#bbc sherlck
This is not sulking.
Sulking, as Mycroft has defined by the dictionary stashed on one of his many bookshelves, is read as, to be sullenly withdrawn or defined as aloof.
Sherlock Holmes, at this very moment - 6 o'clock on a cloudy day in London - is not sulking. If he were to be sulking it would be over something childish and petulant, such as being denied a cigarette or being found with a broken toy behind his back (aged five to nine). But this - this worn expression in his eyes of loss and confusion - is not what is listed in the dictionary on his bookshelf. Maybe he needs to invest in a newer edition of the dictionary - or perhaps he should just label this as the one thing that his mind is deducing:
Heartbreak.
He looks at Sherlock from the corner of his eyes in the sitting room and draws in a deep breath because he is breathing for the both of them. There are shadows under the younger’s eyes that have always been there but they are different now. He is different now. The younger brother accepted his own demise when Jim Moriarty sauntered into his life, and for the most part, he schemed a lucrative attempt to salvage everything too. But there is nothing to ’accept’ when it comes to John Watson and any configuration of words such as loss, pain, hurt, or despair. Sherlock understands what these words mean and for the most part, he can dispose of them as he pleases, but he has not yet clearly defined John Watson as a whole nor could he dispose of him if he even wanted to. It’s not like that. It’s not that easy. And so he sits with the pairing of words - John Watson and loss; John Watson and pain; John Watson and hurt; John Watson and despair; John Watson and love. And it’s not that Sherlock cannot figure out what to do with it all - it’s simply that it affects him.
This hurts him, too. It causes him pain and despair and loss and it’s because of the last correlation of words - John Watson and love.
Mycroft was not in the hospital room when Sherlock peered down at his best friend, nor did he look through the slender third-of-a-meter window opening to peek in on something he was not allowed to see in the first place. He could easily piece together the five minutes of time and make educated guesses of what happened, what was whispered; but nothing in his mind could map out what Sherlock felt second by second. He assumes it was hurt, loss, despair and love, but God knows that the man is going through something even beyond such words plastered across as substitutes to explain it all. Maybe it should be considered dramatic, Mycroft knows, but then again, Sherlock has always been dramatic and he’d never been in love before and when you mix the two together, it is a solution for disaster.
Sherlock’s been working the last few days. Not in his mind palace, no, but, instead, his heart. It’s a place that has always existed, of course - everyone needs the organ to live; but it is a place not used as purposefully as it could be used until very recently - until John Watson. Sherlock likes to think, as sentiment is allowed for his doctor and his doctor alone, that John is the reason he began to recognize his heart for something more than a vital organ. Sometimes, in the dark of the night when he really, really misses John, he thinks to himself that John has given him this heart. He learned, by text message, that John had given Sherlock his own heart, too. He doesn’t know when this has happened but he keeps it safe next to his own as best as he can until he can return home. At that point he will give John his own heart and maybe that will be enough to cover the words ‘I’m sorry’and'I’ve missed you’and'I love you’ in ways that Sherlock is unsure of how to say.
In that heart that is existent he has been working on a letter. It is carefully written because John is still not allowed to know that Sherlock is alive but Sherlock has things to say and he thinks those things will help John focus on life - focus on the future - focus on how much of an amazing person he is. He thinks the letter he has penned with help John focus on how much he was loved and is loved and more. Sherlock has never penned a love letter before and to be quite frank, he never planned to in his life - even if he was to end up in the arms of John Watson now or in the future, but this is different. This is the difference between the showcase of sulking and heartbreak that Mycroft sees. This is the difference that has evolved when seeing your best friend lain out on the sheets of a hospital bed with only five minutes in your hand to see and say everything that is in your mind, and in your heart.
Five minutes was never enough.
A lifetime will never be enough.
This letter may not be either, but he has to try. He needs John to know. He needs John to understand. He needs John, simply put. And while the letter itself is entirely unselfish, he knows that his need to do such a thing - to extend a hand out to John, invisible as it may be, is selfish in its own act. He doesn’t care because even though he has changed his mind on love and sentiment (for one person though. Only ever John. Only ever him and no one else), he has never proclaimed to be less of a selfish man in his actions.
