"And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 10
By GE Waldo
Rating: Mature but with some humour. Also murders n' stuff.
Pairing: John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.
Summary: John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.
Disclaimer: Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.
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The funeral music I chose as a nod to David Bowie who's passing January 10th was a shock to me, and a sorrow because I grew up with his music and loving every note of it! So goodbye my dear David and flights of angels...
When John pulled Blythe's car to the Kerb in front of New Scotland Yard, it was after seven in the morning. Traffic choked the streets, and crowds of people walked in a hurry to their respective jobs. John just felt like sleeping for two days straight. But there were things to do first.
Mycroft had, evidently by the two uniformed policeman who were waiting on the sidewalk just a few feet in from the road, called ahead. John explained who they all were and that DI Lestrade was expecting them, and then handed Blythe over. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
John walked up to Mycroft's car and climbed in, instructing the driver "The nearest hospital please."
Sherlock looked at him and sighed heavily but John cut off any words that he knew were sitting on the tip of Sherlock's tongue. "You're not 'fine', so don't bloody argue with me, Sherlock. Not when I'm this tired and pissed off. You're getting X-Rays and that's that."
At the word X-Ray Mycroft raked his eyes over his younger brother, then sat back, apparently satisfied with what Sherlock's stiff posture and gray-skinned face revealed to him. "Your instinct for self-preservation is appalling brother."
To which Sherlock answered succinctly - "Sod off."
"Charming as always," Mycroft said, his lips a find line of weary disapproval. "You should be grateful you have others to look out for you; you're dreadfully poor at it."
Sherlock sat back, trying to ease his more steadily aching body into the butter soft leather cushion seat. "I'm fine," he muttered, "This is ridiculous."
John rubbed at red-rimmed eyes with shaking fingers. "Not another word, Sherlock."
Sherlock set his jaw but said nothing more.
After enduring the probing fingers of a nurse and then another faceless A&E doctor, Sherlock –with John's practised assistance - slipped his torso, bound in layered bandages, into his shirt, then his jacket and finally his warm coat once more. His side ached terribly and the many steps out onto the damp street left him dizzy. Perhaps a trip to A&E, as annoying as it had proved, had been a sound idea. Grudgingly he sighed.
"Come on," John said softly, "let's go home."
To Baker Street. Home it was, once more, to John. Their home. Sherlock silently thrilled at the sound of it, tired as he was and then felt a bit miffed at himself for giving into the sentiment. And then was miffed all over again because, as injured as he was, giving in felt like a defeat; a failure. It made no sense. But emotions hardly ever made sense.
He was tired. That's all it was. Just that. Nothing else.
But the adage 'sleep for a week' for once seemed plausible. Though, as uncharacteristic as it was, he was disinclined to let this elusive feeling of contentment go just yet. "Can we stop first?"
John had already hailed a cab and Sherlock had let him. So early in the morning, they were plentiful. "Where?"
"I'm hungry and we've nothing in."
John, ever practical, took out his phone. "We'll order take-away. By the time we're home, it'll be there."
Sherlock nodded. That was John, a man who combined the care of a doctor with the efficiency of a military captain. His John. "Thank you." Which remark seemed to give his friend pause.
John blinked at him and Sherlock bristled. "You needn't looked so shocked. I do know how to say 'thank you'."
John nodded. His eyes sparkled with triumphant but his look was fond. "I know."
The food, unfortunately, turned his stomach once he had settled on his couch and the smell of Tandori chicken and curry potatoes hit his nostrils. John made him eat a small bowl of it though. "You've got strong anti-inflammatory and pain medication in you and you need something in your stomach." Once the food has been left to digest for ten minutes chased by a few ounces of water, John urged him into his bedroom and helped him remove his coat and suit jacket. His shirt, ruined at the hospital by the nurse's efficient scissors, had been binned.
"Christ..." John whispered at the livid bruises smudging well beyond the straight line of the bandages over his cracked ribs. "Franks' arseholes did a number on you." His brow was creased in anger. Sherlock indulged in the words, and in John's gentle physician's hands on him, a rare event during their friendship and one he had sorely missed during his time away, and during John's hasty, ill-fated marriage.
John's hands warmed him, inside as well as outside, just as they had always done.
The food had been good but Sherlock had little appetite now that the pills had taken root in his system and even less now that John had made him eat some of it. The nausea was raging.
