Saving Sherlock Holmes (28/43)
Jan. 23rd, 2013 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earlgreytea68Title - Saving Sherlock Holmes (28/43)
Author -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Lestrade, Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - Sherlock Holmes, schoolboy. Yeah, that basically sums it up.
Author's Notes - Thank yous! Tflawedamythyst n sensiblecat or the Britpick; to the readers who read as this was being written, includin chicklet73; and t arctacuda, who uncomplainingly betas massive amounts of fic.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sherlock was conducting an experiment. John didn’t know what the experiment was about. He’d asked, but Sherlock had answered him in what sounded like Latin, which Sherlock sometimes did if he didn’t want to answer a question. John thought he really needed to learn Latin so that trick would stop working someday.
The experiment involved John carrying two rather heavy knapsacks and Sherlock carrying nothing at all. John wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. He never really was. All he knew was that, immediately after completing his mock exams, which had been exhausting and trying, he now found himself following behind Sherlock as he practically skipped ahead of him through the knot of woods by the side of Eton and complained about how slow John was being.
“Do hurry up!” shouted Sherlock, from up ahead of him by several trees. “I want to get started before it gets dark!”
“Oh my God,” muttered John, “I am going to kill you. This is a perfect place for a murder.” And then, louder, “Didn’t you bring a torch?”
“Of course I brought a torch,” Sherlock answered in his don’t ask stupid questions tone of voice, and John considered that the knapsacks were heavy enough that Sherlock had probably packed several marble paperweights as well, just in case.
“Why couldn’t you have chosen a place for this experiment that wasn’t miles away from the school?”
“We’re not miles away from the school, John. Don’t be an idiot.”
“We’ve definitely walked at least a mile.”
“Walking one mile is not the same as walking miles.”
“No journey is too long for the person not carrying anything,” John snapped, and Sherlock stopped walking abruptly and turned back to him.
“All right,” said Sherlock. “Fine. Would you like to get started?”
“Yes.” John looked around them. They were standing in an unremarkable patch of forest that looked the same as every other patch of forest. “Does this suit you?”
“It’s fine.” Sherlock waved his hand dismissively and reached for one of the knapsacks. “Good a place as any.”
John lifted his eyebrows and watched Sherlock rummage through the knapsack. “We walked all this way so you could find as ‘good a place as any’?”
“Compass,” Sherlock said, pulling it out of the knapsack and holding it up for John to see. “Water. Some biscuits I stole from the housemaster’s stash—”
“Sherlock,” sighed John.
“—A blanket. Matches. A flare gun.”
John’s eyes widened. “Where the hell did you get a flare gun?”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and didn’t even bother to answer the question, zipping the knapsack back up.
“That’s not even legal, is it?” persisted John.
“Laws are boring,” Sherlock reminded him, and handed him the knapsack, keeping the other knapsack at his feet.
John took it automatically. “What’s this for?”
“I want you to run.”
John looked around them. “Run where?”
“Anywhere. Don’t tell me where. I’m going to close my eyes and give you a two-minute head start.”
“Are we…playing hide-and-seek?”
Sherlock scowled. “I’m learning how to track people in a non-urban environment.”
John looked pointedly at the crunchy layer of frost on the ground, at their breath fogging between them. “In January? You have to learn how to do this in January?”
“I’m going to have to learn how to do it in every season, but yes, we’re starting in January, as it’s the beginning of the year, and I’m nothing if not logical.”
“That’s what I always say about you,” said John, dryly. “So the knapsack is my survival kit?”
“Of course. In case you get lost or in trouble or something. But you shouldn’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find you almost immediately. Do try to be a bit clever and make it at least a little challenging for me.”
“Do you know something?” John began, in exasperation.
“I know everything,” Sherlock replied evenly, cutting off John’s impending rant.
John sighed, because that was mostly true, and certainly Sherlock knew what John had been going to say, which was that this was absolutely insane and Sherlock was absolutely insane and John was the most insane of all to be slinging the knapsack over his shoulder and saying, in resignation, “Fine. But this better not take too long, and when it’s over you’re going to steal me hot chocolate from somewhere.”
“When it’s over, I plan to warm you up quite nicely, I promise,” said Sherlock, although he said it absently, as if he knew it would be a nice carrot for John though Sherlock’s thoughts were very much on other things that were definitely not sex.
John shook his head, more at himself than at Sherlock, and started to walk off.
“No, no, no,” Sherlock complained. “You have to wait for me to close my eyes.” Which Sherlock then did, very dramatically, counting as he did so: “One, two...”
John started walking again.
“At least run!” Sherlock shouted to him, before saying, “…seven, eight…”
John took a deep breath, adjusted the knapsack, and ran.
***
John ran until he was out of breath and didn’t feel like running anymore. And then he stopped and considered. Surely Sherlock would be right behind him, he ought to be easy to track, having crashed through the forest the way he had. If Sherlock was more than two minutes behind him, he’d be shocked.
So John leaned against a tree to catch his breath and wait for Sherlock to show up, and that was when he saw the dog, a small, skinny bulldog watching him warily from a few trees away.
John glanced around, as if the dog’s owner was going to appear, but there was no one around them. John looked back at the dog, who was still watching him steadily, and said, experimentally, “Hello, boy.”
The dog cocked its head, and then wagged its tail.
John, encouraged, held out a gloved hand in its direction. “Come here,” he crooned to it.
The dog bounded over to him enthusiastically, clearly having decided that John was A Friend. John crouched to be on its level, pulling off his gloves as he did so so that he could better scratch behind its ears. He found himself almost instantly covered in quite a bit of dog slobber and not really caring a bit, because the dog snuffled happily at him as if it had been waiting its whole life for John’s appearance.
John had fallen in love with Sherlock by gradual degrees, so slowly and insidiously that he hadn’t noticed it until it was done. John fell in love with his bulldog immediately, crashing into it almost painfully. It had all been sealed with copious amounts of drooling kisses by the time Sherlock came upon them.
“What,” Sherlock inquired, stiffly, “is that?”
“It’s a dog,” John answered, gleefully. “Must have wandered off. Is that what you’re doing all alone in the forest here, boy?”
The dog looked adoringly at John and took another swipe at his face with his tongue, which John laughingly pushed away.
“Wandered off?” Sherlock sniffed. “That dog is clearly a stray. No collar. And look at how unkempt it is, how skinny it is, you can see its ribs. It’s been attempting to live off the land for quite a while, and doing a terrible job of it.”
“A stray,” John repeated. “In the wintertime? That’s horrible.” He thought of the dog shivering on the frost-hard ground.
“No,” said Sherlock, flatly, from behind him.
“No what?” John twisted so he could look up at him.
“You’re getting it in your head that we ought to take the dog home with us. Your caretaker fixation. We’re not keeping the dog.”
“But haven’t you always wanted a dog?” John asked him.
An expression passed over Sherlock’s face, something John couldn’t quite read. “No, but you clearly have,” Sherlock said, and he sounded…resigned?
