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earlgreytea68Title - John Watson's Twelve Days of Christmas (13/14)
Author -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft
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 - It's the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.
Author's Notes - Thank you to dashcommaslash for poking through this for me!
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 Thirteen
John allowed himself twenty-four hours to wallow, lying on his bed in his depressing flat and staring at the wooden drummer he set up on his desk, next to the laptop with his neglected blog. And then he decided that the worst thing he could do would be to take this new start Sherlock’s money had afforded him and to let it go to waste, putting him right back in the same position he had been, only this time heartbroken, too.
So John Watson applied for a medical job, for the first time since receiving his discharge from the armed forces. It wasn’t much—a drab little neighborhood clinic where he’d be treating a lot of colds and flu and maybe a terribly fascinating case of strep throat here or there—but it was being a doctor. It would require him to wear the lab coat Sherlock had given him, and a stethoscope around his neck, and he would use the degree he had actually worked pretty bloody hard for, a degree he seemed to have forgotten in the malaise he’d suffered upon returning home. And he convinced himself that Sherlock would be proud of the progress he’d made in just applying for this pitiful job.
He got the job, much to his surprise—mostly, he suspected, because the head doctor fancied him a bit. John pretended not to notice her very broad overtures and, aside from that, he was surprised by how much he enjoyed the job. He was far over-qualified for it, and he missed the adrenaline rush of his previous medical practice, but it was better than the odd jobs he’d been holding since his discharge. Sherlock was right, not that it surprised John much to realize it: He had missed fixing things, and he got some satisfaction out of fixing even simple things like a sinus infection. John wouldn’t say he was happy, but he thought he might be happier than he had been before meeting Sherlock.
Everything would have been looking up except for how desperately he missed Sherlock.
It was silly, because, all told, he’d only known Sherlock for two weeks, but he missed everything about him. Sometimes John pulled out his mobile and just stared at it forlornly, willing it to chime with a text from Sherlock. John was almost relieved he didn’t know Sherlock’s number, because he would have folded and texted him long before this, and then Sherlock would have had to shake his head at him pityingly, and then John would have felt pathetic and terrible. But John had things to tell him. He wanted to know what deductions Sherlock would make about the lives of the patients that tramped through his examining room. He fantasized about texting Sherlock little details of their appearances and Sherlock texting back, Yes, of course, he’s an avid fisher, or She’s sleeping with her sister’s girlfriend.
He missed Sherlock when he woke up each morning in an empty bed in an empty room in an empty flat. He missed him as he showered and shaved and brushed his teeth. He missed him as he drank his coffee on his way to work. He missed him through every examination of a patient, because none of them were absorbing enough to shut off the part of his brain that seemed permanently tuned to miss-Sherlock mode. He missed him at the end of the shift, when he turned down invitations for drinks in favor of going back to his flat and feeling sorry for himself. He missed him when he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling and listening to London outside and wondering what he was doing, if he was investigating a case, or perching on a roof, or even shagging some bloke who wasn’t John. John fretted that Sherlock probably wasn’t eating enough, or sleeping enough, or taking proper care of himself. What if he got injured somewhere and there was no one to take care of him? What if he suffered a relapse?
It was mad for him to think these things. Sherlock could have had John to take care of him. All he’d had to do was ask. He hadn’t. John needed to move on, needed to find some other purpose to his life, needed to forget. But John couldn’t. John did nothing but remember.
Even if he had wanted to forget, his subconscious had different ideas. He dreamed of Sherlock, of Sherlock’s hands on his skin, of his mouth at his ear, whispering while John clung to him. John woke from these dreams aching and unfulfilled, and started his mornings in unsatisfying showers where the day’s cycle of missing Sherlock began. He supposed it was an improvement over the nightmares he used to have. And at least the limp hadn’t come back.
He was still pulling his way through his life, as stubbornly as he had before meeting Sherlock, and he knew Sherlock deserved credit for that. But, at the same time, he hated that he had ever met Sherlock. John had preferred it when he’d had no idea such a creature existed, when the only thing he longed for was the thrilling purpose of Afghanistan.
***
Sherlock played the violin around the clock at first, sometimes composing, sometimes just mindlessly cycling through Mozart, barely hearing the notes he was coaxing from the instrument. Sometimes it was just a tuneless motion of the bow over the strings, something to occupy his fingers.
The violin, Sherlock admitted finally, was not going to help.
Sherlock hung about New Scotland Yard like a desperate puppy, begging Lestrade for cases, and Sherlock would have been embarrassed about this, but he was worried about what would happen if he went home without one. Lestrade seemed to sense the desperation and threw cases at him, but none of them were the least bit interesting. Sherlock could solve all of them in five minutes, and that still left twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes of the day to fill, not to mention all the days that were to come.
It grew unbearable to be out of the flat, so Sherlock holed himself up at home. He curled himself into the familiarity of the sitting room at 221B and tried to let it soothe him, but he got nowhere. His skin itched. No, not his skin, the individual cells of his skin. Sherlock imagined that he could feel every molecule of his epidermis, and then his dermis, down to his subcutaneous tissue. He curled into a ball and took deep breaths and tried not to think, but he had always been so terrible at it, so terrible at it. His mind was so full of John that he could not drive it out, no matter what he did. He saw John constantly, heard his footfall on the stairs, felt his phantom fingers brush through his hair. Sherlock’s brain re-played every kiss they’d ever shared, every conversation, every time John had smiled at him, every time John had looked at him, every moment of John was on constant repeat and he could not shut it off and if he didn’t get it out of his brain he was going to go mad.
Cocaine would help, and he knew it would help, and so he stayed locked in the flat and refused to go out, out in the world where the cocaine dwelled. It would be a blessed and wonderful relief, but it would make him forget John, for however long the high lasted, and as much torment as Sherlock was currently in, the thought of willingly wiping John from his brain was beyond his capabilities. He wanted to get the pain of losing John out of his head; he never wanted John to leave his head.
