keep_counting | Fic: String of Beads V (Sherlock BBC) (Reply)

Title: String of Beads Part V
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Sebastian Moran, Mrs. Hudson
Rating: R
Warnings: Spoilers for the entire first and second seasons, swearing, allusions to suicide and death (nothing worse than what's on the show). Reichenbach-spoilers
Genre: Angst/Fluff/Romance/Friendship/Angst/FLUFF
Word-count: 3,146
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this.
A/N: This is it guys, the final part :)
Summary: Sherlock remembers the sensation of falling very well. In fact, it won't seem to leave him now.

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Part V

”Why today?”

”Do you want to hear me say it?”

”Eightheen months since your last appointment.”

”You read the papers.”

”Sometimes.”

”And you watch telly. You… you know why I’m here.”

Sherlock has never been one to listen to authority-figures. Not his brother, not Lestrade, not Ms Hudson. Maybe Mommy was the exception, but there is one to every rule.

Like the ‘I don’t have friends’ rule. There was – is – an exception to that as well.

But no, Sherlock has never been one to listen to authority-figures, even those few who are more knowledgeable in their respective fields than he might be (which honestly isn’t a lot of people).

So of course he sneaks into the hospital after visiting hours.

It’s easy enough, really. Swiping a card from a nurse, walking just so to avoid the security footage – not that he pays that much attention to this feat, as Mycroft would never think to scold him for something like this – and sitting in that uncomfortable chair next to John’s bed until his back hurt like hell.

He remembers about eight months ago, when he was in China. There had been a little girl selling candy on a street-corner, hair in pigtails, dirt on her face. She’d been found with her throat slit the next day, bloody letters marring her white shirt.

Richard Brook is real.

Is real.

Sherlock remembers the sensation of falling very well. It’s not exactly a rush, the same way drugs and a case and John is. It’s not adrenaline, pumping through your veins, the triumph as another culprit is locked up.

Falling is another thing altogether. Falling is no ground under your feet. No support; you’re weightless, and not in a floating kind of way. You’re not sitting in a roller-coaster, tightly secured as the cart rolls downwards.

There is nothing to stop the descent. Nothing between you and the hard, hard ground.

Falling is realizing that, of course, there is no key. Falling is when everyone thinks you’re dead.

Falling is having your head so high in the clouds that you forget who you’re dealing with. Falling is watching the consequences of that.

The machine’s beep and whirr away and John looks pale and small beneath the white sheets.

If only he would wake up.

John’s room is filled with flowers.

There are sunflowers and bright, yellow roses, lilies and tulips and orchids and what looks like a dead or quickly-dying cactus.

The last one is from Clara, and Sherlock suspects there is some kind of inside-joke about it, but he could honestly care less.

The flowers aren’t really helping John along: they’re not going to wake him up faster, not going to rouse him out of the coma all of the sudden.

“He looks so small,” Harry says and Sherlock wants to tell her to leave, because she wasn’t here when John was up and walking, and breathing without the aid of a bloody machine, and she has no claim on him.

“I am so sorry,” Lestrade says and Sherlock doesn’t look him in the eye, because whatever the officer is apologizing for, he doesn’t want to hear it.

“He’ll wake up soon,” Mrs Hudson says and Sherlock feels an urge to cry and he promptly walks outside to smoke his way through two packs of cigarettes, kindly brought to him by Mycroft.

“He’s been shot before, you know,” his older brother tells him, leaning against the hospital-wall as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “The leg-injury, that was a gun-wound. And his shoulder. The operation for that was very extensive and painful, hence the trauma. Compared to that, he should be able to pull through a bullet in the chest. It did not pierce his heart.”

Sherlock doesn’t say anything, only inhales sharply and silently wishes for Mycroft to go away. He doesn’t of course. He brings lavenders instead.

John doesn’t exactly dream of lavenders as much as he dreams that he is one, tugged beneath Mycroft’s arm, standing next to his umbrella, on a table in a too-white hospital room.

He might be a doctor, but no-one likes being a patient.

