Genre: John/Sherlock pre-slash; could also be read as a gen study of an intense friendship.
Spoilers: for all episodes.
Rating: M for sexual references and dark subject matter.
Warnings: trigger warning for suicidal ideation and PTSD flashbacks. Also features non-graphic minor character death, plus mentions of body weight issues, alcoholism, drug addiction, and emotional abuse.
Author's notes: this fic will make much more sense if you read the previous parts in my "Higher than reason" series first. There's one further story (John/Sherlock) to come, which I'll post soon.
John's birthday is in May. He can't believe he's turning 35; Christ, where did the time go? University doesn't feel that long ago, and now his hair is starting to go grey.
But after the long and crazy winter he's had, it's nice to have something to celebrate. He's alive, despite the best efforts of the Taliban and other insurgents to kill him. His shoulder still aches, especially when it's going to rain, and his phantom leg wound still pains him occasionally. He got off lucky, though, compared to the many men he treated on the battlefield (and still dreams about).
John survived Afghanistan; he almost didn't survive his repatriation.
When he first came back to London, he used to sit for hours at a stretch in his bleak institutional room. Staring at the service weapon he'd illegally kept after leaving the Army, he would mentally play out all the possible scenarios in gory but anatomically accurate detail. In his head there was already an endless loop of other people being shot, so it took no imagination whatsoever to picture himself in their place.
On particularly bad days, John went so far as to pick the gun up, load it, and take the safety off. The solid weight of his sidearm in his hand was both familiar and frightening.
The last time he got that far was the 29th of January, after a particularly depressing and pointless therapy session. He limped back to his room, looked around at the four bare walls, and contemplated playing Russian roulette just to pass the time.
Through sheer force of will, he put the gun back in the drawer. Then he went out for a brisk walk, in a desperate attempt to clear his head. God, if only the cold wind could blow the flashbacks away. A bullet would be far more effective.
It was when he heard someone calling his name, and realised it was his old mate Mike Stamford, that the tectonic plates of his world began to shift imperceptibly. By the time Sherlock Holmes winked at him and walked out of the lab, only two hours later, the continents had been rearranged under his feet.
So he's survived all that, and somehow he's survived Sherlock bloody Holmes as well. Since he met his flatmate in late January, John has raced across rooftops after a taxi, dangled from a bridge by his fingertips, run full-tilt through a disused sewer, dived into a swimming pool to escape an explosion, and examined more dead bodies than he ever expected to see outside a war zone.
Oh, and he shot a man without hesitating, in order to stop someone he'd only just met from committing suicide out of curiosity.
John feels far more regret for dragging a lovely woman into terrible danger than he does for killing that cabbie. He doesn't know what that says about his personal morality. Unsurprisingly, helping to save Sarah from death by crossbow wasn't enough to guarantee him a second date with her – it's really a miracle that she's still speaking to him. But at least they all got out of that tunnel alive.
So reaching 35 is rather surprising, all told, and quite an achievement.
On the morning of his birthday, on a whim, he looks up the demographic figures. According to the NHS, the average life expectancy for a British male born in 1975 is 70 years. So, statistically speaking, maybe John was scheduled to have a midlife crisis right around now anyway.
He wonders, idly, what form that crisis might have taken if he'd stayed in civilian practice instead of joining the Army. Would he have bought a new, ridiculously impractical sports car? Would he have left his hypothetical wife, and traded her in for a younger model? Or would he have taken a year off, and gone backpacking around the world?
He can't help smiling wryly at the thought of this last option. The British government had actually paid him to go to a foreign country and carry a pack around. He wasn't sure he'd gotten the better end of the deal, though.
John doesn't tell Sherlock it's his birthday, but of course he knows nevertheless. Sherlock takes him to their favourite Italian restaurant, where a word in Giuseppe's ear gives them the best table and an expansive offer to "order anything you want, on the house!"
There's a candle and a vase of flowers on the table, of course, and the lighting is romantically dim. To top it off, the waiters sing "Happy Birthday" in Italian and Giuseppe kisses John on both cheeks.
John's ability to withstand social embarrassment has increased significantly since he met Sherlock. Instead of squirming uncomfortably or getting annoyed, he smiles and thanks them all. Although "Grazie" sounds awkward on his tongue, Giuseppe beams at John for making the effort.
Between main course and dessert, Sherlock announces the present he's arranged for John: a year's subscription to the biggest online database of medical journals. He knows that John regularly visits the Wellcome Library, to keep up with all the newly published literature he can't afford to buy.
