Fic: String of Beads III (Sherlock BBC)

[keep_counting]

Title: String of Beads Part III
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock, Irene Adler, Mycroft, John
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
Word-count: 3,511
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this.
A/N: The three years from Sherlock's point of view
Summary: 'No, I don't think anyone would choose to love you so much Sherlock,"

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

Fingers hovering over the send-button, so tempting, so close. Wasn’t that what people said anyway? I’m just a phone-call away.

Not quite when everyone thinks you’re dead. Evidenced by John walking away from his tomb-stone, mere feet away from where Sherlock is standing, the military-man’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

So easy to press send.

I am so sorry. I will come back. I promise.

So easy to let him know.

 ‘Message deleted’

~

Molly lets him stay at her place as he’s recovering: needing to make a ground-plan, needing to get over bruised ribs and a fractured wrist.

Needing to prepare himself.

She makes him tea and pancakes and isn’t too sweet or too silly and she doesn’t give him moon-eyes, only very sad eyes this time.

“John’s losing weight,” she says after only a month, when he’s almost ready to leave. He’s balancing Molly’s laptop on his knees, sitting on her couch and he almost drops it on the floor at her words.

“I just thought you should know,” she mumbles, looking anywhere but at him. She knows what she’d doing, knows that Mycroft has tried to guilt him into this as well, that his older brother was not at all happy with the plans he’d made.

“He’s not sleeping well, at all,” Molly continues. “He’s… he’s not well, Sherlock. I think…”

“I can’t tell him,” he says, his jaw clenched. “I just… already you and Mycroft and Mummy knows, and that’s already too many people Molly.”

“Yes, of course.”

“You’re all in danger.”

“I was just suggesting…”

“I know,” he says, forcing himself to keep his voice calm, because Molly doesn’t mean to hurt and she’s already helping so much and it’s killing her, knowing this and seeing everyone grieve and not being able to do anything.

She sits down opposite him, her hands folded tightly together, her eyes searching.

“Do you love him?” she asks, and he jolts and closes his eyes and thinks, yes, passionately, ardently, hungrily. He can’t say those things. He won’t. The only person who should hear them doesn’t want to, and now can’t.

Sherlock opens his eyes, but doesn’t look at her. “Molly, could you pass me the sugar please?” he asks, reaching for his mug of tea.

It’s all the answer she needs.

“He loves you as well,” she says. “Very much.”

“Well, it’s not something he would choose for himself,” Sherlock can’t help but say. Because everything’s ruined now. Everything.

“No,” Molly says. “I don’t think anyone would choose to love you so much, Sherlock,” she only sounds a little bitter and Sherlock is reminded of morgues and Christmas and is very aware that he should feel sorry.

He does. For a lot of things.

“But we do,” she says, now with conviction. “And I don’t think John really regrets it. No, you know what? I know he doesn’t. He still believes in you, Sherlock, and so do I.”

He’s not quite sure what to say to that, because he has never had someone who… someone to…

“Thank-you,” he says and she smiles.

~

He doesn’t come there for the nostalgia. He doesn’t come there to watch out for John or Mrs Hudson. He doesn’t come there because he is a selfish, stupid man who has finally grown a heart.

Except of course that is why he keeps visiting his own gravestone in the days of his recovering.

He knows Mycroft disapproves, but Mycroft disapproved of drugs and cigarettes and his detective-work and this whole plan. In fact, the only thing Mycroft’s never disapproved of in relation to Sherlock, has been John.

Seems like there are some things they can agree on after all.

He watches John, knows he’s talking, but is too far away to hear it. God how he wishes he could hear it, but he can’t risk getting any closer, cannot be so foolish as to thwart his own plans before they have even been started.

He stares, drinks him in, the defeated set of the ex-soldier’s shoulders, the ruffled hair, the bags under his eyes – the red eyes, and it means something, when other people cry over you. More so when it’s because they miss you. He knows that now.

John’s limb is back, and it’s the first thing Sherlock notices as the other man turns around to leave. It’s not as pronounced as before and clearly he can still walk without a cane, but its there, a slight stumble as if walking on uneven ground, a clenching of fists, a shaking in his hand.

He has to physically stop himself from bursting out of his hiding place, running forward to grab at John, to shake him, to carry him, anything. Press his lips against his and make some of that warmth seep into his own skin.

