Part XI
Sherlock's been gone for three days when John finally demands to know what Lestrade isn't telling him. All the phone calls, voice mails, and text messages have gone unanswered. John even sent Sherlock an email, in the hopes that the jerk would read it on his mobile or has a computer at his disposal. (The email said only: Tell me where the hell you are, if you're still alive.) Mycroft isn't answering John or Lestrade either, which means that Sherlock is very much alive and safe, and the elder Holmes is having a rare moment of cooperation with his brother at the most inconvenient time. Lestrade has tried his best to soothe John's worry, and now he's trying not to exacerbate John's mounting rage. He concludes that his efforts have been in vain, when John turns on his heel toward him in the sitting room of 221B and says,
"What's been going on?"
"What do you mean?" Lestrade says.
"I mean, something's been off with Sherlock ever since I got bloody stabbed, and I know you know what it is because you were there with him when I was out of sorts."
"John—"
"Don't!" John says in a biting tone, the one he usually directs at Sherlock. "Don't John me; don't treat me like I need my feelings protected. I'm not dying, I'm not sick, and I have every right to know why the hell my flat mate, my partner, hasn't been home in three days and won't return any of my calls!"
Lestrade answers in a worn out tone. "I told you, when he came in Tuesday night after you went to bed, he said he'd been thinking. He didn't tell me what about. In all likelihood, that's where he's been. He needs to be alone when he's preoccupied with something, you know that."
"He doesn't just run off without telling anyone where he's going, why, or for how long. This is different. He doesn't have a case, unless he's hiding it from us, which he has no reason to do and has never done before. That means he's thinking about something personal, and what does he have in his personal life worth thinking about so seriously besides us?"
Lestrade looks at him with pursed lips, hands on his hips and dread heavy in his stomach. He doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want John to know the truth. He doesn't even fully understand what's going on with Sherlock anyway.
"Greg," John says, staring at him from across the room. "Tell me. If he refuses to be honest with me, then for the love of Christ, be the better man."
"I thought I had it under control," Lestrade says quietly, lowering his eyes to the floor. "I thought it was just a reaction to you getting hurt. He was terrified and upset. I talked to him, I thought I got him through it, but he hasn't been himself when I'm alone with him ever since the stabbing. I could feel it. He's been doing his best to act normal around you."
John clenches his jaw but doesn't interrupt. The light is on in the kitchen behind him. He's wearing his oatmeal jumper that fits a little looser on him now because he's lost weight since he got hurt.
"But he didn't say anything to me after that first night you were in the hospital. I've been hoping that he's just stressed and concerned about you, but I don't think he listened to me when I tried to comfort him."
"What did he say?" John asks. "What didn't he listen to?"
Lestrade makes eye contact with John, a loaded look. He considers keeping his secrets, sparing John's feelings and peace of mind. Maybe Sherlock will come back soon, and if he does, there's no need to burden John with the truth. But the way John's staring at Lestrade, waiting for an answer, makes the older man feel obliged as his friend to be honest. "First, he decided that he should end it with us."
John swallows, closes his eyes, and lowers his chin. Lestrade knows exactly what he's feeling: his worst fear confirmed. John pauses, then says, "But you changed his mind. He came to see me, and everything was fine."
"Yeah," says Lestrade. "I thought I'd convinced him. We had a row that night, while you were in surgery. He was really upset, more than I've seen him in a long time. He wanted to end it because he was afraid of how much it would hurt to lose us one day, if he stayed."
"What else?"
"Later, he said something about you and me realizing one day that we're better than him."
John scoffs thinly. "And then we'll leave him?" He shakes his head and looks away in disbelief.
"I did my best to be consoling, and he didn't mention it again. Then, he saw Sherman on Tuesday and made his threats, walked out. When he finally came home, he was in a bad mood, but all he said was that he wanted to stay the night in my flat alone." Lestrade pauses, blowing a short breath through his nose and looking downward again. "I wouldn't hand over the keys. I tried arguing with him about it, but he wouldn't even engage enough for that."
"And then he filched the keys," John says. Lestrade told him that much, and they've both already been over to Lestrade's flat to check for Sherlock. No sign of him and Lestrade's keys had been left with the landlord.
"I don't know where he is or what he's thinking any more than you do," Lestrade says, looking up at John with anguish.
"How could you keep this from me?" John says, more hurt than angry. "My God, he said he wanted to walk out on us, and you didn't tell me."
"I thought I'd changed his mind. And you were in the hospital. I just didn't see the point in telling you about a problem I thought was solved, when you needed to focus on getting well."
"Yeah, but that was weeks ago. And you said he's been off this whole time, you could've brought it up."
