Chapter Text
Tire of me if you will, my dear
I will not tire of you
And this is the world as I see it now
Turns out that nothing is fair
You can leave me if you wish, my love
But I'm not going anywhere
“10 AM, Gare du Nord” by Keaton Henson
* * *
It is a simple fact, not an opinion nor any sort of half-arsed claim, that Sherlock Holmes is a passionate man that feels things in a potent, all-encompassing way, one in which he takes great lengths to pretend doesn’t exist.
John watches. John watches him swing Rosie in the air with a laugh as bright as the morning air, watches him doze on the couch with his whole body melted into boyish innocence, watches him as their skin brushes and John gives a tentative smile, the grin he receives in return capable of launching a thousand ships to their deaths. Hears him quietly sob in the night when he believes nobody is awake, his thick shouts from nightmares and the shuddering of his breath whenever they’re at a crime scene with too much tragedy. Watches him dance the waltz to lure a baby to sleep, putter around John’s health with gentle hands, hum as he prepares dinner in the kitchen, chase suspects down alleyways with constant reassurances to verify that John is still right behind him.
It is a more likely thing, John supposes, that eyes so soft and so careful are masking the depths of an ocean behind them.
Sometimes, when John is very, very lucky, late into the night after a case or while Rosie naps on one of their shoulders or even sometimes over a simple, quiet breakfast, he can catch the briefest wave. An impossible gentling of the face, painted in adoration and longing and happiness all in one as Sherlock Holmes lets his facade fall from the great brain, and into the even greater heart.
Such Moments are John’s favorites.
* * *
One day, no cases on in the last couple of weeks and Sherlock’s mannerisms beginning to get snappish, John proposes that they visit the antique’s fair over in Islington. It’s a bi-weekly event, rows of tables lining the passage swarming with people, the various stalls overflowing with the most delightfully random of artifacts. It’s an uncharacteristically warm September morning outside, after all, one of London’s rare cloudless days with a shimmering sun that is near-white against the blue; the perfect day for a stroll.
“Could be fun,” John says offhandedly, dabbing at Rosie’s chin with a flannel. She’s old enough to handle her own spoon, a whopping 18 months, but breakfast is still a messy affair. “I know you like antiques, never knowing what trinkets and such you’ll find through the clutter. It’s a beautiful day outside. We’re getting a bit stir-crazy, too, so an outing could do us all some good.”
Sherlock, twitchy as he lounges on the couch, swivels his hips without warning so he’s upside-down with his bare feet lightly thudding against the wall. He narrows his eyes. “Hm,” he hums.
John feels his lips twitch despite himself. “I’ll buy you candy floss.”
An approving sound. “Well, in that case,” Sherlock says, “I’ll go and get ready.”
“Why bother?” John teases, gesturing down to Sherlock’s pajama-bottoms-and-tee-clad frame, dressing gown long since shed in his restlessness. “You look perfectly decent to me. Just slide on some slippers and a scarf, and you’ll be ready to go.”
Sherlock flops over on himself, somehow emerging upright on the floor in the whirlwind move. With the hintings of a sly smile, he maneuvers around the coffee table while tugging his shirt over his head, bunching up the ratty tee before pelting it in John’s direction. John barks a laugh, snatching it away from his face. The fabric is still warm. Rosie babbles sheep noises in delight from beside him.
Sherlock turns and strolls down the hall, pale scars on his back just catching the light. “How do I look now, John?” he questions, delightfully playful.
Beautiful. “Like the next flu victim,” John manages to call back with practiced ease, years of experience masking any sort of break in his voice. Sherlock’s laugh echoes into the sitting room. John glances down at the tee in his hands dumbly. He wants to bring it up to his face, wants to inhale the familiar scent that has always soothed him, always meant ‘comfort’ and ‘safe’ to him in the years when his mental state was anything but. He wants to tug the shirt on and never take it off.
The urge frightens him. John quickly chucks the fabric across the room as if burned, as far away from him as he can get it. Satisfied and more than a little uneasy, he picks Rosie up from her highchair to go get her dressed.
