A/N: Pic fic/ fluff prompt. They don't end. Thanks to my Alpha Ashley for the beta help and keeping Sherlock's character in line.
Pictures: 31 . media . tumblr [dotcom] / dace69684e5702cf38f2ca16697242a6 / tumblr_mgv760bSAI1r8ekhko1_500 . png
24 . media . tumblr [dotcom] / cdd3b037b3d6dd3602269e4ac9ce901b / tumblr_mrn8h6cxXz1s3091co1_500 . jpg
Title based off the poem by Brook Yung from "The Spirit's Undying Chase."
The Place Your Heart Calls Home
It had taken John months after they'd started dating to get Sherlock to open up about his past. John wanted to know everything about his insane genius, despite the monsters he suspected lurked in the shadows of Sherlock's history. But Sherlock had been adamant about keeping his secrets. John had only succeeded recently. He wasn't sure if Sherlock had just been ready to talk or it had been that promise of his trademark blow job afterward….
So John had used a slight bit of manipulation. He wanted to know. He hadn't denied Sherlock sex outright. Just gave him that bit of extra incentive.
But John now understood why Sherlock had closed that part of his life off and didn't like to talk about it. He hadn't been abused as a child, but he had been…neglected. And really, John counted that as a kind of abuse.
His parents hadn't ignored him, no, but they had been distant. He hadn't felt that love of parent for child that is every child's right. As is the expectation when people bring such a gift into this world as new life.
Instead, Sherlock had grown up feeling like a mannequin. A model child to be shaped and molded into the perfect representation of a son.
He didn't go out to play. He went to lessons- piano, violin, French, Italian, etiquette, speech.
Even when Mycroft came home from school, they were afforded little freedom to act as children should. Not to mention that Mycroft was already set in his no nonsense ways by the time Sherlock had come along. Their parents had seen to it.
The reality of the bleakness of Sherlock's childhood shook John. It helped explain why he was so stiff in his bearing, as unfeeling as he had once been. It was a learned trait.
But apparently John had broken Sherlock of this cycle. Had been his conduit to the rest of the world. For some reason, this brilliant being had found something in all of John's ordinariness to warrant opening up to, discovered something in John worth loving.
And so John was going to return the favour. He was going to help Sherlock enjoy some of the things he'd missed out on growing up.
John had been aghast when he'd learned Sherlock had been discouraged from playing pretend. That his parents found little merit in imagination. That Sherlock had never done something so simple as build himself a fort to get away in. To hide as if it was a secret spot. Or to rule as his own domain.
John was going to rectify that immediately.
It had taken awhile to convince Sherlock to do it. He didn't see why he should build a fort now when he had gone so long without one and he was clearly fine.
But John knew the worth of such an idea. Knew the value of capturing at least some part of this elusive childhood freedom for the man that had so long found freedom only in the advancement of his mind.
John made Sherlock help him twist two thin duvets together and drape them over the backs of their opposite facing chairs. John smiled his satisfaction at the finished product. It was basic, but the point was the same.
He pulled Sherlock down with him and propped him up against one of the chair backs before resting himself between his lover's legs. There. A fort. A small little hideaway where they could pretend no one else could find them.
"So this is it, then?" Sherlock asked him, stroking a lazy hand across John's body. Old habit now. It had surprised John at first, but he quickly understood Sherlock's need for passing physical affection.
Sherlock didn't sound very impressed. John couldn't really blame him. This was just them sitting on the floor beneath two covers. And he didn't really get the idea behind the escapism.
"Mmm. Yes. It's a bit simplistic, but it's a fort, nonetheless," John answered him before snuggling back. The floor wasn't the most comfortable of places to lounge, but lying against Sherlock helped.
"It can be bigger, then?" Sherlock queried. More interest in his tone now.
"Oh yes. They can be any size, any shape, can have any number of little rooms."
"Hmm," Sherlock hummed in that thinking way he had. John could almost hear the gears whirring in his head.
"You want to make it bigger, then?" John asked him. If Sherlock was going to actively participate in this, he'd be willing to build a fort across the whole of London.
"Mmm, yes. I think this," he gestured to their little place ensconced between the chair backs, "needs work."
John turned his head up to smile at him. Sherlock returned it, his eyes displaying that usual mischievous twinkle he got whenever he was planning some mad scheme.
John didn't mind. Not that he ever did, really, but right now he was especially glad to see Sherlock embracing this idea.
He turned in Sherlock's arms so he could wrap his arms around the thin body. Sherlock would always be lanky, but luckily John had helped put a bit of meat on his bones. Forced him to eat when he went too long without- and that is when John did deny him sex until he complied. His health was more important than a bit of bribery.
He propped his chin against Sherlock's chest and watched his eyes continue to twinkle.
"What exactly did you have in mind?" he asked.
His smile widened. "I think we can manage to build a proper fort, don't you? No sense in doing something half way."
"No, there isn't." And John's smile brightened too.
Sherlock ushered John up out of their miniature fort before following. He went off immediately without bothering to tell John what the new plan was. This was such a common occurrence that John couldn't get offended. Besides, he never minded sitting back and watching Sherlock's genius work.
