I'd like to thank everyone who's read, faved, or reviewed my Sherlock fics. This can be read as the fourth story in my series of Sherlock fics, or as a one-shot.
Of Course, Of Course
Sherlock leaves him everything. Of course he does. John was his best friend and flatmate and colleague and lover, his one person, his. He just had John, and that had been enough. He leaves him his mess, his madness. He leaves stiff shirts and broken pencils and black books filled with scribbled notes, mathematical formulae, a tangle of science John can't understand. He finds one book filled with equations and another with diagrams and another with nothing but a tally, a huge mass of inked lines stretching out across its pages. And he doesn't think anyone could understand, because this was Sherlock, and his mind wasn't shaped like anyone else's. It was far more beautiful.
"So, howzit goin'?" says Harry, twisting a lock of coppery hair around her finger.
John blinks, takes a swig of his beer because he's going to need more alcohol to get through a whole evening of this shit.
"You know I still haven't forgiven you for fucking Molly," he says.
"I –"
"And she hasn't either, by the way. That's what happens if you never call back."
Harry shrugs, runs a finger around the rim of her glass. (Orange juice. Not alcohol.)
"It wasn't a big deal."
"She's a nice girl," John says sternly, "She doesn't deserve that. No-one does."
Harry rolls her eyes.
"John, darlin'," she says, in that way of hers, that I'm-older-than-you-listen-to-me way, "You're not gettin' any, are ya?"
"My partner died six months ago, Harry," he says, automatic, mechanical.
"Oh, so he's your partner now, is he? You never said that while he was alive."
John swallows, bites his tongue, wonders how she can be so cruel.
"I'm jus' sayin', maybe you need to get back out there. Move on."
John winces at those words, move on. Like it's that easy. Like he can just forget, like he can just pretend that he hadn't fallen for a madman the day they met, the day Sherlock Holmes first looked at him with those winter morning frost sky eyes and asked "Afghanistan or Iraq?"
"I can hook you up with someone," says Harry generously, "Are you officially gay now? Or was that just a minor detour, and you're back to being straight?"
"I don't know what I am," John snaps, "And I don't care. And I don't think I should be taking relationship advice from you of all people."
Harry sighs, slumps boredly over the table.
"Look," she says, "I'll make you a deal. You get back in the game, and I'll call Molly back."
John frowns.
"You're here for the rest of the week. You'll go to see her."
"Alright, alright," Harry moans, "Whatever."
That night, John ends up chatting to a woman called Priya. When he goes back to his table, Harry – and the rest of his drink – is gone. She turns up the next morning with a grin and a red mark on her neck.
"Deal's a deal," she shrugs.
"Oh God," says John, "Is Molly your booty call now?"
After that, John tries a little. There's a string of half-hearted attempts. Jane and Shelly and Mai and Izz and some others whose names he can't remember, whose faces have blurred together. It's a dull and lifeless thing. He smiles, he flirts, he laughs, he kisses. And then it feels like he's broken something, and he doesn't know how to make it better, and he's scared, and he doesn't know why. He gave up looking for reasons somewhere between Afghanistan and here. But he knows the reason. He just doesn't want to admit it. Sherlock is gone and he's looking for something less, something sweet and soft and simple, something he understands, because it's so much easier than Sherlock and his mess, his madness. He doesn't want late night takeaways in bed and watching bad TV and running around London and lie-ins and early mornings and bodies and thefts, because that's the kind of love that hurts, like looking into the sun, because it's just too much. He wants going to the cinema and goodnight kisses and staying the night, because that's the kind of love you slip into, a pair of leather gloves that don't quite fit, and you dance the same old dance, tell the same old lies, because that's what people do. John wants what normal people have in their normal lives.
He finds it in Mary Morstan. She has honey-coloured hair and dark, dark eyes, and she gives him smiles two a penny, and she's small enough for him to hold, she's pretty and little and neat. He meets her in a bar, and he's two whiskeys down when he starts wondering what it'd be like to touch a woman again.
"I've just come back from Botswana," she says, later, tucking her hair behind her ear shyly, "I've been there this past year, teaching English. It's an amazing place."
"Do you want to come back to mine for coffee?" says John.
"Um. Er. Alright?"
John smiles.
"Welcome back to England."
