In this chapter:
"... the thought was brushed from his mind by the sight of Sherlock perched over his microscope, wearing a grey t-shirt, pyjamas bottoms and his rather old blue dressing gown on top of them.
For a moment, he could do nothing but stare. Was he ready for this? He asked himself dumbly. Was he ready for the domesticity and everything that came with it?
Was he ready to let go of it?"
CHAPTER 20
Warmth. All he could feel was warmth inside him, and all around him.
John tried to hold on to the feeling that spread through his body, willing his mind to go back offline, to keep itself covered under the dreamy haze.
He could still feel smooth skin under his fingertips and a faint scent that lingered about him.
Olfactory memory, his unfortunately waking mind supplied. He had never known it worked in dreams too.
The sensations were familiar to him in the same vague and fuzzy way.
He was still able to hear the low humming noise that tickled something in the back of his mind, but he could not for the life of him pinpoint exactly what it was.
John could still feel the slow but steady rhythm of a heartbeat that was not his own. It embraced him, as if this mysterious person were not only still in bed with him, but glued to every inch of his skin.
He felt spellbound to it.
How could some unidentified person have that much power over him?
He felt a pang in his chest at that.
It hadn't been Mary in his dream. He didn't know who it had been, but it hadn't been her, he knew that much.
John held himself still and kept his eyes closed for a moment, trying fruitlessly to go back to the dream and to its feeling of safety and contentment.
He had never had a dream like that. Not even before the army had screwed up his sleeping pattern. Considering the nightmares that clouded his sleep more frequently than not these days, the dream had been a god send. He felt comfortable in a way that he hadn't for a long time.
Forcing himself to finally open his eyes, it wasn't without surprise that John realised that he was at Baker Street, more precisely in the very bedroom he had once thought he would never set foot in again.
He groaned, smashing his face back on the soft pillow. It was his pillow. Sherlock hadn't been joking about everything being the same, but for the smell of freshly washed bedding. He obviously had Mrs Hudson to thank for that.
Running his eyes across the old furniture – an old chest of drawers and the wardrobe – he admitted that the view of the room only helped to maintain the warmth of the dream. The whole room seemed to keep it alive just so John could enjoy it for a bit longer.
He smiled, thanking whatever god might be listening for being back at the flat again. A flat with a bedroom that was his, and a mad detective that could also be considered his, in a way or another.
John frowned. He pushed the former thought aside, crediting it to the peculiar haziness he felt.
He sat up on the bed, still tangled in the sheets. Yawning, he probed his body to come back online for once, knowing that his brain would not be fully functioning until his first cup of tea. He had to go to the surgery today and he needed to get going.
It was only after planting his feet on the floor that bits of reality came crashing into him and he remembered the previous night: Lily and the groping sadness that had taken over him, Sherlock and their argument about John's armchair.
Had the argument only been about that?
And he remembered the brown envelope and its revolting contents. John promised himself not to approach the subject with Sherlock – most of all because he had no fucking clue of how to go about that. He was mortified that Sherlock had seen those documents, never mind that he had probably known it all since their first day at Baker Street.
He didn't want to talk about the fact that he was being used as a means to get to Sherlock once more. He didn't think he could find words to properly describe just how sodding tired of this he was. Sherlock already thought sentiment was a simple liability, a weakness amongst normal and petty human beings. John reckoned he didn't need any more proof of that bullshit.
How could he coax Sherlock into sharing what was happening to him if the detective kept being reminded of how a two and a half inches way was such a small distance between John and death?
John was fighting an invisible enemy here. He felt so bloody confused by all that. Who could be so powerful as to lay their hands on those kind of official documents – including his military medical record, for Christ's sake.
It was like they were being threatened by Mycroft's evil twin and wasn't that a terrifying thought.
He also didn't think he could handle another one of Sherlock's lies. Not again.
He gave himself a shake and took a steady breath, already missing his dream wholeheartedly. He had woken up from that glorious feeling to be thrown into his frankly shitty reality.
