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“C’mon, Sherlock.” John’s stooped to wheedling now.
“Absolutely not.”
The tone sounds very final, very firm, but the fact that Sherlock’s still talking to him, rather than ignoring him, gives John hope.
“They’re out of a fiddler, and they want you, you big baby, so suck it up and go get your fiddle.”
“I haven’t played a dance since I was twenty-one, John, and I’m not going to start now.” Pouting is beginning to edge into sulky, so John tries another tack. He lets his shoulders drop.
“Well, I guess it is kind of a tall order, if you haven’t played one in a couple of decades, give or take. I’ll just let them know. Maybe they can get Randy Youngblood from over to Rogersville.” Sherlock’s eyes flip from half-mast to full in an instant.
“Oh for Pete’s sake, he can’t hold down a dance! He only plays about six tunes.”
“I’ve heard he’s very good.”
“If you like Texas-style contest drivel. He wouldn’t know a dance tune if it slapped him on the ass and called him daddy.”
John is reduced to actually giggling. He’s never met Randy, but the picture is clear.
“Still, if you’re not doing it, they’ll take what they can get.”
“Oh, fine.” Sherlock spits out, in a fair imitation of a wet cat. He heaves himself out of John’s chair and stalks off to his room, which is odd, because his fiddle is, as usual, sitting in its case, taking up a third of their couch.
There’s a great deal of banging around back there, then Sherlock reappears with a different case in hand. It’s long and rectangular, beat up and slender, and he plops it on the couch, on top of the other one. Inside are two fiddles, nestled head-to-tail, one so dark it’s nearly black, and the other stained a bright red-brown. They both look like they’ve been through the wars.
“What is that?”
Sherlock gives John a look full of pity and disdain, and plucks the strings of both before shouldering the red fiddle. He proceeds through his usual tuning ritual, then sets it down and shoulders the black one. It sounds noticeably different, dark and woody where the other is bright and brassy. Sherlock examines both bows, tightens and rosins them, plays a few experimental phrases, then loosens and stows them and checks the case compartment, which is full of all sorts of bits and bobs.
Then he shuts the case and resumes his position in the chair.
“Ah, should I tell them you’ll make it then?”
“Obviously,” Sherlock says from behind John’s latest New England Journal of Medicine.
John shakes his head and makes the call.
***
At seven that night, they’re pulling up to a community center building that doesn’t appear to be in the center of any community, though the grass around it is already full of vehicles. There’s a fine layer of gravel dust on everything from the road going by, and the propane tank’s shining in the evening sunlight. The crickets are going, and it smells like hay and bad carburetors. John can’t seem to wrestle the dumb grin off his face.
Sherlock, oddly, has showered and actually, kind of, dressed up for this; that is, he’s wearing a button down shirt with purple and grey and white stripes, and matching purple pearl snaps and a pair of jeans that haven’t got any holes in them. Being the smartass he is, he’s dug up a pair of purple all-stars for the occasion. The color makes his skin glow and makes John want to shove one hand into his riotous hair and use the other to pop every one of those blessed snaps. Instead, he shoves both hands in his pockets and follows Sherlock, who follows a middle-aged couple wearing matching Wranglers, into the building.
A couple of guys are setting up sound, and when they see Sherlock and John, their heads come up. “Thank you, thank you so much, Sherlock, you saved the day.” Paul runs a hand through his blonde hair, which flops right back down. He’s in his early thirties and irrepressibly earnest. Sherlock snorts and dumps his case by the center chair. “We’ve got John Fenton and Bill Simmonds here to play backup if you want.”
“I’ll have my own.” Sherlock smiles tightly. As if they’ve timed it, two old-timers come through the door carrying cases. They’re both dressed up, in polyester jeans and button-up shirts, boots and bolo ties. Sherlock stands, and to John’s amazement, politely says, “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
They glance at each other, then nod.
“This is John Watson.” Sherlock surprises John again by introducing him, but he steps forward and shakes their hands. “John, this is Em and Bill Johnson.”
“Nice to meet you.” There’s an awkward pause, and one of the men, Em, John thinks, suggests they go warm up. All three dig out their instruments and disappear out the back door.
John takes a seat at the side and watches as the two ladies fussing in the kitchen become a dozen, and kids start running riot, and the sounds of conversation mix with the sharp click of taps and bounce off all the hard surfaces in the place. This, he reflects, is going to be loud.
