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John had never wished so much for a plague to descend upon London.
The work day had been excruciatingly slow. A beautiful spring day, everyone outside enjoying themselves and apparently healthy as can be, because John spent most of the afternoon in his office surfing the internet for stories about Sherlock to pass the time. Any other day he would have texted with Sherlock, annoying him and being annoyed in return in a way he found strangely comforting. In his more delusional moments, he liked to believe it was their form of flirting (ha). Sadly, he’d left his phone at home, so his dive down the Google rabbit hole was his only comfort.
And a cold comfort it had been.
When he finally stumbled into 221B at half five, John felt as if his soul had been sapped of life. His first instinct was, of course, to seek out Sherlock, whose presence always lit the fire in John’s chest when it had gone cold. That felt a bit too pathetic, though, after the way he’d spent his day, se he bypassed the sitting room and went straight to his bedroom to indulge in a few minutes of quiet decompression. Fresh clothes, a moment to collect himself, then maybe he’d grab his phone and see if Lestrade wanted a pub night.
The bedroom door had barely clicked shut behind him before the shout came.
“JOHN!”
Ah, how that voice managed to make his heart leap and annoy the piss out of him at the same time. So much for avoidance. John descended back to the sitting room and found Sherlock seated in the kitchen with his eyes glued to his microscope.
“You left your phone here,” Sherlock said, throwing the offending device at John without looking. “It’s been ringing for almost two hours. I very nearly added it to the blender experiment. Who’s Charlie?”
A warning pricked at the back of John’s neck.
“My cousin, Charlie? We haven’t talked in probably two years. Decent bloke, he comments on the blog occasionally, but why…”
John trailed off as he skimmed through the string of texts, a solid ball of ice forming in his stomach.
3 missed calls
Charlie W 16:32
Charlie W 16:33
Charlie W 16:41Charlie W:
Johnny I’m so sorry I wasn’t thinkingCharlie W:
I thought they’d get their heads out of their arses if they saw what you were up toCharlie W:
Famous and all that, catching criminalsCharlie W:
They read the whole blog thoughCharlie W:
You know how they are Johnny, I tried to talk to themCharlie W:
They’re on their way overCharlie W:
Your dad isCharlie W:
It’s not goodCharlie W:
You should probably leaveCharlie W:
Damn it JOhnny WHERE ARE YOUCharlie W:
GET OUT OF THERECharlie W:
I’m so sorryCharlie W:
Call me when you get these to let me know you’re ok
Oh, god.
“Sherlock, listen to me,” he said, low and far calmer than he actually felt. “You need to get out of here, right now, and don’t come back until I tell you it’s safe.”
Sherlock scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Whatever it is, I assure you I can handle it.”
“Sherlock—”
A knock at the front door.
Mrs. Hudson answered, but if there was any conversation with the arrivals, it was brief and quiet. Two sets of footsteps made their way up the stairs, firm and decisive, until an older couple entered the sitting room of 221B without waiting for invitation.
They were older than he remembered. Obviously. In their mid sixties by now. The woman’s dark hair was thinning, her eyes dark and sad, her posture meek, and the man…
The man was John. John, if he were taller, broader, older.
Hard. Cold.
John’s spine went ramrod straight. At attention, soldier .
“Mum. Dad.”
John could feel the deductions flying a mile a minute behind him. He’d let Sherlock believe his parents were dead for a reason, and they wouldn’t take to him well at all. He had to get Sherlock out of there.
John’s father wasted no time getting to the point of their visit. His gaze focused over John’s shoulder, flicking over Sherlock as though he were dog shite on his shoe, taking in all the things John knew he would fixate on. The tightly tailored shirt that showed off his lean body,. Rolled-up sleeves that exposed beautifully toned forearms. The expensive trousers. The curls artfully arranged with hair product.
His father’s lip curled in a sneer.
“Is that him, then?”
John pressed his lips together, biting the inside so he didn’t say something to set off the bomb. Sherlock stepped slowly forward until he was at John’s side, his gaze darted between them all, uncertain. Finally, with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, he drew himself up to his full height and held out his hand for John’s father to shake. John tried to catch his eye, to warn him off, tell him no, but Sherlock never had been one to back down from danger.
“Sherlock Holmes. You must be John’s parents.”
When there was no response, no change in the man’s hard eyes and rigid posture, Sherlock faltered. He took back his hand with a shrug and looked to John for a cue. John shook his head ever so slightly.
