Performance In a Leading Role (9/20)
Title: Performance in a Leading Role
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 8200 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: NC-17
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 -- Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Sally showed up at noon, carrying two large shopping bags. John pulled his suitcase out of the bedroom. “I’m not sure I have enough clothes for a weeks’ holiday,” he said.
“No worries,” Sally said, pointing to the bags. “I went out and bought you some more.”
Sherlock chuckled at John’s amazed expression. “But - how did you…”
“I rang Harry and got your sizes. You’re all sorted. The house is fully stocked, you won’t need naught but yourselves and your clothes. Although, the clothes might be a wee bit optional as well,” she said, smirking at Sherlock.
Sherlock shook his head. “There, John, you see? And to think you were worried that there wouldn’t be any suggestive snark flung in our direction. Thank God you’re here, Sally,” he said, heading off to the bathroom to get his own bag.
John watched him go, smiling, but when he turned back Sally was right in front of him. He jumped a bit. “Cor, Sally, have a care.”
“All right, then?” she said, giving him a rather speculative look.
“Yeah, all right. Thanks for the clothes.”
She took a deep breath and shut her eyes. She looked like she was bracing herself for what she was about to say. “Look - be good to him, all right? I know he’s a stroppy bastard but I sort of love him.”
John smiled. “I’ll be as good to him as he deserves at the moment, will that do?”
“I suppose that’s the best we can hope for.” She patted his arm. “Thanks. You’re both looking irritatingly happy.”
“I think we are.” And he was. Ridiculously, giddily, run-through-a-field-of-wildflowers happy.
“Sally, don’t ring me unless something’s burned to the ground, all right?” Sherlock grumped, lugging his suitcase out of the bedroom. “I shall be very much occupied. I’ll have my laptop, you can email me if something comes up.”
“I’m quite sure something will be coming up,” she said, grinning.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Are we quite finished with Clumsy Innuendo Comedy Hour? Come along, John. Let us spirit ourselves away from all these tiresome people.”
They all piled into the elevator, but they bypassed the lobby and went downstairs into an underground garage. Sherlock and Sally led the way and John tagged along, until he realized where they were headed and stopped short. “Sherlock, my God!”
He stopped and turned. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Is that your car?” John asked, incredulous. They were walking toward a black Jaguar XK convertible, gleaming and elegant and glossy. It looked like Sherlock in car form.
“Yes. Why, what kind of car have you got?”
“I drive a Honda. A nice Honda, I grant you, but…”
Sherlock glanced from the car back to John’s incredulous face. “Problem?”
“No, it’s just - something of a wet dream on wheels, that is.”
Sherlock shrugged. “If you say so. I’ve not much interest in cars.” He opened up the boot and heaved his suitcase inside, along with the bags from Sally. John lifted his own case in to sit beside Sherlock’s.
“Why this car, if you didn’t care?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Greg said once that he’d always liked this model. I wanted a car so I could go down to Sussex whenever I liked, so I bought this one.” He bunged the keys at John, who caught them on reflex.
“What, you want me to drive?”
“I dislike driving, and you seem rather keen.”
“I don’t know the way.”
“John, do try and keep up. I know the way and I’m sure you’ve realized that I’ll be in the car with you.”
“Oh, piss off, smart-arse!”
Sally shook her head. “You two sound married already.”
John trotted around the front of the car. He was salivating a bit at driving out of London in this car. “Can we have the top down?” he said, excited.
Sally hesitated. “Best not, until you’re out of the city,” she said.
John sagged a bit. “Oh. Right.” It’d be too easy for them to be spotted together with the top down. He got in, sighing at the way the leather seat cradled him. Sherlock got in the passenger side.
“You boys have a nice time, now,” Sally said, dropping a wink at them.
Sherlock leaned over him and looked up at her. “If you are using ‘a nice time’ as a polite euphemism for sex then I daresay we won’t require the reminder.” John choked a bit, coughing while he felt his ears going crimson. He started the car, avoiding Sally’s eyes.
“Um, cheers, then,” he managed, barely glancing at her as he pulled out of the parking garage and up into the street. “Which way we going?”
“Surely you’re aware that Sussex lies to the south.”
“Are you going to be insufferable the whole way there?”
Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a reflex.”
John stopped at a red light and looked over at him. “Hey,” he said. Sherlock turned and faced him. He looked a bit worried. “Come here,” he murmured. Sherlock leaned over and John kissed him. “I like suffering your insufferability.”
“That made no sense whatsoever.” Sherlock said, but the worry had gone from his face. “We’ll be taking the A21 south.”
“Right you are,” John said, turning towards Hyde Park. “So where is this country house of yours? Shall I expect a squire and stables?”
“Hardly. It’s near Hailsham. Charming little town, actually. Just a bit north of Eastbourne.”
John stepped on the accelerator, shivering with pleasure at the way the car purred and leapt and obeyed his commands. “Oh, you may not get this car back from me,” he said.
“I’ve never understood the stereotypical male fascination with cars.”
“How can you not? Listen to that. Feel it when you drive it. It’s like sex.”
“Hmm. You only say that because you haven’t had sex with me yet.”
John glanced over at Sherlock, who had a smug little smile on his face. “Yes, I have.”
Sherlock blinked. “But, we haven’t…”
“Have we had orgasms in each other’s presence?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then we’ve had sex.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” He drove in silence for a few clicks, pondering the subject. “Have you ever done - that?”
“No. Have you?”
“No.”
“Well, not to worry. I’ve done research.”
John couldn’t help but grin at that. “Research? I hope it wasn’t laboratory research.”
Sherlock laughed. “No. I didn’t require the assistance of any consenting test subjects. But there are literally thousands of resources for one’s education.”
“So if all you’ve done is research, how come you’re so certain that you’ll be such an amazing shag?”
“Confidence is a key component to good sexual performance, John.”
“Fake it till you make it, eh?”
“Let’s hope that there’ll be no faking.”
“And exactly when did you undertake this educational project?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“So you’ve spent the past few weeks, while we weren’t even really in touch, researching exactly how to go about having sex with me?”
“Is that bad?”
“You were really preparing for any eventuality, weren’t you?”
“Is it not always best to be prepared? Anyway, I had…” He stopped and harrumphed a bit. “I had some hopes that this research might come in handy.”
“Well, I daresay it might.” John frowned. “But - what if we’d never seen each other again?”
“Do you really think that was ever a possibility, John?”
John held his eyes for a second. “No. It wasn’t.” Sherlock’s gaze warmed up a bit, his lips curling in a smile. John returned his eyes to the road and drove on, feeling pretty chuffed about his life at the moment.
A bit too chuffed, actually. Time for something to go horribly awry. He perked up his attention a bit, looking for that stray lorry or inattentive pedestrian or a patch of unseasonable black ice that could ruin everything in a heartbeat.
Sherlock sighed. “Stop looking for problems.”
“How d’you know I am?”
“You’re thinking that things are going too well, so you’re waiting for it to start unraveling. In some quarters that’s what’s known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Well, if things were going to go pear-shaped, now’d be the time, wouldn’t it? I’m in a gorgeous car with my gorgeous boyfriend, driving to a country house in Sussex where we’re going to spend a great deal of time in bed. This would be just the moment that the gods would start thinking I was looking a bit too happy and smite me or something.”
He looked over at Sherlock, who was staring at him oddly. “Is that what I am?”
“Is that what you’re what?”
“Your - boyfriend.”
John shifted in the seat. “I suppose we never talked about what to call each other, did we? Don’t like that one?”
“What are my alternatives?”
“Umm - I guess ‘partner’ is the polite term.”
Sherlock made a face. “Sounds so dry and corporate.”
“Lover?”
“That’s a bit intimate for casual conversation, isn’t it?”
“I’ve always thought so. Well, beyond those three it starts getting ridiculous. Given a choice, I’m going to go with ‘boyfriend.’”
Sherlock made a vague grumbling noise. “If we must.”
John pulled up to an intersection in Westminster. He glanced to his right, and what he saw there made his stomach drop. It was a paparazzo on a motorbike, his camera slung across his back. He opened his mouth to say something but Sherlock beat him to it.
“The windows are tinted, John. He can’t see us.”
John huffed out a relieved breath. “Oh. That’s - good, yeah. Good.” He could feel Sherlock looking at him but kept his eyes grimly forward. He at least wanted to enjoy the drive down before they started in on the dozen or so difficult conversations they were going to have to have.
John drove through London’s sprawl, trying not to think about photographers lurking. He and Sherlock chatted aimlessly about nothing in particular. Their favorite spots in the city, the schools they’d gone to as children, things they hated about Los Angeles. Soon enough they’d transitioned into the countryside. As promised, they pulled off at a petrol station so John could put the top down. Sherlock went into the shop and returned with two cups of tea. John got back in the car and started it up, and they both donned their sunglasses, turning to grin a bit madly at each other. “Now this is how one goes on holiday,” John said. He gunned it out of the petrol station and they roared down the A21 towards Hailsham.
Within a few miles Sherlock had him leave the main road and detour onto the less-traveled country lanes. John sighed and tilted his face up into the early-September sunshine. The scents of trees and cut grass filled the air, and all seemed right with the world. Sherlock had angled his body in the seat so he could stretch out his impossibly long legs and rest his feet out the window, ankles crossed. They didn’t talk much as John drove. The roar of the wind through the car made it difficult, and John couldn’t speak for Sherlock, but for himself, he was glad for the downtime. What was happening between them made him happy and excited, but it also required some adjustments in his internal sense of himself, and would no doubt continue to do so. He was no longer just John Watson, the bachelor, or John Watson, who had a fake girlfriend. He was John Watson, who had a real, actual, flesh-and-blood significant other. Who was a man. This was all fine. He’d had three months spent fantasizing about Sherlock to internalize the concept. Having the fantasy become reality - that would take awhile to get used to.
