Fic: You'll Come Back
Fanfic: You'll Come Back
Title: You'll Come Back
Fandom: Sherlock
Author: harlequinehands
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Spoilers/Timeline: Post 'The Reichenbach Fall' based loosely on the events by Conan Doyle with BBC Sherlock/John of course.
Character(s): Sherlock Holmes, John Watson,
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3,000+
Disclaimer: Don’t own any of these lovely characters, they are property of BBC and Moffat ect.
Summary: John wakes up to find that Sherlock has cleaned the flat and is trying to make him breakfast. Something is very wrong. And despite his determination it seems he cannot stop the inevitable.
Warning: Un-beta’d, supposed character death, and sadJohn. D:
AN: Hello! This is my first Sherlock fic that I've published to fandom. I have a few others that are genderbent that I am working on but after listening to "The Call" by Regina Spektor and thinking about John/Sherlock I had to write this. Hope it's enjoyable!
John woke up to the smell of something burning. The heavy smell had permeated his room but there wasn’t any smoke to be seen yet drifting about his head. Sighing he quickly got dressed and tromped down the stairs. He came up on a very strange sight. Sherlock was attempting to cook something on the stove but kept having to beat it with potholders to put out the flames that burst from it. He was going to ask what he thought he was doing but stopped. The house was curiously clean. Well it wasn’t dusted or swept or anything of that nature but things were more orderly. There wasn’t the usual clutter of mismatched papers, strange implements, human remains, and old books.
Now John really was confused.
“Sherlock did you clean?”
Sherlock whipped around with the still smoking pan and dropped it unceremoniously down on the kitchen table. John scrambled forward to grab at it and put something under it so it didn’t burn a hole through the table. He felt Sherlock’s gaze on him as he did and tried to think of what to say next. There was an odd feeling in the air and it wasn’t coming from the burnt mess in the pan.
“I might have moved a few things to storage in 221C. It’s not important.”
John’s brow furrowed. That didn’t seem right. This whole scenario was very off kilter.
“What were you trying to make?”
John was working very hard to not sound exasperated but Sherlock had a habit of making messes and never cleaning them up. And now it appeared he was going to clean selectively for no apparent reason and try and cook breakfast.
Was it his Birthday and he’d simply forgotten?
He wouldn’t put it past himself to forget but he wouldn’t put it to Sherlock to remember either. Sherlock was very specific about what kind of information he housed in his head and John doubted Birthdays were important enough to remain. But stranger things had happened for sure. In fact stranger things had happened this very morning. John wondered if Sherlock’s lack of sleep had anything to do with it. No matter how much he nagged him Sherlock wouldn’t listen to John and go to sleep. Ever since the incident at the pool Sherlock hadn’t slept except from drop-dead exhaustion. If John was honest with himself he hadn’t slept well since then either. But he wasn’t having nightmares about being blown up, he had had plenty of those, a lifetime’s worth, before he met Sherlock. The dreams were mostly about Sherlock pushing him in to the pool and taking the bullet meant for his heart. That hadn’t happened but it could of and it haunted John’s dark corners ever since. He had very quickly come to the conclusion that Sherlock’s death scared him more than his own. And that in itself was disturbing.
But he hadn’t brought it up, he was certain Sherlock must have read it in the lines of his jaw or something. He wasn’t being very subtle about it. Maybe that was why he was acting so strange around him today.
But an indignant Sherlock interrupted John’s musings,
“I was making eggs. But I suppose they’re ruined so I’ll just get Mrs. Hudson to,”
John cut him off with a wave of his hand,
“No need I’ll just make some toast and jam with the tea.”
Sherlock’s expression darkened and he said quietly,
“I can make toast John.”
John shook his head and smiled crookedly,
“Why Sherlock you get rid of half your things, try and make me breakfast, and now want to coddle me all day. If I didn’t know better I’d say you were going somewhere.”
He had meant it as a joke but stopped as a stricken expression crossed Sherlock’s face. Several thoughts raged for attention in John’s head but none of them could snake past his lips.
They had suddenly gone dry.
Sherlock’s expression smoothed to the blank one usually reserved for a particularly moronic client as he said,
“I thought it was what one did when they were trying to say goodbye. Do something nice, something thoughtful for someone…someone they cared about. Isn’t that what normal people do?”
John instinctively mumbled,
“But you’re not normal.”
