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“All I’m sayin’ is-”
“Oh, give it a rest, Seb; there’s no way she fancies you.”
“How would you know?”
“Because she asked me out for Saturday.”
The group burst into laughter, Sebastian’s jaw dropping as Irene smirked around a smug drag of her cigarette, but Sherlock only smiled obligingly, leaning further into the chain-link fence at his back.
A cool breeze whipped down across the concrete, channeled around the corner of the brick school building to where they loitered between a side door and the fences surrounding the sports pitch, and Sherlock shrugged his shoulders against the chill, regretting unzipping his leather jacket, the plain white t-shirt underneath doing little to block the wind.
“So,” Seb snapped, kicking at a loose stone with his heel as he self-consciously ran a hand over his slicked-back mane. “Probably just meant it as friends. Not everybody fancies you, ya know.”
“We’ll see,” Irene retorted, and Sherlock genuinely chuckled along with the others that time, tilting his head back as he watched the smoke drift up from his lips to the sky.
Sebastian glowered between them all, and then sighed, shaking his head as he tugged up the collar of his loose black jacket. “What about Becca?” he asked, turning to the blond man leaning against the fence at Sherlock’s left. “You still goin’ with her?”
“Nah,” Victor said, the fence rattling as he shook his head, pulling the cigarette away from his mouth to flick ashes into the breeze. “Dropped her. Too needy,” he added with a grimace, slipping a hand into the pocket of his dark jeans as he crossed his ankles, the logo on his new trainers standing out bright white against the black canvas.
“How ya mean?” Sebastian asked, and Victor shrugged, his blond hair shining in the sun like solid gold, and Sherlock was willing to bet it would be just as firm to the touch, the current style never something he could manage to compel his curls to abide by.
“Always wanted to know where I was, who I was with. Honestly, you’d think we were committed,” he replied, scoffing up at the grey clouds before sucking in another drag.
Sebastian nodded in understanding, but Irene only snorted, lifting a disparaging brow at him.
“But you were stepping out,” she remarked, and Sherlock’s stomach leapt as his hand froze, cigarette hovering just short of his lips. “Can’t blame her for being right.”
Victor narrowed his eyes at her, and then rolled them, huffing a derisive hiss through his nose. “I never stepped out on her,” he muttered, dragging in a last long hit before crushing his cigarette beneath his sole. “Three months, I never did more than dance with other girls.”
“Who said anything about g-”
Sherlock coughed, dropping his chin as he lifted the backs of his fingers to his mouth, shooting Irene a pointed glare through his lashes.
The woman narrowed her black-rimmed eyes back at him, the red scarf tied around her neck fluttering up to brush against the matching lips, but ultimately relented, shaking her head and sucking in a mouthful of smoke as she turned back to Victor. “Never mind,” she said, dropping her gaze to her high black heels as she stamped out the glowing embers of the discarded cigarette.
Victor looked over her suspiciously a moment, forehead furrowed, and then turned to Sherlock, an accusation in his glinting brown eyes.
Sherlock stared impassively back, quirking a brow of faux confusion as he shuffled his motorcycle boots closer to the fence, straightening his spine.
The blond eyed him a seemingly endless moment, and then turned away, apparently satisfied by the silent lie. “Anyway,” he clipped, flicking a hand in the air to dismiss the previous conversation, and then returned once again to bemoaning Becca to Sebastian’s deeply sympathetic ears.
Sherlock blew out the breath held captive in his chest, sliding his cigarette between his lips as his eyes involuntarily flicked to Irene, who was already watching him, her expression sharp with disapproval or disappointment, Sherlock not quite sure which won out to claim her face.
The woman’s head tilted slightly, her lips parting in a definite overture to speech, but, just as Sherlock’s heart began to hammer, the fence rattled violently at his back, drawing their attention and abating her attack.
A ball had hit the chain-link a few meters from where they stood, one of the impromptu lunchtime games on the lawn having apparently stretched beyond its bounds, and Sherlock barely had time to find the oblong leather object in the grass before it was being snatched up, tan hands protruding from the telltale blue-and-white-striped cuffs of the school’s rugby team jackets to pluck it from the ground.
“Sorry!” the boy called, lifting a hand, and Sherlock’s cigarette wobbled precariously in his grip, fingers trembling as his whole head filled with the frantic thunder of his heart.
John Watson smiled apologetically, eyes brilliantly blue even from this distance as the wind ruffled the short strands of his tousled blond hair, and he was just about to turn away, his shoulders already twisting, when his eyes locked with Sherlock’s, and he faltered, grip tightening on the ball within his sturdy fingers.
“John!” someone shouted, and the blond blinked, as if startled there were still other people in the world, his mouth parting almost dazedly as he turned toward the sound.
He quickly collected himself, however, swallow bobbing down his throat as he shifted the ball between his hands. “Coming!” he called, glancing back for barely a blink before he turned, jogging across to his impatiently waiting teammates and finally allowing Sherlock to breathe.
Sherlock held the cigarette tight between his fingers, hoping to stave off most of the shaking, but he could see Irene watching him out of the corner of his eye, and kept his face determinedly downturned as he breathed slowly in and out at the concrete he couldn’t bring into focus.
“Figures,” Sebastian muttered, staring after John through the chain-link. “Bulls acting like they got the run of the place. Especially Watson,” he added with a jerk of his chin. “What a square.”
“Still sore about him kicking your ass last year?” Irene quipped, Victor laughing as Seb glared.
“He did not kick my ass!” the man snarled. “It was a draw!”
Irene quirked a brow. “That’s not the way I heard it,” she replied, lifting her nails in front of her face as she absentmindedly admired the dark varnish. “I heard you were puttin’ down his sister, and he knocked you out in one punch.”
Victor laughed, the fence rattling with his mirth as Sebastian’s face reddened, but Sherlock only managed a weak smile, looking between the irate man and the smirking brunette.
“Is it true you needed stitches?” Irene mocked, eyes blinking with innocence as Sebastian sneered.
“Alright, alright,” Victor interjected, waving a hand, and Sebastian dutifully withdrew while Irene rolled her eyes, she and Sherlock never having had much patience for Victor’s self-awarded authority over the group. “So he’s a bit of a cube,” he muttered, shrugging his shoulders as he turned his head toward where the rugby game was breaking up, the lunch hour nearly over. “He’s not all bad. Wouldn’t’ve gotten through chemistry last semester without him.”
“He helped you?” Sebastian asked, and Victor shook his head.
“Naw, he just let me copy his homework sometimes,” he replied, pushing away from the chain-link as he stood upright. “Pretty cool once you get to know him, actually. Right, Sherlock?”
“Hmm?” Sherlock hummed, casually turning his head toward the blond.
“John Watson,” Victor needlessly clarified, bobbing his head back to where the man was moving toward the school with his friends, clapping one of them on the shoulder as he laughed. “You two used to be tight, didn’t ya?”
“You were?” Irene questioned, her eyes disconcertingly sharp, a look Sherlock knew meant nothing but relentless follow-up questions. “You never told me that.”
Sherlock swallowed, his shoulders stiff as he forced them to quirk a shrug. “It was a long time ago,” he muttered, feeling her glare pressing into his forehead as he ducked his chin, dropping his cigarette to the ground and stamping dark the embers with the heel of his boot. “We should go,” he said, looking carefully past Irene as he made his way toward the door. “I can’t miss any more maths.”
“Yeah, same here,” Victor sighed, shaking his head mournfully as he fell into stride beside Sherlock, “’cept mine’s physics. I’m shit at remembering those formulas. Don’t suppose you can help me study again this weekend, can ya?” He cast Sherlock a sidelong look, lifting a brow in implication, and Sherlock barely refrained from rolling his eyes, a groan of exasperated disgust clawing eagerly at his throat.
“No,” he replied instead, shaking his head, and Victor blinked, clearly taken aback. “I’ve already got plans.”
“Plans?” the blond scoffed, a mocking chuckle shaking his thin frame. “What plans? It’s not like you have any other friends! I don’t know what you’re gonna do next year after Seb and I’ve graduated.”
Sherlock snapped his head up, a retort sparking at the tip of his tongue, but Irene intervened.
“He’ll have me,” she snipped, narrowing her eyes as Victor turned around, “and he’s helping me with chemistry this weekend.” It was a lie, of course, but a well-told one, her expression remaining entirely blasé under Victor’s scrutiny. “Test next week,” she offered in explanation, dropping in a grimace for good measure, and Victor nodded in ignorant sympathy, oblivious to the fact that, though they did have a test next week, Irene most certainly did not need help.
“Fair enough. Maybe sometime next week, then,” he offered, flashing Sherlock a wink, and then broke away from them toward the science laboratories with Sebastian, leaving Sherlock alone with his nausea and Irene.
She was quiet longer than he thought she’d manage, her heels clicking at his side, but her psychology classroom was along the same route as his maths one, so there had never been any real hope of escape. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, and he turned to her, mouth already opening to play dumb when he caught sight of the lightning crackling in her gaze.
Slowly, he closed his lips, facing forward as they picked their way through the corridor of students. “Didn’t come up,” he replied, prompting a loud snort from the brunette, but she did not speak, just walked steadily at his shoulder as they neared her classroom door.
“How long ago was it?” she asked softly, her arm brushing against his as she leaned in. “You and John?”
Sherlock’s eyes stuttered over a blink, fingers curling to fists inside his pockets. “A lifetime,” he replied, and then darted quickly to the side, losing her in the crowd as he barreled away down the corridor.
*****
December, 1949
The tree was tall, but not quite wide enough to completely obscure his frame, and Sherlock wrapped his arms tight around his legs, tugging his ankles in as he tried to make himself small enough to disappear.
Everyone had said it was a beautiful service, and he supposed it had been by the typical standard, but Sherlock had found the bright colors of the innumerable flower arrangements jarring, artificially lurid against the barren December backdrop of the cemetery.
“Sherlock!”
He turned, peering around the bark to find the epicenter of the sound.
Mycroft had been a teenager last week, but he looked so much older now, tall and thin in a black suit with matching tie. He’d forced Sherlock into a smaller version of the ensemble before they’d left, and would probably be furious Sherlock was now sitting in the dirt with it, but Sherlock couldn’t find it in him to care. It might even be nice to be yelled at for a change, the house far too quiet since his mother had gone into hospital last week, what would turn out to be the final trip of many in what he was told had been her second battle with cancer.
He had been too young to clearly remember the first, but he liked that description: “battle”. It conjured up images of clanging swords and charging steeds, banners waving proudly in the wind. Not tubes and pale skin and the steady beep and hiss of the mechanical army that had slowly fallen in around his mother’s bedside as she’d worsened.
And now she was gone, or at least that’s what everyone kept saying. “Gone”, “passed away”, “lost”, fatuous euphemisms for a concept he was plenty old enough at seven to call by name.
His mother was dead. Synonyms were irrelevant.
“Sherlock!”
“Is that you?”
Sherlock started, blinking his bleary eyes up as he lifted his forehead from his knees.
A blond boy about his age stood a few feet in front of him on the slope, cheeks red from the wind. His jeans were too long on him, dragging in the mud around his worn trainers, but his blue jacket was too small, the cuffs hovering just short of his wrists. He tilted his head, blue eyes bright beneath a furrowed brow as he stepped closed, scanning over Sherlock’s curled figure. “Are you Sherlock?” he clarified, and Sherlock, after a moment’s hesitation, nodded. The boy frowned, the toes of his trainers stopping inches from Sherlock’s dress shoes as he looked down at him. “Aren’t you gonna answer?” he asked, and Sherlock shook his head, dropping his eyes to his knees.
“No,” he murmured, pulling his legs in as tight as he could.
The boy hovered a moment, the shifting of his shoes in the grass conveying his uncertainty, and then his feet disappeared, steps crunching at Sherlock’s left.
Sherlock assumed he was leaving, the general reaction speaking to him inspired in people, but then there was a scrape at the tree to his left, and he snapped his head around, finding the boy lowering himself down to the dirt beside him.
“You were at the funeral, weren’t you?” he asked, pointing a thumb back down the hill. “The big one over there?”
Sherlock blinked at him a moment, and then dropped his eyes to the grass between them, nodding at the flattened brown blades. “My mum died,” he said, and it was the first time he had, the first time anyone had, and, though he couldn’t quite understand why it came out beneath this tree to a stranger, it felt right somehow, like a weight he hadn’t known was hanging from his heart was suddenly cut free.
The blond nodded, pulling up a few strands of the withered grass, wet dirt crumbling away from the roots as he formed a small pile in front of his crossed legs. “My dad too,” he said, shrugging a shoulder. “Three years ago. We visit him around Christmas.” He waved a hand in vague gesture up the hill, and Sherlock followed the path of his fingers, finding the figures of a short woman and an older girl standing some distance away. “We always go get lunch after,” the boy continued, brightening as he turned to smile at him. “Speedy’s Diner. They’ve got the best milkshakes in London! That’s what mum says, anyway. She tried them all when she moved here with my dad,” he added in a mutter, tugging once again at the grass. “You could come if you want,” he offered, eyes focused down on the growing pile of plucked turf instead of Sherlock’s face as it spun toward him, jaw dropping. “Mum’s always saying I should make more friends.”
Sherlock stared, blinking dumbly as the boy smiled at him, clearly oblivious to the magnitude of his offer. “I- I-” he stammered, the boy watching him expectantly, and then blurted out the first thing that came to mind, his tongue loose with panic. “In cemeteries?”
The blond frowned, momentarily puzzled, and then laughed, throwing his head back to scrape his golden hair against the tree bark. “No,” he replied, shaking his head with a grin, “but I don’t think she’d mind.” He just smiled at him then, waiting for a response Sherlock was still too stunned to give, but then a shadow passed across them, drawing their attention up to a tall figure silhouetted against the hazy afternoon sun.
“There you are!” Mycroft blustered, glowering as he planted his hands on his hips. “Didn’t you hear me calling? Come on, Mrs. Hudson’s ready to leave.”
“Mrs. Hudson?” Sherlock echoed, bracing himself against the tree as he stood, the blond boy rising silently at his side. “What happened to dad?”
“He went back to the church,” Mycroft answered, the words casual enough, but there was something bitter in the stiff set of his jaw. “There were a few more papers he had to sign. Now, hurry up, we have to-”
“What are you doing up here?” Mrs. Hudson was slowly making her way up the hill, wobbling as her heels periodically sunk into the grass. “It’s going to rain again soon, and I won’t have you catching a cold on my watch!”
“Precipitation has absolutely no impact on-”
“You know what I mean,” Mrs. Hudson interjected, rattling a finger down at him, and Sherlock fell silent, pouting at the ground as he twisted the toe of his shoe in the dirt. “It doesn’t do anybody any good being out in this weather, and you without your coat. I told you to bring it, I don’t know why no one ever-”
“Mrs. Hudson?”
Sherlock snapped his head up in alarm, frowning between the blond boy and the old family friend, his confusion growing as Mrs. Hudson’s face lit up with a bright smile.
“John?” she breathed, looking over the young boy’s frame. “John Watson, is that really you? You were barely up to my knees last I saw you!”
“I was taller than that,” John contested, a faint blush tinting his cheeks, and Mrs. Hudson laughed, stepping toward him and throwing her arms wide as the boy sheepishly shuffled into the embrace.
“My god, how you’ve grown,” she mused as she pulled away, one hand lingering on his shoulder while the other brushed a stray strand of hair back into formation across his forehead. “Makes me feel old just looking at you!” she chuckled, and John smiled up at her, shaking his head.
“You’re not old, Mrs. Hudson,” he assured. “You look just the same.”
“Oh, you,” the older woman muttered fondly, tipping him on the chin. “Always said you were too charming for your own good. That’ll get you into a lot of trouble someday, you know,” she admonished, but John only smiled, nodding faintly at his trainers. The woman then looked beyond him, scanning across the tombstone-shadowed hills. “Is your mother here?” she asked, dropping her eyes to the boy once again. “I haven’t seen her since- since you moved,” she concluded, pained sympathy flashing across her face, and, as Sherlock watched John’s spine stiffen, clouds dimming his blue eyes, he thought he could make a fairly accurate assumption as to what event had preceded the Watsons’ decision to move.
“Yeah, she’s here,” John answered, pointing behind him to a ridge some ways off. “Her and Harry. We were just about to go to Speedy’s.” The sun reappeared in his irises, his whole demeanor brightening around a grin. “Do you wanna come too?” he urged, and then turned his eager gaze out to the three of them. “We can all go! I already invited Sherlock, so-”
“You did?” Mycroft blurted, flabbergasted, and Sherlock couldn’t even manage to glare at him, too shocked to see that John was already doing it.
“Yes,” he snapped, and Mycroft’s eyes popped, his mouth parting as he looked over John’s nine-year-old, barely-taller-than-his-waist form with something Sherlock had no other words for than grudging respect.
“I, um,” Mrs. Hudson murmured, biting at a corner of her lip as she shot Sherlock an anxious glance. “Well, I’m not sure-”
“No!” Sherlock interjected, rattling his head, and then recoiled slightly, embarrassed by her shocked stare. “No, I-I wanna go,” he mumbled, unable to look at anyone directly, but he thought he saw a dewy smile stretch across Mrs. Hudson’s face in the corner of his eye.
“Well, alright, then,” she said softly, and Sherlock barely had time to look up at her before there was a tug on his arm, a squeak of surprise issuing from his throat as he struggled to maintain his balance.
