Chapter Text
That afternoon, after he leaves the cemetery, John Watson doesn’t go back to Baker Street. Instead, he finds himself wandering the dreary streets of London, the air growing chill around him as the sun goes down over the city, until he ends up standing at Savoy Pier, staring down into the churning water as waves splash up against the dock.
He thinks, briefly, of his gun, in his desk drawer at Baker Street. Thinks of Sherlock’s gun, the way it had punched holes in the wall. Thinks of how much easier it would be, that way, if not for the fact that he simply cannot go back to their empty apartment. Going back would quite possibly kill him in ways that no weapon could.
Instead, John stares down at the cold water, feeling the world slowly draw itself tighter around him, his mind caving in as it replays, over and over, the sight of Sherlock jumping from the hospital roof. The blood that had stained the sidewalk, the hand that had been outstretched, the way Sherlock’s eyes had been open and unseeing, deprived of their spark for the first time since John had met him.
He thinks of all this, cycles through the memories, and he waits for the tears. When they don’t come, he distantly ponders on what he knows about grieving. This numbness, perhaps, is almost worst than tears, and he finds himself taking a step closer to the water, staring down at the waves and wondering if what he’s seeing in front of him is the freedom of oblivion.
“Hey, man, got a light?”
The words take a long moment to process, seeming to come from somewhere far away, and John eventually finds himself blinking at the man standing beside him, an unlit cigarette hanging from between his fingertips. His clothes are rags, his beard a mess of dirt on his face, and when John distantly thinks homeless, the reminder of Sherlock is enough to draw a breath from his lungs like a punch.
“No, I – I don’t. Sorry.”
“S’alright.”
And then the guy simply sits down beside him, dangles his feet over the water, and starts to quietly hum to himself. John stares at him for a moment, not quite processing the image, until it becomes apparent that the man isn’t going to move, and then John finds himself turning away and walking up the pier. There’d be no point in jumping in the river now, with someone around to pull him out.
- - -
“John. You have got to get outside, get some air –”
John brushes off the words with a careless wave, his fingers tightening around the glass in his hand. Harry, of all people, had offered him a roof over his head, and John had taken it, moving through the motions on autopilot. It was the first time in years that he hadn’t ragged on her about her drinking. Instead, he had simply picked up the bottle himself, and the two of them had spent the last three weeks in a numbed state that did little to kill the pain that John could feel slowly beginning to creep across his body, as the reality of Sherlock’s death began to actually sink it.
Keep your eyes fixed on me.
“Another glass, Harry, if you please.”
And for once, she doesn’t argue. Instead, she simply gets the bottle and sits down beside him, refilling his glass and picking up her own, letting silence fall between them as they both sip their drinks, the closest thing they’ve come to an understanding in years.
- - -
In the end, it takes John nearly a month before he’s able to visit Mycroft. They hadn’t exchanged a single word at the funeral, and though there had been a number of cars sent to pick him up, John had always turned and walked in the other direction. He didn’t trust himself to not twist Mycroft’s head clean off his neck if they were put in the same room.
Then, twenty-seven days after Sherlock’s death, when a car pulls up in front of Harry’s apartment, John methodically gets to his feet, downs most of the bottle sitting in front of him, and then walks down the stairs. Anthea opens the door for him, her eyes filled with far too much pity for John to deal with, and then he sits silently through the car ride until he ends up at Mycroft’s, keeping his silence until they’re finally in the same room together.
“John.”
The image of Mycroft is somewhat blurred around the edges – alcohol, John thinks distantly, and exhaustion – but he’s clear enough that John can see the way Mycroft’s normally pristine suit is rumpled. The circles under his eyes that had never been there before, the utter lack of emotion in his voice, and John distantly thinks that he should feel sorry for Mycroft, but he really just doesn’t have it in him.
“You pleased with yourself?”
