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Sherlock was bored.
And when Sherlock was bored, he had a tendency to ramble.
"-So, then Liam was all "You're making a lot of assumptions here, detective," and then I said to him, "I actually think that you're the one being radical here, Professor," and then he said-John, John, are you listening?"
John, who was most definitely not listening, nodded his head, eyes scanning over the edits from his latest manuscript. "Yes, of course I am Sherlock. Continue, I want to know what he said next."
The detective sighed dramatically, getting up to pace around John's room. "No, no, you're not. That's fine, I will take my words elsewhere, somewhere where they'll be appreciated."
John didn't look up, mouth pursing slightly as he crossed out an editor's comment. Hooligan didn't understand the metaphor he was making. A rephrasing rather than an erasure would be better. "I don't think the barman would be particularly impassioned at your words either, Sherlock. Maybe you should give him a break today."
Sherlock gasped. "How dare you! My speech is some of the most eloquent in the land." He ambled over the window, resting his chin in the palm of his hand as he looked out onto the busy streets of London below. "Though, I'll be honest, not more eloquent than Liam's. Why, he's able to conjure such prose out of thin air, you'd think he was an actor reading from a script."
"Maybe you should introduce him to one of the amateur theatre groups down at the pub," John said drily. "I'm sure he'd be enthused. Get him out of all those stodgy meetings that nobles like him have to go to."
Sherlock huffed, turning around to look at John while leaning against the windowsill. "I feel like you're not taking my words of admiration seriously."
The blond sighed, setting his paper and pen down on the side table next to him. "I am listening to you, Sherlock. And I am taking you seriously. It's just…a little harder to do so than normal when you're waxing on and on about Professor Moriarty so intently. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you wanted to marry him."
The dreamy look in Sherlock's eye made John pause. "Sherlock…you want to marry him?" The detective quickly snapped out of whatever daze he was in, shaking his head quickly. "Good grief man, I'm no sodomite! I simply hold a deep respect and admiration for a man who can match me intellectually. It's a hard thing to find in this day and age."
John rolled his eyes at Sherlock, sighing slightly. "Don't use that word Sherlock, it's derogatory. And I'm not saying that you lack any sort of disrespect towards the man, it's just that with your…quite heavily effusive praise, it could be construed as you having feelings towards him."
Sherlock scoffed, waving him off. "That's simply preposterous. Like I said, I'm just fond of him having such an intellect as to match my own." He turned his gaze to the window once more. John privately thought that he rather looked like a French maid pining helplessly for her lover as he rode off into the sunset.
He sighed, humming skeptically as his eyes returned to the page, picking up his pen. "Yes, well, I'm afraid you might be straight out of luck there Sherlock. I think that he may have found someone else to match his smarts."
Sherlock whipped his head around, staring at John with wide eyes. "What?" he exclaimed. "That's simply ridiculous. He surely would have told me if there had been someone with whom he had become so rapidly acquainted with. He wouldn't have…what did she look like?"
John set the manuscript down on the side table with a thud, shooting up to his feet. "There! Right there! You are more than simply friends. I knew it!" Sherlock waved him off, scoffing, crossing his arms across his chest indignantly. "Don't be silly. We're simply two very good acquaintances. I enjoy his company and his brains and that is it. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill."
At that moment, Ms Hudson walked past, carrying a laundry basket full of folded clothes. "What is having a mountain being made out of it?"
"Nothing! Nothing at all!" Sherlock exclaimed.
"Sherlock is being consumed with thoughts of Professor Moriarty and is refusing to admit to it," John said calmly.
Ms Hudson quite firmly ignored Sherlock, turning to John instead, leaving the detective to splutter indignantly. "Professor Moriarty is the blond one, yes? The one with the two brothers, and he teaches mathematics at Durham university?"
John nodded. "The very same." Ms Hudson hummed thoughtfully, considering this information for a long moment before turning back to look at Sherlock. "You could pick worse, I suppose," she said. "A nice man. You know, I ran into his brother the other day at the market. The younger one, the one with glasses."
John sat back down in his chair, picking up his manuscript once more. "Oh? How was he?" Ms Hudson nodded. "He was well. He was at the greengrocers, picking up some fruit and vegetables for while the family is staying in London."
At that last remark, Sherlock perked up like a puppydog, all traces of sulkiness gone. "The Moriarties are in London?" he said, a broad grin stretching across his face. "Well, that's simply wonderful."
Ms Hudson continued. "Yes, he said that they were staying for…oh, what was it? A week and a half, that's right, a week and a half. Something about the eldest needing to be in Parliament, and the middle one being done with all of his marking and being able to leave a little early."
"Yes, they are coming a little early for the start of the summer season," John commented from his seat. "Most nobles tend to come as the temperature shift becomes more permanent, often not before. They like to ensure that the clothes that they are bringing are suitable for the weather, and that they won't have to quickly have to have warmer clothes made or purchased."
As Ms Hudson and Sherlock looked at him in confusion at his knowledge of the schedules of nobility, John blushed a little. "Mary informed me about all of this," he said sheepishly.
Sherlock stared at him for a moment longer before shaking his head. "Never mind all that," he said briskly. "I am going to go see my very good, very nice friend, because that is what we are. Friends, good acquaintances, nothing more. And we will have a nice time together, and possibly even go for a stroll if time allows."
With that he strode out of the room, leaving Ms Hudson and John looking at each other. "Practically eloping already," Ms Hudson said with a slight laugh, biting her bottom lip. A smile curled at the edge of John's lips, a snort bubbling out before he could stop it. "Oh, don't jinx it. They'll have carnations in each other's breast pockets before the end of the month."
"I heard that!" Sherlock shouted from below as he left the house, shutting the door firmly behind him. Ms Hudson and John looked at each other for a long moment before dissolving into laughter. As clever as Sherlock was, it had to be said that hiding his feelings was not one of his greatest strengths.
Ms Hudson entered the room properly, watching as Sherlock almost scampered down the street in his haste to go see William. "I'm happy for him," she said softly. "Love like the two of them have is a once in a lifetime thing. He's jumping out and clinging to it with both hands."
John smiled as well. "He's found his match in the best way possible, hasn't he?"
Ms Hudson nodded, hands on his hips as Sherlock rounded the corner and bounded out of site. "Yes," she said. "I think he has."
— — —
William tended to be the opposite of Sherlock.
When there was something burning a hole in his brain, he tended to not vocalise it, instead preferring to let it bounce around until it settled, at which point he would arrive at a natural conclusion.
But for the dilemma he was facing, it had been stuck inside his head for so long that Louis, who was sitting across from him in the library, sighed and closed his book.
"Liam," he said firmly. "You've been looking out the window for the past hour and a half at that pear tree like it'll tell you the secrets of the universe. What's the matter?"
William's gaze snapped to his younger brother, putting a smile on his face as he replied. "Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Just wondering which questions to put on the next exam paper for my students. I was thinking some binomials might do them a world of good - a lot of them have simply been pushing on with the much harder content, and I've noticed them slipping up on the easier questions that they really shouldn't have been."
Louis looked him up and down, tilting his head to the side. "Right," he said slowly. "Well, if that's the only thing that's on your mind." He slowly picked his book back up, not taking his eyes off William.
The older blond returned his gaze to the window, hands moving and mouth twitching like he was having a conversation with somebody. Louis snapped his book shut again, setting it down in his lap. "William! