I have moved – you can now find this story, and more, over on Ao3, under the name Pixie.
/works/574385
The door slams and it echoes like a gunshot down the street. There were words, words that began their lives as taunting little whispers and died as shouts on their speaker's lips. Worthless, said the tall man. Freak, said the other. Silence had tried, and failed, to smother them, and was suffocated itself by sirens and traffic and the heartbeat of the city.
The tall man paces, rips the curtain from the window and stands in the glow of the bloodied sun. He sees the other go – shoulders hunched, his straw-and-grey hair washed with orange. Words spill unheard from his lips, tripping over each other in their desperation to deduce what was happening, but he was never fast enough – had never been able to keep up with the man. John, he says, and it's both bitter and reverential, like Job cursing his God.
John keeps walking, his eyes on the pavement. The sun sparks, and his world is on fire. Once he dreamt of burning deserts, but now there's blue and chlorine and smoke and flames, and him, pale as the white rider, a rose blossoming on his cheek. Sherlock. John curses the name in the way he curses the war – a tantalising, illicit longing that makes him feel like a ghoul.
The violin screeches, a symphony of agony, and it stops as the bow breaks in two on the floor. Sherlock flings it back on to the couch, hands pressed against the window as though he could call him back with a word. His mind races, a thousand thoughts fighting to be heard, colours and sounds and senses and feeling and words and John and always John and when John isn't here he cannot block out the thoughts and he turns and remembers what he keeps, hidden, secret, beneath a floorboard under his bed.
London is cold, and the wind bites at John's wound like a tender lover. He thinks of calling Sarah, wonders who on his list of somewhat-partners haven't shut the door in his face yet. A name springs to mind, a phone number not deleted, and he calls, fingers shaking. Her voice is like spring as it washes over him, and at the click he changes course, heads for the main roads, for people and taxis and touches, however brief.
The needle is cold as it pushes against his forearm, and Sherlock remembers the night he lay out in the snow until his lips went blue and his mother sat him near the fire with blankets and books and he had never felt so loved. He focuses on his breath, slowing and controlling it, and feels the spike, the bliss run through him like a blizzard.
The door opens, and she is as beautiful as ever. John clasps his mouth to hers, and breathes in her scent – alcohol and jasmine, lined with the taste of chocolate. It's wrong, he thinks, wrong wrong wrong but then she moans against his lips and they stumble backwards, hands on clothes then skin, and if John is too rough, biting and pushing her down, pining her below him, then she only writhes beneath him all the more.
Sherlock begins to feel the end – each hit lasts for less, takes more, leaves him breathless and trembling and empty. John, he barks, but John is not here, and he wants nothing more than to burn this place down. The couch is backwards, acid is spilling on the floor, and John's jumpers are blazing in the street.
She opens her eyes, and John pulls up his jeans and heads for the door. He can feel her arms around his waist, tempting him, teasing him, telling him to come back, come back, but there is only one person he wants to hear those words from, and he leaves. He is halfway down the street when he remembers leaving his scarf – Sherlock's scarf – but he walks on.
Time passes, the clock ticks slightly before the watch he is wearing does, and the noise begins to echo around Sherlock's head. He sits, long limbs pulled close to his chest, and takes in the destruction around him. There is wine spilling from the table, mixing with something that could be blood. His blood? He looks around, deductions flying and decides it's from the glass near his feet. His mind shrieks, a cacophony of noise and he curls up to the floor, slamming his palms against his skull, shouting to the air, begging for it to stop.
John walks through the nerve-system of the city, the backstreets and alleys. They stink of piss and blood and alcohol, and he drinks the scent in, blocking out the heady stench of jasmine on his jumper. He stops at pubs he can't remember the name of, slamming fists against brick, the weight in his chest growing, and hurting, drawing strength from the pain in his shoulder and the ache in his leg. There's a bridge, and another, and at each one he stops, stares down into the silver and wonders whether landing among the stars would fix things. He thinks of dark curls, bright eyes, and the joy in the voice he would follow anywhere, and walks on.
The door opens, closes, locks.
Seventeen steps are too slow, and John takes the stairs in less. He recalls the scent of spring, surrounding him, shouting his name, and knows it is fleeting – Sherlock is the weather itself, uncontrollable, and John's to watch, but not to have. Sherlock thinks of winter, and how John is the desert, barren and open and blissfully quiet, and of how he wishes to fall into it and never leave.
Hands grip shoulders, foreheads press together, and pulses begin to beat in time once more. The floor is hard beneath their knees, one of them is trembling, and one of them is cursing, but it doesn't matter – nothing matters. The world slows, and they stay, fists bunched in shirts and jumpers among the chaos. They are each others air, one of them mumbles, let me drown in you, replies the other. Stay, one whispers in the other's hair, and I will I will I will is the next breath. There are kisses on curls, and fingers digging into wrists, but nothing more, never anything more. Silence spills over the room, and they know John will leave for the spring and Sherlock will be left in winter, but for now they drift together, letting the waves of the night wash over them.