“Oh, God,” he said, on the day Mycroft arrived, without turning away from the back of the sofa, to which he’d pressed his face. “Mrs. Hudson rang you, didn’t she?”
“Mrs. Hudson is worried about you.” Sherlock heard Mycroft cross the room and pull open the drapes in a no-nonsense manner. The room around Sherlock got brighter, so Sherlock closed his eyes. “She says you have not left the flat in a week.”
Sherlock said nothing, because Sherlock wasn’t interested.
“She’s very concerned that you may have broken up with your young man,” continued Mycroft. “I am to tell you, and I quote, that you ‘shouldn’t get it into your head that you’re not good enough for him, because that simply isn’t true.’ Your landlady is a veritable Athena.”
Sherlock couldn’t tell if Mycroft was being sarcastic or not, which would have been odd, except that Sherlock supposed he was not functioning at full capacity.
“Lestrade also rang me, you know. To say you’d been a bit of a wreck with him and then disappeared utterly and were no longer answering your mobile. I trust you can deduce the conclusions he reached. He offered to provide me with a team to sweep the flat.”
“The flat’s clean,” said Sherlock, dully.
“Obviously. Because you’re in a state in which you would be high if you could easily get your hands on something.”
“Go away,” said Sherlock.
Mycroft ignored him. “What is this about? Is it about John?”
“It’s not about John.” Sherlock didn’t even know why he bothered with the lie. It took skill to lie to Mycroft on a good day; there was no way he was fit for the task in his current state.
There was a moment of silence. Mycroft sighed. “You know, it would almost have been easier for me if I’d come in to find you under the influence of some chemical. Then I could have taken you to hospital and from there to rehab. I don’t know what to do for you in this state.”
“No one’s asking you to do anything,” Sherlock snapped.
Miraculously, Mycroft left.
Sherlock was uncertain how long the flat was wrapped in blessed silence. It was hard to keep track of the days, and Sherlock wasn’t interested in investing the energy to do so. But eventually someone else arrived in the flat, and bypassed the sitting room entirely in favor of clattering around the kitchen. Making tea, Sherlock deduced, but Mrs. Hudson would have spoken to him on her way into the kitchen, so it wasn’t Mrs. Hudson.
Curiosity got the better of Sherlock, and he rolled over on the sofa in time to see his mother walking into the lounge carrying two cups of tea.
“Oh, good,” she said, pleasantly. “You’re awake.”
Sherlock blinked at her stupidly. His mother had never come to his flat. Ever. His mother commanded him to come to her, not the other way around.
“Sit up and drink your tea, darling,” she prompted him, sitting in his chair with her own tea. “I made it extra milky for you.”
“Mycroft rang you,” Sherlock deduced, in astonishment. “This was what Mycroft thought would help? Ringing you?”
His mother put her teacup down with a sharp clack and said, “Yes. Sherlock Holmes, sit up and drink your tea.”
Sherlock didn’t sit up or drink his tea. He looked across at his mother and heard himself say, “I’ve made a terrible mess.”
His mother’s face softened. She stood and walked over to the sofa and squeezed her way onto it with him, and then did something he could never remember her doing before, which was to settle his head in her lap and brush at his hair. “I know, love,” she said, and dropped a kiss in his hair.
Sherlock walked briskly through the halls of his memory palace, trying to find a precedent for all of this overt physical affection and failing miserably. Maybe, when he had been a toddler…?
“Oh, Sherlock, why didn’t you tell him?” she asked.
Sherlock wanted to play dumb. Or deny it or say there was nothing to tell. But it was ridiculous to attempt to do so at this point, and anyway there was something comforting about this situation. His mother did not sound scolding or judgmental or disdainful or scathing or any of the things he might have expected when confronted with all of his stupidity, and her hand kept stroking through his hair, and it was nice not to be alone, to have someone to whom he could say the thoughts in his head. “How could I have told him?”
“Really?” responded his mother, a touch of wryness to her voice. “Are you going to plead shyness? I’m afraid you have lost all reputation for bashfulness when it comes to Dr. Watson, considering your flagrant refusal to spend more than an hour or so at a time out of bed with him.”
“What good would it have done to tell him?” asked Sherlock. “What would he have said?”
“He would have said that he loved you, too, you silly idiot,” she said.
“Because I tricked him into—It doesn’t matter. I was unfair to him. I turned him all around with so many lies and half-truths…And he deserves better than that.”
“So you think John Watson is going to find himself some nice, stable young man? A barrister, perhaps? They’ll get a stodgy little house and take turns making roast chicken for dinner. Is that what you think?”
“Why shouldn’t he?”
“You fell in love with him because you recognized that what he needs is the exact opposite of all of that. Which is what you are.”
Sherlock shook his head. He wanted to tell his mother that she was biased, but that was such stating of the obvious that he thought it would serve no real purpose. So he said instead, “I don’t know what to do. And I always know what to do.”
“What do you want, darling?”
“I want him to be happy,” answered Sherlock, immediately. “I want him to be the happiest human being who ever lived. I’ve been trying to think how to ensure that, but I can’t—I could send him more money; that might help. Or I could find a medical procedure that would allow him to be a surgeon again. Or I could invent a bloody time machine and stop him being shot at all.”
“Oh, Sherlock. Why does it have to be so difficult?”
“Because happiness isn’t easy, Mother,” he pointed out.
His mother was silent for a second. Then she said, evenly, “You’re going to sit up and drink this cup of tea I made for you. When you’re finished with that one, perhaps you’ll drink another. Maybe, in a few hours, you’ll drink another. There will be so many cups of tea, Sherlock, stretching into your future. And eventually you’ll pick one up and you’ll realize that you didn’t think of him when you did it. I give you this hypothesis,” she said. “Now prove it, my darling boy.”
