You're Only a Dream Now
John sat in his armchair, staring numbly at the faded chair across from him. A year. It had been a year since he last saw his friend sitting there, curled up cat-like and yelling at the telly. John swallowed and turned his dull gaze down, instead staring at the two teacups sitting on the table in front of him. The one closest to him was almost empty; only cold dregs wallowed at the bottom. The one opposite him sat full, frigid, forlorn.
He heaved a hefty sigh and looked out the window: grey, overcast, threatening rain. Exactly the same as a year ago. Rather gloomy weather was a normal occurrence in London, but today John was thankful for it. He doubted he could face the sunshine right now; it wouldn't feel right. Of course, sunshine never felt right anymore. Everything bright had seemed out of place for the past year. When Harry had called a couple months ago, ecstatic about her impending adoption of a child with her girlfriend, John's only response was, "You're going to fuck up that child." This nasty retort earned him a well deserved click. He had had no contact with his sister since. He'd immediately regretted saying that the moment it came out of his mouth, but he hadn't had the courage or willpower to call her back and apologise. She was unlikely to answer his calls at this point anyway.
John stood up, wobbled slightly, and grabbed the hateful cane that rested against his armchair. His leg pain had returned gradually over the months following "the fall." At first he ignored it hoping it was just temporary aches and pains, but one morning he woke and found himself unable to even get out of bed. He had had to holler for Mrs. Hudson for ten minutes till she finally heard him and was able to retrieve the dusty cane out of the closet for him. He saw the thinly veiled pity behind her kind eyes, which only made him feel more helpless and ashamed.
He stacked the full cup on top of his own and limped to the sink. Carefully dumping the untouched cup, he felt an almost palpable and familiar stab of pain in his chest as the last dregs swirled down the drain. He knew it was a waste, but even now he couldn't break himself of the habit of setting out two cups. Despite the wrenching pain he felt every time he drank from his own cup and watched the cup opposite him with an almost longing expectancy, he couldn't help it.
The broken man hobbled painfully over to the coat rack and grabbed the only jacket hanging on the two pronged hanger. He still missed seeing the long coat and familiar scarf occupying the other hanger; he recalled the times he placed the deerstalker on top of the coat just to bother Sherlock. This memory made him crack a slight half smile not unlike the one his late companion would display during those rare moments of affection. It disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared; smiles were few and short lived. He struggled into his black jacket and limped painfully down the stairs.
The stairs. They were the reason he had almost not moved in and now they were the reason he continued to stay. Or so he claimed. He said they made his leg feel better (they didn't) and that the exercise they gave him was good for him (he barely left the flat, so therefore barely used the stairs). He couldn't afford the rent by himself for the flat, but Mrs. Hudson had taken pity on him and accepted what he could come up with each month. He knew it was wrong to do this and that Mrs. Hudson was essentially providing him with charity. He had had several people contact him interested in the flat just days after the fall. He had hung up on them and ignored all their emails. Having a new flatmate would be... vile. He could think of no other word for it. They would want to redecorate, cover up the spray painted smiley on the wall, get rid of the skull on the mantle. John wasn't ready for that. Doing all that would be getting rid of the last remnants of Sherlock that he clung on to.
John stepped out of 221B Baker Street and into the first dismal drizzles of the early morning. He breathed in deeply and turned his face towards the overcast sky, letting the raindrops fall onto his face for a moment. He breathed out and opened his eyes and looked about the street; not many people were out, as it was a cold and dreary Sunday. John figured he'd be the only one at his destination today. It was unlikely anyone else would care, especially on a day like this. Casting a cursory glance around the empty road, John hobbled across. After walking a few minutes, he entered a flower shop.
"Hello, dearie, can I help you with finding something?" a young woman asked from behind the counter, eyeing his cane.
"Oh, no, that's quite all right, I'm sure I can find something myself," John said, barely managing to crack a hasty smile. At one point in his life he would have chatted up the young lady and possibly asked her out on a date – she was certainly pretty. But John hadn't dated anyone in months, and the last girlfriend had broken up with him saying he was "a downer." When he told his therapist this, she asked how he felt about this, if he thought this was true. John had merely shrugged and said "I don't care. I don't particularly care about anything anymore." He didn't return to his therapist afterward. What was the point of paying someone to make you feel better if you knew they could never help you?
