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The first time Sherlock heard about him was right after getting punched in the face.
Granted, it was deserved - a bloody nose was, daresay, less than equal payment for disappearing on one’s best friend for nearly two years. And honestly, it wasn’t that bad - John apologized almost immediately and jumped at the chance to practice first aid. But James’ reaction was nothing short of insulting - he broke down laughing, clutching at his ribs as he pointed jeeringly.
“Holy shit,” he gasped out, ignoring John’s glare and Sherlock’s bemused expression. “I haven’t seen anything that amazing since Louis punched Milverton.”
Sherlock raised a brow. That was a name he recognized from John’s life-update texts, back when they both thought they would see each other soon. “Charles Milverton? That dumbfuck still bothers you guys?”
“Not since Louis punched him.”
“And who the fuck is Louis?”
“One of James’ friends from fencing club,” John interjected, pressing an ice pack to Sherlock’s nose. “Hold that there. And Charles didn’t leave us alone because Louis punched him, he left the school because he was caught with drugs.”
James grinned and tapped his finger against his nose. “If anyone asks, I had nothing to do with that, and neither did Albert.”
John’s face traveled from blankness to realization to exasperation in two seconds flat. “Damn it, James.”
“Mostly Albert, really.”
“I’m sure he deserved it, from what I’ve heard about the guy,” Sherlock muttered.
James nodded. “Yep. He called Louis’ brother a manic pixie dream boy.”
“Do I get to know about these people, or have I designated myself to a life of solitude after my sabbatical?”
“A sabbatical?” John screeched. “You’re a student. You were gone for three semesters. Who considers that a sabbatical?”
Sherlock shrugged. “The university, apparently, because they let me back in. All my old programs, too.”
James waved him off, loosening his tie and leaning back against the wall. Clearly unconcerned with John’s outburst, he said, “Come back to the fencing club and you’ll meet Louis. Thank the universe for saving you from meeting Milverton. Albert… well. Albert will find you if he wants to.” He tilted his head and shed his smile, face falling abnormally flat. “Louis’ brother, though? I think you’ll end up finding each other.”
Sherlock looked away to John for a translation - John the realist, John the direct, John the anchor - but John kept his gaze set on his first aid bag, aimlessly shuffling the contents. Perhaps, Sherlock thought, it’s because James couldn’t say it any more clearly.
---
On a stormy afternoon in early summer, Sherlock Holmes had finally woken up fully sober.
Technically, he had been sober for two weeks, but he truly felt it that moment. He’d done what he set out to do, and he had three weeks to spare before the Fall semester. Everything had gone according to plan, every agonizing symptom of detox was passed, every member of his support system on hand and invested, every plan to prevent relapse in place.
And yet, he couldn’t help but feel as though he weren’t ready.
He had spent hours with his violin and thoughts that day, wondering what ready would be, wondering if he would ever find enough to keep his mind moving, wondering how many more degrees and stimulating extracurriculars he could physically manage.
Everyone around him had been moving, doing, being. Concrete motions, phrases, decisions, too many things he didn’t have yet, didn’t really want yet. It wasn’t a matter of being sober, he had realized, it was a matter of his nature, of being an impulsive creature in a decisive world. He either needed to change who he was or where he was.
So he’d left.
He hadn’t told anyone in advance, just packed a few things in a suitcase and set off. He had been waiting for his train when the texts started coming: a series of increasingly panicked messages from John, a line of good luck wishes and cheerful emojis from James, something in all caps from Miss Hudson that he hadn’t even attempted to read. He’d sent the same message to all of them: “I’ll be back before classes start.”
He hadn’t texted anyone after the unintentional lie. Instead, he spent a year and a half traveling the country with cigarette smoke, a suitcase, and silence, moving and watching and breathing until he was ready.
Then he came back.
---
Sherlock’s curiosity overtook him less than two weeks later, once he’d finished meeting all of his professors and settling back into the routine of classes. After his bout of travel, the business of study was a relief; a bonus was the amusement of observing his classmates’ horror when he told them he was double majoring in chemistry and criminal justice, and minoring in psychology.
In the whirlwind of returning to classes, he forgot about James’ cryptic comment on the man he still only knew as “Louis’ brother,” but once things had returned to routine, the thought crept back into his mind, pestering him until he decided to sacrifice his dignity and ask James.
“Don’t give me that look,” he snapped, but James’ grin only widened.
“I had to wait two fucking weeks. Give me a break.”
They’d decided to eat lunch under a tree just off the quad grounds, on a patch of somewhat wet soil that James had laid his jacket upon before sitting cross-legged, and that Sherlock had dropped onto without concern. James remained silent as Sherlock finished laying out his food, so Sherlock gave him a look, and James laughed.
“Sorry. I was just thinking how to start, I swear.” He sipped at his coffee, then made a face. “Fucking big chain coffee.”
“James.”
James waved placatingly. “Calm down, Sherly, you’re gonna blow a gasket.” He set down his coffee and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “First thing you need to know: nothing I say will tell you anything about William James Moriarty.”
Sherlock nearly interrupted James, but paused to examine his face. It was serious, in an earnest way that James could manage like nobody else. It was serious in the same way as when he’d come out, in the same way as when he’d told Sherlock he could make it through detox, in the same way as when he promised to keep secrets.
So Sherlock remained silent.
“Huh,” James said. “Good for you, holding back. But there’s three options here.” He held up three fingers. “One, I laundry list info. Two, I tell you about his siblings. Three, I tell you where you can try to learn things for yourself.”
Sherlock glared. It was a fucking challenge, he knew it, but he couldn’t turn it down. “Where?”
“Guess.”
Sherlock sighed. “Fencing club?”
“Yep.”
“And this isn’t a ruse to make me rejoin the club?”
“Half so.”
Sherlock’s pack of Marlboros weighed his hoodie pocket, but he didn’t dare smoke in front of James. “Fine. Whatever.”
James winked and gave him a two-finger salute. “Can’t wait to have you back, Sherly.”
---
Sherlock loved his friends dearly, valued each in their own way, felt as close to his childhood friend as he did his roommate and his fencing partner. Each was a treasure, a person he needed desperately to thrive, someone who was probably too accepting of his painfully awkward apologies after a tiff - John, especially. With Miss Hudson, arguments were common, small spats run through with fondness; James was too level-headed to truly get worked up, and ended nearly every disagreement with a smirk or a threatening raise of his platform shoes; but John? John hurt easily, angered quickly, recovered slowly.
Slowly, but quietly, so as to make it seem he did it quickly.
Sherlock saw, with his curse of attentiveness, but said nothing. He pushed himself to make up for his mistakes in that stretch of quiet healing, helping John memorize medical terminology and cleaning around the dorm. He did as much as he could because he could never say how sorry he was, could only do and give.
He did the same with Miss Hudson if the fight was too bad, helping her with RA duties and sharing his cigarettes, doing and giving.
He tried to do the same with James the one time they had a true fight, but James had brushed him off - kindly, but knowingly - and asked for space. Sherlock, with no apparent alternative, steered clear of him for nearly a month before James sought him out and told him directly that he was forgiven.
Because, as loud a person as Sherlock was, as much as he was one to tease, as outstandingly intelligent as he knew himself to be, he couldn’t figure out how to say three important things:
I’m sorry.
Can you help me?
I love you.
---
Sherlock stepped into the fencing club room for the first time in two years, feeling more irritated than any kind of nostalgic. The walls had been repainted, the previous dusty white replaced with a remarkably dull green, but not much else had changed.
James wasn’t there, or Professor Lestrade, or, in fact, any person other than a pale young man adjusting his shoes against a wall. He jolted to attention when Sherlock stepped in, looking over in surprise. The man adjusted his glasses briefly before walking over, a polite smile fixed on his face. Sherlock automatically went into analysis mode, noting a handful of starter facts.
From a rich family, but not one to flaunt his money, One older brother, also a fencer--no, two older brothers. Masking pent up frustration with an overly polite facade.Sherlock took the man’s outstretched hand, shaking it firmly. An artist, but as a hobby. Major in some field of business or management. Most likely--
“Louis, I presume?”
