Fic: Dissolution (2/3)
Late on a Friday night, they are chasing down a man who murdered his wife. Only, Sherlock insists, he really hasn’t killed her; the whole thing is a set up. Sherlock is telling him this in gasping breaths as they round yet another corner. The man has a bicycle, which is the worst possible form of transportation to have to chase. Bikes could go anywhere, and they could go fast. John has just about given the whole thing up when they whip into an alleyway and Sherlock collides with the cyclist himself. The abrupt stop throws Sherlock to the ground and the non-murdering husband up over his handlebars and right on top of Sherlock. John hauls him off and pins him to the nearest wall, twisting one arm behind his back. Sherlock slowly draws himself to his hands and knees, coughing viciously.
“All right?” John asks.
“Fine,” he wheezes, and John is already guessing he has broken ribs.
The police aren’t too far behind them, and the husband proves a nearly unworthy nemesis. He stands still, doesn’t try to escape, and bursts into tears when Lestrade’s men apply handcuffs. John lets him go and then helps Sherlock over to the ambulance.
“All right?” Lestrade calls.
“Make sure - you get - the bike,” Sherlock pants. “Evidence.”
“This is boring,” John says, and Sherlock laughs, then groans a bit. “He could’ve tried a little harder, don’t you think?”
“He’s an amateur.”
“So am I,” John says, directing Sherlock to climb into the ambulance. “But every once in a while, it’d be nice to have a bit of a challenge.”
Sherlock shakes his head. “I’d no idea you were bored, John.”
“Well, not all of us set off fireworks to announce it,” he says, and gently pushes Sherlock to sit on the stretcher.
John brushes off the help of a few familiar medics and turns to treat Sherlock himself. He is trying to explain the whole case, but he stops when John lays his hands on his chest. “Broken?” he asks.
“Possibly,” Sherlock says. “I suppose I should submit to an X-ray.”
“I don’t know that’ll help you much,” John says. “Let’s have a look, though.” Sherlock nods, then winces. “Did you hit your head?”
“No,” he says. “I think I’m fine. We should just -“
“Come on, longer we’re in here, longer you can delay doing paperwork,” John says. “Shirt off.”
Sherlock complies, but slowly. John rifles through a kit on the floor of the ambulance, looking for a bit of antibacterial cream. There is a cut on Sherlock’s scalp that will need stitches, he realizes, and tells Sherlock so.
“Then let’s just go to A&E and get this done with,” Sherlock says.
John sighs. “Why are you being difficult? No, scratch that - why are you being reasonable about this? You never want to go there. I’m perfectly capable of doing a quick job of this.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Sherlock says.
There is something quiet, almost tender, in his voice, and John pauses. He looks again at the scrape on Sherlock’s head. Has he hit it in the alley? It doesn’t seem like it, but - what else explains this?
“I want to,” John says. “Now turn so I can see.”
Sherlock does, his shirt hanging from his shoulders. His chest has a long mark across the front, about the shape of the bike’s handlebars, and John knows it will bruise a brilliant purple-black against Sherlock’s skin. There isn’t much blood, at least, and hardly any scrapes. Most of the damage seems to come from that one impact. John slides his hand over Sherlock’s ribs, palpitating lightly until Sherlock takes a sharp, uncomfortable breath. “Cracked, I think,” John says, probing carefully. “How’s your breathing?”
“Fine,” Sherlock murmurs. “It’s fine.”
“I’ll have a listen, though.” He pulls on a stethoscope and pushes Sherlock’s shirt the rest of the way down his arms. It is then that he sees it, the thing that explains everything, Sherlock’s tenderness and his strange desire to go to the hospital. On his collarbone, just far enough toward the shoulder that it will never be visible with his shirt on, there is a livid bite mark. A love bite. John didn’t deliver it; he almost never marks Sherlock. Yet there it is - not a bruise from the bicycle, not a scrape from their last chase, but a plainly obvious sign that someone else’s mouth has recently been on Sherlock’s skin.
Sherlock looks away as John places the stethoscope over his heart. “Breathe in,” he says, speaking to them both. Sherlock does, and he holds it until John tells him to exhale. He repeats the motion four times, listening intently to Sherlock’s pulse and lungs. No signs of a leak; pulse steady, if slightly elevated. He’ll be fine.
“John,” Sherlock says.
