"The British Museum?" said John dubiously. "Not exactly what I was expecting."
Cold columns, Ionian, crisp against a sky too blue for the February morning. Children tramping joyfully up and down the marble steps, chased by harried parents. Crowded, but not so much so for a Saturday.
"Just because you can't be bothered to think of anything more original than dragging some vapid girl off to a pub doesn't mean the rest of the world is devoid of culture," Sherlock murmured, eyes flickering over faces as they weaved their way through the crowd.
John sighed. "I'm not saying I'd never take a date here–"
"Bring a date," corrected Sherlock automatically.
John's eyebrows gave a testy flick upwards, but he did not correct himself. "I just thought that if that's what we're supposed to be doing, maybe you'd have chosen something a little more obvious. More... date-y. Ugh." John stepped sideways to dodge the remains of a fallen kebab, bumping shoulders with Sherlock.
"Plenty of couples come here, John," Sherlock replied. "Just look around." Housewife and cheating husband, parents to four, left the oldest at home (teenagers are difficult) – a pair of uni swimmers, not yet out to their teammates – budding accountant, struggling to pass the exam, dragged out by his girlfriend. He knew John wouldn't, of course.
"I'm not trying to argue with you," John said. "You're right, you are. I'm actually impressed by how normal your idea of a date turned out to be. I'm just saying that it's not what I expected." He let his hands fall to his sides. "That's all."
Yellow and red, a flag fluttered in the wind (northeasterly, five to six kilometres per hour), announcing the exhibition they might end up having to see. Very modern – not to Sherlock's tastes at all. Most art wasn't, truthfully; how could he enjoy it when the creators fell all over themselves to prove how bloody ordinary they were, forgetting nearly everything important and romanticising their subjects beyond all recognition – only to be hailed as geniuses? How could anyone with a functioning brain take pleasure in a painting of a milkmaid with a flat brow that veritably screamed aristocrat, wrists that had never churned butter, and the wrong kind of dirt on her bare feet?
"I've done my research," he said. "And if what I've read is in any way accurate, you are proving to be a terrible companion. Are you trying to pique my interest by putting me down? No wonder you have such little success with your dates."
Pausing at the foot of the stairs, John gave one of his long-suffering sighs, letting his head slump forward for an exasperated second.
"All right, Sherlock" he said evenly, looking up. "What would you like me to do, then?"
The question hung in the air for a moment, and Sherlock took the time to quiet the surge of whispers bobbing to the surface of his brain, carefully smoothing the collar of his new jacket. He wished for a second for his long coat, which covered him from shoulders to knees to make a fantastic shield, leaving him invulnerable. Sadly, it was far too recognisable for a covert outing like this one.
"Really, John." His eyes scanned the horizon before settling on his friend. "I should have known you'd need guidance, given your track record. Would you like a write-up on normal dating behaviour? I can recommend a very informative web–"
John cut him off, waving his hands. "Fine, already. God, Sherlock. Just, I don't know. Stop it with all that."
Sherlock glared down at him. "Could you be a little more specific?"
"Shut up," said John mildly. "And give me your hand. We're going to hold hands, and we're going to go look for him. And then maybe we can finish this up and get out of the cold and get home."
He obeyed, reaching out his right hand to take John's left. With some irritation, he noted a flicker of mild discomfort across John's face. The last thing Sherlock needed right now was another masculinity crisis to derail this disguise; they'd have to change their whole story. Or maybe they ought to anyway – John's clothes were almost entirely wrong, despite the clear instructions Sherlock had given him. And he'd taken far too much time getting ready, so there was a good chance they'd missed Harmon's arrival and would have to suffer the special exhibition of horrid nonsense in the hopes of finding him. Of course Sherlock had an alternate plan for that scenario, but this tactic would be so much easier.
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Look, if you're going to–" he began, drawing himself up, but John was quick to cut him off again.
"No, it's just – here." John rearranged his grip on Sherlock's hand, slipping his smaller one behind and lacing his fingers through Sherlock's. "See?"
Oh. That was much better. Though his movement was still restricted (dangerously so, were this a combat situation), it was much less uncomfortable and almost pleasantly reassuring; maybe it wasn't such a mystery that people did this.
