John woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and a sore throat. Lack of sleep and stress had been taking its toll, throwing his immune system out of sorts. The doctor just lay in bed contemplating whether he should call in for that day. It was one of those days, where the concept of getting up and facing the world seemed impossible, as though stepping one foot out of bed would set him aflame and that would be that. Perhaps just waiting a few more minutes would give him more clarity, and more health. Maybe a shower would do him some good. Or, maybe Sherlock being alive would do him some good. But not today.
His hand delicately wove out from beneath the covers and came out to settle on his mobile on the nightstand. Sarah sounded rather impatient, threatening once again with the possibility of joblessness before grudgingly giving him the day off.
He limped sluggishly to the kitchen, catching the tendrils of dust and stagnancy on his clothes, feeling the more pertinent absence in the hollow of his chest. In his usual spot at the table, he continued staring out of the window unseeingly. The walls and time meshed together, creating an unwanted trip of blending paints and varying colors of the sky which all seemed to fall into the similar shape of Sherlock.
It was funny, John mused, how he could see Sherlock everywhere, yet he couldn't figure much out of a Rorschach blot or an Impressionist painting. He was a pragmatic military man who somehow managed to finagle words as he did weaponry. But there he was, the world's consulting detective, showing up as the clouds in his tea like Jesus does on flat bread.
He once brought up the concept with Mrs. Hudson, wondering if she too also saw Sherlock loping about, with his dark curls and upturned collar, but she didn't so much as remember the magnificent shade of his eyes. John though, he remembered everything. Which was probably why the phantom phone call had disturbed him so much- the voice on the other end of the line was so tangibly and unmistakably Sherlock, and with a voice comes a body, and John had no problem supplying an image to resonate absence.
The next event John could recall after his lamenting reverie was going to bed with his dearly departed friend on his mind.
Sleep that night was as fitful as the night before, with the sounds of men and cars being blown apart and the sensation of the quaking ground. It had been a while since John had been here, screaming the names of his men as if the sheer sound would capture the lights leaving their eyes until a better medic could come down and help them. He could feel the hot tears blurring his vision as the bullet hit his arm, and he could feel the hot ground beneath him as he crumpled in pain. His eyelids screwed up, a soft sob escaping his lips, but it sounded odd. Panic seized him as he opened his eyes, fearing possible damage to his temporal lobe when he saw familiar, lifeless blue eyes in front of him.
"No Sherlock, no..." he breathed desperately, ignoring his arm in favor of
checking the consulting detective's vitals. "Sherlock, what are you doing here, I told you to get me, I told you to stay with me, come on Sherlock, you have to stay with me..." No pulse, no breath, no fluttering eyelids.
"Sherlock...Sherlock please..."
Sherlock sat in his regular chair, legs crossed and elbow resting on the arm of the chair with his chin resting in the crook between his thumb and forefinger, eyes fixed pointedly ahead. Mrs. Hudson quietly let him in for the umpteenth time, fixing a look of somber disapproval for the umpteenth time. But those gazes were puny and insignificant in comparison to the sobs and wails coming from his doctor's room. That was the reason Mrs. Hudson didn't keep Sherlock out. The silly woman worried each time that the screams elicited from the poor man were caused by the ripples of Moriarty's dying power, and Sherlock's presence assured her that he was fine, it was all just night terrors.
But of course, night terrors were boring. Grief was also boring, as was supposed death and calling someone who has perfect vocal capabilities but refuses to speak. However, he realized boredom was the price to pay for the safety of the people he was… fond of, and that was something he had to live with. Damn that niggling fondness which is the weakness of all men, even the impregnable Sherlock Holmes.
He wandered about his mind palace as he waited for John to come-to, clearing out some files in one of his many cabinets and remembering the last time he was here while John was drugged with the power of suggestion. Another particularly piercing howl snapped Sherlock back, and he realized his
hand had turned into a white-knuckled fist. It wasn't logical, nor most importantly physically possible, to have one's hot heart residing completely in someone else. Sometimes he blamed Moriarty for it, implementing the power of suggestion once again to throw him off.
