Sherlock: It Becomes You
Title: It Becomes You
Author: aerithqoc
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Spoilers for 2x03 “The Reichenbach Fall”
Warnings: Mentions of canon character ‘death’.
Word Count: 4000
Disclaimer: None of the characters, places or things mentioned in this fic belongs to me.
Summary: In which everyone worries that John Watson has lost his mind when he becomes obsessed with proving how Sherlock Holmes faked his own death.
A/N: Based on a prompt by eternalghost as seen here. I hope it’s something close to what you wanted. :)
It was supposed to be a lot shorter than this but the prompt kinda got away from me and I borrowed some of the many theories that have been floating about the internet in regards to Sherlock’s survival but I’m not saying if any of them are true or not.. Anyway, enjoy!
~ * ~
It was the thought that could not quit. It would not quit.
Months and months had passed and thoughts of that day still wouldn’t leave his mind, they troubled him for too long.
It was easy to see that John Watson was in a bad way. The events of his final day with Sherlock Holmes played out in his mind like a movie reel, black and white like he was just an observer and never really a part of it.
His psychiatrist told him it was down to severe trauma, the mixed memories of the horrors of war and witnessing the suicide of his best friend right before his eyes, but John’s heart played with the memories too often for him to believe anything was real anymore.
Sherlock Holmes was dead.
His best friend was dead.
His best friend, Sherlock Holmes, was dead.
No matter what way he said it, no matter how many times he stood in front of their mirror, staring at his fallen expression and said the words, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Mrs Hudson worried about him to no end, constantly visiting with trays of tea and biscuits and sandwiches, something to keep him going when all he wanted to do was mull listlessly around the apartment.
Greg Lestrade came by sometimes to see how he was, Mike and Sarah too. Mycroft never once came by. Harry sent him phone call after phone call but after the funeral, John didn’t have it in him to face her sympathetic gaze anymore.
He didn’t have it in him to face anyone anymore.
All he wanted was Sherlock back. Alive.
Maybe it was too much to ask for that one miracle but he couldn’t let it leave his mind.
And then one day when he was wandering around his house, just tidying things and sifting through drawers, he found a box. It was small and plastic and he pulled out what was inside. That's when it hit him, like a bolt of lightning straight through his brain.
Alive.
Alive.
Sherlock... could it be...
~ * ~
John frowned shamefully under Greg Lestrade's stare. The DI had just finished giving him a stern warning after escorting him home from St Barts Hospital.
“I still don’t understand why you were throwing stuff off the roof.” Lestrade said with a shake of his head. John’s guilt spiked because he knew he had startled more than a few people when he starting throwing fruit and cushions and the like from the top of the hospital, though he was sure it would’ve been worse if he actually managed to throw the mannequin head he brought.
“It was... it was an experiment.” John murmured quietly, it suddenly seemed as ridiculous to him as it must have seemed to Greg.
“In what?”
“I just - I dunno. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I wanted to see how something could fall like-” John’s hands had reached up and curled in the air as if he were holding a ball and then he made a noise like an explosion and his hands fell. There was a sigh from his companion.
“Alright then, I gotta ask - Was this ‘experiment’ because of Sherlock?” John nodded and Greg groaned. “Why?”
“He’s alive, Lestrade. Sherlock’s alive. I know it I just don’t know how, but I’m working on it.”
Greg looked at him, pity obvious in every line of his face, before he rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “Look John, I know you miss him. Hell, I miss him. But you’ve got to get a hold of yourself. Acting like this isn't helping anybody.”
“It's fine, I’m fine! I’m just seeing things clearly for the first time.”
“I really don’t think you are.” John hissed at him and grabbed him by the arms pulling him into the apartment and sitting him down on the sofa.
“You wanna know how I know, here I’ll show you.” John ran back to the desk, pulling at one of the desk drawers and grabbing the plastic box. He pulled out something from within it; it was a black rubber ball.
“See this?”
“A stress ball, yes. And I have to tell you John, I think you need it right now.”
“No no.” John said with a disappointed frown. “It’s just a plain rubber ball. They come in packs of three, these things. But there’s only two here. One’s missing.”
“Have you looked-”
“Top to bottom. It’s not here because Sherlock had it with him before he died. I saw him with it.” John said with a lick of his lips, nearly bouncing like an excited puppy. His brow furrowed when Greg just looked blankly at it, like he was sure Greg should understand that this was an important discovery. “Don’t you get it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“It’s a trick, easily done actually. You squeeze a rubber ball under your armpit and it can stop the blood flow in your arm temporarily. You can simulate death. That’s why when I tried to take his pulse I couldn’t feel anything. Because he faked it using the ball. You see?”
“He wasn’t breathing.”
“He could’ve held his breath.”
“For that long?”
“If you hyperventilate for long enough then it is possibl-”
“Stop! This is insane!”