A bit of Sherlock’s usual spark returned to his eyes at that and a ghost of smile fought his thin lips for prominence,
“Of course not. But I thought you might appreciate it.”
John ran his hands through his hair trying to breathe. This didn’t sound like a business trip, this was sounding like a final goodbye.
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t dare look in to those probing blue eyes because God knows what Sherlock would see there. John had a couple ideas but wasn’t sure any of them were appropriate for people who were supposedly just flat mates.
Sherlock’s face was strained but still held that smooth expression,
“Some where you can’t follow this time.”
John’s face fell.
He wasn’t as much of an idiot as Sherlock made him out to be. He knew Sherlock was going off somewhere on one final case. Probably to do with Moriarty. And that Sherlock was nearly certain he wasn’t coming back.
“No, I’m not going to let you try and take him out alone. If we just both,”
But Sherlock held up one pale thin hand to silence him. John held his tongue but just barely. Once he set his mind to something he almost never waivered. And Sherlock knew it. But even so he reached out and placed that hand on John’s shoulder. It was colder than it should have been through John’s warm cream jumper.
He squeezed firmly and said in voice even lower than his usual base,
“But I don’t want you to follow me this time.”
John could feel something jagged and cracked dislodge in his chest. It was probably his heart.
“Well that’s too damn bad because I’m coming with.”
Sherlock’s hand spasmed before he let it drop limply off of John’s shoulder.
“I could leave without you knowing. You wouldn’t be able to find me.”
John didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh but he barked a strangled laugh in Sherlock’s face. His smile was razor thin,
“I found you with the cabbie in time and I would do it again with Moriarty and a hundred other cases Sherlock. This isn’t the end you can’t.”
Sherlock frowned slightly and interrupted him,
“But the statistical likelihood of death in this instance is 96.4% and accounting for variables in the likelihood of multiple deaths it’s 98.6%.”
John shook his head like it was about to spin off his shoulders,
“I don’t bloody well care! I would follow you down to Hell just to drag your smart arse back! You can’t get away from me that easily Sherlock Holmes. And they’ll be no more talk of not coming back. We’ll be just fine like always.”
Something that might have been a snarl on anyone else spread across Sherlock’s diamond sharp features.
John was quite sure it was his fiercest most brilliant smile.
“Well then now that that is settled let’s be off. This case isn’t going solve itself.”
He blew past John in his typical flurry of navy blue wool trench and John followed with his gun in his back pocket. Just like everyday. Well everyday for the two of them.
And when the final confrontation came Sherlock was right, John’s hand was steady. He didn’t flinch as he tore himself apart for the world’s only consulting detective. A single shot through Sherlock’s chest in to Moriarty’s. As they stumbled backwards John tried to grasp futilely at Sherlock’s arm but he had let him go. John hadn’t slipped or let go but Sherlock had. And he and Moriarty went tumbling in a flurry of black and blood in to the river off the top of Reichenbach Financial.
John almost jumped after them. But a fall from this height would be like jumping in to a swimming pool full of concrete and jagged volcanic rock. He took the stairs five at a time as fast he could with out falling on his face.
And still he wasn’t fast enough.
There were no ripples, no foaming to mark where they had fallen but he striped off his jacket and jumper and dove in any way. The water was as thick and black as molasses and he had to fight it to sink lower. He didn’t notice he couldn’t breath. It didn’t matter that much at the time.
He saw a pale flash of white up ahead in the murky wall and jerked forward in a sudden burst of energy. It was Sherlock. He might have been a giant, gangly, lead, mannequin but John had adrenaline and panic on his side as he thrust up with his legs to reach the surface. He burst up in a gasp and tried to keep both their heads above water as he side stroked to the stone embankment leading up from the river. Some one must have seen him jump in because they had called the Yard and there were several Bobbies and cars with flashing lights there.
He didn’t remember the way back to the shore just the strong pair of hands that hauled him out of cold filthy Thames and wrapped him in a blanket. But he fought their grip and looked back towards the rocky inlet.
Where was Sherlock?
He had him! He had brought him up from the depths and back! He started to holler for him and thrash as several more Bobbies tried to hold him back.
Suddenly the sounds and lights and air itself hurt to feel but a familiar voice cut through it all.
“John! John it’s me Lestrade! He wasn’t with you. You came back alone from the river.”
He froze. The cacophony around him faded to a whisper as he stared numbly at Lestrade’s worried grizzled face,
“He sent us a delayed mass text about what would happen and where you’d be. We got here in time to watch them go over the building. Donovan tried to stop you from jumping in the river but it was like we weren’t there to you.”
