A/N: I decided I needed a bit of angsty, lonely Sherlock missing John in my life, right now.
A bit over-the-top but I can't see the consulting detective doing anything without overdoing it by miles.
Because we all need a hug sometimes. -csf
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John Watson is Sherlock's enduring mystery. The man is a complex symphony, built with intricate layers and packed with the unexpected, but that's hardly it. He is a dedicated doctor, a tolerant flatmate, an idolising biographer and a firecracker marksman with a sketchy army background. That should be plenty to get Sherlock's attention. Every once in a while, there's more. The way he cares about the detective when Sherlock succumbs to one of his dark moods. The second cuppa he always leaves for Sherlock even as the lazy insomniac has only finally retreated to his bedroom as John is readying to go to work. The timeliness of a takeaway delivery ordered in from John's lunch hour at work, so that Sherlock is eating right when he's been up for three days straight. Those are all kind, thoughtful, considerate acts that define John Watson. And yet Sherlock is often surprised by the small daily offerings of devotion and care the blond doctor gives him. They could easily be missed by someone less observant than the genius, or when the genius himself is too self-absorbed to notice.
Sherlock has only begun to notice.
He wonders why John wastes his efforts on him. Sherlock is a genius, is body able, is rich (he supposes, his bank cards don't get declined in any case), he is a genius – has he mentioned that? – so of course Sherlock doesn't need help. He doesn't need anyone, in fact.
John's insidious care, however, has infiltrated in Sherlock's life, and the genius still doesn't need John's help; because need causes want, and Sherlock will not depend on anybody.
Sherlock doesn't need John's constancy, but oh how does he crave it.
Like a missing limb.
And that – more than anything else – that, missing a mild-mannered, common faced, ugly frayed cuffs jumpers person, that alone, used to scare Sherlock like a virus infiltrating his software.
Lately it has been infiltrating his hardware too.
John has gone away for the weekend, to some silly doctors convention, emergency treatment refreshers course, old army buddies reunion, or just got thrown into jail – Sherlock is not bothered about the lurid details of John's planned absence. John is safe, with other friends.
There is nothing Sherlock can do about it. He can't force the gregarious man to keep to home and cases, it seems John insists on having his vices, like pointless socialising outside the house.
Sherlock pretended absolute disinterest in whether John would be in or out of 221B, and forced himself not to engage in further conversation with the doctor. That, he knows, is a little below the belt, as John stood dejected over the red rug looking like he's feeling numb and unimportant to Sherlock but soon, a mere second before Sherlock snapped and admitted his loneliness, John squared his shoulders, John nodded to himself and constructed a brave polite smile.
'I'll go to the shops and stock up the fridge, Sherlock. You will remember to eat, right?'
'Can you get me a gangrenous spleen, John?'
John's smile slides sideways to a smirk, and he tosses back naturally: 'If they have them on the deli counter.'
Sherlock knows John knows it's not about the spleen. It's touching base to check whether John has become fed up of Sherlock's freaky ways, it's a recalcitrant child's way of ensuring John is still his enabler and partner-in-crime in equal measures.
Sherlock forced his best, most disinterested smile while John elaborated over how apparently he can't save enough lives, and he needs to fine tune his doctor ways, or refresh his knowledge, or some other ludicrous reason to abscond home.
Meanwhile, the detective plots 36 ways in which to shutdown John's plans, only 8 of them breaching homeland security rules, but deep down he knows John takes his profession too seriously, and he might not forgive any of Sherlock's actions for a long time yet.
He also knows John is running away from him to get his head straight, away from Sherlock's influence, and that John will miss him terribly – this is something he needs to let John come to terms with on his own.
Sherlock may doubt himself from time to time, but all he's got to do is take a look around, and check in on all indelible traces of John that linger hours after the good doctor hauled a dusty travel bag down the stairs with a cheerful "See you Sunday evening!" and "Don't bring in any more stray cats to train them to spy on the neighbours, some of those scratches are so deep they'll take weeks to fully heal".
And with fake ease, John left Sherlock's life.
The living room felt instantly colder. The flat, dark and dingy. Cobwebs appeared at the corner of the curtain rails, stringed from impossible angles from the ceiling. The red armchair's padding coming through the threadbare gaps on the armrests where John fidgets with his fingers when he's had a bad day at the surgery.
