The Bang and the Clatter (26/36)

[earlgreytea68]

Title - The Bang and the Clatter (26/36)
Author -earlgreytea68
Rating - Adult
Characters - John, Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade
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 is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU.
Author's Notes - Many, many thanks to arctacuda, for helping with the writing and for uncomplainingly beta-ing when I whine.

The move went well! Thanks for all the good moving thoughts!

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven - Chapter Twelve - Chapter Thirteen - Chapter Fourteen - Chapter Fifteen - Chapter Sixteen - Chapter Seventeen - Chapter Eighteen - Chapter Nineteen - Chapter Twenty - Chapter Twenty-One - Chapter Twenty-Two - Chapter Twenty-Three - Chapter Twenty-Four - Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

John woke to an empty bed, which was not at all unusual but still, he would have thought Sherlock would have stuck close, given the night they had had. He poked his head out of the bedroom to ascertain that Sherlock was in the living room, frowning at his bulletin board.

“Good morning,” he called around a yawn, and got a dismissive hand wave as a response. Apparently everything was back to normal, thought John, and took a shower.

When he next emerged from the bedroom, Mrs. Hudson was in the living room, which wasn’t unexpected, but she was also frowning at the bulletin board, which definitely was unexpected.

“What do you think, Mrs. Hudson?” John asked, good-naturedly, as he checked to see if Sherlock had made coffee (naturally, he had not). “Would the fastball be an effective out or result in a home run?”

“What?” asked Mrs. Hudson, blankly.

“The bulletin board,” said John, switching the coffeepot on and walking back out into the living room to discover that Sherlock’s bulletin board didn’t have a single baseball-related item on it. Instead, it was covered with photographs of women. He looked at Sherlock. “And what’s all that?”

“Candidates,” answered Sherlock.

“Oh,” John realized, and sighed. “I hate every single person in the world who isn’t us.”

“Welcome to my usual state of being,” answered Sherlock, without irony.

“John,” said Mrs. Hudson, a tsk of sympathy in her voice. “Sherlock’s been explaining to me. Really, this all seems so terrible. I don’t care if I have gay baseball players on my team.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, I appreciate it,” said John, because he didn’t know how else to respond to that.

“Mrs. Hudson’s been giving her opinion on the choices,” explained Sherlock.

John regarded the bulletin board glumly. “How do you even know all these women?” He hardly ever saw Sherlock speak to anyone who wasn’t him.

“Well, I don’t. But I will, if necessary.” Sherlock sounded confident of his ability to pull any or all of these women.

John looked at him and allowed that he probably should feel confident of that.

Sherlock was looking back at him. “This is still what you want to do, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t what I want to do.” John paused. “I don’t want to force you into this if you—”

“No,” said Sherlock, with sudden steel in his voice. “I was willing to keep us secret, because you wanted it, because I didn’t really care. I didn’t feel passionately one way or the other, and you clearly did, and that was fine with me. But this…I won’t have us not be secret because of Moriarty. It’s our decision, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn’t take it from us.”

John heard the threat in Sherlock’s tone, looked back at the bulletin board, and said, “I need coffee.” He retreated to the kitchen and made a mug for himself and one for Sherlock. “Mrs. Hudson,” he called, “did you want coffee?”

“I’m just on my way out,” Mrs. Hudson called back. “Don’t mind me!”

So John carried out his two mugs of coffee, just as Mrs. Hudson was exiting the apartment. He put Sherlock’s coffee down on the desk and sipped his own and said, “When you say ‘whatever it takes’…”

Sherlock looked at him without comprehension.

John sipped his coffee again and said, “You’re not going to sleep with these women, are you?”

Sherlock made a face. “For God’s sake, no. Don’t be ridiculous.” Sherlock looked at the bulletin board then back at John, curious. “Would it bother you if I slept with them?”

John rolled his eyes in exasperation. Only Sherlock would ask that as a serious question. “Of course it would bother me!”

“It wouldn’t mean anything. You’d know that it didn’t mean anything.”

“That doesn’t matter. Maybe we should have established this as a ground rule, but I thought it went without saying: You don’t have sex, of any sort, in the presence of people who are not me.” John considered, deciding he probably needed to be more precise. “No orgasms, yours or other people’s.”

“Agreed,” said Sherlock with utter seriousness, as if that was something that had needed to be said out loud.