“I’ll do the stitches now,” John says, moving to the side. He can hear the unusual flatness of his own voice, and knows Sherlock can, too. “Best take that shirt all the way off if you don’t want any more blood on it.”
Sherlock complies. His hands seem steady; John’s certainly are. He doesn’t pause at all as he draws a syringe from the nearest medical cabinet.
“You’ll want to talk about this,” Sherlock says.
“Not really,” John says. “I think I can figure most of this without discussion. That’s from Lauren, of course.”
“Of course.”
John nods. He fills his syringe from a small glass vial. “You’re sure you didn’t hit your head?”
“No,” Sherlock says. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” John says. He puts his hand over Sherlock’s, turns his arm over by gripping his wrist, then sinks the needle right into Sherlock’s bent arm and pushes the plunger. Sherlock doesn’t even flinch; he just looks at John, his eyes widening only slightly. John pulls the needle out and tapes a cotton ball over the puncture. “How long, then?”
“John.”
“Three months, I think.” The day he’d first arrived at the surgery and whisked John off for dinner at Angelo’s had been only shortly after a night when Sherlock hadn’t come home. It wasn’t that unusual; he often stayed out all night. John hadn’t even worried, because he had eight text messages explaining Sherlock’s whereabouts the whole time. It was the dinner that should have worried him, he realizes. It wasn’t Sherlock missing him; it was Sherlock apologizing.
Sherlock nods. He blinks once, then again, more slowly.
"I should have known," John says. This is so very, very true. She met Mycroft. She was there, all the time. He sent them off on cases together. It was practically an endorsement.
“I understand I’ve hurt you,” Sherlock says.
“You should put that shirt back on,” John says. “They’ll fix you up at A&E. You’ll sleep for a bit.”
“What did you give me?”
“Lorazepam,” John says. He puts the used needle carefully into the syringe disposal box and pockets the empty vial.
Sherlock fumbles with shrugging back into his shirt. John watches him try to button it for a moment, then he leans in and does it himself, briskly. When his finger brushes Sherlock’s skin, Sherlock says, softly, “I -“
“Don’t,” John says. All that Sherlock can say now would be meaningless. Excuses. “You’ve been fucking her for three months. Have you used protection, at least?”
“Yes, of course.”
John nods. The final button is done up. He leaves his hands there, close together, just under Sherlock’s chin. “When was the last time?”
“This afternoon.”
John draws his hands back. He feels a wave of nausea. "Today?"
"I told you I was picking up samples," Sherlock says. His voice is strange, too low. "You believed me."
"Of course I believed you," John says. "It's what I do. I've trusted you further than I ever should have."
"Yes."
"But I won’t do this.”
“I know,” Sherlock says. His words are thick. “But I - enjoy her.”
“Then you understand we’re through.”
Sherlock nods. His head is already heavy, John can tell. He puts his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders, and Sherlock looks at him. His eye are dark, his expression almost one of surprise. John cups his cheek for a moment, wondering if he'll say something more. He wonders if there's anything to be said. If Sherlock told him, right now, if he chose him -- but no. That won't happen. He draws his hand away. Sherlock closes his eyes. “Lie down,” John says. “I’ll tell Lestrade what’s happened.”
He helps him sit back against the stretcher and makes sure he is secure there, then waves over a medic. “Sorry,” he says, “think he’ll need transport. Stitches and a possible broken rib - I was trying to get him to sit still, and I may have hit him with a bit much Ativan.”
The medic, who’s seen them before, just nods. “Don’t blame you, mate,” he says. “He’s a tough one.”
“Right,” John says. He climbs out of the ambulance and briefly tells Lestrade the same story.
“All right,” Lestrade says. “Well, have him come ‘round in the morning, then, will you? I’ve still got to figure out where the wife is.”
“He’ll be up to talking later tonight,” John says. “But I won’t be around to remind him tomorrow, sorry. You’ll have to stop in or call him yourself.”
Lestrade raises an eyebrow. “I’m off,” John says, and waves, then walks two streets away to catch a taxi.
He figures he has two good hours before the sedative wears off completely and Sherlock comes to some kind of sense. There will exist several possibilities at that point: he might decide to chase after John; he might decide to come home and stew; or he might decide to ignore the whole thing. No matter what, John knows he can’t see Sherlock that night again and trust himself not to do something much more damaging than hit the man with more medication.
