I try to laugh about it. Hiding the tears in my eyes. 'Cause boys don't cry
Chapter Nineteen:
John didn't know what Sherlock told his mother about his mysterious illness but in a blur of minutes he found himself sprawled on his back on his bed with the curtains drawn and a damp flannel on his forehead. He could hear Sherlock and his mother speaking in low voices just outside the door. Sherlock was clearly weaving some elaborate story about John's being stricken down by food poisoning or a sudden, violent allergic reaction to acacia.
The nausea felt like it had passed but John didn't want to tempt fate by trying to sit up. There was really nothing he wanted more than to be alone and free of his mother's questions for at least an hour.
He listened to their footsteps fade away downstairs and then peeled the flannel off and turned carefully onto his side, conscious of every jolt to his stomach. Someone had put his suitcase by his wardrobe. He was almost certain that in their haste to leave London at least one of his belongings had been left behind at the Holmes residence, but until he became aware of just what it was he didn't care.
Despite the events of that morning and the night before, he couldn't help but feel a grateful twinge for Sherlock's quick thinking. No doubt he'd be able to keep his mother off his case for a little while and might even be able to slow his father's approach when he caught wind of his son's impromptu return.
John groaned into the familiar sheets. They had the same clean, soft smell they had had three months ago. It should have been comforting but it just brought back painful memories.
He screwed his eyes up tight. He didn't want to think until his head had stopped throbbing.
Twenty minutes later, he heard soft footsteps in the hallway and knew it was Sherlock. He considered pretending to be asleep but he knew Sherlock would see through it in a second. He gingerly rolled onto his back, still feeling too tender to sit up.
"John?" The door creaked quietly on its hinges.
John grunted. He didn't know if he was in the mood to be impeached. He knew he had hurt him; he didn't need to be told. And he certainly knew he had screwed up, but when the haze of self-hatred and guilt subsided there was a twinge of resentment left behind. He hadn't asked for any of this.
He felt his mattress depress and give a low groan as Sherlock sat down beside him. A hand touched his thigh. "Are you awake?"
John got the feeling he was only asking to give him the option of pretending to be asleep if he wanted to. John sighed and opened his eyes. "I'm awake."
Sherlock was watching him unsmilingly. "Your mother's going to bring you up some tea." He hesitated, his eyes searching his face. "She's going to call your father too. He'll probably be back soon."
"Huh," John replied. "Well, it was nice knowing you."
Sherlock looked away. "Look, I won't force you to do anything you don't want to. God knows how that shit can mess you up." He laughed bitterly. "I would know."
John stared at him. "Really?"
Sherlock sighed, and stood up. He still didn't look at him. "I don't have any right to force you. I was just... just-"
He broke off with a half-shrug. John turned his face away to the wall. He was too sick for this crap.
"I know you didn't mean to... to..." Sherlock didn't seem to be able to bring himself to say the words.
"Kiss your brother?" John supplied dully.
"Did you?" Sherlock said, his voice oddly frayed.
"He kissed me," John said quietly, focusing hard on a poster close to the bed.
There was silence. He wondered what Sherlock would say to that. He could claim it didn't matter, that if John had been sober it wouldn't have happened. John didn't know how they could ever get past this if Sherlock always privately thought that he wanted to fuck his brother.
"Sweetie?"
He jerked at the sound of his mother's voice and rolled back onto his back. She had changed out of her floral nightdress and into a pair of faded jeans and a lace top that was fraying at the collar.
She placed a chipped Southampton FC mug on the table beside him and plucked the fallen damp flannel from the mattress and gently placed it on his forehead again. "Are you alright, Johnny?"
John coloured but Sherlock made no motion that he had even heard her. "Fine," he said, struggling to smile at her.
"I'm so glad you came home, sweetie," she said fondly, stroking back his fringe from his face. Her acrylic nails scratched his skin. "We missed you so much."
"Has Harriet been home?" John asked.
"She was here for Christmas," his mother said, looking closely at him. "But I'm sure if we called her, she'd come over to see you."
John was a little embarrassed that Sherlock was witnessing his mother treating him like he was ten, but he was nonetheless relieved to see her. She looked better than he could have expected. Tired and ashen but not unhealthy.
She stood up and turned to Sherlock with a smile, which John supposed was a good sign given Sherlock's usual habit of alienating or insulting everyone who he came in contact with.
"I can get you some breakfast if you'd like, dear," she said to him. "Something better than that petrol station crap. Honestly, John." She glanced at him reproachfully. "I thought you'd know better than that. I'm not surprised it made you throw up."
John smiled weakly at her. "Yeah... it was stupid."
