The whitewashed room was familiar to John. It was his own room at the practice. How ironic, he thought. He sat with his legs dangling awkwardly from the table, feeling like a child again. He stared blankly at the wall, realising just why his patients got upset when the nurses wouldn't see them right away. Groaning, he stood and paced, running his hand along the wall for balance.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
5 June
Sherlock had dozed off in front of his paperwork again. Sometimes when he had too many distractions, he would fall asleep in order to more fully enter his mind palace. This thin-walled flat was laden with distractions. The woman three doors down one floor up with her triplets who had never seen their father, the couple who had barely stopped shagging since they'd arrived, and the nearly-homeless man who ate nothing but frozen peas. They simply made noise, he'd found. He missed the old flat. He never thought that location would make any difference in his ability to work, but that had been proven false upon his arrival. No sooner had he unpacked the few belongings that Molly put together for him than he wanted to leave.
Two years after his fall, after hunting down the web of criminals on other continents, he finally returned to Great Britain. Settling down as much as a man like Sherlock could, he tried to focus on the last link: Sebastian Moran. Tracing him was difficult, but what would the chase be without a challenge?
He missed his familiar distractions, Mrs. Hudson needling him about his experiments and John wildly protesting his deductions. John. Sherlock missed him especially. There was more comfort than he liked to admit in John's his toast-and-jam-eating noises and his grocery-fetching noises and jumper-choosing noises. Unwittingly, Sherlock had meandered into Fort Watson of the mind palace instead of remaining in the Moran dungeon. He began to convince himself that going back to London would be beneficial to his work. He knew, too, that part of his reasoning was because he wanted to see John and Molly and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson agin. He may have even been looking forward to seeing Mycroft.
Two days later, on the seventh of June, Sherlock made up his mind to go home.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
29 May
John had fallen asleep that night on the couch in the sitting room of 221b. He wasn't feeling well, and so took the day off of work at his practice. Nausea took hold of him quite a few times during the wee hours, but he had finally dozed off at about 4 in the morning. Even being nearly forty, he did not take being sick well, so when he woke up, the first words out of his mouth were not pretty ones. Heaving himself up with the now ever-present cane, he set about making tea. It was summertime, and he was sure that the flu wasn't going around, and besides, he was feeling just fine now, but he had the day off, so he felt he ought to enjoy it.
Sherlock entered his mind four times before noon. He'd gone through the grieving process as any normal man would. He'd denied it first, imploring Sherlock's grave to come alive.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
One more miracle Sherlock, for me. Just...don't be dead.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
He'd become angry. Even though he always believed that what Sherlock did was real, there was nothing he could do to suppress the rage he became sometimes. Suffice to say the walls of 221b had considerably more holes than there had been before.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Sherlock, you bastard! I hate you! I've always hated you!
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
He'd bargained. He wasn't even sure that he believed in a God, but he attempted to bargain with him anyway.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
If I'd known what he was up to, he wouldn't have jumped.
I'll be nicer to Mrs. Hudson if he comes back.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
He was stalled on depression. Now that it was simply him in the flat, he had to work harder to pay the rent, and slowly it was becoming more difficult. He went out with Lestrade and Molly sometimes, but he wasn't sure they knew what to say. Sometimes he would go hours without thinking about Sherlock, but then he felt guilty. Two years, and still he was stuck.
He kept up that stupid blog, too. He wasn't aware of this, but in the back of his mind he thought that maybe Sherlock would see it and come back.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
8 June
Sherlock thought he'd be dramatic. John would be proud of him, and maybe make him some tea. He wouldn't drink it, but he could hear John's tea-making sounds and be comforted. So he texted Mycroft, who would be livid if he wasn't aware of his presence in London. He took an awfully boring train ride from a small town in Scotland to London. He put on his coat, which he knew John liked, and picked the lock on the door and went up the 17 steps and sat on the couch in the sitting room, upon which John had slept the night before. He waited impatiently. He snooped when he got tired of waiting. His worst fear was that John would have brought a woman into their flat and changed everything. But he hadn't. His psychosomatic limp had returned, though.
