Fic: Effigy (1/1)
Title: Effigy
Characters: John/Sherlock, Mycroft, Lestrade
Word Count: 3,500
Author's Notes: Many thanks to swissmarg for her speedy beta!
Summary: Two weeks after watching Sherlock leap to his death, John starts seeing him everywhere.
Two weeks after watching Sherlock leap to his death, John starts seeing him everywhere.
At first it’s just a flash of curly dark hair peeking out above the crowd, or the swirling of a long black coat, or the flash of a sardonic smile on an otherwise unfamiliar face.
Then he’s minding his own business (alone, of course) on a park bench when Sherlock appears beside him, shimmering and strange but unmistakably his best friend.
Or, he should say, a simulacrum of his best friend, cobbled together by loneliness and sorrow.
He ignores it, and goes on about his business.
--
Sometimes he thinks he should be more surprised than he is, but isn’t this exactly the sort of thing his therapist warns him about? Deal with your grief, face your grief, or that grief will rear up and consume you.
Apparently his grief has gone ahead and done just that, and it’s eaten away his sanity en route.
It takes him surprisingly little time to accept what has happened. After losing his new profession, his flat, and his closest friend in one fell swoop (or one swooping dive), the sudden departure of his mental stability seems a rather small and insignificant matter.
So when Sherlock appears at his side as he walks down the street or materialises across the table at breakfast, John barely looks at him.
He’ll readily admit it to the therapist or anyone else who asks: he isn’t ready to face his grief.
--
What surprises him is how quickly he grows weary of it.
“Stop pestering me,” he snaps at not-Sherlock. “Do you always have to be right in my way? I was going to sit there.” He nods at the spot on the couch directly in front of Mycroft’s telly but Sherlock has settled in with his ridiculously long limbs splayed in every direction and looks like he never plans to move again.
Typical.
John briefly considers sitting there anyhow, but even knowing that Sherlock is a figment of his imagination isn’t enough to propel him into Sherlock’s lap.
Besides, the afterlife hasn’t added any extra padding to the lap in question.
John sets aside his toast and tea and decides to retire early. Seven-thirty isn’t an entirely unreasonable bedtime.
--
When John starts talking to his Sherlock in public, he’s vaguely aware that he should be alarmed by this development. Only nutters talk to people who don’t exist, but then again only nutters have imaginary friends. At least he has a friend again, he consoles himself. And his imaginary version of Sherlock is quite a bit nicer than the real one was.
“You should have worn a scarf,” Sherlock tells him as they walk down the street. “Here, take mine. My body temperature is usually .07 degrees warmer than yours anyhow.”
John starts to argue that such a tiny variance makes no difference against the damp London wind, but he’s grateful to have the soft cashmere wrapped about his neck and then tucked into his jacket.
Besides, it’s not as if Sherlock can catch a chill.
After a while he hardly notices the odd looks from strangers or the occasional young mother ferrying her children across the street, out of his path.
--
Unfortunately, he starts slipping.
Each time it happens, he tells himself that he needs to be more careful, but he can’t seem to help himself.
“The other day, when Sherlock and I--”
Mycroft’s face doesn’t collapse, exactly -- his upper lip is far too stiff to allow such a calamity -- but his brow creases in multiple places and his eyes take on the look John especially hates.
“What I mean is, it feels like just the other day,” he says, the words coming out in a rush in his haste to make that expression go away. “It… was a recent conversation,” he adds, frowning. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” As always, Mycroft’s voice is smooth and controlled.
“Like you feel sorry for me,” John all but spits. “There’s no need. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Clearly.”
John glares. He knows he shouldn’t behave like such a prat, especially with the state of his employment situation and the fact that he’s been occupying Mycroft’s guest suite for months, but he can’t seem to help himself. “I am.”
Mycroft gives a single nod. “If you ever want to talk…”
That sends his hackles up. “I don’t. I don’t need to talk. Not now, not ever. Not with anyone except--” Oh, there he is again, slipping.
“Except my brother,” Mycroft finishes for him, his voice low. “I understand.” He stands and brushes off his trousers, clearing them of lint that doesn’t exist in this house.
It takes everything John has not to give a derisive snort.
Mycroft gives him that look again, but says nothing.
--
John intended to put up more of a fight.
After all, he’s a medical doctor with rudimentary training in psychological disorders and knows all the signs. On the other hand, he finds that he doesn’t much care. Pretending like Sherlock isn’t in his room (well, Mycroft’s guest room) doesn’t make him go away. Being rude to him doesn’t make him go away. Ignoring him entirely doesn’t make him go away.