He doesn’t, but watching him walking away while remaining motionless is nearly as painful as falling from the roof of St. Bart’s and hitting the hard, hard concrete.

~

It is three months later and he is in Hong Kong and can’t resist the temptation to walk into an internet-café and go to John’s blog.

There are no updates after the one he’d written merely one day after Sherlock had died.

He was my best friend and I’ll always believe in him.

Sherlock is out of the café before he has even realized that he’s moved.

~

It takes too long for him to pick up, Sherlock’s heart thundering in his chest, his brain telling him that Mycroft would have reached him in seconds if something had happened, his hands shaking in fear and certainty that the nightmare was real, that John is lying dead in a pool of his own blood, that the assassin was moving downstairs to give Mrs Hudson the same treatment, that Lestrade was already lying dead in his office, that Molly was somewhere screaming in pain.

If only John would pick up.

“Hello?”

Sherlock breathes again.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

He has to stop himself from making a sound, knowing that John would hear who it was immediately, knowing that the other man would not let it go, that some people might put it down to dreams and hallucinations but that John…

John still believed in him.

He hangs up and promises himself never to do it again. The work is too important.

~

John’s moved out of Baker Street. MH

Sherlock won’t admit that he spends all the time he’s not working waiting for these updates, these small message that Mycroft will allow himself to send him, the only lasting contact he has to the life he once called his. It’s ridiculous really, because it’s Mycroft going against his wishes of only emergency-contact, only relevant information, cannot risk exposure.

He finds himself craving the texts like he craves cigarettes and adrenaline, and there is only so much Mycroft can write without it becoming suspicious to anyone potentially tapping into them.

There is no reason to respond to this one: Sherlock would never allow for that flat to be sold or for his belongings to go anywhere else and Mycroft knows this. He’ll pay the rent and keep the flat standing as something other people would look on as a shrine for his poor, dead brother.

But the fact that John doesn’t live there anymore leaves him feeling somewhat bereft, because he has not seen John’s new surroundings and so cannot picture them, cannot imagine him sitting down in the living-room or bustling about the kitchen. John no longer sleeps anywhere familiar, and he feels like they have moved that step further apart, which they might have considering which part of London he is in right now and the general location of it to Canada and Sherlock can ramble all he likes, but he supposes that now he really does understand why so many people were obsessed with sentiment.

He is a little bit disgusted with himself, but can’t be moved to care when the sound of John’s sleepy voice on the other end of a phone seems like the only thing to keep him going for a long while.

~

That and the dreams.

There is a plethora of difference, of nightmares where everyone is dead or dying, where he falls off the rooftop and keeps falling, where the ground crushes all of his bones and he wakes right before he dies. His mind is quite imaginative, but so is he in a waking state, and the nightmares are easier to ignore.

It’s the dreams that get to him. Dreams of that press of lips, of John warm and steady beneath him, of a hand clenched tightly in his, of jumpers and tea and John throwing the box to Cluedo after him in mild exasperation.

Dreams of moans and so much more than that one kiss, of John moaning his name, of pinning the smaller man to a wall, press his body against his and feel him writhe beneath him. He dreams of kind eyes and the solid set of John’s jaw and he’s breathless when he wakes.

After a year he still isn’t sure which dreams are the worst. All of this is easily fixed by simply sleeping as little as possible.

Turns out you can still be haunted by dreams, even when you are awake.

~

He caves on not calling again, of course. It is John after all, and Sherlock will be the first to admit that he has never been good at keeping off his addictions.

The train is moving fast to Dublin and it’s so close, the closest he’s been to London and John for what seems like ages and he has already dropped the new phone he’d acquired, and it’s likely to be completely dead before morning and John’s number is blurring before his eyes in pale digits and he’s pressed his fingers against the cool plastic of the phone before he can regret it.

“Hello?”

John sounds awake this time, and curious and hesitating and Sherlock wonders if John can hear it’s him, if he knows.

God, how he hopes he knows.

“Is anyone there?”

Yes.

I’m right here John.

Keep your eyes fixed on me.

The train moves into a tunnel and the line goes dead. Sherlock tells himself he would have hung up right there anyway.

