Work Text:
And I would say I love you
But saying it out loud is hard
So I won't say it at all
“Futile Devices” by Sufjan Stevens
“Two months,” John says.
Sherlock blinks up at him. Rosie babbles, fighting against Sherlock’s hand that’s securing her from falling. “John,” he says, “I may be a genius, but—”
“I just had a chat with Greg,” John continues. He settles in the chair opposite, stretching out his legs to relieve the tightness of the day. “He wanted to know if you were alive, considering that you’ve been ignoring his calls for the past two months.”
The knee bouncing won’t work forever, now that Rosie knows how to walk. Sherlock tries anyway. “Okay,” he says slowly.
John sighs and leans forward, helping his daughter climb down. “You know,” he says, “years ago if you went even weeks without a case, you’d be shooting holes in the wall.”
Rosie allows herself to be hugged and kissed on the forehead, only for a moment. Before long she is pushing away from John, intent to toddle her way to the bookshelf beside the fireplace. He feels Sherlock’s eyes on the side of his face.
“That was years ago,” Sherlock says carefully. “I don’t want to expose Rosie to firearms. A pistol shot off indoors is over double the decibel maximum recommended for her age.”
“You know, the gun really wasn’t my point.”
Sherlock presses his lips together. “Alright.”
From the bookshelf, Rosie has managed to pull out a bird-watching guide. John doesn’t care much if she rips it. It’s not like any of the books are theirs, anymore, just placeholders to supply an illusion of domesticity. Very few things survived the explosion, and paper wasn’t one of them.
“You should give him a call,” John says finally. “Just… let him know you’re okay, at least. He cares about you.”
Sherlock nods. It disturbs John, that he agrees so willingly, that he watches Rosie without complaint when her daycare has to shut down for the week from a burst pipe, that he moves through his own flat like a ghost afraid to scare the living. John wants teeth, something to snag himself on, he wants—
Well.
John wants many things. He’s not sure words can handle the weight of it all.
It's been a long, long time
Since I've memorized your face
The first night back at 221B, John wanders downstairs at midnight.
He eats toast over the sink and drinks as much water as he can handle. It’s as quiet as London can be, this late, and the buzz of it calms his nerves. He isn’t sure why he’s anxious in the first place. When he’s done eating, he leans against the edge of the counter and sighs.
Upstairs, his daughter sleeps. It’s not something that’s going to work forever, this arrangement, but it’ll have to do for now. The decision made the most financial sense; Mary’s death meant their income had taken a nosedive, and she had never taken out life insurance. The government doesn’t often help those with stolen identities.
John doesn’t know how long he can make this work. He doesn’t want to think about it, but. At midnight there’s little else to do.
He realizes he’s not alone. An exhale sounds from the living room, the kind that your body releases without your permission, like a balloon rushing out of air, and the familiarity of it curls against John’s throat.
He swallows. Opens his eyes and pushes off the counter.
Sherlock’s asleep. He’s sprawled out on his stomach, ankles hanging off one side and face smashed against the other. One of his arms is curled underneath him, while the other extends past the arm of the sofa, like he’s reaching for something beyond them both. It doesn’t look comfortable for anyone, let alone a 40 year old man, but his face is completely relaxed and his breathing is even. The leather shines from the condensation.
John crouches.
Winces at his knees, so he has to shift until he’s fully seated on the floor. Sherlock’s back rises and falls steadily, and after everything, that’s what strikes John the most. That Sherlock’s back rises and falls. It doesn’t feel real, with the events of the last several years, that he’s still able to do that. John’s hand moves on its own accord.
I shouldn’t, he thinks, as he rubs his thumb against the curve of Sherlock’s jaw. Stretches out his fingers so he can feel the way his hair curls at his temple, slots his palm against the hollow of his cheek. I should go back upstairs.
He’s handling the greatest mind in London, in the world, pressing his fingertips to his skull. He wonders what it’s like. How it feels to live as a man who thinks and feels with potency, with considerable weight behind it. It feels wrong, knowing there are things within his mind that John will never know, memories and fears and desires with an occupancy of one. He can pretend it’s scientific curiosity. Pretend it’s anything other than what it really is.
Sherlock’s eyes open slowly, just barely. John doesn’t withdraw his hand.
I can only be like this when you’re asleep, he wants to say. Please don’t ask me to be this version of myself when you’re awake. I don’t think I could survive hearing the words in your voice.
“Goodnight,” he says instead.
