A/N:

Hello lovely readers! This is my first ever fanfic- so please please review/comment!

The Storm of Their Existence

Sherlock traced his fingers down the glass of the window, watching as a transparent trail appeared through the fog of his breath. He wished he could clear the haze in his mind just as easily, wipe away the mist that was gathering in the normally-crystalline halls of his brain.

But he'd had no luck breaking free of the icy fog. Ever since he'd returned to 221b after the nightmare orchestrated by his sister, he'd felt himself mired in its frigid whiteness. It scorched the inside of his lungs with a burning cold, singing the edges of his thoughts with frostbite. His deductions came too slowly, the smooth planes of logic riddled with holes eaten away by something he couldn't understand: something that fled when he tried to analyze its disturbing presence.

Sherlock turned from the window, spinning on his heel to avoid the thoughts that materialized through the veil in his mind. Realizing a bit late that his motion had been too sudden, he swayed on his feet for a minute before clutching at a curtain to steady himself. He hadn't slept in 4 days. As much as he hated to admit it, his transport was failing him.

Gritting his teeth, Sherlock swept across the flat and into the kitchen, where the remains of an experiment lay scattered across the counter. He frowned at the array of petri dishes that had failed to distract him from the phenomenon consuming his brain, and indeed, his body- for the icy fog did not limit itself to Sherlock's mind.

It was worse at night. The haze would spread itself through Sherlock's limbs, raising a clammy sweat on his alabaster skin and turning his stomach to a fathomless pit. Beneath paper-thin lids his eyes would dance, twitching in time with the race of his heart. Sherlock did not like feeling as though he were at the mercy of his physical vessel. He was used to being obeyed, his body a finely tuned instrument ready to dip and turn to the symphony in his mind. Now it seemed to lurch to its own tune- his bones jerked to the music of fear.

A crash startled Sherlock from the fog, and he stared down at the teacup that lay in pieces on the floor. It took him too long to notice the line of scarlet blossoming across his palm, too long to look back to the fragments of porcelain at his feet and find the answering streak of red along one jagged edge. He swayed again as he watched the blood pool across his palm, crimson on the whiteness of flesh, just like—

Fire, sirens, noise, fear clamored at Sherlock's senses, his hands shaking as adrenaline ripped through his veins. He watched as his fingers tore through the wall of branches and flames, seizing a gasoline-soaked sleeve and wrenching it towards him. He tumbled backwards. Something came with him, dragged from the bonfire to rest unmoving on the damp grass. Sherlock righted himself, scrambling towards the figure lying prone beside him. His hands flew to the streak of blood on the unconscious face he knew so well, his eyes darting, watching for the rise and fall of breath as his own chest refused to still, and suddenly a voice reached his ears. Through the smoke Sherlock heard himself scream, it was a name, it was—

"JOHN!"

Sherlock jerked upright on the kitchen floor, shards of glass tumbling from his unruly hair to glitter mockingly in the blue fabric of his dressing gown. He pulled himself to his feet, glad there was no one in the flat to witness his unusual lack of grace. He straightened his shoulders, facing his reflection in the microwave and watching as his features assembled themselves into their habitual serenity. His heart, however, refused to bow to his will. It clattered like a trapped bird beneath his ribcage, wings beating at the pale walls of their prison.

With a wordless exclamation Sherlock swept another petri dish from the counter, sending it crashing to the floor. He slammed his fists against the kitchen table, ignoring the clatter of utensils that leapt to join the ruined glassware. A chair took flight at his touch, alighting with a crash in the sitting room. He followed it, vaulting across the coffee table to stand, panting, on the carpet.

Control yourself, Sherlock.

The voice seemed to come from everywhere, it seeped from beneath the wallpaper, it echoed from the leering skull on the mantle, it rattled in his brain.

Sherlock Holmes does not lose control. Get yourself in order, you pathetic—

Sherlock seized his violin from its precarious resting place by the window and whipped his bow through the air. It fell across the strings with a screech, a single wail that turned into a screaming cascade of notes. They fell from his instrument, filling his ears with the discordant shadow of a waltz he had once written. The cacophony morphed into a reflection of the chaos in Sherlock's head, swirling wildly like a torrent of—

Water, rushing water, too deep, pouring past him into the darkness. The clatter of chains, bones, a frigid cascade surging into the hole before him. A pair of eyes, staring back at him from the blackness, deep blue eyes, frantic, calling out to him-

"Sherlock!"