~

John’s started teaching at St. Bart’s. MH

John’s not sleeping well. MH

John’s moved out of Baker Street. MH

John’s gotten a cat. MH

Mrs Hudson has named her dog Holmes. Holmie for short.
I fear the woman is becoming deranged, but be rest assured
that she did not name it in my honour. MH

Your flight will arrive in exactly eight hours. MH

Seems John has been getting phone-calls
from a certain number. Do I need to
tell you to stop this foolishness? MH

Either tell him or leave him alone. MH

Remember I only agreed to do this
because you refused to do it any
other way. MH

Mommy approves of John. MH.

Lestrade ended up in the emergency room after a suspect
resisted and broke his wrist. He is otherwise fine. MH

Should you be in doubt, be rest assured
that John’s feelings for you remain
unchanged. He has taken the skull and
your violin with him. MH

Fear Molly might be in danger of telling John. MH

Almost got slapped by Molly when
suggesting that she would betray you. MH

Lestrade’s gotten a cat. MH

Lestrade and John got drunk last night. MH

They are both stopping at nothing
to have your name cleared. MH

Whatever else opinion I may have
harboured beforehand you have
picked your friends well. MH

Hello Miss Adler. Let’s have dinner. SH

~

“A bit disappointing. This is actually dinner,” Irene’s eyes flutters down to the steak on her plate, a small smile flittering across her lips. “In the most literal sense.”

Sherlock gives her a hard stare. “The only way I knew you would respond.”

She gives a click with her tongue. “Disappointing. But I like the look.”

Sherlock tilts his chin in the air, smirking at her. The ginger curls had been a last resort, and he actually rather enjoys them – thoughts of what John would say about the light stubble and the brown contact-lenses kept nagging, but he expertly ignored them.

He was getting good at ignoring thoughts of John. Especially when he was out in public.

“So, Mr Holmes…” she started, intently studying her menu. “It would seem I am having dinner with a dead man.”

“And I’m having dinner with a dead woman,” Sherlock says, disliking this already. If they were seen together, if any one of them were recognized…

Things would crash apart faster than he could blink.

“Yes, but you already knew that,” she counters, tongue pressing up against the back of her teeth. “Imagine my surprise when that message came. I honestly hadn’t expected to see you here.”

“I know. Your eyes widened and you nearly dropped your purse when you saw me.”

“I should be used to shocks by now, don’t you think?”

“You should,” he agrees. She’s staring at him now, focused in a way that makes him uncomfortable for some reason. Her hair is shorter, but it’s been a while since she had it cut so it’s been growing a bit. It’s pulled into a loose pony-tail and dyed a few shades lighter and she’s not sleeping well and she’s still what any person would describe as gorgeous.

And still well-aware of it too.

“I mourned you,” she says then and his finger scratches against the table, a jerky movement that shows his surprise. “I thought you were dead.”

“That was the point.”

She smiles then. “And your reputation got dragged down with you. Seems we are both dead people with a shady past now,” she bites her lip, the blood-red lipstick somehow staying perfect, the small marks on her lips fading quickly. She looks hungry.

“Did you believe them? The rumours?” he asks because he’s curious: he could care less if she believed him. She owes him and not the other way around.

“Maybe. Briefly. Sometimes,” she says and that’s very honest of her, he thinks. Seems he’s not the only one to be changed by death.

That thought is all-together too poetic and somewhat morbid and he wonders when he became so sentimental.

“This is an old friend of mine, John Watson.”

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“But then I figured,” Irene continues, hand reaching out to touch her wine-glass, the red liquid a sharp contrast to her slender fingers. Her nails are painted a deep, metal-grey hue and it brings out the grey in her eyes to a startling degree. “I’m not stupid, as you very well know.” She smiles at that, triumphantly. He almost smiles as well.

“You’ve had dealings with Moriarty,” Sherlock says, something inside him protesting at just saying the name. “You knew he wasn’t a fake.”

“His eyes were dead,” she says and Sherlock gets a sharp image of the roof-top and a gun in his enemy’s mouth. “Did you ever notice? When he looked at people, his eyes were dead.”

“He’s gone now,” he says, because her hand is shaking just slightly and there’s perspiration on her brow and she’s afraid and he feels like he needs to calm her down, just a bit. “He’s gone.”

Her smile is without humour. “So are we.”

“You never got your neck cut,” he sharply says. “And I got out with a few broken bones. No-one can survive a bullet shot straight through the head.”

Irene’s eyes widen. “You saw it.”

“I did it,” Sherlock says, because it’s true. We’re the same, you and I.

