"When I head at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd
with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow'd."
– Walt Whitman
... ... ...
"John, you are supposed to be the sensible one," Mycroft said, pacing around the train car, so on edge that he had even put down his umbrella.
John sat very still, unable to muster a response. Sherlock sat next to him, equally silent, thinking intently.
"What exactly do you have to say for yourself?" Mycroft towered over him, his face twisting very unattractively.
John held up his hands. "I did what I thought was right."
"You were mistaken."
"Look, I don't need this, not from you. What's done is done. They could have just killed one of us if that's what they wanted so badly."
"You're missing the point, John. They could not."
John scoffed. "They've proven time and again that they can do whatever they want."
"Not without making the two of you martyrs. People are so simple, so I was sure you would understand."
"Understand what?"
"There would have been a bigger outrage had they killed one of you than there would be if they allowed two victors," Irene said from her perch in the chair across from John and Sherlock. "You couldn't have known. The Capitol was in an uproar over you two. And once you staged that display at the finale, John, that sealed the deal. Remember, they've made exceptions in the past with other Games, especially Quarter Quells."
"Then why is he," John pointed a finger at Mycroft, who bristled at the gesture, "so bent out of shape?"
"The Capitol citizens may love you two, but they're not the ones in control, are they? That stunt of yours, John, it's made some people very angry."
"Not my problem."
"It will become your problem," Mycroft said. "People in places of power being upset with you is not a good position to be in. And you," he said, drawing Sherlock's attention, "you have certainly put me in an awkward position. Did you ever consider that your actions would reflect badly on me?" Sherlock rolled his eyes. Mycroft looked between the two of them. "When you have interviews, when you go on your tour, we will be working damage control. Otherwise you will not be safe."
"But you said so yourself that they don't want martyrs," John said.
"No. But as I'm sure you're aware, there are many options available. Do you really want to consider what they might do in lieu of killing either of you?"
John fell silent, trying to block out all the things that immediately came to mind.
"Why were they so reluctant to just kill one of us in the arena?" Sherlock asked. Everyone stared at him. It was the most he'd spoken since they were declared victors.
Irene chuckled. "Are you serious?"
"Yes?"
Irene shared a look with John, and even Mycroft. "Everyone loves a love story, Mr. Holmes. You two played your parts well. The audience adores you."
Sherlock frowned. "Sentiment. That's what kept us alive. People getting...attached to us?"
Irene smirked. "Well it certainly wasn't your warmth and likeability." She shrugged a shoulder. "Moriarty was good, but he was heartless. He was unstable. The public doesn't root for a man like that. All they want is a good show. Consider yourself lucky. If it weren't for John, the public wouldn't have even noticed if you had died."
"We are not any more lucky by being here than you are, Miss Adler."
Her face, usually a mix of playfulness and scheming, was suddenly very dark and sad. But it only lasted a second, and just as quickly, she glanced at Mycroft as she rose from her seat. She said to him, putting on a hollow version of her usual closed-lip smile, "What do you think we should all wear when we get back to the district, Mr. Holmes? I'm leaning toward my battle dress." She turned and winked at John and Sherlock before walking out of the room.
... ... ...
"Still awake?" The doors to the car whooshed closed behind John. The lights had been turned down, and Sherlock hadn't bothered to turn them back up. He sat on the sofa as he had earlier. The only indication that he had even moved was the change from his sleek clothes into cotton pajamas and a sweeping robe.
"You sound far more surprised than you should, given what you know about me."
John crossed the room and sat beside Sherlock on the sofa. He felt a twinge of pain in his leg as he walked the last few feet. Probably the beginning of all the aches and pains he would have now that the adrenaline was gone. Everything would hurt.
"Usually I am the one antagonizing Mycroft, but I must say, you have done a wonderful job." Sherlock didn't look at him, still blatantly pretending to be thinking about something else.
John gave him a weak smile. "He's probably right, though." Sherlock gave the tiniest nod and flick of his hand. It doesn't matter, it's too late now. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Drop it, Sherlock. You may perform in front of everyone else, but don't try to perform in front of me."
Sherlock said nothing, but John thought his expression softened some, lost a little of its high-contrast harshness. John watched as he took one slow, deep breath.
Even Sherlock Holmes was not impervious to everything, no matter how hard he tried to be.
... ... ...
John stayed for a while longer, resting his head on Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock would talk if and when he wanted to, even if it wasn't tonight. They were both too tired to do much more than lean into one another, bookended together on the sofa. John began to fall in and out of a light sleep, jerking himself awake every time he felt himself nodding off. Sherlock was always still beside him, wide awake, and apparently, deep in thought.