“John –”
And then Mycroft just stops, closing his eyes as the seconds tick past. When he finally opens them again, John fancies he can actually see the way Mycroft is trying to draw his composure around him like a cloak, aiming for the haughty disdain that normally flows off him in waves.
“I made a mistake.”
“You ruined your brother’s life.”
“Moriarty –”
“Would have had nothing to go on if you hadn’t blabbed!”
John can distantly hear himself, knows that he had promised himself that he wouldn’t do this, that he had planned to keep it together when he and Mycroft were finally in the same room – but the words falling from his own mouth seem unreal, the sound of his voice coming to him through a fog, and he distantly realizes that he’s shaking as he fights the urge to take a swing.
“I didn’t know. John, how could I –”
“I can’t do this.”
It’s too soon. He’d known it was too soon, but he had come anyway, and if he stays, he’s going to do something that could get him thrown in prison. Turning to go, and swaying a little as the alcohol makes itself known, he distantly hears Mycroft murmur an apology behind him, but it’s not enough to stop him from walking out the door, bypassing Mycroft’s car entirely and stumbling down the road on his own.
- - -
When John wakes up the next morning, he barely manages to roll onto his side before he’s sick, vomiting up his insides into the Thames and then closing his eyes as he falls back down against the cold pavement. He can remember portions of the night before, remembers leaving Mycroft’s, remembers finding a liquor store and then coming to sit under this bridge – which would explain why he never made it back to Harry’s.
Sherlock, he thinks distantly, would probably be ashamed of him.
The thought has barely passed his mind before he realizes that he’s lying underneath something, and he sits up so abruptly it sends a new spike of pain through his temples. When he finally manages to crack his eyes open, it’s to the sight of an unfamiliar coat draped across his body, grungy and smelly but warm enough that John appreciates it nevertheless, even if he has no idea how it go there.
“Morning.”
John nearly concusses himself with the speed which with he spins around, suddenly hating that he’s sitting on his ass on the cold concrete and blinking through the hangover haze. There’s a woman standing on the sidewalk not ten feet away from him, and he just barely manages to stumble to his feet before she’s moved to stand in front of him, wiping a smear of dirt from her hand.
“You looked cold. My friends had a fire. Figured I could give this up for the night, but now I need it back.”
Homeless.
John distantly wonders if the universe is attempting to break his heart all over again – as though everything in his life has to remind him of Sherlock. As if everything didn’t do that already.
Breathing through a surge of nausea, John leans down to pick the coat off the ground, and hands it to her. He distantly thinks there’s something like gratitude sweeping along his body, but the sensation is dimmed, as though coming to him from far away.
“Thanks.”
She nods, stares at him, and then walks away again, pulling the coat up around her body. John watches her leave, and then lets his eyes slide closed for a moment, trying to breathe through the pain that seems to have become part of his every waking moment.
- - -
It’s forty-eight days after Sherlock’s death when John finally makes himself go back to Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson had called again, her voice wavering as she’d asked whether John had simply wanted all the contents of their apartment put into a storage unit, and when John had pictured Sherlock’s entire life sitting in the darkness of some impersonal room, he had somehow found the strength to come deal with things on his own.
Or, at least, he thought he had.
The minute John looks up at their apartment, the only home John has ever really known, his whole body seems to seize up, and he turns and walks away as quickly as he’d came. He makes it back to Harry’s and calls Mrs. Hudson, asking her to remove the guns from the apartment, and telling her that he’ll pay to have everything else boxed up and emptied, and then he curls up in his bed, his body wracked with tremors he doesn’t have a chance of controlling.
- - -
Fifty-three days after Sherlock’s death, the apartment at Baker Street has still not been touched, and John is alone at Harry’s when a knock comes on the door. By the time he eventually pulls himself out of bed, there’s nobody there, and John finds himself bending down to pick up a small brown box, which has some kind of inscription etched into the top.
It’s only when he gets back to his room and opens it that John realizes how much trouble he’s in. Because the instructions in the box are insane – actually, certifiably insane – and John is still reading them.
