here, our minutes grow hours
Title: here, our minutes grow hours
Author: the_arc5
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: PG-13 for implied sexuality
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the entire series.
Summary: In between corpses and embezzlement cases and grand thefts, it’s all very comfortable and domestic.
Which means it’s only a matter of time before something explodes.
Author's Notes: Beta'ed by amaberis and whochick, who have since formed an alliance to ban me from life if I don't do as they say. I'm actually pretty okay with this. All my thanks and love go to both of you; you know I'd never write anything without your cheerleading, editing, and dirty enabling when necessary.
The man is a magician.
He pulls facts out of thin air, reading John’s past as clearly as if it were painted over his face, bright colour illustrations in his stance, his haircut, his wrists. He does more in a single day than four months of therapy have managed, banishing cane and ennui and sense of helplessness with a flick of the hand and a few words, spoken imperiously and with maddening confidence. He will be obeyed, he will be followed, and John can’t help but wonder why nobody else seems to have caught on yet.
The man is a magician, and everybody wants to burn him at the stake.
Fuck that, John thinks, and pulls the trigger.
***
Sherlock Holmes is a lunatic. Stark, raving mad. Completely off his head, and a terrible slob on top of it.
“I am not cleaning the eyeball jar!” John says, dish scrubber held high and yellow gloves dripping. Sherlock is on the floor, doing god knows what. He looks up lazily.
“Why not? You’re cleaning the rest.”
This is what passes for reason in this flat. John walks over to drip vindictive water droplets on Sherlock’s head.
“Do it yourself, you wanker,” he says, and Sherlock rolls over, irritated.
“I’m busy.”
“The carpet fibres can wait ten minutes. It’s your turn, anyway, not as if that has ever made a dent. Do I need to draw up a chart? I can. I have rulers and pens and everything.”
“Don’t be boring,” Sherlock says in what from anybody else’s throat would be a whine.
“God, I hate you,” John says.
He cleans the eyeball jar.
***
John turns up at the scene and silently passes over his notebook. Sherlock takes it, rifles through the pages, and hums approvingly. Lestrade stares from John to Sherlock and back again.
“What the hell?” he says at last. Sherlock doesn’t look up.
“I checked out the warehouse like he asked,” John says, shrugging.
“He...trusted you? To collect evidence?”
John shrugs again. “I’m not as good as he is, but even I can see where they tried to clean the blood up. There were crowbars about, but I don’t think...”
“No, no, of course not,” Sherlock interrupts, and begins a diatribe that effectively kills all other avenues of conversation. The case is solved within the next half hour, and Sherlock throws up his hand for a cab, John close behind him, notebook tucked in his jacket pocket.
“Incredible,” Lestrade says beneath his breath, his eyes fixed not on Sherlock Holmes, but John Watson.
***
Getting kidnapped and nearly killed did not put Sarah in a romantic frame of mind. Pity, because John’s blood was singing and he could feel the burn of adrenaline churning through his system, and if she’d invited him back just then, it would have been better than good.
He comforts her and promises to call and bundles her off home and throws himself into his bed, takes himself in hand, so desperate it almost hurts.
Downstairs, Sherlock is wringing something raw and brutal from his violin, pacing back and forth and John stuffs one fist in his mouth to keep from screaming when he comes.
The strings wail and go silent all at once, and Sherlock slams his bedroom door shut.
***
It’s a Thursday night when Sherlock brings home a man. He’s a malnourished, artsy type with too much scarf and not enough trouser. They pause in the entry, and John has opened his mouth to ask what the case is when the man tilts his head back and Sherlock licks down his throat. John beats a hasty retreat and goes to bed about three hours earlier than normal.
He’s not listening, doesn’t hear the creak of furniture, suspicious knocks against walls, no throaty noises or whispered names. Not listening, it’s fine, all fine, nothing, nothing...
The front door closes and a thin tendril of violin music creeps beneath the seam of John’s door. Post-coital sonata, soft and curling like cigarette smoke, and what the fuck is it to him if his flatmate wants to have it off every once in a while? He may be married to his work, but his work clearly doesn’t make an effort in the bedroom, unless Sherlock is into necrophilia and oh my god, the train of thought has to stop there.
It’s nothing to him. Nothing at all. It’s just, eight months of nothing, cagey answers and no real information at all, and suddenly there’s, there’s...
John pulls the blankets roughly over his shoulders and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to fool his brain into sleep.
***
They’re going to die.
Everything is suddenly so very, very, simple. They’re going to die, but John can reduce the body count by one. Even better, he can spare the only one that matters. So he locks an arm around Moriarty’s throat and yells at Sherlock to run.
The light flickers over Sherlock’s chest and John’s arms drop. Not good enough. They’re going to die and John can’t save them, it’s out of his hands and...
Moriarty leaves them.
His limbs feel like water, Sherlock tearing the vest off him, flinging it away in something approaching panic, and there’s a roaring in John’s ears that’s making it hard to think.
All right, he’s all right, it’s fine, it’s all fine, all of it...
Sherlock is running the barrel of the gun against his head, his face, god, what is he thinking, his words disjointed and strange and bereft without that iron confidence to anneal them. John makes a joke that isn’t, really, Sherlock Holmes stripping him in a darkened swimming pool, wouldn’t that be fun gossip?
Wouldn’t that be fun, if there weren’t incendiaries involved?
Laser sights, that high, deranged voice, and Sherlock looks over, once.
John nods.
They’re going to die; might as well go out with a bang.
***
They live, and John’s leg wound isn’t psychosomatic anymore, and Sherlock’s phone has been confiscated and the hospital is crawling with police and people who probably work for Mycroft and it’s all unholy chaos blurred by really strong medication.
John smiles when he hears Sherlock shouting, closes his eyes, and slips back under.
***
Civilian liaison and private detective. Sherlock baulks at the titles but lets John cash the cheques with the provision John become his partner. He even makes business cards, which he promptly loses. John keeps up with their new IDs and reads up on law and poisons and becomes good friends with Molly and eventually signs on to do autopsies part-time.
John still cleans the flat and cooks seven tenths of their meals and Sherlock teaches him to appreciate Mendelssohn and they watch really crap telly together.
In between corpses and embezzlement cases and grand thefts, it’s all very comfortable and domestic.
Which means it’s only a matter of time before something explodes.
***
The storage unit explodes.
John is knocked sideways by the blast, but remembers enough to tuck his shoulder and roll out of the way, arms over his head. There will be little bits of glass in his clothes and probably his hair, and it’s vaguely annoying that he’s been dragged here in the middle of the night just to get rained on by debris.
Sherlock was farther away (probably knew what was going to happen, the bastard), but he comes back now, a cut high up on his cheekbone and an unhappy twist to his mouth.
“John?” he says, a question, something shaken in his voice. “John?”
“Fine,” John grumbles, and Sherlock hauls him upright. “You’re bleeding, did you know?”
And just like that, Sherlock’s mouth is over his, pressing hard and warm with a gloved hand guiding him, positioning him better. For a half-second, John is frozen. For another half-second, John thinks, this is entirely inappropriate. For a half-second after that, he’s kissing back, forgetting that he doesn’t do this, not with men, and certainly not with his deranged, brilliant, irritating, wonderful flatmate.
Then it stops, two beats to look at each other in a space without air, and Sherlock is whirling around, leading him away from the burning storage unit, babbling about pressure differentials and automatic triggers and the colour green. Three minutes pass before the police arrive, all flashing lights and unfortunate sense of timing. John can feel the bits of glass and plaster and probably sheet metal in his clothes and hair, and he’s missed the opportunity to kiss Sherlock back as well as the opportunity to hit him in the face.
He takes a page out of Sherlock’s book, walks to the main road, hails a cab, and leaves Sherlock at the scene of the crime.
***
There are rules. There are conventions. There are traditions.
Sherlock doesn’t have time for any of them. He swoops in like some bird of ill-omen and does what he does best, which is upset every expectation there has ever been. Whatever you thought you knew, forget it, because Sherlock Holmes is here to prove you wrong, over and over again. There’s no balance, no restraint, no...no normalcy.
What is normal? Is normal something John wants? Has it ever been?
The cab lets him out at home, but he doesn’t go in. He walks instead, shoulders hunched against the cold, imagining the sharp air is peeling away the detritus of his thoughts, making him faster, brighter. It’s all imaginary, of course; he walks and he gets cold and nothing resolves itself inside his head.
