"I Can't Help But Follow You"

A Sherlock One-Shot

Sherlock, it's been a year since I last tried to contact you. I miss you as much as I do since you...well since you disappeared from my life. -JW

Sherlock suddenly had the desperate, irrational urge to run out his front door and catch the earliest flight to London. Staring at the words clutched fast and sure between his trembling fingers, a strange feeling blossoms in the pit of his stomach that John is building up to something. Something big, important. Something devastating. He just doesn't know what yet.

He wants to go home for another reason too. It's been a year. An entire year since he's had any contact from this infuriating, broken, perfect man and it reminds him just how much he misses him. It's a constant ache in the place where his supposedly missing heart should be. It's a pain that goes so deep and has been killing him slowly over the last four years.

Heat rises with him, a searing comfort burning away all the loneliness and all the hurt that he'd been consumed by for the past year. Happiness the likes of which he has never felt with anyone except John fills him. It sickens him that a few words from someone else could make him feel so damn much. But it's John and even if he hates the idea that he's capable of sentiment just like everyone else, he can't fight it. No matter how much he wants to. Oddly enough, he does not want to fight the emotions coursing like molten fire through his veins. After a year of nothing but crippling misery, he welcomes these feelings with open arms. A fact he's sure he'll never admit to anyone. Maybe John, but no one else.

The faint beep of his phone breaks his train of thought. His sharp eyes focus on the screen of his mobile and he bites his lip as he reads. The overwhelming happiness fading quickly to worry again.

Honestly, I'd have thought not talking to you, your memory, would help me. I thought it would make me forget, force me to move on. But it didn't. It made it so much worse, Sherlock. And I...I don't know how much more of it I can take. -JW

Sherlock felt his face morph. From that stupid half-grin to a frown. The sharp lines of his face in direct contact with his not-there heart. The shards of glass that John's absence from his life had created were digging painfully into old wounds. He could tell now, or he thought he could tell, what John was trying to tell him. And he knew that he had to do something.

It was obvious and in fact, he was surprised to find that the idea of John Watson committing suicide over him didn't actually surprise him at all. He knew to other people that would sound incredibly arrogant. But the truth was that he just knew John. John had one of the biggest, kindest, gentlest hearts that he'd ever seen. He had always been uncommonly patient with him and he'd seen, occasionally, a look on John's face that mirrored exactly the feelings he himself felt. A look of devotion. Of unconditional love. Before he'd committed suicide, that look had terrified him. Now, he feared that it would be too late to save his friend. His best friend. The man he loved.

John loved him too and even after all the pain he had caused him, he had never been able to let him go. He had never moved on and that degree of pain wore on a person. Even a man as strong as John would not be able to remain stoic and unmoved in the fact of that despair. Hell, hadn't he just been contemplating the idea only a few moments before John had decided to pop into his life again?

Anyway, you'll never see this, but I wanted to tell you something that I have felt for a very long time. I was too scared to admit it before now, but I love you Sherlock Holmes. You are the most infuriating, enigmatic, beautiful man that I've ever known. That I ever knew. And I will always love you. -JW

Even knowing that John loved him could not have prepared him for this confession. He was not an easily shocked man, but the words clenched between his fingers made his jaw fall open in astonishment.

Reading those words, Sherlock knew what he had to do. Without a moment's hesitation, he was on his feet. Racing around his flat like a madman. Throwing a few articles of clothing into a spare bag and mentally preparing himself to see John Watson again. He had no idea what awaited him in his future but in this moment for the first time in a long time, exacting revenge on Moriarty was not his priority. The man suffering because of him thousands of miles away had become his priority and he knew that he was racing against time in order to save him.

His heart thumping hard and fast in his chest, Sherlock dodged out of his front door. Not bothering with closing it. Leaving his mobile behind on the bed, which beeped a full minute after he had deserted the flat.

But I don't want to love you in this lonely life anymore Sherlock. I know you'd probably laugh at me for being such an idiotic sod, but I can't see any other way. I hope to see you soon, Sherlock. I love you. -JW

Okay I know so many people are going to hate me when they read this and get to the end, but believe me, I hadn't intended on this story going this way. Well, I had thought about it, but I thought for sure that this chapter would be the end of it. As it is, I'm starting a new chapter in this mini-series of sorts and I am so excited to share it with you guys. By the way, this one-shot is a companion piece to both "Because I Love You" and "Won't Forget You." You can check those out if you want, but I'd like to think that this piece and the other two pieces of the puzzle could stand on their own.

I hope that you can forgive me enough to review and to add me to author alert so that you can read the last part of this. I promise it will be worth it. Or at least I really hope so. :)