Traces Alone, a sherlock fanfic

Traces Alone

As a child, Sherlock would tell anyone who asked that he never had dreams. Neither bad nor good, no nightmares, no whimsical visions of flight or talking animals. None at all.

In truth, though never in his life has he admitted it or even acknowledged it, he said this out of fear. And though at that age he could not have put the phrase quite into words, the fear was that of ridicule.

Throughout childhood, there was one person and one person alone that Sherlock could not withstand ridicule from; it wasn't oh-so-perfect Mycroft or the whining, teasing creatures he attended school with, no, nothing so obvious for Sherlock Holmes. It was his father.

His father with his cutting remarks and small-minded selfishness. With his mistresses and unclaimed children, a little gaggle of boys and girls with the same large hands and feet, the same slightly soft jaws as Sherlock and Mycroft, whose mothers would send photographs occasionally in doomed attempts to remain relevant.

His father who would look at every example of his sons' intellect and display in his eyes a brief flash of...fear? Discomfort? Embarrassment? (what was it father, what?) And then counter attack like he thought he was under threat from them, hacking away at their abilities, their achievements, until Sherlock felt that he'd like to never do anything again, just lie quietly on his bed and let his mind take him where it wanted.

And their mother, their passionate, sharp-witted mother, would watch sadly, unable to unravel the mystery of her marriage, of her inescapable bond to that creature and the reasons for her presence there still. Sherlock had never understood it.

So Sherlock told nobody of his dreams. They were his and his alone.

The wonderful dreams in which he could run until the muscles in his legs felt like they would burn through his skin; in which a city full of wonders and puzzles and fascinating creatures dressed as people spread out around him; in which his mind lit up like a firework display and nothing, nothing was beyond him.

By the time his adult life had brought him full circle, back to this near-fantasy existence, he didn't even notice, the dreams of his childhood and the sickening internal conflict they had brought with them long since forgotten.

Somebody had once asked John if he'd dreamed of being a doctor, not long after he'd graduated from university. Looking back he isn't sure who it had been, the asker. Nobody he was particularly close to certainly, as from the age of eleven to sixteen he'd dreamt of being a rugby player and, before that, a secret agent, as all his friends and family well knew.

He'd said yes though. A fuzzy recollection of a dream, impossible to place in time but somehow there in his memories when called upon, came back to him and told him that yes, he'd been wanting this for a long time.

His own hands, reaching out to touch the hollowed body of a man, lying on a wooden kitchen table. A dead, empty skin flayed open down the front of the torso, the spine tucked inside it like the keel of a boat, and it should be a nightmare but John is made of stern stuff. The skin is cold and feels faintly like fabric, which he knows shouldn't be. So he searches the house and finds various things he can use to repair it, make it whole again. Runs a length of hosepipe through his hands until it becomes slithery intestines. Does the same with an unwound reel of twine and turns it into veins and arteries. The contents of a fruit bowl on the sideboard, when shaken and squeezed and coaxed, become a heart, liver, kidneys and a few things he doesn't know the proper names for (yet). One by one he places all of these things inside his skinny friend's body cavity, tucks the skin around them with care, then takes a jug of water from the fridge and pours it into his mouth, watching the body puff out into a proper human shape, the pulse find its rhythm in the throat. His scarecrow man, skinny and smiling uncertainly, clambers from the table and shakes John's hand, thanks him extravagantly with something like awe in his voice, then puts on his coat and shoes and announces he's going to work.

It's a strange dream, John isn't denying this.

Just sitting there in his brain all this time, waiting for some anonymous person to ask the right question and jog his memory of it.

It's a while before John works out that he wants more than he is getting from working in the hospital, that he wants, craves almost, the uncertainty and desperation and need for excellence that being an army doctor could provide.

Every time he slides an organ or a joint or a slab of skin back into its proper place in a soldier's body, every time he starts a transfusion while rushing around the table to plug gushing wounds, every time he reaches up under a rib cage to squeeze a heart back into life, a faint memory of his scarecrow man flickers in his mind.

The second evening of John and Sherlock's acquaintance – that being the night that John had shot the taxi driver – Sherlock expected John to come back to Baker street with him and begin to settle in. John did not do this, however, prefering to return to his sad little bedsit until such boring, practical things as arranging removals and signing tenancy agreements could be done. It is the first time in his life that a person has both impressed and disappointed Sherlock over the course of a few hours, and the novelty of this is sufficient to offset the disappointment to the point that he feels quite pleased, quite serene, as he returns to his messy home.

John will likely work out well, he thinks. He ought to at least be a bit more durable than Sherlock's previous flatmates. Yes, a man who could shoot another through the heart and then giggle about it was unlikely to be bothered by simple little experiments.

It's nearly four in the morning by the time Sherlock climbs into bed, but he still sets his alarm for eight. He's never needed much sleep. He is still aware of a little too much energy darting around his body, the adrenaline perhaps, but it doesn't stop him from falling asleep quite quickly.

Still, it makes him twitchy. He knows full well that he is alone in the flat, that the door and windows are securely locked and that Mrs Hudson is very careful to switch on the burglar alarm every evening. He is also sure, however, that there is somebody in his bedroom. He had been a fool to roll onto his side as he slept, for now there is a person, a stranger, standing next to his bed, behind him, ready to strike at any moment. Sherlock's every muscle is tensed, close to shaking.

He's good at fighting hand to hand, but what if his assailant has a gun? A knife? A syringe full of poison?

They aren't moving, they are making no sound, but he knows with every fibre of his being that they are there.

The bedroom door creaks open and Sherlock hears the distinct sound of a man clearing his throat.

