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House of Light

Summary:

“For god’s sake,” Sherlock blusters, “John and I are--” 

“Happy. So very happy,” John cuts in loudly. He gives Sherlock a resounding slap on the back, jerking Sherlock forward. “In fact, we couldn’t be happier, did I already say that? The two of us. Sherlock and I, that is. Because we’re together--in a relationship--as you so astutely noticed before we could break the news. So. Yes. Thank you, Mrs Holmes.”

Notes:

Might I offer you yet another Sherlock-and-John-pretending-to-be-a-couple-in-order-to-appease-Mummy Holmes fic?

This fic takes place some time after S4, but I’ve ignored TFP (which I like to do at all times) and I’ve removed Rosie from the equation. So, basically, barely S4 compliant.

Also, if you were wondering before diving in: the Minor Character Death tag is for an OC. And the fic’s E-rating applies only to the final chapter.

Title is stolen from one of Mary Oliver’s collections of poems. The epigraph is also Mary Oliver. ...As is what is recited by the funeral officiant at the start of the fic. Maybe I like Mary Oliver. (She’s masterful.)  

  This fic is now complete.

Chapter Text

Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled--

to cast aside the weight of facts

 

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

 -"The Ponds,” Mary Oliver


Whipping, frosty winds. Numb noses and cheeks and toes. A December funeral isn’t ideal.

Though...neither is a funeral, generally.

“...When it’s over,” the officiant is reciting over Mummy’s hysterical sobs, Dad’s calming murmurs of placation, “I want to say all my life….”

Flora’s great-nieces huddle closer together, taking refuge against the howling wind.

“...I was a bride married to amazement....”

Mycroft stands tall and austere, expression vacant, eyes bone-dry.

“...I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

And John--he is a silent but sure presence at Sherlock’s side.

When the ceremony ends, Mummy turns on her heel and stalks away, as if she couldn’t possibly endure a moment more of the ritual, her ululations ringing throughout the cavernous cemetery.

“Vi,” Dad says helplessly, hurrying after her.

Mycroft and Sherlock find each other’s eyes at the same moment.

In a rare display of emotion, Mycroft gives Sherlock a solemn, meaningful nod. It might as well have been an embrace. But the moment is gone as quickly as it had come, Mycroft pulling the officiant aside to tie up loose ends, finalise some business or other.

Sherlock remains anchored in place, eyes tracing over the blocky engraving of his grandmother’s headstone--

CAMILLE FRANCOISE JOSEPHINE LECOMTE-VERNET

16 January 1914 - 26 December 2018

Beloved life partner,

sister, grandmother,

and mother

--and the matching, but less wordy, headstone at the adjoining plot--

FLORA ELISABETH WHITTEMORE

10 April 1919 - 13 September 2001

Beloved friend

and sister

The great-nieces thread their arms together and walk to the edge of the grave, peering meditatively into its depths. One of them takes a handful of earth and unfurls it over the casket.

A hand is placed on Sherlock's shoulder, and he stiffens, startled out of his mournful quietude.

It is, of course, John, so Sherlock eases into the touch: sturdy and comforting. Eloquent.

John needn’t say a word. Words aren’t necessary. 

The officiant, Mycroft, and finally the great-nieces disperse, but Sherlock and John remain, hand-on-shoulder, twin sentinels at the grave.

Memories surface, fuzzy and lulling.

A violinist's hand, delicate, masterful, coaxing out a tricky Paganini, a honeyed Sarasate, a thunderous Wagner; vibrant Norfolk vistas rendered in impressionistic beauty; sketches of the French Riviera, of rough-hewn women at work in the ‘40s, of London in ruin after the War; bawdy tales of life in Paris, inappropriate for a young boy’s ears, but told in a captivating, mellifluous French.

Most people had not liked Sherlock’s grandmother.

Her abrasive personality and cold demeanour had left much to be desired. But Sherlock had loved her, and she had loved him, in her own way. Or, at the very least, she’d been tickled by him: constantly amused, always encouraging of his scientific (and morbid) pursuits. She had understood him, and he had understood her. And while she’d been an artist, and he a scientist, there had been a symbiosis of minds.

Once, in a rare moment of candour during a rather dull stake-out, John had asked Sherlock something he’d never been asked before:

“What made you like this?”

It hadn’t been asked with a tone of judgment; it’d been one of sincere curiosity. The question had surprised Sherlock, but perhaps that’s because no one had ever got close enough to ask it, and he’d been even more surprised by how naturally he’d come to an answer. Systematic study was absolutely crucial, he’d told John, but it wasn’t only what madeth the man; genetics came into play, particularly from his matrilineal line. There is no question that the art that runs through Sherlock’s veins has contributed to his creativity of reasoning and thought.

It’d been fifteen years since Sherlock had last seen Mémé in person, and they’d spoken on the phone just eight times since, which is a shameful reality. If he’d really loved her, he would have made the effort to see her, to speak to her more often. But as he’d grown older, he’d convinced himself that the best way not to get hurt--the best way to funnel the most energy into what he'd thought really mattered, the Work--was to move through life alone.

It’d been a grave miscalculation.

That self-imposed, self-involved isolation had made him forget about the very few people who’d actually counted.

Tears slide effortlessly down Sherlock’s cheek, the wet streaks freezing in the frigid air.

Annoyed, he swipes at his cheek with the heel of his palm, and when he drops his arm, John’s hand slides from Sherlock’s shoulder down to his forearm, hesitates, then slides down further to interlace their gloved fingers.

Sherlock falls perfectly still.

And when he musters the courage to turn his head, John isn’t even looking at him, is boring a stare into Mémé’s headstone with his jaw set tight. It strikes a perplexing note of discord, John’s tense comportment against their gently clasped hands but, then again, John is naturally, exceptionally perplexing.

“Sherlock, darling?”

John’s hand rips out of Sherlock’s, and the two of them whirl around toward the wibbly voice.

Sherlock had not heard Mummy’s approach, but she has perfected the art of creeping up on him unawares; one of the very few people to succeed in such an endeavour. Her face and eyes are swollen pink, but she is, quite paradoxically, smiling, and dare Sherlock think it, but there’s simply no more picturesque way to describe it--she has a twinkle in her eye.

“Wanted to catch you before you swanned off,” Mummy says. “Your father and I thought we’d have you, your brother, and John over for food and drink. It’s just a couple hours' drive, you know, but you’re more than welcome to stay the night, though I know it’s last minute. I suppose we should have thought all this through before….”

Sherlock is beyond relieved to have a proper excuse. “Regrettably, John and I have already purchased tickets for the return train.”

She looks between the two of them and her smile grows unfathomably wider. “But you will still be coming up next weekend for your birthday, won’t you.”

The lack of a rising intonation is a veiled threat.

“Yes, Mummy,” Sherlock murmurs in the manner of a man sentenced to the gallows.

“Looking forward to it,” John adds stiffly, pasting on his I’m trying very hard to be gracious and normal smile.

Much to Sherlock’s horror, the twinkle in Mummy’s eye has become a constellation of stars.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve gone and spoilt everything, haven't I?”

John shakes his head, uncomprehending. “Spoilt…?”

“You must have meant to tell me more formally, but, oh, I’m about to burst! I’m so tremendously happy to see that you boys have decided to take the leap.”

John leans over, ear out-turned. “I’m sorry, what?”

Sherlock has the crazed thought to jump into the hole with his grandmother.

“Do you hear that, mother?” Mummy calls out to her very dead mother, casting a deeply fond look at John. “I may soon very well have three sons!”

John blanches.

“Mummy,” Sherlock says between his teeth, his cheeks hot, “You of all people--”

Sherlock,” Mummy says with authoritative finality, though her actions betray her tone as she cups Sherlock’s cheek with a soft mitten. “My baby boy. Look at you. Your grandmother would be so pleased to see you like this--settling down with someone. Living your truth. Just like she did.” Then, with clear spite, “Though it took her rather a bit longer to do it all.”

“For god’s sake,” Sherlock blusters, “John and I are--”

“Happy. So very happy,” John cuts in loudly. He gives Sherlock a resounding slap on the back, jerking Sherlock forward. “In fact, we couldn’t be happier, did I already say that? The two of us. Sherlock and I, that is. Because we’re together--in a relationship--as you so astutely noticed before we could break the news. So. Yes. Thank you, Mrs Holmes.”

Even though it’d been an entirely unconvincing performance, Mummy eats it up and gathers John into her arms. John becomes a ragdoll, lets himself be hugged mercilessly, blinking SOS in Morse code at Sherlock, but Sherlock can only look on at the assault as a slack-jawed bystander.

“No, thank you, John,” Mummy is saying, her voice thick with emotion, rubbing circles into John’s back. “Thank you so very much.”


On the train ride home, Sherlock sits slumped against the window, frowning aggressively at sprawling fields of nothingness and uninspired suburban dwellings.

John sits beside him, as silent as a stone, but when Sherlock finally sips in a breath to speak, John preempts him: “Just leave it. Let your mum have this.”

“I can’t imagine her constitution being so fragile that she would not be able to handle the news that we are not, in fact, lovers.”

“You saw how happy it made her. It turned her around. She was completely devastated about her mother.”

Sherlock sighs, pressing his forehead to the ice-cold glass of the window. “It was performative. There was no love lost between Mummy and Mémé.”

“Doesn’t mean your Mum isn’t genuinely grieving. I was devastated when Mary was--,” Sherlock flinches, “when she died.” Mary is always an awkward topic of conversation, so they don’t often invoke her name. Nor do they speak of everything that came shortly After. “But my feelings for her in life were complicated, to say the least.”

Complicated did indeed also define Mémé and Mummy’s relationship.

Mémé was quite aloof in her parenting, for one, but it was Mémé’s affair with Flora whilst married to Sherlock’s grandfather that caused the greatest rift in mother-daughter relations, though Sherlock had always thought it a forgivable indiscretion. To be a lesbian trapped in a marriage with a man for three decades--he could do nothing but sympathise with her plight. And yet Mummy’s held a grudge for all these years.

“John.”

“Hm?”

“I will need you to tell my parents that I died. Or that I was murdered, if you'd prefer to add a bit of spice.”

John snorts rudely. “You are going to see them next week, Sherlock. No bloody excuses.”

“It will be exponentially more insufferable with Mummy acting like a mourner from Greek myth,” Sherlock says in an undignified tone of desperation, hoping for John to take pity on him. “Also, Mycroft will be there.”

“She’s grieving, you berk. That’s what people do.”

“And what are we meant to do?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Surely, you don’t intend to maintain that--that ruse?”

“Do you really want to disappoint your mother at a time like this?”

Sherlock does not like disappointing his mother, it’s true. That’s Mycroft’s lot in life.

However.

While Sherlock is a master actor, falsifying a relationship with John could be the most difficult disguise he would ever have to assume.

He had never had to sham something so very close to his heart.

“As always, John, you aren’t thinking ahead. Do you expect us to pretend to be,” he nearly chokes on the word, “boyfriends or what have you for the rest of my mother’s life? That could be one year or fifteen.”

“Don’t...ever say that word again,” John says darkly.

“What, ‘boyfriends?’” John’s eye twitches and he jerks a nod in confirmation. “I was being facetious, obviously.”

They fall back into silence. A distinctly uncomfortable one, this time.

Sulkily, Sherlock curls up into a ball and turns his attention back to the great open pastures of--wherever they are. Somewhere unimportant.

His thoughts once again gravitate to his grandmother.

