Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This will be the thing that kills him.

This: the rhythmic thump of feet striding aimlessly across an old wooden floor.  The grating whoosh of expensive silk flapping along in the wake of the lanky toff who wears it.

“Sherlock.”  He’s been at it for an eternal ten minutes.  Back, forth, back.  “Sherlock.”  Forth, back, forth.  “Please.  Please.  Please.  Sit down,” John groans into his arm, folded into an ineffectual pillow.  He shifts slightly on the couch, wincing at the barely audible creak of leather.  “Sherlock.”

“Hm?” Sherlock halts abruptly, eyes snapping to John as though he’s only just noticed he’s there.  John sighs, rolling onto his back and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyelids, drowning out the first flashes of sunlight slinking in through the curtains.  Christ, his head is killing him.

He’s been home only a handful of hours, tripping in through the door in the dead of night to flop down on the nearest reasonably pliant surface.  He’d been grudgingly awake on a series of planes for twenty four hours straight.  Never again, New Zealand.

Dropping his hands and squinting at the room around him, John finds the flat looking much as he’d left it over two weeks ago.  He wonders, vaguely, if Sherlock’s been here at all.

“You have a migraine,” Sherlock blurts, and John can’t help but smile at the sound of a rumbling deduction, however mundane.  He buries his face in the crook of his elbow and sighs.  “You’ve had them all your life.”

“Occasionally.”

“More than occasionally,” Sherlock argues, and John lets out another gust of breath, ignoring the twisting swoop of relief he feels to be back in this flat with this impossible person.

“I suppose,” he admits.  A few times a year—more often when he’s stressed.

“Sarah left you,” Sherlock says next, so sure of himself even when he isn’t quite correct.

“Not yet.”

“She will.”

“Yeah,” John sighs.  “She will.”

The trip was miserable, for both of them: a dragged out series of tense little conflicts and strained conversations.  He finds himself wondering why he still believes he can do this—be with someone, care enough to work through it.  He has never been that man.  He has never had the patience nor the time for all that.  He’d gone from the obsessive pursuit of education to the abyss of active combat for the majority of his adult life.  And while the fairer sex has frequently fallen for his charm, it’s never for long, and rarely worthwhile.

“What does it feel like?”

John lets his arm drop, turns to peer up into silver eyes.  Sherlock stands a bit uncertain, not so sure of himself this time.  A coffee table sits between them, that expensive silk hanging over tatty plaid pyjamas.  Always such a contradiction.  And John knows they’re no longer speaking of his pitiable love life—Sherlock has a curious spark about him, seeking data on an ailment he hasn’t personally experienced.  A physical condition, not a matter of the heart.

“Um,” John says, focussing on the biting stab of pressure in his skull.  It’s like someone planted a bloody seed, his mind petulantly provides.  Just beyond my right temple.  And in the most inconvenient fucking moments it bursts violently open, sprouting endless roots in every direction—each one a raw nerve, shooting a singing, screaming pain from its wiry bloody cruel bloody ruthless bloody tendrils— “Piercing,” is all he manages to mutter.  Sherlock looks unimpressed.

/

This is a disaster.

John is miserable on every level, apparent even before Sherlock’s anxious pacing had dragged him from a fitful slumber.  His return was meant to be joyous: a stoic reunion (suppressed swell of emotion), followed by the promise of a brand new adventure.  A case!

But no.  John has taken a metaphorical ice pick to the brain.  And Sherlock hasn’t worked up the nerve to spin the wildly inconvenient favour he’s about to spring on him into an appealing jaunt with a touch of danger.  It was always going to be a tough sell, herding John straight back on another bloody aircraft—not to mention the incongruous role he’d need to play once they arrived.  Now it’s nigh-on impossible.  And they’re meant to leave first thing tomorrow.

“What are you doing?”  John squints at him suspiciously as Sherlock leans down to place one little pill in the very centre of the only coaster they own, and a glass of water on the table just beside it.  John rolls his eyes in the face of rebellion.  “Where did you get that?”

“Shh.”

“You’ve found my stash.”  John scowls, with a frankly embarrassing attempt at a feigned yawn.  Sherlock sits primly on the edge of the couch at John’s hip and ignores him.  He’s slept another two hours and that’s more than enough.  “You’ve been in my room again.”  The display of bewilderment is for show.  He knows full well that Sherlock has left no corner of this flat unturned.  But John doesn’t ask if he’ll find any more missing pills, despite the very real reason he’d felt compelled to hide them at all.  It’s that trust that flips Sherlock’s gut into a churning vat of emotion.  It’s that trust that keeps him from faltering now.  “I’m not taking hydrocodone for a headache, Sherlock.”

“It’d be effective.”

“No.”

Sherlock sighs, but he’d expected it.  The only rules John seems to follow are the ones he inflicts upon himself.

He takes the packet of paracetamol from his pocket and flips it dramatically onto the table.  John glares, but moves to sit, allowing Sherlock to drag him upright, bringing them face to face at last.  He watches the bob of John’s throat as he swallows, downing the entire glass of water in one.  He searches his face for changes, finding none beyond the short-lived signs of recent slumber.  He fights an urge to press the pads of his thumbs to the slightly swollen shadows beneath John’s eyes.  A wildly inappropriate thought—a result of the dangerous levels of sentiment developing within an acquaintance spanning barely three months.

“John,” he begins, soaring straight to the point now that John is hydrated and medicated and at least half awake.  He waits for two blue eyes to flicker toward his own, steeling himself for the request on his tongue.  “I need a spouse.”

John nearly chokes.  “Christ,” he blurts, coughing once as he leans to set the empty glass on the coffee table.  “What?  What am I meant to say to that?”

“I do, ideally.”  Sometimes Sherlock surprises even himself.  He really isn’t sure where he gets the gall for half the things that come out of his mouth. 

John stares at him, eyes searching, gaze filled first with confusion and little else.  Sherlock watches as John considers the statement, observes as he turns it over, waits as he works it out.

“You’re such a bastard,” John snorts, curling one warm hand over Sherlock’s forearm to balance the bite of words.  Living with John has been a masterclass in conveying fondness through tactility.  How novel!  It’s all been a bit of a revelation, a facet of friendship he’d never considered he might actually want.  He suspects it’s an impulse specific to John.  He doesn’t hesitate now to find John’s hand with his own, centreing his palm just above his trapezium bone.  “There’s a better way you could’ve phrased that.  Absolute drama queen.”  John is amused, now, having reached the obvious case-related conclusion.  

Is this acceptance, then, without all the facts?  Perhaps feigning marriage with one's flatmate isn’t a formidable endeavour for a man like John, but he really ought to ask.

John just watches him blandly for a moment.  “What’s the case, then?” he eventually blurts, reaching for his beeping phone.

/

We should probably talk.

There it is.  The preamble to the breakup they all knew was imminent.  John stares down at the words on his phone’s tiny screen and tries to feel something, anything about the end of this short-lived whatever.   Not a relationship, surely.  Distraction feels more appropriate, if a bit callous.  She’s lovely, Sarah, she really is.  But there’s nothing there between them.

“John.”

Sherlock’s hand is cool and dry, comforting against his own.  Like an afterthought.  Innate and natural.  If only it were ever that simple.

At least his head is feeling better, even before the gift of stolen painkillers and a brimming glass of water.  He pulls his hand free from Sherlock’s light hold and types out a reply to the woman waiting on him to let her off the hook.

We’re on the same page.  I’ll just see you at work.

“John.”  He looks up into silver-blue eyes, their hue subtly shifting in the presence of sunlight.  “Is that a yes?”

“It’s fine, yeah,” John tries to casually shrug.  I need a spouse.   Oh, god.  The man is absurd.  But it wasn’t much of a stretch, once he’d put the request into context.  And half of London has already made their assumptions, so there's really no one to convince.

A case, always a case.  

John can surely spend a few days standing closer to his closest friend.  He pauses at the thought—when had his subconscious mind placed Sherlock in that role?  He supposes he’s always been capable of fast friendships.  A few months working side by side and living in each others’ pockets—yeah, of course.  They’re friends.  Good friends.  He stumbles when it comes to closest.   But not because it isn’t true.