He was becoming impatient. The workday was done, and John wasn't home yet. He had come all the way from Scotland to impress him, so he ought to at least show up. Then he heard the key in the lock, heard the odd three-legged thumping of John and his cane and decided to sit up on the couch so as to see John right away. Attempting to seem casual when John came through the door, he instead lit up with a rare and, to be honest, rather frightening smile.
"Wha- Sherlock?" John dropped the file he had been carrying.
"Hello, John." John blinked forcibly. "I am not an apparition. I promise, John. It's understandable that you think so." A strangled little noise left John's throat, and Sherlock just barely caught him before he hit the floor, unconscious.
When John awoke, he thought that he must have become unbalanced and fainted. He had a vague recollection of Sherlock... A dream, he thought. But there he was, looking over him, violin in hand and legs thrown over the arm of the chair he was sitting in.
"Hello, John," Sherlock said again. John stood with a surprising amount of speed, swaying only slightly, and slapped Sherlock hard on the cheek. "I deserved that."
"My god, Sherlock. What do you think you're doing?"
"Coming home," he replied.
"It's been nearly three years! You think you can just appear?"
"Yes. I know you. You will welcome me again."
"What if I didn't? What would you do then?" John was red-faced, and although Sherlock knew it was from embarrassment, some would think it was from anger.
"But you will," Sherlock persisted. John sat on his armchair and put his head in his hands.
"Things are different now, Sherlock." A look of confusion spread across Sherlock's face.
"You aren't married, you still work at the practice, you take the same route home, you even shop at the same grocery. I don't see what has changed." John scoffed.
"Nothing. Nothing."
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
9 June
Having Sherlock back was both delightful and traumatising. After so long, John had passed the stage of listening for the violin, hoping for it, but now that it was finally back, he realised just how much better he slept. When he woke up, besides the brain-splitting headache he had, he half-hoped and half-dreaded that the events of the past day had been a dream.
"Good morning, John."
"Morning, Sherlock. Time is it?" John asked sleepily. He'd grown accustomed to Sherlock waking him at absurd hours before, and without any delay, he threw himself back into the habit.
"It's 6:24 in the morning. This is usually the time you wake up to go to work. You did not set your alarm last night, and I know that it was not accidental." Sitting up, John rubbed his eyes like a little boy.
"Why'd you wake me up then?" He whined.
"I want to know why you decided not to go to work today."
"I wasn't feeling well. Couldn't you tell?" John asked in some surprise.
"I see." Sherlock abruptly turned and left the room, not abashed in the slightest that he'd woken John up when he needn't have been and in fact rather expressionless, closing the door behind himself.
Later, John roused himself and shuffled about in the kitchen making tea. Sherlock laid back and listened. He was pleased that John was making tea like he normally did. Naturally, many thoughts went through his head, but John kept coming to the forefront of his mind. He couldn't put his finger on what was keeping him home. He hardly seemed sick, but for the nausea.
He'd figure it out. He always did.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
The door creaked. Kathy found John leaning against the wall, staring into the ceiling. She helped him sit down, asked him about dizziness.
"Headaches?" The nurse asked.
"Almost every day." he answered. How odd to have his role reversed.
"Nausea?"
"Not as often, but yes." She asked questions ad nauseam, which wasn't saying much. He was nauseated often enough, and plenty of silly things had set it off. He left his own mind for awhile, answering her inquiries without really thinking about them. She left and came back. Said his name. He looked surprised, and it was rather comical, if she wasn't worried for him.
"John...I don't want to worry you unnecessarily."
"Just say it. I'm already worried," John said.
"We're going to schedule you for an MRI."
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
12 June
"I'm home, Sherlock. We're going out with Mycroft to dinner. Angelo's," John called from the foyer, where Sherlock could hear him shaking out his umbrella.
"Mycroft can't come. I wanted to go to Angelo's with you, not him." Sherlock sulked. He hadn't even seen his brother in two years, but he didn't mind. He would much rather be doing what he was doing- that is, poking what looked like liver with toothpicks.
