Performance In a Leading Role (7/20)
Title: Performance in a Leading Role
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 8600 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: PG for now, may go up to NC-17 later
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world?
Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Sally came into Sherlock’s dressing room as he was taking off his makeup. “All right?” she said.
He glanced at her in the mirror. “I don’t know.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Is it normal for rehearsals to go this smoothly? Everyone knows their lines, everyone’s professional and cooperative, Alan just sits in the audience and says ‘brilliant’ once in awhile. I know it’s been some time since my last stage experience, but I don’t recall theater being this - easy.”
“You’ve gotten used to Hollywood histrionics.”
“Perhaps.” Sherlock sighed, looking at himself in the mirror. “Even my co-stars are agreeable. For the first time in my professional career, there’s no one in the cast whom I’d cheerfully murder.”
“I suppose we have to call that progress,” Sally said, taking a seat in the one chair in the room. “You do know why they’re all so amiable, don’t you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“You’re the big draw here, Sherlock. They’re all on best behavior lest they provoke one of your legendary tantrums. They’re just hoping for some mention of their own performances when the public and the critics troop through this theater to see you.”
“Hmm.” He hardly cared. And for all that he’d been excited about this production, too. Now it just seemed so hollow.
Sally hesitated. “Have you heard from John?”
The name hit him like a slap in the face. “What? No. I didn’t expect to. He’s busy. We all are.”
“You could write him, you know. Send him an email. There’s nothing to say you can’t stay in touch.”
“Of course not. We can type out meaningless messages about our projects and the tabloids and his fake breakup and my West End revival and the bloody weather.” He threw his flannel to the counter. “I cannot exchange emails with John Watson.”
“Sherlock…”
“No, Sally. I am aware that you’re trying to help, but please, stay out of it.”
“I can’t!” she exclaimed. “My staying-out-of-it got all used up while you were crying on my shoulder all the way here from Toronto!”
Sherlock rounded on her. “I don’t wish to discuss the matter!”
“No, why should you? It might actually help things if you did! Or if you, oh I don’t know, talked to the man! But no, you can’t talk about it, because then you might lose your drama-queen bragging rights.”
“Sally, I am not having this conversation with you. No, I take that back, this isn’t even a conversation at all! I am trying to prepare for this play, I can’t afford distractions.” He stood up and started stuffing things into his bag.
Sally got to her feet. “Fair warning, Sherlock. I am not going to be able to muster much sympathy for you if you do nothing but sit on your duff, pining for him and feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I have no intention of pining for anyone. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be talking to you right now.”
“Fine.” She stomped out of the dressing room, letting the door smack shut behind her. Sherlock sighed and slumped back into his chair.
Five days. It’s five days and you’re already a mess. Get a hold of yourself.
It’ll get better. I’ll move on. Emotions can become inconveniently heightened on a film set, especially one as intense as that one. It’s a temporary situation. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Actors plunge into an ill-conceived romance because they got caught up in the drama and passion of the performances, and six months’ later they’re having a messy break-up, or worse, a messy divorce. I’ve no business dragging John into any such entanglement.
Anyway, he deserves better.
Sherlock stood up again, packing up his things with morose resignation. Tomorrow night the play would open, and there’d be the thrill of the performance, the rush of the audience’s response, the (hopefully) enthusiastic admiration of the critics, and all this would be behind him.
“John?”
John pushed the remnants of his salad back and forth on the plate, making little swirly shapes with his raspberry vinaigrette dressing.
“John!”
“Huh?” he looked up. Mike was watching him, expectantly. John realized with embarrassment that he’d completely tuned out of the conversation. “Sorry, Mike, I’m sorry. Out woolgathering.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You’ve seemed a bit off since you got back from Toronto.”
“Just tired, I suppose. It was an exhausting shoot.”
“Did you see the notices of Sherlock’s play?”
John nodded. He’d looked them up the first thing Saturday after the play had opened. The critics were falling all over themselves finding new and exciting superlatives to lavish all over Sherlock’s performance. The other actors in the production were getting high marks as well, but it was clear that Sherlock was the star of this particular revival.
He’d stared at the accompanying photo to one of the reviews, a shot of Sherlock in costume as Dan. He was so beautiful that it made John’s skin ache. He pushed the thought away, hard. It wasn’t helping. “I knew he’d be good,” was all he said.
Mike pushed his plate away and laced his fingers together on the table, in what John recognized as his “time to talk serious” pose. “John, I’m your agent but I’m also your friend. So what I’m about to say comes from both sides, got it?”
“All right.”
“There are rumors. I’m getting calls.”
“What sorts of rumors?”
“That something happened between you and Sherlock during the shoot.”
“Define ‘something.’”
“John, don’t be difficult. You know what I’m getting at.”
“Yes, I do, and I’m amazed that you’d fall for it. We were playing a gay couple. Did you think there wouldn’t be people who’d read all sorts of things into what comes down to a performance?”
“So - it isn’t true, then?”
John sighed. “Mike, nothing happened between me and Sherlock on that set.” This had the benefit of being the truth, but it still felt like a lie. “I won’t deny that we became close friends. We worked together so much, it was that or kill each other.”
Mike nodded, and he looked undeniably relieved. What if I’d said it was true, Mike? What if I’d said that we’d had a steamy affair and had spent every hour that we weren’t filming having mad crazy sex? What then? Would you dump me as a client? Would my scripts dry up? Would I have to write off my whole career? Would I be the butt of late-night talk show jokes for eternity? He was afraid to ask, because he was quite sure he knew the answer.
Mike was ready to move on, having been satisfied by John’s denial and knowing better than to ask any more probing questions. “Well, that was the rough bit. Now the good news. There’s more than just rumors coming off that shoot. There’s also buzz. Strong buzz. A lot of talk’s going around about the performances, especially yours.”
“Is that so?”
“I had a casting director call me and tell me that she’d heard that your performance in this film was going to blow the doors off the theaters.”
“Well, casting directors do love their hyperbole.”
“I’ve had three scripts submitted in the last week. Serious films, good films. Not a rom com in the bunch. In two of them, you’d be the male lead.”
“I don’t want to think about new projects right now, Mike. It’ll be a month for these three ‘Mentalist’ episodes and it isn’t going to be an easy shoot. Then most of July will be taken up with the Pixar voice recordings, and before we know it, it’ll be time for press for To a Stranger. I don’t want to be on a shoot and trying to juggle the press tour. I talked to Focus’s head of publicity, she’s got the crazy eyes for this film. It’s going to be an onslaught.”
Mike sighed. “All right, but can I at least send you these scripts? Just have a look, there’s a good chap.”
“No promises.”
“You miss him, don’t you?”
John’s head snapped up. He looked for an insinuation or an unspoken assumption behind Mike’s words, but saw none. An innocent question. “I suppose so, yeah.”
“Have you kept in touch, then?”
“God, no. I don’t want to bother him. He’s got this play going, and he’s not much for email to begin with. Last thing he wants is to have to try and make electronic small talk with me.” John idly twirled his fork back and forth in one hand, the tines tapping against the plate.
He’d thought of emailing Sherlock, but was oddly reluctant. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to bother him. It was that he could envision too clearly how it would go.
It would start out enthusiastic. How’ve you been, play’s going great, shooting a guest-starring arc on a telly programme, seems like yesterday we were in Toronto, remember when and how about that time and gosh it was a blast.
The daily mails would become every-other-day mails, then once-a-week mails. The heartfelt chats would become perfunctory small talk. Eventually there’d be the inevitable “well, best of luck, see you sometime” email and that would be that. And he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t stand to let what he and Sherlock shared in Toronto devolve predictably from a deep connection into a superficial one, and eventually to none at all. He’d rather never speak to Sherlock again and hold what they’d had safe in his heart than let it spin away into nothingness because he couldn’t let go. He wanted no part of it. He would place Sherlock into a bubble and seal him tight away, down deep where no one else could touch him, and there he’d stay, no matter what happened this fall or next year or for the rest of his life.
He glanced up at Mike, wondering how much of this was playing out on his face. Mike looked sympathetic, but clueless. “Well, it sounds like you managed to at least work well with him, which is more than most of his co-stars can say,” Mike said. “That alone ought to get you an Oscar!”
John chuckled. “You’ve no idea.”
“Holmes.”
“Sherlock, it’s Jim.”
“Hello, Jim. How’s the editing going?”
“Really well. Ought to have a rough cut by the end of June. Andrew’s coming along on the scoring. He’s never scored a film before, so it’s a bit of steep learning curve, but I’ve heard some of his early arrangements. It’s amazing stuff.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I’m calling because we’re starting to firm up the publicity schedule. Should I run this through Sally, or through Greg Lestrade?”
“Go through Sally. I’m not taking any work until after the first of the year, so you won’t need to work around Greg.”
“Very good. Listen, Sherlock - I’m not one for easy praise. But I’ve seen some of the edited sections, and the work you and John did in this film is just astonishing.”
Sherlock sighed. “Thank you. It was a challenge but a pleasure.”
“Your on-screen chemistry with him is - mind-blowing.”
“Something you want to ask me, Jim?”
He cleared his throat. “We’ve gotten some media inquiries. Asking if the rumors are true.”
“Rumors are always true, you know that. Especially when they’re not.”
“We need to be in agreement with how we’re handling this.”
“What needs to be handled, exactly?”
“The studio would like to avoid any unwanted publicity that detracts from the film’s release,” Jim said, smoothly, as if Sherlock had not spoken. “The personal lives of our actors aren’t ours to police, but what does and does not become public knowledge has to be our concern.”
“What is it that you think people will find out? That I managed to make it through a film shoot without alienating my co-star, for once? That’s hardly above-the-fold news.”
“That’s not what’s being said, and you know it.”
Yes, he did. Sally was the Zen Master of media gossip, and she kept him well informed. There was a segment of the moviegoing public that was watching the making of this film very closely, and chins were wagging. They were saying that Sherlock and John had a torrid off-screen affair during the shoot. That Sarah Sawyer had dumped John when she found out. That their daringly explicit sex scene hadn’t been fake. That they’d been caught in any of a number of compromising positions all over the set during filming.
