fic: beethoven's two romances
Title: Beethoven's Two Romances
Rating: PG
Genre(s): romance, some angst
Word Count: ~2870
Pairing(s) / Character(s): John/Sherlock
Warnings / Spoilers: Episodes 1 and 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, the show belongs to the genius mind of Steven Moffat
Summary: As John has become Sherlock's gun, Sherlock is becoming John's violin. Written for farosdaughter ’s birthday! Sequel to your father's greatest wish.
It starts with Beethoven. Two Romances, to be precise.
John is sleeping. He’s dreaming about the first time he met Sherlock; their conversation at the lab, Sherlock’s knowing arrogance, his goodbye wink.
This isn’t the first time he’s found himself dreaming about Sherlock, his frustrating maybe-friend flatmate with a disturbing penchant for trouble, and a genius mind. He’s dreaming about the tails of his long winter coat, his knowing smirk, those piercing blue eyes-
And then he’s not.
John groans. His face is pressed into the pillow, so he rolls onto his side and cracks an eye open at the alarm clock on the bedside table.
5:17.
“Oh for crying out loud!” John mutters, and licks his dry lips.
It takes him five minutes to stumble down the stairs, because it took three to attempt to locate his dressing gown, only to realise that Sherlock had taken it from him last week and had never returned it, and two to find and throw an old sweater over his pyjama shirt.
“What the hell is going on, Sherlock?” John says upon hurtling into the living room to find Sherlock (in John’s missing dressing gown) standing in front of the mirror on the wall, violin and bow in hand. His eyes are closed, and he doesn’t pause in his playing of it.
John winces. He shuts the door and strides towards Sherlock, annoyed and tired and very fed up.
“It’s five in the morning,” he shouts over the din of screechy high notes Sherlock is stringing from the instrument. “You’ll wake up the whole neighbourhood!”
When Sherlock doesn’t respond - not even a twitch of the eyebrow, his playing unfaltering - John yells louder.
“Sherlock!”
Finally, the playing stops. The bow falls by Sherlock’s side as he opens his eyes. He stares at himself in the mirror, his instrument quiet on his shoulder. Then, after a beat, he holds the violin to his chest and turns his sharp gaze on John with a sigh.
“What is it, John? I was in the middle of something.”
John snorts at Sherlock’s impatient tone. “And I was in the middle of sleeping! As is everyone else on Baker Street, and poor Mrs Hudson too. Can’t you rehearse your violin in a few hours?”
“Absolutely not,” Sherlock retorts smartly, and puts the violin on his shoulder again. “It is imperative I have a clear mind. Beethoven is being extremely helpful. You, on the other hand, are not.”
“Don’t you dare,” John warns as Sherlock lifts the bow again. “You don’t even have a case!”
“That hardly constitutes the need for a clear mind, John.”
“I don’t care about your ‘clear mind’, Sherlock, I want to sleep!” John splutters exasperatedly.
Sherlock turns to him again and fixes John with an intent, disapproving stare. “Sleep is for normal people.”
John throws his hands in the air. Sherlock turns back to the mirror.
“If you’re going to play that wretched thing, at least play something... less grating!” John complains as he walks away, having given up. Sherlock’s a lost cause; always has been.
“Two Romances is one of the best pieces of classical violin music ever written.” Sherlock puts bow to string and closes his eyes again. “You should learn to appreciate the beauty of it.”
“I’ll try appreciating it once I’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
John knows that Sherlock isn’t listening, though. He’s started playing once more, and the piercing sound fills the room. John is sure it’ll permeate through the ceiling, up the floor of his bedroom, again.
Wonderful.
John strides out of the room, huffing. “And I want my dressing gown back!” he yells, and slams the door shut.
He doesn’t want to think about what Mrs Hudson will undoubtedly say to him later about ‘domestics’.
John’s never liked classical music. In fact, he’s never liked music full stop. There wasn’t time for music in a life of constant battle and pain and death. After years of relentless gunfire, John prefers silence.
Until Sherlock.
It’s difficult to be silent around Sherlock. He’s a barrelling ball of energy, whipping from place to place - their flat, a cab, the city, the Police Station - and it’s hard to ignore; impossible not to be caught up in the explosive, dangerous life of the only consulting detective in the world.
