Chapter 55 – This Side of The Mirror
These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness.
It's probably a vitamin deficiency.
― Margaret Atwood
Sherlock is thinking about flute notes. Not ones played on an actual woodwind, but those created by finding a secret spot on a violin – they're different on each individual instrument, and can only be discovered by daring to experiment on the four strings, gently seeking out where the sound turns from raspy to melodic.
Sherlock rather thinks John has found his flute notes. At least the sounds he keeps coaxing out of Sherlock are all rather new and unexpected.
Sherlock flings his legs off the bed, gathers up a sheet and trails it behind him as he heads out of the door. His toes curl a little on the draughty floor, the sensation more akin to burning than cold, but he doesn't care. If this is how his nervous system wants to be today, then so be it. The full effect of his pain medications has finally kicked in after so many months, dampening the worst remnants of the GBS to just a mild buzz of static. He can ignore it.
He wraps the sheet around his naked form and shuffles to the kitchen. John is there, frying eggs. The crackling of oil in the pan may have concealed the whisper of the sheet, but their floors are creaky enough that John must know he's present.
John turns his head, flashing him an all-knowing smile. It needs to be wiped off that face, Sherlock decides. He needs to wrench control back to himself. John has been bossing him around lately on the pretence of sexual experience. Sherlock's determined to take the initiative; he has a whole series of experiments in mind.
John returns his attention to the eggs in the pan. Sherlock crowds him in front of the stove, wrapping his arms and effectively also the sheet around him, enveloping them both in the sweat- and lord knows what else -scented white fabric.
"And how are we this morning?" John asks suggestively. He backs away from the stove a bit. "Don't want that sheet to catch fire, do we?"
"Something else is on fire," Sherlock suggests and presses up against him, relishing the warmth radiating from John's form.
He's allowed this. Even after weeks and weeks of such bliss, there's still a novelty to it that trumps even cases that are a full ten on his scale.
But never mind that. He's a man on a mission.
He snakes his fingers underneath the waistband of John's pyjama pants. At least the man has been sensible enough not to wear a shirt. During their first intimate encounters, John had turned out to be slightly apprehensive at being completely naked in his presence and under his scrutiny when it comes to certain anatomical features. A particularly troublesome spot had turned out to be the scar on his shoulder.
Wasn't Sherlock the one who was supposed to be nervous, the one who had changed so much during the past months and felt as though he'd stepped into the wrong skin? Thankfully, the initial skittishness on both their parts had quickly dissipated once primal instincts took over. Sherlock now regrets the way in which he had spent his former life looking down on such activities. But, that was all "pre-John".
"We are bored, and in desperate need of attention," Sherlock whispers into John's ear, letting just enough of his baritone colour the sound. John squirms as though there were shivers going down his spine. Perhaps there are. His voice has always seemed to have a similar effect on John as John's fingers on his scalp produce. For every action, there is an equal reaction.
Sherlock's other hand begins a slow crawl downwards before John grabs it and moves it back up to his waist. He begins turning and Sherlock, expecting a kiss, flutters his lids closed. Instead of John's lips on him, a piece of toast is shoved into his mouth. He stumbles backwards, grabbing hold of the offending piece of bread.
John laughs. "Breakfast first, you berk. Some of us need food before a third round in twelve hours. Not everyone runs on some sort of a human version of a fission reactor."
Sherlock stares at the toast and then devours it. John turns back to the stove, flips his eggs and then glances towards the kitchen table. He spots Sherlock's hand just about to reach for something on John's plate. "Oi!" he shouts as Sherlock grabs the muffin and strides into the living room.
John chases after him and Sherlock makes a daring escape by climbing on the coffee table where he scarfs down the muffin in two bites.
John is indignation and amusement all wrapped in one. "That was my last one, and you insist you hate them. You're going to get it for that," he threatens playfully.
Sherlock bats his lids in feigned disinterest, licking crumbs off his fingers. The sheet has slipped so that it barely covers the dark hairs low on his stomach. "Oh? And what sort of a punishment did you have in mind?" he asks suggestively.
John's looking at him in a way that is positively predatory. Sherlock decides he likes it.
"You're going on the bloody rack for this, Sherlock Holmes."
"A bloody one?" Sherlock asks in mock astonishment, "Here I was thinking I'd shacked up with a boring old army doctor instead of the Head Inquisitor."
John tugs at his sheet and Sherlock climbs down.
John snorts. "I'd never have thought I'd miss the sight of you climbing on furniture."
Sherlock shifts close to John, who circles his arms around him.
"What's this, then?" John asks teasingly, grinding his hips against Sherlock's, having now noticed the erection he's sporting. Obvious.
"Autonomic dysfunction," Sherlock answers deadpan.
