John stared mouth agape at Sherlock for what felt like years, drinking in the sight of his flatmate looking nonchalant in the sitting room as though he had never left. Never died. Yes, the man in front of John was very much not dead. And that was beautiful.
"Sher-" John swallowed around a lump in his throat and began again. "Sherlock?" His voice shook, not with anger but with desperation. Hope, sure. Joy, of course. But mostly, John Watson was desperate to confirm that the lanky man before him was real, not an apparition or a hallucination or whatever the hell else appears to men who miss a loved one so much it physically hurts to go on living without them.
"John," came the reply. It felt as though the word pierced John to his very soul, Sherlock's deep voice rumbling forth that one syllable in an all too familiar way. John had been sure only minutes ago that he would never have the privilege of hearing it again, and now Sherlock sat in the flat, speaking and staring and breathing and it was too much to take in.
John's hand shook and his breath caught in his chest. His vision tunneled until Sherlock – blessedly alive Sherlock Holmes – was all he could see. And then he saw nothing as he felt the world tilt up to meet him.
John opened his eyes to find Sherlock crouched beside him, one hand gripping his shoulder firmly and the other cupping his cheek. Fighting the urge to lean into the touch, John pushed Sherlock's hands away and hauled himself to his feet with some difficulty.
Oh god. That did not just happen. John Hamish Watson was a soldier. One who does not faint, no matter the shock. He certainly doesn't swoon like a lovesick damsel in an eighteenth-century novel of sensibility. But he did.
"All right?" Sherlock asked him, worry etched in his brow. His gaze scanned John from head to toe, no doubt cataloging and deducing every detail of his life since their last meeting.
John struggled to find words. Ignoring his fainting spell, he said, "You jumped… I saw… You were dead." And at Sherlock's rather condescending look, John added, "You faked your own death."
"Yes."
"It's been nearly three years."
"I see your ability to state the obvious has not dulled in our time apart," Sherlock deadpanned.
John supposed Sherlock was making a weak attempt to cut the tension. Sherlock was trying to act normal. John didn't care. He responded in the only way which seemed fitting for the circumstances.
He reeled back his arm and punched Sherlock right in the face.
The force of the punch had Sherlock careening backwards, struggling to maintain his footing – and failing. He found himself rather unceremoniously slumped on the sofa, one hand instinctively held to his eye, the other held out towards John defensively.
But as Sherlock looked up from the couch, he saw that there was no reason to remain on the defensive.
In the time it took for Sherlock to recover from the blow to his face, John had retreated a few paces and was staring at Sherlock, who took the opportunity to observe: Jaw clenched [angry], face unshaven [single], eyes glassy [fighting tears, of joy or sadness?], dark circles under eyes [lack of sleep, nightmares?], arms crossed [defensive, angry, uninviting].
Sherlock filed this all away and got to his feet slowly, wary that John was liable to hit him again. Or cry. Or run. Or some combination thereof.
And truth be told, John wanted to do all of these. God, he wanted so much to punch Sherlock again for what he had put him through, to cry with the memory of his loss and the overwhelming relief of his return, and more than anything he wanted to run. Because betraying the depth of his emotions to Sherlock Holmes did not strike John as the best idea. He wanted to stalk off in a huff, partly because he was angry at being left behind, thinking his best friend dead – of course he was angry. But mostly he wanted to run because it was suddenly all too much. Seeing Sherlock, back from the grave and looking at him with increasing concern as he stared and fidgeted and tried to decide what to do.
John couldn't run though. He found that he couldn't even turn his back to Sherlock without fear that he would no longer be there when he turned to face him again. So instead he swallowed around the growing lump in his throat and grabbed Sherlock by the forearm – trying not to revel too much in the familiar feel of his coat, which John knew was not the one from three years ago because that coat lay folded on John's bed, right where his pillow used to be – and pulled him towards the kitchen.
"Let's get some ice on that eye. Then we're going to talk. And you'd better have a damn good explanation," John said, sounding first like a doctor, then like a jilted lover, and finally like a soldier who had bad days.