Louis’ eyes widened for a moment, then pinched into a squint. “Sherlock Holmes.”
Sherlock grinned, old excitement at a new challenge welling up in his chest. “The one and only. I’ve heard a lot about--”
Sherlock paused to reach for the foil tip he found pressed against his Adam’s apple. Louis snatched away the sword before Sherlock could touch it, tucking it against his side. Sherlock shot him an unimpressed look, and Louis glared.
“If you say one word about my brother, I will not hesitate to throw you to the ground.”
Maybe the frustration wasn’t as pent-up as Sherlock had originally perceived.
“Noted,” Sherlock said. He tucked his thumbs into his vest loops and rocked back on his heels. “Just one question - did Albert really get Milverton expelled for making a joke about your other brother?”
Louis seemed to hesitate, breath stuttering - recovered from heart condition - and hand tightening on the foil - high-quality, gift from brother - but Sherlock wasn’t too concerned with getting a reply. He knew it was true simply because James had told him so, and he trusted James’s word, but he needed a leeway into the question that mattered.
“Yes,” Louis said finally. “But it wasn’t a joke. He’d just said something rude.”
Sherlock hummed, stepping around Louis to head to the court. He could practically feel the irritation radiating off of Louis. “Good. One more question, and I promise I mean it this time - why don’t you want me to meet William?”
The silence weighed on the room, a heaviness Sherlock was used to causing, used to waiting in, used to winning in. Louis didn’t speak until Professor Lestrade arrived, greeting him quietly, and even then, it wasn’t nearly loud enough to break the silence Sherlock had set. His refusal to answer spoke volumes, though, and Sherlock had as good an answer as he expected:
In the same way that James looked forward to Sherlock’s inevitable meeting with William, Louis dreaded William’s inevitable meeting with Sherlock.
---
Sherlock was a genius.
“Gifted” at the start, “creative” when he was a bit older, “problematic” by the time he finished primary school, “genius” only in the most unconventional ways.
His mother always had something nicer to say, some euphemism to tell his teachers and tutors. His father always had a puzzle or riddle for him to keep busy, a book of mysteries for him to solve the plot of. Mycroft always had an eye roll for their parents, a look that he passed to Sherlock over their shoulders.
Even back then, Mycroft understood Sherlock better than them, knew that Sherlock was just as smart as he, that Sherlock just didn’t care to remember anything that didn’t interest him.
So even though he ran through kids’ chemistry kits like air, even though he taught himself to play the violin and write music, even though he solved cold cases from reading criminal history books, Sherlock had been marked down as the dumber brother, as the one who wouldn’t finish school despite the potential his “creativity” offered him.
Mycroft had sat with him at their parents urging, but didn’t help him study like they’d asked. Instead, he’d patted Sherlock’s shoulder with a strange mix of condescension and affection, and said, “You know, you won’t get close to anything worthy unless you put up with these things. Get through school, get yourself a degree in something that works for you. Open doors for you to have your fun. Then throw away everything you don’t need.”
He hadn’t said it, but Sherlock could read between the lines. They don’t know any better. We’re smarter than them. We need to play the game.
Sherlock had tried, after that. He waited until a class finished before throwing out every piece of information he deemed irrelevant. He attended college and had a roommate who met his ignorance with fond exasperation. He made it into the forensics program at the same university John was studying pre-med at, where he reunited with Miss Hudson. He met professors who recognized his brilliance and adapted to it. He moved on, and met people, and maybe - just maybe - could admit he learned some things from it.
---
“You made a stalker wall,” John said in horror.
“It’s not a stalker wall,” Sherlock snapped, dropping into the chair facing his stalker wall. “It’s an evidence board.”
“Where did you get all this red string?” James asked, plucking at a cord connecting a campus map to an article cutout. “And how did you get the tacks to keep them in place without fraying?”
“Are you not at all bothered by the fact that Sherlock now has a stalker wall?” John demanded.
“He just said it’s not a stalker wall!”
“I won’t stand for it! It’s my room too, James!”
“If I have to put up with your dumb abstract portraits,” Sherlock said firmly, “you have to deal with my evidence board.”
James grinned and patted John on the head. “There, there. At least it’s kinda cool-looking, right?”
John groaned and faceplanted on his bed.
The thing was, as much as he defended it, Sherlock hated the board.
William was just so much. A teacher, a student, a fighter, a speaker, a manipulator, a ghost. Sherlock felt heavy just looking at the board, and he wondered how William managed to carry as much as he did. There were no pictures he could find, and he spent long hours wondering if it all showed on William, in details of his face, in the set of his shoulders, in the tone of his voice.
Every conclusion was drawn together from rumours and evidence, and each gave William a new facet, each a new connection to confuse Sherlock more: William helped a popular student reach student council president, then had a hand in getting him expelled for cheating; William was behind a sudden overturn of business department opinion of dress code, though in the paper they claimed it was after purely internal discussion; William miraculously procured video evidence of a student being assaulted by a professor, and managed to send it to every student, faculty, and staff on campus the next day, though in an official security statement, the message was determined untraceable.
The one consistent element was that each problem was the sort of matter that affected students, but that administration was unlikely to solve properly. Other than that, there was only one other thing to go on: the clear pattern of something wrong - William appears - thing changes. Sherlock concluded that there were two possibilities: either William had a moral code he acted upon when possible, or - and more likely, based on the pattern of incidents - he acted when someone requested his assistance, and it aligned with his moral code. In short:
William could do anything, if someone asked him to, and he wanted to.
After two weeks with the board up, the culmination of every assumption Sherlock could make, he pretended to give in to John’s repulsion. He tore down the board and carved down his mental image. William would be a blank slate when they met, he decided. He wouldn’t be a teacher, a student, a fighter, a speaker, a manipulator, a ghost, a word. Sherlock deleted each name as irrelevant. He would just be William.
“William,” Sherlock murmured, a late night when John was out on a date, just to say it. The name felt too heavy, still weighed down by every foolish assumption.
---
Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, Sherlock liked to think about silly things that he didn’t bother wasting energy on during the day, things like algebra and poetry and love.
Sherlock had always been of the firm belief that Mycroft was incapable of love, but after some suspicious responses to Sherlock’s inquiries, he began to question that belief. His research didn’t come up with any names for who Mycroft’s person of interest was, but his impatience lent a hand in his failure, and he didn’t bother revisiting it. His parents’ relentless nosiness would take care of it eventually, surely.
Miss Hudson came from a family with four much younger siblings, and she hadn’t hesitated in the slightest to count Sherlock as another. Her willingness to put up with his impulsivity and ability to worry about him at the same time as when she was teasing him gave him a safe place. She did her best to teach him to take care of himself, and he loved her as a sister and friend all in one.
John was someone with qualities Sherlock loved already, and it only took a few months for him to consider those qualities as parts of John, and to begrudgingly admit to himself that John was someone he loved. And as he allowed himself to love, John seemed to find an opening, and started giving him love back in the quiet, discreet way Sherlock learned he needed.
James loved loudly, matching his exuberance to his boisterous personality. If circumstances had been a bit different - if James had not been called away to visit his dying mother just when Sherlock started to understand him - Sherlock thought he might have loved James a different way, but as it was, he respected and loved James dearly as a friend.
He loved all of them fiercely, if quietly, and on those sleepless nights, he wondered if he’d love any differently if he fell in love.
---
“I’ve been thinking about the manic pixie dream boy thing.”
“Oh, darling, don’t let Louis hear you say that.”
“Sherlock, I swear, I’m not helping you if Louis gets you for that.”
Sherlock pointed an accusatory finger at James, who was sitting on the floor next to Sherlock’s bed. “I’m not stupid enough to mention William in his presence.” He moved his arm to point at John’s place at the desk. “That’s a fool’s promise and you know it. But,” he spread his hands in the air, “neither of you have to worry, because I am about to speak against this point.”
“Nobody thinks of William like that,” John muttered, curling over the textbook that was more highlighter than text. “It’s just something stupid that Milverton said to piss off Louis.”