“Who are these people?” Sherlock had demanded, after she’d shown him some of the discussions on the fan forums. “Don’t they have - I don’t know, jobs? How do they know so much about the production?”
“They read ‘Variety,’ Sherlock. And the gay community is very plugged into the media, or is that some kind of a surprise to you? The news that someone was finally making a film featuring gay men that wasn’t about being gay, and not just any someone but Ang Lee, starring two Hollywood big names - it was like the second coming. They’ve been watching this very carefully.”
Sherlock had known he lived in a fishbowl. He hadn’t realized that he was sodding Shamu in his giant glass cage.
And now here was Jim, a gay man himself, worried about the effect on the film if it turned out that its costars, neither of whom had been known to be gay before, had fallen into a showmance. “What is it that you’re saying to me, Jim?”
He heard the producer heave a weary sigh. “If you are with John, then as a human being I can be nothing but happy for you. But as the producer of this film, much as I hate it, I have concerns.”
“Then banish those concerns, because John and I are just friends.”
Long pause. “Are you telling me the truth?”
Sherlock shut his eyes for a moment. “Yes. I haven’t actually spoken to John in a month, not since we wrapped.” Saying those words out loud made them seem somehow more true, and more hateful.
“Oh, I see. Well, he’s my next call, so I’ll speak to him myself. We sent the still photo package along, check your email. We’re planning to have a theatrical trailer cut in September.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Sherlock hung up. He went straight to his laptop and opened his email. There was a large zipped file from the production office; he downloaded and extracted it, and then…
Oh.
Picture after picture of him and John, in character on the set. Mid-scene, mid-argument, mid-embrace. One that was sure to be plastered all over the Internet in record time pictured them right on the edge of a passionate kiss. One of him watching John sleep.
No. Not John. Mark. These aren’t photographs of you and John. They’re Benjamin and Mark. Keep it clear in your mind, for God’s sake.
He reached out and touched the tip of his finger to John’s peaceful, sleeping face, but even this image was a lie, because John was only feigning sleep.
John.
My John.
The photograph wasn’t alone. Since Toronto, his whole life was a lie. But there were only two more months to go, and then he would be free, and then the lie could stop.
“We’ll pick up this scene tomorrow, guys,” said the voice director, sitting in the mixing booth and talking through the intercom. “Wrap for today.”
Rustlings and paper shufflings, but good-natured ones. Five people stuck in a recording booth for eight hours’ straight wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, but no one complained. Working for Pixar was like summer camp. John kept waiting for the dark underbelly to show its face and it kept stubbornly refusing to do so. He’d never had as much fun on a job in his life.
Well, almost never.
A lot of the recording was done individually, but schedules had been juggled and beaten into submission and the five principal voice actors had been booked into the studio for a solid week to record some of the more difficult conversational interludes. Five actors of not-insignificant status in one room for eight hours a day for five days straight sounded like a Sartre version of actors’ hell to John, but to his amazement, everyone had checked their egos at the door and, so far, were getting along.
“So, John. My agent tells me we might be seeing you on some podiums next winter,” Kevin said, putting his script pages into his briefcase. Everyone paused and looked up at him.
“Oh, really?” John said, putting on his well-worn self-effacing smile. He prepared himself for some jibes at his expense about how ridiculous such a notion was.
Except Kevin didn’t look like he was winding him up. He looked serious. “Yeah, really. She says that the rough cut of To a Stranger has got a lot of people very excited.”
“One wonders how she saw it.”
“I think she plays golf with somebody at Universal who saw part of it.”
“I just wrapped a film with Mark Ruffalo,” said Amy. “He told me that he really wanted that part, the one you played, John.”
“A lot of people were interested in that film,” Kevin said. “Although I bet a few of them lost interest after Sherlock was cast,” he said, winking at John. Everyone laughed.
John forced a smile. “That’s understandable. It’s not easy to share a screen with someone as talented as he is. Nobody likes to be out-acted.”
Everyone’s laughter faded a bit. “It’s not his talent, it’s his attitude,” Kevin said. “How did you stand it? I heard he nearly drove Haggis into a nervous breakdown.”
“That wasn’t Sherlock’s doing,” John said. “And he’s hardly the only demanding actor in town, is he? How was it working with Tom Cruise, Kevin? Of course no one dares say anything against him. I suppose Sherlock makes himself an easy target by not caring fuck-all what anyone else thinks.”
The other four were exchanging uncertain glances by now. “Tom’s a great guy,” Kevin said, with a tone of rote repetition. “But you couldn’t pay me enough to work with Sherlock Holmes.”
“That’s fine, because I’m sure no one will,” John snapped. “I’d work with him again for free.”
“Really?” Amy said. “I don’t know him, but I do hear he’s hard to handle. You didn’t think so, John?”
John snapped up his satchel and slung it over his shoulder. “Sherlock Holmes is not only the finest actor I’ve ever worked with, he’s the most hardworking. And he’s a fantastic bloke, as anyone would know if they bothered to actually get to know him instead of just assuming that they can’t.” He went to the door. “See you all tomorrow.”
He heard murmurings in the studio as the door closed behind him. He shut his eyes with a dismayed sigh. Fantastic, Watson. That ought to help quell those rumors. How many people will those four tell that you were defending Sherlock’s honor like a smitten schoolboy?
He could still hear Jim’s cautionary words, delivered weeks ago when he’d called about the publicity schedule. We need this film to stand on its own merits, as a piece of art, because that’s what it is. The last thing anyone wants is for the film itself to be overshadowed by whatever happened off-screen. He’d assured Jim that nothing had happened off-screen.
“Where is everyone getting this notion that something happened?” he’d moaned to Harry not long after. “Are they just inventing stories out of whole cloth?”
“There is some inventing going on, but it’s hardly out of whole cloth. You and Sherlock did spend nearly every waking minute together on that set. And some of the non-waking minutes.”
“We were working! We were - friends! Since when is that so suspicious? It can’t just be because we were playing lovers.”
“That’s a big part of it. But, John…” She thought for a moment. “You didn’t see yourselves.”
“See ourselves? What do you mean?”
“You didn’t see how you followed him around with your eyes, or how he did the same with you. Or how his smiles weren’t fake when he was smiling at you. You didn’t see how you looked at each other when you thought nobody was paying attention. But someone is always paying attention, luv. You know that. The two of you might be Actors of Your Generation or what have you, but nobody can act all the time. You both showed more than you probably realized.”
He got in his car and headed home. A phone call came through his Bluetooth as he got on the freeway. “What is it, Harry?”
“John, something’s turned up online.”
“What?”
“A photograph of you and Sherlock, with some fans? At Casa Loma?”
“Oh, yes. We did a bit of sightseeing on one of our days off, a few girls asked for autographs and took a photo.”
“Well, one of the girls posted it to Oh No They Didn’t, and now it’s all over the place. The fan forums are going barmy.”
“Barmy? Over a photo of us with some fans? There’s nothing about that to prompt barminess.”
“No, it’s a perfectly innocent photo. It’s the context. You know, an outing to a local tourist spot. They’re all calling it your ‘date.’”
John sighed. “Don’t these people have lives?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
“I didn’t sign up to be anybody’s hobby.”
“That isn’t all. A couple of bystanders saw you two out and about that day, there are a few fuzzy mobile pics that were taken.”
“And? What do they show?”
“One of them’s you two walking down a street.”
“Oh, surely not. Not that. Not walking down a street. Oh, the implications.”
“John, I agree it’s blown a bit out of proportion…”
“A bit?”
“But you’re walking rather close and you’ve both got these big smiles on and even I have to agree that you look quite smitten with each other.”
“Next thing you know they’ll be finding coded messages in our neckties.”
“The other photo shows you on one of those boat tours. Again, nothing damning, but the whole day does sort of smell a bit date-ish.”
“It wasn’t a date! It was a couple of mates out seeing the town! When did it become impossible for two men to be seen together in public without everyone making all sorts of assumptions?”
“When those men are playing lovers, and one of them is notorious for not getting along with anyone, so to see him getting along so well with you - well, you know the press. They’ll make up their own story if there isn’t one to be had.”
“The press is on to this?”
“Not the mainstream press. The blogosphere.”
“Pardon me if I don’t tremble in terror of the almighty blogosphere.”
“You shouldn’t. It’ll pass. You and Sherlock haven’t been in touch since the shoot.”
John’s gut clenched a little bit at that. Just over two months now since he’d seen or heard from Sherlock. He’d waited to stop missing him, to stop wanting contact, for it all to just stop and leave him in peace. He was still waiting. Time seemed not to blunt but instead to sharpen the ache he felt at the separation, and he feared that he might reach a sticking point where something had to be done about it. “No. No, we haven’t.”
He heard Harry sigh. “I wish I could help you, John,” she said.
“You can’t. No one can help me. There’s nothing to be done. It’s a bloody impossible mess and that’s all there is to it. I’ll be fine, no need for you to worry.”
“But I do worry! I worry about you all the time! John…”
“Please, Harry. I just - I can’t, all right?”
“All right. I’ll bring dinner over, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks, that’d be good. See you then.”
“Bye.”
He hung up and refocused on the road. Any hope he had that he and Sherlock might - well, any hope he had at all regarding Sherlock was dwindling rapidly. If there was media attention now, no matter how inconsequential, there’d only be orders of magnitude more once the publicity machine really got humming. They’d never withstand the scrutiny. He couldn’t risk this film. Not now, not when he was poised on the cusp of a new stage of his career. Perhaps, in a year or so, when this film was out of theaters and any awards-season attention had passed and the world’s gaze had shifted elsewhere, perhaps then…
Perhaps by then I’ll have gone mad. That’ll solve everything.
The stage door wasn’t too crowded, perhaps a dozen or so people, several of whom were not at all interested in him but rather in one of his co-stars. Sherlock signed some autographs and spoke to the fans, managing what he hoped was a tolerably friendly demeanor.
He looked up and saw Greg Lestrade waiting for him. Greg nodded to him in acknowledgment. Sherlock finished up with the theatergoers and walked over. “Greg, what are you doing here?” he said, shaking his hand.
“Came to see the show.”
“Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“It was a bit of a last-minute thing, actually. I’m just in town overnight, I didn’t plan to do any business, but the friend I’m staying with had tickets so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. C’mon, let’s go get a bite.”
They went to one of Sherlock’s favorite pubs, just down the street from his flat. They sat in the back and ordered some pints and grub. “Greg, let’s have it. You’re never anywhere not on business.”
He didn’t answer at first. “I’ve never seen you like that with fans.”
“Like how?”
“Nice.”
“You make me sound like an unrepentant ogre.”
“No. You just usually wouldn’t have time for such nonsense.”
“A man’s not allowed a change of heart about something so trivial?”
“It isn’t trivial to them.”
Sherlock sighed. “If you’re here to harangue me about the rumors, I’ve had it already from plenty of others.”
“I’m not here to harangue you. I’m concerned about you.”
Sherlock frowned. “Concerned? We’ve barely spoken since the show started.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not keeping an eye on you. You’re one of my most important clients, Sherlock. It’s my business to know yours.”
“I see. Spies everywhere, is that it?”
“Nothing so devious. But I know a lot of people and many of them know you. And I’m not the only one who’s concerned.”
“I can’t imagine what behavior of mine is cause for such solicitations. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Fine, yes. Of course you are. You show up, perform, and go home. You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t go out. You’ve refused every invitation you’ve been sent since you’ve been in town. You stay in your flat and keep to yourself. Meanwhile you’re kinder and more considerate of your fans than ever. You’re being exceedingly enigmatic.” He cocked his head. “Or exceedingly depressed.”
Sherlock traced the wet ring of condensation that his glass had left on the tabletop. “It isn’t your job to mollycoddle me, Greg.”
“If I don’t do it, who will? Sally? She’s at her wit’s end.”
“You’ve spoken to her?” he asked, sharply.
“I don’t have to. I’ve had it from Anderson. You know they’re still dating. He used to be an agent with us. We’re in touch.”
“Is there anyone you don’t know?”
Greg met his eyes. “Do I know you, Sherlock? I’m starting to wonder. Have you changed this much? Or was this always you, and that man we all thought we knew was just the armor you wore to face the world?”
“You didn’t bring me here to spout nonsense about my emotional state. Which is none of your business, incidentally. Just ask me what you want to ask me.”
“Are you in love with him?”
Sherlock’s head snapped up. He hadn’t expected Greg to actually ask him so frankly. “Cor, that’s - direct.”
“Are you?”
Sherlock drained the remnants of his pint. “If I were, why do you think I’d tell you?”
“Because we have to formulate a strategy.”
“No. We absolutely do not have to do that. My personal life is not a matter for strategic planning. It is my life and none of yours or the studio’s business.”
“If it affects the financial success of this picture, they’ll make it their business and so I’ll have to make it mine as well.”
“I will retire, Greg. I will hang it all up and go live in a cottage in Sussex before I’ll let my private life be discussed in some committee meeting and subject to a focus group. Bugger their publicity tour, they can market this film without me.”
“You wouldn’t do that. This film means too much to you.”
“Not as much as…” Not as much as he means to me. Nothing means that much. Sherlock shut his mouth with a click of his jaw before anything else could spill out, but he could see by Greg’s face that it was too late. “I am in control of the situation.”
“Maybe that’s the bloody problem. You’re always in control. Always the smartest man in the room, the one who knows everything about everyone, even the things no one wants anyone to know. Welcome to the other side of the fence, Sherlock. How’s it feel?”
Sherlock stood up and fished in his wallet for cash. “I’ve got two weeks left on this run, Greg. After that, I intend to take myself away and not tell anyone where I’ve gone, particularly you. Is that understood?”
“What good will that do, Sherlock?” Greg asked, quietly.
Of course, Sherlock couldn’t answer that question truthfully. It will depend on how John reacts when I show up on his doorstep, Greg. Formulate a strategy for that, why don’t you?
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sally.”
“Harry, hi. I thought you were going to call last week.”
“Got busy.”
“Literally?” Sally said, snickering. “Was Clara in town?”
“As a matter of fact, she was, but that isn’t what I meant. How are things?”
“Bloody awful. Mine’s miserable.”
“Mine’s miserable, too.”
They were quiet for a moment. “Why are men such idiots?”
“I don’t know. Must be in their DNA. I was using John’s laptop the other day to send some emails. You would not believe how many pictures of Sherlock he’s got saved to his hard drive. Photoshoots, publicity stills, red carpet, everything.”
“Sherlock’s been having a bit of a film festival.”
“Oh no, he’s not…”
“He is. Every single one.”
“Even Havana Honeymoon?”
“Even that one. I think now he’s watched all the films, so he’s down to digging up YouTube clips of John on talk shows. He even found grainy video of John in some community-theater production of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’”
“And yet they can’t pick up a bloody phone or send an email.”
“Well, this is safe, of course. You don’t risk anything when you just cyberstalk each other.”
Harry sighed. “What’s Sherlock got scheduled after the show closes?”
“Nothing. He’s got some time off.”
“Hmm.”
“What is going on in your devious little brain?”
“Just pondering how we might be the best enablers we can be.”
“I’m not interfering.”
“Neither am I. Not directly. But there’s nothing to say we can’t do what’s in our power to do and make it - easier.”
“Keep talking.”
Harry was awakened by the pounding on the door of her flat. She rolled over and peered at the clock - five a.m. Fuck.
She got up and stumbled to the door, where the pounding had resumed. “I’m coming, all right?” She opened the door and there was John, a bit wild-eyed. “Christ, you couldn’t have just rung me?”
He pushed past her and into the flat. “Tell me I’m not a nutter.”
“If you didn’t want to seem like a nutter, you shouldn’t have pounded down my door at five o’clock in the fucking morning.”
“Tell me that I’m a sane, level-headed man and that there’s absolutely no possibility that I’m considering getting on a plane and flying to London to make some sort of third-act declaration.”
“Stop talking about your life like it’s a screenplay. Sit the fuck down, will you?” She pushed John into a chair and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on the hob. “I’m going to make you some tea.”
“I don’t want tea. I want you to stop me from doing something colossally stupid.”
“Colossally stupid is when you turn down a part in an Oliver Stone film to film Robin’s Egg Blues.”
“I am never going to live that down, am I?”
She sat down facing him and grabbed his hands. “I’m saying there’s colossally stupid, and then there’s finally getting up the stones to tell that toff bastard how you feel about him, and those two circles do not overlap in your little Venn diagram of life, Johnny.”
John’s head dropped down, shaking back and forth as if he were just saying ‘no’ to the world. “I can’t do this.”
“John,” she said. “Look at me.” He lifted his head and met her eyes. “I have watched you all summer, and you’re killing me here, you are bloody killing me. You put on a happy face and go about your work and your life and you take care of me and everyone you know, but you are dying inside and I can’t take it. I’ve stood by and I’ve seen your heart break a little more every day and I’m done in, luv. Aren’t you? Aren’t you tired?”
He sighed, his eyes closing. “I’m so tired, Harry.”
“Then stop. Just stop.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.” She held his gaze.
A smile crept onto his lips, a grim little smile of resolve. “How fast can you get me to London?”
Harry grinned and let his hands go. She stood up and went to her desk, pulling out the itinerary she’d put together last week. She handed him the envelope. “You leave this afternoon. I’ve got you a hotel room at the Savoy.”
He took the envelope, staring up at her in amazement. “How did you…”
“His show closes tomorrow night. I know you actors. You love a dramatic statement. And I have it from a reliable source that he’ll be taking a holiday after the show and faffing off to parts unknown. So you better hurry.”
John jumped up and hugged her. “You’re the best sister in the world.”
She smiled and hugged him back. “Just evening the scales up a bit, luv.”
Closing night always had the melancholy of finality. If the show had been a good experience, it bore the additional sadness of separation, from the show, the audiences, the cast and crew, and the life you’d led for months while performing it.
But for Sherlock Holmes, waiting backstage to take his curtain call, his run in this role now finished, all this closing night brought him was relief and anxiety. The show had held him here, it had forced him into this cocoon of self-preservation. He’d told Greg that he intended to take himself away, but he hadn’t told him where.
In his dressing room was a packed bag and a plane ticket to Los Angeles. The moment his indenture to this production had expired, he was going to go to the airport, board a plane, fly to Los Angeles and take a cab right to John’s door.
What he’d do then, he had no idea. But he and John had never had difficulty communicating before. Something would come to him.
The applause was thunderous. He walked out with his co-stars and it redoubled in strength. They took a group bow, then each an individual bow, then another group bow. Exeunt, stage left. Pause, pause, pause. Take the stage again for another round of bows.
And here was the stage manager with the requisite bouquets of roses. She handed them to his co-stars as they took another solo bow, each receiving a healthy ovation from the crowd. Sherlock was last. She handed him his bouquet, winking at him as she did so. The crowd’s applause swelled, shouts and whistles floating toward him. On another night, at another time, this would have been like a drug to him. A high that no narcotic could match. This was what he lived for. The work. The proof of their adulation making it clear, once again, that he was the best.
But right now, he couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t see them. He didn’t care. Everything had faded to white noise and a vague blur.
All Sherlock could see was the single hydrangea that was stuck in amidst the roses in his arms.
John.
John was here. He was here, somewhere. Sherlock looked around, but of course he couldn’t see a damn thing with the stage lights in his face. His co-star grabbed his hand and they bowed again. Bow, bow, bow…where was he? Was he out there right now, applauding? Was he waiting? Would he leave?
He’s not going to leave, he came here to see you. You were going to him, but he beat you to it, because he is just that infuriating and just that wonderful.
The curtain came down again. That would do it for curtain calls. The house lights came up and he heard the audience murmuring as they collected their bags and jackets. Sherlock raced offstage into the wings, the bouquet clutched in his hand, forgotten. He pushed through startled crewmembers and extras, ignoring their congratulations, leaving puzzled faces in his wake.
John. John. Where is he?
He ran to the stage door and poked his head out. A few fans, but no John. He ducked back inside before the fans realized it was him. He ran back to the steps that led up to the house and took them two at a time. The audience was clearing out; nobody was lingering, nobody was coming down toward the stage, nobody who looked like John was anywhere in sight.
