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He had never said.
He’d had eighteen months - it seemed like a goddamned eternity at the time - and he never uttered a word.
He had always assumed that Sherlock just knew . Sherlock Holmes was never one to leave well enough alone. He could no more leave a mystery unraveled, an argument unfinished, or a deduction unseen than he could sprout wings and fly to the moon. He’d outlive God to have the last word, John had said about him once. And yet, The World’s Most Observant Man never addressed what even Anderson and Donovan could see.
John Watson was in love with his best friend.
Not that John knew or understood it at the time. Maybe that was why Sherlock never brought it up. Or maybe he did, and John just missed it.
It wouldn’t have been the only thing he had missed.
John has spent hours at Sherlock’s grave; the polished marker was possibly the best therapist he’d ever had. At least, the only one he’d actually spoken to. In his head, he could hear Sherlock’s replies, scoffing at useless sentiment, goading John into accepting those parts of himself that he had been blind to.
He felt a small hand slide neatly into his own. Mary. She never asked what conversations John had with Sherlock in his head, but she always smiled like she understood, and loved John for it anyway. She was clever, and had the sort of gallows humor that Sherlock would have appreciated. John liked to think that Mary wouldn’t allow herself to be chased away like his previous girlfriends had. She would have understood that John was a package deal - it would either be both he and Sherlock, or none. That’s why he loved her, after all.
As always, he came to the gravestone to mourn the loss of his best friend, and what could have been had John only realized it sooner.
Silently, he promised Sherlock that he wouldn’t be so blind again, and asked that, if Sherlock couldn’t come back, to at least help John to find the courage to step out of the shadow of missed chances. Today, he was going to tell Mary that he loved her. Ask her to marry him.
The black marble stood steadfast, a mirror of John’s resolve.
The impossible man in a black tuxedo saw that resolve crumble in an instant.
John’s brain stuttered to a halt as words poured from lips that shouldn’t be moving. He couldn’t bring himself to care whatever the words were, they mattered about as much as the solar system right now. The world narrowed to the sound of rushing in John’s ears as he stared into the cerulean eyes of a dead man.
John glanced over to his nearly-fiancée, silently begging for confirmation that he wasn’t suffering from some nerves-induced hallucination. But her eyes were round and shocked, flitting between casting worried glances at John and protective indignation at the apparition standing awkwardly at their table.
He heard some vague semblance of words, but they were croaky and jumbled and couldn’t possibly have come from his own mouth, could they? Somehow, his body decided to act since his brain and voice couldn’t, and he launched himself from his chair at the impossibility in front of him. Lurching to his feet promptly sent him off-balance, and he crashed into Sherlock’s body - a firm body, not some incorporeal thing - toppling both men to the floor in a jumble of grunts and limbs.
John’s hands immediately went to Sherlock’s throat. He saw the younger man flinch, bracing for an attack, but instead of settling into the chokehold he half-imagined, his fingers prodded along Sherlock’s neck, desperately searching for a pulse.
Against all odds, there it was, a heartbeat. Fast, but steady. Gloriously alive.
A high-pitched, breathy giggle surged past the lump in his throat, its unexpected sound bringing a small hopeful smile to those beautiful lips that he never in a million years thought he would see again, especially tonight of all nights.
The night he was supposed to propose to Mary.
John glanced around, slowly coming to awareness as his brain came back online. He was still on the floor, straddling his very male best friend while his fiancée looked on amid the gasps and murmurs of the other restaurant goers.
A voice in his head told him that he should get up and apologize to Mary and everyone for causing a scene and interrupting their dinner, which he promptly told to shut up. Actually, he may have said that part out loud, given the hurt and insulted look that skittered across Mary’s face before she broke his gaze and looked down at her half-empty wine glass. His brain had gone from absolutely frozen to firing a million thoughts at once, and the sudden change left him dizzy with gray spots dimming his vision.
Or maybe that was because he had forgotten how to breathe.
His lips parted as he sucked in huge gasps of air, his lungs working like a bellows as he felt Sherlock’s large hands close around his own, his thumbs gently stroking the backs of John’s hands almost as though it were a caress. John opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) and allowed himself to be pulled into the cerulean gravity wells beneath him. Sherlock’s gaze bore into John’s with a look that spoke multitudes. I’ve missed you. I’m sorry. I love you.
I love you.
In some part of John’s mind, he knew he was angry, and hurt, and the two of them would need to have a Very Serious Conversation about all this, and about Mary ( was she still here?) but he could no sooner stop himself from leaning down toward the man lying beneath him than he could command the Earth to cease going around the sun. Somehow, through some celestial being that found favor in John, or some random chance too impossible to explain, John had been granted his one more chance ( Don’t. Be. Dead.) and nothing short of a supernova would make him miss this.
John’s lips found Sherlock’s own, chapped and warm and unmistakably alive . His heart stuttered for just a moment before immense giddy relief surged from his stomach up into his heart and lungs, pouring out into a sound like a breathy sob as Sherlock kissed him back.
John never noticed Mary’s sad smile as she silently gathered her things and walked away, or the (real) waiter straightening the toppled chair and quietly clearing his throat. He didn’t even notice the slow-gathering polite applause as the restaurant-goers appreciated the unfolding love story in front of them. All that mattered was the gentle press of warm lips against his, every kiss a series of unspoken promises and hope in the miraculous.