The dim light did nothing for the dark circles under his eyes.
Finally, John gave up trying to stay awake, and told Sherlock he was going to go to bed. Sherlock just nodded.
When John lay down, he thought the pain in his leg was a little worse than earlier, and wondered if he had sprained something in the arena.
It was hard to believe that it was finally safe to sleep again. So many nights of having to be on guard and running on nothing but adrenaline and panic. John thought it would actually take him hours to fall asleep, but exhaustion beat adrenaline, and it took only minutes.
Sometime hours later, he was woken up by movement nearby, and his eyes flew open, the dreams of the arena fading as he realized where he was.
He propped himself up on his hands and looked at the other side of his bed. Sherlock had curled up on top of the blankets next to him, practically in a ball, facing the other direction.
"Sherlock?" He didn't answer. "I know you're awake, Sherlock. I know you can hear me."
Sherlock didn't acknowledge him, keeping his breathing slow and steady to appear asleep.
John reached out, his hand hovering above Sherlock before he rested it on his hip. He felt the slightest tensing of muscles beneath his palm, relaxing after a few seconds. "Just sleep."
"I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine."
"Okay. I'll be here if you need me." John withdrew his hand, lying back down.
"Why would I need you?" Sherlock asked in a bleary voice.
"No reason at all."
... ... ...
When John woke up early that morning, Sherlock had turned to face him. He was asleep, with his face pressed hard into the pillow. He'd never even bothered to get under the blankets.
He wasn't a dramatic mysterious figure. He wasn't the terrible person so many people at home believed him to be. He also wasn't the charismatic and charming person the general public thought he was unless he chose to be.
Unfeeling? No. Intimidating? Maybe. Pompous? Probably. Extraordinary? Absolutely.
Sherlock Holmes was many things, but so many were things that other people made him out to be, when the reality was far simpler.
John looked at Sherlock. It was hard not to see him as the injured boy brought to him all those years ago. Now, finally removed from the pomp and circumstance of the Capitol and the brutality of the arena, the reality of this man was so obvious that he wondered how no one else seemed to see it.
Just human after all.
... ... ...
When John stepped off the train, he nearly tripped when his leg fell out from under him. He assured everyone he was fine, but he walked away trying to hide the limp.
... ... ...
John, Sherlock, and Irene all went their separate ways when they reached Victors' Village, each shutting their own door behind themselves.
Somehow, the new home was poor consolation. John only gave Harry a passing glance before going to his new bedroom.
It was cold. And empty.
... ... ...
Over the next few days, John saw hardly any of the others. Harry didn't try to make him talk about anything.
He'd passed Irene while walking around outside, and she'd put on her smiling face. But John had lived with an addict long enough to know the signs, and he wasn't surprised when he saw the end of one of her syringes sticking out of her pocket. They both politely pretended that John hadn't noticed. She said a few lines of shallow conversation to him, nothing of any substance. When he looked at her, at the dark circles, at the way she almost nervously tapped her fingers on her arm, at the tense edges of her smile, he wondered if he was seeing what his life would become. She'd survived the arena, and what good had it done for her?
Sherlock didn't come out of his house. More than once, John stood on his front porch, debating whether or not he should attempt to draw him out. And every time, his hand would stop inches from the door, and he would turn and walk away.
... ... ...
When the front door opened a few days later, John thought at first that it was Harry before he remembered she'd long since passed out in her room upstairs. Her methods of getting through the day were sounding more and more appealing.
He forced himself out of his own room into the hall. Mary stood just inside, the door shut behind her. She looked around the house, seemingly indifferent to the opulence. When her eyes finally landed on him, he saw the tightness in her jaw.
"You couldn't even come by once?"
John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry."
"Have you even left Victors' Village once since you got back?"
He shook his head. "I haven't really seen anyone either. I just...I couldn't do it, Mary. Not yet."
She walked down the hall toward him, her foosteps pulling creaks and groans from the floorboards. She hugged him to her tightly, saying under her breath, "I'm glad you're back. You have no idea." She pulled back, her hands still firmly holding his shoulders. "We were all so worried, John."
"I know."
