Work Text:
1
John feels the phone buzz against his thigh rather than hearing it – there’s no way he’d hear anything in this racket. It’s a short buzz, so text rather than call. It’s a text, so Sherlock rather than Mary.
“Oi, lads,” he shouts, pulling his phone out of his pocket, “keep it down for a second, would you?”
He’s not sure why he asks, considering it is just a text.
“Is it the missus?” someone asks. John’s not paying attention to any of the group as he tries to get his alcohol-clumsy fingers to put in the phone passcode so he can read the message.
“Isn’t that bad luck, the night before?” Mike Stamford’s booming voice adds.
Someone else – James? – makes a whiplash sound and there’s another burst of raucous laughter.
I need you.
John frowns at the screen, and the letters blur before re-sharpening. At least Sherlock has finally stopped with his signature initials.
A tray crashes down on the table, newly filled with drinks, and there’s a brief clamour as everyone but John puts their hand in to grab one.
Sherlock can’t need him now; he’d given him the night off. He’d actually spoken those specific, condescending words as if he had any right to after refusing to come out with them. After refusing to be best man. After refusing to come to the wedding at all. Not that John had expected differently. Not that it wouldn’t have been both supremely amusing and supremely awkward to see how Sherlock conducted himself at a stag do.
Break a nail, did you? he texts back, giving a thumbs up to the drink that Stamford has placed in front of him with a knowing smile.
There are several cries of “phones away!” and “no interference!”, which John ignores as his phone buzzes again mere seconds later.
A conical flask, actually. And several boiling tubes.
John shakes his head. Sherlock is never anything but meticulous with his chemistry equipment; this is (very obviously and quite shamelessly) a ploy for attention.
You know where the first aid kit is.
“Yep, it’s the missus, look at that dopey grin!”
Hands in too bad a state to be able to use it efficiently.
“But you’re managing to use the phone efficiently,” John mutters, and he puts his phone away.
It doesn’t buzz again until John is halfway through his pint.
John, please.
Sherlock doesn’t say please, except when it’s important.
“Just do as I ask! Please.”
It takes John half a minute to think up an excuse, one minute to say it and brush off the hearty protests, three minutes to leave and hail a taxi, and then it’s eleven minutes back to Baker Street and up the stairs.
“Sherlock?”
There’s a tinkling sound of glass meeting glass. John walks into the kitchen to find Sherlock, clad in pyjamas and dressing gown, sweeping the last remnants of whatever mayhem he’s caused into a dustpan. He looks up as John’s shadow falls across him, but makes no move to stand.
“John.”
“I’m surprised you even know where the dustpan and brush are kept, let alone how to use them,” John says lightly, tapping his foot by the few shards Sherlock has yet to sweep up. “You know, I was expecting quarts at the least, Sherlock.”
There’s a bandage around Sherlock’s right palm, already spotted with blood.
Sherlock drops his head again, not meeting John’s gaze. “Mind your feet, John. And I may have over-exaggerated the extent of my injuries.”
“In a bid to stop me having fun with my mates the night before my wedding.”
There’s a sour twist to Sherlock’s mouth as he gets to his feet and tips the contents of the dustpan into a bucket on the table. “Hardly,” he mumbles, putting his back to John.
“Let me see it.”
The flat at night is eerily quiet as Sherlock turns and approaches John; there’s no TV or radio on, no bubbling from an experiment or from the kettle. It makes their voices and breaths seem deafening.
At arm’s length, Sherlock holds out his hand to John as if presenting it for a kiss. John laughs at the idea and Sherlock frowns at him questioningly.
“It’s nothing,” John promises, stepping closer to compensate for Sherlock’s distance.
He holds Sherlock’s hand up to the light, assessing. The bandage is probably adequate for its purpose, he decides, but too tight to be comfortable. Sherlock would have used his good hand and his teeth to do it. Impressive: that he could dress his own wound by himself. It makes John wonder what else Sherlock had to learn to do for himself before John came into his life to do everything for him.
