The first time John opens his eyes after the kidnapping Sherlock nearly weeps for joy (Read: Sobs like a two year old and threatens Lestrade with decapitation and evisceration if he tells anyone). Sherlock knows he's in pain, knows his whole body aches and he's not happy that he's pissing in a bag but none of that matters because John is awake and so wonderfully, blessedly alive.
"Shhhhhhh-ah," his voice is dry and ragged when he tried to speak. Sherlock hushes him and holds an ice chip to his mouth. He takes it gratefully, the cool cube melting in his mouth almost instantly.
"Just rest," he smooths John's hair, cups his cheek, and uses his other hand to press the tiny button attached to his IV Pump. The morphine works quickly and John's eyes flutter. He's fighting the drugs, trying to stay awake, eyes trying desperately to focus on Sherlock's face.
"…you, S'lock…" his words slur together. He struggles to sit up. Sherlock pushes him back down.
"Shhhh. I know. I know."
John's head lolls back and forth from side to side, fingers digging into Sherlock's coat. " 'Iarty," his grip tightens. "…after you."
Sherlock kisses him all over his battered face. "I know."
Life became startlingly quiet.
Moriarty had once again become nothing more than a breath on the wind. No more than a passing nightmare to the average Londoner, but to Sherlock he was a poltergeist; demon that would never leave on its own. He would hide in the shadows, gathering strength, and when Sherlock was at his lowest he would strike.
A month and a half after the kidnapping John is released from the hospital. There's an armed officer posted outside Baker Street and there's a nurse who comes to visit John every other day to assess his needs. It becomes familiar. Ritual. Simple. They need simple right now.
John sleeps most of the time. His body is doing much more work than his heart can sustain trying to heal all the damage Moriarty has done. He sometimes hobbles around on his crutches, but quickly becomes out of breath, so for the most part he stays in bed.
Sherlock has all but moved back into his old room. Why shouldn't he? He and John are closer than ever and while they had not yet been physically intimate he could safely say there was no one else in the world he would rather sleep next to. John had worn many titles during his tenure at Baker Street. Flatmate, colleague, friend, partner, lover, and now husband.
He's never understood the desire to be so close to someone that the only way to be more intimately connected would be to assimilate by osmosis. He'd found it annoying and frightfully dull before. He gets it now.
That's not to say they hadn't been intimate in any form. He'd celebrated John's return to Baker Street by gently sponging away all traces of the hospital from his skin and following the wash cloths damp trail with his mouth, as though he could heal the pain with kisses if given enough time.
The night had ended with Sherlock preforming a blowjob and John falling asleep in his arms.
These days he rarely leaves the flat. He turned down every case, every investigation, in favor of spending just one moment more with John. John whose pulse was sluggish and limbs were swelling with excess fluid, forcing him to wear his "wedding ring" on a chain around his neck, next to his dog tags. Whose alertness faded in and out, coming and going without warning or preamble; who had begun to cough, hacking up bright pink phlegm into the tissues Sherlock held to his mouth.
Pink.
That his days with this man would start and end with such a bright, happy, ridiculous color made him want to rip his hair out.
They've had The Talk. The one where Sherlock breaks every piece of glass in the flat because John utterers the words "When I die…" and he would rather listen to the sound of his life's work being destroyed forever than to hear those words again.
But he does.
Because John is nothing if not persistent and he whispers his last wishes, Sherlock's arms wrapped around him as they lay in bed together, knowing Sherlock will not run away from him here.
"I want to be cremated," he says. "Don't…don't let them put me in the ground. No matter what Harry says…don't let them put me in the ground."
Sherlock's throat and eyes are burning, crawling with a million fire ants biting into the tender flesh.
"Promise me, Sherlock," he says. "Promise me."
"I promise."
Kathy the nurse arrives in the morning and gives John a once over. "I think it's time to go to the hospital," she says.
"No! No hospitals. He wants to stay here. He wants to be…home."
The woman nods and Sherlock sees her to the door. She stops on the stoop and pulls on her coat. "Mr. Holmes, you need to prepare yourself."
He swallows thickly. "How long?"
She sighs. "A few days, a few weeks. Who knows? It all depends on him."
Lestrade stops by with another case.
Sherlock slams the door in his face.
He's lining up John's medications on the bureau before bed when he sees it. It's nothing more than a stream of faint red light, but it lands squarely in the middle of John's chest, rising and falling slowly in sleep, and he follows its trail to the tiny slit between the curtains.
Walking to the window he rips the curtains back, blocking John from view with his own body. Hanging from the building across the street is a large black and white banner. Atop the building, a lone figure paces.
I can still stop his heart.
Come out and play.
x - Jim
