John Watson's Twelve Days of Christmas (11/14)
Title - John Watson's Twelve Days of Christmas (11/14)
Author -earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - It's the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.
Author's Notes - Thank you to dashcommaslash for poking through this for me!
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Sherlock was sleeping. John was not. John was lying in bed, listening to Sherlock’s steady breaths next to him, staring at the moonlight outside of Sherlock’s window. John was trying not to think, but he couldn’t help it. 4 January, he thought. In two more days, he and Sherlock would be on their way back to London, would be completing their transaction, would be walking away from each other, would never see each other again.
Sherlock snuffled next to him, a small and vulnerable sound, and John’s heart actually clenched painfully in his chest. How had Sherlock become so…so…dear to him? He could be abrasive and rude and selfish and demanding, and John loved him so much he couldn’t breathe.
John found himself slipping out of bed. Sherlock’s breaths stayed steady and even. He found himself pulling clothing on, creeping out of the room, pulling on his coat, stepping out the house’s back door.
It was cold outside, the air sharp and bracing, and John forced himself to fill his lungs and hold his breath for as long as he could, before letting it escape him in a burst. He felt slightly less dizzy with affection in the fresh air, away from a sleeping Sherlock, and he struck out over the moonlit back garden without really thinking. Maybe he could clear his sex-addled head, he thought. Maybe he could exhaust himself so much that he would sleep when he returned.
John found himself by the pond, and he thought of ice-skating lessons, his hands clenched in Sherlock’s, trusting him, and turned away. And then, remembering more, he turned back and poked his head into the boathouse. There it was: the cane he had abandoned days ago. He hadn’t limped since New Year’s Day. He thought that, as a practical matter, his limp would probably come back after 6 January, and he should be prepared and have his cane with him.
So he grabbed the cane and trudged back up to the house. It was a magnificently clear night. Stars were scattered dramatically across the sky, and John took a moment to note that the very brightest star in the sky seemed to have settled directly over the house. Poetic, thought John. And then, shaking his head at his own silly, out-of-control fancy, resumed walking.
He did not realize how much the cold had bitten into him until he was back inside, where the heat made his skin itch. He shed his clothing and slid back into Sherlock’s bed, and Sherlock curled up into him, hot against John’s frost-cooled skin, and mumbled, “You don’t need it.”
Sherlock knew everything except, apparently, for what was most obvious: John didn’t need the cane as long as he had Sherlock. John was not confident his treacherous leg would understand that he still didn’t need it once Sherlock had left him. John just said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
John smiled at the bloody cherubs on the ceiling. “Yes, you were.”
Sherlock grumbled something John didn’t quite catch, because Sherlock’s mouth was against John’s chest as he grumbled it. And then Sherlock did something John didn’t expect: he shifted to press a kiss over the scar on John’s chest. John, who had been settling into the warmth of the bed, into the addictive familiarity of Sherlock’s mouth on his body, froze. Because in all the shagging they had done, Sherlock had never once done that. Had never once touched the evidence of the gunshot wound that had ended John’s medical career. Had never once even looked at it. Sherlock had ignored the scar not as if he were avoiding it, just as if he didn’t even notice it, and that had been liberating, to be treated as a perfectly normal sexual partner instead of a damaged one.
“Why does it bother you so much?” murmured Sherlock, his lips against the puckering of skin where the bullet had pierced John’s body.
“Almost dying?” asked John scathingly. “Why does it bother me that I almost died?”
“No.” Sherlock lifted up his head, his eyes picking up the moonlight coming in through the window as he gazed evenly at John. “Why does the fact that you survived it bother you?”
John opened and closed his mouth but could think of nothing to say to that. He should deny it. Only he wasn’t entirely sure that Sherlock hadn’t just said something very true. Something so true he’d been avoiding thinking about it for months.
“The body heals,” remarked Sherlock. “This doesn’t hurt you anymore.” His fingers danced over the scar. “Your leg never hurt you; there was never anything wrong with it. It’s all in your head.”
John shifted, uncomfortable, suddenly not wanting Sherlock draped over him anymore, not wanting this conversation anymore. Sherlock took the hint and rolled away from him, settling on his back next to John and carefully not touching him. For a moment, they both stared at the ceiling overhead.
“John-” Sherlock began, eventually.
“I was a surgeon, Sherlock,” John cut him off, surprised that his voice was not trembling with the force of what he was saying. “And I’ll never be one again. That is not ‘in my head.’”
“You were a doctor,” said Sherlock. “You took care of people, you fixed them, you made them better. That’s what you were, and it’s what you are: a doctor. A good one.”
John snorted. “And how would you know that? Did you deduce it from the angle of my little finger when I pick up my teacup?”
“No, I’ve deduced it from witnessing your medical skill.”
