Chapter Text
A text message arrives from John. SORRY CAN'T MAKE IT TODAY, I'M SURE YOU'LL DO FINE WITHOUT ME.
These kinds of messages have been a reoccurring thing lately in Sherlock's life.
He checks the crime scene address Lestrade has given him. He pulls on his coat, arranges his scarf and hurries downstairs with the plan of hauling a cab.
When he gets to the street, realization hits.
He's not in the mood for any of it.
He doesn't want to go. Hasn't really wanted to go for weeks, now.
Every time he's had to attend to Lestrade's summons without John it's been harder and harder to enjoy the game, harder and harder to filter out the disdain directed at him from everyone else but the good DI.
It's frighteningly easy, to decide not to go. Not to hail that cab. Not to find out what sort of a dismal attempt at homicide the pathetic criminal elements of London have cooked up this time.
It never ends. There's always the next one and the next one and without John it's just work and no fun.
Sherlock walks to the tube station and travels to Battersea.
Lestrade texts him, even tries to call. Sherlock ignores all this and buries the phone deep in his pocket.
He finds what he's looking for on a quiet side road off Clove Hitch Quay. The substance that the dealer currently stocks is not ideal but it's pure enough. Sherlock ends up paying overprice but who cares, really.
He walks for an hour and a half, that's how long the high lasts. It's longer than it used to be now that he hasn't used for awhile.
He walks until his neurotransmitters are all tapped out, leaving him with a bland, deprived feeling and a yearning for more. It feels like something clawing inside his skin to get out.
Sherlock suddenly realizes he's ended up in Chiswick. He has no idea where the nearest tube station is and somehow can't be bothered to look it up on his phone.
He knows this street. He knows it because it's John and Mary's street.
'You're always welcome', John keeps telling him. 'Anytime', Mary keeps repeating. These kinds of niceties make Sherlock want to vomit. He wants some odd kind of a revenge, wants to pretend he doesn't understand that they're just empty social constructs to create an amicable atmosphere. The true purpose of these platitudes is to keep people at a distance - cliches instead of honesty. 'This is our life and this is yours and there's a line drawn between'.
It's late afternoon and the light is already dwindling. The wind is chilly and dry leaves dance around the pavement. Sherlock pulls up his coat collar before he strides up to the right door and rings the doorbell.
Why is he doing this again? Somehow he doesn't want to analyze his reasons. Sherlock rarely enjoys directing his deductive powers towards his own psyche.
John opens the door slowly with the baby in his arms. Sherlock deduces that he'd probably been expecting a Jehovah's witness. They tend to target these sorts of high unemployment-rate, lower middle class suburbs.
John's smile is surprised but wide when he recognizes Sherlock. "Oh hi," John says. "Nice surprise. Come on in."
Sherlock straightens his spine and strides in. He's feeling slightly dizzy from the cocaine.
"The washer's broken down and Mary's gone to find us a new one. Can't wait until tomorrow with the amount of laundry this little guy is producing," John says and lays baby Benjamin down onto a colourful quilt on the livingroom floor. "She wouldn't trust that sort of shopping to me so I got baby duty," John nods towards the living room where the sound of said baby cooing can be heard from.
Sherlock carefully negotiates over the obstacle course of toys on the foyer floor. John is already in the kitchen so that's where Sherlock wanders to.
Sherlock quietly observes John while his former flatmate makes tea. He can read the sleepless nights in John's frown lines, deduces an argument has happened with Mary from the fact that John has his phone in his trouser pocket and keeps glancing at it, senses his anxiety in the tension in his shoulders. Rarely has he seen John this exhausted.
"That was quick, you know, must be a record," John suggests.
Sherlock frowns. "What do you mean?"
"The case?" John reminds him, the corner of his mouth curving up in amusement, "Or was it so easy you deleted it already?"
"I didn't go. It was barely a two," Sherlock lies. Mary once told him she could tell when he fibbed but John couldn't.
"Okay." John leans on the doorframe to check on the baby before banging around the cabinets for teabags.
Sherlock is taken aback by how tired John looks. He had often had bags under his eyes in the past, but now even his frown lines are deeper. An argument with Mary or just normal baby worries? This is not Sherlock's area.
It's strange, this assumption of beverages when visitors arrive, Sherlock thinks to himself while watching John wash a couple of tea mugs. Another arbitrary, pointless rule.
After receiving his portion of bland tea from John, Sherlock idles to the living room, letting his gaze wander on the knicknacks placed on the shelves of the chipboard book cabinet.
There's one of the wedding photos, with most of the wedding party in the frame. Sherlock had been standing next to John when that one was taken, his hat held in his hand but the edge of the frame covers half of his face. Which one of them has chosen and framed this exact photo, Mary or John and why? Why not choose one with just the two of them? Or why not frame this one so that people wouldn't have been cut out?
