FIC: The Illusion of Free Will (4/?)
Title: The Illusion of Free Will 4/?
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 overall)
Warnings/Spoilers: Bastardising of canon dialogue at times?
Summary: 8th August 1999 (John is 37, Sherlock is 18).
“Eighteen is the legal age of consent for homosexual acts and I’m already two years past the other. I’m able to make up my own mind, John. And don’t flatter yourself and insult me by thinking that you’re the only person who’s paid me any attention. I’ve had many offers.”
John can imagine. It’s awful to even contemplate, though he knows it shouldn’t be. “It’ll be sixteen for both soon,” he says, for lack of anything better to say.
Disclaimer: This is the bit where they make me say I don't own anything. Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and, of course, the one and only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Time Traveler's Wife belongs to Audrey Niffenegger.
On AO3
8th August 1999 (John is 37, Sherlock is 18)
The first thing John notices when he arrives in the meadow is the humidity. It’s hot enough to be summer, which is pleasant when you show up somewhere random without a stitch on. Winter arrivals in the snow and frost are the absolute worst.
The second thing he notices is Sherlock, facing away from him and looking out over the clearing. His stance is familiar: poised with impossible grace, left arm held out and right arm bent as he plays the violin. It’s hard to tell from behind, but judging from his height, Sherlock is probably older than sixteen. When John last saw him at that age, he was going through the tail-end a growth spurt. It looks to be completed now, leaving Sherlock at the height John is used to in the present.
John listens to the melody for a moment before approaching. It’s Bach, if he’s not mistaken. He undoubtedly is.
Sherlock is playing now with the same skill and passion as his older self. No one could hear Sherlock play the violin, no one could watch him play and still label him cold, unfeeling. His head is inclined towards the instrument, and John just knows his eyes are closed, not in concentration, but in the same way one might close their eyes when kissing a lover.
No, he’s not cold or unfeeling at all.
Sherlock is dressed in a similar way to the man John left behind in the present. His pristine white shirt almost glows in the sunlight, the material drawn tight across his back and shifting fluidly on the right as he draws the bow across the strings. His sleeve draws up a little with every movement and exposes the delicate bones in his wrist before covering them again, hiding the vulnerability from view.
As in all things, Sherlock looks glorious.
John walks over to him, appreciating the cool grass under his feet, turning his face up to bask in the warmth that strokes down over him. The wildflowers are in full bloom (bright yellow St John’s wort, pink orchids, violets and pansies) and butterflies are flitting about all around him. To him, the meadow has never looked more beautiful.
He doesn’t want to interrupt Sherlock’s playing, so he comes to stand behind him, his toes resting just on the edge of the small shadow cast by Sherlock in the midday sun. He knows Sherlock has heard him rustling through the grass; he’ll finish the piece and turn to acknowledge him soon.
He’ll grin at John, make a comment about his state of undress, tell him where he’s stashed clothes for him this time while John tries not to blush.
In the Army, John got used to being naked around other men. He was comfortable enough before that from playing rugby at uni, from PE at school. It’s different with Sherlock though, because he’s just a boy now and, even though John can’t help it, it seems somehow depraved to show up naked like this knowing what they’re going to be to each other in the future. Knowing what Sherlock asked of him when he was last here, when Sherlock was just sixteen.
Oh God, John thinks, don’t let him ask again.
Sherlock finishes playing with a little flourish, evidently showing off for his audience, and stoops to lay the violin in the case at his feet.
“John,” he says by way of greeting as he snaps the case shut and straightens up again.
“How long?”
Sherlock turns to face him, there’s a twist of his lips as he considers the question. He’s definitely older than sixteen, he looks closer to eighteen now.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, John realises he is in so much trouble. He sees the warning sign in Sherlock’s eyes: that wicked gleam as he watches John taking him in, taking in his smooth face that’s lost nearly all of its boyish attributes, almost free of the spots and blemishes that had plagued him two years ago. His hair is longer; the curls look smooth, glossy now rather than unfortunately greasy no matter how often he washed them like before. The growth spurt has paradoxically taken away his gangliness. He’s the commanding presence John is used to now, refined grace and understated power. Sherlock may think of his body as transport, but it’s not as if he’s walking (striding) around in a broken-down Reliant Robin now, is it?
Annoyingly, Sherlock looks almost the same as he does in John’s present. John can only explain this by imagining a portrait of Sherlock actually growing older and more weathered like he should be, hidden away somewhere in an attic. Or perhaps Mrs Hudson looks after it for him.
John shakes his head to clear it of whimsy and Sherlock smiles, sharp-edged and predatory. He’s not going to make this easy.
“It’s been a year and a few months since we last met. You were thirty-seven then.”
John shakes his head. “No clue, and I’m thirty-seven now. You’re seventeen? Eighteen?”
“Oh, I’m eighteen,” Sherlock answers, and John is not imagining the suggestive tone, the subtle curve to the left side of his mouth, the raised eyebrow. He isn’t.
When Sherlock takes a step closer, right into his personal space, John has to wonder if this is what hysteria feels like.
“Last time,” Sherlock says, voice pitched deliberately low, “you made love to me right here in this meadow. You were a patient teacher, as always. Shall I show you how much I learnt?”
He strokes a hand down from John’s bare shoulder to his elbow and John lets out a loud, high-pitched giggle at that. Sherlock’s expression instantly drops from seductive into his customary furrowed brow and downturned lips. “What?” he asks, moving back a pace and folding his arms defensively.
“Made love to you?” John chokes out through his laughter. “Really, Sherlock? Oh God, did you think I’d fall for that one?”
He giggles helplessly again, bending at the waist and clutching at his stomach.
Sherlock glares at him. “Oh stop it, it was worth a try.”
“Not really. Speaking of: can I have some clothes, please?” He’s starting to feel exposed.
Sherlock waves a hand absently towards the sycamore tree a few feet away. “Basket behind the tree,” he says, and John heads towards it.
“Stop looking at my arse,” he says over his shoulder as he goes.
Disobedient little shit that he is, Sherlock doesn’t stop his blatant staring.
John dresses quickly - one of Mycroft’s old shirts and a pair of trousers that wouldn’t fit him if he ate continuously until he caught up with his own time - behind the tree, out of Sherlock’s line of sight.
He hears the disgusted sound Sherlock makes in his throat at that and smirks.
“I neglected to bring you clothes last time,” Sherlock calls out to him. “An experiment to see if your prolonged nudity might make you more amenable to my suggestions.”
John snorts; he’ll look forward to that one.
“It didn’t, of course,” Sherlock continues. “Am I that unattractive?”
Left leg through the correct hole in the trousers and raising his right leg, John freezes. It’s an act, it must be. Sherlock isn’t insecure about his looks, not even slightly. He doesn’t really care about them, beyond his need to look meticulously put together and permanently unruffled, thank God. John’s not certain he could handle reassuring an eighteen year old Sherlock about how infuriatingly good-looking he’s become after a ropey childhood and the unkindness of puberty, not without humiliating himself beyond measure, anyway.
“To you, I mean. I know I’m considered attractive generally.”
Disobedient, arrogant little shit.
“That would be telling, Sherlock,” he calls back, shoving his other leg into the trousers and zipping them. Good God, there aren’t enough holes in the belt. He can’t understand how Sherlock can call Mycroft fat in the present, he really can’t. Compared to his childhood, he’s positively svelte now.
He comes out from behind the tree, holding up his trousers with one hand and feeling foolish.
Sherlock doesn’t laugh like he usually does; his mouth is occupied in a scowl. John winces.
“Hardly,” Sherlock says, clearly in a huff with him (some things never change). “I’m asking whether you find me attractive now, not in the future. So it wouldn’t be telling at all.”
John sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Sherlock, I’m sure we went over this when you were sixteen, and I probably went over it again with you at seventeen. You are eighteen, and I am thirty-seven, which is more than twice your age. Why do you find me attractive? I’ve got wrinkles. My hair’s going grey!”
There’s a pause as Sherlock frowns and considers his answer. John is grateful for that, he’d half expected Sherlock just to fold his arms and fire back a childish “because I do!”
Sherlock at eighteen is more mature than he gave him credit for. It’s hard to keep track, all these different Sherlocks at different ages. It seems like just last week he was convincing a seven year old Sherlock to smile because it was his birthday and then fighting the awkwardness of him asking if John was married in the future.
Probably because it was just last week for him. Fucking time travel.
“I can’t explain it,” Sherlock says at length, and John knows that must be frustrating as hell for him, to not be able to explain it to John means he can’t even explain it to himself. “There’s just something captivating about you. Your face, your history. I can’t work out everything about you, and it makes me hate you as much as I want you. In a world full of transparent people, you’re opaque. Everyone else I know is dull and flat when I put them next to you.”
That is… well, it’s immensely flattering. Except for the hate bit.
He’s always known Sherlock doesn’t really see lined skin or thinning hair. He sees a person’s story, their actions and motives. Often he just discards most of the information, only keeping the things that are useful as clues or for manipulation.
At thirty, Sherlock told him he’d never deleted a single thing he’d learned about him, that he’d never needed to write down any of the measurements he’d taken over the years because he stored them all in his head. It meant far more than any planned, carefully-worded declaration of love, though John hadn’t taken it for one at the time.
Sherlock is fidgeting with the cuff of one rolled up sleeve, avoiding John’s eyes. His ears are tinged with pink. Probably the beginnings of sunburn rather than embarrassment, the five minutes he’s spent in the sun would be enough to do it.
John wants to give something back to him. He wants to admit something to Sherlock, to tell him just how much he’s going to come to mean to him, but how can he without telling him the future? Things happen the way they happen, the way they’ve already happened. It wouldn’t be fair to Sherlock to let him know about their future. Sherlock needs to make up his own mind as he goes; he deserves that chance, even if fate has always chosen to throw them together.
They’re tangled up in each other, bound as one throughout history, for whatever reason. Finding each other and losing each other and finding each other again. That’s not his fault, he can’t control that. But he can control himself.
“Sherlock,” he begins, shaking his head ruefully, “what you feel, it’s just infatuation from closeness. We’ve known each other a long time and you’re comfortable with me. I’m an adult you’ve grown up with, but I’m not family. I’m not threatening, whereas going out to meet someone your own age must be terrifying.”
Predictably, Sherlock scowls at that. “Not really, and I just said they’re all dull. I don’t want anyone my own age, or of any other age. I just want you. Don’t you want me?”
Of course I do, he thinks. Always.
He’s going to have to hurt him today. He’s tried so hard to avoid that.
“It’s not a case of that, Sherlock. Whether I want you or not, you’re eighteen, I’m thirty-seven. I’m old enough to be your father if I’d started very young, which I did. I had sex with the first person who paid me a bit of attention. I don’t want that for you.”
“Eighteen is the legal age of consent for homosexual acts and I’m already two years past the other. I’m able to make up my own mind, John. And don’t flatter yourself and insult me by thinking that you’re the only person who’s paid me any attention. I’ve had many offers.”
John can imagine. It’s awful to even contemplate, though he knows it shouldn’t be. “It’ll be sixteen for both soon,” he says, for lack of anything better to say.
“John.”
“Okay, I’ll get to the heart of the matter: I’m not going to have sex with you.”
“Why? Do you only have sex with women?”
John gapes at him, even as he knows he shouldn’t be shocked or offended anymore by Sherlock’s bluntness. “That’s still beside the point!”
“The point being my age. How many times? I’m an adult, John, surely even someone as unobservant as you can see that. Let me make this easier for you.”
And with that, Sherlock drops his hands to his shirt buttons and undoes them all with horrifying efficiency, pulling his shirt up and out of his trousers. He shrugs his shoulders and the material just slides right off him. It hits the ground before John can even make sense of what is happening.
His hands go to his belt next and John reaches out, lightning quick, to stop him. “What are you doing?”
“I should think it would be obvious,” Sherlock says, gesturing at himself as best he can with John’s hands gripping his wrists. The movement causes the backs of John’s fingers to brush over the front of Sherlock’s trousers. John jerks his hands back as if they were burnt.
Sherlock takes advantage of the moment, his newly freed hands pulling open his belt before flicking the button on his trousers and sliding the zipper down.
John immediately slaps his palms over his eyes, as much as a gesture that conveys utter disbelief at the situation as an attempt to preserve Sherlock’s modesty when he seems intent on doing the opposite.
“Oh God, this can’t be happening.”
Uncovering his eyes, he sees a flash of Sherlock’s underwear. Black briefs, as expected, the same as those favoured by his older self. Probably just as expensive and snug too. Oh God, this is happening.
John shuts his eyes and obscures his vision again. “Stop it, Sherlock, come on. This isn’t funny.”
“It’s not meant to be funny.” Uncertainty hovers around the words. “You- you really aren’t attracted to me?”
John hears the buzz of a zipper going back up (that tell-tale pitch change, low to high) and a dry sniff.
He takes his hands away from his eyes and is met with a still-shirtless but thankfully still-trousered Sherlock. Years of experience let John effortlessly read the hurt in his blank expression and rigid posture.
Sherlock doesn’t meet his eyes as he bends down to pull on his shirt, standing to button it, half turned away from John. His hands are shaking, clumsy with shame and haste, as he puts his clothes back on, a stark comparison to the confidence with which he shed them.
“I got it wrong, stupid of me, really. I can’t believe I misread things so spectacularly, I-”
“Hey, hey,” John reaches Sherlock in three strides and, not caring whether his borrowed trousers fall down, lays his palms lightly on Sherlock’s shoulders. “You aren’t stupid. For God’s sake, Sherlock, you’re the most intelligent person I’ve ever met.”
Sherlock shakes his head, still evading John’s gaze and looking off to his right. “But I got this wrong, didn’t I? I got it so wrong, and-”
John cuts him off again by moving one hand to catch and tilt Sherlock’s chin until they’re looking at each other again. Sherlock tries to struggle but John keeps his fingers on Sherlock’s jaw, keeps him in place so he can’t look away.
“Let’s sit down and talk,” he says, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.
Sherlock’s eyes close in resignation, but he complies, lowering himself into the tall grass as John does the same.
“What’s this really about?” John asks carefully after a moment of strained silence.
Sherlock huffs in irritation and John watches as he tears a small chunk of grass out of the ground and shreds it without mercy between his fingers. The gesture is so pointless, so different to his own Sherlock’s controlled, reasoned actions. His age and all issues of taking advantage aside, this is another reason why he could never have sex with Sherlock as he is now. He’s not the same, and he’s definitely not as grown up as he thinks he is.
Sherlock drops the grass and moves so he is half sitting, half lying down, hands propping him up on either side as he reclines, squinting up at the sun.
“I’m going to Cambridge in a month’s time,” he says eventually, “and I’m not going to see you for another two years according to the list. I’m going to be surrounded by even more sex-obsessed idiots than I am now and you won’t do this one thing for me so I know what it’s like.”
“Is that it? You’re worried about your lack of experience?”
It makes sense, actually. Sherlock is, by his very nature, an endlessly curious man, a dedicated scientist, and an ardent collector of data. John can see it now: it must infuriate him to be lacking in this area when it seems like everyone around him understands it perfectly.