“My medical skill?” John echoed, turning his head to look over at Sherlock’s profile.
“You stitched up the little girl’s dog. You did it without thinking. The dog was hurt, so you fixed the dog. And you did it very cleanly and neatly, too. And you soothed the little girl and generally exhibited an excellent bedside manner.”
John looked back at the ceiling, absorbing this. He hadn’t given a second thought to the fact that he had stitched up Spot.
“You are a natural doctor,” Sherlock continued. “It is so deeply ingrained in you that you don’t even realize you’re doing it. You’re kind to everyone.”
John cleared his throat, thinking he should make some sort of protest. He wasn’t a doctor anymore. He wasn’t. “That’s just basic politeness.”
“You’re kind to me,” said Sherlock.
John swallowed the rest of his protests, turned his head to look at Sherlock, found Sherlock looking back at him.
“I…” began John, and then trailed off into helpless nothingness. I’m in love with you, he wanted to say. I’m kind to you because I think you’re wonderful in many unusual ways and I think people have failed to be as kind to you as you deserve.
“You’re a very good doctor,” said Sherlock, seriously, holding John’s gaze. “You take things, you take people, and you fix them. You’re good at it. You were born a doctor, and you’ll be one until the day you die, even if you never wear a stethoscope again. But you should wear a stethoscope again. As I said, you’re very good at it, and it makes you happy. It wasn’t just being a surgeon that made you happy, John. You could have been a successful surgeon without ever joining the army. You liked the immediate thrill of things going wrong around you and being able to do something to fix them. In short, you have always been more of a doctor than a surgeon.”
Sherlock fell silent. John stared across at him for so long that Sherlock fidgeted a bit and said, “That’s the end of my analysis.”
John blinked, realized he’d been staring, and looked back up at the ceiling. He stayed silent, trying to think of what to say, of how to respond, of what all this meant, for him and his future and who he was and who had been and who he might be, but his mind was such a whirl that in the end he could only think to say, “Thank you.”
***
“I thought we’d go into town today,” suggested Sherlock, so innocently that John knew something was up.
But John had wanted to go into town and had been trying to come up with a way to do it that wouldn’t arouse Sherlock’s suspicions, so John went along, pleased at how perfectly everything had worked out.
It worked out even better when Sherlock turned to him once they got to town and said, “I’ve some errands to run. I’ll meet you at the tearoom in an hour or so.”
“Okay,” John agreed, and was a little surprised when Sherlock paused to peck a brief kiss on his lips before sweeping off in a flurry of dramatic coat.
John tried to ignore the undeniable spring to his own step as he headed toward the tearoom, pausing first to duck into the adjacent music shop.
When John emerged from the music shop, it was to practically run into Annabel’s father.
“Hello, John,” he said, pleasantly.
“Hello,” John replied, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he had no idea what the man’s name was.
“It occurred to me I never even introduced myself. You went from being a stranger to performing surgery on my daughter’s dog before I could gather my wits. I’m Colin.”
John shook the hand Colin offered and said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you in somewhat more ordinary circumstances. How’s the patient?”
“Oh, causing a ruckus, naturally.”
“So recovering well, then.”
“Exactly. Annabel thinks you walk on water, by the way. Sherlock, too. She thinks he might be a wizard for finding Spot. I’m inclined to agree with her.”
John shrugged and gave Colin a bland smile, because he didn’t know what to say to that. Sherlock might be magical, but only because John was thoroughly smitten. In reality, Sherlock was a very human man, but no one seemed to understand that but John, for some reason.
Which Colin proved by tipping his head at him and inquiring, curiously, “If you don’t mind my asking…what’s he like?”
“What’s Sherlock like?” John repeated.
“It’s just that he’s not…friendly. Or…helpful. Or…nice. Or…pleasant. Or…well, he’s the opposite of all those things, really. And you’re…not.” Colin looked genuinely confused.
John felt his internal Sherlock defender bristle into attention, but refused to let loose a litany of any of the fantastic things Sherlock was. Colin would never be convinced by anything John said. And maybe there was a little piece of John that desperately wanted to keep the amazing discovery he’d made in Sherlock entirely to himself. If that was selfish, well, he was a man in love with a man who was paying him to pretend to be his boyfriend, in a ruse that was going to end in a matter of days. He was allowed to be a little bit selfish for the time being.
“He’s good,” said John, with a tight smile.
“Oh,” said Colin, uncertainly. His gaze shifted past John, and John followed it.
Sherlock was walking up the street toward them, his face a cold and inscrutable mask. As he got to John, he put a hand on the small of John’s back, stood a bit closer than necessary, and frowned at Colin. John didn’t like to admit that the possessiveness was more than a little hot, even if it was for show on Sherlock’s part.
“Sherlock, you know Annabel’s father Colin,” offered John.