“Everyone thinks of William like that,” Sherlock responded. He crumpled up a piece of paper into a ball, pressing his thumbs into the creases to make it more compact, then threw it at John. He ignored John’s sputtering and continued, “From what I’ve asked around, the general perception of him is ethereal, life-changing, erratic. A quiet charmer who can change the future with a few words. In short, a manic pixie dream boy.”
James raised a hand, as if to ask a question. “Erratic?”
Sherlock frowned, mostly to himself. That had been his biggest hurdle in meeting William; the man vanished in and out of timelines, was somehow allowed by the faculty to vanish for weeks at a time and return without consequence, had no regular contacts that Sherlock could use to track him down or predict a pattern with.
“Never mind,” James cackled. “I see the steam coming out of your ears. I promise he has reasons, though, just like you did.”
John tensed, shoulders caving in and ankles crossing. He took a deep breath, waving his shoulders a bit, planting his feet on the ground. The smile on his face was painfully forced when he looked up at Sherlock. “Let’s hear your rebuttal, then.”
Sherlock chose not to acknowledge it. John would forgive in his own time, even if it took another semester, and Sherlock needed to wait.
“I couldn’t say very much about it yet,” Sherlock said slowly, “but I can tell you they’re wrong. His empathetic connections are weak, or at least weakly expressed, and the reachable people clearly close to him - Louis and James - have a wildly different perception of him than everyone else. Besides,” he couldn’t restrain a bit of excited laughter, “manic pixie dream boys are helpless, aimless. The lack of information is deliberate, his connections carefully crafted. He’s whatever the exact opposite of a manic pixie dream boy is.”
For a moment, John’s expression switched to something that Sherlock would call hopeful. “And what does that mean to you?” he asked.
“That I need to meet him. That I need to find him, or that he needs to find me.”
“Are you going to look for him?” James asked, voice synthetically casual as he picked imaginary crumbs off his button-down.
Sherlock glanced at him. James met his gaze and held it. They both knew the answer, so Sherlock supposed James was asking on behalf of John, who wouldn’t have thought to ask.
“No,” Sherlock said. “I’m sure it’ll happen on its own.”
---
Sherlock wrote music, sometimes.
He played his violin every day, any time he fancied, sometimes missing class when he got caught up in the music, but composing was something special. It was something he did when he wanted to create instead of discover, when the urge to tear apart and pick at the world warped into the need to fold it up and fit it together. John complained that he could find no rhyme or reason to it, and Miss Hudson would sometimes come to watch him like an interested zoologist as he scribbled at his sheet, but their lack of understanding was of no concern to him.
Sherlock composed when he won. He composed after he caught the campus laptop thief, after he discovered who vandalized Miss Moneypenny’s car, after his first week without cocaine, after acquiring forgiveness for his disappearance. Dozens of victories of various degrees, some of which his friends would never know of, some of which they’d never understand, some of which they’d likely cuff him for getting himself involved in.
He composed because he knew things that he didn’t know how to say, because he couldn’t even say those important phrases to himself:
I’m good at this.
I’m helping others.
I’m proud of myself.
---
Sherlock, self-aware as one can get, knew very well that he was an attention whore.
He easily agreed when a girl from his forensic toxicology class asked for help with finding her lost phone, easily followed through, easily went along with her two friends when they asked him to hang out at the cafe with them for a bit. It gave him a chance to show off a bit, get back into the groove of enjoying himself around strangers.
“Ten in a row!” His classmate clapped lightly and giggled. “That’s amazing.”
“Ooh,” one of her friends pointed, “the blonde cutie who just got in line. What’s his major?”
It took Sherlock a moment to spot the student in question, another moment to examine his line of sight and determine mathematics, one moment more to realize that he bore a remarkable similarity to Louis.
“Excuse me,” his classmate called lightly as the student - William? - walked by them with his drink in hand. “Would you mind helping us settle a bet? This guy’s guessing majors.”
He came to a stop and smiled easily, quick and light and thin in a way that Sherlock imagined could fool a fox or pacify an army. He wore a rusty brown turtleneck that hung loose at the sleeves and draped over his lowered hand. Everything about his appearance sang innocence and calm and comfort, but everything Sherlock could see murmured cleverness and control and passion. Sherlock realized, then, why Louis was concerned. Louis’ brother was a genius in the same way Sherlock was, standing on a ledge high enough to see everyone else - a ledge William had likely never had an equal on, a ledge that he could be pushed off of if there were.
Someone Sherlock could ruin, or who could ruin Sherlock.
Sherlock pushed every thought into a box to consider later, and threw on a lazy grin, brushing back his hair. “Too easy. Mathematics.”
All three girls leaned on the table toward William. “Well? Is he right?” one asked.
He let out a small laugh. “Correct. If I may,” he stepped closer and lifted his free hand, shaking his wrist a bit to lower the sweater cuff from his palm, “I’ll take a turn.” He tilted his head, his smile growing by barely a centimeter. “You’re studying criminal justice and chemistry, though you seem to favour the latter. You’re taking a minor in… psychology, is it? And I would imagine you’re aiming for a career as a detective.” He leaned forward slightly, eyes bright and sharp and set on Sherlock, looking in. “Correct?”
Sherlock inhaled sharply and realized that he’d stopped breathing in his exhilaration. He let out the breath in a laugh. “Right on the nose.”
William laughed lightly, again, but Sherlock swore it had more life in it. “I’m glad. Well, I hope to see you again soon, Mr. Detective.”
The girls started talking again as soon as William stepped away, perhaps asking him to guess at more patrons, but he couldn’t redirect his attention. He felt something wind up his feet, through his legs, up into his chest and around his heart and lungs.
This was going to be fun.
---
Sherlock had been thirteen when he realized what relieved his mental itch.
By complete accident, he’d stumbled across his history teacher in tears. When questioned, she had told him that someone stole her wedding ring, and pieces began to fit together in his mind essentially on their own - a problem child in his class with a grudge over a bad grade, one of her friends with the class in a different period, the way that the lock on his teacher’s desk didn’t seem to have been tampered with.
Though it took less than an hour to track down the culprit and acquire evidence, he felt an instant of exhilaration when the concept of solving the case struck him, and it was shortly after that Sherlock began solving old murder cases from public files, and soon after that that Sherlock decided he wanted to be a detective.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to stand working under a police force, so he aimed his sights at work as a private detective instead. Though his research informed him that he did, in fact, need to know math to take chemistry classes (he’d never read the manuals for those forensic chemistry kits), he told his career counselor that he wanted to take a concentration in forensics.
Throughout the rest of his time in school, he became a consultant of sorts, and also a fucking capitalist who made kids his age pay for his services, despite his personal dismays. He really could do this, he realized, really could make a living off this, and maybe he’d finally feel like he could breathe.
---
Sherlock intended to keep his meeting with William a secret, if one could even call it a meeting, but he completely underestimated Louis’ abilities.
Louis took one look at him when he walked into the fencing gym and physically drew back.
“You met William.” He spoke the line like a curse. Perhaps it was meant to be one. Sherlock shrugged.
“Not really. We just happened to be in the same cafe, and we spoke maybe a sentence each.”
“Everything William says means something,” James said. His voice was solemn but his eyes were alight with amusement.
“Why-- he-- you--” Louis hissed out a breath and hid his face in his hands. “Never mind. If you hurt my brother, or worse, get in his way--” worse?-- “I will bury you. This is neither an exaggeration nor a euphemism. I will do everything in my power to literally bury you.”
“Albert would be the one with the power to do that, it would seem,” Sherlock shot back. Louis’ look of surprise was disappointingly bland. “What, shouldn’t it be obvious? You and William both seem very capable, but the gaps in campus security and staff coordination speak to an ally in administration.” Sherlock shrugged. “It’s a miracle no one else has said it, though I suppose it would ruin the air of mystery around William that everyone seems determined to maintain.”
Louis fumed for a moment, then turned rigidly to face James. “James, would you please have a match with me?”
“Sure thing. Sherly, spot us.”
As he and Louis made their way out onto the floor, Sherlock dropped himself to the ground against the wall, only half paying attention as he called the start of the bout.
Or worse, get in his way.