A woman's voice, startled- Mrs. Hudson.

Sherlock jerked his face towards the sound, dropping the violin with a clatter.

"You're bleeding, Sherlock, whatever have you—"

"Out!"

Sherlock's voice rang out as he lunged forward to slam the door in the landlady's face. His limbs seemed to move too slowly, dragging through the pale mist that wafted towards him. The whiteness burned like ice on his bare skin.

Someone screamed, through the fog, someone who hovered before him, frozen in a spray of scarlet. A pale face stared at Sherlock through the suffocating mist and he reached out, his fingers ghostly in the haze. His skin blistered, turning red with the cold to match the blood streaming down the figure in front of him. Red, white, flesh, blood, and Sherlock was freezing. He was freezing, falling, tumbling forwards. His searing hands tangled themselves in his black curls, as though they could lift away the bones of his skull. As though they could rip out the faulty neurons that would not stop firing, the errant cells that continued to burn into his mind the image of—

John. John, bleeding, leering before him in the sitting room. John, opening his mouth, John, speaking to him in a whisper-

"You made a vow."

Sherlock covered his ears.

"You made a vow, Sherlock. You said you would protect her."

He curled into a ball, trembling in the pool of warm blood that seeped towards him.

"You couldn't protect her, Sherlock- and you couldn't protect me."

Sherlock looked up, raising his head to stare into the eyes he had memorized within minutes of first seeing them.

But these were not the eyes of John Watson. In their place was only—

Blackness.

"Sherlock?"

John's voice was steady, his hands unflinching even as his heart stuttered through some sort of bizarre Morse code in his chest.

"Sherlock, wake up!"

The detective's mercurial eyes remained out of sight, and John reached for the man's wrist to search for a pulse.

"How long has he been like this, Mrs. Hudson?"

John glanced over at the landlady, who was pacing between the windows. She stopped and looked over at John, her hands fluttering at her sides as she replied,

"Only a minute, maybe, I was about to call you but I wasn't sure you were home from hospital—"

She broke off, turning her back to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"Mrs. Hudson, I need to know. Did you find him passed out like this? If he's been out for—"

He was cut off by the sound of a car door slamming below.

"Oh, that'll be Mycroft, oh dear—"

Mrs. Hudson raced to the window, rather too quickly for an old woman wearing heals, in John's opinion. He turned back to Sherlock's limp form, only to whip his head around when the implications of Mycroft's arrival exploded with agonizing brightness in his brain.

"You called Mycroft, you called Mycroft before me, Mrs. Hudson?"

John was standing now, his fists clenched, shoulders drawing back into military alignment. How could she think that—

"Oh, no dear, I didn't call him. You know Mycroft, he just—"

The door to the flat swung open, and the tall form of Sherlock's brother stepped into the room. He leaned rather heavily on his umbrella, but this was the only break in his normally perfect facade. Mycroft looked as calm as ever, as unmoved as he had been when he stood beneath the barrel of Sherlock's gun—

John shook his head to clear the image and turned to face the ginger-haired man.

"You," he said flatly, his voice once again refusing to follow the path of his wildly oscillating heart. "You knew this was coming? You knew he was going to—"

John was cut off, again, as Mycroft straightened up to glance at the shorter doctor. "Of course I didn't know this was going to happen, or I would have had him in hospital ages ago."

The man's trim accent grated at John's ears, entirely too calm despite his apparent sprint up the stairs from below. He wanted to shake Mycroft, how could he act so nonchalant when his brother was lying unconscious with blood dripping from his fingers?

Mycroft seemed unphased by John's steely tone and continued his explanation.

"But if you think I wasn't watching my brother very closely after—"

This time he stopped short of his own accord.

"Well, after—"

John nodded, sparing him the rest of the sentence.

"I've been here only a minute or two, they'd just released me" he said, "but since I arrived he hasn't moved. Hasn't opened his eyes. I can't tell if he's hit his head, or if he's injured, or—"

"John?"

The voice was so faint, so quiet, that John thought he'd imagined it. But he threw himself to the floor next to Sherlock, searching the man's face for a sign that he had indeed uttered the single word.

"John."

Sherlock spoke again, louder this time, but his eyes remained closed. He sounded terrified, like the child John knew he had discovered in himself at Musgrave. His eyes jerked back and forth beneath their lids as though searching for something in the darkness he found there.