The look on Sherlock’s face when he’d strolled into that poorly lit pool has haunted John for four weeks straight.  There’d been a moment—a fleeting moment—when Sherlock thought he’d gotten it wrong, that he’d somehow been tricked into trusting someone.  John will never forget the way it felt to stare back into blind devastation.

He, too, has a hard time with trust.  He’s never really felt known, always hiding away the sharpest parts of himself to spare those around him from glimpsing his legion of demons.  But Sherlock sees the jagged edges and lights up, moves in.  It’s the soft underbelly John tries to hide from him.

He’ll see some version of it now, if they’re really doing this.

It’s fine.

“Is it?” Sherlock asks quietly, as though he’s plucked the thoughts straight from John’s head, hearing them all instead of just what he’s said.  He knows full well that fine doesn’t really cover it, but they never have those conversations.

“I trust you.”

“Unwise.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“And yet.”

John tosses his phone aside, gives Sherlock his full attention.  “Stop stammering for five seconds and explain the case, you scheming dick.”

/

AT FIRST SITE

AT FIRST SIGHT?

Love at first sight?

Ha!

An embarrassment.  An impossibility.  A romanticized myth.  The illusion of a shallow mind, desperate to assign deeper meaning to a flimsy, fatuous relationship—just one facet of humanity he could never understand.  It simply isn’t his area. (delusion)

Trust at first sight?

He’s considered it.

Well!  He had no choice, really, did he.  When else has he known, just known bloody anything?  There is a process: observe, deduce.  He lives by a code of logic, and John Watson has been a screaming exception to the rule.  Because he’d felt something for John the moment he’d stepped into the room.  Not love.   Not even attraction. 

(well)

Recognition?  Something like it.  And he knew, he just knew—

“Hey.”  Sherlock’s vision clears at the sound of John’s voice, eyes focussing in on the fingers snapping impatiently in his face.  “Get on with it, husband, I haven’t got all day.”

(oh—)

Three desperate clients, one inconvenient location.  Two distinct murders.  One man, one woman.  Two crimes of passion.  Four months apart.  John listens with rapt interest, as he always does.  A hideaway tourist spot, popular amongst honeymooners as well as the bleak, failing marriages they inevitably become.

“Not fair,” John cuts in.  “Some marriages work out.”

The phrase AT FIRST SITE scratched into the wall with a dull pencil.  A clue?  A final declaration of sentiment?  An analogue typo?

“Slip of the pen,” John interrupts yet again.  “Or just spelling error, Sherlock, why bring digital terminology into it only to cancel it out with a word like analogue?   That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

Sherlock ignores John’s incessant ramblings just as easily as the deranged optimism he’d spewed moments prior.  “We leave in the morning,” he says offhandedly.  “It’ll be terribly quaint.  You love California.”

/

“No,” John grinds out for the millionth time.  “You’re an absolute prick, and it’s not bloody happening.”  And isn’t it just like Sherlock to wait until John’s already agreed before adding that hey, actually, by the way, they’ll be leaving the bloody country.  Tomorrow!

Sherlock smirks.  “I’ll pack for you, shall I?”

John looks up at him, incredulous.  “My entire wardrobe is in that bag!”  He gestures a bit wildly at the duffel sitting innocently by the door, stuffed with two weeks worth of clothing and an embarrassing number of Kiwi souvenirs, most of which he’d bought with his idiot prick flatmate in mind.  “I need to do the washing.  I need to take a shower.  I need to eat something besides bloody paracetamol and then sleep for at least eight hours,” he fumes.  Sherlock has lost his entire goddamn head if he thinks John is stepping one foot into another plane.  You love California.   Fuck off!  He has no business even knowing about that.  Clearly he’d found more than just prescription drugs when he’d unearthed John’s stash.

“Eight hours?   John!”

“You’re mad, Sherlock,” he glares, snatching up a half-broken plastic laundry basket and unzipping his bag, first unearthing a jar of mānuka honey he definitely overpaid for in a touristy boutique.  He chucks it at Sherlock, who catches it effortlessly, damn him.  “And you can drag some other gullible twat halfway across the world to play house, because I’m not doing it.”

/

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to welcome you to San Francisco.  The local time is nine twenty five.  The temperature is a breezy fifty eight degrees, so get on out there and enjoy your morning in sunny California.”

“Sunny,” John scoffs, flinging the shade up on the porthole window to his right.  Sherlock peers out at endless fog, opting not to mention the two hour drive they have ahead of them.  Instead he swallows down a lump of affection for the surly little man who (reluctantly) sat (slept) by his side on this twelve hour flight.

Accepting this case was a selfish endeavour.  He can privately admit it.  And he can accept that with John he has reached uncharted waters, the uncertainty almost paralyzing at times.  

The truth is this: he wants John all to himself for a while.  Away from the distractions of their separate lives.  Away from anyone who might try to snatch him up— with either their feminine wiles or a threat to his mortality.  

Barely a month ago now, Sherlock saw first hand the result of his own careless actions—finding John strapped in semtex (helpless) , his entire life balanced on a knife edge.  It had put things into perspective in a harrowing flash.  This is important.  He cannot lose it.  But he couldn't find a way to say the quiet part aloud. 

And then John left, with someone else.

Sherlock coughs, pushing back all thoughts of the chemical stench of chlorinated water.

“All right?” John asks, gripping his elbow and steering them away from the flow of the crowd.  They’ve made their way into the airport, somehow.  Sherlock blinks, glancing around.  Just over John’s shoulder stands the long line of rental agencies peddling overpriced cars to unsuspecting idiots.

“Yes,” he responds belatedly, smiling as he refocuses on John.  “Though if we’re to escape this place alive, you may need to take me by the hand and guide me like a child.”

John mirrors his grin.  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”  He turns to watch the parade of last-minute tourists wandering off to hire a car for the weekend.  “You’ve already magicked us a lift though, haven’t you?”  Sherlock rolls his eyes in confirmation.  “Brilliant,” John beams. “But I’m driving.”

/

It wasn’t Sherlock who’d changed John’s mind, much as the daft prat would claim otherwise.  It was the pictures.

You love California.

He does.  He did.  Seventeen years old and opportunity had been dropped right into John’s lap.  Nice things had never, ever come so easily for him.  He had taken it with both greedy hands.

His classmate’s name was Simon, but looking back, John hardly remembers him beyond a kind, young face and a quiet disposition.  Wealthy family.  Annual summer holiday.  John and two other lads were invited along.  He’d spent a month of his life experiencing absolute freedom, driving up the coast over winding roads as salt air whipped his hair with not a care in the world.

It was a formative adventure, an unlikely interlude.

And twenty years later he’d sat upstairs in his room, peering down into a beat up old cigar box at the ghosts of his youth.  He’d set aside a few forgotten pill bottles, hidden away the night he’d learned his flatmate is an addict.  He should have known, even then, nothing would keep Sherlock out.  But no part of him worries about that now.  

And really it’s no wonder he brought up California, the insufferable snoop.  The cigar box holds more photos from that blip in John’s life than the rest of it combined, thanks to Simon and the ever-present Nikon slung around his neck.  He’d stared at a picture of his younger self, sitting on the bonnet of an old blue Camaro, eyes locked on the waves crashing quietly beyond.  It was the only time he’d been beholden to no one—not to his family, nor to any educational institution.  Not to the robust structure of the army that would soon become both oppressor and home.  Not to the first suitable employer that didn’t turn him down.

It was the only time he’s felt so free.  Though lately he’s learning to recapture that feeling.

This could be another opportunity.  Another unlikely interlude in his lacklustre life.

/

John is far too easy to fool.  The lack of challenge would be annoying if Sherlock weren’t so thoroughly charmed by his earnest acceptance, time and time again.  

It all unfurled as predicted, the most generic of manipulations.  John will get on that plane because he wants to—because nostalgia has him in its iron grip.  Definitely not because his flatmate requested it.