No time like the present.
Sherlock was turned away, watching the scenery go by. Keeping his right hand on the wheel, John stretched out his other arm and rested his hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck, giving it an experimental rub. Sherlock leaned into the touch, so he kept it up. After a few moments, Sherlock’s hand found a new home resting on John’s thigh. John smiled as the car flew down the road, hugging the curves.
This felt - comfortable. Which was not a word he’d ever thought he’d be able to apply to Sherlock, not if they were together for fifty years.
He ought to have known that Sherlock wouldn’t tolerate “comfortable” for too long.
After a few minutes, Sherlock turned his head and smiled, a little glint in his eye that made John suddenly feel a bit nervous. “What?” he said.
Sherlock brought his legs back into the car and hitched a bit closer in his seat, as far as he could. He unsnapped his seat belt and leaned in. “I owe you one.”
“One what?”
Suddenly there was a hand between his legs. John jumped. “Bleeding Christ, Sherlock! I’m driving here!”
“Then drive,” he purred against John’s cheek, the stir of his breath sending a bolt right to John’s cock.
“Ohhh bollocks…” John just tried to maintain a reasonable level of attention to the road while Sherlock sucked at his earlobe and his neck and rubbed his cock through his jeans. He hooked one arm around John’s shoulders and pulled himself half over the gearshift to get closer.
“Better keep your eyes on the road,” he said, that voice of his a deep rumble in John’s ear.
“I’ll be killing you later, just so we’re clear,” John gasped, both hands clutching the wheel now as Sherlock unbuttoned his jeans and got his hand inside. His long fingers wrapped around John’s achingly hard cock and gave it a few firm strokes. “This has got to be illegal.”
“Only if we’re caught.” A low chuckle that ought to have been illegal itself came from Sherlock’s chest. Without warning, he plucked John’s left hand off the wheel, ducked down and slid his mouth over John’s erection.
“Hooooooo Jesus fucking Christ goddamn…” A steady stream of muttered, half-inaudible invective spilled from John’s mouth. His foot spasmed on the gas pedal for a moment and the car leapt forward. He kept control somehow, his free hand tangling in Sherlock’s hair as the lunatic sucked him like he was in the bloody blowjob Olympics. “Oh God, Sherlock - this is a really bad idea…” He didn’t like to think about what would happen if they were stopped, or God forbid crashed, and he’d have to try to explain to the police just how they’d been occupied at the time.
Sherlock’s head popped up. His lips were swollen and wet and his eyes were full of mischievous arousal, and the sight of him made John’s knees go watery. “Would you like me stop? All you have to do is ask.”
John groaned and refocused on the thankfully-deserted road. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Sherlock grinned in triumph and went back to work. John combed his fingers through those dark curls, his hand riding Sherlock’s head as it bobbed and weaved in his lap. His brain wanted nothing more than to narrow his whole perception down to naught but his cock; John found that having to maintain his attention on his driving was prolonging the agony as well as the pleasure. He slid down in his seat a little to give Sherlock more room.
My lover of less than twenty-four hours is giving me head in a moving car. Dear God, what am I in for with him? I don’t know if my heart can take it.
He felt his balls tightening, the muscles of his abdomen clenching. “God, Sherlock - I’m - I’m just about…” With a half-stifled cry John came, hard and fast, sweat popping to his brow and his fingers clenching in Sherlock’s hair. He sagged when it was over, gasping for breath, silver darts flashing in and out of his vision. But the car was still on the road and there were no pedestrians or other animals smashed into the grill, so he figured he was ahead of the game.
Sherlock tucked him back into his pants, buttoned his flies and sat up, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He swallowed again, with a slight grimace. “I admit that the swallowing part wasn’t quite what I expected,” he said, taking a drink of his tea.
“You didn’t have to, you know.”
“I know, but I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable and sticky for the remainder of the drive.” John looked over at him for a moment, incredulous, then burst out laughing. A frown crossed Sherlock’s face. “What’s so amusing?”
“You are. You were worried about me being uncomfortable after the blowjob you gave me while I was driving?”
Sherlock smiled slowly, then chuckled. “I suppose it is a bit ridiculous.”
“You are ridiculous. And that was dangerous, reckless, bloody stupid, and brilliant.”
Sherlock rebuckled his seat belt, looking pleased with himself. John took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, then reached out and laced their fingers together. Sherlock was back to watching the scenery; he didn’t look around when John took his hand, but he squeezed back with his own, and their hands stayed where they were, fingers twined, for the rest of the drive.
As they drew near Hailsham, Sherlock directed him off the road to a series of increasingly quaint back lanes until they reached a turnoff. He turned into the drive; it passed through a grove of trees and then widened as it approached the house. John stopped the car and stared up at it. “Sherlock! It’s gorgeous!”
Sherlock hopped out of the car without opening the door. John envied his easy grace, opting for the more traditional exeunt. “It is, isn’t it? Rather lovely, I think.”
It was a vine-covered brick cottage, two stories, set amidst a profusion of colorful flowers and trees. It looked like something out of a Merchant-Ivory film. “And you keep this up, just so you can come down once in awhile?”
“Oh, no. There’s a caretaker that maintains it. And I do share it with my brother. He uses it more than I do, I’m so seldom in the country these days.” Sherlock had their bags out of the boot. John took his own bag from him and they went to the door. Sherlock produced a key and opened it, motioning for John to precede him.
John started through the door but stopped on the threshold. He turned and grabbed Sherlock, pressed him up against the doorframe and kissed him hard, sweeping his lips open and pulling Sherlock’s hips tight against his own. Sherlock was startled for a moment but responded quickly, looping his arms about John’s shoulders and melting down into the kiss. John kept at him, taking some small part of his revenge for that blowjob in the car. He’d been at Sherlock’s mercy then, but soon, it’d be his turn.
He drew back, giving Sherlock’s arse a squeeze. “Teach you to give head to unsuspecting men in cars.”
“Why, John. I had no idea you were so alpha-male. Is this an attempt to - how does the phrase go? Make me your bitch?”
John laughed. “Hardly. Just having a bit of my own back.”
“Well, you’ll get your chance.” Sherlock leaned close, cupping John’s cheek in one hand and whispering right into his ear. “Because tonight, I want you to take me to bed, and then I want you to take me.”
A full-body shiver nearly enough to make him lose his footing passed over John at the words. He hung on to Sherlock’s narrow hips to steady himself. “You mean - you want…”
“You. Inside me.” He withdrew, kissed John once more, grabbed his suitcase and went ahead into the house. John leaned back against the doorframe for a moment, composing himself, before he followed suit.
He’d been half-expecting a posh, carefully-decorated interior, but the house was very homey, full of rag rugs and rocking chairs and wooden furniture worn silky smooth by years of hands and feet and human bodies. He and Sherlock stashed their bags in the bedroom they’d share - John had to try hard not to stare at the bed that would surely be hosting much of their time here - and went back downstairs in search of tea.
“Oh, your favorite kind isn’t here. We can go into the village tomorrow and fetch some,” Sherlock said, looking through the cupboards as John put the kettle on the hob.
“You know what kind of tea I like?” Sherlock gave him an oh-please sort of look. “Of course you do, I’m sorry, how very thick of me.”
“Yes, quite.”
John found the teacups and chose from what tea there was. Sherlock sat at the high butcher-block kitchen island and watched him move around the kitchen. He set the cups down and went to the fridge for milk.
Once the tea was ready and they were drinking it, a borderline-awkward silence fell. John sat on a stool across the island from Sherlock and looked around. “Well.”
“Well, what?”
“Here we are.”
“Your powers of observation are stunning, John.”
“What now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“You’ve dated other people, I know you have. You never went on holiday with anyone?”
Sherlock was quiet for a moment, turning his teacup around and around on its saucer. “There have been others who would have said that they were dating me. I’m not sure I ever dated any of them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was something that was expected. It was also something that I felt I ought to experience, for observational purposes. It helped me fit in with others, to seem normal.”
“You seem well normal to me.”
“You’re the only one who thinks so.”
“How did you choose these - people?”
“Some of them chose me. Others were suggested to me by interested parties. There were a few who I met and found appealing, in as much as I ever found anyone so.”
John was starting to feel like a bright, intense spotlight was shining on him from above, its source unseen, the hot lamp drawing sweat to his face. “Sherlock, why me? Why am I different? Assuming that I am different.”
Sherlock’s head snapped up at that, his gaze piercing. “How can you not know that you are?”
“Then tell me why.”
“I can’t. I don’t know why. It’s very vexing.” His brow furrowed, his eyes dropping back down to his half-empty teacup.
He looked so perplexed, so frustrated by his inability to articulate or even perceive the reason that John was different. John took pity on him. “Do you know when I first started to fancy you?”
Sherlock looked up. “No, when?”
“I didn’t really twig to it at the time, but looking back - it was that day I did the big scene, and I found out you’d asked for my dailies. I went over to confront you about it only to find that you were angry with me. You were angry that I was wasting my talent. It offended you.”
He nodded. “Yes, it did. It still does.” Sherlock folded his arms on the countertop. “As I’ve told you, over the summer I’ve watched every film you’ve ever made.”
“I know,” John groaned, putting a hand over his eyes. “I’m trying not to think about it. I’m mortified by the thought of you watching some of those films.”
“While I watched them, I thought about two things. First, I thought about what it meant that as time went by I missed you more, not less. Second, I thought about all the films that you could have been making over the last ten years, good films, films worthy of your talent, films that I’d very much like to have been able to watch instead of ones I was watching. It made me angry.”
