The Gap

by Spark Writer

There's nothing in the world Sherlock hates more than hippies, and the goddamn zaniest looking one he's ever seen is apparently moving in exactly 98 feet away.

(A/N): I hope you enjoy my 1960s Johnlock AU. I'm writing about a time in which I wasn't born into so obviously it's not perfectly accurate, but I did my best. Thanks to my beta somevelvetmorning for the cheerleading and critique. The end is mostly her idea. :)

...

...

The new neighbor rolls up in the most disgusting VW bug Sherlock has ever seen. It's covered in hand-painted peace signs, hearts, daisies, and a ridiculously yellow smiley face planted smack-dab in the center of the hood. The vehicle growls to a halt in the front of the building opposite, a modest three-story row house with a variety of potted plants lining the stoop. Its driver fusses around with something for several moments. Sherlock can barely make the person out through the tinted glass, but he can see that their hair is so long they could easily be female or male, thus remaining annoyingly ambiguous from his point of view. He takes a steady drag on his cigarette and cracks the curtains a little wider. The bug idles for a few minutes more, engine humming cheerily in the May sunshine before the man/woman turns the keys in the ignition and the engine falls quiet.

The door swings open. The driver steps out. Sherlock stares.

There's nothing in the world he hates more than hippies, and the goddamn zaniest looking one he's ever seen is apparently moving in exactly 98 feet away. Somewhere, God or the angels or some other divine entity he doesn't give a flying fuck about are laughing their arses off. He's sure of it.

Women, from Sherlock's experience, don't have beards, so his neighbor has to be a man. A man with shoulder length, ratted blond hair, rose-tinted aviators, a sloppily tie-died tee shirt, and jeans with horribly frayed bottoms. A man with a cross strap leather purse slung over his shoulder and sandals that deserve to be slain in the city's next bonfire. A man who wears rings on every finger of his right hand. A man who looks like he could be the poster kid for the last spectacular resurgence of utopian socialism. "Make love, not war," he probably says in place of hello.

Sherlock flicks ash off the end of his cig. He wrinkles his nose as the theme song for The Price is Right travels through layers of plaster and anemic insulation separating his flat from Mrs Hudson's, and considers ringing her up just to tell her to turn the damn volume down. He doesn't though. It's hotter than hell and he's been chain smoking for the last two hours; his lungs feel like an ashtray.

He's got two failed experiments with black market bull semen and turpentine to clean up, a raging migraine, seven phone calls to make regarding his dissertation, and now a neighbor who's probably using psilocybin mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness.

Sherlock curses and twitches the curtains shut.

...

Society has divided very cleanly in two. There are the normal, regular people who wear trousers and button downs and comb their hair, who work the nine to five grind and come home to their 2.5 offspring to watch something wholesome on television, make boxed macaroni, put the kids to bed, and then watch several more hours of decidedly less wholesome television involving battlefields full of corpses in Vietnam and the discussion of segregation in schools. And then there is the very-obvious counter culture; the mass of bright-eyed anti-authoritarian pacifists with their LSD and psytrance and ethos of come-as-you-are freedom and expression. There's a constant undercurrent of tension, a tug-of-war between peace and violence, acceptance and discrimination, love and hate. Gardens of graffitied flowers bloom on London's architecture, alongside darker depictions of draft-cards being set ablaze. There are peace marches and shootings on the same afternoon.

It's the goddamn sixties and all Sherlock wants to do is stay in his lab until the whole sorry mess blows over.

There are too many bastards in the world. The hippies will never win.

...

"You look terrible."

"And a good morning to you too, brother mine."

Sherlock ignores the slight, opting to walk around Mycroft in a circle to get the full effect of the attire. His pompous, bureaucratic, candyass brother is standing before him, wearing ordinary trousers with a sagging poncho—a hideous, tribal print affair with a schizophrenic blend of brown, green, and orange weave.

"It looks," says Sherlock, "like cat sick."

Mycroft rolls his eyes.

"What the hell are you wearing it for?"

"It's a gift."

"From who? Bob Dylan?"

"From a nice young lady who works in civil services, actually."

Pissing his elder brother off is immensely satisfying. Sherlock completes the rotation and sits down in an unoccupied desk chair, leather squeaking in the silence. "Don't tell me you've got a girl."

"I may."

"I extend to her my sincerest apologies."

"At least my experience with women isn't limited to illustrations in anatomy textbooks." Mycroft shoots Sherlock an unctuous smile and fluffs the fabric about his shoulders.

"I'm not a virgin." This is not a lie. Jake Hartby invited Sherlock to the passion pit several years earlier to see some horrible action film involving aliens and a super virus, and kissed him right before intermission, and kissed him right after, and didn't stop kissing him until they were both divested of all clothing and breathless in the backseat of the hopped up Cadillac.

"A drunken blunder in hotel room for one night is not indicative of a substantial love life, Sherlock."

"Neither is that poncho."

Looking pinched, Mycroft sits down opposite and clasps his hands together. "Changing the subject… I notice you have a new neighbor."

"Playing with your little security cameras again?"

"I'm merely looking out for you."

"You're sticking your nose in my business."

"You are my business."

Sherlock folds his arms. "So? What about him?"

"He's a—"

"Raging hippie, yes."

"And you know how we feel about those."