It should be simple enough: Sherlock was obviously unnerved by that near-death experience they shared, and an exploding storage unit hit a little too close to home, har har. And because he is a madman with no concept of appropriate social interaction, he expressed his relief at John’s continued existence with a kiss. Might’ve happened to anyone, really.
No it wouldn’t have, his brain argues with no small degree of bitterness. If it had been Lestrade, he might have gotten a hand up, even Donovan might’ve gotten that, and Anderson would’ve been left to rot. Not kisses. Sherlock may have no use for social niceties, but he knows damn well what they are and how to use them when it suits him.
It should be simple, and it’s anything but.
A long black car rolls up noiselessly to the pavement and the dark-tinted window goes down smoothly.
“I realize this is none of my business,” Mycroft says politely, “but the cold can’t be doing your shoulder any favours. Nor the leg, come to think of it. Get in. I can be quiet while you continue your existential crisis.”
John gets in. It’s not as if the night can get much weirder, anyway. They pull away and Mycroft folds his hands over his umbrella. The silence lasts one, two, three, three and a half minutes, Mycroft staring at him disconcertingly.
“What’s he done?” he asks. John looks pointedly out of the window.
“I thought you said I could continue my existential crisis in peace.”
“You can, but I’d rather have the facts first. The storage unit exploded, obviously, and then Sherlock did or said something imprudent. Worse than normal, or you wouldn’t be wandering around London, alone, in a woefully inadequate jacket. We really should discuss the state of your winter wardrobe, John, traipsing about with Sherlock calls for something a bit heavier in the insulation department.”
“You’re not my mother,” John says, and Mycroft gives that smug half-grin of his.
“No, I’m not. But I’m Sherlock’s brother, and as you haven’t run out of his flat screaming yet, I have decided to consider you family. And family doesn’t allow family to wander about in flimsy winter wear.”
John sighs heavily. Arguing would be a waste of breath. Mycroft leans back, pleased.
“Very good. Now, tell me what he’s done.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Very loyal, even after he’s been foolish. Maybe especially because he’s been foolish, hmm?”
“Just...can you just take me home, please?”
“Already there. Or will be, in a minute or two. John...” Here Mycroft leans forward again, too knowing, too intelligent, dangerous. “Sherlock can be trying. I of all people should know. But you should recognize that to him, you are ... different. For his sake, and yours, I ask that you do not draw conclusions too quickly.”
“Right. I’ll just...right.” The car stops. “Thanks for the ride, anyway.”
Mycroft inclines his head and the car eases back into traffic with all the unspoken haughtiness of an emperor’s chariot. John pinches the bridge of his nose and wonders, briefly, what he did in a previous life to deserve friends like these. There’s an extra pinch for the afterthought that he just considered Mycroft Holmes a friend, and then he goes inside.
Sherlock isn’t there, and John can’t decide if he’s grateful for that or not.
***
Sherlock comes home at seven thirty in the morning, dashes into his bedroom for a change of clothes, locks the bathroom door for six and a half minutes, and leaves again. He doesn’t say a word. John swears conversationally at the empty flat and looks for something resembling breakfast. He’s not going to have this argument via text, and finding Sherlock when he clearly doesn’t want to be found is beyond the category of lost causes.
So he waits.
And waits.
And waits.
***
“Is this how it’s going to be, then?” John asks. Sherlock freezes in the act of reaching over the desk. “You’re just going to stop talking to me and never come home?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” Sherlock scoffs, and John crosses his arms.
“All right. You tell me what this is, then. Because by my count, you’ve spent about two hours here in the past three days. Are you moving out?”
“What? No. No, why would I...no.”
“Because that’s the impression I have.”
“Impressions are not deductions. You ought to try harder.”
John’s jaw tightens. “I wouldn’t have to if you would just talk to me for five minutes.”
“I’m ... busy,” Sherlock says, seizing a book and turning his back to John in one of the world’s most pathetic attempts at looking occupied.
“Right,” John snaps. “Busy. Too busy to tell me you’ll be out all night, too busy to tell me you apparently want to live elsewhere, too busy to tell me, oh, I don’t know, why you kissed me?”
Sherlock waves a hand, the picture of apathy. “Irrelevant.”
“Pretty bloody relevant to me!” John explodes.
“There’s no need to get worked up about it,” Sherlock snaps back, tossing the book away and leaning against the desk.
“Because that’s what you’re doing, is it? Not getting worked up? Pretending it never happened?”
“Precisely.” Sherlock’s voice could freeze water. John drops his head, laughs humourlessly.
“Of course you are.”
“You have a problem with that method?”
“What, other than the fact it’s not working?”
Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean it’s not working?”
“Oh, come on, Sherlock! You do actually live here, you know? Unfortunately, you also live here with me, and until now, I thought we were...”
“Were what?” Sherlock asks, his voice going dangerously soft.
“Friends,” John sputters. “I don’t know, partners. Brothers-in-arms, something. Not thirteen-year-old children who stop speaking because they’re embarrassed about something.”
“You think I’m embarrassed?”
“Best conclusion I’ve got,” John says wearily, and drops into his chair. “You kiss me and suddenly you don’t come home for days, and now we’re apparently pretending it never happened.”
“You’re the one who left,” Sherlock says, still quiet.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” The fight’s gone out of him; John just sounds tired now. “Typically speaking, flatmates don’t randomly kiss each other.”
“We’re typical now?” Sherlock says sardonically.
John’s mouth quirks up at one corner. “God, that’d be the day. That doesn’t change the fact you did, in fact, kiss me, and are now doing your level best to never speak to me again. I don’t know what to think.”
“I was trying to avoid this.”
“Avoid what, talking?”
“No,” Sherlock says impatiently. “The panic, the fallout. It was impulsive of me, and I regret it. There. Now we can forget all about it.”
John takes a moment to study Sherlock. It isn’t methodical or deductive, like Sherlock’s looks; it’s something he learned growing up, with his mother and sister and later his patients. He’s looking for that itch that something’s not right, that somebody is hiding something, and if anybody has ever hidden anything, Sherlock is right now. John can’t name it, but the itch is there.
“What if I don’t forget all about it?” he asks.
“Try harder,” Sherlock says tightly.
“Do you really regret it?”
For a second, Sherlock stands there, taking deliberately long breaths and doing a fairly good impression of someone who isn’t about to fly into a temper. John has learned that this is a solid indication of impending rage.
“No,” he hisses at last, fists clenched. “No, I do not regret kissing you. Happy now? Got what you wanted? There’s your gossip, your tawdry little fascination satisfied. Sherlock Holmes is gay and fancies his flatmate. Of course, you should have known the first, as I did take the trouble of bringing someone home once, but I doubt you noticed. You never do. God, some days I wonder if you have eyes in your head. What will you do first, I wonder? Try to let me down easy? Or do you have some phone calls to make? I’m sure Donovan would love to hear all about the freak’s fucking habits. You could scamper down to Mrs. Hudson, I’m sure she’d lend a consoling ear. Poor John Watson, object of unwanted affection, straight as an arrow and tormented by the despicable Sherlock Holmes!”
“I’m not tormented, you selfish bastard!” John yells back. “And just so you know, I wasn’t asking so I could have a giggle with Scotland Yard. Donovan, for God’s sake! No, no, this is good, this is brilliant. I’m glad I rate that highly with you.”
“More of the self-pity, please. I’m sure you have enough of it saved up,” Sherlock says with a sharp, bitter grin. There’s nothing funny about this; nothing at all. John digs his fingers into the arms of his chair, stands up, slaps the bookcase with an open palm. Keeps his back to Sherlock. Keeps his voice down.
“Self-pity.”
“I won’t apologise,” Sherlock says, voice still dripping acid. John slowly, deliberately pulls his hands from the bookcase. They’re perfectly steady.
“I know you think I’m an idiot, but even I’m not dense enough to expect that.” He’s even smart enough to know that right now, they’re talking about two entirely different offences.
“Very clever, a point for you,” Sherlock breathes in mock delight. “Quick, move on to the part where you tell me it’s all fine. I love that part. Such an obvious lie, but everyone tells it. I’d like to see you try. Come on, John, tell me it’s all fine.”
“It’s not all fine! Of course it’s not fine!” John spins on his heel, ready to fight, ready to hit, ready to break things. “You kissed me! You kissed me! And I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen, I’m not going to pretend it’s all fine, it’s all over. Maybe you can just, just, delete things from your hard drive or whatever it is you do with all the things you don’t want to bother with, but I can’t, Sherlock. I don’t work that way.”
