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About two years after The Reichenbach Fall.
The worst two years of his life.
Two years without Sherlock.
John couldn't remember the last time he smiled.
His constant thought was Sherlock Holmes.
All the memories together seemed thousands of years away and looking back at his life with him was painful as hell.
Now at the point of no return, John knew he would never love anyone else the way he had loved Sherlock Holmes.
After two years he still hadn't recovered from the tragedy; how could he? After all, after Sherlock had been able to completely upset his life by improving it in all its aspects, making it colourful again, filling it with emotions, sounds, sensations, adrenaline and adventure.
In short, that was a life, a real life, worth living, the best he could wish for.
The war period had taken practically everything from him. Contact with friends, sanity and physical health, a home, a dignified existence, the use of a leg...
And Sherlock had given him everything back with interests.
Although John was aware of his unrequited love for him, he knew that he and Sherlock had been inseparable and unable to live without each other. Willing to sacrifice one to save the other, to heal each other's physical and emotional wounds, in their own way, accepting each other's defects, and without realizing it, improve their life just because they were together. For fear of ruining their friendship neither of them had ever made a move.
John truly regretted never saying anything that day at St. Barts. He hated himself for being so stupid and coward. Hearing Sherlock say goodbye with a trembling voice had broken his heart into a million pieces. He would have liked to be there, on the roof, to stop him from throwing himself, to take him in his arms and hold him close, telling him that everything was fine, that everything would be fine.
But of course, it was much more complicated than that. John couldn't have known that Sherlock had killed himself to save him. And he couldn't even know that he had faked his suicide and was about to come back to him.
John was more and more gloomy and sad in recent times, he had lost weight and more and more often indulged in a little alcohol - perhaps too much - to forget, ending up crying for hours and hours at night, drunk, until he fell asleep on the bathroom floor with the bottle next to him.
* * *
John was sitting at the foot of his small bed, the room was dark and cold and made everything darker and more overwhelming giving a sense of anguish.
The rain was pounding on the shutters of the only window present, and the only source of light at the moment.
John turned to look at the nightstand. The almost empty whiskey bottle, next to it, a glass and a saucer with half an apple now totally oxidized. He sighed in pain.
That day was and would have been the same as all the other. A sad, rainy day of mourning and regret.
John crawled completely onto the bed, taking off his shoes with his feet; he put his cane on the bedside table and curled up on the mattress. Turned to one side he began to cry. He initially tried to wipe away the tears but gave up as the crying intensified.
A few minutes passed.
Then he opened his eyes. A standing figure stood in front of his room.
John momentarily stopped breathing.
"Sher-" he whispered as he immediately got out of bed.
He limped up to the figure, forgetting about the cane and, reaching out to touch it, he staggered and nearly fell to the floor. He couldn't get close enough to touch it. His hands were waving in all directions, he, with no more oxygen in his lungs, in a panic. He was weak and frail and he felt his legs about to give out.
"Sherlock." He cried. "Sherlock why can't I touch you?" He was stuck there with no possibility of moving, wrapped in oblivion with no way out.
He closed his eyes. He tried to take a deep breath. He lifted his eyelids slowly. Sherlock was gone. He was gone. Again. He had left him alone. Again.
"WHY?" John yelled in a voice choked with tears. He ran his hand over his face, wiping away his tears.
His face burned and he was starting to see everything blurry. He wiped his eyes with trembling fingers.
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?"
He coughed through tears and shuffled towards the bathroom. He turned on the tap letting the water run to make it cool again. He washed the tears from his face with the now frozen water. Then sobbing he went back into the bedroom holding a hand on the wall to lean on from time to time.
After getting back into bed he began to breathe with difficulty, feeling a sharp pain in his stomach.
"Where are you, Sherlock ... come back to me ..." he whispered then, putting his hands to his face covering it.
In fact, it certainly wasn't the first time that happened such a thing. This was just one of many. Everything an illusion created by his mind.
He knew he was going crazy. Going to the psychologist certainly didn't help his wallet, given the retired soldier's pension with which he could barely afford that small apartment. He went once a week but he knew it was all in vain. A complete waste of money. He was considering canceling the next appointment and not making another one. Those hundred pounds would have been useful in another way. But maybe that wasn't his problem anymore.
