Fic: Respite
Title: Respite
Author: Lilithemm
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: R
Warnings: Sexytime, post-Reichenbach
Beta: leopardseals
Notes: Just posting this for my friend Lilithemm :)
Summary: John reunites with Sherlock under the most unexpected of circumstances.
You are leaving London. Permanently, you think. Though to be honest, thinking is precisely what you are trying to avoid these days. Every thought seems to lead you to precisely one place, one face, and you will not go there and see him in your head anymore. Hence the leaving of London, where every street is stamped with his mark, and those that aren’t somehow should be.
So you are finally motivated to get a job, to return to a regimen of discipline. After all, Dr. Watson, you are a trained medical specialist. You search with unending diligence; it’s easy, and it has nothing to do with him. Had nothing to do with him...no, you won’t use the past tense, you won’t think about your only...friend, you will instead spend days in front of the computer applying for every job that might consider a former army doctor, one that is at least a few hours from London, preferably the other side of the country.
You find a post in Edinburgh, hospital short on staff, that will take you on the basis of your record and a stunningly crap phone interview that can’t have gone well. Except it went quite well, actually, since you didn’t have to think about him. Just talk about Afghanistan, dying men, bloody children...none of that is a problem, apparently.
You pack a small suitcase with very few items, practically all of them jumpers, and catch the first train north to Scotland. You eat something every two hours to avoid thinking about how he wouldn’t eat for days on a case. You check your mobile for the briefest of seconds, then put it away; you won’t text anymore, or look at the young man’s gadget for more than is absolutely necessary. You read watch telly eavesdrop listen to music audiobooks podcasts in French don’t look at anyone else don’t observe look out the window until you get sick, anything to stop thinking.
You arrive in Edinburgh, walk two miles to avoid a cab (not a London cab but still a cab) to the room (not a flat) you’ve let and unpack. You grab a sannie for dinner, pick up another comic book (he’d never) and read, read, until your head is spinning and you have to lie down on the bed.
And it’s too late already; a day’s conscious effort at not thinking and the self-imposed exhaustion are not enough to keep you from recalling, at the end of yet another day without him, that Sherlock Holmes is dead.
The tears roll out the corners of your eyes, but you’re a soldier. You have trained yourself not to move; to let it happen. It’s inevitable, after all, and you could almost laugh.
You’re in a bloody awful state when you’d rather have PTSD than this heart sickness you’ve got, and you would accept a millennium of PTSD in return for one more text message signed SH.
You start new job and though it’s low on gunshot wounds and the like, it occupies you sufficiently that you feel ready to try a new tactic. Instead of consciously exiling him from your mind, you allow yourself, at least after hours, to dwell on him. You see and imagine him everywhere now. You almost feel him walking beside you in the streets. You hear his voice, commenting about another couple in the restaurant; you’ve picked up just enough of his observational skills to start the analysis in your head, and that’s all you need, really, as Sherlock always loses you halfway through. You find yourself smiling sometimes, and it’s good, better than you’d hoped. Yet as you lie in bed at night and try and imagine him there, on his side next to you with his curls tickling your ear, his knees brushing your thigh and his hands draped elegantly over your heart, as if he’d dismantled the steeple of his fingers just for you...the image comes too easily and perfectly that you weep, and you can no longer control the shaking.
You make one more attempt at quieting your mind; walks past midnight through the city and its parks, as you can’t sleep in any case, and if you’re really lucky you might get yourself murdered. You’ve contemplated suicide, of course, but it seems such a selfish thing to do, and you wouldn’t want to copy him. The gun is always an option, but a shot in the head is so messy that you’d feel more guilty for inflicting the sight of it on others than for inflicting it on yourself. Of course, that sod of yours....no, you don’t want to remember that sight of all of them, of the blood seeping out of his dark hair on the sidewalk....
But the chilly night strolls are refreshing, aren’t they? And while you’re waiting for someone else to kill you, someone else to decide your fate, just as you like, you can entertain the hope that somehow it was all a fake, as you know that Sherlock himself wasn’t. The hope that the brilliant man engineered it all and will one day pop around the corner and accost you with a mind-boggling observation about the state of your trousers. A hope that is gradually dimming, it’s true, but that seems somehow quite possible at night.
Possible enough that one night, you decide that it simply isn’t true. He cannot be dead. What, Sherlock Holmes, determined and practically infallible solver of mysteries, admit defeat and pop himself off? He wouldn’t. The more you think about it, the more this possibility fires your mind. Your walks take on a new purpose, giving you the gumption to revisit those awful moments in your head. You watch him jump, fall...but not hit the ground. Someone had knocked you to the ground, a biker, you think and...you saw Sherlock lying there, yes, felt his wrist but it’s easy enough to miss a pulse, especially the state you were in, and the blood was a bit excessive, given his head wasn’t actually smashed in, and you were only close for a moment, before people started pulling you away, so maybe he was shamming, maybe he concocted this whole plot to trick everybody and prepare for a spectacular comeback...you are nothing short of ecstatic.
But then it hits you. Sherlock would be capable of engineering such a spectacle, of course, but he couldn’t do it alone, and who else would he get to help him, if not you? In previous times, perhaps Lestrade, but with the whole police force after him he couldn’t have. And then where would he be now? Even if he managed the great escape by himself, somehow, surely he would have come for his conductor of light already, and the fact that you’re still without him after six months must mean that you’re an absolute fool. You remember that last moment at St. Bart’s, when Sherlock had refused to come with you to see Mrs. Hudson dying in hospital, and if you hadn’t been so damn upset you would have recognized the signs of a man ready to kill himself, a man who could take being disliked, hated even, but not being disbelieved. You are furious with yourself, and the only thing you can do to keep from crying is to keep walking.
So you end up trespassing through a graveyard, more wretched than ever. You are resolutely not thinking of the black tombstone back in London, occupying yourself with deciphering the old graves with their older names, and finally you sit on a bench, as your psychosomatic limp’s been acting up. And it occurs to you in a reverie that it would be so easy for a confirmed murderer to see you here, realize that you’re alone in the world and Christ, please, put you out of your misery.
“Oh, God, no one’s going to murder you in a cemetery, John.”
You are absolutely still. At the first word, you were simultaneously ready to feel your head explode and to jump into action, pulling your own gun out of your pocket, but as the words piled up you recognize the voice with utter certainty. You still can’t quite believe it, that anything you hope for could possibly happen, and that even this man could manage such a miracle. So you take a ragged breath and turn around, and there he is. Sherlock Holmes. Alive and, by the looks of that self-satisfied half-smile, well.
He’s different, of course. You only stare at him dumbly for a moment, and then you walk toward him. As you move you observe the subtle changes in his appearance, enough to make anyone other than you question, but you know his form his face his eyes his voice so well that you are in no doubt. His hair’s a bit shorter, a bit lighter brown; he’s wearing a burgundy collared shirt, skinny jeans, short boots and a green jacket not unlike one of yours; he’s got a hat on, not the trademark deerstalker he loathes so much but a simple gray wool ski cap. He’s different, but you’d know him anywhere, from a distance 500 meters at least.
He’s talking to you now, explaining his remark. “Cemetery, no killer wants to pop one off in a cemetery, too easy, too classic, and the sound will echo for approximately 2.3 miles with the open ground and the density of glass windows in Old Town. You’re sitting on the bench with a pose you think is relaxed but it’s not at all relaxed, you’re back is straight and your feet firmly planted. Your bearing still proclaims military, obvious. You walk with the gait of a man who’s carrying a gun even when you aren’t carrying yours, which is obvious in those trousers, Banana Republic size 8 quite loose on you by the way, and not even a serial killer’s going to pick a retired soldier too risky, obvious. You’re also wearing...”
“Just shut up, will you?” you say, putting your arms around him. And that stops him for a moment, and then he wraps his long arms around you, and everything is OK. In a freezing graveyard, just after 1am, everything is absolutely perfect.
“You’re...” Sherlock starts again, a little miffed he hasn’t finished amazing you with all of his instantaneous conclusions and that you haven’t told him he’s fantastic yet.
“Don’t say a bloody word,” you whisper vehemently, leaning your head against his cheek. “Don’t spoil it, OK?”
“Fine,” he agrees, holding you a little closer. You’re still in a state of exalted shock, can’t quite believe that he’s here, he’s OK, that he found you just when you were so close to drowning, and just as you start to absorb the facts and have questions, he releases you. “Come on, we’ve got four hours, we’ve got to go to my flat.”
“Flat? You’re living here, too?”
“Later, John. Take my hand.”
You can’t help grinning as he purposefully leads you out of the cemetery. “We’re not handcuffed, you know.”
“Yes, but you won’t keep up otherwise. I can’t afford to have you fall behind and get lost.”
“I don’t get lost,” you protest.
“Yes you do, all the time and that’s got to require effort, John. This is the easiest city in the whole world to navigate. Well, other than Karakorum.”
“You just don’t want to admit that you actually like holding hands,” you say knowingly, a little petulant.
“Shut up,” he orders with annoyance, but you smile nonetheless, feeling like you’ve won a small victory, and then you do struggle to keep up as he leads you through the alleys and backways of Old Town Edinburgh, as expertly as if it were London, and the two of you were running after the cabbie again. You’re not running, actually, but it isn’t long before Sherlock is climbing up the fire stairs and urging you to be quick about it. So you resign yourself to the inevitable, fumble up the stairs as quick as you can, and follow him into a flat slightly bigger and older than your room. It’s much tidier than you expect, mostly because there isn’t much in it: a laptop, a handful of books, a few odd jars you don’t want to know anything more about, a lamp, a mattress and a blanket. You look at Sherlock, who is poised in silence, eyes darting everywhere, as if he’s listening and checking for something.
“Sherlock...” you whisper tentatively.
“Shh,” he quiets you imperiously, and continues his vigilant dance until satisfied. He turns on the light, shrugs off his coat and flops down on the bed, which barely fits all six feet of him. You watch him, still amazed, and after a minute of inner contemplation he looks directly at you with those incredible grey-blue eyes. “Come, sit near me,” he commands.
