It hits him on a Monday, shuddering through his chest like a thunderclap. "Oh," he breathes. And then: "Oh, no."

Sherlock is standing on the couch, worn leather cushions straining beneath pale feet as he draws unintelligible nonsense all over the massive piece of paper he'd torn off a roll and tacked up not five minutes ago. John watches him sway, all manic energy and overflowing genius. He's charmingly tousled, hair a wild tangle and his most favoured pyjamas sitting on his hips despite it being early afternoon. A pink highlighter pen sits balanced between long, elegant fingers, creating a vibrant mess of words and figures across the white expanse. John had bought a variety pack months ago for work, taking the yellows and greens to the clinic and abandoning the pink ones in a drawer somewhere. Evidently they've been found. John exhales, long and low.

"What?" Sherlock mutters, the scratch of the pen halting momentarily, though he barely spares John a glance.

"What? Nothing," He says quickly, somewhat guiltily tearing his eyes from the scene on the sofa and returning his attention to the laptop currently lying atop his thighs. He shuffles around a bit in his chair, pulling one leg up under him. He swallows, staring at the screen and trying to tamp down the unexpected waves of dawning realization and dread raging through him from the tips of his fingers to his sock-clad toes.

This cannot be happening, he thinks, but immediately following that thought is another: It's already happened. Fuck.

He wants Sherlock.

He wants Sherlock.

It seems his latent bisexuality has come roaring back with a force that's set his heart hammering and knocked the breath right out of him on an unassuming Monday, here in their shared sitting room. But—but. No. He's not fancied a bloke since uni. (He ignores the niggling voice that suggests that's not quite true.) You don't want him, he tells himself instead. He's your best mate, and now you're bloody making it into something it really isn't.

"John," He jumps, huffing loudly and setting the laptop on the table at his side, lest he bloody drop the thing, agitated as he's become. Sherlock is watching him, brows pinched in (amused?) confusion. "What were you thinking about just then? Answer quickly."

John rolls his eyes, putting his hands on his knees and hoisting himself up.

"It'll be Harry's birthday next week," He lies. His go-to move for a while now has been to make things up about his sister when Sherlock's got him cornered—essentially boring the unsentimental genius into submission. "Never know what to get her."

"Her birthday is the second of December," Sherlock drawls, eyes narrowing. "Three months from now."

"Why do you know that?" John blurts before he can stop himself. "Forget it," He adds when Sherlock only raises an eyebrow in response. He flees to the kitchen to make tea. Sherlock leaps from the couch, dressing gown flaring as he falls, and follows him.

"You fabricate facts about Harriet when you don't want to answer a question. I took it upon myself to learn the basics. Tell me," He repeats, hovering, peering over John's shoulder trying to get a glimpse at his expression as he fills the kettle at the sink. John ignores him, continuing his ritual of avoidance. He slams down the kettle and flips on the hob, elbowing his flatmate in the side as he pivots.

"Having some?" He asks casually, yanking two mugs from the dish rack without waiting for a response. Sherlock hasn't moved, is still lingering petulantly, well within the bounds of what John would consider his personal space. "Can you bloody back up? You're—"

"Was it something to do with me?" Sherlock's voice holds a note of uncertainty, which is a rare enough occurrence that John steals a glance at his face. Oh, god. He's got that look on—the one that says he is dead set on getting to the bottom of whatever he thinks this is. John snorts.

"Modest."

"Jane, then," Sherlock says, inexplicably. He sounds almost disappointed. Jane? Oh. John stares stubbornly at the kettle, willing it to bloody boil already. "I suppose it has been just over three weeks," Sherlock is muttering, seemingly to himself. "Could potentially explain—"

"What're you on about?" John finally turns, pressing back into the worktop as far as he's able in a futile attempt to escape Sherlock's alarming proximity. "You bloody know her name is Alice. And anyway, I've ended it."

"Have you?"

"You know I have!" He's shouting. Why is he shouting? He'd only seen Alice, a much-too-young auxiliary nurse at the clinic, a handful of times over—yes—the last three weeks. They'd found no connection whatsoever, both clearly bored out of their bloody skulls, and he'd given it up two nights ago when Sherlock had summoned him. He'd gotten the text just as he and Alice were sitting down to dinner. I've got to go, actually, he'd said, not even looking at her as he'd immediately tapped out a response to his mad flatmate. Not sure this is really working out anyway—but I'll see you around? When he'd finally looked up he'd been met with an eye roll and a perfectly manicured middle finger.

He'd then spent the night with Sherlock, happily freezing his arse off in silence while staking out an underground gambling ring. In retrospect, he probably should have seen this coming.

Sherlock gives him a contemplative, pinched look that John is well aware means How have I missed this? and he uses the momentary distraction to slide out from the cage of Sherlock's gangly body and create some space between them.