John hadn't been thinking clearly for quite a while now. Too much pain, too many emotions, too much remorse, too much everything.
Only death would put an end to everything he was feeling right now.
He started crying harder. Tears rolled like heavy rocks down his face, and at that point John quickly got out of bed and walked over to his desk drawer. He opened it. He removed some documents from the desk and took the black object that was under them. His hand trembled.
He placed the barrel of the gun he had just grabbed at his temple. He couldn't take it anymore. He felt it was time to say goodbye. Nothing tied him to life now.
John took a deep breath. Perhaps, he should have left a note with something written on it to greet the people who had loved him. Mrs. Hudson, Greg...
Perhaps. But he didn't feel like it.
"Okay..."
He paused and then took a deep breath with difficulty, gathering all the courage he had left to utter his last sentence.
"Sherlock, if you don't come to me, then I'll come to you. I'm about to arrive love."
Saying those words aloud had a strange effect on him. He had never done this, preferring to keep it all inside, afraid and unsure of the consequences.
He sighed again.
Wheezing.
Beats.
Shortness of breath.
Dry throat.
The sound of glass breaking and following fast and heavy footsteps. The sound of his shoes hitting the ground reminded him of the sound of Sherlock's shoes.
"JOHN!"
John whirled around. He was once again left without air in his lungs.
The man standing in front of him looked at him panting from his fatigue with his hands out. Despite the dim light John could clearly see his features. Sherlock.
The man put his hand on the soft curls, moving them to free them from the glass fragments.
John swallowed. It felt so real. So true. Sharper than the other times. More detailed.
"Stop." The figure spoke.
But it was all a hallucination.
"No."
He laughed nervously.
"No, that's enough, I'm not believing it anymore. I won't fall into this trap again."
"John put that weapon down. Please throw it away." The man said again, still panting.
"Why should I?" He replied by swallowing. His throat increasingly dry.
He brought the Glock to his head intending to end it once and for all.
"JOHN NO!"
Sherlock quickly approached John with two long strides. With a lightning-fast move he grabbed the gun in both hands disarming John and tucked the gun safely into his coat pocket.
"I'll keep this."
Then he eliminated the little distance left between them.
"John, I'm here. I'm back."
If only that were true.
"I wish you were here. You don't know how many times I've dreamed of you coming back."
The other man smiled.
"I miss you Sherlock, I miss you so much. And you always come back to haunt me at night but I can't touch you. God, if only you were really here. I was an idiot, Sherlock. I've never told you anything. Never. And I had so many occasions. " John let those words out without caring too much about it. They slipped out as if they had a life of their own. He put his hands to his face and covered it.
"Tell me what, John?"
"The feelings I have for you ..." He took his hands away. Realizing he was talking to a ghost and he put his hands to his face again, covering it with embarrassment. "Oh my God what am I doing, am I hallucinating about my remorse? I must definitely be part of some reality show about my life." He mocked sadly.
Sherlock brought his eyes to John's, to those wet eyes red from crying. His impassive face of his, as soon as his eyes met, softened visibly.
"John ..."
"Mh."
"It's really me. It's me. I'm not a hallucination from your head. Please, please believe me."
Silence.
"Okay...then prove it." John challenged because he didn't believe half word.
"How?"
"Touch my arm."
"Only this?"
"Yup."
"All right then."
As soon as Sherlock grabbed his arm, John felt a jolt sweep through his body.
Chills and goosebumps to follow.
He began to breathe heavily.
He didn't understand why he could feel the touch, was it really Sherlock? No it wasn't possible. He had seen him dead. He had gone to his funeral. He had brought flowers to the cemetery for two years.
He had said goodbye. The most painful farewell of his life.
But before of the tragedy John had felt the true happiness in that segment of his life that before Sherlock was all the same, shaped by others except himself. He had known friendship, affection, joy, the fear of losing someone, but above all he had loved. He had really loved, from the first moment.
And now Sherlock stood in front of him. Impossible.
"What...how..." He sputtered confused and agitated.
"John, calm down."
