I: And you said you felt a little guilt, but the chorus is, 'I should live in salt for leaving you behind'.

M: Honestly, that was just kind of an abstract image or something in my head and I don't know. I think Lot's wife turned to salt when she looked back at the city. I think they used to pack bodies in salt. So there's not specifically any meaning into it directly, but it seemed like a bad thing to have to live in salt. A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right.

Sooooo this is a thing now. I was listening to The National's beautiful, flawless new album "Trouble Will Find Me" and I decided to create a series of one-shots or short stories based on each song and featuring characters from Sherlock.

This chapter is for the first track, "I Should Live in Salt" (youtube watch?v=JK-EF9fAHIY). The excerpt above is from an interview with The National's singer Matt Berninger, a wonderful human being and A++ lyricist. The things that voice does to you, man. The things that voice does to you.

Salt comes from death. The death of the seas, coaxed out of the slowly constricting throat as the water evaporates, leaving only a thirsty earth. A death lightly dusted over dry crusts of water, a death that lounges in briny patches on the surface like lesions on a failing face. It runs as powdered blood in veins deep under the earth, rich and brackish. The animals found it first and then man followed the path to their cache, as they do.

Salt comes from death. And so do I. Wherever I go, death follows. Sometimes we are friends, and the right man dies at the right time and death is on my side. Sometimes it turns on me, and I'm left to bleed out quietly until I manage to pick myself up, until I think of what would happen if I didn't, I think of not seeing him again, and I stagger to the nearest hospital, or to whatever hovel I'm living in so I can stitch myself back together. It's happened much too often lately. I'm too close to getting what I want. I'm getting sloppy, careless.

I'm in a hotel outside Dublin, if it can be called that. Sitting on the lip of the tub, cauterising the ends of my stitches. It wasn't so awful this time; I've gotten better. I've watched John do it enough to know the basics.

I have to leave soon. Media does so love vigilantes, if I can be called that. Won't they just eat this up, celebrity detective, back from the dead, bringing justice to the wicked and so on and so on. I can't let them know. I can't let him know either. Not from them, just from me. He deserves what little I have left to give him, an apology, perhaps, or a sad little swan song before I bow out from his life with whatever you'd call grace from someone whose lost all sense of it. I've had a lot of time to think about it, and about him. I know he won't forgive me easily, or perhaps even at all. I've prepared for any eventuality. I've lived a lifetime without him in more time than I was ever with him, and I know which one would kill me faster, a life with him or without.

I wash the streaked blood from the tub and light a cigarette. The bedside table is littered with butts already, and burn marks. I've kept the room clean enough—even cleaner than it was when I came—but I am so close to the end and a little litter won't hurt me now. I suck in the smoke, feel the wave of coolness, and I shut my eyes and revel in it and tell myself this feeling will last.

I am Lot's wife. I don't even have a name anymore; people call me all kinds of things, know me by all sorts of names. At first, when the names all piled upon each other, I wondered if this was the worst punishment, that I couldn't even keep the one thing I'd taken with me, but I've learned that there are far worse things people can do to you, or that you can do to them. I know I am Sherlock Holmes, even if they don't. I know who I am, muddled however much it is in this mire I've dragged myself through for nearly three years. I know who I am, or who I was. I managed to pack those parts of me away in tombs of salt.

The night before my fall, I knew the iniquity of my city was going to be destroyed. Me, the machine, I knew. Of course I knew. Machines function at a higher processing rate than most people. I let John call me those things, I let him say those words, because I knew him angry was far more bearable than him wrecked, or him dead. I would let him do anything, I would let him destroy me, if it meant it was me and not him. I accepted my chemical defectiveness long ago. I can admit it now. I know who I was, and I know the worth of that man to John.

I was told to run. I was taken aside, bloodied and pale and stricken, and told to run, lest I be swept away in the destruction, but I was already gone. I heard everything John said, out there in the blood and cold pavement. I heard everything. I was only a wall away from him, I knew he was going to identify my body, the one that we were sure looked so much like me. He was just over there, just right there and I did nothing. I couldn't look back or I'd be turned to salt where I stood. I couldn't look back. I just couldn't. I wanted nothing else but to turn and let the destruction I'd escaped fill my eyes, the pyre that was the fault of a defective thing like me, but I didn't, and now I think of little else.

