Sherlock fic: What Stays and What Fades Away (7/9, Part 1)
What Stays and What Fades Away (7/9)
by chemicaldefect
Rating (overall): NC-17
Spoilers: The Reichenbach Fall, possibly for The Empty House
Pairing: John/Sherlock, past John/Mary Morstan
Warnings: angst; drug use and alcohol abuse; slash, het in past chapters; suicidal thoughts; major character death
Summary: John thought Mary was his second chance after the events of The Reichenbach Fall. Life has other plans.
Author's Notes: Long chapter is long. Thanks for being patient with me. School is hectic right now! I’ll post the next chapter as soon as I can. Also, disclaimer: John says a word in here that I do not condone in real life. Thank you for reading! As always, the title and chapter titles come from “No Light, No Light” by Florence and the Machine. Any and all mistakes are mine, so feel free to point out any of the glaring ones that you see.
Rating for Chapter 7: Never knew daylight could be so violent - R (for drug use and swears)
Chapter 7: Never knew daylight could be so violent
John frowned, squinting at the two, blurry shot glasses of clear liquid swimming in his vision; he attempted to discern which he was meant to be drinking. Reaching out, he closed his fingers around a mirage, in the process managing to tip the real glass over and spill its contents all over the glossy oak counter in front of him. He and Lestrade burst into a fit of undignified giggles, clutching at one another to keep from tumbling to the floor. Greg righted the glass and poured him another. John couldn’t remember if it was his eight or ninth; he had lost track a while ago.
This was the fifteenth time in six weeks that he and Greg had drunk themselves into oblivion. They would meet on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as soon as Lestrade finished at the Yard and stay until closing time, or until they were kicked out, whichever came first (usually the latter). They were on their third pub; after a couple of weekends of shattered glassware and broken barstools, the previous two had decided John and Greg were bad for business and banned them. From the look on this bartender’s face as he mopped up their mess, next weekend they would be finding their fourth venue. Distantly, John thought he should be worried about the pattern, given Harry and their family history, but it was easier to clink his now full glass against Greg’s and toss the burning liquid down his throat. As he slammed the empty down on the bar and motioned for another, he couldn’t help reflecting on the current state of his life; it was easier to do when he was in this condition. He liked inhabiting this foggy, numb dreamworld, all soft and dull around the edges where his own was sharp and raw and so painfully real.
John and Greg had been doing this ever since Sherlock came back six weeks ago. He had awoken late in the afternoon after he and Sherlock’s fight, alone on the floor of the kitchen, mouth sour and head throbbing where he’d knocked it against a cabinet handle on his way down. Sherlock was nowhere to be found; John had no idea how to track him, what number he might be using, whom he might be in contact with in the city. John spent most of that evening staring out of the front window, willing Sherlock to come home and turning his final words over in his mind.
Still feel like you missed out?
The truth was, up until that afternoon, John had felt like he’d missed out; although certainly not the primary reason he was furious with Sherlock’s subterfuge - grief and betrayal topped that list - a petty part of him had been horribly jealous that Sherlock had left him out of one of his grandest adventures to date. The truth, that he had been forced to murder men in cold blood, face God knows how many other atrocities too dreadful to share with John, made his heart clench in horrified pity: he wanted to apologize for his earlier temper, hold Sherlock close and tell him it was going to be okay now, that he didn’t have to tell John anything he didn’t want to, that there was no reason to be ashamed of surviving, of helping others to survive. He tried to hold onto these sympathetic impulses when Sherlock came crashing in the front door at 7:45 PM and revealed what he’d been up to all day.
