This was written for periwinkle-pinup-girl as a part of the tumblr Exchangelock WhatIf? exchange. My given prompt was "What if Sherlock and John had met in the mid 90's".
My take on this is for them to meet when they're both university students, although this fic is not centered on their university lives.
Many many many thanks to my wonderful beta Black Angel of the Underworld. You're the best!
And for Perriwinkle, I hope you like the story :)
Always With You
In hindsight, Sherlock supposed he should have seen it coming. Grabbed right off the street and being beaten to a pulp in the dark alley.
He should probably be ashamed by this. But again, it was four grown men against a 19-year-old boy. Hardly fair at all.
Perhaps he should have refrained from revealing the man's obvious preference for his own sex in front of his friends.
People can be so tedious sometime.
John was exhausted. The finals were around the corner and he just finished a study marathon in the library all by himself. While others could afford to be relaxed for at least another week or two, John couldn't. He was on the medical cadetship that paid for all his university expenses and he really couldn't afford to fail any of his papers.
John let out another sigh. At the age of 21, he was feeling too old for this. All he wanted now was a cup of tea and bed.
He was five minutes away from his hostel when he heard it, the laboured breathing and pained groans from the alley he just passed.
He debated with himself briefly before his curiosity won out.
He walked slow into the alley and halted when he saw a body lying on the ground. His medical training kicked in and he quickly went to check for a pulse and injuries.
It was a boy, who looked roughly in his late teens. And John was relieved to find him to be alive and conscious, although he was clearly in great pain. "You need a hospital."
The boy gasped. "No, I don't."
"But – "
"I'm not going to a hospital. You're a medical student, do it."
"How do you - "
Sherlock sighed. "Obvious. Student ID hanging out of your pocket. John Watson, 21, student at Queen Mary, newly merged with St. Barts' Hospital Medical College. The way you were checking for pulse and wounds speak of familiarity and practice. You're just back from the library and the Medicine faculty is the one having exams at this time."
"Wait…" It was silly, but John was feeling more confused than ever. "How did you know I was walking home from the library?"
"The library receipt sticking out of your pocket."
"Ah."
John used a strip of cloth to bandage the wound on the boy's right arm and proceeded to help him up. "So no hospital. Are you…are you illegal?"
The boy huffed, but his breath caught when the movement pulled at his ribs. "Don't be dull. I merely dislike the idea of a hospital."
"Right. You're in no state to go anywhere by yourself. Is there anyone I could call?"
John felt the boy stiffen under his arms. "No."
Feeling it was a sensitive topic, John stopped asking. "Well, I can't just leave you here. With me, then. I don't know if the guard would let you in in this state though." He paused. "Urm…What's your name?"
"Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes."
They managed to sneak past the guardhouse and arrived at John's dorm room without any trouble.
John's place was a three-persons flat and his flatmate, Mike, was already asleep when they got in.
Sherlock shifted uncomfortably when John had him sit on the toilet before he stripped off his shirt. There was a bruise underneath his eye, a large one on his left arm, and a cut on his left. There were small cuts on his back from falling down on the coarse ground of the alley. Most important, though, was the wound he had on his abdomen, where a bruise was forming around a gash made by sharp objects.
John examined it carefully, cleaning the wound first before dabbing it with antiseptic. The gash wasn't too shallow, but it also wasn't deep enough to warrant stitches. But John still needed to apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding before wrapping it with a bandage.
"The urm…the thing that you did earlier. The…" John scratched at his head while trying to think of a suitable description.
"Deduction."
John looked at Sherlock. "What?"
"I observe, gather data, and use it to deduce a theory."
That sounded rather posh. "Can you do it all the time?"
Even injured, Sherlock still managed to give a condescending look at John's question of his intelligence.
"You phone, it's expensive, complete with a coloured screen and MP3 player, but you're not living in a single-room apartment. It's a gift. And the way you stumbled over it shows that you're still not quite familiar with it; that means it's newly given. You're single, so it's not from a girlfriend" - he spared a glance at John who blushed - "or a boyfriend, but a family member." He waved his hands towards the bathroom counter. "You have two flatmates, both males, one right-handed, another left. The right handed one is a medical student like you, but the other one studies engineering."
John turned to look at the counter, eyes taking in the toothbrushes, combs, bottles of aftershaves and cleanser. "Nothing here says engineering." He looked at the boy, incredulous. "That's a damn good guess."
