A Strange and Abundant Love -- Part 2
Title: A Strange and Abundant Love
Author: CagedWriter61
Rating: PG 13
Part: 2/?
Pairing: Asexual!Sherlock/Straight!John/Straight!Lestrade
Summary: In which Sherlock, John, and Lestrade embark on a three-person nonsexual relationship, of an ambiguous nature.
Notes: From the author of A Love with No Name . This part is half the length of part 1, for which I feel slightly bad, but hopefully it's still solid.
Enjoy!
Part II
Sherlock has been staring at the silver ball for hours. He arrived at Bart's with the package at a quarter to eight in the morning, with the entire building and indeed, the entire block and surrounding blocks on all sides evacuated on order of the SO19 squad who still surrounds the premises at this moment; it's now past nine. The tennis-sized ball sits in the groove of a large square platform; the ball is shiny and reflective, heavy according to Sherlock, who is the only one willing to handle it. Somebody delivered it to Baker Street this morning with a cheerful note indicating the ball was a gift and not a toy at all but a bomb of unknown power.
Naturally, Sherlock's been playing with it all day.
"Can we go home now, please?" says John, who's been dutifully watching over his flat mate here in the lab since he got off work at five. "I'm starving."
"Why hasn't it gone off?" says Sherlock, blue eyes intent on the object. He has his hands braced against the countertop of the island in the middle of the room and is leaning down with his face level at the ball. He looks like a cat.
"Who cares? You best be on your knees thanking Christ it hasn't gone off, you crazy git." John glances at Lestrade, who's leaning up against an adjacent counter and watching Sherlock as well. "I don't want to think about all the chemicals in here reacting with the explosives in that thing. You're not bringing it with us, Sherlock. Do you hear me? You're giving it over to the bomb squad or I'll bloody knock you out and do it myself."
Sherlock glares at John briefly, before refocusing. "He wouldn't give me a dud. It's going to go off, it has to go off. But when? And how? Is he controlling it? It doesn't appear to be timed, unless the timer is a part of the internal mechanism but it's highly unlikely. A bomb this small, this powerful, there's no room in it except for the actual explosives. Unless its technology is far more advanced than I imagine."
"Do you understand this could kill you? That thing goes off, we're all dead. You know that, don't you? No, wrong question: do you care?"
"No one's asking you to stay," Sherlock says, raising his voice as he straightens.
Lestrade sees the way John uncrosses his arms and steps forward in Sherlock's direction, the two men like birds about to enter into a fight. John's lost it. Lestrade can recognize the signs.
"Oh, of course, I'll just go home and make myself dinner while you get blown up because you care more about your damn puzzles than your own life! Do you have any idea how worried I've been all day? I could barely do my job, I was too wound up expecting to get a call saying my idiot partner had killed himself and taken our flat with him."
"Understanding why I had a sophisticated bomb anonymously delivered to my flat that hasn't detonated after fourteen hours and discovering the implications of said bomb are a bit more important than your peace of mind, Doctor!"
"All right, both of you shut up," says Lestrade evenly. Sherlock stares at John with resolute coldness, an astounding pride and insensitivity in his posture, while the heat of John's anger is almost palpable in the air. Lestrade glances from one to the other.
"Sherlock," the detective inspector says in his best authoritative, professional voice. "You've had all day to study this thing, whatever it is. You're done now. I let you have far more time with it than any sane person would allow. Christ, I managed to get the whole place emptied out just to appease you. We're calling the officers in and letting them take it from here."
Sherlock makes eye contact with Lestrade and looks reluctant and rebellious but doesn't actually protest. Lestrade can see his thought process. Sherlock doesn't understand why John's upset or why he should have to give up the bomb when he himself doesn't have any personal problem with it. Lestrade has noticed this a few times in the last four months, since they started deepening their relationship. Sherlock's weakness is his inability to comprehend other people's emotions, particularly when those emotions come into conflict with Sherlock's mind. John's spectacularly good with Sherlock, better than anyone on the planet could be, but even he has his limits. Lestrade has a natural calm about him the other men lack-and he's been reading some of those old relationship books his ex-marriage counselor gave him and his wife before they divorced, God help him.