“Can Sherlock ride with us?” John asked as he held Sherlock at his side, and Sherlock barely heard Mrs. Hudson’s soft agreement, his head spinning as he gaped at the side of John’s face, watching it split with the boy’s brilliant grin. “Come on!” he then exclaimed, yanking Sherlock along as he effortlessly picked his way around divots of mud, his footsteps fast and sure as they made their way toward the hill his mother and sister had disappeared behind. “Do you like chocolate shakes?” he asked, his voice wobbling as they ran. “They make the best chocolate shakes, but Mum likes the strawberry better. Harry always gets mint chocolate chip, but I think mint’s gross, so I’ve never tried it. They have other kinds too, or just regular ice cream. Or sundaes! They have all kinds of sundaes, and you get to pick your own toppings, and…”
He carried on, discussing the different topping options and personal favorite combinations, and, though Sherlock was hearing him just fine, he wouldn’t have been able to repeat a single word of it, too busy staring at the sun glittering in John’s windblown hair and wondering if he’d still be there if he blinked.
*****
While Sherlock had escaped Irene for a time, one never could hope to entirely evade her, even if they didn’t have a class with her later that day. Of course, Sherlock did, and, as Irene walked into the chemistry lab, eyes piercing as they locked onto where he stood by the window, he wondered if he might have been better to leave the running until after the final bell had rung.
Still, she didn’t look particularly angry, tossing her bag onto their lab table with a heavy sigh as she began rooting through the contents, her thin fingers eventually pulling free a cigarette. She bobbed it at him, eyebrows lifting in question, but Sherlock shook his head, declining the wordless offer. Placing the cigarette between her lips, she quickly set up the Bunsen burner already placed on the table in preparation for their lesson, lighting it and bowing her head to dip the tip of the cigarette into the flame. It caught, a spark of orange amidst the blue, and Irene withdrew, twisting the flame off before joining Sherlock at the open window.
Sherlock watched her as she pulled the tobacco from her mouth, her lipstick clinging red across the white paper, and leaned forward, blowing smoke out over the view of the outdoor tables a few brave souls were already utilizing on their breaks. “Was that really necessary?” he asked, bobbing his head back toward the Bunsen burner, and Irene smirked as she drew the cigarette back between her lips.
“Probably not,” she conceded, dragging in a breath before releasing it in a swirling haze, “but it looked pretty damn cool.”
He laughing, shaking his head as Irene grinned at him, and then they lapsed into silence, Irene smoking lazily while Sherlock stared out over the schoolyard. “I didn’t tell you about Victor,” he said after a time, and, though he didn’t turn to her, he heard Irene shift at his side, her elbows drawing closer where they rested on the windowsill.
“You didn’t have to,” she replied, reaching out to flick ash down the side of the building. “He wasn’t exactly being subtle about it.”
Sherlock nodded just once, a quick jerk of his head, but he could feel Irene’s eyes on the side of his face, awaiting more.
“Are you sleeping with him?” she asked bluntly, and Sherlock spluttered over a startled laugh.
“What?” he blustered, but Irene remained unamused, her eyes hard as she stood up to face him.
“Are you sleeping with him?” she repeated, cigarette burning away on the ledge. “Because he’s been with a lot of people, Sherlock. You have to be careful.”
“You’re one to-”
“Don’t,” Irene interjected icily, a shiver running down Sherlock’s spine at the threat. “We both know you wouldn’t mean it anyway,” she added, slightly softer, but Sherlock still felt shame prickle at his throat, his eyes dropping away. Irene hovered a moment, shifting uncertainly, and then stepped forward, nearly pressing against his side. “Sherlock, are you-”
“I’m not sleeping with him,” he answered, eyes fixed on the white top of one of the lunch tables down below.
Irene paused, the indecision rolling off her in almost palpable waves. “Then…what are you-”
“Nothing,” Sherlock snipped, turning his shoulder away from her, a frail barrier against the questions he tried not to ask himself. “It’s just- It was only a few times.”
“What was only a few times?”
“Are you writing a book?”
“Sherlock!”
“What do you want me to say!?” Sherlock exploded, garnering several alarmed looks from the classmates that had started filtering in, and he dropped his voice before continuing, bowing his head in closer to the woman’s. “You want the details? The whole riveting story of me tossing him off in diner car parks while his Sophie’s inside watching her milkshake melt?”
Irene’s eyes widened, his words seeming to invoke more pity than the anger he was hoping for, so he looked away, glaring at his reflection in the pane of the window as he turned his face from her gaze. “Is that what happened?” she asked after a time, her voice too gentle to stay angry in the presence of, and he sighed, closing his eyes as he hung his head.
“One time it was at his house,” he murmured, shrugging his shoulders as he lifted his chin again, “but otherwise…” He trailed away, glancing out of the corner of his eye to see her nodding softly, turning back to lean out the window as she returned to her neglected cigarette. Sherlock hoped that would be the end of it, the start of class mere moments away, but then Irene’s voice broke the quiet again, drifting back to him from where she leaned out over her elbows.
“Why didn’t you tell me about John?” she asked, and he felt every individual muscle of his back contract, pulling his spine ramrod straight.
“There’s nothing to tell,” he replied, and Irene chuckled, grinding her cigarette out on the windowsill before tossing it out into the courtyard below.
“Didn’t look like nothing to me,” she muttered, flicking her brows at him, but, before he could retort, the door opened, their professor striding in and calling the class to order by his presence.
He settled for glaring at the back of Irene’s head as she glided past him, the two of them taking their usual seats, but, no matter how narrow his eyes got over the course of the lesson, the smirk never entirely left her lips.
*****
October, 1950
“Are you sure your brother’s home?” Mrs. Watson called out, rolling down the passenger window of her car, a blue Ford Anglia she insisted she’d never get rid of, no matter how many weird sounds it made.
“I’m sure,” Sherlock answered with a nod. “He never goes anywhere,” he added, smiling as Mrs. Watson laughed.
“Well, alright,” she chuckled, shifting the car into drive. “I’ll see you Wednesday after school, then,” she said, confirming their standing appointment, Sherlock always staying over at John’s Wednesday nights and most weekends now that school had started again.
“Bye!” Sherlock bade, waving over his shoulder as he took off up the path toward the front door, what he thought might be Mrs. Watson’s laugh chasing after him on the autumn breeze.
His hand lifted to his head, the newspaper hat crinkling beneath his touch as he ensured its safety, and hastily thrust his key into the lock, flinging open the door and startling Mycroft where he sat reading in a chair in the sitting room.
“What the-”
“Mycroft, look!” he cried, rushing toward his brother, who quickly marked his page with the ribbon stitched into the binding of his book. Stopping in front of the chair, Sherlock pointed to the hat on his head, hoping his finger was roughly in line with the haphazard skull and crossbones drawn on in black marker. “It’s a pirate hat! John made it for me,” he explained, gingerly adjusting the newspaper over his curls. “He made one for him too, but his doesn’t have the skull because he wasn’t the captain.”
“Oh, no?” Mycroft inquired, tilting his head. “Who was he, then?”
“The first mate,” Sherlock answered, and Mycroft chuckled, setting his book on the table as he stood.
“Naturally,” he murmured, and then bobbed his head, gesturing Sherlock to follow as he led the way to the kitchen. “What do you want for dinner?” he asked, waving his hand toward the small table in the corner as he opened the fridge, the family hardly ever using the formal dining room anymore. “We still have chicken from last night. Or I think one of Mrs. Hudson’s casseroles is in the freezer.”
“Can we have pancakes?” Sherlock asked, and Mycroft straightened up from peering into the refrigerator, an amused frown creasing his young face.
“Pancakes?” he questioned, pushing the fridge door shut as he turned toward Sherlock’s chair. “Why would you want pancakes for dinner?”
“John said he has pancakes for dinner sometimes,” he replied, absentmindedly tugging at the brim of his hat. “And bacon, but we don’t have any of that.”
Mycroft smiled, a small thing that did not reach his eyes, the dark orbs softening with something like sadness as he stepped closer to Sherlock across the tile. “You’ve gotten very close, haven’t you?” he supposed, tilting his head thoughtfully. “You and John?”
Sherlock dropped his eyes, a wriggling feeling he couldn’t quite make sense of nibbling at the pit of his stomach. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, twisting his fingers together in his lap, and Mycroft chuckled softly, bending down to meet his eyes as he moved in front of him.
“It’s alright to get close to people, Sherlock,” he said, smiling reassuringly as Sherlock peered up through his lashes. “You don’t have to be embarrassed about it.”
Sherlock hung his head again, watching his fingers as he twisted at a loose thread on his cuff. “Dad says it’s a waste of time,” he quoted, Mycroft’s jaw clenching in his peripheral vision. “A weakness.”
“Dad says a lot of things,” Mycroft snarled, his eyes dark when Sherlock looked up at him, glinting where they stared unfocused at the wall to his left. After a moment, he sighed, some of the tension unwinding from his body as he looked back down. “Look, Sherlock, Dad- He has his own reasons for feeling that way,” he said, fixing Sherlock with a steady look that begged absolute attention. “Bad reasons, wrong reasons. And you shouldn’t- You don’t have to worry about that, alright?” He bent down, reaching a hand out toward Sherlock’s shoulder, and then stopped, withdrawing it back to his side. “I’ll take care of it.”
Sherlock frowned, tilting his head as he surveyed his brother’s face, unable to understand the earnestness of the expression. “But…you’re leaving,” he reminded, and Mycroft blinked, his eyes dropping to the ground as he stood upright again, a swallow bobbing down his throat.
“Yes,” he mused, as if only just realizing he was in his final year of secondary school, “I am.” He stared at the floor a long moment, eyes darting side-to-side, seeming to be reading a text Sherlock could not see. “Still,” he continued, turning back to him, “you don’t have to worry about it. Just…maybe don’t talk about John so much around him anymore.”
Sherlock’s forehead furrowed, brows knitting together. “Why?” he asked, but Mycroft only smiled frailly, shaking his head.
“Just try not to, okay?” he repeated, and, when it became clear he would say no more, Sherlock simply nodded. Mycroft’s smile broadened, a hand reaching out to twitch the newspaper hat back to level where it had begun to tilt on Sherlock’s head. “Now,” he pronounced, turning toward the pantry as he tossed a grin over his shoulder, “about these pancakes…”
Sherlock beamed, leaping down from the chair and following after him. “With chocolate chips?” he gushed, and Mycroft laughed, throwing his head back as he swung open the painted white door.
“With chocolate chips,” he concurred, pulling the bag from a shelf while Sherlock went in search of a mixing bowl.
*****
Sherlock managed to avoid Irene after chemistry was over, hiding out behind the school until he could be sure she had left, hitching her usual ride with Victor. Seb always took the bus, and Sherlock insisted he preferred to walk every time they offered, but really he just preferred the solitude. And avoiding Victor’s salacious smirks and thinly-veiled innuendo.
Pulling the cigarette from his lips, he sighed the smoke up to the clouds, closing his eyes as he grated his scalp against the rough brick wall, the stone warmed slightly from a day’s worth of sun.
At least they’d all be graduating at the end of this year, moving on, moving away.
Leaving him behind.
Sucking in one last drag, he dropped his cigarette, grinding it into the asphalt with the toe of his boot as he picked up his backpack from the ground, swinging it over his shoulder before starting toward the road.
“You shouldn’t smoke those, ya know.”
Sherlock stopped, eyes widening out at the lawn he couldn’t quite bring into focus, his heart instantly leaping up to thunder at the base of his throat.
There was a shuffle of movement behind him, the small clicks of a stone being kicked.
“They say they’re bad for you.”
Sherlock lifted a hand to the strap of his bag, nails scraping at the fabric as he gripped it, a tangible anchor for his panic-scattered mind. “They don’t know for certain,” he replied, voice only wobbling a little, and then his jaw snapped shut, a swallow forcing its way down his throat as he heard the footsteps drawing closer at his back.
“No,” the voice admitted, the footfalls halting what he would guess was about a meter away, “but they’re pretty sure.”
He did not reply, and the man did not continue, several beats of tense silence undulating between them as Sherlock weighed running away versus turning around.
“Sherlock?”
He flinched, fingers tightening around his bag, the too-gentle tone of the familiar voice lashing across his back like a whip. “What?” he muttered to the blurry grass beyond, his tone childish with petulance, but what else could he say when everything worthwhile was already two years left unsaid?
A shuffling sound crept up to his ears, the twist of a trainer on the asphalt, a telltale nervous tick the man had evidently not yet grown out of.
“I-I just- Will you turn around?” the voice blustered, growing confident in irritation. “I feel like I’m talking to a bloody mannequin or something.”
“Do they regularly talk back?”
“Sherlock.”
“What do you want, John?” he snapped, turning around, and it was quite possibly the second-worst decision he had ever made.
John Watson was not something that faded with time, his determined expression faltering a moment as blue eyes flitted over Sherlock’s face in confusion, and, for all Sherlock had imagined this inevitable moment, he found himself suddenly bereft.
He’d planned this conversation a million times, his retorts getting cleverer with every fictionalized encounter, but they’d never spoken, Sherlock carefully avoiding any possible scenario that would necessitate conversation. He hadn’t even been this close to John since that day apart from passing the corridors, and, although that hadn’t been a conscious effort, it had certainly been a good idea, Sherlock entirely unable to breathe, let alone speak, standing once again so near the memorized face.
John, for his part, didn’t appear nearly as affected, but there was still a slight stiffness in his throat as it bobbed with a swallow, jaw clenching a moment before he spoke. “I-I thought we could…talk.”
“Talk?” Sherlock scoffed, more because his throat was closing up than for any derisive reason, but John couldn’t have known that, his eyes narrowing sharply at the flippancy.
“Yes, talk,” he reiterated, and Sherlock turned his gaze out toward the lawn, shrugging his shoulders as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket.
“Why?” he muttered, and John huffed a bitter laugh, shaking his head down at his shoes.
“I dunno,” he replied mockingly, heel kicking out across the asphalt as he stepped closer. “Because we never did. Because I want to.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“I think you do,” John countered, frustration giving way to calm certainty, and Sherlock snapped his face up, staring at him with wide eyes a moment before he could collect himself enough to glare.
“Oh?” he taunted, tilting his head in faux inquiry. “And you know me better than I do how, exactly?”
John’s lips parted, forehead furrowing with frustrated incredulity. “Sherlock, we were best friends!”
“Yes, exactly,” he snapped, jaw aching as he grit his teeth. “’Were’. Past tense. And, seeing as that is no longer the case-”
“But why!?” John demanded, stepping forward in a rush, startling Sherlock into staggering a step back. “You never told me! Not really.”
“I-” Sherlock stammered, mouth moving soundlessly around syllables that clicked down to nothing in his throat. He then snapped his jaw shut, hands pulling from his pockets to clench into fists at his sides. “What do you care?” he spat, casting a snide look up and down the blond. “It’s been two years! Clearly it hasn’t been bothering you too much if you’re only just now asking about it.”
John laughed, sharp and decidedly unamused. “Sherlock, you are the smartest person I have ever known,” he said, shaking his head as he firmly met Sherlock’s eyes, “so don’t try playing dumb with me.”
Sherlock’s anger wavered, lips pressing shut as he swallowed, his fingers twitching with nerves as they uncoiled at his side.
John blinked his eyes away with a sigh, the blue a shade softer when it lifted back to him. “Look, I- I didn’t wanna fight,” he said, running a hand back through his hair, and Sherlock barely stifled a whimper, his vision blurring as the haphazard tufts of John’s hair slowly settled back into place. “I probably wouldn’t’ve said anything at all, but-but then today…” He trailed away, his eyes turning back over his shoulder toward the chain-link fence where Sherlock had seen him earlier. “I don’t know,” he murmured, shaking his head at the asphalt as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans, thumbs sliding along the seam. “It just- I graduate this year,” he said softly, looking up through his lashes, and Sherlock, caught off-guard, couldn’t quite suppress his flinch. John noticed, of course, lifting his face with a curious frown, and Sherlock swallowed, his allowed time for silence run out.
“I know,” he replied, voice wobbling treacherously.
John’s frown deepened, concern knitting his brow as he stepped forward, the distance between them getting dangerously narrow. “Well then, shouldn’t we- Couldn’t we-”
“I have to go,” Sherlock blurted, hastily backing away, his hand lifting in an iron grip on his backpack strap. “I-I’m supposed to help Dad carry some boxes into the attic.”
John blinked, dropping his eyes as he swallowed down at his trainers. “Oh,” he mumbled, Sherlock wincing at the sheer volume of disappointment a single syllable could produce. When John lifted his gaze again, however, Sherlock was composed, focusing on John’s forehead rather than the brilliant azure eyes threatening to tear him apart. “Right, well…do you need a ride?” he offered, stepping closer again as he waved a hand beyond Sherlock’s shoulder toward the car park. “Got a Devon a few months ago. Steering wheel shakes when ya go over 50, and the brakes stick a bit when it rains, but, otherwise-”
“No, I- No,” Sherlock interrupted, rattling his head as he adjusted his bag on his shoulder. “I-I prefer to walk,” he said, a lie he’d told a hundred times, but this was the first time he’d felt any guilt in it, John’s expression clouding in clear unbelief.
“Right,” he replied curtly, Sherlock turning his cheek to the shrewd gaze. “Guess I’ll see ya around, then,” he muttered, and Sherlock simply nodded, throat too tight for anything more.
He turned away, starting toward the road, when there was a small sound at his back, a faint puff of laughter he could almost believe he’d imagined if he hadn’t turned around to see John smiling sadly at the ground. “What?” he pressed, and John looked up, startled a moment before closing his mouth with a soft shake of his head.