"He's the one who invited us," John set down his bag at the foyer, going to sit down on the couch, but seeing that Sherlock was sprawled out on it. Instead of standing, or sitting on a different chair, he simply lifted Sherlock's legs and slipped underneath them. "We're to go at 6:45."
"Fine. What about Lestrade? You saw him today."
"Yeah. I wasn't sure what to say about you. I'm not even sure he knows you're back." Their easy banter had returned as quickly as Sherlock's disorderly housekeeping and boredom.
"You should tell him. I want to go to work."
"I will. Molly, too?"
"She already knows."
"Oh."
They went to Angelo's twenty minutes early, because Sherlock said that Mycroft would already be there. He was. Damn british government.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
"John..." He sighed. Was it impossible for her to just pretend that she didn't know him? That would make everything so much easier.
"What?"
"You have malignant tumours in your parietal and temporal lobes." The nurse, Kathy, looked worried. But John took it like the soldier he was, still. A tumour, he thought...what will we do? Carry on, I suppose. Like any good Briton. "We're going to start chemotherapy as soon as possible, because your tumour is advanced." Still John was silent. "I'm sorry," she said, sadly. She even seemed to mean it.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
16 June
"You have a tumour in the parietal and temporal lobes of your brain," Sherlock said calmly one evening as he and John were watching television.
"How could you tell?" John had been waiting for a confrontation as this one, and resigned himself to a long explanation, but to his surprise Sherlock didn't give one.
"Nausea, headaches, dizziness. It didn't take much." John didn't say anything.
Neither did Sherlock.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Sherlock felt like he needed a blanket. John. Tumour. Dizzy. Strong. All sorts of words went through his head at once. It was like his mind palace, Fort Watson with its moat of tea, had frozen over.
He'd been stupid. He could accept that the cancer existed, but that John- he struggled not to insert 'his John'- was susceptible to any illness...he seemed too solid. It couldn't be.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
23 June
"I have chemotherapy today," John said slowly. "They think that maybe if we s-s-s-" He couldn't get the sound out.
"John. John. What's happening?" Sherlock sounded panicked.
"S-s-s-stuttering," John winced at his own inability to articulate.
"John, stop. I don't like that."
"I can't help it! Jesus, Sherlock." He didn't answer, and John took his cane, thump-thumping to the door and to the hospital.
Sherlock hadn't moved when he got back. Sitting on the couch and turning on the telly, John almost immediately fell asleep.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
27 June
"Good morning, John," Sherlock said. Again. John groaned.
"Tired..."
"Come on. You said you wanted to go to work today."
"Never did," John lied. He had said that he felt fine last night, and he didn't have any appointments to go to or to take, but now he felt like hell.
"I'll make you tea," Sherlock bargained.
"Oh, god, no. You'll bugger it up." Sherlock pulled out John's favourite jumper, draped it over the bed and went to the kitchen anyway. A few minutes later John stepped out of his bedroom in scrubs and a jumper. He sat in his armchair. The sitting-down type. Mrs. Hudson had been more right than she knew.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
How does one make tea? Well, John takes the kettle... puts water in it. How much? 13 seconds. Turn the stove to boil. Wait. 1 minute and 47 seconds. How does John stand waiting? Teabags. Cupboard. Left. Up. Black. One sugar. Brown mug. There. Wait. Saucer. Good.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
27 June (again)
"John, I made you tea." Sherlock made tea? John thought incredulously. He took the mug, pleasantly warm, and smelled the liquid inside.
"John, it's tea. I promise."
"Fine. Just checking." He took a sip. All of a sudden, John gagged, stood and covered his mouth.
"What did I do?" Sherlock said sadly. John dropped the mug, which he had been holding in his other hand, it shattered on the ground, and John ran to the toilet. Sherlock followed him. There he was, crouched over the toilet and heaving up the sparse dinner he'd had the night before.
"You...don't have to be here," John said hoarsely.
"I'm not averse to the smell," Sherlock answered simply. He knelt next to John and rubbed his back, because it felt like the right thing to do.
