Word Count: 908

For percychased for GGE. I'm sorry this is so late, but yay for Johnlock! :)

Once upon a time there was a boy. He liked to make swords out of cardboard and tied a red handkerchief around his dog's neck and called him Redbeard. He tried to put a patch over one of his eyes but Redbeard didn't like it so he finally gave up.

Said he'd be lost without his first mate. But then his first mate got lost. Or at least that's what they told him. He knows better now.

He had a brother who told him he was stupid, and he believed him. They would study the human experience, reduce it to statistics and probabilities and the boy learned that loving meant losing, and if that was the case, then better to have won than to have wasted time on sentiment.

He traded his make believe swords for a chemistry set, breaking down every piece of fiction until the truth would finally come out.

And if he was disappointed, it was not because he was expecting anything remarkable or beautiful. He was just hoping he was wrong.

Once upon a time there was a boy who made a treasure map along his forearm, the track marks leaving a trail of clues that didn't take a pirate or a consulting detective to deduce what was really going on here. His brother called it his little habit and his mother cried more than he'd like to remember.

There is a room in his mind palace for memories like these. He shuts the door and locks them away, hangs up a sign that reads to be deleted but he never does because he knows that some things are meant to be remembered. He knows that mistakes are meant to be learned from, and he will definitely not be making that mistake again.

Once upon a time there was a man who lived alone, and sometimes he forgot to eat for days and sometimes his housekeep- I mean landlady would make him tea that he would never drink and she would wipe the dust off the skull on the mantelpiece and he never once said thank you, but she didn't ever seem to mind.

He spent too much time in a morgue than was probably normal. Kept thumbs in the fridge because one never knows when such things will come in handy. And there was a girl who fancied him but girls weren't really his area and what did she want him for anyway? He supposed she didn't get out much. Spending too much time with dead people could do that to a person.

Spend too much time alone and one won't recognize loneliness when it comes limping up the stairs.

Once upon a time there was a man who thought he was better off alone.

That man is gone now. He took a leap of faith two years ago, left a note and ran off to travel the world, left a friend to mourn him. Left his love without ever saying it out loud.

Yes, that man is gone now. The one in front of John Watson is something entirely new. He says sorry like it's the only word he's ever known.

"Sorry I left. Sorry I didn't tell you. Sorry about everything. Sorry I'm too late."

Too late, too late, too late. But is he?

Sherlock knows he must be, and if he's disappointed it's not because he expected John to forgive him so quickly. He just didn't expect it to hurt so much.

There are some nights when they do not speak at all. They are a mess of arms and legs and shuffling about the parlour and stepping on toes. It is an awkward dance; one that Sherlock used to know by heart, a heart that he used to doubt he still had. And as John leans his head against his shoulder he is reminded that perhaps Moriarty was right after all.

They waltz clumsily about the room, their eyes slowly fixing upon the familiarity of home. John's chair that has been moved back into its rightful place, Sherlock's violin resting by the window, the deer stalker thrown carelessly onto a pile of books. But finally they both see them- the holes in the wall, the bullets still embedded in the plaster to remember them by. They didn't appreciate it back then, how boring life used to be. How ordinary.

Their hands begin to wander, searching for other marks, for other scars covering over other bullet holes. John's shoulder. Sherlock's chest. No exit wounds to speak of. There is no escape from this no matter how hard they try. They will always come back to this place, this moment, these scars that never leave them.

There is a room in Sherlock's mind palace where nothing gets deleted and it looks like this: Treasure maps of the London Underground, his true north pointing to Baker Street, to John, to Home. His coat flapping in the wind like sails raised to half mast. Johns hand on his chest marking the spot where everything could have ended so quickly. So effortlessly.

But it didn't.

And perhaps there is a reason for it all. Perhaps their hands will never stop shaking and it will always be the two of them against the rest of the world that will never stop looking like a battlefield.

Perhaps they are just two addicts in need of a fix. And perhaps that is all they will ever be.