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A young Sherlock runs through a field of lavender. Golden, early-afternoon expanses of sunlight bathe his ebullient smile in the carefree joyousness of youth, and his mind is untroubled. As the soothing scent of the lavender bushes rise around him, a faint breeze whispers through his hair. This is but a fading moment, at best approximated by a photograph to be saved in the annals of time, but is no less sweet for it.
.oOo.
“Look, I know we’re not exactly on stable footing with each other right now, and God knows how much of that is solely on account of me - and for that, I have to apologise just once more. I’m sorry, I truly am. Please, though, listen to me now. I don’t want to try to dictate what you do with your life, but you will never not be a part of mine. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, I’ll never let that part of... I’ll never let that part of us go.”
.oOo.
His mind works fast. Fast like a reflex, fast like the winds of a hurricane, fast like light. Three times ten to the eight metres per second fast. Light travels fastest in a vacuum, but Sherlock’s mind shirks from vacuums, suffering like an atrophied muscle. So when there is nothing to do, he adds a medium. Send a beam of light through a jar of water and it will refract - change course. Before, he sought this blissful refraction chemically. But now - now, there is a new form of interference.
.oOo.
“Home has been many places to me, alright? 221b is another on that list. But with you it’s different. To me, you
are
home. All that time when you were… away, when you were dead, I was completely adrift. I didn’t really tell you that, did I? No, I don’t suppose I did. Well, I was. More than mourning the loss of a dear friend, I was left stranded without a home.
“Then I met Mary, and it was like I had a piece of land to cling to again. I loved her, that’s unquestionable. But I don’t doubt that one reason for our marriage was at least in part due to my jumping at any opportunity to try to find another home. And later, when you got onto that plane, I felt that pain all over again. I knew that if you died, actually died, something in me would be absolutely shattered - and I was worried that it would stick this time. But now you’re back, so...
“So don’t you dare try to leave me now. Not again.”
.oOo.
Light emanates from all people. From some it radiates outward like a supernova, bright enough to outshine galaxies and fling back the shadows in all corners of the universe, but flaring out again with just as much speed. Some glow softly but insistently - a candle in the dark, a lantern to guide the way. From some spring a myriad of glittering colors, the kind that shine out of a crystal held up to the sun. And some - a select few - also guide the light of others. They can bend it, refract it, amplify it. They alone are the few that can truly harness the potential of human incandescence. To Sherlock, there is only one across the whole sprawling world like this - John, his conductor of light. The man who has his heart, his trust, his love.
.oOo.
“Never. I swear to you, John. Never again.”