Chapter Text
The all-night cafe is lit by ancient neon lights that wash the colour out of everything. Not that the decor could be helped by better lighting. Beige walls, small, cracked, ugly formica tables, plastic chairs. It’s a depressing place, neon sign in the window flickering on and off.
The waitress fits the place perfectly, colourless, faded, tired, sad. John orders chips and a pot of tea. Sherlock just waves her off. John tells her to bring a second cup anyway.
The place smells of ancient cigarette smoke and grease, but Sherlock can still smell the chlorine, underneath it all. It’s sharp and clean and surely by this point utterly imaginary.
He can still taste the bitter adrenaline in his mouth. It’s been two hours, and there’s still a slight tremor running along his skin, down his back, into his hands, conducting into the ground by the jiggling of his leg he can’t seem to stop. His hands are freezing. Maybe the tea is a good idea after all.
John’s fallen silent again. They’ve been walking aimlessly through London’s deserted streets, wind biting at their hands and ears, trying to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Finally, John said, “I’m starving,” and turned into this place.
Sherlock followed.
Now they’re sitting here, silently, until the waitress brings the tea and the chips. Sherlock pours for both of them, adds milk and sugar to his cup, stirs.
He has no idea what to say. John apparently doesn’t, either, and he’s not the type to talk just for the sake of it. It’s one of the things Sherlock appreciates most about him. He despises the meaningless chatter people fill the air with to prevent socially awkward situations.
Not that the silence is awkward, precisely. But it does feel heavy. Like words need to be said that Sherlock doesn’t necessarily have. John’s watching him in between shoving chips into his mouth, an adrenaline reaction, no doubt, the body asserting its aliveness by demanding sustenance. He remembers that dinner after John shot the cabbie, how they couldn’t stop grinning at each other, how John shovelled down fried noodles like he’d never see food again, and huffs a little soundless laugh at the memory.
“What’s funny?” John asks, and his voice is loud after such a long silence, but there’s nothing accusing in his tone, or in the look on his face, he just sounds idly curious, and he looks utterly calm.
“I was just thinking that adrenaline makes you hungry,” Sherlock says, grateful for the opportunity to start talking again, about anything other than what’s on his mind, which is, What is this thing in my chest that hurts every time I look at you?
John snorts. “Well, we can’t all live on nicotine patches and air. And don’t pretend that you’re not going to start stealing my chips any second now.”
Sherlock smiles, and wonders again that John Watson is sitting here, eating chips, like this is any other night, like nothing whatsoever happened, like they didn’t just live through what felt like a seismic event on par with a solid six on the Richter scale.
John looks at him thoughtfully, and Sherlock’s smile fades. He puts a chip in his mouth and chews slowly, all the while watching Sherlock with that appraising look.
Finally, he swallows and washes the cip down with the truly awful hot, caffeinated beverage they have the nerve to call tea. He sets the cup down and says, quietly, “Can I ask you something?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes reflexively, hoping it hides the tremor that goes through him at the tone of John’s voice, low and serious. He isn’t nervous, why should he be? They survived; surely whatever follows now can’t be worse than what they just went through, but somehow getting almost blown up and shot isn’t nearly as frightening as knowing this night might have ruined whatever it is that’s between them. It didn’t feel like it at the pool; if anything he felt more in tune with John, closer to him than ever before, but that was then and this is now.
“You realise that asking me whether you can ask me something is somewhat redundant, right?” He tries for condescending. He’s not sure he succeeds.
John smirks at him humorlessly, and says, still in the same quiet tone, “Not two hours ago you peeled about a kilo of Semtex off me, so you’ll forgive me for not wanting to play semantics games right now.”
Abashed, Sherlock gives a short nod. “Ask then.”
John rubs a hand over his face, and suddenly he looks so very tired, like it’s two in the morning after days of little sleep, which of course it is. “What…” he stops himself, and tries again, “What did you think was going to happen tonight, when you went to meet him?”
Sherlock sighs. Trust John to cut through the bullshit and ask the one question Sherlock can’t actually answer. He takes a sip of his revolting tea and thinks of how to put this in words. The truth is that he had no idea what was going to happen, and that the not knowing was so very thrilling, so very much the opposite of being bored, that he let himself get carried away with the rush. But he can’t say that to John. So he tries to find other words that are equally true. “I wanted to see who he was, draw him out of the shadows, and then find a way to beat him.”
“Like the cabbie?” John asks, and Sherlock nods, reluctantly conceding John’s point, because that wasn't the best decision he ever made either.
“So we're back to you risking your life to prove you're cleverer than the most recent psychopath?” John asks sharply.
“What do you want me to say, John?” Sherlock bites back. “It's not like you didn't know what I’m like. You knew from that first night.”
John sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “I’d just hoped you'd learned to trust me enough to take me with you.”
Sherlock looks down at his tea, avoiding looking at John so he doesn't have to see the hurt on his face that’s so clearly in his voice. “I do trust you, “ he says quietly. “More than anyone. I trust you to keep me from making bad decisions. I knew you would have talked me out of it, and I needed to know, I needed to see.” He pauses, then adds, “At least I took a gun this time.”
John smiles a little, then cocks his head and looks at him searchingly, apparently trying to figure out if Sherlock is telling the truth. He takes a deep breath and says, slowly, obviously picking his words very carefully, “The last few days, I sometimes had the feeling that you were… enjoying yourself, for lack of a better word.”
Sherlock nods. That’s fair enough. “I spend so much of my life bored out of my skull, my mind racing and turning on itself if it isn’t constantly engaged. Moriarty wasn’t boring. Not once.”
“Did you enjoy yourself tonight?” John asks, gently, but firmly.
Sherlock shudders imperceptibly. How can John even ask that, when Moriarty all but unzipped Sherlock’s chest and said Look at Sherlock Holmes’ beating heart, look how it quivers. Look how human he is after all.
“No,” Sherlock says, quietly but with conviction. “Not even a little bit.”
John nods, apparently satisfied. “Good.”
But Sherlock shakes his head, because there’s something else he needs to say. “I didn’t think he’d escalate like this. I underestimated him. I didn’t realise just how unhinged he really is. That’s a mistake I certainly won’t make again.”
John holds his gaze for a long time, then he smiles ever so slightly. “Good.”
Silence descends again, and they just look at each other. John’s eyes are very dark and very blue and very calm. Sherlock swallows. He feels a curious warmth travel through his body. His breathing has quickened a little. John’s eyes are heavy and he’s smiling a little. The very air between them seems charged, dense. John licks the salt off his lips.
Sherlock’s stomach rumbles and just like that, the tension dissipates. John smiles at him fondly and slides the plate over. “Want to share?”
The treacherous organ in Sherlock’s chest does a complicated thing, speeds up and twists and makes its presence felt. Sherlock takes a chip and eats it mechanically. “The chips are revolting,” Sherlock says, voice not entirely steady.
John smiles. “The tea’s nothing to write home about either.”
Sherlock grins, and suddenly they’re laughing and can’t stop.
And all the while, Sherlock thinks, Next time there'll be two of us, Jim, and we'll beat you, and then I'll make a bad joke, and John will laugh anyway, because I was the one making it, and I won't be alone again, but you will always be alone. So you want to burn the heart out of me, you're welcome to try. At least it will finally prove that I have one.