Challenge Two Fics: Part Two
11.
Love, Sherlock was fond of repeating, was a useless emotion and interfered with more important things. John begged to differ but he knew it was no use trying to tell his best friend as much; pick your battles, his Gran always said and Gran was rarely wrong when it came to things such as this. So John did little things, like the washing up and going ‘round to the shops. He didn’t press Sherlock for declarations of love, even after they began (tentatively, then quite enthusiastically) to expand the parameters of their relationship to include sex and physical affection, underscoring what they each already knew, that they cared and wanted one another and it would take Death wielding a hammer and chisel and possibly a hefty load of explosives to part them. But Sherlock would never say it was love, and John never demanded.
“How can you stand it?” Sally demanded one evening as they left the Yard in a tight cluster of workers fleeing into the still-chilly spring air. John and Sherlock’s visit had coincidentally ended just as Sally’s shift wound down and the three of them rode the lift down together, Sherlock breaking into his fast, long-legged stride as soon as the doors opened on the ground floor, leaving John to make awkward small talk with Sally as they fought their way downstream towards the exit.
John slid her a sideways glance, wished there was just one conversation he could have with her that didn’t involve her disbelief that anyone could be friends with, much less fall in love with, Sherlock Holmes. “It’s just Sherlock being Sherlock,” he replied, his pat answer, and broke free from the knot of people to veer right, in the direction of the coat tails disappearing around the side of the building. “Where have you gotten to, then?” he called, jogging to catch up, seeing another glimpse of coat as Sherlock darted into an alleyway. The evening was growing cooler, almost downright cold, and John was wishing for a heavier jumper. Finally, a lumpy shadow resolved itself from the other shadows in the alley and Sherlock waved John over.
“Do you have any tuna?”
“Not... on me,” John said slowly, reaching Sherlock’s side. “Why on earth would I have tuna with me?”
“Be prepared, John!”
“I haven’t been a Boy Scout in decades,” he muttered, crouching beside Sherlock. “What are you looking at that requires... oh! Kittens!”
Sherlock shot him a distinctly amused glance before hmmming in agreement. “Astute as ever, I see.”
“How did you know they were down here?”
“I spotted the mother some weeks ago and discerned her gravid state. I followed her and found where she was holing up. Based on information gleaned from veterinary texts and websites, I determined her due date to be this week at some point.” He paused and smiled down at the tiny, marmalade and soot colored scraps of felinity. The mama, a rather sturdy-looking tabby herself, made a half-hearted attempt at a growl and resumed licking one of her babies as if Sherlock and John were almost beneath her notice.
Something in John felt as if it were fizzy and glowing at the sight of Sherlock tentatively touching one of the kittens with the tip of his finger. All told, John counted four babies and one tired mama. “Sherlock,” he said casually, as if the answer didn’t matter a whit, “do you want to try and move them to the flat? Give them a nice, safe place to stay?”
“Don’t be silly, John.” Sherlock’s face grew shuttered and he rose, turning and striding back to the street. “We can’t very well rescue every stray we meet.”
Three days passed, the kittens never mentioned during that time, even when John tried to hint at checking on the little family. Sherlock frowned and huffed and refused to pop ‘round and ‘just see’. On the fourth day, John had enough. He was waiting for Sherlock when the younger man returned from one of his ‘consultations’, a box on the floor at his feet.
“What’s that?” Sherlock strode over and peered past John’s silent smile. “...oh.” The mama and her four babies lay curled in a furry knot, full of tuna (mama) and milk (kittens). John met Sherlock’s gaze anxiously, his smile tense. “John,” Sherlock said after a moment. “I love you too.”
12.
Sociopath is a very useful word, because no one knows what it means. Especially not psychiatrists, but that's because they don't use it anymore. It's not a real diagnosis, so it's difficult for people to contradict him when he claims to be one.
*
When Sherlock was 22 Mycroft was taken ill. Seriously ill. Sherlock had been forced to sit around Mycroft's bed with various family members and talk about how unfair life was, while all he could think about was how vulnerable Mycroft looked, and how he would inevitably decompose in the ground, bacteria and worms eating at him until nothing was left, only his skeleton.
When Mycroft woke up Sherlock left the hospital. He has never forgiven Mycroft for forcing him to realise that his brother is not immortal, and how much it will hurt him when Mycroft dies. He will never forgive Mycroft for making Sherlock face the fact that he loves his brother.
***
Weltschmertz is not a useful word. It means world-pain, but to Sherlock it describes the feeling he gets when he realizes he might have saved someone, put a murderer away, but he will never be able to save the world. Every day there are people out there suffering, and he can't help them. What he does is meaningless. It helps if he ignores the part of the world that isn't London. He never watches the news because he will feel bad for days.
*
When Sherlock was 29 years old the London underground was targeted in terrorist bombings. Sherlock wasn't involved in the case, it wasn't anything difficult, and the people responsible were dead. And taking care of terrorist networks was more his brother's thing, anyway.
He spent the next week as high as he could get. He took anything he could find, mixed things without a thought for the consequences, anything to stop thinking. When he came to in his bed he looked at the ceiling and thought he had managed to erase the last eight days from his mind. London hadn't stopped talking about it though, and Sherlock will never forgive London for reminding him she isn't invulnerable, and that he loves her.
***
Love is the most useless word of all, boring, overused, devoid of all meaning. Sherlock hates the word love, everything it stands for and the way it implies that it's a good thing, feeling love. As if the pain Sherlock has seen others feel, all for the notion of love, is something good. Like stupidly suffering for the concept is somehow good.
*
When Sherlock is 34 Moriarty threatens to blow up John. Sherlock is forced to watch, forced to stillness by the threat of explosives around John's body. When he can finally tear them off his hands are shaking. He can't think properly, can't figure out a plan, doesn't know what to do. Sherlock is lost.
When he sits by John's hospital bed later, looking at John's bruised face, waiting for him to wake up, he knows he can never forgive Moriarty for making him realise he loves John.
13.
Sometimes he hides a book under a sofa cushion, quick as lighting but not quick enough to hide from John-The Badass-Watson. John was in the armed forces, his reflexes are superb and his eyesight is 20-20. Nothing gets by him, even a crafty Sherlock. And Sherlock is being plenty crafty these days - God only knows why.
Sometimes Sherlock hides a book behind his back, tucking it in the waistband of his trousers like gangsters do with a deadly weapon in films and on TV. (Somewhere in London D.C. Lestrade is rolling his eyes.) John asks what’s behind Sherlock’s back but Sherlock gives him a haughty look and says that he has no clue what John could possibly be referring to. This is a lie; Sherlock is very bad at lying, that much has always been blindingly obvious, even a little endearing if John thinks too much about it and has been drinking a bit too much vodka.
Right now John isn’t drunk and Sherlock’s reticence is not so much endearing as bloody annoying.
John wonders if he should start worrying when he sees Sherlock shove a book in the freezer next to the Ziplock bag of pig eyes and those frozen peas which John has been too scared to touch, let alone cook. Or the time Sherlock secretly reads a book behind a copy of Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes (Memoir on the Primitive System of Vowels in Indo-European Languages) - a right barrel of laughs. Sherlock’s definitely not reading Saussure (not just then) and John is willing to put good money on it.
Sometimes Sherlock can be heard muttering to himself in the lounge and whenever this happens John lurks like a burglar in his own home, straining to hear Sherlock’s muffled words.
Bloody look in the cupboard, you old goat… no, not Lady McTavish, she has an alibi… what? But that makes no sense! How could I not have seen…?
John finds this whole situation completely baffling. It’s not like Sherlock to be embarrassed or coy, certainly not when it comes to reading books. The man is practically a dictionary, a thesaurus and every volume of the encyclopaedia Britannica put together in human form. Sherlock is larger than life with no regrets and there is zero room for second-guessing himself. It’s refreshing, mostly, being around someone like that.
When John spies Sherlock sitting by himself in their favourite Chinese restaurant down the road, book out and face buried nose deep in the fold, John decides that now is his chance. He will get to the bottom of this. Sherlock is not the only mystery solver around, thank you very much.