"I - no, I, how can I feel you, why do I feel the warmth of your hand?"
He took a step back from where he stood, then another, then another until he hit the wooden desk in front of the window. The glass cup with the pencils inside it fell to the ground and broke. John jumped.
The panic in his eyes was obvious and he kept muttering words under his breath, trying to calm down, breathi ng irregularly, sweating cold.
Sherlock advanced towards him.
The doctor's hands were pressed to the wood of the desk, scratching the lacquer off the surface with his fingernails.
"John,"
"No! Stay away from me!" He screamed with all the breath left in his throat.
"John, stay calm, breathe, it's alright..." Sherlock said in the calmest tone he could. Then he tried to get closer.
"I told you to stay there! Did you hear me?" The army doctor kept screaming, despair and fear in his tone.
At that point Sherlock squatted and knelt on the frozen floor. He would wait for John to calm down.
He remained in that position for several minutes, sometimes meeting the frightened gaze of his best friend who was watching him from above.
After a while John took his hands off the wood and let them fall to his sides relaxing.
He closed his eyes. Hallucinations usually disappeared after a while. But he reopened them and he realized that this time it hadn't worked. Maybe Sherlock was really there.
He took courage and took small steps towards him. He reached out and his hand rested on the detective's head. He tensed as he felt the soft curls brush against his hand. He began to run one hand and then both hands through his hair not caring about what he was really doing. He relaxed his body as he realized that maybe this was real, and that Sherlock was indeed alive and crouched on the floor in front of him.
Sherlock let out a sigh of relief and wrapped the legs of John who was standing in front of him, in an embrace, resting his head on the belly of the other.
"I’m sorry. I’m so sorry John." He then said in a low voice.
The feeling of John's hands stroking his head was finally real. It wasn't a dream and it wasn't a fantasy built in his mind palace.
John knelt with his eyes full of tears in front of his friend and burst into a desperate cry as he hugged him tight with his arms as if he was afraid he might slip away.
"Why, Sherlock?"
"I'm sorry John. I had no choice, either you or me...and Mrs. Hudson...and Lestrade. I couldn't ... I couldn't allow it. I couldn't let them take you away from me." He answered the other in a low voice.
"I- You," John whimpered.
"Forgive me, John. I beg you to forgive me. If you are so broken it's all my fault. I wanted to warn you, but I didn't have the courage. I was too scared, I had to make sure every man in Moriarty's web lay lifeless before I told you."
The tears were definitely threatening to come out of his eyes as well and he was aware that soon he would cry.
“It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter anymore,” the doctor said stroking his entire face with both hands, as if to make sure Sherlock was still there. Pushing the curls away from his eyes, he ran his thumb just under the eye, wiping away his friend's tear.
The detective at that gesture let go of the other tears and began to sob.
"What did I do... you were about to commit suicide. I don't want to imagine what I would have done if I had arrived late...my God, forgive me." Then he totally gave in to tears.
John wrapped Sherlock in a hug.
"Shhh, it's okay, it didn't happen. I'm here, you're here, it's okay now." John sobbed.
Now it was his turn to be strong for both of them. His mind was starting to function again, working clearly, all because now he knew that Sherlock was alive and real and not a hallucination.
And then he felt that Sherlock was returning his embrace. He felt his face get stuck between his neck and shoulder muttering some incomprehensible words against the tears wet sweater.
"What?" John asked not having heard.
"What were you telling me when I arrived? What you failed to tell me before I..."
John's eyes widened.
He was screwed. Completely.
He had no way out. He couldn’t
lie, Sherlock would have noticed right away. Also because he had talked about feelings. It only meant one thing, and John knew he had no other options.
He broke the embrace and remained kneeling.
"Um,"
Sherlock raised his head and turned to face him to encourage him to speak.
John looked back, unsure what to say.
He raised his hand and brought it to Sherlock's face to wipe away the tears.
"I," he cleared his throat "I think..."
He couldn't tell. He was too afraid. But now life was giving him another chance. He had a chance to tell Sherlock that he loved him, and that he wanted to spend his entire life beside him. He'd spent years hoping to meet the right person only to realize they'd always been there. He had always been there.
