- Text Size +
Greg's mind was still spinning as he climbed the stairs to the flat. He opened the door to see John ensconced in a chair with a large stack of books on the floor beside him. He had a notepad in his lap and he was flipping through a copy of one of the Harry Potter books with a look of intense concentration. He rolled the ball Molly sent him between the fingers of his left hand almost absentmindedly.

"Surely you're not reading that quickly," Greg said, watching him flip through the pages.

"No, just looking for something." John didn't look up. "How'd it go?"

"Fine." He sat on the sofa and clasped his hands together. "I just saw Mycroft Holmes."

John stilled, but his gaze remained fixed on the page before him. "What did he want?"

"To make me an offer." He waited a moment and John finally looked up. "Apparently he's trying to take advantage of the whole Richard Brook debacle and flush out some of the criminals Moriarty was associated with."

"And he wants you to help?"

"He wants me to run interference with the Met."

John nodded. "Yeah, that'd be right up your street."

Greg raised his eyebrows. "You think so?"

"Of course." There was a pause and then John looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Don't tell me you don't know."

"Know what?"

"How bloody brilliant you are at that sort of thing."

Greg felt his cheeks heat. "Oh, come off it."

"You don't know, do you?" John grinned and set the book and notepad aside. "I'll bet you don't know how hot you are either."

Greg leaned back against the sofa cushions. "You going to come over here and convince me?"

John crossed to the sofa and straddled Greg's lap, then leaned down to kiss him. Greg wound his arms around John's waist and let himself sink for a moment, feeling nothing but the slide of lips and tongue and the heat and comfort of John above him.

John sat back and smiled at him. "Hungry?"

"Yeah. Want to do a takeaway?"

John made the call while Greg checked his email on John's laptop. His computer belonged to Scotland Yard and he hadn't been permitted to bring anything with him on leave. He probably ought to buy one of his own; he hadn't realized how much of his life was electronic these days. Most of it was work-related, items he technically wasn't required to respond to while on leave. There were a few emails from family members and one from his solicitor, whose bill he'd yet to pay. He winced and closed the email tab. John's blog appeared on top; he'd updated it with the case they'd wrapped up that morning.

"They said it'll be ready in 15 minutes. I'll go this time." John sat on the chair across from him and put on his shoes.

Greg looked up from the screen. "So I should tell you that apparently everyone knows we're shagging. I don't know how, but I got it from all sides tonight."

John's jaw clenched. "Ah."

"Yeah."

"And you… well, I suppose you're not thrilled about that."

"I don't know how I feel about it, honestly." Greg grimaced: he hadn't meant to start this conversation just as John was running out the door, but there was nothing for it now. He exhaled. "I'm not entirely certain what it is we're doing."

John looked up at him. "I was under the impression it was a sort of friends with benefits thing."

"Right." Greg swallowed and looked down at his hands. Why was this so fucking awkward? "Only… I don't have any other friends. Like that. Like you. Since uni I've only had sex with people I was dating. I don't know how this is supposed to go outside of a... relationship."

John was silent for a long moment. "And… do you want that? With me?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I'd like it to be on the table, I suppose." He forced himself to look up. John's face had gone a little pale, but his eyes were wide and blue. "Unless--"

"No, that's fine. I'm just surprised, is all. I suppose I thought you were just letting off steam with me. Or something."

"That was definitely part of it, yeah." He pressed his lips together for a moment. "Anyway, I wasn't sure you'd be happy with everyone knowing. You and Sherlock kept it very quiet."

John raised an eyebrow. "That was more a self-preservation thing, to be honest. I had to run interference for him enough as it was. If I'd officially been his boyfriend, it would have been so much worse."

"So it was a friends with benefits thing?"

"It was… complicated." He looked down at his clasped hands. "But I should probably tell you that Mrs. Hudson named you in a comment on the blog post about the dog case. I didn't catch it until the next day, but by then enough people had seen it to work out that my friend was you."

"Ah." Greg looked down at the screen of the laptop again. "But how did they know we're sleeping together as well?"

"Read the comments and you'll see. It probably wasn't that difficult to put two and two together. I probably should have deleted some of it, but… well, sometimes that makes it worse."

Greg snorted. "I can imagine."

John stood and headed for the door. "Back in a few."

He clicked over to the comments of the first blog post after John left.


