So, a couple notes,
1. This was written for the amazing tseecka for her birthday! Happy Birthday, Leah! *ALL THE HUGS* :D
2. This is my first attempt at writing for Sherlock…I kind of love it here and want to stay, so I hope someone likes this, lol XD
's been some time since I've seen season 1, however, I went off the word of a couple of people that have seen it recently that we never really hear about the whereabouts/condition of the rest of John's family other than Harry, so I used that here for my own devices, lol
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Five months into the first honest to God serious relationship John Watson had had since what seemed like forever, there were certain things he should have realized. Some of them were honestly things he should've known already, knowledge he already possessed that should've carried over and settled smoothly to disperse across new circumstances and situations. In some ways, that had happened.
They never fought about the odd hours Sherlock kept, not even when it was four in the morning and John woke up missing Sherlock's warmth at his side. He'd known for too long about the insomnia, the overactive and ever racing mind that led him to chemical experiments in the dead of night and to catnaps on the floor in the middle of the afternoon. They never fought about the violin, either, though sometimes it felt like a close thing. In his mind there were dozens of these, little things that might have bothered him in anyone else but that he had already come to accept ages back, and he was fairly sure Sherlock had a list of his own tucked away somewhere in the storage of that brain of his. Learning to accept and adjust to those sorts of things was common ground for new couples, a thought that more often than not just smoothed any budding frustration out into a smile. They'd been sorting through their problems like a moderately healthy couple long before they were anything of the kind.
Still, out of all the things he was sure he knew and all the ones he should've known, he should never have thought he could keep anything at all from Sherlock Holmes, not even on a temporary basis. The letter had come in on Monday, and while he'd been meaning to talk to Sherlock about it every day(or at least by Friday, at the latest), it was Thursday when Sherlock beat him to it.
He crinkled the paper he'd been shuffling through down against the back of the chair, his arms folding against it as he leaned for a moment's hesitation, tense as a perching bird. "For God's sakes, John, the world won't end if you go out of town for a few days." Even the hint of irritation in his voice couldn't wipe out the look in his eyes, the tingling sparkle that was always pushing, always daring John to figure it out or ask him how he'd done it, how he'd gathered the pieces together into a coherent whole. In this case, at least, John had something to go on.
"You saw the letter."
"The letter you received three days ago from your grandmother, the one you've got tucked just under your keyboard now? Yes, I might have noticed."
It did no good, really, to settle on how on earth he'd known it was his grandmother, not when the important part right then involved the content more than the sender. John tugged the envelope out by a frayed corner, rubbing it between his fingers and smoothing wrinkles to keep his eyes and hands busy.
"I've just been waiting for the right moment. I wouldn't have kept it from you, I was-"
"I did manage quite well on my own, you know." True, and it might have sounded just a little less petulant if he wasn't picking up his violin as he said it, rosin bursting into the air beside his bow. "How long will you be with her?"
There really was no way around but just to ask. God, he felt just a little like the condemned. Even now that Sherlock knew, it wasn't hard to remember why he'd been putting this off. "It's not just me. The family's giving her a birthday party, rather a big one since she's ninety this year. She hasn't spent time with me since before Afghanistan; she wants me to spend the week before with her, maybe bring her back to London for a weekend after the party. She's a good woman, but you were right before when you said we didn't see much of each other anymore. She's given up on Harry, and I've never liked the way she talks about her but she is still my gran and I imagine she doesn't have that many birthday's left in her and for once, will you actually say something when I want you to instead of looking at me like that?" He pushed out of his chair, the air leaving his lungs in a rush as he forced out the words. "Come with me."
Even if he'd closed his eyes, John imagined he still would be able to feel that searing look he always got when Sherlock was studying him, peeling new information from the set of his hands and his eyes and the cuff of his shirt. Even staring him down like this, at the moment John couldn't read a thing. He swung the violin to his shoulder in a graceful arc, dragged the bow down a quick scale with his eyes shut.
"No." His fingers flitted across the fingerboard, leading off into a piece John couldn't name but might have recognized if he'd been tempted to try.