“Obviously,” frowned Sherlock.
Colin looked awkward. “I was just, uh, saying to John that, uh, Spot is doing just fine.”
“Obviously,” frowned Sherlock again.
Colin looked at John, lifting his eyebrows subtly as if to say, See what I mean? Sherlock’s hand against John’s back twitched, because of course he’d noticed.
“Well, uh, I guess I’ll be going,” managed Colin. “Nice to run into you. Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” John replied, and watched Colin walk down the street before turning to Sherlock. “Was that necessary?”
Sherlock blinked at him. “Was what necessary?”
“Being rude to him.”
“I wasn’t rude to him.”
“What was all that ‘obviously’ business?”
“John, I obviously know who he is. I grew up in this village and so did he. And obviously Spot’s doing well; the dog had you for a doctor.”
“That’s not-I mean, thank you, but that’s not-”
Sherlock kissed him to shut him up. John let him.
“I suppose you are interested in tea,” said Sherlock, drawing back. “You are always interested in tea.”
“That’s me,” agreed John, amenably. Being kissed like that made him amenable. “Insatiable.”
Sherlock smiled briefly. “We have time to kill.”
“Why?”
Sherlock grinned suddenly, looking alarmingly like a delighted little boy on Christmas. John almost expected him to start dancing about the street. “I’ve procured us tickets to the panto tonight.”
John blinked. He would not have expected this to fill Sherlock with such glee. “The…panto?” he echoed.
“Come now, a Christmas panto is just your type of thing,” Sherlock admonished him, good-naturedly.
“I…don’t know if that’s an insult or not,” remarked John.
“It isn’t, it’s just the truth. Now, we’ve time to kill before the panto. So I thought you might fancy a cuppa?”
John regarded Sherlock, who looked pleased with himself and good enough to eat. “To kill some time,” said John.
“Yes.”
“Or.” John turned up the collar on Sherlock’s coat.
“Or?”
“You could break us into some inappropriate place for a quick shag.”
Sherlock’s lips quirked and his eyes darkened and he said, “Why, Dr. Watson, how very reckless of you.”
“You make me feel that way,” John admitted. Being with Sherlock made him feel the way he had in Afghanistan: so alive it couldn’t help spilling out in all manner of foolish, risky activities.
“And I do so like that about you. Now. Public building or private? Have you any preference?”
“Seriously?”
“Serious as a murder, John,” said Sherlock.
***
Sherlock chose a medical clinic, conveniently closed for the day, for the shag. John told him he was insane but didn’t discourage him. Sherlock said that John needed to start associating medical things with pleasant things again. John thought “pleasant” was a mild adjective to describe the shag.
There was still time for a cuppa afterward, and then for a wander around the town. Twilight had fallen, and the fairy lights draped in various windows and along various doorways were cheerful and festive. They walked hand in hand, and John was unsure whether he had taken Sherlock’s hand or the other way around; it had just seemed to happen naturally.
There was a small children’s choir singing outside the building where the panto was being held, and John paused to listen. It was a decent choir, and it was even prettier in the atmosphere of the dark Christmastime night. Sherlock huddled against him, and that made everything even prettier. The choir sang Good King Wenceslas and John thought he’d never been happier in his life.
Then the choir shifted into a modern pop Christmas song and John could practically hear Sherlock’s disdainful eye roll.
John turned to him, smiling, and said, “Let’s go in for the show.”
They settled in their seats, and John thought how incongruous Sherlock looked in the audience of a Christmas panto. Sherlock looked like the sort of creature who should be subjected only to the symphony.
“Is it good, this panto?” John asked.
“No,” replied Sherlock, evenly.
“Glad you got us tickets, then,” remarked John.
Sherlock smiled briefly. “No pantos are good, John.”
“Ah. Well, they’re a certain kind of good.”
“Like James Bond movies.”
“Yes,” John agreed, pleased that Sherlock had remembered that conversation, although Sherlock probably remembered every conversation, given his “mind palace.” “Like a James Bond movie.” John looked across at Sherlock’s profile, looking out toward the stage, and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Taking me to the panto. I know this isn’t your thing.”
Sherlock looked at him, smiling again. “I have ulterior motives for this outing.”
“Of course you do,” John groaned. “Oh, God, is there some sort of case of disappearing props that you’re here investigating?”
Sherlock looked offended. “John. What makes you think I would take such a dull case?”
“Boredom.”
“I haven’t been bored,” replied Sherlock, simply.
John tried not to look as if that statement took his breath away.
“Anyway,” continued Sherlock, as if he hadn’t said anything even remotely interesting, “we’re not here for a crime. You ought to be able to guess why we’re here; you are marginally intelligent compared to the rest of humanity.”
“Cheers,” said John drily, as the lights went down and the panto began. And then he murmured, “Ah. I see. Nine ladies dancing.”
