Chapter Text
Things were going fantastically.
Sherlock didn’t think he’d ever been happier in fact. University had given him a freedom he hadn’t experienced before, given him the space to do what he wanted so long as he completed the necessary deadline pieces, which surprisingly, were sometimes interesting. Another plus was that he could keep an indistinct schedule, sometimes appearing in lectures, sometimes electing not to go, making it easier to evade Mycroft’s constant interference. This, along with his ever increasing knowledge of London’s backstreets and alleyways, provided a working map of both respectable and not so respectable areas that he could access for his own purposes such as his increasing desire to actually be allowed onto a human crime scene.
This however, was a progression on his old way of life. Something new though, was the acquisition of a friend. Mycroft had always encouraged interactions with others he deemed ‘suitable’ for Sherlock to be friends with; usually the children of government officials or bank managers, people who would have influence in due course. The entire idea appeared to be centred on making business contacts rather than true friends.
Victor Trevor would definitely be deemed not ‘suitable’. Sherlock, of course, liked him almost immediately. They had met relatively normally, in a Chemistry lecture. Sherlock had purposefully settled himself away from other people, in the top right of the lecture hall, closest to one of the doors (in order to study them better, he justified to himself, not because he was nervous, no, what was there to be nervous about). One thing he hadn’t factored in was latecomers. It was 10 minutes into the lecture when Sherlock noticed a slight breeze tickling his ear. Curious, he risked a peripheral glance and saw that the door behind him was being gently pushed open. The lecturer, thankfully, seemed blissfully unaware and kept wittering on but Sherlock turned himself slightly so that he had a good view of the door, without drawing too much attention to it. The door hovered between open and closed for a few seconds. A head popped round. Sherlock took a quick assessment. Male. Same age as self. Brunette hair, worn styled with a fringe that is popular in style but with grey hat. Another style element or hasn’t had time to wash hair? Not enough data. Light brown skin, pale green eyes. Tattoos visible under long sleeved top of left arm. Rebellious. Doesn’t seem nervous. Must be a habit. Typical student. Moving this way. Oh bugger. The unnamed boy slid into room while the lecturer fiddled with his laptop, crouched down, half-ran to the unoccupied chair next to Sherlock and sat down and grabbed a pen out of his pocket, creating a look of casual innocence. When the lecturer looked up, he did a double take, scowled at the boy as if unsure whether he’d been there all the time (to which the boy smiled, fingers poised to write as if waiting for more information) and nervously carried on while questioning his own sanity. The boy noticed Sherlock’s respectful gaze and grinned, before retrieving a battered looking notebook, scribbled something and turned it to Sherlock.
Victor Trevor, it said, in an untidy scrawl.
Sherlock Holmes, he wrote back, his writing much the same.
Since that first lecturer the boys had sat next to each other in most of the lectures and practicals, exchanging notes if they couldn’t talk. Victor lived with his family in an area of London that wasn’t too bad but not terribly great either. Both his parents were veterinarians and he had an older sister who was a waitress and a younger sister still in high school. Much more importantly to Sherlock however, was the fact that Victor enjoyed mysteries and not the stupid ones that were on TV all the time, but actual mysteries that happened to actual people. None of the people Mycroft had picked would talk to him about mysteries. Victor therefore reinforced Sherlock’s view that the other people were idiots and so was Mycroft.
However, their first meeting outside of class was less ordinary than their original one.
Sherlock had been running away from a very upset, burly man who had not been terribly happy about Sherlock deducing him in front of all his friends (it was only fair, Sherlock would later reason, he was rude to me) and, while diving through the alleyways, he accidentally hurtled straight into someone else. It was Victor.
“Sherlock?” Victor said, just as Sherlock said in the same confused tone, “Victor?”
“What are you doing here?” Sherlock insisted. Victor made to reply but was interrupted by Sherlock’s pursuer appearing at the end of the alleyway.
