Waiting for an Answer
“You look different,” John whispers.
“Do I?” Sherlock asks softly. ”Does it matter?”
With trembling fingers, John reaches out to touch Sherlock’s hair, which are slightly lighter-colored at the tips, where Sherlock has dyed them ginger.
“What have these three years done to you?” John quietly says.
Sherlock curls his fingers around John’s wrist and gently lowers his hand until John’s palm is pressing against the side of his cheek.
“It made me yearn for you more,” Sherlock answers sincerely.
Something painful and warm flutters in John’s chest, and he can’t help the small, sad smile that blooms across his face. Sherlock leans forward tentatively and lets his lips brush the corner of John’s mouth. John swallows at the tender gesture, a question all on its own.
Sherlock’s fingers are questing, relearning the odd lines and wrinkles on John’s face. ”Will you let me make up for lost time?”
John’s breath hitches. ”There are a lot of things I still don’t understand,” he struggles to say, “And… I’m not sure if things can go back the way it used to, between us.”
Sherlock looks at him, watches the sandy eyelashes that hide the blue eyes he hasn’t seen for so long, the blue eyes he has anchored himself to in his mind, all those years, and Sherlock suddenly knows for certain… he cannot have anything less than everything. Not after depriving himself for so long.
“We surely can’t go back,” Sherlock murmurs. ”But we can always move forward.“
John’s voice breaks into something like laughter, an odd, hollow sound in the back of his throat. He doesn’t remember what it’s supposed to sound like. “I don’t know how. I don’t know how to move anymore.” He rubs his hand over his face, catching Sherlock’s fingers in his. “I’ve been stuck here for so long. I don’t….” His hand starts to shake. “I didn’t want to walk anywhere without you. I can’t move anywhere without you.”
He stares at the silver cane, propped up between their legs. “I tried living without it, but I kept falling. God, Sherlock—I kept falling. Every night in my dreams, I kept falling, I kept seeing you fall and I could never catch you and—” He grips Sherlock’s hand harder, his knuckles turning white, his breath coming fast and hard in his throat.
Sherlock glances at the wretched cane. Grabbing it with his free hand, he pulls it from between them and tosses it into the corner. Slowly, he shifts his body against John’s, their legs, thighs, chests, arms, warm and solid, side by side.
He cups John’s face in his hands, gazing into John’s shattered eyes. “Then let me carry you. I’ve carried you in my heart for three years. Let me carry you now.”
John’s face crumples into soft lines of tears. “Promise me you won’t let me fall again.” His voice is small, like the sound of a broken bird. “Promise me you won’t do this again. Promise me.”
Sherlock presses his head against John’s, their foreheads touching, John’s breath shaking over his skin. “Yes. Yes.” He kisses John softly on the mouth, swallowing John’s ragged, painful sobs, making them his own. “I promise.”