Sherlock gestured toward the spectacle on the stage and leaned his mouth closer to John’s ear. “It’s covering ten lords a-leaping, too.”
***
“Nightcap?” suggested Sherlock, when they got back to the house.
Because John had expected Sherlock to immediately suggest they retreat to the bedroom, he was too curious not to say, “Sure,” and follow Sherlock into the library.
The house was quiet. Clearly everyone, even the magical Harrison, was in bed. The fire had been banked, so it was throwing off only the barest amount of light. Sherlock turned on a lamp and poured scotch into two tumblers, handing one to John.
“My father’s scotch,” he said. “He had quite an extensive collection. It’ll take us another few decades to finish it off.”
John didn’t know what to make of Sherlock speaking of his father abruptly when he hadn’t ever really brought him up before. He sipped his scotch and ventured, carefully, wondering if this was allowed, “What was he a professor of?”
“Chemistry,” replied Sherlock, and knocked his scotch back easily. He put the tumbler down on the sideboard with a sharp clink and then turned to John. “Why did you kiss me on New Year’s Eve?”
John had not expected this line of questioning at all. “What?”
“I was thinking, during the panto, that you said, ‘No, no, no’ about a physical entanglement, the entire time, until the moment when you said ‘yes.’ And I thought you just…” Sherlock trailed off.
You thought I just what? John wanted to demand. Instead he sipped his scotch and then said, “I think, technically, I kissed you on New Year’s Day, not New Year’s Eve.”
“You heard my conversation with Jim that night.”
John put his tumbler down slowly, thinking hard, wondering what he should say, how he should say it, how much he should give away. He decided it was pointless to lie about overhearing the conversation. “I…yes. I saw you go off with him and I…It was obvious that…”
“You promised my mother that you’d watch me when it came to Jim,” concluded Sherlock.
She had, although that hadn’t quite been the reason John had followed them. But he said, “Yes,” and nodded.
“I was young,” Sherlock complained, and pulled an agitated hand through his hair. “I was young and I was…I was…stupid.” He bit the word out in disgust. “And it didn’t matter. I didn’t matter to him and he didn’t matter to me-”
“He mattered to you,” John interrupted, keeping his eyes sharp on Sherlock. “You got him to think otherwise, and that’s the neatest trick you’ve ever pulled, that’s what let you win, isn’t it?”
Sherlock hesitated. Then he put his hands in his pockets and said, “I did win, yes.”
“You see it as a competition, don’t you? It doesn’t have to be a competition, you know.”
“What else would it be?” asked Sherlock, bluntly.
John exhaled in frustration, sad and at a loss. “A relationship.”
“Do you understand what a relationship is? It’s a negotiation of roles, of preconceived notions about behavior. Act this way, and x will result. Do you understand what little interest I have in acting what is considered to be the ‘proper’ way?”
“And so that means that, as a result, you have competitions, not relationships,” concluded John.
“Yes,” said Sherlock, lifting his chin a bit, a dare.
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person,” suggested John, forcing the words past his lips.
The statement hung in the air between them, and then Sherlock said, abruptly, “What did Jim say that made you kiss me?”
John shook his head a little bit. “It wasn’t…It wasn’t really what Jim said that made me kiss you.”
“Was it what I said?”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe more so than…I didn’t know I was going to kiss you until I did, Sherlock. I can’t give you the cause and effect of it. I can’t analyze my impulses like that. Why don’t you do it for me?”
“Don’t you think if I could I wouldn’t be asking these questions?” Sherlock’s voice was tight with frustration, and it occurred to John suddenly that Sherlock was tormented by the idea that he couldn’t figure out why John had kissed him. When the answer was so obvious.
John wanted to shout it at him. I am in love with you! And, at the same time, he didn’t understand why Sherlock didn’t see it. Was the idea of it that unbelievable to Sherlock? Was the idea of a more permanent them that unbelievable to Sherlock? That he couldn’t even contemplate it, not even with his magnificent brain?
“I don’t know,” said John, wearily. “I just did it. I’m sorry I-”
“No,” inserted Sherlock, quickly. “Don’t apologize. I just…You’re not like Moriarty. This is nothing like Moriarty.”
“Good,” said John. “I’d be upset if it was. I’d be upset if I was.”
“You’re not. You’re…”
“Moriarty is a slimy, arrogant prick,” said John.
“As opposed to me?”
“You’re not slimy,” said John.
After a moment, Sherlock smiled, then laughed, and John found himself laughing with him. They looked across at each other, and John felt like nothing and everything had been resolved, all at once. The mood was certainly lighter between them, but John thought that Sherlock still did not understand how besotted John was and how much it was going to devastate John to leave him.
Sherlock just took John’s hand in his and used it to pull John snug against him.