“No kissing, either,” John added.

Sherlock cocked his hip against the desk and folded his arms and smiled at him. “You’re possessive.”

John spoke into his coffee and hoped his ears weren’t turning pink. “Yes.”

“You’re jealous.”

“I don’t have anything to be jealous of. Do I?”

“No. But I mean that you’re prone to jealousy. You’re a jealous person.”

“Not unreasonably so,” John defended himself. He thought he probably had the normal jealous impulses; it was just that Sherlock was very far from normal.

Sherlock reached for him, pulling him in solidly up against him, jostling the coffee a bit. John arranged himself in the circle of Sherlock’s arms, stubbornly protective of his coffee.

“Good,” said Sherlock, sounding extremely pleased. “I am very possessive as well.”

John was a little relieved to hear it. “Good. We match. Let’s be possessive of each other. Now tell me who you want to date.”

“Irene Adler,” answered Sherlock, readily. “She is The Woman.”

***

The good thing about playing in Austin was that it almost never rained. But, unfortunately, they had to go on road trips, and they had to endure rain delays sometimes. Sherlock had been lucky enough not to have one yet in the middle of a game, so it made sense that he was due. That didn’t make him any more pleasant to deal with, though. With two outs in the fifth, they pushed the game into delay, and Sherlock stalked all around the dugout, his pitching arm thrust into the sleeve of a jacket to keep it warm, snarling out little irritated puffs of breath.

After twenty minutes of this, Lestrade sidled up to John and said, “Get him out of here.”

“It’s only been twenty minutes. He’ll kill you if you don’t wait a little bit longer before pulling him.”

“I’m not going to pull him, but he needs to be out of this dugout or there is going to be homicide. Get him out of this dugout and calm him down.”

John glanced to Sherlock, who had rounded the far end of the dugout and was resuming a stalking pace up the length of the dugout again, heading in their direction. He didn’t really relish trying to talk sense to him in such a mood. He’d honestly avoided him since they’d been yanked off the field. He may have been sleeping with Sherlock, but he was no fool and knew to avoid him when he was in a mood. So he sighed.

“Oh, and…keep it respectable,” Lestrade offered, awkwardly.

John rolled his eyes and stood up and intercepted Sherlock. “Come on,” he said, a hand on his shoulder, turning him toward the dugout exit.

“Wait,” Sherlock protested, digging his heels in. “It’s only been twenty minutes, I can still—”

“Not taking you out, just getting you out of the damp for a few minutes,” said John, giving him a shove to get him moving.

Sherlock muttered something John couldn’t decipher, consenting to be pushed a little way into the hallway that led to the dugout, before rounding on him. “What sort of climate is this?”

“It’s a British climate,” John pointed out. “You should be used to this sort of thing.”

Sherlock waved his arms about in a wildly dismissive gesture. “If I wanted this climate, I’d go back to London. What is the point of this climate without London?”

“Honestly, I never understood the point of the climate in London,” remarked John, sliding to sit on the floor with his back propped up against the wall. He wasn’t sure what he could do to make Sherlock calm down—what respectable thing he could do to make Sherlock calm down—so he thought he might as well just sit here and let him rant it out. If they had been home, John would have long ago gone out to get some air and leave Sherlock to his own devices but here he was stuck.

“I was perfect, John. I was perfect, through four and two-thirds, and now this.” Sherlock threw his baseball cap to the ground, the better to be able to tangle his hands in his hair.

John looked at him and felt terrible for him. With the All-Star Break behind them, Sherlock had devoted himself to the perfect game goal with a renewed vigor, and now, with his first start, was stuck in a nasty rain delay. “I know,” he said, sympathetically. “We’ve still got half a season left, you’ve got plenty more starts.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sherlock whined, but then he collapsed to the floor next to John with such dejection that John couldn’t even feel upset about it.

John looked at him and felt mostly annoyed that he couldn’t offer him any sort of physical comfort, couldn’t cuddle into him, rest his head on his shoulder, breathe kisses over his throat and get him to uncoil and feel better. John didn’t even dare take his hand, sitting in the hallway of a Major League Baseball stadium as they were. Operation Irene Adler was moving slowly, because Sherlock said it would be suspicious otherwise, and scrutiny was still close and severe.

