Maybe I should have told him. I don't know. I am usually good with words but sometimes, at specific times, they seem to fail me. I always assumed that he knew, always assumed that the things we said to each other without opening our mouths had encapsulated that well. Apparently not. Or maybe they did, but he didn't want to see it. It's too late now, anyway.
I like her, I really do. But there is something they would call jealousy biting at me like the wind bites rock: slowly, in slow motion, but efficiently.
It was easy to keep him out of my mind while I was away and I am not dismissing the pain I have caused him. I was so busy, always trying to run away from what I had left behind that I ended up forgetting how much it all meant to me. He meant to me. I ended up delaying a life because I assumed it would be here, waiting for my return. I don't know how I could have been so stupid.
The light hurts my eyes and my head is pounding. I have no idea how long I have been here. There are beads of sweet rolling down my forehead but I can't seem to be able to gather the strength to clean them up.
They're having a baby, and it's okay. It's a good thing, I think. I can't imagine myself having a baby of my own. John would have been a good father, though. Well, he will be I suppose. I hope it's a girl. I know John would prefer a girl. And I don't even know how I know that.
One day he came home, before all this, and he sat in front of me, accusatory eyes. I had no idea why but it didn't take long to find out.
That's the thing about John, he doesn't like to hurt people unless it's actually necessary, not even with words, but he isn't afraid to shake the ground beneath my feet if he thinks he is doing what's best for me.
He was wrong that night, he had misinterpreted the clues. He would have been right today.
"I'm cold." I complain, not because I am cold but because I am bored and I want to pick up on something.
"There's nothing I can do about it." He answered, shrugging without even looking at me.
I stare at him for a long time.
"You know that two naked bodies can warm up each other when it's cold?"
John finally smiles and Sherlock knows he has his attention. He looks at Sherlock for a minute and then leaves his desk and the laptop and walks towards him.
Sherlock is laying on the couch, eyes closed now and the curls of his hair falling behind him. John kisses him on the forehead.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Nothing. Just providing you with a little bit more information."
"Forgot to delete that one, hu?"
"It may be proved to be necessary."
He grins and opens one eye at a time. Lying like that, head almost falling from the couch, he looks as adorable as a grown up man can look.
Their eyes lock on each other. John reaches out for him and removes an errant curl from his forehead.
"You are not cold." He says, feeling his ordinarily warm forehead.
"No." he whispers, barely audible. "But I need you."
Sherlock repeats the words now, and once again it is a dream. Actually, this time is more of a hallucination, his delirious mind trying to hold on to something, anything. The most important thing of all.
It's so hot, everything around him burns like incandescent iron and his throat is dry and he wants John to kiss him and extract everything from him. All of it. Pain, love, belief, knowledge. He wants John to know him inside out, as he has never known him before and give him more than he has ever had, make him more than he has ever been.
The pain strikes again, more powerful this time. The room is spinning.
Some memories - he calls them memories even though they are not actually a recollection of what happened in those two years, but merely what he imagined that could have happened, the safe way to keep himself sane – are so vivid that he starts to believe he has actually lived them. Of course that there is a part in him that still remembers them as what they are, if he wants it to. But he prefers to live like that, a blur, a mist, just for the sake of wishful thinking. And so it feels like it was real, palpable. It probably only makes it all worse.
John is lying on the floor, it's too hot for June and the fan buzzes, twirling around the room, waving at them. Sherlock, who somehow can endure the heat better than John, looks at him and removes his shirt and his trousers and lies next to him.
John is already wearing only his pants and he breathes heavily.
Sherlock reaches out for him, touching his chest with a finger.
"It's too hot, Sherlock. It doesn't feel like London."
"I know."
Sherlock places an open hand on his chest now and John looks at him.
"Too hot."
Sherlock understands the message and he moves his hand away. They fall asleep like that until the sun sets and the cool air of the evening finally reaches a level that would make John think it was wise for Sherlock to touch him, but it's too late now.
It's funny how he can't bring himself to hate her. He can't hate someone who loves the same person he does with such a selfish commitment. He feels like he was betrayed, in a way; he was here first. But she opened her heart to John and gave him all of her. He himself couldn't bring himself to do that. All he did was to call him an idiot and wait for him to take the hint. John never did.
The shower is broken and they sneak out to the swimming pool when it's closed: John, because he really needs a shower after the late afternoon cycling, and Sherlock because any excuse to break in is a good excuse.
The water falls in a cascade down John's back and Sherlock observes him, still dressed. He removes his clothes one by one and walks steadily on the floor tiles.
He wants to hold him, make him face him and then push him against the wet wall and make love to him until they were both satiated, but he lacks the courage to start the fantasy.
John doesn't seem to notice him; he is busy washing himself, removing all traces of sweat from his skin, and rejoicing on the way the water falls down his back.
Sherlock gets closer and traces the lines of his spine with a finger, the little knots stand out on his exposed skin.
The hairs on John's neck would have prickled up if he wasn't covered in water. He turns around.
"Enjoying the break in?" he asks, happily.
Sherlock nods. Not because of the breaking in in itself, but yes, he is enjoying it very much.
I see a light but I am not sure if it's the light they all talk about or just my eyes turning the light of the ceiling into a kind of secondary sun. All I know is that it hurts but I can't stop looking.
