A/N: This is a sequel to my one-shot, Not Without You. You should probably read that first, but basically Mycroft convinces Sherlock to fake John's suicide as well as his own, avoiding the bulk of the Reichenbach feels. The two of them swapped 'I love you's but it was rather ambiguous as to what that really meant.
I am posting these 7,000 words of fluff to make up for the latest chapter of Can't Let You Steal My Heart. If that's why you're here, God, I'm so sorry.
The rating borders on 'M', but who the hell wants to be safe anyways? If smut offends you, I would still suggest you leave now.
The song John sings is called Cheek to Cheek and was originally sung by Fred Astaire in some film or other, but the way I imagined John singing it is the way Snoopy sang it in the film Confetti. I was so angry when I discovered that it wasn't on the soundtrack, because it was by far the best cover of that song I've heard. The piece that Sherlock plays is from the LOTR soundtrack, entitled Concerning Hobbits. The title, on the other hand, is of a terrifically old song by Lorenz Hart that I had stuck in my head for about a week and seemed to fit, the lyrics which do so I have included because they're beautiful.
Thou swell, thou witty, thou sweet, thou grand;
Wouldst kiss me pretty, would hold my hand;
Both thine eyes are cute too – what they do to me!
Hear me holler – I choose a sweet lollapaloosa in thee
I'd feel so rich in a hut for two;
Two rooms and a kitchen I'm sure would do
Give me not a lot of, just a plot of land
And thou swell, thou witty, thou grand!
-for you!
The plane ride from Heathrow to Peretola Airport, Florence is two hours long.
Sherlock spends most of it staring at John, and John spends most of it staring at Sherlock, so they talk to each other to make the near-constant eye-contact less awkward. Everything from John's hitherto unexplored desires to tour Italy to Sherlock's injuries after falling into the skip outside Bart's and which ones he still needs to be careful of is brought up, dissected and cast aside in turn. Sherlock rolls his eyes at John's insistence that he look over the left wrist – still wrapped in crepe bandaging – but has the good sense not to complain. After all; John's entire focus on him, those firm and calloused surgeon's hands gently examining him, warm and safe with a cup of tea by an open Florentine fireplace – what is there to complain about?
Indeed, when they arrive at the cottage on the outskirts of Florence dressed in clothes fresh from the airport terminal – including a brand-new purple shirt barely a shade lighter than the one they'd had to leave behind – the fireplace is the most distinctive feature of the living-room.
Sherlock is exhausted, but he finds the energy to collect some of the neatly-stacked firewood around the back of the house to set and light the fire. They eat their takeaway in front of the fire, silent now, each attempting to stop their eyelids from drooping.
John finally sighs and makes to stand up. "Well, it's been a long and very weird day," he concludes. "I'm for bed."
Sherlock looks up at him, thinking how marvellous that sounds. The detective hasn't slept since the last time he slept with John. The cottage is one-bedroomed, but the sofa is fold-out. Out of courtesy, since it's his fault they're here, Sherlock knows he should let John take the bed. "Right."
The doctor continues to look expectantly at him. "You look exhausted," he says finally. "As your doctor, I'm going to have to insist that you head in the same direction."
He chuckles. "Okay then."
They brush their teeth together at the little sink, elbows banging together every now and then in a decidedly awkward way that feels domestic and nice. They never really shared the bathroom at Baker Street; but then, Sherlock can't remember the last time they both went to bed at the same time.
About ten minutes later the two of them are in pyjamas; all the bags of things they bought at the airport are in the bedroom, so Sherlock finds himself standing there awkwardly while John climbs into the bed, knowing he should leave the room but not wanting to. The sofa-bed out there is too similar to the one he was sleeping on at Molly's for comfort, and yet he's well aware that John's day was likely much worse than his, and he won't appreciate his erratic sleeping habits.
"Well," he says awkwardly instead. "Goodnight, John."
Sherlock reluctantly makes for the door; John sits up straighter in the bed. "You're not staying?"
The detective stops and turns back to him; he looks disappointed. "Did… did you want me to?"
"Well, I thought… I mean… if you want to, I'd like that." He looks sheepish, like he knows he shouldn't be asking, but Sherlock's entire body floods with relief until his knees threaten to give out.