John bristled a little. “Angry. Huh. You know, as much as I’m not thrilled by some of the films I’ve made, I don’t actually need your stamp of approval.”
“You needn’t fear that seeing them has in any way tarnished my opinion of you, John.”
That response caught John a bit wrong-footed. Sherlock had just bypassed what he’d said entirely and gone straight for what he’d really meant. “How could it not?” John said, quietly.
“Because no matter how awful the writing or the directing or the acting of your co-stars, there was always one constant, and that is you. You were never less than your best. You always committed wholeheartedly, and I can’t imagine how hard that must have been given some of the material you had to work with.”
“You have no idea,” John said, grimly.
“It’s easy to commit and do your very best to turn in an honest performance when you’re working with well-written scripts and collaborators with strong vision. When it’s hard is when you know the material isn’t worthy of your efforts, but you do it anyway. I admire that. I may not respect those films, John. But I respect you in them.”
John met his gaze and held it. “It’s been a long time since there was anyone in my life whose respect actually mattered to me.”
“You’ll always have mine.” The moment spun out in silence, and John could feel things shifting between them. Sherlock drained his teacup. “It’s not as if I haven’t appeared in a few dodgy films myself.”
“We all have. You’ve a better track record than I do, though.” He sighed, the warm sunlight streaming in the kitchen window painting Sherlock’s face in gold. “I saw your Oscar, back at your flat.”
“Ah, yes. My favorite paperweight.”
“Oh, stop with the it-means-nothing routine, it’s bollocks.”
“There’s no routine. It did mean something and I was thrilled to win.”
“I think you should have won for Out of Noise.”
“Thank you. It’s not an uncommon opinion. I didn’t expect to win. First time nominee, nobody knew who I was. The nomination was a sort of welcome-to-the-club acknowledgment that I’d have a future in the business. The attitude is typically that someone in that circumstance will have other chances.”
“How did you get that part, anyway? It was a large, demanding role and it’s not as if you were in the mainstream.”
“No, indeed. Todd had something very specific in mind and he was having trouble finding it. A teacher of mine from RADA got to talking with him at a film festival and she suggested me for the part.”
“What did he need that was so specific?”
“He wanted an actor who could actually play the violin. It was such an integral part of the character, he was reluctant to use a double.”
John’s jaw dropped. “That was really you playing? The whole film?”
Sherlock smiled. “Yes, it was. I thought that was common knowledge.”
“Not to me, it isn’t! You play the violin?”
“Since I was four. I studied it at school, in fact I almost went into music instead of drama.”
“I’d really love to hear you play sometime.”
“You can hear me right now, if you like. I keep a violin here.”
John was up off the stool so fast that it made Sherlock laugh. “Yes, please.”
They tidied their teacups and Sherlock trotted up the stairs, returning a few moments later with a violin case. John settled himself on a large, deep window seat and watched as Sherlock tuned the instrument, cocking his head toward the strings, finessing the pegs. He rosined the bow in a few quick, sure strokes, then looked at John. “What would you like to hear?”
“Oh, I don’t care. Whatever you like.”
Sherlock stood in the middle of the room and lifted the violin to his shoulder. He made a few experimental scrapes across the strings, then launched into music.
John watched him, entranced. The piece sounded familiar but John couldn’t name it; his knowledge of orchestral music was limited to film scores. Whatever it was, it was beautiful. But it wasn’t the music that riveted his attention, it was Sherlock.
People often spoke of him as being cold and emotionless. Detached. Frigid. Unsympathetic. That had certainly been John’s impression of him before he’d gotten to know him personally. But oh, if those people could only see him like this, they might reconsider. The music was imbued by Sherlock’s hands with sweeping landscapes of emotion, as if everything he did not express in life was funneled into his playing. His lithe body went fluid, moving with the instrument, the notes coming from the soles of his feet up through his arms and through the wood and metal of the violin.
John sat there in the window seat, watching Sherlock play, and had a moment of clarity.
I am in love with this man, and I am terrified.
It took him a moment to realize that Sherlock had finished playing and was now looking at John with an expectant expression. “John?” he said, sounding a bit unsure.
John got up off the window seat and went to him. He plucked the violin and bow out of his hands. “I can’t wait until tonight,” he said. “I want you now.”
Sherlock’s eyes went a bit cloudy. He reached up, took John’s face in his hands and kissed him. John kissed back, grabbing at Sherlock’s waist. They stood grappling in the living room for few moments until John pulled away, seized Sherlock’s wrist and drew him toward the stairs. They stumbled up, grasping and yanking at each other, until they staggered into the bedroom in a tangle of feet and arms.
Clothes flew as they undressed, kissing and groping every few seconds and getting tangled in their own clothing and each other’s. John’s eyes drank in his first real sight of Sherlock fully naked. John’s shirt hung open from his shoulders and he was down to just his pants, but he had to stop and stare for a moment. “God, Sherlock,” he whispered. He pushed him to the bed and sat him down. He stood between Sherlock’s knees and stroked both hands down his face, which was tipped up to John as though he were offering himself. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” John said.
“I never knew what it meant to want,” Sherlock said, stroking John’s chest. “Not until you.” John bent and kissed him. Sherlock pushed John’s shirt off his shoulders and pulled it off, then slipped his boxers down his hips so John could step out of them. John broke off for a moment to go to his bag and retrieve the lube and condoms he’d brought. Sherlock smiled. “Looks like I wasn’t the only one who came prepared.” He grasped John’s hands and pulled him down to the bed. They fell together on top of the quilt, kissing wherever they could reach, twining their limbs together.
John had done a bit of his own research, not the least of which had been an embarrassing conversation with his very gay massage therapist, who he’d been going to for ten years and trusted implicitly. But no amount of reading or awkward demos could have prepared him for the moment when Sherlock was lying before him on his stomach, John kneeling between his spread thighs, and it was time to put up or shut up. He was a little overwhelmed by the trust Sherlock was putting in him. I’ve got to make this good for him. If I can’t bring myself to say the words - yet - I’ll have to show him what he means to me. I’ve got to make it amazing. Sherlock looked back over his shoulder. John had to sit down on his heels, a little dizzy just at the sight of him like that, back arched, his pupils blown wide with arousal. “John, it’ll be fine,” he whispered.
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the small of Sherlock’s back. There were steps to be taken. He slipped on a condom first, giving himself a few lubed strokes. This had been his therapist’s piece of advice - not to wait until the last minute. Sherlock hissed in a fast breath as John began to prepare him. God, it was tight. Was this even possible? He knew it was, people did it every day, but it just didn’t seem like it. His cock wasn’t exactly small, and right now he was harder than he’d ever been in his life for wanting this man.
“Please, John,” Sherlock groaned, writhing a bit beneath John’s fingers.
“I think you need…”
“I’m ready. Come on.”
The desire in his voice drove a hard spike of want up John’s spine. He grasped Sherlock’s hips and pulled him up a bit, positioning himself. Another piece of advice had been to go slow, which seemed like a near-impossible task right now when his whole body was screaming at him to just plunge his cock into Sherlock and take him hard. There’d be a time when he could do that, perhaps, but not now. Now he had to go slow. He pressed forward and felt Sherlock’s body give way - but then Sherlock gasped and cried out in pain, pulling forward and away. John jerked back in alarm, going soft in an instant. “Oh, Sherlock - are you all right? I’m so sorry…” he said, misery dousing the heat of his desire. He lay down next to him.
“I’m fine,” Sherlock said, with a disappointed sigh. “It just felt like too much.”
“I should have gone slower, I’m sorry, it’s my…”
“No. It’s not your fault. I thought I was relaxed but the minute you started I tensed right up again.” He turned to his side and burrowed close to John, tucking his head beneath John’s chin. “I’m sorry, I just wanted it to be good.”
John wrapped his arms around him, chuckling a little. “Maybe that wasn’t realistic. We’re both new to this. And you know, we don’t have to have sex like that at all if we don’t want to.”
“But I do want to. Don’t you?”
He sighed. “God, yes. The thought of being inside you, of you inside me - yeah, I want it.”
“Then we will. We’ll work it out.” Sherlock tilted his face up and kissed John, slow and gentle, teasing his lips open. John slid his hand down to cup Sherlock’s arse - God, that arse, he couldn’t get enough of it. They just kissed and touched each other for a few minutes, heat springing to their skin. John felt Sherlock grow hard again against his hip. Sherlock stroked John’s cock, condom still on it, although the heat of his hand and the lube was making him feel like it wasn’t there at all. That was good advice there, Stephen, he thought, smiling against Sherlock’s mouth.
Sherlock pushed him over onto his back and crawled over him. “Let’s try it like this,” he murmured, kissing John’s neck before sitting up, straddling John’s hips. “I’ll have more control.”
John could only nod, dazed at the sight of all this Sherlock above him, a long column of pale, smooth skin filled with his blood and breath and life. He slid his hands around Sherlock’s hips and around to his arse, up his chest, wherever he could reach. Sherlock kept him pinned in place with his eyes, those unearthly verdigris eyes that every cinematographer he’d ever worked with had worshiped in close-ups and side-lighting. He rocked his hips over John’s until he was hard again, then reached behind, raised up and slowly inched his way down, taking John into his body. “Oh Christ, Sherlock,” John choked out. His neck arched, his head slamming back into the pillows, his fingers clenching on Sherlock’s hips.