Giving him instant access to those journals from home is a generous and surprisingly thoughtful gift, and John thanks Sherlock sincerely. He waves his hand dismissively and then changes the subject, but John knows he's pleased.
John gets another surprise later that night – a text from his sister, wishing him a happy birthday and promising that his present is in the post. John has seen Harry just twice in the months since his return to England. She's his only surviving family, and they both live in London. Still, he keeps making excuses not to meet up with her.
As John had learnt in some psychology module at medical school, being only 18 months apart in age can lead to toxic relationships between siblings. It was certainly true in their case: he and Harry had fought incessantly as children.
From an adult perspective, John feels shame for his selfish behaviour and sympathy for his kind and gentle mother. She'd had two constantly arguing kids and an alcoholic husband who, although not violent, had been emotionally abusive and controlling.
He still grieves for his mum, 20 years after she collapsed on the footpath from an undiagnosed heart defect. His teenaged self had lost his main source of love and support, and had only been aware of his own tragedy. But John can now see her death as a kind of release from a deeply unhappy life.
It was, in part, a desire to save other families from such a sudden loss that had spurred him to study medicine. The seeds had already been there, though. He'd been interested in science since he was little. He used to spend hours at the library, to escape the tension at home, and always found more solace in facts than fiction.
And even as a boy, John had felt a need to take care of people. Whenever his mum was left sobbing on the couch after her husband stormed out, he'd make her a cup of tea and pat her hand. Although he'd disliked his father, John had usually been the one to help him up the stairs when he staggered home late from the pub. He had even patched Harry up a few times, when their squabbles had drawn blood in places she couldn't reach.
While his and Harry's fights are short on physical violence these days, she makes up for it with verbal barbs that always find his vulnerable spots. Even their online interactions can make his blood pressure rise.
In particular, her blog comment about John turning gay for Sherlock had made him want to throw his laptop across the room. Why does everyone have to label them like that? Why can't they just be flatmates? Having Mrs Hudson and Sherlock's restaurateur mates make assumptions is one thing, but Harry knows him and should know better.
The risk of an argument about Sherlock isn't the only reason why John's been avoiding Harry. He'd really liked Clara, and it's hard to forgive his sister for being unfaithful (with her much-younger secretary – what a cliché) and then leaving her. And when they'd last met for drinks, just before John left for Afghanistan, Harry had downed shot after shot of neat whisky like it was water. It was too painful to see, after Dad drank himself to death. Father and daughter even favoured the same brand of Scotch.
But although the two of them may not get on, Harry evidently still cares about John's wellbeing. He has to laugh, a few days later, when he opens the present she's sent him: it's a Delia Smith cookbook, the most basic one imaginable. It starts with how to boil an egg, for God's sake, and works up in complexity from there.
It's perfect for him, and he rings Harry to say thanks. Her pleasure at hearing from him is obvious, and he agrees to have dinner with her the following week. He suggests they go to Sherlock's favourite Indian restaurant, where John knows there's nothing harder than beer on the beverages list. Having one (or two) himself will make it easier to watch her drink.
John's getting more locum work now, so money isn't such a pressing problem anymore. But having a reason to leave the flat, that sense of purpose he's so lacked since being invalided out, also means that he's happier about spending his leisure time at home.
He finds himself missing Sherlock when he's at work, and even worrying about him. This is ridiculous, because the bloke clearly managed to function for years before he met John, but there it is.
So John decides to cook his way through the Delia Smith book, with Sherlock as his guinea pig. First he buys some new cookware and utensils, and sternly tells his flatmate not to use them for mixing chemicals or any of his gruesome projects. He's tempted to buy a padlock to put on the cupboard, but Sherlock is highly skilled at lock-picking and would just see it as a challenge.
Even John is capable of boiling or scrambling an egg, so he quickly moves on to simple pasta recipes. The first time Sherlock looks up from his spaghetti bolognese and says "This is really good," John chooses to ignore the surprised tone and just accept the compliment. His cheeks feel warm, which he attributes to the steam coming off his own bowl of pasta; he nods in reply, and shovels another forkful into his mouth.
John makes himself sandwiches to take to work, rotating between different fillings for variety. Sometimes he comes home to find that Sherlock has been conducting his own lunchtime experiments. Apparently peanut butter topped with grated carrot makes the grade, while the Marmite and pickled egg sandwich ends up in the bin.