“Of course I have!” John confirmed for him. “Dogs are brilliant. And look at this one. This one likes me.”
“John, everything likes you.” Sherlock made it sound like that was John’s most annoying feature.
John looked at the dog, which looked back at him with sad, appealing eyes. Don’t leave me here in the cold, you’re my favorite human ever, you can’t leave me here, was what those eyes said. John fiercely wanted this dog. He looked back at Sherlock. “We’d have to hide him from everyone. You’d enjoy that. You know you would.”
“Stop trying to convince me,” Sherlock sighed. “It’s done. You can keep the dog. We’ll find a way to smuggle him into our room.”
John grinned triumphantly, surprised it had been so easy. Sherlock must have secretly wanted the dog. “You love the dog, too, admit it.”
“No,” said Sherlock, shortly. “I love you, and you want the bloody dog, and if I raise a fuss about the dog you’ll be sad about it and you’ll look at me with your sad little face, so I’d much rather deal with the dog. Now let’s go, I thought you were annoyed with how cold it is out here.”
John froze into place, crouched by his new dog, and stared up at Sherlock. He wondered if he should point out that Sherlock had never before said that he loved him. If he should point out that he had never said he loved Sherlock. He’d known both things were true, of course, but it was another thing entirely to hear Sherlock say it, so casually, just another fact for Sherlock to spout.
John decided not to point it out. John decided to just keep the memory of it for himself, locked away, precious and beautiful. He stood and kissed Sherlock hard, startling him, and then said, “Thank you.” He didn’t mean just for the dog, although he thought Sherlock would assume that’s what he meant. “I am going to shag you until the only word you can remember is my name.”
Sherlock was a pleasing shade of pink, not entirely attributable, John thought, to the cold. “Not in front of the dog,” was all he said.
***
Lestrade had set him the puzzle of the Voynich manuscript, but Sherlock was much more preoccupied with the challenge of keeping the dog a secret. It was John’s opinion that they needed to enlist the help of the rest of the house to keep the dog’s existence a secret. John thought there was no way they could keep the dog a secret from everyone, because the dog would need to be walked, and the dog would make noise, and they needed allies.
Sherlock had never had allies in his life, and he thought John was being naïve thinking that anyone could be trusted. But it was John’s dog, and Sherlock thought it was John’s call as to the best way to keep the dog a secret. Sherlock admitted to himself he was looking forward to saying I told you so when one of the other boys went running to the housemaster.
Except that no one did. All of the other boys were taken with the idea of having a house mascot. Sherlock felt like this was new data he needed to evaluate. Only there was never time to evaluate the data because there was a constant stream of boys to John’s room, asking for permission to take the dog out for games of fetch. Sherlock hated this parade of visitors and spent most of his time sulking silently on John’s bed, staring fixedly at the wall and refusing to acknowledge anyone’s existence. If John weren’t so plainly delighted by his silly dog, Sherlock would have found it all completely unbearable. Instead, it was just mostly unbearable, alleviated only by the fact that John lit up whenever he talked to the dog in those ridiculous dog voices he used, and Sherlock considered it to be very unfair that John was so adorable, even when doing such extremely silly things. In anyone else, this situation would have driven him mad; he would have given up and retreated back to his room and his solitude. With John, the idea of retreat was unthinkable.
More data to evaluate. But whenever he started to evaluate it, someone either knocked on their door or John crawled into his sulking nest and kissed a curve into his lips, and then it really didn’t seem very important. Sherlock even felt bad when the dog managed to eat all of his latest mold experiment. By rights, he should have been furious, but John was so terrified and nervous and sat up all night with the dog’s head in his lap fretting that he was about to die, and Sherlock had felt terrible. He was becoming the most nonsensical person he knew. He felt like he should care more about that.
John had struck up friendships with many more people than any person needed to be friends with, and John started to tell them stories about Sherlock’s abilities to solve mysteries, so that, after a little while, the visitors were no longer in search of the dog and were instead in search of Sherlock’s services. Every petty problem they had was boring, but they were all slightly less boring than the Voynich manuscript, because at least they were real, and he was playing a real role in them. The other students were seldom as appreciative of his abilities as John was, but that was fine with him, as John continued to compliment him warmly and that was all that mattered to Sherlock.
What all this meant was that Sherlock, for the first time in his life at Eton, was used to receiving knocks on his door. Well, John’s door, which was also, for all intents and purposes, his, because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to his room for anything. So he was not alarmed to hear a knock on the door, although he was annoyed, because he was sprawled on John’s bed thinking, and he hated when people interrupted his thinking.
“Can’t you answer the door?” he asked John, and, when the knocking persisted, he realized that John wasn’t there. Div, thought Sherlock. John was always going to divs. It was so inconvenient. Sherlock frowned up at the ceiling over John’s bed and snapped, “Go away,” to the door, because Sherlock didn’t interact with any of the people who banged on their door constantly without John there.
“You should let me in,” came Lestrade’s voice, from the other side of the door.
Sherlock sighed heavily and rolled his eyes and looked at the dog, who had been lying right next to him, head on Sherlock’s belly. Sherlock had trained the dog to do lots of useful things. John seemed to think this was impressive. Sherlock thought it was necessary. And all it took was a look for the dog to know that this was the sort of visitor where he was supposed to hide under the bed, as Sherlock had trained him to do.
Sherlock waited for the dog to be completely out of sight before calling out, resignedly, “Fine. Come in.”
Lestrade opened the door, stepped into the room, and promptly closed the door behind him. Sherlock looked at him from John’s bed, not deigning to sit up.
“Are you thinking about the Voynich manuscript?” asked Lestrade.
“Trying to. Very hard to think with you in the room.”
“I only ask because you seem preoccupied lately with things that are not the Voynich manuscript.” Lestrade leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and regarded Sherlock. “And the deal was that I could get you out of divs if you did independent study with me. You seem to be neglecting your independent study.”
Sherlock shrugged, because he didn’t care enough to come up with a response, and went back to looking at the ceiling.
“There’s a rumor going around that you’re offering your services as a ‘consulting detective.’”
“I’m not really, people just keep bothering me about it,” Sherlock informed the ceiling.
“The other rumor I hear is that you have a dog,” said Lestrade, evenly.
“Don’t be preposterous,” Sherlock rejoined, lightly. “How would I ever hide a dog here? With the ace supervision in this place?”
“I could always search your room,” said Lestrade. “Drugs bust or something.”
Sherlock said nothing.
Lestrade, with a small smile, took a handful of dog bones out of his pocket and placed them on the floor.
Sherlock frowned at him. He heard a telltale scuffling under the bed and frowned harder. “Stay,” he commanded, deciding he’d rather try to pretend he was an idiot saying words for no reason than have the dog burst forth in a bone-crazed state.
Lestrade lifted his eyebrows and crouched to the floor and waved one of the bones about. “Come here, boy,” he said, and the dog immediately scrambled out from under the bed and made a beeline for the bone.
Sherlock made a sound of disgust. “Loyalty is a dead concept, I see,” he complained.
