Sherlock fell backward into the grass on the cliff-side of the path and John landed on top of him, hands at his collar. Sherlock, having trained in boxing and judo, had extensive experience with hand-to-hand fighting and lighting fast reflexes. The second they hit the ground he rolled, flipping them over so that John lay on his back beneath him. John, however, had earned a reputation among his army regiment as the soldier to beat in the extracurricular wrestling matches. He was used to wrestling people taller than him, and instinctually he knew what to do.
Sherlock's grip was loose and John was able to spin around underneath him so that he was on his stomach. Before Sherlock could put enough pressure on him, John pulled his knees under him, and pushed up and back against Sherlock, throwing him off and standing.
John turned just in time to see Sherlock leap to his feet. He rushed at Sherlock but the detective was already whipping off his coat. He threw it in John's face and used his momentary blindness to dive into his waist, tackling him to the ground. Apparently following John's lead, because John hadn't hit him, Sherlock didn't hit John either, but instead braced his forearm across John's collarbone, pinning him there.
"Dirty trick, Sherlock," John hissed furiously.
"It worked." Sherlock's eyes were blazing.
This time he was lying fully spread over John, using his weight to prevent him from turning. But John wasn't ready to give up yet. He wound one leg around Sherlock's to bind it and found traction with his other shoe to use as a pivot point. (He was better dressed than Sherlock for an impromptu wrestling match. But on the other hand the detective rarely fought in anything less than 'business casual,' so the point was probably moot.) He grabbed Sherlock's shoulder and with a surge of strength flipped them over.
On top of a coatless Sherlock now he grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket (perfectly tailored, as usual, though John was not in the mood to appreciate it). He lifted Sherlock's shoulders up and shoved him back, hard, into the ground. In return Sherlock grabbed a fistful of John's t-shirt and pulled him roughly sideways.
They went on for some time, each evaded manoeuvre only fuelling the frustration and desperate need to pin the other, to win.
John heard his own breath rough and heavy in his ears and was gratified to hear Sherlock panting from the effort as well. It seemed that John Watson, who would never hold a candle to Sherlock's intellect, was a decent match for him physically.
They rolled over and over again, slamming each other into the ground, until finally Sherlock got John in a chokehold.
Sherlock was lying on his side, arm wrapped around John's neck from behind. He grunted trying to control John's flailing, which slowed after a moment, and Sherlock was alarmed when John suddenly went limp in his arms.
Sherlock instantly released his grip and John seized the opportunity, grabbing Sherlock's right wrist with his left hand, kicking off the ground, flipping over, and straddling the stunned detective's waist. No mistakes this time. Still holding Sherlock's right wrist, he was able to pin the arm to the ground. He caught Sherlock's left forearm with his right hand and held it in firmly place. Sherlock glared at him viciously and John saw the colours in his eyes burn.
"Dirty trick, John," he spat.
"It worked," John returned vengefully.
Sherlock squirmed ineffectively, and John knew he'd won. He'd pinned army guys much bigger than him with this same hold and he knew it would work as well on his flatmate. Sherlock seemed to realise this and stopped struggling.
Breathing heavily, eyes locked together, neither one moved.
John tightened his grip on Sherlock's wrist. His right wrist. That goddamn wrist. The one he reached for over and over in his dreams. The one he'd held on the street in front of Barts with his left hand, head spinning from shock and the realisation he couldn't breathe, waiting for a pulse that never came…
Now the wrist was throbbing with the rapid beating of Sherlock's heart; so full of life and energy he could feel it fluttering wildly against his palm. John sucked in a sharp breath at experiencing the sensation his brain had only simulated in dreaming—willing a heartbeat into veins that had been devastatingly still.
And then he remembered why there had been no pulse. Sherlock had cut it off himself to trick him. His anger flared. His hold, which had slackened slightly in surprise at the force of Sherlock's pulse, retightened to a death grip. His dominant hand crushing Sherlock's dominant wrist.
If it hurt, Sherlock gave no indication. He remained motionless and John watched as his eyes cooled and his breathing evened. The wind lifted his black curls back from forehead. He finally broke their eye contact by turning his head to the side.
"No, look at me," John commanded, voice low.
Sherlock turned his head back but his gaze travelled above John's head to the sky.
"Look at me," John repeated, steady.
