Things were a lot quieter in John's world these days. He kept busy, he kept fit, he did anything he could to not think about the events of eleven months ago. Did anything he could to not think about him. He lived alone, but not at Baker Street. Even his brief visit there to pack up his things - their things - had been indescribably painful. It had been like Sherlock's essence was haunting the place, like he was there but not there. John could almost feel the high strung energy, could almost hear the strokes of violin. But John had finally accepted that Sherlock would never be there again. For a long time he had refused to speak to anyone about it. He had refused to accept that he was gone...his friend...his world. Finally he had started seeing his therapist again, for the first time since he had met Sherlock. He hadn't needed to see her back then— Sherlock had come along and turned his whole world upside down in the most wonderful way possible.
But things were different now. He was starting to accept that, and was even starting to be able to feel grateful for the time they had spent together instead of grieving the loss of future adventures. He'd had to start working again but he was still helping Lestrade with cases— Sherlock had taught him well and John was more often than not able to add valuable insight that would have otherwise gone overlooked. He owed Sherlock that, thought John. He would never let the Science of Deduction die.
It was another quiet night in for John. He tried to get out as often as possible so he didn't have to think, frequently going for a pint or six with Stamford or Lestrade, but tonight it was too cold and he was too exhausted. He'd tried dating a couple of times too but had been met with no more success than he'd had when he'd lived with Sherlock. Somewhere inside, John registered the fact that whether Sherlock was alive or dead, his mind and heart would always be too full of him to allow room for anyone else. Strangely, the thought didn't bother him all that much. He took a sip of his cup of tea and tried to focus on the crap tellie show that was on in front of him, but the storyline slipped away from his mind as soon as it had entered it, as it always did these days.
He absently changed the channel and quickly skipped past a detective show. He couldn't watch those, not anymore. Not without Sherlock sitting beside him, or curled up in his favourite chair, deducing the characters and motivations and spoiling the 'mystery' before the episode was even ten minutes through. John turned his attention away from the television, leaving it on as background noise, to the book on the coffee table beside him. He had found it on the top of a stack of books on Sherlock's beside table the day after... the fall...and had been unable to part with it ever since. It was a thick, hardcover book on the topic of beekeeping. When John had first found it he couldn't help but snort with laughter at the mental picture it conjured up of Sherlock in bee keeping garb, desperately trying to convince John to let him turn their storage cupboard into a beehive. He might have even let him.
John spent a few minutes thumbing through the pages as he sipped at his tea. He'd already read the book from start to finish, obsessing to the point of seriously considering getting some bees himself, but sometimes he liked to scan through the pictures and read the captions, imagining Sherlock's voice spouting out the streams of information in the self-assured, arrogant way he used to do. It was a pointless distraction but was of some comfort all the same. A knock at the door interrupted John's light daydream and he set down his cup of tea, rose and crossed the length of the small flat to pull the door open. And then every effort he had made to rebuild something of a life suddenly became pointless, suddenly crumbled around him and fell defeated at his feet. Because he couldn't possibly be seeing what, or rather who, he was seeing.
John stared at Sherlock, his brain completely incapable of getting past the loop in which Sherlock couldn't possibly be here, because Sherlock was dead. Gone. Forever. Yet here he stood, his impressive stature lightly silhouetted against the door frame of John's neat flat. Still perfect, still every bit as fucking beautiful as before, though admittedly slightly leaner if it were possible, and his face holding more fatigue and emotion than John had ever seen on it before. John felt his lungs contract impossibly tight and very nearly choked on his own shallow breath as his brain struggled to catch up. Finally Sherlock spoke— the long familiar, deep voice pulling John from his internal struggle.
"Hi," was all Sherlock managed, his voice hesitant and almost afraid.
He gave John a tiny smile and John felt a pang in his heart at the complete vulnerability of the man standing before him. But following just as quickly came a violent spike of the anger that he needed to cope with this situation, and he involuntarily let out a short bark of laughter.
"Hi? Really? That's all you have to say to me after being gone for almost a year, during which time everyone, including me, thought that you were dead?"
His words got gradually louder as he spoke, and when he finished the word "dead" rang in the heavy silence that greeted it.
Sherlock swallowed.
"I have to start somewhere, right?" he replied weakly.
John found himself even more annoyed to recognise that Sherlock was acting nothing like how John remembered him. Where was the strong, defiant, arrogant sod that he had known and...he forced his thoughts away from the word. What had happened to that man? John couldn't help but feel that this whole thing would be easier if he were to reappear.
John just stared for another long moment, not trusting himself to speak. But finally, Sherlock's unreadable expression drove him to it.
"Where the hell have you even been?" he asked angrily then turned away, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
"You know what, don't even answer that. There's absolutely nothing you can say to..."
He trailed off, another surge of anger hitting him powerfully, and before he knew it he was rushing at Sherlock, grabbing his suit jacket, pushing him roughly against the wall of the small living room.
"Did you think about me even once?" John demanded, shaking him hard.
Sherlock's face was a mixture of surprise and hurt and something approaching relief, but whether it was relief at John's outpouring of emotion or relief that Sherlock was finally getting what his guilt told him he deserved, John wasn't sure. John stared into those incredible blue eyes that had once been his whole world and tried to fight the flood of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Anger was battling hurt and betrayal and something else that he couldn't even identify. And yet, the close proximity to the man that he had been dreaming about, missing, craving, for the past eleven months was causing his heart to race in a way that had nothing to do with his anger. His senses were filled with everything irrevocably Sherlock: his subtle, strangely appealing scent, his thin yet muscular body beneath John's hands, the pale warm skin beneath the layers of clothing.
