Title: Lucky
Rating: PG for fluff and teeny bit of angst
Word Count: ~500
Disclaimer: Moffat, Gattiss, Sir Author Conan Doyle et. al. own 'Sherlock.'
belle_favrielle 's prompt on the Sherlockbbc Kink Meme on Live Journal:
This week (in America, at least) has been really depressing when it comes to LGBT issues, but in turn, it has created a lot of positive stuff, like the "it gets better" youtube movement, and has got people talking more openly about such serious issues.
So, as I relate all things to fandom eventually, that got me thinking about Sherlock and John, and what a difference it would make being set in the modern world rather than 100 years ago. I don't have a super specific request, but I would love something that has them reflecting on the past (or even interacting with past!Holmes/Watson) or just being happy in general with their gay marriage and gay military and...yeah.
I don't know...just happy-gay-conquers-homophobia-in-the-end-fic. Please? I'll bake you a rainbow cake! *hugs all fellow lgbt peeps*
Sherlock doesn't know how John manages to convince him to do these things.
They are sitting, side-by-side, on the sofa, facing a video camera, and John is speaking in serious tones about how life gets better and please don't do it and blahblahblah. It's disturbing and maudlin and public and Sherlock's had more than enough.
He stands, cutting John off mid-word, and says, "I'm not doing this."
"Sherlock," John sighs. "We discussed this. It's for a good cause and you don't have to say anything, just sit here with me—"
"No," Sherlock says with finality.
John has the temerity to look disappointed with him. Sherlock narrows his eyes and turns away towards the kitchen and his latest experiment. Length of time it takes fingerprints to degrade in various temperatures of water. His brain is already engaged in calculating variables and considering whether he ought to add solutions of rainwater to the test when John's voice interrupts his musing.
"You know, not everyone has it as lucky as we do." John is leaning in the doorway, watching Sherlock.
Sherlock finds this to be a bit of a non-sequiter. He turns back to John and raises an eyebrow.
"Imagine what it would have been like if we'd met a hundred years ago."
Sherlock snorts. "Would be easier to get a smoke," he mutters. He can picture himself smoking fat cigars or perhaps a pipe, pulling it out and puffing away whenever he needed to think.
"Having to pretend to be just friends," John points out.
Sherlock meets his eyes. They've both done quite enough of that already.
"Having to get married to a woman, to hide everything," John's hands tremble slightly and Sherlock strides across the room and grasps them in his own, pulling John into his chest.
"Never," he whispers fiercely. John sighs and rests his head over Sherlock's heart and Sherlock's eyes drift close. They'd come close to that too, before Sherlock had woken up and realized that John was his and that no bloody woman was going to take him away. He'd almost waited too long and Mary still refused speak to Sherlock.
John's words unfold behind his mind's eye and Sherlock can see it all so clearly. John, the valiant soldier just home from Afghanistan. True, that was more than one hundred years ago but it hardly mattered. He, a confirmed bachelor, without even the fumbling attempts at uni to guide him. The sense of connection—the immediacy he'd felt when he first met John Watson—would be the same, he decides. But without the prior knowledge of his own sexuality, Sherlock will never acted on them and John will grow tired of waiting and would be forever lost to him, safely married to a wife and always wondering what could have been.
Sherlock can see it all—a long winter of loneliness and boredom. He shudders and feels John's arms tighten around him.
"Never," John promises.