Archive of Our Own

"John."

He's standing by the doorway, dressed in pyjama bottoms and a thin t-shirt, and he's been standing there exactly forty-three seconds before Sherlock speaks and acknowledges him.

John moves into the room after a brief pause, gait slightly uneven in a way that suggests he might be using his cane again come morning, but for now, in the middle of the night in their darkened flat, he'll make do.

He's good at that, making do.

Sherlock turns his head from where he's been facing the window, letting gravity pull the violin in his left hand down to rest on the windowsill. He's expected to say something mundane now, but he'll pass. Instead, he just looks at John.

Hair mussed, bags under his eyes, slightly haunted look. Eyes gummy, as if unshed tears dried in the corners. Nightmare, then.

John comes to a stop near to the sofa and says, "I heard you play."

"Yes," says Sherlock.

"Play some more," John invites with a gesture.

"All right," Sherlock replies, and raises the violin to his shoulder as John settles on the sofa.

--

Sleep is pulling at the edges of his consciousness and he bats it away like a buzzing gnat. Not yet, no time, must finish this. He goes over the facts again, the evidence, the things that he knows. The stains on the victim's hands, the lack of stains on his trousers, the position he was found in--

"Sherlock."

John enters the room, running a hand through his sand coloured hair and blinking owlishly against the sitting room lights.

"I could hear you pace all the way from upstairs."

Sherlock looks at him and tries to crowd out the leaps and processes that his brain fires up immediately. T-shirt creased on the left, consistent with impressions left on the left side of John's face and the way he carefully holds his left arm -- woken by the pressure on his shoulder wound, unintentionally slept on the wrong side, slept restlessly, then. What caused that? No, mustn't focus on that, victim had red blotches on fingers; blotches, too imprecise a word--

He shakes his head to clear it and focuses on John. "Go back to bed."

John shrugs and sits in his armchair instead. "Can't sleep," he says, unperturbed.

Not a nightmare this time, then. Just restless. Maybe he was disturbed by Sherlock's pacing. Maybe something else, maybe Harry who rang yesterday told him something, maybe he worked too many hours, maybe it's memories of the pool, the bomb--

He stops and breathes, scrubbing his hands through his hair. "All right. Sit and be quiet."

John looks at him with something akin to amusement and smiles wryly before picking up yesterday's paper. "You should get some rest," he comments over the edge of it.

He sneers at John, annoyed at the interruption and the way John balances the paper with his right hand on his left arm instead of holding it with two hands; the left arm again, giving him trouble, the shoulder wound, the blasted thing, it makes him uneven, stand out, pulls Sherlock's attention away from the things that matter--

John raises his eyebrows and says, "You could just ask, you know. I'll leave you to it."

He gets up from the chair, folding the paper over carelessly and dropping it on the table where it lies perpendicular to everything else and Sherlock's fingers itch to straighten it. He doesn't. Instead he watches John move out of the room, slightly tilted, off balance, uneven.

When he hears John's slow footsteps on the stairs, he grabs the paper and tosses it in the fire.

--

We need milk.
SH

The reply comes mere seconds after he's pressed send.

Go to Tesco then.

He huffs out a breath and curls his upper lip at the suggestion. He types back,

I don't like the chip and pin machine.
SH

It takes a few minutes before his mobile beeps, and then it reads,

You're an idiot. I'll get the milk on my way home.

He doesn't bother replying after that.

John is late that evening, but brings a pint of milk, a packet of digestives, and a smile on his face that says he's successfully asked someone out on a date.

--

The date is a week later and he comes home around eleven. Sherlock stands by the window again, minus the violin this time, and studies him.

"She'll be seeing you again, then."

John frowns at him as he takes off his jacket and puts it over the back of his armchair.

Tired, or he would walk back into the hallway to hang it up properly. He takes care of that coat. Or maybe his leg's acting up again. No sign of that when he walked in; Sherlock would have noticed. Long day, date was tiresome, he'll see her again because she will see him, but he'll not get out of it what he wants. What does he want? Sherlock isn't sure even John knows.

John sits in the chair with a sigh and a wince and Sherlock records that, too. "Yes, as a matter of fact. How was your evening?"

"Oh, boring," Sherlock replies with a wave of his hand, and pulls out his mobile to harass Lestrade.

John huffs out a sound under his breath and Sherlock refuses to look up and catalogue why.

--

John stands in the kitchen, in t-shirt and boxers, a slight flush creeping up on his cheeks. "I thought you were sleeping late," he says.