"If not Astrid—" Sherlock begins as John rolls his eyes. "—then it was to do with me. Tell me what you were thinking, John." Jesus Christ. This level of persistence is odd even for the most infuriatingly tenacious man John has ever known.

"Will you drop it?" He tries, pushing Sherlock gently toward the kitchen table so he can prepare their tea in peace. "What's gotten into you?"

"You've been—Three sugars. Last time you only put two."

"I always put three. You've probably grown immune, since your entire diet consists of sugar-laden rubbish. How have I been, Sherlock? What were you going to say?" Despite the treacherous path they've unwittingly walked down, he wants to know what Sherlock thinks he's seen. The man has no emotional intelligence to speak of, as far as John can see. Claims to be a bloody sociopath, but after a year of cohabitating John knows that isn't true either. Still, there's no chance he's aware of this epiphany and the growing weight of it, the growing dread at the thought of facing it head on. How would that even go? Sorry to make everything unbearably awkward, but I've just realized I'm actually quite in love with you? Oh, god. Where did that come from?

John drops into a chair and hands Sherlock his overly sweet tea. Love, really? Is that what this is? Nothing about this is anything like what he's experienced of love. In all his life he's never fallen for his closest friend. He's never considered finding a partner with whom he's already built an unshakeable foundation of respect, of trust. I'd do anything for him. I'd do anything with him. He knows this to be true.

"Ha!" Sherlock jabs one slender finger in John's direction, snapping him out of his rather alarming reverie. "There it is again." Sherlock drops his hand, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in the chair, a punchably smug look on his face. John scowls. "You've been doing that. Brooding with an inscrutable expression on your face. A new one."

"Have I?" John considers this. "For how long?"

"Going on three weeks."

Three weeks ago, Sherlock had nearly gotten himself killed (again) by tumbling straight off a barge like a rag doll and into the bloody freezing Thames. John had followed without a second's thought, finding a much less lively version of his flatmate bobbing eerily in the murky current with an unmissable bump on his head. He'd dragged the impressive deadweight of a limp body back to the rocky shore, fueled by adrenaline and a level of loss and terror he's certain he'd never felt before.

He hadn't hesitated to share breath with practiced hands and his own capable lungs—and the moment Sherlock had gasped back to the land of the living, coughing putrid water into the mud below, John himself could breathe again.

They'd spent the night in hospital monitoring the concussion, much to Sherlock's exasperated annoyance. John had stayed at his bedside, and no one had questioned his presence, not once. He'd sat up all night.

He'd thought: It happened so bloody quickly. He'd thought: What would I have done if it had all gone wrong? He'd thought: We're too attached. It isn't normal. He'd thought: I don't even have my own life anymore.

The next day, he'd asked Alice to dinner, in what he'd known, even at the time, was a pathetic attempt at finding one.

"John."

Now he looks up at Sherlock, who sits across from him at their cluttered kitchen table, and he knows what this is, and he knows what he feels.

"Sherlock," John mimics his deeply annoyed baritone, and Sherlock smiles.

"Tell me," He says, again, reaching across the table to nudge a single bony knuckle against the back of John's hand. John sighs, looks down at his cup of tea as he rolls it between his palms.

"It's to do with you, yeah. I'm not sure you'll want to hear it, Sherlock," He hasn't looked up, gaze still locked on the swirling milky liquid in his cup. Time seems to drip by in tense silence, and he closes his eyes briefly against the eventual scrape of Sherlock's chair over the kitchen floor, sees the man rise to his full height in his periphery. He can feel his the heat of his body as he looms behind John's chair, a few interminable seconds ticking by before there are cool fingers on his neck, sliding up to cup his jaw and tip his head back. John stares wide eyed up at Sherlock, whose pale, earnest face is hovering—upside down—above him, curls tumbling out of place as the two of them remain paralyzed by lingering uncertainty.

"Am I wrong?" Sherlock's voice is a whisper, hot breath just barely ghosting over John's parted mouth. He presses his lips together, swallows, shakes his head where it's still cradled between two narrow palms.

Sherlock grins, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he leans forward and kisses him. And it's tentative, soft, but Sherlock's grip is strong—and they're turned the wrong way but god, it doesn't feel wrong. John slides his hands over spindly fingers, pries them gently away and stands, immediately reaching out just as both elegant hands return to cup his neck. Tripping forward, they haul each other in, fingers digging into flesh and mouths speaking silent vows and long-overdue declarations.

"God, Sherlock," John breathes, pressing his nose into the dip of pale skin at the base of Sherlock's throat. He slides his palms from the twist of curls they're buried in to wrap instead around the small of his best friend's back. "I think this could work."

He feels Sherlock smile against his forehead, feels him sigh and shift and relax in John's hold. He traces the bumps of John's spine with his fingertips, making him feel cherished, and unquestionably whole.

"I've always known that, John," He says haughtily, still smiling and pressing two brief kisses to John's forehead before enveloping him in both strong arms. "I've been waiting on you."

/

(Find the rest of my works on AO3.)