"I told you," says Lestrade, his tone lowered and placating with a tinge of remorse. "I was hoping it was something else."
The two men stand in the sitting room a few yards apart, at a loss. They know better than anyone that no one can force Sherlock Holmes to do anything he doesn't want to do and once the man's made up his mind, he's impossible to talk to. They could hunt him down, use Lestrade's position to send out a search party or at least a missing person's alert, at the very least pay Mycroft an office visit and demand a location on Sherlock. But smoking him out of hiding wouldn't necessarily improve the situation; it might even make it worse.
"He has to come back," Lestrade says, half to himself. "If nothing else, he needs his things."
"If it's over, he'll tell us directly," John agrees, the anger and hurt gone from his voice and replaced with a deflated resignation. He rubs the back of his neck with one hand, then turns around and retreats into the kitchen.
Lestrade stands still and watches him from behind the coffee table. "I'm sorry," he says after a minute of listening to John do the dishes.
John's hands stop, and he stands still at the kitchen sink, with his back to Lestrade. Lestrade wonders if he should go. He can't read John right now. Doesn't know if he's angry at Sherlock or angry at Lestrade too. The DI suddenly feels like losing his relationship with Sherlock would mean losing what he has with John too, like a carefully constructed illusion has been lifted to reveal that Lestrade really has been a sort of third wheel all along, a secondary to John and Sherlock's primary relationship. Sherlock chose to run when Lestrade was the only one to leave because Lestrade's easy to leave. Maybe if John had been in the room at the time, Sherlock would've stayed. And now, without Sherlock, John might not see any use in being more than casual friends with Lestrade.
It knocks the wind out of him: the intensity of loneliness that fills his whole body in an instant. He feels physically hollowed. Lestrade takes slow, dazed steps to the door of the flat, pulls his coat from the hook, and slips out. He goes down the staircase to the ground floor in the dark, feeling like he's just lost everything.
"Greg!"
He pauses at the door of the building and looks over his shoulder at John's silhouette in the doorway of 221B and the yellow light behind him. John only lingers there for a second before hurrying down the stairs, his footsteps too heavy and loud for this time of night. Mrs. Hudson might peep out of her flat to ask what's going on. Lestrade turns his body to meet him, and John stands in front of him with only a step between them.
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" John asks.
Lestrade doesn't answer, only looks at John's face mostly obscured by the darkness.
"You are, aren't you? Idiot."
John grips Lestrade's coat in both hands and pulls himself toward the taller man. Lestrade sags against the door, and John lifts his face to his, nose in Lestrade's cheek where it meets with the side of his own nose, forehead touching Lestrade's, breath hot against Lestrade's skin next to his lips. Their eyes are closed. Lestrade's arms stay limp at his sides. He's dizzy.
"I love you," John whispers. He kisses Lestrade's cheek, then keeps the ridge above his eyebrow pressed to Lestrade's. "Whatever Sherlock decides, that won't change."
"Okay," Lestrade whispers back, disoriented but relieved.
John slips one hand inside Lestrade's coat, sliding it onto Lestrade's waist. He draws his head back to look at Lestrade and lifts his other hand to the DI's face. "I know it's not your fault," John says. "You did the best you could."
Lestrade knocks his head back into the door and sighs, face upturned to the ceiling. "I just wish he'd come home. I—" His voice breaks and he goes silent.
John lays his hand on Lestrade's chest. "I know." He wraps his arms around the taller man. Lestrade hugs him for a long time.
Sherlock comes home the next morning, as quiet as the world outside in its gray light. Lestrade's sitting in his leather easy chair with a cup of coffee only because he and John needed each other's company overnight, both of them feeling lonely and abandoned in Sherlock's absence. Usually, Lestrade sleeps in his own flat on Friday night, but Sherlock doesn't look surprised to see him in the sitting room. John's in the kitchen pouring himself a new cup of tea and pauses to look over at Sherlock when the other man stops near John's chair. They look at each other in silence. Lestrade watches Sherlock, a bit mesmerized, as if Sherlock's come back from the dead and Lestrade can't be sure the man's real.
"Well?" says John finally. "Come to collect your stuff, then?"
Sherlock looks over at Lestrade, who wears a blank expression, then back at John. "Are you evicting me from my own flat?"
"You're the one who doesn't want to be here. Don't expect me to move out."
Sherlock lowers his gaze to the carpet with a chastised face. "John, I think you've misinterpreted my disappearance."
