It wasn't suddenly all rainbows and everything is fixed magically.
No, but it does get easier.
Sherlock and John still tiptoe around each other, John more so than the detective. The doctor walks around the flat with a guilty expression and shame filled shoulders. He flinches and starts violently when he sees evidence of the turmoil that Sherlock went through during his absence.
About a day after John's story about Moriarty, the doctor stumbled across four empty bottles of vodka while he cleaned the kitchen. Sherlock had been startled out of his relaxed posed on the settee when he heard the initial gasp. It took the genius four seconds to find the cause of that sound. He watched as John, his face expressionless, moved out of the kitchen, the bottles clinking in his hand. Sherlock almost stood up to, what, follow him, apologize, maybe take them from the blogger's hands but John walked down the stairs silently and swiftly, right out of the flat and deposited them into the bins. When he came back, ten minutes later, his eyes were a bit puffy but he didn't speak. In fact, he didn't speak for the rest of the day and into the night. The first and last words he spoke of that day were to ask if Sherlock wanted tea before he retired for the night.
Sherlock, not really use to how to cope with John around again, so he let the man be that day. He didn't ask any questions, he didn't really know what do anyway. But that didn't stop him from feeling a tad guilty, even though Sherlock Holmes doesn't do guilt.
Over the course of the week, they both slowly moved into a tentative routine. John has been forced to stay in the flat because he was technically still dead, even though the majority of those closest to him knew. He even dialed his sister and that is a conversation that shall never be repeated to anyone.
So, it was a waiting game for John. He was at the mercy of Mycroft to get his death revoked.
John spent the majority of his time cleaning the flat thoroughly and silently, occasionally the two of them would have a casual mental conversation. Towards the end of the week the flat was the cleanest it has been in a very long time, even before John's death.
Sherlock, on the other hand, is nowhere near productive with his time. He spent the last three months wallowing in his grief, mooching of his savings with his best friends as bottles. He doesn't know how to act now that his anchor is alive and in his life again.
He spends most of his days on the couch, sifting through his mind palace and fixing the rooms that focus on John, the rooms he may or may not have destroy in a fit of anger and grief a while ago. His mind hasn't even grown bored, despite what John thinks.
Sherlock's boredom and subsequently his lack of cases have been the only heated words the both of them have exchanged with each other since John's return.
And by heated, Sherlock means that when John had asked why Sherlock didn't take cases, the former detective snap a simple, yet acidic 'Because.' and John went quiet.
It was uncomfortable silence, even for Sherlock and much different from the silences he has grown accustomed. It gets to the detective so wholly that he apologized mentally after two minutes.
John had looked up from his paper that he was reading leisurely and just shook his head.
"Its okay, Sherlock." He had said and nothing more.
He remained quiet for another two hours.
Besides John's obvious self-punishment, it isn't all bad. The second night after John's return, they both ended up snogging on the couch again before taking it into the bedroom. John was nervous that Sherlock would reject him intimately because of what Sherlock had been through in the past months. Sherlock had scoffed and continued kissing John backwards towards the bedroom.
It finally felt like they were both settling around each other. John would go quiet less and less often and Sherlock would end up gravitating towards his doctor sometimes, subconsciously wanting to be near him.
It helps that the one thing they both agreed on was that they wanted to sleep in the same bed again, although it was a little reluctantly agreed upon from John's end.
Sherlock would be frustrated with the man's endless guilt if he didn't realize how much John needed the emotions as his own form of punishment. The doctor is very aware of right and wrong and lying to Sherlock is very wrong in his head.
And it eats him up inside.
But Sherlock knows, he is very aware, that if John didn't feel this internal reprimand, he would be reacting much worse. The older man would feel terrible and undeserving of any move that Sherlock made for forgiveness. Men like John need a penance, they need to go a little crazy with guilt. They need to feel like they can make it better by apologizing through actions.
So, Sherlock lets him clean the flat and steal shy kisses, he lets John rebuke his advances because that's John doesn't want to take advantage of the former detective, even though its hurts a little and Sherlock has found himself second guessing John's feeling for him, on more than one occasion.
But all Sherlock would have to do is poke around the mental bond and he would see the pure love and want echoing out and he gently pushes John's reluctance away with his own feelings of love pulsing through the connection.
Still, John has never been one to do things the easy way.
At least with this outlet, John can feel guilty and feel like he is earning his trust back, rather than feeling like he was given it undeserving.
He lets John think he is earning back Sherlock's trust and ultimately love.
Even though, at least to Sherlock, John never lost it.
Also, by letting John feel his guilt, it keeps him close and that's just a bonus for Sherlock. Mostly, because sometimes the genius gets panicky if he hasn't physically seen John within a certain time frame even if they've kept in mental communication. Sherlock has had multiple panic attacks through the week.