Mary's everything Sherlock was not. She giggles at John's jokes and kisses him on the cheek and wears bright flowery dresses and helps with the washing-up. She's patient, kind, loved, like all good teachers. There's hundreds of kids a little bit happier because of Miss Morstan. The thing is, she cares. The world's full of people and she cares about every lonely little life. She just cares. And the thing is, Sherlock never did. He never understood that. Mary is warmth and light and she loves so many things that she is always giving. Sherlock was cold and dark and he loved so few things that he was very selfish about them. Mary is so much easier to love. Sherlock is so much harder to stop loving.
John asks Mary to marry him because it seems like something he should do. Of course, she says yes, of course, of course. She hugs him, her feet leaving the ground, brimming with joy and laughter and hope. And it's like a bullet to the stomach, gnawing into him, biting into him slowly. Because it feels like he's settling for second best, like he can't have what he really wants so he's getting the next best thing. It's what we all do, eventually. Eventually, we realise. There are some things that none of us can have. It might be money or it might be happiness or it might be love. It's worst when it's love. No-one can live unloved for long. It burns you, breaks you.
And that is why a man sits in the church for a long time after the wedding ceremony, and quietly cries. And when John's youngest cousin, Lily, a girl of ten, comes back because she forgot her chewing gum, she sees him.
"Why are you crying?" she says, "Are you sad?"
"People do cry at weddings, don't they? That's what they do," the man says.
"Are you married?"
"No."
"Is that why you're crying?"
"Yes. Something like that."
Lily holds out her packet of gum.
"Would you like some?"
John doesn't know when he stops loving Mary. He just knows that he doesn't love her and she doesn't love him anymore either. They never say anything. They just know, and that's enough. Mary starts seeing someone. John doesn't know who but he knows the smell of men's deodorant and he knows she's not really working late and he knows, the summer evening that she says she's going out, that she's going out to see him, and she won't come home tonight.
"Seeing a friend?" he asks, casual, unloading the dishwasher.
"Just someone from work," she says quickly, pushing her feet into a tight pair of heels.
John nods, stacks the plates, puts them in the cupboard. Turns around to look at her, heavy and long, with eyes that say I know.
"Is he nice?" he asks.
Mary doesn't say anything. She just looks at him, pushes her lips together.
"He cares."
She pushes her fringe out of her face.
"You cared once," she says, "I don't know why you stopped."
John smiles, all blunt edges and open cuts.
"I don't know why you stopped either."
So it comes down to this: John Watson has a job as a doctor and a wife who doesn't love him anymore and a hole in his heart for a man who left him long ago. John pretends he's happy and Mary pretends she loves him and both their hands are stained with betrayal. Behind his back she sleeps with someone else. Behind her back he cries over someone else. She has someone to touch, to taste, to have, to hold. He has a weather-worn tombstone and a pair of leather gloves that don't quite fit and a photograph, dark little things, souvenirs of a trip he took long ago and never really returned from.
"Is there anyone?" Mary asks one evening, watching the shadows crawl across their bed as the cars pass in the street below, "For you, I mean. Like I have Darren."
"Oh, so that's his name."
"Is there, John?"
John stares up at the ceiling, the red light of the fire alarm blinking in the dark.
"There used to be."
"It wasn't me, was it?"
John turns his head away from her, faces the wall.
"It was never you."
"Oh," says Mary, small and sad and stupid.
John blinks, swallows.
"You know," says Mary, "I used to think it was."
She waits a long time before she asks, "Who was it?"
John shuts his eyes tight, pretends he's asleep, doesn't dare give her an answer. Because he's John Watson, and he's a disloyal, cruel, cowardly, awful man.
"Can I borrow a fiver?" Mary asks one evening before she goes out, sticking her head into the study.
"My wallet's on the table," says John, looking up from his laptop.
"Thanks," says Mary, going to the kitchen and grabbing the wallet.
John still has their wedding photo in his wallet, Mary in white, smiling innocently, arms around his neck, and she takes it out, because it's a lie now. Something else falls out with it. A small, creased picture of a man with dark hair and pale eyes and high cheekbones. She holds it in the palm of her hand, goes back into the study.
"It was him, wasn't it?" she says, pushing the photo onto John's desk.
He looks down at the picture, brushes it with his fingertips.
"Sherlock," he says, "His name was Sherlock."
"What happened?"
John smiles sadly.
"He jumped off a building."
"Oh God," says Mary, and she hugs him then, the angle awkward.
"I'm fine," says John, hand on her back, "It was a long time ago. It's all fine."
