sherlock fic: when you fell (you fell towards me)
Title: When you fell (you fell towards me)
Author: mellaithwen
Rating: R, Gen.
Warnings: Spoilers for the reichenbach fall.
Word Count: 3, 031.
Disclaimer: BBC owns Sherlock, not meeee.
Summary: It's not the fall that kills you.
sometimes I wish for falling, wish for the release
wish for falling through the air to give me some relief
because falling’s not the problem, when I’m falling I’m at peace,
it’s only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief...
.
Keep your eyes fixed on me, please will you do this for me?
Do what?
It breaks him.
He’s seen death before. He’s seen War, he’s seen murder and mayhem and misery, but this is just too much to bear. When he closes his eyes all he can see is a hand outstretched, just out of reach. A billowing black coat spread-eagled like an ineffective wingspan... and his face, god his face...just before and just after. Clear and then bloody. Alive and then-
He can’t get to him.
A bell rings and he’s knocked to the ground. His head cracks against the concrete and all he can see is red and black and bodies shifting all around him. When the world tilts someone holds him and eases him to his knees that are buckling under the strain of all of this.
There’s blood smeared across a forehead and eyes pasted open that are a brilliant blue-cold and almost empty like an unforgiving ocean that only gives the illusion of life.
“I know him, I-I know...” He whispers and shouts and pleads. “He’s my friend.”
There’s bile in the back of his throat and his head is swimming, concussion, says a voice in the corner of his mind that sounds suspiciously like...
He looks around and the faces are smudged like fingerprints on the lens. He grabs Sherlock’s wrist and tries desperately to find the pulse but he can’t focus and he can’t hear anything over the roaring of his own heartbeat in his ears. He blinks and the crowd around him intensifies and breaks apart and they’re lifting him and taking him and he cannot speak, he cannot move. Jesus, no. God, no. No, no, no.
He remembers the thud as the ground rose up to meet his best friend, and he throws up all over the pavement before the listing world turns grey.
This phonecall, it’s my note.
* * *
A policeman takes his statement. Lestrade waits behind the curtain in the emergency room and just as John can make out the inspector’s hand reaching forward to announce his presence the shadow stops, and footsteps mark his departure.
Watson thinks it’s for the best. He’d likely only trip over his own feet in his haste to punch the man in the face.
The Inspector does however turn up at the funeral; he drives John and Mrs Hudson there and back. He remains quiet behind the wheel and then at the end of the day he says, “If there’s anything I can do...” the sentence trails off into an all-encompassing silence and he busies himself with putting the car into neutral and brushing specks of dust off of the dashboard.
Watson just shrugs and leaves the car without a word. There’s no point arguing anymore. There’s no point in saying anything at all. They’re already blaming themselves, blaming each other, blaming everybody else. What point is there in adding to the noise?
Mycroft, however, does not make an appearance at the funeral.
He sends a car that John won’t get in to, and a letter that he will not read. Had Sherlock been there he would have noted that the writer’s hand was shaking as he put pen to paper. He would have pointed out with a flourish that the ink was smudged as though the letter had been handled for some time before the sender gathered the courage to mail it.
All John sees is how easily the paper bends to the will of the flames, how it stokes the fire. How it curls and turns bright orange before pitch black. The acrid smell fills his nostrils and he thinks he’ll always associate Mycroft with a bitter taste from now on.
* * *
Now it’s time for your questions. Jamie from Newport has written in to ask, Why does toast always land butter-side down? Well that’s a great question Jamie and I think it calls for an experiment!
click.
Joining us in the studio it’s-
click.
If you’ve been affected by any of the storylines in today’s episode please call-
click.
In the early hours of yesterday morning Sherlock Holmes fell to his death in central London. The consulting Detective, known in the press as the Reichenbach Hero, was seen standing on the roof of St Bartholomew’s hospital before seemingly taking his own life. Laura Matthews reports from the scene-
Watson hurls the remote so hard that the television falls to the ground with a crash-static buzzing across the screen and silencing the idiocy John can’t bear to listen to any longer.
Some of them say fall some of them say jump. One woman said push and John took days to recover from that possibility...
No one has found Moriarty but then, only a handful of people actually believe he existed in the first place.
* * *
I’m a fake, John.
An admission, a lie, a decision, a jump, a fall, god he’s falling, oh god, oh god, a crack, a moan. Red red red.
John bolts awake and runs his fingers through his hair half expecting to find blood there.
The nightmares keep him awake most nights.
Sometimes he’s standing below and sometimes he’s falling too. Sometimes he’s on the roof with Sherlock and he’s desperately looking around for clues while his best friend stands on the roof smiling sadly as if it say, You don’t know John, you’re not clever enough, you see but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. John, look again.
Sometimes it’s just the two of them. He, having just fallen, and John’s mind clearer than it was on that day. There’s no one else, and Sherlock isn’t dead yet. He’s bloody and bruised but his eyes are blinking away the tendrils of crimson falling down his face and he’s grinning in John’s arms.