“Let’s go to bed,” said Sherlock, and John said, “Yes.”
Next Chapter
Author -earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - It's the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.
Author's Notes - Thank you to dashcommaslash for poking through this for me!
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Sherlock was sleeping. John was not. John was lying in bed, listening to Sherlock’s steady breaths next to him, staring at the moonlight outside of Sherlock’s window. John was trying not to think, but he couldn’t help it. 4 January, he thought. In two more days, he and Sherlock would be on their way back to London, would be completing their transaction, would be walking away from each other, would never see each other again.
Sherlock snuffled next to him, a small and vulnerable sound, and John’s heart actually clenched painfully in his chest. How had Sherlock become so…so…dear to him? He could be abrasive and rude and selfish and demanding, and John loved him so much he couldn’t breathe.
John found himself slipping out of bed. Sherlock’s breaths stayed steady and even. He found himself pulling clothing on, creeping out of the room, pulling on his coat, stepping out the house’s back door.
It was cold outside, the air sharp and bracing, and John forced himself to fill his lungs and hold his breath for as long as he could, before letting it escape him in a burst. He felt slightly less dizzy with affection in the fresh air, away from a sleeping Sherlock, and he struck out over the moonlit back garden without really thinking. Maybe he could clear his sex-addled head, he thought. Maybe he could exhaust himself so much that he would sleep when he returned.
John found himself by the pond, and he thought of ice-skating lessons, his hands clenched in Sherlock’s, trusting him, and turned away. And then, remembering more, he turned back and poked his head into the boathouse. There it was: the cane he had abandoned days ago. He hadn’t limped since New Year’s Day. He thought that, as a practical matter, his limp would probably come back after 6 January, and he should be prepared and have his cane with him.
So he grabbed the cane and trudged back up to the house. It was a magnificently clear night. Stars were scattered dramatically across the sky, and John took a moment to note that the very brightest star in the sky seemed to have settled directly over the house. Poetic, thought John. And then, shaking his head at his own silly, out-of-control fancy, resumed walking.
He did not realize how much the cold had bitten into him until he was back inside, where the heat made his skin itch. He shed his clothing and slid back into Sherlock’s bed, and Sherlock curled up into him, hot against John’s frost-cooled skin, and mumbled, “You don’t need it.”
Sherlock knew everything except, apparently, for what was most obvious: John didn’t need the cane as long as he had Sherlock. John was not confident his treacherous leg would understand that he still didn’t need it once Sherlock had left him. John just said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
John smiled at the bloody cherubs on the ceiling. “Yes, you were.”
Sherlock grumbled something John didn’t quite catch, because Sherlock’s mouth was against John’s chest as he grumbled it. And then Sherlock did something John didn’t expect: he shifted to press a kiss over the scar on John’s chest. John, who had been settling into the warmth of the bed, into the addictive familiarity of Sherlock’s mouth on his body, froze. Because in all the shagging they had done, Sherlock had never once done that. Had never once touched the evidence of the gunshot wound that had ended John’s medical career. Had never once even looked at it. Sherlock had ignored the scar not as if he were avoiding it, just as if he didn’t even notice it, and that had been liberating, to be treated as a perfectly normal sexual partner instead of a damaged one.
“Why does it bother you so much?” murmured Sherlock, his lips against the puckering of skin where the bullet had pierced John’s body.
“Almost dying?” asked John scathingly. “Why does it bother me that I almost died?”
“No.” Sherlock lifted up his head, his eyes picking up the moonlight coming in through the window as he gazed evenly at John. “Why does the fact that you survived it bother you?”
John opened and closed his mouth but could think of nothing to say to that. He should deny it. Only he wasn’t entirely sure that Sherlock hadn’t just said something very true. Something so true he’d been avoiding thinking about it for months.
“The body heals,” remarked Sherlock. “This doesn’t hurt you anymore.” His fingers danced over the scar. “Your leg never hurt you; there was never anything wrong with it. It’s all in your head.”
John shifted, uncomfortable, suddenly not wanting Sherlock draped over him anymore, not wanting this conversation anymore. Sherlock took the hint and rolled away from him, settling on his back next to John and carefully not touching him. For a moment, they both stared at the ceiling overhead.
“John-” Sherlock began, eventually.
“I was a surgeon, Sherlock,” John cut him off, surprised that his voice was not trembling with the force of what he was saying. “And I’ll never be one again. That is not ‘in my head.’”
“You were a doctor,” said Sherlock. “You took care of people, you fixed them, you made them better. That’s what you were, and it’s what you are: a doctor. A good one.”
John snorted. “And how would you know that? Did you deduce it from the angle of my little finger when I pick up my teacup?”
“No, I’ve deduced it from witnessing your medical skill.”
“My medical skill?” John echoed, turning his head to look over at Sherlock’s profile.
