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The shadows pool together in the little crevices of the kitchen. The room fills with the feeling of calm after rain. The kind of quiet that is content with itself. Companionable silence that feels itself justified and perhaps even needed. The familiarity of the place is such that it is known which floorboards creak, which drawer is sometimes stuck and where one keeps the tea. John feels this is home more than the place in front of which he had played cricket on the road and scabbed his knees falling off of a cycle. The place where he had first kissed a girl, in front of the sink in his mother’s kitchen when no one was home.
“You have that horrible nostalgic look on your face again,” a tall man rolls his eyes.
“Have I missed something, Sherlock? Is there a ban on thinking about the past?” John’s tone is light but he tenses bit under the other man’s intense scrutiny.
“No,” the man, Sherlock, says finally, as if he had been seriously considering the question.
He then goes back to what he was doing, which was the dishes, and promptly drops the conversation. It should bother John at this point, the lack of resolution he gets when Sherlock drops the ends of conversations as if they are litter to cast on the sides of roads. But over the years fascination has given way to annoyance which has finally given way to understanding. He knows for a fact Sherlock wouldn’t eat at all if he wasn’t aware of the complex digestive processes and the macronutrients that channel to his brain and keep his synapses transmitting. In all things then, there is a need for efficiency, a drive for it that makes a great deal extraneous. There is no need to talk to fill silence. Not for them. It is then that John makes a mental note of what the other man is doing. The dishes. Which isn’t that uncommon of an activity for the average middle aged English citizen to be doing. Sherlock however he would be less surprised to see at a children’s tea party. John himself is wiping down the countertops with a damp cloth, so that next time he eats there he can have some mental consolation that it isn’t completely dripping with the aftereffects of an experiment Sherlock has only recently shunted into the cupboards underneath. It’s one of those activities he performs every week, and it has to it that charming regularity that he hates in abundance but appreciates in its minute form. Which brings him back to familiarity. The thought that was in his mind when Sherlock brought him back to reality. Had Sherlock ever scabbed his knees after having fallen off a bicycle? Had Sherlock ever kissed a girl in his mother’s kitchen when no one was home?
If John was a book person he would have understood his own dilemma long before. Book people know the most dramatic events in the life of their characters, the defining moments in their lives, witty dialogue, humorous banter and the rising and falling action and denouements and so forth. They rarely consider their heroes doing regular things, even though they surely do. They can hardly imagine these stoic characters waking up bleary-eyed in the mornings, using the bathroom, being annoyed when their foot falls asleep, or taking the bus to work. Because the best loved characters are often larger than life. And that’s what Sherlock is on some level. Brilliant. Neurotic. John even keeps a blog, which is technically about John, but actually about him. So all this time, confronted with both the great Sherlock Holmes and the regular Sherlock Holmes John has never quite reconciled himself with the fact that Sherlock, though extremely gifted, has any veering toward normality at all—buying in for the most part the aloof demeanor he offers up and confidently projects. But now he’s seen too much. The fear in Sherlock’s eyes at the pool had scared John more than the idea of dying. He had seen death before; he had been ready for it before. And surprisingly willing, he admits, to dying with Sherlock. His friend. Here is the breakdown of the façade, the closing of the book where he and Sherlock were characters together. He’s waking up from their adventure and breathing in a reality where they both feel things the same way. The room is familiar. The man is familiar. Yet this, what they have, what they’re becoming, it isn’t.
“You’re distracted,” Sherlock says, “You keep doing the same piece of counter top. Every few seconds you stop and glance around as if you were waiting for someone to enter but we’re not expecting anyone. You look at me.”
The last sentence hangs in the air, as if waiting for John to dispute it. Smite it from existence. You look at me.
“Yes.” No point in arguing with him, there rarely ever was.
What if they spent the rest of their lives like this, John often wonders. Together all the time. Talking occassionally. Good friends. Best friends, now that he thinks about it. And John will just look at him. Sometimes at night when he looks at the ceiling and thinks about all the other lives he might be living he wonders if when he looks away whether Sherlock ever looks back.
“You’re hungry,” Sherlock states, “Your stomach has rumbled twice in the last five minutes. You’re no longer making significant progress in the tidying up effort. You’re too tired even to argue with me and you’re making that ridiculously nostalgic look.”
“We could order takeaway,” John sighs, he really would love to come to a conclusion about himself by himself one of these days.
“No need,” Sherlock says quickly.
“You can’t conjure food with the power of your mind.” John points out, “There are limits.”
