Performance In a Leading Role (17/20)
Title: Performance in a Leading Role
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 8850 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: NC-17
Beta: tzikeh
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 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Chapter 12 -- Chapter 13 -- Chapter 14 -- Interlude -- Chapter 15 -- Chapter 16
Chapter 17
“Hurry up, show’s starting!” Sally called from the den.
Harry hurried back, refilled popcorn bowl in hand. Sally lifted the afghan to let her sit down, then they covered back up. “Oh my God, what is Angie wearing? She needs to get away from the drapey Roman-priestess look, it is done like a really done thing.”
“At least Brad shaved. I was starting to worry that he was sheltering a flock of small, flightless birds,” Sally said.
“For God’s sake, these people pay their stylists a gajillion dollars, and this is the best they can come up with? I could do better!”
“You know what we sound like, don’t you?”
“Bitter Hollywood nobodies?”
“Got it in one.”
“Well, that’s what we are, isn’t it?” Harry’s phone trilled; she fished it out of her pocket. “Text message from Irene. She says they’re thirty seconds out, so the boys’ll be on the red carpet in a few minutes.”
“And then, let the wild rumpus begin.”
They were quiet for a moment. “Do you think one of them will win?” Harry said.
Sally sighed. “I’ve been going back and forth all day. Moriarty’s got a lot of support.”
“John took the New York and the Chicago Film Critics’ Circle’s top honors. That has to count for something.”
“But he got shut out of a SAG nomination. People are wondering why.”
“Nobody wants to talk about why, because the coming-out factor is always the elephant in the room.”
“It didn’t hurt Sherlock.”
“No, but remember what Greg said? It’d be harder on John than on Sherlock?”
Sally nudged her. “Shh, here they are.”
On the screen, the crowds were waving and cheering as John and Sherlock appeared on the red carpet, hand in hand. Flashbulb saturation immediately doubled. They walked down the red carpet past the phalanx of photographers, pausing every few steps to pose for photos. They smiled and waved, hanging on to each other, until they made their way to the first of many interviews. The reporter, some entertainment-channel floozy with giant white Chiclet teeth, grinned into her camera. “I’m standing here with trailblazing power couple Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, both of whom are nominees here tonight for Best Actor. Any tension at home over that?” she said, chuckling.
Sally snorted. “’Trailblazing power couple.’ Something tells me that isn’t the last time we’re going to hear that.”
“No, not at all,” John was saying. “We’re not in competition. It’s up to the Hollywood Foreign Press who wins.”
“Sherlock, you’re a two-time nominee here at the Golden Globes, but you’ve never won the prize. What would it mean to you to win here tonight?”
Sherlock wasn’t bothering to conceal his annoyance at having to answer inane questions. John’s expression was blandly pleasant, but Harry could tell by the set of his jaw that he was squeezing Sherlock’s fingers hard to keep him from blurting something too terribly snotty. “It would be an honor, of course,” Sherlock said, flatly. “This film has been important to both of us, and we’re hoping it will be recognized. Whether that leads to individual honors for us is less of a concern.”
“Thank you, Sherlock and John, and best of luck tonight.”
They both nodded and moved off as quickly as possible. Harry shrugged. “At least he didn’t tell her to stuff it.”
“He was thinking it.” Sally shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “Well, now we wait.”
They watched the rest of the red carpet, snarking on everyone’s clothes, until the commercial break before the ceremony started. Harry’s phone rang; she answered and immediately put it on speaker. “Did you survive the gauntlet?” she said.
“Barely,” Irene said. “I’ve made my escape to the press lounge. I had to rugby-tackle someone from Variety to get this nice table in the corner. How’d the boys look?”
“All right. John was amiable, Sherlock looked like he was being forced through a garlic press.”
“So they looked normal.”
“More or less.”
“I had to scramble to keep them from bumping into Moriarty in front of the press. That could have been awkward.”
“He is just desperately in love with the sound of his own voice, isn’t he?” Sally said. “He babbled about his craft and his motivation until the reporter had to practically shove him away.”
“Yeah, he’s a douche-canoe, but I think he’s going to win this award tonight. Shit, I gotta go wrangle some reporters. I’ll call you back.” The line went dead.
“You think he’ll win?” Harry said. “Moriarty, I mean.”
Sally shrugged. “He shouldn’t.”
“Fuck no, he shouldn’t. John should win.”
“Hold up, there! Let’s not discount my employer.”
“Sherlock’s fantastic in the film, but John….” Harry trailed off. “He needs to win.”
Sally frowned. “Why? I mean, besides the obvious.”
Harry sighed. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, what’s going on? Is it that you need him to win?” Harry just sat there, trying to keep her face neutral, but she couldn’t have been doing a very good job because Sally’s eyes widened. “Oh. I see.”
“What? What’re you talking about?”
“You didn’t think he could handle this role, did you?”
She grit her teeth. “He’s my brother. I have total confidence in him.”
“Liar.”
Harry looked over at her. “All right, I had my doubts. But I didn’t know! Nobody knew! I knew he was a good actor, but…Christ, I never knew he was that good. He’d never had a chance to show it. But I should have known. I should never have doubted him.”
“And if he wins, then it’ll take a bit of the sting out, is that it?”
“I know, that makes no sense. Anyway, John doesn’t know any of this, so don’t you tell him.”
“I won’t.”
They settled in to watch the awards. Irene came back on the line shortly after the ceremony started and the three of them kept up a running commentary on everyone’s attire, speechmaking ability, and general worth as human beings. They agreed that the hosting left something to be desired, and that the cameramen had been directed to get as many shots of John and Sherlock at their table as possible. They were sitting with the rest of the contingent from To a Stranger: Ang and his wife; Molly; Emma Hudson (who was presenting); James Schamus; and Andrew Bird, who was nominated for his score.
One of the commercial bumper shots caught John and Sherlock sitting side by side at their table, looking for all the world like bored travelers waiting for their flight to be called. “They have Actor Face on,” Sally said.
“Which face?”
“Actor Face. You know, that expression they all wear when they’re in public and they don’t want anybody to know what they’re thinking or feeling. I don’t know how you’d describe Actor Face but I know it when I see it.”
Harry cocked her head. “Hmm. I think I’d call it ‘wearily pensive’.”
“’Casually thoughtful’?”
“How about…’inoffensively resigned’?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty close.” A quick camera shot between award presentations showed them again; this time Sherlock’s arm was stretched out over the back of John’s chair. They both still had Actor Face, but then John looked over at Sherlock and for just an instant the face slipped, and Harry saw a quick moment of affection pass between them. Then it was over and they both looked ‘wearily pensive’ again.
Sally sighed. “Have you ever been in love like that? Like they are?”
“Thought I was, a couple of times. But then it always ended, and I’d realize that the person in that relationship wasn’t me, but some version of me that I thought they wanted or would like better.”
“Too right.”
“What about you?”
Sally shrugged. “Never had the time, or really the inclination.”
“What about David?”
“What about him?”
Harry snorted. “Guess that answers that question.”
“Well, what about Clara?”
Harry went quiet. “I’m very fond of Clara.”
“My, how…pleasant.”
“I know,” Harry said, wrinkling her nose. “We haven’t been able to cobble together enough days in a row in each other’s company to figure out how we feel. I don’t love her. But maybe I could.” She drew up her feet and tucked the afghan closer around her legs. “Sometimes, seeing John so happy with such an unlikely person-I know it sounds trite, but it makes me think anything might be possible.”
Sally nodded. “Maybe.” As the broadcast resumed, the bumper shot caught Tom Hanks talking to John and Sherlock at their table. “Cor, look at that. A blessing from on high.”
“Shh, this is one of ours,” Harry said, flapping a hand at her.
They cheered Molly’s win for her screenplay, then Andrew’s win for his score. They grabbed each other and cheered even louder when Ang won for Best Director.
“Christ, this is it,” Harry said, when Scarlett began reading the nominees for Best Actor in a Film, Drama. She and Sally were clutching each other’s hands like teenage girls watching a horror film. “God, please let him win. At least let one of them win.”
The camera lighted on each nominee in turn. John looked like the picture of calm stoicism, while Sherlock looked like he’d cheerfully trade places with any given prisoner in solitary confinement.
“And the Golden Globe goes to…”
John Watson, John Watson, John Watson…
“James Moriarty!”
“OH, FUCK THAT!” Sally shouted.
Harry’s heart sank. The audience was applauding as Moriarty rose to accept his award. The camera clicked over to John and Sherlock. They exchanged a sort of “oh, well” look, both of them politely applauding. “Well, shit,” she muttered.
“That is bloody highway robbery!”
Moriarty was now at the podium, babbling his acceptance speech in typically pompous fashion. “God, that insufferable bastard.”
“He’ll be even more insufferable now that he’s Mr. Oscar Favorite.”
“How did he win this? Almost none of the critics put him on top. Mostly it was John or Sherlock, with a few odd men out going for Jean or George.”
“The critics aren’t the best arbiter of one’s Oscar chances and you know it.”
“This bloody well sinks John for an Oscar, especially without a SAG nomination.”
“Let’s just hope that git doesn’t win the SAG, too. If Sherlock wins, at least it’s still a little bit open for debate.”
“God, what if John doesn’t even get nominated?”
Sally got up to get a refill. “Oh, he will. I don’t think there’s any question. Beyond that? Fuck if I know.”
John and Sherlock kept a low profile at the after-party. After making the requisite rounds of hugs and congratulatory chit-chat, they’d gotten themselves drinks and retreated to a quiet spot. It wasn’t long before Schamus found them. He set the Best Picture statuette on the table and looked at each of them in turn. “One of you guys should have one of these,” he said.
“We’re just glad the film did so well tonight,” John said.
“Your performances were so much better than his.”
Sherlock sat forward a little. “Do you think the result was influenced by our relationship?”
Jim shrugged. “I’d hate to think so. But some people might be wondering if the whole thing was engineered to draw attention to the film.”
“That rumor just refuses to die, doesn’t it?” John said, gritting his teeth.
“How can it die, with a certain newly-minted Golden Globe winner resuscitating it every time it threatens to expire?” Sherlock sneered. “He does love to make the insinuation.”
“What do we have to do?” John asked. “Get off with each other on the red carpet for people to believe it’s not a publicity stunt?”
“That would probably only fan the flames,” James said. He shook his head with a rueful smile. “No pun intended.”
John got up. “I’m for a drink. Sherlock?”
“I’m fine.”
He headed off to order something strong, hoping he didn’t get waylaid too many times. He made it all the way to the bar and ordered a vodka tonic before he felt a hand on his arm. He turned, ready to give a polite brush-off, but couldn’t help but smile when he saw who it was. “Natalie, how are you?” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “How’s that new little chap of yours?” The bartender handed him his cocktail.
She beamed. “He’s wonderful. Starting to crawl, getting into everything. John, I just had to tell you how much I loved your film,” she said.
“Thank you; that’s nice to hear. We’re very proud of it.”
She glanced around, then leaned in a little closer. “I hope I don’t have to smile and act happy while I hand Jim Moriarty an Oscar next month,” she said, sotto voce. “Not sure I’ve got that performance in me.”
