~Greg🍋Lestrade~

“I’m doing just fine on my own, you don’t need to be here.” Sherlock said and he couldn’t help but smooth the harsh edge in his tone. It wasn’t John but it was and he couldn’t be harsh to John, he found it so hard still to this day to let him go.

John scoffed somewhat. “Of course, you’re not even happy to see me.” The scene changed before them, a room from the mind they were tailoring to appeared quickly. He didn’t recognize it but John sat and settled back as if he belonged there.

“I am.. I’m just working right now.” Sherlock said despite himself, his tone was only getting softer. This figure was so much like his John, as it always was. The aching never fading from his battered chest, even in this state he wore the scars.

“I used to help you work. Remember? Just you and me against the rest of the world..” John looked up at him and Sherlock noticed his skull on the mantle the wallpaper change that of the one of Baker Street. No, not now.

“John, please.. I have to go.” He stepped back and turned towards the window, it was still how it should be and he tried his hardest to get rid of all of Baker Street from his mind. Pushing the window open and glancing down below them, just two floors up he could make it down easy.

“You’re just going to leave me?” His voice was harsher and Sherlock felt his throat tighten as he swung his legs out of the window.

“Yes.” He said firmly and pushed himself out of the window holding onto the edge for a moment before dropping, controlling the pain of his short drop. He didn’t look up to the window again, he didn’t have time. He was busy.

~~~

Sherlock emerged with a gasp sitting up quickly and shaking off the corners of the dream, he pulled the needle out of his arm and his partner pulled the one out of their subject and together they left the building.

They parted ways without a word, there was no need for anything further. The work was done, information acquired and Sherlock was on the run yet again. He went to his hotel room checking it to make sure he was alone first before pulling his totem out of his pocket.

It was wrong, it was terribly wrong but he had taken Johns dogtags as his totem. He held it steady over his hand and swung it, in his dream state the dogtags swung forever, they would never cease motion in his mind.

He watched closely as the dogtags swung, clinking together on their metal chain and slowly came to a stop over his palm. He placed them back in his pocket with a sigh and sat back in his chair. When he was younger he was naive enough to think he wouldn’t need a totem like others, that his mind was strong enough to tell the difference between reality and the dreams.

It was exactly the opposite as he expected. Yes, his mind was greater than others; he was one of the most gifted architects to meet that of the dream world. That was when he could do it. He was wrong. His mind was indeed so great it made him so prone to the limbo state he had nearly slipped there too many times.

When he moved in with John, when he became attached to John, he’d stolen his dogtags and knew immediately they would be his totem. For nothing else would ever be as strong to him as those are. They pained him now to have and he did feel some gully for stealing them from John but they were necessary.

Sherlock was sure that now he knew the weight of them even more than John did. It had been many years since John had even had them, he had asked once where they had gone. Sherlock hated to think of that day now, all it held was pain and he was determined not to fall any deeper into the levels of his mind.

~~~

When Sherlock laid alone in his bed at night, wherever he may be, in a hotel, usually always in a different part of the UK. When he laid in bed sometimes he would pull the briefcase out and connect himself to it, set the timer and he would dream.

He would dream alone, in his world, in his last creation. In a place no one could touch but himself. Here he had layers, places where things weren’t so bad as the real world. Here he could move freely and live through what he wanted and what he lost.

The day he met John, in Barts he would look over to him in the door and see the way his eyes scanned the room and landed on him. A curious sort of fascination behind his eyelids, some confusion and awe as Sherlock spoke to him. He was never angry, he was always so proud and amazed with Sherlock's deductions.

Their first case, circling the pink lady’s body slowly and picking apart the pieces of her murder. John’s eyes lit up as he displayed his deductions, the soft words of encouragement, the brightness in his eyes.

Weeks later, an ordinary day in Baker Street but one that held firm in Sherlock's mind, in his prison. Sherlock was injured in the previous case of the day and John had him on the couch as he patched him up. It was the first time they were ever so close, lingering touches and meaningful gazes. John reprimanded him for being so foolish but he said it so fondly Sherlock didn’t mind.

Their first fight, their first real fight. In which John threw his cup at the wall and was upset for days after, it was Sherlock's fault and he felt guilty to this day. John loved that mug and Sherlock took away that joy. It was so simple and pretty and it seared into his mind.

The Baskerville case, the fear running through Sherlocks veins as he desperately swung John's dogtags in his hand. John found him that way and the confusion and sympathy in his gaze. The kind words he said so softly and guided him to bed, never questioning, just as shakes himself and yet he cared for Sherlock instead. His steady weight on the bed beside Sherlocks hip, the gentle hand on his side allowing him to rest.

A gap.

Hours before he’d leave John, deceiving him to keep him safe. Making John hate him, call him a machine. He never came here but it lived in his mind nonetheless.

Calling John from on top of Barts the emotion he hated in his voice, trying so hard not to convey it to John but use it to comb him of his lies. He was the worst friend to ever walk the face of the earth. He regretted every second of it.

