"There are all types of love in this world, but never the same love twice."
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
"A loving heart is the truest wisdom."
- Charles Dickens
Sherlock Holmes will never admit to doing anything as pedestrian as panicking—that time a couple of days ago notwithstanding—but if there was ever a time to do it, that would probably be about…
…now.
He gets to the bedroom door too late to close it and now he is staring down at Mrs. Hudson, who is looking up at him in disbelief, one hand covering her mouth. Behind him, John is moving out of the weird position he landed in when Sherlock bounded for the door. He is saying something but Sherlock is pretty much frozen to the spot; mind running a million miles a minute and he has quickly cataloged all of the things that could possibly happen to Mrs. Hudson as a result of suffering a shock such as this.
Of course, what really happens turns out to be completely unpredictable.
Mrs. Hudson's hand drops away from her mouth that is now set into a firm line. She frowns up at the man she's always seen as an adopted son and steps forward, holding out that hand. Sherlock recoils but then grabs at the dressing gown that it is now obvious she's taken from John. In the midst of it all, Sherlock's completely forgotten he's as naked as the day he was born.
"Sherlock Holmes, you can come back from the dead but you can't remember to be decent?" Mrs. Hudson admonishes in a tone just a smidge higher than her normal speaking voice. There's not a quaver to be heard.
"And, you, young man! You don't come to see me for months….and…and what happened to your face, John?" Her voice cracking, their not-landlady rounds on John and faces him with her hands on her hips while Sherlock does his level best to improve the decency situation.
"It's nothing, Mrs. Hudson, really, I'm fine," John croaks out as she pulls him into a bear hug. He groans a little when her arms tighten on his injured side and she lets go.
"John Watson! You're injured!" She turns, hands back on her hips and scowls up at Sherlock who sheepishly looks down at his bare feet. He wiggles his toes and looks just about as guilty as only she can make him feel. It's not as if he caused John's injury, well, mostly.
Mrs. Hudson grabs the arm on John's good side and tows him towards the sitting room, babbling excitedly about everything, though the only word Sherlock cares to make out of it all is tea. He keeps his head down and makes to follow but is stopped in his tracks by a big hand on his chest.
"Sherlock," Greg Lestrade growls quietly, quickly getting over his initial shock. "I'm not even going to ask," he says when Sherlock's eyes meet his.
They are level with each other but Sherlock seems to shrink as Greg draws his arm back. Perhaps it's just the emotional hurricane from the past few days, but Sherlock is so unbalanced, when Greg hugs him, he leans into it and rests his forehead against Greg's shoulder. He sighs and Greg pats his back.
"Don't think this gets you out of explaining, Sherlock. Anderson's been following me all over town trying to convince me you aren't dead…well, obviously, but still," Greg says gruffly.
"Not dead," Sherlock mumbles. He finally realizes how stupid this must look so he straightens up and clears his throat, trying to recapture whatever dignity still remains to him.
Greg slaps his back and heads out to the sitting room, giving Sherlock some space to recover. Greg's no fool, he's seen enough in the last five minutes to know what a roller coaster ride Sherlock's been on. He takes John's seat and drags it across from the sofa as Mrs. Hudson comes through from the kitchen with a tea tray that she sets on the coffee table between them. Sherlock joins them shortly, padding in quietly like a little boy who knows he's about to get a lecture and is doing his best to not irritate the adults and make his punishment worse.
When he looks at John, John smiles with only the slightest wince and Sherlock believes everything really is going to work out. For now, though, he knows that he'd better start talking.
000
John is already stretched out on his back snoring softly when Mrs. Hudson decides she has stayed long enough. She closes the door with a promise to bring up some breakfast in the morning—just this once, mind you—and Sherlock discovers he's got a very large warm spot right next to the other large warm spot that belongs to John in the middle of his chest for her. He sighs and wanders towards the bedroom. Greg only hung around for an hour or so, saying he had to get back to work and telling John that he happened to see the address when Mrs. Hudson called in a report that there were people making noise in the upstairs flat because he was passing by the dispatcher's desk on his way to get coffee.