The dog happily munched on his bones and looked at him as if to say But he had food! Sherlock was unmoved.
“So John Watson has a dog in his room,” Lestrade noted, conversationally. “That’s grounds for expulsion.”
Sherlock sat up immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s my dog, clearly. John had nothing to do with it. John doesn’t even sleep here anymore; I make him sleep in my room. There’s no reason to expel John.”
“And you think loyalty’s a dead concept,” commented Lestrade, dryly, and then sat on the floor, the better to pet the dog. “Relax. Nobody’s getting expelled. What’s his name?”
“Gladstone,” Sherlock answered.
“Like the prime minister?”
“John was learning about him in history, apparently, and wanted a name he thought I’d have to learn about. Little did he know that Gladstone is Mycroft’s middle name and, hence, a perfect name for a dog. And I already know about Gladstone, because of that.”
“Mycroft’s middle name is Gladstone?”
“Hasn’t he told you that yet?”
“I thought you wanted to ignore that there was anything going on between your brother and me.”
“I definitely want to ignore it.”
“Then stop talking about him and start talking about Gladstone the bulldog instead. You can’t just keep a dog in your room, Sherlock.”
“Why not? We’ve been doing it for weeks already. He clearly doesn’t cause any trouble.”
“It’s against the rules.”
“Rules are boring.”
“I know you think so, but, sadly, they must be respected until the happy day when you are made supreme ruler of the universe. And then you’ll see how the first thing you’ll do will be to make your own rules.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of deep, philosophical point?”
“No, it’s supposed to be my way of telling you that you can’t keep the dog.”
“We have to keep the dog, Lestrade. You don’t understand. John loves the dog. John is completely irrational about the dog. John will go to pieces if you take the dog away.”
“John will still have you.”
Sherlock scowled. He was so tired of conversing with idiots. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“There is no way John loves this dog more than he loves you.”
Sherlock had his next point already formed on his lips, but Lestrade’s words were unexpected, made him pause and backtrack. He turned over what Lestrade had said, and he didn’t want to ask it, he didn’t want the vulnerability of the asking, but he couldn’t help it. “John doesn’t… Does he?” Sherlock couldn’t believe that. He tried to imagine the sound of the words I love you being directed toward him. He couldn’t, it was too unfathomable. New data. Always new data when it came to John.
Lestrade looked at him, his dark eyes penetrating and sharp, and Sherlock felt himself flush, knew he’d given too much away. He cleared his throat quickly and said, “Never mind. You still can’t take the dog. I have trained him to attack the jugular of anyone who tries to steal him.”
“If that were true, I’d definitely have to take the dog,” said Lestrade.
The sentence made Sherlock think he had a bit of an opening, so he wriggled his way into it. Lestrade clearly liked dogs, and Lestrade clearly liked John. Time to use that to his advantage. “John’s always wanted a dog, but his parents are useless and instead Fate intervened and gave him this one. You cannot bargain with Fate.”
Lestrade burst out laughing. “You don’t believe in Fate,” he gasped around his mirth.
“I believe in it more than I believe in Etonian rules,” snapped Sherlock.
“Were you debating whether it should be Fate or divine intervention?”
Sherlock ignored that question, because the answer was yes. “What if I help you out with Mycroft?”
“Things are going just fine with Mycroft without your help. And no, we’re not talking about it.”
“But John,” Sherlock said, trying to play his trump card as forcefully as possible. “You like John. You know John. John would be so sad, and how can any of us deal with John’s sad face?”
Lestrade was silent for a long time. “That’s the first reasonable argument you’ve made about this,” he concluded, finally.
Gladstone drooled contentedly on Lestrade’s lap.
Sherlock decided to try to move in for the kill. “So we’re agreed then.”
Lestrade, scratching behind Gladstone’s ears, looked up at him. “Agreed?” he echoed.
“Yes. In order to avoid John being sad, we will keep the dog.”
Lestrade looked amused. “We haven’t agreed to any such thing. Do you know how much favoritism I already show you? Now you want me to cover up a dog for you, too?”
“Favoritism?” Sherlock sniffed, offended. “I don’t think you show me any favoritism. You just show good judgment, which is so rare around here that nobody knows what to make of it.”
“Sherlock,” sighed Lestrade.
“And anyway, even if it is favoritism, it’s not nearly as much as I deserve, considering that you’re shagging my brother.”
“Sorry, do we discuss each other’s sex lives now?” asked Lestrade, mildly. “How’s John?”
Sherlock frowned at him.
“I thought not,” said Lestrade, plainly satisfied he’d made his point.
Sherlock considered him, decided to switch tactics. “Please,” he said.
Lestrade’s amusement appeared to increase. “Please?” he repeated.
“Yes. Please. Doesn’t that usually make people do as other people request?” Sherlock demanded, impatiently.
“Not always,” Lestrade pointed out.
“John loves the dog,” Sherlock snapped. “He loves the dog. Setting aside whatever he does or doesn’t feel about me, whatever that might be, what I know is that he loves the dog. I won’t let you take the dog away from him. So name your price, tell me what it is.”
Lestrade leaned back against the wall, watching him closely. “Do you imagine there’s some sum of money I have in mind?”
“I don’t bother wasting my energy imagining what dull things must go on in your funny little head.”
“You like this dog, don’t you?”
“I tolerate the dog. He’s John’s dog, and he’ll stay that way.”
“‘He,’ not ‘it,’” remarked Lestrade. “Don’t pretend you’re not taken with the dog as well. More taken with John, it’s true, but just a teeny bit taken with Gladstone here.”
“What does any of this matter? All that matters is that John is currently ahead as far as presents are concerned, and I can’t think of any way to fix that other than to make sure he keeps this dog.”
Lestrade was silent for a second. “You shouldn’t keep score like that. A relationship isn’t like that.”
“If I wanted relationship advice from you, I’d ask. As it is, I find your advice dubious at best, given the fact that your current relationship is with my brother.”
Lestrade regarded him for a moment, then stood up, dislodging Gladstone from his lap and trying unsuccessfully to get some of the drool off of him. “I was never here,” he said, and closed the door behind him as he left.
Gladstone whined a bit and looked from the closed door to Sherlock, as if sad Lestrade had left.
“Oh, stop it,” Sherlock told him. “We don’t like Lestrade in this room. Don’t go developing some ridiculous attachment to him. You’re as bad as John, liking everybody all the time.”
Gladstone jumped onto the bed and settled himself next to Sherlock.
“Also, you’re not supposed to be on the bed,” Sherlock reminded him.
Gladstone put his head in Sherlock’s lap and looked very comfortable indeed on the bed.
Sherlock sighed. “John can’t know that I let you on the bed. You know it’s my stance that you shouldn’t be on the bed, and I’ll lose all credibility if John finds out that I let you on the bed.”
Gladstone looked unconcerned about any of this.