"Out, you. Now!" says a firm voice, John's voice, and the assailant drifts obediently away from Sherlock's bed and out the door. Distantly he hears John sliding a window open and, though he can't see it, he knows that the intruder has been seen off. John pushes the bedroom door closed, and Sherlock huddles back into the tangle of his bedclothes and returns to sleep.

The following morning, Sherlock will experience lingering confusion as to why John is not in the flat but will not be sure why, as he had seen him exit the taxi outside his bedsit with his own eyes.

The last morning that John wakes up in his bedsit is disconcertingly sunny and bright, the light gleaming in through the small, grimy window with cheery fervour. He's slept well, a novelty, but one he's been enjoying in the few days since he'd spent that crazy evening with Sherlock.

He lies back in bed for a few minutes after switching off his alarm clock, and goes over his checklist for the day in his head. Most of his belongings are packed, the boxes neatly stacked in a corner of the room. He doesn't have much, really. The only things not packed were the tea making things, his toiletries and the clothes he plans to wear that day, and it'll only take him half an hour or so to give his room a thorough clean.

An old uni acquaintance, a chap called Alan, had agreed to help him out by coming round in his van, and John had asked him to arrive at about half ten, which ought to leave him plenty of time to get everything done.

Mrs Hudson had told him that he could sign the tenancy agreement when he got there, so that was fine. The flat had been even nicer on his second visit than he'd initially realised; the upstairs bedroom, though the smaller of the two, had escaped the influence of Sherlock's untidyness and was an airy, freshly painted little haven. There's a decent bed up there, along with a wardrobe and a small chest of drawers, and John has a list of things he'll need to buy for the place. Bedclothes, a table lamp, possibly some slightly thicker curtains or perhaps just a lining for the ones already up there. A few bookshelves would be handy, if Mrs Hudson doesn't mind him putting them up. If his budget would stretch to it, he might even treat himself to some new towels.

And Sherlock, well, he'll probably take a bit of getting used to, but John is fairly sure he can deal with the man's less likeable traits if the balance is to be able to go along with him as he enacts his strange brilliance, his uncanny deductions.

These thoughts make his mind flicker back to the last dregs of his dreams. Not bad dreams, no, just ordinary ones.

He's looking at Sherlock through a window. Not the windows of the college, or not specifically, but Sherlock is talking and John can't hear him, the faint sheen of the glass between them blocking the sound from his ears. He watches Sherlock's lips move though, and finds that he can just about make out what he is saying. Something about a person he is looking for, something about frustration and irritation. He does look very upset, John notes, and wonders why the window is in the way. There are people on John's side of the glass, he can hear a crowd of them complacently chatting some distance behind him, but on the other side Sherlock is alone. That doesn't seem quite fair. Almost as soon as the thought occurs to him, he is slipping off his jacket and wrapping the thick fabric of it around his hand, Sherlock's eyes lighting with something like grudging gratitude as John draws back his arm to smash the glass.

John can already feel the details of the dream slipping away from him, and lets go of it entirely as he slides out of bed and starts his day.

There's a broken china ornament on the floor. Whatever it was, it used to be beautiful; a smooth and curvy shape, the outside painted in glowing colours and the inner surface gleamingly white.

Now it's broken.

Sherlock doesn't know how it got broken, he truly doesn't. He was simply walking through the hall when he heard it, just a few feet behind him, fall to the floor with a deep thud and a heart-breaking crack. He turned to look with a feeling of resigned anxiety, and still stands looking at it now.

It's beyond repair.

Sherlock can't tear his eyes away. Not because it's broken, no, but because he's quite sure he has never seen it before. All the ornaments and objet d'art in his parents' sprawling house, and he's quite sure that he has never laid eyes on this item before today.

He hears his father's heavy tread advancing towards him around the corner of the corridor, and wonders if this was a trap. Not that his father ever seems to need an excuse to be furious with him

"Bobby's alright, Bobby's alright, he's a natural born poet, he's just outta sight!"

but Mummy is less likely to get involved if he does, and so it'll just go on for days. Sherlock won't be able to leave his room

"Jungle faced Jake, jungle faced Jake, I say, make no mistake about jungle faced Jake!"

without that atmosphere of fury descending on him! The injustice of it cuts into him like a knife. What parent lays traps for their child to wander into,

"Bobby's alright, Bobby's alright, he's a natural born poet, he's just outta sight!"

purely to have an excuse to dislike them? And Sherlock can't make his feet move from the spot, waiting there

"Automatic shoes, automatic shoes, give me 3D-vision and the California Blues!"

while the sound of footsteps come closer...

"And me I funk but I don't care, I ain't no square with my corkscrew hair!"

Closer...

"Telegram Sam, you're my main man!"

What...what nonsense was that?

Sherlock sits up, a faint ripple of nausea passing through him as he does so. He's on the sofa in the dimly lit living room, with bits of paper scattered over his stomach and lap. Must have fallen asleep there while reading his case notes.

"Telegram Sam, you're my main man!" John sings again, his off-key voice emanating from the kitchen. Sherlock turns enough to be able to look in that direction and sees John bopping and sliding about in his socks, waving a tea towel around. The radio is on, Sherlock can see the display on the front of it lit up, but the sound is turned down so low he can barely hear it.

He cricks his neck and stands up, moving into the kitchen doorway. John abruptly realises he's been seen, and Sherlock can see him deciding whether to be embarrassed or not. After a moment he seems to choose not, and comes to a halt in front of the table, flicking the tea towel idly at the door frame.

"What on earth were you singing?" Sherlock asks.

