FF - Sherlock: Enough
Title: Enough
Author:
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: implied Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Themes of character death and suicide. Post-Reichenbach.
Word Count: 5772
Disclaimer: In all honesty, I'm not smart enough to own Sherlock. I'll stick to the fandom while BBC and Sir Arthur handle the rest.
Summary: It's been nine weeks and as many sessions since Sherlock's death when John's therapist is finally able to convince him to take the piece of paper from her; a small, square bit of notepad with light grey letterhead and typically messy doctor's handwriting scribbled across its open face. Cipralex, he makes out, and sighs.
It's been nine weeks and as many sessions since Sherlock's death when John's therapist is finally able to convince him to take the piece of paper from her; a small, square bit of notepad with light grey letterhead and typically messy doctor's handwriting scribbled across its open face.
Cipralex, he makes out, and sighs. His therapist pats his hand lightly.
"Now John," she says in a voice that he's sure isn't supposed to be patronizing - and probably isn't with her other patients, who aren't doctors. "We both know this has been a long time coming. When you first got back, we talked about the idea of trying this, right?"
"Yes, and I didn't need them then." He feels childish for saying it. Small.
He hears her hesitate before she says it. "Yes, well... You had him then instead."
John closes his eyes against the feeling of heaviness that washes over him. He doesn't respond.
"John..." her voice sounds pained now. Pity. He knows she has the best intentions, but he wishes she wouldn't. He wishes she just wouldn't. "Can we think of it as a replacement? Sherlock helped you out of this the first time, and now - well, now we'll give Cipralex a try, hm?"
He looks up at her. Replace my best friend with a drug, he thinks, and silently recalls the moment shortly after meeting Sherlock when he called John's therapist incompetent. Silently now, John agrees. But she's smiling softly at him, clearly thinking she's said something right since he's actually looking at her, and so he smiles tightly back just to be done with it.
Tucking the prescription into his jacket pocket, he limps out of her office.
---
He experiences only one side effect, really, and that's drowsiness. Which is fine, because all he does is sit about the flat all day feeling inexplicably tired and worn out anyway.
Still, after two weeks he does switch from taking the little white pill in the mornings to taking it before bed each night. He keeps them in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, and that's kind of where the ritual begins. He brushes his teeth, splashes water over his face, then stands in the mirror and flicks his gaze back and forth from his reflection to the pill before tossing it back and leaving the room before he can look at himself again.
He's sure it looks idiotic - a grown man fleeing his own reflection as if he were afraid he'd see a ghost instead of his own face.
Then again, that was exactly it, wasn't it?
Each night he sinks into his sheets with a heaviness he can't articulate. He doesn't cry, which is something that he attributed at first to his military history, but as time passed he began to realize that he wasn't actually fighting any tears. He didn't have to put any effort into trying not to cry about it, which was perhaps the worst part.
God, but the flat was quiet. That could also compete for the worst part.
As drowsy as his days were, nights were always a struggle when it came to sleep. He'd discovered at some point that listening to violin on the radio helped. It wasn't the same, of course - nothing was - and John found that even professional violinists seemed to lack something essential in their melodies that Sherlock hadn't. He realized that something was probably just Sherlock himself.
Of course, nothing was simple or easy, which is why although listening to the violin seemed to help John get to sleep better, it also seemed to induce some of the worst nightmares he'd ever experienced. After his time in Afghanistan, he was no stranger to nightmares, of course. But these ones were, if possible, worse.
They were cases. Cases he and Sherlock had solved together. John would arrive on the scene disoriented, having been separated from Sherlock. They were dizzying, these dreams, as he spun around looking for him. His voice didn't seem to work. Everything was a blur.
Except one part of the dream, which was always crystal clear. The body of the victim in each case was replaced with the crumpled form of Sherlock, blood pooling around his head like an indecent halo with the force of having hit the pavement. Every time, John came across the body just as he got a hold of Sherlock on the phone, and every time his head rang with the words he knew hung in the air; Sherlock's last words.
"Goodbye, John."
John would wake violently, sometimes throwing himself from his bed altogether in an attempt to fight the dream or escape it or do anything to not have to know that checking the pulse of the body would only confirm his terrible fear.
And they got worse as time passed. As the vivid clarity of Sherlock's voice began to fade. And the dreams continued to end the same way, except now although John knew what Sherlock was saying to him over the phone, he couldn't hear his voice.
And then he was really alone.
