All the signs
Rating: PG
Word count: 1041
Disclaimer: The boys and their BBC incarnations don’t belong to me. I just take them out to play from time to time. Without making any money.
Summary: John’s got a secret. Sherlock is sure he’s got it all figured out.
Unbeta’d.
All the signs
All the signs pointed to one obvious conclusion. The one conclusion.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes.
If all the other possibilities don’t fit the criteria, the remaining one had to be his truth. Just like always.
Only.
This might be, no, this was the first time he didn’t want his Truth to be true.
And staring at the ceiling didn’t change what he believed, knew, to be true, either.
He didn’t sigh. Barely.
The facts were dancing in circles in his head, unwilling to let him see anything but them. Them, whom he wanted to ignore.
They were laughing at him. Not only the facts, also voices, usually calling him “Freak” or worse, were laughing. At him. Him!
He could admit, if only to himself, that recently things had been… less than ideal. The changes had affected him more thoroughly than he had anticipated and had left him, sometimes, at a loss. Which might have been the reason for his increasingly exorbitant experiments, his longer ventures into the darker parts of London.
On an intellectual level he knew it didn’t really help. But it did. Somewhat.
The sound of the door downstairs opening, closing. Someone climbing up the stairs, a familiar step.
Once again. Once again much later than usual. He knew the shift at the surgery had ended two hours prior. Two hours of John… being somewhere else. Doing something Sherlock had yet been unable to deduce.
Well, wished he had yet been unable to deduce. Once you knew what to look for, even Anderson, Anderson!, would have been able to tell.
The quiet smile, tucking at the corner of his mouth whenever he got home. Home? The humming, talking to himself in such a small voice not even Sherlock had a chance to listen in. Spending hours in his room, all by himself, without any sounds coming from his room but the consistent click-click of his notebook’s keyboard. Less entries to his blog, which was certainly not due to a lack of cases Sherlock solved.
A few hours later, John coming down into their living room. Taking a look at Sherlock, stepping into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. Taking his cup with him to his favourite armchair, placing another one in front of Sherlock. Taking out one of his monthly medical journals, ignoring the black mood oozing from Sherlock’s every cell.
While he knew it to be not true, it still felt like a too long time since they had been sitting quietly together. Without a case, without John not being home, without Sherlock roaming the streets on his own.
Facts.
Truth.
John happy when outside Baker Street 221b.
John meeting someone. Someone outside the surgery or his other friends. Someone new. Someone Sherlock didn’t know.
He had surprised himself by how much he hated not being able to figure out whom John met. Who was able to make John smile that little smile of utter contentment.
He did notice the small looks John gave him from time to time. Like he was checking on him. Trying to know if Sherlock knew.
He did.
But couldn’t bring himself to say the words. To ruin what hadn’t even yet begun properly.
They hadn’t changed, not during solving cases. But something between them had changed gradually and finally resulted in them…. Them being more than just friends. But not yet quite more. In-between.
Which had scared Sherlock, not that he could, nor would, ever admit to it. Had scared him enough to leave the flat, to immerse himself in whatever came his way. Anything that was able to distract him from how much John had come to mean to him. An emotion he hadn’t expected to feel, that hadn’t been planned. At all.
But it had happened and while it became obvious he wasn’t the only one who had started to see the other as more than a normal friend, he still couldn’t stop being his usual self. And hating himself for wanting, in the result betraying his own standards.
And now, all the signs to the one truth.
He had been too much, had driven John away with his behaviour. John had found someone else.
John got up, the bookmark he’d been using sticking out of the journal’s pages. A pamphlet. ‘Introduction to Naturopathy and Chinese Medicine I’
“… Studying?”
John’s chuckle coming from the direction of the bathroom.
“Took you long enough. You haven’t been through my room in over two weeks, you know. Otherwise you would have realised much sooner.”
Two weeks. Just as long as he had seen the signs and had deduced that John…… In fear of finding even more evidence he had, for the first time, refrained from wandering into John’s room while he was out.
Wrong deduction?
“You have been studying.”
John returning to the living room, standing over Sherlock, looking down on him. Worriedly? Fondly? Hopeful?
He made Sherlock shuffle over a bit on the couch so he could sit down next to his legs.
“You needed your space. So... I looked for something to distract myself. And since you aren’t good with most of the usual medicine, I figured, why not do something useful.”
John.
John!
Clever, oh so clever and unpredictable John.
“John. I…”
His brain drew a blank. After being so sure John was already out of his reach and would soon be out of his life as well, after the quiet waiting for everything to fall apart, after the hours spent trying to deny the Truth. No matter how scary, how much this, John, hadn’t been planned.
He looked at John. Really looked. Seeing how careful John observed Sherlock, how his body tried to get closer to Sherlock’s as much as possible but was kept away only by John’s will. John, who looked at him and saw no idolised version of Sherlock, but the real one.
John, who had waited, not run. Unlike Sherlock.
The running would stop, Sherlock decided.
Lifted his hand, slowly. Finally cupping John’s left cheek, tenderly.
“Thank you.”
Drawing him down a few inches, lifting himself up a bit, meeting him somewhere in between.
They would no longer be in-between, Sherlock thought. But this would always be just between him and John.