Sherlock takes a deep breath, trying to capture inside him the last traces of tea, toast, and gunpowder, the very essence of John and 221B. His eyelids flutter shut and he wonders when did it happen, that John became his new addiction. How did Mycroft permit it. How does Lestrade endorse this temporary madness. Hollywood should just give him an Oscar for being such a good actor, feigning normalcy, when his universe has crashed and rebuilt itself with John at his centre. Forget the sun, John is his conductor of light, and this weekend is an absolute solar eclipse; cold, dark and foreboding.
A frustrated sigh fills the heavy atmosphere of the living room, where none of the two men have opened a window in a very long time and Mrs Hudson has failed to dust for being at her sister's again.
Sherlock is perfectly content to let himself be engulfed by the duskiness permeating the room, electric lights too much of a stabbing distraction in his wallowing loneliness. He will, however fight back the threatening ennui, before his meddling big brother decides to probe into his business. The detective decides to recreate the essence of John Watson, resume the sensorial inputs of his missed flatmate to help him through the arid weekend ahead.
Unless Lestrade gets him a case. Sherlock prays for one.
The kettle is still 3 degrees centigrade higher than room temperature, from when John's last used it. John's mug is still damp and standing upside down in the drainer by the sink. Sherlock reverentially avoids John's favourite mug, the one with the RAMC crest, and stretches to grab a dusty mug from the top cupboard where John can't even reach. He won't risk overwriting himself over John's lingering presence, but he will remorseless nick a teabag and start the kettle again. Operation Recreate John is in full swing.
Sherlock blows inside the mug to get most dust out. Hot water. Where's the teabag? Currently resting on top of a sulphuric spill, it seems. John was negligent not to address that spill. It's going to scar the worktop, one more blemish in a kaleidoscope of impressions and indentations. Hmm, must be fairly concentrated acid, judging by the way the teabag's composite fabric both melted and displayed a burnt black hole. The crumble tea leaves burnt right through as well. High content of cellulose on the casing. Sherlock could study that, the acid degradation of teabag structural integrity in high acidic environments according to brand. John never said teabags could be so interesting! No wonder the smallish, lethal doctor never leaves them alone. It's really selfish of John.
John is one of the most selfish persons in 221B, Sherlock determines.
The kettle remains impassive as Sherlock gives up waiting. He pours the kettle water on the seemingly one unaffected teabag from the pack and watches warily as it sags limply at the bottom of the cold mug. Cold water too. The kettle didn't work. Surely it's still going to be drinkable, right? Perhaps if Sherlock pouts hot milk on it.
A look inside the fridge and that idea is quickly cast aside. The maggots have escaped confinement, the sneaky little twerps. Sherlock quickly shuts the fridge door on that.
Hot sugar is the second best fit. Sherlock goes fetch the sugar and his blowtorch. He cautiously spoons sugar onto a ceramic bowl and applies the hot flame onto it.
The sugar caramelises into a brown, dark, sticky mess that refuses to leave the bowl, no matter the desolate scientist turning it upside down and shaking it.
Sherlock quickly replaces the bowl inside the cupboard, adds sugar to the cold water with sunken tea bag, and blowtorches the mug inside, to some degree of success.
Glowing with scientific pride, Sherlock's last obstacle to the ultimate John-Watson-free cuppa is the high temperature of the ceramic mug. He is perfectly willing to overlook the singe marks, after all. Finding no tea towel nearby, the tea detective grabs his scarf from behind the flat door hook, and wraps it so that he can protect his hands. Tentatively, slowly, carefully, he sips the cuppa he's just so proudly made – only to find the unpalatable tea lukewarm and disengaging.
He abandons the tea remorselessly.
Not a quarter of an hour later finds Sherlock in his armchair, wrapped in one of John's hideous jumpers, sipping unsatisfactory John-free tea from a singed mug, figuring cold tea will do and knitted ugly wool can warm him up as needed.
He solemnly eyes John's vacant chair, feeling a surge of pathetic self-pity and entitled self-righteousness course through his veins with the dregs of caffeine he could extract from the bagged tea sample.
John should be there, it's as simple as that.
John's tea is always perfect.
Operation Recreate John has failed at the first hurdle: evening tea.
Sherlock supposes it can only get better from now on.
He's just rusty, that's all. John lulled him to a false sense of security, with his propensity towards homeliness, chores, routines and respectable behaviours. Sherlock is not a petulant teenager; he has lived alone, independent and fully functioning for many years, before the blond doctor limped into Bart's lab and sparked his curiosity.
All Sherlock needs is to work on his cases a while, sat at the desk, minding his own business, and disowning John from his mind.
He just needs to crack John's latest laptop password in order to use it.