John abruptly threw open the door to the room, eliminating any possibility that Sherlock was going to get away with having Gladstone on the bed. Gladstone did leap off the bed at the sight of John, going to slobber joyfully all over him. John, slightly out of breath, closed the door behind him, greeted Gladstone with an absent pat on the head, and looked around the room.
“Where’s Lestrade?”
“Not here, obviously,” Sherlock said, trying to affect nonchalance and hoping John hadn’t noticed Gladstone’s position on the bed. John usually noticed nothing. Hopefully that would remain the case.
“But was he here? Emerson managed to pass me a note in div saying that Lestrade was here.”
Sherlock thought of Lestrade saying I was never here, and decided that maybe, in the wake of Lestrade looking the other way as far as Gladstone was concerned, he deserved to have his request complied with. “If Lestrade had been here, do you think Gladstone would still be here, too?” It wasn’t exactly a lie, Sherlock thought. Just leading John into the conclusion he wanted him to reach.
“Then I just made up an excuse to get out of div and dashed here for no reason?” John asked, after a moment.
“Well.” Sherlock rolled himself off the bed and backed John against the closed door. John grinned at him. “I wouldn’t say ‘no reason,’” said Sherlock, and kissed him. Sherlock almost never initiated kissing John. Mostly because John initiated plenty of kissing, but also, partly, because a part of him was always worried John would frown and push him away and say, Really? Aren’t we growing tired of this yet? But John kissed him back now, hands settling on Sherlock’s hips, untucking his shirt and angling him into place all at once, and Sherlock wanted to ask him, wanted to say, Do you love me? It wasn’t the first time it had occurred to him to ask the question. He wondered it almost constantly, in dark hours whilst John slept beside him, whilst John was at div and Sherlock had nothing else to ponder, whilst John was being John and Sherlock was watching him be John and thinking that he loved him wildly, his heart thundering with the adrenaline of it. He couldn’t conceive of John feeling that way about him, he couldn’t conceive of anyone feeling the windswept crescendo of adoration that he felt for John, least of all John feeling it for him. Lestrade had said it so casually, as if it wouldn’t have been a miracle akin to the discovery of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Do you love me? Sherlock wanted to ask, but as long as he didn’t, the possibility still existed that the answer could be an astonishing yes, and Sherlock could imagine it that way, so perfect it was painful.
“Sherlock,” John said. The prelude to a conversation, not a moan of passion. John turned his head, thwarting Sherlock’s mouth capturing his, so Sherlock made do with the line of John’s jaw instead and didn’t bother to respond, because he didn’t want to have a conversation. “Were you talking to the dog when I came in?”
Sherlock paused minutely, then said, “Don’t be ridiculous, why would I talk to the dog?” Sherlock closed his teeth around John’s earlobe and tugged a little mercilessly, because he wanted to derail John’s train of thought.
John started to groan, but bit it back, clearly fighting against Sherlock’s tactics. “Before you met me, you used to talk to a skull. Anyway, you like the dog.”
“I don’t like the dog. If it were up to me, I’d get rid of the dog.” Sherlock, brutally and with little preamble, unbuttoned John’s trousers and slid his hands into his pants, because John really needed to be distracted.
“Liar,” John gasped. His eyes fluttered closed and his head fell back against the door. “You let him on the bed with you.”
“Shut up,” Sherlock commanded, and tried to kiss him.
John ducked, pulling Sherlock’s hands out of his pants and wriggling away from the door, and Sherlock felt embarrassed for a split second, braced for a reprimand of some sort from John. But then John fell back onto their bed and pulled Sherlock after him, and Sherlock could think of nothing but love love love love, how much he loved John, and how maybe John loved him back at least a little bit, and John said to him, smiling, “Make me.”
So Sherlock did.
Next Chapter
Author -
earlgreytea68Rating - Teen
Characters - Lestrade, Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - Sherlock Holmes, schoolboy. Yeah, that basically sums it up.
Author's Notes - Thank yous! T
flawedamythyst n sensiblecat or the Britpick; to the readers who read as this was being written, includin chicklet73; and t arctacuda, who uncomplainingly betas massive amounts of fic. Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sherlock was conducting an experiment. John didn’t know what the experiment was about. He’d asked, but Sherlock had answered him in what sounded like Latin, which Sherlock sometimes did if he didn’t want to answer a question. John thought he really needed to learn Latin so that trick would stop working someday.
The experiment involved John carrying two rather heavy knapsacks and Sherlock carrying nothing at all. John wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. He never really was. All he knew was that, immediately after completing his mock exams, which had been exhausting and trying, he now found himself following behind Sherlock as he practically skipped ahead of him through the knot of woods by the side of Eton and complained about how slow John was being.
“Do hurry up!” shouted Sherlock, from up ahead of him by several trees. “I want to get started before it gets dark!”
“Oh my God,” muttered John, “I am going to kill you. This is a perfect place for a murder.” And then, louder, “Didn’t you bring a torch?”
“Of course I brought a torch,” Sherlock answered in his don’t ask stupid questions tone of voice, and John considered that the knapsacks were heavy enough that Sherlock had probably packed several marble paperweights as well, just in case.
“Why couldn’t you have chosen a place for this experiment that wasn’t miles away from the school?”
“We’re not miles away from the school, John. Don’t be an idiot.”
“We’ve definitely walked at least a mile.”
“Walking one mile is not the same as walking miles.”
“No journey is too long for the person not carrying anything,” John snapped, and Sherlock stopped walking abruptly and turned back to him.
“All right,” said Sherlock. “Fine. Would you like to get started?”
“Yes.” John looked around them. They were standing in an unremarkable patch of forest that looked the same as every other patch of forest. “Does this suit you?”
“It’s fine.” Sherlock waved his hand dismissively and reached for one of the knapsacks. “Good a place as any.”
John lifted his eyebrows and watched Sherlock rummage through the knapsack. “We walked all this way so you could find as ‘good a place as any’?”
“Compass,” Sherlock said, pulling it out of the knapsack and holding it up for John to see. “Water. Some biscuits I stole from the housemaster’s stash—”
“Sherlock,” sighed John.
“—A blanket. Matches. A flare gun.”
John’s eyes widened. “Where the hell did you get a flare gun?”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and didn’t even bother to answer the question, zipping the knapsack back up.
“That’s not even legal, is it?” persisted John.
“Laws are boring,” Sherlock reminded him, and handed him the knapsack, keeping the other knapsack at his feet.
John took it automatically. “What’s this for?”
“I want you to run.”
John looked around them. “Run where?”
“Anywhere. Don’t tell me where. I’m going to close my eyes and give you a two-minute head start.”
“Are we…playing hide-and-seek?”
Sherlock scowled. “I’m learning how to track people in a non-urban environment.”
John looked pointedly at the crunchy layer of frost on the ground, at their breath fogging between them. “In January? You have to learn how to do this in January?”
“I’m going to have to learn how to do it in every season, but yes, we’re starting in January, as it’s the beginning of the year, and I’m nothing if not logical.”
“That’s what I always say about you,” said John, dryly. “So the knapsack is my survival kit?”
