There's one more chapter after this. I'm still cleaning it up, so it might take me a little longer to get it uploaded. It's not quite finished and needs a bit of editing. It'll probably be the shortest of them all, as well.
I appreciate the reads and reviews thus far, so thank you everybody.
An hour later, Sherlock is pacing again. It's easier than being still, easier than sitting on his hands to wait for the information he needs. John's eyes follow him back and forth but he never says a word.
There's a knock at the door to pull him out of his impatient thoughts. He eyes the flat (empty), straightens his jacket, and crosses the room to open it, revealing a disheveled looking Lestrade who stands in front of a rather smug looking Mycroft.
Sherlock tips his head, irritated, saying, "Funny, I don't recall inviting you, Mycroft."
Mycroft pushes past both men into the flat and removes his coat. "You're getting reckless, Sherlock."
A growl boils up inside Sherlock's chest at the matter-of-fact way Mycroft stated that. As if he knows what he's talking about; as if he understands.
"You don't know what you're talk-"
"Walking into a den of murderers earlier this evening? I won't mention all the other asinine stunts you've pulled over the past week in front of your guest." Mycroft leans against his umbrella. Sherlock contemplates kicking it out from underneath his palm.
Lestrade clears his throat from the door and steps in slowly, waving a folder in front of Sherlock's face. "You wanted to see this?"
"Yes, thank you, Lestrade." Sherlock's eyes never leave Mycroft as he snatches the folder from Lestrade's hand.
"Is that for John's case?" Mycroft asks casually, playing with the cuff of his sleeve.
"What? Wait!" Lestrade points to the folder while Sherlock looks through it. "What's this got to go with John? Sherlock, it was a mugging, I thought you wanted this to..." he trails off and Sherlock glances up.
"To what?" he snaps coldly.
Lestrade shuffles a bit on his feet. "You know, take your mind off things."
"My mind," Sherlock pulls a picture out of the folder and flips it shut, "is perfectly sound, thank you. Look at this." He holds one of the crime scene photographs up to Lestrade, who peers curiously at it.
"What am I looking at exactly?" he cautiously asks. Sherlock's sigh is a frustrated one.
"Look at the body! At the stab wound! Do I need to spell it out for you?" He looks between both men with his eyes wide.
Mycroft scratches his head, eyebrows raised. "Why don't you explain."
Sherlock huffs, turning back toward Lestrade. "The stab wound, it's in the same place on John's body as the other victims. He's the right age, and all the victims were killed in isolated areas. I never would have found it if—" he stops himself.
"If what, Sherlock?" Mycroft urges, stepping closer. Sherlock takes a step back.
"It just took me a bit longer than it normally would have," he says, clearing his throat. His gaze drifts behind Mycroft to John's computer, where his flatmate sits with kind, reassuring eyes.
"Sherlock?" Mycroft turns slowly to look behind him, then back to Sherlock with his eyes even more narrowed than they were before.
Lestrade steps further into the room, closer to Sherlock. "Look, I understand this is hard and you want to believe-"
"Those are facts!" Sherlock barks, slamming the folder onto the coffee table.
"John is the right age," Lestrade continues, "but all the victims of this serial killer were tall brunettes, don't you remember?"
"It was dark, the killer could have mistaken him for a brunette. John's hair looks quite dark at night."
"They were stalked beforehand, Sherlock. Had John received any threatening notes in the past month?"
Sherlock's throat feels as if it's collapsing in on itself. "He hadn't mentioned, but if we search..."
"And now you are twisting the facts to suit your theory. You know better than that," Mycroft adds, not unkindly.
"His money was gone. His wallet was found two blocks over," Lestrade points out.
Eyes burning, Sherlock's hands begin to shake and his vision blurs. "He borrows my card, he doesn't keep loose money. I don't...I'm sure of it," he mumbles, backing up against the coat rack and knocking it to the ground. Lestrade moves to help him, but Sherlock pushes him away.
"I'm positive it has something to do with this case. He wouldn't have—I mean, it has to."
Mycroft's eyes, wary, watch Sherlock's every move; they scrutinize him, pick apart his every action. It makes him increasingly uncomfortable.
Lestrade, who has picked up the fallen coat rack, suddenly calls out loudly, "Sherlock, what the hell is this?"
Sherlock's head whips around and his heart sinks at the sight of the Inspector holding the small packet that had obviously fallen out of his coat pocket when it hit the floor.