"John's scared right now," Lestrade says, holding steady to Sherlock's gaze. "Do you get that? You may not be scared, but he is. I'm a bit uncomfortable myself, honestly. It's not just about self-preservation. If it were, he and I wouldn't be here right now. We're afraid for you, which is a realistic fear given the circumstances. You could die. That matters to us."
"The bomber gave this to me, Lestrade. It's much more than explosives, it's a message. And if I don't figure it out, the consequences could be far greater than my death. What's your bomb squad going to do with it? What if they blow themselves up? Are you going to take responsibility for it?"
"Yes." That came out far quicker than Lestrade could've anticipated. "Yes, Sherlock, I would. I understand that risk, but explosive officers exist for precisely this kind of situation. They're equipped to handle it, and even if they're not, you bloody well aren't either. I'd rather take responsibility for a failed deactivation than for civilian lives lost due to my own absurd permissiveness with you."
Sherlock visibly shrinks a little. John has calmed down too. Lestrade watches his consulting detective for a moment, gauging his facial expression and body language. He makes sure that he has Sherlock's full attention, his own eyes serious and firm.
"If anything happened to me or to John, you would be upset. We wouldn't endanger ourselves without taking your feelings into account; we're asking you to return the favor."
Sherlock holds eye contact with Lestrade, before sliding his gaze over to John, who appears to have been subdued by Lestrade's peacemaking efforts. Sherlock looks at the detective inspector again and gives a reluctant nod.
Lestrade nods back and leaves to notify the squad.
Lestrade and John, in the early days subsequent to their initial talks with Sherlock, wrestled with what exactly they meant to achieve within their relationships. They didn't have adequate language or any frame of reference, they didn't have examples to follow, and they didn't even have a clear concept of what they personally wanted. They knew they had desire for Sherlock and that Sherlock had desire for them. Their desire wasn't sexual in any way. They wanted to be closer, to feel more intensely bonded, but how was beyond any of them to describe. The method by which they could achieve this also remained ambiguous. It had to be more than just spending time together: John and Sherlock already lived together, for God's sake. They couldn't spend any more time together even if they wanted. At another secret meeting in a pub, John and Lestrade met to discuss the problem of these ambiguities.
"It must come down to vulnerability," Lestrade suggested, a quarter of the way through his pint.
"What do you mean?" said John.
"I mean, not quantity but quality. It isn't how much time we spend together or how much we talk to each other-it's the kind of talk. We have to-deal in feelings."
John stared at him.
"God, that sounded gay, didn't it?" Lestrade said, which made them both chuckle slightly.
"So, give me an example," said John.
"Well-there's the obvious bit: we tell him how we feel about him, he tells us how he feels about us, and after that, I guess we expand to how we feel about everything."
"Christ, I don't know if I can do that."
"You're telling me, mate."
"Is this how marriage works? Because if it is, I'd rather bloody well not."
"Don't ask me, I failed the one time I tried."
Lestrade takes a drink.
"How are we gonna get him to do all this?" John said. "Sherlock Holmes isn't exactly in touch with feelings."
"I'm going to go with lead by example. He'll get the hang of it, the more we practice."
John shook his head. "There's gotta be something else. I mean, talk is important, yeah. But you said it's how we talk, so that must mean how we spend our time is up for revision too."
Lestrade considered this a moment. "How we spend our time is already accounted for, mostly. We spend so much bloody time working…."
"I almost think that's how it should stay, don't you? I mean, Sherlock is Sherlock when he's solving a case. He hates downtime. And you don't seem to be too keen on it yourself."
Lestrade grins slightly, into the lip of his glass. "Well, we know he wants affection."
"Right."
"I could spend more time with him, I suppose. If that's what he wants. I don't know what the protocol here is, how much he wants me around. He seems to like having you as his only sidekick on a case, probably wouldn't appreciate my crashing his party."
