Tuesday, March 3, 2014

John

John hates himself. He knows Sherlock is right, and has no effing idea how to go about fixing this.

He's resigned himself to staying at a hotel for another couple of nights. Foolish, that he's not already searching for a new flat mate, but he simply can't and won't accept that he'll never call 221b home again. The mere concept sends his mind reeling. As long as he leaves the possibility open, he doesn't have to face the increasingly harsh reality of his situation with Sherlock.

He walks aimlessly around the supermarket for a solid ten minutes before remembering what he's here for.

"John?"

He freezes, one hand on a TV dinner. "Molly?"

"Hello," she says nervously. "I... is everything alright?"

He contemplates giving the socially acceptable answer: yes, everything's jolly good, and nice weather too. But Molly's gazing at him in genuine concern, and his shoulders slump. "No," he says. "I'm – fuck it all."

She flinches. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"

"It's not you. I... Christ." He shuts the freezer door and places the shopping basket on the floor to rub a hand over his face. "I broke up with Mary."

She can't quite feign surprise, and he closes his eyes for a moment. Of course she knows. Everyone probably does, at this point. Poor John Watson, confined to singledom the rest of his life.

"It's okay. It's just that, well. What you said at the wedding... it wasn't, you know. He does – did – love me."

She doesn't miss a beat this time. "I know. It was really obvious," she adds half-apologetically. "So what happened?"

He pauses. "Have you got an hour or two?"

She glances at her watch. "I'll ring Tom and tell him to start dinner without me."

"Oh, god no, I won't interrupt –"

"John. It's fine." She nods at him encouragingly. "You need to talk."

"I..."

"You do. Come on, then." She jerks her head to the shopping basket. "Let's pay and go to the cafe down the street. They're open past nine."

"I could rather use a drink –" He's met with a stern glare. "Never mind. Cafe it is."

They pay and meander quietly to the coffee shop. Molly doesn't get anything, but John purchases a small latte to stop the baristas from casting them dirty looks.

"So, um. I'm sorry that I – I don't know where to begin, actually." He gives a shaky laugh. "I fucked up pretty badly."

"You kissed Sherlock, didn't you?"

He doesn't have the energy to be shocked. Instead, wearily, "How did you know?"

"He left halfway through the ceremony. He looked distraught. Mycroft and I noticed. And Mrs. Hudson. We... well, I've some experience and I know the look of someone whose heart's just been broken. I assumed you had kissed him, or professed your love, or something. He wouldn't've looked so wrecked otherwise."

Wrecked. Brilliant. Just brilliant. "If you're trying to make me feel worse, you're succeeding," John snaps.

"Sorry. It's the truth. Isn't the truth preferable?"

"I..." He sighs.

"You say that a lot," Molly points out.

"So?" he asks defensively. "Just gathering my thoughts."

She bites her lip. "Alright."

"I'm trying to figure out where to start."

"Okay. What happened after the wedding?" she says, and John begins.

Sherlock

Mycroft tries to speak with him, to no avail. Sherlock refuses to let him in.

"Sherlock..."

"Fuck off," Sherlock says clearly and distinctly, slamming the door on his brother's foot.

He plays violin through the night, love songs and tales of sorrow and explosions of frustration, one piece after another, until he's run out of sheet music and frantically grabs a handful of old tax returns on which he scribbles notes and more notes, graphite and ink blending together and bleeding against the stark whiteness. He composes for five hours, and it is only at six in the morning that he finally pauses, chest heaving and fingers sore, to take a breath.

He slumps into his chair, heart thrumming.

Mrs. Hudson's kitten heels tap against the bottom stair. He tenses; he is not in the mood to deal with a concerned mother hen. Something gives her pause, though, and a few beats later she retreats.

Sherlock lets his head fall backwards, unsupported and exhausted. There's a thin sheen of sweat coating his skin and hunger gnaws at his abdomen. Ignore, for now.

He sighs and lets his mind skitter around the topic of John. Everything is slowly clicking into place, in areas that had remained untapped, and the hours of frenetic music-making have, surprisingly, calmed him.

John. The polar opposite of a pathological liar. Compulsively honest, uninhibitedly loyal.

Something bobs to the surface, previously unnoticed. Honest, loyal. Two characteristics which Sherlock has foolishly overlooked.

John doesn't break vows. He can't.

He doesn't lie, and neither does he hurt people. He doesn't do things out of self interest, not really.

In every instance, whether Sherlock has admitted to it or not, John's anger has been justified. Until now.

Or is it?

Sherlock swings his legs over the arm of his chair, adjusting himself so that he's angled sideways and engaged in a staring contest with the entryway to the kitchen. He thinks.

Oh. Oh.

It's a revelation that comes so swiftly he almost forgets this isn't a case, the rush of adrenaline and relief being nearly identical.

He has been operating under the assumption that John is as certain of Sherlock's feelings as he himself is. What is plainly evident to him, however, is not necessarily the same to others: Lestrade and Anderson's idiotic blatherings are testament enough.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Sherlock has had the upper hand in all of this. He flies through life expecting others to follow along, but sometimes they don't. And John... Sherlock realizes, albeit painfully, that maybe John was not following along quite so well in this instance.