“Of course. In case you get lost or in trouble or something. But you shouldn’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find you almost immediately. Do try to be a bit clever and make it at least a little challenging for me.”
“Do you know something?” John began, in exasperation.
“I know everything,” Sherlock replied evenly, cutting off John’s impending rant.
John sighed, because that was mostly true, and certainly Sherlock knew what John had been going to say, which was that this was absolutely insane and Sherlock was absolutely insane and John was the most insane of all to be slinging the knapsack over his shoulder and saying, in resignation, “Fine. But this better not take too long, and when it’s over you’re going to steal me hot chocolate from somewhere.”
“When it’s over, I plan to warm you up quite nicely, I promise,” said Sherlock, although he said it absently, as if he knew it would be a nice carrot for John though Sherlock’s thoughts were very much on other things that were definitely not sex.
John shook his head, more at himself than at Sherlock, and started to walk off.
“No, no, no,” Sherlock complained. “You have to wait for me to close my eyes.” Which Sherlock then did, very dramatically, counting as he did so: “One, two...”
John started walking again.
“At least run!” Sherlock shouted to him, before saying, “…seven, eight…”
John took a deep breath, adjusted the knapsack, and ran.
***
John ran until he was out of breath and didn’t feel like running anymore. And then he stopped and considered. Surely Sherlock would be right behind him, he ought to be easy to track, having crashed through the forest the way he had. If Sherlock was more than two minutes behind him, he’d be shocked.
So John leaned against a tree to catch his breath and wait for Sherlock to show up, and that was when he saw the dog, a small, skinny bulldog watching him warily from a few trees away.
John glanced around, as if the dog’s owner was going to appear, but there was no one around them. John looked back at the dog, who was still watching him steadily, and said, experimentally, “Hello, boy.”
The dog cocked its head, and then wagged its tail.
John, encouraged, held out a gloved hand in its direction. “Come here,” he crooned to it.
The dog bounded over to him enthusiastically, clearly having decided that John was A Friend. John crouched to be on its level, pulling off his gloves as he did so so that he could better scratch behind its ears. He found himself almost instantly covered in quite a bit of dog slobber and not really caring a bit, because the dog snuffled happily at him as if it had been waiting its whole life for John’s appearance.
John had fallen in love with Sherlock by gradual degrees, so slowly and insidiously that he hadn’t noticed it until it was done. John fell in love with his bulldog immediately, crashing into it almost painfully. It had all been sealed with copious amounts of drooling kisses by the time Sherlock came upon them.
“What,” Sherlock inquired, stiffly, “is that?”
“It’s a dog,” John answered, gleefully. “Must have wandered off. Is that what you’re doing all alone in the forest here, boy?”
The dog looked adoringly at John and took another swipe at his face with his tongue, which John laughingly pushed away.
“Wandered off?” Sherlock sniffed. “That dog is clearly a stray. No collar. And look at how unkempt it is, how skinny it is, you can see its ribs. It’s been attempting to live off the land for quite a while, and doing a terrible job of it.”
“A stray,” John repeated. “In the wintertime? That’s horrible.” He thought of the dog shivering on the frost-hard ground.
“No,” said Sherlock, flatly, from behind him.
“No what?” John twisted so he could look up at him.
“You’re getting it in your head that we ought to take the dog home with us. Your caretaker fixation. We’re not keeping the dog.”
“But haven’t you always wanted a dog?” John asked him.
An expression passed over Sherlock’s face, something John couldn’t quite read. “No, but you clearly have,” Sherlock said, and he sounded…resigned?
“Of course I have!” John confirmed for him. “Dogs are brilliant. And look at this one. This one likes me.”
“John, everything likes you.” Sherlock made it sound like that was John’s most annoying feature.
John looked at the dog, which looked back at him with sad, appealing eyes. Don’t leave me here in the cold, you’re my favorite human ever, you can’t leave me here, was what those eyes said. John fiercely wanted this dog. He looked back at Sherlock. “We’d have to hide him from everyone. You’d enjoy that. You know you would.”
“Stop trying to convince me,” Sherlock sighed. “It’s done. You can keep the dog. We’ll find a way to smuggle him into our room.”
John grinned triumphantly, surprised it had been so easy. Sherlock must have secretly wanted the dog. “You love the dog, too, admit it.”
“No,” said Sherlock, shortly. “I love you, and you want the bloody dog, and if I raise a fuss about the dog you’ll be sad about it and you’ll look at me with your sad little face, so I’d much rather deal with the dog. Now let’s go, I thought you were annoyed with how cold it is out here.”
John froze into place, crouched by his new dog, and stared up at Sherlock. He wondered if he should point out that Sherlock had never before said that he loved him. If he should point out that he had never said he loved Sherlock. He’d known both things were true, of course, but it was another thing entirely to hear Sherlock say it, so casually, just another fact for Sherlock to spout.
John decided not to point it out. John decided to just keep the memory of it for himself, locked away, precious and beautiful. He stood and kissed Sherlock hard, startling him, and then said, “Thank you.” He didn’t mean just for the dog, although he thought Sherlock would assume that’s what he meant. “I am going to shag you until the only word you can remember is my name.”
Sherlock was a pleasing shade of pink, not entirely attributable, John thought, to the cold. “Not in front of the dog,” was all he said.
***
Lestrade had set him the puzzle of the Voynich manuscript, but Sherlock was much more preoccupied with the challenge of keeping the dog a secret. It was John’s opinion that they needed to enlist the help of the rest of the house to keep the dog’s existence a secret. John thought there was no way they could keep the dog a secret from everyone, because the dog would need to be walked, and the dog would make noise, and they needed allies.
Sherlock had never had allies in his life, and he thought John was being naïve thinking that anyone could be trusted. But it was John’s dog, and Sherlock thought it was John’s call as to the best way to keep the dog a secret. Sherlock admitted to himself he was looking forward to saying I told you so when one of the other boys went running to the housemaster.
Except that no one did. All of the other boys were taken with the idea of having a house mascot. Sherlock felt like this was new data he needed to evaluate. Only there was never time to evaluate the data because there was a constant stream of boys to John’s room, asking for permission to take the dog out for games of fetch. Sherlock hated this parade of visitors and spent most of his time sulking silently on John’s bed, staring fixedly at the wall and refusing to acknowledge anyone’s existence. If John weren’t so plainly delighted by his silly dog, Sherlock would have found it all completely unbearable. Instead, it was just mostly unbearable, alleviated only by the fact that John lit up whenever he talked to the dog in those ridiculous dog voices he used, and Sherlock considered it to be very unfair that John was so adorable, even when doing such extremely silly things. In anyone else, this situation would have driven him mad; he would have given up and retreated back to his room and his solitude. With John, the idea of retreat was unthinkable.
More data to evaluate. But whenever he started to evaluate it, someone either knocked on their door or John crawled into his sulking nest and kissed a curve into his lips, and then it really didn’t seem very important. Sherlock even felt bad when the dog managed to eat all of his latest mold experiment. By rights, he should have been furious, but John was so terrified and nervous and sat up all night with the dog’s head in his lap fretting that he was about to die, and Sherlock had felt terrible. He was becoming the most nonsensical person he knew. He felt like he should care more about that.
