Work Text:
When the recordings come back, he doesn't think about them. Well, no. That's not entirely accurate. He's not actually capable of not thinking about anything. It's more accurate to say he thought about it then dismissed it as unimportant. The recordings, as he said, were useless in the court case and he already knows what's on them. He doesn't need to listen (doesn't need to relive) what's on them.
And he's busy. He has better things to do than to rehash what was, in fact, a fairly dark several months.
So he sets the discs aside and tries to forget about them.
But.
But sometimes Sherlock catches John's eyes drifting. Not aimlessly (like he pretends) but focused on something that's not there. And Sherlock knows it's Mary. John hasn't slipped up and talked directly to her in Sherlock's presence since his momentary breakdown.
(that moment where he finally allowed Sherlock to take some of the weight off his shoulders, if only momentarily; finally let Sherlock hold him up and shield him while he pulled the pieces of himself together)
John hasn't talked to her, but he still sees her, still reacts to the things she says.
And it burns at Sherlock not to know what those conversations are. Not to know if he's helping or making it worse by allowing John the delusion. All his research says hallucinations should be discouraged lest the subject falls further and forgets what's real and what isn't. But they're the same idiots who thought John's leg could be healed by talking so what do they know?
(he’s not sure he could bring himself to dismiss the delusion even if he believed them... there are moments, brief flashes, where the brokenness in John's eyes seems to be winning and the only thing holding him together is the way his gaze focuses on thin air)
(he’s not sure he could he take Mary away from John twice; he's not sure John would survive losing her twice and he knows he wouldn't survive losing John)
Sherlock ends up listening to the recording on accident. He doesn't look when he reaches in the box for the disc he's actually looking for and Mrs. Hudson has apparently been at her organizing again. He pops the disc in without looking at the label and is surprised to be met by the sound of a recording device being slid into a tube. Next the rustle of quiet footsteps he recognises as his own.
He stops the disc then to pull it and look at the label.
Once he realizes what it is, inspiration strikes.
He could listen.
He could know what happened with John in those painfully long weeks he didn't see him. Can hear what he talks about with her when he's alone.
It's a horrible invasion of privacy. Sherlock hates it when Mycroft puts listening devices in 221b.
In the end the need to know wins out and he puts the disc back in.