Fic for Only_Po: For Me It Isn't Over
Title: For Me It Isn’t Over
Recipient: only_po
Author: flecalicious
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock, John (John/Mary)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~4800
Warnings: Detailed descriptions of grief and the grieving process, death of a loved one. Swearing.
Summary: “Didn’t you consider,” John began, not quite sure where he was taking this, “that I might want to do this alone?”
“You’ll hold up,” Mrs Hudson said, pushed a cup of tea across the table. John took it by the handle but didn’t drink. He didn’t acknowledge what she’d said either, stuck between the ache in his chest and the fact that well, yes-he was holding up. Had to, really.
“Thanks for the tea,” he said instead. “It’s lovely.” He took a sip to make it a valid point and Mrs Hudson smiled, genuinely pleased.
Upstairs 221b seemed just the same; the gaps that had opened up when John had moved out, the other spaces where his things had stayed. One of his old jackets was hanging up behind the door and he rubbed the sleeve between his fingers, felt the familiar material. The flat was quiet; empty. In the kitchen there were old newspapers scattered on the table, a pair of scissors to complement the passages that had been cut out; old beakers, a dismembered watch, a pack of WH Smith permanent markers. It was home and not, not quite free of John’s presence, but that was alright; he’d never quite been free of it either. Mary didn’t mind.
John twisted his wedding ring around his finger, then felt for the one around his neck, looped against the ID tags he’d started wearing again (O NEG 17958236 WATSON JH OD ARMY). The ring (smaller than his, smaller fingers) clunked dully against the discs, a solution to keeping it nearby without loosing it. Harry had had a fit when he’d told her it was in his wallet, and even if the argument had practically been nuclear John was glad for it now. It felt safer against the dip of his sternum, married to the heart beating under it.
He set about with the kettle, ran the water and put it to boil; a mug from the cupboard, the one vaguely labelled his (and Mary’s further back, less frequently used), and then the teabag, the milk. What Mrs Hudson made was always nice, but this taste was home (both of them, past and present), and besides-he needed something to do, something that required procedural memory and little thinking (needed that a lot these days).
As he was finishing up he heard the click of the front door, the rattle of the windows as it shut, Sherlock’s voice getting louder as he climbed the stairs. He blustered through the sitting room door, shrugging away his coat and scarf as he talked; he sorted through a pile of books on the table with both hands, phone held to his ear by the curve of his shoulder. It must have been Lestrade-John was catching words like contamination and toxins and bloodstream as he watched Sherlock’s back, as Sherlock found what he was looking for, balanced the book in the crook of his arm and flicked, clumps of pages moving under his fingers.
John took another sip of his tea and Sherlock turned, face in profile now as he stared down at the book. He held a hand up without looking, a silent in a moment, and John nodded even though Sherlock couldn’t see him. John tested the kettle with back of his knuckles, millisecond touches that told him it was still hot enough, and he grabbed another tea bag, poured the water and the milk. With the book back on the table Sherlock swirled into the kitchen and took the mug, then back into the sitting room to stare at the wall, at the debris pinned above the mantelpiece. He finished his sentence and hung up on Lestrade without saying goodbye, said to John, “And how is Mrs Hudson?”
“You’re the one who still lives here,” he replied. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
Sherlock waved a dismissive hand and sipped the tea, fell into the expression that meant he was faintly pleased with it. When he spoke Sherlock’s tone was light, conversational; something John hadn’t heard from anyone in a long while. “The meeting wasn’t as palliative as you’d hoped, then?”
What could John say to that? He hadn’t meant to come up here, really hadn’t, but even Mrs Hudson’s tea and sympathy didn’t seem to be enough. He was still waiting for something to help. Perhaps coming back here-he and Sherlock drinking tea, a case, his jacket still behind the door like the past years had never happened-like there was nothing to hurt-had been a final resort. It was tiring, being in this much pain.
“Anything interesting?” he said instead, nodded to the collage decorating the wall. Sherlock shrugged, hands in his pocket. It was no longer odd to be ignorant of the cases-there had been things to do lately, care to be given and things to plan (hospitals and solicitors and the right church). Sherlock hadn’t said a word, as close to it’s alright, I understand as he might ever get.
“Very slowly poisoned,” Sherlock said. “Belladonna in his whiskey, which certainly gets points for style.” A small smile, enough for the corner of his mouth to kink upwards, but when he looked at John it faded. John was wishing he hadn’t asked; his chest hurt, like someone had put his lungs into a vice and twisted, and his throat was contracting into a familiar burn. He swallowed, throat tight and breath short, brought a hand up to rub at his forehead.
“I’m, um-I’m driving to Cornwall tomorrow,” he began, coughed, continued. “With Mary. Final wishes, you know.”
He stopped, moved his fingers to the bridge of his nose and pinched, let go. Sherlock was watching him, expression a little too sharp to be blank but still unreadable. His eyes were narrowed and he stared for a moment before he rolled his shoulders, looked back at the wall. He tipped his head back as his gaze travelled upwards, seemingly absorbed.
“Who’s driving you?” he asked.
“No one,” John replied. “I can drive, you know.”
“Can you? Oh,” Sherlock said. The surprise was polite, a vague investment of feeling in what John could and couldn’t do; it was years-familiar. Everyone else was speaking to him in quiet tones, in downturned words, and sometimes he wanted to take Sherlock’s detachment from the situation and wrap himself up in it, pretend nothing had ever changed. Sherlock had already seen John through the first days with this attitude, first with silence (listening) and now with familiarity (normalcy, being the one thing that stayed the same).
