Hey y'all. It's me. I'm alive.
This is a One Shot because making it multiple chapters seems absurd to me when it only has 2,600 words.
Disclaimer: If I owned BBC Sherlock, it would have a season 3 by now.
What Do You Say When Your Best Friend Comes Back From the Dead?
John's POV:
My stomach flutters, with butterflies and warmth. The happiness wars with the need for action and event. Sitting alone in a locked dressing room is agonizing when I know what's happening in a few short hours. Excitement and anxiety work together to tense my muscles. I'm wired and impatient, and…
Bored.
The trigger word is thought and before I can stop myself, I'm thinking about it. About him, about my life at Baker Street about the darkest and lightest months of my existence.
I knew someone who got bored a lot. The happy butterflies died, crashing to the ground just like he did.
I half-heartedly scolded myself, pinching the long healed scar on my hand, a man shouldn't intentionally cause himself the mind melting kind of pain that thinking of Sherlock caused me.
Especially not on his wedding day.
Sherlock's POV:
I enter my Baker Street address, knowing that Mrs. Hudson was too sentimental to ever rent it out again. John doesn't live here anymore, but Mrs. Hudson probably keeps it for him just in case he ever wants to relive the glory days.
Glory, that's what got me where I am. The fame, cameras flashing in my face, a beaten gray deer-stalker, a mortal enemy, and my pride. Those are the reasons I'm sneaking into my own flat, at a time where the construction work outside will easily cover the sounds of my feet.
Bitterness floods my mouth as I walk into the living room, inhaling the burning familiarity.
I walk over to an armchair, running a finger over the back. A fiber catches my eye, a piece of a feather.
I notice my mistake, already too late.
This place shouldn't have been touched in 2 years, there should be at least minor dust and decay and rotten smells, not a feather from a duster stuck to a chair. Mrs. Hudson would maybe dust, but not with such an expensive feather duster.
Only one person I know could be so liberal with funds as to waste 300 pounds on a cleaning implement.
A familiar umbrella moves to peek out through the doorframe, confirming what a single feather already told me.
"Hello Mycroft."
John:
My sister, Harry, comes in and tells me it's almost time for me to start meeting with guests. She's not even through the doorway before she notices that something is very wrong.
"What's wrong, John? You okay? Those are happy tears, right?"
I try to laugh it off, but she can see right through me. Siblings always can.
"Oh what's wrong? The flower garlands are freesia and you wanted lavender?" She jokes, putting her arm around my shoulder concernedly.
"I'm fine, just nervous. Extremely nervous." She doesn't like it when I talk about Sherlock, so I neglect to mention him. She's never liked seeing me upset, and my recent fragility really rattles her.
She believes me, and walks out the door, assuring me everything will be fine, that the only thing that could go wrong is the open bar being a little too open. Smiling, she closes the door gently, leaving me to try and use the training I received from a year and a half of therapy to stop thinking about my missing best man.
Sherlock:
"How long have you known?" I ask, standing in the doorway, taking him in.
His suit is immaculate, just dry cleaned, he was expecting a confrontation with me. He's been in the apartment for some time, as his coat is not settled correctly on his shoulders, it's halfway on the chair. His gloves are folded neatly on the table, not directly in front of him, but not so far as to make it seem like he doesn't want me to sit, which he clearly does, judging from his posture and beckoning hand on the table.
I sit down opposite from him at my usual seat at the kitchen table. I hadn't seen the full surface of the table since I lived here, and the scratched up stained wood feels familiar and alien under my drumming finger tips.
"Since about a month ago," he says, a frown and look of superiority on his face. A face that says "I have government connections and you don't" or "You're wearing that to meet the Prime Minister?" or "I know what you did with Mum's hairdryer."
"Ah, I see you took a tip from me."
"What?" he says, mildly annoyed.
"Homeless network. You've been using the little people haven't you? And it bothers you that you have to stoop to working with the common folk in order to clear up a rumor that your kid brother is alive. That they know what your many rich 'friends' do not."
They're only ones who could have possibly known, them or Molly Hooper, and she would never tell, even if Mycroft knew to ask her. That's why I picked her to help me, she's loyal. Loyal to the point of madness, sometimes.