---
It was around the six-month mark that, at the insistence of his therapist and the nagging of Ms. Hudson, John began leaving the flat for daily walks. He didn't go anywhere, really, or pay attention to much, except one day when he met a pretty blonde woman who invited him to coffee. They talked inside the cafe for a while and John realize that he had missed human contact, but something was still missing.
He realized as he left with the woman's number that he'd been waiting to be dramatically interrupted the whole time.
He didn't call her.
Still, his therapist assured him leaving the flat was an improvement. John thought this conclusion was rather ironic, as it was also around the six-month mark that John began making a habit out of watching the usual crap evening television with his gun in his hand.
He didn't do much. He wasn't even sure why it had started, really. He'd been folding his socks into his drawers after returning from the laundromat one afternoon, and in his usual empty haze he'd opened the wrong drawer. The glint of the pistol had caught his eye, and he'd taken it out and put it on the bed. Finished putting the laundry away. Eaten dinner. And then, when he would usually settle down on the sofa to watch the news for the night, he'd done just that.
But sometime in between, he must have grabbed the gun. Because there it was. And that was that.
This seemed to be an indefinite development, just like the mirror ritual, which hadn't stopped once since the first day it'd started. John didn't think much of it. He didn't think much of anything these days, truth be told, or do much by extension, because he mostly just felt heavy.
Tired.
Usually he didn't even absorb anything he saw on the screen, either. Just sort of sat there for a while until something told him it was time to go to bed, even though he knew he wouldn't sleep. So he'd follow the bathroom routine, gun sitting innocently enough on the counter beside him, and then crawl into his bed without turning on the lights. At first he'd at least put the gun back in the drawer before he went to bed, but since he'd begun to use it daily he just left it out now. It was usually the last thing he saw before he went to sleep.
Then, when he awoke screaming the next morning, it was usually the first thing he saw. For some reason it made it a little bit easier that way - like the pistol grounded him, gave him something to focus on that wasn't the throbbing of his head or the overwhelming tightness in his chest.
His gun became his rock.
That was when things started "regressing" - John is sure that that's what his therapist would say, but he stopped attending their sessions. In fact, he stopped leaving the house altogether again. After all, he had no justification for carrying a pistol around with him in the broad daylight of London, and to be honest he didn't think he could handle being apart from it anymore.
So, he stayed in.
And he sat on the sofa, more or less all day, staring blankly at the television without taking much in.
His gun waits in his hand.
---
Ms. Hudson stops by with tea one night, and John feels compelled to leave his trance at least a little bit for her. It's been hard on her too, he knows, and not just Sherlock's death - he knows she's worried about him as well, and so he does his best to snap out of it and keep her company for the half hour that she stays. When she does go, reaching up to touch his cheek lightly, John sees the pained look on her face despite her caring smile. He wonders for the first time if watching him deteriorate like this isn't perhaps worse for poor Ms. Hudson.
When the door clicks shut, he returns to the sofa, where his pistol is waiting under a cushion. He'd at least managed to hide it before Ms. Hudson had come in. Now it returned to his hand, cooling his palm.
Seemingly awoken from his usual stupor by the visit, John actually finds himself listening to the news anchor on the screen as he exchanges friendly banter with the weatherman. Friendly banter. Involuntarily, John's eyes flash up to the skull of Sherlock's "friend", still sitting on the mantel place like the macabre conversation piece that it is. He hadn't really noticed before, but suddenly John realizes that that thing has been staring out at him for the past six months, and it unnerves him. He has a sudden urge to shoot it, and the grip on his pistol tightens.
But then Sherlock's face flashes across his mind, utterly indignant. John can't hear a voice, but he can somehow still hear the accompanying tirade against John's idiocy - why would you shoot it, it looked quite nice where it was, it was a perfectly good specimen and now John's gone and ruined it with a great bloody bullet hole, and -
That's enough of that, then, and John snaps his eyes back to the television screen with purpose, only to find that some grim-faced reporter is standing in front of a line of police tape at what he's describing to be "the biggest mystery murder we've seen so far this year", and John has to fight the urge to shoot the television too. Instead he turns it off and stands up, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa for about a minute before he decides it's time for bed. It's a full hour before he usually tries to sleep, and he knows it's just one more hour of wakeful agony before a full dream's worth of it, but he doesn't care.
He realizes on the way to to the bathroom that he's shaking. Sweating. He grunts with the effort it takes to reach the bathroom with how bad his limp is right now, and when he gets there he just presses his palms to the counter top and forces himself to breathe.