Sherlock has gotten better at his control and emotions and he can go an hour without seeing John physically, even though by the end of that hour he is slightly shaky. He can even go fifteen minutes without something bouncing through the link. Anything more than that and Sherlock storms through the flat, yelling furiously and searching for John hesitantly in case this entire thing has been one big illusion.
When he usually finds John, the doctor doesn't say anything. He just looks at Sherlock and takes his hands while he pushes love and calm through their tactile connection.
Sherlock would sigh in relief and John would smile tentatively and hold onto him however long until Sherlock would get bored and walk away.
The only time Sherlock hasn't been bored with John touching him is in the bedroom and not necessarily just intimately. Ever since the first night, after Sherlock reassured John of his crazy notion that he was taking advantage of Sherlock's relief, they would retire to bed together, sometimes snogging, sometimes more but they would always fall asleep together. Tangled in limbs throughout the entire night, only to wake up with sheets rumpled and swaddling them together.
And if they both slept more soundly and with less nightmares and restlessness than that's just an added bonus.
That's why, when Sherlock is thrusted into consciousness with uncharacteristic force that he allows himself to be a bit puzzled. His breathing is heavy and his mind fuzzy. He can't for the life of him stream his usual thoughts together, but he tries anyway.
He remembers being in the middle of a dream, a happy dream, ones with bodies in the refrigerator and eyeballs wherever he damn pleases.
This only confuses him further. His dream should not have woken him up or, at the very least, be the reason his heart is banging against his rib cage like violent drums.
Something has jostled the former detective causing Sherlock to snap into reality at lightning speed. He tries to blink but the moves are sluggish and Sherlock has to quell his panicked thoughts.
He tries to get his mind to cooperate with him so that he can try to figure out what is going on.
Finally, after seconds of trying, Sherlock is able to open his eyes completely and look at the white ceiling above him. They hold no answers for him, so Sherlock moves on. He wants to turn his head to check on John, to make sure he is all right.
Before he can turn his head, a sharp, sudden wave of fear barrels into him with a speed of a train without breaks. A groan escapes the younger man's lips and he still instinctively.
What is making him feeling this way?
An even stronger wave of paralyzing fear restrains him shocks through him and he can't find its origin.
He tries to think but his mind is almost as paralyzed as his body is with fear. All he can think about is getting away. Away from the fear and uncertainty. His body screams at him to move, get away, get away, getawaygetaway.
He literally cannot move.
He cannot make a sound.
He wants to scream and yell and call out for John to help. Someone, anyone to help.
He reaches out towards John mentally and that's when he realizes the problem.
The fear is coming across the link.
He registers the heavy arm across his bare chest and Sherlock, despite the fear, deduces the cause.
It's coming from John.
The doctor is dreaming, John is dreaming.
Another sharp and fresh wave of fear shoots into Sherlock and with it, comes a jolt of hard pain.
Correction, John is having a nightmare.
"John."
Sherlock calls to the soldier and he knows its pretty weak. Nothing can block the mental wave of pain and fear coming through it.
"John."
Sherlock tries again, focusing as much power into the thought as possible. The doctor only stiffens slightly beside him and remains unconscious of this reality.
Sherlock desperately trying to dispel his panic. He tries to open his mouth, calling verbally to the older man but his lips won't respond. The cupid bow remains clenched together thinly, as if the fear is holding them closed with its icy tendrils.
"John."
Sherlock's callings are getting stronger despite his physical restrictions. John is starting to jerk and even a whimper escapes and John snuggles closer, leaning into Sherlock's lean form.
A few minutes pass, time ticking by agonizingly slow, and then some of the fear starts dissipates as the dream shifts slightly. Sherlock can feel it fading away from the connection, minutely, but its enough. With effort Sherlock twists away from John's grip cautiously. He watches with apt attention as John starts to shift with him, his hand clenching and unclenching, before stilling and allowing Sherlock free.
The detective almost falls off the bed with relief. Sherlock breathes, the fear gone just as suddenly as it appeared. He takes a minute to suppress his panicked thoughts and emotions. Tears of lingering fear or relief threaten to fall but the genius stops those before they shed. He is breathing slow and deep as he starts to build his mental shields.
Then he hears John whimper. A truly distressing and pathetic sound that goes right to Sherlock's heart. He glances over at John and watches as the doctor shifts unconsciously and with jerky movements. He can see the pain etched on his face clear as day.
A wave of faded fear reaches the detective but it goes away just as quickly. It is some nightmare if John is projecting as well as he is. Sherlock calls out for the doctor with a forceful but soft command.
"John."