You want Sherlock back?
Fill this box with yarrow blossoms, graveyard dirt, and the bone of a black cat. Once you’ve done that, add your photo to the contents of this box, bury it in the middle of a crossroads, and wait.
He reaches for the bottle and takes a deep swig. If he’s going to sit here read over this kind of insanity, then he’d like to have some kind of excuse.
- - -
Three days later – and fifty-six days after Sherlock’s death – the insane instructions in the box are firmly forgotten, and John is standing on the roof that Sherlock had jumped from.
The numbness of the first few weeks is gone. In its place is an all-encompassing rage that threatens to burn him up from the inside out, along with a well of grief that seems to seep right into his very soul. As he had limped up the stairs, John had found himself almost gasping for air, picturing Sherlock walking up this very staircase, and wondering if he had known that he was walking to his death.
“I’m sorry, Sherlock.”
He’s sober for the first time in weeks, but everything still feels fuzzy, blurred around the edges. Far below him he can see the same spread of pavement Sherlock had landed on, and he finds himself suddenly loathing himself for giving up like this, but the entire goddamn world seems to scrape against him like sandpaper over an open wound, and nothing could possibly hurt as much as breathing does right now.
“It’s never worth it, you know.”
John jumps so badly he nearly topples off the edge of the building, swaying forward for a second before he stumbles backwards off the ledge, his mind struggling to catch up as he turns to find a woman staring at him. There’s the tiniest hint of a smile tugging at her lips, her hands folding almost demurely at the front of her simple black dress, but something still seems off about her, and when she takes a step towards John, John feels himself back up until his knees hit the ledge again.
“I – who are you?”
“A friend.”
“I don’t –”
“Someone to tell you that if you’re going to go to Hell, you might as well do it right.”
Her words don’t seem to process correctly, and John can feel his mind still struggling to catch up, wrenched away from the promise of oblivion, and suddenly made to deal with this stranger.
“I –”
“There’s no escape for you that way, John Watson. When you hit that pavement, you’ll just keep on going down, down, down.”
Despite the ludicrous words, despite the impossibility of what this woman is insinuating, John feels a tendril of dread creep down his spine, sending a shiver across his entire body. Something of what he’s feeling must show up on his face, because the woman’s lips twitch a little bit higher, and then –
And then her eyes turn black.
John instinctively reaches for a gun that isn’t there, before he’s tripping backwards and pressing himself as close as he can to the ledge behind him, staring at the woman as the world suddenly ceases to make sense around him. He briefly wonders if he’s dreaming, but the entire scene around him is painted with a vividness that John doesn’t think his mind could have created.
“Follow my instructions, John Watson. Go to a crossroad, and do as –”
“John!”
The banging sound of the roof door slamming open cuts through the woman’s words, and then Molly is standing there, her eyes wide as she takes in the scene in front of her. When the strange woman cuts a slow smirk in Molly’s direction, John can actually watch the colour drain from Molly’s expression.
“Well, Molly Hooper. We meet again.”
Molly stumbles backwards, not taking her eyes from the woman, and John finds himself trying to breathe through the impossibility of this woman’s eyes flashing back to normal as she returns her gaze to John.
“Remember, John. I can help you.”
And then, without another word, she turns and slowly walks to the staircase. John watches as Molly visibly flinches away as the woman walks past her, and then it’s just John and Molly on the roof, and John suddenly realizes that he’s shaking, adrenaline screaming across every inch of his veins.
“I – jesus.”
And that’s where he stops, letting himself sink into a crouch against the ledge of the building, and closing his eyes as Molly comes to stand in front of him, wiping a line of tears from her face.
“Come on, John. Let’s – let’s get off this roof.”
Too exhausted to argue, John lets himself be pulled to his feet, distantly wondering if maybe he’s finally lost his mind for good.
- - -
“Who was that?”