He sighed, getting to his feet and starting his day.
Half an hour later, ready to go to work, John stepped into the kitchen noticing that the door to the living room was closed. Before he could ask why, the thought was brushed from his mind by the sight of Sherlock perched over his microscope, wearing a grey t-shirt, pyjamas bottoms and his rather old blue dressing gown on top of them.
For a moment, he could do nothing but stare. Was he ready for this? He asked himself dumbly. Was he ready for the domesticity and everything that came with it?
Was he ready to let go of it?
"Morning," John said, trying to sound pleasant. Sherlock just hummed in response.
It made a smile tug the corner of John's mouth, nonetheless. Sherlock's curly hair went in all directions, which only made his smile wider. He didn't know if he was ready, but he sure as hell valued the fact that he was able to share Sherlock's company like this again.
He made tea and toast for Sherlock as well without bothering to ask if he had already eaten. Of course he hadn't.
John sat himself in front of the detective and picked up the newspaper from the table, revealing the brown envelope Sherlock had clearly been studying before John had got downstairs for breakfast.
That was it, then, John thought.
They would have another one of those terse talks, or they would shout at each other and one of them would storm out. He was so tired of all those outcomes.
Sherlock cleared his throat with a painful expression on his face. "I wasn't trying to keep it from you," he said weakly.
And John, for once, chose to believe him. Sherlock wouldn't leave the envelope laying around if he didn't want John to see it. Damn, John would still be in the dark about all this if Sherlock hadn't made the choice of letting him in – as much as Mycroft had allowed him to choose, that was.
John looked up from his mug. "All right." He was being sincere, if a bit strained. "I want to shoot them in the head," he admitted, quite at ease with himself.
He did want that.
He had absolutely no humanitarian feelings about someone who was using both Sherlock's and his own emotional and physical scars to have a bit of fun.
Sherlock looked at him, startled. Something in John's gaze must have broken his surprise, however, because when he smiled at John it was full of understanding – as if they hadn't been separated for more than a week in their lives.
"I share your ambitions," he said, already looking back through his eyepiece.
John continued to peruse the paper, and his eyes flew casually to the date.
Fuck, when was the last time he had talked to Mary?
A muffled sound made John freeze in his spot. Sherlock was humming some tune or another, completely absorbed in his experiment.
John's chest felt constricted, as if his heart had gone too swelled for its cavity.
He closed his eyes and focused all his senses on that noise – that accidental noise – that brought back the memory of last night's dream to the front of John's scattered brain.
He didn't need to hear it again. In fact, he had heard that sound a billion times before. It was Sherlock's content about my science shenanigans humming noise, the one John long ago used to associate with quiet mornings and home.
He tried to remember more about the dream because he had to know. He couldn't let his own mind hide something that big from him.
Sure enough, he could call up the sensation of Sherlock's skin under his fingertips, as if reminiscence of it had been stored in his epidermis all along. All the times when Sherlock had hurt himself and John had examined him, another dozen times when they had held each other's hands for one reason or other – even running from the police once, just before everything went to hell.
That one time, weeks before, when John had felt the angry scar that now adorned Sherlock's lower back–
John took a shaky breath and opened his eyes, unable to stop himself from staring at Sherlock's face. It was all there. The skin, the humming noise, the musky scent he could identify with his eyes closed. He couldn't believe he had been oblivious to it until now.
John would bet his life that if he were to feel Sherlock's heart through his t-shirt right now, he would feel embraced by the same haziness from that morning.
Who could have been that superlative, if not Sherlock? Who could have held John in such powerful grip even in his dreams?
He felt completely stupid for not having figured it out before, for letting himself be dragged into it. It was unbearably embarrassing.
He forced himself to come back from his thoughts only to realize that Sherlock was staring right back at him.
John tried to mask the wave of panic that threatened to make him run from the flat. He willed himself not to fidget under Sherlock's knowing gaze.
Fuck, how could one hide anything from Sherlock Holmes? How could John of all people hide this from him?
