"Silence can mean anger, hostility, disinterest, or any number of other emotions"
John forgets everything about his husband's clothes, and decides he's going to end his pain. He's done with his graceless heart. But he knows he needs time. And time is there with him, glued to him like his second skin. And hell, he's so grateful for that, because Time is a very good friend. He accompanied him in his very solitary moments and Time knows what hurts him, how does it and how that pain will end.
The other and last friend who joins the circle is Destiny.
Destiny tells John he can build his own path, his own way in this world, or he can just accept what he has in his hands. Because Destiny knows what will happen and how much time it will take John to finish, to end his pain. Time and Destiny know the other man. They have known Sherlock for so long that they know which part he will be playing in this. They know what he's doing, how he's doing it and what he will do to finish this. To help John to shoot the pain in his heart.
And help John to break free.
John Watson knows Destiny and Time meet behind his back, that they discuss his life and they are moving all the strings that need to move to keep life going. He isn't their darling. But he knows he's a special case. The God up above had these plans, and John accepts them. And one morning, the other man speaks to him.
"As always John, you see but you don't observe."
An statement. Sherlock Holmes isn't asking, he's stating. His eyes aren't watching, his grey eyes are burning John's skin and his voice isn't being listened to, its shooting John. His blue eyes are full of tears and the head ache comes again, a nose bleed threats to come in plain sight and John hurries down the stairs of their flat to go to work. The Doctor doesn't hears his voice calling him back, and not even footsteps behind him. He's just walking along the streets with his bag in his bad shoulder and his white coat with a red stain. John wonders if Sherlock had noticed that.
At Surgery, Mary, the children's nurse helps him with the red stain and she manages to get it clean. John smiles at her and she asks him again how he feels. The Doctor lies and she believes him. Or that's what he believes, because without saying a word, Mary puts a new photo in the colorful frame over his desk; one photograph of his birthday, John with all the kids. John smiles at her and a new little patient comes in.
The worried mother can't stop talking and the Doctor is lose in his thoughts to stop her nervous and incoherent speech. He know this day isn't and it won't be one of the best ones in his life, but he looks at his little patient's eyes. Blue eyes. The little toddler has blue eyes and for a moment, he's lost in them. He can see youth, hope and a long and beautiful life behind those eyes.
Doctor John Watson wonders what can people see in his eyes.
He assures the mother her little boy is fine, that the fever is normal and he's just growing up. And he even congratulates her, because his patients is indeed a very healthy boy. Sparkles born from her eyes and she thanks him. John is a very modest man, he is. But if he every Thank you Doctor Watson were just a penny, the blonde Doctor would be rich by now. And he smiles because if he were that rich, he would have his own tea factory and maybe he would be happy.
Tea.
Mary brings him tea in the middle morning, just before lunch and they share fifteen minutes without work and concerns. John's eyes dance on her. A happily married woman, young, pretty, with love and passion for his work and most important, for the others. He knows she was special since he met her, years ago when she arrived looking for a job after graduating as a specialized children's nurse. And he remembers how shy she was with him, with most of the Doctors. But just in days, Nurse Mary Morstan won everyone's hearts, even of the most spoiled and capricious little kids and some of their smug and conceited parents.
John thanks her again for the decoration of his office and even for the new posters in the walls. Now there are three more posters among the one about the Solar System. There is one about different animals with their names written below each different figure, another about vegetables and fruits and finally one about a Disney movie John can't really tell what is it about.
The blonde nurse tells him about her plans for her new flat's decoration and he even suggests her wallpaper brands and a few shops he knows will sells her good things for a good price. And somehow, all the sadness and pain his body carries disappear. John feels the relief in his body and a tiny little flame starts to shine in the middle of his chest. He remembers the plans he had for Baker Street once the lovely and charming old woman who owned the place moved to the countryside and left him in charge of the whole house. He wanted his old room for his husband, he wanted to build a den for him, with a place for his chemist set, his books, his notes, even a map of London of the size of the walls for him.
The blonde man wanted to do a lot of things he can't remember why he didn't do them. Why that to do list disappeared in his hands and why the plans they once had fade with time.
Family is the most important thing in someone's life, is where we came from, is what we build with the person we love. And family is all we have in the end.
But if family is all, what does this man has but family?
Baker Street is so silent tonight that he can only hear his own breathing and his own footsteps. His husband is not at home again, and one part of his heart is happy and relieved, but the other is dying with pain. John feels too tired to cook and prepare himself a proper dinner and this time he's not going to Angelo's so instead he prepares himself a cup of tea and a toast with a generous spoonful of strawberry jam and sits in his usual armchair to watch crap telly before going to sleep. It's all the same and the usual, crimes, the weather and so on. His eyes go from one place to another in the sitting room and he sees something wrong is going on.
