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Baker Street.
221B Baker Street was the address Sherlock Holmes has etched into his heart. It was his home, his sanctuary, his life. It was strange how little time of his life he actually spent with John living there, yet it seemed so long and momentous. All the nights spent chasing criminals, spent awake deducing, assembling data. Then there were those little shards of conversation hinting more and making Sherlock feel like he finally fit with someone. Finally fit with John Watson. But so many things have changed since.
So many things have long come and gone since the first day he had met John Watson, the invalided army doctor wounded by the war in Afghanistan; John Watson, who had become his colleague, his friend and his irreplaceable companion in what seemed like no time at all. John Watson, who had alike the flat and even more so become his life.
John had given him a reason to be, to move on, to solve crimes, to laugh, to do mundane things like eat and sleep, a reason to care. John had given him a moral compass, compassion and al the reason to rise up and to fall. Because he did, Sherlock admitted, and would anytime throw himself off a building for John Watson. Not for real, of course, there would be no use dying and not being there for him. But it was devastating on its own to be conscious of the fact that he would, should John ask, do anything for him. Yet he would not be able to break John’s heart, not again. It would end up breaking his own. He knew of the vacancy he had left in John’s heart when he had been “dead” as he was looking at what had replaced and soothed the aching hole.
Mary was making John happy and so was the child, visiting the flat for the first time observing with pale eyes like John’s. Well not observing obviously, but looking, which was an attempt enough.
“Yes little girl, this is where your father used to belong. Now he’s all yours, but he’s showing you because he himself can’t quite seem to let go of it.”
John strode over to the couch and set beside Mary helping her strip the baby off the unnecessarily many layers of winter cloth put on her. They hadn’t visited with her for months out of precaution, which Sherlock could understand, but it still upset him a bit John would think so lowly of the cleanliness of the flat. The doctor was of course more worried about toxic contamination than about dust, so the kitchen has been shut for the time being.
John smiled at her, one of his brilliant heartfelt smiles of genuine happiness that made Sherlock’s heart cringe a little. John was pleased with fatherhood and it suited him. Not as much as it had suited him to be at Sherlock’s side, though. He loved seeing John smile, he adored watching the concentrated folds on his friend’s brows unwind and his face getting younger by years. It was making his chest flatter in ways that was impossible for his organs. But John never looked at him with the open love he displayed for those two. Not anymore.
So Sherlock had set out to return the favour John had unknowingly done him and made sure the doctor was happy with his life as it was. He made sure everything was fine, no one threatening Mary, no angry John rowing with his wife in front of the child, no lunatics hunting his former flatmate, because they thought there might be a connection between them worth exploiting.
Well there was, but it is long gone now.
Sherlock understood that at one point he probably broke John’s heart, but why did he have to keep coming back and make him feel guilty and dance around just slightly out of his grasp, where he knew he never could reach out for him? He had learned to retain his hands, for he knew John clearly didn’t want him the way the detective did. Not like he craved everything and anything, any scrap of affection the doctor would give him. Every little smile, every touch, every stolen moment would be stored in the depths of his mind palace.
Even though, for everything that happened, John would not say goodbye, would not put a full stop to the end of their story and for the first time Sherlock didn’t feel like he could do it for him. He had been so detached before, unknowing of the dreaded sentiment and yet he still couldn’t, even if John was currently cradling the exact reason why he should have done so. The child right there, the stamp of married life, closing a door, sealing it shut for good. John would not run around chasing criminals, when there was a child relying on him returning home safely. Even with Mary alone it had been a risk, a shift in John’s devotion, like Sherlock could not have trusted the doctor to watch his back and follow him as unconditionally as he did before. But Sherlock will not drag him. He will not be responsible for having orphaned a child, certainly not John Watson’s little daughter. The thought itself was filling him with trepidation. He found himself caring for her, ultimately possibly only because she belonged to John, therefore he couldn’t dislike her.
John made so much of the impossible possible for him, for which in the end he was very thankful. He never imagined it to be possible for him to go the lengths for a person he had gone for John and non the matter, in the living room of their former shared flat, he felt like all he had clung to was being torn from his tired fingers. He felt like he was losing John, with no way of returning.
And since John seemed yet unable to let go, he would have to let him remind Sherlock every day, every time he popped around the corner, of what exactly he had lost. John would never be his, he missed the chance, and now he would have to watch his own foolishness torment him. Sherlock felt utterly defeated, like he lost a lifelong battle and his heart felt like it slipped out of his control altogether. Numbness overcame him and a hollow feeling and he only registered that he was crying by sensing the dampness roll over his cheeks.
Mary was preoccupied by the baby, but John, John with his attentive eyes looked right up at Sherlock. Their eyes locked and Sherlock attempted a half-hearted, apologetic smile, but John’s eyes didn’t think it was credible. The blue orbs were searching, looking up his self like he used to read people he thought of being like books. John remained silent, not causing uproar. He just watched and looked so sorry, so conflicted and so much wanting to console. Sherlock had seen this expression directed at him so often. John never quite made it clear what it meant; to Sherlock it always had signified hope. Hope that there might be more, but not now. Now it was just the mark of defeat.
