Title: Sherlock (BBC): A Long While
Rating: PG-13ish
Genre/Relationship: John Watson, Mary Morstan, Sherlock (off-screen)
Spoilers: None, really
Word Count: 2.635
Summary: It's been a long while since Watson felt much of anything, but that's about to change.
A/N: With gratitude to the creators of BBC's Sherlock, who own this version of these characters, but not the ideas of this story.
A Long While
The key made a raspy sound in the lock—a soft sound, a normal sound, but his heart began to race when he heard it. He'd had trouble before adjusting to normal, but this wasn't that. This was something else. This was fear, plain and not-so-simple—fear of being let in, of letting someone else in. But this was Mary, and it was okay. It would be okay.
As if sensing his turmoil, she turned and put a hand on his arm. "I'm glad you're coming in," she said, and smiled at him. He smiled back, a quick reflexive upturn of the lips, and put a warm hand on her waist. She turned the doorknob and pushed open the door. Mary took off her scarf and hung it on the coat tree and he helped her off with her coat. It was nice, it was domestic, and he grinned when she grabbed his shoulders and turned him around so she could help him off with his coat. He turned back to her, intending to say something semi-clever about turnabout being fair play, but before he was quite facing her, she had sort of launched herself at him, her arms around her neck, her mouth on his.
It was unexpected. It was surprising. It was…perfect. John realized he'd been hoping for this, longing for this, almost since the first time he'd seen her this evening.
Life had been gray, dull, shades of obligation and perfunctory, but she had not been any of these things. A quick wit, a tidy figure, an earthy sense of humor. It was as though a shaft of sunlight had suddenly pierced through the gloom, illuminating her. He knew what it was like to stand near that sort of light, to bask in the reflected warmth of a light like that, but I had been a while. A long while.
His body seemed to know what to do—thank the Lord for that—giving his mind a chance to catch up. His arms surged around her, clasping her against him, and it was welcome, it was splendid, it was everything he might have hoped for.
The first kiss was ending, and she gave a breathy laugh. "There now. That's better, isn't it?" she asked. "I've been thinking about that for a while."
"Great minds," he murmured, and kissed her again, but she laughed, a throaty chuckle, dislodging his claim on her mouth
"It's not your mind I'm interested—oh!"
He had lifted her up against the wall, hands cupped beneath her delectable bum. Her legs locked around his waist, a flash of heat against his groin, and she pushed her hands through his hair to get a better purchase while she kissed him senseless. There was a sound, a moan maybe, and he worked to find a footing that would give them some traction. His foot scraped an electrical cord, pulling a lamp off-kilter, and his hand shot out as hers did to steady it. He turned, surprised at the polished texture beneath his fingers, admiring the finish of the lamp base with a cultured eye.
"Nice place you've got here," he said, and they both burst out laughing. Mary smiled at him and cupped his face.
"I'm glad you're here," she said. "Glad you're staying."
Was he staying? Apparently he was. "Me, too." He smiled and they tilted chins to kiss, slowly and thoroughly, savoring the taste and touch of each other's lips. He closed his eyes—Weren't you supposed to close your eyes?—but when he opened them again hers were open, too, and she was looking at him. The expression on her face made his whole body flush with heat, a fire ignited by the smoldering look in her eyes. His hands slipped beneath the skirt and her skin, even with the tights, was hot enough to brand his palms. She wriggled, pressing against him and one of her hands snaked into his open collar to touch the hollow of his collarbone, the side of his neck. He trembled like a stallion beneath her hand and tried to take in enough air, but there didn't seem to be enough air. He crushed her to him, his mouth hard over hers and there was no way she could be unaware of his desire. She shifted urgently, inching her hold on his hips down until he groaned.
"Well, this is no good, is it?" she muttered against his mouth. He froze, stung and immobile.
"I—what?" he said dazedly. He had thought—
"I said, 'This is no good,'" Mary repeated, then went on in an aggrieved tone. "I mean, I want to get you out of these clothes, and I want you to get me out of my clothes, and we can't ruddy do that like this, can we?"
She was looking at him expectantly, waiting for his answer as though she'd asked him to solve a particularly sticky logarithm.