"That sounds lovely, Mrs. Watson," Sherlock said, with a charming smile that John marvelled at. "I'll just bring my bags up first if that's alright."
"Not a problem!" she said, waving a hand. "I can take the mattress off Harriet's bed and you can sleep in here if you'd like. John won't mind, we can shift that chair out of the way. There will be plenty of room."
"You're too kind," Sherlock said smoothly, while John flushed in embarrassment on the bed.
"What are you doing?" he hissed, as soon as she was gone.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow questioningly at him. "Making sure your mother doesn't realise your mysterious illness wasn't caused by a servo pie?"
"Do you really think it's such a great idea for us to be sleeping in the same room?" John said, glowering at him.
Sherlock smirked. "Don't think you'll be able to keep your hands off me?"
"Look," John said coldly. "You said you didn't want to force me into anything so don't. Don't give my parents any reason to suspect me might be... might be-"
"Fucking?" Sherlock supplied archly.
John glared at him. "Don't be an arsehole," he said, feeling the nausea beginning to return.
"Don't you think it would be weirder if we didn't want to sleep in the same room than if we did?" Sherlock said, folding his arms. "Like we have something to hide?"
John gnawed on his bottom lip. He didn't want his parents to notice the slightest oddity in his and Sherlock's relationship. When he'd had friends to sleep over in his youth they had always slept in the same room. Hell, sometimes they had slept in the same bed, depending on how exhausted they were the night before. But that had been before the... stirrings began. Everything seemed much less clear-cut now.
"Fine," John said, turning his head back to the wall. "Whatever you want."
Sherlock didn't reply. Soon after, he heard him leave and close the door behind him.
...
Sherlock found John's mother in the kitchen. She didn't seem like the kind of woman who did a lot of cooking and that assumption was proved right when she served him shaker pancakes. He sat at the wooden bench with her, glancing at the fridge, which was plastered in plastic magnets holding up dozens of photos of John in his football uniform at various ages. There was also a girl with cropped hair in a few of them, who he assumed was John's sister.
Sherlock dreaded having to answer John's mother's questions. Because there would be questions. Question after question about how John was doing at school, who were John's friends, what were the teachers like, how did he know John, did he like school, what did his parents do for a living. It wouldn't end until her husband got home and then he'd have to put up with all of his questions, except those would be considerably more forceful, going by what Sherlock had seen of him at John's final game.
"So," she said, sitting down opposite him and placing a very old mug with a picture of Garfield on it in front of him. "Are you one of John's good friends?"
"You could say that," Sherlock said, lifting the mug to his lips and taking an obligatory sip. It was very weak.
"Funny," she said, squinting at him across the table. "He never mentioned you. I would remember a name like...Sherlock." She said it like it left a strange taste in her mouth. Sherlock was too used to that reaction to be offended.
"Does John often mention his friends?" Sherlock asked, accepting the plate of pancakes she handed him.
She nudged a bottle of Maple flavoured syrup in a plastic bottle shaped like a Maple leaf. Or he supposed that's what the manufacturer had been aiming for. "Oh, he mentions Marty or Billy sometimes. Well, when he's home," she said in a mournful tone.
Sherlock stuck a hunk of pancake in his mouth and chewed it slowly. He did not want to be privy to John's mother's grievances.
"So all this time he's been in London with you?" she said, seeming a little doubtful. "That boy. You'd think we lock him in the cellar, he's so damned determined not to spend any time with his family."
Sherlock swallowed thickly. "Huh. I guess he just wanted to see London."
She peered owlishly at him. "I suppose he tells you things, does he?"
Sherlock shovelled another piece of pancake into his mouth. He so did not want to have this conversation with her. "Not really," he said through a mouthful of syrup.
"He's not having troubles at school, is he?" she said, she picked up a paper napkin from a green wire stand on the bench and began passing it from hand to hand. She had what looked like a plastic extension on each of her nails, square and decorated with pink flowers. "He's never lost a game in his life. It's just so unlike him."
"He's under a lot of pressure," Sherlock said carefully, while she shredded up the napkin into smaller and smaller pieces. "I mean it's his last year at school."
She opened her mouth and then slowly closed it. She looked away with a small shake of her head. Sherlock watched her in silence. He didn't know what he had expected John's mother to be like, but Mrs Watson wasn't it. He could see who John had inherited the majority of his looks from. The blue eyes, sandy complexion, small upturned nose were all hers.
Sherlock couldn't help thinking there was something sad and faded about her. Like someone who had all the life squeezed out of them, a flower that had been crushed of all its pollen, its colour and its scent.