So he decides to make use of him.
“I hate you,” he tells him late one night after stumbling home from the pub with far too many drinks coursing through his system, warming his blood to the boiling point. “I hate you for doing this to me.”
Sherlock is sitting on the couch in Mycroft’s living room, watching him intently. “Doing what to you?”
“Leaving me,” John says. “You’re a bastard, leaving me all alone like this.”
Sherlock’s expression turns puzzled. “I didn’t leave you. I’m right here.”
“You’re a figment of my imagination and six or seven strong drinks. You’re not actually here.” John pauses to swallow, hard. “I watched you die.”
Sherlock is unmoved by the sound of John’s voice breaking over the last word. “Ah,” he says. “But did you really?”
John glares. “It’s not something I’m likely to forget. Not for the rest of my life, so, thanks for that. Nightmares forever, courtesy of Sherlock Holmes.”
Sherlock sighs and stretches out his ridiculously long legs. “I’m right here,” he repeats. “And you saw precisely what I wanted you to see.”
John decides that seven isn’t such an unreasonable bedtime, either, and trudges off to the bedroom before he tells his imaginary friend something he’ll regret.
--
He isn’t exaggerating about the nightmares.
He has them every night, sometimes more than once if he can manage to nod off again after the first round. They’re always a variation on the same theme: Sherlock, leaping from the top of a building; him, running as if he might have a chance to catch him but always, always too late.
On the bad nights he wakes up screaming. On the worst nights his screams bring Mycroft to his room, crouching uncomfortably beside his bed and patting awkwardly at his arm. “There, there. Just a dream. Should I have someone bring you a cup of tea?”
“No,” he gasps, reaching for the always-present flask he keeps beneath his pillow.
He’s impervious to Mycroft’s disapproving expression. What does he care, if the man responsible for his current misery disapproves of self-medicating? The very idea of it is enough to make him laugh - which isn’t a good thing. Sometimes, when he laughs, he finds he can’t stop.
He laughs until tears stream down his face and Mycroft looks genuinely rattled. The laughter continues to bubble out of him until another voice cuts through the room.
“John! Stop that!”
He’s heard Sherlock’s commanding tone before, of course, but rarely directed at him and never with such authority. His laughter ceases mid-hiccup and he turns his eyes to his imaginary friend.
“Why should I?” John asks. “He came bursting in on his own. It’s not like I invited him for tea and cake.”
Sherlock gives him a familiar I-can’t-believe-you’re-this-stupid look. “Because if you don’t stop, he’s going to have you hauled away to the local asylum, where doctors will shoot you full of drugs and force you to talk about your ‘feelings’ and other unpleasantries.”
John turns his gaze back to Mycroft, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “You’d do that?”
Mycroft looks utterly baffled and more than a little alarmed. “Do… what?”
“Don’t look at me again,” Sherlock hisses.
“Have me locked up,” John says.
“Of course not,” Mycroft replies after several long beats. “You aren’t a danger to yourself or anyone else. I’m not going to force you to do anything… but I do think you’d benefit from having someone to talk with. Not me,” he adds hastily. “You’ve made your feelings about that possibility perfectly clear. But perhaps with someone… professional.”
“Sod off,” John says, leaning into his pillows and pulling the blankets up to his chin.
“You mean, ‘Thank you, Mycroft, for coming to check on me after I woke you with screams in the middle of the night,’” Sherlock says while taking a seat on the foot of his bed, and John laughs.
Mycroft frowns at him, lost again.
At least he doesn’t lose control of his laughter this time. Twice in one night, that just wouldn’t be good. Reasonably sane people don’t lose control multiple times in the space of a few minutes. “Sherlock,” he explains. “Lecturing me about my manners. That’s rather rich, isn’t it?”
Mycroft just stares at him, that look threatening to take up permanent residence on his face.
--
That’s the last time John mentions his imaginary friend.
He isn’t concerned that Mycroft will have him committed or force him to spill his guts to yet another therapist. He simply doesn’t think that it’s acceptable to repay Mycroft’s generosity by giving him a front-row seat to his mental breakdown, especially when John is capable of keeping it to himself.
Well, mostly.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to say nothing, so that’s what he does. When Mycroft asks him direct questions he responds, of course, but only with the absolute minimal number of words required. It gets easier with practice, this economisation of words. Occasionally, he ruefully considers the huge numbers of them he once squandered without thought or care, back when words didn’t have consequences.
He stops talking to Sherlock, too, except late at night after he puts out the lights. It’s less unsettling that way because surely lots of people talk to their departed loved ones while alone, late at night.