So he goes back to Baker Street, packs two suitcases full of clothes and three boxes with books, puts his computer and mobile and various chargers into a backpack, and bundles the tea things, the kettle, and a new loaf of bread into a bag, then calls a taxi. While he waits, he writes a note to Mrs. Hudson letting her know he’ll be in touch and that he’ll cover his half of the next month’s rent if Sherlock won’t, and he leaves it under her door.
When the cab comes, he gives the man an extra 10 pounds to help with the boxes, then directs him to a tourist-rich hotel downtown. From there, he pays another cabbie to take him to a different motel, this one equally commercial, and he checks in there under his sister’s married name - Harry Baxter - and lugs the boxes in on a luggage cart. It isn’t enough to keep Sherlock from finding him, not by a long shot, but it is enough to let Sherlock know he doesn’t want to be found.
And he doesn’t. When he sits on the hard motel bed, he allows himself, finally, to sink out of action mode and back into feeling. Sherlock has been cheating on him. With Lauren. Just under his nose. Everything he’s based their relationship on - the idea that the difficulties were worth it, because Sherlock is brilliant and only John gets him - that’s all crap. He closes his eyes and thinks of his and Sherlock’s first kiss, the tentative, almost grateful look Sherlock gave him when he cupped the man’s neck and drew him down. He thinks of lying in bed with him of a Sunday morning, listening to him read the newspaper aloud and offer commentary on how everyone had everything wrong, John’s hand high on his long, naked thigh. He thinks of Lauren’s hands on Sherlock’s slim waist, Lauren’s mouth on his neck, Sherlock’s head thrown back in the kind of ecstasy that is supposed to be John’s only to provide, and he shudders and feels ill.
It doesn’t seem possible, but it is. They are through. He had hardly believed himself when he said the words in the ambulance, but now it sings through him. Things are over. They will have to change.
This will be terrible.
***
He doesn’t hear from Sherlock. Perhaps this is meant as a kindness; perhaps it is meant as caution. John spends the time trying to find a flat. It occupies hours and hours of his time and forces him to leave the hotel and meet strangers again and again. It’s exhausting, and that combined with a bottle of whisky he picks up the first day puts him into deep, untroubled sleep both nights.
Once he’s found an acceptable place - a studio that’s almost convenient to the surgery - he calls his sister and arranges to stay with her until the place opens at the first of the next month. He calls a host of other places, too, moves his mobile bill into his own name, takes himself off the water and heating bills at Sherlock’s place, switches their internet service into Sherlock’s name alone, and puts a forwarding request in at the post office.
This is the easy stuff. He’s done this before. It’s practical and it all requires time and John is grateful for the details and tiresome requirements. He’s not like Sherlock; he can totally lose himself in simple tasks, so he does.
But then it’s Thursday and he’s lying on Harry’s couch with a glass of too-cold chardonnay, and he’s thinking of the way that, not long ago, they’d been talking about sometime traveling to Italy. Sherlock had said, “Perhaps after the new year,” because there was an exhibit in Rome he’d wanted to see. Had he known, even then, that they’d never get there? Had he realized? He was a brilliant man. Horrible at social situations, true, but still very smart, smart enough to know what this would mean.
“He’s a prat,” Harry says. “It’s worse because you love him, but he’s still a man.”
“Stick to women, is your advice?”
“Always,” she says, sipping her glass slowly.
“Worked for him, I guess,” John says, and finishes his drink too quickly.
He goes back to work the next day. There’s something wonderfully mathematical about medicine, sometimes. People tell their stories differently, but there are certain words he can latch on to, certain signs that say he’s facing a case of bronchitis or a hernia or just a seasonal allergy. He asks a woman with a clearly sprained wrist to tell him the level of her pain, on a scale of one to ten, and as she says, “Five,” he wonders where he should place himself. Seven, he thinks, and then an hour later, when a man comes in with a broken foot, he decides it’s closer to eight.
When he leaves the office and Sherlock is standing outside, leaned against a parking meter, tapping on his phone, it’s a ten. It’s a ten. It’s an unremitting ten. Sherlock looks up and frowns, and John staggers backward. Ten. Ten. Ten. The pain hits with the same rhythm as his heartbeat. Christ, he still wants him. He wants all of him.
“Coffee?” Sherlock says.
“No,” John says. He turns to the right, away from Sherlock and their usual walk home and starts plowing through people. He hears Sherlock catch him up; his steps stay a few paces back.
