Disclaimer: Nothing mine. Obviously. Still betaed by Ennui Enigma, aka Patience. Errors are the only thing mine.
Sherlock's mind is reeling for a bit, after the encounter with his doctor, but finally details come back online. Details like the weight of keys that weren't there before. He knows these keys. Why didn't John move out? Has he found another flatmate? He berates himself for his idiocy all the way home (not his; not anymore) and is quick enough to catch John still at the door, trying to materialize his lost possession before giving up and ringing the bell. He approaches slowly, proffering the item with a soft spoken , "I took them by mistake…wasn't thinking," and John takes them. He offers him a cup of tea as thanks. He doesn't ask why Sherlock didn't give them back before if he followed him home, or how the hell he knew where to find John if he didn't. Perhaps he thinks Sherlock belongs to the Homeless Network and recognized him.
Sherlock should really, really refuse John's offer and run. He has already spoken to him and there's only so much a hood and bright hair can do to keep John from recognizing him. But, it's John and 221B and tea. Sherlock is nodding yes before he even catches himself doing it. He follows because it's easier than explaining he didn't mean to agree.
He hovers in the sitting room while John busies himself in the kitchen, not daring to sit down. It's not like he's going to stay. He analyzes the room. No sign of another flatmate. The empty spaces caused by the removal of his things (in a broad sense, if the London AZ absence is anything to go by) stand out starkly.
John comes back silently. Sherlock is too agitated to play his role well enough so he feigns being distracted (or maybe curious about the place) so much so that he didn't realize the man's entrance. In hindsight, it was a terrible idea.
The lanky, apparently absorbed figure reminds John terribly of his lost friend. He places the cup down on the table by him without a word – pure instinct. When the stranger takes it without a word or even a glance – the resemblance is so strong that it takes John's breath away. The lean stranger's nostrils flare, even so slightly, enjoying the brew's aroma. It's too much. Half with his Captain stop-ignoring-me voice, half strangled by unruly emotion, the doctor surrenders to what must be this delusion superimposing itself over his guest, and calls, "Sherlock!" He doesn't care if he proves himself crazy. What he doesn't expect is the oblique glance that comes his way. Well, the glance is probably justifiable (checking if his psychotic break is dangerous, probably), but the shade of these eyes is not. They've fought over his eye colour in the past when Sherlock would stand by mirror an John would have insisted that they were more aptly described as hooloovoo (and had to educate his friend on Douglas Adams as a result). It can't be all a coincidence.
The punch is so swift it surprises John too and he's the one who threw it in the first place. Scalding hot tea and fragile cup fly to the floor. It doesn't stop there though. He presses on, piling attacks on his resurrected – and amazingly unresisting – friend. He growls random words, 'bastard' and 'bloody sadist' and 'you madman'.
"John," the sleuth chokes out after a particularly vicious blow. "John, can I explain why I did it first? You can continue afterwards." He's being honest. He'd let John continue to beat him if it got him any closer to forgiveness. Closer to having his friend back.
"Ok. Say it," the doctor concedes, curt and bitter, and he doesn't have to say 'you better make it a good explanation', because it's in his body language, in how the fight is still definitely not out of his posture.
Sherlock swallows back the, "I fell for you," that he almost said. Moriarty wasn't an actor. He was a bad, sappy screenwriter. A surprisingly keen eyed, sappy screenwriter. Instead, the detective utters, "Once, Mycroft said 'all lives end; all hearts are broken." His voice is soft now. He doesn't end with that citation though as it would only make John angrier, (if that's at all possible now). Sherlock has had years to accept that specific disadvantage as his own. It's something that he can't delete, that he doesn't want to purge himself of, not anymore, even with all the troubles and suffering and liability to blackmail it brought along.
"That day, on the roof, I met Moriarty. He gave me a choice: I had to pick one alternative out of Mycroft's words of wisdom for me, and he'd ensure you, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade experienced the other half," the detective reveals, voice forcibly calm.
"So either you died and left us a wreck or he had us killed and you what? Mourned?" John asks, just to be sure he understands. He can't entirely keep the scepticism out of his voice at the end because three bloody years, I mean, wouldn't Sherlock have returned or...or just sent a fucking text if he really, really cared about them? Enough to feel grief? To know what grief was?