You begin to remove your charcoal-grey pea coat. “That’s a small bed for a man of your size,” you say casually.
“We’ll fit,” he replies with assurance.
You fold your coat and place it carefully over his, and then you sit next to his hip, gingerly folding your legs to the side. You are close enough to feel his warmth and even touch him, but you can still look candidly into those eyes and probe for answers to your questions. Sherlock begins the conversation with one. “You’re limping again. Why?”
You shrug. “Makes me feel less sorry for myself. Or more, depending on my mood.”
The corners of his mouth turn up just the slightest bit, for only a moment. Then the serious expression returns. “OK, you’ve got questions.”
“Loads of them,” you reply.
“No, you’ve only got two,” he counters with confidence. “How, and why.”
You consider this, admitting to yourself that these are, in fact, the two questions on your mind. “Let’s start with how, then.”
The half-smile returns, accompanied by a hint of challenge. “You’ve thought about it. Tell me what you’ve deduced so far.”
“Sherlock, I’m not in the mood to be mocked.”
“I want to hear it,” he says, with unwonted softness.
A bit surprised, you take another breath. “I saw you fall,” you begin, and even now you can’t keep a sob from creeping up your throat, “but I didn’t see you hit the ground. There was a building in the way.”
“Obvious,” he mutters.
“Shut up,” you reply, but you’re smiling a little, and so is he. “OK, so then I ran to try and get to you, but I got hit, knocked down by a biker or something. So by the time I got up, came over, there were already loads of people there.” You look at him consideringly. “Couldn’t get close to you, couldn’t believe my eyes, but I do remember there was an awful lot of blood, and your head wasn’t smashed in. If you’d shot yourself, sure, strawberry jam everywhere,” you add knowledgeably, “but you couldn’t have bled that much with your skull intact.”
“And you’re very proud of that conclusion, aren’t you?” he notes, his usual disdain laced with a generous portion of fondness.
“And then there was your pulse,” you proceed sternly, ignoring him. “I felt for it as soon as I could grab your wrist, and it wasn’t there. But then I was pulled away, and I couldn’t think about any of it again for a very long time.” You’re silent for a moment. “But when I could, quite recently, I realized that I probably just missed the pulse, that’s easy enough to do. Or perhaps you can magically make your pulse disappear, like you can summon tears when it’s convenient.” You smile at him, a bit wryly. “So I think you must have jumped onto a mattress and engineered that scene while I was floored on the pavement, and gotten away afterwards. God knows how you got all those people to cover you, so I wouldn’t get too close.”
He takes your hand, then, running a thumb over your wrist as if he’s about to check your pulse. “Why wouldn’t I have wanted you to get close?”
“Because I’d see that you weren’t dead, of course,” you reply offhand, and then you see the gleam in his eyes, and you realize that you are about to be upstaged by the genius once again. You heave a sigh of resignation. “OK, what did I miss?”
“Well, it was quite a good start, John, very impressive,” he concedes joyfully. “It’s really endearing, how you manage to sort out some things and blatantly miss others.”
“Oh, sod off,” you say irritably. “Get on with it.”
“The building blocked your view of a lorry I had waiting. Before I went up I chalked out a thirteen and one half by eight feet three inch area for me to aim for when jumping, given the building was nine stories, the velocity of my fall with my height and weight...”
“Skip a bit, I’m sure you’ve calculated correctly,” you interrupt testily.
“Oh, you want the abridged version? I had a chalked out landing area mattress was ready by the time I jumped wanted a trampoline too difficult to collapse on short notice chatted with Moriarty chatted with you quite sure you remember plunged landed on the mattress got it into the lorry put the fake body on the pavement got the fake nurses out got in myself and drove away.”
“Sorry, fake body?” You look at him quizzically. “Oh,” you tone slowly, thinking. “That’s why I couldn’t get close. No, give me half a moment,” you say before he can start again. “You pulled the same trick. Irene Adler on the slab.”
“The woman, yes,” he replies, and you’re relieved to hear no reverence for her in his voice. “Easy enough to get a facial replica made if you’ve got the money, we saw that with Hansel and Gretel as well. I found the place that made the one of me Moriarty must have used, easy enough to procure a duplicate. Hard to find a corpse with the right build on short notice but found one marginally close in height, weight and pallor. Didn’t want you getting too close anyway so I got the fake nurses. If you hadn’t been disorientated you’d of noticed many of them were less than clean.”
You’re puzzled, and then your eyes widen. “Not the homeless network? Pulling me away with their grimy hands?”
“You’ve had worse things on your skin.”
“You, for instance.”
“Shut up, I spent a lot of money keeping you in the dark.”
And this brings you to your second question, and you realize it’s been increasingly bothering you. “But why keep it from me, Sherlock? I could have helped you engineer all this.” He shakes his head, not dismissively but firmly. “But then who helped you? No, don’t tell me, dead body and hospital outfits, had to be Molly. Molly! After all you’ve done to her?”
“Of course, who else?” he says with a careless gesture and a smile. Then he sees your eyes, almost glaring, and he becomes serious. “No, John, not you.”
“Why not?” you demand.
He sighs. “You’re a doctor but you don’t have access to dead bodies hospital gear lorries fresh gore...”
“All right, I’ve got it, but why not tell me after? Why not let me get close, play along?”
“Don’t you SEE?!” he says, sitting up angrily.
“I see, but I don’t observe,” you reply with dry humor.
But he isn’t amused. He looks at you with his penetrating blue eyes, and you are immediately pierced to the heart by the wells of sadness you see there. “You remember the assassins closing in on our flat, killing each other off when they got close?”
“Of course. Not something you forget, that.”
“They were there, too, and they were for you.”
You are completely taken aback. “ME? What have I got to do with it?”
“Everything,” he sighs, forming his fingers into his favorite contemplative tent. “When we met him at the pool, Moriarty said he would burn the heart out of me.” He casts a swift look at you, then returns to contemplating his hands. “Apparently he knew where to look. When I got up to the top of the building he told me that if I didn’t jump he would kill the people I cared for.”
“People? Me?”
“Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade as well.” He starts to grin and then looks at you. “Fine, you were first. I was rather sure of this to begin with but that’s why I sent you off to Mrs. Hudson and got the biker to hit you.”
You glare at him indignantly. “You paid a biker to come hit me at that exact moment?”
He rolls his eyes. “No, biker owed me a favor. You weren’t badly hurt. I needed to do it. To buy me just enough time so you could only return to see me jump, not to stop it.”
“Thanks awfully,” you say in a false cheery voice. “Glad to help.”
Sherlock scoffs. “Don’t you get it, John? Moriarty had four assassins surrounding the building, ready to shoot you if I didn’t jump. I tried to get his mobile to call them off but that’s when he shot himself, leaving me no choice but to get on the ledge and...say those things to you.” He looks away, a trifle embarrassed. “If the assassins had seen you reassured, seen you anything but devastated, they would have killed you.” And he looks rather upset by that thought. “I had to fake suicide, escape and bide my time.”
“So you let me be devastated instead,” you say, with a little more anger than you actually feel.
“Well at least it wasn’t permanent.”
“Felt like it was,” you say, but you aren’t angry anymore: rather touched, actually. You clear your throat and say casually, “OK. So what have you been doing? Where have you been?”
He shrugs and lies down again. “Up and down the UK, calling in a few favors, finding out everything I can about Moriarty’s network and the surveillance we’re under.”
“We?” you ask. “Both of us?”
“Yes, I’ve managed to lose all of mine but you still had someone tailing you until I poisoned him.” He sees the alarm on your face. “Relax, he’ll be out of hospital in a month.”
“Why didn’t you just shoot him?” you reply. “Or get me to do it?”
“Thought had occurred, with you being a crack shot and incredibly easy to order about, but it’s so messy, and we’re both in enough trouble as it is.”
Feeling mostly satisfied, you move a little closer to him, perching your upper body on his chest with your arms folded. “So you’ve been in hiding? Changing your appearance?”
“Hiding in plain sight. It’s not difficult with a few subtle changes.”
“Dyed your hair.”
“Yes. I started with blond.”
“Blond!?” you ask incredulously. “What possessed you to do that?”
“Contrast, John. I need to look different.” Then the corners of his mouth turn up. “But it was hideous, so I tried a lighter brown and I cut it short, it’s grown out.”
“I like it,” you assure him softly.
“Well it’s all right, now that it’s a little longer and really?” He pauses. “You do?”
“Quite,” you add with a smile. You love it, actually, and you love that he’s here and that you can be together again. “So you’ve got it more or less sorted, and now you’ve come for me?” you ask with some affection.
You’re surprised to see him brush your cheek with his fingers, looking sad. “Not quite, John,” he says very seriously.
“Not quite?” you question. “But you’re here.” You sit up and look at him doubtfully. “You’re not gonna...go off without me again. You’re not.”
“Am I not?” he asks. He sighs and sits up again, shifting his legs so you’re sitting almost next to one another. “I can’t have you with me right now, there’s too much and it’s all wrong.” He sits with his hands clasped, staring at the floor. “We’ve lost the spies I know of but I can’t be sure there aren’t more of them, and we’ll be far more conspicuous if we’re together. We’ve got to wait until I clear this up. Then, I will come for you.”
You nod as if this makes some sense, and now you are refusing to look at him, though you can feel him slide a glance toward you. “So what are you doing here, then? With me?”
“Letting you know I’m alive, of course.”
“And then leaving me again.”
“John, I need to fix this,” he says with exasperation. “I need to make it all better, get back to the way it was, but I can’t do it when I can’t focus and I can’t focus because you’re a mess. So I need you to be OK so I can finish the work. Do you get it?”
This pulls at your heartstrings, and you feel awful for having made him worry. “I’m... fine, Sherlock.”
“Oh, please,” he scoffs. “Your crow’s feet have deepened and your eyes are almost permanently bloodshot from crying every night and not sleeping. You eat a lot of small meals but you never consume a genuine meal, you’ve lost thirteen pounds. You’ve avoided every place and thing we’ve done together since I supposedly died, and now you’re taking late night strolls hoping to be murdered. You’re not fine.”
“True, I suppose,” you acknowledge softly. “Are you?”