"Yes. Thank you." He climbs quickly into bed beside his friend, reaching up to turn out the light.
They lie there in the dark for a moment before Sherlock is startled by John's body gently pressing up against his, the doctor nosing into his neck. "Is this okay?" he asks.
Sherlock smiles gratefully and wraps his arms around the older man. "Yes," he confirms happily, bending his head until his breath is tainted with the warmth of John's scalp. "This is… nice."
He can feel John's smile against his neck before the two of them fall asleep.
The first morning Sherlock wakes up hard.
This isn't alarmingly unusual; he can't quite grasp the fading hows and wherefores of the dream he'd been having, but he's certain it involved John in some capacity and dreams of John tend to lead to involuntary bodily reactions. The part that makes him cringe is the fact that while he slept still and soundly and woke up more or less in the same position he fell asleep in, John seems to have tossed and turned himself onto his stomach a comfortable distance away, with his still-sleeping face turned towards Sherlock and one hand raised to clutch helplessly at the pillow beside him. While Sherlock wants to stay there, cocooned in warmth and comfort beside him, he's less inclined to risk his friend waking up and discovering that Sherlock's lower half would make a very fine tent-pole were the two men at all inclined to raise a blanket-fort.
He weighs the embarrassment over the comfort for a moment before sighing and letting his erection lead him to the bathroom.
John wakes up when Sherlock is sitting up beside him, clad in a relatively loose-fitting navy-blue shirt and the jeans John had insisted he buy, the laptop they'd agreed to share resting on his bent knees with his feet tucked neatly under the covers. John stretches, yawns, then leans forward and presses a good-morning kiss to Sherlock's calf.
Startled, the detective looks down at him, leg reflexively shifting out of reach. "What was that for?" he asks.
The doctor frowns up at him. "Good morning?" he offers. Possibly the one thing they hadn't talked about on the plane was where they were going to take their relationship from here; John had simply assumed that given their mutual declarations of love, they were both on the same page and so would be shifting their interactions in an accordingly romantic direction.
Perhaps Sherlock had other ideas.
The consulting detective smiles hesitantly. "Oh… good morning."
For a moment they sit there and watch each other, both smiling but ever-so-slightly confused. Then Sherlock draws in a sharp breath. "Well – you have a shower, John, and I'll make tea."
John raises an eyebrow; Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Yes. I am offering to make tea. Yes. I do know how to make tea to a satisfactory standard. Happy?"
The doctor grins. "Extraordinarily."
Sherlock nods factually and wanders into the kitchen to make tea.
John emerges from the shower ten minutes later, still rubbing at his hair with one of the towels they'd found in the linen cupboard. The cottage is really rather well-stocked; evidently it's been an emergency witness protection house for quite some time. Sherlock smiles softly at him as he hands him the mug of tea, but John's expectant look and soft thank-you are oddly intimidating, so he moves away immediately.
"Are we going to talk about this?" John asks; Sherlock turns to face him, clutching his own mug of tea like a lifeline as his heart sinks.
He sits down at the table opposite the doctor. "John, I… I'm sorry, I didn't realise anything was wrong. Talk about what?" John's face falls, and Sherlock starts to panic. "Is this still about the Bart's thing? I know I can't ask you to forgive me, John, but on the plane-ride it seemed…"
John is grinning, flapping his hand to dismiss Sherlock's worries. "No, it's not about that. Sherlock, that could have been so much worse and of course I've forgiven you. Mrs Hudson might have a few things to say when we go back, but even so. I'm talking about you and me. I'm talking about the way I kissed you good morning and you looked startled, like you weren't expecting it."
Sherlock frowns. "I… wasn't."
"Exactly," John sighs. "Evidently we have different ideas of what we mean by I love you."
Oh. Sherlock puts his mug down on the solid table, settling himself in. "John…" He isn't sure where to begin, how to say everything he wants to say. "I don't do this. I've never said 'I love you' to anyone before and I still don't really know what that's supposed to mean. The only reason I know that I love you is because Molly explained it to me, and I still wouldn't believe her if it didn't make so much sense."
John leans forward on the table. "Can you… explain it to me?"