Em and Bill come in from the back, a banjo and a guitar hanging from straps on their shoulders, and Sherlock follows, two fingers hitched around the neck of his fiddle and a shit-eating grin on his face. John watches as Sherlock’s eyes track to him, unerringly, and the smile widens just a hair. Sometimes the sight of him hits John right in the gut; he’s so damn attractive, so hot, even though he’s gangly and long-faced and untidy and rude and irascible and possibly insane. John can’t keep his lust off his face; if anyone’s watching, they’re busted, but it rises to the surface, how much this strange man makes him want. Sherlock’s smile shrinks to a Mona Lisa hint, and he puts bow to strings, not tentative, but a bellow of sound. John watches as the three musicians get in place, get comfortable. A woman comes by and drops a drink by each of their chairs, and Paul, the organizer, steps up to a standing mike.
“All right people, we’re here to dance!” There’s a heightened buzz in the crowd and people start to take the floor, arranging themselves in rings of eight people, still talking and laughing till Sherlock’s violin sings out and suddenly they’re off. It’s controlled chaos, people swinging and turning every which way, a cacophony of taps and voices, and John can pick out some patterns he remembers from childhood: Texas Star, Split the Ring. Simple dances, done fast and smooth.
And it’s damn near impossible to sit still to this music; John finds his feet moving and his eyes back on the musicians.
He’s heard Sherlock play, of course he has, contemplatively, furiously, steady and measured, lazy and seductive, but he’s never heard him perform. This is something different, it’s driving and mesmerizing, with the backup chugging along like a freight train while Sherlock sounds the whistle. John can tell it’s good, because the two reserved musicians are grinning like kids at Sherlock, who’s grinning back. It ends with shouts out of the dancers and a whoop from the back of the room, and people head for the drinks on the counter at the back of the hall, while others take their places.
“Are we having fun yet?” Paul says into the mike.
“Dr. Watson?” The small voice is accompanied by a small hand pulling on John’s sleeve. He turns to find Lindsey Pike, one of a trio of siblings he’s treated for strep throat.
“Hi, Lindsey, how are you?”
“Fine, um, Dr. Watson, will you dance with me?”
“Sure, Lindsey, I’d be happy to.” He smiles up at her mom. Lindsey takes his hand and pulls him to the nearest square, where her folks are dancing. They take the number four spot, so they’ll dance last; John’s more than a little rusty and admits as much to the square, who reassure him not nearly enough before the fiddle sings out and they’re circling left, following the direction of the number one lady, who’s stout and white-haired and has a voice like a foghorn. The first round is awkward, and John goofs them up and gets pushed, laughing, into place again, then he feels his body settling into it, long-ago memory awakening. When it’s their turn, he grabs his young partner under the arms and lifts her clear off the ground to swing her around. She shrieks and giggles, and pipes “Spin me again!” every time they come around.
When they’re finished, he thanks her and looks up at Sherlock, who’s looking right back, conflict in his face and a tension in his jaw that wasn’t there earlier. But there’s no time for contemplation. The band strikes up a two-step; John heads for the refreshments but winds up two-stepping with an elderly woman with a sparkly cat on her shirt, who has a grandson who’s in medical school.
At the half Sherlock sidles up to John, who’s just drawn a cup of coffee from the big carafe. He hands it off to Sherlock and draws himself another.
“You don’t seem too rusty at this.”
Sherlock smirks. “Then you don’t know much about it.”
“Guess I don’t,” John allows, and moves to make way for a lumbering mass of man in railroad-stripe overalls to load up his foam plate with cookies.
A thick-fingered hand lands on Sherlock’s slender shoulder, “Hey, Spooky, think you could run us through whatever it is you’re planning on trotting out in the second half, so we don’t have to stumble along behind?” John mouths “Spooky?” at Sherlock, who ignores him and heads out the back door. John tries to keep the staring to an absolute minimum.
“He used to do this all the time, you know. He was so good.” Yet another woman with a sprayed-up helmet of mom-hair has taken a place at John’s side. “It’s a miracle he’s got those Johnson boys out of the house, they won’t hardly play for nothing these days.”
“Well, Sherlock can be pretty persuasive.” John thinks that is a diplomatic way of putting it.
“I wouldn’t know,” says the woman, pinching John’s arm, eyes sparkling, “Would you?”
John buries his burning face in his coffee mug and says a prayer of thanks when Paul announces the end of the break.