"Sherlock, I'm here. Please, are you—"

The detective's eyes flew open at the sound of John's voice, his gaze darting wildly across the doctor's face.

"Sherlock! Are you okay?"

John brought his hand to Sherlock's temple, feeling for a lump or a cut, but the man jerked away with a violence that sent John reeling backwards.

"No!"

Sherlock's cried out, shielding his eyes as he rolled away from John.

"No, no, I can't save you, I can't—"

"SHERLOCK!"

John grabbed the man's shoulders, almost recoiling at the sharp edges of bone that protruded beneath his dressing gown.

"Sherlock, please- please, have you hurt yourself? What's wrong?"

At this, Sherlock froze. His body went rigid but his face- his face struck John an almost physical blow. It was the same expression he had worn in the pool, years before, as he'd ripped the vest of Semtex from John's chest. It was the expression he'd worn when he pulled John from the bonfire on Guy Fawkes Night, the look of desperate terror John had seen staring down at him from the edge of a well only days before.

Sherlock's lips parted. He lifted a trembling hand to John's face, trailing two fingers down his cheek as though brushing away a smudge he had seen there. The detective looked at his shaking fingers, covered in blood, and then shifted his eyes back to meet John's gaze.

"No, John. I didn't hurt myself."

He looked down at his fingers, and then back at the smear of blood he had left across John's cheek.

"I didn't hurt myself John. I hurt you."

John felt the breath leave his chest. A muffled silence fell over his ears, behind which the exclamations of Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson fell away. He rocked back onto his heels, ignoring the sensation of his fingernails digging into his palms.

I should have known.

He closed his eyes and was immediately confronted by the image of Sherlock hovering over him in the hospital room, his face all angles in the eerie glow of the heart monitor.

"John," he had whispered. "John. How do you do it?"

John had blinked his eyes in the darkened room, glancing around for a clock.

"Sherlock, how did you get in here? They said I couldn't have any visitors until—"

Sherlock had turned away in the darkness. "I'm sorry John. It's been three days since, since—"

John had never heard him stutter so over his words. The detective whirled around to face the hospital bed again.

"They wouldn't tell me how you were. Only that you'd nearly drowned. You could have been dying and I couldn't—"

"Sherlock."

John cut in, his voice soft. "Sherlock, please, I'm fine. Lungs feel a little sodden, is all, but—"

He broke off as his attempt at humor drew Sherlock forward in a rush. His hands clenched the iron bars beside John's bed as if they were all that kept him standing.

"I should have gotten to you sooner. I couldn't save you, I never could, and now every time I close my eyes—"

Sherlock stopped talking. He looked down at John, his expression unreadable, cheekbones sharp in the blue glare at his back.

"How do you do it, John? The nightmares? How do you make them go away?"

John had opened his mouth, then, to speak, but no sound came out. Fragments of his own nightmares flickered in front of him, explosions and writhing limbs and red, red blood projected on the blank hospital walls. The nightmares that had plagued him, waking him as soon as he dropped into sleep. The nightmares that had stopped when he moved in with Sherlock, that had not come back since.

"Sherlock, I—"

The hospital door opened, a nurse rushing in to pull Sherlock away.

Only now it was Mrs. Hudson, clasping John's wrist, pulling him away from Sherlock on the floor. John allowed himself to be guided meekly across the room, dropping into his armchair by the fire.

"Now, now, dear, we don't need you collapsing on us, too," Mrs. Hudson twittered as she settled him into his chair. He watched her rush into the kitchen in search of tea, her heals crunching over shattered glass.

John looked back over at Mycroft, who had apparently managed to drag a newly-unconscious Sherlock back onto the sofa and was now eyeing him with a practiced air of neutrality.

"This is my fault," John said, miserably. Mycroft didn't move. "I knew he was having nightmares, I should have told someone, he came to me for help—"

"Dr. Watson."

Mycroft took a step towards him, leaning on his umbrella again. "This is no more your fault than the crash of the Chinese stock markets is mine."

He stopped, raising an eyebrow as he apparently reconsidered this comparison, but John cut him off before he could make an amendment.

"Mycroft, I could have helped him. He came to me, asking how to deal with the nightmares, and—"

Now it was Mycroft's turn to cut him off.

"Dr. Watson, you were in hospital. There was nothing you could do."

He took another step closer, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Sherlock had not moved on the sofa.

"This is an unfortunate incident, but you are not responsible."