Mycroft looks satisfyingly abashed, as though he's surprised I can read him so easily after knowing him for my entire life. He's aged in the last two years, lines more defined on his face, gray showing in his immaculate comb-over.
"Yes, I used your system. 40 pounds got a nice girl named Charlotte to tell me you were collecting some things today." He sneers, anger and nostrils flaring. "Why didn't you tell me you were alive? For two years I thought some of the only family I had left was dead! I thought it, Lestrade thought it, Mrs. Hudson thought it." He pauses, for affect and to let the red leave his face. Quietly now, "John thought it."
I feel a sensation like guilt roil through my stomach, as I think of John Watson, my best and only real friend, standing over my grave, begging me to be alive. If only telling him wouldn't put him at such risk.
I know Moriarty's thugs have long since moved to the payroll of another crime lord, but telling him after 2 years would have no effect or importance. John would have moved on by now, and the shock of my being alive would do no good for the life I'm sure he has budding.
"None of you needed to know." I say at a perfectly normal volume, controlled, letting nothing escape in my voice, in the cold but conversational tone I employ so nicely.
"Oh yes we did!" Hisses Mycroft, standing now, angry at me. "Your friends, your family! Do they mean nothing to you? Were we tools in achieving an end? You know what your death did to Mrs. Hudson? She was seriously ill for months, she moved out to the country with her sister. John was… destroyed! You were his ENTIRE life! I had my men picking up the pieces, but he was nearly dead! You nearly killed him!" His voice breaks, and he slumps back into his chair bitterly.
"John was depressed?" I ask, sounding mildly interested – really being worried about his health (old habits die hard) -, knowing the answer before he says anything.
"His entire life stopped. He only became functional recently. Oh, 6, 7 months ago? It was a year and a half before he could even be released into society. He's better now, he has a fiancé. Now that I think about it…" He trails off, taking a thin, sleek cell phone out of his pocket and scanning it fervently.
"Now that you think about what?" I ask, leaning forward.
"Today is John's wedding day, and I'm late." He laughs, standing up, "Would you like to come with me?" He smirks, predicting a negative answer.
"I would love to go."
John's POV:
Outside now. Waiting for Mary. Couple more minutes. Taking it slow.
Looking down the aisle, I see Mycroft. I smile at him, he looks at me with a worried expression. I don't bother to think about why he's acting so strange, I'm much too busy reminding myself how to breathe.
I see Mary's mother walk over to the string quartet. They start tuning their instruments and I start choking on my own spit.
I chant to myself how much I want to do this, and that I love Mary, but my nerves sing a song of anxiety and fear that this will turn out horribly. A growing sense of unease is giving me nauseous goose-bumps.
The audience rustles, and starts quieting down. Mary is going to be here soon. Really soon.
I look up the aisle, and the doors are slightly ajar. Expecting Mary, I peer closely at the figure blocking most of my view. What I see is something I thought I'd never see again.
A long navy blue velvet coat, brushing by.
A scarf, also navy blue, knotted around a paper white throat.
A face, hollow cheeks and icy eyes surrounded by a tangled lion's mane of shiny black hair.
"Sherlock" I breathe.
I saw him fall off of that building. I felt his pulse-less wrist. He's dead, and buried and gone and–
Adrenaline that I haven't felt since the day it happened pours through me and I'm running up the aisle and into the hall just as Mary's processional music starts.
The audience gasps and whispers, looking confused and shaking their heads. One of Mary's cousins makes a loud obnoxious comment about cold feet, but I'm nearly outside.
I see him, on a bench across the street, and I slow to a walk.
He's looking the other way, into the sunset, but when I get within 4 meters of him he turns around.
"John." He nods, sliding over smoothly to give me a seat.
I sit, unable to think of what to say. I had fantasized this moment so many times, being angry, being cocky, being surprised, being annoyed, being overjoyed. But what do you say when your best friend comes back from the dead?
"Sherlock." I manage, answering him finally. I break down. The tears I haven't shed in 7 and a half months erupt out of me, raining onto my expensive tuxedo pants. I turn away from him, ashamed of myself.
I've finally controlled the impromptu water-show, knowing crying myself out would take hours, maybe days. I look back at him, and he's sitting looking awkward and uncomfortable.
"So how have you been?" He asks, a practically pitying expression on his face, which enrages and confuses me.