Sherlock had spent a shameful amount of time in John’s space while he was away.  He’d looked through his photos—John and his sister as children, school pictures, uni parties.  Fresh-faced in army fatigues and a youthful portrait of his mother.  But the California set was most compelling of all.  Photo after photo of a soft, smiling teenaged John.  Open and laughing on beaches surrounded by palms.  Standing beside a towering redwood and looking introspective on an obnoxious blue car.  Only a few showed the mates he’d traveled with, and only one showed the cameraman himself: a skinny, fair haired boy of maybe sixteen, looking at John as though he’d hung the stars.

For John that trip meant independence.  He likely never noticed he had that boy’s heart.

/

The sun has shattered through the fog by the time they’re led by a flustered young woman to the lot containing their hired car.  John wonders what sort of pull the Holmes name has in America, half expecting to find something obnoxiously lavish waiting for them.  When they are handed the keys to a modern Jeep Wrangler in an unobtrusive shade of black, John grins and moves to start it up.

“Wait,” Sherlock says from the passenger seat, fishing something from his breast pocket.  He leans in, reaching for John’s hand where it rests on the steering wheel, and slides a simple silver band onto his finger.  It happens in the span of a heartbeat, and John is immediately reeling at the foreign feeling of cool metal against his skin.  He stares down at its minimalist engraving, at its obvious age and gentle wear.  His heart pounds in his chest for several long seconds before Sherlock finally explains its presence there.  “I thought—for realism,” he says quickly.  “It’s Victorian Sterling.  1881.  An heirloom.”  These facts emerge almost mechanically.  Sherlock is ruffled, uncertain of his actions in a way he rarely seems to be.  John’s eyes snap to his long, spindly fingers to find its counterpart already in place.  “And this one belonged to my grandfather.”  Sherlock adds, in reference to his own similarly timeworn ring.  He doesn’t meet John’s eye.

“Wow,” John whispers, a bit dazed, unsure which feeling to latch onto.  He hadn’t even considered bothering with rings, let alone Holmes family heirlooms and the sentimental weight attached to such a thing.  It’s the most they’ve committed to a bit for a case, the most John has been expected to participate.  Suddenly it all feels very serious.  

But no.  God, ridiculous.  Convenience.  That’s all it is.  Sherlock had them in his possession, why not use them to sell this half-baked charade they’re about to walk into utterly rudderless.  “Right,” he says, turning the key as the engine quietly rumbles to life.

/

John is overwhelmed.

What a stupid, stupid idea to spring a ring on a man whose acquiescence is already hanging by a splintering thread.  Timing has never been Sherlock’s strong suit.

The ride is suffocatingly silent, the radio doing nothing to drown out their unspoken thoughts, nearly tangible between them as they make their way up Highway 101.  They ought to talk about the case, to have a story, a plan.  He needs to make John feel fine about wearing his great-great-great-whoever’s ancient wedding band.

“Take the next exit,” Sherlock says, the words almost echoing after forty minutes lost in their own tense thoughts.  John glances at him, but doesn’t argue, and Sherlock guides him down 9th Street to Larkin, where bright yellow signs on every light pole welcome them to Little Saigon.  “Here,” he points out a familiar shop front with a faded blue awning and a queue forming out the door.  John gives him a questioning look, then shows off his ability to flawlessly parallel park.

/

John knows better than to fight it when Sherlock grabs him by the hand and drags him past the queue and straight into the kitchen at this absolutely miniscule sandwich shop.  

He knows better than to ask when a woman no less than eighty years old and no more than five feet tall sheds actual tears at the sight of Sherlock, cupping his cheeks in clear adoration as he tries awkwardly to stoop to her level.

John watches on helplessly as she shoos two members of her staff out of a little table in the corner and ushers him and Sherlock into it.  Before he can even parse any of what’s happening, he has a bánh mì in one hand and a Vietnamese iced coffee in the other.

If John is good at one thing it’s adapting to his surroundings, so he inhales the sandwich and accepts another while his mad flatmate speaks rapid, fluent Tiếng Việt to a room full of people who very obviously know him.

“That was weird,” John says conversationally when Sherlock finally turns to face him.  They smile at each other, Sherlock’s grin a bit lopsided, whatever strange tension was hanging over them now obliterated by the surrealty of the situation.  Sherlock leaps into the story of the case that once brought him here as he actually deigns to eat the food in front of him.  John smiles and shakes his head, thinking yet again that he quite likes being the audience for this particular genius.  “Brilliant, as usual.  Have you spent time up north as well, then?” he asks, shaking the clear plastic cup in his hand, freeing the last dregs of coffee from the ice that's trying to claim it.  Sherlock shakes his head.

“I’ve never been north of San Francisco.  But you have.”

“A lifetime ago.”  But they’ve got more pressing matters at hand.  “Sherlock, we’ll need to get our story straight.”

“Yes.” Sherlock nods, picking up a paper napkin and dabbing so primly at the corners of his mouth, ignoring the shreds of pickled daikon he just dropped onto his shirt.  There’s that trademark contradiction: a tidy, tattered whirlwind.  John laughs, just a bit, feeling lax and alive and connected to the world around him.  Something about Sherlock sends a giddy swell of joy from his gut to the fond, tender lump permanently lodged in his throat.  And being so far from home makes things feel different somehow.  A bit lighter, he supposes.  A bit heavier, as well.

Maybe it’s just the double dose of jet lag.

“When did we meet?”

“Ninety four days ago.”

“Well we can’t say that, can we.  Christ, is that even right?  Feels longer.”  Their lives have become so quickly intertwined, it’s hard to remember what it felt like before him.

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, toying with the band around his finger.  “It does.”

/

Once the Golden Gate Bridge has long faded from the rear view mirror, the Pacific Coast Highway winds them northward, the ocean shimmering at their side all the while.  Sherlock closes his eyes and leans out the open window, taking in the scents and sensations, unable to ignore the golden glow that’s rising up inside him.

Sometimes he can see it in John, too—clear as anything, he carries the same sense of dizzy possibility that buoys Sherlock’s insides and drags his thoughts toward a realm he refuses to explore.

John has shown him what it is to be secure in a friendship, to reach out to someone without fear of rejection.  He knows little of Sherlock's life before he limped idly into it.  And he hasn’t got a clue what a gift he has been.

Without opening his eyes, Sherlock reaches for John’s hand, unsurprised when it finds him, their fingers tangling against the seat at his side.

/

They’ve never talked about this, the tactile facet of their friendship.  It isn’t something either one of them is likely to mention aloud.

John’s pretty sure Sherlock started it, dragging him about on cases, gripping shoulders and elbows and hands in fits of revelation and admiration and triumphant feats of genius.  From the day John met him, it was as though his enthusiasm could not be contained, bursting out and bowling John over like the irrepressible swell of a rogue wave.

At some point it became clear he was the sole recipient of these candid occurrences, the only one Sherlock reached for when overwhelmed by zeal or some product of his intellect.  It was at that point John had begun reaching back.  

Since then it’s evolved into something much quieter, something he worries might be indefinable.  Because despite half of London’s assumptions, it isn’t like that.

John hums along to the radio as Sherlock guides them inland, into the realm of the redwoods, casting their otherworldly aura for miles in every direction.  There is a distinct feeling of calm, so different from the radiant blaze of the coastline.  John has never forgotten the halcyon hush of these centuried sequoias.  Being back amongst them now sends a shiver up his spine.

“Nearly there,” Sherlock says softly, in deference to the atmosphere.  They have their story straight: married just last month, together two years, finally had time for a proper holiday.  A general practitioner and an analytical chemist.  Met through a friend and have been inseparable since.  A tale of half truths and half fictions.  A hundred little details Sherlock had ready when John asked.

They turn onto a winding dirt road, where buried between the trees sits a large, rustic looking lodge, perfectly at home amongst the rich, damp flora that surrounds it.  John’s eyes trace the cedar planks that form its exterior, landing on a wattle fence made of artfully twisted branches that outlines the front porch.  His gaze strays toward the grand front door, with its hand-carved inlays painted in a shade of fading evergreen.  He imagines the place was crisp and vibrant in its time, but now it’s sunken into its surroundings.

It’s lovely.

He parks the Jeep in a gravel lot just beyond, and for a moment they just sit in silence.

“Ready?” John smiles, an odd sense of finality looming in the lush forest air.  It feels as though they’ve reached a crossroads, though he cannot fathom why.

