Hi guys! This is my first Sherlock fic, so please be gentle. As a disclaimer, I do not own Sherlock or any of the characters, though I may wish to own one or two of the television actors. Enjoy and please read and review!

John Watson entered the room with a huff, looking through the mail in his hand. Closing the door behind him with his foot, he murmured to himself about junk mail. He separated out his mail from Sherlock's and set the detective's mail in his mail pile on the table. He set his own mail on the counter and walked into the kitchen to make some tea. It had been a more trying day at the office than usual. Some poor bloke was rushed in after falling off a ladder with his head broken open. He was a thicker guy, with reddish hair and a thick beard, but the sight of the broken skull was almost more than John could handle. He rubbed his hand on his face, remembering.

"Come on, John. It's been almost three years," he grumbled at himself, aggravated by the fact that he couldn't even perform his doctoral duties properly. If he was being honest with himself, he couldn't do anything properly anymore.

The kettle screamed and he pulled out a mug. He hesitated, but then turned to the fridge and pulled out a half-drunk bottle of whisky. He poured more than a single shot's worth into the mug before filling it the rest of the way with the tea. He picked up the mug and made his way into the living space, settling himself down in his chair that faced Sherlock's.

He sighed. This had become the norm. Get off of work, make an alcoholic tea, heavy on the alcohol, and spend the evening in silence, sipping the drink and staring at the chair, or the violin, or the bullet holes, or the skull, or one of the other thousand things owned by Sherlock that John had never brought himself to get rid of. He would climb into bed later, and when a dream starring the world's only consulting detective would drive him out of his room and deprive him from sleep for the rest of the night, he would sit and stare at another object he hadn't stared at that afternoon.

John had tried to move on. Truly, he did. And he had, somewhat. In public, at work, or around friends, he put on a show. He had become quite the actor. Smiling, laughing, sometimes even giving some input on Lestrade's cases during a night out with him at the bar. He knew, deep down, that his friends didn't buy it. They saw through his act, but they made no mention of how his smile never quite reached his eyes, which had lost their spark. They wouldn't mention it when they noticed the twitches of pain when Sherlock's name or something reminding of him would appear. They knew he was trying, so they let him be, with only occasional glances of worry and concern that they didn't think John saw, but he saw anyway. The moment John entered 221B he let the charade fall away. He was a broken, empty man. He didn't have to hide from anyone in the flat, save Mrs. Hudson, who had taken a motherly role in John's life. Mrs. Hudson didn't bother him often, though, which he was grateful for. Occasionally she would make an appearance to check up on him, make sure there was food in the fridge, sometimes bearing a tray of biscuits. Other times she would simply make her presence known by the bundle of homemade sweets she would set at his door for him to find when he returned from work. He knew better than to try to fool Mrs. Hudson into believing he was moved on and stable.

The clock on the mantle struck eleven, and John swallowed the last of his drink before setting the empty mug on the table by Sherlock's stack of mail. Time to get off to bed. John knew from experience that he would lay in bed for several hours before reaching the point of mental exhaustion that would lapse into a fervid sleep. Undoubtedly he would be woken in the early hours of the morning by another nightmare and unable to sleep the rest of the night, so logic followed that the earlier he headed to bed to try and sleep, the more sleep he had a chance of getting. John grunted as he pushed himself up out of his chair and made his way to his bedroom, stopping, like always, in front of Sherlock's room for a quickly mumbled "goodnight" and tender pat on the door handle. John hadn't been able to bring himself to go into the room after…the incident. Only once had he tried to venture into the room, the night after, and he had barely stepped through the doorway before he was balled on the floor, sobbing. Mrs. Hudson had found him lying there in a modified fetal position the next morning, nearly unresponsive. It took much coaxing and borderline threatening to get him to move, or blink, or say anything at all. Finally he managed to choke out the words, "he's…gone…" before he burst into tears again, Mrs. Hudson wrapping her arms around him the best she could and weeping with him like a mother who had lost her son. They wept together, bonded on a deeper level than they had ever before, tied together by the loss of Sherlock. That day John shut the door and had kept it shut, preserved perfectly, wishing it a goodnight verbally every night as he passed it on his way to the stairs to his room, silently wishing the next time he opened the door, Sherlock would be inside. He never opened the door, if only to cling desperately to that hope.

