Sherlock sidled into the room, still wrapped tightly in his sheet. John watched him, wondering what was about to change. Sherlock noted his new position, able to see the door, and fiddled with the corner of the bedsheet. 'You're right' - when was the last time he'd heard Sherlock say that? And on such a subject.
Sherlock sat down on the couch, his fingers pitched before his mouth, posed like he was moments from solving a case. John and Mrs. Hudson watched him, thoroughly interrupted.
"You mourned me," Sherlock stated, like it was the conclusion to some great puzzle.
"Yes," John said, flabbergasted by the doubt. Sherlock nodded slowly, taking that in.
"You lost touch with friends, stopped caring about your appearance, struggled with alcohol, sought revenge, refused to live here. Because it… hurt," Sherlock said slowly. John glanced at Mrs. Hudson, checking to see if she knew whether Sherlock was serious. She smiled back at him softly, looking sad.
I think we surprised him, mourning. She'd said that. Surely Sherlock could not be so ignorant?
"You were tortured," Sherlock added, glancing at John's bandaged arms.
"Yes," John admitted. Sherlock nodded, surely not needing the confirmation. Sherlock sat in silence, thinking, and John pondered how he'd know if Sherlock ever truly lost it. Mrs. Hudson leaned forward and poured them tea, somehow making the moment a dozen times more awkward.
"I lied to you," Sherlock added finally, folding over his fingers to leave only his two index fingers pitched before his lips. John swallowed, remembering their last months, so long before. It was madness to think it'd only been a year and some. It was September twenty eighth, now. Sherlock had 'died' in June. Such little time, for so much damage.
"Yes," John echoed finally, lost in his thoughts. He waited, wondering how he'd feel, getting a genuine apology from Sherlock, for that certainly felt like what was happening. Once, he could have felt proud, like he'd been let into an even more coveted portion of Sherlock's life. Honored for Sherlock to deem him worth apologizing to when he lived the rest of his life too case-focused to see the other people there at all, much less to care how he affected them. He'd drugged his PTSD-ridden flatmate with a fear enhancer, for hell's sake. Like Batman's bloody Scarecrow villain, with no apologies at all. Would the apology mean something more, make John more than a flatmate?
But why did you want him to care about you that much, ey?
"I never should have concealed the danger from you. It was arrogant. I wanted to make a show of solving it, and then I was cornered," Sherlock said. John swallowed. It was an effective apology. No doubt Sherlock had prepared this, looked up all the advice he could find on the subject. But John didn't feel honored. Sherlock watched him, looking scared, but he didn't feel anything and the drugs kept him from even caring too much about that. He wasn't Sherlock's flatmate, anymore. He wasn't Sherlock's anything, anymore.
"That's good to hear," John said. That was true enough. It was good to hear, to be reassured that he hadn't been such a pathetic fool, to have his life gutted by mourning a man who did not care in return. Sherlock cared. That was obvious in the gutted look Sherlock gave him now. Mrs. Hudson stayed silent, her eyes wide and sad.
"Can you forgive me, John?" Sherlock asked suddenly, shattering the quiet between them. John shifted in his seat, trying to figure out what he should say. It sounded as if Sherlock were asking if it were physically possible.
"I don't know," he answered and Sherlock nodded, not shifting from his seat. Good enough for him, then, John thought, wondering if a simple 'no' was all it'd take to never see Sherlock Holmes again. But he wasn't healthy enough to want that. Mrs. Hudson hid her mouth behind a hand, her eyes wide.
Sherlock stood up and straightened his suit, pulling his bland dispassionate mask back over himself. That, strangely, kicked John into feeling something. He hated it.
"Well, then. You're due for amoxicillin. Two pills, this dose," he said, his voice clipped, moving to snatch the pill bottles off the table in front of John.
"I shall make us some dinner," Mrs. Hudson offered quietly, pushing herself up from her chair.
We're all going to ignore that? John wondered, overwhelmed.
"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," he said. Sherlock didn't look up from struggling with the child-safety lock.
"If I could find my bloody pans," she complained, laying a hand on Sherlock's back and pulling the pill bottle out of his grip. She handed it back open. Sherlock looked enthralled by her for a moment and she held out a finger in warning.
"Ceiling. Third tile to the left through the kitchen doorway," he said, rattling out two of John's pills.