He's flushed because it's warm-- no, the kitchen is cold and he's wearing little, it's rather attractive on him; he's flushed because he's wearing little and didn't think Sherlock would see him. Which suggests he's previously dressed on purpose to avoid Sherlock seeing him in a state of undress -- Why? -- and now feels awkward.

Sherlock makes a random gesture and says, "I woke up. Tea?"

"Meaning, is there any?" John replies, a slight smile playing around his lips. "Yes." He opens a kitchen cupboard and stands tiptoe to reach the mugs on the top shelf.

Sherlock allows himself to look at the long line of John's body, the signs of life and breath there, all the muscles shifting under his skin, stretching and fulfilling their purpose and-- "Why do you keep the mugs up there? Those are your favourite mugs, you use them constantly, why keep them where you can't reach them?"

John puts the mug down on the kitchen counter and looks sideways at him, smiling bemusedly.

Sherlock taps an impatient finger on the kitchen table. John says, "Because you use whatever's closest at hand."

He blinks. "Oh. I see."

John moves around him in the flat, around his things, around his habits. He brings the milk and puts the mugs where they'll have clean ones and he'll not yell when Sherlock plays the violin at night.

A small, infinitesimal shudder runs down his spine.

John adds a little milk to the tea, stirs, and hands the mug over.

Sherlock blinks and takes it, feeling the heat of the liquid seep into the ceramic, and wraps his fingers around the mug before blowing on it and taking a sip. John is watching, because he hasn't moved yet, and Sherlock enjoys letting the flavour explode on his taste buds, letting the heat fill his stomach and warm the insides of his body.

He looks up to find John still watching him, who, when their eyes meet, looks away and focuses on his own half-finished mug.

"Thank you," Sherlock says.

--

Second date, and John comes home rubbing his shoulder and dragging his feet on the stairs.

"She was not what you expected, then," Sherlock says when he enters the room.

John stops in the doorway and replies, "You know, I figured that out for myself, thanks. No need to tell me again."

His anger makes Sherlock bristle. The truth is so obvious. Why can't it be said? John moves into the room and sits down in his armchair again, this time with the coat still on. It's damp and the cold will seep into his clothes, and a man working as a doctor is likely to be exposed to more viruses than average, and cold increases a person's chances of contracting flu by twenty-five percent, or alternately, the cold will stiffen up his muscles and affect the damaged nerves in John's shoulder and he'll regret it in the morning.

"Take your coat off," Sherlock says.

And John stares at him. Frown on his forehead, lips pressed together, fingers digging into the armrests of the chair.

"I'm going to go to bed, I think," he says darkly.

--

Crime scene together, because John has a quiet month in terms of work and Sherlock prefers the company because it really is easier with an audience. Talking out loud helps him hang on to his thought processes and not go off on tangents too much, and John is better than most at keeping him on topic.

Lestrade and John are talking about last night's football match while Sherlock goes around the room cataloguing its contents. Dead body, nearly precisely in the centre, can't have got that way by accident, so it was intentional; intent means that someone placed it there, someone taking that much care to place a body intends to do that for either the victim or the audience. Murder was savage, so the victim is unlikely, therefore the placement is for the audience which means that they are the audience, because the person who found the body was random, so the two drops of blood in the corner by the window were unintentional, they mess up the picture, therefore--

"He escaped through the window," he tells Lestrade, interrupting John mid sentence. "He didn't know the victim well but he knew her habits, so most likely he's been stalking her. He's white, average build, English, and intelligent."

Lestrade narrows his eyes and asks how he knows this. Really, why does he insist on seeing the proof when it's so obvious? Sherlock takes him through it.

John is smiling by the end as Sherlock glances his way, and that's is his applause for a moment, the things John no longer needs to say out loud because Sherlock can hear them unspoken. He smiles back briefly, just a flash, before telling Lestrade where to look further.

In the cab ride home, John says, "You most likely prevented another murder, you know. That was the work of a serial killer."

"Yes," Sherlock replies, and stares out the window at London passing by.

"Don't you care about that?" John asks.

Sherlock ignores the stab in his chest at the words. "Really, John," he admonishes.

John turns in his seat to face him more fully. "Look, it doesn't bother me that you don't care, I just--"

"Nonsense," Sherlock interrupts, "of course it bothers you; you never stop asking about it. You want me to care and to expend useless energy on empathy and how tragic the world is. Serial killers are mostly made by their childhood, John, they are simply a product of their upbringing the way that you or I are. They make unfortunate victims, yes--"

"Innocent victims," John cuts in, and his eyes are bright and he looks somewhat shocked.

