Disclaimer: not mine.
Note: first ever Sherlock fanfic. Used to be a big fan of the books when I was in high school, and after finishing the second series, I remembered- as many other authors have- that in the books, John faints when Sherlock returns. This is just my small contribution, translating this scene into a modern version. Contains much more angst than the original because, you know, I guess John and Sherlock are men of the new millennium now and they like to cry and stuff :) Also I sped up the timeline of his return a bit because I feel that the BBC may want to keep the show in real time, so if it returns in 2013 then Sherlock probably won't have been gone three years. Maybe.
Before My Eyes
"When I turned again Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in my life. Certainly a grey mist swirled before my eyes, and when it cleared I found my collar-ends undone and the tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips." The Adventure of the Empty House, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It's been over a year since- you know- when John turns around at the unexpected footsteps in the room.
John looks at Sherlock. Sees a grey coat, grey shirt, grey eyes that would be blue if the lighting were better.
Then he just sees grey.
He knows he's moving, knows he's being sat down, but none of it really registers. Even the sharp tingle of something alcoholic on his lips passes right through his brain as though his scull were a sieve.
When John finally opens his eyes, he's spread bonelessly in his armchair, stomach aching. The top button on his collar is undone, seemingly to give him a bit more air. But he doesn't need more; he's got too much.
Too much acid in his stomach. Too much pounding in his ears.
Too much dead best friend crouching down beside him, knees swaying like he's been there a while.
One of two things is going to happen in the next three seconds: John is going to vomit, or throw a punch. There's another moment of half-grey in which he doesn't know which he's chosen, until he blinks the mist away and sees Sherlock sprawled on the floor, an uncharacteristic look of surprise plastered on his face.
"You were dead," John growls. He's still sitting in the chair, leg on fire, far too dizzy to stand.
"For all intents and purposes," Sherlock says simply.
"I watched you fall. I watched you jump off a building and kill yourself." The growl is a hiss now.
"Again." Sherlock pushes himself calmly to his feet. "In every way that matters, yes." Now John has to look up to see his face, which is does not appreciate.
"You. Were. Dead," John says again.
Then his leg stops hurting and he's launching himself at Sherlock like a madman. Like a madman attacking a ghost.
The returning blows that land on John's body are only ones of self-defense. He knows that, distantly, but it doesn't inspire him to soften his own.
It's not the tenth fist that makes hard contact with flesh, or the twentieth, or probably even the thirtieth. But somewhere along the line, John's anger drains away into renewed pain and he drops his hands and goes to his knees. Blinks twice and swallows back a gag.
There's blood on the carpet, and Sherlock's shoes are beyond his range of vision.
"Did I hurt you?" John asks quietly, voice muzzy and damp and foggy to his own ears. It's a moment before Sherlock answers, that familiar velvety voice that he hasn't heard speak a full sentence in over a year.
"I'm not the doctor in the room, but I do believe you've broken my nose."
John raises his head with difficulty; sees red on lips, sees colors coming slowly back, like a brown streak against blue of eyes that are steady but wet with pain. Sherlock's nose is purple and swollen and the face surrounding it is lily white.
"Yeah. Think I may have," John whispers.
It's thirty minutes after his best friend came back from the dead, about twenty-eight after he fainted for the first and hopefully last time in his life. It's five minutes after he landed a blow on said friend that fractured the man's nose. Now John's crouched in front of Sherlock, who is sitting on the lid of the toilet with a bloody wad of tissues pressed up against his nostrils. The ahhhh-shhhh of his open-mouth breathing echoes against the linoleum, the only sound in the room.
There isn't much John can do about the nose, but he's cleaned it up a bit and promised a bag of ice one he's done tending to the other injuries. There's a few small lacerations on Sherlock's forehead and cheeks that he methodically washes out then closes with butterfly bandages.
Ahhhh-shhhh.
Ahhhh-shhhh.
"Stop watching me," John grumbles.
Sherlock watches a moment longer, then passively closes his eyes.
Ahhh-shhhh. The sound of breathing is still not enough to be reassuring.
"No, no. Open them," John amends. "You look- mm."
He's relatively sure he doesn't have to say it, although Sherlock never has been very good with other people's emotions so maybe he won't be able to fill it in: you look dead.
On the other hand, he doesn't know many men who would allow their own nose to be broken just so their friend could disguise sudden sobs with the sound of fists landing.
Sherlock opens his eyes, but they remain unfocused.
"I missed you, you know." Treating the cuts should have taken no longer than five minutes but it's going on eight, just because John knows if he takes his hands away from his friend's face he's going to end up... hugging Sherlock or something. And that would be- well. He's already fainted today, and that should probably fulfill his embarrassment quota for the month at least. "You do know that, right?"
Ahhhh. Shhhh.
"Yes."
All at once, John has the distinct impression that he's not going to be the next one to embarrass himself, after all.
He smooths another dab of ointment along a cut.
"All right?" he asks conversationally. And he knows it's ridiculous, because Sherlock Holmes has faked his own death, exiled himself for a year, and then gotten a broken nose as a homecoming present.
Sherlock nods.
It doesn't surprise either of them when tears come, though John is a little startled to see they're falling from his friend's eyes and not his own. He lowers his hands and rocks back a bit onto his heels; Sherlock presses his lips together, eyes focusing at last. "John."
Ahhhh-shhhh.
"I know you missed me. I-"
He's not trying to say I missed you too, John knows. That doesn't need saying.
"I-"
Until a few years ago, Sherlock wouldn't have expected to be missed at all.
"I know," John murmurs. "It's okay."
Ahhhh-shhhhhhhh. Ah-ah-ah-
An hour ago Sherlock Holmes was dead. Now he's sitting on the lid of the toilet in John Watson's flat, nursing a nosebleed and heading towards a full-blown cry.
"I missed you," he repeats, because he kind of thinks Sherlock wants to hear it again. "We missed you."
Sherlock nods, like he's trying to prove that he's paying attention. Tears leak down his cheeks and are absorbed into the mass of tissues still being held to his nose. His normally pale, haughty face is a mess of bandages and blood and bruises, and the new traces of red in his eyes aren't helping.
"Are you really alive?" John whispers, because Jesus Christ he's really trying to be strong for Sherlock right now but that's kind of hard when about twenty-seven percent of him still thinks he's gone insane.
"Yes." Ah-ah-
"Okay." John raises himself up on his knees, shuffles forward. Tucks both arms carefully around Sherlock's trembling shoulders. "I'll make you a cuppa, yeah? Then we'll get some ice on your nose. And maybe, you know, you could fucking explain?"
"Yes."
Ahhhh.
Sherlock rests his forehead against John's neck, still careful of the hand pressed to his face.
Shhhh.
"Okay," John whispers, laying a hand flat against Sherlock's back. "Okay."