“So you’re going to shout at me instead? Ah, yes, I can see how that makes so much more sense. I suppose I ought to ask if you’re leaving now, getting away from the big, bad homosexual.”
“This isn’t...” John slams both fists into the back of his chair, trying to regain some semblance of control. “I don’t care if you’re gay. I care that it somehow involves me, and I would like to get that sorted out, if you don’t mind!”
“It was a mistake, it won’t happen again. There, sorted,” Sherlock sneers.
John gapes for a second before shutting his mouth with a click of teeth. “It was a mistake. I was just so incredibly irresistible with dirt on my face and shrapnel in my hair that you just couldn’t control your animal lust. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Sherlock looks mortally offended that anyone would ever accuse him of something as plebeian as succumbing to animal lust. John nods, diagnosis confirmed.
“Thought not. Let’s examine this a little further, shall we?”
Sherlock is suddenly far too close, towering over him without touching, his voice gone dangerously quiet. “You don’t get to play armchair psychologist with me.”
“And you don’t get to tell me what to do.” John looks up without flinching. “You’re always telling me what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, always knowing everything. Let me have a go. You said you took the trouble of bringing someone home once. I noticed, of course I noticed, you were licking his throat in the middle of our entryway. But he’s been the only one, in all the time we’ve lived together, and him only once. Trouble, you said. So you’re not one to go looking for sexual partners. Then what am I? Convenient? But if you just wanted to get a leg over occasionally, you would probably do something horribly straightforward like walk into my room naked and ask. So I’m something else, something that makes you kiss me at a crime scene and apologise for it afterward. I’m something you want to hide. How am I doing so far?”
A muscle twitches in Sherlock’s jaw. John feels the danger crackling cold in the air, slides into it effortlessly.
“Here’s the trouble,” John goes on, ruthless, desperate. “You couldn’t just ask me. You couldn’t just tell me. Because that would mean you trusted me, that you respected me enough to give me more than five minutes to work through this. It would mean you lowering yourself down to my pathetic, idiotic level, and god forbid you ever be forced to do that. Oh, no, we’ve got to pretend you’ve never made the unforgivable mistake of caring about another human being.”
Sherlock takes a step back, his eyes locked on John’s, reading things John can only guess at.
“Why are you angry?” he says, sounding genuinely curious. John snorts.
“Take a guess.”
“No, I did guess, before, and I... Please. Why are you angry?”
“Why did you leave?”
Sherlock takes another slow step backward. “I thought if I left, you would either decide it didn’t matter or be concerned enough about me not coming home that you would stay.”
“You thought I would leave.” It’s one of those facts John knew before, but didn’t stop to examine properly. It’s nothing close to an apology, but it’s a confession, which is rare enough to be valuable.
“Well, you did. You’ve never abandoned me at a crime scene before.”
“You leave me at crimes scenes all the time.”
“I do a lot of things most people consider rude, inconsiderate, improper, and at times, immoral.”
John sighs deeply. “I’m angry because you thought I wouldn’t try to understand. Whatever mistakes I’ve made, turning my back on a friend has never been one of them. I would never do that to you, never.”
“No. But you might look at me differently. You might walk a little further away and correct people a little louder when they assume we’re a couple. You might grow apologetic and polite and move out.” Sherlock smiles, a tiny half-smile that’s more than a little sad. “I’d have to start turning up to crime scenes alone again. I’d never find another assistant.”
John sighs again. “For a genius, you’re pretty thick.”
“For someone so predictable, you are disconcertingly surprising.”
John shuffles his feet and looks at the floor, his bravado fading along with the tense atmosphere.
“Look, if I go down the street and get us some take-away, can I trust you not to run off again?”
“I’m not a dog, John,” Sherlock sniffs.
“Which is why the traditional sit, stay command isn’t very effective. I’m asking you if you will please stay in the vicinity while I get some food. You haven’t eaten this whole time, have you?”
Sherlock shrugs. “Once or twice.”
“Biscuits do not count.”
“Once.”
“Food. You require it. I am going to fetch it because you never bring home the right order and I suspect you do so just so I won’t force you to go out anymore, because you are a prat. I’ll come back with the right food and we’ll eat and watch crap telly and you can tell me about what you’ve done for three days. And later...” John swallows the uncomfortable feeling of walking off a tall cliff, “maybe we can try that kissing thing again. With fewer bombs. I hate glass in my hair.”
The shocked silence is new, and more than a little gratifying, even if it doesn’t last. When Sherlock does speak, he sounds vaguely bemused.
“I never do get your limits.”
“Yeah, well,” John says, and shrugs into his jacket before leaving the flat.
***
Their second kiss is a quiet, tentative little thing, passed between them after John has executively decided, for the eighth time, that two-thirty in the morning is as good a bedtime as any. It holds none of the desperate heat of the first, no passion, no feeling. As far as kisses go, it’s honestly a little disappointing. But John leans in first and Sherlock breathes out like a diver hitting the water and nothing burns down and the world keeps turning, so it could be worse. John says good night and goes to bed like a semi-sane person. Sherlock stays on the sofa for a long time.
***
Their third kiss is stolen. Sherlock has made John laugh, and he’s laughing too, in that low, almost silent way he has. John turns his shoulder in and it’s easy, too easy, to dip down and swallow that laugh, taste it, take it as if it’s his due. It’s fast, warm pressure more than anything else, and when he straightens Sherlock’s not laughing anymore. John blinks once, twice, and smiles at Sherlock’s back as he leads the way to the main road where their cab is waiting.
***
Their fourth kiss isn’t a kiss at all, but Sherlock was the one who decided a swim in the Thames was necessary, and if someone has to make sure he keeps breathing, John has already volunteered.
***
Their fifth kiss is a disaster. They’re flying, invincible, survivors of arson and escapists of kidnappers and between Sherlock’s lightning mind and John’s improbable reflexes, there is nothing, nothing that can ever break them. They take the stairs two at a time, lungs burning, muscles protesting, and nothing matters but the electric shock thrill of just being alive to feel. Sherlock seizes John by his open jacket and their mouths meet, crushing and biting and sweet, one of John’s hands steady on his hip, the other tangled in his hair. There’s no give, no yielding, just the high hum of adrenaline and the places where they can crash against each other without breaking. Sherlock pushes John’s jacket to the floor, pulls back long enough to see (he always has to see, hates the dark, hates his eyes shut), and John stumbles back, suddenly sober.
“I...Sherlock, it’s...” he fumbles, and Sherlock whirls away, wishes he hadn’t seen what he has, wishes he couldn’t know John is panicking just by looking.
“Don’t,” he snaps, knowing John will try to soften the blow. “Don’t.”
And John doesn’t.
***
Their sixth kiss is expected. Sherlock can see the set of John’s jaw, the stillness of his hands, knows what’s coming. Sherlock remembers getting his hands slapped as a child; there are things that mustn’t be touched, however much he despises rules. He remembers what it felt like to be told that he of all people should understand experimentation, what it felt like to know he hadn’t conquered that need to be wanted, not completely. Seems he still hasn’t. He tries to turn his face, and John catches it.
“I’ll most likely be rubbish at this,” he says, voice comforting, familiar, steady. “But I couldn’t face more than ten minutes of the gay porn and I don’t think those ten minutes were particularly helpful. But if you want to come up to my room, we can give it a go. If you want.”
“You don’t want,” Sherlock says dully, and John rests his forehead against Sherlock’s.
“I want you. That works, doesn’t it?” He kisses Sherlock, light, teasing. “Oh, come on, I know you love lecturing me.”
Sherlock bristles. He does not lecture. John just sits back.
“I suppose I could take this new-found facet of my sexuality to a gay bar instead.”
John is trying to goad him into something foolish. It works, though not the way John expects.
He locks his bedroom door behind him.
***
John’s shoulder can’t take an entire night sitting on the floor outside Sherlock’s door. But Sherlock can hear the resigned sigh when John’s repetition of his name doesn’t bear results, hears the soft rasp of jumper against wallpaper, hears the soft thump of John’s head against the wall, and knows where John plans on spending the night. So he turns the lock and waits for the door to open. After a few minutes, it does.
“Can I come in?”
Sherlock tangles his fingers in his own hair, sitting cross-legged in the centre of his bed, and doesn’t answer. John closes the door and leans against it, pursing his lips and staring at the ceiling like every answer he needs is written there.
“I told my therapist once that nothing ever happened to me. That was before I met you, of course. Now she thinks too much happens to me. She and Donovan keep trying to get me to take up safe, quiet hobbies.”
Sherlock gives a derisive sniff. Dull.