“You stitched up the little girl’s dog. You did it without thinking. The dog was hurt, so you fixed the dog. And you did it very cleanly and neatly, too. And you soothed the little girl and generally exhibited an excellent bedside manner.”
John looked back at the ceiling, absorbing this. He hadn’t given a second thought to the fact that he had stitched up Spot.
“You are a natural doctor,” Sherlock continued. “It is so deeply ingrained in you that you don’t even realize you’re doing it. You’re kind to everyone.”
John cleared his throat, thinking he should make some sort of protest. He wasn’t a doctor anymore. He wasn’t. “That’s just basic politeness.”
“You’re kind to me,” said Sherlock.
John swallowed the rest of his protests, turned his head to look at Sherlock, found Sherlock looking back at him.
“I…” began John, and then trailed off into helpless nothingness. I’m in love with you, he wanted to say. I’m kind to you because I think you’re wonderful in many unusual ways and I think people have failed to be as kind to you as you deserve.
“You’re a very good doctor,” said Sherlock, seriously, holding John’s gaze. “You take things, you take people, and you fix them. You’re good at it. You were born a doctor, and you’ll be one until the day you die, even if you never wear a stethoscope again. But you should wear a stethoscope again. As I said, you’re very good at it, and it makes you happy. It wasn’t just being a surgeon that made you happy, John. You could have been a successful surgeon without ever joining the army. You liked the immediate thrill of things going wrong around you and being able to do something to fix them. In short, you have always been more of a doctor than a surgeon.”
Sherlock fell silent. John stared across at him for so long that Sherlock fidgeted a bit and said, “That’s the end of my analysis.”
John blinked, realized he’d been staring, and looked back up at the ceiling. He stayed silent, trying to think of what to say, of how to respond, of what all this meant, for him and his future and who he was and who had been and who he might be, but his mind was such a whirl that in the end he could only think to say, “Thank you.”
***
“I thought we’d go into town today,” suggested Sherlock, so innocently that John knew something was up.
But John had wanted to go into town and had been trying to come up with a way to do it that wouldn’t arouse Sherlock’s suspicions, so John went along, pleased at how perfectly everything had worked out.
It worked out even better when Sherlock turned to him once they got to town and said, “I’ve some errands to run. I’ll meet you at the tearoom in an hour or so.”
“Okay,” John agreed, and was a little surprised when Sherlock paused to peck a brief kiss on his lips before sweeping off in a flurry of dramatic coat.
John tried to ignore the undeniable spring to his own step as he headed toward the tearoom, pausing first to duck into the adjacent music shop.
When John emerged from the music shop, it was to practically run into Annabel’s father.
“Hello, John,” he said, pleasantly.
“Hello,” John replied, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he had no idea what the man’s name was.
“It occurred to me I never even introduced myself. You went from being a stranger to performing surgery on my daughter’s dog before I could gather my wits. I’m Colin.”
John shook the hand Colin offered and said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you in somewhat more ordinary circumstances. How’s the patient?”
“Oh, causing a ruckus, naturally.”
“So recovering well, then.”
“Exactly. Annabel thinks you walk on water, by the way. Sherlock, too. She thinks he might be a wizard for finding Spot. I’m inclined to agree with her.”
John shrugged and gave Colin a bland smile, because he didn’t know what to say to that. Sherlock might be magical, but only because John was thoroughly smitten. In reality, Sherlock was a very human man, but no one seemed to understand that but John, for some reason.
Which Colin proved by tipping his head at him and inquiring, curiously, “If you don’t mind my asking…what’s he like?”
“What’s Sherlock like?” John repeated.
“It’s just that he’s not…friendly. Or…helpful. Or…nice. Or…pleasant. Or…well, he’s the opposite of all those things, really. And you’re…not.” Colin looked genuinely confused.
John felt his internal Sherlock defender bristle into attention, but refused to let loose a litany of any of the fantastic things Sherlock was. Colin would never be convinced by anything John said. And maybe there was a little piece of John that desperately wanted to keep the amazing discovery he’d made in Sherlock entirely to himself. If that was selfish, well, he was a man in love with a man who was paying him to pretend to be his boyfriend, in a ruse that was going to end in a matter of days. He was allowed to be a little bit selfish for the time being.
“He’s good,” said John, with a tight smile.
“Oh,” said Colin, uncertainly. His gaze shifted past John, and John followed it.
Sherlock was walking up the street toward them, his face a cold and inscrutable mask. As he got to John, he put a hand on the small of John’s back, stood a bit closer than necessary, and frowned at Colin. John didn’t like to admit that the possessiveness was more than a little hot, even if it was for show on Sherlock’s part.
“Sherlock, you know Annabel’s father Colin,” offered John.
“Obviously,” frowned Sherlock.