But even Lestrade’s words had faded in to the paltry background.
He had lied.
He had said he would have gone to Hell and back to bring him back but he hadn’t. John was no longer in control of himself. He was no longer steady because he didn’t have Sherlock to steady himself on.
He shook as fierce cold tears came pouring down his cheeks. He curled in on himself and dropped to the ground. There was no sound to the sobs but they rattled and shook every inch of his cool gray skin. Some how he was herded in to the back of an emergency vehicle and that was that.
There was a funeral.
It was well attended. They gave him a detective’s send off with full honors. Even Anderson looked distraught. And John thought briefly about how that would make Sherlock happy, antagonizing Anderson from the grave.
He hadn’t stopped seeing Sherlock about. He would catch a glimpse of his cold blue eyes in a crowd downtown, the flutter of his coat down an alley, the back of his head by the river, and John would always chase him. No matter how silly or insane it seemed there was a part of him, most of him in fact, that believed that some how Sherlock was still out there. Waiting for John to find him. But if he told any one else they would smile uneasily and ask him if he was still seeing his therapist.
It had become a secret obsession, trying to track him down. On the outside he packed up his things, moved out of 221B, and took up consulting in Sherlock’s place. He had been wary of it but found that although Sherlock had a great deal more finesse, John could find his own answers too.
But on the inside he hadn’t moved on, hadn’t packed Sherlock away with his lab equipment and forensic texts. He would never stop until he found him, one way or another, in this life or the next. The first person he had asked had been Mycroft. And although full of false pity for the poor fool he could offer John no help in his secret quest.
And so he started with the river. The under currents and the other pipes that drained in and out of it, where it met the sea and where those currents led. On weekends and his odd day off he would hit every town on the list of tributaries. He tentatively saw Sarah and later Mary who he married more out of a sense of duty to her than love but both women knew he wasn’t all there any more. A piece of him had died with Sherlock Holmes. The entire world could see that particular chip on him.
When Mary died in a stormy day car accident it was another blow and people treated him like he could shatter at any moment. Nothing good ever happened to him any more. And people avoided and sympathized from a distance.
But on the inside he was still a ramrod straight arrow, a hunting hound with a bitter scent. He had hit twenty towns and more with out a word of person matching Sherlock’s description, or a corpse of that likeness for that matter. It was lucky for him that he was so distinctive looking.
And this fueled John’s hope.
But he had his down days. When the impossibility of it all struck down on him from all sides. But it was on these days that he would go out to his back yard and shoot a smiley face he painted on the shed. He felt closer to Sherlock then, so much so that he could hear him intoning “bored” over and over again.
After John had exhausted the possibilities from Sherlock washing up on some distant shore he came to a more sinister conclusion. If Sherlock wasn’t in England than he was traveling elsewhere. And in order to do so he would need funds. That meant only one person. But he couldn’t very well ask him again.
So John did some expert detective work on the Internet and found the location of the Holmes family home, still inhabited by one Margery Holmes. She was old but just as tall as her sons, there was no stoop to give away her old age. Only thin white hair and deep laugh lines in her eyes and the corners of her lips. She smiled ruefully and said,
“He thought you might come here. You might as well come in.”
And with that John was ushered in to a prim white sitting room with cream and gold flowered accents. Mrs. Holmes smiled brightly and said,
“Both sons would have me lie to you. But I have a feeling you wouldn’t believe me if I did. That much of him lives in you certainly.”
He stiffened but nodded solemnly. Her grin became catlike,
“Good. He’s taking a plane from Frankfurt to Moscow tomorrow. If you leave here in the next twenty minutes you can catch a red eye to get there tonight.”
All he wanted to do was bolt out the door and down the steps to the idling cab. But instead he nodded politely and said steadily,
“Thank you for your help Mrs. Holmes.”
His heart was racing up and down each of his ribs, skipping every other now and then. He wanted to shout and jump in the air, he felt so light as to almost fly away. He hadn’t been this alive in three years.
It had felt like most of his life. He could barely remember life before Sherlock and life after had been dismal so this was an infinite improvement.
She waved her hand dismissively and poured them both a cuppa,
“No need to be so formal John. We’re family after all. You can call me Margery or Mum if you like.”