"It was my favourite sodding mug, too."
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
His tumour was inoperable. It continued to grow.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
13 July
"Sherl-l-l," John began to say as he walked unsteadily up the stairs. His balance had declines sharply over the last two weeks or so. Usually Sherlock would help him up the stairs, but he wasn't forthcoming. He frowned. "Sh-sh-sh..." he said. He'd always been able to say Sherlock's name. Even as all the other words became more difficult and sometimes he couldn't even answer yes or no, he could always get Sherlock's name out. He'd said it often enough before all this that perhaps it was ingrained in his tongue. "Sher. Sher. Sher." John began to cry. And he hated himself for it.
Mrs. Hudson walked up behind him on the stairs and tentatively asked what was wrong. "I can't t-t-talk," he moaned. "Is he home?" She knew who he meant.
"No. He went out awhile ago. Do you want me to walk you up?" John was sorely tempted to shout damn my leg like he had on their first meeting, but he was afraid he would stop in the middle of it to stutter and ruin the effect.
"Yeah. Thanks," he said instead. Suddenly there were footsteps on the stoop, and Sherlock's voice came through the door.
"Mrs. Hudson!" he shouted.
"Coming, dear! Hold on tight there, John. I'll just be a moment." She went to unlock the door, and Sherlock stepped in with one arm full of bags of blood, or what looked like it, anyway and the other one full of books. He saw John on the stairs and promptly set down all the things he'd been carrying.
"I can take him up, Mrs. Hudson." And he did. He made sure John didn't topple over one way or another. Sherlock sat John down on his armchair and went down to get his things. When he returned, John was standing by the window. "Why are you standing? Sit," Sherlock chastised. He sounded almost caring, most definitely not like Sherlock, in that moment.
Then John took two strong steps in entirely the wrong direction and kissed Sherlock full on the mouth. There was a pause, one half of a heartbeat, and then Sherlock wrapped his arms about the rapidly thinning doctor, carefully allowing him space to extricate his own arms. He was wondering when John would get around to expressing his obvious infatuation. One thing he hadn't anticipated, however, was the fact that he liked it.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
I haven't much time. My tumour is growing. I'm declining. I...I want to make the most of what I've got. Sherlock is what I've got. He's been here for me now that I'm sick. And I love him. That bastard. Even though he forgets that I'm sick, and even though he made me clean up that mug I broke while he put the blood in the microwave to study splatter patterns... I still love him.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
13 July (again)
"What was that for?" Sherlock said, once he'd broken the kiss off. John revelled in the slightly breathless feel of the words.
"Because I'm d-d-dying," John stuttered.
"No. You won't die. John. I can't promise. But I'll try. I'll take you apart, and put you back together again, if it would help." Instead of a reply, John stood on his tiptoes and kissed that man again. It was much more expressive, now that his words wouldn't work anymore.
"Why are you wet?" John asked, because he'd pressed against Sherlock tightly enough that his shirtfront was damp.
"It was raining outside," Sherlock answered. "I see that the cancer has encroached on your frontal lobe and impeded your judgement."
"My judgement is just fine, thanks," John protested, and Sherlock loved the fact that his lips were redder than usual.
"Mmm, I beg to differ." This time, it was Sherlock who leaned down.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
20 July
The skinny, dark-haired detective and the sickly, grey-haired doctor. Well, John had less hair than he might have, but it had not yet left completely. He dreaded the day.
"Sherlock?" John said tentatively.
"Yes?" he responded.
"I...I don't want to do chemotherapy anymore." Sherlock looked up from his microscope.
"Why?"
"I just c-c-can't. It's not helping," John said.
"So you'll die. And leave me alone." Sherlock sounded choked. "You can't leave me."
"You left me! You left me alone f-f-for two years and you've only been back for t-two months and..." John stopped to breathe. Then, because it was Sherlock's favourite when he managed to be surprising, he went to peck Sherlock on the lips.
As soon as their lips met, Sherlock swung his weak husk of a John and pressed him up against the wall and snogged the sense out of him. And then, he knew that he could never deny John anything.
