Author: Regency
Title: Not So Sound an Egg
Rating: G/E
Spoilers: references to The Great Game but AU after that.
Summary: John is a criminal mastermind. Sherlock finds out. This is how they say goodbye.
Author's Notes: For the sake of clarity, a good egg is a good person and a bad egg is a bad person. Someone who is an unsound egg is basically morally suspect.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Sherlock. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
"I am the bad man. Don't you wish you'd figured that out?"
John wears shadows for clothes over Sherlock's shoulder. His reflection in the window is a demonic, leering figure. Sherlock loathes himself for refusing to see it. Shouldn't because John hid too well.
"I had you figured for a vigilante three minutes in, but that would have been boring. You're better than that dull."
John cants his head in acceptance of the compliment. Sherlock can pay his respects to well-applied strategy, he isn't that vain. He turns to contemplate the man he had considered his one true friend.
"You never worked again after the jade pin incident, did you? You made all the proper rumblings and kept up the routine, but you never worked. You puttered about London like a vagrant, like an Irregular I should have heard of—but, ah, that's just it, isn't it? You paid better and your skills came of use. Set a few broken limbs, intervene at just the right moment to prevent a rape and you're the underworld's new friend. Oh, you played them and me. Glorious. It takes a rather clarion wit to fool all of the people all of the time."
"A ringing endorsement from the detective. I may swoon." John grabs his chest, laughing. There is some of the army doctor whom he cared for in the crinkles of his eyes. The tilt of his smile is also familiar. Only not enough, not enough to go on pretending Sherlock hasn't seen.
"Was Moriarty yours, or you his?"
"Unaffiliated, actually. It's all one grand coincidence, me and him blundering into your path, you blundering into ours. Can you imagine what I would have got up to without you to draw me off?"
"I've done nothing else for the past forty seconds."
"So precise an intellect, how could I keep away?"
John rocks on his heels, a stranger in his best friend's skin, held erect by his would-be lover's bones. Was that a ploy, too?
"Easily, I'd think, were it not for Mike Stamford."
Sherlock rubs his lower lip. He takes the time to catalogue John now. He'll distinguish before from after when he is alone again. He'll castigate himself for caring, for trusting; he'll burn his heart on the pyre of this disadvantage. Not a mistake he'll make again.
"Hmm, Stamford. Not so much good fortune as a good friend, or,I suppose from my perspective, a bloody awful friend. One of life's little conspiracies."
"One of many."
John clasps his hands together before Sherlock, patient as a saint, an army doctor that isn't, wasn't. Like a liar unconcerned for the fallout, who bore no fear of consequence.
"Are you going to kill me?"
"Nah, you're too interesting to kill. Someday, I'll see you again and you'll catch my fancy a second time. It'll be a riot."
Leaving already? Sherlock is unprepared for this chapter of his life to end. He's unsure how he'll fill the other blank pages.
"Until then?"
"Goodbye." Sherlock calculates the momentum necessary to reach the door before John can shut it behind him. John reads his intentions and whistles a friendly warning. "If you know what's good for you, you'll let me go, because I lose all use if I'm locked away like a dog in a kennel. You wanna play fetch on the world stage, but you'll have to give me a toss first."
One unkempt eyebrow rises of its own volition. He may not know Orion from the Big Dipper, but he recognizes blatant innuendo.
John's strange, unfamiliar countenance breaks into a furious giggle like the John Watson of old. Sherlock hasn't resisted it yet. "Shut up, you barmy git. You know I didn't mean it like that."
They share the last laugh they will for ages. They ease into silence where before gives way to henceforth.
"People will say you jilted me," Sherlock supplies.
John, his new stranger, regards him fondly. "They'll be right."
"What'll I do without you?"
I don't want to. Can't we go on pretending? John smiles. It's his John, his blogger, his endless possibilities condensed into just one.
"You can do anything. Knowing you, it'll be something ridiculous, probably. No, definitely something ridiculous. I don't much care, just don't go getting yourself blown up. I might not get there in time to throw you into the pool when you need it."
"No great loss, there, most would say."
"Most people are idiots."
"But not you. You are far too clever to stand in my shadow."
"Funny, that. I rather like the darkness."
The consulting detective tries to hold his smile. His lips are wobbling under a tide of emotion; he's a seawall that cannot hold. This is impossible John Watson. He was always impossible, Sherlock shouldn't be surprised. And yet…and yet.
He knows what others will say of him once John is gone. It will be his faults that drove such a good man away. His lack of kindness, his cruelty. He'll let them think it; the fiction will stand. John was a better man than he deserved; it isn't any wonder he's turned out not to be real.
"Don't look like that. We'll always have Baker Street." They'll always have a dream—Sherlock's, anyway.
"What do I call you? If you aren't John. Who are you?" He would deduce it had he any confidence that his conclusions could be trusted. He's biased in favor of a figment. There's grit in his fine instrument. He chooses not to observe.
"John's as good a name as any other. It's what you want to keep calling me. Call me that."
"What of Harry?"
"The same applies."
Try as he might, Sherlock must wear the devastation he's attempting to hide too obviously. John steps closer. But not close enough.
"Enough of that. I'm your mystery, suss me out. None of this moping. I'll know if you mope and I'll blow something up to keep you interesting. Imagine the casualties."
"John would never—"
"I had bad days."
Sherlock presses his lips closed. John wouldn't…but he had. All the little inaccuracies of deduction tussle for attention in his mind. He found a mountaintop and missed the mountain.
When he looks back at his (former?) friend, John is frowning as though it's Sherlock that's a bit not good and not himself. He exhales, soft and sympathetic—familiar—and rubs his tanned neck.
"I'll make you a deal. If you haven't tracked me down in three years, meet me on the Swiss falls just in time for tea."
The detective tries not to appear eager. Three years, he can wait till then.
"To the day?"
The affection in John's blue eyes is clear. Whatever, whomever he is truly, his regard for Sherlock appears sincere.
"To the hour."
"Which falls?" He'll have to familiarize himself with the lay of the country. He'll memorize the map.
"The only one that counts, really. Call it one last, rich mystery for the road."
Sherlock leans toward his departing flatmate in protest of the distance to come. "Not the last."
"Not for us."
John hesitates this time. His left hand twitches toward Sherlock. Sherlock's right does the same. Neither reaches in the end.
"Goodbye, John Watson, if that's your real name."
"Of course it isn't, Sherlock Holmes. Poor sod, that's yours."
Seventeen retreating steps and a closed street door. A car of some make and model Sherlock cannot readily discern trundles into the evening. 221b is empty save for him, same as it was before this all began.
There's a sequel in the work. Apparently, some folks want to know what happens when Sherlock and John meet again.