“Do you want me to re-do it?” he asks.
“No.”
“Does it need stitches?”
Sherlock scowls at him. “I wouldn’t have dressed it already if it did.”
“I take it you cleaned it first.”
Sherlock just glares harder and John smiles.
“Didn’t get anything nasty in it?” John can only imagine the type of chemicals or substances Sherlock was liable to have been working with.
“No.”
John nods, releasing Sherlock’s hand. “Good. So you don’t need me at all then.”
Sherlock’s uninjured left hand darts out to catch John’s wrist. “I never said that.”
They’re standing close together in the confined space between the kitchen counter and table. Far too close for the night before one of them is to be married.
Sherlock’s grip slackens, until he’s touching John’s wrist more than holding it, thumb running along the bony protrusions, fingertips stroking across John’s radial pulse. John knows it’s elevated, and so must Sherlock by now.
“Come to the wedding,” John pleads, eyes shutting almost of their own accord. Hiding his pupils.
There’s a brief puff of warm air across his face as Sherlock exhales through his nose in a parody of a laugh. “You know I won’t, so why do you insist on asking? Why do you always insist on asking for things I can’t give?”
The fingertips travel higher up John’s forearm, gentle, inquisitive. John tenses and opens his eyes, ready to pull back. Sherlock’s forehead is just slightly furrowed, his mouth just slightly turned down at the corners. He leans forward an inch, and John leans back as far as Sherlock’s grip allows, shaking his head.
“You can’t tell me you’ve had a change of heart, Sherlock. Not now, not about this. Not tonight.”
“I haven’t,” Sherlock sighs, pulling on John’s arm to bring him back (too close) before his hand goes to rest instead against John’s cheek. “You know how I work.”
Sherlock sweeps his thumb over John’s cheekbone, just catching on John’s eyelashes, and brings up his other hand to cradle John’s face between both palms. The bandage is rough compared to the smoothness of his skin.
“I know how we work,” John says, “and-”
Sherlock cuts him off by lowering his forehead to John’s and pressing lightly. “Hush.”
John presses back and their noses brush together.
“Last night of freedom,” Sherlock says, and laughs softly. “Will you spend it with me?”
“I was always going to,” John replies.
--
In the morning, Sherlock watches from the bed as John puts his suit on and fusses with his tie in front of the full-length mirror on the door of Sherlock’s wardrobe.
“You’re not going to tell Mary about this,” Sherlock says.
John’s hands go still. “No,” he says, “I’m not.” He opens the door wider, changing the angle of the mirror so he can see Sherlock in it as well as himself.
Sherlock shrugs. “Why?” he asks, “There was no sexual congress between us.”
John laughs at the wording, but doesn’t answer. He goes back to fiddling with the knot of his tie.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Sherlock grumbles, and there’s a rustle of the covers as he comes to stand behind John, all creased pyjamas and messy hair. “Turn,” he orders.
John does, and Sherlock’s hands are swift and certain as they tie a Windsor knot. “Four-in-hand is not acceptable for a wedding, John,” he says, “and I’m glad you decided against the kilt in the end.”
One corner of his mouth tugging upwards in a reluctant smile, Sherlock finishes the knot and rests a hand against it for a moment, just looking at John as if taking him in. John looks back evenly. As always, Sherlock thinks, steadfast, unwavering John Watson.
And then there’s a minute tremor of John’s left hand. “How do I look?” John asks, his voice steadier than his hand.
“I suppose you’ll do.” Sherlock takes a firm hold of John’s wrist to still the tremor. It causes a flare of pain from his injured palm.
“I suppose I’ll have to,” John laughs.
Sherlock presses harder on his wrist and John opens his mouth to tell him to stop, but Sherlock is already speaking. “Why aren’t you going to tell Mary that you slept in my bed last night?”
“Sherlock, let go of- are you trying to leave a mark?”
