Chapter Text
Sherlock remembered the first time he had brought John back to his Baker Street flat. He’d been living alone back then, and as he remembered, Mrs. Hudson had almost immediately humiliated him by telling John—the very man Sherlock was intent on being with—that Sherlock had been ‘love-struck.’ It was perhaps the most embarrassed he had ever been, but John—perfect, patient, noble, stupid John—hadn’t made him feel bad about it. On the contrary, John had kissed him softly, had led him upstairs, and had taken him to bed.
Things were different now.
Now, Sherlock was putting in order the flat that had once belonged to both of them, that still technically belonged to both of them but had been inhabited by only one for so long.
After what felt like years of John being stuck in hospital in another country, he was finally fit enough to come home, and Sherlock wasn’t entirely certain what was going to happen when John returned. They had argued over text shortly before John was shot, and then after that, Sherlock had been told that John was dead, only to be informed by John himself that that was not the case. John had said that they were still boyfriends, but Sherlock wasn’t sure if that would stick. Now that John was no longer reliant on painkillers to keep him comfortably conscious, his thoughts might be slightly different on the matter. Sherlock could only do whatever he could to make him seem like a more desirable boyfriend now than he’d been in the past.
He cleaned the entire flat. He even made up the bed in the upstairs bedroom in case John wanted him to sleep up there. There were no experiments in sight. (John always complained about his experiments.) The fridge was stocked with food. (John hated doing the shopping but also needed food.) The clutter had all been removed. (John grumbled when he tripped over Sherlock’s things.) In short, everything was perfect for John’s arrival.
Sherlock himself dressed in one of his nicest suits—fitted, with crisp lines that John used to comment on all the time. His hair was washed and styled, and his face was shaved. All in all, he looked like a moderately functional person, which was not a look he’d had for nearly two weeks. Since his argument with John, he’d taken to staying in more, which required pyjamas rather than suits. After he’d been told that John was dead, he’d essentially stopped existing, and the last week of waiting around for John to come back had been filled with anxiety and excitement in equal measure that had left it difficult for him to sit still long enough to look at himself in the mirror and assess the damage that had been done to his physical appearance because of the preceding events.
For the millionth time, Sherlock checked over the flat. Everything was in order. Everything was where it ought to be.
Everything except John.
He checked the time on his phone. It was well past the time John’s flight landed, and yet the man hadn’t texted. Sherlock had a brief moment of panic, thinking that perhaps John simply wasn’t going to speak to him at all. Their relationship started with the unexpected arrival of a text, and it was going to end with the absence of an expected text. Or possibly John had gotten injured, and Sherlock hadn’t gone to fetch him from the airport, and now it was his fault that John was in some terrible situation, and Sherlock was never going to forgive himself, and—
There was the sudden sound of the exterior door opening, followed by slow trudging up the steps. The footfalls were too heavy to be Mrs. Hudson’s, and there was an added tap at every stair, indicating the presence of a cane. It was John. John-with-a-limp sounded different than John-without-a-limp coming up the stairs, and Sherlock committed the new sound to memory.
By the time John pushed the door open, Sherlock’s heart rate had kicked up to nearly twice its normal rate, and he realised that he should have opened the door for John rather than just standing there in the centre of the sitting room like an idiot.
But then John was there, in full view, and Sherlock took in his war-wearied face, his awkward gait, his hair that had grown out a bit beyond the standard military length. John looked tired. He was tanner than he’d been when he left. His hands seemed more calloused as well. He seemed to have lost some of his muscle weight since being shot, but he was still as slim and as fit as he’d been when they’d first met. The cane didn’t bear his weight when he was standing, but he leaned on it heavily when he walked. The bag slung over his right shoulder was almost immediately dropped to the floor, as if it had been excruciating holding it up.
“You’re staring, love,” John said, and when Sherlock looked back up to his face, his smile look pained. That wasn’t exactly a good sign.
Sherlock immediately picked up John’s discarded bag and moved it over to the sofa, feeling the need to do something. “How was your flight?” he asked lamely.
“Rough,” John said. He made his way to the armchair that he had claimed back at the start and collapsed down into it with a grimace. “Believe it or not, being shot in the shoulder makes it even more uncomfortable to travel on planes.”
Sherlock wasn’t sure whether or not he should laugh or cry hearing about that. He’d been doing so much crying lately that he wasn’t sure he’d have any tears left at that point anyway.
John frowned. “You don’t look so good,” he said, making to stand up, but Sherlock was in front of him immediately, pushing him by his uninjured shoulder back down into his chair.
“You need to rest,” Sherlock scolded.
John rolled his eyes. “I’ve been resting for a week.”
