sherlockbbc_fic | Prompting Part XXXV

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Prompting Part XXXV

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Robbie does not see Mr. Holmes the next day, nor the day after. Had he not known the nursing home was in high demand and they would have cleaned out the room by now, Robbie would have feared the worst right away. A day later, when Robbie makes his morning rounds, he’s please to see the door to Mr. Holmes’ room is open signaling his return. He knock’s twice before entering as is the nursing home’s policy, and is carful to avoid the IV as he moves to set up the tray over Mr. Holmes’ bed. It is only when he set the bowl of porridge on the tray, that Mr. Holmes looks at him with glazed, unfocused eyes.
“John?” he whispers “My dear John. It’s been so long.” He slowly brings a shaking hand to cup Robbie’s cheek “I’ve missed you so much.”
Robbie is startled to see the beginnings of tears forming in Mr. Holmes’ eye. Mr. Holmes wets his lips “Where have you been all these years?”
Robbie gently removes the hand from his face “Mr. Holmes, I’m not John, I’m Robbie the new volunteer. We spoke yesterday, do you remember?”
But Mr. Holmes does not seem to hear him, and to Robbie’s alarm, appears to be getting increasingly agitated.
“Where were you?” he demands, voice no longer a whisper “what happened to you? Where did you go!”
With surprising strength, he reaches out to grab Robbie’s face again, this time with both hands, and in doing so, he dislodges the IV.
“I looked for so long, John!” he shouts “I tried so hard to find you!”
Robbie, frightened, stumbles backward, and slams the nurse call button. Mr. Holmes makes a feeble lunge after him, but gets stuck part way over the guard rail. He’s sobbing in earnest now tears and snot running down his wrinkled face “Please, John!” he cries
To Robbie’s relief, two nurses appear before he has to respond and shepherd him out of the room. Shaken, he walks down the hall away from Mr. Holmes’ pitiful calls for John.

;__________________;...

Poor Sherlock...
Maybe John's blog is still there, so Robbie can make a research. Clearly, he's intrigued.
Can't wait to read more of this!

It's just raining on my face. Thanks.

Robbie can privately admit to himself the next day that he’s nervous about returning to Mr. Holmes’ room. He could have easily asked to another food delivery route, but he’d managed North Korea, he could survive a 93 year old man.
“I suppose I owe you an explanation” Mr. Holmes says the moment Robbie steps into his room, and Robbie cannot contain his sigh of relief. If Mr. Holmes notices, he shows no evidence of it.
“I wouldn’t ask that of you” Robbie says. Mr. Holmes looks thoughtful at that.
“But you’d like to know.” He says, and Robbie nods. “Besides, I’m old and I’m dying. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Tell your story before you go or some rot?”
Robbie barks out a startled laugh before regaining his compose. “But why me? I’m just the newbie volunteer that brings you food. You don’t even know me.”
Mr. Holmes stares at him a long moment and Robbie has the curious sensation of being unwrapped by the man’s gaze.
“You remind me of him” Mr. Holmes says at last “Not only in appearance, though to old eyes the resemblance is striking, but I imagine that is mostly my eyes, your nose is wrong and your ears are big enough and your too tall. But the military posture, and your frankness remind me of when I first met him. And you’re wrong, I know plenty about you, enough to be going on anyway. For example, I know that your staying with a relative who has a can.”
“And how could you possibly know that?” Robbie asks indignantly.
“Easy, your gate and posture indicate that you’ve returned from your service quite recently, as does the fact that you’re volunteering here instead of getting a paying job. No job means no money outside of your pension. You could be staying with a friend, but you’re a man who volunteers to help the elderly, a necessary but undesirable task, which would indicate some generosity of spirit. You’d feel bad about leaning on a friend too long without paying any kind of rent, and most of your pension goes towards food and clothing because, but as you’ve recently taken up a volunteer position, you’re not going to be able to pay rent anytime soon which means a relative, probably a close one, sister I’d imagine. As for the cat, you show up everyday in my room with orange hair on the bottom of your trouser legs but nowhere else, dog hair doesn’t come in that shade. Cat hair on your legs where it has rubbed up against you, but nowhere else meaning you don’t have a close enough relationship to the cat to pick it up, nor do you spend enough time with it for its hair to get all over your clothes. I’d say it was just a neighbor’s cat, but the hair has been their every time I see you which would seem to imply you live with the cat.” Mr. Holmes finishes his speech with an almost endearingly smug grin.
“Wow,” Robbie says, stunned “that was… amazing.”
The grin is wiped away and replaced with wide-eyed shock, and then there’s a hint of a smile almost heartbreaking in its sincerity.
“Here.” With a trembling arthritic hand, Mr. Holmes gives him a notecard. On in, in a nearly illegible scrawl is a URL and a set of numbers.
“Go home and read everything, and tomorrow, I will tell you about John.”