Sherlock glowers. “I’m not worried; I merely hoped that you might fill a gap in my knowledge. Forget I asked, seeing as the very idea sends you into such despair. I’m sure someone else will be willing, even if they are second choice.”
The thought makes John’s skin crawl, the idea of some smarmy Oxbridge tosser like Sebastian Wilkes being the first to kiss Sherlock, the first to touch him and take him to bed. He knows it’s primitive of him, but he can’t help it. If he were less principled, the sheer level of possessiveness and jealousy he feels would compel him to accept all of Sherlock’s propositions, to be all of Sherlock’s firsts.
In the present, Sherlock has never spoken about any past lovers, but the first time they had sex he was hardly the innocent virgin. If nothing else, he was far too relaxed about it all for it to be his first time like John had suspected it might be from the way he’d talked beforehand. There must have been someone, presumably at university if not after. He’d even shown a surprising acquaintance with John’s body and his desires, which he’d put down to Sherlock’s observations and deductions at the time and over the years.
“You’ll find someone at university,” he says with a sigh, “someone your own age, your own intelligence, and you’ll wonder why you ever considered me as a possibility, let alone first choice.”
“I’ll never find someone like you.”
It’s delivered in Sherlock’s usual measured, rational tone. It’s not a sentimental declaration but a mere truth that Sherlock has uttered in much the same way as he would any other fact he believed to be indisputable.
Sentiment or no, it makes John feel undeniably warm and he grins like an idiot.
Sherlock turns his head and looks at him through narrowed eyes, distrustful. “Why are you doing that?”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re smiling. Stop it, you look manic. Why are you doing it?”
John only grins harder. “Oh it’s just… just you.”
Sherlock smiles back at that, a barely perceptible upward tilt to the corners of his mouth. It’s there though, other people might not recognise it for what it is, but John can always find it.
A companionable silence passes, each of them smiling to himself over the other.
“Kiss me,” Sherlock says, all of a sudden.
John doesn’t startle, but it’s a close thing. He opens his mouth to protest, but Sherlock talks over him.
“No, you can’t just outright refuse. I’ve toned down the request so you’d be more comfortable, the least you can do is acknowledge my compromise by obliging me.”
“Oh really?”
They’re both teasing, but John is actually considering it. It couldn’t hurt. To fill this one gap in Sherlock’s knowledge, as he’d asked. But no more; a kiss is one thing and sex is quite another.
Sherlock must read the deliberation in his expression because he cocks an eyebrow at him in challenge, leaning back on his elbows, almost flat against the grass now.
“Just a kiss,” John says. “One kiss, Sherlock.”
“Fine,” Sherlock huffs and looks down at his own shoulder, picks a thread off his shirt. “Just do it already.”
“I’ll take my time if I want!”
Sherlock catches his gaze, eyes filled with mischief.
“Oh, right, you’d like that,” John says with a laugh.
How to approach this? Sherlock is obviously not about to move, if anything he’s settled more horizontally, no doubt in an attempt to get John on top of him, the bastard.
“Sit up,” he orders.
“No.”
Not entirely unexpected, that.
“It’ll be awkward for me to lean over you. My shoulder will hurt.”
“Your pain tolerance is high, and it doesn’t have to be awkward and therefore painful, not if you don’t actively avoid all other bodily contact with me outside of the kiss.”
This is such a bad idea. John heaves himself up and over Sherlock’s prone body with a gusty, put-upon sigh. Sherlock of course recognises it as false and only smiles sweetly up at him.
John holds himself above Sherlock with his hands braced on either side of Sherlock’s shoulders. The effort isn’t enough to make his shoulder hurt really, but his arms are going to start to tremble soon.
Beneath him, Sherlock is still propping himself up with his elbows. Not looking away from John’s eyes, he very deliberately licks his lips, his pink, pointed tongue darting out to wet his ridiculous cupid’s bow.
“Stop that,” John warns.
In reply, Sherlock half-closes his eyes, eyelashes lowering, and bites delicately into his own bottom lip before releasing it with a smug look.
“Honestly, you are the most spoilt brat-”
John cuts himself off as he lowers his body to Sherlock’s, pushing him down fully into the bed of grass and flowers. Sherlock’s arms come up to his back, hands simply cupping his shoulders rather than pulling him in closer as John had expected.
Their faces are about three inches apart in this position, the greatest distance between any part of their bodies. Sherlock is breathing differently, shallow and quick. His cheeks are faintly rosy and John raises his left hand to each, feels with the backs of his fingers just how warm they are.
Sherlock’s eyes slip closed as John allows himself a final indulgent caress of Sherlock’s face. He takes his hand away and tips his head down to kiss Sherlock, and Sherlock tilts his head up impatiently at the same time and their noses brush. Anticipation buzzes between them as they lay there together, frozen in that minute contact, caught in the moment before their mouths finally meet. Eyes still closed, Sherlock’s lips part, and he releases a small, shuddered breath.
God, John loves these moments.
He angles his head down and to the left, slanting his mouth over Sherlock’s.
He feels Sherlock go tense at once and then relax gradually. John strokes the back of a hand over his cheek again as if in encouragement, Sherlock’s lower lip caught between his. He tugs lightly at it, uses insistent pressure as he kisses it, and Sherlock’s grip on his shoulders becomes more of a frantic clutch.
Damn it, if he’s going to be Sherlock’s first kiss, he’s going to make it a good one.
He pays attention to the top lip next, gently biting and sucking at the pronounced curves and the dip of the bow. He presses his mouth fully to Sherlock’s again after, letting his tongue trace along the seam of Sherlock’s lips, already parted enough for him to slip between.
They spend a long moment that way, mouths fused together, tongues stroking and lips caressing, hands cradling each other’s faces. The pace is lazy, unhurried, and John is just about to change that, lost in the kiss he hadn’t intended to prolong, when Sherlock pulls back abruptly, gasping for air.
“John,” he says, his breathless voice at the lowest pitch that only ever comes out when they-
John realises with a jolt that Sherlock is growing hard against him.
Sherlock is a hormone-riddled teenager, with a man he’s all but professed a great deal of desire for laying on top of him and kissing him; it was to be expected, really. And yet John hadn’t expected or planned for it at all, and he feels like he might be panicking a bit now, especially when something in him is taking this as if it were a normal encounter with the present Sherlock and wants him to respond appropriately. Fortunately, he’s not as young as Sherlock, so he’s just got enough time to try and will the feeling away.
Dead things, John thinks desperately, bodies in the morgue, eyeballs in the microwave, thumbs in the refrigerator. Anderson having sex. Oh, that works.
This was such a bad idea.
John carefully, carefully rolls off Sherlock, which still elicits the most indecent groan he’s ever heard in his life. The sound does not help him in the slightest - undoing the work of his most unpleasant mental images - and nor does the heavy panting as they lie side by side.
“Eighteen,” Sherlock says when he’s got his breath back. “This is absurd, John, I hope you realise.”
John rolls onto his side to look at him, “Sherlock, I-”
He breaks off as the tingling starts in his left hand. Shit.
Sherlock’s keen eyes catch the shift in John’s expression, the clench of his hand against the warning of his imminent departure, of course they do. He flings his forearm dramatically over his face.
“Perfect timing,” he says through gritted teeth, “Really, the best excuse in human history, perhaps, to get out of having sex with someone.”
“I’m sorry,” John says, and he means it, he truly, truly does.
Sherlock moves so that he’s lying on his side too, facing John. “I suppose there’s a certain romance to it,” he says with an exaggerated mock-pout. “Torn apart at the most inopportune moments. Oh John, tell me, how long do we have left?”
He laughs as he says it. Cheeky and carefree.
