The Gap
Title: The Gap
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3400
Summary:
"Everyday John waits for the bus to arrive, waits for his last patient to come in, waits for the traffic to stop before crossing the road, waits for the kettle to boil, and he waits for Sherlock to come back. He has been waiting for him all this time, all these days and all these nights. Despite everything. Despite the fact he attended his funeral. Despite the condolences, despite Lestrade’s reassuring hand on his shoulder, despite Mycroft’s measured speech, despite Mrs. Hudson’s tears, despite the awkward silences, the mourning, the empty words, the good manners, the insipid food, the white wine and the hangover, the black suit, the shoes that hurt. Despite everything, despite the data, despite his own judgement. John waits".
A/N: Huge thanks to the amazing Sophie, my saviour, my beta, my queen.
This work has been translated into Russian by the lovely Enigmag, here.
John is looking out the window. The night softly wraps the city. John sees the street from there; lights, people, cabs passing. From the steamed window he watches the world. It’s cold outside. There’s a cold world outside, and John observes it. He has become a good observer now. He learned from Sherlock. John is drinking little sips of his tea, holding the mug tightly between his hands, feeling the heat, the weight, the reality of the mug. John is good at making tea. John rests his forehead on the window, finding the contrast of the freezing pane and his warm skin pleasantly painful, and closes his eyes. He sighs. Because he’s not only looking outside, he’s not only drinking his tea. John is doing something more. Something vital, something that nobody taught him how to do. John is waiting. And John is really good at waiting. He has been waiting for three years.
He is waiting for Sherlock.
Everyday John waits for the bus to arrive, waits for his last patient to come in, waits for the traffic to stop before crossing the road, waits for the kettle to boil, and he waits for Sherlock to come back. He has been waiting for him all this time, all these days and all these nights. Despite everything. Despite the fact he attended his funeral. Despite the condolences, despite Lestrade’s reassuring hand on his shoulder, despite Mycroft’s measured speech, despite Mrs. Hudson’s tears, despite the awkward silences, the mourning, the empty words, the good manners, the insipid food, the white wine and the hangover, the black suit, the shoes that hurt. Despite everything, despite the data, despite his own judgement. John waits.
John still lives at 221b Baker Street, and he still goes to work, sees his patients, chats with Sarah, gets take-away from the Chinese on the corner, watches TV, sleeps, has nightmares, brushes his teeth, takes Gladstone for a walk, goes to Tesco’s, calls his sister every Friday because he promised her he would, and gets his hair cut every three weeks. Sherlock isn’t there, but life hasn’t stopped. The sun still rises and it still goes down, seasons arrive and pass, the world keeps moving. But John is a tourist in his own life, because his path is the wait, and everything else is just transport, furniture, routine and blank paper. And the ink, the firm shape of the line he has traced on the map that could be the rest of his life, is the wait. And through it, John lives. He lives for waiting. And that means that his life is more than just the crumbs, the shadow, the track, the vestige, the smoke, the taste in the roof of the mouth of something that was, that existed. Of someone that was, that existed.
Someone that exists, John would say. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be waiting. Because waiting is wanting, because waiting is expecting, because waiting is believing in the horizon. And he believes. He believes despite everything. Because he knows, because something deep inside him, something so deep under John’s surface, knows that Sherlock is not dead. Because if Sherlock were dead, something, the same something that knows, would have broken. And then there wouldn’t be anything for which to wait, to want, to expect. And John is not broken. That’s what everyone thinks; that he is broken. But he’s not. He’s hurt. He’s wounded. He has a scar, and he treasures it. Because the scar is like the shadow, the track, the memory of that day. The evidence, the testimony. The reminder.
It’s worse than the one he has on his shoulder. It’s uglier and larger, it marks all the outside of his right thigh. It’s twisted, invasive, like a root, on John’s skin. John knows Sherlock would love it. Sherlock would kiss it, would lick it, would brush its contours, amazed. Sometimes John maps the scar, imagining his fingers are Sherlock’s fingers, cataloguing, caressing, memorizing its orography. But other times John digs his knuckles hard in the scar, hard enough to feel the pain. To feel the open wound. To feel Sherlock alive. To feel himself alive.