“What if I was?” Sherlock asks, eyes narrowing as he searches John’s face, “Would you let me?”
“If you want to.”
“Do you want me to? On the day of your wedding?”
John sways almost imperceptibly on the spot. “You know why I’m not going to tell her.”
“I do,” Sherlock says, and tightens his grip enough to leave a ring of bruises.
2
“Fuck!” John hops around the lift, wincing and holding the foot he just kicked the wall with.
Sherlock, calm and collected on the floor, watches him with an expression of mild amusement. “Sit down, John,” he says, “this is a poorly maintained council estate, it could be hours yet.”
“Can’t you,” John releases his aching foot to flap a hand at him, “I don’t know, think of something?”
“To get us out of being trapped in a lift?” Sherlock huffs a laugh, “Sit down, John.”
John does, finally giving in after a half hour of pacing. He sits against the opposite wall to Sherlock, legs out straight because his damned leg is playing up today. Sherlock, John knows from the raised eyebrow, has noticed.
“I don’t believe this,” John says, looking at his watch.
“Mycroft’s surveillance will likely be the first to notice our prolonged absence,” Sherlock answers, “Provided he doesn’t find the idea of leaving us here too entertaining, it won’t be long.”
“You just said it could be hours yet.”
“Yes, well.” Sherlock picks a piece of fluff from his suit jacket, having spread his coat beneath himself to sit on. It’s not his usual favoured coat, which John had found very odd as they left Baker Street that afternoon. It’s a lucky coincidence now, because the floor of the lift has no doubt seen many drunken individuals caught short before they could get home. John shifts uncomfortably at the thought. It doesn’t exactly smell like a basket of roses.
They are silent for a long moment, the only sound in the lift a hum from the light above them and their breathing together in the cramped space. The fingers of John’s right hand drum against his thigh in agitation and his left rhythmically clenches and unclenches.
“Don’t worry, John,” Sherlock says all of a sudden, “There’s more than enough air in here, and we’ll be found long before it becomes a problem.”
John grits his teeth, “I’m not worried about the air, Sherlock.”
“I know. I also know you aren’t claustrophobic. What’s the matter?”
“Can’t you tell?” John bites out.
Sherlock doesn’t answer, face impassive as ever. Of course he can tell. After everything though, he’s gotten better at knowing when he shouldn’t say that.
“I’m sorry,” John says, sagging against the wall of the lift as the vitriol leaves him.
“It’s fine.”
“It really isn’t.” John looks at his watch again.
“When were you supposed to be meeting?” Sherlock asks, voice low and quiet.
There’s a telling pause. John rubs a hand over his face with a groan. “Six-thirty.”
Sherlock nods, “So you were already an hour late for dinner when you got into this lift with me.”
“It’s just…” John exhales harshly, “it’s not hard to be around you, Sherlock.”
“Not like it is with Mary, at present.”
“Don’t make me talk about it.”
Sherlock stands up and stretches slightly. He’s too big to be enclosed in this space, John thinks. He’s too big for most spaces.
“I want to talk about it even less than you, believe it or not.” Sherlock walks across the lift and sits down beside John, leaving his coat on the other side. Sherlock shuffles about a bit and then leans his head on John’s shoulder, sighing almost contentedly.
“You should be glad,” John mutters.
“Should I?”
“Because it means we’re not going to last,” John says, and quickly clarifies, “Mary and me.”
“I know, John.” Sherlock’s hand comes up and he lays it with utmost care on John’s left shoulder, underneath where his chin is resting. His fingers splay over the scar he knows is there but has still never seen, not in all the time they were flatmates. “I’m not glad to see you unhappy though. I never will be.”
“I wish I could say the same of her.”
“The upstairs room in 221B,” Sherlock says after a beat, “It’s always going to be your room, for as long as you want it.”
John laughs bitterly, “Sherlock, I already end up kipping there more than four nights a week.”
