Twisted Black by AndromedaMarine
Two
A hundred and eighty-nine more days inched by with John slowly but constantly retreating in on himself. Many days he didn't leave his bedroom, actively avoiding the living area where he knew Sherlock's presence would be prowling. It didn't occur to him that Sherlock could materialize in his bedroom as well, but the angel decided not to push it and gave John his ill-deserved space.
As it happened, on the morning of the one hundred-and-ninetieth day, Mrs. Hudson quietly pushed open the door to 221B with a bag of groceries resting on her good hip. She busied herself with putting the food away and clearing the littering of bottles from the counter and rubbish bin. When she looked up to sadly sweep the room, she clutched at her heart when she felt it skip a couple beats.
The tall form of Sherlock, wings and all, stood by the window, the violin held under his chin, the bow hanging limp in his right hand. He lifted the bow and slid it gently across the strings, and Mrs. Hudson shook her head briefly to make sure she wasn't just seeing or hearing it all. The soft string music seemed to flow in eddies through the flat, speaking of sadness and pain and regret, of unrequited love and a bitter departure. Martha Hudson stared in reverence at this winged beauty, the bottles half-put away and forgotten in the bin behind her.
"Sherlock?" she asked timidly, still clutching at her chest.
The angel turned slowly, never relenting on the violin, and smiled at her before closing his eyes and losing himself to the instrument.
Mrs. Hudson didn't even hear John stumble down the stairs in response to the music. He lurched past Mrs. Hudson without giving her a glance, his drunken focus on Sherlock's graceful figure. "You told me you weren't solid, you righteous bastard!" John yelled angrily as he reached for Sherlock.
"Oh my!" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed when John wrenched Sherlock about by the arm, disrupting the smooth music, his wings swaying behind him as he turned. She jumped when John's fist connected with the angel's right cheekbone, sending Sherlock staggering backwards, his arms outstretched (still holding the violin) and his wings flapping in order to keep him on balance.
"You said you weren't solid," John snarled again, his fist poised for another blow.
Sherlock regained his balance with the help of his wings and took care in setting the violin back on its perch. "I wasn't, not at the time you asked," he replied, lifting one hand to test his cheek. He gently pressed it and hissed in pain; evidently being dead didn't cancel out the effects of a left hook. "I've been practicing every time I visit, but since you just stick in your room you never saw when I got close." His aquamarine eyes locked with John's. "It wasn't easy. I had to argue with Gabriel and Raphael before they would even let me petition Seraphiel."
John didn't lower his raised left fist. "Oh, poor dead Sherlock, he had to argue with archangels and seraphim," he spat in fury, and both Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson knew that John was still half-asleep and on the tail end of drunkenness at seven in the morning.
"John, look…you can touch me now," Sherlock whispered, reaching out to cover John's clenched hand.
His breath caught at the contact, and as much as Mrs. Hudson wanted to stay and ask Sherlock exactly why he had two enormous feathery appendages, she felt like an intruder on the moment of John and Sherlock's physical reunion. So she took a long look at him and then forced herself back down to her own flat, making a mental note to add a dash of brandy to her tea.
"You're—you're…" John couldn't form a proper sentence. "Dead—"
Sherlock smiled at John, still holding onto his hand, which had relaxed under his touch. "Yes, but I'm here," he murmured before stepping straight into John's personal space to wrap his long arms around the slowly-sobering doctor. John fell into the embrace limply before slowly lifting his arms to hug Sherlock back. His hands brushed under soft feathers before grabbing fistfuls of the back of his grey suit jacket, his head tucking neatly under Sherlock's chin. Tears streamed from his eyes into Sherlock's chest. "Though I cannot be with you for much longer," he whispered to the top of John's head.
"Just shut up," John replied stiffly and muffled, "and let me hug you." The head rush of finally being able to touch Sherlock after almost a year seemed to chase away more of the alcohol in his system, and the two men just stood there for several minutes, swaying only slightly, as John kept the younger man in a tight embrace, his face buried into the front of Sherlock's shirt. "I wish we could've done this a long time ago," John mumbled. Sherlock's response came in a tightening of his arms. "I was getting so close, Sherlock."