Think. Where would he be?
The hydrangea had to have been sorted ahead of time. He must have been here before the show. Did he watch the show? Regardless, he had an in among the crew. Sally was the most likely person to assist him. She’d have brought him through the stage door and stashed him somewhere. Where?
The answer came to him before he’d barely finished asking himself the question. He whirled around and ran for his dressing room.
He stopped in front of the door, paralyzed, his hand reaching for the doorknob. Was John behind this door? This was not the plan. The plan had been for him, Sherlock, to fly to John. This was logical, as John had work in Los Angeles and Sherlock was now free and unencumbered. That John would decide to come here to see him on the same night that Sherlock had planned to leave the country to go to him was somewhat predictable. They’d both known that the play closed tonight, which provided a handy jumping-off point, not to mention a certain element of drama, which being actors they were both sadly susceptible to.
Open the damn door.
He knew why he was hesitating. If he opened this door and John wasn’t behind it…
He opened the door.
John was standing at his mirror, looking at several clippings Sally had taped to it. He turned around when he heard the door open.
Sherlock shut and locked the door and leaned against it, the bouquet of flowers falling from his hand, unnoticed. He was afraid to move or blink or speak lest John vanish like a mirage, a product of his frustrated imaginings. Lord knew he’d spent enough time conjuring John’s image in his mind.
John was as still as a statue. He was wearing a well-cut gray suit and a pink button-up open at the throat. He looked glorious and tanned (arrived last night staying at the Savoy spent the day revisiting his old neighborhood also visited his parents had dinner with his cousin the one who’s a cardiologist) and Sherlock lost the air from his lungs, the words from his throat, the pulse from his heart and the sense from his mind, all of it replaced with the fact of John, John here in this room, John before him, John everywhere.
I’m here.
You’re here.
A slow smile dawned on John’s face. Sherlock felt his own face mirroring it, his shoulders sagging as John’s body relaxed, and of all the first words he’d ever imagined John saying to him, he’d never predicted that there’d be none at all.
The dressing room was small. They required only one step to reach each other. It had been a step too large to take in Toronto and now it was the work of less than a second, so easy, so natural, the most intuitive thing in the world, reach forward and surround him, let himself be engulfed, the motion sweeping them together so their mouths locked and the breath rushed in, the pulse surged back, and the imaginings had been nothing but the thinnest shadows of what the reality now proved to be.
John.
His lips were soft and insistent; they parted beneath Sherlock’s and they dove into each other, all their restraint long ago exhausted, weeks of restraint, months of it, terrible and draining and so futile. John’s arms moved restlessly over his back like he was searching for a way to hold him tighter and Sherlock wished he could, wished himself smaller so he could be enfolded entire. He cupped John’s face to drawn him closer, this endlessly fascinating face, locked against his own as if carved to fit, John’s warm mouth and his tongue and his breath hot on Sherlock’s cheeks.
He held John’s head still and pressed kisses to his lips, his cheeks, down his jaw and onto his neck, ducking to press his face under John’s chin, John’s hand sliding up into his hair, but it wasn’t enough, he needed to be shorter, he needed to be closer. He slid down within the tight circle of John’s arms until his knees hit the floor and he could bury his face in John’s stomach, feel his warmth through his clothes, clutch his arms around John’s hips and feel himself held close, his skull cradled by John’s hand and he could finally breathe, just breathe, long tidal breaths that drew up the deepest unspoken wishes from the bottom of his lungs and let them dissipate in the air.
He felt John press his face against the top of his head. “Sherlock…” he began.
“Shhh. Please, John, just…” Just hold me. Hold me until I get used to how it feels, hold me until I’ll be able to remember it after you’ve stopped. Don’t let go of me because I am terrified of needing this and I never knew that I did because no one ever has, no one until you, because you were the only one who’d know how.
“Okay,” John whispered, his arms tightening around Sherlock’s shoulders as he pressed gentle kisses along his forehead and temples, the only part of him that John could reach at the moment.
They just stayed there, breathing together while their new reality settled around them. One minute, two, three, the seconds ticked by and Sherlock could hear the chaos of the closing-night backstage crowd outside his dressing room door. He’d eventually have to rejoin the world, and he wondered how long he could put it off.
Finally satisfied that he wasn’t about to burst into flames, or wake up alone in bed, or find himself clutching the air where John had never been, Sherlock turned his face in toward John’s body and sighed. John’s hand carded through his hair, soothing and patient. He disengaged just enough to get to his feet, their eyes meeting in a shared, bemused moment of well, that happened. Now what?
John grinned. “What does one say after a greeting like that?”
Sherlock chuckled. “I don’t know. Although, we never actually did say hello.”
John’s smile faded. He lifted one hand and brushed an errant curl off Sherlock’s temple with his index finger. “Hello,” he whispered.
He tipped forward until their foreheads met. “Hello, John.” He waited for three breaths’ worth of silence, then nudged at John’s face with his own and kissed him again, slow and deliberate. John cupped his neck and kissed back, working Sherlock’s mouth gently with his own.
When they separated again it felt like something had been decided. He didn’t know what, exactly, but something had. John sighed. “I wish we’d done this in Toronto. Spared ourselves three months’ hand-wringing. At least, I know I’ve had some hand-wringing.”
“Sally characterizes what I’ve been doing as pining.”
John smiled. “Pining? For me?”
“No, for Cate Blanchett. Of course, for you, you daft git.”
He flushed to the tips of his ears, and Sherlock felt his heart lurch to one side. Oh God, I am really in for it. John looked down and fidgeted a little. “Well, at least we can stop doing that.”
“Indeed.” He slid his arms around John’s waist. They fit so comfortably together like this, it was hard to believe it wasn’t by design. “But you know why we didn’t do this in Toronto.”
John nodded. “I’ve seen a hundred showmances start on the set and then fizzle out in the real world. I knew that there was - something, but I couldn’t stand for that to happen to us. Best to let some time go by and make sure - well, that it’s real.”
“And is it? Is it real?”
John met his eyes. “God, yes.”
The sudden surge between them took Sherlock by surprise, and he barely had time to blink before they were kissing again, this time with urgency and need and want, so much want, bottled up for too long and needing out, needing to fly, needing to burn. Their arms wound tight round each other, John rising on his tiptoes to press closer. He kissed and sucked at Sherlock’s neck, tiny little noises escaping him that went straight to Sherlock’s groin. He slid his hands down John’s back to his arse and pulled him closer. “John,” he whispered.
“I wanted this,” John murmured against his skin. “I wanted this with you, all the time.”
Sherlock was having trouble marshaling coherent thought. It was a novel and not entirely comfortable sensation. He seized John’s face and kissed him, deep and fast, it was all he could think to do and all he seemed to want to do, apart from all the other things he could imagine doing that John might let him do.
But they were in a dressing room in the middle of a busy backstage and it was really most inconvenient. He pressed two hard kisses to John’s mouth, then pulled back. “John, much as I’d rather stay here and kiss you all night, I can’t. I have to go back out there and do stage door and then I’m more or less obligated to at least make an appearance at the after party.”
John nodded. “I shouldn’t come with you. In fact, we should try and make sure no one sees me leave.” Their eyes met and Sherlock saw that John had been getting it with both barrels from his team about the rumors, just like he had.
This was going to get complicated, and quickly. But that was for later consideration. All he cared about right now was getting himself free of his obligations and getting John into his bed, as fast as possible. He smiled, his heart doing that odd lurching thing again. “I can’t believe you came here,” he said.
John smiled back, but then it faded away and his brow creased. “What if I hadn’t?”
Sherlock stepped away and went to his bag; he pulled out his itinerary and handed it to John. He opened it up and read it, eyes widening. He looked up at Sherlock, his mouth opening in surprise. “I was going to go to you. Tonight, after I was finished here. I was going to go right from the airport to your doorstep and ask you if you’d mind very much if I took you to bed.”
John’s lips were doing an odd thing; it looked like he wanted to smile, but another expression was fighting for the real estate. “I don’t mind. Not at all. In fact, I’ll be rather cross with you if you don’t.”
Sherlock rummaged in his bag again and came out with his spare key. “Here,” he said, handing it to John. “Do you know where I live?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get Sally, she’ll smuggle you out so the stage door fans don’t see you. Go to my flat and wait for me there. I’ll try not to be too long, you know how it goes.”
“Of course. I’ll just snoop through all your things to kill the time,” John said, smirking.
Sherlock laughed. “Snoop away. The most incriminating thing you’ll find is a complete collection of the films of John Watson.”
John’s face went slack. “You watched them all?”
“Every last one.”
“And you still want to be with me?”
“Consider it a measure of my devotion.” He slung one arm around John’s shoulders and kissed his temple. “They were helpful. They kept me from missing you too badly.” John sagged into him with a sigh. “Well - that’s not entirely accurate. Nothing could have kept me from missing you.”
“I missed you, too. Every day.”
“I’d better get changed. I hate that I have to go out there now and talk to people and act like I don’t have a John Watson waiting for me at my flat.”
John looked up at him, hooking one finger under his lapel, his lip curled in a flirt. “It’ll be worth it.”
“Oh, God,” Sherlock sighed.
John kissed him, a quick kiss of more-to-come. “I’ll just go and find Sally then, shall I?”
“Better let me text her, she’ll come here and collect you.”
“All right.”
“John, you’d…” He chuckled. “You’d better take some of this,” he said, holding out his cold cream and a flannel.
John frowned. “What? Why?”
“Because you have my stage makeup all over your face.”
MetaNotes for Chapter 7
1. Where John and Sherlock’s agents are concerned, I’ve done a bit of conflating of the roles of agent, manager and publicist. Actors of their stature would surely have one of each and the things that Mike and Greg each say to them would probably more likely be handled by either their manager or their publicist. I wanted to keep the number of characters manageable so I’ve done a bit of poetic-license amalgamation.
2. The two named actors in John’s Pixar voice recording session are meant to be Kevin Pollak and Amy Adams.
3. The comment about coded messages in neckties is a big of a fandom injoke, referring to a particularly batshit cray branch of fans who imagined a real-life slash pairing between Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan. At one point these fans actually did have theories about coded messages in neckties. Ah, fandom.
