Fic - The Companion - Sherlock/Doctor Who - PG-13
Title: The Companion
Fandom: Sherlock, Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing: John/The Detective
Summary: The Detective was nine hundred and seven years and eleven months old when he went back for John Watson. He’d never planned to crash-land in John’s back garden in the middle of the night, but then, who ever planned for such a silly thing to happen in the first place? John and The Detective go off to see the universe. It changes them both for the better.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5000
Notes: Sequel to The Detective. I didn’t expect writing this to take as long as it did, so thank you to anyone who’s been waiting/is still interested! I'm forever indebted to kikainausagi for being a fantastic beta and whipping this into shape, thank you so much!
The Detective was nine hundred and seven years and eleven months old when he went back for John Watson. He’d never planned to crash-land in John’s back garden in the middle of the night, but then, who ever planned for such a silly thing to happen in the first place?
***
‘I’d appreciate a little more input on our destination than “anywhere,”’ The Detective said as he moved over to the central console, his long-fingered hands punching at the keys of the typewriter wired into the mechanisms of the TARDIS. He flicked several different coloured buttons in rapid succession and resumed typing one-handedly, squinting as the typewriter spat out yards of mint green ticker tape that cascaded over the console and pooled around his feet.
There was silence. Shoving the paper out of the way, The Detective glanced over his shoulder at John, who was standing just inside the doorway, looking awestruck.
‘Oh, yes, I should probably mention, it’s bigger on the inside,’ The Detective said, raising his eyebrows, the eye-roll in his tone obvious.
‘The amount of times I imagined this,’ John murmured, putting his hold-all down after a long pause. The Detective found himself unwilling to look away from John’s face as he stepped forwards and turned in a slow circle. ‘All those times I wondered...’
‘Well, I’ll give you the tour, if you’d like,’ The Detective said, coming to himself again and turning back to the console. With his left hand he flipped a dozen switches one after the other, while with his right slowly pulling one of the many levers towards himself as though he were pulling a pint of stout. ‘Now hurry up and decide where you want to go or I’ll decide for you.’
John said nothing. The Detective looked over his shoulder again and saw that John was leaning on his walking stick, peering at the experiments that were too crucial to stay hidden away in the laboratory and thus had been moved into the control room. A number of test tubes, each containing a different coloured chemical from several different planets were waiting to have their reaction to various types of metal examined. Slides were scattered all over the work surface, several stacked next to the most technically advanced microscope The Detective had been able to find in the furthest future. Hundreds of spreadsheets and tables were open on his computer, each for a different experiment, a different question that needed to be answered.
‘Right,’ The Detective said. ‘You’ve had your chance, John Watson. The Carina Nebula it is.’
‘Hm?’ John said, turning away from the table full of experiments. ‘I’m sorry, what?’
Smiling very slightly to himself, his back still turned to John, The Detective played a short, almost melancholy tune on a set of piano keys that were also wired into the central controls of the TARDIS. ‘I asked you where you wanted to go and you rather took your time over answering me, so I’ve gone ahead and decided.’
‘Oh,’ John said.
‘Problem?’ The Detective replied, turning on one heel and arching his right eyebrow.
John laughed. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, shaking his head.
At that, The Detective raised both eyebrows.
John smiled and walked over to join The Detective at the console. ‘I don’t imagine you get called stupid often,’ he said quietly, tilting his head to look at the fire blazing underneath the dashboard of levers and buttons and switches and keys and clocks and wires.
‘No,’ The Detective said, catching sight of his own bemused smile in a mirror that was fixed to the TARDIS’s central column. ‘Not very often at all, John Watson.’
In the first quarter of an hour of John being on board the TARDIS, The Detective smiled more in fifteen minutes than he had done in a year.
***
The look on John’s face as they sat side-by-side in the open doorway of the TARDIS, their legs pressed together as they looked at the Carina Nebula, was glorious.
John opened his mouth several times and seemed to be unable to form words or make any noise other than a few short, surprised sighs. The Detective watched John’s eyes rather than the whispering rainbow of colours and gases and light and saw the stars and their dust reflected in them as if it were for the first time.
The things I’ll show you, John Watson, he thought. Oh, the things we’ll see.
***
‘I’m still struggling with the fact that this isn’t a dream,’ John said the next morning once he had walked into the control room, leaning heavily on his stick. The Detective turned from where he was lounging in the open doorway of the TARDIS, a thin, eighteenth century earth cigarette pressed between his lips. He brought his fingers up to grip it as he inhaled then flicked the ash out into the universe, raising an eyebrow at John.
‘Oh?’ he said, one side of his mouth curving upwards.
The sky outside was inky blue with clouds stretching across it, one as dark purple as a bruise. Another galaxy’s sun, a deep pink colour, was just beginning to rise to the left of the TARDIS door, turning on its axis with a deep grinding sound.
John nodded. ‘Did you... did you sleep well?’ he asked, moving a hand up to his hair, which was sticking up at the back.
‘Ugh, sleep. Sleeping’s boring,’ The Detective replied, returning his gaze to the sunrise, bending his knee so that his foot was resting against the door frame.
‘Do you need to sleep?’ John asked, running his dominant left hand lightly and reverently over the TARDIS’s buttons and switches on the TARDIS console.
‘Sometimes,’ The Detective replied, inhaling once more before throwing his cigarette out into space and closing the front door of the TARDIS. ‘Not very often. Breakfast?’
Smiling, John nodded again. ‘If you like,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it, where’s the kitchen?’
‘Oh, here,’ The Detective said, jumping up onto the raised platform where John was standing and then off it again, yanking a trapdoor up that was labelled kitchens. ‘Will you be able to manage the stairs?’
‘I’m not a cripple,’ John snapped, his face clouding over, his grip on one of the levers tightening as he turned away from The Detective.
Straightening up slowly, The Detective blinked and regarded John carefully. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, quite. Come on then, John.’ He stepped onto the stairs that led down to the kitchen and began to descend, the clack of John’s stick on metal and his heavy footfalls indicating that he’d followed.
‘I’m sorry,’ John said. ‘I didn’t mean to... it’s just...’
