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The first petal came on the journey back to London. It was the final leg, train rumbling from Dover to London, and James took to the lavatory to clear the frog lodged in his throat. Unexpected then, was the soft, pink rose petal sitting in the sink, that felt like velvet and tasted like foliage as it passed his lips.
The flower disease was a fairytale, like dragons and sleeping princesses in towers. Most notoriously it was a disease of unrequited love - therein the rub.
Sifting through his memories of the last weeks, something snagged. The sickening drop in his gut as Sherlock had teased the key, slipping it back into his waistcoat. Rejection, a rare feeling for James who so easily moved onto the next novelty, thick skin ironclad against insult and injury. Well – most insult and injury. Sherlock had revealed the uncanny knack of needling underneath his armour, finding the chink and driving home.
Still, a single rejection didn’t equal one-sided love. The love disease was a quaint notion, and he readily dismissed it as water carried the petal down the drain.
It was nothing. Momentary hysteria. A hallucination. He hadn’t been sleeping well. Everything was fine.
James hadn’t realised how inseparable they’d become until Sherlock wasn’t by his side. Since returning to England and taking up at Cambridge – James on a scholarship, organised with no small effort by Mycroft, and Sherlock and Mycroft sharing rooms – they'd had two arguments.
The second petal came after their first, a terse conversation about the formula, and Beatrice, and London, but mostly Beatrice. More petals followed, each day a new flower. Pansies, carnations, valerian, chamomile, violets.
Their second argument had been pleasant, normal banter, until abruptly it wasn't, and they were shouting in each others faces.
“Perhaps it’s a good thing Mycroft didn’t bother getting you a college place, lest I have you at the helm steering my moral compass for every fucking decision,” James’s eyes were bright with fury. “Can hardly go to my mandatory fucking chemistry classes without you breathin’ down my neck. The fuck do you think I’ll do, eh?”
Sherlock responded with steel. “You do realise Mycroft sorted you out because I asked? For you, not myself. You’ll have to forgive my ongoing presence in Cambridge, I’ll be sure to refrain from any steering and delight in the inevitable shipwreck.” Sherlock punctuated his words with a shove, and James found himself overcome with the urge to kiss the man, his anger still sharp and hungry. He cursed how well bloody-minded fury suited Sherlock, tapping into the carnal lust that sat heavy in his gut and James was almost grateful for the interruption that blossomed in his throat; lest he do something truly foolish like act on his feelings.
James excused himself to see to the coughing fit. Sherlock had avoided him for the near month since.
He wondered how often Sherlock turned to say something, only for the words to die in his throat at the absence beside him. Not that James had done that. Not that he was willing to examine why it felt like he'd been struck and left with a crater in his ribs. He filled it best he could, with letters to Bea, charming pretty girls, and crushing the soft petals that followed in his fists. Burned the half-finished letters and musings and notes he jotted for Sherlock - no point swallowing around the lump in his throat while waiting on a response that wouldn't come.
The college library had a handful of texts on the disease, and James buried his head in everything he could. A solid afternoon of reading, if that. Despite the decidedly unreliable and fictional categorisation of the majority of his sources, the words fatal and unrequited appeared together far too frequently and consistently for comfort. James was slowly coming to accept the romantic nature of the affliction, though it had required several weeks of extensive rumination and frustrating, intense desire for the pieces to slot into place.
There was the immediate intimacy, of course, the deep sense of knowing that had settled the moment they clasped hands for the first time. Silent conversations, finished thoughts, getting comfortable in each others heads, a synergy that (until recently) came easy as breathing. Deeper than trust - it was the knowledge that where one leapt, the other would be waiting to catch.
His heart had a tendency to race in Sherlock’s presence – the journey home had comfortably confirmed that was not simply from adrenaline, nor the life or death scenarios which had dominated their friendship thus far. Recent dreams of pinning Sherlock into a bed the way James had done with countless women before - with Sherlock’s own sister. He'd never thought about it before, but the longer spent apart, the more James found himself hungry for Sherlock's quick fingers on him, and to get Sherlock under his in turn. More than lust, more than the carnal lightning strike of want that had seized him with Beatrice - it was wrought out and unyielding. He wanted all of Sherlock and then some.
