Work Text:
"John?"
Two hours, fourteen minutes. Short one.
John closes the fridge quickly, peeking into the sitting room as soon as he hears Sherlock shuffling around.
"You called?" John asks, unsure if he'll get an actual response or mumbling, unintelligible nonsense. Sherlock stops abruptly, facing the window, his fingers pressed to his lips.
"The sister."
"The sister?" John mirrors. Sherlock nods.
"Her ring. Removed before the body was cold. Obvious." Sherlock talks for at least twenty more minutes, and by the end, John is on the phone with Lestrade, relaying the same explanation save the same comprehension. They spend the rest of the afternoon at dinner, and the next three weeks without Sherlock’s lengthened silences. John stays nearby in any case.
- - - - -
John walks down the aisle, searching half-heartedly for rice and obsessively glancing at his mobile. He carries it in his good hand, allowing him to grip it possessively to avoid missing a message. That had gotten him into trouble before. When he had finally made it home, his date in tow, Sherlock was waiting at the door with a dismembered foot in his hand and an irate expression burrowed onto his face. John isn’t sure how his date survived, running that fast in heels. That was the end of switching off electronics during dinner. It did wonders for maintaining his sexual dry spell.
His other hand threatens to shake around the carton of milk it holds. No matter how routine this all is, John still finds himself unable to avoid anxiety after twenty-four hours. He can’t pin down whether he’s concerned that Sherlock will silently starve, quarantined away in his own mind, or whether it’s some sort of Sherlock-contact-withdrawal. He hopes for the former, as his online perusing has left him unable to find meetings for those addicted to charmingly insane consulting detectives.
When he feels a vibration, relief floods him.
The lorry driver has a parrot. Where are you? SH
John shakes his head. Thirty-four hours, fifteen minutes. That one was worrisome.
Shop. Headed home. He texts back. As soon as he hits send, John abandons the milk in the veggie aisle and all but runs out the door. Sherlock, no doubt, has already been speaking aloud to him for some time. He wouldn’t want to miss too much.
-----------
John feels the blood running down the side of his cheek, tickling the edge of his jaw. A light blinds him, and the first thought that strikes him as his eyes open is, absurdly, Not again. He feels this means he needs to re-examine his life choices. Another time.
A man he doesn’t recognize holds a gun to his temple, and John wriggles his fingers against the rope that binds them together. Too tight to give it the slip.
He sits in the hideously uncomfortable wooden chair beneath him for five hours, listening to the tick, tick, tick of the clock placed squarely above him on the wall. The room smells of blood, mould and a bit of piss, and he tries not to focus on what sort of kidnappings preceded his. His blood already begins to paint the concrete floor in tight red drips, falling from his cheeks like thick tears.
John assumes it’s Moriarty, or maybe something to do with this murder case Sherlock is working on. Really he’s just counting the minutes, despite their stubborn insistence in passing at a torturously slow pace. No vibrations in his pocket, despite the presence of his mobile. Not Moriarty, John thinks. He’s not daft enough to leave John with a connection to the world.
Any time now. No texts, that means Sherlock knows where he is.
A few minutes later, he feels the gun peel from his skin as a small unf! resonates behind him. Curly hair lightly brushes against the nape of his neck as his hands are quickly untied, and John can’t help but smile at how many times he’s felt those long fingers frenetically attempting to free him from danger.
Five hours, forty-seven minutes. Too bloody long.
Sherlock pulls him up, gripping him under the arms and gently tugging. John wipes the blood from his brow, nods silently, and follows the form in the long coat that leads him to safety.
---------
Sherlock doesn’t weave himself into silence for another two months after John’s kidnapping, and John’s appreciative while it lasts. They have dinners, lunches, and even a breakfast or two when they both can’t sleep and John manages to scrounge up something not terribly old or contaminated from their fridge. They even manage to solve a case or two without one of Sherlock’s lonely adventures into his mental palace.