“Stamp collecting. Does anyone actually collect stamps anymore? Aside from the mentally unbalanced. Collecting small things, always seemed like something crazy people would do. But what would I know, I live with a man that collects body parts, which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly high on the list of sane activities.”
He looks down at Sherlock then, and smiles.
“Y’know, I typically get in a shag or two before getting kicked out of bed, as opposed to after.”
“Are you going to stand there and talk at me all night?” Sherlock asks, pulling slightly at his hair.
“If that’s what it takes.” John shuffles his feet, puts his hands in his pockets. “I’m pretty good at waiting.”
“Waiting.” Sherlock says the word like a curse. “What are you waiting for?”
“I’m not actually sure at this point. I’m willing to bet you’ll clue me in eventually. You usually do.”
Sherlock hums with frustration, his eyes flickering over to his empty violin case. The instrument is rarely there, but that doesn’t stop him wishing. Reality doesn’t often cover that, wishing. He squeezes his eyes shut and tugs at his hair again.
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” he says, keeping his eyes shut, his hands shielding his face. “You are not sexually attracted to men. You have tolerated my advances, and for that I think I’m supposed to thank you, but it’s gone far enough. We would have done better to have ignored my minor lapse in judgement from the beginning.”
“My God, are you on about that again?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? You’re the one that wants to make this complicated, John.”
“Me? I’m making this complicated? Sorry, have I missed something?”
“Sex is always complicated. Sex with you would be even more complicated than sex in general.”
John crosses his arms. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m not really that flexible. And I’m not really a whips and blindfolds and candle wax sort of guy.”
“You’re being deliberately obtuse,” Sherlock says sharply.
“You’re being obtuse,” John shoots back, and pushes off the wall. He settles himself at the foot of Sherlock’s bed, pushing aside the tangle of blankets and sheets before sitting on the mattress to face Sherlock, his expression serious.
“Look,” he says quietly, “I thought you wanted this. Me. What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” Sherlock answers. John sighs.
“Everything is a lot to be wrong at once. Can we start small, maybe?”
Sherlock’s head snaps up and he fixes John with a flat stare. “You don’t like men, aren’t sexually attracted to men, but you’ll kiss me. I don’t frighten you like I frighten other people, and we have been through a number of traumatic experiences together, so I assume you either pity me or kiss me out of some misguided sense of loyalty. Either way, the emotion runs so deep you are even willing to have sex with me, even though the very prospect is distasteful to you. I don’t want your pity, and I won’t take advantage...”
“I offered,” John interrupts. “And it wasn’t out of pity, either. You’re right, sex is complicated, but not the way you’re making it out to be. This isn’t about sex, is it?”
“Of course it’s about sex.”
“No,” John persists, “it isn’t. Not exactly. That’d be easier to sort out. Do you want me to say it first?”
“Say what?” Sherlock asks, retreating to the safety of his hands.
“I love you.” John’s mouth quirks into a half-smile when Sherlock’s head snaps back up. “I do, you know. That’s why I was so angry when you kissed me and then disappeared. You...god, you’re irritating and moody and half the time I don’t know whether I want to laugh at you or hit you, but I can’t imagine leaving, ever. The sex, now, that’s...unexpected, I guess. You don’t seem to see anything in anyone, and god only knows what you see in me. And I haven’t, with a man, and if it weren’t you, I don’t think I ever would. I was kidding with the whole gay bar thing. But it’s not like I don’t like kissing you, and I... I trust you. I promise I won’t freak out again, or if I do, I’ll do it in the bathroom or something where you don’t have to watch. Whatever happens, we’ll handle it, we’ll make it work, because you love me, too, and I’m willing to bet that’s what’s scaring you so badly.”
“I’m not scared,” Sherlock breathes, and John cocks his head indulgently at the lie. “You...”
“Right,” John says decisively, and launches himself at Sherlock. Of all possible responses, Sherlock certainly didn’t anticipate that, and John’s weight easily bowls him backward, his shoulders hitting the mattress hard, John suddenly lying in an incriminating sort of way between his legs, pinning him down.
“Still waiting, Sherlock,” John says evenly. “Although I really should point out that I worked this one through on my own. Don’t I get an award for that?”
“No,” Sherlock says, and doesn’t position himself to flip them, get his elbow at John’s throat. He could; John looks down at him with something like fondness.
“Pity.” John shifts, bringing his hand up so his thumb can drag across Sherlock’s lower lip.
“We can go back,” he tells him, not daring to move, to breathe. “I don’t need this, not like other people do.”
“This?” John asks, and gives another sweep of his thumb. “Or me?”
It’s a psychological response, emotionally motivated, entirely irrational, and Sherlock still can’t help himself from smelling chlorine. He brings his shoulder up, twists his legs, and John hits the mattress with a gust of breath. His forearms brace tightly against John’s shoulders, his hands curl around John’s head, and he’s the one lying in a compromising position now. Maybe John’s compromised, too. Maybe it doesn’t matter, because John is lifting his head and their mouths are coming together and this, this is what he needs, and he doesn’t need anything.
“I need you,” he breathes, and John’s hands cup his hips, skim over his back. “I need you and I can’t...”
“You’ve got me,” John says, and it’s a promise, a truth. “I’m right here, not going, not going anywhere...”
***
Afterward, it becomes immediately apparent that Sherlock doesn’t intend to let John go anywhere. He sleeps with his face mashed into John’s chest, his arms locked around John’s ribs, his legs clamped firmly around John’s, and his spine rolled into a tight curl to accommodate John’s smaller frame.
John looks down at Sherlock’s face, frowning in sleep, and feels something anxious and undecided slip away from him. Convention is for people who don’t associate with Sherlock Holmes, and his choices have been made.
Biology, though, is not so easily disposed of.
“Sherlock,” he whispers, and pokes at an exposed side. “Get off.”
Sherlock raises a lazy head and blinks at him in the harsh glare of the overhead light. “Where are you going?” he asks, voice rough with sleep. It’s almost enough to convince John just to stay where he is. Almost.
“Loo,” he says. “And to turn off the light. I’ll be right back.”
Sherlock makes a disgruntled noise, but lets John up. When he gets back, Sherlock is curled up on the other side of the bed, a hunched shadow in muted light from the street lamps. John crawls back in bed and Sherlock immediately rolls over to latch back onto him. John relaxes in his hold and closes his eyes.
“I love you,” Sherlock murmurs against his skin. John twists his neck at an impossible angle, trying to get a better look at his face.
“What?”
“Love you,” Sherlock says again, this time with a thin veneer of impatience. “Go to sleep.”
John lets his head flop back against the pillow. “Right,” he says, “sure.”
And he does, because really, what else is there to do?
***
Sherlock is very fond of reminding John that sex doesn’t solve everything. He’s right, but that doesn’t stop John from trying. John likes sex, is good at sex, and just because the terrain has changed doesn’t mean he’s stopped enjoying the expedition. Also, there’s a sense of satisfaction he gets from rendering Sherlock gasping and speechless that he just can’t get anywhere else. So he kisses Sherlock rough and ragged while they come down from adrenaline highs, drags his fingers slowly up Sherlock’s arm when he’s sulking on the sofa, casually pulls off his shirt in the living room when Sherlock has been awake for too long, learns that Sherlock will promise anything when John does the trick with his tongue.
And it doesn’t solve everything. The work comes first, as it always has, sex tossed by the wayside as a nuisance along with food and sleep. There are still stretches of time when John can’t reach Sherlock, days of silence punctuated with the anguished, wordless voice of the violin. There are arguments, and John keeps his arms crossed and distance between them, knowing that however physically satisfying angry sex can be, it won’t ever do the job his words are trying to. There are nights when one or both of them just can’t muster enough energy to care, and John falls asleep face down and Sherlock contorts himself into his own peculiar version of comfortable, sometimes draped over John’s body, sometimes as far away as he can get without falling off the bed. There are times when Sherlock is distant, there are times when John is dull, there are times when they misunderstand and misinterpret and miss each other halfway.
More often, though, John leaves cups of tea at Sherlock’s elbow and follows him into the dark, gun tucked in the small of his back. Sherlock watches bad telly and only complains enough to keep John entertained, always leading the way, always six steps ahead. He’ll only wait for John, and John’s the only one who even tries to keep up.
And sometimes, Sherlock stretches lazy and naked across the sheets, eyes closed, wearing something like a smile. Sometimes, John laughs and reaches for the blankets, casually groping Sherlock as he does. And they’ll think, I’m lucky. I’m lucky.