"Useless."

"Precisely. If he tries to…convert you, or some such nonsense, you know how to stop the advances. Don't let him meddle with your life. And don't accept anything from him."

"Drugs, you mean." Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

"Drugs, charms, tarot cards, albums, flyers, anything. I'll know if you do."

"I'll do my best to meet your request, but it's high time you started treating me like an adult instead of some ditz. I'm working on getting a PhD, goddamn it!"

Mycroft glances toward the door, but no harried government official comes running at the sound of the expletive. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

"I did rehab, I'm fine. It's not—that won't happen again."

"That's what you all say."

"Don't lump me with them."

"Addicts?"

"I'm not some meth-head bum, Mycroft. At least I drugged with class."

"I don't care if you drugged with the elegance of Michelangelo. It's still wrong."

Sherlock pushes himself out of his seat and glares at the portrait of the Prime Minister hanging parallel. He wants coffee and a cigarette, not a lecture from his brother. "Listen, I'm working on a dissertation that has the potential to skyrocket my career—do you really think I want to throw it all away just to get stoned?"

"I'm the smart one, remember."

"Yes, well, you're also the one wearing the most god-awful threads I've ever laid eyes on, and probably still planning to go steady with the woman. So recent circumstances would prove otherwise." Sherlock holds back a smirk at the sight of Mycroft's irritation. Getting him all hacked off is easier than shooting fish in a barrel. "I'll drop in sometime soon, brother dear."

"You'll drop in when I tell you."

Mm." Sherlock is noncommittal. "Oh, and mind you don't exceed that daily caloric limit." He practically skips from the room, closing the door on Mycroft's hissed retort with a grin. He's got an hour before overseeing his students' chemistry lesson. Might as well make good use of it.

...

The alley smells permanently of cigarettes and urine, but at least it provides a place for Sherlock to smoke without having to engage with other people. He leans his head back on the bricks behind him and stares up at a sky so blue it makes his eyes water. It's perfectly cloudless. A flock of pigeons swoops overhead and he hurriedly looks down so as not to risk getting an eyeful of bird shit. The day's already been trying enough.

Out on the street, the usual rush of commuters swallow the sound of his coughing—third cigarette today—so no one takes notice as he puts his hands on his knees and bends double, choking and spitting in a terribly undignified manner. Once he's got the situation under control Sherlock straightens, eyes streaming, and brings the cig to his lips with shaking fingers. His GP would have a fit, but Sherlock has seen the man smoking behind his office during breaks, so he won't take advice from a bloody hypocrite.

A little girl on the street trips on a discarded beer bottle and falls to the pavement with a nasty crunch. Her wails are thin and desperate, but nobody comes to her aid. Her skin, the colour of coffee without cream, makes sure of it.

Sherlock exhales a ring of smoke, narrowing his eyes. Now this isn't right. His parents weren't like other mothers and fathers who looked the other way when people of different ethnicities were being brutalized. They taught him and Mycroft to grab injustice by the balls and make something better of it.

He starts forward, livid at the pedestrians going out of their way to avoid her, but stops short, because someone else gets there first.

"Alright, little darling?"

Utopian-socialist-poster-boy is standing in front of the fallen girl, extending a hand down to her. When she doesn't take it, he kneels, pulls a floral embroidered handkerchief out of his jeans pocket, and begins wiping blood off her shin, unsmiling. "Took quite a dip, didn't you."

She stops crying and stares at him, biting her lip hard.

"That's it. Take a few deep breaths for me."

She does so.

Tie die-bell bottom-love beads-neighbor pockets the handkerchief and pats the girl's cheek. "Look at this," he says, directing her attention to a cluster of wildflowers growing at the kerb. "Beautiful, aren't they?" She nods, so he plucks one gently from the bunch and holds it out to her. "I'll let you in on a little secret. If you take this, you'll have something very special."

She speaks for the first time, "What?"

"Flower power." Social-anarchist-granny-glasses grins and tucks it behind her left ear. Then he pulls her to her feet. "Means you can do anything."

"Cool!"

He laughs. "Peace out, sister. Take care of that leg for me."

Sherlock puts the cigarette out, inadvertently scraping his knuckles on the bricks. Swearing, he clears his throat and steps out of the alleyway. His new neighbor is walking back the way he came, a pleasant jaunt to his step very unlike the frantic rush all about him.

Sherlock glances at his watch, sees the time, and curses again. "Shit." He's got less than twenty minutes to make it to class. If he doesn't head there straight away he'll be obscenely late.

Crocheted belt-long hair-pacifist gets into his VW bug—Sherlock could swear a new cluster of daises have been added to the hood—and cruises off.

With a sigh, Sherlock turns on his heel and sets to the task of hailing a cab.

...

The next morning, he crawls out of bed feeling like shit and hazards a look out the window. The bug is parked innocuously alongside the kerb. Its windows are cracked, love beads dangling from the rear view mirror swaying in the breeze.

Sherlock shakes his head and goes downstairs to ask Mrs Hudson for the aspirin.

...

"What do you think of the new neighbor?" she queries three nights later.

"Haven't met him."

"He's a hippie." Says it like he's sodding Elvis.

"As are lots of people." Sherlock waves away the proffered tray of biscuits.

"I don't mind. It's pretty fascinating, if you ask me."