"I have a fiancé, very pretty girl named Mary. I have a steady job, at a nice hospital. We rent a two bedroom flat, which we keep quite clean, and I am completely miserable. What is wrong with you? How have I been? HOW HAVE I BEEN?" I yell, gathering stares from the people passing us on the street. They don't recognize him. Why would they? Some antisocial detective who jumped off a building two years ago is hardly something to pique a person's interest for them to remember at a glance. I quiet down, a forceful whisper now. "You were dead. Actually legitimately dead. Do you know how that feels? To have your best friend be gone, to be left the task of overseeing everything and all of the stares and the pills and have nothing left but a deerstalker and a scarf to remember you by? How do you THINK I am?"
"That's nice about your fiancé."
Sherlock:
I brush off my thighs, stand up, and begin to walk away. I can think of nothing that would further the conversation or make him feel better. John is clearly quite upset, and I know I've made a bad choice by revealing myself.
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING SHERLOCK HOLMES" John shouts, his voice cracking and thick from his tears. I hear him stand, but he is in no shape to follow me.
He rubs his leg, like it's been bothering him.
"How long has your leg been bad again?" I ask, turning around, but not walking back over to the bench.
"Since… umm… " He trails off, rubbing his hands together and pinching a scar on his hand.
I walk over to him, and grab his left hand by the wrist. I bring it closer to my face and John is aghast, mouth flapping. I realize this is our first physical contact since he found out I'm alive. I nearly blush, John looks so flustered.
"When did you get this?" I ask him, referring to the scar.
"I was hit by a biker the day it happened. I fell onto the pavement and cut it on a rock." He recites, without hesitation or notable inflection. His eyes dart to the left of my shoe, he is nervous saying this out loud. It's a well-rehearsed speech, often given to concerned family and friends and doctors.
"And you pinched that cut for sensation in the time afterword, and it still bothers you. A cut on a rock like that would not be severe enough to leave a scar like the one I see on your hand, and it wouldn't be so clean, you must have re-cut it several times," I speak frankly, not letting my worry enter my words.
Of course I'm worried. His PTSD had come back full force, something I realized would happen while I was planning. It made me sick and doubting to think about, so I didn't think of it again.
"I am so sorry John." This time my voice is low and gravelly. If he had gotten hurt from my efforts not to get him hurt, well… I don't know that I would have coped in a rational way.
"Sherlock, it's ok. I'm fine now, I… I should go get married! Oh god, what will Mary think?" His breathing is coming slightly more shallowly, and he looks nervous and worried, in a "groom to be" way.
"You should go then. Good bye John." I say, standing again.
He stands too, shaking his head. "Oh no. You, sir, are not going anywhere. We are going back to Baker St. I can't marry Mary now, not anymore."
"What are you talking about, John?" It seems like…
"I'm going to go back to being your assistant consulting detective. You can tell Lestrade at the Yard you're alive and we can move back into the flat," He says, in a final no nonsense tone.
Oh. Not what I was expecting.
"You have a life now, a fiancé and a house and a job. Go back to that." I let insolence creep into my tone, by accident. I want John at my side as much as he does, but that nearly got him killed. If he actually got hurt the guilt would consume me forever, and I would be irrational and unable to function or work. He is a liability, if an enjoyable one.
"That was a replacement for you, Sherlock! Okay, you're making me say it. I want to solve crimes and run around and live on Baker Street over that shady little cafe. Mary and the job and the house were all nothing compared to how the adrenaline felt. Ok? Now quit asking. We're going." Hysteria, he's hysterical.
But I miss him, god, I miss him.
John taught me that emotion and passion are fine things to mix into my work, and he opened up a door that I can't close. And if I have to suffer through trivial distracting feelings, I might as well have a companion.
We walked away from the Church silently, and I grabbed his hand once we were halfway up the block.
And I didn't let go.
FIN
So that was my first Johnlock fic. Yeah.
I love reviews, but looking at my fanfics from when I was younger I was a real review hog. And a terrible writer.
*sighs*
Anyway, I love all of you for simply reading this. I know it's different than what I usually write, but what I was going for was a realistic portrayal of Johnlock, without any kisses or declarations of love.
I might post something on my other story later! Yay!