“You knew this was how it was going to be,” Sherlock’s voice is light and pragmatic, “didn’t Mary agree to this with her eyes equally open?”
John says nothing.
To Sherlock, as always, that says everything. “Ah,” he says, “I gave her too much credit.”
“You never give anyone enough credit, and Mary least of all.”
“I let her have you, didn’t I?” There’s a sudden absence of warmth all along John’s left side – Sherlock has pulled away to stand up again.
“No,” John answers as Sherlock crosses the lift to fiddle at the control panel for what must be the fiftieth time, “because she doesn’t. Have me, that is.”
Sherlock turns back to look at John, opens his mouth to speak, and then the lift gives a jolt and begins to move upwards.
Silence. Then-
“I fixed it,” Sherlock says, and it is the weakest announcement he has ever made. It probably has something to do with the thunderous expression on John’s face.
“You bastard,” John says, getting to his feet stiffly, leg still twinging, “You did this all on purpose, you absolute, fucking- you- you bastard.”
“Your lack of communication was becoming detrimental to our partnership, John,” the confidence is back in Sherlock’s tone, “and this method has proved very effective in overcoming that.”
Sherlock makes a show of looking at his watch. “You’re far too late for dinner now, oh well.” He collects his coat (the choice of which now makes sense) from the floor and brushes it off before taking John’s mobile from the inner pocket.
“You’ll be wanting this back,” he says with a smile that’s trying far too hard to be innocent to look anything like it.
John can’t help but laugh, “So I really was pick-pocketed, but instead of it being one of your little street-urchins it was actually the great Sherlock Holmes himself, patron bloody saint of the homeless.”
The phone is turned off, and John leaves it that way, not wanting to have to decline any calls or see the voice messages and texts that are bound to have accumulated.
Sherlock inclines his head like he’s giving a small bow, still smiling. “But I really did drop mine in acid this morning,” he says, drawing something from his pocket and revealing it to be the bubbly, melted remains of an iPhone.
They laugh all the way to the twelfth floor on their way to interview the suspect.
3
She’s angry. It’s one of the easiest deductions Sherlock has ever made. He’s not even sure he can call it a deduction, it required so little effort.
It’s four in the afternoon; John is still sleeping. He’s completely exhausted after a day and night of crime scenes, post mortems, interviews and research, and a morning spent tearing through the streets of London after a serial killing dentist.
He is blissfully unaware of the silent standoff between his wife and his best friend, going on over his head.
Sherlock supposes it does look somewhat compromising: John, nestled into Sherlock’s chest on the sofa in 221B. Their legs are entwined and Sherlock’s arms are looped around John, one hand under one of John’s, the other resting possessively, presumptuously over his heart. That was where Mary’s gaze went first.
It’s not like that though; it never has been between them. They were both drained after this case, Sherlock especially as it had been his third run-on case with barely a moment of rest between them. Sherlock ended up on the sofa, lying in wait for sleep, still stubbornly trying to guard against it. John had laughed at his pose – fingers steepled against his chin, head titled back over the arm of the sofa, back slightly arched, toes digging into the space between the sofa cushion and the arm.
“That’s no way to sleep,” John had said, and set about moulding Sherlock into a more comfortable position.
It was the gentle, careful way that he arranged Sherlock’s body that got to him. The way he cradled Sherlock’s skull as he lifted his head to slide a pillow behind it, the way he coaxed Sherlock’s hands away from his face to rest them peacefully by his sides, the way he straightened out Sherlock’s knees and then rubbed at Sherlock’s feet when he felt how cold they were.
“I think you have a circulation problem,” he’d mumbled.
Sherlock wondered: is this what John would do for him when he died? Lay him out so he was comfortable? John wouldn’t want him to be cold then either.
