Still unbetaed, I'm afraid. I'll give it a good going over when I get to the end. And really, weekly updates? Who was I kidding?! Apologies, many many apologies.
Since Sherlock came back to him, he is a different man. They both are. Different men than they were, long ago, when life revolved around each other, though neither would ever have admitted it at the time.
Some things are clear and obvious; some have taken longer to seep into John's conscious mind. Some never have, but have just been accepted and adjusted for by a part of him that hasn't bothered to register the effort. John Watson would do almost anything for Sherlock Holmes. Almost. He draws the line at murdering innocents and he'd prefer to keep his pants on in public, but apart from that, he'd move Heaven and Earth, if only he knew how.
John takes an elbow to the nose. It is enough of a shock that he almost ends up on his arse in the gutter. Instead he gets caught by the mean end of a crowbar on the way down and crumples straight down, bypassing his arse completely. Not unconscious, just stunned, and hurting.
In John's momentary lapse, Sherlock becomes some sort of avenging angel, taking on both men with roar of anger, a whipping arm and a sharp stamping kick to a kneecap. Beauty. Perfection. He's no match for a solid cylinder of iron though, and John has just enough seconds to catch a breath before he has to shove himself back up to join in. He's in time to block the potentially fatal blow and thrust his hand, knuckles first if course, into the soft abdomen of their opponent with enough force to empty his lungs in an audible whoosh.
Later, the police insist on an ambulance, which is a wise choice considering how much blood there appears to be. Most of it is from the crowbar kiss of John's head (terrible bleeders, those), but some of it is sourced from the other guys. The original attacker spits loose a tooth and shoots Sherlock a dark look as he is ducked into the back of a police car. His slide in is a practiced move that speaks of prior experience in handcuffed car journeys.
John refuses to lie down on a gurney. But after Sherlock uses his phone to take a picture to show John the mess that used to be back of his head (and prevents his exit from the ambulance with a long-legged barricade and a firm grip of red-stained coat collar), John concedes to a smart set of stitches and a decent dressing in A&E. After all, fixing up the back of your own head is tricky at best, even John will admit.
And if Sherlock saves the photo, it's to study the wound for science (!). Everyone knows that.
Sherlock wakes John up every hour that night. He entirely ignores John's protestations that it's unnecessary. Sometimes it's with a gentle shake of his shoulder and a whisper. Sometimes with just his footsteps on the wooden floorboards. Once with careful fingers gently probing the newly lumpy skin on the back curve of John's head.
"Owsodoffdick," John grumbles bad-temperedly and tries to swat him away.
"Just inspecting the nurses handiwork."
"He was a doctor."
"Well, clearly not a seamstress."
John wants to smile, but his face isn't awake enough. So he leans back instead, until the base of his skull is cradled away from the pillows by long fingers and lets the world fade away again.
Sometimes John covers the odd shift at the clinic. Only when cases are thin on the ground and the NHS asks him very nicely and very desperately. It's pleasant to get out and be needed.
When he gets home from his latest shift, Sherlock is in mad professor mode - rolled-up shirtsleeves and laboratory goggles, which generally signifies something dreadful is likely still going on in the kitchen. He sits, hunched over the table, with beakers and test tubes in front of him, and sinister brown glass bottles plonked here and there. Gloves should be a part of this outfit, most definitely. They aren't.
John turns on the spot and heads in the other direction. If Sherlock hasn't moved all day he's probably in an offensive, insulting sort of mood. Tea and biscuits can just wait.
"Ah, you're home."
The mad professor looks up when John pauses, and an errant curl flops over the front of his plastic eye-protection. He puffs comically at it, trying to shift it and failing. After a few attempts, John takes pity, as Sherlock had undoubtedly known he would, leaning over to curl it around his fingers and poke it back into the general mass. The comment is alone with no additions, and so John lets himself hope it might actually be a fairly pleasant evening.
"An excellent deduction. What gave me away?" A quick glance at the kettle informs him it seems untampered with and untainted by Sherlock's experiments. A cautious touch - even freshly boiled. Lovely. Except… that means Sherlock has at least filled it (with something) and switched it on. John narrows his eyes. "Uh, anything toxic in the kettle?"
