A Series of Sweet Things
John Watson did not pay one little never mind to the man behind the bar, because John Watson does not come into pubs to socialise. He comes into pubs to drink and while he is drinking he radiates as many prickly leave me alone vibes as he can manage, and John Watson can manage a fuck ton of prickly.
So people leave him alone, he leaves them alone, and if it's a rainy Tuesday and the only bodies in the pub are himself and the barkeep, all the better.
Or it was better, it was damn brilliant for awhile, because the bartender was even more spiky than John, who had said thanks after getting his drink and had received a withering glance in reply.
John Watson, after eighteen months of being mostly-unemployed—because no one hires a surgeon with a visible, fucking tremour, and probably incipient alcoholism—yeah, after all that John can really get behind the whole stink-eye thing.
So just as John's thinking he'll come back to this pub tomorrow, just about the time he's thinking he's found a comfortable place where he can settle in with a whisky and self-pity, well right about that bloody time the damn bartender leans on the bar, bends at the waist and he moans, absolutely open-mouthed moans as if a damned chest-busting alien's about to come out of him.
John decides to ignore the man because that's what incipient alcoholics do, but the problem with incipient is it means just beginning, fledging, only starting. There's another part of John that's still bigger than his self-pity and that's his god damn kindness. John'll get muddy helping a goose get free of a piece of wire that's trapped it fast, he'll make silly faces at a weeping baby in the park when the father looks so stressed he's about to fall apart, and John'll stand up so fast to get to a hurting human being that he'll knock over his whisky, a double, no ice.
"Where does it hurt," he asks because, though he can see where it hurt—the man's fists are pressed against belly and chest—the asking helps a person focus on something other than the hurt.
The bartender groans, stumble-trips away and to his knees, and he looks for all the world as if he's about to crawl under the bar and hide in shadow like a wounded cat.
Which is exactly what he's about to do. Crawling to safety is what Sherlock Holmes did last month after he got hit in the head with a pipe and couldn't see the killer, it's what he did when he was ten and one kid punched him so badly he couldn't breathe, it's what he will do every single time his mouth or his brain or his existence puts him in danger and he can't fight back. Because Sherlock doesn't care about pride, Sherlock will hide in the dark and he'll live thank you, he'll come back tomorrow or the day after and he'll see what people keep telling him isn't there, he'll make them see, even if it means lead pipes or posing as a bartender in a dodgy pub or—
John Watson goes to his knees under that bar, right down there where the fetid water's collected from the broken bar sink, right there where rubbish no one ever sweeps up crusts in the corners, and with steady hands he touches the bartender's forehead, the pulse in his neck. He peels back an eyelid and John can see in those wild skittering eyes that the man wants to push him away, that he reads all the signs of John's help as potential hurt, and when the man half-succeeds, scooting backward with heels scraping against the filthy floor, John gets behind him and sits down hard, so that the man shoves himself backward and into John's open arms.
"It's going to stop hurting," John lies. "I'm going to make it stop hurting, okay, can I do that, will you let me do that?"
The man is hot and cold, sweating but John can feel it prickling his skin with goosebumps. He's still pushing, trying to crawl away from the pain but there's nowhere to can go but deeper into John's arms. Wrapping one across the man's chest, dialing 999 with the other hand, John holds the man fast but the man keeps fidgeting so John keeps dropping the phone and now he's moaning in deep hurt again, so John dips his head, presses his mouth to the man's ear and murmurs low low low, "Hush, love, be still. Shhh."
Immediately the man settles.
For a long moment.
Two.
Three.
Four…and then he fidgets again and John does it again, warm lips to an ear hidden beneath a sweat-damp mess of curls, "Hush, it's all right, shhhh."
But the man doesn't hush and it's not all right, not until John gets it, flash-quick and clear as day, so he presses his temple against the man's and he whispers close, so his breath is warm right on down the man's neck, "Be still little love, be still."
The man stills.
"There's a sweetheart, thank you."
Finally John gets his call through. He spends most of it barking out facts into his phone, then pausing to hum sweet things into a stranger's ear. The dispatcher's replies never stray to did you just call me angel? or are you talking to me? She's heard every single possible thing—yesterday a thief called to report a thief in the house he was robbing—and before a minute is up, help is dispatched.
John drops the phone, wraps his other arm around the man who has started to moan again and John whispers, "What's your name, sweetheart?"