Sherlock nodded, following John to the kitchen in silence and deciding it would be best not to provoke him further. As John got the ice, Sherlock noted the changes in the kitchen. No experiments, no body parts, dishes clean and presumably in their rightful spots in the cupboards. Boring. He then moved with some interest to a large box shoved into a corner of the counter; it was dusty, seemingly unused, and out of place in the otherwise immaculate kitchen.
He turned up the flaps of the box and found it stuffed with test tubes, beakers, and petri dishes. He just barely glimpsed his microscope buried beneath the rest of the science equipment.
"You kept it," Sherlock said, motioning to the box.
"I kept everything. Here," John added gruffly, avoiding eye contact and offering Sherlock some ice wrapped in a damp cloth.
Sherlock accepted it. His eye really was beginning to hurt.
John tugged Sherlock back to the sitting room, again relishing the solidity and warmth of Sherlock's arm beneath his hand, and pushed him onto the couch. He sat down beside him.
"Talk," he ordered.
And talk Sherlock did. He spoke of a scheme to blacken Sherlock's name and force his suicide, of imminent threat to his only friends, of a madman's final problem, of a complex plan to save his loved ones and himself by faking his death, of years spent hunting down the remaining strands of a spider's web, of a mission complete.
He did not speak of loneliness, of regret, of injuries, of relapses, because they would not help John.
He did not speak of forgiveness, because he feared its refusal.
Throughout his speech, John sat beside him in silence, occasionally interjecting an "Incredible" or a "Brilliant" where appropriate. But mostly he immersed himself in everything Sherlock Holmes.
He lost himself in the sight of his flatmate returned from the grave, in the sound of a voice he wanted nothing more than to listen to for the rest of his life, in the familiar smell of cologne or product or aftershave or whatever it was that mixed with his natural scent to make eau de Sherlock, in the pressure of another living body against his left shoulder and knee as he leaned in to listen to a tale that could only come from Sherlock.
Sherlock, alive and well.
John had made himself a promise, about two years ago. A nonsensical promise, really. There was no way it could ever be fulfilled.
But now there was.
He had promised that if he ever saw Sherlock again, he wouldn't waste a moment. He would tell him how he felt. But it hadn't mattered at the time. Sherlock was dead.
But now he wasn't.
So John leaned in, Sherlock still recounting the tale beside him, and silenced the detective by pressing their lips together with a feather's touch and pulling back, looking into Sherlock's eyes.
Sherlock sat very still. He looked at John. He deduced: Breathing rapid and shallow, cheeks flushed, pupils dilated [lust]; licking lips subtly [drawing attention to them, infatuation]; avoiding eye contact [nervousness, fear of rejection].
Like John, Sherlock had spent much of his time over the past three years thinking about his flatmate. Far more time than was healthy. And while he realized that his feelings were more than traditionally friendly, he had not decided on what they were. A bit too preoccupied with taking out Moriarty's web to worry about it. Sherlock had no comparison group for these matters. John was his best friend; he knew that much. But John was straight; he made that very clear on many occasions. And Sherlock was Sherlock; he didn't have time for relationships. Of course, that didn't mean that the thought of kissing John had never occurred to him. He had nearly done it on the post-case high on many occasions, had regretted not doing it for years.
And in the fraction of a second it took Sherlock's mind to cycle through these thoughts, he moved his lips to John's, reconnecting them. He enjoyed the connection, enjoyed being so close to John. The physical sensation wasn't bad either. He would later swear he felt the rush of dopamine and norepinephrine released by the contact.
For his part, John lost himself in the taste of his flatmates lips on his own, an entirely unfamiliar but perfectly welcome mixture of tea and sweetness and nicotine which he planned to lecture him about later.
This activity went on until John's lids grew heavy, weighed down by some combination of happiness and shock. The pair then decided to move to Sherlock's room without a word. Once there, they lay on their sides, facing each other, and Sherlock continued to recount the tale of his time away. Their fingertips brushed together in the space between them. Sherlock spoke rapidly but at a near whisper, and John allowed the sound to lull him to sleep.