Jesus, Sherlock at eighteen. He looks almost the same as the Sherlock he’s used to, but he’s infinitely softer around the edges. He takes John’s breath away.
The tingling in his hand continues, a reminder.
“Oh Sherlock, it’s mere seconds,” he replies, playing along.
“Well.” Sherlock edges closer. “Must put them to good use.”
He leans in to kiss John again and ends up kissing thin air as John dematerialises the instant their lips touch.
----
30th January 2010 (John is 32, Sherlock is 29)
Sherlock is gone. He’s left in a cab and gone god knows where, and John is left with Lestrade, wondering what the hell just happened. It’s all making John feel distinctly uneasy. From what he’s seen, Sherlock is the man with a plan - his actions are thought-out, well-reasoned. He wouldn’t just pop out for milk in the middle of a case that he’s been so absorbed in. Something is going on.
“Why did he do that?” Lestrade asks him. “Why did he have to leave?”
“You know him better than I do.”
Lestrade seems to find that amusing. “I’ve known him for five years, and no, I don’t. You’ve known him longer, right?”
It’s starting to add up, all Lestrade’s little comments to him. The John, he said when they first met. “You know who I am, don’t you? What’s he told you about me?”
“Not a lot,” Lestrade assures him, his palms raised to placate. “He was always high at the time, or coming down. He used to mumble things about you. I never believed him, of course, but now here you are. Do you really…” he looks around, but the other officers have all traipsed out, leaving the flat not much more dishevelled than it had been, but lacking whatever order Sherlock had put it into. “Do you really time travel?”
John tenses slightly at the explicit mention of it. He thought Sherlock was the only one who knew, now it seems his brother and a Detective Inspector are in on it too. He’s not sure how he feels about that, but he trusts this man already a lot more than he does Sherlock’s brother, certainly. “Yeah,” he shrugs, aiming for nonchalant. “I haven’t been to Sherlock’s past yet, I only met him for the first time just yesterday. He knows more about me than I do about him.”
Lestrade nods, then whistles through his teeth. “Wow, I can’t imagine what that must be like. I never thought I’d say it, but poor Sherlock.”
John frowns. “Why ‘poor Sherlock’?”
“Well. It’s got to be hard for him, his…” Lestrade waves a hand, an awkward expression settling over his features and twisting his mouth, “…his whatever suddenly not knowing who he is.”
His whatever? What does that mean? It definitely sounds like a resolutely straight bloke not being all that comfortable with the word ‘boyfriend’. Or perhaps just not comfortable using it in the context of Sherlock Holmes, of all people.
“Did- did he say we were together, then?”
Surely not. Sherlock would have mentioned that. He wouldn’t have started to turn John down at dinner after he misunderstood him and thought John was propositioning him, would he? No, he’d have been all for the idea.
“From the way he talked, I always thought…” Lestrade trails off, eyebrows lowering as he thinks. “I don’t know what I thought. It’s not like the man has close friends though, you know?”
“It’s not like he has a parade of girlfriends or boyfriends either, from what I can tell.”
Lestrade gives a short laugh, looking up as if remembering something. “You’d be right. Still, the way he talked about you? I’m going to stick with ‘poor Sherlock’. Even if he is a right pain in the arse.”
“So why do you put up with him?”
“Because I need him,” Lestrade says, sighing heavily and looking a lot older and wearier than his age warrants. “Because he needs me too, I think. Well, he needs the cases. It stops his mind tearing itself to pieces and it keeps him off the drugs. Gives him something to occupy all that energy and brain power.”
He walks away from John, heading for the door, but he turns back when he reaches it. “And I put up with him because Sherlock Holmes is a great man,” he continues. “But I know there’s more to him than that. I know there’s good in him from the way he used to talk about you. From the way I saw him looking at you earlier at the crime scene. I’m sure that, one day, if we’re very lucky, Sherlock will prove that he’s a good man.”
In some ways, you helped shape the man I am today.
John was harsh with Sherlock earlier when Sherlock said that, he’s starting to feel the guilt churn in his stomach just thinking about some aspects of that conversation at the restaurant. Whatever he may say, Sherlock’s journal is proof that they had a long-standing acquaintance, if not friendship. John has only known him a day, but he wants to build that relationship with him again. He wants them to get to that point because he wants this life. The danger, the excitement, the mad genius. No psychosomatic limp, and Christ, he’s almost completely forgotten he ever had that already. Thanks to Sherlock.
“I think so too,” John says quietly.
And he is going to stick around to see it.
----
30th January 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 32)
Sherlock watches John closely in the Chinese restaurant.
They’ve both eaten their fill to replace whatever calories they lost during the excitement of Sherlock risking his life and John taking one, and John is taking his time finishing his pint while Sherlock swirls his own drink around in its glass and watches him.
He thought he knew John Watson. Granted, he never knew the man’s surname or anything that could lead him to John (the versions that visited him would never give over that information, only the promise that they would eventually meet when the time was right), but he thought he knew John’s character.
And yet, he’d almost given John away to Lestrade because he hadn’t realised that it was John who took that shot through the window. He hadn’t realised that it was John who probably saved his life.
If he was wrong about the pill, that is, which he still doesn’t think he was.
The whole evening has brought it home though that he doesn’t know John all that well, despite all the visits, despite all his efforts to find John in the eight years they were apart and the research he was able to do when Mycroft finally found John in Afghanistan. An odd report had come to Mycroft’s attention about an army doctor who disappeared in front of his unit with a physical description that just so happened to match the one Sherlock had desperately given him when he was twenty-five with the request that he use his resources to find John.
Mycroft quickly had that report destroyed, of course, and new reports were made leaving out all possible hints that anything unusual happened when John was shot. He was always good at making problems go away like that, Sherlock had to admit.
Mycroft hadn’t wanted to help him find and protect John at all, but did so for reasons that Sherlock can’t quite fathom but imagines must be self-serving. His older brother had never approved of their relationship (whatever that may be), especially after Sherlock got into drugs. Especially after Sherlock confessed - in what he will forever think of as his weakest moment - that the drugs not only calmed his mind but eased his loneliness when John wasn’t around. Not that he used the word 'loneliness'.
He owes Mycroft for his assistance though, and his brother knows it. That tacit acknowledgement between them is enough for the moment, but he knows Mycroft will eventually cash in the favour in some devious way. And Sherlock knows he isn’t going to like it one bit.
“You’re staring,” John says.
“Hmm?”
“You’re not here, are you?” John smiles knowingly. “I can tell you’re miles away.”
“I was just thinking about…” He isn’t sure how to end the sentence. It’s a feeling he’s not used to and it makes his brow furrow and his teeth clench. He’s tired of all this secrecy and sentiment, tired of himself when he’s like this.
“Were you thinking about the past?” John asks, cocking his head to one side to consider him.
Sherlock nods. It’s a safe answer. “I was thinking that I’ve got a list of dates for you to memorise and give to me when I’m seven.”
John blows out a breath and leans back in his chair. “Right. I suppose that’s going to take me a while. Listen,” John leans forward again, “earlier, I asked you what we used to do together when I visited you. Are you going to tell me anymore about that?”
There’s a lot he could say. His heart pounds as he cycles through the memories. John tending to a graze on his knee when he was seven, John testing his knowledge of the solar system when he was nine. Seeing John arrive, naked as always, when he was fourteen and realising that he didn’t see John like he used to anymore. The buttercup John held under his chin when he was fifteen. John kissing him at eighteen, stroking his ankle when he was saying goodbye to him for the last time in Cambridge.
His mouth is dry. If he opens his mouth to speak, it’s not going to come out right and John will know.
He ends up shaking his head in lieu of a verbal answer. When he gathers enough saliva again, he just says: “You’re going to tell me over and over that you can’t give away the future, so I’m not going to give away yours now.”