Sherlock kept repeating his name, borne soft on each exhale -- like an incantation, barely audible. He braced his hands on John’s chest and rocked, his eyes closing and his face twitching as he made experimental movements, getting used to John inside him. John reached up and slid his fingers up his cheek and into his hair. Sherlock opened his eyes and met his. John lifted his hands; Sherlock took the cue and laced his fingers through John’s, bracing his weight on John’s elbows. John planted his feet and raised his knees behind Sherlock and they moved together, back and forth like the tide coming in and going out, gently at first and then quicker. John’s heart pounded; he saw sweat sheen on Sherlock’s chest and face, the flush rising to his breast. He let go of one of Sherlock’s hands and grasped his cock, stroking it in time with the rhythm they were settling into. “John,” Sherlock breathed. “I can feel you,” he said, his head lolling on his neck.
“I can feel your heart beating,” John said, unaware he was going to say it until he heard it come out of his mouth. He could, too. He could feel Sherlock’s pulse through their connection.
Sherlock met his eyes again and John’s breath caught in his chest at the raw emotion he saw there; he’d never seen Sherlock so exposed in his expression, and it cut at him to see Sherlock’s desire, his trust and his love. He reached up and pulled him down because he had to be kissing him again. He wrapped him up in his arms and worked his hips upward into him. Sherlock framed John’s head in his hands and kissed him back, tiny moans escaping his throat. He was writhing against John’s stomach, his erection trapped between them, and then John felt him stiffen and come, the warm wetness blooming between them. John grabbed his arse in both hands and followed after a few more strokes, the world going gray as he spent himself inside Sherlock’s body.
They just lay there clutching each other for a moment, catching their breath. Sherlock’s face was pressed into John’s shoulder. He combed his fingers through the curls, as he thought he’d never get tired of doing. He cradled Sherlock to his chest, overcome with the sudden need to protect him and make everything all right for him, in perpetuity, as long as he was able to do so.
Sherlock pulled back and kissed him. “Second time’s the charm,” he rumbled.
“Jesus, you have to be careful how you deploy that voice,” John said, smiling. “Unless you want to find yourself on your back again.”
“Maybe I do.”
John chuckled. “Fucking hell, give me a minute. I’m not twenty-five anymore.”
Sherlock rolled to the side, John sliding out of him. He drummed his fingers on John’s damp chest. “Not to worry. Next time I fully intend to have you on your back.” He grinned and winked, then got up and went into the attached bathroom.
“Fucking hell,” John repeated, in wonderment. The idea filled him with anticipation and a little nervousness. He got up and joined Sherlock in the bathroom.
After sorting themselves out a bit, they returned to the bed and slid beneath the covers. John lay on his side, head propped on his elbow, and let his fingers dance meaningless little trails over Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock watched his face. They didn’t speak for a few minutes.
“What are we going to do?” John finally said.
Sherlock’s eyes closed for a moment. He turned his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Do about what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. It’s the one role you can’t perform convincingly.”
“You’re referring to how to handle the public aspects of our lives where it concerns our relationship.”
John dreaded the answer, but he had to ask the question. “Do you want a relationship with me?”
“I’d have thought that would be obvious.”
“Having sex on a holiday in Sussex isn’t a relationship, Sherlock. It’s a fantasy.”
“I’m not the world’s most knowledgeable person as to what constitutes a relationship.”
John sighed. “Why don’t you just tell me what you do want?”
Sherlock was still for a moment, then he turned on his side to face him. “All right. Here is what I want. I want you to be there when I wake up, and I want to be there when you go to sleep. I want to only have to cross a room to talk to you, not an ocean or a city or even a street. I want you to know the things I know, and I want to know the things you know. I want to assume that I will see you every day. I want us to have plans without having to make the plans. I want you to be a part of my decisions about my career, and I want to be a part of yours. I want to read the scripts you’re considering and have you read mine. I want to know that you are there and for you to know that I am. I want it to just be understood that anything that involves me also involves you.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what all that means.”
John’s eyes roved all over his face. “It means you want a relationship, Sherlock.”
“Then I ought to ask you if that’s what you want, too.” Sherlock met his eyes, and John saw in them vulnerability that he’d never thought to see there.
He put his hand on Sherlock’s cheek. “Yes. God, yes.” Such an expression of relief came over Sherlock’s face then that John had to kiss it all over.
They relaxed back against the pillows, tucked a bit closer now. “Your question remains unanswered, however,” Sherlock said.
“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Johns aid, suddenly loathe to do so. “Let’s just enjoy our time together.”
“That implies that you believe that time to be finite.”
“Well, it is, for now. I have to be back in Los Angeles on the weekend, and I’d like to visit my parents again before I go. I’d love it if you came back with me, but I know you can’t.”
“Not for a little while. I have some commitments until the end of the month. I had intended to return to Los Angeles for our ADR sessions and remain there through the winter.”
“Good. When you come over, would you…” John harrumphed, feeling a little insecure about asking this question. “I mean, you could stay with me. At my house.”
“I’d like that.” John could feel him thinking. “You don’t intend to tell anyone about our relationship.”
John blinked. “How did you…”
“Your suggestion that we cohabit at your home as opposed to mine. My condo is in a busy part of town. Your house is in a secure gated neighborhood where we are much less likely to be observed.”
“We can’t, Sherlock. We can’t tell anyone. Not yet.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“You don’t see why not? You’ve got to be fucking joking!”
“Our personal lives are no one else’s business.”
“Now you’re being deliberately obtuse. Sherlock - you and I are both coming off a few pretty lean years but we’re both still A-list film stars. And we’ve both been presumed to be straight, having only had public relationships with women. If we just - I mean, we can’t just - it would be a media circus.”
Sherlock sighed. “Why must everything be so tiresome?”
“I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“And yet you seem perfectly willing to go along with it and let yourself be cowed into silence.”
“I’m not letting myself be cowed, I’m being realistic! It shouldn’t matter, but it does. It shouldn’t be an issue, but it is. You’ve been in this business almost as long as I have, you know how many actors and actresses stay in the closet for the sake of their careers.”
“That’s their choice.”
“And they make it for a reason. I hate that this is the way it has to be, but I’m being practical, here. It would kill our careers.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that!”
“What if I don’t care?” Sherlock said, suddenly fierce.
John shook his head. “That’s very sweet, but I know that you do. Your work is your whole life, Sherlock.”
“I don’t need Hollywood and their disgusting hypocrisy,” he spat. “I can find excellent work in London. On the stage, in small films, in television productions. Most of the work there is better than what Hollywood offers me, and they won’t care if I choose you as a partner.”
“That’s fine for you, then. What about me? I’m not like you, Hollywood is where I work, it’s where I’m known. I didn’t take drama class with half the Royal Shakespeare Company.”
“What are you suggesting, then? That we hide in your house? That we let our publicists wheel us out with women on our arms as a cover? That we never ride in the same car or let ourselves even be seen together?”
John shut his eyes for a moment. His guts were rolling at the idea of hiding in the way Sherlock was describing. He wanted nothing more than to grab a megaphone and announce to the world that he and Sherlock were together, to tell the world, to tell everyone and everything else be damned. But he couldn’t. They couldn’t. “Yes. For now.”
Sherlock sat up, snorting. “For now? How long is that?”
John sat up as well, wrapping one arm around Sherlock’s waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. “It’s this film, Sherlock. To a Stranger is important to me, and I know it is to you as well. We can’t do anything to overshadow it, and if it comes out that its two previously-straight co-stars fell in…” He cut himself off. Sherlock glanced at him, waiting. He cleared his throat and continued. “That its previously-straight co-stars are together after having met during the film, well, that’s that. That will be the story, the only story, and no one will care about the film itself. It’ll eat everything. We won’t have a moment’s peace. We will be hounded night and day and it will not stop to let the film be seen on its own merits, and it deserves that. We worked too hard on it. I know you don’t want that.”
“The film is important to me, of course it is.” He turned and met John’s eyes. “You are more important.”
John’s chest ached. “Oh, God, you are too. But I need this, Sherlock. This is my chance for a new career, a better one. If this film is as good as we hope it is, it could reinvent me. You’re the one who said my career hasn’t been worthy of me. Well, this could mean I’ll have a shot at one that is. If I’m with you, my tenure as the king of the date movie will probably be over. I need something else to put in its place.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we wait. I don’t want us to hide forever. I can’t do that anymore than you can. But the studio will murder us both in our sleep if we drop this bomb before the film opens. We can manage for a few months. Until after the Oscars. Once that’s over and done with, we can go public, and fuck them all if they don’t like it.”
Sherlock was searching his face like he was puzzling something out. “John, I’ve never known you to be less than wholly brave. This isn’t you. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it, either. I hate it.” He kissed Sherlock’s shoulder. “God, I want to be seen with you. I want to walk a red carpet with you on my arm, I want to tell the whole world that you are mine and I am yours.” He sighed, stroking his hand through Sherlock’s hair. “I suppose this is my payback for being so sure of myself. I’ve said it so many times, that gay actors should just come out. Why should they be afraid? Why should they hide? I’ve said it offhandedly, as if there were no good reason for them to keep it secret, as if I knew better than they did. Turns out it’s a bit more complicated when it’s you.”
Sherlock sighed, a long and shuddery one. “I don’t want to hide, John. But I will, if you say we must. Your career is the important thing here. I want you to have the respect you deserve as an actor. I want you to have the chance to play parts that are worthy of your talent.” He met John’s eyes. “But - we will be together, won’t we? You’re not saying we should stay away from each other until after the Oscars.”
“Christ, no. I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it.” He reached out and drew Sherlock into his arms, hugging him tight. “I won’t give you up. Not for anything.” Sherlock hugged him back hard, burrowing close to him, and John Watson had never hated his job more than he did at that moment - almost as much as he hated himself.
Visual Aids!