“Tell me about London,” John offered, looking at Sherlock’s profile as he tipped his head back against the wall. The line of his throat was ridiculously alluring, and John looked away, to the opposite wall.

“Capital of England and the United Kingdom,” answered Sherlock, dully. “Originally settled by the Romans. Population of over eight million people, all but two or three of them, maybe, incredibly stupid.”

“Not that,” said John, and risked nudging Sherlock’s shoulder with his because he couldn’t help it. “Tell me about you in London.”

“Me in London.” Sherlock turned his head to look at John. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I was just making conversation. Forget it.”

“I hate ‘making conversation,’” said Sherlock.

“I know,” said John. “Forget it.” John leaned his own head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Outside, he could hear the rain continuing to drum down on the tarp on the field, the rest of their teammates murmuring together.

“I really like Piccadilly Circus,” said Sherlock, eventually, surprising him.

“I could see that,” replied John, after a moment.

“When’s the last time you were there?”

“Years ago. I was a boy. You’ll have to take me sight-seeing.”

Sherlock scoffed. “Boring.”

“Not the usual sights. Where would you take me? Tell me. Piccadilly Circus. Where else?” Now that Sherlock had started talking—and sounded calmer about the conversational topic—John wanted to keep him going.

“Covent Garden,” said Sherlock. “To hear Wagner, hopefully.”

“Not Tchaikovsky?”

“I’d try to expand your horizons. I play Wagner very well, but maybe you need to hear a whole orchestra play Wagner.”

“All right,” John allowed, not so much amused as…as charmed and besotted and ridiculously in love, he thought, which was his normal state of being these days. “Where else?”

“There’s this little Italian restaurant I know, I think you would like it.”

“Do you eat the food there?”

“When they force me to.”

“This place sounds delightful,” agreed John, fervently.

Sherlock smiled faintly and tipped his head back against the wall again, closing his eyes this time. “All the places everyone else refuses to see, all of its beautiful underbelly, we’d do all of that.”

How romantic, John wanted to say, but didn’t, mindful of their surroundings. “How charming,” he said instead, and Sherlock opened his eyes and looked at him and smiled in genuine amusement.

“It will be. I’ll make it be so.”

“The terrifying force of your will.”

“Like my perfect game and your World Series. I will make all these things be so,” said Sherlock.

“I believe you,” said John. “I believe in Sherlock Holmes. It should be this team’s catchphrase.”

“I’m quite content with it just being John Watson’s catchphrase,” said Sherlock. “I want a flat, John.”

“What do you mean?” asked John, quizzical at the change in topic.

“In London. A cozy flat, with a fireplace and busy Victorian wallpaper, cluttered and crowded, room for a violin and a skull and medical books and lots of cups of tea, and a back garden for games of catch. That’s what I want.”

John looked at him for a long moment. Sherlock’s tone was intent, and his eyes were sharp, and John understood what he was being told but didn’t understand why Sherlock would have chosen this moment here to tell him this, to tell him what he wanted, to bring up the fact that it really wasn’t anything John had ever thought about, moving back to London, being away from this game. Medical books, Sherlock had said, and games of catch, and those were John, in Sherlock’s ideal London flat, tucked into Sherlock’s vision of his perfect future, and John’s throat felt closed and his chest felt tight at all of it because he hadn’t realized how very far ahead Sherlock had been thinking and, bloody hell, why couldn’t Sherlock have brought this up when they were somewhere private and could talk about this? “Sherlock,” he started, helplessly, trying to think of what to say.

Something in Sherlock’s eyes shuttered, immediately. He didn’t move but John felt as if space magically appeared between the two of them. John almost went to grab Sherlock back, to pull him against him and make him see that it wasn’t rejection, it was just surprise.

And that was when Lestrade called in, “Holmes! Watson! They’re taking the tarp off!”

Sherlock stood immediately, retrieving his cap.

“Sherlock,” said John. “It’s not— It’s just that—”

“No,” said Sherlock, with forced casualness. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

John sighed, frustrated, and followed him out, but Sherlock’s perfect-game spell was broken and he gave up two quick hits. John trotted out to the mound for a pep talk, and Sherlock stood glumly and frowned at the runner on first and didn’t respond in any way when John said, “Sherlock, everything you said, we just can’t talk about it here; it doesn’t mean it doesn’t sound lovely.” And when John tried to catch him at the inning break, after he’d given up two runs and Lestrade had decided to pull him, Sherlock just said he was stiff from the rain delay. But he left the stadium immediately, which he would never have done unless it had nothing to do with stiffness and everything to do with a flat in London crowded with medical books and a violin.

