Nearly There
Title: Nearly There
Author: spin_deep
Character/Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: about 2500
Summary: It's the most inelegant moment of John's life.
Disclaimer: Sherlock is property of the BBC, no copyright infringement intended.
Author's Notes: I have recently become obsessed with Sherlock, and it seems impossible to leave these characters alone. My love for them outstrips my love for everything, except possibly coffee (and other necessary human things). Although Benedict Cumberbatch's hands might make me rethink the coffee claim.
Rambling over, I hope you enjoy, and I love receiving comments, so please feel free to let me know what you think!
Saturday morning, Sherlock stands at the window with his head and sharp shoulders out in the damp London air. He taps a cigarette against the ledge; pieces of ash fall down and smoke ribbons up.
John freezes on the bottom stair, the bare toe of his left foot brushing against the hardwood floor as he watches his flatmate. It's so rare that John catches Sherlock unawares-the man is so damn observant, he always knows whose eyes are skimming his frame. But this morning Sherlock seems almost oblivious.
The cigarette dangling from Sherlock's narrow fingers concerns John, but at the moment he's more interested in the way Sherlock is leaning out the window. If he were to take one step straight back, the window frame would bruise purple wings over his shoulder-blades. Something's bothering him, but something's always bothering Sherlock, an idea or a case or a question worming its way through the ridges of his brain, dragging innumerable thoughts to his attention. Usually, if a problem takes him more than two breaths to figure out, he lies down on the couch or saws at his violin or wanders in London, nicotine patches obscuring the web of veins in his forearm and synapses linking and unlinking through his miraculous brain until he discovers his answer. Now, though, he looks a little-well, if it weren't Sherlock, John would say he looks lost.
Sherlock's cigarette is nearly burnt out but John hasn't seen him lift it to his lips once. He stubs the end against the windowsill and drops it still-smoking down into the alley and then somehow bends himself back inside without banging his shoulders or his head or his long torso on the ledge.
He catches sight of John out of the corner of one grey eye and says, "Yes?"
"Were you just smoking?" John finally places his right foot on the floor and walks unhurriedly toward the kitchen. Sherlock lays one narrow-fingered hand on the back of the couch, like he's trying to wipe the ashy evidence from his fingertips.
"No."
"I thought you just had a cigarette." John runs water into the kettle and just avoids spilling some water over onto a vial of what looks like urine sitting in the sink basin. He wrinkles his nose as he turns to the stove and flicks on a burner.
"Ah. Yes, I did. But I was not smoking it." Sherlock is still standing behind the couch. John turns to face him through the entranceway to the kitchen.
"Come here," he demands.
Sherlock looks at him like he's crazy. Which he may be, actually; who the fuck ever wants to get closer to Sherlock? The closer the man is, the more likely it is that all of his secrets will burn like whiplash from his tongue.
But Sherlock's already catalogued him, has probably got him down to a few embarrassing words: Afghanistan; former psychosomatic, current psycho-something; family problems; long-suffering (because Sherlock must know). John Watson reads like a mental patient, and so John can get as close to Sherlock as he wants to.
Because the other man refuses to cross the space between them, John leaves his kettle heating on the stove and approaches the couch. Sherlock looks as if he's about to step back, but realises at the last minute that that would look cowardly and so steps around the couch, instead, meeting John in the centre of the room.
"What?" he asks.
John pushes himself up slightly so his nose is somewhere around Sherlock's mouth and says, "Exhale."
Sherlock doesn't speak, because that would require exhaling.
"Come on, Sherlock, if you've just been holding a lit cigarette until it burnt up, what do you have to hide?"
"You're being insufferable." Sherlock barely parts his lips.
"Pot and kettle." John falls back on his heels for a moment, stretching out his calves. He's never been a ballerina-tiptoe is not his usual position.
Sherlock raises his eyebrows, his lips still rolled together.
John shakes his head. "Come on, Sherlock. I just want to know if you're smoking again, because if you are, then it might require changing the sprinkler system."