Sherlock says nothing. But he closes his eyes, so John supposes he understands, anyway.
I do
Love you
I do
It all comes to a head after dinner.
Rosie’s just been put to bed. John descends the stairs carefully, quietly, even though she could sleep through a world war without waking up. The lingering smell of garlic sticks to his clothes and the walls; it’s going to be a few days until it airs out completely. Downstairs, there’s the sound of running water.
He frowns. It wasn’t running when he went upstairs.
Dinner’s been picked up from the table, Rosie’s high-chair wiped clean of sauce, and there’s a stack of used dishes and cookware next to the sink. Sherlock’s up to his forearms in soapy water, and doesn’t turn when John walks in. He’s washing dishes. He’s washing dishes.
John wants to ask him why he’s cleaning, why he doesn’t fight John on anything anymore. But what comes out of his mouth instead is: “This is about Mary, isn’t it?”
Sherlock doesn’t stop scrubbing, says nothing. John knows he spoke loud enough.
“Because,” John continues, “if it is, you should know that I don’t, um, blame you anymore. I never should have. You don’t have to,” he gestures to the kitchen, even though Sherlock doesn’t see it, “accommodate me. Or anything.”
He places a clean plate to dry on the rack beside the sink. “It’s not about Mary.”
“I think it is.”
“John…”
“I think you’re tip-toeing around me because you’re terrified that I’m going to leave.”
The scrubbing gets louder, and a fork clacks in the sink with too much force. “I don’t ‘tip-toe’, and I’m certainly not—”
“Why are you doing all of this?” John finally demands, incredulous. “You don’t have to feel guilty anymore. But you’re giving up cases, you’re babysitting— for God’s sake you’re even cleaning —” He stops. Feels a tremor crawling up his right thigh. “I just… I need you to help me understand.”
Sherlock stills. John stares at his back, at the swatch of sweat at the base of his spine sticking his dress shirt to his skin. He turns his head just slightly, so John can see the slight upturn at the tip of his nose and his eyelashes, caught golden in the kitchen lights above his head.
John stares, and stares, and stares.
Sherlock says quietly, “don’t you know?”
John has the sneaking suspicion that he does know. That he’s known for a while now. Still, because he’s a coward, he shakes his head.
“Explain it to me,” he says instead.
A plate clinks as it’s set down in the sink, and the faucet is turned off. Slowly, mechanically, Sherlock dries off his hands. He braces himself against the edge of the counter for a moment, head hanging between his shoulders, and John hears him sigh. Outside, London shifts into its nighttime commute. John feels like they’ve been in this situation before, wound so tightly together that John doesn’t remember who did the sighing and who did the waiting. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
Sherlock pushes off the counter.
He crowds John against the table. John feels his heart pulsing on the side of his neck, sees the mirror of it in Sherlock’s carotid, this close. Sherlock swallows.
“It’s your fatal flaw,” he says in a whisper. “Thinking that everything I do is for Mary’s benefit, even when she’s not here anymore. Not letting yourself entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, I simply enjoy your daughter’s company without feeling the need to distract myself with the Work. That I clean after you both because I want to .”
He slowly raises his hand. Hesitates, then presses his thumb in the hollow beneath John’s bottom lip, runs it up the line of his jaw. Shifts his palm against John’s cheek, threads the tip of his fingers in his hair. John’s hands grip the table behind him.
“You did this while I was asleep,” Sherlock says, like he's breathing the words.
It’s too much, hearing it out loud. Knowing is different than acknowledging, and speaking makes it solidify into something tangible, something heavy. When a concept takes shape in the world, it can’t be ignored anymore no matter how hard you try. John meets his eyes and it feels like a challenge.
“I’ve done many things while you were asleep,” he says. “Before.”
Sherlock’s pupils grow impossibly wide. “Tell me.”
John says nothing. He turns his head and catches the palm on his cheek, presses his mouth to it. Sherlock inhales sharply and leans forward. His nose catches on John’s temple. John closes his eyes. “I would just watch you,” he says, helplessly. “I would touch your… cheekbones, the arch of your nose, and…”
“Tell me,” Sherlock says again. It sounds like a prayer.
John looks down. Sherlock’s mouth knocks against his forehead, his hairline. His hand drops to curl around John’s neck. Outside, there’s the distant, foreboding sound of thunder.
“I’m not good at this,” John says. “Talking.”
So he tilts his face up.
And words are futile devices