Sherlock stilled at this admission and pulled back from John enough to look down into his eyes. "No…" he breathed in terrified realization, digging his fingers into John's shoulder blades, his eyes widening. "No, you can't—"
But John grinned up at him with wet cheeks. "I don't have to anymore, now do I? You're here, solid, and I'm not the only one who can see you anymore, this is brilliant—"
"John."
Sherlock's tone made the former army doctor halt and glance up in confusion. "What?"
"I cannot stay like this," he croaked weakly. "Seraphiel has only granted me a month."
"I—I don't—I don't understand—" John stammered, sliding his hands to the front of Sherlock's frame and clutching at the fabric of his royal purple dress shirt.
For the first time since Sherlock's appearance in the window nearly ten and a half months ago, the angel wept. "I have a month before I must go, for good. Seraphiel was reluctant to even give me a week, John…it is rare for an angel to return to earth for final farewells, and when it happens it usually only lasts for a day, nothing more."
John's jaw clenched, and he remained silent.
"I will not see you waste away."
Brown eyes met aquamarine and both filled with tears. "I already have," John bit out painfully. "Why shouldn't I just end it all right now to be with you forever? Why should I wrestle another month of torture before I go through with the inevitable?"
Sherlock stood, speechless, still holding tight to John.
"Why shouldn't I just end it now?"
Sherlock moved his hands and squeezed John's shoulders firmly. "Do you really believe I want that?" John tried to twist out of the angel's grip, but couldn't. "Do you think I went to all this effort and took all this time just to watch you take your own life? NO!"
John struggled again but only succeeded in making Sherlock's grip stronger. He could feel bruises forming along the ridges of his shoulders, but dropped his gaze and didn't say anything.
"You are far too important to this earth, John, to me!"
"Name one thing I did that was so important to you, the great Sherlock Holmes," John said angrily to Sherlock's chest, avoiding looking up.
Sherlock's features softened. "You made me human. You showed me what it meant to love and be loved, John, you gave me renewed purpose in life."
"Then why did you throw it all away?" John asked in a quiet whisper, letting his shimmering eyes wander back up to Sherlock's sharp, angular face.
"To give you a chance to live."
"Why is it so terrible that I don't want it? Why is it so unacceptable that I would rather die to be with you than live alone? Or do you not want me there?"
Sherlock sighed and dropped his head to rest it against John's. "This isn't just about me, John. This is about both of us. I will not be selfish and be the reason for your death. I don't deserve to be reunited with you so quickly, and the others do not deserve the burden of losing another man they care about. You are a physician, John, you know what the repercussions of suicide are."
"And I also know that I don't give a damn about anything anymore, except for you." He gave a great huff and moved his left hand to reach behind Sherlock and touch the wing. "If our positions were reversed…would you be so eager to continue living without your best and only friend?"
Sherlock answered with his own question: "Would you be so lost in death to wish that I die too? Or would you understand that life is a precious gift, and taking it from yourself makes you no better than the men we used to pursue?"
"You told me once you weren't a hero—"
"And I'm not."
"Then for the love of God, stop trying to be one! I have missed you…with more than what I am, I have missed you. So please don't tell me that you don't want more than anything for us to be together again."
