Sorry for the long wait between chapters, I've been on a school camp for the past week and so I had to resort to using a pen and paper to draft this chapter :O But I'm back home now and so here's the last chapter, complete with the most pathetically corny ending in the history of fanfic. Thankyou for all the reviews, it's been really flattering and encouraging to receive so much positive feedback :) Thanks and enjoy!
Watson had never really understood the difference between a house and a home until he returned to 221B Baker Street on that cold, weary afternoon. When he and Sherlock had first moved in it had been just a house, full of danger and pickled body parts and defaced wallpaper. But now the mess of scattered bills on the table, and pile of mugs filled with dregs by the sink, and even that godawfully creepy skull on the mantelpiece, made him feel like he had found a home for the first time since he left home for the army. And there was Sherlock to complete the picture, pushing past him roughly to neurotically check every crevice and teetering pile to reassure himself that his various eerie oddities and nauseating experiments remained untouched. Watson couldn't help but simply lean against the kitchen counter and watch, partly in acceptance of his helplessness to stop Sherlock in his obsessive drug-withdrawal haze, and partly to watch the way his eyes sparkled and blazed and his hair swirled as he circled the room. He was...beautiful. Why had he taken so long to realise?
Sherlock suddenly stopped completely still in the middle of the living room. "Watson...John...why haven't you cleaned?" He demanded, pacing the floor in angry confusion. "There are at least seven ears in the oven, there's still mugs all over the pile of clean washing, the salmon is still in the bathtub-"
"There's a salmon in the bathtub?"
"It was delivered yesterday. Mummy likes her fish fresh and she's coming for dinner tomorrow night." Sherlock retorted with a melodramatic eye roll, as if he even needed to explain. "Anyway, there's exactly the same dirty clothes in the hamper, and unless you've finally become smart enough to know how to clear your internet history, you haven't been on your laptop in nearly five days."
"Hey!"
"Choose a better password than Sarahxx," Sherlock countered with an even more disdainful eye roll, "and I wouldn't bother to break in! You make it too easy."
"You don't have the right-"
"WHY, John? Tell me! Why haven't you used your laptop, you blogging addict? Where. Have. You. Been?" Every word was enunciated as a frightened punch to John's ears.
"I couldn't leave you." He said it in a whisper, but Sherlock still heard it. They were the words he had always needed to hear. The words that had been in John's mind for days had finally forced their way out past his lips, and he immediately regretted it. The kiss in the hospital was just another bad idea from Sherlock's drug-addled mind, nothing more than John selfishly taking advantage of a man who trusted him and almost no-one else. What was he thinking? What was wrong with him lately? He stormed out without a backward glance, not having the strength to endure Sherlock's looks of derision and disapproval at such an admission of emotion and hence weakness.
By eight o'clock life was almost back to normal-they were sitting with their feet propped up on the coffee table that was littered with Chinese takeaway boxes. As usual, they were watching a ridiculously inaccurate crime show for no reason, and as usual Sherlock was lazily spouting insightful advice that went completely unheeded by the incompetent detectives on-screen. "So, seeing Sarah tomorrow? She must be angry that you spent so long at the hospital...with me."
"Not exactly...well, I asked her to sort of...let things cool off...rather a lot."
"So you're not seeing each other anymore?" Sherlock's face lit up brilliantly.
"...No, Sherlock." John rolled his eyes at Sherlock's eager fist pump and whoop of joy. "Oh come on, why do you care?" Sudden silence from Sherlock.
"Um, well...why did you leave Sarah?" Silence from John too. Sherlock eventually broke the deadlock by whispering "Why did you stay with me all that time?" John sighed and considered making an excuse, but the truth, though frightening to tell, was inevitable. It had to be acknowledged someday or he would go crazy, he couldn't keep it quiet any longer. "Because I...I love you...Sherlock." There was a brief glimpse of a thoroughly shocked face, and then a rustle of a long coat, and suddenly Sherlock's sparkling blue eyes were only inches away, his shaking, nervous breath rushing across John's cheeks. John had never seen him so close, so afraid, so excited. The next five words were the loudest whisper John had ever heard as they echoed through his heart and blood and mind. "I...love you too John." Trembling arms wound around John's waist, holding him tightly as if he would be torn away from him at any moment. Their kiss was shaky and glorious and nervous and sweet, the kiss of two men shaking off denial to realise that they were finally the perfect partners in crime.