‘Perfectly understandable.’ The Detective kicked two chairs away from the table and dashed round the small, cramped room that was the kitchen. The surfaces, apart from the one where the kettle was, were thick with dust and the taps had cobwebs hanging from one to the other. Even the walls, with their dark green tiles, were grimy.
‘Clearly you don’t need to eat very often, either,’ John said with a cough and a slight grin.
The Detective stopped his frantic movements and looked around. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Yes, I... well. Go and get yourself dressed, John Watson. The wardrobe’s along the corridor from your room, down the big flight of stairs and then on the right.’ He began to usher John back towards the stairs, pulling his grey shirtsleeves up. ‘Everything’s labelled according to century, decade and year, further distinction may be made between countries,’ he said as they walked up the stairs. ‘Choose something from 1954, America.’
‘We’re going to 50s America?’ John asked, his grin widening.
‘No, no, pre-historic Sri Lanka,’ The Detective replied, raising his eyebrows.
Laughing, John turned and walked up the stairs that led to the TARDIS’s sleeping quarters and then onto the wardrobe. ‘Stupid question, I suppose.’ He glanced back at The Detective before he disappeared down the corridor.
‘Quite,’ The Detective murmured, watching him go, his eyes on the corridor long after John had disappeared from sight. After centuries of travelling alone, he was at a loss to explain why, with barely a moment’s thought, he had invited John aboard the TARDIS. Though something inside him, rooted and growing between his two hearts, was very glad that he had done.
***
'So let me get this straight,' John said a fortnight later, leaning forwards in the seat that was next to the console, his elbows resting on his jean-clad knees. 'You have a time machine--'
'TARDIS.'
'―You have a TARDIS that is capable of travelling anywhere and everywhere across all of time and all of space, you could see anything you wanted to out of those windows, anything at all, and you cover them up with dirty great curtains,' John said, gesturing to said curtains with a look of distaste.
In the past two weeks they’d had breakfast at a diner in 1950s New York, chased an apple thief in Elizabethan East Anglia and saved him from having a hand cut off, seen Louis Armstrong play in Chicago, got caught up with Dick Turpin and visited Charles Darwin, with whom The Detective was on very good terms.
John’s walking stick gathered dust in a forgotten corner of the control room.
Everything was an adventure again.
The Detective fixed John with a calculating look. 'Yes,' he said, fingers steepled over his chest as he sat back in his chair.
'And you stay inside your magic box for weeks and weeks at a time, doing your experiments.'
'Are you going anywhere with this, John?' The Detective asked sharply, feeling a flash of annoyance - and possibly, no, it couldn't be, it couldn’t be guilt, he was being stupid, guilt wasn’t something he ever felt - in his chest.
'No, just... just checking,' John said, resting his palms on his knees and using them to push himself up. 'Cup of tea?'
'Coffee, if you don't mind, black--'
'―two sugars, yeah, I know,' John said, picking up The Detective's mug from where it was resting at the centre of the console. He smiled at The Detective, and The Detective's lips curved upwards involuntarily.
He did have the feeling, however, that he had not heard the last of the conversation.
***
He was right. Two days later, he left John in charge of the control room for a couple of hours while he moved several particularly volatile experiments to the cavernous laboratory he had built for himself a few hundred years ago. When he returned to the control room, the curtains had been ripped away from the windows and were lying in a heap next to the door. The sky outside was darkest black, shot with pink and silver. He narrowed his eyes and considered the change.
'Before you start--'
'What makes you think I was going to start?' The Detective asked, putting his laptop back in its usual home next to his microscope and striding over to the controls, flicking several switches in rapid succession.
'I just thought that--'
'I like it,' The Detective said, meeting John's eyes from where he was leaning on the console.
'You--?'
'Yes, John, I like it,' The Detective said. 'Don't make me repeat myself again. Now come here, pull that lever as though you were pulling one of your pints. Nice and slowly,' he said as he moved across and began to punch at the keys of his typewriter, squinting at the text that was being stabbed into the paper. He watched out of the corner of his eye as John made a surprised noise and smiled, finally moving to do as he was told and pull the lever exactly as he'd been instructed. The Detective hid the grin he could feel pulling at his lips. ‘That’s it,’ he said with an encouraging nod. ‘We’ll have you driving her in no time.’
***
‘You’re sure about this?’ The Detective asked John as he typed in their intended destination to the TARDIS's system.
'Yeah,' John said after a moment's pause, nodding. 'Yeah, yes, I am.'
The Detective nodded once, slowly. 'Very well,' he said, suddenly becoming a burst of movement and energy as he yanked a lever down above his head, kicked two switches down by his knees and pressed several buttons with his long fingers. 'Hold on!' he called over the din that the TARDIS was making, grinning madly at John as he clung onto the rail running round the console. John beamed back, and as quickly as it had started, it was over, and everything was still again.
'Did we get it right?' John asked as The Detective moved over to the door.
'Get it right?' The Detective exclaimed, his mouth slightly open. 'Get it right, of course I got it right, I've been driving this TARDIS for longer than your family tree's been running, John Watson, thank you very much.'
John laughed, his already kindly face softening further. 'You've gone red,' he said quietly, moving over to stand with The Detective. 'Come along then, Detective, hurry up. Chelmsford, 1954, do try to blend in, won't you?' he said, mimicking The Detective in a fond and familiar manner.
The Detective's normally hard expression and tight jaw shifted into a wide, bright grin as he laughed at John's impression, as he laughed at himself.
'Shut up,' he muttered, cuffing John's head with the back of his hand, his skin tingling at its contact with John's dusty hair. 'And do try to blend in.' He smiled over his shoulder at John and pushed the front door open, standing just outside the TARDIS, which looked perfectly at home on the outskirts of the town. John joined him, pulling his usual black jacket on.
'It shouldn't be far away,' he said. 'I remember my gran saying that their shop was just past the bus stop that got you back to our house from town, so it should be around here somewhere if that's the bus stop I think it is...'