"My Johnny tries hard," she said at length, staring hard into her cup. "He's clever. I know it. He just seems to have so much trouble with some of his subjects. His teachers all tell me its "lack of application", that if he put more effort in he'd get better grades. But I've never known a boy to work so hard and gain so little!" She shook her head again with a frustrated sigh.
Sherlock shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Maybe..." He hesitated. This really wasn't his place to say. He had promised himself he wouldn't meddle. But... "Maybe balancing football and school work is a bit too much for him."
"He said that?" John's mother seemed almost shocked at the suggestion.
Sherlock shrugged, hoping in vain that she'd just leave it at that. Though he very much doubted it.
"He said that to you?" she said again, in an almost eager tone.
"Not exactly," Sherlock said.
She watched him in silence. Her kohl lined eyes moved slowly over his face. Sherlock looked back at her, silently wishing he had just kept his mouth shut.
"Well, you might as well take some of these upstairs," she said finally, spearing three pancakes and dropping them onto an empty plate. "He might feel like putting something in his stomach."
Sherlock doubted it but he took it anyway. "Thanks, I'll take it up."
"It's nice that John has a good friend to rely on," she said, as he was at the door.
He turned to look at her, the plate of pancakes precariously held between his finger and thumb.
"I always feel safer knowing he's got someone looking out for him." She gave him a small, tight-lipped smile. Sherlock could only jerk his mouth upwards slightly in response.
When he reached John's room, he found him fast asleep on his back. Or he appeared to be fast asleep. It was difficult to tell in the gloom. The curtains had been pulled across. They were patterned with miniature soccer balls. Sherlock shook his head to himself and pushed the plate onto John's desk.
He spun the desk chair around and sat down. He could remember a time when he would have killed to be inside John Watson's bedroom and now he was here. It was not quite the material of erotic wet dreams once he was actually inside. The walls were littered with posters of soccer teams and various bands Sherlock had never heard of. And some he had. He could make out The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Kinks. There was also a single, very battered poster of a voluptuous, bikini-clad woman hanging limply off his wardrobe door.
Sherlock got up and walked over to have a closer look. It was very old, the blue-tac had bled right through the paper. Sherlock smoothed it down with his fingertips with a soft: "Hah."
Distantly he heard the front door below them noisily open, slamming against the wall with impressive force. John gave a groan behind him and he turned to find him struggling upright, looking vaguely windswept. "Fuck. My dad's home."
"You're a very light sleeper," Sherlock remarked.
John was combing his unwashed hair with his fingers and didn't reply. "I look like crap. He'll know it wasn't shitty food that made me sick. He's not as gullible as mum." It was almost like he was just talking to himself. "He doesn't even want to believe me half the time."
"You don't say," Sherlock said flatly, not appreciating being ignored. "She made you pancakes by the way."
John didn't seem to hear him. He stumbled off the bed and hastily gathered up his fallen shoes and cardigan from the floor and yanking his curtains open, all the while chanting: "Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God" under his breath.
"Will you calm down?" Sherlock said irritably. "If you freak out, he'll know you have something to hide."
"Don't talk to me about being calm!" John said, a touch of hysteria coming into his voice. He whirled around to face him. "Oh fuck. I can hear him. Oh fuck."
Sherlock rolled his eyes but didn't comment. He could the footsteps too. Moments later the door swang open with the same vigour as the front door sounded to have and all five foot and seven inches of Mr. Watson was revealed, dressed in a grey suit and red velvet tie. His blonde hair was combed sternly to one side. His eyes genuinely seemed to brighten when he saw his son.
He marched over and dragged him into a vigorous one-armed hug that made John initially flinch. "John! Good to see you, son. Good to see you."
"Hi, dad," John said awkwardly, grimacing at Sherlock over his shoulder.
Mr. Watson took a step back, glancing at Sherlock. "Oh, hi there..." He paused.
"Sherlock," Sherlock supplied.
"Oh yes," Mr. Watson said slowly, scratching his chin. "Sherlock. Surprised I didn't remember that one." He gave a forceful chuckle.
Sherlock resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Mr. Watson slapped John's shoulder with another chuckle. "Well, why don't you and your friend get cleaned up and we can all have a little talk downstairs?"
It didn't sound like a request. John glanced at Sherlock and then back at his father. "Yeah, dad. That'd be great," he said.
"You staying, Sherlock?" he said to Sherlock on his way out. "We've got a spare room if you need it. Wouldn't want you spending all that dough getting back into the city."
Sherlock got the distinct impression that Mr. Watson didn't want him in the house. "Thank you," he said shortly.
Mr. Watson watched him in silence for a few moments and then glanced at his son with a brief smile and left. As soon as he was safely downstairs, John gave a guttural groan, burying his face in his hands. "Fuck."
"Don't get hysterical," Sherlock said. "You have no idea what he's going to say to us."
