Chapter Text
When Sherlock came back from the dead, John cracked him in the face.
Not immediately, of course. Immediately, he was too shocked to even recognize his surroundings, standing there in the middle of his sad little office at the surgery, staring at the patient he thought would be a an old man with the flu but instead turned out to be Sherlock Holmes, his former best friend who had pitched himself off a roof just over two years ago.
Allegedly.
“You might wish to close your mouth sometime in the near future,” Sherlock said, perched on the exam table with his legs swinging, looking as if he were having the time of his (very alive) life. “You’ll soon be catching flies.”
John, however, could barely blink. He could feel the whole of his body starting to grow hot and shaking, right down to the tips of his fingers.
He ought to be overjoyed, he knew. He had been crushed when Sherlock died, had felt the very core of him shatter right alongside the man on the pavement, had wept at his grave and begged him for a miracle, one last miracle. Now that he had gotten his miracle, all he could think of were the months of agony that followed that wish, all the nights of too much whiskey, the endless what-ifs and if-onlys, the endless, spiraling pit in his mind of all he could’ve done, should’ve done, never did. He’d only recently started to drag himself out of that torment, just around the same time Sherlock managed to drag himself back to life as if nothing were amiss, as if faking one’s death for two years was a perfectly normal thing to do. So any joy John might’ve felt never even flickered into existence, and all he could feel was a clean, white-hot anger.
Sherlock gave a disapproving little smile. “You aren’t even going to ask me how I did it?”
That was when John wanted to crack him in the face. His hands even curled into fists and everything, skin pulled tight over punishing knuckles. But he didn’t. He wasn’t sure how he managed not to, but he didn’t.
Instead, he yelled. What, exactly, he yelled, he couldn’t quite remember. It likely didn’t make a whole lot of sense. All he knew was that it was loud and contained an admirable amount of profanity. Sherlock seemed unperturbed by the lot of it—bored, even—which only made John angrier. Which only made him yell louder.
He was just about to re-think his position on cracking Sherlock in the face when Mary burst in. Mary had worked at the receptionist at the surgery for a little over a year and the two had been dating for a few months, but she certainly hadn’t known John for long enough to witness him this angry. In truth, John wasn’t certain anybody had—he couldn’t remember being this angry before. Either way, Mary seemed upset.
“John,” she snapped. “What on earth has gotten into you? There are patients in the waiting room who—” As soon as she laid eyes on Sherlock, however, she stopped in her tracks. “Oh.”
Of course Mary knew what Sherlock looked like. John had talked about him. He had shown Mary the blog he kept—used to keep. Whenever one of the rubbish papers would publish some bullshit story about Sherlock being a fraud, John—like an idiot—would buy it just to stomp about the flat, waving it around and loudly bemoaning the falsehood of it all while Mary listened patiently. Mary, although she had never met him, was familiar with Sherlock Holmes.
“Oh my god,” she said.
Sherlock checked his watch. “If you’re quite finished,” he said to John, “we’d best be off. There’s a case on that I think you might find to be of interest.”
John shook his head, bewildered. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he snapped.
Sherlock, for the first time since he’d arrived in John’s office and removed himself of the shoddy old man costume, looked surprised. “You haven’t even heard the details yet.”
“Don’t care,” John said, ignoring the fact that, for the past two years, he would have given multiple limbs to be back on a case with Sherlock. Every time he read about some unsolved crime in the papers, in fact, he’d thought about how Sherlock would’ve solved it already. And every time he read about a solved case, he’d thought about how Sherlock would’ve solved it faster, how John would’ve written up their adventures in his blog, detailing the finer aspects of their partnership. The two of them against the rest of the world.
John was once again reminded of the fact that he was an idiot.
“John’s got work, you know,” Mary said, which wasn’t particularly clever of her either.
Sherlock turned his head, his sharp eyes landing on Mary. It might’ve been the first time he really noticed she was in the room with them at all. John watched him give her a split-second scan. “What’s your name?” Sherlock asked.
Mary kept her composure under Sherlock’s gaze remarkably well. “Mary Morstan,” she said.
“No,” Sherlock said, the tiniest of smirks flickering over his face. “What’s your real name?”
Mary blinked. “My real name?”
“Don’t,” John said to Sherlock, although even he knew it was too late. Whatever horrid secret Sherlock was intent on unearthing about the woman John was currently dating, it was well on its way to being revealed.
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “There was a speed to your response, the practiced automaticity of a memorized answer. Most people provide their name with calm ease, but you’ve got a rather call-and-response urgency to it. You’re not used to saying the name, so you’ve had to practice. Over-practice, rather. Nobody practices saying their own name. Conclusion: Mary Morstan isn’t your name. Now the real question is—what sort of person so urgently insists on going by a false name?”
“Sherlock,” John snapped, “don’t.”