“Afternoon, Sherlock. Reading anything good?”
Sherlock’s head whips around at the sound of John’s voice, like he heard a gunshot, or Moriarty’s insane, maniacal laughter.
“It is rude to sneak up on a person,” Sherlock informs John stiffly while trying to slip the book out of view.
“Ah ah,” John says with smile and a waggling finger. “Not so fast.” And, stealthy as the Artful Dodger, John snatches the book right from under Sherlock’s fingers.
“What - ? Give that back at once!” Sherlock is quite red in the face - like he’s about to be caught with porn. John just laughs and flips the book over to see the cover.
Murder on the Orient Express .
“Sherlock… you’re, have you been reading Agatha Christie novels?” John asks incredulously, not even putting up a fight as Sherlock plucks the book back.
“Obviously.”
“But… why?”
“Call it a guilty pleasure.”
“But surely you know who the murderer is way before the end. How could that be fun?”
Sherlock scowls and shifts uncomfortably in his plastic chair. “Actually, no. I have never been able to successfully guess one of Christie’s endings. It’s bloody brilliant - not at all boring like most. I imagine I would have got on with Hercule Poirot, had he been real. I love her books.”
“You must really love these books if you're willing to concede to being wrong - frequently. Just like the rest of us plebs.”
“Shut up.”
14.
Warnings: Child death.
St Matthias Church, Colindale
No one ever tells you how much it hurts.
People- well, people talk about the joy, and the amazing experience, and hearts bursting to full. But somehow, the endless pain and fear of it all gets left out.
Most of the time, yeah, you’re so caught up in being amazed and happy, that you don’t even think about it- but then night falls. And you find you keep waking up just to make sure they’re breathing. Or you have a moment to yourself and you start thinking things that are dark and disturbing- things you should never consider.
Suddenly every piece of bad news impacts your life so much more than it did before. Politics have you up in a terror. Wars halfway around the world start to mean things they shouldn’t. Small details that wouldn’t be important. Except they are, because love like this is devastating.
People don’t tell you that.
But the real pain- more than the fear of something that as like as not is never going to happen- is knowing what will. One day, far off though it may be, they’ll leave you. And when that day comes- you’ll let it happen, because you have to.
It’s that thought, more than any other, that leaves you shaking every time you let go of that small, little hand. It’s that terrible “knowing” that makes you choke back tears every time he says he loves you. When he gets his first haircut. On his first day of nursery. Birthdays. You watch them go by and know that you’ll never repeat them, and each one, while filling you with pride, is a small knife to your heart. You hide it behind smiles, but oh God, it hurts.
It hurts almost as much as this does.
Sorry, give me a sec.
It’s almost like I knew, looking back. Except even with all the fears you still never expect some things to happen. You don’t really expect your life to be ripped away from you. You don’t really expect robberies in the night gone wrong. You don’t expect gunshots in your home, or-
Fuck.
Sorry. Sorry, Reverand.
Right.
The way I figure it, eventually, the pain dulls, though it never goes away. The natural order of things, growing up and all that, is as much for a parent as is it is for a kid. The longer you have and the older your little boy gets, the easier it becomes to let him out on his own, let him get to know the world, make mistakes, fall down, get in a scrape. Till suddenly, one day, he’s a man and your still his dad, but you’re his mate, too, and your just happy to let him have his life.
Only, I’m not going to get that.
I’m stuck. I’m never going to grow up with James.
Instead, I’m going to spend the rest of my life a light sleeper, one ear always listening for a cry in the night. I’m never going to be able to hit three thirty in the afternoon without thinking that I have to go pick up my little boy from nursery. I’m never going to forget the words to “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” or the tune from “Thomas the Tank Engine”. And meanwhile, the rest of the world will keep going.
Children will grow up, and their parents will too. But I’ll forever be the father of four year old James Lestrade, who will never stop being the boy who hugs me just because I’m standing next to him, or counts to twenty and leaves out sixteen every time.
And isn’t that just irony, if you ever heard it?
I never would have thought I’d reach the point where James going off to college one day would seem like a great thing to look forward to. And now I won’t see it.
Like I said- no one tells you how much loving your son hurts. But really, it’s only because they don’t know that that pain is the real joy. That being able to feel that just means that everything is right in the world, as scary a place as it can be. That pain was a comfort, while this-
This-
Excuse me.
15.
Love You Like an Ugly Sofa
Sherlock was an adult, and adults didn't argue with themselves--Not about tooth-fairies, the Loch Ness Monster, Santa Claus, ANY cultures deity(ies) of choice...
...Or love at first sight.
Ergo, Sherlock was not in love, and therefore it was a colossal waste of time to keep wondering why on Earth it felt like he was. He'd only met the man some 12 bloody hours ago.
Yet here it was, 2am. Sleep was as elusive as it ever was when his mind was chewing something. The ceiling pattern above where Sherlock lay was as boring as ever--no distraction there at all. TV was worse. (Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents? REALLY? If that wasn't just a perfect paradigm for what was wrong with the world he'd eat his scarf...)
What Sherlock needed was a rain to make the leak stain up there a new, interesting pattern so that he could divert his rather dogged intellect from the absurd notions it was currently entertaining about his new flatmate. Hell, what he needed was a hit or three of cocaine. What he had instead was a mind full of whirling details--an almost military haircut shot through with hints of silver, the oddly compelling smell of damp wool, countless worry/laugh lines, desert leathered skin and shaded eyes tired of being told 'It just takes time'.
It still wasn't love. It just simply wasn't.
Sherlock wallowed deeper into the frumpy sofa--as ugly as it was comfortable. (The perversity of which pleased him to no end.) He was feeling a definitive sulk coming on when suddenly it hit him. He liked this sofa...a lot. It was damnably comfortable. Comfortable sofas were a rarity. It didn't matter that the damn thing looked like it escaped from a 90's French existentialist art movie gone horribly wrong. (As if such things ever went any other way)
And there it was, like so many previous bursts of gestalt leaping... John was like their sofa. (And to be fair, Sherlock had known the sofa for about as long.) Just like the sofa, John was almost homely, with his not-quite-hang-dog features and his rather prominent nose. But not quite, being possessed of something just outside of plain--yet not identifiably extraordinary in any way. Sherlock found himself relaxed around John...comfortable. Flatmates that were a comfortable fit were more rare even than good furniture.
Which settled it. Sherlock wasn't in love, John was just an ugly green leather sofa.
Ha! Take that Roswell New Mexico! (He'd known there was a logical answer that wasn't 'Love at first sight'.)
Sherlock immediately dismissed the statistical improbability of finding both a truly comfortable fit in a sofa and a flatmate, all in one day. His life was defined by the improbable.
But if that were so, then by definition improbability bore no relevance at all to whether he was in love or not after only just meeting John Watson.
Oh, damn and bother.
So it could conceivably be love--at first sight even. Sherlock had been in love before. He wasn't really a sociopath. That was just the easy answer for idiots who didn't warrant wasting the breath it took communicating Sherlock's sometimes nontraditional sense of priorities. It took valuable time and effort to explain how truly comfortable furniture ranked right up there with 'till death do us part'. And it's not like that inbred, witless, drooling troglodyte Anderson would ever understand anyway.
But this, like all things, could/should be tested. Sherlock assembled an ad hock mental list.
1. Butterflies in stomach when flatmate is around. (check)
2. Unseemly sense of possessiveness--even by usual standards. (check)
3. Finding flatmate's nose actually attractive. (check)
4. Achingly aroused by flatmate's (almost Freudian) inability to contain spontaneous compliments (check) (double check!)
5. Contemplating spending 'down time' between missions figuring out most comfortable positions. (check!!!)
Sherlock gained his feet, heading for the kitchen. He needed tea first, then pen and paper. If he was going to successfully determine if what he felt for John Watson was true love, or sofa love--it was going to start with copious notes and the planning of eventual experiments.
*FINIS*
16.
3 gifts which made Sherlock feel loved, and 1 which didn’t.
1.
His mother is not an affectionate women. It’s not that she doesn’t love him, not that, but that she doesn’t know how to show it. Where his father drew Sherlock up into large, warm hugs, smelling of tobacco and chemicals, his mother simply straightens his collar, and occasionally attempts to bring some sort of order to his hair.
