A/N: Final chapter! I like this chapter a lot, it was my favorite. I hope you guys like it and liked the whole story. I plan to write more AU's like this because, I don't know, I just like it. Anyway, thanks for reading!
February 1932
Sherlock's sitting on his little bed in his third story apartment at Harvard. He's got textbooks sprawled around him and worksheets thrown everywhere. It's a mess.
The bed's next to the window because it's the only spot where it fits, so it's unfortunate when the broken window latch unhooks and makes the window swing open with any gust of wing. Sherlock shivers and pushes the window back into place, latching it tightly and hoping it stays.
The front door swings open next. Not from the wind.
"Take your boots off!" Sherlock calls through the small apartment.
He hears laughter. "Yes, sir!"
Sherlock chuckles to himself.
Next, he hears a small clash.
Sherlock sighs. "Please tell me you didn't just break the jar of dirt on the table!"
"Uh...no...not that jar!"
"Alright!" Sherlock calls. "The others are okay, I'll clean it up later! Don't touch it!"
He hears footsteps creak on the hardwood, quickly approaching their bedroom.
He doesn't make any effort to move any books off the bed, so when John runs through the room and tackles him down, rough edges dig into his back. He arches off a book stabbing him in the spine.
"Off!" Sherlock demands.
John wraps his arms tight around Sherlock as Sherlock still pushes on his arms. "No!" John cries. "I missed you!"
Sherlock chuckles when John kisses his neck.
"I have three exams over the next week. I need to study!"
"You can read while we fuck, I don't mind."
"It's a bit distracting!"
"I know," John replies, kissing the other side of his neck. "Reading does get in the way of fucking."
Sherlock laughs. "Let up, John, off. I need to study."
John sighs disappointedly and sits up. "What am I to do while you study…" John lifts a thick book. "…French?"
Sherlock laughs and yanks his book away from John. "It's chemistry!"
John shrugs. "It's a different language to me."
Sherlock gapes at him. "How are you going to be a doctor?"
John shrugs again. "My charm."
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Sure, charm."
John lays back on the bed, resting his head on his arms.
"Shouldn't you be studying, too?"
John shakes his head. "No, I don't need to. I'm acin' all my classes."
Sherlock looks back at him. "How?!"
John shrugs. "Some say it's my genius."
"You're not a genius."
"And you are, study bug?"
Sherlock glares. "Yes."
John shoves the heel of his foot into Sherlock's back.
Sherlock arches away. "Your feet are ice cold!"
John wiggles his toes under Sherlock's thigh. "Then warm me up, baby."
Sherlock shakes his head. "Two more hours of studying."
"Two hours?!"
Sherlock turns around to face John fully. "Seriously, John, how do you not have any studying to do?"
John shrugs. "I don't know. School's surprisingly easy. This is my third semester and I've hardly opened my books at all."
"You've been smart all along, haven't you? You didn't need a tutor all those years ago."
"You're right. I had ulterior motives for my dad to hire you."
"Which were?"
John shrugs. "I was hopin' for a hot babe with big—"
"Breasts."
John's jaw drops and he sits up. "I was gonna say brains!"
Sherlock laughs. "Right!"
John smiles.
The window swings open again. Sherlock growls at it and shoves it shut.
"How about you busy yourself by fixin' my window?"
"Your dad said he'd send someone over to do it."
"It's been broken since we moved in almost a year and a half ago!"
"Neither of us have died of hypothermia yet, we're fine. Besides, I'm a doctor."
"I would not trust you with gettin' a hair outta my eye."
John pretends to look hurt.
Sherlock grins.
"You're lucky I love you, else I'd be hurt by that."
"I am lucky you love me," Sherlock says, leaning forward to kiss John once.
John cups his jaw and attempts to pull Sherlock further, but Sherlock resists.
"Two hours," he whispers against John's lips.
John lets out a groan. "I may die if I don't get my hands on you before then."
"Good," Sherlock mutters, "Maybe I could get a little more studying done without you bugging me."
John gasps, offended.
Sherlock smiles and goes back to reading.
John watches him for a minute, noting the way Sherlock's squinting at the little words in the books.
"I think you need glasses," John tells him.
"Nonsense," Sherlock disagrees. "My eyes are perfect."
John sits up and settles behind Sherlock, resting his chin on Sherlock's shoulder. "What does..." John points to a random word. "That say?"
Sherlock holds the book up only a few inches from his face and easily reads, "Hydrogen."
"Uh huh," John replies. "How about that one?" he asks, pointing a new word and pushing the book much further away.
Sherlock squints again, then takes a few long seconds to try to read it. Finally, he sets the book down on the bed. "This is nonsense, I don't have time for games."
"Alright," John concedes. "It's your eyesight." He presses a kiss to Sherlock's cheek and sits back against the pillows again. "You would look sexy with a pair of peepers, though."