John had struck up friendships with many more people than any person needed to be friends with, and John started to tell them stories about Sherlock’s abilities to solve mysteries, so that, after a little while, the visitors were no longer in search of the dog and were instead in search of Sherlock’s services. Every petty problem they had was boring, but they were all slightly less boring than the Voynich manuscript, because at least they were real, and he was playing a real role in them. The other students were seldom as appreciative of his abilities as John was, but that was fine with him, as John continued to compliment him warmly and that was all that mattered to Sherlock.
What all this meant was that Sherlock, for the first time in his life at Eton, was used to receiving knocks on his door. Well, John’s door, which was also, for all intents and purposes, his, because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to his room for anything. So he was not alarmed to hear a knock on the door, although he was annoyed, because he was sprawled on John’s bed thinking, and he hated when people interrupted his thinking.
“Can’t you answer the door?” he asked John, and, when the knocking persisted, he realized that John wasn’t there. Div, thought Sherlock. John was always going to divs. It was so inconvenient. Sherlock frowned up at the ceiling over John’s bed and snapped, “Go away,” to the door, because Sherlock didn’t interact with any of the people who banged on their door constantly without John there.
“You should let me in,” came Lestrade’s voice, from the other side of the door.
Sherlock sighed heavily and rolled his eyes and looked at the dog, who had been lying right next to him, head on Sherlock’s belly. Sherlock had trained the dog to do lots of useful things. John seemed to think this was impressive. Sherlock thought it was necessary. And all it took was a look for the dog to know that this was the sort of visitor where he was supposed to hide under the bed, as Sherlock had trained him to do.
Sherlock waited for the dog to be completely out of sight before calling out, resignedly, “Fine. Come in.”
Lestrade opened the door, stepped into the room, and promptly closed the door behind him. Sherlock looked at him from John’s bed, not deigning to sit up.
“Are you thinking about the Voynich manuscript?” asked Lestrade.
“Trying to. Very hard to think with you in the room.”
“I only ask because you seem preoccupied lately with things that are not the Voynich manuscript.” Lestrade leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and regarded Sherlock. “And the deal was that I could get you out of divs if you did independent study with me. You seem to be neglecting your independent study.”
Sherlock shrugged, because he didn’t care enough to come up with a response, and went back to looking at the ceiling.
“There’s a rumor going around that you’re offering your services as a ‘consulting detective.’”
“I’m not really, people just keep bothering me about it,” Sherlock informed the ceiling.
“The other rumor I hear is that you have a dog,” said Lestrade, evenly.
“Don’t be preposterous,” Sherlock rejoined, lightly. “How would I ever hide a dog here? With the ace supervision in this place?”
“I could always search your room,” said Lestrade. “Drugs bust or something.”
Sherlock said nothing.
Lestrade, with a small smile, took a handful of dog bones out of his pocket and placed them on the floor.
Sherlock frowned at him. He heard a telltale scuffling under the bed and frowned harder. “Stay,” he commanded, deciding he’d rather try to pretend he was an idiot saying words for no reason than have the dog burst forth in a bone-crazed state.
Lestrade lifted his eyebrows and crouched to the floor and waved one of the bones about. “Come here, boy,” he said, and the dog immediately scrambled out from under the bed and made a beeline for the bone.
Sherlock made a sound of disgust. “Loyalty is a dead concept, I see,” he complained.
The dog happily munched on his bones and looked at him as if to say But he had food! Sherlock was unmoved.
“So John Watson has a dog in his room,” Lestrade noted, conversationally. “That’s grounds for expulsion.”
Sherlock sat up immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s my dog, clearly. John had nothing to do with it. John doesn’t even sleep here anymore; I make him sleep in my room. There’s no reason to expel John.”
“And you think loyalty’s a dead concept,” commented Lestrade, dryly, and then sat on the floor, the better to pet the dog. “Relax. Nobody’s getting expelled. What’s his name?”
“Gladstone,” Sherlock answered.
“Like the prime minister?”
“John was learning about him in history, apparently, and wanted a name he thought I’d have to learn about. Little did he know that Gladstone is Mycroft’s middle name and, hence, a perfect name for a dog. And I already know about Gladstone, because of that.”
“Mycroft’s middle name is Gladstone?”
“Hasn’t he told you that yet?”
“I thought you wanted to ignore that there was anything going on between your brother and me.”
“I definitely want to ignore it.”
“Then stop talking about him and start talking about Gladstone the bulldog instead. You can’t just keep a dog in your room, Sherlock.”
“Why not? We’ve been doing it for weeks already. He clearly doesn’t cause any trouble.”
“It’s against the rules.”
“Rules are boring.”
“I know you think so, but, sadly, they must be respected until the happy day when you are made supreme ruler of the universe. And then you’ll see how the first thing you’ll do will be to make your own rules.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of deep, philosophical point?”
“No, it’s supposed to be my way of telling you that you can’t keep the dog.”
“We have to keep the dog, Lestrade. You don’t understand. John loves the dog. John is completely irrational about the dog. John will go to pieces if you take the dog away.”
“John will still have you.”
Sherlock scowled. He was so tired of conversing with idiots. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“There is no way John loves this dog more than he loves you.”
Sherlock had his next point already formed on his lips, but Lestrade’s words were unexpected, made him pause and backtrack. He turned over what Lestrade had said, and he didn’t want to ask it, he didn’t want the vulnerability of the asking, but he couldn’t help it. “John doesn’t… Does he?” Sherlock couldn’t believe that. He tried to imagine the sound of the words I love you being directed toward him. He couldn’t, it was too unfathomable. New data. Always new data when it came to John.
Lestrade looked at him, his dark eyes penetrating and sharp, and Sherlock felt himself flush, knew he’d given too much away. He cleared his throat quickly and said, “Never mind. You still can’t take the dog. I have trained him to attack the jugular of anyone who tries to steal him.”
“If that were true, I’d definitely have to take the dog,” said Lestrade.
The sentence made Sherlock think he had a bit of an opening, so he wriggled his way into it. Lestrade clearly liked dogs, and Lestrade clearly liked John. Time to use that to his advantage. “John’s always wanted a dog, but his parents are useless and instead Fate intervened and gave him this one. You cannot bargain with Fate.”
Lestrade burst out laughing. “You don’t believe in Fate,” he gasped around his mirth.
“I believe in it more than I believe in Etonian rules,” snapped Sherlock.
“Were you debating whether it should be Fate or divine intervention?”
Sherlock ignored that question, because the answer was yes. “What if I help you out with Mycroft?”
“Things are going just fine with Mycroft without your help. And no, we’re not talking about it.”
“But John,” Sherlock said, trying to play his trump card as forcefully as possible. “You like John. You know John. John would be so sad, and how can any of us deal with John’s sad face?”
