Crumble and Burn

Rating: T for angst, folks.
Genre(s): Friendship, angst, hurt/comfort, family, tragedy, mystery/crime.
Timeline: Post S3/post Mary/daughter death. (John has moved back in with Sherlock.)
Multi-chapter.

Prologue

Sirens in London weren't a rare occurrence.

Sherlock glanced disinterestedly towards the window when he heard the sirens. His mind was fine-tuned, hypersensitive, to pick up on any of those sounds: fire, ambulance, police, so on. He could tell them all apart, and those sirens were... he paused mentally for a moment, filtering through the catalogue of noises in his mind... fire. Boring.

He looked away from the window and to John. He was paying for their prize for a case well done at the moment: a Chinese takeaway. Sherlock wasn't exactly sure why Chinese takeaway was considered a prize for a case well done - surely his skills deserved something better than takeaway - but he wasn't a gourmand and he wasn't complaining. Right now, he was just hungry.

"Did they put my sweet rolls in there?" he asked as John joined them, hooking his fingers into the plastic takeaway bag. One memorable time that they had had takeaway, the idiot had taken the order wrong and left out half of his meal. It wasn't like it had been this restaurant in particular, but it did lack certain amusement when he got home with dinner to find half of his order wrong, and nothing else in the fridge expect pickling eyeballs.

"Yes," John retorted, jerking the bag free of Sherlock's fingers. "I already checked. I always check now, the fit you threw when they messed it up once. I'm surprised you didn't talk Mycroft into descending on their business and putting them out or something."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I wasn't that upset. I just was hungry."

"Heaven forbid someone gets it wrong when Sherlock Holmes gets hungry," John muttered, flashing him a grin that Sherlock returned. The case was closed, the criminal was caught, his stomach was about to be full of tasty Chinese food... It was a good day.

"You know... those don't sound like they're coming from Baker Street, do they?"

They were only minutes away from Baker Street when John spoke again, and with the statement, Sherlock began to realise that the sirens that he had been subconsciously listening to were indeed getting louder, not quieter.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed. "Fire engines. I'd imagine the police are probably on scene or on their way, seeing as how they're always there when there's a fire..." he trailed off before an idea struck him. "Another gas leak?" he suggested, lips twisting into a smile at the remembrance of the explosion that had knocked him clean to the floor and left his ears ringing for days. Not technically a gas leak, but John would get the point.

"It better not be a gas leak... or an explosion," John muttered, the previous smile giving way to a scowl. Clearly, he remembered the previous explosion on Baker Street with less fondness, although Sherlock wasn't sure why he was entitled to. He had been across the street from it; John had been in bed (on the lilo) with a woman.

"I don't know," Sherlock said absently, "it would bring some colour."

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he rounded the corner. He'd walked these streets for almost ten years now, between meeting John, faking his death, living alone, and John moving back in following Mary's death. He knew the place like the back of his hand, and he knew where the fire was the moment that he stepped onto Baker Street.

Their flat.

He drew up short as the realisation hit, a brick wall crashing down in front of him and rooting him to the spot. He was vaguely aware of John at his side, but all he could focus on were the orange-red flames licking past the windows of 221B and creeping towards John's upstairs bedroom.

221B.

Sherlock took off running, pushing past the crowd of people surrounding the sidewalks. Firefighters were trying to put out the fire, police were trying to herd the crowd away. Sherlock pushed his way through the throng, the crackling, popping sound of fire snapping in his ears. The crackling, popping sound of their flat burning.

Not his flat. Not his things. He was not letting the place burn down. Not Baker Street. Not home.

He didn't stop to see if John was coming. At this point, it didn't matter. Right now, all that mattered was the flat. But what are you going to do about it? whispered a tiny little voice in the back of his head. He wasn't a fire-fighter and he'd never had any ambitions of the sort, but he couldn't stand there and watch it burn. Not Baker Street.

As he ran, he was doing a mental catalogue. These things mattered. There was more here than just his belongings. Mrs Hudson had gone to her sister's three days ago now for some time in London. She'd only gone as far as Dublin, but Sherlock had complained mightily about it when she'd told them the news. Now, he realised, complaining was the worst thing to have had done because if she had stayed, she very well might have been killed. Secondly, what had caused the fire? Surely not the charred toenails from earlier, because he had doused those in water to try and chase away the horrible smell. This hadn't been his fault, had it? Not John's. Definitely not John's, because John was diligent and intelligent and aware when it came to these mundane, human, inane, normal tasks like keeping a fire extinguisher around when Sherlock played with fire and making sure electrical products that weren't in use were unplugged. He wouldn't leave the oven on, but it was true that Sherlock might forget to turn it off sometimes. But had it been him? He didn't recall anything. If not him, then who? Random passerby? Intentional arson? Gas leak? A lamp or light socket overheating, sparking? What?

The police tried to push him back, but Sherlock slipped between them, twisting left and right and left again, charging ahead past the wall of flesh to his destination. No one, no one, was holding him back from the one place he truly belonged.

He hit the door running, throwing it open with his weight. The wood was warm to the touch and flames were peppering the landing. Sherlock barely took notice of them, only saw that the stairs were free and went bounding up them two at a time, the ominous crackling of burning wood echoing in his ears.