***
One day John Watson came home after his shift, prepared to watch mindless telly and sulk about how much he missed Sherlock, to find Violet Holmes standing in the middle of his flat.
“It’s a dreary place, isn’t it?” was what she said to him.
He gaped at her for a moment, and then said, “Violet. How did you…?”
“My sons have a terrible habit of attributing all their cleverness to their father. I let them, of course, because it’s convenient to be underestimated. So, for instance, it was so incredibly simple to lead my younger son to believe that I was going to set him up. He would believe such a thing of me. He would believe that I would push him together with any halfway decent fool that I could find. As if I were that addle-minded an old lady to think that would ever work. I told Sherlock I would set him up if he didn’t bring a boy home. I had no one to set him up with. I knew Sherlock would bring home a boy. What’s more, I knew he would bring home the right boy.”
John swallowed and wondered what Sherlock had told Violet had happened to their relationship. Because Violet was clearly furious. She was speaking in quick, clipped syllables that shattered like ice when they hit the air. “Violet,” he began.
“We knew he was paying you. We knew it wasn’t a real relationship. The idea that Sherlock ever thought he could trick us! Well, maybe he knew he couldn’t trick Mycroft. I’m sure he underestimated me as usual. I knew it was exactly what he would do. He would try to trick us into thinking he’d found a boyfriend. He thought he would win that way: I would back off, and nothing would change about his life. But what I also knew is that Sherlock would know that the ruse had to be convincing. He couldn’t show up with just anybody, because he knew that even I would see through that straightaway. Sherlock would have to search high and low for the right person, someone plausible, someone we could believe might hold his interest, someone we could believe he might love. And in searching for that person, Sherlock, as I knew he would, found someone who could hold his interest, found someone he could love. Sherlock found you. And so, you see, I thought my plan had worked splendidly, except that I have just come from my son’s flat, and he is in a sorry state, as are you. I love Sherlock, but he is a mess when it comes to emotional matters, so, forgive me, but I feel I must lay blame at your door.” Violet crossed her arms and gave him a look that made John scramble to come up with a response.
What he said was, lamely, “I…I don’t…I…”
“Did you think he would ever say anything to you? Him? His first love was Jim Moriarty; do you think he had any sodding idea what to do with affairs of the heart after that? He’s convinced himself that you’re better off without him, that he tricked you into falling in love with him under some sort of false pretenses.”
“He didn’t trick me. But I’m not sure you…” John floundered helplessly. How to explain that people like Sherlock Holmes didn’t end up with people like John Watson?
Violet cut through all of it. She said, sharply, “Are you happy, John?”
John thought it would be impossible to stand here, in this flat where he was dying day by day, and lie. “No,” he said, in a voice not much louder than a whisper.
Violet closed her eyes and relaxed her posture a bit, as if that had been a magic word. She sighed and said, softly, “Oh, the two of you suit each other perfectly. You are both making this so hard.” She opened her eyes and walked over to John and took his hands in hers. John let her, couldn’t think how not to let her, wasn’t sure he didn’t want to let her. “Do you know how a mother’s heart breaks when her child says to her that happiness isn’t easy? It’s a mother’s job to protect her child from that lesson. It’s a mother’s job to give him so much happiness that he thinks it’s the easiest thing in the world. And I didn’t…I didn’t…” Violet blinked rapidly, and John realized that she was on the verge of tears. “And the thing is that it is easy,” she continued, speaking quickly, as if worried she wouldn’t get it all out. “It’s hard before you meet, but after you have met, it’s the easiest thing in the world. I asked Sherlock what would make him happy, and he said he would be happy if you were happy. He said he wants you to be the happiest human being who ever lived.”
John stared at her, hardly daring to believe that was true. It was like asking Father Christmas for a pony and then finding one under his Christmas tree. How could it possibly be true? “That’s what he said?”
“That’s what he said. That’s what would make him happy. So I think the only question that remains is: John Hamish Watson, what would make you happy?”
***
John remembered nothing about the cab ride to Baker Street. He threw money at the cabbie and knocked so insistently on the door that he almost fell on top of Mrs. Hudson when she finally opened it.
“Dr. Watson,” she said, sounding shocked.
“Is Sherlock in?” he gasped at her.
Mrs. Hudson frowned at him thunderously. “Of course he’s in. Where else would he be? He’s been holed up there (ever since you broke his heart.”
John didn’t wait to hear the conclusion of this speech. He was already taking the steps two at a time, bursting into the door he found at the top of it. And he didn’t even know what room he was in, just that Sherlock was in it, on a sofa, suspended in the action of sitting up. He was staring at John, might even have said John’s name in surprise. John dropped to his knees by the sofa and kissed him. And kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until Sherlock was gasping and making those tiny little noises that drove John mad.
“It’s you,” John panted at him, dropping frantic kisses all over Sherlock’s face. “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.” John pulled back, looked down at Sherlock’s astonished face. “You’re what makes me happy. You would make me the happiest human being who ever lived.”
Sherlock blinked. “Have you lost every bit of your mind?”
“No.” John shook his head. “No. Sherlock. You weren’t playing a role, and you weren’t tricking me, I know you weren’t. How could you not see that? You were you, the whole time, and you’re wonderful. I don’t want another version of you, I don’t want any other person, how would I ever find anyone to compare to you? I was so lost, and I was so confused, and I was so alone, and then there was you, and whenever I looked at you I felt…safe. Like I was coming home. And I haven’t been home, in such a very long time. I went halfway around the world looking for something that would make me feel as alive as you make me feel, as happy as you make me feel. I love you.” John drew in a shaky breath, wondering if he had stopped to breathe at all since Violet had told him how Sherlock felt. “I am so in love with you. I think I was in love with you before we ever even got to the house, and I fell more in love with you every day, every moment, I love you. And I don’t care if you think I’m barking mad, I will stay here in this flat and I will snog you over the breakfast table every single morning and shag you into the mattress every single night and I will be the happiest human being who ever lived. And that will make you happy. And we’ll be happy together.”