She winked at the last bit and looked so much like Sherlock playing coy that he froze. He didn’t have time to think about her words because he really didn’t have time to think at all. He had to do, had to move, had to be next to him once more.
She must have seen the desperation in his eyes because her own pale hazel ones softened,
“You don’t have to stay here to keep up appearances dear. Go to him. We’ll have plenty of time to chat when you both get back. “
He nodded and muttered a faint “Thank you Mam” before he darted down the well-lit hall and out the door, not even bothering to slam it in his haste. He paid the cabbie double to speed to Heathrow.
He was in Frankfurt a couple hours after sunset but had no idea where Sherlock was staying. So he wandered the airport and the empty surrounding byways and streets. He found a beer hall that was still open but didn’t drink anything. He was fully alert. He hadn’t been more on edge and awake since their final case together, no their last case together because there would be more now. It would be just like before.
Except it wouldn’t.
John thought in to his now cold beef stew.
Sherlock had been alive for three years and hadn’t tried to contact him at all. John had been looking in the wrong places to be sure but that didn’t mean Sherlock couldn’t have tried to talk to him in some subtle way. Maybe he had. Maybe John was an even bigger idiot than Sherlock had made him out to be. Now he was having his doubts about rushing over here like his life depended on it. Even if it felt like it did that didn’t mean Sherlock held the same ideals any more. Maybe like all of things that caught Sherlock’s interest John too was fleeting.
And so he had paced nervously at the terminal his ticket to Moscow in hand waiting for Sherlock to appear. He had finally decided to take a break for coffee and the loo but on his way back stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting at the gate was the profile he could trace in sleep, the one he often did dream about. The man who had become his obsession after he had become his, what? Friend? He figured that would have to be a good enough word for what they were because every other one was being very presumptuous on his part.
He walked up forgetting all of his doubts and stood over him. It was an odd reversal of roles for him and when Sherlock’s eyes met his over the top of the newspaper he was reading he almost collapsed right then.
“Took you long enough.”
John had an overwhelming urge to hit him.
Instead he bent down and kissed him soundly on the lips. He felt Sherlock go rigid under him but slowly he leaned in to John parting his pale lips to give him better access. The kiss was hard and full of so many words left unsaid but when they finally broke apart panting John didn’t move away. His forehead was pressed to Sherlock’s their heated gasps mingling between them,
“That was for telling your Mum where to find you.”
He felt Sherlock’s mouth curl in to a sly smile as his breathing shifted,
“Mycroft thought it best not to tell anyone outside of the family. I told her you were family.”
John’s chest felt too small to contain the sun that was now beating out of it.
But he was still mad at Sherlock for making him believe he was dead, or for trying it anyhow.
He dug his hands in to his trench coat lapels and kissed him again this time more demanding, fiercer, fighting to take what he had wanted for so long. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and Sherlock gasped but didn’t pull away. When John did the expression on Sherlock’s face was wide-eyed fascination. Once again John had done something he hadn’t predicted.
“And that was for trying to make me believe you dead and gone for three years.”
Sherlock cocked his head and licked his bloody lower lip slowly.
In a low voice that should have been reserved only for the most intimate settings he said,
“And what do I get for coming back with you to 221B?”
John didn’t hesitate to look back at him with hard determined eyes and say the truest words he had ever spoken.
“Everything.”
This time it was Sherlock, who leaned in and gently ghosted his lips over the top of John’s while murmuring,
“Excellent.”
For this kiss Sherlock controlled the steady pace leisurely pace and when they broke apart both were smiling.
“So I have it on good authority you took my place as Consulting Detective at The Yard. There wouldn’t happen to be anything I could do to convince you to retire would there?”
John smirked back,
“There might be. But I’m actually looking for an assistant right now if you think you’d be up to it.”
Sherlock snorted which was his equivalent of a laugh and continued to smile, close lipped, at John,
“Well for being so long out of The Game I suppose I could do worse.”
John had so many questions, so many things he wanted to know about Sherlock’s time alone, wanted to add to his brain’s filing system because they were about Sherlock and they were important.
But instead he stretched from his calves up his back like a cat and sat down next to Sherlock, effortlessly entwining their hands together,
“Yeah you could be dead, or worse working for Anderson.”
At that Sherlock’s mouth and bright eyes went wide with surprise but then he actually did laugh, loud and deep and John chimed in too. Because it was the happiest John had been in three years and he knew it wasn’t the last time he would be this happy. And that, he had decided, was the only way it should be.