And how curious! How had he not noticed this phenomenon before? Why would one configuration be preferable to the other? Was it a simple matter of anatomical differences, or could there be social implications as well: the role of the leader and the follower, for instance? Did it have anything to do with John's left hand being his dominant one? Further study would certainly be necessary.
"Sherlock?" John asked, and Sherlock wanted to remove his gloves so he could catalogue the warmth of John's skin against his own cool fingers. John's grip was steady and his palm dry, but he couldn't quite believe that John was not self-conscious. They were surrounded by people (a foreign tour group, Beijing by the harsh accent of their "shr" – the uneven clop clap clap of a young girl (five-four or so) still learning to walk in borrowed heels – a shrill-voiced man on his mobile), so of course John would doubt his acting ability, worry that others would doubt his masculinity. But he would be fine if he allowed Sherlock to lead him.
Right, then. It was time. Sherlock took a deep breath, and let the mask fall over his face like a curtain, almost itching as he adjusted to this new skin. He gave John a warm smile, and it did meet his eyes – even if the smile was not his own, he was good at this.
"Come on, then," he felt his lips saying, and there was the urge to rearrange, to fix his features more suitably, more... ah, there, yes. That was it. "It's supposed to be quite good; everyone's talking about it. And if you hate it, I'll even buy you a pint after."
"Deal, then," John said, and the smile he returned did not look unnatural. "Or... wait, have you got your wallet today?"
Not-Sherlock laughed. "Of course I have! After you never let me hear the end of it last time!"
"You said you'd take me out, you insisted on ordering for me and you got it wrong, and then I ended up paying for both of us!"
"I said I was sorry – what else do you want from me?" Sherlock's words may have been combative but his voice, his body language were anything but. And John was grinning at him good-naturedly – this act was easy, almost too easy. John could be hopelessly uncomfortable in any role that wasn't medical or military (on multiple occasions, Sherlock had needed to excuse away John's reticence with flu or a hangover to avoid attracting suspicion), but here was a part he could play with familiar ease. They barely even had to lie, not really; it was enough to have a conversation they'd probably be having anyway and simply dial up the warmth.
"Well, I want to have a nice day out on our anniversary," John said, squeezing Sherlock's hand. "And I want you to pay."
Sherlock chuckled. "Anything else?"
Sherlock saw it on John's face – what he would have said on a date with a woman – and he also saw how reflexively John swallowed it down. The limit of John's comfort zone were so quick to reveal themselves... Annoying, but at least Sherlock could read him well enough to pick up the thread and shoot John's stifled response back at him.
"Or should we discuss that later?" Sherlock let his voice drop to a low rumble and John started, eyes darting to Sherlock's and away. For all the praise he lavished on Sherlock's deductions and insights, he could be very prickly when Sherlock demonstrated them with him as a subject.
Sherlock couldn't fathom why John would expect anything else; John knew Sherlock. John had seen – how many times had John seen? – exactly how much he could glean about a total stranger from the scent of their clothes, the product in their hair, the chewed up pen in their jacket pocket. How could John fail to understand the degree to which these same techniques could be applied to him, with the added perception that came from their closeness?
It was not simple worry about what conclusions people might draw. John had long since stopped protesting when someone assumed they were together (John's marriage to Mary, Sherlock thought privately, had played a large role in this attitude adjustment; with irrefutable evidence of his heterosexuality, John was no longer so bothered by the occasional assumption to the contrary). No, what John objected to was Sherlock's showing off what an open book John was to him. There had always been times when it clearly irked him, but now, after Sherlock's return, it had become something very different. The memory of how Sherlock had deceived him so entirely, abandoned him without even a second thought or a moment of hesitation (in John's mind, at least) made being read and predicted so effortlessly and thoroughly salt in the wound.
And although John understood the situation now, and had forgiven Sherlock in all the important ways, still it was clear that he hadn't entirely accepted the truth as Sherlock had given it. John just didn't have the same conviction Sherlock did; in his mind, the vague belief that it couldn't have been the only way – that there must have been another option – still lurked beneath the surface, colouring their interactions, their relationship, John's perception of Sherlock.