Showered and dressed for bed, John crawled under the sheets and lay there, not bothering to try and force sleep by closing his eyes. If he closed them now, he would see things he didn't want to see, and he would never get to sleep. His only hope, night after night, is to wait for the wave of exhaustion to hit. It had been three full nights since he had last slept, surely the exhaustion would hit tonight.

He had laid there for a little over an hour when he heard it the first time. Just a random, seemingly out of place squeaking. John waved it off in his mind as the building settling, surprised he had noticed it at all. The second time he heard it he recognized that the source of the creaking was in his apartment, and was definitely not the house settling. However, he could not bring himself to care. He just lay there, with tired, empty eyes. The third creak made him sit up with a renewed spark in those eyes. A spark of anger. The creak came from Sherlock's room. If there was a burglar in the apartment, fine. He didn't quite care what he did, as long as he was not in Sherlock's room. That area was sacred and would earn this poor fool the wrath of crack-shot army Captain John H. Watson. Ripping open his side-table drawer, he pulled out his hand gun and cocked it before standing up and half-marching out of the room, a crazed look in his eye. He hurried silently down the stairs, pausing before the sight of Sherlock's door, opened a crack, with the light on in the room. He took one deep breath in and kicked open the door, his gun aimed at the intruder's head.

An intruder who happened to be Sherlock Holmes. At the sight of Sherlock standing in his own room, John sighed, lowered the weapon, looked at Sherlock, and mumbled "right on cue."

John turned on his heel, ambling half-heartedly to the living area. Sherlock, his face thoroughly confused and guilty, followed him.

"John, please, you have to let me explain—"

"So, how do you die?"

The question stopped Sherlock. "How do I die?"

John, slightly exasperated, repeated, "Yes, how do you die? I'd like to know."

Sherlock, completely baffled expression—one never seen on the man's face before—stuttered "I don't know what you mean."

"Look, Sherlock. Enough of this. Every night it's the same thing, if I've managed to actually get to sleep. I start dreaming something normal, and then you walk in to wherever I'm at, and just as I'm beginning to believe you're actually here and alive, the dream shifts, and suddenly we're on a ledge, and you throw yourself off. Or we're at the pool, and Moriarty's men shoot you in the head. Or you're thrown in front of a train, or you're brutally tortured in front of me, you get the idea. You always die. This is the first lucid dream I've actually had, and I plan to avoid your death scene as completely as possible. So, again I ask you, how do you die?" John stared at Sherlock with tired eyes, awaiting a response from the man in front of him whose mouth was agape.

Sherlock's mouth shut with a snap. "John, I must assure you, I will not be dying. I do not believe I can convince you that you are not dreaming, but I can promise you won't be seeing my death tonight. We can talk in the morning. I'll explain everything to you, but you must go to bed before you collapse." Sherlock wrapped his long fingers around John's upper arms, which the doctor did not fight. He allowed himself to be led upstairs by surprisingly realistic dream-Sherlock. He stared at Sherlock the whole time, amazing at his subconscious' memory of Sherlock. He was even wearing a new purple shirt—obviously new, as the old one lived under John's pillow. He had asked Mrs. Hudson to retrieve it for him from Sherlock's room, which she did without asking for reasons.

"Blasted purple shirt," John thought verbally. Sherlock glanced back at him, eyebrow cocked, but didn't say anything. He allowed Sherlock to help him into the bed, but as Sherlock turned toward the door, John grabbed his arm.

"You swear you won't die tonight?" he asked desperately.

Sherlock wrapped his hand around John's clutching hand, smiling tenderly at him, his eyes soft and sad. "I won't die tonight."

"Stay. Please. If you're not going to die tonight, please. Let me have this. Stay until I fall asleep," he pleaded, unabashedly, eyes swimming. Sherlock let out a sad sigh, looking down at his broken friend, aware now of the extent of the damage done to this former army captain. His hand still on John's, he moved John's hand from his arm and wrapped it in his own. He sat on the side of the bed, his eyes never leaving John's fervent gaze.