Mobile's ringing. Caller ID says…oh. Press send. Comeoncomeoncomeon—

Click. Live connection.

"Tell me."

The walls are swelling around us, here in the quiet. The TV's still on; he didn't bother to turn it off. It's not a priority when your once dead flatmate walks in, I suppose.

It's been an hour and thirteen—fourteen minutes. He hasn't said a word. Not one utterance, not a wild punch, not anything, and I need to know why. I need to know what he's thinking. I need to.

"Say something." I huff finally, bringing an unlit cigarette to my mouth. "Don't make me read your mind. Still can't do that, in case you forgot—"

He snatches the lighter from me before I can spark a light. He doesn't say anything. He hasn't said anything, but I knew that would get some kind of reaction out of him. I need him to do something, I need to gather data, and data does not spring from nothing. God, he looks terrible. He must have lost near two stone. It can't be because of me. I couldn't look back. I just couldn't. I'd have been turned to salt, an eternal commemorative witness to some great tragedy.

He continues to stare at me, and I look around the flat if it means not looking back at him. Nothing's changed, but I already knew that when I came in. It's perfectly preserved, like a shrine, like it's been packed in salt and dried out and preserved, like no one lives here anymore. There aren't any stray dishes, or clutter, or anything. He's wiped all the data I need like some sort of virus. It's maddening.

"I thought you'd leave." I mutter to the walls, and to him. "With the rent and all." And the ghosts.

He continues to stare at me. I'm becoming quite frustrated, this lack of response is entirely undeserved, not to mention unexpected. I thought he'd do something. I thought he'd be happy or angry or sad or…just something. He seems empty. I didn't want that; I don't want it now.

"You should know me better than that." He says quietly. "The rent's what you want to talk about? Fine. The rent's been paid for. By your brother. For a lifetime. Do you know why? Because he felt bad that you went and killed yourself in front of me, and that he was partially the reason why. The only thing keeping me in this flat is pity." He spits the last word. This is better. He can deal with anger. He can't deal with nothing.

"I'm sure the location is also commendable—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" John snaps suddenly, and it's as if the fog has been lifted. He looks livid, red-faced and furious. His veneer is cracking. Wonderful, we're getting somewhere.

"Took too much time." I offer.

"Too much—too much time?" His voice cracks from stress. "You couldn't send a text or an email or call me or have your bloody fucking brother tell me? Or Molly? Yes, I know about her, Mycroft told me, which is more than I can fucking say for you, you utter posh fucking prick, Sherlock Holmes."

New data. Correlate, analyse, proceed with extreme caution. Subject is volatile.

"I didn't want to hurt you." That, at least, was the truth.

"You didn't want to hurt me." John repeats, and laughs. He laughs. Something inside me shifts. This thing I've been carrying for three years, this thing I've packed in salt and preserved so I didn't have to think about it, it's coming to the surface like patches of brine and it—and I am…I am afraid of it. I try to push it back down before John can see, before he knows. He can't know. He can't.

"I thought you would appreciate it." I hears myself say softly, much too softly for someone trying to seem better, bigger, than what he was, or what he was feeling. "I was trying to be…like you."

"No." John shakes his head in disbelief. "You're not. You're nothing like me."

"No," I admit, "I'm not. But I tried."

John says nothing, slipping back into his previous state. This is getting us nowhere, but it's far, far better than being without him, so I don't care, I really don't.

"Would you like me to leave you alone?"

John says nothing.

"Mrs Hudson doesn't know I'm here. I came straight to you, after I…I can leave as quickly as I came."

"You're not right anymore." John says, with a bemused look on his face. "You're different."

"Apologies." I reply as I stand to shrug on my coat. A handful of hours with you was worth it, worth this, seeing you. Sentiment—

"Wait, I—" John falls into troubled silence and I wait for him to gain what ground he can manage. "I just...why couldn't you have told me?"

