A/N: I have been extremely absent on this account for quite some time now. I don't know what this will become. I don't know if it will go further than this. I don't even know if you'll like this. But, I am enduring in my love of angst with this tragic little bomb of heart-rending pain. Sigh. I'll understand if you hate me. But..unlike a few other ventures on this account, I feel this may go further than a oneshot.
This fic is named after a song by my favorite band, La Dispute. It's called Why It Scares Me. I'm thinking this is going to be Sherlock-centric. Hence, the song is as well.
Please review. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
He supposed it should've been obvious from the beginning. He was doomed to fall to the ruin that had personified itself as Sherlock Holmes, 16 years old, haughty, and brilliant. The man responded to his first 'Hello' by laying out his life in short, terse, precise insults, and continued it by saying 'You have horrid fashion taste'. Coming from a boy in ripped black jeans, a loose white t-shirt, and a beat up leather jacket, sporting a thick, curly mohawk...it shouldn't have been nearly as enticing as it was. John told him he was brilliant- nearly as brilliant as the shock in those indescribable icy eyes. From then on, it was a downward spiral for a boy who had never so much as thought a male form attractive.
Sherlock Holmes took his normal, vanilla, teenage life and turned it upside down. He taunted him relentlessly, growled like an angry mutt when John babbled, and made him nervous endlessly. And all of it served as a drug to the boy who'd never so much as smoked pot. The first few months, John made himself comfortable in Sherlock's not infrequent presence in every facet of his life. He brought him home to meet the parents, introduced him to a few friends, even dragged him along to a party where Sherlock became an endless entertainment by letting him in on priceless blackmail information on everyone attending.
But somehow, he never imagined it'd end like this. Two years after they met and Sherlock declared in his posh, incorrigible way that his jumpers were a heinous punishment to his eyes. A year after they'd kissed the first time- a messy meeting of drunken lips and vodka tongues. Six months after they'd said I love you. Three months since they'd had sex, and John had given a blowjob.
A day since Sherlock had revealed he could never love another like he loved John Watson.
Really, it shouldn't have been surprising. He had let himself fall for someone horribly normal. It was idiotic, and he'd known it from the moment John had flashed that pretty, sunshine-filled smile and stroked his ego like he'd been born for it. But he had shaken his head and allowed John to infiltrate the impenetrable castle walls of his heart and soul- if he had either one, sometimes he still wasn't sure of their existence.
A tear slipped down a white-in-the-moonlight cheek and Sherlock feels his heart for the first time. He feels it breaking. It isn't fair, but life never is, and love is a fool's game. Perhaps he had known somewhere deep down that John would break his heart, but he had always sworn to himself that it would be the other way around. Seems like he had been right on both counts- fitting, that the genius was the one who got it right. John's lips tremble, and he stamps down the urge to hug the boy who had always felt so right in his arms.
"It's not that simple, John!" He hears himself yelling in a dirty alley on the bad side of London, and feels his mouth go dry. What he'd give for his hands to stop trembling as they light a cigarette. He forces himself to stay nonchalant, like this doesn't hurt him as much- or more- than it's hurting his young boyfriend.
"It is! I love you, you twat! You can't do this. Not now...not when-" John cuts off, and Sherlock feels a brief moment of victory as he was the one who broke John of his rambling.
"Not when you're scared? My dear Watson, I think that's a bit selfish of you." He hears the imperial tone of his voice, but refuses to feel guilty for it. He isn't the type to repent. One cannot take back words spoken into cold air. Somehow, he realizes he's appreciative of the frigid air cutting against the sensitive skin of his face, making his mouth go numb. If only his heart were effected in the same way.
"Oh, like you have fucking feelings? Look at you, smoking a cigarette and looking like you got a damn pony for Christmas, you bloody bastard." John's tone is bitter, and it cuts through him like a two-edged sword. And he was called the silvertongued. The idea nearly made him snort. Obviously, he was the wordsmith of the two, but when it came down to brass tacks, John could cut as sharply as him on a good day. "You never cared about me." Oh, what an idiot his boy was. "You still don't. You said yesterday-" He comes up short, sniffling. Sherlock realizes that John was all-out sobbing now. Again, he has to resist the urge to bundle up the smaller man in his arms and coo to him that one day, he'd be okay. Because as much as he wishes it were different, John was never made to be with him. They're much too different. Opposites. Even if they attract, they are never good for each other. Sherlock had corrupted him, and John had given him tragic emotions. Not quite the fair trade.