"Come on," John took his forearm and urged him to sit on the edge of the bed. "You need to sleep, you're white as a sh –it! Now you're green, to the toilet."
John hustled him the short distance from his bedroom to the bathroom and it was none too soon and Sherlock slumped over the bowl emptying his stomach into it. John winced at the number of times Sherlock had to repeat the purge. "You must have nothing left in you by now."
Sherlock sat on the floor, noting that John had, at some point that week, scrubbed the floor and tub. His trousers would be spared at least. John smiled ruefully at Sherlock's sweaty brow. "You look terrible."
Rolling his eyes was a mistake as that only intensified the dizziness. "Kind of you to say so." He tried to snarl but it failed, the words dribbling out between slack lips. He spit once more into the bowl, grimaced at the taste, and then added - "I'll be fine."
"'Course you will." John said a bit wearily. "You're always 'fine'." Exasperated now.
Sherlock blinked. Perhaps it was the fatigue or the pills or the remaining bits of food gurgling into an acid stew in his stomach but a surge of remorse arose in him and the keen urgency to convey that he wasn't the soulless android he often made himself out to be. "Not always, John," Sherlock said, a slight slur touching the words. He could feel sleep calling to him from the depths of his comfortable bed down the hall. "I'm not always fine you know."
"No shit?" John snapped and then sighed, a deep, cleansing breath of resigned air. "I know."
John squatted down in front of his friend who propped up against the bathtub, limbs all askew angles. John looked at him, right into his eyes.
Startled pout of his nausea-induced stupor, Sherlock stared back, waiting as John's tropical lake-blue eyes; deep and fathomless – so familiar and yet so difficult to really know - stared unblinking back into his own crystalline barely-there, cool Tiffany rain-drops on a window-pane.
Two shades of the same person. That's who they were; heat and ice, warm and cold, fire and freeze. There was nothing scientific about it. Nothing rational either. And nothing logical but...they worked. Always had, right from the beginning. From the first day - the first hour. It both intrigued and irritated Sherlock. A thing he couldn't sort out. They balanced each other perfectly. How had this small man, this soldier-doctor-kind-brave-wise-loving small, non-descript man; this man who fooled everybody into believing he was nothing much, come to make up everything in Sherlock's world that he believed was worth preserving? Worth dying for? How had this happened? The world doesn't work like this.
"I know who you are Sherlock," John answered. He stared one moment more ands then, without any more hesitancy, kissed his friend once, quickly, gently, almost chastely, on the lips. "I know what you are." John cleared his throat and turned to more practical matters."Do you want a bath?"
Sherlock, quietly stunned, could not think of a single thing to say but to shake his head.
"The nausea?"
Sherlock nodded again, a series of tiny head bobs, the nausea a threat with every movement.
"Okay. Then to bed and no dispute." John had turned into Doctor John with whom one did not argue. But even Sherlock knew when it was time to give in to his body's demand for rest and recuperation.
John was here, after all.
Sherlock also knew not to demand any more from the stingy universe than that single concession.
So it was all fine.
Sherlock checked his image in the bathroom mirror. His left cheek still sported a bruise, though his bodies' genetically vigorous healing properties colouring it over to more yellow rather than blue and his eye on that side still had a fading half moon of grey beneath it, but, all in all, he looked fine. Back to his usual appearance.
Older. Now. That morning he had felt shocked to discover a few grey hairs mixed in with his usual raven locks. Just a few grey, nothing to be concerned about. Yet. Still his face had few wrinkled. A smattering of crows' feet at the corners of his eyes when he smiled – a rare event thank god! Yes, he looked good, in the abstract. Still attractive, though, he thought. Still standing on only the sprouting side of middle-age.
Anthony would have been forty-four next week. Sherlock had checked his wallet one evening when Anthony had excused himself to the 'loo.
Sherlock had not allowed his thoughts to drift to Anthony these last two days of John's insistent bed-rest. A deep breath proved not too uncomfortable, although his still-wrapped ribs were still several weeks away from mended.
Sherlock checked his - for lack of a better descriptive – feelings about Anthony. The former living ache inside had eased. No small relief.
"Sherlock? Are you ready? We'll be late."
Sherlock rolled his eyes a bit and straightened his spine, leaving the bathroom for the sitting room. "Anthony won't be going anywhere John."
John threw him a disapproving frown. "Still, it's not on to be late for a funeral."
"It's a memorial service."
"Memorial service then."