---
Goodnight everyone. Thank you for the kind words. I'll try to post more tomorrow.

I absolutely love this! <3

can't wait for more

Beautiful, this is seriously great so far! One suggestion, you might want to try double spacing between paragraphs, but that's your choice. Can't wait for more!

Thank you, and you're right about that. It's so much better formatted in the document on my computer and I forget to check if it looks okay on LJ before I post it.

Hours later, Robbie sits on his bed with his laptop and types in the URL for John Watson’s blog. When It loads, he gets to a page containing only a password box with the hint: “Gave my life meaning.”. Robbie stares at the notecard in bewilderment for few moments before typing 29012010 into the box and clicks enter.

The last entry on the blog, and the one is titled simple “John” and when Robbie clicks on it, it takes him to a short entry that reads “John if you see this, please contact me. I need to know you’re alright.” there’s a phone number beneath. Robbie wonders if the number is still relevant. Given the hosting, the format, and how long it took the blog to configure, no one’s touched this place for a long time. Robbie makes his ways through the posts one by one reading everything including the (sometimes quite long) stretches of comments. Robbie enjoys reading about wild adventures these two men went on and on occasion finds himself laughing aloud. He hasn’t felt glee like this since he was a child reading adventure stories.

Robbie actually gasps allows when he encounters a post titled “Sherlock” and reads Watson’s loving proposal finishing with the self-deprecating “If you’re not interested please delete this post, and we will never talk about it.”. He scroll’s down to see Sherlock’s “Yes!” as the first comment, followed by John posting “You’ve already told me that you ridiculous man, but I suppose it’s nice to have in writing” and then a flood of congratulatory comments from friends, family, and fans alike. Robbie chuckles when he reads John’s comment complaining that he had made the post private but Sherlock had posted it to the public, and then’s Sherlock’s response that they were going to tell everyone anyway, and wasn’t this more expedient? Besides, shouldn’t he be able to brag a little? Things got pretty mushy from there.

Robbie is up until the early hours of the morning, but he finishes reading everything and goes to sleep wondering what tomorrow will bring.

This is so, SO, sad and beautiful! D': I could vividly imagine myself reading that blog with Robbie.

oh god please more, I'm so addicted to this

Please update soon! ;_________;

Absolutely loving this, brilliant writing!

“Mr. Holmes?” Robbie calls gently as he walks into the room: finished with his shift and ready to listen.
“Ah, Robbie” Mr. Holmes replies “You may as well call me Sherlock.”
Robbie nods in conformation.
“So,” Robbie prompts after a weighty pause “John Watson”
Mr. Holmes, no, Sherlock, takes a deep inward breath
“John,” He begins “Was a friend of mine”
Robbie raises his eyebrows at that and Sherlock catches it.
“Yes, yes, I know you read the blog. John was many things to me: my beloved, my affianced, my partner, my conductor of light, but fundamentally he was always my friend. I thought for a long time about how much I wanted to tell you and what, and I believe I will begin a few years after the dissolution of John’s marriage.”
“About that,” Robbie interrupts, earning him a stern look from Sherlock “What happened to Mary and the baby?”
“Confidential.” Sherlock says “Mycroft’s been dead a great many years, but I think it’s best if I take that with me to the grave. But I digress. I think I’ll begin with when John and I finally got on the same page”