"Lestrade told me everything. Or at least the important parts. I know you've been debating whether to leave us since I got hurt. You go spend a night in Greg's flat like someone who had a huge row with his wife and can't stand to be at home, you disappear for damn near four days without explanation, and you don't return any of our attempts at contact. I think I'm interpreting your disappearance perfectly well, Sherlock."
Sherlock peers at him with those pale blue eyes and stays quiet for a moment. "I needed the time to think. I needed to be alone."
"Well, you could've just bloody said that, couldn't you?" says John. He turns from Sherlock and braces his hands against the rim of the countertop, facing the sink. His body's tense, his jaw tight, but he's not as angry as Lestrade expected he would be at Sherlock.
"What do you want me to say?" Sherlock asks in earnest.
John breaks into an ironic, open-mouthed grin. "Oh, I don't know, Sherlock—maybe, sorry for not responding to your messages or sorry for not being honest with you for near a month or sorry for running away instead of talking to you like a fucking adult that cares about his relationships. Something along those lines."
"An apology isn't what you really want to hear."
"Tell me what I really want to hear, then, if you know what everyone in the bloody world wants better than they do," John hisses, scowling at Sherlock over his shoulder.
Sherlock speaks softly, without any defensiveness or arrogance. "You want to hear…. that I'm staying. You want to hear that I still love you. You want to hear that I don't regret the last nine months."
The hardness falters on John's face and he looks away again. Lestrade continues to watch Sherlock from where he sits. The DI recognizes the clothes Sherlock's wearing as some of the extras he left behind in Lestrade's flat months ago, one night when they slept there while John stayed at his date's flat until morning. A pair of dark denim jeans, charcoal grey shirt, and a black corduroy blazer he's owned as long as Lestrade's known him. He doesn't have his coat, though he took it with him and didn't leave it in Lestrade's flat. Lestrade can't guess where Sherlock stayed: his brother's or a hotel.
Sherlock inhales, looking up at the ceiling, as if readying himself to say what he's about to say. "You must understand that I have never, in my life, been remotely attached to anyone as much as I am to you. Both of you. Not even close. I've never dated, I've never had sex, I've never had a conventional romantic relationship. I never even had friends—not the sort that matter. I don't know…. how to cope with the potential loss that major personal relationships entail. I don't know what it's like to be left by a lover. I don't know what it's like to bury someone of significance. I didn't know I could feel this way about anyone at all."
John still doesn't look at him, but Lestrade stays focused. Sherlock's not looking at either one of them. His eyes are fixed on some spot of John's chair, near the floor. Lestrade can tell that he's put together his words in advance, that he did spend the last three or four days thinking them out.
"I'm—" Sherlock stops, pressing his lips together, and Lestrade detects the slightest tremble in his voice. "I'm afraid…. of what might happen should I lose this. I'm afraid the longer it goes on, the more painful it will be when it ends. I'm already too used to…."
Lestrade feels the urge to get up and wrap Sherlock in his arms, by the look of him, but he stays where he is to let Sherlock finish.
Sherlock swallows and takes a breath. "My work is dangerous. Being involved with it raises your chances of coming to harm. You were stabbed, John. Because you were with me. And that wasn't the first time your life was threatened on my account."
John doesn't reply and continues to stare intently at the wall above the sink.
"Even if you both manage to escape premature death and permanent injury," Sherlock says, "that does not remove the possibility that you may leave me…. because I'm not an adequate companion."
"So why are you here?" John asks, his voice lowered and somber. "If there can be no happy ending, why did you come back?"
Sherlock stands long and tall, staring at John. After a moment, he says softly, "Because I missed you."
Lestrade feels an emotional pressure in his chest, and he looks from Sherlock to John, waiting for the doctor to react.
John lowers his head between his shoulders, arms spread out around him and his hands on the countertop. Sherlock's eyes are glassy on him, his face white. John raises his head, turns toward Sherlock, and says, "You can think whatever you want about yourself, but it's for me and Greg to decide how we feel about you."
Sherlock maintains eye contact with him but doesn't make a sound. He continues to look like any moment, he'll either start to cry or faint.
John sighs heavily, his shoulders sinking. He closes his eyes, then opens them again. "I can't tell you when and how I'll die, Sherlock. Neither can Greg. And I don't have to remind you that of the three of us, you're the one who's most often in danger. I could ask you to quit your work to be safe and live to old age, but I won't because I know it's who you are."
Lestrade silently agrees.
"Everybody dies," John says. "All any of us can do is hope for the best."
Sherlock looks at the floor.
John watches him from where he stands in the kitchen next to the table half covered with Sherlock's chemistry equipment. Lestrade stays focused on him now because John is the safe place, the reliable one, and their only hope of saving what they both have with Sherlock because Lestrade's already done what he can.
