Here's the thing- it only takes Sherlock a year to shut down Moriarty's operation.
It happens like this: After a wild goose chase through Western Europe Sherlock finally catches Sebastian Moran coming out of a bar in Shanghai. Sherlock is careless. Sebastian is inebriated, but quick, and he dislocates Sherlock's shoulder before slamming him against an alley wall and leaning in close. If he's surprised to see him he hides it well. His eyes are wild and roving and his breath stinks of death, "So good to see you, Mr. Holmes. I'd wondered who was taking out all of my men." He bares his teeth in a snarl, "Too bad for your Watson though- lord have I been looking for an excuse to kill him. What do his screams sound like? I'm sure you know. Did he beg when you two-?"
Sherlock grips the gun he has hidden in his pocket and shoots Moran through his coat. He's tired of listening to soliloquies. For once in his life he does not want to play the game.
He steals Moran's mobile before dumping his body. He's being sloppy, but Mycroft's men can deal with it. Half way to the airport he texts his brother. The phone feels like warm chocolate in his frigid hands. It takes Mycroft only moments to respond.
It will be taken care of.
Tickets have been purchased for your return.
Shanghai to London nonstop is an eleven-hour flight, and Sherlock doesn't sleep for a minute of it. He hasn't slept fitfully for nearly a year now but he knows that that will all be over with when he returns to Baker Street. Maybe John will make him a cuppa while he dozes on the couch. They'll have time for arguing later- plenty of time, now. He reclines his seat back as far as it can go and passes the time ignoring the other first class passengers.
There's a man in a black suit standing by the baggage claim. He looks casual enough, and he isn't carrying a sign, but the way his eyes flicker over the people streaming past him has Mycroft Holmes written all over it. His eyes meet Sherlock's and hesitate for a moment. Doubtless he had been given a picture, but Sherlock hardly looks the same as he did a year ago. The sweatshirt and short ginger hair would be enough to throw even John for a loop. He sidles up to the man, not breaking eye contact, "To who are you employed?" He asks.
"Mycroft Holmes, sir."
Sherlock nods and jerks his head in the direction of the exit. "I don't have any baggage."
The man nods. "This way."
"Your employer has insisted that I be dropped off at his home no matter what I request, hasn't he?"
"Yes, sir."
"I thought so." Sherlock says, and folds himself into the backseat of the car. He fiddles with Moran's phone until it dies and then closes his eyes. The man is dead, but something still feels unfinished. Something is not quite right.
Mycroft greets him at the door.
"Take me back to Baker Street." Sherlock demands.
His brother stares back, face perfectly unreadable. "Sherlock," He says, "There's something you should know."
It's not hard to find the café. Mycroft's assistant gives up the name of the woman's workplace after a fair bit of wheedling and he follows her from there. Her name is Mary Morstan, Mycroft had told him, and she is a publisher. She is short, shorter than John is, and has dark, cropped hair. He can tell from the way she walks that she is an only child and likes her job. When she arrives at the café she doesn't check her watch- she knows he will come- and orders two coffees. Sure enough, before hers even begins to cool John arrives.
It should be a relief to see him after all this time, it should be rain after a hot summer, but it is not. Sherlock is not the same man he was a year ago, and neither is John. Oh, how foolish Sherlock had been to think things would be the same. To think that things would be the same even though when he looks in a mirror he doesn't even recognize his own reflection.
John is turned the wrong way. Sherlock can't see his face. He thinks, "Look at me." even as he slumps deeper against the park bench. John would never realize it was him anyway.
The lunch is brief. Mary laughs a lot and John tips his head they way he does when he's suppressing a smile. It's not until they leave that Sherlock gets to see John's face. His mouth is split wide in a grin. Mary pecks him on the cheek before turning away but he grabs at her wrist and pulls her to him, their bodies pressed flush against each other. She tosses her head and titters out a laugh and he leans in and captures her mouth with his.
Watching someone you love kiss another is a bit like listening to your favorite song in a language you don't speak. The beat is familiar but the melody never quite fits like you think it will. Maybe that's why Sherlock turns away. Maybe that's why he doesn't look back.
