembered he left the first aid kit in the kitchen where it could be seen.
"You almost got me Sherlock. But I'm in detox here and I won't reply." He said bitterly.
In detox, maybe, but not enough to turn off his phone, not enough to prevent himself from reading the text even if he knew it was Sherlock's. Just enough to feel the emptiness Sherlock's absence left in his chest. Just enough to be capable of throwing himself in the first train back to London. Luckily he was far from the station and had no car.
John was sleeping like a log on the couch when the second text wake him up.
Anderson won't work with me. Come back. SH
What? Dammit Sherlock, it was 3 o'clock. It was hard enough for John to fell asleep without having to try a second time in the same night. "Health, case, what will it be next Sherlock? Don't think you can lure me into coming back. You've never been better and, as far as I don't like the idea, you don't need me to solve any case." John said to his phone "Oh for god's sake!" he put the phone on the floor and buried his face in his pillow. Eventually after an hour of self inflicted mental torture he went back into Morpheus' arms.
The view from the kitchen window was magnificent for the cottage was on top of a cliff, right in front of the sea and the spring light gave to the sky that brightness that made you think the seascape has been painted by the greatest painter on earth. But John didn't see it. He was standing in front of the window a mug of coffee in his hand. Tea made him think too much of Sherlock, it was stupid but he needed to minimise the occasions of thinking of the grey eyes, black curls and long figure of the man he missed so much. But thinking of him was exactly was he was doing right now.
"You don't play fair Sherlock. Are you playing at all? Anyway you let me be for three days then tried to hook me back by texting me. You used the two things you recognise as my field of expertise, the first, taking care of you and provide for what you need and the second, my opinion as a doctor." He sighed "But you'll never recognise me for anything else."
The doctor's phone chimed again.
Come back. SH
"No."
Why? SH
"Fuck!" John jumped and spread coffee all over his shirt. He didn't expect Sherlock to answer to a word he knew he couldn't have heard. He looked around him, just to be sure he was alone. He was. "If you don't know why it means it's not time for me to come back. God, John listen to yourself. You can't force him to love you. Why do you want him to understand how you feel? This is useless" He put the mug on the kitchen table and turned back to the window "I'll come back. The day I will be able to live with it. For I can't leave 221B, and I can't leave you."
John spent the day walking on the land and along the shore trying to clean his head. He decided to stop mourning for his lost love for it never has been mutual anyway. He'll have to seek for reciprocal love. "Isn't it what I did already with the other girls? But now I'll have to put my heart in it. There must be someone for me somewhere."
When he came back to the cottage he took a look at his phone he has left on the kitchen's table and saw nobody texted or called. He sighed, he was relieved but, to be true, a little bit disappointed. Things just couldn't change by themselves just because he decided they needed to.
"Why?" A deep voice said and John took a step back and bumped his thigh on a chair which fell on the floor. He looked up in the sound's direction.
"Sherlock?" The tall man was standing on the threshold between the kitchen and the sitting room. "For Christ's sake, what are you doing here? How did you find me?" John said, he was on the verge of panicking and run outside.
"Oh please." Sherlock answered almost vexed. He looked annoyed.
"What are you doing here?" The doctor asked more firmly.
"You didn't come back. Why?"
"What?" John almost screamed "Are you fucking serious? You came all the way here to ask me that?"
"You didn't answer my texts."
"God!" He laughed bitterly "Go away Sherlock."
"Answer my question then I'll go."
"I don't owe you anything, Sherlock." The frustration John tried to repress made him shiver. He tried to keep calm but anger win the fight "I'm loosing patience, go now." He managed to say. Too early Sherlock, far too early. I don't want words I won't be able to take back to slip out of my mouth. Go please go...
"I won't go anywhere until you tell me why."
That made John's efforts not to cross the line he draw himself went up in flames. He walked to the detective, grabbed his collar and pinned him to the wall.
"Are you going to punch me?" Sherlock said coldly.
"This would be a perfect substitute." John didn't control his words anymore.
"For what?"
"Come on, Sherlock, stop acting as if you didn't hear what she said. You heard us, maybe what she said about me wasn't worthy of interest for you but still, it was true. You are too self-absorb to see I need time to sort this out and convince myself to chose a healthier path, now be a man and tell me you don't want me, never have, never will. I need to ear it from you now. I've been waiting for it too long, it kills me. I deserve peace of mind."
"I can't do that, John"
"I'll come back to you anyway. Don't worry about that, I'll still be here when you'll want me too. Now that I have tasted it I can't stay away from you and your way of life too long" Another bitter laugh, Sherlock wasn't the only junky in the room it seemed. "Just tell me what I need to ear."
"I can't"
"Games are for Moriarty and Irene Adler. I'm nothing if not true and faithful. Is you toying with me what I deserve?"
"John, you're not listening." The doctor frowned "And you're not watching."
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