Come feel my heart
It's beating like a drum and I confess
When you're around
It's like an army's marching through my chest
Sherlock realised sometime through the third year that whenever he remembered John, it inexplicably made the odd 'hollow' seem less of a void.
He had been lying on a couch in some random hotel in Paris, running his hands through his unruly, now longer, hair furiously as he tried to think. It was absurd. Why would remembering John ease the pain slightly? It was a puzzle, something new and something different, that needed to be taken apart and scrutinized until the answer's pieces came together through observation. It was right up Sherlock's street.
Facts and theories and deductions flashed before his closed eyes in white sans serif letters. First, the relevant facts:
Known him for approx. 18 months.
ExArmy doctor - useful to a consulting detective.
Had a limp before he met me.
Saved each other's lives countless times.
Flatmate, blogger, and colleague.
Sherlock paused, frowning.
Flatmate, blogger, colleague, and friend.
Usually takes no sugar or cream, but occasionally does if not to enjoy but for the luxury of it.
Has a tendency to wear all things woollen, granny-like or otherwise.
Stupid, straight-forward, doesn't make connections, yet his input proves useful at times. Idiot – but not always. More than can be said about anyone else.
Good with people – beneficial. Soothes Lestrade and the rest when they're being especially ignorant. Premises: pleasing looks, genuine smile, charming personality.
With these facts lingering in the background, Sherlock added another layer and took the analysis a step further:
Willing to work with me.
Pause.
Enjoys my company.
Not nearly as irritating as the rest of the world's population. (Premise: Not always an idiot.)
Compliments where others scorn.
Grateful to me for fixing his limp and for splitting the rent with him – both of which I find satisfactory.
Would lay his life down for me…
Sherlock huffed out an exasperated breath at the evident impasse. This was getting him nowhere. None of these facts explained why John eased the insistent itch in his chest that had nothing to do with the influx of data and information he experienced on a daily basis. That pain was only in his head, whereas this new pain, this uglyabsurdludicrous pain threatened to rupture and spread like an infection through his entire body and render him incapacitated like nothing before. Sherlock found the thought quite unnerving.
He needed to find a cause.
He'd tried thinking about Mrs Hudson, Molly, Lestrade, even Donovan and Anderson and Mycroft as a test, to see if this feeling was simply the result of the absence of people he encountered regularly, to see if that was the variable that would explain the hurt… but no one apart from John seemed to abate the intensity of the storm in his chest. (And God help him, John must be continuing to rub off on him because he was Sherlock Holmes and yet he was thinking in bloody metaphors like a melodramatic journalist for God's sake. When the hell had this happened?)
Why John, specifically?
Sherlock's stomach had screamed abuse at him for the fifth time that day, interrupting his circular thoughts. It really was quite adamant… but he had more pressing matters at hand. After all, there were worse aches and pains than hunger. Besides, hunger kept him sharp and wired, helped him focus, kept his brain powering on at the speed of sound. (Metaphors again? Really?) Hunger was good. Digesting made him feel heavy and sluggish, which did nothing to help with the brain rot.
Sherlock let out a frustrated growl that echoed through the room.
He thought about those approximately-eighteen months he had spent with John. It was time to do what he had always done with any case that didn't immediately pose an obvious solution to him – go over everything again until it did. Observe something he missed before, make a connection that hadn't been made. In his mind, he entered his palace and flipped a laptop open, shifted into a more comfortable position and proceeded to remember, to pore over every moment of those eighteen months in which he shared a flat at 221B Baker Street with a good exArmy doctor named John Watson.
~o~
He was an idiot.
And it took him way too long to realise his error.
Sherlock had finished his hunting in Paris, and was on his way back to London, returning at last. Returning home, to 221B, to Baker Street, and to John.
If he would have me back.
Sherlock irritably swiped that nonsensical thought away. Of course John would have him. Why wouldn't he? Their skills complemented each other's, they were friends, they were able to afford quite a pricy residence in central London together. There was an extensive index of reasons corroborating his argument. Sure, there had been this trivial (oh, but most definitely not boring) set-back in their lives together, but that was irrelevant. It's not as if Sherlock hadn't done this before. He'd dashed off, for days at a time to solve a case without John. The length of time was irrelevant; of course it was. John would be hurt that he'd been left behind, but he always got over it. He would lecture Sherlock – it was arrogant and selfish of him to go off on his own and just what did he think he was doing, what if he had needed someone to cover his back and no one was up for the job at the time and why did he always need to prove he was clever by himself? Sherlock would pretend to listen to everything and when John was done, Sherlock would boast and John would call him brilliant and they might order Chinese or Italian and then maybe John would update his blog while Sherlock maybe watched crap telly or experimented and then they would call it a night.
Sherlock looked forward to it.
Every last key member of Moriarty's fanclub (or was it Sherlock's fanclub? They were practically one and the same) was neutralised. One of the best cases Sherlock had ever had the pleasure of solving was closed, for good this time. All that left him with now was the ongoing mystery of the irksome hole in his chest. Sherlock had gone over those eighteen months again and again and again in his head, but to no avail.
It made Sherlock all the more determined to find the answer.
And it was during one of these re-run sessions, in the taxi on his way to John's new residence, that Sherlock received the text.
The text that caused his heart to halt for a second.
It wasn't logical, but Sherlock swore it did, it physically stopped, when he read those words on the tiny luminescent screen of his Blackberry.
No. No, it can't be.