Sherlock’s car:
Sherlock’s country house:
Next Chapter
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 8200 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: NC-17
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 -- Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Sally showed up at noon, carrying two large shopping bags. John pulled his suitcase out of the bedroom. “I’m not sure I have enough clothes for a weeks’ holiday,” he said.
“No worries,” Sally said, pointing to the bags. “I went out and bought you some more.”
Sherlock chuckled at John’s amazed expression. “But - how did you…”
“I rang Harry and got your sizes. You’re all sorted. The house is fully stocked, you won’t need naught but yourselves and your clothes. Although, the clothes might be a wee bit optional as well,” she said, smirking at Sherlock.
Sherlock shook his head. “There, John, you see? And to think you were worried that there wouldn’t be any suggestive snark flung in our direction. Thank God you’re here, Sally,” he said, heading off to the bathroom to get his own bag.
John watched him go, smiling, but when he turned back Sally was right in front of him. He jumped a bit. “Cor, Sally, have a care.”
“All right, then?” she said, giving him a rather speculative look.
“Yeah, all right. Thanks for the clothes.”
She took a deep breath and shut her eyes. She looked like she was bracing herself for what she was about to say. “Look - be good to him, all right? I know he’s a stroppy bastard but I sort of love him.”
John smiled. “I’ll be as good to him as he deserves at the moment, will that do?”
“I suppose that’s the best we can hope for.” She patted his arm. “Thanks. You’re both looking irritatingly happy.”
“I think we are.” And he was. Ridiculously, giddily, run-through-a-field-of-wildflowers happy.
“Sally, don’t ring me unless something’s burned to the ground, all right?” Sherlock grumped, lugging his suitcase out of the bedroom. “I shall be very much occupied. I’ll have my laptop, you can email me if something comes up.”
“I’m quite sure something will be coming up,” she said, grinning.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Are we quite finished with Clumsy Innuendo Comedy Hour? Come along, John. Let us spirit ourselves away from all these tiresome people.”
They all piled into the elevator, but they bypassed the lobby and went downstairs into an underground garage. Sherlock and Sally led the way and John tagged along, until he realized where they were headed and stopped short. “Sherlock, my God!”
He stopped and turned. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Is that your car?” John asked, incredulous. They were walking toward a black Jaguar XK convertible, gleaming and elegant and glossy. It looked like Sherlock in car form.
“Yes. Why, what kind of car have you got?”
“I drive a Honda. A nice Honda, I grant you, but…”
Sherlock glanced from the car back to John’s incredulous face. “Problem?”
“No, it’s just - something of a wet dream on wheels, that is.”
Sherlock shrugged. “If you say so. I’ve not much interest in cars.” He opened up the boot and heaved his suitcase inside, along with the bags from Sally. John lifted his own case in to sit beside Sherlock’s.
“Why this car, if you didn’t care?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Greg said once that he’d always liked this model. I wanted a car so I could go down to Sussex whenever I liked, so I bought this one.” He bunged the keys at John, who caught them on reflex.
“What, you want me to drive?”
“I dislike driving, and you seem rather keen.”
“I don’t know the way.”
“John, do try and keep up. I know the way and I’m sure you’ve realized that I’ll be in the car with you.”
“Oh, piss off, smart-arse!”
Sally shook her head. “You two sound married already.”
John trotted around the front of the car. He was salivating a bit at driving out of London in this car. “Can we have the top down?” he said, excited.
Sally hesitated. “Best not, until you’re out of the city,” she said.
John sagged a bit. “Oh. Right.” It’d be too easy for them to be spotted together with the top down. He got in, sighing at the way the leather seat cradled him. Sherlock got in the passenger side.
“You boys have a nice time, now,” Sally said, dropping a wink at them.
Sherlock leaned over him and looked up at her. “If you are using ‘a nice time’ as a polite euphemism for sex then I daresay we won’t require the reminder.” John choked a bit, coughing while he felt his ears going crimson. He started the car, avoiding Sally’s eyes.
“Um, cheers, then,” he managed, barely glancing at her as he pulled out of the parking garage and up into the street. “Which way we going?”
“Surely you’re aware that Sussex lies to the south.”
“Are you going to be insufferable the whole way there?”
Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a reflex.”
John stopped at a red light and looked over at him. “Hey,” he said. Sherlock turned and faced him. He looked a bit worried. “Come here,” he murmured. Sherlock leaned over and John kissed him. “I like suffering your insufferability.”
“That made no sense whatsoever.” Sherlock said, but the worry had gone from his face. “We’ll be taking the A21 south.”
“Right you are,” John said, turning towards Hyde Park. “So where is this country house of yours? Shall I expect a squire and stables?”
“Hardly. It’s near Hailsham. Charming little town, actually. Just a bit north of Eastbourne.”
John stepped on the accelerator, shivering with pleasure at the way the car purred and leapt and obeyed his commands. “Oh, you may not get this car back from me,” he said.
“I’ve never understood the stereotypical male fascination with cars.”
“How can you not? Listen to that. Feel it when you drive it. It’s like sex.”
“Hmm. You only say that because you haven’t had sex with me yet.”
John glanced over at Sherlock, who had a smug little smile on his face. “Yes, I have.”
Sherlock blinked. “But, we haven’t…”
“Have we had orgasms in each other’s presence?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then we’ve had sex.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” He drove in silence for a few clicks, pondering the subject. “Have you ever done - that?”
“No. Have you?”
“No.”
“Well, not to worry. I’ve done research.”
John couldn’t help but grin at that. “Research? I hope it wasn’t laboratory research.”
Sherlock laughed. “No. I didn’t require the assistance of any consenting test subjects. But there are literally thousands of resources for one’s education.”
“So if all you’ve done is research, how come you’re so certain that you’ll be such an amazing shag?”
“Confidence is a key component to good sexual performance, John.”
“Fake it till you make it, eh?”
“Let’s hope that there’ll be no faking.”
“And exactly when did you undertake this educational project?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“So you’ve spent the past few weeks, while we weren’t even really in touch, researching exactly how to go about having sex with me?”
“Is that bad?”
“You were really preparing for any eventuality, weren’t you?”
“Is it not always best to be prepared? Anyway, I had…” He stopped and harrumphed a bit. “I had some hopes that this research might come in handy.”
“Well, I daresay it might.” John frowned. “But - what if we’d never seen each other again?”
“Do you really think that was ever a possibility, John?”
John held his eyes for a second. “No. It wasn’t.” Sherlock’s gaze warmed up a bit, his lips curling in a smile. John returned his eyes to the road and drove on, feeling pretty chuffed about his life at the moment.
A bit too chuffed, actually. Time for something to go horribly awry. He perked up his attention a bit, looking for that stray lorry or inattentive pedestrian or a patch of unseasonable black ice that could ruin everything in a heartbeat.
Sherlock sighed. “Stop looking for problems.”
“How d’you know I am?”
“You’re thinking that things are going too well, so you’re waiting for it to start unraveling. In some quarters that’s what’s known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Well, if things were going to go pear-shaped, now’d be the time, wouldn’t it? I’m in a gorgeous car with my gorgeous boyfriend, driving to a country house in Sussex where we’re going to spend a great deal of time in bed. This would be just the moment that the gods would start thinking I was looking a bit too happy and smite me or something.”
He looked over at Sherlock, who was staring at him oddly. “Is that what I am?”
“Is that what you’re what?”
“Your - boyfriend.”
John shifted in the seat. “I suppose we never talked about what to call each other, did we? Don’t like that one?”
“What are my alternatives?”
“Umm - I guess ‘partner’ is the polite term.”
Sherlock made a face. “Sounds so dry and corporate.”
“Lover?”
“That’s a bit intimate for casual conversation, isn’t it?”
“I’ve always thought so. Well, beyond those three it starts getting ridiculous. Given a choice, I’m going to go with ‘boyfriend.’”
Sherlock made a vague grumbling noise. “If we must.”
John pulled up to an intersection in Westminster. He glanced to his right, and what he saw there made his stomach drop. It was a paparazzo on a motorbike, his camera slung across his back. He opened his mouth to say something but Sherlock beat him to it.
“The windows are tinted, John. He can’t see us.”
John huffed out a relieved breath. “Oh. That’s - good, yeah. Good.” He could feel Sherlock looking at him but kept his eyes grimly forward. He at least wanted to enjoy the drive down before they started in on the dozen or so difficult conversations they were going to have to have.
John drove through London’s sprawl, trying not to think about photographers lurking. He and Sherlock chatted aimlessly about nothing in particular. Their favorite spots in the city, the schools they’d gone to as children, things they hated about Los Angeles. Soon enough they’d transitioned into the countryside. As promised, they pulled off at a petrol station so John could put the top down. Sherlock went into the shop and returned with two cups of tea. John got back in the car and started it up, and they both donned their sunglasses, turning to grin a bit madly at each other. “Now this is how one goes on holiday,” John said. He gunned it out of the petrol station and they roared down the A21 towards Hailsham.
Within a few miles Sherlock had him leave the main road and detour onto the less-traveled country lanes. John sighed and tilted his face up into the early-September sunshine. The scents of trees and cut grass filled the air, and all seemed right with the world. Sherlock had angled his body in the seat so he could stretch out his impossibly long legs and rest his feet out the window, ankles crossed. They didn’t talk much as John drove. The roar of the wind through the car made it difficult, and John couldn’t speak for Sherlock, but for himself, he was glad for the downtime. What was happening between them made him happy and excited, but it also required some adjustments in his internal sense of himself, and would no doubt continue to do so. He was no longer just John Watson, the bachelor, or John Watson, who had a fake girlfriend. He was John Watson, who had a real, actual, flesh-and-blood significant other. Who was a man. This was all fine. He’d had three months spent fantasizing about Sherlock to internalize the concept. Having the fantasy become reality - that would take awhile to get used to.