"I don't know." Sherlock stares into his mug, trying to gather the words together the way he said them to Molly. "I… John, I've never felt as much for anyone as I do for you. My heart, it… it beats so fast I worry sometimes that it'll explode when I'm near you, and when I'm not it squeezes and hurts. It's so illogical that you can create such a physical reaction in me that it's fascinating. I always want to be close to you, John, because you make things so much… more. When I'm with you I see more and feel more and everything seems bigger and more fantastic. You're the most important thing in the world to me. I would quite happily have died on that rooftop if it meant saving you."
The consulting detective sits back and watches his friend's face as a small smile begins to spread over it. "I expected your definition of 'love' to include more physical declarations than mine, but then you said… I said 'I love you', and you said 'I know'. I've never displayed more than the emotional side of what people commonly believe 'love' entails, so I assumed that this was what you felt as well. So your gesture of affection this morning surprised me. It wasn't unpleasant or unappreciated, John, I just wasn't expecting it."
John stares for a while. Then he bursts out laughing.
"What?" Sherlock says indignantly. "John! What's so funny?"
The doctor lets the laugh fade. "I was thinking the exact same thing only the other way around," he says. "I thought you just meant the sentiment of it, but that you wouldn't want to… be my lover, or anything. But you kept… holding my hand, and hugging me, and staring at me on the plane, so I thought maybe you wanted that side of things too."
Sherlock joins in with a languid chuckle. "We're a right pair."
"Well, we're certainly not a wrong pair," John counters.
The detective chuckles again, but there's still a serious issue that needs to be resolved. "Do you want that side of things?" he asks tentatively, busying his fingers with the handle of his mug.
John smiles again, nervously. "Well… yes, I do. I mean… if I didn't I would have said something when I thought you did." Sherlock's stomach twists, and he honestly can't tell whether it's terror or anticipation. John clears his throat awkwardly. "Do… do you?"
"I don't know." His stomach continues to roil uncomfortably. "I think maybe… maybe we should try."
The older man's face lights up. "You think so?"
Sherlock grins. "Definitely." He stands up, his heartbeat accelerating with the adrenaline of nerves, and crosses over to John's side of the table. "Now?" When the doctor nods, looking as though he's holding his breath, Sherlock crouches and presses their lips together. John's lips are thin compared to his own over-luxurious cupid's-bow, but he purses them under the contact and somehow they seem to fit together perfectly; Sherlock would swear he could feel every line in the soft, firm skin.
He pulls away quickly, the kiss only lasting a moment. His lips tingle.
"Well?" John asks, grinning, even though Sherlock can see the fear of rejection in his eyes.
Sherlock frowns. "I'm not sure." His heartbeat is running away with him and it's not unpleasant, but it's slightly disconcerting. "Come on, John – there's nothing in the house, we're going out for breakfast."
They hold hands as they walk through the village in search of a café serving breakfast; a few people give them looks as though two men holding hands is not something they see often, but something they would like to see more. Sherlock smiles at them and tugs his doctor closer, gently pressing his lips to the side of his forehead as he points out a café on the corner. They drop hands when they sit down on opposite sides of the table again, and Sherlock looks at John and wonders if his own face looks quite that goofily happy.
"So," John says, smiling at the waiter when he puts a plate of some sort of oily bread and tomatoes in front of him. "What are we going to do about Moriarty's people?"
Sherlock sighs and picks up his fork. "We'll have to find the people he's got watching Lestrade and Mrs Hudson first," he says, tapping the base of the fork against the table thoughtfully. "That's the biggest danger, that they're still watching in case I managed to fool them somehow. Actually, our first priority is to make sure no-one's still watching you. We don't want to be surprised by someone while we're chasing everyone else. I should do that this afternoon, actually."
John nods slowly. "Right. Well, why don't we… I'll go shopping if you don't need me to do anything while you're doing that. What are you going to do? Just call Mycroft and find out the names of the people who moved in around us?"
"Mycroft has a list of people that are known to have been working for Moriarty. They actually knew a surprising amount about him, considering they never had him in custody." Sherlock notices a flash of something cross in front of John's face, but he can't identify the emotion from the brief flinch so he dismisses it. "A bit of research on the internet and Mycroft's access permissions and I can figure out where they all are, roughly. If any of them are in Florence we can safely say we're being watched."
"And when we find them?" John questions, looking ever-so-slightly apprehensive.