It was intolerable that the way John looked at him had changed. Their relationship would appear no different to an outsider (John still chased him – cursing – down alleyways, praised him, looked to him for answers, dissolved into giggles with him at the least opportune moments), but sometimes, Sherlock would catch John's eyes looking up at him through a veil of suspicion, like Sherlock's face was a mask and John was wondering what was underneath, suspecting that the mask was in place much more often than Sherlock would admit.
Seeing his one friend and the most honest man he knew look at him with eyes like those was suffocating, almost incapacitating. It made Sherlock want to grab John by the shoulders and scream into his face I had to, I had to, don't you see what I had to do to save you?! and shake him until the pieces clicked into place and John's smile made the lines around his eyes crinkle and things went back to normal. But there had been several times where Sherlock had tried re-explaining himself, re-stating his reasoning, pleading to be understood, and there was just no response John could give, nothing new, nothing different. No matter how many times John swore that he understood, that Sherlock was forgiven, there was still something that refused to be fixed.
He was quickly beginning to regret this particular disguise. His initial pleasure at the potential expansion of John's acting repertoire had faded almost entirely; now he doubted he'd ask this role of John again as far as he could avoid it. Easy as it might be to act out a relationship not so unlike the one they already shared (and if this thought made something twist painfully in Sherlock's chest, nobody in the crowded plaza was any the wiser), he was undone by the little differences, the benign deceptions that only served to highlight the much bigger ones.
"Sherlock?" He jolted back into reality at the sound of his name and almost cursed aloud.Distraction, this had always been a distraction, how could he keep risking the Work when –
But John's face had gone serious, and his gray eyes were fixed on a point in the distance. His lips didn't move and his voice came in a low hiss from between his teeth, just this side of inaudible. "Sherlock, isn't that...?"
Sherlock followed the line of John's gaze across the plaza to... yes, there he was. He looked younger than the picture on his blog (making him very young indeed), and he couldn't have been long out of uni – some rudimentary research had revealed that he had dropped out after only a year and a half. He was thin and his skin had the dullish sheen of someone not yet capable of feeding himself healthy meals at regular hours.
Without meeting John's eyes, Sherlock gave a slight nod. John squeezed his hand (Sherlock noted – not for the first time – how naturally he accepted comfort and support from John, how odd it felt to actually be reassured by it), and they began to draw closer. The key was to meander, to cut a seemingly random path towards Harmon while still moving quickly enough to reach him before he decided to go inside.
His hair was in need of a cutting; grown out inadvertently for lack of cash (to judge from the state of his trainers) but flipped over his forehead to look stylish. Concerned with both his wallet and his appearance. Not unexpected given the sudden prominence of his blog. He was alone today, which was disappointing. In the presence of a potential sexual partner, particularly a first or second date, people became more approachable, more pliable and cooperative in fear of making a poor impression. And though Harmon was fiddling idly with his smartphone (an extravagant purchase that didn't register as such to someone of his generation), neither his clothes nor his body language suggested he was waiting for anyone. Just social media nonsense, like as not – incapable of trudging through the banalities of his day without sharing every one of them with the world. Tedious. The only thing that could make ordinary people more insufferable was a perceived audience.
Sherlock slid his own mobile from his pocket and stopped John just left of the center in Harmon's field of vision (or where he would have been looking were he not so absorbed in the device). "Oh, before I forget!" he exclaimed. "We ought to take a photo this time!"
"A photo?" John replied, sounding for all his life like the newest member of an improv troupe onstage in his first show (yes, and...!). "All right, where do you think?"
"Right here's fine, isn't it? With this weather, anywhere will look good – here..." Sherlock slipped his right arm around John's neck and pulled him close, relishing (despite himself) the way the bone of John's left shoulder – the one with the scar – dug into his side.
Angling his phone in the way he had practised, he leaned down with purposeful awkwardness and tried clumsily to set up the shot.
"Hang on," he said, and he was pleased at the way his voice sounded rich with laughter. "I can't get us both in – you're too short!"