"No, you don't. We thought you were going to die. No one ever expects their tribute to come back." Her hands dropped, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "You can't imagine what it all looked like from here. There were so many times we thought you'd be killed. And we had to see what the arena did to you. We saw you shouting at the sky. Some of us wondered if you would come back in one piece if you came back at all." She paused, her eyes running over his face like she was looking for a wound, some big obvious physical manifestation of all he'd seen. "You should have seen the finale the way we did. That was the first time we thought you might come home. Because Sherlock Holmes seemed hell bent on making sure you did."
"I wonder if that was really such a good thing."
"John, don't talk like that. Don't. You survived something terrible. But you survived." He didn't have it in him to argue with her. There was no way she could understand. "You know the whole Capitol is in love with you two."
He nodded. "Mycroft said as much."
"The love story angle, huh?"
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Yeah. It was a gamble, but it sure paid off. Leave it to Sherlock Holmes to find an act that would better his chances."
"Yeah, some act."
"Was that your battle plan from day one?"
"No. Not really. Irene just told us to make people like us."
"Guess she isn't as unreliable as everyone says, then. You seen him since you've been back? Sherlock, I mean?"
"No." A sharp edge came into his voice.
"Why not?"
"After what we went through? Besides, we'll see plenty of each other from now on."
"I hope you do. And not just for the Capitol's sake."
"And why is that?"
She shrugged. "You suit each other. You make a good team. If any two people could have pulled off the impossible, it would be you. They wanted a good show and you provided."
John had lost track of the conversation, his thoughts still on the word act. What Mary couldn't understand, what John had only just realized the night before, was that Sherlock hadn't found an act for the sake of bettering his own chances of survival. He'd found an act that would better John's.
... ... ...
Mary talked him into a short hunting trip in the woods the next morning. She had been visibly unsure when she asked him, thinking perhaps of every possible trigger he could encounter. But John decided the return to his routine might do him good.
His leg hurt more and more as they walked. At one point, it buckled beneath him, and he fell to his knees.
Mary reached out a hand to help him up, but didn't comment.
John didn't even knock on the door. He let himself in before he lost his nerve, his free hand gripped tightly around his walking stick. Harry had called it a cane and he'd snapped at her, even though she was right. It had just gotten so hard to walk without help since he'd come home.
Sherlock's house was dark save for one beam of yellow light coming from the living room. The only sound was a clock ticking and John's own steps.
He turned into the living room. Sherlock sat on a sofa, still and staring straight ahead of himself as he had on the train. He was as neat as ever, not a hair out of place, but he hadn't bothered to change out of pajamas, and the hollows of his cheekbones seemed more pronounced than usual.
"Sherlock." When he didn't respond, John walked across the room and stood directly in his line of sight. "You've been in here for days. People are starting to worry about you."
"Psychosomatic." His voice was rough from disuse.
"What?"
"Your limp. You were never injured in your leg. It was your shoulder. The limp is psychosomatic. So is the tremor in your hand, probably. Must have made shooting difficult the other day."
John shifted uncomfortably on his feet, his hand flexing at his side. "You need to get out of the house, Sherlock."
"Why?"
"Because people are wondering what's wrong. People will talk."
"People do little else."
"Aren't you worried?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Everyone thinks you've lost it. You haven't seen anyone or spoken to anyone. It's not good."
"Do people expect returned tributes to be particularly sociable immediately following the Games?"
"No, but if you don't try to ease your way back into the world, it's just going to get harder."
"And you would be the authority of course. You've been out of your own home only a handful of times, and you've only left the Village once."
John gave a frustrated sigh. "Sherlock, soon we're going to be paraded around the entire country. If you can't manage to leave the house how are you going to manage that?"
"That is not what is bothering you."
"What do you mean?"
"Being paraded, that is a fact of life. You are not here to tell me what I already know."
"It's not just people that are starting to worry about you Sherlock. I'm starting to worry about you. What we survived, it breaks people. It's broken people far stronger than either of us."
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not. You always say you're fine, but you aren't. Look what the Games did to Irene. Look what the Games have done to countless people over the years. You aren't immune to it any more than I am. You're pretending you are. And Sherlock, you can't survive like that. You can't keep pretending everything is fine."
"I don't know why you're still so upset. We both lived. We can get back to our lives. You can do as you always have done, looking out for your family and friends. I can live as I always have. You say people are worried about me. Wrong. The Capitol may have favored me, but the people here do not. I am content to go on living my life as I used to, and I am sure that the rest of the district would just assume I did as well."