"T Rex," John replies brightly. "Telegram Sam. Haven't you ever heard it?"

Sherlock shakes his head. "It's nonsense. You don't have corkscrew hair. You have the most boring haircut I've ever seen on a living person."

John chuckles and flicks Sherlock on the shin with the towel. "It's just a song," he says. "Are you eating dinner with me tonight? I was thinking of making that chicken thing."

"I quite like that chicken thing," Sherlock muses.

"I know. That's why I'm making it."

"Thank you," Sherlock says, after a moment. John just looks a bit surprised and studies him for a few seconds, then shrugs and smiles, turns to the fridge and starts getting things out.

Sherlock knocked one of John's mugs off the draining board this morning, by accident. Broke it. It's okay though.

Over the first year, year and a half maybe, that John was back from Afghanistan, he was able to see certain patterns in his nightmares. While he knows he lacks Sherlock's gift for observation, he is at least effective enough to have made records of his dreams and work out three distinct categories. Whether or not this is a healthy use of time he isn't quite sure, but it settles him somewhat to be able to wake up after he's had one and say to himself 'oh, it was that sort', and then deal with it using one of the methods he has worked out through trial and error.

The first sort, and thankfully the most common, is the Hollywood Horror category. These ones feature, primarily, unrealistically lurid gouts of blood and earsplitting screams, while contorted faces loom at John from the sides of his vision. They aren't truly that scary, so much as jarring, but they are often sufficient to wake him up. When they do, a drink of water and a few moments spent smoothing out his bedclothes and patting his pillow back into shape calms John down enough that he can go back to sleep fairly quickly.

Rather more rarely he experiences one of the Memory category. These wonderful things allow him to relive certain points in his own history, usually in little bursts, like seeing a film trailer after watching the film and knowing which scene each snippet has come from. More often than not, these are from moments of tension rather than fear: life-saving surgeries performed without sufficient staff or in a tent with no power supply; giving orders to a group of young squaddies and hoping they have the sense to follow them to the letter; arguing with his superiors about levels of acceptable loss. These moments had left their imprints on John deeply and when he relives them, he re-experiences all the strain, all the heart-pounding dread. After these, he doesn't go back to sleep easily at all. In fact he's far more likely to be found prowling around the flat in his pyjamas, trying to forget, trying to find some way to cast off the nervous energy they leave him with. Often, he cries. He has yet to find an effective solution.

The worst are also, thankfully, the rarest.

The Chaos dreams, as he thinks of them. Oddly enough, despite all the raw material lingering in his mind, these dreams base nothing on reality, on memory. In these dreams, something terrible has happened, or is about to happen, and there is nothing John can do.

That's all.

Whatever terrible thing it is, and indeed, whether or not he knows any detail of it, it will never be something he can stop or alleviate, it will never be something he can seek justice or vengance for. It will never be something he can save anybody from, and it will never, really be anybody's fault. He just has to be there, not knowing how or what or why, and watch it inexorably unfold.

These are the dreams that jolt him awake, sweating and fighting for breath.

After these dreams, he often doesn't sleep properly for several days.

Six long months separated from John and everyone else he knows (with the uninspiring exception of Mycroft), and Sherlock is starting to admit, if only to himself, that perhaps he misses them. But every day is a step closer to cracking open Moriarty's network, and every day brings something new.

This morning a newspaper is delivered to his room in the little hotel, an English one rather than the local Spanish rag. Sherlock dislikes the local paper, not because of the language which is little barrier to him, but because of the amount of it given over to celebrity gossip. An English paper, a proper broadsheet, will be a refreshing change.

He's waiting for an email from one of his informants and has nothing better to do, given that he's unable to set up any kind of lab without the hotel manager getting upset, so he sits and reads and feels as close as he ever gets to 'leisurely'.

Scanning each page with his eyes, picking out the important details and reading more closely only those parts which jump out at him, as is his way, he is surprised to see John's name mentioned. Of course, John Watson isn't an uncommon name, but Hamish is, and a second glance adds 'military service' and 'doctor' to the description and a bright flash of longing lights up inside Sherlock's chest. But why is John in the newspaper?

It's only then that Sherlock realises he is looking at the obituary page.

No. No, no this isn't allowed.

'John Hamish Watson, decorated soldier and respected community medical practitioner, died on Friday evening-'

No, it couldn't be...

'after attempting to prevent a mugging. He was stabbed eleven-'

No, no he can barely go on reading...

'will be remembered for his bravery, and for his association with the questionable detective Sherlock Holmes, who manipulated-'

"Oh god," Sherlock murmurs out loud, and he lets the newpaper slide from his grasp, lets his body slide out of the chair until he is kneeling on the floor, tears streaming from his eyes and every muscle clenched. What is the point now, what is the damned point? It was all for John, all this searching just to keep John safe...

And John went and got killed without him.

Sherlock throws his head back and screams...

And he comes awake still screaming, in the dim light of the hotel room, flinging the bedclothes off with spasmodic motions and struggling to his feet. He searches on the floor for the newspaper, needing to see it with his own eyes, but it isn't there! Where the hell has it gone?

He stands up straight and takes a deep breath, feels his heartbeat pounding in his ears and the sides of his throat.

It was a dream. It felt so real. But it was just a fucking dream.

But dreams are influenced strongly by reality, every study tells him so.

Leaping back across the room to his bed, Sherlock snatches up his phone from the bedside table and dials Mycroft. They haven't talked over the phone in weeks, having agreed it best not to risk such an easily eavesdropped communication, but this is an emergency.

"John! Is John okay?!" Sherlock cries as soon as the line connects.

