Author's note: Ok, so here's the last chapter of part 2 :) This part was shorter, but with longer chapters - it felt wrong breaking them up into smaller chucnks, so a smaller number of chapters was simply a product of what(to me) felt like the natural progression of this part of the story :)

The opening quote is from Vienna Teng's lovely song "Never Look Away".

Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Drink up the sundown

"I want to witness the beauty of your repair
the shape you've grown
for you are made of nebulas and novas and night sky
you're made of memories you bury or live by
so if you're out there in the cold
I'll cover you in moonlight
if you're a stranger to your soul
I'll bring you to your birthright" – Vienna Teng, Never Look Away

18th January, 2016

The early winter morning pours dish-water-grey light into the room. Two sleeping forms do not as much as stir as soft fingers of muted newborn Sun gently touch their faces, caressing them like beings of immense value. The light washes the walls and the floor, washes them clean of darkness that sticks to them like age-old grime. Sherlock stirs but doesn't wake – not yet, not yet – and the room falls still once again. Next to him, John's breathing is the calm rhythm one can only hear in two places – next to a sleeping loved one and on a beach, early in the day, before the buzzing life reaches it. Birth of day marks a moment in which they lay next to each other, these two creatures of some sort of legend and myth that they've written for themselves, these two boys playing detective and soldier and doctor and pirate, a moment in which they are the oldest they've ever been, but also as young as either has been for a very, very long time.

They don't breathe in sync and their hands don't wonder off to find each other by some faith's decree. They don't dream of each other, nor do their bodies shift closer and closer by simple intuition. They aren't miracles or destiny's puppets, so there isn't a cosmic shift which brings them into balance as the world begins anew, as it does each morning. They are human, just human (so exquisitely, wonderfully, wondrously human), so they just sleep. It seems too little – just sleeping. It seems like a missed opportunity, like a let-down – destiny's oversight. Only it isn't. They are human, oh-so-human, and as such, they are vulnerable – soft and pink and breakable – and they are strong – endlessly, surprisingly, unexpectedly so. They are vulnerable strong humans, and they sleep. They sleep next to each other. Think about it – they sleep. They sleep next to each other, laying themselves down, next to each other, with their shields and armours discarded, body-to-body, all that soft-pink-breakable exposed, all that endlessly-surprisingly-unexpectedly-strong willingly put aside. They sleep. They sleep, but that's not all. They are human and they sleep (next to each other), but also they trust (each other).

Such high trust, such intimate thing, sleep is. When the soul wonders off to have adventures and the body lays defenceless, it is the greatest of risks to allow another being near. And yet, they sleep, together (as if there was ever any other way).

However, as the light washes away the darkness, it also bleaches the room of any illusion it stored away under cover of night. Sherlock and John may be sleeping peacefully now, but morning leads to disillusionment, as light reveals traces of red on the bed sheets – clues of unrests and terrors swept under the rug of exhaustion and ungodly hours.

If walls could speak, they would tell of the instant sometime between one and three in the morning when John woke up to Sherlock's pale, lunar eyes staring intently at him, his lips an invisible line peppered with sweat, and his hands a mess of clutching fingers wrapped around his forearms.

The walls would speak of the way Sherlock's chipped nails dug into the pale, abused flesh of his arms, scraping at the gossamer tissue till they drew blood as if it was the fountain of strength, and left bloody stains in the sea of linen that engulfed the two men. They would convey how John slowly moved, his eyes never leaving Sherlock's, until his own palms were like second skin over Sherlock's, tenderly uncurling Sherlock's cramped digits, peeling them away so that the crimson crescents shone against white skin like a flag symbolising healing.

The walls can't speak, but if they could, they would narrate the story of how John took Sherlock's hands into his own, letting the other man grip at his fingers like a vice. Perhaps they would also tell about how John didn't let go of Sherlock's hands long after violent shivers that shook the Consulting Detective ceased. (Or maybe it was Sherlock who didn't let go of John. Maybe it was both.)

So many words trapped with the destiny of remaining forever unvoiced, as they are given to voiceless panels of wood and plaster, words about how John left the bed, only to come back with an antiseptic wipe and clean bandages. These bandages now feature as Sherlock's newest accessory, white and clean, like gloves of a Victorian debutant, snug against Sherlock's arms – John's signature marks, like shirtsleeves that heal cuts left by handcuffs.