He didn’t tell John where he’d been in so many words, but he didn’t have to; John had just enough experience treating cocaine abusers to recognize all of the signs of a binge: manic alertness, blown pupils, a thin sheen of sweat covering a euphoric expression that immediately fell when it met John’s pained disappointment. Less than twelve hours since his defiant promise to Mycroft, and Sherlock had already gotten one past him. They stood for a moment, frozen in time, staring at one another blankly, until Sherlock turned on his heel and slammed his bedroom door in John’s face, bolting the lock for good measure. Fifteen minutes later, when Greg texted him the address of a pub just a few blocks away, John jumped at the opportunity to escape the overpowering silence, echoing with his dismal failure.
That first night, John had expected things to be unbelievably awkward between him and Greg, unsure where they stood after his remarks to Molly. Hoping to forego another emotionally overwrought altercation, he apologized upon approaching the bar, but Greg waved it off “in light of recent events” and said that he and John were on the same side now. When John asked him to clarify what he meant by “side,” he raised his eyebrows as if it should be obvious:
“People who’ve been fucked over by Sherlock Holmes.”
Then he’d ordered a bottle of cheap vodka and the night’s conversation went a little fuzzy from there. The gist of it, to the best of John’s recollection, was this: Sherlock Holmes was a lying, fucking arsehole who ruined lives, Greg would never, ever allow him to set foot in New Scotland Yard again (except as a suspect), and he was currently crashing on a lilo in the front room of some mates from the force, the wedding in limbo and a devastated Molly alone at their new flat. John mostly nodded along during Greg’s diatribe, unsure how to respond: he felt genuinely sorry for Molly and thought he should try to defend her, but he was far too relieved by Greg’s forgiveness to risk it. A few shots in, Greg offered to let John come and stay at the bachelor pad as well, if he, too, needed an escape; John liked to think his hesitation in declining was due only to his slowed mental faculties and not any sense of cowardice.
John wouldn’t give Mycroft the satisfaction of abandoning Sherlock, not after his whole-hearted rejection of Mycroft’s assistance, so he returned to Baker Street that night and settled in for the long haul, fortified himself against the battles he knew he would face in the coming weeks. He figured that making sure the bloody idiot didn’t kill himself would be a bit of a nightmare, but nothing could have prepared John for just how ill-equipped he was to cope with it.
The two men, once such close friends, now couldn’t speak two words to each other without it escalating into a violent row. They no longer engaged in shouting matches over Sherlock’s three-year absence; they skirted that subject altogether, along with Mary, Irene, the ghosts of bloodied memories flickering behind Sherlock’s eyes, their foolish sexual confrontation. No, they never fought about any of the burning, critical issues driving them apart, and John badly wished that they would. Because now, every fight, every mundane irritation that had prompted harmless, friendly bickering in the past was dangerously heightened, driven by all of the hurt, hatelovelustjealousyprideanger that they refused to voice. When John chucked the empty milk container at Sherlock’s head, screaming about doing the shopping for once in your selfish fucking life, he (and Sherlock) both knew he was really screaming about months and years of shopping by himself, after Sherlock and after Mary, desolately wandering the aisles of Tesco wondering what was really the point anymore if he was going to be eating alone for the rest of his life. And when Sherlock railed at John for ruining one of the new experiments Molly had helped him set up in the cooler, demanding why can’t you just leave well enough alone, they both knew he was really pleading with John to forgive him already, to please just try to imagine everything I’ve been through for you.
Sherlock’s cocaine dependence made everything orders of magnitude more difficult. On the days when he couldn’t get the drug, because John was a step ahead of him and had tossed his supply, or he couldn’t get in touch with his dealer, or because someone (Mycroft) had mysteriously made all of his other contacts disappear, he was inconsolable in his desperate need for a high. He would spend hours heaving over the toilet, curled in the fetal position on the bathroom floor scratching repeatedly at his tingling skin. He refused all of John’s offers of comfort, choosing instead to cast mutinous looks in his direction and curse colorfully under his breath; in the present, John’s alcohol-soaked brain remembered Sherlock’s most recent, favourite insult was “hypocrite,” which stung especially because it was arguably true. On the days he managed to slip past John and Mycroft’s nets (looks like they were working together anyway, in the end), he was high-strung to the extreme, conducting endless, seemingly nonsensical tests, supplies provided by Molly, snapping in nervous aggravation when anyone, especially John with his aura of disappointment, interfered with his precise arrangements.
