Sleep Well, My Angel, a sherlock fanfic

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Sorry…for me. The song belongs to We Are the Fallen.

A/N: I don't like TRF. I haven't watched TRF. I won't watch TRF until BBC gets off its collective butts and gives us the next series. However I have read the entire works of ACD so I do know the basics of what happens. I don't normally write sad stuff but I heard this song and this story just came on its own. So here you go, hope you like it. I hope I don't have to do this again but I probably will. I hate sad stuff. Crying makes my eyes hurt.

Yes, this is a song fic. The song is Sleep Well, My Angel by We Are the Fallen.

Sleep Well, My Angel

He stared down at the man that had been his friend for what felt like forever though it had only been two years. His friend was sleeping. Finally. After a day that would be Hell on anyone and most especially on John. Tear tracks were dried and crusty on his cheeks and on Sherlock's pillow. He felt his supposedly nonexistent heart clench at the sight of those tracks.

He did not want to leave John but he had too. He wanted to stay here, in their flat, and listen to John's rants and scoldings and laughs. But Moriarty had put paid to that notion. And now Sherlock had to leave his only, his best friend so that John would live. He had to die so that John could live. He knew he wasn't the monster that everyone made him out to be. The monster that Moriarty had created to bring this situation about. And so he had to leave so that the snipers, Moran, would continue to believe him dead.

But he would come back. He didn't have a choice. John was his home. Not coming back was as anathema to him as letting John die.

Watching you sleep for so long,

Knowing I can't turn the rain into sun any more

I've given you all that I have,

Now I stand here, too scared to hold your hand.

Afraid you might wake to see

The monster that had to leave

John felt a breeze on his cheek even in his dreams and more tears slipped from his closed eyes. Even in his sleep all he saw was Sherlock. His smile, the one that said John had surprised him. His frantic pacing as his brain thought at the speed of light. But more than any other image, his falling. And his pale, paler than John had ever seen it, on the cement. Pale but for the blood covering it.

"Sleep well, my angel," a voice whispered through his dreams bringing with it lost hopes, lost dreams and lost love.

'Cause you see the shelter as the storm

Holding wind to keep you warm,

You are everything to me, this is why I have to leave,

So sleep well my angel.

Sherlock watched him. He was alone. Always alone. John no longer did anything. Nothing, nothing at all. At times Sherlock wondered if he even breathed, no matter how boring breathing was it was necessary. But then John would suck in a shuddering breath and calm Sherlock's fear, if not his worry.

One year since his faked death and John was still mourning. He should have moved on by now but he hadn't and Sherlock didn't know how he felt about that. It physically hurt to see John so lost but part of him, a part he didn't like very much, was ecstatic that John missed him so much.

John, his John, his angel that saved him from himself was fading away. This was intolerable. He had faked his death so that John could live and he was fading away, slowly and painfully. And Sherlock couldn't come home and fix him yet. He wasn't finished. Moran was still out there, waiting, watching.

One hand clutching at the real, physical, undeniable pain in his chest and the other stroking the image of John's cheek, Sherlock watched on the monitors that Mycroft had so kindly set up for him as John buried his face in his hands and sobbed himself to sleep for the 365th time.

Under the ash and the lies,

Something beautiful once here now dies,

And the tears burn my eyes,

As you sit there, all alone.

I just want to come home,

John knew that Mycroft had cameras installed in the flat to watch him but he just couldn't bring himself to care. He didn't care about anything anymore. Sherlock was gone. Dead. No more a part of this world. Nothing mattered anymore and John just couldn't care. He leaned forward so that his head was cradled in his hands and let out his anguish until he collapsed back and passed out from the lack of food and the emotions still roiling within him even a year later.

His dreams were once again, as they were every night, plagued by visions of Sherlock. The smiles and the pacing and all the other good things he could barely remember were gone and there was only the falling.

As the darkness engulfed him he felt that breeze on his cheek again. He didn't give it much thought beyond wondering when he'd gotten up out of Sherlock's chair to open a window.

"Sleep well, my angel," followed him into the darkness, bringing a fresh spat of tears and the resurgence of the pain that time had not diminished.

But you see the shelter as the storm,

Holding wind to keep you warm,

You are everything to me, this is why I have to leave,

So sleep well my angel.

Sleep well, my angel.

Finally it was over. Finally he could go home. He stood outside the flat letting the rain trickle down his neck under his shirt collar. The lights were on as though to welcome him but he wondered. John still grieved for him. The cameras in the flat showed Sherlock the truth of this. Would John ever forgive him? Could he ever forgive himself for causing John this pain?

I'm sorry

He was back. John stared, jaw agape, as Sherlock stumbled over his words trying to get them all out as fast as he could. Sherlock was alive.

John knew he should be angry and he would be later, but now all he could think was Sherlock is alive. He wondered for a moment if it was all a dream. If it was then, please God, let me sleep forever. Let it be real.

You see the shelter as the storm,

Holding wind to keep you warm,

You are everything to me, this is why

Halfway through Sherlock's explanation John did the only thing any sane person could. He stood up, walked to Sherlock, punched him in the face and fainted when it connected with flesh and not the mists of a dream.

Sherlock caught him as he fell and laid him on the sofa. He had been expecting the punch had prepared for it even, but the fainting was a shock.

He smoothed a hand over John's face as he waited for him to come around.

You see the shelter as the storm,

Holding wind to keep you warm,

You are everything to me, this is why I have to leave

So sleep well, my angel.

John blinked his eyes open and stared into the blue-grey orbs that belonged to the man at the center of his universe. Once again, he did the only thing a sane, rational, logical man could do and grabbed the face attached to the eyes and kissed it. Kissed him until they were both breathless. Kissed him until all he could see, touch, taste, smell and by God, feel was Sherlock.

Somehow they ended up in Sherlock's which was now John's bed. And then it was heat and feeling and more heat and gasps of pleasure and of pain and then the bliss of oblivion.

"Sleep well, my angel," whispered across his cheek again and this time, oh, this time it brought hope and love and peace.

Sleep well, my angel.