Part 5 'The Comfort of Content'

Author: tigersilver

Paring: S/J

Rating: PG-13

Warnings/Summary: If you though the last one was soppy, this one is dripping. Yes, dripping. I make no apologies, as I write the fluffiest of fluff and you know that, right? Good-oh! Oh, and? There's a proposal and John must simply announce it to his reading public. Because John, right?

As some of you may know, John types slowly, the tip of his tongue caught between his front teeth, it has been two long years since I lost my dear wife Mary.

~And my child~

But John doesn't type out that. Bit much, and he can't dwell.

"You can update your blog just as well from here, you know," Sherlock remarks casually. He doesn't look up at John from his vantage point on the sofa, only settles his arse more firmly into the end cushion, as if to prove something. Perhaps that the couch is more comfortable, which is quite debatable given its age. "It's not as though that last case was anything special. If I were you I wouldn't trouble myself. Waste of effort."

"No I can't," John replies promptly. Two years sometimes seems as though it was just yesterday. I'm certain some of you readers know the feeling? "Bread-and-butter, remember? Besides, you'll nag at me and then insist on reading over my shoulder; I hate that." His fingers tap a little more loudly at the keys because he knows it annoys Sherlock no end. Sherlock deserves to be annoyed, as he won't shut up. Sherlock deserves a lot of things and mostly he's getting them now John's back with the programme. "Also, that's not what I'm writing about, the case."

It was one of the worst possible days of my life and, as some of you may also be aware, he taps away methodically, not in any way acknowledging his flatmate's intently sharp stare, there have been any number of those sorts of days, the bad ones. However?

"Oh, come on, John," Sherlock wheedles, abruptly shifting about to stick his feet up on the cushions. He wriggles his toes, long and narrow, gouging at the upholstery. "If you come over here with me it will be all that much warmer for the both of us. I can see you shivering from here; the flat's bloody freezing. Bloody winter. Does it never end."

"No it isn't, Sherlock," John denies him absentmindedly. "It's that you're not wearing enough layers. Or socks, even. Go and find your slippers if you're that chilled, will you? And I'm a little busy now, so be quiet about it. No need to fling half the contents of your wardrobe out your bedroom door when you do."

Sherlock says nothing. Only makes an indeterminate noise, which may possibly equate to his terrible disdain for John's prognostication of his potential wardrobe mismanagement or then again, it might merely be his way of awarding John a point for calling the likely odds in favour. John ignores him stolidly, as he's plenty of practise. He sits back instead and sighs softly, flexing his fingers and taking the moment to crack his stiff neck. It's not especially cold in the flat but it's not exactly tropical either. Sherlock's suggestion of huddling together for body heat is valid but he's been putting off this blog entry for far too long as it is.

And there's no going back, is there? One must forge forward.

"John. John. John, I don't see why—"

"Hush now. Give me a minute."

"Pssh!"

Sherlock's pithy noises aside, John regards what he's written as a possible lead-in to his startling newsflash quite carefully and decides it'll do. He heaves another sigh, a long drawn-out one, but hidden well under his breath so as not to set Sherlock off further. To his mind there is simply no good way to word the next bit so it'll have to be a rather bald-faced statement: I, John H Watson, am to be married. Possibly repeated several times over: wedded, holy effing matrimony, god yes, I'm to be hitched again! Sherlock will no doubt tease the living daylights out him for it later, posting this sort of thing on his blog. He's still a bit of a stickler when it comes to the cases.

However, as it happens, I am proposing to be wed again. In fact, I have already accepted the offer.

But? Where else is there? John's blog is his blog.

And there! He's said it, or actually he's proclaimed it, shortly to be in print to his ever-growing array of followers, so there's no possibly mistaking it, his status. Altered, to the extreme.

"Ridiculous." Sherlock snorts. "Stubborn. Cold, John! Tedious. Don't much care for it."

"You don't say." John grins devilishly at nothing in particular—certainly not his cranky flatmate—and dives back into his work-in-progress. Now to throw all the faceless people a little fodder for the gossip mill because people do talk and John feels that if it is inevitable that they will, as they will, at very least they should chewing on the meat-and-bones of the matter. He is the official chronicler, after all. Of Sherlock's life, at least.

Some of you (the especially thick ones, as my rude flatmate would say—does say) might wonder how I can? How I can even consider marrying again when two years ago I lost all that I held dear, my lovely Mary? But you would be mistaken, dear readers, in supposing that.

