Of course, it's grander and more severe and he doesn't just sulk on the sofa but packs and bag. Heads off to the great white of Belarus, and doesn't turn his head at the gate of the terminal, doesn't look sad or bereft as he departs. John watches from a distance, safe. They part on sour terms, and it's all John can do to pray he comes back safely, if he comes back at all.
All in all, he's only gone for a day or two, but it's enough to be crowned the king of all tantrums, and even Mycroft voices his concern (though, not to Sherlock). Yes, neither have fully recovered, because John's still sick and pale grief, and Sherlock still wants it, more than he can say.
On the first night, John gets a call at about three in the morning. The phone calls him from the bedside cabinet, and he grimaces, rolling over, clinging to the walls of the darkness. It's early, Christ, he feels as if he's been awake since the mid-70's even if he's just woken, even if he's just woken up.
In the end, he succumbs and lies on his back, eyes finding the sheer, strident light of the mobile phone. "Hullo?" He mumbles, weary, in no mood to be woken, no mood to be toyed with. It's too late for that, he's answered the phone, and he can't well hang up. Not on the likes of Sherlock Holmes.
"John," And Crucified Christ, even through the weak, saltwater landline, that voice makes John feel cold, a rivulet of ice forming on the back of his neck. Trickling down his spine. Suddenly, the hour becomes forgotten, irrelevant, buried beneath a landslide of lust and shame. John could have told Sherlock what he wanted from the off, what he needed for a while. But not forever.
"It's three in the morning." He protests, uselessly. That never stops Sherlock. The boy is driven, knows just what he wants and how to get it. The line cracks, but John can hear him breathing.
"Don't be dull." Sherlock says, commands with his tone. And every time, John submits. The boy might ask for a kidney and John will crawl to fetch a scalpel. "It's eight here in Belarus,"
"Wonderful," He paws at his eyes and sits, because there's more to it than at that, Sherlock's incorrigible and infuriating and extravagant, there's always something more. On that, John hesitates to speak, loves to hear Sherlock talk. He finds himself useless in their conversations, because like Lestrade, he can't say anything, but only encourage Sherlock to go on. He wonders if Mycroft is 's far too silent, and then Sherlock breaks it, a deep rumble, torn from his soul. There's a crease of vulnerability before he irons it out. "Did you mean what you said?" John's said many things, he's too tired to play the game. Sherlock sounds a little out of breath, panting, wheezing. Perhaps ill. There's a shuffling of fabric.
"I'm sorry?" The worst kind of idiot needs repetition. The scowl is nearly audible.
"I turn eighteen on Friday." And john's fingers star to itch, he gets this terrible heat spread throughout him, and just a hint of guilt, but shame is impotent, unsatisfactory, it's not Sherlock. It's not all the things he could do after Friday. The gasping on the other end is far too loud.
"Are we still on?" Sherlock rasps, lungs empty, on-fire, and John's got to wonder if he's out chasing a criminal late into the Russian evening or if he's-he's-...the though is cut off by Sherlock's gasp opening out into a cry, one that burns John's ears. He's heard it before, knows that face that goes with it, pink and creased in delight.
"John," It comes right from his stomach, ripped and deeper, darker, gruffer than anything before. "Fuck, you want me." John's hands begin to quiver, and he doesn't have the blood to blush, and instead keeps his hands on the phone, above his waist, out of trouble. The panting is ridiculously quick, comes in quicker as he gets closer and closer to finishing. The slick, wet noise become more clear.
There's an evil hiss on the other end, Sherlock's trying to stave off his orgasm. "God, John, are we on?" He cries out, voice tight, close. His heart thrums, throbs through his voice. "Do you want to fuck me?" And John's thought about it, he can't stop thinking about bringing him off again and again, against the wall, on the table, blowing him in the armchair. His own virgin Sherlock fantasy.
The noise sherlock makes as he climaxes is hauntingly, painfully beautiful, and John pictures a thousand different versions of Sherlock, but he knows it'll never be the real thing. They have to be on for Friday, because john's done with all this shame, this distance, and cloak and dagger. He's sick of picturing Sherlock, imagining him when he can have him, good and decent, at eighteen.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Sherlock says, when he's about done and John's wide awake, never felt less tired at such an hour. John starts feeling uneasy then, and it doesn't settle like it should. They end the call and now they're on good terms, now they're on for Friday, God help John, the devil is going to roll out the red carpet for arrives back late the next day. He brings the cold of Belarus with him, brings into back in the evening, the waxy kind that coats the bright indigo sky with pinks and violets. Frost fastens itself to the ground, the edge of the windows, and John looks out, more anxious than apprehensive. Can t help but wonder, and by Sherlock s invincible winter his love is made afraid.
He paces the length of the sitting room, not a habit, but a display of his fear, his humanity. Many scenarios play out in his mind, a thousand different versions of Sherlock Holmes, each but a shade, each but the best he can do to recreate the madness and the genius. But none of them have been mastered properly, and they do nought but instil fear in him. How eager they d both been, only to have the fire at his feet turn frosty.
John can only hope Sherlock is just as fickle.
He s embarrassed, sort of, to have to throw a spanner in the works. Out of everything, Sherlock is keen and mature and lusty and all these awful attributes, all these sins he s committing so prematurely. John feels pathetic to fear the world as he does, to know so little. Nothing holds a roman candle to Sherlock, and nothing can.
A little black cab streaks up against the pavement and shudders to a stop around half an hour later. John spies it from the window, still paralysed by promises he didn t know if he was keeping. It wasn t Friday, that was the thing. There were whole days between Sherlock s eighteenth, days where he could get his act together, step up his game. (He s not sure if he wants to, really deep down deserves to.)