And it's sad because what John doesn't know is this:
It was never a suicide note. It was a love letter.
It takes Mycroft almost a week to figure out where Sherlock's gone, and by the time he does Sherlock has already moved to New York and is living in a flat on East 66th and 2nd. Mycroft calls forty-seven times over the course of two weeks. He leaves a message asking Sherlock to return home each time. The forty-eighth time he forgoes the phone call and instead sends a text message that reads,
It's unlike you to be altruistic, brother.
Don't do anything rash.
Sherlock reads the message. He throws his phone off his balcony. He throws a tantrum. He screams, "I don't know how to be selfless!" even though he knows that's not the real name for what he's doing but it's better than the truth. When he goes down to pick up his phone the screen has cracked and he can't get it to turn on. It's no surprise- he lives on the 16th floor. He dumps it in a bin and is thankful he won't be able to hear from Mycroft anymore.
Time moves very slowly. New York is like London in the way that all large cities are like London- clueless tourists, grimy transportation- but at its heart it's not the same. The tube stations don't map out Sherlock's veins like they should, and the cabbies drive past him as if they know he doesn't belong there- as if he is a ghost. He does try though; he opens up a private detective agency under the name of Jonny Sigerson. He solves cases when they interest him and when they don't he uses Mycroft's credit card. He doesn't have access to a morgue anymore, but he can still do minor experiments and so he picks up some lab equipment and sets it up in his dining room. Fine, he lets himself echo, it's all fine. He's lying, but that's fine too. For a while he toys with the idea of trying to get the attention of the NYPD, but doubtless they would call the Yard and he can't risk it. He calls in anonymous tips instead. It's not the same, but John isn't there, so it's not much of a mystery why.
He makes a new hobby out of standing on his balcony and thinking of reasons not to jump. There aren't many. He doesn't though- maybe because there is one too many IOU carved into his heart- a heart that he has gone to great lengths to keep snuggled safe and protected in his chest. Maybe it's because when the wretched thing beats it beats only two words. Two words that are worth killing for- worth living for, too.
For John.
For John.
Six months after Sherlock moves to New York he gets a phone call. There's only one person who calls him anymore and so he lets it ring out two times before he puts his experiment down and picks up his phone. He's been in between cases, still trying to lay low, but nothing distracts him like it used to. He tells himself that the only reason he'll entertain Mycroft's calls is to alleviate the boredom, but he's always been too smart to believe his own lies.
"What?" He snaps, rolling an empty beaker between his fingers.
"Charming, Sherlock. Do you always greet people this way?"
"Is there a point to this, or have you taken to giving out social calls?"
"Hmm." Mycroft's voice is as smooth as the silk of the ties he wears. Sherlock can hear the rattle of his desk drawer as he opens it. He has something for Sherlock then- a case? He'll refuse and then solve it on his own time. Anything to break the boredom. "I just thought I'd let you know that I've been cordially invited to the marriage of John Watson and Mary Morstan."
Sherlock fights very hard to breathe. Not a case then. "Oh? I was lead to believe you two weren't on good terms."
"Perhaps, but times have changed. It might be prudent for you to come see so for yourself." Sherlock bites down on his sudden rage and his brother drawls on, "It would be appropriate for one of the Holmes family to go, as a... stand in, if nothing else."
"Well I'll tell Mummy to clear her schedule." Sherlock growls.
"No need," Mycroft says airily, "I've already confirmed I'll be there. Would you like me to sign your name on the gift?"
"Goodbye, Mycroft. Do try to stay to stay away from the wedding cake- you sound fat."
"Sherlock, wait." He doesn't know why he should, but his fingers hesitate over the end button anyway. "The wedding is on April 22nd. He would be so happy to see you again."
You don't know what makes John happy, he doesn't say, and hangs up. He puts his mobile down, buries his head in his hands, and tries to remember the time when he had a John Watson to come home to.