“And so was Sherlock!” John shouted, holding up the ball in his hand and flashing his teeth in a cold grin. “Brilliantly insane and this is too obvious a clue to ignore.”
“It’s not a clue, John.”
“Everything Sherlock does is a clue.” John glared, giving his most piercing gaze.
“Well no one can fake a fall like that, not even Sherlock Holmes.” Lestrade said, taking to his feet and straightening his coat out. “You should really talk to someone, John. Grief can do funny things to a person’s mind. Make people over-think things. People die, I know that’s not what you want to hear but sometimes it really is just that simple, no matter how much we wish otherwise.”
Silence reigned heavy in the room and John closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and squeezing the ball in his hand tightly.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” John opened his eyes slowly, calmly. “You’re right no one could fake a fall like that. But Sherlock Holmes isn’t just anybody. If there’s anyone in this entire world that could do it, it’s him. I’m sure of it.”
~ * ~
John kept his door tightly closed after that. Lestrade tried coming around a few more times but John refused to see him and Mrs Hudson was left to give embarrassed apologies to the DI before sending him on his way.
They were worried about him; he supposed that they should be. Refusing to come out of his house, refusing to allow visitors, refusing to even change out of his comfy pyjamas and dressing gown because - well, why should he get dressed when he was only in the company of me, myself and I?
John knew that he must've seemed like a crazed conspiracy theorist to the outside world, except nobody but him understood just how crazy Sherlock’s life could be. Was. Is. And he absolutely had to be alive; it was just crazy enough to be true.
There was something in John that couldn’t quite function alongside the thought of a world missing Sherlock Holmes.
It was impossible.
‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
It became John’s mantra, a tattoo in the back of his brain that would never go away.
So, John looked into it more and more and the more he looked into it, the more it made sense - Sherlock’s death was staged.
All over his walls was evidence of such; newspaper clippings, photographs and Sherlock’s own scribbled notes as well as a few of his own. It had taken him a while to gather it but now he had all the pieces so all he had to do was put them together.
Fact; John wasn’t allowed to see the body after his supposed death due to too much red tape but there was no way that should’ve been able to stop him given the circumstances and his “friends” in high places. If Molly or Lestrade or Mike couldn’t get him in, then Mycroft could’ve done it with no doubt.
John ran across the room, excited, and stabbed a red pin into a picture on the wall, right through the image of Mycroft Holme’s forehead. Red string, twisted around the pin, was pulled taut towards a newspaper article about the fraudulent consulting detective’s body being identified. The title made John grumble.
Another important fact; Mycroft didn’t help him though. He exited the hospital, grim and into John’s waiting questions.
“Better you don’t see,” he had told John.
“But I need to see. Please.” John had replied.
Mycroft never relented, just stared for a moment before departing in a fancy, black car with the girl who sometimes called herself Anthea.
That should’ve been a big clue to him at the time. He had assumed it was the actions of a grieving brother but then he realised the Holmes brothers were anything but ordinary. John didn’t know Mycroft well but he knew him well enough to realise his error that day. Every action that day was an obvious tell, a bright neon sign saying ‘wrong!’
For if there was anyone on this planet, still alive, that could cover up a death like that it was Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft had to have been in on it from the beginning.
And Molly too.
John ran to the other side of the room, narrowly avoiding tripping over a stool, to pick up another pin from the pile on the mantle which surrounded the leering skull. He returned and stuck it thoughtfully through Molly’s picture on the wall, through her heart, and linked the string to a particular line on a separate article.
Yet another fact; Molly Hooper, who adored Sherlock to pieces, who clambered for every bit of attention from him and who stumbled across her words so humble like in his presence, did the autopsy.
Molly had attended the funeral. She barely cried, she did not look John in the eye nor did she mutter more than “I’m so sorry for your loss” before she departed. Clear signs of guilt, hiding something.
Hiding her hand in the cover-up of Sherlock’s fake death.
Easily done. Absolutely easy. Another piece collected.
However....
John stopped, the last of the red pins slipping from his hand and crumpling to the floor. He took a step back to examine his work.
“The fall.” John murmured to no one at all. “How do you fake a fall...”
‘You can’t’, Lestrade’s cynical voice echoed in his ear and John shooed it away, gripping the side of his head and cupping his ears as if it could block the words.
No, there had to be a way. There had to be, but how?
John groaned and fell back into the old, once-green armchair with a sigh.
This was a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes.
~ * ~
John had so many ideas on how Sherlock could’ve survived the fall but none were acceptable.
A fake body thrown over the edge? No.
Some incredibly elaborate fall onto a secret fireman’s blanket? No.
Superhuman abilities? No, but that would be a turn up.
John was suffering from a hallucinogen at the time, like the one from Baskerville? Possible, but no.
Eventually, the idea flow stopped abruptly and John was at a loss. No matter how long he stared at that board with its intricate web, nothing seemed to come from it.
