A/n
A random fic I had sitting on my cpu. I wanted to upload it because I thought it was okay. The title comes from a Beauty and the Beast episode. But the idea is older than that and should be pretty recognizable.
Sherlock growled in anger when he stubbed his toe on the leg of the coffee table while he was moving across the room to flop on the couch. If John were there, the doctor would have smile a bit in amusement and after assuring himself that there was nothing wrong with Sherlock's foot after such a collision, the doctor would proceed to lecture the consulting detective about how the table was not at fault just because he couldn't be bothered to watch where he was he was going.
Sherlock might have actually grinned if John had been here to say it. But he wasn't and it was his fault for being an idiot. He grimaced as he thought of the word in conjunction with himself, but he wouldn't deny it. John had been injured because of him and the least he owed the man was to admit that fact with his own mind.
John was now in the hospital under the careful of the best nurses Mycroft had. Sherlock would have had to be blind not to notice the people treating John were in his brother's employ. After being shoved from the room and sent home after a particularly explosive display on his part, Sherlock had gone back to 221B and taken a shower. There was no sense in leaving himself covered in mud after all.
As he lay on the sofa, wearing only pants, as he saw no sense in covering up when there was nobody around anyway, he prepared to explore his mind palace to store and seal away the guilt that he currently felt so that he could delete it. However, his exhaustion came over him and pulled him under before he was able to do delete the guilt. As he fell asleep he had the hazy thought that maybe John would be better off without him.
Sherlock awoke in a hazy gray area and it took him far longer than it should have to realize that there was a person standing near him. The man had sandy blond-grey hair that hung to his neck; he wore a dusty yellowish colored uniform, and had on standard issue combat boots. Sherlock cataloged all this immediately along with other details about the man that was standing before him. "Hello Sherlock," John said pleasantly.
Something was wrong and he had no idea what it was. Sherlock frowned this could not be John because he wasn't giving off the same kind of presence that he normally did.
John smiled ruefully. "I'm not him if that's what you wanted to know."
"Who are you then?" Sherlock asked hating the fact that he had to.
"I'm someone that has something to show you. You wished that you weren't around and though you hadn't realized you thought that all the people that matter to you would be better off without you in their lives."
This had to be a dream, but it didn't change the fact that Sherlock felt angry at being so transparent to another person.
"So shall we see?" asked John.
"See?"
"See the lives of all of your loved ones without you there."
"I don't love anyone," came Sherlock's conditioned sociopathic response.
"Of course not, well I amend the term of 'loved ones' to the people that you choose to be around and choose to let around you. Shall we start with Mycroft?"
Sherlock snorted. "That brother of mine surely is perfectly fine and I don't elect to have his company he just intrudes."
The blond snapped his fingers and suddenly they were in a humble cottage in the country. There was a man seated in a wooden chair, which quite frankly, appeared to be very uncomfortable. The chair was placed in front of a dying fire and the man that sat upon it he was nearly completely bald save for a few strands of gray hair that had yet to forsake him. His eyes were haunted as they gazed upon the embers and he was paler and much skinnier than Sherlock himself. Even so Sherlock could tell who it was and he found himself fighting tears much to his own astonishment. "How?" he managed to whisper to Not-John.
"After you died from a drug overdose, yes the last one that you remember that made you turn from the drugs, he put his all into work. Even so he was grieving and began to make mistakes. There were no permanent damages, but it was enough that it shocked him to his core. He fell off the map and has slowly deteriorated in health since then because he has nothing to distract him from the grief."
"It's impossible," Sherlock said looking at the man who was and yet could not be his brother. His brother was annoying and the embodiment of posh. There were so many adjectives that would apply but never any that came to his mind when he looked at this stranger.
"Don't try it." Not-John advised when Sherlock was moving over to Mycroft, "he cannot perceive you."
"How is this possible?" Sherlock asked again unable to see how he would have such an impact on his brother.
"He loves you, Sherlock. You kept him strong and his need to protect you drove him to get more power to achieve the goal. He always feared for you knowing that one day your façade might crumble and leave you vulnerable. He wanted to always be there to pick up the pieces and the fact that he failed to save you was more than he could take."
"My," Sherlock whispered to the man using the nickname for him that he had abandoned shortly after adolescence. "I'm sorry," he said although the man was unable to hear him.
"Come now we have more to see," said the Not-John as he snapped his fingers again. The cottage was gone and now they were at a place that he could never fail to recognize. It was the New Scotland Yard. He had a feeling about who he was here to see and at first he was sure that there was nothing that his presence did that would affect the life of DI Lestrade. But having seen the outcome for Mycroft he was not so certain anymore.
It was worse than he had thought. The man before him was not the slightly put upon man that he knew. The man that he knew was annoying, but not an idiot. He was… a lot of things that was not the man before him. This man was over-stressed, over-worked, and underpaid like Sherlock's Lestrade, but he looked at least ten years older and that was being incredibly generous.
"He didn't have you to help with his cases and as a result he had to work harder. He made quite a name for himself and kept landing higher profile cases and consequently his personal life went to the backburner. Eventually a case with a lady dressed in pink came across his desk after there were ten cases that looked to similar to be random. He solves the case after seven more victims the last being his wife. Even though they were separated by this time her death broke something in him. Nowadays he is nothing more than a robot he works and treats his body as transport giving it just enough to survive."
Sherlock swallowed hard fighting the emotions that he often said he did not have. He wanted to ask about alternate futures, ones without him, but with happier outcomes, but before he was able to say anything Not-John said, "There is one last stop to be made and I believe you know to whom."
