Homecoming

When John saw Sherlock standing outside the door to their flat, he assumed that he was seeing things. Again.

After all, it wouldn't be the first time. In fact, it seemed to happen every time he went out (which, admittedly, was rare). When allowed to be, he was a creature of habit, and although he rarely ate these days, he still got the shopping like clockwork – portions for two. He'd round the corner onto Baker Street and there would be a tall bloke in a short coat or a short bloke in a long coat or a woman in no coat at all and for a moment, for one blinding instant when the sun was in his eyes, his chest would hitch and he would think he's come home.

It was never him, of course.

Until, finally, it was.

Late afternoon, two bags of shopping, the usual things. Round the corner and yes, there he was, same as always. John set his lips in a tight line and shook his head, chastising himself. No, John. But he neared and the image didn't melt away, didn't become a street solicitor or a shopkeep stepping out for a fag.

John wouldn't remember dropping his bags. But he would find them later, shopping spilt across the pavement, some of it already nicked by enterprising members of Sherlock's network.

He looked very much the same. Hair just mussed enough to call attention to it (did he do that on purpose?), coat collar turned up against the weather, or maybe just for effect. The ghost of the sun behind the ever-present London clouds drew his pupils to pinpoints, bringing to full force their pale strangeness. Cold air made his nose red, shined it with the chill.

It made a fantastic target.

The punch staggered him sideways; his hand pinched the bleeding nostrils on instinct, but his expression never changed – he still wore the same blithe, searching, insufferable and magnetic look he always had.

John's hands were at his throat next, twisting fists into that damn collar and he was pulling him down to his level, crushing their faces together. His skull ground against Sherlock's, making it ache, but he barely noticed. He wasn't sure where his gaping mouth landed and he felt warm, wet blood against his chin and copper on his tongue and he didn't care and his voice was so muffled in his own ears that he could hardly hear himself choking, "How could you where were you I hate you."

The anger surprised him, really. In all the dreams he'd had about this moment, he never got angry.

Long fingers folded over his shoulders and he heard – vaguely, through a red vignette of fury – Sherlock's voice. "John."

"You bastard," he croaked, and none of these words had his permission to leave his mouth. "You bastarding son of a bitch. You were dead. You were dead, I saw your body, I took your pulse."

"You saw a body, you took a pulse," Sherlock corrected him. John could punch him again, the arrogant prick. "Let me in. I haven't got a key anymore."

For a moment, John seriously considered telling him to sod off. But naturally, he didn't. He opened the door and they went up the stairs together and things were so mind-crushingly normal he couldn't stand it. Somewhere in the back of his aching head, it occurred to him that Sherlock could have effortlessly picked their lock, but had asked specifically to be let in. Had asked permission. His permission. He felt a tingle at the base of his spine, a pulling in his abdomen.

The stairs creaked in the same places they always had. Their bodies fit in the stairwell in the same way. Sherlock strode into the sitting room with easy familiarity and then they looked at each other.

They just looked at each other.

John thought he might be sick. Sherlock's nose had nearly stopped bleeding and it didn't look broken, but a welt was rising to the left of it. The blow must have glanced off. Missed again.

Sherlock disappeared into the kitchen. John couldn't make himself move to follow him. When he returned, the drying blood had been wiped from his nose and lip and he was holding a damp washcloth. Before John could stop him, he had taken his chin roughly in his hand and turned his face upward. The cloth swabbed his face once, twice where Sherlock's blood had stained it and all the while Sherlock never met his eyes. When he was clean, Sherlock threw the rag back into the kitchen. From the sound of the splat, John guessed it had missed the sink.

But Sherlock was already prowling around the flat, examining everything. "You've gotten sloppy," he noted, fiddling with an empty packet of crisps on the sofa. "Not touched my things, have you?" His voice disappeared with him into his bedroom.

John still hadn't budged from his place by the door. "Touched y-" Words failed him. Then they didn't. "Sherlock, you can't do this."

He appeared in the door of his room then, hands splayed on the doorframe, leaning with his chest jutted out. His eyes were bright, inquisitive, and there it was, the slight furrow in his brow that he always hastily pushed away so John wouldn't know he was baffled. "Do what?"

Oh God, he actually didn't know. Only the sight of the growing bruise, painting Sherlock's face a wretched purple-green, stopped John's fists clenching and flying once more. "You can't," he said slowly, patiently, "be dead for five months, then show up like you're back from holiday." Sherlock's head cocked; he squinted, and then he disappeared back into his room. John scrubbed his hands over his face and followed him.