Molly says nothing, stirring her cup of tea in front of her, and doing her best to not look at him. John briefly glances around her flat, and then reaches for his own tea, trying to forget the image of that woman’s eyes flashing back.
“Come on, Molly. You knew her –”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“You won’t know that until you try.”
“I can’t.”
Molly’s almost twitching in her seat, and John bites down on his lip for a second as he takes in the dark smudges under her eyes, the way her hair is falling limp against her face. He has a moment of wanting to try to comfort her, but he has no idea what to even say.
“John, you must promise me something.”
“If you would just –”
“Whatever that woman asks of you – don’t do it. Please.”
“Molly –”
“I need you to just trust me on this one, okay?”
John has the distant and somewhat hysterical thought that nothing seems to make sense in this new world, this new existence in which Sherlock no longer exists, and he calmly sets his tea in its saucer as he gets to his feet again, pulling his coat around him.
“John –”
“Thank you for the tea.”
And then he walks out the door. He has an animal shelter to visit.
- - -
“You… want to know whether we’ve euthanized a black cat today?”
John wonders for a moment what he must look like – unshaven and exhausted, showing up out of nowhere and requesting a dead feline – and he makes a conscious effort to smile, dimly noticing that the muscles seem to be sore from disuse.
“I’m a film-maker. Aspiring, anyway. Horror, gore – you know, that kind of thing.”
The receptionist is still staring at him as though he’s suddenly sprouted several extra heads, and John would aim to turn his smile into flirty, but he knows that in his current state it would only come across as creepy.
“I’ll… check with my boss.”
John only has to wait a few minutes before another woman walks out from the back room, carrying a garbage bag and smiling at him. John has just a moment to think that something feels off in her smile before the woman is coming around the corner, putting a hand on his arm and raising the bag with the other one.
“Your lucky day. Shall we take Mittens here out to your car?”
“I – I took a cab.”
John fights the urge to pull away as she quirks another smile at him and leads him out of the building, her hand pressed just a little too tight around his elbow. It’s only when they get out to the sidewalk that she turns to face him, her eyes suddenly flashing black, and John pulls away so quickly he almost stumbles.
“You –”
“Did you really think you could just walk into a shelter and get a dead cat?”
John swallows hard against the nausea that’s threatening to come up through his throat. The woman waves the bag in front of him, almost casually, and curls her lips into another smile.
“Come on, John. I did you a favour. Got the messy bit over with, so you wouldn’t have to.”
The eyes slide back to their normal colour, and John makes a noise that sounds hurt when she tosses the bag at him, closing his own eyes at the feeling of a still warm body underneath all that plastic.
“You’re – you –”
“A monster? Close, but not quite there.”
There’s the press of a warm hand curled around his chin, and John feels himself flinch almost violently, pulling a sound of soft laughter from her.
“You’re rather adorable, John Watson. Take good care of Mittens here, mmmhm?”
John presses his lips firmly together, keeping his eyes closed until he hears the door to the animal shelter slam shut, and then he turns and crosses the sidewalk, setting the plastic bag down on the pavement and throwing up into the trash can in front of him.
- - -
After the disaster at the animal shelter, the yarrow blossoms are relatively easy to acquire from a local flower store, and as soon as the sun is down John takes a cab to the cemetery, standing in front of Sherlock’s grave with the woman’s wooden box in one hand, and the garbage bag in the other.
“Here’s me trying for that one last miracle, Sherlock.”
The words seem loud in the darkness around him, and John takes a moment to simply breathe before he walks around to the back of Sherlock’s tombstone, kneeling down on the cold grass and pulling the cat out of the bag. The press of soft fur against his skin is like a burn, and John presses his lips firmly together as he pulls out his knife and methodically cuts off one of the back legs, scraping away the skin and fur until there’s nothing but bone left.
