Warning(s): Spoilers (sort of) for "A Study in Pink," pre-slash wonderings, mild descriptions of violence (war-damaged!John), excessive overuse of italicized words.
A/N: A couple of things of note! Firstly, this is my first Sherlock fic. I was enraptured by certain events in the first episode and wanted to flex my fic-writing muscles since I've not been active in any fandom for the last 4 years. I hope I did their voices justice - a wonderful challenge to try to capture them. Secondly, many thanks and shiny, fluffy hugs to greywings, who was kind enough to beta this story for me. Thirdly, the title derives from the lyrics of The Alternate Routes' "Carry Me Home" - a song that I've been listening to a lot lately, and it just seemed to be appropriate for these two gents of derring-do! And finally, there's a potential for spoilers if you've not seen the first episode, so, watch the first episode first. Enjoy!
Archived here, on LiveJournal and at AO3.
Disclaimer: This version of the 'verse belongs to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, source material is the public domain, etc., etc. I'm not making any money here - just playing in someone else's sandbox!
You're not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson. You miss it.
John closes his eyes. He sees the scorching Afghani desert painted in shimmering waves on his eyelids, burned there. He sees bullets flying and men running, hiding, dying, firing weapons in anger, hatred, desperation. He sees the dusty earth coming up to meet him as he spins, hot coals in his shoulder, falls to the earth in a tangle of limbs and blood and pain. He feels his leg give a twinge, his hands start to shake.
He sees his spartan, empty flat. He sees the blinking cursor as he tries, god why is it so hard, to fill the empty text box with something worth writing about. He sees his therapist looking at him with that mix of pity and frustration that says she isn't as detached and professional as she claims to be. He sees the inside of the mortuary, the inside of a cab, the inside of this flat.
John opens his eyes.
As a military man, John appreciates order, cleanliness. He appreciates frugality. But this flat, with its chaotic clutter, its messiness, suddenly seems to John so much more normal than anything he's ever experienced. It's a different sort of chaos, almost familiar, and because it feels so familiar John wonders if he really does miss the war after all.
He clenches his hands between his thighs to stop them shaking. Or at least, to stop Sherlock from noticing them shaking.
Because Sherlock will notice eventually. How could he not notice? He notices everything.
Well, thinks John with a grimace, almost everything.
"Married to your work, are you, you sod?" he mutters under his breath just as Sherlock comes bounding up the stairs with that intent look he gets when there's detecting to do. John looks up at him and dimly wonders, not for the first time, what he's gotten himself into with his self-deprecating humor. Who'd want me for a flatmate, indeed. Idiot.
"What are you sitting there for, John? Lestrade's just texted. They're up to their necks in body parts and haven't a clue where to start." Sherlock's eyes are alight. "The idiots," he adds almost fondly, "the smartest thing they've done today is ask for my help." And he turns and runs back down the stairs.
John hears his voice coming up to him from a million miles away: "Come on then, John. Don't you want your hands to stop that incessant trembling?"
John bites off an angry retort. No, no, it wouldn't do to snap at Sherlock for being himself, though surely Sherlock knows exactly what his words do to John. He stands, grabs his coat, and stumbles down the stairs after the madman he lives with, barely a thought for what he's doing in his head. He catches up with Sherlock on the curb, where he is frantically waving down a cab, and when they pile in Sherlock's leg presses against John's and John looks up into Sherlock's face and wonders, What if I'm part of your work, then? What does that mean for me?
John experiences a moment of excruciating, terrifying panic when he looks across the space between buildings and realizes he's got the wrong one.
The second he realizes that Sherlock is in there with the killer, and is clearly about to swallow a pill, panic vanishes as if it never were, and in panic's place comes a chilly calm that John didn't think he'd ever be capable of feeling. It was as if the entire universe shifted around him in that moment, all the little pieces falling into place inside his head and everything goes silent and cold and sure, and my god, is this what it feels like to be Sherlock when he's figured something out, it must be, it must, his gun is in his hand and he's sighting down the cold, clean lines of it and everything is exactly as it should be and there is not a thing in the world that could stop him from pulling the trigger.
The cabbie goes down. Sherlock drops his hand, starts to turn. Sherlock is out of danger, and John runs as fast as his legs will carry him, no limp now, knowing that if Sherlock sees him, sees the look that must be on his face, he will know, just as John does, why John has done what he's done.
And until John can come to grips with that himself, he'll be damned if he lets Sherlock Holmes figure it out.
John stares at Sherlock sitting in the back of the ambulance and thinks he looks a little lost. John feels a little like a kicked puppy and can't explain the feeling to himself, so he stands apart and watches, because if he starts to examine why he suddenly feels so rejected he's certain to go barmy. He watches Lestrade come over, watches him start talking to Sherlock. He sees that look on Sherlock's face that says he's onto something really spectacular, and oh, isn't that curious, and then Sherlock looks up and sees John and looks him right in the eye and actually stops talking for a moment, actually looks like he flounders, and abruptly stands and brushes Lestrade off and strides over to John with such intent that it takes John's breath away.