Outside is just this side of too warm for outer coats, the remnants of summer’s heat unwilling to let go of autumn’s rightful claim. John had pulled out the pram, but Sherlock had insisted that at Rosie’s age she should be walking with better mobility than she was currently. John proceeded to say no, that’s just technical milestones at unrealistic timeframes and that Rosie was actually quite advanced for her age, but Sherlock had waved him away and now allows her to grasp his index finger as he patiently helps her down 221’s front steps. Hiding a smile, John forgoes the pram and hails a cab.
In Islington, there’s a pedestrian road named Camden’s Passage that is the bulk of the antique stalls, already bustling with people on the Saturday morning, nearly noon. Predictably, Rosie whinges roughly two minutes into the journey from the cab, across the street, and to the passage, stubbornly refusing to walk, so Sherlock scoops her up and atop his shoulders with practiced ease.
“Shuh-la!” Rosie cries in delight.
John turns his head to the side and smirks.
“Shut up,” Sherlock grumbles.
It’s immediately apparent that this trip is more for Sherlock than it is for John and Rosie. While the beginning stalls are quite boring, lines of gaudy jewelry here and shiny tin tea sets there, the hidden treasures are what Sherlock enjoys sleuthing for the most.
“John, look!” he exclaims, holding up a cherry wood tobacco pipe with a long, elegant stem. On its bowl is a carving that depicts a ship lost at sea. John levels him with wry, narrowed eyes.
“No,” he says.
Sherlock opens his mouth, and then closes it again. His fingers squeeze lightly where they’re wrapped around Rosie’s leg. “I’m not going to use it,” he says quietly, though there’s a longing in his eyes as he tilts the pipe this way and that in his hand. Any moment now, his lower lip will push out into a pout.
With a sigh, John steps closer to study the pipe himself, noting how the wood catches red in the sunlight. The carvings are clean and detailed, the result of a steady and practiced hand. “It is a nice pipe,” he admits.
Sherlock quirks his mouth, giving the pipe a lasting look before setting it back on the table. He rearranges Rosie into a more secure position with a jiggle, and spots a table plushed and padded with dozens of toy animals. “Oh, Watson, how would you like to perform an autopsy on a stuffed elephant? Hm?” They bound away.
John makes to follow, but it’s as if there’s a tether at his waist, keeping him in place without a hint of yield. He knows exactly what it means. He sighs again and turns back to the table to the vendor's glittering eyes, pulling out his wallet. “How much for the pipe, then?”
* * *
On the nights when John can’t quite keep his eyes closed, the even breathing of his daughter across the room doing nothing to soothe him to sleep, he instead draws himself into his own meager mind palace that Sherlock knows nothing about.
His only has one room, no doors, and a window that opens up to the roaming moors where his grandparents had lived. Inside, the living room of 221B is as much of a clone to its real-life counterpart as John could ever manage. It’s not perfect, but he’s not using it for the storage of tobacco ash and/or various melting points, so it fulfills its purpose just fine.
There’s only one memory he’s intent on keeping safe.
He feels arms, strong and warm, cage around him and draw him against a hammering heart. He feels air stir at his hairline. He feels a dry hand press at the nape of his neck, fingers curling him closer as if he would disappear at any moment. He hears an unsteady sigh.
“It is what it is.”
From there, during the pivotal moment of John’s lifelong emotional state, it only gets worse.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. His forehead is pressed to Sherlock’s sternum, and both of his hands find themselves against his broad chest, fingertips digging into his dressing gown. The tears won’t stop.
Sherlock’s hands tighten. “No, John, you have nothing to be-”
John pulls back, cutting him off. Sherlock’s arms loosen until his hands are merely resting against the curves of John’s shoulder blades. John looks up to meet his gaze, but Sherlock’s eyes are closed. There’s moisture dewing on his dark eyelashes. “Sherlock,” he says. “Not this. Not… I’m sorry for everything. For every single bloody thing. You…” His breath hiccups. “I am so, so sorry.”