Mycroft clears his throat and speaks calmly. "The last check revealed nothing out of the ordinary, Sherlock. He was quite well."

"Check again."

Mycroft sighs in the way that tells Sherlock he's going to be difficult. "Sherlock, the watches I have scheduled are more than sufficient-"

"Mycroft, check again now!" Sherlock feels his breath do something strange as it comes out of him and the muscles around his mouth twitch hard. "Please," he forces out, and can almost hear Mycroft's surprise.

"Very well," his brother replies after a pause. Sherlock can hear him talking to somebody, another phone being dialled, a far off conversation. Then Mycroft is back on the line. "All is as normal, Sherlock. He is at the hospital and there is no-"

"The hospital?! What is he at the hospital for?!"

"He's at work Sherlock. He's a paramedic now, remember? There is no sign of suspicious activity of any kind."

Sherlock sags onto the mattress with relief, his exhalation coming out with a soft sob. He doesn't care that Mycroft must have heard it.

"Sherlock..." the voice comes less clearly now, the phone resting on the mattress by his head rather than pressed to his ear. His hands are shaking.

"I'll have the surveillance increased and email you updates every day. Alright?" Mycroft says with surprising gentleness. Sherlock would quite like to hate him, but is so damned relieved that all he can do is whisper "Yes," and reach out to switch off the phone.

Sherlock has had the same affect in John's life as going to war did, and that's really a very big statement if you stop and think about it.

On the up side, though John still thinks of himself as a soldier, and has retained the precise awareness and other various skills that were drilled into him during his service, he has now finally shed the after-effects of trauma from the events he experienced in combat.

On the down side, he now has a whole new source of anguish and pain, and a whole new set of nightmares too.

Oddly enough, they run along similar lines to the ones he had before. The first and most common are gruesome and over the top, retrospectively pessimistic. A gunshot in a swimming pool splattering Sherlock's brains across tiles; a huge dog's slavvering teeth dragging through the flesh of Sherlock's throat; a slow moving cab outside Angelo's replaced with a speeding articulated lorry, smearing his new friend across the street. He wakes up from these panicky and, the first few times, actually got as far as calling Sherlock's name out into his new (empty) flat and waiting for a response, idiot that he was.

The next type, worse but, again, thankfully far more rare, involve replays of the actual events. Or rather, let's be honest, the event. He relives the thump of dread in his stomach at the sight of Sherlock up on that building. The desperation as he struggled to counter all the rubbish Sherlock was telling him over the phone. The dizzying helplessness as he watched him fall. The look of him, pale and dead, limp as he was lifted, curly hair pulled out straight by the weight of the blood that had soaked into it and the choking memory of having watched him comb it into place just that morning ...

That's worse than any of the army dreams, that one right there.

It gets worse though.

The one that kills him, that wakes him sweating and half blind with horror and misery, that racks his body with sobs until he's actually in pain, pain easily equal to the punch of a bullet through his shoulder, from crying and can't stop...

It's just John and Sherlock in the flat, sitting at the table, poring over the paper together, or discussing a case. It's quiet and peaceful, for once, and when John says something particularly incisive, Sherlock turns and smiles at him.

That's all.

It seemed that that first nightmare had opened the floodgates in Sherlock's mind. He'd always thought it rather pathetic of John to be so severely troubled by mere dreams, especially when he was so stolid and brave in waking life. Now, though, Sherlock began to understand.

It seemed like every night now John would drift through his unconscious mind in some context, usually harmless, but with increasingly frequency in some way that terrified Sherlock. John was hurt or dying or dead, asking for Sherlock or needing him or haunting him. Sherlock told himself over and over again that this was natural, forgiveable; he was worried about his friend's safety and was unable to reassure himself by so simple a means as seeing him in person. Thus his anxieties, with no satisfying outlet, mounted and increased, becoming more and more difficult to deal with.

Thus, nightmares about John.

The fact that he had managed to rationalise it so convincingly was, unfortunately, of little comfort to Sherlock. He had never required a great deal of sleep, but now he was being disturbed by his dreams to such an extent that he was actually feeling tired at times. And, of course, the lack of John's stabilising influence meant that he couldn't deal with that quite as well as he would have liked, painfully aware, after so long spent in the luxury of John's company, of the flaws in his own nature.

What truly troubled him though, far more than his failure to rationalise away his fear, was the utterly, repulsively irrational worry of what the dreams might mean. In all too many of them, John was snatched away moments before Sherlock went to find him, or pursued him into a room, or even took a simple step towards him. It was this recurring theme that got under Sherlock's skin. Could it mean something more than it first appeared?

As time went on he became progressively more convinced that it did, against all his better judgement. He had never experienced dreams like this before, and therefore had no frame of reference for the possibility of prophecy, but the idea filled him with dread. For centuries people had claimed to be able to read the future from their dreams. Surely Sherlock's above average mind could refine the procedure, to warn him?

Warn him of what, though? That John would be snatched away from him, when he needed him most?

That John would have no place left for Sherlock by the time he was able to return?

That the lack...the lack of John in his life would mean far more than he'd ever expected?

The latter was less of a revelation than it should have been. Sherlock had died for John, after all, at least in essence. But far more than simply not wanting him to die, Sherlock was becoming aware that what he truly wanted was to see John live, to be with him as he carried out the quiet deeds of his life.

He could hardly bear to be so far away from him. Everything in his mind and body demanded he return to his friend's side as soon as he could. In fact, several times, to his shame, he found himself heading for an airport, set on returning to London despite the danger of it. Only thoughts of snipers and bombs (and if he was honest with himself, of John's inevitable reaction to discovering he'd been fooled) turned him back to his duties.