Title: You'll Come Back
Fandom: Sherlock
Author: harlequinehands
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Spoilers/Timeline: Post 'The Reichenbach Fall' based loosely on the events by Conan Doyle with BBC Sherlock/John of course.
Character(s): Sherlock Holmes, John Watson,
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3,000+
Disclaimer: Don’t own any of these lovely characters, they are property of BBC and Moffat ect.
Summary: John wakes up to find that Sherlock has cleaned the flat and is trying to make him breakfast. Something is very wrong. And despite his determination it seems he cannot stop the inevitable.
Warning: Un-beta’d, supposed character death, and sadJohn. D:
AN: Hello! This is my first Sherlock fic that I've published to fandom. I have a few others that are genderbent that I am working on but after listening to "The Call" by Regina Spektor and thinking about John/Sherlock I had to write this. Hope it's enjoyable!
John woke up to the smell of something burning. The heavy smell had permeated his room but there wasn’t any smoke to be seen yet drifting about his head. Sighing he quickly got dressed and tromped down the stairs. He came up on a very strange sight. Sherlock was attempting to cook something on the stove but kept having to beat it with potholders to put out the flames that burst from it. He was going to ask what he thought he was doing but stopped. The house was curiously clean. Well it wasn’t dusted or swept or anything of that nature but things were more orderly. There wasn’t the usual clutter of mismatched papers, strange implements, human remains, and old books.
Now John really was confused.
“Sherlock did you clean?”
Sherlock whipped around with the still smoking pan and dropped it unceremoniously down on the kitchen table. John scrambled forward to grab at it and put something under it so it didn’t burn a hole through the table. He felt Sherlock’s gaze on him as he did and tried to think of what to say next. There was an odd feeling in the air and it wasn’t coming from the burnt mess in the pan.
“I might have moved a few things to storage in 221C. It’s not important.”
John’s brow furrowed. That didn’t seem right. This whole scenario was very off kilter.
“What were you trying to make?”
John was working very hard to not sound exasperated but Sherlock had a habit of making messes and never cleaning them up. And now it appeared he was going to clean selectively for no apparent reason and try and cook breakfast.
Was it his Birthday and he’d simply forgotten?
He wouldn’t put it past himself to forget but he wouldn’t put it to Sherlock to remember either. Sherlock was very specific about what kind of information he housed in his head and John doubted Birthdays were important enough to remain. But stranger things had happened for sure. In fact stranger things had happened this very morning. John wondered if Sherlock’s lack of sleep had anything to do with it. No matter how much he nagged him Sherlock wouldn’t listen to John and go to sleep. Ever since the incident at the pool Sherlock hadn’t slept except from drop-dead exhaustion. If John was honest with himself he hadn’t slept well since then either. But he wasn’t having nightmares about being blown up, he had had plenty of those, a lifetime’s worth, before he met Sherlock. The dreams were mostly about Sherlock pushing him in to the pool and taking the bullet meant for his heart. That hadn’t happened but it could of and it haunted John’s dark corners ever since. He had very quickly come to the conclusion that Sherlock’s death scared him more than his own. And that in itself was disturbing.
But he hadn’t brought it up, he was certain Sherlock must have read it in the lines of his jaw or something. He wasn’t being very subtle about it. Maybe that was why he was acting so strange around him today.
But an indignant Sherlock interrupted John’s musings,
“I was making eggs. But I suppose they’re ruined so I’ll just get Mrs. Hudson to,”
John cut him off with a wave of his hand,
“No need I’ll just make some toast and jam with the tea.”
Sherlock’s expression darkened and he said quietly,
“I can make toast John.”
John shook his head and smiled crookedly,
“Why Sherlock you get rid of half your things, try and make me breakfast, and now want to coddle me all day. If I didn’t know better I’d say you were going somewhere.”
He had meant it as a joke but stopped as a stricken expression crossed Sherlock’s face. Several thoughts raged for attention in John’s head but none of them could snake past his lips.
They had suddenly gone dry.
Sherlock’s expression smoothed to the blank one usually reserved for a particularly moronic client as he said,
“I thought it was what one did when they were trying to say goodbye. Do something nice, something thoughtful for someone…someone they cared about. Isn’t that what normal people do?”
John instinctively mumbled,
“But you’re not normal.”
A bit of Sherlock’s usual spark returned to his eyes at that and a ghost of smile fought his thin lips for prominence,
“Of course not. But I thought you might appreciate it.”