His eyes don’t open. John can feel his voice through his chest, where his palms are still connected. “Nothing,” he says, voice breaking. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Nothing?” John huffs in disbelief. His hands begin to trail up, up, up, and Sherlock’s eyes flutter open in surprise when his fingertips brush the cut beside his ear, half-hidden by his hair, where John’s fist had sliced open his skin. John’s other hand barely touches beneath his right eye, almost catching on his bottom lashes, where the white of his sclera is still stained red. Sherlock’s stopped breathing.
“Everything,” John whispers. The hand on Sherlock’s cheek drops back down to the center of his chest, where he kneads into the scar that his wife had made. “I have everything to apologize for.”
And then Sherlock’s face shatters, so wonderful and horrible all at once, and John’s nose is squashed against his neck when his arms pull him back and tighten, elbows hooked around his shoulders and chest shaking in quiet sobs. John goes willingly and wraps his arms around Sherlock’s waist, murmuring words into his skin that he couldn’t remember if he tried. They’re broken, John knows, and all that’s left for them is to shudder together through the pulsing waves and try not to drown.
It’s an unsure thing, after all of this when John draws himself back to the present, if he’ll drift to sleep or cry his eyes out.
And yet, despite that, he always takes the gamble.
* * *
Hours later finds the pair (and a half) at a small café on Camden’s Passage for brunch, satiated on crepes and crisp summer fruits. Sherlock’s lips are tinged with blue from the candy floss earlier that prompted his appetite, but it’s too endearing to be pointed out.
“Overall a successful morning,” John says, having bought a cloth bag currently bulging with all of his purchases. He’s delightfully content, stomach full but not yet bursting at the seams. It’s one of those simple moments, so warm and comfortable that John has to make more of an effort not to smile.
“Quite,” Sherlock replies, fiddling with a 3D puzzle in his hands. Rosie is entertaining herself with a bundle of straws. Sherlock suddenly looks up, eyes narrowing at John in that familiar, thoughtful way that should be more unnerving than it is. “What did you buy for me?”
Damn. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
Sherlock makes a pleased sound, setting the puzzle off to the side so he can fold his hands together. “Multiple presents? I must’ve been a very good boy this year.”
John rolls his eyes, perching his chin in his palm. He lightly taps their feet together beneath the table, which isn’t too difficult considering it’s only truly big enough for one. “Yes, multiple. How’d you know I bought you something? Sitting on my wallet at a slightly different angle, am I?”
Sherlock snorts. “I hardly have to deduce you anymore,” he says. “I know you too well. I can tell, at the very least, that you’ve certainly bought nothing for yourself. You would never go to a shopping area with a wallet full without purchasing something for me and Rosie. Obviously. In fact, I’d venture to say that there’s even something for Mrs. Hudson in that bag.”
“Obviously? Why obviously?”
“Because,” he says, eyes boring through John’s and tendering the barest amount, “Between the both of us, I’m the brain. That leaves you the heart, and you never fail to do something kind for someone else. You’re more heart than I am brain. That’s why, ‘obviously’.”
Despite his thrumming heart, John pretends to ponder over that for a moment. “You just called me an idiot again, didn’t you?”
Sherlock groans to the ceiling with a smile that betrays him. “Of course that’s the part you’d focus on! I’m not always out to insult your intelligence, you’re aware.”
“I don’t know,” John says, using all of his strength to hide his own grin. He leans down to rummage through his bag. “Am I capable of being aware?”
“Oh, for God’s sake - what are you doing?”
Rosie’s fussing, so John pulls out a toy cell phone he had gotten inside one of the stores. Instead of pressing the light-up buttons, it goes right into her mouth. “I’m going to give you the presents I bought, as per your not-deduction.”
“Don’t bother. You were planning on them being a surprise, I’d rather wait and see if you can manage to catch me unawares.”
John looks at him for a long moment, still, and then nods. “Okay,” he agrees, and then lugs up his bag to his lap.