Sherlock had not anticipated that John would be so dead set on finding some way to be reunited with him. He didn't know what else to use as an argument against his best friend's path towards suicide, so he chose instead to answer John's question. "If I hadn't jumped, John, Moriarty would've had you killed. You, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade would have died because I didn't. But…you know this. I've already told you all that." He didn't release John's shoulders, and John still had the soft feathers of Sherlock's wings against his palms. "You keep asking why I left you, why I jumped, why, why, why! But you haven't seen! You haven't observed, like you should have. You haven't listened. If I had not jumped, John, I would NOT have been able to live with myself knowing I took the coward's path and that the fruit of my cowardice was the deaths of the only three people who have ever shown me any kindness and love. I am not a selfish man, John Watson. And the fact that you still draw breath into your lungs proves that." Sherlock finally released John's shoulders and took a step backwards, out of range of the doctor. "So no. I would not be so eager to live knowing that your death was my fault. This was never your fight. And you should not have to bear the pain of it...even though you do. If you were dead and I alive I would want nothing more than to take my place beside you." He fell silent, his eyes boring into John's. The silence stretched for almost a minute before Sherlock broke it again. "But if you asked that I live…that I carry on our legacy for both of us…I would. I would honor your wish, John. And as much as it would pain me to live like that, if you asked me to…I would."
John crossed his arms and sank into the sofa, his expression wholly unreadable.
"And I had hoped you would do the same for me," Sherlock uttered, his wings fluttering a bit to shake off the tension in his muscles. "I had hoped that my wishes would count for something with you, after all we've been through."
John's arms loosened and he patted the spot next to him, signaling for Sherlock to sit with him. When he did, John didn't move, just facing forward. "They do." However, when Sherlock relaxed marginally at this, he continued. "But it doesn't lessen my want for it, and it doesn't lift me out of depression. And in all honesty at this point I don't know if I'm strong enough to let you go." He looked over to meet Sherlock's eyes. "I don't know how to move on from this."
"I have a month to help you try," Sherlock replied. "So please…let me."
John gazed intently at Sherlock for several minutes, his hands fidgeting in his lap, his breathing deep and regular for once. "This…this won't be easy, for me," John finally said, and he saw Sherlock sag in relief at his answer. "Especially if you're going to be here."
"I am prepared for anything," Sherlock answered immediately.
John's brow furrowed and Sherlock saw a blossom of sadness in his eyes. "Are you, though?" He made a jerky motion with his hand, as if he meant to reach out and grab one of Sherlock's spindly limbs but stopped after thinking it through. "Are you prepared for the possibility of me not being strong enough?"
Sherlock couldn't stop himself from resting his hand on John's shoulder. He could feel the heat from John's body seeping through the fabric of the t-shirt he slept in. When he spoke, his soft baritone instilled a sense of calm deep in John's chest. "You still have many things to do in this life, John. Lives to save, people to meet, a family to build."
John snorted. "D'you really think that after you I could go back to dating women and pretend that half of me isn't missing?"
A frown crossed over Sherlock's features.
"For such a brilliant man-turned-angel, you really are quite thick." When Sherlock simply stared at him, his mouth hanging fractionally open, the gears in his head turning faster than imaginable, John took pity. "You were my life, Sherlock Holmes. You snuck into every corner of it, and as much as that should make me angry…it doesn't. It made me happy. After Harry, after Afghanistan…after I had no more constants, Sherlock, you became my greatest one."
"I…"
John reached up to where Sherlock's hand still rested on his shoulder and pulled it down into his lap. "You still haven't figured it out, then? Why you dyin—leaving was the worst possible thing you could've done to me?"
"John, I—"
But John cut him off with a squeeze to his hand. "No. Don't say it. Not now. Not until we both have wings."
A look of terror passed into the detective's eyes.
"It might be a month, or a year, or ten years, Sherlock…just please. Don't say it yet."
"How do you know what I'm going to say?" Sherlock asked in a small voice, still exhibiting fear over the implications of John's request.
John smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. "You wouldn't be here if it wasn't true. Or, if you were here anyways, I wouldn't be able to see you if you didn't know. I've been protected by angels on the battlefield before," he admitted. "Men who I'd lost on the table but stuck around to make sure I'd be able to continue saving soldiers. You're just the first I've seen for longer than a few seconds who has wings. You mean more to me than all of the soldiers I lost in the war. So much more." John squeezed Sherlock's hand again and moved to take it between both of his. "I can't promise that after all this I'll be able to come out with a new lease on life."