John continued to stare because he quite frankly did not think he would be able to do much else. He concentrated hard and tried to find out if Sherlock could see right through him.
He squinted at Sherlock's intense gaze.
No, Sherlock couldn't possibly suspect–
Sherlock would never know. He would know something was amiss, but he would never deduce this. This wasn't something one could deduce out of thin air.
"So, did you sleep well?" Sherlock's suddenly asked.
Oh, shit.
But John could see he was only fishing for clues of what John was hiding.
"I– Yes, very well," John said, trying to act normal. "You?"
Sherlock waved a hand to dismiss John's question. "Any nightmares?"
And that made John stop to really look at Sherlock. How could he possibly–
Sherlock was looking at John as if he was waiting for a confirmation of some sort. As if John were one of his petri dishes and he was about to take notes. It made John want to giggle.
God, he was weird.
He then remembered that night weeks ago at Mrs Hudson's. He remembered doing the dishes side by side with Sherlock, and being told by the very man that he had used the violin to smooth John's nightmares.
It made sense. It made so much sense, John was glad he was sitting down. Every one of those things – violin and the memory of smooth skin, the ghost of the humming noise and Sherlock's heartbeat – was making his body turn into jelly.
He gathered up his courage, though, because he was a Captain, for Christ's sake. He wasn't a puppy.
"No nightmares," he shook his head. His voice came out surprisingly steady. "You played the violin, didn't you?"
His heart was trying to climb up his throat.
"Yep," Sherlock grinned, making the 'p' pop between his lips.
It was only a dream, John told himself over and over while he cleaned his teeth and went to work.
Riding the tube, John found a seat and fished his phone off his pocket.
He couldn't stop thinking about the damn dream. It made him feel guilty, even though he knew it hadn't been his fault.
John wasn't interested in any of those theories about dreams being the true expression of the heart. He didn't have time for that now.
He shook his head at himself. He had to forget it, never mind that he had felt better than... Hell, better than he could remember ever feeling, if he was honest.
John looked down at his phone and frowned when he noticed it wasn't working. He tried pressing all the buttons and even shook it uselessly making the teenager beside him roll his eyes.
Well, he wasn't that good with technology, all right.
John tried to remember the last time he had charged his phone. He had absolutely no idea. Sighing, he put it back in his pocket.
Mary had probably called him, she must be worried sick about him. For how long had he been walking about London with Sherlock and no phone?
Had he even brought his charger to Baker Street? He couldn't remember. He thought he had, but who knew?
He would send Mary an email the minute he stepped into his office. She was always glued to her smartphone, she would receive it right away.
John forced himself to think about her. The soft curve of her body, the happiness he felt when they embraced in bed, late at night.
It felt hollow and grey in his head, like an ancient picture.
They had been sleeping apart for so long, what with John's nightmares and Mary's absence.
And there he was, having dreams about warmth and contentment and bed with his best friend.
Honestly, what was wrong with him?
Life had already been too hard on him, he didn't need any more pain nor awkwardness disrupting his relationship with Sherlock, that was for sure.
He would call Mary the minute he stepped inside his office. He would hear her voice and everything would be fine.
The day at the surgery passed in a blur.
Three cases of flu and one of ear infection were nothing compared to the excitement of being Sherlock's sidekick – or whatever the press was calling John these days – but he felt glad.
Mary had not picked up when John called the first time. Neither had she picked the second time, nor the third. John had fired an email, explaining that he was staying at Baker Street for some days and that he had been a simpleton for forgetting to charge his phone.
He hadn't received any answer.
The thing about guilt – John thought – was that it made him paranoid.
John had had no control whatsoever over the contents of his dream, but he was pierced by how guilty he felt.
The worst was that he could still remember the intensity. If he closed his eyes for a moment while waiting for his next patient to arrive, he could still feel the buzz in his skin, a happiness so solid he could almost touch it.
If he just let himself–
And that was the problem, wasn't it? He couldn't.
