What You Took From Me

Where Do We Start

            The cab ride back to the flat was quiet. Sherlock sat, clinging to the door as if he couldn’t wait to get away from John, and John sat against his own door for other reasons. He sat against it for support, for assurance. To feel grounded. All the things he wished he could be for Sherlock; all the things he wished Sherlock would let him be. But no. Instead, Mr. I Don’t Love decided to curl up in a corner.

            “Here we are,” the cabbie said and John paid the man as Sherlock flew off out of the car and to the flat with hast. “Were you folks in a hurry?”

            “Long day,” John brushed off before getting out himself. “The longest honestly.”

            Standing on the sidewalk, John watched as the cab drove off, procrastinating for as long as he could. He didn’t want to go in, to see Sherlock pace or sit or whatever he might try and do. He didn’t want to be in the living room or his room or the kitchen or any room. He felt confined enough in his own skin. At this point, John would’ve given anything for breathing room, but there was never enough room or air.

            He racked a hand through his hair. God, poor Molly. The whole time, John hadn’t been able to move or think properly. There had been so much blood. And Molly, she had been drenched. It had splattered across her face, matted her hair, stained her clothes. Yet, in the midst of it all, she looked like she’d been asleep in bed instead dead in her car. John had seen many deaths, seen the unnatural way the chest is still, the way a vein no longer pulsed. He had felt the deathly chill that shivered up his spine. But today, it had been different.

            With a sigh, John turned his eyes towards the higher windows of the flat. He had to face the sight sooner or later. Taking the first step was the hardest, so he gripped his strength and put one foot in front of the other. The stairs disappeared beneath his feet and he trampled over them like they were nothing. But they were something. They were mountains and he was but a man about to face a dangerous peak, one layered thick with ice and snow.

            Sherlock was the first thing he saw in the living area, his back turned, eyes out the window. There was a flag of smoke billowing away from Sherlock and John knew he was smoking, could smell the bitterness from where he stood.

            Anguish consumed John’s heart, and he wanted nothing more then to reach out and touch Sherlock, to show he was there. But he knew he shouldn’t. Sherlock would just flinch away, shut down. Instead, John let out a sigh and sat down in his chair.

            “You sound upset,” Sherlock said, his tone casual, but oh-so forced.

            “I’m not the one smoking,” John grumbled in reply, frustration bubbling inside him. Sherlock was pushing away his emotions.

            “Are you going to take them away and yell at me?” Sherlock asked, annoyance riddled in his voice.

            John shook his head as if Sherlock could see him. “No. No, I’m not. If you won’t let me help you, better those things then something worse.”

            Sherlock looked over his shoulder at John for the first time since they left the crime scene. Since they left Molly. “I don’t need help.”

            “Right,” John gave a curt nod. “Just like you don’t love, and you don’t feel, and you don’t care. Deny it all you want, you’re at least part human. I’ve seen it before. You have emotions, you just- you shut down.”

            “If you don’t like it, leave,” Sherlock challenged, his eyes holding John’s in a way they never have before, so filled with fear and hope and rage. He could see it, all of them, those emotions beginning to boil over. But as the sentence processed in John’s head, he felt his heart give pause.