A/N:Happy Kudos and Extra Credit to Mirith Griffin, who correctly guessed where I got my name from. Involving romantic Strait!John/Not-Interested!Sherlock. Note: involves character death, of a sort.
John Watson is a ghost.
He's not certain if he's ever been anything else, but he certainly wasn't alive when he met Sherlock. Probably not even after he got shot. The bullet everyone thought had hit his shoulder had probably missed and hit his heart and he'd bled out on the sands of Afghanistan like countless other men had done, and no one had noticed. No one had noticed he was walking around with this bloody great hole in his chest, dripping his insides for all the world to see.
Well. Let's be honest. No one but him. Sherlock had seen John, seen how transparent he was, seen how pale and dusty and not-quite-corporeal he was, and had felt pity on him. Sherlock, with all his brilliance, his flamboyant mannerisms and showy verbosity, must've found a way for John to become made of mirrors instead of smoke, found a way for John to reflect some of Sherlock's overwhelming life.
There's no words to describe what it was like, those borrowed hours Sherlock let John steal from him. How can one first describe what's it like for everything to end with one bullet, for a man to go gray in his whole world and know that he's not possibly meant to have lived through this? And what definition would one give the man who gave him back a life, a purpose, had found a way for the ruined heart to continue to beat?
Or is it really continue, because John's sure his heart has never beat before now. It was as if the beige-and-gray curse of a wraith had vanished, and for the first time he can remember, he'd been complete. Not complete as in Sherlock has a magical Heart Hole Plugger or something equally as absurd, but complete as in at peace, and loving it. It's the first time John Watson can say that he loves his continued existence, just as much as he can say he hates it and wants to weep and break things when he thinks of it.
John Watson is still a ghost, and he's made of contradictions.
He'd discovered this shortly after meeting Sherlock, because meeting the Savior of One's World, especially when it comes in such a difficult package, is an event that requires quite a bit of introspection. Because Sherlock is John's savior, of a sort, as well as his one true love and best friend and the one man he'd like to hit like no other, and all those definitions are tragically inadequate.
Sherlock had seen John while he was a ghost, and had given him back the world.
If he'd asked him to, John would give far more than his life for Sherlock, for his life means nothing, not when he's stealing the precious moments from Sherlock's own lifespan. The entire universe could not make up his debt, and John can't help but love Sherlock for it, more than he's loved any other person in his life. Sarah, Harry, just can't compare.
It's not romantic love, because that wouldn't fit in with either the ghostly incarnation of what was left of John Watson or of Sherlock. If John Watson has ever wanted to kiss Sherlock, it's more out of a desire to climb inside the man than anything remotely sexual. He wants to be beside the man, to embrace him, to feel the warmth he'd forgotten humans possessed.
There are moments when John is reminded of how unreal he really is. Certain days, days with too many memories of bombs and screams and death. That moment right after he realizes Sherlock has left him behind again and one of the Yarders looks at him with a tad too much pity in his gaze. The times when he feels the distance between himself and the man he can't bring himself to do without.
These are the times that he can feel himself fade away, start to sublimate unconsciously, and it feels nothing like dying because dying was far less painful than this. It feels like betrayal and misery and unrequited love and like going to sleep after a very terrible day, with the tears still wet tracks along his cheeks.
But then Sherlock will come bounding up the steps like nothing's changed and John is bought with another stolen hour of Sherlock's life.
At times like these John wants to take Sherlock in both his hands and shake him, shake him and scream at him until he sees exactly what he's given, what he's done, to John. Sherlock's not a hero, he said it himself, and it hurts John more than he can say that his Savior will never be saved himself, because only he can do the saving and he doesn't want to. Sherlock has always loved destroying himself, in seeing the fascination of the abomination at work.
In stark contrast, there are also days when they stumble back to Baker Street at three in the morning from a case and they're laughing and the adrenaline is pumping and they look at each other, and—
And it's like John Watson was never dead at all, as if he's not still dead and walking around under borrowed time. Sometimes, John fancies he sees something in Sherlock's eyes, his smile, that tells John the secret as to why Sherlock would be willing to give him part of his life. That he's getting something in return, something worth dying a bit sooner, to have really lived during that time.
John thinks it's cruel, the way a ghost and a man are meant to live like this. Half of the same person, cursed by Zeus himself, and one part's already dead, and the other is slowly dying to keep the other alive.
And really, even if John is happier, more alive, than he's ever been in his life, he's never been more aware of his death. It's never been more obvious to him as when the tries to get past Sherlock's mental blocks and get him to admit he actually cares for the victims, or when John introduces them as 'colleagues' and sees his friend's miniscule, barely-there flinch. He wonders if he'd be harder to overlook if he was alive, if there was real flesh and blood backing up his words instead of a ghostly warning. He wonders if it would hurt less, if it would feel less like every part of his borrowed body is shredding apart, or if it would hurt all the more.