Sherlock looks alarmed. “John, I said-”
“I know what you said,” he says. “You’d be more surprised by me giving them to you after agreeing not to, wouldn’t you say?”
Before he can reply, John dumps an armful of stuff onto the table, a balanced variety of just enough randomness to avoid a pattern. The tiny makeup box nearly falls off the table, but John catches it with a quick hand. “Happy Christmas, Birthday, Halloween, Easter… all of that.”
“John,” Sherlock breathes, eyes alight and a touch overwhelmed for the briefest of moments. John fears he’s going to cry. But then, blinking himself back to the present, Sherlock grins. “Are those Star Wars socks? I thought you knew me better.”
“Turn ‘em inside out.”
He does, his nimble fingers flipping the fabric. He hums at the sight of Leonard Nimoy, hand raised in the Vulcan salute with ‘Illogical’ typed in bright red boldface. “There we are. Though this has to be some sort of copyright infringement.”
John shrugs. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Sherlock huffs and digs some more, past the makeup (for last-minute disguises) and a withered 1929 edition of Shakespeare’s Henry V (the only literature he’s admitted to liking), and his hands freeze above a navy, rectangular box. His fingers flutter.
Before he can ask, John says, “Yes.”
He studies John for a beat, and then gently turns back to the case and slides off the top. Nestled in maroon velvet is the pipe. “I…” he starts, and he’s looking at the box so lovingly that John nearly feels jealous. Perhaps a bit more than ‘nearly’. Sherlock swallows audibly. “You bought it.”
“Of course I did,” John says, turning his head to watch his daughter gnaw on her toy. In reality, he just can’t face the raw emotion in Sherlock’s eyes, not in the middle of a half-empty café in Islington without preparing himself beforehand. “You shouldn’t be surprised.”
“John,” Sherlock says again, shaking his head. “Why?”
John sits back up in his chair, and at the look on his friend’s face he suddenly wishes he could ruffle his hair without looking like a lovesick fool. As it is, he’s not doing much better. “You… you don’t seem to realize that you have an even bigger heart than I do. That hardly means I have the brain, obviously you have enough for the both of us, just.” He scratches at the back of his neck, embarrassed. “I’m shit at this, you know. You’ve been a saint about all of this, of the baby crying in the middle of the night and the diaper runs and being, frankly, the best godfather a bloke could ask for. I just thought… I should return the favor, is all. For being, well, you.”
For a long moment, Sherlock just stares at the pipe in his hands, blinking furiously as if he’s battling something in that great mind of his. And then a piece in his expression breaks, and he sets the box down to scrub his hands over his face, propped up on the table. John watches, alarmed, as he takes in a slow, shaky gulp of air. And then: “You should warn me,” he says in a gruff voice, muffled by his palms. “When you. Do that. When you say those things.”
Sherlock’s face is still hidden. John feels relief that he didn’t break his best friend, and then fondness, and then… well, he thinks. Something new. Something awfully familiar, though something he’s never felt this potently before. Something he probably knows the name to, but would never even think of in fear of inducing a panic attack. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but then realizes that he doesn’t even know where to begin.
And then Sherlock looks back up, eyes glassy and touched with red, and the way he looks at John says more than John ever could. It also utterly, unbelievably terrifies him. So John does what any other emotionally-constipated British male would do in the face of public intimacy: he makes a joke.
“Are you going to try out the makeup kit here? I don’t know if it’s quite your shade, but there’s some lipstick in there that I think will-”
Sherlock laughs, and by the relaxing of his shoulders John can tell he’s also relieved by the change in subject. They look back to the table. There’s only a few more little things that John nabbed up, and Sherlock sets down the pipe to instead study a piece of sheet music.
“‘Con te partirò’ for violin,” Sherlock reads aloud.
John shrugs. “It’s not an entirely selfless gift. That’s my favorite opera.”
“That’s everyone’s favorite opera,” Sherlock says drily, but he’s smiling all the same. Then his brows furrow. “Where did you get this?”