Sherlock makes a dismissive gesture. "Innocence is a relative term, and not a very meaningful one. Innocence is something you purportedly lose as you grow up but it is more ascribed to gaining sexual or carnal knowledge or experiences of violence, which would mean that the death of a soldier such as yourself would be less of a loss to the world than the death of that young woman back there simply because she worked in a bank and you were in the Army. It doesn't work as a grading device; it's imprecise and a moral judgment and as such useless as a real tool. It's a thing people say because they cannot think."

He takes a quick breath because he needs air to talk, and adds, "Crimes are puzzles and I'm good at solving puzzles. And people should not be killed." For a moment, he hears the phantom echo of metal on tiles.

"Sherlock..." John says, and then his voice simply tapers off.

Sherlock stares out the window and watches London slide by again. It's not the unforgiving city of poetry; it's just a place with people and cars and buildings, and sometimes those people interact and meet and fall in love and kill each other. It's a fact of life and he cannot ascribe it anything because he doesn't know most of them, and they cannot matter more in the abstract than one individual can, does, matter in the concrete.

--

"John."

He's standing in the doorway, thin t-shirt and pyjama bottoms. At three in the morning, he apparently cares less about his modesty than in daylight. Sherlock catalogues; swollen eyes, tension in his features, imbalance in his step.

"I..." John says, and trails off. He clears his throat. "Couldn't sleep."

"You're welcome to sit and listen," Sherlock invites, gesturing to the sitting room at large and settling his violin under his chin again.

John nods and limps into the room, sitting down on the sofa.

Sherlock looks from his thin t-shirt to the glistening streets outside, and puts his violin down to retrieve the bedspread that he keeps over the back of the sofa for the days or nights he never makes it to bed. With a flick of his wrist he folds the fabric over John's form.

John blinks up at him, wary.

"You mustn't get cold," Sherlock says, and his voice feels as if it belongs to someone else.

"Thanks," John replies.

Sherlock withdraws to the window sill again, picks up the violin, and plays, letting long, sloping notes lead him to sweeter, more eloquent places, until John's eyes close and he rests.

--

John goes north to see Harry and the flat is quiet, empty, dead with its silence.

Sherlock plays the violin to shut up the angry walls, but it doesn't work because his mind filters out the music and just listens to the accusing silence again. Mrs Hudson comes up to complain about the screeching sounds he coaxes from the instrument instead, and he shouts at her until his throat is sore and she slams doors throughout the house.

He leaves and takes to walking the streets, walking all the parts of London he knows, and he knows far too many of them because they are all familiar and he knows this and he can predict the sloping of the streets and the road works and where the street numbers don't add up and confuse non-locals. He gets to parts he doesn't know and it's darkening and a part of him is complaining because he's hungry and that's boring, boring because it's predictable and stupid and it's hard to keep going if you rest, so he doesn't stop because that's the answer; fill his mind with sound, with chatter, with noise; the man with the mobile phone who'll get a divorce inside a month because he keeps switching between two calls and saying the same thing, the parents who have lost a child because they won't hold hands and can't stop telling the child they have with them to stay close; chatter, chatter, his mind nattering away at itself because there is nothing for it to chew on, to puzzle over, to actually occupy it and he cannot be idle.

He takes a taxi home at three in the morning and fails his promises to himself; gets high on the cocaine that is so easy to come by, and at least for a while, it's quiet because nothing seems to let him down and everything is important.

The next morning, he feels sick and crawls into bed to sleep for a solid day and night.

--

John stands in the doorway, three days later, surveying the sitting room and, Sherlock doesn't need to look up to know, finding it lacking.

"How was your visit?" Sherlock asks.

"Harry was all right," John says, and sits in the arm chair. "She's got a nice place up there."

She didn't drink whilst her brother was around, then, or John wouldn't be so full of praise. "Good," Sherlock answers.

"What've you been up to?" John asks, curiously, maybe angling for a case.

"Nothing much," Sherlock replies, and refuses to remember.

"Mrs Hudson seemed pleased I'd come back. Something about you coming and going at all hours and making horrid noises on that violin?"

Sherlock looks at him, but John looks back with a perfectly blank expression that conveys no judgment and must make his patients confide in him all the time. Before he thinks, the confession rolls off his tongue. "It was too quiet."