“You’ve been in my car,” John reminded him (Mary leaves her phone in there all the time, someone broke in once, stole the phone but not the car). “Several times.”
Sherlock hummed, the kind of acknowledgement that said if you say so. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a place,” John replied (and if he said it quickly, didn’t think about what he actually meant, he’d be able to do it), “sort of near St. Ives. Mary gave me a map, she doesn’t think I’ll be able to find it.” Sherlock raised an eyebrow-at the map, at the tense, John didn’t know. He didn’t say anything else and the silence began to choke with thoughts, with the reality of tomorrow, and John coughed again, scratched his arm, small things to make it go away. “I’m meeting her parents in a bit, stuff to go over. I need to-”
“Of course.”
It was the little things that Sherlock was doing, John decided. Not making him elaborate the points that would bring it all home, that would make the grief slam against him. Maybe that was why he was here instead of on the tube, on the way to see Mary’s parents before- “Thanks.”
“Go,” Sherlock said, firm and kind, the voice he used when John was tired and Sherlock still had an errand to send him on. “You’ll feel terrible if you’re late.”
He would. It was a mundane concern, the kind of thing that John had been holding on to in order to stay sane, and he grasped it tightly.
“My old jacket’s still here,” he said as he was leaving, and Sherlock smiled and said, “I know.”
Coffee. John could smell coffee.
It woke him up slowly, mixed at first with his dream until he was more awake than asleep. The sound of Mary pottering around downstairs (the lilt of the television, the floorboards creaking) filtered up the stairs and John curled into his pillow, wondered why she was awake so hideously early. She liked to sleep in when she was off work, usually stayed in bed when John’s Army-ingrained early starts woke him up-
(hey, come back to bed, and he should have done, every single time)
-but the other side of the bed was empty, cold. He knew what it would look like without opening his eyes; Mary’s clothes everywhere, probably with the wardrobe door half open and everything spilling out. Her dressing gown would be conspicuously absent from the back of the bedroom door, and John smiled into his pillow. He knew two horrifically messy people and one of them was definitely Mary-
It struck like cold metal against warm skin. John felt everything seize (the air in his lungs, his heartbeat, his brain) and then start again a second later, a physical pause between blissful ignorance and reality. The bed was going to stay cold. He gripped the pillow harder, fingers digging in as his chest heaved, an effort to keep air going in and out without hitching.
The sound of the television shifted slightly, like someone had changed the channel; it wasn’t Mary (never would be), but there was coffee and probably a newspaper. He went through the list of people they’d given a key to, dismissed most of them and settled on Harry, maybe with Clara. On the off chance it was a break-in John was long past the point of giving a fuck, but his sister probably needed attention. Yes, he’d go downstairs in a minute, when he didn’t feel like he was made of lead.
Minutes passed; John breathed. Everything hurt but didn’t, ghosting pain that had flared and was now dulling to a constant ache. Eventually the floorboards creaked some more, then the stairs, and John turned his face further into his pillow, just enough to muffle his breathing. It felt like being a child, like hoping if you stayed still long enough no one would find you.
“Come on,” Sherlock said, and John tensed. “Up.”
“Sherlock,” John ground out, face still pressed against the pillow. “This is really not the time for me to go running off somewhere after you.”
“I’d say this was exactly the time,” Sherlock continued. His footsteps had paused; it sounded like he was in the doorway. “Get dressed. Unless you want to drive to Cornwall in pyjamas.”
John turned his head a little at that, opened one eye. Sherlock was indeed standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. He was still in his coat, though no scarf.
“Cornwall?”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, pushed away to stand straight. “Don’t fall apart on me now, John, you’ve had plenty of time for that already. Cornwall, fulfilling your wife’s last wishes.”
“It’s not the Cornwall part that I’m questioning. It’s the whole...you...part.” John finally shifted, propped himself up on his elbow. “It sounds an awful lot like you’re offering to come with me.”
“I bought coffee from that awful place across the street, by the way,” Sherlock sidestepped. He looked pointedly at John still tangled up in bed, then towards the clothes folded on the back of the dresser chair. “Yours is getting cold.”
He turned and waved casually behind him, a take-it-or-leave-it-but-you’d-better-be-dressed-in-ten-minutes kind of gesture. He disappeared from sight-the stairs creaked, then the hall floorboards-and John let his arm buckle, let himself fall back to the bed. He sighed, the sound caught by the pillow, and rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling. He’d spent a lot of time looking at it recently, could read the map of the plaster and the cracks. The occupant before them had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars around the light fitting, coarse bits of plastic that annoyed both of them. John had meant to take them down; Mary was still waiting for him to do it.
“Okay,” he said to the ceiling. “Okay.”
Downstairs there was indeed coffee, a polystyrene cup sat neatly in the kitchen. There was also loose change in John’s wallet where there had previously been a fiver, enough to account for two drinks from the cafe across the street (the one that wasn’t open on a Sunday, but he wasn’t going to ask). It was cool, not quite cold, and John stuck it in the microwave and waited, took deep breaths in and out and closed his eyes.
Sherlock appeared in the hallway, visible in the gap between the kitchen door and the frame as he knotted his scarf around his neck. He was texting with one hand as he buttoned his coat, looked up when the microwave pinged.
“Alright,” John said. He twisted his wedding ring around his finger, checked for the one around his neck. Still there; still safe. “I guess we should go.”
He chose the country lanes without really thinking about it, the twists and curves arched over with trees. They were beginning to turn green, a mixture of leaves and twigs as spring crept closer, and the sunlight was filtering through them in long shapes. Here the road on their side was mostly free, just a queue of cars on the right as people spent their Sunday driving back to the cities from weekend breaks. Sherlock had acquired a pair of sunglasses and the scenery passed by inside the sepia lenses.