John always makes his passwords ridiculously easy. It's his way of permission, as far as Sherlock sees it. The only time John used an alphanumeric key for his password he obviously couldn't memorise it – too random, too good – and he wrote it down on a piece of paper. Not a stretch of the imagination for Sherlock to find the piece of paper stuck inside John's left slipper, upstairs in his bedroom, he often uses his laptop to stream films when he's having difficulty falling asleep.
This time, as predicted, John didn't even put in an effort. John's latest "My-Flatmate-Is-a-" password series just had another half-hearted addition.
If Sherlock ever truly believed John did not want him using the laptop, Sherlock would never do that to John, it'd be execrable to do so.
Sherlock knows John doesn't really mind. There's no self-destruct software inbuilt in case of password error, for instance. Nor is there an irritant powder smeared all over the lid for instant vengeance. No pressure pad inserted under the keyboard to release a burst of glitter into the air (Sherlock's wavy hair would absorb all that glitter, and the genius shudders). No loud burglar alarm installed on the charger port. Clearly, John is laptop theft-amenable.
The flat is too silent, and Sherlock cannot find his focus. He misses those sounds that have become part of 221B's white noise, that equalise his hyperactive high-speed mind.
No interesting cases either, as if the world had conspired to burden him with its tediousness.
Sherlock clicks the laptop lid shut, after subtly enhancing John's settings and updating the software. John is a one finger typist; he has no notion that Sherlock has often upgraded his laptop for him. Sherlock is not the boasting type and he congratulates himself for that.
The cold, silent flat's oppressive atmosphere throws the detective off, and he gives in to a luxury of comfort at last. He decides it's time to start a fire in the grate.
The logs are damp, ashy and packed with splinters. Sherlock sorely dislikes the growing number of splinters insidiously lodging in his palms by the time he gives up the fireplace. Resentfully he retreats back into his comfort zone, his armchair, wondering how did John take away the magic with him when he left.
Sherlock is mourning the friend he misses, and the flat conspires against him too.
The irony that once he left John in this very position for two years completely escapes him, luckily, except for the tiniest, foggiest corner of his brilliant mind and he—
'Mrs Hudson!' he bellows.
Oh, right, she's not in.
Sherlock wonders if Mrs Hudson and John are laughing about his pointless efforts in some nice, warm pub somewhere in the countryside.
Probably not. And better not bring it up, lest it gives them ideas.
Sherlock will just freeze on his own, dehydrated and bored to his own demise. Cause of death: lack of intellectual stimulation from a stale world.
His phone rings.
The acrobatic way in which Sherlock launches himself across the room defies a number of physics laws. However is tone is controlled, educated, institutional as he answers the call. 'Sherlock Holmes.'
'Brother mine, his Royal Highness has requested—'
The detective cuts the call. He won't entertain his brother, particularly if he's keen to refer to himself in the third person now.
Sherlock further turns off the gadget and tosses it dismissively to the sofa. Not even Lestrade's childish cases would do now.
The world is tiresome and without colour.
He snuggles back into his armchair, hugging the loose knitwear stretched to cover his drawn up knees. His toes are exposed and cold. His stomach rumbles (but the maggots have prevailed in the fridge wars). He thumbs some cheap paperback John has left behind, and for a few minutes he can recreate John's enduring presence, and that of his forehead wrinkle as John read this book, not because he needs glasses (John's eyesight defies any far away murderous cabbie to date) but because he's endearingly focusing on the overproduced clues and suspects. It doesn't take two paragraphs for Sherlock to realise the book is boring, predictable, and the murderer is obvious even before anyone is murdered.
The book too is tossed aside and Sherlock droops further inside the cocoon of soft knitwear.
Operation Recreate John is a failure.
He can't recreate John from John's traces of presence, his possessions or his habits. John is so much more – and he misses all of John.
Sherlock is lonely and upset so he mentally weighs up the option play his violin and compose a melody. It comes out sad and small and whinny before it even left the walls of his mind.
Sherlock decides to go hunt murderers at the nearest pub, or desecrate war graves to compare lead levels in ammunition shrapnel, or do a one man sting operation in a drug cartel, sure John wouldn't approve if he were there, and that should teach John to be there, right?
Yet he hasn't left the armchair at all.
John's laptop singsongs a jolly electronic jingle of sorts. Sherlock raises his mop of dark curls from his knees to the insistent ringtone.
John.
John is calling himself, sure that Sherlock would be at his own laptop.
The detective ponders ignoring the call to prove a point, but immediately decides he can be the better man instead, and takes the call.