Sherlock blinked and when he opened his eyes they locked on John's. John's breath caught in his chest. Being the sole focus of Sherlock's attention, on the few occasions it happened, was an unnerving experience. (Even when he had Sherlock on his back, immobilised in the grass, that incomparable bastard still managed to be intimidating.) To have all of Sherlock's intellectual power concentrated on him at once—that magnificent mind, ceaselessly analysing and calculating at a dizzying pace—was a crushing sensation. But John persisted. He had Sherlock's attention and he was going to use it.
"No, look at me," John commanded, voice low.
Sherlock snapped his head back to give John one of his severest glares, but stopped. The adrenaline from the fight subsiding, he'd regained enough peripheral awareness to notice his surroundings again. They had moved a considerable distance from the path and were now quite close to the edge of the cliff. (They would have been worryingly close if anyone's mother had been there to worry about it.)
John's head was bent over his and he was looking intensely into Sherlock's face. He was still using a significant amount of pressure to hold him in place, though Sherlock had stopped resisting a while ago. John's back was to the edge of the cliff, and behind him the sun was sinking into the water, leaving the sky scorched in its wake. It lit John's hair, burning it red-gold.
"Look at me," John repeated, steady.
Sherlock's focus flicked from red to dark blue as it centred sharply on John's eyes. They sparked with an electricity that Sherlock could almost feel running through John's body where it was pressing heavily into him—heat in energy—and through his hands that were gripping Sherlock's arms hard enough to bruise.
Sherlock remained still, eyes locked on John's.
"You want to do experiments on me? Hm? You want to manipulate my life according to what you think is best for me?"
Sherlock guessed it was a rhetorical question and stayed silent. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the wind rising off the cliffs and the sea below.
"You thought I'd do better without you?" John was not finished with rhetorical questions. "Find a nice wife and settle down to a nice quiet life. You become just a good pub story?"
The waves tumbled and crashed and Sherlock wondered if John was aware of how hard he was actually gripping his wrist.
"God, is that what you think of me? Is that what you think I want? In all this time have you not figured it out?"
Sherlock waited, curious.
"Do you really not know that I'm bloody insane?" John hissed. "I don't want a normal life, Sherlock. What I want is to follow you straight up to the gates of Hell and die fighting whatever meets us there."
Sherlock felt a wave of endorphins rush through his body. It was exactly what he'd needed to hear—what he'd wanted to be true but couldn't believe was. John had proven his courage and tenacity time and time again, but somehow Sherlock had never quite believed it was possible he could have found someone who would—or not would but wanted to— But John was here, saying it now, the intensity of his stare boring into Sherlock's eyes. And he knew it was true the same way he knew John. He wanted to smile. Because he felt the same. Exactly the same. They were two soldiers with an intolerance for peacetime; they were meaningless, purposeless, without the war.
In hindsight it was obvious. He'd been stupid, stupid. The experiment had been arranged under the assumption that its subject was sane. A colossal waste of time. Had Sherlock actually convinced himself that without his influence John would simply turn around and find happiness in a kind of average, married, domestic lifestyle? He'd let John go and he'd found an assassin.
"I'm sorry," Sherlock said, and he truly was. "I should have told you I was alive." He really should have.
An average (read: substantially more boring) person probably would have proven his hypothesis correct, but god, how many times was he going to underestimate the man who currently had him pinned on his back in the grass? Sherlock could feel the tension in John's muscles at the points where their bodies were in contact. John Watson. The blond-haired, blue-eyed doctor who'd looked Sherlock's demons in the eyes and eliminated them with a steady hand. There was no question about John's place. It was at his side.
Fuck, Sherlock thought, even closing his eyes at the profundity of his mistake. John should have smashed his head into the ground a long time ago. It would have saved them the agony of a two-year experiment that Sherlock thought they both needed but realised now they never did.
Those two years had been nearly unbearable. As much as he knew it had hurt John, it hadn't been any picnic for Sherlock either.
The experiment was simple. John had to believe Sherlock was dead in requirement with the plan to defeat Moriarty. Sherlock would merely allow John to continue to think so. His hypothesis was that given enough time John would get over his infatuation with Sherlock's work and crime-fighting lifestyle in favour of settling down to a quieter life. Because didn't Sherlock believe the worst about people, and didn't he like to push them toward it? Don't we all do our best to fulfil our own pessimistic prophesies?
Of course he knew John liked danger, had needed it even, but how long could that possibly last? With a few years' hiatus—without Sherlock monopolising his time—John would be able to clearly assess his other options. By the time Sherlock arrived back in London (assuming he wasn't killed in action) John would have stabilised enough in his new life to make an informed decision about how much time he wanted to devote to Sherlock and his work and his danger. With enough distance and the option for a different life, surely John wouldn't choose Sherlock. (Would he?)