John simply cannot be quiet around Sherlock. He makes John want to yell and scream and shout, lose control like no one else can make him, with exception of his pathetic excuse for a sister. Sherlock’s frustrating and persistent and unbelievable, and to ignore all of that-
Well. John doesn’t think anyone could.
Sherlock is here one moment, gone the next. He’s like the wind - untameable, uncatchable, unstoppable. John doesn’t want him to change, doesn’t want his life to be quiet any longer, even if he convinces himself over and over of the opposite. He pretends he hates it, but really, he’s never felt more alive since he came back to society and discovered he no longer quite fit in anymore - and never would.
So really, John shouldn’t be surprised that, like everything else about Sherlock Holmes, he begins to get used to the incessant noise that is his flatmate - even the bullets to the wall, even the violin.
When John initially moves into 221b Baker Street, he hates Sherlock’s instrument with a passion. At least the gun is something he knows well, for it is like the back of his hand, a part of him now. On the other hand, he thinks Sherlock’s violin a screechy thing, the notes too high for the human ears to listen to comfortably, and John resents the loss of his tranquillity in silence.
And then, he begins to recognise the pieces.
First there is the infamous Two Romances by Beethoven. After the first time Sherlock rudely awakens the entire block of flats at an ungodly hour of the morning, John isn’t able to forget the piece; he drifts back to fractured sleep after their argument of sorts, the notes ringing in his ears through the pillow on his head. Afterwards, whenever Sherlock plays it - not yet, thank goodness, again at 5 a.m. - John recognises it immediately and scowls, whilst Sherlock smiles knowingly, and continues playing, his eyes always firmly closed.
Then comes Bach and his numerous Violin Concertos in Whatever Major or Minor - John can never remember their full titles, and he doesn’t intend to. Listening to Sherlock screech through each long-winded movement is well printed in his memory for him, their names need not be remembered. Sherlock pulls out Bach pieces whenever he’s feeling playful or excited, prancing around the room with violin in hand and his eyes still closed; John constantly worries he’ll trip over his feet or blindly hit a table edge, but he never does, just waltzes gaily on.
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is recycled for a while when Sherlock is feeling particularly angry and frustrated. John is very glad for the violin, then - for he would rather suffer Sherlock’s never-ending playing pervading their flat than a constantly whining Sherlock, or a gun-enthused Sherlock - which actually, John’s noticed, he only turns to using when bored. The violin is for thinking, for venting emotions.
Afterwards, there are a string of composers John knows by name but not at all by music: Haydn, Handel, Mozart, Bartók, Tchaikovsky, Brahms - really, Sherlock knows them all, and it surprises even John, how music-literate Sherlock is, considering how little he knows about other worldly matters.
Once, Sherlock plays Pachelbel’s infamous Canon in D, the only piece John has ever to date recognised of Sherlock’s repertoire. He’s sitting quietly in his armchair at the time, newspaper folded neatly on his lap and tea in hand, when Sherlock, as he does, picks up his violin, and out of the blue begins playing the song.
“What’s that?” John asks, looking up with a tilted head to the side and watching Sherlock do something fancy with the fiddle. “I recognise it.”
“Canon in D,” says Sherlock, doesn’t bat a closed eye as he talks through his playing, “by Johann Pachelbel.”
“Never heard of him.”
Sherlock does stop playing this time, only to level an affronted glare at John. “And you say I have no knowledge of the ‘real world’. This is one of the most famous pieces of music in history, and the foundation of most of the songs ever written.”
John shrugs carelessly. “Music’s never been my forte.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. They couldn’t be more different people, John thinks as Sherlock lifts his arms again, and he turns back to the headline of today’s newspaper.
“I shall just have to educate you then, John,” Sherlock murmurs, more to himself than to his companion, and the recognisable tune of Canon in D strikes up once more.
It doesn’t take John long, after that, to realise that Sherlock’s outlet of emotions is very much centred around his violin. The day one of its strings breaks is a day John will never forget. Sherlock paces down the flat so much that John is sure he’ll wear the carpet out within the hour, and the look of permanent anguish on Sherlock’s face is enough for John to quietly steal away the broken, rather abused violin, and leave the flat.
He returns that night to Sherlock twirling his gun between his fingers.
“Where have you been?” Sherlock snaps irritably, not looking up from the sofa where he’s lying down. John can see several nicotine patches taped to his arms - a total of eight. It’s a new record.
“Got this fixed for you,” John says casually. He brings out the violin from behind his back; the string is as good as new.