John looked at his lap, lifting a hand to touch the streak of blood across his cheek. What had Sherlock seen there? Had he imagined it was John's own blood on the expanse of his brow? Did he blame himself for everything that had happened at his sister's hands?

He would, thought John, he would blame himself. He likes to believe he can control everything… thinking he could protect Mary, thinking he could protect me…

Mycroft spoke again, interrupting his thoughts.

"If you had had the chance to answer him, Dr. Watson, what would you have said?"

John stood up from his armchair, ignoring the noise of disapproval that sounded from the direction of the kitchen. He looked up at Mycroft, and then down at the man's brother, sprawled on the couch in a tangle of slender limbs and blue silk and midnight hair.

John crossed the room in a few steps, and Mycroft moved aside so he could kneel next to the sofa. He sat there, for a minute, watching the rise and fall of Sherlock's chest. His ribs, too sharp, pressed against the fabric of his dressing gown, as they had when John first met the detective. He had been far too skinny, then. Wild, erratic, determined not to let anything control him.

And John, John had been wild in his own way. Fleeing from his nightmares, but running only towards the bottom of a glass and the barrel of a gun. Then they had run into each other, Sherlock and John, colliding in a whirlwind of chaos that somehow settled into a sort of peace. They sheltered each other from the storm of their own existence, building a quiet stronghold even as they ran together through bullets and fire.

John looked back up at Mycroft, at the pale blue eyes that were so similar to Sherlock's and yet lacking something of his brother's ethereal beauty.

"Well?" said the taller man, tapping his umbrella against the floor. "What would you have said to my dear brother, if you'd had the chance?"

John felt certain that Mycroft was repressing a smile, but whether it was a smile of mockery or something kinder he couldn't tell. So he addressed his words, instead, to Sherlock.

"I would have told him," John said, "that I didn't do anything to stop the nightmares."

He took a step closer to Sherlock's prone form, stretched out in so much fragility on the couch.

"I would have told him that he stopped the nightmares- he saved me from myself."

John flinched at his own words, realizing he sounded like one of the sappy novels Mary had used to read.

Mycroft studied the doctor's face, and John let himself be examined by the man's passionless gaze.

"Do you remember, doctor," Mycroft began slowly, "Do you remember the words of a certain woman, as they pertained to the saving of one John Watson?"

John attempted to glare at Mycroft, but his face seemed unable to move. He opened his mouth to tell Mycroft to go do something rather unsavory, but instead the man spoke again.

"If I remember correctly, someone once said that John Watson would never allow himself to be saved. That it was only in rescuing someone else that he could be—"

John stood up abruptly, fingers twitching against an imaginary trigger. Mycroft tilted his head to one side, giving a nod that might have passed for an apology before continuing.

"My brother likes to think he doesn't need saving. He likes to think that saving others is his duty, if you will."

Mycroft looked down at his brother, still motionless, his red-stained hands trailing on the ground.

"He holds himself to a rather high standard in that regard, I'm afraid."

Now Mycroft looked back up at John, straightening his back and tipping his umbrella to one side.

"I think perhaps he could use some reassurance that his perceived failure in saving you, my dear doctor, is not such a failure after all."

With this, Mycroft gave a little bow and turned smartly in his polished black shoes. He nodded at Mrs. Hudson, who was hovering at the edge of the kitchen like a mother bird watching her children learn to fly. And then he was gone, disappearing down the steps towards the street below.

Mrs. Hudson stepped forward. "He's such a dramatic, that one," she started, "But—"

She took another step towards John, wringing her hands. "But you know he's right?"

John didn't answer. He felt something hollow open up beneath his ribcage, something sharp and empty all at once.

"He thinks he failed," he said, softly, not looking up at Mrs. Hudson where she stood. "He doesn't understand how many times he's saved me, it's not enough, he's—"

The landlady crossed her arms and John stopped. "You silly goose, of course he'd think that if you never told him otherwise!"

John stared at Mrs. Hudson, who broke into incredulous laughter. "You two are just like children, you are always scared to be the first to speak, always afraid to show something that makes you a little vulnerable."

She stopped again to put a hand on John's shoulder. "God forbid either of you admit how desperately you need each other, you're a pair of—"

She stopped as she saw the hopeless expression that had spread itself across John's face.

"I find it difficult- I find it difficult, this stuff, you know," he found himself saying, trying to hold down the memories of the last time he had uttered those words.

Mrs. Hudson seemed unmoved.