Sherlock was silent for long enough for fear to take root in John’s heart, and then Sherlock pulled him in. Not for a kiss. He pulled him in so that he could press his head into John’s chest and take a shaky, labored breath that John felt reverberate through him.
“I missed you,” said Sherlock, against him. “I missed you so much. I…I…”
“Shh,” said John into Sherlock’s hair. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now. I’ll never leave you again.”
Sherlock’s breath caught. He kept his face in John’s chest, and John stroked at the curls on the nape of Sherlock’s neck. “I play the violin when I’m thinking,” mumbled Sherlock.
“I know that.”
“Sometimes I don’t talk for hours on end. Will that bother you?”
“Sherlock.” John pushed Sherlock gently away from him so that he could see his face. “I know who you are. I know who you are better than you know who you are. I won’t leave. I won’t deny that you’ll probably drive me a bit mad sometimes, so I might have to go and take a walk or something. But I’ll come back. I will always come back. Make me happy, Sherlock.”
Sherlock looked at a helpless loss. “I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do,” said John, and leaned his head down into the curve of Sherlock’s neck, burrowing there against his shoulder. “Yes, you do,” he said again. “You do it automatically. You do it by existing.”
“You’ll tell me if I do something wrong?” asked Sherlock, but he was cuddling John closer, and John knew that he had no intention of pushing John now.
“I’ll tell you,” John agreed.
Sherlock took a deep breath, then said, in a great rush, “So if I told you that you should move in here with me, would that be…making you happy, or doing something wrong?”
John lifted his head so he could look in Sherlock’s eyes when he said, “It would make me happy. Very happy. I could stop missing you so bloody much.” John leaned forward and kissed Sherlock, who kissed him back with a fierce and pleased possessiveness that John liked. When John broke the kiss, he leaned his forehead against Sherlock’s and asked, “Does this mean that I ought to give you your money back?”
***
“My mother came to see you,” said Sherlock.
John, eyes closed, felt Sherlock’s voice rumble through the chest his head was pillowed on. “Mmm,” he said. “That obvious?”
“You came in babbling about what would make you the happiest human being who ever lived. Which was an aspiration I’d told only to her. So yes: obvious. What I don’t understand is what she said to you.”
Sherlock sounded genuinely puzzled. John shifted so that he could see his face in the moonlight spilling in through the bedroom window. “She said that all you wanted was for me to be happy.”
Sherlock looked at him, frowning. “You didn’t realize that earlier?”
John tenderly traced a finger over the bow of Sherlock’s mouth. “No. I thought that there was no way you could ever be in love with me.”
“How could I not be in love with you?” demanded Sherlock.
“Look at you, Sherlock. And look at me.”
“You’re not making sense,” said Sherlock, frustrated. “I mean, you have it the wrong way around. That’s the reason that I didn’t think you would be in love with me. Because I’m just me and you’re…you.”
“And that’s part of why I love you,” John smiled. He leaned his head back down onto Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock’s breathing was even and deep and the rhythm of it lulled John. He could think of nothing more wonderful than being here, with Sherlock, spending every night this way for the rest of his life. And that seemed possible now.
John was almost asleep when Sherlock said, “And you’re sure this is what you want?”
“It’s the only thing I want. You can ask me every day, if you want, and the answer will stay the same.” A thought occurred to him, and he was suddenly much more awake. “What about you? What if you change your mind?”
“I won’t,” said Sherlock. “You can ask me every day, if you want, and the answer will stay the same. I will keep you for as long as I can make you happy.”
“Then you’ll keep me forever,” said John.
Next Chapter
Author -
earlgreytea68Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft
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 - It's the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.
Author's Notes - Thank you to dashcommaslash for poking through this for me!
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 Thirteen
John allowed himself twenty-four hours to wallow, lying on his bed in his depressing flat and staring at the wooden drummer he set up on his desk, next to the laptop with his neglected blog. And then he decided that the worst thing he could do would be to take this new start Sherlock’s money had afforded him and to let it go to waste, putting him right back in the same position he had been, only this time heartbroken, too.
So John Watson applied for a medical job, for the first time since receiving his discharge from the armed forces. It wasn’t much—a drab little neighborhood clinic where he’d be treating a lot of colds and flu and maybe a terribly fascinating case of strep throat here or there—but it was being a doctor. It would require him to wear the lab coat Sherlock had given him, and a stethoscope around his neck, and he would use the degree he had actually worked pretty bloody hard for, a degree he seemed to have forgotten in the malaise he’d suffered upon returning home. And he convinced himself that Sherlock would be proud of the progress he’d made in just applying for this pitiful job.
He got the job, much to his surprise—mostly, he suspected, because the head doctor fancied him a bit. John pretended not to notice her very broad overtures and, aside from that, he was surprised by how much he enjoyed the job. He was far over-qualified for it, and he missed the adrenaline rush of his previous medical practice, but it was better than the odd jobs he’d been holding since his discharge. Sherlock was right, not that it surprised John much to realize it: He had missed fixing things, and he got some satisfaction out of fixing even simple things like a sinus infection. John wouldn’t say he was happy, but he thought he might be happier than he had been before meeting Sherlock.
Everything would have been looking up except for how desperately he missed Sherlock.
It was silly, because, all told, he’d only known Sherlock for two weeks, but he missed everything about him. Sometimes John pulled out his mobile and just stared at it forlornly, willing it to chime with a text from Sherlock. John was almost relieved he didn’t know Sherlock’s number, because he would have folded and texted him long before this, and then Sherlock would have had to shake his head at him pityingly, and then John would have felt pathetic and terrible. But John had things to tell him. He wanted to know what deductions Sherlock would make about the lives of the patients that tramped through his examining room. He fantasized about texting Sherlock little details of their appearances and Sherlock texting back, Yes, of course, he’s an avid fisher, or She’s sleeping with her sister’s girlfriend.