"I'll stay."

"Good."

John lay like that for hours. Or minutes, or seconds, or years. He didn't know. He didn't care. He was drinking in the sight of Sherlock, praising his imagination for getting every detail right and elevating every sense so that Sherlock's hand in his felt so real and warm. His eyes began to droop and close. He looked up when a strange ticking sound caught his attention. It couldn't be his clock, which was digital and therefore didn't tick. He looked at Sherlock, who was staring back at him, eyes positively swimming with despair and regret.

"Sherlock?" he looked at the other man and his eyes swept over him, taking in details he may have missed before. "Sherlock, when did you put your jacket on? What is that sound?"

A single tear tracked it's way down Sherlock's cheek. "Oh John, I'm so sorry."

John sat up, confused and terrified. He recognized the sound, suddenly. "Sherlock no, NO YOU PROMISED! NO!"

"Forgive me, John. I—" and the ending of the sentence was swallowed by the sound of the explosion as his jacket ripped apart by the force of Moriarty's bombs. The room seemed to implode while the man John was holding hands with exploded in front of his eyes.

"SHERLOOOOOOCK!" John screamed, and sat up with a cold sweat that mingled somewhere indeterminable with tears.

The door to John's room burst open. "John? What? What's wrong?" the dead man standing in the doorway asked in concern.

John blinked. John retched. Grabbing the trash can by the bed, Sherlock threw it under John's head just in time before crawling onto the bed next to him, thoroughly shaken after hearing his name in a blood-curdling scream issue from the mouth that was now emptying the meager contents of whatever John had managed to eat the day before.

Eventually the retching stopped and John wiped his mouth on his sleeve before turning to the man sitting next to him. "Why are you here?" he demanded.

"John, I know I promised I would explain everything this morning, but are you sure you're physically capable of conversation right now? All I can understand about you this moment is you've obviously had another nightmare, which I know is thoroughly my fault. Maybe if I hadn't left the room when you fell asleep, you wouldn't have watched me die again, as I had promised to prevent. Please forgive me, John."

John sat staring at Sherlock, his mouth agape and his mind uncomprehending. He had fallen asleep? The Sherlock who exploded was a dream? But then…then that meant…the earlier partaking of his—what he supposed to be—lucid dream…was it real? Is Sherlock…but how? He couldn't look at this man who had been dead for nearly three years and had suddenly turned up in the middle of the night claiming to be alive the whole time and not believe he wasn't dreaming. He had been fooled by his mind too many times.

"Prove it." John demanded.

"Prove..?" Sherlock began, once again confused by the response. He took in John's slightly narrowed eyes, crossed arms, body leaning slightly away from him almost defensively, the wary and almost hopeful look in the other man's guarded eyes, the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead and clenched jaw. Sherlock realized John was scared to believe Sherlock was indeed alive, and was asking him to prove his existence, not his regret. Sherlock contemplated the best course of action toward convincing John to believe in him. He laid his hand against John's warm cheek and took John's other hand and laid it against Sherlock's chest. Sherlock leaned in close to John's face, which didn't move.

"I can touch you. You can feel me against your cheek. You can feel my heart beating, the sweat on my palms. You can feel my breath on your skin as I tell you this. I am here, John. I am alive. You can feel me." With that, Sherlock closed the distance between their faces and placed a chaste kiss against John's unbelieving mouth. He pulled back and laid his forehead against John's, staring into his astonished eyes. "John, I'm so sorry I did what I did. I swear to you I will explain. I've despised myself every day for causing you pain. If I had realized just how much pain it would cause you, I could never have done it. I don't believe you could ever forgive me quickly, but I beg of you to hear me out and consider doing so. I meant what I said last night. You will not see me die again. I am—" but whatever Sherlock was, it was lost as John crashed his lips back against Sherlock's.

"God, I missed you," John growled when the pair came up for air. Sherlock smiled and re-connected the kiss, expressing silently through it the power behind his returned sentiment.