"It's of no use. Pacifism won't get us anywhere. Neither will music festivals."

"Spoil sport." Mrs Hudson mutes the telly and turns to look at him. "You're just jealous of his car."

Sherlock nearly swallows his tea the wrong way. "That thing? It's an abomination! Looks like someone dragged it out of the pits of hell yet there it sits, day after day, right in front of my bloody window."

"Mrs Turner said he paints it at night after dark."

"Oh, lovely," says Sherlock, sarcastic. "What fun."

"He's certainly got an artistic spark."

"He's certainly got a good supply of LSD, is what he's got."

"It still looks so pretty, though. All the flowers and hearts. Almost three-dimensional."

"Does it look like that before or after your herbal soothers?"

Mrs Hudson flaps her hand at him. "Anyway, Mrs Turner's already spoken to him and apparently he served in the Vietnam War for two years. Got sent home after getting a bullet to the shoulder."

Sherlock puts his teacup down. "Interesting."

"Tragic."

"At least he survived."

"No wonder the man's a hippie. He probably just wants to forget all the horrors he saw on the battlefield. Poor soul."

Sherlock is quiet for a moment, swilling the dregs of his Earl Grey. "Did Mrs Turner ask his name?" he inquires finally.

"Oh yes," says Mrs Hudson, laughing. "That's the funny part. It's so ordinary it doesn't seem to fit him at all. He's called John."

...

Sunday mornings are sacred, a time to nurse a pounding head from a night of booze and a full pack of cigarettes. Or in Sherlock's case, the latter alone. They're a time to sit quiet and watch something unoffending on telly while sipping weak tea and nibbling half-heartedly at plain toast. So he is royally pissed off when, at precisely five past seven a.m., someone starts playing Jimi Hendrix so loudly it reverberates between the buildings. Strains of Purple Haze niggle at Sherlock's tender eardrums and he pulls the pillow over his head, scowling. Who the hell blasts Jimi Hendrix before the city has even sat down to breakfast? His migraine intensifies, nausea coiling in the pit of his stomach. It's becoming clear that he has no other choice but to tell the delinquent to turn the goddamn racket down.

With a groan, Sherlock rolls out of bed, slips into his blue dressing gown, and shuffles out of his room and into the kitchen. Passing stacks of papers and periodicals, he opens the door to the hallway and staggers stiffly into the corridor. The music is muffled. It's no one in 221. He scowls harder and descends the stairs, stumbling into disgustingly bright sunshine.

A man wearing a beige greatcoat—and very possibly a stripper—walks tiredly past, not giving Sherlock a second glance. Sherlock stares longingly at the man's Styrofoam cup of coffee before crossing the street and climbing the stairs to ring the doorbell of the apartment building opposite.

Janis has taken Jimi's place; Piece of My Heart flows from an upper window. Sherlock debates pounding on the wood when no one answers, but then he hears approaching footsteps and John-the-hippie appears a second later. Sherlock stares. His neighbor is wearing a poncho not unlike Mycroft's, but sans trousers. The material covers his bits, but only just. His legs, suntanned and scattered with fine, sandy hair, end in a pair of incompatible fluffy rabbit slippers. A string of love beads like the one in the VW bug are slung around his neck. He grins and opens the door fractionally wider. "Hey, brother! What a beautiful morning."

Sherlock blinks.

"I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm John. Well, that's the name on my birth certificate, but I don't believe a human being can be defined by any label. You can call me whatever you like."

"John will do fine," Sherlock says dryly, looking past him at the shag carpet and array of potted ferns. "I'm Sherlock Holmes."

"Pleasure to meet you." John extends a hand and Sherlock shakes it, feeling weirdly out of his depth. "D'you want to come inside? I'm making chai."

"No, that's alright."

"You're sure? It's like a breath of life."

"I've work to do at home," Sherlock improvises, "and it requires my full attention, so I'm afraid not. Thanks for the offer, however."

John shrugs, still smiling. "That's cool. Another time."

"I came by to ask if you could turn down your music a bit. It's aggravating my head."

A flash of apology crosses John's face. "Sorry, mate. It helps me get in my groove."

"While that may be, it isn't tradition to wake up on Sunday morning with one's eardrums being assaulted by rock and roll. Just something to consider in the future."

"Yeah, of course. I understand."

"Thank you. Good morning." Sherlock begins backing down the steps, nearly upending a potted petunia.

"Hang on, what music do you like?" John calls after him, with a spark of genuine interest in his voice.

Sherlock stops, considering. "Vivaldi," he says finally.

John laughs. "Groovy."

...

A blue peace sign joins the orange one on the hood several days later, still smelling of acrylic. Sherlock notes this as he passes on his way to the tube station that morning, and feels a pang of something inscrutable.

He lights a cigarette.

...

"Sherlock, dear, someone's here to see you!"

Sherlock stops scribbling in his chart and glares in the direction of Mrs Hudson's voice. He's had little time to conduct experiments in the last week, so hell if he'll be interrupted this time. He gets up, strides to the door, and sticks his head out. "Tell them I am busy!"

"But it's John, the fellow from across the str—"

"I know who he is," Sherlock snaps testily. "I'll be down in a moment."

He removes his safety goggles, chucks them on the sofa, runs a hand through his hair, and then returns to the hallway, clattering downstairs just in time to see Mrs Hudson swaying with laughter at some unknown joke.