Mary pulls back, looks at him.
"Darling, it's not. Look at us. We're not fine. We're really not."
And if a man passing in the street below looked up at their window, and saw a happily married couple and left, well, they weren't to know.
It's a wet January morning when Sherlock comes back. John and Mary have been married for more than a year. Sherlock's been gone for more than three. He turns up on the doorstep of their neat little semi, hair matted with rain, eyes bright and clear and indecipherable. Mary answers the door, sleepy, wearing one of John's old jumpers.
"Hello," she says, and then, "Oh my God."
She stares at him.
"You're – you. I thought John said – oh my God."
"I'm here for your husband," says Sherlock, mouth twisting slightly.
"I bet you are," says Mary, still staring, "I'll – um."
She goes back into the house, shouting John's name.
It's a few seconds until John comes to the door. He looks older, hair greying, mouth turning down, as if it's been more than three years. Or maybe it's just been a very unhappy three years. He looks at Sherlock, his face crossed with confusion and fear and hope and anger – anger more than anything.
"John," says Sherlock.
"No," John breathes, "No, you're not – no."
"I'm afraid that I am."
John shakes his head, smiles, hollow and sarcastic and disbelieving.
"You bastard. You fucking bastard, Sherlock Holmes."
And he punches him then, hits him in the face, shoves him backwards onto the ground, shouts, "You let me think you were dead! Three years, Sherlock! Three bloody years!"
He grabs the front of Sherlock's coat, hauls him up into a sitting position, takes his head in his hands, and kisses him, rough and hard and bloody, tongues and teeth, desperate and angry and needy, and it's been three years since Sherlock's been kissed, and he misses it, and he grabs onto John's arms, kisses him back.
"No," says John, "You're not – we're not doing this."
And he shoves Sherlock away, goes back into the house, slams the door shut. A man on the street stares as he walks by.
"What are you looking at?" says Sherlock.
John stays angry for days. He shuts himself away and burns with the unfairness of it all. Of losing three years of his life. Of ruining Mary's life too. He spends days screaming silently into the sky, because this is Sherlock Holmes, the world's most difficult, infuriating, ridiculous, wonderful man, and he must be mad, he must be mad. Sherlock always had John's heart, and John gave him the chance to break it. And now it's empty without him. He's empty. He needs him back. But he still can't forgive him.
John lets himself into the flat on Monday night. Their old flat. 221B. It's strange. He's been away for so long. He remembers the smell, the feel of the place, warm and imperfect and theirs. Sherlock's sitting in his chair, knees drawn up to his chin, childlike. He opens his eyes, looks at John.
"I missed you."
"I missed you too," says John.
Sherlock holds out his hand, stretches his fingers towards John.
"John," he says simply, "Please."
John looks at him for a minute. Doesn't come closer.
"I swear to God, you'll be the death of me," he says, voice barely a whisper.
"I'm sorry," says Sherlock, "I was scared. I wanted to protect you. Moriarty's men were still out there. I had to deal with them. It just – took longer than I expected. I wanted so much to come home to you."
He doesn't look at John, he looks into him, ten kinds of terrifying.
"John."
He blinks, bites his lip.
"You make me more than I am. You make me whole. And I don't know how to be if you're not there. These last few years – I haven't been alive."
John shakes his head. Wonders why Sherlock can't just love him. Why it can't be that simple. Why it can't be SherlockandJohn until they stop breathing. Because they never managed that. But it was all he wanted.
"John. I love you, and I'm going to love you until I die. Even if you don't love me anymore."
"I don't," says John, and leaves.
It's an obvious lie.
He spends the next week torn between anger and sadness and wanting, wanting so much, wanting to touch Sherlock and taste him and have him and hold him. Like he used to.
And then one Thursday John comes home, and Sherlock's there. He's sitting on the sofa, his back to John, no explanation, a book open in his lap. It's one of his, the one filled with nothing more than an endless tally of lines.
"I made a mark every time you kissed me," he says.
He turns a page, to another tangled mess of lines.
"I didn't want to forget one."
John looks at him.
"I kissed you a lot."
"You loved me a lot."
Sherlock takes a breath, looks out of the windows, empty black, dotted with blinking London lights, car headlamps, brake lights, streetlamps.
"I was trying to find a way to quantify love. But that wasn't it."
He shuts the book, stands up.