John limped slowly about the shop, looking at all the displays of flowers; flowers for weddings, flowers for lovers, flowers for illness, flowers for funerals, flowers for graves. John was idly looking at particularly pink arrangement when he heard a small cough behind him. He turned around, already knowing who it was.
"You sure you don't need any help? I bet your girlfriend would love this one, if she likes roses," the florist said, picking up an elegant arrangement of red and white roses.
"Oh, no, not looking for flowers for a girlfriend," John replied, once again turning his back to her.
"Oh, really?" John could hear a glimmer of hope in the girl's voice. What was it about a miserable, broken man that women found so attractive? Ever since he had started using his cane again, women seemed to be trying to help him all the time now. He would have loved this attention once, but now he just wanted to be left alone.
"Nope, looking for flowers for my wife, she's in the hospital. Hit by a car, not doing well," John said quickly, pretending to check his phone. "Oh, look at that, I've got to run. Seems she may have taken a turn for the worse. Thanks," John said, and hobbled as quickly as he could out of the shop. He caught a glimpse of the woman's face on his way out. She looked confused and a little hurt, but John didn't trifle himself with that as he stepped out into the drizzle. He wasn't even sure why he had thought to bother with flowers in the first place. He had wanted to bring the skull, but he knew that a skull sitting openly in a graveyard would be conspicuous and viewed as distasteful.
John continued to limp out to the main street to catch a cab when he was suddenly struck by inspiration. He smiled slightly in spite of himself and slipped into a nearby store.
John limped through the muck, his cane squelching into the ground with every step. God damn it, Mycroft, you just had to bury him as far away from the sidewalk as you could, didn't you? John thought as he wrenched his cane out of the ground for the umpteenth time. In reality, he was grateful to Mycroft for making the funeral and burial arrangements; despite the trouble it caused him, John appreciated the spot Mycroft had picked out. It was slightly removed from the rest of the graveyard and the headstone sat under a lovely old tree. John might have brought along a bagged lunch to eat next to his friend if it hadn't been raining. Some other day, maybe.
He plodded up to the familiar but slightly weather worn gravestone. It wasn't quite as shiny as the day he had begged Sherlock to stop being dead. He spotted a small bouquet of wilting lilies at the foot of the stone; Mrs. Hudson had evidently visited within the past couple days to pay her respects. Lestrade wasn't the type to leave flowers, John doubted Mycroft had visited since the funeral, and on the off chance that Molly had been by she probably would have left a large and ghastly bundle of colourful flowers. So that left Mrs. Hudson. In a different time John would have been mildly upset that she didn't invite him along, but now he didn't blame her considering his anti-social behavior and depression.
John stopped in front of the patch of earth that covered up his best – his only – friend. He shuffled his cane and reached into the small paper bag he was carrying.
"I know you didn't like this hat. You mocked it and hated it when the press would only use those photos of you wearing it. But I think you secretly enjoyed the attention, and you can't deny it was pretty funny. They were selling these hats as 'The Great Detective' hats for a while, they were very popular. They're... they're not so popular now, they sell them by a different name. But regardless, I think they looked good on you no matter how much you hated them. I thought maybe one would look nice on you now, too," John said, pulling out the deerstalker hat. Smiling slightly, he limped the last few feet between him and the headstone and placed the cap on top. Stepping back to admire the effect, he heard a voice he'd only heard in his dreams for the past year.
"Oh, god, John, really? You know I absolutely despise that hat, why the hell would I ever want it on my grave?"
John froze, still staring at the hat. He closed his eyes, shook his head. He'd had this dream before, it had to be a dream. There was no need to get his hopes up only to wake up in the cold, empty flat. He opened his eyes and slowly turned around to face the voice.
"Hello, John." The familiar eyes, the cheekbones, the coat, the scarf... they were all there in front of him, mocking him with their realness. The apparition's strange coloured eyes carefully studied John, taking in his cane, the new wrinkles on his face, the three day old stubble on the normally clean shaven face.
"No," John said, shaking his head and turning away.