The walls heard a lot – moans of pain and near-whimpers of a body craving poison. They heard soft words of comfort and disgruntled answers, sharp and hurtful in their chemically-induced impulsiveness, but ones that always quieted down to sincere apologies conveyed through looks and grips of hand.

Alas, the walls are mute, so they keep quiet, but the sunlight reads this account off their polished surfaces. Still, despite the night-time battles, Sherlock and John sleep, finally too tired to feel anything – no cravings, no need, no fear – just freedom. They sleep till long into the afternoon, awash on some faraway shores of suspended consciousness.

They sleep next to each other, and it's a beginning of a repair.

29th January, 2016

Eleven days pass in an eclectic mix of good and bad, tolerable and intolerable. For the first few, Sherlock's body seems to be running a rampant campaign against its owner, with aching limbs, teary eyes, and stomach pains. After his fewer breaks, things become easier on that front, but they are still in the midst of a blitzkrieg, with the worst of it just peeking over the horizon as cravings claim centre stage. Mood swings sway like high seas, breaking over them, but never truly managing to drag them under.

"Stop it, it will scab." John says the fifth day, shooing Sherlock's restless fingers from his skin, where they carve runes of despair into his skin, over and over again.

"Oh, who cares if it scabs!" Sherlock yells. "Honestly John, you can be the most tedious of people, sometimes."

"Yes, well, you can be the biggest child I've ever met, sometimes. Sherlock." John replies, his voice stern but calm. He knows the mood swings are not Sherlock's fault, knows they aren't a personal attack. They are just an unfortunate consequence, which paired up with Sherlock's exquisite talent to verbally wound, happen to be rather unpleasant.

"And I care if you give yourself an infection. Last thing you need right now is an infection."

Days come and go, growing imperceptibly longer. Nights come and go, but John never goes back to his room. They sleep in Sherlock's too-plush bed in his too-warm room. That's all they do – they sleep. As days go by Sherlock finally calms down, finds a fragile equilibrium again. As nights go by, they sleep more and more, each night's sleep interrupted by one less emergency, one less episode of John's hands gripping Sherlock's or John's voice talking him through the frightful maze of his own mind.

On the seventh night, John is woken up by a soft touch to the shoulder. He flinches, ready to catch Sherlock's bewildered gaze, but is met only by the calm blue-green as Sherlock looks at him, not in panic, but with something resembling intent and determination. Sherlock's hand slips from John's shoulder, slowly, never breaking contact, until Sherlock's hand finds John's. He doesn't weave their fingers together, nor does he grip John's hand. This time, he simply covers the back of John's hand with his palm, warm and dry (no longer sweaty). John knows it a message, but in the hazy state of a person just awoken, he feels it rather than comprehending it on a cognitive level. It is Sherlock trying to say...something, without actually uttering the words. Words seem too violent in this quiet cosmos of their, at this hour. But John's understands...sort of. He blinks at Sherlock, a sleepy smile on his lips, and then turns his hand so that their palms rest pressed together. Just as he is about to drift off again, he feels the message beings spelled against his palm ('Spelling it out for me, Sherlock?' John thinks with a smirk).

Words might be violent when said aloud in their sea of linen and sleep-warm imprints of bodies, but Sherlock chooses the exact right words and doesn't speak them. He spells them against John's palm, short and simple, spells them three times, just in case John didn't catch them. Out of all phrases he might have chosen, Sherlock picks just the right one. Two words with a world of meaning enclosed between their syllables.

Sherlock finishes his third scribbling and feels John's hand move. John closes his hand around Sherlock's, securing it within his own, together with the words Sherlock wrote.

Sherlock Holmes spells 'thank you' against John Watson's palm and John Watson takes it, saves gratitude between his palm and Sherlock's.

The eight day brings around an unusually warm day, so Sherlock and John decide to take their chances and catch some fresh air. They stroll around the park surrounding Mycroft's mansion. They chuck rocks into Mycroft's fountain.

By the eleventh day, Sherlock is strong enough to move around and leave the house, and he is also starting to show signs of boredom, so John devises a plan.

"Come on, up you get."

"No."

"Yes."

"John..."

"Sherlock."

Sherlock glowers at him, but John doesn't relent.

"You know, it's hard to be intimidated by a man wearing bright-red thermos socks."

"We are going. Which means you have to get up."

"Where are we going, anyway?" Sherlock grumbles.