“Perfectly, I don’t let these things get to me,” he says, but you know he’s lying.
You shrug. “You’re right, I mean, why should we miss our flat, filled with all of your rubbish, our matching chairs, and Mrs. Hudson’s sandwiches, and that Chinese restaurant two doors down...”
“Oh God, John, don’t make me homesick,” he says dismissively, though a little hoarsely.
You half-smile, knowing you’re right. “You’ve lost weight, too, at least fifteen pounds, I’d say.”
“Nineteen pounds, eight ounces, last I checked,” he corrects meticulously, “but that was two weeks ago.”
“Sherlock,” you say with mild horror. “You’re not eating, are you?”
“Of course I’m eating,” he replies, as if you have no reason to doubt this.
Doubting him thoroughly, you try to lift his shirt, and though he smacks your hand away, you’ve seen what you need. “For God’s sake, let me feed you.”
“Later.”
“But...”
“John, nothing’s open now and I need you in other ways,” he announces with some exasperation. You hear it for what it is, though, a plea with a note of love in it. So you sit quite close to him, put your arm around him and coax him to drop his head onto your shoulder, which he does with a bone-weariness he’s been trying to hide until now.
You squeeze his shoulder and kiss the top of his head, and after nuzzling your shoulder for a moment longer, he lifts his head and kisses you as if he’s drowning and the only air for miles is the oxygen in your lungs. You put your arms around him and respond greedily. Both of you are hungry for something much more.
You kiss for a long time, savoring the feel of each other’s lips, and you reach for the buttons of his shirt. You only get one open before he pushes your hand away and stands up. Confused, you watch him unbutton it himself. “I’ve only got a few shirts here and I can’t afford to have them rumpled,” he explains.
“Didn’t think to change your style of shirts? You know, wear a polo or a t-shirt?”
Sherlock looks at you incredulously. “Me? In a polo shirt?”
“Right, I forgot, you only do collared shirts, dressing gowns and sheets.”
He laughs, removes his shirt and hangs it carefully in the closet. He’s even thinner than you thought; you can see his ribs quite clearly through his pallid skin. His dark skinny jeans only accentuate his lithe frame, but as he removes those he sees the look of concern on your face. “Stop looking at me like that,” he commands.
“Sherlock, you need to eat,” you plead. “Have you got anything here?”
He strips off his pants and socks so he’s naked, shakes his head and walks toward you. You ignore his eating habits for a moment to appreciate how gorgeous he is, all long limbs and fine hands and even his elegant feet, dear God, and you stand up to hold his body in your hands and kiss every inch of it. But he stops you by pulling your blue jumper up from your waist and over your head. “I know you like to have your clothes ripped off,” he observes, grinning.
He’s right, of course, but as you put your hands on his waist you can’t help but worry about him again. “Not even a couple of biscuits? Tea?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You can make me eat later if you stop fussing now,” he informs you, kissing you with his tongue in your mouth to keep you from saying anything else. Before you know it your own shirt and trousers have been removed and Sherlock is on his knees, taking off your shorts and using his tongue in impossibly delightful ways. Then you do actually stop thinking, only able to feel and sense for several minutes until you are begging him not to stop and he blows your mind.
He eases you onto his tiny bed, laying you down on your stomach as gently as if you were the most precious thing in the world to him. The idea that you may very well be his most prized possession occurs to you only to be discarded; that’s just your own hope speaking in your mind. But then his hands caress the planes of your skin, drawing carefully over the lines of your scars and sunspots and other imperfections as if they’re worthy of being encased in his memory. When you feel him drape his body over your own, the warmth of his pale skin igniting yours, you’re almost impatient for him to possess all of you entirely, to know every fragment of you better than you do yourself. And when he finally enters you, so carefully and gently that he must be afraid to lose you, you are no longer sure if the dream of being Sherlock’s favorite thing in the world is so unattainable after all.
After sex, which was both uncomplicated and delicious, Sherlock slides off to your right side, his arm still over you and his breath on your neck. He seems utterly spent, and though you’re quite exhausted as well, you believe firmly that there is a proper way to freshen up after sex. You turn your head to the side, chastely kiss the skin before his ear, and sit up on your knees. “Come on,” you coax. “Quick shower.”
“Later,” he replies dismissively, turning his face away.
“No, now’s the time,” you persist. “Up you get, or shall I carry you?”
Sherlock gives a scornful grunt. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” you reply with an edge. “I’ve carried men twice your size fair distances.” You put your hands on his hip bones as if you’re about to pull him up, and this action causes him to stretch dramatically, like an annoyed cat, before getting up with irritation, half-feigned.
Perhaps he does actually want to be clean, or merely avoid your fretting, but he lets you soap him thoroughly, then rinses off and escapes the hot water. As he stands there drying himself, he observes you washing as if you were a rare specimen. When you exit the shower, he helps dry you with the same towel, probably his only, and you refrain from complaining that it’s already wet because you really couldn’t care less, what with his hands all over you.
You then return to the site of your conjugal bliss. You hit the bed first while Sherlock continues drying his hair, toweling his short curls, and you meticulously arrange the bed while watching him out of the corner of your eye. “Want to waste the rest of the time sleeping, do you?” he asks.
“Don’t have to sleep...if you don’t want to,” you reply evenly. “People like to cuddle together after a shag, don’t they?” He looks at you with a raised eyebrow and a hint of a smirk playing on his lips. You sigh and glare at him. “Okay, being a genius and a sociopath, you may not know that fact, but even if I am stupid, and I must be an idiot for putting up with you, I can assure you that it’s 100% true. It’s probably even good for your health.” He seems to consider this, draping the towel around his neck, and you are getting sick of this game. “Look, would you just come here and hold me for a few minutes? You can say or do anything you want, just...” You’re at a loss.
But you don’t need to say anything more, as he nods, discards his towel prop and comes down to you. He slips under the sheets, coaxes you on your side and slides his long limbs into place behind you, laying his right hand carefully over your chest. “And what if I wanted to be held?” he mumbles in your ear.
You stop in the act of laying your hand over his, quite shocked. “Do you really?”
“It’s fine,” he murmurs huskily.
“No, really,” you say with concern, looking over your shoulder at him as best you can. “Sherlock, I can, I’d be happy...”
“Quiet, John, you’re breaking my concentration.” He adjusts his other arm and his feet slightly, to his satisfaction. “Perfect.”
“Well, you are significantly taller than me,” you admit, “so it’s probably better this way than if we switched, yes.”
“No,” he disagrees. “It’s perfect because you’re mine, and this arrangement is the physical manifestation of that fact.”
You’re sort of giddily pleased at this comment, almost as much as you are delighted to be in his arms. Though sometimes a little alarmed at the prospect of belonging to Sherlock Holmes, you’re quite aware that you already do, in a way, and that you made that decision yourself. Nonetheless you are surprised when he says, “Promise me you won’t try and date anyone. Especially not girls.”
You are torn between continuing endearment and newfound petulance. You decide to express the latter emotion first. “What, you want me to just sit around and wait for you?”
Sherlock considers for half a second. “Yes. Yes I do. Why, is that a problem?” Another second. “You don’t want anyone else.”
You smile wryly. “No, not really.”
“And you can service yourself with ease, I’ve noticed.”
“Don’t blame me because you get bored when you wank yourself,” you reply irritably. Then you turn around, still in his arms, and say what you’re really thinking. “I want you, but I want you here. Anywhere, really, but actually with me. So if I promise not to shag anyone else, you’d better promise that you’re definitely coming back.”
He considers this, steepling his fingers even half under the sheets, then he frowns and looks at you again. “What, do you doubt it?”
“Sherlock, I thought you were dead until a few hours ago. Now you’re here, and you say you’re leaving again. I mean, can you blame me?”
He peers at you intently, searching your expression for clues to emotions you haven’t even consciously felt, in that way that makes you feel like your intentions are being run through a cat scan. “You never believed that I was a fake,” he says finally.
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know you too well,” you reply simply.
He absorbs this and probably dissects it into a thousand pieces before responding to you two seconds later. “Then why don’t you think I’ll come back again?”
You sigh, reaching a hand into his curls. “Because I’m terribly afraid that you’re running out of miracles, and though I have a lot of faith in you, I can’t imagine how you can possibly get us out of this mess.”
Sherlock smiles his devious smile, the one that automatically fills you with apprehension. “Fortunately, I can. But it’ll take some time.” He grows serious. “Until then I’ve got to stay in hiding and keep moving. You’d better keep on the move, too. Go somewhere different every few months, though you’ll have to stay in the UK to practice medicine, I suppose.”
“Could see if the army would take me back,” you offer, half-joking.
“No!” he says with more vehemence than you expect.
You look at his wild eyes and decide to step things back a bit. “How did you find me? Here, I mean?”
“I check your email account every few days,” he replies dismissively.
At this point in your relationship with Sherlock you are certainly not surprised by this information and really should have thought of it yourself. “So...even if we can’t stay together at the moment, you could...drop in on me again? Like this?”
“Not often. Very cautiously. But yes,” he answers, sighing ever so slightly. “It’s only a respite, John, and we’ve got to make sure it’s done very carefully.”
“That’s your specialty,” you say with cheerful confidence. “And it’ll let me practice mine.”
“What, not medicine? Target practice? Obeying orders?”
“Making sure you eat,” you reply.
Sherlock grins and kisses your forehead. He lies on his back, arms behind his head, and you look at him wistfully, savoring his presence. Though unbelievably relieved that you will see him again, you are dreading the moment of departure, in however many minutes it is coming. “Can’t we just change our names and move to America?” you propose hopefully.
He looks at you with an expression that near contempt, and then explodes. “Change our names? Change MY name without clearing it? I am Sherlock Holmes. No one else!”
“Shh, keep your voice down,” you urge, then sigh. “I know. You can’t be anyone else.”
“Mmh,” he grunts, satisfied. Then he frowns, looks at you. “Would you want me to be someone else?”
You shrug, resigned. “Only when you drive me so mad that I want to throttle you.”
He smiles brilliantly, comes back to you and nuzzles you fondly. “How exactly,” he murmurs softly, “where you intending to get me on a plane and keep me there for seven hours without throttling me?”