But still, no matter how hard he worked on finding Moriarty's cohorts, no matter how many problems he solved or how much data whirled in his mind, he couldn't shake off the fear.

Would he ever see John again?

"What did you notice? Think back," Sherlock says, and John nods his head and looks around the kitchen.

It's empty apart from the two of them, a normal kitchen in a terraced house, windows overlooking a neglected back garden.

"There's a lock on that cupboard door," John notes. "The older daughter, she looks after the family mainly, she said it's where they keep things like biscuits, stop the younger children from gorging on them."

"You don't believe her," Sherlock notes.

"No."

"But you don't know why."

"...no"

John's mind is still whirling when he wakes up. He'd been worrying about this all yesterday, and now he can't shake off the feeling that he'd been right to have done so. He gets ready for work as usual, but is distracted and preoccupied as he gets on the tube for the ride to the hospital. He gets in and finds his partner, Annalise, waiting for him. He likes her, mostly; a pragmatic woman, calm in a crisis and good with patients, and an excellent driver.

When he started as a paramedic, a lot of his new co-workers were suspicious of him. With good reason, he supposed; he was just coming out the end of months of being hounded by the press, looking like he'd been used and made an unwitting accomplice of by a master criminal. He was deeply depressed over the loss of his best friend, uncommunicative and unwilling to put up with much in the way of being targeted with pseudo-sympathetic questions and outright attempts at shaming him. And of course, he was a qualified and accomplished doctor, apparently slumming it with the paramedics. That fact didn't endear him to either the rest of the paramedics, or to the hospital's other doctors. Annalise, however, had agreed to partner him, and after their first night of duty, during which they had to support a team of fire-fighters after an electrical fault set off a series of fires in a block of flats, she had declared him to be 'sound'.

John rather wishes he shared that opinion.

Since coming here though, the two of them have directly saved the lives of seventeen children, twenty two adults, three fire-fighters, a police officer, a police sniffer dog and one fellow paramedic. While it will never compare to his work with Sherlock, it satisfies something in him, something that wants not just adventure, but also to be...useful? Helpful? Heroic? Who knows.

"What's wrong with you? You've got a face like a wet weekend," Annalise says bluntly.

"I'm worried about that business yesterday," John tells her, half expecting her to roll her eyes. She doesn't though, just frowns.

"What about it, exactly?"

He tries to explain, as clearly and convincingly as he can. They'd been called to deal with a woman who had been found unconscious after an overdose of heroine. She was a single mother of four, including a nineteen year old girl who stayed at home to look after her younger siblings and the house, and who told them that her mother had been an addict for a few months. The girl was confident and capable, telling the police and hospital everything they needed to know, exactly when they needed to know it.

But there had been a locked cupboard in the kitchen which she had claimed was where she kept the sweets and biscuits and things, to keep the little ones from eating too many of them.

But John had seen a packet of biscuits and a multipack of Mars bars in one of the other cupboards when he went to gather up the kids for social services.

A person didn't get to the point of accidentally overdosing only a few months after getting addicted, not if they had the least bit of anything else going on in their lives.

The children's clothes were old, but clean and mended, the house well scrubbed, but the older daughter had smooth hands with carefully maintained nails. The only thing any of the younger kids said she definitely did to help out was meet her twelve year old brother from his school.

And there had been no sign of drug paraphernalia near the mother, despite all the children swearing that they hadn't seen moved anything from the room she was found in.

John fears he wasn't particularly clear or convincing in his explanation, but when he finishes Annalise looks worried, and she nods.

"When you lay it out like that...I see what you mean. You ought to talk to the police liaison."

John, to his shame, hesitates.

"I'll go with you," Annalise says, no nonsense. So they go and speak to their supervisor, then later to the police liaison, then later still to the DI in charge of the investigation of the mother.

Days before John hears anything back, but when he does he breathes a sigh of relief.

The mother was given the injection by force; she'd only used the stuff a couple of times before. She was likely to recover. The oldest daughter was being arrested for possession with intent to sell and attempted murder after the locked cupboard had been prised open and her stash found inside. They were also looking into what she'd gotten up to while at her brother's secondary school, or more to the point, trying to get her teenaged customers there to come forward. The mother was likely to recover.

Annalise hugs him when they hear about it and over the course of the shift a few other people come over and awkwardly mention how impressed they are. It lifts John's spirits significantly.

He goes home that evening feeling the closest to light-hearted he's been since he left Baker Street. Coming in through his flat door, he pulls of his coat, and calls out "Sherlock? I was right! You'll never guess..."

He stops.

Then he drops down on the sofa and just sits quietly for a while.

Sherlock remembers seeing John and feeling overwhelmed with unaccustomed, almost terrifying happiness. He remembers pulling off his disguise and waiting for John to turn and look at him.

He doesn't remember anything immediately after that, but apparently John knocked him out cold.

John was angry with Sherlock for deceiving him, and chagrined at having lost his temper, but ultimately his pleasure at having Sherlock back came flatteringly to the fore. Sherlock deduced what John had been up to during the years he'd been gone (three significant but ultimately unsuccessful relationships, eight flings, a promising career and solid friendships with his partner and his boss) and whether due to nostalgia or an extension of relief, John becomes choked up and embraces him.

John's partner, Annalise, tells Sherlock off for making John so upset, but then gives them both a lift to Baker Street, where they catch Mrs Hudson coming back from the supermarket and almost give her a heart attack.

Mycroft has evidently maintained Sherlock's flat for him, a gesture which Mrs Hudson had seen as sentimental and John had seen as disturbing. He decides to move back in straight away, and upon his declaration of this, John starts making a list of things he'll need to do or acquire to make the place liveable once again.