"I think you could use some fresh air." John replies, and Sherlock can't decide whether he should be intrigued or worried by John's mischievous smile.

"As much as I would love to join you in your exceptionally juvenile behaviour, I believe the management of this place would frown upon it."

John looks down from where he is perched on a bough, smirking. They are back at the Botanical Gardens, where John decided adult behaviour was too much of a bother and gave in to his boyish need to climb a bare magnolia tree.

"And how did you deduce that?"

"Hardly a great leap of logic – there is a 'please don't step of the trail' sign right over there", Sherlock replies, eyes still trained on John, but with his left arm stretched out to point at an archaically-looking sign that stands occluded for the most part by plush, newborn leaves of a low-growing shrub, some three metres away from where the tips of Sherlock's shoes toe the line between the pebble-covered path and the grass.

"Well, it's their fault the thing is practically hidden in a bush. I can barely make it out. One can hardly be expected to obey a role they cannot even read. Tell me, Sherlock, can you really read it properly?"

There is a fraction of a second in which Sherlock is lightly bemused by John's apparent obliviousness – yes, of course he can read it properly, it's right there – but as he inspects John's face more closely, along with the tone of his voice (mischievous, teasing – interesting,)the true meaning of John's words becomes clear.

Read between the lines. Clever John.

After all, they are masters of subtext and of assigning words with meanings that don't really match the ones found in dictionaries. Their entire history is like a palimpsest, lines upon lines of words almost spoken, but washed away before they fully take shape, so that they are only pale outlines below the bold ink of seemingly innocuous sentences that they speak instead. They never seem to ask, which doesn't mean that they never actually do ask. There are words never spoken straight-out, which is not to say they haven't said them in some way or another, repeatedly.

Sherlock bows his head slightly, a small smile adorning his lips, as he steps off the trail and onto the grass. He crosses the distance to the tree in three steps, bracing his foot in the crevice between two roots.

"Now that I think about it, it is rather difficult to see properly."

They never leave things quite unsaid, never really unspoken. Rather, they never use the precise words they ought, speaking in code and cryptic messages instead.

'Tell me, Sherlock, can you really read it properly?' – Turn a blind eye to the rules, this is more important. We are more important.

'Now that I think about it, it is rather difficult to see properly' – Of course. Yes, we are.

John is already half-way up the crooked tree, perching on the higher branches, which form a gallery of sorts, a lookout over the meadow. Sherlock climbs up, like a long-limbed hybrid of a bat and a jungle cat, and sets himself in the V between two boughs, his head levelled with John's knees. He looks up at John, whose gaze has since shifted from the gaps in the tree top and onto Sherlock's face. Water-blue eyes bore down on the detective, softly, the way water drills though stone – patiently but persistently. It isn't an act of violence, but a natural occurrence – a necessary erosion.

For a few moments, they are unmoving, as if they've grown into the branches, rooted themselves to the living tree below their limbs. Then, as if on cue, they both move, John sliding lower and Sherlock stretching up. It's seemingly all one fluid motion, and they are almost there, almost joint into a single current when a shout breaks the flow, like a log being cast across a narrow stream.

"Oi! Get down from there!"

A guard on patrol points the beam of his battery light at them, as if it is a death-ray or a sword, trying to defeat them with a finger of light.

John nudges Sherlock's shoulder with his knee, urging him to climb down. They scramble over the rough bark, with muffled curses and shushed giggles, and in that moment they are young, so young, like boys, little soldiers of mischief on a battlefield of possibility, so much younger than they were a few weeks ago. It's a rush reminiscent of that elicited years ago, when they were also younger, by an impossible shot and aftermath of a genius's battle of wits. They were little soldiers of mischief back then, too, at the edges of a vast terrain neither could quite predict but both had no doubts about exploring. It feels like that now. It feels like a new beginning.

"Sherlock, get a move on! Hurry!"

"I'm moving!"

"Get on with it!"

"Come on John! Jump!"

When they finally stumble down onto the lawn, they make a run for the nearest point of shelter, heading over to the greenhouses. Seventeen steps separate them from the glass door when the sprinklers come on, and then they are running through water. It is a dispersed deluge composed out of countless droplets, suddenly airborne – an aerosol flood.

