A.N: Inspired by a gifset on Tumblr. This moment floored me the first time I saw it; I actually had to rewind and watch it again, because it speaks volumes so this sort of happened. Mention of torture
The song is, of course, Beatles's In My Life
The first time he had dreamt about John he had been in Peru. He had been dead a little over than a month, squatting in a tiny rented room, the heat and the stains on the walls making him slightly claustrophobic. It had been a nice dream: John and he eating take away Chinese in their kitchen, a song coming from Mrs. Hudson's radio downstairs, something about friends and lovers and how no one compared with him, his mind supplied in his dream.
It had been a nice dream, different from the vivid, upsetting images that often troubled his subconscious. It had been a memory, made it softer by the texture of dreams. If he had woke up with tears trailing down his face and a sense of emptiness so vast that he had had to take in big gulps of air, well no one had known, no one was there.
The first time he had heard John's voice in his head, while trying to bring to justice (bring down, destroy the web, but no one had warned him that each thread was made of barbed wire and it would hurt, it would take away pieces of himself) one of Moriarty's associates while he had had a knife pressed against his throat.
The man behind him was a professional, but as John had remarked and his voice had been so loud, so vibrant that he might have started in surprise, Sherlock could disarm a man without shedding blood on one of his ridiculously tight shirts. The man had been on the pavement five seconds later: broken nose, broken wrist.
He had stained his shirt, though, it was a cheap thing which hung loosely on his shoulders.
Ridiculously tight, John? He had wondered aloud.
Shut up. Policìa is coming. You don t want to be found here, do you? John had replied
My shirts are not that tight! He had said while running away from the scene (later he would find out that he had also given a concussion to the man; weird, he didn't remember hitting him so hard).
Only later did he realize that he had kept talking to John, for hours. When he did well, no one was there, no one would know or care.
He realized he was in love with John Watson while in Detroit, fighting Pneumonia, after a not particularly pleasant encounter with one of Moriarty's associates. Also, water-boarding was scary.
His mind could intellectually know the truth, his brain could try and rationalize, but his body betrayed him. His body reacted, his heart hammered in his chest. For a moment he was afraid, he felt so bloody lonely and homesick that it scared him even more than the feeling of drowning.
The fever had been running high, the doctor who cured the homeless man at the ER (each disguise was indeed a self-portrait), was blonde, with kind blue eyes and Sherlock, for once, had been a good patient. Too tired, too weak to do otherwise.
John He had said.
I m here, you git. First you get tortured, then you don t take care of yourself. Drenched in freezing water in November. What were you thinking?
The doctor had been kind. Too kind. Like John, his John.
No. No one was like him.
No one could ever compare to his John. It hadn't been a momentous revelation. It had been quiet, he had blinked his eyes and they had stung, they were dry, light had hurt his eyes, breathing had hurt his lungs, yet one couldn't stop breathing or blinking, one couldn't stop gravity. Within a heartbeat he had known, he had finally deduced.
Away from home, away from everything he held dear, sick with fever John was his, he loved John. He was in love with John. He missed him.
I miss you too. When can you stop being dead? John had whispered, it had been a soft plea, intimate and warm.
I m working on it. He had said. The blonde doctor had looked at him, sympathy in his eyes (he was too soft to last, he was already halfway burnt out, he considered suicide from time to time, he had someone - he stopped his deduction midway, who was he deducing anyway?).
The first time John kissed him, in his dreams, he had been traveling to Congo or some other African country. They had all started to blend. He followed Moriarty's web threads and plucked them out, one by one, it didn't matter where. It didn't really matter what he did to pluck them out, either. He needed to survive in order to stop Moriarty's legacy. He thought, sometimes, that the real legacy was how the dead man kept burning his heart out, day by day.
Stop being such a drama queen! In a war you do what you need to do!
John. John always kept him right, his conductor of light, his John.
In the dream it rained, they were both soaking wet, they were giggling, like boys, Sherlock could feel happiness bubbling in his chest, adrenaline rushing in his blood.
You are amazing John said.
He said that a lot, he always meant it. But John - how could he not see? How could he not know?
You are. Sherlock said.
An alley, lights flickering, rain pouring down, a gust of wind. A breath. John's lips on his: soft, tentative, warm. John's heart, he could feel it beating against his palm. He let John in. He would always let him in.