"Christ, Sherlock, you really don't get it, do you? You say we can get back to living our lives like we did before. We can't. We'll never be able to live that way again. We survived, and the price of survival is that we don't get to live anymore. Because from now on, our lives are going to be tours and mentoring and being paraded in front of the world for as long as we live. So don't you tell me that our survival was a good thing. It wasn't. It was just better than the alternative."
"The alternative is always available, even outside the arena."
"Don't even suggest something like that, Sherlock. Don't."
"Well –"
"No."
Sherlock finally looked at him, really looked at him, and John saw the slight redness in his eyes. "So we attend some tedious social functions every year. We smile at the camera and make the Capitol morons cheer. Hardly a massive alteration in lifestyle."
"We survived because we were lucky. We will have to play this act for the rest of our lives. It's not just a smile at the camera, Sherlock. This act, this trick we pulled, it's the only reason we're alive now."
"Yes, the act," he said distastefully, spitting the word out.
"What exactly do you mean by that?"
Sherlock stood to his feet with the same manic manner as always and looked down at John. He grabbed him by the wrist and kissed him.
When Sherlock pulled away, his face was scrutinizing.
"Pulse elevated," he said, holding John's wrist up between them. "Pupils dilated." John jerked his hand away. "Not a real limp, and not an act." He turned, his robe swishing around him as he sat down again.
"You can be a real bastard, you know."
"Sentiment is a weakness, John. Surely you know that by now."
"Sentiment does not matter right now, Sherlock. What matters is that we have to be able to put up a united front. We have no choice where that's concerned. Anything else, it's a moot point. This isn't something either of us can do alone."
"Alone is what I have. Alone protects me."
"No. Friends protect people."
"And is that what you are? A friend?"
John pointed an accusing finger at him. "You may have been able to do this before the Games, to just detach and tell yourself there's no sense in getting involved with other people if they're going to die anyway, but you can't do that anymore, Sherlock. Me, Irene, even Mycroft. You are going to have to let people into your now very public life. You don't get to lock yourself up and pretend you're not human like everyone else."
"I still see no point in involving myself with other people. I can play a part in this pageant as always. There is no need to unnecessarily involve myself. Irene Adler spends nearly all of her year in her home in a drugged haze. She only performs when the camera's on her. There is no reason I cannot do the same."
"It's that easy for you, is it?"
"Yes."
"You machine!"
"I thought I was human. Just like everyone else."
John froze, the tension leaving his shoulders. Sherlock wore a challenge on his face. The challenge seemed more and more blatant the longer the silence stretched on.
"Maybe I was wrong."
... ... ...
John said nothing more.
Sherlock stood at the window of his living room, watching John walk home, his hand unconsciously flexing at his side. It was for the best really. At least, that was what Sherlock told himself when he went to sit back down.
The evening light cut through the crack between the curtains. All was quiet. All was calm. So why did it feel so goddamn hateful?
Late into the night, he repeated his mantra over and over in his head, as if hoping that thinking it enough would make him believe it was true.
Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.
... ... ...
It became a cycle inside his head. First he would wonder if he had been too harsh to Sherlock. Then Sherlock was too harsh. He should go back to his house again and try to reach him a second time. But then he would get angry again, and the whole process would repeat itself.
Mary periodically asked after Sherlock, and John's answers were always so curt that eventually she quit asking entirely.
One day John finally saw him outside, skulking over toward Irene's house. He stopped, locking eyes with John for a few seconds. Sherlock was the one to look away. He did it so easily that John almost believed that everything he had said was true, even though John had his doubts. It had felt more like a coping mechanism than honesty.
Still, John had no idea where Sherlock stood. Had he been intentionally patronizing? Was it really all an act?
John had said something to that effect to Mary, and when she insisted that the only solution would just be to go to Sherlock and actually talk to him, he decided he would keep his thoughts to himself.
Sherlock didn't even notice Irene was in his house until she turned on all the lights. He squinted, glaring at her as she stood by a lamp, rolling her eyes at him.
"The world is at a standstill," she said, dragging a chair in front of him and sitting down, legs crossed.
"Last I checked, it was turning perfectly fine."
"I meant you and John."
"I know what you meant. However I don't know why you felt the need to break into my house to tell me that."
"Your door isn't locked."
"Precisely. So you can quite easily turn around and walk out it." He gave a wave of his hand. She remained seated, unimpressed.
"Quit being recalcitrant. Now, what did you say to him?"
"Excuse me?"
"I know it was you that started this silly silent treatment. What did you say?" Sherlock bristled, but said nothing, looking away and trying to ignore her.
