Good Lord help me, another upload? I am not at all on top of things today.
Warnings: Historical inaccuracies, fictional hotels (that no doubt exist somewhere), and some possible OOC-ness this time around.
Sherlock turned the corner and found himself faced with another gate. Why did they have to block everything off? It was infuriating and only served to make the clawing panic in his throat surface again. He couldn't react in such an emotionally-driven way, it wasn't helping, and it was blocking logical thought. He needed to find a way around the gates so he could reach-
"Sherlock!"
John, his John, barreled down the hallway, heedless of the discarded trolleys and belongings. He stopped just short of the metal barrier, chest heaving. "I've been all through the halls; there's no opening. People are frantic; they've lost it."
Sherlock didn't know what to say in the face of John's babbling, madness and hysteria overwhelming as The Unsinkable Ship sunk.
Sherlock had no way of prying the gate open, he had scoured the rooms as he passed, but nothing that would be of use to him was found.
John could read this on his face, it seemed, as he stepped closer to the white-painted metal, a sad, forgiving smile on his face. "I'll find something, Sherlock," he said softly, like a promise. "I'm not in the habit of giving up. I'll find something, but I want you to go find your brother. Go find a boat."
The agitation returned, backed by a harsh flood of anger that contorted Sherlock's face. "I will not leave-"
"Please," John begged. "Sherlock." He paused and took in a shuddering breath. In. Out.
His voice quiet, he continued, "We'll survive this. We will. And if we don't see each other after we're back on land," a private smile, the shared memory of a casual remark, "we'll find each other in the Grand View hotel in New York."
Sherlock stared at him. "John," he breathed, sounding more wrecked than John had ever heard him. John felt the same.
"I love you." John reached through the gate, threading a hand through Sherlock's hair, wrapping an arm around his waist.
Sherlock slid his arms around John, eyes closing, resigned. "And I you."
They rested their foreheads together, only a flat diamond of cool metal obscuring full contact.
The two stood like that for a minute that refused to be long enough; eyes shut, heads bowed together, arms intertwined, and breathing shallowly against one another. Only a gate stood between them, the metal denting the skin of their arms and brows where the were pressed against it.
"Grand View," John said again, pulling away. Sherlock didn't need a reminder, he knew. Sherlock would hate the redundancy of it in any other case, but instead he just repeated it himself, a confirmation.
"New York."
They held gazes a second longer and turned away.
He was sat in a plush, red wingback and appeared to be reading he paper as he surreptitiously watched the guests mill about the lobby of Grand View.
He hadn't ever really thought himself a guest in the last four months that he had taken up room in the beautifully adorned suites of the hotel, he wasn't just passing through like them, he was trusted to sit and wait, even if it all was incredibly dull.
He spent his nights waiting on secretly kept chemical experiments. He divided his mornings and afternoons between picking at the brain of the irritable man at the front desk, Lestrade, (he was slow like the rest of them, but marginally less so on good days,) and reading into the public and private lives of those that passed through the ornate lobby. By this point his presence was as accepted an ignored as that of the rest of the employees.
On some days, when something inside of him would wrench open like an aggravated wound, he wouldn't bother leaving his suite at all, torn between a vicious desire to not be there when His Other finally returns - Let him suffer as well. Let him feel sentimental and stagnant and alone. - and a deep ache of worry (and loss, though he refused to acknowledge the feeling.)
When those days passed he would slide right back into his loathed routine; the only difference being the small wedge of fudge Angelo insisted upon sending up with his brunch.
Today was not any of those days because, as Sherlock folded the paper, preparing to investigate the mysterious bouquet of flowers that Lestrade was practically preening over, a hushed, loving voice just beyond his left shoulder stopped him.
"Sorry I took so long."