Sherlock makes his ‘of course not you idiot’ face, which is so common now that John has come up with a name for it, “I could make it.”
“Ha ha, no,” John says, “No, thank you.”
“Oh, why not,” Sherlock makes his ‘please, please it will be fun’ face, which is way too common on him than it should be for a man his age, and often comes with the tone of a petulant five year old.
“I can think of several reasons,” John crosses his arms.
“I can cook,” Sherlock says, “Cooking’s just like chemistry.”
“And why the sudden interest?” John asks, “Trying to poison me?”
“If that was the intention I would have done it already. Morning tea. You would be gone before you noticed it. Colorless, odorless, easily dissolving.” Sherlock says matter-of-factly.
“Nice to know you’ve put thought into it,” John resumes scrubbing at imaginary dirt on the counter.
Sherlock puts a hand over his hand, abruptly stopping the movement, “I put thought into everything. It’s a shame most people don’t.”
John tenses at the contact. Sherlock doesn’t like touching people. He never has. So what is this?
“Alright,” John says, “Go ahead. Make something.”
Sherlock nods and John wonders to himself if that came out sounding like a command. He can’t tell sometimes. You look at me. John can’t tell sometimes the difference between correlation and causation either. Whether he finds Sherlock so interesting to look at because he finds Sherlock interesting or because he finds Sherlock interesting because he’s interesting to look at. Maybe there is simply too much overlap between the two. He thinks sometimes it might have been better for a person like Sherlock to have someone like himself. John never gets bored looking at him. Sherlock is bored all the time, like a chronic illness or something. It would be perfect. But instead he has John, who considers himself to be a decent flatmate, but even he can’t imagine watching himself all day. He would get so terribly bored.
“Are you going to stare at me, or are you going to help?” Sherlock asks as he opens and closes drawers, fishing out utensils.
“I’m not staring,” John says weakly.
“I dearly hope you never take the stand in a case John, you know what they say about false testimony,” Sherlock puts a pot on the burner and pours water into it.
“Well if you took the stand you’d probably insult the prosecutor and be put in contempt of court,” John retorts.
“Wouldn’t that be a tragedy,” Sherlock smirks at his own joke, “Watch the pot. Tell me when it’s boiling.”
“There’s nothing in it,” John stares.
“Patience, my dear Watson,” Sherlock dumps hard noodles into it, shaking the box until it it’s completely empty.
“What was that you called me?” John raises an eyebrow.
“In the old days that’s what I would have called you. Thought you might enjoy it. Given that you are prone to nostalgia.” Sherlock shrugs.
“It’s not a disease,” John rolls his eyes, though he’s watching the pot as ordered.
“Life itself is a disease John, of the sexually transmitted variety, no known cure,” Sherlock digs through the drawers for spices, and smiles when he finds a sauce.
“It’s boiling,” John says.
“Pull the stool up to the counter. Watch me,” Sherlock says.
“Um-“ John couldn’t have be more surprised if Sherlock had asked him to watch him strip naked, or jerk off, or good god why are these his first thoughts?
“You’re going to do that anyway. It’s not a two person task. Besides, I’m giving you my express permission.”
John prefers not to respond to that. But reasons his response is inferred by the fact that he does indeed bring over the stool Sherlock sometimes uses to set his experiments on, and sits on it. In his defense, he really is hungry, and has nothing better to do.
Sherlock has the busy air of someone desperate to prove that they know what they’re doing. John has his doubts. As he picks up ingredients and reads labels he seems to be discovering them for the first time. There is no recipe in sight. The heat from the boiling pot makes his curls fluff up just slightly. Which is nice. The pristine Sherlock Holmes ruined by humidity.
“This isn’t one of those times where what I’m doing is so mentally taxing that you aren’t permitted to talk,” Sherlock stirs the pot.
“I know, those times you’ve asked me to leave the room, once even the flat.” John sighs.
“What were you thinking, what feeble thought did I kill when I told you that you were making that horribly annoying nostalgic look?” Sherlock turns the heat down a few notches.
“Have you ever kissed someone in the kitchen when no one was home, Sherlock?” John says the first thing that came to his mind, which is really not something he should get in the habit of doing around Sherlock.
Now Sherlock is making his ‘what the hell’ face, which is always an indication that from his perspective John has gone off or is going off the deep end, “Why would anyone do that?”
“It’s fun,” John offers, knowing full well that this is a pathetic explanation.
“How insightful.”