Sherlock turns his head and stops when he catches sight of his instrument. His entire body freezes, and stays frozen for several seconds. John waits patiently for a reaction, and he gets one when Sherlock slowly sits up, stands, and approaches him.
Sherlock takes his violin from John. Their fingers brush along its spine.
“Thank you, John,” Sherlock says quietly. He’s staring at John so intensely, and John wonders how he never noticed that Sherlock’s eyes were that blue before.
“You’re welcome.”
Then, violin firmly in hand, Sherlock proceeds to rip off each of his ight nicotine patches, press the gun into John’s palm as though in exchange, and leaps towards his bow on the table.
In seconds, the flat is filled with familiar notes, loud and soft and high and low, and John watches as Sherlock dances around the room, lips quirking up and eyes closed to the tune.
John shakes his head and smiles.
In a few months, John can name several more classical music composers than he thought he ever could.
“If you’re going to play that thing, could you at least not play Bach,” he complains one evening, when Sherlock is particularly elated over a freshly solved case. John is sure he’s still inwardly laughing from the pleasure of outwitting Anderson in front of Lestrade for the nth time.
Sherlock pauses in his playing and opens his eyes to look at John.
“What would you have me play, then?”
John scrutinises Sherlock for a moment, thinking hard.
“Two Romances,” John suggests. “Beethoven.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows dart upwards in surprise.
“It’s the only name I know. It’s hard to forget,” John says dryly.
Sherlock looks at John some more, John looks back, and then Sherlock smiles that smile of his that John knows so well, has seen so often, directed at him.
And then Sherlock begins to play.
John doesn’t remember when exactly it changes - can’t put his finger on the exact moment he decided that classical music wasn’t so horrible after all, and that, in fact, he couldn’t imagine a life without it. He can’t think of a time when he wasn’t woken by violin music that makes him smile rather than frown, can’t think of a moment together with Sherlock that wasn’t permeated by the trills of his violin.
Sherlock is so in tune with his violin, and John is so in tune with Sherlock, that John by proxy becomes in tune with Sherlock’s violin. John reads Sherlock’s emotions through his violin when he becomes unreachable in obsession or frustration. It becomes a part of Sherlock, and therefore a part of John.
John comes down the stairs one Sunday morning to find Sherlock in front of the mirror, wrapped in John’s dressing gown (because he never did give it back) and playing Two Romances.
Déjà vu immediately hits John, and a sense of affection for Sherlock fills his chest. It’s the first time John has felt such a strong emotion for his maybe-friend flatmate, but it isn’t unfamiliar. In fact, it’s natural, normal, even right, and John is shocked by it.
“Ah, good morning John,” Sherlock greets when the piece has been played to its end, and he swivels round to smile wide at John, dressed in pyjamas and staring. Sherlock’s brow furrows. “Are you all right?”
John blinks. He nods, once, and takes a step backwards. “Fine. Everything’s fine.”
As he retreats from the living room into the hallway, he hears Sherlock yell after him, “What do we do about breakfast?”
Nowadays, when Sherlock doesn’t play his violin, it’s not Sherlock who becomes agitated easily. It's John.
For a man with Sherlock’s genius intellect, it’s not difficult to notice. However, it is rather difficult to decipher why.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sherlock asks one evening, flopping into his armchair opposite John, whose shoulders have relaxed now after Sherlock played Vivaldi with gusto. Half an hour ago, he had returned home looking worn and tired and frustrated. Sherlock had accepted John’s request for music without question, but now that he has completed the request, he is curious.
“Nothing. I’m fine.” John’s fingers cross his face, a shadow falling over the bridge of his nose. He catches Sherlock’s disbelieving gaze and stands up sharply. “I’m just tired. I’m going to go to bed.”
Before Sherlock can argue, he’s gone.
It all comes to a head one night when Sherlock accidentally misplaces his violin.
“How could you lose your violin!” John exclaims, bewildered and agitated. Sherlock observes him quietly.
“It’s not hard, John,” he says lightly. “Happens to the best of us.”
An hour later, the tension in the living room is palpable. John is sitting in his armchair, fingernails raking its arms, glaring at the laptop on his lap. Sherlock is playing with his phone.
“Would you stop that,” John snaps, glaring up over the screen.
“Stop what?”
“That... noise.”
“I’m texting.”