She’d been shunned by family, especially after she’d come out, but that hadn’t mattered. She had found her bliss with Flora and hadn’t needed anyone else; it’d been just her and Flora against the rest of the world. Sherlock had known his grandmother’s story well, and when he was a boy, he had wished (privately, very privately, never to be uttered to a soul) to have such a life for himself.

But these were lofty, childish romantic ideals that had been anything but ideal when expended on Victor Trevor.

Sherlock hugs himself tightly.

He’s not thought of Victor in ages. And for good reason.

It was Victor who had taught him the destructive nature of sentiment, though it had been a lesson well-learned: that’s when he’d stepped into his own as Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, nourished by nothing but data and puzzles.

And he’d thrived as that Sherlock Holmes. He’d scintillated.

But then he’d met John, and John had challenged that man Sherlock had known so well, because there Sherlock was, affixed to someone again, and it wasn’t a detriment. It was distracting, at times, but it wasn’t destructive.

It was beautiful, and he’d felt invincible.

John had rattled his painstakingly-built foundations, and he's not been able to revert back to that hardened version of himself he’d once been. And even when John had left him, had gone off and married Mary, he’d vowed to try and keep as much of John as he could.

Because Sherlock can no longer be without him.

With his arms wound protectively around himself, Sherlock digs fingernails into his back, applying pressure. Presses hard enough for the half-moons of his nails to indent flesh through his shirt.

John cannot leave him.

“Hey.”

Sherlock relaxes, uncoils himself, raises his head toward John.

John’s eyes are fixed on the back of the seat in front of him, his chin raised almost in defiance, and on the seat in the space between them lies John’s upturned palm, an unwavering invitation.

Sherlock realises it for what it is.

This is John’s particular way of offering comfort in grief.

When John had been grieving Mary, Sherlock had hugged him—just the once. It’d be a rare moment of physical connection for them, and Sherlock had felt guilty for finding comfort in it himself. For finding security and warmth, and for wanting to keep John in his arms.

This, the joining of their hands, is far less invasive than a hug. Sherlock is surprised by how much it’d affected him earlier, graveside. He’s never given the act much thought before, except for thinking it a bit twee, but perhaps that’d been reductive. It can both stake a claim and/or offer quiet support. And John offers him so little in the way of physical affection, so it is a gift.

Sherlock will not look a gift horse in the mouth.

He interlaces their fingers.

These days, he and John are closer than they have ever been, their friendship fortified by years of tragedy and strife. Bloodied, but unbowed. Sherlock will take what they have, cherish it, and never let it go, no matter if it never becomes more. He has it, has something, and it will have to be enough. Because who else, really, in this dreadful world would make so many allowances for Sherlock? Sherlock is ceaselessly rude, inconsiderate, and mercurial by nature. And John accepts him; likes him, even.

This is someone, and something, Sherlock cannot afford to lose.

Sherlock pulls his and John’s hands into his lap, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.


Days later, back at 221b, Sherlock noisily throws himself into his armchair and sinks low, legs inelegantly splayed. He waits, but his theatrics do nothing to garner John’s attention, so he tries on a drawn-out sigh.

That does the trick.

“What it is, Sherlock," John intones without looking away from the telly.

They’ve been avoiding the subject quite assiduously, which is something they are both very skilled at--avoiding talking about things they do not want to talk about--but Sherlock has been able to do nothing else but think about it since Mémé’s funeral. There are experiments that need doing, a monograph that needs writing, so he must clear the air (and his mind).

“We haven’t discussed our plans for the charade this weekend. And we all know you can’t act to save your life.”

“Yeah, all right, sorry I haven’t the particular sort of skill to shanghai some poor sod into nearly marrying me,” John says pointedly, and Sherlock deflates a little. “And we don’t need a plan. Just go on as you are. Your parents won’t expect us to do anything to prove ourselves. That’d be...weird.”

Sherlock slumps deeper into the armchair, chin to chest. “My mother is a loose cannon. Who’s to know what she’ll do? I haven’t ever--,” Sherlock breaks off. He hasn’t ever brought someone home to meet his parents, he’d meant to say. But does he really need to say it aloud? “I haven’t any data to compare against.”

“I’ve got to go to the shops,” John says suddenly, springing up to his feet.

Sherlock glances at his wristwatch, which reads 19:50. “The shops” close in ten minutes. Sherlock judiciously does not point this out.

John makes a big to-do of gathering his essentials--mobile, wallet--but he can’t find his keys. “Where’d you put them.”

Sherlock swishes a hand toward the pile of burnt clothes. “Probably under there.”

A few days ago, Sherlock had conducted burn tests on various articles of clothing for the purpose of learning more about fibre classification. John hadn’t appreciated the smell, particularly from the acrylic fibre (bit fishy, that one).

“Oh, for the love of--I didn’t see you’d used this one, I loved this shirt!”

“I don’t wear linen,” Sherlock says, tossing his head. “I needed to test it. It was a horrendous shirt, anyway.”

John blows out a frustrated breath. “Just--clean this up while I’m out. I’m not going to ask you again.” John finally locates his keys, which had been nestled in a tattered foulard, and shoves them into his pocket. “When I get back, we’ll talk. “

“But--

Later, Sherlock. We’ll talk later.”

But they never do get around to talking about it.


Next Saturday, at dawn, they set off on the interminable journey to Yorkshire.

Sherlock tries to quell his anxiety by thinking rationally, which is what he does best.

John could be right.

They probably won’t have to “prove themselves,” which Sherlock assumes would involve some degree of physical intimacy. Over the years, anyone from strangers to close associates had mistaken him and John for a couple, and they hadn’t even been trying to play a couple. So, it stands to reason that they needn’t do much, if anything, to be convincing.

Or, a novel idea: they could tell the truth.

Mummy would be disappointed, yes, but she’d get over it. And Sherlock wouldn’t have to suffer through an entire weekend of innuendo and fussing and over-sentimental declarations.

But, then again, he does so hate to disappoint Mummy, and she had seemed inordinately uplifted by the idea of his and John’s entanglement.

And maybe Sherlock is the slightest bit curious about how things will play out--how John will be with him. John, his considerate and stubborn John, has committed to playing this role for Mummy’s sake. Will he lean into the role? Will there be potential for physical intimacy, even if just for show? It’s quite sad, really, that Sherlock still thinks about last week. The damnably quaint hand-holding. Its sole purpose may have been to offer a kindness in grief. Tangible affection. But had it set a precedent?

Anything that John offers, Sherlock will take.

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Mummy loops one arm around Sherlock, the other around John, and pulls them into her bosom.

“I can’t breathe,” Sherlock mutters into her armpit.

“This is going to be your most cracking birthday to date,” Mummy says, practically euphoric. “Siger’s just put a kettle on. Come on, come in.”

Inside, they find Dad setting out the mugs. “Ah!” he says with a beaming smile. “Perfect timing.”

He comes round the table to clap Sherlock on the shoulder.

“We’re spoiled seeing you twice in a week, son.” He glances over at Mummy, who is already flitting around the room talking to herself about meal prep, and adds, sotto voce, “Though, of course, we wish we could’ve seen you twice under happier circumstances.” Leaning back, he takes Sherlock in. “Forty years old--my god.” A squeeze of Sherlock’s shoulder. “Where has the time gone?”

“Please, don’t give me all the attention.” Sherlock gestures at John. “You’ve others waiting.”

Dad chuckles, patting Sherlock’s shoulder and turning his attention to John. His sunny smile slips into more neutral territory, and he extends a hand. “Always a pleasure, John.”

John clasps the offered hand, gives it a pump. “The sentiment’s mutual, sir.”

John starts to edge away, but Dad keeps their hands clasped. “There’s much to celebrate today.” John stares down at his detained hand. “I can’t tell you how chuffed I was when Vi told me the news about you and Sherlock.”

“Yes, thank you. We’re pleased. As well. About the--us.”

There is no BAFTA on the horizon for John Watson, indeed.

The room has fallen silent.

Dad and John appear to have reached a handshake stalemate. John audibly swallows. Dad still has his smile on, but it’s become taut.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that my son deserves all the happiness in the world.”

“Dad, please,” Sherlock whinges simultaneously with Mummy’s chiding warble of “Si-ger.”

“Yes,” John says, drawing himself up and sniffing. “Of course. I couldn’t agree more.”

Finally: some conviction. Believability. Sherlock may have been a hasty critic.

“Good lad,” Dad says with restored good cheer, clapping John’s forearm before releasing him from his clutches.

“Oh, John, how rude of us,” Mummy says. “You’ll be wanting to put down your things and get settled.” John nods absently, looking a bit out of sorts as he hefts the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder. “I was thinking you boys could take the guest room with the Sargent painting. You know the one, Sherlock.” He does, and doesn’t miss that she hadn’t designated the room John and Mary shared two Christmases ago. “Go and show John the way.”

Sherlock doesn’t need to be told twice, striding up the stairs at mach speed.


Once John closes the door to the bedroom, he drops the duffel bag onto the floor and scrubs a hand down his face. “Your parents are--they’re lovely, of course, but also...a lot.”

Sherlock flops onto the bed, flings an arm across his face. They’ve not even been here 15 minutes and Sherlock’s parents have reduced him to feeling like a Victorian woman who’d taken too much laudanum. “Welcome to the past 40 years of my life.”

“I think your dad’s plotting my demise as we speak.”

“My father wouldn’t know how to plot the demise of a house ant.”

A beat of silence.

“All things considered,” John says, “that wasn’t so bad, yeah? I’d say we’ve weathered the worst of it.” Sherlock can’t be so sure that’s true, but he allows John the comfort of foolish optimism. “Though. Uh. I see we’re both meant to sleep...there.”

“Last I checked, we’re not masquerading as an aristocratic heterosexual couple from the turn of the century. So, yes.”

John seems to have chosen not to hear him. “It’s just for one night. It’s fine.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Precisely. So you mustn’t fret.”

“I’m not fretting. I was in the army, in case you forgot.”

Sherlock makes a sarcastic noise at the back of his throat, chirping, “You slept with men in the army?”

“Oh, yeah. Loads.”

The response is so unexpected that Sherlock sits bolt upright.

John is laughing at him. “Your face.”

“What?” Sherlock tries to school his expression back into one of impassivity. “What about my face?”

John grins wickedly, then picks up their duffel bag. “Shall we unpack or just pull stuff out of the bag?” Sherlock gives John an incisive sweep-over. “Hello? Ground control to Major Tom?”

Sherlock huffs and jumps off the bed onto his feet. "Keep it in the bag. I'd rather be ready to leave at a moment's notice.”


The smugness that radiates off Mycroft as Sherlock sits beside John on the loveseat makes Sherlock want to punch him square in the face.

“Shut up,” Sherlock tells Mycroft.

“Not one word,” John agrees with a deadly look.

Mycroft smiles like the cat who got the cream. “Am I not allowed to offer my felicitations?”

“Very original; you’re hilarious,” Sherlock sneers.

“It’s really such a noble sacrifice, Sherlock, for you to assume the role of John’s lover for the sake of Mummy’s peace of mind,” Mycroft oils. “I imagine it is a supremely difficult ploy since it is so extremely far from the truth.”

Face flushing, Sherlock clutches his mug of tea (if for no other reason but to stop himself from hurtling it Mycroft’s way). “I despise you.”

The back door opens and closes.

“Behave, boys,” John says and Sherlock watches (not disinterestedly) as John upends his mug of whiskey-tea over his stuck-out tongue to catch the last few drops.

“Goodness, it’s brass monkey weather out there!” Mummy says as she bustles into the room, rubbing her hands together, Dad following after her with an armful of logs. “Myc, help your father start the fire.”