This is too much, he thinks, and feels despair. His mind is racing and he wonders if this is what Sherlock felt like all the time, his genius brain running at overcapacity constantly. It's the only thought he can focus on, and it doesn't help.
He goes through the motions. He brushes his teeth. He washes his face. And then he takes the pill bottle from the cabinet and stares at himself in the mirror for a long time. He doesn't know how long he stands there, not seeing his reflection. Not seeing a thing.
He sighs.
What is happening to me?
Another wave of heaviness forces him to lift a hand and wipe it down his tired face before returning it to the counter. He flinches as his hand bumps the barrel of his gun and it skitters off the end of the counter and onto the floor. The safety is on, he knows it is, but he still waits to hear a bang. When there is none, he growls to himself and pops a pill out of the bottle and into his mouth, simultaneously bending down to pick up the pistol.
When he stands, he's facing himself in the mirror again, and he freezes. It's the first time he's looked at his reflection after taking the pill, and there's certainly no ghost staring back at him. It's just... him. But that doesn't help.
His hand twitches and he yanks his eyes down from his reflection to the gun and back again. His breathing is slow and there's a flutter in his chest that seems like it hasn't been there in months. He thinks it might just be his heartbeat.
He realizes it then, what he's thinking. He's considering suicide. He knows he is. And he has to wonder how this could have happened to him. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock. God, but he's undone. John manages to smile bitterly at that. The war didn't matter. Not compared to this. Not compared to the death of this one man.
My best friend.
Sherlock.
And suddenly John is so tired. Exhausted. And still he knows he won't sleep, can't sleep. But he's so tired. So, so tired.
"I've had enough," he murmurs, and if he thought his voice would break he is lightly surprised by the calmness of it. He breathes in.
The muzzle of his pistol is cool against his temple, and he can feel the click of the safety coming off vibrate against his skull. His reflection stares back at him in anticipation.
And then, who else but Sherlock is in his head again - why would you shoot it, it looked quite nice where it was, it was a perfectly good specimen and now John's gone and ruined it with a great bloody bullet hole.
John lowers the gun.
And that's when he can feel the lump in his throat, and he's overwhelmed and entirely unprepared for the tears that start welling up in his eyes. He hasn't cried since the funeral. Has barely had to fight back tears since then, actually. But here they are now, streaming down his cheeks as he clicks the safety back into place on the gun and then drops it to the floor.
Dear God. He's just so tired.
The bottle of cipralex is still on the counter, and he picks it up shakily, choking back a sob. In his palm, it soothes him enough that he can take a deep, shuddering breath. Then he opens the container and pours out a handful of the little white pills. His eyes flash to the tub and he nods slowly to himself.
Yes. Tonight he is going to sleep.
He pours the pills out onto the counter and turns to start the water running in the tub. He closes the bathroom door, purely out of habit - although he isn't sure why he's still been doing it since he's been alone all this time now - and fills the glass he keeps near his toothbrush with water. He contemplates getting naked, but then decides against it as he realizes that eventually someone will find his body. Better clothed, then.
He takes a pill at a time, at first, but then as the tub begins to fill he takes more with each gulp of water. They go down easily. John feels soothed, actually.
When there are perhaps a dozen pills left, he stops. It's enough, he knows. He turns and stares at himself in the mirror again. He's stopped crying. He feels calm. He can breathe.
This is it, he thinks, and is okay with it.
He climbs into the hot water of the tub, hissing momentarily at the abrupt temperature change, before his legs adjust and he can lower himself all the way in. When his shoulders and chest sink into the warm bath, he feels immediately better. Better than he's felt in weeks, actually. Months. He sighs.
He's okay with it.
He sits up only to turn off the tap when the water level reaches his chin, and then lowers himself back into the water. He can feel himself drifting off already and is almost delighted - it's the quickest he's been greeted with sleep in ages.
His vision seems to pulse as his lids fall lower and lower, and despite his tiredness he feels lighter than he has in ages. He realizes he's relieved. What a weight lifted. He can feel himself sinking further into the tub, his mouth breaching the water's surface now, and he let his eyes close fully.
There is a muffled noise, then - everything seems muffled - and when he opens his eyes again there is a blurred figure in the room with him, coming to stand over him. John tries to squint, tries to make out a face, but his eyes won't obey him and he can't seem to focus on anything. The figure is saying something, saying something in a voice that John knows but can't place, and he doesn't care anyway. The words slur together in John's ears and he doesn't bother trying to make them out. He's too tired. He lets his eyes drift shut again.