But every time he picks up his violin, to play or pluck or tune, he thinks of his mother, the way she had left it lying on his bed as though it had always been there, as though she had not just plucked his ideal gift out of the air and presented him with it.
She had said nothing when he came downstairs with it, started to play in the drawing room where she had been reading, but she had smiled, that fond smile she so often directs at him. The one which makes his chest warm, and the negative views of other people melt away like ice.
2.
The note is not a surprise. The content, however, is.
You will need something to keep you warm, if you intend to remain a Consulting Detective.
MH.
It’s not what Sherlock has been expecting. He’s been expecting Mycroft to appear since he first posted his new website, but only to point out the many flaws in his plan, to inform him how this career choice is foolish and beneath him, and attempt to employ him within the Government once more. Instead, Mycroft has sent him a coat, and a note which is as close to a blessing as his brother will ever write.
He runs one finger over the fabric, and it feels expensive and warm, and will suit him so much better than the coat he is currently wearing. He wraps is around himself, feels the weight of it on his shoulders, and allows himself a small smile.
3.
John is a deep sleeper. Sherlock enjoys this, because it gives him the chance to observe John while he’s unaware. John remains, even now, a mystery to Sherlock; he’s been here for a year and instead of leaving, he’s pushed himself even further into Sherlock’s life with each passing day.
John’s company, his affection, his smiles and his tea and the way he pulls Sherlock close, have all quickly become irreplaceable to Sherlock. That John sees something in Sherlock which he is willing to invest in makes Sherlock feel lucky and loved in a way he had always assumed was impossible.
He runs a hand down John’s side, and smiles as his lover shifts in his sleep, face shoved into his pillow. He moves closer to John, presses his face into John’s neck, and lets the familiar scent, and the sound of John’s breathing, lull him to sleep.
+1
John is found after four days missing, on Valentine’s day, in the dumpster behind Angelo’s restaurant.
Sherlock is slowly, slowly, following the trail which will lead him to John when he receives a picture message of Moriarty stood outside Angelo’s in the middle of the day, smiling widely and waving at the camera. He flies down the stairs of 221b, texting Lestrade and Mycroft even as he storms into Angelo’s and demands help finding John.
When they find him, half buried in rubbish, John is unconscious, covered in cuts and dirt, with a label wrapped around one bloodied wrist. Sherlock’s too distracted to take much notice of it until John’s safe and healing in his hospital bed, and Lestrade hands it over in an evidence bag.
Sherlock, darling.
I hope you enjoy the upgrades I made to your loyal mutt. He was ever so brave, I can see why you like him.
I thought I would return him to you on Valentine’s day, since it’s the day for grand gestures of love and romantic gifts.
You know how much I adore you and that wonderful mind of yours, Sherlock, so do enjoy your puppy while you can.
One day I’ll grow tired of sharing.
M xx
Sherlock’s suddenly clenched fist crumples the note as he reads the intended message between the sweetly written words. It’s now only a matter of time before Moriarty targets John for what will be the final time, and all because Moriarty doesn’t want to share Sherlock’s attention.
John’s broken and still, and it makes Sherlock’s worry and fear ignite into rage.
It’s Moriarty’s turn to burn.
17.
“However much they’re paying you for this, it’s not enough,” John said. He winced as he made a futile attempt to stretch his legs. The concrete roof he was sitting on was damp and uncomfortable, and he’d been staring at the deserted west-bound platform of Goldhawk Road tube station for nearly two hours. The clouds in the night sky, illuminated by the glow from the street lights, threatened rain.
“They aren’t paying me anything,” Sherlock muttered, staring at a flash of white that might have been someone moving, but was probably an empty crisp packet dancing on the tracks. John sighed and thought of the unpaid gas bill that was lying angrily underneath Sherlock’s skull.
“There’s no need to be petulant, John.”
“All right for you to say. You enjoy this.”
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock had been very excited about the stakeout. He had told John in great detail exactly why the suspect would be at Goldhawk Road between one and three that morning, and exactly why John needed to cancel his date with Sarah to be there. That had been a welcome change; John was used to being dragged off without any explanations at all.
Saying that, Sherlock had been less clear on the details of the actual crime. John couldn't remember whether it was an art theft, a jewellery heist or a bank robbery. Still, that didn’t really matter, he supposed.
“And you don’t enjoy it?” Sherlock asked archly.
“I’d enjoy it a bit more if our man turned up.” Sherlock checked the time on his phone.
“We’ll give him another hour.” John’s discontent was more audibly expressed. “Not every stakeout can be accompanied by Angelo’s risotto, much as I know you’d prefer that.”
“I don’t know,” John replied. “At least we don’t get mistaken for a couple up here.” He laughed, expecting Sherlock to do the same. But Sherlock’s mouth only pinched into something that was certainly not a smile, before he turned back to the station.
“Try to concentrate.”
“Why? You’ll see anything before I do. I’m just here to… assist.” The current situation was no excuse for Sherlock to get short with him. John was equally annoyed at having to wait for a criminal who showed no signs of coming out to play. He fished his mobile from his pocket and began to type a message, not bothering to be discreet about it. Sherlock would only deduce the contents and recipient from the movement of his fingers anyway.
“Sarah?” Sherlock asked, giving a passable impression of someone who didn’t know the answer to his own question. John nodded.
“She likes me to text her if we’re out late at night. She worries.” Sherlock’s disdain was readily apparent. “What? It’s quite natural to worry about someone you love. Especially if that someone has been kidnapped twice in six months.”
“Someone you love?” There was genuinely curiosity in Sherlock’s voice this time, and it made John realise exactly what he’d said. He hadn’t meant it to slip out like that. He hadn’t really meant to tell Sherlock at all - even though he was pretty sure he’d overheard Sarah in the bathroom gushing to her best friend Lucy two minutes after the conversation. It just wasn’t something one bloke told another. You just sort of assumed it had been said by the time your mate moved in with a girl, got married and had kids.
John squared his shoulders before replying: “Yes.”
“So she said…?”
“Yes.”
“And you said…?”
“Yes.” It was Sherlock’s turn to draw himself up a little, tugging sharply on the lapels of his coat.
“Right.”
There was silence.
There had been silence for most of the time that they’d been sitting on the roof and it hadn’t been awkward. It was silent for days on end in the flat, and had never once been awkward.
Now, however, it was awkward.
“Is everything…?”
“Please don’t distract me,” Sherlock interrupted. He was acting again, because the request almost sounded genuine. His voice rang with just the right amount of righteous annoyance, combined with a very convincing hint of frustration. What gave Sherlock away, though, was that edge of bitterness. He'd over-egged the pudding there.
John smiled. Besides, Sherlock couldn't have meant it; John wasn't vain enough to think that he could really distract Sherlock from anything. Especially when there was nothing to distract him from; the station platform remained empty.
18.
People sometimes assumed that Sherlock didn’t care for others. Most human beings were dull or disappointing, true, but even so there were several he liked. Lestrade was better company than most policemen, for instance, and there were people he had helped who made him feel as if there might be some slight human interest in the solving of crime, beyond the pleasure of answering the puzzles themselves. For Mrs Hudson he had a mild sort of affection, even if at times her mothering made him feel a strange kind of guilt because she was so unlike his own mother. He had loved Mummy, the fine lines of her face and her lipstick and cigarettes, as a child his feelings for her simultaneously detached and dedicated, and even though she was dead he still felt some measure of affection for her memory, a pale shadow of past feeling like the faint scent of Amarige and cedar that rose when he opened her jewellery box. His love for Mycroft was an irritating ball of feeling he tucked into a corner of himself. He had always loved Mycroft, but he had never worried about him. Mycroft took care of himself, and Sherlock had realised early on that he couldn’t take care of his mother. But John -
One night Sherlock dreamed that he killed John. He was shooting at the wall again, and John had stepped in front of the bullets. His eyes had widened, and he said “oh,” as if he had been mildly surprised. Blood leaked from his stomach as he died with his back against the wall and his mouth open, and Sherlock had watched. On waking, instead of at once being aware of when and where he was, there had been a long shocking moment when Sherlock hadn’t known whether it was true. That he had been so deceived by a dream - !