In short - he was fucked. There was little point in denying the situation anymore. The traitorous cough beset him in the library, three petals in a handkerchief earning glares from nearby students.
According to the sources, possible cures were seemingly endless and ranged from the most basic returned affection, to consummation, to marriage - marriage! - to the theoretical removal of the infected organ, or part thereof. Potential side effects and risks and warnings were listed over several pages, or described in great detail over a whole penny dreadful (which was not in the college collection; James had swiped it from the bookseller the day before). Also inconsistent was the progression of the disease - did he have weeks? Months? Could he go years like this? Would this bind him to Sherlock, unable to tear away or ever, forgive the dramatics, love anyone else?
Sherlock returning his feelings was running slim odds ; he'd not returned a fucking calling card for the last month, the stubborn bastard. He would come back soon enough. Well - James hoped.
Surely there was someone at Cambridge he could speak to about this, with discretion. He’d make inquiries.
Mycroft wound up making inquiries on his behalf. James hadn’t intended to reveal his affliction to anyone, let alone any of the Holmes family. James had called once again, hoping Sherlock would decide to be “in”. The servant looked piteously at him.
“Mr Sherlock Holmes is out, but if you’d like to take tea with the elder Mr Holmes, he would be most amenable.”
Which is how James found himself in their comfortable sitting room, teacup in hand, Mycroft and his ever-perfect moustache and pressed suit gazing back at him.
“Holmes," James greeted as he sat.
“Moriarty.”
“Thanks for seeing me. Although, and forgive me the indelicacy, you aren’t the Holmes brother I’ve been hoping to see.”
Mycroft sipped his tea, expression unchanged. “I’m aware of the tantrum my dear brother is throwing.” He bristled beneath his polished exterior and plum government vowels.
James had no interest in stepping in Sherlock and Mycroft’s peculiar brand of brotherly affection and considered his response. For nought, as a sudden cough shook him and he gracelessly clattered his cup and saucer down in time to catch to the petal. A quick glance revealed a purple pansy, which was crushed in his fist.
He didn’t appreciate the curious look that followed.
“Are you not well?”
“Not the consumption, if that’s what you’re asking. Just something I picked up, I’ll be over it soon enough."
“Mmm. Now, Mr Moriarty,” Mycroft leaned forward, hands on his knees with piercing eyes, “do you know what’s got Sherlock into a snit? He won’t say a word to me, and it’s been weeks. It's not Beatrice, I've been assured of that.”
“‘Fraid I can’t help. I’ve been trying to work out the same,” James lied, their shouting match playing out front of mind. He quashed the hot flush of guilt, which mingled with the greedy knowledge that he may be coughing up petals, but Sherlock was just as preoccupied with their argument and, by extension, James.
"I'd hate for him to get in trouble. I'm quite out of favours if he ends up in gaol again. " Mycroft's tone revealed that he did have some idea of what had Sherlock's knickers in a twist, but not enough to intervene yet. No doubt he'll have completed his investigation before they finished tea.
Another cough - another pansy petal caught in his hand. Time to depart.
“I’ll keep calling, then. Or send him my way - my door’s always open. Remind him that even he could use an outside eye on occasion, ey?” James patted his knees and stood to go, and at that moment, the bastard cough. Pansy petals were light, even when damp from his throat, and it fluttered to land in what remained of James’s tea. Time seemed to stop, and for a long moment neither man spoke. James was stuck, halfway standing, waiting for the clock to start again.
“Hanahaki,” Mycroft said finally. James flinched at the word and finally stood fully upright. He’d avoided saying the name aloud, as if that would make it true, like everything until now could be put down to a dream.
“Yes,” James replied, voice catching.
“I know of a woman. She may be of assistance, assuming you want to be rid of it. Not without risk, as I understand.”