“Well... stop it.”
“Why?”
“It’s distracting me, that’s why!”
Sherlock puts his phone down and levels a straight stare at John.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, concerned. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”
“I’m fine,” John growls warningly.
But of course, Sherlock won’t let it go.
“No, you’re not,” he says calmly.
John sighs. “Shut up, Sherlock. Please.”
“No.”
And that’s how John ends up kissing Sherlock, all teeth and tongue and pent-up weeks’ worth of emotions, and Sherlock lets him - kisses back, because it’s not wrong, it’s right, so right, and how had he never noticed, a man like him? How had he let it slip by?
He stops questioning when John’s sweater hits the carpet.
Things hardly change. If for the odd tumble into bed, their lives continue on with mysteries to solve and dead people to examine, punctuated by regular cups of Mrs Hudson’s Earl Grey tea and takeaway. Granted, there are more visits to restaurants - just the two of them - but neither Sherlock or John ever explicitly say the word ‘date’.
“So, this thing,” John says a few weeks later, lying in bed beside Sherlock and staring at the whitewashed ceiling. His chest is rising in heavy pants. “What is it exactly?”
Sherlock sits up and looks down. “What’re you talking about?”
“Us,” John says. “I mean us.”
Sherlock blinks. “I suppose,” he says slowly, “that by society’s definition, we are in a relationship. Of a sexual nature.”
John rolls his eyes. He rolls his eyes and smiles.
John comes home one day, a few months later, drenched by the rain of the sudden storm, and Sherlock is tapping away at his laptop. Peeling off his sodden coat and hanging it up, John slumps into his armchair and sighs. Sherlock looks up at him as he closes his eyes.
“Beethoven,” John mutters. “Please, Sherlock.”
Wordlessly, Sherlock stands and picks up his violin. The notes of Two Romances fill the room, echoing in the small space between them. John relaxes against the armchair, breathes in the smell of musk, of their books, of the essence that is Sherlock, and murmurs something under his breath.
“When I was playing,” Sherlock says later, as he presses the smallest of kisses to the corner of John’s mouth. “What did you say?”
John closes his eyes and imagines the sound of the violin forever etched into his ears. There is no more silence - only Sherlock.
“I love you.”
Rating: PG
Genre(s): romance, some angst
Word Count: ~2870
Pairing(s) / Character(s): John/Sherlock
Warnings / Spoilers: Episodes 1 and 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, the show belongs to the genius mind of Steven Moffat
Summary: As John has become Sherlock's gun, Sherlock is becoming John's violin. Written for farosdaughter ’s birthday! Sequel to your father's greatest wish.
It starts with Beethoven. Two Romances, to be precise.
John is sleeping. He’s dreaming about the first time he met Sherlock; their conversation at the lab, Sherlock’s knowing arrogance, his goodbye wink.
This isn’t the first time he’s found himself dreaming about Sherlock, his frustrating maybe-friend flatmate with a disturbing penchant for trouble, and a genius mind. He’s dreaming about the tails of his long winter coat, his knowing smirk, those piercing blue eyes-
And then he’s not.
John groans. His face is pressed into the pillow, so he rolls onto his side and cracks an eye open at the alarm clock on the bedside table.
5:17.
“Oh for crying out loud!” John mutters, and licks his dry lips.
It takes him five minutes to stumble down the stairs, because it took three to attempt to locate his dressing gown, only to realise that Sherlock had taken it from him last week and had never returned it, and two to find and throw an old sweater over his pyjama shirt.
“What the hell is going on, Sherlock?” John says upon hurtling into the living room to find Sherlock (in John’s missing dressing gown) standing in front of the mirror on the wall, violin and bow in hand. His eyes are closed, and he doesn’t pause in his playing of it.
John winces. He shuts the door and strides towards Sherlock, annoyed and tired and very fed up.
“It’s five in the morning,” he shouts over the din of screechy high notes Sherlock is stringing from the instrument. “You’ll wake up the whole neighbourhood!”
When Sherlock doesn’t respond - not even a twitch of the eyebrow, his playing unfaltering - John yells louder.
“Sherlock!”
Finally, the playing stops. The bow falls by Sherlock’s side as he opens his eyes. He stares at himself in the mirror, his instrument quiet on his shoulder. Then, after a beat, he holds the violin to his chest and turns his sharp gaze on John with a sigh.