“At this point I think he has to be considered the favorite. We’ll see how the SAGs shake out.”
“You deserved that award tonight, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Good Lord, of course I don’t mind. Go ahead and say it again if you like.”
She laughed. “We can’t have you getting a big ego.”
“Never fear. Sherlock’s got ego enough for the both of us.” Natalie grinned and he saw her eyes cut past his shoulder. “Bollocks, he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” John turned to find Sherlock looking down at him from beneath arched eyebrows. “Oh, don’t you dare look insulted.”
“Who said I was insulted? If I’ve such an enormous ego, perhaps it’s your own fault.”
“How is it my fault?”
“Anyone who’d managed to secure the affections of the eminently desirable John Watson might be justified in the size of their ego, I daresay.”
“Awww,” Natalie said.
John flushed and shook his head. “I don’t know how he does that. He’ll take some irritating personality quirk of his own and turn it into a compliment to me so I can’t possibly keep being annoyed.” He noted that Natalie was looking at Sherlock with frank curiosity. “I’m sorry, have you two met? Sherlock, this is Natalie.”
They shook hands. “We haven’t met,” Natalie said. “I’m a big fan, though.”
“Likewise. Your accolades of last year were richly deserved, although I confess I preferred your work in V for Vendetta.”
She grinned. “I loved working on that film. Honestly, I was excited to have an excuse to shave my head. I’d always wanted to try it.”
“So have I, actually,” Sherlock said.
John’s eyes snapped wide. “Don’t you dare!” The thought of Sherlock’s glorious curls shorn off hardly bore contemplation.
“Oh, dear. Have I touched a nerve?” Sherlock said, his eyes twinkling.
A smartly but unobtrusively dressed woman (probably her publicist) appeared and murmured in Natalie’s ear. Natalie nodded, then turned back to them. “I have to go, but it was so good to see you, John.” She clasped his hand and kissed his cheek. “And to meet you, Sherlock.”
“Good to see you, too,” John said. They watched her disappear with a wave. John turned back to Sherlock and sipped his drink. “Why’d you lie?” he said from behind a placid smile.
“Hmm?”
“I seem to recall you pronouncing Black Swan ‘predictable and overrated’ and her performance ‘histrionic and one-note’. It isn’t like you to engage in empty flattery.”
Sherlock sighed. “I meant what I said about V for Vendetta, at least.”
“Sherlock….”
“She needed a moment so I gave her one.” His eyes flicked over towards the doors. John looked and saw a photographer, sitting half in shadow, his camera still pointing in their direction. “She wanted to be photographed talking to us, so I gave her a nice, smiley photo-op. No harm, really.”
John’s heart sank. “I had no idea. I thought Natalie was a friend.”
“Don’t be daft, John, of course she is. Her affection for you is quite sincere. People are capable of having more than one motive at a time. Her desire to congratulate you and her admiration for the film and your performance are genuine. If she also wanted some documented face time with us - the current column-inch champions - then that’s show business.”
John looked around the crowd, noticing for the first time how many people were watching them surreptitiously, gauging their availability, timing their approaches, weighing the options. “Will I ever be able to trust anyone again?” he murmured. “Except you, of course.”
“Oh, I’m the last person you ought to trust. I’m just using you for sex and publicity. Haven’t you heard?”
“Nice to hear you admit it, at least,” came a voice from behind them.
John saw Sherlock shut his eyes for a moment. They both turned to face Moriarty, who was standing there with his Golden Globe in one hand. “James.”
“Hello, darling. Quite a night we’re having, isn’t it?” John saw Sherlock’s lip curl at the ‘darling’, and his own inner alpha-male sent up a bit of a warning flare at another man being quite so familiar.
“Have you let go of that thing for a moment?” Sherlock said.
Moriarty shrugged, glancing down at the statuette. “It just feels so comfortable in my hand, as if it had been made just for me,” he said, with an odd giggle. “Would you like to hold it?” He held it out. “As long as you promise to give it back!”
“No, thank you,” Sherlock said, looking down his nose as if Moriarty were offering him a tarantula.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re being rude. James Moriarty, we haven’t met,” he said to John, holding out a hand.
John shook it, mostly because he couldn’t come up with a reason not to fast enough. “John Watson.”
“Of course you are, of course you are. You know, Sherlock, you ought to be careful what you say. The walls have ears as well as eyes. We wouldn’t want more rumors going around about your high-profile romantic adventures.”
“You started half those rumors yourself,” Sherlock said.
Moriarty put on an exaggerated shocked face, gasping as one hand flew to his throat. “What a suggestion! That I’d do such a thing to an old friend.”
“We’re not friends, we never were.”
“Oh, no. It goes so much further than that.” John frowned, which Moriarty didn’t miss. His eyes twinkled with delight. “Don’t tell me he doesn’t know,” he said, tossing Sherlock a “you-naughty-boy” smirk.
“Doesn’t know what?” John said.
“Nothing. He’s winding you up.”
“Sherlock, you wound me. Did it mean so little to you?”
“It meant nothing to either of us,” Sherlock hissed.
John had heard enough. He grasped Sherlock by the upper arm. “Come on, Sherlock. I think we’ve stayed long enough for politeness.” Sherlock let John lead him away, but his furious gaze was still fixed back on Moriarty.
“See you next time, boys,” he said, waggling his fingers in a jaunty little wave.
John dragged Sherlock out of the party and to their car. They climbed into the back, and John toggled the button that raised the privacy screen as their driver pulled out of the parking lot.
“Want to tell me what that was all about?” John said, doing his best to keep his voice even while his guts were churning.
“Nothing. Ancient history.”
“You slept with him, didn’t you?” Sherlock’s silence was answer enough. “Christ. Were you ever going to mention this?”
“It isn’t important. It couldn’t be less important.”
“The hell it couldn’t. You’ve got history with him, and now he’s using it against us. That is my business, Sherlock, to say nothing of the fact that you’re my…whatever the hell you are, and I have a right to know these things!”
“You have a right, do you? Tell me, John, do I know every single thing about your past? Have you told me every detail of your history, every person you slept with, every mistake you made? No, nor should you have to. A relationship is not a deposition. There is no oath sworn between us to disclose all. I respect your right to some privacy, as you ought to respect mine.”
“Have I ever asked you anything you weren’t comfortable answering?”
Sherlock sighed. “No.”
“This came up on its own, and now Moriarty’s using it to try to drive a wedge between us. I won’t let him do that. I don’t care what your history is with him, but I’d rather not be blindsided by it, and I want you to feel like you can talk to me about it.”
His gaze fixed out the window, Sherlock reached out blindly for John’s hand. John grasped it and squeezed. “I didn’t want you to think less of me,” he said, quietly.
“I couldn’t,” John said. “I love you.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. “He was a year ahead of me at RADA,” Sherlock said. “He had a reputation for being exceedingly ambitious and cunning, just as I had one for being able to see through people at a glance. I know now that he saw me as a challenge. I’d been an object of romantic designs to a few of my classmates, but I had little interest in meaningless dormitory liaisons. He set his sights on me because I was supposedly unattainable, I let him succeed…well, because I was bored and, I admit, a little curious. We both thought we were playing the other. I soon discovered that being with him was even more tiresome than being bored, and I called it off. This was an unpleasant surprise to him, because he’d been hoping to exploit our connection to worm his way into a production I was organizing with our most sought-after director. He never forgave me for not being the easy mark he took me for. That might have been the end of it, if he hadn’t later tried to get me expelled when I exposed his unsavory methods of furthering his career. He’s a gutter snake and I find it offensive that his name is even mentioned in the same sentence as yours.”
John ran his thumb over the backs of Sherlock’s knuckles. “I knew there had to be more to it than you’d told me.”
“He hates that I eventually saw through him, I hate that he fooled me. And now I hate that he took this award tonight that ought to have been yours.”
“You deserved it just as much.”
“Maybe. But I wanted it for you. I want this bloody business to admit that they were all wrong about you, John.”
“I don’t care about their admiration. It’s enough to have earned your respect. You give it to so few people; I never thought I’d be one of them.”
Sherlock finally turned and met his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“Accepted.”
The house was quiet, the lights darkened. They climbed the stairs in silence, fingers intertwined, listening to each other breathe.
Their bedroom closed around them. John turned around, his hands finding Sherlock unerringly in the dark, sliding up his chest to his shoulders. He felt Sherlock’s hands on his waist, his breath on his cheek, closer now, and then Sherlock’s lips against his. His mouth was soft and quiet, his kisses slow and deliberate. John slid his hands up and around Sherlock’s neck and stood on tiptoe to lean closer into the kiss. Sherlock pressed kisses to his cheeks, his jaw, around to the side of his neck. “John,” he murmured.
John held him tightly, arching his neck under Sherlock’s lips. “There’s never been anyone but you,” he whispered. “I want you to know that.”
“I know,” Sherlock said, the words muffled against the skin of John’s throat. “Nor for me. There was never even the dream, the hope of anyone else.” He sealed his lips over John’s and kissed him again, deep and languid. Warmth rose to John’s skin and pooled beneath his clothes as they kissed each other, laced together in the dark of the bedroom. “I could never have imagined you,” Sherlock said, the words hardly more than shaped breath.
John slid his hands under Sherlock’s coat and pushed it off his shoulders, down his arms until it fell to the floor. They undressed each other, unhurried; Sherlock’s touch was tender and reverent, as if he weren’t quite sure John wasn’t a mirage. Sensing Sherlock’s need, John went pliant and allowed him to do as he liked, to make love to John however he needed to. He wound himself around Sherlock, caging him in his limbs, sighing as Sherlock pressed into him with a groan, the now-familiar sensation of their joining driving all other thought from his mind. Sherlock murmured in his ear as he stroked into him, little half-heard endearments, wordless susurrations that still managed to speak to John’s mind. John’s body suddenly leapt to meet Sherlock’s and he came without warning, a cry surprised from his throat. Sherlock kissed him hard and groaned out his own release, John’s name sounding like a confession on his lips. He fell into John’s embrace, spent and gasping. “John,” he said. “He was nothing. You are everything.”
“More screeners,” John called, kicking the back door shut. He put away the milk, then walked into the den, tossing the DVDs into a box. They’d been watching one or two a night for weeks. “So this is the exciting life of an Academy member,” John commented. “Buried in screeners.”
Sherlock made a noncommittal noise from his reclining position on the sofa, his laptop open on his chest. “Next year we’ll get duplicates of everything because you’ll be a member by then.”
“That is by no mean certain.”
“They almost always invite nominees to join, especially ones as well-known as you.”
“Leaving aside that my nomination is not a foregone conclusion, they can invite whomever they like, and an actor known almost entirely for disposable date movies might not fit in with the august membership of the Academy.” His phone rang. “It’s Mike.” John wandered back into the kitchen. “Mike, hello.”
“Hi, John. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.”
John’s heart sank. “The lawyer picture?”
“They’re withdrawing their offer. They’re going in a different direction.”
“A direction consisting of ‘any actor not named John Watson’, presumably.”
“Don’t overreact. This happens all the time.”
“It’s happening more than usual of late. Gosh, I wonder why.”
