It was two 'o' clock the next morning when John staggered up the steps to his flat. After leaving last night, he had wandered mindlessly until stumbling across a pub called 'The Red Mermaid'. A woman with dyed blonde hair and scarlet lips had eyed him up across the bar but he hadn't noticed the attention until she slipped a napkin into his hand as she left, a mobile number scrawled across the dog-eared paper. He used it to blow his nose, knowing Sherlock would have laughed.
He pushed on the door handle several times, frustrated that it refused to open for him, until his drink addled brain realised that it was pull not push and he eventually tripped into the room. Sherlock still sat on the sofa, back ram-rod straight, with a plate of cold food on his lap. There was a collected air of solemnity about him and his eyes, as he stared at the opposite wall, were gravely earnest. 'Have you calmed down now?' he asked, voice stronger and more assured than he looked. John answered by falling heavily onto the sofa alongside him and Sherlock placed the plate onto the coffee table with his usual careful precision, turning to the man beside him.
"How did you do it?" John asked suddenly.
Sherlock didn't answer right away, considering the best path on which to convey the facts to a drunken John. 'A simple matter with a lot of exacting details.'
'Like what?'
'Cutting off the blood flow to the wrist that you would check for a pulse, creating a sequence of obstacles in your way, and a lot of fake blood. Homeless network. Molly. Moriarty's body is buried in my grave, made for a tidy finish.'
John pushed through the fuzziness that clouded his brain to really think over these words, to remember them. His mind flew to the last statement and he mulled it over, conjuring up every memory of sitting by Sherlock's grave, of grieving and grieving and talking to the body beneath the ground, believing it to be his best friend's. He thought of the tears shed over that patch of dirt, of the hours and days and weeks of raw emotion that it had seen. But it was never the body of his friend down there; it was always the body of his friend's enemy and of his near murderer.
He felt he could positively strangle Sherlock right then and there, and he would if he had the energy.
'John? Are you angry? You're angry aren't you? God knows why, you asked.'
John, with, not anger exactly, but disbelief, spoke. 'So all this time it's been Moriarty? Every word I said to you was never to you? Moriarty.' He passed a hand over his face, pushing down a sick feeling that may well have been caused by the drink.
"You spoke to me when you thought I was dead?"
'Of course–' John started brashly before lowering his voice with his eyes, 'I was alone and you were dead, who else was I supposed to talk to?'
'What did you say when you were there?' Sherlock asked quietly.
'I – I don't – stop asking me.'
'I only asked you once.'
'Can't remember, don't know.'
Sherlock sighed in exasperation. 'Don't ever drink again, John, it renders you idiotic.'
John's head was foggy again. He couldn't distinguish between the thoughts in his head and the thoughts in his mouth. In fact, he wasn't even sure if he was speaking. Drunkenness and fatigue hammered down on his whole body and he decided that he was going to either fall over or fall asleep or both in one go. He ended up falling sideways onto Sherlock's shoulder where he shut his eyes and, after several moments, slurred his speech. 'Don't leave me again, Sherl… love you.'
'I know.' Sherlock smiled and tangled his fingers with John's own, fully knowing that only one of them would remember this in the morning.
John woke up that morning in his bedroom. He sat up in bed, still fully clothed, with no recollection of getting there the night before. His first instinct was to think that someone had put him there, meaning Sherlock, but Sherlock would never carry John to bed; his emotional barriers would always get in the way. Still, the thought gave him a bottomless feeling in his stomach and not in a bad way. He shook his head and very quickly realised that mistake, with a strangled cry he pushed his fingers against his pounding forehead.
'Glass of water?' came a voice from the doorway. John tiredly squinted at Sherlock, his slim frame outlined by the light behind him like a halo, and cocked his head at the angelic beauty. He almost laughed imagining Sherlock's response to being compared to an angel.
'What?' Sherlock asked looking slightly perturbed, his brow corrugated.
'Nothing,' John replied, 'but I'll have the water, thank you.'