Could it be that John didn't, couldn't, wouldn't leave Mary because he wasn't sure of Sherlock's feelings? Sure that Sherlock would really and truly be there? And could it possibly be that by the time he did, by the time he was confident enough in Sherlock's devotion, that it was, in effect, too late?

John doesn't break vows.

Sherlock leaps to his feet, pressing his fingers to his lips, and begins pacing.

John was two steps behind Sherlock in all of this. He needed Sherlock to spell everything out plainly, and Sherlock failed. Were obvious hints not so obvious? Was the fact that he never once corrected those who thought them to be romantically involved insufficient proof? Indications too subtle, potential interpretations far too plentiful?

There was John's wedding day. Then, and only then, did the doctor make one last desperate attempt to test the waters, because he knew that he would be swearing his life to another. And Sherlock broke because he thought, he thought, that John must have been aware of his actions, that John must have consciously broken Sherlock's heart.

But did he?

Sherlock sees it now, sees it through John's eyes, watches the entire convoluted drama play out, and spins round, hissing an ecstatic "yes" through his teeth. There it is. The explanation he's missed. The one puzzle piece that didn't fit. The reason for John's most intense and baffling reaction.

Sherlock dials Mycroft's number, because fucking hell, he needs to share this development. It doesn't solve anything. It doesn't fix what he and John have created. But it does... it does something.

"Sherlock? For your information, I'm currently icing a fractured –"

"Don't care, don't care, don't care. You had it coming."

"If you are calling to harass me –"

"Mycroft, I realized something."

Silence. Well then. Sherlock plows on,

"John didn't know that I wanted him. He was not aware of my desire from the start, and I was foolish to have expected him to."

"Excuse me, you were what?"

"Foolish, dumb, silly." Sherlock waves a hand dismissively, seized by the glory of his new understanding. "Oh, don't you see? This is fabulous! This is Christmas!"

"Where are you? I'm sending Anthea right now."

"Why? I've finally seen the light –"

"Are you concussed? Dear God, what have they done to you?"

Sherlock wants to take his brother by the shoulders and shake him. "Listen!" he shouts. "John didn't know, did he?"

"Didn't know what? That you were in love with him?"

"That I am, that I always have – he didn't realize, he didn't see, and I thought he did, that whole time, that he knew everything and could tell everything – he needed a push, to leave Mary, didn't he? That's what you gave him?"

"I –" stammered Mycroft.

"Oh, we had chemistry, we had something, he killed a man for me. But all along I was waiting for him to make the obvious move – obvious to me. Was he waiting for the same? People are so dreadfully confusing, so complicated – but I see, I think I see now – you shouldn't have interfered, he shouldn't have hesitated – but he didn't do it to be malicious, no, not John, never John... he hesitated because he doesn't break vows, because he owed nothing to me, because I never told him – telling people is so juvenile, I thought – I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought that actions and body language could speak for themselves but John is ordinary, at least in that regard, in that he doesn't observe as much as he sees –"

"Sherlock. Could you stop for just one –"

"But now what do I do? No, I'm not asking you, don't answer that, please." Sherlock pauses, hitting a roadblock. "What does one typically do upon recognizing a miscalculation of their own doing?"

"As touching as this is –"

"Never mind that now. I shall go to John immediately."

"I'm not really sure if that's –"

"Oh, he'll love this one, I know he will. He'll realize –"

"Brother!" barks Mycroft.

Sherlock pauses, hand already on the collar of his coat.

"You are still on the high of this 'deduction.'" He pauses, and his sneer is nearly audible. "You have yet to come down from this. If you barge in on John, you will give the impression of a mad man, and this time he may be less inclined to forgive you."

"If he cares about me –"

"Which, rest assured, he does. I rarely advise sentiment, but it is rather a foregone conclusion at this point, and I am advising you now to wait until you have managed to appear rather more... human, than you are now. Which means emotions. John is a man who likes to see emotions, not crazed magic tricks."

"You are... you are telling me to wait to share my revelation?"

"Don't approach John as if he is a teacher with whom you would like to share your recent findings regarding the exponential growth of bread mold. Approach him as if he is, well."

"John Watson."

"Yes."

"John Watson likes... wants me to talk. About."

"Yes," Mycroft prompts him.

"Feelings."

"Just get your head straight before you talk to him. I must away."

"Excuse me? My head is perfectly –"

"I am off to take some much-needed aspirin. You've now inflicted a headache upon me, in addition to a severely injured appendage."

"Wait, but what should I –"

The phone clicks off.

Sherlock stands in the center of the room and stares blankly at the wall for a solid five minutes before marching to the threshold and shouting, "Mrs. Hudson! Tea, please!" warranting the typical call of "not your housekeeper, dear!" even as she puts the water on to boil.

He throws himself back into his chair and prepares himself to think and plan and consider once again. Only this time he has biscuits.