"Yeah, I don't think we should mix professional and personal too much."
"That's more of an issue between me and him. We work together because we have to, he works with you because he wants to."
"Maybe you could come over more often, when there's not a case. He needs the entertainment then anyway." John pauses. "We could be overthinking this."
"I think we are."
"I don't even know what I want. Do you?"
"Not the faintest."
"Just when I'm about to give up trying to imagine, I think maybe I'm afraid to imagine?"
John and Lestrade look at each other, and Lestrade shrugs.
"Bloody hell," said John. "It just occurred to me I've spent my whole life half-assing all my relationships."
Lestrade snorted. "Do we owe Sherlock a thank you?"
"Even if we do, I'm not giving it to him."
As it turned out, the emotional substance gained in their relationships wasn't something they could've defined in the beginning. Lestrade finds, after four months, that the most significant change is indeed the feeling. He can feel his relationship with Sherlock deepening. He can see Sherlock's relationship with John deepening. He couldn't give an outsider the details, not the important ones. It is a swelling in Lestrade's chest he can only identify as love, cautious and bizarre. He can feel it growing, like a plant or a painting, slow and steady. He can see, almost feel, that same growth in John and in Sherlock.
Not much has changed on the surface: Lestrade spends some of his free time at Baker Street but not all of it. He and John and Sherlock are becoming more adept at communicating what they want and why and how they feel. They've become a bit softer with each other, more expectant. The touching is certainly the most obvious development: Lestrade thinks four months is a rather short period of time in which to progress from hugging to bed sharing.
Not that anyone's complaining.
They arrive at Baker Street safe and whole, after a silent cab ride Lestrade chose to take with Sherlock and John. Once inside, John and Lestrade shed their jackets and take a breath in the sitting room but Sherlock heads straight for the kitchen and begins to pile his scientific equipment in the sink for washing. The glassware, despite Sherlock's mindfulness of it, makes noise as he thrusts it together.
John stands in the threshold between kitchen and sitting room, hands on his hips, watching Sherlock. Lestrade stands a few feet behind John, watching the two of them.
"Sherlock," says John. He's ignored. "Sherlock. Would you please stop?"
Sherlock stops abruptly, staring at John with the white light of the overhanging lamp turning his skin almost translucent.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you," John says.
Sherlock doesn't answer.
"You can be angry about the bomb if you want, but I hope you'll at least forgive me for yelling."
Sherlock sighs, right hand on his hip as he rubs at his forehead with his left. "I'm not angry. Not at you. I'm frustrated."
John stares at him and doesn't speak, and Lestrade watches.
"I'm sorry I-caused you distress. Both of you. I appreciate your patience," says Sherlock.
John nods, as Sherlock meets Lestrade's eyes over John's shoulder.
"Can we forget about it?"
"Yeah," says John.
Lestrade nods.
"It's late to order take-away; I don't suppose you're in the mood to eat out."
"I'm tired," says John. "But hungry."
Lestrade walks up to the kitchen and stands alongside John, leaning against the wall separating the two rooms. "I don't mind making some pasta, if that's all right with you. And don't worry, John, I'll handle the tea."
John breathes in relief and thanks him, retreating into the sitting room. Lestrade catches Sherlock's eye again.
"Will you give me the kitchen?"
Sherlock nods and heads out but stops next to Lestrade, hand pressed to the older man's shoulder. They look at each other closely.
"Thank you," says Sherlock. "For giving me a chance at it."
Lestrade finds himself pleasantly caught off guard. "You're welcome."
He sets out to cook and brew tea, and by the time he's finished and walks back into the sitting room, Sherlock's curled on the sofa with his head in John's lap as the two men watch telly. The three of them eat at the table in the kitchen, on the space left clear next to the remnants of Sherlock's recent experiments. They drink more tea in pensive silence.
When they make it to bed, Sherlock holds John protectively, the two of them facing each other, and Lestrade fits his body behind Sherlock's.