He growled like a wounded animal, and tossed over a chair before perching precariously on the edge of the sofa, running his fingers through his too greasy hair in agitation.
What would Sherlock do right now? What?
John tilted his head and a thought sprung to him, he immediately raced to the desk drawers and rummaged through until he found a box of Nicorette patches.
“Well, if ever there was a three patch problem...” John said with a shrug, tearing the packets open and sticking the patches onto his arm in a perfect line.
He hadn’t smoked since he was much, much younger and even then it was only after enough booze made smoking seem like a good idea but moments after sticking the nicotine patches on, the wiry electric buzz that coursed through his veins afterwards made his synapses zing like an alarm had gone off.
And suddenly he had the energy, he was wired and focused straight on the deed and he set about it like a man possessed, grinning maniacally all the way.
“God Sherlock, you were right all along! This is great!” John said and buzzed along the room.
The ideas, oh the ideas! They were flowing like a never-ending river and John looked towards the old armchair to his left as if Sherlock would be there smirking at him and saying 'I told you so' but still, the chair remained empty.
A shiver travelled up his spine for a moment, but only for a moment, because he knew when he finished this mystery that he would have Sherlock back. He would get that 'I told you so' and he promised himself, he wouldn’t even be angry at Sherlock for being smug at that one.
Though, John remarked, he would more than likely still be angry about the ‘faking his death’ part.
~ * ~
The fall was the hardest part for John to understand.
He couldn’t figure out how Sherlock, in those few brief seconds, had managed it all.
“No no no that’s not - not right! No way!” John shouted at nothing, his hands alternating between angry fist pumps and anxious wringing. He blinked suddenly. His mouth curved downwards in a perfect semi-circle.
“Come on!”
John’s hand reached for papers on the wall, he tore them obsessively off and across the room. What once were sheets of priceless gold, now as useless as the dust on the shelves.
More and more was ripped from the walls, bits and pieces of red and white and grey, raining across the floor in his fury.
It was around this time that Mrs Hudson, now John’s only visitor, ventured up the stairs with a cup of tea and a small plate of biscuits, just in time to see the red strings flutter towards the ground like morbid confetti.
“John dear, I brought you some tea. You know, I really think you should think about - ”
John wasn’t listening, he rarely listened to her anymore. John knew he was a worry that plagued her mind constantly but some days, like today, he couldn’t bring himself to care to convince her not to bother.
He had to focusfocusfocus.
“ - not that I mind really but you don’t seem to be yourself these days and I - ”
“Not now, Mrs Hudson!” He shouted, one hand splayed out to shoo her away like an unruly child. He made no apologies for it. “Can’t you see I’m busy here?!”
Mrs Hudson stopped, frozen in place. John turned his head towards her and took in her expression with an excessively critical eye - wide eyes, quickened breath, the tremor in the frail hand that dared to travel upwards to cover her mouth as she took in his unashamedly wild appearance.
John knew exactly what she was seeing. He could almost feel the shiver of déjà vu that travelled up her spine at seeing him like that.
“He wouldn’t want you to obsess, dear.” She began again but he had already turned back to his work. So, she just left him be and travelled down the stairs, her words lingering on long after she disappeared. “Or maybe he would, who knows how that funny old head of his really worked...”
‘I do now, I think finally do,’ something inside John responded miserably though his eyes never left the wall.
~ * ~
John had it.
He was so sure he had it.
There was no other way about it, this was the complete theory about how Sherlock Holmes had faked his death and he knew it had no choice but to be true.
All the pieces were there; the fall - Oh God, the final problem that had alluded him so - was so simple in the end up -
‘You see, but you don’t observe.’
“Right you are, Sherlock. Right you are.” John said to himself in triumph as he spun in a circle in his striped dressing gown. “But never again, I’ve learned my lesson.”
- and the blood, and his pulse, and his body in the morgue. It couldn’t possibly be anything else.
John curled up on Sherlock’s armchair and marvelled at the world he had created. He needed to tell someone.
He texted Lestrade.
I’ve solved it. I know how Sherlock did it. - JW
John got no response from Greg. It was then John realised how long it had been since the last time he spoke to his friend, weeks in fact - months maybe?
Greg probably thought he’d lost it completely at this point and it made John frown that the DI hadn’t believed in him to solve this case.
He texted Mycroft.
I know Sherlock is alive. - JW
John knew he’d get no response from that text, but he hoped it left the impression he was hoping for.
John even contemplated shouting at Mrs Hudson but he knew that it would only get another lecture to go to bed, rest and take care of himself more because the rings under his eyes were getting far more prominent.
John’s frown deepened.
Now, John knew how but not why Sherlock had done what he did. And it made his entire body slump when he realised that perhaps he would never know why. After all, if Sherlock was as alive as all John's notes claimed then why hadn’t be returned by now or sent some message to him by now?