“Nothing,” he answered, half his mouth lifting with an amusement that did not reach his eyes, “it’s just- You’d think I’d be used to it.” He held Sherlock’s gaze, forehead creased with stifled pain. “You walking away.”
Sherlock flinched, eyes fluttering closed as he set his jaw, a bitter swallow grating down his throat. Without a word, he turned his back, John’s eyes burning at the back of his neck until he rounded the corner, finally able to refill his lungs. His knees quaked beneath him, and he staggered, catching himself on the side of the building, the brick scraping open the skin of his palm as he crashed against it, panting up at the sky. Trying to swallow the heartbeat vibrating his trachea, he lifted his trembling hand in front of him, surveying the patch of dirty brick shards, the skin beneath slowly flecking with scarlet as blood rose up through the wounds.
“No, it’s stupid.”
“So was mine, but I told you.”
“Yours isn’t stupid.”
“And I’m sure yours isn’t either. Come on, tell me.”
“Fine. I-I always… I wanted to be a doctor.”
“You don’t want to anymore?”
“No, I still want to. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“I dunno. Hard.”
“So? You could do it.”
“Getting an early start on that detective thing, are you?”
“I’m being serious.”
“I know.”
“I think you’d be a great doctor. You took care of me when I got the flu last month.”
“That’s because you didn’t get the flu, you got a cough and melodramatic.”
“Still, you made soup.”
“Mum made soup.”
“You brought soup.”
“That, I did. …You really think I could? Be a doctor?”
“Yeah, I do. You might even be able to solve the great mystery of what the hell’s wrong with me.”
“I’m a doctor, not a psychiatrist.”
“Hilarious.”
“That too.”
Sherlock closed his eyes against the memory, resting his skull against the wall as he steadied his breaths, gradually slowing his heartrate to something less incapacitating. Opening his eyes, he blew out a last long breath, lifting free of the wall as he wiped his bloodied hand on the side of his jeans, shaking loose the brick to rain on the ground. He hitched his backpack up from where it had slid down his shoulder as he headed across the car park, eyes fixed forward, and, if a black A40 Devon passed him on the way out, he pretended not to notice.
*****
March, 1952
“So, we were in the cafeteria, right? And we’ve got maybe fifteen minutes before English, and Mary comes running in saying she’s forgotten to do the homework, and- Sherlock?”
“Hmm?” Sherlock lifted his head, looking up from the blue-grey carpet of John’s floor he’d been absentmindedly picking at.
John frowned, tilting his head down at him from where he sat on the bed, Sherlock seated on the floor against the wardrobe opposite. “Are you alright?” he asked, searching over him, and Sherlock nodded, dropping his eyes to his crossed legs.
“Yeah,” he assured, tone a little too high to ring true, “fine. So, er, what about Mary?” He looked up, tilting his head in what he thought was polite intrigue, but John only narrowed his eyes further.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Sherlock frowned, affecting puzzlement as his stomach twisted.
“Nothing,” he answered, and John sighed, sliding off the edge of his bed, his arms bent back to slowly lower him to the floor.
“Sherlock,” he said as he leaned against the mattress, crossing his legs, their knees less than a foot apart, “you are an excellent liar.”
Sherlock frowned, eyebrows knitting together as he waited for the punchline John’s smirk made clear was coming.
“With everyone but me,” the blond concluded, and Sherlock dropped his shoulders, unamused. “I’ve known you too long.”
“It’s been three years.”
“Yeah, but, with you, that’s like a lifetime!” he mocked, grinning at Sherlock’s glare. He then leaned forward, swatting across Sherlock’s knee “Come on, tell me,” he cajoled, but Sherlock only shrugged.
“I told you,” he muttered, swirling patterns into John’s carpet. “There’s nothing.”
John quirked a brow. “Okay,” he drawled skeptically, leaning forward as he braced his elbows on his knees, hands folded beneath his chin, “I’ll just have to guess.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, rattling his head as turned his gaze to the wall at his right.
“You…lost your Nat King Cole record?”
Sherlock sneered at John’s smirk, the blond chuckling at him before continuing.
“Didn’t get a perfect score on a test?”
“No, can we be done now?” Sherlock snapped, but John shook his head.
“No, I get three guesses,” he dismissed, and Sherlock opened his mouth to argue before thinking better of it, rolling his eyes at the eternal stubbornness of John Watson. “You…” John mused, licking over his lips in thought as he turned his eyes to the ceiling, and then suddenly dropped his gaze back to Sherlock, playfulness abruptly vanishing, “are worried I’ll have new friends by the time you start at the secondary school next year?”
Sherlock’s heart stopped, jaw dropping open. He quickly gathered it up, however, though not quick enough if John’s rising brow was any indication. “I- No!” he spluttered, shaking his head. “That’s- Why would you-”
“Sherlock,” John sighed, half chuckling as he reached forward, his touch warm and gentle where it landed on Sherlock’s knee, “you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I’m not!”
“Okay,” John said, leaning back as he lifted his palms aside his face, and Sherlock frowned down at his now-barren knee, perplexed by the sinking sensation the image provoked in his chest, “but…if you were-”
“I’m not!”
“But, if you were,” John barreled on, lifting a placating hand, and Sherlock folded his arms, glowering across at him, “you wouldn’t have to be.” He smiled softly, and Sherlock’s glare slowly faded, eyes dropping to his lap as he self-consciously twisted his fingers at the hem of his jeans. “I mean, yeah, I have friends at school,” John continued, scratching at the back of his neck as he shrugged, “but they’re not- I don’t- None of them are my best friend.”
Sherlock snapped his head up, eyes wide as he lips dropped apart.
John searched over his stunned expression, his own slowly contorting with confusion. “What?” he asked, tilting his head.
Sherlock blinked, a slow breath moving in and out of his lungs before he could reply. “Are you- Do you- I’m your…” He faltered, mouth moving soundlessly as John’s brows slowly rose expectantly.
“My…best friend?” he surmised when Sherlock did not continue, chuckling as Sherlock nodded. “Of course, you are,” he said, shaking his head fondly. “Who else would it be?”
“I-I dunno,” Sherlock mumbled down at his legs. “Mike, or-or Mary,” he said, chest constricting on the latter name. “You talk about her a lot,” he added, positive he had intended to say ‘them’, but John didn’t appear perturbed, not as far as Sherlock could see through his lashes, at least.
“Well, yeah, but-” John started, but Sherlock cut him off, shaking his head.
“Can we just drop it?” he muttered, and John slowly closed his mouth. “I really don’t care if you make new friends. I-I’ll probably find my own too,” he shrugged, plucking at a few clinging balls of lint on his emerald jumper. “It’s just what happens.”
“No, Sherlock, that’s not going to-”
“You can’t know that,” he interjected, snapping his face up, and John blinked, eyes darting between his. “You can’t.” He dropped his gaze away, bending his legs to pull his knees up in front of him as he rested his chin on the hard bones.
“Sherlock-”John began, mouth opening and closing in Sherlock’s peripheral vision, and then he turned, looking aimlessly toward his bedside table. Suddenly, his spine straightened, and he lunged to the side, snatching something from atop the nightstand before pulling it back into his lap.
Sherlock lifted his face over his knees, peering down at the box John was hastily opening, but the blond offered no explanation, and, eventually, Sherlock was begrudgingly forced into speech. “What are you doing?” he asked, frowning between John and the box in his hand.
“Proving you wrong,” John replied, Sherlock’s mouth opening to reply just as he freed the contents, a tan hand holding up a large plastic ball. “It’s a Magic 8 Ball,” John explained, shifting the enlarged black billiards ball between his hands. “Mum said it was the last one in stock. Apparently, it can tell the future.”
Sherlock stared at the object in John’s hands, and then up at the boy himself, his eyes slowly narrowing in consideration. “Have you hit your head recently?” he asked, and John rolled his eyes, turning the ball upside-down between them.
“No, look, see?” he said, gesturing down to a small clear window at the base of the ball, a triangular die slowly rising up through the blue liquid to reveal white letters proclaiming, ‘Don’t count on it’. “You hold it facedown, ask it a question, and then turn it over to get your answer.”
Sherlock blinked at the white lettering, mouth hovering open as he tried once again to process John’s words. “You get your answer…from a plastic ball,” he said slowly, eyebrow rising as John nodded. “And this is supposed to prove me wrong how?” he questioned, but John only rattled his head, turning the ball to rest the window on the carpet between them.
“Put your hands over mine,” he ordered, nodding his head down toward where his tan fingers rested over the plastic surface.
“Will it be unable to predict the future if I don’t?”
“Yes.”
“You are completely-”
John sighed, reaching forward to grab Sherlock’s wrists, pinning his hands beneath his own on the black plastic, and Sherlock’s retort died in his throat, his eyes fixed on the contact between them as something like lightning rocketed up his arms. “There,” John clipped, evidently oblivious to the shivers running up and down Sherlock’s spine every time his fingers shifted. “Now,” he started, straightening up as he lifted his chin, “Magic 8 Ball-”
“Jesus Chri-”
“-we humbly ask for your wisdom-”
“Are you taking the piss?”
“-in the very serious matter of Sherlock’s repressed emotions.”
“I’ll show you repressed e-”
“Will I, John Hamish Watson-”
“Hamish!?”
“Shut it, Sherlock. Forever and always like William Sherlock Scott Holmes-”
“Who the hell told you-”
“-more than anyone else I have or will ever meet.” Chin lifting imperially, John pulled his hands away, carrying the ball with him as he flipped it over between them.
In spite of himself, Sherlock leaned forward, watching as the die slowly rose up out of the murky depths, teetering precariously on an edge before pressing its verdict against the window.
Without a doubt
John beamed, smile only broadening the darker Sherlock glared. “Well, there ya have it!” he chirped, flipping the ball back around and stretching up to place it atop his nightstand. “The Magic 8 Ball has spoken.”
“And it would be foolish to doubt the assertion of a plastic ball.”
“Yes, it would,” the blond replied with a grin, and, uncontrollably, Sherlock’s mouth began to curl in reply.
Eventually, he simply laughed, shaking his head at the carpet between them. “You’re an idiot,” he muttered fondly, and John’s eyes lit up like the Christmas tree they’d put too many lights on and set on fire last year.
“So you tell me,” he replied, and Sherlock laughed, not noticing the door had opened until he heard Mrs. Watson’s voice.
“You boys ready for supper?” she asked, smiling between them as she wiped her hands with a dish towel. “Meatloaf and potatoes. And I chopped the onions finer this time,” she added with a wink to Sherlock, who felt all his blood rush to his face.
“You told her!?” he hissed at John, who shrugged with a guilty grimace, and Mrs. Watson laughed, shaking her head as she beckoned them with a wave of the towel.
“Come on, before it gets cold,” she urged, and then disappeared around the doorframe, her footsteps thumping down the stairs a moment later.
Sherlock turned, glaring across at John as the blond suddenly grew extremely fascinated by his fingernails. “You told her!?” he repeated, and John sighed, dropping his hands to his lap as he lifted his eyes to the ceiling, hopefully begging for mercy.
“It didn’t seem like a big deal!” he defended, and Sherlock shook his head, incredulous. “It’s not like you didn’t like her meatloaf at all, you just…didn’t like the big chunks of onion.”
Sherlock scoffed, folding his arms as rattled his head out at the door, cheeks still burning even in Mrs. Watson’s absence.
John fidgeted in the corner of his eye, teeth sliding over his lip. “Are you really that angry about it?” he muttered, but Sherlock did not reply, merely turning his cheek farther away from the boy. John sighed, hanging his head a moment, and then reached back up to his bedside table. “Magic 8 Ball-”
“Oh, for the love of-”
“-is Sherlock going to be upset about this all night?” John asked, turning the ball over where it sat in his lap, and, slowly, the words ‘It is decidedly so’ rose to the surface.
“Huh,” Sherlock mused, letting his arms fall from his chest, “maybe it can tell the future after all.” He smirked at John’s sneer, unfolding his legs and rising to standing as he made his way around John’s bed toward the door.
“Magic 8 Ball-” John started again, and, though Sherlock rounded on him, mouth opening, it was not his voice that interrupted.
“Are me and Sherlock really fucking annoying?” Harry Watson yanked open her door across the corridor, glaring first at Sherlock before looking beyond him to where John had stood up from behind the bed. “Because that is most certainly a yes.”
Sherlock didn’t move, knowing better after all these years than to irritate the elder Watson when her eyes were doing that crazy glittering thing, but John had never learned the signs, or perhaps never cared to, and came up to Sherlock’s shoulder, turning the Magic 8 Ball over in his hands.
“Actually,” he murmured, holding the toy out for her to see, “its sources say no.”
Harry looked between the words and John’s face, the latter smiling smugly while the former glared daggers, and Sherlock was caught in the middle, wondering if he could make a break for it to the stairs without being caught in the crossfire.
“Hurry up, you lot!” Mrs. Watson called from downstairs, unknowingly breaking up the showdown, and Harry leaned back, drawing herself up to her full height that Sherlock was quickly catching up to as she looked down her nose at them.
“I get the end pieces!” she blurted, and then bolted for the stairs, John tossing the ball back onto his bed before taking off after her.
“No, you don’t!”
“Snooze you lose, germ!”
“There are two end pieces, Harry!”
“And I need them both!”
“Like hell!”
Sherlock stood on the landing, shaking his head as he leaned over the demi wall, watching brother and sister grapple their way down the stairs. He then followed, coming into the kitchen just in time to see them struggling in front of the pan, practically sword fighting with their forks as they tried to snag the coveted pieces out from under one another.
“Here,” Mrs. Watson said softly, handing him one of the plates in her hands, a middle slice of meatloaf and pile of potatoes already arranged on them both. “They might be a while,” she added, bobbing her head toward the warring siblings, and Sherlock chuckled, taking his plate and following her out into the small dining room. “So,” the woman chirped as they sat down, taking the head of the table while Sherlock settled in on her left, “how’s school going? You had a project due last week, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Sherlock replied, grabbing the pepper from the center of the table, “science.”
“What did you have to do?” Mrs. Watson asked, scooping up a bite of potatoes.
“Whatever we wanted, really,” he replied, shrugging as he sliced through his meatloaf with the side of his fork. “Just had to be about some kind of animal. I did bees.”
“Just bees?” Mrs. Watson asked, frowning curiously. “All bees? Isn’t that a bit broad?”
Sherlock nodded, hastily trying to chew through his meat and potatoes. “I wanted to just do honey bees, but-”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, love,” Mrs. Watson interjected, and Sherlock ducked his chin, reaching out to grab his glass of water as he swallowed the food down.
“Sorry, Mum,” he muttered, and then froze, eyes straining in their sockets as his hand hovered in the air halfway through replacing his glass on the table. He could see Mrs. Watson slowly lower her fork out of the corner of his eye, but it took him a moment to command his muscles to look at her, his cup clattering heavily down onto the wood. “I-I’m sorry, I-” he stammered, but Mrs. Watson was smiling, shaking her head at him as her eyes glistened with dammed tears.
“No,” she whispered, a swallow rolling down her throat as she reached her arm across the table, hand gripping gently over Sherlock’s forearm. “Don’t be sorry,” she urged, shaking her head, and Sherlock had to drop his eyes from hers, a knot forming in his throat. “Don’t you ever be sorry,” she added, and then, suddenly, she was beside him, pulling his head against her chest as she wrapped her arms around him, an embrace he awkwardly attempted to return from his seat.
“Er,” said a voice from the doorway, and Mrs. Watson released him, both of them turning to find John and Harry blinking at them in confusion. “What did we miss?” John asked, looking between them, Harry peering curiously over his shoulder.
Sherlock instinctively turned to Mrs. Watson, but the woman didn’t seem like she would be of any help, dabbing her eyes with the cuff of her shirt as she returned to her seat with a sniffle. After a moment’s hesitation, Sherlock looked back, meeting John’s inquisitive gaze and spitting out the first thing that popped into his head. “Snooze you lose, germs,” he quipped, and John’s mouth dropped open as Mrs. Watson burst into laughter, snorting the water she was drinking back into her glass.
“Did you- Did you just tell a joke!?” Harry spluttered, John stepping aside as she pushed past him, smiling with stunned disbelief. “Those Cold War nutters are right; the end really is nigh!”
“Harry,” Mrs. Watson chided, but the teenager paid her no mind, sliding into her usual seat across from Sherlock while John took the one beside him.
“We should do something,” she continued, twirling her fork in the air. “Commemorate the occasion. March 15th, 1952, Sherlock Holmes showed signs of a sense of humor,” she pronounced, waving a hand as if creating a banner in thin air, and Sherlock smiled blithely across at her, tapping his fork against the side of his plate.
“March 15th, 1952,” he repeated, pausing for effect as Harry watched him warily, “Harry Watson sluffed netball practice to go to Woolworths with Clara Presley.”
Harry’s jaw dropped, her fork clattering to the table, the sound nearly lost between John laughing and Mrs. Watson sputtering.
“You what!?” she shouted, rounding on her daughter. “What have I told you about skipping practice!? You’re going to get kicked off the team!”
“It was just the one!” Harry defended, and then snapped her face back to Sherlock, eyes glinting as they narrowed. “And how do you know, anyway? What, are you following me now?”
Sherlock scoffed, shaking his head as he cut off another piece of meatloaf. “Yes, Harriet,” he muttered tonelessly, “I’ve been hiding behind bushes watching you buy bubblegum.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” she snipped. “Everyone knows you fancied me back in year 4.”