Or a lavender, for that sake.

He feels a tight pressure in his chest and if he wakes up now, he’s not going to be able to breathe he thinks. It’s not a nice thought.

He wants to breathe.

“It’s only been two weeks,” Molly assures him. “He’ll wake up, right as rain. You’ll see.”

Molly has a certain calmness about her that she didn’t have before. It’s unnerving, how much everyone has changed while he was gone. But Molly is still awkward and little and shy, and when she brushes some of John’s hair off his forehead, Sherlock relaxes. Just a fraction.

“What about the man who did this?” she asks, and Sherlock doesn’t know if she isn’t saying the name – Moran, Moran, Moran, if you say something enough times it loses its meaning Sherlock’s heard – because it hurts too much or because she simply doesn’t know.

Sometimes (most of the time) he wishes he didn’t know either.

Sometimes he envies John for being unconscious right now.

“What about him?” Sherlock says and his fingers itch, the no-smoking sign practically glaring at him from its place on the door.

“Aren’t you going to catch him?”

Sherlock looks so insulted that Molly isn’t sure if she should run away or start laughing.

“Of course I am going to catch him,” he says, and walks outside to smoke again.

‘Idiot’ is one of the most recurring words in John’s dreams, most of the time preceded or followed by ‘Sherlock’.

It’s Friday, nearing midnight, three weeks after John was shot and Sherlock is standing in an alley when his phone rings.

“Dead men don’t answer the phone,” Moran says.

“You must be nearby,” Sherlock says, because this isn’t Moriarty, this is someone who shot John, and he doesn’t have time or the want for pleasantries, for mind-games and clever word-play.

“You can see me,” he continues. “Or you would think that this was one of Lestrade’s men talking.”

“Very good,” Moran says, and he doesn’t sound like he means it. “I can in fact see you, Sherlock. I’ve got you… right… in my… aim.”

The sound of the gun-shot filters through the alley, reaching the streets outside, a high, blaring scream of noise and someone whirling around in surprise.

“Honestly, Sherlock,” Lestrade says, moonlight glinting in his hair like he was some dashing hero. Sherlock grins.

Moran grins as well. In fact, his face is permanently itched in that expression.

Rigor mortis.

John wakes up after that.

And then he shouts at Sherlock for about two hours, for 1) having put himself in danger trying to get to Moran, and 2) doing it before John woke up, because dammit, he’d wanted to shoot the bastard.

To be honest, Sherlock is disappointed he didn’t shoot the man himself. John’s gun is still in his coat-pocket, digging uncomfortably into his hip as he sits down.

To be even more honest, Sherlock’s heart feels like it might burst free any moment, because John is sitting there, looking tired and grey and a little lost, and his eyes are blazing in anger and his arms are crossed and he looks positively murderous.

“It’s good to have you back,” is all Sherlock says and something in John’s expression loosens just a little bit.

“Idiot,” he mutters and Sherlock laughs.

It takes three more days and ten packs of cigarettes before John finally convinces Sherlock to go out on a case while he is still in the hospital.

“You’re driving me crazy, just sitting there,” John says, and Sherlock suspects that maybe John would also like some room, some peace and time alone, because they still haven’t resolved… that. It was all punches and surprise and getting to Moran in a hurry, and then John was shot and in a coma for a while, so there really hasn’t been much time to… talk.

And Sherlock wants to desperately give John the third-degree, to damn well know for sure what’s going to happen now, because if there is one thing he cannot stand, it is not knowing what is going on in his own life (it’s the same problem Mycroft has, only that is not merely limited to Mycroft’s life – it’s everyone’s life). He would have done it too, if said megalomaniac older brother hadn’t pulled him aside and given him a long and boring lecture on trauma and pressure and giving people space.

So that is what Sherlock is doing.

Giving John space.

If he can solve a few cases in the meantime, well that’s just a bonus. For Scotland Yard as much as him, because their success-rate has dropped significantly since he faked his own death, a fact he doesn’t shy back from pointing out.