John ran his hands through his hair trying to breathe. This didn’t sound like a business trip, this was sounding like a final goodbye.
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t dare look in to those probing blue eyes because God knows what Sherlock would see there. John had a couple ideas but wasn’t sure any of them were appropriate for people who were supposedly just flat mates.
Sherlock’s face was strained but still held that smooth expression,
“Some where you can’t follow this time.”
John’s face fell.
He wasn’t as much of an idiot as Sherlock made him out to be. He knew Sherlock was going off somewhere on one final case. Probably to do with Moriarty. And that Sherlock was nearly certain he wasn’t coming back.
“No, I’m not going to let you try and take him out alone. If we just both,”
But Sherlock held up one pale thin hand to silence him. John held his tongue but just barely. Once he set his mind to something he almost never waivered. And Sherlock knew it. But even so he reached out and placed that hand on John’s shoulder. It was colder than it should have been through John’s warm cream jumper.
He squeezed firmly and said in voice even lower than his usual base,
“But I don’t want you to follow me this time.”
John could feel something jagged and cracked dislodge in his chest. It was probably his heart.
“Well that’s too damn bad because I’m coming with.”
Sherlock’s hand spasmed before he let it drop limply off of John’s shoulder.
“I could leave without you knowing. You wouldn’t be able to find me.”
John didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh but he barked a strangled laugh in Sherlock’s face. His smile was razor thin,
“I found you with the cabbie in time and I would do it again with Moriarty and a hundred other cases Sherlock. This isn’t the end you can’t.”
Sherlock frowned slightly and interrupted him,
“But the statistical likelihood of death in this instance is 96.4% and accounting for variables in the likelihood of multiple deaths it’s 98.6%.”
John shook his head like it was about to spin off his shoulders,
“I don’t bloody well care! I would follow you down to Hell just to drag your smart arse back! You can’t get away from me that easily Sherlock Holmes. And they’ll be no more talk of not coming back. We’ll be just fine like always.”
Something that might have been a snarl on anyone else spread across Sherlock’s diamond sharp features.
John was quite sure it was his fiercest most brilliant smile.
“Well then now that that is settled let’s be off. This case isn’t going solve itself.”
He blew past John in his typical flurry of navy blue wool trench and John followed with his gun in his back pocket. Just like everyday. Well everyday for the two of them.
And when the final confrontation came Sherlock was right, John’s hand was steady. He didn’t flinch as he tore himself apart for the world’s only consulting detective. A single shot through Sherlock’s chest in to Moriarty’s. As they stumbled backwards John tried to grasp futilely at Sherlock’s arm but he had let him go. John hadn’t slipped or let go but Sherlock had. And he and Moriarty went tumbling in a flurry of black and blood in to the river off the top of Reichenbach Financial.
John almost jumped after them. But a fall from this height would be like jumping in to a swimming pool full of concrete and jagged volcanic rock. He took the stairs five at a time as fast he could with out falling on his face.
And still he wasn’t fast enough.
There were no ripples, no foaming to mark where they had fallen but he striped off his jacket and jumper and dove in any way. The water was as thick and black as molasses and he had to fight it to sink lower. He didn’t notice he couldn’t breath. It didn’t matter that much at the time.
He saw a pale flash of white up ahead in the murky wall and jerked forward in a sudden burst of energy. It was Sherlock. He might have been a giant, gangly, lead, mannequin but John had adrenaline and panic on his side as he thrust up with his legs to reach the surface. He burst up in a gasp and tried to keep both their heads above water as he side stroked to the stone embankment leading up from the river. Some one must have seen him jump in because they had called the Yard and there were several Bobbies and cars with flashing lights there.
He didn’t remember the way back to the shore just the strong pair of hands that hauled him out of cold filthy Thames and wrapped him in a blanket. But he fought their grip and looked back towards the rocky inlet.
Where was Sherlock?
He had him! He had brought him up from the depths and back! He started to holler for him and thrash as several more Bobbies tried to hold him back.
Suddenly the sounds and lights and air itself hurt to feel but a familiar voice cut through it all.
“John! John it’s me Lestrade! He wasn’t with you. You came back alone from the river.”
He froze. The cacophony around him faded to a whisper as he stared numbly at Lestrade’s worried grizzled face,
“He sent us a delayed mass text about what would happen and where you’d be. We got here in time to watch them go over the building. Donovan tried to stop you from jumping in the river but it was like we weren’t there to you.”