“Oh my, double-suicide, and one survivor,” she says and her tone is low and impressed, but her hand is still shaking. She notices that he notices.

“He didn’t use to scare me this much,” she says ruefully, daring him not to believe her.

“It’s alright,” he mumbles, because it is and it’s not and it’s all over with now.

Almost.

She takes a sip of her wine, red enfolding pearly-white teeth and then her gaze focus on him again.

“Why have you really called me here?”

“I need all the information you have on Moriarty and his network,” Sherlock says without missing a beat, happy to finally get to the whole point of tonight. He smiles. “And I need to call on that favour.”

She nods. “You saved my life. Anything.”

“It might be dangerous.”

Her smile is positively devilish. “Anything you ask.”

~

Merry Christmas. MH

He gets a new skull. African-American male, former painter, now deceased. He ends up leaving it in a small café for some young thing to find and scream over, the new one not able to compare to Terry or John for that matter.

He’s in Norway and its bloody freezing and he ends up in a bar somewhere in the dodgy part of town, sitting in a corner booth and scrolling through texts that dates more than two years back.

Molly kissed Lestrade under
a mistletoe, at least they
appreciate tradition. MH

Sherlock snorts and makes a mental note to bombard Mycroft with useless texts as soon as he gets back home.

If he ever gets back home.

His phone beeps and he prepares himself for some random trivia about Mrs Hudson and her dog (nevermind the fact that he craves this, it’s the attitude that matters) and freezes as he sees the number.

It worked. Let’s have dinner.

He sends back a thank-you and a decline, adding a Merry Christmas as an afterthought.

If he can’t say it to anyone else this year, at least he can say it to her.

oOo

Sherlock has, on some of his more boring days, often wondered exactly how fast you could get from India to London.

He has his answer now. Not that he really cares.

Moran is John’s new neighbour. MH

He tells himself his heart isn’t pounding out of fear.

“Are you sure it’s a wise idea?” Mycroft asks him, like he always asks, Sherlock too busy taking in his familiar surroundings to really pay much care to his brother. At least his older brother hadn’t tried to hug him when he’d returned. Imagine the horror.

“Just call him,” he says, his teeth clenched tightly. His eyes are roving over every millimetre of Baker Street, noticing the changes, the keen and hurtful absence of John’s things and the fact that it is still so startlingly familiar that it is as if he never left.

The three-year old scars on his body tell a different story.

“Alright, but I will not be responsible for anything that might happen,” Mycroft says in defeated tones. Big brother knows best.

“Would you just hurry?” Sherlock snaps, images of John lying broken and bleeding already threating to overwhelm his mind completely.

Mycroft hurries.

It’s the first time Sherlock is actually grateful for his brother kidnapping his best friend. It only took around fourteen tries.

He knows he should leave, knows rationally that this is not a good idea, that actually being back in London is endangering John and the others, that he should lure Moran away from here, but John is so close and he can hear Mrs Hudson bustling around downstairs and it’s so goddamn domestic and it’s making his chest hurt.

It’s slowly fading away all these months of hiding and loneliness and he doesn’t want it to stop.

He needs to see John. Needs to hear for himself that he is okay.

John is, of course, not okay.

He’s tired and broken and he’s limping and he’s angry. But he’s alive, and that counts for something, Sherlock thinks, as he watches John get out of the car and approach Baker Street, luckily not glancing up at the windows of his old flat.

There are more strands of grey in his hair than he remembers, and more lines on his face.

But it’s John.

He stands in the hall-way and listens to them talk, letting the sound of so familiar voices wash over him. Noticing the nuances and the tones, the softness and then suddenly stiffening, because Mycroft is hovering on the edge.

Seems three years of silence is almost enough to break his brother. At least in the face of a grieving man.

“He might hope to gather the whereabouts of a certain person from you.”

John’s voice is not hopeful, but only because he doesn’t dare it to be.

“What?”

“John…” Mycroft’s voice is hesitant.

Sherlock doesn’t mean to, he really doesn’t, but he steps forward anyway, the boards creaking under his feet and he can practically hear John’s head snap in his direction and he’s still out of sight and dammit, but he doesn’t want to be.

“Who’s in here?”

“No-one but us,” Mycroft says and sounds like he’s nine again and telling Sherlock that yes, the solar system is important, you might need it one day.

Sherlock steps forward. And John sees.