31 comments


Fantastic to see you up and blogging again! So you've got a new "friend", eh?


Harry Watson 18 July 19:34



Oh, is Mr Lestrade helping you with cases now? It's been so nice to have him around these last few weeks. He's really cheered you up, hasn't he?


Mrs Hudson 18 July 19:58



Good to see you posting again, mate. Tell Greg I said hi.


Mike Stamford 18 July 20:17



It's crazy what people will do for a damn dog! Good to see you back out there, John. I think you needed a good "cheering". ;)


Bill Murray 18 July 20:41



Good to see you blogging again. You might be interested in this.


Anonymous 18 July 21:02



OMG, you're back!!


Jacob Sowersby 18 July 22:19



this is stupid. why are you even trying to solve cases? you dishonor the memory of sherlock holmes.


theimprobableone 19 July 01:42



How sweet! I love West Highland terriers! Email me when you have a chance. We should catch up. :)


Molly Hooper 19 July 07:14


The comments went on and on, the most Greg had ever seen on a single post. John hadn't responded to any of them yet, and Greg wondered if he intended to. They were mostly providing congratulations and encouragement, and didn't necessarily require a response. He scrolled back up and read them again, wincing at the innuendo. No wonder Donovan was giving him the side-eye.

He read the comment from "Anonymous" again and clicked the link. It led to a discussion thread on a web forum, the header of which made him sit straight up on the sofa.

FAKED DEATH EVIDENCE THREAD CFN_mod
Posts: 3471
25 July 13:41 I've moved this discussion to its own thread to keep things civil around here. PLEASE no arguing or wank on this thread. Take that over here. This is the place to post and discuss pictures and other evidence for those of you who believe Sherlock faked his death. PatriceHeart
Posts: 1252
25 July 13:56 THANK YOU!!! I can't wait to see what gets posted here. JeremyGlass93
Posts: 834
25 July 14:15 I'm reposting my picture here. Yes, it's grainy (it was taken with my MOBILE, all right? NOT PS'd!) but it's the best I could do in a hurry. This is near the Vauxhall Bridge.

The post was accompanied by a very grainy and dark photo of a man leaning against a wall, clearly smoking a cigarette. His back was to the camera, but Greg had to admit the figure looked quite a lot like Sherlock. He felt a wave of anger that someone would send John a link to this page. It was incredibly cruel.

YeomanSam
Posts: 467
25 July 15:03 I got chills. Seriously, this is the pic that changed my mind. I thought you lot were nutters until I saw this one. RandomStupidAnon
Posts: 372
25 July 16:27 Please. If he were in hiding, why would he go about in the same coat? It doesn't make sense. JeremyGlass93
Posts: 835
25 July 16:50 RandomStupidAnon, the mod said to keep the arguing off this thread. We all know how you feel about it already. RandomStupidAnon
Posts: 373
25 July 17:08 It's not about feelings; it's about evaluating the evidence. If he actually faked his death (and I remain skeptical), then he did it for an important reason. He wouldn't go out in public like that undisguised. It would be idiotic. BethannyB
Posts: 974
25 July 17:19 Reposting my picture from the same area (!). I think JeremyGlass93's is better, though. There's too many people in the way here. RandomStupidAnon
Posts: 374
25 July 17:29 Have any of you considered the possibility that you're all taking pictures of someone who happens to look quite a lot like Sherlock Holmes, but who isn't, in fact, him? This is most likely some poor sod who works at the SIS at Vauxhall Cross, and not a walking conspiracy theory. CFN_mod
Posts: 3491
25 July 17:42 RandomStupidAnon, this is your warning. Take it to the argument post. Or better yet, go back to the codebreaking forum, where everyone actually likes what you have to say. :-)

Greg smirked. Whoever this RandomStupidAnon person was, Greg kind of liked him. Or her. He scrolled up to the top of the page to see where the hell he was: The Consulting Fan Network. He'd heard before that there was a Sherlock Holmes fan website, but he'd never thought to go looking for it.

He clicked a few links and poked around the page a bit. It seemed to have been around for at least a year. There were forums about individual cases Sherlock had solved, galleries of pictures and scans of newspaper articles, and one clearly popular forum titled WE BELIEVE. Another of the most popular forums seemed to be the codebreaking forum. He clicked on it and scanned the page. Quite a few of the threads had been started by RandomStupidAnon, and he clicked on one halfway down the page. In the top post of the thread, RandomStupidAnon had posted a string of letters followed by what seemed to be a clue as to how to decode the message. There were dozens of comments below asking questions about the code and making guesses about the true text of the message.