"Well if you can't tell him, you'll just have to—"

"Tell me what?"

Mrs. Hudson was interrupted by a voice from behind John. The latter spun around, nearly toppling over when he registered the sight of Sherlock's silver eyes wide open and fixed on his own.

"Tell me what?" he repeated, weakly, the frantic child gone now from his voice.

John coughed, glancing back over towards Mrs. Hudson, but the woman was gone.

"God damn it, that—"

He coughed again and looked back at Sherlock. The man's eyes hadn't moved, their earlier terror replaced now with a sadness that reopened the empty wound in John's chest.

"John, are you leaving?"

Sherlock looked away and John felt himself folding inward with the weight of Sherlock's guilt and sadness.

"I should have done better."

John could have shaken him, then and there, if he hadn't looked so utterly vulnerable. The man's dark curls hung across his bloodied brow, red and white and black and silver blending into a face that sent a knife plunging into John's gut. He struggled against the impulse to collapse inward on himself, and instead he reached out a hand towards the man who had stopped him from doing exactly that all these years.

"Sherlock—" he paused, searching for something to say that wouldn't send the detective curling back into his protective shell. Unable to find something, he continued, "Sherlock, you've never been so wrong in your life. You have no idea how many times you—"

"No John," the detective interrupted, drawing himself upright on the couch. As he did John saw a flicker of indignation, a hint of the Sherlock that wanted to prove people wrong when they doubted the logic of his deductions. But then it was gone, replaced by the heaviness of defeat.

"No. I'm sorry, John. I made a vow, a vow to protect Mary and—" his voice caught, but he continued, "and you. But I can't do it. The closer I get to you, the more you get hurt, and the more you get hurt, the more I —"

This time Sherlock seemed unable to rescue his voice from whatever had trapped it in his throat. John reached out a hand, slowly, as though he were coaxing a wounded animal towards assistance. He waited, pausing, before resting his fingers across Sherlock's upturned palm. The blood there had dried, and John made a show of examining the gash that streaked across the expanse of pale flesh. He forced himself not to speak, to let Sherlock continue when he was ready.

Eventually the detective spoke again, whispering now. "The more you get hurt, the more afraid—" his voice shook, but he pressed on- "the more afraid I become."

He lifted his eyes towards John's face, but stopped halfway, settling his gaze on the doctor's hand where it lay across his own.

"You have to understand John. Fear- I've always been able to control it before. But I can't, not anymore. I've let it get under my skin, it's freezing me from the inside out and I can't close my eyes without seeing you—"

John had moved before Sherlock could finish the word, placing his fingers gently across Sherlock's lips.

"Shh," he whispered, and Sherlock trembled at his touch. He resembled a frightened animal even more than he had moments ago, and John cursed himself for moving too soon. He pulled back, quickly, but Sherlock's hand shot up to catch his own.

It was John's turn to be startled, now, but he did not move as he felt his palm drawn back to Sherlock's lips. They were moving, ghosting against John's skin and he had to lean forward to hear Sherlock say,

"I can't protect you when you're so close, John- the fear, it controls me. But I can't protect you if I let you go… I fail no matter what I do."

John's heart was pounding. He wondered if Sherlock could feel his pulse, coursing where skin met skin between them. He remembered another time Sherlock had taken someone's pulse, years ago, in this same room. A woman- The Woman. John looked at the floor. Were his eyes dilated, as hers had been? What would Sherlock say, if he saw?

But the detective did not comment on John's eyes, nor did he mention the doctor's pulse. Instead he let go of John's hand, letting it fall reluctantly into the space between them.

"I only put you in danger, John- all the danger you survived in the war, and now you're getting shot at, captured, tortured because of me. It was my job to save you, John Watson, but instead I dragged you into my war. I can count every time you've almost died for me, every time—"

John raised his hand again, placing his fingers on Sherlock's chin and drawing the detective's face up to meet his gaze.

"Listen to me, Sherlock."

His voice was quiet- he barely dared to breath into the space between them lest Sherlock pull away. But he didn't; his eyes remained fixed on John's, circles of shifting color at the edge of two deep black pools.

"Sherlock, if you hadn't taken me into your war, if you weren't almost getting me killed, I'd be doing it much more permanently myself."

Sherlock didn't look away, but if anything, his eyes grew wider.

"You saved me- not from the world, Sherlock, from myself."

This time John didn't twitch at the words. They no longer felt strange on his tongue, and they seemed to shimmer in the air that separated him from Sherlock.