"Your room…?" he asked, feeling surreal. She smiled at him and pointed.
"Second door down the hall," she said. He carried her over the threshold.
That had been the first time, the first taste of heat and need and freedom in her arms, and she was everything in his arms that she had promised to be in his dreams. She was playful and inventive and occasionally wicked and she poured herself over him like a balm, soothing the rough, torn places in his soul, dispelling the darkness that sometimes threatened to smother him.
The darkness worried her, but it didn't frightened her. When she could—when he would let her—she would venture in far enough to hold him in it, or through it, and when that was not enough, she was simply there, loving him from whatever distance he would allow until he could find his way out, find his way back to her.
John might have said he was happy, and he might have believed it. It was true, in its own way, but happiness was something he'd not dared give breath to in…well, a while. A long while. It fluttered inside him like a bird trapped in a cathedral, beating at the windows but unable to get free. Mary seemed to know that, seemed to love him knowing he was damaged and did not demand proof of anything to know him worthy of her love. As much as he could, he opened himself up to her and loved her with a ferocity that shook him to his core but didn't threaten to make him shatter.
They moved in together with very little fuss. "I don't much care, either way," Mary had said. "I'll come to you, or you can come to me. As long as we're in the same—"
"Bedroom," John had ventured, and smiled.
"I was going to say 'flat' but yes—the same bedroom, I'm all in."
And his smile had blossomed into a laugh and he had kissed her. "I'm all in, too."
"Good to know," she said cheekily, and whispered something naughty in his ear.
Work had saved him, not because of the work itself, but because she was there. It was happenstance, really. She had come from the service to fill in for Darcy, one of the usual nurses, and when he had emerged, engrossed in the chart he was making notes on, he had looked up to see her inquisitive face instead of Darcy's usually long-suffering one.
"Um, hello," he said. "I don't...that is...you're not Darcy."
"I'm not," she had said with a smile. "Remember? She's out today and called the service for a replacement."
"I didn't actually. Remember, that is." God, what a conversationalist he was proving. He stuck out his hand, as much from awkwardness as good manners.
"Good morning, Dr. Watson. I'm Mary—Mary Morstan," she had said, and he could not shake the feeling that she was amused as she took his hand. Her fingers were warm.
"I'm John. John Watson, the, um, doctor."
"I gathered that much," she said, indicating the white coat.
"Oh. Right. Well, thank you for, um, being Darcy today." He had tried for clever and it hadn't come off, but she smiled at him anyway.
"Oh, I'm not Darcy," Mary had said. "You'll see."
And he had.
It had started with coffee. Well, actually, it started with decent coffee. Mary brought in a coffee pot and some decent dark roast and brought him a cup on a day when his morning had gone from bad to dismal. He'd look up in surprise.
"Well, taste it, won't you?" she'd teased. And he'd taken a sip, then another, his taste buds dancing. "Better."
It was not a question. "Yes," he'd said, then, "Thank you.".
A few days later, she'd poked her head in and asked if he wanted some fish and crisps. He'd looked up, eyes drifting toward his brown bag. It had been too busy for him to justify taking an actual lunch break these past few days.
"C'mon—hot food will do you good."
He'd smiled and reached for his wallet, but she'd waved him on. "Catch me
later," she'd said.
And he had. For dinner that Friday.
Darcy never returned—the sister she'd gone to take care of apparently needed long-term care, and although he felt a twinge of guilt, John had had to admit how much brighter the office seemed with Mary there. She was cheerful, happy, competent and always surprisingly glad to see him. Her manner with the patients was above reproach, and her manner with him...life began to seem worthwhile again, no longer a drudgery.
For all that, he was slow, still reeling from...everything. Still half-expecting Sherlock to emerge from the shadows and say it had all been some awful, some horrible mistake. Still finding his feet and his thoughts turning toward Baker Street instead of the hole-in-the-wall he'd rented. The blog had been shut down and he'd closed his email account linked to it. He hadn't been able to talk to any of the old crew—not Greg Lestrade, not Ms. Hudson. He'd hunched his shoulders against the world—friends and foes alike—and clomped solidly forward. Except that Mary was now walking beside him.