“Sherlock, could you please give us a minute? Maybe… take Mrs. Hudson her casserole dish back or something.”
Sherlock nodded and backed away slowly, reluctantly.
“I’ll be just downstairs.”
If you need me, went unspoken. If there’s trouble.
John begged him with his eyes to just leave already , to actually go all the way down to Mrs. Hudson’s instead of spying in the hallway. If his father decided to start a fight, he didn’t want Sherlock involved. Didn’t want Sherlock hurt.
Not to mention what he might overhear.
Sherlock grabbed a casserole dish from the kitchen (the wrong one, not important right now) and ducked out onto the landing through the kitchen door, his footsteps echoing as he descended. A tiny bit of the tension in John’s chest unraveled, just a bit. He’d actually left. Good.
He didn’t want any witnesses for this.
When his mother finally spoke, it was with averted eyes and wringing hands.
“I thought you were over this, Johnny,” she said, her voice barely audible. “You get overly... attached to these men and it never ends well. No woman will want to be with you if you keep this up. If you want to move out, we can help you.”
John shook his head, breathing slowly through his nose. Stay calm.
Stay. Calm.
“This is different, Mum,” John said, surprised at how even his voice came out. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m happy right where I am.”
John’s father clenched his fists, a tell John knew all too well. He took an automatic step back into the kitchen, then shook his head, regretting his show of weakness. His father pounced.
“Oh, has he already turned you gay, then?” his snarled. “Already fucking your little detective boyfriend, are you? He looks like the type to take it up the arse, but who knows, John. You’re nothing like I thought you were. Maybe you’re the one who bends over for him.”
John’s body boiled over with sickening sensation; tense muscles, twisting stomach, a hot rush of suppressed rageful tears. He wanted to punch, scream, cry, fly apart and tear his father limb from limb, or maybe just find his gun and end it all, one way or another. He was fifteen again, terrified and loathing himself and so, so careful.
He didn’t want to be fifteen again.
Forty years old. A doctor, a soldier. Best friend and assistant to the most brilliant man of their time.
Proud of his life.
Of Sherlock.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” he said, so quietly, “but he is the best thing that’s ever bloody happened to me. If you cared about me at all, you’d be happy about that.”
“But do you have to be so public about it, Johnny? Your father and I have been getting all sorts of odd comments, but we never knew why until—”
“I did not raise you to be a fucking queer,” his father interrupted, cutting his mother off like she wasn’t even there. As usual. She shrank back, and he continued. “First your sister, now this? Following that fairy around the city, using that damn blog of yours to tell the whole fucking world how much you want to suck his cock—”
“ENOUGH!” John roared.
The silence rang with tension. John’s nostrils flared as he struggled to hold in his fury. This was it. No more. No more.
You can’t hurt me with this anymore.
“I know, okay?” he said, ragged, struggling to keep from shouting. “I’m perfectly fucking aware that I’m a goddamn queer and a big fucking disappointment to you. I’ve done everything I can to not be like this but it is what it is and if you don’t like it then you can fuck right off. This is who I am. You can disown me just like you did Harry, for all I care.”
And it shouldn’t hurt, it really shouldn’t, because he hadn’t spoken to them in years and he never thought about them and they weren’t part of his life in any way. But it did. Because they were his parents. Because it hurt to be hated for loving Sherlock, for something as essential to his existence as breathing. For something that would never, ever come to fruition.
And wasn’t that just the rub. He gave a huff of bone dry laughter.
“You’re wrong about one thing, though. Me and Sherlock? We’re not together. We’re never going to be together. Not because I don’t like men or because I don’t love him, but because he doesn’t do relationships. He’s never going to feel for me what I feel for him. And he’s ruined me for everyone else, so you know what? You got what you wanted anyway. You don’t have to worry about me shaming you in public by dating a man. I’m going to be ‘confirmed bachelor John Watson’ for the rest of my bloody life because I can’t bring myself to leave him and I can’t bring myself to find someone else. And it’s fine. I’m actually happier than I’ve ever been in my life. What I have right now? It’s enough. It’s all I need.”
His father’s lip curled into a sneer. “So you’re actually admitting it.”
John threw his hands up in the air, and his temper snapped.