Then, trying to not think about what he’s doing, John uses his hands to dig into the dirt behind Sherlock’s grave, until there’s a hole big enough to fit the cat. Once the tiny body is completely covered with dirt, John carefully pats it down, takes a moment to lean his head against Sherlock’s tombstone, and then gathers up a handful of dirt as he opens the tiny wooden box.
Graveyard dirt, the bone of a black cat, and yarrow blossoms. Wiping his bloody hands on the grass, John drops the items into the box, adds a photo of himself from his wallet, and then gets back to his feet.
“I honestly have no idea what I’m doing, Sherlock. But I have to try.”
There’s no response from the cold tombstone under his hand, and John holds on tighter to the wooden box as walks back across the cemetery. He places the plastic bag in a garbage can, finds a dirty puddle to wash his bloody hands in, and then returns to the main road, the chill wind whipping through him as he raises his hand to hail a taxi.
- - -
He ends up outside of London, at the deserted field where Sherlock had solved the mystery of the backfiring car, just as the darkening skies above him start to churn out clouds that look like something out of a horror movie. He gets the driver to deposit him on the side of the road – ignoring the confused look he gets in response to his request – and then walks down the dirt road in silence, tightening his fingers around the wooden box, and wondering how far ahead the next intersecting road is.
As he walks, he does his best to not think of all the reasons for why this is probably the most horrible idea he has ever had. But if there’s a chance – even the slightest opportunity that he can get Sherlock back – then it doesn’t matter what the cost is. John has already failed Sherlock once – had left him the moment Sherlock needed him the most – and it’s not about to happen again. It’s never going to happen again. And the idea of leaving Sherlock to rot in a wooden box – leaving him to lie cold and silent, when there’s even a chance of having him alive and brilliant again – is simply not to be borne.
When he eventually comes to the crossroad, John takes a long moment to sweep his across his surroundings, trying to see anything that would give away what exactly is about to happen. Mrs. Hudson had come to Harry’s earlier to give him his gun – despite her obvious reluctance to do so – and the cool weight of metal against his hip is calming, even if he doesn’t believe that the weapon would have any affect against the woman he met earlier. Fighting the nervous urge to rest his hand against it, John takes a steady breath, focuses on the memory of Sherlock’s broken body, and slowly walks into the center of the crossroad.
It takes him less than a minute to bury the box. When it’s done, and the dirt has been packed over it again, John slowly climbs to his feet and takes another deep breath, letting his hands hang loosely at his sides as he scans the area around him and waits for something that he doesn’t think he could ever be ready for.
“Well, aren’t you just adorable.”
John has spun around before the voice even finishes talking, and then he’s making himself breathe deep and steady as he stares at the man in front of him. The man’s appearance is completely unassuming – a few inches taller than John, pressed suit, dark hair and brown eyes – but John knows that there’s nothing good about this entire situation, and it takes everything John has to not take a step backwards.
“Who are you?”
“Oh, honey. Didn’t my colleague tell you why you’re here?”
“Your –”
“She had such fun snapping poor little Mittens’ neck.”
There’s a slight curve to the man’s lips, and John feels himself move backwards despite himself, even as he distantly realizes how pointless it is to try to put some more space in between himself and this man. As if on cue, the wind starts to pick up around them, a barely discernible rumble of thunder in the distance, and the man’s lips curve even further as he raises his eyes to the dark skies above them.
“Seems that nature herself is just as angry as you, John. That’s why you’re here, after all.”
“And what exactly am I here for?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if –”
“Surely you’ve heard stories of the crossroads, John. What is that human phrase – making a deal with the Devil?”
Everything inside John seems to go cold, a wave of sensation that spreads across his entire body, and he can feel himself begin to shake – because as ludicrous as the smirked-out words are, as impossible as this entire situation is, that woman’s eyes had been pitch black, and this is actually happening.
“And I might not be the Devil – he’s all tightly locked up again, thanks to a couple of Hell’s problem children – but you can still make a deal with me. That’s what I’m here for. And if you do this, then, well – you get your lover boy back.”