Greg closed the tab, intending to go back to John's blog, but the next tab was also opened to one of the codebreaking threads. It was another one posted by RandomStupidAnon, and it had apparently been posted only the day before.

RandomStupidAnon
Posts: 357
27 July 09:34 Here's a new one.
Message: ghhldsjftPK188417fnnd0801subl
Hint: dhkxp23753g53
Good luck! Ellisout95
Posts: 571
27 July 10:02 WTF kind of hint is that? Sparkledog
Posts: 378
27 July 10:21 OMG this is insane. I have no idea what the hint means. LOLdor01
Posts: 1098
27 July 10:29 You're taking the piss, right? You just made this one up. RandomStupidAnon
Posts: 359
27 July 10:41 This is indeed a real coded message. I only expect one or two of you to be able to work it out.

John had been looking at this page, Greg realized. He glanced over to the chair where John had been sitting when he'd first come home. He'd been rather preoccupied, in fact.

Greg set the computer aside and crossed to the chair. A dozen books were stacked around it and the notepad was still sitting where John had left it. Greg picked it up; it was covered with strings of letters and marks. He set the notepad back down.

Why was John working on decoding a message from this website? Sure, there wasn't much on telly this time of year, but did he really have nothing better to do than work out puzzles on a fan website dedicated to Sherlock?

He settled back on the sofa and picked up John's laptop again. Maybe there was more to this than he realized.

Ten minutes later, he heard footsteps on the stairs; John nearly burst through the door with two paper bags of take-away. He was soaked through.

"It's pissing down outside. Started while I was in the restaurant." He set the bags down on the table and stripped off his wet shirt.

It was a moment before Greg registered the words; his brain had got stuck on bare chest. "Is it? I didn't even notice."

John searched for a dry corner on his shirt and rubbed it against his hair, then tossed it to the floor and took off his jeans. Greg was still getting used to seeing John's body like this, and being free to look at him. He was thinner than he should be -- the stress of the last month had taken its toll -- but somehow that only accentuated the compact lines of his body. Greg set the computer aside and crossed to him.

"Do you need warming up?" He grinned and pulled John against him.

John planted a quick kiss on his lips and stepped away. "Later. I'm starving."

"You can't possibly expect me to be able to eat while you're wearing nothing but pants."

John grinned. "I do in fact expect it. Hey, none of that!" He wriggled away from Greg's wandering hands. "Food first, then sex. I promise."

Greg set out plates for them and they sat across from each other at the table. John handed him a pair of chopsticks and a bottle of beer.

"So, you saw the comments on the blog?"

"I also saw the website." Greg spooned a little of the food from each container onto his plate and then looked up at John.

"Oh, that website. Yeah." John poked at some noodles with his chopsticks.

Greg took a bite of chicken. There were a dozen questions he wanted to ask, but he wasn't sure where to start. "Do you look at it a lot?"

"Not really. We used to do. Well, Sherlock did, anyway. He loved to antagonize the people there." He paused and smiled. "He got banned from the forums half a dozen times. Of course, every time he'd just make up a new name and do it again. I don't think they ever realized it was actually him, though."

"I saw that you were working on some sort of secret code thing." He stuffed another bite of food into his mouth, feeling strangely embarrassed. It wasn't prying, was it? John hadn't hidden it.

"Yeah." John shrugged and looked down at his plate. "I don't know why. It just sounded… fun."

He wanted to say something about all the talk of Sherlock having faked his death, but he had no idea how to bring it up. He couldn't think of a way to do it that wouldn't sound patronizing -- or worse.

"I suppose you know they write stories about you and Sherlock."

John winced and reached for his beer. "Oh God. Don't tell me you read any of them."

"No. I started to, but… I got a sense of what they were about and…" He grinned, tried not to laugh.

"Sherlock loved reading particular bits aloud. Whilst holding me down, so I couldn't escape."

Greg laughed at that, then covered his mouth with one hand. "I'm sorry that's just… oh God, that's funny."

