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As ever he had since John and Sherlock’s first dinner together, Angelo brought a candle for the table. John gave him a genuine smile, Sherlock a forced one that nearly passed for the real thing. Angelo had been mentioning a planned retirement for longer than John could remember, but the now-regular presence of his smiling, efficient daughter in and out of the kitchen, at the cash till, and greeting the customers—while Angelo mostly sat at a table near the door, chatting amiably with the old fellas haunting the bar—gave the impression he was finally ready to hang up his apron—or at least nearly so.
They asked for their favourites with no more than scant glances at the menu, and Sherlock ordered wine, a bottle, not cheap.
The businesslike daughter brought them a basket of bread that smelled like heaven and a dish of olive oil sprinkled with herbs, and John tucked into it right away.
“This is truly the most delicious thing, and I’m telling you, Sherlock, you’re missing out,” he said around a mouthful, and Sherlock half-smiled.
“Minding my middle,” he demurred. John rolled his eyes.
“More for me, then.”
Angelo brought the wine and Sherlock went through the motions, sniffing and sipping, nodding approval before their glasses were filled. Once Angelo had gone, Sherlock raised his glass by its slender stem.
“Oh.” John brushed crumbs from his hands and picked up his own glass. “What are we drinking to?”
“Absent friends, of course.”
“Of course. Absent friends.”
“And a decade of acquaintance.”
John felt his eyes widen. “Is it? Ten years?”
“More or less,” Sherlock replied. Their glasses kissed with a crystalline ring that hung in the air until they silenced it by sipping.
“I’m sure you know whether it’s more, or less,” John teased. “Go on, then.”
“Ten years, three weeks, three days.”
John grinned, and Sherlock returned it, looking self-conscious and smug.
“We’ve had fun,” John said.
“A bit,” Sherlock agreed. “Bit of danger, too.”
“S’what makes it fun.” John winked at him and sipped again. “That’s lovely. A nice one.”
“Special occasion.”
John hummed. “You all right? You look. . .” John began. “I don’t know. Don’t think I’ve seen this one on you before.” Sherlock was holding his jaw strangely, set and high, and his lips were tight. Trembling? John glanced at Sherlock’s hand, his fingers tapping restlessly on the foot of his wine glass. “Unnerved?” John ventured. He looked around the room, scanning for criminals, overgrown former schoolmates, Mycroft—any of the people that John had learned could sour Sherlock’s demeanour.
Sherlock took in a loud breath, blew it out through his nose with a distinct lowering of his shoulders, which John hadn’t noticed were tense until Sherlock so purposely relaxed them.
“I had an entire speech prepared,” Sherlock said, with a tight shake of his head. “But now I find I’ve lost my nerve, so.” He turned his whole body toward John, sitting around the table’s corner, and elegantly folded his hands in front of him on top of the white cloth. “You’ll have to say it.”
John drew back. “I have to. . .?”
“Make the speech.”
“Your speech? The speech you prepared,” John clarified.
“Yes. Turn the names around.” Sherlock shrugged, indicating this was obvious: when you’re making my speech to me, John, you’ll say “Sherlock” where I would have said, “John.”
Baffled, wanting to help his friend out of whatever psycho-emotional loop he was caught in, John prompted, “Just remind me how it starts?”
Sherlock cleared his throat, just a little, and John did the same, not copying Sherlock but only because it was his habit to do so. He let go a nervous sort of giggling laugh, but Sherlock frowned at that and John schooled his face.
“Ten years have passed between us, John. . .” Sherlock began, and when there was a pause long enough to indicate he was not likely to continue, John spoke up.
“Ten years have passed between us. . .Sherlock. . .”
“And. . .”
John raised his eyebrows, wishing quite hard for the food to arrive and interrupt the increasingly awkward progression of the evening.
“And. . .” John said at last. He tried to imagine what might come next, and eventually added, “That’s rather a nice long time. Round number.” He lifted his glass once more, tilted it toward Sherlock, toasting the occasion. “Quite a lot of fun.”
Sherlock’s mouth-corners dropped. “You said that earlier.”
“Right, and then you said about the danger.” John nodded. “Ah. . .”
Sherlock raised his eyes toward the ceiling, or at least toward his own eyebrows, either way obviously avoiding John’s gaze. “Two things you said to me come to mind.”
“Two things I said to you,” John parroted, half-smiling, “come to mind. And. Those are. . .well obviously the one is. Uh.”
“Romance.”
“Romance?” John was beginning to feel rather curious about how this was going to end. Was Sherlock about to tell John he’d met someone? Fallen in love with someone? He quick-played their last several months and couldn’t think of when or where Sherlock would have even met anyone, let alone dated, wooed, become enchanted by—those early days of love were so time-consuming; surely John would have noticed Sherlock preoccupied by something so important. Perhaps he’d met someone online.
“Would complete me as a human being,” Sherlock filled in. His tangled fingers were white-knuckled.
“Right. The first thing that comes to mind is that I told you a romance completes a human being. Said it rather unkindly; I apologise; it was a difficult time.”