The figure is shouting now, and John feels hands force their way under his arms to lift his weight from the tub. He is dragged to the floor of the bathroom and he groans and curls onto his side. He feels an urgent grip on his arm and the voice comes in closer than before.
"John. John, stay awake. Open your eyes this instant, do you hear me? Stay awake!"
The words are clearer, still muffled, and although John would really like to do the exact opposite of what this voice is telling him to do, he forces his eyes to crack open. He is compelled to do what this voice tells him. This voice.
It's talking, but not to him anymore - on the phone. Forceful, urgent, demanding. As the conversation ends, John sees the phone drop to the floor beside his discarded gun.
He places the voice.
Why would you shoot it, it looked quite nice where it was, it was a perfectly good specimen and now John's gone and ruined it with a great bloody bullet hole, and -
And his eyes would have widened in shock and disbelief if they could, but that's finally when the blurry darkness surrounding his pulsing vision closes in. He wants to cry out, but can't do that either. He can't do a damn thing.
The world goes dark.
---
He hears the world around him before he sees it. Periodic beeping, the faraway sound of machines whirring and phones ringing. Footsteps somewhere. His head throbs.
Peeling his eyelids apart, he is assaulted by the harsh fluorescent light of a hospital room. He hisses and lifts an arm up to shield his eyes much slower than he meant to. His whole body seems to be responding to his demands in slow motion, he notices, as he lifts his other hand to look at the IV in place.
I'm alive, he thinks.
As if reading his mind, a voice next to him speaks out. "Barely."
John turns to see Mycroft Holmes watching him from the chair next to his bed. He lifts himself up to sit, wincing. He's sore, and he's not sure why. Mycroft waits for him to adjust before continuing.
"They barely made it to you in time," he clarifies. "You were unconscious. They had to pump your stomach. Your heart stopped. They had to revive you. It almost didn't work."
Slowly, John nods. He has nothing to say.
Mycroft sighs.
"He wanted me to watch after you, you know." he scans John's face carefully, his mind clearly calculating behind his dark eyes. He seems to pick his next words carefully. "He's... He wouldn't be very happy with me."
Mycroft leaves shortly thereafter and John is swept into the hospital grind. He's told he'll be kept in the hospital under surveillance for three days and he tries to argue it, but the nurse explains that it's standard procedure for suicide attempts. John wants to argue, tell her that of course he knows it's standard procedure, he's a doctor - but the word "suicide" stops him, and it's all he can do to just nod.
---
Three days later, John returns home just as the sky is growing dark. It's much later than his promised lunchtime checkout, but apparently as they were doing one last run-through of his files the doctor noticed John's blood sugar was rather low, and so he was made to wait and get it checked out just for good measure. Of course, the waiting took longer than the actual checking out, and now here he was returning home well past not only lunch, but dinner too.
Thankfully, although hospital food was rather bland and boring, John did find it rather filling. He wasn't hungry.
He glanced around the flat and his eyes fell on the television. He contemplated watching the news but then his hand started to itch for the gun it'd grown accustomed to when he partook in that activity, so he shook himself out of it.
No. He'd just go to bed. The doctor had prescribed him two week's worth of sleeping pills, which had the potential of being renewed if he succeeded in attending his scheduled therapy sessions. He started for the bathroom out of habit, then stopped. He cleared his throat as if to steel himself, but he found his stomach was still tied in little knots when he tried to take another step. He let a breath out through his nose and then turned to head to his bedroom instead.
He would brush his teeth with extra vigor in the morning, he promised. He just couldn't be in there tonight.
---
John broke his promise. In the morning, he was still unable to enter the bathroom. He spent the morning on the sofa, watching television and consciously not looking in that general direction. He made a point of visiting Ms. Hudson downstairs sometime in the early afternoon, right about when his morning coffee started nagging at him.
When he returned to the flat, the television was off. John thought nothing of it. He turned it back on and zoned himself out.
Awaking on the sofa a few hours later with quite the crick in his neck, John groaned. It was dark outside and he could tell he'd slept through his usual dinnertime. He didn't feel hungry. The commercial on the television, advertising a new Chinese buffet, almost made him think otherwise, but he shook his head and turned the television off.
He stretched and then stood, his eyes scanning around the flat. He didn't know what he was looking for. He sighed.
