Beloved Silver

Chapter Ten: "Calling Out Your Name While The Chance Remains"

A/N: Chapter title comes from "Want" by Jawbreaker.

The next day, a Monday, after John spent Sunday grounded after a lecture (but his parents did buy his story), John actually felt glad to go to school, even considering what day of the week it was. He was being driven to school today also, in case he decided to "get the idea to stay out again." They still didn't know that he skipped that one day, and he had no plans to tell, but he managed to keep a straight face when they mentioned it.

Of course, the only downside to not walking was that he had zero chances of getting there early, therefore barely any time to talk to Sherlock, when the last time they'd spoken to each other had been their face-to-face encounter at the party, and they couldn't have texted anymore because his phone had been taken from him all day yesterday. Which seemed like a stupid punishment because the reason he was being grounded in the first place was because he hadn't used his phone, and they must have realized this because they gave it back this morning, instructing him to use it correctly.

John sat in the passenger side and glanced out the window as his father silently drove, looking at him every so often. At least when his mother drove him she talked the whole time and didn't even care or notice if John said nothing in response. When it was only his dad, things were silent, and not the good kind. He looked like he wanted to say something to John, but he never did and instead looked at him like he was some random kid who came in and replaced his son one day.

He was thankful when the car came to a stop in front of his school, and John shared a painfully awkward look with his father as if they were both trying to decide if they should say goodbye. They didn't. They never did. John would definitely walk the next time he was allowed to, which would be soon, most likely.

Even though there was barely any time before he had to go to class, John still searched for Sherlock, if only to see that face and hear that voice at least once today. That was when he knew he was in too deep, when yesterday he spent the entire day missing him, even when he'd seen him that same morning. He didn't know what it was about him. Or at least, there was nothing he could pick out of all the other reasons. It was just because he was him.

John only enough to say a rushed hello after seeing him, which wasn't hard to do in any crowd, really, but maybe that was just because he was all John wanted to see in this particular place.

"How did your parents react?" It seemed like he was asking another question and was disguising it as another, one that was very similar to Did you tell them about me? John knew how to answer the question he asked, but as for the insinuated one, he wasn't sure if Sherlock wanted him to.

"What I predicted, basically. Got a lecture, got my phone taken away. The usual."

"Oh, is that why you didn't answer my texts?" Sherlock was smiling as he said it, but John still took out his phone and checked his messages, and the only one there was one from Sherlock that simply read: John? Just as he was about to ask what he'd been going to say, Sherlock cut in. "What's that on your lock screen?"

John blushed and put the phone back in his pocket. "What do you mean?"

Sherlock's smile became a grin in 0.5 seconds. "That was the picture I sent you that one day," he said, sure of himself.

"Could have been anything," John mumbled.

"John. Look at me for a second." and before he even knew what was happening, Sherlock had his own phone out, pointed it at John, and then held it down.

John blinked at the green spot that had now appeared as a result of the flash of the camera. "Well, don't use that one, I wasn't ready!"

Sherlock turned the phone around and presented his own lock screen, now with the picture of John. "I like this one. It looks like you."

"You could have at least told me to smile first."

"Fine. Smile."

John quickly flashed a small smile, causing Sherlock to smile softly in response, and John really hoped he took the picture before the blush found its way to his cheeks again.

"There. I like this one more. With the smile, it looks even more like you."

"Good. We're even, then. Now, the reason I came over here in the first place was to ask you if you want to come over this afternoon."

Sherlock froze and looked genuinely confuse for once. "To your house?"

John laughed. "Of course. I can't have Mike cover for me forever, and why not?"

"But you were just grounded after an unexplained night out, and then suddenly you're bringing home someone they've never met before. It shouldn't be too hard to draw a conclusion there." If only John knew what that conclusion was.

"I think you're forgetting that not everyone has superhuman observation skills like you," John said. "So will you do it?"

He paused with his arms crossed, swaying a bit as he considered the request. John nearly rolled his eyes because it was clear he was going to say yes.

"I'll do it."

And the school day couldn't have gone any slower.

xxx

Sherlock was more nervous than he let on, and it showed more and more the closer they got to John's house. Not that John blamed him. If he were him, he wouldn't want to meet them, either. The whole way, he kept asking questions about them and probably trying to decide if they would like him or not. It was like John with Greg; he just wanted them to like him and approve of him. Except a little voice in the back of John's head kept telling him that they wouldn't.

Once they were in front of John's house, he had to turn to Sherlock, who was all but bouncing on his heels with nerves, and asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yes, John, I'm fine. Let's just get this out of the way. And if we find ourselves in a situation where we need to lie, let me do it because you're a terrible liar."

What would fall under Situations To Lie, anyway? And John had never lied to Sherlock (had he?), so he had no idea how he knew he'd be bad at it, although he wasn't wrong. He was lucky his parents didn't care enough to catch him in a lie. Or maybe not so lucky. He wasn't sure.

When they entered the house, his parents looked up, expecting to briefly see John for a few seconds before he ran off to his room or wherever they weren't, and they didn't try to hide their surprise when John walked into where they were, followed by another boy.

"Uh, Mum, Dad, this is Sherlock. Studying. We have a test. It's big."

"Uh-huh," his mother said slowly, looking around John to get a better look at Sherlock, who was standing stiffly with his hands clasped in front of him. She pulled in her eyebrows and looked to have thousands of comments at the tip of her tongue, but she held them all back. His father, on the other hand, wasn't even looking at them any more and looked elsewhere, and John had no idea what that meant.