Irene reached out and grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look at her. "Listen to me." Her voice was so uncharacteristically serious that when she let go, he begrudgingly stayed where she'd positioned him. "If you two don't start being honest with each other you will be making the whole situation worse for yourselves. When I came back from the arena, I would have killed twenty-three more tributes just to have someone here who knew how I felt that I could turn to. Kate couldn't understand. She still doesn't, really. I scared her to death so many times right after I got back. No one can understand what people like us have been through except those who have experienced it first hand." She sat back a little in her seat, but she was still leaning forward toward him. "You two have been afforded a rare opportunity. And you're throwing it away for what? A sense of superiority?" She shook her head. "You have the rest of your life ahead of you, and you will be miserable trying to get through it alone. No, don't open your mouth, don't say a word to me. You will be miserable. You're already miserable. And no one here thinks half as much of you as John does. You think you'll find support from anyone else? Do you think your ego will keep the arena from haunting you? Speaking from experience I can assure you that it won't."
"Your error is in assuming that John Watson and I have attachments to each other."
"You do. Everyone knows. Even Mary Morstan knows it isn't an act, so I wish the two of you would just quit pretending that it is. Especially you."
"I do not lend myself to sentiment, Miss Adler."
"I don't care what you lend yourself to."
"None of this is your concern. You did your job. Now you can spend the rest of the year in your usual state of drugs and debauchery and leave me alone."
"Perhaps I should tell John that you've been stealing my syringes. It would certainly make him come break the silence, although I can't guarantee that would be the only thing he'd break." Sherlock's eyes widened. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice?" She reached out and grabbed his arm, pushing the sleeve of his robe back. "Look at that. Matching marks," she said, giving a cursory glance to her own arm. He jerked away from her grasp.
"It keeps my mind occupied."
"No, it keeps your mind numb. You'll end up dead that way. So should I tell him? I don't think your sweet little healer would be very pleased with you." Sherlock crossed his arms and sank a little deeper into his seat. "Do you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr. Holmes? However hard you try, it's always a self-portrait."
"You think I'm an emotionally bankrupt junkie?"
"No, I think you're damaged, delusional, and I would say you believed in a higher power, but the closest you come to that is believing in John Watson. That has always been the case. Acts like the one you two pulled are just elaborate disguises agreed upon by two people. What does your act say about you, then?" Sherlock shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Are you feeling exposed?"
"Not in the slightest."
She gave him a cocky, slightly superior smile. "Attempting to pretend continues to fail you."
"So, what? You think threatening me will force me into some emotional baring of the heart? I regret to inform you that it will not."
"I'm not telling you to bare your heart. I'm telling you to get off your high horse. And I'm not threatening you. Yet." She stood and walked toward the door, stopping with her hand on the knob. She looked over her shoulder. "But if I have to see you staring out your window or him walking around looking like a kicked dog for much longer, don't think I'm above it."
Sherlock had gotten dressed and made it all the way to his front door before he started feeling doubtful. It took him nearly ten minutes to decide to actually step outside.
John was standing on the front steps, staring at the ground. When he looked up, surprised, Sherlock tried to wipe his own face clear of any hint of shock.
"What, did you hear me walking up?"
"Of course," he said, feigning indifference.
"We need to talk."
"Has the woman been to see you?"
"Irene? No, why?"
Sherlock shook his head and stepped aside, waving John in. John stopped a few feet inside, waiting as Sherlock closed the door.
"We can't keep doing this."
"What do you mean, John?"
"You know what I mean. It'll save time if you quit acting like you don't."
Sherlock gave a tiny nod of agreement and followed John into the living room. When John sat down on the sofa, Sherlock sat beside him.
"I've been talking to Mary the last few days," he said, folding his hands as if in prayer. "And I realized I don't know what to tell her."
"About the Games?"
"About anything. But yes, especially the Games."
"The woman said she had similar difficulties with the girl she's always around, Kate or whatever her name is."
John nodded. "What can you tell people who haven't been there?"
"You can tell them as much as you'd like. Just don't expect them to have the faintest idea of what you are actually saying. People are only marginally intelligent on the best of days. Usually they're incapable of understanding the simplest of concepts. So none of us can expect them to understand this."
"Irene doesn't quite understand either."
Sherlock frowned. "Why wouldn't she? She lived it just as we did."
"No, she didn't. Because she always knew she was coming back alone if she came back at all."
"Isn't that all we could assume for ourselves as well?"
"If we had genuinely believed that, we would have killed each other a long time ago."
