[Sherlock BBC] Five times Sherlock meant to say "I love you"...
Title: Five times Sherlock meant to say "I love you"...
Author: devotfeige
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Warning(s): None; a touch of angst and unrequited love
Pairing(s): Sherlock->John, John/Mary Morstan
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine
Notes: Just a fluffy little 5+1 fic. ...well, I say "fluff".
1. "Are you alright?"
He was infinitely grateful, if he was being honest with himself--indeed, if he had ever been honest with himself--that the first words out of his mouth when he resurfaced from the depths of the pool that had, against all odds, managed to shield them from the brunt of the explosion were not the same as the words that first found their way into his throat.
It was far too early to tell if they held any truth and wildly out of character for him to theorise without sufficient data, and anyway it's hardly elegant or proper or even sensible for his mind to have stuttered and stopped at 'you are alive' when his hands found John's arms and he grabbed great fistfulls of the man's clothing, wrenching him towards the surface of the water, towards the side of the pool (or maybe John had been the one pulling him, it was rather difficult to tell), and the first words in his throat were I love you.
Those words never made it past his lips, of course; his chest heaved and burned while he coughed up great lungfulls of water instead, still clinging desperately to John's sopping clothing while he scrabbled at the wrecked tiles, drawing them both up and out and sprawling in the dust and debris before he was laughing madly, grabbing Sherlock by the front of his shirt and instructing him to breathe.
I love you still pressed insistantly at the back of his tongue in response, but as the adrenaline wore thin and he began to gain clarity, the delirious joy with which his initial evaluation (alive, we are alive, John is alive) had struck him did not appear to warrant such an overly dramatic flair any more.
"Are you alright?" were the words that tumbled past his lips instead, short of breath, coated with chlorine and a fine layer of dust.
John only continued to laugh, panic and hysteria falling away as quickly as they had first appeared.
2. "Tea would be lovely, thanks."
The words and their meaning sat unbidden in the back of Sherlock's mind for some time afterwards while he carefully evaluated the circumstances under which they had first appeared.
It wouldn't do to make hasty decisions based upon incomplete sets of data, after all, and much as it pained him to admit, Sherlock was well and truly out of his depth in this particular instance. The discovery of his absentee heart did very little in the way of contextualising any of what had occurred or his subsequent emotional reactions.
It had been a very long time since he'd last had anyone he might have referred to as a 'friend'. The definition was already hazy without whatever unnecessary complications accompanied the implications of anything more.
But as the days came and went, the line between never seemed to gain any clarity. Sherlock Holmes was a great many things, but he was not a man of particular experience when it came to defining such fragile and irrational things as social boundaries, and with time came only the knowledge that the distinction was paltry at best.
The words, at least, were true enough. What they meant, well and truly, at the heart of the matter; well, that was another story entirely.
He realised belatedly that he was staring, having reached this conclusion late one evening while John was standing at the other end of the room, brows knitted in silent apprehension. He opened his mouth to speak the words and what came out, distant and distracted and utterly detached, was; "Tea would be lovely, thanks."
John only nodded, accepting the earlier tense silence as his flatmate having something of greater importance on his mind than inquiries of drink, and retreated into the kitchen.
Sherlock watched him leave, clenching his teeth upon a disobedient tongue.
3. "I apologise."
The sentiment, though unspoken, was one Sherlock took some small comfort in knowing had at some point flourished into an understanding that hardly required the banal inconsequence of ordinary words to validate itself.
It was something more than that, silent but concrete, and there were times--wrapped in the quilts from both their rooms, bundled in John's cable-knit jumper, sipping tea made with copious amounts of honey while John fussed about the flat as though he could threaten pneumonia straight out the bloody window through sheer vehemence and force of will; deft fingers, painted red with blood that might have belonged to either of them, dutifully, painstakingly piecing him back together and dusting him off before following him back out into the fire to begin again; gentle hands and voice and John, carefully prying the violin from between his anxious fingers after the days began to blur (Tuesday, really? But it had been Tuesday only yesterday, he was quite certain; and anyway, since when was it September?) together in a haze of blues and greys and transport--that Sherlock caught glimpses of what he was sure could be only mutual accord.