John is alive. John is a doctor. A good doctor. John is efficient and understanding with his patients. John is a good man. John is a good friend. John is a good owner to Gladstone. John is a good neighbour. John is a survivor. John talks to Gladstone about his day. John tells Mrs. Hudson her cookies were delicious. John is a good tenant. John is a good brother. John is a terrible singer. John sings in the shower. John goes to play rugby with some of his old university mates. John laughs at crap telly on Thursday nights.
But the sadness always stays with him.
And not like a tiny thing. Not like a crumpled ticket in the pocket of his jeans, something imperceptible that one just finds when it’s laundry day, together with some inexplicable breadcrumbs and a handful of coins. No, his sadness wraps him in something weightless and sweetly intoxicating, like a perfume that remains in the air of the room even when John has already gone. It’s not exactly in his eyes, which are blue and bright as always, or in his smile, that never fades, or over his shoulders, military squared, nor in his voice, which is smoothing, boyish, warm for everyone. But the sadness walks with him, as though John were a marked man, a pending man, a man trapped in an imaginary limbo. And nobody can touch him, nothing can reach him, nothing can go through the sadness, and nobody can hurt him any more, deeper or again, nobody can burn the heart out of him. The sadness is his armour and the wait is his path. And John will survive the wait for Sherlock, just like he survived Afghanistan because -though he didn’t know it at the time- Sherlock was waiting for him on the other side, at the end of that path.
Because this absence is not endless, this absence is a gap, a parenthesis, it’s like the space betwen frames in a celluloid film, an interruption in the continuity of his life with Sherlock, of their life. And if he could wait more than thirty years to find Sherlock the first time, when he had nothing to expect, then he can wait now, now that he has memories. The shade, the crumbs, the taste in the roof of his mouth. Remainders. Reminders.
John wonders if Gladstone remembers Sherlock. After all, he only lived one year with Sherlock and he was just a puppy then. He was a gift from Harry, something like a now you are a couple you need to have a pet kind of present, although John had the secret suspicion the dog was, actually, another hand-me-down present from her, in the most flagrant it seemed cute and indispensable when i saw it in the shop but now one week later i’ve got sick of it style. John was used to that kind of gift from his sister. But the thing with this one was that if he didn’t want it he couldn’t leave it forgotten in the bottom of a wardrobe. Although that’s what Sherlock would have done if John had let him. Especially after John insisted he couldn’t name it “Mycroft”.
So during the first weeks John was the only to feed Gladstone, play with him and take him out, as Sherlock just decided to ignore the capricious and lazy little ball of fur that shared the flat with them. Until that day when, against all expectations, while John was giving Gladstone his first bath, Sherlock slipped to the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the bathtub to watch them, in complete silence. John, having been too optimistic faced with the task ahead of him - having simply rolled his shirt sleeves up and placed a washtub on the floor - was now soaked in water and foam as Gladstone tried to eat the brush, and he raised his eyebrows to Sherlock in an unspoken “Would you mind giving me a hand with this?”. Sherlock just crossed his arms, definitely amused, but there was something of sweet surrender in his eyes that made John shake his head and smile too. And that’s how Sherlock learned to love their dog. Actually, like most of the things in the world, he learnt to love Gladstone through John’s love.
Later, much later, when Gladstone was too big for the washtub, and when it had become routine that they watched TV in the evenings with Sherlock’s head on John’s lap and the dog curled against Sherlock’s stomach, John understood happiness was simply that. Happiness fit on a sofa and it was easy, and it was warm and solid and smooth like the space between Gladstone’s ears. There were other evenings when Sherlock played the violin, and time was elastic, an endless rope without knots, and space was just the beauty of Sherlock’s closed eyes, his relaxed face, his illusionist's hands bringing magic to the world. And, inevitably, when Sherlock stopped and opened his eyes to look at them, John could see in Sherlock’s amused expression that Gladstone and John were displaying exactly the same expectant, open expression. Sherlock would lean then, smiling, to stroke Gladstone’s head with his right hand as rested his left hand on the arm of the chair where John was sitting, to kiss John. And that was when John would realize that that was the actual, real happiness. Sherlock kissing him.