"Boys!" Martha Hudson's voice called from the main floor foyer. "The car is here. Hurry up. It wouldn't be proper form to be late Sherlock."
A tiny line appeared between Sherlock's brows. "Why does she assume it's me who's being tardy?"
John smiled when, appearing to read the sleuth's mind, she answered from below - "It's always you, Sherlock. Now be a dear, and hurry up."
Sherlock stood respectfully between John and Mycroft (and why was he here anyway?), with Martha taking the spot near Mycroft, beside her two Holmes boys, a small hanky clutched in her hand. No tears. The ceremony was simple. But it was a Catholic priest officiating and Sherlock frowned all the way through.
"Why did you hire him?" He whispered to Mycroft fiercely. A soft drone of instrumental music wound its way through the little hall.
"Because Anthony was Catholic Sherlock." He whispered backed blithely with one ginger eyebrow on the rise. Obvious it said.
The soft background refrains reached his ears. "And what is that you've chosen?"
We passed upon the stair/We spoke of was and when/Although I wasn't there/He said I was his friend/Which came as some surprise/I spoke into his eyes/"I thought you'd died alone/A long, long time ago..."
Sherlock started. "Is that -?"
"Yes," Mycroft answered softly. "Anthony was quite fond of this composer."
Sherlock swallowed. He hadn't known. There was much about Anthony that he hadn't known. But to dispel the discomfort forming in his chest he scowled at Mycroft, opening his mouth to voice his opinion on Mycroft's musical choice until Martha's own stern look made him close his mouth and turn his attention back to the proceedings. Dull.
Except for the music. That wasn't dull. It was interesting. And because Anthony had liked it Sherlock decided he would listen to the boring priest while the unusual music played a strange, haunting refrain in the background.
The priest droned on and on about God and Heaven Forgiveness and Rewards and Ashes until Sherlock could feel his clenched teeth splintering.
Finally, it was over and the priest withdrew to allow the small gathering of mourners a few moments of privacy with the urn. To which announcement Sherlock let out an audible and thoroughly disdainful snort. "Why would anyone need to sit with an urn?" He scoffed.
John took up Sherlock left hand with his right and held on. "Sherlock..."
Sherlock stared down at his own hand in John's, surprised and a tad stunned to momentary silence by it, but it was enough to alter his next words. "It just makes no sense, John," he argued quietly. "Anthony's not even here."
John, with a mysterious little smile on his face, looked at his friend, patting Sherlock's hand with his free one. "I think that's the point."
Sherlock conceded to the religious atmosphere. Still one had to be oneself - "I think it's silly, that's all."
"I'm sure Anthony knew that Sherlock." John whispered, "But he loved you anyway."
That stilled his tongue. It was a difficult thing to accept. Always had been. His parents loved him, but parents almost always do love their children. Sherlock looked over to where Mycroft was pouring out tea for Mrs. Hudson at the tastefully subdued tea and Afters table.
"And Martha ..." John said.
Sherlock glanced at his friend standing beside him. John had not read his mind of course. The conclusion had been obvious - even for John. Sherlock made himself not look at Mycroft.
"And Mycroft," John added, that small smile appearing below his nose again. It was beginning to annoy Sherlock, as though John was in on some conspiracy that he didn't know about; one designed to make a fool of him, if he knew John capable of such an intrigue, or such a cruelty, either of which he was emphatically not.
The vision of Moriarty bargaining his way out of his brother's devil hands crossed Sherlock's thoughts.
"He regrets it, you know." John said.
"Stop it." Sherlock whispered back. He was beginning to feel exposed and uncomfortable in this room dripping with candle wax and religious icons. And feelings.
John did not release his hand. "I think Mycroft would stop the world from turning if he thought it would bring you happiness."
Sherlock wanted to scoff at that but nothing came out when he opened his mouth because John was raising Sherlock's captive hand toward his lips. Sherlock stared in utter disbelief when john's lips met the thin skin on the back of Sherlock's hand for the briefest of moments. Then John cleared his throat."And, of course, er – I do."
His hand was let go and Sherlock felt the cooler air of the room move in to replace and chill the parts where the contact from John's flesh had warmed them.
Sherlock looked at his hand, then John, then his own shoes, and tucked both hands behind his back because suddenly he had no idea what to do with them. When he was certain his voice would work without cracking he said "I...yes...I...I know." And after a moment, in case that had not been clear. "Yes."