The obvious thing to do after that was to take speed for two days; his mouth had been dry, his heartbeat painfully fast, but he hadn’t even thought about sleep. When the inevitable crash came, his sleep was dreamless, a great blank of eight hours, and waking up on the sofa he could guess the time of day quite precisely by the length of the shadow in the room and the stiffness in his muscles. He was cured, wasn’t he? Of - Nothing of importance.
Sherlock sat up, and as he did he realised that at some point John had covered him with a blanket. He experienced a brief moment of cardiac dysrhythmia, but that was quite to be expected after taking amphetamines. Nothing at all to do with thinking of John thinking of him. It had never really touched him before, having someone take care of him, and he wasn’t about to get sentimental about it now.
Sherlock folded the blanket very neatly and put it back in John’s room. That normally he would have thrown it over the sofa was neither here nor there, he thought, and then he heard John’s familiar heavy tread on the stair.
Hopefully soon his heart would stop skipping a beat at inconvenient moments. Side effects of illegal drug use were so boring.
19.
If John had had more knowledge of that branch of linguistics called semantics, and had had the punctual observation skills Sherlock possessed, he would have noticed earlier that his flatmate seldom used one word amongst dozens of synonyms casually. Sherlock usually chose the one that fit best his case.
So, while he referred to 221B Baker Street alternatively as home, the flat, 221B with the same ease and casualness he might have used to choose which pair of socks to wear in the morning, Sherlock paid attention to his tongue and varied his vocabulary according to circumstances.
The day John moved in, Sherlock texted him to come to ‘Baker Street’ because John hadn’t yet finished moving out of his old place and he felt that ‘the flat’ would have been too ambiguous.
The first time John was introduced to Lestrade, or rather, the first time he met Lestrade - because he wasn’t properly introduced - Sherlock said only, “He’s with me,” because he still didn’t know how to describe John; he didn’t have a word that fitted him yet. (Now he had several.)
Lieutenant Donovan immediately dubbed John a ‘colleague’ of Sherlock’s, and Angelo promptly assumed he was Sherlock’s ‘date’. While most of those words were thrown away casually, filled with wishful thinking and erroneous assumptions, they weren’t so far from the truth, if still inaccurate. Sherlock, however, would have never uttered them because they weren’t perfect.
Sherlock mostly called him ‘John’, just as he called detective inspector Lestrade by his surname. It was an appropriate and unambiguous way of addressing them, just the way he liked it.
The first time they kissed, or more precisely, the first time John got fed up with the tension between them and awkwardly pressed his lips to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth - because he chickened away at the last second - Sherlock chose not to comment on the subject. He left the room with the doctor in it and eventually the flat. When Sherlock returned he still didn’t have words to reply, so he settled with another kiss, feeling that it was the only way to effectively express his thoughts, to which John replied by pushing him away in confusion.
John questioned Sherlock, saying that he couldn’t run away and come back to kiss him like nothing had happened. But Sherlock didn’t know why John had felt the need to kiss him in the first place, and didn’t know why he felt the urge to do it as well. He was at a loss for words - something that didn’t happen often - and John had to do the explaining for him because he was the one at ease with words that had a subjective meaning and which Sherlock failed to grasp on a general basis.
A few months later John had gotten used to those rare precious moments in which Sherlock had nothing to say and they expressed their mutual appreciation by actions instead of words, and everything was fine until John felt the need to label things with what Sherlock considered an ill-fitting word.
“I think... I might love you. In some odd way,” John said while they were lying side by side, spent, on John’s unmade bed.
After a few moments of awkward silence Sherlock grabbed his clothes and left the bed, the room and John assumed the flat as well, judging by the sound of a door slamming downstairs. John got dressed and decided to go in the kitchen and make himself coffee or something, anything really, because he couldn’t stay there idle any longer.
Downstairs, he found Sherlock huddled in a corner of the sofa, consulting the dictionary. He got closer to his flatmate, friend and lover, peeking over Sherlock’s shoulder, trying to follow his mind.
John smirked; one of Sherlock’s fingers rested on this definition:
love /lʌv/
verb
John actually chuckled. “Are you comparing me to a plant?”
“No, although humans need sunlight as well to synthesize vitamin D. But in this meaning, I think I... might love you too,” Sherlock replied, looking serious and, if John read his face correctly, a little embarrassed at his own confession.
“Good enough for me.”
It was from that day that Sherlock started saying ‘home’ when referring to their flat.
20.
Food is Love
***
For Sally Donovan, it was Irish soda bread. Well, really it was the smell of it baking, which always brought her back to the bustle and laughter and comfort of her Gran’s house. Gran had married an Irishman, and had learned to make it to “give him a taste of home.” She didn’t think her granddad even liked it, but he always beamed at Gran and thanked her when she brought it to the table for him. Sally wasn’t partial to the taste of it either, but she’d always accepted a warm slice with butter, picking the sticky raisins out of it while Gran told her stories of her mum growing up.
Last night she’d baked a couple of loaves just to fill her flat with the heady smell, and to remember. She wouldn’t eat them herself, so she’d brought them to the Yard, covertly ditching them in the break room when nobody was about. When anyone asked about them she feigned ignorance - it wouldn’t do to have the blokes think of her as all domestic. She’d already fought (and won) the battle not to be the go-to-girl for fetching coffee and lunches, or for bringing the sweets for birthdays and retirements.
In spite of that, she did occasionally bring coffee to D.I. Lestrade, unasked for, when he was looking particularly fagged out. Like tonight. Sally hummed a wordless tune as she slathered a pat of butter over a microwave-warmed slice of the bread, and poured a cup of black coffee. When she set them down on Lestrade’s desk, he muttered his thanks without looking up from his paperwork. But she didn’t grudge him that - he didn’t have anyone else to mind him, after all.
***
For John, it was tea and HobNobs. He’d been lucky enough to have access to a NAAFI shop during most of his deployment in Afghanistan, so he’d maintained a steady supply even in the dessert. Since moving in with Sherlock, he always bought a package when he did the shopping, even when they weren’t quite out yet. HobNobs in the cupboard remained a cheerful, blue, canister-shaped anchor that had helped him weather the chaos of the battlefield and, now, the chaos of Sherlock Holmes.
“Tea?” John asked, spilling a few of the chocolate biscuits onto a plate and then reaching for a mug. A brief “Mm” was all he got in response.
He glanced over at the desk where Sherlock sat, deceptively still. But John could practically feel the roiling churn of the man’s thoughts, a never-ending maelstrom of data collection, observation, deduction, induction, and hypothesis evaluation. If anyone could use a solid mooring, it was Sherlock. John tossed a couple more HobNobs onto the plate, then balanced it on the top of his mug and made his way into the living room.
***
For Mycroft, it was foie gras frais poele with a glass of Pinot Gris to start, followed by boeuf bourguignon paired with a Syrah from the Rhone Valley, and finished with a clafoutis aux poires et son coulis and a twenty year old Colheita Tawny Port. It was the same meal every year, though he did vary his wine selections to take advantage of the best vintages the bistro’s sommelier had to offer.
Mother Holmes had been quite the gastronomique, with an exquisitely refined palate and the ability to savor every meal through all five senses, though always she did so in moderation. She had been the picture of self-discipline - a trait Sherlock had certainly inherited and taken to extremes. He, on the other hand, had been gifted with the unfortunate combination of his mother’s love of rich French cuisine and his father’s propensity for indolence, at least, of the physical variety. It was hardly surprising, then, that he had turned to the solace of butter and confit and profiteroles to fill the aching hunger that had beset him in the immediate wake of her loss. Equally predictable were the waist-expanding consequences he had suffered, about which his darling brother was so fond of reminding him.
Now, however, he limited his indulgence to this annual ritual. It seemed a more fitting tribute to the day than flowers and a long drive to a country churchyard. He raised his glass to the empty chair across from him.
“To you, Mummy. Happy Birthday."