The bathroom was a necessity tonight. John refused to go more than 24 hours without brushing his teeth, and more than that he refused to survive suicide, for mercy's sake, only to come out of it with a fear of the bathroom. It was ridiculous, he decided, and he approached the room with determination.
Reaching into the room, he was able to flick on the light without actually entering. He could see his face reflected in the mirror. That didn't seem to be the problem. His stomach churned as he glanced toward the corner of the bathroom he was unable to see, shielded from his vision by the shower. He wasn't sure why such a sense of dread was filling him, but there it was.
That figure, he thought suddenly. That voice.
His pulse quickened and he could feel his heartbeat in his throat. Before he could think too much, he stepped inside.
Nothing.
He had to chuckle, albeit nervously. He'd really been afraid that some blurred figure was going to be around the corner. Absurd, he chided himself. Like some mysterious person is going to camp out in my loo for four days.
John brushed his teeth, splashed his face with water. Remembered the cipralex.
He stares for a long time at his reflection before he's able to pull the mirror cabinet open to look for the pill bottle. When he does, it isn't there. He supposes the police could have confiscated it when they picked him up, seeing what was evidently the method of John's attempt. But then the doctor had said for John to continue taking his medication when he got home, until his therapist decided on a course of action, and he hadn't been given a prescription. So what -
"Enough."
That voice.
John closes the cabinet door and it's terribly melodramatic but Sherlock is standing behind him, his reflection staring at John's in the mirror. John gapes. He has nothing to say. He's lost his mind.
"You're sane," Sherlock says, because apparently the Holmes brothers can read minds, "No thanks to these." He smiles tightly and rattles John's pill bottle, which he holds gingerly in his hand.
John turns and stares. He can't speak. Sherlock is patient though, and he waits for John to find the words.
"What -" John starts, and then stops himself abruptly. He can't. Instead, he reaches out with trembling hands and touches Sherlock's coat sleeve. Then, more solidly, his arm. His shoulder. John's hands make their way to Sherlock's face, which is calm with waiting. John presses his fingers to Sherlock's cheeks in awe. That's when Sherlock chuckles a little.
"I'm home," he says, and it's supposed to be a joke, but it snaps John out of his trance and before he can even register what he's doing he's punched Sherlock square in the jaw.
"What -" John starts again, but is interrupted by Sherlock, who is hissing and clutching his face and glaring.
"Is that any way to treat the man who saved your life?" Sherlock snaps, lifting his hand from his face to look at it, as if it were injured too.
"Saved my life?" John spits back, appalled. The voice. Right. The figure. Sherlock. He throws his hands into the air in frustration. "You - you're the reason I was ending it!"
There was a pause.
"That's a bit dramatic, isn't it?" Sherlock said quietly, and John roared.
"You faked your own death! I believed you! I thought you were dead!"
"You clearly underestimated me," Sherlock said, sniffing indignantly. John wanted to hit him again. Was going to. But he stopped.
The two of them stood quietly for a long moment. Slowly, Sherlock stopped touching his face. It was just a little red where John's fist had connected, but John noted that Sherlock had been nursing it a little bit more than was necessary.
"How... How did you..."
The corners of Sherlock's lips turned up slightly. Of course only this lunatic would take that as praise, John thought to himself.
"Molly," Sherlock said slowly, as if it explained anything. "And Mycroft." He seemed reluctant to admit that bit.
John flinched.
"They knew?"
Sherlock nodded. John's eyes hit the floor. They knew. All this time, they knew. And Mycroft had even seen John, seen him as he was and what all of this was doing to him. And he knew. And he said nothing.
"I wanted to tell you," Sherlock said quietly. Reading John's mind like an open book once again. John closed his eyes. "I couldn't, John. You know I couldn't. It was a risk for me even coming here. Watching you was bad enough. This... Mycroft will kill me."
"Watching me?"
Sherlock nodded, but didn't seem to want to elaborate.
"Sherlock -"
"I'm sorry," Sherlock interrupted, and John almost flinched. Sherlock's words were low-spoken and slow, his eyes locked on John's. "I'm so sorry, John. I am."
John nodded.
Sherlock looked down at the bottle in his hands. He breathed through his nose for a few beats, then his eyes sought John again with a new intensity.
"Enough of this." he said flatly.
"It's prescribed," John said. He wasn't sure why. "I'm clinically depressed."
"No you're not."
"It's chemical, Sherlock."