It is still an honour, John thinks, squaring his shoulders. This is about to be a bit unbearable, the writing down of it, and he has such difficulty even thinking of it, and yet. And yet.

Two years ago I did indeed suffer terribly, so much so my abominably rude but undeniably highly skilled in the knowledge of advanced chemistry sort of flatmate was forced to drug me repeatedly for the first sen'night after my wife died. And not for a case, nor as an experiment. He did it solely to keep me bumbling around on this planet long enough to realize for myself that I wasn't entirely alone. That I was not without a curious sort of comfort in my time of loss.

That he was still with me, in fact. By my side and that mostly literally, throughout it all. That was Sherlock Holmes, Himself, his Nibs, being caring. Being kind. It's not the sort of bloke I had him pegged for in the beginning, but I guess it had its real start right then and there, with the fact that Sherlock wouldn't stop touching me, once I woke up. Of course that was minor when you think about what he did to me later!

"John. John!" Sherlock, speak of the devil himself, has apparently ditched his wheedling in favour of shouting aloud like an irritated banshee. "Come here, John! It's urgent! Come over here at once. I need you."

"You always say that, and yet…" John blinks at the glow of the screen. Oh my god, here he's pouring his heart out and it's bloody awful…and yet. It needs must be said, somewhere. It needs must be recorded, for posterity. Or at least for Mrs Hudson, whose hints are becoming more and more doleful by the day. 'Married ones', his arse!

"John. John. John. I said to come."

This is all highly irritating of Sherlock, all these interruptions just so he can have his way, but what else is new? "What?" he demands, ruing the loss of the beginnings of his mental flow. "What's so bloody fucking urgent now, Sherlock?"

"Did you not just hear me? This new data I've uncovered—for the case, John! Miles back on Google Scholar, but it's—you must come here and read it at once. There are graphs, John. Pages of them. Pie charts! All manner of data a medic could ever desire!"

"No. No, I really don't, Sherlock," John responds placidly and takes up his typing once more. "Desire it. You can have your graphs and welcome." He thinks he can probably wrap this entry up before bed if Sherlock will just allow him a few minutes of peace and quiet. He was absolutely with me, right there to be touched and to be touched by, John types methodically, recalling it all in blips and bits and pieces. All the time, day and then night; constantly. John had hated it at first, being touched by someone not his wife. But it was…it was Sherlock. And his eyes, when he'd looked at John, they'd seemed so… Ah. Well then. Right.

A little like a leach, really, the way he plastered parts of his body all over parts of mine on a whim. Except it wasn't a whim.

"Now you're just being mule-headed, John. It's warmer here; I need you to take a look-see—why won't you?"

"Busy, love." And if Sherlock doesn't allow him the space, the time, the contemplation, John's still planning on taking those allotted minutes by hook or by crook. "A moment more? I need a moment, that's all. And there's nothing I can help you with for a case of simple jewelry theft and you know it. The other's closed up tight; leave me alone for a couple, all right? I'd like to actually compose my thoughts for this one." I needed the physical contact, I needed the reminder I was loved. "It's…it's important."

Sherlock Holmes saved me.

"Pish!"

That, John records with a sort of grim determination, is the crux of the whole entire matter. He'd been bleeding out, soul-wise, heart-wise; it had been horrendous, and then there was this familiar face, always, peering across at him. Over at him, down on him, at night in bed: 'You all right, John? Please be all right, John.' This time, not leaving. This time, staying close. You see, I'd almost lost him, Sherlock. Not long before Mary died. I had actually lost him, once before that, or believed I had, and that nearly killed me. Murdered me in cold blood, him leaving me like that. I nearly murdered him again when he came back, let me tell you! It was a close thing! And then I came so bloody close to losing him a second time, the great stupid wanker, and then again, what with that bastarding blackmailer, and let me tell you, that was definitely one of the worst days of my life!

"Look, whatever it is, it can't that important, John. And you can help, I know you can," Sherlock sits up abruptly and casts his laptop away, sending it skidding across the surface of the side table. I've had bad days, I tell you, John types. "You're just playing coy now. Stop that!" It only barely comes to a shuddering halt just before the edge, the expensive lot of Mycroft's gifting. "It's tedious of you. And I…I—John. John?"

"Shit, Sherlock!" John, catching all sorts of 'come-hither' action out of the corner of his eye and becoming very instantly begrudging, growls. Sherlock knows better, he hopes. He really does hope. Not much point to what they're planning if he doesn't, yeah? "Don't break that, git! You know Mycroft will have a shite-fucking-conniption if he has to supply you another so soon after Christmas."