"What could I have said?" I ask. This is awful, I don't know what to say. I never know the right thing to say, even though I'd expected this night, though I'd dreamed of it, though I'd thought about it more than anything else, I didn't have anything planned at all. I thought I'd had time. "What could I have done to make you whole? To make you hurt less? I didn't take you with me, and the fact remains: why? I could say you'd slow me down, I could say I didn't want you there, but the truth…the truth is you were a liability."

I watch John crumble before me, I feel my blood thickening, drying, turning me to a pillar of salt for looking back at things I shouldn't have.

"A liability." John repeats hoarsely.

"Yes. If you'd been injured, if you'd died, I don't know what I would have done. I don't know—taking you with me was never an option. You were safer here."

"Safer." He repeats again. He's staring into nothing and I don't know what he's thinking unless he tells me more and he's saying nothing and we are getting nowhere.

"I left you." I say quietly. "I understand the consequences, I understood them when I jumped off the roof and made you watch me, and I'm sorry, John, I'm sorry for making you hurt, for making you feel less because I was trying to save your life, but I won't apologise for the things I did to keep you here, to be talking to you know. If I hadn't, who knows what might have happened to you? Who knows if you'd be dead, if you'd be shot again or injured or—"

"There are worse things, Sherlock." John interjects roughly. "There are far, far worse things than being shot, if it meant I'd have been with you. You're worth any wound I'd ever get. But you left me. You made me think you were dead. Three years. For three years, I thought—I thought this was it. I thought this was the best my life could ever get, and then I lost you. You made me think you were dead, and I believed you."

"I—it was a trick, John. Just a—a magic trick, that's all."

John stares at me hard for a moment before he smiles a rueful hateful little smile and gets up.

"Well it was real for me, so great fucking trick there, one for the books I reckon. I'm going to bed."

"John I—may I stay?" Here, near you, close by, may I stay in your line of sight for the rest of my life?

"Tonight, Sherlock, I don't really give a damn. Whether you're here in the morning or not is up to you."

He disappears into the room down the hall. I don't have the courage to ask myself why he didn't go upstairs.

I stay. Of course I stay, since I know what life is like without John. Without this, this unnameable feeling I get ensconced in our home, in knowing we're safe, knowing this is over and we can be happy, one day if not this one.

Lying on the sofa, bare feet dangling off the edges, I feed myself coldness. Three years of it, every day, like clockwork, like a pill I'm supposed to take. A pill every morning to forget, to not feel as much as I did, to be what I used to be, to become a machine. It's cold in the den. I can feel it seep into my bones, encased as they are, perfectly preserved in my high salinity life.

It's dark, down there in the cellar. When life becomes too bright, when the sky outside darkens and the raging winds begin to blow and I can taste the salt and dirt and rusted metal of the cyclones in the air, I abandon my mind palace and throw open the doors to my cellar, where I clatter down the stairs and begin my wait.

There's one window in the cellar, high and narrow, so I might glance out and watch the storm rage by. It's dark down there, but when I want to pockets of fire bloom in the air and I roll them in his palms—they're soft, like down, I'll never be burned down here, never have anyone burn for me either—and let them go to float in the middle of the room. The walls are cold, made of impenetrable stone no man or storm could break no matter how much they raged; my fortifications; my prison. The parquet floors are shining and clean and wrought with such intricacy that I can't stare too long; I don't want to be stuck in the cellar, I want to escape into it, and out of it. The spheres of fire shine like the hearts of the hearth and the shadows thicken inside, the storm rages outside, I sit in my solitude, and salt blows through that lone window to collect on my lips like warm sea spray.

I blink. Rain spatters on the window outside. Dishes clink from inside the kitchen. The warm bright balls of flame turn to soft gold light from the table lamp at my head. The wind picks up, screaming in my ears, and the storm outside rages. I don't want to leave my cellar. Not really. Or so I tell myself. I lie like any other man; I die like any other man.