"We've told you that we're not looking for you to be perfect," John says to Sherlock, with a detectable trace of helpless exasperation. "How are you inadequate?"
Sherlock chuckles short and low in his throat, with a painful open-mouthed grin, his teeth gleaming. "Why don't you tell me yourself?"
"I'm not asking you to deduce why I think you're inadequate because I don't think that. Neither does Greg. And if you stop and think about it honestly, you'll know that whatever you're thinking isn't what you read in us, it's what you've imagined. So tell me why you think you're an inadequate partner."
Lestrade shifts his eyes to Sherlock.
Sherlock breathes in and out through his nose and carefully avoids eye contact with the other men. When he speaks, his tone is steady and quick. "I'm cold, inconsiderate, selfish, a workaholic who prioritizes my job over you, I never pause to wonder after your needs or feelings when I'm caught up in a case, I'm an irritating flat mate, generally unhelpful, offensive, arrogant, unapologetic, and I do what I want whether you like it or not. Have you heard enough or would you like me to continue?"
John's crossed his arms over his chest, his anger faded into impatience. "Sherlock—"
"And then there's the issue of sex." Sherlock looks at John directly as he says it, now completely unemotional on the outside. "Your sex life was already steadily decreasing before we became more intimate, and now, you barely have time for it at all. Lestrade hasn't shagged anyone these whole nine months, though that's far more tolerable to him than it would be to you. You can't expect sex from me, now or ever. There's no reason why it would become any easier for you to negotiate a balance between our arrangement and sexual relationships with women, in the future. In all likelihood, you'll one day meet a woman you like enough to invest yourself in emotionally, and that, in combination with your need for sex, will compel you to withdraw from what we have. I might say the same of Lestrade, though the risk isn't as great with him given his low libido."
Lestrade blinks at Sherlock, his brain lagging behind the words and trying to absorb them.
John stares at Sherlock with a neutral expression. "Are you done now?" he asks.
"Yes, I think so."
"That's the biggest load of shit I've heard in recent memory."
Lestrade barks a laugh unexpectedly. Sherlock and John both glance at him. "Please, continue, John. I think this'll be good."
"With pleasure." John looks back at Sherlock. "First of all, Greg turned down the opportunity for a shag recently because he has absolutely no desire for sex right now. Do you know why? It's not just because of his libido. It's because he loves us, Sherlock. He may not want to have sex with us, but he loves us and doesn't feel like having sex with anyone else. Whether you understand that or not, it's true."
Sherlock discreetly peers at Lestrade, and the DI looks at him steadily without contesting John's explanation.
"As for me," John says, "I care more about this than I do about sex. I can't make it any clearer than that. I'm not going to stop seeing women, and I could certainly see more of them than I have been lately. But not enough sex, I can live with. I suppose I could live without you too, but I don't really want to."
Sherlock looks at him, and they hold each other's gaze for a silent beat.
John uncrosses his arms. "Look, I can't give you a guarantee of lifelong loyalty, but no one can. If you were a woman I were sexually involved with and I married you, I could still decide to leave in the future."
"The odds of you—"
"Shut up."
Sherlock does.
"What I've found with you," John says, "I've never felt before. Not with any girlfriend. I don't want to give it up." Finally, the expression in his eyes and his face turns to vulnerability. "I love you. That's why I took that stabbing. I don't want to be without you."
Sherlock bows his head. "People change their minds."
John swallows. "What I feel for you and Greg... I can't describe it. It's like something that reaches into the deepest part of me. When I'm with you, I don't feel the least bit alone." He smiles a little, the emotion fuller in his voice. "Even when you don't talk to me or when you're being a complete dick, the alone feeling's gone. I always hoped I'd meet someone who could take it away..."
"Yeah," says Lestrade in a hoarse but steady voice. "That's exactly it." He leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs, hands touching. "This is going to sound... With you two, I feel like some part of me's been touched that no one else could ever get to."
John nods, then looks at Sherlock again. "Just because we like sex doesn't mean it's what we need. Sex never gave us this. Romance never us this."
Sherlock says nothing and stays very still for a moment, visibly processing the information. He starts to step backward, disoriented. He makes it to the sofa and lowers himself onto the cushions, props his elbows on his knees and puts his face in his hands. Lestrade pushes himself up out of Sherlock's chair and crosses the sitting room. John follows. Sherlock's right hand is trembling and his breath comes out shaky. Lestrade sits on his right and cups his bony shoulder with one hand. John sits on Sherlock's left and hugs him, arms arranged around his neck as he presses his head to Sherlock's.