"What?!" John responded with authentically ruffled feathers; a good shot of real life insecurity could be so effective. "You're having me on! Give me that!" In the periphery of Sherlock's vision, Harmon looked up from the screen. Good.
"No, no, look!" Sherlock brandished his own mobile, dissolving into chuckles, attention focused entirely on John. "It keeps cutting off my head! Is this why we never take photos?"
John took it from him, frowning, and held it out at arm's length, trying it for himself. "If we just..." he said. "No, but..."
"What are we going to tell the grandkids?" Sherlock chuckled. "That we have no pictures from when we were young because you couldn't be arsed to stand on your toes?" There was no denying that they had Harmon's attention now; his ears were perked up like a rabbit's and his body angled toward them, one foot ready to step forward and offer help.
"Shut up, you," John said good-naturedly, and the slap he delivered to Sherlock's shoulder was not without obvious affection. "As if it would kill you to stoop down to my level every once in a while."
"I'm sorry, but it's just so very far to go." Sherlock grinned into John's face, tracking movement out of the corner of his eye, and John opened his mouth to respond.
"I could take it for you," came an unfamiliar voice. Success. John beamed back up at Sherlock and his eyebrows rose very slightly, the soldier unable to resist celebrating their small victory.
Feigning surprise, Sherlock turned, blinking, to face Harmon. "Would you?" he asked. "Cheers!"
"No worries," Harmon replied.
Sherlock stepped forward and fiddled with the photo settings for a second. "That should be all right, then," he said. "See, you just press the –"
"Oh, I have the same one," Harmon assured him. "You're in good hands."
Sherlock nodded. "Well, thanks," he said, and extended a gloved hand to offer Harmon the mobile. He turned back to John and Harmon cut him off.
"Is here all right? With the steps in the background? We could find someplace better, if you like. I don't mind."
Thoughtful. (Irrelevant.) How could it be – he could almost hear John thinking – that someone so considerate and friendly could get involved in blackmailing politicians? It was foolish to assume that being accommodating to strangers precluded any association with the criminal element. Sherlock was happy to leave assumptions like that for normal people; he'd get his answers through a more objective method.
He looked at John questioningly, and John shrugged and smiled. "Right here is fine, but thanks."
"You don't want me to take it by the fountain or...?" His voice trailed off.
"Really, it's all right," John said. "Thank you, though."
Harmon stepped back and framed the shot. From a few metres away, it was easy enough to fit the two of them with little enough trouble – Sherlock could have done it himself with a little more effort, but then how would he engage his suspect?
He did seem so very young. Criminals his age tended to be involved in a much different variety of wrongdoing: graffiti, house-breaking, drug-running… the list went on and on, but it didn't usually extend to blackmail, and of a prominent public figure, no less. But even John had admitted that it was hard to feel sympathy for a man who railed against same-sex marriage in public, yet kept a string of young male lovers in his private life. But a crime against a deserving victim was still a case, and Sherlock had nothing else interesting on, so here they were.
"Say cheese!" Harmon called. "Or, uh... anything more modern than that!"
John chuckled at that, ensuring a real smile for the photo. There was the click of a shutter. Sherlock had his arm around John's neck again, and John's arm was wrapped comfortably around his waist.
"That was all right, I think, but move a little closer," Harlan said, squinting at the screen. "Try to look like you like each other!"
John gave a small huff of obligatory laughter, and pulled Sherlock closer, tugging his head downwards and pressing up against his side from knee to underarm. John's touch didn't tickle or creep beneath his skin like with most people's did; John's presence was a given, something his body anticipated and accepted. But it did give him a cold, heavy feeling to stand here like this, with John practically glued to his side, cheeks pressed together, smiles plastered on both their faces. This was a perfect picture of the way it should have been, the way it might have still been if things had never changed, if Sherlock hadn't needed to hide and John hadn't begun to doubt him.
The camera flashed and it dawned on him that he would now have photographic evidence of this shift, a series of concrete, freeze-frame images where he could study John's face at length, picking apart the lines from his smile and the tension in his forehead and the angle at which he tilted his head toward Sherlock's, and make himself dizzy with the changes, ill with the possibilities he found there.