Based on the manner Louis had exuded when making his threat, the “hurt” he had initially referenced was emotional rather than physical. The emphasis on the following phrase, however, implied a difference in gravitas. Getting in William’s way, would cause William some harm greater than general emotional distress. Perhaps getting William expelled? Or maybe even arrested, if his means were illegal? Either way, Sherlock couldn’t imagine interfering with any of William’s work, considering how much he clearly helped students.
But Louis didn’t know that, now did he?
It dawned on Sherlock just as James landed the first point. Louis had most likely first heard about Sherlock first from stories about his mystery-solving ventures, snippets of conversations indicating his intelligence but not his character. For reasons Sherlock still didn’t quite understand - a question to ponder later - John and James wanted Sherlock to meet William, and it was a definite possibility that James had said as much to Louis. If Louis knew only of Sherlock’s capabilities and of the chance that they might meet, and had been left with those thoughts for a year or more in Sherlock’s absence, it may well have festered into a fierce, protective distaste.
It showed a bond that Sherlock didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, but that he admired nonetheless. Still, his brief meeting with William had only confirmed his suspicions that he needed William, needed to see him again, talk to him more, make a connection.
---
Sometimes, Sherlock felt lonely in his travels.
He never felt lonely when he was at a destination, when he stepped off the train onto solid ground and took his first look at the new sky. No, the loneliness came in those in-between times, in the time spent on a bus or train as he moved from one place and another. The lasting movement, out of his control, made him feel the stretch between himself and the people he left behind.
Sherlock didn’t plan his path, per se, but he did look at maps before buying a ticket, always making sure he wasn’t headed in the direction of the university. He’d get on the train, settle down, and start overthinking. He mentally ran over the last texts he’d been sent and imagined responding (though his phone was long dead), wondered if Mycroft was watching over him somehow (Sherlock was almost certain he was), hoped that John and Miss Hudson and James didn’t think him dead (probably at least one of them did.)
Sherlock would fiddle with his phone and think of asking someone else if he could borrow their charger, then chuck it back in his case before he could be tempted further. Sometimes he tried to sleep through it, or pretend his half-doze was unconsciousness; sometimes he watched loud groups of friends or the passing scenery, and yearned.
In the end, though, it was only a liminal space. He arrived at the next city, breathed in its exhaust and voices and well-walked paths, and carried on.
---
“Oh my, what a coincidence, Mr. Detective.”
Had the campus bus not been as crowded as it was, Sherlock may very well have broken something with the speed at which he pivoted to face Liam.
“What a coincidence, indeed,” Sherlock said, shoving his way past a couple of disgruntled students to grab the handle next to Liam’s. He grinned. “I was hoping to meet you properly, William Moriarty.”
Liam smiled lightly, polished over to look genuine, though Sherlock couldn’t read it as anything other than polite. “And I, you, Sherlock Holmes, though I’d hardly call this a proper meeting.”
The bus came to a stop, and for a moment, the force had Sherlock leaning into Liam’s space, and Liam tilting back. “Are you going to class? My next one’s in a couple of hours, still.”
“Ah, no, I was just going to do some work in the cafe. Would you like to join me? If whatever has you coming early isn’t urgent, of course.”
The bus started up again, William leaning into Sherlock’s space, Sherlock tilting back. “Nah. I was going to meet someone, but I’ll just ditch him.”
William blinked slowly, face locked in its apparent polished default, then splintered, smile breaking into something true and shoulders shaking with slight, silent laughter.
“Well, then,” he said, “I’d better make for some good company, hmm?”
Oh, Sherlock thought, this really will be fun.
Sherlock was not having fun.
They’d been sitting in the cafe with their drinks for nearly fifteen minutes, and William had yet to say anything, only making eye contact and smiling whenever Sherlock looked up. As much as Sherlock would have fucking loved to say something to get the conversation going, he didn’t dare say something accidentally influenced by the research he’d done earlier.
So he alternated between sipping from and glaring at his coffee, and stayed silent, feeling like a fool and mentally willing Liam to speak.
Sherlock glanced up at Liam, met his unwavering gaze, and did his best to hide his curses from showing on his face.
Say something, damn it.
Liam picked up his teacup and gave it a solid shake, sending tea spilling over the side and onto his sleeve.
“Oh dear,” he said, examining his sweater with a look of faint concern, and Sherlock awed at the genuinity of his faux surprise. “I appear to have made a terrible fool of myself.” He glanced up at Sherlock, eyes glimmering. “It’s a good thing my pride doesn’t keep me from enjoying my time with someone, even though I’m embarrassed.”
Oh, this bastard.
Sherlock rested his chin on his fingers and learned forward. “That would be a shame, especially if it was actually with someone you’d talk to.”
“For sure, even more so if it were someone I knew much about in advance, and who knew just as much about me.”
“Touche.” Sherlock leaned back. “All right. What I know about you for what you know about me?”
“Seems like a fair trade.”
“All right.” Sherlock grinned. “Nothing.”
Liam’s face didn’t quite drop into expressionlessness, but it certainly drifted there, leveling out into a blankness that spoke volumes. “Oh?”
“I’ve heard plenty about you,” Sherlock continued, smile growing beyond his control, “but I know nothing. So I’m here to learn, Liam.”
A flicker, then a spark, then a flame, then a smile. “Well, then. I have a proposition.”
---
Sherlock remembered the first words exchanged between himself and nearly everyone, but he never really bothered to think back on most of them. Sometimes, just to make himself smile, he’d remember first talking to Miss Hudson and John and James.
Miss Hudson, nineteen and furiously concerned, had addressed him first, “What the hell is a kid like you doing wandering around alone?” And he, eight and owning the world, had answered, “None of your business.”
Sherlock had made John jump by throwing their door open without knocking and announcing, “I have arrived!” John, miraculously quick in his recovery, replied, “Nice to meet you, I’m John.”
James had taken one look at Sherlock when he walked into the fencing club room, then said, “I bet I could beat you in rock paper scissors.” Sherlock, cocky, had said, “I’ve never lost a game of rock paper scissors.”
He’d lost at rock paper scissors for the first time in his life, and he never stopped laughing at the memory.
---
“It’s back,” John whispered, face wrought with horror. “Why is it back.”
James peered around the door. “What’s back?”
“Sherlock’s stalker wall!”
“I thought we established that it’s an evidence board.”
“It’s neither,” Sherlock grumbled, rolling up a handful of red string and cramming it into a mug for future use. “If anything, it’s a game board. Just something to keep track of moving parts.”
“Why does your game board need to look so much like your stalker wall?” John asked, and from his tone of voice, Sherlock would have bet that he was shifting from horrified to exhausted.
“Because, much like my evidence board, I’m using it to keep track of locations and people.”
James looked it over curiously for a moment, then froze, eyes narrowing into a squint.
“Hey, Sherly? Why is my name on here?”
Sherlock pointedly looked at the wall past James. “Because you’re likely to become one of the people I need to keep track of.”
“Ahh, of course.”
John yelped as James’ boot-clad foot flew into the wall next to Sherlock’s head. James leaned in, smile wide and saccharine.
“And you’re not going to get me involved in anything stupid, right?” He leaned in closer, and Sherlock felt a cold sweat break out on his neck. “Because you know very well that I hate getting dragged into troublesome things unrelated to me, right?”
“Of course,” Sherlock laughed, scratching his make-James-make-Louis-reveal-his-info plan. “I wasn’t planning anything, promise.”
“Perfect,” James said sweetly, pulling back and planting his 8-fucking-centimeter combat boot on the ground. “Glad we have an understanding.”
“My name’s on here, too,” John muttered, poking at the board. “Actually, it’s mostly people we know. Why do you need us on the board?”
Sherlock leaned around James to watch John scan the names lined up on one side. “If you look to the other side, you’ll see people associated with Liam. I just don’t know who’s going to be part of everything yet.”
“What is 'everything,' exactly?”
Sherlock felt the excitement warm his gut. “Oh, you know.” He grinned. “The game.”
---
In primary school, Sherlock had regarded himself as more grown-up than other kids his age. It wasn’t anything to do with having a job or turning in coursework on time, but more how many adults would ask him to do things, or trust him to know what to do from simple starting instructions, or get angry when he did something incorrectly.