“Always,” Sherlock smirks, flinging open his door and heading inside.

Chapter Text

“Wow,” John blurts, glancing up at the lofted pinewood ceilings in the lodge’s front lobby.  Sherlock watches on as John’s gaze traces the banisters that line the second floor, halting briefly on the unmanned front desk before he turns cheerfully to Sherlock.  “This is great.”

Sherlock smiles, because while John is much too easily impressed, his enthusiasm for things that could not matter less is almost painfully endearing.  The place is nice, he supposes, if a bit worse for wear.  Rustic might be the word for it.  Cosy, in a sense.

“Sorry!”  A petite woman in her early thirties rushes in from a door behind the long front desk, looking farcically harried as she ties her hair up into a curly dark frizz.  She shuffles some papers around, a look of triumph transforming her scattered expression when she unearths a bright pink post-it note.  “Just—”  She holds up a flawlessly manicured finger before disappearing behind the door once again, and Sherlock is instantly more at ease knowing this is a place that puts no emphasis whatsoever on professionalism.  When she reappears, she is marginally more composed.  “Never have children,” she sighs, turning toward her computer.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sherlock says smoothly, as John chuckles at his side.

“So!  You must be the Watsons.”  Sherlock raises an eyebrow at her choice of address, his heart inexplicably tilting within the confines of his chest.  “Simon said to expect you,” she continues, beaming at John, who looks equally wrongfooted.

“Simon?”  John asks, glancing at Sherlock for an explanation.  They’ve missed something—that much is clear.  It’s an unfamiliar feeling and Sherlock does not like it one bit.  The woman behind the desk disappears yet again, leaving them loitering like a pair of dribbling idiots.

“Mr. Holmes!” A jovial man in a horrendous patterned jumper strides toward them, his neatly cropped red beard and vintage horn-rimmed glasses making it all somehow work.  Late thirties, English, and a bit thick around the middle with a smile that doesn’t falter as they stare at him in silence.  Sherlock instantly wants to like him, an impulse so surprising he nearly takes a full step back.  “And John.”  His smile warms further as his crinkled gaze falls on John, obvious recognition between them, though it takes John a single stunned moment to catch up.

“Oh my god—Simon,” he stammers.  He looks at Sherlock with accusatory eyes, and it all comes together at last in Sherlock’s sluggish mind.  “Sorry, I had no idea,” John continues.  “I, um—” This is the skinny fair-haired boy who’d looked at John as though he’d hung the sun.  This is the person who’d given him that formative time of freedom in a stifled life, when they were young.  Sherlock suppresses a scowl.

It was his father, then, who’d hired them.  There’d been an exchange of emails.  Sherlock had pored over the data regarding two gruesome murders, paying little attention to the tedious details.  My son will assist you when you arrive, the man had said.  My wife and I will be retiring to Manchester.

“No—it’s quite alright,” Simon cuts in, his voice lowering to a hush, though no one is around to hear it.  “I thought about calling, but—”  I wasn’t sure you’d remember me goes unsaid.  “I recently found your blog,” he adds.  “And my parents are at the end of their rope with all this, so I suggested they reach out.”

“Right of course.”  John is being uncharacteristically reticent.  Sherlock takes the opportunity to escape the conversation.

“Perhaps you could show us to our room,” he suggests, with the smile he uses to charm his way into places he does not belong.  “It’s been a bit of a journey, may as well settle in.”  He rests a hand on John’s back in a flagrant display of possession.

(mine)

/

“Why wouldn’t you tell me about this?” John hisses the moment the door is shut behind them.

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Think it through, John, really.”

John flops back onto the large, quilt-covered bed, legs dangling over the edge, and stares up at planks of knotty pine.  Sometimes he forgets that Sherlock isn’t actually omniscient.  He only saw a single picture.  He couldn’t have even known Simon’s name.  “Right,” he sighs.  “Sorry.”  

“You’re upset?”  The bed dips as Sherlock sits down beside him.  John looks up at him from his supine position.

“No.  It’s just awkward, I guess.  I didn’t even recognise him.”  He thinks of the quiet kid he knew, hiding behind his dad’s old Nikon, always just happy to be along for the ride.

“He’s gained twenty years and seven stone.”

“Shh,” John scolds, trying not to smile.  He was caught off guard, is all.  He doesn’t often run into faces from his past, having left most of them behind in Manchester when he’d gone off to university.  Though that conclusion of course draws his thoughts to Mike Stamford.

—and what would his life look like now without that bit of happenstance?

John reaches up and flattens a hand against Sherlock’s broad back, mirroring his ongoing tendency to stake his claim with conspicuous gestures.  The possessiveness is nothing new, John saw plenty of it with Sarah in the picture.  Sherlock feels entitled to John’s time and attention.  It’s a bit presumptuous.  A bit obnoxious, maybe, yeah.

But he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t like the way it feels.

They’d agreed to discuss things further over dinner in town, away from the employees this case evidently centres around.  Simon seemed a bit on edge, having told his staff to expect an old friend, here on a belated honeymoon with his husband.  John looks at the ring on his finger, its presence already half-forgotten.  His hand falls to the bed as Sherlock stands, retrieving his bag and disappearing into the bathroom. 

With a sigh, John digs out his laptop and finds Simon on Facebook.  It seems he’s been living here for quite some time, and has built a whole life for himself in this secluded little town.  John smiles at a tagged photo of Simon in full, gaudy drag—beard intact with bright lipstick and heavily lined eyes.  She stands front and centre under a glowing spotlight, the caption below introducing her as Muriel de Mer.   There are more as John scrolls, from show after show.  He seems happy, outgoing in a way he never was when John had known him.

John opens his blog next.  Just a quick update, it’s been ages.  Before he’d left for New Zealand they’d had a few cases, which he promises to write up when he gets the chance.  He supposes he ought to mention ending things with Sarah, though there isn’t much to say about that.  He hesitates only briefly before typing out the loudest thought rattling around in his head.  

Not sure my life with Sherlock is compatible with long-term relationships.   

He knows he gushes, a bit, but the truth is he’s grateful.  Sherlock has given him purpose as companion, protector, interpreter of unappreciated genius.  He’s made John feel like one half of a whole.  And his work deserves to be shared with the world.  Or at least with the growing list of curious onlookers who’ve subscribed to the blog.

John looks up as the bathroom door swings open, Sherlock emerging in jeans and a too-tight black t-shirt.

“Oh,” John gapes, eyes lingering on his arms, usually hidden away beneath layers of expensive cotton.  The shirt says Alphaville in a faded white serif, with an artful depiction of two eyes just below.

“What?” Sherlock demands, instantly scowling.  He yanks an olive green flannel shirt off of the doorknob and shrugs into it almost defiantly.  John can’t help but smile.

“You look—god, I don’t know.  It really suits you.”  He looks— soft.   Unpretentious.  Like himself, but pared down.  A bit punk, but it’s effortless.  When John meets his eye, Sherlock seems lost, like he’s waiting for the punchline.  “Really,” John repeats lightly.

“Oh.  Thank you,” Sherlock mutters, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt.  John wonders, vaguely, if he feels a bit stripped without his layers of bespoke armour.  He may prance about the flat in pyjamas and silk, but this is something new—or perhaps a resurrected version of himself.  He imagines Sherlock in his rebellious youth and thinks yes, that must be it.  

Sherlock drops down on the bed and pulls on a pair of brown leather combat boots.  John leans until their shoulders bump companionably, grinning when Sherlock studies him from the corner of his eye.  “We’re going out, then?”

“Yes.” Sherlock belatedly returns the smile, small and warm with a hint of perplexion just behind all that.  “I’d like to meet the staff.  Our disappearing front desk clerk has been employed here a decade, as has her concierge husband.  We can start there.”

John’s a bit surprised he wasn’t out prowling the grounds the moment they arrived.  It seems the game is on at last.  He closes his laptop and squeezes Sherlock’s shoulder as he stands.

/

John is attracted to him.

It’s nothing new, and many people are.  It really doesn't mean much.

(really)

But the way John often watches him is not with hunger, longing, lust.  It’s intrigue.  It’s fondness.  It’s something softer, too, something much less obvious.

He loves the way John looks at him. 

