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When he returns, it’s not the welcome that Sherlock expects.
The detective, worn out and tired from the chase he has been on for the past three years, expects a punch in the face, a fuming army doctor, or a man who is ready to break apart, if the way his lips twitches and those winkles at the corner of his eyes crinkle ever so slightly tell him right.
However, he doesn’t expect this.
John Watson, the man who is warm, who is radiant, who is his pillar in this murky world of idiocy and dimness, the anchor to this storm of mental frustrations, is nothing more then an anchor with a torn rope, a pillar covered in fog now.
The first few days, John reacts as Sherlock first expected. He’s furious, he’s spitting with his anger, in his despair, but as the days continue on, every day, when he comes downstairs, finds Sherlock in his usual seat, his brows furrow together again and his lips pull into a thin line.
Sherlock knows that look.
He knows what it means.
Has seen that look so many times on so many faces.
A look of distaste and obvious, but barely contained, rage.
At first, he had tried to help, had tried to be of use, to speak with John, to bring them back to where they once stood, but even so, nothing is the same. His John Watson would not snap at him so harshly, would not speak so briefly, with clipped tones, and most definitely would not create this gap, this hole between them.
Sherlock has always been a quick study.
He’s always understood.
Now, he takes it upon himself to grow quiet, take his place away from John, away from his one foot hold in the world that gives him some purpose, and give the man space.
On the good days, it seems to be noted, and taken advantage of, as John keeps to himself and stays away from him.
On the bad days, there is harsh yelling, the throwing of books, and even his emotions and tension can be felt across their void. Sherlock takes them with quiet dignity, though his guilt rams him through during bouts when John’s shoulder begins to act up, or his leg, and he has to stop for the day.
It is those days that Sherlock prefers the most.
At least, in those moments, John reacts to him, speaks to him, and he can’t help but feel they may be getting somewhere. Maybe, somewhere, that they can climb out of, but as the days turn to months, Sherlock can’t help but feel his hope, -when had that gotten there?, - crumble ever so slightly.
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It is raining the day when everything changes.
It’s the usual downpour and Sherlock has taken his place by the window to watch as the people pass, deducing them as they go to try and ease his addled mind. John had his usual moment of release, and he glances away for a moment to look at the old, and dusty, tome to his right on the floor, flipped open and the pages beginning to scatter from the spine. To his left, he takes in one of their cups broken on the floor, and he takes a step away from it as not to step on it.
John’s outrage had taken it’s final toll and he had begun to throw the china, it seemed. Turning, he looked to his flatmate with the usual blankness and emptiness of expression and found the man to be slumped in his chair, staring at the floor. For a moment, he watches, takes every thing in, and his mind immediately begins the tirade of words and ideas slipping into his mind.
Bags under his eyes means he hasn’t slept well. The tremor in his left arm tells the detective that his shoulder is seizing up again thanks to the weather, and the right hand grasping at his leg pertains to the other wound the man carries. His jumper is haphazard, unfixed since the man has thrown himself into the chair after his yelling, wrinkled, from having been worn a second time since yesterday. John has been lazy, pulling on what he had worn the day previous for today. He doesn’t expect to go out anywhere. As he begins to deduct his usual demeanor of figuring out John Watson, the man’s voice, croaky from his screaming and overuse, breaks out into the air and throws him off track.
“Sherlock.”
It’s a simple word.
Just his name.
In that moment, however, his mind stops moving, and he waits with just a moment of baited breath to see what the man has to say. To hear forgiveness, to hear that voice speak his apologizes for throwing things, - though the consulting detective doesn’t care -, and any thing else he wishes to say, to fill in that gap, that void, that barrier, that John had thrown up since his return a few months ago.
He says nothing.
As those eyes come to meet his, looking so tired, so very, very weary, Sherlock turns fully to him, and begins to move across the room. It is not with his usual unconscious stride of arrogance or confidence, but a movement of uncertain curiosity and care. He kneels before the man, not wishing to further cause discomfort in the man’s shoulder, and he waits.
They say nothing, and it’s a long time that Sherlock sits there, waiting, kneeling, before his army doctor, and it goes to the point that his knees begin to ache, but still, he does not move.
After a brief time, one hand lifts and raises to his face, and he does not move even then, his breathe catching in a way that makes him wonder. For once, he is not sure of what is going to happen, so confused with this sudden listless and quiet John.
“You’re a right git, you know that?”
Sherlock Holmes sits there, quiet as the mute, before his lips quirk up ever so slightly, and his tense shoulder slump. He says nothing for a breathless second, and brings one hand up to cradle his John’s own hand. He sits there for a moment, taking in that warmth, and then, he looks back up at him.
In that one second, he watches as the man begins to unwind, begins to loosen his muscles, and then, his features droop, and his smile, one that had pulled up at his own twitching lips, begins to grow watery. And for a moment, he looks so terrified, and Sherlock can only do one thing that comes to mind, the only thing that can further bridge that gap and sew it shut.
The lanky man pushes apart those knees, careful of that sore leg, before leaning up, and pressing their foreheads together. There isn’t much for them there, as they share their breath and he feels John shudder, but he finds his flinty determination reflected in his army doctor’s eyes, and then, their lips are pressed together.
It’s dry, but warm, and they’re simply touching their lips, and Sherlock, in that pause, begins to doubt.
Begins to worry.
Begins to fear.
And it’s only John’s fingers burying themselves into his over-grown curls that he feels his heart stutter and leap in wondrous relief as the kiss is returned.
It’s heated and fiery, passionate and needy, and yet, all together heart-broken and sad, and Sherlock can not help but feel every one of John’s emotions to perfectly in that moment, can not stop the tremor that runs through him as he paws against John’s jumper, down his body, to his legs, to his thighs, to trace every taut line in the man’s body.
His eyes are shut, but he feels his senses are in an overload, his mind too preoccupied with John Watson, his John Watson, his John, to think of much else.
When they part, they are breathing hard, and Sherlock leans his face against the man’s shoulder, the non-wounded one, mind you, and breathes in the man’s scent of clean freshness. Those compact arms are curled around him, burying him into that soft jumper, into those firm muscles, and he can not help but tremble once again. John’s neck, where his lips are pressed in a ghosting touch, shifts to bare more of it's lightly olive_toned flesh, - an unconscious movement, he notes-, and he press his lips there again and again, drawing his lips over the flesh with care.
He feels safe.
He feels at home.
The softness and warmth of John is the very touch of the pillar he so desperately needed to grab hold of.
He needed this.
He wanted this.
He achieved it.
Sherlock Holmes had conquered the barrier in a battle with no arms, holding nothing, and yet, everything, and in that moment, he flew himself to heaven while resting upon this flat apartment’s floor.
In that eyeless moment, he saw, and without ears, he heard.
Sherlock Holmes had come home to his John Watson.