Sherlock shuffles towards the older man, grabbing John's slightly trembling hands and pulling them to his chest. He keeps his mental shields up but the bond is still vibrating with fear. Sherlock can easily push it to the back burner but its still there. He latches onto the link, hoping for its usual warmth and comfort but, instead, he gets cold hostility. Almost completely unapproachable. It's such a new feeling to the genius that Sherlock doesn't think for a few seconds.
He shakes his head and focuses.
Sherlock has seen John having nightmares through the connection before, but they've never been this strong.
A jab of pain hits the former detective's mind and Sherlock closes his eyes automatically, willing his shields to stay strong.
A vivid image shines behind the younger man's eyelids, despite his protection. It's red and wet and hot. The genius focuses on it even thought it pains him to do so.
He knows that these are the images that John is seeing too.
Sherlock holds in a gasp as the image focuses into sharp picture.
It's a river of blood.
He can sense the stickiness and never-ending flow, it reminds Sherlock of the Thames with glaring similarities.
Just as suddenly as it came, the bloody image disappears and Sherlock tries to calm himself.
It's not a war nightmare, that much Sherlock isn't sure if that thought should bring him comfort or worry him even more.
The nightmares where John thinks he is still in the sands of Afghanistan are dangerous for the soldier to wake from, especially if Sherlock wants to come away from them with his nose intact.
There are two different realities that happen when John has a nightmare about the war;
1. If they are touching when the nightmare occurs, Sherlock eases John's mind elsewhere through the bond. This is obviously the easiest way.
2. If they aren't touching its a whole different story. Sherlock usually wakes up to the whimper of the soldier trying to fight off imaginary villains. It's not ideal to reach out and touch John during these nightmares. Any contact that isn't already established before the nightmare starts is considered a hostile force and the soldier will take action and Sherlock has the faded bruises to prove it.
John usually wakes from these apologizing while Sherlock waves him off before the genius prods and pushes until John is snuggled into him, Sherlock protecting the doctor's body and mind.
War nightmares are usually the nightmares that Sherlock can steer John into wakefulness.
But this, Sherlock's never had any experience with these kinds of nightmares. Ones filled with endless blood, ones powerful enough that John projects images into Sherlock's mind.
Its unsettling and it unnerves the former detective to a whole different level.
"John." Sherlock calls out loud while moving one of his hands to cup the doctor's face, sending all the calm and happiness he can through the link.
"It's time to wake up now."
Just as he sends that thought, the connection bursts with pain and more flashes of blood. It hits the genius with full force, causing him to blink rapidly. John is starting to move more violently beside him, his head thrashing violently as Sherlock remains temporarily blinded by the pain and startlingly images.
Sherlock shakes his head and makes a decision.
Its time for action.
The genius grips John's face with both hands tight enough to bruise. He blocks out the pain coming through the connection and starts digging through his own memories. Trudging up some of the happiest moments of his life.
The young man is the first to admit that happy memories are practically non-existent in his life. He can count on two hands the truly happiest moments of his existence and all but one include John.
Sherlock digs and digs.
Its not that he doesn't have a happy life, it's more like he just deleted things that seemed unimportant regardless of their emotional infliction.
John's restless body pushes the genius to excavate his brain for happiness. He closes his eyes and thinks, letting his thoughts sink deep into his brain for the most potent moment he can muster up.
He finally tracks a memory down, their first kiss.
This memory has a lot of emotions. Confusion, hurt, regret, and shock. Sherlock remembers idly how he thought he had made a mistake in kissing John, even though it felt so right. He thought he had misread the signals and, in turn, was wrong about a deduction (far more devastating at the time) and he remembers the hurt of John not returning his feelings.
Then John had kissed him back and in the end, relief had coursed through the detective so fast that his veins were on fire. The moment quickly became one of his happiest memories, the positive emotions overshadowing all the confusion and hurt.
The young man focuses solely on the moments of bliss, dragging them to the forefront of his mind.
Sherlock replays the memory through the bond slowly with almost eidetic detail.
The happiness surges through their tactile connection like wildfire, a conflagration of pleasure and comfort blazing through the link.
Sherlock is still surprised, after all this time that the two of them are connected so proficiently and deeply. Although he will never admit surprise out loud. However, when you live with a telepath, you never really know what thoughts are truly safe so he's pretty sure that John has felt or heard it from him regardless.
Sherlock brings himself back to John and opens his eyes to look at the man. The new emotions are counteracting John's fear and the connection surges with conflicting emotion causing the doctor to flinch violently before relaxing, but only slightly. His posture remains tense and his body stills while his breathing shakes and John's face twitches marginally.