"Love can't be measured in words or kisses or time. Its measure is loss."
His eyes lock onto John's.
"I didn't know how much you loved me until I left. And then I realised it was much, much more than I thought."
John shakes his head, angry and choked and, still, so ridiculously and endlessly in love.
"Sherlock. Do you even know? Do you even understand? Because I sure as Hell can't. Why do you do this to me?"
He doesn't get an answer. He never will.
"I'm sorry," says Sherlock, stepping closer, hands on John's elbows, "John, I'm so, so sorry."
It's hopelessly inadequate.
John's eyes are burning with tears and he forces his eyes shut, turns his head away. He feels Sherlock press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, soft and sharp at once, painfully intimate, and hears him walk away.
"Will you leave me?" John asks, "For Darren."
"Will you leave me?" Mary asks, "For Sherlock."
John bites his lower lip, looks down, because he's ashamed, he's betrayed, and he never wants to see Sherlock again, never wants to see anyone again, wants to crawl into the space between the earth and the sky and hide.
"I think you should both leave me alone," he says.
Mary folds her arms.
"No you don't," she says sternly, "You don't think that."
"No," John admits, "I don't."
"I thought," says Mary, "Long ago. I thought that this would be it. Because I loved you, John Watson, even if you didn't love me in return, and if I had to live unloved, it would be with you, and that would be enough. But it wasn't enough. It can't be enough. No-one can live unloved for long. I can't. You can't either."
She steps towards him, still so patient, still so kind, even now.
"You have to promise me one thing, John Watson. You've broken all your other promises to me. Keep one. Just this one."
She puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes, looks up at him.
"You have to promise me to be happy. And you know that the only way for you to be happy is if you're with him. Don't you?"
John nods tightly, because it's true, of course it's true, of course, of course.
"You're not the man for me, and God knows, I'm not the man for you either. But we helped each other to get where we're going. Even if that was into another man's arms," Mary says, and she smiles softly, like this is alright, like this is how they're supposed to be.
She kisses him on the cheek, pulls him into a hug, and John knows that this is more than he deserves, that Mary was always more than he deserved.
"Will she be happy?" John asks.
Mary's packed her bags and Darren's come to pick her up, and John is watching her go. He's sitting on the steps up to their front door, Sherlock next to him, his long coat spilling out over the steps.
"He's a schoolteacher, teaching art, has a white cat, not much money, no previous attachments," says Sherlock, eyeing Darren over, "She'll be as happy with him as with anyone."
John nods.
"She's a good person. She deserves more than me."
"John –"
"No-one deserves to be married to a man who's in love with someone else."
Sherlock looks at him, eyes sharp and hopeful.
"I don't deserve you, John Watson. I don't think I ever will."
"I know. But I don't care."
John takes his hand, laces their fingers together.
"Come on," he says, "Let's say goodbye."
He gets up, leads Sherlock over to Darren's conked-out Ford. Mary smiles, shuts the boot door.
"What will you do?" John asks.
"I'm not sure. We'll think of something. Things are going to change, but – I'm happy. I'm very happy. We might go to Botswana. We might go live with his family in Scotland. I'll send you a postcard. You'll visit us, won't you, if you're nearby?"
John smiles, admits that there isn't a John, there isn't a Sherlock, there's SherlockandJohn, and that's what it's going to be, of course, of course, it is.
"Of course we will."
Mary kisses them both in turn.
"Take care of him," she tells Sherlock.
He squeezes John's hand. Darren gives them a cursory nod, an awkward smile, and they get into the car.
John waves them goodbye as they head down the street, sighs as they turn the corner.
"That has got to be the friendliest break-up I've ever had," he says.
"It was in her interests to be friendly," says Sherlock, "Given the circumstances."
"What do you mean?"
"She's pregnant."
John's face falls.
"What?"
"About three months gone."
"Oh God. But I'm not – I can't be –"
"I don't think she's sure. But she wants the father to be in the child's life, to some extent."
John rubs his face with his hands, groans quietly.
"Fuck. What have I done? I can't be a father."
"Darren will do that. He knows. He'll be the father. We'll be the distant but interesting uncles."
John rolls his eyes, laughs.
"Oh God."
"What?"
"Just – we have the most fucked-up family."
"We'll have some interesting Christmases."
John smiles, takes Sherlock's hand again.
"Take me home."
"Of course," says Sherlock, "Of course."
And kisses him.