Chapter 2
He'd known that he was in love with Sherlock Holmes the day after he fell from St Bart's. He'd known that the way he was feeling wasn't the way one felt when one lost a good friend. He felt hollow, empty, alone; and that's when he knew that he was falling in love. It was a rush of sudden realisation, and he felt lighter, somehow, knowing. To quote a book he had once read, he 'fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once'. Love hurt, and it was terrifying, and felt remarkably like hate at times; but it was love, and it was real and true and he is satisfied with that.
Sometimes, in the mornings, the sparrows on their roof wake him earlier than usual. John especially loves these days. They are clean, and crisp, and the silence is almost tangible. They are bright, and peaceful, and London seems somehow magical in the light of these new days. They're not like regular ones. He doesn't get up and make a cup of tea straight away like he normally does – instead, he simply lies there and soaks in the atmosphere, the calm and sweet breeze whispering softly across his eyelids. And then, when he is more alert, he opens his eyes and looks across to where he knows his husband will be. That's another thing about love; you know there's always going to be someone lying there on the other side of the bed.
Sherlock is utterly different when he sleeps. He is still, and almost angelic, his brilliant mind at rest for once. John can lie for hours just watching him breathe, treasuring the rise and fall of his chest. Now he knows what it feels like to lose him, he cherishes every beat of his heart, every flutter of his eyelashes. He watches as the sun rises and colours Sherlock's cheeks pale gold, and brushes his fingers across his jawline and down over his collarbone. He lets his hand lie there in the hollow of his husband's neck, the other arm thrown across his stomach, and he waits. He never wakes Sherlock. It is an unspoken deal he has with himself – he always, always lets him sleep until he wakes of his own accord. It's something to do with the way Sherlock hitches in a little breath before he opens his incredible eyes that look at you as if they could swallow you whole, or the way his first word in the morning is always, without fail, 'John.' Not a question, a statement. Spoken in that husky, sleep-roughened baritone. These things only occur if John lets Sherlock sleep, and so of course he does.
Then, after they have shared morning kisses and whispers and promises of love, they make breakfast. Sherlock has tea, and John has two slices of toast with jam. It's their routine, one of the only things in their life apart from each other that they can depend on, and they appreciate it. They make light conversation about trivial matters - Mrs Turner's married ones are adopting a baby, the robbery over on North Gower Street. Then, when they are done, John piles up the dirty crockery and Sherlock wanders over to the window and picks up his violin. It is one of the things John loves most about their mornings, listening to Sherlock play – he could almost fall back to sleep, washed away by the familiar melodies. He knows them all, now, even the ones Sherlock makes up. Music is a mystery to John - with its incomprehensible crotchets, and minims, and semi-demi-quavers, and its bemusing Italian words that he hears Sherlock murmuring to himself as he brings the bow back and forth (legato, rallentando, diminuendo) - but it doesn't matter. All that matters is the sound, and the love in the room as he listens to his husband tell the stories noted down in music form hundreds of years ago and many worlds away.