(god help him)

He loves the way it feels to be wanted for who you are.

She’s back behind the desk when they arrive in the lobby, curly black hair still piled atop her head, pencil in hand as she scratches away at something.  “I don’t believe we’ve properly met,” Sherlock says smoothly, carrying on the altered persona he’d concocted for this role.  Bit of a hipster, intellectual outbursts tucked away in lieu of a calm, reluctant smile.  And John may like the way Sherlock looks in his mum’s faded old t-shirt from 1984, but he does not like it one bit when he shams a personality.  “I’m William.  My husband, John.”  And he does not like William.   He’d made that very clear when they’d discussed how to best avoid exposure by search engine.  But needs must.

“Of course,” she smiles, setting aside the crossword she’d been working on.  “Call me Yoli.  Ano, come meet John and William!” she shouts at the ever-revolving door behind the desk.  A man emerges, closing it slowly with a soft click.

“Hello!” he says, smile beaming, showcasing the whitest set of teeth Sherlock has ever borne witness to.  He’s only slightly taller than his diminutive wife, stocky and muscled with thick black hair styled in a modern swoop.  “Tatiano.  Wonderful to meet you both.  I hear you’re old friends of our Simon.”

“That’s right.” John dives efficiently into small talk while Sherlock glances around.  His eyes rake over their scattered possessions and the pronounced bags beneath their eyes.  The couple are very clearly new parents, Yoli having returned to work within the last week after several months on maternity leave.  The chaotic strain of parenthood is written all over them in presence and demeanour.

As John’s voice drones on beside him, he deduces and dismisses endless extraneous details.  (boring!)   Within moments Tatiano has his phone out, cooing with John over a blurry picture.  When the screen is aimed at Sherlock, he sees a baby that looks like every other baby who’s ever been born into this world.

“She’s an angel,” he blurts in a panic, ignoring John’s unsubtle snort.  “We were hoping you’d have a recommendation for dinner,” he adds, desperate to change the subject.  Tatiano launches into an overly enthusiastic summary of local establishments, clearly recited a thousand times and gratingly insincere.

“Friendly,” Sherlock raises an eyebrow as they walk out the front door into a towering forest.

“He’s an actor,” John rolls his eyes.  “Like you, but charmless.”

“Just another personality corrupted by the service sector,” Sherlock smiles.  “Does that mean you think I’m charming?”

“Did I say that?”

“It was implied.”

“Hm,” John grins at the ground, shoving his hands into his pockets as they walk on.  “You must’ve misheard.”

/

Yeah.  He’s attracted to Sherlock.

It’s nothing new, and when it comes down to it, he really just wants to be near him.

There’s always been a question there for John, an inkling that he might sway that way if prompted by the right person.  On their very first case, he’d found himself prodding at that instinct, showing his hand without even realising what he’d done.  They’d sat together that night with a candle between them as Sherlock made it very clear he wasn’t interested in love.

John doesn’t wander where he isn't wanted.  What he feels for the man beside him outweighs any foray into the tangles of lust.

There are a series of winding trails behind the lodge, circling towering firs and ancient redwoods.  He learns from a brochure Yoli handed him on his way out that they lead into a natural reserve.  The oldest tree is nearly two thousand years old—a figure he can barely wrap his head around.

The air is damp and chilly, the hush they’d felt before more pronounced without the rumble of the Jeep cutting through it.  There’s a quality to the light here that John can only describe as uncanny—the colours just a bit more lush, more vibrant than they ought to be.  And it’s still.

It’s all so still.

“What are we doing?” John asks quietly.  They’ve got several hours before dinner, but Sherlock’s always got a plan.

“Walking.”

“It’s never just walking with you.”

The look Sherlock gives him holds a trace of disappointment, and John scrambles to keep up as he lengthens his stride.  They come upon a small garden shed not too far behind the main building, bags of soil and fertiliser piled beside it and a distinct smell emanating from its single cracked window.  Sherlock shoots him a wicked smirk before dramatically flinging open the door.

“Oh, fuck!” comes a startled voice, its source half obscured by a cloud of smoke.  They watch on as she attempts to conceal the joint balanced between two fingers, giving up when she realises it’s a lost cause.  “Damn you.”

“We come in peace,” Sherlock grins.  “Sorry to interrupt.”

Another figure sits beside her laughing, both of them perched on large upturned plant pots.  The smoke begins to dissipate the moment she abandons the joint on an ash-filled trowel.  “Thought you were my boss,” she coughs.

“No such luck.”  Sherlock’s mannerisms have barely changed, his voice only pitched the slightest bit higher.  But to John he’s transformed—into William —a grotesque rendition of the man he knows.  And he hates it.  He hates it.  It’s so bloody jarring to watch how easily Sherlock can slip into a role.

“I know who you are,” says her companion, and John holds his breath.  The risk of being recognised here is slight at best, though if there’s a murderer prowling about, they could hardly take the chance.  “You’re Simon’s friends,” they continue, and John can breathe again.  He takes in the two figures before him: an androgynous twenty-something in a Bowie shirt with a haircut that makes him hesitate to guess at gender.  Their no-longer-scowling friend brushes her long, stringy blond hair from her shoulder, revealing a crocheted halter top as she picks idly at a scab on her jaw.

“Got it in one.” John forces a smile he hopes is interpreted as warm.

“Jules,” they say, holding out a hand, which John takes, sensing an easy confidence in their firm handshake.  “That’s Hannah.”

“Hey,” she nods.  “You’re British.”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

A beat of silence passes as they wait for further input.

“Anyway,” Jules cuts in, giving Hannah a look of charmed exasperation.  “She’s housekeeping.  I’m maintenance.  Let us know if you need anything.  We’re, um, generally more composed.”

“She’s high,” Sherlock mutters as they make their way back through the trees.

“I noticed,” John agrees.

“I don't mean the marijuana.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” he repeats.

“Did you?”  Sherlock stops walking and turns to face him.  He looks impressed, a bit curious.  He has so little faith in me, John thinks amusedly.

“Stimulants,” he sighs.  “Meth, probably.”  He’s seen enough of it to recognise the signs, subtle as they often are—both at the clinic and in the form of go-pills, as they called them in the army.  Modafinil or amphetamines.  Hannah sat there picking her face apart, her cheeks slightly sunken—symptoms but nothing concrete.  The clincher had been the cheap torch lighter sitting innocently on an upturned bucket in the corner—a tool with little practical purpose beyond heating up drug paraphernalia.  Still, he could be wrong.  But Sherlock won’t be.

“Terribly impressive,” Sherlock says in that voice that isn’t quite his.

“God, it’s creepy, Sherlock.  Stop it.”

“William.”

“I’m not calling you that,” John scowls.

“Play the game, John.”

Fine, John thinks defiantly, taking Sherlock’s hand.

/

It’s never just walking with you.

It could be just walking.  It could be just anything.  

There isn’t always some grand scheme in place, though he can grudgingly admit he is at fault for giving that impression.  John makes the world around them interesting with nothing but his presence.  With John he can almost tolerate the dull routine of existence.

This pub is an atrocity.  It sits in the absolute middle of nowhere between a campsite and a sprawling vineyard, its lawn peppered with wooden picnic tables that look like they've survived a war.

Speaking of which—John approaches with a sweating pint and an overflowing plastic basket of fat, breaded onion rings with several types of questionable sauce.  He slides in beside Sherlock at the table he’s been hoarding, offering to share and shrugging when Sherlock wrinkles his nose.

“This is nice.”

“It really isn’t.”

Sherlock squints into the unrelenting sun as Simon wanders over with his own deep fried abomination, taking a seat across from them and immediately digging in.  “I know the owner,” he says.  “She hosts a show I’m involved with.”

“I had a look at your Facebook,” John says, sounding almost guilty about something quite mundane.

“Ah,” Simon sighs.  “So you’ve met Muriel.”

“In a sense,” John grins, and Sherlock has never felt so oblivious in his life.  “Maybe we can catch a show while we’re here.”

“Tomorrow night, if you’d like.  But I can’t imagine this one being all that interested.”  He nods at Sherlock, and really what is this?   “Drag,” Simon adds, and it all becomes clear.