Most of them probably aren’t clinging to a dead man’s hand while doing so, but he doesn’t think about that.
“I loved you,” he whispers into the darkness.
“Obviously,” Sherlock says, but because he’s also whispering there isn’t much bite to his tone.
“Sometimes, I thought about telling you,” he continues. “But I didn’t think you’d want to hear it.”
“I rarely want to be told things I already know.”
John smiles. “Dull, I know,” he says. “But after you… after I watched you fall, I realized that I’d never get the chance. And that I should have made you listen, whether you wanted to hear it or not. Now I’m never going to be sure if you knew or not.”
“Know,” Sherlock corrects with more than a trace of annoyance.
John shakes his head, mindless of the fact that Sherlock can’t see the gesture. “I wish I had told you,” he says, the words coming slow and heavy. “I thought we’d have so much time together that I wouldn’t have to bore you with words. That we’d both just… sort it out.”
“Consider it sorted,” Sherlock says, but his voice is soft, and so is the hand that passes across John’s face as he closes his eyes.
He falls asleep with Sherlock petting his hair, and sleeps straight through the night.
--
His life brims with irony.
As soon as John stops mentioning Sherlock, everyone decides that the best way to respond to his delusions is by feeding into them.
John doesn’t appreciate it. He wouldn’t have enjoyed being humoured about it when he was still slipping, and he enjoys it even less now that he’s in control again.
And while it’s true he doesn’t have specialised training in treating mental disorders, he doesn’t believe indulging a half-mad person to be an especially effective approach -- but apparently it’s the one people have elected to take with him.
Suddenly it’s all too-bright smiles and sparkling eyes and people like Mrs Hudson saying things like, “You must be so relieved, dear. I know you missed him terribly.”
He doesn’t snap at her because she’s a daft old woman and he knows that she misses him terribly, too. He thinks it’s possible that she has her own imaginary Sherlock - she’s certainly the sort. So he gives her a bland smile and a meaningless nod and pours her another cup of tea as he changes the subject.
He exercises no such restraint when it comes to Greg, because Greg should damn well know better.
“Stop,” John cuts in almost immediately when the detective inspector hesitantly starts referring to Sherlock in present tense. “Please,” he adds, his voice not quite breaking but not entirely steady, either. “This is hard enough as it is. I know you think you’re helping, but it isn’t helping at all.”
“But--”
“Not helping.”
“But--”
He stands, his leg sending painful twinges as he puts a little weight on it. “No,” he says, returning to the question Greg posed at the start of this visit. “I can’t help you with your present case or any other. If you find yourself afflicted with a minor injury or in need of a quick stitch-job I’d be happy to assist you, but otherwise…” He gives a nod towards the door.
Greg doesn’t argue, but he seems far more distressed than the situation warrants. The way John sees it, he’s doing everyone a favour. It’s nonsense to expect anyone to feed into his delusions.
Mycroft takes a different approach.
“John,” he greets curtly, taking a seat on the couch without waiting for an invitation. In spite of the fact that it’s Mycroft’s living room and Mycroft’s couch, John can’t keep from bristling.
“I won’t insult you by pretending to understand everything what you’ve been though,” he begins while crossing his legs and making minute adjustments to his clothing. “But as… sympathetic as I am, and as fond of you as I’ve grown, Sherlock is my brother.”
“Was your brother.”
Mycroft narrows his eyes. “I’m sympathetic,” he repeats after a few long, cool beats. “But I think I’ve been patient long enough.”
John doesn’t hesitate at all - he forces himself to his feet, pressing his lips together against the expected pain. “I agree. I’ve taken advantage of your hospitality long enough. I’ll go pack my things.”
Mycroft just continues watching him, his expression fixed. “Where will you go?” he asks after a moment. “Back to 221… B?”
John hasn’t been there in months, not since he hastily shoved a random assortment of belongings into a duffle bag. He never intended to return. “No.”
Mycroft lifts a brow. “A pity. I suspect my brother will be disappointed by the news.”
“In that case, he shouldn’t have jumped.” The sharp, bitter words surprise him as they pass his lips.
Mycroft narrows his eyes. “Perhaps not,” he says, his tone as carefully mild as John’s is accusatory. “But I think you’ve punished him long enough.”
At first, all John can do is stare.
And then laugh.
And then, damn it, he loses control again.
“Oh,” he manages with tears streaming and his chest hitching. “That’s bloody perfect, coming from you. The person who devoted his entire life to punishing Sherlock. And for what?” He shakes his head, laughter still bubbling out at intermittent intervals until it abruptly stops.