Sherlock and John are both glad for that, too.
Part of him wants to curl up next to John and spend the night cataloging his every movement, every breath, every eye movement…really, though, John is injured and does need his rest. Mrs. Hudson took one look at them once they were settled with their tea and told him flat out in a no-nonsense voice that he should not be exhausting the good doctor with bedroom activities.
At that point, John almost wore all of Greg's tea. Sherlock knows he blushed like a schoolgirl and John grinned at Greg's expression. Well, at least that was settled now.
After Greg left and John went to bed, Mrs. Hudson subjected Sherlock to a stern lecture the likes he'd never receive from his own mother: in between the harsh words, the woman wove a stream of…what? Fondness? Love? For him? For John? Doesn't matter, because it all boils down to the fact that Mrs. Hudson thinks of John and himself as "her boys" and if Sherlock ever pulls such a stupid stunt again, she'll…
He never let her finish that train of thought, because he felt that she should be aware of the truth. At that point, she hugged him and cried into his chest for a bit. He is fairly certain he shed some tears as well, but best not to dwell on that. Sherlock watches John for a few moments longer and pads down the hallway in order to draw himself a hot bath. It only takes him about thirty seconds to shimmy out of the pajama trousers he'd changed into before joining them all for tea and about three to untie the sash of his dressing gown and drop it to the floor.
The steam from the water wafts around him and Sherlock knows it is going to do horrible things to his hair. That useless bit of information gets pushed away as he settles against the tub and stretches out his legs, enjoying the way the muscles begin to relax as they absorb the heat. He closes his eyes and instead of pushing his hands together under his chin, he lets them rest on the side of the tub, fingers relaxed and pointing towards the floor. Somehow, tonight, everything feels complete, as if all the puzzle pieces in his life are where they should be.
For the first time in way too long, Sherlock can finally allow himself to really relax, safe in the knowledge Moriarty and Moran are dead and buried; Irene is not in the local vicinity, thanks to Mycroft; and John is safely and securely asleep in the bedroom. In Sherlock's bed.
Precisely the way everything should be, save for John's injuries. Shortly, though, they won't matter much, except as memories. To John, anyway; Sherlock knows he will never forget them.
Sherlock uses his toes to shut off the water when it begins to creep up towards the top of the bathtub. He rests the back of his head against the tile wall and concentrates for a moment on the mind palace.
000
Tonight the corridors of the mind palace are hushed, even his own footsteps on the hardwood flooring is almost inaudible. He looks up to a high, vaulted ceiling that is painted in a style similar to that one big church in Italy he's never bothered to remember before, other than to know it is famous for its paintings. Of course, there will be no chubby cherubs or old men with long, white beards. No, Sherlock's ceiling is covered with scenes from many of his cases, both solved and unsolved: there's even a tiny painting of a pair of diamond cuff links (John, all my shirts have buttons) as well as several portraits of particular people they've helped in the past.
Right smack in the center is a small child with a mask flipped up over her head. She is smiling and Sherlock can make out the shiny gold beads that decorate the multitude of braids sticking out from her head. Sherlock remembers the mask well, because John said it looked like a comic book villain called 'The Green Goblin,' though the rubbery plastic hadn't held the dye correctly and it was a very bright yellow, virtually the same color as the face Sherlock had spray painted on the wall of the flat to use as a target when he found John's gun. Little Lucy's brown eyes are full of light and her beautiful smile will always be a reminder that even he makes mistakes.
Very methodically, Sherlock clears a corner spot in a large painting of a darkened landscape of Dartmoor. A new picture, one of John's eyes staring in shock at him over the oxygen tube from a few days ago will serve as a second reminder. When it is complete, the painting is striking—a close enough resemblance that it seems John is really looking at him.
In the bathtub in the small bathroom in Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes sighs deeply and a single tear falls down his cheek. He wipes it away automatically, still putting the finishing details on John's painting in the mind palace, and seems almost unaware of it.
From the doorway where he is taking in his beautiful friend-and-something more, John is most certainly not.