Colin looked awkward. “I was just, uh, saying to John that, uh, Spot is doing just fine.”
“Obviously,” frowned Sherlock again.
Colin looked at John, lifting his eyebrows subtly as if to say, See what I mean? Sherlock’s hand against John’s back twitched, because of course he’d noticed.
“Well, uh, I guess I’ll be going,” managed Colin. “Nice to run into you. Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” John replied, and watched Colin walk down the street before turning to Sherlock. “Was that necessary?”
Sherlock blinked at him. “Was what necessary?”
“Being rude to him.”
“I wasn’t rude to him.”
“What was all that ‘obviously’ business?”
“John, I obviously know who he is. I grew up in this village and so did he. And obviously Spot’s doing well; the dog had you for a doctor.”
“That’s not-I mean, thank you, but that’s not-”
Sherlock kissed him to shut him up. John let him.
“I suppose you are interested in tea,” said Sherlock, drawing back. “You are always interested in tea.”
“That’s me,” agreed John, amenably. Being kissed like that made him amenable. “Insatiable.”
Sherlock smiled briefly. “We have time to kill.”
“Why?”
Sherlock grinned suddenly, looking alarmingly like a delighted little boy on Christmas. John almost expected him to start dancing about the street. “I’ve procured us tickets to the panto tonight.”
John blinked. He would not have expected this to fill Sherlock with such glee. “The…panto?” he echoed.
“Come now, a Christmas panto is just your type of thing,” Sherlock admonished him, good-naturedly.
“I…don’t know if that’s an insult or not,” remarked John.
“It isn’t, it’s just the truth. Now, we’ve time to kill before the panto. So I thought you might fancy a cuppa?”
John regarded Sherlock, who looked pleased with himself and good enough to eat. “To kill some time,” said John.
“Yes.”
“Or.” John turned up the collar on Sherlock’s coat.
“Or?”
“You could break us into some inappropriate place for a quick shag.”
Sherlock’s lips quirked and his eyes darkened and he said, “Why, Dr. Watson, how very reckless of you.”
“You make me feel that way,” John admitted. Being with Sherlock made him feel the way he had in Afghanistan: so alive it couldn’t help spilling out in all manner of foolish, risky activities.
“And I do so like that about you. Now. Public building or private? Have you any preference?”
“Seriously?”
“Serious as a murder, John,” said Sherlock.
***
Sherlock chose a medical clinic, conveniently closed for the day, for the shag. John told him he was insane but didn’t discourage him. Sherlock said that John needed to start associating medical things with pleasant things again. John thought “pleasant” was a mild adjective to describe the shag.
There was still time for a cuppa afterward, and then for a wander around the town. Twilight had fallen, and the fairy lights draped in various windows and along various doorways were cheerful and festive. They walked hand in hand, and John was unsure whether he had taken Sherlock’s hand or the other way around; it had just seemed to happen naturally.
There was a small children’s choir singing outside the building where the panto was being held, and John paused to listen. It was a decent choir, and it was even prettier in the atmosphere of the dark Christmastime night. Sherlock huddled against him, and that made everything even prettier. The choir sang Good King Wenceslas and John thought he’d never been happier in his life.
Then the choir shifted into a modern pop Christmas song and John could practically hear Sherlock’s disdainful eye roll.
John turned to him, smiling, and said, “Let’s go in for the show.”
They settled in their seats, and John thought how incongruous Sherlock looked in the audience of a Christmas panto. Sherlock looked like the sort of creature who should be subjected only to the symphony.
“Is it good, this panto?” John asked.
“No,” replied Sherlock, evenly.
“Glad you got us tickets, then,” remarked John.
Sherlock smiled briefly. “No pantos are good, John.”
“Ah. Well, they’re a certain kind of good.”
“Like James Bond movies.”
“Yes,” John agreed, pleased that Sherlock had remembered that conversation, although Sherlock probably remembered every conversation, given his “mind palace.” “Like a James Bond movie.” John looked across at Sherlock’s profile, looking out toward the stage, and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Taking me to the panto. I know this isn’t your thing.”
Sherlock looked at him, smiling again. “I have ulterior motives for this outing.”
“Of course you do,” John groaned. “Oh, God, is there some sort of case of disappearing props that you’re here investigating?”
Sherlock looked offended. “John. What makes you think I would take such a dull case?”
“Boredom.”
“I haven’t been bored,” replied Sherlock, simply.
John tried not to look as if that statement took his breath away.
“Anyway,” continued Sherlock, as if he hadn’t said anything even remotely interesting, “we’re not here for a crime. You ought to be able to guess why we’re here; you are marginally intelligent compared to the rest of humanity.”
“Cheers,” said John drily, as the lights went down and the panto began. And then he murmured, “Ah. I see. Nine ladies dancing.”