"No? What sort of greeting is that?" the dream asked, looking slightly hurt, but only for a moment.
"You're only a dream now, I'm not going through this again. I'm sick of this dream, I want to wake up. Why does my mind keep doing this to me, it knows how much it hurts. WAKE UP!" John yelled, sending birds flying out of the branches above. The apparition's familiar face softened and its eyes shone with regret for a split second.
"John if you were dreaming you wouldn't be able to read your watch. There's two things you can almost never do in dreams: tell time and control the lighting. There's no light switch around so go on, look at your watch," the apparition said impatiently. John glanced down at his watch – 09:23. John squinted his eyes at the apparition again, still refusing to believe.
"How do I know you're not just my mind trying to play tricks on me?" John asked, but his conviction was falling away.
"John, I'd be thoroughly surprised if your mind was ever capable of that level of cleverness."
John punched him.
It was his final test to make sure. As his fist connected with Sherlock's bony face and his knuckles immediately begun to smart, he knew it was him. It was his Sherlock.
"Yes, I supposed I deserved that," Sherlock said, not looking at all surprised as he straightened back up and rubbed the welt that was already rising on his left cheek. John took a step backward, his feet tangling on his cane. He slipped and landed on his bottom with a soft squlooch. Sherlock's eyebrows furrowed. "What'd you do that for?"
"I... you... but you're dead... your grave... I took your pulse... there was blood and..." John stammered from his mud puddle, looking rather like an overgrown and helpless child.
"Yes, yes, I know, there's plenty of time to explain later. What about some brunch, then? You don't look as if you've eaten since I last saw you. Come, there's a nice cafe just down the street." Sherlock extended his hand out to his collapsed companion, but to no avail. John had passed out.
"Typical," Sherlock muttered as he studied his old friend, now soaked and splattered with mud. "You're paying for the dry cleaning of my coat – you've no idea how hard it was to get those blood stains out," Sherlock said, hoisting the unconscious John up out of the mud.
John woke up slowly, groggily. He was warm, wrapped in a blanket, and sitting in his armchair. That's it, then. I was dreaming again. I must have dozed off last night reading again. But then why could he hear the fire crackling as if it'd recently been lit? Mrs. Hudson, he reasoned. John heaved a sigh and opened his eyes.
"You're not going to punch me again, are you?" Sherlock sat in the chair across from him, legs crossed and hands pressed together, fingertips resting on his lips. The left side of his face was swollen and bruised – it didn't even look like he had put ice on it yet. Two cups of tea sat on the table. This time it was Sherlock's that was empty. John rubbed his palms into his eyes for a moment then looked again, just to be sure. Sherlock still sat there, looking as if he had never faked his death and disappeared for a year.
"No, I... hang on a sec, didn't I fall in mud?" John asked, suddenly realizing he was in a clean, dry jumper and trousers.
"Yes, and you'll be paying for the dry cleaning of my coat since I carried you back here, you useless lump. None of the cabs wanted to take us since we were coated in mud, but I finally convinced one that you were ill and needed your medicine at once." Sherlock smirked. "I also used your wallet to pay for the fare, hope you don't mind."
John's cheeks flushed for a moment at the thought of Sherlock carrying him up the stairs, changing his clothes... He pushed that thought aside for later. "So you... you're back now, are you?"
"Well yes of course, why wouldn't I be?" Sherlock responded, turning his head slightly in genuine puzzlement. John stood up, wavering unsteadily on his feet. Sherlock stood up as well, brow furrowing. He placed his hands on John's shoulders to prevent him from falling again.
"Now really John, I know you must be angry with me, but I really think you've done enough damage to my face as it is, and I can expl-" Sherlock was abruptly cut off when John collapsed into his chest. Sherlock raised his hands, unsure of what to do. Was he having a fit of some sort? John clutched the thin figure to him and began to shake with sobs.
"Don't you... don't you ever leave me again, Sherlock," John choked, face buried in Sherlock's shirt. Sherlock relaxed and wrapped his arms around his trembling friend.
"It's okay, John, it's okay," Sherlock whispered, resting his unbruised cheek on top of John's head. "I could never stand to leave you again."