Sherlock Holmes was fighting sleep. He slouched like a puppet without strings in his battered and thread bare chair he forced his unwilling mind to focus on the turbulent sea of torn and crumpled pages laying limply on his lap. Each one whispered clues about the case that he was using to calm his roaring mind. His mind was determined to take flight despite the heavy, tired eyes that each passing minute added weight to. He was tired, so, so tired- but he couldn't go to bed. Not yet. Going to bed would mean his fitful mind would flee from the case and into the realm of emotions, more specifically, the emotions he felt for John.
Feelings, feelings, feelings. They tore violently through his mind like a brutal assassin's knife -again and again and again until he was left reeling and even then, the attacks kept coming.
It was at times like these that he usually resorted to sound and solid logic. Thinking should have been safe. He understood it. He had always found a refuge from emotion in it- but this was different. This time thinking would cause emotion. If he went to bed, if he allowed those weighted eyes to fall closed, he would think of John. Every fibre of his being knew that that couldn't be allowed to happen because tomorrow John was getting married to Mary. John belonged in someone else's thoughts. The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of the fact. So, he forced himself to sit. He sat in that chair, forced his eyes open and avoided his problems with his usual tactic. He focused on the case. It wasn't working.
His fingers drummed out beats of agitation onto the arm of his chair, like the footsteps of a blood thirsty army. He ran a tense and frustrated hand through dishevelled, curly hair that was glistened with sweat. He stifled a yawn. The grunting of London's traffic came in through aged windows that clattered in the persistent wind as the rain hammered against it, almost singing him to sleep and yet he couldn't. The curtains brought an eerie atmosphere to the room but it was already cloaked in the darkness of a clouded night and a dingy flat. It was a cramped cave of clutter; books, boxes, unidentified chemicals in jars, knives, mugs with varying amounts of tea lingering in them, syringes, cigarettes all littered about the room as if a bomb had hit it. Or, perhaps as if the person who owned them felt they wouldn't care if a bomb did hit. Sherlock had stopped caring about most things a long, long time ago. Well, everything except John.
He had come to the official conclusion that he would never stop caring about John. John, John, John. His name pulsed through Sherlock's veins like an integral part of his system. Sitting there, in that tattered chair as he tried not to look at John's empty one made him feel like he had lost a limb and was just expected to just get on with it. Where was John now? What was he doing? Sherlock threw a glance at his watch and saw that it was twenty-five past three in the morning. Sherlock chuckled, a smile broke through his cold face. John would be wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets and mumbling incoherently in his peaceful sleep. Sherlock knew from their twin room at Dartmoor during the Baskerville case that John became like an adorable little profiterole of blanket and still managed to find the room to cold, and that he mumbled and drooled like a little child. There was something endearing about it. John spent a lot of time trying to be tough but when he slept you saw the softness of his personalities as the creased brow softened and rested. Sherlock would never, ever have the honour of witnessing that again. He buried his head in his hand.
The case, the case , the case.
The case papers fluttered to the floor and he didn't even notice. His gaze travelled through the room as if he was still getting used to it, as if it was unfamiliar. The quirky den of 221b Baker Street had always been of comfort to him, but that because it had been the place he shared with John. It had been filled with John's pitchy humming, his ridiculous woollen jumpers, his bubbling laughter, his words of encouragement for Sherlock- until he had chosen someone else and moved out. Now the flat was a very different place. Now the flat felt empty, like a barren dessert and Sherlock stumbled through it like a dying wanderer in search of water that wasn't there.
He shot up from his armchair like a bullet from a gun. He paced the room. He needed to stop thinking. He needed a distraction. No, you need John, his brain taunted him. Images of John and Mary flashed before his eyes like a nightmare. They danced and laughed and smiled at one another andkissed. They were completely consumed by one another. It was maddening. The image ate at him like a cancer, he wanted to yank it out of his system. A scream escaped him of its own accord like that of a dying beast, he kicked John's chair and pushed it away. He punished it the way he wanted to punish himself for everything; for the fact that he was selfish enough to want John, for his feelings, for the fact that he drove John away the moment he'd jumped from Bart's bloody hospital out of sheer stupidity- but no. No, it certainly wasn't stupidity. He had had no choice but to fake his own death. If he hadn't John would have died and that was the cruellest part of all.
His mind dragged him mercilessly back to the days when John had lived at 221b. Nights spent running through London's neglected back streets, analysing cases over breakfast, the tea, the laughter and even just the fact that they were almost always at one another's side. It was the first time in Sherlock's life when he'd had someone with whom he just seemed to fit seamlessly into place. Those days had meant the world to Sherlock. Those days were the highlight of Sherlock's life but since then it had become more than clear that John did not view them in the same way. He had moved on and left a bereft Sherlock in his wake, a Sherlock that was like the lone leaf that had fallen from its branch and was slowly drifting into the darkness.
All throughout his life he had carefully constructed a wall to keep out feelings. Brick by brick he had built it. He had seen emotion as a barrier that prevented his work, the work had always been the oxygen in his system. Cases settled him. They had a solution. They followed the neat path of logic and reason- unlike the winding and tumultuous paths of the difficulties caused by emotional entanglement. He had vowed against caring, but John had slipped through the cracks. Yes, he cared for Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft even Molly, but John was different. Being with John was like being filled with oxygen having spent your life in an airless dark. Sherlock was the sinking ship John had dragged to safety. No one else had sat patiently with Sherlock when he had said something that wasn't socially acceptable. No one else had made him tea whilst he had sat at his microscope at 5 in the morning. No one else had actually wanted to spend time with him. People hung around Sherlock because they needed him to solve their problems, he had solved their petty problems as easily as breathing and yet in the cruellest form of torture he couldn't solve his own.
John had solved his problems. He understood him, but he had left.
Sherlock fell to his knees. He had started to sob. Tears blinded him. He rested his head in John's chair and thought about all that had gone unsaid. He had realised a long time ago that what he felt for John was more than mere friendship, it put friendship to shame. It had happened by accident, he could not pinpoint the exact moment it happened (which irritated him) but he did know that being around John made him breathless. He would die rather than see harm come to him. That's what he would do tomorrow, at John's wedding, in a twisted sort of way. He would attend the wedding, pretend to be happy for John, give his speech and go home. He would go through the pain of death so that John would be happy in his marriage without the knowledge that his best friend was hopelessly and unimaginably in love with him. But he didn't want to suffer for John he wanted to be with him.
He wanted to tell John about his feelings. He wanted to hold him, to kiss his soft lips and run his hand through his hair.
He sighed. He allowed the familiar waves of sorrow to pass through him and when they passed he forced himself to see sense and logic. He fixed his focus on achieving those things as if they were his life line. In the chaos of his mind there were few certainties, but he was certain of the fact that John would never, could never love an emotionless machine who had disregarded all that had been between them by faking his own death. Telling John of his feelings would only cause heartbreak, it was an illogical and ludicrous idea- and so he pried himself off the floor and slowly came to standing. His face was still tear stained. He forced himself to take a deep breath. He did it again. He had a best man's speech to practice. He had to make tomorrow the best it could be because John's happiness was more important to him than his own life.