"You asked about my nightmares- well, I never found a way to make them go away."

John was sure Sherlock had stopped breathing, and he hurried on, desperate to finish voicing his thoughts if the man was going to pass out again. He didn't think he would be able to repeat this conversation, short of bringing it up on his deathbed.

"You made the nightmares go away, Sherlock, just by being here. By reminding me that life is not about what could have happened or the things we could have stopped. It's about now, about the places and things and people we love—"

John stopped as Sherlock swayed backwards, and he lunged forward to catch the detective's wrists. Holding Sherlock upright, he cursed himself for the second time. So much for finding it difficult, this sort of thing- since when had he gone from saying too little, to saying too much?

Sherlock's eyes were darting from his wrists to John's face, up and down almost too quickly for John to follow. Suddenly they stopped, coming to rest on the smear of blood he had left on John's cheek. Something moved behind his gaze, and John scrambled for words, anything to distract Sherlock from what had triggered his panic minutes before.

"Sherlock, you did save me, and now it's my turn to save you. But—"

He stopped, letting his fingers uncurl from Sherlock's wrists to spread against the man's own splayed-open hands.

"But, what?" whispered Sherlock, his breath suddenly coming much too quickly for John's comfort. He hurried on.

"But you have to let me save you Sherlock. You have to stop thinking about what could have been, and live for the people you love now. Mycroft, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson—"

"You."

Sherlock's word seemed to vibrate against his palms, traveling through John's bones to curl in the emptiness inhabiting his chest. It rested there, warm and delicate. John held his breath, willing the tiny word not to be swallowed up by the blackness beneath his ribs. But it was futile, for the fragile sensation fled as Sherlock's voice sounded again.

"You, John. I love you."

And suddenly the emptiness inside John was gone, filled not by a single word but by the sensation of Sherlock's lips on his own. He was no longer folding in on himself, he was expanding, a rush of euphoria radiating outward from his core. He was sure he would incinerate Sherlock with the intensity of his bliss but the detective only drew him closer, as if John were burning away something cold inside him. They melted together, there was nothing holding them up but each other, they were—

Falling, tumbling to the floor in a heap as the door flew open with a bang. They scrambled away from each other as Lestrade burst into the room, glancing around wildly before he spotted Sherlock lying crumpled by the sofa with John draped over him.

"My god, John, is he okay?"

The detective inspector reached for his phone, voice rising an octave as he raced towards the two figures on the floor.

"Should I call an ambulance? Does he need—"

"Lestrade!"

Suddenly Mrs. Hudson burst into the room behind the frantic policeman, her face consumed by a flaming blush.

"Detective Inspector, I'm so sorry, I tried to catch you on the stairs but this hip, you know…"

Her voice trailed off as she glanced at Sherlock and John apologetically. John looked down and realized his hands were still entwined in Sherlock's and he pulled away so quickly he almost knocked over the coffee table.

"Lestrade," he said gruffly, "He's- we're- fine, Sherlock's just had—"

He couldn't bring himself to meet the DI's gaze, but luckily Mrs. Hudson interjected.

"Why don't you come down for a cuppa, Detective Inspector, I've just put the kettle on, please—"

Lestrade looked at Mrs. Hudson and then back at Sherlock and John. He allowed himself to be dragged through the still-open doorway and down the stairs. But John could have sworn that as the man disappeared on the steps behind the landlady, he'd turned to look at the boys one last time- and winked.

John looked back at Sherlock. His eyes were closed, and for one awful second John thought he had retreated, drawn back into himself. He opened his mouth at the same time Sherlock opened his eyes, and then there was no need for John to speak- for Sherlock's eyes said everything. All the words, the stories that had been written between them lay gathered in the detective's luminous gaze. And so, instead of saying the unspoken, Sherlock looked up at John and asked,

"Oh, her face! Did you see, John, did you—"

John stood there for a moment, staring at the man who had been so broken moments before yet who now looked so immersed in peace. And then Sherlock let out a deep chuckle, and John fell against him, heaving with laughter of his own. They stayed there, side by side, giggling like children. And John was reminded of a time when they had laughed together years ago, leaning against the wall in the hallway below. He reached for Sherlock's hand, and they lay together, there on the sitting room carpet.

John had never felt less empty in his life.

And as they drifted to sleep, not moving from their embrace on the floor, Sherlock had never felt less cold.