“Muriel del Mar,” John mumbles with his mouth full.

“De Mer,” Simon corrects, and they smile at each other like a pair of old friends. (ahem!)   “So tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“The case,” Sherlock snaps.  “—is what he’s up to.  So if you don’t mind.”  He feels as though a sick, churning pit has opened up inside him.  It’s a familiar sensation, one triggered each time he’s witnessed John with someone who might steal away his attention.  Sherlock’s immediate instinct is to lash out like a child.  And he hates it.  It’s horrible.  This feeling is intolerable—

His thoughts dissipate like vapour when John takes his hand, lacing their fingers together lightly against his own thigh.  They watch each other for a moment, time slowed and stolen, peering into wide blue eyes.

Calm down, they say.  It's fine.

Simon is good natured and takes it all in stride, looking between them curiously before answering each of Sherlock's questions with a level of intelligence that’s surprising.  He, too, has little faith in the competency of the county’s law enforcement.

“They’ve utterly bungled it,” he says, annoyance writ large across his otherwise serene features.  “Haven’t got time for small town crime, I guess.  And my parents are loyal to a bloody fault.  Something is off at the lodge, and they refuse to acknowledge it.”

“Hannah—” John prompts, and Simon sighs, knocking back the last half of his pint.

“She’s a mess.  We all see it.  I don’t know what she’s gotten into, but she’s worked for us for years and the shift is bloody obvious.  The last few months have been rough on her.  Really nothing has been the same for any of us since the first incident in December.”

“Murder.”

“What?”

“You said incident.   It was a murder.  Wasn’t it?”

“And the others?” John interrupts, squeezing his hand in a way that whispers please play nice.

“Jules is reliable.  Bright.  They’ve fixed every issue around the lodge that my father couldn’t be bothered with, seemingly overnight.  Yoli and Ano practically run the place.  I’ve always liked them just fine.”

“But something is awry.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see the crime scenes.”

/

AT FIRST SITE

And what the bloody hell is that supposed to mean anyway?  Sherlock suggested it was a misspelled last-ditch declaration of love, but even he didn’t seem to believe that tepid theory.  John assumes it suggests a clue at the site of the first murder, but evidently nothing was ever found by homicide—not that they’d be privy to those findings either way.  Sherlock had simply glanced around the still sealed-off room and moved on almost immediately to the scene of the second crime.

John watches as Sherlock crawls around on the carpet, mindful of the large, round bloodstain that remains even now.  He’s got his magnifying lens aimed at the words carved dully into the wall, asking Simon endless questions about the type of pencil that was found.  

It’s the first case like this John has witnessed him work on—ages after the actual crimes occurred with no access to bodies, files or photos.  The police, apparently, have dropped the bloody ball, something John has learnt in recent months is more common than he’d have thought.  

There’s a different energy about Sherlock—no real sense of manic obsession, no urgency to get it solved at any cost, even to his own detriment.  He seems distracted, oddly content to just review the information as it comes rather than scorching the entire earth to find it.  John smiles as Sherlock sits up abruptly and immediately seeks him out, a look of triumph on his face when their eyes lock.

“Drugs, John!”

“Alright.  Go on.”

Sherlock launches into a saga of remnants and residues, of all the clear signs of drug use within this single room, of his certainty that the fat, vacuous police found the same and opted not to look any further.  It’s an epidemic, he declares impassionedly, the use of methamphetamines—one that goes largely unacknowledged with no viable solution.  Lovely.

“So, drug-related motive?”  Unsurprising.  Unexciting.

“Perhaps.”

“You think there’s more to it?”  John asks.  Sherlock only shrugs in response.  “Alright, then.  Now what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It’s getting late,” Sherlock says, standing in one swift motion.  It isn’t really, but the sun has set, the room’s sole window showing only the dusky outline of the pines, peaceful and inviting.  Sherlock moves to stand at his side.  “Walk with me.”

They pass another couple on their way out, arms around each other as they ascend the staircase to their room.  They’ve seen a handful of guests milling about since their arrival, but the lodge only has twelve rooms, two of them ominously out of order.  It all feels a little empty, to be honest.  The staff are long gone until tomorrow, Simon acting as night auditor as he lives on site.  It’s a role he doesn’t seem thrilled to take on, a position thrust upon him by a sense of duty and obligation.

They walk the trail back to the garden shed in comfortable silence, stopping in a small clearing just beyond to stare up at the stars.  It feels so strange to be here, to be allowed this silence, so different from their life back home.  It’s surreal to exist within a crushing pacific hush, beside the man who has so quickly become the centre of his world.

Sherlock slips an arm around John’s waist, moving closer than he’s ever done.  And there’s no one here to show this to, no purpose beyond candid affection.  He feels the press of Sherlock’s temple against the crown of his head, and god, for someone so averse to sentiment, he rarely fails to make John feel cared for.

“Sherlock,” John says quietly, thinking of snapped out words, of past interruptions, of the measures he’s gone to to win back John’s attention, every time it’s dared to stray.  “I’m not going anywhere.  Tell me you know that.”  He feels Sherlock briefly tense up, caught out, perhaps a bit flustered by the implication of such a blunt reassurance.  But John only steps in closer, raising a hand to rest against his spine.

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock says, but he doesn’t really mean it.

“And you have my attention,” John smiles, eyes tracing the zig and zag of Cassiopeia, bright and bold above them against the cool black night.  “Always.”  Even when he doesn’t.

“John—”

“We weren’t close,” John continues, wanting to get this out.  “Simon and me.  I don’t think he had many friends.”

“You were kind to him,” Sherlock says softly.  John thinks of all the things kids said—assumptions made, words hurled at a person who wasn’t ready for that sort of unjust backlash.  He’d watched his sister go through much the same.  He never understood the misplaced hatred and rage.  “I wish I’d known you then.”

“Didn’t you have school friends?”

“Oh, hundreds,” Sherlock sighs sardonically.  “You’ve met one of them.”  John recalls the self-satisfied smirk of Sebastian Wilkes and feels an instant swell of protective indignation.  It’d been a glimpse into Sherlock’s past early on, one he hadn’t really registered as such at the time.  Looking back, he should have seen it for what it was: the icy reception Sherlock has accepted all his life.  “I don’t have friends, John.”

It’s overwhelming, the complex rush of emotion inspired by a single passive phrase.  He presses a hand between Sherlock’s shoulder blades, slipping down his spine to curl around his waist.

“Well,” John rasps.  “You have one.”

Chapter Text

It is fascinating (terrifying), this gradual shift.

Before John, Sherlock could not have conceived of a person he would allow to see this side of himself.

His thoughts had never wandered into sentimental what-ifs.  He wouldn’t have guessed he was capable of something like this—it simply wasn’t meant for him:  Confidence.  Partnership.

But he could give the whole of his existence to John and still never tire of him.  He’s sure of it.

(he’d known it from the start)

“Come on,” John sighs into the silence after countless placid minutes staring up at a sweep of stars.  It’s a marvel to find Sherlock’s mind can settle, that he can focus almost solely on these sensations of stability and warmth.  It is strange, too, that the bolder he becomes, the more he feels it may not always be enough.  He wonders what it is about this place that winds his mind in ways he’s avoided for so long.

He will take John’s careful touches, his restrained affection and respectful regard.  He will take his tender friendship and his unwavering support.  

Sherlock is well aware that he’s the one who’d slammed the door on more.

But in moments like this he’d like to fling that door wide open.

“Let’s have a look around,” John says as they pass the garden shed with its piles of potting soil and ammonium sulfate fertiliser.  (hmm)   Sherlock had every intention of leaving this case behind for the night.  He’d wanted to show John he doesn’t always need a distraction—doesn’t always need to be entertained.  But they’d be fools to pass up the opportunity.  “Locked,” John says, jangling the padlock on the door.  (such flagrant metaphor)   Sherlock steps up beside him and examines it, pleased to be presented with a chance to show off.

He has it open within moments, tucking his pick back into his flannel’s front pocket beside the magnifying lens he won’t go anywhere without.  They don’t flip on the overhead bulb, instead using Sherlock’s phone as a torch.  Swinging it across the tiny space, it illuminates a simple wooden worktop along the back wall, piled with gardening supplies and a few errant power tools.  John nearly trips over the two upturned plant pots Jules and Hannah had been perched upon earlier.  Sherlock grips his arm to steady him as the door swings shut.