"What I said yesterday was the truth. For me. Not for you." His voice is stone cold, and he thinks he might one day thank his parents for teaching him how to cut away emotions like they don't exist, and damn them for giving him a brilliant brain that could read every thought across John's face.
Hope, for the 'us' that never should've happened.
Love, for a man who was irredeemably unlovable.
Desire, for something that never should've been.
Fear, for the hard fact and absolute truth.
They could never be together, and that was that.
He realizes with startling clarity that Sherlock still does love him. Even if he's quickly building impenetrable walls around that love- effectively locking John out while simultaneously chaining him to this...thing that lingered between them in the winter air. Fighting was the only response he could conjure up, even if he knew it was pointless. Sherlock had made up his mind, and John was powerless to change his opinion. For a month, Sherlock had been fighting his parents over this- over them- and that had made John believe Sherlock Holmes had a heart once and for all. His belief didn't waver now, as they fought in the slow-drifting snow and through cold noses and numb lips. Maybe it was the hysteria of the moment, but John thought he might be getting frostbite on his littlest toes.
"You think because of this, that I don't love you?" The moment the words fell from his lips, Sherlock was rolling his eyes and huffing a put-upon sigh. The look on his face called John an idiot before his voice did.
And when it did, it resulted with another shiver completely unrelated from the cold, traveling down John's spine. "You're an idiot." The tone in his voice reminded John of the time not long after they'd met when Sherlock told him to "Keep your thoughts to yourself if you're going to be boring, John." "I know you love me, now. I also know that you won't when you come home in four years." Four years...it wasn't nearly enough time to stop loving Sherlock Holmes...not for John Watson.
John shook his head. "You're bloody unbelievable! You're fucking stupid. And you're being a damn bastard because it isn't me who's scared, it's you." His voice was as sinfully dark as Sherlock's, and stronger now. He wasn't quivering like a lost puppy anymore, he was standing up like a damn soldier. Fuck it, if he's gonna lose Sherlock, he's gonna fight to the death.
The words drop like an atomic bomb going off inside a very thin, very volatile, Tim Burton-esque teenage boy. Ice eyes flash like they're melting in the explosion, and John fears for his life, and Sherlock's sanity. Because he's never seen Sherlock lose it, not for even five seconds. But in five seconds, Sherlock has backed John against a wall- a wall which Sherlock's very small fist slams into. There is no hint that Sherlock has registered the pain that a crack of bone ominously proclaims. "You, my dear friend," Blood red lips spit the endearment like it's dirty and vile. "Are leaving me. Not the other way around. I have the god damn right to be scared, and you bloody know it. So don't throw this back on me. You made this decision without even mentioning it to me. You decided to leave me without giving me a fucking week to come to terms. And yet you are the one who made me god damn feel something!" His voice cracks and Sherlock's eyes flash again. Anger is a terrifying look on Sherlock, even more so than when he's reducing a moron for the sheer want of something to do. His voice is a low, heavy hiss that makes John wonder what deep well of hell Sherlock really came from. Because as much as John protests the man is an angel to him, he's very much a demon from Hades' greatest depths as well. John has awoken the beast that has been hibernating.
"You know why I didn't." The words sound small and useless. Mostly because they are. For once, the reason why and the facts of that knowledge do nothing to comfort a man who has finally felt emotion. And perhaps that was why Sherlock was so volatile, for the man had felt nothing so much as kindred to love for 17 years, and now, he feels it more violently than those who have lived with it since they were cognizant of their hearts.
"You're a coward." The words are poison, and they threaten to incapacitate John where he stands. "I hate you." Sherlock pulls away, his mangled hand immediately thrust into the pocket in his jeans. "Go. Go to the army. Be a doctor. See if I miss you." The words aren't a challenge or a dare, they aren't a taunt meant to hurt John.
They are a promise.
Sherlock Holmes may have a grown a heart.
But it had shriveled and wilted just as quickly as it had flourished.
And if my heart just stops, pack my memories in it...
I want to know all the love I've got.