***

Sherlock was in bed when John got back to the hotel room. Not even on the couch, which John had expected, but in bed. This was bad, thought John, contemplating his still form, his back to him, his carefully even breathing.

“I know you’re not asleep,” said John, but Sherlock said nothing in reply, and John sighed and moved into the room and didn’t get onto the bed because he didn’t want to crowd Sherlock. He leaned against the dresser and said, “It was surprise, Sherlock. It wasn’t disapproval, it was surprise. We were sitting in the middle of a baseball stadium, and you have never brought that up before, and I was just taken aback. I didn’t know how to react, and I didn’t know how I could react, in the middle of that stadium with you. That was all it was.” Sherlock was unmoving on the bed. John paused to give him an opportunity to say something, and, when nothing was forthcoming, continued, “A flat in London, huh? Violin and medical textbooks and a back garden for catch?”

There was a very long moment of silence.

“Sherlock,” prompted John.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sherlock said, muffled against the pillow.

“Yes, it does,” he contradicted, evenly. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this before? You’ve never mentioned wanting to move back to London.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Sherlock again, and finally moved, rolling onto his back, and the fact that John had interrupted his sulk was telling that it was more than just a sulk, that it was somehow deeper and worse than that. “I don’t know why I said anything about it at all. It’s this…folly.”

“You like London,” noted John. “You miss London.” He had drawn that conclusion at their first dinner, when Sherlock had pouted about tea, and he had somehow managed to forget about that. It made sense that Sherlock imagined a future in London, Sherlock clearly imagined himself in London, and he had slotted John into it. And John had never given a thought to living in London, but he had honestly never been able to imagine himself anywhere but behind home plate. In a few short months that life was going to be over, and what was better than starting over with Sherlock in a cozy flat in London, with medical textbooks and a back garden for catch? He’d assumed he would hang around baseball, get a job as a pitching coach somewhere, he would probably be very good at it. But it would require him to leave Sherlock, and he wasn’t interested in that. In that case, maybe a bit of medical school during the off-season was a good idea.

Sherlock said nothing. He stared at the ceiling.

John walked over to him and straddled him, knees settled on either side of his abdomen. He braced his hands on either side of Sherlock’s head and leaned over him, catching his eyes, making himself unavoidable. Sherlock looked a tiny bit surprised and a whole lot wary. John said what he should have said ages ago, what he knew had been true ages ago. “I am all in with you, Sherlock. Austin, London, Mozambique, wherever you want.”

Sherlock looked up at him for one long, silent moment. And then he said, “Mozambique?”

“Shut up,” said John, and kissed his lips briefly before fluttering kisses over his eyelids. “Don’t bring up things like this in a baseball stadium, Sherlock,” he murmured over his skin. “You should have brought it up long ago. How long have you been thinking it?”

Sherlock was moving his face to catch John’s kisses. “I was going to tell you the day I first went to your house in Austin, but you were too focused on sex.”

“Oh, yes, I was the single-minded one focused on sex. Poor you, you must have felt utterly ravished.” John finished processing what Sherlock had said and drew back a bit. “Wait, you were going to tell me then?”

Sherlock’s eyes flickered open slowly. “Yes.”

“You knew then? That we would be like this?”

“You didn’t?”

John considered, and decided that yes, maybe he had always known. Maybe he had been too scared to admit it. “You should have told me then.”

“I tried to. As I said: your preoccupation with sex intervened.”

“I haven’t heard you complain too vociferously about my preoccupation with sex.”

“Vociferously,” repeated Sherlock, and shifted meaningfully against John.

“You love it when I use big words,” remarked John, and kissed him, not deeply enough to lose the thread of the conversation, so he could keep talking around Sherlock’s lips. “Tell me more about this flat.”

“It’ll have a good location.”

“Something better than real estate.”

“Two chairs in front of the fireplace. You’ll have a cozy, squishy armchair. We’ll look all over for it and find it abandoned in a second-hand shop, in the very back, half-off.”