"Evening," Sherlock says, laying a steadying hand on his landlady's shoulder.

John's wearing jeans today, ripped at the knees and spattered with green paint. His hair is slightly less tangled, but that could be Sherlock's imagination playing tricks on him. He envisions trying to brush through the ratted mess and suppresses a shudder.

"Hello," says John easily. "Don't you look productive."

Sherlock frowns, then remembers that he is still wearing his protective lab coat. "Safety precautions," he explains. "I'm a chemist."

"Bet you whip up some neat things."

"If by 'things' you mean drugs, you are sorely mistaken."

Mrs Hudson titters and pats Sherlock's arm. "Don't be so buttoned up," she laughs. "It's a joke." Her eyes are glassy and her cheeks suspiciously pink.

"I'm calling your physician and telling him the decrease the dosage on your herbal soothers," Sherlock says sternly, flushing when John throws his head back and roars with laughter.

"A chemist and a comedian! What a catch." John speaks without a touch of venom, and Sherlock is strangely unbothered. "I guess I should explain why I'm here." He rifles in his leather cross strap bag and withdraws a pair of tickets.

"There's a concert in Trafalgar Square tonight and I was initially going to go with my partner Sarah, but she and I recently decided it was best to go our separate ways, so now I have an extra ticket. I wondered if you might be interested? It's not Vivaldi, but Van Morrison and The Stones aren't anything to scoff at."

"You should go, dear!" Mrs Hudson exclaims unhelpfully. "You sit in that dark flat all day. It'd do you good."

"Lady's got a point." John cuts his eyes at Sherlock. "What d'you say?"

Sherlock means to say no, but there's something about John's unbridled enthusiasm that would make him feel rather like a puppy slaughterer for refusing. "Yes, alright, I'll go," he says at last.

"Radical." John smiles at him, all crinkles around the eyes. "It's in two hours. I'll take you."

Sherlock nods.

...

Sitting in the VW bug is mortifying on both a physical and moral plane. John is of shorter stature, so he fits easily in the front seat. Sherlock, however, is compelled to draw his knees up to his chest like some overgrown toddler and fold his elbows in at his sides. The love beads clack against the windshield when John pulls into traffic, and Sherlock rolls his eyes at the heavens. He may as well be riding inside a moving advertisement for the hippie lifestyle; the stares of pedestrians bore into him like needles. John is oblivious, bopping his head along to a psychedelic rock number that makes Sherlock feel lit without the pleasure. It's dizzying, disorienting.

At the next stoplight, John glances over. "Nice suit." He's wearing a shapeless top and sandals that are slightly less of a national travesty.

"I don't own casual clothing," Sherlock replies, feeling irritated.

"Not a problem," says John. "To each their own." He guns the accelerator and they lurch into action.

Trafalgar Square is crawling with flower children. Their hair is long and their faces are bright with strange, unfathomable joy. They're oddly beautiful and Sherlock chastises himself for thinking such a thing. Hippies are useless, he reminds himself. Their plans are futile.

He follows John into the crowd, sticking out like a sore thumb in his waistcoat and pressed trousers. They come to a stop near the stage, and John turns to him, smiling in the hazy glow of fairy lights strung overhead.

"Thanks for coming," he says, not loud enough to hear over the din, but Sherlock reads his lips.

"Thanks for thinking of me," he replies, but John has already turned away, cupping his hands together and whooping through them as the musicians traipse on stage amidst frantic applause.

The guitars shudder to life, drums beating out a thrilling tattoo, and John puts his hands up, laughing and laughing, fingers wiggling against the stars like pale anemone. Sherlock has never laughed out of joy in his life and he stares, bewildered by the phenomenon, until John grabs his right hand and thrusts it skyward, palm warm against Sherlock's wrist. "Other hand up!" he shouts.

So Sherlock raises his left arm to the heavens and tickles the wind, struck with the sudden desire to rip off his suit jacket and discard it on the cobbles forever. Mick Jagger puts his mouth to the mic and howls, and in that moment it's kind of like everything is going to be alright.

...

They ride home hours later and Sherlock feels bright, like some switch inside him has been flipped he never knew existed. John turns the radio up full blast and Stayin' Alive rattles through the stereo speakers right into his gut. They crank the windows down and yell along to the music, making up lyrics for parts they don't know. It's a hell of a good night, Sherlock acknowledges. Best one he's had in years. He's riding in a peace mobile with a flaming hippie, the smell of incense on his clothes and the screech of guitars resounding in his skull, and he could give a shit. Remarkable.

John hangs a hard left and Sherlock sticks his hand out the passenger window to feel the chill air on his skin. He's unhappy to see Baker Street swarming into view, the thought of returning to his quiet dwelling making his stomach twist. John parallel parks with little finesse, accidentally nosing the bumper of the convertible ahead, and pulls his keys from the ignition. The Bee Gees die away and Sherlock reaches for the door handle, noticing a crushed daisy clinging to his shoulder and brushing it off belatedly. "Thanks. For everything."

It's an inadequate expression, but John looks unbearably happy. "Far out, wasn't it."

"It was, indeed." Sherlock ducks out of the car and smiles down at him. "I hold Vivaldi to the highest esteem, but I do believe this was a close second."