"He's going to want to know why the hell I've been at your house all Christmas!" John said shrilly, pacing up and down the room like a trapped animal. "He's going to want to know why I smell like a fucking barnyard. He's going to want to know why the fuck I'm bringing some boy he's only met once home!"
Sherlock stepped in front of him and took him forcefully by the arms. "Look, stop acting like he knows. He doesn't know for God's sake."
John stared at him in a mixture of panic and distrust. "Why would he want to talk to me?"
"For exactly the reason you said, he wants to know where you've been," Sherlock replied steadily. "Just tell him anything but the truth and you'll be fine."
John smiled very briefly and pried Sherlock's hands off of him. "I better have a shower."
...
John shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. His father was seated opposite in an easy chair with wooden armrests that he always read his paper in. His mother was perched on an armchair next to him, her legs tucked underneath her and her hands folded in her lap. She had barely spoken since her husband had walked in. Something that was certainly not lost on John.
Sherlock was next to him on the sofa. Even though John had a suspicion they might be fighting, he was still glad to have him there.
"I have to admit, John," his father said, preoccupied with unbuttoning his shirt cuffs. "We didn't exactly expect you home so late in the holidays- and with a guest."
John licked his lips. "Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be home this late either."
"You could have called, John. Would have given us a little time to get organized," his father went on, as though he hadn't spoken. "I'm not even certain that going to London was exactly the most sensible of decisions in the first place! I mean, what have you been getting up to all this time? You go back to school in two days time. What exactly have you been doing to prepare? Have you even seen a football since the holidays began?"
"Dear," his mother tried to interject.
His father lifted up a hand to silence her. "Don't argue with me, Angela."
His mother immediately sunk back in her chair.
"I don't think you quite realise just how important this last term is," his father said, finally looking at him with a hard expression. "I don't think you quite know just how close you are to losing everything we- you've worked for."
John frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
His father eyed him closely. "I just hope you have your priorities in order," he said in an evasive manner. "Don't stumble on the last hurdle."
"Excuse me."
Everyone seemed to jump at the sound of Sherlock's quiet voice. John slowly looked at him, silently begging him not to make matters worse.
"Sherlock?" his father said, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you have something to add?" John was strongly reminded of Principal Harvey.
"Don't you think John should be focusing on his grades?" he said, not looking at John. "Final exams will be coming up soon, not to mention assignments."
John inwardly cringed and looked quickly at his father.
"There's always a backdoor into university courses," he replied, watching Sherlock with a distinctly distrustful expression. "All this high school nonsense." He snorted, with a wave of his hand. "It won't make or break you. There's always time for university in the future!" He looked at John with a meaningful expression, sitting forward a few inches in his easy chair. "But your body won't always be at this peak of fitness. Hell, it probably won't be at this peak of fitness five years from now."
His father always went extremely red in the face when he started on about John's brilliant, nonexistent football career. John inwardly sighed. A psychologist would have a field day in his house.
"I know, dad," he said quietly.
"Well," his father said, with an offhand cough. "Look. We'll do some practices before you go back. What do you say to that?"
What could he say to that? "Yes dad," John mumbled, avoiding everyone's eye. But especially Sherlock's.
"You kids run along then," his father said, making the chair give a loud squeal as he sat back in it. "I've got plenty of work to be doing. Angela, get me a juice, will you?"
His mother immediately stood. "Yes, dear," she mumbled.
Out of the corner of his eye, John could see Sherlock watching her as she went out. It gave him no pleasure sharing this aspect of his life with him. He knew exactly what he was thinking. The worst part of it was that he was right. His father was a bastard. His mother was weak. And there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.
...
That night Mrs and Mr Watson had a blazing argument. Through the paper-thin walls it was almost impossible not to hear every word. Mr. Watson's heavy office shoes sounded like distant gunfire on the kitchen tiles and every so often there was a tremendous crash as Mrs Watson slammed one of the plates into the dishwasher.
Sherlock stared up at the darkened ceiling from his mattress on John's floor, trying to tune it out for John's sake. He could hear John's breathing through the darkness. He was certain that he was not asleep.
There was a distant smash as the door of the dishwasher was slammed shut and the argument seemed to migrate into the living room and wasn't so easy to make out. Sherlock could only hope they tired each other out before midnight.
"Sherlock."
He jerked as he felt a cold hand suddenly touch his arm in the darkness.
"Is this the part where you say "are you asleep"?" Sherlock mumbled.
John didn't reply. Downstairs the living room door was slammed furiously and the whole house seemed to tremble with the force. There were footsteps on the stairs. Sherlock heard John inhale sharply as his father walked noisily past the door, muttering under his breath. The door along the hall shut with a sharp snap and silence fell, painfully thick around them.