John rolled his eyes. "He certainly thought it was. And then he'd post comments." He lowered his voice and did a surprisingly good impersonation of Sherlock. "You do realize this isn't physically possible, don't you?"

Greg laughed so hard he had to set his chopsticks down on the table.

"Yeah, keep laughing. Just wait until they start writing stories about you."

Greg gaped at him. "What?"

John gave him a wry look. "You've seen the comments on the blog. They all read it. They post screencaps and discuss it all to death. It's only a matter of time."

Greg shook his head and fished some more lo mein out of the container and onto his plate. "Why anyone could possibly want to write about me is a mystery."

"Don't start that again, that whole humble act. You know exactly what people see in you."

"I suppose they do make quite a few films about middle-aged blokes in the midst of divorces and career crises, don't they?"

"Actually, they do. But that's not the point."

"What is the point then?"

John took a swig of beer and grinned. "Finish your dinner and I'll show you."

*****

"Greg?"

Greg turned to see Molly Hooper standing two places behind him in the queue for coffee at Costa. "Oh, hi." He gestured the people between them to step in front of him in the queue and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. "God, I haven't seen you in weeks. Not since…"

"The funeral," she said with a sad half-smile. Her gaze darted down to his hands and back up again. "How are you?"

"Good, I'm good. On leave from the Met for a few more weeks."

"I heard. That must be nice."

"It is. I can't deny that."

"And how is John?" There were clearly layers to the question, though she'd done her best to keep it light.

"He's great, good. I mean, under the circumstances. You know." It was nearly his turn to order now. "Can I get you a coffee? If you've got a few minutes, we could chat a bit."

She smiled. "I'd like that."

Five minutes later they sat across from each other at a table tucked around the corner from the counter.

"I don't usually check the blog, you know. I wanted to go back and read some… well, some of Sherlock's comments, really. It helps me remember his voice, you know?" She lifted her cup and took a sip, and then stared into her cup, her cheeks tinting a bit. "And you can imagine my surprise when I saw it had been updated."

"I think John was surprised at how many people noticed. He didn't mean for my name to get involved, but once it was done, it was too late to do anything about it."

"I was glad to know he's not alone. Well, I mean… he's not alone, is he?" Her eyebrows lifted slightly in question. He might as well tell her; she was one of the few people left who knew them both anyway.

"He's not alone at the moment, no." He smiled at her over his coffee cup. "It happened a bit fast, but it's good."

"So your wife--" Molly began, and then blushed furiously. "Oh God, I'm sorry. That's none of my business, is it?"

"No, it's fine. We're divorced now. Papers signed and all. It was a long time coming. I think everyone knew that. Everyone but me, anyway."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

"You seem happy."

"Do I?"

"Very happy. Completely smitten, if you don't mind me saying so."

He laughed and felt his cheeks warm. "I suppose I am, a bit. John is… well, you know."

She giggled. "I can't say I do. I never really had the chance, with Sherlock always hovering about. Is it… serious?"

He paused for a moment, not sure how to answer the question. "I think it could be. It's early yet. We're both just off of relationships that ended rather dramatically."

She stared into her coffee again and he wondered if she'd known about John and Sherlock. It wasn't his place to tell, but he'd have thought she would have known, if anyone had. But then, he hadn't known either, had he?

"So what about you? How are you, really?" He knew she'd performed Sherlock's autopsy, and he'd meant to phone her after that, to see how she was doing. But then all hell had broken loose and it wasn't at the top of his priority list.

She wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup. "I'm good, I am. I'm seeing someone."

"Oh, fantastic. Is he… he?"

She smiled at that. "He's lovely, yes. You know him, actually; he works at Scotland Yard. Nigel Marks?"

"Oh, yes, from the forensics lab, right?" Greg grinned at her. "He is lovely, God. Good for you."

She giggled. "It's only been two weeks, but… God, he's so sweet and nice and he calls me every morning when he's on his way to work and he's cooked dinner for me twice and he's got cats and… It's nice, it really is."

He smiled at her. "I'm glad, Molly. You deserve it."

She shrugged, apparently embarrassed. "I don't know. But it makes for a nice change from the other blokes I've gone out with. Or haven't gone out with, for that matter."

They sipped their coffee in silence for a moment. It was good to see her again, to know she was doing well and happy. She gave the impression of being fragile, though he knew she wasn't, not really. She was one of the strongest people he knew. And her sense of humor was apparently intact. He grinned and looked up at her.