Your eyes flash open, and you can see it perfectly with utter horror, how he would argue with every security agent, refuse to take off his shoes, point out the indiscretions of everyone in line, harass the flight attendants, predict the meals and map out the life stories of their unfortunate neighbors on the plane for seven hours.... ”I’d drug you,” you say emphatically.
“What?!” he says, surprised.
“Yes, I’d drug you,” you say quite seriously. “Dramamine probably wouldn’t knock you out so I’d basically give you anesthesia of some sort, pop you in a wheelchair, buckle you in a window seat and hope you wouldn’t wake up until we’d arrived.”
Sherlock seems slightly shocked. “Have you thought of this before?”
“Never,” you admit. “But that’s exactly what I’d do.”
“I’ve underestimated you,” he admits, and then goes quiet for several minutes. “Sorry,” he says finally, and you don’t need to ask him for what. You know how he feels about apologizing, and so you know that the one word of it that he managed to spit it out is for everything he’s ever driven you to, up to and including the absolute knowledge that you’d need to forcibly drug him so that you could endure a simple plane ride in his presence.
“It’s OK,” you assure him. “It’s fine. It’s all fine.” You kiss him to prove it, and then smile at him. “Shall we try and get a bit of sleep?”
“You want to get me one full REM cycle before morning, is that it?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want,” you reply.
“I’d prefer cigarettes or sex, but if ninety-one minutes of sleep will satisfy your maternal urges, I will comply.”
Satisfied, you roll back on your side and wait for Sherlock to fit himself against you, and once he arranges himself into the same perfect position, you put your hand over his and sink into the deep, untroubled sleep of someone who has entrusted everything important to someone else. Because you have, and whether he is a sociopath, genius or madman doesn’t matter to you in the slightest.
It is far too soon when he wakes you, but the disappointment of opening your eyes is somewhat alleviated by the way Sherlock is nibbling your shoulder and kneading your right nipple. You stretch and leisurely turn to face him, and one glance is enough to tell you that your nap was the best sleep either of you have gotten in months. “You’ve got to eat and sleep, Sherlock,” you say. “You’re wasting away.”
He gives you the barest of smiles. “Inspire me by taking better care of yourself, and I’ll try.”
“OK,” you agree, not entirely convinced but not quite ready to argue with him, so you kiss him instead. “So...what’s next?”
You immediately regret your question, as it causes him to fly from the bed with determined yet graceful strides and, horror of horrors, begin covering his magnificent form with clothes. Resigned, you admire the view while you can, and once he’s back in those jeans you get up and go to the bathroom before you allow yourself to become too aroused.
As you’re washing your face, you notice the bathroom as you hadn’t before, filled with Sherlock’s simple grooming items, and you are marveling how immaculate he looks with so little help when you notice contact lens case. You immediately start worrying about his eyesight and wonder why he’s hidden it from you all this time, and when he enters while you’re in the middle of shaving with his razor, you look at him quizzically. “What?” he asks irritably. “Found the contacts?”
“I didn’t know you wore them,” you say.
“You know very well that I don’t. Didn’t,” he corrects meticulously. “Give me room in front of the mirror.”
You shake your head. “Wash your hands first.” He rolls his eyes. “I know you weren’t going to. Wash them and I’ll move.”
Refusing to be compliant, he elbows you out of the way, gives his hands a cursory wash and inserts his contacts. You’re not watching him then, as you’re trying very hard to continue shaving without a mirror and without cutting your nose off. But when he turns back to look at you and his eyes are now brown, you start with such a shock that you drop the razor, or at least you would have if Sherlock hadn’t caught it and started using it on himself. “Brown eyes?” you say at last.
“I didn’t wear them last night,” he says with relative patience, “because I thought it would be the only thing that would actually throw you off.”
“You were bloody right,” you say honestly. “It’s brilliant. It really changes your whole... you didn’t want to start me doubting,” you realize with a surge of guilt.
“Good call, then,” he says flatly.
“I would have sorted it out, though,” you insist. “Would just take some time.”
“Not in the middle of the night in a cemetery,” he replies, handing back the razor to you. “Try not to miss the patch of hair by your left mandible.”
And then he’s gone, and you know he’s a little angry with you, but you calm yourself by shaving scrupulously, taking care to catch the spot Sherlock pointed out. You walk back into the room and see him sitting on the ground with a map in hand. You’re suddenly ashamed to still be naked, when he’s fully dressed and ready to go, so you slip on your pants and trousers. You nervously clear your throat, for no reason that you can think of, and when Sherlock lifts his head and his eyes bore through you, you discover that the color of his irises makes absolutely no difference to their intensity. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?” he demands.
You are genuinely confused. “Like what?”
“Like you’re a sick puppy and you need comfort. Or like I’m a half-dead kitten and you want to nurse me back to health. Or like I’m some vampiric tart come to suck you dry for a night, and you’re not sure if you like it.”
You remain perplexed, but you scratch your head calmly. “Awful lot of metaphors, Sherlock, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines.”
“Then what were you thinking? Tell me that,” he commands, clearly agitated but without his usual air of smugness.
You move from where you stand to sit in front of him, putting yourself in the direct, inescapable line of his scrutiny. “No, you tell me.” He rolls his eyes. “Come on,” you urge, far more confident than you should be. “Show me you’ve still got it.”
He doesn’t smile but something clicks in his eyes; he’s accepted the challenge and he studies you vociferously, stripping you of your clothes, your flesh and all of your pretensions in a way you’re so used to that you relax into the examination. You make no effort to hide what you’re thinking, and you’re not at all surprised when he starts reporting results of impeccable accuracy.
“You’re glad I came, relieved I’m not dead, enjoyed the sex kissing cuddling sleeping, of course. But you’re still not over it, me doing this all without you, and you’re upset that it’s not over yet, and wondering if it wouldn’t it be better had I not come at all, except you are relieved and you are happy to be with me. But you are tired of being alone, heartily sick of it, and though you won’t go looking for it, of course, you do wonder if you could resist if some lovely girl just fell in your lap because you absolutely have to have someone to depend on and be dependent on and if I’m not there you can only go so long without some human affection and you’ll grow tired of waiting even if you won’t lose your faith in me and damn you, maybe you actually want a normal relationship so you’d never have to go through this sort of thing again FINE,” he finishes, leaping to his feet. “You know what, forget what I said about dating. Go ahead, do it.”
You are already scrambling to your feet, but as you hear this you look at him incredulously. “Sherlock...”
“Do it. In fact I want you to, do you know why?” He comes closer, his face inches from yours and his transformed brown eyes eerily conveying that this is Sherlock in serious insanity, as opposed to the more common forms of giddy or brilliant insanity. “Because when you find that sweet girl who bakes you muffins and marvels at your medical knowledge and makes you go for romantic dinners, or some gay sod in a bar who impresses you with his muscles under his tight fluorescent t-shirt and takes you back to his flat (don’t forget to bring condoms, John), you’ll know that no one else will ever, ever exhilarate you in or out of bed like I do and you will want me more than anything in the world.”
He takes a breath and waits for your stunned reaction, and though you are astonished, it’s not entirely because of what he said. He looks frustrated. “John, did you hear what I said?”
“Oh yes,” you assure him with a slight nod. “God, you are pompous.”
He gives you the slightly furrowed forehead look, quite confused, and you laugh. “I know, I know. It’s true. You’re the most exhilarating thing in the world.” And you wrap your arms around him.
Sherlock melts a little at your touch, your head against his cheek. Soon his arms encircle your bare back, and his baritone voice whispers ever so softly, “so are you, John.”
You marvel at how he says your plain, frankly boring name so often, so lovingly, as if it’s as special and individual as his own. How can you possibly be as exciting and endearing to him as he is to you? How can you fit each other so perfectly, in both body and mind? You nuzzle his neck fondly. “We’re a perfect fit, then. Good thing I’m short.”
“I’ll have to dispose of anyone 5’1’’ or 6’1’’ who comes near you,” he replies, and you can feel him smiling. Then he extends his neck, kisses your forehead, and lets go, turning to his mobile phone. “Get dressed, we’ve got to go. Bakery opens in 11 minutes.”
“Bakery?” you ask in disbelief, throwing on your shirt.
“If you’re going to insist on nourishing me, I want fresh rolls,” he insists, grinning and doing up the buttons of your shirt, which he seems to enjoy almost as much as undoing them.
“Couldn’t we get you something with a little protein?” you ask resignedly, but you’re smiling.
“You know I hate omelettes.”
“Look, can I buy you some groceries? I will, I’ll do it every week, drop them off somewhere...”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffs, straightening your collar. “Coming?”
Of course you’re coming with him, but you’re all too aware what leaving the flat means, that he’s going off again without you after he lets you watch him nibble something other than yourself, that you won’t know where he is and whether he’s all right or starving himself, whether he’s sleeping and when he’s naked or lonely. So you pester him as you fight to keep up with him in the deserted morning streets. “You can’t lose any more weight, Sh...”
“Don’t say my name outside,” he mutters.
“Sorry, is that part of your disguise?”
“And the Romanian accent I’ll put on in an instant. Left.”
“I need to know you’re taking care of yourself,” you say desperately.
“I can’t do that as well as you can,” he replies quietly.
“You’re actually admitting I’m better at something than you are?”
“Just this once,” he quips. “You can fuss over me when I come to you.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
“Please,” you plead. “It’s the only thing I’m good at, taking care of you.”
“Not true,” he says, not slowing his pace but looking at you firmly. “We can’t be together often, John. You can’t expect that.”
“Well...at least, contact me, will you? Send me a text, message, whatever, now and then. Give me something.”
He stops, finally, flashing a brilliant grin at you. “OK, I’ll give you something.” He attacks you with a mind-blowing kiss, so hard you feel like your esophagus has just been swabbed, and then proceeds calmly. Once you’ve half-recovered he looks at you, as if to assure himself of his triumph, and smiles. “I’ll be in touch, in various ways.”
“Great,” you manage to cough out. “How will I know it’s you?”
“You’ll know,” Sherlock tells you. And you believe him.