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 overall)
Warnings/Spoilers: Bastardising of canon dialogue at times?
Summary: 8th August 1999 (John is 37, Sherlock is 18).
“Eighteen is the legal age of consent for homosexual acts and I’m already two years past the other. I’m able to make up my own mind, John. And don’t flatter yourself and insult me by thinking that you’re the only person who’s paid me any attention. I’ve had many offers.”
John can imagine. It’s awful to even contemplate, though he knows it shouldn’t be. “It’ll be sixteen for both soon,” he says, for lack of anything better to say.
Disclaimer: This is the bit where they make me say I don't own anything. Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and, of course, the one and only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Time Traveler's Wife belongs to Audrey Niffenegger.
On AO3
8th August 1999 (John is 37, Sherlock is 18)
The first thing John notices when he arrives in the meadow is the humidity. It’s hot enough to be summer, which is pleasant when you show up somewhere random without a stitch on. Winter arrivals in the snow and frost are the absolute worst.
The second thing he notices is Sherlock, facing away from him and looking out over the clearing. His stance is familiar: poised with impossible grace, left arm held out and right arm bent as he plays the violin. It’s hard to tell from behind, but judging from his height, Sherlock is probably older than sixteen. When John last saw him at that age, he was going through the tail-end a growth spurt. It looks to be completed now, leaving Sherlock at the height John is used to in the present.
John listens to the melody for a moment before approaching. It’s Bach, if he’s not mistaken. He undoubtedly is.
Sherlock is playing now with the same skill and passion as his older self. No one could hear Sherlock play the violin, no one could watch him play and still label him cold, unfeeling. His head is inclined towards the instrument, and John just knows his eyes are closed, not in concentration, but in the same way one might close their eyes when kissing a lover.
No, he’s not cold or unfeeling at all.
Sherlock is dressed in a similar way to the man John left behind in the present. His pristine white shirt almost glows in the sunlight, the material drawn tight across his back and shifting fluidly on the right as he draws the bow across the strings. His sleeve draws up a little with every movement and exposes the delicate bones in his wrist before covering them again, hiding the vulnerability from view.
As in all things, Sherlock looks glorious.
John walks over to him, appreciating the cool grass under his feet, turning his face up to bask in the warmth that strokes down over him. The wildflowers are in full bloom (bright yellow St John’s wort, pink orchids, violets and pansies) and butterflies are flitting about all around him. To him, the meadow has never looked more beautiful.
He doesn’t want to interrupt Sherlock’s playing, so he comes to stand behind him, his toes resting just on the edge of the small shadow cast by Sherlock in the midday sun. He knows Sherlock has heard him rustling through the grass; he’ll finish the piece and turn to acknowledge him soon.
He’ll grin at John, make a comment about his state of undress, tell him where he’s stashed clothes for him this time while John tries not to blush.
In the Army, John got used to being naked around other men. He was comfortable enough before that from playing rugby at uni, from PE at school. It’s different with Sherlock though, because he’s just a boy now and, even though John can’t help it, it seems somehow depraved to show up naked like this knowing what they’re going to be to each other in the future. Knowing what Sherlock asked of him when he was last here, when Sherlock was just sixteen.
Oh God, John thinks, don’t let him ask again.
Sherlock finishes playing with a little flourish, evidently showing off for his audience, and stoops to lay the violin in the case at his feet.
“John,” he says by way of greeting as he snaps the case shut and straightens up again.
“How long?”
Sherlock turns to face him, there’s a twist of his lips as he considers the question. He’s definitely older than sixteen, he looks closer to eighteen now.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, John realises he is in so much trouble. He sees the warning sign in Sherlock’s eyes: that wicked gleam as he watches John taking him in, taking in his smooth face that’s lost nearly all of its boyish attributes, almost free of the spots and blemishes that had plagued him two years ago. His hair is longer; the curls look smooth, glossy now rather than unfortunately greasy no matter how often he washed them like before. The growth spurt has paradoxically taken away his gangliness. He’s the commanding presence John is used to now, refined grace and understated power. Sherlock may think of his body as transport, but it’s not as if he’s walking (striding) around in a broken-down Reliant Robin now, is it?
Annoyingly, Sherlock looks almost the same as he does in John’s present. John can only explain this by imagining a portrait of Sherlock actually growing older and more weathered like he should be, hidden away somewhere in an attic. Or perhaps Mrs Hudson looks after it for him.
John shakes his head to clear it of whimsy and Sherlock smiles, sharp-edged and predatory. He’s not going to make this easy.
“It’s been a year and a few months since we last met. You were thirty-seven then.”
John shakes his head. “No clue, and I’m thirty-seven now. You’re seventeen? Eighteen?”
“Oh, I’m eighteen,” Sherlock answers, and John is not imagining the suggestive tone, the subtle curve to the left side of his mouth, the raised eyebrow. He isn’t.
When Sherlock takes a step closer, right into his personal space, John has to wonder if this is what hysteria feels like.
“Last time,” Sherlock says, voice pitched deliberately low, “you made love to me right here in this meadow. You were a patient teacher, as always. Shall I show you how much I learnt?”
He strokes a hand down from John’s bare shoulder to his elbow and John lets out a loud, high-pitched giggle at that. Sherlock’s expression instantly drops from seductive into his customary furrowed brow and downturned lips. “What?” he asks, moving back a pace and folding his arms defensively.
“Made love to you?” John chokes out through his laughter. “Really, Sherlock? Oh God, did you think I’d fall for that one?”
He giggles helplessly again, bending at the waist and clutching at his stomach.
Sherlock glares at him. “Oh stop it, it was worth a try.”
“Not really. Speaking of: can I have some clothes, please?” He’s starting to feel exposed.
Sherlock waves a hand absently towards the sycamore tree a few feet away. “Basket behind the tree,” he says, and John heads towards it.
“Stop looking at my arse,” he says over his shoulder as he goes.
Disobedient little shit that he is, Sherlock doesn’t stop his blatant staring.
John dresses quickly - one of Mycroft’s old shirts and a pair of trousers that wouldn’t fit him if he ate continuously until he caught up with his own time - behind the tree, out of Sherlock’s line of sight.
He hears the disgusted sound Sherlock makes in his throat at that and smirks.
“I neglected to bring you clothes last time,” Sherlock calls out to him. “An experiment to see if your prolonged nudity might make you more amenable to my suggestions.”
John snorts; he’ll look forward to that one.
“It didn’t, of course,” Sherlock continues. “Am I that unattractive?”
Left leg through the correct hole in the trousers and raising his right leg, John freezes. It’s an act, it must be. Sherlock isn’t insecure about his looks, not even slightly. He doesn’t really care about them, beyond his need to look meticulously put together and permanently unruffled, thank God. John’s not certain he could handle reassuring an eighteen year old Sherlock about how infuriatingly good-looking he’s become after a ropey childhood and the unkindness of puberty, not without humiliating himself beyond measure, anyway.
“To you, I mean. I know I’m considered attractive generally.”
Disobedient, arrogant little shit.
“That would be telling, Sherlock,” he calls back, shoving his other leg into the trousers and zipping them. Good God, there aren’t enough holes in the belt. He can’t understand how Sherlock can call Mycroft fat in the present, he really can’t. Compared to his childhood, he’s positively svelte now.
He comes out from behind the tree, holding up his trousers with one hand and feeling foolish.
Sherlock doesn’t laugh like he usually does; his mouth is occupied in a scowl. John winces.
“Hardly,” Sherlock says, clearly in a huff with him (some things never change). “I’m asking whether you find me attractive now, not in the future. So it wouldn’t be telling at all.”
John sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Sherlock, I’m sure we went over this when you were sixteen, and I probably went over it again with you at seventeen. You are eighteen, and I am thirty-seven, which is more than twice your age. Why do you find me attractive? I’ve got wrinkles. My hair’s going grey!”
There’s a pause as Sherlock frowns and considers his answer. John is grateful for that, he’d half expected Sherlock just to fold his arms and fire back a childish “because I do!”
Sherlock at eighteen is more mature than he gave him credit for. It’s hard to keep track, all these different Sherlocks at different ages. It seems like just last week he was convincing a seven year old Sherlock to smile because it was his birthday and then fighting the awkwardness of him asking if John was married in the future.
Probably because it was just last week for him. Fucking time travel.
“I can’t explain it,” Sherlock says at length, and John knows that must be frustrating as hell for him, to not be able to explain it to John means he can’t even explain it to himself. “There’s just something captivating about you. Your face, your history. I can’t work out everything about you, and it makes me hate you as much as I want you. In a world full of transparent people, you’re opaque. Everyone else I know is dull and flat when I put them next to you.”
That is… well, it’s immensely flattering. Except for the hate bit.
He’s always known Sherlock doesn’t really see lined skin or thinning hair. He sees a person’s story, their actions and motives. Often he just discards most of the information, only keeping the things that are useful as clues or for manipulation.
At thirty, Sherlock told him he’d never deleted a single thing he’d learned about him, that he’d never needed to write down any of the measurements he’d taken over the years because he stored them all in his head. It meant far more than any planned, carefully-worded declaration of love, though John hadn’t taken it for one at the time.
Sherlock is fidgeting with the cuff of one rolled up sleeve, avoiding John’s eyes. His ears are tinged with pink. Probably the beginnings of sunburn rather than embarrassment, the five minutes he’s spent in the sun would be enough to do it.
John wants to give something back to him. He wants to admit something to Sherlock, to tell him just how much he’s going to come to mean to him, but how can he without telling him the future? Things happen the way they happen, the way they’ve already happened. It wouldn’t be fair to Sherlock to let him know about their future. Sherlock needs to make up his own mind as he goes; he deserves that chance, even if fate has always chosen to throw them together.
They’re tangled up in each other, bound as one throughout history, for whatever reason. Finding each other and losing each other and finding each other again. That’s not his fault, he can’t control that. But he can control himself.
“Sherlock,” he begins, shaking his head ruefully, “what you feel, it’s just infatuation from closeness. We’ve known each other a long time and you’re comfortable with me. I’m an adult you’ve grown up with, but I’m not family. I’m not threatening, whereas going out to meet someone your own age must be terrifying.”
Predictably, Sherlock scowls at that. “Not really, and I just said they’re all dull. I don’t want anyone my own age, or of any other age. I just want you. Don’t you want me?”
Of course I do, he thinks. Always.
He’s going to have to hurt him today. He’s tried so hard to avoid that.
“It’s not a case of that, Sherlock. Whether I want you or not, you’re eighteen, I’m thirty-seven. I’m old enough to be your father if I’d started very young, which I did. I had sex with the first person who paid me a bit of attention. I don’t want that for you.”
“Eighteen is the legal age of consent for homosexual acts and I’m already two years past the other. I’m able to make up my own mind, John. And don’t flatter yourself and insult me by thinking that you’re the only person who’s paid me any attention. I’ve had many offers.”
John can imagine. It’s awful to even contemplate, though he knows it shouldn’t be. “It’ll be sixteen for both soon,” he says, for lack of anything better to say.
“John.”
“Okay, I’ll get to the heart of the matter: I’m not going to have sex with you.”
“Why? Do you only have sex with women?”
John gapes at him, even as he knows he shouldn’t be shocked or offended anymore by Sherlock’s bluntness. “That’s still beside the point!”
“The point being my age. How many times? I’m an adult, John, surely even someone as unobservant as you can see that. Let me make this easier for you.”
And with that, Sherlock drops his hands to his shirt buttons and undoes them all with horrifying efficiency, pulling his shirt up and out of his trousers. He shrugs his shoulders and the material just slides right off him. It hits the ground before John can even make sense of what is happening.
His hands go to his belt next and John reaches out, lightning quick, to stop him. “What are you doing?”
“I should think it would be obvious,” Sherlock says, gesturing at himself as best he can with John’s hands gripping his wrists. The movement causes the backs of John’s fingers to brush over the front of Sherlock’s trousers. John jerks his hands back as if they were burnt.
Sherlock takes advantage of the moment, his newly freed hands pulling open his belt before flicking the button on his trousers and sliding the zipper down.
John immediately slaps his palms over his eyes, as much as a gesture that conveys utter disbelief at the situation as an attempt to preserve Sherlock’s modesty when he seems intent on doing the opposite.
“Oh God, this can’t be happening.”
Uncovering his eyes, he sees a flash of Sherlock’s underwear. Black briefs, as expected, the same as those favoured by his older self. Probably just as expensive and snug too. Oh God, this is happening.
John shuts his eyes and obscures his vision again. “Stop it, Sherlock, come on. This isn’t funny.”
“It’s not meant to be funny.” Uncertainty hovers around the words. “You- you really aren’t attracted to me?”
John hears the buzz of a zipper going back up (that tell-tale pitch change, low to high) and a dry sniff.
He takes his hands away from his eyes and is met with a still-shirtless but thankfully still-trousered Sherlock. Years of experience let John effortlessly read the hurt in his blank expression and rigid posture.
Sherlock doesn’t meet his eyes as he bends down to pull on his shirt, standing to button it, half turned away from John. His hands are shaking, clumsy with shame and haste, as he puts his clothes back on, a stark comparison to the confidence with which he shed them.
“I got it wrong, stupid of me, really. I can’t believe I misread things so spectacularly, I-”
“Hey, hey,” John reaches Sherlock in three strides and, not caring whether his borrowed trousers fall down, lays his palms lightly on Sherlock’s shoulders. “You aren’t stupid. For God’s sake, Sherlock, you’re the most intelligent person I’ve ever met.”
Sherlock shakes his head, still evading John’s gaze and looking off to his right. “But I got this wrong, didn’t I? I got it so wrong, and-”
John cuts him off again by moving one hand to catch and tilt Sherlock’s chin until they’re looking at each other again. Sherlock tries to struggle but John keeps his fingers on Sherlock’s jaw, keeps him in place so he can’t look away.
“Let’s sit down and talk,” he says, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.
Sherlock’s eyes close in resignation, but he complies, lowering himself into the tall grass as John does the same.
“What’s this really about?” John asks carefully after a moment of strained silence.
Sherlock huffs in irritation and John watches as he tears a small chunk of grass out of the ground and shreds it without mercy between his fingers. The gesture is so pointless, so different to his own Sherlock’s controlled, reasoned actions. His age and all issues of taking advantage aside, this is another reason why he could never have sex with Sherlock as he is now. He’s not the same, and he’s definitely not as grown up as he thinks he is.
Sherlock drops the grass and moves so he is half sitting, half lying down, hands propping him up on either side as he reclines, squinting up at the sun.
“I’m going to Cambridge in a month’s time,” he says eventually, “and I’m not going to see you for another two years according to the list. I’m going to be surrounded by even more sex-obsessed idiots than I am now and you won’t do this one thing for me so I know what it’s like.”
“Is that it? You’re worried about your lack of experience?”
It makes sense, actually. Sherlock is, by his very nature, an endlessly curious man, a dedicated scientist, and an ardent collector of data. John can see it now: it must infuriate him to be lacking in this area when it seems like everyone around him understands it perfectly.