At about ten, Sherlock switches fiddles, and the excitement in the crowd ramps up. John’s been dancing with a pretty schoolteacher, a blonde with a lush little figure and an infectious laugh, and he talks her into one more round. The fiddle is harsher, insistent, pushing them on, swinging from one partner to the next, one figure to the next. There’s a great shout that goes up at the end of the dance, and the fiddle barely stops at all before taking up a driving rhythm. People all around John start dancing, some clogging, plain or fancy, and some just moving to the music. The mountainous man he’d seen at the cookie bar actually jigs for a few steps before he stops, laughing and red-faced and breathing hard. There’s a pair of adorable toddlers dancing, in perfect rhythm, by almost-sitting, then pushing up, over and over. The schoolteacher pulls at John’s hand, encouraging him, but when he refocuses from his reverie, it’s Sherlock he’s looking at, long and gangly and twisted around the fiddle, a sweaty curl hanging in his eyes and both long feet stomping to the rhythm he’s laying down. John suddenly feels a great surge of joy, feels it physically down in his gut, welling up behind his belly button and into laughter, and motion, and his feet are moving, his arms and back going loose as he drops the schoolteacher’s hand and faces Sherlock across the floor, letting his feet remember things his brain’s forgotten, about being a child, being safe, and loved, and happy. Sherlock’s eyes are on him and though his face doesn’t move, John can feel his joy reflected back out of Sherlock’s fiddle, a paroxysm of this is right and this is now.
Then it’s over, and the schoolteacher—Anne? Angie?—is fishing for John’s number. He gives it to her, because it’s easier, watching with one eye as Sherlock packs up, shaking the hands of the male half of each couple who comes up to thank the band.
It’s an eternity before they’re out in Sherlock’s truck in the nearly empty parking lot, and Sherlock is settling into the passenger seat and tossing John the keys. John raises his eyebrows but says nothing, just gets in and adjusts the seat, ignoring Sherlock’s snort of amusement.
He drives them perhaps 15 miles down the road before turning off on an even more deserted road and stopping. Sherlock looks up from his phone in confusion, just in time for John to grab two fistfuls of his shirtfront and haul him in for a fierce kiss. Sherlock tastes like awful coffee and sweet well water and like home, and it’s wonderful and John says so. “Wonderful, god, you’re…” Sherlock pulls him back, leaning against the door and kissing John like it’s his life’s mission. “God, Sherlock, you can’t know—the things you do to me, you…” John buries his face in the open vee of Sherlock’s shirt, pulls at the snaps and runs greedy hands over his chest. “I haven’t felt, god, you’re so….Sherlock,” John gasps as Sherlock finds that spot under his ear. John slides down, so strangely, viciously aroused he’s just basically rubbing his face and mouth all over Sherlock’s torso, sloppy and panting, but it seems to be working for Sherlock, who bucks his hips up and runs his fingers through John’s hair. “God, your…fingers, and your…” John turns his head and licks Sherlock’s palm, up between his fingers, sucks the middle two into his mouth while three hands are fumbling with Sherlock’s—stupid, tight—jeans. The minute they’re open John sinks his mouth to Sherlock’s lap and hears the crack of Sherlock’s head going back against the window.
John props himself on his elbows and works just the very tip of Sherlock’s cock, using his hands at Sherlock’s hips to encourage him to move. He pops off just long enough to gasp out, “Yes, fuck up into me,” before he settles his mouth back where it belongs. Sherlock moans and pushes up, in urgent, shallow strokes, steady and searching. He moves his ass the way he bows his fiddle, with a liquid little hitch at the end of each stroke. John’s hands wind up on Sherlock’s hips as he says a fervent prayer of thanksgiving for bench seats. He’s rutting helplessly against something that might be Sherlock’s foot, rocking his hips in time with the satiny flesh sliding in his mouth, panting air in and out through his nostrils. It’s warm and Sherlock-scented and secret in the barely-there green light of the dash, insects humming outside inside, the soft sounds of Sherlock shifting, and gasping, and rasping his hair as his head goes from side to side, restless. John can’t think of anything else he wants, nothing could make this more perfect, no soft bed, no comfortable position, nothing. His hips jerk without his permission.
“God, John, I—yes…” Sherlock flushes hot from the crown of his head to his groin, he can feel waves of it rolling over him, sloshing back as he rocks up, rocks up, not too deep, faster, faster, now, and his legs snap open as far as they’ll go, as he pushes, his whole body desperate to be part of John, inside John, inside John. John can feel him shaking apart, gives Sherlock strong hands at his waist, weight on his leg, a place to come home to, and Sherlock melts away into him, moves in to his mouth. John hangs on, till the last pulse has faded, rubs his thumbs softly over Sherlock’s hipbones, licks extravagantly at the crease of Sherlock’s groin, and laughs.
It’s gentle, and it’s coming from his gut, and Sherlock’s joining in, languid and amused, even as he hauls at John’s arms, pulling him up from the awkward twist he’s gotten himself into. John adjusts himself in his jeans and smiles wide.
“I’m reconsidering my stance on playing dances.” Sherlock says it against John’s mouth.
“I would certainly hope so.”