'John', he says at once, balancing the laptop on his bony knees, over the knitted jumper.
The blond doctor looks concerned, the detective reads at once, before any further words are spoken. From the wrinkles on the black jacket and the residues of plywood dust on the collar he can read John's unhappy with his travel to the adequate looking room behind him.
'You're not staying there', and it's not a petulant demand, or a plaintive request; it's a sober deduction. Sherlock's mind is fully focused on the enduring mysteries of John Watson, trying to study his motivations and predict his actions is always just that tiny bit... impossible. Sherlock loves that John's ever so slightly unpredictable. When Sherlock thinks he's got his doctor figured out – with the tea, the jumpers, the armchair – it turns out this plain man is so much more than that.
John opens his face into a bright smile that seems to bring rosy daylight into the living room and warm it up just a bit. The sun is setting over London, after all. John has just brought it all to 221B, that's all.
He seems surprised, Sherlock notices. The detective can still surprise John. It invigorates the lonely flatmate. Their dynamic is untouched no matter the geographical distance.
'I can see from your unpacked bag on the bed behind you and the way you placed your wallet on the nightstand that you're coming back tonight. But I thought you had a— whatever it was thing.'
John finally gets his two words in. 'I'm really missing a decent cuppa', he jokes.
Sherlock's guilty expression, the way he flinches or his shifty eyes towards the kitchen give him away to John, although probably no one else would have seen so much. Only John reads Sherlock like one of his cheap paperback novel.
'I'll get some tea, then.'
'Can you source all different brands in the market?'
John's amusement spreads as a grin from ear to ear.
'Only if I get the leftovers, the ones you didn't use in your experiments.'
'It's a valid scientific analysis, John! The world needs to know about acid degradation of teabag structural integrity in high acidic environments according to brand.'
'Why?'
Sherlock blinks.
'Thai too?' John smiles again.
'Please', Sherlock says courteously.
John nods, curt, military.
'I'll be home in an hour. Are you sure', he adds suddenly, rubbing the back of his head, tormenting those spiky tiny blonde hairs, 'I mean, really sure, that you don't mind? You were counting on having the whole flat to yourself after all. Hopefully you're not hiding a party in there?'
Sherlock shakes his head mutedly. He won't trust his voice. His heart is feeling warmer already.
'John, there are maggots in the fridge', is what comes out instead of hurry back.
Somehow, John impossibly hears the right words.
'I won't take long... Enough time for you to clear the fridge, mate.'
'Mrs Hudson can do it.'
'Mrs Hudson won't be back for a few days.'
'We can live without the fridge.'
John giggles, he absolutely giggles, and Sherlock cannot help but chuckle along.
'If you're not hiding a party in 221B because I'm gone, we'll just have to create one, right?'
Sherlock is intrigued. 'Why would we do that?'
'Because we can', is John's boyish answer. 'It will cheer you up too. Oi, and stop stretching my jumper or you owe me a new one', he adds without bite.
Sherlock nods, completely bewildered by the intensity of John's luminous energy when he himself was slumping into the wallowing ennui. He's got only a moment to spare as he decides to trust John, to welcome John as his needed, oh so needed, distraction and engagement with the world.
'John, hurry back.'
The words leave his mouth before he censors them.
John's gaze saddens. 'That bad today, huh?'
Sherlock wordlessly nods.
'How can I help you?' the doctor asks, because he cares, he truly cares.
'Just drop it, John. There's nothing you ever have to do to make things better but be yourself.'
'Same.'
Sherlock blinks.
'What were you doing there anyway?'
'Helping an old army mate move house. We finished the move. I even assembled a chest of drawers and four chairs for him. Why flat pack chairs? They don't take all that space, do they? And now he's talking of buying new bathroom tiles. Sherlock, I really need to go.'
John's eternal karma is to be exploited by others due to his good nature. Sherlock is instantly indignant for his flatmate. Again, any traces of irony are swiftly brushed under the metaphorical rug.
'Go. Leave. Now. I've just bought you the train ticket and sent it to you. I'll call the police on him, keep him from coming after you.'
'The police, what on earth for?'
'Lestrade will think of something, he owes me one.'
'What? No, I—'
'Fine, no police raid. John, just... come home.'
John finally smiles.
'On my way. Get that party started.'
By the time John opens the flat door hours later, the fireplace is pumping heat like a furnace, there's Thai scenting the air and Sherlock is playing upbeat melodies from his violin. They both smile in complicity.
Operation Welcoming Home is a go.
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