John walked hastily through the rain, out of St. Bart's hospital and onto the gloomy main road, his bloodshot, tired eyes squinting through the heavy droplets that ran down his face like clotted tears. He scanned the street, snapping his head from side to side, with his forearm upon his brows in an attempt to keep the rain out of his eyes as he searched for a taxi to take him home. Unwilling to stand out in March's nighttime weather for longer than necessary, John turned his collar up against the downpour and hurried to the shelter of a nearby bus stop.
He swore quietly under his breath as he hugged himself to keep warm, shoving his frozen hands under his armpits so that his fingers would still be able to function. Thankfully, it wasn't a long wait before a darkened shape with a bright orange light affixed to it came wandering down the road, approaching him.
"Taxi!" John called, putting one arm up into the air as he came to the edge of the pavement. The indicator flashed as the taxi pulled in.
John threw open the door and slumped into the back seat as he gasped at the pleasant warmth that circulated around the cab. He slammed the door quickly upon himself. "221B Baker Street, please," he said as he rubbed his hands, trying to bring the circulation back into them.
"Right you are," replied the cabbie, and he pulled back out and began driving along the familiar roads that John knew would take him back to Baker Street.
John closed his eyes for a brief second, relaxing for the first time since he had started his night-shift at the hospital. His limbs slumped, entirely peaceful, and John felt himself drifting… He shook himself back into consciousness quickly and internally scolded himself for almost falling asleep. It wasn't long before he'd get home, and then he could sleep without interruption or the fear that the cabbie would take him somewhere he had no reason to be for the purpose of committing murder by suicide.
John winced. It had been three long years since he had lost his best friend, Sherlock Holmes. Three long years of writing countless letters to his dead comrade, describing every detail of every week. For three years he had mourned, and each new day did not make the loss easier to bear. In fact, it made it harder for John to remember his friend's face, which only led him to cling onto all the memories of Sherlock that he had left. He… would not… think about Sherlock tonight. He would never get to sleep if he did, and sleep was what his body desperately needed, although his brain seemed to cancel his bodily needs out of his priorities whenever Sherlock came into his thoughts.
The cab journey was taking too long, for some reason, and John's eyes flashed to the scenery outside the window, but the scene was not unexpected, they were still the same roads that he travelled down nearly every day and every Friday night. The journey was only seeming to take too long because recollections of Sherlock were tormenting John's shattered mind.
"Here we are." The cabbie's voice cut through John's reminiscing as the taxi slowed and came to a stop outside the black door of 221B, with its brass numbers emblazoned, unchanging, upon the wood.
"Thanks," John said drowsily as he pulled out his wallet and handed a twenty-pound note to the driver, who passed the correct change back before wishing John a good night. John clambered out with an acknowledging nod.
John drew out his keys from his pocket, and his fingers fumbling in the bitter cold as he struggled to fit the right key into the door. Once he had managed that, he began to turn the key anticlockwise to unlock it. Much to his surprise, the key suddenly stopped turning without the audible click that signified the lock turning over. John frowned, withdrew the key from the lock and turned the door handle, not expecting it to move and for the door to swing open as it did.
He had locked the door, he was sure of it. He'd checked the handle twice, as he always did before leaving for his Friday night-shift, just to make sure that Mrs Hudson and Nina would be completely safe at night. He never left it open. Something was wrong.
His movements became silent, and John pricked his ears into the deathly quiet as his military training kicked in. His footsteps became little more than the sound of soft pats upon a pillow, and his hand reached automatically into his inner jacket pocket for his gun, which wasn't there because he never took it to the hospital. John cursed soundlessly, but carried on in through the door and slowly up the stairs.
As John arrived at the top of the stairs, he could see that the door to the flat was closed, which was not how he had left it. He'd kept it open as he'd left, not seeing the point in closing it. Whoever had unlocked the front door and had shut this one obviously wanted to give John some warning of their presence. No one would make such huge mistakes. John whizzed through all the people it could possibly be. Lestrade? No. Mrs Hudson would have had to let him in. Mycroft, perhaps? That wasn't so far-fetched, considering Mycroft probably had the keys to every building in London.