John watched Sherlock move about the flat gathering quilts and duvets and sheets and covers and washrags and towels and blinds and curtains and basically anything that would serve to be draped over a surface.
John saw items he thought he'd binned ages ago. Sheets stained with some experiment or another. Rags molded to test God knew what. Of course Sherlock had saved them. He'd just let John believe they were gone.
Sherlock disappeared up the stairs to what they still referred to as John's room, even though John spent almost every night in their room, formerly Sherlock's room. They kept the room upstairs intact for those odd days when they were fighting and John couldn't stand to be in Sherlock's company or Sherlock was staying late with Lestrade on a case and John couldn't stand to sleep in their bed without him. When the smell of him without the feel of him would drive John mad so that he couldn't sleep anyway and he basically stared at the ceiling until Sherlock ambled in at some God forsaken hour and snuggled his way back into John's arms and good graces. Then John would sleep like the dead for over half the day and not feel remorse for this at all.
Sherlock bounced down the stairs with John's quilt and sheets bundled in his arms. As well as the extra towels and washrags kept in the upstairs closet. John doubted there was anything left of either bed but a mattress and case-less pillows. He was just glad Sherlock hadn't thought to use either of those.
Sherlock dumped his assortment of coverings and went off, probably in search of more. But if there was any other covering in the whole of England, John would be surprised. When had they got all this?
Instead, he saw Sherlock gathering brooms and mops and lamps and photo frames and books and his riding crop and anything else with a considerable weight or length.
John watched Sherlock flit back and forth and even without his coat, he swished. Moved fast enough to stir the air from its stillness.
John tried to interject when Sherlock put separate molded rags with un-molded things. He thought they could keep all the mold and experiment marked things together but Sherlock protested. Of course this mold can't be by that experiment. It would throw off the results completely. And John just shut up after that, merely determined to wash EVERTHING in the flat when this was done.
John considered helping but knew at this point he'd just be in the way of whatever Sherlock was envisioning creating. He wouldn't see the solid picture enough to grasp the small details. So he'd just sit back and let Sherlock work his magic.
And magic it was. While John sat on, Sherlock created a world around him. Coverings draped over the couch and the chairs; held up by the brooms at an angle that looked like it could come crashing down to 180 by too strong an exhale, but which stayed strong as though Sherlock had welded it down; weighed down by books and picture frames; stretched distances using the mops; elevated atop the bookshelves; both illuminated and suspended using the lamps; adorning the stairwell; and who knew what else up the stairs themselves.
Sherlock had secreted them away from everything using nothing more than sheets and towels and an intent to create an escape. Had created rooms with hanging partitions and passageways that led to other sections of the fort. John wondered if he shouldn't dub it a castle at this point.
Sherlock finished off his masterpiece by dragging the indeed completely bare mattress and pillows from their room and dropping them in the middle of the flat, in the center of the biggest open space in the fort. He threw a quilt across it- and John was marvelling that any were left over after he was done crafting this space out of their flat.
Sherlock reached out for John's hand and John took it without a word. Sherlock led them through a passageway on a tour of his fort. Their fort. Made of their quilts and their towels and their books and their photos and their life.
Sherlock showed him the ins and outs of this almost palace. Its rooms and cubbies and passageways and dead ends. He took John up the stairs where he'd used doors and hangers to help secure coverings. John saw a space open at his window to let light and air in and keep it from being too dark and stifling under the covers.
They circled the fort and reappeared in the main open space from a completely different angle. John would almost swear the flat was bigger than he knew it actually was. Sherlock had made the space seem almost massive.
John pulled Sherlock down to the floor with him like he had when their fort had been nothing but two covers tied and draped across their chairs. He buried himself in Sherlock's arms and just held him. The beauty of what he'd created was too great for words. At least any he could form right then.
So he just held Sherlock and squeezed him and hoped that everything he was feeling was conveyed through that embrace.
This is what Sherlock's childhood should have been like. This was the kind of imagination he had. This was the potential he held and that was never allowed to develop. This was the boy that was larger than life that they'd stuffed inside a box that was six walls too small.
This was what John had finally helped release.
John didn't complain when Sherlock laid them down on the mattress and tucked the cover around them. He didn't protest when Sherlock attached himself to his back and pulled John flush against his front, legs tangling and arms snaking around to fit at every point possible. Didn't object when Sherlock settled in for what was obviously sleep when it was barely sundown.
This was the realm he had created. This was another sphere. Let the world spin without them.
And 221B was indeed another world. A magic spot. A place out of time. The source of it all.
This was where they lived together, laughed together. Where they fit.
Where Sherlock had come back to him after three years. Where he'd healed all the broken within John.
This was where Sherlock had finally stumbled out his first "I love you," even if those weren't the exact words he'd used. John had known what he'd meant.
This was where John had made love to him for the first time. Learned he was the only one privileged enough, lucky enough, to have ever claimed any part of Sherlock's body. And that was before Sherlock told him he also took up a great deal of that palace in his mind.
This was where they would always come back to. After every case. After every fight. After every make up.
This was where they belonged. This was the place their hearts called home.