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People didn’t quite understand the friendship between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Individually, they were a rugby-playing, jumper-wearing medical student and a campus consulting detective who happened to also be studying chemistry. Their paths should never have crossed. And yet, three lunchtimes a week at least, they could be found in the Quad, the same picnic bench every time, heads bent over sketchbooks. The mystery of their friendship was something passersby liked to debate.
Well, if that med student (who happened to have a penchant for procrastination and doodling) was sat on a bench in first year sketching aimlessly, and the consulting detective (who happened to like to draw complicated, anatomically correct insects and vital organs) happened to walk by and accidently deduce said med student, and if the med student said something along the lines of “That was brilliant” rather than “fuck off”, then a friendship has been known to occur.
For the past two years, they had met every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday was rugby practice and John didn’t mention that he saw Sherlock hiding behind the trees across the field, still sketching away. Because of this, Sherlock didn’t mention that he saw John sitting outside his Friday labs with a sketchbook in his hand or the glances tracking Sherlock’s movements as he moved around the classroom.
The other thing that people liked to debate was what the hell they talked about or even if they talked at all. Some had been known to walk past several times, very casually, trying to eavesdrop, only to find that both were sat in silence, practically ignoring each other.
What they didn’t know was that the ‘fall-silent-upon-someone-loitering’ was planned to piss people off and the two people they were trying to listen to could be right little shits when they wanted to be.
They did talk sometimes, obviously. It would have been weird to sit in silence all the time. Mostly it was about stupid, small things, like class work being awful (John), classmates being stupid (Sherlock), a weird bruise that could either be rugby or alcohol related (“Rugby obviously”, “Obviously?”, “From when that guy slammed into you last Saturday”, “Aww, you came to the match?”, “I can go to places other people are John, it’s not unheard of, and no, I’m not blushing!”) or deductions about people around them (Sherlock, often followed by a giggling John saying “Shhh, they’ll hear you!”). Most of the time, Sherlock and John played an unspoken game of trying to get the other person to lose it laughing, though neither would admit the true reason why. At the sound of Sherlock Holmes giggling, people eavesdropping often ground to a halt and then awkwardly pretend to tie their shoelaces or get out their phone to pretend they were not shaken to their core. Sherlock Holmes did not giggle, but then again, he didn’t have friends either. John Watson seemed to be his only exception.
Two years. But one day, at the beginning of third year, things changed. Not dramatically. Not even enough to be concerned about really. And usually he wouldn’t be concerned. If it was literally anyone else on the earth, it would be doubtful he would notice at all. But this was John so Sherlock was on edge.
An unspoken rule established at the start of the sketch lunches was that John did not hide his drawings, even the roughest of little doodles on the edges of the pages, small flowers and dogs and houses littering the pockets of space on the page. Often he’d hand over the entire book for Sherlock to flick through, usually having to defend his robot army doodles.
(“It’s just not logical John. They don’t make proportional sense.”
“Maybe you just don’t understand my art,” John would sigh dramatically, before shooting over a teasing grin as Sherlock laughed.)
It wasn’t that John would show just anyone. As far as Sherlock was aware, he was one of only few to get to see them but once the book was open, it was fully open.
In return for this show of trust, Sherlock would reluctantly show John his sketches, usually with twelve caveats of “it’s nothing really”. John would of course consistently answer with “they’re beautiful you idiot,” which caused Sherlock to blush for more reasons than he cared to examine.
This Monday however, things had shifted. As he approached, John was already there, scowling over something in the back of his book, every few moments adding another stroke of his pencil before stopping and scowling again. His scowl was adorable, Sherlock thought. Objective fact. He didn’t think about wanting to smooth the frown lines from his forehead, tease him about getting so worked up, kis- nope. Not going there. Having feelings for John was pointless ergo thinking about having feelings for John was pointless. Instead he tried to guess what John was scowling about. He attempted to creep around the back to get a good look but a rouge tree branch cracking underfoot scuppered his plans. Damn wildlife.
John slammed his book shut, looking round in panic. When his eyes locked with Sherlock’s he relaxed marginally and smiled, but the odd panic still pinched at the corner of his eyes. His arm remained over his book. Sherlock walked around the bench and sat in his usual spot, pretending everything was normal. It was still normal. It was fine.
He grabbed his own stuff out of his bag and John relaxed a little more. He hadn’t gone to the back page he had been working on before being startled and for once, just this once, Sherlock wished he didn’t notice small details.
“What were you glaring at?” he asked casually.
“When?” John asked, playing dumb and looking absorbed in his own work.
“Before I got here. I’m surprised the paper didn’t catch fire.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Rugby stuff. Boring.” It was a lie but Sherlock didn’t know how to mention it so he didn’t.
John never hid his drawings. Until one day, he did.
Sherlock did not care for it at all.
Curiosity was one of Sherlock’s dominant personality traits. Everyone in the greater London area knew this. He tried convincing himself John really was scowling about rugby practice. He really did. But he knew it wasn’t true so he couldn’t. He tried working out the scowl from context but there were so few details apart from John a) was truly concentrating meaning it had special meaning for him and b) he definitely did not want Sherlock to see. Useless theorising without all the facts.
