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"Do you ever worry?" William asked one day, out of the blue.
"...Um… Yes…?" Sherlock answered after a momentary pause, raising his head from the book he was reading on their living room sofa. "Just like any other person??"
William responded with a single, breathy chuckle. He evidently found Sherlock's perplexed response amusing, but that one little noise told Sherlock everything he needed to know about his current frame of mind.
"That's not what I meant, Sherly." He said, and slid over gently toward the back of the couch. In response, Sherlock tilted his head up, until it lay entirely along the curve of the sofa's back, exposing his neck more and more and ignoring the pleasant shiver that still ran through his body at the nickname. William sighed, staring down at him, "Don't you ever worry that I manipulated you into this?"
Sherlock scoffed. William frowned deeper in response.
"No, really, I mean it." He asserted sincerely. "You want me to atone. You want me to live. You want to love me. But how do you know that I haven't led you into thinking those things? Tricked you this whole time, to bring you to where you are now."
Sherlock scoffed once again. The way William's pout solidified further would've been cute if he weren't so genuinely distressed.
"Liam." Sherlock said once, on its own, to still his love's unending branching webs of thought onto a single point—him.
Sherlock flipped around in his seat so that he was no longer staring upside-down.
"To begin with, do you really think that you can manipulate me like that?"
William's scarlet eye gleamed competitively, like the spark of a roaring flame. "I could."
"You couldn't. Things like our love, our relationship… they're too sacred to you for that. You wouldn't distort them in such a way, not without hurting yourself just as much in the process. And I would be able to pick up on that. So no, you can't."
"Could too," William said. But the way he did so more quietly, under his breath, indicated that he no longer wanted to linger on this point.
So Sherlock continued. "And furthermore, you wouldn't have been so genuinely surprised on that day, when I came as your true friend and not as the Great Detective, had it been your plot all along." He assured.
Knowing the former Lord of Crime well enough by this point, he reached his hands out and grabbed onto the closest wrist beyond the back of the couch—ironically enough, William's left—and used it to direct him around the sofa and down onto the cushions beside him. William followed his silent instructions easily.
Sherlock tucked his love's blond hair behind his ears gently, thoughtfully. William averted his visible eye shamefully despite the loving caresses.
"Why are you asking me this, Liam?" Sherlock, ever the tactful one, asked directly. "Is it because you are, in fact, the one worried that you are somehow 'tricking' me and have been this whole time?"
William finally locks gazes with him, obviously (to them) preventing himself from crying right then and there. His eyebrows pinch. "How could I not be tricking you? Why else would you be here, despite all that I've done and all that I am?"
Sherlock, unable to stand seeing the pain in William's expression, quickly curled himself into William's chest, wrapping his arms around his torso comfortingly. "Do you need me to list out the evidence of your genuine surprise on Tower Bridge to prove it to you? I consciously chose to play the role of your puppet detective, just as I consciously chose to cut the strings. You have not manipulated me into catching you, into saving you, into loving you ardently. You could not manipulate me into anything without me being, on some level, aware. I love you, Liam, and you damn well better believe that is a choice that I have made. On my own. Fully aware. Fully autonomous. And it's a choice that I will continue to make, over and over and over again until you realize that it's here to stay."
He leaned back, the two of them locking passionate and meaningful gazes once more.
"Sherly, I—"
Sherlock pressed his lips to William's, chastely, softly, to quiet him. To communicate that he hadn't quite finished his ramble yet.
"But let me play Devil's advocate for a moment," Sherlock grinned cheekily at his own little joke, causing William to release another of his small, airy laughs. "And say you did manipulate me to bring me to my current state. Somehow. Miraculously."
"Sherly." William drawled. This time, it was less of an interruption to speak, himself, and more of an admonishment for lingering on petty commentary due to their continuous battle of wits. The smile playing on his lips proved it was in good humor.
Sherlock dropped his teasing, looking around their shared apartment with a look of genuine fondness. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here."