Author: Lilithemm
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: R
Warnings: Sexytime, post-Reichenbach
Beta: leopardseals
Notes: Just posting this for my friend Lilithemm :)
Summary: John reunites with Sherlock under the most unexpected of circumstances.
You are leaving London. Permanently, you think. Though to be honest, thinking is precisely what you are trying to avoid these days. Every thought seems to lead you to precisely one place, one face, and you will not go there and see him in your head anymore. Hence the leaving of London, where every street is stamped with his mark, and those that aren’t somehow should be.
So you are finally motivated to get a job, to return to a regimen of discipline. After all, Dr. Watson, you are a trained medical specialist. You search with unending diligence; it’s easy, and it has nothing to do with him. Had nothing to do with him...no, you won’t use the past tense, you won’t think about your only...friend, you will instead spend days in front of the computer applying for every job that might consider a former army doctor, one that is at least a few hours from London, preferably the other side of the country.
You find a post in Edinburgh, hospital short on staff, that will take you on the basis of your record and a stunningly crap phone interview that can’t have gone well. Except it went quite well, actually, since you didn’t have to think about him. Just talk about Afghanistan, dying men, bloody children...none of that is a problem, apparently.
You pack a small suitcase with very few items, practically all of them jumpers, and catch the first train north to Scotland. You eat something every two hours to avoid thinking about how he wouldn’t eat for days on a case. You check your mobile for the briefest of seconds, then put it away; you won’t text anymore, or look at the young man’s gadget for more than is absolutely necessary. You read watch telly eavesdrop listen to music audiobooks podcasts in French don’t look at anyone else don’t observe look out the window until you get sick, anything to stop thinking.
You arrive in Edinburgh, walk two miles to avoid a cab (not a London cab but still a cab) to the room (not a flat) you’ve let and unpack. You grab a sannie for dinner, pick up another comic book (he’d never) and read, read, until your head is spinning and you have to lie down on the bed.
And it’s too late already; a day’s conscious effort at not thinking and the self-imposed exhaustion are not enough to keep you from recalling, at the end of yet another day without him, that Sherlock Holmes is dead.
The tears roll out the corners of your eyes, but you’re a soldier. You have trained yourself not to move; to let it happen. It’s inevitable, after all, and you could almost laugh.
You’re in a bloody awful state when you’d rather have PTSD than this heart sickness you’ve got, and you would accept a millennium of PTSD in return for one more text message signed SH.
You start new job and though it’s low on gunshot wounds and the like, it occupies you sufficiently that you feel ready to try a new tactic. Instead of consciously exiling him from your mind, you allow yourself, at least after hours, to dwell on him. You see and imagine him everywhere now. You almost feel him walking beside you in the streets. You hear his voice, commenting about another couple in the restaurant; you’ve picked up just enough of his observational skills to start the analysis in your head, and that’s all you need, really, as Sherlock always loses you halfway through. You find yourself smiling sometimes, and it’s good, better than you’d hoped. Yet as you lie in bed at night and try and imagine him there, on his side next to you with his curls tickling your ear, his knees brushing your thigh and his hands draped elegantly over your heart, as if he’d dismantled the steeple of his fingers just for you...the image comes too easily and perfectly that you weep, and you can no longer control the shaking.
You make one more attempt at quieting your mind; walks past midnight through the city and its parks, as you can’t sleep in any case, and if you’re really lucky you might get yourself murdered. You’ve contemplated suicide, of course, but it seems such a selfish thing to do, and you wouldn’t want to copy him. The gun is always an option, but a shot in the head is so messy that you’d feel more guilty for inflicting the sight of it on others than for inflicting it on yourself. Of course, that sod of yours....no, you don’t want to remember that sight of all of them, of the blood seeping out of his dark hair on the sidewalk....
But the chilly night strolls are refreshing, aren’t they? And while you’re waiting for someone else to kill you, someone else to decide your fate, just as you like, you can entertain the hope that somehow it was all a fake, as you know that Sherlock himself wasn’t. The hope that the brilliant man engineered it all and will one day pop around the corner and accost you with a mind-boggling observation about the state of your trousers. A hope that is gradually dimming, it’s true, but that seems somehow quite possible at night.
Possible enough that one night, you decide that it simply isn’t true. He cannot be dead. What, Sherlock Holmes, determined and practically infallible solver of mysteries, admit defeat and pop himself off? He wouldn’t. The more you think about it, the more this possibility fires your mind. Your walks take on a new purpose, giving you the gumption to revisit those awful moments in your head. You watch him jump, fall...but not hit the ground. Someone had knocked you to the ground, a biker, you think and...you saw Sherlock lying there, yes, felt his wrist but it’s easy enough to miss a pulse, especially the state you were in, and the blood was a bit excessive, given his head wasn’t actually smashed in, and you were only close for a moment, before people started pulling you away, so maybe he was shamming, maybe he concocted this whole plot to trick everybody and prepare for a spectacular comeback...you are nothing short of ecstatic.
But then it hits you. Sherlock would be capable of engineering such a spectacle, of course, but he couldn’t do it alone, and who else would he get to help him, if not you? In previous times, perhaps Lestrade, but with the whole police force after him he couldn’t have. And then where would he be now? Even if he managed the great escape by himself, somehow, surely he would have come for his conductor of light already, and the fact that you’re still without him after six months must mean that you’re an absolute fool. You remember that last moment at St. Bart’s, when Sherlock had refused to come with you to see Mrs. Hudson dying in hospital, and if you hadn’t been so damn upset you would have recognized the signs of a man ready to kill himself, a man who could take being disliked, hated even, but not being disbelieved. You are furious with yourself, and the only thing you can do to keep from crying is to keep walking.
So you end up trespassing through a graveyard, more wretched than ever. You are resolutely not thinking of the black tombstone back in London, occupying yourself with deciphering the old graves with their older names, and finally you sit on a bench, as your psychosomatic limp’s been acting up. And it occurs to you in a reverie that it would be so easy for a confirmed murderer to see you here, realize that you’re alone in the world and Christ, please, put you out of your misery.
“Oh, God, no one’s going to murder you in a cemetery, John.”
You are absolutely still. At the first word, you were simultaneously ready to feel your head explode and to jump into action, pulling your own gun out of your pocket, but as the words piled up you recognize the voice with utter certainty. You still can’t quite believe it, that anything you hope for could possibly happen, and that even this man could manage such a miracle. So you take a ragged breath and turn around, and there he is. Sherlock Holmes. Alive and, by the looks of that self-satisfied half-smile, well.
He’s different, of course. You only stare at him dumbly for a moment, and then you walk toward him. As you move you observe the subtle changes in his appearance, enough to make anyone other than you question, but you know his form his face his eyes his voice so well that you are in no doubt. His hair’s a bit shorter, a bit lighter brown; he’s wearing a burgundy collared shirt, skinny jeans, short boots and a green jacket not unlike one of yours; he’s got a hat on, not the trademark deerstalker he loathes so much but a simple gray wool ski cap. He’s different, but you’d know him anywhere, from a distance 500 meters at least.
He’s talking to you now, explaining his remark. “Cemetery, no killer wants to pop one off in a cemetery, too easy, too classic, and the sound will echo for approximately 2.3 miles with the open ground and the density of glass windows in Old Town. You’re sitting on the bench with a pose you think is relaxed but it’s not at all relaxed, you’re back is straight and your feet firmly planted. Your bearing still proclaims military, obvious. You walk with the gait of a man who’s carrying a gun even when you aren’t carrying yours, which is obvious in those trousers, Banana Republic size 8 quite loose on you by the way, and not even a serial killer’s going to pick a retired soldier too risky, obvious. You’re also wearing...”
“Just shut up, will you?” you say, putting your arms around him. And that stops him for a moment, and then he wraps his long arms around you, and everything is OK. In a freezing graveyard, just after 1am, everything is absolutely perfect.
“You’re...” Sherlock starts again, a little miffed he hasn’t finished amazing you with all of his instantaneous conclusions and that you haven’t told him he’s fantastic yet.
“Don’t say a bloody word,” you whisper vehemently, leaning your head against his cheek. “Don’t spoil it, OK?”
“Fine,” he agrees, holding you a little closer. You’re still in a state of exalted shock, can’t quite believe that he’s here, he’s OK, that he found you just when you were so close to drowning, and just as you start to absorb the facts and have questions, he releases you. “Come on, we’ve got four hours, we’ve got to go to my flat.”
“Flat? You’re living here, too?”
“Later, John. Take my hand.”
You can’t help grinning as he purposefully leads you out of the cemetery. “We’re not handcuffed, you know.”
“Yes, but you won’t keep up otherwise. I can’t afford to have you fall behind and get lost.”
“I don’t get lost,” you protest.
“Yes you do, all the time and that’s got to require effort, John. This is the easiest city in the whole world to navigate. Well, other than Karakorum.”
“You just don’t want to admit that you actually like holding hands,” you say knowingly, a little petulant.
“Shut up,” he orders with annoyance, but you smile nonetheless, feeling like you’ve won a small victory, and then you do struggle to keep up as he leads you through the alleys and backways of Old Town Edinburgh, as expertly as if it were London, and the two of you were running after the cabbie again. You’re not running, actually, but it isn’t long before Sherlock is climbing up the fire stairs and urging you to be quick about it. So you resign yourself to the inevitable, fumble up the stairs as quick as you can, and follow him into a flat slightly bigger and older than your room. It’s much tidier than you expect, mostly because there isn’t much in it: a laptop, a handful of books, a few odd jars you don’t want to know anything more about, a lamp, a mattress and a blanket. You look at Sherlock, who is poised in silence, eyes darting everywhere, as if he’s listening and checking for something.
“Sherlock...” you whisper tentatively.
“Shh,” he quiets you imperiously, and continues his vigilant dance until satisfied. He turns on the light, shrugs off his coat and flops down on the bed, which barely fits all six feet of him. You watch him, still amazed, and after a minute of inner contemplation he looks directly at you with those incredible grey-blue eyes. “Come, sit near me,” he commands.
You begin to remove your charcoal-grey pea coat. “That’s a small bed for a man of your size,” you say casually.