Author: the_arc5
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: PG-13 for implied sexuality
Warnings: Mild spoilers for the entire series.
Summary: In between corpses and embezzlement cases and grand thefts, it’s all very comfortable and domestic.
Which means it’s only a matter of time before something explodes.
Author's Notes: Beta'ed by amaberis and whochick, who have since formed an alliance to ban me from life if I don't do as they say. I'm actually pretty okay with this. All my thanks and love go to both of you; you know I'd never write anything without your cheerleading, editing, and dirty enabling when necessary.
The man is a magician.
He pulls facts out of thin air, reading John’s past as clearly as if it were painted over his face, bright colour illustrations in his stance, his haircut, his wrists. He does more in a single day than four months of therapy have managed, banishing cane and ennui and sense of helplessness with a flick of the hand and a few words, spoken imperiously and with maddening confidence. He will be obeyed, he will be followed, and John can’t help but wonder why nobody else seems to have caught on yet.
The man is a magician, and everybody wants to burn him at the stake.
Fuck that, John thinks, and pulls the trigger.
***
Sherlock Holmes is a lunatic. Stark, raving mad. Completely off his head, and a terrible slob on top of it.
“I am not cleaning the eyeball jar!” John says, dish scrubber held high and yellow gloves dripping. Sherlock is on the floor, doing god knows what. He looks up lazily.
“Why not? You’re cleaning the rest.”
This is what passes for reason in this flat. John walks over to drip vindictive water droplets on Sherlock’s head.
“Do it yourself, you wanker,” he says, and Sherlock rolls over, irritated.
“I’m busy.”
“The carpet fibres can wait ten minutes. It’s your turn, anyway, not as if that has ever made a dent. Do I need to draw up a chart? I can. I have rulers and pens and everything.”
“Don’t be boring,” Sherlock says in what from anybody else’s throat would be a whine.
“God, I hate you,” John says.
He cleans the eyeball jar.
***
John turns up at the scene and silently passes over his notebook. Sherlock takes it, rifles through the pages, and hums approvingly. Lestrade stares from John to Sherlock and back again.
“What the hell?” he says at last. Sherlock doesn’t look up.
“I checked out the warehouse like he asked,” John says, shrugging.
“He...trusted you? To collect evidence?”
John shrugs again. “I’m not as good as he is, but even I can see where they tried to clean the blood up. There were crowbars about, but I don’t think...”
“No, no, of course not,” Sherlock interrupts, and begins a diatribe that effectively kills all other avenues of conversation. The case is solved within the next half hour, and Sherlock throws up his hand for a cab, John close behind him, notebook tucked in his jacket pocket.
“Incredible,” Lestrade says beneath his breath, his eyes fixed not on Sherlock Holmes, but John Watson.
***
Getting kidnapped and nearly killed did not put Sarah in a romantic frame of mind. Pity, because John’s blood was singing and he could feel the burn of adrenaline churning through his system, and if she’d invited him back just then, it would have been better than good.
He comforts her and promises to call and bundles her off home and throws himself into his bed, takes himself in hand, so desperate it almost hurts.
Downstairs, Sherlock is wringing something raw and brutal from his violin, pacing back and forth and John stuffs one fist in his mouth to keep from screaming when he comes.
The strings wail and go silent all at once, and Sherlock slams his bedroom door shut.
***
It’s a Thursday night when Sherlock brings home a man. He’s a malnourished, artsy type with too much scarf and not enough trouser. They pause in the entry, and John has opened his mouth to ask what the case is when the man tilts his head back and Sherlock licks down his throat. John beats a hasty retreat and goes to bed about three hours earlier than normal.
He’s not listening, doesn’t hear the creak of furniture, suspicious knocks against walls, no throaty noises or whispered names. Not listening, it’s fine, all fine, nothing, nothing...
The front door closes and a thin tendril of violin music creeps beneath the seam of John’s door. Post-coital sonata, soft and curling like cigarette smoke, and what the fuck is it to him if his flatmate wants to have it off every once in a while? He may be married to his work, but his work clearly doesn’t make an effort in the bedroom, unless Sherlock is into necrophilia and oh my god, the train of thought has to stop there.
It’s nothing to him. Nothing at all. It’s just, eight months of nothing, cagey answers and no real information at all, and suddenly there’s, there’s...
John pulls the blankets roughly over his shoulders and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to fool his brain into sleep.
***
They’re going to die.
Everything is suddenly so very, very, simple. They’re going to die, but John can reduce the body count by one. Even better, he can spare the only one that matters. So he locks an arm around Moriarty’s throat and yells at Sherlock to run.
The light flickers over Sherlock’s chest and John’s arms drop. Not good enough. They’re going to die and John can’t save them, it’s out of his hands and...
Moriarty leaves them.
His limbs feel like water, Sherlock tearing the vest off him, flinging it away in something approaching panic, and there’s a roaring in John’s ears that’s making it hard to think.
All right, he’s all right, it’s fine, it’s all fine, all of it...
Sherlock is running the barrel of the gun against his head, his face, god, what is he thinking, his words disjointed and strange and bereft without that iron confidence to anneal them. John makes a joke that isn’t, really, Sherlock Holmes stripping him in a darkened swimming pool, wouldn’t that be fun gossip?
Wouldn’t that be fun, if there weren’t incendiaries involved?
Laser sights, that high, deranged voice, and Sherlock looks over, once.
John nods.
They’re going to die; might as well go out with a bang.
***
They live, and John’s leg wound isn’t psychosomatic anymore, and Sherlock’s phone has been confiscated and the hospital is crawling with police and people who probably work for Mycroft and it’s all unholy chaos blurred by really strong medication.
John smiles when he hears Sherlock shouting, closes his eyes, and slips back under.
***
Civilian liaison and private detective. Sherlock baulks at the titles but lets John cash the cheques with the provision John become his partner. He even makes business cards, which he promptly loses. John keeps up with their new IDs and reads up on law and poisons and becomes good friends with Molly and eventually signs on to do autopsies part-time.
John still cleans the flat and cooks seven tenths of their meals and Sherlock teaches him to appreciate Mendelssohn and they watch really crap telly together.
In between corpses and embezzlement cases and grand thefts, it’s all very comfortable and domestic.
Which means it’s only a matter of time before something explodes.
***
The storage unit explodes.
John is knocked sideways by the blast, but remembers enough to tuck his shoulder and roll out of the way, arms over his head. There will be little bits of glass in his clothes and probably his hair, and it’s vaguely annoying that he’s been dragged here in the middle of the night just to get rained on by debris.
Sherlock was farther away (probably knew what was going to happen, the bastard), but he comes back now, a cut high up on his cheekbone and an unhappy twist to his mouth.
“John?” he says, a question, something shaken in his voice. “John?”
“Fine,” John grumbles, and Sherlock hauls him upright. “You’re bleeding, did you know?”
And just like that, Sherlock’s mouth is over his, pressing hard and warm with a gloved hand guiding him, positioning him better. For a half-second, John is frozen. For another half-second, John thinks, this is entirely inappropriate. For a half-second after that, he’s kissing back, forgetting that he doesn’t do this, not with men, and certainly not with his deranged, brilliant, irritating, wonderful flatmate.
Then it stops, two beats to look at each other in a space without air, and Sherlock is whirling around, leading him away from the burning storage unit, babbling about pressure differentials and automatic triggers and the colour green. Three minutes pass before the police arrive, all flashing lights and unfortunate sense of timing. John can feel the bits of glass and plaster and probably sheet metal in his clothes and hair, and he’s missed the opportunity to kiss Sherlock back as well as the opportunity to hit him in the face.
He takes a page out of Sherlock’s book, walks to the main road, hails a cab, and leaves Sherlock at the scene of the crime.
***
There are rules. There are conventions. There are traditions.
Sherlock doesn’t have time for any of them. He swoops in like some bird of ill-omen and does what he does best, which is upset every expectation there has ever been. Whatever you thought you knew, forget it, because Sherlock Holmes is here to prove you wrong, over and over again. There’s no balance, no restraint, no...no normalcy.
What is normal? Is normal something John wants? Has it ever been?
The cab lets him out at home, but he doesn’t go in. He walks instead, shoulders hunched against the cold, imagining the sharp air is peeling away the detritus of his thoughts, making him faster, brighter. It’s all imaginary, of course; he walks and he gets cold and nothing resolves itself inside his head.