I stare at the kitchen wall. John comes in at one point, with his old pyjamas and his wild hair and his wild cold feelings, and I watch him make tea without a word. He doesn't offer me any, but I know John filled the kettle full enough for two cups, just in case, or perhaps out of habit.

I stare at the kitchen wall. John turns on the television. News. Boring. Comes through the cracks of my cellar. It's cold out here; my skin pimples with gooseflesh. I taste salt on my lips. The homicide was the fault of the brother, not the current suspect, just listen to him. I could say it out loud and John would look at me and smile and say amazing or brilliant and I'd explain it all and genius needs an audience, doesn't it?

The weather comes on. Cloudy, with rain. How surprising, in London, in the springtime. Truly shocking.

I have a wing for you, in the palace, you know. Well, how would you know since I took great care to see that you didn't. Built it before I left, added on what I could salvage from the wreck I left behind. Would you like to hear that, or would it make you angry with me? I want you to see it, I wish you could, I'd even let you write on the walls, write all your frustrations with me and I'd finally know what to do about this, about you, because you are not giving me anything to work with here and how can I make you better if I keep seeming to make you worse? Machines don't do well packed in salt, John, didn't you know that? They have a tendency to rust right to the bone.

"Can you turn that down?" I hear myself say, just to say it, just to say something. "There's too much crying."

John ignores me. I suppose he's been without me so long he's now accustomed to living alone, without interruption, more than he ever was with a life crammed to the gills with me and all the things I asked of him.

"I lived in salt for you. For leaving you. Did you know that?"

John ignores me. I march on, too far gone to care. Too far gone to salvage any part of myself I wanted to hide. I'm going to drown anyways. The storm outside rages. The cold and rain are seeping through the cracks.

"I thought about you, you know. Often, concernedly."

"Often with concern or concernedly often?" John asks finally, without looking at me.

I think about it before deciding, though I don't know why I do since I know the answer. Rain water trickles through the cellar walls. I've sprung a leak. "Both."

"And that bothers you, thinking about me often?"

"It bothers me, thinking about you often."

"Right." John says, clipped, and water from the storm is pooling swiftly on the cellar floor.

"It killed me, I think, dying for you." I mutter, caught in the intricate spin of the parquet floors. "I buried myself in salt so I didn't have to think about it. I was Lot's wife."

"You're a man, Sherlock, not a Biblical figure, or a pillar of salt. Just in case you hadn't noticed."

"You're different too, you know. You're not right anymore either."

"Well watching someone's best friend throw themselves off a building does tend to change a man." John snipes, then rears on me, face reddening. "And since when do you fucking get to decide whether I'm right or not? You don't have that power anymore, not since you threw yourself off a building and made me watch. You left, Sherlock, you died and left me to a life where I was something less than what I was before. Do you know what that's like, losing so much that you fall right past what you thought rock bottom was? Knowing you have farther to fall?"

Of course I do. I already did it, for you, you great stupid thing.

The man I'd left behind, buried in the salt, he might have said that once. Might not have even hesitated. Probably wouldn't have. But he's gone, and I am here.

"This wasn't easy on me either, John—"

If possible, John's eyes narrow further. Wrong hypothesis, negative results, you've done it again, Holmes. Well done. The water at my feet shines as the light brightens against parquet tiles. The storm rages outside.

"No, I'm sure these three years for me were just a fucking walk in the park compared to yours. Was running all over the globe and having great fucking adventures all the time a little too stressful? Had to take a public flight? Did your five star suite get downgraded?"

I stare at him, at the raw vehemence pouring from this wounded man, and a thought occurs to me late, so annoyingly late, and my head hurts at the realisation. Of course. Crucial data, nearly overlooked, stupid stupid stupid—

"What exactly did you think my absence entailed, John?"

That stops him. The water recedes.

"What—posh git like you, I'm betting all you had to do was ask Mycroft and you got a blank cheque to do whatever you needed to—"

I shake my head, I want to rid myself of the light, shining so bright it's blinding me; makes my head ache; I taste salt on my lips.