"Are you all right?"
John's response is automatic. "Yes of course I'm all right."
"You have just killed a man," Sherlock explains, as if John didn't realize what he'd done, and in the back of his mind John adds for you, I killed him to save you, but of course he doesn't say so out loud.
"Yes, I… that's true, isn't it?" he says instead, for lack of something better to say, and as they walk on suddenly John can't help himself, he is so irrationally angry that he just blurts out: "You were going to take that damn pill, weren't you?"
Sherlock looks positively cheerful. "Of course I wasn't," he says, "Biding my time. Knew you'd turn up."
"No, you didn't," John says. He can't believe how angry he feels and he really can't believe that Sherlock doesn't seem to notice. A light bulb flickers on in John's head. "That's how you get your kicks, isn't it? Risking your life to prove you're clever." I so wish you wouldn't. Do things like that, I mean.
Sherlock's face crinkles with amusement. "Why would I do that?" he asks innocently, and John practically snarls.
"Because you're an idiot."
Sherlock just laughs
"John, come have a look at this."
It's always orders with Sherlock, that expectation that John will do as he is told, and most of the time John does. He likes to think that Sherlock assumes John will come when he's called, just like some faithful, tail-wagging lapdog, John, you silly sod, but he knows better. He knows that Sherlock would ask him to do things if Sherlock thought that would produce a response.
John crosses the room to where Sherlock is crouching over the stump of some poor git's severed arm and follows Sherlock's slender finger to the ragged edge of what is undoubtedly a wound made with a bone-saw. The pop of a flash bulb sounds dimly in John's hearing.
"What do you make of this, John?" Sherlock asks him, his eyes coming up to look at John with genuine curiosity. As if John's thought process is more important than the answer he gives. As if Sherlock needs to know that John is at least reading from the same book most of the time. As if Sherlock needs his opinion. The thought, inexplicably, makes John feel warm all the way to his bloody toes.
He looks back at the arm and suddenly, desperately needs to impress this brilliant man. He needs it so badly he thinks that maybe he really is seeing the wrong therapist because she clearly hasn't caught on to this yet.
"Um. Bone saw?" he hazards, looking back up at Sherlock and wondering if he'll ever be able to come close to touching the blazing light of the detective's intellect, his frenetic energy when his mind is piqued.
"Yes, yes," Sherlock says, waving a languid hand, "but what else, John, what else do you notice?"
John looks again, frowns, shrugs. "Looks like a clean job, to be honest," he murmurs, "definitely someone who –"
"Knew precisely what he was doing, yes, of course!" Sherlock slaps a hand to his forehead and stands, starts striding over to Detective Inspector Lestrade. He stops, spins, and gives John a radiant smile. "Brilliant, John," he says, and when he turns and walks away John feels something heavy sitting on his chest stand up and walk away, too.
He realizes that Sherlock says his name an awful lot.
Never "Watson." Never "Doctor." Never even "Doctor Watson." Just… John.
Always John.
In the little world that John now occupies, he thinks this fact is somehow so much more significant than all the others, somehow the most important fact. In the little world that John shares with Sherlock Holmes, he thinks it's strange – curious, even – that this fact has escaped the notice of a man whose sole purpose in life is to notice things.
Not everything, he doesn't notice everything, John thinks, and takes a long swallow of his tea.
John closes his eyes. He sees the grisly aftermath of a truck bomb, pieces of people littered across the sand, and he can't detach, he can't wrap his mind around the bits of blood and brain that only moments before were contained inside someone's skull, and he's there, he feels the heat and the dust in his mouth like ash and smells the god-awful smell of meat left out a touch too long and his hands are shaking and it's a good thing he's sitting down, isn't it, since his leg is hurting real bad and suddenly everything changes and he's looking at the same picture but somehow Sherlock is there, Sherlock has inserted himself into the quiet memory of John's private little Hell, and he stands amidst the carnage and looks at it all in that separate way of his, that way that says he is merely cataloguing, analyzing, making order out of chaos and he looks up at John and suddenly John doesn't taste ash, he doesn't see chaos, he sees the meticulous order of everything and feels that cold, steady calm wash over him like he's sighting right down the barrel of his gun again, protecting the only man he's ever felt needed his protecting.
John opens his eyes.
Sherlock is right there, looking at him, nose only inches away, curious. His eyebrows rise slightly, as if to say, "Well, then? Whatever is going on in that head of yours?" As if he couldn't bloody deduce it for himself.
John says nothing, only stares, and Sherlock straightens and steps back. "Are you all right, John? Your breathing was a bit labored there for a minute."
"I…" John swallows, reaches for his mug of tea. "I'm fine," he finishes lamely. "It's fine." He gulps down the hot tea and scalds his tongue. He puts the mug back on the side table with great care.