John smiles wryly. "I see," he says. "Your skull wasn't enough company, then?"

Suddenly, that makes Sherlock laugh; the skull on the mantelpiece is grinning in camaraderie. "No, it wasn't. Doesn't talk back, and doesn't bring me tea."

John huffs and frowns, before reluctantly pulling himself up out of the chair. "Tea, Sherlock?"

"Please, John," Sherlock replies with a smile.

--

He's dreaming and it's taking him places, places that are imprecise and impossible and then suddenly he's in the pool and he knows it's wrong, but his mind won't release him from its own horrors, keeping him trapped and trapped until he thinks they will forever be haunted.

When he wakes his brain is sore and slow, sluggish like treacle and he hates that, hates those days, hates the way it slows down for its necessary imbalances and really, why does it have to do that?

He drags himself into the kitchen and John is sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in his usual fashion, button down shirt with a cardigan, he's wearing a tie, work today, then, nursing a cup of tea and some toast. Nursing, odd verb, wonder why it came about that it was used in that fashion; useless knowledge, mustn't let it distract him, John's frowning at him now; he's done something odd.

"Morning," John says, and there's something curious and careful in his voice.

Sherlock grunts in reply and reaches for the teapot, then remembers the cupboard where John keeps the mugs and reaches for the top shelf.

"Sleep all right?" John asks, and it's so mundane, so boring, only it isn't and he's turning around and staring at John because that makes no sense.

He blinks a few times and finally says, "No, not really, no."

"Oh," says John, and glances down at his tea.

Sherlock finishes pouring his own mug and sits down across from John and replies, "You should go to work before you're late," before leaning his head in his hands.

It's all too dull, this conversation, it should be dull, John should be dull but he isn't and his brain keeps cataloguing and wondering about John and it won't stop, especially not this morning with the pool fresh in his mind and the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch and make sure it's all real, this domesticity, and that's wrong, so wrong; it's all wrong.

He scrubs his hands through his hair and John says, "Are you all right, Sherlock?"

He looks up and sees the lines around John's eyes and the calmness in his gaze and thinks, this is why he's a doctor, and then thinks, and I'm not, and flashes a smile and dredges up the energy to be reassuring. "I'm fine, John, thank you."

And John opens his mouth and Sherlock looks at him, and John closes it again and gets up, collecting his plate and mug and rinsing them, dutiful, boring, putting them in the sink.

"Get some rest, Sherlock," John says, and his voice is low and curls around the kitchen into Sherlock's direction, and it shouldn't do that and it shouldn't matter that he cares.

--

Suspects can take exception to him, and this one does, and his mind is still sluggish and too slow, stupid, and he's on the floor before Lestrade can get to him.

Sherlock dusts himself off and brushes off Lestrade's concern, wiping at the injuries with a paper tissue Donovan hands him. "Really, Inspector, I'm perfectly fine."

"Yeah, well," Lestrade replies, squinting at him, "don't want to suddenly get the good doctor to come complaining to me."

"It's nothing," Sherlock says irritably, ignoring the red stains on his hands and on the white paper, turning away from Lestrade's probing gaze. "Go and deal with your suspect."

"Yes," Lestrade says, and he seems relieved to be able to turn away, and Sherlock makes his way home alone to face John, who looks up when he enters and says, "What on earth happened to you?"

"It's nothing, John," he says as he's moving to the bathroom to inspect the damage.

John is suddenly behind him, reaching out and taking hold of Sherlock's shoulder, turning him around to face John. Sherlock is shuddering at the warmth of John's hand and he shouldn't be and this is wrong, all wrong, so wrong, and he sees John's eyes, crinkling and that frown-- he knows what this means, and it's hard to breathe.

"I'm fine, John, really," he forces out; a parody of normalcy.

John shakes his head and bites his lip, fingers coming up to probe at a scratch on Sherlock's forehead, and Sherlock jerks back in surprise.

John pulls his hand back, dumbstruck for a moment, and then says, "Sherlock..."

No, no, no, no, no, all wrong, all distracting, too much, too close, too simple, too much. He's reeling with it, John so near and looking like that and he, they, could go places with this, when John touches him, it's--

He squeezes his eyes shut and remembers John dates women and doesn't make passes at him, and opens his eyes to find John still there.

"Sit down and let me look at that, Sherlock," he says, and he's reaching for the first aid kit he keeps under the sink like the good doctor that he is, and Sherlock obediently sits on the edge of the bathtub and lets John shine a light into his eyes.