By the time they make it to the greenhouse in the middle of a row of three, they are soaked, liquid as much as they are solid, and the humid evaporation of water that they emit weaves and incorporates them into the dense, wet air that is still warm from the trapped heat, which lingers even though the Sun has descended an hour ago. They are back on the enchanted island, a small, isolated reprieve that smells of dark, rich earth. Sherlock looks around, his eyes cataloguing the flora that surrounds them.

"The direction in which climber plants will curl and grow depends on whether they originate from the Northern or the Southern hemisphere" he says, shifting his eyes back to John as he takes a step closer to the doctor.

"Do they now?" John asks, as if climber plants are the most fascinating things on the face of the Earth. His feet shift, bringing him closer to Sherlock.

"Yes. If you planted one from the Northern hemisphere and one from the Southern on the Equator, they'd grow toward each other." Step, step, step – closer, closer, and closer yet.

"But if they curl, wouldn't they also grow away from each other at one point?"

Step, step, stop.

"Yes, but they would always turn back again. I've never conducted an experiment to prove it, but I'd very much like to, given the chance."

They are silent for a minute and twenty-nine seconds.

"We're not on the Equator." John finally says into the half-foot wide space between them.

"No, I suppose we're not." Sherlock replies with eyes and voice unwavering, trained still on John's face.

"Not really ideal conditions."

"No. But then, they almost never are."

No further steps are taken, because there's only enough space left for one more, one which cannot be taken, not yet, not before some more lessons in botany and scientific method.

"Can you deal with that?"

"Yes." And then after a beat, "Can you?"

"Yes." And with that, the last step is taken. Whether it's John or Sherlock who moves first is unclear, but, in the end, irrelevant. It is John, or it is Sherlock, but most probably it's both of them, meeting half-way. Either way, they meet in the middle, which is the only thing that matters, and then their lips are sliding against each other. Sherlock's hands clutch at John's waist, as John's go to Sherlock's face and neck, and the first sigh (John's, Sherlock is sure. Sherlock's, John is sure.) might as well be a shout, loud in its rawness, heavy with relief that soon morphs into tension. The first moan (theirs, joint) might as well be the sound of a tidal wave crashing upon the rocks, as it sways them on their feet.

They might be on the wrong latitude, but that doesn't matter. The conditions are never ideal, but that doesn't matter. Sherlock and John are like two climber plants originating from opposite hemispheres, planted at the equator, curling towards each other, as they clutch onto one another and surrender to the underflow. It's the dam breaking, and all the pent-up need (want, lust, love) rushing out, from mouth to mouth.

Sounds of water surround them – dripping of pent-up condensation, gurgling of the irrigation system, wet sounds of bodies shifting in soaked clothes – and it feels as if they are submerged, weightlessly suspended in a medium denser than air. Catching their breaths is a labour in this little glass shelter of theirs, and heavy breathing of struggling lungs permeates the space – they might be drowning, but they can't seem to find it in them to mind, to care.

And if their first kiss was falling apart, then this one is infinite entanglement. If the first was a crackling and burning fire, then this one is a wild current of a body of water. People think fire is a synonym for passion, but the truth is that fire is always shorter-lasting than waters mighty push. And water, water is the most passionate of elements, deep and rich and heavy, fickle and unpredictable, but ever swirling, encompassing the world. So, their second kiss is all water, with the slide of sprinkle-water covered hands against napes and cheeks, meshing of wet garments and slide of lips, no longer cracked, no longer dry, but slick and wet, slippery slopes for panted exultations and murmured semi-nonsense. They are drowning victims trading breath, pushing life back into each other with each moan and sigh, resuscitating one another with each nip of teeth and pull of bodies closer, closer, and closer yet.

One day the world will end. The end will start with fire. Next, there will be floods.

This time it is water that marks the end of Sherlock's world – his world without John.

Maybe some things are supposed to be lost. Fear, misconceptions and deceptions, loneliness, hurt and obstinacy. Maybe, sometimes, it's not really a loss when they are carried away. These are the things that get carried away by the water. These are the things they lose to the flood.

Thank you for reading :)

This is what you get when I try to end stuff with fluff - metaphors featuring botany...sort of.

Oh, well...anyway, virtual cookies to anyone who caught the significance of two numbers in this chapter ;) Also, I am not sure when I'll be able to start posting part 3 (yup, part 3 - the story's not over yet), but I will try to make the wait as short as possible (real life allowing, ofc).

Anyway, thanks for sticking with this story :)