It is a deep sleep.
Author: CagedWriter61
Rating: PG 13
Part: 2/?
Pairing: Asexual!Sherlock/Straight!John/Straight!Lestrade
Summary: In which Sherlock, John, and Lestrade embark on a three-person nonsexual relationship, of an ambiguous nature.
Notes: From the author of A Love with No Name . This part is half the length of part 1, for which I feel slightly bad, but hopefully it's still solid.
Enjoy!
Part II
Sherlock has been staring at the silver ball for hours. He arrived at Bart's with the package at a quarter to eight in the morning, with the entire building and indeed, the entire block and surrounding blocks on all sides evacuated on order of the SO19 squad who still surrounds the premises at this moment; it's now past nine. The tennis-sized ball sits in the groove of a large square platform; the ball is shiny and reflective, heavy according to Sherlock, who is the only one willing to handle it. Somebody delivered it to Baker Street this morning with a cheerful note indicating the ball was a gift and not a toy at all but a bomb of unknown power.
Naturally, Sherlock's been playing with it all day.
"Can we go home now, please?" says John, who's been dutifully watching over his flat mate here in the lab since he got off work at five. "I'm starving."
"Why hasn't it gone off?" says Sherlock, blue eyes intent on the object. He has his hands braced against the countertop of the island in the middle of the room and is leaning down with his face level at the ball. He looks like a cat.
"Who cares? You best be on your knees thanking Christ it hasn't gone off, you crazy git." John glances at Lestrade, who's leaning up against an adjacent counter and watching Sherlock as well. "I don't want to think about all the chemicals in here reacting with the explosives in that thing. You're not bringing it with us, Sherlock. Do you hear me? You're giving it over to the bomb squad or I'll bloody knock you out and do it myself."
Sherlock glares at John briefly, before refocusing. "He wouldn't give me a dud. It's going to go off, it has to go off. But when? And how? Is he controlling it? It doesn't appear to be timed, unless the timer is a part of the internal mechanism but it's highly unlikely. A bomb this small, this powerful, there's no room in it except for the actual explosives. Unless its technology is far more advanced than I imagine."
"Do you understand this could kill you? That thing goes off, we're all dead. You know that, don't you? No, wrong question: do you care?"
"No one's asking you to stay," Sherlock says, raising his voice as he straightens.
Lestrade sees the way John uncrosses his arms and steps forward in Sherlock's direction, the two men like birds about to enter into a fight. John's lost it. Lestrade can recognize the signs.
"Oh, of course, I'll just go home and make myself dinner while you get blown up because you care more about your damn puzzles than your own life! Do you have any idea how worried I've been all day? I could barely do my job, I was too wound up expecting to get a call saying my idiot partner had killed himself and taken our flat with him."
"Understanding why I had a sophisticated bomb anonymously delivered to my flat that hasn't detonated after fourteen hours and discovering the implications of said bomb are a bit more important than your peace of mind, Doctor!"
"All right, both of you shut up," says Lestrade evenly. Sherlock stares at John with resolute coldness, an astounding pride and insensitivity in his posture, while the heat of John's anger is almost palpable in the air. Lestrade glances from one to the other.
"Sherlock," the detective inspector says in his best authoritative, professional voice. "You've had all day to study this thing, whatever it is. You're done now. I let you have far more time with it than any sane person would allow. Christ, I managed to get the whole place emptied out just to appease you. We're calling the officers in and letting them take it from here."
Sherlock makes eye contact with Lestrade and looks reluctant and rebellious but doesn't actually protest. Lestrade can see his thought process. Sherlock doesn't understand why John's upset or why he should have to give up the bomb when he himself doesn't have any personal problem with it. Lestrade has noticed this a few times in the last four months, since they started deepening their relationship. Sherlock's weakness is his inability to comprehend other people's emotions, particularly when those emotions come into conflict with Sherlock's mind. John's spectacularly good with Sherlock, better than anyone on the planet could be, but even he has his limits. Lestrade has a natural calm about him the other men lack-and he's been reading some of those old relationship books his ex-marriage counselor gave him and his wife before they divorced, God help him.