“I’ve got more irons in the fire here, John. It doesn’t matter.”
John sighed. “All right. Let me know.” He hung up and tossed his phone to the kitchen counter.
“John?” Sherlock called from the den.
“What?”
“While you’re out there….”
“Yeah, tea, I know,” John said, tamping down irritation. He put the kettle on. Tea? John shook his head and went into the fridge for a beer instead. He’d finished it by the time the tea was done and stopped himself from getting another.
Sherlock looked up and frowned as John handed him his tea. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“It’s all over your face, and you just drank a beer at three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Let me guess, you can tell from the amount of moisture on my lips or the slight flush on my cheeks, right?”
“Or because I heard you open the bottle and I can smell it on your breath. What is it?”
John flopped into a chair. “That courtroom-drama project fell through.”
Sherlock’s eyebrow arched. “Fell through?”
“Yes, they’ve decided to ‘go another direction’,” John said, making air-quotes with his fingers. “On top of that, I was supposed to get a script from Darabont, and suddenly no one in his office has any idea what Mike’s talking about when he asks.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “I suppose I’m too old to learn a new trade. Will you still love me if I’m forced to sell my body on a street corner?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, it won’t come to that. In the worst-case scenario you’ll be a kept man, and it’d be my honor to keep you.”
“That isn’t especially reassuring when faced with the disintegration of my career.”
“Projects come and go. It’s the nature of our profession.”
“I think we both know that isn’t the problem. That’s three projects I was being considered for that have suddenly gone up in smoke with no explanation. That is not a coincidence.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“I don’t need to jump at all, the conclusions are right bloody in front of me.”
“It hasn’t been happening to me.”
“You’re not on the market. And we always knew this would be worse for me than for you. Hard to be an Everyman when all the flyover audiences are imagining me going down on you.”
“It’s temporary. You’re going to win an Oscar and they’ll all be lining up, begging you to take their projects.”
“That is ridiculously optimistic, and frankly, it sounds bizarre coming from you.”
“It isn’t optimism, it’s certainty. You are too good an actor to be brushed aside.”
John couldn’t help but smile. “Your faith in me is…encouraging.”
“Don’t insult me. Faith is a belief without empirical support. My assessment of your career prospects is based on evidence and reality, not wishful thinking.”
“You almost have me believing it.”
“You may do so. Count on it. I, as you know, am never wrong.”
“Except when you said I’d win the Golden Globe.”
“I believe I said that you deserved to win, which you did. The idiocy of the Hollywood Foreign Press doesn’t affect the fact that I am still right.”
John squinted at him. “You’re being freakishly cheery about this. What’s going on?”
“What makes you think something is going on?”
“I’ve met you. Something is going on.”
“I fear some of my suspicious nature may be rubbing off on you.”
“Don’t give me that, what’s going on with you?” Sherlock studiously avoided his gaze, and just like that, John knew. “Sherlock, how many times must I tell you that whatever happens to my career now is not your fault? I won’t have you blaming yourself.”
Sherlock hesitated a moment before answering. “What makes you think I am blaming myself?”
“Because you’re overcompensating. Stop it.”
He met John’s eyes briefly, then returned his attention to his laptop. “If our relationship has adverse consequences for you, then it is unavoidably my fault, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.”
“If there are consequences, I’ll accept them. Doesn’t mean I’ll be thrilled about it, but given a choice between the career I had and being with you, then you win every time.”
Sherlock looked up, his face blank but his eyes gone a bit soft. “I hope that’s always the case, John.”
“It will be.” John might have said more, but the doorbell interrupted him. He sighed and got up to answer it, assuming it would be the UPS man or something. Instead, he found a messenger on the doorstep. “Delivery for Mr. Holmes,” he said.
“I’ll take it.” John signed for the delivery, a thick legal-sized envelope. He shut the door and checked the return address: Imagine Entertainment. John’s heart leapt. “Sherlock!” He hurried back into the den.
“What?”
“This came for you. Is it what I think it is?”
Sherlock stood up, tearing open the envelope. He withdrew a sheaf of papers, his eyes scanning the type-then he shut his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “It’s the contracts for the Tesla project.”
John grinned. “Well, what are you waiting for? Sign them!”
Sherlock grinned back, one of his rare, genuine smiles. “You know, I didn’t want to let myself believe it would really happen until I was holding these contracts. I suppose it’s safe to get excited now.” He sat down and laid out the contracts on the coffee table. John sat down next to him and looked over his shoulder. It was all there, the standard provisions and agreements, Sherlock’s salary and working schedule spelled out. His compensation was very generous, quite a bit above market for telefilms, which reflected Sherlock’s status in the pantheon of working actors. The document was initialed by Greg, indicating that he had reviewed it and approved the legalities on Sherlock’s behalf. There was a Post-It note stuck to the signatures page. We’re thrilled to have you on board for this project and I look forward to working with you. -RH
Sherlock met John’s eyes. “This project is going to take over my life this summer.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Last chance to raise any objections.”
“What objections would I raise? It’s a fantastic project and I can’t wait to see you in the period wardrobe. Would you sign it, already?”
Sherlock glanced from John’s face to the contracts, then picked up his pen and signed. He dropped the pen with a sigh. “Well, that’s done.”
John took Sherlock’s face in his hands and kissed him. “Congratulations. You’ll be brilliant.”
“You will be just as brilliant in whatever project is smart enough to sign you next.”
“You better call Irene. She’ll want to put out a press release.”
Sherlock got out his phone, but before he could dial, it rang in his hand. “Hello, Irene,” he said, thumbing on the speaker.
“Did you sign the contracts?”
“Just this very moment. How on Earth do you do that?”
“I’m watching you on closed-circuit cameras right now.”
“Ha ha.”
“You think I’m joking, don’t you? I’ve got a press release ready; do you want to review it first?”
“No need. I place my public image in your capable hands.”
“Such faith, I’m touched. Okay, John, about the courtroom drama.”
“It fell through.”
“You say that like you think I don’t already know. And I can hear you panicking from across town. Sherlock, is he panicking?”
“He’s working up to it.”
“Well, stop it. Panicking is not warranted. Not yet.”
“They were so keen to have me screen test, and now they want to go in a different direction?” John said.
“True, but it isn’t about you. From what I hear, they’re on the verge of signing a very big-name actress, and she is insisting that they hire one of only a short list of actors she’ll work with.”
“And why am I not on her list?”
“Well, it isn’t because you’re gay, because Bradley Cooper is on the list.”
“He’s not out.”
“He might as well be. I suspect it’s an age thing.”
“Oh! Fantastic! Now I’m losing parts because I’m gay and because I’m old! Smashing!”
“Sherlock, please whap him over the head with something. John, you’ve never been the vain, self-absorbed type of actor, and if you turn into one I’m going to have to kill you, slowly, and with pain. You are thirty-eight years old, a long way from aging out of the leading-man market, which is just your good fortune for having been born with external gonads,” she said, a trace of bitterness lacing her voice. “Parts fall through, projects evolve, things don’t work out. You have been in the business long enough to know the score. You’re extra-paranoid because you’ve never experienced this level of public scrutiny, and you’re feeling invalidated by Moriarty’s win. If it helps, everyone thinks that award should have gone to you. This may actually give you a boost with Oscar voters. Being seen as the wronged underdog can mean more votes.”
John sighed. It did help. “You’re better than a therapist, Irene.”
“A good publicist is a therapist. Sherlock signing for a high-profile project will shut up a lot of naysayers and I have complete and total confidence that a good project for you is just around the corner.”
“As I have been trying to tell him,” Sherlock said. “Perhaps he’ll believe it coming from you.”
“At any rate, I don’t want you worrying about your next job right now,” Irene went on. “Let’s focus on getting through awards season first. The Oscar nominations….”
“No,” John said.
“I haven’t said anything!”
“You’re about to make another plea to let you film us watching the nomination announcement. Absolutely not.”
“But it could be fantastic!” Irene said. “It’ll help normalize your relationship, humanize you as people! I’ll only release the clip if you’re both nominated!”
“We are not going to become the Gay Actors’ Reality Show,” Sherlock sneered.
“Hey, you’re the ones who outed yourselves on a livestream!”
“We’ll watch the nominations here, in our home, by ourselves. If you’re a very, very good girl we might let you watch them with us via speakerphone.”
“Gee, I’m all aflutter,” Irene said, flatly.
“I have that effect on a lot of people,” Sherlock said, dropping a wink at John. “Leave us in peace, then.”
“Congratulations, Sherlock. On the Tesla project. It’s going to be fantastic.”
“I very much hope so.” He hung up. “Good God. How long until all this tomfoolery is over and done with?”
“Another month, or just about.”
“Can’t come soon enough.” Sherlock stretched out on the sofa again, reclaiming his laptop.
John stayed where he was, perched on the edge of the cushion, staring at his hands. He felt frazzled and uncertain, but he wasn’t sure what, if anything, to do about it. He looked around, wishing them back in Sussex, in their house. Five weeks away hadn’t been nearly enough. He missed the privacy, the calm, the intimacy of living there with Sherlock, like they were any other couple setting up housekeeping together, fighting over chores, puttering around the house, cooking and sleeping and talking about everything and nothing. Here, there was so much to deal with, all the time, never ending - the press, their agents, the business, the rumor mill, the blogosphere, these bloody awards that meant so much to everyone.
“John?” Sherlock was frowning up at him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m just….” He sighed, looking down at Sherlock, sprawled elegantly across the sofa. “I don’t know.”
Sherlock set his laptop on the floor at his side and held out one arm. John smiled. Sherlock could always tel when John needed a cuddle. John stretched out next to him, tucking himself between Sherlock’s body and the back of the couch and nestling his head down on Sherlock’s shoulder. Long arms encircled him and he felt a kiss pressed to his forehead. His eyes fell shut, and his body began to relax.
As John lay there, feeling the stress of the day bleed out of him as Sherlock’s warmth diffused through him, he wondered how he’d ever managed to navigate life alone, and hoped fervently that he’d never have to do so again.
Sherlock was already awake at five a.m., while John was, predictably, dead to the world. When the phone rang, Sherlock reached across him and put the it on speaker. “Good morning, Irene.”
John struggled awake, lifting his head from the pillow. “Do you have any idea what fucking time it is?”
“It’s five o’clock!” Irene crowed. “Get up! Why aren’t you up? It’s time!”
“It is not time, it will not be time for a half hour.”
“Make some coffee! Get downstairs!”
Sherlock pulled the phone closer, away from John, who was still muttering in irritation. “Irene, we are going to watch the nominations from right here in this bed and not move from it between now and then, nor for a good while after. Call us back at five thirty.” He hung up. “For God’s sake. She’s on Rockstar again, isn’t she?”
“The ‘again’ implies that she was ever off it,” John said, sliding back down into the bedclothes. He turned and looked at Sherlock’s face. “We’ll never get back to sleep now.”
“I wasn’t sleeping in the first place.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“Half an hour or so.”
John rubbed a hand over his sleep-muddled face. He was mussed and bleary-eyed and Sherlock thought he looked absolutely adorable, although he wouldn’t have said so. “What’ve you been doing? Just lying here?”