“What is it, John? I was in the middle of something.”
John snorts at Sherlock’s impatient tone. “And I was in the middle of sleeping! As is everyone else on Baker Street, and poor Mrs Hudson too. Can’t you rehearse your violin in a few hours?”
“Absolutely not,” Sherlock retorts smartly, and puts the violin on his shoulder again. “It is imperative I have a clear mind. Beethoven is being extremely helpful. You, on the other hand, are not.”
“Don’t you dare,” John warns as Sherlock lifts the bow again. “You don’t even have a case!”
“That hardly constitutes the need for a clear mind, John.”
“I don’t care about your ‘clear mind’, Sherlock, I want to sleep!” John splutters exasperatedly.
Sherlock turns to him again and fixes John with an intent, disapproving stare. “Sleep is for normal people.”
John throws his hands in the air. Sherlock turns back to the mirror.
“If you’re going to play that wretched thing, at least play something... less grating!” John complains as he walks away, having given up. Sherlock’s a lost cause; always has been.
“Two Romances is one of the best pieces of classical violin music ever written.” Sherlock puts bow to string and closes his eyes again. “You should learn to appreciate the beauty of it.”
“I’ll try appreciating it once I’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
John knows that Sherlock isn’t listening, though. He’s started playing once more, and the piercing sound fills the room. John is sure it’ll permeate through the ceiling, up the floor of his bedroom, again.
Wonderful.
John strides out of the room, huffing. “And I want my dressing gown back!” he yells, and slams the door shut.
He doesn’t want to think about what Mrs Hudson will undoubtedly say to him later about ‘domestics’.
John’s never liked classical music. In fact, he’s never liked music full stop. There wasn’t time for music in a life of constant battle and pain and death. After years of relentless gunfire, John prefers silence.
Until Sherlock.
It’s difficult to be silent around Sherlock. He’s a barrelling ball of energy, whipping from place to place - their flat, a cab, the city, the Police Station - and it’s hard to ignore; impossible not to be caught up in the explosive, dangerous life of the only consulting detective in the world.
John simply cannot be quiet around Sherlock. He makes John want to yell and scream and shout, lose control like no one else can make him, with exception of his pathetic excuse for a sister. Sherlock’s frustrating and persistent and unbelievable, and to ignore all of that-
Well. John doesn’t think anyone could.
Sherlock is here one moment, gone the next. He’s like the wind - untameable, uncatchable, unstoppable. John doesn’t want him to change, doesn’t want his life to be quiet any longer, even if he convinces himself over and over of the opposite. He pretends he hates it, but really, he’s never felt more alive since he came back to society and discovered he no longer quite fit in anymore - and never would.
So really, John shouldn’t be surprised that, like everything else about Sherlock Holmes, he begins to get used to the incessant noise that is his flatmate - even the bullets to the wall, even the violin.
When John initially moves into 221b Baker Street, he hates Sherlock’s instrument with a passion. At least the gun is something he knows well, for it is like the back of his hand, a part of him now. On the other hand, he thinks Sherlock’s violin a screechy thing, the notes too high for the human ears to listen to comfortably, and John resents the loss of his tranquillity in silence.
And then, he begins to recognise the pieces.
First there is the infamous Two Romances by Beethoven. After the first time Sherlock rudely awakens the entire block of flats at an ungodly hour of the morning, John isn’t able to forget the piece; he drifts back to fractured sleep after their argument of sorts, the notes ringing in his ears through the pillow on his head. Afterwards, whenever Sherlock plays it - not yet, thank goodness, again at 5 a.m. - John recognises it immediately and scowls, whilst Sherlock smiles knowingly, and continues playing, his eyes always firmly closed.
Then comes Bach and his numerous Violin Concertos in Whatever Major or Minor - John can never remember their full titles, and he doesn’t intend to. Listening to Sherlock screech through each long-winded movement is well printed in his memory for him, their names need not be remembered. Sherlock pulls out Bach pieces whenever he’s feeling playful or excited, prancing around the room with violin in hand and his eyes still closed; John constantly worries he’ll trip over his feet or blindly hit a table edge, but he never does, just waltzes gaily on.
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is recycled for a while when Sherlock is feeling particularly angry and frustrated. John is very glad for the violin, then - for he would rather suffer Sherlock’s never-ending playing pervading their flat than a constantly whining Sherlock, or a gun-enthused Sherlock - which actually, John’s noticed, he only turns to using when bored. The violin is for thinking, for venting emotions.