John leans forward, his eyes narrowing. “This is all your fault.”
Mycroft blinks. “Oh?”
John waves a finger in the general direction of his face. “You’re the one who gave Moriarty the ammunition he needed.” He nods. “Your fault.”
“Ah.” Mycoft looks unperturbed. “Well, perhaps it is.”
Sherlock clears his voice throat from the far side of the couch, where he’s been crouched at the edge rather than seated like a normal person. “We’ll have plenty of time to argue about who’s to blame for what in the future,” he says. “Right now, we have a case.”
“A case,” John echoes, laughing again.
“Yes,” Sherlock says, leaping up and landing deftly on the balls of his feet. “A case John, a case! A disappearance under impossible circumstances, a cryptic note, evasive witnesses, and at least two people telling bold-faced lies.” He radiates with energy, practically crackles with it, but John doesn’t move an inch, save to shift his eyes to Mycroft.
“You hear him too?”
Mycroft gives him a single half-nod. “And see him.” He turns up his nose and gives the air a slight sniff. “And--”
“Shut up,” Sherlock tells him without moving his over-bright eyes away from John’s face. “John. Are you coming?”
He fights back waves of dizziness, because this makes no sense at all. “There’s a psychological term for this,” he says slowly, clearing his throat between every few words. “It’s a…” He pauses to press his fingers against his temples. “Folie àa deux. Usually it’s created between people who are very close, but…” He forces himself to focus fully on Mycroft. “No offense, but it’s incredibly tragic that you’re my closest friend.”
Sherlock shifts in front of him and snaps his fingers before his eyes. “I’m not a delusion.”
With a weary sigh, John swats his hand away. “I’m sorry,” he tells Mycroft. “This is all your fault, but now I’ve gone and infected you, which really wasn’t very polite. Perhaps we can get some sort of two-for-one rate at the local asylum?” He dredges up a smile. “At least group therapy won’t be a challenge for them.”
Mycroft looks at Sherlock. “I’m afraid I’ve done all I can.”
“And I appreciate the effort, useless as it’s been,” Sherlock snaps. “Now, please leave.”
Mycroft hesitates only briefly before following his brother’s instruction.
“Oh Ggod,” John moans. “I really have lost my mind. Utterly and completely. There’s no coming back from this sort of thing, is there?”
“Much better,” Sherlock says, plopping down on the couch and ignoring John’s words completely. “Now. Lestrade called almost an hour ago. I’d prefer not to leave without you, but--”
John cuts him off with some more unruly laughter. “Why not? At least you’d be consistent.”
Sherlock fixes his eyes to John’s, and John finds himself unable to look away. “I’m sorry about that,” he says after a stretch of silence. “I am, but it had to be done. I’ll explain later, but right now--”
John rolls his eyes. “Right now, there’s a case,” he says, his voice thick with sarcasm. “How can the final destruction of my mental state compare to that?”
“Your mental state is perfectly sound,” Sherlock counters. “You’ve just been a bit… confused. And all of that will get sorted out once we have a chance to discuss what happened properly, but that time is not now.” He glances down at the watch that he isn’t wearing.
“Yes, it is.” Moving with a soldier’s swiftness, John locks his hand around Sherlock’s wrist. “I watched you die.”
Sherlock shrugs. “You watched a performance.”
“I felt your pulse.”
“And you felt what I wanted you to feel.” Sherlock sighs, as if terrifically bored by the whole thing already.
John tightens his grip. “That’s what you wanted me to feel? Sherlock, do you have any idea…?” And he can say no more, because there’s absolutely no way to put it into words. Watching blood pool beneath Sherlock’s head, his sightless eyes, the pulseless wrist in limp in his fingers.
“I didn’t want you to suffer, if that’s what you’re referring to,” Sherlock says, his voice softer this time, but no less underscored with urgency. John can practically hear him ticking off the seconds in the back of his mind. “And we can talk about that later.” Abruptly, he stands, and extends a hand.
“Coming?”
Moving instinctively, John starts to reach for Sherlock, but stops himself just in time.
Odds are, his hand will pass right through him, and then where will he be?
“Right where you are right now,” Sherlock sighs. “Being the only object in my brother’s house to collect dust. Besides…”
He pauses only as long as it takes for John to meet his gaze again.
“You didn’t really miss me.”
All John can do is stare.
Sherlock smiles, and his smile is warm and bright, the sort of smile that John is secretly convinced that only he gets to see. “No. You miss the adventure, the danger, the game.” He pauses, this time only for a nanosecond. “So. Coming?”
John takes a deep breath - and grasps his hand.
