Sherlock knocked on the door to the flat. He still had the key, of course, but he wanted it to play out this way.
John will open the door. John will open the door and see me.
John had seen Sherlock quite often since the fall. His eyes would glaze over after seeing a flash of a strangers' pale wrist or curiously shaped eyes or even thumbs flipping up a coat collar against the chilled wind. Yes, John had seen him many times. But what he'd dismissed as insanity, as an utter lack of mental stability in the absence of the detective, Sherlock could now prove was real.
Yes, John. It's me. I'm home.
Some nights, alone with syringes and tarnished spoons, Sherlock would scrawl it over and over onto empty cigarette cartons, the walls, his arms.
I'm home.
It's me.
John.
John, I'm home.
His ink would run dry before the sleepless night was over, but the movement was soothing. Comforting. Things he never allowed himself to think in the garish light of the day.
And Sherlock, in his time alone, had predicted every angle of his return. Had thought of every variable and outcome.
John is a soldier.
John is a good man.
John is angry.
John is depressed.
But John is safe, and I am alive.
Sherlock knocked at the door again, impatient. Buzzing. He needed to know which outcome was the correct one. Would John dissolve? Would he strengthen?
A small hope in his ribs whispered that he might hold him. John might need to feel Sherlock close and warm and real against him before he reacted. Before tears and anger, before anything else, John would love him.
It was easy enough to survive on that. Hope was not something Sherlock was accustomed to, and he'd latched onto it like a child, clinging and desperate.
Another knock.
He knew John was home. He'd seen him get out of the taxi. He'd tripped a bit on the curb and given it a nasty look before moving forward and pushing the door of the flat open and shutting it behind him after a moment of hesitation. Like he was waiting for someone else to pass before he closed it. Sherlock had felt something tighten in his chest and he'd nearly sprinted across the street to fill the gap that was still being left for him before it was gone. But he had schooled himself. Patience.
So, yes, John was home. And yet there was no noise in the flat. No shuffling of feet, no kettle boiling, no water running for the shower.
He rapped again. Harder. His knuckles stung from the force, yet it felt good. He was home. He was home and John was home. And why wasn't he opening the door?
Perhaps John was delusional. Expected the ghost of his former flatmate to be answering the door for him. But that made little sense. Sherlock had rarely answered the door in their time together and John would certainly not be imagining that even if he were imagining him at all.
This was not part of the plan. It was just supposed to be a knock. Then the door was supposed to open for him, John standing there in the deep red dress shirt he'd worn to the clinic today. Sherlock knew he'd have untucked it from his trousers, loosened the top two buttons. John always patted his own neck once he'd done that, like a congratulatory motion for having suffered through the high collar all day. Then he would stretch his shoulders back, straightening his spine and making a low pleased noise before setting about to get himself his evening tea. Sherlock leaned his forehead against the door frame for a moment and just immersed himself in the normalcy of that routine, of how much he needed that background, that presence. He'd been fragmented in its absence, the mottled skin of his inner arms proved that without a doubt. It was obvious, even without the visual confirmation. Sherlock Holmes had broken apart, crumbled slowly like the buildings he'd huddled in over the last few years. He was cracked and swaying and fragile. John would fix that. John was a doctor.
But there was no sound, still. After all this time, after every kill Sherlock had made. Cracked spines and slit throats and stolen breath. After everything. He needed the door to open. Sherlock sucked in a breath and pushed his palms against his eyes, trying to abate the stinging sensation that made his sinuses constrict and his chest tingle.
Deep breath.
"John."
It was not a question, just a confirmation that, yes, John was here, John was home. And that, in turn, meant it was over and Sherlock himself was finally home. The detective pressed harder against his eyes, the veins in his wrist pulsing too fast against his cheeks.
"John. Please."
There was a small sound from behind the door, almost imperceptible, a huff of breath. Sherlock started, his hands jolting away from his face and to the doorknob.
"Come on then. 'S unlocked."
He twisted the handle and was inside before he had time to process what had been said.
Stop.
That was not John's voice. That was not John's voice. And the blond military man sitting on the couch, cigarette dangling from his lips, was not John.
The man smirked and waved his hand lazily at the detective before clearing his throat and drawling in a falsely classless accent.
"Surprise."
It didn't take much time to deduce. After the initial shock, Sherlock took in the details. That was, after all, what the [former] consulting detective was known for, seeing everything and understanding what picture the pieces of every puzzle made. This was a puzzle he very much wished he could pull back apart, abandon it in a disused coat closet or linen cupboard.
Small flecks of blood in the coarsestubble on his chin
Bulge of a Browning tucked into the holster worn at his side.
Scars across the knuckles of both fists.
More pronounced scar through his left brow.
Another over the bridge of the nose.
Military haircut grown past regulation.
Colonel Sebastian Moran.
The real one. Not the Sebastian Moran Sherlock had killed in Belarus. Not the one he'd needed to kill before returning to John. And in this lightning fast realization only one word filled the detective's mind.
"Fuck."
Sebastian smirked, standing and pushing his hands into the pockets of a well-worn motorcycle jacket.
"Eloquent as ever, Holmes," His voice was flat, no menace, no threat. Emotionless, really, until the detectives' name passed his lips. Then it was something else entirely. Something that felt like a damp blanket to keep out the chill or like hands shaken under false pretense. Sherlock stared at the tall blonde, his eyes so wide he could feel the ache in his cheeks, his brow.
No.
No no no no.
Fuck.
Sherlock felt his knees buckle and he was on the ground. His body didn't resist it, his right cheek hitting the carpet as he fell, his arms limp, crumpled awkwardly at his sides. Acid burned at his throat and his diaphragm compressed trying to expel it. Nothing came. The hidden benefit of not eating for days at a time. His eyelids fluttered quickly, taking in the scene around him in fragmented slides, pictures.
Then he saw. Saw the hole in John's chair. Blood seeped outwards from it, into the tartan pattern of the throw, into the tired fabric of the chair itself. And then something did rise in his throat.
And Sherlock was screaming.
Sebastian rolled his eyes and slowly approached him, crouching down and yanking the detective up by his hair. The ex-colonel shifted down to his knees and pulled him to him, Sherlock's back to his chest. He held a strong arm across the man's collarbones and clamped his free hand over his mouth, stifling him.
"Yeah, you thought you were the hero, mate, didn't you? Selfish, pompous, genius, idiot. You're the hero who got them all killed." Sebastian's lips grazed his ear as he spoke and Sherlock imagined himself disintegrating from that spot. Cracking apart, fissures breaking across his face, down his throat, over his shoulders. He whimpered into Moran's hand and shook.
But he was right. Sherlock had been so sure he could do it. So sure he could dissolve Moriarty's empire alone and stride back into his old life. Easy peasy. So sure, so fucking sure, that he hadn't even hesitated for a moment before saving his own life.
Wrong.