“We’ll fit,” he replies with assurance.
You fold your coat and place it carefully over his, and then you sit next to his hip, gingerly folding your legs to the side. You are close enough to feel his warmth and even touch him, but you can still look candidly into those eyes and probe for answers to your questions. Sherlock begins the conversation with one. “You’re limping again. Why?”
You shrug. “Makes me feel less sorry for myself. Or more, depending on my mood.”
The corners of his mouth turn up just the slightest bit, for only a moment. Then the serious expression returns. “OK, you’ve got questions.”
“Loads of them,” you reply.
“No, you’ve only got two,” he counters with confidence. “How, and why.”
You consider this, admitting to yourself that these are, in fact, the two questions on your mind. “Let’s start with how, then.”
The half-smile returns, accompanied by a hint of challenge. “You’ve thought about it. Tell me what you’ve deduced so far.”
“Sherlock, I’m not in the mood to be mocked.”
“I want to hear it,” he says, with unwonted softness.
A bit surprised, you take another breath. “I saw you fall,” you begin, and even now you can’t keep a sob from creeping up your throat, “but I didn’t see you hit the ground. There was a building in the way.”
“Obvious,” he mutters.
“Shut up,” you reply, but you’re smiling a little, and so is he. “OK, so then I ran to try and get to you, but I got hit, knocked down by a biker or something. So by the time I got up, came over, there were already loads of people there.” You look at him consideringly. “Couldn’t get close to you, couldn’t believe my eyes, but I do remember there was an awful lot of blood, and your head wasn’t smashed in. If you’d shot yourself, sure, strawberry jam everywhere,” you add knowledgeably, “but you couldn’t have bled that much with your skull intact.”
“And you’re very proud of that conclusion, aren’t you?” he notes, his usual disdain laced with a generous portion of fondness.
“And then there was your pulse,” you proceed sternly, ignoring him. “I felt for it as soon as I could grab your wrist, and it wasn’t there. But then I was pulled away, and I couldn’t think about any of it again for a very long time.” You’re silent for a moment. “But when I could, quite recently, I realized that I probably just missed the pulse, that’s easy enough to do. Or perhaps you can magically make your pulse disappear, like you can summon tears when it’s convenient.” You smile at him, a bit wryly. “So I think you must have jumped onto a mattress and engineered that scene while I was floored on the pavement, and gotten away afterwards. God knows how you got all those people to cover you, so I wouldn’t get too close.”
He takes your hand, then, running a thumb over your wrist as if he’s about to check your pulse. “Why wouldn’t I have wanted you to get close?”
“Because I’d see that you weren’t dead, of course,” you reply offhand, and then you see the gleam in his eyes, and you realize that you are about to be upstaged by the genius once again. You heave a sigh of resignation. “OK, what did I miss?”
“Well, it was quite a good start, John, very impressive,” he concedes joyfully. “It’s really endearing, how you manage to sort out some things and blatantly miss others.”
“Oh, sod off,” you say irritably. “Get on with it.”
“The building blocked your view of a lorry I had waiting. Before I went up I chalked out a thirteen and one half by eight feet three inch area for me to aim for when jumping, given the building was nine stories, the velocity of my fall with my height and weight...”
“Skip a bit, I’m sure you’ve calculated correctly,” you interrupt testily.
“Oh, you want the abridged version? I had a chalked out landing area mattress was ready by the time I jumped wanted a trampoline too difficult to collapse on short notice chatted with Moriarty chatted with you quite sure you remember plunged landed on the mattress got it into the lorry put the fake body on the pavement got the fake nurses out got in myself and drove away.”
“Sorry, fake body?” You look at him quizzically. “Oh,” you tone slowly, thinking. “That’s why I couldn’t get close. No, give me half a moment,” you say before he can start again. “You pulled the same trick. Irene Adler on the slab.”
“The woman, yes,” he replies, and you’re relieved to hear no reverence for her in his voice. “Easy enough to get a facial replica made if you’ve got the money, we saw that with Hansel and Gretel as well. I found the place that made the one of me Moriarty must have used, easy enough to procure a duplicate. Hard to find a corpse with the right build on short notice but found one marginally close in height, weight and pallor. Didn’t want you getting too close anyway so I got the fake nurses. If you hadn’t been disorientated you’d of noticed many of them were less than clean.”
You’re puzzled, and then your eyes widen. “Not the homeless network? Pulling me away with their grimy hands?”
“You’ve had worse things on your skin.”
“You, for instance.”
“Shut up, I spent a lot of money keeping you in the dark.”
And this brings you to your second question, and you realize it’s been increasingly bothering you. “But why keep it from me, Sherlock? I could have helped you engineer all this.” He shakes his head, not dismissively but firmly. “But then who helped you? No, don’t tell me, dead body and hospital outfits, had to be Molly. Molly! After all you’ve done to her?”
“Of course, who else?” he says with a careless gesture and a smile. Then he sees your eyes, almost glaring, and he becomes serious. “No, John, not you.”
“Why not?” you demand.
He sighs. “You’re a doctor but you don’t have access to dead bodies hospital gear lorries fresh gore...”
“All right, I’ve got it, but why not tell me after? Why not let me get close, play along?”
“Don’t you SEE?!” he says, sitting up angrily.
“I see, but I don’t observe,” you reply with dry humor.
But he isn’t amused. He looks at you with his penetrating blue eyes, and you are immediately pierced to the heart by the wells of sadness you see there. “You remember the assassins closing in on our flat, killing each other off when they got close?”
“Of course. Not something you forget, that.”
“They were there, too, and they were for you.”
You are completely taken aback. “ME? What have I got to do with it?”
“Everything,” he sighs, forming his fingers into his favorite contemplative tent. “When we met him at the pool, Moriarty said he would burn the heart out of me.” He casts a swift look at you, then returns to contemplating his hands. “Apparently he knew where to look. When I got up to the top of the building he told me that if I didn’t jump he would kill the people I cared for.”
“People? Me?”
“Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade as well.” He starts to grin and then looks at you. “Fine, you were first. I was rather sure of this to begin with but that’s why I sent you off to Mrs. Hudson and got the biker to hit you.”
You glare at him indignantly. “You paid a biker to come hit me at that exact moment?”
He rolls his eyes. “No, biker owed me a favor. You weren’t badly hurt. I needed to do it. To buy me just enough time so you could only return to see me jump, not to stop it.”
“Thanks awfully,” you say in a false cheery voice. “Glad to help.”
Sherlock scoffs. “Don’t you get it, John? Moriarty had four assassins surrounding the building, ready to shoot you if I didn’t jump. I tried to get his mobile to call them off but that’s when he shot himself, leaving me no choice but to get on the ledge and...say those things to you.” He looks away, a trifle embarrassed. “If the assassins had seen you reassured, seen you anything but devastated, they would have killed you.” And he looks rather upset by that thought. “I had to fake suicide, escape and bide my time.”
“So you let me be devastated instead,” you say, with a little more anger than you actually feel.
“Well at least it wasn’t permanent.”
“Felt like it was,” you say, but you aren’t angry anymore: rather touched, actually. You clear your throat and say casually, “OK. So what have you been doing? Where have you been?”
He shrugs and lies down again. “Up and down the UK, calling in a few favors, finding out everything I can about Moriarty’s network and the surveillance we’re under.”
“We?” you ask. “Both of us?”
“Yes, I’ve managed to lose all of mine but you still had someone tailing you until I poisoned him.” He sees the alarm on your face. “Relax, he’ll be out of hospital in a month.”
“Why didn’t you just shoot him?” you reply. “Or get me to do it?”
“Thought had occurred, with you being a crack shot and incredibly easy to order about, but it’s so messy, and we’re both in enough trouble as it is.”
Feeling mostly satisfied, you move a little closer to him, perching your upper body on his chest with your arms folded. “So you’ve been in hiding? Changing your appearance?”
“Hiding in plain sight. It’s not difficult with a few subtle changes.”
“Dyed your hair.”
“Yes. I started with blond.”
“Blond!?” you ask incredulously. “What possessed you to do that?”
“Contrast, John. I need to look different.” Then the corners of his mouth turn up. “But it was hideous, so I tried a lighter brown and I cut it short, it’s grown out.”
“I like it,” you assure him softly.
“Well it’s all right, now that it’s a little longer and really?” He pauses. “You do?”
“Quite,” you add with a smile. You love it, actually, and you love that he’s here and that you can be together again. “So you’ve got it more or less sorted, and now you’ve come for me?” you ask with some affection.
You’re surprised to see him brush your cheek with his fingers, looking sad. “Not quite, John,” he says very seriously.
“Not quite?” you question. “But you’re here.” You sit up and look at him doubtfully. “You’re not gonna...go off without me again. You’re not.”
“Am I not?” he asks. He sighs and sits up again, shifting his legs so you’re sitting almost next to one another. “I can’t have you with me right now, there’s too much and it’s all wrong.” He sits with his hands clasped, staring at the floor. “We’ve lost the spies I know of but I can’t be sure there aren’t more of them, and we’ll be far more conspicuous if we’re together. We’ve got to wait until I clear this up. Then, I will come for you.”
You nod as if this makes some sense, and now you are refusing to look at him, though you can feel him slide a glance toward you. “So what are you doing here, then? With me?”
“Letting you know I’m alive, of course.”
“And then leaving me again.”
“John, I need to fix this,” he says with exasperation. “I need to make it all better, get back to the way it was, but I can’t do it when I can’t focus and I can’t focus because you’re a mess. So I need you to be OK so I can finish the work. Do you get it?”
This pulls at your heartstrings, and you feel awful for having made him worry. “I’m... fine, Sherlock.”
“Oh, please,” he scoffs. “Your crow’s feet have deepened and your eyes are almost permanently bloodshot from crying every night and not sleeping. You eat a lot of small meals but you never consume a genuine meal, you’ve lost thirteen pounds. You’ve avoided every place and thing we’ve done together since I supposedly died, and now you’re taking late night strolls hoping to be murdered. You’re not fine.”
“True, I suppose,” you acknowledge softly. “Are you?”