He should be more surprised than he is when his fingers connect, and hold.
Characters: John/Sherlock, Mycroft, Lestrade
Word Count: 3,500
Author's Notes: Many thanks to swissmarg for her speedy beta!
Summary: Two weeks after watching Sherlock leap to his death, John starts seeing him everywhere.
Two weeks after watching Sherlock leap to his death, John starts seeing him everywhere.
At first it’s just a flash of curly dark hair peeking out above the crowd, or the swirling of a long black coat, or the flash of a sardonic smile on an otherwise unfamiliar face.
Then he’s minding his own business (alone, of course) on a park bench when Sherlock appears beside him, shimmering and strange but unmistakably his best friend.
Or, he should say, a simulacrum of his best friend, cobbled together by loneliness and sorrow.
He ignores it, and goes on about his business.
--
Sometimes he thinks he should be more surprised than he is, but isn’t this exactly the sort of thing his therapist warns him about? Deal with your grief, face your grief, or that grief will rear up and consume you.
Apparently his grief has gone ahead and done just that, and it’s eaten away his sanity en route.
It takes him surprisingly little time to accept what has happened. After losing his new profession, his flat, and his closest friend in one fell swoop (or one swooping dive), the sudden departure of his mental stability seems a rather small and insignificant matter.
So when Sherlock appears at his side as he walks down the street or materialises across the table at breakfast, John barely looks at him.
He’ll readily admit it to the therapist or anyone else who asks: he isn’t ready to face his grief.
--
What surprises him is how quickly he grows weary of it.
“Stop pestering me,” he snaps at not-Sherlock. “Do you always have to be right in my way? I was going to sit there.” He nods at the spot on the couch directly in front of Mycroft’s telly but Sherlock has settled in with his ridiculously long limbs splayed in every direction and looks like he never plans to move again.
Typical.
John briefly considers sitting there anyhow, but even knowing that Sherlock is a figment of his imagination isn’t enough to propel him into Sherlock’s lap.
Besides, the afterlife hasn’t added any extra padding to the lap in question.
John sets aside his toast and tea and decides to retire early. Seven-thirty isn’t an entirely unreasonable bedtime.
--
When John starts talking to his Sherlock in public, he’s vaguely aware that he should be alarmed by this development. Only nutters talk to people who don’t exist, but then again only nutters have imaginary friends. At least he has a friend again, he consoles himself. And his imaginary version of Sherlock is quite a bit nicer than the real one was.
“You should have worn a scarf,” Sherlock tells him as they walk down the street. “Here, take mine. My body temperature is usually .07 degrees warmer than yours anyhow.”
John starts to argue that such a tiny variance makes no difference against the damp London wind, but he’s grateful to have the soft cashmere wrapped about his neck and then tucked into his jacket.
Besides, it’s not as if Sherlock can catch a chill.
After a while he hardly notices the odd looks from strangers or the occasional young mother ferrying her children across the street, out of his path.
--
Unfortunately, he starts slipping.
Each time it happens, he tells himself that he needs to be more careful, but he can’t seem to help himself.
“The other day, when Sherlock and I--”
Mycroft’s face doesn’t collapse, exactly -- his upper lip is far too stiff to allow such a calamity -- but his brow creases in multiple places and his eyes take on the look John especially hates.
“What I mean is, it feels like just the other day,” he says, the words coming out in a rush in his haste to make that expression go away. “It… was a recent conversation,” he adds, frowning. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” As always, Mycroft’s voice is smooth and controlled.
“Like you feel sorry for me,” John all but spits. “There’s no need. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Clearly.”
John glares. He knows he shouldn’t behave like such a prat, especially with the state of his employment situation and the fact that he’s been occupying Mycroft’s guest suite for months, but he can’t seem to help himself. “I am.”
Mycroft gives a single nod. “If you ever want to talk…”
That sends his hackles up. “I don’t. I don’t need to talk. Not now, not ever. Not with anyone except--” Oh, there he is again, slipping.
“Except my brother,” Mycroft finishes for him, his voice low. “I understand.” He stands and brushes off his trousers, clearing them of lint that doesn’t exist in this house.
It takes everything John has not to give a derisive snort.
Mycroft gives him that look again, but says nothing.
--
John intended to put up more of a fight.
After all, he’s a medical doctor with rudimentary training in psychological disorders and knows all the signs. On the other hand, he finds that he doesn’t much care. Pretending like Sherlock isn’t in his room (well, Mycroft’s guest room) doesn’t make him go away. Being rude to him doesn’t make him go away. Ignoring him entirely doesn’t make him go away.
So he decides to make use of him.