“It’s fine, Vi,” Dad says in the tone of a proud man defending his autonomy.

Mycroft has his hand splayed across his heart, offended by the expectation of him to perform a menial task. “Why me? Sherlock’s right there.”

Mummy levels Mycroft with a dastardly look. “It’s Sherlock’s birthday. He is not lifting a finger today.”

Sherlock watches the exchange with deep satisfaction.

Everyone is waiting to see what Mycroft will do, but he still hasn’t moved, looks as if the entire world has conspired against him. “He is seven years younger than me; surely, the formality is that those who are of a more advanced age--”

“I’ll do it,” John interjects as he gets to his feet, straightens out his shirt, and kneels at the hearth.

“Thank you, John,” Mummy gushes pointedly.

If the day continues in the same vein, this really will be Sherlock's best birthday yet.


Lunch involves Sherlock’s favourite: Mummy’s signature cottage pie, a staple meal of his childhood.

They eat, and Mummy talks far too much.

“Sherlock, he loved his cottage pie,” Mummy tells the table at large. “Couldn’t get enough of it. I had to ship one out to Cambridge every month….”

“It wasn’t every month,” Sherlock protests around a mouthful of delicious, tender beef. (It had been every month.)

“...He got so very excited when Mycroft would come home for the hols; the day of, he’d be poised at the window beside himself with excitement. Like a puppy….”

“Yes, it was very exciting to see how much weight Mycroft gained each term. It was like watching a slowly inflating balloon,” Sherlock says, not daring to look Mycroft’s way. (Sherlock had, at one point in his life, liked Mycroft.)

“...When he was home for summer one year, I found him shirtless on the roof. Said it was for an experiment, isn’t it always, but I rather think it was to give a show to the handsome young man who did our gutters. Do you remember how red you got up there, darling? Like a lobster! Your lovely skin couldn’t handle it.”

“Yes, all right, I think we’ve heard enough,” Sherlock bites out. (It’s not Sherlock’s fault that summers spent in Yorkshire were so dull. Nor was he to blame for the gutter man’s fetching appearance [tan, compact, amply muscled, glorious].)

“Nah,” John says, “I think we’ve only just scratched the surface, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs Holmes?”

Sherlock glares murderously at him. John just smiles serenely back.

“He had an eye for the gardener too,” Mummy persists, and Sherlock grits his teeth together in frustration. “That little vine weevil ‘experiment’ must have been to get into his good graces.”

“It was,” Mycroft says, speaking for the first time in awhile, and he sounds delighted. Or as delighted as Mycroft has the capacity to sound.

“No one asked you,” Sherlock barks.

“Come to think of it,” Mummy contemplates John, “you rather like yourself a bit of rough, don’t you, darling?”

“Mummy!” Sherlock chastens, his face aflame with embarrassment. She is completely unhinged.

John’s gone quite pale.

“Vi, love,” Dad says cautiously.

“What?” Mummy huffs. “I was only making an observation. Can everyone but me make observations?”

John dramatically clears his throat. “I see most of us are done; I’ll do the washing up.” He pushes back in his chair with a grating scrape and stands up, begins to collect empty plates.

“John, put those down this instant,” Mummy says.

“I insist,” John says, focussed resolutely on the task. “Least I can do.”

He stacks the empty plates in record time and flees to the kitchen.


Later, they repair to the den and engage in assorted conversation that mercifully does not pertain to Sherlock, his childhood, or the type of men for which he has a predilection.

The clang clang clang of silverware on glass brings all talk to a halt.

At the front of the room, Mummy is holding a tray of filled champagne flutes. She zips from person to person, handing them off, then plucks up one of her own and takes the floor.

“A quick word!"

Sherlock braces himself. This is bound to be anything but quick. Or painless.

Hasn’t he suffered enough?

“Today,” she begins with booming gravitas, as if delivering a speech to a full amphitheatre, “we celebrate you, my darling.” She indicates Sherlock with her drink. “I can’t think of anyone more deserving of praise. Your father and I are so proud of all you’ve done for the world.”

Sherlock looks desperately at John, telegraphing please, help me with his eyes, but somehow John has already been bewitched by Mummy, has his chin resting on his fist and a dreamy smile on his face.

This siege shall be faced by Sherlock and Sherlock alone.

“But nearly losing you to some common thug,” Mummy’s voice hitches, Dad shaking his head dourly, “two years ago, now,” John is tense at Sherlock’s side, “made me realise that we must bestow our love and appreciation upon each other as often as possible because our time together is so fleeting; so unpredictable.”

Sherlock would much rather slip into a bath of hydrofluoric acid than endure this.

“My time on this earth is almost at its end--”

“For god’s sake,” Mycroft murmurs.

“--and far be it from me to leave you boys,” a hard look at Mycroft, “without you knowing, with certainty, how much I adore you.” Then, barbed, “I will not be my mother.” Forces a smile that gradually softens into something real. “So all that is to say: Happy Birthday, dear heart. We love you.”

“Happy Birthday, my boy,” Dad says, raising his glass.

Slàinte Mhath,” John puts in.

All but Sherlock drink.

“Yes, that’s right,” Dad says. “Watson is Scottish, isn’t it?”

John nods. “My Dad’s side, yeah. But that’s the extent of my Gaelic: anything drink-related.”

“And one more thing,” Mummy says in a pay attention to me or else tone. “A toast to John.”

John freezes like a prick-eared fawn in a forest.

Sherlock almost feels smug.

“You have been a steadfast friend to Sherlock over the years--and what a miracle, really. I worried constantly that he would end up alone.”

Sherlock is back to imagining greener pastures, such as his flesh sloughing off bone in that acid bath.

“Irrespective of any...situation,” Mummy continues delicately, if transparently, “in which you would have ended up, John, I knew Sherlock would have you by his side. But I simply couldn’t have dreamt of this wonderful turn of events; it’s been a balm during such a dismal time.” With a pinched expression and watery eyes, Mummy presses a finger to her lips, and everyone allows her the moment. “Forgive me,” she says, quickly recovering. “John, we welcome you most warmly to our family.”

Dad holds up his glass in John’s direction. “Yes,” he says, “a most hearty welcome to our ridiculous and remarkable little family, John.” Adds, “And a most hearty good luck,” with a wink.

“Siger,” Mummy scolds.

Sherlock thinks he should be offended.

John seems unable to look anyone in the eye, so he tells the floor, “Thank you, Mrs Holmes, Mr Holmes. That’s--thank you very much.”

“None of that ‘Mrs Holmes’ nonsense. I am Violet to you, now.”

John nods curtly and throws back his drink, sucking it down to the last drop.

“Is this theatre quite done?” Mycroft scathes. “I was told, at some point, there would be cake.”

Sherlock jumps on the chance to bring the state of affairs to an equilibrium. “Do you really want to ruin that £300 belt by having to drill in another notch?”

Mycroft eyes Sherlock warily. “Then again, perhaps we should leave the cake for Sherlock alone. He could stand to gain some weight, lest he disappear.”

“Come, now, lads,” Dad says, sounding tired.

Mummy throws up her hands, defeated. “I will never have a moment of peace.”


The party, as it were, is in full swing.

Mummy has strong-armed Mycroft into joining her on a walk around the neighbourhood, which is something only Mummy can do: make Mycroft exert himself for something as quotidian as a brisk walk. And in the past couple of hours, John and Dad have established a rapport--at present, Sherlock is staring glazedly into the fire, half-aware of the two of them playing Top Trumps, startled into full-cognizance by their occasional triumphant shout of competitive bluster.

The complete normality of it all is...disquieting.

It feels dangerously like wish fulfillment; a weekend of living a life he’s always wanted.

But none of it is real.

Come Monday, he and John will return to their usual state of affairs, and at some distant and daunting stretch in the future, John will leave him. Will find someone else with whom to share the rest of his days.

And this time, it will be permanent.

Hurt flares within Sherlock’s chest at the intrusive thought, and he is overcome with the clawing need to be alone.

He darts out of the room and heads for the stairs.


These days, Sherlock’s childhood bedroom has taken on a dual purpose, serving as Mummy’s office and a guest room.

It’s largely cleaned out of Sherlock’s curios, but a few select ones remain: a statuette of Edmond Locard, a taxidermied dog’s paw, and various entry-level forensics and art of detection books, the likes of which include An Essay on the Principles of Circumstantial Evidence (1852) and Eugène François Vidocq’s Memoirs (1828) in the original French.

Stacked in the closet are a few boxes gathering dust. Sherlock unearths the one he needs, pulls out the sketchbook, and sits with it spread across his lap on the old, creaking bed.

The sketches that lie within are still in pristine condition, and he thumbs through them: a stray dog nosing around rubbish near a busy Parisian cafe, a street performer and his cello near the banks of the Seine, a self-portrait of an unsmiling Mémé (which makes Sherlock smile), pipe drooping out of the corner of her mouth. He pauses on the last sketch of a well-muscled young man (a day laborer with a penchant for ballet, Sherlock had deduced, due to his various scars and his specific musculature), draped in nothing more than a sheer shawl, the fabric wrapped like liquid around the distinctive planes and angles of his body. One of the few men who’d run in Mémé’s ragtag circles, no doubt. Sherlock had looked at this piece often to challenge himself to deduce a subject seen through another’s eyes. Mémé was perceptive, and she’d captured the man well. Sherlock had even told her as much.

“I simply observed,” she’d said.

And that had explained everything.

The door opens, and Sherlock looks up.

“Sorry,” John says awkwardly, half-in, half-out the door. “But you seemed a little, uh. Off. When you left. So I’m just…checking in.” He looks to his feet.

“I am very much on, thank you,” Sherlock says sharply. He will not reveal more than he already, clearly, has. “So you may return to the astonishingly dull task of bullying my father with rugby trivia.”

John ignores him, stepping inside and sweeping his eyes over the room until he lands on the Locard statuette. “Who’s the bloke with the moustache?”

“Edmond Locard.”

“Right, sure,” John says, nodding sagely. “Edmond Locard.”

“An admirable man.”

“S’pose so, if he’s figurine-worthy.” He reconsiders. “Though, I s’pose any old plonker could have a figurine made in their likeness.”

Sherlock eyes him warily. “He was a pioneer in the area of modern forensic analysis. The Exchange Principle.”

“‘Course he was. So this was your room.”

“Oh, what gave it away?”

“Just a hunch,” John says with a tiny smile that Sherlock finds himself mirroring. A nod at the sketches in Sherlock’s hands. “Are those yours?”

“My grandmother’s.”

“Ah.”

John takes a few steps toward the bed and stutters to a halt, darting his eyes from the bed to Sherlock, as if waiting for permission. Sherlock wriggles to the right, a go-ahead signal, and places a pillow against the wall at arm’s length. John climbs onto the bed beside him, situated against the pillow...and they’re left with an embarrassing, yawning chasm between them. It’s too far for John to see the sketches.

“Uh,” John says. “Sorry, I’ll just--move a bit….” He slides himself to the right until the gap is lessened--or, rather, closed, his shoulder and leg meeting Sherlock’s.

Soldiering through, pretending this is not at all out of character for them, John leans over to peer down at the sketch, making an impressed noise and saying, “That’s quite nice.”

Sherlock looks down blankly at John’s head bowed over his lap. Grey strands of hair are more obvious and plentiful at this vantage, and Sherlock wants to count each and every one of them. Wants to press his face into them and breathe John in.