"John's scared right now," Lestrade says, holding steady to Sherlock's gaze. "Do you get that? You may not be scared, but he is. I'm a bit uncomfortable myself, honestly. It's not just about self-preservation. If it were, he and I wouldn't be here right now. We're afraid for you, which is a realistic fear given the circumstances. You could die. That matters to us."
"The bomber gave this to me, Lestrade. It's much more than explosives, it's a message. And if I don't figure it out, the consequences could be far greater than my death. What's your bomb squad going to do with it? What if they blow themselves up? Are you going to take responsibility for it?"
"Yes." That came out far quicker than Lestrade could've anticipated. "Yes, Sherlock, I would. I understand that risk, but explosive officers exist for precisely this kind of situation. They're equipped to handle it, and even if they're not, you bloody well aren't either. I'd rather take responsibility for a failed deactivation than for civilian lives lost due to my own absurd permissiveness with you."
Sherlock visibly shrinks a little. John has calmed down too. Lestrade watches his consulting detective for a moment, gauging his facial expression and body language. He makes sure that he has Sherlock's full attention, his own eyes serious and firm.
"If anything happened to me or to John, you would be upset. We wouldn't endanger ourselves without taking your feelings into account; we're asking you to return the favor."
Sherlock holds eye contact with Lestrade, before sliding his gaze over to John, who appears to have been subdued by Lestrade's peacemaking efforts. Sherlock looks at the detective inspector again and gives a reluctant nod.
Lestrade nods back and leaves to notify the squad.
Lestrade and John, in the early days subsequent to their initial talks with Sherlock, wrestled with what exactly they meant to achieve within their relationships. They didn't have adequate language or any frame of reference, they didn't have examples to follow, and they didn't even have a clear concept of what they personally wanted. They knew they had desire for Sherlock and that Sherlock had desire for them. Their desire wasn't sexual in any way. They wanted to be closer, to feel more intensely bonded, but how was beyond any of them to describe. The method by which they could achieve this also remained ambiguous. It had to be more than just spending time together: John and Sherlock already lived together, for God's sake. They couldn't spend any more time together even if they wanted. At another secret meeting in a pub, John and Lestrade met to discuss the problem of these ambiguities.
"It must come down to vulnerability," Lestrade suggested, a quarter of the way through his pint.
"What do you mean?" said John.
"I mean, not quantity but quality. It isn't how much time we spend together or how much we talk to each other-it's the kind of talk. We have to-deal in feelings."
John stared at him.
"God, that sounded gay, didn't it?" Lestrade said, which made them both chuckle slightly.
"So, give me an example," said John.
"Well-there's the obvious bit: we tell him how we feel about him, he tells us how he feels about us, and after that, I guess we expand to how we feel about everything."
"Christ, I don't know if I can do that."
"You're telling me, mate."
"Is this how marriage works? Because if it is, I'd rather bloody well not."
"Don't ask me, I failed the one time I tried."
Lestrade takes a drink.
"How are we gonna get him to do all this?" John said. "Sherlock Holmes isn't exactly in touch with feelings."
"I'm going to go with lead by example. He'll get the hang of it, the more we practice."
John shook his head. "There's gotta be something else. I mean, talk is important, yeah. But you said it's how we talk, so that must mean how we spend our time is up for revision too."
Lestrade considered this a moment. "How we spend our time is already accounted for, mostly. We spend so much bloody time working…."
"I almost think that's how it should stay, don't you? I mean, Sherlock is Sherlock when he's solving a case. He hates downtime. And you don't seem to be too keen on it yourself."
Lestrade grins slightly, into the lip of his glass. "Well, we know he wants affection."
"Right."
"I could spend more time with him, I suppose. If that's what he wants. I don't know what the protocol here is, how much he wants me around. He seems to like having you as his only sidekick on a case, probably wouldn't appreciate my crashing his party."
