Three years.
Three years, and John still hurts. Earlier on, in the first few months of Sherlock's passing, he would still go in every week and talk to his therapist. And, every time, she asked him the same question.
"You still can't say it, can you?"
And each time, he got up, smiled courteously, shook his head no, and walked out. He started going less and less, and then finally stoped all together.
No, he can't say it.
Molly tries to befriend him, to take him out to do things, but he declines all of her offers as studiously as he can. He doesn't know why she wants to be his friend all of the sudden, anyway. She was just a girl obsessed; she's trying to cling to the last shred of Sherlock that she sees is left.
But, when she offers to pay for a trip for the both of them to go to a resort "to get some sun", she says, and she's cornered him and she doesn't look like she's going to budge, he accepts, with a sigh. He can always just not show up when they're supposed to go. She can't force him to stay, either.
Unless, of course, two men in suits follow him to his flat and knock him out.
Molly and Mycroft must have talked.
A low hum of voices wakes him. A hand is stroking his own, and when his vision clears, Molly is hanging over him. He's in the back of a car. Smells clean. Black upholstery. Must be one of Mycroft's.
"Molly, where-" his voice slurs, and his hand flies to the back of his head as it throbs in pain. "Damn it!"
"John! Are you okay?" She turns to glare, though Molly's glares aren't all that threatening, at the two men who "escorted" him. "I told you not to hurt him!" She turns back to John, grabs his wrist and pulls him up and out of the car. He shields his eyes from the sun with a hand, squinting.
The place actually looks nice, though he still hasn't been told what it's called, or even where it is. He could be in Ireland or North America and he wouldn't know. He follows Molly to their rooms. She got two, right next to each other. He thought she would've just rented one room with two beds, but he didn't know she could afford this. Maybe Mycroft's helping there, too.
Only then does he realize that he didn't see any luggage in the car. Did Mycroft, or maybe Molly, pack for him? Molly hands him the card-key for his door.
"It'll be a nice rest, John." She pats his shoulder and smiles, bright and quick, before turning and scampering off to her own room.
A nice rest. That's all he's been doing for the past three years. He doesn't need a rest, he needs… He sighs, rubs a hand over his eyes, afraid they'll moisten and he won't be able to leave his room for the rest of the day. He opens the door, and steps inside to find a large suitcase propped against the headboard of his bed, not one of his own.
He hopes they remembered his laptop.
Molly waits until the peak of the next day to drag John out to go sit by the lake.
They sit in beach-chairs, provided by the resort, and Molly prattles on about how lovely the sun is, how she might go for a swim later, would he join her, how has he been, etc. He mutters halfhearted replies to satisfy her, pretends he's listening, and probably agrees to something he'll regret later. His eyes have been idly fixed on a group of what looks to be boys in their late twenties, on vacation. There are four of them, three of which are about average height, and one taller, red-headed one. The three boys attempt to dunk the tallest, and John can hear clearly the boy's peal of laughter ringing through the air, though he is a considerable distance away.
Slowly, they work their way closer to him, chasing the tall one through the water. He comes up, dripping, onto the sand, and stands looking back to the others, still chuckling softly. John clears his throat, looking over somewhere past Molly, but she rises, muttering something about forgetting to bring a bottle of water, it's very hot and she doesn't want to get heatstroke, and she shoves off quickly from her seat, walking off back towards the rooms. His eyes trail their way back to the glimmering flecks of water splattered across the younger man's shoulders, dripping down his back, his long legs, and into the sand where he stands. John blinks, trying to remind himself how to breathe. The tall man jumps unexpectedly to the right with a shout of laughter, and John finds himself with a gaping-mouthful of water, and speckles of the spray the three boys had sent flying darkening his shirt and pants. He jumps up roughly, expelling the water from his mouth and quickly wiping it from his face, snatching his coat up off the sandy ground, and stomping off in no particular direction.
The tall red-headed man looks back at his friends for a moment, and then quickly skids through the sand after John, lightly placing a long-fingered hand on his shoulder as he stoops to stand in John's way. His voice is deep and familiar, but strange and foreign at the same time, his strange accent makes John's brain click in and out of order, like he should be accepting this voice, but he can't. He won't meet the man's eyes, rather staring straight ahead, somewhere at the tanned, freckled chest.
"Hey! Are you alright? Look, I'm sorry, my mates, they-" He gestures over to them with one hand, while the other stays firmly in place on John's shoulder. "they got a little carried away…"
John mumbles, says he's fine, no really, it's alright. He looks up from beneath his lashes and feels his stomach drop as he's staring into bright green eyes. The tall man stares into him silently for a few moments, his smile falls a little, he looks… hungry. In a quick movement he's pulling John around the back of the building, out of sight of everyone, and..