Next Chapter
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 8600 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: PG for now, may go up to NC-17 later
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world?
Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Sally came into Sherlock’s dressing room as he was taking off his makeup. “All right?” she said.
He glanced at her in the mirror. “I don’t know.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Is it normal for rehearsals to go this smoothly? Everyone knows their lines, everyone’s professional and cooperative, Alan just sits in the audience and says ‘brilliant’ once in awhile. I know it’s been some time since my last stage experience, but I don’t recall theater being this - easy.”
“You’ve gotten used to Hollywood histrionics.”
“Perhaps.” Sherlock sighed, looking at himself in the mirror. “Even my co-stars are agreeable. For the first time in my professional career, there’s no one in the cast whom I’d cheerfully murder.”
“I suppose we have to call that progress,” Sally said, taking a seat in the one chair in the room. “You do know why they’re all so amiable, don’t you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“You’re the big draw here, Sherlock. They’re all on best behavior lest they provoke one of your legendary tantrums. They’re just hoping for some mention of their own performances when the public and the critics troop through this theater to see you.”
“Hmm.” He hardly cared. And for all that he’d been excited about this production, too. Now it just seemed so hollow.
Sally hesitated. “Have you heard from John?”
The name hit him like a slap in the face. “What? No. I didn’t expect to. He’s busy. We all are.”
“You could write him, you know. Send him an email. There’s nothing to say you can’t stay in touch.”
“Of course not. We can type out meaningless messages about our projects and the tabloids and his fake breakup and my West End revival and the bloody weather.” He threw his flannel to the counter. “I cannot exchange emails with John Watson.”
“Sherlock…”
“No, Sally. I am aware that you’re trying to help, but please, stay out of it.”
“I can’t!” she exclaimed. “My staying-out-of-it got all used up while you were crying on my shoulder all the way here from Toronto!”
Sherlock rounded on her. “I don’t wish to discuss the matter!”
“No, why should you? It might actually help things if you did! Or if you, oh I don’t know, talked to the man! But no, you can’t talk about it, because then you might lose your drama-queen bragging rights.”
“Sally, I am not having this conversation with you. No, I take that back, this isn’t even a conversation at all! I am trying to prepare for this play, I can’t afford distractions.” He stood up and started stuffing things into his bag.
Sally got to her feet. “Fair warning, Sherlock. I am not going to be able to muster much sympathy for you if you do nothing but sit on your duff, pining for him and feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I have no intention of pining for anyone. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be talking to you right now.”
“Fine.” She stomped out of the dressing room, letting the door smack shut behind her. Sherlock sighed and slumped back into his chair.
Five days. It’s five days and you’re already a mess. Get a hold of yourself.
It’ll get better. I’ll move on. Emotions can become inconveniently heightened on a film set, especially one as intense as that one. It’s a temporary situation. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Actors plunge into an ill-conceived romance because they got caught up in the drama and passion of the performances, and six months’ later they’re having a messy break-up, or worse, a messy divorce. I’ve no business dragging John into any such entanglement.
Anyway, he deserves better.
Sherlock stood up again, packing up his things with morose resignation. Tomorrow night the play would open, and there’d be the thrill of the performance, the rush of the audience’s response, the (hopefully) enthusiastic admiration of the critics, and all this would be behind him.
“John?”
John pushed the remnants of his salad back and forth on the plate, making little swirly shapes with his raspberry vinaigrette dressing.
“John!”
“Huh?” he looked up. Mike was watching him, expectantly. John realized with embarrassment that he’d completely tuned out of the conversation. “Sorry, Mike, I’m sorry. Out woolgathering.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You’ve seemed a bit off since you got back from Toronto.”
“Just tired, I suppose. It was an exhausting shoot.”
“Did you see the notices of Sherlock’s play?”
John nodded. He’d looked them up the first thing Saturday after the play had opened. The critics were falling all over themselves finding new and exciting superlatives to lavish all over Sherlock’s performance. The other actors in the production were getting high marks as well, but it was clear that Sherlock was the star of this particular revival.
He’d stared at the accompanying photo to one of the reviews, a shot of Sherlock in costume as Dan. He was so beautiful that it made John’s skin ache. He pushed the thought away, hard. It wasn’t helping. “I knew he’d be good,” was all he said.
Mike pushed his plate away and laced his fingers together on the table, in what John recognized as his “time to talk serious” pose. “John, I’m your agent but I’m also your friend. So what I’m about to say comes from both sides, got it?”
“All right.”
“There are rumors. I’m getting calls.”
“What sorts of rumors?”
“That something happened between you and Sherlock during the shoot.”
“Define ‘something.’”
“John, don’t be difficult. You know what I’m getting at.”
“Yes, I do, and I’m amazed that you’d fall for it. We were playing a gay couple. Did you think there wouldn’t be people who’d read all sorts of things into what comes down to a performance?”
“So - it isn’t true, then?”
John sighed. “Mike, nothing happened between me and Sherlock on that set.” This had the benefit of being the truth, but it still felt like a lie. “I won’t deny that we became close friends. We worked together so much, it was that or kill each other.”
Mike nodded, and he looked undeniably relieved. What if I’d said it was true, Mike? What if I’d said that we’d had a steamy affair and had spent every hour that we weren’t filming having mad crazy sex? What then? Would you dump me as a client? Would my scripts dry up? Would I have to write off my whole career? Would I be the butt of late-night talk show jokes for eternity? He was afraid to ask, because he was quite sure he knew the answer.
Mike was ready to move on, having been satisfied by John’s denial and knowing better than to ask any more probing questions. “Well, that was the rough bit. Now the good news. There’s more than just rumors coming off that shoot. There’s also buzz. Strong buzz. A lot of talk’s going around about the performances, especially yours.”
“Is that so?”
“I had a casting director call me and tell me that she’d heard that your performance in this film was going to blow the doors off the theaters.”
“Well, casting directors do love their hyperbole.”
“I’ve had three scripts submitted in the last week. Serious films, good films. Not a rom com in the bunch. In two of them, you’d be the male lead.”
“I don’t want to think about new projects right now, Mike. It’ll be a month for these three ‘Mentalist’ episodes and it isn’t going to be an easy shoot. Then most of July will be taken up with the Pixar voice recordings, and before we know it, it’ll be time for press for To a Stranger. I don’t want to be on a shoot and trying to juggle the press tour. I talked to Focus’s head of publicity, she’s got the crazy eyes for this film. It’s going to be an onslaught.”
Mike sighed. “All right, but can I at least send you these scripts? Just have a look, there’s a good chap.”
“No promises.”
“You miss him, don’t you?”
John’s head snapped up. He looked for an insinuation or an unspoken assumption behind Mike’s words, but saw none. An innocent question. “I suppose so, yeah.”
“Have you kept in touch, then?”
“God, no. I don’t want to bother him. He’s got this play going, and he’s not much for email to begin with. Last thing he wants is to have to try and make electronic small talk with me.” John idly twirled his fork back and forth in one hand, the tines tapping against the plate.
He’d thought of emailing Sherlock, but was oddly reluctant. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to bother him. It was that he could envision too clearly how it would go.
It would start out enthusiastic. How’ve you been, play’s going great, shooting a guest-starring arc on a telly programme, seems like yesterday we were in Toronto, remember when and how about that time and gosh it was a blast.
The daily mails would become every-other-day mails, then once-a-week mails. The heartfelt chats would become perfunctory small talk. Eventually there’d be the inevitable “well, best of luck, see you sometime” email and that would be that. And he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t stand to let what he and Sherlock shared in Toronto devolve predictably from a deep connection into a superficial one, and eventually to none at all. He’d rather never speak to Sherlock again and hold what they’d had safe in his heart than let it spin away into nothingness because he couldn’t let go. He wanted no part of it. He would place Sherlock into a bubble and seal him tight away, down deep where no one else could touch him, and there he’d stay, no matter what happened this fall or next year or for the rest of his life.
He glanced up at Mike, wondering how much of this was playing out on his face. Mike looked sympathetic, but clueless. “Well, it sounds like you managed to at least work well with him, which is more than most of his co-stars can say,” Mike said. “That alone ought to get you an Oscar!”
John chuckled. “You’ve no idea.”
“Holmes.”
“Sherlock, it’s Jim.”
“Hello, Jim. How’s the editing going?”
“Really well. Ought to have a rough cut by the end of June. Andrew’s coming along on the scoring. He’s never scored a film before, so it’s a bit of steep learning curve, but I’ve heard some of his early arrangements. It’s amazing stuff.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I’m calling because we’re starting to firm up the publicity schedule. Should I run this through Sally, or through Greg Lestrade?”
“Go through Sally. I’m not taking any work until after the first of the year, so you won’t need to work around Greg.”
“Very good. Listen, Sherlock - I’m not one for easy praise. But I’ve seen some of the edited sections, and the work you and John did in this film is just astonishing.”
Sherlock sighed. “Thank you. It was a challenge but a pleasure.”
“Your on-screen chemistry with him is - mind-blowing.”
“Something you want to ask me, Jim?”
He cleared his throat. “We’ve gotten some media inquiries. Asking if the rumors are true.”
“Rumors are always true, you know that. Especially when they’re not.”
“We need to be in agreement with how we’re handling this.”
“What needs to be handled, exactly?”
“The studio would like to avoid any unwanted publicity that detracts from the film’s release,” Jim said, smoothly, as if Sherlock had not spoken. “The personal lives of our actors aren’t ours to police, but what does and does not become public knowledge has to be our concern.”
“What is it that you think people will find out? That I managed to make it through a film shoot without alienating my co-star, for once? That’s hardly above-the-fold news.”
“That’s not what’s being said, and you know it.”
Yes, he did. Sally was the Zen Master of media gossip, and she kept him well informed. There was a segment of the moviegoing public that was watching the making of this film very closely, and chins were wagging. They were saying that Sherlock and John had a torrid off-screen affair during the shoot. That Sarah Sawyer had dumped John when she found out. That their daringly explicit sex scene hadn’t been fake. That they’d been caught in any of a number of compromising positions all over the set during filming.