He even tried to forget about it but his transport was not co-operating.
Every moment spent in their sketching sessions was spent trying to not think about the back of the sketchbook, thinking about it, getting annoyed at himself for thinking about it, and beginning the cycle all over again. It was so pedestrian.
John had grown gradually more concerned with his distracted friend and kept on asking if he was okay but it was becoming less and less easy to not yell “Why are you keeping secrets from me?” That would be ridiculous and Sherlock was anything but ridiculous.
Which is why things happened as they happened.
He didn’t mean to do it.
He really, really didn’t.
It was about three weeks since Book Gate. Things were quiet as the weather got colder and people retreated indoors. Sherlock preferred this weather as he could wear his beloved coat and other students generally left them alone. The only reason to be upset would be that John wore more layers so Sherlock couldn’t pretend to not stare at his arms. John did not like this weather and made sure to let everyone know about it every six minutes on the dot. Sherlock had timed him.
So this was also partially John’s fault. He was the one that insisted on going for tea so “my damn fingers don’t freeze off. Hate the bloody cold.”
“You weren’t a fan of the heat either,” Sherlock muttered.
John glared at him and added, “Fine. No tea for you,” before marching off in the direction of the student’s cafe.
He didn’t notice at first. Might not have noticed at all, if the door hadn’t slammed, startling him and nearly ruining the left wing of his latest bee sketch. After glaring at the culprit, he turned back to the bench and saw it.
John had left the book.
Black moleskin, a birthday present from Sherlock himself.
He shouldn’t.
Sherlock had never been good at shouldn’t. He could look quickly. John would never know. He pulled the book closer. Glanced around. Flicked the book open. Another glance. Then he turned to the back.
And ended up staring at a beautiful pencil drawing of himself. The curls alone must have taken hours. The lopsided smile that was reserved for John. The little crinkles next to his eyes. Sherlock could just imagine that John had said something teasing.
He also looked hopelessly in love. Was he really that obvious? More importantly, did John know?
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Ah. John.
He wasn’t only angry, though it was in his voice. Panic. Overwhelmingly panic, like he was about to bolt at any moment. The hand that wasn’t clutching tea kept on clenching. This would require some quick deescalating.
“I was just-”
“You shouldn’t-It wasn’t-” John sighed. “I didn’t want you to see it just yet. Not until I knew how to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
John wouldn’t look at him.
“That- That I like you,” he muttered “But I know you don’t feel that way, and that’s fine, that’s great, but I just thought you should know, in case you wanted me to leave you alone or- well I don’t know, I just thought you should know.”
“You think I don’t like you?” And yet had drawn him looking starry-eyed?
John’s head snapped up. “You said you don’t feel things like that.”
“I never said that.”
“Yes you did.”
“When?”
“Ages ago, when we first met!”
“Well it doesn’t matter because I do like you so there!” Not his finest romantic moment. John was looking at him, completely blind-sided.
However Sherlock had a solution that might help salvage the moment.
He grabbed his secondary, secret sketchbook from the bottom of his bag. The one he used while John was at rugby practice. He flipped it open and shoved it across the table. John was still looking at him with panic and slight annoyance (but the sadness was gone). He sat down and slowly pulled the book towards him.
When he looked down, he gasped.
Page after page of sketches and drawings of himself looked back at him. One of him hiding a laugh, several of him at rugby, scowling, drawing, arguing, and (Sherlock’s personal favourite) the soft look he reserved for when Sherlock said something accidently sweet without realising. All captured in pencil and even a few in ballpoint pen.
He stood up and Sherlock panicked this was less sweet and more stalkerish and John had decided to leave. One picture was a gesture, a book seemed an obsession. Those thoughts were quickly stopped when John stood up, leaned over and kissed him, kissed him right there, in the middle of the Quad. John’s hand ran up and buried itself in the curls at the back of his head, pulling him closer. The table in between them had never been more annoying.
Sherlock pulled back and huffed in frustration. John laughed and smiled again and god Sherlock loved that smile.
“Come round here,” John said, tugging at Sherlock’s sleeve until he’d manoeuvred round the bench and was stood in front of John. “I want to kiss you properly,” and if there was ever a thing to say to take Sherlock’s brain entirely offline. He had things he wanted to say dammit, but then John’s lips were back on his and his hands were cupping his face and the only thing he could think of was attempting to not to whimper embarrassingly from a simple kiss.
However, when John tilted their heads and slipped his tongue into Sherlock’s mouth, he couldn’t really help it. Before he could catch up and/ or cause a scene in the university quad, John pulled his head back.
“Do you have classes after this?” was not what Sherlock thought he was going to say but there it was.
“No,” John said, raising an eyebrow.
“Excellent. My room’s closest,” he said, scooping up their stuff with one hand and grabbing John’s hand with the other. John simply laughed and allowed himself to be led to what was promising to be a great afternoon.
People didn’t quite understand John Watson and Sherlock Holmes relationship. They couldn’t care less, so long as they had each other, and the light, paper and pens.