“You’re as much of a bastard as ever,” Lestrade grins and clenches his shoulder and Sherlock merely rolls his eyes and doesn’t admit to the silly, stupid feeling of warmth those words gives him.

The most surprising thing is when Donovan shows up, jacket-sleeves folded up to her elbows, a slight smudge of dirt under her fingernail, eyes blinking after having been exposed to too bright lights and a vague scent of disinfectant and flowers about her.

“You’ve been to see John,” he says, the words leaving his mouth before he has even thought them through. She pins him with a hard stare.

“Yeah. So what?” she says, and to his immense surprise there is no accusations, no ‘he just texted you that’, no insults and no sneer.

Just a glare and a sigh.

“I really haven’t missed you around,” she says when he continues to point out that her love-life is going downhill and maybe she should invest in something a bit more clever than pottery-shops.

Lestrade is still grinning when Sherlock leaves, case solved.

John will be discharged soon and Sherlock starts feeling vary around him, like the former soldier is a ticking bomb, ready to explode in his face. He’s been on the receiving end of John’s anger more than once now, and most of the time, it’s been his own fault.

Most of the time, it’s felt like swallowing broken glass. He doesn’t want that again.

“If you ever,” John says one day, stopping Sherlock as he is on his way out of the room (not fleeing, exactly, more of a retreat really). “ever, make me believe that you are dead again, I won’t forgive you.”

He flinches, but there is also an implication there.

“Do you forgive me now?”

John rolls his eyes. “Sherlock?”

“Yes, John?”

“You are the most insufferable person I know, and I quite frankly should never want to speak to you again.”

“Ah.”

“But I am not stupid. You’re not the first person I’ve lost, and there are not many people who get a second chance. Or a third, or a fourth for that matter.”

The conversation seems to be leading in a slightly better direction now, and Sherlock feels brave enough to sit back down beside the bed.

“What you did was… a bit not good,” John says, and that simple sentence is enough to make Sherlock smile slightly, because John is so goddamn bad at hiding his emotions and the man is not angry anymore. Not really.

“I know,” Sherlock says. “If there had been another way…”

“Stop trying to make apologies,” John interrupts. “I know you did what you did because you felt you had to, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was very wrong of you and that it’s going to… it’s going to take a while. I can’t just… you’re not… it doesn’t feel real. When you’re not here, it feels the same as it’s done these past three years and I still feel like my heart is trying to jump out through my mouth every time you walk in. I got a shock last night when I woke up here, and I couldn’t remember what had happened. I know you’re not the most patient of people, Sherlock,” John says, and they both snort and snicker at this, because really, understatement. “But it’s not just going to be… fixed now.”

It takes John saying it for Sherlock to realize that that is exactly what he had thought would happen. That once Moran was gone, everything would go back to exactly what it was before Reichenbach, before Richard Brook and Kitty and the roof of St. Barts.

He’d needed that, these past three years. But it was maybe time to wake up now and smell the roses, as it were.

“But what I’m trying to say,” John continues and then he reaches for Sherlock’s hand, and for a few seconds Sherlock’s brain short-circuits and that contact, the first contact since a bloody hug in their old flat, it’s all he can think about.

But of course, John is talking, and chances of John getting mad if he doesn’t listen to something as important as this are pretty high, and the man is still injured after all.

And Sherlock is tired of screwing everything up.

“What I’m trying to say,” John mutters. “Is that whatever happens, I think it’s going to be okay. Especially, you know, if I can still get you to share rent with me.”

Yep. Definitely happiness exploding in his chest.

Mycroft’s already moved all of John’s things back to Baker Street, without either of them knowing about it.

“Bastard,” John mutters, and Sherlock nods in agreement.

(thank you)

“I don’t understand,” Sherlock softly says, leaning back in that uncomfortable hospital-chair, the plastic-cup filled with coffee seeping warmth into his hand. John doesn’t answer, just sits quietly and watches the flickering TV-screen.

“This makes no sense,” Sherlock says a few minutes later.

And then. “Now, that’s just wrong.”

And then. “That is not a real term.”