"I am not smoking."
"Well, then, what was with the cigarette?"
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I ran out of nicotine patches."
"But you had cigarettes?"
"Emergency stash."
John realises that he's standing too close; if Sherlock leans forward three centimetres his lips will brush soft against John's forehead, his nose will get lost in John's sandy hair. He steps back just as the kettle whistles, and he hurries to the kitchen to snag it from the stove.
"Did Lestrade give you a case, then?" he calls, after he's poured steaming water into two mugs.
"Why do you ask?" Sherlock asks from behind him. John manages not to jump as Sherlock's right hand appears and drops a tea bag in each of their mugs.
John turns and rests against the counter, crossing his arms as he looks up at Sherlock. "Usually your nicotine addiction only flares up when you're trying to sort out a case."
Sherlock grips his forearm. "That is not exactly true."
"No?" John holds up one finger. "The cabbie." Another. "The smugglers." Three more. "And I swear you went through an entire shipload of nicotine patches for the...the whole Moriarty mess."
Sherlock narrows his eyes.
"And," John hurries, "you told me yourself you use them to help you think. So."
"So? So is not a deduction, John."
"So therefore you are thinking. And if Lestrade hasn't given us a case then something else is bothering you. And I'd like to know what it is. I can help, sometimes." Sherlock opens his mouth to respond but John cuts in, "And don't tell me it's to do with the piss that's been sitting in the sink for the last week because I'm convinced that you've just left that there to annoy me."
"That is a deduction." Sherlock reaches one long arm around John and lifts his tea from the counter. "I'll remove it this afternoon, since it seems to have succeeded." He turns his back on John steps around the table, out through the living room and into his bedroom. He shuts the door behind him.
John stares after him for a few seconds, then shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck, grabbing his own tea and returning to his bedroom to exchange his flannel pyjama bottoms for trousers.
When he goes back downstairs, the door to Sherlock's bedroom is open and his flatmate seems to have disappeared. John crosses to the window, which Sherlock had left open, and shoves it closed, leaning his forehead against the glass for a moment.
He considers breaking Sherlock's violin in retribution or perhaps hiding Eduardo-the skull could probably do with a bit of rest, out of the sunlight and away from Sherlock's long-fingered ministrations-but John isn't sure why he even wants revenge. Sherlock hasn't done a thing, not really. Except mysteriously not-smoke a cigarette and ignore John's questions. And he's often ignoring John, so that's not unusual.
John's mobile phone buzzes, and he tugs it from his pocket, expecting to see Sherlock's pixelated face appear beside some demanding message. He is not disappointed. Bring my magnifying glass to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. It's on my dresser. SH
Kensington Gardens? John blinks and rereads the message twice. It doesn't change. Kensington Gardens are always overrun with tourists, especially the area by the Peter Pan statue. John's not even sure he can find it.
But if he does bring Sherlock his magnifying glass, he'll be saved the temptation of causing irreparable damage to the violin or, worse, to Eduardo, and perhaps he'll earn some sort of explanation. Unlikely, but it's possible. He grabs his coat from the couch and steps inside Sherlock's room to swipe the pocket glass from the dresser, and then he hurries out of the flat, down the stairs and into the nearest underground station.
He gets to the Peter Pan statue thirty minutes later, and finds Sherlock leaning against the wrought iron gate surrounding it, watching the children climbing over the statue with interest. John leans against the fence beside him.
"Peter Pan was really quite an able criminal, if you think about it," John mocks, after three silent minutes.
"It is a children's story, John." Sherlock sounds long-suffering. "Did you bring it?"
"Yes." John places the pocket magnifier in Sherlock's outstretched hand, careful not to brush his fingertips against the other man's lined palm. "What did you need it for?"
"There is a curious spot on this plant." Sherlock crouches down, his knees bent at acute angles in his grey trousers, and flicks the magnifying glass open. He pulls a green leaf towards him and examines it through the glass. John sighs.
"Don't sigh like that. It may be an infection that could kill every plant in this garden before next year."