“I am never just doing anything, as you well know.”
John yawned. “You were listening to your brain, weren’t you?”
“Crudely put, but yes.”
“What is it saying this morning?”
“That I’ll have to cut my hair short for Tesla. That there are at least two dozen ways to murder Jim Moriarty so that I’d never be caught. That it might be time for some renovations on the house in Sussex. That you’re a better actor than I will ever be. That Greg is waiting for the right moment to spring another period piece on me that he thinks I ought to do.”
John was giving him a lazy, flirty smile. “Say that again?”
“About the period piece?”
“Before that.”
Sherlock smiled, reached out and ruffled John’s fringe with one finger. “You heard me.”
John shifted closer and kissed him, slow and warm. “We’ve got twenty-six minutes to kill.”
“Shall we play cards, then?”
“We could lie here and have a snog.”
“Acceptable.”
In the end, those twenty-six minutes were filled with a combination of snogging, breaks for the loo, one phone call each from their respective assistants, more snogging, and a few minutes of dozy near-sleep. When Irene called again, they were more or less awake.
“Do you have it on? Turn on your TV!” Irene screeched.
“Good God, how many Rockstars is that so far, then?” Sherlock said, sitting up in bed and reaching for the remote. He put on E!, where the host was babbling to fill up the time until the nomination announcements began. John scooted up in the bed and tucked himself into Sherlock’s side, leaning his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. He was warm and pliant; Sherlock wrapped one arm around him, sensing the anticipation beginning to thrum through him. The same anticipation was sizzling up and down Sherlock’s own nerves, but to his surprise, he found that he honestly did not care if he himself were nominated, or if he won. He cared only about John. Such unselfish thoughts were still strange to him, having spent his whole life thinking of himself and caring only about that which affected him and his work. His happiness is more important to me than my own, the stray thought floated across his mind. He suspected that such a sentiment might constitute one possible definition of being in love. “You’re going to be nominated, you know,” he said, quietly.
“I wish I could be as confident. You’re a lock.”
“Nothing’s ever a lock, you know that.”
On the screen, AMPAS president Tom Sherak and actress Amy Adams were coming to the podium. “Oh, it’s Amy,” John said. “I didn’t know she’d gotten roped into this. I’ve not seen her since last summer. We did that Pixar film together.”
“John, shush!” Irene said.
“We’re not up for a few minutes!” he said, indignant.
They watched as the first nominees were read off. John clapped and cheered when Sarah was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The Supporting Actor and Best Actress nominations flew by in a blur, and then it was time for their category. Sherlock felt another little shiver of anxiety run down his back. John reached out and took his hand.
“I think I’m going to puke,” Irene groaned.
Amy began to read the boilerplate language. “For Best Performance by an Actor In a Leading Role, the nominees are….”
“Here we go,” Sherlock murmured.
“George Clooney, in The Descendants. Jean Dujardin, in The Artist. Sherlock Holmes, in To a Stranger.”
Irene cheered. Hearing his own name barely made a ripple on the surface of Sherlock’s consciousness; all he could focus on was waiting to hear John’s.
“James Moriarty, in For Which It Stands, and John Watson, in To a Stranger.”
Relief and joy burst into Sherlock’s mind. He’d known, he’d known that John could not but be recognized for the extraordinary work he’d done. He knew that the very unexpectedness of John’s talent would make his peers want to reward him. The nation’s Greek chorus of critics had anointed him, almost unanimously, as the best actor of the year. And yet…coming up short to James Moriarty, of all people, at the Globes, and being entirely passed over for a SAG award-the mixed signals would drive anyone mad.
John had gone limp against Sherlock’s side. A rush of breath escaped him, his chest collapsing in its wake. “Bloody hell,” he wheezed. He was definitely not hearing Amy reading off the Best Director nominees.
Sherlock pulled him closer, chuckling. “I told you,” he said. “I told you that you’d be nominated.” He kissed John’s temple.
Irene was - well, it sounded like she was having some sort of seizure. “-and the inquiries, everything will be rotued through Bruno, and…John? John! Are you listening to me?”
Sherlock picked up the phone and thumbed off the speaker. “I’m afraid Mr. Watson is unavailable until further notice. Would you like to leave a message?” He stroked his free hand through John’s hair.
“This concerns you, too, Mr. Smartypants. I can be there within the hour, and we’ve got to -”
“We’ve got to do nothing at all until at least noon, and if I see you here before then, I’ll set the dogs on you.”
“You don’t have dogs!”
“We could have dogs.”
“Never mind about the dogs, this is unprecedented! Hollywood’s first openly gay A-list couple and you’re facing off on Oscar night?! You cannot buy press like this, Sherlock, and we are damn well going to take advantage of it. You guys need to be up and dressed and looking presentable, because everyone and their goddamned brother is going to want joint interviews and statements and photos and-”
“Irene, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to hang up the phone, and you’re going to deal with all that press rubbish for us, because that is your job, for which we pay you an exorbitant fee. I am going to lie here in bed with my Oscar-nominated partner, and once he regains the use of his senses, we are going to have a great deal of Oscar-nominated sex. Clear? Goodbye!” He hung up, cutting off Irene in mid-squawk. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
“I’m nominated,” John said, barely louder than a whisper.
“Yes, my love, you most certainly are.” Sherlock picked up his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.
“For an Oscar.”
“I know.”
“A real one.”
“I should hope it would be real.”
John was shaking his head. He looked up at Sherlock with still-disbelieving eyes. “I knew it could happen, I thought it might, but….” His mouth opened and shut a few times.
“I know what you mean. It isn’t quite real until you hear your name. My first nomination, all I could do was walk around my flat like a zombie for a good half hour. I must’ve rewound the recording of the announcement a half dozen times just to make extra sure that they’d really said my name.”
John’s eyes lit up. “Can we do that? Just to make sure?”
“Of course.” Sherlock picked up the remote and rewound the broadcast until they heard his name again. John Watson, in “To a Stranger.”
John sighed. “Holy shit.” He stared up at Sherlock again. “They actually - I mean, they really….” He trailed off.
“They really what?”
“Took me seriously.”
Sherlock’s heart clenched a little at how amazed John sounded. If he had his way, no one would ever think to take John anything but seriously, ever again. “As well they ought to,” he said.
“So we’re really going to…you know. Walk that carpet, and sit in that auditorium. We’ll be able to sit together, won’t we?”
Sherlock laughed. “Yes, of course.”
John smiled. “Good.” The stunned deer-in-the-headlights look was beginning to leave his eyes. He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled cheeks. “Christ almighty, did that just happen?”
“It did. You are John Watson, Oscar nominee.”
“And you are Sherlock Holmes, Oscar nominee.” John smirked. “But that’s old hat for you, isn’t it? That’s three now-no doubt it’s getting tiresome.”
“I think some things don’t really get old.”
“You don’t seem excited. About you, I mean.”
Sherlock looked into John’s face, glowing with excitement. “You want the truth?” He lifted a hand and carded his fingers through John’s hair. “I’ve barely thought about my own nomination. All I care about is yours. This film might have resurrected my career, but it’s reinvented yours, and never has a career been more deserving of a rebirth. I think of you toiling in those middlebrow workaday films for ten, twenty more years and it turns my stomach. You deserve better, you are better, and our profession, not to mention the public, deserves to enjoy your real gifts. I hope to hell I don’t win this Oscar, because I want you to win it.”
John’s eyes were welling up. He leaned in and pulled Sherlock into his arms, rolling them over with the duvet tangling around them. “You really mean all that, don’t you?”
Sherlock looked up at him and nodded. “Indeed, I do.” He shrugged, his lip curling in a smirk. “Besides, I’ve already got an Oscar. It wouldn’t do to be greedy.”
John laughed and kissed him, hard and deep, not letting up until Sherlock was half-melted into the mattress. John dove into Sherlock’s mouth and tipped his hips between Sherlock’s legs, pressing down and rocking against him. Sherlock grabbed at John’s pajama bottoms, his tongue sliding into John’s mouth, and after a few moments of flailing, they managed to get each other naked without tearing anything or leaving any scratches. “On your knees,” John rasped, in the electrified tone he only got when he was really turned on. Sherlock obeyed so fast that he almost went over the side of the bed, kneeling low and spreading his thighs.
John dipped his head and licked a long stroke up Sherlock’s cleft. Sherlock groaned, his head dropping down. John rolled Sherlock’s balls in one hand, keeping his other on the small of Sherlock’s back as he worked him over with his tongue; Sherlock just kept still while shivers wracked his body. “God, John,” Sherlock whispered. “Do it, do it now. I want you inside me.”
John scrambled for the lube and made quick work of the preparation. He was breathing fast; Sherlock could feel the heat radiating off his body and see the deep flush rising to his pale skin. John sank deep with a low grunt of satisfaction, his hands gripping Sherlock’s narrow hips.
Sherlock pressed back against him, lifting up a little to grab the headboard of their bed and brace himself. He glanced back at John and his breath caught; John’s eyes were heavy-lidded with desire, the muscles of his chest and arms standing out like he’d just done three rounds of circuit training. “Yes, John,” he purred. “Fuck me.”
John bent low over Sherlock’s back and did just that. He let his face rest against Sherlock’s shoulderblades and thrust wildly, barely in control of himself. John wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s torso and worked his hips hard and fast; Sherlock wished there was some way for John to hold him tighter, go deeper, get closer, because no matter how close they were, it never seemed close enough. John grasped Sherlock’s erection and stroked him to the rhythm of their bodies, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Sherlock’s back and shoulders wherever he could reach. Sherlock came with a hoarse shout; the pulsing of his release pulled John over the edge and he spilled into him, gripping Sherlock’s hips again, his body stuttering and leaping and burying itself deeper still. Sherlock felt John’s forehead come to rest against his spine as John sagged, wrung out. They stayed still for a moment until Sherlock’s knees buckled and he pulled them both down to the bed in a tangle of limbs. He turned over, found John’s mouth, and kissed him hard, breathy and haphazard, half-muttered words and murmurings slipping from his lips.
Sherlock watched his lover’s face, both of them glowy and damp from sex, but when their eyes met, instead of a moment of deep emotional connection…John burst out laughing.
Sherlock blinked. “John? I’m given to understand that the post-coital afterglow period is not normally an occasion for mirth, or have I been incorrectly informed?”
“I’m sorry,” John said, still giggling. “I don’t know what’s come over me.” The double entendre set him off again.
Sherlock smiled, starting to chuckle himself. “It’s the adrenaline.”
John kissed him between giggles, his hands all over Sherlock’s chest. “I half-expected Irene to ring us in the middle of it.”
“At least she would have a good answer for all those inane questions about how we’re reacting to our nominations.” Sherlock slipped into an American accent, doing his best imitation of Irene, which he knew was quite good. “’John and Sherlock are thrilled to be nominated, in fact they’re fucking like crazed weasels right now.’”
That sent John into fresh peals of laughter again. “They’d love that over at People.”
Sherlock’s chuckles died down; he raised one hand to John’s cheek. “Professional acclaim must agree with you, John. That was a truly memorable shag.”