"You think I look sexy no matter what's on my body."
"I think you look sexy no matter what's not on your body, too."
"John, for the last time! I'm not studying naked! Not after what happened last time!"
John laughs. "Oh come on. It was fun!"
"How was that fun? You had an alarming amount of erections and I got only a 'B' on the test two days later."
"How was that not fun?"
Sherlock glares at him.
John laughs louder. "Okay, fine. You study. I'll...do something."
"Thank you," Sherlock sighs, directing his attention at his books again. "By the way, there's a letter for your mother in the pile of mail on the table."
"Oh!" John cheerily says, jumping from the bed. "You could've led with that!" he calls from the hall towards the kitchen.
He returns a minute later, this time reading a letter.
"What did she say?" Sherlock asks.
John flops down on the bed again. "My sister called. She met a girl, they want to get married but she's not sure they can."
"Good for her. Right?"
"Yeah, I think so. 'Bout time my sister settles down."
"Mmm."
"My mother wants to visit. Or she wants me to visit."
"You haven't seen her in a while."
"I know, I just can't get time off right now."
"I know, John. Your mother understands."
"Yeah," John sighs. "I hope she does."
Sherlock looks at him. John looks sad. Sherlock knows how hard it is to need a parent when the other isn't around anymore, so he always feel bad when John misses his mother. He leans over and kisses John's cheek.
John smiles weakly at him.
"You'll find time," Sherlock says.
John nods. He kisses Sherlock one more time, then tells Sherlock to study.
John lets Sherlock study in silence, intending to leave him there all night, but he lasts about five minutes before he himself grows restless. Then he remembers running into Mycroft earlier that morning.
"Hey, I saw your brother this morning," John says, getting off the bed and leaving the room.
Sherlock watches him go. "And…"
John returns a minute later with a file in his hands. "Sent this over. Looks like a new case."
Sherlock feels torn. He knows he has a ton of studying to do, but really school's not that hard for him either and he already knows all of this stuff. And the file is thick, which ensures a really good crime.
"You know you want it…" John teases.
Sherlock throws his book down and reaches for the file in John's hand.
John laughs and gives it over.
For the rest of the night, Sherlock looks over the case file instead of his homework and textbooks. It's the very interesting murder of a twenty-five year old student. Sherlock spreads out all of the evidence, the statements, and the photos that were sent over.
John watches while he eats dinner alone and does a bit of studying himself. He doesn't bother Sherlock, because he knows the case is so much more important than Sherlock's studying earlier.
John goes to bed around midnight because he has to get up for work at five. He silently strips off his shirt and jeans, then gets under the covers in only his underpants.
Sherlock solves the case around two. Thinking it over, Sherlock realizes that it really was very simple. The boy was poisoned by his brother, the son he says their father "loved more", for the win of the family fortune. Almost a Cane and Abel story, Sherlock could consider it.
Sherlock finally takes his sore eyes off the case notes and notices John's asleep. He's bundled in their soft duvet on their tiny bed with Sherlock's books still spread around him.
Looking at John, Sherlock's heart just about bursts. Still, after all this time, he's surprised when he sees this man in his bed. He's surprised when John puts on his Harvard sweater for classes. He's surprised when John is there, day in and day out, helping him paying bills and taking so much time in the bath that Sherlock has no choice but to climb in with him and taking his wet boots off when he enters their apartment and kissing him and still, after all this time, trying to get into his pants every hour on the hour.
Most importantly, Sherlock is surprised each and every time John says the words "I love you," and it's often; loudly, softly, sighed between kisses or yelled between thrusts, said simply while brushing their teeth, or accompanied by a quick kiss and a "see you after work, baby."
Sherlock takes off his clothes, then climbs into bed with John.
He kisses John's neck once and simply lies over his sleeping body.
John stirs awake and wraps his arms around Sherlock. "Solve it?"
"Of course," Sherlock says.
"Of course," John repeats.
Sherlock smiles.
John rubs his hands up and down Sherlock's back.
"I missed you all day."
"I missed you too," John says. "What'd'ya say I take Saturday off work and we do something?"
"Do something?"
"Something together."
Sherlock grins and leans down to kiss John's neck. "We're doing something together right now."
John laughs. "I mean we can go to the movies, take a drive, go to a fancy meal."
"We can't afford a fancy meal."
"I'll make you one."
"Okay," Sherlock agrees.
John strokes his hands deeper down Sherlock's back.
"Between now and when we wake up in the morning is the only time I won't be busy with studying," Sherlock says, kissing John.
"Mmm," John sighs. "You know what?" He turns Sherlock over and lays him gently on the bed. "I just wanna hold you."
"Okay," Sherlock whispers, hugging John tight and closing his eyes. "I love you, John."
"I love you, Sherlock."