He missed Sherlock when he woke up each morning in an empty bed in an empty room in an empty flat. He missed him as he showered and shaved and brushed his teeth. He missed him as he drank his coffee on his way to work. He missed him through every examination of a patient, because none of them were absorbing enough to shut off the part of his brain that seemed permanently tuned to miss-Sherlock mode. He missed him at the end of the shift, when he turned down invitations for drinks in favor of going back to his flat and feeling sorry for himself. He missed him when he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling and listening to London outside and wondering what he was doing, if he was investigating a case, or perching on a roof, or even shagging some bloke who wasn’t John. John fretted that Sherlock probably wasn’t eating enough, or sleeping enough, or taking proper care of himself. What if he got injured somewhere and there was no one to take care of him? What if he suffered a relapse?
It was mad for him to think these things. Sherlock could have had John to take care of him. All he’d had to do was ask. He hadn’t. John needed to move on, needed to find some other purpose to his life, needed to forget. But John couldn’t. John did nothing but remember.
Even if he had wanted to forget, his subconscious had different ideas. He dreamed of Sherlock, of Sherlock’s hands on his skin, of his mouth at his ear, whispering while John clung to him. John woke from these dreams aching and unfulfilled, and started his mornings in unsatisfying showers where the day’s cycle of missing Sherlock began. He supposed it was an improvement over the nightmares he used to have. And at least the limp hadn’t come back.
He was still pulling his way through his life, as stubbornly as he had before meeting Sherlock, and he knew Sherlock deserved credit for that. But, at the same time, he hated that he had ever met Sherlock. John had preferred it when he’d had no idea such a creature existed, when the only thing he longed for was the thrilling purpose of Afghanistan.
***
Sherlock played the violin around the clock at first, sometimes composing, sometimes just mindlessly cycling through Mozart, barely hearing the notes he was coaxing from the instrument. Sometimes it was just a tuneless motion of the bow over the strings, something to occupy his fingers.
The violin, Sherlock admitted finally, was not going to help.
Sherlock hung about New Scotland Yard like a desperate puppy, begging Lestrade for cases, and Sherlock would have been embarrassed about this, but he was worried about what would happen if he went home without one. Lestrade seemed to sense the desperation and threw cases at him, but none of them were the least bit interesting. Sherlock could solve all of them in five minutes, and that still left twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes of the day to fill, not to mention all the days that were to come.
It grew unbearable to be out of the flat, so Sherlock holed himself up at home. He curled himself into the familiarity of the sitting room at 221B and tried to let it soothe him, but he got nowhere. His skin itched. No, not his skin, the individual cells of his skin. Sherlock imagined that he could feel every molecule of his epidermis, and then his dermis, down to his subcutaneous tissue. He curled into a ball and took deep breaths and tried not to think, but he had always been so terrible at it, so terrible at it. His mind was so full of John that he could not drive it out, no matter what he did. He saw John constantly, heard his footfall on the stairs, felt his phantom fingers brush through his hair. Sherlock’s brain re-played every kiss they’d ever shared, every conversation, every time John had smiled at him, every time John had looked at him, every moment of John was on constant repeat and he could not shut it off and if he didn’t get it out of his brain he was going to go mad.
Cocaine would help, and he knew it would help, and so he stayed locked in the flat and refused to go out, out in the world where the cocaine dwelled. It would be a blessed and wonderful relief, but it would make him forget John, for however long the high lasted, and as much torment as Sherlock was currently in, the thought of willingly wiping John from his brain was beyond his capabilities. He wanted to get the pain of losing John out of his head; he never wanted John to leave his head.
“Oh, God,” he said, on the day Mycroft arrived, without turning away from the back of the sofa, to which he’d pressed his face. “Mrs. Hudson rang you, didn’t she?”
“Mrs. Hudson is worried about you.” Sherlock heard Mycroft cross the room and pull open the drapes in a no-nonsense manner. The room around Sherlock got brighter, so Sherlock closed his eyes. “She says you have not left the flat in a week.”
Sherlock said nothing, because Sherlock wasn’t interested.
“She’s very concerned that you may have broken up with your young man,” continued Mycroft. “I am to tell you, and I quote, that you ‘shouldn’t get it into your head that you’re not good enough for him, because that simply isn’t true.’ Your landlady is a veritable Athena.”
Sherlock couldn’t tell if Mycroft was being sarcastic or not, which would have been odd, except that Sherlock supposed he was not functioning at full capacity.
“Lestrade also rang me, you know. To say you’d been a bit of a wreck with him and then disappeared utterly and were no longer answering your mobile. I trust you can deduce the conclusions he reached. He offered to provide me with a team to sweep the flat.”
“The flat’s clean,” said Sherlock, dully.
“Obviously. Because you’re in a state in which you would be high if you could easily get your hands on something.”
“Go away,” said Sherlock.
Mycroft ignored him. “What is this about? Is it about John?”
“It’s not about John.” Sherlock didn’t even know why he bothered with the lie. It took skill to lie to Mycroft on a good day; there was no way he was fit for the task in his current state.
There was a moment of silence. Mycroft sighed. “You know, it would almost have been easier for me if I’d come in to find you under the influence of some chemical. Then I could have taken you to hospital and from there to rehab. I don’t know what to do for you in this state.”
“No one’s asking you to do anything,” Sherlock snapped.
Miraculously, Mycroft left.
Sherlock was uncertain how long the flat was wrapped in blessed silence. It was hard to keep track of the days, and Sherlock wasn’t interested in investing the energy to do so. But eventually someone else arrived in the flat, and bypassed the sitting room entirely in favor of clattering around the kitchen. Making tea, Sherlock deduced, but Mrs. Hudson would have spoken to him on her way into the kitchen, so it wasn’t Mrs. Hudson.