Sometimes there’s just darkness choking him until he’s awake again.
John avoids going anywhere near the hospital. Which isn’t difficult because really he avoids going anywhere at all. He sinks deeper and deeper into his depression and he knows what this is, he knows what’s happening but he just can’t bring himself to stop it, not yet.
It takes three months for John to admit that not sleeping, not eating and generally just existing through life isn’t doing him any favours. He phones his therapist the next day and makes an appointment for that week.
* * *
“Why today?” The rain is pelting against the windows and doors, and his jumper feels damp on his skin.
“You want to hear me say it?”
“It’s been eighteen months since our last appointment.” He didn’t need to come here anymore, he found another way of coping, of living.
“Do you read the papers?” He asks.
“Sometimes.”
“And you watch telly...then you know why I’m here. I’m here because-” His voice catches in his throat and he can’t say it, he can’t, he can’t.
“What happened John?” She tries to coax it out of him as though she hasn’t seen his name in the papers and wait for the inevitable phone call. The rain falls harder, it’s turning into hail and it’s loud and claustrophobic and he tries to say his name but it dies on his lips.
“You need to get it out.”
“My best friend, Sherlock Holmes is dead.”
Are you happy now? He thinks, but does not say.
* * *
There’s just one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. He breathes through his nose and he blinks away a flash of black and red and death. Don’t be… dead. Would you do that? Just for me, just stop this, stop this.
* * *
Eventually the papers move on. Just like they always do. For every victim’s insistence that what they went through was real and that Sherlock really had saved them, there were five more reports that said the opposite was true until finally, nothing. No articles, no stories, no mentions. A silence that just lets John be.
The counter on his website is still stuck at 1895. Or at least it was when he last looked in June. He hasn’t bothered since.
* * *
Chin up, the text message says, signed with an I.
Miss Adler, I presume? John replies-numb to almost everything, and not so unsurprised that Mycroft was wrong a second time.
It’s Norton now, actually.
He doesn’t reply, and then,
You really shouldn’t take things at face value.
He frowns and ignores it until she sends another message.
The eyes see what they want to see.
You think I wanted to see him die?
No, I think you expected it, so you saw it. And then, I think you were in shock. He ignores that too, until; I think you were confused and disoriented and you saw a body fall.
Stop it. Sherlock Holmes is dead.
So was I, once.
She doesn’t send any more messages after that, a thing of which John is glad.
* * *
Time speeds up.
Well, it doesn’t really, of course it doesn’t, but it feels that way to John. He tries to see his therapist every week, but then after the fourth session he thinks to himself, maybe just this once I’ll give it a miss.
And then again, and again, until he stops rescheduling altogether and just says I’m sorry, I can’t.
He moves away for a little while but that doesn’t help any and he feels guilty for leaving Mrs Hudson on her own. He feels guilty for a lot of things these days.
He visits family, he visits old friends and finally when he can’t take it anymore, he returns to London only to find himself just as overwhelmed by memory and pain as he was that day. He tries to think, he tries to focus but he’s lost in memories and he feels like he’s losing his mind.
A thought compounded when some hours later he opens the door to 221b Baker Street for the first time in a long time, and there silhouetted in the window, a dust-covered violin held limp at his side, stands Sherlock Holmes.
Oh so very alive. And naturally, John faints.
He doesn’t see Sherlock bolt forward and catch him before his head hits the floor, or the way his hands ghost across Watson’s forehead as if to say, I missed you.
* * *
His first thought is Sherlock.
No, that’s a lie.
His first thought is a question moreso than a thought and it’s with a lick of his lips that he tastes; Brandy?
Then it’s Sherlock. Then it’s How. Then it’s Why. And then it’s just white noise as his anger intensifies and any joy he felt falls away. Pure emotion, horror, and fear and the magnitude of every single thought he’s had to himself over the last three years rises up to meet him and he’s surging forward, spitting in fury.
“You bastard!” He yells, his hands grasping his friend’s collar, clean and devoid of cerebrospinal fluid.
Sherlock, for all his cleverness, has no words to spare. He stands stoic as Watson beats his fists into his chest. He stands, and takes it, until the good Doctor’s legs give way beneath him and his punches are weak and feeble. His head bowed, his body sags until the rough carpet stabs his knees. His voice just a whisper, he asks, filled with betrayal;
“How could you?”
* * *
John’s chest hurts. His heart hurts, as though the very presence of his friend in front of his own eyes brings it back to life. As though until now he’s felt nothing, known nothing, cared about nothing-and here it is, rushing back. He can’t look up, he can’t. All he can do is stare at the man’s shoes, his rational mind going over everything again and again. But none of it works, none of it fits.
He falls.