Sherlock frowns, swallowing his mouthful of egg. "We inform them that Moriarty is dead and his criminal empire is collapsing. If they're smart, they'll realise they have no choice and turn themselves over to Mycroft's people, co-operate to help themselves. If they're not, we'll have to forcibly restrain them. John, you have to remember that these people are highly intelligent criminals. Most of them are sociopathic. If we have no choice, we will have to kill them."
John gives him a wry grin. "I thought you were a sociopath?"
Sherlock grins back. "High-functioning, John. I understand society's rules well enough to stay on the right side of the law. And I… I don't know if that's true anymore. I did like it when I kissed you."
"Did you?" the doctor's grin becomes almost manic in its intensity. "That's… good."
"Yes," Sherlock agrees quietly, his fingers straining for John's over the tabletop. "It's very good."
The second morning, Sherlock wakes up with John still draped on top of him like a sheepskin rug. The doctor is snoring softly, hot breath gusting against Sherlock's neck with every exhale.
He's hard again, but so is John, so it's less embarrassing.
All the same, he gently rolls the doctor off him and heads to the bathroom; he doesn't think he's ready quite yet for the two of them to have this discussion. After all, they've only just kissed once.
John cooks bacon and eggs on toast for breakfast while Sherlock papers the wall opposite the window with maps stuck full of pins like a voodoo doll. They established yesterday that the sniper who must have been watching John flew to Baghdad the day they faked the doctor's suicide, so now all that remains is to prioritise the people they've located and then track them down one by one.
The doctor sits down at the table and smiles softly as he watches the detective rush around, muttering to himself. "Sherlock," he says. "Come and have some breakfast."
He isn't really expecting his friend to reply, but the tall man stops pacing, sticks one last map-pin into the wall, and then joins John at the table and takes a bite of toast.
After breakfast Sherlock goes back to pacing and reasoning out loud while John sits on the sofa with the laptop, occasionally offering a comment in return to Sherlock's flood of information. The detective can feel that his friend's brain isn't completely with him, but he doesn't mention it until John's next interjection is absolutely unrelated to the conversation.
"Will you dance with me?" John asks suddenly.
Sherlock looks around in surprise. "What?"
The doctor looks sheepish. "I know, I know, it's ridiculous and stupid." Sherlock blinks a few times, wondering if that's the conversation over. These past few days with John have been full of a discourse he doesn't entirely understand. But the older man stands his ground firmly, still looking at Sherlock as though he requires an answer. "Will you?"
"I…" Sherlock weighs the ridiculousness of the situation, the urgency of figuring out their next step and the fact that he's never been a particularly graceful dancer against everything he owes John, but knows from the start what the answer has to be. "All right. But you'll have to guide me. And I don't think there's any music on the laptop." He did promise, after all, that their first week in Florence was for the two of them.
John grins. "We don't need music. But I could sing if you like."
Sherlock pretends to make a face at the idea, but he doesn't protest when John takes his right hand and places the other on his hip. He pulls the doctor closer and loops his hand under the man's armpit and around to clutch his good shoulder as John takes the first step.
While Sherlock was expecting a waltz, John simply moves them from side to side, swaying gently as if in an imaginary breeze. It's nicer without music, he thinks; less pressure to be in time and use the right foot, more focus on the tiny cocoon that is him and John when they're together like this. Sherlock closes his eyes.
"Sing," he says quietly.
John's voice is different when he sings, deeper, slightly husky. Sherlock knows he doesn't like it, and that whenever anyone asks him to sing he camps it up and purposefully makes a hash of it. But John's voice, his real voice, the one he's using now, is beautiful.
"Heaven, I'm in heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek…"
It's a song he's heard before somewhere, perhaps broadcast through a supermarket or café, but not like this. John sings it slow and soft and sweetly, reverently, his voice almost giving out on the high note of the second line in such a way that Sherlock's heart threatened to follow it.
"Heaven, I'm in heaven,
And the cares that hung around me through the week
Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak
When we're out together, dancing cheek to cheek…"
John stops singing, but keeps up the gentle sway from side to side, back and forth like a boat on the waves or a baby's cradle. With his eyes closed Sherlock thinks he could almost fall asleep. "Sorry," John says softly. "That's all I know."
"That's okay," Sherlock tells him. "It was beautiful."