Why hadn’t Sherlock just put him out of his misery after all this time? It had been over a year now, so why not? His chest hurt in a way he hadn’t felt since before he first started trying to figure this out.
He sent one final text.
Why did you lie to ME? - JW
Distantly, he could almost hear the blip of a text message from the phone that was constantly on charge in the room John only dared to venture into on his bravest days.
John sighed and let his arm fall limp, his phone dropping to the floor with a dull thud. John curled into a ball on the chair, his robe splaying widely behind him and down onto the ground like a pinstriped waterfall.
He closed his eyes and pretended it was something else that made his heart ache so much.
~ * ~
Without the need to figure out the problem anymore, John’s energy took an abrupt tumble downwards. All that time surviving on only a few hours sleep over days, eating barely any food and sticking on every nicotine patch in the otherwise empty house, was catching up with him.
He had no motivation left in him. He was filled with a deep, dark sense of despair about everything he had done. The more he thought over it, the more he cringed.
He began doubting his own theories; there really weren't any solid facts behind them, it just seemed like mindless conjecture to him. Maybe he had lost it after all, maybe he was just a crazy conspiracy theorist.
John wanted to be wrong because he was distraught that Sherlock hadn’t told him and that he still hadn’t come back but then again, he didn’t want to doubt his theories because that would mean Sherlock really was dead and would never be able to come back.
John had no more energy left in him to try to work it out, everything inside him was spent and dying quickly. He was no Sherlock Holmes, and he never would be.
So, he just mourned and wallowed.
And then he just stopped.
And then one day, the game changed. One day there was a cry of shock and a shriek of laughter from downstairs and John, who was napping on the couch, creaked an eye open.
'Shock and happiness and relief, obviously. An unexpected visitor. Someone she’s not seen in a long time,' John’s mind continued to reel on but John’s heart refused to hear. His eye slipped closed again.
There were thuds on the stairs.
'Shall have company soon. Male, most probably. Familiar with the surroundings judging by the wide berth of the step but hesitant at the top, nervous of what’s inside.' John told the voice in his head to just shut the hell up and rolled over and into the sofa cushion to block out the noise.
“John.”
His eyes snapped open and he twisted around so quickly he was sure something had pulled in his neck.
In slow motion John brought his weary and confused body to a stand and he stared hard at the “unexpected visitor” at the door.
“Sherlock?”
The man hadn’t changed much at all. His clothes were different, his hair slightly longer but his eyes still gleamed of the same sly intelligence and perhaps even regret, though that may have been wishful thinking.
Sherlock looked around the apartment with a curious expression on his face, taking in the scarlet spun ideas across the walls and the papers and photos across the floor and the cups with days old tea, already with a thin white film along the tops.
“Really John? I’m away for a while and you let the place fall apart.” It was a tiny joke but it fell flat against the pounding in John’s ears.
“Two years, Sherlock. It’s been nearly two years.”
“I know.” Sherlock at least had the decency to look guilty at that and all of the anger on the tip of John’s tongue melted away for that moment and he smiled shakily. Sherlock tilted his head. “You don’t seem to be all that surprised though.”
“I knew it...” John murmured, barely believing the words on his tongue.
“You look tired. It’s been a while since you’ve slept...”
John's body hopped at those words and he dashed to the table, gathering the notes and papers and the empty plastic box of bouncy balls as well for good measure before he rushed up to stand right before Sherlock.
Underneath those intense, quicksilver eyes John felt vulnerable but giddy and he held out his findings towards Sherlock, feeling like a child presenting a treasured drawing to their parent.
Sherlock examined each page with rigid efficiently, circling towards the table and throwing the pieces he was finished with to the ground.
It made John more than a little nervous and he circled around to the other side of the table, using the arm of the couch against the back of his legs to keep himself from falling to the floor.
There was a long moment of silence after Sherlock finished.
“And these are your final deductions.” He finally said. John gulped.
“Y-Yes.”
Sherlock’s eyes inevitably trailed upwards and John felt his heart just stop. Frozen. Waiting. Please.
John’s friend - his long, lost, but never forgotten, his always alive friend - suddenly just smiled at him and chuckled in what was unmistakeably pride and just like that, John’s heart remembered to beat again.
“Brilliant, John. Simply brilliant. It may take you a while but you usually get there in the end.” Sherlock murmured, dropping the last of the papers onto the table and winding his fingers together in a knot.
It was a double edged comment but John was so overwhelmed by it all - the countless nights disappearing into countless days, the paper cuts and dizzy spells, the strange looks and his friends’ attempts to ‘help’ that never went anywhere because nobody could see what John could see - and now it had all finally come to fruition.
John dropped straight backwards onto the sofa, his eyes slipping shut.
“Really? I assumed you wanted to talk some more.”
“Yes... yes I do. We will. Just give me a minute.” John said quietly as he felt himself drifting off into the land of slumber for just a little while.