"Sherlock I..."
But he did not have time to finish speaking that the Sherlock took his chin between his fingers, brought his face closer and placed his delicate soft lips on John's.
John felt his stomach shatter, a flood of emotions hit him without giving him time to realize what was happening. It had to be a dream. He had to be in heaven. After a few seconds he needed to focus, he kissed back. That desperate gesture drew them even closer, they pulled each other in their arms, with tears that continued to fall relentlessly.
The lips parted and John began to leave kisses on every part of Sherlock's face. His cheeks, forehead, chin, corner of his eyes and his lips again, whimpering how much he missed him.
Sherlock was smiling with his eyes closed, knowing he was finally happy. If happiness was made up only of moments then that was the agglomeration of all the moments lost in those two years.
John now continued to leave kisses slower, and then stopped, his forehead against Sherlock's, taking his face with both hands.
"God only knows how much I missed you."
"I missed you John too. I thought about you every day. Every Moriarty man I killed was a step closer and closer to coming back to you."
Sherlock kissed John passionately. Their lips joined each other perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle. Goosebumps everywhere. They broke the kiss.
John with one hand still on the detective's cheek kissed the corner of his mouth.
"I love you Sherlock Homes. I love you more than I love myself."
"John..."
John tensed, afraid to hear his best friend's answer.
"John, you don't know how long I've waited for this moment." He sobbed smiling.
"I love you John Watson."
Their eyes, already still staring at each other, closed in unison and their lips joined again. How much they had suffered and how much they were forgetting that pain in that moment.
After a while John got up from the floor, reaching out his arm. Sherlock grabbed the doctor's hand and stood up too. They began to savor those lips that had been parted for too long. They kissed like it was the last time, desperately. Hands on the back, neck, cheeks, hands held and fingers intertwined. It was just them. Those minutes, that moment, belonged only to them. Taken by the hand they reached the bed. Slowly they climbed onto the small mattress.
"This bed is a bit small for two people, sorry..."
"Don't apologize, alright?”
Immediately afterwards they lay on the small bed in the apartment, with no distance between them. Foreheads against each other, noses touching and breaths too close to be divided.
John ran his hand through the mass of dark curls. And Sherlock's hand stroked his back.
Sherlock was the first to speak.
"How beautiful you are..."
John felt his cheeks flush abruptly at the words. He was grateful that the room was dark.
"You are wonderful." He answered him.
"I'm so lucky John. I, I-“ A tear made its way down his nose.
"Shhhh, it's okay. Don't cry. And to think I wanted to end it. Luckily you arrived in time. How ..?"
"Mycroft."
"Ah yes."
"Lucky they noticed your strange behavior."
"Who?"
"His men. Mycroft made sure you were always under control. They saw you waving your arms around and screaming. I was back a few days ago. They warned Mycroft and he warned me. And then ... you know. I think I'll have to pay someone to fix the kitchen window. " Laughed the detective.
His pale, slender fingers slipped through John's short hair.
"I don't deserve you, John."
He sighed then stroking his face.
John smiled and clumsily kissed Sherlock, kissing only his upper lip, that perfect cupid's bow that outlined his soft lips. Sherlock smiled in amusement.
"I don't deserve you, that is, look at you." John added.
"Shut up, if only you saw yourself as perfect you are…”
"Sherlock .." the doctor whispered, his lips on the detective's.
"Let's go back to Baker Street. I miss our home."
He turned away and Sherlock hugged him, wrapping his arms around him from behind.
"Sure, let's go home. Love."
John smiled at those words. It was too good to be true.
"Sherlock..."
"Mh."
"Promise me to never leave."
Sherlock kissed the neck of his best friend. "I'll never leave you again."
"Do you promise?"
"I promise."
Sherlock rested his face on John's scented hair. Now he would never abandon him. He was sure of it. Now that he had finally found happiness, he would protect it at any cost. And his happiness was his doctor. His best friend. His companion. John.
They fell asleep, surrendering to the sleep that had grown stronger than them, embraced with the warmth of their bodies to comfort them. Finally happy, together and safe, aware that from now on, their life could only get better.