But even Lestrade’s words had faded in to the paltry background.
He had lied.
He had said he would have gone to Hell and back to bring him back but he hadn’t. John was no longer in control of himself. He was no longer steady because he didn’t have Sherlock to steady himself on.
He shook as fierce cold tears came pouring down his cheeks. He curled in on himself and dropped to the ground. There was no sound to the sobs but they rattled and shook every inch of his cool gray skin. Some how he was herded in to the back of an emergency vehicle and that was that.
There was a funeral.
It was well attended. They gave him a detective’s send off with full honors. Even Anderson looked distraught. And John thought briefly about how that would make Sherlock happy, antagonizing Anderson from the grave.
He hadn’t stopped seeing Sherlock about. He would catch a glimpse of his cold blue eyes in a crowd downtown, the flutter of his coat down an alley, the back of his head by the river, and John would always chase him. No matter how silly or insane it seemed there was a part of him, most of him in fact, that believed that some how Sherlock was still out there. Waiting for John to find him. But if he told any one else they would smile uneasily and ask him if he was still seeing his therapist.
It had become a secret obsession, trying to track him down. On the outside he packed up his things, moved out of 221B, and took up consulting in Sherlock’s place. He had been wary of it but found that although Sherlock had a great deal more finesse, John could find his own answers too.
But on the inside he hadn’t moved on, hadn’t packed Sherlock away with his lab equipment and forensic texts. He would never stop until he found him, one way or another, in this life or the next. The first person he had asked had been Mycroft. And although full of false pity for the poor fool he could offer John no help in his secret quest.
And so he started with the river. The under currents and the other pipes that drained in and out of it, where it met the sea and where those currents led. On weekends and his odd day off he would hit every town on the list of tributaries. He tentatively saw Sarah and later Mary who he married more out of a sense of duty to her than love but both women knew he wasn’t all there any more. A piece of him had died with Sherlock Holmes. The entire world could see that particular chip on him.
When Mary died in a stormy day car accident it was another blow and people treated him like he could shatter at any moment. Nothing good ever happened to him any more. And people avoided and sympathized from a distance.
But on the inside he was still a ramrod straight arrow, a hunting hound with a bitter scent. He had hit twenty towns and more with out a word of person matching Sherlock’s description, or a corpse of that likeness for that matter. It was lucky for him that he was so distinctive looking.
And this fueled John’s hope.
But he had his down days. When the impossibility of it all struck down on him from all sides. But it was on these days that he would go out to his back yard and shoot a smiley face he painted on the shed. He felt closer to Sherlock then, so much so that he could hear him intoning “bored” over and over again.
After John had exhausted the possibilities from Sherlock washing up on some distant shore he came to a more sinister conclusion. If Sherlock wasn’t in England than he was traveling elsewhere. And in order to do so he would need funds. That meant only one person. But he couldn’t very well ask him again.
So John did some expert detective work on the Internet and found the location of the Holmes family home, still inhabited by one Margery Holmes. She was old but just as tall as her sons, there was no stoop to give away her old age. Only thin white hair and deep laugh lines in her eyes and the corners of her lips. She smiled ruefully and said,
“He thought you might come here. You might as well come in.”
And with that John was ushered in to a prim white sitting room with cream and gold flowered accents. Mrs. Holmes smiled brightly and said,
“Both sons would have me lie to you. But I have a feeling you wouldn’t believe me if I did. That much of him lives in you certainly.”
He stiffened but nodded solemnly. Her grin became catlike,
“Good. He’s taking a plane from Frankfurt to Moscow tomorrow. If you leave here in the next twenty minutes you can catch a red eye to get there tonight.”
All he wanted to do was bolt out the door and down the steps to the idling cab. But instead he nodded politely and said steadily,
“Thank you for your help Mrs. Holmes.”
His heart was racing up and down each of his ribs, skipping every other now and then. He wanted to shout and jump in the air, he felt so light as to almost fly away. He hadn’t been this alive in three years.
It had felt like most of his life. He could barely remember life before Sherlock and life after had been dismal so this was an infinite improvement.
She waved her hand dismissively and poured them both a cuppa,
“No need to be so formal John. We’re family after all. You can call me Margery or Mum if you like.”