If it would mean moving on, forgetting the brilliant and impossible man he's come to view as more necessary than oxygen itself, he'd take this continued death, because John Watson knows more than anyone else that Sherlock Holmes can die.
The day comes faster than anyone expected it to, in a way far less than what they'd imagined. Sherlock deserves dramatics. He deserves a psychotic genius of a serial killer, an unexpected bomb blast after they'd thought they'd cleared the building, incurable lung cancer. Something dramatic, something beautiful in its sadness, like the way spring flowers get crushed underfoot in early summer. Oh God, he deserves to fall asleep and never wake up again when he's eighty, and doesn't John know it.
What he gets is a scared fourteen year old who'd stolen the gun she's seen her mum kill her dad with, and then it's all over in four agonized minutes as John tries to stop the arterial bleeding with hands that are suddenly incorporeal again. Useless. He chokes up, ghostly tears falling to disappear before they hit the man beneath him, knowing the ambulance he's called will reach them at least three minutes after he needs it to get there. Somewhere behind him he can hear the girl, shaking and crying and repulsed that she's just killed a man and far too close to killing herself as well.
But what he sees is a Sherlock who is suddenly looking just as gray as he is, and John can't let that be Sherlock's fate too. He stills his life-saving efforts though it tears at him to do so, and smiles, grasping Sherlock's hands with his own that are far too transparent. He looks into dilated gray eyes and tries to reassure the sudden fear there. Those eyes pierce into him like nothing has quite been able to do before or since, and suddenly he can see just as much of Sherlock as Sherlock has always been able to see of him.
"Look at me," he whispers softly, brushing a hand to Sherlock's cheek to turn his gaze back to him. Sherlock locks his eyes with John's and both his hands clutch one of John's as if it's the only thing tethering him to Earth at that point. Sherlock's shaking in earnest now, shaking and pale and more scared than anyone John's ever seen, and suddenly John knows why he was dead when he met Sherlock. He's not the only one who hasn't been living.
"Don't worry. It's just like going to sleep," he whispers, one corner of his mouth tugging up as he views his universe dying so quickly and so slowly before him. If only he hadn't stolen those precious hours of life from him, if only Sherlock had been merciless and had left him as a ghost.
Sherlock coughs, and blood spatters out to land in thick, heavy drops on his chin. "I...You should know, I wanted...tell you..."
But all John can do is lay a gentle finger against Sherlock's lips, soothing the frantic motions, and smile more earnestly. "I know, Sherlock. And I'll love you. To the end of my days."
And Sherlock breaks down, tears sliding down his face as he looks up at John's face as if he's looking at a Savior, as if he's the only thing in the world. "Promise me..." he rasps, blood sliding across his lips when he licks them, coughing. "John..."
John's still kneeling there in the girl's dingy living room, clutching Sherlock to him next to three corpses when the others arrive, far too late.
John Watson is a ghost. He's been a ghost his entire life, except for one brief period with Sherlock Holmes, where he was a conduit.
He doesn't know how long it's been since Sherlock left. Short enough that no one expects him to have gotten over it by now, and long enough that no one feels it's their responsibility to help him try anymore. Without Sherlock's extra life, John can feel himself returning to the wraith-like state he's most comfortable with. It's alright. It couldn't last. It was far too good to last.
He lingers another few days to tie up a few loose ends, to let everyone forget he was anything but a ghost. It doesn't take long, because alone, John is unremarkable. And then one day, it's over. Nothing more for him to do besides continue existing as a testament to him, and John knows he's outlasted his usefulness the day Sherlock died. In all actuality, he's been looking forward to this for far too long. And really, dying is like going to sleep after a very long day.
He walks London one more time, pausing at Regent's Park and Angelo's and quirking one corner of his mouth up in a sorrowful approximation to a smile. The world is going on without him again, becoming light and color and sound while John fades into the background once again.
It's time. He returns to Baker Street, to 221b. Stepping into the flat again, even though he's been there so much lately, is like going home again. The flat allows John to haunt its small confines and to share its memories of him and his universe, and in return John bestows all the worship he can upon its wooden surfaces. He smiles as he finally opens a scarred, dark oaken door to see a messily made bed, not touched since its owner last slept upon it.
Like touching heaven itself. That's what it's like when John finally sinks down into the mattress and is instantly enveloped with smells of Sherlock, memories swirling out into the air like pale shadows. John takes one final look around the microcosm of the only time he's ever really lived, and quietly lets himself drift away, one particle at a time, one memory at a time, until not even a ghost remains. He hopes he'll make it to wherever Sherlock is waiting.
John knows he'll never get over Sherlock. It's okay. He doesn't have to, because Sherlock will never get over him.