"Oh, I think that one was nice," Harmon said, angling the screen away from the light. "How about one more? How about a kiss shot?"
Sherlock felt John stiffen against him, and his own spine suddenly seemed straighter as well. Harmon surely had left an adequate set of prints by now; Sherlock could thank him and get his mobile back and go home to analyse them against the ones found on the letters, and then, guilty or no, this would all be over and they wouldn't have to continue with this farce.
But John was looking up at him with a teasing smile, daring him. "How about a kiss?" he asked. This was your idea, said his eyes. Look how clever it turned out to be.
Sherlock swallowed and tried to bury the shrieking, warning feeling that trembled in the pit of his stomach and rose in his throat (you're not like them they're taking the piss don't trust them you'll be found out you can't) and he held back a sigh as he dipped his head down to press a kiss in John's short, wiry hair. It felt much like he expected against his lips (no different than it did against his cheek when a chase left them crouched in a cupboard or behind a door, breathing through their noses, or against his neck when John gave in to his exhaustion and nodded off on Sherlock's shoulder in a cab) but it was different somehow, because never before had he felt so strongly the urge to touch, to run his fingers through John's hair, to inhale its smell and examine the different colours – to have the right to do these things.
He could hear laughter (not cruel laughter, though, the kind he always half expected), throaty and authentic, and he cursed Harmon for being so normal and so simple that this was amusing to him.
"Oh come on," Harmon called, and his voice was friendly, jocular. "Don't be bashful – you've found yourself someone fit, you can pucker up."
John was laughing, too; Sherlock could feel John's shoulders shaking gently against his abdomen. "He's just shy," John said, and they never got it right, did they? It wasn't shyness that led him to cut himself off from groups of people who would never understand him anyway. Sociopathy was an easy enough diagnosis (and God knew he had studied hard enough to ensure it was the one he ended up with) but all these words served for in the end was to shield a truth that was more complicated than that, something tangled and black and aching that Sherlock was sure they didn't have a name for.
But John's hand was on the back of his neck, pulling him downwards, and Sherlock could feel the individual pressure of each of his four fingers on his nape (slightly weaker than average for his little finger, repeatedly injured in rugby) and John's thumb over his carotid pulse. John's face was turned upward and his eyes were open (even though Sherlock knew that John had kissed Mary with his eyes closed – a giveaway, he realised, a sign that John was unsure he could hit his mark blind) but he wasn't laughing or looking at Sherlock like a specimen or an oddity; grin and bear it, said his eyes and the corners of his mouth, we're in this together.
John's lips were cool, slightly chapped by the late winter winds (Sherlock, for his part, resisted the urge to lick out and taste them, to learn them more thoroughly), and when they met Sherlock's, his eyes fell closed. His lashes were sandy against his cheeks and Sherlock could have counted them, was tempted to try. John kissed him differently than he had at the gallery: no flushed cheeks or probing tongue or crushing lips rich with the taste of scotch. This was close-mouthed, nearly chaste, the wedding kiss given to one's partner in front of family and friends and God.
That was a ridiculous thought, of course, because he'd barely ever been kissed before (particularly not in a church in front of his grandparents) and had so little basis for comparison. And it was entirely irrelevant besides; any time he spent cataloguing the differences between the two, any space he filled with the steadying warmth of John's palm on the back of his neck, the brush of John's nose against his cheek, the tickle of John's breath into his mouth would be a waste, stolen from the Work. Needless to say, it would also be a dead end because, as he surely wouldn't be asking John to play this part again, this was the last piece of such data he would ever obtain, a set that was doomed to be incomplete.
Knowing that, Sherlock should have wanted more. His mind, despite his objections, was already in overdrive to file away every small movement, every sensation, and it would have been advantageous to seize this opportunity, to wring everything out of it he could, just to have the memories. But instead, all he found he could do was breathe in the simplicity of the moment, thankful to have these two distinct kisses from John, amazed that one of them could be like this – his friend's arms around him, lips pressed warmly against his, not seeking or demanding, time seeming to stop as his forehead came to rest against John's brow.
