Trimmed and Burning
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst, Angst, Angst; Romance, AUish
Summary: For them, for they, for John and Sherlock, an enormous part of it has always been a waiting game.
Disclaimer: Own absolutely nothing.
Sherlock waits for eighteen months.
He wakes up in a room where everything is off-white and sterile and is so achy and nauseated that he is convinced for a swirling instant that he's overdosed again. As suddenly he is sledgehammered with memories of a bright flash, a sickening scream of twisting steel and crumbling concrete, of the hard slams in blinding fast sequence of a body to his left side and of water to his right. Of a desperate breath gasped that draws water burning with chlorine instead of air.
His nausea flares unbearably and he barely manages to throw himself onto an elbow (wrist sprained, shoulder wrenched from socket) so the bile he chokes out mostly ends up on the (off-white) linoleum.
The nurse who appears is saying a lot to him, asking him a lot of questions, touching cold hands to the parts of him that are bandaged and sear with hot pain, but all he can say back is "John, John, John."
John's alive, John was critical but is stable, the parts inside John that have swollen (because he didn't make it quite into the pool, because he would rather Sherlock be intact than himself) are slowly ebbing to normal size. John is expected to wake up in three days, so really, if one is particular about semantics and details, the first time Sherlock waits it is in a bedside chair whose armrests press uncomfortably against his sore hips, and it is for three days.
But, after that, Sherlock waits for eighteen months. He waits for eighteen months because he is a coward; he waits for eighteen months because though he knows all its rules and most of its words the English language is proving maddeningly insufficient. He waits for eighteen months because even when John meets "a nice girl, and smart," starts spending nights away (and on neither sofa nor lilo), starts eyeing rings, Sherlock cannot just say it for eighteen months.
And he's not being dramatic when he thinks of those months as a process of him exploding outwards in extreme slow motion, of coming apart at the seams (of being rent at them) with violence, and heat, and smoke, and noise. Trust him: He knows about explosions.
It's just another day (It's October 8th, at 6:45 in the evening) but Sherlock has been bursting open for eighteen months and as he sits on the sofa stock-still and staring at John, he might not seem it but he is a bleeding, skinless husk and even the touch of John's eyes spreads acidic pain across all his inches of raw, exposed flesh.
John is packing. Sherlock is staring. John doesn't notice, because he's packing, and because he is wearing a ring, and because he has a rather lovely life spread out in front of his feet, and because Sherlock has always done things like sit stock-still and stare.
"You can't," says Sherlock, and his voice is cracked as crumbled concrete. He clears his throat, frustrated, and amends, "I need you not to marry her."
He only knows John is looking because there is no more movement, rustling, quiet absent whistling. He is staring at the floor, but even that is too much. He closes his eyes, because for the first time, the first time ever, he cannot look at John.
"Why?" says John, finally. His voice is tight. He's annoyed, almost angry, because his tone is affected by the tightness of his jaw that happens when Sherlock's demands are unreasonable, incomprehensible, inhuman. But he's worried, too. For the wrong reasons, of course: He
thinks Sherlock's deduced a flaw, a real problem, a mental instability, a lie, an affair. He's worried, or else he wouldn't have stopped packing to ask.
"Because," Sherlock says. Patterns of orange light break, shift, and recombine mercurially agains the dark of his closed eyelids. No, wrong. "John," he says. Wrong, damn it.
"Sherlock," says John, tone changed, shot through with a nervousness that constitutes concern.
"You need to not marry her because I could not possibly abide being in love with a married man," Sherlock says, intending evenness but ending up with words that reel and trip against each other like newborn colts. "So tacky," he finishes, lamely. He feels himself deflating, shoulders sinking, breath hitching.
And the flat is quiet.
And it's quiet.
And light plays in the dark in front of Sherlock's eyes.
And it's quiet.
And then there is movement, footsteps crossing carpet with even, military disposition. Then weight, and warmth, and a force against his boneless shoulders that forces them against the sofa coushins.
"Look at me," says John, voice complicated beyond measure. John says this from Sherlock's lap. He says this while his thighs spread warmth like sunlight across Sherlock's thighs, and his palms press hard agains clavicle.
