Chapter Text
After the fall, Sherlock’s hair was shorn ragged and dyed red; he was no raven anymore. He was no one anymore, a man without friend or name or home fires to await him. London was a concussed blur behind him of hard pavement and begged promises for silence from a man who wasn’t his comrade and now would never be.
Donald Camden was the trustworthy sort John had vowed after all who had balked at Sherlock’s injured state and at the very breath in his lungs. Sherlock Holmes had died in London’s eyes; his voice had not been a welcome one to hear in the night, not for Donnie. But he had kept his peace and performed the task Sherlock had pled for. He knew it was solely Camden’s love of John that stayed his hand and made it work, and that all this was for John’s sake.
It was the toil of a selfless, stinging week, which the artist had deemed pushing it and would be sped no further. The hours were whiled away in late evenings, terse reports of John’s state shared by word of mouth and the odd muted news report. What pain Sherlock trembled for went beyond the dermal layer of his skin, reached beyond lungs. It lingered where John was not.
Sherlock could hardly bear clothing on his tender flesh as he departed London, care of Molly Hooper’s dearest and most intrusive aunt. He endured for the sake of the mission, for the sake of ink tributes, and someday, somehow making his return. He said goodbye to Britain by way of private charter, paid in cash vanished at his brother’s behest. There was a host of martyrs left behind he’d have to thank one day, should he survive this; they would land on the blade of John’s sword before him.*
His subsequent travails found him in a matchbox flat in Gdansk, taking the tedious measures necessary to prevent infection setting in. The ritual was an awkward, agonizing reach, leaving him panting on hands and knees before his full-length mirror glass. It reflected him sapped of vanity save this one essential feature, this one hallowed piece of his mate that he could carry with him, his name protected.
Thus, Sherlock found himself alone in all the world, but for the beetle-black eye that peered from his shoulder and the sharp, cruel beak plucking at his tin heart.