And then. “Now, that is ridicolou…”

“Sherlock,” John sighs, and he sounds as amused as he sounds annoyed. “It’s a kid’s show. It’s not meant to be correct. It’s about aliens for god’s sake!”

“But shouldn’t it be educational then?” Sherlock asks, eyebrow raised.

“It is educational. It teaches kids about… about friendship and adventure and doing the right thing.”

Sherlock snorts and John laughs, because really, the man might complain, but he is still watching the screen with rapt attention and John knows that he secretly likes Doctor Who.

“I had a weird dream while I was out of it,” he mutters quietly as Donna slaps the Doctor on the screen. Sherlock shifts his eyes towards him and John feels awkward suddenly, because he isn’t quite sure if he had meant for Sherlock to hear that or not.

“Yes?”

“Well, we were children, the two of us,” John slowly continues. “And you stole my crayons.”

There’s a long stretch of silence after that. Then Sherlock slowly turns back towards the screen, and John isn’t sure in the half-darkness of his room, but he could have sworn that Sherlock is smiling slightly.

“Well, I’m sure you had the best crayons.”

John’s lips twitch and he can feel laughter bubbling in his chest. “Quite.”

Sherlock isn’t high the second time he kisses John (the first being, of course, that day all those years ago when he’d finally realized his own feelings). He isn’t drunk either, really, even if John is convinced that he is, just because he taste of beer that he had to drink on that case in that bar Lestrade made him go to (okay, so he didn’t make him do it, Sherlock wanted to, but it’s easier and funnier to blame Lestrade).

He might be a little over-tired though, because he hasn’t slept in approximately 76 hours and even he knows that isn’t very healthy, and it is this exact thing that John is busy scolding him for (that and drinking on an empty stomach, and of course, not eating for 48 hours either), when Sherlock decides that now would be a very good time to kiss him.

So he does.

It is only a light press of lips against lips at first, but then he gets a little bolder, tongue flicking out slightly, teasingly and John actually jolts in surprise, which Sherlock figures is his cue to move away.

“Idiot,” John says and pulls him back for a third kiss.

Sherlock’s lost count of quite how many kisses there’s been by the end of visiting hours.

The nurse won’t stop smirking at him, which is a bit unnerving. John’s goofy smile is very endearing though.

“Where are you going?” He asks, because he truly isn’t sure, Mrs Hudson having left the table and the game so abruptly.

“I am going to call John and beg him to get discharged soon,” his landlady says, sternly but not without kindness, an exasperated and fond look thrown over her shoulder. “I am not playing Cluedo with you, ever again.”

“But neither will John!” Sherlock pouts as she picks up the phone.

John gets discharged a week after that, on the same day that Donovan apologizes to him and Irene sends flowers.

“Do we have to check the weather-forecast to see if it is raining frogs?” Mycroft asks, umbrella already perching upwards as if he’s seriously considering popping it open in defence against an impeding attack of amphibians.

Unfortunately, Sherlock has deleted the Bible as well, so he only rolls his eyes at his brother and goes back inside.

“I am sorry for whatever trouble I have caused you and John,” Sally Donovan had told him earlier that day, sounding both sincere and as if she wanted to bite off her own tongue. “I acted rashly.”

“Apology accepted,” is all he says, and she looks surprised, but really, he isn’t that much of an ass. He knows how hard making an apology can be and John told him to be nice to her. Well, yelled at him that if he didn’t, bodily harm would occur to him, but still.

“Red roses,” John mutters later that day, staring at the newly-arrived flowers. “Blood-red roses. And… pink ones,” he says, sounding a bit displeased.

“Pink ones are for love,” Mycroft says and then quickly moves outside, Sherlock joining him a moment later for a smoke and to glare at him. That’s when Mycroft starts babbling about frogs, and Sherlock walks back inside again.

“I love you,” John tells him when they are back in Baker Street, and Sherlock quite think that it is worth the wait.

Even more so because he says it while Mycroft is still there, and his brother actually walks straight into the door in pure surprise.

No, Sherlock is not ever going to forget that moment.