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Adrift
by J Baillier
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I've met your ghost
He has proposed
- Tori Amos
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Sherlock opens the door to 221b Baker street. Their home. Their former apartment. His old home. His reclaimed home. He doesn't know what to call it now.
This is the moment he has daydreamed about so many times during the past years, but none of the scenarios he'd had in his head were like this. So... devoid of all the important things. All those things he'd such a sacrifice for in the first place. So Johnless.
Before, when he'd lived alone in other places, the emptiness of an apartment when he opened the door had been a familiar, calming sort of stillness. This was different - the silence now felt demanding and uneasy.
'John Watson is no longer at Baker street'. Of course he had heard what Mycroft had said, but it was different to actually bear witness to the reality of it.
Of course he had known that John would be affected by his fall from grace and his most deceitful disappearance. Of course he knew that John was a survivor, who would try to mop up the pieces of his existence and carve out a new one in Sherlock's absence. Still, he had not anticipated it could be a woman that might play a large part in that. Somehow he had assumed that the part he'd had in John's life - the parameters of which always eluded verbalization - would be available for him to reclaim.
When he returned, John was supposed to be amazed and indignant but so, so happy and forgiving. There should have been a hug that would not have been as carefully, heteronormatively constructed as John's rare hugs usually were.
He may have ruined John's proposal in the restaurant. He does not know whether to feel joy over the fact or not.
He digs out the piece of paper Mary had given him before they had parted ways in Marylebone. It's their home address.
Sherlock finds his laptop in the kitchen. Mycroft's minions, who had prepared the apartment for his return had been thorough - the charger is plugged to a wall socket. Sherlock ignores his email and gets on Google Earth to look at the house John is now residing in with this woman. Mary. Who promised to appease John. It was very unlike Sherlock to hang onto such gestures of politeness made by strangers but now he would take whatever he could get.
He kneads his eyelids with his thumbs. There's too much information to process. If he tries to look at all of it at once, to organize it to some sort of a larger, logical picture, he is certain something will short-circuit. This needs to be taken a piece at a time until he is back to his full mental faculties. At a time when he has these emotions reined into their designated back room of his Mind Palace where they will keep but not bother him.
There is no reason why he could not learn to live the life he had before John came along. Although he does not exactly know what that would entail. He does not know how to exist at 221b Baker street without John. He has not spent many nights alone in this apartment.
The sun is setting. It's not dark enough to necessitate turning on any lights, but the growing shadows in the corners of the room are making the place seem even emptier and lonelier.
Sherlock has been lonely for two years. During the time he was away from London he rarely thought about it, merely focused on existing, on achieving what he'd set out to do and keeping himself together while carrying the emotional burden of the trail of bodies he had left behind.
He had thought of John all the time when he'd been traveling. What John might've been doing, what he might've been thinking and whether Sherlock was in his mind at the same time that Sherlock was thinking of him - a sentimental hope of some sort of a transcendental telepathic connection that would make John Watson not give up on him.
'Don't be dead'. Every day, every hour and every minute had been a battle for Sherlock not to abandon his mission and grant that wish. Only the thought of John Watson lying dead with a bullet in his brain had kept Sherlock from dropping his cover.
Sherlock finds himself idly leafing through an old Hello magazine from two years back that he had happened upon on the windowsill. He imagines John reading it, chuckling at the pointless gossip headlines, trying to engage Sherlock in conversation about them. John seemed to love to hear his dissection of such nonsense.
Sherlock has dreamt of this moment for two years, coming home, being able to do what he wants instead of slaving away in a nightmare weaved my Moriarty. Now that he is actually back home, he feels too on edge, too amped up, too aware of himself to actually decide what he wants to do first.
Could he be hungry? Two years on the run have given him an appreciation of proper food, the kind of food John makes him eat. Still, when he thinks of eating alone by the kitchen table, something in his guts twist.
John has probably sat there, night after night after The Fall, alone. Trying to get himself to eat.
There's no way Sherlock can enjoy a meal by that table now.
He gently picks up his violin from its case on the coffee table. The string he had broken before his exile has been replaced. Sherlock wonders if he has John or Mycroft to thank for it.
He picks up the bow, hopeful that his music might be something that has a connection to his old life while having nothing to do with John Watson.
He is wrong. All he can now see and feel and remember are John looking up at him, smiling in adoration like he used to when Sherlock played some pieces he was familiar with and liked.
Sherlock puts the violin away and tries to calm himself down.
John is alive. And fine. And here in London.
Still, what is the point of it all if Sherlock can't see the man, isn't allowed to talk to him, be with him?
'Alone is what protects me'. From what? Not from more loneliness, that's for sure.
When he thinks of the possibility that the life they'd had together might be gone, or at least changed irrevocably, it seems like the bottom is dropping from the universe and all the pieces of his life he's trying to hold on to are wrong and no longer fit together.
He had made himself a nice life before John came along. Nice, but empty. Is that what John now had? Something nice and empty?
Empty was not what he'd seen in John's face when he looked at that woman. Love it may not have been either, it was hard to tell but there had certainly been a radiant sort of hope there.