"Bother Christmas, John," Sherlock barks, flumping and whumping himself all over the abused cushions with a flutter of dull taupe silk. John is given a baleful stink-eye for his trouble over one bony broad shoulder. "Bother winter and the blasted cold and the silly-arsed people who think it's more important to write silly-arsed things down for complete wankers to read through about bleeding cases that aren't worth a tinker's damn! My toes are falling off, John! It's frigid in here and I'm bored! My very back-teeth hurt from it; it's painful. Come here, can't you? Come along here, John…entertain me. Warm me. Make it work again, this—this."

"Ye…ess? Erm. 'This'?" John does look up this time, meeting Sherlock's gaze. "Sher—"

"Thing. You know. This…thing. Make it work."

That last demand is really more of a purring rumble; it sends a little thrill straight up John's spine, just as a siren would calling out, singing out—the ancient old Greek sort, not the sort mounted on a police car—would have probably affected some poor sod of a passing antique sailor.

"John. John. I'm cold. I want you. Now." Sherlock's voice is undeniably sexy. "For...for the thing. You know."

"Oh. Oh…oh fuck, Sherlock."

"Warm me up?" John's nonplussed, just a little, at the expression on his fiancé's face. "First. We'll shag later, promise." Sherlock beams at him, across the little gap, ever mercurial. "Please?"

"Oh, you pusillanimous fucker!" John starts up in his armchair, halfway between disgruntled and terribly wary. "You don't play fair, do you?"

"Why ever would I? It doesn't work."

"Oh. Oh, fucking Christ."

It takes prodigious effort but John doesn't snap his laptop lid shut and he doesn't make a single move out of his chair and towards the divan, even though he really, really wants to. He especially wants to because the act of recording all of this soppy relationship rot for the benefit of his readers, all the myriad ways the great detective, the irritating slob, the tempestuous genius seated just across from him has altered John's life for the better is proving to be incredibly moving. He's actually teared up a few times, just typing it up.

"No…no. " Taking a deep breath, John belts it up. "You're playing me 'cause you're bored, that's all. Stop, I told you. Find your socks."

"Nope. Not true, need you. Not socks."

"Well, sod you, needing me. I need do this, damn it, so bugger off, I have to finish! If I don't, no one will ever know. And Harry and Mrs Hudson will hate me…Us."

"Oh, John!" Sherlock exclaims disparagingly. "Why bother? It's not as though it's great literature. Who even needs to? Wait—wait? What're you writing down? Precisely?"

"Huh!" John scoffs. "Like you would know what great literature is if you even tripped over it. Be quiet, can't you? Just—one—more—minute? It's not the case—idiot. It's far more important than that."

"Pooh! Fine, have it your way," Sherlock gripes, grimaces, and makes a show of retrieving his endangered laptop, swirling about in another grand show of motion. "I don't need you, actually. You're horrid. Stay there and be obstinate, see if I care."

"Yes, all right, of course." John gulps hard, staring down at the blinking cursor; it seems to be mocking him. Here goes, then. In for a pound, in for a pence; cards on the table, right? "Horrid? Very nice, Sherlock. Fuck you too."

"Oh…" Sherlock murmurs, perhaps to himself. Perhaps to the laptop, but his eyes briefly cross, going unfocussed. "Oh! John!"

John ignores him, steadfastly.

"John, really?"

But I hadn't. I was spared his life, my great detective's, some two and half years ago. I was handed a gift so enormous, so massively huge that I could hardly comprehend it, not back then and not really till fairly recently. Well, when I say 'recently' I'm talking about a year ago. Although maybe it was really longer ago, as Sherlock claims it was. He postulates it's been years in the making. I don't know about that.

"That's all old news, you know." Sherlock has his laptop squarely before him in his lap, he's straightened up, sitting on the couch like a normal person, and seems utterly rational. "I told you it was years in the making. I don't…like…people. Not easily, John. You could have deduced merely from that. You know my ways. You, of anyone."

"Shut up."

It's like this: he came back from the dead again, Sherlock Holmes did: a living, breathing miracle, only for me. And I cannot be more grateful for it. Not only that, he did it twice—thrice!

"Thinking, Sherlock."

He said 'East wind,' right? He told me 'Sherlock' was a girl's name—that arse. Maybe it is, but the sight of that fucking plane going off and away, and then fucking Mycroft's face when it went, and we never had, either of us—I didn't. I still hadn't, and couldn't and wouldn't, and then.