A quick glance at the clock told him that John would wake soon, saved by the
infuriating trill of his alarm clock. Most mornings, John would trudge down and catch a glimpse of Sherlock deftly escaping through their door, or going into his room, or maybe even notice the breeze brought on a window he never opened. He would make his tea, and perhaps once in a few days he'd have half a slice of toast with some jam. Sherlock knew this wasn't healthy, that John had sunk into a depression similar to the one he was in after Afghanistan.
He knew the limp was back and that John had been steadily hiding away his heavy, psychotropic pills for an unbearably rainy day. These were all of the primary reasons Sherlock decided to come back, but the main one was simple: he allowed himself to give in to peculiar instinct and feel human. For some reason, curling back up into his brain and solitude hurt his acuity and detachment, and that simply could not be. It took a while for Sherlock to realize what was missing from the hypothesis to produce an effective result, and he found that it was his flat mate. It wasn't a sappy dependency belonging to storybooks and romantic comedies; it was a tiny step in the procedure which proved crucial to an ideal outcome. John Watson was essential for a maximum output of Sherlock's intelligence, or as Sherlock imagined once or twice, the Alfred to his mind palace.
A soft patter of rain gave way to torrential downpour outside of the flat window, and a crack of lightning illuminated the room to wake the distressed doctor. His eyes opened with a snap, and as if on cue, a roll of thunder lumbered through the waves of precipitation. He felt the sting of tears and the dampness of sweat when he finally finished focusing on calming his breathing.
The clock on the stand passively stated the time as 4:12 AM. Lightning flashed through the open curtains, and the rain pounded even harder against the flimsy glass. The weather woman hadn't warned of a massive storm waking the residents of London like a freight train out of Hell, but John took as Mother Nature's sympathy to pull him out of his nightmare. In the rain, it seemed, everything just washed away for a while, leaving the base of the earth and taking away all of the grime and pain and blood.
What was more, rain, particularly the morning variety, was tea weather.
John swung his legs over the side of the bed with a grunt, allowed his feet to adapt to the cold, stood, stretched, and left in blind search of the stairs. A warm shiver travelled up his body as his foot hit the edge of the first step, limping down the rest of the way practically on the railing.
"Damn my leg."
"I thought I fixed it."
John froze, his hands gripping the end of the railing in painful fists. His eyes screwed shut as he realized he was still dreaming.
"It's all a dream, this isn't real..." A cold hand laid on his sweaty one, and his eyes snapped open once again to see the very alive irises of Sherlock Holmes in 221B Baker Street.
"Of course you're not dreaming, John. If you were, you certainly wouldn't have the foresight to realize it."
John sat in silence for the better part of two hours, just staring into his cold tea and figuring out how to think again. In most of his daydreams, he imagined hugging his dear friend upon his return, or clapping him on the back, or at the very least calling him a bloody wanker for the stunt he pulled. Say something, anything, to truly mark how monumental this occasion was in relation to his deteriorated mental health. However, his frontal lobe seemed to have sustained a massive injury between the time he got out of bed and when he saw Sherlock, because not one coherent word could be formed. To be honest, he was more aware of Sherlock bustling about and disdainfully salvaging his skull from dust than his cerebellum was about maintaining proper posture or anything else. The dust motes were being set ablaze by the incendiary being that was Sherlock, taking with them the waves of absence.
"John, you have had no brain injuries, no danger, no trauma of any kind. So
speak," Sherlock bit impatiently, quitting his pacing and fixing a passive glare on the doctor.
A word rose up in his throat like a lead balloon, threatening to blow him to bits if saying it was the magic word to wake him from this dream, this absolute dream where he felt so...happy. Dare he say it? Dare he succumb to this demon which had been attempting to draw him out since its materialization on the telephone? He registered a huff of aggravation and suddenly Sherlock's palms slapped down on the table in front of John, lowering himself to meeting John's own eyes with his own annoyed ones.
"John. Speak."
"Huh-" He stopped to clear his throat, shaking his head and blinking to shake the front of his brain back into gear. "Hello."
A grin split Sherlock's face in two before he dashed out of the flat yet again.
And there goes chapter 3. I really hope this story is worth something of a damn, please feel free to tell me if it isn't. But I will say this: I feel like I might actually finish it. Luckily, Sherlock is not getting old for me at all.