He needn't words to define their partnership, their friendship, them.
But that fact did very little to put his mind at ease the times when something slipped between the cracked and frayed edges of the life they had cobbled together out of madness. The times when words came out too sharp or cut too deep, when John's eyes steeled and the soldier stood his opposite, rather than his equal. When John edged away from the familiar and by then unconscious points of contact that had somehow seeped in between all of what remained of their individual personal space, so long ago discarded and forgotten.
The times when John's movements were stiff and his left hand tremored, only just, while he methodically went through the motions of cleaning and dressing the day's wounds, all professionalism and none of his usual warmth.
Because it was in these moments that Sherlock realised, as clearly as if he had always known, that while this unspoken promise between them spoke volumes, it could never say enough. The words themselves could never say enough, and yet he had to try, because he could not stand to contemplate the possibility that John might very well not know.
When John smoothed the dressings around a particularly nasty gash to his forearm, moving on to double-check his eyes for signs of concussion, fingers only just shy of brushing through his hair as the doctor (all professionalism, calm and steady and so far away for all his close proximity; Sherlock longed to touch him, just to know that he was truly there) tilted his head to look at him, finishing by taking stock of bruises of scrapes and filing away the details for later follow-up, and still he had not yet managed to find the shapes, the syllables, the words, Sherlock despaired.
"I apologise," he murmured into the scant breathing room between them.
John smiled, in response; the barest hint of warmth seeping through the barrier of hurt and betrayal and we're going to talk about you running off on your own, not now, but soon. "Careful, next time."
It felt a great deal like the first breath of air after nearly drowning, all over again.
"Of course."
4. "You're welcome."
It was dark and cold and damp and insufferable in much the same way as it had been all week, but The Work stopped for no one and Sherlock could not have been more pleased than he was with criminals who did their dirty work in the wind and rain and slush without making the amateur mistake of leaving their winding trail all throughout the city.
Ever faithful, ever loyal, John followed; stamping and swearing and shivering all the while, but never far enough away to fall behind.
Not any more. Perhaps not ever again. It was a thought that made Sherlock swell with contentedness, a welcome change of pace he had somehow not anticipated becoming part-and-parcel with the unwieldy thing their relationship had become over the years. Strange how before John, before he had ever truly known it possible for him to be any other way, he had never realised just how terribly he loathed being alone.
He desperately hoped John knew these things.
They had fallen into a comraderie so fluid, so natural, with so few pauses or hiccups or (cold professionalism, so-called sociopath and soldier, vicious--unintentional--words in fits of anger and impatience, waiting for the day when enough was enough) any of what had so ferociously attempted to erode the fragile threads that held them together in those early days.
Surely John knew, by now.
Sherlock stopped, mid-deduction, and turned on his heel to leave Lestrade sputtering in frustration, marching to where John had taken up standing huddled miserably in the folds of his coat along the sidelines.
There was, in fact, something more important than The Work.
Sherlock unwound his scarf from his own neck and carefully wrapped it around that precious thing, every ounce of the attention he had only moments ago reserved for a distinctive lack of footprints in the slush directed pointedly towards John, instead. He had always known that this was important. Not necessarily its depth.
I love you, he thought passionately, and for the first time understood precisely what those words meant. Let it burn like fire in his eyes for anyone to see; I do. More than anything. You must know, by now. You must.
But John clenched freezing fingers around the article of cloth, laughed softly through chattering teeth, and looked at him the same way he always had. "Thank you."
"I..." Sherlock began, before his jaw clicked shut. He watched John's appreciative smile, sought out any hint of understanding in his eyes, and found only the same gentle acceptance and mildly exasperated fondness that had always been there. "You're welcome," he finished lamely, and shifted his attention back to the mystery of Lestrade's uncharacteristically cryptic killer.
5. "Come home."
When first John met Mary Morstan, Sherlock paid her little mind.
She was plain (beautiful), average (intelligent), and moreover, astonishingly dull (normal).
