Chapter Text
*
"John!" Greg called, winding his way through the crowd, arm outstretched. "Glad you could make it!"
John tried for a smile—it came a little easier these days, though it still mostly felt like a grimace—and stepped away from the door, letting it fall shut behind him with a little tinkle of bells. The December night air was freezing, but the air inside the pub was warm and festive.
Greg reached out to clap him on the shoulder, a hearty well-meaning thump. There was a half-empty pint glass in his hand, clearly not his first of the night. He was flushed in the face and a little glassy-eyed. It had been a long time since John had seen him so cheerful. Well. It had been a long time since John had seen him at all, really.
"Didn't think you'd come," Greg said.
"Yeah," John kept on smiling, hoping it looked genuine enough. "Thanks for thinking of me."
Greg had texted. He'd been good about that, over the past year. And, come to think of it, he'd been good about it over the two years prior as well, those two cold and lonely years where Sherlock had been—well—not dead.
John usually found reasons not to accept. He had lots of reasons. Some of them were even good ones.
"Been too long," Greg said. "How's—um—?"
John winced.
Greg did not seem to register his expression. "Maggie? No! Mary. Mary! How's Mary? Where is she? Is she here with you?" He grinned, pleased with himself, clapped John on the shoulder again.
"Didn't work out," John said.
"Oh," Greg said, his smile dropping. "Sorry to hear that."
"Yeah, me too," John said. He had not spent last New Year's Eve with Mary. Instead, he'd passed it alone in front of the telly with a bottle of very good scotch. The liquor had been a spontaneous splurge after returning her unworn engagement ring to the jeweler for a partial refund. He'd almost regretted it. The liquor, not the ring.
He had not wished to welcome another year in quite the same fashion.
He offered a tight smile, glanced over Greg's shoulder towards the bar. He should not have come. He should have taken the invitation for the awkwardly polite gesture that it was, and simply made his excuses. He had no business in a crowded pub surrounded by half-drunk Yarders on New Year's Eve, especially since—
His thoughts derailed as he caught sight of a familiar figure with his back against the bar, standing amidst the crowd and yet still somehow apart from it.
Sherlock Holmes, tall and aloof and still heartbreakingly, miraculously alive.
The sight punched the breath out of him. He breathed out, hard, looked away.
"He's—" John said, and stared helplessly at Greg.
He was rapidly growing overwarm in his coat. A trickle of sweat made its way down his neck, sliced an uncomfortable path between his shoulder blades. He glanced over Greg's shoulder again, just to make sure.
Still Sherlock.
Greg gave him a boozy, bleary grin and followed his line of sight. "Oh, yeah, forgot to mention he'd be here."
"He doesn't do parties," John said. He was unable to stop staring. If he'd known there'd been even a chance that Sherlock would attend, he'd have made his excuses and stayed far away.
"Right, yeah," Greg said, and offered a conspiratorial little wink. "Might have lied to him a bit to get him here."
John laughed a little without meaning to. Sherlock was frowning down at his phone. There was a little furrow of concentration between his brows, the expression familiar. It wrenched something in John's chest and he looked away.
He had not seen Sherlock in person since that night. That horrible November night when he'd climbed into a taxi with Mary, thrumming with tension and fury, engagement ring still tucked in his pocket instead of on her finger. He'd glanced over his shoulder only once as they'd pulled away from the kerb, watched Sherlock receding where they'd left him on the pavement, still clutching a wad of napkins to his bloodied nose.
Just over a year ago, now.
There had been pictures in the paper, of course, and it had been hard to flip through the channels on the telly for a while without Sherlock blinking back at him, looking haughty and grim and bored. He had, it seemed, foregone the fake moustache and French accent for the benefit of the press.
Christ, but the sight of him was still enraging, even after all this time. John pressed his lips together, cleared his throat. His hand clenched against his leg and he flexed it, tightened his fingers into a fist.
"You two still haven't sorted it out, then? He said you haven't been around much," Greg said.
John started, a little guilty. He'd forgotten Greg was there.
"Is that what he said?"
"Well," Greg shifted. "Not in so many words. But. It was implied."
"Right," John said through his teeth. He ought to leave. He ought to leave right now, while there was still a chance that Sherlock had not noticed him.
"Didn't think you'd actually show up tonight," Greg continued, confirming John's suspicion that he'd been invited out of courtesy, nothing more and nothing less.
"Yeah," John said, his face heating. He was glad he had not taken off his coat. "Got your text. Just wanted to stop in, wish you a happy New Year. I should be—I've actually got plans later, so—"
"Right, yeah," Greg said. "Well—"
John thought it remarkably polite that Greg did not point out that it was a half hour to midnight on New Year's Eve, and if John had somewhere else to be he'd surely already be there.