His sleep does not improve, as he had once hoped. Some nights, he wakes up absolutely certain that there are hidden enemies in his room; crouched in the closet, nestled in the shadows. They will kill him, they will find John, and they will take away anything that was ever important to him, of this he is sure- until he turns the light on, at least. In the mornings he's is able to identify them as what they are- night terrors- but in the night there is nothing more real.
One night, he awakens, not cold and breathless, but with the unquestionable certainty that someone is in the flat. He reaches for the gun in his bedside drawer and the cool of it stings his hands. When he gets to the doorway of the living room he sees that his kitchen light is on. If someone has broken into his flat and aims to kill him, it might just be the worst murder attempt in history. He crosses the room, levels his gun, and promptly freezes.
The intruder looks up from where she is fiddling with his sugar. She smiles down the barrel of the gun. "Hello," Says Irene Adler. "I wasn't sure how you took your coffee."
Irene is standing on his balcony. She's removed her stockings and heels and is smoking a cigarette. The delicate bone of her ankle twists this way and that as she tucks one foot behind the other. Her legs- naked, exposed- should interest him. Do they? Have they ever? No.
She turns to look at him, the cigarette dangling eloquently from her thin fingers. The corner of her mouth lifts and she breathes out, the smoke curling up, up, into the cold air of dawn. The sun is only just beginning its struggle into the sky and it stains her pale skin gold. "So, are you going to tell me?"
He takes a sip of his coffee. It's gone cold. "What?"
She crooks her hand at him, an offering, and he rises from the couch to receive it. "What happened to your doctor," She passes the cigarette to him as he joins her up against the railing, her mouth quirking. When she speaks it's all long, suggestive vowels. "Lovers tiff?"
"John was never my doctor." He says, and inhales.
April does roll around eventually, and Mycroft's assistant begins to texts him incessantly. They mainly consist of links to flights that would take him back to London by the 22nd, should he choose to take them, and his reply's become more and more vulgar to the point that he finally receives a text from Mycroft himself that reads,
My assistant has informed me that she will resign before she sends you another text message. I urge you to reconsider your decision.
Sherlock, of course, does not reply to this one. He doesn't know why Mycroft cares so much. The 22nd comes and goes, and Sherlock doesn't even look at plane tickets. There is no hesitation there. He lays draped across his couch for most of the day and counts the seconds in between Mycroft's phone calls. It's very tiring.
A few weeks later he receives a package in the mail. There's no return address but inside the manila envelope is a letter written in Mycroft's loopy, elegant scrawl. It was lovely, it says, He mentioned you when he saw me. He would have wanted you there. –Mycroft. Sherlock wonders what they talked about. He can't imagine it was a pleasant conversation. Underneath the note is a pile of photographs. They're of the wedding, obviously copies of the photographer's, and Sherlock flips through them quickly, pulling out two before disposing of the rest. The first is of John dancing with Mrs. Hudson. She looks inordinately pleased to be given so much attention, but John's not looking at her. He's staring over her shoulder, grinning at his wife, and he looks indescribably, obscenely happy. This one he puts in his drawer, with his gun, safe among his other precious things.
In the second, John's face is obscured, he's turned to whisper something in his wife's ear, but Mary is in full view. Her eyes are downcast, but her mouth is quirked in a small, secret smile, like she knows something no one else ever will. It is because she knows what it's like to love John Watson, and for him to love her back, in a way that is entirely beautiful and unique. It is a private moment. It is what love looks like.
This picture he tucks among the violin Mycroft had sent him, the one he never plays. His heart stutters, but he knows the sound. For John. He's doing this for John.
It's the middle of the night. Sherlock is screaming. There is someone in his closet.
He is half sat up in his bed and has his legs tucked in close to his to his chest. He can't move. The door to his closet is open just a sliver but he knows- he knows. He can hear Moran's heavy ale-scented breath. Can hear the sound of his gun as he cocks it. No. Moran is dead. He killed him. There is someone in his closet. Who? Who?
The door to his bedroom opens. Someone steps in. Sherlock screams wordlessly. He's drowning in it. He's going to die. He can't move. He can't breathe.
Help me.
Help me.
John?