John cradling his face, his thumbs brushing his cheekbones, his breath, soft and warm against his lips; they both drew a breath and Sherlock held John tighter at him. He had kissed and been kissed, but those were distant things, experiments, unremarkable experiences.
None of them had been John. None of them had kissed him like John was doing: lust, love, devotion, fondness and passion in each tiny movement, in the way his fingertips just brushed against his nape, feather-like caresses, while his other hand grabbed fistful of his coat and pulled him even tighter at him. None of them could or would ever compare.
He didn t love any of them, he loved John Watson.
You need to come back, Sherlock. For me. Please. John breathed against his neck, seconds or an eternity later.
John's words, his hot breath against his neck sent shivers running through Sherlock s body, they woke him up, tore him away from the warm cocoon of John's arms. In his dream John loved him, wanted him. In his reality he was hiding in a cargo ship, in the dark, with an erection pressing uncomfortably against the zipper of his jeans. He let out a shaky breath. He muttered John's name, like a prayer on his lips, like his tether to reality, a reminder that Moriarty could still be taking away pieces of his humanity, but John... John was safe.
Once he dialed John's number. He had a disposable phone, one he had seldom used and would later destroy and throw away. He dialed the number slowly; he had nearly been in contact many times, held the phone in his hands, turned it over and over between trembling fingers deciding against it at the last second.
Are you sure? John asked, always the reasonable one.
I need to hear your voice. Sherlock had said.
Later, much later, it would take a while to stop the voice in his head and refrain from answer, but in that little room in the middle of nowhere, with a sprained ankle and healing scars, it made perfect sense. There was no one there to stop him or judge him. No one called him freak, no one cared.
He deduced, he planned, he plucked threads away (destroyed, killed, wounded anything to get the job done), he fled, he dreamt, he yearned. He was not used to sentiment. He was not used to having his heart in his throat, his back pressed against a wall, his eyes closed, a finger on the mute button of his phone.
He had no idea what time it was in London, he didn t care. He just needed a second, two at the most. It would be enough.
Hello? John s voice on the other line.
Real. Alive. Tired, had he a cold? He always got a cold in the winter.
John, I - I'm alive.
I miss you.
I want to come home.
I heard you, outside Bart's.
I saw you.
I felt you.
God, I am so sorry.
Did I ever tell you I may have fallen in love with you long before I realized I was?
I miss your laughter.
I miss your hideous jumpers.
I miss the faint smell of your aftershave.
I need you.
Please tell me you are okay.
Tell me you are safe.
Do you miss me?
Do you remember how it was when it was an us?
He flung the mobile phone against a wall. Three seconds, at most. Who in the bloody hell had he tried to fool? It wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
If he wept, if he packed his bag and left, walking on his sprained ankle until the pain had almost made him double over it didn t matter. Nothing mattered.
Twice he saw John. Once it was in a crowd, in St. Petersburg. It was snowing, the Neva was an ice expanse, the lights were glimmering, the man he had been following for days was finally close, close enough that soon he would be leaving Russia.
John was there, wearing a coat, his face pale, a lopsided smile on his face. Sherlock stopped, blinking his eyes, feeling the cold for the first time, the ice cold wind ruffling his hair, and for a moment, just a moment he believed he was there. He smiled because John had found him, because he had not believed the lie, because he was lost without him. It only lasted a moment, and John was gone.
A trick. Just a magic trick. God, he hated himself.
The second time the second time he was bleeding, he had been beaten with a windpipe. Someone had thought it was a brilliant idea to use his back as an ashtray. Someone had thought sensory deprivation, lack of sleep, pain would break him.
How could you break something that had already come undone at the seams? Illogical. Pain used not to scare him. Threaten to kill the people he loved and you got him dancing like a puppet on a string (and how easy it had become to admit it, now. Yes he loved. He could love. He had a heart. Moriarty wanted to burn it out of him, he had almost succeeded with his soul, but his heart was safe in London, so he could cope.), physical pain was debilitating, it was annoying, though. It was dull.
John was there. Soothing words in his mind, he actually almost made him laugh while being tortured, reminding him of that one time they had been at Buckingam's Palace and he hadn't been wearing any pants.
John had also been there in front of him. His face a pale mask, like that day outside St. Bart's. Shocked, numbed by grief. He had been there and Sherlock had actually felt fear.