Sherlock steps out and assumes his full height, and he looks positively consumptive, but not in a weak way. No, Sherlock stands proud like a hawk, with his eyes fizzling and sizzling, sizzling and fizzling. He s thinking, the gears grinding, working effortlessly away. The cold of Belarus is draped over him like a jacket, and bound like a scarf. Christ, just seeing him is enough to make John look in wonder and want and fear. He s so conflicted he himself feels sick, dizzy. Weightless.
He pays the cabbie and moves, floats like there are flowers at his feet and laurels in his hair to the door. Knocks twice, a clean cutting sound which runs right through John. The greeting at the door echoes, Mrs. Hudson's gentle cordialities, Sherlock's voice, no longer broken a bad reception but a strong, baritone chord. The things it could do to any man.
Steps follow, two-at-a-time, leaping up the stairs like some gazelle, all legs and grace, kingly and fantastic. John turns to face the doorway, and just in time to. He thinks- no, he really believes that in another life Sherlock did have laurels in his hair and flowers at his feet.
Seventeen years, he's been treading the earth, an earth that does nought at all to deserve such a specimen. Such a short time, John thinks, because he's known so much longer, and he wants so much. The boy in the doorway wears a completely blank expression. His is not of consequence of purpose. Sherlock's just there, and he just is. John doesn't want to question it.
They're so silent for so long, an eternity of unshared thoughts and John cast his mind back, looked for those early earning signs, first signs of trouble but there were none. Perhaps at that moment there's nothing to be said.
The waxy evening slides into a dark indigo night and Sherlock might be mighty and unconquered but he's tired, really and honest, like a child woken in the back of the car, unaware of where they are and sometimes who they are. Sherlock yawns like a ferret and burrows deep into John's duvet, waits there, unconscious.
For that evening, John sleeps on the sofa. But anger, Sherlock's skin makes him sick in the night, nauseous, nauseous, nauseous.
The next day John gets up early and walks around Russell Square Gardens. He winds away time peacefully, away from the squabbles of Lestrade in one corner, Sherlock in the middle, Mycroft in the other side. It's everyone, everything. The world still spins on the axis of Sherlock Holmes, who can't be copied, is impossible to imitate, whose vanity will trick him, cause him to stumble into darkness and iniquity, and John will do anything to keep him safe, even if it means keeping him 's just as vain, he's gladder than anything that the Belarus was (presumable) a waste of time, because the hours apart dragged themselves, shambled across the midspace. Times were so boring, things were so bloodless, lifeless, without purpose. Maybe it isn't love or besottment, maybe John is just as arrogant, keeps Sherlock there for his own devices.
But, then, why does his heart feel so bad when Sherlock smokes and fights, why does his chest swell with pride when Sherlock explains an observation?
Truthfully, he stays out of the flat for a while because of the bold sticky note he'd left on the fridge, the one with all the gall in the world scribbled over it, defacing the crispness of the paper. The one that reads 'we're off, i''l get milk, John', randomly capitalized, crude. /he wonders if Sherlock will even find it, read it.
He's a good little soldier like that, choosing his battles, deciding when to fight. John never got to choose, and he was a glum sort of hero, sped up the line where he was supposed to die. But he does muster up the courage, finds it in him to face another war zone and that's what it is. Inside Baker Street was a vision of hell.
Don't fret, it's Lucifer's domain.
A few shots are fired when he's at the foot of the stairs, and that's what get's John's heart hammering away, throbbing through his ribs, crushed, panicked. He races up the stairs, lave the cold and inertia of Belarus with them and reaches the door ready, because it's Sherlock, and he's glass-winged and precious.
But no, there's really nothing and the cold catches up with Sherlock firing his gun, his gun into the wall with absolute disregard, with this haughtiness and imperiousness. He's not happy, not at all and it colder than Minsk, colder than the ice in his eyes. The sight is stapled to him.
"What the hell are you doing?" He demands, catching Sherlock's eye, getting his attention. The boy is indignant.
"Bored." That word means so many things from Sherlock, it's so cryptic coming from him and John's sick of trying to decipher his jargon.
"What?" There needs to be more.
"Bored!" And the boy flops to standing and fires again, and then again, before casting the weapon away, apparently unsatisfied with the results and tears his mind away, as if it wouldn't do to dwell on his last act of vandalism. John takes the gun gladly, putting the safety on, putting his mind at ease somewhat, but not entirely.
"Don't know what's got into the criminal classes, good job I'm not one of them." Sherlock stands in all of his perfection, of his unappreciated beauty and youth as John puts the gun away, half-listening, half-caring. He's just glad the shooting has stopped. Straightens, looks up.
"So you take it out on the wall," But really, he's saying 'so you take it out on us'. Sherlock is stroking his handiwork, the garish of yellow spray-paint on hideous wallpaper. Such pride in his touch.
"Meh," He grumbled, "The wall had it coming," And there he falls, weightless, gentle onto his back. The blue silk flicks up as he falls, like an ocean, but Sherlock's not drowning, he's got his head above the water.
"How about that russian case?" He sheds his jacket, sits down. IT doesn't bring out Sherlock's brightness or brilliance, he still looks like a child, and sulks like one.
"Belarus, open and shut domestic murder, not worth my time," Sherlock's toes wriggle.
"Ah, shame," John goes to the kitchen, to the fridge where the note is gone, and something's certainly gone with it. He doesn't know it yet, how could he?
In those final, terrible days, nobody knew. And then it happened.