John grinned. “I’d like to thank the Academy.”
Next Chapter
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 8850 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: NC-17
Beta: tzikeh
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 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Chapter 12 -- Chapter 13 -- Chapter 14 -- Interlude -- Chapter 15 -- Chapter 16
Chapter 17
“Hurry up, show’s starting!” Sally called from the den.
Harry hurried back, refilled popcorn bowl in hand. Sally lifted the afghan to let her sit down, then they covered back up. “Oh my God, what is Angie wearing? She needs to get away from the drapey Roman-priestess look, it is done like a really done thing.”
“At least Brad shaved. I was starting to worry that he was sheltering a flock of small, flightless birds,” Sally said.
“For God’s sake, these people pay their stylists a gajillion dollars, and this is the best they can come up with? I could do better!”
“You know what we sound like, don’t you?”
“Bitter Hollywood nobodies?”
“Got it in one.”
“Well, that’s what we are, isn’t it?” Harry’s phone trilled; she fished it out of her pocket. “Text message from Irene. She says they’re thirty seconds out, so the boys’ll be on the red carpet in a few minutes.”
“And then, let the wild rumpus begin.”
They were quiet for a moment. “Do you think one of them will win?” Harry said.
Sally sighed. “I’ve been going back and forth all day. Moriarty’s got a lot of support.”
“John took the New York and the Chicago Film Critics’ Circle’s top honors. That has to count for something.”
“But he got shut out of a SAG nomination. People are wondering why.”
“Nobody wants to talk about why, because the coming-out factor is always the elephant in the room.”
“It didn’t hurt Sherlock.”
“No, but remember what Greg said? It’d be harder on John than on Sherlock?”
Sally nudged her. “Shh, here they are.”
On the screen, the crowds were waving and cheering as John and Sherlock appeared on the red carpet, hand in hand. Flashbulb saturation immediately doubled. They walked down the red carpet past the phalanx of photographers, pausing every few steps to pose for photos. They smiled and waved, hanging on to each other, until they made their way to the first of many interviews. The reporter, some entertainment-channel floozy with giant white Chiclet teeth, grinned into her camera. “I’m standing here with trailblazing power couple Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, both of whom are nominees here tonight for Best Actor. Any tension at home over that?” she said, chuckling.
Sally snorted. “’Trailblazing power couple.’ Something tells me that isn’t the last time we’re going to hear that.”
“No, not at all,” John was saying. “We’re not in competition. It’s up to the Hollywood Foreign Press who wins.”
“Sherlock, you’re a two-time nominee here at the Golden Globes, but you’ve never won the prize. What would it mean to you to win here tonight?”
Sherlock wasn’t bothering to conceal his annoyance at having to answer inane questions. John’s expression was blandly pleasant, but Harry could tell by the set of his jaw that he was squeezing Sherlock’s fingers hard to keep him from blurting something too terribly snotty. “It would be an honor, of course,” Sherlock said, flatly. “This film has been important to both of us, and we’re hoping it will be recognized. Whether that leads to individual honors for us is less of a concern.”
“Thank you, Sherlock and John, and best of luck tonight.”
They both nodded and moved off as quickly as possible. Harry shrugged. “At least he didn’t tell her to stuff it.”
“He was thinking it.” Sally shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “Well, now we wait.”
They watched the rest of the red carpet, snarking on everyone’s clothes, until the commercial break before the ceremony started. Harry’s phone rang; she answered and immediately put it on speaker. “Did you survive the gauntlet?” she said.
“Barely,” Irene said. “I’ve made my escape to the press lounge. I had to rugby-tackle someone from Variety to get this nice table in the corner. How’d the boys look?”
“All right. John was amiable, Sherlock looked like he was being forced through a garlic press.”
“So they looked normal.”
“More or less.”
“I had to scramble to keep them from bumping into Moriarty in front of the press. That could have been awkward.”
“He is just desperately in love with the sound of his own voice, isn’t he?” Sally said. “He babbled about his craft and his motivation until the reporter had to practically shove him away.”
“Yeah, he’s a douche-canoe, but I think he’s going to win this award tonight. Shit, I gotta go wrangle some reporters. I’ll call you back.” The line went dead.
“You think he’ll win?” Harry said. “Moriarty, I mean.”
Sally shrugged. “He shouldn’t.”
“Fuck no, he shouldn’t. John should win.”
“Hold up, there! Let’s not discount my employer.”
“Sherlock’s fantastic in the film, but John….” Harry trailed off. “He needs to win.”
Sally frowned. “Why? I mean, besides the obvious.”
Harry sighed. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, what’s going on? Is it that you need him to win?” Harry just sat there, trying to keep her face neutral, but she couldn’t have been doing a very good job because Sally’s eyes widened. “Oh. I see.”
“What? What’re you talking about?”
“You didn’t think he could handle this role, did you?”
She grit her teeth. “He’s my brother. I have total confidence in him.”
“Liar.”
Harry looked over at her. “All right, I had my doubts. But I didn’t know! Nobody knew! I knew he was a good actor, but…Christ, I never knew he was that good. He’d never had a chance to show it. But I should have known. I should never have doubted him.”
“And if he wins, then it’ll take a bit of the sting out, is that it?”
“I know, that makes no sense. Anyway, John doesn’t know any of this, so don’t you tell him.”
“I won’t.”
They settled in to watch the awards. Irene came back on the line shortly after the ceremony started and the three of them kept up a running commentary on everyone’s attire, speechmaking ability, and general worth as human beings. They agreed that the hosting left something to be desired, and that the cameramen had been directed to get as many shots of John and Sherlock at their table as possible. They were sitting with the rest of the contingent from To a Stranger: Ang and his wife; Molly; Emma Hudson (who was presenting); James Schamus; and Andrew Bird, who was nominated for his score.
One of the commercial bumper shots caught John and Sherlock sitting side by side at their table, looking for all the world like bored travelers waiting for their flight to be called. “They have Actor Face on,” Sally said.
“Which face?”
“Actor Face. You know, that expression they all wear when they’re in public and they don’t want anybody to know what they’re thinking or feeling. I don’t know how you’d describe Actor Face but I know it when I see it.”
Harry cocked her head. “Hmm. I think I’d call it ‘wearily pensive’.”
“’Casually thoughtful’?”
“How about…’inoffensively resigned’?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty close.” A quick camera shot between award presentations showed them again; this time Sherlock’s arm was stretched out over the back of John’s chair. They both still had Actor Face, but then John looked over at Sherlock and for just an instant the face slipped, and Harry saw a quick moment of affection pass between them. Then it was over and they both looked ‘wearily pensive’ again.
Sally sighed. “Have you ever been in love like that? Like they are?”
“Thought I was, a couple of times. But then it always ended, and I’d realize that the person in that relationship wasn’t me, but some version of me that I thought they wanted or would like better.”
“Too right.”
“What about you?”
Sally shrugged. “Never had the time, or really the inclination.”
“What about David?”
“What about him?”
Harry snorted. “Guess that answers that question.”
“Well, what about Clara?”
Harry went quiet. “I’m very fond of Clara.”
“My, how…pleasant.”
“I know,” Harry said, wrinkling her nose. “We haven’t been able to cobble together enough days in a row in each other’s company to figure out how we feel. I don’t love her. But maybe I could.” She drew up her feet and tucked the afghan closer around her legs. “Sometimes, seeing John so happy with such an unlikely person-I know it sounds trite, but it makes me think anything might be possible.”
Sally nodded. “Maybe.” As the broadcast resumed, the bumper shot caught Tom Hanks talking to John and Sherlock at their table. “Cor, look at that. A blessing from on high.”
“Shh, this is one of ours,” Harry said, flapping a hand at her.
They cheered Molly’s win for her screenplay, then Andrew’s win for his score. They grabbed each other and cheered even louder when Ang won for Best Director.
“Christ, this is it,” Harry said, when Scarlett began reading the nominees for Best Actor in a Film, Drama. She and Sally were clutching each other’s hands like teenage girls watching a horror film. “God, please let him win. At least let one of them win.”
The camera lighted on each nominee in turn. John looked like the picture of calm stoicism, while Sherlock looked like he’d cheerfully trade places with any given prisoner in solitary confinement.
“And the Golden Globe goes to…”
John Watson, John Watson, John Watson…
“James Moriarty!”
“OH, FUCK THAT!” Sally shouted.
Harry’s heart sank. The audience was applauding as Moriarty rose to accept his award. The camera clicked over to John and Sherlock. They exchanged a sort of “oh, well” look, both of them politely applauding. “Well, shit,” she muttered.
“That is bloody highway robbery!”
Moriarty was now at the podium, babbling his acceptance speech in typically pompous fashion. “God, that insufferable bastard.”
“He’ll be even more insufferable now that he’s Mr. Oscar Favorite.”
“How did he win this? Almost none of the critics put him on top. Mostly it was John or Sherlock, with a few odd men out going for Jean or George.”
“The critics aren’t the best arbiter of one’s Oscar chances and you know it.”
“This bloody well sinks John for an Oscar, especially without a SAG nomination.”
“Let’s just hope that git doesn’t win the SAG, too. If Sherlock wins, at least it’s still a little bit open for debate.”
“God, what if John doesn’t even get nominated?”
Sally got up to get a refill. “Oh, he will. I don’t think there’s any question. Beyond that? Fuck if I know.”
John and Sherlock kept a low profile at the after-party. After making the requisite rounds of hugs and congratulatory chit-chat, they’d gotten themselves drinks and retreated to a quiet spot. It wasn’t long before Schamus found them. He set the Best Picture statuette on the table and looked at each of them in turn. “One of you guys should have one of these,” he said.
“We’re just glad the film did so well tonight,” John said.
“Your performances were so much better than his.”
Sherlock sat forward a little. “Do you think the result was influenced by our relationship?”
Jim shrugged. “I’d hate to think so. But some people might be wondering if the whole thing was engineered to draw attention to the film.”
“That rumor just refuses to die, doesn’t it?” John said, gritting his teeth.
“How can it die, with a certain newly-minted Golden Globe winner resuscitating it every time it threatens to expire?” Sherlock sneered. “He does love to make the insinuation.”
“What do we have to do?” John asked. “Get off with each other on the red carpet for people to believe it’s not a publicity stunt?”
“That would probably only fan the flames,” James said. He shook his head with a rueful smile. “No pun intended.”
John got up. “I’m for a drink. Sherlock?”
“I’m fine.”
He headed off to order something strong, hoping he didn’t get waylaid too many times. He made it all the way to the bar and ordered a vodka tonic before he felt a hand on his arm. He turned, ready to give a polite brush-off, but couldn’t help but smile when he saw who it was. “Natalie, how are you?” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “How’s that new little chap of yours?” The bartender handed him his cocktail.
She beamed. “He’s wonderful. Starting to crawl, getting into everything. John, I just had to tell you how much I loved your film,” she said.
“Thank you; that’s nice to hear. We’re very proud of it.”
She glanced around, then leaned in a little closer. “I hope I don’t have to smile and act happy while I hand Jim Moriarty an Oscar next month,” she said, sotto voce. “Not sure I’ve got that performance in me.”
