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When things didn't make sense to Sherlock, he broke them down into pieces. There was one missing luggage case from the pink lady’s side. There were two dead men, an entire galaxy where it did not belong. One pair of shoes. One man on the other side of the pool. No, two men. One John Watson wrapped in bombs. He was ten point two steps from Sherlock, there by the poolside. Two phone calls, one changed decision.
There was one poor joke as Sherlock tore the jacket of destruction off of John. Two men laughing anyway. 600,000 gallons of water in the regulation swimming pool. Not a drop would hold onto the sound of John’s laughter. Not like Sherlock did.
In the night, he ran the numbers through his mind, trying to make sense of the hold they had on him. On the way his chest tightened when he thought about John’s door, 22.2 feet away from the edge of Sherlock’s bed.
John made Sherlock fourteen cups of tea the week before. Sherlock left twelve of them to grow cold. John only sighed eight times when he found the cups still full. Washed all fourteen cups while he sang the same song under his breath. Sherlock didn’t know the song. He kept no data that wasn’t important.
Then there was one fairytale, one game, one rooftop, one phone call, one goodbye. There was one cry for Sherlock. One John Watson, swirling on the ground.
Sherlock didn’t get to see what it looked like for a world to fall apart. He couldn’t count the number of times John dreamed about falling too. Wasn’t there to see John’s door shut with him inside for months and months and months.
Twice he heard John ask him not to be dead. On the second, he listened.
John had one best man at his wedding. Sherlock couldn’t break that down any further. He tried and tried. Still, the equation made no sense. John was good. Kind. Funny, though Sherlock didn’t always get his jokes. He was beautiful. He had only one best man, and it was Sherlock. It didn’t add up.
Sherlock was finding that when it came to John, some things would never make sense. Not in numbers anyway. An anomaly wrapped up in a human body, with a human face. A human laugh, a human cry.
When Mary died, Sherlock hugged John to his chest, trying to count all the broken heartbeats he’d caused. A broken heart made noise even when the owner would rather it be silent. Rather their pain be indetectable. John sobbed into Sherlock’s shirt. Broken heartbeats thudding one two three.
It was months later. John was back. The world made a little more sense, even in big pieces.
Sherlock noticed the warning signs but he had no words. John hadn’t showered in three days. Hadn’t laughed at Sherlock in ten days and four hours. The last time he had smiled was twenty days ago, but Sherlock knew it was a fake smile at Ms. Hudson when she made them lunch. He thanked her like the thing he was becoming: hollow, empty.
The first night he disappeared before the sun had, Sherlock counted his footsteps upstairs, across his floor. Each one felt a little like what he assumed heartbreak felt like. A soft kind of shattering. Slow.
It wasn’t until John’s door had been shut for three days and seven hours and nineteen minutes, that Sherlock decided to do something. Decided meaning Ms. Hudson had shooed him upstairs when she noticed him sat on his armchair staring at John’s empty one across from him.
“I don’t do feelings,” Sherlock protested.
Ms. Hudson snorted. “Please, all you ever do is feelings. Go, Sherlock. He needs you.”
Sherlock knew the number of steps it took to get to John’s bedroom door from every step in the house. Simple mathematics. From the top of the stairs, it was five. From his own doorway, it was ten. He stood in front of the door, hesitating for one, two, three seconds.
He knew how many steps it took to get to John’s door. He had no idea how many steps he had to take to get to John. What combination of words there was to make what he was hurting through soften, just a little.
The floor outside John’s door had three scuff marks Sherlock could see from the cane he used to need. The doorframe had fingerprints enough to rework every one of John’s fingers. He liked to lean on it and talk into Sherlock’s room in the mornings. Used to anyway.
There were thirty three mornings Sherlock could remember that he awoke to John’s rambling from the doorway. Ten nights in the last month that Sherlock heard John sobbing from his bedroom and stayed awake to try to calculate a way to close the distance one wall put up. He could break it down brick by brick and still there was no answer. It was John, after all.