000
John begins to wake up as soon as he hears the taps on the bathtub come on. He stretches carefully so as to avoid aggravating the wound in his side then starts to scratch at the stitches on his face but stops himself from doing it. He climbs out of the bed and stands for a moment, thinking of how so much of his life has changed—from feeling like it was practically over to waking up in the hospital to find Sherlock watching over him.
As unusual as that had been, it is even more unusual, to John anyway, how quickly he found it in his heart to forgive the crazy man. There was something so earnest in Sherlock's eyes…something so…
John doesn't even know. It's never been easy for him to talk about his own emotions—hence the majority of failed appointments with psychiatrists and their ilk—and so he feels that may he doesn't have any words for this, at least not right now. Maybe in a week, a month, three months, three years even, he'll break down and rail at Sherlock, probably even say some things he will regret, but at this point, he will bask in the attention he has been receiving and savor the intimate feeling of their flat, together, and with whatever that entails.
So, just now, that entails casually leaning against the wall watching Sherlock in the act of organizing, or cleaning up or whatever the heck he does there in the mind palace. Slight wisps of steam coil up from the water, making Sherlock's hair frizz beautifully.
Sherlock makes a small sound and John's eyes are immediately drawn to the tears falling from beneath his closed eyelids. One of them falls swiftly while the other gets caught on the end of a long, dark lash. John wants to walk closer, the uncertainty of their remaining boundaries—if there are any still—holding him in place. Sherlock's hand flutters from the side of the tub and wipes his cheeks.
John can't take it anymore. "Sherlock," he says calmly.
Sherlock's eyes close more tightly for a few seconds before he opens them. With the terrible lighting in this room, they look to John for all the world like pale green jade. When Sherlock smiles lightly, John's heart fills up with all of the things he has not yet found the words to say. Sherlock holds out a hand towards him, palm up.
"Join me?" he asks.
John thinks it over and the affirmative is on his lips when he remembers the bandage on his side. He shakes his head, "No, I can't. Is there anything I can do for you?"
John sits down on the edge and Sherlock rests his hand on his thigh, slowly stroking the cotton of John's pajamas. He leans in to kiss his lips softly when Sherlock tilts his head upward.
"Sherlock," John begins.
Sherlock's smile falters a little. "Yes, John?"
John kisses him again, more than a simple press of lips, "I have a confession to make."
"What would that be, Doctor Watson?" Sherlock's mouth twists into a knowing smirk.
"I think I'm in love with you." John hopes Sherlock cannot hear the terrifying noise his heart is making.
"Obviously," Sherlock states as he runs his fingers up the inside of John's leg, stopping before he reaches John's balls.
"No, Sherlock, even beyond that."
"I know, John."
John wonders how Sherlock's voice can be that much deeper, so much so that it echoes off the tile. "You do?"
"John, why do you think I came back?" Sherlock gazes up at him as if willing John's much slower brain to make a fast connection.
"Oh," John whispers as he captures Sherlock's chin in his hand. After their lips touch this time, John pulls back and kisses Sherlock's forehead then his chin.
"Yes." Sherlock states firmly.
John chuckles under his breath. "Alright then."
Sherlock nods and pushes at the bathtub as if to stand.
"Sherlock, would you mind if I…?" John trails off, worried that he is going to sound ridiculous. He waves his fingers in the general direction of Sherlock's hair.
"What?" Sherlock asks, frowning. He studies John's face. "Yes, you may wash my hair, if that is your desire."
John shakes his head, happy that he didn't particularly have to say anything. His emoto-phobia could actually pair very well with the fact that Sherlock has no problem telling other people what they think or what they want. He reaches for the bottle and squirts some of the stuff into his hand as Sherlock somehow manages to dunk himself under the water without splashing John. He pushes back up again, water streaming down his face and his back. John carefully pushes his fingers into the saturated mop and sighs contentedly.
Everything about you is my desire, he doesn't say but tries to get across in his actions.
Quick A/N: Two things: One, yes, I went there; and Two, three cheers for me finally getting back to a regular writing schedule! Number one thing is my second favorite canon story.