John pinches his left buttock. "Is that what it was last night, too? My mistake."
Sherlock looks down between them and frowns. "It's hardly my problem if it likes you," he drawls, raising his brows suggestively.
John reaches down between them, under the sheet, and coils his hand around Sherlock's cock. "You're a prat and a thief."
"Your eggs are burning, John."
"That's- romantic?" John suggests, looking as confused as he often is.
Sherlock glances towards the stove. "No, I do mean that quite literally."
There are cases, of course. But, there are also days when they are so wrapped up in each other that Lestrade's texts go unanswered and Mrs Hudson's offers of scones ignored. During those days, not even a case that has the potential to be a twelve could drag them out of each other's orbit.
There are other kinds of days as well: days when Sherlock's skin crawls with a desire to fix his head with cocaine, days when he won't talk to anyone or disappears for endless walks that produce blistered feet yet do little to improve what John calls his black mood. It passes, it always does, and John makes it pass quicker than anyone else who has ever tried. Sometimes John gets fed up with his histrionics or sofa sulks and gets some air himself. While some things have changed for the better, it's not all roses. They are still who they are—it's just that now they are themselves, together.
Sherlock still has concentration problems, or at least he thinks so. John says it's common after a long stay at the ITU, as are the still-lingering fatigue and the nightmares, but Sherlock worries about it more than he worries about any remaining physical impairment. He can work, quite effortlessly really, when it comes to deducing things, but putting all the pieces of a case together afterwards requires more pacing and more post-it notes than it used to. Back in the day, he could keep it all organised in his head.
"If you overexert yourself, it's going to be even slower and then you'll blow a gasket again," is the sort of thing John keeps telling him. He also keeps reminding Sherlock how many times he has solved a case in less than an hour. It doesn't matter because Sherlock thinks he should be even faster. There's always room to improve, even before the Guillain-Barré. He's good enough to be able to do his job. He'll be even better at it with practice. He'll be the best consulting detective on this planet, and since he's the only one, he sets the bar.
In his adult life, he has always refused to obey what others see as his limitations. He pushes himself past them. The illness had brought on memories of belittling words of professionals from his youth, and those had teamed up with the demon of the GBS. Vulnerable and weak after the ordeal, he had been easy pray for self-doubt, one of the only things truly capable of sliding him into the deep end.
When nothing else had helped, John's reassuring presence had created for Sherlock a space in which to be himself again. John has taken his broken music, his dissonant tones, and taught him to tune them again to something that works. They are not in the key they were before, but a new one; a duet instead of a lonely, frightening solo. It's a sound dense with memory, yet the harmonies are awash with hope.
He's in love, which hardly solves all of his life's problems, but he'd rather stop breathing than to give up the man at his side.
Relationships, like music, seem to require risk-taking. Helen says that the risk-aversive violinist will never be a good one because they don't push their boundaries. Sherlock has had to accept the possibility of failure, and that has allowed him to let go with the reckless abandon required by more dramatic pieces. It is logical: how could one hope to express the emotions written into the notes, if one refused to experience them?
When he looks in the mirror now, he suspects that the other Sherlock, if he were ever to make an appearance again, would be rather envious. The poor coward, despite all of his purported confidence, never did have the courage to reach for what he truly wanted.
Now that Sherlock has done just that, he knows a truth. When everything had felt wrong, distorted and alien, John had remained a steady reflection of him. John wants him, stays with him, and that is enough to remind him of the right priorities. When Sherlock looks in the mirror now, he can smile at his own reflection.
A week later, Sherlock is surveying the landscape that is John Watson, something that has certainly become one of his special interests lately. Just a sheet covers the two of them from the waist down as they lie on their sides, facing each other. The geographical feature that has attracted Sherlock today is John's right eyebrow. He is using his lower lip to explore the texture, which is nothing short of fascinating. "Did you know that the hair of your right eyebrow is much thicker, almost wiry, compared to any other body hair type of yours?" he asks.
There is a muffled snort. "Can't say that I do, no."
"It's very straight, too." Sherlock cannot resist a running commentary. Like a television naturalist, he keeps his voice muted, lest he frightens off the creature he's observing. "I shall look forward to finding out how much they'll grey with the rest of you."
John pinches his side as punishment and he squirms. A warm hand then settles on the small of his back. Sherlock's lets his eyes drift shut to block out the soft morning light that is edging around the bedroom curtains. While his mouth is still occupied on the eyebrow, his fingers are busy exploring another part of John. "Your chest hair is moderately curly, soft, yet the hair on your head is straight, and a bit thicker. Such a contrast to the soft down on your forearms or the tight curl of the hair at your groin. I wonder why?"