They come home after a dinner John had dragged Sherlock into. It was his birthday dinner, and he hadn't indulged, but he had had no choice but to follow John, mainly because John had been late for the dinner and Sherlock had shown up home too early.
John is a bit drunk and Sherlock isn't but he pretends. They stumble up the stairs, holding on to each other and they both fall down. Mrs. Hudson is sleeping and if she wakes up, she doesn't make herself noticed.
They face each other in a very strange position on the stairs, heads so close that they could kiss. They don't.
In his dreams he can never imagine himself kissing him because he is afraid, that if he does, he won't be able to stop wanting him ever again.
I manage to find my phone inside my pocket. I dial the first number I find. Even if I searched, there wouldn't be many names on the list and this would probably be my first option. He knows. He will understand. I have no idea what will happen to me but he is probably the only one who will stare at me with pity instead of shame. I can't take shame right now. I can't take pity either, but I have long ago decided which is probably best. I don't like disappointing people and he is the only one that I will disappoint that won't show it.
I know his name, always did. I have it complete on my phone book. The forged forgetting was a way to pretend that he doesn't matter to me, but of course he does.
Maybe he won't get here in time and I try to understand what kept me from calling for help earlier.
Then I realise that I have been thinking about John and I thought he would be here to save me, like he always is.
We're both in the middle of a deserted field, constellations shining bright in the sky, each star that composes them a different sun. The moon is a beautiful last quarter and is placed right above us, so close that I feel as if I could touch it, if only I reached out for it.
I don't. I reach out for John.
"Do you think you could have loved me?" I ask him, quietly.
"No." he answers.
My heart shatters in tiny pieces, like dust, and the particles evade from my chest and they set in the sky and I understand that all the stars I was seeing before are also tiny bits of broken hearts.
"I am certain of it."
The words strike me like thunder and all the particles, all of the stars that make the sky, rumble above me and they are sucked into my chest again and they make me shine so bright that I myself become a moon and John is my personal sun, my conductor of light, what holds the particles together and we are both one, because we make up the whole universe.
I am a galaxy of feelings and sentiment and I know it's right because I have never felt so alive before.
But no, I am dying. Here, in the little bit of space that is in fact my reality, life is evaporating like warm water on a hot day and my heart is a sieve that can't hold it inside me.
I see outlines and shadows working around me and the noise of sirens that are so close, but sound so distant. I hear Lestrade's voice and I speak his name. His first name.
And then, a hand rests on my shoulder and I recognise the warmth, I know to whom it belongs.
He screams my name, shouts for everyone to hear it, but mainly to me. I want to hold on to his vocal cords but my grip is weak, and the drug is running in my veins, cutting all the strings.
The last ones are the ones of my heart. Those belong to him. He can have them now, because I won't need them anymore.
I am not sure of where I am, but I see the world spinning at its own pace, around and around. I now know all about the solar system, but I also know about other systems. I don't need to delete it anymore. It all stays here, in place, there's plenty of room for it and more.
Most of my time I dwell with memories and with made up stories and I close my eyes to see him better. I can't feel a heart on my chest because that one has stopped beating a while ago.
See, I was right. It's not the heart that holds the sentiment, it's the mind. And my mind handles John as if he was – well, exactly what he is: my most important treasure.
He comes closer, and sits by my side. I hadn't noticed I was sitting but things shift fast here.
"I wish you hadn't done it." He says.
He isn't angry. Not anymore.
"I wish I hadn't done it, either." I answer.
It's truth. It was an accident. For the kicks, to chase away the boredom. My arm stretching, to embrace the needle, because my mind couldn't expand itself. At least that's what I like to convince myself of.
I will never get to see him grow old, or see him with his baby and my imagination isn't powerful enough to master a way to give him older features. On the other hand, I will never have to see him losing his capacities or dying and if that isn't a comforting thought I don't know what is.
"I could have loved you." He says.
I ruffle my hair. I'm tired. I don't feel tired, but I know I am.
"I know." I answer.
And he interlaces his fingers in mine for the first time and they fit there so perfectly that I think I finally discovered what the spaces between them are made for.
"You can still love me." I mumble.
He looks at me. Here all is possible and I am not afraid anymore. I have all the time in the world and I have him. My sun, conductor of light.
When he comes closer and kisses me and I feel his lips for the first time, I know it is a dream and that I won't wake up anymore. I know that after that it will be darkness and I will stop listening to disjointed sounds and voices begging me to wake up and stay with them.
So I kiss him back and I am not a body anymore. I am ethereal matter, I am the dust in the stars and the love inside hearts and the moon spread out against the sky.
And, in my own way, on my final moments, I reach out and touch it, because I have nothing more to lose.
John sits by his bed, Sherlock's cold body unmoving. He knows what killed Sherlock and he wants to kill all of the things, but that wouldn't change anything and he is too tired, so tired.
Tired of calling his name, of begging him not to leave him, the selfish words that escape desperate minds.
He gets up and grabs his hand and wishes that they could go back and write a new story. Of theirs.
"I could have loved you." He whispers into his ear.
He thinks Sherlock can't hear him, but in this strange world all things are possible, and he can.
"You have."