The John he had met in the restaurant earlier that evening was not the John Watson he had locked eyes with while hurtling himself from the roof of St Barts. There was a darkness now in John Watson, a darkness and a heaviness and an edge. He'd grown a moustache to signify - - what? A new start? A change? Letting go? Reinventing himself?
Sherlock's nose throbs and he touches it with his forefinger. Dried, flaky blood floats down to the carpet. Should he do something about it? All he can usually think in terms of first aid is a gently dab things with the corner of a handkerchief, it's all he knows. John is the doctor, John fixes these things.
Sherlock takes off his jacket and notices from the label that even though it looks like one of his old ones, it can't be because it's two sizes smaller than what he used to wear. He can't decide whether to hate Mycroft a little more or be thankful.
Sherlock slumps down onto the sofa. He had been so giddily ecstatic, walking from the plane to Heathrow terminal, thinking he could now wipe his slate clean from the whole ordeal - arrange it into a dark corner of The Palace and lock the door. He longed for that feeling back, the moment before the realization that people hadn't just been putting their lives on hold while waiting for him to reappear.
The transport is tired and sore and in dire need of sleep, but his mind in as hyperactive as ever, still reeling from everything that had happened. Sherlock knows it will be tiresome to announce his return. Papers will want comments. There will be uninvited touches from people he does not to be touched by.
And there will be the waiting for John to get in touch. If he ever does. How soon would it be acceptable to reach out to him if nothing happens? Is Sherlock supposed to care if getting in touch at a certain point is socially acceptable or not? It's not like John is expecting him to know how to navigate these things. On the other hand, John always appreciates if he tries to conform to these hateful social mores.
He reaches out to his phone on the coffee table and begins typing a text message.
IT WAS NICE TO SEE YOU. SH
Ridiculous. John would think someone had kidnapped him and the message was a cry for help.
[Delete message.]
I MISSED YOU. SH
Well that was glaringly obvious, wasn't it? John wouldn't need him to tell him that. Of course they had missed one another.
[Delete message.]
MARY IS NICE. SH
Did he possibly have enough information to make that judgement? And wouldn't it be more socially beneficial to tell such things to Mary herself instead of John?
[Delete message.]
HOW ARE YOU FEELING? SH
When taking into account his still throbbing, bloody nose, he probably already knew the answer.
[Delete message.]
In the end, Sherlock can't think of a single sensible thing to text to John. If it had been safe he would have texted the man every day during his exile, written several novels' worth of letters during those two years. He often imagined writing them in his head, aware that he could never put them in ink. Had John done essentially the same by talking to his gravestone? What had he said? Had he stopped visiting the graveyard at some point? Had he given up hope? Is that why he was so angry?
Sherlock ends up turning on the television. A gameshow is on. He doesn't bother to change the channel. A faint reverb is telling him that Mrs Hudson is watching the same programme. It occurs to Sherlock that he could go downstairs and seek her company. He decides against it. Being in the presence of someone other than John would only dilute what he's feeling but not actually fix anything. A bandaid on a broken bone.
Maybe he ought to ask Mary how John was feeling. Mycroft could probably dig out her number in minutes. On the other hand, it might not bode well for this relationship of John's to put Mary on Mycroft's radar.
Would showing up at their house be acceptable? Perhaps not.
Sherlock throws a pillow at the opposite wall because what else is there to do? It drives him mad, this helpless feeling of not being able to further his cause in any way. All he can do is wait.
And wait.
He has always been terrible at waiting.
There could be cases, now that he's back and his name has been cleared. The concept ought to thrill him but it doesn't.
The gameshow ends. He turns off the television.
He dares not wander upstairs to John's room - it must be empty now and Sherlock is not certain he can bear the sight at the moment. He goes to his own bedroom instead and descends on the bed, not even bothering to take off his shoes.
Uncharacteristically, he drifts to sleep.
Hours later he wakes up with a jolt, certain he has heard something. His heart races, cold sweat begins seeping in and his muscles tense in anticipation of an attack. Two years of constant vigilance have left their mark on him. John would call it PTSD. Sherlock calls it survival.
A thought occurs: if it were an actual intruder, John would be up by now.
He then reminds himself of the situation. In the upstairs bedroom there is no John. Instead of being reassuring and safe like before, the existence of the room upstairs now feels more akin to a black hole.
It takes several long minutes of listening to non-existing burglar noises until Sherlock relaxes.
It seems that John is all that his head is capable of containing at the moment. John anchors him to this world, this semblance of normalcy he has always had such a hard time holding on to. It feels as though he has been robbed of the one thing that keeps all his pieces in place. Without John, his life is the caricature John himself had laughed at during their first meal together: archenemies. A tall tale of villains and danger. Pointless running only to end up back where he started, every time. The tale of Sir Boast-A-Lot.
Sherlock doesn't want any of it anymore. He wants to belong somewhere, to someone.
He feels so adrift now.
Does he have the right to demand forgiveness of John now, after everything? Could his dying be a more terrible crime that what saving what he loves could possibly make up for?
The silence in the room is an abyss looking back at him.
Sherlock frantically claws the top of the bedside table for his phone.
I NEED YOU. SH
[Delete message.]
- The End -
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Writing soundtrack:
"Your Ghost" by Kristin Hersh
"Still" by Daughter