"Hmm. Everything is always 'fine' with you, isn't it? I can tell you exactly why you aren't fine if you'd like."
John hears this and is ready to tell Sherlock that no, thank you very much, he doesn't feel like being picked apart at just this particular moment, when he realizes that Sherlock has not gone on in that incredibly arrogant way he has, has in fact stopped himself from explaining things to John that John probably hasn't even worked out for himself yet. John can see the effort it's taking Sherlock to hold this information all to himself, and is baffled. "If… if I'd like…?"
Sherlock takes this for permission. "You're bothered by something my brother said to you, something deeply personal, something to do with the war. You're wondering whether or not you've really left it all behind, especially since you've been spending so much time with me observing the violence of London's truly depraved souls. Your hands were shaking, which they always do when you're thinking about Afghanistan, but they stopped, which means you stopped thinking about Afghanistan and quite probably started thinking about working with me, since I've never seen your hands shake on a case." He steps closer to John, leans over him slightly. John can smell Sherlock's soap. "You're afraid that, rather than being merely acclimatized to violence, you actually enjoy it, and keep wondering what it is about me that makes you feel as though this is acceptable. You've been thinking that you've gotten yourself into heaps of trouble by agreeing to live with me, the largest heap being whether or not to tell me just why it is you were perfectly comfortable with killing a man in cold blood just to keep me from taking a pill that was, in all probability, most likely completely harmless."
Sherlock straightens again, but doesn't step away. John stares up at him for a moment before he splutters, "How do you… always… I – Hell, Sherlock, 'most likely harmless'? That's a bit like saying we most likely invaded Afghanistan, now, isn't it?"
"Am I right?" Sherlock asks, his voice suddenly very quiet.
"Are you ever not?"
"You do realize you say these things out loud, don't you?"
John sighs, exasperated. "Yes, I – yes." He stands, limps to the window, crosses his arms, uncrosses his arms, turns around. The expression on Sherlock's face is almost uncertain, as though one of his carefully crafted experiments is going horribly wrong in ways even his unparalleled mind couldn't predict, and John feels a surge of something hot and welcome and perfect claw its way up into his throat from his gut.
"You noticed," he says finally, slowly, and the uncertainty on Sherlock's face vanishes in an instant. The look that replaces it is that arrogant look he gets when he's proven something right, but John thinks he sees a bit of relief in there somewhere, too.
"I mean," John continues, wishing he knew what to do with himself, god why am I so awkward around him all the time, "you know. Of course you do, you know everything. You – notice everything. Why – why on earth didn't you say something sooner?"
"Because I rather like surprising you," Sherlock says, his chin tilting up defensively. "Heaven forbid either of us should ever get bored."
"I'm not really the one to worry about there," John mutters under his breath. To Sherlock, he says, "All right, fine. Yes. I killed him because, as brilliant as you are, you really can be superbly stupid sometimes." He sees Sherlock puff up as though to defend himself, but John plunges forward, "You have this gift, you see the whole world and everyone in it in a way that no one else on the planet does, and yet you deliberately put yourself in situations where you'll do yourself an injury or even get killed just to prove you're right." John throws up his hands. "Of course you're right! You're always right! You don't need to prove it to anybody! And," John adds, throwing whatever little pieces of caution he'd held close to his chest to the wind, "you haven't the right to get yourself killed because I haven't a clue what I'd do without you."
"Ah, of course, finding a new flatmate would be incredibly difficult given the state of clutter in this place…"
The sarcasm is too much for John.
"You know that's not what I meant," John says, voice like sharp knives. Sherlock looks away from John and shoves his hands deep in his pockets, looking suddenly uncomfortable. They stand frozen like this for minutes, hours, until John crosses the room to stand in front of Sherlock and says, soft as a sigh, "I killed him because if you died, I –"
"John," Sherlock says, still looking towards the wall he riddled with bullets in a fit of boredom, "I've told you, I'm married to my work –"
"Yes, and like it or not, now I'm part of your work. What do you have to say to that?"
John holds his breath. There it is. He's put it all out there, now, all of it that he's capable of taking out of the little box in his chest that he normally keeps under lock and key, he's laying each piece carefully out on the table for this brilliant, exuberant, infuriating man to examine and frantically hoping the conclusion that he comes to is one that John can live with.
Sherlock lets out a tiny breath, almost imperceptible, and says just loud enough for John to hear, "I say you'd better kiss me this instant, or I might change my mind."
John reaches out a steady hand and curls his fingers into the wild tangle of Sherlock's hair. "Gladly," he breathes, everything clicking into place in his head, falling all around him into perfect order as he pulls Sherlock down and presses Sherlock's mouth to his own.
It's not the war that John misses.
It's the feeling of sense and order that he now only feels when he is with Sherlock Holmes. It's knowing that, no matter how much the world may fracture and shatter apart, there are connections everywhere, threads leading to threads leading to threads, a great tapestry that he is happy to be a part of as long as Sherlock is there to illuminate it.
End.