With as much as he'd been expecting it, it shouldn't have hurt the way it did. It didn't make sense, the way his stomach felt like it took a drop down through the floorboards, the sharp stabbing pain of rejection. This was exactly why he hadn't asked, why he'd wondered if he ever even should. Of course Sherlock wouldn't go; why would he? Boring family gathering, no murders, no kidnappings, just John and a house full of painfully ordinary relatives that mostly wouldn't arrive until the last day. No, of course he wouldn't want that. That was for normal couples, almost husbands or wives, all of them ready for a step forward. All of it was inane as information, technically useless. Of course.
John nodded, a few more times than he meant to. In his hand, the letter crunched up accordion style, bent corners digging into his skin. "Right, why would you? It's only my family, course it wouldn't matter to you. You'll just stay here and brood until I get back, then? Maybe drag yourself off the couch to make your own cup of tea?"
Sherlock's hand wrapped around the strings, stilling the ring of the last note he'd drawn out of the instrument in his hands. In the silence he turned away even further, facing the mantle as he settled the bow across the strings once more.
"It's quite obvious they don't know about me, and there is little point in my going and forcing you to explain. You see them rarely and our relationship is honestly none of their concern; if you wish to keep it between us you should know I'm not inclined to be bothered. Now if you please, quiet."
Of all the things he could've said to infuriate him, it would've been hard to pick better words. John made it across the room in near record time, yanking Sherlock's arm hard enough to turn him and rattling off exactly what came to mind with hardly a notice of the furious burn in Sherlock's eyes.
"Don't you dare. Look, you do what you want, God knows you always do, but don't you dare blame it on me. After all the shit I put up with, all I'm happy to put up with for the sake of staying with you, don't you stand there and tell me I'm ashamed of you."
When he slammed the door as he left, John could hear the faint crash of Mrs. Hudson dropping a teacup in the sink. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs he was still plenty angry enough to ignore her as he stormed out onto the street.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The thing about rage that John had learned largely from his fights with Harry was that(for him at least) it really wasn't all that long before it started to burn itself out. By the time it was just dark, he'd walked what felt like miles(and possibly was), eaten nothing, drank two beers, and received four texts he hadn't answered.
And here you waste so much energy telling me not to frighten her.-SH
I told her you won't go far.-SH
She's your mother's mother, isn't she?-SH
John?-SH
By the time the fifth text came, he was already sliding on his coat to leave the pub.
Are you coming home? I called Harry; she hasn't seen you.-SH
No, she hadn't, because if he'd gone over there she'd have listened all too well and fed right into his doubts until she had him angrier at Sherlock than he had been when he'd left. That wasn't good for anyone.
I'm co-
His phone buzzed in his hands, a new message appearing on the screen under his fingers to interrupt his typing.
I never said you were ashamed of me.-SH
Most of the time, something like that was as close to an apology as he could get. John nodded, absurd, as if Sherlock could see.
At the pub. Walking home now.
The answer came just a few steps down, the hum of his phone muffled by his jeans as he walked.
We could use some tea.-SH
Of course they could.
He'd pick it up on the way home, maybe even a box of Sherlock's last known favorite if they had it, and when he got home he'd do something simple and put the kettle on. Maybe they'd talk and maybe they wouldn't, but he was just about certain that Sherlock would be standing there at the door waiting on him when he came in. Honestly, still angry or not, that was worth more than all the tradition and social validation in the world.
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After Afghanistan, he didn't have any kind of certainty that he'd never love again. He had doubts and fears of everything from his own qualifications for a relationship to how hard it could be for someone like him to find one, but even then he had never ruled them out as impossible. Even as a possibility, though, there were particular lowered expectations he couldn't help but hold, inherent certainties his experiences in the war seemed to have branded into him. The wounds he carried marked him, left bits of him rough and damaged, and even though he'd progressed beyond any of his expectations, that remained true. Even with full use of all his limbs, the scar tissue on his shoulder and thigh would forever remain marks that no amount of crime solving adrenaline or purpose to his life could ever wipe away.
Before, he'd always planned to hide them. It wouldn't be hard to drop his shirt beside the bed within easy reach, close enough that he could pick it up and cover himself perhaps in a moment that his lover was turned away. They would notice during sex inevitably, but if it wasn't there to look at afterward, to scrutinize, then he wouldn't have to deal with the worst. He could handle knowing that they knew, of course they'd know, but he wouldn't have been able to bear their pity. He couldn't take it from strangers, and he certainly didn't want it from anyone sharing his bed.