Sherlock moved into the room and John noticed the grace with which he moved, the singular grace he had missed over the years. He took the cold glass with some tablets from Sherlock and their fingers brushed one another, a touch they were both acutely aware of with a prickling of nerves.
'Well,' Sherlock cleared his throat, 'come down when you're ready, preferably right now, I have something to show you.'
John watched as he left, flicking on the light on his way out, and wondered nervously if Sherlock had deduced the strength of his feelings because if there was one thing John was now sure of, it was that he was wholly in love with his best friend.
John, to Sherlock's annoyance, did not come downstairs straightaway. He took precisely eleven minutes and forty three seconds to navigate his way to the living room. During that time Sherlock had made a plate of beans on toast and two cups of tea and made up two places at the table so that they might enjoy breakfast together and it was all just waiting for John right there and getting colder and he still took eleven minutes and forty three seconds to walk down a flight of stairs.
Sherlock thought of John as he had seen him this morning with his face all scrunched up in tiredness and his hair all fluffy and sticking out in the wrong directions. It stirred feelings of endearment that he decisively didn't want to feel and yet there they were, tugging the corners of his mouth into a smile that he couldn't push down. He had had the glass waiting by the sink all morning, waiting for John to wake up so he could be there with a glass of water and some headache tablets right away. After all, his John needed looking after right now and who else was going to do it?
He jolted further upright in his chair at the table. Since when had John become specifically his John? He was still working through the answer to that question when John made his appearance.
'What's this?' he asked, making to sit down at his appointed place.
'John, please, don't ask questions with such obvious answers.'
John shot him a look before regarding his breakfast with no small measure of enthusiasm. 'You're lucky I don't lose my appetite with a hangover. I would say thank you but I have a feeling it would go unappreciated.'
'Quite the contrary, I enjoy acknowledgement of my graciousness.'
'In that case you should be gracious more often.'
Sherlock narrowed his eyes, unsure if John was joking or not. John was smiling at him so he assumed it was the former and all suspicion cleared from his face in an instant in order to return the smile. The lingering look lasted for longer than was maybe necessary and when John looked away Sherlock studied his faintly abashed features with a little anxiety. Had he upset John? He didn't know almost as much he didn't understand what his feelings were doing. He discreetly measured his own pulse rate beneath the table. A few seconds told him it was definitely heightened. He considered this interesting development as one for later experimentation.
John was practically inhaling his food so he obviously hadn't eaten at the pub after skipping last night's dinner; Sherlock smiled at how efficient he was at this caring lark and reached across the table to drag the newspaper in front of him. Flipping through to the fourth page, he waited for John to finish eating before spinning the paper around and pointing out a small article of seemingly no importance in the top left hand corner.
'Colonel Sebastian Moran, a long serving military man in the British army, has returned home to his place of residence in England after being wounded in action whilst serving in Afghanistan. His injuries, both of physicality and mentality, are believed to be fatal to his sustained military career and his family have spoken out about his possible early retirement in light of these recent events.
Such was the story a week ago today. Since then Mr Moran has disappeared from the home he recently shared with his sister Miss Elsie Moran, in distinctly odd circumstances.
Elsie Moran describes her brother as being of a tall and slim frame with deep black hair and sharply defined features. On the day of his disappearance, he wore a distinctive crimson t-shirt and a pair of light blue jeans with three slashes ripped across the left knee.
If anyone has any information regarding the disappearance of Mr Sebastian Moran, please make contact at…'
'Looking into taking a case?' John asked, sipping lightly at his tea.
'In a sense, yes. Do you notice anything odd about this article?'
'You tell me. Believe it or not, I've missed your deductions.'