“So she was an artist, and I remember you saying violinist, linguist...anything else?” John is saying as he leans back against the wall. Sherlock can smell his cologne, an elixir of sage and sea salt. “How about we start with what she couldn’t do?”

They are going to continue on like this, it seems. As if it is of no consequence that they are pressed up against each other.

Sherlock must meet John’s mettle.

“She was not a woman of science,” Sherlock says in an impressively clear voice. “I should say: it didn’t pique her interest, though she was always accommodating of my pursuits. But I can’t say with certainty she couldn’t ‘do’ any of it. If she had tried, I’d imagine that she would’ve succeeded.”

John bumps Sherlock’s shoulder with his own. “Chip off the old block.”

Sherlock swipes a hand to indicate the drawing of the naked man. “I couldn’t create this.”

“But you haven’t tried.”

“I wouldn’t want to.”

“I honestly can’t imagine there’s anything you couldn’t excel at.”

“As much as it pains me to admit, John, I’m not perfect.”

“First I’m hearing of it,” John says, and Sherlock flushes.

Thankfully, John isn’t looking at him, is sliding the sketch paper out of Sherlock’s hand to examine it more closely.

“And the others,” Sherlock says, clearing his throat as he passes over the rest of the sketches.

John takes the sketches and gives them all a cursory glance before placing them aside. “She seemed like an incredible woman. So much talent.”

“Yes. Sans pareille."

“I like it when you speak French. Say something else.”

“I am not a performing monkey.”

“Come on,” John goads. “I ask for so little.”

"Tu ne demandes pas assez de moi. Je voudrais que tu en demandes plus."

“Mm, lovely. Hopefully there wasn't a ‘you’re a fucking moron’ squeezed in there,” John says blithely. “I’m guessing your grandmum taught you.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, smiling a little; wistful. "I would say she taught me quite a lot." 

And then it hits him again: that familiar pang of regret. Mémé had given him so much. Had taught him not only French and the violin, but so much about himself and the world.

Why hadn't he told her how much he appreciated her? 

John reaches for Sherlock’s hand and interlaces their fingers, holds their entwinement atop his thigh.

Sherlock goggles at their clasped hands.

It’s their third time doing this in the past week, John always initiating, but the common thread is obvious, now--Mémé. John is a taciturn man, eschews expressing sentiment verbally (much like Sherlock), so this gets his message across without needing to spew any trite nonsense.

John begins to rub circles with his thumb into the back of Sherlock’s hand.

That’s...new.

Sherlock wonders if there’s more they can do. If Sherlock were to seek more comfort, John would hardly turn him away at this juncture.

He tips to the side, resting his head against John’s.

John brings their joined hands to rest atop the cushiony paunch of his stomach.

“Tell me more about her,” John says. “Your grandmum.”

Sherlock decides to tell him the story of his grandmother’s life in love: how, despite all odds, she’d fallen in love at the age of sixty and had managed twenty happy years in an idyllic Norfolk cottage with her partner Flora (in their own little world, orbiting each other, all their unbecoming and becoming quirks and pastimes mutually appreciated and understood and loved). Those twenty happy years were the ones in which Sherlock had known her. He does not mention the twenty years she’d had to live alone in that cottage, after Flora’s death.

“Guess it was worth it, in the end,” John says when Sherlock’s finished. “All of that misery led them to each other.”

Sherlock nods sedately, suddenly very tired. He leans heavily against John’s shoulder and closes his eyes--just to rest them. Just for a moment.

John untangles their now sweaty-palmed hands, carefully depositing Sherlock's hand onto Sherlock’s thigh. “You should have a quick kip.”

“I don’t kip.”

“It’ll be less time spent with your parents.”

John is brilliant.

Sherlock withdraws the pillow from his back and tips over sideways, snuggling up to its welcoming fluffiness and stretching his legs over John’s lap. Because it seems to be the sort of thing John doesn’t mind at the moment.

“Until tomorrow,” Sherlock mumbles into the pillow.

John chuffs out a laugh, places his hand on Sherlock’s calf. “Well, shit. I’m trapped.”

“I’m doing you a favour. As you said: less of my parents.”

John’s hand moves up Sherlock’s calf to his thigh, then back down again, beginning a steady caress.

And before Sherlock knows it, he’s fallen asleep.


Sherlock awakes, immediately aware of the unmoving presence behind him.

He carefully picks up his head and peers over his shoulder to find John fast asleep on his back, arms hugging his stomach, trying to take up as little space as possible.

Sherlock gingerly turns onto his other side so he can watch John in his slumber. If Sherlock were to wake up to this sight every day, he wouldn’t need much else. This would be his air.

Some uncertain amount of time passes, and John blinks awake and turns his head, meeting Sherlock’s undiverted stare.

John cracks a smile. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

“We just slept together.”

“I suppose I’ll be smote now. I had wanted to wait until marriage.”

John’s smile widens. “Not too loudly, now. You’ll give your mum ideas.”

On cue, Mummy knocks on the door and pushes it open without waiting for a whiff of assent, and Sherlock rockets upright, nearly falling off the bed. He’s saved only by John’s quick reflexes, a secure arm curled over his waist. Their faces end up dangerously close, John’s expression fraught with alarm, and the almost possessive nature of John’s firm hold compounded with the proximity of John’s lips cause Sherlock’s cock to (inopportunely, inappropriately) stir with interest.

Sherlock desperately wants to kiss him.

“So sorry to interrupt,” Mummy says, not sounding remorseful in the least, and Sherlock feels a bit like he’s in secondary school, getting caught snogging a friend who’d come to stay for the night (all theoretical, of course; he hadn’t had friends in secondary school). “But we’re going to have cake.”

“Fantastic,” John says without any trace of enthusiasm, unable to meet Mummy’s eye as he carefully unwinds his arm from Sherlock and climbs off the bed, restoring his sleep-worn clothing into some semblance of order. “Sorry, it was rude of us to fall asleep on you.”

“Not at all,” Mummy says. “You are my guest, John. I expect nothing but for you to make yourself at home. And I know you boys set out very early this morning.”

John follows Mummy out of the bedroom, but Sherlock doesn’t move.

He listens to them descend the stairs, feeling utterly bereft.


Sherlock guzzles down cake in record time (whilst everyone looks on in disgust). It is the first tactic in his grand Avoid John scheme.

They’d gotten much too close in bed.

John’s sympathetic touch had become muddled with Sherlock’s sentiment. Sherlock had almost kissed him, for god’s sake. They must endure this weekend and come out on the other side with their relationship intact. As Sherlock-and-John: best friends. Because that is all Sherlock has. There is too much to lose.

And so Sherlock goes for a (very long) walk, takes a (very long) shower, even voluntarily helps his father reorganise the shed.

When he’s run out of excuses and has to once again share the same space as John, it turns out to be an easy task.

Because John is, quite obviously, also avoiding him.


Mummy steps into the kitchen, closing the door to the den behind her, and joins Sherlock at the counter. “Is everything all right?”

Sherlock freezes mid-tea-stir. “Why wouldn’t everything be all right?” he says, robotically continuing to stir his tea.

“Have you and John had a domestic?”

“No.”

“Don’t you lie to me. You two haven’t said a word to each other since cake.”

“I’m sorry, are we meant to be in each other’s laps at all times?”

“I know all relationships have their trials and tribulations but I swear to god, Sherlock Holmes, if you ruin this beautiful thing that you have--”

Sherlock grips the handle of the spoon. “Mummy, please.”

“--I will be devastated. You will not find someone like him again.”

And there it is. The truth, laid out bare.

“I am aware,” Sherlock says haltingly.

The probability of crossing paths with another man like John--or even a man who is interested in Sherlock, by all meanings of the word interested, no less--is pitifully low. And while there is significant merit in remaining unattached, Sherlock no longer wants to. (Had he ever wanted to?)

It’s an inviolable truth.

Sherlock cannot be alone any longer knowing that John exists.

“Relationships take hard work,” Mummy belabours.

“So I’ve been told.”

“When you came home from university in, oh, ‘94, I think it was, I was certain you’d found someone.” Sherlock nearly knocks the mug over in his haste to goggle at his mother. “Silly boy, you really thought I didn't know?”

Sherlock tries to restore his composure. “Someone was indeed found in ‘94, but I can’t take all the credit; it was the local constabulary that dredged up the body from the Great Ouse.”

Mummy ignores his attempt at deflection. “Your science experiments and puzzles, they made you very happy, indeed--but this was a different happy. It seemed almost, perhaps, like love.”

Sherlock closes his eyes, gnashes his teeth. They are absolutely not going to talk about Victor. Mummy isn’t even supposed to know. (Women are too perspicacious for Sherlock’s liking, sometimes. They don’t even have to try.)

“As the years went by, I didn’t think I’d see you like that again, and the thought broke my heart.” Mummy places a hand on Sherlock’s forearm, and her kindly voice massages out Sherlock’s tension, “I know I have been very hard on your grandmother over the years. But your grandfather was inconsolable when she’d revealed she was having an affair with Flora. He couldn’t comprehend that she’d fallen in love with a woman, and he was just so very lost. He loved your grandmother very much--quite a feat, I may say so--and spiraled into a depression that made me rather vengeful. For years, I felt as if she’d broken up our family and ruined my father. But it’s all just so tragic, I realise--she’d wasted so much of her life with a person she hadn’t loved. She had no other choice, and how horrific that must have been. I wish she hadn’t married my father; I wish she’d had more time with the woman she loved. And so you, darling, you mustn’t be complacent. You have a choice and you must take the chance. Fight for what you love. There is no time to waste.”

Sherlock looks down into his tea and wonders, for the first time, if he is being complacent.

What if….

What if he were to be bold, like his grandmother, and profess to John? Would it ruin everything? Or would it become everything?

John tends to be unknowable, to Sherlock, which had delighted Sherlock in the past; he’d loved the challenge. But it had taken Sherlock an embarrassing amount of time to realise that John is unknowable because of Sherlock’s blindspot. Because of sentiment. Because of protective mechanisms he’d bolted in place twenty years ago.

By virtue of Sherlock even considering making a romantic overture, it’s apparent that something in his perception of John has shifted. The probability of John’s receptivity may have increased, though Sherlock’s not sure when it had, exactly. It may have been increasing over the past two years, and may have catapulted to great heights this past week.

He’d not allowed himself to think about it until now.

“Now, stop it with that face like a wet weekend and apologise to John,” Mummy is saying. “In a blink of an eye, you’ll be my age and regret ruining precious time with petty little rows.”

“Why are you assuming I’m the one at fault?” Sherlock balks.

Mummy smiles placidly and pats his arm. “I’m glad to have chatted with you about this.”

Sherlock holds his tongue; Mummy seems to have a liberal definition of chat.

In the den, they find John alone on the sofa, gazing into the fire with a faraway expression and Mycroft distracted by his mobile, looking elephantine in an antique rocker that’d clearly been built for a far less statuesque person. Dad is nowhere to be found.

Mummy sits beside Mycroft and leans over to whisper something into his ear.

Sherlock sits beside John.

John does not turn to acknowledge him, but a muscle in his jaw jumps.

Sherlock leans over, and John’s body tenses as Sherlock says in his ear, “Mummy thinks we’re rowing.”

John frowns. “Why?”

“We’ve not spoken to each other for the past hour and a half. It’s not an unreasonable assumption.”

“...Right.”

“She was adamant that I apologise to you for whatever it is I’ve done.”

Finally, a sign of life; John quirks his lips in amusement. “Funny that she assumed you were the one--”

“Yes, yes, hilarious,” Sherlock says.