John trailed off and turned in a circle, looking around at the cheerful shop fronts that were clearly benefiting from rationing finally ending earlier in the year. People poured in and out of the shop doorways despite it being a cold and damp Autumn day, baskets filled with fresh fruit and veg, colourful tins and smart brown bags containing any manner of things. The Detective walked a little way up the street and caught sight of a short, gentle-looking woman cleaning the windows of a shop with the name J. WATSON hanging over the top, and General Store printed slightly smaller underneath.
'John,' he said quietly, nodding in the direction of the woman he was certain was John's grandmother, albeit much younger than John remembered her, his birth still twenty years away.
'Oh God,' John breathed, his lips parting. His breath was visible in the cold air and he clenched his left hand tightly, even though it wasn't shaking and hadn't done so for weeks. He walked forwards slowly and The Detective followed, hanging back a little so that he was still within hearing range though not encroaching on whatever John wanted to do, whatever John wanted to say to his gran.
'Can I help you?' Mrs Watson asked, pausing in her window cleaning as John came to stop just to her side.
'Oh, um, hello,' John said, smiling at her.
'Hello,' Mrs Watson replied, smiling back, though clearly a bit bemused. ‘I’m Mrs Watson, this is my husband’s shop, is there anything I can help you with?’
'I just... I was just... passing,' John said quietly.
'Yes, it's nice, it's just busy enough up here, isn't it?'
'It's lovely, it's absolutely lovely,' John said quickly, stepping back and looking up at the shop's sign, looking possibly more awed now than when he was sitting opposite the Carina Nebula. 'Wow,' he breathed, and The Detective's hearts contracted hard for a brief moment before expanding and falling back into their natural rhythm again. 'Is Grand-- is Mr. Watson in the shop?' John smiled briefly at his grandmother and glanced inside the door. 'I've never met him,' he added in a quieter voice. ‘That I can remember, I mean.’
'Yes, he's just behind the till at the moment,' Mrs Watson said, her eyebrows drawing together as John's often did, her tongue poking out from between her lips ever so slightly. 'Do I know you, dear? You seem awfully familiar, but I can't quite seem to place you, I'm afraid. You don't live around the area, do you?'
'I did,' John said. 'I do, I will, I... I used to,' he said, settling for the least complicated option and nodding.
The Detective walked forwards and moved to stand behind John, whose eyes flicked up to his face and then back to Mrs Watson. 'John, who's this?' he asked in his usual direct manner, a shadow of a smile on his lips. John managed to keep himself together and not reveal that he knew far more than her name and occupation.
'This is, ah, this is Mrs Watson, I believe her husband owns this shop,' he said. 'I'm John,' he said. 'Smith.' He offered his hand to his gran. 'And this is Detective Jones.'
Mrs Watson took John's hand and squeezed firmly. 'I've always liked the name John,' she said to him, smiling indulgently. 'Lovely name. Strong, kind, decent.' She nodded her approval and looked up at The Detective. 'You look like a nice sort, too,' she said, and her gaze was so like John's as she observed him, so penetrating and warm and not at all judgemental. 'Nice, strong face.' She laughed and shook her head. 'I'm sorry!' she exclaimed, giggling and waving her hands. 'I'm sorry, going on as if I've known you all your life!'
The Detective watched as John swallowed around a lump in his throat. He did something he rarely did and tapped into John's thoughts, his hearts saddened by what he heard.
You did you have you did you knew me all my life and you built me out of the stuff you were made of and you didn't let me fall apart and I have you to thank for everything and you look so happy, you were so happy, weren't you? You were happy here and you have known me all my life, Gran, you're beautiful and I love you and I'm sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I went to war and I wasn't there for the end and I'm so sorry.
Blinking, The Detective cleared his throat. 'I don't suppose you could supply me with a good toolbox, could you? My tools are incredibly badly-made and they keep falling apart. I need something of the highest quality and I've been assured that you and your husband stock the best selection of hand tools for miles around - I don’t suppose you could help me? I dropped one of my planes last week, and the sole cracked clean through. And while I’m here, I ought to replace the handle for my chisel, like I’ve been meaning to.'
'Oh, of course, dear, of course I can,' Mrs Watson said with a pleased smile, shoving her cleaning rag into her pocket and picking up the vinegar solution she'd been using for the windows. 'Come inside, mind your head, now, we're not quite used to people as tall as you visiting.' She looked back at John. 'You fit right in,' she said, her grin creating a dimple in the corner of her mouth.
John grinned back then turned to look at The Detective, wonder in his eyes.
‘I believe that’s your grandfather,’ The Detective said in a low voice, indicating the man with dust-coloured hair and bags under his eyes behind the counter, talking in a low, steady, familiar voice to an elderly woman.
Straightening his back, John pulled himself up, proud and as tall as he ever got as he watched his grandfather deal with his customer.
‘Mrs Watson, I don’t suppose you could talk me through your selection of hand planes, could you?’ The Detective said, steering her away from John, who was still staring at his grandfather.
‘Of course, dear, we’ve just had some delivered from Sheffield if you’d like to have a look at those, although we do carry some from the foreign market if that’s more what you’re after, and--’
The Detective nodded and mmed in all the right places, though he kept his gaze fixed on John, who had managed to start talking to his grandfather and appeared to be trying to commit everything about him to memory all at once.
Smells of salt, tobacco and tea, the smoking will be what kills him, The Detective thought after he inhaled deeply. Five foot six and a quarter, approximately eleven stone, hair a mousey brown the same as John’s. Voice is quiet and controlled, smile is wide. Has nightmares about the war, served in North Africa. He usually wears coarse shirts, jumpers and a tie. Dances with his wife regularly, thinks the world of both her and their son. He took in everything he possibly could about John’s grandparents so that when John asked whether his granddad’s jumper had been green or blue or whether his hands had been wrinkled or tanned or square, The Detective would be able to answer immediately with the correct answer. This sort of thing was important information, now that John had limped into his life and aboard his TARDIS. These things didn’t get deleted. Not now.
‘How was that, then?’ The Detective asked when he and John had stayed as long as they possibly could at the shop without arousing suspicion, unlocking the door of the TARDIS. John cast one last look at his grandparents’ shop over his shoulder and shook his head, clearly overwhelmed. The Detective pushed him gently inside with a hand between his shoulderblades.