The smile never once left John's face.
~ * ~
Author: aerithqoc
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Spoilers for 2x03 “The Reichenbach Fall”
Warnings: Mentions of canon character ‘death’.
Word Count: 4000
Disclaimer: None of the characters, places or things mentioned in this fic belongs to me.
Summary: In which everyone worries that John Watson has lost his mind when he becomes obsessed with proving how Sherlock Holmes faked his own death.
A/N: Based on a prompt by eternalghost as seen here. I hope it’s something close to what you wanted. :)
It was supposed to be a lot shorter than this but the prompt kinda got away from me and I borrowed some of the many theories that have been floating about the internet in regards to Sherlock’s survival but I’m not saying if any of them are true or not.. Anyway, enjoy!
~ * ~
It was the thought that could not quit. It would not quit.
Months and months had passed and thoughts of that day still wouldn’t leave his mind, they troubled him for too long.
It was easy to see that John Watson was in a bad way. The events of his final day with Sherlock Holmes played out in his mind like a movie reel, black and white like he was just an observer and never really a part of it.
His psychiatrist told him it was down to severe trauma, the mixed memories of the horrors of war and witnessing the suicide of his best friend right before his eyes, but John’s heart played with the memories too often for him to believe anything was real anymore.
Sherlock Holmes was dead.
His best friend was dead.
His best friend, Sherlock Holmes, was dead.
No matter what way he said it, no matter how many times he stood in front of their mirror, staring at his fallen expression and said the words, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Mrs Hudson worried about him to no end, constantly visiting with trays of tea and biscuits and sandwiches, something to keep him going when all he wanted to do was mull listlessly around the apartment.
Greg Lestrade came by sometimes to see how he was, Mike and Sarah too. Mycroft never once came by. Harry sent him phone call after phone call but after the funeral, John didn’t have it in him to face her sympathetic gaze anymore.
He didn’t have it in him to face anyone anymore.
All he wanted was Sherlock back. Alive.
Maybe it was too much to ask for that one miracle but he couldn’t let it leave his mind.
And then one day when he was wandering around his house, just tidying things and sifting through drawers, he found a box. It was small and plastic and he pulled out what was inside. That's when it hit him, like a bolt of lightning straight through his brain.
Alive.
Alive.
Sherlock... could it be...
~ * ~
John frowned shamefully under Greg Lestrade's stare. The DI had just finished giving him a stern warning after escorting him home from St Barts Hospital.
“I still don’t understand why you were throwing stuff off the roof.” Lestrade said with a shake of his head. John’s guilt spiked because he knew he had startled more than a few people when he starting throwing fruit and cushions and the like from the top of the hospital, though he was sure it would’ve been worse if he actually managed to throw the mannequin head he brought.
“It was... it was an experiment.” John murmured quietly, it suddenly seemed as ridiculous to him as it must have seemed to Greg.
“In what?”
“I just - I dunno. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I wanted to see how something could fall like-” John’s hands had reached up and curled in the air as if he were holding a ball and then he made a noise like an explosion and his hands fell. There was a sigh from his companion.
“Alright then, I gotta ask - Was this ‘experiment’ because of Sherlock?” John nodded and Greg groaned. “Why?”
“He’s alive, Lestrade. Sherlock’s alive. I know it I just don’t know how, but I’m working on it.”
Greg looked at him, pity obvious in every line of his face, before he rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “Look John, I know you miss him. Hell, I miss him. But you’ve got to get a hold of yourself. Acting like this isn't helping anybody.”
“It's fine, I’m fine! I’m just seeing things clearly for the first time.”
“I really don’t think you are.” John hissed at him and grabbed him by the arms pulling him into the apartment and sitting him down on the sofa.
“You wanna know how I know, here I’ll show you.” John ran back to the desk, pulling at one of the desk drawers and grabbing the plastic box. He pulled out something from within it; it was a black rubber ball.
“See this?”
“A stress ball, yes. And I have to tell you John, I think you need it right now.”
“No no.” John said with a disappointed frown. “It’s just a plain rubber ball. They come in packs of three, these things. But there’s only two here. One’s missing.”
“Have you looked-”
“Top to bottom. It’s not here because Sherlock had it with him before he died. I saw him with it.” John said with a lick of his lips, nearly bouncing like an excited puppy. His brow furrowed when Greg just looked blankly at it, like he was sure Greg should understand that this was an important discovery. “Don’t you get it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“It’s a trick, easily done actually. You squeeze a rubber ball under your armpit and it can stop the blood flow in your arm temporarily. You can simulate death. That’s why when I tried to take his pulse I couldn’t feel anything. Because he faked it using the ball. You see?”
“He wasn’t breathing.”
“He could’ve held his breath.”
“For that long?”
“If you hyperventilate for long enough then it is possibl-”
“Stop! This is insane!”