Lestrade was silent for a long time. “That’s the first reasonable argument you’ve made about this,” he concluded, finally.
Gladstone drooled contentedly on Lestrade’s lap.
Sherlock decided to try to move in for the kill. “So we’re agreed then.”
Lestrade, scratching behind Gladstone’s ears, looked up at him. “Agreed?” he echoed.
“Yes. In order to avoid John being sad, we will keep the dog.”
Lestrade looked amused. “We haven’t agreed to any such thing. Do you know how much favoritism I already show you? Now you want me to cover up a dog for you, too?”
“Favoritism?” Sherlock sniffed, offended. “I don’t think you show me any favoritism. You just show good judgment, which is so rare around here that nobody knows what to make of it.”
“Sherlock,” sighed Lestrade.
“And anyway, even if it is favoritism, it’s not nearly as much as I deserve, considering that you’re shagging my brother.”
“Sorry, do we discuss each other’s sex lives now?” asked Lestrade, mildly. “How’s John?”
Sherlock frowned at him.
“I thought not,” said Lestrade, plainly satisfied he’d made his point.
Sherlock considered him, decided to switch tactics. “Please,” he said.
Lestrade’s amusement appeared to increase. “Please?” he repeated.
“Yes. Please. Doesn’t that usually make people do as other people request?” Sherlock demanded, impatiently.
“Not always,” Lestrade pointed out.
“John loves the dog,” Sherlock snapped. “He loves the dog. Setting aside whatever he does or doesn’t feel about me, whatever that might be, what I know is that he loves the dog. I won’t let you take the dog away from him. So name your price, tell me what it is.”
Lestrade leaned back against the wall, watching him closely. “Do you imagine there’s some sum of money I have in mind?”
“I don’t bother wasting my energy imagining what dull things must go on in your funny little head.”
“You like this dog, don’t you?”
“I tolerate the dog. He’s John’s dog, and he’ll stay that way.”
“‘He,’ not ‘it,’” remarked Lestrade. “Don’t pretend you’re not taken with the dog as well. More taken with John, it’s true, but just a teeny bit taken with Gladstone here.”
“What does any of this matter? All that matters is that John is currently ahead as far as presents are concerned, and I can’t think of any way to fix that other than to make sure he keeps this dog.”
Lestrade was silent for a second. “You shouldn’t keep score like that. A relationship isn’t like that.”
“If I wanted relationship advice from you, I’d ask. As it is, I find your advice dubious at best, given the fact that your current relationship is with my brother.”
Lestrade regarded him for a moment, then stood up, dislodging Gladstone from his lap and trying unsuccessfully to get some of the drool off of him. “I was never here,” he said, and closed the door behind him as he left.
Gladstone whined a bit and looked from the closed door to Sherlock, as if sad Lestrade had left.
“Oh, stop it,” Sherlock told him. “We don’t like Lestrade in this room. Don’t go developing some ridiculous attachment to him. You’re as bad as John, liking everybody all the time.”
Gladstone jumped onto the bed and settled himself next to Sherlock.
“Also, you’re not supposed to be on the bed,” Sherlock reminded him.
Gladstone put his head in Sherlock’s lap and looked very comfortable indeed on the bed.
Sherlock sighed. “John can’t know that I let you on the bed. You know it’s my stance that you shouldn’t be on the bed, and I’ll lose all credibility if John finds out that I let you on the bed.”
Gladstone looked unconcerned about any of this.
John abruptly threw open the door to the room, eliminating any possibility that Sherlock was going to get away with having Gladstone on the bed. Gladstone did leap off the bed at the sight of John, going to slobber joyfully all over him. John, slightly out of breath, closed the door behind him, greeted Gladstone with an absent pat on the head, and looked around the room.
“Where’s Lestrade?”
“Not here, obviously,” Sherlock said, trying to affect nonchalance and hoping John hadn’t noticed Gladstone’s position on the bed. John usually noticed nothing. Hopefully that would remain the case.
“But was he here? Emerson managed to pass me a note in div saying that Lestrade was here.”
Sherlock thought of Lestrade saying I was never here, and decided that maybe, in the wake of Lestrade looking the other way as far as Gladstone was concerned, he deserved to have his request complied with. “If Lestrade had been here, do you think Gladstone would still be here, too?” It wasn’t exactly a lie, Sherlock thought. Just leading John into the conclusion he wanted him to reach.
“Then I just made up an excuse to get out of div and dashed here for no reason?” John asked, after a moment.
“Well.” Sherlock rolled himself off the bed and backed John against the closed door. John grinned at him. “I wouldn’t say ‘no reason,’” said Sherlock, and kissed him. Sherlock almost never initiated kissing John. Mostly because John initiated plenty of kissing, but also, partly, because a part of him was always worried John would frown and push him away and say, Really? Aren’t we growing tired of this yet? But John kissed him back now, hands settling on Sherlock’s hips, untucking his shirt and angling him into place all at once, and Sherlock wanted to ask him, wanted to say, Do you love me? It wasn’t the first time it had occurred to him to ask the question. He wondered it almost constantly, in dark hours whilst John slept beside him, whilst John was at div and Sherlock had nothing else to ponder, whilst John was being John and Sherlock was watching him be John and thinking that he loved him wildly, his heart thundering with the adrenaline of it. He couldn’t conceive of John feeling that way about him, he couldn’t conceive of anyone feeling the windswept crescendo of adoration that he felt for John, least of all John feeling it for him. Lestrade had said it so casually, as if it wouldn’t have been a miracle akin to the discovery of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Do you love me? Sherlock wanted to ask, but as long as he didn’t, the possibility still existed that the answer could be an astonishing yes, and Sherlock could imagine it that way, so perfect it was painful.
“Sherlock,” John said. The prelude to a conversation, not a moan of passion. John turned his head, thwarting Sherlock’s mouth capturing his, so Sherlock made do with the line of John’s jaw instead and didn’t bother to respond, because he didn’t want to have a conversation. “Were you talking to the dog when I came in?”
Sherlock paused minutely, then said, “Don’t be ridiculous, why would I talk to the dog?” Sherlock closed his teeth around John’s earlobe and tugged a little mercilessly, because he wanted to derail John’s train of thought.
John started to groan, but bit it back, clearly fighting against Sherlock’s tactics. “Before you met me, you used to talk to a skull. Anyway, you like the dog.”
“I don’t like the dog. If it were up to me, I’d get rid of the dog.” Sherlock, brutally and with little preamble, unbuttoned John’s trousers and slid his hands into his pants, because John really needed to be distracted.
“Liar,” John gasped. His eyes fluttered closed and his head fell back against the door. “You let him on the bed with you.”
“Shut up,” Sherlock commanded, and tried to kiss him.
John ducked, pulling Sherlock’s hands out of his pants and wriggling away from the door, and Sherlock felt embarrassed for a split second, braced for a reprimand of some sort from John. But then John fell back onto their bed and pulled Sherlock after him, and Sherlock could think of nothing but love love love love, how much he loved John, and how maybe John loved him back at least a little bit, and John said to him, smiling, “Make me.”