Sherlock knew this was the last thing John would want him to know about him. More than half of him regretted coming here and inflicting it on him like some sort of sick punishment, but he didn't know how to fix what had been done or what he felt. He wanted to forgive John and forget that anything had ever happened and focus on shielding him from the dark things in his life, but he didn't even know if he had the right to be forgiving anyone and that made his anger seem sick and unwarranted.
Without completely knowing what he intended to do or say, he kicked the covers off his makeshift bed on the floor and carefully slid under the covers of John's bed. The springs gave a low groan and John jerked in alarm against him.
"Sherlock," he hissed, as Sherlock knelt over him, one knee on either side of John's thighs and his mouth very close to John's left ear. "Get off me. Are you fucking insane?"
He gave him a half-hearted shove. Sherlock leant back to look at him. It was hard to see anything in the dark but he had the feeling that John was blushing. He could almost feel the heat radiating off of him under the covers.
He vaguely touched John's hair, careful not to accidentally poke him in the eye. John didn't need him to ask the inevitable "are you ok?" question. John wouldn't want him to ask that question. Nonetheless, Sherlock could feel him trembling slightly under the covers.
Sherlock closed his eyes and leant down in what he hoped was roughly the direction of John's lips. In the dark it was almost asking for trouble. His already overactive imagination had been replaying the moment outside of the club in painful detail over and over all day. The image of Mycroft pressed against John, hands on his waist, lips crushed against his-
He broke away and got off of the bed. "I can't."
John sat up, his expression impossible to see in the dark. "What do you mean?"
"Every time I close my eyes I see-"
He broke off. His throat was aching. He needed a cigarette.
"I don't know how we're ever going to get past this if you can't just let it go," John said softly, sounding breathless with hurt.
Sherlock didn't argue. He left John's bedroom and went downstairs. There was a light on in the kitchen. When he went in, he found the door to the back patio was open and the light was streaming in from there. He could smell cigarette smoke. His mouth almost started watering.
He followed it out and found Mrs Watson perched on an old deck chair, cigarette in one hand and wrapped up in the same frayed, floral dressing gown he'd seen her in that morning. The hand holding the fag was shaking.
When he sat down next to her, she jerked and threw a hand to her chest. "Sherlock!" she exclaimed. "You gave me a fright."
"Sorry," Sherlock said, glancing at the cigarette between her fingers. "Can I?"
She raised a plucked eyebrow at him. "What sort of mother would I be if I let you smoke in front of me?"
"Fine," Sherlock said. "I have my own upstairs."
He stood. She threw out a hand and grabbed his arm. "No, it's alright. Have one of mine."
She opened her carton. She smoked Benson and Hedges. They weren't his brand of choice but he couldn't face going upstairs. He had shot his mouth off again. Like an idiot. Like a spoilt child laying claim to his favourite toy, he had balked at the thought of anyone touching John and it was beginning to scare him just how angry he was at John for something he knew he had had no part in.
Sherlock perched the fag between his lips and lit it with Mrs Watson's lighter. It was pink and covered in tiny little plastic beads. He handed it back to her, taking a lengthy drag and trying to obscure just how much he had needed it.
Mrs Watson gave a short, abrupt laugh and held her own cigarette to her painted lips. "Sorry you had to overhear that, dear. He's never had any real concerns about what civilized people think of him. It's the real scumbags he wants to impress."
Sherlock thought about the parents at Redverse's last soccer game. Their indignation at their sons' collective failure, and knew what she meant. "Don't worry about it," he said. "My parents do something much worse."
"Oh?" Mrs Watson said, seeming interested.
"They don't talk at all," Sherlock replied, shivering a little in his seat.
She gave a low chuckle. "He just wants what's best for John. Or so he says," she added shrewdly. "Sometimes I think he's so determined to live his life through his teenage son he forgets that he's forty and-"
She broke off, looking at him quickly.
"Well. He's not a young man. He doesn't have the luxury of screwing around."
"But John does?" Sherlock said, glancing at her.
She looked at him, breathing a stream of smoke into the cold air. "I want him to be happy. More than anything, I want my children to be happy."
"So do I," Sherlock said, before he had realised what he was saying.
Mrs Watson was still looking at him. Past the smudged makeup and soft wrinkles her eyes were uncomfortably knowing. Sherlock glanced away, taking another drag. He couldn't say anything stupid when his mouth was full of smoke.
"So..." she said, her eyes still on him. "How long?"
Sherlock didn't look at her. He stared into the shadowy garden bed, the cigarette sprinkling ash all over his lap.