The breath he had been holding rushed out as John pulled back, settling down on his toes. Sherlock saw that his hands were on John's shoulders; they fell to his sides reflexively.
"Did you get a good one?" John asked, and his voice was too loud – Sherlock was right there.
"A few!" A voice called back. Oh. And there was Harmon beside them. "I think you'll like the last one."
Sherlock saw John begin to reach out to take the mobile from him, but where were John's gloves? He stepped forward quickly, blocking the movement, and held out his own wool-clad hands. "Cheers," he said enthusiastically. "Let's see, then."
John leaned over the screen as well, and – yes, the picture looked fit for the cover of one of Mrs Hudson's romance novels. Or, rather, of a very similar novel – one more likely to feature two men kissing chastely on the steps of the British museum than an improbably statuesque hero and his voluptuous counterpart posed dramatically on tropical sands.
"That is nice," John marvelled, as if Sherlock could stand to hear him mulling over what a pretty picture they might have made. "You must have a real eye."
Harmon laughed self-consciously. "No, the deck's just stacked in my favour today. Beautiful weather, great light, two people in love..."
Humiliatingly presumptuous, unforgivably sentimental. Foolish. John was smiling disarmingly. It was all Sherlock could do not to scoff.
"Anyway," said Harmon, grinding the toe of his trainer into the ground. "I'll let you guys enjoy your day, but um... I have this blog? And it's about visibility and normalisation and... anyway, you should check it out if you get a chance." He pressed a business card into John's hand. John gave it a once over and nodded.
"Sounds interesting," he said, smiling. "Enjoy the exhibit."
With a wave of his hand, Harmon disappeared up the marble stairs, and with every receding step, Sherlock felt his spine adjust and his features melt back to normal. He licked his lips and tested the movement of his tongue, his jaw.
"Shall I do the honours?" asked John, removing a zip bag from his pocket. Sherlock gave him a half smile and sealed the mobile inside.
xxx xxx xxx xxx
In the cab home, Sherlock was silent, thinking, but John wouldn't stop trying to engage him in conversation.
"Looks like we must have some good prints," he remarked lightheartedly. "He worked hard to get a good shot." His lips met in a hard line and his nose twitched. "Almost makes you like him."
Sherlock sighed. "He just has a pet cause, John – his blog is the way he makes a living."
John rubbed at a smudge on the seat between them. "Still, he wouldn't be doing it at all if he didn't care. I'd hardly bother with the blog in the first place if it was just to get you new cases."
"You don't have to bother; they come anyway."
John's frown flickered toward something deeper and he broke eye contact with Sherlock, and again they were stumbling awkwardly around the edges of another one of the unnavigable silences that had plagued them since Sherlock's return. John disapproved of the level of visibility Sherlock still maintained – no particular powers of deductive reason were necessary to figure that out. He may not have felt strongly enough to reconsider his involvement in the Work, but it still did not sit quite right with him.
But the simple fact of the matter was that there would not be another Moriarty; Sherlock was sure of it. Maybe eventually somewhere else in the world, but not in his London, not in his lifetime. He didn't believe in a higher power (save perhaps the one that Irene Adler had been astute enough to point out), and he scoffed at anyone who purported to predict or control the path before them, but all the same, he had the unshakable conviction that such an experience could not be replicated, that the rest of his life, however long or short, would be for telling different kinds of stories.
He had never admitted as much to John, of course; speaking the words aloud would be akin to confessing the extent to which he now permitted emotions ("gut feelings" – that was a term he could swallow more easily) to guide him. Besides, John would never accept the assurance, not with his own unlikely trajectory from the wrong end of an Afghani sniper's gun to the upstairs room at 221B to serve as a perfect example of the fickleness of fate. And even if John were to take his guarantee at face value, Sherlock knew that an attempt to open that kind of conversation would veer into territory where neither one of them was quite willing to venture. John would not relish reflecting on his pain, having to admit the anguish of fearing that it could happen again, recognising that none if this had ever been remotely secret from Sherlock.
"That's not really what I meant," John began reluctantly. "It just feels a bit manipulative, that's all."