James laughed without humour. “Each petal is a reminder of my death sentence. Not long ‘til I’ll have a bloody bouquet. Risk is a welcome choice.”
“I’ll acquire her details. Who is it that-”
“Please don’t tell Sherlock.” James revolted at how small and pleading he sounded, the raw vulnerability leaving him naked. He fought the urge to bolt, needing Mycroft's answer before he allowed himself to move.
Mycroft gave a knowing nod after a long moment. “Very well. You have my word.”
James shuddered a sigh of relief, and strode toward the door. “Ta.”
Sherlock called two days later. James was glad. Nothing said about last month, though the fraught tension - flinching and awkward silences and James being uncharacteristically banal for fear of a fight - remained, until Sherlock gave him a look.
Stop treating me like I’m made of glass. Be normal.
Oh, we're doing this again?
Normal, James. Stop being boring.
James tried.
Sherlock asked for his help on a case – finally. A break-in at the museum, Sherlock consulted by the local constabulary, such a reversal of their meeting at Oxford that James had a twisted sense of déjà vu. When final confrontation with the thief came – after chasing down three dead-ends, getting punched once (James) or twice (Sherlock), and finally following their nose – also known as the man’s distinctive tobacco choice – James held his revolver in a steady hand. Sherlock had asked him to bring it, and James thought better than to ask how Sherlock knew he had a gun.
It would have been easy, arguably easier, to go for the chest or gut. High fatality rate, as Sherlock could attest, having narrowly escaped it himself. But this man wasn't a great villain, and James grimaced at the neutral, disappointed mask Sherlock would wear for him if the man was outright killed. Instead, James tilted the barrel down and shot the man in the leg as he turned to flee, bringing him and the stolen instrument clattering to the floor.
Sherlock embraced him afterwards as the adrenaline coursed through them. “You were brilliant James, absolutely brilliant.” The embrace lingered far longer than it had any right to, and longer still as a ghost on James’s skin.
And just like that – while all wasn’t quite forgiven, apparent in the occasional pointed look – it was almost back to how it was. Even better – how it was supposed to be, if they hadn’t spent their entire burgeoning acquaintance in mortal danger. Practically joined at the hip outside James’s classes (and occasionally within - Sherlock charmed the chemistry professor into letting him audit the course), always competing to finish the others train of thought, a closeness that made James blossom and wither in equal measure.
He was unused to the restraint required to not simply reach out and take what he desired - let alone guarding his face and manner from Sherlock's keen observation, as he refused to let Sherlock discover his feelings. James played off the cough as a minor annoyance and went to almost absurd lengths to hide the petals, bolting to the lavatory or hiding behind curtains or doubling over into a bush. That was all noticed, with many a raised eyebrow and amused quip, yet the teasing was preferential over the revelation of his affliction. While Sherlock might eventually come to the conclusion of the love disease without seeing a single petal, James was saved by its fictitious reputation. And besides, Mycroft seemed to have kept his word.
Sherlock made none of it easy, with the curiosity of a toddler and spatial awareness to match. Accidental touch happened unconsciously as he stood well into James's personal space, breath ghosting hot against James's neck and face. One day he settled his sharp chin into James’s shoulder to peer over, chest-to-back, and James left sharp crescent moons in his thighs from how hard he'd dug his nails in to stay his hands from tearing at Sherlock right there on the crime scene.
And his hands, lord, Sherlock’s hands which refused to be still, lest of all be still on James. It seemed the man perpetually had at least one extremity on James, which could never settle for more than a minute, darting from knee to shoulder to neck. James wanted to catch his wrist before it fluttered off again like a butterfly, and enjoyed Sherlock's confused look when he actually did, keeping his face as neutral as possible.
Have you been still once in your life?
James couldn't read Sherlock's response, if there was one - his other hand tapped insistently at James's other knee and he had no choice but to relent.
