BBCSH 'Taxi!'
Author: tigersilver
Pairing: S/J
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,000
Summary: I cannot believe someone has NOT had them reuniting in a taxi-cab. They probably have-I just missed it. But now I have, as it wouldn't leave me be, this waking dream. I hope it pleases.
"Hallo, John."
Bang-bang.
Sherlock has been formulating this scenario for months now. It's pissing down rain and he's been right outside Barts intake entrance, idling away the minutes in a cab. John's brolly is broken; he's never replaced it and he has neglected to take a spare from the stand by the entry doors. He's already very damp from the dash through the puddles, his fine hair furling up in peaks and spirals like whitecaps on water, and he's huffing in exasperation, what with his satchel being wet and his collar soaking.
Bang-bang.
"It's good to see you."
Sherlock's been calculating out the hours, the days, the very minutes till when he'll be finally allowed to do this exact thing—this pouncing on of John Watson. This brilliant moment of observation of John's features, his body, his words—when the man gathers them up in a useful fashion, that is—his clothes and accessories. He's been fondling his assumptions as if they were kittens in need of petting; he's been poring over the array of possibilities and probabilities like a mad scientist over long-awaited 'Eureka!'
Bang-bang. Bang.
"You're a bit wet." That's not truly what Sherlock meant to say—he hadn't meant to engage in meaningless chatter at all, but to act instead. "Here, use my kerchief, mop your face at least. You're dripping." He waves it in John's blank-eyes—so blue, even in the watery dim of the interior. He's craved action, after sitting blind and hamstrung for so very long; waving a white hankie is not a drop in the bucket. "We'll go straight to Angelo's, let you dry out. Eat." He uses the hankie to wipe John's lined brow, discards it. Tugs at John's scarf, delightfully familiar; at his coat collar—again, wonderfully known to him. Barely resists shoving his curious nostrils into John's hair. "I know you've been neglecting yourself. Shameful, for a man of medicine, John. I can, at least, feed you." His fingertips are so restless over the patches at John's elbows, over the smell of John's neck, he feels a pang that must be very like the one rumbling through John's stomach; it's very strange of him but also gorgeously, marvelously familiar. "I'm positive you're starved after so long a shift, yes? Must've been a double. Let's have dinner."
Bang-bang. Bang-bang.
Bang.
"I'm in funds."
Bang.
He prides himself that he has the exact intonation down, the one he always used to employ with John. He's not missing a beat, what with the ennui induced by the mundane and the certainty of acceptance on the good doctor's part. This is easy-peasy, this part—he's a brilliant actor.
Bang-bang.
"Could do with a bite myself."
Bang.
"I," Sherlock swallows fast. Bang! "I texted you, of course, but it never went through. Mycroft said you changed your mobile number?"
John will never know, not unless Sherlock wants him to know, correct?
"I wish you hadn't but then I suppose you didn't think—"
Sherlock catches himself mid-smirk, mid-scowl.
Bang-bang. Bang-bang.
Curled and curved bodily over top of John Watson like some bloody raptor, as if he were a peregrine who'd like to go dancing, as if the taxi were the scene of a four-patch crime and he's the first to arrive, sirens blazing.
John must know. He must.
Nothing. No bang. Nothing.
"No, no, cancel that. Perfectly understandable, after—after." The detective sucks in a gulp of humid atmosphere. It's flavoured with John's steadily heaving respiration and the countless layers of odours in the cab: curry, sweat from at least thirty people in the last twenty-four hours, the rain itself, acid where it pours down.
John. Who lives and breathes. Who smells of tea and antiseptic and starch and jam. And vomit—of course vomit. That would be Barts.
"After events."
For a regular person, maybe twenty seconds have passed. John's natural reflexes are normally much faster than that; for the first time in Sherlock's recent memory, doubt creeps in on little cat-paws: has he erred?
Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Bang-bang.
"I don't blame you."
"Only natural."
"You—you are a bit peckish, John?"
"Supper—food is good, right, John? A meal—break bread together—John?"
Bang.
Sherlock's world is a teeter-totter, crazy-rocking over cobbles, and the cab has faded away as if all physical clues of environment were so much vapor. Foggy fingers grope for a concrete jaw line, as an anchor, Sherlock's anchor—there's John's stubble—he's missed sharing the lav so much he can't say—can't speak—can't.
Nothing. Nothing. Not a thing. He's dead inside, truly.
"Bit not good, Sher—"
John's voice, when he finally summons it, cracks right down the middle of Sherlock's name, separating it surgically into two parts. Sherlock's not superstitious, but still.
"...'hem—Sherlock."
Every molecule in his person, his attenuated self, goes taut-sharp and rending. He is poised for destruction—what has he missed?
No—what else has he missed?
Bang—bang. No. Nothing!
There's an infinitely slow gathering of muscles bunching under his digging-in nails. He can literally feel John Watson moving away, withdrawing, and it's tiny, the action, but it is paradoxically immensely destructive.
Despair is tangible. Like John, fully within Sherlock's grasp, but not really.
This is what comes of not being there, not going through every hour, every minute, every day. Going away, never returning. But this is a reprieve all the same, a salvation; the cramped quarters of the taxi have returned to his stretching senses at last, and all the sopping wet stuffed inside, brought along in with his friend. The jacket and the satchel and the slippery grey-blond strands, the same-old-same-old cologne. The gaze and the slight twitch of frown which might be precursor to a grin and then that roll of the neck Sherlock's grieved for so deeply, more even than the shared lav, and the—all distance, real and imagined, vanishes.
"This is better."
Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Bang!
This is solace.
This is home, in a taxi, going off to dinner.
Bang-bang!
This is mouths and hands, skin and fabric and wet, slippery, scented of relief—this is home, in a taxi: 'I'm famished. Let's have dinner.'
Bang!