For Sherlock Holmes, admitting that he needed the consistency of another's friendship was one of the hardest things he could ever do. But John deserved to know how he felt, and to learn the true extent that Sherlock relied on him to hold together his broken pieces. The world's only consulting detective was a mosaic of fractures and scars, stitched together with John's affection. He owed his life to John Watson, but Sherlock had never allowed himself to feel outwardly grateful, it would be like breaking a promise to himself.
When Sherlock was still a child, he had the idea that no one cared about him reinforced into his still developing social tendencies. He allowed himself to believe that the world was his, and his alone to tackle, because having someone beside him meant loss. It meant pain. It meant crying while his father shovelled the suffocating dirt over his best and only friend's body, leaving Redbeard in an unmarked grave in the back of their property. It meant having his older brother look down his nose at him for his tears. It meant hiding under tables and receding into his mind to escape his loneliness.
Having someone beside him, and putting his faith in someone to never let him down, never leave him alone, meant being disappointed. Sherlock had always been alone, his isolation had moulded him, and fortified that base deep belief that he was better off surrounded by the darkness and desolation that came with his solitude. If he never trusted anyone, he would never be let down. And then Sherlock Holmes would never again have to feel the hurt and betrayal of abandonment.
He realised too late in life that the way he was living was leaving him with holes and absences that occupied his mind like negative space. Nothing could take that ache away, not the drugs, not the experiments, nor any of the distractions of the inappropriate joy he felt while investigating a case. Nothing could detract from the ever growing bleakness that pressed down on his mind, demanding to be felt.
And then Sherlock had begun to fill that space with the faces of the people he somehow, inexplicably, started to care about. His wounds were stitched together by Mrs Hudson, whose familiar presence was an unspoken comfort. Molly Hooper helped hold him together, with her unwavering affection, and her questionless belief that there was some part of him that deserved her companionship. Even Lestrade had an effect on keeping Sherlock's broken pieces from falling apart. He was a man who had been there for Sherlock in a time when he was utterly and perfectly alone, he had stuck his nose in where Sherlock hadn't wanted it, and belligerently refused to let him wallow in his self-indulgent devices. Sherlock had never thanked him either, had never let himself show the older man just how much he needed him. Both Mycroft and Lestrade had often treated Sherlock like he was nothing more than a child, they had stifled his freedom, limited his potential, and confiscated his addictions. A part of Sherlock knew he should appreciate their meddling, no matter how infuriating he found it at the time.
And so Mycroft held him together too, though Sherlock would never admit it. He needed his older brother to clash with, to confront, to direct a large portion of his venomous feelings at, so they didn't continue to swirl directionless inside his own mind.
But it was John's friendship that reinforced all of the stitches. The doctor had sewn him together with compassion and kindness and admiration, pushing many of Sherlock's delusions about his lack of self-worth into the recesses of his mind, locking them away in private boxes only to emerge whenever John was not around to keep them at bay.
And there he was, sitting mere inches away from him, the lines of his face deepened, aging him with concern and exhaustion. The man who had sat through the night at his bedside, and waited through his surgery just to make sure he would be alright when he next opened his judgemental and perceptive eyes. Every time Sherlock tried to push John away, he somehow found a reason to come back, as though tethered to him by some invisible force. Their friendship was like a gravitational pull, no matter how many times Sherlock jumped, his feet were pulled back down. John Watson grounded him, protected him, and he wasn't going anywhere.
He wasn't going to leave.
Sherlock Holmes believed he was better off being alone.
He believed that trusting someone meant being disappointed.
He believed he didn't deserve to be saved.
But John Watson had shaken his beliefs, had shown him a new way of living a life he associated with solidarity and neglect.
John Watson had become his best friend.
"I've never wanted to disappoint you, John." Sherlock repeated, hoping that the more he said it, the easier it would be. He wasn't comfortable opening up, a part of him still clung frantically to the fear that John would one day vanish, just as Redbeard had, that John would be stricken from his life with a quick blow and leave behind a gaping hole.
"You never have Sherlock." John was incredulous, there was undisguised astonishment in every one of his features, in every syllable he found the voice to express.
"You might piss me off sometimes, but you are, and always will be, the most incredible man I have ever met."
Sherlock smiled, hiding his lips behind his fingers to try and conceal his overwhelming delight. But he could feel the corners of his eyes crease, and John could see it too. John smiled back at him, a full smile he reserved for moments just like that one, where the two of them were on each other's side and ready to take on the world together. His lips parted and his teeth shone. This was a smile that mended bridges and closed chasm's, a smile that let Sherlock know that everything he had done in the past months, right up to the moment he jumped from the top of St Bart's hospital, had been swept behind them like insignificant particles of dust and smoke.
The walls in Sherlock's mind creaked, crumbling slightly around the edges. He wasn't ready to let them fall, he didn't think he ever would be. He had spent his entire life pulling up those walls and repairing any crack or flaw the moment he noticed it, or when Mycroft pointed it out to him. His walls were his protection, and he wouldn't know how to function without them. But for just one moment he knew how it felt to let someone behind them, to show another person a small part of him that he kept hidden from the rest of the world. He had allowed John a small glance behind his walls, enough to show him the extent of which Sherlock thought of him, the high price he had placed on John's approval and the warmth in which he viewed their friendship.
They sat companionably in a pleasant silence for the rest of the afternoon. One of them would occasionally make a comment about the past two years, and the things they had done, the life they had led. Sherlock felt faint alarms ringing from behind the walls, but he did his best to ignore them. He had to remind himself that John was allowed to have a life outside of his own, and that he wanted full and rich things for his best friend. But the ease in which John seemed to slip into a new routine sent a twinge through his still tender wounds.
Evening began to fall, and with a flash of regret and worry John announced that he needed to return to his wife. With a slight nod of his chin, Sherlock watched his best friend leave the apartment they used to share. Their farewells were exchanged with a slight uneasiness, neither of them knowing how things would be for Sherlock the moment the door closed. John promised he would be around the next day after his shift, and Sherlock just nodded as though he didn't mind either way, although mentally already counting down the hours until he could see his doctor sitting in his chair again, as though nothing had changed between them, as though the past two years had never happened.
But those years had happened, and Sherlock needed to readjust to a life where he would be alone for the majority of his time.
But at least he knew that John Watson would not be completely leaving him any time soon. And that was a greater comfort than he could have ever expected.
The door closed softly and Sherlock was left in the cooling air of a stir night, the flat silent. A hush seemed to linger throughout the walls of 221B Baker street, John's absence almost tangible, but his presence impossible to ignore. Sherlock picked up his violin and plucked a few strings in a thoughtful way.
He wasn't ready to be alone, he had grown weary of his solitude. A few moments with nought but his tortured mind and his locked box of uncertainty and insecurity threatened to crack open. Setting his violin aside, he pulled his phone out of the pocket of his loose fitting pants, and tapped out a short text, refusing to let himself reconsider his words before quickly hitting the send button.
"Are you at your home? Can I come over?- SH".