A drop of rain stings John’s cheek just as the man’s mouth snaps out a full-on grin, his eyes flashing a deep red colour, and then John is closing his own eyes and taking another step backwards, the magnitude of everything suddenly hitting him. When a hand curls around his chin – he hadn’t even heard the man move – it takes everything John has to not recoil backwards, and it’s only the thought of Sherlock’s bloodied body that keeps John’s feet firmly planted where they are.
“So you are –”
“A demon. A crossroads demon, specifically. And if you’ll make a deal with me, then dear Sherlock will be back in your life before sunrise.”
“And what exactly does this deal entail?”
John still hasn’t opened his eyes, still hasn’t pulled away from the grip the demon has around his chin, and he can’t quite stop a flinch when the demon leans in closer, a nauseating brush of warm lips as the demon’s mouth breathes out the words against John’s ear.
“Your soul, John Watson. I need your soul.”
John doesn’t even recognize the noise that comes from his own mouth, a hurt, punched-out noise that slips free from somewhere deep inside him, and then he’s pressing his lips firmly together as the demon’s mouth slides from his ear to his cheek, a horrible drag of damp sensation that seems to ricochet across John’s entire body.
“I’ll give you an entire year with the man you love. You’re not going to get a better deal from anyone else. 365 days from now, your clock runs out, and you come join me in Hell.”
The words get all tangled up inside John, mixed with memories of Sherlock’s shattered body, and he barely bites down a surge of nausea, his eyes still firmly closed so as to avoid looking at the creature standing in front of him.
“Sherlock wouldn’t want me to do this.”
He doesn’t know why he says it, knows that the demon isn’t going to care – and then there’s a low laugh from the creature in front of him, a sound of dark amusement that somehow feels more dangerous than even the fingers that are curled tight around his chin, and John can’t stop a full-body shudder.
“Oh, darling. What makes you think that Sherlock went to Heaven when he died?”
The entire world seems to wash white around him, fading in and out of focus as John opens his eyes and tries to simply breathe, and then the demon is stepping back with a final drag of his lips against John’s cheek, his eyes still burning dark red and his mouth curled into a terrifying grin.
“Sherlock wasn’t exactly a good man, John. For all you know, he could be burning in the Pit right now. You might be doing him a favour.”
“Is – is he –”
“I can’t be giving away all my secrets, now can I?”
Fighting the desperate urge to break his first against the demon’s nose, everything inside him aching with a kind of pain he’s never experienced before, John distantly realizes that he has never felt this helpless in his entire life.
“So, is that a yes, then, Johnny boy?”
John’s mind flashes forward to a world without Sherlock, imagines Sherlock buried deeper in the ground than the literal placement of his coffin, and it’s like a vice tightens around his lungs, narrowing the world down to the realization that life without Sherlock will never be anything but going through the motions, until the day that John finally gives up and goes to join Sherlock in Hell.
“Yes.”
His voice is a rasp, a barely-there sound, and the demon flashes a grin at him.
“Seal it with a kiss, sweetheart.”
John can’t seem to make his legs move, but the demon is already coming to him, curling a hand around his cheek with one hand, and drawing his fingers across John’s lips with the other. John barely has time to breathe through the wave of nausea before there are warm lips pressed to the very corner of his mouth, and the demon is snagging his fingers through the short cut of John’s hair.
“Come on, John. If you want your boy back, you’ve gotta kiss me.”
John has the distant thought that this should have been Sherlock’s – this first ever touch of another man’s mouth against John’s own – and then the demon bites out an impatient sound, moving as if to step back, and John nearly stumbles in his haste to press their mouths together. There’s a scrape of stubble, a damp flick of tongue against his lips, and then there’s a hand cradled tight around the back of his head, holding him in place as the demon presses up against him and kisses him with such intensity it makes John’s lips hurt.