No time like the present.
Sherlock was turned away, watching the scenery go by. Keeping his right hand on the wheel, John stretched out his other arm and rested his hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck, giving it an experimental rub. Sherlock leaned into the touch, so he kept it up. After a few moments, Sherlock’s hand found a new home resting on John’s thigh. John smiled as the car flew down the road, hugging the curves.
This felt - comfortable. Which was not a word he’d ever thought he’d be able to apply to Sherlock, not if they were together for fifty years.
He ought to have known that Sherlock wouldn’t tolerate “comfortable” for too long.
After a few minutes, Sherlock turned his head and smiled, a little glint in his eye that made John suddenly feel a bit nervous. “What?” he said.
Sherlock brought his legs back into the car and hitched a bit closer in his seat, as far as he could. He unsnapped his seat belt and leaned in. “I owe you one.”
“One what?”
Suddenly there was a hand between his legs. John jumped. “Bleeding Christ, Sherlock! I’m driving here!”
“Then drive,” he purred against John’s cheek, the stir of his breath sending a bolt right to John’s cock.
“Ohhh bollocks…” John just tried to maintain a reasonable level of attention to the road while Sherlock sucked at his earlobe and his neck and rubbed his cock through his jeans. He hooked one arm around John’s shoulders and pulled himself half over the gearshift to get closer.
“Better keep your eyes on the road,” he said, that voice of his a deep rumble in John’s ear.
“I’ll be killing you later, just so we’re clear,” John gasped, both hands clutching the wheel now as Sherlock unbuttoned his jeans and got his hand inside. His long fingers wrapped around John’s achingly hard cock and gave it a few firm strokes. “This has got to be illegal.”
“Only if we’re caught.” A low chuckle that ought to have been illegal itself came from Sherlock’s chest. Without warning, he plucked John’s left hand off the wheel, ducked down and slid his mouth over John’s erection.
“Hooooooo Jesus fucking Christ goddamn…” A steady stream of muttered, half-inaudible invective spilled from John’s mouth. His foot spasmed on the gas pedal for a moment and the car leapt forward. He kept control somehow, his free hand tangling in Sherlock’s hair as the lunatic sucked him like he was in the bloody blowjob Olympics. “Oh God, Sherlock - this is a really bad idea…” He didn’t like to think about what would happen if they were stopped, or God forbid crashed, and he’d have to try to explain to the police just how they’d been occupied at the time.
Sherlock’s head popped up. His lips were swollen and wet and his eyes were full of mischievous arousal, and the sight of him made John’s knees go watery. “Would you like me stop? All you have to do is ask.”
John groaned and refocused on the thankfully-deserted road. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Sherlock grinned in triumph and went back to work. John combed his fingers through those dark curls, his hand riding Sherlock’s head as it bobbed and weaved in his lap. His brain wanted nothing more than to narrow his whole perception down to naught but his cock; John found that having to maintain his attention on his driving was prolonging the agony as well as the pleasure. He slid down in his seat a little to give Sherlock more room.
My lover of less than twenty-four hours is giving me head in a moving car. Dear God, what am I in for with him? I don’t know if my heart can take it.
He felt his balls tightening, the muscles of his abdomen clenching. “God, Sherlock - I’m - I’m just about…” With a half-stifled cry John came, hard and fast, sweat popping to his brow and his fingers clenching in Sherlock’s hair. He sagged when it was over, gasping for breath, silver darts flashing in and out of his vision. But the car was still on the road and there were no pedestrians or other animals smashed into the grill, so he figured he was ahead of the game.
Sherlock tucked him back into his pants, buttoned his flies and sat up, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He swallowed again, with a slight grimace. “I admit that the swallowing part wasn’t quite what I expected,” he said, taking a drink of his tea.
“You didn’t have to, you know.”
“I know, but I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable and sticky for the remainder of the drive.” John looked over at him for a moment, incredulous, then burst out laughing. A frown crossed Sherlock’s face. “What’s so amusing?”
“You are. You were worried about me being uncomfortable after the blowjob you gave me while I was driving?”
Sherlock smiled slowly, then chuckled. “I suppose it is a bit ridiculous.”
“You are ridiculous. And that was dangerous, reckless, bloody stupid, and brilliant.”
Sherlock rebuckled his seat belt, looking pleased with himself. John took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, then reached out and laced their fingers together. Sherlock was back to watching the scenery; he didn’t look around when John took his hand, but he squeezed back with his own, and their hands stayed where they were, fingers twined, for the rest of the drive.
As they drew near Hailsham, Sherlock directed him off the road to a series of increasingly quaint back lanes until they reached a turnoff. He turned into the drive; it passed through a grove of trees and then widened as it approached the house. John stopped the car and stared up at it. “Sherlock! It’s gorgeous!”
Sherlock hopped out of the car without opening the door. John envied his easy grace, opting for the more traditional exeunt. “It is, isn’t it? Rather lovely, I think.”
It was a vine-covered brick cottage, two stories, set amidst a profusion of colorful flowers and trees. It looked like something out of a Merchant-Ivory film. “And you keep this up, just so you can come down once in awhile?”
“Oh, no. There’s a caretaker that maintains it. And I do share it with my brother. He uses it more than I do, I’m so seldom in the country these days.” Sherlock had their bags out of the boot. John took his own bag from him and they went to the door. Sherlock produced a key and opened it, motioning for John to precede him.
John started through the door but stopped on the threshold. He turned and grabbed Sherlock, pressed him up against the doorframe and kissed him hard, sweeping his lips open and pulling Sherlock’s hips tight against his own. Sherlock was startled for a moment but responded quickly, looping his arms about John’s shoulders and melting down into the kiss. John kept at him, taking some small part of his revenge for that blowjob in the car. He’d been at Sherlock’s mercy then, but soon, it’d be his turn.
He drew back, giving Sherlock’s arse a squeeze. “Teach you to give head to unsuspecting men in cars.”
“Why, John. I had no idea you were so alpha-male. Is this an attempt to - how does the phrase go? Make me your bitch?”
John laughed. “Hardly. Just having a bit of my own back.”
“Well, you’ll get your chance.” Sherlock leaned close, cupping John’s cheek in one hand and whispering right into his ear. “Because tonight, I want you to take me to bed, and then I want you to take me.”
A full-body shiver nearly enough to make him lose his footing passed over John at the words. He hung on to Sherlock’s narrow hips to steady himself. “You mean - you want…”
“You. Inside me.” He withdrew, kissed John once more, grabbed his suitcase and went ahead into the house. John leaned back against the doorframe for a moment, composing himself, before he followed suit.
He’d been half-expecting a posh, carefully-decorated interior, but the house was very homey, full of rag rugs and rocking chairs and wooden furniture worn silky smooth by years of hands and feet and human bodies. He and Sherlock stashed their bags in the bedroom they’d share - John had to try hard not to stare at the bed that would surely be hosting much of their time here - and went back downstairs in search of tea.
“Oh, your favorite kind isn’t here. We can go into the village tomorrow and fetch some,” Sherlock said, looking through the cupboards as John put the kettle on the hob.
“You know what kind of tea I like?” Sherlock gave him an oh-please sort of look. “Of course you do, I’m sorry, how very thick of me.”
“Yes, quite.”
John found the teacups and chose from what tea there was. Sherlock sat at the high butcher-block kitchen island and watched him move around the kitchen. He set the cups down and went to the fridge for milk.
Once the tea was ready and they were drinking it, a borderline-awkward silence fell. John sat on a stool across the island from Sherlock and looked around. “Well.”
“Well, what?”
“Here we are.”
“Your powers of observation are stunning, John.”
“What now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“You’ve dated other people, I know you have. You never went on holiday with anyone?”
Sherlock was quiet for a moment, turning his teacup around and around on its saucer. “There have been others who would have said that they were dating me. I’m not sure I ever dated any of them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was something that was expected. It was also something that I felt I ought to experience, for observational purposes. It helped me fit in with others, to seem normal.”
“You seem well normal to me.”
“You’re the only one who thinks so.”
“How did you choose these - people?”
“Some of them chose me. Others were suggested to me by interested parties. There were a few who I met and found appealing, in as much as I ever found anyone so.”
John was starting to feel like a bright, intense spotlight was shining on him from above, its source unseen, the hot lamp drawing sweat to his face. “Sherlock, why me? Why am I different? Assuming that I am different.”
Sherlock’s head snapped up at that, his gaze piercing. “How can you not know that you are?”
“Then tell me why.”
“I can’t. I don’t know why. It’s very vexing.” His brow furrowed, his eyes dropping back down to his half-empty teacup.
He looked so perplexed, so frustrated by his inability to articulate or even perceive the reason that John was different. John took pity on him. “Do you know when I first started to fancy you?”
Sherlock looked up. “No, when?”
“I didn’t really twig to it at the time, but looking back - it was that day I did the big scene, and I found out you’d asked for my dailies. I went over to confront you about it only to find that you were angry with me. You were angry that I was wasting my talent. It offended you.”
He nodded. “Yes, it did. It still does.” Sherlock folded his arms on the countertop. “As I’ve told you, over the summer I’ve watched every film you’ve ever made.”
“I know,” John groaned, putting a hand over his eyes. “I’m trying not to think about it. I’m mortified by the thought of you watching some of those films.”
“While I watched them, I thought about two things. First, I thought about what it meant that as time went by I missed you more, not less. Second, I thought about all the films that you could have been making over the last ten years, good films, films worthy of your talent, films that I’d very much like to have been able to watch instead of ones I was watching. It made me angry.”