"He's a criminal, John," said Sherlock. "We're doing this to 'set things right.'" He had never needed finger quotes; he found that he could communicate the same effect more than adequately with his voice alone.
"That doesn't matter, though, does it?" John shot back. "Not to you."
Sherlock fixed John with a haughty glare. If he didn't understand that by now, there was no point in telling him again.
John didn't wither or pull away. He stared right back at Sherlock. "I don't expect you to care," he said evenly. "Just don't act like you do."
He wasn't! Yes, John didn't expect him to, that much was true, but why would John imply that Sherlock was behaving otherwise? Try as he might, e couldn't come up with any possible motive, and it put him on edge. He fumbled with the plastic bag in his lap and didn't speak for the rest of the ride back to Baker Street, where he left John to pay the cabbie and dedicated himself to making an atonal racket with his violin until John finally disappeared to the pub for the evening.
In the end, Harmon's fingerprints did match the ones they'd found on the letter. Sherlock had been reasonably sure that they would (and his "reasonably sure" was a great deal better than the average person's guarantee) but still he felt a strange pang in his gut as he replaced the cap on the talcum powder and texted Lestrade, telling him to bring him in for further question. He heard the answering ping! a few moments later but left the mobile where it lay on the kitchen table. He wasn't overly keen on helping with this case much more; it was one Lestrade's team should be able to work out for themselves anyway. Amateurs didn't tend to be particularly adept at hiding their tracks.
He tried to bury himself in an experiment, but the nagging feeling just wouldn't go away, and after several minutes of distracted effort, he put the head back in the fridge and picked up his mobile again.
I was right, he texted John.
Good on you, came the response. The blackmail thing?
Sherlock frowned down at the screen. He still felt antsy; that must not have been quite what he needed. He hit "reply" but hesitated, closed the window, and tossed his phone back and forth in his hands before opening it again.
Usually, being right feels better than this.
There was an uncharacteristically long pause before John replied. Sherlock could tell he wasn't involved in anything in particular, but still there was a delay. When the response did come, Sherlock surprised himself (as much as the world's only consulting detective can be surprised, that is) with the speed with which he snatched it back up.
I feel the same way, John had written. Not sure how that will make you feel.
Sherlock wasn't either, to be honest. But if he had to compare himself to an ordinary person, he supposed John would do. John had reasons for acting the way he did. Often they were sentimental or misguided or entirely idiotic, but Sherlock didn't believe that they were ever really wrong. Not in the important ways anyway.
His phone pinged again. Angelo's tonight? So John must think that he was upset, then. Interesting.
I don't mind, Sherlock typed out and hit send.
John returned with a smiley face and then, on its heels: Which question were you answering?
Sherlock ignored the question. Today is Monday? We'll have to pass on the scampi.
xxx xxx xxx xxx
John had every intention, Sherlock could tell, not to mention it at all, and that was something he had to appreciate. But then, John spent the entire meal twitching uncomfortably until finally, after a few glasses of wine, he stumbled through a very transparent segue into a rambling story about some wrong done by one of his patients and how he had agonised over what he should do. Part of him had wanted to see the man arrested because wrong was wrong, but then his children would suffer without a father (though he'd also wondered if it wouldn't be better to have no one at all than a father like that), and he had understood in his heart of hearts that being punished would never change the father's behaviour anyway. As their plates were cleared away, John told Sherlock how ultimately, he had done nothing but pass the information along, hoping that someone else would be able to make better judgement.
He took another sip of wine and met Sherlock's eyes with a self-conscious smile, and Sherlock loved him for it, loved him for his goodness and the transparency of his good intentions and his bashfulness. John cleared his throat. "I know you know why I told you all that, but let's just pretend we both don't, all right? Know, that is."
Sherlock felt himself begin to smile, and he called Angelo over to order dessert. He would pretend whatever John needed him to, and John would do the same for him. That would continue to be enough. It would have to be.
NOTES:
These were meant to be short, fluffy things designed to get me to write, and here I am with 6000 words of angst and a close-mouthed kiss. Oops.
Thank you for all your feedback on the first chapter! I hope you enjoyed this one as well.