“She’s watching us, isn’t she.”

Sherlock darts his eyes at her and back in a flash. “Trying not to seem like she is, but yes.”

John finally looks at Sherlock, and any trace of amusement is gone. Unreadable. “Are we meant to do something about it?”

John’s lips are in Sherlock’s crosshairs. “I suppose we could just...talk. Should do the trick.”

“Yeah.” John is watching him. “All right.”

Or,” Sherlock says before he loses his nerve.

“Or?”

Sherlock is primed to strike. He leans in, testing the waters. John doesn’t recoil.

This is selfish. Sherlock knows it. They don’t need to do what Sherlock is about to propose, but John has been game for other forms of affection today, so why not try one more?

It will be quick. Not too invasive. It will be easy. It will be a test.

And, if anything, Sherlock has the perfect cover. He’ll tell John it was all for the sake of their lie. John is the one who’d insisted they attempt this farce, after all. He will understand.

“A kiss,” Sherlock says.

“A kiss,” John repeats flatly.

“It should effectively convince her of our harmonious recoupling.”

John’s eyes have drifted downwards to Sherlock’s lips, and he’s barely finished saying, “Kiss me, then” when Sherlock surges forward.

Sherlock had meant the kiss to be clinical, then had meant to observe John’s reaction, but the experiment rather gets away from him.

He knows suddenly nothing about everything--when, before, he’d known everything about nothing--focussed only on John and John’s lips and kissing them. Closeness. John’s scent: masculine and familiar. John. Affection, or--yes. Affection.

As if of its own volition, his hand cups the back of John’s head, presses John closer and--

John pushes him away. Dazzling blue eyes are wide. Astonished.

Appalled?

Chilled with regret, Sherlock pounces to his feet and sweeps out of the room.

Notes:

Here's what Sherlock says in French:
1. Sans pareille = unparalleled.
2. Tu ne demandes pas assez de moi. Je voudrais que tu en demandes plus = You do not ask for enough. I wish you would want more from me.

Chapter 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sentiment. Inexorable sentiment.

Sherlock once again decides he will avoid John for the rest of the evening until he cannot anymore. Their charade will end when they take leave of his parents’ house tomorrow (Sherlock will sleep on the sofa tonight), and life will go on as usual. The kiss (good lord, the kiss) can be explained away; it’d been a part of their act, nothing more.

His plan seems to hold up, for a time, until he forgets himself as he stares out the window at a light snowfall, trying his very best to refit his mind back to a state of Johnlessness.

A hand presses into his lower back, causing him to stiffen.

“Can I talk to you outside?” John says, voice taut.

Sherlock gestures helplessly at the window. “Why not enjoy the majesty of the outdoors from the comfort of home?”

“Sherlock,” John says, low, thick with rebuke, “we need to talk.” He shoves a wad of wool--Sherlock’s greatcoat--into Sherlock’s chest.

With an irritated flourish, Sherlock snatches up the coat, dons it without bothering to button up, and storms outside.

John follows after him, shutting the door, then takes a few steps forward, stops, eyes unfocussed on something in the beyond. He looks at Sherlock with ferocious intensity for a beat, then begins to pace like a caged animal, hands balled into fists at his sides.

Sherlock watches, his patience growing thin. “I’m sorry, is this your idea of talking?”

John skids to a halt. “That was real. In there.” He jabs a finger at the closed door. “It was real.”

Sherlock lowers his eyes to the ground and says nothing. He lets John make his deductions, because he is exhausted.

“Jesus,” John says, beginning to pace again. “Jesus, Sherlock.”

“I apologise.”

“You apologise,” John repeats loudly, then barks out a disbelieving laugh. “You--why the f--”

John chokes on the expletive when the door flies open.

Mummy steps outside, hugging herself, and looks between Sherlock and John accusingly. “Everything okay out here? I heard shouting.”

“Could be better,” John says with forced brightness, and Sherlock admires the seamless shift of tone. He marches toward Sherlock, and for a wild moment Sherlock thinks he will throw a punch, but instead John’s hand snakes into his inner coat pocket and withdraws a pack of cigarettes. John raises them up for all to see, rattles them for emphasis. “I was just having a go at Sherlock for trying to sneak a fag.”

Mummy frowns. “In that case, do carry on.”

“Doing my best.”

“I can imagine that you don’t care for the taste of an ashtray.”

“Nah, I’m a simple bloke; just old fashioned saliva for me, thanks.”

Mummy laughs. “I suppose if he were to listen to anyone, it’d be you, John. My opinion never seems to matter. But who am I? Just his mother.”

“I am actually present, hello, if anyone would care to speak to me directly,” Sherlock complains.

Mummy flaps a hand at him as she turns back toward the warmth of the house. “Don’t be long. You boys will catch your death out here.”

When she’s closed the door, Sherlock says, “You knew I had cigarettes.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not actually an idiot, despite what you think.”

“A revelation, to be sure.”

John raises a sardonic eyebrow. “Oh, sorry, you’ve only just realised that I’m not a complete numpty? After nearly a decade?”

“You continue to surprise me.” He gives John a quick once-over. “It’s rather thrilling.”

“Ah. So that’s why you tolerate me.”

Sherlock tips his head from side to side, a parody of uncertainty. “Amongst other reasons.”

John catches his bottom lip between his teeth as if to tamp down a deepening smile. “So about the other reasons. Have you also kept me around because you wanted to snog me?”

“That was merely a consequence of ‘keeping you around;’ a consequence I never anticipated, I’ll admit.” John looks stricken, and Sherlock blathers (unhelpfully) on, “And my self-restraint has weakened over the years; I suppose I am susceptible to human urges on occasion. I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

John licks his lips. “Who said I didn’t want it to happen again?”

Indignation rises jaggedly in Sherlock’s chest. “Certainly not you.

“Sorry, am I that bad of a kisser? Because I’ve never had any complaints.”

“Excuse me?”

Of all things to do in the moment, John laughs. “Christ’s sake. This is very us.”

“Is it? I must’ve been in a coma for the past decade.”

“No, not--obviously I meant,” John gestures vaguely at the house, “I meant doing things circuitously. Realising we want to jump each other’s bones whilst pretending to be people who jump each others’ bones on the regular.”

“That’s hardly what we’ve been pretending to be.”

“Didn’t stop me from thinking about it.”

Sherlock’s heart thrums double-time.

John steps closer, herds Sherlock against the brick and flint of the house, and soon he is close enough for Sherlock to notice his snowflake-dewed eyelashes and eyebrows and strands of hair. Pulse pounding in his ears, Sherlock bows and tilts his head, and his and John’s breaths intermingle in stuttering, vaporous clouds before they close the gap for a kiss.

And just like that, Sherlock feels as if a great, hulking weight has been lifted from his shoulders--feels light enough to float above all earthly things.

It’s their second kiss in actuality, but it’s also their true first. It’s the kiss in which they’d cast off their blinders, lifted their curtains, revealed their hearts. It is what Sherlock’s wanted for a very long time, a desire he’d kept under lock and key.

A desire that is, unfathomably, reciprocated.

It is every bit as marvelous as he’d hoped it’d be.

More to the point: John is marvelous.

John slips hands underneath Sherlock’s coat to rest on Sherlock’s waist, the warmth of his hands bleeding through fabric into Sherlock’s skin, and Sherlock slides his hands over John’s ribs to his back, locking his arms around him.

When they break the kiss, they keep hold of each other.

Sherlock basks in John’s solidity and his subtle, homey scent. He doesn’t feel the cold, not with John in his arms.

John leans back into the cradle of Sherlock’s hold, looking enticingly soft and well-snogged. Tenderly, he swipes a thumb over Sherlock’s eyelash, where a snowflake had been threatening to drop into Sherlock’s eye.

“So,” John says, “think we’ve a handle on kissing? Would it convince your mum of our ‘harmonious recoupling?’”

“Can’t say for certain; I wasn’t paying attention,” Sherlock deadpans as he lowers his eyes to John’s lips, which flood into a smile. “I think we’ll need to try again.”


They sit side by side on the loveseat as Mummy and Dad go back and forth about some inanity or other; Sherlock can’t be bothered to listen because he can feel John’s eyes on him, and it is distracting. Nor can he look at John because, if he does, he will want to (now now now) touch and taste and learn everything there is to know about the topography of John’s skin and about what he likes.

He mustn’t be hasty. There will be time.

(Sherlock is astounded that they now have time.)

Besides.

Sherlock feels as if this budding thing between him and John is too precious to be shown to the world.

Sherlock would like to keep it all to himself, just for a while.

So he will wait.


Mummy and Dad bid Sherlock, John, and Mycroft good night, Mummy pressing kisses to Sherlock and Mycroft’s unwilling, upturned cheeks, and wringing the life out of John with a hug. Dad gives everyone a wave and a smile.

Once they’re out of an earshot, John glances at his mobile and purses his lips in disappointment. “It’s only half 9.”

“Yes, and I have an important call to make in fifteen minutes,” Mycroft says, hiking his laptop bag over his shoulder and gliding into the kitchen. “Do try to avoid making a ruckus.”

John waits until Mycroft’s out of sight to turn to Sherlock and say, “Probably a long shot, but is anything open at this hour? Anything you want to do, it’ll be my treat.”

A host of positively filthy thoughts surface to the forefront of Sherlock’s mind, and he shoves it all away.

He must pace himself, let John lead. He will not be presumptuous. He’d done that in the past, and it had been a mistake.

He strides over to the coat rack, swipes up his and John’s coats and scarves, and twirls back around to meet John’s fixed gaze. “I know a place.”


As Sherlock settles into the driver’s seat, he becomes aware that his father’s Peugeot has seen better days.

It’s a model from the ‘90s, so its age is expected to show, and show it does: peeling ceiling fabric, creaky car seats, poxy doors. At the very least, the heating still works. Sherlock turns the dial to the highest temperature, knowing it’ll take some time for the car to get properly warm.

Once John shuts the door on the passenger’s side, Sherlock shifts to Drive and peels out the garage.

He takes them down side streets and country roads, unable to stop stealing glances at John along the way.

John catches Sherlock’s eye every so often. Other times, when Sherlock risks a glimpse, John has his eyes fixed on the road ahead, but he is smiling, an eye-crinkling affair. He knows Sherlock is looking.

“Maybe you should pay attention to the road,” John says in a teasing tone.

“But the road is boring; this entire town is boring. You are not.”

“Death is also boring, so let’s avoid that, shall we? No car accidents tonight.”

“You like me looking at you.”

“Yeah, I do,” John admits.

The honesty is not only refreshing, but emboldening, so Sherlock pulls the car into the deserted road’s shoulder, kills the engine, and turns to face John.

In the ticking-motor hum, they stare at each other.

Sherlock says, “I would very much like to kiss you.”

John huffs out a laugh (good?), runs a hand up Sherlock’s arm to rest on his shoulder, fingertips ghosting along Sherlock’s neck. “You don’t need to be so formal about it,” he says as he leans across the gearshift, angling his head.

“Duly noted,” Sherlock says drowsily, eyes on John’s lips, closing the distance.

It’s a gentle, shallow kiss. Measured and savouring. It should be frustrating; Sherlock has never really been keen on slow. Has never done slow. But he’s also never been with someone who’s made him want it slow and fast all at once.

When they pull apart, John melts back into his seat, a wisp of a smile on his face. Sherlock has rarely seen him like this, without any trace of his usual sharp edges. It makes him look younger.

And it makes Sherlock want to kiss him again, so he does.


