Prompting Part XXXIV
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The room was spare, as John's bedroom at 221b had been. A single narrow bed, a desk, a couple of chairs. A small refrigerator, an electric kettle on the sideboard. A laptop computer, but no television. A small stereo and a stack of CDs. A dozen or so books, mostly illustrated. A stack of worn magazines.
(“Cerebral accident,” Mycroft had said. “Intracranial bleeding, subsequent to head trauma.”
(“What trauma?” Sherlock demanded. “What happened to him?”
(And Mycroft had spoken bluntly. “It happened on the way back from your grave. But the original injury was when he was struck by a bicycle.”)
There were a few pictures. One wall was empty, and directly on the wallpaper was scrawled, large and prominent, in John's own hand:
JOHN:
You had a head injury.
You have memory issues.
Staying here until they clear up.
Mycroft is your host.
Be POLITE to him.
John was seated at the table, chuckling at something in a magazine, with his back to the door. He wasn't aware of Sherlock's presence, until Sherlock murmured his name.
He started violently, rising and turning to the door in a single move. His chair clattered to the floor. “What the hell - ” he began, and then, quickly, even before he'd seen who was there, “ - Sorry. Sorry. You startled me, you sounded like someone I - ” His eyes met Sherlock's face.
He froze.
“John,” Sherlock said again.
“N-no.” John squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. “No. No. This isn't - ” He glanced back and forth rapidly, over and over, between Sherlock's face and the inscription on the wall. “Oh, god. Don't. You - you died. Don't be here, you're not here, I'm, you're a lie, you're not - ”
He closed his eyes again, took a shaking breath. “Right.” When he opened them again, he didn't look at Sherlock. He turned away, hurrying towards the ensuite bathroom.
He picked up the glass tumbler from the sink and methodically smashed it on the floor. With care, he selected the largest shard from the scatter of broken glass. As Sherlock watched in horror, he raised it to his wrist.
“John - no!” Sherlock lunged forward, seized John's hands. He felt the glass slice into his fingers as he wrenched the shard away. He dropped it into the sink. “Don't, John, you don't have to do that - ”
“I do.” John's voice was unnaturally calm. “I've got a brain injury, you see, and now I've gone mad. You're here, but you're dead. I'm crazy, and I can't live that way. It's all right. Just let me.” He bent to pick up another fragment of glass.
“I'm not.” Sherlock held John's hands in his own bleeding ones. “I didn't die, John, I faked it. I lied. Perhaps you'll forgive me, or not. But it's true. I didn't die. I'm here and I'm alive.”
“But … how?” John demanded. “How? You … faked it? I just came from your grave, just a little while ago, and your hair's all grey - ”
“I'll tell you.” He led John to sit at the desk, took another chair himself. Quickly he explained about the gunmen, about Moriarty's threats, about the rubber ball in his armpit so no pulse could be felt. “It was a lie. I'm sorry.”
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John took a slow breath, let it out. “But now what? It's been, what, a week? The grey suits you, by the way. Makes you look like an actual adult. I've got this - memory issue,” he glanced at the words on the wall, “but as soon as that clears up - we go after Moriarty's circle? Together.”
He looked down at Sherlock's bleeding hands. “Oh, hell, what did you do? Shit. That might need stitches. Just wait right here, I've got some first-aid supplies - ”
He hurried to the bathroom, but looked down in surprise as his shoes crunched on the floor. “What the hell? Who broke glass in here?” He returned to Sherlock's side, bearing antiseptic and gauze and tape. “Here, give me your hands.”
Sherlock was looking at the magazine on the desk. It was nearly two years old, worn and ragged, but John had been reading it with as much enjoyment as if it were tomorrow's issue.
“Hold still.” With precision and a doctor's certainty, John dabbed antiseptic on the cuts, pressed gauze onto them. Wrapped tape around Sherlock's fingers and palm. “There, that should hold you for a bit. But … this is - ” His mouth tightened. “This isn't right. You're here, and we're talking, but you died, how can you be here? I was just at your grave an hour ago, you're dead! You're acting like you should be here, you threw yourself off a goddamned roof - ”
Sherlock fled.
* * * * *
“Few people visit him any more,” Mycroft said. “His therapist. His sister every month or so, very briefly. Detective Inspector Lestrade. But probably his most frequent visitors are Mrs Hudson and a Doctor Mike Stamford. He's … not unhappy, Sherlock.”
Sherlock stared at the image on the screen. John was pacing frantically across the room, occasionally making tiny furious noises. “What's he doing?”
Mycroft stood behind him. “The memories go, but the emotions remain. He's still upset, but he doesn't know why. It'll end in ten or fifteen minutes.”
Sherlock pressed his eyes shut, felt tears squeeze through his lashes. “And you can say he's happy, living like that?”
Mycroft's voice was quiet. “I didn't say he was happy.”
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What Mycroft said at the end hit my hard.
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