"What?" he said, even after his brain had decided there was no point in pretending not to know what she was talking about.
"You and John," she said. Her voice was difficult to read, Sherlock didn't entirely know what she was about to say. "Perhaps I'm being presumptuous. But... are you or are you not sleeping with my son?"
Sherlock stood up abruptly. "I really don't want to have this conversation," he said, staring at her in alarm.
He could imagine what John would do to him if he knew that he was talking about his sex life with his mother. He had to quickly remind himself that he was angry at John, but even that couldn't justify this level of humiliation.
"Fine!" she said hurriedly. "Don't go. Stay a little longer. Please. It's so rare that I have someone to talk to about John. Harriet's always away and his dad is so... Well, you saw him. Please."
Sherlock exhaled and slowly sat back down. "Ok, but I'm not talking about John in... that way."
"Oh, heavens no," Mrs Watson said, with a smile. "I'm really not a snoop, Sherlock. I know it seems like I am. But I so rarely get to see him. I used to write to him but... well I think he's stopped reading my letters."
Sherlock nodded. He knew it was the case. He had seen John's growing pile of letters from her in his room at Redverse. He thought Sherlock didn't know, but as always John was useless at hiding anything that even the gentlest attempts at information gathering could discover.
"How do you know about John?" Sherlock said, genuinely curious.
Mrs Watson gave a chuckle, grinding out her cigarette on the arm of her chair and flicking it onto the concrete with a long, acrylic nail. "It became fairly obvious when he was fifteen that his disinterest in girls wasn't a stage. I think deep down his father knows it too, but he would never let himself believe it. It would break his heart, you know. It would destroy him. I think that's why Harriet left. She didn't trust herself not to scream it at him when she was angry. It's probably the one thing that could really penetrate that thick skin of his."
She lapsed into silence. Sherlock nodded. There were moths beginning to dance around the patio light. It must have been at least one now.
"Why did you never say anything?" Sherlock said in a hard voice. "To John? He could have used an ally, you know. Or do you really have no idea what happens at Redverse?"
She looked at him, with a mixture of sadness and tiredness. "I'm a semi-literate housewife who can't even say boo to her own husband. He doesn't need an "ally" like that."
"He doesn't like football," Sherlock said, a spark of anger forcing itself into his words. "He hates it. He hates that school. But he does it for you and for his father. He's not the one who should be sacrificing things to make others happy."
She gave her head a small shake and looked away. Sherlock saw the moisture gathering in her eyes before she did, but he couldn't pity her. "I wanted him to have everything I didn't have," she said in a low voice. "I got married at twenty, you know. When I was a kid, I barely turned up to school often enough to realise anything more than I fucking hated it- Excuse my French. I just wanted a way out. I would have married anyone. If they had promised that I would never have to go back there."
Sherlock realised he should have felt uncomfortable receiving this amount of insight into a woman he barely knew but he felt like he had known her for so much longer than just a day. He felt like through John he had learnt more about his parents and past than time could ever afford.
"If John wasn't at Redverse, I don't know what would have become of him," she said, her voice cracking. She tugged a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed at her nose. "He needs this."
"He can still do what you didn't," Sherlock said, watching her more intently than he had watched anyone in his entire life. "He can still be happy."
"Can he?" she said, gazing out into the gloom. "Sometimes I think it's too late."
"It's never too late to be happy," Sherlock said, hardly able to believe that he was giving someone advice on happiness when he had been struggling with the concept for years. "I know he doesn't want to play football. What does he want to do? Surely you would know."
"A couple of years ago he wanted to be a doctor," she said at length. "But his father talked him out of that one," she added with a bitter laugh. "He's still got the UCL Medical School application form on his desk somewhere."
Sherlock was glad of the poor lighting or his surprise may have been too evident. His frequent assumptions that John wasn't academically inclined were, he feared, a bad sign. He had never seen John's schoolwork but the amount of time he spent training or with him seemed to make it unlikely that he would have much time to dedicate to achieving the grades needed for medical school.
He felt Mrs Watson's hand close over his on the arm of his chair. He looked quickly at her. He already knew what she was about to ask of him and he didn't quite know how he was going to do it.
"Look after him," she said, not releasing his hand. She was calm, but Sherlock could almost sense the desperation in her voice. "He hasn't got many friends in that school-"
"He's got plenty," Sherlock said, though he knew what she meant.
"None that really care about him," she said firmly, letting go of him and sitting slowly back in her seat.
Sherlock flinched. He'd been so preoccupied that he'd forgotten about his cigarette rapidly burning down towards his fingers. He dropped it onto the tiles, his fingers tingling from the burn.
"I'll do anything I can to help," he said.