He couldn’t bear it any longer and turned on his heels dashing off the room with quick steps. He wiped the tears off his face and by the time he crossed the kitchen John had come after him. Sherlock thought it for the better to abscond from the conversation, there had been no need for one to begin with, so he left for his room. But he didn’t calculate John. What an obvious mistake of a rookie.
John grabbed his arm and asked him voice soaked with careful concern. “Sherlock, is everything all right?”
Sherlock didn’t think the question was worthy of answering, but he generously turned over to John.
“You’re not going to tell me are you? You never talk to me about things that would matter. Sometimes I wonder if I matter at all.”- The shorter man said disheartened and lowered his head. Sherlock extracted his arm from the doctor’s grip, as he was unable to focus the other way. He didn’t want to give away too much. The slip at the airport alone could have been disastrous for their relationship had he not managed to tie his tongue in time.
So when he opened his mouth, he was more measured than before, yet allowed his tone to be laced with tenderness. “Of course you matter.” –More than anyone else.-“And I’m happy for you to have settled. I reckon that is what you imagined you wanted.”
“I imagined many things, Sherlock.”
“So did I, but don’t we all?” – He said with slight irritation tired of John’s mixed signals. - “I just don’t understand the reason why you are trying to chain me to a part of your life where I don’t belong.”
“Because you do belong. In every part of it, because as I already told you, you are my best and closest friend. I don’t want you out of it, because I have a baby.”
“If you are afraid you’d lose me over the years, just don’t stop occasionally coming by and solve cases.”
“Will that stop you from breaking up contact?”- He asked and Sherlock couldn’t reply, so he continued. – “Sherlock, I know you. I know you are more inclined to close up than anybody else and you sulk epically. There is no way I’m letting you drift away. I told you already before the marriage, it is not going to change our relationship as friends.”
“But that’s not true, is it?” –He bit back. –“We both know it did change.”
John, out of arguments, puffed a frustrated breath and looked away.
“This is still not fair John!”- Sherlock spat angered.
“What isn’t?” – John stared back at him and Sherlock crumbled.
“How much more do want me to give for you, John? How much?” –He asked desperately heartbroken.
He knew he lost control over his features, but he didn’t care. He grabbed John by his shoulders and held onto him like the rock he was and had been in Sherlock’s life. John gazed up at the taller man with eyes open wide and pupils blown. His breath was trembling and his face guarded, but endearing. A sudden urge overcame Sherlock to lean forward just a little bit more and once, just once try and know what it would feel like to- but the momentary rush passed just as quickly as it rose. He dropped his arms into the silence that filled the space between them once again, into narcotic denial. He took a half a step back and looked over John regaining his composure, just as the doctor blew out one of his stress repressing breaths.
“I’m not going to be the god-parent of that child John. You can’t possibly ask me to.”
“Of course I can.” –John said, not in the least surprised by the quick change of topic. He was used to it by now. - “You are the only one we could think of wanting.”
“I would be terrible. I am not in the least responsible, not even for myself; I don’t care as you put it, am rude and the worst role model any child could have. I can’t, John. I simply can’t.” It was merely a legal contract of eighteen years, but it was eighteen years lengthening his sentence chained to John and a lifetime of commitment to her and him also in the end.
“But I want you to be. For me, Sherlock please.”- John glanced at him with such honesty and openness, Sherlock felt his chest melt in warmth.
“I’m starting to think you’re exploiting that sentence.” –He said with his throat thick, the words heavy. And John didn’t reply, he just gazed at Sherlock with that look, that made Sherlock think and hope, that maybe, maybe John understood and knew how he felt.
“You are”-John said carefully. - “the most important person in my life.”
Sherlock couldn’t supress an incredulous laugh at that. John immediately changed his tone to a stricter and commanding one. “Don’t laugh! You three are actually sharing that said priority. I just wanted to say, that if you think that I’d think less of you, or that you’d matter to me less, or that I didn’t feel the same for you like before just because I got married and got a kid, you’d be majorly wrong.”
When he finished he licked his lips nervously and looked up at Sherlock expectantly. The detective didn’t reply for a while, then he simply asked. “You say ‘feel the same’. What exactly did you think of me?”
John considered and then said: “That you are the most important person in my life. As I already said. If that is good enough for you.”
Sherlock lowered his face unable to look at John with a ghost of a smile tracing around the edge of his lips. “Certainly. More than enough.” –He said to the floor.
“And the god-father of my child.”-John added and Sherlock couldn’t hold the laughter anymore. He gleamed at John, who smiled back at him with wicked delight at his own comic.
“You have my word.” –He solemnly said.
He didn’t need to spell them out. John knew exactly what he meant, because the same applied to him, too. So the only thing the doctor said was:
“Thank you, Sherlock.”