“At this point I think he has to be considered the favorite. We’ll see how the SAGs shake out.”
“You deserved that award tonight, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Good Lord, of course I don’t mind. Go ahead and say it again if you like.”
She laughed. “We can’t have you getting a big ego.”
“Never fear. Sherlock’s got ego enough for the both of us.” Natalie grinned and he saw her eyes cut past his shoulder. “Bollocks, he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” John turned to find Sherlock looking down at him from beneath arched eyebrows. “Oh, don’t you dare look insulted.”
“Who said I was insulted? If I’ve such an enormous ego, perhaps it’s your own fault.”
“How is it my fault?”
“Anyone who’d managed to secure the affections of the eminently desirable John Watson might be justified in the size of their ego, I daresay.”
“Awww,” Natalie said.
John flushed and shook his head. “I don’t know how he does that. He’ll take some irritating personality quirk of his own and turn it into a compliment to me so I can’t possibly keep being annoyed.” He noted that Natalie was looking at Sherlock with frank curiosity. “I’m sorry, have you two met? Sherlock, this is Natalie.”
They shook hands. “We haven’t met,” Natalie said. “I’m a big fan, though.”
“Likewise. Your accolades of last year were richly deserved, although I confess I preferred your work in V for Vendetta.”
She grinned. “I loved working on that film. Honestly, I was excited to have an excuse to shave my head. I’d always wanted to try it.”
“So have I, actually,” Sherlock said.
John’s eyes snapped wide. “Don’t you dare!” The thought of Sherlock’s glorious curls shorn off hardly bore contemplation.
“Oh, dear. Have I touched a nerve?” Sherlock said, his eyes twinkling.
A smartly but unobtrusively dressed woman (probably her publicist) appeared and murmured in Natalie’s ear. Natalie nodded, then turned back to them. “I have to go, but it was so good to see you, John.” She clasped his hand and kissed his cheek. “And to meet you, Sherlock.”
“Good to see you, too,” John said. They watched her disappear with a wave. John turned back to Sherlock and sipped his drink. “Why’d you lie?” he said from behind a placid smile.
“Hmm?”
“I seem to recall you pronouncing Black Swan ‘predictable and overrated’ and her performance ‘histrionic and one-note’. It isn’t like you to engage in empty flattery.”
Sherlock sighed. “I meant what I said about V for Vendetta, at least.”
“Sherlock….”
“She needed a moment so I gave her one.” His eyes flicked over towards the doors. John looked and saw a photographer, sitting half in shadow, his camera still pointing in their direction. “She wanted to be photographed talking to us, so I gave her a nice, smiley photo-op. No harm, really.”
John’s heart sank. “I had no idea. I thought Natalie was a friend.”
“Don’t be daft, John, of course she is. Her affection for you is quite sincere. People are capable of having more than one motive at a time. Her desire to congratulate you and her admiration for the film and your performance are genuine. If she also wanted some documented face time with us - the current column-inch champions - then that’s show business.”
John looked around the crowd, noticing for the first time how many people were watching them surreptitiously, gauging their availability, timing their approaches, weighing the options. “Will I ever be able to trust anyone again?” he murmured. “Except you, of course.”
“Oh, I’m the last person you ought to trust. I’m just using you for sex and publicity. Haven’t you heard?”
“Nice to hear you admit it, at least,” came a voice from behind them.
John saw Sherlock shut his eyes for a moment. They both turned to face Moriarty, who was standing there with his Golden Globe in one hand. “James.”
“Hello, darling. Quite a night we’re having, isn’t it?” John saw Sherlock’s lip curl at the ‘darling’, and his own inner alpha-male sent up a bit of a warning flare at another man being quite so familiar.
“Have you let go of that thing for a moment?” Sherlock said.
Moriarty shrugged, glancing down at the statuette. “It just feels so comfortable in my hand, as if it had been made just for me,” he said, with an odd giggle. “Would you like to hold it?” He held it out. “As long as you promise to give it back!”
“No, thank you,” Sherlock said, looking down his nose as if Moriarty were offering him a tarantula.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re being rude. James Moriarty, we haven’t met,” he said to John, holding out a hand.
John shook it, mostly because he couldn’t come up with a reason not to fast enough. “John Watson.”
“Of course you are, of course you are. You know, Sherlock, you ought to be careful what you say. The walls have ears as well as eyes. We wouldn’t want more rumors going around about your high-profile romantic adventures.”
“You started half those rumors yourself,” Sherlock said.
Moriarty put on an exaggerated shocked face, gasping as one hand flew to his throat. “What a suggestion! That I’d do such a thing to an old friend.”
“We’re not friends, we never were.”
“Oh, no. It goes so much further than that.” John frowned, which Moriarty didn’t miss. His eyes twinkled with delight. “Don’t tell me he doesn’t know,” he said, tossing Sherlock a “you-naughty-boy” smirk.
“Doesn’t know what?” John said.
“Nothing. He’s winding you up.”
“Sherlock, you wound me. Did it mean so little to you?”
“It meant nothing to either of us,” Sherlock hissed.
John had heard enough. He grasped Sherlock by the upper arm. “Come on, Sherlock. I think we’ve stayed long enough for politeness.” Sherlock let John lead him away, but his furious gaze was still fixed back on Moriarty.
“See you next time, boys,” he said, waggling his fingers in a jaunty little wave.
John dragged Sherlock out of the party and to their car. They climbed into the back, and John toggled the button that raised the privacy screen as their driver pulled out of the parking lot.
“Want to tell me what that was all about?” John said, doing his best to keep his voice even while his guts were churning.
“Nothing. Ancient history.”
“You slept with him, didn’t you?” Sherlock’s silence was answer enough. “Christ. Were you ever going to mention this?”
“It isn’t important. It couldn’t be less important.”
“The hell it couldn’t. You’ve got history with him, and now he’s using it against us. That is my business, Sherlock, to say nothing of the fact that you’re my…whatever the hell you are, and I have a right to know these things!”
“You have a right, do you? Tell me, John, do I know every single thing about your past? Have you told me every detail of your history, every person you slept with, every mistake you made? No, nor should you have to. A relationship is not a deposition. There is no oath sworn between us to disclose all. I respect your right to some privacy, as you ought to respect mine.”
“Have I ever asked you anything you weren’t comfortable answering?”
Sherlock sighed. “No.”
“This came up on its own, and now Moriarty’s using it to try to drive a wedge between us. I won’t let him do that. I don’t care what your history is with him, but I’d rather not be blindsided by it, and I want you to feel like you can talk to me about it.”
His gaze fixed out the window, Sherlock reached out blindly for John’s hand. John grasped it and squeezed. “I didn’t want you to think less of me,” he said, quietly.
“I couldn’t,” John said. “I love you.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. “He was a year ahead of me at RADA,” Sherlock said. “He had a reputation for being exceedingly ambitious and cunning, just as I had one for being able to see through people at a glance. I know now that he saw me as a challenge. I’d been an object of romantic designs to a few of my classmates, but I had little interest in meaningless dormitory liaisons. He set his sights on me because I was supposedly unattainable, I let him succeed…well, because I was bored and, I admit, a little curious. We both thought we were playing the other. I soon discovered that being with him was even more tiresome than being bored, and I called it off. This was an unpleasant surprise to him, because he’d been hoping to exploit our connection to worm his way into a production I was organizing with our most sought-after director. He never forgave me for not being the easy mark he took me for. That might have been the end of it, if he hadn’t later tried to get me expelled when I exposed his unsavory methods of furthering his career. He’s a gutter snake and I find it offensive that his name is even mentioned in the same sentence as yours.”
John ran his thumb over the backs of Sherlock’s knuckles. “I knew there had to be more to it than you’d told me.”
“He hates that I eventually saw through him, I hate that he fooled me. And now I hate that he took this award tonight that ought to have been yours.”
“You deserved it just as much.”
“Maybe. But I wanted it for you. I want this bloody business to admit that they were all wrong about you, John.”
“I don’t care about their admiration. It’s enough to have earned your respect. You give it to so few people; I never thought I’d be one of them.”
Sherlock finally turned and met his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“Accepted.”
The house was quiet, the lights darkened. They climbed the stairs in silence, fingers intertwined, listening to each other breathe.
Their bedroom closed around them. John turned around, his hands finding Sherlock unerringly in the dark, sliding up his chest to his shoulders. He felt Sherlock’s hands on his waist, his breath on his cheek, closer now, and then Sherlock’s lips against his. His mouth was soft and quiet, his kisses slow and deliberate. John slid his hands up and around Sherlock’s neck and stood on tiptoe to lean closer into the kiss. Sherlock pressed kisses to his cheeks, his jaw, around to the side of his neck. “John,” he murmured.
John held him tightly, arching his neck under Sherlock’s lips. “There’s never been anyone but you,” he whispered. “I want you to know that.”
“I know,” Sherlock said, the words muffled against the skin of John’s throat. “Nor for me. There was never even the dream, the hope of anyone else.” He sealed his lips over John’s and kissed him again, deep and languid. Warmth rose to John’s skin and pooled beneath his clothes as they kissed each other, laced together in the dark of the bedroom. “I could never have imagined you,” Sherlock said, the words hardly more than shaped breath.
John slid his hands under Sherlock’s coat and pushed it off his shoulders, down his arms until it fell to the floor. They undressed each other, unhurried; Sherlock’s touch was tender and reverent, as if he weren’t quite sure John wasn’t a mirage. Sensing Sherlock’s need, John went pliant and allowed him to do as he liked, to make love to John however he needed to. He wound himself around Sherlock, caging him in his limbs, sighing as Sherlock pressed into him with a groan, the now-familiar sensation of their joining driving all other thought from his mind. Sherlock murmured in his ear as he stroked into him, little half-heard endearments, wordless susurrations that still managed to speak to John’s mind. John’s body suddenly leapt to meet Sherlock’s and he came without warning, a cry surprised from his throat. Sherlock kissed him hard and groaned out his own release, John’s name sounding like a confession on his lips. He fell into John’s embrace, spent and gasping. “John,” he said. “He was nothing. You are everything.”
“More screeners,” John called, kicking the back door shut. He put away the milk, then walked into the den, tossing the DVDs into a box. They’d been watching one or two a night for weeks. “So this is the exciting life of an Academy member,” John commented. “Buried in screeners.”
Sherlock made a noncommittal noise from his reclining position on the sofa, his laptop open on his chest. “Next year we’ll get duplicates of everything because you’ll be a member by then.”
“That is by no mean certain.”
“They almost always invite nominees to join, especially ones as well-known as you.”
“Leaving aside that my nomination is not a foregone conclusion, they can invite whomever they like, and an actor known almost entirely for disposable date movies might not fit in with the august membership of the Academy.” His phone rang. “It’s Mike.” John wandered back into the kitchen. “Mike, hello.”
“Hi, John. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.”
John’s heart sank. “The lawyer picture?”
“They’re withdrawing their offer. They’re going in a different direction.”
“A direction consisting of ‘any actor not named John Watson’, presumably.”
“Don’t overreact. This happens all the time.”
“It’s happening more than usual of late. Gosh, I wonder why.”