“I don’t want you to read it, Mycroft,” Sherlock explains. The letter (two pages) is folded in a trifold and it sits heavily in Sherlock’s grasp. He will not hand it over until he is ready and unlike the five minutes he had in the hospital he knows he has more now. “These words are not for you, Mycroft. I want them for John alone.”
There is no tea in the sitting room today. There is only Mycroft and Sherlock and a letter and a world outside that has never really accepted them but still allows them because the world allows love, causalities, loss, and people like the Holmes’ brothers. Perhaps you could label them as freaks or misunderstood individuals or geniuses or simply men who grew into boys, but one of them has enough humanity in him to pen a letter of love and mean every word in it.
“You know I will not, Sherlock,” Mycroft responds. “I owe you that much.”
Mycroft, truthfully, owes him more. Mycroft owes him a lot - but they’ve never been one for counting favors. Mycroft has sewn together Sherlock’s busted teddy bear when he was four and Sherlock has helped Mycroft on one too many cases even though he deemed them uninteresting and boring and just a waste of his time. They could tally it all up but it was be nothing more than a shrug of their shoulders and a steaming pot of tea. Of course it doesn’t erase the fact that Mycroft is a solid reason why Moriarty had so much background on Sherlock, and even though the younger sibling tears at that fact every once in a while when he misses home (221B, cases, experiments, John, John, John) the most, he does not hold it against the older sibling anymore. He knows he has made mistakes too, and John has forgiven him for them all. He can forgive Mycroft just this once.
(Maybe karma exists and John will forgive Sherlock for everything he has done when he returns.)
“When will you take it to him?” Sherlock asks quietly. His eyes are focused on the letter. It is not heavy material - some stock paper he found in Mycroft’s office laced with the ink of a fountain pen (black) - but it feels heavy in his hands. Just like John’s heart he holds in his chest - it weighs down the world with being nearly invisible. Words are invisible, even when written with the thickest of ink, yet they tend to weigh more than chemicals and experiments and cartons of takeaway in the light of everything.
“By tomorrow morning,” Mycroft responds. He taps his fingers on his knee and glances out the window by his face. London is getting darker. “If he is home this evening, I’ll stop by tonight. If not, tomorrow morning at the latest. What do you want me to tell him, Sherlock?”
This is where Sherlock has had to carefully design his plan. The letter itself explains everything for the most part, but he has to utilize Mycroft to make sure John clearly understands when and why this letter was written. If anything is mistaken, this entire ship could go to hell and take them both with it.
“The letter explains itself,” Sherlock responds. The letter is lifted and the sharp edge of the upper right hand side taps the corner of his chin. “Simply let John know that this letter was given to you after the incident at the pool in April of last year. Tell him that you were informed by me to give this to him only if something substantial happened.” He pauses because he needs to elaborate. Attempted suicide is something substantial but it is also something that needs to be categorized with other things for John to understand. “Explain to him that I asked it to be given to him, if and only if, his life was in danger or if he reached a point in his life after my own demise where he seemed to need the help. Where you, personally, Mycroft, felt giving him such a letter would seem appropriate.”
Mycroft understands - he is smart after all. “Should he think that I have read the contents of the letter?”
“No,” Sherlock replies. He catches his brother’s face in the fading London light and he balances both trust and hope on the man who heads the British Government. No one else can extend this letter to John besides the opposite and Sherlock needs this to work. For John’s sake, for his own sake. “Let him know it was entrusted to you by me and you kept to your promise to keep out of its contents. You needn’t say anything more. Though,” another pause and Sherlock sighs heavily. He knows he owes Mycroft nothing but he also knows that this could create ill-will between the older sibling and his best friend. Not that there was never some sort of pseudo-awkwardness that manifested between the pair, but he knows anything added to the situation could only leak in as fuel to the fire. “He may be upset at you for holding out the letter. I am unaware of how you will handle that.”
“It’s fine,” Mycroft stresses the word 'fine’ because he knows, regardless of the fact that if Sherlock feels as if they owe each other nothing, he, truth be told, owes Sherlock this and more. He killed his brother and he must pay back his debts. “John is not a hateful man nor is he one to hold a stance with another. It’s fine, Sherlock.”
Sherlock swallows this information before offering a nod. He then, at that very point, leans over and offers the letter to the opposite. Mycroft takes it and lets it set in his lap. There is a man’s heart on these two scraps of paper - one side only each, maybe one thousand and two-hundred words at most - and Mycroft knows he is not allowed to know such a thing. This heart is entitled for a man named John Watson and Sherlock would have never written such a letter for anyone else.