And Sherlock does.
It takes a moment for his eyes to focus. But - yes! - that is John's face, near and nearly on level with his own. Those are
the compact creases next to tight lips; those are the lovely spreads of soft pock-marks across soft cheeks, those are the bright, wary eyes
that shine bright, bright, bright.
Oh, god. John is going to cry.
"What," Sherlock manages, or almost manages. The words catch in a throat closed tighter than expected. Maybe he hasn't quite said anactual, English word, but he's almost certain he did make some sort of sound.
"Ah, fuck," says John. And then there are lips.
And Sherlock's eyes drop closed again, and he probably makes another sound, and loosens his bottom lip to better align his mouth to the impossible presence of John Watson's lips against it. And he tastes salt, suddenly, because John closed his eyes to kiss Sherlock and that made moisture spill down his cheeks.
Sherlock's fists find and twist wool knit at John's hips and cling motionlessly until John draws back. Sherlock can feel the shaky breath that John exhales, and he wonders briefly if he might die from the hugeness of the sensation. He opens his eyes slowly, and has to desperately right his capsizing heart at the sight of John's shining eyes and tear-streaked face.
"You idiot, you idiot," he hears John say, "I never thought," he begins, then, "Why didn't you fucking say something fucking sooner?"
Sherlock continues to be betrayed by the English language, and the flat is quiet again. His hands shake faintly against John's hips.
John grabs a handful of his hair, not gently, and shakes his own bewildered head. "I can't," he begins, then winces at whatever he sees happen to Sherlock's face. "No, not...I...Look. I can't...We can't. Not...until I tell her."
Relief is a hot bath. It's a heavy, downy comforter. It cocoons and encompasses. Sherlock believes in that instant, as John extracts himself unsteadily from Sherlock's lap, that he shall never feel cold again.
"I have to...I'll get a cab," John is saying. He finds his jacket, is failing to put it on with anything approximating grace. "Stay here, stay here, I'll be back, give me two hours, two hours or so. Stay here."
So, if one keeps track, if one is fastidious in chronicling the specifics, Sherlock waits three days, and then he waits eighteen months, and then he waits two hours or so.
Sherlock waits for three years.
He is in Switzerland. He is soaking wet. He is sprained in the places where he is not broken; he is bruised in the places where he doesn't
bleed. He is the only person alive near this sound of crashing water, and he is nearly sick at the thought, literally sick, but he knows what he has to do.
He is in Germany. He is in France. He is in Moscow. He is in Vienna. He is too skinny for his trousers. He is bruised on ribs that show. He is in in Latvia. He is smoking, but that only lasts six weeks. He is in Dublin.
He buys post-cards. He buys exquisite, expensive stationery. He steals a notebook from the open purse of a Canadian tourist with a wide,
trusting face. He steals pads of paper from hotels where he doesn't stay. He writes notes. He writes letters. He writes pages and pages and pages, desperate to explain, expound, to be forgiven.
He writes things like Ever Yours, Always Yours, Forever Yours, Desperately, Yours, Know I'm Yours, and is embarrassed. Mostly (Daily) he just writes "John," or "John, John, John." He burns all this paper to smoke and ashes. He is in Munich, in Madrid, in Glasgow, in San Francisco, watching this paper burn.
He composes eleven hundred text messages from a dozen dozen different phones. He stares at them, twists his mouth, and watches himself
delete them character by character.
He is in Lima erasing "There cannot be on Earth another love like mine for every part of you." He is in Sofia (Sofija) erasing "John, I will
understand if you never forgive me. I will understand if you hate me. It will change nothing." He is in Oslo deleting "Oh god, missing you can only be worth saving you. I'm lost. Please understand."
He's in Warsaw, Bonn, Prague, Pittsburgh, erasing "I love you. SH."
He's desperate for a drink, a cigarette, a syringe, unshaven and wild-haired, disguised in a horrid hoodie and jeans frayed at the
cuffs, as he stares at the thousandth grainy CCTV still Mycroft sent to and from the hundred-and-halfth anonymous email account. He's drawn, his eyes bruised with insomnia and malnutrition. He bruises too easily, too often. He stares at photos of John in cafes, at bus stops, on park benches and wills himself to not come undone.
