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John has never seen anything more beautiful in his life. He’s standing at the door of their flat, two rapidly-cooling curries in his hands, trying to remember to breathe. He finds he is physically unable to take his eyes off the sight before him.
All of the furniture in their sitting room has been pushed aside, leaving a large space in the middle. The Nutcracker Suite is blaring in the background, and Sherlock is dancing to it.
He’s wearing a pair of black dancer’s leggings paired with black ballet slippers, neither of which John knew he owned, as well as an incredibly form-fitting black t-shirt that John wishes he had known he owned. John watches in awe as he does an intricate series of pirouettes across the floor, swooping low and jumping high on his way back the other way. He is completely oblivious to John’s presence, face completely at peace as he whirls around the sitting room. Small drops of sweat cling to his forehead as he executes a particularly complicated-looking move, and part of John wonders what they would taste like under his tongue (while the other part wonders how he could possibly explain that thought to Sherlock). If he had known this was waiting for him at home, John would’ve made sure to get off work early every single day of his life. He continues to watch in wonder until the suite comes to an end and Sherlock stops near the window, his back to him.
“Sherlock, that was --”
Sherlock whips around, an expression of horror on his face. “John! You’re back early!”
And before John can even formulate a reply, Sherlock stalks to his bedroom and slams the door, leaving John (and the curries) alone in the sitting room.
***
It has now been three days since The Nutcracker Incident (yes, with capital letters) and John hasn’t seen Sherlock a single time. Once he woke from a nightmare at three o’clock in the morning and thought he heard the shower running downstairs, but he hasn’t heard anything else. After the first day (which was spent mostly knocking on Sherlock’s door and demanding he come out), John had just started making extra portions and leaving them in the fridge. Sometimes they’re gone when he wakes up in the morning, so at least he knows Sherlock is (somewhat) eating.
In the middle of the night of day five, John wakes up to the sound of Sherlock playing violin downstairs. He turns over in bed, still not quite awake, and lets himself listen to the music drifting up the stairs. The longer he listens, though, the more his brain wakes up and within minutes he has realized that Sherlock has left his room. He jerks up in bed, intending to run downstairs and confront him, but the instant his bed springs creak from his abrupt movement, the violin stops with an awkward screech followed by rapid foot steps and a slamming door. John falls back into bed in frustration, and decides he has had enough.
***
On the morning of day six since The Nutcracker Incident, John makes two cups of tea (one of them with much more sugar than John can handle), two pieces of toast with honey, and two soft-boiled eggs. He lets the smell of food permeate the flat; based on his leftovers monitoring, Sherlock hasn’t eaten since day four and John hopes he can be tempted. Ten fruitless minutes later (had he honestly thought that would work?), Sherlock still hasn’t emerged, the toast has gone cold, and John finds himself with only one solution to his problem.
He stomps down the hallway to Sherlock’s bedroom and starts banging on the door. “Sherlock! Come out here and talk to me!”
There’s a long silence, and then a muffled, “No!” comes through the door.
“Why not!?” John shouts back.
There’s an even longer silence this time, but the, “No!” is much quieter.
John counts to ten, then tries the handle. It turns in his hand (always a good sign), so he pushes the door open slowly, wary of what he might find.
Sherlock is wrapped up in his duvet, his back to the door, so John only sees a mop of curls poking out the top of the blanket. If he hadn’t just heard him shouting through the door, John would have thought he was sleeping.
Sherlock speaks in a flat, emotionless voice. “Well, John. You’re awfully determined to make fun of me. One would think the urge would subside after six days, but I suppose you’re just stubborn like that.”
“What are you talking about, Sherlock?” John starts to inch towards the bed, waiting to hear what Sherlock says next.
“You played rugby, John.” And John’s heart twists in his chest, because suddenly he knows exactly where this conversation is going. He can picture it easily: a gay ballet dancer would have been the perfect target for bullies in secondary school, and the rugby team was always notoriously ruthless. He hadn’t allowed that sort of thing when he was captain, but he couldn’t keep tabs of his team all the time. And not all rugby captains were against bullying, either. He reaches down and puts his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. He flinches, but he doesn’t pull away, so John leaves his hand there.
“Oh, Sherlock. I was never going to make fun of you.” John sits down on the bed near the lump that must be Sherlock’s body, and presses his hand more firmly into his shoulder. When Sherlock leans back into the touch, John reaches his other hand around to pull Sherlock’s chin towards him. “Hey. Look at me.”
And when Sherlock does, it’s with so much misery in his eyes that John’s chest hurts. He smooths Sherlock’s hair back from his face and smiles at him. “I was going to tell you that your dancing was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. That you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sherlock doesn’t say anything in response, but the look in his eyes has turned to one of hope. “John. Rugby players don’t like ballet dancers.”
John leans down and presses his lips gently to Sherlock’s. Sherlock freezes for a moment, but then he pulls John closer and starts kissing him back in earnest, and it’s the most perfect thing John has ever felt. After a while, John pulls back and looks at Sherlock, and lets himself say what he’s been waiting to say for six days.
“No, Sherlock. They love them.”