The experiment was necessary, he believed, because John was too close to him. Sherlock had never been a constant presence in anyone's life before. Based on his peers' reaction to his presence for even short durations he concluded that prolonged exposure to him must be significantly detrimental. And he needed to know. He wanted evidence—measurements, exact numbers—that could tell him how adverse his presence in John's life had been, and how much John's life would be improved without it.
He thought of requesting regular reports from Mycroft on John's progress, but then decided against it. He found the thought of reading that John was getting along effortlessly without him turned his stomach equally as the thought of reading that John was miserable. It would be best if he didn't know. Because in either case he might not be able to stop himself from turning up in London to shake John by the shoulders. And that would ruin the whole experiment.
His work was brutal; the two years spent sabotaging Moriarty's network were a torturous test of his physical endurance, which added strain to his mental stamina. And not having John with him only made things that much worse. He wasn't lying when he returned and told John, "I've nearly been in contact so many times."
Oddly, the temptation to contact John was strongest when Sherlock was cold. Huddled in an alleyway in Helsinki waiting for his target, eavesdropping on a fire escape in Moscow for hours waiting for one pertinent piece of information, tracking terrorists in Syria through freezing desert nights… In those coldest hours he went back to Baker Street in his mind palace. He opened the door and it was warm and John was there, moving around the kitchen in one of his jumpers, usually making tea.
Each time Sherlock entered it was clear that the warmth was emanating from John rather than the radiator, a mind palace defect perhaps, but the closer he moved toward John the warmer he felt, until he was standing directly in front of him and John would look up and the glow of his hair under the kitchen light and the brightness of his expression were enough to illuminate even the darkest places Sherlock found himself during those two years.
Sometimes he started text messages. Because just the possibility of reaching across the void to the one pinpoint of light glowing so faintly and so far away in London—the potential for even an electronic connection—was enough to send a thrill down his spine and through to his fingertips. But he couldn't. He needed to know if his hypothesis was correct.
So his instructions to Mycroft were tell him nothing of John barring serious illness or injury. Funny to think that if John had only come down with pneumonia, or gotten non-fatally stabbed, Sherlock would have been at his side as fast as he could get to an airport. Mission paused. Experiment cancelled. But John didn't do either and Sherlock deleted all of the half-written messages he typed into his phone.
"I'm sorry," Sherlock said with unaffected expression. John felt the deep register of his voice resonate in his chest. "I should have told you I was alive."
The sincerity in Sherlock's artless words had an immediate impact on John. He felt his anger evaporating and the tension leaving his muscles. But still he hesitated. He was well acquainted with Sherlock's talent as an actor. He searched his face for clues that the detective was pretending. But John knew that when Sherlock was acting it was usually in order to fake emotion: sympathy and smiles in exchange for information, distress in exchange for forgiveness, tears to sell a ruse. Sherlock's total lack of emotional expression now suggested sincerity. No ticking bombs, no desperate overtures, just Sherlock on his back in the grass waiting for John's response.
Of course John was aware of the probability that Sherlock was simply telling him what he wanted to hear so that John would let him up, but then John also knew he had to trust him. Nothing would work between them if he didn't trust Sherlock. So, despite the number of times Sherlock had lied to him, tricked him, drugged him, etc. he knew that one more time, as always, he would have to accept Sherlock's words unquestioningly. He had to believe in the core of himself, which was forever believing in Sherlock Holmes.
He wasn't kidding about being insane: a March hare who needed his mad hatter.
John released his grip, and perhaps surprisingly Sherlock did not shove him off the cliff, or even shove him off his body, but instead remained unmoving on the ground as John rolled off of him and collapsed into an exhausted heap in the grass.
After a moment Sherlock sat up. His curls were hopelessly tousled.
"I didn't—" Sherlock paused. "I wasn't aware of the extent to which you would be affected by my absence."
John looked at the sky. He hadn't thought they would talk about this again. He'd forgiven Sherlock when he thought they were going to die and then when they hadn't he'd done his best to put it behind him. But it had occurred to him—just a moment ago when they were doing their best to throttle each other—that a bit more discussion on the subject might be in order.
John shut his eyes and for an instant saw the inverted scattering of sunset light on the inside of his eyelids. Sherlock 'wasn't aware of the extent to which he would be affected by his absence?' Hadn't Sherlock considered how he would have felt if their situations had been reversed? He guessed not. The world's only consulting detective was not known for his ability to empathise.