“And so was Sherlock!” John shouted, holding up the ball in his hand and flashing his teeth in a cold grin. “Brilliantly insane and this is too obvious a clue to ignore.”
“It’s not a clue, John.”
“Everything Sherlock does is a clue.” John glared, giving his most piercing gaze.
“Well no one can fake a fall like that, not even Sherlock Holmes.” Lestrade said, taking to his feet and straightening his coat out. “You should really talk to someone, John. Grief can do funny things to a person’s mind. Make people over-think things. People die, I know that’s not what you want to hear but sometimes it really is just that simple, no matter how much we wish otherwise.”
Silence reigned heavy in the room and John closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and squeezing the ball in his hand tightly.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” John opened his eyes slowly, calmly. “You’re right no one could fake a fall like that. But Sherlock Holmes isn’t just anybody. If there’s anyone in this entire world that could do it, it’s him. I’m sure of it.”
~ * ~
John kept his door tightly closed after that. Lestrade tried coming around a few more times but John refused to see him and Mrs Hudson was left to give embarrassed apologies to the DI before sending him on his way.
They were worried about him; he supposed that they should be. Refusing to come out of his house, refusing to allow visitors, refusing to even change out of his comfy pyjamas and dressing gown because - well, why should he get dressed when he was only in the company of me, myself and I?
John knew that he must've seemed like a crazed conspiracy theorist to the outside world, except nobody but him understood just how crazy Sherlock’s life could be. Was. Is. And he absolutely had to be alive; it was just crazy enough to be true.
There was something in John that couldn’t quite function alongside the thought of a world missing Sherlock Holmes.
It was impossible.
‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
It became John’s mantra, a tattoo in the back of his brain that would never go away.
So, John looked into it more and more and the more he looked into it, the more it made sense - Sherlock’s death was staged.
All over his walls was evidence of such; newspaper clippings, photographs and Sherlock’s own scribbled notes as well as a few of his own. It had taken him a while to gather it but now he had all the pieces so all he had to do was put them together.
Fact; John wasn’t allowed to see the body after his supposed death due to too much red tape but there was no way that should’ve been able to stop him given the circumstances and his “friends” in high places. If Molly or Lestrade or Mike couldn’t get him in, then Mycroft could’ve done it with no doubt.
John ran across the room, excited, and stabbed a red pin into a picture on the wall, right through the image of Mycroft Holme’s forehead. Red string, twisted around the pin, was pulled taut towards a newspaper article about the fraudulent consulting detective’s body being identified. The title made John grumble.
Another important fact; Mycroft didn’t help him though. He exited the hospital, grim and into John’s waiting questions.
“Better you don’t see,” he had told John.
“But I need to see. Please.” John had replied.
Mycroft never relented, just stared for a moment before departing in a fancy, black car with the girl who sometimes called herself Anthea.
That should’ve been a big clue to him at the time. He had assumed it was the actions of a grieving brother but then he realised the Holmes brothers were anything but ordinary. John didn’t know Mycroft well but he knew him well enough to realise his error that day. Every action that day was an obvious tell, a bright neon sign saying ‘wrong!’
For if there was anyone on this planet, still alive, that could cover up a death like that it was Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft had to have been in on it from the beginning.
And Molly too.
John ran to the other side of the room, narrowly avoiding tripping over a stool, to pick up another pin from the pile on the mantle which surrounded the leering skull. He returned and stuck it thoughtfully through Molly’s picture on the wall, through her heart, and linked the string to a particular line on a separate article.
Yet another fact; Molly Hooper, who adored Sherlock to pieces, who clambered for every bit of attention from him and who stumbled across her words so humble like in his presence, did the autopsy.
Molly had attended the funeral. She barely cried, she did not look John in the eye nor did she mutter more than “I’m so sorry for your loss” before she departed. Clear signs of guilt, hiding something.
Hiding her hand in the cover-up of Sherlock’s fake death.
Easily done. Absolutely easy. Another piece collected.
However....
John stopped, the last of the red pins slipping from his hand and crumpling to the floor. He took a step back to examine his work.
“The fall.” John murmured to no one at all. “How do you fake a fall...”
‘You can’t’, Lestrade’s cynical voice echoed in his ear and John shooed it away, gripping the side of his head and cupping his ears as if it could block the words.
No, there had to be a way. There had to be, but how?
John groaned and fell back into the old, once-green armchair with a sigh.
This was a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes.
~ * ~
John had so many ideas on how Sherlock could’ve survived the fall but none were acceptable.
A fake body thrown over the edge? No.
Some incredibly elaborate fall onto a secret fireman’s blanket? No.
Superhuman abilities? No, but that would be a turn up.
John was suffering from a hallucinogen at the time, like the one from Baskerville? Possible, but no.
Eventually, the idea flow stopped abruptly and John was at a loss. No matter how long he stared at that board with its intricate web, nothing seemed to come from it.