“No really, she was cooking and I was watching her, we had been friends for a while and then it just sort of—“ John realizes the parallel as he’s speaking, at which point he wishes to stab himself, in the eye, with a meat cleaver.
But Sherlock it seems, doesn’t catch it, “How spicy are these things meant to be? I normally wouldn’t care but I think I might have some too.”
Before John can answer, Sherlock stirs the spaghetti around and scalding hot water leaps up from its surface and square on Sherlock’s hands.
“Damn,” Sherlock wrings his hands as John gets off the stool and shoves him towards the sink, turning the cold water on and holding his hands under it.
“I don’t know how you didn’t manage to kill yourself before I came around,” John says.
“I came close, maybe I didn’t try hard enough,” Sherlock grimaces in pain, “I’m never cooking again.”
“What did you say?” John asks.
“I’m never cooking again,” Sherlock repeats.
“No, before that,” John says, taking his hands out of the water, “You should be fine. It’s not even a burn. It’ll just sting a little for a bit.”
“I came close,” Sherlock repeats, “What’s the matter?”
Everything’s the matter, John wants to say. I almost never met you.
“I just never thought about it, about how you were—before.” John says finally.
“I don’t think about it much either,” Sherlock confesses, before laughing hollowly, “Not nearly as much fun I’d imagine as kissing someone in the kitchen when no one’s home.”
“No,” John says quietly, “It probably isn’t.”
John stirs now, as Sherlock brings out a cutting board and slices vegetables with ferocity. There is silence again. But not the comfortable kind.
“You don’t have to attack them,” John breaks it.
“Mother always said to be gentle, but I’m not the type,” Sherlock explains.
John doesn’t know what to say to that.
“What are you thinking, when you look at me? You do it a lot, I can’t possibly be that interesting. Brilliant as I am,” Sherlock’s eyes bore holes into his skull when he pauses his cutting to look up.
“A lot of things, I guess. Whether we have a case tonight. Or what annoying thing you’ve managed to do. Whether I can expect a clean microwave when I come home. And sometimes I wonder—nevermind.”
“No, please, I want to know what you’re thinking. It’s the one thing deduction can never tell me, a person’s thoughts. All I have is a litany of their past actions. Which is usually quite enough.”
“I wonder if you ever look at me.”
John doesn’t know what he expects Sherlock to say to this. No, of course not? The ‘what the hell’ face? But even among the things he considers, what Sherlock does say is not one of them. Not even close.
“All the time.”
All the time. The word echoes in John’s mind. All the time. Not some of the time. Not occasionally. All the time.
“Isn’t that a waste of your time?” is the first question John thinks to ask.
“I’m cooking for you, John,” Sherlock says as if that perfectly answers the question.
For you, John. And suddenly it all makes sense. From the very beginning. Angelo’s. The stakeout. Afghanistan or Iraq? He’ll take the room upstairs, Mrs. Hudson. What it’s called when two people who like each other go out and have fun. That’s what I was suggesting. You’re not the most luminous of people but as a conductor of light…Then before that. The pool. He was afraid. So afraid. For you, John. And what he wasn’t saying, only in his eyes and thrown suddenly into the silence. A secret he was afraid to tell. For you, John. And only for you.
I came close, but I didn’t try hard enough. No, John thinks, you can never try again.
“It’s so familiar here,” John gestures around.
“I like it,” Sherlock says, and coming from him it’s almost like having replaced the like with love.
John doesn’t know what his young self would think of him now. The one who was kissing that girl in front of the sink when no one was home. That girl who had also been his friend but nothing compared to what Sherlock was to him now. Then what does that make Sherlock now?
“You don’t like familiarity,” John says.
“Then you don’t know what I like,” Sherlock replies, but he’s making a new face, one that John can only call ‘kiss me in front of the sink since no one’s home’.
“I think I do,” John pushes him back against the sink and kisses him, and it’s familiar, so wonderfully familiar that John can’t help but wonder why he’s never done it before.
Sherlock’s mouth is softer and lovelier than it has any right to be. Better than John had imagined after all these years of looking at him. Initially Sherlock is so surprised that John is kissing him that he forgets to kiss back, and John will prize that moment forever as the one in which he was thinking ahead of Sherlock Holmes. As they kiss the water flows over the top of the pot and drips down to the floor, steadily, steadily until it pools and reflects a blurred vision of John Watson and the love of his life. There’s silence after they stop kissing. Companionable silence. Shadows pool together in the crevices of the kitchen. John finds the calm after rain in Sherlock’s eyes. It’s familiar. It’s so familiar. And it’s his.