With his intelligence being doubted for a second time in a row, Sherlock pursed his lips to show his displeasure. "I don't guess, Watson. I observe. There's an engineering textbook on the coffee table."
John blinked, feeling as if his whole life story was on show, and he couldn't quite keep up with this injured person. "The phone…it was my sister's. Her girlfriend gave it to her and they broke up last week."
"I'm right, then."
"Yeah."
Sherlock bit down on his lips while he waited for John's reaction. People normally hated his deduction.
Just as Sherlock was about to stand up and leave, John whispered, "That…That was amazing."
Sherlock looked up at John abruptly, clearly surprised. "You think so?"
The medical student smiled brightly at Sherlock, but there was still a hint of incredulity in his eyes. "Yeah. That was…That was brilliant. Unbelievable, yes. But brilliant."
And for the first time in a long while, Sherlock smiled.
Sherlock fell asleep shortly after taking the painkillers.
And he was already gone by the time John woke up the next morning.
John was studying when there was a knock on his window. He looked up and saw Sherlock perched on the other side of it, somehow managing to look completely at ease standing on the narrow ledge there. The bruise on his face had faded.
But it was three o'clock in the morning. And John's room was on the fourth floor.
Huh.
When John just sat there and stared, Sherlock rolled his eyes and tapped on the window again, snapping the medical student out of his stupor.
"Wh – What are you doing?" John spoke in disbelief when he opened the window to let Sherlock in, who managed to maintain a sort of feline grace with his movements.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Sherlock drawled.
"Terrorizing my space."
Sherlock sniffed, clearly unimpressed. "I'm bored. And you're awake anyway."
"How do you?" John paused. "Right, urm…the detection."
"Deduction, Watson. Do keep up."
"Right."
"So why are you here again?"
John came back from the kitchen holding two mugs of tea and Sherlock was sitting at his study table, sharp eyes taking in the surrounding.
John supposed he should be embarrassed by the large pile of laundry sitting at the corner and the scattered socks and boxers around the room, especially the red boxer that was strewn over his bed, but he was too tired to care.
"I told you I was bored."
"That hardly justifies you coming here in the middle of the night." John passed one of the mugs to Sherlock. "And how did you manage to get up here anyway?"
"Details, Watson. Talking to the guard would be tedious."
John snorted into his tea. "Right, because it's so much easier to climb up to the fourth floor."
"Indeed." Their eyes caught and they shared a grin over their tea.
"John."
Sherlock paused in his perusal of John's array of photo, and raised an eyebrow at the medical student.
"Watson is my dad. Just call me John."
Sherlock stared at him for a moment before giving a nod. "Sherlock."
The next time John walked back to his room, the window was open, and Sherlock was gone.
Huh.
"This is hardly informative."
John seriously thought that he needed to write a letter to the accommodation service about the lapse in their security when he came back to his room late at night and found Sherlock flipping through his medical textbook.
"Bored again?" John kicked off his shoes and put down his bag. He really ought to do the laundry soon, as it was beginning to look like he had a mini mountain in his room.
Hah. Mini mountain…a hill then? John shook his head and chuckled softly to himself; everything was quite funny when you were running on just four hours of sleep in three days.
Sherlock turned around and narrowed his eyes at the medical student, taking in his shadowed eyes and exhausted gait. John looked like hell itself.
"You need sleep."
John scoffed. "No shit, Sherlock."
The genius just rolled his eyes and said, "You mind is going to be more useless than usual if you don't." He waved a hand at the general direction of the time. "You know where your bed is."
John rubbed a hand at his face tiredly. "I can't. There's another exam tomorrow."
Sherlock gave him a look that said 'so?', to which John just shrugged away.
"I need to revise. I can't afford to fail any of them." He moved to take a few books out of his bag and proceeded to put them on his bed, since his desk was monopolized by the genius.
"Don't be obtuse, John. Your brain is hardly going to do you any good in this state."
"I'm fine," John insisted, dumping more books onto his bed before moving to the door. "I just need tea."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Sherlock blocked his path. With a simple "I'll get it", the boy was out of the door.
A few minutes later, a glass of milk was presented to him.
John groaned and hit his head against the headboard. "Sherlock."
"Just drink it."
John fell asleep under Sherlock's watchful gaze, his breathing getting deeper and deeper as time passed.
By the time Sherlock left, John was covered with a blanket and his books and notes were sitting nicely on his bedside table.
John noticed that his mind worked better after a few hours of sleep.
And he aced his test.