Someone clicks his lamp on. It's Irene. The piercing, nauseating brightness makes him flinch but he can't close his eyes because he knows that there's someone in there- he knows. She stares at him. His screams catch and stutter in his throat as she crosses the room and throws the closet door open, shooing the monsters away. It's empty, save for his clothes, and she wastes no time toeing her heels off and climbing in between Sherlock's legs. She wraps her arms around his neck and brushes her lips across his jaw as he struggles for breath. Something clutches at Sherlock's chest then, dizzying and strange, but he is shaking too hard to identify it.
"Hush, love," Irene soothes, kissing across his cheekbones. "It was just a dream is all- just a dream." Her hands find their way underneath Sherlock's nightshirt and burn trails down his back. Sherlock's heart is pounding and even though he knows that it's empty he can't tear his eyes away from his closet. When Irene notices she pulls back and tugs at his jaw with her slender fingers. "Look at me." She orders. With great resistance he does, and only then does he realize how entangled they are; she is draped across him. In a rush he is finally able to identify the feeling that bubbles in his gut- it's disgust.
He rears up and shoves her from him violently. She's unceremoniously dumped to the floor. "Get off me." He rasps, shaking for another reason now.
"Sherlock!" She snaps, affronted, but when she stands and reaches for him he snarls.
"Don't touch me." He roars, full voice now, "I said get away from me."
He rises from the bed and her expression morphs, the soft pity gone. For a second, just a second, she looks afraid. "Sherlock." She tries again, and if he didn't know her better he would say she's pleading. But she's not- she's mocking him, he can see it in the suggestive quirk of her fingers. Oh god, he still feels her hands on him. His nausea doubles.
"Leave." He bellows, "Get out!"
He advances toward her. Their eyes lock. She leaves without her shoes. When he hears his front door slam his knees hit the floor.
It's the last he'll ever hear from Irene Adler.
Sherlock wakes up one day and it's been two years. He doesn't have it marked on a calendar but the date still crops up. Another Christmas passes. The people on the street below him grow loud and bright. He doesn't look at the photograph of John and his wife. He hopes that they have children. John would like children. He sits on his balcony until his hands go blue and numb and thinks about how happy John is without him. He burns cigarette after cigarette down to the filter and burns up his insides. Can you want someone for that long and not have it destroy you? Can you keep composed while the loss of them gets at you like the cold spot in a bed? Everything is always frigid outside the space your limbs take up, and you can feel it creeping on you, a constant threat.
People are supposed to move on.
Two years is a long time.
John would diagnose it; His case is a terminal one. He tips his head back and laughs.
It is not selflessness that keeps Sherlock away. He finally lets himself think it; it was never selflessness.
He lets his cigarette burn until his fingers blister and then he goes inside.
He doesn't like to think that he had loved him from the start because that sort of thing trivializes it. He didn't look John Watson in the eyes and Know because that's not how he works. He doesn't know when it started actually. Maybe he hadn't known until he'd had to jump.
No. That's not right, because there had been a moment, there, in the lab, just before, when John had looked him and said, "You machine." And Sherlock had wanted so desperately, more than he had ever wanted anything else, to push him up against that door and show how wrong he was. To press against him chest to chest so that John could feel the pounding of his heart and realize, realize what it meant. To breathe John's breath until there was no more air between them.
And he never really thought about it, but sometimes- well not really- but sometimes Sherlock wanted to be a little less extraordinary and a little more normal, because if he was then maybe he might understand why love felt like an exit wound, or why he was always cold in all the places he and John didn't touch.
He could have had John Watson. He could have done something.
But he was a coward, and then he jumped, and all of their time ran out.
Mycroft begins to text him again. The text messages are never important, or organized, and sometimes they don't make sense. Something is wrong. He begins to beg Sherlock to return at a more frenzied pace than he had before. Sherlock takes more cases to take his mind off of it, but they're never interesting, and so it never works for very long.
He receives the text on a Monday. It is from his brother's assistant.
Mary Watson passed away two days ago. My employer requests your return immediately.