James relished it all, in spite of the effort it cost him. Despair came when he was alone, the bottomless pit of hunger that wanted company and conversation, petals pushing past his lips and falling into the washbasin, followed with bloody spittle and bile until his throat was raw and his eyes were stinging. But all would be well - he had an appointment coming up.
The woman was known as “The Surgeon” and operated out of an inn on the outskirts of Cambridge. James opted to walk despite the brisk evening, fear that a cab, any kind of trail, might somehow make his affliction known. The entire walk was spent ruminating, trying to recall what the various helpful and unhelpful texts had said about medical cures – distinct from the emotional ones. Removal and modifications of organs, of the blossoms, drilling a hole in the skull to siphon off the illness. Each option unpleasant as the next, but his choice remained – a calculated risk, or death.
The Surgeon was an older woman, at least in her 60s, wearing a clean and crisp man’s shirt and trousers. Her grey hair was tightly pulled back, and the wrinkles on her face indicated her serious disposition had been lifelong.
“Come in. Your referrer has agreed to pay costs. Hanahaki, correct?”
James nodded, unsurprised by Mycroft’s generosity – ever the expert at smoothing out little bumps.
“How long?” She asked.
“About-“ James’s voice cracked, and coughed to clear it with resignation, yellow rose petal settling on his palm. She held out her hand, and James handed it over without hesitation. “A little over a month. Closer to two.”
“Daily?”
“The last four, five weeks. And growing more frequent, within a day.”
She looked back to James, eyes focused on his throat. He swallowed, unsettled by the intense observation.
“You have time, but it’s lucky you came now. Two weeks and it would be too late to operate. Sit, please. Are you a medical student?”
James sat on the edge of the chair beside her desk, eyeing the wooden operating table across the room. “No, mathematics.”
“Then I will keep it simple. I will make an incision at the base of your throat to locate and remove the source. It’s like a tumour; a creeping illness that will spread and grow and infect your lungs and heart.”
“And the risks?”
She paused before answering. “The physical risk is the surgery. I am very good, but the neck is delicate. Things may be damaged, and there is a small possibility you could die. Very small. There is a known side effect of the removal, a great emotional burden to be carried by the subject of your desire. You will forget her, as if you never knew her. And you will never be capable of knowing her again.”
James had not anticipated that. James had not anticipated the stutter in his rational thought, the sudden panic. He coughed peony petals in clumps as he considered the situation. The Surgeon didn't look away from his indecency.
“You are not the first to quake in the face of such a fate. The disease protects itself, feeding on unrequited desire, on the adoration you hold. Acceptance is the cure – forgoing hope, accepting reason.”
“How many have forgone hope?”
“As many as those who chose it.”
James pondered with cool detachment, fighting the clamminess and nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. The rational decision was to decide against certain death. Did he actually hope Sherlock would return his feelings? He hoped the way one might hope for an unknown, distant relative to die suddenly and leave you riches. He was resigned to Sherlock not returning them, hence the predicament in the first place. Hence standing in a surgeon’s office above a pub. Choosing between assured death, or someone else's heartbreak. Cruelty he’d be none-the-wiser to, in the end.
And yet.
James couldn't picture a life without Sherlock Holmes – one where they’d never met, and never would meet. Even if he followed the searing thread of rejection (which had mellowed in past weeks as Sherlock let him back inside, sewn them back together again, though it didn’t make the blossoms stop, nothing had made the blossoms stop), if he followed the formula, followed his ambition, let it play to its full crescendo— parted ways and betrayal and breaking apart – Sherlock was still there at the end. A fixture in his life, working together or apart. The only one who had ever made things interesting.
If Sherlock was James Moriarty’s missing piece, James was bold enough to assume the same in return.
James saw no reason to be cruel. And the foolishness of choices had never stayed him before.
He chose hope.
“You have another week or two, before it’s too late. Call again, if you change your mind.”
James nodded, putting on his cloak and cap, his body moving through the familiar motions without any input from his mind. “Thank you,” he said, pausing at the door. “How long…how long do I have?”