He closes the door with a click and crosses the street, letting himself into building 221 with a stifled exhale.

...

Unsurprisingly, he receives an extremely pissy phone call from Mycroft in the wee hours of the following morning.

"What's happened to courtesy; to letting people sleep past dawn?" Sherlock says upon answering. "This is a fine state of moral decay."

"You know very well why I've called."

"Yes, and, in a thrilling twist of events, I don't give a rat's ass."

His brother sighs. "Remember our discussion?"

"Remember that poncho?"

"Enough about the poncho," snaps Mycroft, rattled. "I told you not to let this neighbor meddle with your life. Now you're prancing around with him and going to rock and roll concerts together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?"

"Piss off. He had an extra ticket. What was I supposed to do, be churlish and refuse? I'd look like a dickhead. It's not like John's forcing any libertarian beliefs on me. He was merely being polite."

"What is wrong with you? You usually have so little trouble snubbing people's advances."

"That's because most people are gits."

"And John is not?"

"No," says Sherlock, twirling the phone cord. "He isn't."

Mycroft sighs again.

"What's so bad about the situation? He's not trying to change me. We can hold onto our individual beliefs, live parallel lives, and still have a respectable rapport, can we not?"

"I fear that you may enter dangerous territory, Sherlock. Society does not generally look upon people of his ilk kindly."

"Well, maybe they should. After all, they're the ones dropping bombs and killing each other off, not the people wearing wreaths of flowers and bell bottoms and marching for peace."

"My lord." There's grim reverence in Mycroft's voice. "You're in so deep you can't see out."

"Course I'm not," Sherlock shoots back. "You know how I am. Perverse to the core. I just don't see the point of smiting those who literally desire nothing but peace. He was a soldier, once. He got shot and almost died. It's no surprise he chose this way of life."

"Don't," says Mycroft, irritable, "get involved."

"I'm not."

"And I'm not a fool."

"Why don't you go sip your diet coke and leave me in peace? God."

"There will be consequences," his brother continues. "If not now, later."

"Stop being vague; it's despicable."

"You know what I mean."

"Hell if I do." The sound of crinkling cellophane reaches Sherlock's ears. "Glad to know one of us gets to eat breakfast," he spits.

"I'm hanging up, now. Mind the gap, Sherlock." The phone line goes dead; Sherlock slams the telephone into the receiver with undue force.

"Arse," he mutters to the ceiling.

Outside, John is whistling Brown Eyed Girl and planting daisies.

...

Sherlock goes other places in the VW bug with John. Out of London, to fields full of wild flowers where they walk and shout and run like children. To the sea, where John rolls up his trousers and stands in the shallows, hair whipping about his face in the wind. To little villages, where John cajoles Sherlock into buying a stick of jasmine incense and burning it in the cramped motel room that night. Sherlock forgets to want to smoke. He forgets to be acerbic. He forgets about society and all its horrid shortcomings. His pulse beats to the steady thrum of The Grateful Dead, turned just loud enough to hear over the hissing of the radiator, and he feels an extraordinary lightness of being.

"I'm gonna run off one day soon," John says, biting into a nectarine. Sherlock watches the juice slide down his chin, transfixed.

"Where?"

"Some other place. Some better place." He says it in his easy way, tranquil and smiling and unconcerned, but there's a degree of great human longing buried in it and Sherlock's heart burns with the want, with the second-hand desire. He knows what John means. He wants it too. Bad as anyone. Worse, maybe.

"You could come with me."

Sherlock's throat is rusty, "I couldn't."

"Never say never."

"I don't think it's possible for me to be free. In that way."

"You're intelligent, Sherlock, and you know a real lot. But you're kidding yourself if you think you know everything. There's darkness out there, but there's also a whole world of good. And it's waiting for you."

"How," Sherlock says, and has to stop and start again because his voice is trembling, "How can you be sure?"

"I just am."

Sherlock has spent a lifetime despising indefinites, but that explanation is somehow more than sufficient.

They fall back on the hood of the bug and stare into the aching blackness overhead, tracing nameless constellations with their fingertips and looking at each other in the starlight.

Wondering, awed.

...

"There's going to be a peace march this Friday," John tells him a month later, sitting on the stoop with a tray of Mrs Hudson's roast beef sandwiches between them. "It'll to be huge; all the news stations will be there."

"Good."

"I'm going."

Sherlock swallows a mouthful of sourdough, heart faltering. "Perhaps you shouldn't."

John throws his crust to the birds. "Why not? It's everything I believe in. I can't say I stand for what I stand for and not back that up with real actions. I'd rather die than be a hypocrite."

"Still. Police don't take kindly to protestors, no matter how peaceful."

"D'you honestly think I care about the fuzz? They're all a bunch of cowards just trying to work a day job."

Sherlock stops eating.

"I was a soldier. I killed people." John's voice shakes.

"You were an army doctor."

"Yeah, well. I had bad days."

"You were serving your country."

"Murder on the battlefield is honourable. Murder anywhere else is punishable by death. You see why this is so messed up?" John glares at his lap. "I have to go to the march. I have to hold onto my values. I refuse to flake out."

Sherlock gets to his feet, lifting the tray with numb fingers. "Be careful, John. Mind the gap."