“Perfectly, I don’t let these things get to me,” he says, but you know he’s lying.
You shrug. “You’re right, I mean, why should we miss our flat, filled with all of your rubbish, our matching chairs, and Mrs. Hudson’s sandwiches, and that Chinese restaurant two doors down...”
“Oh God, John, don’t make me homesick,” he says dismissively, though a little hoarsely.
You half-smile, knowing you’re right. “You’ve lost weight, too, at least fifteen pounds, I’d say.”
“Nineteen pounds, eight ounces, last I checked,” he corrects meticulously, “but that was two weeks ago.”
“Sherlock,” you say with mild horror. “You’re not eating, are you?”
“Of course I’m eating,” he replies, as if you have no reason to doubt this.
Doubting him thoroughly, you try to lift his shirt, and though he smacks your hand away, you’ve seen what you need. “For God’s sake, let me feed you.”
“Later.”
“But...”
“John, nothing’s open now and I need you in other ways,” he announces with some exasperation. You hear it for what it is, though, a plea with a note of love in it. So you sit quite close to him, put your arm around him and coax him to drop his head onto your shoulder, which he does with a bone-weariness he’s been trying to hide until now.
You squeeze his shoulder and kiss the top of his head, and after nuzzling your shoulder for a moment longer, he lifts his head and kisses you as if he’s drowning and the only air for miles is the oxygen in your lungs. You put your arms around him and respond greedily. Both of you are hungry for something much more.
You kiss for a long time, savoring the feel of each other’s lips, and you reach for the buttons of his shirt. You only get one open before he pushes your hand away and stands up. Confused, you watch him unbutton it himself. “I’ve only got a few shirts here and I can’t afford to have them rumpled,” he explains.
“Didn’t think to change your style of shirts? You know, wear a polo or a t-shirt?”
Sherlock looks at you incredulously. “Me? In a polo shirt?”
“Right, I forgot, you only do collared shirts, dressing gowns and sheets.”
He laughs, removes his shirt and hangs it carefully in the closet. He’s even thinner than you thought; you can see his ribs quite clearly through his pallid skin. His dark skinny jeans only accentuate his lithe frame, but as he removes those he sees the look of concern on your face. “Stop looking at me like that,” he commands.
“Sherlock, you need to eat,” you plead. “Have you got anything here?”
He strips off his pants and socks so he’s naked, shakes his head and walks toward you. You ignore his eating habits for a moment to appreciate how gorgeous he is, all long limbs and fine hands and even his elegant feet, dear God, and you stand up to hold his body in your hands and kiss every inch of it. But he stops you by pulling your blue jumper up from your waist and over your head. “I know you like to have your clothes ripped off,” he observes, grinning.
He’s right, of course, but as you put your hands on his waist you can’t help but worry about him again. “Not even a couple of biscuits? Tea?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You can make me eat later if you stop fussing now,” he informs you, kissing you with his tongue in your mouth to keep you from saying anything else. Before you know it your own shirt and trousers have been removed and Sherlock is on his knees, taking off your shorts and using his tongue in impossibly delightful ways. Then you do actually stop thinking, only able to feel and sense for several minutes until you are begging him not to stop and he blows your mind.
He eases you onto his tiny bed, laying you down on your stomach as gently as if you were the most precious thing in the world to him. The idea that you may very well be his most prized possession occurs to you only to be discarded; that’s just your own hope speaking in your mind. But then his hands caress the planes of your skin, drawing carefully over the lines of your scars and sunspots and other imperfections as if they’re worthy of being encased in his memory. When you feel him drape his body over your own, the warmth of his pale skin igniting yours, you’re almost impatient for him to possess all of you entirely, to know every fragment of you better than you do yourself. And when he finally enters you, so carefully and gently that he must be afraid to lose you, you are no longer sure if the dream of being Sherlock’s favorite thing in the world is so unattainable after all.
After sex, which was both uncomplicated and delicious, Sherlock slides off to your right side, his arm still over you and his breath on your neck. He seems utterly spent, and though you’re quite exhausted as well, you believe firmly that there is a proper way to freshen up after sex. You turn your head to the side, chastely kiss the skin before his ear, and sit up on your knees. “Come on,” you coax. “Quick shower.”
“Later,” he replies dismissively, turning his face away.
“No, now’s the time,” you persist. “Up you get, or shall I carry you?”
Sherlock gives a scornful grunt. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” you reply with an edge. “I’ve carried men twice your size fair distances.” You put your hands on his hip bones as if you’re about to pull him up, and this action causes him to stretch dramatically, like an annoyed cat, before getting up with irritation, half-feigned.
Perhaps he does actually want to be clean, or merely avoid your fretting, but he lets you soap him thoroughly, then rinses off and escapes the hot water. As he stands there drying himself, he observes you washing as if you were a rare specimen. When you exit the shower, he helps dry you with the same towel, probably his only, and you refrain from complaining that it’s already wet because you really couldn’t care less, what with his hands all over you.
You then return to the site of your conjugal bliss. You hit the bed first while Sherlock continues drying his hair, toweling his short curls, and you meticulously arrange the bed while watching him out of the corner of your eye. “Want to waste the rest of the time sleeping, do you?” he asks.
“Don’t have to sleep...if you don’t want to,” you reply evenly. “People like to cuddle together after a shag, don’t they?” He looks at you with a raised eyebrow and a hint of a smirk playing on his lips. You sigh and glare at him. “Okay, being a genius and a sociopath, you may not know that fact, but even if I am stupid, and I must be an idiot for putting up with you, I can assure you that it’s 100% true. It’s probably even good for your health.” He seems to consider this, draping the towel around his neck, and you are getting sick of this game. “Look, would you just come here and hold me for a few minutes? You can say or do anything you want, just...” You’re at a loss.
But you don’t need to say anything more, as he nods, discards his towel prop and comes down to you. He slips under the sheets, coaxes you on your side and slides his long limbs into place behind you, laying his right hand carefully over your chest. “And what if I wanted to be held?” he mumbles in your ear.
You stop in the act of laying your hand over his, quite shocked. “Do you really?”
“It’s fine,” he murmurs huskily.
“No, really,” you say with concern, looking over your shoulder at him as best you can. “Sherlock, I can, I’d be happy...”
“Quiet, John, you’re breaking my concentration.” He adjusts his other arm and his feet slightly, to his satisfaction. “Perfect.”
“Well, you are significantly taller than me,” you admit, “so it’s probably better this way than if we switched, yes.”
“No,” he disagrees. “It’s perfect because you’re mine, and this arrangement is the physical manifestation of that fact.”
You’re sort of giddily pleased at this comment, almost as much as you are delighted to be in his arms. Though sometimes a little alarmed at the prospect of belonging to Sherlock Holmes, you’re quite aware that you already do, in a way, and that you made that decision yourself. Nonetheless you are surprised when he says, “Promise me you won’t try and date anyone. Especially not girls.”
You are torn between continuing endearment and newfound petulance. You decide to express the latter emotion first. “What, you want me to just sit around and wait for you?”
Sherlock considers for half a second. “Yes. Yes I do. Why, is that a problem?” Another second. “You don’t want anyone else.”
You smile wryly. “No, not really.”
“And you can service yourself with ease, I’ve noticed.”
“Don’t blame me because you get bored when you wank yourself,” you reply irritably. Then you turn around, still in his arms, and say what you’re really thinking. “I want you, but I want you here. Anywhere, really, but actually with me. So if I promise not to shag anyone else, you’d better promise that you’re definitely coming back.”
He considers this, steepling his fingers even half under the sheets, then he frowns and looks at you again. “What, do you doubt it?”
“Sherlock, I thought you were dead until a few hours ago. Now you’re here, and you say you’re leaving again. I mean, can you blame me?”
He peers at you intently, searching your expression for clues to emotions you haven’t even consciously felt, in that way that makes you feel like your intentions are being run through a cat scan. “You never believed that I was a fake,” he says finally.
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know you too well,” you reply simply.
He absorbs this and probably dissects it into a thousand pieces before responding to you two seconds later. “Then why don’t you think I’ll come back again?”
You sigh, reaching a hand into his curls. “Because I’m terribly afraid that you’re running out of miracles, and though I have a lot of faith in you, I can’t imagine how you can possibly get us out of this mess.”
Sherlock smiles his devious smile, the one that automatically fills you with apprehension. “Fortunately, I can. But it’ll take some time.” He grows serious. “Until then I’ve got to stay in hiding and keep moving. You’d better keep on the move, too. Go somewhere different every few months, though you’ll have to stay in the UK to practice medicine, I suppose.”
“Could see if the army would take me back,” you offer, half-joking.
“No!” he says with more vehemence than you expect.
You look at his wild eyes and decide to step things back a bit. “How did you find me? Here, I mean?”
“I check your email account every few days,” he replies dismissively.
At this point in your relationship with Sherlock you are certainly not surprised by this information and really should have thought of it yourself. “So...even if we can’t stay together at the moment, you could...drop in on me again? Like this?”
“Not often. Very cautiously. But yes,” he answers, sighing ever so slightly. “It’s only a respite, John, and we’ve got to make sure it’s done very carefully.”
“That’s your specialty,” you say with cheerful confidence. “And it’ll let me practice mine.”
“What, not medicine? Target practice? Obeying orders?”
“Making sure you eat,” you reply.
Sherlock grins and kisses your forehead. He lies on his back, arms behind his head, and you look at him wistfully, savoring his presence. Though unbelievably relieved that you will see him again, you are dreading the moment of departure, in however many minutes it is coming. “Can’t we just change our names and move to America?” you propose hopefully.
He looks at you with an expression that near contempt, and then explodes. “Change our names? Change MY name without clearing it? I am Sherlock Holmes. No one else!”
“Shh, keep your voice down,” you urge, then sigh. “I know. You can’t be anyone else.”
“Mmh,” he grunts, satisfied. Then he frowns, looks at you. “Would you want me to be someone else?”
You shrug, resigned. “Only when you drive me so mad that I want to throttle you.”
He smiles brilliantly, comes back to you and nuzzles you fondly. “How exactly,” he murmurs softly, “where you intending to get me on a plane and keep me there for seven hours without throttling me?”