“It’s not exact. But your progression is quite aggressive. Months, not years.”
James’s chest was tight as he left without another word.
Mycroft pinned him down three weeks later, the unasked question in his gaze while Sherlock had stepped out of the room.
“The cost was too great. My reason, physician to my love, hath left me.”
“He will be a wreck when you go.”
“He would have been a wreck all the same then. My death is a kinder fate than the one rationality offered,” James bit back in an angry whisper, realising too late he gave himself away. “Not a bloody word to him, Mycroft, not a whisper. Love,” he said with unconcealed disgust, “is my burden to bear, not his.”
Mycroft gave a minute nod.
“My dear brother is quite capable of love, James.” He stumbled a little on the intimacy of the Christian name. “And shouldering its burden.”
Footsteps at the door indicated Sherlock’s imminent return, and James schooled his face from resignation into a smile as his heart beat harder, and felt the flush hit his cheeks as Sherlock settled next to him on the couch, close and comfortable and smelling of tea and amber and tobacco and faintly of gunpowder - something to do with his current case, firecrackers and small explosives, it had lingered on him for days.
Mycroft’s insistence that Sherlock was capable of love – of this burdensome kind of love – lodged in his mind, and he struggled to keep focus for the rest of the afternoon.
Mycroft and Sherlock had been in London for several days, tying up some Silas-related loose ends. James didn't realise Sherlock was back until he returned to his room and the man was sat by the lit fire, drink waiting and rattling off a play-by-play as soon as James lowered himself into the chair beside him. Sherlock was perched on the wooden desk chair, leaving the comfortable arm chair, appropriated from a common room, for James. Not even an act of selflessness - Sherlock's inability to sit still in a chair like a normal human being for more than five minutes when he was in relaxed company (and increasingly, when in unrelaxed company - he'd savoured the escalating bafflement on Lestrade's face as Sherlock contorted himself without a break in his explanation of the solution) was easier in the armless chair.
"So that's that then?" James stated, once Sherlock finished.
"For now. Mycroft thinks he can deal with the rest - especially with his recent promotion."
"I'd noticed. And so he climbs the ladder of civil service. He has become a bit of a kitten lately, don't you think? Your influence is waning, his days of minor crime and reckless jaunts across the continent behind him."
Sherlock played mock betrayal. "Are you suggesting I'm a bad influence? Besides, I think now he outsources all that, courtesy of Her Majesty's most bottomless resources."
"Now, I could be wrong given I haven't seen Her Majesty's royal arse for myself, but I'm quite certain there's a bottom somewhere." There was a beat before they broke into laughter.
"The mystery of the missing behind," Sherlock intoned, shifting in the chair to give his hands more space as he spoke. James didn't try to hide the unabashed fondness on his face, as the warmth of the fire and drink lulled him to indulgence.
"No, no, I have it, the case of the peculiar posterior!"
"You joke Sherlock, but you'll be investigating royalty soon enough if you keep up like you've been."
Sherlock shifted uncomfortably, sliding to the floor and leaning against the arm chair. James raised an eyebrow. "You already have?"
"I declined the case. Bad timing, and I'm quite done with travel to the continent for a little while."
James could only nod in response and knocked back his drink before topping them up, letting his finger drag on Sherlock's while handling the glass in a way that could be accidental if not for the way James looked at him. Such a scene was too beautiful not to appreciated, Sherlock with limbs akimbo beside him and glowing golden in the flicker of the fire, jacket, collar and necktie discarded, shirt unbuttoned at the top, and formerly crisp sleeves shoved up. The very picture of rumpled, comfortable and familiar, a curated disarray that James alone was permitted to witness. He wanted to grab the man and consume him whole.
Master of restraint he was, he decidedly did not.
His spiral of desire and despair was interrupted. "Do you think Professor McKinnon will let me use the chemistry lab? Outside of class, that is."
"When has permission ever stopped you before?"
"You have a point. I suppose some of Mycroft's good manners are rubbing off on me. James, you cannot tell him I said that, I won't hear the end of it."