“Mmm,” said John, and kissed his way down Sherlock’s neck, saying, “You’ll have something sleek and modern. Black leather and chrome. You’ll pay a ridiculous amount of money for it and you’ll perch on the back of it and put your shoes all over it.”

“I thought we’d get a skull to put on the wall,” said Sherlock, pulling John’s shirt over his head and tossing it aside. “To keep my skull company when we’re not home.”

“Why wouldn’t we be home?” asked John, shifting slowly down Sherlock’s body, emphasizing the rub of the friction.

Sherlock’s breath caught and his hips hitched and it took him a second to respond, “I thought I’d solve crimes. Be a detective. The way I wanted. And you’d help me when you weren’t in class.”

“This sounds fantastic,” John encouraged, pushing Sherlock’s T-shirt up as far as it would go without having to perform too much wriggling. “Tell me what happens when we get home from solving a crime.” He adjusted his position, stretching out now and pressing a kiss in the center of Sherlock’s breastbone.

“The day would be foggy and raw, but we’d come home in the evening and the fire would be lit in the fireplace.”

“Who would light it?” asked John, around slow, wet kisses.

Sherlock’s hands clenched reflexively in his hair. “Mrs. Hudson.”

“Mrs. Hudson?”

Sherlock moved underneath him, both languorous and impatient. “She’s our landlady.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Because it’s foggy outside, I’d propose playing catch in the hallway.”

“Does Mrs. Hudson approve of that?” asked John, and pushed his hand underneath the waistband of Sherlock’s pajama pants.

Sherlock’s hips arched to meet his touch, as he gasped, “N-no.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said John, and stroked, watching Sherlock’s head roll on the pillow, his hands clench into the sheets. “What else?”

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and gasped, “You’d blog.”

This surprised John. He lifted an eyebrow. “About?”

“Me. Us. Anything. The point is that you’d have something to blog about, that you wouldn’t think that nothing ever happened to you, you’d have a fantastic life with fantastic things in it that you’d want to shout from the rooftops.” Sherlock finished on a garbled noise in the back of his throat, thrusting now in earnest to meet John’s rhythm.

John looked at him and felt that this all must be a dream he would wake up from at any moment, because where had Sherlock come from. Tell me about your perfect future, John had said to him, in effect, and what Sherlock had said was all about him: You’d do this with me and that with me and you’d be so happy you wouldn’t be able to keep it inside. And that was Sherlock’s perfect future: to have a happy John Watson.

“Tell me about the bedroom,” prompted John, when he thought he could trust his voice to be somewhat steady, and then he replaced his hand with his mouth.

Sherlock made a strangled sort of sound, and John pulled off. “Tell me.”

“There’s a…a bed,” Sherlock managed.

John pulled off again. “Oh, good, we’re not going to have to sleep on the floor?”

Sherlock opened his eyes and glared at him. “Would you focus?”

John grinned. “Tell me about the bedroom, Sherlock. Tell me about this bed,” he said, and went back to work.

Sherlock seemed to have gathered himself in his moment of glaring, because he spoke in a more collected way now, even if he spoke around increasingly fast pants of breath. “The bed is huge—it’s enormous—because you insisted—that I sprawl too much when I sleep—which is a lie—a headboard for you to grab during sex—” John hummed his approval of that, which caused Sherlock’s hand to catch in his hair, tugging at him. “—we’d have a disagreement about décor—about what to put on the walls—I’d want my judo certificate—but you wouldn’t want that—because you’d want something sentimental—a photograph of the two of us—maybe the one from the—from the—from the All-Star Game, but I—I—periodic table—John.”

John waited until Sherlock had collapsed into the mattress, was no longer taut with tension, before saying, “What was that about the periodic table?”

“Mmmph,” said Sherlock, which made John preen a bit and drop a kiss on his hip as he moved up his body.

“God,” noted John, conversationally, “my preoccupation with sex is so irritating, isn’t it?”

Sherlock opened one eye in an imitation of a glare and then reached out and pulled John heavily to him for a clumsy kiss.

John pulled back. “This busy Victorian wallpaper you mentioned—is that negotiable?”

“Absolutely not,” said Sherlock, “you’ll come to love it.”

“I bet I will,” reflected John, looking down at Sherlock underneath him, and Sherlock grinned and flipped them over.

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