It is a few minutes, to his shame, before Sherlock realises that John keeps saying "You'll need this," or "you can't stay here tonight unless you do that".

'You'. Not 'We'.

"John, when...when do you plan to move back in?"

John stills in front of the living room windows and squares his shoulders before turning to face Sherlock.

"I don't," he replies, and Sherlock is still so unsettled from John's earlier grief and anger that he can't quite bring himself to argue the way he wants to. He frowns, but John turns away and makes himself busy again.

John stays to eat takeaway with Sherlock and Mrs Hudson, then sets off for his new, and apparently very comfortable, flat. About an hour later, Mrs Hudson gives Sherlock a peck on the cheek and goes back downstairs, yawning. Sherlock lies down on the sofa and closes his eyes, not really to sleep, just to let the events of the day settle down in his mind.

John snatched away from him, dead and gone, out of reach, John never to be seen again

rush through his thoughts as sleep laps at him, and he bolts upright on the sofa with a gasp. His heart is pounding and chilly sweat gathers down the centre of his back and chest.

The flat is empty. John has gone.

Sherlock thinks about that for long minutes and eventually decides that he can't cope with this. It seems only having John within arm's reach will assuage this constant fear, but surely John won't allow him to keep him so close indefinitely. Damn the man, but he's always been so determinedly independent.

Sherlock sits in the dark for some time, thinking about John.

He doesn't come up with any solutions.

Two weeks and John still isn't over the shock. 'Sherlock is back' has become his new mantra; he has to keep using it to remind himself.

On one hand, he feels pissed off. Sherlock deceived him so cunningly and so completely, with absolute confidence that John would fall for it. And he feels, oddly he supposes, like all that grief and heartache, all that immense misery, was somehow wasted.

On the other hand...Sherlock is back. The best and most ridiculous thing that ever happened to John is happening all over again, and will continue to happen for the rest of his life if he has any influence over such things. In just two weeks, they've already collared a ring of sniper hit men, uncovered a billion pound smuggling operation, stopped a plan to blow up Wandsworth Bridge, and annoyed eighteen separate members of CID. It's brilliant!

He knows Sherlock wants him to move back in to 221B, but John doesn't quite feel right about it. It's not that he needs to prove to himself that he can go it alone still, but perhaps he needs to prove it to Sherlock. Or...no, that's not it. Not quite. All he really knows is that it doesn't feel right to move back in with him. Not as things are now.

Annalise has been understanding about John taking fewer hours. It's a relief that she and Sherlock seem to be getting along. Possibly because he isn't going out with her, she's safely married to somebody else. And...that thought isn't...it doesn't quite sit right.

Or maybe it sat too well.

John pushes the quandary aside and goes to bed.

He steps into 221, says good evening to Mrs Hudson, and walks up the stairs to flat B. The door stands open and inside the fire is burning cheerily in the grate. Only a couple of the lamps are lit, leaving the room dim. Sherlock gets up from the sofa, shoving aside a sheaf of papers and looking almost eagerly at John.

John smiles, helplessly, and reaches his arms out to Sherlock, purely on instinct. He doesn't expect Sherlock to really respond, but to his surprise the other man steps readily into his embrace and returns it, long skinny arms looping around his shoulders. Sherlock is warm, his skin-and-bone physique failing to insulate him, and his scent rises to John's nostrils readily and pleasingly in the cosy room. John rests his chin on Sherlock's shoulder, feels Sherlock's cheek against the top of his head...

John opens his eyes and wonders if his subconscious is trying to tell him something. Lies awake the rest of the night, chewing it over.

By morning he gives up on trying to work it out and just gives in to the inevitable. He starts making arrangements to move back.

It's so good to have John back, to hear the familiar sounds of him making tea in the kitchen, flipping through the paper while sitting neatly in his armchair, moving around his bedroom while he gets ready for bed in the evenings.

And Sherlock can admit, if only to himself, that he feels far less anxious when John is close to hand. Though the dreams have become somewhat less intense, however, they still occur, and he can't come up with any other way to rationalise them away.

Perhaps they are his punishment. He left John grieving and adrift, for nearly three years, and now he will have to endure these dreams as penance. Until what time though? When John forgives him? When he admits his fault to John?

Is he at fault though? He isn't sure. John is still alive, after all, and that had ultimately been the point.

John breaks casually into his musings by appearing at the foot of the stairs in pyjama bottoms and his ratty dressing gown, a slice of his bare chest visible in the open, sagging collar.

"I'm off to bed," he says, glancing around the room. "Are you going to sleep tonight, or shall I put the coffee on before I go up?"

There is a chiding tone in his voice, not quite nagging. He knows Sherlock hasn't been to bed for the last two nights, has probably realised that he hasn't been sleeping anywhere else either. But he won't say anything direct, yet.

"I'll go to bed," Sherlock tells him, getting to his feet. John looks surprised for a moment, but reaches out and touches Sherlock's arm lightly as he walks past. Sherlock goes into his room and listens to John's footsteps going up the stairs, the creak of his mattress and the whoosh of his hands smoothing the bedclothes into place around him. John reads for a bit, usually, and sure enough Sherlock has to wait about twenty minutes until he hears the click as John switches his bedside lamp off.

Feeling resigned, he gets out of his clothes and puts on pyjamas, then gets into his own bed, lies there in the dim light from the window and waits for sleep.

Crashes upstairs and a scream, a gunshot, and Sherlock leaps from his bed and struggles up the stairs, his legs like lead, his feet refusing to meet the floor properly. It's like all the forces of physics are conspiring to prevent him from ascending the staircase, and he can still hear struggles, shouts, impacts against flesh and walls, brave John fighting for his life...