Next to the wedding photo there's an old, chipped frame with an old photograph of a couple. The husband has John's eyes. Parents, most likely. One can always deduce the level of spite from the amount of dust gathered on such photos. In John's case it must be substantial but not critical.
Mary's matriculation photo. She had braces then.
John during his army days, in a group shot. Standing next to James Sholto, his commanding officer. Due to the large amount of people the photographer had to fit into the shot it's hard to make out the expressions of those present.
John walks into the livingroom, carrying his own portion of low-quality bagged tea seeped too long because he was emptying the dishwasher while making the tea.
The baby lets out a wail. John curses under his breath and picks him up.
The drained feeling of post-score blues is abating. Sherlock is capable of being curious again.
Sherlock turns to face John, eyes narrowing. "He's been like that all day?" he deduces.
John sighs. "Maybe it's colic, maybe not. Mary's so much better with him."
Feelings of inadequacy mixed with worry over the baby's health, then. John needs a distraction of some sorts. A reminder of good memories, perhaps?
"You never told me much about James Sholto," Sherlock remarks.
"Mm?" John cradles the baby and after a bit of fussing Benjamin Watson calms down. "Not much to tell, really."
Sherlock takes a seat on the worn armchair in front of the bay windows. "You told Mary, didn't you?"
John stops moving around and looks at him, suspicious. "Told Mary what?"
Sherlock raises his brows. "That you were involved?"
John doesn't say anything. Maybe John needs more information to go on. "Mary told me we weren't the first, me and her. Clearly she was referring to him."
John's expression shifts from weary to icy. His entire being seems to be telling Sherlock this is no good, it's no fucking good at all and what is this Sumerian demon that's putting stuff like this in Sherlocks head, really. "He was a good friend. A very good friend," John says slowly.
Sherlock puts his mug on the coffee table. There's a cow painted on it. John is not a man who would buy mugs with cows. It's sordid, really, this attempt at a display of cosy English domestication. An assassin and a soldier playing house.
"There are three of us on that list. One of them is your wife. What does it make me and Sholto, then? Tell me, John, was it just a grope behind the mess tent or were you actually in love? Did you bail out on him, too, abandon him when things got tough or when you felt like running back to something more normal and nice and proper?"
Sherlock feels like he's somewhere high above, listening to himself say these things. Usually he has a lot more control. Usually he cares about the fact that you don't corner John Watson like this. You just don't.
Maybe it's the cocaine. Or the loneliness. Or the unfairness of it all.
Maybe there is indeed a Sumerian demon that has swallowed him whole.
John is staring at him, shaking with rage.
Suddenly, Sherlock loves this. It's like watching the world burn. The careful constructs of his life crackling to ashes. It's glorious, really. He wishes he was still high. This would have felt even better.
"Who the fuck do you think you are." It's not a question, really, what John says.
Sherlock has seen him wear this expression just once before, in that overpriced French restaurant, donning a moustache that was so wrong for the shape of his mouth. Back then, however, there was at least a hint of relief and sadness in John's demeanour.
Not this time.
"Tell me, John, why you never even bothered to tell me it was never about the labels. That it was always about me. That you would want this more than you wanted us."
John lets out a ragged breath and looks into his eyes. If Sherlock was anyone else, he would cower before such a display of quiet fury. He doesn't, because he's not afraid. Not anymore. It's not like things can get any worse. He just hasn't been able to admit that to himself before.
Let it at least be known that John gets everything he wants. Sherlock gets nothing. Let it be said out loud.
"You don't get to do this. Not now, " John spits out, "Not ever."
"It wasn't me who did this," Sherlock points out, spreading his arms as though presenting to John his own livingroom. "It was all you."
"There were two options. Two options for survival. You ruined them both."
Sherlock opens his mouth but then hesitates. This is new and confusing.
"You die. I sort of try to follow. I somehow scrape my life together again. Meet Mary. Have a kid. Have a life," John lists.
"And the other option?" Sherlock asks.
John leans on the backrest of the sofa. The baby is looking at him with slight alarm.
"Or you let me in on the grand plan against Moriarty. I wait for you. Worry for you but wait for you."
"And there would never have been a Mary?" Sherlock asks carefully.
"Well it doesn't fucking matter now!" John bellows, fingers curling into fists against the sofa.
"Well it matters to me!" Sherlock stands up. "It would've been easier if it had been just your heterosexual sensitivities or the fact that you genuinely didn't see me that way but this," he draws in a breath, "Is a travesty."
