The Way You Fall Asleep
Chapter 1
It's a funny thing, love. It's strange, and beautiful, and inexplicably painful. To lay back with someone amongst the stars and watch the world go by, that's what most people want. But love's not like that – at least, that's what John Watson had discovered. For him, love was risking your life and your soul and your entire being for someone you'd only met last week. Love was putting up with every single irritating thing about a person because they simply completed you. Love was making someone a cup of tea when they were working, even though you knew they wouldn't drink it. Love was standing and watching while the person you thought would be with you forever threw himself off a building.
It had been four years, and it still hurt when he thought about that day. Four years, and he still had to drag a sleeve across his eyes and turn his head away when he remembered Sherlock's last goodbye. After his body had been wheeled away, John had struggled home, brushing aside offers of help from Lestrade and Mrs Hudson. He'd lain in bed and stared at the cracks on the ceiling, numb with loss. He couldn't live without Sherlock, it was as simple as that.
He didn't sleep that night, and stumbled through the next day in a haze. Then there were the three desolate years of pain and anger and frustration and longing and just plain grief - he'd genuinely thought he was going to die, at one point. The only thing that kept him going was the thought that Sherlock would've thought him weak. 'Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side' after all. So he kept on living his meaningless existence, waiting for the day Sherlock Holmes would walk back through the door.
He had, of course, on an otherwise unspectacular day. He'd looked older – they both had, John supposed – and less flighty. More grounded, somehow, than before. Wiser. John had laughed to himself when Sherlock had entered the room, thinking of course that it was a hallucination of his broken mind, a taunting image sent from his subconscious - then he had looked again, and realised that no, it was really him. He'd stood up slowly, then thrown his cane aside and walked over to his flatmate. He'd reached up a hand and passed it over Sherlock's face, bringing it down to linger over his collarbone and coat lapels, he'd looked directly into his eyes… and then he'd punched him in the face. As Sherlock lay gasping on the floor of 221B, John had stood over him and shouted abuse until he was sure the opposite side of London had heard.
"How could you do this to me, Sherlock?"
"John, I'm sorry, I am, I just.."
"Don't talk to me! How could you even – where were you? Don't answer that. I don't care. Look what's happened to me, Sherlock." He'd thrown his arm out in the genereal direction of the flat. "I've been sitting here, waiting for you, for three years. Three years, Sherlock. Do you have any idea how awful it's been? How alone I've felt?"
"John. Listen to me. I had to do it, I had to fake my own death, Moriarty was going to kill you-"
"Shut up, Sherlock. Just… just shut up." He'd pulled the taller man to his feet, pushed him against the wall of their flat – because it was their flat again, now – and kissed him hard on the mouth. It had been messy and unfamiliar, with teeth and tongues and (if John remembered correctly) a spot of biting, but it was perfect because it was theirs.
That one kiss had become many, over time, and then there was holding hands in public and a hug after a case. There had been stolen moments in alleyways, emerging with rumpled clothes and secretive smiles on their faces - and, eventually, there had been stumbling through the door in a frenzy of ripping clothes and snatched breaths and muffled cries of each other's names. There had been murmurs of "Are you sure you're okay with this?" and ruffled hair and hot, damp skin. Then there had been the morning after, where Sherlock had made John a cup of tea for the first time ever and kissed him sweetly on the corner of his mouth. There had been the night on the rooftop, where John came home and Sherlock was stargazing. He'd nearly had a heart attack, and was trying to drag him back inside when Sherlock had pulled him over to sit next to him. He'd gasped in shock, leaning into Sherlock for support. Sherlock had put a hand under his chin and brought his lips right up to John's ear. John could still remember his warm, sweet breath on his cheek as he whispered "I love you, John Hamish Watson." A year later, and now there are two matching gold bands on their fingers and a photo on the mantelpiece next to the skull. They complete each other, and that's all there is to it.