"I would hit him more often but we'd never eat," Mrs. Hudson complained to John, leaving the room. The joke fell flat. John drummed his fingers against his chair, waiting for the sound of Mrs. Hudson closing the door to her own flat downstairs. Sherlock handed him the pills, dropping them into his palm at a safe distance. He heard Mrs. Hudson's door shut. Sherlock sat back down on the couch.
"So, you die, I'm tortured, you race to find me, I shoot the bloke, you apologize and nurse me back to health?" John listed. Sherlock nodded slowly, rubbing his thumb into his palm.
"I admit I'm not the best candidate," he replied and John snorted. Sherlock smiled, a spark of hope lighting in his eyes. John watched it fade slowly, sadness finally catching up to him.
So when you're well, you're just going to leave him?
John swallowed, unsure what to do with himself. They could try to be friends, the two of them. Two lonely, ridiculous, broken men. He didn't know why he didn't want that.
Sherlock pulled out his phone and started texting, apparently moving on. John tipped his head back on the chair, a vague feeling of contentment settling through him as the drugs hit.
~~/~~
:He says he does not know if he can forgive me. Advise. SH: Sherlock glared at his phone until it buzzed with a new text for him.
:Good man: Donovan replied.
:Clarify SH: Sherlock ordered, tipping back onto the couch and holding the phone above him. He could watch John fall asleep out of the corner of his eye, this way.
:You pretended to be dead. I'd never forgive you:
Sherlock snarled at the words.
:You're not useful. SH: he replied.
:Was I trying to be? You almost killed him. It's his right not to let you do that again.:
Sherlock swallowed. That was fair.
:I chose to value his life over his friendship. That was good: he protested. He'd already had this argument with John.
I would have rather died by your side than be so thoroughly left behind.
His phone buzzed.
:Well, you made your choice.: Donovan replied. He could almost see her shrugging. He snarled at his phone. John shifted in his chair. Not good, probably, for him to sleep like that.
I chose wrong, he thought and pushed himself up from the couch. Right. Useless conclusion. What did the past matter? They were both alive; that was the outcome he'd planned for.
~~/~~
Just as John was starting to slip toward sleep he felt a shadow at his side.
"You should not sleep there," Sherlock ordered. John opened an eye to see the man standing above him, holding out an arm. John stared at it for a moment, his mind dull with too little sleep. There was all too much touching in his recovery, he thought. Still, he couldn't spend the rest of his life in the chair. He nodded and Sherlock began the painful, rather overly intimate process of grabbing him by his undamaged hips and helping him shove forward enough on the chair that he was able to help lift himself up with his legs.
He made his way to the couch, his head swimming, having to trust Sherlock to keep him from kicking anything in his way. Then he was sitting down again, and even better, arranging himself to lie down on the couch, the pain killers hitting too strongly for his back to twinge at all. Sherlock jerked his hands away as soon as John was safely settled, like touching John was violently against the law. Then Sherlock was blessedly leaving him alone again, beelining for the kitchen, and he could sleep.
He woke up to see Mrs. Hudson leaving a full casserole on the kitchen table and tiptoeing out again, apparently deciding to leave them alone. Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table, staring into a microscope that even John could see had no slides. Sherlock didn't spare a glance at Mrs. Hudson or the cooling casserole dish.
The kitchen looked as bare as he'd expected, apart from a pair of salt shakers in the open shelves and the toaster. John didn't know if the plates were still hidden in the lime green cabinets, but every trace of lab equipment was gone, which left John wondering where Sherlock had scraped up a teaching microscope to hide in.
John blinked away sleep, hating how he'd looked immediately for Sherlock before he'd even rubbed the dried tears from his eyes. Sherlock sat back from his microscope suddenly, as if called by some silent alarm. He stacked a plate with food, grabbed a fork, and brought it towards him. John pulled himself up to sit and swung his legs around to rest on the floor. Sherlock left the plate on the coffee table and grabbed a pastry before settling into the chair across from him. John pulled his arm gently from its belly strap and picked up his fork.
"Thank you," he said and began the clumsy process of forcing himself to eat. He felt like his stomach was already bloated. Low appetite; a symptom of sickness and anxiety. Not surprising. No doubt Sherlock saw it in him. Frustrated, he ate.