Curiosity got the better of Sherlock, and he rolled over on the sofa in time to see his mother walking into the lounge carrying two cups of tea.
“Oh, good,” she said, pleasantly. “You’re awake.”
Sherlock blinked at her stupidly. His mother had never come to his flat. Ever. His mother commanded him to come to her, not the other way around.
“Sit up and drink your tea, darling,” she prompted him, sitting in his chair with her own tea. “I made it extra milky for you.”
“Mycroft rang you,” Sherlock deduced, in astonishment. “This was what Mycroft thought would help? Ringing you?”
His mother put her teacup down with a sharp clack and said, “Yes. Sherlock Holmes, sit up and drink your tea.”
Sherlock didn’t sit up or drink his tea. He looked across at his mother and heard himself say, “I’ve made a terrible mess.”
His mother’s face softened. She stood and walked over to the sofa and squeezed her way onto it with him, and then did something he could never remember her doing before, which was to settle his head in her lap and brush at his hair. “I know, love,” she said, and dropped a kiss in his hair.
Sherlock walked briskly through the halls of his memory palace, trying to find a precedent for all of this overt physical affection and failing miserably. Maybe, when he had been a toddler…?
“Oh, Sherlock, why didn’t you tell him?” she asked.
Sherlock wanted to play dumb. Or deny it or say there was nothing to tell. But it was ridiculous to attempt to do so at this point, and anyway there was something comforting about this situation. His mother did not sound scolding or judgmental or disdainful or scathing or any of the things he might have expected when confronted with all of his stupidity, and her hand kept stroking through his hair, and it was nice not to be alone, to have someone to whom he could say the thoughts in his head. “How could I have told him?”
“Really?” responded his mother, a touch of wryness to her voice. “Are you going to plead shyness? I’m afraid you have lost all reputation for bashfulness when it comes to Dr. Watson, considering your flagrant refusal to spend more than an hour or so at a time out of bed with him.”
“What good would it have done to tell him?” asked Sherlock. “What would he have said?”
“He would have said that he loved you, too, you silly idiot,” she said.
“Because I tricked him into—It doesn’t matter. I was unfair to him. I turned him all around with so many lies and half-truths…And he deserves better than that.”
“So you think John Watson is going to find himself some nice, stable young man? A barrister, perhaps? They’ll get a stodgy little house and take turns making roast chicken for dinner. Is that what you think?”
“Why shouldn’t he?”
“You fell in love with him because you recognized that what he needs is the exact opposite of all of that. Which is what you are.”
Sherlock shook his head. He wanted to tell his mother that she was biased, but that was such stating of the obvious that he thought it would serve no real purpose. So he said instead, “I don’t know what to do. And I always know what to do.”
“What do you want, darling?”
“I want him to be happy,” answered Sherlock, immediately. “I want him to be the happiest human being who ever lived. I’ve been trying to think how to ensure that, but I can’t—I could send him more money; that might help. Or I could find a medical procedure that would allow him to be a surgeon again. Or I could invent a bloody time machine and stop him being shot at all.”
“Oh, Sherlock. Why does it have to be so difficult?”
“Because happiness isn’t easy, Mother,” he pointed out.
His mother was silent for a second. Then she said, evenly, “You’re going to sit up and drink this cup of tea I made for you. When you’re finished with that one, perhaps you’ll drink another. Maybe, in a few hours, you’ll drink another. There will be so many cups of tea, Sherlock, stretching into your future. And eventually you’ll pick one up and you’ll realize that you didn’t think of him when you did it. I give you this hypothesis,” she said. “Now prove it, my darling boy.”
***
One day John Watson came home after his shift, prepared to watch mindless telly and sulk about how much he missed Sherlock, to find Violet Holmes standing in the middle of his flat.
“It’s a dreary place, isn’t it?” was what she said to him.
He gaped at her for a moment, and then said, “Violet. How did you…?”
“My sons have a terrible habit of attributing all their cleverness to their father. I let them, of course, because it’s convenient to be underestimated. So, for instance, it was so incredibly simple to lead my younger son to believe that I was going to set him up. He would believe such a thing of me. He would believe that I would push him together with any halfway decent fool that I could find. As if I were that addle-minded an old lady to think that would ever work. I told Sherlock I would set him up if he didn’t bring a boy home. I had no one to set him up with. I knew Sherlock would bring home a boy. What’s more, I knew he would bring home the right boy.”
John swallowed and wondered what Sherlock had told Violet had happened to their relationship. Because Violet was clearly furious. She was speaking in quick, clipped syllables that shattered like ice when they hit the air. “Violet,” he began.
“We knew he was paying you. We knew it wasn’t a real relationship. The idea that Sherlock ever thought he could trick us! Well, maybe he knew he couldn’t trick Mycroft. I’m sure he underestimated me as usual. I knew it was exactly what he would do. He would try to trick us into thinking he’d found a boyfriend. He thought he would win that way: I would back off, and nothing would change about his life. But what I also knew is that Sherlock would know that the ruse had to be convincing. He couldn’t show up with just anybody, because he knew that even I would see through that straightaway. Sherlock would have to search high and low for the right person, someone plausible, someone we could believe might hold his interest, someone we could believe he might love. And in searching for that person, Sherlock, as I knew he would, found someone who could hold his interest, found someone he could love. Sherlock found you. And so, you see, I thought my plan had worked splendidly, except that I have just come from my son’s flat, and he is in a sorry state, as are you. I love Sherlock, but he is a mess when it comes to emotional matters, so, forgive me, but I feel I must lay blame at your door.” Violet crossed her arms and gave him a look that made John scramble to come up with a response.