"What happened?"

"Suspect kicked off," Sherlock begins, and then has to clear his throat. "He--"

John turns off the light and puts his fingers on either side of Sherlock's face, probing the bones of the face. Sherlock tries to list them all, frontal, nasal, maxilla, mandible, keep his focus, but instead there's soft, warm, insistent pressure and John, right there, and he feels the shivers start and wills them to stop.

"Yes?" John says, frown on his face again.

"He didn't take a shine to me," Sherlock replies, and can't stop the tiny shudders, can't command, can't force his body into stillness. "Really, John, it shouldn't be a surprise to you."

John's hand is moving down and tipping his chin up, turning his face from one side to the other, and Sherlock has to stop breathing now, can only focus on warm fingers and concerned eyes and this shouldn't matter, it shouldn't be possible, he'd given up on this, mundane, domestic, stupid, stupid, dull, and he's shaking his head and pulling away.

"I'm fine, John." He stands abruptly, and John looks up at him.

"That gash needs cleaning and a plaster, or it's going to get infected, Sherlock. Even you aren't impervious."

"Yes, all right," he snaps impatiently, feeling wrung out and exhausted. John is frowning again and Sherlock's fingers are itching to smooth over those lines.

"Sit down," John says, voice quiet.

Sherlock looks at him, feels the world ripping him in two, and slowly, slowly, sits down and closes his eyes, willing everything away and only ending up feeling John's fingers, on his skin, the touch he wants and everything he can't have.

--

He jumps off the bridge and into the Thames because that's where the suspect is going and that's where he should follow, and when the police haul him out he's clinging to the evidence for dear life and the suspect's sure to be convicted, if he survives his swim.

"You can't just do that!" John yells when he's huddled under a blanket and sipping a thermos of hot tea.

"John," he tries, "it was not an unreasonable risk; the temperature of the Thames at this time of year really is quite moderate, I--"

"You could have drowned!" John near-shouts, pacing the small cabin, three steps the one way, three steps the other, leg perfectly steady in spite of the rocking of the boat. "It's a tidal river, Sherlock, the currents, the boats on it, you could catch any number of things from the water, you can't account for all--"

Sherlock opens his mouth to protest.

"--Don't give me that bullshit about knowing everything; you don't."

Sherlock bristles. "John, really, there's no need to be so upset. Even if I were to take ill, I'm likely to survive and if not, so be it."

"So be it?" John echoes, and stops to stare at Sherlock. "Is it all that easy for you? You just risk your life because you can, because you're bored, and you have no regard, do you, no care for anyone left behind. Sherlock Holmes, just running around London for his own amusement and damned whatever you leave in your wake."

Sherlock sits up, blanket slipping off his shoulders. "Oh, please, don't pretend that my funeral will be the social occasion of the year. Lestrade might miss me for a bit, but then he would actually be required to think for himself for once, and I can see how that would be a trial. As for you, and Mycroft, and maybe Mrs Hudson, you'd move on. You'd move on, and I'd be--" --just that freak you once knew, and he has to stop talking before he says that, before he throws that at the world's feet, the world that doesn't owe him anything, nor does he it.

John stands there, apparently stunned speechless, and when he speaks, after a long while, his voice is dark and heavy. "Do what you will, Sherlock. I'll see you at home."

--

He's playing the violin, and he doesn't know what hour it is in the morning. Soft, slow notes, speaking louder than the words that make sense in his head, but never out of it, never to anyone else.

He hears the slow, halting footsteps on the top landing, then on the steps, and eventually, he hears as John pauses in the doorway.

"John," Sherlock says, and doesn't want to look at him. He coughs, and his curiosity gets the better of him and he turns his head. "Did I wake you?"

John stands, leaning against the doorway, looking haggard and tired and like he should be back in bed, and Sherlock alternately wants to tell him that and just take him there. John sighs. "No."

It's awkward, standing by the window, the violin still in his hand, and he hates it, hates this necessity to explain what he can't. "John, I--"

No words will come.

John limps into the room but doesn't sit down. "It's okay, Sherlock."

The resigned tone makes him understand more than any words might have. "No," he objects. "I hurt you; it's not okay."

John shakes his head. "Sherlock, I understand, you don't need to explain, really."

He puts the violin down with careful hands and paces to the other window. "I do need to explain, you don't understand. I--"

They're at an impasse, because he can't find the words that John will hear, and he can't say the ones John doesn't want to know about.