“Oy! Come here you-”
“Larry?” Victor looked behind Sherlock’s shoulder and sighed, “Oh for God’s sake, just go home.”
The man spluttered, “But, he”, he stabbed a finger in Sherlock’s direction, “and in front of”, he pointed in the direction they’d just run from.
“Now you’re just embarrassing yourself. Sherlock’s a friend,” Victor dismissed with a little wave. “You can’t tell me what to do,” Larry said stubbornly.
“Yes I can and you know I can so it’d be better for all of us if you just went back to the pub and forget this ever happened,” Victor dismissed and, to Sherlock’s surprise, the man huffed and walked back the way he’d came, taking time to glare at Sherlock before doing so.
“Sorry about that,” Victor smiled, turning back to Sherlock, “Not my favourite relative but you can’t have everything can you?”
“You were related to him?” Sherlock’s eyes widened in shock as he tried to find some similarity between the two men.
“Sort of. He’s married to my cousin who lives near to us so I see him all the time. He’s not too bad once you know him well enough but up until that point he’s kind of a dick.”
“Yes, I noticed that,” Sherlock said and Victor grinned. “So you know what I was doing here but what about you?”
Victor’s grin only grew wider. “Oh, you know, just adventuring. Care to join?”
Sherlock was about to agree but, upon checking the time, realised he was supposed to be in a meeting with a professor who wasn’t deathly dull. “Would love to but I have somewhere else I need to be. Maybe next time?”
“Sounds great. Oh and if you’re looking for something other to do than being chased down alleyways, there’s a party on Saturday, supposedly everyone’s going,” Victor said, air-quoting the everyone, “You should come along, might be fun.”
Sherlock frowned. Party’s weren’t exactly his thing, too loud, too many people, too much input, but this was Victor and Victor had said he was a friend and friends go to parties their friends invite them too, right?
“Um, sure, I’ll see if I can go,” he tried to smile in a way that conveyed something close to interest. Thank god he’d had a lot of practice at it.
Thus it had started, not only a friendship but also the parties and social events that went with being someone’s friend. That was how he was identified anyway, a conversation always starting with “Oh, you’re Sherlock right? Victor’s friend?”
Most surprisingly, Sherlock found he sometimes enjoyed himself. The music was abhorrent, of course, and the amount of people sometimes overwhelming but under a mix of adrenaline and alcohol (perhaps sometimes too much alcohol), Sherlock found it easier to ignore his brain’s deconstruction of everyone’s personal lives and simply relax. He hadn’t brought John to an event yet, unclear about the social acceptability of plus-ones inviting other plus-ones but he would, at some point, once he found out. Also once he found out how to navigate these social situations without offending someone (which he still somehow managed to achieve). He didn’t want John thinking he was an idiot.
John was, of course, the most fantastic thing about his new life. His John. His perfect, intriguing John, who thought he was brilliant and didn’t think he observation skills were weird or annoying or any of the countless adjectives used to describe it. His brave John who had decided that, after everything that happened last year, he would become a human doctor, using his old skills from his Healing days with his new found interest in human biology. Best of all, was the fact that after a year of being either under the same roof as both Sherlock’s relatives, or agonising miles apart due to Sherlock needing to go back to school (something he had fought with everything he had until John pointed out that if he didn’t go he wouldn’t be able to finish his A-Levels meaning they’d have to spend even more time with his family), now it was just them, together. Sherlock would never admit it, to anyone, ever, but some of his favourite moments were not, as everyone always suspected, filled with imminent danger, but the quiet ones, the ones with John absentmindedly running his fingers through Sherlock’s hair while they watched telly or when he would spy John, accidentally asleep in his chair and Sherlock would look at him and feel his heart squeeze (ludicrous thought) and he would smile, the one smile that he saved for John, the one that was his alone.
Often when he was drowsing between sleep and wake, not yet awake enough to pretend to be above emotions but not dreaming either, Sherlock thought of all the moments since the start of term, thought of the way his life was almost perfect now. Yes, things were pretty fantastic indeed.