‘Would you like me to put the kettle on? I just bought some tea from your grandmother, apparently it’s a very nice--’
The Detective suddenly found that he had five feet and seven inches of John H. Watson wrapped around his front, clinging tightly.
‘Thank you,’ John whispered, pressing his cheek over The Detective’s chest where his two hearts began to beat a strange, awkward rhythm. ‘Thank you.’
Breathing out shortly through his nose, The Detective smiled and wrapped his long arms around John’s frame, compact and human and lovely. He rested his cheek on top of John’s head and rubbed his skin against John’s hair and closed it eyes and he’d been so lonely, for so long...
‘Thank you,’ John murmured again, tightening his hold for a brief moment before beginning to extract himself from The Detective’s embrace.
‘Of course,’ was all The Detective could say as he straightened up too, John’s warmth rapidly fading from his body, the whisper of John’s hair lingering on his cheek like the brush of a cobweb.
***
It was a few days later when The Detective and John found themselves floating aimlessly in the TARDIS across a sky filled with a rainbow of stars. The bright, twinkling lights shone through the TARDIS’s uncurtained windows and cast shadows across the clutter in the control room, across The Detective and John’s skin. They had the front door open and as many lights as possible off, at John’s suggestion.
‘Tell me about your family,’ The Detective said, staring at the ceiling as he lay on his back on the floor, John stretched out the other way so that their heads were next to each other’s but their feet pointing in opposite directions. He could go rummaging about in John’s mind for details about his family, of course, but he preferred to keep as many things as possible a mystery.
John had been rather quiet since their visit to Chelmsford. ‘My family?’ he said, and The Detective made a small hmm noise.
'Well, they're...' John paused. The Detective watched a shooting star travel past the door and out of sight. 'My gran was wonderful. And my mum. My dad... he was... he was different, after my mum died, but you know, that's not his fault, you can't really blame him for the drinking and...' He sighed heavily.
'What happened to your mum?' The Detective asked quietly, turning his head so that he could look at the side of John's face, the tip of his nose no more than an inch away from John's cheek and he was just close enough to press his lips to that spot behind John's ear and...
'She'd gone to Birmingham with one of her friends for the day, just a quick visit up there to see something or other. There was a car bomb, the IRA, you know, and it...' The Detective watch John's already lined face grow sad and weary. 'I don't suppose--'
'No,' The Detective said, moving one of his arms across his chest and hesitating before bringing his long fingers to run through John's hair, putting the slightest amount of pressure on his scalp. 'I don't intervene. And there's no telling how altering such a small thing in the grand scheme will come to affect that grand scheme.' He pushed John's fringe away from his forehead. 'You understand, don't you?'
John closed his eyes and nodded. He turned his face towards The Detective's. 'I was a little boy. I was a sad, frightened little boy and then you fell out of the sky and...'
'I'm sorry I didn't come back,' The Detective murmured, sitting up just slightly and looking and looking at the lines and angles and curves of John's face.
'You did come back,' John said, breathing in and dragging his eyes open, clearly returning from a long way away, a long time ago. 'Just... late.' He smiled.
The Detective smiled back. He wanted to drag his nose along the length of John's jaw, down his neck and breathe in the smell of his skin. He wanted to press his lips to John's face and lick and bite and touch and feel. He wanted to crawl inside John's skin, cut him open and climb inside and sew them together, not two parts of a whole but one single thing; he wanted to get close and base and human in a way he hadn't felt for centuries.
They were silent for a long time, staring at one another, the starlight dancing across their skin.
‘Are you happy?’ The Detective said eventually, stroking John’s hair again.
‘What do you think?’ John replied with a soft laugh. The Detective raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes,’ John said.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Yes,’ John replied without hesitating.
‘Right. Good. That’s... good.’ The Detective said, sitting up in a flurry of movement, throwing one of his legs over John’s body so that he was bracketing John’s small body with his own long arms and bigger frame.
John blinked up at The Detective. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked, frowning.
‘Shut up,’ The Detective said, grabbing John’s face in his big hands. He took a deep breath and settled his weight on his elbows and knees before he pressed his forehead to John’s, their breath mingling in the air between them as he poured his loneliness and fears and memories and wishes and dreams into John’s brain, giving all the essentials and holding back anything deemed irrelevant, being so careful not to overwhelm John’s precious, fragile human mind.
Sherlock my name’s Sherlock and I think I’ve fallen in love with you, John Watson, and I haven’t felt so scared and so alive since I stole my magic box and ran away to see the universe. You make everything an adventure again and I want you to know me the way I know you, I want you inside my head and I want you to know all the things about me that I know about you like how you have a system for making tea and a system for washing and a system for shaving and how you fell off your bike when you were five and nearly got run over by a car and that was the scariest experience of your life until Afghanistan when you had your first barely-breathing corpse to fix and she was coughing up blood and you knew she was going back in a box but you still tried to save her, didn’t you, John Watson, because you’re a wonderful, extraordinary man and I think I love you and this can’t last forever, not for me, but I’d like to try if you would. I’ve been so lonely and ignoring it’s just made it worse and touching you is unlike anything I’ve ever... and I need... You’ve been missing for all of my long, long life and my name’s Sherlock, John, and you surprise me every single day.
The Detective wrenched his head away from John’s with a gasp, sitting up and breathing heavily, still straddling John. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, resting his hand on his chest, over his hearts.
They both shifted as John sat up. John’s warm, dry hand rested over The Detective’s cold one, and John laced their fingers together. ‘Look at me,’ he whispered.
Opening his eyes, The Detective’s lips parted and he took a deep breath.
‘Sherlock,’ John said, as if he were testing how the word sounded in his mouth. ‘It won’t last forever, this? I’ll die or you’ll change or--’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ The Detective said, impatient for the next part, for their new chapter, his hearts quivering at hearing his name from John’s mouth.
‘Alright,’ John said with a smile, flushed and happy, his eyes dancing. ‘What is it you want from this, then? From me?’
I was a little boy. I was a sad, frightened little boy and then you fell out of the sky and...