It should be simple enough: Sherlock was obviously unnerved by that near-death experience they shared, and an exploding storage unit hit a little too close to home, har har. And because he is a madman with no concept of appropriate social interaction, he expressed his relief at John’s continued existence with a kiss. Might’ve happened to anyone, really.
No it wouldn’t have, his brain argues with no small degree of bitterness. If it had been Lestrade, he might have gotten a hand up, even Donovan might’ve gotten that, and Anderson would’ve been left to rot. Not kisses. Sherlock may have no use for social niceties, but he knows damn well what they are and how to use them when it suits him.
It should be simple, and it’s anything but.
A long black car rolls up noiselessly to the pavement and the dark-tinted window goes down smoothly.
“I realize this is none of my business,” Mycroft says politely, “but the cold can’t be doing your shoulder any favours. Nor the leg, come to think of it. Get in. I can be quiet while you continue your existential crisis.”
John gets in. It’s not as if the night can get much weirder, anyway. They pull away and Mycroft folds his hands over his umbrella. The silence lasts one, two, three, three and a half minutes, Mycroft staring at him disconcertingly.
“What’s he done?” he asks. John looks pointedly out of the window.
“I thought you said I could continue my existential crisis in peace.”
“You can, but I’d rather have the facts first. The storage unit exploded, obviously, and then Sherlock did or said something imprudent. Worse than normal, or you wouldn’t be wandering around London, alone, in a woefully inadequate jacket. We really should discuss the state of your winter wardrobe, John, traipsing about with Sherlock calls for something a bit heavier in the insulation department.”
“You’re not my mother,” John says, and Mycroft gives that smug half-grin of his.
“No, I’m not. But I’m Sherlock’s brother, and as you haven’t run out of his flat screaming yet, I have decided to consider you family. And family doesn’t allow family to wander about in flimsy winter wear.”
John sighs heavily. Arguing would be a waste of breath. Mycroft leans back, pleased.
“Very good. Now, tell me what he’s done.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Very loyal, even after he’s been foolish. Maybe especially because he’s been foolish, hmm?”
“Just...can you just take me home, please?”
“Already there. Or will be, in a minute or two. John...” Here Mycroft leans forward again, too knowing, too intelligent, dangerous. “Sherlock can be trying. I of all people should know. But you should recognize that to him, you are ... different. For his sake, and yours, I ask that you do not draw conclusions too quickly.”
“Right. I’ll just...right.” The car stops. “Thanks for the ride, anyway.”
Mycroft inclines his head and the car eases back into traffic with all the unspoken haughtiness of an emperor’s chariot. John pinches the bridge of his nose and wonders, briefly, what he did in a previous life to deserve friends like these. There’s an extra pinch for the afterthought that he just considered Mycroft Holmes a friend, and then he goes inside.
Sherlock isn’t there, and John can’t decide if he’s grateful for that or not.
***
Sherlock comes home at seven thirty in the morning, dashes into his bedroom for a change of clothes, locks the bathroom door for six and a half minutes, and leaves again. He doesn’t say a word. John swears conversationally at the empty flat and looks for something resembling breakfast. He’s not going to have this argument via text, and finding Sherlock when he clearly doesn’t want to be found is beyond the category of lost causes.
So he waits.
And waits.
And waits.
***
“Is this how it’s going to be, then?” John asks. Sherlock freezes in the act of reaching over the desk. “You’re just going to stop talking to me and never come home?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” Sherlock scoffs, and John crosses his arms.
“All right. You tell me what this is, then. Because by my count, you’ve spent about two hours here in the past three days. Are you moving out?”
“What? No. No, why would I...no.”
“Because that’s the impression I have.”
“Impressions are not deductions. You ought to try harder.”
John’s jaw tightens. “I wouldn’t have to if you would just talk to me for five minutes.”
“I’m ... busy,” Sherlock says, seizing a book and turning his back to John in one of the world’s most pathetic attempts at looking occupied.
“Right,” John snaps. “Busy. Too busy to tell me you’ll be out all night, too busy to tell me you apparently want to live elsewhere, too busy to tell me, oh, I don’t know, why you kissed me?”
Sherlock waves a hand, the picture of apathy. “Irrelevant.”
“Pretty bloody relevant to me!” John explodes.
“There’s no need to get worked up about it,” Sherlock snaps back, tossing the book away and leaning against the desk.
“Because that’s what you’re doing, is it? Not getting worked up? Pretending it never happened?”
“Precisely.” Sherlock’s voice could freeze water. John drops his head, laughs humourlessly.
“Of course you are.”
“You have a problem with that method?”
“What, other than the fact it’s not working?”
Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean it’s not working?”
“Oh, come on, Sherlock! You do actually live here, you know? Unfortunately, you also live here with me, and until now, I thought we were...”
“Were what?” Sherlock asks, his voice going dangerously soft.
“Friends,” John sputters. “I don’t know, partners. Brothers-in-arms, something. Not thirteen-year-old children who stop speaking because they’re embarrassed about something.”
“You think I’m embarrassed?”
“Best conclusion I’ve got,” John says wearily, and drops into his chair. “You kiss me and suddenly you don’t come home for days, and now we’re apparently pretending it never happened.”
“You’re the one who left,” Sherlock says, still quiet.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” The fight’s gone out of him; John just sounds tired now. “Typically speaking, flatmates don’t randomly kiss each other.”
“We’re typical now?” Sherlock says sardonically.
John’s mouth quirks up at one corner. “God, that’d be the day. That doesn’t change the fact you did, in fact, kiss me, and are now doing your level best to never speak to me again. I don’t know what to think.”
“I was trying to avoid this.”
“Avoid what, talking?”
“No,” Sherlock says impatiently. “The panic, the fallout. It was impulsive of me, and I regret it. There. Now we can forget all about it.”
John takes a moment to study Sherlock. It isn’t methodical or deductive, like Sherlock’s looks; it’s something he learned growing up, with his mother and sister and later his patients. He’s looking for that itch that something’s not right, that somebody is hiding something, and if anybody has ever hidden anything, Sherlock is right now. John can’t name it, but the itch is there.
“What if I don’t forget all about it?” he asks.
“Try harder,” Sherlock says tightly.
“Do you really regret it?”
For a second, Sherlock stands there, taking deliberately long breaths and doing a fairly good impression of someone who isn’t about to fly into a temper. John has learned that this is a solid indication of impending rage.
“No,” he hisses at last, fists clenched. “No, I do not regret kissing you. Happy now? Got what you wanted? There’s your gossip, your tawdry little fascination satisfied. Sherlock Holmes is gay and fancies his flatmate. Of course, you should have known the first, as I did take the trouble of bringing someone home once, but I doubt you noticed. You never do. God, some days I wonder if you have eyes in your head. What will you do first, I wonder? Try to let me down easy? Or do you have some phone calls to make? I’m sure Donovan would love to hear all about the freak’s fucking habits. You could scamper down to Mrs. Hudson, I’m sure she’d lend a consoling ear. Poor John Watson, object of unwanted affection, straight as an arrow and tormented by the despicable Sherlock Holmes!”
“I’m not tormented, you selfish bastard!” John yells back. “And just so you know, I wasn’t asking so I could have a giggle with Scotland Yard. Donovan, for God’s sake! No, no, this is good, this is brilliant. I’m glad I rate that highly with you.”
“More of the self-pity, please. I’m sure you have enough of it saved up,” Sherlock says with a sharp, bitter grin. There’s nothing funny about this; nothing at all. John digs his fingers into the arms of his chair, stands up, slaps the bookcase with an open palm. Keeps his back to Sherlock. Keeps his voice down.
“Self-pity.”
“I won’t apologise,” Sherlock says, voice still dripping acid. John slowly, deliberately pulls his hands from the bookcase. They’re perfectly steady.
“I know you think I’m an idiot, but even I’m not dense enough to expect that.” He’s even smart enough to know that right now, they’re talking about two entirely different offences.
“Very clever, a point for you,” Sherlock breathes in mock delight. “Quick, move on to the part where you tell me it’s all fine. I love that part. Such an obvious lie, but everyone tells it. I’d like to see you try. Come on, John, tell me it’s all fine.”
“It’s not all fine! Of course it’s not fine!” John spins on his heel, ready to fight, ready to hit, ready to break things. “You kissed me! You kissed me! And I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen, I’m not going to pretend it’s all fine, it’s all over. Maybe you can just, just, delete things from your hard drive or whatever it is you do with all the things you don’t want to bother with, but I can’t, Sherlock. I don’t work that way.”