Sherlock glowers. “I’m not worried; I merely hoped that you might fill a gap in my knowledge. Forget I asked, seeing as the very idea sends you into such despair. I’m sure someone else will be willing, even if they are second choice.”
The thought makes John’s skin crawl, the idea of some smarmy Oxbridge tosser like Sebastian Wilkes being the first to kiss Sherlock, the first to touch him and take him to bed. He knows it’s primitive of him, but he can’t help it. If he were less principled, the sheer level of possessiveness and jealousy he feels would compel him to accept all of Sherlock’s propositions, to be all of Sherlock’s firsts.
In the present, Sherlock has never spoken about any past lovers, but the first time they had sex he was hardly the innocent virgin. If nothing else, he was far too relaxed about it all for it to be his first time like John had suspected it might be from the way he’d talked beforehand. There must have been someone, presumably at university if not after. He’d even shown a surprising acquaintance with John’s body and his desires, which he’d put down to Sherlock’s observations and deductions at the time and over the years.
“You’ll find someone at university,” he says with a sigh, “someone your own age, your own intelligence, and you’ll wonder why you ever considered me as a possibility, let alone first choice.”
“I’ll never find someone like you.”
It’s delivered in Sherlock’s usual measured, rational tone. It’s not a sentimental declaration but a mere truth that Sherlock has uttered in much the same way as he would any other fact he believed to be indisputable.
Sentiment or no, it makes John feel undeniably warm and he grins like an idiot.
Sherlock turns his head and looks at him through narrowed eyes, distrustful. “Why are you doing that?”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re smiling. Stop it, you look manic. Why are you doing it?”
John only grins harder. “Oh it’s just… just you.”
Sherlock smiles back at that, a barely perceptible upward tilt to the corners of his mouth. It’s there though, other people might not recognise it for what it is, but John can always find it.
A companionable silence passes, each of them smiling to himself over the other.
“Kiss me,” Sherlock says, all of a sudden.
John doesn’t startle, but it’s a close thing. He opens his mouth to protest, but Sherlock talks over him.
“No, you can’t just outright refuse. I’ve toned down the request so you’d be more comfortable, the least you can do is acknowledge my compromise by obliging me.”
“Oh really?”
They’re both teasing, but John is actually considering it. It couldn’t hurt. To fill this one gap in Sherlock’s knowledge, as he’d asked. But no more; a kiss is one thing and sex is quite another.
Sherlock must read the deliberation in his expression because he cocks an eyebrow at him in challenge, leaning back on his elbows, almost flat against the grass now.
“Just a kiss,” John says. “One kiss, Sherlock.”
“Fine,” Sherlock huffs and looks down at his own shoulder, picks a thread off his shirt. “Just do it already.”
“I’ll take my time if I want!”
Sherlock catches his gaze, eyes filled with mischief.
“Oh, right, you’d like that,” John says with a laugh.
How to approach this? Sherlock is obviously not about to move, if anything he’s settled more horizontally, no doubt in an attempt to get John on top of him, the bastard.
“Sit up,” he orders.
“No.”
Not entirely unexpected, that.
“It’ll be awkward for me to lean over you. My shoulder will hurt.”
“Your pain tolerance is high, and it doesn’t have to be awkward and therefore painful, not if you don’t actively avoid all other bodily contact with me outside of the kiss.”
This is such a bad idea. John heaves himself up and over Sherlock’s prone body with a gusty, put-upon sigh. Sherlock of course recognises it as false and only smiles sweetly up at him.
John holds himself above Sherlock with his hands braced on either side of Sherlock’s shoulders. The effort isn’t enough to make his shoulder hurt really, but his arms are going to start to tremble soon.
Beneath him, Sherlock is still propping himself up with his elbows. Not looking away from John’s eyes, he very deliberately licks his lips, his pink, pointed tongue darting out to wet his ridiculous cupid’s bow.
“Stop that,” John warns.
In reply, Sherlock half-closes his eyes, eyelashes lowering, and bites delicately into his own bottom lip before releasing it with a smug look.
“Honestly, you are the most spoilt brat-”
John cuts himself off as he lowers his body to Sherlock’s, pushing him down fully into the bed of grass and flowers. Sherlock’s arms come up to his back, hands simply cupping his shoulders rather than pulling him in closer as John had expected.
Their faces are about three inches apart in this position, the greatest distance between any part of their bodies. Sherlock is breathing differently, shallow and quick. His cheeks are faintly rosy and John raises his left hand to each, feels with the backs of his fingers just how warm they are.
Sherlock’s eyes slip closed as John allows himself a final indulgent caress of Sherlock’s face. He takes his hand away and tips his head down to kiss Sherlock, and Sherlock tilts his head up impatiently at the same time and their noses brush. Anticipation buzzes between them as they lay there together, frozen in that minute contact, caught in the moment before their mouths finally meet. Eyes still closed, Sherlock’s lips part, and he releases a small, shuddered breath.
God, John loves these moments.
He angles his head down and to the left, slanting his mouth over Sherlock’s.
He feels Sherlock go tense at once and then relax gradually. John strokes the back of a hand over his cheek again as if in encouragement, Sherlock’s lower lip caught between his. He tugs lightly at it, uses insistent pressure as he kisses it, and Sherlock’s grip on his shoulders becomes more of a frantic clutch.
Damn it, if he’s going to be Sherlock’s first kiss, he’s going to make it a good one.
He pays attention to the top lip next, gently biting and sucking at the pronounced curves and the dip of the bow. He presses his mouth fully to Sherlock’s again after, letting his tongue trace along the seam of Sherlock’s lips, already parted enough for him to slip between.
They spend a long moment that way, mouths fused together, tongues stroking and lips caressing, hands cradling each other’s faces. The pace is lazy, unhurried, and John is just about to change that, lost in the kiss he hadn’t intended to prolong, when Sherlock pulls back abruptly, gasping for air.
“John,” he says, his breathless voice at the lowest pitch that only ever comes out when they-
John realises with a jolt that Sherlock is growing hard against him.
Sherlock is a hormone-riddled teenager, with a man he’s all but professed a great deal of desire for laying on top of him and kissing him; it was to be expected, really. And yet John hadn’t expected or planned for it at all, and he feels like he might be panicking a bit now, especially when something in him is taking this as if it were a normal encounter with the present Sherlock and wants him to respond appropriately. Fortunately, he’s not as young as Sherlock, so he’s just got enough time to try and will the feeling away.
Dead things, John thinks desperately, bodies in the morgue, eyeballs in the microwave, thumbs in the refrigerator. Anderson having sex. Oh, that works.
This was such a bad idea.
John carefully, carefully rolls off Sherlock, which still elicits the most indecent groan he’s ever heard in his life. The sound does not help him in the slightest - undoing the work of his most unpleasant mental images - and nor does the heavy panting as they lie side by side.
“Eighteen,” Sherlock says when he’s got his breath back. “This is absurd, John, I hope you realise.”
John rolls onto his side to look at him, “Sherlock, I-”
He breaks off as the tingling starts in his left hand. Shit.
Sherlock’s keen eyes catch the shift in John’s expression, the clench of his hand against the warning of his imminent departure, of course they do. He flings his forearm dramatically over his face.
“Perfect timing,” he says through gritted teeth, “Really, the best excuse in human history, perhaps, to get out of having sex with someone.”
“I’m sorry,” John says, and he means it, he truly, truly does.
Sherlock moves so that he’s lying on his side too, facing John. “I suppose there’s a certain romance to it,” he says with an exaggerated mock-pout. “Torn apart at the most inopportune moments. Oh John, tell me, how long do we have left?”
He laughs as he says it. Cheeky and carefree.
Jesus, Sherlock at eighteen. He looks almost the same as the Sherlock he’s used to, but he’s infinitely softer around the edges. He takes John’s breath away.