John and Molly still hadn’t spoken about the status of their friendship, but he was secretly grateful to her for her continued, unwavering support of Sherlock when most everyone else couldn’t stand to be around him for longer than five minutes. She would come and sit with him quietly in the kitchen at Baker Street to assist him in his studies, occasionally prompting him, gently, to take a break and pop down to Mrs. Hudson’s with her for tea or supper. When he needed the equipment at Bart’s she still graciously allowed him into her lab, earning John’s respect by, whenever possible, coming to pick him up to ensure he didn’t make any suspicious detours along the way. John didn’t know what Sherlock would do without her: Lestrade wasn’t giving him any cases, and Mycroft, from what he gathered secondhand from eavesdropping on a few irate phone calls, had not yet finished officially bringing Sherlock back from the dead. It was almost impossible for him to leave the flat without some sort of disguise, lest he attract the attention of the press before he was ready to announce his return; his hair was still short, but was starting to curl again at the ends and was back to its original dark hue, making it probable that somebody would recognize him. Sherlock never could stand being cooped up for too long a period of time without becoming unbearable company, and with the way every moment, every conversation was now uncomfortably charged, it would have been damn near impossible to live with him if it weren’t for Molly’s constant, patient intervention. John enviously wondered how she could forgive the man so easily when her own life was in such shambles because of him.
John’s personal life was practically nonexistent - his days were composed of worrying about Sherlock, spying on Sherlock, and fighting with Sherlock, his only escape these weekends out with Greg when he allowed himself to forget about his responsibilities for a few hours each night. He was starting to run out of money; the anonymous donations to his bank account had ceased the day of he and Mycroft’s falling out. Mrs. Hudson seemed content to let him stay there without paying rent, but after everything she was already doing - cooking practically all of their meals, putting up with the frequent yelling reverberating through her walls, entertaining Sherlock when Molly was unavailable and John was too busy snooping around the flat for secret stashes - he couldn’t, in good conscience, allow it to continue much longer. He’d been trying for a few weeks now to come up with any way of making money that would allow him to still keep a near-constant eye on Sherlock’s comings and goings, but nothing came to mind. He felt like the walls were closing in on him; it was all becoming too much to handle. Most nights he went to bed with an anxious churning in his stomach as he agonized over how he would get through the next day, how he could be expected to deal with all of this and the still fresh, sharp grief of losing his wife. Thinking about Mary always prompted a surge of guilt - he hadn’t had the time or energy to visit her grave since this whole thing had started. It wouldn’t pain him so much if he felt that he was making any headway with Sherlock. As it was, he felt like he was letting her down in every way imaginable. Many nights he remembered, with a stab of simultaneous regret and shame, a noose, how close he’d come to not having to deal with any of this at all.
“Alright?”
John sluggishly shook himself back to the present, unsteadily met Greg’s unfocused, concerned eyes. He hesitated in responding; Greg knew he wasn’t alright, neither of them were, but Sherlock was a subject they had resolutely avoided in the past several weeks. John didn’t know how Greg felt about the fact that he remained by Sherlock’s side in spite of all the man had done to both of them, wasn’t sure how Greg would react to his near-masochistic loyalty to the detective. He didn’t want to say anything that would push Greg away, because Greg was the only uncomplicated friendship he had left; these nights at the pub were the only moments of levity John had in his life, and possibly the only thing keeping him sane. He also thought he might burst if he didn’t vocalize some of the unhealthy, anguished thoughts burning in his skull. He opted for the simple truth.
“No, absolutely not. I couldn’t be further from alright.” His words were terribly slurred, breath shaking with unshed tears and nervous laughter.