John keeps quiet for another minute before asking, "And is it?"
"No." Sherlock stands up and slides the glass into his pocket. "It's just a discolouration on a single leaf. But it could have been."
Sherlock had been wrong. Either that or he had just wanted an excuse to get John out to the Park and hadn't been able to think of anything cleverer, which in itself was unusual.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" John asks as Sherlock begins walking down the path.
"I needed to think," Sherlock answers, shortening his stride so John can keep up with him.
"This isn't your usual thinking spot," John points out.
"These weren't usual thoughts," Sherlock mutters. His eyes are everywhere but John's face, and John's having a more difficult time than usual sorting him out.
"Is everything all right, Sherlock?" John asks. "You've been acting odd for a while." Since a little after the Moriarty thing. Just a little while.
Sherlock snorts. "Everyone else would say I've been acting odd my whole life."
"I mean odd for you. What is going on?"
"You're different," Sherlock says. He's stopped in the middle of the path and is finally looking at John.
"Am I? I thought we were discussing you."
"I mean, to me, you're different."
Sherlock's eyes look like London underneath piles of fog. John can't figure him out, so he stares up at him, silent.
"I mean," Sherlock sighs. "I mean that I notice different things about you now than I did. I thought I knew everything and now I know I don't: you scratch your ear when you're nervous and your scar doesn't hurt you but you move like it does when someone reminds you of it and you don't like too much milk in your tea and it bothers you when I play my violin when you're talking to me and it also bothers you when I watch television when you're talking to me and you won't stand too close to me for longer than a minute-you're always moving." He shakes his head. "And that doesn't even scratch the surface."
John chooses to ignore the last bit. "That's what happens when you get to know someone, Sherlock. We live together, obviously you'll notice different things about me than you did when we first met."
"Of course, of course, I know that." Sherlock's hands are in fists at his sides. "But none of those things I just mentioned are really important, not really, but because it's you I've noted all of them and I could keep going. Imagine everything I've lost to keep all of those-all of those you-things-in my head."
John's unsure if he should be offended. It sounds offensive, but then it's Sherlock, so it might not be.
"That's what I have been thinking about. Why do I keep all that information? We could get on perfectly well, even if I didn't know that you don't take sugar in your tea unless it's PG Tips and then you take a half teaspoon. And why do I want to get on well with you, anyway?" Sherlock's hands have started moving, flying up like a director's, conducting his frenzy in the damp air.
"Because we're friends?" John suggests slowly.
Sherlock's hands fall on John's shoulders and grip the wool of his coat so tightly that John can feel his fingertips pressing through the layers. "Is that it, though? Is that really it?"
"God, I don't know." John can barely look at his eyes; they're newly dangerous. "You're the one with all the answers."
Sherlock exhales and crashes into John. It's the most inelegant moment of John's life. Suddenly teeth are pulling at his lower lip and fingers are gripping at his shoulder-blades and his own nerve-sizzled hands have finally found a place on the small of Sherlock's back and fuck all the fibres of him want all the fibres of Sherlock, he's sure they do. Even the tissue knotted in his scar, even that unfeeling skin wants Sherlock.
Sherlock's hands suddenly leave his back and reach back to fasten around his forearms. His lips disappear from John's and he takes one long step back, so they're only connected by Sherlock's fingers pressing against the pulse-points at John's wrists.
"You really want this?" Sherlock asks, his eyes narrowing.
"You're really that oblivious?" John mutters, but Sherlock looks hurt so he adds, "Of course I want this." And then he glances around, and sees that there are some tourists winding their way down the path towards them, and asks, "But can we go home, please? It might be more comfortable."
Sherlock drops his hands immediately. John shakes his head and catches at Sherlock's left hand with his right one, tangling their fingers tightly together. "The underground? Or would you rather a taxi?"
Sherlock looks down at their linked hands, and then up at the tourists coming toward them. He grins down at John. "The underground," he says.
He doesn't let go of John's hand the whole way home.
