There're a pair of boots in his closet; they're dusty and old, but still brand new. A mystery in and of itself, wrapped up into leather and shadow, never opened, but never truly closed.

They're tan. John doesn't like looking at them, because they're a door to something else that he doesn't wish to reminisce upon. There's mud in the soles, splattered against the sides, and they're eerily rugged but not quite rugged at all. When John sees them, he swallows fear back down into his throat, and he feels a nauseous disgust pass over him before he closes his eyes for a few moments and takes deep, deep breaths. "He's" not going to hurt John, he knows this - but sometimes he feels so... close.

John darts inside the closet and picks up those old, brand new boots by the tongue, preparing himself mentally to toss them in the garbage. He grimaces as he carries them, keeping the stomach fluids at bay in his mouth, wading thickly throughout his flat to find the bin in the kitchen.

In hindsight, he should have moved the trash to where the boots were, but he'd forgotten. No matter, John thinks. I'll get there eventually.

John has contemplated this moment many a time, sitting at the edge of his bed, looking at those stupid boots. They're so menacing, so scientifically precise, and he hates them. Why did we even keep them? So he could feel guilty? Ashamed? Was it the only thing he had left of his old life?

John had been cleaning when he re-found them, their little screams poking and jabbing at his conscience.

You're afraid to let go, they whispered. You're afraid to love anything but yourself.

So John resolved to throw them in the fucking garbage.

But now the garbage is nowhere to be seen, and their squeaky little yells are infiltrating his barriers. He carries them through his halls, and he swears that they can see this sad, sad life he's created for himself, and they think he is no better than what he was. The mud painted across the sides of those boots scream a story he doesn't want to recall, a story he doesn't want to think of, full of darkness and pain and clues that speak for themselves. You should've known, they cry. Your fault, your fault, your fault.

Why can't he find the garbage can? Why can't he find it?

Because you want us here, they whisper. You like feeling guilty, responsible. You like knowing that there is something that you could have done.

John speeds his pace, now searching more frantically, shoveling papers away and opening cupboards and closets and compartments, even if they can't even fit a garbage bin inside.

Run, they whisper.

Run.

John begins jogging, searching for a place to shove his old life in, a story he doesn't want to remember. His story. He just wishes he had amnesia.

But don't we all?

Run.

He's so tired. His heart is racing, and they're still yelling at him, so dark and shrill and menacing.

Run. Run.

He looks at those boots. He captures them in his mind's eye as they scream at him.

Run.

Run.

Run.

Aren't you tired?

Yes, he whispers.

Aren't you so tired?

Yes.

But you don't want to slow down, do you? they purr.

No, John pants, he swallows, no, no, no, no, no.

He wouldn't slow down if he had the chance. He wouldn't fucking dare. And he's going to run past every roadblock, every car, until he's at the end of the world, and then, and then.

He's going to jump off.

And if he falls through long enough... if he stays suspended - he might trick himself into believing that he can fly.

"John."

The boots hit the ground like weights.

"John."

"Wh-wha..." John stares at the man who brought him out of his fantasy, and then at his unclenched hand, and then his boots, on the floor.

"What could you possibly be doing," Sherlock whispers, a soft chuckle in his voice.

He was here? John asks himself, his eyebrows forming a figurative question.

"I... I just..."

"You got up at four in the morning, saying something about your step-dad, and I waited in bed for you for about thirty minutes until I heard you running around the flat like bloody lunatic - and what are you doing with a pair of work boots one size too small-"

"Two," John whispers.

"What?"

"They're, um..." he dawdles his fingers, squeezing his fist at his sides habitually. "Two sizes. Too small."

Sherlock tilts his head curiously, his eyes darting across John up and down. Like he's a frog in biology class, an insect being observed under a scalpel and microscope. He gestures to the boots, John nods once, and then picks them up to be looked at.

"They're-"

"Hush," Sherlock snaps. "I need to think."