He feels John smile against his neck. "Thank you."
The doctor goes to let go, to move away, and Sherlock clutches tighter to his shoulder and his hand. "Stay," he whispers, stilling the side to side movement but keeping the embrace locked in place, close and warm and intimate.
It's funny; once upon a time he would have shuddered to see himself like this with anyone, and now he knows that this moment will stay in the master bedroom of his mind-palace for when it's raining outside the bay-windows. He chuckles quietly into John's shoulder.
"What?" his friend asks, a warm note of amusement colouring his voice.
Sherlock smiles. "I'm just… I never expected to feel anything like what I feel for you."
John's hand clutches tighter at his waist. "I love you, too."
For a moment they stand like this, pulled tightly together as if about to start a quick, whirling two-step, breathing in sync and drinking in the feel of one another. Then Sherlock lifts his head from John's shoulder and presses their lips together.
Their first kiss was hesitant and rushed; this one is slow and deliberate and Sherlock knows without a doubt that he has never felt so loved in his life. It's hard to imagine a time when he didn't want this. John's lips move gently against his, closing around his bottom lip, touching their tongues together.
"I love you," Sherlock repeats when they break apart, pulling their bodies closer in an even tighter embrace.
John drops his hand at their chests to wrap it around his other hip instead. "I love you too, Sherlock, so much."
For a moment they stay there, just holding each other. "I'm sorry," Sherlock says finally. "I promised I wouldn't start looking for a week, promised we'd have a week just for this."
The doctor shrugs, almost shouldering Sherlock in the chin. "I understand your urgency. I don't like being 'dead' either."
"What do you want to do for the rest of the day?" Sherlock asks, pulling back enough to see his friend's face. "Tell me. I'll do anything you want."
He watches as John grins softly. "I bought some DVDs when I went shopping yesterday."
Sherlock smiles back. Hours of sitting on the sofa with John, and he can still think about what they're going to do next week if the film is too mind-blowingly dull. "All right."
John blinks. "All right? Just all right? No, oh, dull? You're not even going to ask what films I got?"
"What films did you get?" Sherlock indulges.
The doctor grins in a sort of long-suffering manner and lets Sherlock go completely to pick up a bag from the coffee table. "I got the Lord of the Rings trilogy –"
"Yes, John!" he can't help but interject.
John looks up at him, surprised. "What, really? You've seen them before, then?"
Sherlock shakes his head. "I've read the books." The doctor looks so incredulous he has to defend himself. "Oh, come on! It's Tolkien, John, it's more than a classic. I'm allowed to have read and enjoyed Tolkien."
"Never said you weren't," John defends, his hands held up in surrender. "Okay, then. The Fellowship of the Ring, here we come."
The third morning Sherlock wakes up alone in the bed, the covers thrown over what he already thinks of as John's side of the bed, his feet twisted in the bottom of the blanket and his chest cold.
"John!" he calls out. He shouldn't worry, but he knows he usually wakes up earlier than the doctor even before they started sleeping in the same bed and he can't help it. What if he was wrong in his earlier assumption that the sniper had stopped watching them?
There's no answer from the rest of the cottage. Sherlock wrestles his way out of the sheets and stumbles into the living-room, blinking sleep out of his eyes. "John!"
It takes him at least a minute of panicking before he sees the note on the kitchen bench. Gone shopping, back soon. John. Sherlock picks it up and holds it close to his eyes. Why would he go shopping again? He only went two days ago, they haven't run out of anything yet –
He's trying to quash the rising panic, still with the note lifted close in front of his face, when the door swings open and the crash of plastic bags against legs announces John's return. Sherlock drops the note and whirls around. "John! Are you all right?"
John stops in the doorway, nonplussed. "Yeah, of course. Didn't you read the note?"
"Of course I read the note, but it didn't make sense – you were shopping, why would you be shopping? You went shopping the day before yesterday, we don't need anything." Sherlock takes in the bags John's carrying and starts to relax a little bit.
"I… yeah, sorry, but I had an idea for something we could do today," John says, putting the bags down on the table and stepping forward to take Sherlock into his arms. "Hey. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give you a fright or anything."
Sherlock clutches at John's jumper and pulls him closer. "I woke up and you weren't there," he says quietly.