He sighs and sits on the sofa. Too much, he supposes, to hope that maybe this time, he could try something with humanity and not come out on the other side contused.

John stands and looks at him, and then says, "I don't know what's been going on with you these last few days, but..." His voice trails off, and then he clears his throat and adds, "It matters to me if you're alive or dead. I can't speak for anyone else, but please don't think..."

Sherlock looks up and sees John, worn and exhausted, and he feels the tide sweep him away. "John, I can't-- Do you see that that can't make a difference?"

John smiles wryly, but it comes out like a mockery. "No, Sherlock, I don't. And I don't want to, either."

He gets up to pace the room again at that, because it stings and he knows he wants what he can't have, not just John, or John's affection, but John's understanding.

"You have a death wish because life bores you. Excuse me if I don't want to stand around to watch you die." John's voice is harsh, and his eyes are bright and painful to look at.

Bright like when the pool reflected in them, and painful then, too. Sherlock sighs.

"Why," says John slowly, anger still curling between the words, "are you so easy with your life?"

"Why do you consider it so precious?" Sherlock replies. "Because you don't like it."

They stare at each other, an impasse again, but one with so many layers now. John shakes his head, laughing, but bitter, wry, and it hurts and is satisfying all at once.

"You think you know me, Sherlock, and maybe you do. But some things can't be deduced."

"Like your happiness?" he asks bitterly.

"Like what I want to make me happy," John says, and looks away, down, as if he's said too much.

"I can't change who I am, what I am, what the world makes me into." It's too miserable an offering, but it's all he's ever understood to have.

"And you're married to your work and that'll never change." Now they're both bitter, and Sherlock sees the end unfold, un-spiral, John walking out the door and all of this ending, and he's too proud to beg and not religious enough to pray, but he wants to.

"John, I--" He breathes in, slowly. "What I can offer you won't accept, and that's just our curse, I think."

"Sherlock--"

He cuts John off before his heart can be snapped in two. "I don't usually allow myself to be distracted by emotion. It shouldn't be a problem; you took me by surprise. I shall do my best in future, if you will stay, to not get in your way."

John frowns, pausing, and then he takes a step forward, and Sherlock only just manages to catch him when his leg gives way. Leaning on Sherlock, John stares, eyes wide, and then forces out, "I took you by surprise? What... Sherlock, what are we talking about?"

His heart is racing in his chest. "John, I--"

Words are too imprecise, too flawed, they are never understood the way they're meant, and he bypasses them to take one last luxury for himself, to seal what is inevitable, with a dark irony that's tearing him apart. His hand on John's chin, and he leans in to kiss him, letting his mind fly, freeing all the restrictions.

John is warm and soft under his touch, lips faintly chapped, his body tense in surprise and Sherlock absorbs the memory like a sponge, kissing John gently and carefully, and John responds, tension ratcheting up and then John's hand is squeezing his arm and John's kissing him back and there's nothing but the two of them and the faint sounds of London, of a car driving by, of the creaks of Baker Street at night, of John against him and around him and Sherlock's senses are expanding till he thinks he can encompass the whole city, and they break apart.

"How long?" says John, faintly breathless.

Sherlock clears his throat, reigns his mind back in, tries to deduce what this means, John, his lips tinged red, face a tad flushed, eyes bright, still. He focuses back on John's question. "I don't know," he replies honestly.

"I took you by surprise," John states.

"Yes," Sherlock replies.

John smiles, then starts laughing.

Sherlock frowns at him. "John."

"Don't--" John visibly calms himself. "You didn't think to say anything?"

"Experience has taught me that that's not always well received."

The smile slides off John's face and he's frowning, and then his hand is on Sherlock's shoulder, and the fingers are squeezing. "I don't know what this is," John says, voice low, "but I want it. And only with you."

"John..." Sherlock feels his voice break. He can only find one last word. "Please."

"It's all right, Sherlock."

He looks at John's eyes, soft, gentle, the smile playing around his lips, the open expression, and he feels John's hand slide into his. He catches it, holds on, like to a promise, and nods. "All right."

"Sherlock..." John squeezes his fingers. "You and me, I don't know. But I want to try."

"Yes," Sherlock says, because that makes sense.

"And I want to understand you."

Sherlock nods. It's logical, it makes sense, as far as emotions can make sense. "Yes," he says,again. And then, at last, because he wants, needs that last surety for himself. "John. Will you stay?"

"Yes," says John. "I'll stay."

--

finis.