Any response died in his throat as tickling dandelion petals stuck on his tongue, and he fumbled for a handkerchief and ignored Sherlock's concern.
Of course James had to go and get shot. They'd split off in pursuit, Sherlock keeping on and James rounding wide to cut the thug off at the second juncture. James's boots thumped hard against the road, barely registering the pedestrians he shoved aside and slipped around as he raced. He won, just, and tackled the man, using surprise and every other advantage he could - James had more heft than Sherlock, but the thug was rather larger than him.
There was a gun shot. It took him a moment to realise it had come from the man beneath him, pocket pistol clutched in his hand, fired in their scramble. Sharp heat bloomed in his bicep and there was the scent of gunpowder and James saw Sherlock's face, gone pale as he sprinted the final fifty yards. It hit him all at once. The man was twisting beneath him and James slumped low, digging with his elbows as well to keep him down. He coughed harshly when he pushed down with his right arm, petals like a rose landing in the dust as they scuffled.
Sherlock wasted no time, striking the man with a stick he'd been carrying as a weapon for the last day and a half. He was still at once, and James rolled off, hardly noticing Sherlock's cry as he did so, and began to stand - too quickly, and Sherlock was on him gripping his side to keep upright.
"James, you've been shot."
"I've what now?"
"Your hand, James, here, you need to-" Sherlock, who's hands were shaking harder than James, grabbed his left hand and pressed it into his right bicep, where it was warm and wet.
"Oh, I've been shot."
"Yes, do keep up."
They got their man, and James was left with a doctor to remove the tiny pellet of a bullet from his muscle, stitch him up and send him home. He'd live, he'd keep his arm, nothing but a bit of rest and no strenuous exercise until the stitches came out. Sherlock had scuttled as soon as he was with the doctor, still pale as a ghost. James didn't have it in him to be annoyed - between the petals, the ruined shirt, and a bone deep exhaustion that came with losing that much blood, all he wanted was the dark and quiet of his bed.
A bottle of whiskey was waiting in his room, with a note.
To your health.
Few more loose ends. I'll call when tied.
Don't die in the meantime.
James couldn't do much about the note's lie - the man had been the last loose end, James knew that - except ponder it's necessity while he opened the conciliatory whiskey for a night cap and wait for Sherlock to come back, however many days it took. Do his best to ignore the pink petals in the meantime.
An invitation for a stroll in the botanic gardens came within the week. Unusual in the fact Sherlock gone to the formality of inviting him, instead of showing up in the morning, announcing he had returned, was bored, and convincing James to beg off class.
They met at the gate that afternoon. The other man was a mess. Red eyes of poor sleep, his waistcoat buttoned wrong and wearing a cap that James was sure belonged to Mycroft, given it was a touch too big for Sherlock. There was an elevated restlessness to his manner that James associated with only the most challenging of conundrums, and hands that vibrated with nervous energy, picking at his shirt cuffs in a manner unlike Sherlock. James resisted the urge to reach out and hold them still.
Conversation was stilted while they strolled.
"I'm not dying, just to save ya asking. Doc says the arm'll be good as new in a few weeks."
"I'll put a pause on the funeral arrangements," Sherlock quipped, before going pale and falling quiet, the silence awkward like broken glass.
When they reached the lake, Sherlock pulled a hunk of bread from his small satchel, and they sat on the damp grass and fed the ducks.
“James,” Sherlock started, then stopped. Tried again. "I'm glad you're okay."
James was mindlessly tearing off crumbs and throwing it to the eager ducks. He gave Sherlock a look.
Stop treating me like I’m made of glass. Be normal.
Sherlock swallowed. “Have you ever found yourself searching for reason only to be met with undeniable absence? To lay out the facts, to understand what makes sense, and yet…it isn’t the answer. An unexplainable outcome. The equation won't balance.”
James swallowed, and swallowed again, trying to get moisture back into his mouth. “Is that your explanation? Those the loose ends?"