"He only—" I blink. The light shimmers on the rising water. I'm going to drown in my cellar if I don't get out, I'll drown in the salt and the rain. "Only knew where I was going, if I wanted him to. I flew economy, or snuck onto trains, or hotwired cars. If I didn't have to pay for it, I didn't. I lived in holes, with rats and roaches and desperate people trying to live alongside some specimens of the absolute scum of the earth. Sometimes I slept on the streets, or behind skips, or not at all. I lived, if you can call it that, but don't think for one minute that I left you to jet off on some grand adventure, don't think I gave you up for something better. I died every night, in the worst ways, and I did it for you. I gave up my life, I gave up our home and our life, I gave up this, for you. Do you know what it's like, to live in salt, to thirst for things you can't have? To hear water nearby, to see it in the distance, and know you can't cross the void you've made to get to it? I built a chasm, I buried myself in a landslide and left you on the other side and now I can't see you anymore."

John stares at me hard for a moment, lips pursed. My body feels cold, like I've been floating in salt water, a bloated corpse for days. I'm waiting for him to speak—it's etiquette, I'm told, in situations like this. Seconds unfold into minutes and John scrunches each one that passes up like a wad of paper, tossing it behind us. He's wearing that face he makes when he doesn't understand something but wants to. Good. He's trying.

"You said you built a chasm—" He says finally. "You're comparing me…to water."

I nod. I don't trust myself to speak anymore.

"Water to a man dying of thirst…" John's eyebrow quirks up. "People will definitely talk."

I can't help but straighten up out of my misery. If John is feeling good enough to make jokes—

The lights are blinding. There must be water in my lungs by now. Am I out of the cellar? It was flooding, I couldn't get out—

The lights are gone, and I slide into darkness.

When I come to, John is kneeling over me, brow furrowed. His lips are moving, but in the haze I don't know what he's saying. The lights are blurred above me.

Something's pressed to my lips—water. Finally. Water for the man dying of thirst. Water for the man who buried himself in salt. I drink with the selfish overindulgence thirst brings and feel the water slop over my shirt. It's cold. I find I don't care. Has there ever been such a glorious invention, such a glorious moment, as that drink of water?

"—Dehydrated, you stupid idiot…" John is saying.

"Redundant." I gasp between gulps. "Pick one and stick with it."

"Idiot." John mutters, and then he's leaving no and I'm alone with a wet shirt and wounded pride. He reappears shortly and shoves a tea towel into my hands before sitting next to me on the floor. "I should get you a kid's cup next time. You'll spill less."

"What happened?"

"You fainted."

"Yes, clearly." I snap, and I don't miss the quick grin on his face, smothered as if it was unbidden but I saw it all the same.

"You were dehydrated probably. Knowing you and your dietary schedules, I'm pretty certain. When did you eat last?"

I stop, remembering, cycling through backwards memories. When did I eat last?

"Christ, you don't even remember do you? Pillock."

He's up again, moving away from me. I keep him in my line of sight. I have a mind to do it for the rest of our lives. He's grabbing a coat—no—he's leaving, he can't leave, this is his—our—home, he can't just go—

"Come on, Lot's wife, are you coming or not?" He calls, and I stumble to my feet.

"Where are we going?"

"So many questions, you're starting to sound like me. We're going to get you something to eat."

This is too easy. He's just sitting there, eating lo mein like I never left, like I didn't destroy us both. He should be angry—he'd been angry, just not enough, not what I'd expected—goddammit John, give me something here, this is too easy, I know you, I do—

He looks at me, fork halfway to his mouth, before he sighs and sets it down. "You're not eating."

"I ate."

He doesn't believe me, judging by that look, and says as much. "You had one bite, two max."

"This is too easy. You're being too fair."

"Apologies." He says in a most unapologetic way, tucking one more into the noodles.

"What can I do? What do you want me to say?"

"I want to enjoy my food. I want you to say you'll eat yours."

"I'll eat mine." I say, but I don't move to picking up my fork. He's hiding something, there's something he won't tell me, something is wrong—

"There is a void between us. I don't like it."