Then, the demon breaks away with a final slide of his tongue, and John quickly pulls himself backward, realizing he’s shaking a bit, nausea making a home in the base of his stomach. The demon is smiling at him, an expression so dark is almost hurts to look at it, and then John flinches as a raindrop pings off his cheek, a cold sting against the warm flush of his skin.
“Look for me in a year from now, John Watson. We’re going to have such delicious fun together, you and I.”
John closes his eyes and concentrates on simply breathing, unable to look at the smile on the demon’s face, and when he finally opens his eyes again, he’s completely deserted in the center of the crossroads. His legs go out from under him without any kind of warning, and he lets himself sink down into the dirt, letting his head hang forward as he presses his hands against the ground and concentrates on simply breathing, barely able to feel the way the rain has truly begun to fall, slamming down against his back and pushing him even further towards the ground.
He’s actually done it. He’s bargained his very soul, and condemned himself to Hell.
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut and digging his fingers into the dirt, John does his best to not feel anything at all, focusing instead on the coldness of the rain, the dampness of the ground underneath his hands. He feels fragile, turned inside out, and he knows he should get up, should find somewhere safer than the middle of the road during a rainstorm, but his limbs can’t seem to move.
Look for me in a year from now, John Watson. We’re going to have such delicious fun together, you and I.
John isn’t sure how much time passes, but he barely hears the car until it’s almost on top of him, the lights cutting through the rain and shocking him out of his numbness, and some last ditch animal instinct makes him throw himself to the side, landing hard in the gravel but hopefully out of range of the tires – but the car isn’t moving any more, pulled to a stop just slightly down the road from him, and John does his best to struggle back to his knees as he blinks at the figure coming through the rain and the darkness towards him.
Then –
“John –”
John struggles to his knees in earnest, the voice cutting through the rain, and then Sherlock is there, pressed up against him, his fingers in John’s hair and his face pressed against John’s. John can hear himself making some kind of hurt noise, and then he’s wrapping his arms around Sherlock and holding on tight, pressing his face into the safety of Sherlock’s neck and doing his best to breathe, everything inside him seeming to slot back into its rightfully place.
“Sherlock,” he hears himself murmur, feeling his entire body begin to shake, soaked through and adrenaline shocked, and then Sherlock is pulling back to stare at him, and John can only stare back as Sherlock’s eyes slide across every inch of him, his fingers still tangled in John’s hair, and his eyes wide and bright in the darkness and the rain.
“John,” and John has never heard Sherlock sound like that before, his voice cracked, fragile, and utterly broken, “John, what did you do.”
“I –” And his own voice sounds just as broken, shaky around the edges, as he presses a hand against Sherlock’s damp cheek, distantly wondering how much is tears, and how much is rain, “It was my decision – I got you back –”
“I was never gone.”
And if Sherlock had sounded wrecked before, it’s nothing to the terror in those words. The meaning behind them take a second to process, and then John feels his entire body go numb, his limbs and his lungs beginning to seize all around him.
“But – I don’t –”
“I wasn’t dead. They lied to you. You’ve been tricked. You –” And then, suddenly, Sherlock is on his feet again, his coat spinning around him as he yells out a curse into the rain, his hands raised up into the air. “You can’t do this! I made a deal to protect him, you can’t –”
It’s too much, all of a sudden, everything crashing down on him at the same time, and John doesn’t even realize he’s about to pass out until he’s hitting the dirt, the world slowly dimming to darkness around him.
- - -
When John begins to wake up, blearily taking in the sight of his Baker Street bedroom walls, the world around him is hazy, and it takes him several seconds before the memories sink in – and then he’s bolting upright, his skin suddenly pulled too tight across his entire body.
“Sherlock?”
He’s barely gotten the word out before he realizes that Sherlock is seated at the end of the bed, his legs crossed in front of him, and his skin utterly devoid of colour. The sight of him is like being punched in the chest, and John is crawling up onto his knees before he even processes moving.