He's in Cardiff. He's in Liverpool.
He's in Manchester.
He's waited one thousand ninety nine days. He is almost done. He deletes "Please wait for me, I need you" in Leeds. He deletes "John:
Marry me. Marry me and I'll spend forever earning your forgiveness. I will," in Bristol.
He is in London.
He is on Baker Street.
(John waits for three years, too. John waits for three fucking years. John doesn't know he's waiting until afterwards, but John waits for three bloody cunting years, you wanker, you fucking idiot, you, you, fuck, come here, come here, oh god.)
The sheets are wet with sweat. The shams are wet with sweat and tears. Their bodies glow. The quilt is a mess. Their shirts are irreparable.
"What do we do?" John asks.
"We get married," Sherlock replies easily. The languid, agreeing hum John makes vibrates against his solar plexus. "We move. We buy a cottage in Sussex and we raise a pair of children and a whole lot of bees."
"Okay," says John, agreeably. He is filled to the brim with feeling, but doesn't need to say so. Sherlock can read him like a book and does, constantly, desperately, with eyes and hands and mouth and exploding heart.
Sherlock waits for six months.
There's a diagnosis, and there's no treatment, and there are suggestions from drugs to therapy to meditation (meditation!) but there are never solutions.
There are two months at the outside, but Sherlock knows the strength John has somehow managed to fold into the short squareness of his aging stature and doubles the figure, at least.
There are two weeks of John patiently nursing bandages over where Sherlock drew blood. Of nodding gently, wrinkled face's smile not indulgent or placating but somehow still fascinated, proud, pleased.
But not hopeful. John takes his death sentence better than Sherlock takes it, by a factor of at least several thousand.
And two months pass. And three.
And the children are beautiful, and strong, and square-shouldered (from John), verbacious and wry (from Sherlock) and they visit as much
as their precious hearts can bear.
And five months pass. And five and a half. And John can no longer stand upright. He takes to their bed, lying on his side, curled just so. His traitorous insides are a fire inside of him, but John would never say so, and Sherlock would never admit that he is constantly, acutely aware of the nature and diameter of John's pain. When John becomes unable to spend time outside of their bed, Sherlock tries to remain casual about the fact that he now rarely leaves it either.
It's slightly past half-one, on a gorgeous day. There are dust motes that dance through the air in the bedroom. The cottage, as always, smells faintly of clean, and warm, and honey, and antiseptic, and mothballs.
John is dying. John is going to die.
They are lying on the bed, and they are peering at each other, shy and wondering, knowing and unsurprised. They clench hands. They talk for hours. John's voice is failing him, breaking off into splinters and fractals and gasps and coughs. Sherlock's voice is failing him, too, but he is correcting this so resolutely that John might not even have noticed.
There is a light in John's eyes that is wavering, ebbing. Sherlock is watching his husband slip away. He is listening as John's sentences lose structure, and as his words lose meaning. He is watching John's eyes drop shut for longer and longer before they snap open and focus, desperate and wild as an animal, on Sherlocks' face.
"I'm not ready," John says, at three forty five. "I'm ready," he corrects, his old eyes wincing painfully at something he sees on Sherlock's face. Their noses nearly touch, sharing John's pillow, "but I'm sorry."
"You have to know," Sherlock husks desperately. It takes all his talent to keep the rueful tremble that threatens his figure as he feels the shake of John's whole figure against their clinging fingers.
"I know, I know, I know," John breathes. His eyes drop shut.
"Well," says Sherlock, and closes his eyes too.
"You idiot," from John, practically inaudible.
"Fuck," says Sherlock. He lifts himself onto an elbow, and dips his head to press his lips against temple, jawline, hair, ear, mouth. "Okay," he adds, and, "I love you, but words aren't enough to..."
"I know," says John. His eyes are too heavy, too heavy. His lips would smile more, but everything hurts, and everything makes him tired. His grasp is slackening. His breath is growing shallow. "Sherlock, Sherlock, I know, I know."