They hadn’t spoken much save for the exchange of directions; on the way out of London Sherlock had refused to use the map, but just past Exeter he’d silently retrieved it from the glove compartment and fanned it out over his knees. The route Mary had drawn was a livid red scar across the page, their destination marked off to the side by a messy circle.
They stopped at a cafe when the journey had begun to open up into the coastline, into cliffs that cut off into an expanse of sea. The cafe was tiny, sitting at the edge of the road and facing out towards the cliffs, and there were benches outside with red parasols. An elderly couple sat beneath one, nursing cups of tea. John and Sherlock bought their own at the counter; it was windy up here, a breeze rolling in off the sea, and the temperature was still languishing a season behind, so John cupped the drink in his hands and let the warmth seep through his skin.
“Come on,” he said, looked left and right to cross the road even though there wasn’t a car for at least a mile either way. Sherlock followed him to the dirt path cutting through the grass and heather, up the slight incline that was obscuring the view of the sea. Once they’d crested it the water stretched out, a sweep of blue that curved slightly with the horizon. It was stippled with sunlight, points of glaring white that dipped and sparked with the waves. The cliffs were high, perhaps two hundred feet to the rocks below; water crashed around them as though it were trying to climb up and reach John.
“Picturesque,” Sherlock said, tone veering towards impressed. It was certainly a word for it, though if it was the right one John wasn’t really sure. It was a little like standing at the edge of the world, as though the sea beyond the horizon might be falling off into nothingness and you’d never know. Breathtaking, John would probably have said, but each to their own.
Sherlock had taken the map from the car; he was looking at it now, bent the folds back on themselves until only a rectangle of Cornwall was visible and tapped the words St. Ives. “You went on holiday there.”
It wasn’t a question, though that was perhaps more surprising. John and Mary’s first holiday, the sort of thing that Sherlock didn’t need to remember. John knew where Sherlock had been, of course, running around Luxembourg and sulking after John had said he wouldn’t come with him. Mary had offered to take her sister to St. Ives instead and Sherlock had adored her for it.
“Really inventive of us, wasn’t it?” John replied. A bird swooped in figures of eight around the cliff face; not a gull, at least, but John couldn’t do much better than that. Maybe it was a Chough-they liked cliffs, didn’t they? “Seeing as it’s been seaside town of the year for about a millennia.”
“Mmm,” Sherlock hummed, vague agreement. He was looking at the map again, then over his shoulder to the cafe, and when he turned back he was grinning. The breeze discomposed his hair, whipped the curls flat and away from his face. He pointed to the cliffs, the way they curved into a horseshoe. “It’s called Hell’s Mouth.”
John couldn’t help the twitch of his mouth, the millisecond smile. It felt odd, like his features had frozen into deep-set lines and forgotten what other expressions looked like, and he put a hand to his mouth as though to brush it away. The ache in his chest flared, reminding him it was there. He checked the ring at his neck, pressed the gold in between his thumb and forefinger. “Sounds perfect,” he replied, trying to keep his voice steady. “Think they get many crimes around here?”
Sherlock looked around them at the landscape, which barely contained more than one building for miles. “You never know,” he said. “Maybe there’s a particularly murderous farmer nearby.”
They lapsed back into silence, into finishing their drinks. The air was full of noise, of the symbol-crash of waves against the coast, and John kicked at the ground with his heel, watched a groove appear in the dirt.
“You do seem to be holding up,” Sherlock said after a moment. When John looked Sherlock was watching him and it was that expression again, nothing that John could work out. He’d seen it a hundred times during cases, but more and more these days he was finding it directed at himself and it was disconcerting.
“Yeah, well,” he replied, already half-regretting the brevity. He realised it was the same thing Mrs Hudson had said to him, though the tone was different. “I do that.”
“John-” Sherlock began, sighed. He tapped the map against his leg, one two three, the kind of small movements that John usually linked with Sherlock’s boredom, with the rare occasions when he didn’t know what the best course of action might be.
“Let’s get back to the car,” John said, didn’t give Sherlock time to build up whatever it was he intended to say. He turned and started back towards the cafe without looking back but by the time he covered the short distance to the road Sherlock was at his side again, and they crossed together.
The radio was playing something John didn’t recognise, a fact that he was mostly okay with as they were listening to Classic FM; Sherlock had jumped at the controls the minute it was on, fiddling through static and snatches of Lady Gaga until he’d found an orchestra. The coastline was still spread out on their right in an endless meandering line, the clear sky turning the sea a vivid blue. When John took the road that missed St. Ives Sherlock didn’t say a thing, only went back to the radio dial until Mozart had morphed into David Bowie.
When they did rejoin the coast it was covered in tin mines, derelict brick rectangles with decaying chimneys. There was a photo somewhere that Mary had taken from the car the last time they’d been here, a red brick building rising defiantly from a sand dune. He’d have to find it when he got home. Sherlock was busy with his phone, not paying the slightest bit of attention.
“Didn’t you consider,” John began, not quite sure where he was taking this, “that I might want to do this alone?” The idea pressed dully at him that he should be annoyed at Sherlock for not asking, but it felt stupid, like asking someone to be angry that there was a person who knew them better than themselves.
Sherlock didn’t even look up from his phone. “Nonsense. You’re never without one or the other of us and now’s not the time to start.”
That pain flared again, the one that had been steadily growing for months and recently turned into a supernova inside his lungs, but this time it was tinged with a remembered glee, with knowledge that until recently had been very true (a wife and a best friend, not one but two people to love more than anything else).