Sherlock smiled swiftly at John's reply, leaning forwards so as to move his fingers deftly over the surface of the newspaper in pointing out various aspects. "First of all there is the nature of the article itself. A thousand people disappear up and down the country every week and yet no newspaper article of this length are given to them, showing that this man is either someone important or someone with a wealthy family, and this latter point is further pressed by the placing of the article on the second page. It is by no means an important editorial in comparison to other stories it has to offer and yet it has found its way to the near front of the paper. At this point we would be continuing with the idea of wealth in the family, however, I know for a fact that this man does not have a sister by the name of Elsie. In fact, he does not have a sister at all. Now, what does that tell us? That the company has printed an article given to them without investigating into the matter. In this case, we can assume that a reporter for the company has lied and whether it is a deliberate untruth or not is another matter. It also appears to go into little or no depth at all in aiding the general public to locate this Mr Moran, the whereabouts of the house he resides in is extremely vague and there isn't even a supplied photo to go by. This is of importance since it will allow us to determine whether or not this reporter is in league with Sebastian Moran. You will notice that they don't give their name and, since reporters love a bit of self-promotion, it's looking suspicious isn't it?'
'Sebastian Moran helped fabricate an article detailing his own disappearance?'
'Apparently so. It is, I assume, a message to someone. What the message is, I haven't the faintest so far.'
'You said that he most definitely did not have a sister. You know this man then?'
'Oh, I know exactly who this man is.' Sherlock pushed his fingers together and his eyes were glazed over. John left him to it, recognising these traits as Sherlock being in deep thought. Finishing his tea, he pushed up from the table and announced his plans to have a shower and a shave. Sherlock just muttered incoherently to himself with a thousand expressions flitting across his face. John sighed but smiled affectionately, having missed Sherlock and all his quirks and mannerisms. He resisted the urge to brush his fingertips across the other man's face or tweak his hair and walked with a spring in his step to the bathroom.
When John returned, hair dripping, he cautiously took his seat opposite where Sherlock hadn't moved. He was reading the newspaper in a rather disgruntled fashion. Evidently his mind palace had failed him for the time being. John dithered over speaking for some seconds before deciding to just take the plunge.
'What happened last night? I can't really remember much.'
Sherlock dropped the paper onto the table and leant backwards, dressing gown slipping off one shoulder. 'What do you remember?'
'Fragments of bits and pieces. Drinking, drinking a lot, and a woman. I think she had blonde hair, I'm not entirely sure. I remember seeing you when I came in and I remember speaking to you a little, what was said I don't know. Falling asleep on the sofa then waking up in bed,' John screwed up his face in thought, 'did I…'
'Did you what?' Sherlock asked, innocence projected all over his face.
'Never mind,' John replied noncommittally, he had a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had done or said something worthy of regret, something that may have given away his feelings. But surely he couldn't have. Sherlock would have run a mile from any confession of sentimentality yet he looked the same as he always had and a twist of his features said that he was perhaps even happier.
At the root of it, John wasn't sure whether he was glad or disappointed that nothing had happened between them. 'So?'
'What?' Sherlock asked.
'What happened?'
'Oh,' Sherlock gave a pretty rapid coverage of events, 'you came home very intoxicated which, if I might say, you should never do again. We didn't really speak, it was more you talking at me incomprehensibly and then you fell asleep on the sofa before going upstairs. End of story.' He yawned as if to accentuate just how bland the night had been.
Unsure as to why he had just lied to John, Sherlock probed his mind to find out. It was a little odd examining his own emotions, especially when they were as knotted up as these ones. But perhaps he would be able to tell John the truth of it once he had untangled them all, then he could process what John was feeling too.
Love was a tricky trap to fall into. There was so much overpowering uncertainty to it all and people generally came out the worse for it, but with John it felt all reversed. He wasn't so certain about anybody as he was John and being back at home with him had given Sherlock the best feeling he'd so far experienced. He had missed his companion whilst he was away but coming home again had opened his eyes to how absolutely dark his life had been without his blogger, his little conductor of light by his side.
In fact, Sherlock found that he wanted more than anything to just envelop John in his arms and sob on his shoulder with the overwhelming relief to be back. Just for a little while he wanted to stop being Sherlock Holmes the hardened detective, and be Sherlock Holmes the comforted best friend. The feeling scared him in a good way, like almost falling backwards off a chair before you realise that you're really very safe. 'Actually, John' before he even knew what was happening, 'you did–'
And then, of all moments, Mycroft walked in. Sherlock pulled an exasperated face at John, who laughed and took the newspaper that Sherlock offered him, having found a story he knew John would like.