“So you’re going to shout at me instead? Ah, yes, I can see how that makes so much more sense. I suppose I ought to ask if you’re leaving now, getting away from the big, bad homosexual.”
“This isn’t...” John slams both fists into the back of his chair, trying to regain some semblance of control. “I don’t care if you’re gay. I care that it somehow involves me, and I would like to get that sorted out, if you don’t mind!”
“It was a mistake, it won’t happen again. There, sorted,” Sherlock sneers.
John gapes for a second before shutting his mouth with a click of teeth. “It was a mistake. I was just so incredibly irresistible with dirt on my face and shrapnel in my hair that you just couldn’t control your animal lust. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Sherlock looks mortally offended that anyone would ever accuse him of something as plebeian as succumbing to animal lust. John nods, diagnosis confirmed.
“Thought not. Let’s examine this a little further, shall we?”
Sherlock is suddenly far too close, towering over him without touching, his voice gone dangerously quiet. “You don’t get to play armchair psychologist with me.”
“And you don’t get to tell me what to do.” John looks up without flinching. “You’re always telling me what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, always knowing everything. Let me have a go. You said you took the trouble of bringing someone home once. I noticed, of course I noticed, you were licking his throat in the middle of our entryway. But he’s been the only one, in all the time we’ve lived together, and him only once. Trouble, you said. So you’re not one to go looking for sexual partners. Then what am I? Convenient? But if you just wanted to get a leg over occasionally, you would probably do something horribly straightforward like walk into my room naked and ask. So I’m something else, something that makes you kiss me at a crime scene and apologise for it afterward. I’m something you want to hide. How am I doing so far?”
A muscle twitches in Sherlock’s jaw. John feels the danger crackling cold in the air, slides into it effortlessly.
“Here’s the trouble,” John goes on, ruthless, desperate. “You couldn’t just ask me. You couldn’t just tell me. Because that would mean you trusted me, that you respected me enough to give me more than five minutes to work through this. It would mean you lowering yourself down to my pathetic, idiotic level, and god forbid you ever be forced to do that. Oh, no, we’ve got to pretend you’ve never made the unforgivable mistake of caring about another human being.”
Sherlock takes a step back, his eyes locked on John’s, reading things John can only guess at.
“Why are you angry?” he says, sounding genuinely curious. John snorts.
“Take a guess.”
“No, I did guess, before, and I... Please. Why are you angry?”
“Why did you leave?”
Sherlock takes another slow step backward. “I thought if I left, you would either decide it didn’t matter or be concerned enough about me not coming home that you would stay.”
“You thought I would leave.” It’s one of those facts John knew before, but didn’t stop to examine properly. It’s nothing close to an apology, but it’s a confession, which is rare enough to be valuable.
“Well, you did. You’ve never abandoned me at a crime scene before.”
“You leave me at crimes scenes all the time.”
“I do a lot of things most people consider rude, inconsiderate, improper, and at times, immoral.”
John sighs deeply. “I’m angry because you thought I wouldn’t try to understand. Whatever mistakes I’ve made, turning my back on a friend has never been one of them. I would never do that to you, never.”
“No. But you might look at me differently. You might walk a little further away and correct people a little louder when they assume we’re a couple. You might grow apologetic and polite and move out.” Sherlock smiles, a tiny half-smile that’s more than a little sad. “I’d have to start turning up to crime scenes alone again. I’d never find another assistant.”
John sighs again. “For a genius, you’re pretty thick.”
“For someone so predictable, you are disconcertingly surprising.”
John shuffles his feet and looks at the floor, his bravado fading along with the tense atmosphere.
“Look, if I go down the street and get us some take-away, can I trust you not to run off again?”
“I’m not a dog, John,” Sherlock sniffs.
“Which is why the traditional sit, stay command isn’t very effective. I’m asking you if you will please stay in the vicinity while I get some food. You haven’t eaten this whole time, have you?”
Sherlock shrugs. “Once or twice.”
“Biscuits do not count.”
“Once.”
“Food. You require it. I am going to fetch it because you never bring home the right order and I suspect you do so just so I won’t force you to go out anymore, because you are a prat. I’ll come back with the right food and we’ll eat and watch crap telly and you can tell me about what you’ve done for three days. And later...” John swallows the uncomfortable feeling of walking off a tall cliff, “maybe we can try that kissing thing again. With fewer bombs. I hate glass in my hair.”
The shocked silence is new, and more than a little gratifying, even if it doesn’t last. When Sherlock does speak, he sounds vaguely bemused.
“I never do get your limits.”
“Yeah, well,” John says, and shrugs into his jacket before leaving the flat.
***
Their second kiss is a quiet, tentative little thing, passed between them after John has executively decided, for the eighth time, that two-thirty in the morning is as good a bedtime as any. It holds none of the desperate heat of the first, no passion, no feeling. As far as kisses go, it’s honestly a little disappointing. But John leans in first and Sherlock breathes out like a diver hitting the water and nothing burns down and the world keeps turning, so it could be worse. John says good night and goes to bed like a semi-sane person. Sherlock stays on the sofa for a long time.
***
Their third kiss is stolen. Sherlock has made John laugh, and he’s laughing too, in that low, almost silent way he has. John turns his shoulder in and it’s easy, too easy, to dip down and swallow that laugh, taste it, take it as if it’s his due. It’s fast, warm pressure more than anything else, and when he straightens Sherlock’s not laughing anymore. John blinks once, twice, and smiles at Sherlock’s back as he leads the way to the main road where their cab is waiting.
***
Their fourth kiss isn’t a kiss at all, but Sherlock was the one who decided a swim in the Thames was necessary, and if someone has to make sure he keeps breathing, John has already volunteered.
***
Their fifth kiss is a disaster. They’re flying, invincible, survivors of arson and escapists of kidnappers and between Sherlock’s lightning mind and John’s improbable reflexes, there is nothing, nothing that can ever break them. They take the stairs two at a time, lungs burning, muscles protesting, and nothing matters but the electric shock thrill of just being alive to feel. Sherlock seizes John by his open jacket and their mouths meet, crushing and biting and sweet, one of John’s hands steady on his hip, the other tangled in his hair. There’s no give, no yielding, just the high hum of adrenaline and the places where they can crash against each other without breaking. Sherlock pushes John’s jacket to the floor, pulls back long enough to see (he always has to see, hates the dark, hates his eyes shut), and John stumbles back, suddenly sober.
“I...Sherlock, it’s...” he fumbles, and Sherlock whirls away, wishes he hadn’t seen what he has, wishes he couldn’t know John is panicking just by looking.
“Don’t,” he snaps, knowing John will try to soften the blow. “Don’t.”
And John doesn’t.
***
Their sixth kiss is expected. Sherlock can see the set of John’s jaw, the stillness of his hands, knows what’s coming. Sherlock remembers getting his hands slapped as a child; there are things that mustn’t be touched, however much he despises rules. He remembers what it felt like to be told that he of all people should understand experimentation, what it felt like to know he hadn’t conquered that need to be wanted, not completely. Seems he still hasn’t. He tries to turn his face, and John catches it.
“I’ll most likely be rubbish at this,” he says, voice comforting, familiar, steady. “But I couldn’t face more than ten minutes of the gay porn and I don’t think those ten minutes were particularly helpful. But if you want to come up to my room, we can give it a go. If you want.”
“You don’t want,” Sherlock says dully, and John rests his forehead against Sherlock’s.
“I want you. That works, doesn’t it?” He kisses Sherlock, light, teasing. “Oh, come on, I know you love lecturing me.”
Sherlock bristles. He does not lecture. John just sits back.
“I suppose I could take this new-found facet of my sexuality to a gay bar instead.”
John is trying to goad him into something foolish. It works, though not the way John expects.
He locks his bedroom door behind him.
***
John’s shoulder can’t take an entire night sitting on the floor outside Sherlock’s door. But Sherlock can hear the resigned sigh when John’s repetition of his name doesn’t bear results, hears the soft rasp of jumper against wallpaper, hears the soft thump of John’s head against the wall, and knows where John plans on spending the night. So he turns the lock and waits for the door to open. After a few minutes, it does.
“Can I come in?”
Sherlock tangles his fingers in his own hair, sitting cross-legged in the centre of his bed, and doesn’t answer. John closes the door and leans against it, pursing his lips and staring at the ceiling like every answer he needs is written there.
“I told my therapist once that nothing ever happened to me. That was before I met you, of course. Now she thinks too much happens to me. She and Donovan keep trying to get me to take up safe, quiet hobbies.”
Sherlock gives a derisive sniff. Dull.