"Yes," Sherlock chokes out, around the lump his friend's sarcasm suddenly lodges in his throat. "I chose me – obviously. I suspected he'd try something like that, and had preparations in place..." he confesses. Still he is faced with the glower of John's eyes – decidedly not nearer to forgiving him than at the start of this – he lets the truth slip, not exactly voluntarily. "And even if I hadn't, I'd still have done it. I'm too much of a coward to knowingly accept that kind of pain, John." The detective realizes what he put his one friend through; but it would have broken him, beyond repair. John has to understand.
"In my defence, I had no idea you'd be so...affected," Sherlock states. Apparently it's the wrong thing to say. For all his manipulative powers, Sherlock's foot is permanently lodged in his mouth whenever it matters.
"You what?" John hisses back, and that word encompasses a whole lecture. A lecture made of 'what do you think I am?' and 'did you think I was like you?' and, more prominently, 'You machine!'.
"Well, still affected at least; of course I knew I would hurt you, but I really could not see another way that would bring an acceptable result. You are strong, John and no stranger to death… and you had other friends. Lots. I honestly expected you to have overcome my loss at the very least months ago. I thought you'd realize how much better your life was – was bound to be – without me," Sherlock confesses.
So ok, in that last sentence 'thought' should have been replaced with 'was terrified of' for the sake of complete truthfulness, but he can't say it. It's bad enough admitting that the only good thing Sherlock provided was a quota of adrenaline – which John likes – and he fully expected his friend to have found it elsewhere without all the disadvantages entailed by living with Sherlock. It is difficult to admit that his safety net consisted of so few friends that with three bullets it would be entirely torn to shred. He'd lose everyone. Well, lose everyone but Mycroft…and that must be what hell feels like – if it existed in the first place.
"You absolute idiot!" John retorts, and the detective can't discern if he's exasperated or still outraged or fond or all of the above, "You dare say that after you managed to make me miss human bloody body parts in the fridge!".
"What?" he croaks, because it makes no sense. John hated the body parts, especially if he didn't label them correctly and didn't keep them very much away from anything edible...
"I missed you, you daft sod! After a while, with everyone telling me I had to move on, I almost decided to try for another flatmate, you know? Only I didn't want to move on, honestly, so I thought well, why not search for another violinist. I loved when you played when you weren't being purposefully obnoxious. I gave up because no one, no violinist, no chemist, not even a bloody pathologist like Molly would bring home a few limbs to store in the fridge. I wouldn't get you back and trying to delude myself was only harmful," his friend goes from yelling to whispering.
"You got me back," Sherlock points out, which is really not his style, because it's obvious. But he's trying not to think about how close to being replaced he'd come, and his mouth kind of runs by itself.
"So I did," John acknowledges "bit late, though".
"I was busy," the detective replies, defensive.
"Too busy to bloody send one single text, Sherlock? Even Irene managed that," his friend grinds out angrily. Well, Irene had to be reminded, but he's not about to let Sherlock know. The sod would take it as justification.
"I wasn't sure I would survive this case, John, and dying twice on you in a few months didn't seem very good," Sherlock admits. His own survival had never mattered much to him, and absolutely nothing since that day. Either he died along the way, fulfilling Moriarty's condition, and keeping his…friends? Makeshift family? safe, or he managed to completely destroy Moriarty's web, which – again – would make them safe. This trail of reasoning ends in 'Stupid! Now it's too soon! Still too soon! You can still die – you can still get him killed! Idiot!'
Sherlock would get lost in his own thoughts if not for John, who looks like he's just been slapped. Hard.
"So you don't trust me anymore to watch your back. Well, I suppose it's something I needed to know," he says through clenched teeth. Ready to leave, or make Sherlock leave, or another unacceptable outcome.
"This was all to keep you alive! Leading you into mortal danger looked a bit counterproductive, didn't it?" Sherlock yells, arms wildly flaying in desperation. "I was scared, John. Do you want to know why I purposefully kept you in the dark? I fully expected him to cheat too! Why do you think I went off to destroy Moriarty's organization instead of letting it crumble on itself, John? He used you as a smokescreen at the pool. How could I be sure that the man we met wasn't another fake, another victim of blackmail? What if the moment I came back these snipers were still around? I couldn't take the chance." There. All is out in the open. Well, not exactly all (never all), but surely enough of his illogical, unsightly feelings to leave himself vulnerable. Enough to give John ample matter to flay him, should he wish to do so.