“I hate you,” he tells him late one night after stumbling home from the pub with far too many drinks coursing through his system, warming his blood to the boiling point. “I hate you for doing this to me.”
Sherlock is sitting on the couch in Mycroft’s living room, watching him intently. “Doing what to you?”
“Leaving me,” John says. “You’re a bastard, leaving me all alone like this.”
Sherlock’s expression turns puzzled. “I didn’t leave you. I’m right here.”
“You’re a figment of my imagination and six or seven strong drinks. You’re not actually here.” John pauses to swallow, hard. “I watched you die.”
Sherlock is unmoved by the sound of John’s voice breaking over the last word. “Ah,” he says. “But did you really?”
John glares. “It’s not something I’m likely to forget. Not for the rest of my life, so, thanks for that. Nightmares forever, courtesy of Sherlock Holmes.”
Sherlock sighs and stretches out his ridiculously long legs. “I’m right here,” he repeats. “And you saw precisely what I wanted you to see.”
John decides that seven isn’t such an unreasonable bedtime, either, and trudges off to the bedroom before he tells his imaginary friend something he’ll regret.
--
He isn’t exaggerating about the nightmares.
He has them every night, sometimes more than once if he can manage to nod off again after the first round. They’re always a variation on the same theme: Sherlock, leaping from the top of a building; him, running as if he might have a chance to catch him but always, always too late.
On the bad nights he wakes up screaming. On the worst nights his screams bring Mycroft to his room, crouching uncomfortably beside his bed and patting awkwardly at his arm. “There, there. Just a dream. Should I have someone bring you a cup of tea?”
“No,” he gasps, reaching for the always-present flask he keeps beneath his pillow.
He’s impervious to Mycroft’s disapproving expression. What does he care, if the man responsible for his current misery disapproves of self-medicating? The very idea of it is enough to make him laugh - which isn’t a good thing. Sometimes, when he laughs, he finds he can’t stop.
He laughs until tears stream down his face and Mycroft looks genuinely rattled. The laughter continues to bubble out of him until another voice cuts through the room.
“John! Stop that!”
He’s heard Sherlock’s commanding tone before, of course, but rarely directed at him and never with such authority. His laughter ceases mid-hiccup and he turns his eyes to his imaginary friend.
“Why should I?” John asks. “He came bursting in on his own. It’s not like I invited him for tea and cake.”
Sherlock gives him a familiar I-can’t-believe-you’re-this-stupid look. “Because if you don’t stop, he’s going to have you hauled away to the local asylum, where doctors will shoot you full of drugs and force you to talk about your ‘feelings’ and other unpleasantries.”
John turns his gaze back to Mycroft, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “You’d do that?”
Mycroft looks utterly baffled and more than a little alarmed. “Do… what?”
“Don’t look at me again,” Sherlock hisses.
“Have me locked up,” John says.
“Of course not,” Mycroft replies after several long beats. “You aren’t a danger to yourself or anyone else. I’m not going to force you to do anything… but I do think you’d benefit from having someone to talk with. Not me,” he adds hastily. “You’ve made your feelings about that possibility perfectly clear. But perhaps with someone… professional.”
“Sod off,” John says, leaning into his pillows and pulling the blankets up to his chin.
“You mean, ‘Thank you, Mycroft, for coming to check on me after I woke you with screams in the middle of the night,’” Sherlock says while taking a seat on the foot of his bed, and John laughs.
Mycroft frowns at him, lost again.
At least he doesn’t lose control of his laughter this time. Twice in one night, that just wouldn’t be good. Reasonably sane people don’t lose control multiple times in the space of a few minutes. “Sherlock,” he explains. “Lecturing me about my manners. That’s rather rich, isn’t it?”
Mycroft just stares at him, that look threatening to take up permanent residence on his face.
--
That’s the last time John mentions his imaginary friend.
He isn’t concerned that Mycroft will have him committed or force him to spill his guts to yet another therapist. He simply doesn’t think that it’s acceptable to repay Mycroft’s generosity by giving him a front-row seat to his mental breakdown, especially when John is capable of keeping it to himself.
Well, mostly.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to say nothing, so that’s what he does. When Mycroft asks him direct questions he responds, of course, but only with the absolute minimal number of words required. It gets easier with practice, this economisation of words. Occasionally, he ruefully considers the huge numbers of them he once squandered without thought or care, back when words didn’t have consequences.
He stops talking to Sherlock, too, except late at night after he puts out the lights. It’s less unsettling that way because surely lots of people talk to their departed loved ones while alone, late at night.
