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The fire crackled softly in the hearth, its warmth casting a golden glow across the room. Outside, the fog clung to the familiar streets of London, shrouding the world in a thick, impenetrable mist.
Inside 221B Baker Street, the evening was calm and peaceful - a rare respite from the chaos that so often defined their lives.
It was... nice.
Sherlock sat in his armchair, long and slender fingers steepled under his chin, his eyes unfocused as he stared into the flickering flames. To an outsider, he would appear lost in thought, perhaps mulling over the intricacies of a case. But his mind was far from the world of crime and deduction.
No, no... his mind was occupied with thoughts he couldn't banish, thoughts that had plagued him for years.
Across the room, settled in his chair with a glass of wine held loosely in his hand, John Watson was engrossed in a medical journal, the pages rustling softly as he turned them. Sherlock’s gaze drifted to him, as it so often did when the world was quiet. He studied the way the firelight danced in Watson’s eyes, the curve of his jaw, the way his lips pursed slightly as he concentrated.
And he was so...
With every glance, with every moment he allowed himself to look upon Watson, a fierce loathing curled in his chest, like a great and venomous snake wrapping around its prey. How could he, Sherlock Holmes - the great detective, the renowned rational mind, the man who prided himself on his logic - be so utterly, hopelessly in love? It was a weakness, a failing, and he despised himself for it.
How foolish, he thought bitterly. How utterly ridiculous to harbor such feelings for his friend.
And yet... try as he might, he could not stop the flutter in his heart when Watson’s voice filled the room, nor could he ignore the way his pulse quickened when Watson’s hand rested on his shoulder, however briefly. The looks they shared, the way Watson's lips parted to bare his white teeth in a smile when they solved a case, the way his eyes lit up when he connected the dots that Sherlock laid out for him, oh, how Sherlock treasured those blessed moments.
No, no, this wasn't... He couldn't.
Sherlock clenched his jaw, forcing himself to look away, to focus on anything else - the crackling fire, the pattern of the wallpaper, the quiet ticking of the clock. But it was no use. His thoughts, traitorous as they were, always circled back to his dear Watson.
What if..?
The question, those two horribly simply words, haunted him, even though he knew the answer.
What if things were different?
What if he could speak the truth?
What if he could reach out and touch Watson’s face, could press his lips to his, could whisper words of honest affection and love in the quiet darkness of the night?
What if Watson loved Sherlock in the way Sherlock loved him?
The thoughts were intoxicating, and that was why he hated it so.
What if..?
But then Watson looked up for a moment from his journal, and Sherlock’s gaze darted away, his heart pounding as if he’d been caught committing some terrible crime.
The was no 'what if..?' to ponder. There was no point, as Sherlock knew the traitorous thoughts his heart influenced would never be more than just that - thoughts and dreams that would never escape to reality.
He picked up his violin, slowly drawing the bow across the strings in a dissonant note that matched the turmoil within him. It was rather beautiful, in an ugly way.
“Everything all right, Holmes?” Watson asked, his voice tinged with concern as he glanced up.
Sherlock forced a smile, a mask he had perfected over years of practice, running his bow over the strings again with a screech. “Of course, Watson. Just a matter of tuning.”
Watson nodded, accepting the explanation with a small smile of his own before returning to his reading. But Sherlock could see a hint lingering worry in his friend’s eyes, a glance that lingered a few seconds too long, and it twisted something deep inside him.
What if..?
Oh, how he desperately wished he could reassure Watson, tell him the truth - but how could he?
How could he confess that the source of his unrest was the man sitting across from him?
How could he admit that every glance, every touch, every shared moment between them was both a blessing and a curse?
It was a burden he had chosen to bear alone, a silent tragedy of his own making - a pitiful and shameful truth that he knew would never see the light of day, forever tucked into the shadows of the large personality he had constructed for himself.
Watson rose, tucking a bookmark into his journal and setting it aside, and left the room to refill his glass. As he passed Sherlock, he reached out and patted the detective on the shoulder, smiling as he always did.
Sherlock felt the snake inside of him wind tighter around his heart, ever so painfully, as he smiled back.
Oh, my dear Watson... if you knew, would you still smile at me the same?
That night, sleep did not come easily to Sherlock Holmes. He tossed and turned, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions he could not name, or rather, refused to acknowledge.
Of course the target of his thoughts had a name, and his name was John Watson.
When he finally did succumb to sleep, it was not the restful slumber he had hoped for.
In his dreams, there was no logic, no reason, nothing he could shove down and ignore - there was only desire, raw and unrestrained.
And it was...
What if..?