Before the tears threat him again, he leaves the empty mug in the sink and walks to his room to undress himself and cover his body with the heavy duvet in that bed. The other side, the left side feels so cold. And for a moment, he wonders what he's doing there, lying hopeless and almost lifeless in that half empty bed with a heart as wounded as many stars you can only see in the dark sky of the night.
What is Sherlock Holmes doing with him?
He remembers that dream, the one in which the Greek God of the dream land showed him what he can give him for all eternity if he decides to stay with him, down in the dream land. John frowns and wonders if Time and Destiny are behind that. Because the hell is in the same Earth and the demons are walking between the living ones. He finally comes to terms with what will come and what the God he believes in up above has for him. John just wants to finish the sadness that had infected his heart long time ago, and no matter the pain he feels inside his chest, he doesn't know the cure. Correction, he does know the cure, but he doesn't know who he should ask for it because he's alone. His husband is not here with him and he won't even be here when Destiny and Time finally carried out their plan.
Morpheus takes him back to that dream. And he makes the offer again to the only man he had offered such a thing before. The God knows the pain inside that man's chest. He can see that heart being ripped in countless parts everyday by that mad man. But what Morpheus can't understand, is why Sherlock Holmes inflicts these amounts of pain to this man. Because this man, John Watson had saved lives in the front line in a war, before in the hospitals and after every single day since he had put a foot back in London. He had saved his husband's life every time he could, even putting his own life in the stakes.
Because John can put his own body in front of an armed man just to save Sherlock. And then, the Detective prefers to ignore the only person in the living ones world who really cares and lives for him. But, as Morpheus wonders why John is being taking for granted, he also wonders what John had done to deserve this. Because he doesn't. He deserves Heaven and more. He deserves a happy life, and not what the other man is doing to him.
If John Watson had given his life more than once for lots of people and not only for Sherlock Holmes, what that man had done to deserve a husband like John?
The Greek God forgets, and watches how this man enjoys his dream. He know he will enjoy that sweet and endless joy and happiness soon, because soon he will take John to this world to never let him go.
He wakes up alone in a large and cold bed. The other side is empty and he stretches his arms and yawns, rubbing his blue and tired eyes with the back of his pale palms. It always takes time for him to adjust himself when he wakes up. He had so many good dreams that sometimes when he wakes up he's totally aware of the reality he is living.
John opens the little window in front of the bed and let his palms face the grey and cloudy sky and feels the cold water falling over them. It's raining.
And London without rain is like sadness without tears.
Despite being awake for minutes now, his ears are alert when he feels his mobile buzzing with a new text. Certain DI of the Scotland Yard asks him to go to sign the papers because a mad man is in jail and no one would let him go unless he's there to assure them he's going to behave.
The Doctor wonders when was the last time he needed him.
When he appears, everyone greets him, even the ones he used to dislike years ago. All of them, even the cleaning ladies ask him how is he and why he hadn't been coming like he used to. Just a warm and fake smile and a few wrinkles around his eyes are enough to tell them how grateful he is for their concern. Not like if he is pitying himself. But the events of tonight are calling in his mind. And John Watson wants to take advantage of this rainy day because he knows what will happen but he doesn't know for sure how it will end. What consequences this will bring and what will be of the man who's sitting in a chair behind the bars of a jail.
The good friend Lestrade asks him why he isn't attending to crime scenes and criminal chases and John finds himself speechless because he doesn't even know the reasons. He just knows someone who can tell all the reasons, but he's in jail now. And he knows his husband's reasons are excuses, accusations and bullets.
Just to tease the man, Lestrade walks with him until they are standing in front of him. Sherlock doesn't jump in his seat, or moves. He keeps his expressionless face and walks out once the DI opens the jail door. Not a word. He doesn't say a word and John continues talking about the weather, the kids at surgery, and another amount of things he knows makes his husband desperate.
He thinks and manages to create a logic that sounds so selfish to him, but if he is going to leave, he wants to do it leaving a good memory. Leaving Sherlock wondering, thinking and ripping his hair from his head thinking how he did it. How he managed to leave without saying a word and not even asking for explanation, if there are explanations.
Lestrade tells him the reasons why his husband has been in jail last night. Taking advantage of a crying witness and then assaulting a police car just to take the evidences to investigate by himself. The usual, says John and Sherlock looks at him with a stern look. The Doctor shows no interest in his husband's looks and continues talking, just delaying the moment of signing the documents and help the mad man to get his freedom. He smiles at the senseless jokes the silver haired man does, because he know how much this acting will cost him once outside the Scotland Yard or in Baker Street.
He signs and both men are free to go. And no one talks when the blonde man raises his hand and hails a cab to take him back home when the other man gets inside with him.
Silence.
It's his free day and he regrets it. He really wants to say good bye, not literally but well hidden in a disguise of a promise of seeing them the next day. And John even considers the idea of going to pay them a little visit. He knows what a rainy day means at surgery, with kids and mothers running from one place to another. But he also knows what a rainy day can do to both men. And when they are in 221 B John's eyes are looking back at what was and what could have been. His blue eyes are meeting Sherlock's grey ones and he sees himself there, taking advantage of every occasion. And today was the day. Today was his chance.