"But-"

"Don't bother to tell me, you'll lie and keep bits and pieces out. It's in human's nature to do so."

"Are you not human?" John laughs thickly. Sherlock looks up quite slowly, a smile not even gracing his eyes.

"I'd say not."

John shrugs and shuffles in places for a few moments, pushing Sherlock's hard, intense gaze away with his body movements. He freezes in place, and then yanks a finger back to his kitchen. "Do you, uh, want some toast? For your misadventures?"

Sherlock completely ignores him, speckled green eyes pulling information out of every tear in the nose of the shoe. He looks beautiful. John is suddenly overtaken with it, his eyes flashing with a light sort of adoration, a role model that is ineffable and impossible to copy.

"Uhm..." he trails off for a moment, just staring at this outrageously perfect man. Then, he catches himself, and begins limping to the kitchen. "Tell me when you're ready."

"Sh!"

***

"Alright." John sits down, holding some tea in his hand (made from the kettle, goddammit), and slurps thirstily. "Tell me what you've got," he says. A smirk passes through his face. Sherlock can't deduce his back story using a fucking boot. He is absolutely sure of this, absolutely and complete-

"Abusive parent."

John's jaw drops like it's full of stones.

"A little unsure of which side, yet. Maybe your mom. But I'm leaning towards father... because... fathers."

"H-how, I-"

"Mud. Splatter pattern. You liked these boots. Gift on your birthday. Says so on the tongue. '12/28/09.' Right there." Sherlock points, a mock smile on his lips.

"How do you know that's my birthday?" John says, defensively folding his arms across his chest to imply that Sherlock is wrong. Of course, he isn't, but sometimes he has to be a little challenging, or all the words fall out of his mouth like sand through his fingertips.

"I've stolen your driver's license."

"Oh."

"In 2009 you were sixteen, turning seventeen. Thus the size of the shoes."

"Yep."

"You loved these shoes. Polished the leather, a tried not to step in puddles - didn't run in them. They were your favorite. Perhaps they were a symbol of trust. A truce. Maybe you liked them so much because you thought the person that gave them to you would begin liking you, too."

John patiently listens. There is no point in anything anymore. Denial is futile.

"So. What's curious to me is that if this were an accident, you would have scrubbed the stain off. But this dirt..." Sherlock scratches it off with a fingernail, and it crumbles and falls into his lap. "It's caked. Layers upon layers. You couldn't even use them anymore if you wanted to. Which, you didn't. Because you never wanted to see them again. Shove them in the garbage, story's over." Sherlock smiles, then, one of his bedazzling, "John" smiles, the ones that make John want to explode and implode all at the same time.

"But you kept them."

"I did," John affirms.

"You were running. The splatter pattern is striped and speckled. From home, most likely. You would have cleaned them off if from anywhere otherwise. 'Why from home?' you may ask. Well, I'll answer."

"Shouldn't I answer-"

"Because you were scared of the person that gave you these. And you kept them, because that's who you are, and you like the responsibility and the ache that comes when you fail because at least it's something to think about when there's nothing else."

John nods, and looks away. "Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he muses bitterly. "Always bloody on top of things."

"What," he says, softly. "I don't know everything about you."

"Yes, you do."

"I don't know who it was."

"The abusive one?"

"Yeah."

John pauses for a moment, searching for something that he could recognize in Sherlock's eyes. Loss.

Then, "Step-dad."

Sherlock likewise shrugs, and nods. "Me, too," he murmurs, and then gets up to go to the kitchen.

John watches, clenching his fists and pushing his head back into the couch. He forces himself to breathe the panic away, the sea of memories, and he looks at those shoes and he looks at Sherlock and it's just so clear, now. Just so pure.

"Hey," John calls into the next room. "Want to pour me a drink?"

A/N: I'm so sorry that was horrid this writer's block refuses to leave God

Also the only version they allowed me to put of "ghosts that we knew" by mumford and sons was only available on a browser, not the wattpad mobile app ;-; im srry