Sherlock snorted, lifting his glass of water to his lips. “Now who’s got a sense of humor,” he muttered into the cup as he tipped it up, watching Harry’s fist clench against the table as he drank.
John was bright red at his side, deprived of oxygen from laughing for so long, but it was Mrs. Watson’s snicker that drew everyone’s attention, the entire table turning to find the woman covering her mouth with a napkin.
“Mum!” Harry spluttered, and Mrs. Watson lost it, dropping the napkin to the table as she laughed outright.
“I’m sorry,” she wheezed, lifting a hand. “I-I’m sorry, it’s just-” She broke off into laughter again, clutching her stomach as she leaned over the table.
Harry gaped at her a moment, stunned, and then slowly smiled, shaking her head at her plate as a chuckle built up to rattle her thin frame.
Sherlock found himself drawn in as well, a smile growing on his face as he looked between John and his cackling mother, but it was when his eyes met Harry’s that he grinned properly, the older girl shaking her head fondly at him across their plates of meatloaf.
“Snitch,” she chuckled, tossing her napkin to land neatly atop his head, and Sherlock laughed, tugging the linen free before balling it up and throwing it back at her, the table slowly calming down enough to return to their meal.
It was silent a long moment, nothing but the clicks and clinks of utensils, and then John abruptly dropped his to the table, twisting toward Sherlock.
“Did you really fancy Harry in year 4?” he asked, and the whole mess started right back up again, Sherlock choking on meatloaf as Harry launched into a detailed account of him falling asleep on her shoulder during one of the many Watson-plus-one trips to the drive-in.
*****
Sherlock was uneasy the entire next day, although he was only halfway through it at the moment, but he felt fairly confident in saying his condition would continue.
He had been unable to sleep more than an hour at a time last night, the clock beside his bed clicking loudly toward dawn, and still he found himself unable to focus, his mind constantly drifting back to his conversation with John the previous afternoon. If you could even call that a conversation, that is.
“Sherlock?”
“Hmm?” Sherlock lifted his chin from his palm, looking around the table he would swear had been full a second ago, but now there was only Irene, staring at him over her school-provided lunch—a suspiciously orange grilled cheese and small carton of milk she slurped through a straw.
The woman quirked a brow at him, pulling the apparently empty carton from her lips before dropping it down to the red cafeteria tray. “What’s the tale, nightingale?” she quipped, folding her arms on the edge of the table as she leaned toward him. “I’ve been talking to you for the past five minutes, and I don’t think you’ve heard a word.”
“Maybe you should’ve stopped talking,” Sherlock grumbled, but Irene only smiled, pushing her tray aside.
“Come on, what is it?” she asked, dropping her voice as she stretched closer across the table. “You’ve been low all day.”
“I haven’t been-”
“Oi, Watson!”
Sherlock whipped his head around, heart flipping with equal parts terror and excitement as he scanned the crowd. It took but a blink to find him, blond hair glinting above a royal blue rugby jacket as John turned around, walking away from him across the scant outdoor cafeteria seating to meet his beckoning friend. His eyes lingered on John’s back a moment, watching as the man leaned down between two of his friends to snag a chip off one of their trays, and then turned back to Irene, hair instantly rising on the back of his neck as he met her calculating gaze. “What?” he muttered, but the woman did not reply, looking at him a long moment before her eyes glanced toward the rugby captain.
“Something happened,” she said slowly, eyes narrowing even further as they focused back on him, and Sherlock swallowed, eternally perplexed by how someone who looked like the wind could snap them in half managed to instill so much fear. “Since yesterday. Something between you and John.”
Sherlock scoffed, rattling his head as he dropped his face to the notebook in front of him, his interest in studying for chemistry suddenly renewed. “You’re seeing things,” he replied, arbitrarily turning a page. “What could’ve happened?”
“I don’t know,” Irene chirped, Sherlock lifting a wary look up from beneath his lashes, “but I intend to find out. Oh, John?”
There was no air, not a single molecule of oxygen left in all the world, and Sherlock heard his heart skip a beat as he snapped his head up, finding the man in question paused beside their table.
“Er, yeah?” John murmured, quirking a brow—a reasonable reaction, considering Sherlock didn’t think Irene had ever even looked at him before—and then briefly darted his gaze to Sherlock, an uncharacteristic nervousness tightening the creases around his curious eyes.
Irene smiled, batting her eyelashes in that winsome way she always used when she wanted something, but John, going against precedent, seemed to only grow more suspicious, eyes narrowing as they searched her face. “I was wondering if you could help us with something.”
“Us?” Sherlock spluttered, and then hissed in pain as Irene yanked his chemistry textbook out from under him, his elbows hitting hard against the table.
“We have a test coming up next week, and we just cannot seem to wrap our heads around this whole equilibrium thing,” she explained, still using plurals for some reason, but Sherlock knew a lost cause when he saw it, and simply folded his arms on the table again, shaking his head at his hands.
“Oh,” John murmured, shifting his bag on his shoulder as he looked between them, and then awkwardly sank down beside Irene, Sherlock’s fingers curling with unfounded jealousy at the choice. “What about it?”
“So, all reactions are reversible, right? Like, in theory?” Irene began, rolling her hands in the air, and John nodded. “So then, why do we not use an equilibrium sign for all of them? And how can you tell?”
“Well,” John began, tilting his head as he twitched the textbook to better read the example, “for one thing, the system has to be closed. So, like, here, with the evaporation of water”—he tapped at a blue-hued box within the black text of the page—“that wouldn’t work, because it produces gases that escape, so the reverse reaction isn’t really possible.”
Irene nodded thoughtfully, turning her face to smirk across the table as soon as John looked away from her, and Sherlock shook his head, silently conveying what he hoped were parental-levels of disappointment.
“And then, even if it is a closed system,” John continued, Irene promptly hitching an interested expression on her face as the blond lifted his chin, “the reverse reaction has to be significant. Otherwise, you still use the single arrow.” He tapped at another spot on the page, and then leaned back, lifting his brows at the woman. “Does that make sense?”
“So much,” Irene drawled, Sherlock stifling his groan, but not the roll of his eyes. “Well,” she clipped, John barely snapping his fingers away before she slammed the textbook shut, “I’d better get going. Don’t wanna be late for maths!” She beamed, sliding the book off the table and cradling it in her arms as she stood. “Thanks for the help,” she added to John, waggling her fingers over her shoulder, and then started away, Sherlock straightening up as he called after her.
“Wait!” he beckoned. “That’s my…” He trailed off, hand falling to the table with a thump as the woman completely ignored him, carrying his textbook and only possible respite from conversation with her. “Or not,” he muttered under his breath, and John chuckled, turning back to fold his hands on the table.
They were quiet a moment, only looking when they thought the other was looking away, occasionally catching each other in the tradeoff.
“So,” John murmured, tapping his thumbs on the table, and then looked up through his lashes, a soft smile playing at his lips, “that was one of the least subtle things I’ve ever seen.”
Sherlock laughed, startling himself with the sudden burst, and John chuckled, the tension easing slightly between them. “Yeah,” Sherlock replied, nodding in the direction Irene had disappeared, “she’s…not one for nuance.”
John lifted his brows, bobbing his head in agreement. “I got the feeling,” he remarked, and then simply smiled at him, Sherlock not entirely sure how long he stared before realizing what he was doing, hastily blinking his eyes down as he wrung his hands on the cold metal table. “What happened to your hand?” John asked, nodding down at the appendage when Sherlock looked up with a frown.
“Oh,” Sherlock murmured, lifting his right hand, the brick-torn skin stinging slightly as the scabs stretched with the movement. “Nothing,” he replied, shaking his head. “Looks worse than it is.” He shrugged a shoulder, trying to abate the concern in John’s eyes, but the blond’s brow only further furrowed.
“It looks pretty bad,” he said, leaning forward to get a better look, his hand twitching across the table as Sherlock turned the wound away from his gaze.
“It’s not,” Sherlock assured, but John was unmoved.
“It could be infected.”
“But it’s not.”
“Have you been washing it?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
Sherlock blinked, torn between offense and admiration, but John seemed to infer the latter, quirking a brow as he smirked.
Wordlessly, he extended an arm, twitching his fingers in beckoning, and Sherlock hesitated a token moment before complying, heartrate quickening before they’d even touched.
When they did touch, John’s hand gently cradling his as he turned and twisted it in examination, Sherlock thought he might faint, the world seeming to tilt beneath him, threatening to knock him off the narrow bench. How long had it been since someone had touched him like this—soft, tender, unmarked with expectation? Sure, there had been Victor, and the odd faceless anyone at a party here and there, but it had never meant anything, never carried any weight beyond the urgent need of a moment both parties later pretended had never occurred. But John… John held him like something fragile, something he knew was cracked in several places already, and, the more Sherlock thought about it, the more he realized that was probably true.
“What’s this?” John asked, lifting Sherlock’s palm to hover a finger over a dark fleck within one of the wounds, and Sherlock swallowed, collecting himself enough to bring the object into focus.
“Er, bit of brick, probably,” he replied, shrugging his shoulder, inadvertently shifting his skin against John’s and dropping his stomach out of his body. “I-I cut it on a wall.”
“A wall?” John parroted. “What were you doing hitting a wall?”
“I didn’t hit it on purpose,” Sherlock grumbled, and John chuckled, dropping his eyes once again to Sherlock’s marred skin.
“Well, it doesn’t look infected. Yet,” he added pointedly, withdrawing his hand with a tremble of what Sherlock would dearly love to believe was reluctance. “But you really should be washing it. And pick the rest of those pieces out.”
“Don’t have to cut it off, then?” Sherlock quipped, temporarily forgetting this was supposed to be awkward, and John laughed, shaking his head.
“No, I think you’ll recover,” he replied, trying very hard to look serious, but he couldn’t quite press the smile from his lips, and Sherlock couldn’t quite help smiling back, absentmindedly running a thumb back and forth over the skin still warmed from John’s touch.
They lapsed into silence then, notably less uncomfortable, but their time was running short, people making their way back into the school as classes drew near.
“I got into Bart’s.”
Sherlock lifted his head, lips popping apart in surprise.
John’s smile only curled half his mouth, but it lit up his eyes, blue dancing with pride as his cheeks turned a faint pink. “Got the letter last weekend,” he continued, self-consciously tapping his thumbs against the table. “I-I haven’t told anyone yet.”
“Anyone?” Sherlock echoed, and John shook his head. “Why not?”
“I dunno,” John chuckled awkwardly, scratching at the back of his neck, “I guess… I keep thinking it’s a mistake.” He shrugged, twisting his hands together as his throat shifted with a swallow. “That they’ll send me another letter and take it all back.”
Sherlock didn’t know how to respond, every option running through his mind a bit too sentimental for his taste, but, in the end, John simply continued without comment.
“I’m looking at flats in the city,” he said, a bit of the nervous edge draining from his smile as he lifted his face. “Gonna move down a few weeks after graduation, take some time to get settled. I feel like a proper grownup,” he muttered, and Sherlock chuckled, “budgeting rent and all.”
“Utilities,” Sherlock added, and John tipped a nod. “Groceries.”
“Eh,” the blond interjected, bobbing his head back and forth in indecision, “takeaway.”
“Cooking would be cheaper,” Sherlock remarked, but John shook his head, wrinkling his nose.
“But so much more difficult,” he said disparagingly, and Sherlock laughed, the blond chuckling along, and then, once again, they were just staring, smiles still lingering on their faces. John dropped his eyes first, teeth scraping over his lip as he looked down at the table, and then abruptly lifted his head, drawing in a breath. “Sherlock, I-”
A bell sounded loudly from the school building behind them, thankfully covering the curse that hissed from Sherlock’s mouth, but John only laughed, breath hissing from his nose as he shook his head at the red brick.
“Naturally,” he murmured, and Sherlock laughed, heart swelling in his chest as John beamed. The blond then leaned back, hesitating a moment before swinging his legs off the bench and standing. “Well,” he muttered, shoulders lifting as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket, “I should get to class.”
“Yeah,” Sherlock replied, clearing his throat as he nodded, untangling his long limbs to stand as well, “me-me too.”
John smiled, rocking on his heels as he began shuffling backward toward the school. “I’ll, er-” he stammered, hand gesturing between them. “We- Later?” he asked, and Sherlock quickly ducked his chin, biting his lip to stifle a grin, but there was nothing he could do about the heat rising up his neck.
“Later,” he assured, peering up through his lashes as he nodded, and John brought the sun out with his smile, dropping a nod before turning and heading toward a side door.
He looked over his shoulder to meet Sherlock’s eyes once more before rounding the corner, disappearing into the school, but Sherlock made no move to follow, not trusting his knees to continue supporting him if he tried to take a step.
“Well, well, well,” came a drawl from behind him, and Sherlock started, spinning on the spot to find Irene’s red lips curled up in a smirk. “Nothing indeed,” she mocked with a flick of her brows, and Sherlock couldn’t even be angry enough to glare, shaking his head and trying to hide his faint smile from her sight.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” he muttered.
Irene laughed, uncrossing her smug arms as she approached. “What, and miss the show?” she teased, slinging an arm around his shoulder as they turned to walk toward the school. “Never,” she urged, rattling him slightly as she pulled him in tighter to her side, and Sherlock laughed, relishing a feeling he’d almost forgotten as it bubbled up warm in his chest.
*****
May, 1955
Sherlock climbed up the hill after John, the blond’s athleticism winning out over Sherlock’s longer legs now that they were getting nearer the top, and he grit his teeth against the ache in his calves, trying not to betray any discomfort as John looked back over his shoulder.
“Nearly there,” he called, like he already knew, and then smirked, leaving no doubt. He laughed as Sherlock glared, and then stopped in the grass, turning to look out over the view. “Alright, here’s good,” he muttered, sinking down to the ground, and Sherlock toppled down beside him, stretching his legs out as he propped himself up on his elbows. “You alright?” he teased, and Sherlock shifted his weight, balancing on one arm as he swatted a hand against the laughing boy’s arm.
“I don’t see why we couldn’t stay in the car,” he grumbled, looking down at the sea of vehicles at the bottom of the hill, the warped reflection of the movie glinting across the hoods in black and white. “It’s a drive-in, not a hike-in.”
“We drove some of the way,” John remarked, grinning as Sherlock glowered. He then looked back to the movie screen, the distant light casting faint shadows across his face. “I didn’t wanna bother Harry and Clara,” he said, shrugging a shoulder. “Harry’s only back from uni for the weekend, and then they won’t see one another again until summer.”
Sherlock nodded, looking down at the blades of grass jutting up between his fingers. “How, um-” he stammered, not quite sure how best to phrase the question, or if he should even be asking at all. “How’s your mum, er…handling it?”
“Handling what?” John asked coyly, an unnecessary reminder of the secrecy, and then sighed softly, shaking his head as he bent his knees up in front of him. “I dunno. Well enough, I guess,” he muttered, plucking at the grass between his legs. “It’s not- She’s not angry or anything,” he added, shaking his head once again, “she just- Well, it’s not the kind of thing you wanna hear, ya know?” He cast Sherlock a sidelong glance, and Sherlock nodded, agreeing and urging him on. “The way-The way people are,” he continued, eyes far away as they looked down the hill toward the drive-in, “the things they’d say… I think she’s just sad.” He balanced his arms up on his knees, toying with a blade of grass between his hands. “She doesn’t want Harry to have to go through that.”
Sherlock nodded, tapping the tips of his trainers together as he carefully planned his next words. “And-And you?” he asked, flicking a glance up at John through his lashes. “How are you handling it?”
“Me?” John pressed, chuckling as Sherlock nodded. “What do I care?” he said, sliding his hips down level with Sherlock’s before lying back on the grass, one arm bending back to pillow his head. “She’s still my sister. Being a lesbian doesn’t change anything.”
Sherlock nodded, laying back to match John’s posture, and then stared up at the stars peeking through the clouds, tongue tied and heart in his throat.
“I mean, I guess I’m worried about her,” John continued, and Sherlock rolled his head to face him, the ground cool where it pushed and pulled at his curls. A swallow bobbed down John’s throat, his eyes pointedly fixed on the sky overhead. “It shouldn’t be so hard,” he said softly, pale lashes catching the limited light, and Sherlock wished for what must have been the thousandth time that he would turn, would see the way Sherlock looked at him like Harry looked at Clara and know without Sherlock ever needing to say the words he couldn’t. “People shouldn’t have to be afraid to be who they are. Kind of makes you wonder.”
“Wonder what?” Sherlock prodded when John did not continue, and the blond turned to him with a soft smile, his eyes heavy with something lost.
“If you’re better off pretending,” he whispered, and Sherlock scanned over his face, terror thumping through his veins. John only smiled, however, folding another arm back to prop his head up just enough to see the screen far below them. “It is a shame we can’t hear the sound, though,” he said, picking up the previously abandoned thread, and Sherlock released a trembling breath of relief, John’s ‘you’ apparently not intended to be specific. “I’ve no idea what’s going on.”
“That’s what you get,” Sherlock replied, smiling back at John’s sneer, and then turned his attention to the film playing out below them. “The guy with the hat works at a carnival,” he explained, pointing toward the right of the screen, “and the other guy is doing an act for it—some bit where he locks himself in a glass box and can’t eat for two months.”
“Two months!?” John spluttered, eyes widening at the man sitting inside his transparent prison. “How does he survive?”
“I’ve seen just as much of this movie as you have.”
“Well, yeah, but you know things.”
“I ‘know things’?”
“Yes, you know things. Is she dead?”
Sherlock turned back to the screen, following the line of John’s finger to the interior apartment scene, and then nodded.