And he wasn't going to waste it.
The other man yells. He yells a lot and John listens. Quite and calm, swallowing all the tears he can't let out and listens to every accusation, every lie and every bullet fired by Sherlock's gun is taken by his body. Then he can't hear him. He just sees his pale hands moving in the air, gesturing something he can't quite understand, but he hears a buzzing sound in his ears. Everything is silent but the buzzing is the only thing he can hear. John licks his lips and pouts feeling how cold and sweating his hands are. His knees are weak and he falls in his armchair, tired. He even smiles, making Sherlock Holmes angrier and his yells have a new and high volume now. He doesn't understands or observes that his husband can't hear him and that it's a question of hours.
And then he stops. He stops when he starts hearing himself.
He wonders what had happened to him.
What had happened with both.
Or, let's better say what he had done to that man, deaf and weak in his armchair when the sound of the kettle boiling takes him to the kitchen to see how the rain had stopped and how the sun is shinning again in the sky.
Men have pride, they can't share their feeling and crying is a bad word for them. Most men can't accept their failures and their mistakes. Forgiveness, confession and redemption are something most of the world can't relate with men. And most of this logic can be applied to Sherlock Holmes. But we have to add the fact he's Sherlock Holmes.
And John accepted that.
This afternoon, while John digs in an old box covered with dust lost in the deepest of his old room, he can't stop smiling at the old memories he brings back again when old pictures and objects saved as souvenirs are over the mantelpiece. A picture of both of them wearing hats to hide from the press, one taken with Mrs Hudson when she used to live downstairs and one in their wedding. All of them look so good there plus the deerstalker hat over the yellow skull John knows what kind of mess he will make tomorrow. But then again, he can't help if he's not going to be here to see that.
Tea time passes while he continues digging the box and he glances at his gold ring in his left hand. It looks so shiny and new, even when it has ten years! He always polished it, his and his husband's. But lately, he has been cleaning his only.
He also finds his dog tags, and two flags the Army gave him long time ago when he was invalidated back to London. A Union Jack flag and a Saint George's cross flag perfectly and neatly folded. He raises his eyebrows because it looks like the flags the Army sends to the families of those who had died in the front line. John laughs a bit and sips a bit of his now cold tea.
The Doctor can't stop thinking what will be of his things once he leaves. Maybe they will be helpful to the other man, to feed the fireplace and keep himself warm on the winter days.
John Watson keeps the flat in silence, only interrupted by the busy street outside and prepares everything. His dog tags, the flags, and with papers and a pen in his hands, he occupies his usual place in the desk of the sitting room and writes. He hasn't written a letter in ages, but he knows how to start, what to say and how to finish it. The Doctor only wants people to know why he's leaving and how. John bits the pen and wonders if people would accuse him. So, in the bottom of the sheet, he writes his confession and with that, he lets the other man free of any charges.
No one here is guilty but Sherlock Holmes. But his guiltiness will be judged later, not in a court, not with police officers and not with a public again. His guiltiness will be judged in front of the most difficult jury that could have ever exist; conscience.
You may think he's angry, filled with pain and with the feeling of leaving. But he isn't. John Watson is so calm that he can't believe it himself. He's going to be free and no one can steal that from him. He's finally realizing what he did lose, and what he had given to the other man. Maybe thoughtlessly or not, but John is keeping something inside him no one could and no one will be able to take from his chest. Despite the silence, the hatred, the careless look in his husband's eyes and the coldness of his attitude to him, John is still in love with Sherlock Holmes. A professional masochist he is. No matter how much he thinks and thinks how everything ended, he knows he won't find the answer. Not even leaving. Not even the Detective knows the answer.
But maybe, just maybe leaving will give, at least one of them, the answer both are craving for.
And that answer will make him free.
John Watson wants Sherlock to be free, like him but he knows he will find his freedom in a completely different way than he did.
All alone, it was always there. And it was always standing next to him. There is always something you should feel frightened of, and John was aware of it. He, standing there and watching it coming from the edge of the room. And John Watson knew what was going to happen that night. He had just met his angel. And this angel told him the plans for him. He just nodded.
Originally written between April 6th and 13th.
Sorry for not updating as soon as I finished but I'm currently studying and I have loads of hw everyday.
References to a lot of songs in English and Spanish which are translated for this fic. Got strong feelings with this video, which I highly recommend you /watch?v=1zNfElP3Br8 (youtube). It makes me feel sad, but I think it represents this fic, more or less, and I've John's letter. Tell me if you want me to include it here.
Thanks for the reviews. I wasn't expecting any, to be honest. This may be a bit confusing, but things will get clear. I promise.
No one wondered what does the title means?