After his apparent suicide, Mycroft had taken care of everything. John had not been allowed to see the ‘body’ or organise the funeral, and with good reason. One afternoon while John was out, Mycroft had fondly remembered the black eye that John gave him when he had labelled the whole thing “a family matter” and all but banned John from getting involved. Although he punched Mycroft (and deservedly so), John acquiesced, grief and shock too palpable for him to want to see Sherlock’s broken body again. He barely wanted to attend the funeral, let alone plan it.
It would be different if Sherlock died for real though. John would be given every courtesy, every responsibility that he wanted. Mycroft had said so, with an air of morbid amusement. He’d said he would leave everything to the grieving widow, next time.
Sherlock had wanted to give him a black eye himself in that moment.
“Come on, relax,” John’s voice had brought him back, as his hands pushed lightly against Sherlock’s stomach to make him flatten his back against the sofa. “Always so tense.”
Always so careful, Sherlock had thought in return.
Fragile. Handle with care. John handles me as if I were something precious.
The thought was a stray one, unchecked in his fatigue. Sherlock almost laughed.
John ended up on the sofa too. Bedroom too far away, need to share body heat, poor circulation.
The method doesn’t matter, only the result.
It’s just something they do sometimes. There’s nothing sordid about it. They’re both fully clothed, there’s no evidence of any sexual activity here, there are clear signs, none of them present in the sitting room of 221B. Surely even Mary can notice that. There’s no reason for her to be looking at him like that now, like she wants to poison him. Women always choose poison.
“He’s exhausted, don’t wake him,” Sherlock says to her quietly. John stirs a little, probably at the rumble of Sherlock’s voice in his chest behind him.
Mary’s face hardens further. “I wasn’t going to.”
Sherlock sighs, John’s hair moving and tickling his chin as he does. “Miss Morstan-”
“Mrs Watson,” she corrects through gritted teeth.
Ah yes. Convention. He’d forgotten.
Sherlock says nothing, he’s not going to apologise. John was his first.
She’s not just angry, he knows. She’s miserable too, and tired. Lines around her eyes and mouth. Her makeup – understated, unassuming. Limp hair, roots showing, in need of a cut.
She doesn’t look the way he remembers her. Vibrant, youthful, confident. She always used to wear tops that were a little bit too low-cut, in Sherlock’s opinion (in as much as he had an opinion on the cut of women’s clothes). She’s covered up now, wrists and throat, but it just makes her look more vulnerable.
“You’re the one who cheated,” he says. Ian Hassel – investment banker, married, two children, 6ft tall exactly, snowboarding enthusiast, fancied himself an ‘adrenaline junkie’.
Laughable.
“Am I?” she asks, and Sherlock can’t quite place her dull tone. Bitter? Past caring?
And what does she mean? Of course she is. Ian Hassel. Six month affair, ended by her before John found out. Sherlock hasn’t told him and he doesn’t know. He does suspect though.
The question implies that John was the one who cheated. He hasn’t. He has no lovers besides Mary, Sherlock would know. John couldn’t sustain a lie like that, he just couldn’t. And he could never hide it from Sherlock.
John was mine first. Is that what she means? But they aren’t like that. There are clear signs, not one of them present in the sitting room of 221B.
John chooses that moment to move in his sleep. He turns, presses closer to Sherlock, and lets out a soft murmur that might be his name. It’s impossible to tell (no, it isn’t).
Sherlock looks at Mary’s face. She looks like she’s been slapped.
John was his first. John is still his.
Maybe that’s the problem?
She leaves the flat before Sherlock can formulate any sort of answer.
4
It’s easier than Sherlock’s funeral.
John hates himself the moment he thinks it, but it’s true, and then the thought doesn’t leave him for the rest of the service.
There are more people, which is somewhat worse. More people doling out meaningless consolation to him, more people he has to return it to. Sherlock’s funeral, as arranged by Mycroft after John was too numb to even think of suggestions, was a very brief and small affair. John had even less input into Mary’s funeral, and it is rightfully… lavish, catering to the needs of her extensive hoard of family and friends. She would have liked it, in a grim sort of way.