"Not for you, John, and you know it." Sherlock snapped. "You're only like this because you've allowed yourself to be. If those chemicals existed in your brain you'd have been depressed long before now. Your therapist is an imbecile, as I deduced long ago. This has nothing to do with chemicals. It's all a reaction, and a rather childish one at that."
John's nostrils flared. "Is this what you came back for? To criticize me for my reaction to your death? Is that it?"
Sherlock let out a huff of breath. John realized with a start that Sherlock was angry, was having to wind himself down before he spoke next.
"I can't stay here, John." he said slowly, and John felt panic rise in him. Sherlock lifted a hand as if to quell it. "It's too dangerous yet. I couldn't tell you this before, but I can now - I'll come back. I will. I promise I will. Alright?"
John swallowed hard and nodded.
"But in the meantime I have to go. I can't risk this anymore. I'll get caught. Mycroft has warned me enough times that I have to recognize that fact." He paused, seemed to be looking for the right words. "I... I can't be worried for your safety like this. I can't be checking on you every night to make sure you haven't... offed yourself." Sherlock took a moment and swallowed. "I can't be here to save you. Not right now. Not yet."
A surge of guilt rushed through John. He wiped a hand down his face. He opened his mouth to apologize, but then his face was pressed into Sherlock's shoulder as the taller man wrapped his arms around him. John returned the embrace, clutching greedily at the back of the coat.
"Promise me," Sherlock whispered, his voice urgent, "Promise me that one time is enough. That you're done with this. That you'll be okay." He paused and pulled John in tighter. "That you'll wait for me."
John nodded into the fabric, breathing in Sherlock all around him and trying to take it in so it might lessen the dread of having to let go. It didn't. When Sherlock started to pull out of the embrace, John felt his breath quicken in rising fear.
"How long this time?" he asked. He wasn't sure he could stand another half a year, even knowing Sherlock was alive.
"Soon," Sherlock said, his voice still soft. "Mycroft is working on something. I can't explain it to you until I know it'll succeed." John nodded. "I'm sure Mycroft will whine that I've tossed the whole thing coming here."
"Sorry," John murmured.
Sherlock scoffed. "Mycroft's just being a prude." He looked away pointedly. "And... I needed to see you. Be with you, really. Talk. Touch."
He seemed to lose himself in one of his deeper thinking moments, and John felt his cheeks flush slightly. His heart was still beating like a firecracker. Suddenly Sherlock snapped out of it.
"I have to go," he said, as if he were leaving for a case. John nodded numbly. Reaching into his pocket, Sherlock produced two magazines - made for John's pistol. "I took the liberty of emptying yours some time ago, so here are some replacements. If my brother isn't just being a royal sod about things, you may have some unpleasant visitors. Mycroft has surveillance set to keep you safe, but you're a better shot than any of his minions anyway." Sherlock grinned.
"What -" John started, but Sherlock placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
"I missed you." Sherlock said, his brow furrowed as if the words confused him. His eyes searched John's and John was rendered speechless once again. "If I'm alive, you have to be too."
Not knowing what else to do, John nodded. And that was all it took for Sherlock, who nodded back before producing a hat from his pocket and putting it on his head. John thought it was a deer tracker at first, but it wasn't. It seemed to hide Sherlock's face much more effectively.
"Goodbye, John."
The door clicked shut before John had time to respond.
---
John had thought, what with the line renewed in his mind, that his nightmares that night would be particularly cruel. Especially because, truth be told, he wasn't sure if what had happened last night was entirely real. Perhaps his nightmares were just seeping into reality as well, he mused.
But John slept fine. He didn't dream at all, in fact. He woke up feeling rested, but ill at ease.
Sherlock.
He reached over to his bedside table, past the gun which had been returned there at some point, and grabbed his mobile phone for the first time in what felt like ages. He wasn't calling women anymore, and what with Sherlock having been gone, he didn't really have anyone to text either. It felt foreign in his hands. He turned it on.
There was only one missed message, and it was from an unlisted number.
"It was real. Wait for me. You promised.
- SH."
John stared at the screen for a long time.
Sherlock is alive. He is alive, and trying to come back. John's head was reeling.
When he finally regains his wits, John stores the message in a hidden folder in his phone and deletes it from his inbox. He's done risking Sherlock getting caught, he decides. He's done wallowing around in grief, even if he'll have to endure the loneliness for a little while longer.
Sherlock is alive. That was enough.