“Who’s she?” the blond asked, arm dropping down between them, and Sherlock took a moment to reply, his vision blurring as John’s hand brushed against the back of his own, a ghost of a touch before he shifted away.
“Old girlfriend of the bookie.”
“The bookie?”
“The other guy with the hat.”
“Oh. How do you know that?” John asked, rolling his head toward him.
Sherlock shrugged. “I can read lips,” he replied, and John laughed, swatting at the side of Sherlock’s thigh.
“You cannot,” he countered, settling his hand back to the ground, but it was closer now, the back of his hand grazing against Sherlock’s as their bodies shifted with their breaths.
“Yes, I can,” Sherlock replied through a closing throat, forcing his mind to focus on the film. “’Then how do you explain these?’” he said, reciting the lines of the Scotland Yard inspector on screen. “’Letters to your friend, Tony. Seems he and Ms. Maroni were quite the item a few years back.’”
“Tony?”
“The bookie.”
“Ms. Maroni?”
“The dead girl. ‘I told you, I brought those letters up here, Inspector Lindley. Tony had nothing to do with Rena’s murder; he’s been at the party all night.’”
“Party?”
“To celebrate Sapolio’s success.”
“Sapolio?”
“The guy in the box. There’s a sign with his name on it; are you even watching?” Sherlock muttered irritably, waving a hand out at the screen.
John shrugged. “It’s hard to pay attention when there’s no sound.”
“But I’m explaining it!” Sherlock countered, and John laughed, turning his face away from the screen again.
“You should do it in different voices,” he said, grin broadening as Sherlock’s scowl deepened. “Like for all the different characters.”
“No,” Sherlock deadpanned, and John’s lips dropped into a pout.
“But what if I get confused?” he murmured, and Sherlock rolled his eyes.
“I have faith in you,” he said flatly, looking back to the screen as John laughed loudly at his side.
He then quieted as Sherlock started once again reciting the characters’ lines, wriggling a little closer on the side of the hill, and it was all Sherlock could do to keep talking as the boy’s tan hand pressed against the back of his own, a little too firm for even Sherlock to write it off as an accident.
*****
What was a weekend when you’d waited two years, really?
That’s what Sherlock had been trying to tell himself, anyway, ever since his Thursday afternoon conversation with John, but the fates appeared determined to conspire against him regardless.
He’d thought they might talk on Friday, but John had left at lunch to make it to some rugby game up north—an outing Sherlock deeply resented both for its interference, and the pervasive imaginings it inspired—and Sherlock had been forced to endure an entire weekend with the promised ‘Later’ hanging over his head. And now, Monday’s school day had come to an end and he’d still only seen John from afar, although he thought the blond might have smiled at him across the cafeteria at lunch, so it wasn’t a complete waste of a day. Still, as Sherlock kicked a loose stone along the pavement toward home, having waited as long as he could behind the school before giving up, he felt the bitter taste of disappointment settle heavy on his tongue, bringing with it a barrage of questions he could no sooner answer than he could sprout wings and fly.
Did John change his mind about wanting to talk to him, about wanting to be friends again? Had he even wanted to be friends again? He’d never said, not exactly, and Sherlock should have known better than to assume. Did John realize he had been better off before, without him? Or did he know- Did he suspect-
“Oi!”
Sherlock’s foot missed the stone as he stumbled, twisting his head toward the sound.
John leaned his head out the window of his car, beaming smugly at Sherlock’s flummoxed expression. “Need a ride?”
“I- No,” Sherlock muttered, shaking his head as he pointed out at the path ahead, “I’m just going home.”
“Did you move?” John asked, brow furrowing as Sherlock shook his head. “Then won’t it take you, like, half an hour to walk home?”
Sherlock looked back and forth between John and the street ahead, his hand twisting at the strap on his shoulder as his pulse quickened. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone home until later, but if his father came back early… “No, I-I don’t need-”
“Get in,” John said, bobbing his head at the passenger side, but Sherlock only shifted his weight between his feet. John smiled, and then forced his lips flat, leaning out the window to turn his face thoughtfully up at the sky. “I dunno,” he mused, “looks like it might rain.”
Sherlock frowned, looking up at the wide expanse of blue above him, flecked only with the occasional wisp of nonthreatening clouds. He dropped his chin, quirking a brow at the blond. “You know, you really shouldn’t be driving a car if you’re blind.”
John laughed, and then simply smiled, silently holding Sherlock’s gaze just long enough to feel important. “Sherlock,” he finally said, gesturing once again to the seat beside him, “get in the car.”
Sherlock opened his mouth to argue, but John cut him off with a lifting brow, and, after a moment, he sighed, crossing in front of the hood and pulling the door open.
“There,” John chirped as he dropped into the seat, placing his backpack on the floor between his knees and tugging shut the door. “Now, was that so hard?” he teased, grinning exaggeratedly when Sherlock rolled his eyes, and then neatly merged back out into traffic, checking over his shoulder more times than even extreme caution warranted.
Sherlock tapped his foot against the carpet, biting his lip as he looked out the window at the cars rushing past.
Well, he was finally alone with John. Now what?
Distracted by planning what not to say, Sherlock hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going, not realizing they were at the first turn until the familiar horrid green house on the corner came into view. “Oh, you have to-” he started, but John was already turning, Sherlock’s pointing hand falling limply back to his lap as the car straightened out. Wordlessly, he looked to John, who glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, twitching a shrug and a small self-conscious smile.
“I remember the way,” he said softly, the words sounding like they desperately wanted to be nonchalant, but there was a weight to them all the same, a thousand unsaid meanings sent buzzing around in the thickening air.
“Oh,” was all Sherlock could answer, however, quickly turning back toward the window, though no longer focused on anything beyond it.
It was quiet a long moment, a small tapping sound Sherlock thought might be John’s fingers on the steering wheel the only interruption to the whir of the tires, and then he heard a draw of breath.
“So,” John said, too loud in the taut silence, “how’d your chemistry test go?”
“What?” Sherlock muttered, momentarily confused how John could possibly know about that, but then remembered Irene’s meddling, and simply shook his head. “Oh, er, I dunno. I mean, it’s not until Wednesday.”
“Oh,” John replied, nodding out at the street as he licked over his lips. “Do you- I mean, did you and Irene- You know everything? You-You don’t need any more…help or-or anything?”
“Oh, er, no. No, I- I think we figured it out,” Sherlock stammered, and John nodded vigorously at the windshield.
“Good, that’s-that’s good,” he answered, voice high and thin, and then they lapsed into silence once more, Sherlock sucking his lips in over his teeth as he rubbed the chapped skin together.
Suddenly, John laughed, Sherlock turning to find the blond shaking his head. “This is so much more awkward than I thought it would be,” he chuckled, and Sherlock found himself pulled along, grinning down at his hands where they twisted in his lap. “I had really great conversation topics planned out, honest,” he assured, lifting a hand as he turned briefly toward him. “I wasn’t intending to ask you about school,” he added, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the word, and Sherlock chuckled, lifting his face.
“Like what?” he asked, elaborating when John shot him a frown. “Your conversations topics, what were they?”
“Well, I clearly can’t remember now!” John sputtered, and Sherlock laughed, his curls sliding against the headrest as he tilted his face to the roof.
“I suppose you’ll have to make something up,” he remarked, and John snorted.
“Yes, because that’s been going so well for me,” he deadpanned, and Sherlock laughed, looking once more at his lap.
“I dunno,” he murmured, tipping his head, “I’ve seen worse.”
“Really?” John drawled skeptically, and Sherlock shrugged, lifting his eyes to blue ones.
“Yeah. I mean, nothing comes to mind,” he teased, smirk starting as John shook his head in disapproval, “but I’m sure, somewhere, someone has had a worse conversation starter than a chemistry test.”
“Technically,” John broke in, lifting a finger, “I started with the weather.”
“True,” Sherlock affirmed, nodding softly. “It probably doesn’t get much worse than imaginary rain.”
“I didn’t say it was raining, I said it looked like it might rain. And, regardless, it worked, didn’t it?” he said, smiling at him as they paused briefly in the traffic of a just-turned-green light. “You got in the car.”
Sherlock opened his mouth, but found his throat had closed up, heat rising in his cheeks as John smirked and turned away. “Not because of the rain,” he grumbled, and John laughed, his foot easing off the gas as they neared Sherlock’s house. “I just didn’t wanna walk.”
“And here I thought you enjoyed my scintillating conversation.”
“Scintillating?”
“Yes, Sherlock, other people read too,” John chided teasingly, smiling as Sherlock laughed, and then turned back to the front as he pulled down Sherlock’s driveway, the road and their time having run out.
Nevertheless, Sherlock lingered, his hand resting on his bag as John put the car in park, and then turned toward him, his face blurry through the lashes of Sherlock’s downcast eyes. He thought he’d be fine, but the second John opened his mouth, Sherlock panicked, gripping at his backpack and lunging for the door handle. “Well, I should-”
“Wait.”
He froze, shoulders rising and falling with his rapid puffs of breath as his eyes darted over freedom beyond the window glass.
“Just- There’s something I have to say-”
“John, you don’t-”
“No,” John interjected, shaking his head fiercely as Sherlock turned to look at him. “No, I- Just listen, okay?” he urged, hands lifting pleadingly. “Just for a minute, just-just this once?”
Sherlock’s eyes scanned over his face, the determined lines and set of his jaw offering little room for argument, but it was the look in his eyes that ultimately made Sherlock’s decision, a pained desperation he would be monstrous to prolong. He swallowed, bobbing his head in a single nod, and John hissed out a quick sigh of relief, his shoulders lowering with released tension.
“I- The last time we- That night,” he finally settled on, looking at Sherlock uncertainly, as if there was any conceivable way he could have forgotten, “I-I didn’t mean- If I- If I made you…uncomfortable-”
“What?” Sherlock interjected, rattling his head perplexedly, because John couldn’t possibly think- couldn’t possibly mean-
“I didn’t- I mean, I never would have- I should’ve asked you, or-or said something, or-”
“No,” Sherlock broke in, shaking his head, because of all the idiotic misinterpretations, this one had to take the proverbial cake. “No, John, it wasn’t-”
“I never would’ve wanted to stop being your friend,” John urged, his eyes earnest with the guilt he’d mistakenly carried all this time. “Even if you didn’t-if you didn’t feel-
“No, John, that isn’t- That’s not what happened,” Sherlock contested, but John didn’t seem to hear him, didn’t appear to even be listening, his eyes darting aimlessly as he barreled on.
“And I shouldn’t have pressured you-”
“You didn’t pressure me!”
“I should have asked, or-or given some kind of warning.”
“John!”
“I just-just sprung it on you, and-”
“JOHN!” Sherlock shouted, and the blond started, eyes blinking wide, as if he’d forgotten Sherlock was there in spite of having been talking to him. “That is not what happened,” he said, slow and pointed, and John stared at him blankly a moment before a soft frown creased his brow.
“Then-Then why-”
“Sherlock!”
They both turned toward the sharp call, the voice muffled as it wriggled through the narrow crack at the top of their windows, and Sherlock’s blood ran cold as his eyes scanned up the tall figure standing in the doorway, a swallowing bobbing down his throat when he reached the vein popping in his father’s forehead.
Avoiding John’s eyes, he quickly gathered his bag from the floor, pushing open the door and stepping out onto the gravel. “Thanks for-“
“Mr. Holmes!”
Sherlock barely caught his backpack as it made to slip off his shoulder, his mouth dropping and terror mounting as John got out of the car, approaching his father with an oblivious smile on his oblivious face.
“I don’t know if you remember me,” he said, Sherlock rushing after him, heart hammering. “John Watson? I used to come over here sometimes. Nearly burned your kitchen down once,” he chuckled, looking expectantly up at the man.
Siger Holmes narrowed his eyes, searching John up and down before turning his gaze to Sherlock. “I thought you were done with this,” he said icily, and Sherlock flinched, ducking his chin and turning his eyes away.
“He just gave me a ride,” he murmured, his whole body hot with shame as he felt John’s eyes on the side of his face.
“You can walk,” his father snapped, and Sherlock instinctively recoiled, his shoulder lifting in a fragile shield.
“It’s my fault, sir,” John interjected, because he was an idiot, which Sherlock tried to silently convey through an earnest glance out of the corner of his eye. John didn’t pay him any mind, however, even shuffling forward a step as he continued. “I-I sort of insisted. Thought it might rain,” he muttered, shrugging a shoulder, and Mr. Holmes quirked a brow, lifting his eyes to the still-spotless sky.
“All the same,” the man replied, tone dripping with disdain, “Sherlock is perfectly capable of walking.”
“It’s two miles,” John countered, but Mr. Holmes ignored him, turning once more to Sherlock.
“I’ll see you inside,” he said, clearly expecting that to be very, very soon, and then withdrew, casting a last disparaging look between the two of them before roughly shutting the door.
Sherlock’s hand trembled where he clutched the strap of his bag, his eyes focused on a potted plant to the left of the door, now nothing but dirt, its occupant succumbing to the winter chill months ago. He couldn’t see John, but he heard the boy shift, a rustle of cloth accompanying the tingle of awareness on the back of his neck.
“Sherlock?” he beckoned, voice scarcely more than breath, and Sherlock closed his eyes, vainly trying to stave off the burning behind his eyelids. “What-What was that-”
“Leave it alone, John,” he said in a rush, brushing past the blond and starting over the threshold.
“No!” John spouted, gripping just above his elbow, halting him halfway through the door. “Sherlock-”
“John,” Sherlock hissed, his stinging eyes meeting searching blue ones, “leave it alone.” He tried to keep his expression in check, but the moment was already out of his hands, and he watched the understanding crest in John’s eyes, his tan skin paling as his grip grew slack.
“Sherlock,” he whispered, and Sherlock couldn’t take it, couldn’t stand the pity stabbing into him from the piercing blue gaze.
“Thanks for the ride,” he muttered, and then yanked his arm away, seizing the advantage of John’s horror-delayed reactions to slam the door in his face.
“No, wait!” John shouted, hand colliding with the wood just a second too late, and Sherlock twisted the lock, his lungs burning with ragged breaths as he slowly staggered back from the door.
It was a solid minute before he heard John’s footsteps crunch away in the gravel, a car door and revving engine soon following, and then the sound faded away, Sherlock left alone with the steady movement of his blood thumping in his ears.
The sound was eventually joined by footsteps, hard leather soles slapping against hardwood before coming to a stop in the doorway of the study to his left.
“If I ever see that boy again-”
“You won’t,” Sherlock interrupted, shaking his head at the floor, his father’s figure shifting against the doorframe in his peripheral vision.
Siger Holmes was silent a long moment, Sherlock hardly daring to breathe as he waited for the fall of the axe. “Good,” his father finally replied, and Sherlock closed his eyes, blowing out a long breath of relief as footsteps retreated back into the study.
As quietly as he could, he turned away, heading up the stairs to his bedroom, locking the door behind him just in case before dropping his backpack on the floor. He collapsed onto his bed face first, his breaths blowing back hot in his face as they rebounded off the duvet, and pinched his eyes shut, a last-ditch effort to suppress the knot rising in his throat. The attempt was futile, however, and, mere moments later, he sucked in a gasp, panting it out in a sob as his fingers gripped into the white linen, tears leaking out over his lashes.
“No, wait!”
John’s cry spun in his head, mocking him for ever daring to hope, because some people just weren’t cut out for second chances, and, as he curled his knees up in front of him, pulling down a pillow to muffle his sobs, Sherlock knew he was one of them.
*****
December, 1956
“Chemistry, biology, physics, and maths?” Sherlock read, lowering the sheet of paper to convey his befuddlement to the blond sitting opposite him on the bed.
“And rugby,” John added, leaning forward over the crossed legs to snatch the page from Sherlock’s grip. “I’m a…quintuple threat?” he mused, frowning down at Sherlock’s mattress, and then rattled his head, dismissing the thought. “It won’t be that bad,” he said, smiling when Sherlock scoffed. “A lot of the science stuff will probably overlap.”
“Maths?” Sherlock reiterated in disgust, and John chuckled, slipping his A-level schedule for next year back into the bag beside him.
“It’ll help with physics.”
“But at what cost?!” Sherlock countered, and John laughed, shaking his head down at the small expanse of duvet between their folded legs. “If what I wanted to do required maths, I’d very quickly stop wanting to do it.”
“What do you wanna do?” John asked, tilting his head inquiringly, and Sherlock stilled, frozen in momentary panic.
“I- Nothing,” he muttered, shaking his head, “I was…speaking hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically?” John echoed, lifting his brows when Sherlock nodded. “Hypothetically my ass!” he then laughed, nudging Sherlock’s knee with his own. “Come on,” he urged, nodding in encouragement, “tell me. What does the great Sherlock Holmes want to be when he grows up?”
“I’m nearly 15,” he grumbled, and John rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, you’re practically dead,” he replied tonelessly, deftly swatting Sherlock’s hand away before it could make contact with his arm. “I’m serious,” he urged, leaning forward over his knees, his fingers brushing Sherlock’s ankle as he folded his hands. “What is it? What do you wanna be?”
Sherlock twisted at the hem of his jeans, his head hanging down. “You’ll laugh,” he murmured, but John shook his head.
“No, I won’t,” he swore, going so far as to place one hand flat on the textbook beside him when Sherlock looked up, the other palm lifting beside his face. “Promise.”
“That’s your chemistry book,” Sherlock remarked, and John shrugged.
“So?” he replied, unconcerned. “I swear on Newton’s laws of motion.”
“That’s physics.”