But why would Mycroft have left all of the lights off? He wasn't one of those people to go sneaking around in the dark.
John advanced carefully, reaching slowly towards the door handle, turning it cautiously. The door opened onto a cold, empty, pitch-black 221B. There was not even the slightest movement from the shadows. John edged into the flat, his breaths short and shallow as his eyes flicked around with paranoia. He shuffled across the room to the desk, where his gun lay in waiting for his hand.
As soon as he'd picked it up, John felt safer. There was potentially someone who wanted to kill him somewhere in his home, and having the gun gave him more confidence. He did not dare turn on the lights, though, because even though it would give him the advantage that he would be able to see the intruder, the intruder would also be able to see him.
After one final search of the living room, John ventured into the kitchen. Aware of the noise that his shoes were making on the tiles, his heart quickened in dread with every step. But there was no one crouched in the darkness beneath the table or next to the fridge, which was humming monotonously in the background. Nothing had moved from where he had left it. John breathed an internal sigh of relief, which was quickly followed by a moment of blind panic.
My bedroom.
John spun around and strode across the room and out of the flat. He pressed himself against the wall as he climbed the stairs to the upper floor, where his bedroom was. Adrenaline hit his blood, giving his cheeks a sweet flush. He raised his gun, pointing it at his door with a speeding pulse, finger on the trigger, ready at a moment's notice to twitch and fire.
His door was shut, and so far the only door that was as he'd left it. John reached out with his unshaking left hand, closing his fist over the brass handle, and with a moment's hesitation, he twisted it and threw the door open with a crash. John peered into the blackness with his gun held out before him, aiming into nothing as his head spun, expecting an attack at any minute. But none came.
The clinking had stopped. "Come out, or I will shoot you," John threatened into the gloom. But no response came from that direction.
"John?" Nina's voice sounded up the stairs from his flat, as she had come up to check if he was home. "John, is that you?"
John gave a heaving gasp of relief. "Yeah."
"Okay. Night, then," she called, oblivious to John's fright.
"Yeah… Night," replied John, bemused. He chuckled to himself and laughed at his own paranoia. "Idiot," he whispered to himself with a grin, before he thumped down the stairs again to get a drink before he went to bed.
He snapped the kitchen light on, and set his gun down on the counter next to the kettle, humming to himself as he did so. He reached merrily into the cupboard to get a glass, and set the tap running. As he waited for the water to get cold, he heard drumming through the wall. John froze, then reached for the tap to turn it off again. His brows pulled together as the drumming sounded again.
His gun was in his hand without a conscious thought. Through that wall was Sherlock's bedroom, and it had been sealed up as tightly as a tomb for nearly three years. He had not gone in, nor had Mrs Hudson, nor had Nina. The drumming came again. Thump, thump-thump, thump. Thump, thump-thump, thump. Like a double heartbeat. John's own skipped.
He skirted around to Sherlock's door, his movements like a stalking cat as he padded across the floor. A tightness built in his throat as he felt genuine fear for the first time in three years. John's fingers closed on the handle, and the thrumming stopped. Silence hung as heavy as treacle, but it was far less sweet.
The handle ground noisily as John turned it, his stomach in his mouth and his gun raised and pointed. He blinked twice into the shadows as his eyes adjusted from the light of the kitchen, and saw a tall, shady figure stood at the foot of the dust-laden bed.
The figure's head was slightly bowed, and he faced away from the door, and away from John. There was something wistful and apologetic about the way he leaned onto his heels, and John's unfailingly steady hand trembled as he realised.
John's heart wrenched and twisted. It burned and it writhed as his lips moved in anguish and disbelief, his brain screaming against this impossibility but his eyes certain in their judgement. He floundered helplessly as he held back tears of frustrated sorrow and relief. The lump in his throat suffocated him and all the words that he wanted to say until the only thing that could escape was –
"Sherlock."