"Careful?" John gives a harsh bark of laughter. "Caution is why the world is the way it is today." He rises and pushes his door open, glancing back over his shoulder with a terrible sadness. "Caution is the disease."

...

Sherlock doesn't sleep that night. In the morning, he smokes ferociously and dresses for work. When he leaves, he finds a slip of paper tucked in the doorjamb. He unfolds it and reads the four words scrawled in John's hand.

Risk is the cure.

...

Mrs Hudson is jabbering about The Price is Right with Mrs Turner, the pair of them giggling objectionably loudly. Sherlock is sitting at her scarred kitchen table, elbows resting on the wood with his fingertips pressed together beneath his chin. Hours earlier, he watched John stuff a handmade sign into his undersized trunk and climb resolutely into the VW bug wearing a plain back tee-shirt with a white peace sign in the center.

Sherlock knows he should have accompanied him, but he's feeling raw, and Mycroft's advice is still ringing sharp in his head.

He grinds his teeth, feeling queasy, and pushes his tea away untouched. In the sitting room, the game show ends and Mrs Turner begins flicking through channels, stopping absentmindedly on fourteen when Mrs Hudson divulges a particularly interesting bit of gossip and she gets distracted. Sherlock glances listlessly at the screen, tracking the news reel with no real comprehension.

The newscaster's voice is white noise.

A reel of a landmine exploding in Vietnam loops several times and he watches with removed sympathy, until the footage shifts to a pan of London's skyline and he perks his ears.

"…was supposedly intended to be a nonviolent, peaceful protest, but here in London's Regents Park, recent events have taken a more foul turn. Wanda Gilman, thirty-two, testifies that police forces told protestors to go home and threatened to beat them with nightsticks otherwise. Of course, the protesters remained, and Gilman watched as many of them were forcibly held down and hit…left bloodied and injured, and while there are no fatalities, over seventy marchers have sustained severe injuries, including broken bones and concussions…bystanders are outraged at the brutality and many have testified that the protesters were not in fact guilty of disturbing the peace or obstructing traffic…hospitals are going to be full tonight, stunningly ironic given that the marchers were demonstrating against violence…"

The reel ends on a shot of a man with two spectacular black-eyes fighting off a mounted police officer. Then it begins again.

Sherlock stares.

"Shit," he says. And louder, standing up from the table so fast the teacups rattle. "Shit!"

Mrs Hudson starts, a hand pressed to her chest, as Sherlock thunders out of 221A and into the street.

John. He has to find John.

...

After nearly an hour's search, Sherlock spots him sitting on the steps of the Royal London Hospital with a crumpled sign reading Love Is The Answer.

"Oh, hell," he mutters, giving the cabbie instructions to stay put, and flies out of the car and through the crush of people, dropping to his knees in front of John's slumped form. This is not how he wanted things to go, and the anxiety is making him more enraged than ever. "John! Are you alright?"

It takes John a moment to register Sherlock's voice, like he's on another planet.

"Where are you hurt? Can you walk?"

Finally John lifts his forehead from his knees and stares at Sherlock with an expression void of all feeling. "Sh'lock," he slurs, lips bloody and bruised. "You're here."

"Stop stating the obvious," Sherlock growls, "it's terribly irritating. I asked if you were okay."

"My wrist is fractured, and m—"

"Come on, then, and get in the cab. We're going home."

"But my car—"

"We'll get it in the morning, now stop fucking about and do as I say. I know how to set broken bones; I'll fix you up when we get back."

"I don't think that's necessary... I'm a medical professional, remember….?" John winces as Sherlock helps him to his feet and looks back at his ruined sign with dismay.

"Leave it," Sherlock barks.

So John does, and they shuffle back to the idling cab, Sherlock supporting the majority of John's weight. He eases John into the backseat and settles in after him, resting John's head on his lap.

"Baker Street," he instructs, and the cab pulls into frenzied traffic.

John's head is warm on his thigh, vaguely feverish. Sherlock keeps his hands down at his sides, staring blankly out the window at spooked police horses and pedestrians wild with mingled rage and fear, until, with a defeated swallow, he lays his gloved hand gently upon John's grazed temple, and asks, very low, "Are you frightened?"

"M'with you."

Sherlock closes his eyes.

They arrive home after what feels like an eternity; a cold sweat has broken out on John's upper lip and his jaw is tight with the effort it takes not to cry out at every jar and bump in the road.

"Good luck," says the cabbie, catching the wad of bills Sherlock throws in his direction, and he has it too in that moment; the glint of longing for some better place.

Sherlock helps John out of the cab and leads him into 221, rolling his eyes at Mrs Hudson's shriek of relief.

"Sweet Jesus, we thought you'd died!" Mrs Turner joins Mrs Hudson in the hall, dusting biscuit crumbs from her collar.

"Yes, you're the picture of apprehension," Sherlock snaps, and considers slinging John over his shoulder and being done with it. In the end, he helps him wrestle up the seventeen stairs to the flat and installs him in the one armchair that isn't occupied with stacks of books and ungraded term papers. John sits with his head resting against the upholstery while Sherlock flies about collecting a splint, bandages, and a bag of frozen peas that has been residing in his freezer for over two years. It's cold as fuck, and he swears as he carries it across the sitting room to John. A tea towel, he needs a tea towel. His kitchen is stocked with Bunsen burners and microscopes, tongs and clamps, corks and rubber stoppers, and even a menacing pair of scalpels, but the tea towel is nowhere to be found. In a move of true desperation, he pilfers a pillow case from the linen closet and figures it will do the job. He wraps it around the peas and instructs John to press it to the afflicted area, which he does with a groan.