From where he was lying in the grass John turned his head to the side to give Sherlock a hard look, but it softened when he saw that the detective had drawn his knees to his chest and looped his arms around them. The posture, which John had often seen Sherlock adopt while thinking, was endearingly childlike for a tall man wearing an expensive suit.
He wasn't aware of the extent to which John would be affected… Was it true then? Did Sherlock really not know? Was it possible he really didn't realise…
"You really didn't realise…? You didn't...?" John trailed off as he became aware he was speaking out loud. He turned his head back to the sky.
"What?" Sherlock asked.
"I suppose you also weren't aware that the way you did it… would have additional…" He couldn't believe he was saying this. As soon as Sherlock had shown up in London he'd determined never to speak of it, never to think of it again. "Never mind," he said abruptly.
But it was too late. Sherlock was officially curious. "Say it."
John crossed his arms over his chest, angry with himself for having unconsciously started down this path. "It doesn't matter. It's stupid. You didn't commit suicide; you didn't die. It's irrelevant now."
"Say it," Sherlock repeated. John knew better than anyone there was no deterring a curious consulting detective.
John groaned and sat up. He looked at Sherlock directly and said, "The way you did it, the way you 'committed suicide,' you made it seem like it was my fault."
Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
John gave a short laugh. "You really didn't even consider it. It would have been such an inconsequential detail in your plan."
Sherlock was clearly not enjoying being unaware of what John was talking about. John could have exploited this rare moment—holding information Sherlock didn't have—as Sherlock would have done, but he was John, and he didn't.
John was looking at Sherlock earnestly as he said, "You called me. You called me from the roof of the building. People who are determined to kill themselves don't call someone. They write a note, maybe, because a note is concrete. It's final. A note can't argue with you. The people who call someone when they're about to commit suicide are usually people who don't really want to do it; they want someone to talk them out of it."
A cold feeling was seeping into Sherlock's stomach as he realised where John was going with this.
John swallowed and looked away. "I thought you called me," he said, directing his words out over the cliffs, "because you didn't want to die, and you thought I could give you a good enough reason to live."
The cold crept up and tightened across Sherlock's chest. Of course that's what it must have seemed like to John. He and Mycroft had structured it that way, hadn't they? The plan had been for Sherlock to jump off the roof and the world (and John) would believe he did it because he felt worthless—his detective skills faked, the world against him, no reason to live. Newspaper headlines: Suicide of Fake Genius. The plan had required him to call John to ensure John saw him fall, and to keep him in place. But from John's perspective… He'd never even considered it from John's perspective.
"I couldn't," John continued, still not looking at Sherlock. "I saw you on the roof and I froze. I couldn't… You told me you were a fake and I tried to argue with you. That was one argument in our whole bloody time together that I needed to win, that I could have won… But you were on the roof and I couldn't think… I said everything wrong. There wasn't enough time. And you—" John looked over and for a moment there was an emotion in his eyes Sherlock didn't recognise, but he blinked and it was gone. John looked away and shrugged. "And you jumped."
The cold clenched around Sherlock's heart and he looked down at the grass. Anywhere but John's face would do at the moment.
"I hated myself for two years for not being able to save you." He heard John take a breath. "I couldn't stop thinking that the phone call was you asking me to do the same thing you had done for me…"
Sherlock snapped his head up. They had never discussed what John's own situation had been in the weeks before they'd met. Sherlock had read it, of course: PTSD-related depression, increasing severity of suicidal thoughts. He'd read it along with all of the other information he'd initially catalogued about John, but he didn't mention it—not when he relayed his deductions about him or any time later.
But of course John would see Sherlock's call from the rooftop of Barts as a mirror of his own distress when they'd met in the lab. Except Sherlock had saved John and John hadn't saved Sherlock. He couldn't have. There was nothing he could have said. There was nothing he could have done. It was rigged. Sherlock was always going to jump. He was always going to die. John's part in it had only been for show. But he hadn't known that. In a flash of clarity Sherlock understood: In John's mind Sherlock had been a good enough reason for him to live, but he hadn't been a good enough reason for Sherlock to live.
Sherlock's throat felt dry. Possibilities for sentences were sluggish about forming in his mind. Despicable emotions. They clouded his mind when he most needed to think clearly. What could he say? He hadn't known any of this until now. He didn't see things from other people's perspectives. He'd never learned to because he'd never been interested. No one else's perspective was as enlightened or interesting as his own, so why bother? But now, the consequence was looking at him vulnerably, with that familiar, open expression, explaining pain, the pain he'd caused.
