Fic: Fire and Ice
From: roh_wyn
To: rachel2205
Title: Fire and Ice
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 850 (short character study/ficlet)
Pairing/s: John/Sherlock
Warnings: Off-screen death, allusions to war, related death and grief; very mild sexual content
Summary: Sherlock and John have matching epiphanies on the coldest day of the year.
Notes: This is my first ever Sherlock fic. I hope it passes muster. Many thanks to apple_pathways for her beta work, her critique, and her general awesomeness.
Fire and Ice
It is deathly cold the day Sherlock first realizes.
Puffs of steamy breath punctuate the air as he paces back and forth, trying to work out what Lestrade is up to this time. The man has been cagey about the details, but so far, there's been a body, a fur-trimmed red hat and a sprig of holly. The allusions to Christmas were too obvious by far. Only an idiot like Anderson would jump on the most obvious solution to a problem. It had to be something else, like that-
John's mobile bleats, scattering Sherlock's thoughts, and taking him out of the moment, and out of the case…
He glares at John, unsatisfied by the half-hearted shrug he gets in response when John answers and his voice cuts through the cold air around them.
"Yeah, yeah."
"Um, maybe later. I don't know if I have time. It's-"
"Sure, yeah."
"Well, Sherlock and I-we-."
Sherlock's been listening carefully to the conversation. He knows it's Harry on the other end. He can tell from the way John's shoulders slump as he speaks, from the defensive edge in his voice, from the way he never finishes a sentence. But just as John ends the call and jams the mobile violently into his coat pocket, it comes to Sherlock, a snatch of words, short, incomplete, meaningful. Sherlock and I…we…
His first impulse is to embrace John, which he rejects as maudlin to the point of silliness. His second, much harder to dismiss, is to tell John, reveal his own feelings by casting the light of deductive reasoning on John's own words. His third impulse, the one that is usually right, is the one that sticks. Sherlock is not much for secrets and subterfuge. That sort of subtlety is for criminals, men who have things to hide. But he cannot deny that a fact unrevealed is far more useful than one known to everyone. I'll tell him later, he decides. This secret, at least, will keep.
--
It is uncomfortably warm when John finally admits it, if only to himself.
They're back in the flat now, the heat turned up all the way to inferno, but they'd been stranded in the middle of an ice storm for most of the day.
The severity of the weather had been forgotten in the sudden burst of Sherlock's mental energy. He'd strode out of 221B, his purposeful walk more frenetic than usual, and John had joined him, caught up in the wake. Sherlock had talked and talked, piecing together the case as if it were a child's jigsaw, and John had listened, a bit awed but mostly exasperated that he was always a step behind.
But this time, it is not meant to be.
Sherlock makes a tiny mistake, a miscalculation of time and space, and it costs a life. A man is dead-not even a man, really-just a boy, and when John sees the boy's face, he feels the abnormal weight of his new life. John is a physician and a soldier, and he's seen so much death. But each new one is exactly like the first, and he is vanquished by them all.
It's different for Sherlock. He likes facts, details. The minutiae of another person's life are his homing beacon, the keys that unlock every door. But this boy is dead, and there are no details, only detritus. His world is entirely Cartesian, John thinks, and there's no room in it for sentiment. Sherlock's angry, of course, enraged even. He hates being wrong, thinks he's beyond normal human fallibility, so his anger is predictable.
His grief, however, is not. John is stunned when he sees the first signs of sadness, of melancholy, on Sherlock's face. There are lines just around the mouth he's never noticed before, a creeping dullness in his too-bright eyes. John knows that look, so well, too well. He's seen it before on the faces of soldiers who face death with no fear but are still defeated by it. It's not fear; it's futility, and then as now, John has no words that will make it better.
He reaches out to Sherlock, intending to comfort with a clap on the shoulder, at once a gesture of solidarity and a silent admonition to let it all go. But what John feels instead is his own aching loneliness, and desperate to banish the feeling, he lets his touch turn into an embrace. There is hesitation, a fleeting moment of resistance, before Sherlock returns the gesture, his mouth pressing against John's, uncertain but insistent.
They are awkward together, unpracticed in this new dance. But as limbs dissolve together, as curves fit planes and skin meets skin, John finally understands. When it ends, he is overwhelmed and turns to Sherlock, hoping to see him with new eyes. But he's already asleep, his momentary grief shed and forgotten.
Outside the flat, London is trapped in a cage of ice, the coldest winter in memory. But as sleep takes over, John feels only the warmth of perfect knowledge.