Upon reading it, Sherlock stops tailing a subject. He takes a cab back to his flat, pays the man to wait, grabs his wallet and doesn't bother to lock the door. He doesn't know if he will ever return. He buys tickets from his phone on the way to the airport. It's not the same as last time. He sits in the back of the plane with his legs jammed up against the seat in front of him. When he lands, there is no one waiting for him. Mycroft's assistant texts him the address he needs and he hales another cab.
He catches his reflection in the rearview mirror. His ginger hair has long since been shorn off. His hair is grown out long and dark again. His new jacket is a near replica of the one John knew. He's dressed up as himself today.
Good. That's how it should be.
He rolls the window down and breaths in the air of his London.
The door swings open. John's eyes aren't swollen or red but it's clear that he hasn't left the flat in a few days. His shirt is an old, threadbare thing, and his hair is sticking up in a plume on the side of his head. It's greyer than it had been in his wedding pictures, and it makes him look simultaneously very young and very old. They stand there thinking at each other as John blinks. Once. Twice. Again. Sherlock says, "I'm not a ghost."
The longer he stands there the clearer is seems to become to John that he is not some kind visiting apparition. His face is a cocktail of pain and bewilderment but when he speaks there is absolutely no inflection, "I don't understand."
Sherlock looks at him. John is beautiful in a way Irene will never be able to obtain. His face is real- haggard and flawed and absolutely shameless in that fact. His eyes are very hollow and very very blue. When Sherlock says it, it feels like repenting. "I was never dead. It was all a lie."
John's head twitches sideways, a quick, abortive motion, and his feet stutter backwards. Sherlock takes the chance to step over the threshold. The flat is small but cozy, with all of the personal touches a married couple would add. When he turns to look down the hall he's thrown to the floor.
It doesn't happen in any of the ways Sherlock had predicted because instead of hitting him once and being done with it John strikes him again. And again. And Sherlock doesn't stop him even though he could because the crush of bone against flesh feels right. Good. Solid. Real. Again. Again. Again. Until all of the energy leaves John's trembling frame and it's just a motion. Sherlock reaches up to wrap his hand around the next punch that will never come and John stares at him. He turns his head to spit out the blood welling up in his mouth and a shard of tooth bounces across the linoleum. One of his molars is cracked.
He hears John faintly say, "Oh, God." In an instant he's off of Sherlock and has his back pressed against the far wall, his hands over his face. He says it again, "Oh, God."
Sherlock rolls over onto his stomach and then goes to spit in John's sink. Already his eyes are starting to swell closed. His nose is gushing blood, but he doesn't think John broke it. He stands there for a few minutes, cradling paper towels against his face as John sits silently in the corner.
"Explain." He finally says, his voice muffled by his hands but laced with steel.
Sherlock tries. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Throws away the bloody towels and goes to sit on John's couch. John moves his hands from his face and says it again. He's so angry Sherlock can taste it in the air. "Explain."
"I love you." Sherlock says, but it comes out all wrong. Like he's being strangled. The words are battery acid in his mouth because he means them so much.
John looks like he's been slapped. He stares. Sherlock stares back until his eyes hurt and then he grinds his palms into his eyes and tucks his knees against his chest because no no no no no this is all wrong. He stayed away for this exact reason and now he's ruined everything. Now John is staring at Sherlock like Sherlock has hurt him and Sherlock can feel it and it's hurting him too John. It hurts it hurts it hurts.
"Sherl-" John says, but his throat closes up around the word. Sherlock's hands close up around John's throat. Maybe that's what it feels like to John anyway- a betrayal. He keeps hurting John and he doesn't even know how to stop. He presses his palms harder against his eyelids to distract him from it. "Sherlock." The entire word. It sounds so exhausted, that word- like the gasp of an athlete after a marathon. Heavy. Deep. "Sherlock." Tighter now. The hand around John's throat again. "Sherlock."