And then the sounds stop.

Once again, Sherlock wakes breathless and chilled with fear, panicking nearly in the time it takes to separate imaginings from reality. That was the worst one he's had since John moved back, and he isn't sure how much longer he can cope with this. He sits up and listens intently until he hears, just faintly, the sound of John turning over in his sleep, a soft grunt as he does so.

Sherlock relaxes slightly at that, but there's no chance he'll be going back to sleep soon. He gets up and goes into the kitchen for a glass of water, toes cringing on the cold floor, and when he turns to go back into the living room, John is standing there in the doorway, yawning, and suddenly Sherlock understands what he is so afraid of.

Sherlock agreeing to sleep was a surprise, though he could just be saying it to try and make John happy of course. He's been more considerate since he returned, though John isn't entirely sure it's a good thing. He hasn't mellowed so much as...reined himself in, and John feels uncomfortable with the change.

Resolving to try and talk to Sherlock about it, John tucks himself into bed and reads a chapter of one of the Ngaio Marsh novels he's gotten addicted to in Sherlock's absence. His mind somewhat settled, he switches off his light and lies down, slows his breathing until his body takes the hint, and off he goes to sleep.

He can hear Sherlock's footsteps coming up the stairs and slips out of bed to open the door and let him in. Sherlock looks around the room with careful curiosity and John smiles to see it, to see his mind working away. Then he turns to John, and the look on his face is like nothing he's ever seen.

Neither of them move, not really. They're just suddenly together, in one another's space, not quite touching but as close as they can get without making contact. Then Sherlock stretches out one hand and touches John's collarbone, the tips of his fingers impossibly hot and soft. They trace down the centre of John's bare chest, down his stomach, and John is desperate to look and see where they are going, except he already knows, and it's entirely beyond him to tear his eyes away from Sherlock's.

Those pale, burning eyes are going to be the end of him, he's sure...

John wakes with him mouth dry from panting and his cock leaking moisture into the front of his pyjama bottoms. He's lying on his front and is pretty sure he's been making noises in his sleep. Hopefully not loudly enough to wake Sherlock.

He considers masturbating, but feels a bit dirty, getting off on a dream about his best friend while the man himself sleeps peacefully downstairs. He gets out of bed and puts his lovely old dressing gown on, tying it carefully to avoid draping it too heavily against his crotch, then makes his way downstairs. He has a canister of tea in the kitchen that's supposed to make people sleep better, or at least that's what Annalise told him when she gave it to him at Christmas. He's never noticed it having any particular affect the previous times he's drunk it, but he's actually sleepy already now, so maybe it will do the trick.

He yawns, wide and satisfying, as he walks through the kitchen doorway, and it's only when he has it out of his system and manages to ratchet his jaw shut that he notices Sherlock standing, extra-pale and tense, in front of the sink.

"You okay?" John asks, and Sherlock nods awkwardly, then presses his lips together and looks away.

"No you aren't. Tell me what's wrong."

Sherlock sighs. "I've been having these odd dreams John..."

John frowns, briefly entertains the thought that they might have been having the same sort of dreams, but surely Sherlock wouldn't look so upset. "Go on," he says.

"My...it..." Sherlock falters and his lips twist, and John realises that he is as close as he's ever seen to crying. Not sure what to do, suddenly on terra incognita, he steps further into the darkened kitchen and puts his hands on Sherlock's arms.

"Tell me," he says quietly, and Sherlock stares at him for long seconds before looking away and beginning to speak.

"Nightmares, really. Since not long after...after the fall from the hospital. About you. About you dying, or disappearing, or even just...just refusing to talk to me. I was so scared..."

"But you're back now, and I'm right here," John soothes. "I've not gone anywhere and neither do I intend to."

"But...but John, why am I still having them!?"

"I don't know," John admits.

Sherlock purses his lips, and his next words trickle out between them like escapees. "Do you forgive me?"

"Yes," John replies, confidently, because he still sometimes feels a bit angry but that doesn't mean he hasn't forgiven. Sherlock gasps wetly, tears still close to the surface.

John doesn't think it's quite the right thing to say, but he says it any way; "I won't leave you, Sherlock. I want to be with you for the rest of my life."

Sherlock raises his head sharply and looks at him like John has thrown him a lifetime, and it's only then that John realises how that sounded.

It's okay though. It's all okay, he can see that now.

He leans in, and Sherlock lets him. Slips an arm around Sherlock's back, and Sherlock lets him. Tilts his head up for a kiss and Sherlock lets him, and Sherlock joins in.

Both of them are tired, both of them shaken with emotion, and it simply isn't realistic that their first time together will be some drawn out, romantic spree of lovemaking. As it is, they huddle into John's bed together, press themselves close under the bedclothes and kiss until they are both sweaty and aroused.

More than a decade since Sherlock last had any kind of sexual encounter, significantly less for John but it's been a while. They gasp when John reaches his hands down to touch them both, Sherlock moans embarrassingly. John kicks a leg over his hip and nuzzles the front of his body against Sherlock's, squeezing both of them together in one hot, steady hand. He smiles against Sherlock's lips as they kiss, pants against the corner of his jaw as he strokes, and they moan into one another's mouths as they come, only seconds apart.

Too quick, far too quick, Sherlock thinks, furious with his own body. He barely had time to enjoy it properly. He fears he may not have as much time as he'd like to enjoy himself with John, like the man will be somehow jerked from his grasp and whisked away from him, present but unreachable forever. The familiar fear clenches his stomach and it takes him some minutes to force it to dispel, finally succeeding when John presses a kiss to the thin skin just in front of his ear. Nobody has ever kissed him there before, not in that exact spot, he's sure of it.