Over Greg's shoulder, Anderson had approached Sherlock. John found his attention caught in spite of himself.
Anderson was talking quite animatedly. Cheerfully, even. Sherlock was—well—Sherlock was ignoring him, more or less. Staring at his phone. He did not seem particularly bothered.
"I can't believe you got him to come out to the pub," John mused, in spite of himself.
"Like I said, might have lied a bit to get him here," Greg said. "But it was worth it, yeah? I'm setting him up."
John was so unprepared to hear this that it took him a good several seconds to realise that Greg was not, in fact, confessing to a crime, but rather was discussing a scheme of a more romantic nature.
His blood went cold.
"Setting him up."
"Old school mate of mine, actually, bloody brilliant virologist. Runs a research program up in Glasgow. Bumped into him the other day, thought he'd be perfect for Sherlock."
John could not help himself, he barked a harsh laugh through clenched teeth, looked away. Thought about Sherlock with his insufferable smirk and drawn-on moustache. The way he'd stood on the pavement, blood oozing sluggishly from his nose, and watched as John and Mary walked away.
The way he hadn't even bothered trying to contact John again.
"Perfect for Sherlock," he echoed. "I think you're barking up the wrong tree, mate. He doesn't go in for that sort of thing."
Greg looked bewildered for a moment, but John chalked it up to the drink.
"Yeah, well, thought it might be good for him," Greg said, finally. "Hasn't been having an easy time of it. You know."
John blinked. "No. I don't know." He flashed another tight smile.
"With what happened while he was—you really haven't spoken to him at all?"
Sherlock, with his arrogance and his jokes. Sherlock, crashing back into John's world, making a mockery and a spectacle of his grief, disrupting his relationship with Mary—
Sherlock, who had not reached out again after that disastrous night, who had clearly viewed John as just another obligation to check off on a long list.
And then Mary had left, and wasn't that just the icing on the cake? Sherlock showing up just long enough to wreck the last good thing that John had going for him?
"You seem to have found him easy to forgive," John deflected, clearing his throat, flexing his hand. He tried not to scan the crowd for anyone who might resemble a brilliant virologist from Glasgow.
"Yeah, 'course I did," Greg said, looking bewildered again. "I'd just spent two years wishing I'd done things differently, hadn't I? Felt responsible for what happened."
You machine, John had said. He'd regretted those words for two years. Had spent the next one thinking them remarkably apt.
"Two years spent wishing you'd done things differently, only to find out you were the punchline of a very bad joke," John said. He tried not to sound bitter. "Though I guess you find him useful to have around. Boosts your solve rate." Ah, there was the bitterness.
Greg frowned at him. His flushed good cheer had mostly faded. He looked older, and oddly sad. "Right, yeah, well—" he lifted his mostly empty glass. "Time for a refill, I think. Happy New Year, John."
He turned back towards the bar and shouldered his way into the crowd. John watched him go. He did not have to be a genius to know that there would be no more polite invitations in his future.
"Go home," he muttered to himself, his voice low and fierce. He clenched his hand, hard, dug his fingernails into his palm. He needed to leave. He needed to have never come at all. He needed to stop thinking about Sherlock, and he needed to have never heard about the bloody virologist from Glasgow, and—
And oh, Christ, but that must be him, standing there at Sherlock's shoulder, looking down at something on the screen of Sherlock's phone. Tall and bespectacled and far too good-looking to be a research scientist (and John had not been aware that he maintained an attractiveness standard for research scientists, but it appeared he certainly did).
The man had casually edged Anderson right out of the conversation, and now he and Sherlock were both staring raptly at the phone, and Sherlock was speaking without looking up and John could hear it in his head, that rapidfire cadence that Sherlock's voice took on when he was interested, when something had caught the attention of that racing engine of a brain, and that was—
Well. There was no sense in lying to himself. He'd missed it.
John was moving through the crowd before he knew what he was doing, before he could even hope to stop himself, because Sherlock was alive, Sherlock was not dead, and Greg was right in that he'd spent two years wishing he'd done things differently and had then promptly and viciously turned away from his miracle. He'd turned away and Sherlock hadn't pursued, but why had he ever expected such a thing in the first place? Sherlock didn't do human. That was John's job.
"Sherlock," John said, drawing to a halt. His voice emerged lower than he would have liked and he cleared his throat, squared his shoulders. It was hot, too hot. He should have taken off his coat. He should have thought this through. He should have left when he had the chance.