He couldn't let his eyes close and his mind wander like that to pale skin and curly hair, quicksilver eyes and smart lips.
It was just too much. And John was only human...
He had closed this door long ago. He couldn't let Sherlock hurt him like that too. It would cripple him.
He walked back from the tube to 221B trying to find a balance between the lingering warmth the dream had left jolting through his mind and the conflict it had awoken inside him.
It was too tempting to let go of the bittersweetness for a minute and just bask in it.
Far from John to assume the role of victim in his life, but he had gone through enough shit in the past years.
There was nothing wrong with wanting a little piece and quiet – even if it had originated in a dream. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept so well, he couldn't remember waking up with a smile on his face for a long time.
And his heart ached thinking about Mary. He was sure he had been happy in countless days waking up beside her, and it gutted him that somehow he couldn't remember any of those days now.
What worried John the most was how comfortable Sherlock felt in his mind – as if he had always belonged there. And, okay, maybe there had been a time when that had been true, but that time was over. It had to be.
Everything in John's life seemed to come back to one curly-haired head and cunning tongue, never mind how long he tried to disentangle himself from them – and oh, hell, there wasn't a pun intended in that, no way. He didn't even want to think about that.
The wind ruffled his hair and helped ground him.
It was bordering insane how at ease he felt going back to Baker Street after work, as if his daily routine had never been changed at all. As if all this had not been ripped from him years ago when Sherlock had flung himself from that rooftop.
It was important to remember that.
After so many months of trying to stop the resentment from suffocating him or leading him to kill Sherlock, John had come to a point where he had to force himself to remember what had happened. Not exactly because he had forgotten, but because things hurt in a completely different way now that he had time – and space, since he had been back at the flat for a few days – to reacquaint himself with Sherlock and his – their – life.
It was a dull ache, a sort of physical reminder of how connected John was with it. He reckoned even his body reacted differently when around Sherlock. He was more alert, though less anxious. He could be his captain self again without the fear of scaring Mary or his co-workers. There was a whole part of him that had been so excruciatingly linked to Sherlock Holmes when John had left the army, that it wasn't a surprise that only Sherlock Holmes himself, back from the dead, could awaken it.
And the familiarity in the back of his mind did not let him forget for a minute that, despite everything, he loved this.
He loved this too much.
So much so that it made him question his own sanity in accepting to be with Sherlock in the flat again when in reality he was preparing to be through with that life for good. He was completely stupid for letting himself fall back to the life he had years ago when he should have been trying to get on his feet again, to get a good balance between his new life and the old one.
What John felt while turning his key in 221B's door was that he was making a mess out of it.
Was he mad for wanting everything back? Wasn't it just sad that he wanted so badly something that he would never have again?
He walked up the stairs calmly, savouring each one of the steps like the ridiculous, soppy idiot he was. The quiet murmuring coming from upstairs pricked John's curiosity, which only grew after the loud laughter that followed.
He frowned, stepping into the kitchen, noticing that the door to the living room was still closed. He kept his steps light and unassuming, and couldn't tell why he was behaving as if he was in a war zone.
He approached the kitchen's door to the living room, trying to make out what was being said. He felt too curious about who Sherlock was amusing. It was not jealousy, of course, just a shadow of estrangement.
There wasn't any other way to go about it, so he stepped out of the kitchen into the hallway again, deciding he would be less creepy if he just opened the door to the living room, as he would do in any normal circumstance.
And what welcomed him in the living room was not at all what he had expected, so it took a moment for him to take everything in.
Straight ahead, John could see... his desk.
Well, a desk that looked like the one he used to have there. It sat right in front of Sherlock's, as if it had never been removed in the first place. He felt silly for how light headed he was by the sight of it. It was just a desk – and a chair – nothing more than old furniture, but still...
Sherlock sat in his armchair, looking at John knowingly. He had probably been expecting John. Damn, he had probably heard John being a creep in the kitchen a moment ago.