Sherlock knocked twice. Slid the door open with five fingers. John shifted, but his back was turned. He was awake, and crying.
“John?” Sherlock asked once, not having taken a step. John said not one word.
Sherlock took the four strides to the edge of John’s bed. He turned only as Sherlock sank onto the empty side, leaning against the headboard.
“Go away,” John said.
“No,” Sherlock said. “What’s wrong, John?”
John shifted, turning to face the ceiling instead of the darkened wall. Sherlock itched to count his eyelashes, the number of times he swallowed before he spoke. Itched for any numbers that would help him navigate this unencountered equation.
He sighed, John, and he opened his mouth twice before he started to speak. “I'm falling in love again.”
As John turned to face Sherlock, his heart jumped. His hand shifted closer to Sherlock’s against the sheets. “I can't,” John said. “Besides, they'd never feel the same.”
Sherlock didn't understand. He wouldn't allow himself to believe lies. “Why?” Sherlock breathed.
“Because I am just me,” John said. “Data not worth remembering.”
“John,” Sherlock said, “you ate seventeen chips the first time we went out. You smiled at me three times that day. Scowled at me ten. You looked at my like I was your version of a god once. Told me I was fantastic once.”
John snorted. Sherlock pressed on. “From my bed, there are twenty two point two steps to your doorway. I have heard your nightmares hundreds of times. The last time we hugged, your heartbeat against mine thirty times.
“You told me when we first met that your favorite color was grey. You've told me twice that your favorite color is when blue and green meet.
“There have been an infinite number of jokes you tell that I do not understand. Do you know why, John?”
“Why you don't understand my jokes?”
Sherlock hummed. Waiting for two, three breaths. Heart beating too loud to count.
“You don't get pop culture references because you delete useless information,” John said. His voice caught in the middle. He turned to Sherlock, finally looking at him. “It clutters your mind palace.”
“You, John, have an entire room. Don't for one second tell me you are just you, data not worth remembering. Do you know the things I deleted to keep all of this?”
“I don't think you know it either,” John snorted. Sherlock smiled at John’s smile. Once in the last twenty days. Once was all at once enough and already he was craving another. His hand inched closer to Sherlock’s hand. “Why?” John asked. “Why me?”
“Thousands of things,” Sherlock said.
“Name one.”
As John slid his hand into Sherlock’s, Sherlock said, “You were the only one to ask me not to be dead. Twice, you asked. I heard you.”
“The only time you've ever listened to me,” John said. Twice, in the last twenty days.
John squeezed Sherlock’s hand. “It's you, you know. I think I'm in love with you.”
Sherlock scoffed. “I know, John.”
“Why didn't you ever say anything?”
“I leave my cups of tea to go cold only so I can hear you sing while you wash them. I leave my door open at night just so when you start to talk to me out your doorway, I'll wake up to your voice. I took you to get cake and stared at you the whole time, Christ it is obvious isn't it? Even bloody Ms. Hudson noticed.”
“I never thought to look for the signs,” John said. “Thought it was impossible.”
“You are the only impossible thing here,” Sherlock said.
Sherlock couldn't count the seconds before John’s lips were on his. It happened too fast, his heart beating too loud. He tried to catalogue everything, wiping out the entire solar system to make room for this. John’s hands on Sherlock’s jaw, the press of his chest against Sherlock’s. There were too many things slipping by, but Sherlock stopped caring so much as John’s kiss got deeper, hands beginning to wander. His fingers tugged at the hair at the nape of Sherlock’s neck and he stopped counting everything completely.
Some miraculous things are easier to understand in pieces. Newton’s laws. Algebra. But, there were anomalies. Things that made sense in pieces but never as a whole. Love, Sherlock could understand, in the tiniest portions. A teacup made just right. A giggle where there should not be one (see: Buckingham Palace). Though Sherlock wouldn't ever fit all the pieces together to understand how it happened, he'd stop trying. John was an anomaly he wouldn't mind trying to figure out for thousands of years.