"What happens to Mary now?"
He feels the hurt. The resentment. His fingertips (pressed into the exit wound on John's shoulder merely half a minute ago) can still feel the trust crushing under them. He wills the treacherous tears on his cheeks to evaporate. They don't. They leave trail on the skin John had kissed, as if removing the evidence.
"Leave, John."
Keep eyes on the ceiling. Keep eyes on the ceiling. John must not see. John must not see your cowardly heart. He must not stay to show you the pity.
"We can fix this."
No, you can't. I'm not fixable, John, he wants to yell. He wants to yell until his ears tingle and John goes away. He knew John regretted this. He had read it in his taught shoulders and their connected hearts. He berated himself again for letting the sentiment take hold of him. But how can he not when it crept into your bones and blood and every last cell in form of warm jumpers, tanned skin and sunny smiles?
"There's nothing to fix. Go to Mary. This was a mistake."
Because it was. He was merely agreeing with John. Making it simpler for him to go back to his lady love. Because Sherlock cannot be her. He was too late and he wouldn't forgive the universe for playing such a cruel joke on him.
Sherlock can pinpoint exactly when it happened. He still recalls it as though he has been reliving the incidence all over again.
He still remembers hearing (through his foggy mind full of cocaine) the soft footsteps halting in his room. He remembers closing his eyes and knowing it is happening and that, he cannot escape now.
Sentiment is a dangerous disadvantage and he agrees but now he is in no condition to run away.
He stays still; he closes his eyes willing for his heart to slow down. It's for another time to be angry at himself for not going to the old attic in the warehouse where nobody would have found him. Where he would have probably been taking last of his breaths and nobody would have been truly sad because of his death.
At least twenty people would have cried for the doctor on his sudden death, though.
Sherlock laughs internally at the unfairness of it.
John isn't like others. It takes him by surprise that John doesn't want the attachment- just like he doesn't- and comes up with the brilliant idea of the arrangement.
They don't talk about their situation. They don't have to. It's comforting because emotional talks were never his forte. They talk about crime and blood and death and that is comforting.
The arrangement is a brilliant idea. Well, until it stops working for Sherlock.
When Sherlock was a child he had a friend, Victor. Well, his only friend, really. He didn't laugh at Sherlock because his curls never stayed in one place. He didn't look disgusted when Sherlock cut the thin membrane of skin of a garden frog to see its insides.
Victor was eleven when he died. There wasn't any accident, nor was he sick. Mummy held him close by her side as he cried soundlessly because it was not fair. Nobody just takes away his only friend. Not even Victor's stupid Soulmate.
That's when he decided it was all waste. Caring and getting involved. His mother took him to all the psychiatrist she could. By the age of fifteen he was diagnosed as a sociopath and that did keep people at a distance.
Many thought his mental condition was induced due to the death of his close friend. Some thought he was just weird and heartless when he cut open the snake found in the garden. Some even thought that he might not even have a Soulmate. That sure did explain his lack of eagerness to find his other half.
He thought of all these people in his life as he sat beside John on the sofa, eating oily takeaway and watching crap telly. He made up their incredulous, baffled faces that they'd make upon seeing him with his John.
How he wish he had a right to call John his.
First week in the facility was proving to be a torture. Nurses and doctor and countless other people try to get to him. Try to talk him into coming out of his room. He closes his eyes instead and tries to redraw lines on John's face in his mind.
Sherlock lies there, hours on end, taking deep drags of his cigarette (he somehow had managed to sneak couple of cartons and clear 7% stronger solution in), cocooned in the enticing image of John his mind had conjured. He remembers the feel of the russet skin on his, burning deep down to his bones. He remembers his fingers on the cold metal of his gun. Same fingers, which had patched up many, incapacitating the criminals without batting of the eye. The fingers which had held Sherlock's manhood delicately as the eyes deep as sea looked into him. As if all the answers were in Sherlock's lust-addled eyes.
John thinks of little schemes to change Sherlock's odd habits. He makes him eat and Sherlock doesn't just because he wants John to come again and force him to eat every single day. It's not normal and it's potentially damaging for their arrangement but Sherlock overlooks it. He doesn't eat and keeps the pasta in the upper most shelves so John would come and stretch in front of him and Sherlock would revel at the sight of his masculine body.
And he would hopelessly think someday he would be able to claim it (and him) as his own.
There's a string of thefts in the facility. That makes Sherlock come out of his room. The thief is a nurse struggling with his finances. It is painfully obvious and it hurts because nobody says he's brilliant, extraordinary, fantastic after his deductions.
Mycroft comes to visit him thrice. The first time he comes, Sherlock refuses to open the door. Second time he comes Sherlock escapes into the garden. He realizes it was a stupid mistake because when he returns all his cigarettes and the solution is gone.
He's been in the facility for six months now. He has no plans of getting out. He still cannot bear going back to 221B. He doesn't know what he would do in London. The memories are still too bright, too intense and run too deep in him.
Mycroft finds him in the yoga session. Sherlock feels grateful upon being taken out of the dreadful rituals of stretching and breathing exercises; even though it meant seeing his incredibly annoying brother.