Even death.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
1 August
John quit his job at the practice and told his coworkers- well, just his doctors now, that he no longer wished to submit himself to chemotherapy. He tagged along with Sherlock to Scotland Yard when he was able, but that was becoming less and less possible as time went on. Lestrade, Molly, even Donovan and Anderson were so kind to him. He hated it. Something about the cells in his brain, and it changed all these people? He used it to his advantage, projecting their false goodwill to Sherlock.
"John? Do you need a glass of water or something? It's hot out here," Donovan asked.
"I've survived worse in Afghanistan. Sherlock looks dehydrated, though, and you know he won't ask for any."
And so on.
This day he couldn't rouse himself to go outside. Even the light from the incandescent bulbs on the ceiling gave him headaches. So he lay down on the couch and thought. It made his head hurt. Or maybe it wasn't the thinking, just the cancer.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
What small improvement had been made in the chemotherapy sessions John had had was gone within the next month. He stumbled with every step and he spoke less and kept his eyes closed even when he was inside. Sherlock cared for him as best as he was able, but he was no doctor and everything just kept getting worse. And even though Sherlock was usually a man of few words, he began to speak for John. He was the first one of them to introduce them as a couple.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
25 December
It was Christmas. Finally. Sherlock was, well, a little boy when it came to Christmas. He woke John up at an obscene hour (5:32) and rolled him over with the ridiculously exuberant exclamation, "It's Christmas, John!"
"I'm aware. And I'm tired."
"But Mycroft left us presents." John sat up and let the sheets fall off his shoulders. Sherlock's eyes widened. John cracked one eye open. He saw Sherlock's expression and his eyes flitted down before realising that his own chest was completely bare.
"Erm...I got hot during the night," John said by way of explanation.
"Fine by me. Just don't get cold." The both of them went to the sitting room, where Mycroft had, apparently, set up a Christmas tree and put presents underneath it. Almost as soon as John had moved from his bed he got cold. But he couldn't give Sherlock the satisfaction of knowing.
But Sherlock was Sherlock and he knew anyway. So they snuggled on the couch and Sherlock got up every once in awhile to grab another present and they would sit up to unwrap it.
After many opulent gifts from Mycroft, whom they had jokingly begun to call Father Christmas, John kept forgetting to pay attention. After a present or two when he simply stared off into the distance, Sherlock knew what was coming next.
John started tugging at Sherlock's shirt and making little mumbling noises. He stood and staggered in the direction of the kitchen, but Sherlock held him about the waist so that he wouldn't accidentally hurt himself with a knife or something. He began to twitch. Sherlock, who had studied seizures before, wasn't as fazed as he could have been, but seeing John without possession of his wits was disturbing. He gurgled like an infant and grasped at the air with his hand.
"John. John! Can you hear me? You're having a seizure. John?" Sherlock became flustered. John wasn't regaining consciousness as fast as he'd expected. A few final, terrifying convulsions. A moment of silence, of awful tension. A gasp.
"Sherlock..." John whispered.
"John. I've got you. John. Sit up." Sherlock rambled and fussed over John's head.
"I'm c-c-cold."
"Yes. Right. I'll get you a shirt." John slumped in the armchair while Sherlock reached over to a half-unopened gift which contained a wooly jumper. Sherlock carefully worked John's arms into the sleeves and pulled it over his head.
"Happy Christmas, Sherlock." John said, as if nothing had happened. For his sake, Sherlock said back gently,
"Happy Christmas." he paused, then said "Do I get a present from you?" Shifting closer to John, he wasn't exactly being covert about when he wanted.
"You already saw me topless. And we had a good snuggle." John played dumb.
"Oh, shut up." So they did a bit more than snog.