Your eyes flash open, and you can see it perfectly with utter horror, how he would argue with every security agent, refuse to take off his shoes, point out the indiscretions of everyone in line, harass the flight attendants, predict the meals and map out the life stories of their unfortunate neighbors on the plane for seven hours.... ”I’d drug you,” you say emphatically.
“What?!” he says, surprised.
“Yes, I’d drug you,” you say quite seriously. “Dramamine probably wouldn’t knock you out so I’d basically give you anesthesia of some sort, pop you in a wheelchair, buckle you in a window seat and hope you wouldn’t wake up until we’d arrived.”
Sherlock seems slightly shocked. “Have you thought of this before?”
“Never,” you admit. “But that’s exactly what I’d do.”
“I’ve underestimated you,” he admits, and then goes quiet for several minutes. “Sorry,” he says finally, and you don’t need to ask him for what. You know how he feels about apologizing, and so you know that the one word of it that he managed to spit it out is for everything he’s ever driven you to, up to and including the absolute knowledge that you’d need to forcibly drug him so that you could endure a simple plane ride in his presence.
“It’s OK,” you assure him. “It’s fine. It’s all fine.” You kiss him to prove it, and then smile at him. “Shall we try and get a bit of sleep?”
“You want to get me one full REM cycle before morning, is that it?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want,” you reply.
“I’d prefer cigarettes or sex, but if ninety-one minutes of sleep will satisfy your maternal urges, I will comply.”
Satisfied, you roll back on your side and wait for Sherlock to fit himself against you, and once he arranges himself into the same perfect position, you put your hand over his and sink into the deep, untroubled sleep of someone who has entrusted everything important to someone else. Because you have, and whether he is a sociopath, genius or madman doesn’t matter to you in the slightest.
It is far too soon when he wakes you, but the disappointment of opening your eyes is somewhat alleviated by the way Sherlock is nibbling your shoulder and kneading your right nipple. You stretch and leisurely turn to face him, and one glance is enough to tell you that your nap was the best sleep either of you have gotten in months. “You’ve got to eat and sleep, Sherlock,” you say. “You’re wasting away.”
He gives you the barest of smiles. “Inspire me by taking better care of yourself, and I’ll try.”
“OK,” you agree, not entirely convinced but not quite ready to argue with him, so you kiss him instead. “So...what’s next?”
You immediately regret your question, as it causes him to fly from the bed with determined yet graceful strides and, horror of horrors, begin covering his magnificent form with clothes. Resigned, you admire the view while you can, and once he’s back in those jeans you get up and go to the bathroom before you allow yourself to become too aroused.
As you’re washing your face, you notice the bathroom as you hadn’t before, filled with Sherlock’s simple grooming items, and you are marveling how immaculate he looks with so little help when you notice contact lens case. You immediately start worrying about his eyesight and wonder why he’s hidden it from you all this time, and when he enters while you’re in the middle of shaving with his razor, you look at him quizzically. “What?” he asks irritably. “Found the contacts?”
“I didn’t know you wore them,” you say.
“You know very well that I don’t. Didn’t,” he corrects meticulously. “Give me room in front of the mirror.”
You shake your head. “Wash your hands first.” He rolls his eyes. “I know you weren’t going to. Wash them and I’ll move.”
Refusing to be compliant, he elbows you out of the way, gives his hands a cursory wash and inserts his contacts. You’re not watching him then, as you’re trying very hard to continue shaving without a mirror and without cutting your nose off. But when he turns back to look at you and his eyes are now brown, you start with such a shock that you drop the razor, or at least you would have if Sherlock hadn’t caught it and started using it on himself. “Brown eyes?” you say at last.
“I didn’t wear them last night,” he says with relative patience, “because I thought it would be the only thing that would actually throw you off.”
“You were bloody right,” you say honestly. “It’s brilliant. It really changes your whole... you didn’t want to start me doubting,” you realize with a surge of guilt.
“Good call, then,” he says flatly.
“I would have sorted it out, though,” you insist. “Would just take some time.”
“Not in the middle of the night in a cemetery,” he replies, handing back the razor to you. “Try not to miss the patch of hair by your left mandible.”
And then he’s gone, and you know he’s a little angry with you, but you calm yourself by shaving scrupulously, taking care to catch the spot Sherlock pointed out. You walk back into the room and see him sitting on the ground with a map in hand. You’re suddenly ashamed to still be naked, when he’s fully dressed and ready to go, so you slip on your pants and trousers. You nervously clear your throat, for no reason that you can think of, and when Sherlock lifts his head and his eyes bore through you, you discover that the color of his irises makes absolutely no difference to their intensity. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?” he demands.
You are genuinely confused. “Like what?”
“Like you’re a sick puppy and you need comfort. Or like I’m a half-dead kitten and you want to nurse me back to health. Or like I’m some vampiric tart come to suck you dry for a night, and you’re not sure if you like it.”
You remain perplexed, but you scratch your head calmly. “Awful lot of metaphors, Sherlock, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines.”
“Then what were you thinking? Tell me that,” he commands, clearly agitated but without his usual air of smugness.
You move from where you stand to sit in front of him, putting yourself in the direct, inescapable line of his scrutiny. “No, you tell me.” He rolls his eyes. “Come on,” you urge, far more confident than you should be. “Show me you’ve still got it.”
He doesn’t smile but something clicks in his eyes; he’s accepted the challenge and he studies you vociferously, stripping you of your clothes, your flesh and all of your pretensions in a way you’re so used to that you relax into the examination. You make no effort to hide what you’re thinking, and you’re not at all surprised when he starts reporting results of impeccable accuracy.
“You’re glad I came, relieved I’m not dead, enjoyed the sex kissing cuddling sleeping, of course. But you’re still not over it, me doing this all without you, and you’re upset that it’s not over yet, and wondering if it wouldn’t it be better had I not come at all, except you are relieved and you are happy to be with me. But you are tired of being alone, heartily sick of it, and though you won’t go looking for it, of course, you do wonder if you could resist if some lovely girl just fell in your lap because you absolutely have to have someone to depend on and be dependent on and if I’m not there you can only go so long without some human affection and you’ll grow tired of waiting even if you won’t lose your faith in me and damn you, maybe you actually want a normal relationship so you’d never have to go through this sort of thing again FINE,” he finishes, leaping to his feet. “You know what, forget what I said about dating. Go ahead, do it.”
You are already scrambling to your feet, but as you hear this you look at him incredulously. “Sherlock...”
“Do it. In fact I want you to, do you know why?” He comes closer, his face inches from yours and his transformed brown eyes eerily conveying that this is Sherlock in serious insanity, as opposed to the more common forms of giddy or brilliant insanity. “Because when you find that sweet girl who bakes you muffins and marvels at your medical knowledge and makes you go for romantic dinners, or some gay sod in a bar who impresses you with his muscles under his tight fluorescent t-shirt and takes you back to his flat (don’t forget to bring condoms, John), you’ll know that no one else will ever, ever exhilarate you in or out of bed like I do and you will want me more than anything in the world.”
He takes a breath and waits for your stunned reaction, and though you are astonished, it’s not entirely because of what he said. He looks frustrated. “John, did you hear what I said?”
“Oh yes,” you assure him with a slight nod. “God, you are pompous.”
He gives you the slightly furrowed forehead look, quite confused, and you laugh. “I know, I know. It’s true. You’re the most exhilarating thing in the world.” And you wrap your arms around him.
Sherlock melts a little at your touch, your head against his cheek. Soon his arms encircle your bare back, and his baritone voice whispers ever so softly, “so are you, John.”
You marvel at how he says your plain, frankly boring name so often, so lovingly, as if it’s as special and individual as his own. How can you possibly be as exciting and endearing to him as he is to you? How can you fit each other so perfectly, in both body and mind? You nuzzle his neck fondly. “We’re a perfect fit, then. Good thing I’m short.”
“I’ll have to dispose of anyone 5’1’’ or 6’1’’ who comes near you,” he replies, and you can feel him smiling. Then he extends his neck, kisses your forehead, and lets go, turning to his mobile phone. “Get dressed, we’ve got to go. Bakery opens in 11 minutes.”
“Bakery?” you ask in disbelief, throwing on your shirt.
“If you’re going to insist on nourishing me, I want fresh rolls,” he insists, grinning and doing up the buttons of your shirt, which he seems to enjoy almost as much as undoing them.
“Couldn’t we get you something with a little protein?” you ask resignedly, but you’re smiling.
“You know I hate omelettes.”
“Look, can I buy you some groceries? I will, I’ll do it every week, drop them off somewhere...”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffs, straightening your collar. “Coming?”
Of course you’re coming with him, but you’re all too aware what leaving the flat means, that he’s going off again without you after he lets you watch him nibble something other than yourself, that you won’t know where he is and whether he’s all right or starving himself, whether he’s sleeping and when he’s naked or lonely. So you pester him as you fight to keep up with him in the deserted morning streets. “You can’t lose any more weight, Sh...”
“Don’t say my name outside,” he mutters.
“Sorry, is that part of your disguise?”
“And the Romanian accent I’ll put on in an instant. Left.”
“I need to know you’re taking care of yourself,” you say desperately.
“I can’t do that as well as you can,” he replies quietly.
“You’re actually admitting I’m better at something than you are?”
“Just this once,” he quips. “You can fuss over me when I come to you.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
“Please,” you plead. “It’s the only thing I’m good at, taking care of you.”
“Not true,” he says, not slowing his pace but looking at you firmly. “We can’t be together often, John. You can’t expect that.”
“Well...at least, contact me, will you? Send me a text, message, whatever, now and then. Give me something.”
He stops, finally, flashing a brilliant grin at you. “OK, I’ll give you something.” He attacks you with a mind-blowing kiss, so hard you feel like your esophagus has just been swabbed, and then proceeds calmly. Once you’ve half-recovered he looks at you, as if to assure himself of his triumph, and smiles. “I’ll be in touch, in various ways.”
“Great,” you manage to cough out. “How will I know it’s you?”
“You’ll know,” Sherlock tells you. And you believe him.