He was poking about in his bureau drawers. As though John would have touched anything in there. He muttered under his breath, no doubt taking a mental inventory. "I've not touched anything," John assured him, answering his earlier question.

"Ah," came the reply. John was slightly annoyed to find that he had actually missed the vagaries. But then Sherlock pulled his head from a drawer and clarified, "Of course you didn't. But someone else may have." He put his hands on his hips and took another glance around. "Doesn't look that way, though." John retreated. He couldn't look at him anymore.

He got as far as the middle of the sitting room before he had to stop and close his eyes, lips drawn tight, fists shaking at his sides. He counted the breaths as he took them, one, two, three, and then a footstep behind him. He heard, rather than saw, the furl return to Sherlock's brow. "What is it?"

John swallowed, pressing away the rising tightness in his throat as best he could. Swallowed again. It wouldn't go away. He had to speak around it. And when he did, each word was louder than the last. "I... cannot... believe... you would do this... to me!" The skull was in his hand before he knew what was happening, swooped up from the mantle and lobbed at Sherlock's head. Sherlock dodged, but just barely – it shattered against the wall at his back and for a heartbeat, John saw in his eyes what he had seen at Devon. It pained him, set the pulse in his ears pounding in an agonizing tattoo, but his anger far outweighed his sympathy.

Chaos, then. He had never had a crack arm, John Watson, but he found himself throwing anything he could reach. Pens that bounced off his chest, papers that didn't even make it across the room, paperbacks, notebooks, a copy of the Bible. One teacup splashed its day-old contents onto Sherlock's coat before falling and exploding into shards on the hardwood. Porcelain splinters skittered across Sherlock's shoes and he looked down at his soiled coat. He sidestepped most of the assault, graceful, hands in his pockets.

John was the one thing he couldn't dodge.

The weight of a full-grown man barreling into his lungs, John thought, was probably the only thing that could possibly render Sherlock Holmes speechless. He tackled him like a rugby pro, shoulder to stomach, and they slammed together into the wall before sinking to the floor.

It became a proper fight, then. Or it would have, had Sherlock been able to retaliate at all. He had height on John, but John had surprise and experience and five months of gut-wrenching, pillow-punching, night-crying rage and resentment behind him. And he felt every minute of it. He pummeled Sherlock – his friend, his partner, his only – with closed fists, against all advice and reason, with scuffling kicks and gritted teeth and he had to actively stop himself biting his arm when the opportunity presented itself. Sherlock lay there, offering vague attempts at batting his hands away and failing almost entirely. The floor was dusty; John hadn't let Mrs. Hudson in for weeks. That coat would never be the same again.

He wasn't sure how long he carried on. He only knew that finally his body began to slow. His leg ached, and why shouldn't it, it was a legitimate wound you bastard, and his breathing was labored and God, he could barely breathe now but he forced the words out anyway, "Why?" His hands felt empty and limp and tired but they gripped Sherlock's wrists and pinned them at his sides and their legs tangled and he was holding him there, holding him and gagging on his own tears. "Why?" Sherlock's face remained maddeningly impassive, like a doll, like the devil, like distance. "Explain to me," he choked. A fleck of his spit landed on Sherlock's upper lip. Served him right. "You're so bloody good at explanations, aren't you, when you can be arsed to notice that nobody else has any idea what you're on about. Well I'm telling you..." He coughed; it came out sounding like a sob. "I'm telling you, I. Don't. Understand. So just explain it to me."

Sherlock's eyes searched his face. He could almost hear the whir of a dozen processors, the click-click of Sherlock's mind opening file folders on Humanity and Emotion and Empathy and coming up with nothing, nothing, nothing. He could spot a widow's false grief by the twitch of her handkerchief, map the route of a steamy liaison by the pile of the carpet, he could quantify amusement and put a stopper in confusion. But he could not feel.

John didn't know why he thought he could.

"The call," he made himself gasp. "Bart's. The note. You." It came in brief flashes, half-repressed by necessity, and he couldn't seem to form a complete thought. "Crying. You were. You cried. You cried at me. I thought..." But had hadn't, had he? John's grip on Sherlock's wrists slowly loosened as his strength ebbed from him entirely. It was all he could do not to collapse. "It wasn't real." The enormity of the lie slid coldly down his backbone, dread leeches sapping away his senses.

"John."

Whether Sherlock was going to try to defend himself or not, John didn't know. It didn't matter now – it was too late and his epiphany was too staggering.

He was still on his knees, straddling him, knees throbbing, but now he hedged sidelong as his spine gave up. He slid off, and down, and then they were lying next to each other, staring past the ceiling – silent in the wreckage.

The End

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