The First Time…They Danced
He can move with an economy of gesture, or with the ferocity of passion. He can be noisy as a tank, or glide in silence if he so desires.
But always John Watson moves with the grace of truth. He never postures, dear John Watson, about his body you'll find nothing sly or hidden. There's never a lie in his gestures, not even half-truths or uncertainties.
It's the first thing Sherlock saw in those first seconds, those forever-remembered moments when his life changed. John's posture, the truths his body told that even John didn't see.
Sherlock's grace is different. It's purely physical, long limbs carefully controlled, beautiful tools under the command of his brain and nothing more.
Well, not until a small army-issue earthquake rattled the contents of his life and Sherlock found that those long limbs were good for other things.
Like dancing.
That first time they danced a night wind was whipping cold rain against the windows and Sherlock was stretched out long on the sofa, exactly four minutes and twenty two seconds from turning irritable and stroppy.
John was wherever John goes when he's not with Sherlock, a place Sherlock is not always sure of, though that's generally fine because John's promised he'll always return from those places and Sherlock wants to believe him and so he does.
In this case John was with Mrs. Hudson and then he wasn't, then he was standing beside the sofa with his hand out and Sherlock took a deep breath as if he'd been holding it all that time and at the same time he took John's hand.
Where are we going? What are we doing?
These are questions Sherlock didn't ask. He didn't want to know. On nights like these, when he's just four minutes and twenty-two seconds away from irritable and stroppy he never wants to know, he wants to be surprised, even if the surprise is as simple as a quick shag or a slow dinner or both of them squeezing down into the same armchair to watch the telly.
Just then John did surprise him and not with something familiar.
With the radio low but loud enough, he tugged Sherlock close, held him hard round the waist, and lacing their hands together he began moving slowly.
And they danced.
Sherlock sees himself as many things: Brilliant. Brave. Interesting. And yes, he also knows he's long and slender, but here's something else he knows: even despite that he is very much not naturally elegant.
He seems so, but Sherlock's elegance and his grace are like his coat: He puts them on because they're of use in the greater world. When he's home it's a different story. At home he hops about like a six year old at Christmas. He runs fingers through his hair until it stands up funny. He slumps on things. He curls up into petulant little balls, all spine and elbow and ankle.
This is the long way of saying that Sherlock definitely doesn't see himself as a dancer. So when John pulled him close that first time, steadily guiding him across the sitting room floor, Sherlock was all spine and elbow and ankle.
If this had been their first date John probably would have felt all those tense muscles, and he'd have let go.
This wasn't their first date. And so John didn't let go.
For John sees himself as many things: Level-headed. Driven. Focused. And put on this earth to harness, help, and yes, guide, the force of nature that is Sherlock Holmes.
So John Watson, who apparently can smell a storm of irritable and stroppy as it gathers, excused himself from socializing with his landlady—depths unplumbed, that one; he's still learning a great many surprising things about Mrs. Hudson—and he came home to find his husband (two years, four months, six days) staring down the rain, face a dark cloud of drawn brows, pursed lips, and squinting eyes.
And so John held out his hand.
Sherlock let himself be tugged tall, held close, and slowly moved about, and one minute passed, then two, and by the third he'd draped long arms over John's shoulders, slid fingers up into John's hair, pressed his cheek to the top of John's head, and it wasn't until ten minutes later that Sherlock realized he'd been humming most of that time, humming a song he didn't even know he knew, and that John was moving them to the tempo of Sherlock's slow heartbeat.
About then Sherlock realized another thing: He doesn't always know where John goes, or what he does when he gets there, or even how long he'll be gone. But so long as John comes back then the rain is all right, the boredom is bearable, and Sherlock's heart, it will continue to beat.
The eighteenth chapter of Minutiae contained a paragraph about John and Sherlock dancing. Folks seemed to like that bit, so I felt inspired to expand on it a little.