"Bother!"

And then. Yes, right. Life altered its course again. We never do know, do we? I quite thought she'd live forever, my Mary. She didn't. Sherlock's still very angry with her. Me, not so much. Not so much, these days.

I have always been deathly afraid for him, though. Funny, isn't it? Who lives on and who doesn't? Tells me something, in the end. You can't waste your moments, there's only so many. Shit! He's as much as told me the same!

"But. But. You do love me, don't you? Not reneging, this late in the game?"

I love him. That's all. And he loves me. John sighs as he finally lays it out. That's all.

"Don't be an idiot." So we're to be married. It's not so difficult, really, once a bloke is allowed a chance to cogitate. "How could I? The invites have been posted." He lived for my sake, that one day, the day…right, enough of that. Not wading into that, no. "No going back now. Your brother—and my sister—would kill me." But! Dragged himself right back into the land of the breathing and he did it for me. And then he did the exact same thing over again, to me. Made me live, for him. Not that I mind it, really. "Don't fuss so. It's fine."

"I…I know you do, John." Sherlock has switched round again and is rising up, his compelling gaze practically dragging John from his chair. John resists, manfully, eyes on screen. "I can hardly believe it, sometimes."

That's how I know for certain he loves me.

"It's so strange. Weird, John." The laptop goes to the coffee table again, Sherlock is quivering in place. Standing, having abandoned the sofa, but stilled, as if struck. "John."

Sherlock doesn't go out of his way for anyone much, ever. So it's a fairly simple deduction to come to, at least in my view. He loves me. Likely far more than he should but then again I'm not arguing it.

"Well, yes. I do, rather," Sherlock agrees, having materialized by John's shoulder whilst John was typing furiously away, desperate to finish. Much faster rate than normal, too, but that had been rather a lot he's had to get off his chest. "Love you." He looms there for an instant, silent. But John knows he's peering down at the screen and has to bite back a stupid grin. "Yes," Sherlock adds thoughtfully, nodding approval. "Immeasurably."

"Yeah? Is that so?" John grins so hard it feels as his face will split. This whole endeavour has suddenly gone from the ridiculously soppy to the rather amusing. And he would rather like to see what Sherlock has to say to this next bit:

I may have lost my poor Mary, but I do have my very own Sherlock. He assures me I've had him for an indecently long time, too. He's the world's consulting 'only' and pretty full of himself.

"You have, of course you have, John. More than anyone, ever, you have me. Why even bother to write that down? It's obvious, isn't it? Shift over." Not waiting for permission—as if he ever would—Sherlock inserts himself on the arm of John's chair and makes as if to settle in very comfortably. His bum is warm, as is his whole body; no wonder he's chilled, giving off heat like that! John snorts, reflexively.

"You're not in the least bit cold. You're a bloody furnace."

"Of course I am. Frozen solid, till just now. I was without you, wasn't I? My own personal heater."

Also he apparently has little issue with coming right out with the most hideously romantic of assertions; John winces. NO—more than that: he blushes, face gone beet-red over his rapidly rising hands. "Jeesus!" They cover his face mercifully, briefly, and hide him from view. He's not expected Sherlock to go quite that far! "Oh, please—please? Shut the fuck up, Sherlock. Go away, do."

"No. And of course you should also mention that I 'had' you." The rustle of his sleeves as the detective makes little air quotes nearly covers up John's tiny and completely ineffectual sniff. "That you were always very much mine to have and I was never going to truly give you up. As I have you now and will carry on having you, till death do us part if we're both so lucky. Do make sure to include that part, it's terribly important. Your readers will want to know of this a mutual act of ownership we have. Mary would've approved, actually. You can't left to wander about on your own, clearly. It's not safe."

"Ownership! Is that what you call it? Arse!"

The wanker. John glares and takes great pleasure in typing that up. Is daring to edit me even as I type! Sod off, Sherlock. Fuck the fuck off and go hang yourself, please, will you? I am perfectly capable of—

"No. You're not, either," Sherlock murmurs, lifting away John's laptop with one graceful hand and grasping at John's stubbornly lowered chin with the other. "You're fiddling about with the words and the words and even worse words till it's bloody sick-making and you've taken far too many words to express what is blatantly obvious to anyone who's ever read your blog. You have, as a matter of fact, descended to the level of outright drivel; disgusting. You may as well be a Mills & Boon author, John. But no matter. Here we go." His glancing kiss to the twisting corner of John's mouth is sweet with the fragrance of the tea he'd made for both of them earlier; he is actually chilled, John notes, for the long fingers are positively frozen. But his lips are hot, and John sighs into them. "Forgiven. Oh, John. Hmm…that is better," Sherlock hums. "Much…better. Join in, then? You know you want to."

