Lost and Found
The morning sun burnt in through the open window, bathing the space in a bright pale light. 221B Baker Street looked like a ghost town, like it had stopped in the middle of the hustle and bustle of life. Various objects were scattered across the space, a hundred experiments in progress, halted in their prime. Amidst the mess, a violin, bow placed gently on the strings, an unfinished melody still hanging in the heavy air. A stirring in the armchair by the fire revealed a body, a man, curled in the chair clutching a scarf and a hat.
John Watson hadn't left that chair in days. The flat, frozen, left untouched, the whirring of Sherlock Holmes' brilliant mind still buzzing about. John opened his eyes, groaning, stopping, sighing. He looked at the flat, the violin, the microscope, the echo of Sherlock's lost memory resounding in it all. He pulled the coat tighter about himself, the coat, the long black coat, the only coat. The thick, rough wool still smelled of him, of his clean, musky scent. Sherlock…
John's eyes filled with tears, pain, splashing down, speckling Sherlock's usual chair. Six days, six days since John had lost him. His best friend, the man he loved, his savior… gone. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw it. Sherlock's body, broken, the pavement, blood-stained, the coat, the scarf, growing darker, growing redder. The crowd, the people, hovering about the fallen angel, John, pushing his way through, the body, the emptiness, the numbness. Six days John Watson had spent curled in Sherlock's chair in 221B, wrapped in Sherlock's coat, with Sherlock's signature scarf, blood and tears soaked into the fabric, and the hat. John smiled. That stupid hat. Sherlock hated that hat. But now he was gone. And so John waited. Always a trick up his sleeve, Sherlock, the master of miracles. Just one last miracle, he hoped, just one. And so John waited.
Christmas Eve, three years later. Mrs. Hudson had been heckling John to come by Baker Street, and much to his own dismay, he obliged this once. The flat had been left untouched, uninhabited, unsold. Sherlock's coat still hung on the chair, the scarf, the hat, the violin still poised in its silent song. John paused at the door, deeply inhaling the crisp London air, breathing its verve into himself. This place, this flat, 221B, draining him. He hadn't been back since two years' previous Christmas, but not a moment went by that he didn't think about Sherlock. Each day he visited the grave, even just for a minute, just to smile and say hi. But today, the smile eluded him. Behind the door, a history, a life—dead. John ran a hand softly, slowly, over the door, eyes closed, feeling the spirit, the vivacity, the soul Sherlock breathed into it, slowly evanescing, but never lost. He choked back tears, straightening into his rigid, military stance, and turned the knob, all his strength in his wrist, every fragment of his life a force, pushing him in to the long slumbering haven.
"John, dear, how lovely to see you again," Mrs. Hudson came bustling up to him, arms open.
John engulfed himself in her embrace, tears freely flowing, a Biblical flood breaking the dam meticulously built over the last three years. Mrs. Hudson cooed over him, gently stroking his back.
"There, dear, let it out."
John composed himself, a weight lifted from his shoulders, but the hole in his chest left unfilled. He dragged himself up the stairs, feeling Sherlock's shadow on every step, every inch of the rail, lurking behind every closed door.
"—And I'm afraid nobody else could make it, it'll only be you and me tonight, dear, I hope that's quite all right," Mrs. Hudson paused, concern worked into the fine lines on her face. "Don't be too hard on yourself, John. He would have wanted you to be happy."
John forced a feeble smile, and with each fiber of his being holding him strong, entered his former home.
"I'm afraid I must be off, my sister will be wanting to see me. You can stay here tonight, I'll be in by midmorning."
John gave no reply. All through dinner, that bloody spray-painted smiley face on the wall had been grinning maliciously at him.
"Well… Have something more to eat. Ta!" With a click of the door, Mrs. Hudson was gone, the silence closing in, suffocating John.
He sighed, scanning the room, absorbing it, feeling the surge of long-lost memories pouring forth. He couldn't stay there, not that night, not ever. John hoisted himself up, groaning, and made for the door when a soft knock punctured the silence.
"A minute!" he shouted, assuming Mrs. Hudson had forgotten something.
The knock came again—one, two, three—and John froze. Silence, again a knock.
He reached for the desk drawer where he always kept his gun, loaded, ready, and made slowly for the door. Just a crack, the knob turned, waiting. Nothing, no movement, no noise, then a hand pressed the door just slightly further open.
"Hello?"
The all too familiar deep caramel voice echoed through the empty, cavernous hallway, harmonizing with its own tones, filling the empty space with a shimmer of energy. John's heart stopped, sank. His whole body seized as that one uttered word shot a stream of chills down the length of his spine. He turned on the spot, facing through the cracked open doorway, paralyzed, eyes wide.
"John," Sherlock breathed, a sigh, a whisper, the one word slithering from his lips like a breath held a second too long. A moment of humanity, relief, a smile, a freedom long awaited written all over his face, his body. He grinned, the moment passed, and he allowed himself into the flat. John stared, aghast, shocked, and followed Sherlock up the stairs, still flummoxed.
The two men walked in a somber silence up the steps, Sherlock, knowing his wrong and John, processing the ghost he appeared to be seeing.
"Hasn't changed a bit," Sherlock muttered, his voice vibrating through the flat, almost deep enough to constitute a growl.
John teemed with anger in every pore. He couldn't believe the gall of Sherlock to just show up, pop on by. This was some Christmas gift, only three years late.