The difference between the two of them is that John would never have considered such a disgusting combination, whereas the ever-scientific Sherlock has to attempt everything at least once.
John tells himself that he's saving both of them money by improving his culinary skills, and it's entirely true. He also has to admit that he likes feeding Sherlock. Maybe it's his old childish instinct to look after people, reasserting itself as the Afghanistan-induced compassion fatigue slowly wears off.
He can't control what Sherlock does during the day when John's out, or what he does at 3am instead of sleeping. But he can try to get a nutritionally balanced meal into him at night.
Over the next few weeks, Sherlock begins to gain a little weight. By the time Sherlock's birthday rolls around in late July, he's looking healthier. His face is less gaunt, and his collarbones aren't quite as prominent. John finds himself itching to see Sherlock's bare chest again, to check whether his ribs are visible. But he can't possibly ask that, so he doesn't.
John has progressed from spaghetti to lasagne (avoiding lumps in the white sauce is tricky, but he's good at the layering bit) and has mastered several rice-based dishes. With the warmer weather, he's started making more salads. He hasn't done any baking, though – dinner's a much higher priority than puddings or snacks. But he decides to give it a go for Sherlock's birthday.
As Sherlock doesn't have any pressing cases, he spends his birthday at the Barts lab working on a long-term project: the chemical technique he's developed for identifying different kinds of tobacco ash. He'd written his Master's dissertation on it, and the subject had also formed the basis of his doctorate.
For some reason, Sherlock never finished his DPhil. John suspects that his abrupt departure from Oxford resulted from his drug habit getting out of control, though he hasn't asked. But Sherlock still enjoys devoting long hours to his research, whenever he gets a chance.
So John has plenty of time for a project of his own: baking a chocolate cake. He tells himself that it's just a practical application of chemistry. The flour forms gluten chains to hold the structure together, the baking powder acts as a raising agent, and the oven's heat transforms the batter from liquid to solid. Simple, really.
But his first attempt is a solid brick which fails to rise, tastes horribly bitter, and cannot be prised out of the cake-tin. John takes it down to show Mrs Hudson, who provides an expert diagnosis (too much cocoa, not enough baking powder). She lends him proper measuring cups and spoons, a sieve, baking paper, and a better quality tin than the now-ruined one he'd bought at the pound shop.
John puts the brick cake out on the windowsill, to see if the pigeons will eat it, and tries again with his borrowed implements. This time, he measures everything carefully, sifts the dry ingredients, and lines the tin. Thankfully, the second cake turns out beautifully. He ices it, and covers the top with sliced strawberries.
When Sherlock comes in and sees the cake on the table, he stops dead at the kitchen door. "Oh! Did someone tell Mrs Hudson it was my birthday?"
John looks up from his chair, where he's pretending to read the paper.
"No, actually," he says mildly. "I made it."
Sherlock's surprised expression – and the appreciative noise he makes when he tastes the cake later that evening – is worth all the effort. It's just as well Sherlock didn't say anything derogatory about John trying his hand at baking, though. John had been perfectly willing to throw the brick cake at his head.
John's not oblivious: he sees the way Sherlock looks at him, that night. It's not his clinical I can read your mind stare, or his contemptuous It's remarkable that you can walk and talk at the same time glance. It's warmer and more...considering.
It had happened sometimes, prior to Sherlock's birthday, but it gets even more frequent in the weeks afterwards. Whether across a crime scene or over the morning papers, John can feel Sherlock's eyes on him. John wonders what Sherlock is seeking in him, and whether or not he's found it.
He starts to contemplate the possibility that Sherlock might be interested in him. While it seems highly unlikely, stranger things have happened (stranger things have happened just this month, in fact, like the body of a woman – wearing a medieval-style white dress – found in a small wooden boat drifting down the Thames. That case took some unravelling).
But for all his excessive truthfulness, Sherlock plays certain cards close to his chest. So John doesn't actually know whether he's gay, or completely disinterested in sex. He thinks back to that horribly awkward conversation at Angelo's cafe, the night after they met. Sherlock hadn't denied being gay, had he; he'd only said that he didn't have a boyfriend.
John didn't ask for clarification at the time, too busy denying any interest on his part, and hasn't asked since.
He's almost sure, though, that there was some ugly history between Sherlock and that arsehole Sebastian. The strength of Sherlock's animosity towards the banker had surprised John, but there was more to it than that. When Sebastian had mocked him, it was like he'd picked at an old scab and found vulnerable flesh beneath.
