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As soon as his fingertips brush the soft fabric, Sherlock knows.
He rips his hand back and vaults to the opposite end of the couch, gulping down the bile threatening his gullet. He gathers his legs up under himself and breathes hotly through his nose. Wide eyes dart around, alert and afraid, perched upon the last cushion as if it were a life raft in a sea of lava.
He rolls over the sofa’s arm to a standing position and bolts to the kitchen. Delete. Come on—delete, delete. Now! The head twitches, long locks swishing, obscuring his vision as a cold sweat forms around his temples. He paces the tight line of the cupboards.
Again.
Again.
Again.
I found my cure.
Again.
Again.
The evidence was right under your nose.
Again.
Again.
Again.
You think you’re ready for this?
“Stop!”
Again.
Please. For me. Let this go a while.
“I’m not letting you do this!” he bellows.
Again.
Again.
I love you.
Abruptly he halts and grabs onto the table’s edge with both hands. “Fine,” he bites out. “You think you’re going to beat me? You think I’m so transparent? So pathetic and saccharine?”
Shaky fingers scrape in a bowl to his right, then he spins to fling open a drawer behind him, clutching a dark vial in his bloodless hand.
“Alone,” he mutters.
He rips up his sleeve with his teeth.
Draws the plunger, sinks the needle.
Push in.
“Alone protects me.”
He staggers.
Crawls.
Sinks.
Down.
When his fingertips brush the soft fabric again, it jolts him awake.
Sherlock knows.
His whole body stiffens.
He knows he has to.
A fearful calm settles on him. He sits up slowly, fighting off the darkness thudding in his head, the dizzying hypotension. He sets his bare feet deliberately on the floor and leans heavily against the back of the sofa, needing to anchor himself before he proceeds. Finally, he draws the object, inch by inch, from where it was jammed behind the sofa’s cushion. He places it in his lap and stares at it for several minutes.
He’d forgotten about it.
Wanted to.
Tried to.
His hand hovers over it briefly before he can bring himself to smooth the cloth out, running a slow palm over its surface, working the plain white cotton around his fingers.
“You found it!”
Sherlock’s head snaps up. Involuntarily, he clutches the shirt tightly in both hands. His jaw moves before any sound emerges. “Yes.”
John leans jauntily against the entrance to the kitchen, his brick red button-down untucked and jeans rolled into a cuff, gives a shy smile. “It’s just my old sleep shirt. A rag. Why did you steal it, anyway?”
Sherlock’s head drops, a sharp rock forming in his throat. “You…” He swallows hard. “You didn’t need it anymore,” he rasps.
John chuckles lightly. “Yeah, I guess you’ve got me there.”
Sherlock clears his throat, trying to force a solidity into his tone that he does not feel. “Why are you here?”
“Come on, Sherlock, you know why.”
Sherlock raises his head. “You left me.”
“Don’t say that, Sherlock. That’s not fair.”
“But it’s true. You left me.”
“Technically, maybe. My body’s gone, yeah. But you know I’d never leave you. Not really.
Sherlock’s breath is shallow. “Where did you go?”
“Does that really matter?”
“It does because I don’t understand it. None of it makes any sense.”
“Maybe it’s not supposed to.”
He sees too keenly the cobalt eyes twinkling in the morning sunlight, the rumpled feathers of blonde hair tousled perfectly over one eye, the pink tongue that runs over his bottom lip when he’s nervous or teasing.
For no reason, his mind palace throws open the room reserved for last October 19—the stakeout in the filthy alley behind the laundromat, he and John huddled close behind wooden pallets and trash bins in the darkness for five hours, waiting for the grifter who never showed; John passing the time by whispering inane stories about his days in basic training, ones that Sherlock never even tried to absorb because as he spoke, John was meditatively massaging the painful kink at the bend in Sherlock’s neck from too many hours over the microscope, careful probing circles that washed away all other input; the two of them collapsing side-by-side onto the couch with a vat of Chinese take-out, only to find a single set of chopsticks in the bag, and neither of them willing to walk the five meters to the kitchen for utensils, so John decided to feed them both; then, at 23:36 hours, he misses Sherlock’s mouth, dribbling brown sauce over his chin, murmuring an apology and using his thumb to gently wipe clean the pale skin; the air growing heavy as John’s gaze fixed on Sherlock’s mouth and slowly raised to his eyes as he licked clean his digit with languid swipes of his pink, perfect tongue.