Her favourite lilies are everywhere, her favourite hymns are sung, her favourite aunts are appropriately teary. Her widower is the only thing out of place, propped up as he is by the most caustic man any of the other mourners have had the displeasure of meeting.
Sherlock had consented to accompany John without complaint or coercion. John isn’t sure what that means exactly, but he’s grateful for it.
It is easier. It’s easier because Sherlock is beside him, not being put into the ground. But then he never was in the ground, John thinks.
Thank God.
The service drags, Sherlock fidgets. He stops when John reaches out and takes his hand. Aunt-Somebody purses her lips, Other-Aunt actually gasps, and Mary’s mother just flat out ignores the pair of them and doesn’t speak to John ever again after that. Small mercies.
Mary’s younger sister, Fran, quietly wishes them well. John automatically goes to correct her and stops before he can finish the word ‘not’. He’s holding Sherlock’s hand at his wife’s funeral, who is he fooling anymore besides himself?
When he helps Mary’s father, her brothers and her childhood friends carry the casket down the steps of the church out to the graveyard, Sherlock still hovers at his side as if ready to take over at a moment’s notice. No amount of whispering or disapproval can remove him.
They don’t stay for the wake. Too many people are glaring by the end of the service, particularly after John uses one hand to throw the dirt onto Mary’s coffin and uses the other to hold onto the one person he truly couldn’t bear to lose.
+1
Sherlock knows something isn’t right between them.
“Long day,” John says abruptly when they sit together one evening. John is brooding in his usual chair; Sherlock is lounging on the sofa, half upside down, deep in thought, and about to fall off any moment.
At the sound of John’s voice, Sherlock rights himself to look at John properly. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” John says, “I’m still fine, Sherlock.”
“We did just bury your wife.”
John flinches. Sherlock knows he’s been too direct.
“Three months ago. It isn’t fine,” John sighs, running a hand over the back of his head, “but it will be.”
John and Mary had been separated for the same amount of months at the time of her death. He had been a permanent fixture at Baker Street again for three months when the call came in.
Sherlock wasn’t grateful for the news. He wasn’t pleased. Not when John sank to his knees at the top of the stairway and didn’t speak for two hours, not when he could hear John crying in the bedroom above his.
John loved Mary once, he truly did. Never fully though. Never enough.
Sherlock had thought she understood how they worked, he and John. And she did, on some level. Their scant conversations outside of John’s hearing proved that.
Understanding it wasn’t the same as accepting it though, was it?
“Will you find someone new?” Sherlock asks.
John drops his face into his hands, a gesture of exasperation. “Jesus,” he says when he lifts his head, “It’s a bit soon for the insecurity act, don’t you think?”
That’s unexpected. Insecurity? On Sherlock’s part? Sherlock isn’t insecure. He knows his place in John’s life, it’s at the top. First and foremost.
Even Mary knew that. She knew it too well.
There might as well be a sign on John Watson’s back, or a tattoo on his forehead. He is Sherlock’s.
Insecurity act. What a thing for John to accuse him of.
“I don’t understand, I simply meant-”
“You meant: am I going to find someone else to replace Mary, someone else who might take your place in my life.”
“And are you?”
There, he’s asked. He does know his place in John’s life, but that doesn’t mean it’s fixed, not by any means.
Maybe he is insecure after all.
“Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind,” John says, with something close to resignation in his face.
Sherlock’s heart rate picks up. What if he has? What if he has, after all these years, changed his mind?
He and John aren’t like that, but what if they were? John wouldn’t have another date, or another wedding. There wouldn’t be any children, there wouldn’t be any more competition. If John remarried then children could happen, one day, and then where would he be?
Where would he be when John finally found someone who was more important to him?
The thought is unbearable now, it could bring his entire mind palace down from the inside, reducing it to dust. John has infiltrated every corner of him, he’s seeped into the foundations, he’s grown between the bricks like a vine and it would bring everything down if he were removed. If he left.