“Sherlock –”
Sherlock slides towards him before John can reach him, grabbing on tight to his elbows and holding him away from his body, staring into John’s face as though he can see straight down to his soul. John goes perfectly still as he stares back, his gaze sliding from Sherlock’s eyes to his lips to his cheekbones to his nose and then back to his eyes again, covering every beautiful inch of him, until John finds himself trying to pull free to touch him, and then Sherlock is shaking his head and tightening his grip almost painfully on John’s elbows, holding him perfectly still.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“You were dead,” John chokes out, nearly nauseated from the tightness in his throat that’s threatening to choke him. “I got you back –”
“Shut up, John.”
Sherlock’s voice sounds absolutely raw, and John swallows hard and ducks his head, something in Sherlock’s eyes a little too much to meet head on. There’s a long moment of silence, then, the only contact between them Sherlock’s fingers on his arms, and though the awareness of Hell is lurking at the back of his mind, John firmly shoves the idea away, concentrating with all his power on the fact that Sherlock is alive, and everything else is secondary to that.
“I couldn’t keep doing this alone.”
The words slide out without his consent, and then Sherlock is off the bed and staring at John, his arms wrapped around his own body. John does his best to stare back, but the paleness of Sherlock’s skin is starting to get to him, and the way that Sherlock is staring at him – as though he doesn’t know whether to hug him or hit him – is making John’s stomach turn over.
“You sold your soul for me. John, do you even understand what that means?”
“Can I please have five minutes to enjoy the fact that you’re alive?”
“I wasn’t dead!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that? Your funeral seemed pretty final to me!”
John thinks, distantly, that this ridiculous – that they’ve been in the room together for two minutes, and they’re already yelling at each other – but then Sherlock is turning away from him, facing the bedroom wall, with his arms still wrapped around himself and his body visibly shaking.
“Everything I did was to protect you. And it still wasn’t enough.”
“Sherlock –”
“I still couldn’t save you.”
The silence that falls seems to fill up every tiny corner of the room, and John suddenly and desperately needs to touch, needs a tangible connection to know that this is real, and he’s sliding off the bed onto knees so weak they almost give out from under him, stepping forward to press a hand against Sherlock’s shoulder. When Sherlock goes still against his fingers, John swallows hard and gently presses his forehead into the space between Sherlock’s shoulders, closing his eyes against his blurring vision, and every part of him aching to wrap his arms around Sherlock.
“You need to tell me what happened, alright? And then we’ll deal with what I’ve done. For now, though, I just want to enjoy having you back.”
John can hear the unevenness in his own words, can barely speak through the overwhelming relief that seems to be seeping into every inch of his being, and Sherlock makes an almost hurt sound as he drops his head forward slightly, still not turning around to look at him. He can feel the way Sherlock is shaking again, though, and John takes a steadying breath as he slowly slides his hand down to Sherlock’s elbow, giving the man plenty of time to bolt, and gently tightening his grip when Sherlock doesn’t try to pull away.
“I’d really like to hug you now, if that’s okay.”
His own voice is barely audible, broken around the edges in ways he has no hope of controlling, and Sherlock makes another noise that sounds almost pained before he turns around so suddenly he almost knocks John over, curling his arms hard around John’s back and pulling him in close, pressing his face into John’s hair and leaving John to bury his own face into Sherlock’s neck. The feeling of suddenly being pressed so close together hits John like a physical blow, and he realizes he’s barely breathing as he carefully tightens his arms around Sherlock, something inside him finally seeming to slot into place as he closes his eyes against the skin of Sherlock’s neck, inhaling slowly and breathing in the scent of him.
“It’s alright, Sherlock. We’re gonna be alright.”
John knows it’s not that simple, know that he might well be promising something impossible, but from the way that Sherlock is shaking against him, and the way John can feel himself trembling right back, John figures that both of them need to hear the lie right now.