Greg studied him for a moment, somber expression only slightly undermined by his drooping eyelids, heavy with drunkenness. “You could just walk away, John. Nobody would blame you.”
“I would blame myself. I’ve had quite enough of that in the past three years.” Greg looked away. “I…just…I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”
Greg stared straight ahead for a while, didn’t say anything. John studied his profile: his hair was far greyer than it had been a month ago, face lined more deeply. He looked older without Molly’s positive energy and luminous smile reflecting off of him, smoothing away the effects of a lifetime of stressful cases and failed relationships. He sighed and turned slowly back to John, eyes shadowed by grief, and awkwardly patted his forearm.
“Neither do I.”
It shouldn’t have been comforting that Greg’s life was clearly just as fucked as John’s. Somehow, it was; even if it was shared depression uniting them, John relished the fact that, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel completely alone.
-*-
“Don’t worry, ‘bout a thing. ‘Cause every little thing, gonna be all right…”
John slammed his fist onto the snooze button and glared at the clock radio as if the song had personally affronted him. His head was pounding and his stomach ached; it may have been full day since his last bender with Greg, but he didn’t think Sunday had been enough time to recover from the hangover. It was 7:30 AM. He had an appointment with Ella in an hour and a half, his first in over a year. Harry had forced him to make it when he’d met with her briefly a couple of weeks ago to update her on the insanity of his life. She had listened to the story without speaking, face inscrutable. When he had finished she hadn’t so much as blinked before stealing his mobile and punching in the number for Ella’s receptionist. Harry said that it had taken John forcing her to meet Ella to finally face her demons and work through them, and she would be just as obnoxious until he did the same. John had been so caught up in his own grief that he hadn’t even known she’d stopped drinking, was shocked to discover that she was nearly six months sober; he tried to apologize for ignoring her, but Harry shushed him irritably and thrust the ringing phone into his face. She made him promise to meet with her at least once every three months so she could fuss over him, if he wanted to make it up to her. As John worked up the nerve to get out of bed and prepare for the stilted conversation he always had with Ella, he wondered when the hell Harry had become the responsible sibling.
No matter how much he wished for time to slow down, it seemed barely minutes later that he was sitting in the chair across from his therapist, debating spending the entire hour in silence just to see if he could break her professional tranquility and make her squirm. It didn’t look promising; already ten minutes had passed and she still wore that same, placid expression on her face as always, waiting for him to make the first move. Exhausted by the tense silence that usually permeated Baker Street these days, John cracked first.
“I tried to kill myself, a few weeks ago.”
If she was surprised she didn’t show it. Her brow crinkled in sympathy and she sat forward, resting her forearms on her knees. “Do you want talk about why?”
It was John’s turn to be surprised: he discovered that he actually did want to talk about it. The urge was unexpected and uncontrollable, like a dam had been released and he couldn’t stop the flow of words from gushing out, everything he’d been holding back for the past five months. He told her all about Mary, about the noose, about the confusing, mortifying sex he’d had with Sherlock, about the constant fighting and the drinking and the cocaine. He yelled, he cried, he even laughed a few times when it seemed his mounting hysteria was on the verge of destroying him from the inside out. When he was done, he collapsed back into his seat and tried to catch his breath. It felt like he’d run a marathon and he was surprised she hadn’t cut him off; surely they’d run well past the hour mark. He was shocked to discover that there were still twenty minutes left on the clock.
Ella had been scribbling furiously in her notes from beginning to end. She read over what she’d written a few times and set it aside, clasping her hands together and meeting John’s gaze head-on.
“Please stop me if I say anything inaccurate, alright?” John agreed warily. “What I’m hearing is that you’re feeling overwhelmed.” He nodded his assent. “You love your friend dearly, but given all that’s happened in your own life, and his part in it, you don’t feel like you can take on full responsibility for his well-being at the moment in addition to your own.” Another confirmation; he wasn’t sure where this was going. “Then don’t.”