Sherlock, of course, wasn’t listening. “One can immediately rule out simple preference for a new name,” he said. “Nobody could get a job with the NHS under a false name—the background checks are too extensive. You could be on the run—hiding from an abusive former partner, in witness protection, perhaps—but you haven’t got the flight response to you. People on the run from danger would never dash into a room with an unhinged man yelling. Quite the opposite. You’re used to running into danger, aren’t you? Of course, your shoes and the wear pattern on your sleeves tell me all I need to know; the particular way you style your hair certainly seals the deal. You have a rather particular, rather dangerous past, now don’t you? One you’ve gone to rather a lot of trouble to remove yourself from. Mercenary or assassin, then?”
“That’s not true,” John said, although Mary’s face had hardened. She had taken on a particular sort of stance, one that suggested that she had already determined what object in the room would make the most effective weapon and simply had to go for it.
“On second thought, perhaps it’s best you don’t tell me your real name,” Sherlock said. “In case, upon learning it, you’d have to kill me. I’ve been dead for the past two years, and it’s gotten rather tedious.”
“I bet,” Mary said. Her voice was steel. John’s rage doubled, and he had no clue where it was pointing anymore.
“Are you bloody kidding me?” he hissed at her.
Sherlock’s gaze darted between the two of them. He burst out into a sharp guffaw. “Seriously?” he asked. “You’re dating her?”
And that was when John cracked him in the face.
* * *
Hours later, John found himself back at the flat he shared with Mary. He had a splitting headache, bloodied knuckles, and no job.
He and Mary hadn’t spoken a word to each other on the cab ride home. When they arrived at the flat, John went straight for the sink. He washed the blood off his knuckles—it was hard to tell if it was his or Sherlock’s—and cleaned the cracked skin. His hands were shaking. He didn’t have a single clue what he’d do with himself once his hands were dry, so he simply kept on washing them.
“I’ve never seen you like that before,” Mary said. It definitely wasn’t a compliment.
John gave a sick little snort. You’re one to talk, he nearly said.
In truth, John had lost himself a bit. Once his fist connected with Sherlock’s jaw, the rage that had been building up inside him finally had a place to direct itself and did so with gusto, lightning connecting with ground. Another punch followed the first, followed by another. And another. And another. Sherlock fell to the ground but he didn’t fight back, which somehow made John even angrier. He was shouting something—screaming, more like—in Sherlock’s face. He had no clue what it was, but it had to have been nasty. It took three of John’s colleagues at the surgery, plus Mary herself, to pull him off Sherlock, and all of their facial expressions showed exactly how displeased they were about the situation.
A couple of nurses crowded in to tend to Sherlock. As the people at John’s arms hauled him out of the room, John watched Sherlock struggle himself into sitting, blood pouring from his nose, and all John wanted to do was punch him some more. He felt like the victim of the world’s cruelest prank, and he’d be damned if he took it without a fight.
“Most people, if someone they cared about were to come back from the dead,” Mary continued again, her voice slow and purposeful, “would give that person a hug.”
“Yeah,” John said, still scrubbing at his knuckles. “Well. You don’t know Sherlock.” He pictured Sherlock when last he saw him, up there on that roof, a tiny dot against the sky. He could still hear Sherlock’s voice in his ear, high and wobbling through the mobile. Crying, or so he would have John believe. Crocodile tears, John thought. It made him hate every single one of the very real tears he shed for Sherlock over the past two years. What a horrid waste of moisture.
“I’m not quite certain I know you, either,” Mary said, and the urge to start swinging rose up in John again.
John carried on scrubbing his knuckles. At this point, he might’ve been just peeling away at the skin even more, not that he cared. “Were you ever going to tell me?” he asked. He hoped Mary wouldn’t ask what he was talking about, because if he had to say the words out loud, he might just scream.
Mary was silent for a moment, likely weighing responses. “Not quite the sort of thing you go around telling people,” she said.
That was a no, then. John nodded down at his knuckles. Everyone I’ve ever loved is a goddamned liar, he thought, and he was so numb that the truth of the sentiment took several moments before it walloped him upside the head.
“I’m sure you’ll want to know a bit about it,” Mary said. “My past. All that. But—”
“No,” John said. “I don’t.” He wasn’t sure why all the liars in his life seemed to assume he’d be keen on learning the intimate details behind their lies, but he very much was not. He switched off the taps but wasn’t sure what to do with himself after, so he just stood there, letting his hands drip into the sink.
Mary shifted, looking uncomfortable. “Here’s the bit that’s a touch awkward,” she said. “Him knowing who I really am…rather, that I’m not who I say I am. That I’ve…done—”
John pressed his eyes shut. He gave her a terse nod. Go on.
“It puts me in a bit of danger,” Mary said. “I won’t go into it, but there are people who…well, they might be interested in knowing where I’m at. It isn’t in my best interest to stay put, really.”
John gave another nod. He supposed he ought to be feeling something about the conversation Mary was attempting to have with him. Surprised, perhaps. Or upset. He couldn’t quite muster up any feeling whatsoever.
