AN: Oh my gosh, I can't believe you alerted and review and stuff! Thank you so much, I was never expecting it - I was literally dancing because all the e-mails came at once *keyboard smashes*.
I know that, in canon, it is supposed to be 3 years before Sherlock returns, but that just wasn't going to work with this story, as I still needed John to be raw from the pain of The Fall. This takes place six months or so after Reichenbach. As always, reviews are much appreciated. Ta.
Sherlock Holmes was, by anyone's standards, a remarkable man. He had jumped off a building, survived – and meant to. The past few months had been spent trying to bring down the organisation of the man who had come so close to destroying him – Jim Moriarty. Sherlock had hopped from country to country, leaving a trail of death in his wake. The job was by no means complete, and it was unlike Sherlock to leave anything half finished – but something was bothering him.
Something just didn't feel right. Sherlock had known, of course, that leaving John would be hard, but he hadn't expected to find it quite this hard. He just wasn't coping. There was no-one to remind him to sleep or eat, and he had often just collapsed from sheer exhaustion or malnutrition. When he became ill, there was no-one to force him into bed and keep him there until he recovered. No-one to ensure that there was always food. No-one to stop him from going too far. And, despite all Sherlock's protestations that he "didn't have friends", there was no-one to share the chase with, no-one to show off to. Genius craves attention, and so, often, when Sherlock had done something particularly brilliant, he would look round triumphantly, waiting for the compliment that would undoubtedly come – but it never did. Then he would remember it all, and he would come so close to returning to London: but then he would remember why he was away from John, why he had to be. And he would continue with The Work, his eyes perhaps shining a little less brightly than they had done before.
But something had changed. Sherlock had got rid of the main threats. He had been sitting in a small café in Stockholm, long fingers clasped under his chin in the attitude of thought, when the idea had struck him. Why shouldn't he go and get John? After all, the main dangers had been eliminated, and John would enjoy the adrenalin and excitement of The Work. Sherlock tried to tell himself that it was purely for John's sake that he was returning – but there was a part of him, a niggling part, that whispered of emotions, of sentiment towards his old flatmate.
So he returned to London on the money Mycroft had lent him, and, checking it was safe first, made his way back to 221B.
He let himself in with his old key, trying to avoid Mrs Hudson – he wanted John to know, and only John. It would complicate things for her to know as well, and his getaway would not be so smooth or quiet. It was a glorious summer's day outside, and Sherlock had to wait in the hallway for a few minutes for his eyes to adjust, blinking in the gloom. Once he could see, he walked down the hall and ascended the stairs, pausing outside the door to the flat once he had reached it.
It was very quiet. Sherlock's footfalls sounded out of place in the deathly silence. All at once, he felt afraid, irrationally so. He tried to tell himself that John had just popped out, but his palms grew sweaty as a cold dread stole over him. He knew nothing about how John had dealt with his "death". If he had coped with it. Suddenly, Sherlock leapt into action, bursting in through the door.
He looked around wildly, pulse racing – but there was no-one there. His breathing slowed. This was why emotions made you weak, he thought grimly. He had deluded himself into believing that John was in danger. He sighed at how close he had come to losing control, at how weak he had become, and was about to sit down, when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
A splash of red.
Sherlock's heart rate increased again, thudding painfully in his chest. Slowly, he rounded the corner, following the trail of crimson.
Sherlock may have despised emotions and feelings, and prided himself on not having any, but when he saw John lying on the floor, life pouring from him, he could do nothing but feel. He sucked in a sharp breath and fell to his knees beside the doctor, blood staining his trousers. John's blood. Sherlock's face contorted in pain and he bent over John, desperately trying to find some sign of life.
Wandering eyes found Sherlock's face.
A rattling intake of breath. A laboured sigh that might have been his name.
A blood-soaked hand rose.
He touched Sherlock's face, smearing blood across it. Sherlock looked down and saw, with a shock of repulsion, the ugly wounds across John's wrists, the skin open and raw, blood leaking out. Frantically, he grabbed John's wrists tightly with his bare hands, clamping down hard, trying to stop the flow – but the blood still seeped through. He clenched harder still, but the blood just kept coming.
So much blood.
John's eyes began to flicker and close.
"John, no, stay with me!"
His eyes drifted further until they were completely shut.
"John, no! Come on!" Sherlock pleaded with him, holding both his wrists, elevating them above his head.
His eyes remained shut.
Sherlock, frantic, pulled out his phone and shouted down it, growing frustrated with the slow responses. He dropped the phone as soon as he had told the operator the essentials, and re-applied pressure to John's wrists.
In reality, the ambulance can only have taken a couple of minutes to reach the flat, but it felt like centuries to Sherlock. He sat in a pool of the doctor's blood, it slowly congealing around him, staining his trousers, coating his hands. And all the time he pleaded with John, begged him, then commanded him, demanding that he should not die, that he wasn't allowed to. John's face was deathly pale, a grotesque contrast with the vivid red splashed across his face and arms. The only sign of life was a faint rise and fall of his chest, growing still fainter every second.
A beam of light fell on John's face, the dust motes twirling lazily. A peaceful image - but it only threw into sharper relief the deep shadows under his eyes and how his face had grown so much gaunter and more hollowed.
Sherlock still clutched John's wrists tightly, trying to do something, anything. The pleading turned into apologising, Sherlock saying how sorry he was for leaving, how he had had no idea that it would have affected him so badly. He repeated it over and over like a mantra, until the paramedics arrived and took John away in a hurricane of noise and panic and confusion.
They whirled around Sherlock, prying his hands from John's, snatching John up and stealing him away into the ambulance. They disappeared.
Sherlock was left alone in the flat, still sitting in the life force of John. The room began to spin when this thought occurred to him, and he disjointedly realised that he must be suffering from shock. He rose unsteadily to his feet and staggered into the bathroom, meaning to get a drink from the tap. He drank deeply, trying to calm himself – but then looked up into the mirror.
Sherlock Holmes was, by no means, faint hearted. But the sight he beheld nearly made him retch.
His chest and arms were coated with blood, and more still streaked his face where John had touched him. Sherlock had been covered in blood before and it hadn't troubled him, but the fact that it was John's blood...
Bile rose in his throat and he began to shake uncontrollably, his teeth chattering. He was shaken by the whole thing – what had been planned as a joyful reunion and become only pain and anguish.
Suddenly, filled with revulsion, Sherlock flung himself into the shower and stood under it, fully clothed, the faucet on full blast, still shaking. The water turned crimson.
It was when Sherlock realised that it was John washing away down the plughole that he heaved and vomited.
The months of malnutrition and emptiness combined with John's suicide attempt to reduce Sherlock Holmes to a weak and pitiable state.
And he still couldn't stop shaking.