Sherlock had stared at him without breathing, watched John’s tongue work its magic, watched John’s dark eyes ask him the question Sherlock was too terrified to answer, watched as John smiled shyly and dropped his gaze, then withdrew up the stairs with a wistful and defeated, “Good night, Sherlock.”
Sherlock coughs and jumps to his feet, clenching the shirt tighter in his fists as he jerks away toward the windows, turning to face the street. His shoulders hunch. Don’t do it. Do. Not. Do. It. His hands tremble under the strain, but it is too overwhelming to resist. He raises the t-shirt to his face and inhales deeply. Sofa leather, mint, aftershave, soft beautiful earthiness—
John.
“Do you miss me?”
A sharp stab pierces the center of his chest, crushing his ribs and folding him further inward. He sinks to his knees and crumples forward, dressing gown pooling around him like a bride’s veil.
“Well, do you, Sherlock?”
His forehead presses against the wood floor, harder and harder, until the dizziness blackens his vision and the rushing in his ears overtakes all.
“Are you ignoring me?”
It is nighttime, dark save for a weak pool of lamp light. He scrabbles up from the floor to see John in his armchair in his blue and while checkered button-down and dark jeans, left ankle crossed over his right thigh. His jaw is set, lips a tight line, and his close-cropped hair is lusterless in the artificial twilight.
“Are you happy I’m gone? Got your peace and quiet back, no more idiot running under your feet. Is that it?”
Sherlock’s mouth slackens as words stutter out. “No, John. No, of course not. Why would you—“
John snorts. “Save it. You never appreciated me, never showed me anything, except the condescension, the irritation—oh, that was always there, wasn’t it? The only thing I could’ve been sure of was how inconvenient I made your life. How ordinary I was.”
“But John, you know you—that you meant—“
“You can’t even say it now, can you?” John gets to his feet and crosses his arms in front of his chest. His nostrils flare as he inhales crisply through his nose.
Sherlock’s eyes burn.
“You coward.”
“I didn’t—“ He lurches an impulsive step forward, but freezes. “I swear I didn’t know—not really—how you felt about—“
“Don’t lie to me!” The voice has turned to cold, bitter nails. “You let me walk around here every day, and you could see what I felt, what you were to me. You always see everything, don’t you? The great and wonderful Sherlock Holmes deduces the whole world and every goddamn thing in it, right? So you knew—you did—and you let me walk out of here, day after day, but I never got to know a single thing from you. Not one single thing, Sherlock! You let me walk right out of here, that very day, never getting to have even a minute of the truth.”
Sherlock grips the shirt tight between his two fists, kneading a bubble of the material with circles of his thumbs. He avoids John’s red face and blazing stare, wild eyes desperate for something that can relieve him, help him.
Forgive him.
“I told you.” John’s tone is low and bitter. “I told you, that last night. You knew, but I said it anyway. I said it over and over again. I showed you, over and over again. And for what? So you could let me burn to charcoal as nothing more than your personal bloody fan club.”
Sherlock was shivering in the stuffy confines of the sitting room. “John, please don’t.” His eyebrows drew together, shrouding the hot tears he tried to swallow back in gulps. “Please don’t say those things. Please.”
“It’s all your fault.”
“No!”
“Yeah, Sherlock, it is. It has to be because I’m gone. I’m gone because you failed me. You were too worried about yourself and your games—‘The game is on!’” His voice lilts in a mocking imitation. “Figure out the puzzles and win the game, that’s all that ever mattered. Am I wrong?”
“The Work, John. You knew that was important to me, right from the start. You were a part of that. It mattered to you, too, didn’t it?” He gulps and drops his eyes to his hands. “But then, I realized that you…that you were—“
“That I was expendable.”
“No.” The anguished word trickles from his throat. Sherlock doubles over at the waist, the wadded t-shirt pressed to his gut to quell the intense flood of nausea.
John’s hollow laugh echoes over his head. “Well, brilliant deduction, as always—I’ve been expended. You stole my entire life from me. Just a cracking job on that one.”