None of his plans had been structured for Sherlock.
In Sherlock's bed in Baker Street, he always ended up still bare on warm sheets with long, nimble fingers tracing the edges of the scar on his shoulder. It was a frequent habit, one that somehow still felt far more like a caress than a nervous tic. He commented and questioned when he calculated that he could catch John off guard at moments that he just might answer, and he never went for more than one about the war at once. He was careful about it, so careful and so measured that John was sure he kept a chart of it in somewhere in that vast mind of his. A white board maybe, "John's Scars" scrawled across the top with neat little rows below ending in boxes with checks and x's and any other symbol with its own particular meaning to him that might have caught his fancy.
He'd never hidden his body from Sherlock, never even had a chance to try. That first night he'd still been recovering from the feel of everything around him reeling when he felt Sherlock's palm against his collarbone, gentle even though the firm pressure of it kept him in place. He'd said nothing about it that night, had only wanted to prove that he'd beaten John already at this, that he'd seen his next more before John had even had the strength to lift his hand. He'd seen it, and he wasn't going to allow it, not here, not between them.
There wasn't a word spoken about it between them until almost two weeks later, Sherlock's thumb rubbing over the entry wound in the dark as John grew ever more warm and sleepy in his arms.
"It's your leg you drew attention to, even your own, but it's this one that still hurts." There was no question to it, all certainty like almost everything the man ever said, and John knew if he'd asked him to explain he would have heard plenty. Possibly it was in his grip some days or the way he carried the shopping or any other of a dozen tiny things that Sherlock had had time to soak in and categorize. He didn't ask for the explanation.
He only said yes, sometimes, not so often anymore. For a moment those stroking fingers had stilled, a rare mark of hesitation before picking right back up as Sherlock's lips pressed against the hollow of his throat. He fell asleep there, his breath tickling John's neck, his hand still cupped possessively over skin he had to have mapped a hundred times already. At first, that in itself had all been revelation enough. He could stand Sherlock's touch there, could stand to lay naked beside him, could stand for him to feel the difference under the tips of fingers and lay out truths that John wasn't too fond of admitting.
All of that, though, had hardly seemed more than Sherlock being Sherlock. He'd made it clear on innumerable occasions how much he noticed as a matter of course. He never had to try, not for those sorts of things. It wasn't until the first bad day he had after that that John had the real revelation, delivered by Sherlock's long fingers closing carefully over stiff muscle just after John tossed his jumper to the floor. From behind he kneaded the sore tissue with both hands, his voice low and a touch impatient when John tensed under his grip.
"Don't be ridiculous, John. Relax for me, will you?" For this man, he could hardly do anything else but what he asked. It had felt glorious, those strong hands warming him and working away the worst of the pain, but even that had been nothing compared to the full understanding that he wasn't just a subject of study, not anymore. Sherlock had noticed, yes, but he'd followed through all the way to reaching out, solving the problem with the eyes of a lover rather than the distanced perspective of a scientist. There hadn't been a moment before that when he'd thought that this new relationship between them had been a mistake, but it wasn't until then that he was certain down to his bones that it hadn't been.
So many nights had passed since then and still those fingers drifted to the same place in gaps of silence. Even when John started out turned away from him, resolutely facing the door. He didn't particularly want to speak to him, didn't want to look at him, certainly didn't want to touch him, not that night, but Sherlock had managed to get him on his back anyway, his right arm loosely curled around to rest against Sherlock's spine. Somehow, they always ended up wrapped around each other.
"We'll have to tell Lestrade."
Half asleep, John struggled to focus. "What? Tell him what?"
"In advance. Before we leave." It was remarkable how easily he slipped into that voice, the one that made it abundantly clear he'd decided whoever he was speaking to was using all the reasoning of a particularly thick slug. "The man's hopeless on his own, John. If he's going to be facing a week of possible cases without us while we're in Devon, he should at least be prepared."