The thought that John… rock-solid (oh he gave up), dependable, exArmy doctor John would just… do this … had never occurred to him. Sherlock wasn't just a sociopath, he was a high-functioning sociopath. He knew people, he knew how they worked, he knew their reactions to stimuli, he knew how to make deductions from these observations. It was his speciality, his certifiable profession. He knew how people worked. He should know how John worked
Except John wasn't people, was he?
Idiot.
From day one, John had intrigued him. That was amazing, he had said. Not Piss off or You arse or It's none of your sodding business.
Sherlock felt the start of something hot and fiery and vile claw its way up his throat. He was startled to realise that this feeling was … anger. He was furious.
For God's sake.
But how dare he …
What was he thinking …
What possessed him to …
All of Mycroft's cavalry and men couldn't have broken him, scrambled his thoughts with whatever form of torture they wished, but John had done it without even residing in the same postal area as him.
But no, there had to be some mistake. His source was wrong; had to be. John was not allowed to do this. He had no right. He was still his colleague, his assistant. There was no contract but they had a deal. A premeditated partnership that worked wonders for the city of London. Their relationship was symbiotic. Why would he for one second think he could just-
Sherlock snapped at the cabbie, "Hurry up would you?" His hands fiddled with his phone and his legs itched to just run the rest of the way to John.
Sherlock missed the look the cabbie shot him.
His mind was already elsewhere, precisely five and a half kilometres away, near a darkened alley teeming with shadows.
~o~
When Sherlock broke into John's little flat, he knew immediately John was not there. His infuriating mind picked up on very single useless detail.
Every item of furniture shows signs of slight disrepair. John would not treat his meagre belongings without care. Fine layers of dust. Conclusion: second-hand, but hardly used. Inference: spends most of his time, day and night, out of the flat. Hardly any indulgences, aside from the telly. Hardly any decorations. Conclusion: minimal to zero entertaining. Small desktop: laptop open - history – 'The Blog of Dr. John H. Watson,' 'Email,' … 'Five Stages of Grief'. Researching instead of seeing anyone – has not and does not discuss death of fallen comrades with therapist. Still hasn't fired Ella, or is seeing another therapist he doesn't trust. Unpacked boxes of belongings, again with no customization of residence leads to conclusion: not thinking ahead. Depressed? Living on his own once again suggests that he and Harry aren't on the best of terms – so little to no Harry in his life. Three empty beer bottles. Remote on feeble excuse for couch, angled away from telly – thrown back at the couch while facing away, not caring to put it down properly. Had something on his mind …
It only took a matter of seconds for Sherlock to glean this information, and more. It was like an endless stream of useless, God! Where is John I need to find John don't do anything immensely stupid John.
It irritated him that he took longer than what was optimal to find what was the equivalent of the signs of someone going into cardiac arrest.
It was receipt, lying there innocuously on the floor, from an insignificant chemist a few blocks away.
For sleeping pills.
Sherlock knew from the sight of the bed – made, sheets clean but stale, not washed in almost six months – that John had hardly ever slept properly, in his bed, not for a long while. He had therefore taken brief naps on the couch, or elsewhere (At work, most likely. Looking at his history of professions, and buildings nearby, a hospital seems the best estimate. St Ann's, probably. He needed to earn money to pay the rent, if not for food, from somewhere.) when it was necessary in order to stay conscious. When John needed to sleep, he had managed to do so all on his own, however restlessly or briefly. Thus, there would be no need for the sleeping pills prior. Which begged the question, why now? Where was John now, and where were the pills? Obviously not in the flat. Made no sense for someone to take sleeping pills if they were not intending to sleep in their own bed.
Unless…
The initial curling of bile in the back of his throat returned. Sherlock gulped hard against it. No. NO.
But again, why had he left? Why not take the pills here and be done with it?
Oh. Of course.
John was an honourable, dubiously religious yet medical man. Taking his own life would be contradictory to his beliefs. However far gone he was, he would only do himself harm as a final resort. The pills were his back-up plan, which in turn raised the question, what was Plan A? How could John do it, without raising his own gun to his head… ?
Oh.
Stupid, stupid!
Sherlock felt his blood run cold.
Interesting, a single thought process grated at the rest of him, file reaction away for later analysis. The other disrupted bits of him were consumed in, for the moment, paralysing emotion.
He had been shocked upon receiving that text, no use denying that. But this was Sherlock: he had needed to assess the scene for himself, to gain all significant data, to draw his own conclusions from the raw facts. His shock might have – probably, most likely – had something to do with the fact that Sherlock hadn't considered this a possibility. This was John, and Sherlock could not understand what had driven John, reliable, wonderful, John to even consider this because this was not how John would react to immeasurable tedium it just DID NOT COMPUTE.
Sherlock whirled out of the flat, down the one flight of stairs, and out the door – the resounding echo of John's flat door crashing shut was like a final note of a sonata, one last word said down a phone line…
For once in his life, Sherlock wished he miscalculated the evidence.
TBC
A/N: Still holding out hope you guys find it in you to show your appreciation. In the form of a fave. Or review. I'm just saying. Again, I apologise for any errors!
UPDATE (30/10/12): My last chapter ended up being way longer than I'd originally planned (no surprise there hehe) so I've made it into a sequel all on its own. Which means this story is complete! Kinda. For now. Anyway, in case you didn't know the sequel's called 'A Study in Emotions.' If you're interested. Which you should be. Yes.