Chapter Text
White before white. The coffee tasted dull on John’s tongue. He had become used to drinking it when still burning hot, relishing in the only source of heat throughout the day. It never tasted the way it did at Baker Street.
The last client had asked him what to do when his pee was more yellow lately. John had taken all will strength not to groan out loud, yelling at him that Google was, in fact, free, and education was too. But he couldn’t do that, of course. Pity. He smiled, explained how hydration works, wrote it onto a piece of paper. Helped him remember the painfully obvious. Wished him a good day, slumped back into his chair, made another of-water-tasting coffee. His phone buzzed in his pocket. One long, two shortly following.
Will you come over later? -SH
OK. 90 mins left
They had separated that same night at the Thames and John had drunken himself to sleep every single night following, waiting for another call, message, something. There had not been one. And he couldn’t do it himself. Couldn’t take on the responsibility of throwing his progress out the window yet again. If Sherlock did not ask, then it was not meant to be. And with that same mentality he had answered now, sick with his own being, his inconsequence. He wanted to leave it all behind so badly. But John thought of him like a starved man of food, every minute of the day, every step. It was worse than before, now, and he was in an ever-long denial of it. He talked less at therapy because there was so much more to talk about. He felt that if he even so much as touched the topic, he would have to get into depths he knew he would drown in.
“Mrs Hudson says to come over for tea sometime. Me and you both.” He had muttered just before departing, cigarette between his lips, unbothered.
“Maybe another time.”
He wanted to, he did, but all it took was thinking back to all those stabbing triggers of memory the house held and John felt sick with the idea of returning.
His own apartment had started to grow accustomed to John’s life by now, the couch enough pillows to comfortably sit in, fridge full of both enough food and enough beer, bed at the window like his therapist had told him was best. And yes, it had gotten used to him. Not the other way around. John was sick of bending and stretching to change every single step of his life and slowly growing slack with it. He would not change anymore. He would also not care to make any changes anymore. It was good that him and Sherlock were talking again but John could feel it, that old familiar ache twisting and circling that old familiar anxiety in his stomach every time he was near the curly-haired man. The scent of him, his habits, his way of speaking, of moving, of looking. Of keeping secrets from everyone around him. John was sick of taking responsibility.
And he had too much free time, even though his job was taking a good amount of his day away. He had too much time to think, too much time to reflect, to regret. The white all around him made him dizzy with the paint in his hand, the many facades and thoughts that he could draw onto them with no distraction whatsoever. He pressed a palm to his eye, took a shuddering breath. Picked up his phone again, hands shaking, texting Sherlock. Fool, fool, fool. Consequent. Courage.
Busy 2day. Don’t think I’ll make it.
He got up and grabbed his jacket, half an hour before his actual shift ended. Called in sick, left. The streets were rushing past again, a blur of life. John asked himself when he had last really felt the fabric of his steering wheel under his fingers, the approaching autumn air punching through the half-open window into the car, hitting his cheek, weirdly intimate.
He never trusted himself driving anymore but did it anyways. It had been that way for half a year now. If something happened, it happened. Often he had stood before his dusting gun, teeth grinding, house unmoving, him unmoving, coward coward coward. Drunk driving was easier, sober driving with a silent, ever-thrumming deathwish was easier. Giving up responsibility, letting the fates decide. It could look like an accident, a tragedy even.
He was thrumming his fingers on the steering wheel, bit his inner cheek, wished he had never searched for a damn flat in this damn city. It was humiliating, shameful, that he had begged with god to live back then, in the afghan sand, and now had to consciously shut the drawer with his gun in it every morning before getting up, starting the day. Because of a man. A flatmate. A consultant f*cking detective drug addict.
He turned into the street for which he tried so hard to become home, parked his car. Everything happened so mindlessly lately. That was why he didn’t notice the figure sitting on his doorstep until he had stepped into his view, out of the car. John froze, caught Sherlock’s eye, who now stood up.
“How’d you-“ He stopped himself. What good had it ever done to ask Sherlock how he had known something? He had probably known John’s future address before John had himself.
“Deduction.” He said, dryly. John felt a surge of anger swell up inside of him, tapped his index finger to his thumb, then middle finger, forced stupid methods onto him that he had read about, heard about.
Silently he stared at him, held up his hands as an invitation to speak, a demand.
“Won’t you ask me in first? Honestly, I’m not suited quite appropriately for the weather. It’s hot.”
“What do you want?”
Sherlock fell silent, John could see the hesitation, something so not-like-Sherlock, so intimately just for John. He felt sick, now too hot as well, impatient, shirt buttoned too highly. Choking him. In a heated, spontaneous decision he shrugged past him into the house, poured himself a drink, blinked away the sand and 221B, 221B, 221B. He swirled around to Sherlock who had followed him with a good distance, standing in the doorway like a stray, like the house was made of hay and he was deathly allergic.