"I'm sorry," John whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. "I didn't think you'd worry. God, you've made an effort to be there, haven't you? Every morning when I wake up you're sitting there, fully dressed, even though you'd probably rather be off somewhere else, and the one time I wake up first I just get up and leave. I'm sorry, Sherlock. I promise, from now on I'll always be there when you wake up unless I don't have a choice."
It isn't actually for John's sake that Sherlock likes to return to the bed until he wakes up, but he nods into the doctor's shoulder anyway. "Thank you." They let each other go enough to look each other in the eye, and for Sherlock to slowly kiss John's cheek. "Good morning," Sherlock echoes, smiling. "So what was the idea you had for us?"
John picks up his shopping bags again. "We're going to make Florentines."
Sherlock tries to give him a stern glare. "Baking," he says incredulously. "I tell you we can do anything this week and you want to bake."
"They're Florentines," John argues. "We're in Florence. It fits." Sherlock tries to stop the laugh bubbling up in his stomach and ends up making an awkward sort of cough. "And then we can eat them while we watch The Two Towers."
The consulting detective rolls his eyes, but really that's case closed. "All right."
John beams at him. "Fantastic. Do I trust you around the gas hobs?" Sherlock simply glares at him until he laughs again. "Well, you can melt the butter, then."
They clatter around the kitchen for a while, Sherlock perfectly happy to follow John's instructions with only the odd comment of I do know how to work the oven, thank you, John interrupting them. It's nice, menial work that requires the use of the hands and not the brain; Sherlock's mind flies back to the maps on the wall.
We shouldn't go back to London for a month or so. But that's where the people who present the biggest risk are. It'd be best to go to Baghdad first – I'll book the flights tonight – and then Moran can tell us who we should go after next. I won't tell John until we get there that I already know we'll have to kill him.
He's brought sharply back to the present by John smearing his arm with melted chocolate.
"John," he scolds. "That's terribly immature." The good doctor replies by grabbing the arm and licking the chocolate off.
Sherlock can't move, can't breathe, can't speak with John's tongue on his skin; when his friend finally moves away he gasps in a long breath. "John, I haven't showered."
The army doctor's face falls slightly. "Okay, I'll stop," he says calmly, turning back to where he was stirring the chocolate over the stove. It takes a moment before Sherlock recognises the sinking in his stomach as disappointment.
In retaliation, he dips his finger – John forced him to wash his hands before handling food – into the bowl of glaze and runs it down John's neck. The older man whirls around, eyes wide with surprise, but Sherlock catches his face in his hands and dips his tongue to lave the sticky fluid away. John lets a gentle oh escape his lips.
"It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it," he clarifies. "It's just unhygienic because I haven't washed."
John nods. "Okay." He moves forward for a kiss, but Sherlock turns his face away quickly.
"I haven't brushed my teeth either."
"I don't care," the doctor growls, grabbing Sherlock's chin and yanking it back around to mash their lips together. Sherlock makes a muffled noise of surprise and protest, but the kiss is so bruisingly passionate that he forgets his worries about morning breath. "Love you," John whispers when he finally lets go.
Sherlock smiles. "Love you, too."
As the doctor turns back to the stove, Sherlock drags another finger-ful of glaze down the line of his jaw.
The fourth morning, Sherlock starts to wonder if sleeping in the same bed as John is going to leave him with RSI in his right wrist and friction-burns on his hands.
The doctor has a hand possessively resting on Sherlock's sternum, twitching slightly as he sleeps. Sherlock picks it up and kisses it before deciding on a cold shower for the sake of his health.
Around eleven o'clock in the morning, when the two of them have just decided to go out and spend the afternoon wandering the streets of the village, the doorbell rings.
Sherlock looks at John and John looks at Sherlock; who's going to be visiting them? After a moment Sherlock grabs the Browning that John had somehow managed to salvage when they escaped London and answers the door.
A man in a red postman's uniform raises an eyebrow at him when he takes his time opening it and peering out to see who it is. Sherlock sighs and throws the door open. "Yes?"
"Mr. Guillam, sir?" Sherlock nods, recognising the name Mycroft had suggested he take. "There is a parcel for you, sir." His Italian accent is thick, but Sherlock is secretly impressed that he's speaking English at all. The cottage has obviously been used as foreign witness protection before.