Eating exhausted him more than he expected. John had barely finished half of the meal before he decided he'd be better off finishing it once he could successfully pick up the fork on his own again. He lay his head back on the back of the chair, slid his arm back into its sling, and settled in for an uncomfortable nap.
~~/~~
John woke up to the sounds of footsteps and male voices. He opened his eyes to see men in collared uniforms carrying boxes into the kitchen. Sherlock was squatting at the end of the couch, holding a steaming pile of pasta. John frowned; he had to have slept for long enough for the kitchen to be overrun by delivery men - his plate of casserole had to have gotten cold. Sherlock knew when he was waking up well enough to heat it for him? John pushed himself up to sit, his back and shoulders flaring in pain. He stopped to breathe, working his way through it, but Sherlock didn't move to get the pills. Not time yet, apparently. John forced himself the rest of the way up, glad Sherlock did not try to help, and unclenched his jaw.
"How-" John started, taking the plate. Sherlock smirked.
"Your eye movement changes approximately twenty minutes before waking," Sherlock replied, handing him a fork. John pulled his aching arm from its sling and took it.
So you were watching my eyes move in their sockets this whole time? John wondered, glancing up at the genius as he forced his first bite. Sherlock flushed and started back toward the kitchen, answering him.
John watched Sherlock start to unload the boxes, carefully unwrapping glass slides and lenses with a gentleness he rarely saw. Sherlock moved slowly, his eyes on his task, and John forced himself to swallow down his food. Sherlock didn't appear to have eaten or slept in weeks. What had the last ten days been like, receiving those photographs, unable to find him? His eyes had been so haunted when he'd first stepped into the hospital room. And then? To find their friendship gone and John so injured? To know he'd chosen wrong? John knew something critical must have happened if Sherlock was defending Donovan like a friend.
John huffed out a laugh, drawing Sherlock's curious look. John matched his gaze for a moment, unsure what to say, and Sherlock moved on to unpackaging a box of beakers onto the kitchen table. Restoring it to how it'd been before. John didn't know why he couldn't stand the idea. He'd been happy, hadn't he, living here with Sherlock Holmes? If he could have it again, the friendship, the cases, the kitchen laboratory, shouldn't he want to grab it? He didn't. He wanted to shove the whole idea away.
He was a changed man. He'd been a changed man before he'd ever been dragged up on Mike's hook. That had only served to drag it out into the light and bring Sherlock rushing home to see it. He didn't want to face Moriarty's 'puzzles' again. He wanted to walk onto the top of that building with Sherlock and shoot Moriarty through the teeth and anyone else who'd so threatened them. He suspected Sherlock was doing all he could to force the broken pieces of their past life back together. And that was never going to happen.
Do you ever wonder what you're meant to do with your life?
John tipped his head back down on the couch armrest, Mike's words crawling down his spine, and lifted his plate onto the coffeetable, his arm shaking. Pain ricocheted into his shoulder and he dropped the plate with a clatter. Sherlock glanced over and away, unconcerned.
More nightmares. More anxieties. He didn't want to get started fighting them yet. He watched Sherlock set himself to putting the beakers away, his shoulders stiff with a strain John recognized; too many people in the flat.
A year of mourning. He didn't want to deal with that either. John pushed his arm back into its restraints, relieving his throbbing shoulder.
The delivery men finally left and Sherlock's relief was palpable. John watched Sherlock walk back into the living room and prepared himself for another afternoon of strained silence.
John rubbed his nose into his shoulder, unable to scratch it. Sherlock searched his bookshelf for something to read. John remembered returning to this place, just the once, to see how Sherlock had left the living room, a bookshelf full of books he'd never touch again. The thought had been gutting, then. John shoved the thought away. Sherlock wandered around the room, picking up random books and putting them down again, fiddling with his nicknacks, and shoving things around without improving any sense of order. He glanced at John periodically, his blue eyes scanning down his body, cataloging everything, only to turn back to his taskless movements.
They could do this until he healed, John thought, watching as Sherlock flipped open his copy of London A - Z and pretended to read inside. Sherlock could do the minimum of care and John could pretend they were strangers and they could split up at the end of ten weeks with little to show for it.
That sounded more exhausting than talking to Sherlock Holmes.
Christ I'm lonely. He cleared his throat and Sherlock met his gaze in the mirror.