‘Anything,’ The Detective said, and pressed their lips together.
Fandom: Sherlock, Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing: John/The Detective
Summary: The Detective was nine hundred and seven years and eleven months old when he went back for John Watson. He’d never planned to crash-land in John’s back garden in the middle of the night, but then, who ever planned for such a silly thing to happen in the first place? John and The Detective go off to see the universe. It changes them both for the better.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5000
Notes: Sequel to The Detective. I didn’t expect writing this to take as long as it did, so thank you to anyone who’s been waiting/is still interested! I'm forever indebted to kikainausagi for being a fantastic beta and whipping this into shape, thank you so much!
The Detective was nine hundred and seven years and eleven months old when he went back for John Watson. He’d never planned to crash-land in John’s back garden in the middle of the night, but then, who ever planned for such a silly thing to happen in the first place?
***
‘I’d appreciate a little more input on our destination than “anywhere,”’ The Detective said as he moved over to the central console, his long-fingered hands punching at the keys of the typewriter wired into the mechanisms of the TARDIS. He flicked several different coloured buttons in rapid succession and resumed typing one-handedly, squinting as the typewriter spat out yards of mint green ticker tape that cascaded over the console and pooled around his feet.
There was silence. Shoving the paper out of the way, The Detective glanced over his shoulder at John, who was standing just inside the doorway, looking awestruck.
‘Oh, yes, I should probably mention, it’s bigger on the inside,’ The Detective said, raising his eyebrows, the eye-roll in his tone obvious.
‘The amount of times I imagined this,’ John murmured, putting his hold-all down after a long pause. The Detective found himself unwilling to look away from John’s face as he stepped forwards and turned in a slow circle. ‘All those times I wondered...’
‘Well, I’ll give you the tour, if you’d like,’ The Detective said, coming to himself again and turning back to the console. With his left hand he flipped a dozen switches one after the other, while with his right slowly pulling one of the many levers towards himself as though he were pulling a pint of stout. ‘Now hurry up and decide where you want to go or I’ll decide for you.’
John said nothing. The Detective looked over his shoulder again and saw that John was leaning on his walking stick, peering at the experiments that were too crucial to stay hidden away in the laboratory and thus had been moved into the control room. A number of test tubes, each containing a different coloured chemical from several different planets were waiting to have their reaction to various types of metal examined. Slides were scattered all over the work surface, several stacked next to the most technically advanced microscope The Detective had been able to find in the furthest future. Hundreds of spreadsheets and tables were open on his computer, each for a different experiment, a different question that needed to be answered.
‘Right,’ The Detective said. ‘You’ve had your chance, John Watson. The Carina Nebula it is.’
‘Hm?’ John said, turning away from the table full of experiments. ‘I’m sorry, what?’
Smiling very slightly to himself, his back still turned to John, The Detective played a short, almost melancholy tune on a set of piano keys that were also wired into the central controls of the TARDIS. ‘I asked you where you wanted to go and you rather took your time over answering me, so I’ve gone ahead and decided.’
‘Oh,’ John said.
‘Problem?’ The Detective replied, turning on one heel and arching his right eyebrow.
John laughed. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, shaking his head.
At that, The Detective raised both eyebrows.
John smiled and walked over to join The Detective at the console. ‘I don’t imagine you get called stupid often,’ he said quietly, tilting his head to look at the fire blazing underneath the dashboard of levers and buttons and switches and keys and clocks and wires.
‘No,’ The Detective said, catching sight of his own bemused smile in a mirror that was fixed to the TARDIS’s central column. ‘Not very often at all, John Watson.’
In the first quarter of an hour of John being on board the TARDIS, The Detective smiled more in fifteen minutes than he had done in a year.
***
The look on John’s face as they sat side-by-side in the open doorway of the TARDIS, their legs pressed together as they looked at the Carina Nebula, was glorious.
John opened his mouth several times and seemed to be unable to form words or make any noise other than a few short, surprised sighs. The Detective watched John’s eyes rather than the whispering rainbow of colours and gases and light and saw the stars and their dust reflected in them as if it were for the first time.
The things I’ll show you, John Watson, he thought. Oh, the things we’ll see.
***
‘I’m still struggling with the fact that this isn’t a dream,’ John said the next morning once he had walked into the control room, leaning heavily on his stick. The Detective turned from where he was lounging in the open doorway of the TARDIS, a thin, eighteenth century earth cigarette pressed between his lips. He brought his fingers up to grip it as he inhaled then flicked the ash out into the universe, raising an eyebrow at John.
‘Oh?’ he said, one side of his mouth curving upwards.
The sky outside was inky blue with clouds stretching across it, one as dark purple as a bruise. Another galaxy’s sun, a deep pink colour, was just beginning to rise to the left of the TARDIS door, turning on its axis with a deep grinding sound.
John nodded. ‘Did you... did you sleep well?’ he asked, moving a hand up to his hair, which was sticking up at the back.
‘Ugh, sleep. Sleeping’s boring,’ The Detective replied, returning his gaze to the sunrise, bending his knee so that his foot was resting against the door frame.
‘Do you need to sleep?’ John asked, running his dominant left hand lightly and reverently over the TARDIS’s buttons and switches on the TARDIS console.
‘Sometimes,’ The Detective replied, inhaling once more before throwing his cigarette out into space and closing the front door of the TARDIS. ‘Not very often. Breakfast?’
Smiling, John nodded again. ‘If you like,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it, where’s the kitchen?’
‘Oh, here,’ The Detective said, jumping up onto the raised platform where John was standing and then off it again, yanking a trapdoor up that was labelled kitchens. ‘Will you be able to manage the stairs?’
‘I’m not a cripple,’ John snapped, his face clouding over, his grip on one of the levers tightening as he turned away from The Detective.
Straightening up slowly, The Detective blinked and regarded John carefully. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, quite. Come on then, John.’ He stepped onto the stairs that led down to the kitchen and began to descend, the clack of John’s stick on metal and his heavy footfalls indicating that he’d followed.
‘I’m sorry,’ John said. ‘I didn’t mean to... it’s just...’