"I'm sorry James. I needed…needed time, to figure things out." Sherlock worried at the bread, dropping more of it on his trousers than the grass. Then, "We're capable of great and terrible things, you and I. I'm invaded by what our potential futures are, what we could do, if we so desired. The potentials are often unpleasant, and strikingly vivid. It takes a good deal of rational thought to put it to rest, and I've found myself in short supply of late."
"You suffer an excess of rationality at times, Sherlock. It’s no small wonder it occasionally abandons you."
Sherlock continued as if James hadn't spoken. "Never has my…admiration for you wavered. Not once." He said admiration with the delicacy of a man who’d thumbed a dictionary looking for the right word and had to go for close enough. "Following the most bitter argument or thinking for a moment you were…James, when it comes to you I have an utter absence of reason. You make me unreasonable. Completely senseless. Gone with the wind."
The thundering of his heart drowned out everything except for Sherlock. James desperately swallowed the petal he could feel growing up his throat. Months, not years. Weeks, not months. Admiration sat like a stone in his chest. An admission, but not quite. It was somehow more painful than the initial rejection, and James forced the smile back to his face, blinking hard to clear eyes that had no business stinging as they did.
"Sounds like a poor choice of companion for an amateur detective so reliant on his skills of observation."
"Hardly amateur."
James made eye contact and raised an eyebrow, breaking the suffocating tension. The smile that broke across Sherlock's face felt like the sun.
“I feel lost without you," Sherlock said, quiet and with a touch of the earlier sombre self-reflection still in his voice.
"I am not a map, Sherlock. I am but a man," James replied, voice low and raw.
"And yet somehow I am always able to follow you and find home." Sherlock's foot kicked out, resting against James's own, the point of contact a single fixed point in a spinning world.
Tear up the garden, James didn't say. Make yourself at home. The conversation found itself categorised with the same bittersweet denial as Mycroft's comment about burdens of love. Never was the longing for his feelings to be returned so strong as when it almost was. Confession danced on his lips, not for the first time. But the texts were clear - initiating with an unrequited love had dire consequences.
He was lost over this man - forget senseless, he felt mindless, completely distracted, and he buried himself in the comfort of denial, digging quickly before he broke apart.
They walked arm in arm back to the Holmes's rooms, James holding Sherlock's proffered elbow with practised restraint. They embraced as they parted in the entry, Sherlock's hand nestling in James's hair. Intimacy that made his breath catch and cheeks flush when they pulled apart. Sherlock's hand lingered, sliding to his shoulder, and finally back to his own side.
Once outside, James coughed up sweet, little golden ambrosia, and the tiny spark of hope that had raised its head was extinguished in an instant.
A little over a week later, James was off to Appleton for term break – Bea and Cordelia were up North getting into who knows how much trouble, Mycroft was stuck in London with work, and he was alone with Sherlock.
The buds had started three days earlier; days, not weeks. He idly wondered if he should wire Mycroft some kind of polite alert of his impending death. Sherlock was worried senseless despite James’s insistence that he was fine – much less believable now that he was actively dying, the coughs something horrendous, and his skin turning sallow. The ride to Appleton had been torture, Sherlock's face becoming more drawn as they went on, James calling for a stop with irritating frequency to clear his throat. The bouquet buried in his chest finally emerging, fully formed.
Sherlock gave him his bed in the attic room, setting himself up on the cot.
“You won’t sleep a wink on that, or with me in here. Put me in a guest room.” His voice was hoarse and throat sore, flaming with pain on every word.
“I’ll sleep fine.”
They stared each other down for a moment, silent argument playing out.
You wake at a matchstrike, how’s my cough going to go?
I’ll hear you through the walls.
What if I’m contagious?
Shut up, James.
Sherlock won, and James had to turn away to heave. Prickles of green came with the buds, and this time thorns - deeply unpleasant. Sherlock’s hands were on his shoulder, his back, holding him as the cough wracked.
“That's it, I’m sending for a doctor.”
