Thanks to my beta, Teek. And also to my Britpicker, johnsarmylady — it's amazing that two languages which look just the same, really aren't.
SPECIAL NOTE and SHAMELESS PLUG: 10,000 thank you's to everyone who has favorited, followed and read "John on Solid Ground." It reached 10,000 page views here on Fan Fiction last night and I am just so, so grateful to everyone for showing such interest!
Pointless disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock, and no one thinks that I do.
The Price of Fame
Sherlock lay on the unmade bed, watching John pack their one suitcase as they prepared to leave their honeymoon suite and return to 221B. Both men were once again dressed in the suits they had worn for their wedding, but John wouldn't have dreamt of lying around in his and risk getting it all wrinkled.
Not that he was going to get a chance to lie around. Someone had to pack, and John threw himself cheerfully into the task, already knowing not to expect any help from Sherlock. After living with the man for five months, he knew that only too well.
The phone rang and Sherlock actually shifted himself to answer it.
"Hello." A moment of silence and then, "This is Sherlock Watson-Holmes, yes." More silence, then: "Thank you, yes. We shall take you up on that offer. Please have a cab sent to the employee entrance in fifteen minutes. Oh, and mail us a printout of the paid bill. Thank you."
John's eyes crinkled in amusement as he looked at Sherlock. "That has got to be some kind of record…you just said 'thank you' twice in less than a minute."
Sherlock pretended to sigh in disgust. "Your influence has clearly ruined me."
John grinned and continued packing. "So, the employee entrance? What was that all about?"
Sherlock pulled a sour face. "Tabloid reporters and paparazzi are gathering out front. One of them was asking the doorman about us. Clearly they learned of the wedding and have finally figured out where we are staying. Bugger! I had hoped that filling out the Registry paperwork at the very last second would preclude anyone finding out until we were well on our way to Nepal." He scowled. "Someone must have a source at the General Register Office."
John shrugged. "Don't you think it would be better to face them now? Otherwise they'll just show up at 221B."
"Someone will show up at 221B no matter what we do now. Let them go there once they realise we've checked out. We're only going to be home for a day and a half, and then we're off to Nepal. If anyone is still hanging around by then, we can talk to them before we go to the airport. We'll have the perfect excuse to give a short interview and then leave. In fact, I shall ask Mycroft to send one of his most intimidating cars to convey us to Heathrow."
"Okay, then," John said, smiling. "You're the expert. All packed. Let's go."
One final check through the suite, one last, lingering kiss, and they were off. They took the service elevator down and were met by the cab (and a few surprised employees) at the back entrance. In a short while they were home.
Sherlock suggested suit sex before they changed into something more comfortable, but John flat-out refused. "We'd have to run out to get our clothes dry-cleaned right away or they'll be here for the next 2 months while they set into concrete, because I am not sending suits covered in come to the cleaners with Mrs. Hudson!"
"The honeymoon must truly be over," Sherlock said, pretending to be wounded to the core.
"Alternatively, how do you feel about naked sex?" John asked with a straight face.
"Naked sex is a perfectly adequate alternative," Sherlock admitted, nodding his head thoughtfully.
~~~/~~~
As soon as they figured out that the couple had left the hotel, members of the media started showing up at the street entrance to 221B. Mrs. Hudson ran necessary errands for John and Sherlock during the next day and a half, and the two men stopped answering their phones to anyone but friends and family. That essentially meant only Harry or Mycroft, because Greg and Mike had already left for Everest. Actually, Sherlock wouldn't have even picked up for Mycroft except that he wanted to be whisked off to the airport in one of Mycroft's menacing-looking cars.
When it was finally time to go, John stood in the window looking down at the paparazzi, who were yelling questions from the pavement so loudly that he heard every one of them clearly. He smiled and waved, then moved away from the window. Sherlock was standing in the middle of the room looking a bit uncertain.
"John," he said, "how do you feel about this? You're about to be involved in a media circus because you married a man who carries a certain amount of fame. Remember, these are mostly tabloid reporters and paparazzi, and they will stop at nothing to get a rise out of us. I don't think you signed up for that when you moved in with me."
"I don't mind," John said. "I'm the happiest I've ever been in my entire life, and if a few minutes in front of some rude people with cameras and recorders is the price I have to pay, so be it."
"But this will, in fact, 'out' you without any doubt."
"Out me to who?" John asked.
"To whom," Sherlock corrected automatically. "To friends and medical colleagues and your old army mates, who will all find out about us from the tabloids."
"Yeah, whomever," smiled John, well used to Sherlock's imperious grammar lessons by now. "Everyone I really care about knows about us already, and I don't give a tinker's fucking curse how anyone else finds out or what they might think. To paraphrase something the best, wisest man I've ever known once said to me: I would take out billboards all over the UK, and every last one of them would be captioned I have Sherlock and you don't."
Sherlock's cheeks turned a delicate pink and he blinked quickly a few times. But he wasn't tearing up, of course he wasn't. To keep John from noticing his not-tearing-up, he looked out the window. "Hmmph. There hasn't been this much interest in me since late last summer when the Jaguar commercials I made started to air."
"I remember those," John said, smiling reminiscently. "I was in hospital in Birmingham after being shipped home from Afghanistan. There was a telly angled over my bed in the ward, and I had it on all the time trying to keep my mind off things. Your Jaguar adverts were on once an hour, seemed like."