‘Perfectly understandable.’ The Detective kicked two chairs away from the table and dashed round the small, cramped room that was the kitchen. The surfaces, apart from the one where the kettle was, were thick with dust and the taps had cobwebs hanging from one to the other. Even the walls, with their dark green tiles, were grimy.
‘Clearly you don’t need to eat very often, either,’ John said with a cough and a slight grin.
The Detective stopped his frantic movements and looked around. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Yes, I... well. Go and get yourself dressed, John Watson. The wardrobe’s along the corridor from your room, down the big flight of stairs and then on the right.’ He began to usher John back towards the stairs, pulling his grey shirtsleeves up. ‘Everything’s labelled according to century, decade and year, further distinction may be made between countries,’ he said as they walked up the stairs. ‘Choose something from 1954, America.’
‘We’re going to 50s America?’ John asked, his grin widening.
‘No, no, pre-historic Sri Lanka,’ The Detective replied, raising his eyebrows.
Laughing, John turned and walked up the stairs that led to the TARDIS’s sleeping quarters and then onto the wardrobe. ‘Stupid question, I suppose.’ He glanced back at The Detective before he disappeared down the corridor.
‘Quite,’ The Detective murmured, watching him go, his eyes on the corridor long after John had disappeared from sight. After centuries of travelling alone, he was at a loss to explain why, with barely a moment’s thought, he had invited John aboard the TARDIS. Though something inside him, rooted and growing between his two hearts, was very glad that he had done.
***
'So let me get this straight,' John said a fortnight later, leaning forwards in the seat that was next to the console, his elbows resting on his jean-clad knees. 'You have a time machine--'
'TARDIS.'
'―You have a TARDIS that is capable of travelling anywhere and everywhere across all of time and all of space, you could see anything you wanted to out of those windows, anything at all, and you cover them up with dirty great curtains,' John said, gesturing to said curtains with a look of distaste.
In the past two weeks they’d had breakfast at a diner in 1950s New York, chased an apple thief in Elizabethan East Anglia and saved him from having a hand cut off, seen Louis Armstrong play in Chicago, got caught up with Dick Turpin and visited Charles Darwin, with whom The Detective was on very good terms.
John’s walking stick gathered dust in a forgotten corner of the control room.
Everything was an adventure again.
The Detective fixed John with a calculating look. 'Yes,' he said, fingers steepled over his chest as he sat back in his chair.
'And you stay inside your magic box for weeks and weeks at a time, doing your experiments.'
'Are you going anywhere with this, John?' The Detective asked sharply, feeling a flash of annoyance - and possibly, no, it couldn't be, it couldn’t be guilt, he was being stupid, guilt wasn’t something he ever felt - in his chest.
'No, just... just checking,' John said, resting his palms on his knees and using them to push himself up. 'Cup of tea?'
'Coffee, if you don't mind, black--'
'―two sugars, yeah, I know,' John said, picking up The Detective's mug from where it was resting at the centre of the console. He smiled at The Detective, and The Detective's lips curved upwards involuntarily.
He did have the feeling, however, that he had not heard the last of the conversation.
***
He was right. Two days later, he left John in charge of the control room for a couple of hours while he moved several particularly volatile experiments to the cavernous laboratory he had built for himself a few hundred years ago. When he returned to the control room, the curtains had been ripped away from the windows and were lying in a heap next to the door. The sky outside was darkest black, shot with pink and silver. He narrowed his eyes and considered the change.
'Before you start--'
'What makes you think I was going to start?' The Detective asked, putting his laptop back in its usual home next to his microscope and striding over to the controls, flicking several switches in rapid succession.
'I just thought that--'
'I like it,' The Detective said, meeting John's eyes from where he was leaning on the console.
'You--?'
'Yes, John, I like it,' The Detective said. 'Don't make me repeat myself again. Now come here, pull that lever as though you were pulling one of your pints. Nice and slowly,' he said as he moved across and began to punch at the keys of his typewriter, squinting at the text that was being stabbed into the paper. He watched out of the corner of his eye as John made a surprised noise and smiled, finally moving to do as he was told and pull the lever exactly as he'd been instructed. The Detective hid the grin he could feel pulling at his lips. ‘That’s it,’ he said with an encouraging nod. ‘We’ll have you driving her in no time.’
***
‘You’re sure about this?’ The Detective asked John as he typed in their intended destination to the TARDIS's system.
'Yeah,' John said after a moment's pause, nodding. 'Yeah, yes, I am.'
The Detective nodded once, slowly. 'Very well,' he said, suddenly becoming a burst of movement and energy as he yanked a lever down above his head, kicked two switches down by his knees and pressed several buttons with his long fingers. 'Hold on!' he called over the din that the TARDIS was making, grinning madly at John as he clung onto the rail running round the console. John beamed back, and as quickly as it had started, it was over, and everything was still again.
'Did we get it right?' John asked as The Detective moved over to the door.
'Get it right?' The Detective exclaimed, his mouth slightly open. 'Get it right, of course I got it right, I've been driving this TARDIS for longer than your family tree's been running, John Watson, thank you very much.'
John laughed, his already kindly face softening further. 'You've gone red,' he said quietly, moving over to stand with The Detective. 'Come along then, Detective, hurry up. Chelmsford, 1954, do try to blend in, won't you?' he said, mimicking The Detective in a fond and familiar manner.
The Detective's normally hard expression and tight jaw shifted into a wide, bright grin as he laughed at John's impression, as he laughed at himself.
'Shut up,' he muttered, cuffing John's head with the back of his hand, his skin tingling at its contact with John's dusty hair. 'And do try to blend in.' He smiled over his shoulder at John and pushed the front door open, standing just outside the TARDIS, which looked perfectly at home on the outskirts of the town. John joined him, pulling his usual black jacket on.
'It shouldn't be far away,' he said. 'I remember my gran saying that their shop was just past the bus stop that got you back to our house from town, so it should be around here somewhere if that's the bus stop I think it is...'