"Yeah, I don't think we should mix professional and personal too much."
"That's more of an issue between me and him. We work together because we have to, he works with you because he wants to."
"Maybe you could come over more often, when there's not a case. He needs the entertainment then anyway." John pauses. "We could be overthinking this."
"I think we are."
"I don't even know what I want. Do you?"
"Not the faintest."
"Just when I'm about to give up trying to imagine, I think maybe I'm afraid to imagine?"
John and Lestrade look at each other, and Lestrade shrugs.
"Bloody hell," said John. "It just occurred to me I've spent my whole life half-assing all my relationships."
Lestrade snorted. "Do we owe Sherlock a thank you?"
"Even if we do, I'm not giving it to him."
As it turned out, the emotional substance gained in their relationships wasn't something they could've defined in the beginning. Lestrade finds, after four months, that the most significant change is indeed the feeling. He can feel his relationship with Sherlock deepening. He can see Sherlock's relationship with John deepening. He couldn't give an outsider the details, not the important ones. It is a swelling in Lestrade's chest he can only identify as love, cautious and bizarre. He can feel it growing, like a plant or a painting, slow and steady. He can see, almost feel, that same growth in John and in Sherlock.
Not much has changed on the surface: Lestrade spends some of his free time at Baker Street but not all of it. He and John and Sherlock are becoming more adept at communicating what they want and why and how they feel. They've become a bit softer with each other, more expectant. The touching is certainly the most obvious development: Lestrade thinks four months is a rather short period of time in which to progress from hugging to bed sharing.
Not that anyone's complaining.
They arrive at Baker Street safe and whole, after a silent cab ride Lestrade chose to take with Sherlock and John. Once inside, John and Lestrade shed their jackets and take a breath in the sitting room but Sherlock heads straight for the kitchen and begins to pile his scientific equipment in the sink for washing. The glassware, despite Sherlock's mindfulness of it, makes noise as he thrusts it together.
John stands in the threshold between kitchen and sitting room, hands on his hips, watching Sherlock. Lestrade stands a few feet behind John, watching the two of them.
"Sherlock," says John. He's ignored. "Sherlock. Would you please stop?"
Sherlock stops abruptly, staring at John with the white light of the overhanging lamp turning his skin almost translucent.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you," John says.
Sherlock doesn't answer.
"You can be angry about the bomb if you want, but I hope you'll at least forgive me for yelling."
Sherlock sighs, right hand on his hip as he rubs at his forehead with his left. "I'm not angry. Not at you. I'm frustrated."
John stares at him and doesn't speak, and Lestrade watches.
"I'm sorry I-caused you distress. Both of you. I appreciate your patience," says Sherlock.
John nods, as Sherlock meets Lestrade's eyes over John's shoulder.
"Can we forget about it?"
"Yeah," says John.
Lestrade nods.
"It's late to order take-away; I don't suppose you're in the mood to eat out."
"I'm tired," says John. "But hungry."
Lestrade walks up to the kitchen and stands alongside John, leaning against the wall separating the two rooms. "I don't mind making some pasta, if that's all right with you. And don't worry, John, I'll handle the tea."
John breathes in relief and thanks him, retreating into the sitting room. Lestrade catches Sherlock's eye again.
"Will you give me the kitchen?"
Sherlock nods and heads out but stops next to Lestrade, hand pressed to the older man's shoulder. They look at each other closely.
"Thank you," says Sherlock. "For giving me a chance at it."
Lestrade finds himself pleasantly caught off guard. "You're welcome."
He sets out to cook and brew tea, and by the time he's finished and walks back into the sitting room, Sherlock's curled on the sofa with his head in John's lap as the two men watch telly. The three of them eat at the table in the kitchen, on the space left clear next to the remnants of Sherlock's recent experiments. They drink more tea in pensive silence.
When they make it to bed, Sherlock holds John protectively, the two of them facing each other, and Lestrade fits his body behind Sherlock's.
It is a deep sleep.