And, incredibly, the man at the foot of the bed lifted his head up, breathed out a single, long breath, and turned to face his John.
His eyes flamed astonishingly, as green as emeralds and as passionately sorry as the licking waves as they washed away sands. That mouth, so perfectly formed, was curved into a hidden smile that asked only for forgiveness. Every angle of his face was so fragile in the broken light that John was afraid that his bones would surely snap. The cheeks were too hollow, the skin drawn too tight over his jaw as he said –
"John."
His voice was breathtaking. The tones rushed over one another, his dark voice, his vital voice, swept across the letters, caressing every one. John's knees buckled, and Sherlock caught his friend just before he hit the floor.
"John," Sherlock said again, but concerned this time. "John, are you alright?"
John shook his head, trying to clear it. Then his lips managed to override his shock. "No, Sherlock… I'm not… Alright," he managed to say as he picked himself out of Sherlock's arms, tugging his shirtsleeves down as he did so. "You…"
"I'm not dead?" Sherlock said, reaching out for John's arm, but John pulled it away as though disgusted. "No, John. I never was."
John felt his anger building up from the ashes of his initial disbelief, and he knew he couldn't suppress it, even as he saw the guilt in his friend's eyes as he said: "You… Let me believe that you were dead! How could you? How could you leave me like that, jumping off the hospital, your blood all over the ground? Do you have any idea how that felt, Sherlock? How could you do that to me when you knew what it would do to me?"
Sherlock's face contorted. "John, please –"
"No, Sherlock!" John snarled. "Not 'please'. Not anything at all! You can't possibly make me forgive you, because you don't leave your friends, Sherlock. Not like that. Not like that."
"Let me explain, John –" Sherlock begged.
"No!" John roared into his face. "No! You can't explain this. There's nothing that you can say to make this better! Do you have any idea what you left me to? How you destroyed my life?"
Sherlock went quiet. His eyes were closed. And he turned his face away, so that John couldn't see him anymore. "I know everything, John," he whispered into the emptiness. "I know what has happened to you, and I am so, so sorry."
John stopped, his heartbeat resounding in his ears as he forgot to breathe for a second. His gun dropped to the floor with a muffled thump. "You…" he stammered. "You… Read… My letters."
"Yes."
John's hands went up to cover his face, and in horror he ripped a breath through his clenched teeth. He looked up at the ceiling as his palms came together in front of his neck. He let his lungs throw an aggravated huff into the room. "So you know, then," he finally concluded from the mess of terrified thoughts that squirmed inside his head.
"Yes," said Sherlock slowly. "And… It's fine."
John frowned and his head tilted to the side in confusion. "What?"
"It's fine, John," Sherlock repeated.
"How can it be fine, Sherlock?" John demanded. "How can it be fine when you know… How I feel about you?"
Sherlock caught John's eye and held it with certainty. "I don't mind, John. It doesn't matter."
"Of course it… Matters," John spluttered. "You don't –"
"I don't what, John?" Sherlock interrupted. "I don't know, I don't understand? Because I am telling you now that I do. And it's fine. I don't care that you love me. It doesn't matter because it's not going to change anything between us. I can't imagine a life without you, so I'm not ever going to let you go, especially not over something as insignificant as that."
"Insignificant?" John's voice was edged with pain.
"Yes, John. It's just sentiment," Sherlock smiled. "As I said: insignificant."
John's voice was caught as he shrugged, apparently nonchalant. "Right." And he spun around to head out of the room.
"John." Sherlock's hand caught his retreating shoulder. "John, show me."
"Sherlock –" John began.
"No," Sherlock said. "Show me, John."
"I can't."
"Please."
John looked over his shoulder into the begging eyes of his companion. "I'm sorry, Sherlock. I can't."
Without another word, he walked away, leaving Sherlock Holmes, the love of his life, alone in the dark.