He started to object - that wasn’t an option. She reached out a hand in a silent request to allow her to continue. Begrudgingly, he acquiesced.
“I’m not saying to cease contact with him, or to abandon him. But you can’t fix him, John. Sherlock is a grown man, and that’s a choice that he’s going to have to make for himself - ”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do? Please, tell me what I can do, because I’m at a complete loss.”
She leaned forward again, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “You focus on the problems that you can fix, you work on healing yourself. Make a list of all the possible solutions to the problems in your own life.”
He scoffed derisively at that. “Like what?”
“How about finding a job? You’ve already said Molly and Mrs. Hudson are happy to look after him when you can’t. Trust them to continue to do so and find an outlet for your own energy.” When he didn’t offer a scathing retort, she smiled gently and added, “Speaking of outlets, perhaps find a different method of stress relief for you and your friend Greg as well. You know the drinking is bad for you.”
She was making sense; it pissed John off. “Okay, so I take care of myself, that’s all well and good. What then? Do I just continue to watch my best friend in the whole world, a man I’m quite likely in love with no matter how unhealthy it is, deteriorate in front of me?”
Ella took several minutes to consider the question. There were only ten minutes left in the appointment. John had a vindictive moment of triumph where he thought he’d stumped her, angry that this woman thought she had all of the answers when, from his perspective, everything seemed hopelessly beyond repair. It didn’t last for long.
“I’m not saying that it will be easy, John. There isn’t a lot of precedent for this situation. But if you’re healthier, happier, don’t you think it will be easier to talk to him? Easier to get him to listen? You can’t support him until you have a support system for yourself.”
Are you really so oblivious as to not realize that your wellbeing is integral to his own?
John swallowed several times, unable to mount an argument against that logic. It had felt selfish these last weeks, focusing on himself when Sherlock was in such a bad way and their fragile friendship was crumbling around them. But the constant hovering, picking through Sherlock’s things while he watched on in stony silence, wasn’t getting them anywhere. Maybe Ella (and Mycroft, damn him) were right. He was ready to try almost anything at this point; none of his own ideas were working.
Forced to admit the meeting had been somewhat successful, John went ahead and scheduled appointments for the next several weeks. On the cab ride home, to prevent himself from uselessly dwelling any further on his own melancholy, he found a scrap of paper and began making the list Ella had mentioned.
1. Find a job.
2. Stop drinking so much.
3. Take flowers to Mary. Bring Gladstone.
He reflected on these. The last felt a little silly, but he genuinely missed the trips with Gladstone, and he knew restarting them would alleviate some of his guilt. He had been relying on Mrs. Hudson to take the dog for a walk every day, the poor animal grumpy from all of the stress upsetting his home. Gladstone had been a comfort to John in the past, and it would give him a chance to get out of the house for a short while, as well as an excuse to walk out on some of the more pointless fights with Sherlock. It would also take some of the weight off of his shoulders, keeping up his promise to Mary again, maybe even help him start to cope with her loss.
As for the drinking, he wouldn’t give up his evenings with Greg entirely; even though they rarely talked about anything of importance, John knew those nights were vital to maintaining both of their brittle spirits. But he could maybe do with a few less shots; they could have a game of darts, go somewhere to catch a game on the telly, make fun of Anderson, all of it just as easily without downing an entire bottle of booze every time. He wouldn’t ask Greg to stop, it wasn’t his place, but maybe he would switch to pints instead. It would certainly be better for his liver.
The first scared him the most, and was arguably the most essential; he had been looking for weeks now, had even found plenty of viable job openings in his latest searches, but none that would allow him the flexibility to abandon his post and hunt Sherlock down at a moment’s notice. Letting go of that stipulation would mean surrendering to Ella’s admonition, that he back off a bit and focus more fully on himself. The prospect was both liberating and terrifying. He chewed on the end of his pen, contemplating his options. He slowly removed the pen from between his teeth and scrawled one last item on the list, sighing in relief and resignation.