“I understand if you don’t want me anymore.” Sherlock started, slowly, with effort, as if the words cut past his tongue before heavily stumbling out into the air, to John. “In your life.”
“This is my life.” He cut him off, growing louder. “This is the life I try to build that is not haunted by your f*cking ghost and yet again, somehow, you are standing right here in the very f*cking middle of it!”
Sherlock winced, took a step back, as if that would somehow erase his image from the house, from John’s mind, as if he could, ever, erase him from it.
“I need you to tell me what to take. How to shut it off.” Sherlock’s voice was quiet now, choked, pleading almost. John didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. “As a doctor. Tell me and I’ll let you be. I’ll leave for good.”
John stared at him, felt like vomiting, fingers gripping onto the solid glass, wanted to grip his gun instead, or Sherlock’s hair, or a one-way ticket to the other side of the world.
“What are you talking about?” He asked between gritted teeth. But he knew. Knew what he meant. He just needed Sherlock to say it, needed the paining relief of knowing he suffered, too. Had to suffer through words, too.
“The episodes. Whatever it was that made me call you that night, I-“ he stopped and looked away. John saw his composure crumbling by the second, couldn’t savour it as much as he would have liked to. Sherlock ran a hand through his hair, stepped the last step back outside.
“I really don’t want to disappoint everyone again. I swear I don’t. I’m just tired, John. This is the first time I think I can’t even try to fight it anymore.” Sherlock said and he didn’t look at him anymore, had lost all his arrogance, all his quick-wit. John wanted to walk away from the puddle of a human he once knew standing before him. Never had John thought, ever, that he would find himself in front of a version of Sherlock begging another person for help. In no condition whatsoever.
He tore his gaze away from him, went back to the whiskey bottle, poured himself another drink. He stopped half-way through, had to shift all his weight onto the counter, hands pressed to his temple.
“You’re not being fair.” He said tonelessly.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sick of hearing that.”
“Yeah.”
For minutes they said nothing, John staring at the smooth marble of his countertop, trying to shake off the claws around his neck that started tightening every time Sherlock was near him. He remained outside, had sat back down on the doorstep.
“It’s PTSD.”
“What?”
“Most likely.” John gritted out, taking all his will strength to push himself off the counter, away from the oh so inviting spiral down to isolation. “PTSD.”
Sherlock didn’t answer, just kept sitting where he was.
“Post-traumatic-“
“I know what it means.” Sherlock cut him off. John tightened his jaw, rolled his eyes.
“I want to know what to do to fix it.”
“You know everything. Why not that?” John bit, knew it was unfair, didn’t care. Sherlock fumbled in his coat for a cigarette and John took the heart to sit down beside him.
“I did all the research.” He muttered past it. “There’s such crap on the internet these days.”
“Like what?”
Sherlock only grunted and John sighed, rubbed his eyes.
“The best thing you can do is talk about it.”
“Talk!” He scoffed. “Such a waste of time and intellect. I want to move forward not go backwards.”
John watched the slight tremor of his hand, the veins more prominently travelling across it.
“Are you using again?” He said, quietly but hard. Sherlock met his eyes, momentarily, before he looked away again.
“No.”
“Sherlock don’t you dare f*cking lie-“
“No.” He cut him off, sharper. “I told you. I don’t want to disappoint everyone. I haven’t yet. I just need help.”
“Apparently not that bad if you can’t even touch the idea of talking about whatever the f*ck happened to you during those two years playing dead!”
“It’s not that. It cannot be that.” Sherlock’s voice was trembling, on the edge, and John hated that he was getting to know him entirely anew, after several months of dating, after seeing corpses together, after waking up next to him again and again, covered in sweat, whimpering of a war and love and death.
John got up, walked inside, agitated. The card was in his wallet and he stared at it for a moment. He couldn’t believe he had to share this now, too, had to give the only private thing, the only person who knew him only, to Sherlock again. But he also knew that this was the only way he would possibly have a future cleared of him. He held the card to Sherlock, silent, who took it, stone-faced; stubborn.
“I can tend actual wounds, Sherlock. Not ones I can’t see. Now get off my property.”
John tore his eyes away from the tremble of hand holding the small card of John’s therapist, used what he learnt in the army and since then had to use again and again, only with Sherlock. He had never minded the corpses of their cases, whatever bloody tragedy had occurred, not again after the war. But the shudder of terror from those times, seeing your friend in the trenches and the enemy coming, knowing the percentage, knowing the odds, helpless to them, and yet fighting to keep going, to go on: It had been hard then but harder even with Sherlock. Because he knew he had the white flag in his hands but he could not find the courage to wave it. It was a whole other kind of terror. A whole other kind of guilt.