"Grazie," he thanks him. "Do you know what it is?" His mind races through the possibilities; what if someone is watching them, and he takes it inside and it's an explosive, or –
"The parcel is classified as a musical instrument, sir," the postman stumbles through. "It is the size for a violin."
Sherlock blinks. "Grazie," he repeats. The postman retrieves the parcel – which is indeed violin-shaped – from his van and Sherlock awkwardly signs for it with a name not his own.
He opens it outside, still mindful that it could be a trick; John joins him just as the plastic and bubble-wrap falls away to reveal the case for Sherlock's Stradivarius. "Oh, Sherlock," John gasps.
Pinned to the case is a note in Mycroft's handwriting. Mrs Hudson wanted to keep it, but thought my need for sentiment was greater than her own. Mycroft
John smiles sadly. "Poor Mrs Hudson," he says gently. "I could hear her panicking while Mycroft was injecting me with that stuff. It was hard enough for her when you died."
"I had to tell her that you were dead," Sherlock tells John dully. "Dressed up as an impersonal ambulance officer, I had to stand there and watch as she found out both her tenants had died in the space of a month."
The doctor bends down, hoists Sherlock off the ground by his armpits and holds him close. "This isn't your fault," he says firmly. "We're going to find each and every one of Moriarty's people and go back to her before she's even had time to look for new tenants."
"She won't find them, anyway," Sherlock reminds him. "Nobody wants to live in a flat where the last tenants both committed suicide."
He picks up the violin and walks back inside; he can feel John watching his back as he goes. The first scale he plays on the violin, to feel how badly the air freight has thrown it out of tune, is achingly, desperately sad. He puts the violin down and feels John's hands snake back around his waist from behind. He closes his eyes.
"I love you," John murmurs. Sherlock smiles weakly.
After a moment, the doctor moves away to sit on the couch. Sherlock tries to put his landlady out of his mind for now; let it be their motivation to not rest until the entire criminal network is shut down, but this week is for what he managed to rescue, and not for what he was forced to leave behind.
The next song he plays slowly at first, testing his ear. It's not something he's played before, and he's not entirely sure he's got all the notes right, but when John hears it he jumps and looks around. "That's from The Lord of the Rings," he notes.
Sherlock smiles fondly at him. "It's the hobbit song. It reminds me of you."
John's expression turns stony. "The hobbit song. Reminds you of me."
"I like hobbits."
He turns away from his friend to hide the smirk as he continues the song, but he can still feel that John has given up being touchy about his height and started to smile. It is a beautiful piece of music, after all, and it sounds like home and safety and cheerfulness, and everything that John stands for in much the same way as hobbits do.
John claps when he's finished, and everything almost feels like normal.
The fifth morning he wakes up with John's hand tapping out what feels like Paganini on his belly, a few inches away from his biggest morning erection yet.
He groans. John laughs.
"I'm sorry," Sherlock excuses himself embarrassedly.
John pushes himself up onto his elbow and frowns down at him. "Don't be sorry," he says firmly. "It's a natural and highly enjoyable part of life." And with one hand, John draws one of Sherlock's to his own groin as he slides lower with the other.
Sherlock gasps as his hand meets John's erection at the same time as John's hand meets his. John's laugh rings out again. "What? You weren't expecting it? You're worried about the fact that you haven't showered, or your morning breath?"
"No," Sherlock gasps out, because John's voice is teasing and he put up with the morning breath last time, and launches himself at the doctor, pushing his tongue into his mouth and wrapping the hand that isn't sliding under the waistband of John's pyjamas around his back. The older man grunts and rocks his hips forward, and the friction is so deliciously different from his own hand that Sherlock can't help but thrust his own in return, a chain reaction that continues until they settle into a languid, unhurried rhythm.
They come with quiet gasps of each other's name and fall side by side onto their backs. John reaches down between them and takes Sherlock's hand. "All right?" he asks after a moment.
Sherlock turns his head to smile at John. "Fantastic," he replies. John chuckles and curls their bodies together, warm and lazy and comfortable.
"Let's not get up," he murmurs finally. Sherlock chuckles; he's going to protest, but actually curled up like this he feels like he could easily go back to sleep.
"Fine," he agrees, wrapping his arms loosely around his lover and closing his eyes again.