"I have to ask about the ball."

She blinked at him. "Sorry?"

"The ball, the one you sent John. He's always got it in his hand and he won't tell me what it means. I assume it's a joke of some kind."

Her expression was utterly blank. "I… I don't know what you're talking about."

"The package you sent him last week, with the little rubber ball in it. It was from you, I saw the return address."

She stared at him another few seconds and then her eyes widened. "Oh! Oh, right. I sent a… yes, that. It's… oh, God, how do I explain?" She looked around the table frantically, as if searching for an explanation amongst the packets of sugar and useless transparent serviettes. He'd seen her flustered before, but this verged on panicked. "You know, I don't… I mean--"

"It's not a big deal, really." Something odd buzzed at the back of his head now and his stomach twisted into a knot. What was going on?

"God, is that the time?" She stared at her phone. "I've really got to go. I have a, um… a thing, a…" She waved her hand almost frantically, trying to pluck the word from midair.

"A meeting?"

"Yes! A meeting. Right. So sorry to rush off. It was so good to see you! Please give John my love and tell him to ring me up when he has a chance." She stood so quickly that she bumped the table; Greg's coffee tipped over and he had to slide his chair back to avoid getting a lapful. Molly closed her eyes tightly and winced. "Sorry! Sorry, I'll just--"

He stood and leaned over the table to take her hand. "It's fine, really. Don't worry. See you around."

"Yes, thanks. Bye." She barely gave him another glance before turning and leaving. She hadn't even drunk half of her coffee.

Greg watched her leave with an odd sense of dread. What the fuck had just happened?

*****

"That," John said, already pushing Greg up against the closed door to the main living area of the flat, "was bloody brilliant."

"It wasn't that hard to work out that the landlord was taking a cut."

John's hands made quick work of the fly of Greg's trousers. "Well, I didn't work it out. Wouldn't have done for ages. Oh, God, I want you."

Greg laughed and caught his hands, pulled them back so that they went around his waist. "Take it easy. It's been a couple of days, and I don't want it to be over in two minutes."

"We can do it again later," John said against his lips.

But they wouldn't, not if the last two days had been anything to go by. Greg sighed into the kiss and smoothed his hands down John's back, down to his arse and squeezed, and pulled John firmly against him. "Bed. Please."

John sighed and pulled away. "All right."

Greg had been grateful this case had fallen into their laps that morning. John desperately needed a distraction from obsessing over the comments on his blog and the secret codes on the fan website. Greg hadn't mentioned it, and he wasn't certain that John was aware Greg knew what he'd been up to, but it was unnerving. John wasn't obsessive by nature, but something had caught his attention and Greg had found it difficult to distract him from it.

He followed John up the stairs and closed the door behind them. John was already undoing the buttons on his shirt, and Greg crossed to him and pulled his hands away.

"Let me."

He kissed John and finished the buttons, then pushed the shirt back off his shoulders. He tugged John's t-shirt over his head and pushed him back against the bed. John fell back against the mattress with the t-shirt still tangled around his arms, and Greg pushed them over his head and held them there.

"I think I like you like this."

John stared back up at him, lips parted slightly. His chest rose and fell, and Greg hesitated a moment before lowering his lips to John's chest.

"Is this all right?"

"Yeah." John's voice was barely more than a whisper.

Greg unfastened John's jeans and eased them down over his hips, taking his pants with them. Greg stepped back enough to undress himself and looked down at the naked man stretched out before him. John's cock was already hard and bobbed up from his groin, and his hands, still tangled in the shirt, were clenched into fists over his head. He was looking at the ceiling, though his eyes were unfocused, and his breathing had begun to even out.

Greg had felt the tension rising between them in the taxi on the way home and hadn't been at all surprised when John had jumped him just inside the door. The irony of it all hadn't escaped him either: Donovan had suggested he was trying to become Sherlock for John, but in a strange way, it was the other way round: John was becoming Sherlock for him. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He stepped out of his trousers and kicked his clothes to the side before sitting next to John on the bed. He slid one hand across John's chest, fingers trailing through the sparse hair there.

"What do you want?"