There is a mutter from John's lips, which are pressed against Sherlock's chest. "Just don't start pulling anything out to go look at it under a microscope, please."
"This is the field study part. Lab analysis comes later." Sherlock shifts his hand away from John's midline, where it had been caressing the man's chest hair, shifting toward the topography he knows is to the right. Now, after considerable practice, he can navigate these landmarks without looking. Just there – the skin tissue changes texture, guarded by a little ring of tiny hairs, a hillock that rises in anticipation as he rubs John's nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
There is a corresponding rumble of pleasure, and John moves his hips against Sherlock. Works every time. Sherlock has deduced that the purpose of John doing this must be to make Sherlock keenly aware of his erection. He promptly decides to continue yesterday's experiment: he turns his thumb fractionally, which means that he is rubbing the nipple with the edge of his nail.
A soft moan escapes from John. Sherlock decides to abandon the eyebrow, now fully mapped, when John raises his head to kiss him. He lets his lower lip curve into a smile when John turns his head slightly to trail a line of further kisses towards his ear. He echoes the moan he'd just heard when John's lips continue downwards and find his own left nipple to give it a nip.
What Sherlock had never anticipated was how interesting intimacy could be. From a cold, logician's perspective he had always worried about sustained physical contact providing too much sensory information, and about the profoundly unromantic notion of exchanging bodily fluids. He had been certain that his sensory perception issues would surely get in the way of enjoyment. What little experience he had amassed of intimacy before had all been disappointing; either initiated by others with little regards for his wishes, or him trying to grin and bear it for the sake of joining the rest of humanity in what literature and music tried to sell off as wonderful and fulfilling.
Then, this had happened - John had happened - and proved him wrong, just as he has proven Sherlock wrong in so many other things. Compared with the sum total of Sherlock's prior sexual experiences, this is something entirely different. Nothing is hurried, haphazard or unsentimental. He knows the pedestrian biochemical reactions, but somehow the experience is so much more than the sum of its physical parts. He now he has all the time in the world to explore, investigate and experiment in what brings pleasure to another person, and in so doing, discovers that rather than the sensory storm he feared, he is now able to give as good as he gets.
The greatest surprise has been that sometimes, overwhelmed can be good. Time out of mind. Brain offline for a moment. John is there, he isn't in danger. It's all right to let go.
John is learning about Sherlock at the same time, and they've established that some things do make Sherlock decidedly uncomfortable. Too soft a touch is problematic, and might always be so, and using a tongue in certain places makes Sherlock squirm away when it all becomes a little too much. He's not particularly ticklish, but he really doesn't like the bottom of his feet touched. Having the weight of John lying across his chest is oddly comforting. The man is domestically warm, which makes the experience resemble being in bed with his own John-sized hot water bottle. For someone who has always suffered from cold feet and hands, this is an unexpected bonus, even if said hot water bottle keeps suggesting that Sherlock should wear bed socks. "Really, John? I tell you that I can't abide things touching the soles of my feet and you prescribe bed socks? Are you a sadist?"
Yet another revelation is how much Sherlock enjoys physical contact outside of sex. John's warm surgeon's hands are remarkably strong and capable of doing marvellous things to muscles. He has enjoyed the benefits of a number of full body massages that leave him a boneless heap, drifting off in a cloud of oxytocin. It is odd, what John can do to Sherlock's body; he smiles at the thought of designating John as his transport mechanic of choice.
"Earth to Sherlock. You in there?" A firm grasp of his rump makes him wriggle with pleasure, and buck his own hips back into John. Lucky for him, it turns out that John is rather fond of Sherlock's buttocks. He'd always assumed that John was drawn to breasts, given the number of his women-dates that had qualified in that department. But, according to what John has confided to him, he is actually more turned on by a shapely arse. John had even gone so far as to reveal that it had been the very thing that he'd first realised his eyes kept being drawn to in his flatmate in a manner not entirely platonic.
Before John, his derriere had not been a feature that Sherlock had given much attention to.
"By definition, it's behind me. How am I supposed to know what it looks like, or care?" Sherlock had pointed out, standing in front of the mirror on the wardrobe, twisting his neck to try and see his rear-view reflection from the angle John had just been looking at it. There was something about that pose which had led John to pull him over to the bed and begin this research session.
He answers John's call for attention by sliding down from on top of him to his side and shoving his leg between John's. "We shouldn't forget the sandpaper rasp of your five o'clock shadow. That's an entirely different kind of hair. Wonder if it would be curly or straight if you left it unshaven?"
"I'm not growing a beard just so you can find out," John protests before they stop talking, their lips again becoming more interested in doing things other than forming words.