“Who are these people?” Sherlock had demanded, after she’d shown him some of the discussions on the fan forums. “Don’t they have - I don’t know, jobs? How do they know so much about the production?”
“They read ‘Variety,’ Sherlock. And the gay community is very plugged into the media, or is that some kind of a surprise to you? The news that someone was finally making a film featuring gay men that wasn’t about being gay, and not just any someone but Ang Lee, starring two Hollywood big names - it was like the second coming. They’ve been watching this very carefully.”
Sherlock had known he lived in a fishbowl. He hadn’t realized that he was sodding Shamu in his giant glass cage.
And now here was Jim, a gay man himself, worried about the effect on the film if it turned out that its costars, neither of whom had been known to be gay before, had fallen into a showmance. “What is it that you’re saying to me, Jim?”
He heard the producer heave a weary sigh. “If you are with John, then as a human being I can be nothing but happy for you. But as the producer of this film, much as I hate it, I have concerns.”
“Then banish those concerns, because John and I are just friends.”
Long pause. “Are you telling me the truth?”
Sherlock shut his eyes for a moment. “Yes. I haven’t actually spoken to John in a month, not since we wrapped.” Saying those words out loud made them seem somehow more true, and more hateful.
“Oh, I see. Well, he’s my next call, so I’ll speak to him myself. We sent the still photo package along, check your email. We’re planning to have a theatrical trailer cut in September.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Sherlock hung up. He went straight to his laptop and opened his email. There was a large zipped file from the production office; he downloaded and extracted it, and then…
Oh.
Picture after picture of him and John, in character on the set. Mid-scene, mid-argument, mid-embrace. One that was sure to be plastered all over the Internet in record time pictured them right on the edge of a passionate kiss. One of him watching John sleep.
No. Not John. Mark. These aren’t photographs of you and John. They’re Benjamin and Mark. Keep it clear in your mind, for God’s sake.
He reached out and touched the tip of his finger to John’s peaceful, sleeping face, but even this image was a lie, because John was only feigning sleep.
John.
My John.
The photograph wasn’t alone. Since Toronto, his whole life was a lie. But there were only two more months to go, and then he would be free, and then the lie could stop.
“We’ll pick up this scene tomorrow, guys,” said the voice director, sitting in the mixing booth and talking through the intercom. “Wrap for today.”
Rustlings and paper shufflings, but good-natured ones. Five people stuck in a recording booth for eight hours’ straight wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, but no one complained. Working for Pixar was like summer camp. John kept waiting for the dark underbelly to show its face and it kept stubbornly refusing to do so. He’d never had as much fun on a job in his life.
Well, almost never.
A lot of the recording was done individually, but schedules had been juggled and beaten into submission and the five principal voice actors had been booked into the studio for a solid week to record some of the more difficult conversational interludes. Five actors of not-insignificant status in one room for eight hours a day for five days straight sounded like a Sartre version of actors’ hell to John, but to his amazement, everyone had checked their egos at the door and, so far, were getting along.
“So, John. My agent tells me we might be seeing you on some podiums next winter,” Kevin said, putting his script pages into his briefcase. Everyone paused and looked up at him.
“Oh, really?” John said, putting on his well-worn self-effacing smile. He prepared himself for some jibes at his expense about how ridiculous such a notion was.
Except Kevin didn’t look like he was winding him up. He looked serious. “Yeah, really. She says that the rough cut of To a Stranger has got a lot of people very excited.”
“One wonders how she saw it.”
“I think she plays golf with somebody at Universal who saw part of it.”
“I just wrapped a film with Mark Ruffalo,” said Amy. “He told me that he really wanted that part, the one you played, John.”
“A lot of people were interested in that film,” Kevin said. “Although I bet a few of them lost interest after Sherlock was cast,” he said, winking at John. Everyone laughed.
John forced a smile. “That’s understandable. It’s not easy to share a screen with someone as talented as he is. Nobody likes to be out-acted.”
Everyone’s laughter faded a bit. “It’s not his talent, it’s his attitude,” Kevin said. “How did you stand it? I heard he nearly drove Haggis into a nervous breakdown.”
“That wasn’t Sherlock’s doing,” John said. “And he’s hardly the only demanding actor in town, is he? How was it working with Tom Cruise, Kevin? Of course no one dares say anything against him. I suppose Sherlock makes himself an easy target by not caring fuck-all what anyone else thinks.”
The other four were exchanging uncertain glances by now. “Tom’s a great guy,” Kevin said, with a tone of rote repetition. “But you couldn’t pay me enough to work with Sherlock Holmes.”
“That’s fine, because I’m sure no one will,” John snapped. “I’d work with him again for free.”
“Really?” Amy said. “I don’t know him, but I do hear he’s hard to handle. You didn’t think so, John?”
John snapped up his satchel and slung it over his shoulder. “Sherlock Holmes is not only the finest actor I’ve ever worked with, he’s the most hardworking. And he’s a fantastic bloke, as anyone would know if they bothered to actually get to know him instead of just assuming that they can’t.” He went to the door. “See you all tomorrow.”
He heard murmurings in the studio as the door closed behind him. He shut his eyes with a dismayed sigh. Fantastic, Watson. That ought to help quell those rumors. How many people will those four tell that you were defending Sherlock’s honor like a smitten schoolboy?
He could still hear Jim’s cautionary words, delivered weeks ago when he’d called about the publicity schedule. We need this film to stand on its own merits, as a piece of art, because that’s what it is. The last thing anyone wants is for the film itself to be overshadowed by whatever happened off-screen. He’d assured Jim that nothing had happened off-screen.
“Where is everyone getting this notion that something happened?” he’d moaned to Harry not long after. “Are they just inventing stories out of whole cloth?”
“There is some inventing going on, but it’s hardly out of whole cloth. You and Sherlock did spend nearly every waking minute together on that set. And some of the non-waking minutes.”
“We were working! We were - friends! Since when is that so suspicious? It can’t just be because we were playing lovers.”
“That’s a big part of it. But, John…” She thought for a moment. “You didn’t see yourselves.”
“See ourselves? What do you mean?”
“You didn’t see how you followed him around with your eyes, or how he did the same with you. Or how his smiles weren’t fake when he was smiling at you. You didn’t see how you looked at each other when you thought nobody was paying attention. But someone is always paying attention, luv. You know that. The two of you might be Actors of Your Generation or what have you, but nobody can act all the time. You both showed more than you probably realized.”
He got in his car and headed home. A phone call came through his Bluetooth as he got on the freeway. “What is it, Harry?”
“John, something’s turned up online.”
“What?”
“A photograph of you and Sherlock, with some fans? At Casa Loma?”
“Oh, yes. We did a bit of sightseeing on one of our days off, a few girls asked for autographs and took a photo.”
“Well, one of the girls posted it to Oh No They Didn’t, and now it’s all over the place. The fan forums are going barmy.”
“Barmy? Over a photo of us with some fans? There’s nothing about that to prompt barminess.”
“No, it’s a perfectly innocent photo. It’s the context. You know, an outing to a local tourist spot. They’re all calling it your ‘date.’”
John sighed. “Don’t these people have lives?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
“I didn’t sign up to be anybody’s hobby.”
“That isn’t all. A couple of bystanders saw you two out and about that day, there are a few fuzzy mobile pics that were taken.”
“And? What do they show?”
“One of them’s you two walking down a street.”
“Oh, surely not. Not that. Not walking down a street. Oh, the implications.”
“John, I agree it’s blown a bit out of proportion…”
“A bit?”
“But you’re walking rather close and you’ve both got these big smiles on and even I have to agree that you look quite smitten with each other.”
“Next thing you know they’ll be finding coded messages in our neckties.”
“The other photo shows you on one of those boat tours. Again, nothing damning, but the whole day does sort of smell a bit date-ish.”
“It wasn’t a date! It was a couple of mates out seeing the town! When did it become impossible for two men to be seen together in public without everyone making all sorts of assumptions?”
“When those men are playing lovers, and one of them is notorious for not getting along with anyone, so to see him getting along so well with you - well, you know the press. They’ll make up their own story if there isn’t one to be had.”
“The press is on to this?”
“Not the mainstream press. The blogosphere.”
“Pardon me if I don’t tremble in terror of the almighty blogosphere.”
“You shouldn’t. It’ll pass. You and Sherlock haven’t been in touch since the shoot.”
John’s gut clenched a little bit at that. Just over two months now since he’d seen or heard from Sherlock. He’d waited to stop missing him, to stop wanting contact, for it all to just stop and leave him in peace. He was still waiting. Time seemed not to blunt but instead to sharpen the ache he felt at the separation, and he feared that he might reach a sticking point where something had to be done about it. “No. No, we haven’t.”
He heard Harry sigh. “I wish I could help you, John,” she said.
“You can’t. No one can help me. There’s nothing to be done. It’s a bloody impossible mess and that’s all there is to it. I’ll be fine, no need for you to worry.”
“But I do worry! I worry about you all the time! John…”
“Please, Harry. I just - I can’t, all right?”
“All right. I’ll bring dinner over, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks, that’d be good. See you then.”
“Bye.”
He hung up and refocused on the road. Any hope he had that he and Sherlock might - well, any hope he had at all regarding Sherlock was dwindling rapidly. If there was media attention now, no matter how inconsequential, there’d only be orders of magnitude more once the publicity machine really got humming. They’d never withstand the scrutiny. He couldn’t risk this film. Not now, not when he was poised on the cusp of a new stage of his career. Perhaps, in a year or so, when this film was out of theaters and any awards-season attention had passed and the world’s gaze had shifted elsewhere, perhaps then…
Perhaps by then I’ll have gone mad. That’ll solve everything.
The stage door wasn’t too crowded, perhaps a dozen or so people, several of whom were not at all interested in him but rather in one of his co-stars. Sherlock signed some autographs and spoke to the fans, managing what he hoped was a tolerably friendly demeanor.
He looked up and saw Greg Lestrade waiting for him. Greg nodded to him in acknowledgment. Sherlock finished up with the theatergoers and walked over. “Greg, what are you doing here?” he said, shaking his hand.
“Came to see the show.”
“Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“It was a bit of a last-minute thing, actually. I’m just in town overnight, I didn’t plan to do any business, but the friend I’m staying with had tickets so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. C’mon, let’s go get a bite.”
