Chapter Text
The silhouette of a face was visible for a moment in the blackened room as lightning flashed across the dark London skyline. Dark curls stood out in contrast with the pale skin of the man curled up on his favourite chair. With long, white fingers perched underneath his chin, illuminated only by the translucent street lights on the road below the window, the man's baritone voice only barely made itself heard over the rumbling thunder.
“One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three. One mile away.”
Ever since John Watson's departure, the great Sherlock Holmes had locked himself up in 221B Baker Street like a caged animal. Hardly bothering to go outside anymore, he relied on Mrs Hudson to bring him food and tea, but even then most things remained untouched on the silver tray. He only spoke when he absolutely had to, which was never , and spent his time laying on the couch, lingering in the smoldering ruins of his mind palace. What had once been grand library halls had crumbled and decayed under the pressure of dismantling Moriarty’s network on his own. As much as he loathed to admit it, Sherlock had changed. He had hardened, his body ragged and his mind worked into exhaustion.
Sherlock had returned from the brink of death, and John had moved out a week later, too angry and hurt to listen to what Sherlock was trying to explain; that everything he had done, he had done to ensure John's safety. He had fully expected the seething rage, and the gnawing guilt in the pit of his stomach had only intensified. Of course, John had every right to not want to interact with him ever again. Sherlock had betrayed his trust, and then John had built a different life for himself while Sherlock had been away. John had chosen Mary.
Absently, Sherlock wondered if John was afraid of the thunder that roamed above London; if he awoke startled at the first dark rumble, back in the dusty heat of Afghanistan once more. He was a soldier, after all, and always a light sleeper. Sherlock's index finger brushed across his bottom lip. Closing his eyes, he could almost hear his former flatmate’s bed creaking and see his exhausted face and messy hair as he would come downstairs and make himself a cup of tea.
He considered sending a text, but thought better of it. Neither would he know what to say, nor did he want to impose on John's new life. By jumping off that roof, he had thrown any chance of a friendship away for good, the only friendship he had ever had the good fortune of maintaining. Besides, John had Mary now, and it was time for Sherlock to let go.
~~*~~
An oppressive quiet had settled over John and Mary’s bedroom, broken only by an occasional distant peal of thunder and the faint, almost imperceptible huff of Mary's steady breathing. The silence enveloped John like a suffocating shroud, accentuating the tightness clenching his chest, and precluded any chance of his falling asleep. The pale orb of the moon had long since climbed above the horizon, throwing its beams through rents in the heavy canopy of clouds that hung high in the troposphere, tempering the otherwise unrelenting darkness of the wee hours, and bathing the desolate rooftops and the now-quiet streets of the city of London in its silvery light.
Turning his head slightly on the pillow, John caught sight of Mary’s sleeping form beside him, her outline visible in the dim light of the moon that streamed through the chinks of the window blinds of their shared bedroom, and for a moment, he let his eyes rest on her, watching her chest rising and falling rhythmically, her eyelashes fluttering lightly with every exhalation that passed through her parted lips. Unlike him, she was in deep slumber, an escaped strand of golden blonde hair framing her sleep-softened features, blissfully unaware of the tangle of thoughts crowding her boyfriend’s mind. Her nightgown-clad arm was resting limply on John’s chest: a tangible reminder of his new domestic reality. Letting out a quiet sigh of defeat through his nose, he averted his gaze back to the ceiling which he had been staring at for the last two or so hours, and resigned himself to continue his pointless study of the cracks in the plaster. Sleep kept eluding him, but it wasn't the storm clamouring outside that prevented him from plunging into much-desired unconsciousness.
In the quiet solitude of the night, the longing that he had so desperately tried to suppress ever since he became aware of its existence, was threatening to break through to the surface again, stubbornly pushing its way to the forefront of his brain. After making itself known all those years ago, it had lingered in the back of his mind for months, a nagging feeling that had been impossible to ignore, and like a tongue seeking a loose tooth, his attention had kept straying to it, his mind incessantly teeming with what-ifs and with hopes that were improbable at best, mere guilty daydreams of a wretched man miserably in love.
Out of respect for his then-flatmate, who had explicitly told him that he considered himself married to his work and was not looking for any kind of relationship, he had done his utmost to stifle the yearning burning deep in the pit of his stomach, hiding it in the dark recesses of his heart where it remained a secret that only he was privy to. He had been fairly confident that the romantic feelings were one-sided, and most importantly, unwelcome, and so the last thing he had wanted to do was to impose himself on Sherlock who had never expressed any interest in forming romantic attachments (or any attachments, for that matter). The mere thought of jeopardising their friendship in any way by making their shared existence uncomfortable or awkward, or worst of all, of driving the man away, had made him abandon any plans of divulging his sentiments.