There’s a thick pause, then a murmur: “Maybe you are a sociopath, after all.”
His mouth feels thick and pasty. “John, no! You know me. You’re the only one who does.”
A smirk. “How could I? There’s absolutely nothing to know.”
Sherlock stalks down the hallway and ducks into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. He glances at the bed and immediately throws his gaze to the ceiling. He gurgles deep in his throat and sinks onto the floor next to it. He rests his back against the frame and mattress, knees up, hands plunged into his hair, holding his head in place.
“You shouldn’t do that to yourself, Sherlock. You know I could never hate you. You know that would never happen.”
Sherlock exhales heavily. “Wouldn’t it?”
“No, it wouldn’t. “
“I’d like to believe that, John. I really would. But…”
“But what?” A soft chuckle comes from the surface of the mattress. “But you expect too much of yourself? But you think you can control the trillion variables that life on this planet offers? You’re a scientist, love; that alone should tell you that presumption is incorrect.”
Sherlock pauses and presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “I don’t know how to do this, John.”
A murmur. “Do what?”
“Do this—live, like we did, live my life. Because it’s not my life anymore. It’s our life. It became us, you and me. And I didn’t know—how was I supposed to have known? How could I have known that, without you here, nothing would work anymore? How could I have possibly seen that you had become necessary to me, in ways I never even realized, that I could be dependent upon someone other than myself, more than myself? Things that I had done, a million times over, before I ever saw your face, are impossible now. Without you—” His throat closes painfully. “Without you, I—“
He can actually feel the gentle fingers run soothing lines through his hair, and he chokes back a sob. “God, John!”
“It’s fine, Sherlock. It’s all fine.”
“I can’t do this anymore, John. It’s killing me. Slowly, cell by cell. I can’t want you to be here this much. I can’t.”
He reaches blindly into the drawer of the bedside table, digging into the back to pull out a cellophane bag and bottle. He grips them tightly in each hand until his arms shake.
The voice softens even more. “I understand, Sherlock. You’ll be all right. I don’t want you to suffer—you know I’d never want that. It’s ok.”
With fumbling, desperate fingers, he works to prepare the solution. When it’s ready, he pauses. He can’t bring himself to turn around, to look at the bed in hopes of a glimpse of the handsome, sleepy man, naked and twisted in the sheets, sprawled lazily across the bed as the fading sunset glints off the prism of his hair. Instead, he presses the fabric to his face a final time, then tucks the wrinkled t-shirt into the drawer and slides it closed. “Goodbye, John.”
He holds his breath. He doesn’t remember the pin prick or working the plunger. He’s overwhelmed by a flood of light, a dizzying asylum of silver floaters in an amorphous dark. Like a tarpit it swallows him, limb by limb, inch by inch, until—gratefully, wonderfully—he becomes the pit, and Sherlock Holmes ceases to exist.
Sherlock groans and rolls over. His skull grinds against the planks of the wood floor. It is daytime. He has no idea what time it is.
To be honest, he has no idea what day it is.
He sits up slowly, massaging his neck, feeling radically aged and rough. He wipes drool from his chin with his forearm, slitting his eyes open to the drab walls of his bedroom. How did he get here? His mouth tastes like the floor of a taxicab, his skin sticky. Coughing, scrubbing his hands through his hair, his brain slowly comes back online.
Suddenly a vague disease crawls up his spine and chills his blood. "John?" he whispers.
Silence.
Sherlock pushes himself up from the floor and creaks open the bedroom door, never daring to turn around to look at the bed. He creeps down the hall to the kitchen, and on impulse, grabs a mug, thrusts it under the faucet, and downs it in a single gulp.
“John?” His voice cracks, so he clears his throat and attempts to sound commanding. “John, are you here?”
The flat is lifeless.
He exhales heavily.
It worked. Finally.
John is gone.
Relief.
It’s a relief, right?
Isn’t it?
Sherlock drops his head into his hands.
John is gone.
Again.
Oh, dear God, what have I done?
"John, I’m sorry,” he whispers.
He steadily increases the pressure on his temples.
“Please don’t leave me.” A breath. “Please.”
There is no reply.