"Well you put it there." John says tartly, as if to finish it with so bridge it yourself. He quiets for a moment, then "I don't like it either."

"How was the funeral?"

John's fork clatters to his plate and he sends an irate glance into the universe, as if it was the one who annoyed him and not me.

"It was fine. Well not—it was a funeral, Sherlock, how do you think it was?"

"You seem...torn up."

"She died a week ago, I've had time to get over it, thanks."

"She was your sister."

"She was nothing to you, so why the fuck do you care?" He snaps, toying at his noodles with vehemence.

"She was something to you."

He stares at me, face washed out from florescent lights, with an expression I can't name, which is irksome. I know all of them; happiness, fear, anger, sadness, and all the ones in between. But this…I can't name this. Grief, perhaps, and relief, and…and something else.

"Not near the end. Not much before it either…but at the beginning, yeah, she was."

"Tell me." I say quietly. He makes no move to acknowledge that I've spoken, he just stares at the corner of the table with that horrible muddled expression—martyr, he looks like a martyr.

I pick up my fork and reach across the table to swirl it in his lo mein. It drips sauce onto the table, and he watches me eat it.

"I told you to eat your food."

"Same difference. Tell me."

John raises his eyes to mine.

I open my eyes. I'm back on the sofa, my second home. Currents are running lazily through the ceiling. I wonder where the dark parts with the deepest water are.

The faucet is running in the kitchen. John hasn't said a word since the restaurant.

"Would you like a plaster?" I ask into the void.

He doesn't answer, and the faucet is shut off with a rough smack. He's still angry.

He comes in a few minutes later, or at least appears in the doorway. I can see his bandaged hand, stained in spots with red. Smashed plates will do that.

"What do you want from me, Sherlock?" He asks, voice raw with frustration. He didn't cry, but he was on the precipice. "Just tell me so I can give it to you and you can get out."

I stand, and the ceiling current moves to run beneath my feet.

"I want many things from you, John, but you are not amenable to granting me them at this point. I doubt you will any time soon, and I understand."

"You understand." He repeats, and laughs the hollow laugh of mad men being burned alive. "You don't understand, Sherlock."

"Yes, I do. I understand that I hurt you, and that it was a consequence of my choice to protect you. I understand that bringing up your estranged sister's death—yes, that's what she was, don't pretend otherwise—was not the correct thing to do, but what I don't understand, John, is you. I come back to you and your silences and you make jokes and talk like nothing happened, like you're fine with this and you are not fine, John, and neither am I, and yet you sit there and look at me with those martyr eyes of yours like you're the only one who's been suffering this whole time; well what about me, then? What of the machine that broke itself in your name? Oh, we shouldn't speak of it, it'll be better if we just don't talk about it, is that it? We'll just go back to normal and all of this will sort itself out and we'll be fine. Stiff upper lip, Queen and Country, is that it? Idied for you, and you say I don't understand, but you are wrong, John Watson, I understand plenty, I understand more than you could possibly hope to!"

The silences after angry outbursts are deafening, heavy with the realization that control had been voided for a few irredeemable seconds. John is staring at me and I can't even call this an argument, he hasn't said anything, he's giving me nothing and I—

I'm breathing heavily. I didn't expect to. Didn't want to—fuck, I didn't—

John was always the one who lost his temper. I've been a pot of boiling sea water, and now all of the water is gone and only salt remains. The man who lives in salt rises again.

"My eyes are fine." John says solemnly and I want to collapse into nothingness. I want him to sever the cord and be done with it, with this game, I don't want to play anymore, I am done, just kill me and be done with the damn thing, but don't leave me like I left you, I couldn't—I wouldn't…just don't do it. You're a better man than I am, than I ever will be. You're the saint, and I am a good man playing at greatness.

"There's nothing wrong with your eyes. Never was." What am I saying, why, please let this end, this needs to be over now—

"You really feel that way? About—about all of it?"

"Yes."

"I forgive you." He says quietly, so quietly I nearly miss it.