“Stamp collecting. Does anyone actually collect stamps anymore? Aside from the mentally unbalanced. Collecting small things, always seemed like something crazy people would do. But what would I know, I live with a man that collects body parts, which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly high on the list of sane activities.”
He looks down at Sherlock then, and smiles.
“Y’know, I typically get in a shag or two before getting kicked out of bed, as opposed to after.”
“Are you going to stand there and talk at me all night?” Sherlock asks, pulling slightly at his hair.
“If that’s what it takes.” John shuffles his feet, puts his hands in his pockets. “I’m pretty good at waiting.”
“Waiting.” Sherlock says the word like a curse. “What are you waiting for?”
“I’m not actually sure at this point. I’m willing to bet you’ll clue me in eventually. You usually do.”
Sherlock hums with frustration, his eyes flickering over to his empty violin case. The instrument is rarely there, but that doesn’t stop him wishing. Reality doesn’t often cover that, wishing. He squeezes his eyes shut and tugs at his hair again.
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” he says, keeping his eyes shut, his hands shielding his face. “You are not sexually attracted to men. You have tolerated my advances, and for that I think I’m supposed to thank you, but it’s gone far enough. We would have done better to have ignored my minor lapse in judgement from the beginning.”
“My God, are you on about that again?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? You’re the one that wants to make this complicated, John.”
“Me? I’m making this complicated? Sorry, have I missed something?”
“Sex is always complicated. Sex with you would be even more complicated than sex in general.”
John crosses his arms. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m not really that flexible. And I’m not really a whips and blindfolds and candle wax sort of guy.”
“You’re being deliberately obtuse,” Sherlock says sharply.
“You’re being obtuse,” John shoots back, and pushes off the wall. He settles himself at the foot of Sherlock’s bed, pushing aside the tangle of blankets and sheets before sitting on the mattress to face Sherlock, his expression serious.
“Look,” he says quietly, “I thought you wanted this. Me. What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” Sherlock answers. John sighs.
“Everything is a lot to be wrong at once. Can we start small, maybe?”
Sherlock’s head snaps up and he fixes John with a flat stare. “You don’t like men, aren’t sexually attracted to men, but you’ll kiss me. I don’t frighten you like I frighten other people, and we have been through a number of traumatic experiences together, so I assume you either pity me or kiss me out of some misguided sense of loyalty. Either way, the emotion runs so deep you are even willing to have sex with me, even though the very prospect is distasteful to you. I don’t want your pity, and I won’t take advantage...”
“I offered,” John interrupts. “And it wasn’t out of pity, either. You’re right, sex is complicated, but not the way you’re making it out to be. This isn’t about sex, is it?”
“Of course it’s about sex.”
“No,” John persists, “it isn’t. Not exactly. That’d be easier to sort out. Do you want me to say it first?”
“Say what?” Sherlock asks, retreating to the safety of his hands.
“I love you.” John’s mouth quirks into a half-smile when Sherlock’s head snaps back up. “I do, you know. That’s why I was so angry when you kissed me and then disappeared. You...god, you’re irritating and moody and half the time I don’t know whether I want to laugh at you or hit you, but I can’t imagine leaving, ever. The sex, now, that’s...unexpected, I guess. You don’t seem to see anything in anyone, and god only knows what you see in me. And I haven’t, with a man, and if it weren’t you, I don’t think I ever would. I was kidding with the whole gay bar thing. But it’s not like I don’t like kissing you, and I... I trust you. I promise I won’t freak out again, or if I do, I’ll do it in the bathroom or something where you don’t have to watch. Whatever happens, we’ll handle it, we’ll make it work, because you love me, too, and I’m willing to bet that’s what’s scaring you so badly.”
“I’m not scared,” Sherlock breathes, and John cocks his head indulgently at the lie. “You...”
“Right,” John says decisively, and launches himself at Sherlock. Of all possible responses, Sherlock certainly didn’t anticipate that, and John’s weight easily bowls him backward, his shoulders hitting the mattress hard, John suddenly lying in an incriminating sort of way between his legs, pinning him down.
“Still waiting, Sherlock,” John says evenly. “Although I really should point out that I worked this one through on my own. Don’t I get an award for that?”
“No,” Sherlock says, and doesn’t position himself to flip them, get his elbow at John’s throat. He could; John looks down at him with something like fondness.
“Pity.” John shifts, bringing his hand up so his thumb can drag across Sherlock’s lower lip.
“We can go back,” he tells him, not daring to move, to breathe. “I don’t need this, not like other people do.”
“This?” John asks, and gives another sweep of his thumb. “Or me?”
It’s a psychological response, emotionally motivated, entirely irrational, and Sherlock still can’t help himself from smelling chlorine. He brings his shoulder up, twists his legs, and John hits the mattress with a gust of breath. His forearms brace tightly against John’s shoulders, his hands curl around John’s head, and he’s the one lying in a compromising position now. Maybe John’s compromised, too. Maybe it doesn’t matter, because John is lifting his head and their mouths are coming together and this, this is what he needs, and he doesn’t need anything.
“I need you,” he breathes, and John’s hands cup his hips, skim over his back. “I need you and I can’t...”
“You’ve got me,” John says, and it’s a promise, a truth. “I’m right here, not going, not going anywhere...”
***
Afterward, it becomes immediately apparent that Sherlock doesn’t intend to let John go anywhere. He sleeps with his face mashed into John’s chest, his arms locked around John’s ribs, his legs clamped firmly around John’s, and his spine rolled into a tight curl to accommodate John’s smaller frame.
John looks down at Sherlock’s face, frowning in sleep, and feels something anxious and undecided slip away from him. Convention is for people who don’t associate with Sherlock Holmes, and his choices have been made.
Biology, though, is not so easily disposed of.
“Sherlock,” he whispers, and pokes at an exposed side. “Get off.”
Sherlock raises a lazy head and blinks at him in the harsh glare of the overhead light. “Where are you going?” he asks, voice rough with sleep. It’s almost enough to convince John just to stay where he is. Almost.
“Loo,” he says. “And to turn off the light. I’ll be right back.”
Sherlock makes a disgruntled noise, but lets John up. When he gets back, Sherlock is curled up on the other side of the bed, a hunched shadow in muted light from the street lamps. John crawls back in bed and Sherlock immediately rolls over to latch back onto him. John relaxes in his hold and closes his eyes.
“I love you,” Sherlock murmurs against his skin. John twists his neck at an impossible angle, trying to get a better look at his face.
“What?”
“Love you,” Sherlock says again, this time with a thin veneer of impatience. “Go to sleep.”
John lets his head flop back against the pillow. “Right,” he says, “sure.”
And he does, because really, what else is there to do?
***
Sherlock is very fond of reminding John that sex doesn’t solve everything. He’s right, but that doesn’t stop John from trying. John likes sex, is good at sex, and just because the terrain has changed doesn’t mean he’s stopped enjoying the expedition. Also, there’s a sense of satisfaction he gets from rendering Sherlock gasping and speechless that he just can’t get anywhere else. So he kisses Sherlock rough and ragged while they come down from adrenaline highs, drags his fingers slowly up Sherlock’s arm when he’s sulking on the sofa, casually pulls off his shirt in the living room when Sherlock has been awake for too long, learns that Sherlock will promise anything when John does the trick with his tongue.
And it doesn’t solve everything. The work comes first, as it always has, sex tossed by the wayside as a nuisance along with food and sleep. There are still stretches of time when John can’t reach Sherlock, days of silence punctuated with the anguished, wordless voice of the violin. There are arguments, and John keeps his arms crossed and distance between them, knowing that however physically satisfying angry sex can be, it won’t ever do the job his words are trying to. There are nights when one or both of them just can’t muster enough energy to care, and John falls asleep face down and Sherlock contorts himself into his own peculiar version of comfortable, sometimes draped over John’s body, sometimes as far away as he can get without falling off the bed. There are times when Sherlock is distant, there are times when John is dull, there are times when they misunderstand and misinterpret and miss each other halfway.
More often, though, John leaves cups of tea at Sherlock’s elbow and follows him into the dark, gun tucked in the small of his back. Sherlock watches bad telly and only complains enough to keep John entertained, always leading the way, always six steps ahead. He’ll only wait for John, and John’s the only one who even tries to keep up.
And sometimes, Sherlock stretches lazy and naked across the sheets, eyes closed, wearing something like a smile. Sometimes, John laughs and reaches for the blankets, casually groping Sherlock as he does. And they’ll think, I’m lucky. I’m lucky.