Turning his head, John was embraced by the sight of the very thing he had missed the most in the last few days, the only thing that could make his days at Baker Street even better and somewhat worse than they already were.
There, looking comfortable as ever, was his armchair.
It would have been absolutely perfect, if not for the stranger sat rather cosily in it. John held himself against the ridiculous will to haul the man from that spot, to shout at him that he had no right to sit there before John had had the pleasure.
Before John could reassert his possession over it.
Good god, he sounded insane even to his own self.
He had to get a fucking grip.
John knew he should say something, knew that he probably looked a bit deranged, frozen in the middle of Sherlock's living room, with his mouth hanging open.
The man gave Sherlock a small smile and raised an eyebrow at him. "Ah, now I know why." And his tone indicated he was teasing and it sat wrong in John's ears, although he couldn't explain why.
Sherlock rolled his eyes at the man's words, but kept his gaze intent on John's face. John wanted to smile at him, to thank him for giving his things back – when, really, John didn't have the right to ask for them–
But apparently, the only thing John could do was to try not to drown in Sherlock's eyes. The effort to keep what he was feeling from showing took most of the energy he still had, so he just nodded, keeping his mouth shut.
"Everything all right?" He asked Sherlock, because – reunion with old furniture aside – that was the main reason John accepted to be at Baker Street again, and he didn't have a clue to who that random person was. He could be an assassin for all John knew.
The curve of Sherlock's lips when he smiled inconspicuously at John grounded him, so he told himself to stop behaving like a mad man.
"John Watson," he offered his hand to the man sitting undeserving on his chair. John pointedly did not tell him to go sit somewhere else, which was a victory in itself. The man stood up and shook his hand firmly, smiling pleasantly.
"Of course, John, I know who you are," he told John, even though his eyes never left Sherlock. "How could I not?"
John tried to smile at that. It didn't make him feel flattered, just lost, and by god did he hate that feeling.
He looked intently at the man in front of him, who didn't seem capable of taking his eyes off Sherlock. He looked at the detective as if he liked him and – of course, John wanted Sherlock to be valued and liked, but still...
It didn't change the fact that John had no idea of who the hell this was.
He seemed jovial and light in a way John himself hadn't been able to feel since joining the army.
Maybe John was behaving too much like Sherlock, but, fuck, he would be able to swear that this man right in front of him had never seen war in his damn life.
John chastised himself and tried to shut his inner voice. He looked at the man again and was surprised by how blue his eyes were. They had an almost defiant blaze in them.
He looked back at John with an amused smile on his face. John suspected he had been staring way too long. Maybe he had introduced himself and John hadn't even noticed, fucking Christ.
"Sorry, what was that?" John asked, with a self-deprecating smile. As if he needed any more reasons to feel like an idiot today.
The man walked over to Sherlock, who had stood up for no apparent reason. "I'm Victor. Victor Trevor, an old friend of Sherlock's," he said merrily, patting Sherlock on the back.
Was his hand lingering there?
Why was John noticing that, for Christ's sake?
He dragged his eyes from where Victor was holding the detective.
"Nice to meet you," John said, trying to keep the inexplicable distaste out of his voice.
Notes:
Okay, so... I know what you are all thinking right now. DO NOT HATE ME, okay.
I just wanted to say that this is a Johnlock story. It's a story about their relationship, about how hard it is for them to let go of all the hurt they have experienced in their lives and come to terms with being around each other again. So try to enjoy even the bumps in the road.
Also, for reference, I know most people work with Tom Hiddleston as their headcanon for Victor Trevor, but I would like to humbly suggest that you think of James McAvoy for Victor Trevor here. I have a perfect gif for it, but fanfictiodotnet doesn't let us post links. ¬¬ Try checking the AO3 page.
And yes, he is gorgeous. haha
DO NOT HATE ME. We are sort of halfway through it, we are gonna make it, people.
Thank you all for the reviews and the private messages. They mean a lot to me. It warms my heart that people are still discovering this story and coming for the ride.
Also, Archie: epidermis. (haha)