His imagination filled in the rest later on. The snipers not being taken care of, shooting John down and making his whole disappearance worth nothing. John dying only knowing that his friend was a fraud and had lied to him their whole friendship. It was worse than leaving him.

~~~

Too many layers. Sherlock thought as they breached the third level of their subjects' subconscious. He could feel John's presence the further they moved into it, pushing at his mind. Begging for attention, pressing into the corners of his space.

Yellow smiley faces appeared on the walls, biscuits and tea on the tables, Johns gun in his hand, blood on his forehead, the smell of John’s cologne, his clothes in the corner, the dim flicker of firelight in the hearth, so many words on the top of his tongue and so many other sensations and feelings he couldn’t put words too.

It was too much at once, he couldn’t handle it. The emotions and keeping track of the mission and John was there in front of him. He had a gun and so did Sherlock and all he wanted was to hold him.

“John..” he started and John raised his gun to him and Sherlock dropped his, it clattering to the floor loudly

“Don’t. Don't start with me. You left.” John said in the harshest tone Sherlock had ever heard and he felt tears prickling the back of his eyes.

“Please John.. I’m sorry.” He begged him, meeting his eyes desperately, not here. “Please..”

“I can’t believe you.. You didn’t spare me the pain, so why should I give you the satisfaction?” John pointed it right at his head.

“John.. not here..” Sherlock shook his head, stepping back once and John followed.

“You’ve always been so weak..” he snarled at him, following him until he was backed into a corner. “You couldn’t even stay for me.”

“I tried, I did-“

“Don’t!” He shouted and pressed the gun to Sherlocks forehead. “You don’t get to convince me.. you’ve run out of chances.”

Sherlocks body shook against the wall at his back and he knew this wasn’t his John but he felt as if John would treat him this way. If he were alive this is what he would get. Death in the worst way possible, stuck in limbo forever because he’d lost.

He stared into the eyes of the man he trusted more than anyone, more than himself. He would choose his fate and the gun clicked.

“You murdered me.”

~~~

Limbo wasn’t so bad at first. It was all talk he thought, creation was something he’d always enjoyed. He hadn’t been able to do it so freely in such a long time.

John was there. His John. The John that held his hand and guided him to bed, the John that called him brilliant and fiercely protected his reputation. The John that created buildings with him and explored his childhood, mapped through his world easily.

They spent years together, in the comforts of Baker Street. It wasn’t so bad. John loved it here, they were together and everything went as they wanted. He could live like this in a place he wanted to be.

~~~

It was years into it when the spell broke. He knew it would happen eventually, knew the confines of this place couldn’t hold him forever, all it took was three words.

Three words the real John would never tell him. It had been years of being together and just those words broke everything. He didn’t know how to cope. Their world started crumbling, crime scenes and shops falling apart. Streets of London folding in on themselves. Just three words.

I love you.

John disappeared in front of his eyes, he felt his soul break into pieces. Emptiness flooded him and he had no idea if it would be enough but he didn’t want to live anymore. He was alone. John’s dogtags heavy in his pocket as he stood on another rooftop.

“Just you and me.” Sherlock says raspy and tight, the tears flowing so freely he couldn’t even contain it anymore. Tornadoes and storms tearing everything apart around him, the wind was so loud no one would hear his sobs. “Against the rest of the world.”

He fell and that’s all it took. Just one step and he would be free of this pain.

~~~

Sherlock woke in the world he had left with the partners he had left with and things were different and no one would understand how or why but him. He had been gone for years and no one had any idea of it.

He left alone again and back in the hotel he felt strange, he felt lifted and yet weighed down. He pulled out the dogtags after a moment before his phone went off, he returned them to his pocket and opened the message.

It was time to go home.

~~~

Three years later he returned home and nothing felt quite the same as he left it. Three years and decades of experience in his head, he has been gone so much longer and done so much more.

No one would know how Sherlock Holmes had survived. It was okay, he didn’t mind having something private for now, he just needed John. John who was alive and here and waiting and John. Oh, John.

He got to the flat as fast as he could. John no longer lived there but John was there today. For some reason he had gone, mycroft had told him he had forgotten to listen. All he was focusing on was finally seeing his John again.

He opened the door and stopped through, looking around. It was so familiar, dusty and old but familiar and so wonderful to be around.

“I still can’t seem to find them, are you sure you don’t have them In your boxes Mrs Hudson?” Johns voice drifted from Sherlocks bedroom and he gravitated towards it like metal to a magnet.

He stepped into the kitchen and looked down the hallway, Johns back just visible, his gorgeous hair illuminated in the sunlight. He took a step and another before eventually he was standing until he doorway.

His room was covered in boxes but he want even looking at that. He was watching John and automatically his mind came up with what he was searching for before Sherlock even registered it. He was holding Johns dogtags on his fingers, swinging in his hand.

“Looking for these?” Sherlock said in a tone he didn’t think he’d be able to manage if he was thinking with his conscious brain that wasn’t too active at the moment.

John startled and turned quickly staring at Sherlock for a long moment and so many emotions flashed before his eyes. They stared for a long moment just the movement of the dogtags between them before John surged forward and Sherlock was afraid he might hit him.

“Sherlock..” he breathed softly before his lips met Sherlocks and his hands cupped his cheeks, sherlock melted into it immediately. It was new and locket and Sherlock never wanted to leave the warmth of John.

He presses into him firmly and entirely. “I love you.” Sherlock breathed between the kiss and John smiled pulling him closer.

“I love you too..” he said in the same tone and they kissed again, sherlock taking a step back to support himself against the doorframe. Setting the dogtags on the lamp as he could reach to use his hands more effectively.

Nothing else mattered, they were together again, just the two of them finally one in the same.