"Right. A break?" John suggested. Sherlock met his gaze in the mirror, already looking confused.
"Sorry?" he asked and John glanced around the too-quiet room.
"I'm furious and still in shock. You're trying to reclaim a relationship you already know you ruined. How about we just .. Leave it, for an hour?" John suggested.
Sherlock turned around, frowning.
"What would that mean?" he asked. John resisted an impulse to rub at his face. He wanted to keep his arms in their slings for once.
"Cluedo?" John suggested and Sherlock smiled like he'd given him the world. John stared at him for a moment, thinking he was probably being an ass, giving Sherlock hope.
"Yes. Certainly," Sherlock said, as if they didn't both despise the game.
For Sherlock it was a simplistic exercise in narrowing down random chance. To John it was a cumbersome exercise in trying to recall what the heck he'd already seen, which was now made to be more intolerable given his limited use of a pen. Sherlock reached into the lower cabinet of the bookcase and pulled out an oversized bottle, apparently foreseeing the problem.
"I shouldn't drink on paracetamol," John pointed out. Sherlock nodded, peeling off the foil wrapper.
"I can," he replied. John blinked, watching him walk into the kitchen for a bottle opener. Once again, he wondered what Sherlock had gone through in his year and some away. He'd certainly never drank before it.
To John's surprise, Sherlock took a gulp straight from the bottle and set it on the coffeetable. He started setting up the game, unfolding the board and handing John four cards to put on the table, a system for having a 'third' player they'd developed two years before. John picked Professor Plum and set him near the billiard room. Sherlock, as always, chose Miss Scarlet and rolled the dice to move into the lounge.
"I randomly guess with no further evidence that it was Colonel Mustard, in the lounge, with the candlestick," Sherlock began, already sounding annoyed at the system. John checked his cards. He showed Sherlock the candlestick and Sherlock took another gulp of wine.
"When did you start drinking, then?" John asked. Sherlock glanced at him from over the bottle.
"A year ago, in Prague," he answered shortly, handing over the dice. John glanced at his slings and Sherlock threw the dice for him without a word.
"The hall," John said and Sherlock moved for him. "Mrs. Peacock, in the hall, with the pipe," John suggested, unsure what else to say. An hour break; he wasn't going to ruin it by dwelling on all they'd lost. "Got any funny stories?" he asked instead. Sherlock had the hall card.
"I got pickpocketed six times in a week," Sherlock admitted. John glanced up, his eyebrows high.
"You're serious?"
Sherlock tipped his head and John coughed out a laugh.
"To be fair, I knew who was doing it," Sherlock replied. John blinked.
"You knew who was stealing from you and you let him do it?"
Sherlock drew himself up proudly.
"She was in the clear sight of at least three cameras. I pointed them out and she spread the word among her friends to look out for a man for me," he answered.
You blackmailed a homeless child. Of course.
"A new homeless network," he concluded aloud and Sherlock nodded. "Did they find the man?"
Sherlock grinned.
"That they did," he answered proudly. John shook his head, impressed despite himself. Sherlock passed his own figurine to the conservatory without rolling the dice, using the secret passage rule John had mostly forgotten. This was an atrocious game.
"How'd they recognize him?" John asked and Sherlock glanced up. "The man your Prague pickpocket network found - how'd they know who to look for?"
Sherlock's eyes sparkled.
"He was a short man with hairplugs in the shape of a yamaka," Sherlock replied.
John blinked at him, processing that.
"Right. Everywhere but the yamaka, then?" he asked. That was at least better than -
"Just the yamaka," Sherlock replied and John laughed. Sherlock's face lit up with cautious pleasure and John allowed himself to enjoy it, even if just for the moment.
"I didn't mention in the briefing. You remember Mike?" he started. Sherlock's smile tightened, tinged with violence. John smiled, doing his best to look casual. "Told me himself - wanted to be a therapist," he said. Sherlock smirked.
"I got that from his corpse," he replied. John frowned.
"How the hell did you get that from a corpse?" he asked. Sherlock leaned back in his chair.
"Lestrade brought me his effects, including a laptop. Internet search history gave away the school name and the psychology major. His actions with you showed no sign of an interest in mental research. Add to that a very obvious affinity for asking probing questions and the conclusion is obvious."