Part Three: Entries 21 - 30 >>
Love, Sherlock was fond of repeating, was a useless emotion and interfered with more important things. John begged to differ but he knew it was no use trying to tell his best friend as much; pick your battles, his Gran always said and Gran was rarely wrong when it came to things such as this. So John did little things, like the washing up and going ‘round to the shops. He didn’t press Sherlock for declarations of love, even after they began (tentatively, then quite enthusiastically) to expand the parameters of their relationship to include sex and physical affection, underscoring what they each already knew, that they cared and wanted one another and it would take Death wielding a hammer and chisel and possibly a hefty load of explosives to part them. But Sherlock would never say it was love, and John never demanded.
“How can you stand it?” Sally demanded one evening as they left the Yard in a tight cluster of workers fleeing into the still-chilly spring air. John and Sherlock’s visit had coincidentally ended just as Sally’s shift wound down and the three of them rode the lift down together, Sherlock breaking into his fast, long-legged stride as soon as the doors opened on the ground floor, leaving John to make awkward small talk with Sally as they fought their way downstream towards the exit.
John slid her a sideways glance, wished there was just one conversation he could have with her that didn’t involve her disbelief that anyone could be friends with, much less fall in love with, Sherlock Holmes. “It’s just Sherlock being Sherlock,” he replied, his pat answer, and broke free from the knot of people to veer right, in the direction of the coat tails disappearing around the side of the building. “Where have you gotten to, then?” he called, jogging to catch up, seeing another glimpse of coat as Sherlock darted into an alleyway. The evening was growing cooler, almost downright cold, and John was wishing for a heavier jumper. Finally, a lumpy shadow resolved itself from the other shadows in the alley and Sherlock waved John over.
“Do you have any tuna?”
“Not... on me,” John said slowly, reaching Sherlock’s side. “Why on earth would I have tuna with me?”
“Be prepared, John!”
“I haven’t been a Boy Scout in decades,” he muttered, crouching beside Sherlock. “What are you looking at that requires... oh! Kittens!”
Sherlock shot him a distinctly amused glance before hmmming in agreement. “Astute as ever, I see.”
“How did you know they were down here?”
“I spotted the mother some weeks ago and discerned her gravid state. I followed her and found where she was holing up. Based on information gleaned from veterinary texts and websites, I determined her due date to be this week at some point.” He paused and smiled down at the tiny, marmalade and soot colored scraps of felinity. The mama, a rather sturdy-looking tabby herself, made a half-hearted attempt at a growl and resumed licking one of her babies as if Sherlock and John were almost beneath her notice.
Something in John felt as if it were fizzy and glowing at the sight of Sherlock tentatively touching one of the kittens with the tip of his finger. All told, John counted four babies and one tired mama. “Sherlock,” he said casually, as if the answer didn’t matter a whit, “do you want to try and move them to the flat? Give them a nice, safe place to stay?”
“Don’t be silly, John.” Sherlock’s face grew shuttered and he rose, turning and striding back to the street. “We can’t very well rescue every stray we meet.”
Three days passed, the kittens never mentioned during that time, even when John tried to hint at checking on the little family. Sherlock frowned and huffed and refused to pop ‘round and ‘just see’. On the fourth day, John had enough. He was waiting for Sherlock when the younger man returned from one of his ‘consultations’, a box on the floor at his feet.
“What’s that?” Sherlock strode over and peered past John’s silent smile. “...oh.” The mama and her four babies lay curled in a furry knot, full of tuna (mama) and milk (kittens). John met Sherlock’s gaze anxiously, his smile tense. “John,” Sherlock said after a moment. “I love you too.”
12.
Sociopath is a very useful word, because no one knows what it means. Especially not psychiatrists, but that's because they don't use it anymore. It's not a real diagnosis, so it's difficult for people to contradict him when he claims to be one.
*
When Sherlock was 22 Mycroft was taken ill. Seriously ill. Sherlock had been forced to sit around Mycroft's bed with various family members and talk about how unfair life was, while all he could think about was how vulnerable Mycroft looked, and how he would inevitably decompose in the ground, bacteria and worms eating at him until nothing was left, only his skeleton.
When Mycroft woke up Sherlock left the hospital. He has never forgiven Mycroft for forcing him to realise that his brother is not immortal, and how much it will hurt him when Mycroft dies. He will never forgive Mycroft for making Sherlock face the fact that he loves his brother.
***
Weltschmertz is not a useful word. It means world-pain, but to Sherlock it describes the feeling he gets when he realizes he might have saved someone, put a murderer away, but he will never be able to save the world. Every day there are people out there suffering, and he can't help them. What he does is meaningless. It helps if he ignores the part of the world that isn't London. He never watches the news because he will feel bad for days.
*
When Sherlock was 29 years old the London underground was targeted in terrorist bombings. Sherlock wasn't involved in the case, it wasn't anything difficult, and the people responsible were dead. And taking care of terrorist networks was more his brother's thing, anyway.
He spent the next week as high as he could get. He took anything he could find, mixed things without a thought for the consequences, anything to stop thinking. When he came to in his bed he looked at the ceiling and thought he had managed to erase the last eight days from his mind. London hadn't stopped talking about it though, and Sherlock will never forgive London for reminding him she isn't invulnerable, and that he loves her.
***
Love is the most useless word of all, boring, overused, devoid of all meaning. Sherlock hates the word love, everything it stands for and the way it implies that it's a good thing, feeling love. As if the pain Sherlock has seen others feel, all for the notion of love, is something good. Like stupidly suffering for the concept is somehow good.
*
When Sherlock is 34 Moriarty threatens to blow up John. Sherlock is forced to watch, forced to stillness by the threat of explosives around John's body. When he can finally tear them off his hands are shaking. He can't think properly, can't figure out a plan, doesn't know what to do. Sherlock is lost.
When he sits by John's hospital bed later, looking at John's bruised face, waiting for him to wake up, he knows he can never forgive Moriarty for making him realise he loves John.
13.
Sometimes he hides a book under a sofa cushion, quick as lighting but not quick enough to hide from John-The Badass-Watson. John was in the armed forces, his reflexes are superb and his eyesight is 20-20. Nothing gets by him, even a crafty Sherlock. And Sherlock is being plenty crafty these days - God only knows why.
Sometimes Sherlock hides a book behind his back, tucking it in the waistband of his trousers like gangsters do with a deadly weapon in films and on TV. (Somewhere in London D.C. Lestrade is rolling his eyes.) John asks what’s behind Sherlock’s back but Sherlock gives him a haughty look and says that he has no clue what John could possibly be referring to. This is a lie; Sherlock is very bad at lying, that much has always been blindingly obvious, even a little endearing if John thinks too much about it and has been drinking a bit too much vodka.
Right now John isn’t drunk and Sherlock’s reticence is not so much endearing as bloody annoying.
John wonders if he should start worrying when he sees Sherlock shove a book in the freezer next to the Ziplock bag of pig eyes and those frozen peas which John has been too scared to touch, let alone cook. Or the time Sherlock secretly reads a book behind a copy of Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes (Memoir on the Primitive System of Vowels in Indo-European Languages) - a right barrel of laughs. Sherlock’s definitely not reading Saussure (not just then) and John is willing to put good money on it.
Sometimes Sherlock can be heard muttering to himself in the lounge and whenever this happens John lurks like a burglar in his own home, straining to hear Sherlock’s muffled words.
Bloody look in the cupboard, you old goat… no, not Lady McTavish, she has an alibi… what? But that makes no sense! How could I not have seen…?
John finds this whole situation completely baffling. It’s not like Sherlock to be embarrassed or coy, certainly not when it comes to reading books. The man is practically a dictionary, a thesaurus and every volume of the encyclopaedia Britannica put together in human form. Sherlock is larger than life with no regrets and there is zero room for second-guessing himself. It’s refreshing, mostly, being around someone like that.
When John spies Sherlock sitting by himself in their favourite Chinese restaurant down the road, book out and face buried nose deep in the fold, John decides that now is his chance. He will get to the bottom of this. Sherlock is not the only mystery solver around, thank you very much.
“Afternoon, Sherlock. Reading anything good?”