The Thorn and Thistle is as quintessentially old-man-pub and meat-and-potatoes as Sherlock remembers, largely unchanged since the ‘90s, though the average clientele’s age still seems to be somewhere upwards of fifty.

They manoeuver through a crowd having quite the knees-up (understandable, as this is the only pub in town open late on a Saturday night), and John, seeming at home, swaggers up to the bar.

“What’re you having?” John asks.

Sherlock positions himself at John’s side and takes a moment to admire John’s eyelashes. Under the haphazardly-strung cool white fairy lights above the bar, his blond eyelashes are limned gold. Sherlock has never thought eyelashes beautiful before.

...He’s also never fallen victim to such egregious poeticism before.

“Sherlock, you with me?”

“Just a water,” Sherlock says, a touch hoarse. His throat’s gone dry.

John calls over the bartender to order a water for Sherlock and a local brew on draught for himself just as a twangy guitar solo permeates through the speakers. An old man fingering an air guitar and his dance partner, a washed out blonde woman cheering on his unimpressive panto, take the centrestage of the dance floor, garnering the attention of several sets of judgmental eyes.

John turns his back so that he and Sherlock are side by side, bracing his hands on the bar behind them, elbows out, his left arm bracketing Sherlock’s left side, shoulder pressing into Sherlock’s back. It feels intimate, even if it’s not exactly a deliberate touch.

Or perhaps it is.

“He’s a widower,” Sherlock finds himself saying just to have something to say, nodding at the couple on the dance floor, “and she’s unhappily married.”

John makes an intrigued noise in the back of his throat. “Drink and a free show; perfect.”

For a minute or so, they watch the star-crossed couple, the old man mouthing the song’s lyrics:

What'll you do when you get lonely

And nobody's waiting by your side?

You've been running and hiding much too long

You know it's just your foolish pride

“Mate?” says the bartender.

John turns around, robbing Sherlock of his presence.

“Cheers,” John tells the bartender as he pulls out his wallet and counts a few banknotes. “Maybe grab that booth over there?” he says to Sherlock in an aside, jerking his chin at an empty booth tucked away in a corner of the room.

Sherlock heads to the booth, hanging up his coat and scarf on a hook, and slides in toward the wall. Scans the room, his foot tapping steadily. Stops. Drums his fingers on the sticky table instead.

Sherlock and John have gone out together countless times, mostly to restaurants, rarely to pubs, but it’s all the same.

However, they’ve never done this.

They’ve obviously never been this, and Sherlock’s never not known the parameters, when it comes to them. What does John like? How much does he want? Sherlock should know the answers. He’s observed John in relationships before. (Are they in a relationship? They’ve not classified it. Shouldn’t they be talking about it? Isn’t that what people do?) But he is having a difficult time coalescing historical data into something he can use to his advantage; he feels unsettled and unsure and he can’t think.

He had done everything wrong with Victor, had wanted too much too fast, was much too self-focussed and needy. He cannot do everything wrong with John.

John returns with his pint and Sherlock’s water in either hand, and a plastic cup of pilfered bar olives between his teeth. He unburdens himself of the cups, sliding Sherlock’s water across the table before removing and hanging up his coat.

Vacillating for a moment, John decides to slide into the booth on Sherlock’s side, reaching out to pull his pint in from the edge of the table. Foam sloshes over the side of his glass and John laps it up, Sherlock’s eyes drawn to the pink tip of his tongue--and then the stretch of his neck as he takes a generous pull of the beer.

Instead of placing the glass down, he holds it out wordlessly to Sherlock.

Sherlock slowly lifts his hand, fingertips to John’s fingers curved around the glass. Looks expectantly at John.

John furrows his brows, but he nods once in mute encouragement, so Sherlock wraps a hand around John’s and guides the rim of the glass to his lips, tips his head back, tasting light malt and notes of honey.

Together, they bring the pint away from Sherlock’s mouth.

John throws a furtive glance at the crowd, then directs his gaze at Sherlock’s lips. “Good?”

“Surprisingly not horrendous,” Sherlock declares.

“Don’t oversell it, now,” John says, amused, placing the pint gently back onto the tabletop and sliding his hand out from beneath Sherlock’s. “So. Was this your spot then, back in the day? Down the pub with the lads? Bit of football hooliganism?”

“You know my old axiom, John: there is nothing more important in life than drink and football.”

John slaps the table. “My god, how could I forget. Should publish that one in the blog; it’s incredibly thought-provoking.”

Sherlock smirks. “I actually did patronise this lovely establishment when I was 16. It allowed me to hone my skills; there was quite the treasure trove of people to observe. And since gossip is ubiquitous, I was able to confirm my observations with ease.”

“And what did they all make of you?”

“They were...confused,” Sherlock says. “But they didn’t bother me. I made myself scarce.”

“Bit of a landmark then, this place. Helped make you...you.”

“Helped a bit.”

“Where else did you go, ‘round these parts?” John asks, and Sherlock will never stop being surprised by John’s curiosity. It is a generous curiosity, because he wants to know Sherlock. He wants to understand.

And so, Sherlock tells John of his Yorkshire haunts.

He tells him of dark corners and skulking, of perfecting the art of invisibility. The thrill of disappearing into a crowd, becoming a nonentity, the proverbial fly on the wall. The transformation from man to homing device. How he’d learned to write someone’s story with just a look.

John listens avidly as Sherlock holds court, and when Sherlock finally stops speaking, John says, “Everything you do is just--fucking amazing.”

A warm glow suffuses within Sherlock’s chest.

John had showered Sherlock with approbrations of the sort in the early days of their friendship, but they’d become a drizzle, then a drought as the years passed. John had become jaded, or perhaps impervious to Sherlock’s sparkling genius, Sherlock had thought.

Even all these years later, Sherlock is not used to it.

I'm in the mood

The rhythm is right

Move to the music

We can roll all night

The widower and married woman are now giving each other come-hither eyes as they shimmy at each other, excess skin flapping with each movement.

John digs out an olive and pops it into his mouth, sitting back and grinning with wry amusement. Sherlock can’t help but think about how immeasurably attractive he is when he smiles.

“Yeah, those two are shagging tonight.”

Sherlock wrinkles his nose at the images this conjures.“A welcome reprieve for them both, as he’s been alone for two years and the woman’s husband is a habitual cheat.” A few biddies drinking rosé and seated at a booth near the dance floor are watching the couple, tutting, all disapproving-like. The woman’s husband is certain to have word of tonight’s scandalous display by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. “But she likely hasn’t wanted to break it off because she receives half of his pension; she knows he wouldn’t make the allowance for her were they to terminate the marriage.”

The man unselfconsciously thrusts his hips toward the woman in a comical display, and the woman laughs, spins around, and sways her hips, flashing him a coy look over her shoulder.

John coughs into his fist, covering a laugh. “Hope I’ve still got it at that age.”

Sherlock watches a button pop open on the man’s wrinkled button-down, exposing a triangle of undershirt. The woman pats the man’s potbelly, laughing.

“What they’ve got?” Sherlock says with disdain.

John nudges Sherlock’s leg with his own. “Be nice.”

“I am unable, at a molecular level, to be nice, John.”

John pats Sherlock’s thigh, leaves his hand there. “Yeah,” he says, voice fond. “I know.”

As the song fades and transitions into something more melodic, a slew of couples enwrap themselves in each other’s arms and glide across the dance floor.

Sherlock frowns at the lot of them. “I want to dance.”

“You want to dance,” John repeats slowly, “here? They’d probably call in the village vicar and exorcise the place.”

Sherlock slumps miserably in his seat, though he knows John’s right. Bigotry is a charmless staple of the pub and, by extension, the town.

He looks down at John’s hand on his thigh and feathers a finger over John’s knuckles, back and forth.

“Why anyone bothers to leave London is beyond me,” Sherlock murmurs. “Everywhere else is so pedestrian.”

With his free hand, John arcs an olive into his mouth and picks up a second, holding it between his index finger and thumb for Sherlock, an offering.

Sherlock straightens up and without much thought at all opens his mouth to take John’s pinched fingers in, dragging down until his lips are puckered and the olive is cradled on his tongue, bursting with brine, before swallowing it.

Looking up at John from beneath his lashes, he finds John gawping at him, his saliva-sheened fingers still pinched and poised ridiculously in the air. He hadn’t expected it.

John lowers his hand, and Sherlock’s hit with a pang of panic.

He’d meant to be careful; to not do too much. Especially not like this, on display for strangers' eyes.

An apology springs onto Sherlock’s tongue, but John says, “No, stop. Don’t apologise. You don’t ever have to apologise.” Then, hypocritically, adds, “Sorry.”

Sherlock is shocked into silence.

John darts his eyes over the room, then slides his hand down Sherlock’s thigh to rest in the juncture where thigh meets groin. Telegraphing: it’s fine; it’s more than fine.

And so, the floodgates open.

Sherlock angles his pelvis toward John’s hand, wanting more contact, and slides his own hand across John’s stomach before raking his fingers a bit lower to trail the hem of John’s jeans.

“Sherlock,” John blurts, and if it’s a warning or encouragement, Sherlock can’t read.

“I want to--may I--”

“Yeah. Absolutely. Whatever,” John rattles off. “Shouldn’t, but--yeah, god, please.”

Sherlock eagerly skates the palm of his hand over the tent in John’s jeans, which causes John to inhale sharply and wriggle a bit in his seat. John has his eyes trained ahead, trying valiantly to keep his naturally expressive face at bay as he grows firm beneath Sherlock’s curious caresses, but when Sherlock bunches up a handful of John’s cock and gives it a squeeze, John falters.

Jesus,” he hisses, white-knuckling the edge of the table.

Sherlock is getting hard, himself, and he needs more of John, so he takes hold of John’s zip and--

John catches Sherlock’s hand and holds it aside, his grip crunching the bones of Sherlock’s fingers together.

“We’ve got fans,” John says tightly, staring darkly ahead.

Sherlock looks across the room and is met with three red-faced, glassy-eyed men staring back at him with undisguised contempt. It’s impossible for them to know what’s going on underneath the table, but perhaps he and John are not being too discreet, generally.

“We should leave,” John says.

Sherlock’s hand is still being squeezed within an inch of its life.

“Don’t be absurd; I won’t give them the satisfaction.”

“Not absurd. Practical; preemptive. Because if we don’t leave now, someone will make us leave for public indecency,” John says, sliding purposefully out of the booth and throwing on his coat and scarf. Sherlock glares at him, obstinate and unmoving, until John slides his knee back onto the seat so he can lean over to growl in Sherlock’s ear, “And I want to be really, really indecent with you right now.”

Sherlock propels himself out of the booth and wrestles into his coat and scarf.

Once outside in the sharp winter air, they take one look at each other and double over with laughter.

Sherlock takes John’s hand and drags him behind the pub, shoving him against the wall and kissing him roughly before John reverses their positions, grabbing Sherlock by the lapels and spinning them around. John tugs at an end of Sherlock’s scarf to get it loose, unwrapping Sherlock until he has the freedom to nose and kiss Sherlock’s neck.

With unsteady hands, Sherlock unbuttons his coat (layers, there are too many layers between them) as John sucks on his neck, and once the last button is undone, he hooks a leg around the back of John’s thigh to pull him in, grabs handfuls of John’s arse, and pushes his hips up.

Fuck,” John says as he snakes a hand between them to palm at Sherlock’s cock in his trousers, giving it a squeeze, much like Sherlock had just done to him in the pub. Tipping his head back against the wall, Sherlock presses himself into John’s hand, arching his back.