John barely has time to think before he's crushed up against a cold brick wall, mouth forced open, the tip of the other man's tongue swirling around his own, burning and tingling against it. John gasps, suddenly blind with want, to keep this man here, with him, this familiar presence, pressed up against him, breathing a deep sort of moan along with him...
Then the tall man pulls away, keeping a firm grasp on John's shoulder, pushing him around the other corner of the building and up towards the row of rooms. John tries to breathe out which room number is his, but the tall man will have nothing of it, stopping at the first door they come to, slipping a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door. In a haphazard manner, he shoves John into the room, kicking the door shut, and continuing on, walking John backwards into the edge of the mattress.
John manages to gasp out something about this man's friends, won't they come back soon, shouldn't they go to John's room instead-
The tall man chuckles breathily, pressing John deep into the mattress, leaning down and hissing in his ear.
"They've all got their own rooms."
John's sure he ended up panting out a certain person's name at multiple points that night, but the tall man only seemed encouraged by it.
He finds John every day after that, and each day he spends less and less time with Molly, but she doesn't seem irritated by it at all. He even catches her smiling at them as the tall man takes John's hand, pulling him up from his chair, leading him around, coaxing him into the water even, sometimes. The taller man laughs a lot, sometimes getting John to smile too. John seems happy...
He barely thinks of Sherlock, because this man is with him nearly every moment of the day, keeping him busy, keeping him happy. He only thinks of him in those heated moments, when the taller man causes him to shout or moan, when a cool pair of lips grace their way up, along his collarbone, or down...
But the taller man is never deterred.
The evening of the last day of their vacation comes around, but John can't find the taller man anywhere. Normally he'd have found John as soon as he'd woken, been waiting outside his door, to sweep him into a deep, warm kiss as soon as he'd crossed the threshhold.. But, today there is no sign of him.
John has gone begrudgingly gone back to how it was when he first arrived, trudging out with Molly to sit out on the sand next to the lake, itching to see the Taller man.
And that's when he realises he never asked the man his name. He just... went with him, and he was content without any introduction.
A loud clearing of his throat and a rapid blink ends in him also realising that the Taller man never asked his name. He tries to think: Did the man ever say anything during their nights sharing a bed(or sometimes a wall or the floor)? Did he ever, upon the height of their actions, gasp out an unknown name, as John had done?
He can't remember.
The sun begins to set, and Molly stretches, standing from her chair, turning upon a secretly very distraught John, but who's face is a blank slate, the soldier's facade, staring out at the flickering specks of colours upon the lake in front of him.
She clears her throat, and he looks upon her, watching as her eyes flit up and away from him for a second, before returning as she breaks into a small, somewhat embarrassed, smile. On instinct, John practically jumps out of his chair, turning on his heel in a fluid movement, and then, not so fluidly, smacks into the freckled chest of the taller man.
The man laughs like a bell, and that confused pinprick in John's brain suddenly clicks into place and he freezes.
He looks behind him with a strangled sound, but Molly has already cleared out, shuffling through the sand halfway up the shore, and she turns partially with another smile. Like she already knows, she's been waiting for him to figure it out.
When he shakily turns back, the taller man is pressing his fingers to his eyes, pulling them away with two small, nearly-invisible half-spheres stuck to them tips. The eyes are blue, that lovely blue he didn't know he loved this much.
The man points to his hair, with somewhat of a sad smile. "Dye." and then rubs his hands over his arms and chest, poking at a freckle. "Molly helped with these."
John's fist soars towards the man's face as burning tears slip from his eyes, but it's caught, unexpectedly, and twisted around behind his back, gently, but firmly.
He screams thoatily, his voice echoing in the dimming light that falls over the lake "Three years!"
John begins to sob silently as the man pushes him down into his chair, large, un-naturally tanned hands on his shoulders, holding him there.
Sherlock begins to rattle off the steps to faking his death, tells of Molly's seamless plaster-cast of his body, how nearly everything that happened was staged in some way, tells of the dumpster and the diversions...
John shakes his head as his sobs became audible throughout the telling of the tale.
When Sherlock is done, he stays there, kneeling in front of his lover, waiting until John finally manages to look at him, and then leans in, kissing him softly, still cautiously holding his wrists down. He continues on softly until John calms enough to kiss back, and Sherlock works his mouth open and turns the kiss into something more passionate, when he feels John is ready.
He knows John won't trust him for a long time, but he's trying his best to make up for as much as he can right now, in this moment..
Yes, it will be a while, but for now John gives in to his simple need for this, for Sherlock, here and now, with Sherlock, not the nameless tall man...
Sherlock.