In short, she was everything John could have ever wanted, and Sherlock hated her on principle from the very instant he realised this was not one of John's conquests. This was something else.
This was something that breathed new life into his friend and partner, renewing a light behind the doctor's eyes he had never noticed had been dwindling. This was something that threatened to steal him away even as it promised to make him whole.
Sherlock had been capable of that, once upon a time. John had all but returned the favour, and then--? How did one lose track of time so thoroughly, to fail to notice when their silent understanding had buckled and tarnished and eventually crumbled into dust?
When John moved out from 221b, Sherlock locked himself in his bedroom and played the violin--actually played, the way John had only ever suspected in the dead of night he could but chose not to either to be contrary or out of sheer stubbornness--until hours after the pleading knock at his door had finally given up and left.
He was made best man at the wedding, a position which he very thoroughly despised but that he went through with anyway because it made John smile at him appreciatively, with an exasperated sort of fondness (just like he always had).
John's marriage had less of an impact on their working relationship than perhaps it probably should have, all things done and told. Their friendship suffered, though not irrepairably, and Mary sent John to visit nearly as often as he decided to on his own, claiming every time with a subtle smile that if she didn't, he would forget why he had wanted to settle down to start with.
Sherlock hated her perhaps as much as he learned to love her, for loving John and for telling him as much, and for never truly taking him away entirely.
That was perhaps the only thing that kept him from falling back into old habits from the long-forgotten times he had been alone, the three long years that 221b Baker Street housed only one occupant.
And only one of the many reasons that he felt the loss as though it were his very own when Mrs Mary Watson fell ill and passed away.
Three years and change, and yet the loss could be no more devestating for John than if she had been a part of him for all his life. Sherlock stood by his side in the wind and the light drizzle of rain that fell upon an otherwise perfectly ordinary day, hesitated only momentarily, and then wrapped an arm around John's shoulders.
John sagged wearily against his side, as though three years' worth of carefully established boundaries had simply never existed.
"Come home," Sherlock whispered into sand-coloured hair, moving his opposite arm to join the first when the other man reached up to clutch desperately at the back of his coat and buried silent tears against his chest.
Once, lifetimes ago, it might have been a callous demand.
Now, it was a pleading offer.
Come home, John. We'll muddle through.
+1 "I love you."
"Too old for this," John groused, reaching over to fold up Sherlock's legs so that he could collapse heavily upon the other end of the sofa. As soon as he was settled, Sherlock stretched his legs out once more to rest his feet upon the other man's lap.
"You or me?" he asked, allowing his arm to fall from where it had settled over his face when he had first thrown himself at the well-worn piece of furniture in much the same manner.
"Both," John replied.
Sherlock hummed in agreement.
"I've been thinking about retiring."
John laughed, a short and soft little chuckle that made the younger man smile fondly, his eyes closed. "Is that a thing? Can Consulting Detectives retire?"
"There's only the one," Sherlock reminded him, "So I have to innovate."
He felt John's hand come to rest around his ankle, thumb lazily drawing circles against the skin. "Where exactly does a Consulting Detective retire to?"
"Somewhere suitably rustic to swan off to, much to everyone's chagrin."
"Of course," John replied, an affectionate smile of his own colouring the words with such warmth, such contentment, Sherlock couldn't find it in himself to think just yet of the very real possibility that the other might not come with him. He had never asked; the topic had never come up before.
He had never given John any reason to believe he might want him to.
Sherlock opened his eyes, the question 'How do you feel about bees?' on the tip of his tongue as he glanced over to where his long-time friend and flatmate sat, still tracing lazy circles around his ankle, an appreciative smile on his face and an exasperated sort of fondness in his eyes.
"I love you," somehow tumbled out of his mouth instead.
John grinned, eyes alight with a mirth the other man had never seen before.
"How do you feel about bees?" he asked by way of response, soft laughter filling the air between them when, after a brief moment of complete incomprehension, Sherlock wrenched himself up from his supine position on the sofa, drawing John--dear John; dear, sweet, wonderful John, who never missed anything important--into a tight embrace and laughing breathlessly against his shoulder.