John bristled a little. “Angry. Huh. You know, as much as I’m not thrilled by some of the films I’ve made, I don’t actually need your stamp of approval.”
“You needn’t fear that seeing them has in any way tarnished my opinion of you, John.”
That response caught John a bit wrong-footed. Sherlock had just bypassed what he’d said entirely and gone straight for what he’d really meant. “How could it not?” John said, quietly.
“Because no matter how awful the writing or the directing or the acting of your co-stars, there was always one constant, and that is you. You were never less than your best. You always committed wholeheartedly, and I can’t imagine how hard that must have been given some of the material you had to work with.”
“You have no idea,” John said, grimly.
“It’s easy to commit and do your very best to turn in an honest performance when you’re working with well-written scripts and collaborators with strong vision. When it’s hard is when you know the material isn’t worthy of your efforts, but you do it anyway. I admire that. I may not respect those films, John. But I respect you in them.”
John met his gaze and held it. “It’s been a long time since there was anyone in my life whose respect actually mattered to me.”
“You’ll always have mine.” The moment spun out in silence, and John could feel things shifting between them. Sherlock drained his teacup. “It’s not as if I haven’t appeared in a few dodgy films myself.”
“We all have. You’ve a better track record than I do, though.” He sighed, the warm sunlight streaming in the kitchen window painting Sherlock’s face in gold. “I saw your Oscar, back at your flat.”
“Ah, yes. My favorite paperweight.”
“Oh, stop with the it-means-nothing routine, it’s bollocks.”
“There’s no routine. It did mean something and I was thrilled to win.”
“I think you should have won for Out of Noise.”
“Thank you. It’s not an uncommon opinion. I didn’t expect to win. First time nominee, nobody knew who I was. The nomination was a sort of welcome-to-the-club acknowledgment that I’d have a future in the business. The attitude is typically that someone in that circumstance will have other chances.”
“How did you get that part, anyway? It was a large, demanding role and it’s not as if you were in the mainstream.”
“No, indeed. Todd had something very specific in mind and he was having trouble finding it. A teacher of mine from RADA got to talking with him at a film festival and she suggested me for the part.”
“What did he need that was so specific?”
“He wanted an actor who could actually play the violin. It was such an integral part of the character, he was reluctant to use a double.”
John’s jaw dropped. “That was really you playing? The whole film?”
Sherlock smiled. “Yes, it was. I thought that was common knowledge.”
“Not to me, it isn’t! You play the violin?”
“Since I was four. I studied it at school, in fact I almost went into music instead of drama.”
“I’d really love to hear you play sometime.”
“You can hear me right now, if you like. I keep a violin here.”
John was up off the stool so fast that it made Sherlock laugh. “Yes, please.”
They tidied their teacups and Sherlock trotted up the stairs, returning a few moments later with a violin case. John settled himself on a large, deep window seat and watched as Sherlock tuned the instrument, cocking his head toward the strings, finessing the pegs. He rosined the bow in a few quick, sure strokes, then looked at John. “What would you like to hear?”
“Oh, I don’t care. Whatever you like.”
Sherlock stood in the middle of the room and lifted the violin to his shoulder. He made a few experimental scrapes across the strings, then launched into music.
John watched him, entranced. The piece sounded familiar but John couldn’t name it; his knowledge of orchestral music was limited to film scores. Whatever it was, it was beautiful. But it wasn’t the music that riveted his attention, it was Sherlock.
People often spoke of him as being cold and emotionless. Detached. Frigid. Unsympathetic. That had certainly been John’s impression of him before he’d gotten to know him personally. But oh, if those people could only see him like this, they might reconsider. The music was imbued by Sherlock’s hands with sweeping landscapes of emotion, as if everything he did not express in life was funneled into his playing. His lithe body went fluid, moving with the instrument, the notes coming from the soles of his feet up through his arms and through the wood and metal of the violin.
John sat there in the window seat, watching Sherlock play, and had a moment of clarity.
I am in love with this man, and I am terrified.
It took him a moment to realize that Sherlock had finished playing and was now looking at John with an expectant expression. “John?” he said, sounding a bit unsure.
John got up off the window seat and went to him. He plucked the violin and bow out of his hands. “I can’t wait until tonight,” he said. “I want you now.”
Sherlock’s eyes went a bit cloudy. He reached up, took John’s face in his hands and kissed him. John kissed back, grabbing at Sherlock’s waist. They stood grappling in the living room for few moments until John pulled away, seized Sherlock’s wrist and drew him toward the stairs. They stumbled up, grasping and yanking at each other, until they staggered into the bedroom in a tangle of feet and arms.
Clothes flew as they undressed, kissing and groping every few seconds and getting tangled in their own clothing and each other’s. John’s eyes drank in his first real sight of Sherlock fully naked. John’s shirt hung open from his shoulders and he was down to just his pants, but he had to stop and stare for a moment. “God, Sherlock,” he whispered. He pushed him to the bed and sat him down. He stood between Sherlock’s knees and stroked both hands down his face, which was tipped up to John as though he were offering himself. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” John said.
“I never knew what it meant to want,” Sherlock said, stroking John’s chest. “Not until you.” John bent and kissed him. Sherlock pushed John’s shirt off his shoulders and pulled it off, then slipped his boxers down his hips so John could step out of them. John broke off for a moment to go to his bag and retrieve the lube and condoms he’d brought. Sherlock smiled. “Looks like I wasn’t the only one who came prepared.” He grasped John’s hands and pulled him down to the bed. They fell together on top of the quilt, kissing wherever they could reach, twining their limbs together.
John had done a bit of his own research, not the least of which had been an embarrassing conversation with his very gay massage therapist, who he’d been going to for ten years and trusted implicitly. But no amount of reading or awkward demos could have prepared him for the moment when Sherlock was lying before him on his stomach, John kneeling between his spread thighs, and it was time to put up or shut up. He was a little overwhelmed by the trust Sherlock was putting in him. I’ve got to make this good for him. If I can’t bring myself to say the words - yet - I’ll have to show him what he means to me. I’ve got to make it amazing. Sherlock looked back over his shoulder. John had to sit down on his heels, a little dizzy just at the sight of him like that, back arched, his pupils blown wide with arousal. “John, it’ll be fine,” he whispered.
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the small of Sherlock’s back. There were steps to be taken. He slipped on a condom first, giving himself a few lubed strokes. This had been his therapist’s piece of advice - not to wait until the last minute. Sherlock hissed in a fast breath as John began to prepare him. God, it was tight. Was this even possible? He knew it was, people did it every day, but it just didn’t seem like it. His cock wasn’t exactly small, and right now he was harder than he’d ever been in his life for wanting this man.
“Please, John,” Sherlock groaned, writhing a bit beneath John’s fingers.
“I think you need…”
“I’m ready. Come on.”
The desire in his voice drove a hard spike of want up John’s spine. He grasped Sherlock’s hips and pulled him up a bit, positioning himself. Another piece of advice had been to go slow, which seemed like a near-impossible task right now when his whole body was screaming at him to just plunge his cock into Sherlock and take him hard. There’d be a time when he could do that, perhaps, but not now. Now he had to go slow. He pressed forward and felt Sherlock’s body give way - but then Sherlock gasped and cried out in pain, pulling forward and away. John jerked back in alarm, going soft in an instant. “Oh, Sherlock - are you all right? I’m so sorry…” he said, misery dousing the heat of his desire. He lay down next to him.
“I’m fine,” Sherlock said, with a disappointed sigh. “It just felt like too much.”
“I should have gone slower, I’m sorry, it’s my…”
“No. It’s not your fault. I thought I was relaxed but the minute you started I tensed right up again.” He turned to his side and burrowed close to John, tucking his head beneath John’s chin. “I’m sorry, I just wanted it to be good.”
John wrapped his arms around him, chuckling a little. “Maybe that wasn’t realistic. We’re both new to this. And you know, we don’t have to have sex like that at all if we don’t want to.”
“But I do want to. Don’t you?”
He sighed. “God, yes. The thought of being inside you, of you inside me - yeah, I want it.”
“Then we will. We’ll work it out.” Sherlock tilted his face up and kissed John, slow and gentle, teasing his lips open. John slid his hand down to cup Sherlock’s arse - God, that arse, he couldn’t get enough of it. They just kissed and touched each other for a few minutes, heat springing to their skin. John felt Sherlock grow hard again against his hip. Sherlock stroked John’s cock, condom still on it, although the heat of his hand and the lube was making him feel like it wasn’t there at all. That was good advice there, Stephen, he thought, smiling against Sherlock’s mouth.
Sherlock pushed him over onto his back and crawled over him. “Let’s try it like this,” he murmured, kissing John’s neck before sitting up, straddling John’s hips. “I’ll have more control.”
John could only nod, dazed at the sight of all this Sherlock above him, a long column of pale, smooth skin filled with his blood and breath and life. He slid his hands around Sherlock’s hips and around to his arse, up his chest, wherever he could reach. Sherlock kept him pinned in place with his eyes, those unearthly verdigris eyes that every cinematographer he’d ever worked with had worshiped in close-ups and side-lighting. He rocked his hips over John’s until he was hard again, then reached behind, raised up and slowly inched his way down, taking John into his body. “Oh Christ, Sherlock,” John choked out. His neck arched, his head slamming back into the pillows, his fingers clenching on Sherlock’s hips.