Sherlock genuinely hadn’t meant to book a room with only one bed on for the one night of their brief trip to Lancaster; he just hadn’t been paying attention when booking the room. The case had been solved in a disappointingly brief five hours which meant he would actually be going to bed that night. He had been surprised when John hadn’t protested the sleeping arrangements.
They washed up and settled down for the night. They were both tired because they had to take an early train, and John quickly dropped off to sleep. Despite his fatigue, Sherlock was determined to stay up so he could memorize every detail of John sleeping beside him. He wanted to encode it so thoroughly in his mind so that on the loneliest of nights he could pretend that John was right there beside him. (Later, one of his biggest regrets would be that he’d never finished what he started). Having not intended to sleep, Sherlock was surprised to wake up many hours later. He was even more surprised to find himself completely wrapped around John with his nose buried in John’s hair and John’s arms loosely around his waist. He was stuck, unsure of what to do. He certainly didn’t want to move, but if John woke and found them like this, would that not be a violation of his friend’s trust? Wouldn’t things be awkward the next morning? After all, this wasn’t the kind of thing that flatmates did, it just wasn’t on. Sherlock was pulled out of his thoughts by John’s arms tightening around him and John’s low grumble of “Stop thinking, Sherlock, and go back to sleep.”
And to Sherlock’s continuing surprise, he did.

Sherlock awoke alone to the sound of the shower. He rolled over to the warmth that John had left lingering in the sheets and pulled John’s pillow to his chest. It was with a pang of nervousness that he remembered the last night had not, in fact, been a particularly lovely fantasy he had concocted to help himself sleep, but rather, had actually happened. He couldn’t help but squeeze the pillow tighter to his chest wondering what this would mean in terms of his relationship with John. John had, after all, clearly been at least somewhat aware of the fact that the person he was cuddling was Sherlock, and he had shuffled closer instead of pushing the way which surely must be a good sign. Sherlock needn’t have worried. The didn’t talk about it, nor had Sherlock expected them to, but their relationship did change (albeit not as quickly as Sherlock would have liked). They touched more often, and the touches were casual, no longer fraught with the tension of a thousand things unsaid. It was simple things: a brush of fingers, a hand on the shoulder. Sometime after a long case when they were tired, they’d lean on each other heads and shoulders pressed together. While it was the happiest Sherlock had been in a long time, he couldn’t help but want more. They were almost there, so close to where Sherlock wanted them to be, but he just couldn’t bring himself to make a move. Rejection no longer even felt like a possibility and he chastised himself for being a coward, but he just couldn’t bring himself to put everything on the line like that.

When it does finally happen, it’s an unfittingly small moment. As ridiculous as sentimental as it was, somewhere in the back of his mind, Sherlock always felt that his and John’s first kiss would be some big epic moment in which the entire universe will align. And it is, but it’s a universe contained in a joke told over breakfast. It’s another one of Sherlock’s regrets that he doesn’t remember what he said to make John laugh like that, but John’s entire face lights up and he looks so happy and beautiful in the morning sunlight and Sherlock could no longer bear it, so he leaned forward and kissed John. John was momentarily startled, but an instant later with a sigh of “Finally” he curled his fingers in Sherlock’s hair

Perfect <3

The last sentence is supposed to read:

John was momentarily startled, but an instant later with a sigh of “Finally” he curled his fingers in Sherlock’s hair and kissed him back.

Sorry all! Thank you again for all your nice comments.

Things were good after that, really good. Sherlock couldn’t imagine being happier. He had everything he’d wanted and so much he’d never thought he’d need. He loved the casual intimacy of it all. Loved running his hand through John’s hair as he passed him in the kitchen. Loved the way he could creep up behind John and press open mouthed kisses to John’s neck that would make him moan. Loved dancing with John. Sometimes late at night, he would pull John to his chest and they would just sway and Sherlock’s heart would feel fit to burst and the joy he felt would be consuming and overwhelming, and nothing could touch their bubble of happiness as they danced together in the quiet of the night.