“Well, I’ve only just registered for the A-levels, I haven’t taken them yet,” John muttered, and Sherlock laughed, rocking back on the bed.
“Fine,” he chuckled, the blond lowering his hand with a triumphant grin, “but, if you laugh-”
“You can beat me over the head with my chemistry textbook,” John finished, and then folded his hands in his lap, watching Sherlock expectantly.
Sherlock hesitated a moment, teeth scraping over his lip as he looked nervously between John’s eyes. “Well,” he started, clearing his throat, “you know how-how I always know who the murderer is in your mum’s books? And-And in those movies you like?”
“I am aware that you ruin everything, yes,” John said, dipping a nod, smiling cheekily at Sherlock’s narrowed eyes.
“Well,” Sherlock continued pointedly, “I thought- I thought I might try and do something like that.”
“Like…a police officer?” John questioned, and Sherlock shook his head.
“No, more like…a detective. Or-Or a consultant.”
“So you can break laws while you solve crimes,” John supposed, and Sherlock tipped his head, acknowledging the point.
“Pretty much,” he muttered, and John laughed, Sherlock chuckling along as the blond shook his head down at his lap.
“Well, you know, apart from the fact that someone is definitely going to try and kill you,” John said, and Sherlock couldn’t even contest it, “I think that’s actually a really good idea.”
Sherlock blinked, taken aback by the support, but John simply smiled, as if to say Sherlock had been ridiculous to doubt himself in the first place. “I, er-” Sherlock stammered, and then coughed, dropping his face a moment as he beat down the blush tingling at his cheeks. “What about you?” he asked, John’s brow creasing with confusion. “You’re taking four A-levels, and not the easiest ones either,” he continued, and John’s eyes darted away, his posture stiffening. “What do you wanna do with them?”
John opened his mouth, his shoulders halfway through a shrug, but he stopped as Sherlock narrowed his eyes, brushing this off very clearly not an option. John sighed, hanging his head. “I- No,” he muttered, shaking his head down at his legs. “No, it’s stupid.”
“So was mine,” Sherlock urged, bending down to catch John’s downcast eyes, “but I told you.”
“Yours isn’t stupid,” John said sternly, but Sherlock only rolled his eyes.
“And I’m sure yours isn’t either,” he assured, tapping lightly at John’s ankle when the boy refused to meet his gaze. “Come on,” he said softly, “tell me.”
John watched him a moment, eyes narrowing in consideration, and then relaxed, drawing in a deep breath. “Fine,” he sighed, reluctantly smiling back at Sherlock’s grin. “I-I always,” he muttered, his voice softer than Sherlock may have ever heard it. “I wanted to be a doctor,” he said all at once, looking up at Sherlock through his lashes like he’d dropped some cataclysmic bombshell, and Sherlock blinked, perplexed by the earnestness.
“You don’t want to anymore?” he surmised, but John shook his head.
“No, I still want to,” the blond said, lifting his chin to look out Sherlock’s bedroom window, the fading afternoon light misting over his face through the half-drawn curtains. “It’s just…”
“Just what?” Sherlock prompted, and John shrugged, shaking his head as he looked down at his twisting fingers.
“I dunno,” he muttered, and then smiled, a sheepish twist of half his mouth. “Hard.”
“So?” Sherlock replied, and John laughed. “You could do it.”
“Getting an early start on that detective thing, are you?” the boy mocked, quirking a brow.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “I’m being serious,” he snipped, and John smiled, nodding softly as he once again bowed his head.
“I know,” he said, and then fell silent, picking absentmindedly at his fingernails.
Sherlock watched him, eyes shifting between the boy’s downcast eyes and fidgeting hands. “I think you’d be a great doctor,” he found himself saying, embarrassed by the unintended fervor of his voice as John looked up at him, clearly equally surprised. Sherlock smiled shyly, shrugging a shoulder as scratched at the back of his head. “You took care of me when I got the flu last month,” he muttered, and John laughed, throwing his head back to the ceiling.
“That’s because you didn’t get the flu,” he chuckled, eyes glinting across at him, “you got a cough and melodramatic.”
“Still,” Sherlock replied, and John laughed even harder, “you made soup.”
“Mum made soup.”
“You brought soup.”
“That I did,” John allowed, eyes warm and smile fond as he held his gaze, always just a little too long, a little too steady, and Sherlock felt dizzy with the wave of heat that climbed up his neck. Thankfully, John then dropped his eyes, allowing Sherlock to breathe again, and his heartrate gradually dropped back to normal, eliminating the threat of him toppling off the bed. “You really think I could?” John asked, the uncertainty looking out of place on his usually stubborn countenance. “Be a doctor?” he clarified, but Sherlock was already nodding.
“Yeah, I do,” he assured, and John smiled, a brushstroke of pink glancing across his cheeks and punching Sherlock in the stomach. “You might even be able to solve the great mystery of what the hell’s wrong with me,” he muttered, a feeble joke he wasn’t even sure was a joke at all, but John laughed, sending Sherlock’s stomach tumbling and reminding him just how not-normal he really was.
“I’m a doctor, not a psychiatrist,” John teased, and Sherlock wrinkled his nose at him.
“Hilarious,” he deadpanned, and John shrugged.
“That too,” he quipped, laughing again as Sherlock rolled his eyes. Looking down at the duvet between them, he was silent for a long moment, his smile slowly fading, replaced by a thoughtful crease of his brow. “Sherlock?” he beckoned, Sherlock lifting his brows in response, and then hesitated, his mouth opening and closing several times before it produced sound. “You know- You know there’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, fixing Sherlock with one of those rare looks that seemed to go straight through him, “right?”
Sherlock turned away, eyes arbitrarily fixing on his desk across the room.
“Sherlock?”
“Yeah,” he lied, hoisting up a frail smile as he nodded. “Yeah, I-I know.”
John didn’t even appear to consider believing him, his expression never changing as he steadily regarded him.
Slowly, Sherlock let the smile slip off his face, dropping his eyes down to his fingers as they tugged at an errant thread coming loose from the top of his sock.
“Why do you think that?” John asked softly, his voice growing closer as he leaned forward over his knees. “That there’s something wrong with you?”
“I don’t know,” Sherlock murmured, twitching his shoulders. “Because there is.”
“Like what?” John pressed, and Sherlock looked up to find him far too close, all blue eyes and tan skin and something that smelled faintly like sea spray.
He flung himself back, nearly falling until a palm shot back to brace him, and John startled, eyes wide with alarm as he looked over Sherlock’s frantic form.
“Are you-” John started, concern evident in his features, and then Sherlock’s heart, stomach, whole entire world sank as he saw the suspicion spark in John’s eyes, an ember slowly fanned to flame as the boy searched his face.
Sherlock couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, his arm trembling beneath him as his heart began to hammer, and he slowly sat back up, careful not to lean too close to the wide-eyed boy in front of him. “I-” he started, planning to apologize, to beg if it came to it, but John lifted a hand, halting his tongue. Sherlock expected a whole manner of things to happen, most of them involving physical harm, but John’s hand slowly stretching toward him did not make the list, and a small gasp hitched past his lips as the tips of tan fingers grazed against a curl above his ear.
John stilled, looking from his hand to Sherlock’s eyes, a question buried somewhere underneath the fear, and, though Sherlock could no longer even feel his face, it must have done something to convey permission, as John’s focus shifted back to his fingers gently pushing into Sherlock’s hair. So slowly it might have taken hours, he brushed a curl behind Sherlock’s ear, fingers continuing down in a tingling trail along his jaw, and then came to rest against his chin, thumb stretching up to tremble against Sherlock’s bottom lip with a gentle touch that hit like lightning.
Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure he was still awake, or even still alive, his very heartbeat going silent as John’s eyes fluttered up to his. If that hadn’t killed him, John glancing back down to his lips most certainly did, his stomach somersaulting almost painfully as the blond twitched just a hair closer, looking up once more for confirmation, and Sherlock hoped his eyes conveyed the necessary agreement, his mind screaming affirmations in at least three different languages.
However it happened, John seemed to understand, his thumb sliding off Sherlock’s mouth as his own moved closer. He stopped just barely short, their chapped lips grazing with every trembling breath, and then his fingers pressed firmer on Sherlock’s chin, tipping him up and forward and over the edge.
His door rattled on its hinges, two sharp knocks echoing around the room, and they threw themselves apart like hurricane debris, Sherlock barely managing to steady himself from tumbling off the foot of the bed before the door swung open.
“Sherlock?” his father said, his voice strangely watery to Sherlock’s ears. “What are you doing here? I thought you were staying after school to-” He stopped, catching sight of John at the head of the bed, and Sherlock certainly hoped he wasn’t that red too.
“Er, hi, Mr. Holmes,” John muttered, flicking a wave, the quiver of his hand a little more obvious than Sherlock would have liked. “I, er- Professor Telham couldn’t stay after school today, so-so we just came back here to work on our essays,” he explained, never mind that the essay assigned to Sherlock’s year was on an entirely different topic than John’s, not to mention the chemistry book still open beside John’s leg, but his father wasn’t paying any attention to that, eyes narrowing between them with his usual suspicion.
“How…efficient,” he said, somehow making it sound like the dirtiest word in the English language, and John blinked, his face falling in confusion. Mr. Holmes quickly lifted up his façade, however, smiling hollowly as he nodded down at John. “But I think that’s probably enough studying for today. Mycroft’s going to be arriving soon, and I need Sherlock to help me with a few last-minute things for dinner.”
“Mycroft’s coming back?” John asked, turning the question to Sherlock halfway through. “Already? I thought his exams weren’t until next week.”
Sherlock shook his head, looking at a button on John’s shirt rather than his face. “No, his last one was this morning, so he took the afternoon train,” he explained, and John smiled, blissfully unaware he had any reason to be concerned.
“Well, tell him I say hi,” he said, sliding his legs off the edge of the bed as he began gathering his things. “Or don’t. I’ll probably see him before he goes back anyway.”
Sherlock smiled for his sake, watching as John zipped up the last of his possessions and slung the backpack over his shoulder.
“Well, I’ll leave ya to it,” he chirped, smiling between him and his father. “Wouldn’t wanna get between Mycroft and his dinner.”
Sherlock’s father chuckled, a throaty sound John had no way of knowing was disingenuous, but the hair on the back of Sherlock’s neck lifted in warning. “That would certainly be unwise,” he agreed, and Sherlock slid off the bed, stepping between them.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said, flashing a glance up at his father, and then moved past him, leading the way down the stairs with John following close at his back. He held the door open for John to step out, and then leaned after him, pulling the door tight to his side as he heard his father’s footsteps creaking softly on the stairs behind him.
For a moment, neither of them spoke, John scuffing the sole of his trainer against the welcome mat while Sherlock tapped out senseless rhythms on the doorframe with his fingertips.
“Do you, er, need a ride?” he asked, bobbing his head toward the garage, assuming his father would at least acquiesce to that much if it meant John was still leaving, but the blond shook his head.
“No, I’ll catch the bus at the corner,” he replied, pointing a thumb backward up the street. “Gotta go into town anyway. I haven’t got Harry a present yet.”
“For Christmas?” Sherlock asked, and John nodded. “But that’s next week.”
“What can I say?” John sighed, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he shrugged. “I like to live on the edge.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, John chuckling, and then they lapsed into silence once more, eyes repeatedly meeting and darting away.
“Well,” John muttered, tongue flicking nervously over his lips as he began shifting back toward the steps, “I’ll, er- I’ll see ya tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Sherlock replied, clearing his throat when the word cracked. “Yeah, er, see ya tomorrow.”
John smiled, the glint in his eyes stealing a beat of Sherlock’s heart, and then turned, bouncing down the steps and crunching away across the gravel.
Sherlock watched him go, lingering in the doorway even as the winter wind swept down to sting across his face, his hand beginning the tremble where it clutched the edge of the door.
At the end of the drive, John looked back, lifting a hand to flip a two-finger salute of farewell, and Sherlock waved back, waiting until the blond disappeared behind a row of hedges before closing himself back inside the house.
He didn’t have to turn around to know his father was there, standing at the base of the stairs, so he moved the opposite direction, planning to cut through the kitchen and circle back around once the man had left, but his father had anticipated the maneuver, and planted himself across the kitchen door.
“What did I say?” he asked, just as menacing as it was rhetorical, and Sherlock staggered back a step, increasing the space between them.
“Dad-”
“What did I say!?”
“We-We were just studying!”
“WHAT DID I SAY!?”
“To stay away from him,” Sherlock blurted, looking up through his lashes at his father’s reddening face. “But it’s not- He’s my friend!”
“Your friend?” his father mocked, rattling his head as he scoffed. “Looked like a hell of a lot more than that to me.”
“Dad, it’s not-”
“What’s the number for your school?” Mr. Holmes interrupted, turning his back on Sherlock’s pleas and stomping to the phone, plucking the receiver up off the table in the corner.
“I- Why?” Sherlock stammered, following warily after him, hovering on the fringes as his father ripped open the small sliding drawers, spewing paper, pencils, and a surprising amount of loose change across the foyer floor.
“So I can call them!” his father barked impatiently. “They deserve to know what kind of people they have in there.”
“What-What are you-” he started, momentarily perplexed, and then he understood, his stomach sinking all the way through the floor as he lunged forward. “No, Dad, you-you can’t!” he pleaded, eyes darting over the pages as his father pulled them free, searching for the school handbook so he could grab it and run. “John-John didn’t do anything!”
“Maybe not yet,” his father snarled, yanking open a drawer so hard, the whole table scraped forward across the floor, “but it’s only a matter of time. And if I can’t trust you to stay away from him-”
“You can trust me!”
“THEN WHY CAN’T YOU DO IT!?” his father bellowed, rounding on him, Sherlock stumbling over his own feet as he leapt back. “Why can’t you ever just do as I say!?”
“Because he’s my friend,” Sherlock argued weakly, and his father huffed in dismissal, returning to his search. “Dad, no!” he pleaded, reaching out to shove at the loose pages, trying to close them back inside the drawer. “Stop! It’s not his fault!” he cried helplessly, because John hadn’t done anything wrong, hadn’t done anything at all but stumble unwittingly into the grave misfortune of having Sherlock Holmes for a friend, and now Sherlock was going to ruin everything, was going to brand him with a mark he would never be able to hide, doom him to the life of lies and jeers and violence they’d both seen all too clearly when Harry and Clara couldn’t hide it any longer, and John deserved so much better than that, deserved to be a doctor or a lawyer or a goddamn saint if he wanted. “Dad, please!” Sherlock begged, eyes starting to sting as he grappled futilely with his father’s hands. “Please! He didn’t do anything!”
“Let go, Sherlock!” his father spat, roughly throwing him off, and Sherlock’s hand planted flat on the corner of the table, barely catching him from falling to the floor. “I have to do this!”
“But it’s not his fault!”
“Then whose fault is it!?”
“MINE!”
He was on the ground before he even felt the blow, his elbows slamming against the foyer floor as they tried to soften his landing, and a pain shot up his spine, knocking the wind out of him as the left side of his face began to throb from the backhanded swipe.
“Don’t you say that!” his father snarled, finger shaking down at him, the man literally spitting with rage, and he was someone else now, someone Sherlock didn’t know, didn’t even recognize. “Don’t you dare say that! That-That boy did this!” he spat, jabbing a hand toward the front door. “He messed with your mind. Made you- Made you sick!”
Sherlock flinched down at the ground, John’s voice whispering through his head as his eyes fluttered shut.
“You know there’s nothing wrong with you, right?”
“No,” Sherlock whispered, shaking his head, steeling himself with a swallow as he lifted his chin to meet his father’s eyes, “he didn’t.”
The man stared down at him, fury temporarily abating as his face stretched with shock, and Sherlock used the momentary reprieve to right himself, hand snapping to his back with a hiss of pain as he straightened his aching spine.
“John didn’t have anything to do with it,” he continued calmly, because there was always a moment of truth, and it might as well be now if it was going to be ever. “You know that. I’ve always been like this,” he said, shrugging helplessly as his father’s jaw clenched. “I came home from the first day of Year 2-”
“Stop.”
“-and couldn’t shut up about how pretty Mr. Purvis was-”
“Sherlock.”
“-and Mum took you into the study and-”
“Don’t!” his father exploded, stepping forward, but Sherlock stood his ground, fingers trembling only faintly where they hung at his side. “Don’t you dare mention her!”
“Why not?” Sherlock countered, shaking his head as he looked between his father’s furious eyes. “Why can’t we talk about her? You act like she never even existed!”
“You can’t speak to me that way!”
“I can’t speak to you at all!” Sherlock retorted, hands clenching to fists at his side as he leaned up to match his father’s threatening stance. “Half the time, you can’t even look at me!”
“What am I supposed to do, Sherlock?” his father mocked, glowering down at him. “Be happy? You want me to be proud my son’s a pervert!?”
Sherlock winced, turning his face away as a spray of spit splattered across his cheek.
His father shook his head, scanning him up and down with an expression of complete revulsion. “You should be glad your mother’s not alive to see this,” he hissed, and Sherlock snapped his head up, eyes stinging at the corners as they widened in horror. “She’d hate what you’ve become.”