What he said was, lamely, “I…I don’t…I…”
“Did you think he would ever say anything to you? Him? His first love was Jim Moriarty; do you think he had any sodding idea what to do with affairs of the heart after that? He’s convinced himself that you’re better off without him, that he tricked you into falling in love with him under some sort of false pretenses.”
“He didn’t trick me. But I’m not sure you…” John floundered helplessly. How to explain that people like Sherlock Holmes didn’t end up with people like John Watson?
Violet cut through all of it. She said, sharply, “Are you happy, John?”
John thought it would be impossible to stand here, in this flat where he was dying day by day, and lie. “No,” he said, in a voice not much louder than a whisper.
Violet closed her eyes and relaxed her posture a bit, as if that had been a magic word. She sighed and said, softly, “Oh, the two of you suit each other perfectly. You are both making this so hard.” She opened her eyes and walked over to John and took his hands in hers. John let her, couldn’t think how not to let her, wasn’t sure he didn’t want to let her. “Do you know how a mother’s heart breaks when her child says to her that happiness isn’t easy? It’s a mother’s job to protect her child from that lesson. It’s a mother’s job to give him so much happiness that he thinks it’s the easiest thing in the world. And I didn’t…I didn’t…” Violet blinked rapidly, and John realized that she was on the verge of tears. “And the thing is that it is easy,” she continued, speaking quickly, as if worried she wouldn’t get it all out. “It’s hard before you meet, but after you have met, it’s the easiest thing in the world. I asked Sherlock what would make him happy, and he said he would be happy if you were happy. He said he wants you to be the happiest human being who ever lived.”
John stared at her, hardly daring to believe that was true. It was like asking Father Christmas for a pony and then finding one under his Christmas tree. How could it possibly be true? “That’s what he said?”
“That’s what he said. That’s what would make him happy. So I think the only question that remains is: John Hamish Watson, what would make you happy?”
***
John remembered nothing about the cab ride to Baker Street. He threw money at the cabbie and knocked so insistently on the door that he almost fell on top of Mrs. Hudson when she finally opened it.
“Dr. Watson,” she said, sounding shocked.
“Is Sherlock in?” he gasped at her.
Mrs. Hudson frowned at him thunderously. “Of course he’s in. Where else would he be? He’s been holed up there (ever since you broke his heart.”
John didn’t wait to hear the conclusion of this speech. He was already taking the steps two at a time, bursting into the door he found at the top of it. And he didn’t even know what room he was in, just that Sherlock was in it, on a sofa, suspended in the action of sitting up. He was staring at John, might even have said John’s name in surprise. John dropped to his knees by the sofa and kissed him. And kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until Sherlock was gasping and making those tiny little noises that drove John mad.
“It’s you,” John panted at him, dropping frantic kisses all over Sherlock’s face. “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.” John pulled back, looked down at Sherlock’s astonished face. “You’re what makes me happy. You would make me the happiest human being who ever lived.”
Sherlock blinked. “Have you lost every bit of your mind?”
“No.” John shook his head. “No. Sherlock. You weren’t playing a role, and you weren’t tricking me, I know you weren’t. How could you not see that? You were you, the whole time, and you’re wonderful. I don’t want another version of you, I don’t want any other person, how would I ever find anyone to compare to you? I was so lost, and I was so confused, and I was so alone, and then there was you, and whenever I looked at you I felt…safe. Like I was coming home. And I haven’t been home, in such a very long time. I went halfway around the world looking for something that would make me feel as alive as you make me feel, as happy as you make me feel. I love you.” John drew in a shaky breath, wondering if he had stopped to breathe at all since Violet had told him how Sherlock felt. “I am so in love with you. I think I was in love with you before we ever even got to the house, and I fell more in love with you every day, every moment, I love you. And I don’t care if you think I’m barking mad, I will stay here in this flat and I will snog you over the breakfast table every single morning and shag you into the mattress every single night and I will be the happiest human being who ever lived. And that will make you happy. And we’ll be happy together.”
Sherlock was silent for long enough for fear to take root in John’s heart, and then Sherlock pulled him in. Not for a kiss. He pulled him in so that he could press his head into John’s chest and take a shaky, labored breath that John felt reverberate through him.
“I missed you,” said Sherlock, against him. “I missed you so much. I…I…”
“Shh,” said John into Sherlock’s hair. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now. I’ll never leave you again.”
Sherlock’s breath caught. He kept his face in John’s chest, and John stroked at the curls on the nape of Sherlock’s neck. “I play the violin when I’m thinking,” mumbled Sherlock.
“I know that.”
“Sometimes I don’t talk for hours on end. Will that bother you?”
“Sherlock.” John pushed Sherlock gently away from him so that he could see his face. “I know who you are. I know who you are better than you know who you are. I won’t leave. I won’t deny that you’ll probably drive me a bit mad sometimes, so I might have to go and take a walk or something. But I’ll come back. I will always come back. Make me happy, Sherlock.”
Sherlock looked at a helpless loss. “I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do,” said John, and leaned his head down into the curve of Sherlock’s neck, burrowing there against his shoulder. “Yes, you do,” he said again. “You do it automatically. You do it by existing.”
“You’ll tell me if I do something wrong?” asked Sherlock, but he was cuddling John closer, and John knew that he had no intention of pushing John now.
“I’ll tell you,” John agreed.
Sherlock took a deep breath, then said, in a great rush, “So if I told you that you should move in here with me, would that be…making you happy, or doing something wrong?”
John lifted his head so he could look in Sherlock’s eyes when he said, “It would make me happy. Very happy. I could stop missing you so bloody much.” John leaned forward and kissed Sherlock, who kissed him back with a fierce and pleased possessiveness that John liked. When John broke the kiss, he leaned his forehead against Sherlock’s and asked, “Does this mean that I ought to give you your money back?”
***
“My mother came to see you,” said Sherlock.
John, eyes closed, felt Sherlock’s voice rumble through the chest his head was pillowed on. “Mmm,” he said. “That obvious?”