“Right,” he replied. “Right.”
It did seem stupid, now that he thought about it, to think that Sherlock would have done anything else but be here. John felt as though he’d rather short-changed him, felt guilt bloom, and as if on cue Sherlock looked up from his phone and said, “Stop being so self-flagellating. Or at least if you have to feel guilty do it more quietly.” There was a pause, just long enough for Sherlock to finish whatever text he was sending (to mutter bloody reception and hold his phone up to the window) before he added, “Do you actually know where you’re going?”
“Yes,” John grunted, indicated left as they approached a junction, then switched to right. “Maybe. It’s this little place, Mary insisted.” They turned onto a slightly wider road, hemmed on either side by coarse bushes and sporadic trees. “She wouldn’t tell me why but-it had to be this place.”
A few more winding roads brought them closer and closer until the road began to turn to dirt, until it began to descend towards a widening view of a beach (something so familiar, more so with everything second). There was nothing nearby, no houses or cafes or shops selling surfers’ equipment like there usually were, and as they got nearer something began to tug at the back of John’s head, in time with the pain inside his pulse. He pulled the car up on the sandy grass, got out and looked towards the sea. It was a familiar vista, the curve of a small beach at low tide, sand stretching out to become the water.
“I’ve been here,” he started, walking a few paces from the car as though it might afford him a better memory. “I’ve definitely been here-”
It hit with significant magnitude, enough to make him rock back a little on his heels, to clasp his hands behind his head. Things were flooding back in, sights and scents and the sound of Mary’s voice (he never wanted to stop hearing it). They’d bought chips, driven the car along the coast until Mary had asked him to stop, dragged him down to the beach. She’d taken her shoes and socks off to paddle even though it was February, laughed when John had said nothing was going to make him go anywhere near the sea in that weather. She’d smelt of salt water when he’d kissed her.
John’s hands slipped down to his face, mirrored the way that Mary liked to hold him when they kissed. Everything hurt, enough to make him feel like his vision was whiting out, and he stumbled a little, leant back against the car. He was vaguely aware of the other door opening, of Sherlock’s voice, but all he could see was Mary, phantom images along the beach, years of a marriage playing in front of him-the first time she’d fallen asleep at his-the threadbare boots she only wore to the shops-their wedding day-both of them getting drunk at the reception with Sherlock-
“John.” The hand on his arm was shaking him, John realised, and it brought him very slowly back (took Mary further away). “Are you alright?”
He nodded, though it clearly wasn’t true, realised he was in danger of hyperventilating if he didn’t breathe properly. It took effort to slow himself down, effort that was difficult to muster against the ache, but John could feel Sherlock unconsciously breathing with him and it helped.
“The first holiday,” he said; his voice sounded coarse, like long nights and early mornings. “We came here on the first holiday. But I don’t know, I don’t know-”
He tried to think, tried to remember-grasped at Mary’s voice (he was already forgetting what she sounded like, and the idea filled him with horror) and tried to remember how she’d formed her words, what had happened in this particular place to make her say here, I want to be here forever. Their wedding day again, to live together in the holy estate of marriage-love honour keep-sickness and health-
The laughter felt odd against the pain, like two clashing colours, and it rolled up from the bottom of his chest in breathless waves, more in common with a dry sob than anything else. “I said I love you,” he began, leant his head back against the car just hard enough to make it thunk. “I don’t even remember what she said but I told her I loved her on this beach. She used to come here as a kid, I remember that, and she said something about it and I told her I loved her for the first time-”
The laughter cracked, fissured to become a sob that hooked around his shoulders, curved his back. Tears were a genuine shock, weeks without them (you’re holding up well, John, you’re doing really well) making them unfamiliar, and in the gap between the first sob and the second there was an overwhelming sense of relief. He pitched forward, tried to breathe. It must have been Sherlock who caught him, Sherlock who held him steady as it took hold, body over brain for the first time in a long time.
“You’re alright,” Sherlock said, and his hands were warm and familiar and welcome. “You’re alright.”
“I must look a mess,” John said, rubbed again at his face with his sleeve. Sherlock waved his hand, the universal gesture for maybe, just a bit. “Oh, who gives a fuck. I’m scattering my wife’s ashes, it doesn’t bloody matter.”
He pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes, took a deep breath. When he opened them Sherlock was still there, hands in his pockets now as he watched John putting himself back together (trying to, the way he would be for a long time). “Ready, then?”
John took a moment, let the question hang in the air. No, he wasn’t, and he never would be either (to say goodbye to his wife when they’d promised to spend the rest of their lives together, not just hers). “Yeah.”
He turned towards the beach, felt with his free hand for Mary’s ring around his neck, warm from his skin (warm from hers, if he pretended). He held her close, took a deep breath.
“John.” Sherlock seemed to think about taking a step forward, didn’t. He paused, looked like he was working out an exact configuration of words. “I know you need to do this bit on your own but-everything afterwards,” and he was perhaps a little out of his depth here, took a second longer, “you won’t be alone for that.”
“I-yeah,” John replied. Not enough energy to give him any more. “Thank you. Thanks.”
Sherlock nodded, looked off to the side, to the expanse of beach and sea. “I’ll wait here, then. There’s no rush,” and he fished his phone from his pocket.
Even if it hurt-even if it felt like the world had ground to a halt and then started again without permission-John had this, at least. One of the two people he loved most in the world, willing to wait for him as he said goodbye to the other one.
(for better, for worse) Everything caught in the breeze, (for richer, for poorer) swirling into the currents of air above the beach before finally twisting away (in sickness or in health) and curling outwards to disperse, finally, above the sea (to love and honour and keep 'till death do us part).