Sherlock stared at his hand enclosed in John's. He almost marveled at the sensation of touch; after over eleven months of being too insubstantial to even prod his violin, this newfound ability to have contact with his best friend meant more to him than all the angels in heaven. "You need to move," he blurted out quite suddenly. When John started to pull his hands away from Sherlock's with a hurt expression marring his face, the detective placed his other on top of John's. "No, I didn't mean like that. You need to move flats. This one is too full of memories for you; that has to be the first step."
Surprisingly, John agreed. "Yes, I suppose you're right."
"Donate the laboratory equipment to St. Bart's—Molly will find a use for it."
John gave a small chuckle. "You're less observant than you claim," he commented. "Mrs. Hudson gave it to Molly months ago." Besides, I wouldn't be able to go near Bart's without freezing up.
Sherlock snapped his head up to look in the kitchen. Sure enough, the microscope was missing, the test tubes and Petri dishes all gone. He huffed. "Well then I suppose the next thing I should mention is that Mycroft is hiding my will because he's still in denial."
The doctor's eyes widened. "You had a will?"
"Of course. Even before I met you I'd always suspected I'd die young, though after our introduction I didn't want to." Sherlock tested the contact between their hands by interlacing their fingers. John didn't object, so Sherlock continued to speak. "I revised it for propriety's sake before—well, before all this happened." He purposefully made his wings twitch. "I left everything to you."
John's hand tensed in his.
"And I mean everything: all my belongings, finances …my inheritance of the Holmes estate. I instructed Mycroft to continue funding you as if your bank account were mine. You will not be in want of money for the rest of your life."
John recognized that he wouldn't be able to do anything about this; though he didn't want any charity from the Holmes family, the fact that Sherlock had felt him suitable enough to place as sole inheritor in his will prompted a small sting of tears in his eyes. "You didn't have to do that," he whispered.
"I told you, I am prepared for anything. I prepared for the possibility that my grand plan might fail."
"You didn't have to put me in your will," John stated softly. He tried to look anywhere but at Sherlock's face, but found himself drawn to the sharp, angular beauty of it.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," Sherlock insisted. "Besides…who would you have listed in yours?"
John had to give him that. He had an incomplete Pages document on his laptop with a few lines that made it clear in the event of his death, Sherlock Holmes would inherit everything. He smiled. "I put you in mine a few months after we met." He frowned. "Now of course I suppose it'll have to go to Mycroft."
Sherlock made a face and gave an undignified snort. "Oh, please," he scoffed, "leave it to Lestrade and Molly, or Harry, if you've gotten over your tiffs with her."
John nodded, but wanted to move past this sensitive point. "So. You've left me all your things. What of it do you want me to keep?"
"Oh, keep the Stradivarius and the skull. And take anything in my room that you could not see yourself living without." He paused for a few beats before murmuring as an afterthought: "I know they mean quite a bit to you. Sentiment." John didn't need Sherlock to clarify what he meant. The violin and skull were the two most representative artifacts Sherlock had left behind.
"Is there anything you don't want me to keep?"
Sherlock hesitated, suspecting that John would likely protest to the next two requests. "Don't—don't keep my clothing—if at all possible distribute it to my Homeless Network. And I want you to leave the furniture here. Mycroft will finance the furnishings of a new flat, and don't skimp on your options. Make a new home."
Again, John showed surprising acquiescence by dipping his head and flexing his fingers within Sherlock's grasp.
"You are taking my requests to heart," Sherlock observed, and for some reason he felt his throat tighten involuntarily. He didn't know why this astonished him so much; the mere act of appearing like this to John in the first place spoke more than anything they'd ever exchanged during his lifetime.
John absently ran his thumb along Sherlock's slender hand. "Yes. To the best of my ability I will do whatever you ask, Sherlock. I know it means a great deal to you."
Sherlock stared at him for a few moments, and instead of speaking he withdrew his hand from John's grasp and wrapped his arms around the doctor's shoulders.