"If you leave me—" Sherlock says, and Lestrade can't tell if he's crying or not.
"We're not leaving, you git," John murmurs.
Lestrade lowers his hand to Sherlock's lower back and starts to rub up and down.
"Would you trust us?" John says to Sherlock. "Would you please just trust us?"
Sherlock doesn't answer, and John doesn't push.
Lestrade rubs Sherlock's back and watches the younger man's hand continue to shake. He knows what this is. Sherlock's terrified, which is so rare that it startles Lestrade. He and John need to soothe Sherlock. "Do you want to go upstairs?" Lestrade asks gently. "John can make you some tea and we can spend the whole day at home, just being together. How's that?"
John eyes Lestrade, the two of them trading looks of mutual strategizing. Sherlock takes a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself, but Lestrade doesn't feel the tension in Sherlock's body loosen.
"I think that's a good idea," John says. "Let's go upstairs, Sherlock."
Lestrade leads Sherlock by the hand to John's room, with John behind them. Sherlock sheds his blazer, his belt, his shoes, his jeans, his shirt, and crawls into bed wearing his boxers and one of John's light cotton t-shirts with long sleeves. John and Lestrade are still in their pajamas because it was only ten AM when Sherlock arrived.
John goes back downstairs to pour Sherlock a cup of tea, and Lestrade lies down next to Sherlock, both of them on their sides and facing the same direction. Lestrade wraps his arm around Sherlock's waist from behind and they just lie there in silence, legs only slightly bent at the knee. Lestrade breathes in Sherlock's scent and feels waves of relief wash through him. "I missed you," he whispers, face against the back of Sherlock's neck. Already, Lestrade feels the energy in Sherlock's body change, some of the distress slaking away. It seems like months since Lestrade held him this way, since the last time he felt Sherlock's body from head to toe against his. Sherlock feels thinner than Lestrade remembers but warm and alive, here with him. The emptiness Sherlock would leave behind if he abandoned Lestrade seems even more unfathomable now.
John shuts the bedroom door behind him and stands on his side of the bed with the mug of tea outstretched to Sherlock. Sherlock sits up to drink, and when he's done, John sets the mug on his night table. Sherlock sinks back down next to Lestrade, and John gets in under the sheets and comforter. The gray light outside comes through the window with a bluish tint now, not much brighter than it was earlier in the morning.
Lestrade circles his arm around Sherlock's waist, pulling him close but not tight. John pushes himself against Sherlock's chest, as Sherlock embraces him. John lays his top arm along Sherlock's, hand on Lestrade's shoulder. The three of them are pressed snugly together, and soon, their breathing synchronizes at a slow pace. They have their eyes closed, but they're fully awake and conscious of each other. Lestrade doesn't think of anything at all, his mind blacking out as if in a state of deep meditation. It isn't until he hears John hushing that Lestrade realizes Sherlock's weeping. John reaches his hand into Sherlock's curls to smooth them. Lestrade just lies still at Sherlock's back and holds him.
"You aren't cold with us," John whispers to Sherlock. "You care about getting it right and being good to us. You know exactly what's wrong when something is and you don't make a big fuss of it, you just do what you can to be there. You let us in on your work even though you don't need the help. You're affectionate and loyal and you would do anything for us. I know you would."
Lestrade slides his hand up from Sherlock's belly to his side and keeps it there, feeling his love for Sherlock and John in his chest, around his heart.
"You're funny and you're brilliant and I am never, ever bored," John continues to murmur. "You're not always easy to live with or be with, but when you are, it is so bloody easy. And you're passionate. You're passionate when you love like you are about your work, you just don't let on. But I see. I've never been loved so intensely in my life."
"Yes," Lestrade says at Sherlock's shoulder. "You are more than your brain, Sherlock. You just never let anyone know it until now. Not even yourself."
John snakes his arm in between himself and Sherlock and lays his hand over Sherlock's heart. He rests his head on the pillow next to Sherlock's and looks at his face, only a few inches away. Sherlock opens his eyes to look at John, tears slipping along the contours of his nose and cheeks and eye sockets, blue irises brilliant to John amidst the whites of his eyes wet and pink at the edges. They stare at each other in silence, Sherlock's heart beating into John's hand. Lestrade, without seeing, moves his hand from Sherlock's side to cover John's hand on Sherlock's heart.
They lie this way for an unknown amount of time: Sherlock and John looking into each other's eyes, Lestrade cuddled up to Sherlock's back with his eyes closed, Lestrade and John's hands together on Sherlock's chest. They don't tell him they love him, nor does Sherlock say the words to them. They can feel it in themselves and each other. It flows through their bodies. They breathe it in.