Recipient: only_po
Author: flecalicious
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock, John (John/Mary)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~4800
Warnings: Detailed descriptions of grief and the grieving process, death of a loved one. Swearing.
Summary: “Didn’t you consider,” John began, not quite sure where he was taking this, “that I might want to do this alone?”
“You’ll hold up,” Mrs Hudson said, pushed a cup of tea across the table. John took it by the handle but didn’t drink. He didn’t acknowledge what she’d said either, stuck between the ache in his chest and the fact that well, yes-he was holding up. Had to, really.
“Thanks for the tea,” he said instead. “It’s lovely.” He took a sip to make it a valid point and Mrs Hudson smiled, genuinely pleased.
Upstairs 221b seemed just the same; the gaps that had opened up when John had moved out, the other spaces where his things had stayed. One of his old jackets was hanging up behind the door and he rubbed the sleeve between his fingers, felt the familiar material. The flat was quiet; empty. In the kitchen there were old newspapers scattered on the table, a pair of scissors to complement the passages that had been cut out; old beakers, a dismembered watch, a pack of WH Smith permanent markers. It was home and not, not quite free of John’s presence, but that was alright; he’d never quite been free of it either. Mary didn’t mind.
John twisted his wedding ring around his finger, then felt for the one around his neck, looped against the ID tags he’d started wearing again (O NEG 17958236 WATSON JH OD ARMY). The ring (smaller than his, smaller fingers) clunked dully against the discs, a solution to keeping it nearby without loosing it. Harry had had a fit when he’d told her it was in his wallet, and even if the argument had practically been nuclear John was glad for it now. It felt safer against the dip of his sternum, married to the heart beating under it.
He set about with the kettle, ran the water and put it to boil; a mug from the cupboard, the one vaguely labelled his (and Mary’s further back, less frequently used), and then the teabag, the milk. What Mrs Hudson made was always nice, but this taste was home (both of them, past and present), and besides-he needed something to do, something that required procedural memory and little thinking (needed that a lot these days).
As he was finishing up he heard the click of the front door, the rattle of the windows as it shut, Sherlock’s voice getting louder as he climbed the stairs. He blustered through the sitting room door, shrugging away his coat and scarf as he talked; he sorted through a pile of books on the table with both hands, phone held to his ear by the curve of his shoulder. It must have been Lestrade-John was catching words like contamination and toxins and bloodstream as he watched Sherlock’s back, as Sherlock found what he was looking for, balanced the book in the crook of his arm and flicked, clumps of pages moving under his fingers.
John took another sip of his tea and Sherlock turned, face in profile now as he stared down at the book. He held a hand up without looking, a silent in a moment, and John nodded even though Sherlock couldn’t see him. John tested the kettle with back of his knuckles, millisecond touches that told him it was still hot enough, and he grabbed another tea bag, poured the water and the milk. With the book back on the table Sherlock swirled into the kitchen and took the mug, then back into the sitting room to stare at the wall, at the debris pinned above the mantelpiece. He finished his sentence and hung up on Lestrade without saying goodbye, said to John, “And how is Mrs Hudson?”
“You’re the one who still lives here,” he replied. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
Sherlock waved a dismissive hand and sipped the tea, fell into the expression that meant he was faintly pleased with it. When he spoke Sherlock’s tone was light, conversational; something John hadn’t heard from anyone in a long while. “The meeting wasn’t as palliative as you’d hoped, then?”
What could John say to that? He hadn’t meant to come up here, really hadn’t, but even Mrs Hudson’s tea and sympathy didn’t seem to be enough. He was still waiting for something to help. Perhaps coming back here-he and Sherlock drinking tea, a case, his jacket still behind the door like the past years had never happened-like there was nothing to hurt-had been a final resort. It was tiring, being in this much pain.
“Anything interesting?” he said instead, nodded to the collage decorating the wall. Sherlock shrugged, hands in his pocket. It was no longer odd to be ignorant of the cases-there had been things to do lately, care to be given and things to plan (hospitals and solicitors and the right church). Sherlock hadn’t said a word, as close to it’s alright, I understand as he might ever get.
“Very slowly poisoned,” Sherlock said. “Belladonna in his whiskey, which certainly gets points for style.” A small smile, enough for the corner of his mouth to kink upwards, but when he looked at John it faded. John was wishing he hadn’t asked; his chest hurt, like someone had put his lungs into a vice and twisted, and his throat was contracting into a familiar burn. He swallowed, throat tight and breath short, brought a hand up to rub at his forehead.
“I’m, um-I’m driving to Cornwall tomorrow,” he began, coughed, continued. “With Mary. Final wishes, you know.”
He stopped, moved his fingers to the bridge of his nose and pinched, let go. Sherlock was watching him, expression a little too sharp to be blank but still unreadable. His eyes were narrowed and he stared for a moment before he rolled his shoulders, looked back at the wall. He tipped his head back as his gaze travelled upwards, seemingly absorbed.
“Who’s driving you?” he asked.
“No one,” John replied. “I can drive, you know.”
“Can you? Oh,” Sherlock said. The surprise was polite, a vague investment of feeling in what John could and couldn’t do; it was years-familiar. Everyone else was speaking to him in quiet tones, in downturned words, and sometimes he wanted to take Sherlock’s detachment from the situation and wrap himself up in it, pretend nothing had ever changed. Sherlock had already seen John through the first days with this attitude, first with silence (listening) and now with familiarity (normalcy, being the one thing that stayed the same).
“You’ve been in my car,” John reminded him (Mary leaves her phone in there all the time, someone broke in once, stole the phone but not the car). “Several times.”