So many times, he felt like they were having two separate conversations. Now, he just felt like he was dreaming. Either that or they'd never had the one earlier that he'd thought they had, because that wouldn't-
Then again, this was Sherlock. John pushed himself up on his elbows, his eyes searching blindly through darkness they weren't yet accustomed to for Sherlock's face. Sherlock's hand slid fluidly from its perch on his shoulder to rest against his chest.
"While we're in Devon?" The thick cover of almost sleep had left him by then. Mostly.
"As far as I could determine there could be only two reasons you hesitated to ask about the trip; you feared either my response or theirs. I assumed theirs, but had that been the case you might have pretended to be angry without being genuinely upset, but the fact that you were genuinely upset was a bit obvious, therefore…" He trailed off, his hand drawing back in the silence along with his words. It was unreasonable, really, how cold John felt without it. "Did you think I'd tell you no?"
"You did tell me no." Even to his own ears, it sounded defensive.
"Family is important to you. You could've given up on Harry long ago and you haven't, not really, not even when you tell yourself you will, and I know you've done plenty of that. You're distanced from the rest of them; I've never heard you speak much of them but clearly they still mean something vital to you."
"You hate crowds; social events of every kind." It was worse, justifying himself in the dark like that, so close and yet robbed of the chance to read the degree of detachment in Sherlock's eyes. He could draw up every single doubt he'd had floating around in the back of his mind, yes, but the more he grasped at them the weaker they seemed. Sherlock was right there beside him, just close enough that he could feel the long line of his body on the other side of a thin sheet. He was there every night, had been for months, and if he'd asked himself months before that if this could've ever happened he was sure his former self would have laughed. He would've doubted, and he would've absolutely been wrong.
"And if that was a serious impediment to life I would never manage to navigate a tube station. I hate the way you always move the blood jars to make room for your jam but I haven't stopped you now have I?"
"Sherlock,-"
"If you had asked me if I wanted to take this trip, the answer would be no, no I don't want to spend a week with people that will almost certainly come close to driving me to the homicide most of Scotland Yard thinks I'm inches away from. None of that means I don't want to go with you."
John's breath snagged just a little in chest, torn between too many feelings to sort. Guilt, frustration, pain and love all tumbled together, roiling into an indeterminate mass that he just kept swallowing against. The palpable absence of Sherlock's touch remained, a chill still on his skin where he'd pulled away.
"Devil's always in the details, isn't it?"
"Since the point was that I was choosing to go with you, I hardly see how that applies."
John swallowed hard, pushed everything down enough to pull out a little bit of the truth, an unsteady mix of guilt and just a twinge of hurt.
"Look, just because there's this between us now, you don't have to do anything you-"
"We all make sacrifices. Even so, accompanying you isn't quite one of them. If you asked me to go alone, I might have a different answer." John reached out blindly in the dark, wasn't surprised a bit when Sherlock's fingers wrapped around his wrist in midair as if they'd been waiting.
"You thought I didn't want them to meet you."
"With everything you know about me, it seemed a reasonable hypothesis."
"No room for you to be telling me I should've known better, then, is there?" He twisted his hand in Sherlock's grip, broke it easily to trail his fingers up his arm to bury into his hair, his thumb swiping out to stroke against the familiar sharp edge of a cheekbone. "I want them to know, all of them. They might as well get used to you now." Because I'm not going anywhere, I'm not, not ever, not even when you drive me mad. You do know that, don't you? You see everything; you've got to see this.
He wasn't ready yet, not for any of those words, but Sherlock pushed forward and pinned him to the mattress, his lips finding their way unerringly to John's. Perhaps he could deduce that much after all.
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On a Sunday morning three weeks before the worst day of John's life, he'd woken up at half past ten. It was late by his own standards, ludicrously late by Sherlock's and yet when he'd woken up Sherlock had been right there beside him, stretched out fully clothed on top of the quilt and studying John with all the rapt attention of a wildcat.
He blinked, Sherlock didn't disappear and he was forced to realize he wasn't actually still dreaming. "You came back to bed."
"You've never slept this late."