“Yeah, Dad. Yeah, I admit it. I confess my dirty secret. I like men. I’ve sucked cock before. I’ve fucked and been fucked by men. And I’ve been in love with a man for years. Is there anything about this that isn’t clear for you? Should I go on? Should I tell you how many men, where, when, and how? Would you like to know how many men in Her Majesty’s Army don’t care who gets their prick wet, so long as it’s good? You were in the army, Da, you should know—”
John saw the punch coming and was ready for it. He’d never fought back before, but he was done, he was ready, he’d been to war, he’d taken down countless criminals, and he would let his father get in the first shot, but oh, after that— here it comes —
“GET OUT.”
The punch never landed. John’s father whirled around, body still poised for a fight, to face Sherlock looming in the open sitting room doorway. John’s mother cringed away from both her husband and Sherlock, hands over her mouth, but Sherlock didn’t even spare her a glance.
“You’re no longer welcome in my home,” Sherlock continued. “Leave. Immediately.”
“It’s John’s home, too,” his mother managed in a tremulous voice, then flinched when Sherlock stalked past her to take up position behind John with a hand on his shoulder.
“And if you hadn’t beaten into John that he should have respect for a man who obviously has none for him, he’d tell you to leave, too. You disgust me. Your son is the bravest, kindest, most loyal man I have ever had the great fortune of knowing, so for you to have lost him as you have is a true testament to just how great your tresspasses against him have been.”
John’s father went completely red.
“You don’t speak for my son!” he shouted, jabbing a finger at Sherlock. “You corrupted him, you filthy little—”
John lost it.
“That’s it, you’re done,” he said, low and dangerous. “You’re done. Get. Out. Of. My. House.”
“Please, Johnny…” his mother wept, but John shook his head.
“No.” He took a step forward, willing his features to be as hard as his father’s. “No, I won’t let you disrespect me in my own home, and I absolutely won’t let you speak to Sherlock Holmes like that in my presence. He is worth more—”
He cut off, choking on his own fury and fear and unshed tears. Shook his head. Closed his eyes.
“Just leave. And never set foot in our home again.”
Time passed. At some point, footsteps retreated down the stairs. The front door opened and shut. Silence reigned.
Long moments passed until, with his eyes still squeezed tightly shut, John drew in a shuddering breath, forced the words out.
“How much did you hear?”
A beat of silence. A shuffle of feet.
Then Sherlock’s arms wrapped around him from behind, and John flinched. Badly. Lungs burning, skin hypersensitive—panic setting in, he observed with detachment. He tried to pull away, but Sherlock only pulled him in closer, wrapped him up completely, buried his nose in John’s hair and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.
The kiss was like a hot brand. John couldn’t breathe.
“Sherlock, stop, please. You don’t have to do this.” His voice was utterly wrecked. “If you care for me at all, you’ll stop.”
He covered his eyes with a hand, willing himself to stop, stop. But one tear escaped, then another, rolling down his face and dripping onto Sherlock’s bare forearm.
“Just stop,” he said again. “Please.”
Sherlock leaned his forehead against the top of John’s head, his arms tightening into a fierce hug.
“That’s the thing about hiding, John. If you duck into an alley, the people on the street can’t see you. But you can’t see them, either. There’s something you’ve failed to observe in your desperate attempt to stay hidden.”
Another kiss to the back of his neck. A trickle of awareness crawled down John’s spine. Sherlock rained more and more kisses over John’s hair, his neck, his temple.
“Turn around, John,” he murmured.
John wiped his eyes, then shook his head.
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“Please.”
John’s legs were like lead, like stone.
Like forty years of hatred and violence.
He couldn’t. Physically couldn’t.
But he could turn his head, just a bit. Could tip back, breathe, then open his eyes and look up at Sherlock, into a face that was stormy and pleading and crinkled with pain and misery. He was utterly destroyed.
“See me, John,” Sherlock whispered.
He leaned in, and gently, so gently, brushed his mouth over John’s.
And like a baptism, like a cleansing fire, John let it all fall away. He moved. Turned. Pressed up, and in, and let himself sink into Sherlock’s arms, sealing their mouths together in the sweetest kiss of his life.
Again.
Again.
Sherlock cradled John’s face in his hands, wiping away tears with thumbs on cheekbones, and murmured into the scant inches between them.
“How I’ve loved you, John Watson.”
15 May
A HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT
This’ll be a short post. There’s no case. No crime. No wrongdoing of any kind, actually.
I just want the world to know that Sherlock and I are together.
Yes, I love him.
I’ve always loved him.
No one and nothing can make me feel anything but supremely grateful to have him in my life.
I am a lucky man indeed.