In junior high, Sherlock had sworn off of accepting requests of that sort. If he could avoid building himself a reputation for that sort of thing, he wouldn’t have to deal with the annoyances of it. And dodge teachers and administrators he did, but in doing so, he was forced to spend more time with his peers, who leapt on his curiosity and stubbornness to get help with their own responsibilities.
In high school, he was untouchable. There weren’t many efforts, that time–he had simply had a night where he realized that all he really cared for was attention, and that he could get that from making silly deductions about classmates and teachers just as well as he could from taking on work from anyone. That was when he found his skin and settled in it.
University was when he realized that just Miss Hudson wasn’t actually enough in terms of close emotional connections and that, to his absolute horror, he actually needed to make friends. Something that Miss Hudson was absolutely delighted to hear him admit, but ultimately unsympathetic in helping him with.
“Go to clubs,” she said. “Talk to that roommate of yours more. Things’ll fall into place.”
And things did come together, in the end, but more in a fall than he would have liked, more a collapse with a quick-tempered roommate and silver-tongued fencer that caught onto him far too quickly. In retrospect, he hated how fun it was. At the time, he’d loved the thrill.
---
Everything Sherlock learned from the game culminated to be mostly unimportant, first-chat-over-coffee, over-detailed-dating-app-profile level information. Liam’s favorite movie, his brother’s cooking specialties, his preferred sweater colours, and Sherlock was getting fairly certain that Liam was just having fun, especially considering his methods.
Ciphers. Every godamn thing William James Moriarty had thrown at him so far involved ciphers, and though Sherlock supposed such a thing could be expected of a dodgy math major, he was running low on patience. A disassembled QR code in the cafe they first met in–
(James scanned the page, and Sherlock could see the moment he understood the game by the shit-eating grin that occupied his features. He set the notebook down on the grass.
“Well, now,” he said, all Cheshire wiles. “I wonder what all these codes could mean.”
Sherlock slammed his hands on the notebook and leaned forward. Bond didn’t flinch. “I got them. I know the locations. I know who’s at which place. All I need you to tell me, and I swear to God--” he leaned in closer-- “I swear to God, you better not ruin this one for me. All you need to tell me is who. Gets. Which. Coffee.”
“Coffee orders! Oh my! I never would have deciphered this horribly complicated code, the sort of which I’ve definitely never destroyed in escape rooms--”
“James Bond, you bastard.”
“Well just answering would be cheating, now wouldn’t it? But I’ll give you a hint instead. Each coffee order would definitely be the result of the persons in question taking a “what kind of coffee are you” uquiz–”
“You motherf–”)
–a Viegnere cipher plastered on the wall of the bus they’d ridden together–
(“We have been,” John said with a concerningly calm voice, “to every bookstore in the university city area. If your silly game–”
“Don’t call it silly–”
“--silly game has dragged out beyond that, you’re on your own.”
“That’s not even a good lie,” Sherlock muttered, reaching over John to pull down another copy of Crime and Punishment, scowling when he saw it was the wrong edition again. “Or maybe it would stand more a chance of being believable if you didn’t say it every time you got bored being out with me, then storm off dramatically, only to return ten minutes later–”
John scowled from the floor, where he had his arm stuck up to the shoulder in the lowest shelf. “I don’t get bored, you get caught up in analyzing–”
“Found it!” Sherlock crowed, thrusting the book into the air. “Well done in finding this place, John. Come on, if we run to the register we won’t miss the last bus–”)
–a new painting covered in numbers and letters in the hallway where he met up with John after their classes–
(John frowned at the piece of paper in the center of Sherlock’s game board. “What’s this? Some kind of code?”
Sherlock tilted his chair back and folded his arms, only half aware of John’s presence, surveying the board in its entirety. “Probably.”
John jolted, then turned mechanically to face Sherlock. “Did you just admit to being uncertain about a mental challenge?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
John, ever attuned, seemed to pick up on the lack of playfulness in Sherlock’s mood quite quickly, and frowned. He took a deep breath in, closed his eyes, and breathed out. “Okay. If it’s not a code, what is it?”
Sherlock ignored the nagging thought that he’d have to figure out an apology soon and bulled through. “Building numbers. Dorm rooms.” He gestured to the chessboard on the table. “Chess piece positions.”
John glanced at the table, then at the clump of numbers and letters on the board. “This would be the middle of a match, right?”
“Yep.”
“So he’s making you jump into a game that’s already started?”
“Not join,” Sherlock muttered, fidgeting with the unplaced white queen. “Understand.”)
–over and over, in the fencing club gym, in his dorm’s common room, and, stretched across his route from his forensics class to his criminal psychology class, a pigpen reading “same place at four.”
And Sherlock saw a chance to have things take a turn.
Sherlock slammed open the door to his room, making John yelp and Miss Hudson swear.
“Dear God,” she muttered, glaring at the tea-coated counter in front of her. “We just made that pot, Sherlock, damn you.”
“John!” Sherlock exclaimed, grabbing his friend’s shoulders and shaking him bodily. “I need--”
“Sherlock!” Miss Hudson yelled, slamming a fist on the counter.
Sherlock and John both jumped and turned to look at her. She smiled sweetly.
“Don’t you have something to say for ruining our calm, peaceful, Sherlock-free time, and wasting some perfectly good tea?”
Sherlock laughed shakily. “Um. Sorry. Miss Hudson. And John.”
“Are you…apologizing?”
“Yes, and on that note, John!” Sherlock grabbed John’s shoulders again. “I need your help.”
John stared blankly at Sherlock, then turned his head to stare blankly at Miss Hudson. She stared back.
“You’re… asking me to help you. You’re actually coming to me, and saying, without any aggressive implications or dramatic groaning, that you need my help?”
Sherlock grit his teeth and checked his watch. “Yes. And we’re a bit pressed for time here, so--”
“You didn’t even tell me to shut the fuck up when I put you on the spot with a rhetorical question,” John said, voice distant. “Holy shit. Wait. This must be something serious, then.”
“Yes, it is,” Sherlock snapped, grabbing John by the elbow and yanking him around the counter. “Sorry, Miss Hudson, I promise to give you guys an extra hour of no-me time.”
“Oh no, this is clearly a thing,” she called after them as they left, grinning like a cat. “I expect to hear about it later!”
“That little–”
“Sherlock? I meant it. Are you okay?”
Sherlock took a deep breath in, then let it out quickly, stopping them in the hallway. “I’m meeting Liam in a little less than an hour, and I need to…” He waved a hand. “You know.”
John frowned. “I definitely do not. Give me something to work with here.”
“You know.” Sherlock grit his teeth. “Talk to him. But like, not for the game.”
John blinked, then broke into a half-smile that he was clearly struggling to contain. “You need my advice on.. What? Being honest? Communicating earnestly?”
“Godamnit,” Sherlock muttered. “Fine. Fine, if you need to word it like that.”
“I certainly do. But,” John’s face slipped into seriousness as he leaned back against the wall, “I don’t think you have that hard a time talking to people, honestly. I mean, you’re pretty blunt in general, but I think you only share thoughts you already know how to articulate in a way you expect we’ll understand.” He smiled faintly. “Like how you have a hard time apologizing, since ‘I’m sorry’ says very little on its own. But you and Liam seem to be similar, don’t you think?”
Sherlock shrugged. “Not in a relevant way.”
John shrugged back. “I think so. Tell him things the way you’d tell yourself, and see what happens.”
—
Once, when Sherlock was very young—old enough to remember happenings, but too young to remember years—he became so sick that he was bedridden for days. He hardly remembered any of it through his fever, but Miss Hudson told him that she’d been the only one there at the time, and she had tried her best to care for him. She told him about how she sent her younger siblings out to get medicines, and about how she didn’t know what to do but call his parents and keep his face cool.
He didn’t thank her for it, not just because it was something he sucked at, but because it didn’t feel right at the time. Instead, he told her she did well, and recalled a time when she had sat next to his bed and read to him from a mystery novel.
He’d expected her to do what she usually would–accept the compliment with hands on her hips and chest puffed, going on about how she was the best at doing voices and impressions–but she’d smiled softly, tugged about his wild hair, and said, “Of course. I’ll always look after you.”