"First time for everything, isn't there?" Although, he was fairly sure he had slept this late on more than one occasion, just never when there'd been anyone around to notice. As it was, staying up until five in the morning two consecutive nights following God only knew how many relatively late others with attached early mornings the week before had taken its toll and he hadn't been able to resist. Nothing about the tension in Sherlock had eased, the line of his neck still hard and anxious even when John reached out to him, the slow stroke of his hand meant to be soothing. "Are you alright? If something was bothering you, you could've woken me, you know."
"I should be asking you. Abnormal sleeping habits can be a sign of depression, infection, general illness-"
"Or a sign that I know a bloke that runs me across all of London like I've got the stamina of a teenager all over again. Sherlock, I'm fine." His jaw twitched, barely easing when John tugged him down for what proved to be a very careful kiss. "I'm fine."
Sherlock studied him the way he did every problem, eyes narrowing as he catalogued. Even with his brain still half muddled by sleep, it wasn't hard for John to imagine just what he might be seeing. The bags under his eyes, the bruise across his ribs from the broom handle the other night, the dirt that might still be under his nails from last night's dig, the almost purple mark just below his collarbone left by Sherlock himself. John would've almost been willing to bet he caught the moment he landed on that one, was reasonably sure he saw the way his eyes dilated just a touch at the sight. Still he was nothing if not focused, and it didn't linger. The only final response was a firm shake of his head, just before he reached out to draw John in close to his chest, pressing him against fabric already worn long enough to be warm from Sherlock's heat. For someone so classically cold in every other respect, he always felt so warm.
"Perhaps I have pushed you. I never intended-"
"Don't be absurd. I'm fine, I can keep up-"
"Don't put words in my mouth, John, I never suggested that you-"
"But I am human and occasionally I'm going to need to recharge. Nothing wrong with it, and it doesn't mean you need to brood. Alright?" The part of him that had bristled at the almost insinuation that he wasn't capable had urged him to pull away and out of Sherlock's arms but it hadn't been quite vocal enough to win. He stayed, his fingers closing around the soft silk of Sherlock's shirt. "Look at you, having irrational human worries. What have I done to you?"
His hair stirred with the slightly irritated huff of Sherlock's breath, settling flat again as he dipped his head to kiss the strands back into submission. "What indeed. Suppose it is after all a law of nature. Every emotion humanity has managed to express bears the added weight of side effects. As a corollary to love a tendency towards overactive worry certainly matches with the overall increased likelihood of irrationality."
Love. It had slipped out with no more emphasis than 'bread' or 'paramecium' or 'disfigurement', slipped between everything else in the same soft tone he'd managed to learn to confine himself to for around the first half hour John was awake. For months he'd been biting his tongue when they parted, digging his teeth into Sherlock's neck as they tangled up in each other on the couch. He'd drowned that particular expression of his own feelings out, sure it was too soon and too much and he needed to wait until Sherlock wouldn't feel so pressured by it. All that work, and here he'd said it as if they'd used it every day.
John pulled back just enough to see his face, tried to reign in just a little bit of the shock on his own. "You….Sherlock, you said…." When he'd said it, somehow in the midst of all that it had still sounded fluid. Trying to rearticulate it, John just felt off balance.
"Yes?" His mind was working, forever working, and almost the instant he acknowledged there was a question the flash in his eyes gave away just how well he'd managed to figure it out. "That I love you? Please. You can't possibly be surprised by such a simple observation." Honestly, he did look more than a little amused, the same almost smile tugging at his lips as he had when John was only just working through a problem he'd solved some time before. "Think, John. You know enough of me to know that I have never had the time or desire to undertake a relationship, not until this one, in which I've invested a considerable amount of time. Knowing that, the rest should be self-explanatory."
Every time, every last bloody time he put it in his words he made the most complicated things at least half simple, but this, this really did sound like something he should've known. He'd hoped, certainly, but he hadn't been sure, his mind full of lingering expectations from everything he'd ever known about how these sorts of things worked, the dozens of reasons it was so hard to honestly trust affection from anyone. Still, he should've realized much of it didn't apply here, not to a man that ruled emotion useless and yet still managed sometimes to smile for him.
Laughing might not have been the best response, but just then, he felt too good to help it. "People do like to hear these things, you know. I might have suspected, yes, but I couldn't be sure and even if I had managed to deduce it it's just not quite the same." He smoothed the wrinkles in Sherlock's shirt, paused to press his hand just where he could feel the beat of his heart against his palm, solid and steady as John soaked it in.