***
Things were decidedly not fantastic.
There were good things, things that John tried to recite to himself every time he felt like hitting his head against a wall (which was often) and, of course, things could be worse. For example, at least he was no longer in danger of being abducted by Moriarty and made to do his bidding for the rest of his life. At least things were better than that. However, there were some things that made him feel...unsettled.
Life with Sherlock was amazing at times, the erratic unscheduled chaos being reminiscent of his time on the force and making his body hum with adrenaline. However, sometimes all John wanted was some peace and quiet, something he rarely got with Sherlock around. Now though, Sherlock as going off out every five minutes with his new set of friends and John couldn’t help but loathe the silence around him, too still, too quiet. It reminded him of his time with Sherlock at school and, when it got really bad, life without Sherlock altogether. Also, he couldn’t help feeling possessive. Sherlock was his, everyone else could back off and leave them alone. At times he felt more of a flatmate than a partner. John never mentioned this to Sherlock though. Whenever he tried to, all he could think about was the lonely boy trekking through the woods or the boy that had spent most of his time skipping school to avoid other people and who hadn’t mentioned a single friend in the history of them being together. Then John felt guilty. Who was he to try and demand Sherlock give up something which clearly made him happy, just so they could spend a few more hours together doing much the same as they had before? Although Sherlock would never admit it, John had quickly worked out all Sherlock wanted (and to some extent needed) was a friend, someone on the outside to rely on. John had to admit he still wasn’t exactly human and so having another person, or people, around was a good thing for both of them. Didn’t mean he had to enjoy it though.
The not-quite human aspect was another not good thing. After the ‘Fall’ of Moriarty, as people were calling it, he had wondered if he was a fully fledged human. His wings were gone and for a few days he couldn’t perform any magic whatsoever. However, a small bit had gradually returned, the odd spell here and there, mostly healing ones but he had nowhere near his old powers. This meant learning a lot about the human lifestyle, all about light bulbs and ovens and all the rest of it and all had to be learnt quickly so as not to arouse the suspicion of Sherlock’s mother or, more importantly, his brother. It didn’t help that he’d also decided that he wanted to be a doctor which meant learning everything about human biology he could find (most of it was surprisingly similar minus the wings and magical properties) and Sherlock insisted he learn some Chemistry as well. His brain felt like it was 2 seconds away from exploding from the sheer volume of information stuck in there.
It wasn’t that John couldn’t see some benefits to the human life.
Tv for example. Apparently it had been quite a surprise when both Sherlock and Mycroft had lost track of John, leading to lots of yelling, accusations of kidnapping and a two-person man hunt, only to find him curled up on the sofa, watching an old spy movie.
“Are there actually people like this in real life?” John had questioned as Sherlock joined him after slamming the door in Mycroft’s face. He sat on the floor with his back to the sofa, resting his head on the cushions so he was watching John rather than the film
“It’s possible but most people don’t get to blow up secret underground bases on a regular basis.”
“Only you?” John had teased and Sherlock had smiled at him.
“Well everyone has to have a hobby.”
Now John spent most of his free time flicking through the channels, either finding something he genuinely wanted to watch while Sherlock was out or, if Sherlock was in, something he would like to see torn apart.
He thought of this and other times when he was at his worse, reminded himself of how much he adored Sherlock, how much they'd worked to make this possible, reminded himself that it was all worth it. That didn’t stop the nightmares though, the very real panic as his brain supplied images of what Moriarty would have done to him, his friends, to Sherlock-. It was at this point he normally woke up, the sight of those pale eyes staring blankly at him, lifeless still imprinted into his mind until he could find the real Sherlock again, either curled up next to him or out in the living room playing his violin, alive and breathing.
He told himself he was still adjusting and processing, even a year later, and with the upheaval of moving again, he was trying to see where he fit into this new world. The worry was what if he didn’t fit at all?