Sherlock’s head whips around at the sound of John’s voice, like he heard a gunshot, or Moriarty’s insane, maniacal laughter.
“It is rude to sneak up on a person,” Sherlock informs John stiffly while trying to slip the book out of view.
“Ah ah,” John says with smile and a waggling finger. “Not so fast.” And, stealthy as the Artful Dodger, John snatches the book right from under Sherlock’s fingers.
“What - ? Give that back at once!” Sherlock is quite red in the face - like he’s about to be caught with porn. John just laughs and flips the book over to see the cover.
Murder on the Orient Express .
“Sherlock… you’re, have you been reading Agatha Christie novels?” John asks incredulously, not even putting up a fight as Sherlock plucks the book back.
“Obviously.”
“But… why?”
“Call it a guilty pleasure.”
“But surely you know who the murderer is way before the end. How could that be fun?”
Sherlock scowls and shifts uncomfortably in his plastic chair. “Actually, no. I have never been able to successfully guess one of Christie’s endings. It’s bloody brilliant - not at all boring like most. I imagine I would have got on with Hercule Poirot, had he been real. I love her books.”
“You must really love these books if you're willing to concede to being wrong - frequently. Just like the rest of us plebs.”
“Shut up.”
14.
Warnings: Child death.
St Matthias Church, Colindale
No one ever tells you how much it hurts.
People- well, people talk about the joy, and the amazing experience, and hearts bursting to full. But somehow, the endless pain and fear of it all gets left out.
Most of the time, yeah, you’re so caught up in being amazed and happy, that you don’t even think about it- but then night falls. And you find you keep waking up just to make sure they’re breathing. Or you have a moment to yourself and you start thinking things that are dark and disturbing- things you should never consider.
Suddenly every piece of bad news impacts your life so much more than it did before. Politics have you up in a terror. Wars halfway around the world start to mean things they shouldn’t. Small details that wouldn’t be important. Except they are, because love like this is devastating.
People don’t tell you that.
But the real pain- more than the fear of something that as like as not is never going to happen- is knowing what will. One day, far off though it may be, they’ll leave you. And when that day comes- you’ll let it happen, because you have to.
It’s that thought, more than any other, that leaves you shaking every time you let go of that small, little hand. It’s that terrible “knowing” that makes you choke back tears every time he says he loves you. When he gets his first haircut. On his first day of nursery. Birthdays. You watch them go by and know that you’ll never repeat them, and each one, while filling you with pride, is a small knife to your heart. You hide it behind smiles, but oh God, it hurts.
It hurts almost as much as this does.
Sorry, give me a sec.
It’s almost like I knew, looking back. Except even with all the fears you still never expect some things to happen. You don’t really expect your life to be ripped away from you. You don’t really expect robberies in the night gone wrong. You don’t expect gunshots in your home, or-
Fuck.
Sorry. Sorry, Reverand.
Right.
The way I figure it, eventually, the pain dulls, though it never goes away. The natural order of things, growing up and all that, is as much for a parent as is it is for a kid. The longer you have and the older your little boy gets, the easier it becomes to let him out on his own, let him get to know the world, make mistakes, fall down, get in a scrape. Till suddenly, one day, he’s a man and your still his dad, but you’re his mate, too, and your just happy to let him have his life.
Only, I’m not going to get that.
I’m stuck. I’m never going to grow up with James.
Instead, I’m going to spend the rest of my life a light sleeper, one ear always listening for a cry in the night. I’m never going to be able to hit three thirty in the afternoon without thinking that I have to go pick up my little boy from nursery. I’m never going to forget the words to “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” or the tune from “Thomas the Tank Engine”. And meanwhile, the rest of the world will keep going.
Children will grow up, and their parents will too. But I’ll forever be the father of four year old James Lestrade, who will never stop being the boy who hugs me just because I’m standing next to him, or counts to twenty and leaves out sixteen every time.
And isn’t that just irony, if you ever heard it?
I never would have thought I’d reach the point where James going off to college one day would seem like a great thing to look forward to. And now I won’t see it.
Like I said- no one tells you how much loving your son hurts. But really, it’s only because they don’t know that that pain is the real joy. That being able to feel that just means that everything is right in the world, as scary a place as it can be. That pain was a comfort, while this-
This-
Excuse me.
15.
Love You Like an Ugly Sofa
Sherlock was an adult, and adults didn't argue with themselves--Not about tooth-fairies, the Loch Ness Monster, Santa Claus, ANY cultures deity(ies) of choice...
...Or love at first sight.
Ergo, Sherlock was not in love, and therefore it was a colossal waste of time to keep wondering why on Earth it felt like he was. He'd only met the man some 12 bloody hours ago.
Yet here it was, 2am. Sleep was as elusive as it ever was when his mind was chewing something. The ceiling pattern above where Sherlock lay was as boring as ever--no distraction there at all. TV was worse. (Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents? REALLY? If that wasn't just a perfect paradigm for what was wrong with the world he'd eat his scarf...)
What Sherlock needed was a rain to make the leak stain up there a new, interesting pattern so that he could divert his rather dogged intellect from the absurd notions it was currently entertaining about his new flatmate. Hell, what he needed was a hit or three of cocaine. What he had instead was a mind full of whirling details--an almost military haircut shot through with hints of silver, the oddly compelling smell of damp wool, countless worry/laugh lines, desert leathered skin and shaded eyes tired of being told 'It just takes time'.
It still wasn't love. It just simply wasn't.
Sherlock wallowed deeper into the frumpy sofa--as ugly as it was comfortable. (The perversity of which pleased him to no end.) He was feeling a definitive sulk coming on when suddenly it hit him. He liked this sofa...a lot. It was damnably comfortable. Comfortable sofas were a rarity. It didn't matter that the damn thing looked like it escaped from a 90's French existentialist art movie gone horribly wrong. (As if such things ever went any other way)
And there it was, like so many previous bursts of gestalt leaping... John was like their sofa. (And to be fair, Sherlock had known the sofa for about as long.) Just like the sofa, John was almost homely, with his not-quite-hang-dog features and his rather prominent nose. But not quite, being possessed of something just outside of plain--yet not identifiably extraordinary in any way. Sherlock found himself relaxed around John...comfortable. Flatmates that were a comfortable fit were more rare even than good furniture.
Which settled it. Sherlock wasn't in love, John was just an ugly green leather sofa.
Ha! Take that Roswell New Mexico! (He'd known there was a logical answer that wasn't 'Love at first sight'.)
Sherlock immediately dismissed the statistical improbability of finding both a truly comfortable fit in a sofa and a flatmate, all in one day. His life was defined by the improbable.
But if that were so, then by definition improbability bore no relevance at all to whether he was in love or not after only just meeting John Watson.
Oh, damn and bother.
So it could conceivably be love--at first sight even. Sherlock had been in love before. He wasn't really a sociopath. That was just the easy answer for idiots who didn't warrant wasting the breath it took communicating Sherlock's sometimes nontraditional sense of priorities. It took valuable time and effort to explain how truly comfortable furniture ranked right up there with 'till death do us part'. And it's not like that inbred, witless, drooling troglodyte Anderson would ever understand anyway.
But this, like all things, could/should be tested. Sherlock assembled an ad hock mental list.
1. Butterflies in stomach when flatmate is around. (check)
2. Unseemly sense of possessiveness--even by usual standards. (check)
3. Finding flatmate's nose actually attractive. (check)
4. Achingly aroused by flatmate's (almost Freudian) inability to contain spontaneous compliments (check) (double check!)
5. Contemplating spending 'down time' between missions figuring out most comfortable positions. (check!!!)
Sherlock gained his feet, heading for the kitchen. He needed tea first, then pen and paper. If he was going to successfully determine if what he felt for John Watson was true love, or sofa love--it was going to start with copious notes and the planning of eventual experiments.
*FINIS*
16.
3 gifts which made Sherlock feel loved, and 1 which didn’t.
1.
His mother is not an affectionate women. It’s not that she doesn’t love him, not that, but that she doesn’t know how to show it. Where his father drew Sherlock up into large, warm hugs, smelling of tobacco and chemicals, his mother simply straightens his collar, and occasionally attempts to bring some sort of order to his hair.