“Yes, of course,” Sherlock said, sounding dismissive though John knew to interpret it as forgiveness. “And on the topic of me being human. . .” His pale eyes stared hard at John, a meaningful look John recognised as an indication Sherlock was referring to that time—that awful time—of which they rarely ever spoke, even all these years later.
John cleared his throat and fiddled with the flatware. Where was the food? He glanced over his shoulder but neither Angelo nor the busy daughter met his eye. The bartender and servers were similarly unmotivated to throw John a life ring. He plowed ahead. “I also once said—to you, though I didn’t know you heard—that you were the most human human being I’d ever known.”
“Because of romance. A romantic. . .” Sherlock shrugged tightly. “Entanglement.”
John tipped his head. But that had been. . .that awful day at the grave. Long before that awful night at Baker Street, humiliating himself while Sherlock—beaten, in withdrawal, looking exhausted and lost—put a hand on the back of his neck. That day, though? By then, Sherlock was already?—had already?—
Sherlock’s expression changed again, eyes narrowing slightly. John knew he was being deduced. After a few seconds, Sherlock continued the speech, feeding John his next line.
“I see you were right, John.”
“You see,” John said, tentatively. His heart was swelling in his chest, thwacking hard against his breastbone. He couldn’t breathe. Was he breathing? Why couldn’t he breathe? He had to breathe. “I was right, Sherlock.”
“You’ve been romancing me since the day we met,” Sherlock said then, and his mouth was soft and curved up at the corners, and his voice was low so John had to lean closer to be sure he was hearing. Still couldn’t breathe, though.
“I’ve been romancing you,” John murmured, then made a last minute line edit: “For ten years, three months, and three days. And you’ve been doing the same. Romancing me.”
Sherlock’s tone changed, making clear he was giving an aside. “This is where I imagined you’d probably take my hands,” he said, sounding confessional but not tentative—he never doubted himself when it came to predicting John’s behaviour—and he unfolded his own hands, sliding them across the tablecloth. John found himself rearranging his elbows and wrists to be sure his hands met Sherlock’s halfway. Sherlock caught John’s hands and cradled them, palms up, fingertips gently curled around John’s wrists. “I know you’ve wanted to, now and then,” Sherlock confessed, and they were both staring at their hands, close and open, bundled between them.
“I have very much wanted to take your hands, Sherlock,” John agreed, and his face was doing something, and there was something in his throat, and his eyes felt quite weird just then, as well. “Not just now and then.”
Sherlock took a small, noisy breath, as if he might go on with his prepared speech, but instead of speaking he lifted John’s left hand toward his face, and lowered his head with his eyes falling shut, and pressed his lips to the center of John’s palm, and then to the tips of two of his fingers, one after the next. John let his fingers curve around Sherlock’s jaw for a moment; sharp and smooth and thrilling. When Sherlock raised his gaze again, he smiled, and John smiled back at him. Beamed at him. God, ten years.
“Ten years is a long time for a romance to bloom,” Sherlock said, and fluttered his eyes a bit, shrugged. “Or so I understand.”
“It is,” John confirmed. “It’s a very long time.” He withdrew his palm from Sherlock’s cheek, and they resettled their hands together, each hanging on to the other for dear life. “Time well spent,” he added.
“Rather a lot of foreplay,” Sherlock smirked, playful in that wry way he had. Flirting! John knew that face, that voice, the associated movement and stillness. All of it ever brought out only for him, all these years, and he’d never let himself call it what it was.
“Sherlock,” John said, leaning very close, suddenly violent with desire to kiss him, but not now, not here, or by god, he’d have Sherlock right there on the table, over and over, straight through til morning, because he had years’ worth of loving to show him. Give him. Christ, John was going to absolutely smother him. His voice came out growly with gravel as he said, “I think after ten years of wanting to, it’s time I take you to bed.”
Their heads were so close, foreheads nearly touching, knees fitting like tabs in slots together under the table, fingers restless against the skin of each other’s knuckles and wrists. Sherlock smiled, and nodded, and this time he echoed John when he replied, “It’s time I take you to bed.” They both smiled, foolishly but who could care?, and they both laughed, just enough.
The efficient daughter already had their dinners in boxes for them to take, and the hostess brought their coats, and Angelo stuffed a cork back in the neck of the wine bottle so they could carry it away with them. There was a taxi already standing outside, and John and Sherlock were swept out into the night on the tide of a roomful of knowing, aren’t-they-darling smiles; Angelo all but threw rice as he ushered the two of them out of the dining room. Bundled into the cab, sitting closer to Sherlock than he’d ever before dared, John felt giddy, and Sherlock smiled out the window, not looking shy exactly, but there was a sort of bashful awe about him that John found charming and not a little sexy.
“Going home,” Sherlock said, and gave John’s knee a squeeze.
John looked up at Sherlock’s profile, the squinty lines beside his eye, the higher-than-it-used-to-be hairline, that nose, that mouth, John’s too-smart, surprisingly kind, oh-so-handsome friend. Ten years.
John nodded even as he corrected him. “I’m already home.”
*
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