“Over here,” Sherlock whispers, not entirely sure why he feels compelled to be inconspicuous.  They’d seen no one on their walk out—still, he keeps the light away from the tiny window, aiming it at the only space that could contain anything of interest.  An old filing cabinet, repurposed as basic storage, holds hardware and a set of tools in its top two drawers.  When he rolls open the third, he finds what he was looking for.

“Hannah’s?” John asks quietly when Sherlock drops a paisley patterned backpack onto the worktop.

“Yes.”

Together they go through it, unearthing a sketchbook full of rough drawn portraits, suncream, a pocket knife and the mini torch lighter that’d been left out earlier, leading John to his most surprising deduction yet.  The lighter is generic plastic—more powerful than needed to light anyone’s joint and too cheap for any professional application.  It’s a staple in any junkie’s kit, always present and rarely found elsewhere.

In the backpack’s front pocket, there is an iPhone 4s.

“Damn,” John breathes, when again they’re locked out, the most commonly used four-digit codes failing one after another.  Sherlock had gleaned too little of Hannah from their dazed introduction, though she seems the type to choose something sentimental—something alphanumerical, even.  9333 would have been a charming victory.  She isn’t brazen enough for 6384.  For one wild moment, he considers pocketing the device for further consideration, but it’d be unwise to set their only suspect on edge this early on.

He’s returning the backpack to its covert drawer when John tenses beside him, hand flying to Sherlock’s back in warning, just as the crunch of feet against the path outside becomes audible.  They stare at each other in wide eyed alarm, a crackle of dread abruptly sputtering up—the foremost thought in his mind is that they’re about to be found out—

(and then what?)

Sherlock hauls John into his arms and kisses him on the mouth.

(oh, god!)

A decision made in a swift fit of panic, reckless and rash and now here they are.  In an instant, John’s palms rise to cradle his head, gentling Sherlock’s guileless approach into something much more delicate.  His lips are soft and dry and careful, the kiss itself so chaste and gentle —god, it’s—

He really isn’t sure what he thought this would feel like.  He isn’t certain he’s ever thought it through at all, now that it’s actually upon him.  It’s a wild, fleeting glimpse into something he was not prepared for, and when the door clatters open, they both spring apart. 

“Jesus Christ!” The startled yelp was inevitable, but it isn’t at all the voice he’d been waiting for.  “I know I locked that goddamn door.  What are you two even doing?”  Jules demands, hands on their hips in a show of indignant disapproval.

“Well,” John begins, before bursting into iridescent laughter, his expression bright and open when Sherlock meets his eye.  “Sorry,” he gasps, shaking his head as though helpless, gripping Sherlock’s arm and giggling all the while.  Jules is amused, hands falling to their sides, eyes rolling skyward as they succumb to John’s charm.

“Idiots,” they sigh.

“Apologies,” Sherlock smiles, knowing full well he looks like an abject fool.

“Not the most romantic setting,” Jules continues, sliding past and unearthing a bright orange power drill.  “But you’re newlyweds, aren’t you.  Excuse me.”  John moves out of their way as they fling open the top drawer on the filing cabinet and dig out a box of screws.

“Building something?” Sherlock asks casually.

“Somebody busted into my RV while I was out,” Jules scowls.  “And if I ever want to sleep again I need to fix the flimsy fucking window.”

“Was anything taken?” John asks, the laughter of a moment ago lost in favour of concern.

“Benzos,” they sigh.  “Prescription, of course.  Wish I could say it was the first time.  I rent a site over at River Bend, just down the road.”  That’ll be the campsite beside the pub they’d been at earlier, a large lot on the river amongst the pines.  “There are a lot of colorful characters around.  Hannah lives there too, though that bitch has an Airstream.  Nobody’s getting in if she doesn’t want them to.”  (hmm)

Jules turns down John’s offer to help with repairs.  “Why don’t you two heartthrobs go make use of your room and get the hell out of my shed.” 

The walk back feels endless, the silence between them more strained than it’s ever been.  He wants to bring up what happened—to apologise, or explain, or make John understand what precisely he was thinking.  He wants to assess his own feelings, his own startling reaction.  He wants to do it again, and god, what a revelation that’s been.

“John,” he says quietly once they’re back in their room, each toeing off their shoes and sitting heavily on the edge of the bed as if by some unspoken agreement.  “Too much?”  he asks candidly, meaning the kiss—meaning everything.   John will know what he’s asking.

“No,” John smiles.  “You surprised me though.  Didn’t know you had it in you.”  Sherlock isn’t sure how to feel about that.  He may have locked the door between them a bit tighter than intended when he’d turned John down so early in their friendship.  He should probably change the subject before he lets slip these reflections, when even he doesn’t understand them yet.

“Jules has nothing to do with this case.”

“I don’t know.” John’s smile widens. “It’s always the person you least suspect.”

“It’s never the person I least suspect.”

“Sorry, who do you think you’re talking to?” John balks, amused and incredulous.  They look at each other and laughter bubbles up in an instant.  John has watched him get it wrong on more than one occasion.  And not only amidst the chlorine stench of an empty public pool.

John grips his shoulder as he stands, a touch both reassuring and familiar, and vanishes behind the bathroom door.

/

John knew, he supposes, what he was getting himself into when he agreed to this entire charade.

But he’d been surprised by the rings, surprised by the location.  Surprised when his best friend kissed him in a garden shed with all the grace of a knock kneed lamb.

Sherlock doesn’t do these things.  Almost certainly never has.  But the truth is a bit more complicated than that, isn’t it.

It felt like something.   It felt like more than a blundering cover for their snooping.  In an instant he could sense Sherlock’s curiosity, his tentative interest the moment John stepped in and tempered his startled approach.

The joy that had shimmered up in the aftermath was overwhelming—and not just joy, but hope.

Christ, he’s in trouble.

He showers, because he knows by now that his fastidious flatmate will be in there for ages in the morning.  He changes into pyjamas and says not a word when he crawls into bed and settles under cool cotton sheets and a patchwork quilt.  Sherlock is already feigning sleep, and John lets him.  It feels nice, really, just to know he’s there.

When he wakes it’s to an empty bed, and it’s immediately clear he’s slept much later than planned.  He rolls over into a blinding flood of sunlight, groaning at the presence of another bloody headache.  Not a migraine—not yet, anyway.  He flings the quilt away and kicks the sheets to the end of the bed, forcing himself to sit up but not making it any further than that.

He hears the telltale rattle of someone attempting to unlock the door from the hall, and a moment later Sherlock appears, two takeaway cups stacked precariously in one hand and their room key in the other, a paper bag pinned between his teeth.  John smiles so wide it hurts, rising to help him before it all ends up on the floor.

“Thanks,” John mumbles, accepting one of the coffees and digging through the bag to see what the idiot has scrounged up.  He finds two gorgeous blueberry muffins, taking them to their tiny wooden table by the window as he sips at the blessed gift of caffeine.  He pushes a muffin toward Sherlock when he joins, slowly as if he may spook otherwise, earning himself a glare for his theatrics.

Sherlock is once again in jeans and boots, this time paired with a beige t-shirt so faded it's nearly transparent.  “Orange Juice?” John smiles, eyeing the bright red text across his chest.  He knows the band well, his mind instantly flooded with old footage of his mum dancing across the kitchen to the cheap little radio that sat there for years.

“Nicked it from my mother,” Sherlock mutters, shoving the entire bottom half of the muffin into his mouth and taking an age to chew it.  “She was a bit of a punk in her day, but her true love is new wave.  She’s got an impressive vinyl collection to prove it, lest anyone doubt her enthusiasm for the genre.”  He rolls his eyes.  John’s mum was a bit simpler than all that—whatever was on the radio had suited her just fine.  Still, the overlap in taste is somehow comforting.  He wonders, vaguely, if they’d have been friends.  “Your mum is dead,” Sherlock says.  He isn’t asking.