Afterwards, there are a string of composers John knows by name but not at all by music: Haydn, Handel, Mozart, Bartók, Tchaikovsky, Brahms - really, Sherlock knows them all, and it surprises even John, how music-literate Sherlock is, considering how little he knows about other worldly matters.
Once, Sherlock plays Pachelbel’s infamous Canon in D, the only piece John has ever to date recognised of Sherlock’s repertoire. He’s sitting quietly in his armchair at the time, newspaper folded neatly on his lap and tea in hand, when Sherlock, as he does, picks up his violin, and out of the blue begins playing the song.
“What’s that?” John asks, looking up with a tilted head to the side and watching Sherlock do something fancy with the fiddle. “I recognise it.”
“Canon in D,” says Sherlock, doesn’t bat a closed eye as he talks through his playing, “by Johann Pachelbel.”
“Never heard of him.”
Sherlock does stop playing this time, only to level an affronted glare at John. “And you say I have no knowledge of the ‘real world’. This is one of the most famous pieces of music in history, and the foundation of most of the songs ever written.”
John shrugs carelessly. “Music’s never been my forte.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. They couldn’t be more different people, John thinks as Sherlock lifts his arms again, and he turns back to the headline of today’s newspaper.
“I shall just have to educate you then, John,” Sherlock murmurs, more to himself than to his companion, and the recognisable tune of Canon in D strikes up once more.
It doesn’t take John long, after that, to realise that Sherlock’s outlet of emotions is very much centred around his violin. The day one of its strings breaks is a day John will never forget. Sherlock paces down the flat so much that John is sure he’ll wear the carpet out within the hour, and the look of permanent anguish on Sherlock’s face is enough for John to quietly steal away the broken, rather abused violin, and leave the flat.
He returns that night to Sherlock twirling his gun between his fingers.
“Where have you been?” Sherlock snaps irritably, not looking up from the sofa where he’s lying down. John can see several nicotine patches taped to his arms - a total of eight. It’s a new record.
“Got this fixed for you,” John says casually. He brings out the violin from behind his back; the string is as good as new.
Sherlock turns his head and stops when he catches sight of his instrument. His entire body freezes, and stays frozen for several seconds. John waits patiently for a reaction, and he gets one when Sherlock slowly sits up, stands, and approaches him.
Sherlock takes his violin from John. Their fingers brush along its spine.
“Thank you, John,” Sherlock says quietly. He’s staring at John so intensely, and John wonders how he never noticed that Sherlock’s eyes were that blue before.
“You’re welcome.”
Then, violin firmly in hand, Sherlock proceeds to rip off each of his ight nicotine patches, press the gun into John’s palm as though in exchange, and leaps towards his bow on the table.
In seconds, the flat is filled with familiar notes, loud and soft and high and low, and John watches as Sherlock dances around the room, lips quirking up and eyes closed to the tune.
John shakes his head and smiles.
In a few months, John can name several more classical music composers than he thought he ever could.
“If you’re going to play that thing, could you at least not play Bach,” he complains one evening, when Sherlock is particularly elated over a freshly solved case. John is sure he’s still inwardly laughing from the pleasure of outwitting Anderson in front of Lestrade for the nth time.
Sherlock pauses in his playing and opens his eyes to look at John.
“What would you have me play, then?”
John scrutinises Sherlock for a moment, thinking hard.
“Two Romances,” John suggests. “Beethoven.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows dart upwards in surprise.
“It’s the only name I know. It’s hard to forget,” John says dryly.
Sherlock looks at John some more, John looks back, and then Sherlock smiles that smile of his that John knows so well, has seen so often, directed at him.
And then Sherlock begins to play.
John doesn’t remember when exactly it changes - can’t put his finger on the exact moment he decided that classical music wasn’t so horrible after all, and that, in fact, he couldn’t imagine a life without it. He can’t think of a time when he wasn’t woken by violin music that makes him smile rather than frown, can’t think of a moment together with Sherlock that wasn’t permeated by the trills of his violin.
Sherlock is so in tune with his violin, and John is so in tune with Sherlock, that John by proxy becomes in tune with Sherlock’s violin. John reads Sherlock’s emotions through his violin when he becomes unreachable in obsession or frustration. It becomes a part of Sherlock, and therefore a part of John.