John can see him, John is sure of it. Because he’s running forward but his eyes are trained on Sherlock. In the distance a falling body that is so fast, that is a blur but John is sure of it-until he’s knocked off of his feet and his head is screaming, no wait, that’s his mouth, and there’s too many faces to tell them apart.
“You...” Watson tries, then stops. Licks his lips, swallows and forces himself to say it. “You made me watch.” He manages before grabbing his coat and leaving.
The cold air outside greets him like an old-he laughs through his tears. He’s had enough of old friends for one day. He swipes the offending water from his cheeks and thrusts his fists into his pockets as he walks away. His breath fogs in front of him in the bitter air and he grits his teeth and kicks every single bin on the street. At the corner of Baker Street he stops, because he’s not really sure where he can go now. He’s not very sure of anything-except the stinging he can feel all over his body.
He’s not sure how he finds himself standing at the grave.
It’s a testament to his hurting that if he finds more comfort here, with Holmes etched in granite than he does standing next to Lazarus himself.
This is routine. This makes sense. This is logical.
A man jumped to his death, and being pronounced dead he was buried in a graveyard. His friend mourned him, and wept for him, and frequently stands at his graveside because that’s what people do.
There is no room for resurrection in this story.
Maybe it was a dream? Except the shadow following him home to Baker Street is no dream and he certainly isn’t a ghost so John purposefully walks the long way back just to piss him off.
* * *
“I thought I saw you once in Hyde Park.”
Sherlock tilts his head, and John continues.
“Sitting on a bench, looking bored. And I spent days convincing myself that it was just my mind playing tricks on me-that I was lying to myself. When really it was just you lying to me.”
“That’s not true John.”
A beat, and then;
“I haven’t been to Hyde Park, I haven’t even been in the country so it was just your mind playing tricks on you.”
“Oh for god sake.”
Sherlock easily avoids the book flying at his head, and he keeps any retort to himself as he watches Watson with a carefully trained eye. He seems more hunched and there’s the tiniest bit of hesitation as he puts weight on his right leg that implies he’s trying very hard not to limp. Sherlock thinks I did this, and regrets not taking the book to the face.
* * *
Sherlock moves back in but John does not, at least not yet. He stays in a dingy room two streets away because he can’t just slip back into a routine of banter and arguments and laughter because it was so hard to distance himself from that in the first place that he isn’t sure how to go back.
He feels as though he’s the missing puzzle piece that no longer fits. His edges are frayed and worn and it doesn’t matter how hard Sherlock tries he just doesn’t fit anymore.
Not that Sherlock understands that in the slightest-after a week of living apart, he has John’s things sent to their flat and insists that the manager of the temporary accommodation not let John back in, or else.
John doesn’t ask what dirt Sherlock has on the owner; he’s far too busy giving Holmes the silent treatment now that he’s been forced back into Baker Street. The puzzle piece is in place but it’s bent, and squashed and John thinks he’d feel a lot more claustrophobic if Sherlock’s constant talking and occasional string-melody didn’t remind him so much of home.
* * *
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you really think it should take someone three weeks to say they’re sorry for faking their own death?”
“I should imagine my opinion has nothing to do with this.”
“You’re damn right it doesn’t.”
“And I owe you a thousand apologies, Watson, I never meant to...”
“What?” John interrupts, having rehearsed his angry retorts for days and days and days. “You never meant to what? Hurt me? Hurt everyone who ever cared about you?”
“Dammit John, don’t you see? I was saving you!” He shouts, having taken Watson’s barbs (or rather, lack of) for so long, he can do so no longer.
“What?”
“You would have all died. You would have died and I couldn’t let that happen.”
“But letting me think you had died, that was somehow okay?”
“No, and I’m sorry, but I saw a way out-I didn’t have to bargain with your life and I didn’t have to die, it was the perfect solution, the only solution.”
"You know for all your intelligence you really are bloody stupid sometimes.” John accuses, but the tone is calmer, his voice more like a sigh than a shout. Sherlock notices this at once and hides his grin, because finally they’re getting somewhere.
“Aren’t you just a little bit curious?” Sherlock asks as soon as John’s body language relaxes and he sinks deeper into his chair.
“Oh sod off.” Watson replies, as he hides a smirk and refuses to indulge his friend in this one great mystery; instead deciding to throw the day’s newspaper at Sherlocks head.
The silence that follows is, for the first time in several months, a comfortable one. Sherlock smiles as he observes how steady his friends hands are as they flick though the pages of a case-file. John’s eyes look so much brighter already, still darker than they were in the days before the fall but already lighter than that day at the graveyard, as though the weight he’s been carrying around for the last three years has finally been lifted.
“Success,” Sherlock smiles into his tea.
“Lofty git,” Watson coughs.
Success, indeed.
-Fin.
A/N: Title from Please Don’t Go by Barcelona, and lyrics from Falling by Florence and The Machine. “You see but you do not observe. The distinction is clear." Quote from A Scandal in Bohemia by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.