But every time he picks up his violin, to play or pluck or tune, he thinks of his mother, the way she had left it lying on his bed as though it had always been there, as though she had not just plucked his ideal gift out of the air and presented him with it.
She had said nothing when he came downstairs with it, started to play in the drawing room where she had been reading, but she had smiled, that fond smile she so often directs at him. The one which makes his chest warm, and the negative views of other people melt away like ice.
2.
The note is not a surprise. The content, however, is.
You will need something to keep you warm, if you intend to remain a Consulting Detective.
MH.
It’s not what Sherlock has been expecting. He’s been expecting Mycroft to appear since he first posted his new website, but only to point out the many flaws in his plan, to inform him how this career choice is foolish and beneath him, and attempt to employ him within the Government once more. Instead, Mycroft has sent him a coat, and a note which is as close to a blessing as his brother will ever write.
He runs one finger over the fabric, and it feels expensive and warm, and will suit him so much better than the coat he is currently wearing. He wraps is around himself, feels the weight of it on his shoulders, and allows himself a small smile.
3.
John is a deep sleeper. Sherlock enjoys this, because it gives him the chance to observe John while he’s unaware. John remains, even now, a mystery to Sherlock; he’s been here for a year and instead of leaving, he’s pushed himself even further into Sherlock’s life with each passing day.
John’s company, his affection, his smiles and his tea and the way he pulls Sherlock close, have all quickly become irreplaceable to Sherlock. That John sees something in Sherlock which he is willing to invest in makes Sherlock feel lucky and loved in a way he had always assumed was impossible.
He runs a hand down John’s side, and smiles as his lover shifts in his sleep, face shoved into his pillow. He moves closer to John, presses his face into John’s neck, and lets the familiar scent, and the sound of John’s breathing, lull him to sleep.
+1
John is found after four days missing, on Valentine’s day, in the dumpster behind Angelo’s restaurant.
Sherlock is slowly, slowly, following the trail which will lead him to John when he receives a picture message of Moriarty stood outside Angelo’s in the middle of the day, smiling widely and waving at the camera. He flies down the stairs of 221b, texting Lestrade and Mycroft even as he storms into Angelo’s and demands help finding John.
When they find him, half buried in rubbish, John is unconscious, covered in cuts and dirt, with a label wrapped around one bloodied wrist. Sherlock’s too distracted to take much notice of it until John’s safe and healing in his hospital bed, and Lestrade hands it over in an evidence bag.
Sherlock, darling.
I hope you enjoy the upgrades I made to your loyal mutt. He was ever so brave, I can see why you like him.
I thought I would return him to you on Valentine’s day, since it’s the day for grand gestures of love and romantic gifts.
You know how much I adore you and that wonderful mind of yours, Sherlock, so do enjoy your puppy while you can.
One day I’ll grow tired of sharing.
M xx
Sherlock’s suddenly clenched fist crumples the note as he reads the intended message between the sweetly written words. It’s now only a matter of time before Moriarty targets John for what will be the final time, and all because Moriarty doesn’t want to share Sherlock’s attention.
John’s broken and still, and it makes Sherlock’s worry and fear ignite into rage.
It’s Moriarty’s turn to burn.
17.
“However much they’re paying you for this, it’s not enough,” John said. He winced as he made a futile attempt to stretch his legs. The concrete roof he was sitting on was damp and uncomfortable, and he’d been staring at the deserted west-bound platform of Goldhawk Road tube station for nearly two hours. The clouds in the night sky, illuminated by the glow from the street lights, threatened rain.
“They aren’t paying me anything,” Sherlock muttered, staring at a flash of white that might have been someone moving, but was probably an empty crisp packet dancing on the tracks. John sighed and thought of the unpaid gas bill that was lying angrily underneath Sherlock’s skull.
“There’s no need to be petulant, John.”
“All right for you to say. You enjoy this.”
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock had been very excited about the stakeout. He had told John in great detail exactly why the suspect would be at Goldhawk Road between one and three that morning, and exactly why John needed to cancel his date with Sarah to be there. That had been a welcome change; John was used to being dragged off without any explanations at all.
Saying that, Sherlock had been less clear on the details of the actual crime. John couldn't remember whether it was an art theft, a jewellery heist or a bank robbery. Still, that didn’t really matter, he supposed.
“And you don’t enjoy it?” Sherlock asked archly.
“I’d enjoy it a bit more if our man turned up.” Sherlock checked the time on his phone.
“We’ll give him another hour.” John’s discontent was more audibly expressed. “Not every stakeout can be accompanied by Angelo’s risotto, much as I know you’d prefer that.”
“I don’t know,” John replied. “At least we don’t get mistaken for a couple up here.” He laughed, expecting Sherlock to do the same. But Sherlock’s mouth only pinched into something that was certainly not a smile, before he turned back to the station.
“Try to concentrate.”
“Why? You’ll see anything before I do. I’m just here to… assist.” The current situation was no excuse for Sherlock to get short with him. John was equally annoyed at having to wait for a criminal who showed no signs of coming out to play. He fished his mobile from his pocket and began to type a message, not bothering to be discreet about it. Sherlock would only deduce the contents and recipient from the movement of his fingers anyway.
“Sarah?” Sherlock asked, giving a passable impression of someone who didn’t know the answer to his own question. John nodded.
“She likes me to text her if we’re out late at night. She worries.” Sherlock’s disdain was readily apparent. “What? It’s quite natural to worry about someone you love. Especially if that someone has been kidnapped twice in six months.”
“Someone you love?” There was genuinely curiosity in Sherlock’s voice this time, and it made John realise exactly what he’d said. He hadn’t meant it to slip out like that. He hadn’t really meant to tell Sherlock at all - even though he was pretty sure he’d overheard Sarah in the bathroom gushing to her best friend Lucy two minutes after the conversation. It just wasn’t something one bloke told another. You just sort of assumed it had been said by the time your mate moved in with a girl, got married and had kids.
John squared his shoulders before replying: “Yes.”
“So she said…?”
“Yes.”
“And you said…?”
“Yes.” It was Sherlock’s turn to draw himself up a little, tugging sharply on the lapels of his coat.
“Right.”
There was silence.
There had been silence for most of the time that they’d been sitting on the roof and it hadn’t been awkward. It was silent for days on end in the flat, and had never once been awkward.
Now, however, it was awkward.
“Is everything…?”
“Please don’t distract me,” Sherlock interrupted. He was acting again, because the request almost sounded genuine. His voice rang with just the right amount of righteous annoyance, combined with a very convincing hint of frustration. What gave Sherlock away, though, was that edge of bitterness. He'd over-egged the pudding there.
John smiled. Besides, Sherlock couldn't have meant it; John wasn't vain enough to think that he could really distract Sherlock from anything. Especially when there was nothing to distract him from; the station platform remained empty.
18.
People sometimes assumed that Sherlock didn’t care for others. Most human beings were dull or disappointing, true, but even so there were several he liked. Lestrade was better company than most policemen, for instance, and there were people he had helped who made him feel as if there might be some slight human interest in the solving of crime, beyond the pleasure of answering the puzzles themselves. For Mrs Hudson he had a mild sort of affection, even if at times her mothering made him feel a strange kind of guilt because she was so unlike his own mother. He had loved Mummy, the fine lines of her face and her lipstick and cigarettes, as a child his feelings for her simultaneously detached and dedicated, and even though she was dead he still felt some measure of affection for her memory, a pale shadow of past feeling like the faint scent of Amarige and cedar that rose when he opened her jewellery box. His love for Mycroft was an irritating ball of feeling he tucked into a corner of himself. He had always loved Mycroft, but he had never worried about him. Mycroft took care of himself, and Sherlock had realised early on that he couldn’t take care of his mother. But John -
One night Sherlock dreamed that he killed John. He was shooting at the wall again, and John had stepped in front of the bullets. His eyes had widened, and he said “oh,” as if he had been mildly surprised. Blood leaked from his stomach as he died with his back against the wall and his mouth open, and Sherlock had watched. On waking, instead of at once being aware of when and where he was, there had been a long shocking moment when Sherlock hadn’t known whether it was true. That he had been so deceived by a dream - !
