2. the woodpile
When he comes to, everything is strange.
There's a throbbing at the back of his skull, his mouth so dry he can't swallow. The air has shifted, somehow.
"Drink this," Sherlock says.
Sherlock.
"Sherlock," John rasps out. Takes the glass and holds it, dumbly.
"Drink it. You've consumed at least 27 units of alcohol, you're dehydrated, and you're in shock."
His mind is empty. There's a yawning gap where thoughts and speech should be. He drinks, silently, and for the first time he really looks at Sherlock.
Sherlock.
He looks identical. He's strong, and alive, and his eyes are bright and his head is not caved in and he's rocking on the balls of his feet, watching John with something like curiosity.
"Sherlock," John says, again.
"Yes."
And John reaches out half-blind and finds a handful of coat, and holds on.
"John, there's a lot I need to explain, so just listen. Moriarty was going to kill you, and Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade. He blackmailed me into committing suicide. There was a failsafe, but he shot himself before I could convince him to use it, and in any case I think our mutual death was the only outcome he would ever have accepted…"
Sherlock keeps talking, and John stares at his mouth moving, and something is rising within him.
He hasn't heard a word.
Sherlock.
"What…the fuck is happening?" he explodes suddenly. He stands, shakes his head hard, half-expecting Sherlock's face to fuzz and fade, as dreams do.
Sherlock has stopped, mid-flow, and for the first time he looks uneasy.
"John…"
"What…what is this?" He doesn't know what question he's asking. His hands are shaking and he still has a fistful of Sherlock's coat.
"I didn't die, John. Obviously. But the world had to believe that I did."
Sherlock touches his arm, and it's like he's been winded. He recoils violently, sending Sherlock staggering back three paces.
"Don't. Jesus. Don't."
Because this is real, now, and there's a nauseous weight settling in him.
This all feels suddenly familiar.
"Was," he starts, and his voice cracks horribly. "Was this…this was all an experiment. Right?"
He can't bear to look at Sherlock. Thinking of drugged fog and sugared coffee and the realization that he'd been played. Baskerville had been so easy to laugh off.
"What? John…"
"What were you trying to prove this time?"
"Aren't you listening? There was no hypothesis, John, this wasn't about you."
He has to laugh, then.
"Oh, God, no. Sorry, Course it wasn't about me." He presses a hand against his mouth, laughter coming in hysterical stops and starts.
He's never seen Sherlock so genuinely wrong-footed.
"John, listen. This was the only way to keep all of you safe. But one of Moriarty's network, a man called Moran, he knows I'm alive. It's not safe here any more, we need to leave – I've already sent Mrs Hudson away and Mycroft is with Lestrade now…"
He trails off as John turns and walks away, into the hall, looking down at the floorboards for something solid, something that makes sense.
The past three months and seven days hover in his mind, useless now.
"Why?" he asks, so quietly he's not sure anyone will hear him. Still not sure any of this is happening.
"I wish there'd been another way. You have no idea what it cost me, to leave as I did."
Sherlock's voice is unexpectedly loud; he's followed John, stands just behind him.
"What it cost—Right."
The number of nights he'd sobbed and retched and pleaded out loud to have just one more day with him.
"But I knew you'd keep believing in me," Sherlock says off-handedly, not grateful, not moved, not anything.
And that's when heat and red take over.
He feels bone crunch under his knuckle, Sherlock shouting in pain, and finally he's in motion, blood pounding like it hasn't in months.
They're on the floor then and Sherlock is beneath him cradling a bloodied nose. He grabs hold of John's fist as it swings again and they grapple there for a long, long moment before he connects with Sherlock's eye socket.
Red is streaming now, and he's stopped fighting abruptly and something aches in John. He never wanted to see blood on that face again. Oh God Sherlock.
He rolls to one side, away.
"Get out," he whispers harshly, not looking back. "Get out, now."
"I'm not going to–"
"I will really hurt you," John snarls, and the words sound ridiculous, posturing. He sinks into himself, curling foetal and trying to breathe deeply.
Silence.
For a long time, there's silence. He hears Sherlock stand, his footsteps retreating. He feels light-headed in the darkness, eyelids still squeezed shut, and he focuses on nothing but floating.
"I didn't know."
Sherlock's voice brings him back. He blinks, several times, letting the light settle as he gingerly sits up.
"What?"
"I didn't know that you'd… That you'd be so affected."
Sherlock is holding a wad of tissue against his nose, looking oddly lost. Some time has passed; minutes, John guesses.
"I certainly didn't imagine you becoming quite so intimately acquainted with your own firearm."
"You've had people watching me."
"Naturally. I watched you myself, at first, until it became impractical. For the first month, on and off."
Oh.
So.
The graveyard.
After everything, this is less of a surprise than he'd have expected.
"Get off on watching people weep over your grave?" he bites out. "Even by your standards, that's morbid."
"You're hardly in a position to talk."