It was as close as had ever come to saying the words. Words he had not said to Anthony. Perhaps he was not supposed to have said them? Perhaps Anthony had been his guide? And then dismissed such an idea as silly romantic sentiment.
Which did not make the sentiment any less true of course. "Yes John..."
Sherlock could feel John's fingers reach out for his, and grasp them once more, linking their hands together, and on his friend's thin lips that same little mysterious smile appeared once more.
Sherlock could not help but look down at their joined fingers, linked together. More than friendship. Much more, as they had always been. Previously un-acknowledged, un-said, un-thought, but now it did not feel so. Not anymore. Now it felt comfortable. It was...good. Correct even. They fit together. It felt...nice.
At the funeral of one lover he had discovered another. Sherlock decided not to question it but to, instead, just let it be. Not everything needs deducing, quantifying, explaining, as John had often said ad-nauseam over the years of their friendship. Some things just...are. It was stupid sentiment but he supposed he could live with it just this once. Sherlock gripped John's hand in return.
Perhaps John's smile was not so mysterious after all.
Blythe's swift conviction and even swifter incarceration in one of England's harshest maximum prisons came and went in the news. John spent those few days in and around Baker Street with Sherlock, looking through old case files and drinking tea, ordering take-away and – at least John doing so anyway– moving furniture around in his upstairs bedroom and accepting packages delivered at all hours of the day and evening until finally Sherlock found himself shouting up the stairs to explain all the noise.
John came down, dust on his clothes. "Well, I've got to make the room presentable, don't I?"
Sherlock frowned as though a mystery, a highly irritating one, had been foisted upon him once more. He was growing tired of those. There must be no more mysteries in which he was not involved. It was irritating! "Presentable? What are you talking about? Presentable for whom?"
A knock at the door took John's attention away and he bounded down the stairs. Sherlock heard the door open and a woman's voice and John responding in turn and shuffling of feet. It was all very frustrating that John was keeping him in the dark like this.
Finally Sherlock retreated to his chair, determined to ignore John for the remainder of the day.
Until a sound fell across his ears. A small voice, high pitched, babbling something incomprehensible. He turned to see, just so he would no longer be in the dark, otherwise he decided he would not care one whit about it!
John held in his arms his daughter. "Say hello to Uncle Sherlock Elicia."
The tiny blonde haired girl sucked on her fingers and stared with wide blue eyes at the dark haired, tall figure that stood and walked over, cautiously, not too close. "Of course..." Sherlock felt rather foolish - a rare enough event. But in all the turmoil over Anthony's death and the capture of Blythe, and the funeral and he and John's fresh sexual relationship (although they hadn't actually done anything yet except a few chaste kisses; a situation that was beginning to make Sherlock inexplicably restless!) he had forgotten about The Child. "Er...hello Elicia." Sherlock frowned at himself. Babies Elicia's age don't talk you idiot!
John looked so pleased he was actually beaming. Without warning or ceremony he thrust her into Sherlock's arms. "Hold her for a minute will you; I have to use the 'Loo, and then get all this stuff to her room."
Sherlock stared, horrified, down at the little thing in his arms. "John...John...no, I can't possible...I don't know how...wait!"
"Don't be nervous." John called back but to Sherlock's terror, did not turn back around.
"I'm not nervous. But how do I -"
"She's a baby, Sherlock, not an alien. Just talk to her. She won't bite."
He gaped at the thing in his arms. "But babies her age don't talk John!"
Sherlock made his heart slow down and gather his wits, at least somewhat and he looked down into those wide, wondering eyes that stared up at him like he was the alien. She was just a baby. No problem. How much trouble could a baby be?
Sherlock stared into her sky-blue eyes that stared back, seemingly astounded him. He supposed he could not blame her for staring so rudely, as she was meeting Sherlock Holmes after all.
Her eyes were remarkably beautiful. Quite intelligent looking in fact. But looks have nothing to do with intelligence, he reminded himself. Still, she was a lovely child, esthetically speaking. And she wasn't crying, so that was something at least. He smelled something. "John, I think her diaper is..." Just as visions of baby-soiled nappies sitting between his best suit and Elicia's bottom began to swirl in his head, John scooped her from his arms again and took her to the couch, seating himself and laying her down on the paper-littered coffee-table. "She needs changing." He explained, pulling a diaper from a colourful plastic lined bag and, with expert hands, removed the soiled diaper, folding it upon in itself to hide its contents.