Sherlock's eyes snapped up. He dropped his phone.
The too-tall, too-good-looking virologist from Glasgow bent to retrieve it.
"John," Sherlock said, and he looked—he looked shocked, and any satisfaction John might have gleaned from having managed to surprise him was immediately cancelled out by the fact that he'd clearly been so caught up in conversation with his date that he'd never even noticed John across the room.
"It's. Um. Good to see you," he said, his hand coming up to scratch uncomfortably at the back of his neck. He searched for the anger that had fueled him for the majority of the year, came up empty. Sherlock's eyes were distractingly bright.
Sherlock did not speak. He stared hard at John, a furrow appearing between his brows. John had the uncomfortable sensation that the entirety of the last year had been written on his skin, neatly printed in dark ink, easily legible even under the dim pub lights.
"Look," John said, clearing his throat, tearing his gaze away, looking helplessly towards the door. "I'm on my way out. Got plans for the rest of the evening. So you—um. Happy New Year, Sherlock."
"No," Sherlock said.
John stopped. Turned back.
"You don't have other plans," Sherlock said. "It's nearly midnight. New Year's Eve. Even I understand the social implications of that." That last was spoken with an unhappy twist of his lips, a strangely self-deprecating expression on that arrogant face.
His companion had righted himself from the floor, stood forgotten by Sherlock's shoulder, phone grasped in one hand. John could feel the man's gaze on him, fought the urge to glance in his direction.
"Fine," John said, his face hot. "You got me. I don't have other plans. Anything else humiliating you'd like to point out, or are we done here?"
"You're not married," Sherlock said, looking at his hand. He frowned, looked John over again. "Clearly not just a long engagement. You'd be spending the evening with her if she were still in the picture. Uneven stubble on your chin says you live alone."
"Brilliant," John said flatly. He tried again for anger, found nothing more than a dull resignation. He very carefully did not reach up to touch his chin. Sherlock was almost certainly correct.
"I don't—" Sherlock stopped, frowned again, shook his head. "I don't understand. When we last spoke, you were—there was a ring—?"
"Funny you should mention that," John said. He clenched his hand, hard, breathed out through his nose. There had been some part of him that had assumed Sherlock knew what had happened, that he'd kept tabs on John even though they no longer spoke. He was not quite sure why it stung so badly to be proven wrong.
Mary had tried to get him to talk, that night. And the night after, and the night after that. He'd refused, stiff-shouldered and silent. He'd shaved his moustache. He'd spent days jumping at shadows, thinking he saw Sherlock on every street corner, in every crowd.
It was weeks later, when he'd returned home from work to an empty flat and an apologetic but blunt note on the kitchen table, that he realised he'd never even completed his proposal. He'd left the ring in plain view on the nightstand all that time, had never said another word about it.
He could not really blame her for leaving.
And though he'd certainly spent the last year endeavoring to, he could not really blame Sherlock for it either.
He'd made a mess of that one all on his own.
He'd even tried to look her up a few months ago, wanting to apologise for how he'd treated her. She had disappeared quite thoroughly, almost as if she'd never existed at all. Another loose thread, another unfinished chapter in his story. He'd got used to the feeling.
"Is everything all right?" Sherlock's companion, the too-tall, too-good-looking virologist from Glasgow asked.
"Fine," John said without looking at him. "I'm on my way out—"
"John," Sherlock said. His voice sounded strangled. He blinked, hard, shook his head, opened his mouth again.
"It's fine," John said. "It's all fine. I'm just—glad you're well. Yeah. Have a good night." He nodded, whirled around, once more made for the door.
"Nice to meet you," Sherlock's date called after him.
John stopped.
Don't turn around, he told himself.
He turned back. Sherlock was still watching him. The bloody brilliant virologist from Glasgow was standing very close to him, nearly plastered to his side. He'd handed Sherlock back his phone.
"Actually, you know what?" John approached again, ignoring the voice inside that begged him to retreat while he still had some semblance of dignity to his name. "Sherlock, would you mind if—can I borrow you? Just for a moment?"
Sherlock took a step forward, then another, moving slowly. His face gave nothing away. His eyes, those wonderful strange eyes, had not wavered from John's face.
He looked tired, John thought. A little frayed, rougher around the edges than he had before.
John looked at him, and thought about the expression on Greg's face when he'd said he hasn't been having an easy time of it.
He wondered what Greg had meant by that.
"What—?" Sherlock started to say.
John shook his head, glanced around, panic flaring. His first thought had been to step outside, but it would entail herding Sherlock past where Greg was leaning against a table near the door chatting with Sally Donovan, and he didn't want to be intercepted.