Years later, when Sherlock was much older—old enough to start thinking back, but too young to really understand—he wondered what she had heard him say, and if it was really worth saying things outright.
---
“I’d like to propose a new game.”
Liam raised a brow, tugging his sleeves down to his fingers. “When we haven’t even concluded the last one?”
“I wanna replace it.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Instead of having me figure out all these things, I have the idea that - and don’t call me crazy just yet - we just tell each other things we want the other to know.”
Liam frowned, but he seemed more amused than anything. “Doesn’t sound like much of a game.”
Sherlock leaned forward and raised a finger between them, grinning despite the nervous palpitations of his heart. “Oh, but here’s the twist. We get to choose how we tell each other. For example.” He tugged up his sleeve, just long enough to see Liam’s eyes catch on the track marks, then pulled it back down. “And now you know something about me. But no, I doubt this would be interesting enough for you, so I’ve raised the stakes.”
Liam, whose face had remained remarkably blank for the extent of Sherlock’s speech, shared something close to a smile. “And what would those be, Mr. Detective?”
“We tally up who shares the most, and at the end of the term, whoever’s scored higher gets to ask the other a question.” He added quickly, “That the other has to answer honestly.”
Liam picked at his sleeve, still staring at Sherlock. He tilted his head. “To be honest, that’s still not quite my sort of game. But,” he smiled, something bright and wicked that Sherlock had never seen on him before, “if my dearest detective makes such a request, I couldn’t possibly say no.”
- - -
In one of the cities Sherlock had passed through–perhaps the sixteenth or eighteenth, though he’d decided to stop keeping track of them around the eleventh–he had encountered the owner of a small tobacco shop. Sherlock had been in an awful mood then, worn down by three hours stuck in a security situation at the train station and unwilling to deal with the long lines at the drugstore. The owner, a squat older woman with a smoke-worn accent and heavy smile lines.
“These things will kill ya,” she said cheerily, handing him his two packs. “Me, I’ll live forever, probably, but you shouldn’t bet on that. Get into gum or something of the sort. Dental bills are cheaper than what you’ll get otherwise.”
“Cigs are cheaper than what I got before,” he muttered back, tearing one pack open to put in his pocket and cramming the other in his bag, “but thanks.”
“Doesn’t mean you’ve got to stop here,” she said back, undeterred. She rummaged about in her sweater pocket and pulled out a rather sad-looking lighter. “Here, a lil gift for ya.”
Sherlock raised a skeptical brow, but she insistently pushed her arm out further.
“Try burning something else. Piece of paper or something a bit bigger.” She grinned. “Best it be smaller than a house, but you know. It’s a funner way to quit than chewing gum, if you’ve really got that much a problem with it.”
Sherlock took the lighter. He kept smoking after that, but he only used cheap lighters from the station shops. If I ever quit, he’d tell himself, fidgeting with the lighter whenever he felt like picking up his phone. When I can bring myself to.
- - -
Their new game, it turned out, had a fatal flaw:
Neither of them were initiating.
Logically, Sherlock knew he should have some sort of responsibility to kick things off, having been the one to propose the game in the first place. But Sherlock had also realized that, very absolutely, that everything he did with Liam was going to be different.
So he waited, stupidly, knowing that Liam was unlikely to initiate at that point.
Sherlock met Liam first twice a week, then every other day, then every day. At the coffeeshop they first met at (Liam’s favorite), under the tree in the far corner of the quad (Sherlock’s favorite), and, only once, Liam’s too-quiet too-cold too-empty dorm room.
“I didn’t really know what would be worth putting in,” Liam had admitted as he sat on his bed, words plain, since Sherlock had already filled in the blanks, and since Liam knew him too well already.
What was worth filling a room that only rarely held a presence? When its only occupant fell asleep at laptops in libraries and used a friendly jacket as a blanket? When the most used thing was probably some sort of suitcase in the closet?
“John puts up art in ours,” Sherlock said, picking up and dusting off an absurdly fancy paperweight. “These abstract pieces, blobs and triangles and stuff. Drives me crazy.” He lifted the paperweight and raised a brow questioningly.
Liam laughed in that short, bright way of his, where his eyes turned up but his mouth stayed shut, and patted the bed next to him. When Sherlock sat next to him, Liam held out his hand, and Sherlock dropped the paperweight onto it. Liam delicately ran his fingertips over it, in a smooth circle around the sanguine gem placed in the center, then in a path over the intricate feather pattern impressed in gold. The touches were deliberate, as if he had done it often.
“Louis and I were adopted into Albert’s family, you know,” he said softly.
Sherlock gave a little half-nod. It wasn’t too hard to guess, with how wildly different they looked, but he didn’t want to interrupt Liam’s musings.
“Albert’s always been lovely, always looked after us. Much more kind than some of the others in that family.” Liam’s lips quirked up on one side. “His brother was a little monster.”
“I didn’t know there’s a fourth.”
“There isn’t,” Liam said simply. Then, dropping his head forward and peering up at Sherlock mischievously, “Nor much of value left in that house, if you catch my drift.”
A laugh burst from Sherlock without him meaning it to. Not only because the image of Liam and Louis robbing a rich house blind was absolutely fantastic, but because Sherlock had gained another clue to what he would ask if he won the game.
“Point,” he said, once he had recovered his breath. “What else you got here?”
- - -
When Sherlock was eight years old, he cut his ankle on an iron fencepost.
He’d climbed over that fence dozens of times, probably more than twenty just in the week prior. He’d never gotten hurt before, and he’d never worried about it, either. He had startled when the sting set in, a sear up his calf when he landed on the other side, and crouched to watch as the clean cut went from straight red to a swell of blood to a sluggish fall down into his shoe.
Sherlock didn’t tell anyone, opting instead to shoddily apply a gauze patch and start wearing socks that went up to the calf. Mycroft was off at boarding school then, so Sherlock wasn’t too concerned about being caught, but he took care to mask his pain and keep off any sort of limp. Even when, three days later, deep pink became angry red, and the forming scab turned out not to be a scab at all.
It took fifteen minutes in the family library and ten minutes in his parents’ bathroom to learn how to treat an infected wound, clean off the pus, and apply antibiotics. He threw away the bloody dressings under piles of fake trash so they wouldn’t be found, the whole ordeal gone unknown until a fortnight later, when Mycroft came home and called him out on the spot.
His parents fussed, of course, but there was nothing to be done; the cut was healed, and Sherlock had already chastised himself enough.
- - -
“Have you ever met my brother?” Sherlock asked.
Liam let out a half-hum. “I haven’t, but I’ve heard about him.” That smile, his we’re playing now smile. “Have you met both of mine?”
“Just Louis,” Sherlock admitted. “Who isn’t particularly happy about my existence, by the way.”
“Why are you asking about Mycroft?”
Sherlock chose not to comment on Liam’s failure to comment about Louis’ opinions. “He’s better than me. Bam. Point.”
Liam blinked, and his lips turned slightly downward. “Tell more.”
“I feel he’s better than me, at least,” Sherlock modified begrudgingly. Then, because Liam’s face didn’t change, went on, “We were both smart kids. Gifted and all that. But I got stupid, and he just stayed smart.”
Liam tapped his fingers against the side of his mug.
“Have you considered,” he asked slowly, carefully, stepping over the lines of the game, “that you aren’t in a place that allows you to validate your own intelligence?”
“I have.” James had suggested it, years before. “Doesn’t mean shit. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Liam sat still for a minute, eyes as red as a tired sunrise, then nodded once. “Fair enough.” He tugged his sweater sleeve down his wrist, then laid his hand palm-up on the table between them.
Sherlock’s brain shut down. Then it burst to racing thoughts as it shifted gears from the previous conversation to the urgent situation at hand.
Was he supposed to take Liam’s hand? Would it be presumptuous to assume that, when presented a hand in optimal hand-holding position, one should initiate the hand-holding? Alternatively, would it be inconsiderate to ignore such an optimally-placed hand? And even if it were an indicator that hand-holding should be initiated, what would said hand-holding mean?