Every now and then, Sherlock would appear in John's room, each time bringing with him a stack of chemistry notes or some experiment apparatus.
John never questioned why Sherlock didn't spend more time in his own flat. And he pretended that he didn't notice the tight grimace Sherlock had when he asked him about his family. Just like how Sherlock didn't ask about his alcoholic sister, which the genius obviously knew about.
They had an understanding, as strange as it was.
And besides, he liked Sherlock's company.
John came back with takeout and found Sherlock sitting at his desk, having dominated it for his experiment.
"I hope you're not breeding another mould colony, Sherlock. I don't want to fail my flat inspection again."
He heard Sherlock sigh exasperatedly behind him. "For a medical student, your knowledge in chemistry is appalling."
Sherlock gestured at his experiment. "This is hardly the right apparatus for mould breeding, John."
John set the curry down on the desk and carefully cleared away some of Sherlock's tools for more space. He thought it spoke a lot about how frequent Sherlock was there in his room, so much that he felt comfortable enough to eat beside a bubbling experiment.
Maybe he should ask Sherlock to chip in for the rent too.
Sherlock curled his hand protectively around his experiment, all the while scowling at John's callous treatment of his contraptions.
"Good to know it's not the mould invasion. I don't want to explain to Mike again about why we've failed the inspection." God, that was an awkward conversation. Mould and Sherlock.
"How dull. I will have you know that mould has pharmaceutical properties, which is more than what I can say about the human population in general."
"Of course, us mortals could never dream to attain the mould's brilliance."
Sherlock just sniffed and continued his experiment. The next moments passed in companionable silence, until one little drop of solution from Sherlock's experiment fell into the curry.
John leaned away from his food. "Am I losing my curry now?"
Sherlock barely spared a glance to it before going back to tinkering with the burette. "It's just distilled water, John. Hardly poisonous."
John stared at the curry in distrust, judging its edibility and weighing the probability in getting poisoned. Then he sighed and went to the kitchen to retrieve his salad from last night.
Despite his intelligence, Sherlock was abysmal in his knowledge on pop culture and was extremely reluctant to learn. Therefore, John considered it a success when he managed to coax the genius into watching Star Wars with him.
As expected, Sherlock spent the whole movie criticizing the illogicality of the plot.
"But you don't even know about the solar system, Sherlock."
"That's not important, John!"
However, John had to admit that the running commentary from Sherlock was really funny and he spent the whole time laughing at Sherlock's disgruntled expression of being forced to watch these 'drivels'.
By the time they were halfway through the third movie of the series, they were sitting with their knees touching and an empty bowl of salad between them.
John was feeling decidedly sleepier as seconds passed and Sherlock was really warm and…
When John woke up at seven o'clock in the morning, he was sprawled on top of Sherlock, the two of them having fallen asleep on the sofa.
On the television, the screen displayed the menu section of the movie.
"Oh." John groaned softly when he rolled his head, trying to fix the crick in his neck. Beneath him, Sherlock shifted slightly but continued sleeping.
The thin curtains in the living room did a poor job in shielding the sunlight, but in the rays of the morning sun, John could see Sherlock's face clearly while he slept.
The lines of tension had smoothed out and his eyelids were closed against the light of dawn, covering the beautiful ocean-coloured eyes he had. His breathing was deep and relaxed, and his mouth hung slightly open; all the muscles in his face and body were at peace, unlike the usual calculated and poised gait he took on while he was awake.
Overall, Sherlock looked…softer. There was innocence on the sleeping face, so serene and peaceful that it struck a cord deep within John's heart.
It was the first time he saw Sherlock being so unguarded.
Without thinking, John leaned down and pressed a kiss to Sherlock's lips. It was just going to be a soft and chaste kiss, until Sherlock arms wrapped themselves around John and reciprocated the kiss.
John stiffened for a moment at the unexpected touch, but quickly kissed back, this time with more force and passion. He buried his hands in Sherlock's dark curls and accidentally gripped too tightly. This drew out a loud moan of pleasure and John vowed to do this again when they were in a more private setting.
Soon, the living room was filled with the sound of kisses and soft moans, until Mike's gleeful voice boomed from above the couch. "Well, that is a long time coming."
John found out that kisses with Sherlock were very satisfying, but he particularly liked the ones they shared in the morning, when everything was languid and they basked in each other's warmth under the covers, as if the world was about just the two of them and everything else didn't matter. When Sherlock looked down at him, his eyes would brighten under the dim light that shone through the curtains; he would give him that quirky smile, that one that made him felt like they belonged.
