Chapter 8
It takes some moments for the rush of arousal to settle and his breath to even out and the now so familiar drum of anger to return. But the anger is getting more mixed with shame and want and guilt and relief and desperation and the odd sensation of being more alone than he has been in a long time. It is that last thought that makes him pull his trousers up and go knock on Sherlock's door, because if anything he can't stand the thought of feeling alone when Sherlock is there, like he felt alone with everyone he met with after returning from Afghanistan, like even in Afghanistan he felt it, being the doctor and not the soldier like the rest of them, or before in medical school, not the doctor and not yet the soldier, with a need that placed him outside, despite being so damn competent at fitting in. Alone like with Harry, but that is not somewhere he wants to go anymore.
"Sherlock!"
Nothing.
"Sherlock, open the bloody door."
Nothing.
"Sherlock, don't make me fucking break down this door. I swear to God, I will do it and hit you over the head with the pieces."
A huff. Threatening might not be the way to go, especially when John is just bluffing and Sherlock knows it.
"Sherlock…just open it. We need to talk." Different tactics.
Quiet.
"Fine. Have it your way." He gets his coat and slams the door shut behind him. With intent he walks to the nearest street corner and stands in front of the CCTV that slowly rotates in his direction.
"I know you can see me, Mycroft. I need to talk to you," John tells the camera.
The CCTV moves away from him again. John picks up an empty cigarette carton from the floor and tosses it in its general direction. Misses of course. He kicks the bricks below it for good measure and starts walking. A woman is staring with a fascinated look on her face, like she has never seen a schizophrenic with hallucinations before.
He gets to Hyde Park before a black car catches up with him. He gets in and is surprised to find Mycroft himself in the back seat, with no sign of 'Anthea'.
"Vandalising government property is not the way to convince me of your improved emotional status. Nor is stopping taking your medication, for that matter," Mycroft says in his ever polite voice.
John is not in the mood for Mycroft's games. "Why did he return?" he asks evenly.
"You know I'm not privy to Sherlock's deliberations."
"Like hell you are." John sighs. "Fine. Why do you think he returned?"
Mycroft stares out of the window for a bit. "Did Sherlock ever tell the story of how he met Detective Inspector Lestrade?"
He hadn't of course and Mycroft knew that of course, so John doesn't grace him with an answer. Mycroft continues regardless.
"There was a drug bust in a warehouse in Ilford. Hundred-and-twenty pounds of cocaine, street value of 5.6 million pound sterling, and six dead bodies. That is when the detective inspector was called in. It was only when the coroner came that they realised there were only five dead. Sherlock spend three days in a coma and solved the mystery of the murders within five minutes of waking up." There is a hint of pride in Mycroft's voice that John hasn't heard before.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asks.
But Mycroft continues unperturbed. "It was after Sherlock collapsed on a scene, and vomited all over the body almost a year later, that the detective inspector arrested him. After a night spent incarcerated, he was banned from crime scenes by Mr. Lestrade were he to display any signs of being under the influence. It took another six months for Sherlock to comprehend that the detective inspector meant it. He has always maintained his recreational drug use was purely for scientific purposes, never to soothe the demand of his own body."
John shakes his head. "I don't need to know this. This is not your story to tell."
"You think my dear brother will share?" Mycroft raises his eyebrows in a mimicry of disbelief.
"Then just answer my bloody question, Mycroft. Did he mean to return? Or was it the unfortunate Serbian?" John has spent enough time with the Holmes brothers to not miss the tightening of Mycroft's eyelids. "He didn't, did he? Did he even mean for me to find him that night? Or was I supposed to come back to a corpse." Again a twitch of his left eyelid, who knew Mycroft had a tell. "Oh, right, stupid me, I was supposed to come back to an empty apartment, never to know something had happened there."
Mycroft starts staring out of the window again.
"Dr. Watson, what transpired was not in accordance with the plan, I will give you that, but we now have to deal with the actuality of the situation. Either way, Sherlock is back at Baker Street and is stuck there until such time that the general public knows of his continued subsistence."
"Existence..", though John can't help but smile at the joke.
"Existence. The annunciation of which I would rather have happen in a controlled manner."
"You mean use it to draw out whoever it is that send that bloke to my flat."
"I have considered that."
"I or we?"
Mycroft sighs deeply. "I. Sherlock is quite opposed to the idea, though I wouldn't put it past him to reject it just for the sake of being contrary."
Well, neither would John. He hadn't even considered that as far as the world is concerned Sherlock is still a fraud who killed himself out of guilt over his deception. He hadn't considered much of anything apart from how it was to have Sherlock back in the sitting room, back in his bedroom, back near him, the Serbian only being a passing thought as something that needed to be dealt with, an inconvenience really. He certainly hadn't considered Sherlock's continued presence at their flat being out of necessity.
"Do we need his permission?" he asks.
Now Mycroft look at him, surprised, which is always quite a feat with him. "It would certainly make things easier, but I wouldn't call it an absolute necessity, no."
"So what do we do?"
Of course he gets no reply. The car falls quiet. It is a few minutes later when Mycroft finally speaks again. "Your stop, Dr. Watson."
"What?" John had been so absorbed in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed the familiar
houses of Baker Street. "Right." He makes to get out, knowing Mycroft well enough that there is no sense in trying to get something out of him now. When he stands on the pavement he pokes his head back into the car.