Were the child's feces yellow? – Sherlock frowned. Surely that was not normal.
But John did not appear alarmed by the odd colour of his daughter's bowel movements and by the time he thought to ask, John had already cleaned her delicate skin with wet wipes, applied powder and was wrapping her up in a new diaper, snugging it up on her ridiculously fragile form with built-in tape. John then spent a moment closing all the little "snaps" on the garment he had once referred to as 'a Onesie'.
Sherlock sniffed. "My nose told me that."
John looked at him. "Hmm? Told you what?"
Sherlock thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, simply because he could think of no use for them in the present situation. "That she had...soiled her diaper."
John grinned. "Plenty of more where that came from."
Sherlock froze. Right. If John was to live here, then for certain Elicia would be too. "I see." Sherlock suddenly felt out-of-sorts, and he didn't exactly know why but something must have shown on his face because John suddenly looked worried himself. "This is all right isn't it Sherlock? I mean, if you want me to live here – and I certainly want to, then Elicia...she's my daughter. I mean she has to live here too. Is that okay with you, because I can find another flat if you aren't comfortable having a baby around."
"No, no, it's fine. Perfectly fine. It's good, it's sound, yes, just fine...er good, yes..."
John sat Elicia down on the threadbare carpet so she could spend a moment examining her socked feet and stood up. He walked over to Sherlock, who appeared stuck in place like a stick in the mud. "Sherlock...I want this. But Elicia will need her own room so I thought my old room, upstairs, would be fine for her. I have a baby monitor and everything."
"Oh." Sherlock said softly. That means of course that they'll be sharing his room.
John must have read something on Sherlock's face because he looked worried. "That's all right isn't it? I mean, if we're going to do this...?"
"Um, yes...that's...okay...yes...of course...naturally." He swallowed thickly and then glanced down at his shoes and then up at his flat-mate.
"I mean, if this might be something you want too." John licked his lips. "We can go slowly, you know. As slowly as you need us to. I'm in no hurry because, well, I'm...not...I don't want to go anywhere."
Sherlock felt a flood of relief. He could get used to sharing a room. It might be quite...nice. He's always slept alone but a warm body beside him at night? That might be...good.
And a baby he supposed he could get used to. "I don't want you to go anywhere either." Sherlock could not help the nervous glance over to where Elicia had gotten bored with her fuzzy toes and begun to crawl over to his desk where beside it on the floor he had some very important papers piled. "John...!?"
John retrieved Elicia and found some toys for her by rummaging around in a diaper bag. "Relax Sherlock; she'll keep occupied with these for a few. How about some lunch? I'm starving."
Sherlock stared at Elicia's toys. A pathetic collection of a small much chewed-on elephant, a book made of plastic which four pages crinkled when she touched it and a soother stuck on the end of what appeared to be a furry pink worm!
Sherlock excused himself to his bedroom and returned swiftly, plunking down on the floor in front of the child a furry bumble-bee about a foot long whose wings detached and which antenna were made of springs covered in felt. "There," He said triumphantly. And while John stared at him with nothing less than amused shock, he explained with dignity "Well, we can't have her playing with toys that teach her nothing." He waved a disdainful hand at the other toys he had shoved aside, "those are mere chew items. This is an educational toy."
John covered his smile, seemingly quite amused at the bumble bee's very existence.
The frown line appeared between Sherlock's brows again at his flatmate's odd behavior.
"Umph..." John gathered himself together and cupped his jaw, then moving his hand up to cover his mouth, speaking through his fingers and folding his other arm across his chest. In a failed attempt at a more serious question he, for a reason Sherlock could not deduce, stammered - "Ah...hah...um...when did you - *cough* - buy this Sherlock?"
The sleuth looked out the window at the grey day and waved his hand around again as though at a pesky fly "Oh, a while back, before Anthony's...before Anthony...it's not important. I don't remember."
"I see, well..." John was suddenly at his side and was turning him around, and then wrapping his arms around Sherlock's waist, tightly. "That was a very nice Sherlock. Thank you." He reached up, it was a bit of a stretch to kiss the taller git, and kissed him soundly on the mouth.
Sherlock stared down at his new...lover? "It was nothing." he said, a sudden wave of shyness for god's sake was overwhelming him, and his knees felt a bit wobbly.
John kissed him again. "You're wrong Sherlock." And before Sherlock could protest this completely inaccurate statement, John kissed him again, "It's everything."
END.
They may be a sequel to this story.