"Hold still," says Sherlock, aligning the splint with bated breath. He swathes the area with the bandage and secures it all with Velcro, sitting back on his heels and studying John for signs of infection or concussion. "You should let me clean those," he says, gesticulating at the cuts.

"They're shallow." John sighs, cradling his wrist in his lap, "I wouldn't worry."

Sherlock flings himself down in the chair opposite, grimacing as he crushes an unopened bag of crisps. "This is precisely why I told you not to go to the march."

John holds up a hand, "No, man, you d—"

"Mrs Turner's right. You could have died."

"But I didn't."

"But you could have."

"Didn't you get my note?"

"Of course, and I understand the need to take a stand for philosophical purposes, but—"

"I'm not trying to make a political statement," says John. "I mean, I am, but that isn't why I went to the march, or why I chose the life I chose. I got shot in the Vietnam War, a war that's still blowing people up right now, and I came home and I said to myself that if I didn't change my ways I'd have been better off dying on the battlefield, that if I didn't try to be a better human being I would die on the inside, and let me tell you, that's a thousand times worse than any external wound. I know what people think of hippies. They think we're soft and stupid, and that we just want to eat plants and belly dance with flowers in our hair, but that's not it at all. We want to be free, free of the things that are making us sick: money, capitalism, ego, status, discrimination. We want to end all that and have a new start. We want the next generation to live with openness and acceptance and fierce love. Like Martin Luther King Jr. once said, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." John breaks off with a 'che' of broken laughter. "We're walking the plank if we keep on like this, Sherlock. "

Sherlock opens his mouth but John goes on before he can speak.

"If you don't see value in the way I and others like me choose to exist, then I don't think we can be friends. Because friends, you see, are the ones standing beside you, not the ones standing opposite, ready to shoot you down on account of your beliefs." John gets out of the chair with a pained expression. "I'm going home," he says. "Thanks for finding me."

Sherlock's heart drops four stories. "Wait—!"

John closes the door.

...

"You've been locked in that bloody flat all day, dear. Why don't you come down and have a bit of leftover roast?"

"Not hungry."

He listens until Mrs Hudson walks dejectedly away, then he opens his window and smokes and smokes, watching late summer rain swirl down the gutter.

...

Sherlock rings John up at least six times. Not that he ever answers.

...

John lets himself out of his apartment building the following Sunday, pulling his keys from his pocket, and notices something new. There, right in the middle of Sherlock's bedroom window, is taped a piece of printer paper with a yellow smiley face painted on it, petite sibling to the one on the hood of John's car. He stares and rests his chin on the roof of the bug, something strange welling in his torso.

When he returns that night, it's still there.

...

With a growl, Sherlock throws his scalpel to the wayside and glares at the opposing wall. His brother's voice sings in his head with the persistence of a parasite, pulling him into the depths with terrifying finality. It's been two weeks and this is not working. Being snuffed by John is worse than anything he's ever experienced, and he doesn't know how to mend the situation. Two and a half decades spent heeding Mycroft's advice has gotten him here, but there's no way to reverse out of it. Hindsight is twenty-fucking-twenty and Sherlock sees his own selfish idiocy with sickening clarity now; sees how stupid he was for caring about restraint and caution over a much needed uprising.

Mind the gap, Sherlock.

He stands, curling his cold fingers into fists.

Don't be a revolutionary.

The taunt in his mind is tormenting beyond articulation. He casts hysterically about for the remote and flicks it at the telly, turning the volume up as loudly as he can get away with.

Don't try to change the world.

He opens his windows, as if asking the city's din to sweep into his flat and drown out the dissonance swimming in his skull. He catches his reflection in the darkened glass. His teeth are digging into a bleached lower lip and he inhales sharply, willing his hands to stop shaking, trying with every ounce of effort he possesses to get himself under control. The jeering becomes deafening.

STAY QUIET.

He can't breathe.

GET BACK IN THE GRID—

"NO!" he clutches his head as though it will fly apart if he doesn't. The word is his only affixation. "No."

...

There are brochures everywhere. All the chicks are talking about it:

Friday night, seven o'clock. Be there or be square.

Of course John goes.

...

"I thought you didn't like music festivals."

"I abhor them." Sherlock stares at himself in the mirror, poking miserably at his peasant top, and begins buttoning his jeans. "I look like a tramp."

"You look lovely." Mrs Hudson had barged into his flat half an hour earlier equipped with broom, mop, and enough Lysol to scour the Taj Mahal. After several weeks of leaving only to teach the odd chemistry lesson and hunch over his microscope in a private lab, Sherlock's flat looks like hell and smells like all sorts of mould, of which he can identify four varieties on scent alone.

Sherlock strides to his bed and picks up a tribal print sash, threading it through his belt loops. It would go with Mycroft's poncho corkingly, which proves just how much of a dumbass he's going to look like when the get-up is complete.

Mrs Hudson's dusting his wardrobe now, pursing her lips at the inordinate amount of grime. "So why exactly are you going?"

