He cannot articulate pain. He tries. He wants to, but there is nothing for him to point to and say: "Here, John." There is an ache, a pain, that lingers. Perhaps his spleen or his liver or maybe a ghost of something in his joints. Because he cannot press John's fingers against his skin to worry out the pain, to press warm digits against his chilled skin, he moves gingerly. Everything is done so ginger, ginger, gingerly. He tiptoes around John's new life, around his empty flat, each step a burn of muscles and a tripping of deadened feet. He chews his food slowly, teeth aching, jaw clenching.
John notices. "Where, Sherlock? Just tell me where."
He shakes his head, feels the way his hair rubs raw against his cheeks, and thinks about transport and overcoming and empty rooms.
John, face stoically not pinched (uncertainty hides in the folds next to his mouth and eyes; Sherlock can barely read them, because John has become better at hiding things), bundles Sherlock up and tucks him in a chair in a cramped doctor's office. Neither of them say to each other what this really is. They ignore it and Sherlock pushes his face deep down into his coat, refrains from leaning into the warmth of John, refrains from speaking, refrains.
The walls are tightly packed so as to not leave a bit of white paint visible, memory after memory crammed together: newspaper clippings, artifacts, photographs, paintings shakingly mimicking other artists. Here a Van Gogh; there a Rembrandt. The same tree painted over and over again: spring covered in new buds; fall in bright orange; winter barren. Not summer. He wonders at that. What happened in those months? How did life change as to render the impossibility of color during the brightest months? It hurts his eyes to look at the emptiness.
A man, another patient, impatient, box steps around the room: one, two, three, four. He mutters under his breath as he goes. "No, this isn't good." He shifts to a new tempo. The swish and smack of his corduroy pants punctuate the tinny violin being piped through the speakers. John shifts, shoulder brushing lightly against Sherlock's. It's hateful.
"What's this? It's nice," John says.
"The Girl with the Flaxen Hair."
"I like it." John hums tuneless along with it, walks hand-in-hand with it down star-lit streets.
"Yes." Sherlock narrows his eyes and watches the man pace. Gingham blue and white shirt. Thick black boots. Tired brown waistcoat. Scratching along his left arm, red, recent. Rash? No. Nervous tick. Obvious.
"Are we running late today?" the man mutters, flitting to the next curiosity on the wall. Sherlock thinks about running, late and out of time, and it is no longer a giddy feeling, no longer something to wonder at. He feels out of breath, but masks his gasp in his scarf.
"No, no, no. Nineteen-thirteen," the man draws the date out, exaggerating his enunciation, as he reads a newspaper headline. "Boundaries. And lines." He shakes his head at the clipping, wiping his hands on his pants over and over.
There are new lines etched across his life, new boundaries. What was once Sherlock and John's has now become Sherlock's and John's; there is a pause there, gaps that he cannot breach. Ownership (and can he say that he ever had that claim?) now separate. His chest hurts; a deadweight gathers somewhere in his shoulders. His thoughts skitter across churches ("Always on street corners," the man says), blonde women ("Look at that. No wonder the men loved her."), and rain ("Nineteen twenty-eight. Nineteen forty-seven. Nineteen sixty-eight."). He's flooding.
John's hand lands on Sherlock's leg, brushing gently across his knee. He means for it to be grounding. It is not. It is suffocating.
"You're all right, Sherlock," John states.
And yes, he has to be.