Happiness was that, simple and tangible. It fit into the air of their mouths. No matter if the kiss lasted a second, minutes, an eternity, because the measure of its time was the same as that of the universe: a fraction of second to happen, and an endless immensity to exist. And it was the same, it was always the same kiss, it didn’t make a difference if it was chaste, sweet, naughty, violent, the kiss before the bathroom mirror in the morning, the kiss that tasted of tea, a stolen kiss when nobody in the Yard is watching-and-you-know-what-even-if-someone-is-watching-i-dont-even-care-i-just-need-to-kiss-you-now, or clumsy kisses on their way to the bedroom, it didn’t matter, it was always the confirmation that happiness was that, with its nine letters, with its double p and its double s, it was happiness and it had nested in the hollow that their mouths made together. John sighs, touching his lips unconsciously. He misses Sherlock’s kiss. He misses happiness. He fears only one thing. He fears forgetting how it felt to kiss Sherlock, to be kissed by Sherlock. Forgetting how happiness felt.
Sometimes the most difficult part of missing Sherlock is that not only his brain, his heart, his dog, his flat, miss Sherlock, but that his body misses Sherlock too. There are mornings he wakes up and he would swear he could feel Sherlock’s presence in the room, in his bed. Over his body. Like the first time. Like all the times that came after that first time. John lets his body succumb to the remembrances, and he slides his hand down his body, curling his clothed erection. He doesn’t open his eyes, he doesn’t kick down the covers. He likes to feel the weight on his body, he likes to imagine that’s Sherlock’s weight, pinning him to the bed.
He focuses on those memories. John is very good at evoking them. He bites his lower lip. He can remember how his lips will look once swollen, the ache in his jaw reminding him how hard, how big Sherlock was in his mouth. He can feel the taste of precum on his tongue. Sherlock can feel it now too, because he’s kissing him deeply, he’s invading his mouth with his tongue, languidly, reducing John to a sighing, moaning, begging mess. Sherlock’s pressing his hard cock against his naked body, and John is taking both of them in his hand and stroking, making them gasp. John licks his lips, speeding up the pace of his hand under his pajama bottoms. He can feel his orgasm approaching, the release, those precious seconds when he won’t feel anything, just pleasure and the name of Sherlock in his lungs instead of air. He remembers the same exact feeling, like that Sunday when he was slowly riding Sherlock, his back resting into the angle of Sherlock’s flexed thighs; John reached for his cock, and Sherlock looked to him, blown wide pupils, and with a purr, with something wild and soft that couldn’t be called a human voice, said “oh John yes touch yourself please- I want to see you” and every syllable sent electricity through John’s body, and John has to pull down the covers now because his skin is burning and he knows he’s not going to last much longer. He can feel the back of his neck damp with sweat, like that summer morning when the bed, the entire world could break in pieces but nothing was important but the three fingers he had buried in Sherlock, who was handcuffed to the headbord, shaking, his back arching, like a mythical creature John were taming under his touch. John raises his right hand and brushes one of the bars, locating the scratches, the chain of the handcuffs chipping at paint as Sherlock shivered, as Sherlock said “please”, and groaned helplessly, so flushed and exposed that, when he repeated “please...,” John was sure he was going to beg John to stroke him, but what it came up was “please... touch yourself John I want to see you,” and that was enough, John complied and Sherlock was coming, untouched and beautiful, and John is coming, alone in his bed, his right hand gripping the bedpost hard enough to mark skin.
He breathes. His hairline is soaked in sweat, and there’s a tear running down his right temple that John would like to pretend is a drop of sweat, but then there’s more tears, and John is crying before he realizes he’s doing it, still sticky, his nerves still pulsing in pleasure, he’s crying silently against the pillow, against the pleasure, bracing himself, bracing himself for the lack of Sherlock in his bed, and then he’s digging his fingers hard in the scar, through the thin layer of fabric, forcing himself to remember the wound, to remember he’s alive. To remember Sherlock is alive. John cries. But John is not broken. John is strong. John is a good soldier. Even when the absence seems to weigh too much, he won’t break.