Originally postet here.
Word count: 1041
Disclaimer: The boys and their BBC incarnations don’t belong to me. I just take them out to play from time to time. Without making any money.
Summary: John’s got a secret. Sherlock is sure he’s got it all figured out.
Unbeta’d.
All the signs
All the signs pointed to one obvious conclusion. The one conclusion.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes.
If all the other possibilities don’t fit the criteria, the remaining one had to be his truth. Just like always.
Only.
This might be, no, this was the first time he didn’t want his Truth to be true.
And staring at the ceiling didn’t change what he believed, knew, to be true, either.
He didn’t sigh. Barely.
The facts were dancing in circles in his head, unwilling to let him see anything but them. Them, whom he wanted to ignore.
They were laughing at him. Not only the facts, also voices, usually calling him “Freak” or worse, were laughing. At him. Him!
He could admit, if only to himself, that recently things had been… less than ideal. The changes had affected him more thoroughly than he had anticipated and had left him, sometimes, at a loss. Which might have been the reason for his increasingly exorbitant experiments, his longer ventures into the darker parts of London.
On an intellectual level he knew it didn’t really help. But it did. Somewhat.
The sound of the door downstairs opening, closing. Someone climbing up the stairs, a familiar step.
Once again. Once again much later than usual. He knew the shift at the surgery had ended two hours prior. Two hours of John… being somewhere else. Doing something Sherlock had yet been unable to deduce.
Well, wished he had yet been unable to deduce. Once you knew what to look for, even Anderson, Anderson!, would have been able to tell.
The quiet smile, tucking at the corner of his mouth whenever he got home. Home? The humming, talking to himself in such a small voice not even Sherlock had a chance to listen in. Spending hours in his room, all by himself, without any sounds coming from his room but the consistent click-click of his notebook’s keyboard. Less entries to his blog, which was certainly not due to a lack of cases Sherlock solved.
A few hours later, John coming down into their living room. Taking a look at Sherlock, stepping into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. Taking his cup with him to his favourite armchair, placing another one in front of Sherlock. Taking out one of his monthly medical journals, ignoring the black mood oozing from Sherlock’s every cell.
While he knew it to be not true, it still felt like a too long time since they had been sitting quietly together. Without a case, without John not being home, without Sherlock roaming the streets on his own.
Facts.
Truth.
John happy when outside Baker Street 221b.
John meeting someone. Someone outside the surgery or his other friends. Someone new. Someone Sherlock didn’t know.
He had surprised himself by how much he hated not being able to figure out whom John met. Who was able to make John smile that little smile of utter contentment.
He did notice the small looks John gave him from time to time. Like he was checking on him. Trying to know if Sherlock knew.
He did.
But couldn’t bring himself to say the words. To ruin what hadn’t even yet begun properly.
They hadn’t changed, not during solving cases. But something between them had changed gradually and finally resulted in them…. Them being more than just friends. But not yet quite more. In-between.
Which had scared Sherlock, not that he could, nor would, ever admit to it. Had scared him enough to leave the flat, to immerse himself in whatever came his way. Anything that was able to distract him from how much John had come to mean to him. An emotion he hadn’t expected to feel, that hadn’t been planned. At all.
But it had happened and while it became obvious he wasn’t the only one who had started to see the other as more than a normal friend, he still couldn’t stop being his usual self. And hating himself for wanting, in the result betraying his own standards.
And now, all the signs to the one truth.
He had been too much, had driven John away with his behaviour. John had found someone else.
John got up, the bookmark he’d been using sticking out of the journal’s pages. A pamphlet. ‘Introduction to Naturopathy and Chinese Medicine I’
“… Studying?”
John’s chuckle coming from the direction of the bathroom.
“Took you long enough. You haven’t been through my room in over two weeks, you know. Otherwise you would have realised much sooner.”
Two weeks. Just as long as he had seen the signs and had deduced that John…… In fear of finding even more evidence he had, for the first time, refrained from wandering into John’s room while he was out.
Wrong deduction?
“You have been studying.”
John returning to the living room, standing over Sherlock, looking down on him. Worriedly? Fondly? Hopeful?
He made Sherlock shuffle over a bit on the couch so he could sit down next to his legs.
“You needed your space. So... I looked for something to distract myself. And since you aren’t good with most of the usual medicine, I figured, why not do something useful.”
John.
John!
Clever, oh so clever and unpredictable John.
“John. I…”
His brain drew a blank. After being so sure John was already out of his reach and would soon be out of his life as well, after the quiet waiting for everything to fall apart, after the hours spent trying to deny the Truth. No matter how scary, how much this, John, hadn’t been planned.
He looked at John. Really looked. Seeing how careful John observed Sherlock, how his body tried to get closer to Sherlock’s as much as possible but was kept away only by John’s will. John, who looked at him and saw no idolised version of Sherlock, but the real one.
John, who had waited, not run. Unlike Sherlock.
The running would stop, Sherlock decided.
Lifted his hand, slowly. Finally cupping John’s left cheek, tenderly.
“Thank you.”
Drawing him down a few inches, lifting himself up a bit, meeting him somewhere in between.
They would no longer be in-between, Sherlock thought. But this would always be just between him and John.
Originally postet here.