Sherlock gestured toward the spectacle on the stage and leaned his mouth closer to John’s ear. “It’s covering ten lords a-leaping, too.”
***
“Nightcap?” suggested Sherlock, when they got back to the house.
Because John had expected Sherlock to immediately suggest they retreat to the bedroom, he was too curious not to say, “Sure,” and follow Sherlock into the library.
The house was quiet. Clearly everyone, even the magical Harrison, was in bed. The fire had been banked, so it was throwing off only the barest amount of light. Sherlock turned on a lamp and poured scotch into two tumblers, handing one to John.
“My father’s scotch,” he said. “He had quite an extensive collection. It’ll take us another few decades to finish it off.”
John didn’t know what to make of Sherlock speaking of his father abruptly when he hadn’t ever really brought him up before. He sipped his scotch and ventured, carefully, wondering if this was allowed, “What was he a professor of?”
“Chemistry,” replied Sherlock, and knocked his scotch back easily. He put the tumbler down on the sideboard with a sharp clink and then turned to John. “Why did you kiss me on New Year’s Eve?”
John had not expected this line of questioning at all. “What?”
“I was thinking, during the panto, that you said, ‘No, no, no’ about a physical entanglement, the entire time, until the moment when you said ‘yes.’ And I thought you just…” Sherlock trailed off.
You thought I just what? John wanted to demand. Instead he sipped his scotch and then said, “I think, technically, I kissed you on New Year’s Day, not New Year’s Eve.”
“You heard my conversation with Jim that night.”
John put his tumbler down slowly, thinking hard, wondering what he should say, how he should say it, how much he should give away. He decided it was pointless to lie about overhearing the conversation. “I…yes. I saw you go off with him and I…It was obvious that…”
“You promised my mother that you’d watch me when it came to Jim,” concluded Sherlock.
She had, although that hadn’t quite been the reason John had followed them. But he said, “Yes,” and nodded.
“I was young,” Sherlock complained, and pulled an agitated hand through his hair. “I was young and I was…I was…stupid.” He bit the word out in disgust. “And it didn’t matter. I didn’t matter to him and he didn’t matter to me-”
“He mattered to you,” John interrupted, keeping his eyes sharp on Sherlock. “You got him to think otherwise, and that’s the neatest trick you’ve ever pulled, that’s what let you win, isn’t it?”
Sherlock hesitated. Then he put his hands in his pockets and said, “I did win, yes.”
“You see it as a competition, don’t you? It doesn’t have to be a competition, you know.”
“What else would it be?” asked Sherlock, bluntly.
John exhaled in frustration, sad and at a loss. “A relationship.”
“Do you understand what a relationship is? It’s a negotiation of roles, of preconceived notions about behavior. Act this way, and x will result. Do you understand what little interest I have in acting what is considered to be the ‘proper’ way?”
“And so that means that, as a result, you have competitions, not relationships,” concluded John.
“Yes,” said Sherlock, lifting his chin a bit, a dare.
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person,” suggested John, forcing the words past his lips.
The statement hung in the air between them, and then Sherlock said, abruptly, “What did Jim say that made you kiss me?”
John shook his head a little bit. “It wasn’t…It wasn’t really what Jim said that made me kiss you.”
“Was it what I said?”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe more so than…I didn’t know I was going to kiss you until I did, Sherlock. I can’t give you the cause and effect of it. I can’t analyze my impulses like that. Why don’t you do it for me?”
“Don’t you think if I could I wouldn’t be asking these questions?” Sherlock’s voice was tight with frustration, and it occurred to John suddenly that Sherlock was tormented by the idea that he couldn’t figure out why John had kissed him. When the answer was so obvious.
John wanted to shout it at him. I am in love with you! And, at the same time, he didn’t understand why Sherlock didn’t see it. Was the idea of it that unbelievable to Sherlock? Was the idea of a more permanent them that unbelievable to Sherlock? That he couldn’t even contemplate it, not even with his magnificent brain?
“I don’t know,” said John, wearily. “I just did it. I’m sorry I-”
“No,” inserted Sherlock, quickly. “Don’t apologize. I just…You’re not like Moriarty. This is nothing like Moriarty.”
“Good,” said John. “I’d be upset if it was. I’d be upset if I was.”
“You’re not. You’re…”
“Moriarty is a slimy, arrogant prick,” said John.
“As opposed to me?”
“You’re not slimy,” said John.
After a moment, Sherlock smiled, then laughed, and John found himself laughing with him. They looked across at each other, and John felt like nothing and everything had been resolved, all at once. The mood was certainly lighter between them, but John thought that Sherlock still did not understand how besotted John was and how much it was going to devastate John to leave him.
Sherlock just took John’s hand in his and used it to pull John snug against him.
“Let’s go to bed,” said Sherlock, and John said, “Yes.”
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