"Bollocks! Oh—hmmm, yes. Yes, all right, so it is…ah!"

"Will you ever let me finish that?" John asks somewhat plaintively rather a while later on in the evening, not resisting when Sherlock stops snogging him for an instant so he can urge them both over to his perennial favourite perch, the much abused ancient divan. "Because I really, really must, Sherlock; the ceremony is in two days!"

"Yes, but later," Sherlock replies smoothly. "Much later; maybe tomorrow. Come here, John. I've been missing you for entirely too long now. I'm nigh on an icicle. Time to fix that."

"Fine, later," John grumbles, but he soon ceases, due to his flatmate's very winsomely focussed wiles. "Bugger. Bug—ah-hah!"

"Oh, yes. That's on the schedule, John. You may be sure of it."

It is. They do. It's—as Sherlock swears up and down—much warmer in the flat. Later.

Pardon the interruption, John concludes his little confession to the reading public the following morning, fingers tapping away at what seems like light-speed, for him at least. I'm terribly sorry if this isn't a great deal of notice but I'd better get it written up before my interfering idiot of a flatmate comes to bother me again.

Look, it's very simple: I'm to be married. Again. Tomorrow, actually. To the man I love this time instead of to the woman. I miss Mary; how could I not? And I always will, but I also love him and I cannot bear to ever be in the position to grieve for him again, not the way I did before, not while I'm still breathing. He is quite literally the very best thing that ever has happened to me. He is the very best person, the very best of everything worth living for. He's engineered it so I did live, after Mary died, that bloody infuriating schemer, that wonderful, brilliant, amazing man, and he's no shame over it, what he did to me. He drugged me and force-fed me and fetched and carried for me and hugged me…and so much more. He's bold and he's daring and he'll drive a person to madness and he shines brighter than any constellation and—you know? I don't think I do have the words to describe how I feel for him, how I feel about him. But maybe…like this?

Sherlock calls me his 'conductor'. I call him my 'hero'. Lately I have the honour also of calling him, quite rightfully and properly, my love and my lover. My proper fiancé, til death do us part. We're making it legal and binding, since it's 'terribly stupid and wasteful, John!' to not. The whole idea of being hitched a second time round and then to this strange and amazing 'star' is a bit overwhelming, actually. I never thought to be possessed of a 'husband'. It's a bit of a corker, that. But it also leaves me weirdly content with my life as it is now.

He loves me. I love him. I'm happy. I like to think he is, too.

Those are the facts of this particular case—oh, yes. Nearly forgot to mention?

I call this one 'The Case of the Consulting Comforter', which has Sherlock absolutely howling in a right rage right about now, as he's up and right over my shoulder. Bloody hopping about, in fact. Which is also bloody funny to watch, so ta, Sherlock, for that. Thanks for the laugh, love. Make the tea, then, since you're up, yeah?

But, yes, Readers. Those are the facts and they didn't really even require too much deduction to sort them all out. And this one particular 'case' is never likely to be closed, either, so don't expect it. It's not that he won't solve it; it's that he already has. And continues to do so, every day, by solving me, solving us. And it hasn't ended yet and I hope it shan't for a very long time to come. I'm one hell of a lucky arse and I know it.

Also? I hope sincerely that no one—not even you, Sherlock—will hijack my blog when we're on honeymoon this time, me and my most favourite detecting wanker. And if you dare deduce the guests, my sweet, my honey-pot, my darling dearest teddy bear in the whole blasted garden, I'll have your guts ripped right out for the garter part of the ceremony and don't think I won't do. Don't forget I still have my scalpels as well as that….other thing. That I have. And will use.

Bet you didn't even know your lovely Mummy lent me her old one, did you? Her garter? It's blue, as it happens. I shall be attaching it to your right thigh tomorrow morning, Sherlock, and I shall be taking it right off again tomorrow night. In bed, both times. Our bed. Can't wait, really.

You are allowed to make another speech, though. I liked the last one rather more than I ever expected to, you know?

Cheers, to all the rest of you lot. You'll probably never be as fortunate as I am at this very moment in my life, but not to fret. At least there's no one's old mouldy eyeballs in your microwave. Small favours, right?

Fin