"I don't trust you, " he tells him.
"I know," says Mycroft with a smile that appears genuine.
John smiles back for the shortest instant and then slams the door shut. The car drives off immediately. John turns and checks his pockets for his keys, knowing while doing it exactly where they are laying on the kitchen table. He rings the doorbell, and it takes some time for a disheveled looking Mrs. Hudson to open it.
"Sorry dear, I was having a nap. Did you forget your keys? I didn't realise you had left, there was an awful racket before, when I was trying to sleep, but I must have dozed for quite a bit, because here you are."
John shift uncomfortably. "Just stepped out for a bit. To get some ehm...groceries. But forgot my wallet and keys, silly me. Sorry about the noise, Mrs. Hudson. I was just cleaning and ehm…"
"Of course, of course, don't worry about it dear. You be off then," and with that Mrs. Hudson dawdles back to her sitting room.
John skips every other step to find the flat in an exceedingly bad state of dishevel. For a short moment his right hand moves to get his unfortunately absent gun, before he realises neither a burglar nor a murderer would focus his energy on systematically tossing books and papers from one side of the flat into the kitchen on the other side. Sherlock is of course nowhere to be seen. When John aggressively tries the door handle of Sherlock's bedroom, assuming it to be locked, he all but falls inside the (surprisingly neat) space. He calls out, hoping Sherlock wouldn't be stupid enough to leave now, but there is no reply. He takes a neatly placed book from the bookshelf and tosses it against cabinet filled with 19th century medical curiosa, which fail to fall to the ground. So he kicks it.
Just to be sure, he checks the bathroom, but it is empty as well. Suddenly he hears a soft creak upstairs, from the same room as where he stupidly left his gun this morning. Softly John makes his way up the stairs, though he forgets to skips the seventh step and it croaks loudly. He stops and listens, but there is no sound coming from above either way, so he continues upwards. Before he can doubt about what to do after reaching his, he hears a distinctly Sherlocky cough coming from the other side.
John sighs heavily and admonishes himself for not recognising the obvious. He moves the door handle, but the door has been locked with his barely used key, that was in a jar full of household knickknacks, John would have sworn Sherlock didn't know the existence of. John had never bothered with the key himself. Half a day of Sherlock had been enough to realise it would take more than an indoor lock to stop him, and it had taken John a day at most to see that Sherlock's morality didn't involve the concept of privacy.
"Sherlock, I know you're in there. I don't know why, but just open the door and we can talk," John tells the wood in front of him softly.
John hears Sherlock move around but gets no reply.
"Do you seriously expect me to have this conversation with a door in between us," he asks.
This merits an answer. "I fail to see how wood has any bearing on the contents of any conversation."
John rolls his eyes, despite the fact no one can see him. "Well, I don't really require you to see how it has bearing, for me to mind."
Nothing.
"Fine, have it your way." John noisily sits down on the floor. "I spoke with Mycroft."
The sound Sherlock makes sounds suspiciously like 'stupid git'.
"He told me the story of how you and Lestrade met."
"It does require a rather grotesque nose like Mycroft's to stick it where it doesn't belong. How was his diet?"
"You'd be pleased. Have you spoken with him since you - " John decides to bite the bullet, "returned?"
"No."
"And before?"
"We had a row once or twice."
John decides to switch tactics from flank attack to frontal.
"Why did you return?"
"Didn't Mycroft tell you?"
"He seemed more interested in telling stories of your past than answering my questions. You're not either, by the way."
"Well, it must be obvious even to you that I came back to stop Mr. Abramovic."
John begins to lose his patience. "That's not why I mean, Sherlock, and you know it. Why now? Why come back?"
No answer.
John bangs his fist against the door in frustration. "Sherlock, damn it, I have a right to know. Just bloody answer me." When it remains quiet, John has a very slow and dreadful realisation that he was right. "You didn't mean to, did you? I wasn't supposed to come home and find you."
He hears Sherlock shift and chooses to interpret it as uncomfortable.
"I was supposed to come home and find the flat exactly as I'd left it. What went wrong?"
After a pause, Sherlock says: "He wasn't supposed to be in 221b at all, he was staying in the flat opposite. When I saw him enter, I didn't think it through, I just followed."
John feels his throat constricting in disappointment and bile. He hadn't realised how he had counted on the fact that if Sherlock had done it for him, he had also returned for him. It seemed saving someone's life and sharing it are two very different realities.
"So was I ever to know you were still alive? Were you ever planning on coming back?" John asks.
"Why does it matter?" Sherlock replies.
"It just does. It matters to me, because I…I don't know. Because I just care."
"You shouldn't." Sherlock says evenly.
"You can't decide that for me, Sherlock. To have or not to have certain emotions. That's not something that is in your control." John is getting impatient again.
Sherlock mumbles something like: "It should be", although it could have been "It could be," John isn't quite sure which.
"You still haven't answered my question, " he says.
"Nope, " Sherlock just says.
John groans in frustration. "Is that an answer to the first question or the latter?"
"The latter was a statement, not a question."
"Sherlock…" The itching of his hands makes him realise he has had enough of these childish word games of avoidance, so he gets up. "This is going nowhere. I'm leaving." But he doesn't even make it to the stairs before the door flies open and two hands drag him into his bedroom.
