A ficlet written in response to this photo set on Tumblr.
London was much the same as Sherlock remembered: loud, wet, and full of people blind to the world around them. Sherlock had almost expected it to be different, the three years he'd been away seeming like so very much longer. The few correspondences Sherlock had had with Molly had dealt with John's wellbeing as Sherlock hadn't been willing to risk having anyone else watching him, knowing the chance that his brother or the remnants of Moriarty's web would take notice. They'd been much the same till the last. From the outside the words had been similar, but there had been something different, something off.
And now Sherlock knew why.
Mary Morstan, private tutor to the rich, single mother to a disabled daughter, and soon to be married to John. Watching John with Mary and the little girl, as he was so careful with her, his face alight with happiness and wonder, Sherlock realized that John had moved on without him. It shouldn't have been a shock—it really wasn't—but Sherlock had always been selfish with the things that he'd considered his own. And John definitely fell under that category.
His.
The flat was much the same as Sherlock has last seen it, closed up and rarely visited, like a mausoleum. Or a tomb. It was fitting. The air was musty and stale, everything covered with a thick layer of dust. Sherlock didn't quite recall how he ended up in his old dressing gown in the chair that faced the one John had claimed for his own, his gun dangling loosely from his hand.
Sherlock's first thought upon seeing Mary had been how easy it would be to get rid of her, a terrible car crash; a fall down the stairs; a bit of citrus in her tea, resulting in anaphylactic shock and her EpiPen conveniently out of reach all made to look like tragic accidents. So simple it would all be. Three years ago, Sherlock may have had a passing thought on it, but now he laid out the plans.
For so long Moriarty had been one step ahead of Sherlock, his ghost laughing at Sherlock's frustration, and it wasn't until far too late that Sherlock realized Moriarty had planned for this, for him. Even now with Moriarty's organization disbanded, the ashes of those involved still smoldering across the world, Moriarty had won, doing in death what he hadn't been able to do in life. It had started as a way to protect those that he cared about, but somewhere along the way Sherlock had lost that.
With sickening dread, Sherlock realized that even dead, Moriarty had won. I'll burn the heart out of you, he'd said. And he had, as Sherlock was forced to leave behind those that grounded him, that kept him in check. Sherlock had known that Moriarty and he weren't so different, that under different circumstances Sherlock could have been him, and Moriarty had done the one thing he could to ensure that Sherlock would lose everything.
It had worked.
Glancing at the gun in his hand, Sherlock truly considered it. On the side of the angels he may have once been, but now the devils were his only companions. It would be so easy, everyone already believing him dead.
So lost in thought, Sherlock didn't hear the sound of feet on the stairs, but he couldn't miss the sharp indrawn breath.
Sherlock's eyes snapped up, locking with John's, not believing that he was here.
"Sherlock," John breathed all but frozen in place at the unexpected sight. His eyes traveled from the gun still grasped in Sherlock's hand and up to his face, something hardening in his gaze for a moment before he rushed forward.
Sherlock didn't try to block it, the punch he expected, that he more than deserved, but he didn't expect to find himself with a lapful of furious John pulling the gun from his hand and clearing the chamber before he tossed it away.
"Don't you dare. You selfish bastard. Don't you dare," John hissed his hands running over Sherlock as though he didn't believe he was real.
"John, I—" Sherlock stopped, not knowing what to say, not knowing what he could say, or what he even had a right to say.
As quickly as John's anger formed, it faded as he clutched at Sherlock, and Sherlock found himself returning the embrace, needing the contact. It had been far too long since he'd touched someone and felt anything. At first he thought it was John that was shaking, but as John shushed him, he realized it was himself, tiny shudders wracking his frame.
As John leaned his forehead against Sherlock's, his thumbs tracing the path of Sherlock's tears, Sherlock found hope that maybe he wasn't completely lost, that there was a part of him still worth saving, a part of him that was still able to be saved. Maybe Moriarty hadn't won after all.