John wished he could reach over and give Sherlock's hand a squeeze, since he dealt with people like this all the time, but it hurt more with them because they were so closely related to John, and their opinions held weight. Or Sherlock must have thought they did. John didn't care what they thought, but he couldn't seem to convince Sherlock figured that.

"Right, okay, we'll be upstairs," John said, and Sherlock left the room first, forgetting that he didn't know where 'upstairs' was.

John ran up the stairs with Sherlock at his heels and closed the door behind them.

"That could have gone better," he said.

"They hated me," Sherlock inputted.

"Well, it's not like we said much. They didn't get to have a real conversation with you. All they saw was a boy with metal in his face with their son. They're judgmental, I know."

Sherlock went and sat on the edge of John's bed, with that usual expressionless look. "What's done is done. I think a change in subject is called for."

John smiled and sat beside him, surprisingly very comfortable because he'd decided long ago that he trusted Sherlock. "I want to hear about your ex-boyfriend."

"I hoped you wouldn't have changed the subject to me." John started to change it again, but Sherlock continued. "His name was Victor. He had brown hair and hazel eyes and was very thin and even taller than me."

"Opposite of me, then?"

"In all the best ways, too," Sherlock agreed. "We dated for three months until he broke up with me after a miscommunication we had. There you have it. Nothing interesting about it."

"What made you attracted to him?"

"Well, he was clever and funny and handsome, and most of all, he didn't treat me like I was different from everyone he'd ever met. We were a very ordinary couple, I assure you. Apart from my brother threatening him once or twice."

"Your brother the legend?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but he smiled faintly. "If that's what you want to think of him as, although you'd have a different opinion if you had to live with him for eleven years."

"I think it sounded nice, you and Victor. Even if it ended."

"Why do you always end things with your girlfriends?"

"It never works with anyone because I always feel like I'm trying to be someone else, and after a while, I just can't do it anymore."

"You don't do anything like that for me, do you?"

"I've thought about it before, I'll admit, but then I realized that I don't know what you like."

And then Sherlock was closer, looking into his eyes, and it felt like staring into the sun, but John couldn't bring himself to look away. His gaze and entire attention span was locked on one thing, and it was the boy in front of him, the boy he hadn't been able to get out of his head since he first entered it, and now he was here, in front of him, just a lean of the head away. He'd already made the mistake once.

His heart had sped up, and he wondered if Sherlock's had, too. He didn't look it; he looked collected, like he wasn't afraid at all. And maybe John shouldn't be afraid because this was Sherlock who he could never seem to get close enough to, and this could fix that desire that had been burning John alive.

John soon realized that Sherlock's calm face had been yet another wall he so desperately wanted to bring down. He must have been hoping that his face would make John believe he was fine, but when he went to cup John's cheek, John noticed that his hands were shaking violently and his breathing was in shorter, heavier cycles, as if he couldn't breathe. And John could finally see him for him.

Sherlock was scared. Scared that he would be hurt, scared of rejection, scared of love in general. He wasn't always this serious, overly practical person who always knew what he was doing and only did what he wanted to do. He was young and had been broken and badly mended. And he really didn't realize how beautiful and amazing he was, only pretended to because he wanted to ward people away from him. But not John. John understood him. John knew him. John kissed him.

Both of them had seen it coming, so they fell into it quickly. Sherlock kept one hand poised on his waist while the other remained holding his cheek, his fingers curling when their lips made contact. John threw his hands around his neck and ran a hand through his hair, the dark curls flooding over onto his fingers in a soft caress against his skin while his lips worked against his.

Sherlock took his hand off his waist and put it on the other side of his face, holding both cheeks and deepening the kiss even further before pulling apart with just enough room to say as his lips still brushing against John's, "You. I like you. You're what I like." And they resumed the kissing.

John had kissed plenty of girls before, and he'd never felt anything. For a while he'd told himself it was because he was just a bad kisser, but no. He felt something with this, and suddenly, he got what the big deal was with kissing. John sat up straight on his knees with Sherlock's hands now linked around his waist again, as Sherlock leaned back, and then they fell back on the bed, a tangle of limbs and lips as John got used to being on top of another boy.

He wasn't sure what was going to happen, but whatever it was came to an end when Sherlock opened his eyes and pulled apart to whisper "Stop," and he did. He moved off of him immediately and mentally bullied himself for doing it in the first place. Sherlock didn't want this, obviously, and John couldn't make him be attracted to him.

"What's wrong? Did I do something?" John asked, although he dreaded the reply.

Sherlock sat up, now shaking again. "No. You didn't."

"You can tell me if I did, because I—"

"John, really, it's fine. It's more my fault than anything. You did nothing wrong."

John fumbled with his hands and nervously glanced around the room, feeling Sherlock's intense stare on him. "You're sure?"

"Yes. I'm not ready, I guess, for something of that . . . nature."

Of course he wasn't. Why would he be? He'd probably only ever been kissed one time before that, for God's sake. This must have been the miscommunication he'd been talking about, and now he was waiting for John to make him leave or something equally as unlikely.

"Right. Neither am I, I don't think." At least not with Sherlock. John lost his virginity at fifteen, the first real party he'd ever attended. But it wasn't anything spectacular or emotional or romantic because he hadn't cared about the person and she hadn't cared about him. He would be slower with Sherlock, to take time to learn every part of him and make sure he was okay throughout it.

Sherlock nodded. "Fantastic. So, you mentioned studying, and you won't have to lie if we actually do that, so I'm going to teach you."

John laughed and moved beside him. "Sure. I know I'll do well if you're the one doing all the talking."