Sherlock stared at him, stunned, his heart shaking his ribs as he searched his father’s face, trying to find even a ghost of the man he was, or at least the man Sherlock had thought he’d been, but the grotesque figure in front of him was a stranger now, his unfamiliar features contorting into a smug sneer. Sherlock swallowed, his lips trembling as his body shook, but his voice held firm. “That’s not true,” he said, and the man blinked, his mocking amusement faltering. “I heard her talking to you,” he continued, glancing across the foyer to the study. “I know what she said.” He narrowed his eyes, breaths hissing through his nose as fury raced through his veins, his fingernails digging deep into the sensitive skin of his palms. “If she’d hate anyone, it would be you!” he snarled through bared teeth, and this time the blow was expected, temporarily blinding him in one eye as he staggered back, saved from hitting the floor only by his father’s hands gripping hard into the front of his jumper. His socks slid against the hardwood as he was pushed back, unable to find enough footing to escape, and then his skull crashed against the wall, stars spinning in front of his eyes as his father shook him violently by the collar.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME!?” the man screamed into his face, pulling him forward only to slam him back again, his grip shifting higher, putting pressure on Sherlock’s throat as he pinned him to the wall. “WHAT DID YOU SAY!?”
Sherlock’s head was spinning, his father’s voice simultaneously distant and deafening, and he scrabbled weakly at the man’s wrist, straining for breath.
“HOW DARE YOU!?” Mr. Holmes shouted again, rattling him against the wall as Sherlock kicked blindly at the man’s legs, trying to thrash free. “HOW DARE YOU!?”
“SHERLOCK!” The voice was familiar, but Sherlock couldn’t place it, growing dizzier by the second as his father bashed his head into the plaster.
“THIS IS MY HOUSE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?”
“GET OFF HIM!”
“AND NO SON OF MINE-”
“GET OFF HIM!!”
Sherlock blinked blearily, trying to make sense of the flurry of movement in front of him, and then he was falling, his father shoved away to leave him sliding down the wall.
“Sherlock!” said the earnest voice again, slender arms hooking under his shoulders to gently support him to the ground. “Are you alright? Sherlock, can you hear me? Sherlock!?”
“Mycroft?” Sherlock mumbled, frowning up at the figure kneeling in front of him.
His brother smiled, puffing out a breath of relief, and Sherlock couldn’t quite understand why everything was still so blurry until he felt something cold slip down his neck.
Slowly, he lifted a hand to his cheek, swiping across the tear-slick skin, and then blinked back up to his brother, a sob steadily climbing up his throat. “Mycroft?” he whimpered, unsure what he was asking, or how many things he was asking at once, but, regardless, his brother didn’t seem to have an answer, his expression crumpling with pain as he lifted a hand to the back of Sherlock’s head, pulling him in to his chest.
“It’s okay,” he breathed into Sherlock’s hair, and Sherlock felt something break inside of him, something he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to piece back together. “It’s okay,” Mycroft repeated, but they both knew better, and Sherlock gripped tight to Mycroft’s cardigan, tears flowing freely over the burgundy wool as he tried to sob away the ache in his heart.
*****
Sherlock might as well have skipped classes on Tuesday for all the good being there did him. He hadn’t even spent much time in any of them, excusing himself in just about every one to go to the bathroom, a euphemism for sneaking out back to smoke he didn’t think anyone was buying anymore, but he couldn’t be bothered, what was left of his pack already gone as he tried to burn away the anxiety fraying at his nerves.
Snarling at the empty carton, he crumpled it up in a fist, tossing it aside into the bin as he stepped out the cafeteria doors, scanning the crowd of people enjoying their lunch break outside and wondering if he could possibly escape unnoticed in the chaos.
“Hey,” said a voice at his shoulder, and he turned, finding Irene smirking at him as she approached. She lifted her hand aside her face, rattling a box of cigarettes, and then bobbed her head toward the corner of the building. “Come on,” she said, starting off ahead, “I’ll spot ya one.”
Sherlock hesitated, suspicious of the pleasantry, but Irene only smiled at his narrowed eyes, disappearing around the brick, and, after a moment, Sherlock followed. “I can pay you for it,” he said, feeling around inside his jacket pocket for coins, but Irene only shrugged, looking over her shoulder as she neared the second corner, taking them past their usual spot and toward the very back of the building.
“Don’t worry about it,” she assured, rounding the corner, Sherlock right behind her. “It’s the least I can do.”
“The least you can-” Sherlock started, frowning at the woman as she turned to face him, and then caught sight of a second figure leaning against the brick wall behind her, everything suddenly falling into place.
John pushed up from the brick, uncrossing his arms to slip his hands into his jacket pockets as he moved to Irene’s side, and Sherlock set his jaw against the knot rising in his throat as he glared between the unlikely duo.
“Really?” he snapped, focusing on Irene, but the woman didn’t even bothering sneering, her eyes sad as she moved toward him, pressing a cigarette to his chest.
“You could’ve told me,” she said softly, looking up through her dark lashes, but Sherlock looked at her fingers, lifting his hand to slide the cigarette out from beneath the delicate digits.
He nodded, avoiding her eyes, and Irene smiled with gentle encouragement, her hand sliding up to squeeze lightly at his shoulder before she withdrew, heels clicking back around the corner. Sherlock looked down at the cigarette in his hand, twirling it with his fingers like a miniature baton. “Got a light?” he muttered, giving the cigarette a small wave as he met John’s steady blue gaze.
The blond didn’t answer, didn’t react at all for a seemingly endless moment, and Sherlock was just about to make another snarky comment and attempt an escape when John’s voice cut off the thought. “You didn’t trip on the stairs,” he said, soft but sure, and Sherlock flinched, ashamed of the knowing in his eyes.
“I-” he began, mumbling at the ground, but his voice faded away as John stepped forward, suddenly scant feet away.
His eyes were sharp, darkening as they scanned over Sherlock’s face, and Sherlock froze under the scrutiny, not even breathing lest that be the wrong thing to do. Slowly, the earnest crease in John’s forehead eased, his shoulders lowering as the tension drained from the muscles, and Sherlock abruptly realized what he was looking for, his grey eyes dropping as he shook his head.
“He- Nothing happened,” he murmured, tapping the filter of the cigarette against the side seam of his jeans.
“Not yesterday,” John amended, his voice brittle with banked rage, “but it did before, didn’t it?”
Sherlock swallowed, eyes pinching shut as he tried to breathe away the sting building at the corners.
John was quiet a long time, the only sound the steady drag and hiss of his breathing. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, broken and desperate, and Sherlock turned away, shoulders rolling up as he winced. “I could’ve helped you, I-I would’ve helped you! Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t.”
“You said you fell down the stairs, Sherlock!” John railed, moving closer as he tried to shift into Sherlock’s eye line. “You said you didn’t wanna be friends!”
“I didn’t want to be friends.”
“Bullshit!”
“Look, maybe I did lie about the stairs-”
“Maybe!?”
“-but I didn’t lie about the rest of it,” Sherlock finished steadily, lifting his eyes, and John’s brow twitched in a frown. “I didn’t want to be your friend anymore,” he said, firmly forbidding his hands from shaking. “That part was true, so I don’t see why any of the rest of it matters.”
“Because it does!” John contested, forcing Sherlock to shuffle a step back as the blond moved too near for him to think. “Even if you weren’t lying through your teeth right now, it would still-”
“I’m not lying!”
“No, I suppose, technically, you’re not,” John muttered irritably, jaw tightening as his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s, “but I didn’t exactly want to be your friend anymore either.”
Sherlock blinked, taken aback by the turn, the sheer plainness of the statement shocking him silent, and John held his wide eyes a long moment before dropping his head, running a hand back through his blond hair with a sigh.
“I-I didn’t want- Fuck,” John hissed, planting his hands on his hips as he looked aimlessly out over the lawn. “I’m sorry, I- This isn’t how I wanted-” He shook his head, bowing his face to the ground as he pinched over the bridge of his nose.
Sherlock didn’t know what to say, so he stayed silent, watching while John blew out a single slow breath, and then blue eyes lifted to him again, a newfound resolve in their depths.
“I talked to Mrs. Hudson last night,” John said, and Sherlock frowned, wondering if he had perhaps blacked out and missed a portion of the conversation. “She lives on Baker Street now, owns those flats next door to Speedy’s. She said the rent was so cheap because there hadn’t been much interest, but I think she’s just lonely, ya know? Wants to have somebody she knows close by,” he explained, shrugging a shoulder, and Sherlock nodded, understanding the words, if not the point. John then hesitated a moment, shifting his weight between his legs before stepping forward, tentatively looking up at Sherlock through his lashes. “I-I called her last night,” he muttered, curling his fingers to fidget at the cuff of his jacket. “Might have even woken her up. She said I didn’t, but…” He trailed away, rubbing a hand up the back of his neck as he shrugged, and then seemed to steady himself, straightening his spine and pinning his arms to his sides. “She said she could have the place ready this weekend,” he stated, and Sherlock’s eyes narrowed with a suspicion he couldn’t quite parse out the cause of yet. “I mean, there’s still a bit of work to be done—something about a kitchen backsplash, whatever that is—but, so long as we don’t mind living with wet paint for a couple weeks-”
“We?” Sherlock’s voice was quiet with disbelief, his jaw dropping as John nodded.
The blond wavered, shifting forward only to then rock back on his heels, and then moved decisively, standing directly in front of Sherlock before he could pull himself free from shock enough to move. “I know it’s farther away from school,” he rushed, the speech clearly rehearsed, “but there’s a bus stop just down the road, and I could probably drive you sometimes on my way to uni. And then you’ll be in uni the year after, so you’ll be closer then—assuming you stay in London, that is, which you always said you would, so-”
“Stop,” Sherlock interjected, rattling his head as he lifted his hands between them, staggering a step back. “What-What are you- What are you talking about?”
“You moving in with me,” John replied like those words weren’t impossible in that order, closing the distance between them again as he reached for Sherlock’s hand, but Sherlock slipped it free of his grip. “You can stay in Harry’s room for the rest of the week, and Mum can go over and get some of your stuff, and then, on Saturday-”
“Wait, you told her!?” Sherlock spluttered, glaring at John’s perplexed expression. “You told your mother about-about-”
“About what?” John pressed, frowning across at him. “About your dad-”
“Did you tell her!?” Sherlock raged, and John’s eyes stretched wide, his mouth shifting soundlessly as he scanned Sherlock’s face. “Did you!?”
“I- Not-Not everything,” John murmured, and Sherlock turned, running a hand through his hair as he panted at the ground. “I just- I had to explain why you’d be staying with us. She-She doesn’t-”
“I can’t believe you!” Sherlock interjected furiously, shaking his head at the blond. “Why would you- I told you to leave it alone!”
“Did you really expect me to do that?” John challenged, his posture shifting to offense. “Just-Just leave you there?”
“You did before.”
“That is not fair!” John spat, stepping forward as he lifted a finger toward Sherlock’s face. “I didn’t know! You didn’t tell me!”
“Because it was none of your business!” Sherlock retorted, spitting with rage. “It still isn’t!”
“Like hell it isn’t!”
“I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!” Sherlock’s hands were shaking at his sides, his eyes burning, and it was hard to focus on John’s face enough to glare at him. “I don’t! I never did, and I don’t now, so you can take your kitchen backsplash and-”
“Sherlock!”
“Why do you care?” Sherlock had intended to shout, to accuse, to snarl and spit and breathe fire from his nostrils, but the question came out frail, his voice broken, and he didn’t even bother trying to piece it back together, just shaking his head and staring across at John with swimming eyes. “Why? It’s been two years, John. Two years, and, up until last week, the only time we’d ever even spoken was when you literally ran into me in the corridor last February.”
“You remember the month?”
“John!”
“You know why, Sherlock,” the blond said softly, certainly, and Sherlock swallowed around the knot lodged in his throat, unable to understand how John managed to look exactly as miserable as he felt. “You know why,” he echoed in a whisper, and Sherlock couldn’t look at him, turning his face away as he lifted his hands into his pockets.
“I-I have class,” he murmured, nodding his head back toward the corner of the building, and he could see John slump in his peripheral vision, his posture defeated.
“Right,” he breathed, and Sherlock quickly turned, trying to make his escape, but John called him back just before he rounded the corner. “Sherlock!”
Sherlock stopped, one hand resting on the building, the brick rough and warm beneath his trembling skin. There was a shuffle of feet behind him, and Sherlock’s spine stiffened, a clear cue not to come any closer, and John obediently stopped, his soft voice carrying up to Sherlock’s ears a moment later.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Sherlock closed his eyes, gripping against the rough stone as pieces flaked off under his nails.
He did not reply, striding briskly out of John’s sight and around the school to the now empty courtyard, and then farther still, his feet carrying him over a path long-unvisited, but never forgotten.
*****
December, 1956
“Think fast!”
Sherlock turned from his locker just in time, hands lifting to catch the flying object before it crashed against his chest. The package was a small box wrapped in simple red-and-white-striped paper, and Sherlock turned it over in his hands, frowning down at the silver ribbon as he gently rattled the contents.
“You’ll never guess,” John said with a smirk, crossing his ankles as he leaned a shoulder against the lockers. “I didn’t even buy it until last night, so there’s no way you could- What the hell happened to your face!?”
“What?” Sherlock murmured, meeting John’s horrified gaze, and then remembered the bruise around his eye, purple topped off by a swollen red cut at the edge of his eyebrow. “Oh,” he said, lifting a hand to graze over the wound, “nothing, I-I tripped.” He forced a frail self-deprecating smile, shrugging a shoulder as he swallowed down at the present still in his hand. “Slipped on the stairs. Hit my head on the banister.”
“Jesus,” John hissed, leaning in close to Sherlock’s face, and Sherlock’s heart stuttered in his chest, eyes blinking rapidly as John’s warm breath fanned over his skin. “Does it hurt?” he asked, but Sherlock didn’t understand at first, focused on keeping his gasp subtle as tan fingers gingerly grazed around the edge of the injury. John then pulled away, leaning back to grin broadly at him. “How many fingers am I holding up?” he joked, raising three digits, and Sherlock lifted an unamused brow. “Do you remember your name?”
“John.”
“Close enough.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, turning back to his locker as John laughed, and then the blond fell silent, simply watching him with a small curl of his lips. “What?” Sherlock muttered, anxious under the scrutiny, but John only smiled broader, shaking his head.
“Nothing,” he dismissed, waving a hand at the package Sherlock had been about to store in his locker. “You can open it,” he said, shuffling closer as he dropped his voice. “It’s-It’s kinda stupid,” he muttered, gripping a hand around the back of his neck. “Actually, it’s really stupid, but- Well, after-after last night-”
Sherlock froze, hand halfway through removing the silver ribbon, the pit he’d managed to stitch closed in his stomach tearing back open with a vengeance, and he snapped his mouth shut against the bile rising quickly up his throat.
“-I thought something other than the usual scarf delivery from my mother might be- Why are you looking at me like that?” John frowned, tilting his head and he scanned between Sherlock’s eyes, and, if even half the ache in Sherlock’s chest showed in his expression, the concern on John’s face was well-founded.
“I-” Sherlock stammered, dropping his eyes to the package in his hands, the ribbon trembling faintly as his hands began to shake. “John, a-about last night...” He peered up at the blond through his lashes to find the boy had frozen, his jaw set, but the panic was betrayed by his eyes. “I-I don’t-” He couldn’t continue, the script he’d concocted failing him at the moment he was supposed to implement it.
“You don’t…what?” John questioned, and Sherlock flinched, the creasing of his skin causing a fresh surge of pain through the bruise, a sharp reminder of the choice he didn’t have.
“I can’t- I-I don’t-”
“You don’t…want…?” He didn’t finish the question, but the sentiment was clear, and Sherlock, sure he would never tell a worse lie than this, shook his head, swallowing through a thick throat as the present blurred in front of him. John was quiet a long moment, his head turning to and from Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. “Oh,” he finally murmured, and Sherlock closed his eyes, trying to wish himself into someone else, someone who didn’t have to lie, didn’t have to hurt the only person who would never dream of hurting him, and he couldn’t even tell him why. “I-I’m sorry, I- I thought- Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter what I thought,” he muttered, scuffing his heel against the tile floor of the school corridor.
Sherlock tilted his head, scanning over the side of the boy’s face as John stared at the ground, a look of helpless loss in his eyes that shattered what little Sherlock had left of his heart.
“I-I don’t-” John said suddenly, snapping his head up with an earnest expression, “I don’t want you to think- I mean, I would never- We can still be friends.” His voice was quick and frantic, his eyes screaming in terror as they swept over Sherlock’s, and Sherlock had been wrong.
This lie would be so much worse.
“Sherlock?”
“No.”
John physically recoiled from the barely whispered word, as if Sherlock had struck him instead, and Sherlock swallowed, steadying himself as he shook his head.
“No, we-we can’t,” he said, voice trembling only a little, and Sherlock wished he could look away, wished he could stop what he knew was the inevitable imprinting of John’s horrorstricken face in his mind.
“Can’t-Can’t what? What are you saying right now?” John pressed, growing frantic as he stepped closer, and Sherlock turned a shoulder to him, blocking his face from John’s sight.
“We can’t be friends anymore, John,” he said stiffly, managing to sound genuine in his conviction that time, a bitter victory that rolled in his stomach. “I-I don’t want-”
“Sherlock,” John breathed, a plea, a question, and Sherlock felt the liquid brimming at the edge of his eyelids, knowing he had to leave now or he’d be caught for sure.
Sherlock swallowed, stepping back and closing his locker door, his eyes carefully averted as he shoved the present back toward John’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, the gift slipping from his fingers to fall to the floor, and then he was running, deaf to the indignant cries and shouted curses as he ripped his way through the crowd changing classes.
He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to go, which was how he find himself bursting out of a side door a few moments later, heaving in a breath of a fresh air as he broke out into the sun.