Author: spin_deep
Character/Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: about 2500
Summary: It's the most inelegant moment of John's life.
Disclaimer: Sherlock is property of the BBC, no copyright infringement intended.
Author's Notes: I have recently become obsessed with Sherlock, and it seems impossible to leave these characters alone. My love for them outstrips my love for everything, except possibly coffee (and other necessary human things). Although Benedict Cumberbatch's hands might make me rethink the coffee claim.
Rambling over, I hope you enjoy, and I love receiving comments, so please feel free to let me know what you think!
Saturday morning, Sherlock stands at the window with his head and sharp shoulders out in the damp London air. He taps a cigarette against the ledge; pieces of ash fall down and smoke ribbons up.
John freezes on the bottom stair, the bare toe of his left foot brushing against the hardwood floor as he watches his flatmate. It's so rare that John catches Sherlock unawares-the man is so damn observant, he always knows whose eyes are skimming his frame. But this morning Sherlock seems almost oblivious.
The cigarette dangling from Sherlock's narrow fingers concerns John, but at the moment he's more interested in the way Sherlock is leaning out the window. If he were to take one step straight back, the window frame would bruise purple wings over his shoulder-blades. Something's bothering him, but something's always bothering Sherlock, an idea or a case or a question worming its way through the ridges of his brain, dragging innumerable thoughts to his attention. Usually, if a problem takes him more than two breaths to figure out, he lies down on the couch or saws at his violin or wanders in London, nicotine patches obscuring the web of veins in his forearm and synapses linking and unlinking through his miraculous brain until he discovers his answer. Now, though, he looks a little-well, if it weren't Sherlock, John would say he looks lost.
Sherlock's cigarette is nearly burnt out but John hasn't seen him lift it to his lips once. He stubs the end against the windowsill and drops it still-smoking down into the alley and then somehow bends himself back inside without banging his shoulders or his head or his long torso on the ledge.
He catches sight of John out of the corner of one grey eye and says, "Yes?"
"Were you just smoking?" John finally places his right foot on the floor and walks unhurriedly toward the kitchen. Sherlock lays one narrow-fingered hand on the back of the couch, like he's trying to wipe the ashy evidence from his fingertips.
"No."
"I thought you just had a cigarette." John runs water into the kettle and just avoids spilling some water over onto a vial of what looks like urine sitting in the sink basin. He wrinkles his nose as he turns to the stove and flicks on a burner.
"Ah. Yes, I did. But I was not smoking it." Sherlock is still standing behind the couch. John turns to face him through the entranceway to the kitchen.
"Come here," he demands.
Sherlock looks at him like he's crazy. Which he may be, actually; who the fuck ever wants to get closer to Sherlock? The closer the man is, the more likely it is that all of his secrets will burn like whiplash from his tongue.
But Sherlock's already catalogued him, has probably got him down to a few embarrassing words: Afghanistan; former psychosomatic, current psycho-something; family problems; long-suffering (because Sherlock must know). John Watson reads like a mental patient, and so John can get as close to Sherlock as he wants to.
Because the other man refuses to cross the space between them, John leaves his kettle heating on the stove and approaches the couch. Sherlock looks as if he's about to step back, but realises at the last minute that that would look cowardly and so steps around the couch, instead, meeting John in the centre of the room.
"What?" he asks.
John pushes himself up slightly so his nose is somewhere around Sherlock's mouth and says, "Exhale."
Sherlock doesn't speak, because that would require exhaling.
"Come on, Sherlock, if you've just been holding a lit cigarette until it burnt up, what do you have to hide?"
"You're being insufferable." Sherlock barely parts his lips.
"Pot and kettle." John falls back on his heels for a moment, stretching out his calves. He's never been a ballerina-tiptoe is not his usual position.
Sherlock raises his eyebrows, his lips still rolled together.
John shakes his head. "Come on, Sherlock. I just want to know if you're smoking again, because if you are, then it might require changing the sprinkler system."
"I am not smoking."