One day he would learn to stop underestimating John.
He hoped that day was a long way off, yet.
Author: devotfeige
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Warning(s): None; a touch of angst and unrequited love
Pairing(s): Sherlock->John, John/Mary Morstan
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine
Notes: Just a fluffy little 5+1 fic. ...well, I say "fluff".
1. "Are you alright?"
He was infinitely grateful, if he was being honest with himself--indeed, if he had ever been honest with himself--that the first words out of his mouth when he resurfaced from the depths of the pool that had, against all odds, managed to shield them from the brunt of the explosion were not the same as the words that first found their way into his throat.
It was far too early to tell if they held any truth and wildly out of character for him to theorise without sufficient data, and anyway it's hardly elegant or proper or even sensible for his mind to have stuttered and stopped at 'you are alive' when his hands found John's arms and he grabbed great fistfulls of the man's clothing, wrenching him towards the surface of the water, towards the side of the pool (or maybe John had been the one pulling him, it was rather difficult to tell), and the first words in his throat were I love you.
Those words never made it past his lips, of course; his chest heaved and burned while he coughed up great lungfulls of water instead, still clinging desperately to John's sopping clothing while he scrabbled at the wrecked tiles, drawing them both up and out and sprawling in the dust and debris before he was laughing madly, grabbing Sherlock by the front of his shirt and instructing him to breathe.
I love you still pressed insistantly at the back of his tongue in response, but as the adrenaline wore thin and he began to gain clarity, the delirious joy with which his initial evaluation (alive, we are alive, John is alive) had struck him did not appear to warrant such an overly dramatic flair any more.
"Are you alright?" were the words that tumbled past his lips instead, short of breath, coated with chlorine and a fine layer of dust.
John only continued to laugh, panic and hysteria falling away as quickly as they had first appeared.
2. "Tea would be lovely, thanks."
The words and their meaning sat unbidden in the back of Sherlock's mind for some time afterwards while he carefully evaluated the circumstances under which they had first appeared.
It wouldn't do to make hasty decisions based upon incomplete sets of data, after all, and much as it pained him to admit, Sherlock was well and truly out of his depth in this particular instance. The discovery of his absentee heart did very little in the way of contextualising any of what had occurred or his subsequent emotional reactions.
It had been a very long time since he'd last had anyone he might have referred to as a 'friend'. The definition was already hazy without whatever unnecessary complications accompanied the implications of anything more.
But as the days came and went, the line between never seemed to gain any clarity. Sherlock Holmes was a great many things, but he was not a man of particular experience when it came to defining such fragile and irrational things as social boundaries, and with time came only the knowledge that the distinction was paltry at best.
The words, at least, were true enough. What they meant, well and truly, at the heart of the matter; well, that was another story entirely.
He realised belatedly that he was staring, having reached this conclusion late one evening while John was standing at the other end of the room, brows knitted in silent apprehension. He opened his mouth to speak the words and what came out, distant and distracted and utterly detached, was; "Tea would be lovely, thanks."
John only nodded, accepting the earlier tense silence as his flatmate having something of greater importance on his mind than inquiries of drink, and retreated into the kitchen.
Sherlock watched him leave, clenching his teeth upon a disobedient tongue.
3. "I apologise."
The sentiment, though unspoken, was one Sherlock took some small comfort in knowing had at some point flourished into an understanding that hardly required the banal inconsequence of ordinary words to validate itself.
It was something more than that, silent but concrete, and there were times--wrapped in the quilts from both their rooms, bundled in John's cable-knit jumper, sipping tea made with copious amounts of honey while John fussed about the flat as though he could threaten pneumonia straight out the bloody window through sheer vehemence and force of will; deft fingers, painted red with blood that might have belonged to either of them, dutifully, painstakingly piecing him back together and dusting him off before following him back out into the fire to begin again; gentle hands and voice and John, carefully prying the violin from between his anxious fingers after the days began to blur (Tuesday, really? But it had been Tuesday only yesterday, he was quite certain; and anyway, since when was it September?) together in a haze of blues and greys and transport--that Sherlock caught glimpses of what he was sure could be only mutual accord.