The tingling in his hand continues, a reminder.
“Oh Sherlock, it’s mere seconds,” he replies, playing along.
“Well.” Sherlock edges closer. “Must put them to good use.”
He leans in to kiss John again and ends up kissing thin air as John dematerialises the instant their lips touch.
----
30th January 2010 (John is 32, Sherlock is 29)
Sherlock is gone. He’s left in a cab and gone god knows where, and John is left with Lestrade, wondering what the hell just happened. It’s all making John feel distinctly uneasy. From what he’s seen, Sherlock is the man with a plan - his actions are thought-out, well-reasoned. He wouldn’t just pop out for milk in the middle of a case that he’s been so absorbed in. Something is going on.
“Why did he do that?” Lestrade asks him. “Why did he have to leave?”
“You know him better than I do.”
Lestrade seems to find that amusing. “I’ve known him for five years, and no, I don’t. You’ve known him longer, right?”
It’s starting to add up, all Lestrade’s little comments to him. The John, he said when they first met. “You know who I am, don’t you? What’s he told you about me?”
“Not a lot,” Lestrade assures him, his palms raised to placate. “He was always high at the time, or coming down. He used to mumble things about you. I never believed him, of course, but now here you are. Do you really…” he looks around, but the other officers have all traipsed out, leaving the flat not much more dishevelled than it had been, but lacking whatever order Sherlock had put it into. “Do you really time travel?”
John tenses slightly at the explicit mention of it. He thought Sherlock was the only one who knew, now it seems his brother and a Detective Inspector are in on it too. He’s not sure how he feels about that, but he trusts this man already a lot more than he does Sherlock’s brother, certainly. “Yeah,” he shrugs, aiming for nonchalant. “I haven’t been to Sherlock’s past yet, I only met him for the first time just yesterday. He knows more about me than I do about him.”
Lestrade nods, then whistles through his teeth. “Wow, I can’t imagine what that must be like. I never thought I’d say it, but poor Sherlock.”
John frowns. “Why ‘poor Sherlock’?”
“Well. It’s got to be hard for him, his…” Lestrade waves a hand, an awkward expression settling over his features and twisting his mouth, “…his whatever suddenly not knowing who he is.”
His whatever? What does that mean? It definitely sounds like a resolutely straight bloke not being all that comfortable with the word ‘boyfriend’. Or perhaps just not comfortable using it in the context of Sherlock Holmes, of all people.
“Did- did he say we were together, then?”
Surely not. Sherlock would have mentioned that. He wouldn’t have started to turn John down at dinner after he misunderstood him and thought John was propositioning him, would he? No, he’d have been all for the idea.
“From the way he talked, I always thought…” Lestrade trails off, eyebrows lowering as he thinks. “I don’t know what I thought. It’s not like the man has close friends though, you know?”
“It’s not like he has a parade of girlfriends or boyfriends either, from what I can tell.”
Lestrade gives a short laugh, looking up as if remembering something. “You’d be right. Still, the way he talked about you? I’m going to stick with ‘poor Sherlock’. Even if he is a right pain in the arse.”
“So why do you put up with him?”
“Because I need him,” Lestrade says, sighing heavily and looking a lot older and wearier than his age warrants. “Because he needs me too, I think. Well, he needs the cases. It stops his mind tearing itself to pieces and it keeps him off the drugs. Gives him something to occupy all that energy and brain power.”
He walks away from John, heading for the door, but he turns back when he reaches it. “And I put up with him because Sherlock Holmes is a great man,” he continues. “But I know there’s more to him than that. I know there’s good in him from the way he used to talk about you. From the way I saw him looking at you earlier at the crime scene. I’m sure that, one day, if we’re very lucky, Sherlock will prove that he’s a good man.”
In some ways, you helped shape the man I am today.
John was harsh with Sherlock earlier when Sherlock said that, he’s starting to feel the guilt churn in his stomach just thinking about some aspects of that conversation at the restaurant. Whatever he may say, Sherlock’s journal is proof that they had a long-standing acquaintance, if not friendship. John has only known him a day, but he wants to build that relationship with him again. He wants them to get to that point because he wants this life. The danger, the excitement, the mad genius. No psychosomatic limp, and Christ, he’s almost completely forgotten he ever had that already. Thanks to Sherlock.
“I think so too,” John says quietly.
And he is going to stick around to see it.
----
30th January 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 32)
Sherlock watches John closely in the Chinese restaurant.
They’ve both eaten their fill to replace whatever calories they lost during the excitement of Sherlock risking his life and John taking one, and John is taking his time finishing his pint while Sherlock swirls his own drink around in its glass and watches him.
He thought he knew John Watson. Granted, he never knew the man’s surname or anything that could lead him to John (the versions that visited him would never give over that information, only the promise that they would eventually meet when the time was right), but he thought he knew John’s character.
And yet, he’d almost given John away to Lestrade because he hadn’t realised that it was John who took that shot through the window. He hadn’t realised that it was John who probably saved his life.
If he was wrong about the pill, that is, which he still doesn’t think he was.
The whole evening has brought it home though that he doesn’t know John all that well, despite all the visits, despite all his efforts to find John in the eight years they were apart and the research he was able to do when Mycroft finally found John in Afghanistan. An odd report had come to Mycroft’s attention about an army doctor who disappeared in front of his unit with a physical description that just so happened to match the one Sherlock had desperately given him when he was twenty-five with the request that he use his resources to find John.
Mycroft quickly had that report destroyed, of course, and new reports were made leaving out all possible hints that anything unusual happened when John was shot. He was always good at making problems go away like that, Sherlock had to admit.
Mycroft hadn’t wanted to help him find and protect John at all, but did so for reasons that Sherlock can’t quite fathom but imagines must be self-serving. His older brother had never approved of their relationship (whatever that may be), especially after Sherlock got into drugs. Especially after Sherlock confessed - in what he will forever think of as his weakest moment - that the drugs not only calmed his mind but eased his loneliness when John wasn’t around. Not that he used the word 'loneliness'.
He owes Mycroft for his assistance though, and his brother knows it. That tacit acknowledgement between them is enough for the moment, but he knows Mycroft will eventually cash in the favour in some devious way. And Sherlock knows he isn’t going to like it one bit.
“You’re staring,” John says.
“Hmm?”
“You’re not here, are you?” John smiles knowingly. “I can tell you’re miles away.”
“I was just thinking about…” He isn’t sure how to end the sentence. It’s a feeling he’s not used to and it makes his brow furrow and his teeth clench. He’s tired of all this secrecy and sentiment, tired of himself when he’s like this.
“Were you thinking about the past?” John asks, cocking his head to one side to consider him.
Sherlock nods. It’s a safe answer. “I was thinking that I’ve got a list of dates for you to memorise and give to me when I’m seven.”
John blows out a breath and leans back in his chair. “Right. I suppose that’s going to take me a while. Listen,” John leans forward again, “earlier, I asked you what we used to do together when I visited you. Are you going to tell me anymore about that?”
There’s a lot he could say. His heart pounds as he cycles through the memories. John tending to a graze on his knee when he was seven, John testing his knowledge of the solar system when he was nine. Seeing John arrive, naked as always, when he was fourteen and realising that he didn’t see John like he used to anymore. The buttercup John held under his chin when he was fifteen. John kissing him at eighteen, stroking his ankle when he was saying goodbye to him for the last time in Cambridge.
His mouth is dry. If he opens his mouth to speak, it’s not going to come out right and John will know.
He ends up shaking his head in lieu of a verbal answer. When he gathers enough saliva again, he just says: “You’re going to tell me over and over that you can’t give away the future, so I’m not going to give away yours now.”