He knew that wasn't what he really meant. What he meant was that he would do anything for John. There was nothing he wasn't worth. Sherlock couldn't believe it had taken someone like Mrs Watson to make him realise just how blessed he was to have John. Someone who understood him better than anyone else, who never tried to change him, who was kind and earnest and genuine.
Sherlock stood up. "Mrs Watson, thank you for everything you've done." He put his hand out for her to shake.
She stared at him, seeming slightly startled by the sudden gesture. She tentatively took it. "That's alright," she said, bewildered.
Sherlock let go of her hand with a tight-lipped smile that came far from naturally to him. He turned and walked back into the house. Everything was quiet. John's father didn't seem to have emerged from the bedroom again.
He went upstairs and found everything as he had left it; John's parents' bedroom door still closed and John's as well. He slipped inside, knowing John wouldn't be asleep. That he wouldn't have been able to sleep without knowing where he was.
He closed the door behind him and was thrown into complete darkness. He stayed where he was by the door, staring at where he knew John was lying. His mouth felt like it had forgotten how to function. The lamppost down in the street outside John's bedroom was throwing light through the cracks in the curtains and gradually Sherlock began to see the faint outline of John's figure, perfectly still in the darkness.
Sherlock's eyes were stinging. A throbbing ache had engulfed his throat.
"I really screwed things up."
He had spoken before he had really realised what he was about to say. John didn't move or make any motion he had heard him.
There was repression and misery in every inch of the unseen bedroom. The posters, the curtains, the barren desk. This wasn't John. He wasn't this person. And he wasn't the person Sherlock had brought home drunk and sobbing the night before, the person Sherlock had conjured in his warped, jealous mind.
Sherlock sat gingerly on the end of the bed, carefully avoiding crushing John's legs under the covers. "I should have known better than to take you to London," he said quietly. "I convinced myself I was some sort of fucking... saviour to you. I was selfish and stupid."
Every word felt like it was being torn out of his flesh. The act of laying himself bare for another person was completely alien. It hurt like nothing else he had ever experienced and he felt almost breathless with the pain.
"It wasn't your fault," he said, almost choking on the words. "I know it wasn't. It's just... " He faltered, dampening his dry lips with his tongue. "Sometimes the thought of anyone else touching you makes me so sick I can't think straight." He swallowed with difficulty. The taste of the cigarette was strong in his mouth. "You mean more to me than anything-"
There was a sudden flurry of movement from the bed. Sherlock was hardly able to catch his breath before John's mouth was pressed against his and his arms were around his neck, pulling him against him. Sherlock kissed him back almost feverishly. He felt like he hadn't kissed him for weeks and needed him so badly he could hardly breathe.
He was glad that he had stopped spilling his guts when he had. His thoughts were getting a little teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert for his liking. He wanted to keep swooning to a minimum in the future.
But as John straddled his hips, Sherlock's dignity more or less melted away. "I'm going to fuck you in your parents' house," he said into John's mouth, conscious of how husky his voice was from the cold and the smoke.
John moaned against his lips, rolling his hips against him. Whether it was conscious or unconscious Sherlock wasn't certain, but it sent a shot of pressure straight to his crotch.
Sherlock pushed him off his lap and onto his back. The darkness made everything markedly more haphazard but it rendered every little detail remarkably sharp in his imagination. The sensation of John's warm skin, his breath, every line of his body, every sound he made.
"You're a fucking tool, you know that?" John hissed, as he tore his shirt up around his armpits.
Sherlock took John's nipple between his teeth and John gave a shrill cry. "Shush," Sherlock said softly into his skin. "You'll wake the whole neighbourhood."
He knew they were taking a risk. John's door had no lock and he could only hope that John's parents weren't as indifferent to his privacy as Sherlock's were. However, John's moans were making it difficult to care if his father walked in that very moment.
He felt John arch up against him as his lips reached the skin below his navel. He could feel the band of John's pyjamas against his chin. "Sherlock," John said breathlessly. "Sherlock, this is such a bad idea."
Sherlock sucked hard on John's skin and he gave an almost compulsive shiver against him. "If you've got to scream, cover your mouth."
He stumbled blindly off the bed, almost breaking his leg on the mattress on the floor as he did. He couldn't see a thing and had to feel his way to his suitcase. He couldn't remember where he had put the condoms. He couldn't remember which zip opened which pocket. He couldn't even figure out which end was which in the dark.
"My father is going to hear us," John said through gritted teeth, from the direction of the bed.
"Turn on a fucking light!" Sherlock snapped over his shoulder.
"He might see it," John retorted.
Sherlock found the right pocket on his third attempt and staggered back to the bed, nearly killing himself on the mattress on the way back and almost crushing John when he fell on top of him.