They went to one of Sherlock’s favorite pubs, just down the street from his flat. They sat in the back and ordered some pints and grub. “Greg, let’s have it. You’re never anywhere not on business.”
He didn’t answer at first. “I’ve never seen you like that with fans.”
“Like how?”
“Nice.”
“You make me sound like an unrepentant ogre.”
“No. You just usually wouldn’t have time for such nonsense.”
“A man’s not allowed a change of heart about something so trivial?”
“It isn’t trivial to them.”
Sherlock sighed. “If you’re here to harangue me about the rumors, I’ve had it already from plenty of others.”
“I’m not here to harangue you. I’m concerned about you.”
Sherlock frowned. “Concerned? We’ve barely spoken since the show started.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not keeping an eye on you. You’re one of my most important clients, Sherlock. It’s my business to know yours.”
“I see. Spies everywhere, is that it?”
“Nothing so devious. But I know a lot of people and many of them know you. And I’m not the only one who’s concerned.”
“I can’t imagine what behavior of mine is cause for such solicitations. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Fine, yes. Of course you are. You show up, perform, and go home. You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t go out. You’ve refused every invitation you’ve been sent since you’ve been in town. You stay in your flat and keep to yourself. Meanwhile you’re kinder and more considerate of your fans than ever. You’re being exceedingly enigmatic.” He cocked his head. “Or exceedingly depressed.”
Sherlock traced the wet ring of condensation that his glass had left on the tabletop. “It isn’t your job to mollycoddle me, Greg.”
“If I don’t do it, who will? Sally? She’s at her wit’s end.”
“You’ve spoken to her?” he asked, sharply.
“I don’t have to. I’ve had it from Anderson. You know they’re still dating. He used to be an agent with us. We’re in touch.”
“Is there anyone you don’t know?”
Greg met his eyes. “Do I know you, Sherlock? I’m starting to wonder. Have you changed this much? Or was this always you, and that man we all thought we knew was just the armor you wore to face the world?”
“You didn’t bring me here to spout nonsense about my emotional state. Which is none of your business, incidentally. Just ask me what you want to ask me.”
“Are you in love with him?”
Sherlock’s head snapped up. He hadn’t expected Greg to actually ask him so frankly. “Cor, that’s - direct.”
“Are you?”
Sherlock drained the remnants of his pint. “If I were, why do you think I’d tell you?”
“Because we have to formulate a strategy.”
“No. We absolutely do not have to do that. My personal life is not a matter for strategic planning. It is my life and none of yours or the studio’s business.”
“If it affects the financial success of this picture, they’ll make it their business and so I’ll have to make it mine as well.”
“I will retire, Greg. I will hang it all up and go live in a cottage in Sussex before I’ll let my private life be discussed in some committee meeting and subject to a focus group. Bugger their publicity tour, they can market this film without me.”
“You wouldn’t do that. This film means too much to you.”
“Not as much as…” Not as much as he means to me. Nothing means that much. Sherlock shut his mouth with a click of his jaw before anything else could spill out, but he could see by Greg’s face that it was too late. “I am in control of the situation.”
“Maybe that’s the bloody problem. You’re always in control. Always the smartest man in the room, the one who knows everything about everyone, even the things no one wants anyone to know. Welcome to the other side of the fence, Sherlock. How’s it feel?”
Sherlock stood up and fished in his wallet for cash. “I’ve got two weeks left on this run, Greg. After that, I intend to take myself away and not tell anyone where I’ve gone, particularly you. Is that understood?”
“What good will that do, Sherlock?” Greg asked, quietly.
Of course, Sherlock couldn’t answer that question truthfully. It will depend on how John reacts when I show up on his doorstep, Greg. Formulate a strategy for that, why don’t you?
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sally.”
“Harry, hi. I thought you were going to call last week.”
“Got busy.”
“Literally?” Sally said, snickering. “Was Clara in town?”
“As a matter of fact, she was, but that isn’t what I meant. How are things?”
“Bloody awful. Mine’s miserable.”
“Mine’s miserable, too.”
They were quiet for a moment. “Why are men such idiots?”
“I don’t know. Must be in their DNA. I was using John’s laptop the other day to send some emails. You would not believe how many pictures of Sherlock he’s got saved to his hard drive. Photoshoots, publicity stills, red carpet, everything.”
“Sherlock’s been having a bit of a film festival.”
“Oh no, he’s not…”
“He is. Every single one.”
“Even Havana Honeymoon?”
“Even that one. I think now he’s watched all the films, so he’s down to digging up YouTube clips of John on talk shows. He even found grainy video of John in some community-theater production of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’”
“And yet they can’t pick up a bloody phone or send an email.”
“Well, this is safe, of course. You don’t risk anything when you just cyberstalk each other.”
Harry sighed. “What’s Sherlock got scheduled after the show closes?”
“Nothing. He’s got some time off.”
“Hmm.”
“What is going on in your devious little brain?”
“Just pondering how we might be the best enablers we can be.”
“I’m not interfering.”
“Neither am I. Not directly. But there’s nothing to say we can’t do what’s in our power to do and make it - easier.”
“Keep talking.”
Harry was awakened by the pounding on the door of her flat. She rolled over and peered at the clock - five a.m. Fuck.
She got up and stumbled to the door, where the pounding had resumed. “I’m coming, all right?” She opened the door and there was John, a bit wild-eyed. “Christ, you couldn’t have just rung me?”
He pushed past her and into the flat. “Tell me I’m not a nutter.”
“If you didn’t want to seem like a nutter, you shouldn’t have pounded down my door at five o’clock in the fucking morning.”
“Tell me that I’m a sane, level-headed man and that there’s absolutely no possibility that I’m considering getting on a plane and flying to London to make some sort of third-act declaration.”
“Stop talking about your life like it’s a screenplay. Sit the fuck down, will you?” She pushed John into a chair and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on the hob. “I’m going to make you some tea.”
“I don’t want tea. I want you to stop me from doing something colossally stupid.”
“Colossally stupid is when you turn down a part in an Oliver Stone film to film Robin’s Egg Blues.”
“I am never going to live that down, am I?”
She sat down facing him and grabbed his hands. “I’m saying there’s colossally stupid, and then there’s finally getting up the stones to tell that toff bastard how you feel about him, and those two circles do not overlap in your little Venn diagram of life, Johnny.”
John’s head dropped down, shaking back and forth as if he were just saying ‘no’ to the world. “I can’t do this.”
“John,” she said. “Look at me.” He lifted his head and met her eyes. “I have watched you all summer, and you’re killing me here, you are bloody killing me. You put on a happy face and go about your work and your life and you take care of me and everyone you know, but you are dying inside and I can’t take it. I’ve stood by and I’ve seen your heart break a little more every day and I’m done in, luv. Aren’t you? Aren’t you tired?”
He sighed, his eyes closing. “I’m so tired, Harry.”
“Then stop. Just stop.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.” She held his gaze.
A smile crept onto his lips, a grim little smile of resolve. “How fast can you get me to London?”
Harry grinned and let his hands go. She stood up and went to her desk, pulling out the itinerary she’d put together last week. She handed him the envelope. “You leave this afternoon. I’ve got you a hotel room at the Savoy.”
He took the envelope, staring up at her in amazement. “How did you…”
“His show closes tomorrow night. I know you actors. You love a dramatic statement. And I have it from a reliable source that he’ll be taking a holiday after the show and faffing off to parts unknown. So you better hurry.”
John jumped up and hugged her. “You’re the best sister in the world.”
She smiled and hugged him back. “Just evening the scales up a bit, luv.”
Closing night always had the melancholy of finality. If the show had been a good experience, it bore the additional sadness of separation, from the show, the audiences, the cast and crew, and the life you’d led for months while performing it.
But for Sherlock Holmes, waiting backstage to take his curtain call, his run in this role now finished, all this closing night brought him was relief and anxiety. The show had held him here, it had forced him into this cocoon of self-preservation. He’d told Greg that he intended to take himself away, but he hadn’t told him where.
In his dressing room was a packed bag and a plane ticket to Los Angeles. The moment his indenture to this production had expired, he was going to go to the airport, board a plane, fly to Los Angeles and take a cab right to John’s door.
What he’d do then, he had no idea. But he and John had never had difficulty communicating before. Something would come to him.
The applause was thunderous. He walked out with his co-stars and it redoubled in strength. They took a group bow, then each an individual bow, then another group bow. Exeunt, stage left. Pause, pause, pause. Take the stage again for another round of bows.
And here was the stage manager with the requisite bouquets of roses. She handed them to his co-stars as they took another solo bow, each receiving a healthy ovation from the crowd. Sherlock was last. She handed him his bouquet, winking at him as she did so. The crowd’s applause swelled, shouts and whistles floating toward him. On another night, at another time, this would have been like a drug to him. A high that no narcotic could match. This was what he lived for. The work. The proof of their adulation making it clear, once again, that he was the best.
But right now, he couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t see them. He didn’t care. Everything had faded to white noise and a vague blur.
All Sherlock could see was the single hydrangea that was stuck in amidst the roses in his arms.
John.
John was here. He was here, somewhere. Sherlock looked around, but of course he couldn’t see a damn thing with the stage lights in his face. His co-star grabbed his hand and they bowed again. Bow, bow, bow…where was he? Was he out there right now, applauding? Was he waiting? Would he leave?
He’s not going to leave, he came here to see you. You were going to him, but he beat you to it, because he is just that infuriating and just that wonderful.
The curtain came down again. That would do it for curtain calls. The house lights came up and he heard the audience murmuring as they collected their bags and jackets. Sherlock raced offstage into the wings, the bouquet clutched in his hand, forgotten. He pushed through startled crewmembers and extras, ignoring their congratulations, leaving puzzled faces in his wake.
John. John. Where is he?
He ran to the stage door and poked his head out. A few fans, but no John. He ducked back inside before the fans realized it was him. He ran back to the steps that led up to the house and took them two at a time. The audience was clearing out; nobody was lingering, nobody was coming down toward the stage, nobody who looked like John was anywhere in sight.
Think. Where would he be?