“There’s small music shop me and Rosie passed through. You were in the loo.”
“Hm.” He collects together all of the gifts, and then reaches beneath the table to heft up his own half-filled cloth bag to gather them into. Oh, John thinks with vague surprise; he hadn’t even noticed Sherlock had bought a few things himself. John’s nothing if not unobservant, as per usual.
Sherlock clears his throat. “Is it alright if we stop by the shop on our way out?”
“Of course.”
They’ve already paid. John hooks his bag over his shoulder and then picks up his daughter, perching her on his side. Before they can leave, Sherlock purses his lips and skirts around the table to gently transfer Rosie to his own arms. John lets her go willingly. Neither men move, and Sherlock shuffles from foot to foot.
“John,” he says, evidently his favorite word at the Moment (well, most moments). His eyes dart from his shoes to the window to quite literally anywhere else, but when he finally settles on John’s face, his stare is purposeful. “I… that is, thank you. Very much.”
John smiles, almost sadly. Slowly, carefully, he reaches up a hand onto the other man’s shoulder, thumb brushing the skin opened by his collar. Sherlock’s eyes widen. John doesn’t do anything else, just simply squeezes the warm muscles and bones there and takes a breath as if to speak, but then it rushes out of him in a sigh and his smile dwindles, feeling his face and his eyes open awfully into something he can’t name. His hand drops down to Rosie’s head, softly brushing her curls, before John releases them altogether to turn towards the doorway.
It’s a few seconds before he can hear Sherlock follow.
* * *
John wonders if he’s always been this way. If Sherlock’s been this sensitive this whole time, where an errant compliment or a word from Rosie could push him to tears, if the moment gives. If his emotions have always been so plainly written across his face, and if John has just been so unbelievably unobservant about noticing them.
He thinks back to before the Fall, to the days where Sherlock was striking and harsh, cool and calculating, permitting an impossible air of condescension and capable (oh-so-willing) of tearing apart any passerby with his sharp tongue. Like he was always trying to prove himself. John had felt used, those days, like he was merely there to pass the time, but he didn’t care. He finally felt alive. He was using Sherlock as a replacement for Afghanistan, after all, so it would be wrong to mind it happening to him. They were both a bit not-good, even from the start.
He thinks of the pool. He thinks of Mrs. Hudson after those Americans had tied her up. He thinks of the rooftop, Sherlock’s hand stretched and grief clear over the phone, of the tears so unlike any disguise he’s ever put on.
The truth is obvious; of course Sherlock’s always been this way. He’s just been so impossibly scared of showing it all. Of showing it to a world that’s done nothing but condemn him for his differences, of showing it to a flatmate that’s done the same. - Friend? - Colleague.
- You machine.
If John ever admits that to himself, however, he’ll drown so far into his own personal pit of self-loathing that he won’t be able to climb himself out.
He wonders why Sherlock never blames him.
* * *
“Ball!” Rosie cries in delight.
“That’s a banjo, Rosamund,” Sherlock corrects, squinting at the label on the violin strings in his other hand. Anything vaguely round is a ball in Rosie’s book. John shuffles up behind them, dropping a kiss to his daughter’s head and peeking at the box in Sherlock’s hand with a frown.
“I haven’t heard you play much anymore,” he says.
“Then the sheet music wasn’t one of your brightest ideas,” Sherlock shoots back, tilting his head in John’s direction with a smile to soften the blow. There’s an extra second of silence before he continues. “I don’t play at the flat. Not recently, anyway.”
John nearly asks why, but then remembers. Sherrinford. Eurus. Sherlock’s nearly day-long absences once every few weeks, ones that John already knows the reasons behind but would rather not ask after. He misses hearing Sherlock play, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the violin has bad connotations at this point. He mentally chides himself for buying the sheet music. Instead of lingering on it, he hums in acknowledgement and turns back to studying the woodwinds on display.