Angelo’s is near empty on a Wednesday night, and Sherlock and John people watch, cloaked in comfortable silence in the back booth by the window. John thinks of their first meal together.
“What? You’re thinking,” Sherlock spits out quickly, dropping his fork and quirking an eyebrow. John swallows the remnants of his last bite.
“Mm. Just about our first time. Here,” he gestures, and Sherlock looks down at the space between them.
“We have managed to replicate our first dinner quite nicely. You’ve always been one for routine.” That practically makes John beam, and he believes it’s the first time Sherlock has deduced something so impressively obvious that still manages to surprise him.
“Basically a married couple, we are,” John says, before he catches himself and stops mid-bite. “Sorry, I’m the one who hates that talk, aren’t I?” He shakes his head, but Sherlock leans down toward his food again.
“I never minded. You were always protesting other’s assumptions a bit too much for my liking.” Sherlock meets his eyes for just a moment, and John is infinitely glad he refused to take another bite while the other man was talking. He would be choking on it right now.
“You… I protest too much? Do… do I offend you?” John puts his fork down altogether now, unsure if he’ll ever pick it back up. If the conversation continues in this direction, his appetite may betray him.
“John, please. Something as inconsequential as what others think has no effect on me. But you do seem bothered. Often.” John can’t believe what he’s hearing. Sherlock continues to take nibbling bites, undaunted by the subject matter.
“I don’t want people getting the wrong...” he breathes deeply, calming himself. “Fine. Fine. I won’t correct them anymore. Doesn’t matter to me.”
They sit in silence for the next five minutes, and John’s brain spins restlessly in his head. Does Sherlock fancy him? Why would he? He was just pointing out the obvious. John is bothered when people think they’re a couple. But that’s just because they’re not. It’s not that he wouldn’t want to date Sherlock. He’s mildly attractive. He’s got nice hair. His body isn’t too bad, other than his naturally lanky limbs. But even those are alright… His neck is long and smooth. Sometimes John finds himself staring at its… Wait. Bloody hell.
“You knew, didn’t you?” John whispers harshly, breaking the air between them with his accusation.
Sherlock’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out quickly, opening a message and darting from the restaurant without considering John’s question. John follows, begrudgingly, and while running behind him tries his hardest to stare at anything but Sherlock’s body. Now it just seems too bloody obvious.
Once they make it home, Lestrade is there, waiting outside the door as the lights on his car periodically flood him in blue then red. Sherlock grabs a cab, and John climbs in after him, flexing his hand all the while.
Sherlock is quiet during the ride. John stares out the window, lost in thought. Their awkward conversation hangs in the air like a dense fog, but John stays through the investigation. Sherlock is speedy and curt in his deductions, and he barely acknowledges John’s presence, other than to hold the cab door open behind him while he enters and exits. John wants to reach out and rest a hand on Sherlock’s arm during the ride home, but decides against it when Baker Street approaches.
They climb up to their respective rooms after paying the fare, and John doesn’t see Sherlock for the proceeding three days. He keeps his phone near, stops in front of Sherlock’s bedroom door to listen periodically, and only leaves the flat to go to surgery. Even then, he can’t concentrate on any patients.
When John returns home on the third day, Sherlock is sitting at the kitchen table, perched over his microscope like nothing has changed. John exhales loudly when he sees him, prodding for a response. Sherlock indulges him.
“You left.” His voice is small, and John wonders how long it’s been since he’s slept. He seats himself across the table.
Three days, four hours, thirty-six minutes.
“I could say the same.” Sherlock taps his finger languidly on the side of his instrument. His lips purse, and John sees his eyes close momentarily.
“I saw. I didn’t know.” He says in return, and it takes a few moments for John to realize what he’s talking about. John tips his head, trying to catch Sherlock’s gaze.
“Figured.”