Sherlock's sigh was just overdrawn enough to be a bit theatrical, and when he looked up John caught the tail end of amused exasperation as it flitted across his face. "Very well. I love you." He tilted his head, his eyes bright when they met John's. "Do you see how utterly pointless that is? It's a social expectation; it changes nothing."
Sherlock rolled with the motion easily when John shoved on his shoulder, pushing him onto his back where John could at least half drape against him. The blankets bunched in-between them, and if the air outside them hadn't felt so cold he might have joined Sherlock on top. He made do instead, leaning over to rest his chin on Sherlock's chest as his fingers pressed over soft lips in a vain attempt to keep him silent.
"Shhh, don't ruin it."
"If I can ruin it so easily I hardly see how it matters that I-"
Replacing his fingers with his lips really was the only effective way of silencing him, honestly. By then, he'd had more than enough practice to know it was at least the only form that Sherlock somewhat accepted. His fingers stroked the back of John's neck, his touch just shy of feather light. It was distracting, but not quite enough to coax John's focus away from the way Sherlock moaned for him as John immersed himself in the now familiar realization of just how fantastic this man tasted.
They'd made love after that, slow and lazy and wonderful, and even though Sherlock had proceeded to ignore him the rest of the day with all his interest buried in a fresh chemical experiment he hadn't minded a bit. It was a perfect day, absolutely perfect, and though there were a thousand things and a thousand reasons it had been the memory of the way Sherlock looked at him that morning that finally drove him from Baker Street two weeks after he'd had no choice but to watch as the man he loved took his own life. Keep on living, that he might could do(though frankly, the jury was still out on that one), but to carry on in those rooms, to sleep in a bed he'd shared with Sherlock…no, that was beyond him. It was bad enough in the new place he'd found. New hallways, new furnishings, new sheets for a bed that still felt unbearably empty, far worse than it ever had on the nights Sherlock hadn't slept.
All of that was bad enough. The guest room in Devon where he found himself just over a month later, that was even worse. It didn't matter that they'd never been here together; they should have been, and it was enough to drive him near mad. He could almost hear the way Sherlock would have been dissecting the room, from the mismatched furniture to the chip in the wallpaper John had made himself with a dart when he was nine. He had no doubts Sherlock would have figured it out, even smiled as he rubbed his thumb over the mark and spoke of a careless boy with military inclinations and an urge to practice his aim on a rainy day.
The first night he didn't sleep at all and as dawn crept across the floor towards the tips of his shoes he realized he felt like absolute hell, though he doubted it had much to do with the lack of sleep. Everything ached, an incessant pressure that spread from his chest to settle everywhere he was the tiniest bit vulnerable. His leg was still protesting all the walking he'd done yesterday but his shoulder, his shoulder was positively throbbing. The tremor in his hand barely subsided even as he pressed it flat against his thigh. He could rub at the wound all he wanted and never ease the ache; he'd tried. Maybe it was all in his head the way his own touch never helped. Sherlock almost certainly would have told him as much, if he'd been there. But if he'd been there, there'd be no need to wonder. He'd have settled in behind John on the bed, drove the pain out with long fingers and the feel of his lips brushing from John's temple to his cheek, his whispers everything from the species of fern he'd seen in the garden to exactly how long it would be before John got had even a small row with Gran about Harry.
John tapped his phone against his palm before flicking it open in one move, his fingers hovering over the keys. His therapist said this just might be good for him after all, but then again, he didn't tell her everything, and he certainly didn't tell her about the tiny kernel of hope he couldn't kill that maybe, maybe somewhere in England…
You said you'd be here, you prick. You promised.
Almost immediately, he erased it. Even if there was an overwhelmingly large chance they went nowhere but a rapidly filling never checked inbox, he tried his best never to send one in anger. It was a hell of a lot harder in practice than it sounded when he'd first thought it, staring into the dark in the middle of the night and remembering that the last time they'd spoken face to face he'd said things he didn't mean.
I miss your hands. It's boring here; you'd hate it. I love you.
That one, he sent.
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