It's blank. For a long time -when he lapses into those moments of pensive calm, pauses for a moment to recall something from his expansive memory- there's a broad white space of nothingness in one corner of his mind and it frustrates him. His memory has never failed him like this before. Every moment in time around that hole is intact, aside from the indiscernible amount of time that makes it. There is something, he realizes, that he has somehow, impossibly forgotten.
He doesn't tell anyone- not that he ever tells anyone about anything- and continues on with life as normal. He still sees every detail, makes his deductions as perfectly- if not more so- as he always has, goes on with his experiments and even lets himself be subjected to another one of John's movie marathons (which he enjoys more than he'll ever admit).
And then something happens. A tiny cluster of words that change everything within the space of a heartbeat, faster than he can realize or control. Three soft, gentle words, spoken in his most vulnerable moment.
It's when he looks up from the middle of reviewing some of his research- staying up too late again because of his damned insomnia- after having heard something from upstairs. Shuffling. The agitated creaking of floorboards and a moment of pacing. Sherlock listens, forgetting what he was writing just to concentrate on the fact that he knows John's had another one of his nightmares. They've become more frequent, more horrifying and unsettling for John, but Sherlock can't figure out why. He stands, contemplates the violin waiting for him in the chair he left it in hours ago, before he picks her up and plays. It's the same song he's been playing for longer than he cares to remember, something he composed months ago specifically for this. Neither of them have ever said anything about it, but he knows John appreciates it in how his footsteps stop, how the last sound Sherlock hears is the creak of the bedsprings as he goes back to bed, the fading shadows under John's eyes and that small smile in the morning that's the only sign that he heard.
But it's different this time. The footsteps stop for a while, and then Sherlock pauses for a moment when they start again on the stairs. When he ends the song and turns, John's watching him from the middle of the room. There's something important to be said, Sherlock sees, in the anxious twitch of his hands, the tension in his jaw and his shoulders.
In the time it takes him to take his violin off his shoulder, move his bow to his left hand and then both back to the chair, John's already there, too close and too restless-
"There's something I never said," John says, his voice barely audible even in silence only filled by his uneven breathing, "when you came back."
Sherlock's arms have already risen halfway in a sort of awkward embrace, not quite touching John and only because of an automatic response to the movement. Sherlock isn't the kind of person who willingly gives into hugs, and even now, he hesitates. John's closeness motivated it, but he begins to wonder if that's even what John wants.
He swallows once, nervously, moves his arms in a little closer, and John practically falls into him, pulls him down so that he can reach his ear.
Later, when he wakes up, he recalls blood. Deep crimson and pain and irrational fury; tearing and breaking and screaming that might have been his or someone else's. He remembers, but when the first thing he sees is his own bloodied hands, he doesn't understand.
He sits up slowly, blinking in the dim light of the fallen lamp at the chaos that has become the living room. There's a body at his feet, he sees, still breathing, but ruggedly. Bruised and beaten and broken somehow, cut and still bleeding-
Something moves, buzzes. Sherlock blinks and tries to place the sound, the vibration coming from his pocket, before the information makes sense and picks up his phone. And then he drops it, the blood that isn't his smearing across the screen.
Did John like my little present? -JM
John turns his head and meets Sherlock's eyes, but by the time Sherlock's called his name, the light in John's eyes has already faded.