"No more than the usual. Chlorine, aluminium sulphate, fluorosilic acid, blah blah blah, the occasional splodge of weedkiller."
Right, John reaches for a mug. Regular tap water then.
"Why didn't you answer my texts?"
"I was at work."
"Boring."
"It was, rather. But also more deserving of my attention at that moment than you, I'm afraid." John checks his reaction, hopes to see agreement, perhaps, or even a tinge of guilt. No joy. Sherlock has a test tube up in front of his face and is stirring it slowly with a glass rod. John rolls his eyes, "I assume you found the answers out anyway?"
The aforementioned texts were questions of medical opinion, mainly regarding poisonings. He had checked them on the way home and they were all of a similar non-urgent (in any normal person's view) nature. The first he had, of course, read immediately upon receiving it, just in case it was another 'Went wrong - don't come home. - SH' or even a 'Went wrong - tied up in boot of car in Brixton. Help ASAP. - SH'. It hadn't been, so he'd felt quite satisfied to ignore the rest of them.
"Would've been quicker if you'd just told me."
"Would've saved us bother effort if you'd just googled it in the first place."
"Google, schmoogle. What's the point of living with a doctor if they don't share their medical knowledge occasionally?"
"What's the point of owning several laptops and a highspeed broadband connection if you don't use them?" John retorts. He puts a heavily sugared and lightly milked cup of tea down beside Sherlock and takes his own into the living room. Doesn't have to look back to prompt the automatic warning, "It's too hot."
Sherlock puts the mug back down, a bit hard.
"Google doesn't make me tea."
The swagger is always there, but sometimes Sherlock's shoulders skulk forwards in a defensive roll, instead of the normal effortlessly proud posture. It's when the world is getting a bit too much, a bit too harsh. John wants to reach up and push them back, to support them into confidence then arrogance, rather than a pale, shielded imitation of it.
"Chinese tonight?"
"Not hungry."
No, John didn't think he would be. Which is a shame. Because John would like to feed him up a bit, always has wanted to. Wants to let him mope a bit. Stuff him full of good food and bad takeaways and too much sugary coffee and rich red wine. Then they can get back to what they do - being John & Sherlock, Holmes & Watson, not broken & brokener.
"Well, I'm ordering for both of us," he insists. Then adds for good measure, "I just wondered if you had a preference."
Sherlock ignores him and continues flicking through his scrawled notes. The streetlights shimmer through a rainslick window and his face appears silver in the glow. He doesn't look up, but waits until John picks up his phone from the coffee table.
"Thai."
There isn't an instant fix for either of them. They are both pretty much as damaged as each other now, John thinks. Time is an over-prescribed cure and possibly, in his opinion, a bit of a placebo. Who knows if they're getting better if they can't remember what better even feels like? Better was lifetimes ago.
John lets Sherlock retreat again, puts another cup of tea down in front of him later and takes it away again without complaining that he hasn't touched it (or even looked at it to acknowledge its existence).
Now the rain is pungent in the air, heavy and slow. John opens the window and sits upon the ledge. His legs get wet where he hangs them through the outer railings. The flaking black metal is cold on his leaning chin. Raindrops stain the pavement; the miniature impacts spreading and merging moisture into shapeless images.
The wet surface is illuminated by the sweeping beam of passing headlights. For a moment there is a hint of colour, sparkles and glimmers, but then it's just splotchy grey again. And so is he.
Sherlock's hand is warm and flat against John's back. John pretends to be asleep. He is unaware of whether of not Sherlock knows it's a pretense, but he maintains it regardless. While he accepts that he will do this for his friend happily, he'd really rather Sherlock not know that. Or if he does, he'd rather he didn't know that Sherlock knew that. Or something. He stays still.
It starts lightly, only the tip of a finger, barely even kissing his skin. Gradually the pressure firms, fingers increasing and spreading until the shape of a hand is clear.