"John," he said with certainty and dread. Although he was happy that he would not have to see Mrs. Hudson's misfortune, he had the worst thoughts of what it was going to be like to see John. John was his friend and he was making himself believe that John had found a way to escape what seemed par for the course of the futures that he had seen so far.
It was worse than a nightmare. It was dark and there was a thunderstorm howling outdoors that was illuminating the closet of a flat that he found himself standing in with flashes of lightning. Thanks to the streetlights below and some well-timed bursts of that lightning he was able to quickly take in all of the things in the cramped living space not that there was much to take in in the first place. There was nothing but a desk with a computer, and a bed with an occupant. The person was sitting quite still on the bed and the look on his face showed nothing but calm resolve.
Then he saw the gun. The very weapon that had been used to save his life the day that they had met, a meeting that had never occurred in this place that he now occupied, now taking on a new role in killing another man; a far better man than that murderous cabbie.
Sherlock couldn't let this happen. This was not possible John was too strong for this. He couldn't stand around and watch. "Let me speak to him," he said in a tone that was as close as he had ever coming to pleading. With the exception of his time pleading for drugs when he had been in withdrawal he never pleaded as he did in that moment.
"You cannot." Said Not-John seemingly uncaring of the pain that Sherlock felt having to watch a man that he respected and cared for prepare to take his own life.
"John!" he cried as he ran over attempting to stop this. His hand seemed to pass through the man as though one of them was naught but a ghost.
"Please let me help him!" He begged Not-John. Suddenly the world was more solid and the John that was not John faded away.
The John that was John in this place saw him, in that instant, and his stare turned cold. Sherlock stood there frozen unable to talk as the gun was raised and aimed. The bullet went through him and blinded him with pain. As he lay on the floor, blood seeping into the once-may-have-been-beige carpet, he saw John eyes go wide in terror.
Sherlock tried to speak with him; to reassure him. His voice refused to cooperate.
John obviously had not expected Sherlock to be real and that was the final push to the already desperate man. As the last bit of life left Sherlock the last sight that he saw was John placing the gun at his temple and pulling the trigger.
Sherlock awoke with a start. He felt for the spot that the bullet had pierced and found only unmarred skin. He was fine it had all been a dream. But the terror remained. Unlike the first two in his dream it seemed that were it not for his existence that John would not have had a chance at all. He'd had no will to survive and that scared Sherlock. It may not have ended like it had in the dream if they hadn't met, but the very thought that John was that close to the edge before they had met made him grateful that they had. It was so hard to believe, especially now since he had come to know John, that the world would be the same without John in it. Sherlock respected the strength of the man as well as the other qualities that he possessed and he knew others did as well.
A glance at his phone told him that it was far too early to visit with John, but he needed to see him and he would call his brother if need be. He was going to have to see Mycroft soon because he really wanted to argue with him.
Throwing on his coat over his pants he left out door. He would have foregone that, but it was bound to be chilly this early in the morning and he didn't want John to scold him. Furthermore he might be arrested for public indecency, not that he cared, but he wanted to see John as soon as possible and he couldn't do that if he were arrested so he put the coat on.
When he arrived at the hospital he got some odd looks form the people on staff, but he didn't have any reason to care. In fact he was thrilled because in the shock of seeing him without foot wear and with messy slightly damp curls nobody remembered to stop him.
He made his way to John's door and found the man asleep. For a moment he thought about waking him up, but he found that he couldn't do it. The fact that John had not awoken when he had stepped in the room was proof enough that the man needed sleep. It had been proven that he had retained that ability to wake automatically even if they put him on drugs providing that they weren't almost at coma inducing levels. At those times he wasn't exactly lucid, but that was beside the point.
Quietly he pulled the chair close to the bed and sat waiting for John to wake up.
The next morning John woke to find his flatmate at his bedside. The man frowned. He had not been aware of Sherlock's return after he was kicked out. Also the man looked positively ragged. His hair, which John was about seventy percent sure possessed near sentience, was looking kind of droopy, he was barefooted and John could see that the bottom of one of his feet was dirty and he hazarded a guess that the other was the same, and he couldn't be sure, but it didn't look like he was dressed beneath that enormous coat of his because he could see some of the man's leg and if he had foregone trousers then the chances were slim that he had put on a shirt.
John thought about waking him and decided to. The way the man was curled up in that chair would become more painful the longer he was asleep. "Sherlock," John croaked out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Sherlock," he said with more volume.
"John," the detective responded.
John was surprised by the emotion that he heard in Sherlock's tone, but he didn't bring attention to it. He was curious though about the events that brought Sherlock back to his beside in such a state. "They said I could go home today if there is no sign of infection."
Sherlock only nodded and continued to stare at him.
John shifted uncomfortably. This was unprecedented. "Um have you gone to see Lestrade about some cold cases?" John asked just for something to say.
Sherlock shook his head and kept staring.
Now John was scared. What had happened last night? He was curious but at the same time he knew that Sherlock was not ready to speak of it. So he smiled at him reaching for him with his arm that was free of IV's. He managed to poke him in the cheek. John laughed at the expression that came over Sherlock at his actions.
"Now go get us some cold cases. I'm bored," he announced in a rather good imitation of Sherlock.
Sherlock pulled out his phone and sent a text to Lestrade.
John rolled his eyes. "You lazy git," he said to his friend.
Sherlock smiled and said nothing. He was sure that they would talk about this later because that was how John was, but at least for now things were normal.