"Christ," John swears. Loudly. He had not thought of that. "Did he?" Was Richard Brook another of the madman's victims?
"I'm not sure," he whispers. "The case isn't entirely complete yet. Actually, John – your help would be precious. If you're willing." It's true. He needs his conductor of light. More than ever.
"Back on cases, eh? Let me think about it…" John mocks.
Sherlock should realize he's joking, but he looks so earnest, so intense, John can't keep him wondering for long.
"God yes!" he agrees, with an intentional echo. Is it bad he can remember almost everything they've said to each other? Well, someone has to not delete. Just in case.
"Sebastian Moran," Sherlock tells, now eager to fill him in the details.
"Wait, who? Ex-colonel Moran?" he blurts out.
"Do you know him?" the detective asks, taken aback.
"Not personally, no. He was something of a dark legend. Deployed in Iraq, best sniper in all the troops – not just ours, mind you – but then involved in the whole Abu Ghraib mess. Didn't see why only the Americans could have fun, or something equally horrible. Obviously dishonourably discharged. I suppose the moral was 'mind, lad, you don't only have to shoot well'," John recounts, chuckling at the end.
"He's been Moriarty's right-hand man for the longest time, and they were…close. That information is sure. And now… what do you think, John? Would he concoct a mystery with Moriarty's gift just for old time's sake, when he could act much more directly? Or is it a sign Moriarty himself is still alive and bored and wants to play?" Sherlock asks, hoping John won't be angry at Sherlock's assumption that he can enter the torturer's mind like Sherlock and Moriarty did all the time with each other. Of course John isn't like Moran ('strong morals'), but Sherlock wasn't/isn't entirely like Moriarty too…is he?
"The Adair case," the doctor replies.
"Obviously, John. Now, would he?" Sherlock replies, dismissive and impatient and so very back – to normal, to the case, to John that the doctor gets the urge to celebrate. He forces himself to concentrate instead. If Sherlock was Moriarty (playing… experimenting? on live people) and John could torture someone innocent just for kicks (ugh), would he want to laugh at Lestrade running in circles just because Sherlock would have liked it? Because That Day - the anniversary of Armageddon, as long as Moran and he were concerned - was coming soon? Because he needed to kill the man, not only himself - liver first? (He's certain that Moran is getting very regularly his sister and father's example, John would have been an alcoholic too).
"He would," John decides "sentiment, Sherlock". (Just in case his friend still has problem with that; he definitely seemed a bit more…emotive, but John won't trust it to continue in case mode.)
"Not to mention, Moriarty wouldn't have waited three years for a nice, clever trick like that. He'd go crazy in the meantime. His projects always made front page – hard to miss."
"Only when he wanted to…and what if he relocated for a time too?" Sherlock inquires, unsatisfied.
The spider's web was mostly hidden, as he has learned. Still, Moriarty, like every genius, needs an audience, and he managed to get one at least every few months. Sherlock is just scared that his nemesis might have been a few steps ahead of him, all the time, mocking, waiting for him to break and go back home and fail and oh God what if it's happened right now? His eyes go wildly to the windows – he hasn't even closed the curtains, stupid, STUPID!
John sees through Sherlock, and it's startling, because Sherlock? Transparent? But he still sees fear and self-doubt and needs it to stop.
"He would still have made the news. It would still have been all over the internet. If you haven't noticed him – hell, if I haven't noticed anything weird enough to be from him – he's gone. We contend with Moran. We can take Moran down, right, Sherlock?" he says, calm like still water. He'd like to touch Sherlock, to reassure...both of them, honestly, but after his earlier outburst, he's not sure that reaching for him would be so calming.
"Obviously," the detective replies, showing the anger (which is at himself, only at his own shameful behaviour) and hiding the gratitude (swallowing back the 'thank you John' that almost came out) and isn't he messed up?
"Do you have a plan?" John asks, voice still soothing.
"Yes."