The sixth morning it rains, and Sherlock can hear it when he wakes up. It seems almost symbolic: this is their last day in Florence before they must descend into a world of hunter and hunted and a race against the clock. He can't promise John that they'll always have a bed to sleep in or food to wake up to.
He reaches out for the doctor and gently manipulates his body like a ragdoll until he's cradling him into his chest, blocking out the sound of the rain hitting the roof, sheltering him. John makes a muffled sound and turns his face into Sherlock's t-shirt, sighing contently.
It feels like he might combust from happiness, illogical as that may be.
Sherlock closes his eyes and listens to the sound of the rain, wishing they were back at home on Baker Street. At some point he must fall back to sleep, because he stirs awake when John moves. It's still raining.
The doctor yawns as he stretches, making the most adorable sounds. Sherlock smiles fondly at him; when he's settled back against his chest, the detective leans down and places a kiss on the top of his head. "Good morning," he says quietly.
John kisses the cloth just above Sherlock's left nipple. "Good morning." Neither of them move; the day before they had barely left the bed, but that doesn't make its warmth any less inviting. "It's raining," the doctor observes.
"Yes," Sherlock says, softly patronising. "It's raining."
They lie there for another moment, before Sherlock stretches and sits up. "We should go out for breakfast," he says brightly. "And we need to get ourselves coats – I daresay there'll be a lot of this weather where we're going."
Groaning, John follows suit. "Why, where are we going? I thought our first stop was Baghdad."
"It is," Sherlock replies, standing up and hunting around in their bags for a clean pair of trousers. "And we have to do laundry today, too. But we'll have to go to far more places than just Iraq, John." He draws the curtains and looks out at the rain and sighs. "It's not going to be easy."
John vaults himself out of bed and grabs his own pants. "It's going to be easier than it would be for you on your own," he reminds the detective.
Sherlock grins. "Thank you, John."
"Right," the doctor says, changing the subject abruptly. "Do you want to shower first, or do you think we should shower together to save water?"
"Is that a trick question?" Sherlock asks, grinning and following his lover into the bathroom.
They run through the streets in the rain with jumpers over their heads before they find a cafe, giggling like teenagers and snatching kisses in doorways. Sherlock feels like a character in a film he never would have bothered to watch before John.
As they sit in the café – John over Eggs Benedict, Sherlock a more modest bowl of muesli and fresh fruit – the cellphone they'd bought to share goes off with the obnoxious default ringtone.
"We've got to change that, it's awful," John says, grimacing.
Sherlock's grimace is even more pronounced: there's only one person who has that number. "Mycroft," he answers it shortly. John chuckles.
"Enjoying yourself, brother dear?" the voice returns, silky and endlessly irritating.
The detective allows himself a small smile. "Very much. Thank you for the violin," he adds grudgingly.
Mycroft chuckles. "You've never been able to live without that instrument. Much to the despair of those who had to live with you." His tone is full of a sentiment Sherlock never hears; it's intended to make him softer, but it only makes him uncomfortable.
"What did you want, Mycroft?"
"Simply to confirm that your flight to Baghdad leaves at nine a.m. tomorrow. I apologise for interrupting your holiday."
Sherlock goes to hang up straight away, but then he remembers. Without Mycroft, he wouldn't be here. He'd still be in that flat pacing himself into insanity worrying about John, and John… John could really be dead. This week – this incredible week unlike anything Sherlock could have dreamed for himself – has really only happened because of his brother.
"Thank you," he says after a moment's pause. John looks up from his breakfast in surprise. "For everything, Mycroft, really. Thank you."
He can imagine the soft, thin-lipped smile on his brother's face even as he hears it. "You're welcome, Sherlock."
John frowns at the phone as Sherlock puts it down. "What was that?"
Sherlock shrugs. "Oh, just Mycroft confirming the flights tomorrow."
"No, I mean you thanking him."
Another shrug, this one slightly less meaningless. "Without him, I wouldn't have made this decision. I wouldn't have allowed this to happen. Less than this could make me give my brother a heartfelt thanks."
John grins. "I'm flattered."
"Don't be." Sherlock stops John's hand, wandering over the tabletop towards him, with his own. "It doesn't matter how this happened. The important thing is that it did."