Sherlock is a terrible insomniac. Always has been; using excuses and sneers to hide despair. Sleep is a temperamental lover for him, shying away from frustration and manipulating the man into silent seething rages that push it ever further from his exhausted racing mind. After a full day of only snappish slicing insults and half a night of bumps and thumps that even John can't sleep through, he knows he will have company. He knows he will feign slumber through the mattress dipping behind him. He knows he'll half-drift in the light haze of content consciousness, with a fingertip and then a palm, waiting for the touch to become lax and forgotten and finally disappear completely. Perhaps a gentle snore will float through the air. And when he wakes in the morning the other side of John's bed will be empty, but Sherlock's eyes will no longer be supported by lavender half-moons or rimmed with those fine lines of mute misery. Or not so much as they were.
The contact is still fully awake. John's leg twitches of its own accord, jerking down to rid itself of something that doesn't exist. The hand retreats for a second, lets him settle back into pretend sleep, before returning peacefully, starting with the soft pad of his first digit.
They solve crimes; they find missing jewels, data, children, spouses; they stop schemes and reveal robberies and have a merry old time throughout. This is how it's meant to be, how it just is. Except, when he's giggling at a crime scene and watching familiar eyes fondly crinkling in return, there is always an unwelcome creeping feeling of 'how long will this last?' Because how long can it? Even forever would not be enough. And they never had forever anyway.
John likes to watch Criminal Minds. He likes the older episodes best. Sherlock detests all crime programmes, always has; he either rips them to shreds or solves them loudly and obnoxiously two scenes in, hoping that ruining the ending might result in it being turned over, or preferably off. But Criminal Minds he will bear. He won't watch it, but he will let John watch it while he is present. John supposes there is something soothing about the structure; the beat between scenes, the fact that you aren't always introduced to the criminal in the second scene as a witness or family member. And sometimes you see the lowest of the low in the first moment and watch the rest of the characters trying to catch up, all the while knowing you know something they don't, except do you? Perhaps Sherlock learns something of human nature from the writing - he certainly doesn't scoff as often as during most shows. Besides, John knows he likes to show off and explain which real life case the shows is obviously based on and regale him with impressively gruesome and/or distasteful facts afterwards.
"It's the uncle," John guesses. He does his guessing out loud, and would certainly never dare to call it anything but guessing. If it turns out, which only ever happens rarely, that he is correct, he will crow out loud and bounce around in a most undignified manner.
He shifts his leg into a more comfortable position with a new addition of Sherlock's bony toes beneath the side of his thigh.
A true detective can't let such an offensively dim suggestion lie, clearly. "Nope."
John frowns and tries again to work it out while his space is slowly and sneakily encroached upon. Feet creep surreptitiously further under his leg. A bottom slides closer across the leather surface of the sofa cushion.
"But the necklace," he insists, carefully not noticing the next teeny shuffle.
Sherlock shrugs, using the movement to slip his back an inch or two down the arm of the couch and wriggle his weight further to John's end. He waggles his bent knees carelessly, using them presumably in place of hand gestures, and singsongs, "Still no. Close, but nooooo."
"Hmph."
"Just watch it. Your clunky attempts are… pitiful. I'm trying to tune this nonsense out so I can think. I'll just tell you in a minute if you don't shut up."
"No!"
"Well, then."
"Your feet are cold."
Another shrug. Another wiggle downwards. "They'll warm up in a minute."
Shooting people is nasty. The aftermath is devastating. It doesn't matter who they were this time, or what they'd done, or the fact that it's been a long time since he actually ended anybody. It just matters that for that second he has a life in the balance, and hands that are meant for healing and saving shake less when they are hurting and killing. A bullet to rip through a leg comes as easily as the stitch that might mend it.
No matter how many times he corrects people - doctor before soldier, all he ever seems to be to them is the latter.
'Oh, John will be fine, he was a soldier'… 'John can do it, he's trained for that'… 'It won't bother him, he's been to war'… 'And you invaded Afghanistan'.
He is a lover, not a fighter. But he's been fighting for so long, he's not even sure what love is. Is it a clap on the back and a cheerful, if slightly breathless, expression of gratitude from a still-alive detective? Is it shoulders leaning in to each other over the whining, bleeding, young aristocrat turned thief turned wannabe assassin? Or even a relieved grasp of fingers as they realise just how exhausted they are and how close to death they came, again?
John would do anything for Sherlock, but it doesn't mean he wants to.