But it hadn’t been easy. Sometimes, it had been challenging to quell his innermost urges—hell, who was he trying to kid? Sometimes and challenging were understatements that didn’t even begin to describe the daily war which his reason had waged against the more primal part of him that had wanted to claim the man as his, to hold him close and never let go. It had taken nothing short of a gargantuan effort not to give in to the impulse to grab the man’s chin after a particularly adrenaline-laden case or an exceedingly narrow escape from some blood-thirsty serial killer and pull him close to plant a kiss on that prominent bow of his lips; not to give voice to his thoughts about how maddeningly gorgeous he looked when he pottered around the flat in his ridiculously posh dressing gown, the silk of which clung to every curve of his slender frame, highlighting every line, every sharp angle of his body; or not to blatantly stare at his rapidly moving mouth when he was immersed in one of his audible monologues that consisted of a seemingly endless series of observations, each more brilliant, more fantastic than the last, and deductions that were evidently obvious to Sherlock, but downright bewildering to John.
So, no, it had definitely not been easy. But he had persevered in his resolution to keep his feelings to himself, valuing their friendship too much to risk letting his stupid crush come between them. A crush. Hah. It was how he referred to it in his head despite knowing that the roots of his affection went far deeper than mere attraction or simple infatuation.
Then, without forewarning, Sherlock had saved him the trouble of having to keep his shame-inducing desires concealed from him by flinging himself from the roof of Bart’s to his own demise. It had been a shock, to say the least, that the genius, who had always seemed to find a way of weaselling out of problematic situations relatively unscathed, had resorted to such a permanent solution as taking his own life, leaving those who cared for him—because, despite what the madman had seemed to think, there were people who loved him—to pick up the pieces of their broken lives in the wake of his death.
But perhaps the most devastating thing of all had been the realisation, which had dawned on him shortly after the initial shock had worn off, that the man he considered his closest friend hadn’t trusted him enough to confide in him. It had been crushing, and for God-knew-how-many weeks he had felt as if his heart had been squeezed between the plates of a hundred-ton hydraulic press, the pain of his loss and the weight of his guilt and regret manifesting themselves as a physical ache deep beneath his ribs.
The crippling grief Sherlock’s death had caused John had diverted his attention from the jumble of longing and desire he had harboured for the man, keeping it at a distance. If there had ever been any latent hope of becoming more than friends, it had vanished the moment Sherlock’s body had hit the merciless pavement. In the absence of hope, he had been able to put an end to his futile pining and focus solely on mourning the loss of a man who was not only brilliant and intelligent beyond belief, but also painfully human, and most importantly, his friend.
And he had met Mary. She had helped him through the grief, being endlessly understanding and respectful of his need to take things slowly while giving him the possibility of living a normal life, a life without mysteries and puzzle-solving, without serial killers and triple homicides. The prospect of marrying Mary, having children, and living together without the fear of being confronted with the sight of thumbs in the fridge had felt oddly comforting. True, he liked the thrill of the chase, enjoyed the frisson of danger associated with pursuing cold-blooded criminals, the sizzle of adrenaline surging through his veins, but the appeal was dimmed by the absence of the man who had introduced him to the battlefield of London. His life would never become an adventure again, not without Sherlock, but with Mary it could regain at least some semblance of normalcy.
But then the bastard had returned from the dead, undoing all the hard work John had done to get to the point where he could live through a whole hour without his mind wandering to his dead flatmate, and all the thoughts he thought he had managed to vanquish came rushing back with full force.
As he lay there, staring up at the soft-edged shadows cast by the moonlight on the ceiling, he couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Sherlock had never left.
~~*~~
Pacing. Elevated heart rate—ninety-eight beats per minute to be precise. A slight tremor of the right hand, stress-related.
Sherlock was restless, the gears of his mind churning and clicking rapidly as information hit his consciousness like a bucket of cold water. It was the storm, or it was the memories in the walls surrounding him; the familiar smell of home, the dusty surface of the mantelpiece, the empty glare of the skull resting upon it. The quiet and stillness made him uneasy, a constant reminder of his aching solitude. Despite his best efforts to maintain indifferent and cold, there was a sharp pang in his chest whenever his eyes happened to rest upon John’s chair. It remained stubbornly empty, a fine layer of dust coating its worn surface. Mrs. Hudson had attempted to clean it once, but Sherlock had frantically scrawled to his feet to stop her, bewildered at his own inability to keep his emotions under control. She had refrained from going near it since then.
Sherlock was pacing in front of the window, his violin resting against his cheek and with bow in, hand but unable to play. The wall he had built around himself since his fall had grown thick and hard, but it had started to crumble, the dried clay cracking and peeling. The inner turmoil he had kept under lock and key during his time in Serbia was burning fiercely just beneath the surface, each breath he drew threatening to release it. John would have frowned and scowled at his ruthlessness and the things he had done, but it had been necessary in order to protect himself, and ultimately to conquer and destroy Moriarty’s remaining network. He had won, in the end, yet he felt no better now than he had during the months he had been tortured, the usual surge of victory smothered by the scars of his mind and physical body. He was tired, endlessly so, and the task of keeping his walls up had become arduous and futile in John's absence.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, let another dusty brick fall to the ground.
He played.