"Well, then, what was with the cigarette?"
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I ran out of nicotine patches."
"But you had cigarettes?"
"Emergency stash."
John realises that he's standing too close; if Sherlock leans forward three centimetres his lips will brush soft against John's forehead, his nose will get lost in John's sandy hair. He steps back just as the kettle whistles, and he hurries to the kitchen to snag it from the stove.
"Did Lestrade give you a case, then?" he calls, after he's poured steaming water into two mugs.
"Why do you ask?" Sherlock asks from behind him. John manages not to jump as Sherlock's right hand appears and drops a tea bag in each of their mugs.
John turns and rests against the counter, crossing his arms as he looks up at Sherlock. "Usually your nicotine addiction only flares up when you're trying to sort out a case."
Sherlock grips his forearm. "That is not exactly true."
"No?" John holds up one finger. "The cabbie." Another. "The smugglers." Three more. "And I swear you went through an entire shipload of nicotine patches for the...the whole Moriarty mess."
Sherlock narrows his eyes.
"And," John hurries, "you told me yourself you use them to help you think. So."
"So? So is not a deduction, John."
"So therefore you are thinking. And if Lestrade hasn't given us a case then something else is bothering you. And I'd like to know what it is. I can help, sometimes." Sherlock opens his mouth to respond but John cuts in, "And don't tell me it's to do with the piss that's been sitting in the sink for the last week because I'm convinced that you've just left that there to annoy me."
"That is a deduction." Sherlock reaches one long arm around John and lifts his tea from the counter. "I'll remove it this afternoon, since it seems to have succeeded." He turns his back on John steps around the table, out through the living room and into his bedroom. He shuts the door behind him.
John stares after him for a few seconds, then shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck, grabbing his own tea and returning to his bedroom to exchange his flannel pyjama bottoms for trousers.
When he goes back downstairs, the door to Sherlock's bedroom is open and his flatmate seems to have disappeared. John crosses to the window, which Sherlock had left open, and shoves it closed, leaning his forehead against the glass for a moment.
He considers breaking Sherlock's violin in retribution or perhaps hiding Eduardo-the skull could probably do with a bit of rest, out of the sunlight and away from Sherlock's long-fingered ministrations-but John isn't sure why he even wants revenge. Sherlock hasn't done a thing, not really. Except mysteriously not-smoke a cigarette and ignore John's questions. And he's often ignoring John, so that's not unusual.
John's mobile phone buzzes, and he tugs it from his pocket, expecting to see Sherlock's pixelated face appear beside some demanding message. He is not disappointed. Bring my magnifying glass to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. It's on my dresser. SH
Kensington Gardens? John blinks and rereads the message twice. It doesn't change. Kensington Gardens are always overrun with tourists, especially the area by the Peter Pan statue. John's not even sure he can find it.
But if he does bring Sherlock his magnifying glass, he'll be saved the temptation of causing irreparable damage to the violin or, worse, to Eduardo, and perhaps he'll earn some sort of explanation. Unlikely, but it's possible. He grabs his coat from the couch and steps inside Sherlock's room to swipe the pocket glass from the dresser, and then he hurries out of the flat, down the stairs and into the nearest underground station.
He gets to the Peter Pan statue thirty minutes later, and finds Sherlock leaning against the wrought iron gate surrounding it, watching the children climbing over the statue with interest. John leans against the fence beside him.
"Peter Pan was really quite an able criminal, if you think about it," John mocks, after three silent minutes.
"It is a children's story, John." Sherlock sounds long-suffering. "Did you bring it?"
"Yes." John places the pocket magnifier in Sherlock's outstretched hand, careful not to brush his fingertips against the other man's lined palm. "What did you need it for?"
"There is a curious spot on this plant." Sherlock crouches down, his knees bent at acute angles in his grey trousers, and flicks the magnifying glass open. He pulls a green leaf towards him and examines it through the glass. John sighs.
"Don't sigh like that. It may be an infection that could kill every plant in this garden before next year."