"I'd have done it, you know," John says, aiming every word like a bullet, because it's suddenly clear that Sherlock is genuinely disconcerted. "Today wasn't the first time I came close."
Sherlock blinks, and he feels a savage grin break onto his face.
"Oh, yeah. You're not quite as omnipotent as you thought, right? What if I'd done it?"
"John."
"Go on, think about it. It'd actually be…yeah. You know what it'd be, it'd be fucking poetic. You know, you make your grand entrance, billowing coat, all that, only to find me in a bloody pile with my head blown to pieces. That's textbook poetic justice, right?"
"Stop it," Sherlock says quietly, his voice lowering as John's raises.
"What would you have done then?"
"John…"
"What would you have done?"
"I don't know," Sherlock snaps, actually whispering now. "I don't know."
John nods, pursing his lips together until they're numb.
Squaring his shoulders, he gets to his feet and stumbles into the hallway, down the stairs, out onto the street.
He can't feel his legs moving beneath him, the cars around him look strange and brick walls loom and he has no idea where he's going other than away.
Away.
But of course, Sherlock is chasing him.
"John. John, it's not safe out here. Come back inside. Now."
He keeps walking, just one foot in front of the other, and Sherlock is as close as it's possible to get without touching, clearly still wary.
"John."
"So you heard me in the graveyard, then?" John murmurs, conversationally. "Telling me how great you were, how human you were, you just stood there and watched me fucking tear my guts out over you? Must have sounded hilarious."
"Look–"
"All along, all for some game between you and him…"
He can't catch his breath, and when Sherlock plants a hand against his chest and physically stops him he doesn't push.
"It wasn't a game, John, for God's sake will you listen to me?"
"Why?"
He wants to say more, wants to spit that he had been wrong about Sherlock, wrong to call him human, wrong to call him the best man. Wrong to believe in him at all.
When he finally brings himself to speak again, his voice has transformed into a small, brittle thing, and what comes out instead is "How could you?"
Sherlock steps closer, palm still pressed against John's chest.
"John, please listen. Moriarty had snipers trained on you, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade, all of them instructed to pull the trigger if I didn't jump. Even with Moriarty dead, the instruction stood. The slightest hint that I was alive, the slightest hint of any foul play, you would all have been gone. I couldn't contemplate taking that risk. It had to be utterly airtight, utterly believable."
"I saw you…I saw you jump. I saw you."
"The cyclist who knocked you over, that wasn't a coincidence."
But John isn't listening, still can't comprehend facts or narrative or sequences of events. He's back outside St Bart's, numb, staggering unfeeling towards a bloodied, prone form and god please no oh god no.
"I saw you on the ground," he mumbles. "I checked your pulse and I saw your face and you were gone. You were gone. I was there. I was there, and there was nothing I could do."
He can't stop trembling.
"I know," Sherlock says gently. "I know, John. Please come inside."
He has Sherlock's hand in a vice grip, now, pressed against his heart, and lets himself be steered.
Back inside, they stand motionless in the kitchen, both suddenly lacking a script. Sherlock's nose is still bleeding.
"You should put some ice on that," John says, eventually.
Sherlock doesn't respond but leans against the wall, looking tired. John goes to the freezer, empties a tray of ice cubes and scoops them into a Ziploc bag, wraps the whole thing in a dishtowel.
So many times they'd been through this makeshift ritual, after a chase gone wrong or one insensitive comment to the wrong witness. Sherlock never showed any interest in tending to his own injuries, but always complied when John pushed.
"Is it broken?" he asks, joining Sherlock.
There's no response; his mind is already elsewhere.
"Come here."
Sherlock turns, and John presses the icepack gently against his swollen nose, still not quite looking at him.
He watches the barely perceptible rise and fall of Sherlock's chest beneath his shirt, too tired now to feel anything but tearfully grateful. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me.
After he has counted out exactly ten minutes, he lowers the ice pack and raises his eyes to assess the swelling, and he's caught off guard by Sherlock gazing directly at him, their eyes really meeting for the first time.
He feels winded.
A terrible sound, a wailing, strangled breath, and he's bent double suddenly with sobbing, leaning hard against Sherlock, trying to speak but getting out only half-words.
And Sherlock holds onto him very, very tightly and says nothing.
The ice pack has slipped from John's hand, lies quietly melting between them.
It takes several minutes before he can draw a breath again, inhaling shakily against Sherlock's neck, and he still doesn't trust himself to speak, doesn't trust this moment not to disappear.
Then the hand cradling his head goes suddenly rigid.
He tries to look up, but Sherlock holds him in place, breath warm against his ear.
"John. Someone is here to kill us. He's in the hallway downstairs. Take this, and do exactly as I say."
Cold metal is pressed into his hand.
"In seven seconds' time, shoot the window pane. We're going to jump. There's a car waiting for us on Glentworth Street."
John nods. Counts out five beats, listening to Sherlock's pulse.
"Now."
He fires, grips Sherlock's wrist as glass shatters, and they run.