Sherlock clears his throat and puts the box back on the shelf. “They don’t have my preferred brand here,” he says as he shuffles Rosie to his other side. He peers down at her face, his deduction effortless and gentle. “I believe it’s nearly nap-time, wouldn’t you say?”
“No,” Rosie protests, but it’s half-hearted. Sherlock chuckles and nods to the shopkeeper, turning on his heel with John right behind him.
And then promptly freezes.
In front of him, propped up beside the door with a fine layer of dust clinging to its strings, is an acoustic guitar.
“Sherlock?” John asks in worry, rounding around to study his friend’s face. Sherlock’s pale eyes are wide, unblinking, and the pulse fluttering at the hollow of his throat is the only indication that he’s still alive. He’s staring at the instrument as if it’s a treasure he’s spent his life trying to find, or a long-lost family member (bad analogy, disregard). His mouth is slightly parted. John waves a hand in front of his face, but as he figures from experience, not even the man’s pupils show any indication of noticing.
“Is your friend alright?” The shopkeeper asks, an older man with hair down to his waist. John almost replies, but he instead presses his lips together in a tight semblance of a smile, nodding a vague assurance, and turns back to the matter at hand. He’s not sure what he should do. At the very least, he plucks his daughter from Sherlock’s arms in case the mental absence is a hint towards something worse, Rosie none the wiser.
It takes a few moments for Sherlock to realize that his arms are curled around nothing, but when he does, he rushes back to the present with a whoosh of air. He looks at his hands dumbly, then John’s arms, and his eyes are absolutely lost. “I…”
“Are you okay?” John asks, scanning over Sherlock’s face. “We lost you for a minute there.”
“Thinking,” Sherlock murmurs, brows furrowed. He reaches out a hand to touches Rosie’s back, as if the contact gives him strength. He takes a deep breath in, then out. “Something I haven’t thought about in years. Many years. I…” His mouth curves into something bittersweet. “I used to play.”
John blinks. “You used to play the guitar?”
For once, Sherlock doesn’t comment on John’s redundancy. “Yes. Briefly. It was during secondary school, when I was eighteen, and it encompassed my attention that whole summer. This is the same brand, perhaps even the same model. Seeing it… took me by surprise.”
John imagines Sherlock cutting a sharp line with a violin perched on his shoulder, the music guiding him into something both charming and oddly alien, passionate and powerful and unspoken in its elegance. John would’ve never imagined him over something as casual and as warm as a guitar, and he’s not even sure he could conjure up an accurate picture in his mind if he tried. “You don’t seem the type,” he says carefully.
“I’m not,” Sherlock replies quickly, shaking his head, moreso to clear it than anything else. He huffs out a laugh. “I was trying to impress someone.”
Before John can comment on that, the shopkeeper shuffles forward. “Never fails to impress the birds,” he chuckles, and then pauses to study the taller man from the corner of his eye. ‘Or the blokes’ is unspoken, but implied.
To John’s horror, Sherlock snorts and says, “It certainly did the trick.”
“An Alvarez 5029, ash wood,” the man says, as if John hasn’t just had the shock of his life. ‘Romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for others…’ rings through his head, and he realizes with a jolt that it wasn’t a metaphorical statement. Sherlock knew from experience. “She’s a beauty, and has been sittin’ on her stand for far too long. You interested?”
Sherlock spares a glance and Rosie, where she’s dozing off on John’s shoulder. He quirks his lips. “No, not today. I’m sure I couldn’t even make a decent sound, given the chance.”
“That’s what practice is for!”
They banter back and forth for a bit. John tries to stop thinking about Sherlock in love, of clumsily learning chords for an unseen figure perched on his bed, of stuttering and blushing and tripping over his feet and holding out a hand to hold another in his own. Of intimate nights in the dark, of movie theaters, of playful laughs and touches, of pulling another to his chest and letting the same be done to him, and of loving with all of his great big heart with a passion that he’s purged for the past twenty-odd years. John tries to stop thinking about it all. He’s wholly unsuccessful, to the surprise of no one.