"Are you using again?" Mycroft all but whispers, looking as if his worst fear has just come true right before his eyes.
"No!" Sherlock yells. "I haven't!"
"Then why the hell were you carrying this? Do I need to get Anderson up here to search the whole flat?" Lestrade threatens warningly.
"I haven't even opened the bloody package!" Sherlock cries. "I was going to, but John—"
He pauses. John stands by the window, his kind eyes turned mournful, and he shakes his head. Sherlock simply stares at him.
Mycroft turns again, like before, looking straight through John and sighs. "Oh, Sherlock. This concerns me," he says sadly.
Sherlock looks at his brother and they stare at one another, engaged, as always, in a silent battle until everything becomes more than Sherlock can bear. "Get out," he snarls at them, but neither man moves, intensifying his anger. "Out, now!"
"Sherlock—" Lestrade tries in a calming voice.
"OUT!" Sherlock screams, nearly tripping over the coffee table. He catches himself, stands upright, takes a deep breath; his back is to the men so concerned for his well-being. So concerned, Sherlock, they're worried.
A voice in his head that isn't his.
"God dammit," he growls. Sherlock turns and pushes past both men without another word.
-x-
Hours pass after Mycroft and Lestrade leave the flat, having failed to convince Sherlock that he is wrong about John's death; hours since Sherlock had stormed off in the direction of his own bedroom, only to find himself standing in the doorway of John's. It has been hours, and he still hasn't moved.
"It's okay, Sherlock."
Sherlock ignores John, so dead, breathing down his neck.
"Go on. It's okay."
So dead.
He takes a deep breath and steps in, feeling as though he were jumping into a frozen lake completely naked. The air seems thicker than it was in the hallway, he notes, running his hand along John's perfectly made bed. It's organized, like the inside of Sherlock's brain. John's room is efficient and clean; it's fresh.
John's room smells like John.
"It's okay."
It's not okay.
Anger fills the pit of his stomach, boiling up and up and up until it spills from his throat into a harsh, wordless cry. Sherlock blinks. The bedside lamp is shattered at his feet.
"Feel better?"
No, Sherlock thinks, shaking his head. "No, I don't."
"It's fine, really. I hated that lamp."
"You didn't, you loved that lamp."
John smiles, hot breath from his nose tickling the back of Sherlock's neck. "Okay, I didn't, but it doesn't matter. It's yours now, anyway."
Sherlock sits on the edge of John's bed, the squeak of the springs like nails down a blackboard. "Until Mycroft decides to kidnap me and give your things away." He looks at John.
"You know Mycroft was lying about that," John says, almost questioning.
Sherlock mumbles, "Wouldn't surprise me if he did it." He glances around the room again, realizing he knows the layout by heart, then returns his gaze to John.
"He's worried." John's eyes hope to reassure him.
"I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth concerning his so-called worry," Sherlock sneers, folding his arms across his chest rather roughly.
Sighing, John tries again. "How about you try talking to him? You know, like an adult."
It's a valid suggestion that Sherlock refuses to have any part of. "I'd rather drown."
John's blue-tinged mouth draws into a thin line. "You really are a child, you know that?" he says angrily.
"Yes!" Sherlock snaps back. "And you, John, are quite dead!"
Silence.
Looking down at his trembling fingers, Sherlock pulls in air as if it were all being sucked out of the room. A minute later, he glances back up, fully expecting John to have gone, but he's still there, staring. John mourns for him when it should be the other way around.
"Are you afraid, Sherlock?"
Sherlock turns away, gasping. Terrified. He's unable to say it out loud. The mattress moves beside him and he hears the quiet voice he wishes were real.
"Would it make a difference if I said it's natural to feel this way?"
Sherlock shakes his head. "Doubtful," he mutters.
"Right, didn't think so," John says. "How about if I said it gets better over time?"
Slowly sinking down onto the soft duvet, Sherlock brings John's pillow to his chest (smells like John) and curls his knees up to it. "It won't," he replies in a voice he barely recognizes as his own.
Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut. "It won't," he says again. He can feel John's fingers running softly through his hair as a strange swirl of emotion he's never felt before clouds his mind.
"It wasn't planned. You know it wasn't planned."
He shakes his head, breath hitching in his throat. "You're wrong, John."
Sorrow. He can feel it seep in through with every stroke of John's hand over his curls.
"I'm not wrong, Sherlock."
Focused on John's touch and drifting into uneasy sleep, Sherlock tries to put the thought out of his mind.
John has to be wrong.