But it was their last Christmas.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Sherlock had become a different man in the months that he'd been back. As he had feared, love was a dangerous disability. A disadvantage. Yet he was conflicted. How could he hunt Moran down if he stayed home to work on the mundane cases Lestrade could give him and to tend to John? As much as he liked to stay home and talk with John, he didn't think he could stand having Moran alive any longer. Any moment could be John's last. Any moment could be Sherlock's chance.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
5 January
John took a turn for the worse. After his second seizure of the new year, Sherlock hailed a cab and took John to the hospital. The nurses there were very dull. The only reason he didn't raise his voice at them and tell them they were stupid was because it might set John off. But they sent him home after they realised that he was cancerous.
"Can't you do anything?" he asked. Hopelessly.
"No. If he's not doing chemotherapy, this will happen. Just be prepared," she answered him like she'd doubtless answered many others.
"Nothing at all?" Sherlock wanted to refuse to cry, but he couldn't.
"He has the right to make his own medical decisions. I'm sorry. You can't do anything he doesn't want to do." Sherlock's eyes glinted. He took John home as soon as he was allowed.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
8 January
"John, I'm bored." He'd discarded his violin and attempted Cluedo, but nothing he did was satisfying. But he had a plan.
"I know," John sighed.
"Will you marry me?" Sherlock said softly.
"What?" John exclaimed.
"I said-" Sherlock began again. John had been having hearing problems, so he was fine saying things twice. He would have liked John to hear that one the first time, though.
"No, I heard you, b-b-but why?" John had a real sense of accomplishment when Sherlock shut up for a moment.
"Because I want to marry you before you die."
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
If I marry him, I can make medical decisions for him when he gets too bad to do it for himself. I can save him, even if he doesn't want to be saved.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
16 January
"Mycroft, you have to make this okay," Sherlock pleaded.
"What's happened? He changed you," Mycroft avoided the question.
"Please, My. I need this. He needs this."
"Does he even know why you want to marry him?" Of course Mycroft had figured it out. Brat.
"...No."
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
18 January
"It's set! We're to be married on the twelfth of March."
"You w-w-wonderful man," John humoured Sherlock's enthusiasm, but in truth he wasn't looking forward to the duties that had to be undertaken now.
"We're going to get you a suit." Just what he was talking about. They went out to some suit place that even Sherlock knew was a bit too vogue for them and asked the man for a fitting.
He thought they were buying him a death suit. Sherlock told him that later.
It didn't seem to matter.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on. I'm not sure how much longer Sherlock can stay with me. I just want to die already.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
I'm not sure how much longer he can hold on. I'm not sure how much longer I can stay by his side. He mustn't die.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
26 January
It was one of John's good days. Sherlock's good days rarely coincided with John's, and this day, unfortunately, wasn't one of them. So when John asked to move their wedding up, Sherlock didn't take it particularly well.
"Why? March the twelfth is perfect."
"Becau-because."
"Not a reason."
"Please?"
"No," Sherlock said stubbornly.
"Why?"
"This conversation has come full circle." John pouted when Sherlock said that.
"Fine."
"John, why are you so adamant about this? God, why can't you just accept the fact that we're engaged and deal with the date?"
"I bet you wish you'd n-never proposed at all!" John was done with his sour mood.
"How could you say that? You're so dull."
"Then don't marry me, because cancer is pretty damn dull, too. If throwing up everything you eat and not being able to walk without a cane and having hearing problems even though you're only 38 is more fun then I dare you to take it from me," John was livid.
"I don't want your abnormal cells. If you'd done chemotherapy, this wouldn't have happened."
"How would sodding chemotherapy help all this? I love you, Sherlock, and I don't want to die before I can commit to you."
"Fine," Sherlock gave in. John caught him later with four nicotine patches on his arm, passed out.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
It wasn't quite what either of them had expected, being somewhat sooner than they had planned. But they were married at the end, and that was all that mattered.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
8 February
"Sherlock?" John asked, in an unwilling echo of the 20th of July, the day he refused chemotherapy.
"What is it?"
"I can't do this anymore," John had reached a point where his bad days far outnumbered his good ones and he was miserable almost constantly, even with Sherlock finally his husband. Which, he had to admit, was exhilarating.
"Do what anymore?" Sherlock asked, although he very well knew what John was asking.