'Mycroft.' John said by way of introduction, a little frostily too. 'Wait,' he looked with disbelief at Sherlock, 'Mycroft!? Mycroft knew?'
'I had to stay somewhere for the past year, John,' Sherlock answered levelly, 'and anyway, it was lately the best option available. Mycroft allowed me a suite at the Diogenes Club rent free and it was near to–'
'You've been in central London for a whole year?'
'I was after Moriarty's comrades. I've had trouble tracking the last one so, yes, I've stayed in London until his appearance. I couldn't see you for fear of putting you in danger whilst it was going on but I could at least keep an eye on you in the meantime.'
John's hardened expression softened despite the spark still lingering in his eye. Mycroft stood over them both and very obviously cleared his throat. John gave him a look that was positively black and Sherlock looked questioningly between the two of them.
'John and I had a… disagreement.' Mycroft said in answer, raising one eyebrow, which gave him a look of high impatience. He raised a hand to his left cheekbone for a moment, ensconced in the memory of John's anger.
'A continuing disagreement.' John retorted, shaking the newspaper to straighten the sheets. Sherlock immediately deduced from Mycroft's hand against his face, John's track record with violence, and their hostile behaviour that John had thrown a fist to Mycroft's cheek and, very probably, other places too. He threw a proud smile to his best friend, who smiled back over the top of the newspaper.
'Yes, well,' Mycroft continued, 'I hope this disagreement can be terminated now that we are back to normal.'
'You sold out your own brother. That's taking the ice man persona a little too far, don't you think?'
'Not at all.'
John sighed in frustration.
'What do you want, Mycroft?' Sherlock interposed.
'Being deliberately slow, Sherlock? You know why I'm here.'
'Yes, and it's not going to happen so you can go home.'
'Brother, dear.' Mycroft said, as though he were talking to a child.
'Now is not the time to play big brother, Mycroft. Go. Home.'
'What's going on?' John asked, sensing a pivotal moment.
Mycroft looked resolutely at John. 'John–'
'Don't you dare.' Sherlock's voice cracked like a whip and John almost flinched, despite it not being aimed at him.
'John,' Mycroft continued, 'Sherlock has kept something back from you.'
'Mycroft!' Sherlock's chair scraped harshly backwards as he stood, his whole body rigidly straight. His eyes were fixed upon his brother.
'I'm telling you because I want to look after him, John.'
'I will not tell you again, Mycroft!'
John looked confusedly between the two brothers. Sherlock was like a tightly coiled spring, he looked at Mycroft as a predator looks at his prey.
'Sherlock is–' Mycroft managed before Sherlock rushed at him, almost trying to wrestle him from the room. The sight would have been comical to John if the situation did not seem so bad. Mycroft tried to hold Sherlock off by pushing his umbrella lengthways across his younger brother's chest and Sherlock tried to force his hand over Mycroft's mouth like a child.
John had never seen anything like it.
Mycroft spoke around the obstruction. 'Terminally ill,' he grunted.
Sherlock stepped backwards immediately, flinging his gaze to John fearfully, who sat blinking for a few moments just trying to process what he had heard. Disbelief rung through John's body dully, a broken bell battering at his insides, and it struck him dimly that Sherlock wasn't denying what was said.
It would seem that my life is a constant repeat of love and loss as though the universe has to counteract my happiness with equal measures of sadness.
'Sherlock?' he asked in a sort of strangled voice, it sounded like a cry for help to his own ears. Sherlock recognised the comfort he needed to give to his priority and knelt beside John, who followed him with his terrified eyes. He brushed his fingers over John's, where he was still clutching the newspaper, suddenly not caring that his brother was there to see it because, no matter what he would think later, in this instant caring was an advantage.
'It's okay, John,' Sherlock murmured, standing again and practically stabbing Mycroft with the sharpness of his eyes before marching off to very roughly escort him outside, spitting out 'you've really done it now, Mycroft.'