“John?” Sherlock asks, drawing their eyes together. “Are you ready to leave?”
He’s decided not to buy it. The shopkeeper took it with good humor, waving them away with a promise that he’ll keep it warm until Sherlock decides to come back for it. Now the man’s back at his work table, polishing the bell of a french horn with careful, precise movements. John stares until he realizes that Sherlock asked him a question.
He opens his mouth, closes it, and then nods, once. Sherlock’s eyes narrow.
“Yes,” he says. “I’m ready.”
* * *
Rosie sleeps through the whole cab ride, and Sherlock stares. John can feel his eyes on his cheek like a physical thing, and he stubbornly refuses to call him out on it or, god forbid, meet his gaze. The air is thick with things unspoken, and John’s head is filled to the brink with questions unasked.
When they arrive to 221B, Rosie is just rousing from her nap, so John changes her nappy and sets her into her favorite toy, a seat surrounded by a variety of knick-knacks where she can jump and spin around to entertain herself. It’s taken up a permanent, colorful residence in the sitting room. Sherlock is wearing a hole into the rug as he paces, face unreadable, and John just sits in his chair and waits.
He doesn’t wait for long. “Oh, go on,” Sherlock finally sighs, falling into the chair opposite and sweeping out his hand. The mild annoyance in his features is oddly comforting.
John doesn’t put up any pretenses. He quotes, almost conversationally, “‘It certainly did the trick’.”
Sherlock’s sigh is completely overdramatic. “Yes, John. Whenever I was an adolescent, and my hormones had pushed my emotions towards ridiculous heights, I had engaged in a… frivolous romance.” There’s bitterness in his voice. “The mistake was never repeated.”
John nods, eyes drawn to the fabric of his jeans. “To confirm,” John says slowly, while his brain flashes warning signs at him (to no avail), “This was with a…”
A beat. “With a what, John?” Sherlock asks in a suspicious voice. “Use your words.”
“Yes, fine. Was it with a woman, or another man?”
It’s silent. When John finally looks up to meet Sherlock’s eyes, he’s surprised to find the other man staring him down with quiet disappointment. There’s also a sense of bewilderment there, as if he just saw a third arm spontaneously sprout from John’s head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Well, how am I supposed to know?” John demands with a fling of his hands, gesturing vaguely in Sherlock’s direction. “You… The first time we met, you told me that women aren’t your area. But then, after that, you saved Irene doing god knows what else, you spent weeks with Janine, and…”
He trails off when Sherlock drops his head into his hands, grounding the heels of his palms into his eyes. He makes a pained sound. “I’m not going to call you an idiot in front of your daughter,” he says through his teeth, evidently the most irritated he’s been at John in months. “So I’m merely going to think it very, very hard, in hopes that you’ll telepathically take the hint.”
Said daughter is watching them with wide, unbothered eyes, as if they were both on a television screen. John ignores the insult and licks his lips, attempting to make his case.
“Sherlock, I just, you’re my best-”
“That hardly forces me to-”
“You can deduce everything about me, and yet you’ve never told-”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s hardly come up in-”
“It’s come up in plenty of-”
“ Why is it important? ”
John stops with a sharp inhale. “What?”
The falter is all Sherlock needs to come in for the kill, bracing his hands on his armrests and leaning forward in an oddly predatorial move. “Why. Is. It. Important?” he enunciates. He’s nearly smiling, but there’s no humor in it. He’s sharply reminiscent of the man John had first met at Bart’s. “You seem to have an obsession with my private life, emphasizing on sexuality, where you’re constantly skirting around the issue with passive aggression and thinly-veiled jealousy. Jealousy for what? Glad you asked, because I have absolutely no idea, seeing as you’ve spent every waking moment assuring the world that ‘John Watson is not gay!’” He does the impression with flourish, shooting up to round around the clutter towards the front door. John almost follows him, except his limbs won’t move and he can’t even think about what he’d do when he caught up to him. His breathing is uneven.