There was another long moment where neither of them seemed to breathe, then the wall seemed to break and John was lunging forward, pulling Sherlock to him and crushing their lips together in a bruising kiss. It only took Sherlock a second to recover from his shock and start to respond, his desperation to be forgiven evident.
"John, I'm so sorry," Sherlock whispered hoarsely between fevered kisses.
"Shut up, Sherlock, just shut up."
John entwined his fingers in Sherlock's curls, which were if possible even more out of control than before, his brain too far gone at this point to acknowledge anything but the feel of Sherlock's lips against his, the taste of him, the smell of him, the fact that he was here in his arms, not dead, not decaying, but alive and here and so god damn beautiful, and that he had missed him more than he'd ever thought was possible and—
"John…please..."
Sherlock's voice was a throaty whimper laced with raw pain and more than a hint of vulnerability, and it seemed to shake John out of the trap that his mind had fallen into.
He pulled away from Sherlock's lips but didn't release his grip on his shoulders, something within him already aching at the loss of contact, and felt a harsh tremor rock his body. John's mind battled desperately between the urge to hit him again and kiss him again, but before he could decide on either his body decided for him. He broke down into the tears that would never come before, into harsh agonising sobs that made him wonder who was making that god awful noise, until he vaguely realised that it was himself. The next thing he knew was that Sherlock was pulling him forward, that he was burying his face in the gap between Sherlock's neck and shoulder, feeling the too-sharp collarbones and the soft fabric of his expensive suit jacket, threading his fingers inextricably through Sherlock's hair. He was only partially aware of Sherlock rubbing firm yet soothing circles into his back, of the meaningless whispers coming from both of them.
"God Sherlock, do you have any idea how much I've missed you?" John managed to choke out, his face still buried and his voice muffled.
He felt the other man nod against him, remaining silent, never pausing in his rubbing of John's back. To John it somehow felt like both a minute and an eternity that the two of them stood there, half collapsed against the lounge room wall, clinging to each other as though their lives depended on it, which in a way, they did.
Slowly, John regained enough of a sense of his surroundings to become vaguely aware that Sherlock was handling all of this rather well for someone who neither expressed nor understood emotion. He briefly wondered whether Sherlock's experiences in the past months had caused some kind of fundamental change, or whether perhaps he was just struggling through John's intense fragility because he felt he had no choice. John's breathing slowly returned to something approaching normal but still neither of them moved, wrapped in each other's arms, John's hands still tangled in Sherlock's curls and his mind a swirling mass of confusion. It was a long time before either of them spoke, but finally Sherlock broke the silence in a soft voice that was full of hesitation and fear like John had never heard it before.
"John? Will you be coming home...to Baker Street?"
John drew in a deep, shaky breath. He wasn't ready to think about this right now, not yet.
"I don't think I can," he said carefully, not trusting his own voice.
Sherlock said nothing but John heard the poorly concealed sharp intake of breath, felt the tiny nod against him.
He forced himself to pull away from Sherlock, only now feeling self-conscious about the state he was in and how he must look. Sherlock was staring at the ground, and for that brief moment John almost felt again that the man in front of him was a complete stranger. And in some ways he was. John took another deep, steadying breath.
"I think you should go, Sherlock," he heard himself say in a voice that sounded as wrecked as he felt.
He found that he wanted to sound angry - he wanted to sound furious - yet somehow all he was managing was weary detachment. Sherlock's head snapped up at his tone, his eyes watching him carefully, mind no doubt racing to deduce John's thoughts, trying to understand them, trying to make it okay.
"John, please," he said, his voice tight with forced restraint.
He moved towards John, took John's hands in his own.
"Tell me what I can do to make things right."
John looked up and met Sherlock's eyes. Those so often cold and calculating eyes that seemed to change colour every time John saw them. But they weren't cold now— they were green and blue and infinitely complex, the intensity of the great mind behind them radiating through, making them glow. It reminded John of every case they'd ever had, of every delicious spark of danger, every argument and insult, every awkward yet heartfelt apology, every fit of giggles they'd spontaneously broken into, every time they'd looked into each other's eyes and had maybe seen something that wasn't supposed to be there because they were flatmates, partners in crime, friends...
"There's nothing you can do," John replied coldly, abruptly cutting off the thoughts in his head. "Just go. I'll...talk to you tomorrow."
Sherlock didn't move, his gaze dropping to the floor once more.
"I did it for you, John," he said finally, his voice so low that John could barely hear it. "Moriarty and Moran would never have let you live. They would have taken you away from me, and I couldn't..."
Sherlock's voice trailed off helplessly, but he seemed determined to finish.
"I couldn't bear it if something happened to you. So I left. I killed them..." – John's head snapped up at this – "And I wasn't afraid. But now I am. Because I cannot lose you."
John said nothing and turned his gaze back to his feet, finding that he couldn't look up. He didn't want to see the intensity in those eyes. When he finally did, Sherlock was gone.
Please review, because thinking about Reichenbach makes me sad but reviews make me happy! More to come soon.