“Yes, but after that, you had a very long and very stressful journey back here, so you need to rest some more.”
John’s smile was less pained this time, softness lingering where discomfort had previously been. “You really have been worried about me.”
Sherlock appreciated his gentle expression but didn’t exactly see how this was the time for looking like that. “You were shot, John. You went off to war, and you got shot, and you almost died.”
John’s smile faded. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Are we going to argue about me going over there again?”
The last time they had argued about that particular topic, John had ignored Sherlock for two days, gotten shot, and had ended up in hospital. Sherlock immediately felt ill. He was getting used to that feeling now, as it had been plaguing him since that argument. “No,” he rushed to say. “No, we’re not.” He turned away, trying to find something safe to do, something to show John that he regretted everything. “Are you hungry?” he asked. He made his way into the kitchen and began looking through the fridge for anything that was pre-made that he could heat up for John.
There was a sigh from behind him. “You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me,” John said.
Sherlock ignored him and pulled out a pasta dish he’d apparently bought during his shopping excursion. He warmed it up per the instructions and was so focused on that task that he was startled into jumping when he felt a hand on his arm.
John immediately pulled his hand back when Sherlock reacted so violently to his touch. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Sherlock frowned. Surely that was obvious. “Making you food.”
“Why are you making me food?” John looked around them at the flat. “Christ, this place is spotless. It’s not supposed to be spotless. Where are all of your experiments? Why is there only food in the fridge? Where are the body parts?”
Sherlock’s frown deepened. He didn’t see the issue. John would have complained if the flat was any other way upon his return. “Don’t you like it like this?” he asked.
John looked around again and sighed. He seemed to be doing a lot of that. After a moment, he lifted one hand to rest on Sherlock’s cheek. The contact sent a thrill through him. Sherlock had been so worried that they might not be allowed to touch like this anymore, but apparently John was allowing it.
“I don’t want you to change who you are just because you think it’ll make me happy,” John said.
“But you should be happy,” Sherlock pointed out. What was the point of any of this if John wasn’t happy? After all he’d been through, surely John deserved that much.
John’s face did a complicated thing right then, settling into an uncomfortable grimace. “You’re really going to make me actually talk about these things, aren’t you?”
John sounded so displeased that Sherlock immediately sought to clarify, despite not knowing what ‘these things’ were. “No, I’m not.”
John stared at him a moment longer, seemingly taking him in, before he gave one firm, decisive nod and trailed his hand down to hold Sherlock’s. He used his grip to tug Sherlock onto the sofa next to him.
“Your pasta—” Sherlock started, but John interrupted him, saying, “Sod the pasta. I’m not hungry anyway.”
“You should eat,” Sherlock said, unable to keep the concern out of his voice.
John gave a disbelieving laugh. “I should eat? Sherlock, have you seen yourself? You weigh less than when we first met. I could probably pick you up with one hand—which would be convenient, because I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can pick you up properly.”
Sherlock thought that last part might have been intended as a joke, but he hadn’t exactly been in the mood to laugh since John first left. He thought John might have been upset with him for that, but they were still holding hands, so he counted it as a success.
“You can’t focus so much on me that you forget about yourself,” John told him, voice low and serious now.
Sherlock didn’t see how that would be a problem. He had always been criticised for being selfish, prompting other people to commiserate with John for having to put up with him all the time. John himself had been upset that Sherlock’s selfish desire to keep John in London with him had caused so many arguments after he’d gone to Afghanistan. “So you don’t want me to focus on you?” Sherlock asked, not seeing how that would solve any of their issues.
John smiled softly at him. “I want you to focus on me, and I want you to let me focus on you, especially if you refuse to do that yourself,” he said. “We can look out for one another. We’ve always done that. Remember when I punched that bastard Wilkes for you?”
Sherlock’s lips quirked up of their own accord at the mention of the near-altercation that had represented John’s first time defending him, way back on their second date. “As I remember it, you didn’t actually punch him,” Sherlock corrected, “but, yes, I remember that. I seem to remember showing my gratitude for that later when we came back here for the first time.”
John laughed, his smile breaking through the weariness that had seemed so permanently etched in his features. The veiled mention of their sex life was apparently what John needed to get back to feeling normal in all of this. “And I’ll be sure to spoil you rotten later for everything you did to get the flat sorted out for me.”
Sherlock’s cheeks heated a bit as he thought about what that might entail. John had always been good about spoiling him, and after going so long without providing himself with even basic necessities, being spoiled sounded like perhaps the best thing in the world.