Sherlock stared at the hand, blank faced, hands under the table, until Liam tapped the back of his hand against the table.
“Feel,” he said quietly.
At that point, it would have been entirely wrong to refuse, so Sherlock pressed his fingers against Liam’s palm. He startled at the raised skin he found, a scar in a shape he’d never seen before.
He kept running his fingers lightly over the scar, trying to pick out where the bumps were placed. Liam’s fingers twitched occasionally, probably ticklish from the touches on his palm. But, despite his best efforts, Sherlock couldn’t take a guess at the scar’s origin.
He wanted to ask, but that wasn’t the game, so he didn’t. Instead, he halted his movement, and let Liam press their palms together, and let himself weave their fingers together.
- - -
In his first term of university, Sherlock lived in a small rental flat, two trains and a twenty minute walk away from campus. He moved into dorms when he realized it would be much cheaper, and that cigarettes and drugs burned quickly through the money Mycroft allowed him.
The flat had the ugliest wallpaper known to man, a grungy brown that seemed to be purposefully faded and that peeled at corners. Because the renter couldn’t care less, Sherlock would practice throwing knives at the wallpaper, aiming for the gaps between the horrendously aligned fleur de lis pattern. It was a form of stress relief that, unlike playing the violin, did not result in the residents in the flat below banging a broom against their ceiling.
He got really good at throwing knives.
The more his accuracy improved, though, the more boring it became, and the more silly he felt doing it. There was nothing to curse at when his aim landed. There was nobody to blame for distracting him when he missed.
- - -
It was completely accidental, and, Sherlock decided, something that was perfectly fine to describe as “Liam’s fault.”
Sherlock had walked into his favorite coffeeshop and saw Liam tucked in the back corner where the lamps faded to a cozy shadow. Perhaps he had recognized his sweater, the near-pink red one that purposefully slid low on one shoulder, the one that didn’t have sleeves too long so that Liam could type easily. Next to his laptop was a clear glass, half filled with melted ice and containing a sad pool of diluted coffee.
So when he went to the counter to order, he added an iced americano, and set it down on Liam’s table from over his shoulder.
Liam didn’t startle, just turned his head and peered up at Sherlock. His eyes narrowed slightly and his lips flattened, which Sherlock took to be his evaluating situation face.
“Was this supposed to be a romantic gesture?” he asked casually, as though he hadn’t seen right through Sherlock, and asked the worst possible question.
Because, as certain as Sherlock was that he had fallen in love with Liam, he hadn’t the slightest idea of whether some enactment of those feelings would be productive. There were still boundaries between them, things they didn’t understand about each other, triggers and pressure points that they hadn’t mastered avoidance of. Would it be reasonable to initiate a relationship? Would he ruin both of them if he tried? And all that, he reminded himself, was under the assumption that his feelings were reciprocated, or at the very least accepted.
And that was only relevant if it answered Liam’s question, Sherlock realized. Romantic gesture, he’d asked. Were his feelings romantic? Those hours spent considering the man before him, the dozens of songs demonstrating Liam’s presence in his mind, each and every split second decision and realization that centered around Liam. It was love, Sherlock was certain, but different from his love for Miss Hudson, for John, for James.
Then, in his next breath, he remembered who he was.
“Yes,” he said. “I love you, by the way.”
- - -
One night with his violin, Sherlock thought first about what people wanted, then about what people needed.
Some people wanted buoys to guide them through the water, but needed to be out of the sea. Some people wanted mile markers to tell them how far they’d gone, but needed to stop keeping track. Some people wanted to change the world, but needed to do just a little good. Some people wanted pain, but needed comfort. Some people wanted attention, but needed love.
He discovered that it was much more difficult to differentiate these for people he cared for.
He wanted to help with what they needed, to give them that fulfillment, but also to give them what they wanted, to give them that simple joy. He was certain he was failing with one, but he wasn’t sure which, and he wanted to get better. The easiest way to find out, he knew, was to ask. They might not know for sure, but they might have an idea. Maybe they knew one or the other, and he could figure it out from there. If he could only ask.
- - -
“Oh dear, you’ve caught me just as I was getting ready to leave.”
Sherlock raised a brow at Liam, who was turning his key to unlock his dorm door. “Sure looks like you’re just getting here.”
Liam pushed open the door and stepped back, gesturing for Sherlock to come in, and Sherlock realized what he meant. Leaving, going to who-knows-where for another one of his vanishing acts that everyone seemed unreasonably indifferent about. He stepped in past Liam, dropping onto his bed unceremoniously and surveying the room. There was no suitcase that he could see, just a large shoulder bag sagging empty on the desk.
Liam stepped in and shut the door behind him. He took swinging steps into the room, swaying lightly as he made his way to the bag. He dropped in a moleskine notebook, a handful of loose pens, and his little switchblade. He started walking across the room, but paused briefly to look at Sherlock. His lips curled up on one side and he passed Sherlock, opening the closet.
“Don’t look so down. I’m coming back, you know.”
Sherlock didn’t bother trying to smooth out his expression, and at that point, he didn’t feel inclined to think before speaking, either. “It’s not that. I’m just pissed-” not the word, not really- “because I can’t… get you.” Not the word, again.
Liam paused in shuffling through his closet, tilting his head back to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “Get me?” He turned the rest of his body to face Sherlock, head steady like an owl. He strode forward to stand between Sherlock’s legs, grabbed Sherlock’s arms, and delicately placed them around his waist. Sherlock didn’t dare move any more. Liam laughed once, more an amused breath than anything, and his eyes glimmered.
“Oh my, looks like you’ve got me!”
It wasn’t about Liam staying, or about him being sincere with Sherlock, or even about understanding Liam’s exact intentions. Sherlock felt as though he’d never actually met Liam, not in full. He pulled his arms away to rest them on his knees, and Liam walked back to the closet without another word.
You caught me just as I was getting ready to leave.
I can’t catch you, Sherlock thought, watching as Liam rolled up a sweater and slipped it into his bag. “Nope,” Sherlock said. “I haven’t won yet.”
Liam hummed, not in the thoughtful way he did sometimes, but a tune that Sherlock didn’t recognize. He slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way to the door, turning to look back only once the door was open. He smiled at Sherlock, who was rooted to the spot, the same smile that Sherlock finally realized was for when Liam started a game.
“Well, then. Catch me if you can, Mr. Detective.”
- - -
Sherlock, eight. Mycroft, fifteen. A table of papers between them.
“You’re not trying.”
“I am.”
“You’re not. If you were trying, you’d be succeeding.”
“That’s a stupid argument. I am trying.”
“Then why aren’t you succeeding?”
Sherlock, twenty-two. Mycroft, twenty-nine. A country between them.
He never picks up the phone.
- - -
On the day Liam returned, he took Sherlock to his room, locked the door, pulled off his sweater, and spread his arms to show his scarred torso.
“Guess,” he said simply.
It must have been the next step of the unorthodox honesty project, but Sherlock could tell there was another element to it. He was sure he could guess the origin of each scar, but to say it aloud, to imagine it happening - it forced Sherlock to be discomforted as well, to share the difficulty of Liam’s childhood being laid bare.
He took a deep, shaky breath. “The ones on your torso are from a riding crop. The line on your arm is a surgery scar, I imagine from a badly broken bone - maybe as a result of having a door closed on it, from the…” he swallowed thickly. “...from the scrape scars along the sides. I still don’t even have a guess as to what happened to your hand.”
“Well done, Mr. Detective.” Liam didn’t smile, but his expression was calm as he walked over and pulled one of Sherlock’s hands out of his pocket. Liam dragged Sherlock’s fingers over the top of his hand, over the lumpy, oddly shaped scattering of scar tissue. “It was a fork, courtesy of a little monster. Twice, actually, but that’s a story for another time.”
Liam wouldn’t have said that if he wasn’t fine with telling, Sherlock was certain, but he still felt the need to interject. He pushed down the urge. It was far more likely that he was trying to save himself from the story.
“I see,” he said instead.
Liam lilted forward and turned his hand so that he was holding Sherlock’s. He reached up with his free hand and ran a thumb under Sherlock’s eye, then brushing it dry on his own hair.