That night, Sherlock falls asleep effortlessly, without a care in the world, coiled next to John like an oversized viper. Not touching, but close, so close that he'd only need to shift his arm to find contact with John's back as he sleeps on his side, facing away from Sherlock.
At around two in the morning, he wakes up. He expects to experience what he has learned to think of as the usual – the sensation of falling, a sense of being lost, a fear that it's all been a dream, that he's still there, hooked up to a respirator.
None of this happens. In the dark, he can make out the outline of the periodic table poster, the bedside cabinet and the shape John makes under the duvet. He's home.
A car drives past. John is breathing quietly.
Sherlock's mind no longer yearns to make him leap out of bed, to escape the confines of his own brain, to seek out solitude and distraction on the cold bathroom floor. He wants to stay here. He wants to be here, and he can't wait for morning because that's when John wakes up and talks to him and spends time with him and listens to him and goes places with him.
A thought: what if they had this before, long before the GBS nearly separated them for good?
No. Such what-ifs are pointless. He can't waste any more time on them.
Without John, there would have been nothing left of him after the GBS. John had redrawn the lifeline on his palm every single day as they joined hands, kept him safe and relatively sane. It had taught him something more valuable- that to climb high, you had to risk a fall. That's why he'd said what he said in the winter garden.
Something John had said had stuck with him: 'I'll take the good things and the bad things if they come with you'. Maybe they would have got together without the GBS, but the timing would have been different. It could have taken months, years, decades. Or they might never have been brave enough to risk it. Sherlock would never thank his body for betraying him, but at least it had been the catalyst for where they are now. No regrets; he has better things to do with his time.
Sherlock still doesn't know how to put it into words, but he is willing to try now. He talks to the skull. He talks to John. And when words are inadequate – they often are – he is consoled by the thought that no matter what the means of communication, John seems to make sense of him even when Sherlock isn't really able to decipher himself.
He stretches out under the duvet. His muscles are sore, but instead of being some residual thing from the GBS, the aches he feels are a glorious reminder of their climbing session this afternoon. Logical. Normal.
He turns to his side and pokes John where he thinks a shoulder ought to be. It takes more than a few tries, and the calling out of John's name for the man to stir. Sherlock curls his fingers around John's arm and tugs to signal that he wants to be face to face.
He can't really see John's expression in the dark, but if he did, Sherlock would imagine John looking a little cross-eyed from being very sleepy still. There might be a pillow crease indent on his cheek and his hair is probably a mess. What an incredible thing it is to have this, to know these things. To have memorised them in preparation of days apart, of which there will hopefully be very few if not none.
"What?" John asks, turning to his side. "What is it?
"John, I'm-" Sherlock starts and pauses because he hasn't really thought what it is he wants to say. He can feel it, in his head, an overwhelming sensation he wants to convey, but what is the right word?
"Are you okay?" John asks, sliding a hand out from underneath the duvet and reaching out to feel where Sherlock is. He manages to poke him on the cheek.
"Yes. I think I am," Sherlock answers very pointedly. That's the gist of it, isn't it? As usual, John has unintentionally helped him solve the mystery. He's alright, he really is.
"It's the middle of the night. What's going on?"
John hasn't really understood.
"I'm happy," Sherlock says.
John opens his eyes. "Yeah? That's all?"
Sherlock is taken aback. "That's all?!"
"I'm just surprised you'd wake me up for- that."
"It's important," Sherlock says petulantly.
John reaches out a hand and places it on his waist. "Sorry, I- yeah. Sorry. Of course, it is. I'm happy, too. I really am." John flops back onto his back, shoves a hand between Sherlock's neck and pillow to be able to snake it around him, then pulls Sherlock close, kissing him in front of his ear.
Sherlock lays his chin on John's shoulder, breathing in a very distinctive scent – one very specifically belonging to John, which can't really be named or described.
Sherlock runs his fingers gently down John's arm, relishing the sensation of goose bumps brought on by the cool air in the room. His fingertips trace over a sliver-like scar near his elbow he's been meaning to ask about, but now is probably not the time. John lets him explore wordlessly, not inching closer, not trying to change the atmosphere into something laden with aroused expectation. Somehow, John knows he needs this, needs to memorise every detail, to create something of a road map to guide him home.
John carries on his skin what Sherlock carries inside – battle wounds. Because that's what the past months have been, a civil war within him that turned to trench warfare.
Tonight, he feels like it's a battle they have won.
"I love you. Always did. The whole time," Sherlock whispers. "Even when I didn't know what to do with it."
He could go through all of it again if he had to if the GBS relapsed. It would be devastating, but he'd do it for John if he had to. For the first time, the thought is consoling instead of frightening.
He'll never be alone again, no matter what happens, and it's the only thing that counts. The rest is just white noise and memory.
- The End -