"Pardon?"

"I forgive you, Sherlock."

He's not cutting the cord. He's gathering it. He's bringing it closer.

"—But," he goes on, "That doesn't mean I'm not angry. What you did today—what you did three years ago—that was unacceptable, that was worse than unacceptable, it was...it was something I never thought I could live through. And then you come back with your apologies and tell me I'm the one with martyr eyes when you didn't even see how you looked at me when I came in the room. And you sat across from me, hours after you called me water to a dying man, looked me in the face, and told me Harry deserved what she got—I thought I might be the cause of your actual death tonight."

"What stopped you?" I ask, hoping he'll smirk and say sentiment.

"Witnesses."

I blanch.

"—well, and logic. I missed you for three years. I thought you were dead, for three years. Imagine what it'd be like knowing you were dead forever, and I was the cause."

"So it was sentiment."

"I guess you could call it that, yeah—"

Before he can change his mind, or before whatever this is becomes something else, I crowd into his space and grasp his face in my hands. He tenses, reflexes ready to strike back.

"Tell me you missed me. Missed this."

"I missed you." He gasps against my palms. "But I don't know what this is."

"A demonstration, then." I murmur, lowering my face to his and capturing his mouth with mine for a moment before I pull away.

"We aren't fine." John says quietly.

"Yes. I know."

"This won't fix anything, won't fix us, not really—"

"Yes, I know—"

"—But fuck it all if it doesn't help." John finishes, grabbing my face in his hands now and kissing me so hard we might fuse together at high heat. He tastes of boiling ocean, hot and wet and thick with salt.

"You asked what I want from you. I want this." I manage to mumble against his cheek. "I want you and your kindness, your loyalty, your affections. I want your sentiment, John Watson."

"I could give it to you, some day." He mumbles back before drawing away. "But right now, I'm knackered. Shattering plates and scaring nice people trying to enjoy a meal out is more exhausting than I thought."

He moves to head to m—his bedroom.

"John." I call, and he turns, a shadow in the darkness, barely visible. "I—may I stay?"

I can hear his smile through the darkness.

"If you like."

Sometimes the salt rubs into the open wounds, and I remind him of why I left, or of the fact that I did, and he leaves me for a while. Not physically, but he'll be right next to me and a thousand miles away, just as far as when I left him. I wonder if it's payback. His retribution. He will say we're fine and I'll know he's lying and we'll have a row eventually when the kettle boils over and the steam spills out, which leads to loud words and great sex. John likes to channel his anger through his cock, I've learned—a lesson taught to me multiple times, bent over the kitchen table or over the arm of the sofa or clutching the headboard of a room I'm reclaiming as ours instead of mine then his. Sometimes he'll let me kiss him, let me lick into his mouth and taste his secrets and his sadness and salt, and I'll hold him close as he cries after a nightmare or as he's making breakfast or as I slide into him just there and we are not fine, but we are getting better.

Sometimes the wounds ache but they don't hurt, and we forget we had them. He'll kiss me or I'll do something mad and he'll smile and we are all fine aren't we? We arein the room together and it is all fine in that moment. We've got a case coming up, the first since my supernatural return, or miraculous, depending which side of the fence you're on.

I look over at him, typing away at his laptop with the speed and dexterity of my great-aunt. He glances back at me and smiles. There's still so much unsaid—so much mire to wade through together, but at least we are together, and not apart. Neither of us has it within our constitutions to survive it again, and if he died, I wouldn't be far behind, but that doesn't mean we don't argue about me using the last of the milk as a culture again or that everything is perfect and we just need a white picket fence as the bow on our model life. Sometimes he'll go away from me, and I will bring him back. Sometimes I'll barricade myself in my cellar, and he will trudge through the howling wind and salty rain to come down the stairs, hold out his hand amid the floating fire, and lead me back home.

We are not fine, but we are not bad either. We're getting better. We are working on it.

To cheer you up if you need it:

Sin Fang - "What's Wrong With Your Eyes"
(youtube watch?v=MUwiNUlHCAw)