Sherlock hummed, the kind of acknowledgement that said if you say so. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a place,” John replied (and if he said it quickly, didn’t think about what he actually meant, he’d be able to do it), “sort of near St. Ives. Mary gave me a map, she doesn’t think I’ll be able to find it.” Sherlock raised an eyebrow-at the map, at the tense, John didn’t know. He didn’t say anything else and the silence began to choke with thoughts, with the reality of tomorrow, and John coughed again, scratched his arm, small things to make it go away. “I’m meeting her parents in a bit, stuff to go over. I need to-”
“Of course.”
It was the little things that Sherlock was doing, John decided. Not making him elaborate the points that would bring it all home, that would make the grief slam against him. Maybe that was why he was here instead of on the tube, on the way to see Mary’s parents before- “Thanks.”
“Go,” Sherlock said, firm and kind, the voice he used when John was tired and Sherlock still had an errand to send him on. “You’ll feel terrible if you’re late.”
He would. It was a mundane concern, the kind of thing that John had been holding on to in order to stay sane, and he grasped it tightly.
“My old jacket’s still here,” he said as he was leaving, and Sherlock smiled and said, “I know.”
Coffee. John could smell coffee.
It woke him up slowly, mixed at first with his dream until he was more awake than asleep. The sound of Mary pottering around downstairs (the lilt of the television, the floorboards creaking) filtered up the stairs and John curled into his pillow, wondered why she was awake so hideously early. She liked to sleep in when she was off work, usually stayed in bed when John’s Army-ingrained early starts woke him up-
(hey, come back to bed, and he should have done, every single time)
-but the other side of the bed was empty, cold. He knew what it would look like without opening his eyes; Mary’s clothes everywhere, probably with the wardrobe door half open and everything spilling out. Her dressing gown would be conspicuously absent from the back of the bedroom door, and John smiled into his pillow. He knew two horrifically messy people and one of them was definitely Mary-
It struck like cold metal against warm skin. John felt everything seize (the air in his lungs, his heartbeat, his brain) and then start again a second later, a physical pause between blissful ignorance and reality. The bed was going to stay cold. He gripped the pillow harder, fingers digging in as his chest heaved, an effort to keep air going in and out without hitching.
The sound of the television shifted slightly, like someone had changed the channel; it wasn’t Mary (never would be), but there was coffee and probably a newspaper. He went through the list of people they’d given a key to, dismissed most of them and settled on Harry, maybe with Clara. On the off chance it was a break-in John was long past the point of giving a fuck, but his sister probably needed attention. Yes, he’d go downstairs in a minute, when he didn’t feel like he was made of lead.
Minutes passed; John breathed. Everything hurt but didn’t, ghosting pain that had flared and was now dulling to a constant ache. Eventually the floorboards creaked some more, then the stairs, and John turned his face further into his pillow, just enough to muffle his breathing. It felt like being a child, like hoping if you stayed still long enough no one would find you.
“Come on,” Sherlock said, and John tensed. “Up.”
“Sherlock,” John ground out, face still pressed against the pillow. “This is really not the time for me to go running off somewhere after you.”
“I’d say this was exactly the time,” Sherlock continued. His footsteps had paused; it sounded like he was in the doorway. “Get dressed. Unless you want to drive to Cornwall in pyjamas.”
John turned his head a little at that, opened one eye. Sherlock was indeed standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. He was still in his coat, though no scarf.
“Cornwall?”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, pushed away to stand straight. “Don’t fall apart on me now, John, you’ve had plenty of time for that already. Cornwall, fulfilling your wife’s last wishes.”
“It’s not the Cornwall part that I’m questioning. It’s the whole...you...part.” John finally shifted, propped himself up on his elbow. “It sounds an awful lot like you’re offering to come with me.”
“I bought coffee from that awful place across the street, by the way,” Sherlock sidestepped. He looked pointedly at John still tangled up in bed, then towards the clothes folded on the back of the dresser chair. “Yours is getting cold.”
He turned and waved casually behind him, a take-it-or-leave-it-but-you’d-better-be-dressed-in-ten-minutes kind of gesture. He disappeared from sight-the stairs creaked, then the hall floorboards-and John let his arm buckle, let himself fall back to the bed. He sighed, the sound caught by the pillow, and rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling. He’d spent a lot of time looking at it recently, could read the map of the plaster and the cracks. The occupant before them had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars around the light fitting, coarse bits of plastic that annoyed both of them. John had meant to take them down; Mary was still waiting for him to do it.
“Okay,” he said to the ceiling. “Okay.”
Downstairs there was indeed coffee, a polystyrene cup sat neatly in the kitchen. There was also loose change in John’s wallet where there had previously been a fiver, enough to account for two drinks from the cafe across the street (the one that wasn’t open on a Sunday, but he wasn’t going to ask). It was cool, not quite cold, and John stuck it in the microwave and waited, took deep breaths in and out and closed his eyes.
Sherlock appeared in the hallway, visible in the gap between the kitchen door and the frame as he knotted his scarf around his neck. He was texting with one hand as he buttoned his coat, looked up when the microwave pinged.
“Alright,” John said. He twisted his wedding ring around his finger, checked for the one around his neck. Still there; still safe. “I guess we should go.”
He chose the country lanes without really thinking about it, the twists and curves arched over with trees. They were beginning to turn green, a mixture of leaves and twigs as spring crept closer, and the sunlight was filtering through them in long shapes. Here the road on their side was mostly free, just a queue of cars on the right as people spent their Sunday driving back to the cities from weekend breaks. Sherlock had acquired a pair of sunglasses and the scenery passed by inside the sepia lenses.
