A/N: Inspired by the song 'A Rainy Night in Soho' by The Pogues.

John, standing here before him. Rain-soaked and eyes twinkling, and his throat is so tight that he can't speak, can only drink him in. The short hair stuck in sharp bristles beneath the golden streetlamps, lips twitching. His stomach flutters, and he sucks in a breath, trying to calm the pumping race of his heart.

How did they get to this? To standing in the rain at night in Soho, his head so light just from looking at John that he thinks he might faint? There was something about a case, he knows that though he just can't remember what or why it might have mattered when John is smiling at him like that.

His eyes prickle uncomfortably. But he can't cry now. Not here, not in front of John, not when he doesn't even know why he wants to cry. There is no reason for tears, though there certainly was in the past and he fought the tears just as hard then too; standing on that rooftop, walking away from that wedding, sitting aboard that plane. And they broke through his defences then just as they are trying to now and-

Breathe, Sherlock, you idiot. Just breathe.

John. John's voice grounding him, reminding him that there is no need to cry now though he still feels so damn teary.

But there were smiles too, for all of the tears. Secret smiles at crime scenes, soft ones exchanged at the breakfast table over toast and the newspaper, lips twitching gently in the backs of cabs. Each smile a bolt to his heart, sending a tingling feeling to the very tips of his fingers so that he longed to reach out and –

There. His fingers brush John's cheek, and he shivers at the warmth of it, so solid and real. And he's never been a religious man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but God how is this real? How can he be standing here with John in front of him and touching his cheek? His heart skips, a palpitation that makes him gasp and he could die from this, right here right now, John smiling at him the last sight that he ever sees.

(He almost did, once. He brushed John's cheek just like this, trying to grip his shoulder, and his whole field of vision had narrowed so that it was just John's blurred face he could see, taut with worry, and the heavy tight pain just beneath his ribs was all he could feel. And it was so hard to breath with the pain, and his heart very nearly did stop. He could feel it sputtering in his chest, fighting to keep beating and John told him as much afterwards, that they almost lost him in the ambulance. His own stubbornness, of course, the cause of it. But he had to be sure that John was all right, and that John knew what his wife was. It was necessary to keep him safe.)

Sherlock.

His name on John's lips, beckoning him forth and he steps into those waiting arms, closing his eyes. The wind whistles around them, the rain trickling in a cold rivulet down the back of his neck and his hair stands on end. It doesn't matter, not here wrapped in John's arms so warm and safe. They are not the men they were, that much is obvious. They claimed to be men, had the age for it, but they were boys really. Now those boys are dead, have been dead since he walked off that roof into Hell and brought John down with him.

I'm sorry.

His own voice is a hoarse whisper, almost drowned out by the cheers behind them and the music filtering out from doorways, all playing the same infernal song, glittering lights cracking overhead.

He's not certain what he's apologising for. Faking his death? Not seeing through Mary? The long nights that John spent at his bedside when he really thought that he was going to die? (He was in so pain, and was so tired, and it was all that he could to wrap his fingers around John's own.)

Is he apologising for not coming to his senses sooner and admitting how he feels, how he has felt for so long?

They've been together for months, and he still curses himself daily for wasting so much time, for not plucking up the courage sooner and saying, John Watson, I really do feel rather deeply for you. Would you like to come to dinner with me? It could have been as simple as that, only he had to let everything get into a tangled mess so that it was John who came to him.

You have nothing to apologise for, Sherlock.

A kiss, pressed softly to his own sharp cheek and he smiles, tears spilling forth, eyes still closed because how can seeing this make it any better when he can feel John so close to him, after everything they've been through?

I love you.

Hardly have the words left his mouth when John's lips are on his, tongue sliding between them and is he dreaming or are those tears on John's cheeks too? Or are they merely raindrops?

I love you too.