John trailed off and turned in a circle, looking around at the cheerful shop fronts that were clearly benefiting from rationing finally ending earlier in the year. People poured in and out of the shop doorways despite it being a cold and damp Autumn day, baskets filled with fresh fruit and veg, colourful tins and smart brown bags containing any manner of things. The Detective walked a little way up the street and caught sight of a short, gentle-looking woman cleaning the windows of a shop with the name J. WATSON hanging over the top, and General Store printed slightly smaller underneath.
'John,' he said quietly, nodding in the direction of the woman he was certain was John's grandmother, albeit much younger than John remembered her, his birth still twenty years away.
'Oh God,' John breathed, his lips parting. His breath was visible in the cold air and he clenched his left hand tightly, even though it wasn't shaking and hadn't done so for weeks. He walked forwards slowly and The Detective followed, hanging back a little so that he was still within hearing range though not encroaching on whatever John wanted to do, whatever John wanted to say to his gran.
'Can I help you?' Mrs Watson asked, pausing in her window cleaning as John came to stop just to her side.
'Oh, um, hello,' John said, smiling at her.
'Hello,' Mrs Watson replied, smiling back, though clearly a bit bemused. ‘I’m Mrs Watson, this is my husband’s shop, is there anything I can help you with?’
'I just... I was just... passing,' John said quietly.
'Yes, it's nice, it's just busy enough up here, isn't it?'
'It's lovely, it's absolutely lovely,' John said quickly, stepping back and looking up at the shop's sign, looking possibly more awed now than when he was sitting opposite the Carina Nebula. 'Wow,' he breathed, and The Detective's hearts contracted hard for a brief moment before expanding and falling back into their natural rhythm again. 'Is Grand-- is Mr. Watson in the shop?' John smiled briefly at his grandmother and glanced inside the door. 'I've never met him,' he added in a quieter voice. ‘That I can remember, I mean.’
'Yes, he's just behind the till at the moment,' Mrs Watson said, her eyebrows drawing together as John's often did, her tongue poking out from between her lips ever so slightly. 'Do I know you, dear? You seem awfully familiar, but I can't quite seem to place you, I'm afraid. You don't live around the area, do you?'
'I did,' John said. 'I do, I will, I... I used to,' he said, settling for the least complicated option and nodding.
The Detective walked forwards and moved to stand behind John, whose eyes flicked up to his face and then back to Mrs Watson. 'John, who's this?' he asked in his usual direct manner, a shadow of a smile on his lips. John managed to keep himself together and not reveal that he knew far more than her name and occupation.
'This is, ah, this is Mrs Watson, I believe her husband owns this shop,' he said. 'I'm John,' he said. 'Smith.' He offered his hand to his gran. 'And this is Detective Jones.'
Mrs Watson took John's hand and squeezed firmly. 'I've always liked the name John,' she said to him, smiling indulgently. 'Lovely name. Strong, kind, decent.' She nodded her approval and looked up at The Detective. 'You look like a nice sort, too,' she said, and her gaze was so like John's as she observed him, so penetrating and warm and not at all judgemental. 'Nice, strong face.' She laughed and shook her head. 'I'm sorry!' she exclaimed, giggling and waving her hands. 'I'm sorry, going on as if I've known you all your life!'
The Detective watched as John swallowed around a lump in his throat. He did something he rarely did and tapped into John's thoughts, his hearts saddened by what he heard.
You did you have you did you knew me all my life and you built me out of the stuff you were made of and you didn't let me fall apart and I have you to thank for everything and you look so happy, you were so happy, weren't you? You were happy here and you have known me all my life, Gran, you're beautiful and I love you and I'm sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I went to war and I wasn't there for the end and I'm so sorry.
Blinking, The Detective cleared his throat. 'I don't suppose you could supply me with a good toolbox, could you? My tools are incredibly badly-made and they keep falling apart. I need something of the highest quality and I've been assured that you and your husband stock the best selection of hand tools for miles around - I don’t suppose you could help me? I dropped one of my planes last week, and the sole cracked clean through. And while I’m here, I ought to replace the handle for my chisel, like I’ve been meaning to.'
'Oh, of course, dear, of course I can,' Mrs Watson said with a pleased smile, shoving her cleaning rag into her pocket and picking up the vinegar solution she'd been using for the windows. 'Come inside, mind your head, now, we're not quite used to people as tall as you visiting.' She looked back at John. 'You fit right in,' she said, her grin creating a dimple in the corner of her mouth.
John grinned back then turned to look at The Detective, wonder in his eyes.
‘I believe that’s your grandfather,’ The Detective said in a low voice, indicating the man with dust-coloured hair and bags under his eyes behind the counter, talking in a low, steady, familiar voice to an elderly woman.
Straightening his back, John pulled himself up, proud and as tall as he ever got as he watched his grandfather deal with his customer.
‘Mrs Watson, I don’t suppose you could talk me through your selection of hand planes, could you?’ The Detective said, steering her away from John, who was still staring at his grandfather.
‘Of course, dear, we’ve just had some delivered from Sheffield if you’d like to have a look at those, although we do carry some from the foreign market if that’s more what you’re after, and--’
The Detective nodded and mmed in all the right places, though he kept his gaze fixed on John, who had managed to start talking to his grandfather and appeared to be trying to commit everything about him to memory all at once.
Smells of salt, tobacco and tea, the smoking will be what kills him, The Detective thought after he inhaled deeply. Five foot six and a quarter, approximately eleven stone, hair a mousey brown the same as John’s. Voice is quiet and controlled, smile is wide. Has nightmares about the war, served in North Africa. He usually wears coarse shirts, jumpers and a tie. Dances with his wife regularly, thinks the world of both her and their son. He took in everything he possibly could about John’s grandparents so that when John asked whether his granddad’s jumper had been green or blue or whether his hands had been wrinkled or tanned or square, The Detective would be able to answer immediately with the correct answer. This sort of thing was important information, now that John had limped into his life and aboard his TARDIS. These things didn’t get deleted. Not now.
‘How was that, then?’ The Detective asked when he and John had stayed as long as they possibly could at the shop without arousing suspicion, unlocking the door of the TARDIS. John cast one last look at his grandparents’ shop over his shoulder and shook his head, clearly overwhelmed. The Detective pushed him gently inside with a hand between his shoulderblades.