“I did it to myself the second time,” Liam whispered. “For Louis. If you’re going to cry, do it in awe.”
“I’ll cry at whatever I want,” Sherlock whispered back, not knowing why they were whispering.
Liam leaned closer into his space, and Sherlock stiffened. Was Liam about to kiss him? It would be a terrible time. Liam was too vulnerable, Sherlock’s comfort lacking. If Liam tried, he’d have to pull away, probably run away, because fuck dealing with that aftermath--
Liam rested his head on Sherlock’s shoulder and hugged him.
Liam had just dropped Sherlock’s hand before wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s waist, so one of Sherlock’s hands was trapped awkwardly between them, pressed against the warm skin of Liam’s belly. Sherlock carefully pulled it loose, then laid it on Liam’s back. He pulled him in closer, tighter, until each of their breaths collided and Sherlock could feel Liam’s heartbeat.
“Here we are,” Liam murmured into Sherlock’s shoulder, so quiet Sherlock wasn’t sure he was meant to hear.
“Here we are,” Sherlock said back, just in case.
- - -
Sherlock had had all of two romantic partners before restarting university.
One had been a brief little thing, three months with a sweet girl in his eighth year, broken off amicably when he helped her realize she was aromantic.
The other was longer, more difficult, a full year of trying to balance the words in his head and the words he said aloud, tempering growing frustration as he was pestered to speak to his boyfriend when he felt something didn’t need to be said. As much as Sherlock hated to admit it, he probably would have never gotten himself out of it considering his pride, and it was Mycroft’s interference that got him out of his wretched mess of a relationship.
Mycroft had told him to not bother trying, that he wouldn’t find someone compatible, and Sherlock tsked and huffed but let him say it. Sherlock was willing to wait. He was willing to be found instead of find.
Even so, relationships were never a priority of his. Companionship was plenty, John and James were always willing to offer hugs when he needed physical affection, Miss Hudson always there for a long stretch of quiet with tea. The idea of romance - or rather, romantic love - appealed to him, but only in a distant way, and he was perfectly fine with waiting.
But still, on some quiet nights with his violin, Sherlock had wondered what sort of person he would work with, and who would possibly work with him.
---
“I’m going to jump into this river,” Liam announced.
Sherlock stared from the end of the bridge, taking in the shoes hanging loosely from two fingers, the ridiculous rolled-up pant legs, the glimmering carmine above an absurdly serene smile. He sighed heavily and strode over to stand next to Liam.
“Please don’t,” he said flatly, wondering if he should bother taking off his own shoes.
Liam clambered up to stand on the railing, then carefully turned around to face Sherlock so that his back was to the river. He spread his arms out. “Why not?”
“Because,” Sherlock gripped the railing and shifted his weight onto one foot, and Liam started to take a step back, “I’d have to follow you.”
Liam’s eyes widened, but he was already falling, and Sherlock was already vaulting himself over the railing. The drop wasn’t long enough for Sherlock to see anything more than the early flicker of a new smile, a movement from Liam that could have been a reach or a gesture. In the first moment of hitting the water, he saw white, then grey, then the muddy brown colour of the water, clouded with froth. He made sure to catch sight of Liam breaking the surface before going up himself, just in case.
As soon as he recovered from his rather undignified gasping fit, he swam over to the nearest rock, and reached out to Liam. Liam laughed lightly but played along, swimming over and letting Sherlock haul him onto the rock.
Though Liam’s cardigan was trashy-romance-clinging to his form and his wet hair was pushed back, there was nothing sexy or romantic about it, just very uncomfortable-looking. Sherlock silently cursed himself for not bringing his hoodie in his bag, or really having any way of helping Liam dry off and warm up. In the midst of his self-beration, he realized that, had he actually brought his hoodie, and Liam had worn it, the sleeves would be far too long, and that he would have been in the presence of Liam in his hoodie with sweater paws, which he concluded he was in no way prepared for.
After a moment, Liam laughed again, a bit louder, a bit fuller. “That’s not nearly the highest place I’ve jumped from,” he said. “Or the deepest water, for that matter. You didn’t need to follow.”
“That’s not why I followed,” Sherlock replied immediately.
“Oh? Why, then?”
Why indeed.
Was it because Sherlock couldn’t follow him anywhere else? Because there was no other way to be there as soon as Liam surfaced? Because he wanted to prove something about himself, or to himself?
Why indeed.
Sherlock blinked and found Liam upright before him, chin resting delicately on his hand. He cursed himself again, this time for letting himself zone out so badly, this time with a muttered ah, fuck that he couldn’t help but say aloud. Still, though -- Liam had waited. Had sat there, said nothing, and let Sherlock think.
Sherlock loved him.
Liam looked down at his bare feet and frowned. “I lost my shoes,” he muttered.
“Should have just left them on the bridge.”
“Hush.”
They sat in silence for a moment before Liam lifted his head. “May I kiss you?”
Sherlock didn’t even fully process that he had said “yes,” lifting a hand to hold Liam’s jaw and guide him in.
- - -
There had been a night, somewhere between deciding to leave the apartment and waking up sober, that Sherlock lay under the stars high out of his mind and thought, This isn’t so bad.
He remembered that thought, clear and sharp and certain, but he couldn’t remember where it had come from, or what it referred to, or what it meant. He didn’t know if it was a wish, or an attempt to convince himself, or something he declared aloud.
Another night, somewhere between the first time he met Liam and the first time he kissed Liam, he lay under the stars and thought, He’d love to see this.
- - -
Sherlock said it, nineteen days after kissing Liam for the first time, as he sat on the roof of the business building, watching Liam rock at the edge and ponder the stars.
“I have my question.”
Liam looked over his shoulder and lit up, giving a light, enthusiastic clap. “Oh! Let’s hear it.”
“What do you do for other people?”
Liam smiled softly, something small and precious, then laughed, and bloomed. He spun a little so the moon was behind him, clouding his edges and engulfing him in shadow.
“I fix their problems,” he said airily, raising his hands by his side, “no matter what it takes.”
“Even your own?”
Liam’s hands dropped to his sides. “Louis’ problems were my own.”
“Are you fixing my problems?” Sherlock asked.
“I’m not. But I can.” His eyes shone in the shadows as he held out a hand. “Do you want to know how?”
Sherlock stood and slid his fingers through Liam’s, weaving them together, pressing in warmth. “How?”
He was pulled close, chest to chest, cheek to cheek.
“The next time I leave,” Liam whispered, “come with me.”
—
Sherlock loved. When he loved, he tried. When he tried, he succeeded.
—
“You’re really going with him, then?” John asked neutrally, watching from the doorway as Sherlock dropped a pack of cigarettes into his suitcase.
“Yep. I’ll be coming back with him too, though.”
“Not for uni, though?”
“Not for uni,” Sherlock confirmed. “Might sit in on his classes for fun, even though I wouldn’t understand a damn thing.”
“You shouldn’t bother,” Miss Hudson said decisively. “Not worth torturing the professors.”
Sherlock ignored John’s sputtered protests and turned to pull her into a hug. She let out a startled laugh and threw her arms across his back.
“Not that I’ll listen, but sure,” he said.
“You’ve never listened,” she scolded gently. “But you better be happy this time, you hear?”
“That I’ll do.”
John walked closer as Sherlock pulled away, and stiffly patted Sherlock on the shoulder. “I’ll look forward to your return, then. And I expect to get answers when I text this time.”
Sherlock robotically patted him on the back. “Of course.”
Miss Hudson politely ignored their awkwardness, and Sherlock moved onto James, who stood leaning in the doorway.
James smiled, genuine and excited. “Have fun, Sherly.” He gave Sherlock a peck on the cheek, and a hearty smack between his shoulder blades to send him through the door.
As he walked down the stairs, he felt Miss Hudson at his back, John by his side, James leading the front. As he stepped out the door, he felt Mycroft let go, his parents step back, his hand on the lighter.
Liam looked up from where he was waiting on the front steps, smile already set, hands tucked into his sleeves. “Are you ready?” To go, to move, to see.
Sherlock took a deep breath in and let it out with a dramatic whoosh. “I suppose I am.”