“I’ve got more irons in the fire here, John. It doesn’t matter.”
John sighed. “All right. Let me know.” He hung up and tossed his phone to the kitchen counter.
“John?” Sherlock called from the den.
“What?”
“While you’re out there….”
“Yeah, tea, I know,” John said, tamping down irritation. He put the kettle on. Tea? John shook his head and went into the fridge for a beer instead. He’d finished it by the time the tea was done and stopped himself from getting another.
Sherlock looked up and frowned as John handed him his tea. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“It’s all over your face, and you just drank a beer at three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Let me guess, you can tell from the amount of moisture on my lips or the slight flush on my cheeks, right?”
“Or because I heard you open the bottle and I can smell it on your breath. What is it?”
John flopped into a chair. “That courtroom-drama project fell through.”
Sherlock’s eyebrow arched. “Fell through?”
“Yes, they’ve decided to ‘go another direction’,” John said, making air-quotes with his fingers. “On top of that, I was supposed to get a script from Darabont, and suddenly no one in his office has any idea what Mike’s talking about when he asks.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “I suppose I’m too old to learn a new trade. Will you still love me if I’m forced to sell my body on a street corner?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, it won’t come to that. In the worst-case scenario you’ll be a kept man, and it’d be my honor to keep you.”
“That isn’t especially reassuring when faced with the disintegration of my career.”
“Projects come and go. It’s the nature of our profession.”
“I think we both know that isn’t the problem. That’s three projects I was being considered for that have suddenly gone up in smoke with no explanation. That is not a coincidence.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“I don’t need to jump at all, the conclusions are right bloody in front of me.”
“It hasn’t been happening to me.”
“You’re not on the market. And we always knew this would be worse for me than for you. Hard to be an Everyman when all the flyover audiences are imagining me going down on you.”
“It’s temporary. You’re going to win an Oscar and they’ll all be lining up, begging you to take their projects.”
“That is ridiculously optimistic, and frankly, it sounds bizarre coming from you.”
“It isn’t optimism, it’s certainty. You are too good an actor to be brushed aside.”
John couldn’t help but smile. “Your faith in me is…encouraging.”
“Don’t insult me. Faith is a belief without empirical support. My assessment of your career prospects is based on evidence and reality, not wishful thinking.”
“You almost have me believing it.”
“You may do so. Count on it. I, as you know, am never wrong.”
“Except when you said I’d win the Golden Globe.”
“I believe I said that you deserved to win, which you did. The idiocy of the Hollywood Foreign Press doesn’t affect the fact that I am still right.”
John squinted at him. “You’re being freakishly cheery about this. What’s going on?”
“What makes you think something is going on?”
“I’ve met you. Something is going on.”
“I fear some of my suspicious nature may be rubbing off on you.”
“Don’t give me that, what’s going on with you?” Sherlock studiously avoided his gaze, and just like that, John knew. “Sherlock, how many times must I tell you that whatever happens to my career now is not your fault? I won’t have you blaming yourself.”
Sherlock hesitated a moment before answering. “What makes you think I am blaming myself?”
“Because you’re overcompensating. Stop it.”
He met John’s eyes briefly, then returned his attention to his laptop. “If our relationship has adverse consequences for you, then it is unavoidably my fault, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.”
“If there are consequences, I’ll accept them. Doesn’t mean I’ll be thrilled about it, but given a choice between the career I had and being with you, then you win every time.”
Sherlock looked up, his face blank but his eyes gone a bit soft. “I hope that’s always the case, John.”
“It will be.” John might have said more, but the doorbell interrupted him. He sighed and got up to answer it, assuming it would be the UPS man or something. Instead, he found a messenger on the doorstep. “Delivery for Mr. Holmes,” he said.
“I’ll take it.” John signed for the delivery, a thick legal-sized envelope. He shut the door and checked the return address: Imagine Entertainment. John’s heart leapt. “Sherlock!” He hurried back into the den.
“What?”
“This came for you. Is it what I think it is?”
Sherlock stood up, tearing open the envelope. He withdrew a sheaf of papers, his eyes scanning the type-then he shut his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “It’s the contracts for the Tesla project.”
John grinned. “Well, what are you waiting for? Sign them!”
Sherlock grinned back, one of his rare, genuine smiles. “You know, I didn’t want to let myself believe it would really happen until I was holding these contracts. I suppose it’s safe to get excited now.” He sat down and laid out the contracts on the coffee table. John sat down next to him and looked over his shoulder. It was all there, the standard provisions and agreements, Sherlock’s salary and working schedule spelled out. His compensation was very generous, quite a bit above market for telefilms, which reflected Sherlock’s status in the pantheon of working actors. The document was initialed by Greg, indicating that he had reviewed it and approved the legalities on Sherlock’s behalf. There was a Post-It note stuck to the signatures page. We’re thrilled to have you on board for this project and I look forward to working with you. -RH
Sherlock met John’s eyes. “This project is going to take over my life this summer.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Last chance to raise any objections.”
“What objections would I raise? It’s a fantastic project and I can’t wait to see you in the period wardrobe. Would you sign it, already?”
Sherlock glanced from John’s face to the contracts, then picked up his pen and signed. He dropped the pen with a sigh. “Well, that’s done.”
John took Sherlock’s face in his hands and kissed him. “Congratulations. You’ll be brilliant.”
“You will be just as brilliant in whatever project is smart enough to sign you next.”
“You better call Irene. She’ll want to put out a press release.”
Sherlock got out his phone, but before he could dial, it rang in his hand. “Hello, Irene,” he said, thumbing on the speaker.
“Did you sign the contracts?”
“Just this very moment. How on Earth do you do that?”
“I’m watching you on closed-circuit cameras right now.”
“Ha ha.”
“You think I’m joking, don’t you? I’ve got a press release ready; do you want to review it first?”
“No need. I place my public image in your capable hands.”
“Such faith, I’m touched. Okay, John, about the courtroom drama.”
“It fell through.”
“You say that like you think I don’t already know. And I can hear you panicking from across town. Sherlock, is he panicking?”
“He’s working up to it.”
“Well, stop it. Panicking is not warranted. Not yet.”
“They were so keen to have me screen test, and now they want to go in a different direction?” John said.
“True, but it isn’t about you. From what I hear, they’re on the verge of signing a very big-name actress, and she is insisting that they hire one of only a short list of actors she’ll work with.”
“And why am I not on her list?”
“Well, it isn’t because you’re gay, because Bradley Cooper is on the list.”
“He’s not out.”
“He might as well be. I suspect it’s an age thing.”
“Oh! Fantastic! Now I’m losing parts because I’m gay and because I’m old! Smashing!”
“Sherlock, please whap him over the head with something. John, you’ve never been the vain, self-absorbed type of actor, and if you turn into one I’m going to have to kill you, slowly, and with pain. You are thirty-eight years old, a long way from aging out of the leading-man market, which is just your good fortune for having been born with external gonads,” she said, a trace of bitterness lacing her voice. “Parts fall through, projects evolve, things don’t work out. You have been in the business long enough to know the score. You’re extra-paranoid because you’ve never experienced this level of public scrutiny, and you’re feeling invalidated by Moriarty’s win. If it helps, everyone thinks that award should have gone to you. This may actually give you a boost with Oscar voters. Being seen as the wronged underdog can mean more votes.”
John sighed. It did help. “You’re better than a therapist, Irene.”
“A good publicist is a therapist. Sherlock signing for a high-profile project will shut up a lot of naysayers and I have complete and total confidence that a good project for you is just around the corner.”
“As I have been trying to tell him,” Sherlock said. “Perhaps he’ll believe it coming from you.”
“At any rate, I don’t want you worrying about your next job right now,” Irene went on. “Let’s focus on getting through awards season first. The Oscar nominations….”
“No,” John said.
“I haven’t said anything!”
“You’re about to make another plea to let you film us watching the nomination announcement. Absolutely not.”
“But it could be fantastic!” Irene said. “It’ll help normalize your relationship, humanize you as people! I’ll only release the clip if you’re both nominated!”
“We are not going to become the Gay Actors’ Reality Show,” Sherlock sneered.
“Hey, you’re the ones who outed yourselves on a livestream!”
“We’ll watch the nominations here, in our home, by ourselves. If you’re a very, very good girl we might let you watch them with us via speakerphone.”
“Gee, I’m all aflutter,” Irene said, flatly.
“I have that effect on a lot of people,” Sherlock said, dropping a wink at John. “Leave us in peace, then.”
“Congratulations, Sherlock. On the Tesla project. It’s going to be fantastic.”
“I very much hope so.” He hung up. “Good God. How long until all this tomfoolery is over and done with?”
“Another month, or just about.”
“Can’t come soon enough.” Sherlock stretched out on the sofa again, reclaiming his laptop.
John stayed where he was, perched on the edge of the cushion, staring at his hands. He felt frazzled and uncertain, but he wasn’t sure what, if anything, to do about it. He looked around, wishing them back in Sussex, in their house. Five weeks away hadn’t been nearly enough. He missed the privacy, the calm, the intimacy of living there with Sherlock, like they were any other couple setting up housekeeping together, fighting over chores, puttering around the house, cooking and sleeping and talking about everything and nothing. Here, there was so much to deal with, all the time, never ending - the press, their agents, the business, the rumor mill, the blogosphere, these bloody awards that meant so much to everyone.
“John?” Sherlock was frowning up at him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m just….” He sighed, looking down at Sherlock, sprawled elegantly across the sofa. “I don’t know.”
Sherlock set his laptop on the floor at his side and held out one arm. John smiled. Sherlock could always tel when John needed a cuddle. John stretched out next to him, tucking himself between Sherlock’s body and the back of the couch and nestling his head down on Sherlock’s shoulder. Long arms encircled him and he felt a kiss pressed to his forehead. His eyes fell shut, and his body began to relax.
As John lay there, feeling the stress of the day bleed out of him as Sherlock’s warmth diffused through him, he wondered how he’d ever managed to navigate life alone, and hoped fervently that he’d never have to do so again.
Sherlock was already awake at five a.m., while John was, predictably, dead to the world. When the phone rang, Sherlock reached across him and put the it on speaker. “Good morning, Irene.”
John struggled awake, lifting his head from the pillow. “Do you have any idea what fucking time it is?”
“It’s five o’clock!” Irene crowed. “Get up! Why aren’t you up? It’s time!”
“It is not time, it will not be time for a half hour.”
“Make some coffee! Get downstairs!”
Sherlock pulled the phone closer, away from John, who was still muttering in irritation. “Irene, we are going to watch the nominations from right here in this bed and not move from it between now and then, nor for a good while after. Call us back at five thirty.” He hung up. “For God’s sake. She’s on Rockstar again, isn’t she?”
“The ‘again’ implies that she was ever off it,” John said, sliding back down into the bedclothes. He turned and looked at Sherlock’s face. “We’ll never get back to sleep now.”
“I wasn’t sleeping in the first place.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“Half an hour or so.”
John rubbed a hand over his sleep-muddled face. He was mussed and bleary-eyed and Sherlock thought he looked absolutely adorable, although he wouldn’t have said so. “What’ve you been doing? Just lying here?”