John’s hand was on his cheek again, and there was a look in John’s eyes that made Sherlock’s heart clench into itself. How long had it been since he’d seen that expression? How long had it been since he’d remembered that he was loved? “I missed you so much,” he murmured. The tenderness in John’s voice made Sherlock want to cry again. “I think when I was over there I forgot how hard this was on you.” He sighed. “It was easy to get angry.”
Sherlock found his voice again. “It was easy to be resentful.”
John huffed out a laugh that wasn’t entirely amused. “I guess we really don’t do well with the whole long-distance thing.”
Sherlock’s near-tears were interrupted with a startled laugh of his own. It sounded awkward to his ears. “No, not at all,” he said.
John smiled and leaned a bit closer. “Suppose we’ll just have to stay within sight of one another from now on.”
And that sounded like an excellent plan. Sherlock hadn’t realised how much of his displeasure about John leaving had been merely a result of the lack of John’s moderating influence on him, and he was willing to bet that John’s temper had flared while abroad in part because Sherlock hadn’t been there to keep it in check. “We’re never going to be able to spend more than a week apart,” he pointed out, and while that probably sounded limiting, he was actually rather pleased about it.
John snorted. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to spend a day apart at this point. We’ll have to work up to a week.”
And just like that, Sherlock felt infinitely better. His fear about John leaving, his anxiety about not being good enough, his guilt over causing their argument—all of that was so easily explained by the abrupt and unexpected influence that John’s extended absence had over him. John’s anger was likewise explained by the same principle. It wasn’t that they were falling out of love, as Sherlock had privately worried; it was merely that they weren’t suited to such sudden independence from one another.
Sherlock leaned forward and pressed a tentative kiss to John’s lips, still not entirely sure that it would be welcome. While much of the initial awkwardness regarding the state of their relationship had dissipated, there had been no move on John’s part thus far to bring them to the full extent of what they had been before he’d left.
Sherlock didn’t need to be worried about that for very long, though. John almost immediately started kissing back, only pulling away when he tried to raise his injured arm to wrap around Sherlock’s neck.
Sherlock noticed John’s grimace and got up, ignoring John’s grumble of displeasure. He grabbed a cold compress and brought it back to the sofa as quickly as possible. “Even if I’m supposed to be taking care of myself as well, I can still look after you,” he said to John’s raised eyebrow. “You were just shot, John. I think your condition is probably much worse than mine.”
John took the compress and placed it on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Have you seen yourself lately? You look like a corpse.”
Sherlock shot John an affronted look. “I do not.” He’d cleaned up for John. He’d styled his hair. He’d put on proper clothes.
John smiled at him. “A very handsome corpse, but a corpse nonetheless.”
Sherlock sat back down beside him. “It’s a good thing I have a boyfriend to take care of me.”
John kissed his forehead and moved so that they were as physically close as two people could be sitting side-by-side on a sofa. “And it’ll be my honour to do that.”
After that, things got progressively better.
As Sherlock suspected, once they were back in the same city, their arguments all but stopped. Oh, they still bickered, but they were conscious now of figuring out solutions to their issues before they got to be true sources of resentment. Sherlock still worried that he might inadvertently drive John into another dangerous situation if he remained angry, and John, now that he could once again see the effect his words had on Sherlock, worried that he would hurt the man he loved so dearly.
John didn’t end up making Sherlock sleep in the upstairs bedroom. When Sherlock had informed John that he’d made the bed up there in case John wanted to sleep alone, John had been so horrified that Sherlock had thought he might want that that he took him to their bed and kissed him softly for nearly an hour.
Sherlock did his best to care for John’s injuries, but evidently his version of concern was incredibly constricting. John snapped at him more than once for bringing him breakfast in bed, because apparently it was insulting when Sherlock only did such a thing because he thought John incapable of getting out to the kitchen on his own. That sort of behaviour only lasted for a short while, though, because John’s recovery was remarkably quick. Before long, his shoulder healed to the point that it only gave him a dull ache every so often, and once that was no longer a main source of pain, the limp almost immediately vanished as well.
John was eager to work on cases with Sherlock as they’d done years earlier at the beginning of their relationship, back when John going off to war had been an impending but far-away concern. Now, there was no such thing lingering over them, and they both found that it was almost more enjoyable to work together then than it had been when they were younger.
John got better, and Sherlock got better.
They got older, but they never drifted apart.
They adopted a dog, who they doted on constantly.
They made friends, and they made enemies, and John punched the enemies who were rude to Sherlock, partially to prove that he was indeed willing to actually punch people for his boyfriend.
And one day, when they were both nearing thirty, they were no longer boyfriends but now husbands.
And every day, Sherlock and John awoke in the morning beside their husband and thought, This, right now, is the happiest I’ve ever been. Every single day.