‘Would you like me to put the kettle on? I just bought some tea from your grandmother, apparently it’s a very nice--’
The Detective suddenly found that he had five feet and seven inches of John H. Watson wrapped around his front, clinging tightly.
‘Thank you,’ John whispered, pressing his cheek over The Detective’s chest where his two hearts began to beat a strange, awkward rhythm. ‘Thank you.’
Breathing out shortly through his nose, The Detective smiled and wrapped his long arms around John’s frame, compact and human and lovely. He rested his cheek on top of John’s head and rubbed his skin against John’s hair and closed it eyes and he’d been so lonely, for so long...
‘Thank you,’ John murmured again, tightening his hold for a brief moment before beginning to extract himself from The Detective’s embrace.
‘Of course,’ was all The Detective could say as he straightened up too, John’s warmth rapidly fading from his body, the whisper of John’s hair lingering on his cheek like the brush of a cobweb.
***
It was a few days later when The Detective and John found themselves floating aimlessly in the TARDIS across a sky filled with a rainbow of stars. The bright, twinkling lights shone through the TARDIS’s uncurtained windows and cast shadows across the clutter in the control room, across The Detective and John’s skin. They had the front door open and as many lights as possible off, at John’s suggestion.
‘Tell me about your family,’ The Detective said, staring at the ceiling as he lay on his back on the floor, John stretched out the other way so that their heads were next to each other’s but their feet pointing in opposite directions. He could go rummaging about in John’s mind for details about his family, of course, but he preferred to keep as many things as possible a mystery.
John had been rather quiet since their visit to Chelmsford. ‘My family?’ he said, and The Detective made a small hmm noise.
'Well, they're...' John paused. The Detective watched a shooting star travel past the door and out of sight. 'My gran was wonderful. And my mum. My dad... he was... he was different, after my mum died, but you know, that's not his fault, you can't really blame him for the drinking and...' He sighed heavily.
'What happened to your mum?' The Detective asked quietly, turning his head so that he could look at the side of John's face, the tip of his nose no more than an inch away from John's cheek and he was just close enough to press his lips to that spot behind John's ear and...
'She'd gone to Birmingham with one of her friends for the day, just a quick visit up there to see something or other. There was a car bomb, the IRA, you know, and it...' The Detective watch John's already lined face grow sad and weary. 'I don't suppose--'
'No,' The Detective said, moving one of his arms across his chest and hesitating before bringing his long fingers to run through John's hair, putting the slightest amount of pressure on his scalp. 'I don't intervene. And there's no telling how altering such a small thing in the grand scheme will come to affect that grand scheme.' He pushed John's fringe away from his forehead. 'You understand, don't you?'
John closed his eyes and nodded. He turned his face towards The Detective's. 'I was a little boy. I was a sad, frightened little boy and then you fell out of the sky and...'
'I'm sorry I didn't come back,' The Detective murmured, sitting up just slightly and looking and looking at the lines and angles and curves of John's face.
'You did come back,' John said, breathing in and dragging his eyes open, clearly returning from a long way away, a long time ago. 'Just... late.' He smiled.
The Detective smiled back. He wanted to drag his nose along the length of John's jaw, down his neck and breathe in the smell of his skin. He wanted to press his lips to John's face and lick and bite and touch and feel. He wanted to crawl inside John's skin, cut him open and climb inside and sew them together, not two parts of a whole but one single thing; he wanted to get close and base and human in a way he hadn't felt for centuries.
They were silent for a long time, staring at one another, the starlight dancing across their skin.
‘Are you happy?’ The Detective said eventually, stroking John’s hair again.
‘What do you think?’ John replied with a soft laugh. The Detective raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes,’ John said.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Yes,’ John replied without hesitating.
‘Right. Good. That’s... good.’ The Detective said, sitting up in a flurry of movement, throwing one of his legs over John’s body so that he was bracketing John’s small body with his own long arms and bigger frame.
John blinked up at The Detective. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked, frowning.
‘Shut up,’ The Detective said, grabbing John’s face in his big hands. He took a deep breath and settled his weight on his elbows and knees before he pressed his forehead to John’s, their breath mingling in the air between them as he poured his loneliness and fears and memories and wishes and dreams into John’s brain, giving all the essentials and holding back anything deemed irrelevant, being so careful not to overwhelm John’s precious, fragile human mind.
Sherlock my name’s Sherlock and I think I’ve fallen in love with you, John Watson, and I haven’t felt so scared and so alive since I stole my magic box and ran away to see the universe. You make everything an adventure again and I want you to know me the way I know you, I want you inside my head and I want you to know all the things about me that I know about you like how you have a system for making tea and a system for washing and a system for shaving and how you fell off your bike when you were five and nearly got run over by a car and that was the scariest experience of your life until Afghanistan when you had your first barely-breathing corpse to fix and she was coughing up blood and you knew she was going back in a box but you still tried to save her, didn’t you, John Watson, because you’re a wonderful, extraordinary man and I think I love you and this can’t last forever, not for me, but I’d like to try if you would. I’ve been so lonely and ignoring it’s just made it worse and touching you is unlike anything I’ve ever... and I need... You’ve been missing for all of my long, long life and my name’s Sherlock, John, and you surprise me every single day.
The Detective wrenched his head away from John’s with a gasp, sitting up and breathing heavily, still straddling John. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, resting his hand on his chest, over his hearts.
They both shifted as John sat up. John’s warm, dry hand rested over The Detective’s cold one, and John laced their fingers together. ‘Look at me,’ he whispered.
Opening his eyes, The Detective’s lips parted and he took a deep breath.
‘Sherlock,’ John said, as if he were testing how the word sounded in his mouth. ‘It won’t last forever, this? I’ll die or you’ll change or--’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ The Detective said, impatient for the next part, for their new chapter, his hearts quivering at hearing his name from John’s mouth.
‘Alright,’ John said with a smile, flushed and happy, his eyes dancing. ‘What is it you want from this, then? From me?’
I was a little boy. I was a sad, frightened little boy and then you fell out of the sky and...
‘Anything,’ The Detective said, and pressed their lips together.