Sherlock kept repeating his name, borne soft on each exhale -- like an incantation, barely audible. He braced his hands on John’s chest and rocked, his eyes closing and his face twitching as he made experimental movements, getting used to John inside him. John reached up and slid his fingers up his cheek and into his hair. Sherlock opened his eyes and met his. John lifted his hands; Sherlock took the cue and laced his fingers through John’s, bracing his weight on John’s elbows. John planted his feet and raised his knees behind Sherlock and they moved together, back and forth like the tide coming in and going out, gently at first and then quicker. John’s heart pounded; he saw sweat sheen on Sherlock’s chest and face, the flush rising to his breast. He let go of one of Sherlock’s hands and grasped his cock, stroking it in time with the rhythm they were settling into. “John,” Sherlock breathed. “I can feel you,” he said, his head lolling on his neck.
“I can feel your heart beating,” John said, unaware he was going to say it until he heard it come out of his mouth. He could, too. He could feel Sherlock’s pulse through their connection.
Sherlock met his eyes again and John’s breath caught in his chest at the raw emotion he saw there; he’d never seen Sherlock so exposed in his expression, and it cut at him to see Sherlock’s desire, his trust and his love. He reached up and pulled him down because he had to be kissing him again. He wrapped him up in his arms and worked his hips upward into him. Sherlock framed John’s head in his hands and kissed him back, tiny moans escaping his throat. He was writhing against John’s stomach, his erection trapped between them, and then John felt him stiffen and come, the warm wetness blooming between them. John grabbed his arse in both hands and followed after a few more strokes, the world going gray as he spent himself inside Sherlock’s body.
They just lay there clutching each other for a moment, catching their breath. Sherlock’s face was pressed into John’s shoulder. He combed his fingers through the curls, as he thought he’d never get tired of doing. He cradled Sherlock to his chest, overcome with the sudden need to protect him and make everything all right for him, in perpetuity, as long as he was able to do so.
Sherlock pulled back and kissed him. “Second time’s the charm,” he rumbled.
“Jesus, you have to be careful how you deploy that voice,” John said, smiling. “Unless you want to find yourself on your back again.”
“Maybe I do.”
John chuckled. “Fucking hell, give me a minute. I’m not twenty-five anymore.”
Sherlock rolled to the side, John sliding out of him. He drummed his fingers on John’s damp chest. “Not to worry. Next time I fully intend to have you on your back.” He grinned and winked, then got up and went into the attached bathroom.
“Fucking hell,” John repeated, in wonderment. The idea filled him with anticipation and a little nervousness. He got up and joined Sherlock in the bathroom.
After sorting themselves out a bit, they returned to the bed and slid beneath the covers. John lay on his side, head propped on his elbow, and let his fingers dance meaningless little trails over Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock watched his face. They didn’t speak for a few minutes.
“What are we going to do?” John finally said.
Sherlock’s eyes closed for a moment. He turned his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Do about what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. It’s the one role you can’t perform convincingly.”
“You’re referring to how to handle the public aspects of our lives where it concerns our relationship.”
John dreaded the answer, but he had to ask the question. “Do you want a relationship with me?”
“I’d have thought that would be obvious.”
“Having sex on a holiday in Sussex isn’t a relationship, Sherlock. It’s a fantasy.”
“I’m not the world’s most knowledgeable person as to what constitutes a relationship.”
John sighed. “Why don’t you just tell me what you do want?”
Sherlock was still for a moment, then he turned on his side to face him. “All right. Here is what I want. I want you to be there when I wake up, and I want to be there when you go to sleep. I want to only have to cross a room to talk to you, not an ocean or a city or even a street. I want you to know the things I know, and I want to know the things you know. I want to assume that I will see you every day. I want us to have plans without having to make the plans. I want you to be a part of my decisions about my career, and I want to be a part of yours. I want to read the scripts you’re considering and have you read mine. I want to know that you are there and for you to know that I am. I want it to just be understood that anything that involves me also involves you.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what all that means.”
John’s eyes roved all over his face. “It means you want a relationship, Sherlock.”
“Then I ought to ask you if that’s what you want, too.” Sherlock met his eyes, and John saw in them vulnerability that he’d never thought to see there.
He put his hand on Sherlock’s cheek. “Yes. God, yes.” Such an expression of relief came over Sherlock’s face then that John had to kiss it all over.
They relaxed back against the pillows, tucked a bit closer now. “Your question remains unanswered, however,” Sherlock said.
“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Johns aid, suddenly loathe to do so. “Let’s just enjoy our time together.”
“That implies that you believe that time to be finite.”
“Well, it is, for now. I have to be back in Los Angeles on the weekend, and I’d like to visit my parents again before I go. I’d love it if you came back with me, but I know you can’t.”
“Not for a little while. I have some commitments until the end of the month. I had intended to return to Los Angeles for our ADR sessions and remain there through the winter.”
“Good. When you come over, would you…” John harrumphed, feeling a little insecure about asking this question. “I mean, you could stay with me. At my house.”
“I’d like that.” John could feel him thinking. “You don’t intend to tell anyone about our relationship.”
John blinked. “How did you…”
“Your suggestion that we cohabit at your home as opposed to mine. My condo is in a busy part of town. Your house is in a secure gated neighborhood where we are much less likely to be observed.”
“We can’t, Sherlock. We can’t tell anyone. Not yet.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“You don’t see why not? You’ve got to be fucking joking!”
“Our personal lives are no one else’s business.”
“Now you’re being deliberately obtuse. Sherlock - you and I are both coming off a few pretty lean years but we’re both still A-list film stars. And we’ve both been presumed to be straight, having only had public relationships with women. If we just - I mean, we can’t just - it would be a media circus.”
Sherlock sighed. “Why must everything be so tiresome?”
“I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“And yet you seem perfectly willing to go along with it and let yourself be cowed into silence.”
“I’m not letting myself be cowed, I’m being realistic! It shouldn’t matter, but it does. It shouldn’t be an issue, but it is. You’ve been in this business almost as long as I have, you know how many actors and actresses stay in the closet for the sake of their careers.”
“That’s their choice.”
“And they make it for a reason. I hate that this is the way it has to be, but I’m being practical, here. It would kill our careers.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that!”
“What if I don’t care?” Sherlock said, suddenly fierce.
John shook his head. “That’s very sweet, but I know that you do. Your work is your whole life, Sherlock.”
“I don’t need Hollywood and their disgusting hypocrisy,” he spat. “I can find excellent work in London. On the stage, in small films, in television productions. Most of the work there is better than what Hollywood offers me, and they won’t care if I choose you as a partner.”
“That’s fine for you, then. What about me? I’m not like you, Hollywood is where I work, it’s where I’m known. I didn’t take drama class with half the Royal Shakespeare Company.”
“What are you suggesting, then? That we hide in your house? That we let our publicists wheel us out with women on our arms as a cover? That we never ride in the same car or let ourselves even be seen together?”
John shut his eyes for a moment. His guts were rolling at the idea of hiding in the way Sherlock was describing. He wanted nothing more than to grab a megaphone and announce to the world that he and Sherlock were together, to tell the world, to tell everyone and everything else be damned. But he couldn’t. They couldn’t. “Yes. For now.”
Sherlock sat up, snorting. “For now? How long is that?”
John sat up as well, wrapping one arm around Sherlock’s waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. “It’s this film, Sherlock. To a Stranger is important to me, and I know it is to you as well. We can’t do anything to overshadow it, and if it comes out that its two previously-straight co-stars fell in…” He cut himself off. Sherlock glanced at him, waiting. He cleared his throat and continued. “That its previously-straight co-stars are together after having met during the film, well, that’s that. That will be the story, the only story, and no one will care about the film itself. It’ll eat everything. We won’t have a moment’s peace. We will be hounded night and day and it will not stop to let the film be seen on its own merits, and it deserves that. We worked too hard on it. I know you don’t want that.”
“The film is important to me, of course it is.” He turned and met John’s eyes. “You are more important.”
John’s chest ached. “Oh, God, you are too. But I need this, Sherlock. This is my chance for a new career, a better one. If this film is as good as we hope it is, it could reinvent me. You’re the one who said my career hasn’t been worthy of me. Well, this could mean I’ll have a shot at one that is. If I’m with you, my tenure as the king of the date movie will probably be over. I need something else to put in its place.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we wait. I don’t want us to hide forever. I can’t do that anymore than you can. But the studio will murder us both in our sleep if we drop this bomb before the film opens. We can manage for a few months. Until after the Oscars. Once that’s over and done with, we can go public, and fuck them all if they don’t like it.”
Sherlock was searching his face like he was puzzling something out. “John, I’ve never known you to be less than wholly brave. This isn’t you. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it, either. I hate it.” He kissed Sherlock’s shoulder. “God, I want to be seen with you. I want to walk a red carpet with you on my arm, I want to tell the whole world that you are mine and I am yours.” He sighed, stroking his hand through Sherlock’s hair. “I suppose this is my payback for being so sure of myself. I’ve said it so many times, that gay actors should just come out. Why should they be afraid? Why should they hide? I’ve said it offhandedly, as if there were no good reason for them to keep it secret, as if I knew better than they did. Turns out it’s a bit more complicated when it’s you.”
Sherlock sighed, a long and shuddery one. “I don’t want to hide, John. But I will, if you say we must. Your career is the important thing here. I want you to have the respect you deserve as an actor. I want you to have the chance to play parts that are worthy of your talent.” He met John’s eyes. “But - we will be together, won’t we? You’re not saying we should stay away from each other until after the Oscars.”
“Christ, no. I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it.” He reached out and drew Sherlock into his arms, hugging him tight. “I won’t give you up. Not for anything.” Sherlock hugged him back hard, burrowing close to him, and John Watson had never hated his job more than he did at that moment - almost as much as he hated himself.
Visual Aids!
Sherlock’s car:
Sherlock’s country house:
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