John stared at him, absorbing Sherlock's racing, excited tone. It had been so very very long.
Brilliant, he thought and did not try to say. A break, from all his anger and its reasoning.
How'd you know about his probing questions? He thought but did not ask. He didn't want to know how much Sherlock knew. He didn't want to think about what Mike had asked, or the way his skin crawled at the memory of heating iron.
Why do you scream for Sherlock Holmes?
"Well, just think how many wealthy narcissistic fools wondering about the purpose of their lives you've saved from truly dreadful advice," Sherlock replied, rolling the dice again.
"That's why I shot him," John agreed, nodding, and Sherlock laughed. Something tense uncurled in John's chest at the sound. Sherlock Holmes, alive and laughing again.
Right. A break.
"Mrs. White, in the Conservatory, with the rope," Sherlock suggested and John checked his cards. Sherlock checked the cards on the table without waiting for him.
"Wait-" John started, glancing at his hand. He had nothing to confirm Sherlock's guess. "How did you-"
"Clearly, I know what your cards are," Sherlock replied and threw the dice for John. One bounced off the table out of sight and Sherlock bent to pick it up for him. He'd gotten snake eyes. Sherlock moved his figurine for him.
"Right," John replied, flabbergasted, and Sherlock grinned. "So how did you catch the man with the hairy yamaka?' he asked. Sherlock groaned.
"Is that what you're going to title it?" he groaned and John smirked, letting them pretend he was going to start up his blog again just as soon as his fingers healed.
"Well it's that or the Case of the Blackmailed Pickpocket, but we all know you're the culprit in that case," John replied, watching Sherlock play his turn for him. Apparently there was only one best move, and Sherlock assumed John would take it. He flashed John his 'revolver' card and rolled the dice again.
"So, the embezzler, what'd you do with him?" John asked, settling himself more comfortably on the couch. He was rapidly becoming too tired for a game he wasn't even playing.
"I got him arrested for hiring sex workers," Sherlock replied. John looked at the ceiling, unsure he should put in the effort to move his head but wanting to stare at the man.
"How - how does that connect?" he asked.
"Moriarty's organization was funded through a process of donation to semi-legitimate charities and pre-arranged embezzlement. The clients could even deduct their payments from their taxes. The embezzlement, however, was carefully designed - too well hidden for any usual audit to reveal it and I couldn't come out of hiding to decipher it for them. Nor was it an efficient use of my faculties. I'm a detective, not an accountant. So I went around the problem, looked into the embezzlers themselves, and for each organization found that a person willing to steal from a charity to fund a secretive employer inevitably had other secrets. In one case, unpaid child support payments kept secret from a second family, in another, an expensive sex change operation the criminal could barely afford. In this embezzler's case, an obsession with underage women. I got him caught and arrested with little trouble."
John grimaced, not wanting to imagine it.
"What did you do for the others - if they weren't acting illegally other than the theft?" he asked. He heard Sherlock take another gulp of wine.
"I threatened them. The Case of the Blackmailed Double Father, the Case of the Blackmailed New Woman, they're all mine," Sherlock confessed, sounding disgusted with himself.
"And they stopped?" John asked. Sherlock took another drink. John wanted him to stop, but said nothing.
"Most of them," Sherlock replied. "Helped along by the fact that they'd not heard from their employer in months - not if I'd gotten to the middleman first."
John nodded, trying to imagine the scale of the project.
"How many charities?" he asked.
"I don't know. I started with the ones I'd already found. That added up to fifty one, I got through thirty of them," Sherlock admitted.
Then I disappeared, John filled in, closing his eyes.
"Where were you then?"
"The United States. Boston," Sherlock replied quietly. John nodded.
"Sounds exhausting," John replied, feeling like he was expected to say something. He didn't want to talk about how Sherlock had felt when he'd gotten that news.
"The weather was better," Sherlock said, his voice clipped as it usually was when he was trying to hide an emotion.
John nodded, trying to stay awake. His shoulders pulsed with pain but that didn't help keeping his heavy eyelids open.
He opened his eyes to see Sherlock fiddling with his violin by the window. Two pills were waiting for him on the coffee table, beside the abandoned cluedo board. John pulled his arm out of its sling to grab the pills, swallowed them both at once, and closed his eyes again.
~/~~