He growled like a wounded animal, and tossed over a chair before perching precariously on the edge of the sofa, running his fingers through his too greasy hair in agitation.
What would Sherlock do right now? What?
John tilted his head and a thought sprung to him, he immediately raced to the desk drawers and rummaged through until he found a box of Nicorette patches.
“Well, if ever there was a three patch problem...” John said with a shrug, tearing the packets open and sticking the patches onto his arm in a perfect line.
He hadn’t smoked since he was much, much younger and even then it was only after enough booze made smoking seem like a good idea but moments after sticking the nicotine patches on, the wiry electric buzz that coursed through his veins afterwards made his synapses zing like an alarm had gone off.
And suddenly he had the energy, he was wired and focused straight on the deed and he set about it like a man possessed, grinning maniacally all the way.
“God Sherlock, you were right all along! This is great!” John said and buzzed along the room.
The ideas, oh the ideas! They were flowing like a never-ending river and John looked towards the old armchair to his left as if Sherlock would be there smirking at him and saying 'I told you so' but still, the chair remained empty.
A shiver travelled up his spine for a moment, but only for a moment, because he knew when he finished this mystery that he would have Sherlock back. He would get that 'I told you so' and he promised himself, he wouldn’t even be angry at Sherlock for being smug at that one.
Though, John remarked, he would more than likely still be angry about the ‘faking his death’ part.
~ * ~
The fall was the hardest part for John to understand.
He couldn’t figure out how Sherlock, in those few brief seconds, had managed it all.
“No no no that’s not - not right! No way!” John shouted at nothing, his hands alternating between angry fist pumps and anxious wringing. He blinked suddenly. His mouth curved downwards in a perfect semi-circle.
“Come on!”
John’s hand reached for papers on the wall, he tore them obsessively off and across the room. What once were sheets of priceless gold, now as useless as the dust on the shelves.
More and more was ripped from the walls, bits and pieces of red and white and grey, raining across the floor in his fury.
It was around this time that Mrs Hudson, now John’s only visitor, ventured up the stairs with a cup of tea and a small plate of biscuits, just in time to see the red strings flutter towards the ground like morbid confetti.
“John dear, I brought you some tea. You know, I really think you should think about - ”
John wasn’t listening, he rarely listened to her anymore. John knew he was a worry that plagued her mind constantly but some days, like today, he couldn’t bring himself to care to convince her not to bother.
He had to focusfocusfocus.
“ - not that I mind really but you don’t seem to be yourself these days and I - ”
“Not now, Mrs Hudson!” He shouted, one hand splayed out to shoo her away like an unruly child. He made no apologies for it. “Can’t you see I’m busy here?!”
Mrs Hudson stopped, frozen in place. John turned his head towards her and took in her expression with an excessively critical eye - wide eyes, quickened breath, the tremor in the frail hand that dared to travel upwards to cover her mouth as she took in his unashamedly wild appearance.
John knew exactly what she was seeing. He could almost feel the shiver of déjà vu that travelled up her spine at seeing him like that.
“He wouldn’t want you to obsess, dear.” She began again but he had already turned back to his work. So, she just left him be and travelled down the stairs, her words lingering on long after she disappeared. “Or maybe he would, who knows how that funny old head of his really worked...”
‘I do now, I think finally do,’ something inside John responded miserably though his eyes never left the wall.
~ * ~
John had it.
He was so sure he had it.
There was no other way about it, this was the complete theory about how Sherlock Holmes had faked his death and he knew it had no choice but to be true.
All the pieces were there; the fall - Oh God, the final problem that had alluded him so - was so simple in the end up -
‘You see, but you don’t observe.’
“Right you are, Sherlock. Right you are.” John said to himself in triumph as he spun in a circle in his striped dressing gown. “But never again, I’ve learned my lesson.”
- and the blood, and his pulse, and his body in the morgue. It couldn’t possibly be anything else.
John curled up on Sherlock’s armchair and marvelled at the world he had created. He needed to tell someone.
He texted Lestrade.
I’ve solved it. I know how Sherlock did it. - JW
John got no response from Greg. It was then John realised how long it had been since the last time he spoke to his friend, weeks in fact - months maybe?
Greg probably thought he’d lost it completely at this point and it made John frown that the DI hadn’t believed in him to solve this case.
He texted Mycroft.
I know Sherlock is alive. - JW
John knew he’d get no response from that text, but he hoped it left the impression he was hoping for.
John even contemplated shouting at Mrs Hudson but he knew that it would only get another lecture to go to bed, rest and take care of himself more because the rings under his eyes were getting far more prominent.
John’s frown deepened.
Now, John knew how but not why Sherlock had done what he did. And it made his entire body slump when he realised that perhaps he would never know why. After all, if Sherlock was as alive as all John's notes claimed then why hadn’t be returned by now or sent some message to him by now?