“Yeah,” John sighs, finding he really doesn’t mind Sherlock’s candour, though he struggles to talk about it even now, more than two decades on.  He’s never been able to understand why, when she’d had two kids she was leaving behind.  Things had really gone to shit after that.

He looks up when Sherlock squeezes his wrist, his eyes conveying an empathy most people never see from him.  It’d taken John a while to realise this—that everyone around them weren’t necessarily complete twats, they were just reacting to limited information.  John often wonders why he was given the full picture, and not just the sharpest splinter of Sherlock’s character.

Clearing his throat, he shifts the conversation to the case.

The first victim was a woman in her early forties, hit over the head with an object never discovered on site.  Her husband had been staying in the lodge as well, claiming to be in a nearby pub at the time.  His claim was confirmed by the establishment’s cameras—he’d stumbled into their room and found her after being out half the night.  Any evidence has been withheld, but the county police have all but dropped the case.  She died three days before Christmas.

“Contemptible,” Sherlock scowls, and John silently agrees.  If Simon is to be believed, it seems they simply do not give a damn.

“Drug deal gone wrong?” John tries, feeling as lost as ever.

“Seems likely,” Sherlock nods.  “I took a closer look at the room this morning.  No clear signs of use, but that doesn’t mean drugs weren’t the motive.  There are some regular lodgers I’d like to ask Simon about.”  He knocks their knees together lightly beneath the table.  “Put some bloody clothes on and join me.”

“Several times a year,” Simon nods from the other side of another picnic table, this time just outside the lodge.  “Summer, in particular.  They’ll drive up from San Francisco, or in from surrounding towns.  This area might surprise you.  It’s become a bit of a destination, and there’s a vibrant queer scene as well.”  He looks at Sherlock when he says this, and John wonders how Sherlock is perceived by a man like Simon, who’s lived openly all his life.  He might look at the two of them in this feigned relationship and feel only indignation at the ruse—or worse, some form of pity.  

John is overly conscious of how the public pities him.  While half of London may already believe them to be in a relationship, the other half seems to think John spends his days trailing after a frigid genius, infatuated and ultimately ignored.  Speculation started the first time John was photographed beside him, and they really haven’t let it go.  It’s done a number on his ego, and he isn’t proud of the resultant outbursts.  He can shout all day about how he isn’t actually gay, but everyone around him sees right through his feeble proclamations.

Shaking off that tensive line of thought, he refocuses on the conversation.

“—those present during each of the murders,” Sherlock is saying, but Simon shakes his head.

“You’re welcome to the records, but there was no overlap with guests.  It’s what shifted suspicion to the staff, much as I don’t want to believe it.”  Of course the lodge has no security to speak of, but the staff was interviewed and cleared in both cases.  “The first victim had never been here.  The second lived in the next city over and would show up a few times a year.  It seems random.”

“It’s never random,” Sherlock drones, gaze drifting off into the distance.  He’s asking questions about things he already knows, trying to find a discrepancy or pattern.  John had gone through the emails from Simon’s father when they’d stopped in San Francisco to finalise their plan.  They were as thorough as they could be with no access to case files, but absolutely nothing stood out—at least not to John.

He really doesn’t know why Sherlock took this case at all.  Though the more time they spend neglecting it, the more he thinks he might be catching on.

/

For the first time in recent memory, Sherlock feels utterly incapable of focus.

Facts lie in a pile in the proverbial corner while thoughts of John flood the cerebral palace he’d taken such care to create.  He can not arrange this mess of data into anything effectual, he cannot find a useful pattern amongst this case’s scattered remains.  This is why he must continue to reject all sentimental endeavours.  This is why intellect must persist as sole priority.

(ugh!)

But then John rests a palm against the small of his back, asking quietly if he’s okay.  And Sherlock once again considers that both might have their place.

“Fine,” he smiles.  They stand on the fringes of the lodge’s empty lobby, with no real plan for the day, having just been abandoned by Simon when he’d run off to cater to the demands of a high maintenance guest.

Tatiano emerges from the door behind the front desk, immediately embracing his harried wife where she stands, typing away at her computer.  He whispers in her ear and she lets out a bout of twinkling laughter, turning in his arms with an easy smile.  When they kiss it’s quick and natural, a practiced dance between two people with an intimacy that’s enviable.

(ugh)

Sharing a bed with John had been a stunning distraction, fighting against what felt like a magnetic force.  The space between them was an error, an abomination, every muscle in Sherlock’s body aching to roll toward his warmth.

Perhaps that pull has always been there, dulled by the layers of denial stacked between them from both sides.  He cannot yet be sure where John stands, but Sherlock now knows his own denial has expired.

“What’s next?” John asks, dragging him back to the present.

“I don’t know,” Sherlock admits, unafraid to show uncertainty to a man who sees more in him than an advantageous wit.

“Then come on.” John nods toward the exit.  “We’ll let it all lie for a while.”

/

John has never been in love.

He’s succumbed to infatuation, sure—had more crushes than he can reasonably count.  Neither of those apply to the man in the passenger seat with his entire head stuck out the window, curls twisting in the breeze as they wind their way along the coast.

His favourite moments with Sherlock are these glimpses into his artless sense of wonder—how he sees the world as something to be experienced and explored.

John would struggle to capture Sherlock in a handful of words, his feelings toward him always evolving, always building into something more.  He was compelled from the start to write about the life they now share, which he supposes says it all: an ongoing story, an ode to evolution.  To companionship, to adventure, to trust in the face of danger.  But there are a few pivotal things he needs to say to him now.

There’s no doubt left in John’s mind.  He is falling in love.

/

John has driven them to the Pacific Ocean.  Thirty minutes on a series of increasingly narrow roads, and they’ve found themselves in a whole new world.

The town is tiny, various signs proclaiming it was the site of an old Hitchcock film, consisting of cosy little coastal shops and a church up on a hill.  There are people everywhere, tourists and locals alike, but Sherlock pays them no mind.  His thoughts are occupied elsewhere.  John finds a narrow car park near a surf shack and a pastel pink shop selling saltwater taffy, lined by a long stretch of sand.  With one last shared grin, they emerge into the salt-sweet air.

“Simon took a picture of me here,” John says, and Sherlock immediately knows the one.  Young, carefree John on the bonnet of an old blue car, staring at the very same waves that crash before them now.  “God, I never could have imagined then what my life would become.”  There is no hint of regret in his tone, only gratitude.

“I’m familiar with the feeling,” Sherlock says, moving to stand beside him in the sprawling sand.  He never could have known he’d find such contentment in another person when he’s spent most of his life as an outcast.  When John looks up, there’s an intangible spark in his soft, knowing smile.  Sherlock fights a fleeting urge to lean in close and kiss it from his mouth.  (stop!)

They stand together once again, for a long, peaceful while—no pressing obligations before them, nothing left to weigh them down.  Sherlock’s mind returns to the placid hum it has only ever found in these moments with John, tuned in to the soul beside him.

“I’m so happy,” John says softly. “With you.”

Sherlock stares out at the roaring sea as all the breath gusts out of him in a single whoosh.  (with you)   He doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know if what he’s feeling is too much, too far.  He wants to take John in his arms and let him feel it too.  Instead he rests a hand against the back of John’s neck, thumb tracing the fine hairs at his nape.  John sighs and winds an arm around his waist, and god, he wants this more than anything.  Every day.

(always)

“I’ve begun to see myself in a different light,” John almost whispers, and it’s palpable, the ache, the urge to get it all out in the open.  The waves surge on before them, their rhythm comforting, hypnotic, drowning out all doubt and allowing for these candid truths.  “A different life,” he amends.  “One I couldn’t have imagined before you.”

“I understand,” Sherlock rasps, clearing his throat against a swell of emotion that will certainly choke him.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”  John has changed everything for him.  Not just his life, but his perspective.  His purpose.

“I didn’t grow up in a world that was open minded,” John says.  “I think we have that in common.”

(they do)

“But you are.” Sherlock lets his hand fall to John’s back, smoothing circles into his spine and feeling him gradually relax.  John has lived a life stifled by institutional intolerance and societal bias.  But he’s never lost his open mind, nor has he closed the door on kindness.

“Yeah.”  John turns into his arms as a world of possibility blooms cautiously between them.  “I am.”