“You haven’t,” John is frowning, he looks uncertain, “Have you?”
Sherlock can’t say it. Has he? He’s been this way for so long, he doesn’t know how to be anything but this. He gives John the danger, he gives John the fascination, but can he give him anything other than that?
He knows John wants him. John has always wanted him, in some abstract way, right from the very beginning. But at some point, John started wanting him the way Sherlock has never wanted anyone.
John is moving across the room now, looking for answers. Sherlock’s silence is unnerving him.
What can he say? He should just say ‘no’, because he hasn’t changed, not really. He wants to change, he really does, but he just can’t. Why isn’t that enough? Wanting to want?
It would be ridiculous to say aloud: John, I don’t think I’ve changed my mind about us embarking on a sexual relationship, but I want to want to.
Do the wants cancel at any point? What makes it just become want to, rather than want to want to?
He thinks about it, often. John’s hands on him, his hands on John. He thinks about kissing, mostly. He understands the basic mechanics, the physiology. It seems like such a strange thing to do, yet people seem to enjoy it so much. He can’t quite imagine himself doing it, but when he does, it’s always with John. Isn’t that enough?
It would be you, John, if it was anyone.
Is it simply that he hasn’t done this all before? Is that why it seems so strange, so foreign? If he tried it, perhaps he would like it? But what if he didn’t?
What if he said ‘yes, I’ve changed my mind’ but it was all wrong? Could he say ‘I’ve changed it back’ without hurting John, without damaging them beyond repair? Doubtful.
So changing his mind wouldn’t let him keep John, and nor will saying he hasn’t.
It isn’t fair. Why does John keep asking?
“That night in the kitchen,” he says, voice rasping as though he hasn’t spoken for a decade. It feels like he hasn’t. John has only just crossed the room though, only just settled at Sherlock’s feet, laid a hand on his knee and looked up at him with a question in his eyes. So it hasn’t been that long. “I almost kissed you then.”
John looks startled, but hopeful. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to interrupt.
Oh John, why do you look so hopeful?
“And I asked you,” Sherlock breaks off, swallows, blinks three times, “why you always insist on asking for things I can’t give.”
Sherlock looks him dead in the eye, and watches as John’s face falls. He dares, for a moment, to think that this hurts him more than John. Does it? Who has more at stake here? Who has the most to lose?
“Why can’t you?” John asks.
Sherlock’s eyebrows draw together. “I just can’t.”
John was meant to answer his question, not ask another.
“That’s not an answer, Sherlock. What is it? Do you just not- not feel things that way?”
It’s a very careful question. He’s trying so hard to understand, but understanding is not the same as accepting.
“I don’t know,” Sherlock admits. It’s an admission dragged out through his teeth, but it’s something. “How can you tell? How is it that you just know? Tell me.”
John keeps one hand on Sherlock’s knee, and uses the other to cup Sherlock’s face. His expression is one of pure fondness. “Sherlock, some things, sometimes you don’t know until you try.”
“But you know, did you have to try first?”
John tilts his head slightly in concession, “No, but I didn’t get into my thirties without ever letting another person properly touch me. You’re trembling under my hands.”
Is he? Sherlock realises with a jolt that almost dislodges John’s hands that he is. A fine tremor. How interesting. Nerves? Panic?
“Mycroft was right,” John continues, “Sex does alarm you.”
It doesn’t. Irene Adler parading around in no clothes, asking him to ‘dinner’, that wasn’t really alarming. This though? John Watson asking him to willingly make himself more vulnerable than he’s ever been with another person? Perhaps that is somewhat alarming.
“What if I don’t like it?” Sherlock asks, because he might as well get to the heart of the matter. The question comes out more childish than he’d hoped. “What if I find it all as distasteful as I’ve always thought it to be?”
John is smiling, he wears his affection as easily as his jumpers. “Have you thought about it a lot?”