"Do you feel better after writing it, Sherlock?” Mycroft asks.
“I’ll know when we see how John does after reading it,” Sherlock responds, casually blowing off the real answer that Mycroft seeks. Only because Mycroft doesn’t fully understand just yet that Sherlock’s own feelings heavily rely on the doctor’s.
“But how do you feel?”
“How do you expect I feel, Mycroft?”
Mycroft swallows hard and he knows he cannot answer that question. If he had any choice in the matter at this very moment, he would exchange his own life in order to send Sherlock home (221B, cases, experiments, John, John, John). He would kill Sebastian Moran with his own hands and let Sherlock return to the life he had been denied for such a long time and only had the opportunity to have for such a brief period. But, blatantly put, Mycroft has no choice in the matter. They cannot do much until then have Moran in the right position at the right time and the fact of the matter is that Moriarty trained his sniper right. The man is smart and knows how to hide. He also knows that John Watson is the direct line to Sherlock’s heart and he knows how to not just burn it out, but destroy it. One bullet is all it takes and if things continue the way they are now, the trigger may not even have to be pulled. John could pull it himself.
“Tomorrow morning?” Sherlock asks over his shoulder. Mycroft hadn’t even realized that Sherlock had stood from his chair and made his way to the exit of the room. He rarely got lost in his own thoughts but things were not so simple anymore.
“Tomorrow morning at the very latest,” Mycroft responds, hands teasing the edge of the two sheets of the folded paper, “Tonight at the earliest.”
It’ll have to be enough.
Sherlock goes back to the guest room that is littered with paper and finds sanity (or the closest he can mend to be it) in the folds of the bedclothes adorning the bed. Tucked under the topmost sheet is a picture of John Watson he had from his mobile phone - printed out and kept on hand for a very long time. For the greater portion of the previous months prior to his 'death’, he kept the picture tucked in his wallet. It was hidden behind his own identification card so that John would never find it. There were no other pictures in his wallet because no one else really ever mattered. However, for the last two and a half months since realizing that he really was capable of the notion of love and he had such a thing for his best friend, he kept the picture in arms reach. Usually closer.
John is smiling in it - as he should be. It was taken after a case and even though it seemed as if Sherlock was just flicking through his mobile phone at the time, he simply had the volume set to mute and caught John in the most beautiful act he’d seen in a very long time.
Sherlock cannot, for the life of him, remember what they were discussing, but they were sharing bites of Chinese off each other’s plates and smiling and laughing and living.
Sherlock would really like that back.
And the thing is - the thing that he accepts the most is that he would be perfectly fine with just that. He knows that there has been layers added to both sides - proclamations of love and desire through text messages made by the mind and heart - but he would be just fine with having the life he once lived with John. He’s never been kissed by someone he’s loved and he thinks he might like that. He could manage a few dates and while he’s never had sexual relations with someone of the male gender, he thinks that he would be adaptable to something of that nature if John Watson shared his bed. He thinks all of that could be considered what Americans call, icingon the cake. And he thinks he might really enjoy all of that and above. But if it came down to it - if he went back home (221B, cases, experiments, John, John, John) he would be fine with just that – just John. John making tea and threatening him for eyeballs in the microwave; late night telly and violin playing and everything that composed the last two years in what Sherlock would label as perfection.
Of course he’d like more - kisses along the jaw and knowing smiles across the room and hand holding where no one can see and hand holding where everyone can see - but he just wants to go home to John at this point and have it all back. He knows he really won’t change much as a man but he knows for a fact that he will never let a day go by without John knowing how much he is valued, appreciated, and loved by him.
Thank you for everything, Sherlock will say, just before either escapes to bed for the night, and know that you are loved by me.
It is sentimental and probably unnecessary but Sherlock will say it each and every day because it’s the truth and if he’s going to say things like, John, that shirt looks terrible on youand John this movie is utter crap, because it’s all the truth, he’s going to say he loves John, too.
Love, he thinks, as he lies back on the folds of the sheets and tucks the picture of John into his hands, can mean more than one thing. He understands this and knows this now. Many people know many types of love - mother and daughter; sister and brother; lover and lover. But Sherlock only knows one type of love:
John.