It happened gradually, almost imperceptibly, in increments of trust the size of crumbs, but it happened. And after supper one night, without panache, she had asked him in, had told him to stay. And he had.
It couldn't have been a surprise to her. He wasn't good at surprises. He wasn't good with surprises. But still—in spite of everything—he'd had trouble getting the words out. Perhaps it was because some part of his life still seemed unfinished, broken somehow, and dangling. He had tried and tried to put the pieces together, to make sense of Sherlock's improbably suicide, but nothing came. How was it possible, he'd asked himself, that he—who had thought of it more than once since returning—could not have recognized the signs of despair in his friend? He remembered the times he'd chided Sherlock for his bragging, his obnoxious boasting—and each instance scored him now with scars that burned, making him writhe with remorse. But it had not been his chiding, or even Moriarty's, that had killed that great mind. The tide of public opinion, that fickle temptress who promised so much and delivered so little had crushed the heart of the man, had stolen his thunder and then his life. Well, he was done with that, at least. He was done with limelight. He wanted the heat of the hearth, not the blaze of the spotlight.
At least, that's what he told himself.
The ring was easy. He'd watched her style, the way she ornamented herself, and he knew—knew without asking—that she would like anything he picked simply because he picked it, so he had picked it, had chosen something strong and lovely for her, and had waited with the velvet box to say what needed saying, and then...
Damn the man. Damn the man anyway. Damn him to hell and to its lowest point, and yet—fighting with his fury and the almost blinding pain of betrayal—he had felt joy. Not just happiness—that emotion he'd so clumsily convinced himself he possessed—but joy, damn it.
But the joy had been buried under the fury, the peace obscured by the white-hot rage set off by Sherlock's idiotic sense of humor, his juvenile delight in stopping John's heart. He'd wanted to kill him, wanted to hurt him...wanted to thrash at him for the pain of finding and losing and finding again. And it had been too much, too much to take in in an evening that had been so fraught with promise.
Promise! He had wanted Sherlock not to be dead, and he had gotten his wish. Be careful what you wish for. But Mary...Mary had seemed to take it all in stride. Mary had understood his rage, had understood Sherlock nature's, his seeming lack of warmth, his brilliance She had let him have his say, his rage, and then, when he had nothing left to say, she had taken him home.
Words had failed him, were beyond him, and she did not try to get him to talk. She had put her shoulder next to his in the taxi, put her cheek on his shoulder to let him know she was close. He had sat in a daze, miserable and elated, his emotions churning till he felt light-headed and ill. There was nothing to say to that, and nothing to do for it and she didn't try, didn't pester. He would have to sort the worst of it out on his own.
They reached the flat, coming in as they had that first time, as they had hundreds of times before, stopping in the lobby to deal with coats and scarves. At last, he stood there, shivering not from cold but from shock, and she had taken his hand and led him back to their room. It took only moments to strip him down to the essentials, to tuck him beneath the sheets and join him, draping herself across him, holding him close against the maelstrom beating against his brain.
It is hard to seduce a distracted man—hard, but not impossible. Mary was
patient, gentle with him because he seemed so lost, and determined to find a place he felt at home. At some point John had seemed to waken to himself, had turned and looked at her as though just aware that she was there, of her insistent caresses and her warm embrace. He had kissed her, gently at first, and then with more earnestness, more need and urgency until the noise in his head had been blocked by the sound of the blood rushing through his veins...
He had missed that, the thrill of the unknown, the thrill of danger and imminent destruction and he tried, he did his best to self-destruct in his lover's arms, to drown the sorrow and beat back the little knife-pricks of shame and anger and betrayal that were plaguing him. Sherlock was not dead. He had not failed his friend. He was loved, was valued, was needed. Sherlock had said it, and Mary had said the same. He was needed. He was needed. The universe was righting itself, and the thought of going forward with both of them at his side...it was enough. Enough to be going on with.
In the bleak morning hours, Mary drowsed against him, her silky head on his shoulder, and pressed her face into the hollow of his neck. He felt her breath stir against his skin and felt...alive, alive and grateful.
He felt alive for the first time in, well, a long while.