The hydrangea had to have been sorted ahead of time. He must have been here before the show. Did he watch the show? Regardless, he had an in among the crew. Sally was the most likely person to assist him. She’d have brought him through the stage door and stashed him somewhere. Where?
The answer came to him before he’d barely finished asking himself the question. He whirled around and ran for his dressing room.
He stopped in front of the door, paralyzed, his hand reaching for the doorknob. Was John behind this door? This was not the plan. The plan had been for him, Sherlock, to fly to John. This was logical, as John had work in Los Angeles and Sherlock was now free and unencumbered. That John would decide to come here to see him on the same night that Sherlock had planned to leave the country to go to him was somewhat predictable. They’d both known that the play closed tonight, which provided a handy jumping-off point, not to mention a certain element of drama, which being actors they were both sadly susceptible to.
Open the damn door.
He knew why he was hesitating. If he opened this door and John wasn’t behind it…
He opened the door.
John was standing at his mirror, looking at several clippings Sally had taped to it. He turned around when he heard the door open.
Sherlock shut and locked the door and leaned against it, the bouquet of flowers falling from his hand, unnoticed. He was afraid to move or blink or speak lest John vanish like a mirage, a product of his frustrated imaginings. Lord knew he’d spent enough time conjuring John’s image in his mind.
John was as still as a statue. He was wearing a well-cut gray suit and a pink button-up open at the throat. He looked glorious and tanned (arrived last night staying at the Savoy spent the day revisiting his old neighborhood also visited his parents had dinner with his cousin the one who’s a cardiologist) and Sherlock lost the air from his lungs, the words from his throat, the pulse from his heart and the sense from his mind, all of it replaced with the fact of John, John here in this room, John before him, John everywhere.
I’m here.
You’re here.
A slow smile dawned on John’s face. Sherlock felt his own face mirroring it, his shoulders sagging as John’s body relaxed, and of all the first words he’d ever imagined John saying to him, he’d never predicted that there’d be none at all.
The dressing room was small. They required only one step to reach each other. It had been a step too large to take in Toronto and now it was the work of less than a second, so easy, so natural, the most intuitive thing in the world, reach forward and surround him, let himself be engulfed, the motion sweeping them together so their mouths locked and the breath rushed in, the pulse surged back, and the imaginings had been nothing but the thinnest shadows of what the reality now proved to be.
John.
His lips were soft and insistent; they parted beneath Sherlock’s and they dove into each other, all their restraint long ago exhausted, weeks of restraint, months of it, terrible and draining and so futile. John’s arms moved restlessly over his back like he was searching for a way to hold him tighter and Sherlock wished he could, wished himself smaller so he could be enfolded entire. He cupped John’s face to drawn him closer, this endlessly fascinating face, locked against his own as if carved to fit, John’s warm mouth and his tongue and his breath hot on Sherlock’s cheeks.
He held John’s head still and pressed kisses to his lips, his cheeks, down his jaw and onto his neck, ducking to press his face under John’s chin, John’s hand sliding up into his hair, but it wasn’t enough, he needed to be shorter, he needed to be closer. He slid down within the tight circle of John’s arms until his knees hit the floor and he could bury his face in John’s stomach, feel his warmth through his clothes, clutch his arms around John’s hips and feel himself held close, his skull cradled by John’s hand and he could finally breathe, just breathe, long tidal breaths that drew up the deepest unspoken wishes from the bottom of his lungs and let them dissipate in the air.
He felt John press his face against the top of his head. “Sherlock…” he began.
“Shhh. Please, John, just…” Just hold me. Hold me until I get used to how it feels, hold me until I’ll be able to remember it after you’ve stopped. Don’t let go of me because I am terrified of needing this and I never knew that I did because no one ever has, no one until you, because you were the only one who’d know how.
“Okay,” John whispered, his arms tightening around Sherlock’s shoulders as he pressed gentle kisses along his forehead and temples, the only part of him that John could reach at the moment.
They just stayed there, breathing together while their new reality settled around them. One minute, two, three, the seconds ticked by and Sherlock could hear the chaos of the closing-night backstage crowd outside his dressing room door. He’d eventually have to rejoin the world, and he wondered how long he could put it off.
Finally satisfied that he wasn’t about to burst into flames, or wake up alone in bed, or find himself clutching the air where John had never been, Sherlock turned his face in toward John’s body and sighed. John’s hand carded through his hair, soothing and patient. He disengaged just enough to get to his feet, their eyes meeting in a shared, bemused moment of well, that happened. Now what?
John grinned. “What does one say after a greeting like that?”
Sherlock chuckled. “I don’t know. Although, we never actually did say hello.”
John’s smile faded. He lifted one hand and brushed an errant curl off Sherlock’s temple with his index finger. “Hello,” he whispered.
He tipped forward until their foreheads met. “Hello, John.” He waited for three breaths’ worth of silence, then nudged at John’s face with his own and kissed him again, slow and deliberate. John cupped his neck and kissed back, working Sherlock’s mouth gently with his own.
When they separated again it felt like something had been decided. He didn’t know what, exactly, but something had. John sighed. “I wish we’d done this in Toronto. Spared ourselves three months’ hand-wringing. At least, I know I’ve had some hand-wringing.”
“Sally characterizes what I’ve been doing as pining.”
John smiled. “Pining? For me?”
“No, for Cate Blanchett. Of course, for you, you daft git.”
He flushed to the tips of his ears, and Sherlock felt his heart lurch to one side. Oh God, I am really in for it. John looked down and fidgeted a little. “Well, at least we can stop doing that.”
“Indeed.” He slid his arms around John’s waist. They fit so comfortably together like this, it was hard to believe it wasn’t by design. “But you know why we didn’t do this in Toronto.”
John nodded. “I’ve seen a hundred showmances start on the set and then fizzle out in the real world. I knew that there was - something, but I couldn’t stand for that to happen to us. Best to let some time go by and make sure - well, that it’s real.”
“And is it? Is it real?”
John met his eyes. “God, yes.”
The sudden surge between them took Sherlock by surprise, and he barely had time to blink before they were kissing again, this time with urgency and need and want, so much want, bottled up for too long and needing out, needing to fly, needing to burn. Their arms wound tight round each other, John rising on his tiptoes to press closer. He kissed and sucked at Sherlock’s neck, tiny little noises escaping him that went straight to Sherlock’s groin. He slid his hands down John’s back to his arse and pulled him closer. “John,” he whispered.
“I wanted this,” John murmured against his skin. “I wanted this with you, all the time.”
Sherlock was having trouble marshaling coherent thought. It was a novel and not entirely comfortable sensation. He seized John’s face and kissed him, deep and fast, it was all he could think to do and all he seemed to want to do, apart from all the other things he could imagine doing that John might let him do.
But they were in a dressing room in the middle of a busy backstage and it was really most inconvenient. He pressed two hard kisses to John’s mouth, then pulled back. “John, much as I’d rather stay here and kiss you all night, I can’t. I have to go back out there and do stage door and then I’m more or less obligated to at least make an appearance at the after party.”
John nodded. “I shouldn’t come with you. In fact, we should try and make sure no one sees me leave.” Their eyes met and Sherlock saw that John had been getting it with both barrels from his team about the rumors, just like he had.
This was going to get complicated, and quickly. But that was for later consideration. All he cared about right now was getting himself free of his obligations and getting John into his bed, as fast as possible. He smiled, his heart doing that odd lurching thing again. “I can’t believe you came here,” he said.
John smiled back, but then it faded away and his brow creased. “What if I hadn’t?”
Sherlock stepped away and went to his bag; he pulled out his itinerary and handed it to John. He opened it up and read it, eyes widening. He looked up at Sherlock, his mouth opening in surprise. “I was going to go to you. Tonight, after I was finished here. I was going to go right from the airport to your doorstep and ask you if you’d mind very much if I took you to bed.”
John’s lips were doing an odd thing; it looked like he wanted to smile, but another expression was fighting for the real estate. “I don’t mind. Not at all. In fact, I’ll be rather cross with you if you don’t.”
Sherlock rummaged in his bag again and came out with his spare key. “Here,” he said, handing it to John. “Do you know where I live?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get Sally, she’ll smuggle you out so the stage door fans don’t see you. Go to my flat and wait for me there. I’ll try not to be too long, you know how it goes.”
“Of course. I’ll just snoop through all your things to kill the time,” John said, smirking.
Sherlock laughed. “Snoop away. The most incriminating thing you’ll find is a complete collection of the films of John Watson.”
John’s face went slack. “You watched them all?”
“Every last one.”
“And you still want to be with me?”
“Consider it a measure of my devotion.” He slung one arm around John’s shoulders and kissed his temple. “They were helpful. They kept me from missing you too badly.” John sagged into him with a sigh. “Well - that’s not entirely accurate. Nothing could have kept me from missing you.”
“I missed you, too. Every day.”
“I’d better get changed. I hate that I have to go out there now and talk to people and act like I don’t have a John Watson waiting for me at my flat.”
John looked up at him, hooking one finger under his lapel, his lip curled in a flirt. “It’ll be worth it.”
“Oh, God,” Sherlock sighed.
John kissed him, a quick kiss of more-to-come. “I’ll just go and find Sally then, shall I?”
“Better let me text her, she’ll come here and collect you.”
“All right.”
“John, you’d…” He chuckled. “You’d better take some of this,” he said, holding out his cold cream and a flannel.
John frowned. “What? Why?”
“Because you have my stage makeup all over your face.”
MetaNotes for Chapter 7
1. Where John and Sherlock’s agents are concerned, I’ve done a bit of conflating of the roles of agent, manager and publicist. Actors of their stature would surely have one of each and the things that Mike and Greg each say to them would probably more likely be handled by either their manager or their publicist. I wanted to keep the number of characters manageable so I’ve done a bit of poetic-license amalgamation.
2. The two named actors in John’s Pixar voice recording session are meant to be Kevin Pollak and Amy Adams.
3. The comment about coded messages in neckties is a big of a fandom injoke, referring to a particularly batshit cray branch of fans who imagined a real-life slash pairing between Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan. At one point these fans actually did have theories about coded messages in neckties. Ah, fandom.
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