Work Text:
The train from London is awfully mundane.
In Sherlock’s ear, soft piano plays, a soft tinkling of bells that sounds like laughter or the airy tumbling of river brooks.
He peers out the window, leaning his head against the cool panes to catch a glimpse of the ever-evolving terrain. The view is startling in its lush beauty— perfectly green grass stretching into the endless expanse of sky, melding into a hazy painting that is gone as soon as Sherlock blinks.
In the reflection of the glass, the picturesque scenery is replaced by the faint outline of John, marred by greasy fingerprints. His eyes are drooping half-closed, teeth grazing his lip as his leg bounces anxiously.
Sherlock twists sideways to get a better look; he’s met with flushed cheeks and strawberry-blond hair awkwardly mussed by sweat-stained hands. John looks tired, eyes bloodshot and face lit up in blue from the laptop that he’s balancing on his knees.
Instinctively, when he catches Sherlock looking, John flashes a wan smile— a brief glimpse of white before his face falls, and he swipes at his red eyes.
“Tired?” Sherlock whispers, and the compartment is blanketed by a hush, the kind of buzz that’s hazy at the edges as the world narrows to just the two of them; John and his tangy citrus shampoo that smells like summer.
His face scrunches upwards, the turtleshell glasses perched on his nosebridge wobbling dangerously. Sherlock wants to reach out and steady them with trembling fingers, smooth out the creases in his face, anything to make him feel better.
“Nah, just…” John sighs, a thin wisp leaving his mouth in a curl of air. “Feeling a little lost, is all.” He leans his face on Sherlock’s shoulder, the weight warm. Sherlock feels his heart stutter, breath lodged in his throat.
There is a heavy weight that sits wrong in his stomach, sour like curdled milk. He blinks and it’s gone.
The sunset’s rays turn the very tops of John’s cheekbones orange, golden and ethereal. Paired with his loose hoodie and sweats, he looks messy and undone, dressed in a contradiction. Soft, like all he needs is to stay like this by Sherlock’s side. Sherlock thinks that all he ever needs is this, too.
John looks so awfully John that Sherlock’s heart squeezes with the familiarity, left reeling from the devastating impact.
This, He thinks, is the kind of beauty that once privy, leaves you yearning for more.
As his gaze cuts downwards, he sees it: on John’s fourth finger, a silver ring sits, gleaming under the train’s harsh lighting. The world slows, his heart stumbling. It’s missed a step, it’s falling down the stairs, it’s hit the ground. A sharp jolt of pain that feels like the last dredges of life before a heart attack; a car accident, something horrible.
Then, Sherlock twists the matching one on his finger, the metal cool under the pads of his thumb, and everything is fine. Like nothing even happened.
Beside him, John’s eyes stay closed, his breathing steady and slow. The music in Sherlock’s earphones swells to a crescendo, and he thinks: I’m in love with you, you, you.
.
When they disembark at the station, cool air crests their cheeks.
Sherlock almost misses the warm intimacy of the train, just him and the study of the curl of John’s eyelashes or the lopsided angle of his mouth, endlessly endearing. The knowing feeling that he would follow John to the ends of the earth.
He tugs his backpack over his shoulder and follows John into the town.
The alleyways are narrow, lined with arches and marble and ivory— things that are carefully wound into spools of poetry, now lying in front of them, tangible and within reach.
They trace their hands down the aged brick walls, skin smooth against rough edges. The aged architecture almost opens; makes a divot for them to crawl into and swallows them whole. Their own private world, tucked away behind sheets of ivy.
When John slips his palm into Sherlock’s, almost shyly, he doesn’t protest. It feels foreign, to have a warm weight under his fingers, but it’s nice.
John practically skips down the cobbled pavement, awestruck. His irises are cornflower blue and blown wide in wonder. It’s the kind of emotion that Sherlock’s seen a hundred times but could never quite get tired of— or maybe it’s just John, the knowledge that this is what happiness feels like, that John is his forever and he has it right in the palm of his hand.
The path they’re following winds downwards, a meandering spiral that reveals a lake bracketed with the lazy sway of willows in the breeze.
John makes a noise of delight.
“Look at the sky,” He says, breathless. The sun has melted away into pinks and purples, bruising the blue of the sky into that of a fairytale. The light reflects onto the still water, and everything sparkles.
“It’s beautiful.”
Sherlock looks at John, instead.
“So beautiful I can’t seem to look away,” His voice is soft, sweet in the way only John can coax out of him. Their fingers are tangled together, rings clinking against each other, and everything is perfect.
Sherlock can see it all with perfect clarity, the way he cups John’s jaw to press their foreheads together, overflowing with sincerity. To promise him the world, and hear him say it back. To kiss and kiss and kiss until the sky fades into darkness, and they are lit by the soft glow of street lamps.
But John looks tired, and his hands are cold. Something’s not right.
Sherlock’s smile falls.
.
He wakes up disoriented, fingers grasping for the edges of a dream.
“Sherlock?”
His head jerks upwards, and who else could it be except for John? Here, his face is concerned, brows drawn together. A sheet of origami carefully folded into the words this is the man who Sherlock loves.
“Are you okay?”
Beneath them, the train rumbles. His neck is sore from sleeping in an awkward position.
The look in John’s eyes is so familiar but startlingly different from the fondness in his dream that Sherlock aches from it. He wants so, so badly.
“No, I’m fine. It’s nothing at all.”