Disclaimer: I (sadly) don't own Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Benedict Cumberbatch, or Martin Freeman. Respective credits go to the BBC and to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The first time I walked in on John crying by himself in the apartment, I was extremely worried. That is, until I found out the reason.
It seemed preposterous to me that he –a war veteran, of all people- could become a blubbering mass of incoherent tears over a piece of fiction. Movies, television series, paperbacks… every media seemed to have that one story which could make my flat mate weep. I found it ridiculous.
"I know it's stupid," he had tried to explain to me, sniffling after every-other word. "But I can't help it and I think that's what makes me… knowing I shouldn't but not being able not to… it is what causes me to… I don't know if I'm making any sense," he concluded with a teary, self-conscious chuckle. I did not answer. I understood. Impotency was a terrible feeling to have, one that could reduce the bravest of men to a sniveling mess. I should know. It had happened to me.
The next few times it happened, I still worried, but my concerns were often cut short by John holding up the book or DVD case of whatever he was crying over this time. I would often roll my eyes, utter a synonym for "preposterous" under my breath, and go into the kitchen to prepare a cuppa for myself and one for John. After a few minutes, he would join me, and between sips of tea and hiccups he would tell me exactly why he had reacted with tear shed. I told him several times that he was being masochistic. Every time, he answered with a smile and a murmured "I know."
One day, I walked in after I had solved a minor case (woman hired a hit man to kill her husband so she and her lover could get married; child's play) and found John on the couch, eyes glued to his laptop's screen, a sparkly trail of fresh tears decorating his cheeks. I scanned his position quickly: it had not been a character with terminal illness, for he usually clutched his throat when such an event happened, as if he could somehow swallow the illness along with the lump in his windpipe. It had not been a sudden love declaration; if it were, he would clasp a hand –or both, depending on the intensity of the characters' amorous tension- over his mouth to suppress the high-pitched and frankly girlish squeals he normally emitted in those cases. No… he had a hand on his chest, balled up into a fist over his heart, as though bracing himself for a blow that would hurt and resonate within his very soul. Sudden character death, then.
I gazed at my friend for a few seconds. Whatever he was reading (there was no sound coming from the speakers and he detested headphones, so it had to be a textual activity) must be very strong, emotionally speaking. I had never heard him sob so much. I went into the kitchen to brew some lavender tea. He would need something extremely soothing, I could tell. I poured the tea and sat a t the kitchen table, waiting. Finally, I heard him close the laptop and walk towards the kitchen. He paused, red-eyed and sniveling, at the threshold.
"Thanks," he said, eyeing his mug appreciatively. I handed it over to him.
"No problem," I replied with a brief smile. We took simultaneous sips from our tea as he gathered his thoughts and I waited for the inevitable summary of fictional grief that was sure to follow. Except the clock ticked on, and John was still silent. Too silent.
"Must've been a real tear-jerker you were reading," I prompted. He nodded, quietly tilting the last few drops of tea this way and that.
"Worse than 'Somewhere in Time'?" I asked with a smirk. Nothing had ever topped 'Somewhere in Time'. John's eyes had glazed over for weeks after watching the movie, and he still sighed with heartbreak if I played the theme song in my violin. I did it once in a while, just to bother him.
To my surprise, he nodded again. I let out a low whistle. Whatever it was, it had to be the epitome of sadness to overpower that movie.
"Care to share?" I probed, genuinely curious now. He shook his head.
"You'd have to read it to understand," he said. I groaned. I had little time or interest for John's sentimentalist nonsense, especially when most of the stories required a investment of several hours to "really get it". I'd much rather he gave me the summarized adventures of the alien and the blonde who ended up in different universes than watch the show.
He shrugged apologetically, but I could see in his eyes that he really wanted to share this with me direct and completely. I gulped down the remainders of my tea and leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers touching in front of my mouth like they do when I concentrate.
"Alright, then. Show me," I said. He hesitated for a moment, as if wondering whether or not this was a good idea, and then went to fetch his laptop from the living room. He sat across from me, opened the laptop, and twirled it around for me to see.
To my astonishment, it was his own blog he was showing me.
The entry itself was short and choppy, like it had been written in a hopeless attempt to purge the author's mind of a grief that could simply not be put into words. The title, too, was short, consisting of only three words: the Reichenbach Fall.
"John," I started softly, vaguely guessing where this was going.
"Just read it," he ordered quietly, not even looking at me.
I pushed the laptop aside. "I don't need to, I was there."
"But you don't know what I felt," he replied, shoving the written account of my crime against him right under my nose, so I could not ignore the words screaming at me from the screen. I closed the damn thing and put it on a spare chair for good measure, so there was nothing but the table between John and I.
"But I do know, John," I said, my hands reaching forward in an almost unconscious attempt to be closer to him. "Your face that day as I stood on the ledge and your words at my grave…"
"You were listening?" he interrupted, annoyance momentarily taking over his features. I nodded. He sighed and looked away, a little blush of embarrassment creeping unto his cheek.
"They told me all I needed to know," I concluded, coughing a little at the end to hide the obstruction in my throat. We were silent for a long minute.
"Then why didn't you say something," he asked finally, his voice so low I was afraid to be imagining it. He turned to me, fresh tears brimming in his eyes. I was astonished as to how he had not dehydrated yet; he had had a particularly emotional week.
"Three years, Sherlock," he continued, his voice uncharacteristically soft and hesitant. "Three years I had to convince myself you were dead because I couldn't… wouldn't believe it. And then, when I was finally coming to terms with everything…" John trailed off, shaking his head perhaps at me, perhaps at himself.
I don't really know or understand why I did what I did next. I am but human, as much as I might not appear so, and even with my years of cautious self-training I am still susceptible to throes of overwhelming sentiment now and then. Or perhaps it was a conscious decision; my mind sometimes works much too fast for even me to keep up. Whatever the case, I stood up from my chair, went around the table, and pulled my friend into a hug. He resisted at first, his soldier instincts still strong after years out of the battlefield, but as the action registered into his brain, he became motionless from shock.
"Sherlock?" he asked warily, his tone mimicking the one he had used to greet me when I finally reappeared at Baker Street.
"It was the only way, John," I said, reassuring both him and myself of the truth with which I had justified my actions. "Had there been some other solution, I would've seen it, but… they had to see me –you had to see me- dead. Only as a dead man could I track down every last bit of Moriarty's web and make sure they could never hurt you," I told him, a bit of venom entering my voice when I mentioned my enemy's name. I felt John turn his face away from me, trying to pull away from my embrace. I gripped his shoulders, urging him to look at me.
"I'm here now, though," I said. "And I'm not leaving anytime soon. There are no decent flats in London and moving out would be so tedious…."
He stared into my eyes as I trailed off, trust slowly coming back to his gaze.
"So you're here," he said. I nodded.
"For real?" he asked. I nodded again. He dropped his eyes, nodding, understanding, and then punched me in the face hard enough that I had to cling unto a chair so as not to fall.
"Ow!" I complained. He looked smugly at me.
"Just had to double-check," he said, grinning. I held his eyes for a second, and then we both broke out into laughter. It hurt, but I welcomed the pain in my cheek. It reassured me that we were laughing over something real, and not just over a piece of fiction.