Why hadn’t Sherlock just put him out of his misery after all this time? It had been over a year now, so why not? His chest hurt in a way he hadn’t felt since before he first started trying to figure this out.
He sent one final text.
Why did you lie to ME? - JW
Distantly, he could almost hear the blip of a text message from the phone that was constantly on charge in the room John only dared to venture into on his bravest days.
John sighed and let his arm fall limp, his phone dropping to the floor with a dull thud. John curled into a ball on the chair, his robe splaying widely behind him and down onto the ground like a pinstriped waterfall.
He closed his eyes and pretended it was something else that made his heart ache so much.
~ * ~
Without the need to figure out the problem anymore, John’s energy took an abrupt tumble downwards. All that time surviving on only a few hours sleep over days, eating barely any food and sticking on every nicotine patch in the otherwise empty house, was catching up with him.
He had no motivation left in him. He was filled with a deep, dark sense of despair about everything he had done. The more he thought over it, the more he cringed.
He began doubting his own theories; there really weren't any solid facts behind them, it just seemed like mindless conjecture to him. Maybe he had lost it after all, maybe he was just a crazy conspiracy theorist.
John wanted to be wrong because he was distraught that Sherlock hadn’t told him and that he still hadn’t come back but then again, he didn’t want to doubt his theories because that would mean Sherlock really was dead and would never be able to come back.
John had no more energy left in him to try to work it out, everything inside him was spent and dying quickly. He was no Sherlock Holmes, and he never would be.
So, he just mourned and wallowed.
And then he just stopped.
And then one day, the game changed. One day there was a cry of shock and a shriek of laughter from downstairs and John, who was napping on the couch, creaked an eye open.
'Shock and happiness and relief, obviously. An unexpected visitor. Someone she’s not seen in a long time,' John’s mind continued to reel on but John’s heart refused to hear. His eye slipped closed again.
There were thuds on the stairs.
'Shall have company soon. Male, most probably. Familiar with the surroundings judging by the wide berth of the step but hesitant at the top, nervous of what’s inside.' John told the voice in his head to just shut the hell up and rolled over and into the sofa cushion to block out the noise.
“John.”
His eyes snapped open and he twisted around so quickly he was sure something had pulled in his neck.
In slow motion John brought his weary and confused body to a stand and he stared hard at the “unexpected visitor” at the door.
“Sherlock?”
The man hadn’t changed much at all. His clothes were different, his hair slightly longer but his eyes still gleamed of the same sly intelligence and perhaps even regret, though that may have been wishful thinking.
Sherlock looked around the apartment with a curious expression on his face, taking in the scarlet spun ideas across the walls and the papers and photos across the floor and the cups with days old tea, already with a thin white film along the tops.
“Really John? I’m away for a while and you let the place fall apart.” It was a tiny joke but it fell flat against the pounding in John’s ears.
“Two years, Sherlock. It’s been nearly two years.”
“I know.” Sherlock at least had the decency to look guilty at that and all of the anger on the tip of John’s tongue melted away for that moment and he smiled shakily. Sherlock tilted his head. “You don’t seem to be all that surprised though.”
“I knew it...” John murmured, barely believing the words on his tongue.
“You look tired. It’s been a while since you’ve slept...”
John's body hopped at those words and he dashed to the table, gathering the notes and papers and the empty plastic box of bouncy balls as well for good measure before he rushed up to stand right before Sherlock.
Underneath those intense, quicksilver eyes John felt vulnerable but giddy and he held out his findings towards Sherlock, feeling like a child presenting a treasured drawing to their parent.
Sherlock examined each page with rigid efficiently, circling towards the table and throwing the pieces he was finished with to the ground.
It made John more than a little nervous and he circled around to the other side of the table, using the arm of the couch against the back of his legs to keep himself from falling to the floor.
There was a long moment of silence after Sherlock finished.
“And these are your final deductions.” He finally said. John gulped.
“Y-Yes.”
Sherlock’s eyes inevitably trailed upwards and John felt his heart just stop. Frozen. Waiting. Please.
John’s friend - his long, lost, but never forgotten, his always alive friend - suddenly just smiled at him and chuckled in what was unmistakeably pride and just like that, John’s heart remembered to beat again.
“Brilliant, John. Simply brilliant. It may take you a while but you usually get there in the end.” Sherlock murmured, dropping the last of the papers onto the table and winding his fingers together in a knot.
It was a double edged comment but John was so overwhelmed by it all - the countless nights disappearing into countless days, the paper cuts and dizzy spells, the strange looks and his friends’ attempts to ‘help’ that never went anywhere because nobody could see what John could see - and now it had all finally come to fruition.
John dropped straight backwards onto the sofa, his eyes slipping shut.
“Really? I assumed you wanted to talk some more.”
“Yes... yes I do. We will. Just give me a minute.” John said quietly as he felt himself drifting off into the land of slumber for just a little while.
The smile never once left John's face.
~ * ~