Sherlock Holmes counts his heartbeats but he can't get past one so he counts John's words but he can't get past sweetheart, and his chest and belly and head hurt so badly and he's not sure what happens but it feels like there's lips against his other ear and oh, oh, the man has moved and sweetheart, love, talk to me, come on angel are filling him up and so he stammers, "Sh-Sh-Sherlock."
"What a pretty name. It sounds like a mystery, doesn't it? Mine's John. That sounds…that sounds…hmmm…"
"S-s-sssstron—" hisses Sherlock, but he can't finish.
John holds Sherlock tighter and rocks him gently, "Tell me why you're sick sweetie, do you know? Can you tell me?"
Sherlock does tell him, but not until two hours later, in a hospital room, because help arrives then, and things move so very fast.
And then they are clock-tick slow and quiet, John sitting by Sherlock's hospital bed.
They'll release him in a couple hours, but right now he's weak but alert, getting fluids. John is asking him questions, and Sherlock is answering.
"—once I learned of Mr. Rossetti's symptoms, I suspected his wife. She dusted the pub with powdered kapok, to which a rare few are allergic. The immune response for a healthy but sensitive man would be extreme but not fatal. Chemotherapy had left Mr. Rossetti with an immune system far from strong." Sherlock shrugs. "But I had no proof. The police couldn't search without proof." Sherlock shrugs again.
It doesn't take any kind of genius to understand what Sherlock's not saying, so John says it for him. "So you exposed yourself, because you're allergic to kapok, too."
It's here Sherlock shuts down tight. He doesn't answer because he doesn't want to be answered. He doesn't want to hear "Well you're an idiot," or "That was stupid." So Sherlock Holmes says nothing. John's not so reticent.
"You are…a god damn…" Sherlock's already scowling, turning to look out an over-bright window. "…genius."
John steps closer to the bed, peers at Sherlock. "You knew how much it would hurt and you let it happen."
Sherlock turns, looks. John's smile is—Sherlock can't think of the word for it right now but he will later, he'll think of the word and that word will be angelic—wide, admiring, and he says softly, as if right against Sherlock's ear, "It's against every human instinct to let ourselves be hurt, it takes so much bravery to calmly walk into that kind of suffering."
John sits down beside the bed and for a moment he reaches for Sherlock's hand and then shyly he doesn't, just rests it on the bed.
"Will you do me a favour?"
Sherlock's brief joy at the admiration is tempered to resignation. Ah, here it comes. Go here now, look at this, what about that other case. After Sherlock does his Sherlock thing, he's grown used to thank yous that aren't, thank yous that ignore what he just did by asking him to do more, but that's not what he gets now.
Except he does.
"Just a small favour? Please?"
Sherlock's not holding John's hand, nor John his. Their hands are resting together, side by side on the bed, close enough to feel the warm from each other's skin. Sherlock looks at their hands and says, "Yes."
The first Christmas back from Afghanistan nearly killed John. When he was still over there he'd sometimes got letters from the soldiers that had gone home, strangely short letters. All those years ago John had promised himself that when he got home he'd write long letters. He'd write great letters.
But John didn't. John doesn't. Because he learned fast that if he wrote letters to the men and women he left behind they'd contain nothing but the breathless refrain: There's nothing to do. There is nothing for me to do here.
Yet sometimes, if a man is lucky, if a man looks, he finds something to do.
"Let me help."
Sherlock blinks. "What?"
"Next time, whatever you're doing, let me help."
Sherlock shakes his head, confused. "What?"
"I could have helped reduce the severity of your allergic reaction…I could have helped it not hurt you so badly."
More blinking. Realisation. "Oh."
John smiles that smile again, the one Sherlock will later tell him is angelic, but right now Sherlock doesn't know how to behave around that smile, so he looks out the window again, saying, "Yes."
John looks out the window now, too. "Thank you, love. Thank you."
They both grin as if the bright, bright day is glorious.
I turn "The Day They Met" (new stories!) in to the publisher a week from today. After that I'm going on a pornography writing binge. All the porn. Everywhere. On everything. John and Sherlock are going to run naked through so many kinky fields that sitting here in the British Library right this minute, I'm giggling like an entire herd of drunk and giddy geese. Which is a whole lot of giddy. And drunk. And porn.