He needn't words to define their partnership, their friendship, them.
But that fact did very little to put his mind at ease the times when something slipped between the cracked and frayed edges of the life they had cobbled together out of madness. The times when words came out too sharp or cut too deep, when John's eyes steeled and the soldier stood his opposite, rather than his equal. When John edged away from the familiar and by then unconscious points of contact that had somehow seeped in between all of what remained of their individual personal space, so long ago discarded and forgotten.
The times when John's movements were stiff and his left hand tremored, only just, while he methodically went through the motions of cleaning and dressing the day's wounds, all professionalism and none of his usual warmth.
Because it was in these moments that Sherlock realised, as clearly as if he had always known, that while this unspoken promise between them spoke volumes, it could never say enough. The words themselves could never say enough, and yet he had to try, because he could not stand to contemplate the possibility that John might very well not know.
When John smoothed the dressings around a particularly nasty gash to his forearm, moving on to double-check his eyes for signs of concussion, fingers only just shy of brushing through his hair as the doctor (all professionalism, calm and steady and so far away for all his close proximity; Sherlock longed to touch him, just to know that he was truly there) tilted his head to look at him, finishing by taking stock of bruises of scrapes and filing away the details for later follow-up, and still he had not yet managed to find the shapes, the syllables, the words, Sherlock despaired.
"I apologise," he murmured into the scant breathing room between them.
John smiled, in response; the barest hint of warmth seeping through the barrier of hurt and betrayal and we're going to talk about you running off on your own, not now, but soon. "Careful, next time."
It felt a great deal like the first breath of air after nearly drowning, all over again.
"Of course."
4. "You're welcome."
It was dark and cold and damp and insufferable in much the same way as it had been all week, but The Work stopped for no one and Sherlock could not have been more pleased than he was with criminals who did their dirty work in the wind and rain and slush without making the amateur mistake of leaving their winding trail all throughout the city.
Ever faithful, ever loyal, John followed; stamping and swearing and shivering all the while, but never far enough away to fall behind.
Not any more. Perhaps not ever again. It was a thought that made Sherlock swell with contentedness, a welcome change of pace he had somehow not anticipated becoming part-and-parcel with the unwieldy thing their relationship had become over the years. Strange how before John, before he had ever truly known it possible for him to be any other way, he had never realised just how terribly he loathed being alone.
He desperately hoped John knew these things.
They had fallen into a comraderie so fluid, so natural, with so few pauses or hiccups or (cold professionalism, so-called sociopath and soldier, vicious--unintentional--words in fits of anger and impatience, waiting for the day when enough was enough) any of what had so ferociously attempted to erode the fragile threads that held them together in those early days.
Surely John knew, by now.
Sherlock stopped, mid-deduction, and turned on his heel to leave Lestrade sputtering in frustration, marching to where John had taken up standing huddled miserably in the folds of his coat along the sidelines.
There was, in fact, something more important than The Work.
Sherlock unwound his scarf from his own neck and carefully wrapped it around that precious thing, every ounce of the attention he had only moments ago reserved for a distinctive lack of footprints in the slush directed pointedly towards John, instead. He had always known that this was important. Not necessarily its depth.
I love you, he thought passionately, and for the first time understood precisely what those words meant. Let it burn like fire in his eyes for anyone to see; I do. More than anything. You must know, by now. You must.
But John clenched freezing fingers around the article of cloth, laughed softly through chattering teeth, and looked at him the same way he always had. "Thank you."
"I..." Sherlock began, before his jaw clicked shut. He watched John's appreciative smile, sought out any hint of understanding in his eyes, and found only the same gentle acceptance and mildly exasperated fondness that had always been there. "You're welcome," he finished lamely, and shifted his attention back to the mystery of Lestrade's uncharacteristically cryptic killer.
5. "Come home."
When first John met Mary Morstan, Sherlock paid her little mind.
She was plain (beautiful), average (intelligent), and moreover, astonishingly dull (normal).
In short, she was everything John could have ever wanted, and Sherlock hated her on principle from the very instant he realised this was not one of John's conquests. This was something else.