“This is ridiculous,” Sherlock says when John has to pause at the next corner to wait for traffic. “Sit down and have a coffee with me. You’ll do your foot an injury.”
John is shaking. Sherlock is close enough he can smell him -- his expensive aftershave, his cheap shampoo, the vaguely leather scent that his hands pick up from the case of his phone and the shoe polish he insists on using. He hates him. He turns and does what he should have done at the crime scene; he shoves Sherlock, pulls a fist up to hit him.
“Don’t,” Sherlock says, holding up both hands. “You’ll only feel bad about it.”
“I don’t think I will,” John says. “Though you might.”
Sherlock sighs. “I don’t doubt at all your ability to break my nose, John. I don’t even doubt your right. Can you please put your fist down? Thank you.”
“What are you doing here?” John says, hands at his sides.
“I am here to talk,” Sherlock says. “I believe it’s rather an expected part of this whole process.”
“This process?” The street is clear for them to cross, now, but John decides to stand his ground. “This is called breaking up, Sherlock. We’re not together anymore, because you’re enjoying someone else.”
“Yes, that,” Sherlock says. “This truly seems a discussion we should have not out on the street.”
John shrugged. “Bollocks to that. You gave up that kind of time with me the minute you put your dick -“
“Let’s do consider there are children around,” Sherlock says, and it’s so absolutely not on that John stops.
“Fine,” he says. “Fine bloody fine. Coffee. You have thirty minutes.”
“Guaranteed?”
“No. That place,” he says, pointing to a little café four storefronts down. He’s never been there, but he doesn’t want to walk anywhere too far. Sherlock will use the entire time to… do whatever it is he thinks he’s doing.
They start off, and Sherlock taps on his phone as they walk. It’s so fucking galling not to have his complete concentration, even now, that John reaches out, takes the phone, and throws it into the street. There’s a satisfying crunch only a moment later, which he hears clearly through the silence of Sherlock’s surprise.
“That was uncalled for,” Sherlock says after a moment, catching up to him.
“Was it?”
“I was only texting Lestrade,” he says. “Not Lauren.”
“Well, that is comforting,” John says.
“I’d no idea you’d be this vindictive.”
John holds open the café door. “Twenty-five minutes.”
Sherlock goes to the counter and orders them both drinks, and John takes a seat at a table near the window. His foot aches a little today, and he tries to think about that.
“Here,” Sherlock says, and presents a piece of strawberry pie.
“What is this?”
“You’re hungry. It often makes your mood much - worse.”
John rubs his forehead. “My mood is terrible because of you, Sherlock. My mood and right now, many, many things in my life are terrible because of you. Pie won’t solve anything.”
“Still, it is your favorite.” John pushes it away. “Really, there’s no sense in not eating the pie. It’s paid for.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten since lunch, and you had rather too little of that,” Sherlock says.
“Honest to god, if you make me eat that pie, or talk about it any more, I’m going to be sick,” John says. Sherlock is right - he was hungry, his lunch was too small, all of that, but now just sitting across from Sherlock is making something whirl nervously in his chest and stomach. He barely trusts himself to speak. Swallowing, eating, all of that - it seems like too much risk.
“Fine,” Sherlock says. He rests both hands on the table, folds the fingers together. “You have questions.”
John gasps. “That’s why you’re here? You think I have questions?”
“I would, in your situation.”
“You would never be in my situation,” John says, “because I never would have cheated on you.”
“Why is that?” Sherlock asks. “You clearly still find women and some men attractive.”
“I have some self-control,” John says. “Besides, I live with a human lie-detector. I couldn’t’ve done it without you knowing, could I?”
“Why would that have mattered?”
John smiles his thinnest, meanest smile. “It would have hurt,” he says. “You may not think so, but it would have. Think about this: lying next to me, knowing someone else had been doing the same thing, touching the same places, seeing the same scars. Hearing the same gasps. What would it have done to you? To know that I’d been calling out someone else’s name? To know I thought someone else was just as clever, just as brilliant.”
Sherlock clears his throat. His hands have unlaced, and he adjusts his collar. “It would not be pleasant,” he says, after a moment.