4. Let Sherlock be
-*-
John stuck by his resolutions fairly well, and his life steadily improved because of it. Mike had helped him get a small, somewhat boring position at Bart’s in the minor injuries unit, and John was pleased to discover that the distraction did wonders for his mood; the work wasn’t particularly daunting, but the careful attention required for stitching up gashes and setting bones left little room for any brooding during a majority of the day. Greg took his cues from John and ordered less alcohol on each visit to the pub, and they had even started forming casual friendships with some of the other regulars: less drinking had meant less getting thrown out and their business had been welcomed happily at this fourth location for the past few weekends now. He and Harry were getting on better as well; they actually had a real, almost-friendly relationship forming for the first time in years. All of this and the daily exercise with Gladstone, who had stopped chewing all of the shoes in the flat to bits, helped to clear John’s head. He no longer felt like the problems facing him were insurmountable.
Once a week he met with Ella, the conversation becoming increasingly less guarded when he had to admit that she was actually helping. She let him talk to his heart’s content about all of the things that were bothering him, occasionally offering advice, coping mechanisms, when she saw fit. She’d given a lot of suggestions on how to deal with Sherlock (“Before losing your temper, try to think of an easier solution to the situation.” “But he keeps drinking all of th-“ “For heaven’s sake, John, just buy more milk, it’s the least of your worries, isn’t it?”). Afterward he would contemplate all of this at Mary’s headstone; he didn’t go every day, Ella and Harry both insisted that wasn’t good for him and John, reluctantly, agreed with them. Still, it was becoming less painful and more comforting to sit in the soft grass in front of Mary’s cold, chiseled name and try to calm himself down, to think of ways to break Sherlock’s addiction, to mend their fraying relationship, all the while imagining her curled up next to him, her arm around his waist and lovely, blonde head resting on his shoulder. He wouldn’t say he was happy - things with Sherlock remained too damaged for that - but for the first time in the seven months since her passing, he felt like his life was livable. For now, that was enough.
Sherlock, for his part, appeared baffled by the change in atmosphere at Baker Street. Upon returning from his first appointment with Ella, John had been welcomed at the door by a pale, sickly, and thoroughly hostile flatmate, ready to throw a hollowed-out encyclopaedia empty of its original contents right at John’s head. John ducked the projectile and started to lash out in response before Ella’s words and his own list flashed in his mind; instead, he calmly reached down to collect the morning paper, scratched Gladstone behind the ears, and, feeling braver than he had in months, slid past Sherlock into the sitting room and settled into Mary’s armchair. It made him feel closer to her, like she was there beside him, supporting him. He didn’t know why he’d been avoiding it for so long.
“Yell all you like, just don’t hit me too hard, I still have quite a headache from Saturday.” He stared uncomprehendingly at the newsprint in front of him, heart pounding in his throat but voice, miraculously, steady. “Yes, I threw out your drugs. I’ll toss any I see. But I’m done having this fight with you. Whenever you’re ready to accept my help, just know that I’m here.”
Sherlock’s reply had been stunned silence, and then the now-familiar sound of his bedroom door slamming.
John’s lack of response to his needling threw Sherlock off-kilter as the first few weeks progressed. He purposely drank all of the milk, broke the teakettle, played his violin loudly, maniacally, at three in the morning, high as a kite. John refused to rise to the bait. He bought new milk, only allowing himself a fit of cursing when he was by himself in the shop, uncaring what any of the strangers there thought of him. He fixed the kettle or, alternately, when it was impossible, replaced it, angrily slapping his card down for the cashier instead of slapping Sherlock in the face. And when he trudged down the stairs at 3:15 AM to find Sherlock holding his violin in a defiant stance, head high, his growing curls in wild disarray and sleeves rolled up to reveal new pinpricks, obviously itching for a fight, John didn’t shout or break his violin bow over his knee no matter how much he wanted to. Instead he utilized the breathing exercises Ella had taught him during their last appointment, suppressed his temper, and evenly addressed his friend.