He came to a fluid stop in the doorway of their sitting room, his eyes blown wide, pupils reflecting the burning pieces of their lives. No, really, what was this going to accomplish, running into a burning building? He shook the thought away and tore from the spot, grabbing what hadn't already been consumed by the fire on the front part of the building. John's afghan on the back of the chair, the Union Jack pillow, laptop from the kitchen table, where was his violin?

Sherlock had never done the 'what three things would you take from your flat if it were on fire?' quip. Rhetorical questions had never been his strong suit and pointless musings weren't his forte. What was the point of thinking about it? You would never remember those things, he thought, as he coughed mightily, his lungs rebelling against breathing in the smoke-laden air.

Through watering eyes and heavy heart, he caught sight of his violin perched against the hallway wall. Right; he had been polishing it earlier back in his room and he had only gotten as far as the hall with it before being distracted with his mould experiment in the bathroom. He dodged into the hallway to grab it, curling his fingers tightly around the battered case's handle. He didn't know why it was so important to him. It was just an instrument. But it was a genuine Stradivarius, and music was his outlet. He needed his violin to survive, just like he needed his home. But Baker Street -

He winced at a particularly loud crash - the windows bursting in the sitting room, for one, and something else Sherlock couldn't make up - his eyes snapping around to survey the damage as flames licked through the sitting room, dust, debris, and ash around him. The entire front façade was lost to flames, as soon would be the rest of the flat, if the fire wasn't contained

He felt dizzy. And fear. He definitely felt fear.

"Sherlock!? Sherlock, get out of here!" Sherlock heard the voice through his subconscious, but he jolted like he'd been shot when John grabbed his arm. Simultaneously, something exploded in the kitchen and glass shattered. Sherlock felt it hit his back and felt himself flinching into John's presence like he could help. Like John's presence would make it better, but it didn't, not now, because John shouldn't be in here with him, too.

"We have to leave!" John yelled, grabbing at the laptop and pillow in his arms and ripping them free of his grasp. Tenuous fingers tried to hold on, just to something, the last memories of his flat, but his lungs were burning and his eyes stinging, and the way his head was swimming spoke volumes that John was being truthful: they had to leave.

"We can't leave. It's home," he stressed, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of the fire and the crackling as fire licked down the hallway wall towards them. His eyes watered from the smoke and the heat and he coughed, struggling to catch his breath while his chest was so tight.

"Now!"

The human, irrational, emotional, rebellious, horrified part of his mind clicked off. The part telling him that he wasn't Sherlock Holmes without 221B Baker Street blinked out. It was just a flat. There were just objects. They didn't matter. They never had.

He grabbed John's shoulder and spun him towards the doorway, grabbing at his own coat collar to duck his face against afterwards. He shoved John towards the stairs and followed without a backwards glance, leaving behind that he had been living in, really living in, for the best years of his life by far.

But that was sentiment. And that didn't matter.

Control control control.

A minor miracle, or maybe a bit one, but Sherlock didn't believe in those before and he was less inclined now, helped them back downstairs and out into the cool air, into the arms of EMTs and police. Sherlock sucked in deep breaths of the cool, clean air, but barely stopped for breath before he was stumbling away; he couldn't stay here, not under the eyes and hands of the EMTs trying to get him into the ambulance to be treated for smoke inhalation and whatever else. Instead, he just grabbed his laptop back from John to move away as quickly as he could possibly manage. There was no point to be here. Not anymore.

He shoved the afghan he had grabbed off the back of John's chair - was John's, had always been John's, John had brought it when he had moved his stuff in the first time, Sherlock hated it, always hated it, it looked horrible, but it smelled like John because it always hung on the back of John's chair where he sat all day watching mindless telly so Sherlock couldn't complain too much when he invariably ended up covered up with it when he dozed off on the sofa - and shoved it into John's arms, next to the Union Jack pillow John had already taken from him - that was Sherlock's, he didn't remember why he had it, and it had been in the flat before John had moved in, but there was something sentimental about it because it the first thing John had ever touched when he first saw the flat (look around, "... could be very nice indeed...", set the pillow up, thumped it into shape, fell in the chair that forever became 'his') - and said "Toss it in the bin if you don't want it," before turning away.

He slipped his laptop into his coat and wrapped his arm around his torso to keep it there, switching his violin case to his left hand to pull out his mobile with his right. He turned away from the burning building and dialled Mycroft's number; they'd need a place to stay for tonight, after all, and his wallet had been in the flat and John didn't have enough cash on him right now. Mycroft would already know about the fire, but Sherlock had nowhere else to turn to when tragedy arose, which was the sad, horrible truth about all of this: now, he had to call his brother.

Look. what. I. did.

This is actually a role play turned into a story, written by me and ScribeOfRed! Or, at least, this part is. We started this RP together but our schedules have become very non-RP productive, so, with her permission, I'm turning what we have in the RP into a story and continuing it from there. John's actions, at this point, are all ScribeOfRed; I write for Sherlock.

Note: You get the plot, but this is going to be a lot of feels. There isn't a lot of dialogue to begin with, but we will get there. This is heavy stuff.

I do not own Sherlock. Your follows/favs/and reviews would be appreciated. Thank you!