Sherlock looks up because the word is near him. Above his head. John looms above him- face wrecked and soft. His John. He leans forward and wraps his arms around Sherlock's neck. Kneels on the lip of his couch. It's vaguely reminiscent of his last night with Irene but it's nothing like that because it's better- so much better- best. "Sherlock." John whispers. He can't stop saying it. He chokes on it, shaking apart. "God damn it, Sherlock." His tears are dripping down Sherlock's neck but he doesn't mind. He hopes they will collect in the dip of his collarbone so that he will have a bit of John for himself. John's had his heart, so it only seems fair.
Eventually he eases his hands out from where they're wedged between their torsos and folds himself around John. This makes John laugh for some reason. "I need-" He takes a watery breath. "I need you to tell me what's going on, okay? Can you do that?"
Sherlock closes his eyes. With his face tucked safe and warm into the crook of John's neck, he begins to speak. He talks about the snipers, about Moriarty, about the months of travel with nothing to mark the days except the growing weariness that he had carried bone deep. By the time he gets to the part about killing Sebastian Moran John has long since moved to the other side of the couch. Their knees are tipped toward each other, bracketing the space between them, close enough to touch, but not. John says, "Why didn't you come back after that? You were done."
The lie is there for Sherlock, sitting premade, on the tip of his tongue. It is the story that Mycroft had unwittingly created for him, believing it to be true. He can see it in his head. He would say, "You were both safer without me here." John would nod. Maybe smile. He would be happier to hear it. It is a good lie. It is poison. It was never altruism.
"I did come back." John looks at him, startled. "I couldn't stand to see you happier with her than you would ever be with me, so I left. It was cowardice, not heroics."
"I-." John starts, and then shuts his mouth with a clack of his teeth. They sit there quietly for a while, while John gathers his thoughts. When he speaks, his voice is small in his chest, but his hands are steady. "We didn't realize anything was wrong until the second miscarriage. She went to the doctor and had some tests done. They said it was ov-." His throat clicks when he swallows, "Ovarian cancer. She- well you probably don't care about that. I love her, Sherlock, and we were so," A long, rattling breath, the creeping tightening of his throat, "happy together. Right up until the end. God, I loved-. But. I would have liked it, too, if you had been there. She didn't replace you."
Sherlock stares at John stare at his hands, he opens his mouth to speak but John plunges on.
"And what you said before- I mean, if you meant what I thought you meant- then me, too. I- before- there was a time when I did want-. Yes."
Something swoops through his chest and flips his stomach. "Oh."
Desperate eyes seek him, "But, I can't, now, Sherlock. Not with Mary, and-."
"No, right. Yes." He feels very, very warm, from his fingers to his toes. It's fine if he cannot have John. John wanted him, once, and he has his heart. They are inseparable, intertwined. His John, always, in some way, throughout everything.
"I'm sorry about Mary." He says, and his teeth ache with meaning it. Oh how this man has crippled him- brought him among soft, feeling creatures, and yet he cannot find it in himself to mind.
Eventually John seems to tire of Sherlock's swollen, bleeding face and goes to fetch his first aid kit. The ice is abrasive, but John's hands are warm, and he flicks on the television so they have something to listen to while he works. He clicks on the lamp midway through, the sun has long since set, and the light paints everything gold and exhausted. They eventually are reduced to sprawling across the floor, watching infomercials flicker across the screen. They never get up and turn off the lamp, or go to bed, though they do sleep in brief stops and jerks. They lie beside each other and dream their separate dreams, but they are never far away. Once, Sherlock thinks he hears John whisper, "But why can't I have them both?" But when he looks at him is eyes are closed and lax.
Sometimes they talk, which is fine, but mostly they don't, which is better. There is nothing pressing enough to stir either of them to action. When many hours have passed and the sun has begun to rise again, Sherlock awakes to find John watching him. "Do you have anywhere to go?' He asks.
They've shifted again, sitting side by side with their backs supported by the legs of the couch. Sherlock sags against John's shoulder and he automatically shifts so that Sherlock's more comfortable. The back of their hands brush.
"No." He says. "I'm tired of leaving."
John's breath ruffles his hair. He reaches up to rub his eyes, and when his fingers wrap around Sherlock's, they're damp.
Sherlock closes his eyes. When he dreams, it is the best he's slept in three years.