"I suppose you have no idea how many nights I laid awake trying to think of what I should have said to you in that two-minute phone call," John said. "How many arguments I put together… carefully constructed sentences, perfected word choice… Which words would have saved you? In what order?"
"John—" Sherlock started having absolutely no words to follow.
But John spoke immediately, "No, it doesn't matter. That's the point. That's why I didn't want to—was never going to say anything. Because it's all so unbelievably stupid. You were never going to kill yourself." John shook his head. "You didn't need me to tell you anything. And now that I know I'm glad I didn't say more, because I would have looked that much stupider."
John looked away and something occurred to Sherlock.
"I wasn't laughing at you," he said, knowing this was the unquestioned answer John needed to hear. John looked back at him, waiting. A step in the right direction but it wasn't enough. He'd already apologised. Apologising again wouldn't have any further effect. He needed to give John something in return for what he'd told him. It was the only way.
"I wasn't laughing at you," Sherlock repeated. "That phone call," he said looking at John's chest because it was easier than looking at his eyes, "it wasn't just part of the trick. It was the only way I could say goodbye. I knew the mission I'd accepted would take years, and I didn't know if I'd come back." Sherlock cleared his throat. "It was—the phone call was—for me, the very least enjoyable part of the plan." The hardest part. He hoped John would be able to infer the words he couldn't make himself say. It was a real goodbye. His tears were for the sniper's benefit, he'd been prepared to tell anyone who asked. No one had asked.
He risked a glance upward but John's expression, for once, was unreadable.
"The mission was practically unmanageable, even for me," Sherlock continued. "I didn't want you worrying or waiting for me. I had hoped the results of my—I realise now—misguided experiment would include you finding a more pleasant way to spend those years than I did."
There was a silence and Sherlock listened to the waves lapping at the cliffs below. The sky was a brilliant array of warm colours but nothing was more interesting than the person sitting in front of him, sitting cross-legged with an unzipped hoodie hanging loosely off of one shoulder and his hands slowly worrying some blades of grass he'd unconsciously ripped from the ground. He was looking out over the cliffs and Sherlock watched the profile of his face. John's face had such soft features, his rounded nose and kind eyes; nothing sharp, nothing dramatic. Women probably liked him for his honest, youthfully handsome face. He seemed built to inspire trust, and Sherlock had done everything in his power to shatter it. Now he waited, one more time, as always, for his friend's forgiveness.
"So we'll add it to the list of your failed experiments then," John said finally, and when he looked over Sherlock was startled to see what looked like mirth in his eyes. How could one human being, with such specific and sturdy shoulders and knees and hands, be so complicated? Wasn't John just swearing furiously at him and knocking him to the ground? Wasn't he just vulnerable, admitting how broken he'd been? Could he really be amused now? Sherlock had a much better understanding of corpses than he did of people.
Or perhaps it was just further evidence that John was indeed mad. Sherlock leapt to his feet and held out his hand. John took it, allowing Sherlock to help him to his feet.
"It's true," Sherlock said when they were facing each other, "you are a bit mad."
John tilted his head down as he often did when he smiled. He chuckled and said, "You're just getting this now? What other kind of person would spend time helping you pick an upset jar of eyeballs off the kitchen floor?"
"You must be absolutely raving," Sherlock agreed with a quirk of his eyebrow. He turned to walk back toward where his coat had been tossed in the course of their skirmish. "Especially since you seem to be under the impression that I have enough failed experiments to comprise a list."
"Oh no," John said, following just behind him. "Your experiments always go swimmingly. Like the time you turned the living room radioactive. Great leap of progress for science on that one."
Sherlock swung his coat on over his shoulders. "That was one time." He remembered the text he'd sent to John that evening: Stay at pub a few more hours. Living room slightly radioactive. SH
"You do know that I let you win the fight just now," Sherlock opted to change the subject as he started back toward the path.
"Sure," Jon said in a cavalier tone that Sherlock did not at all care for.
Sherlock bristled. "If we were boxing I would've beat you faster than you can string two thoughts together."
"So you admit I beat you," John said.
"I admit nothing. I'm just commenting that boxing is my preferred method of fighting."
"Duly noted."
They reached the car park and it occurred to Sherlock to mention, "Someone ransacked the flat while we were away."
John stopped walking. "What?"
"It's been scrubbed within an inch of its life," Sherlock lamented. "It's horrible. Absolutely no dust left. Not one speck."
Sherlock looked back and John smiled as he resumed walking.
They drove off just as the last hues of colour were fading from the sky.