"What? You spent the entirety of the Games just hoping we'd both walk out of the arena alive?"
"Didn't you?"
"No. I hoped you would walk out alive." John fell silent, watching Sherlock grow more uncomfortable. "I have never been known for my sense of self-preservation, John." John continued to stare at him, feeling sadder than he had in a long time.
When he finally looked away, he rubbed his hands over his eyes and said, "How are we going to live anymore? Christ, how does anyone come to terms with this? We've killed people, Sherlock. We've seen people die. How are we going to get through the day?"
"Adler seems to favor injections."
"Don't joke."
"I'm not joking. People come up with ways to cope. They aren't ideal, but nothing is."
"I have dreams about the arena."
"The human brain is complex, and unfortunately, filled with the potential for rather terrible things."
"Have you had dreams too?"
"I'm not human, remember. I'm a machine."
John looked up at him, his hands dropping. "I should never have said that."
"You weren't entirely inaccurate."
"No, I really shouldn't have said that."
Sherlock held up a hand to stop the apologies. "To have dreams requires sleep, of which I have never been a fan. But...you are correct in saying that it is a hard reality to live with."
"I just can't get some of it out of my head."
"I know."
"Will it ever go away?"
"No. It won't."
John nodded, processing information that he surely already knew, but hadn't wanted to accept. "The world is a terrible place."
Sherlock didn't say what he wanted to: Large parts of it are, yes. It was true, but he had a feeling it was the wrong answer to an unasked question. He reached out a hand and laid it on John's shoulder, the closest thing he knew to a comforting gesture.
"We shouldn't have made it out alive," John said. "We were never supposed to survive."
"No, but we did."
"God, we still have the Victory Tour to deal with. Never mind the fact that we'll be mentors now. How are we going to survive that?"
"The only response I can think of is a platitude."
"What?"
"I believe the saying is 'one day at a time,' which aside from being so horribly commonplace, is also probably not that good really, since it doesn't take into account the benefits of careful planning and foresight –"
John laughed, glancing away for a second as he always did when something amused him. He shook his head, smiling at Sherlock. "It'll have to do, though, won't it?"
It had seemed like so long since John had even come close to smiling. This was how he was supposed to look. This was his natural state.
Sherlock's hand shifted from John's shoulder to the back of his neck, John's expression shifting to confusion for one second before Sherlock kissed him.
This kiss was supposed to happen. No cameras, no ulterior motives, impossible to ever explain away with excuses about acts. No way to misinterpret, no way to pretend. The entire country had seen so much of them, but no one could see them now, finally. The world might as well have been only this room.
John's hand on his arm, and then on his face, his thumb brushing over Sherlock's cheek. John pulled back just enough to look him in the eye and say, "Some act." He smirked, drawing a small smile from Sherlock before he closed the distance again.
They said little the rest of the night. There would be time enough for words and battle plans later. For now, everything was just this quiet, unobtrusive little night, hidden away from the watchful eyes and speeches and parades. And even though no amount of comfort, no amount of privacy could ever make up for all they'd been through, it helped.
... ... ...
The next night, when Sherlock showed up on John's doorstep, he didn't even hesitate to let him in.
And when Sherlock fell asleep next to him that night, he wasn't curled up on top of the blankets, facing away and holding himself apart as he had on the train.
John woke once during the night, dreams shaking him from sleep once again, visions of things he wished he'd never seen. He sat up in his bed, breathing deeply as he tried to calm himself. And then he felt the hand on his back, fingers splayed. Sherlock sat next to him, concerned but unsurprised.
John waited, thinking he would speak, but he remained silent, merely waiting as John's breathing slowed to normal. There was nothing Sherlock could say to make it better. They both knew that.
Sherlock lay back, guiding John with a hand on his shoulder to get him to lie down as well. When he had John settled, he ran his fingers along John's wrist, tracing soothing little patterns there, his eyes willing John to calm down. John's heart finally began to quit pounding, and John saw the smallest change in Sherlock's face, relief as John's pulse beat slower beneath his fingers. Sherlock stayed awake until John drifted back to sleep.
When John woke up the next morning, Sherlock was still there, sleeping beside him, his fingers still loosely holding his wrist.
John was a healer, but there were limits to those skills. He couldn't heal Sherlock, and he couldn't heal himself. Things would never be all right, not really. These nights wouldn't last forever. Eventually, they would have to be public figures again, over and over for the rest of their lives. But at least they wouldn't have to face it all alone.
It was, and always had been, the two of them against the rest of the world.