“Please tell me that you’re at least being safe.”
Sherlock nearly dropped his violin in shock, a rare, quizzical look overtaking his slack-jawed face before he shook it off. His bow hand dropped, forgotten, to his side and he tilted his head in a slight nod. John cleared his throat and offered a quiet, “Well, at least there’s that,” and strode back up to his room, hot tears soaking his pillow as he drifted off to sleep, the flat quiet once more.
They had been almost civil since that night. Sherlock quit intentionally destroying their home just to get a rise out of John, and John allowed more and more of Sherlock’s minor irritating behaviors to pass unmentioned. He respectfully inquired after Sherlock’s experiments; Sherlock, after briefly offering that same, confused look from before, explained as best he could (although, John’s heart broke a little, without any of his former pompous enthusiasm). John had been hopeful when, for one whole week, Sherlock had been a mass of frayed nerves and nausea, annoying and infuriating but obviously, beautifully clean, but the illusion shattered when he returned to the flat from Bart’s one night, far later than he was meant to be, a ball of bouncing energy with dilated pupils darting about in their sockets. There was a flash of guilt when he met John’s eyes, but it passed before he could comment on it, Sherlock carefully composing his face into its usual expression of neutrality. John just sighed and walked past him toward the door, pausing to squeeze him lightly on the shoulder on his way out.
“Just…please, please be safe.”
He hadn’t waited for a reply, walked straight out of the door and into the night, heading off to meet Greg. He resisted the childish impulse to pull his list from his pocket and boldly strike through resolution number two.
Six weeks passed since John’s first appointment with Ella and he and Sherlock were at a crossroads. They weren’t fighting as much anymore, but they still weren’t what you could call friends either, and John didn’t know where to go from here, neither of them willing to make the first move. John wasn’t sure what that move was, nor was he sure what either of them were waiting for; he just knew they couldn’t remain like this forever, polite acquaintances dancing on tenterhooks around each other in their shared home, haunted by a past they couldn’t hope to ignore forever. In spite of all his progress John was worried and angry and upset, and he figured that Sherlock felt much the same. They needed a catalyst, some event to force them to confront one another again, to finally address the heart of the tension between them. John lay in his bed contemplating this, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes when a loud, resounding boom echoed from the kitchen, shaking plaster from the ceiling in its intensity.
He was out of bed like a shot, heart racing as he pounded down the stairs, sliding to a halt at the sight waiting for him. Sherlock was sprawled on the floor at his feet, coughing in a haze of smoke and wiping red, chunky viscera out of his eyes. Glass, metal, and plastic were strewn over the table and floor, along with what appeared to be shredded entrails and sticky, oozing splatters of dark blood. The charred husk of the microwave sat in its usual place on the countertop, cord melted into the socket and black scorch marks covering the wall and ceiling around it. John remembered the pig intestines that had been sitting in the painstakingly labeled package in the refrigerator all week, the firecrackers he’d found in a top drawer of Sherlock’s desk when hunting for a pen. He took a deep breath, trying to quell his mounting fury.
Ella had told him not to explode about trivial things. Taking in the sight of their demolished kitchen, the horrified face of Mrs. Hudson who had just rushed in to join him, this didn’t seem so trivial.
He yanked Sherlock up by the neck of his dressing gown, spinning him around and harshly grasping the sides of his face so he could look into his eyes. There was only the tiniest sliver of grey around a deep pool of black.
“You complete fucking idiot. What the hell have you done?”
Sherlock jerked out of his grasp and shoved at the scarred tissue of his shoulder in retaliation, hard. “I was trying to detect the effects of radiation on explosive substances contained withi-”
John righted himself and shoved back, losing his tenuous grasp on his raging temper, held too long in check. “I don’t give a damn about your experiment, Sherlock! Look what you’ve done to Mrs. Hudson’s - our - home!”
