Written for the third Let's Write Sherlock challenge: 'Write a fic based on music'. I chose 'All Your Gold' by Bat for Lashes.
Twenty-six months after Sherlock Holmes' body hit the pavement outside St Bart's Hospital, someone wearing his face turned up at John Watson's door.
His eyes were light and his features sharp, just like Sherlock. He was tall and pale and had a mop of unruly curls atop his head, just like Sherlock. His hands were long and elegant, and his posture was poised, and his clothes were crisp, and his mouth twitched just so, just like Sherlock.
And when he said 'John', his voice moved passed his full lips in a rumble that made the addressed man's hair stand on end... just like Sherlock.
Though, it wasn't Sherlock. It couldn't be Sherlock. Of this, John was certain. Because he went to a funeral for Sherlock. He wept like he had never wept in his life for Sherlock. Because for this man to be who he so appeared, John Watson would have to have been living a lie.
There were words exchanged between John and this most convincing apparition; breathy and disjointed on John's part, clear and succinct on the other's. For every question he asked, John received a comprehensive and convincing answer, and little by little his certainty that this could not be his long since departed friend shrunk and gave way to a new possibility:
This was indeed Sherlock, back from a death that never was. And John Watson was a fool.
Soon enough John reined control over his breathing, and disbelief turned to anger. Sherlock saw the change in him as clearly as he would a traffic light warning him to stop, and so changed his approach from an informed explanation of events to a placating explanation of his reasonings and motives.
It did nothing to temper John's temper as the swiftly delivered right hook to Sherlock's jaw acted as proof.
John stood in silence for a few moments over the body of his former friend who lay sprawled in the entryway to his flat, unable to feel satisfied by the expression of shock adorning the man's face.
'Get out', he said without inflection and with a forceful tone the likes of which Sherlock had never heard directed at himself before. It stunned him almost as much as the punch had.
John twitched as if intending to bend over and grab Sherlock by the lapels so as to throw him through the open doorway, but decided against it almost immediately; the thought of touching the man again making his stomach turn.
Voice rendered useless by all that had transpired, Sherlock stood in silence and looked at John, really looked at him, to determine just how much his friend meant what he had said.
When he found no uncertainty in John's expression, he looked away and nodded minutely, more for his own benefit than anything else, before turning slowly and exiting the small, bland, so-very-unlike-221B flat.
It wasn't until the door was firmly shut that John fell to his knees, clutching his stomach, and tried to will his lungs to work through the oncoming panic attack.