The obvious thing to do after that was to take speed for two days; his mouth had been dry, his heartbeat painfully fast, but he hadn’t even thought about sleep. When the inevitable crash came, his sleep was dreamless, a great blank of eight hours, and waking up on the sofa he could guess the time of day quite precisely by the length of the shadow in the room and the stiffness in his muscles. He was cured, wasn’t he? Of - Nothing of importance.
Sherlock sat up, and as he did he realised that at some point John had covered him with a blanket. He experienced a brief moment of cardiac dysrhythmia, but that was quite to be expected after taking amphetamines. Nothing at all to do with thinking of John thinking of him. It had never really touched him before, having someone take care of him, and he wasn’t about to get sentimental about it now.
Sherlock folded the blanket very neatly and put it back in John’s room. That normally he would have thrown it over the sofa was neither here nor there, he thought, and then he heard John’s familiar heavy tread on the stair.
Hopefully soon his heart would stop skipping a beat at inconvenient moments. Side effects of illegal drug use were so boring.
19.
If John had had more knowledge of that branch of linguistics called semantics, and had had the punctual observation skills Sherlock possessed, he would have noticed earlier that his flatmate seldom used one word amongst dozens of synonyms casually. Sherlock usually chose the one that fit best his case.
So, while he referred to 221B Baker Street alternatively as home, the flat, 221B with the same ease and casualness he might have used to choose which pair of socks to wear in the morning, Sherlock paid attention to his tongue and varied his vocabulary according to circumstances.
The day John moved in, Sherlock texted him to come to ‘Baker Street’ because John hadn’t yet finished moving out of his old place and he felt that ‘the flat’ would have been too ambiguous.
The first time John was introduced to Lestrade, or rather, the first time he met Lestrade - because he wasn’t properly introduced - Sherlock said only, “He’s with me,” because he still didn’t know how to describe John; he didn’t have a word that fitted him yet. (Now he had several.)
Lieutenant Donovan immediately dubbed John a ‘colleague’ of Sherlock’s, and Angelo promptly assumed he was Sherlock’s ‘date’. While most of those words were thrown away casually, filled with wishful thinking and erroneous assumptions, they weren’t so far from the truth, if still inaccurate. Sherlock, however, would have never uttered them because they weren’t perfect.
Sherlock mostly called him ‘John’, just as he called detective inspector Lestrade by his surname. It was an appropriate and unambiguous way of addressing them, just the way he liked it.
The first time they kissed, or more precisely, the first time John got fed up with the tension between them and awkwardly pressed his lips to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth - because he chickened away at the last second - Sherlock chose not to comment on the subject. He left the room with the doctor in it and eventually the flat. When Sherlock returned he still didn’t have words to reply, so he settled with another kiss, feeling that it was the only way to effectively express his thoughts, to which John replied by pushing him away in confusion.
John questioned Sherlock, saying that he couldn’t run away and come back to kiss him like nothing had happened. But Sherlock didn’t know why John had felt the need to kiss him in the first place, and didn’t know why he felt the urge to do it as well. He was at a loss for words - something that didn’t happen often - and John had to do the explaining for him because he was the one at ease with words that had a subjective meaning and which Sherlock failed to grasp on a general basis.
A few months later John had gotten used to those rare precious moments in which Sherlock had nothing to say and they expressed their mutual appreciation by actions instead of words, and everything was fine until John felt the need to label things with what Sherlock considered an ill-fitting word.
“I think... I might love you. In some odd way,” John said while they were lying side by side, spent, on John’s unmade bed.
After a few moments of awkward silence Sherlock grabbed his clothes and left the bed, the room and John assumed the flat as well, judging by the sound of a door slamming downstairs. John got dressed and decided to go in the kitchen and make himself coffee or something, anything really, because he couldn’t stay there idle any longer.
Downstairs, he found Sherlock huddled in a corner of the sofa, consulting the dictionary. He got closer to his flatmate, friend and lover, peeking over Sherlock’s shoulder, trying to follow his mind.
John smirked; one of Sherlock’s fingers rested on this definition:
love /lʌv/
verb
- to need or require; benefit greatly from: Plants love sunlight
John actually chuckled. “Are you comparing me to a plant?”
“No, although humans need sunlight as well to synthesize vitamin D. But in this meaning, I think I... might love you too,” Sherlock replied, looking serious and, if John read his face correctly, a little embarrassed at his own confession.
“Good enough for me.”
It was from that day that Sherlock started saying ‘home’ when referring to their flat.
20.
Food is Love
***
For Sally Donovan, it was Irish soda bread. Well, really it was the smell of it baking, which always brought her back to the bustle and laughter and comfort of her Gran’s house. Gran had married an Irishman, and had learned to make it to “give him a taste of home.” She didn’t think her granddad even liked it, but he always beamed at Gran and thanked her when she brought it to the table for him. Sally wasn’t partial to the taste of it either, but she’d always accepted a warm slice with butter, picking the sticky raisins out of it while Gran told her stories of her mum growing up.
Last night she’d baked a couple of loaves just to fill her flat with the heady smell, and to remember. She wouldn’t eat them herself, so she’d brought them to the Yard, covertly ditching them in the break room when nobody was about. When anyone asked about them she feigned ignorance - it wouldn’t do to have the blokes think of her as all domestic. She’d already fought (and won) the battle not to be the go-to-girl for fetching coffee and lunches, or for bringing the sweets for birthdays and retirements.
In spite of that, she did occasionally bring coffee to D.I. Lestrade, unasked for, when he was looking particularly fagged out. Like tonight. Sally hummed a wordless tune as she slathered a pat of butter over a microwave-warmed slice of the bread, and poured a cup of black coffee. When she set them down on Lestrade’s desk, he muttered his thanks without looking up from his paperwork. But she didn’t grudge him that - he didn’t have anyone else to mind him, after all.
***
For John, it was tea and HobNobs. He’d been lucky enough to have access to a NAAFI shop during most of his deployment in Afghanistan, so he’d maintained a steady supply even in the dessert. Since moving in with Sherlock, he always bought a package when he did the shopping, even when they weren’t quite out yet. HobNobs in the cupboard remained a cheerful, blue, canister-shaped anchor that had helped him weather the chaos of the battlefield and, now, the chaos of Sherlock Holmes.
“Tea?” John asked, spilling a few of the chocolate biscuits onto a plate and then reaching for a mug. A brief “Mm” was all he got in response.
He glanced over at the desk where Sherlock sat, deceptively still. But John could practically feel the roiling churn of the man’s thoughts, a never-ending maelstrom of data collection, observation, deduction, induction, and hypothesis evaluation. If anyone could use a solid mooring, it was Sherlock. John tossed a couple more HobNobs onto the plate, then balanced it on the top of his mug and made his way into the living room.
***
For Mycroft, it was foie gras frais poele with a glass of Pinot Gris to start, followed by boeuf bourguignon paired with a Syrah from the Rhone Valley, and finished with a clafoutis aux poires et son coulis and a twenty year old Colheita Tawny Port. It was the same meal every year, though he did vary his wine selections to take advantage of the best vintages the bistro’s sommelier had to offer.
Mother Holmes had been quite the gastronomique, with an exquisitely refined palate and the ability to savor every meal through all five senses, though always she did so in moderation. She had been the picture of self-discipline - a trait Sherlock had certainly inherited and taken to extremes. He, on the other hand, had been gifted with the unfortunate combination of his mother’s love of rich French cuisine and his father’s propensity for indolence, at least, of the physical variety. It was hardly surprising, then, that he had turned to the solace of butter and confit and profiteroles to fill the aching hunger that had beset him in the immediate wake of her loss. Equally predictable were the waist-expanding consequences he had suffered, about which his darling brother was so fond of reminding him.
Now, however, he limited his indulgence to this annual ritual. It seemed a more fitting tribute to the day than flowers and a long drive to a country churchyard. He raised his glass to the empty chair across from him.
“To you, Mummy. Happy Birthday."
Part Three: Entries 21 - 30 >>