Mrs. Hudson startled at the mention of her name but said nothing, gripping the doorframe tightly and watching the fight unfold with wide, nervous eyes.
“It’s not like I did it on purpose, John. And don’t get so self-righteous about our “home,” as you call it. If you’d bothered to keep up proper maintenance, replaced the damned microwave at any point during the last three years-”
John pushed him so violently Sherlock fell back to the floor, hands landing painfully amongst shards of glass and metal. “I guess I was busy piecing my life back together after my absolute cunt of a best friend pretended to kill himself. And then my wife had a goddamn aneurysm, and I was a little too preoccupied with all of that to worry about the safety of my bloody kitchen appliances!” Sherlock cradled his injured hands to his chest and tried to keep his face impassive, but in the agitation caused by his high and the adrenaline from the blast, he couldn’t quite conceal his hurt and indignation. It was time to end this, John knew; he should close his eyes and count to ten, and then haul the twat to his feet and herd him into the bathroom where he could check on his wounds. This wasn’t worth throwing out the weeks of improved communication between them. But after avoiding the issues for so long John couldn’t stop himself. “Besides, how did I know that you were going to barge in here after three years dead and need it for one of your oh-so-vital ‘experiments.’”
Sherlock was defensive; he ignored John’s heavy, loaded accusations and focused instead on the insult, or maybe his mind was simply too far gone to follow the entire train of thought. “Don’t you dare devalue my work - ”
John barked a disbelieving laugh. “Work? You call blowing up the intestines of a dead pig, ‘work.’ Please, Sherlock, explain to me who, exactly, this ‘work’ of yours is benefitting again? Because it certainly isn’t me...”
Sherlock tried to pull himself up but John shoved him back to the ground viciously, unwilling to let him collect his bearings. He was actually spluttering now. “It’s not all about pragmatism, that would be terribly dull, John. It’s about discovery, I’m a scientist, you see, so - ”
His arrogance, his refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of John’s outrage, somehow infuriated John more than it ever had in the past. He went in for the kill.
“A scientist? Please; you’re a strung-out junkie who manages to destroy EVERYTHING he touches and I am damn well sick of your excuses. I give up!”
There was no ignoring that. Mrs. Hudson gasped; Sherlock’s pale skin went grey, eyes wide and wounded. It reminded John too much of that first night back when he had wrenched away from his embrace, left him half-naked and vulnerable on the sofa. John shoved his regret aside and stormed from the room, taking the stairs two at a time and slamming his bedroom door roughly behind him.
He shouldn’t have said that, any of it; he leaned against the door, worried he might pass out from adrenaline and anger and, for the countless time in the past two months, overwhelming remorse. He tried to think of Ella’s suggestions, what he should be doing right now.
If you’re too angry or upset to deal with him, then don’t. Take a moment, calm down, find a distraction and return to the problem later. You’re going to have bad days - don’t beat yourself up about them, just try to discuss it with him and work things out together. That’s what a relationship is, John, compromise - even an unusual one like yours.
He slowly pushed himself away from the door. Swallowing the bile in his throat, he got himself ready for work. On the way out of the flat, he forced himself to enter the front room, where Mrs. Hudson was sitting with Sherlock, whispering quietly to him while she grasped his limp hands fiercely in her own; she had already bandaged them. She looked up when John entered. Sherlock didn’t.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have said those things.” Sherlock’s eyes remained fixed on he and Mrs. Hudson’s intertwined hands, Mrs. Hudson’s eyes stared unflinchingly at John, demanding that he continue. “We’ll talk about this more when I get back from work. Just…I’m sorry.”
Thinking of nothing more to say, no way to make this situation right, John barely heard Sherlock’s hushed, “I’m sorry, too” as he fled to Bart’s.
Part 2