“Sherlock, don’t. It’s no use.” In for a penny, in for a pound. “Better to send for a gardener or a botanist, at this rate.” He revealed the bud in his handkerchief, a closed red carnation.
There was silence. Sherlock sat next to James on the bed as he worked through disbelief, eliminating the impossible, to “Hanahaki?”
“That's how Mycroft said it, too,” James surprised himself with the dry laugh.
“Mycroft knew?!”
“Sworn to silence. He did an admirable job at offering help and disapproving of my course of action.”
“Letting yourself die, you mean, because of the cruel abandonment from the woman you love.” Sherlock was stiff and angry, voice rising in the unconscious way it did when he solved a problem or confronted a culprit.
He reached over to Sherlock in comfort, hand resting on his thigh. It felt good and warm under his palm. “They're not being intentionally cruel, I’m fairly certain.”
“They? Not she? It’s not Beatrice?”
"Beatrice? Gods no, Sherlock-" James was cut off as the next blossom worked up his throat, becoming a drawn out and distressing process that had Sherlock’s hands on him again, holding him tight to his side. The full bloom filled his mouth, so foreign he gagged, expelling a perfect red carnation into his waiting hands. Saliva weighed down the petals, causing the flower to almost fold in on itself.
“That’s-,"
“Oh. Not good, that, no,” James finished.
“Surely there’s still time. You can’t be dying James, don’t be absurd. If only I'd noticed sooner, it all makes sense now but, still I should have noticed, how did I not…who is there that wouldn’t return your affection? What secret love have you managed to keep for so long?” Sherlock was undone with panic, and they were pressed together shoulder to foot, warm against each other. James leaned in and pressed harder, before leaning back as if he could distance himself from the skin-crawling syrupy ridiculousness of what he had to say.
“Love, Sherlock, not just affection. Admiration. Distinct, apparently. And the who would be telling. I’m not supposed to say, so you’ll have to make a deduction.” James placed the carnation in Sherlock’s lap, not looking him in the eye.
“But I already told you?” Sherlock's utterly dumbstruck confusion caught James off-guard.
“Told me what?”
“At the lake. I told you, how I feel. James, I was to protest that I loved you."
“You did not say that! We fed ducks! You said admiration! Fucks sake Sherlock, if you’re going to quote Shakespeare, open with it next time.”
Sherlock cupped his cheek. “I thought calling you home and holding you was obvious, and yet. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly say ‘I love you’."
“Don’t go getting soppy on me now,” James said. Breath died in his throat as Sherlock held his gaze and then – finally – leaned in and pressed a warm kiss to James’s lips, lingering and long and hands reaching to hold each other, hold the moment of it, neither ready to pull away. And they didn’t, only back a touch, enough room to breathe before kissing again, and again and again.
James sat back and took a deep breath, and then another, Sherlock’s amber tea tobacco scent filling his senses. Sherlock tasted like the whiskey he’d poured them before the coughing fit and felt solid under where James’s hands remained.
The creeping garden that had been a weight in his chest growing so slowly he hadn't noticed how heavy it was, was gone. James coughed, and a single petal flew from his lips – a velvet pink rose petal, identical to the first on the train all those months ago.
"Sherlock, I think the kissing might’ve done it. But let’s do it again, just to be sure.” Laying back on Sherlock’s childhood bed, they did just that.
Sherlock’s skewed sense of humour dictated a floral acknowledgement of every occasion henceforth – a single rose stem for the end of term, carnations for his birthday, a potted African Violet for his graduation. A bouquet as thanks for James’s help on a case, a boutonnière for sneaking into a ball, and once a corsage – though James laughed, and put it on Sherlock instead, kissing his hand as he did. More than one was thrown back in Sherlock’s face, and accepted with the smuggest grin that Sherlock could manage. But, on occasion, James would dust off a vase and keep them on the mantle, menacing the arrangements and frightening the blooms by kissing Sherlock in the sitting room until they withered and dried to dust.