"You don't get to do this. You don't get to stand in my house and call my life a travesty. You don't realize that this is what you do to people, do you? You poke and poke and poke until something bleeds? You wreck everything you touch and you don't give a fuck if someone gets hurt? Christ, you're a piece of work, you."
John is now shaking even worse and he looks like he wants to throttle Sherlock. Or at least break something else. It's getting a little frightening.
John's phone pings. Twice. He digs it out, reads the two messages and then tosses his phone at Sherlock who catches in and reads the messages as well.
One's from Lestrade. IS SHERLOCK WITH YOU? ARE YOU COMING? GET HIM TO CALL ME WILL YOU. GL
The other is from Mycroft. SURVEILLANCE SHOWS SHERLOCK AT HIS OLD HAUNT IN BATTERSEA CONVERSING WITH A KNOWN DEALER. SHOULD I BE ALARMED? MH
John takes a step closer while Sherlock reads the messages.
John then draws in a breath and lets out a string of colourful curses.
As far as Sherlock knows this sort of language is frowned upon in the presence of babies.
"You see?" John asks him, pointing at his phone still in Sherlock's hand, "This is the sort of bullshit my life becomes around you? I thought that if you just behaved we could try and make this work, make all of it work, things could go back to being like they used to if we just put some thought into it."
"Nothing is the same. And never will be," Sherlock says. "I'm sick of it. All of it. You're here but not here. I'm this other life you have, which you can happily forget all about once you get home. I'm still there when you go home, John. I don't have anywhere to go."
John is staring at him. The baby whimpers and starts wailing. John ignores the noise.
"Sure you have. There's always some shithole you can crawl into after scoring. Because that's what you do, don't you? You didn't think I'd fucking notice? Case boring so let's shoot up and then go to John because he doesn't have anything better to do than sort the life of a fully grown man with no life skills whatsoever!"
The baby is now in full hysteria. John is still staring daggers at Sherlock.
Sherlock looks at the baby. Its wailing is distressing and it's very unlike John to leave an infant in a state of such alarm. As far as Sherlock knows babies are not supposed to be subjected to this sort of a scenario. It's not wholesome.
"I came back for you," Sherlock tells John because it's the only thing that comes to mind that might redeem him somehow.
"Did you ever think that I might've been angry at you for doing exactly that?" John looks down on the sofa where assorted household utensils have been discarded. The apartment is a mess.
"I don't need this, Sherlock. Not now. I can't take much more of it."
"You can't take much more of enjoying the easy choice?" Sherlock suggests with a sarcastic tone, "I run myself to the ground while you get to enjoy all this marital bliss."
"I didn't ask for any of it! I didn't ask for you to do these things! Married to your work and all that, you could've just stopped, disappeared, never come back. What sort of a person would let me do this , build a new life and then come back to fucking wreck it again?"
"You would have waited for me?" Sherlock asks incredulously.
The baby is reaching out towards John with his tiny fingers but John is standing too far away to notice. "Well it doesn't bloody matter now, does it? You made sure of that."
Sherlock can't take it anymore. He gathers Benjamin in his arms and holds him against his chest. The baby is warm and smells of talcum powder, Clair De Lune, John and mashed carrots. The realization is frightening: this is John's son and Sherlock would gladly die for them both because what's important to John is important, period. More important than Sherlock.
"Either don't abandon me like that, or stay dead. Not stand in my living room drugged to your gills ruining my life."
John often insults him, but not like this. He means it now, he means to wound him, to finally let it all out. Maybe Sherlock shouldn't have tricked him with the bomb. Maybe if John had been allowed to vent all of these things earlier this, right now, wouldn't be happening.
John then delivers his crowning note, his immortal quote, his icing on the cake.
"You fucking psychopath," John says.
Sherlock draws in a breath as the last vestiges of strenght leave his body. A tear meanders down his cheek.
The reckless abandon with which he started this is gone.
This is it.
This is how John Watson breaks his heart for good.
Sherlock is a spectator at his own execution.
Another tear, and then there are more and Sherlock loses count. His arms, holding onto Benjamin Watson like a lifeline, are shaking slightly. Sherlock turns slightly away, hugging the baby closer to his chest. John is no good to the baby like this.
"Give me my son," John says with a threatening tone.
This is the last memory he'll have of John Watson. The thought drains all air from Sherlock's lungs.
"Give me my son you fucking junkie."
Sherlock can't bring himself to step closer to John. Instead he lays Benjamin down on the floor and brushes his finger along the infant's cheek. The baby stares at him wide-eyed, but doesn't make a noise.
Sherlock doesn't even know how he gets home. He doesn't remember leaving John and Mary's house. He doesn't remember getting in a cab. Doesn't remember walking the steps up to the apartment. Doesn't remember anything because he can't anymore. He needs to delete it all for both their sakes.
Delete John Watson.