So Sherlock did.
Next Chapter
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Date: 2013-01-24 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 12:27 am (UTC)I want to give sweet, insecure Sherlock a big hug here.
I especially love Sherlock and Lestrade's conversation here. This line is my favorite:
“Rules are boring.”
“I know you think so, but, sadly, they must be respected until the happy day when you are made supreme ruler of the universe. And then you’ll see how the first thing you’ll do will be to make your own rules.”
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Date: 2013-03-02 04:48 am (UTC)And I do kind of love the conversations Lestrade and Sherlock have.
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Date: 2013-01-24 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 01:13 am (UTC)Gladstone is Mycroft’s middle name and, hence, a perfect name for a dog.
*Snerks*
until the happy day when you are made supreme ruler of the universe. And then you’ll see how the first thing you’ll do will be to make your own rules
Oh Lestrade! How I love your zingers like this.
I adore these two lines in this chapter. Brilliant work and I can totally see Lestrade doing his best to make sure that John keeps the dog. Even if he has to say it's his dog and that he gave John the job of looking after it to encourage responsibility
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Date: 2013-03-02 04:49 am (UTC)The "Gladstone" as Mycroft's middle name idea came a bit out of nowhere, but I really love it now.
Lestrade cracks me up sometimes. I love the way he deals with Sherlock.
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Date: 2013-01-24 01:32 am (UTC)Don't bother, John. He would talk to you in ancient Greek after that and you'd have to start all over again.
The experiment involved John carrying two rather heavy knapsacks and Sherlock carrying nothing at all.
But it's only coincidence I'm sure. Or for an experiment-related reason.
John wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. He never really was.
John's life with Sherlock in a nutshell.
And then, louder, “Didn’t you bring a torch?”
“Of course I brought a torch”
Of course he did. Sherlock always brings a torch. He brought one when he was looking for Spot in the storm and... No, wait... :D
“Do you know something?” John began, in exasperation.
“I know everything,” Sherlock replied evenly, cutting off John’s impending rant.
John sighed, because that was mostly true
So funny and so true! It makes me think of the scene in the café, in The Great Game, when John asks, "Has it occurred to you ...?" and Sherlock cuts him short and answers, "Probably." :-)
Which Sherlock then did, very dramatically
*giggles* Like everything he does.
So John leaned against a tree to catch his breath and wait for Sherlock to show up, and that was when he saw the dog
Oh my God they're in a forest and it's night-time... BASKERVILLE!
a small, skinny bulldog watching him warily from a few trees away.
Or not.
He found himself almost instantly covered in quite a bit of dog slobber and not really caring a bit, because the dog snuffled happily at him as if it had been waiting its whole life for John’s appearance.
Oh, I see, it's Spot again! (What?)
John crouched to be on its level, pulling off his gloves as he did so so that he could better scratch behind its ears.
Whereas it's so cold. Aww.
John fell in love with his bulldog immediately
His dog? GLADSTONE! (I'm going to process by elimination, okay?) Also, you love dogs, don't you? :-)
It had all been sealed with copious amounts of drooling kisses by the time Sherlock came upon them.
I hope it's the dog who gives the drooling kisses.
“What,” Sherlock inquired, stiffly, “is that?”
Aha! Stating the obvious!
“We’d have to hide him from everyone. You’d enjoy that. You know you would.”
Clever John. :-)
“No,” said Sherlock, shortly. “I love you, and you want the bloody dog, and if I raise a fuss about the dog you’ll be sad about it and you’ll look at me with your sad little face, so I’d much rather deal with the dog.
This is the most adorable declaration of love.
Instead, it was just mostly unbearable, alleviated only by the fact that John lit up whenever he talked to the dog in those ridiculous dog voices he used, and Sherlock considered it to be very unfair that John was so adorable, even when doing such extremely silly things.
Adorable, again. I mean, John doing dog voices and Sherlock finding that adorable. As is John sitting up all night with the dog’s head in his lap fretting that he was about to die and Sherlock feeling horrible about that.
He was becoming the most nonsensical person he knew. He felt like he should care more about that.
*chuckles* Oh no, please don't.
“Can’t you answer the door?” he asked John, and, when the knocking persisted, he realized that John wasn’t there.
Canon!
“I could always search your room,” said Lestrade. “Drugs bust or something.”
You managed to slip the drugs bust in your fic. You're strong!
Ah. Comment too long. Once more.
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Date: 2013-01-24 01:33 am (UTC)*giggles* I'm not sure it would work anyway.
Don’t be ridiculous. It’s my dog, clearly.
Aww. Sherlock standing up for John and sacrificing for him...
Little did he know that Gladstone is Mycroft’s middle name and, hence, a perfect name for a dog.
*chortles*
“John doesn’t… Does he?” Sherlock couldn’t believe that. He tried to imagine the sound of the words I love you being directed toward him. He couldn’t, it was too unfathomable.
I said that already (many times I'm afraid) but your insecure Sherlock is so lovely.
John would be so sad, and how can any of us deal with John’s sad face?
*thinks about the end of The Reichenbach Fall*
*prefers to think about your fic instead* :D
I love the paragraphe about Sherlock who kisses John and is afraid of asking him if he loves him. It's sweet, tender and a bit heartrending. It's perfect.
So many things to love in this chapter! Sherlock saying, "I love you" to John, Gladstone making Sherlock love him, the conversation with Lestrade... It's in turn funny, sweet and moving and did I ever tell you I love this fic? (It's a rhetorical question. I know I did. Repeatedly. :D)
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Date: 2013-03-02 05:05 am (UTC)I'm glad you're still loving this!
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Date: 2013-03-02 04:58 am (UTC)Getting my fics confused, eh? ;-)
YES. I was thinking of that scene in the cafe when I wrote that bit!
Hee! No Baskerville, although there *is* a dog involved...
I do love dogs, it's true. :-)
Yes, the dog was giving the kisses. ;-)
Trust Sherlock's declaration of love to look that way.
They are just so adorable, these boys.
And yes, many canon references slid into this chapter!
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Date: 2013-01-24 03:14 am (UTC)Love those boys so damned much.
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Date: 2013-03-02 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 06:10 am (UTC)And this: “No,” said Sherlock, shortly. “I love you, and you want the bloody dog, and if I raise a fuss about the dog you’ll be sad about it and you’ll look at me with your sad little face, so I’d much rather deal with the dog.
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Date: 2013-03-02 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 03:21 pm (UTC)And I love this:
“No journey is too long for the person not carrying anything,” John snapped, and Sherlock stopped walking abruptly and turned back to him.
TRUER WORDS, JOHN.
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Date: 2013-03-04 04:34 am (UTC)And yay Gladstone! Dogs make everything better! :-)
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Date: 2013-01-24 10:53 pm (UTC)Well at least Shelock's thinking about all the permutations of love, now!
What a lovely update - full of boyish things, even Lestrade!!
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Date: 2013-03-04 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-25 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-04 04:36 am (UTC)