John comes down the stairs one Sunday morning to find Sherlock in front of the mirror, wrapped in John’s dressing gown (because he never did give it back) and playing Two Romances.
Déjà vu immediately hits John, and a sense of affection for Sherlock fills his chest. It’s the first time John has felt such a strong emotion for his maybe-friend flatmate, but it isn’t unfamiliar. In fact, it’s natural, normal, even right, and John is shocked by it.
“Ah, good morning John,” Sherlock greets when the piece has been played to its end, and he swivels round to smile wide at John, dressed in pyjamas and staring. Sherlock’s brow furrows. “Are you all right?”
John blinks. He nods, once, and takes a step backwards. “Fine. Everything’s fine.”
As he retreats from the living room into the hallway, he hears Sherlock yell after him, “What do we do about breakfast?”
Nowadays, when Sherlock doesn’t play his violin, it’s not Sherlock who becomes agitated easily. It's John.
For a man with Sherlock’s genius intellect, it’s not difficult to notice. However, it is rather difficult to decipher why.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sherlock asks one evening, flopping into his armchair opposite John, whose shoulders have relaxed now after Sherlock played Vivaldi with gusto. Half an hour ago, he had returned home looking worn and tired and frustrated. Sherlock had accepted John’s request for music without question, but now that he has completed the request, he is curious.
“Nothing. I’m fine.” John’s fingers cross his face, a shadow falling over the bridge of his nose. He catches Sherlock’s disbelieving gaze and stands up sharply. “I’m just tired. I’m going to go to bed.”
Before Sherlock can argue, he’s gone.
It all comes to a head one night when Sherlock accidentally misplaces his violin.
“How could you lose your violin!” John exclaims, bewildered and agitated. Sherlock observes him quietly.
“It’s not hard, John,” he says lightly. “Happens to the best of us.”
An hour later, the tension in the living room is palpable. John is sitting in his armchair, fingernails raking its arms, glaring at the laptop on his lap. Sherlock is playing with his phone.
“Would you stop that,” John snaps, glaring up over the screen.
“Stop what?”
“That... noise.”
“I’m texting.”
“Well... stop it.”
“Why?”
“It’s distracting me, that’s why!”
Sherlock puts his phone down and levels a straight stare at John.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, concerned. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”
“I’m fine,” John growls warningly.
But of course, Sherlock won’t let it go.
“No, you’re not,” he says calmly.
John sighs. “Shut up, Sherlock. Please.”
“No.”
And that’s how John ends up kissing Sherlock, all teeth and tongue and pent-up weeks’ worth of emotions, and Sherlock lets him - kisses back, because it’s not wrong, it’s right, so right, and how had he never noticed, a man like him? How had he let it slip by?
He stops questioning when John’s sweater hits the carpet.
Things hardly change. If for the odd tumble into bed, their lives continue on with mysteries to solve and dead people to examine, punctuated by regular cups of Mrs Hudson’s Earl Grey tea and takeaway. Granted, there are more visits to restaurants - just the two of them - but neither Sherlock or John ever explicitly say the word ‘date’.
“So, this thing,” John says a few weeks later, lying in bed beside Sherlock and staring at the whitewashed ceiling. His chest is rising in heavy pants. “What is it exactly?”
Sherlock sits up and looks down. “What’re you talking about?”
“Us,” John says. “I mean us.”
Sherlock blinks. “I suppose,” he says slowly, “that by society’s definition, we are in a relationship. Of a sexual nature.”
John rolls his eyes. He rolls his eyes and smiles.
John comes home one day, a few months later, drenched by the rain of the sudden storm, and Sherlock is tapping away at his laptop. Peeling off his sodden coat and hanging it up, John slumps into his armchair and sighs. Sherlock looks up at him as he closes his eyes.
“Beethoven,” John mutters. “Please, Sherlock.”
Wordlessly, Sherlock stands and picks up his violin. The notes of Two Romances fill the room, echoing in the small space between them. John relaxes against the armchair, breathes in the smell of musk, of their books, of the essence that is Sherlock, and murmurs something under his breath.
“When I was playing,” Sherlock says later, as he presses the smallest of kisses to the corner of John’s mouth. “What did you say?”
John closes his eyes and imagines the sound of the violin forever etched into his ears. There is no more silence - only Sherlock.
“I love you.”