Most of them probably aren’t clinging to a dead man’s hand while doing so, but he doesn’t think about that.
“I loved you,” he whispers into the darkness.
“Obviously,” Sherlock says, but because he’s also whispering there isn’t much bite to his tone.
“Sometimes, I thought about telling you,” he continues. “But I didn’t think you’d want to hear it.”
“I rarely want to be told things I already know.”
John smiles. “Dull, I know,” he says. “But after you… after I watched you fall, I realized that I’d never get the chance. And that I should have made you listen, whether you wanted to hear it or not. Now I’m never going to be sure if you knew or not.”
“Know,” Sherlock corrects with more than a trace of annoyance.
John shakes his head, mindless of the fact that Sherlock can’t see the gesture. “I wish I had told you,” he says, the words coming slow and heavy. “I thought we’d have so much time together that I wouldn’t have to bore you with words. That we’d both just… sort it out.”
“Consider it sorted,” Sherlock says, but his voice is soft, and so is the hand that passes across John’s face as he closes his eyes.
He falls asleep with Sherlock petting his hair, and sleeps straight through the night.
--
His life brims with irony.
As soon as John stops mentioning Sherlock, everyone decides that the best way to respond to his delusions is by feeding into them.
John doesn’t appreciate it. He wouldn’t have enjoyed being humoured about it when he was still slipping, and he enjoys it even less now that he’s in control again.
And while it’s true he doesn’t have specialised training in treating mental disorders, he doesn’t believe indulging a half-mad person to be an especially effective approach -- but apparently it’s the one people have elected to take with him.
Suddenly it’s all too-bright smiles and sparkling eyes and people like Mrs Hudson saying things like, “You must be so relieved, dear. I know you missed him terribly.”
He doesn’t snap at her because she’s a daft old woman and he knows that she misses him terribly, too. He thinks it’s possible that she has her own imaginary Sherlock - she’s certainly the sort. So he gives her a bland smile and a meaningless nod and pours her another cup of tea as he changes the subject.
He exercises no such restraint when it comes to Greg, because Greg should damn well know better.
“Stop,” John cuts in almost immediately when the detective inspector hesitantly starts referring to Sherlock in present tense. “Please,” he adds, his voice not quite breaking but not entirely steady, either. “This is hard enough as it is. I know you think you’re helping, but it isn’t helping at all.”
“But--”
“Not helping.”
“But--”
He stands, his leg sending painful twinges as he puts a little weight on it. “No,” he says, returning to the question Greg posed at the start of this visit. “I can’t help you with your present case or any other. If you find yourself afflicted with a minor injury or in need of a quick stitch-job I’d be happy to assist you, but otherwise…” He gives a nod towards the door.
Greg doesn’t argue, but he seems far more distressed than the situation warrants. The way John sees it, he’s doing everyone a favour. It’s nonsense to expect anyone to feed into his delusions.
Mycroft takes a different approach.
“John,” he greets curtly, taking a seat on the couch without waiting for an invitation. In spite of the fact that it’s Mycroft’s living room and Mycroft’s couch, John can’t keep from bristling.
“I won’t insult you by pretending to understand everything what you’ve been though,” he begins while crossing his legs and making minute adjustments to his clothing. “But as… sympathetic as I am, and as fond of you as I’ve grown, Sherlock is my brother.”
“Was your brother.”
Mycroft narrows his eyes. “I’m sympathetic,” he repeats after a few long, cool beats. “But I think I’ve been patient long enough.”
John doesn’t hesitate at all - he forces himself to his feet, pressing his lips together against the expected pain. “I agree. I’ve taken advantage of your hospitality long enough. I’ll go pack my things.”
Mycroft just continues watching him, his expression fixed. “Where will you go?” he asks after a moment. “Back to 221… B?”
John hasn’t been there in months, not since he hastily shoved a random assortment of belongings into a duffle bag. He never intended to return. “No.”
Mycroft lifts a brow. “A pity. I suspect my brother will be disappointed by the news.”
“In that case, he shouldn’t have jumped.” The sharp, bitter words surprise him as they pass his lips.
Mycroft narrows his eyes. “Perhaps not,” he says, his tone as carefully mild as John’s is accusatory. “But I think you’ve punished him long enough.”
At first, all John can do is stare.
And then laugh.
And then, damn it, he loses control again.
“Oh,” he manages with tears streaming and his chest hitching. “That’s bloody perfect, coming from you. The person who devoted his entire life to punishing Sherlock. And for what?” He shakes his head, laughter still bubbling out at intermittent intervals until it abruptly stops.
John leans forward, his eyes narrowing. “This is all your fault.”