John didn't think it was just professional pride; plenty of people disparaged Sherlock's talents without causing such hurt. Nor was it the reminder, however pointed, that Sherlock had been widely disliked at Oxford. Surely Sherlock didn't feel ashamed of having that fact revealed to a new colleague. It wasn't like John couldn't have worked it out for himself, after all. Sherlock didn't exactly go out of his way to endear himself to people.
So there must have been something else behind Sherlock's response to Sebastian...like an unhealthy relationship that left festering wounds.
To John's knowledge, Mycroft is the only other person who provokes such raw emotion in Sherlock. He certainly unnerves John. Behind that urbane, highly-polished facade, John perceives a burning intensity very like Sherlock's. But he is repelled by the older brother, and drawn to the younger.
Sherlock should be just as unlikeable as Mycroft; he shouldn't have this magnetic effect on John. The man is tactless (rude), inconsiderate (selfish), and annoying (infuriating). He doesn't listen to John's perfectly reasonable complaints about ASBOs, good trousers ruined by running through sewers, and mould colonies developing advanced civilisations in the fridge.
Still, John has to admit that Sherlock hasn't exactly forced him into anything. John is an unpaid volunteer when it comes to the crime-fighting business. He could always choose to stay home and watch the telly, or go out and try to meet women. He and Sherlock could just be two blokes who share a bathroom, and who make small talk while waiting for the kettle to boil.
So it's not that he's helpless to resist Sherlock...he simply doesn't want to. And John's afraid that he knows why.
There's something in his psyche, apparently, that makes John particularly vulnerable to charismatic people. He's never stood out in a crowd. Neither tall nor freakishly short, neither blond nor brown-haired, he's somewhat sporty but not a natural athlete, and clever but not a genius. Moderation in all things, really.
But whenever John's spent time with self-assured and fascinating individuals, he's found himself basking in their reflected glory. He somehow becomes more interesting by association, more outgoing, more alive.
Sherlock is by no means the first man to hold John in his thrall – that dubious honour went to Andrew, a senior pupil at John's grammar school. He wasn't the brightest boy around, or the most handsome, but he was captivating nevertheless. John just wanted to look at him, and listen to him. He even started playing rugby so that Andrew, the team's captain, would have to interact with him.
Though John had dreams about Andrew, and woke up with wet pyjamas some nights, he never did anything about it. Many teenagers go through periods of same-sex infatuation, John knows; it's perfectly normal. Maybe he would've dreamed about girls more if he'd gone to a co-educational school. Anyway, his dreams became (mostly) female-oriented once he got to university.
And then there was Carla, who became his girlfriend in their first term at med school. She stood out for her long red hair, charity shop chic, and Irish accent. She was loud, sarcastic, and very smart.
John's a common name, of course, so most of the Johns in their class got given a nickname: "posh John", "Welsh John", etc. John H. Watson didn't have enough defining characteristics of his own, so he soon became "Carla's John". He didn't mind. It felt strangely nice to be claimed by someone, to be possessed.
It was symptomatic of their whole relationship, actually. Carla knew what she wanted, and taught John how to give it to her. She introduced him to various kinks, including pegging and bondage. He found that he very much liked relinquishing control and obeying commands. But despite his enjoyment, it was a trait he wasn't exactly proud of. After Carla broke up with him, two years later, John never got up the courage to tell any of his subsequent girlfriends about it.
His willingness to follow orders turned out to be useful in the Army, though.
John found that many senior officers were brimming with charisma and confidence, which made it much easier to obey them. He served under, and with, a number of men who elicited that old familiar feeling (a combination of strong admiration and mild envy). He performed surgery alongside some, played cards in the officers' mess with others, and watched several die of terrible injuries.
But obviously his traumatic experiences in Afghanistan haven't cured John of this pathetic weakness, this moth-to-a-flame tendency...because now there's Sherlock.
Infuriating, astonishing, fascinating Sherlock. He strides about London as if he owns the place, calculating his next move like the city's a giant chessboard and he's a Grandmaster. He persuades a serial killer to confess by lunchtime, then performs magic tricks for a small child over dinner. Intelligence and self-possession radiate from him, and John can't help but be warmed by the glow.
In a way, Sherlock has helped him recover from one war by leading him straight into another. The two of them have developed a kind of camaraderie, an "us against the world" mentality, which John never expected to find outside the military. Their life together is bizarre, but brilliant, and he doesn't want to do anything to jeopardise it.
So Sherlock can look at him all he wants, for whatever reason. John won't ask.