John closed his eyes and exhaled, and then untangled his hands from the shirt. He tossed it aside and looked up at Greg. "You said you wanted to make me forget anyone else I've ever been with. Could you? I mean…" He swallowed and looked away.

Greg stretched out beside him on the bed, propped up on one elbow. "How did--" He broke off for a moment and pursed his lips, considering his next words carefully. "Tell me what to do."

"Go slow." John reached up and touched Greg's cheek, then slid that hand around to the back of his neck to pull him into a kiss. "And then fuck me."

Greg nodded and closed his lips over John's again. He couldn't erase the memory of Sherlock from John's lips and mind and body, but he could at least give him something different, something Sherlock couldn't -- or wouldn't -- do. He wasn't naïve enough to think it would be better, but that didn't matter. Not anymore.

He used his hands and his mouth and then slick fingers until John was writhing beneath him, begging him, and only then did he press into John's body. He kept his movements slow, one hand on John's cock, John's body nearly folded in half beneath him, steady strokes timed with the movement of his fingers.

John's eyes were closed and his mouth open, and Greg watched his face, watched the way his forehead wrinkled when something felt particularly good and then the way his face relaxed again when Greg pulled him back from the edge. He wanted to be as not like Sherlock as possible, but he had little more than his imagination to know what that meant.

That obsessiveness, the cleverness, the quickness with which he made decisions, the grace of his hands and the sharpness of his tongue -- all of it would have made for an interesting combination in a lover. He was sorry that he hadn't known what that was like, what it would be like to see Sherlock come undone beneath him like this, like John was doing now.

John, who was trying to solve cases on his own and clinging to that fucking rubber ball and obsessing over mysterious comments on his blog and coded messages that seemed more important to him than eating or sleeping, or even fucking Greg, and--

Oh, God.

"God, that's," John said, and Greg shook off the thought. They hadn't spoken for twenty minutes, had barely made sounds other than groans and gasps. "It's… Jesus, I'm--" The words after that melted into groans; John's body clenched around his cock and there was sticky warmth between them and on Greg's hand and Greg kissed him, swallowing the last of his cries, and oh God that was perfect, and he'd done that.

"Okay?" he whispered, and John laughed and pressed his hands over his face.

"I can't remember the last time I came while being fucked. God, Greg."

Greg grinned and pushed away enough to look at him. "That's a yes, right?"

John shifted beneath him and Greg gasped at the sensation of John's body clenching his cock. "Your turn. How do you want me?"

"Just stay right there." He pushed in again and John winced.

"Maybe more lube first."

"Ah, right." Greg fumbled for the tube on the bedside table and worked a hand between them. "Better? You know, we don't have to--"

"No, I want you to fuck me." John pushed up on his elbows and kissed him. "It's the way you like to come, isn't it? You like that better than anything else."

"I do, God." Greg pressed him back down against the mattress, his eyes squeezed shut. God, he needed. "I want to fuck you hard. Is that--"

"Yes, do it." There was just enough desperation in his tone to make Greg believe he meant it.

"Tell me if--"

"Just fuck me, come on."

He hadn't been close before, but it didn't take long to bring himself back to the edge. It was so good, so tight, so perfect, and he didn't know why Sherlock hadn't wanted this.

And there it was again, that thought that was so fucking insane it nearly derailed him. All of those people on the website who thought Sherlock had faked his death -- did John believe them? The ball had meant something, something Greg had looked up but hadn't let himself think about, and Molly's blank face -- the handwriting on the package -- Mycroft's offer -- the fucking tone of the comments from that one commenter, whose messages John was --

No, no, no. Crazy. Fucking crazy, and this, this was real: John, here, now, beneath him, hot and warm and wanting him and God, he was so close, right there, just again, like that--

He pushed in as far as he could when he came, vaguely aware that John was whispering words of encouragement, that John's arms were around him, pulling him down, soothing him. He slumped against John's body and shivered despite the fact that he was still sweating. His cock throbbed and he stayed still, wanting to be inside John for as long as possible. He wasn't sure what would happen when he let go.

John sighed against his hair, pressed a kiss to his temple.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

He swallowed, pressed his face against John's shoulder, and kept his eyes very tightly closed. He wanted to stay here forever and not know, just have this moment a bit longer.

But he couldn't.

He took a deep breath and released it, then wet his lips.

"Sherlock's alive, isn't he?"

John went very still.

*****