It's the lack of sleep. Don't you dare failing me now. You are stronger than that! The John in his mind ordered. And it was the doctor's voice, the soldier's voice.
He tried, but the John in front of him was grieving, his knees giving out, the weight of loss too hard to bear for a moment.
He had run through woods. The John in his mind reminded him. It was the last, longest piece of the puzzle. He had sacrificed so much
You promised you would be back. You promised you would not give up John in his mind said. And his voice was nasal and Sherlock would have laughed, two years before, if someone had told him that hearing heartbreak in someone's voice could affect him.
He wasn't laughing now.
When had he promised?
Don't you remember? You were at the graveyard you watched me limp, you watched me touch your headstone and you promised, Sherlock!
Oh, yes. Yes. He had. It had actually happened. He had promised he would be back, he had promised he would not give up. He hadn't known how hard it would be. He hadn't known he was giving up right then to the only thing that mattered to him.
The alternative would have been worse. John, dying. Mrs Hudson, Lestrade.
John dying because of him. There was no alternative, not back then, not ever.
He had jumped, he would keep doing whatever it took.
The John in front of him, faded, and Sherlock smelt it. Mycroft's cologne, his soap, the faint trace of chocolate cake. Whatever had he taken him so long?
London was beautiful. Sherlock felt like he could perhaps start to breathe again as he saw the familiar scenario passing by in the car.
The driver was listening to the radio, usually he would ask to turn that down, but he was in London (near John, near his life) therefore he let it slide. He recognized the song playing, he had dreamt about it a few times, one of those dreams that hurt more than nightmares, the ones where he was home and nothing had ever happened and two years hadn't felt like two centuries on his skin and soul.
They were singing
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more
How unusual to hear that song again, the day he d finally got home.
No. Baker Street was home.
London was part of him, really, but it wasn t home. He would be home, soon. Back where they belonged, at long last.
John had a moustache.
I'll shave it off. John assured him.
You'd better! Sherlock mumbled.
In his mind, in his dreams, they were together. They were lovers; dull word that would never start to encompass what John Watson was for him. In the life he had lead since falling from that rooftop, John had still been his companion, his favorite room in his mind palace; his voice had filled his nights and long hours of travel.
He had comforted him, helping him glue the pieces together when he had kept falling, in different, darker ways.
In real life, John had moved out from Baker Street, grown a moustache and he was now in an upscale restaurant and Sherlock needed to see him.
He had made a promise, he had kept it. He had scars, nightmares, a cracked rib, a bruised soul but his heart hadn't been burnt out. Moriarty hadn't taken that away.
He wore his coat, his Spencer and Heart suit, a white shirt. His scars were well hidden, his heart might be thrumming against his ribcage but he was fine. He was back.
They were going to be together, the two of them against the world.
Yet...
He stopped short when he saw John. And it was real that time; it wasn't his mind desperately wanting to fill a void, or a byproduct of sleep deprivation and guilt.
John was real, breathing in the same space he was in; he was real - grief etched on his face, he could count the lines he had put on John's face with a magic trick; he looked anxious, he looked breathtaking.
John Watson had taken his breath away and Sherlock was scared because he couldn't stop being himself, he couldn't stop observing. He knew.
He had been oblivious for so long, he had been a blind idiot. But he could see things clearly, now. He saw what was about to happen.
He drew in a breath. He could turn his back and leave, choose another moment to come back into John's life.
He should. He probably should.
The John in his head wasn't talking.
John Watson, who held his heart - for whom he had fought, bled, died and come back was there, not three feet away from him; he was drinking wine, he had moved on (hadn't he?) and Sherlock was afraid.
John had told him he loved him in his dreams. They had kissed under the rain, they had made love in his bed, they had drunk wine together on the couch, they had solved crimes and kissed and groped each other like teenagers on the stairs, the rush of adrenaline too strong to make them wait.
John had kept him sane. John had grieved. John had loved him, once. John had moved on. John could be happy.
Sherlock let a small smile spread on his lips.
Human nature could be fascinating with all its dichotomies: smiling while having his heart broken, crying with joy, falling to one's death and falling in love.
He took a step, the smile still on his face. The game, another kind, a crueler kind, was on.
John Watson still held his heart and probably always would, but he didn t need to know.
No one had to know.
~the end