Dull strangers watch, with tears for someone else's grave, or worse, a smile but for news, like a rumour of some other reality. Sorry to miss them from misery, it seems. Flickers of white wink to the strangers, like a hushed conversation between two angels. Wrong, hushed up. Those words were not John's, he did not hear to which way they would send.
But still they watch, turning down the dark-grey that swallows them, more amorous than the bloodless lights that come feeling for faces, seducing John into violent furies that are not his own, that do not belong. And there, he lies, the heartless angel with his wings torn from him like a helpless butterfly. Eyes closed, not wrongs or furies that spill from them but silence.
John's love is made afraid again.
There are shouts and whispers, between the whitewashed walls and sheets of linen. Sherlock's blood and sweat run like ink on those papery sheets, writing the story of his own death, of his own misery but utters not a word. There is no comfort in the well-known pleasures, for the smell of fabric has turned to the damp of graves. And even Sherlock's dark curls look like the uncut hair of graves, too, mourning the loss of something -thin in substance as air, but John knows it, he has seen glimpses of it.
He has seen it die.
Will it return, John wonders? Crawling like misery, creeping back like a spectre, up half-known roads to the crumpled sheets at Baker Street, wildly or quietly? Piping the way to glory or the grave? And John, poor John, who ran with it, will kiss no others. Nor yet there if they mock what women meant, who give him flowers. Flowers that sit by the window and wither and die, and John cannot look at the white of the petals, snowier than Sherlock's skin but rougher.
Is this how it will be, he wonders? A book, read in reverse, so he understands less as the pages turn? And God, that silence, that silence that hides the furies, the wrongs hushed-up so well like cruelty. A tool devised by Sherlock in his finite state, to make sinking stones fly. No more of those serious vanities, no cold fires that keep John watching, so alive, skin so excited and mysterious.
But anger, sick in the night with these memories and he cried, how he cried I'm sorry, if only I had known I would had given you everything, if only, if only I-
They wrench the boy from John's watchful eyes. And he floats away like his body is weightless, but John fights them, he tries to fight them but he's weak from another battle and the red in his shoulder stings, it betrays him and he claws at his skin. It's a civil war, John's fighting himself and there's only ever going to be one winner, there's only ever going to be one outcome and he sinks to his knees sobbing hysterically, scratching at his bloody skin and just sobbing, no time for breathing in air that tastes colder because it's gone from him, there's none.
Lestrade presents himself with a hand on John's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he says, and how could he be, Christ, he doesn't know. He thinks he has endured horrors but anger, but fury upon malice John wants to tear him down, he wants to burn the whole of London down because he's so useless. Because Sherlock had watches him vacantly, and he had been able to do nothing."He's okay," But he's not, and John is still sobbing.
"It's not-" He hisses, and turns on them. It's not okay. It will never be okay, and Sherlock, God, he's alone and he's afraid, stop taking about him like he's evidence, he's just a body, because he's not, Sherlock Holmes is not an enigma or a genius, he's not special or wonderful, he's a boy and he's alone and frightened, he's too young and he needs John, he needs him like oxygen but they don't listen. they will never understand. They come with flowers like a memento mori.
One by one all day, it seems, They arrive with sympathies that serve as food for guns and shells, these piteous platitudes of pain, John's thought is never that Sherlock was, or wasn't, he is, and he will always be. Worst of all is Mycroft, twenty-something, isn't he? Twenty-something and usually so stoic, usually so cold and cold and removed, and it tears his insides up. John watches him with sad eyes as he loses himself in the labyrinth, of life and death and want and suffering, suffering endlessly.
He hold back his sadness, as with Sherlock and those secret wrong, as with Sherlock until he cracked, until he sobbed to himself because Jim was laughing, how he laughed and tasted the skin there, how sweet it must have tasted only to go sour in context. Paler than sky, and cold, cold like ice, laying naked on his side, still watching, eyes angry, because Sherlock will never be able to understand it.
John takes him home.
Wrapped in a paper gown and his coat, his coat that smells like Sherlock, imperiousness and arrogance simplified to something so crass. He doesn't walk like he used to, no proud strides but shuffles, nervous like the words of a stammering man. He says nothing. Worse, his eyes, oceans of sterling remain downcast and dark. John knows better than to pick at scabs, he sees his boy and his crooked, wasted heart still lifts in certainty that he loves Sherlock, for all that's worth, he loves the boy of barely eighteen, and he would wait a lifetime to be there by his side again.
Those who have come with words say nothing, as if those words, so ripe with meaning have rotted and fallen away so quickly, and Lestrade knows it's not okay by the state of silence, he drops his eyes, too, and he knows he's done wrong. Other strangers to the conversation are more strange. They cry at nothing, and why? What use are tears but dehydration, but venom into a wound that never felt scarring? Mycroft just looks at him, mouth open, but no sound tumbling out. His lungs have crystallised.
Down the dark streets of nowhere, and Sherlock looks so small, he looks so tired and childlike. Leans against the window and watches the roads with an adolescent discontent. And that silence kills John, he knows better than to look or touch but Sherlock might never speak again, silence, bitterness like an imperial affliction. How will he be in a week? A day/ A year? Because if Sherlock is infinite then so are his sympathies and miseries, so are the wrongs, hushed-up that scar his hips, that have crushed hips lips in a violent kiss. So will be the memory of that snake-charmer touching and cackling and singing songs about 'his pretty little detective' and God, John nearly throws up then and there thinking about it, can feel his bile duct raging.
There were never any who envied their brokenness. In the cracked darkness outside of Baker Street, Sherlock shuffles pathetically as John pays the fare, goes to the door to let them in, and the boy says nothing. He avoids John completely, as if touching will send him right back, helpless, so still, so drowsy but awake enough to know, God, awake enough to suffer, and he'll suffer every time he touches. It's unavoidable.
The air is cold and still. Has finished making cups of their blood and is forgiving, is kind. will renew it's love in due course, but lets all pass. The gravel is wet and cold. Sherlock's feet, his pale feet are blistered, form where he's so used to walking on air only to find broken glass that acts like diamonds. And all of this walking takes him nowhere, blinded of his senses, grounded by this immense fear of everything, where before he'd been so fearless. The boy sways. He's drowsy.
John tells him to rest. There is no kissing, there's no time. And Sherlock sways his way to bed, to a grave where he sleeps lightly, but John will wrench him from death by any means necessary because he's stupid and foolish and crooked enough to love this boy, this misguided ghost, too far from home, too far from the light and it will burn his skin if he;s exposed to it for long enough.
"Goodnight," John says, quietly, but Sherlock remains silent. Perhaps he will forever. normally, John holds his hand when Sherlock is angry. Pretends to see the apparitions Sherlock sees when he's drugged and scared. And should the devil land on his back Sherlock is strong enough to shake him off. But this time? It's anybody's guess, and that ambiguity is scary, it's not clear-cut enough, and God, John needs certainty, stability. he needs to wake up and know Sherlock might still think of him, once or twice. Pity him in all of his love and squalor. This freedom does not make him feel contained.
There's too much on Sherlock's sleeves. And it's too much to do with Jim.
Hours later, John drags his weary spirit into the bedroom and lingers by the door-frame, looking at Sherlock, so tiny and alone in this sea of sinfully red covers, curled up like he's fighting demons in his sleep. Remembers his ailing heart and his criminal eyes. so what if Sherlock is still in love? There's nothing to be done. Never daring to touch him, less the hallucination of peace fade, he lays next to Sherlock. There are four layers between them: john's clothes-the covers-Sherlock's coat-Sherlock's gown.
He's never felt further away.