"This is the last time we do it in the dark," he grumbled, yanking down his pyjama pants and his underwear.
"How do you want me?" John said, sounding embarrassed even when Sherlock could hardly see him.
"I dunno," Sherlock said, smirking. "What do you say to getting ploughed on your back like a girl?"
"Shut up," John snapped. He was definitely blushing now. "Fine."
Sherlock smirked wider to himself and gave him a shove onto his back. "Take your knickers off then, Mr. Watson."
He hooked his thumbs into the band of John's cotton pyjamas (with the miniature footballs on them) and waited for his signal to proceed. John clumsily raised his hips and let Sherlock tug them down. He did his underwear himself, with a great show of grumbling that Sherlock didn't believe for a moment.
He slid his hand between John's legs and gently took his cock in hand, caressing the underside with his fingertips. John groaned, thrusting his hips upward in a fruitless attempt to create friction against Sherlock's gentle touch.
"Fuck me already," he groaned.
Sherlock stuck his fingers into his mouth. It wasn't ideal. But the lube was at the bottom of his bag and there was no way in hell he was going to waste any more time trying to find it.
"Spread your legs wider," he said, feeling his way up John's thighs.
John moved his legs further apart with difficulty. Sherlock found his entrance with his fingers. He gently slipped one inside before John had time to tense up.
John made a choking sound beneath him, his nails curling into Sherlock's shoulders. "Ugh! Ah... I'm ok. I'm f-fine," he said shakily. "Do it."
Sherlock added another finger. John whimpered but it was obscured by a hand. Sherlock stretched him as well as he could without being able to see what he was doing. He had a sneaking suspicion that there was going to be more than a little friction when he entered him, but he decided not to mention it.
"That's enough," John said, his voice frayed. "I n-need you now."
Sherlock's erection was beginning to throb and he thought it was time to oblige him. "Put your legs around me," he breathed into John's ear.
John sounded like he was gasping for air but he nodded and did as he asked. Sherlock had to bite his lip hard to stop from crying out as John's lower body was pinned perfectly against his, his legs hooking around him with surprising ease given how little he could see.
Sherlock pushed himself slowly inside of him. John arched against him with a silent scream. Sherlock's hand grasped the back of John's head, hair getting caught between his fingers and in his nails. The other was tangled into the bed sheets.
John moaned into his ear, as he pulled out and took a gasp of air. He felt like hadn't breathed properly all night. He pushed back into him and John released a helpless whimper. Sherlock knew he was fighting back the urge to scream, every few moments he heard him throw his hand to his mouth and make a desperate sound into his palm.
Sherlock wished he could see John's expression. His imagination was compensating for it fiercely. In his mind's eye he could see John's flushed features, his agonized expression as Sherlock pumped himself inside of him, his eyes closed in desperation, his mouth open-
Sherlock had to cover his own mouth to muffle the sound that was torn from his throat at that visualization. "Ugh-God, John. John..." he whimpered.
His movements became frantic as John's breathing became less and less controlled and his almost-screams became almost one a second. Sherlock knew he was holding onto John's hair too tightly but he wasn't complaining. In fact his moans were becoming almost dangerously vocal.
John reached his orgasm first and almost ripped a hunk of flesh out of Sherlock's shoulder when he did. His scream was muffled by a combination of his hand and his teeth. Sherlock reached his own a moment later. He almost tore a hole in his lips trying not to cry out. He rode his orgasm out while John whimpered underneath him.
When he pulled out of John, his eyes had adjusted to the gloom sufficiently that he could actually see him. He was flushed and Sherlock had successfully made his hair look like he had just come in out of a wild storm.
He rested on his heels and fumbled with the rubber. He peeled it off and left it on John's bedside table.
"Remind me to pick that up in the morning," he mumbled, collapsing next to John on the bed.
"I can't believe we just did that," John said, sounding exhausted.
"I can't believe you managed to keep from screaming bloody murder," Sherlock said archly.
John swatted at him. "Shut up."
"No, really. I'm impressed," Sherlock quipped. "And you didn't even have a pillow to shove in your mouth this time."
John laughed sheepishly and edged closer to him. They were both sticky and damp with a combination of sweat and semen but neither of them seemed to mind.
There was silence. Sherlock listened to John breathing close to him and felt a pang that he never had before. He could never have lived with himself if he had let Mycroft's manipulation tear them apart. It wouldn't be easy to forget what he had done. Sherlock knew John knew that. But they could try. They owed it to each other to try.
He put his mouth to John's forehead. "I'm sorry I made you cry, Johnny."
"Call me that again and I will hurt you," John mumbled.
End of Chapter Nineteen