“Only with you, I’ve only ever imagined it with you.”
John’s hands, John’s body. Would it really be so bad?
John winces, “And that’s… distasteful?”
No, it’s not. Not exactly. Because it’s John. It’s John who sleeps upstairs, who keeps him company when he goes out, who makes him tea, who dresses his wounds. John who looks after him. It’s John who keeps a gun in his drawer, who protects him with that same gun, with his fiercely determined words.
John who always believed in him, who would never hurt him, who always placed him above anyone. John who was so gentle, so careful with his body. Like I was something precious.
“No,” he says, “it isn’t.”
“We could try,” John says, “if you want.”
“And if I fail?”
“Sherlock, you’ll still be the most important person in my life, whether you want to kiss me, sleep with me, or nothing at all, if we just stay as we are. You asked me if I’d find someone new, and I won’t. There just isn’t anyone else for me, there’s no one like you.”
That decides it. He can do this, for John, for himself. He needs to know. Sherlock’s heart pounds like it wants to escape his chest as he licks his dry lips. “John, I’d like to kiss you, I think.”
“Definitely?” John asks, “Not just saying it? You’re certain?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes, “Just come up here, would you?”
John does. He pushes Sherlock back into the sofa cushions lightly, makes him sit up properly again and settles on the sofa beside him, close enough that they are pressed together from hip to knee. “It’s always awkward the first time,” he says, shifting and turning towards Sherlock. Sherlock does the same. “Christ, I feel like a teenager, about to snog someone for the first time on the sofa.”
“Is that good?” Sherlock asks. He can feel his cheeks getting warm, his heart is still racing. He wonders if he should ask John if his pupils are dilated. Maybe later. He feels… nervous, but something else as well. It’s not nervousness that comes from fear, it’s excitement, anticipation. He does want this.
“It’s fantastic,” John says, and he leans in, sliding a hand through the hair at the back of Sherlock’s head.
He keeps leaning forward, until his back must be starting to ache. This is such an awkward position.
John stops moving when their noses are an inch apart. Sherlock can feel John’s breaths, marginally quickened. He’s waiting for permission, Sherlock realises, when John raises his eyebrows and smiles. Sherlock closes the distance between them, hesitates for a moment, a split second, and watches John’s eyelids fall shut. Utter trust. Sherlock can do this.
John’s lips are slightly parted when Sherlock presses his own against them. John makes a tiny, muffled sound of desperation or gratitude at the first touch, Sherlock can’t tell which, and presses forward just a little. Their lips move together, soft and tentative like the first tremble of a new butterfly’s wings. Sherlock reaches out to steady himself with a hand on John’s shoulder, and John pulls away.
“No, no,” Sherlock says, “No, I- I like that. Don’t stop.”
John laughs, no, he giggles like it’s a crime scene. “I was just going to suggest we move and make this a bit more comfortable.”
“Oh,” Sherlock’s cheeks must be scarlet, he feels like they’re on fire. Oh God.
“Here.” John settles back against the arm of the sofa, nudging Sherlock’s legs with his feet until he stands, allowing John to stretch out properly. “Lie down with me.”
Sherlock looks at him dubiously.
“Or don’t,” John says at once, starting to sit up, “We can stop-”
“I just meant that the sofa is a bit small for us both, John, I don’t want to crush you.”
John’s turn to blush, “Ah, right, I see.” He covers his mouth with one hand, stifling another giggle.
Sherlock feels warm all over. “My- my bed is big enough,” he says, just on the edge of breathless. And they’ve barely begun.
John stands up with Sherlock, reaching out to take both of his hands as he does. “We don’t have to do that yet,” he says, “We can do this slowly, figure it out together. What you like, what you don’t. Like one of your experiments.”
Sherlock laughs, of course John would try to put it like that. An experiment, indeed. John knows him so well. He knows what to say, when to press forward, when to step back. This will work.
“Yes,” Sherlock says, and dips his head to kiss John again.