To his annoyance he feels himself becoming sleepy, but John chuckles at his frown.

"Me too," he says. "It is nearly three in the morning. Here, settle down." And he pats the pillows into shape for Sherlock, hooks an arm around his waist and pulls the duvet up around them. Sherlock usually sleeps under layers of sheets and blankets with an eiderdown over the top. John's thick duvet feels too light, too puffy to him, at least at first. But then it settles around him, and John's hand is stroking his hip, and before he can really summon another thought he is slipping into sleep.

Sherlock feels extraordinarily present in his dream tonight, as if he is truly standing in the place he sees, ironic as he can make out no floor beneath his feet or any other thing of substance beyond the inarguable reality of his own body. Strangely though, he can feel movement around him, like he had sensors of some kind in his skin, and from within those sources of movement come something like...

Presence?

Thought?

Intent?

Difficult to say, and Sherlock has never been good with the abstract. Whatever is around him though, he can feel something very like power, like eternity, infinity. It's giddying.

And as he lets himself drift there, he feels/sees/encounters some strange stretching sensation which, when focused on, resolves into something very like memories.

Sitting with John in front of a crackling fire in a very different sitting room, a very different London, gaslight around them and the sound of horses hooves outside the window,and he's taking the opportunity of John's pre-occupation with the newspaper he holds to run his eyes over the man and just...appreciate...

Walking with John under the stars around the outskirts of a large market town, a lantern in his own hands, a Brown Bess in his friend's steady grip, both of them alert and alive with exhilaration...

A man called John dressed in hardy travelling clothes, his bow slung over his shoulder, handing a message he has brought from the nearby town over to Sherlock, watching with envious fascination as Sherlock pushes back the hood of his robe, runs his eyes over the letters and reads...

Admiring John's arm, a near magical work of technology spliced directly into the man's nerves in place of the badly injured limb lying frozen in the morgue store, as John's flesh hand presses to his chest and calls Sherlock's concentration away from cold science, just as Sherlock knows he has done over and over, before and longer before, even though this is the first time they've met...

The whirl of not-memories tangle in Sherlock's mind until he feels like he is going mad, like he will snap before he works out what they are. And then, as if the clouds have parted, the message is clear.

Over and over again, he lives his life alongside John's, as if providential, omniscient hands had lifted them from the teeming crowd of humanity and placed them side by side, neat and precise.

The strange vista surrounding Sherlock is suddenly revealed to him as if a mist has lifted, and though he cannot say through what sense he is experiencing his environment, it is suddenly clear to him.

He is amidst the universe, the workings of the world and of himself and of everything beyond what he can know. The graceful waltz of causality and entropy, the blissful music of galactic shift, all are his theatre for the duration of this one, precious dream.

It holds a place for him, this unimaginably complex exsistence. It needs him to be where he is, doing what he does, for whatever reason. And he, in turn, needs John.

Thus, he will have John.

Sherlock wakes confused and groggy, blinking in the faint dawn light that creeps in around the edge of the curtains. John is still soundly asleep, his arm resting across Sherlock's midriff, one knee pressed lightly against the side of Sherlock's thigh. His breath is warm and pleasantly smelly, his face composed and viscerally attractive.

Sherlock thinks back on his strange dream, like none he has ever experienced before, and spares a moment to feel foolish. So very abstract, so very comforting, obviously a mere reaction of his subconscious to his fears of loss and loneliness.

So very comforting though...

And somehow, it has worked; the dread has left him, replaced with a calm feeling of certainty. There is nowhere John can go that Sherlock will not find him. Sherlock cannot move so fast that John will not catch up.

In the semi-darkness, he touches John's chin, his throat, the sparse patch of hair in the centre of his chest, and the way they fit together under the thick, puffy duvet is so neat and precise it's like they had been placed there by providential hands.

He pats his pillows back into shape, as John had done for him hours earlier, and settles down again, peaceful and ready for rest.

The end

I wrote this as sort of a reaction to unwittingly reading death stories (quick impression; me reading Alone on the Water: "They're going to work out a way to save him, right? Yeah they are. They say they aren't but they are. Aren't they? Oh no! Noooooooo! tearstearsblarttears. There, that's my very accurate impression). I get angst, fine, but I'm not keen on angst for the sake of it, or that just isn't resolved. I don't like being any more upset than I have to. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the quality of writing in such stories, but I don't like reading them.

Anyway, I decided to write this to make myself feel better. This is about close to writing angst as I'll ever get, and I know the ending is a bit soppy but I don't care, it makes me feel nice.

This was a weird one to write, as I started at the end, writing the final scene first. I had rough ideas for the rest of the story, but couldn't quite get a handle on it, so I decided to see where it ended up and then write my way up to that point. It worked surprisingly well, but I don't think I'll make a habit of it, as it was fiddly.

The title is from a quote by the French poet Rene Char:

"A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams."

And John is singing Telegram Sam because Atlin Merrick's story All That Glitters (which is lovely) put the idea in my head that John likes himself a bit of glam rock. Personally, I prefer T. Rex to Gary Glitter though (Marc Bolan was just enchantingly adorable) so he's singing the delightfully batty Telegram Sam. Go and Youtube it, it's great.

Also, I love Ngaio Marsh's crime novels, If you're a fan of Agatha Christie and her contemporaries, be sure to try some of the Inspector Alleyn murder mysteries, he's a wonderful character and they are very clever and creative.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.