“Jesus Christ!” came a shout from his left, and Sherlock spun around, finding a tall brunette he faintly recognized from English leaning against the brick wall. “You almost made me swallow this thing!” she snapped, bobbing the cigarette in her hand, and Sherlock blinked at her, slowly processing the words.
“Oh, er, sorry,” he panted, head still spinning, and the woman’s demeanor quickly shifted from aggressive to curious as her eyes scanned up and down his trembling frame.
“Holmes, right?” she asked, pushing up from the wall and approaching when Sherlock only frowned. “Sherlock Holmes?”
“I- Yes,” Sherlock muttered, and the woman smiled, pulling a packet of cigarettes from her pocket.
“Here,” she said, extending the open packet toward his chest, and Sherlock blinked, looking between the woman and the box.
“I-I don’t smoke,” he murmured, and the woman laughed, rattling the cigarettes against the sides of the container.
“By the look on your face,” she said, nodding up at him, “today seems like a good day to start.”
Sherlock opened his mouth, but the woman cut him off with a quirked brow, shaking the packet again, and he relented, smiling weakly as he plucked out a cigarette. “Thanks,” he nodded, and the woman smiled, pulling out a lighter and holding it to the tip as Sherlock placed the paper between his lips. His first breath in, he coughed out, and the woman laughed, slipping the lighter back into the pocket of her leather jacket.
“You get used to it,” she quipped, smiling sidelong up at him as she took a drag, and Sherlock cleared his throat, eyeing the cigarette skeptically.
“I’ll take your word for it,” he muttered, and she laughed out smoke to the sky.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” she teased, tossing a wink at him. “I’m notoriously unreliable.”
Sherlock chuckled, having a second go at the cigarette, and, though it still burned his throat a bit more than he thought it ought to, at least he didn’t cough.
“Irene Adler,” the woman said, smirking when Sherlock frowned at her. “My name. In case you were ever gonna ask.”
Sherlock smiled, chuckling softly as he shook his head out at the chain-link fence in front of them. “I would’ve gotten around to it.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” the woman mocked, and Sherlock laughed, watching smoke twist up from his mouth toward the grey winter sky, and, just for that small moment, it didn’t feel like quite the end of the world.
*****
The tree probably wasn’t any smaller, but it felt that way to Sherlock, his body seeming to stretch so much higher up on the trunk than it had when he was a child, but the bark still felt the same, cold and rough against his weary head. There was a thin canopy of leaves above him this time, however, filtering the spring sun, but, if he closed his eyes and listened to the quiet of the cemetery, the leaves rustling gently in the warm breeze he could feel on his face, he could almost pretend it was only a season that had passed, only a few months instead of a decade, and he still had time to do it all over again, to do it right this time around.
With a sigh, Sherlock opened his eyes, squinting up at the sun through the branches to see how far it had moved. He’d never gone back to class, instead heading to the cemetery for, according to his probably accurate calculations, the past three hours, sitting at his mother’s grave for a time before moving back up to the tree on the hill. He visited his mother fairly often—or, at least, he used to—but he’d never sat beneath that tree since the day of her funeral, the memory too painful to revisit, but there were other memories here too, better memories, memories he really needed to be reminded of today.
He drew in a breath, tipping his head up once again toward the sky, his eyes chasing slivers of blue revealed between the shifting leaves. Unbidden, the scenes he’d been trying to repress arose in front of his mind’s eye again, a thousand possibilities he could not for all his efforts avoid imagining.
What color would the kitchen backsplash be? Could they pick it out, scan through tile samples and bicker over color combinations? Would they have to help put it in, getting grout on their hands and in their hair, the chalky white standing out bright against John’s skin and blending into the blond? Was there a fireplace? Sherlock had always wanted a fireplace, the only one in their house being in his father’s study, and he wasn’t ever allowed in there.
At the thought of his father, Sherlock’s eyes snapped open, his stomach roiling on instinct, but it wasn’t quite the same, didn’t bring with it the spike of fear and breath-knocking anxiety he’d become so accustomed to. Frowning down at the ground between his bent-up knees, he tried to force the reaction out of his subconscious, to inspire the dread he knew should be racing through him at the thought of the man waiting for him at home, his father no doubt going to be far-past-furious by the time he wandered in the door, but he just couldn’t manage it, couldn’t find it in him to care, part of him already sitting in front of a fireplace on Baker Street arguing green versus teal over Chinese takeaway.
With John. Hopefully. Possibly. If he hadn’t ruined everything. Again.
There was a rustle above him, and he started, scraping his head against the bark as he craned his neck upward. A bird rested on the branches overhead, chirping down at him as it curiously tilted its head, and Sherlock chuckled, mentally mocking himself as he looked out over the sunlit hills.
In an odd way, it was a beautiful day to visit your dearly departed, so Sherlock had been surprised to find himself alone in the cemetery, or at least in this section of it, no one around as far as he could see from his vantage point. Which was why the footsteps that cracked over a twig to his right came as such a shock, his mind having just enough time to recognize the irony of being murdered in a cemetery before the figure rounded the tree trunk.
John stopped as soon as their eyes met, and only now that he was here did Sherlock realize he’d been expecting him, a calm settling over him rather than surprise. There was a question in John’s eyes, but he didn’t ask it, didn’t say anything, and Sherlock’s face must have spoken for itself, because, after a moment of scanning his eyes, John looked away, slowly lowering himself to the ground to lean against the tree beside Sherlock.
Their shoulders brushed just lightly, but Sherlock nevertheless savored the contact, cherished the faint sounds of John’s breathing that crept through the wind, that meant he wasn’t alone, and, quite suddenly, as if he’d been waiting for some sort of permission John’s presence provided, a knot rose up in his throat, the breeze rattling the moisture already building up in his eyes. He didn’t know what he was going to say, was only just opening his mouth and drawing breath to attempt something, but John apparently didn’t need to hear it, or perhaps already knew, and Sherlock suddenly found tan fingers intertwining with his, a warm barrier against the cold grass. Contemplations of speech abandoned, he instead looked up at John, confused, a part of him still expecting him to disappear, to have never been there at all, but John only smiled, steady as always, and squeezed his hand a little tighter in reassurance.
Sherlock was still crying, or at least misting in a socially acceptable manner, but he smiled back, could never help it when it came to John, could never help anything, and, better late than never, he finally understood he didn’t have to.
There was nothing wrong with him.
“You know,” John remarked, looking out over the cemetery as Sherlock looked at the side of his face, “if we lived next to Speedy’s”—Sherlock’s heart somersaulted in delight at the plural—“we’d never have to try making our own chocolate malts again.” He turned, smirking across at him, and Sherlock burst into laughter, tilting his head back as a weight he’d never realized the extent of finally rolled off his shoulders.
Grinning, he tightened his hold on John’s hand, turning back to the sparkling blue eyes. “Sold,” he replied, and John beamed, and Sherlock wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of anything anymore.
*****
“Do you have extra sheets?”
“Yes.”
“Towels?”
“Yes.”
“Toothpaste?”
“No.”
“You don’t have toothpaste?”
“Of course, I have toothpaste!” Sherlock whined, frustrated with the never-ending list. “You bought me three tubes yesterday!”
Mrs. Watson tutted at him, ruffling a hand through his curls before returning to tucking in the corners of his bedsheets, something Sherlock had repeatedly touted the uselessness of, as he was just going to tear it all apart that night anyway, and never do it again, which made the whole teaching process equally pointless.
“Mum!” John shouted down the stairs from his own bedroom. “Which box are my books in?”
“The anatomy ones?” Mrs. Watson bellowed back, Sherlock’s hands lifting to his ears as he ducked out of the way of the screaming match.
“Yeah!”
“It’s the one marked ‘Uni Stuff’!”
“Ta!”
“You could come down here, you know!” Sherlock sputtered, but John didn’t answer, only stomping harder on the floor overhead in childish protest. Sherlock glared at the ceiling, shaking his head, but couldn’t quite completely stifle his smile, something Mrs. Watson quickly noticed, giggling mockingly as she tossed a pillowcase at his face. Sherlock felt his cheeks burn, but said nothing, simply moving to a box in the corner of the room to remove a bare pillow, wrangling the pillowcase around the corners and shaking it into place.
It was technically day two of moving into 221B Baker Street, but, considering they’d spent most of the first day at Speedy’s catching up with Mrs. Hudson, it was really more like hour seven. They were nearly done though, only the finishing touches left, and Sherlock settled his pillow on the bed just as Mrs. Watson whipped the duvet over it, a simple forest green where John’s was dark blue.
Leaving straightening the corners to Mrs. Watson, he crossed to the closet, double-checking that he’d removed all of his clothes from the boxes, his fingers running over the familiar folds of fabric. He’d been skeptical whether even the combined force of Mrs. Watson and Mrs. Hudson would be enough to convince his father not to put up a fight about him moving out, let alone letting them take some of his things, but he’d never make that mistake again, the women returning with the entirety of his room crammed into cardboard boxes in the back of Mrs. Watson’s car, as well as smiling assurances that his father would not be causing trouble for them anymore. Naturally, Sherlock and John had, in perfect unison, asked if they’d killed him, but, apparently, they’d only been “very persuasive”. Either way, Sherlock had made a mental note to never get on the bad side of either of them, although he doubted that was likely to happen even if he tried, considering the tearful welcome he’d received at both the Watson household and 221B.
‘My boy!’ Mrs. Watson had said, weeping into his shoulder as she held him until he was blue in the face, but there were worse ways to die, he supposed, although he could have done without John snickering in the background.
“Alright,” Mrs. Watson sighed, swatting her hands together as she looked over her handiwork. “I think that about covers it. You sure you have-”
“Everything I will ever need, yes,” Sherlock finished, and the woman shook her head at him, smiling fondly as she crossed the room.
“You’re almost out of milk,” she advised, brushing the hair she was ever-fussing with out of his eyes, “and don’t forget to remind Mrs. Hudson about that leak in the shower. I know she’s busy with the renovations right now, but, so long as she’s got the workmen in here-”
“I’ll remind her,” Sherlock chimed in, and Mrs. Watson narrowed her eyes skeptically.
“No, you won’t,” she muttered, giving up on his hair and settling her hands on his shoulders. “You’ll remind John to do it.”
“Well, she likes him so much better,” Sherlock argued, and Mrs. Watson laughed, pulling him in for a tight hug.
When she pulled away, her eyes were misty, something Sherlock really ought to have gotten used to by now, but it still hit him with a sympathy punch to the gut every time. “I am so proud of you,” she whispered, and an entirely different feeling swept over him, a sort of wonderment at the combination of words he’d never heard. “And I know your mother would be too,” she added, and the only thing that kept Sherlock standing was hearing John’s footsteps thumping down the stairs. “I know she would.”
“Oh god, not more crying,” John groaned, banging his head against the doorframe as he leaned into the room. “You bought us four crates of tissues, and we’re already almost out.”
“Oh, hush, you!” Mrs. Watson snapped, swatting a hand back at him, and Sherlock chuckled, smiling down at the woman as she pulled away.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling with a soft nod, and Mrs. Watson held a hand lightly to his cheek a moment before moving back to her son, dropping a kiss to his forehead.
A few moments later, her footsteps could be heard descending the stairs, and then the front door shook through the floor, leaving him and John alone for quite possibly the first time in their new flat. Their new flat. That was theirs. The two of them. Together.
“Think fast!”
Sherlock whipped his head up, snatching the object out of the air mere seconds before it collided with his face. “Don’t do that!” he snapped, frustrated at the ruination of his internal moment, but John only laughed, folding his arms as he leaned against the doorframe. With a pointed scowl, Sherlock looked down at the projectile, a small box wrapped in red-and-white-striped paper and tied with-
Sherlock stared down at the familiar silver ribbon, his eyes widening as his lips dropped apart, and, though he heard John slowly approaching over the hardwood floor, he could not tear his eyes away to look at him.
“Good thing it wasn’t a puppy, eh?” John joked, but his nerves were obvious in his voice, and even more apparent in his features when Sherlock finally could look at him, the blond smiling hesitantly as a hand mussed the hair at the back of his head.
In the few days that he’d been living at the Watson house, John and his relationship—as he liked to call it in his head—had not progressed beyond holding hands, John clearly frustratingly concerned for his emotional state. It was thoughtful, Sherlock had to admit, and probably necessary, but also extraordinarily annoying, spurring spirals of self-doubt in Sherlock’s head as he began to question whether he’d misread John’s intentions. There was no room for doubt now, however, holding the present John had saved for two years in his hands, and, for all he’d imagined and eagerly anticipated this moment, it was suddenly terrifying, pulling on that silver ribbon feeling less like opening a belated Christmas present, and more like opening a door to an entirely unknown planet and hoping you could breathe the air.
“Because-Because it’s been so long, and a puppy would’ve-”
“No, I-I get it,” Sherlock replied, pulling himself out of his own head enough to nod. “Although I wouldn’t have turned down a puppy,” he added, and John chuckled, drawing up in front of him.
“Next Christmas,” he muttered, and Sherlock’s eyes blew wide.
“Really?” he asked eagerly, and John laughed, smiling fondly at him as he bobbed a hand down at the gift in Sherlock’s grasp.
“Let’s just…start here, shall we?” he suggested, and Sherlock, with only a token amount of pouting, turned his attention back to the parcel.
With faintly trembling fingers, he tugged at the silver strand, the bow neatly coming undone, and then tore through the paper, the sound barely drowning out the thumping of his heart in his ears. The paper removed enough to free the contents, he wriggled loose the box, letting the wrappings fall to their feet, and then barked a startled laugh, slapping a hand to his mouth as his shoulders shook with mirth.
“Are you shi-”
“You have to open it!” John urged, rolling circles in the air with his hands.
“I did open it!” Sherlock retorted, holding the Magic 8 Ball out to face the blond, but John shook his head, tapping at the cardboard casing.
“No, you have to take it out,” he ordered, and Sherlock rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he popped open the top of the box.
He almost didn’t notice, reaching immediately for the ball inside, but then his eyes caught on a message written on the inside of the lid, his heart rocketing up into his throat before dropping through the floor with his jaw.
‘Will I, John Hamish Watson, forever and always love William Sherlock Scott Holmes more than anyone else I have or will ever meet?’
Sherlock stared at the message, reading it three times, but the words never changed. His mouth hanging open, he blinked his eyes up to John, who, while watching him anxiously, managed a small smile as he met Sherlock’s gaze.
“You have to turn it over,” he said, curling his hand in gesture, and Sherlock wordlessly complied, turning the ball in his hands to reveal the answer.
Of course, the answer turned out to be rather anticlimactic, a piece of white paper taped to the plastic window proclaiming Without a doubt, and Sherlock laughed, shaking his head at the absurdity.
“You fixed it!”
“Well, it’s my question! Who else would know the answer?”
“I thought the plastic ball knew everything.”
“I was 15, okay! That’s about as romantic as I could get!”
Sherlock laughed, clutching at his sides as he lowered the ball in his grip, carefully leaning to the side to drop it onto the bed.
“It’s not that funny,” John grumbled self-consciously, frowning at him, and Sherlock loved him, loved him in a way he realized, somewhere, very deep down, or perhaps so all-encompassing that he didn’t even notice it anymore, he had always loved him, and, as sometimes happens with epiphanies, it demanded to be shared.
“You’re an idiot,” he said, the same way he’d always said it, and John, equally as constant, understood, grinning at him as he stepped forward, cupping Sherlock’s jaw with one hand while the other wrapped around his waist.
Sherlock had always counted John as his first kiss. Their lips had technically touched that evening in his bedroom after all, but he was now going to replace that memory with this kiss, replace every memory with this kiss, because nothing else was worth remembering other than kissing John Watson.
If the solar system had to go to make room for the electrifying slide of cool fingers pushing up into his curls, he’d find a way to cope. How often did one really use derivatives? Surely the taste of lunch’s chocolate milkshake lingering on John’s chapped lips was infinitely more important. The current Queen of England could walk into the room right now, and Sherlock wouldn’t even recognize her, would probably rather impolitely insist that she leave so he could get back to memorizing the warmth of John’s hand holding fast at his side, fingers pressing into the muscles of his waist.
Not long enough later, the limitations of the human body necessitated they break apart, noisily dragging in air over one another’s mouths as they panted, lips occasionally brushing, and John’s hand slowly slid from Sherlock’s hair, trailing along his jaw to rest at his chin. Gently, with a reverence Sherlock would never be worthy of, he lifted a thumb to Sherlock’s bottom lip, stroking lightly over the tingling skin, and then smiled softly, dropping his hand away to place a single chaste kiss over the spot.
“Come on,” he beckoned, nodding toward the door as he tangled Sherlock’s fingers with his, “we’ve gotta pick one of those tiles before tomorrow.”
Sherlock smiled, following along after him as they headed toward the kitchen where the samples were laid out. “I like the green.”
“Which green?”
“The blue-ish one.”
“You mean the blue one?”
“No, it’s still more green.”
“There’s only one green.”
“No, there’s the green green, and then the blue green.”
“Sherlock, I’m telling you, there is only one green.”
“Then what do you call that?”
“Blue.”
“That is not blue!”
“Are we seriously having our first fight over tile?”
“Well, maybe if you weren’t colorblind- Where are you going?”
“I just gotta grab something.”
“I AM NOT LETTING A PLASTIC BALL MAKE THIS DECISION!”
“It says, without a doubt, it’s blue.”
“THAT’S BECAUSE YOU STUCK- You are exorbitantly frustrating.”
“Magic 8 Ball, is that a compliment?”
“Without a doubt?”
“Without a doubt.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“So you tell me.”