They hadn’t spoken much save for the exchange of directions; on the way out of London Sherlock had refused to use the map, but just past Exeter he’d silently retrieved it from the glove compartment and fanned it out over his knees. The route Mary had drawn was a livid red scar across the page, their destination marked off to the side by a messy circle.
They stopped at a cafe when the journey had begun to open up into the coastline, into cliffs that cut off into an expanse of sea. The cafe was tiny, sitting at the edge of the road and facing out towards the cliffs, and there were benches outside with red parasols. An elderly couple sat beneath one, nursing cups of tea. John and Sherlock bought their own at the counter; it was windy up here, a breeze rolling in off the sea, and the temperature was still languishing a season behind, so John cupped the drink in his hands and let the warmth seep through his skin.
“Come on,” he said, looked left and right to cross the road even though there wasn’t a car for at least a mile either way. Sherlock followed him to the dirt path cutting through the grass and heather, up the slight incline that was obscuring the view of the sea. Once they’d crested it the water stretched out, a sweep of blue that curved slightly with the horizon. It was stippled with sunlight, points of glaring white that dipped and sparked with the waves. The cliffs were high, perhaps two hundred feet to the rocks below; water crashed around them as though it were trying to climb up and reach John.
“Picturesque,” Sherlock said, tone veering towards impressed. It was certainly a word for it, though if it was the right one John wasn’t really sure. It was a little like standing at the edge of the world, as though the sea beyond the horizon might be falling off into nothingness and you’d never know. Breathtaking, John would probably have said, but each to their own.
Sherlock had taken the map from the car; he was looking at it now, bent the folds back on themselves until only a rectangle of Cornwall was visible and tapped the words St. Ives. “You went on holiday there.”
It wasn’t a question, though that was perhaps more surprising. John and Mary’s first holiday, the sort of thing that Sherlock didn’t need to remember. John knew where Sherlock had been, of course, running around Luxembourg and sulking after John had said he wouldn’t come with him. Mary had offered to take her sister to St. Ives instead and Sherlock had adored her for it.
“Really inventive of us, wasn’t it?” John replied. A bird swooped in figures of eight around the cliff face; not a gull, at least, but John couldn’t do much better than that. Maybe it was a Chough-they liked cliffs, didn’t they? “Seeing as it’s been seaside town of the year for about a millennia.”
“Mmm,” Sherlock hummed, vague agreement. He was looking at the map again, then over his shoulder to the cafe, and when he turned back he was grinning. The breeze discomposed his hair, whipped the curls flat and away from his face. He pointed to the cliffs, the way they curved into a horseshoe. “It’s called Hell’s Mouth.”
John couldn’t help the twitch of his mouth, the millisecond smile. It felt odd, like his features had frozen into deep-set lines and forgotten what other expressions looked like, and he put a hand to his mouth as though to brush it away. The ache in his chest flared, reminding him it was there. He checked the ring at his neck, pressed the gold in between his thumb and forefinger. “Sounds perfect,” he replied, trying to keep his voice steady. “Think they get many crimes around here?”
Sherlock looked around them at the landscape, which barely contained more than one building for miles. “You never know,” he said. “Maybe there’s a particularly murderous farmer nearby.”
They lapsed back into silence, into finishing their drinks. The air was full of noise, of the symbol-crash of waves against the coast, and John kicked at the ground with his heel, watched a groove appear in the dirt.
“You do seem to be holding up,” Sherlock said after a moment. When John looked Sherlock was watching him and it was that expression again, nothing that John could work out. He’d seen it a hundred times during cases, but more and more these days he was finding it directed at himself and it was disconcerting.
“Yeah, well,” he replied, already half-regretting the brevity. He realised it was the same thing Mrs Hudson had said to him, though the tone was different. “I do that.”
“John-” Sherlock began, sighed. He tapped the map against his leg, one two three, the kind of small movements that John usually linked with Sherlock’s boredom, with the rare occasions when he didn’t know what the best course of action might be.
“Let’s get back to the car,” John said, didn’t give Sherlock time to build up whatever it was he intended to say. He turned and started back towards the cafe without looking back but by the time he covered the short distance to the road Sherlock was at his side again, and they crossed together.
The radio was playing something John didn’t recognise, a fact that he was mostly okay with as they were listening to Classic FM; Sherlock had jumped at the controls the minute it was on, fiddling through static and snatches of Lady Gaga until he’d found an orchestra. The coastline was still spread out on their right in an endless meandering line, the clear sky turning the sea a vivid blue. When John took the road that missed St. Ives Sherlock didn’t say a thing, only went back to the radio dial until Mozart had morphed into David Bowie.
When they did rejoin the coast it was covered in tin mines, derelict brick rectangles with decaying chimneys. There was a photo somewhere that Mary had taken from the car the last time they’d been here, a red brick building rising defiantly from a sand dune. He’d have to find it when he got home. Sherlock was busy with his phone, not paying the slightest bit of attention.
“Didn’t you consider,” John began, not quite sure where he was taking this, “that I might want to do this alone?” The idea pressed dully at him that he should be annoyed at Sherlock for not asking, but it felt stupid, like asking someone to be angry that there was a person who knew them better than themselves.
Sherlock didn’t even look up from his phone. “Nonsense. You’re never without one or the other of us and now’s not the time to start.”
That pain flared again, the one that had been steadily growing for months and recently turned into a supernova inside his lungs, but this time it was tinged with a remembered glee, with knowledge that until recently had been very true (a wife and a best friend, not one but two people to love more than anything else).
“Right,” he replied. “Right.”