“Right.” John leans forward. “The only thing I have to say to you is this: Your being faithful was all I had some days, Sherlock. The knowledge that it was you and I against everything and everyone - it kept me with you. You never think of others; you stay out nights, run off without me, you don’t clean up or help at home, you never ask about my day and don’t care about it if I tell you, you won’t go to the cinema. You think fun is me watching you experiment on dead people. You belittle my hobbies. You mock my family. Your family consists of a great spying stalker of a brother and a mother you’ve never deemed me fit to meet. You’re thoughtlessly cruel sometimes, and the rest of the time, you’re annoying and temperamental.”
“Goodness, why stay at all?” Sherlock said, staring at the table.
“Because I love you, you prat. I do, and it’s absolutely sick, I should have had my head examined years ago. You’re brilliant, you’re fascinating, and you’re dangerous.” John leaned back. “Guess I’ve got what’s been coming to me. I’ve thought that you cared for years. You didn’t say, but you acted like - you never - and I took it as a sign that all of this, how hard I’ve worked to understand, to be with you, to mold my expectations to what you’re able to provide - I thought that meant something to you.”
When Sherlock looks up, his eyes are red. “It has, John. Meant something.”
John shakes his head. Sherlock is too good at faking emotions. “You’re a liar,” he mutters. “And it's too late for that."
"Why?"
"Because you had a choice. Three or four months ago, you had a choice, and you made it, and now this is where we are. I trusted you and believed you, believed in you, and you repaid that with nothing. No loyalty. That was all I had, Sherlock. It was all I ever had from you."
"John, I'm -- I am sorry."
"Doesn't matter," John says. "I’m through with this. Don’t call me, don’t stalk me, don’t send your brother after me. I need time and a great deal of space, and even after all of that, we aren’t going to be friends again.”
Sherlock clears his throat. “That won’t be a problem. I’m leaving for France in the morning.”
“For good?” John says, actually hoping. The ocean would be enough of a boundary, probably. The ocean and the cost of the various boats and aeroplanes and John’s aversion to learning any new languages.
“Indefinitely,” Sherlock says. “I’ve been brought in by the government.” He dries his eyes on his cuff.
“Is Lauren going with you? No,” John says, “don’t tell me. I won’t believe you, anyway.”
Sherlock looks right at him. “She is not.”
John shrugs, then pushes the coffee away and stands. He realizes the people at the next table are very purposefully not looking at him. Did he raise his voice? He can’t remember; he can’t care.
Sherlock follows him outside. He is silent. John turns and sees, again, an expression that should be heart-rending, but is likely just faked. Then again, why would he fake it? He’s done nothing so far to spare John’s feelings.
“Shake hands, can we?” Sherlock asks. “I would like - I accept everything you’ve said, of course. But I would like, if this is farewell, I think we should shake hands. No matter what I’ve done, you’ve been - John, the last five years have been -“
“All right,” John says. He takes the hand Sherlock has extended and tries not to flinch at the warmth, the familiarity, the want. Sherlock’s grip is steady and firm; his palm is damp, which is unusual. He looks John in the eye and then, surprisingly, looks away first.
“Good-bye, John,” he says.
“Good-bye, Sherlock.” His hand is released, and Sherlock turns and walks away without a backward glance. He is around the corner before John remembers to move.
***
His new flat is very, very spare. It suits John just fine. He’s got a bed, a desk, a reading chair, a dresser, and a small kitchen. The bathroom is almost a closet. The floors are made of cheap, fake wood and the walls are bluish white and heavy with paint. It takes him forty-nine minutes to clean the entire thing to a brisk, bleached shine that is so far removed from Baker Street it makes him smile.
There’s laundry in the basement and he meets a woman there his first week in the building. Her name is Peg and she’s got two boys, one who’s in the war. She’s a little plump for his taste but she has a quick smile and doesn’t mind a bit of silence. They talk about her son over a casual takeaway dinner at her place a month after John’s moved in.
“I should tell you,” he says, when the food is away and they’re both sitting on the couch. “I’ve only just got out of a very - a very serious -“
“Oh, I guessed,” she says, smiling from the other end of the couch. “I’ve a rather complicated relationship with the boys’ father, myself. Wouldn’t be so bad to have someone to watch telly with now and then, though.”
“Yeah,” John says. He figures he might be good for that at this point. He might only be good for that.
He works, he eats, he sleeps. He spends one evening a week with Peg, one evening every other week with his sister. He is bored out of his mind. He reads the newspaper front to back every day, looking for some mention of crime in France that might signal where Sherlock is or what he’s doing. He never gets around to changing his mobile number, just in case.
Part 3