There’s a physicality to the absence. He can see it in all the little disasters, in all the telling marks Sherlock left in that flat. In all the reminders. He can count the absence in the bullet holes of the wall. In the stain in the second drawer of the fridge’s door, the stain that nothing could clean. In that dent in the kitchen table, in the burns in the carpet. He can smell it in Sherlock’s room, in their room. Sometimes he opens the wardrobe and lets himself drift in Sherlock’s ethereal pressence. He touches Sherlock’s suits, the shirts, the shoes, everything so tidily, ceremoniously put in its place, like a regiment without its colonel. He feels the textures, the fabrics, the buttons, the leather of the belts, he buries his nose in the silky dressing gown. Then, he closes the wardrobe, still feeling in his oversensitive, hungry fingertips, the textures, the wood, the wrought iron -the absence. He hasn’t told anyone he didn’t throw Sherlock’s clothes away. Actually, he doesn’t talk about Sherlock with anyone. He got tired of explaining his wait, his walk, of explaining the horizon, the map and the sadness. The something that knows. The kisses, the happiness. He knows, and that’s enough. He remembers. And that’s enough to keep waiting.
*****
John gets up and goes to the bathroom. He looks at his reflection in the mirror. His hair is getting greyer. Maybe the wait is making it greyer. He thinks briefly that Lestrade’s hair must be so grey due to waiting for Sherlock, at every crime scene and new case that presented itself. If every day was one single hair, John wonders how many years it would take for him to be completely grey by the time he and Sherlock next meet. He shakes his head and starts to shave, smiling. He’s in a good mood that morning, he doesn’t know why.
He has just finished when he hears Gladstone barking and trying to push the bathroom door open, trying to bring John’s attention to the fact that he wants to go out at that precise moment. John sighs, making a hasty, slapdash job of cleaning off the rest of the foam with a towel, and moves to the bedroom to get dressed, all the while trying to calm the dog down, finally getting to the living room to grab the leash. Gladstone is already running to the door, and John has to put on his best military voice to stop him. The dog huffs and lets him hook the leash, and then John is almost stumbling down the stairs after Gladstone, who is already scratching at the door. John opens it, glancing down and asking him:
“What the hell is up with you this morn-”
The words die in his mouth when he sees the dog jump to the man who is standing in the doorway, as though he were about to ring the bell, as though he had been stood there for minutes or hours, trying to make the next move and ring the bell. John lets the leash drop to the floor, as a silence made of cotton wraps him, and he doesn’t even hear Gladstone enthusiastically barks, as Sherlock strokes his heavy head without looking at him, because Sherlock is looking at John. Sherlock is looking at John. Sherlock is in Baker Street, in amongst a lot of things that don’t matter, things like the trees, the road, the sky, London, people and the air surrounding them. There’s Sherlock. Intensely, indelibly printed like black ink on blank paper. John is still at the door and there’s just two steps between Sherlock and him. The final gap, the space to the next frame, the two last steps of his lonely path. Just two steps, and John can’t take them. John is not going to take them. John is a good soldier. John is a good man. John is brave. John is alive. John is waiting. Waiting for Sherlock. And just like that, Sherlock closes the distance that separated them. John is on the threshold and that makes him taller than Sherlock, who is looking up at him, into his eyes, and suddenly to somewhere on John’s neck. Sherlock smirks and tentatively his fingers touch the skin just under John’s left ear, and John breathes again. The cotton silence finally unwraps him as he hears Sherlock saying “You have some foam here.” John replies, and he feels the words escaping from him like untying knots: “I knew you weren’t dead.”
There’s no surprise in Sherlock’s eyes. There’s something better. There’s pride. There’s love. There’s home. Sherlock’s hand cups gently his nape and the touch is so real it’s painful. It’s glorious. The hand of the illusionist has broken through the sadness and the shadow to touch him. To reach him. John speaks again, and his voice sounds steady. And that’s how he feels. He’s calm, he’s John, and there’s no armour to his voice when he says:
“You know, I should be angry.”
“But you don’t look angry.”
Sherlock is smiling. He climbs the step and places his free hand over John’s right hand, which is still holding the door. Their bodies are pressed together now, and nothing can break that connection, nothing can break their connection. And it feels like a wound being cauterised, like new, brand new skin, like the drawing of a new map for an old world. John can hear Gladstone running in and out the threshold, jumping happily, matching the pace of John’s heart.
John looks up to Sherlock, and there’s no distance he loves more than the inches of height difference between them. There’s something diffuse and volatile in that space, in that gap. Stored energy. Bubbling water. A cloud waiting to be rain. A match waiting to be flame. The universe waiting to happen.
And then, Sherlock kisses him.