To: rachel2205
Title: Fire and Ice
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 850 (short character study/ficlet)
Pairing/s: John/Sherlock
Warnings: Off-screen death, allusions to war, related death and grief; very mild sexual content
Summary: Sherlock and John have matching epiphanies on the coldest day of the year.
Notes: This is my first ever Sherlock fic. I hope it passes muster. Many thanks to apple_pathways for her beta work, her critique, and her general awesomeness.
Fire and Ice
It is deathly cold the day Sherlock first realizes.
Puffs of steamy breath punctuate the air as he paces back and forth, trying to work out what Lestrade is up to this time. The man has been cagey about the details, but so far, there's been a body, a fur-trimmed red hat and a sprig of holly. The allusions to Christmas were too obvious by far. Only an idiot like Anderson would jump on the most obvious solution to a problem. It had to be something else, like that-
John's mobile bleats, scattering Sherlock's thoughts, and taking him out of the moment, and out of the case…
He glares at John, unsatisfied by the half-hearted shrug he gets in response when John answers and his voice cuts through the cold air around them.
"Yeah, yeah."
"Um, maybe later. I don't know if I have time. It's-"
"Sure, yeah."
"Well, Sherlock and I-we-."
Sherlock's been listening carefully to the conversation. He knows it's Harry on the other end. He can tell from the way John's shoulders slump as he speaks, from the defensive edge in his voice, from the way he never finishes a sentence. But just as John ends the call and jams the mobile violently into his coat pocket, it comes to Sherlock, a snatch of words, short, incomplete, meaningful. Sherlock and I…we…
His first impulse is to embrace John, which he rejects as maudlin to the point of silliness. His second, much harder to dismiss, is to tell John, reveal his own feelings by casting the light of deductive reasoning on John's own words. His third impulse, the one that is usually right, is the one that sticks. Sherlock is not much for secrets and subterfuge. That sort of subtlety is for criminals, men who have things to hide. But he cannot deny that a fact unrevealed is far more useful than one known to everyone. I'll tell him later, he decides. This secret, at least, will keep.
--
It is uncomfortably warm when John finally admits it, if only to himself.
They're back in the flat now, the heat turned up all the way to inferno, but they'd been stranded in the middle of an ice storm for most of the day.
The severity of the weather had been forgotten in the sudden burst of Sherlock's mental energy. He'd strode out of 221B, his purposeful walk more frenetic than usual, and John had joined him, caught up in the wake. Sherlock had talked and talked, piecing together the case as if it were a child's jigsaw, and John had listened, a bit awed but mostly exasperated that he was always a step behind.
But this time, it is not meant to be.
Sherlock makes a tiny mistake, a miscalculation of time and space, and it costs a life. A man is dead-not even a man, really-just a boy, and when John sees the boy's face, he feels the abnormal weight of his new life. John is a physician and a soldier, and he's seen so much death. But each new one is exactly like the first, and he is vanquished by them all.
It's different for Sherlock. He likes facts, details. The minutiae of another person's life are his homing beacon, the keys that unlock every door. But this boy is dead, and there are no details, only detritus. His world is entirely Cartesian, John thinks, and there's no room in it for sentiment. Sherlock's angry, of course, enraged even. He hates being wrong, thinks he's beyond normal human fallibility, so his anger is predictable.
His grief, however, is not. John is stunned when he sees the first signs of sadness, of melancholy, on Sherlock's face. There are lines just around the mouth he's never noticed before, a creeping dullness in his too-bright eyes. John knows that look, so well, too well. He's seen it before on the faces of soldiers who face death with no fear but are still defeated by it. It's not fear; it's futility, and then as now, John has no words that will make it better.
He reaches out to Sherlock, intending to comfort with a clap on the shoulder, at once a gesture of solidarity and a silent admonition to let it all go. But what John feels instead is his own aching loneliness, and desperate to banish the feeling, he lets his touch turn into an embrace. There is hesitation, a fleeting moment of resistance, before Sherlock returns the gesture, his mouth pressing against John's, uncertain but insistent.
They are awkward together, unpracticed in this new dance. But as limbs dissolve together, as curves fit planes and skin meets skin, John finally understands. When it ends, he is overwhelmed and turns to Sherlock, hoping to see him with new eyes. But he's already asleep, his momentary grief shed and forgotten.
Outside the flat, London is trapped in a cage of ice, the coldest winter in memory. But as sleep takes over, John feels only the warmth of perfect knowledge.