This was something that breathed new life into his friend and partner, renewing a light behind the doctor's eyes he had never noticed had been dwindling. This was something that threatened to steal him away even as it promised to make him whole.
Sherlock had been capable of that, once upon a time. John had all but returned the favour, and then--? How did one lose track of time so thoroughly, to fail to notice when their silent understanding had buckled and tarnished and eventually crumbled into dust?
When John moved out from 221b, Sherlock locked himself in his bedroom and played the violin--actually played, the way John had only ever suspected in the dead of night he could but chose not to either to be contrary or out of sheer stubbornness--until hours after the pleading knock at his door had finally given up and left.
He was made best man at the wedding, a position which he very thoroughly despised but that he went through with anyway because it made John smile at him appreciatively, with an exasperated sort of fondness (just like he always had).
John's marriage had less of an impact on their working relationship than perhaps it probably should have, all things done and told. Their friendship suffered, though not irrepairably, and Mary sent John to visit nearly as often as he decided to on his own, claiming every time with a subtle smile that if she didn't, he would forget why he had wanted to settle down to start with.
Sherlock hated her perhaps as much as he learned to love her, for loving John and for telling him as much, and for never truly taking him away entirely.
That was perhaps the only thing that kept him from falling back into old habits from the long-forgotten times he had been alone, the three long years that 221b Baker Street housed only one occupant.
And only one of the many reasons that he felt the loss as though it were his very own when Mrs Mary Watson fell ill and passed away.
Three years and change, and yet the loss could be no more devestating for John than if she had been a part of him for all his life. Sherlock stood by his side in the wind and the light drizzle of rain that fell upon an otherwise perfectly ordinary day, hesitated only momentarily, and then wrapped an arm around John's shoulders.
John sagged wearily against his side, as though three years' worth of carefully established boundaries had simply never existed.
"Come home," Sherlock whispered into sand-coloured hair, moving his opposite arm to join the first when the other man reached up to clutch desperately at the back of his coat and buried silent tears against his chest.
Once, lifetimes ago, it might have been a callous demand.
Now, it was a pleading offer.
Come home, John. We'll muddle through.
+1 "I love you."
"Too old for this," John groused, reaching over to fold up Sherlock's legs so that he could collapse heavily upon the other end of the sofa. As soon as he was settled, Sherlock stretched his legs out once more to rest his feet upon the other man's lap.
"You or me?" he asked, allowing his arm to fall from where it had settled over his face when he had first thrown himself at the well-worn piece of furniture in much the same manner.
"Both," John replied.
Sherlock hummed in agreement.
"I've been thinking about retiring."
John laughed, a short and soft little chuckle that made the younger man smile fondly, his eyes closed. "Is that a thing? Can Consulting Detectives retire?"
"There's only the one," Sherlock reminded him, "So I have to innovate."
He felt John's hand come to rest around his ankle, thumb lazily drawing circles against the skin. "Where exactly does a Consulting Detective retire to?"
"Somewhere suitably rustic to swan off to, much to everyone's chagrin."
"Of course," John replied, an affectionate smile of his own colouring the words with such warmth, such contentment, Sherlock couldn't find it in himself to think just yet of the very real possibility that the other might not come with him. He had never asked; the topic had never come up before.
He had never given John any reason to believe he might want him to.
Sherlock opened his eyes, the question 'How do you feel about bees?' on the tip of his tongue as he glanced over to where his long-time friend and flatmate sat, still tracing lazy circles around his ankle, an appreciative smile on his face and an exasperated sort of fondness in his eyes.
"I love you," somehow tumbled out of his mouth instead.
John grinned, eyes alight with a mirth the other man had never seen before.
"How do you feel about bees?" he asked by way of response, soft laughter filling the air between them when, after a brief moment of complete incomprehension, Sherlock wrenched himself up from his supine position on the sofa, drawing John--dear John; dear, sweet, wonderful John, who never missed anything important--into a tight embrace and laughing breathlessly against his shoulder.
One day he would learn to stop underestimating John.
He hoped that day was a long way off, yet.