“God, look at you,” John says in wonder, then kisses Sherlock bruisingly.

Kissing is suddenly not enough, so Sherlock rips off his gloves, shoves them into his pocket, and begins to undo John’s belt. Exposed to the nippy air, Sherlock’s bare hands go numb, his fingers stiff, but it doesn't matter. He may have never been more determined to see something through in his entire damn life.

“Sherlock,” John says, and it is a poor excuse for a reproach, so Sherlock frees the belt fully from its loops, slides down the zip after a couple of failed attempts, and shoves his hand into John’s pants to wrap around his cock: hard as a rod, silky, and hot.

John whimpers in relief, and his breath comes out in punchy, misty clouds as Sherlock strokes him with one hand and clumsily pushes down John’s jeans and pants with his other, just enough to spring John’s cock free. Sherlock has to squint down between them in the semi-darkness as he strokes, frustrated that he can barely see it, but it feels wonderfully thick in his hand and he desperately wants it in his mouth--or inside him.

He’s about to drop to his knees when John catches him by the underarm and pins him up against the wall.

“Appreciate the thought--immensely,” he rumbles into Sherlock’s ear. “But our first time is not going to be next to a bloody skip freezing our bollocks off.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes and shoves past John with a single-minded focus.

All he can think of is John. Sex. Car. Sex with John in the car. The car as a destination for sex. With John.

Sherlock is no longer a brain; he is a mere appendix. And the appendix is his cock.

“Sherlock!” John yells after him, and he sounds angry. Sherlock doesn’t care. In fact, he welcomes it. Angry sex has all sorts of delightful potential.

Sherlock fumbles for the car keys and opens the door, throws his coat onto the seat, flicks the dial on the heater, and unlocks the rest of the car so he can climb into the backseat. He’s just unlaced his shoes and thrown them aside when John flings open the door and clambers onto the seat beside him, snarling like a feral dog.

“Thanks for leaving me to literally be caught with my trousers down, you absolute—“

Sherlock doesn’t get to hear which epithet he is tonight, because he cups the back of John’s head and collides his mouth into John’s.

Once things ratchet back up to hot and heavy status with Sherlock happily sucking on John’s lovely tongue, John quite rudely pushes him away, his hand braced on Sherlock’s chest to keep him at a distance.

“We are absolutely not shagging in the back of your father’s car,” John says, but he is a bit out of breath and his pupils are blown wide, so Sherlock thinks the gentleman doth protest too much.

The backseat is a bit cramped, certainly, but all it needs is a touch of creativity, so Sherlock reaches around the driver’s seat and pulls at a lever, unlocking the seat for adjustment, folding it into the dashboard.

“Do the passenger seat.”

Sherlock.”

“It’s my birthday, John. The passenger seat, if you please.”

John relents without a fight (Sherlock notes smugly) and sets to pushing the passenger seat forward while Sherlock shucks off his trousers and pants, hitting his elbow hard on the door handle in the process, and crowds back against the door, spreading his legs, right foot planted on the seat and left foot on the floor.

Across the seat, John gapes at him.

“I have been told to go fuck myself many times in my life,” Sherlock says, “but I’d rather not--just this once.”

John’s mouth snaps shut. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

John struggles to unzip his coat and fling it toward the front of the car, then crawls across the seat, anchors his left hand on Sherlock's right knee, and takes Sherlock into the velvety warmth of his mouth, Sherlock letting out a hitching gasp.

John sucks Sherlock down with slow, undulating mouthfuls, kisses and laves his tongue over his frenulum, reducing Sherlock to an unintelligible noise-emitting, squirming thing. It is all done with such expert finesse that Sherlock can’t help but conclude in a strangled kind of way, “You did sleep with men in the army.”

John pulls off, his lips sheeny with saliva, and says with pleased-as-punch self-satisfaction, “Didn’t I already say that?”

He then drops low to the seat, and Sherlock feels a probing wetness at his entrance.

Fuck,” Sherlock says in genuine surprise, hips bucking involuntarily.

John skitters a sweaty hand up Sherlock’s inner thigh. “Want me to fuck you with my tongue?”

Please,” Sherlock says breathily, sliding down the door so his hips are higher. All at once, he has no other word in his typically vast vocabulary, repeats, “Please.”

John unhooks the neckpillow from the driver’s seat headrest and shoves it under Sherlock’s hips, and Sherlock lifts his left leg in the air, folds his knee close into his chest.

“Have to say,” John says, voice all gravel, voraciously watching his thumb trace the rim of Sherlock’s fluttering arsehole, “it feels a bit like my birthday too.”

He pulls apart Sherlock’s arsecheeks and dives in, flattening his tongue over Sherlock’s arsehole in one luxurious wet stripe.

Sherlock lets out a shuddering exhalation, his cock twitching, and slides his hand into John’s hair and tugs, wordless encouragement that elicits a grunt of approval from John.

After a few more languorous laps, John changes tack and pistons his tongue in and out of Sherlock until he’s breathing heavily through his nose like a bull. Pre-come pearls and trickles down the side of Sherlock’s rigid cock, and he is completely at John’s whim, writhing, bowing, clenching himself around John’s slick, wild, magnificent tongue.

When Sherlock’s arsehole is loosened enough with saliva, John easily sinks a finger inside and fucks him with it fast, rubbing against his prostate, tongue flicking at either his rim or at his perineum all the while, an exquisite complement.

God,” punches out of Sherlock, the register of his voice gone uncommonly high. “Oh, god.”

John removes his finger and opens his mouth, begins to kiss and suck at Sherlock’s arsehole with obscene slurping sounds, wringing a chant of “Oh, god, oh, oh, god,” from Sherlock’s throat.

“Yeah, come on, Sherlock,” John says huskily, muffled, the vibrations of his deepened voice reverberating through Sherlock’s body. “Ride my face.”

Sherlock moans as he bounces on John’s skilled and intrepid tongue, and once he wraps his hand around his own cock and gives it a few pulls, he’s gone, whiting out in an explosive convulsion of pleasure.

When the aftershocks pass, he finds that his shirt and the sex-fogged window behind him are spattered with come.

And beside him, John is struggling to take off his shoes, trousers, and pants, clocking his head on the ceiling in the process.

Ow, this pissing fucking car.”

Sherlock half-heartedly smudges the window-come, wipes it on his already soiled shirt, his movements languid. “I can help.”

“Almost got it,” John says abruptly, embroiled in a one-man brawl with his pants. “Bloody buggering bollocksing hell.”

Once he’s naked (freed) from the waist down, John collapses back onto the seat and strokes himself with great urgency--but that won’t do. Sherlock wants to taste, so he shuffles across the seat on his knees, sits on his haunches, pushes John’s hand away, and leans over to swallow John down.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” John says, and pushes up in one deep thrust that causes Sherlock to choke and his eyes to water.

Shit, I’m sorry,” John says frantically, pulling out of Sherlock’s mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, got a bit too--are you--”

“I couldn’t possibly be better, John,” Sherlock says, trying for haughty and failing, voice a bit too coarse, but he recovers quickly, wraps his hand around the base of John’s cock and sucks him down.

He bobs his head fast, licks and lavishes, imprinting the particular and musky taste of John to the annals of his memory--then swaps his mouth for his hand so they can kiss. From John’s lips, Sherlock can taste earthiness (himself) and the bitterness of John’s pre-come, and they kiss and kiss, sloppy and undignified and frenetic, until John is panting and moaning into Sherlock’s mouth, canting his hips up into Sherlock’s tight fist, and Sherlock thinks he’ll never tire of taking John apart like this.

He traces John’s jawline with his tongue until he’s at the base of John’s ear, teeth nipping the lobe and purring, “I can’t wait for you to fuck me.”

“Yeah--yeah, I wanna fuck you so bad.”

“I want to pin you down and ride you.”

“Jesus, yes. God, yes.”

“Your cock is spectacular. It would fill me so perfectly.”

At that, John comes quite gorgeously in Sherlock’s hand, keening, face twisting, and Sherlock milks him through it, marveling at the sight of John’s semen cascading over his fist.

When John’s gone limp, Sherlock reaches beneath the passenger seat for the roll of paper towels so he can wipe off his hand and allow John a moment to catch his breath.

Sherlock sits back against the seat, awash with tranquility, and hands John the paper towels.

He’d almost forgotten what sex could be like: an alternative to drugs, indeed. Calmative, mind-hushing.

Sex with John had had all these trappings and then some.

When Sherlock turns his head, he finds John watching him with a beatific smile.

And then some.

Perhaps it is the cocktail of post-sex hormones to blame, but Sherlock has the jarring thought that he may have never truly known love before this; before John.

They’d hardly made love--they’d, to be accurate, fucked--and the car is sufficiently steamy and they are debauched and grotty and half-clothed sitting in their own bodily fluids. None of it should be comfortable (it’s not one bit), but Sherlock doesn’t give a toss, because John is smiling at him like that.

Sherlock smiles back.

John kisses him and pets his hair. Sherlock wishes sorely for his bed back at 221b, wishes for the freedom to hold John close, to wrap himself around him and never let go.

He rubs his cheek against John’s like a cat. John dips Sherlock's head down and presses a kiss into his curls.

They remain this way, close, until they reach their limits of discomfort and set to the formidable tasks of getting dressed and cleaning up.

“If your Dad didn’t feel motivated to murder me before,” John murmurs as he rubs at a stain on the seat with paper towel, “I think I’ve just given him good enough fodder.”

Once they’re fully dressed and everything looks marginally more presentable, they settle into the front seats.

Sherlock withdraws the pack of cigarettes from his coat’s breast pocket.

Oi,” John barks. “Are you serious?”

“But it’s my birthday,” Sherlock whinges.

“Hm, interesting, weaponising your birthday,” John says, sounding very amused. “After eight years of not acknowledging that you have a birthday. Surprised you haven’t tried it on me before.”

He’s quite right; that’d been an unfortunate oversight.

“Just this once. Just today,” Sherlock says, pouting his lips in an overexaggerated moue. “Please, John.”

John draws out a sigh. “Fine. Just today.”

Preening, Sherlock rolls down the window, the steamy heat of the car and biting cool of the outdoors a bracing contrast, and lights a cigarette, taking a long drag. Holding the smoke in his lungs for a moment, he blows a stream out the window and slumps bonelessly down into his seat.

After several minutes of woolgathering and cigarette-puffing, Sherlock lolls his head to the left and finds John leaning louchely against his door and looking back at him with a drunken smile, the dim streetlamp illuminating the clear crystal blue of his eyes.

“What?” Sherlock says in a spurt of smoke.

“What do you say we get a hotel and stay here for a couple more days? See the sights.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “The sights?”

“Yeah. You know: beds, pillows. Duvets.”

Sherlock’s lips curve up into a tiny smile as he lolls his head to the right and flicks the cigarette out the window. “Some of Yorkshire’s finest attractions, to be sure.”

“The finest being you,” John says without missing a beat, causing Sherlock to shutter-blink at the steering wheel. “Sherlock. Look at me.”

Sherlock turns his head.

“Is that okay? Do you not want me to talk to you like that?”

“It’s...fine.” He clears his throat. It’s more than fine. (He hopes he doesn't look anything like a blushing schoolboy.) “I’m simply not--used to it.”

“You must know, though.”

“Hm?”

“You must know how beautiful you are.”

Sherlock’s heart squeezes tight.

A conversation he’d had long ago resurfaces.

Sun filtering in through thatched windows, little diamonds of light projected on the floor. Mémé passing him his very first cigarette across the kitchen table, wholly unconcerned that Sherlock was just thirteen years old. A conversation about school bullies; about Sherlock’s difficulty making friends.