"I want to kill myself, Sherlock." Sherlock closed his eyes, the way he did when he was working on a case and couldn't narrow down the options. Slowly, he nodded.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Sherlock managed to obtain just enough oxycodone to kill a man like John. And even though he had the required amount, he gave John a little less. John knew, he thought, that what he had been given was not quite enough. He still hoped, however foolishly.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
14 February
Sherlock was starting to hope that maybe John had forgotten about the pills. He took a chance and took a case, promising to only be gone for half the day, imploring that he not do anything stupid.
"Don't worry, Sherlock. I'll be fine," John said happily. Sherlock started out the door. "I love you!" he heard.
"Goodbye, John," he replied, and left for work.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
The note read: I couldn't do it anymore. Cancer got the best of this tough old soldier. But know: I will always love you. Don't blame yourself, please. I had to do this myself. x John
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
14 February (again)
Sherlock cried. Strange how John was the only reason he ever cried, not pretending. He could see John's final hours spelled out in the flat's walls.
He'd made tea. Of course he'd made tea. His John, making tea. The best sound in the world.
And then he'd taken the pills. One by one, all five of them. Even the ones that were hidden.
Then, as the oxycodone wormed its way to every part of his body, he'd dressed himself in his suit. That suit the man had assumed was for his death. It was, now.
Sherlock knew that in his very last moments, he'd written the note. He'd been John's dying thought. And despite John's pleas that he not blame himself, he did. He looked at the lifeless, cancer-riddled body of his husband.
"Happy Valentine's Day, John."
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
17 February
"I'm sorry, Sherlock."
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"If there's anything I can do, let me know." The voices of so many different people crowded his mind palace. He wanted to sit, alone, in one of the corners of Fort Watson and never get up again. But he couldn't do that when he was standing at the front of a chapel with John's body in a casket beside him and all these people kept offering up their false condolences.
"Shut up. Shut up! Just leave. John...he's not gone," As soon as he said it, he was ashamed. Again, a man like him, brilliant, going through the stages of grief. The normality was sickening.
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John... you can't be gone. What am I without you?
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I wish I'd never met you. Then none of this would have affected me. I hate you!
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If I'd been home, he wouldn't have taken the pills. This is all my fault. I took the case.
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18 February
Sherlock took a case. He finished it. It was unsatisfying.
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19 February
Sherlock thought that perhaps nothing would ever be the same. He shot the wall twice. It was unsatisfying.
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22 February
Sherlock told himself he could carry on. He found that he couldn't. He slept in John's bed because it still smelled like him.
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28 March
"Lost without your blogger, Holmes? Want your Johnny back from the dead?"
"Shut up, Moran," Sherlock snarled.
"Too bad cancer got him. I could have made his death much more fun to watch," Sebastian Moran taunted.
"I said shut up! Be quiet or I'll shoot you!"
"Thought you were going to shoot me anyway," Moran clicked his tongue. "Indecisive, Mr. Holmes." Sherlock pulled the trigger.
It was so easy.
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Sherlock was broken. John was gone, Moran was, too, and now he had nothing to live for. Mrs. Hudson found that he was sleeping less and eating less, and if he wasn't careful, she thought, he might just die.
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5 April
"Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock called. Just a moment before there had been a gunshot, but Mrs. Hudson hadn't appeared in the doorway, because she assumed that it was just the wall.
"Oh, Lord! Sherlock, what have you done?" There was blood all over the floor, and Sherlock was clutching his shoulder. The gun lay on the couch.
"It was irrational, I know. Please help me to a cab. I believe I need to go to the hospital," he said breezily, as if it was all business as usual.
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6 April
He came home the next day with a crisp white bandage on his shoulder and a determination to be the man he was before John. Nevertheless, he stayed broken. The cases he solved helped him forget John, but somewhere in that mind of his, Fort Watson still stood. And as much as he hated himself for it, he felt freer now that he wasn't whole. He wasn't tied down with love, with sentimentality. Now that he'd killed for his grief, it was gone. He felt light.
Enfin