She winked at the last bit and looked so much like Sherlock playing coy that he froze. He didn’t have time to think about her words because he really didn’t have time to think at all. He had to do, had to move, had to be next to him once more.
She must have seen the desperation in his eyes because her own pale hazel ones softened,
“You don’t have to stay here to keep up appearances dear. Go to him. We’ll have plenty of time to chat when you both get back. “
He nodded and muttered a faint “Thank you Mam” before he darted down the well-lit hall and out the door, not even bothering to slam it in his haste. He paid the cabbie double to speed to Heathrow.
He was in Frankfurt a couple hours after sunset but had no idea where Sherlock was staying. So he wandered the airport and the empty surrounding byways and streets. He found a beer hall that was still open but didn’t drink anything. He was fully alert. He hadn’t been more on edge and awake since their final case together, no their last case together because there would be more now. It would be just like before.
Except it wouldn’t.
John thought in to his now cold beef stew.
Sherlock had been alive for three years and hadn’t tried to contact him at all. John had been looking in the wrong places to be sure but that didn’t mean Sherlock couldn’t have tried to talk to him in some subtle way. Maybe he had. Maybe John was an even bigger idiot than Sherlock had made him out to be. Now he was having his doubts about rushing over here like his life depended on it. Even if it felt like it did that didn’t mean Sherlock held the same ideals any more. Maybe like all of things that caught Sherlock’s interest John too was fleeting.
And so he had paced nervously at the terminal his ticket to Moscow in hand waiting for Sherlock to appear. He had finally decided to take a break for coffee and the loo but on his way back stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting at the gate was the profile he could trace in sleep, the one he often did dream about. The man who had become his obsession after he had become his, what? Friend? He figured that would have to be a good enough word for what they were because every other one was being very presumptuous on his part.
He walked up forgetting all of his doubts and stood over him. It was an odd reversal of roles for him and when Sherlock’s eyes met his over the top of the newspaper he was reading he almost collapsed right then.
“Took you long enough.”
John had an overwhelming urge to hit him.
Instead he bent down and kissed him soundly on the lips. He felt Sherlock go rigid under him but slowly he leaned in to John parting his pale lips to give him better access. The kiss was hard and full of so many words left unsaid but when they finally broke apart panting John didn’t move away. His forehead was pressed to Sherlock’s their heated gasps mingling between them,
“That was for telling your Mum where to find you.”
He felt Sherlock’s mouth curl in to a sly smile as his breathing shifted,
“Mycroft thought it best not to tell anyone outside of the family. I told her you were family.”
John’s chest felt too small to contain the sun that was now beating out of it.
But he was still mad at Sherlock for making him believe he was dead, or for trying it anyhow.
He dug his hands in to his trench coat lapels and kissed him again this time more demanding, fiercer, fighting to take what he had wanted for so long. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and Sherlock gasped but didn’t pull away. When John did the expression on Sherlock’s face was wide-eyed fascination. Once again John had done something he hadn’t predicted.
“And that was for trying to make me believe you dead and gone for three years.”
Sherlock cocked his head and licked his bloody lower lip slowly.
In a low voice that should have been reserved only for the most intimate settings he said,
“And what do I get for coming back with you to 221B?”
John didn’t hesitate to look back at him with hard determined eyes and say the truest words he had ever spoken.
“Everything.”
This time it was Sherlock, who leaned in and gently ghosted his lips over the top of John’s while murmuring,
“Excellent.”
For this kiss Sherlock controlled the steady pace leisurely pace and when they broke apart both were smiling.
“So I have it on good authority you took my place as Consulting Detective at The Yard. There wouldn’t happen to be anything I could do to convince you to retire would there?”
John smirked back,
“There might be. But I’m actually looking for an assistant right now if you think you’d be up to it.”
Sherlock snorted which was his equivalent of a laugh and continued to smile, close lipped, at John,
“Well for being so long out of The Game I suppose I could do worse.”
John had so many questions, so many things he wanted to know about Sherlock’s time alone, wanted to add to his brain’s filing system because they were about Sherlock and they were important.
But instead he stretched from his calves up his back like a cat and sat down next to Sherlock, effortlessly entwining their hands together,
“Yeah you could be dead, or worse working for Anderson.”
At that Sherlock’s mouth and bright eyes went wide with surprise but then he actually did laugh, loud and deep and John chimed in too. Because it was the happiest John had been in three years and he knew it wasn’t the last time he would be this happy. And that, he had decided, was the only way it should be.