“So,” Sherlock continues, “Despite countless assurances that Janine was for a case and that absolutely nothing happened with the Woman, and the fact that you’re still harassing me about it all years later, I’m at my wit’s end.” He stops by the hatrack, suddenly, utterly deflated, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “John,” he says tiredly. “Why do you need to know?”
When there’s no immediate answer forthcoming, he huffs out a breath and reaches for the doorknob, intent on roaming the streets of London aimlessly until his legs can’t hold him anymore, presumably.
John’s words surprise them both.
“It’s... important,” he says slowly, fists clenching and unclenching on his thighs. He feels flayed open by Sherlock’s rapid-fire accusations, so familiar and so much more cutting than he remembers, and it’s just this side of too much. He swallows. “It’s definitely important, it’s... something I need to know. There’s a reason. I can’t… I can’t say why, yet. Can’t tell you exactly. Not until I can come to terms with it myself.” He looks up towards the doorway, heart hammering so hard he might pass out. Anxiety thrums his blood. “Alright?”
Sherlock’s lips are tight, brows furrowed in frustration, but he relaxes just the barest amount. He blinks once, twice. “Okay,” he says simply.
John lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, and then scrubs a hand over his face. “Go back to the music shop,” he says. “If you want, I mean. Buy the guitar. I’d… I’d like to hear you play. Really. And I think you’d like to play it again, too. The way you looked at it…” He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself if you decided to go tomorrow and it’s gone.”
Sherlock’s biting the inside of his cheek, a nervous tic he’s picked up. “You’re bound to be correct once in awhile,” he finally replies.
John chuckles. They share a small smile, both apologetic, before turning their heads at the same time to break the gaze. Sherlock clears his throat pointedly before he leaves.
“His name was Benjamin,” he says, face turned away. “And he liked to sing.”
The door opens and closes, and the front door downstairs soon follows. The silence is deafening, so John pulls the Union Jack pillow from behind him and promptly screams into the fabric. Rosie giggles in delight.
* * *
Contrary to popular belief, John Watson is no stranger to being in love with a man.
Though, to be completely fair, John builds up this ‘popular belief’ himself with his constant denials over anything that strays away from strictly heterosexual; Sherlock, at least, was correct about that. Ella Thompson said that this is due to internalized shame from a homophobic household, after he had disclosed the absolute chaos from Harry’s coming out. Ella also said that she wanted him to shed out of his comfort zone, to release the preconceived notions his father had thrust upon him and, oh, to try going to a place with a distinct homosexual setting to see if any of it appealed to him.
So, John promptly switched therapists and then nearly died. Maybe that was destiny telling him to get his arse into gear.
John Watson has been in love twice before in his entire life; once, with a perfectly normal woman who had built him up from the ashes she had found him in, and then had (of course) revealed herself to be a dangerous assassin right before getting herself killed.
Second, with a man named James Sholto.
It was an innocent love, one built from long nights of talking beneath desert stars and brushing fingers with chaste smiles. It was an attraction of the mind, of seeing another person for their soul and even the dodgy, messed-up bits, and then still finding yourself wanting to see more. It was the oddest, most wonderful thing. He wasn’t attracted to him like he was a woman; there were no possessive kisses, or an all-encompassing lust that he could hardly bear. No, he wanted to know James as he’d never known another person, and he would take as much as he could in return, even if it meant fantasizing about hot nights under a tent barely big enough for two, spending hours and hours filling each other up to the brim.
Nothing ever happened. Nothing could have ever happened. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest environment for a relationship, especially between ranking officers. Nothing could have happened afterwards, either, because then James was nearly blown up and blamed for dozens of deaths, and a month later John was shot in the shoulder, and the fates decided that whatever it was wasn’t in the stars for them. And then they both were definitively, irrevocably, wholly messed up beyond repair.
John Watson has been in love twice before in his entire life, and each time ended in disaster.
His brain keeps trying to add on an asterisk with a (3x) noted at the bottom, but he pretends he can’t hear it.