“I’ve got exit strategies for these sorts of situations,” Mary continued. “I can be gone tonight. Start a new life for myself.” She raised her eyebrows at him, her expression momentarily hopeful. “That is, unless…”
John didn’t lift his hands from the sink. He watched the remaining traces of water drip, drip, drip into the basin. He felt nothing but the urge to punch something. Anything.
“The exit strategies,” he said. “Use them.”
Mary was gone before midnight. John knew that it wasn’t exactly Sherlock’s fault, but he couldn’t help but blame him all the same.
* * *
A few days after Sherlock returned from the dead, John awoke to find that a nondescript packet had appeared on his kitchen table. All the doors and windows of his flat remained locked, and John had a sneaking suspicion that the packet came from Mycroft. Inside were pages of declassified documents detailing, from start to finish, the finer points of something called Project Lazarus. The plan, it would appear, was worked out a week or so prior to Sherlock’s alleged death and hinged on the very likely possibility that James Moriarty would threaten Sherlock with harm to Sherlock’s close acquaintances. The packet included detailed blueprints of Barts Hospital and the surrounding areas, the height, weight, and blood type of one Sherlock Holmes and what appeared to be several other physically-similar corpses, and a background check and statements of one Molly Hooper, apparently involved. The criminal records of a few of Moriarty’s snipers followed. The names were redacted, but one record included the notation, assigned to ensure the demise of Doctor John H. Watson. Stapled to the record was a death certificate. Apparently, the man had suffered an allergic reaction to shellfish that just so happened to shatter half his skull.
The next several pages were a bit harder to piece together, but there was a loose narrative there, if one squinted. A rough path was charted throughout Europe and parts of Russia, dipping into the Middle East at times. Snippets of intelligence reports were included, notations of connections to Moriarty’s network scribbled into corners. Police reports and newspaper clippings followed, seemingly tales of arrests and imprisonments in languages John could only attempt to understand. There were a few more death certificates as well, the most recent of which seemed to be dated only a few weeks prior. Sherlock, it would seem, had been busy.
At the end of all of it were medical records, not de-identified. These were the medical records of William Sherlock Scott Holmes, a man whose full name John realized he had never known until that very moment, which seemed rather fitting. The medical records were thick, detailing what seemed to be two years’ worth of incidents. There were lacerations and sutures, a few hairline fractures, at least two concussions. Malnutrition and dehydration. And most recently, a series of abrasions along the back that appeared to have come from some sort of whip-like instrument. Sherlock wasn’t the only person who had been busy these past few years. He might’ve done with a proper doctor, not that he had thought so at the time, apparently.
John burned the packet in the fireplace after he finished reading, and not because he was instructed to.
It was far too early for a drink, but John poured one for himself anyway, because he had no clue what else to do with himself and he was, despite it all, so goddamn angry he could barely breathe. He was angry at Mycroft for breaking into his flat with the bloody packet, angry at Molly Hooper for knowing that Sherlock wasn’t dead and never once thinking to tell him about it, angry at Sherlock for being a self-obsessed wanker who thought that forcing his supposed best friend to witness his fake suicide so that he could go on a solo crime-solving spree was a perfectly normal and not at all traumatic thing to do, and angry at himself—at the whole bloody situation, really—because he knew that he couldn’t be angry, not anymore, not after learning all that Sherlock had done for him, all that Sherlock had been through these past two years. Sherlock had saved John’s life, as it turned out. Saved a lot of people’s lives, really. Dismantled an entire criminal organization, single-bloody-handedly. Sherlock actually might’ve been owed a bit of a thanks, yet all John wanted to do—still—was crack him so hard in the face that his jaw shattered. John shouldn’t be that angry anymore—he couldn’t be—and yet he was. The anger seemed to insist on staying, seemed to think it was owed a rightful place in John’s life and was indignant that Sherlock had robbed him of even that.
It wasn’t fair. None of this was bloody fair.
Still, reality called a few weeks later, when rent was due and John realized that he had no hope of affording the place on his own, especially now that he didn’t have a job anymore. He might’ve found a way to make it work—put out an ad for a flatmate, crawled on his knees back to the old surgery and begged for his job back, moved in with bloody Harry—but none of those options seemed appealing, and there was really only one place that had ever felt like home to John, anyway.
So John returned to Baker Street, his bags in tow. He’d sold Mary’s things and the rest of the furniture; he preferred to live light, anyway. He knew Sherlock wouldn’t make a fuss, and, of course, he didn’t. Sherlock waved John in as if he’d been expecting him. His face had healed from the beating, and he didn’t even seem perturbed. He was already talking about some new case or another before John had even fully unpacked. John looked about his own room, only partially listening to Sherlock as he took in his surroundings. Everything was as it had been when he left it—the furniture in the same place, the sheets on his bed clean and crisp. It even appeared as if Mrs. Hudson had dusted.
He was home.
He wasn’t, however, done being angry.