Mycroft blinks. “Oh?”
John waves a finger in the general direction of his face. “You’re the one who gave Moriarty the ammunition he needed.” He nods. “Your fault.”
“Ah.” Mycoft looks unperturbed. “Well, perhaps it is.”
Sherlock clears his voice throat from the far side of the couch, where he’s been crouched at the edge rather than seated like a normal person. “We’ll have plenty of time to argue about who’s to blame for what in the future,” he says. “Right now, we have a case.”
“A case,” John echoes, laughing again.
“Yes,” Sherlock says, leaping up and landing deftly on the balls of his feet. “A case John, a case! A disappearance under impossible circumstances, a cryptic note, evasive witnesses, and at least two people telling bold-faced lies.” He radiates with energy, practically crackles with it, but John doesn’t move an inch, save to shift his eyes to Mycroft.
“You hear him too?”
Mycroft gives him a single half-nod. “And see him.” He turns up his nose and gives the air a slight sniff. “And--”
“Shut up,” Sherlock tells him without moving his over-bright eyes away from John’s face. “John. Are you coming?”
He fights back waves of dizziness, because this makes no sense at all. “There’s a psychological term for this,” he says slowly, clearing his throat between every few words. “It’s a…” He pauses to press his fingers against his temples. “Folie àa deux. Usually it’s created between people who are very close, but…” He forces himself to focus fully on Mycroft. “No offense, but it’s incredibly tragic that you’re my closest friend.”
Sherlock shifts in front of him and snaps his fingers before his eyes. “I’m not a delusion.”
With a weary sigh, John swats his hand away. “I’m sorry,” he tells Mycroft. “This is all your fault, but now I’ve gone and infected you, which really wasn’t very polite. Perhaps we can get some sort of two-for-one rate at the local asylum?” He dredges up a smile. “At least group therapy won’t be a challenge for them.”
Mycroft looks at Sherlock. “I’m afraid I’ve done all I can.”
“And I appreciate the effort, useless as it’s been,” Sherlock snaps. “Now, please leave.”
Mycroft hesitates only briefly before following his brother’s instruction.
“Oh Ggod,” John moans. “I really have lost my mind. Utterly and completely. There’s no coming back from this sort of thing, is there?”
“Much better,” Sherlock says, plopping down on the couch and ignoring John’s words completely. “Now. Lestrade called almost an hour ago. I’d prefer not to leave without you, but--”
John cuts him off with some more unruly laughter. “Why not? At least you’d be consistent.”
Sherlock fixes his eyes to John’s, and John finds himself unable to look away. “I’m sorry about that,” he says after a stretch of silence. “I am, but it had to be done. I’ll explain later, but right now--”
John rolls his eyes. “Right now, there’s a case,” he says, his voice thick with sarcasm. “How can the final destruction of my mental state compare to that?”
“Your mental state is perfectly sound,” Sherlock counters. “You’ve just been a bit… confused. And all of that will get sorted out once we have a chance to discuss what happened properly, but that time is not now.” He glances down at the watch that he isn’t wearing.
“Yes, it is.” Moving with a soldier’s swiftness, John locks his hand around Sherlock’s wrist. “I watched you die.”
Sherlock shrugs. “You watched a performance.”
“I felt your pulse.”
“And you felt what I wanted you to feel.” Sherlock sighs, as if terrifically bored by the whole thing already.
John tightens his grip. “That’s what you wanted me to feel? Sherlock, do you have any idea…?” And he can say no more, because there’s absolutely no way to put it into words. Watching blood pool beneath Sherlock’s head, his sightless eyes, the pulseless wrist in limp in his fingers.
“I didn’t want you to suffer, if that’s what you’re referring to,” Sherlock says, his voice softer this time, but no less underscored with urgency. John can practically hear him ticking off the seconds in the back of his mind. “And we can talk about that later.” Abruptly, he stands, and extends a hand.
“Coming?”
Moving instinctively, John starts to reach for Sherlock, but stops himself just in time.
Odds are, his hand will pass right through him, and then where will he be?
“Right where you are right now,” Sherlock sighs. “Being the only object in my brother’s house to collect dust. Besides…”
He pauses only as long as it takes for John to meet his gaze again.
“You didn’t really miss me.”
All John can do is stare.
Sherlock smiles, and his smile is warm and bright, the sort of smile that John is secretly convinced that only he gets to see. “No. You miss the adventure, the danger, the game.” He pauses, this time only for a nanosecond. “So. Coming?”
John takes a deep breath - and grasps his hand.
He should be more surprised than he is when his fingers connect, and hold.