He saw Watson’s face, felt the warmth of his body pressed against his own. They were together, as they could never be in waking life - flesh against flesh, lips brushing against lips, sharing a bond deeper than friendship could ever convey, a bond which Sherlock oh so desperately longed for and loathed at the thought of.
In his dream, Sherlock allowed himself to give in, to indulge in the fantasy that was so cruelly denied to him in reality.
But as dreams do, this one began to crumble, the warmth fading as the cold light of dawn crept in.
Watson’s image slipped through his fingers like smoke, leaving Sherlock grasping at nothing.
He awoke with a start, the echo of his dream still lingering in his mind, his body aching with the loss of something he had never truly possessed.
In the bed that was barely large enough to fit one, much less two, Sherlock sighed.
It was a rather pitiful sound, unbefitting one such as himself.
The morning light filtered through the curtains, cold and indifferent.
The world continued to spin, as it always did.
Sherlock lay still, staring up at the ceiling, his chest tight with self-loathing.
How weak, how pitiful he was to be so consumed by these forbidden desires. He was not a man given to sentiment, a rather well known fact, and yet here he was, reduced to longing for something he could never have.
He could hear the sound of a carriage stopping on the street outside, the familiar and soothing sounds of hooves clopping against cobblestone stilling for a moment.
The floorboards creeked below him, a door opened, and Sherlock heard the faint sound of Watson greeting Mrs. Hudson as warmly as always.
And why was it, that hearing his dear Watson's voice filled him with a horrible mixture of both excitement and dread?
When he finally rose, descending to greet the morning, he was more distant than usual, his thoughts still lost in the remnants of his dream.
Watson noticed, of course - he always noticed - but he did not press. Instead, he offered a warm cup of tea and a kind smile, unaware of how much that simple gesture meant to Sherlock.
Sherlock took the tea, grateful for the distraction, even as his mind continued to drift back to the dream, to the life he could never have. The bitterness in his heart only grew, for he knew that no matter what he did, no matter how he tried to bury these feelings, they would always return, tormenting him with what could never be.
The tea was perfectly brewed, just to his liking, but today it tasted like ash and poison, coating his throat with something that made his heart ache and burn.
Watson cast him a curious look, and Sherlock forced himself to drink the rest of the tea with a soft smile.
It was fine. He was fine. The thoughts would go away, in time.
They were fine.
Days turned into weeks, and life at 221B Baker Street continued as it always had. There were cases to solve, mysteries to unravel, and there was the ever-present company of John Watson. But for Sherlock, each day was a silent struggle, a battle to keep his emotions in check.
It almost hurt to breathe, when they were in the same room.
There were moments when the mask slipped, when he allowed himself to steal a glance at Watson, to take in the details of his face, his expression, his movements. These glances were fleeting, and Sherlock was careful never to let them linger too long.
But in those brief seconds, he allowed himself to feel - just for a moment - the depth of his affection.
And it was wonderful.
And then came the self-recrimination, the sharp pang of guilt that followed each stolen glance.
How could he allow himself even these small indulgences?
How could he, who prided himself on his control, be so completely undone by something as foolish as love?
It was intolerable, and yet, he could not stop himself.
God, he loved him so.
One evening, as Watson was recounting the events of his day, Sherlock found himself listening not to the words, but to the sound of Watson’s voice, the low, steady cadence, the way it soothed something deep within him.
The snake wound painfully tight around his bleeding heart loosened slightly, and the deep ache was almost unnoticeable as the cool salve that was his dear Watson's voice settled over him.
And he hated himself for it. Hated the way his heart fluttered at the mere sound of Watson’s voice, the way his pulse quickened when Watson smiled at him, the way he longed for more than just friendship.
He wanted so much more.
He wanted it to be... real.
But he could not allow himself to indulge in these feelings. He could not let his mind wander down the dangerous path of imagining what it would be like to take Watson in his arms, to press his lips to his, to feel the warmth of his body against his own. To do so would be to court madness, to invite despair.
Because it was not meant to be anything more than a sick fantasy.
Sherlock clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms as if the physical pain could drown out the emotional turmoil.
This was his curse, his burden to bear—the knowledge that he loved Watson more deeply than he had ever loved anyone, and the certainty that he could never, would never, act on those feelings.
But the one person he could admit it to, was himself.
This was the life he had chosen. It was a life of solitude, of intellectual pursuits, of solving mysteries that others could not. It... was not a life that allowed for what his traitorous heart desired.
But in the calm moments, when the world was quiet and his thoughts were loud, he would allow himself to wonder what might have been, if he had been a braver man.
He, Sherlock Holmes, was in love with John Watson.