“You came in babbling about what would make you the happiest human being who ever lived. Which was an aspiration I’d told only to her. So yes: obvious. What I don’t understand is what she said to you.”
Sherlock sounded genuinely puzzled. John shifted so that he could see his face in the moonlight spilling in through the bedroom window. “She said that all you wanted was for me to be happy.”
Sherlock looked at him, frowning. “You didn’t realize that earlier?”
John tenderly traced a finger over the bow of Sherlock’s mouth. “No. I thought that there was no way you could ever be in love with me.”
“How could I not be in love with you?” demanded Sherlock.
“Look at you, Sherlock. And look at me.”
“You’re not making sense,” said Sherlock, frustrated. “I mean, you have it the wrong way around. That’s the reason that I didn’t think you would be in love with me. Because I’m just me and you’re…you.”
“And that’s part of why I love you,” John smiled. He leaned his head back down onto Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock’s breathing was even and deep and the rhythm of it lulled John. He could think of nothing more wonderful than being here, with Sherlock, spending every night this way for the rest of his life. And that seemed possible now.
John was almost asleep when Sherlock said, “And you’re sure this is what you want?”
“It’s the only thing I want. You can ask me every day, if you want, and the answer will stay the same.” A thought occurred to him, and he was suddenly much more awake. “What about you? What if you change your mind?”
“I won’t,” said Sherlock. “You can ask me every day, if you want, and the answer will stay the same. I will keep you for as long as I can make you happy.”
“Then you’ll keep me forever,” said John.
Next Chapter
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Date: 2013-02-05 11:56 pm (UTC)*off to
readsavor!no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 12:12 am (UTC)This has been terrific and I can't wait to see what's in store for the last chapter!
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Date: 2013-03-20 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 12:26 am (UTC)Well done Violet! Those two needed their heads bashed together by the epic wonder that is Violet Holmes (and if she's not around her, Mrs. Hudson is a prime substitute).
*Snuggles the boys close*
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Date: 2013-03-20 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 12:34 am (UTC)This made my day.
So happy the boys are finally together. Can't wait to read the last chapter.
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Date: 2013-03-20 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 01:38 am (UTC)Go Violet!
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Date: 2013-02-06 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 02:10 am (UTC)That was wonderful. Thank you! Mummy knows best. :)
(More? How can there be more? Only...Yes!)
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Date: 2013-02-06 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 09:53 am (UTC)(Though I am a little sorry that Annabelle did not save the day.)
Poor Sarah Sawyer. She never stood a chance, did she now?
And I'm curious...does John pay the money back? (I will admit I am a bit surprised he cashed the check at all.) Or do they use it for a fantastic honeymoon?
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Date: 2013-02-06 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 09:00 pm (UTC)Very wise woman, that Violet . . .
”But I’ll come back. I will always come back. Make me happy, Sherlock.””
It should be very easy to do that, so heading off to the next chapter to find him doing it! (At least I hope so!).
no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 09:24 pm (UTC)It would require him to wear the lab coat Sherlock had given him
In my comment to the last chapter I pictured John pining over the wooden soldier, his only souvenir of Sherlock. I had forgotten the lab coat. *gulps*
John fretted that Sherlock probably wasn’t eating enough, or sleeping enough, or taking proper care of himself. What if he got injured somewhere and there was no one to take care of him? What if he suffered a relapse?
He's in grief but he worries about Sherlock above all. Aww...
Sherlock could have had John to take care of him. All he’d had to do was ask. He hadn’t.
But did you? *looks sternly at John*
He wanted to get the pain of losing John out of his head; he never wanted John to leave his head.
I won't wibble. I know it will end well. But still. *wibbles a bit*
Lestrade also rang me, you know.
Aha! A hint of Mystrade? :D
I love what Mycroft does here, and even more what Violet does. They bring Sherlock and John together and they show Sherlock, in their own way, how much they care for him and how much he's loved.
“He would have said that he loved you, too, you silly idiot,” she said. [...] You fell in love with him because you recognized that what he needs is the exact opposite of all of that. Which is what you are.”
I LOVE Violet!
“I want him to be happy,” answered Sherlock, immediately. “I want him to be the happiest human being who ever lived. I’ve been trying to think how to ensure that, but I can’t—I could send him more money; that might help.”
First: awww. Second: yeah, I'm sure money could make John happier. *facepalms*
I told Sherlock I would set him up if he didn’t bring a boy home. I had no one to set him up with. I knew Sherlock would bring home a boy. What’s more, I knew he would bring home the right boy.
Wh... WHAT? It was her plan from the beginning?
We knew he was paying you. We knew it wasn’t a real relationship.
WHAT??? Now and then I wondered what Mycroft and Violet really knew but... Well, you can't fool a Holmes. Except when a Holmes fools himself of course. Yes Sherlock, I'm looking at you. :D
So. The reunion scene. I can't quote my favourite parts because I'd quote the whole thing. This scene is amazing, so heartwarming and full of love, and left me smiling blissfully. It's such a satisfying moment after all this angst. I, er... Well, there are some sentences I'm going to quote anyway, the ones I love most, because I can' t help myself. :D
"It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.” John pulled back, looked down at Sherlock’s astonished face. “You’re what makes me happy."
I was so alone, and then there was you, and whenever I looked at you I felt…safe. Like I was coming home.
And I don’t care if you think I’m barking mad, I will stay here in this flat and I will snog you over the breakfast table every single morning and shag you into the mattress every single night and I will be the happiest human being who ever lived. And that will make you happy. And we’ll be happy together.
And of course, "I love you." *sighs happily* It's PERFECT.
“I mean, you have it the wrong way around. That’s the reason that I didn’t think you would be in love with me. Because I’m just me and you’re…you.”
Aaaaah, I love the moment when the misunderstandings are at last resolved.
See you later tonight for the last chapter! :D