------
John’s eyes slip shut, fatigue tempting them with every new advertisement. The blinding light of the telly in the darkness jolts him awake every few minutes. Sherlock sits at the table behind him, staring intently at his laptop screen.
“John?”
“Mmm?” John sits up straight, leaning his head against the back of his chair.
“What are you watching?” John’s eyes snap open.
“I thought you’d tuned it out. As usual.” John turns curiously, meeting Sherlock’s eye-line.
“It is decidedly impossible to tune out what seems to be pornography when the volume is set at ‘hard-of-hearing,’” Sherlock all but yells over the television, and John frantically glances at the program playing. Sure enough, two women are shagging quite enthusiastically on some sort of boat. John scrambles to switch it off, rocketing out of his chair, and permanently waking himself up.
When the onslaught of nipples and moaning is replaced with a black screen, John hears a low chuckle emerge from behind him in the dark room. He couples it with his own high-pitched laughter, and soon both men are standing across the room from each other.
“Late night programs, I s’pose,” John giggles, and Sherlock nods in agreement.
“Most likely Italian.” Their laughter fades slowly. John can make out Sherlock’s dark silhouette behind the couch and moves toward him, hesitating with every step.
Their lips meet softly when John reaches him, and Sherlock’s hands hang carefully at his sides. John clasps their fingers together gently for a moment, and lets go in unison with the separation of their mouths. He steps back from the taller man, shaking his hand a bit to loosen it up.
The only sound to fill the room is the quiet buzzing of John’s laptop, and John curses Sherlock’s silences more than he ever has. He’s only just beginning to wonder if he’s made a mistake when he feels Sherlock gliding toward him confidently, gripping him at the nape of his neck and claiming his mouth once more. John fists Sherlock’s button-down shirt, pulling them closer together until his mind begins to work again. He pushes at Sherlock’s chest with the tips of his fingers.
“Bedroom,” he slurs as the cold night air hits his saliva-laden lips. He tugs at Sherlock’s arm, but stops a few steps into his mission when he feels resistance.
“I do hope this isn’t residual excitement from the boat program,” Sherlock mumbles.
One minute, twenty-two seconds.
John laughs, deep and hearty, before moving back to press a kiss to Sherlock’s mouth and dragging him to the bedroom.
---------
Every Tuesday morning before work, John sits in his therapist’s chair, his hand constantly ghosting over the mobile tucked in his pocket. He finds if he keeps it there long enough, he’ll feel the vibrations. Even if they aren’t real, believing they are for a second is worth the disappointment in the end.
“You still expect him back,” she says, readying her pen in her hand. He’s come to resent that damned pen and the woman attached so loyally to it. He doesn’t answer.
The flat has stayed the same over the years, something he’s barely had to put any effort into. The books lie lazily on their shelves, collecting dust like they’ve made a career of it.
Every night he dreams of the blood, the fall, the phone call where he left so many things unsaid. He never knew the silence that accompanied their lives so beautifully would leave him feeling so empty inside. He dreams of that silence, still. When he wakes up in an empty bed, a bed that had just gotten used to another occupant, he wishes for it desperately. Maybe he can will it into reality.
He rarely leaves home, just in case. Sherlock might need him at a moment’s notice. He doesn’t say it, not to Mrs. Hudson or Molly or Lestrade. They’ll think he’s gone mad, and they seem perfectly content with the notion he’s become a hermit. Or a loner. Either way, they leave him alone.
The time ticks by slowly. Days, months, years. He always thought he had gotten used to waiting.
One day, a day that might have blended into the others, he carries a small bag of food up the stairs to the kitchen. Packing it away into the fridge, something feels off. He turns around, paranoid. Taking calculated steps into the sitting room, he scans the space suspiciously. At the bottom of the stairs, he hears a creak.
“John?”
John’s heart threatens to burst as he turns the corner to see Sherlock staring back at him. He can’t get to him fast enough.
Three years, two months, ten days, six hours, two minutes.