Sherlock is on his back, on the bed, on top of the sheets, dressed. His shoes are on, leather laces tied tight in fastidiously symmetrical bows. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, as is the lowest button on his fine jacket. His fingers are tented over his navel, thumb-pads pressing. His hair, shock-grey and wild despite a recent trim, is exploded over the dark silk of the pillowcase. He has been motionless, now, for hours.
There are, of course, two bodies on the bed.
John's is curled towards Sherlock's, eyes closed. Its skin is pulled tight and grey over bones that have become too fragile. Its breath is gone. It is not John. It was, once, but now it is not.
"Perhaps I shall drown myself," he whispers. He lets his eyes drop closed. He lets out a shuddering breath. Indulgently, he allows himself a weak moment of pretending and pushes his stiff fingers through his dead husband's hair. The afternoon sun that has had the gall to break beautifully through the cottage window, and under Sherlock's hand the wiry grey strands feel warm, unchanged, alive.
He doesn't drown himself. Mycroft is there, somehow, within two hours, the appropriate personnel in tow.
"If you need a moment," Mycroft says, formal, but Sherlock can read in the desperate whiteness of knuckles clinging to umbrella that all of
his brother's significant restraint is at work to keep himself from reaching out, from grabbing Sherlock at the upper arm and back of
head.
Sherlock stands in the doorway, back to bed, to John. "I've had it," he says, evenly. The brothers simultaneously brush their eyes to the
attending gentlemen, silent and polite in white scrubs and rubber gloves. An infinitesimal gesture of Mycroft's fingertips and they move
into the bedroom to do their jobs with respectful, practiced efficiency.
Mycroft follows Sherlock to the parlour. A paper bag has appeared in his hand, and as he sits he extracts its contents.
"Absinthe," says Sherlock, without intonation.
"Positively splendid and painfully rare," Mycroft says.
"Inconsequential," says Sherlock. "Let's drink all of it."
As Mycroft gathers glasses from a kitchen cupboard, the two men in white pass through the parlour, bearing a wheeled cart with a zipped,
black bag on top. Sherlock looks at it, hard and long, and then looks away and at at a spot on the far wall with equal resolve.
Mycroft pours.
Mycroft speaks about the enormity of the country sky, the beauty of its stars. He asks about the bees and about the puppy. They talk about
the family, and the family's children.
And, all at once, an hour later, Sherlock thinks, blankly, I am very, very drunk.
Then, though he swore not to, told himself that sentimentality would make the pain worse, told himself that remembering would open the fine
fissures splintered over his heart into oozing wounds that could never close, Sherlock starts to speak. He says short sentences that Mycroft knows are prompts, that Sherlock wants to hear somebody else speak about him so that Sherlock doesn't have to encounter the breadth of his loss, not yet, so that he doesn't have to ponder the enormity of his favourite heart, the one that was beating yesterday. The one that now lies in Royal Sussex County Hospital, and will never beat again.
And days pass, and months, and years. And there are things to do, always. There is the dog, who starts to show his age, who droops in the face, barks more feebly, walks rigidly on limbs stiffened by arthritis. There is a field of clover nearby lying fallow that tempers the texture of the bees' honey in fascinating ways. There is his violin, when his fingers will allow. There is the most fascinating mold in the cellar.
There are the children, of course, aging too. There is Dashiell, engaged, married, moving to America, moving back. There is Mena, who is pregnant, who is pregnant again, who grapples painfully with divorce.
And there are things to do. And the days pass, and it's alright.
And when night comes, a relief every time, Sherlock changes into a dressing gown. He arranges himself on his side of the bed, and closes
his eyes. He curves back one arm, knuckles lightly resting on the seam of John's pillow. He arches his feet, stretches papery skin across muscles that weaken every hour. He uses his thumb to turn the band on his left hand around a finger that thins with his hair, his wrists, his breath, his memory.
"Please," he whispers, every night, to the cruel room where John died. And he doesn't say it but he thinks, every night, John, John, John.
He lies there.
He waits.
Sherlock waits.