He also found out that Sherlock preferred the left side of the bed and was a cuddler, even if he denied it vehemently when mentioned.
When Sherlock successfully bred a colony of pink mould in John's favourite shoes and John didn't have the heart to tell the genius off just so he could keep the triumphant smile on his face, he knew he was irrevocably in love with Sherlock.
"Afghanistan or Iraq?"
John didn't answer at first in favour of shaking raindrops off his coat. In the living room, Sherlock had sprawled himself over the couch, getting rainwater on the furniture.
"I don't have a choice in that. The army will do the assignment at the end of my training."
Sherlock made a noncommittal sound and steepled his fingers under his chin in what John deemed as the thinking pose.
John stood at the doorway, his brows furrowed as he casted a critical eye at his boyfriend. He knew what it was about, that Sherlock didn't want him to serve in the army. But John didn't have any choice, did he?
He'd wanted to become a doctor since he remembered; and while he was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, he didn't actually want to be sent to the war-zones to fulfill that need. The reason as to why he'd applied for the medical cadetship was because he needed the money it provided to cover the tuition fee and living expenses in London.
He would miss Sherlock. Oh, how he would miss the insufferable git. But it was his decision to take up the scholarship and he'd accepted the cost he had to pay for it.
Although it didn't make it any easier to leave.
He pushed off from where he'd been leaning against the door and walked towards the bathroom. "Well, genius, I don't know about you but the cold is really quite annoying and I would like a hot shower."
A few seconds later, John smiled at the sound of footsteps behind him.
'We need milk. – SH'
'And get some fingers, if convenient. – SH'
'Sherlock! – JW'
'You are friends with the morgue attendant. – SH'
'No. – JW'
"Just one finger. – SH'
"No. – JW'
"You're pouting, aren't you? – JW'
"The number of valence electrons in a phosphorus atom," John read aloud from where he was reclining on his bed; Sherlock's chemistry textbook was balanced on his lap.
"Five," Sherlock mumbled from where he was lying on his front. "You do know that the exam will be extremely easy."
"Easy for you." John turned a page as he continued to trail his hand slowly on Sherlock's back. "You don't even go to lectures."
"Lectures are boring. Why are you insisting on such nonsense?"
"It's what a good boyfriend does, alright? Helping you revise and everything." John's hand stilled on the small of his boyfriend's back. "Come on, darling. Indulge me, yeah?"
John let out a soft chuckle when Sherlock grumbled and arched up against his hand. Really, the genius was actually just an overgrown cat.
On John's 22nd birthday, Sherlock tried to bake a cake and ended up exploding the oven. Fire department had to be called and a fine had to be paid.
Sherlock was forever banned from the kitchen. Mike's order.
On John's 23rd birthday, Sherlock bought a cake and played a song on his violin.
All was well aside from the jar of toes Mike found in the fridge. But Sherlock claimed he had no knowledge of it whatsoever.
On John's 24th birthday, it was chaos, blood, and pain.
Afghanistan was a sweltering hell of war and destruction. Everyday, he was faced with the pained and anguish haze of the wounded soldiers. Everyday, he was faced with the possibility of seeing yet another soldier going limp on the cot before him, dead.
In a world of blood and battle, death became an almost everyday occurrence.
Yet despite it all, despite the blood he had on his hands each day, despite the loneliness he felt when he lied on his cot at night, he would always push through with an image of Sherlock in mind.
His phone (courtesy of Sherlock's brother, and by God that was a most awkward meeting) vibrated beside him, signally an incoming text.
'Happy Birthday, John. – SH'
Three words. Three simple words, and they were enough to bring a smile on John Watson's face.
I could face another day with this, he thought to himself while typing back a reply to Sherlock.
On his 31st birthday, there was an explosion and he had to go into the field to pick up a wounded soldier.
Despite his top-notched shooting skill, he still got caught in the ensuing battle.
Collateral damage.
That night, he didn't see Sherlock's text.
Sherlock was waiting for him at the airport when John was invalidated home from Afghanistan.
Ten years. John, an ex-army doctor, a man with scars on his shoulder and a limp in his leg.
Ten years. Sherlock, a rehabilitated drug addict and a consulting detective.
Time passed, people changed. And yet, in each other's arms, they were home again.
A consulting detective who will die for his doctor. A doctor who will kill for his consulting detective.
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.
-Fin.-
I hope I did the prompt justice :)