He’d used to tell her everything.

“No one interprets art the same way,” Mémé had told him in her characteristic drawl. “You are art, Sherlock. Someone will find you beautiful.”

“Has no one ever told you before?” John is saying.

“They don’t matter.”

John smiles, and it has a quality of sadness. “So someone has. Before.”

“Not as such,” Sherlock says in a rush. “Though, I had a brief entanglement at Cambridge. I say entanglement. It was the only ‘acquaintanceship’ I had in which sex was not the catalyst but rather a consequence.”

John does not disguise his surprise. “Yeah?”

“It was a mistake. I became very attached very quickly. As did he.”

“That’s...not exactly a bad thing.”

“There was a miscommunication in what we wanted from each other. Besides, he was married.”

Jesus. What, in uni?”

“He was a professor; young, well, relatively young. Closeted, but new to his sexuality. Strict Nigerian immigrant parents.”

“And you didn’t know?” John says, immediately backtracks, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”

“No. You’re right. I didn’t know. I should have known. He obfuscated, but I still should have known. I wasn’t myself, yet. And I didn’t make that mistake again.”

John sits on this for a while. Then, he audibly swallows and says, “‘Married to my work?’”

“Precisely,” Sherlock says, voice hardened to steel.

“He hurt you,” John says, voice soft.

“I was young and far more susceptible to flights of fancy. It’s a common neurobiological pitfall of adolescence.”

“Wouldn’t say it was a pitfall.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” Sherlock says more snappishly than intended.

“I’ve had my fair share of heartbreak, Sherlock. It’s shit, but it’s not something to be ashamed of. It means you loved. Not everyone falls in love.”

“You make it sound as if it’s a privilege.”

“Because it is. I feel like the luckiest fucking bastard on the planet right now.”

Sherlock is arrested by the words; by the implication.

John isn’t looking at him, gazing unblinkingly out at the stretch of suburban solitude. “And if you were to tell me to sod off, right now, which you probably should do, I’ll be glad you at least gave me a chance.”

Silence.

“Forgive me, John,” Sherlock eventually says, voice sounding overloud, “but I cannot come up with one single thing I’ve done that would lead you to think I would not want you.”

“I mean, Jesus, roll the bloody tapes. I’m not proud of some of my past behaviour when it comes to you and our--whatever this,” he waves a hand between the two of them, “has been.”

“I’m not pleased with my choices, either.”

“I was broken.”

“You were human.”

Barely.”

A pause.

“Although,” Sherlock says. “It wasn’t all bad.”

“No,” John agrees, tipping his head back against the seat, looking straight ahead with a faint smile. “No, it wasn’t. When it was good, it was incredible.”

“If I were someone who had grand ideas about fate, I would say that perhaps all of it was ‘meant to lead us here.’”

“Yeah,” John says, “here,” he turns his head to Sherlock with a devious glint in his eye, “in your poor father’s car with my face buried in your arse not 20 minutes ago.”

“I could think of worse places in which one’s face could end up. Like Mycroft’s arse.”

John grins. “Well, now, hang on--maybe then I’d at least solve the great mystery of his missing head.”

Sherlock bursts out laughing until he’s wheezing, John joining in with high-pitched giggles.

They laugh and laugh into the night.


Sherlock opens the door and halts in a half-step, throwing out an arm to bar John from proceeding.

“What is it?” John says, military instinct kicking in, already on edge.

Sherlock sniffs. Sickly sweet melange of jasmine and orange. Baccarat Rouge cologne.

“He’s here,” Sherlock says.

John lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “Who?”

Moving stealthily toward the sitting room, Sherlock flicks on the lightswitch with a flourish.

In the rocking chair sits Mycroft, dressed to the nines, hands folded primly over a laptop shut closed on his thighs.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sherlock wants to know, John stepping up to Sherlock’s side.

Mycroft’s bored eyes rove over Sherlock and John from head to toe, and Sherlock draws himself up, ready for impact.

He should have known Mycroft would inevitably stick his (massive) nose in it, he just hadn’t expected it so soon. He hadn’t taken the time to mask any tells, and John is practically a living, breathing X-rated film.

Once Mycroft’s ascertained the full picture, his lips twitch with blatant disapproval and he says, in a very shocked and bourgeoisie way, “The impudence, Sherlock, really. You are a forty year old man; it’s time to grow up.”

“I get we’re all brilliant here,” John says, “and that I can’t do a damn thing without you knowing about it, but have we really not yet got a handle on the whole ‘keep someone’s privacy private’ thing?”

“And what? Be more like you?” Sherlock snipes. “I pity the women unlucky enough to have you foisted upon them. How none of them have died of boredom mid-coitus is beyond me.”

“Again. The keeping it to yourself thing. Really, it’s not a bad idea,” John insists. Then, “Hang on: women?”

“You know our father cherishes that sorry excuse for an automobile,” Mycroft continues, unflapped. “Mummy will have your head when she finds out what you’ve done.”

John and Sherlock look at each other at the same time and burst out laughing.

“Don’t nauseate me with your fresh affections,” Mycroft spits out, reaching behind the chair to extract a manila envelope. He holds it out at arm’s length and does not bother to stand. “Happy Birthday.”

“A gift,” John says, bewildered.

“From you?” Sherlock says, equally nonplussed.

“I can’t be sure when I’m to see you next, and I need an answer promptly,” Mycroft says. “I must be taking my leave soon.”

“It’s half 12 in the morning,” John says.

“I am well aware, thank you, John,” Mycroft says coldly. “I’ve a car on the way. Emergency business, you see. Putting out fires in Australia.”

Mycroft waggles the envelope impatiently.

In spite of himself, Sherlock is curious. He snatches up the folder, unties the string, and unsheaths a paper--

It’s the deed to Mémé’s sprawling, beloved cottage in Norfolk.

With Sherlock’s name noted as the beneficiary.

Sherlock stares at it.

“What is it, then?” John says, pressing his hand to the small of Sherlock’s back and peering over his shoulder. “My god,” he says once he has proper sight of the text, “a house?”

“I hadn’t spoken to Mémé in years,” Sherlock says, more to himself, lifting his head and looking unseeingly at Mycroft. “Why would she give this to me?”

“Well, it’s clear that your lack of communication did not diminish the high-esteem in which she held you,” Mycroft says. Then, the slightest bit softer, “You were her favourite.”

“Your grandmum gave you a house,” John repeats. Then, revelatory, “That’s the cottage.”

Mémé had known, somehow, that Sherlock had fallen in love with the cottage and everything it had represented. She’d known without him having said a word. A remarkable woman. His heart aches for her loss; for his loss in not knowing her in her final years.

But they’d at least shared a quiet, mutual love all these years. That still counted. It was still love.

“Speaks volumes that it hasn’t gone to Mémé’s only living child,” Sherlock says.

“Yes, well,” Mycroft says, conceding it.

Sherlock shoves the deed back into its folder and holds it under Mycroft’s nose. “I don’t want this,” he says, all bravado. “You take it.”

Mycroft pushes the envelope away. “What possible use would I have for it?”

“Sell it, then.”

“Now, hang on a second,” John says.

Both Mycroft and Sherlock look at him.

John plucks the folder out of Sherlock’s hand, pulls out the deed to once again ogle at it. “Why not keep it, Sherlock? You don’t have to use it all the time.” He looks at Mycroft. “It’s all paid for, yeah?”

“There would be a small monthly maintenance fee,” Mycroft says.

“We could work something out. Could be nice to have down the line.”

Sherlock furrows his brows. “‘Down the line?’”

“Yeah. Twenty-, thirty-years time? You know. When we retire. And maybe even as a bit of a getaway in the next few years?”

“When we retire?” Sherlock emphasises so he has the utmost clarity. “Meaning you...and me.”

John flickers his eyes from side to side. “Uh...yes? Bit soon to add a third, no?”

“You want to live with me...there.” Sherlock’s eyes dart to the deed and back to John’s face. “In Norfolk. ‘Down the line.’”

John looks at him, face open and honest and beautiful and says, “Yeah, of course. Of course I do. I’d live with you anywhere.”

It’s said as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Sherlock’s heart thuds in his ribcage. It wants to burst through.

Sherlock loves him.

“John, are you familiar with nerve agents?” Mycroft asks, apropos of nothing.

John’s face scrunches in confusion as he looks away toward Mycroft. “Um, what?”

“Nerve agents,” Mycroft says with cutting impatience. “Chemical weapons.”

“Yeah...sure. Thatcher was a fan, wasn’t she? What does that have to do with--”

“There is a facility in Wiltshire that used to conduct highly dangerous experiments involving the aforementioned agents, amongst other things,” Mycroft says coolly. “The facility has quite a history--it’s been around for almost a century now. The nerve agent trials went on up until the late ‘80s. Military volunteers were recruited to participate in these trials; fatalities were not uncommon.”

Mycroft,” Sherlock reproves.

“In fact, until this very day, military personnel assist with research. I cannot discuss what kind of research is being done currently, that’s classified, of course, but I can tell you that the chemical weapons being tested supersede the lethality of nerve agents.”

“Do stop talking.”

“And so, it would behoove you to keep in mind,” Mycroft continues smoothly, “that if a former soldier were to be shipped off to such a facility, no one would ask any questions. It would be--”

“Would you leave him alone?” Sherlock snipes.

A vibration sounds, and Mycroft pulls out his mobile.

“How fortuitous. My car has arrived early,” Mycroft drawls, gathering up his laptop and luggage before gliding to the front door. “My assistant will be in touch regarding the deed. Expect to hear from her in the next two days.” Mycroft opens the door and pauses, peering meditatively into the dead of the night. “Many happy returns, brother mine." A dramatic pause. "And I suppose they may very well be happy.”

As the words land, Sherlock is shocked by his brother's overt romanticism. 

Perhaps Mycroft has a heart, after all.

When he’s gone, John stares blankly at the closed door.

“What an insufferable arsehole,” Sherlock says, not meaning it at all.

“So that’s what it’s like, then,” John says, his voice steady. “That’s what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Mycroft’s ‘if you break his heart, I’ll break yours’ talk. But instead it’s ‘if you break his heart, I’ll annihilate you by way of chemical weaponry and cover up your murder.’” A manic giggle slips out. “Christ, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything less.”

Sherlock steps over, hesitating for the briefest moment before pressing himself against John’s back and sliding his arms around John’s waist.

It’s still strange and wondrous that he’s allowed to do this.

It will, without question, never get old.

“He wouldn’t dare touch you,” Sherlock says defiantly, nuzzling his cheek into John’s hair.

“Like I said,” John says, leaning back into Sherlock’s chest, a hand coming to rest atop Sherlock’s interlocked arms around his waist. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Notes:

God, I’m sorry, Mr Holmes('s car).

You may have twigged it, but the grandmother plotline was inspired by canon--Watson and Holmes get into a discussion about genetics (a topic that was en vogue during the Victorian era), and Watson says something along the lines of “you must be the way you are because you worked hard at it, no?” and Holmes responds that, yes, that’s true, but with his grandmother being the sister of a great French artist, he also believes that “art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.” It’s one of my favorite canon quotes, and I wanted to explore it just a tiny bit. I...also wanted them to have sex in a car. So. Win-win.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy (emphasis on the healthy) summer (or winter, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) and a Happy Pride Month (for those of us here in the States)! And thanks very much for reading. I've been so heartened to find that people are enjoying what I'm putting out there these days.