Remaining by the bar was out of the question, not so long as Sherlock's much-too-interesting companion refused to get the hint and afford them a moment's privacy.
His frantic, roving gaze alit on a door just to the left of the bar, likely a little supply cupboard or staff room. He put his hand on Sherlock's back and nudged him in that direction, moving quickly.
"In there," he said unnecessarily. There was a piece of paper taped to the front of the door and John ignored it as he steered Sherlock through, kicking away the little doorstop and letting the door slam shut behind them.
He took a shaky breath.
The space was small and dark and musty, but Sherlock was close, so close, and the air seemed to thicken with his familiar scent. They were alone.
"John?"
"Shut up," John said. He held up his hand, shut his eyes. Breathed. Now that he'd got here, he realised he had no idea what he wanted to say. "Just give me a minute."
Sherlock fell silent.
John breathed and breathed and breathed.
Sherlock did not speak.
"Right. Erm. How have you been?" John said, conscious that too much time had gone by, that he'd made things unbearably awkward by dragging Sherlock into a cramped dark space and simply staring at him for minutes on end.
Sherlock blinked. Blinked again.
John's coat was too hot. Sherlock was too close. Too close and too silent.
"How have I been?" Sherlock repeated, speaking slowly.
"Small talk, Sherlock. I'm being polite. Work with me, please."
"I'm well," Sherlock said obediently. "And you?"
"Great," John said. "Well, no. Not great. Actually. That's a lie."
"Excellent," Sherlock said. He clapped his hands together. The sound was gunshot loud in the tiny room. "Any more small talk you'd like to subject me to, or do you plan on getting to the point?"
"I don't—" John shut his eyes. "I don't know. Sorry. You should just go."
"Mm, no, I don't think so," Sherlock said, and his voice had sharpened. "You've clearly got something on your mind. Best continue."
"Why are you even here?" John snapped. "You avoid social events like the plague. What the hell could have possibly compelled you to come out to a crowded pub on New Year's Eve, of all bloody nights?"
"I was invited," Sherlock said.
"That's never mattered before!"
"Poor choice of words," Sherlock said, looking away. "Avoid like the plague. I'd actually quite like the opportunity to examine samples of plague-infected tissue, with proper protective equipment of course, but—"
"Sherlock," John said, and he had to press his knuckles against his mouth to stop himself from smiling. There was nothing to smile about, not anymore. His mouth should stop trying to disagree.
"Why aren't you married, John?"
Right. Yep. That killed the smile.
"You drove her off," John said. "Haven't you deduced that much? You know I had a ring with me the night that you—that night. At the Landmark. You ruined it, you made her leave."
"I did nothing of the sort." Sherlock had the nerve to sound offended.
"There was no proposal, Sherlock. No romantic night out. Instead she was treated to not one, not two, but three separate fistfights."
"You threw the first punch," Sherlock said. "Three times."
"You deserved that. You pretended to be dead for two years."
"Regardless, she still got in the taxi with you at the end of the night."
John shut his eyes.
Sherlock was right, of course. He'd admitted his own fault to himself long ago. He did not, particularly, feel like admitting it to Sherlock as well.
"Why are we here, John?" Sherlock asked. He no longer sounded offended, or haughty. His voice was tired, uncertain. He was still standing much too close.
"I don't know," John admitted. His shoulders slumped.
Sherlock opened his mouth, drew in a breath, likely to say something terrible, and so John cut him off by jabbing a determined index finger into the center of his chest.
"I don't think you really understand why I'm angry with you. Yeah? Because if you did, maybe you'd have—" John stopped, his eyes stinging.
Sherlock said nothing.
John ploughed on. "Because you might not care, it might just be a joke to you, but to me, it was—" he laughed humourlessly, stared up at the low ceiling. The tiles were dirty, strung with cobwebs.
"A trick," Sherlock said.
John looked at him. "What?"
"Not a joke. A trick."
"Same thing." John was suddenly very tired.
"No," Sherlock said. His pale eyes were luminous in the dark. "Not the same thing at all."
"Right," John said. Whatever fight he'd had left had gone out of him. He pinched the bridge of his nose, turned away. "Forget it. Have a nice life, Sherlock."
He fumbled in the dark for the doorknob, found it, pulled. The door rattled in the frame, did not budge.
"John, wait—"
He yanked on the door again, harder this time. Turned back around. Bumped up against Sherlock, who had somehow crowded even closer in the small space.
"It's locked," he said. Panic rose in his chest and he turned back, rattled the knob.
"What?"
"The door. It's locked."