John keeps quiet for another minute before asking, "And is it?"
"No." Sherlock stands up and slides the glass into his pocket. "It's just a discolouration on a single leaf. But it could have been."
Sherlock had been wrong. Either that or he had just wanted an excuse to get John out to the Park and hadn't been able to think of anything cleverer, which in itself was unusual.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" John asks as Sherlock begins walking down the path.
"I needed to think," Sherlock answers, shortening his stride so John can keep up with him.
"This isn't your usual thinking spot," John points out.
"These weren't usual thoughts," Sherlock mutters. His eyes are everywhere but John's face, and John's having a more difficult time than usual sorting him out.
"Is everything all right, Sherlock?" John asks. "You've been acting odd for a while." Since a little after the Moriarty thing. Just a little while.
Sherlock snorts. "Everyone else would say I've been acting odd my whole life."
"I mean odd for you. What is going on?"
"You're different," Sherlock says. He's stopped in the middle of the path and is finally looking at John.
"Am I? I thought we were discussing you."
"I mean, to me, you're different."
Sherlock's eyes look like London underneath piles of fog. John can't figure him out, so he stares up at him, silent.
"I mean," Sherlock sighs. "I mean that I notice different things about you now than I did. I thought I knew everything and now I know I don't: you scratch your ear when you're nervous and your scar doesn't hurt you but you move like it does when someone reminds you of it and you don't like too much milk in your tea and it bothers you when I play my violin when you're talking to me and it also bothers you when I watch television when you're talking to me and you won't stand too close to me for longer than a minute-you're always moving." He shakes his head. "And that doesn't even scratch the surface."
John chooses to ignore the last bit. "That's what happens when you get to know someone, Sherlock. We live together, obviously you'll notice different things about me than you did when we first met."
"Of course, of course, I know that." Sherlock's hands are in fists at his sides. "But none of those things I just mentioned are really important, not really, but because it's you I've noted all of them and I could keep going. Imagine everything I've lost to keep all of those-all of those you-things-in my head."
John's unsure if he should be offended. It sounds offensive, but then it's Sherlock, so it might not be.
"That's what I have been thinking about. Why do I keep all that information? We could get on perfectly well, even if I didn't know that you don't take sugar in your tea unless it's PG Tips and then you take a half teaspoon. And why do I want to get on well with you, anyway?" Sherlock's hands have started moving, flying up like a director's, conducting his frenzy in the damp air.
"Because we're friends?" John suggests slowly.
Sherlock's hands fall on John's shoulders and grip the wool of his coat so tightly that John can feel his fingertips pressing through the layers. "Is that it, though? Is that really it?"
"God, I don't know." John can barely look at his eyes; they're newly dangerous. "You're the one with all the answers."
Sherlock exhales and crashes into John. It's the most inelegant moment of John's life. Suddenly teeth are pulling at his lower lip and fingers are gripping at his shoulder-blades and his own nerve-sizzled hands have finally found a place on the small of Sherlock's back and fuck all the fibres of him want all the fibres of Sherlock, he's sure they do. Even the tissue knotted in his scar, even that unfeeling skin wants Sherlock.
Sherlock's hands suddenly leave his back and reach back to fasten around his forearms. His lips disappear from John's and he takes one long step back, so they're only connected by Sherlock's fingers pressing against the pulse-points at John's wrists.
"You really want this?" Sherlock asks, his eyes narrowing.
"You're really that oblivious?" John mutters, but Sherlock looks hurt so he adds, "Of course I want this." And then he glances around, and sees that there are some tourists winding their way down the path towards them, and asks, "But can we go home, please? It might be more comfortable."
Sherlock drops his hands immediately. John shakes his head and catches at Sherlock's left hand with his right one, tangling their fingers tightly together. "The underground? Or would you rather a taxi?"
Sherlock looks down at their linked hands, and then up at the tourists coming toward them. He grins down at John. "The underground," he says.
He doesn't let go of John's hand the whole way home.