It did seem stupid, now that he thought about it, to think that Sherlock would have done anything else but be here. John felt as though he’d rather short-changed him, felt guilt bloom, and as if on cue Sherlock looked up from his phone and said, “Stop being so self-flagellating. Or at least if you have to feel guilty do it more quietly.” There was a pause, just long enough for Sherlock to finish whatever text he was sending (to mutter bloody reception and hold his phone up to the window) before he added, “Do you actually know where you’re going?”
“Yes,” John grunted, indicated left as they approached a junction, then switched to right. “Maybe. It’s this little place, Mary insisted.” They turned onto a slightly wider road, hemmed on either side by coarse bushes and sporadic trees. “She wouldn’t tell me why but-it had to be this place.”
A few more winding roads brought them closer and closer until the road began to turn to dirt, until it began to descend towards a widening view of a beach (something so familiar, more so with everything second). There was nothing nearby, no houses or cafes or shops selling surfers’ equipment like there usually were, and as they got nearer something began to tug at the back of John’s head, in time with the pain inside his pulse. He pulled the car up on the sandy grass, got out and looked towards the sea. It was a familiar vista, the curve of a small beach at low tide, sand stretching out to become the water.
“I’ve been here,” he started, walking a few paces from the car as though it might afford him a better memory. “I’ve definitely been here-”
It hit with significant magnitude, enough to make him rock back a little on his heels, to clasp his hands behind his head. Things were flooding back in, sights and scents and the sound of Mary’s voice (he never wanted to stop hearing it). They’d bought chips, driven the car along the coast until Mary had asked him to stop, dragged him down to the beach. She’d taken her shoes and socks off to paddle even though it was February, laughed when John had said nothing was going to make him go anywhere near the sea in that weather. She’d smelt of salt water when he’d kissed her.
John’s hands slipped down to his face, mirrored the way that Mary liked to hold him when they kissed. Everything hurt, enough to make him feel like his vision was whiting out, and he stumbled a little, leant back against the car. He was vaguely aware of the other door opening, of Sherlock’s voice, but all he could see was Mary, phantom images along the beach, years of a marriage playing in front of him-the first time she’d fallen asleep at his-the threadbare boots she only wore to the shops-their wedding day-both of them getting drunk at the reception with Sherlock-
“John.” The hand on his arm was shaking him, John realised, and it brought him very slowly back (took Mary further away). “Are you alright?”
He nodded, though it clearly wasn’t true, realised he was in danger of hyperventilating if he didn’t breathe properly. It took effort to slow himself down, effort that was difficult to muster against the ache, but John could feel Sherlock unconsciously breathing with him and it helped.
“The first holiday,” he said; his voice sounded coarse, like long nights and early mornings. “We came here on the first holiday. But I don’t know, I don’t know-”
He tried to think, tried to remember-grasped at Mary’s voice (he was already forgetting what she sounded like, and the idea filled him with horror) and tried to remember how she’d formed her words, what had happened in this particular place to make her say here, I want to be here forever. Their wedding day again, to live together in the holy estate of marriage-love honour keep-sickness and health-
The laughter felt odd against the pain, like two clashing colours, and it rolled up from the bottom of his chest in breathless waves, more in common with a dry sob than anything else. “I said I love you,” he began, leant his head back against the car just hard enough to make it thunk. “I don’t even remember what she said but I told her I loved her on this beach. She used to come here as a kid, I remember that, and she said something about it and I told her I loved her for the first time-”
The laughter cracked, fissured to become a sob that hooked around his shoulders, curved his back. Tears were a genuine shock, weeks without them (you’re holding up well, John, you’re doing really well) making them unfamiliar, and in the gap between the first sob and the second there was an overwhelming sense of relief. He pitched forward, tried to breathe. It must have been Sherlock who caught him, Sherlock who held him steady as it took hold, body over brain for the first time in a long time.
“You’re alright,” Sherlock said, and his hands were warm and familiar and welcome. “You’re alright.”
“I must look a mess,” John said, rubbed again at his face with his sleeve. Sherlock waved his hand, the universal gesture for maybe, just a bit. “Oh, who gives a fuck. I’m scattering my wife’s ashes, it doesn’t bloody matter.”
He pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes, took a deep breath. When he opened them Sherlock was still there, hands in his pockets now as he watched John putting himself back together (trying to, the way he would be for a long time). “Ready, then?”
John took a moment, let the question hang in the air. No, he wasn’t, and he never would be either (to say goodbye to his wife when they’d promised to spend the rest of their lives together, not just hers). “Yeah.”
He turned towards the beach, felt with his free hand for Mary’s ring around his neck, warm from his skin (warm from hers, if he pretended). He held her close, took a deep breath.
“John.” Sherlock seemed to think about taking a step forward, didn’t. He paused, looked like he was working out an exact configuration of words. “I know you need to do this bit on your own but-everything afterwards,” and he was perhaps a little out of his depth here, took a second longer, “you won’t be alone for that.”
“I-yeah,” John replied. Not enough energy to give him any more. “Thank you. Thanks.”
Sherlock nodded, looked off to the side, to the expanse of beach and sea. “I’ll wait here, then. There’s no rush,” and he fished his phone from his pocket.
Even if it hurt-even if it felt like the world had ground to a halt and then started again without permission-John had this, at least. One of the two people he loved most in the world, willing to wait for him as he said goodbye to the other one.
(for better, for worse) Everything caught in the breeze, (for richer, for poorer) swirling into the currents of air above the beach before finally twisting away (in sickness or in health) and curling outwards to disperse, finally, above the sea (to love and honour and keep 'till death do us part).