"Meeting a friend."

"Ah." If she guesses at who, she doesn't let on.

Sherlock slips a chain with a peace sign charm over his head and stares tersely at the finished result. His hair has been left free of product or gel, and sticks out alarmingly. He looks shorter than usual without his fitted suit jackets and trousers. Younger. A rosy flush at his cheeks is spreading like a stain, thanks to a sudden increase in temperature that's left the whole city sweating. He'll fit in seamlessly at the festival.

"You don't want to be late, dear."

"I'm almost afraid to hail a cab like this." A smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, and he doesn't bother hiding it as Mrs Hudson pulls him into an unexpected embrace and says, belying her poker face entirely, "He'll come around. I know it."

...

There's a sensation you get once in a blue moon when you're having a conversation with someone. You realise at some point during the exchange that you are not thinking about talking to that person. You are only thinking of the words, falling out of your mouth in scads as you speak with a resurrected eagerness you thought you'd buried. You are not thinking about talking with them, because you are not thinking about how you should be. You're being yourself. And they let you. And they like it.

Sherlock steps out of the cab and eyes the sea of people before him, butterflies swarming in his gut.

John always gave him that feeling.

...

He makes up his mind after the third warmup act. Stomach in knots, he heads for the stage.

...

"Excuse me, there's something I'd like to say." Sherlock is standing with one foot on the first stair leading up to the main stage, heart hammering. He's out of his body, watching himself act with a bizarre sense of mortification and relief. "It's rather important."

The band members survey him with surprise. They've just finished their song and are collecting their instruments amidst a smattering of applause. The drummer packs up his sticks and stands, glancing at the act waiting in the wings. Its members are smoking and discussing the complexities of different Japanese tea-serving rituals. They shrug, as if to convey their indifference. "What are you going to do?" asks the sitarist.

"The right thing."

She breaks into a smile. "In that case. Stage is all yours."

Sherlock gives a nod of appreciation, prays he won't make an arse of himself, and ascends seven steps, finding himself of the perimeter of the platform, the heat of multiple spotlights warming his skin.

"Good luck, mate." The singer claps him on the back as he passes, and Sherlock stands, momentarily petrified by the events about to unfold. But then he says, "to hell with this," and makes a beeline for the lone microphone positioned dead center. He fiddles with it, adjusting the height.

Everything's swell until the audience notices him, and silence begins descending over the spectators, prickling in his ears.

"Hello," he says into the black velvet. His voice echoes back at him, lower than he's used to. Like sodding Darth Vader. "I—" His throat is corroded. "I—"

There's a rustle of curiosity in the crowd. He fixes his eyes on the horizon, inhales air sweet with marijuana. It's welling up in him, the thing he never had the balls to say, the scream. It's coming out now; thundering up from the pit of what he once believed was a purposeless muscle.

"I didn't come here to play music," he says finally. "I came here because I need to say something. I don't care if it doesn't make sense, because there's someone here right now, someone I know, and when he hears it, he'll know it's about him. So." He swallows, sweat clinging to the planes of his body beneath the hellish peasant top. "You may not know this, but I can't fucking stand hippies."

To his utter astonishment, there is a great ripple of laughter. Encouraged, he continues. "They bore me, I find their politics weak and tedious, and their clothing—well. It's appalling. So let the fact that I am standing here before you in this frankly absurd attire be a testament to my…feelings." More laughter. "I have felt this way about the utopian socialist movement since its birth, but I am beginning to realise now that a lot of that may have been down to me being deluded by certain family members who took it upon themselves to feed me a load of bullshit about the whole thing. The motto in my family is, and has always been, 'mind the gap.' Basically, don't take risks. Don't break the chain. Don't speak up. Be careful. Be proper. Be appropriate. I'm a chemistry professor who listens to Vivaldi in his spare time. I am who my family wanted. I mind the gap. But I turn on the television and see boys in Vietnam with their eyes blown out of their heads and their limbs ripped off their fucking bodies. And I go outside and see signs telling black people where they can and cannot exist. And I watch my friend attend a peace rally and be physically harassed by the city police force. And I do nothing to stop any of it."

He pauses for breath, lightheaded. "So fuck the gap. Fuck this blanket of apathy that's been smothering me for so long. I'm through with it. I'm through. "

He stops and stares out at the sea of faces. "I don't give a shit about society and what it's agreed to say. It's not me; it's an inherited ignorance. And it ends now. But—but it should be noted that the reason I reached this place is entirely down to the someone I mentioned earlier. I think I finally understand what he's been trying to tell me."

Without another word, he steps away from the mic.

The audience is perfectly quiet.

Then it's deafening.

...

He looks for a man in a technicolour tie-die tee shirt and aviators that never could quite succeed in concealing the pair of unsettlingly blue eyes behind them. He looks for John.

...

When they see each other, they stop and stand and stare. Tongue heavy, head throbbing, Sherlock waits. Waits as people put their hands to the stars, bumping and swirling around him like moths drawn to a great light. Waits as music makes the speakers rattle in a way that's goddamn wonderful. Waits until John starts breathing again and gives the smallest of nods. Only then does he begin to walk. Only then does John begin to walk.

The gap is there, before Sherlock. He considers it for a moment, then dismisses it.

They move toward each other.