“I am never just doing anything, as you well know.”
John yawned. “You were listening to your brain, weren’t you?”
“Crudely put, but yes.”
“What is it saying this morning?”
“That I’ll have to cut my hair short for Tesla. That there are at least two dozen ways to murder Jim Moriarty so that I’d never be caught. That it might be time for some renovations on the house in Sussex. That you’re a better actor than I will ever be. That Greg is waiting for the right moment to spring another period piece on me that he thinks I ought to do.”
John was giving him a lazy, flirty smile. “Say that again?”
“About the period piece?”
“Before that.”
Sherlock smiled, reached out and ruffled John’s fringe with one finger. “You heard me.”
John shifted closer and kissed him, slow and warm. “We’ve got twenty-six minutes to kill.”
“Shall we play cards, then?”
“We could lie here and have a snog.”
“Acceptable.”
In the end, those twenty-six minutes were filled with a combination of snogging, breaks for the loo, one phone call each from their respective assistants, more snogging, and a few minutes of dozy near-sleep. When Irene called again, they were more or less awake.
“Do you have it on? Turn on your TV!” Irene screeched.
“Good God, how many Rockstars is that so far, then?” Sherlock said, sitting up in bed and reaching for the remote. He put on E!, where the host was babbling to fill up the time until the nomination announcements began. John scooted up in the bed and tucked himself into Sherlock’s side, leaning his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. He was warm and pliant; Sherlock wrapped one arm around him, sensing the anticipation beginning to thrum through him. The same anticipation was sizzling up and down Sherlock’s own nerves, but to his surprise, he found that he honestly did not care if he himself were nominated, or if he won. He cared only about John. Such unselfish thoughts were still strange to him, having spent his whole life thinking of himself and caring only about that which affected him and his work. His happiness is more important to me than my own, the stray thought floated across his mind. He suspected that such a sentiment might constitute one possible definition of being in love. “You’re going to be nominated, you know,” he said, quietly.
“I wish I could be as confident. You’re a lock.”
“Nothing’s ever a lock, you know that.”
On the screen, AMPAS president Tom Sherak and actress Amy Adams were coming to the podium. “Oh, it’s Amy,” John said. “I didn’t know she’d gotten roped into this. I’ve not seen her since last summer. We did that Pixar film together.”
“John, shush!” Irene said.
“We’re not up for a few minutes!” he said, indignant.
They watched as the first nominees were read off. John clapped and cheered when Sarah was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The Supporting Actor and Best Actress nominations flew by in a blur, and then it was time for their category. Sherlock felt another little shiver of anxiety run down his back. John reached out and took his hand.
“I think I’m going to puke,” Irene groaned.
Amy began to read the boilerplate language. “For Best Performance by an Actor In a Leading Role, the nominees are….”
“Here we go,” Sherlock murmured.
“George Clooney, in The Descendants. Jean Dujardin, in The Artist. Sherlock Holmes, in To a Stranger.”
Irene cheered. Hearing his own name barely made a ripple on the surface of Sherlock’s consciousness; all he could focus on was waiting to hear John’s.
“James Moriarty, in For Which It Stands, and John Watson, in To a Stranger.”
Relief and joy burst into Sherlock’s mind. He’d known, he’d known that John could not but be recognized for the extraordinary work he’d done. He knew that the very unexpectedness of John’s talent would make his peers want to reward him. The nation’s Greek chorus of critics had anointed him, almost unanimously, as the best actor of the year. And yet…coming up short to James Moriarty, of all people, at the Globes, and being entirely passed over for a SAG award-the mixed signals would drive anyone mad.
John had gone limp against Sherlock’s side. A rush of breath escaped him, his chest collapsing in its wake. “Bloody hell,” he wheezed. He was definitely not hearing Amy reading off the Best Director nominees.
Sherlock pulled him closer, chuckling. “I told you,” he said. “I told you that you’d be nominated.” He kissed John’s temple.
Irene was - well, it sounded like she was having some sort of seizure. “-and the inquiries, everything will be rotued through Bruno, and…John? John! Are you listening to me?”
Sherlock picked up the phone and thumbed off the speaker. “I’m afraid Mr. Watson is unavailable until further notice. Would you like to leave a message?” He stroked his free hand through John’s hair.
“This concerns you, too, Mr. Smartypants. I can be there within the hour, and we’ve got to -”
“We’ve got to do nothing at all until at least noon, and if I see you here before then, I’ll set the dogs on you.”
“You don’t have dogs!”
“We could have dogs.”
“Never mind about the dogs, this is unprecedented! Hollywood’s first openly gay A-list couple and you’re facing off on Oscar night?! You cannot buy press like this, Sherlock, and we are damn well going to take advantage of it. You guys need to be up and dressed and looking presentable, because everyone and their goddamned brother is going to want joint interviews and statements and photos and-”
“Irene, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to hang up the phone, and you’re going to deal with all that press rubbish for us, because that is your job, for which we pay you an exorbitant fee. I am going to lie here in bed with my Oscar-nominated partner, and once he regains the use of his senses, we are going to have a great deal of Oscar-nominated sex. Clear? Goodbye!” He hung up, cutting off Irene in mid-squawk. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
“I’m nominated,” John said, barely louder than a whisper.
“Yes, my love, you most certainly are.” Sherlock picked up his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.
“For an Oscar.”
“I know.”
“A real one.”
“I should hope it would be real.”
John was shaking his head. He looked up at Sherlock with still-disbelieving eyes. “I knew it could happen, I thought it might, but….” His mouth opened and shut a few times.
“I know what you mean. It isn’t quite real until you hear your name. My first nomination, all I could do was walk around my flat like a zombie for a good half hour. I must’ve rewound the recording of the announcement a half dozen times just to make extra sure that they’d really said my name.”
John’s eyes lit up. “Can we do that? Just to make sure?”
“Of course.” Sherlock picked up the remote and rewound the broadcast until they heard his name again. John Watson, in “To a Stranger.”
John sighed. “Holy shit.” He stared up at Sherlock again. “They actually - I mean, they really….” He trailed off.
“They really what?”
“Took me seriously.”
Sherlock’s heart clenched a little at how amazed John sounded. If he had his way, no one would ever think to take John anything but seriously, ever again. “As well they ought to,” he said.
“So we’re really going to…you know. Walk that carpet, and sit in that auditorium. We’ll be able to sit together, won’t we?”
Sherlock laughed. “Yes, of course.”
John smiled. “Good.” The stunned deer-in-the-headlights look was beginning to leave his eyes. He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled cheeks. “Christ almighty, did that just happen?”
“It did. You are John Watson, Oscar nominee.”
“And you are Sherlock Holmes, Oscar nominee.” John smirked. “But that’s old hat for you, isn’t it? That’s three now-no doubt it’s getting tiresome.”
“I think some things don’t really get old.”
“You don’t seem excited. About you, I mean.”
Sherlock looked into John’s face, glowing with excitement. “You want the truth?” He lifted a hand and carded his fingers through John’s hair. “I’ve barely thought about my own nomination. All I care about is yours. This film might have resurrected my career, but it’s reinvented yours, and never has a career been more deserving of a rebirth. I think of you toiling in those middlebrow workaday films for ten, twenty more years and it turns my stomach. You deserve better, you are better, and our profession, not to mention the public, deserves to enjoy your real gifts. I hope to hell I don’t win this Oscar, because I want you to win it.”
John’s eyes were welling up. He leaned in and pulled Sherlock into his arms, rolling them over with the duvet tangling around them. “You really mean all that, don’t you?”
Sherlock looked up at him and nodded. “Indeed, I do.” He shrugged, his lip curling in a smirk. “Besides, I’ve already got an Oscar. It wouldn’t do to be greedy.”
John laughed and kissed him, hard and deep, not letting up until Sherlock was half-melted into the mattress. John dove into Sherlock’s mouth and tipped his hips between Sherlock’s legs, pressing down and rocking against him. Sherlock grabbed at John’s pajama bottoms, his tongue sliding into John’s mouth, and after a few moments of flailing, they managed to get each other naked without tearing anything or leaving any scratches. “On your knees,” John rasped, in the electrified tone he only got when he was really turned on. Sherlock obeyed so fast that he almost went over the side of the bed, kneeling low and spreading his thighs.
John dipped his head and licked a long stroke up Sherlock’s cleft. Sherlock groaned, his head dropping down. John rolled Sherlock’s balls in one hand, keeping his other on the small of Sherlock’s back as he worked him over with his tongue; Sherlock just kept still while shivers wracked his body. “God, John,” Sherlock whispered. “Do it, do it now. I want you inside me.”
John scrambled for the lube and made quick work of the preparation. He was breathing fast; Sherlock could feel the heat radiating off his body and see the deep flush rising to his pale skin. John sank deep with a low grunt of satisfaction, his hands gripping Sherlock’s narrow hips.
Sherlock pressed back against him, lifting up a little to grab the headboard of their bed and brace himself. He glanced back at John and his breath caught; John’s eyes were heavy-lidded with desire, the muscles of his chest and arms standing out like he’d just done three rounds of circuit training. “Yes, John,” he purred. “Fuck me.”
John bent low over Sherlock’s back and did just that. He let his face rest against Sherlock’s shoulderblades and thrust wildly, barely in control of himself. John wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s torso and worked his hips hard and fast; Sherlock wished there was some way for John to hold him tighter, go deeper, get closer, because no matter how close they were, it never seemed close enough. John grasped Sherlock’s erection and stroked him to the rhythm of their bodies, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Sherlock’s back and shoulders wherever he could reach. Sherlock came with a hoarse shout; the pulsing of his release pulled John over the edge and he spilled into him, gripping Sherlock’s hips again, his body stuttering and leaping and burying itself deeper still. Sherlock felt John’s forehead come to rest against his spine as John sagged, wrung out. They stayed still for a moment until Sherlock’s knees buckled and he pulled them both down to the bed in a tangle of limbs. He turned over, found John’s mouth, and kissed him hard, breathy and haphazard, half-muttered words and murmurings slipping from his lips.
Sherlock watched his lover’s face, both of them glowy and damp from sex, but when their eyes met, instead of a moment of deep emotional connection…John burst out laughing.
Sherlock blinked. “John? I’m given to understand that the post-coital afterglow period is not normally an occasion for mirth, or have I been incorrectly informed?”
“I’m sorry,” John said, still giggling. “I don’t know what’s come over me.” The double entendre set him off again.
Sherlock smiled, starting to chuckle himself. “It’s the adrenaline.”
John kissed him between giggles, his hands all over Sherlock’s chest. “I half-expected Irene to ring us in the middle of it.”
“At least she would have a good answer for all those inane questions about how we’re reacting to our nominations.” Sherlock slipped into an American accent, doing his best imitation of Irene, which he knew was quite good. “’John and Sherlock are thrilled to be nominated, in fact they’re fucking like crazed weasels right now.’”
That sent John into fresh peals of laughter again. “They’d love that over at People.”
Sherlock’s chuckles died down; he raised one hand to John’s cheek. “Professional acclaim must agree with you, John. That was a truly memorable shag.”
John grinned. “I’d like to thank the Academy.”
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