It happened one evening when after they had returned from Sherlock’s parents’ house where they had been making wedding plans. John had gone out to get takeout and didn’t return.
“Lestrade, John’s missing.”
“Have you tried calling him?”
“Have I tried–? Of course I have! He went out to get takeout at the Indian restaurant down the road four hours ago. He took his phone, it was on and charged. Now get your fucking people on it or whatever department handles this kind of thing!”
“On it now. I’ll meet you at the restaurant and we’ll try to find out where he was taken from”

There was woefully little evidence: a dropped bag of takeaway was all they could find. That didn’t stop Sherlock from working day in and day out to find John. He scoured the city, called in every favor, put out offers of massive rewards to his homeless network or anyone who could offer any information about the disappearance of John Watson. Scotland Yard put their best team onto the case, even Mycroft offered some of his people and access to any CCTV recording. Sherlock barely slept, barely ate, and looked gaunt and ill all of the time. When a month had passed and there were no leads, the support steadily trickled off until Sherlock was the only one still looking.

“You really need to eat something, dear.”
“No time, I have too keep looking.”
“It’s been three months Sherlock, and nothing’s turned up, don’t you think you should take a break.”
“I have to keep looking. I can’t stop. I can’t— I can’t—“
“Oh, Sherlock. Come here, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
“But what if I don’t Mrs. Hudson? What if I can’t find him?”
“There, there, everything will be alright. Just rest, have something to eat, it’ll all be there in the morning. I’m sure John can wait one more day.”

So sad! ;_____________; Poor John and Sherlock. They were so happy.

please more!

He never really gave up looking for John, not really anyway. Eventually, when there hadn’t been any new information for months, he started focusing on other cases. There were days when it was more than he could bear, when he’d lie on the floor wondering if he curled in on himself tightly enough he’d vanish completely.
He was never really the same which wasn’t a surprise, how could he be expected to get over John? He took cases for many years before he retired, and still dabbled after for as long as his old bones would let him. But the joy had been sucked out of it and there were so many days it felt like he was just working to pass the time. Sometimes, rarely but it did happen, he would get caught up in a particularly good puzzle and right at the hight of his brilliance he would turn to tell John and-
No one was there. And the air would rush out of him as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He often didn’t finish those cases. He’d turn over what evidence he’d found to the yard and go home and sit in John’s chair and mourn the life that had been torn away from him.
Sherlock remembered quite clearly sitting in Bart’s dissecting a tongue and overhearing Molly speaking to her eight-year-old daughter.
“Mummy,” the girl (Lucy or something like that) had said “Why does Mr. Holmes always look so sad?”
And Molly had replied “Because he’s lost someone he loves very much”
“Is his friend dead like Mummy’s corpses?” the girl asked.
“Yes.” Molly said quietly.
Sherlock stood abruptly, knocking the chair over. “Don’t say that!” he shouted at them. “We never found any evidence for that! He might not be–– He could be–– John might still be alive!”
And the little girl had started sobbing and Molly looked like she might soon as well. So Sherlock fled.

“I know he’s dead.” Sherlock says, coming to the end of his story “By this point anyway he has to be. But I can’t help but expect him to walk through that door. I’ve never entirely managed to shake the feeling that it could be any minute now that I’ll see him again. And when you came into my room on the first day with your hair and your posture, just for a moment I thought… but no, he’s dead. I know that.”

Sorry if this comes across a bit abrupt. I've been pretty busy this week, but I wanted to update. I'll try to draw it out a little more if I end up editing it and posting it to AO3

Re: Part 8/? - Author's note

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Re: Part 8/?

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Re: Part 8/?

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Re: Part 9/10

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Re: Part 9/10

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-08 05:19 (UTC) - Expand

Love!

“I looked for so long, John!” he shouts “I tried so hard to find you!”

Oh God, I didn't need my heart anyway and now it's broken into a thousand tiny little pieces.

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