"You never told me that," Sherlock said.
"Never came up until now," shrugged John.
"So," Sherlock said curiously, "what did you think?"
"I thought you were the best-looking bloke I'd ever seen in my entire life — and also that you were so far out of my league I didn't even dare to dream about you."
"And now?" Sherlock wondered.
"I don't think I will ever understand why you chose me," John admitted, not for the first time.
"And you know my answer to that," Sherlock said. "I didn't know what it was about you from the start, but I expressed a wish that I could have years to analyse it. And here we are, married, and now I have the rest of our life together to examine the issue methodically and in extremely close detail." Sherlock pulled John into his arms and kissed him, running his fingers gently through John's sandy blonde hair.
Sherlock's mobile rang, eliciting a disgruntled noise from each man.
"Hello, Mycroft," Sherlock groused.
"If you two could just leave off snogging for one moment, I am here to take you to the airport." Mycroft rang off.
"Our chariot awaits without, John; but unfortunately, Mycroft is within," Sherlock said dryly. "Apparently he wishes to go with us to the airport to see us off."
"As long as he doesn't ask us to kiss Greg for him when we get to Nepal." They pulled on their coats, John picked up both of their small carry-on bags and they left 221B, Sherlock still snickering at John's comment.
Before pulling the door closed firmly behind them, John took one last, wistful look around at the happiest home he'd ever known. He'd only lived there five months and now it would be almost two months before he saw it again.
Once at the street door, John and Sherlock smiled wryly at each other. John took a deep breath, pulled the door open, and he and Sherlock stepped out to a clamour of questions from the reporters and shouts of "Look over here!" from the paparazzi.
John set their bags on the pavement and took up a position standing at parade rest behind and slightly to the side of his husband.
"What do you think of married life, Sherlock?" asked a reporter.
"It has been quite pleasant thus far," Sherlock responded blandly. Behind him, John shook his head and grinned. Sherlock was not going to make it easy for them.
"Who tops and who bottoms?" a man behind a camera shouted obnoxiously, no doubt hoping to anger the men enough to snap a picture of two furious faces.
Sherlock scowled and opened his mouth to deduce the questioner to within an inch of his life, but John stepped in smoothly. "I think we can all agree that some things are best kept private, yeah?" he replied with cool detachment, putting an arm firmly around his husband's waist. Sherlock looked down, impressed that John remained unruffled in the face of such effrontery.
Suddenly the questions were all being directed at John.
"So have you always been gay, Doctor?" was the one shouted the loudest.
Once again, John answered evenly. "I thought I was bisexual until the day I met Sherlock."
"And was that the day you realised you were gay?" asked another tabloid reporter, shoving a recorder in his face.
"No, that's the day I realised I was in love with Sherlock," John deadpanned. "There's no point in labels now. I always thought I would meet a special woman one day, settle down and have a family, but I fell in love with Sherlock and there will never be anyone else for me again."
Sherlock stared at his husband, enthralled. He had once told John that he wanted everyone to know that there was someone for him after all, despite predictions earlier in his life to the contrary (and some perhaps as recently as the day before the doctor came to interview for his job). And now everyone was about to find out that the most likable and desirable man on earth loved him. (Not to mention the most adorable.) At least half the paparazzi opened their mouths to ask the two men to kiss for the camera, but Sherlock beat them to it. The clicks increased exponentially.
The car window rolled down a crack. "Gentlemen," came a dry voice, "if we do not leave right now, you shall miss your flight."
Sherlock stepped off the pavement and walked around the car, ignoring the reporters still trying to ask questions. He fixed his eyes steadily on John as the amiable man chatted briefly with some reporters on his own way into the vehicle. He appeared to have them eating out of the palm of his hand! After tossing the small luggage bags to the expensively carpeted floor at Mycroft's feet, John gave a small wave and then slipped into the car himself. There was a frenzy of clicking noises as the paparazzi eagerly snapped their final pictures.
Having never taken his eyes off John for a moment, Sherlock got into the car from the other side and the two men slammed the doors shut simultaneously. Mycroft signaled to the driver to get going and the vehicle rolled away cautiously lest some story-crazed reporter run in front.
Inside the car, Sherlock stared at John, spellbound. "You were amazing," he said, sliding closer to John and kissing him enthusiastically.
"Indeed," said Mycroft. "It might be wise if John were to handle all your PR from now on."
"Whatever we do from now on, we'll do it together," John said firmly, and smiled as Sherlock leaned in to kiss him again.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Give it a rest," he said.
"You're just sexually frustrated because Greg has been gone for over a week already," Sherlock said smugly. Mycroft looked at John, who shrugged apologetically and moved a whole half-inch away from Sherlock's side. The three men made desultory conversation the rest of the way to Heathrow.
When the car pulled up at the terminal, John and Sherlock hopped out. John reached back in and snagged both their bags with one hand. "Thanks, Mycroft, you were a lifesaver," the doctor said gratefully. He really wasn't as comfortable in front of the cameras as he'd seemed and had been mightily relieved when Mycroft called their attention to the time.
"Say hello to Greg for me," Mycroft called after them, and then was left to wonder why the two men sniggered all the way into the terminal.
The next story will take place on the plane to Nepal. So we're getting there.