"Oi."
Sherlock swiveled about at the sound, eyebrows raised slightly to John. John coiled back his fist, delivering a powerful punch to a razor sharp cheekbone. Immediately a flame of pain burnt through his knuckles, but no part of him regretted it. He was seething, raging, fuming. Complete disbelief— even Sherlock wouldn't be that cruel.
"THREE YEARS!" He bellowed, vein pulsing in his forehead. "For three years you just swanned off, leaving me—US—the only people who LOVE YOU, who can even STAND TO BE WITH YOU!" He snatched Sherlock by the front of his shirt, top button popping off, and threw a furious punch at his other stupid cheekbone.
John dropped him to the ground, his chest heaving, knuckles throbbing. Sherlock scrambled to his feet, brushing himself off.
"Well, if you're—"
"I'M NOT DONE!" John decked him, all the pain, grief, sorrow of the past three years transformed into a purely malevolent fury, the torment of the time channeled into his fist as it flew to Sherlock's face. His mind was reeling, the torture of Sherlock's death, all that time that he loved him silently, form afar, knowing the detective was completely uninterested, everything that John had felt since meeting Sherlock consuming him. He looked down at the man below him, his long limbs splayed across the floor, submissive. A soft whimper of pain escaped him, quietly begging John for mercy, for forgiveness. He loomed over Sherlock panting, sweating, his body a hormonal battleground. Anger, betrayal, love, loss, sorrow, joy—all searing like a wildfire. His eyes darted over Sherlock, catching the gleam of sweat across his collarbone where his shirt button had ripped out, fixing on the trickle of blood slowly oozing from his split lip.
John knelt down and seized Sherlock by his shirt front, locking his lips to Sherlock's, parting them slightly, tasting the salty tang of blood where he swept his tongue across the broken lip. Sherlock gave no protest, surrendering his body to his soldier's will.
John gently raised Sherlock to his feet only to drop him in his usual chair. He made no delay in peeling away the suit, leaving Sherlock exposed, his marble sin aglow in the dim evening light. He trailed his lips down the smooth, bare chest before him, scattering sparse kisses over the revealed territory, and took Sherlock in his mouth. God forbid he woke from this dream, he wanted to touch, to feel, to taste it all, all of the heat of the moment, every inch of Sherlock's flesh. Voracious, ardent, John allowed himself to savor every bit of Sherlock; tender, exploratory, John teased him, igniting pleasure in his nerves. Sherlock's long fingers curled around the armrest as he breathed a long contained sigh of bliss, his other hand entangling in John's cropped hair, pulling, begging him come back up. John complied, once again uniting his lips with Sherlock's, joining Sherlock in the tense agony of denying oneself satisfaction.
He wasted no time in shedding his clothes and pausing, standing, watching Sherlock wait. Sherlock's breath heaved and he locked his eyes to John's, imploring him. Good, he thought with a smirk, now he knows how it is to wait.
"I need you."
John was sold. He needed Sherlock, too. His back to him, John climbed on Sherlock's lap and turned only his head. A wicked glint sparkled in his eye as he lowered himself onto Sherlock. An audible gasp, the sensation jerking him to life, his back arching away. John rolled his hips back, gingerly at first, setting a gentle tempo, each measure timed by a sharp groan steaming up John's back with hot breath. Each sway of his pelvis plunged Sherlock into a mesmerizing fog, clouding his mind but shooting fire and ice through his veins. A film of sweat formed between their thighs, fusing the two men to one another, the only movement John's contorting back and rocking hips. Sherlock threw a hand across John's waist, caressing his side and the crest at his lower back, drawing a shiver out of him.
John fell back onto Sherlock's steamy torso, unable to stay upright as his hips began to take on a less smooth pulse. Sherlock chuckled into his ear, wrapping both hands about him, making sure every inch of their bodies were in hot, humid contact. The tide of pleasure submerged both men in a flurry of motions, John's arm flinging over the chair back, Sherlock's nails digging into his warm flesh, lips like butterfly wings, fluttering on John's shoulder. The low groans rang dissonant in the air with the higher, both a steady crescendo as simultaneously a wave of electricity shocked each particle of both men. Sherlock struggle to hold on, convulsing, sinking his teeth into the sinews of John's shoulder as he waited, waited for John, all composure crumbling away. The moment, frozen, halted in time, when the spark erupted into a blaze, searing the bodies of both men in synchronicity. Together they unraveled, John's body sinking into the curves of Sherlock's.
John's head lay on Sherlock's chest, listening to his heart drumming at his ribcage—one, two, one, two, one, two. His fingers traced delicate circles over Sherlock's stomach, over all the bits left unexposed by the blanket. The night bore on until the two men could no more, and so they rested together in post-coital reunited bliss. John shut his eyes, his lashes brushing softly over Sherlock's skin, and smiled. Finally. At long last he had all he ever wanted, to lay hand in hand under the crook of his bespoke sociopath's arm after a night of passion, lust, but mostly love. For so long he had been lost, and now, finally, he was found. He didn't care that Sherlock lied to him for three years, destroying his spirit slowly but surely, it couldn't matter any less now. He had him, whole, complete, so very alive, and forever. He would never go, not now.
"John," Sherlock purred, his dulcet tones drifting into John's reverie.
"I'll never leave you again."
Silence.
"And… I love you."