"You look good," Mycroft says. Sherlock snorts. "You've been clean for two months now. Maybe it's time to come back."
"No," Sherlock answers. He's bored already.
"They cannot keep you here forever, brother."
"That's not my problem anymore. You should have thought about it before taking me away from London," Sherlock bites out.
Mycroft stares at him quietly. Sherlock cannot bear the silence. Mycroft is one up in the game already. He needs to make cutting remarks about the smarmy git's diet-
"Don't you want to know about John?"
Sherlock blinks hard and looks away. His eyes stink. Damn him. He won't let Mycroft win. He's playing with his sentiments and he never knew he would go down to this level. Not with him at least.
"I don't care."
"Don't you now," Mycroft is enjoying this. Sherlock's stomach churns with bile. "It's like Victor, isn't it? Caught up in somebody in a naïve moment. But you won't admit it, will you?"
"Fuck you, Mycroft," Sherlock says, closing his eyes against vibrant images of his Soulmate. The statement lacks the punch.
Mycroft gets up and puts Sherlock's old mobile on the table. "You know how to reach me when you want to get out."
Mycroft closes the door behind him, missing the phone thrown at his head by inches. The clattering sound of phone hitting the closed door is far from soothing.
It is too bright. Intense. Overwhelming.
He clutches at the sheets helplessly. He groans. He expresses wordlessly. Because he can't- he just can't- prepare proper sentences. His groans say, 'More, John, more.'
John's lips on his. On his nipple. On his stomach.
And it's not enough. It is never enough. John's voice is coming through dense fog of their arousal and want and lust.
John's fingers in him. John's manhood in him.
His bones ache with pleasure and pain as their souls connect. It's marvelous. It's beautiful and Sherlock wants this to never end. He lets his mind believe it will never end. He sees them together like this- tangled with each other, desire burning so deep down that it is paralysing and devastating and crushing them into colourful shards of glasses. Blended together to form something else but infinitely more beautiful.
Sherlock groans wordlessly, 'I want this, John- you broken with passion and desire and love and mine because I'm already yours.'
He lets himself think John's groans love him in return.
Sherlock runs.
He runs until his legs ache and his fingers prickle. He runs past the garden and fountains. He wrestles down three nurses but doesn't stop. He runs like never before- like it's the end of the world. He runs as though murderers are chasing him. He runs thinking nothing has changed and he's back in London alleyways.
He runs until he can't anymore.
He collapses on the ground. His heart is thudding in his ears, his legs and hands are immovable. And he is so bloody tired. Paramedics hover over him. But he cannot stop the breathless chuckles.
He laughs- his insides burn- and thinks bitterly, 'Deal with this on your wedding day, John Watson.'
Sherlock wants to take John apart- limb by limb, muscle by muscle and atom by atom- until he's the only thing John feels. He wants to tear him apart and draw blood and write his name across every blood vessel in John's body. He wants to open his brain and look into it, to find how a person so ordinary can draw out such beastly side of Sherlock.
He wonders what John would think if he ever voices these thoughts. In sanctity of his mind, he imagines, John lets him do anything he wants to him.
One look at her and Sherlock can tell he needs to play carefully.
Oh, she's intelligent. He sees that in her offhanded remark- 'Good that I have options too'. He can see the dynamics between them as he can see nervous lines in John's smiles. He notes John insisting that Mary is his fiancée; he sees Mary's initial reluctance to join the conversation and then her changed stance- trying too hard to impress him. Sherlock plays along. He is charming and he laughs (when he'd rather steal John and run away). Finally he sees envy in Mary's eyes. He feels giddy inside. He never promised to play in fairness, did he?
After eight months in Switzerland, Mycroft puts Sherlock back in London. London is changed. Some local gang lords have expanded their 'business' while his Homeless Network is almost crumbled to grounds. He doesn't go back to Baker Street at once. He lives with Mycroft and is very happy to see the look of horror on his brother's face when he announces his plan. He starts working on gathering his Homeless Network again. His self-restraint is challenged but he does not put his Network on John Watson. He cannot let him get to his head again.
Mycroft tries to talk to him about John but Sherlock refuses to listen. He drowns his efforts in shrill notes of his violin or just walks out of the room. But that does not stop Mycroft.
"Read the message," Mycroft says, coming unannounced in his room and puts a phone in front of him. "It has your old SIM card in it."
The phone is brand new, with no markings whatsoever. Before Sherlock can utter a cutting remark, Mycroft leaves the room. Sherlock sighs but opens the message.
From: John Watson
I would wait all these lifetimes again. For you. Always.
-JW
***
Hello again!
Okay. So I know how it feels to be left at a cliffhanger but bear with me for a while. I have decided *drum roll* to write Sherlock and John's reunion! Since many of you needed to see our Brit chaps getting together, you shall get it. I'm brainstorming as I write, trying to come up with something interesting. It might take a bit of time. Meanwhile you should expect another Sherlock fic from me; probably not from this series.
Thank you for the enormous support this story has gotten from you lovely people. I hope I hear from you in the comments. You can also find me here, a href=" SassyBabyJohn?ref=hl"Hamish. John Hamish Watson, in case you're looking for baby names/a.
See y'all soon. x