Sherlock looks at the doctor's face with a frown. Its not enough and for a moment Sherlock allows himself to be concerned.
A sudden push in the connection causes Sherlock to falter. A wave of dull fear fights against Sherlock's attempts at calming intrusions, causing John's breathing to increase even more. A concerning thought pops into the former detective's head.
If this is just the dream how bad was reality?
Sherlock shakes his head. Its blatantly obvious that this dream is from the days during his absence and Sherlock stills had no idea to what extent John has been through in the past months.
Not saying that it was a walk in the park for Sherlock either.
But if Sherlock understands one thing with certainty, it's logic. The genius knows logic. Its logical that when a human is alone for long periods of time without human contact, it can mess with the mind. Especially if that human was in a situation of constant one sided contact during the forced absence and then an enemy hellbent on destroying the human is added in.
Well, one this is for sure, it would take a lot less to traumatized someone.
But John was a soldier, is a soldier (some stuff never really leaves you) and he has faced and survived far worse in more dire situations.
Sherlock studies the doctor with a far more intense gaze. Worry carves itself into the younger man's face. He studies John's face, scrunched up as his body squirms in a fitful slumber. Something isn't right, based on the sheer force of the output of fear, John has gone through more in the past months than Mycroft or the doctor himself have relayed.
That begs the question, what are they hiding from him? How bad has it really been? Did something worse happen with Moriarty? What aren't they telling him?
Sherlock doesn't make a habit of knowing details about people, oh who is he kidding, that was basically his job description.
He knows more about John than the soldier himself.
The one thing that is a constant in John's life and in the past three months especially, is the constant feeling of uselessness.
If John hates anything, which is rare because that man is like a puppy, affectionate to anything, he loathes the feeling of uselessness.
They've never really talked about the doctor's hatred, almost fear, of being useless. Mostly because Sherlock deduced it and John knew, in his special way, that Sherlock had deduced it.
Sitting in his bed sit coming back from war had almost killed the doctor. The last three months of hiding away, without adrenaline, must have been terrible for John, worse than torture even.
Sherlock can't even imagine.
Sherlock feels a new wave of heartbreak float aimlessly through the connection, however, this time it's from the genius. The doctor's face twists into a frown in his slumber and shifts with spastic movements. Sherlock, realizing his mistake, quickly shoots away his thoughts and focuses on the task at hand.
Sherlock sends another memory of happiness but the doctors movements refuse to quiet and Sherlock's panic starts to rise slightly.
It's still not enough and one thing is certain, John's agitation and harsh breathing are only growing worse.
John needs to get out of this nightmare.
An idea hits the former detective suddenly and Sherlock trudges up a memory that will surpass all others.
Now, the two of them end up in the hospital more times than recommended and usually these memories are the ones Sherlock deletes, but one in particular screams out
It was during the after math of the first warehouse incident that shakes both of their cores and may have acted as a catalyst to John's...leave of absence.
One moment in the aftermath, between Sherlock getting patched up from his gunshot, shooing away the unusual hovering Mycroft, (which Sherlock found out later that Mycroft had been worried, actually worried about the well-being of John Watson. Apparently, being summoned through mental channels causes civil servants to care) and John waking up from his coma, the detective was finally able to sit in peace. The young man's mind was going a mile a minute with worry. It wasn't the worse week of Sherlock's life because three months claim that title but those seven days were pretty bad.
It was the second day after John had waken from his week-long coma that the memory comes from.
John's face was sweaty and his hair stuck to his forehead. His limbs trembled with soreness and his eyes shot open as he woke up from his nightmare. It's not an uncommon experience but this one had been different. Even Sherlock, who had sat beside the telepath while stroking his hand had noticed.
Sherlock bypasses the feelings of concern, panic, fear, and helplessness and focuses on the one emotion that calmed him that day. The detective remembers feeling relief, relief that John had awoken from his coma enough to even have a nightmare. He felt whole again, Sherlock, in the end, felt safe because John was alive.
As he embraced the shaking doctor, he felt safe and he felt like he was at home.
As the feeling surges through the connection in the present John relaxes monumentally.
John didn't need feelings of happiness or relief. John needed to feel safe. An emotion, no doubt, that he has missed the past three months in his forced isolation.
The memory and it's safe undertones continue to race through the bond and John continues to relax. The detective witnesses tension fall from the doctor's face fade considerably and his limbs still with relaxation. The doctor's breathing evens and he snuggles closer to Sherlock's side before falling into a deeper slumber.
John does this all without waking.
Crisis diverted.
But, a trickle of lingering worry itch at the back of Sherlock's mind. He can help but feel something going on within John's subconscious.
Something that could either break John or make him stronger.
And Sherlock doesn't know which one he needs to ready for.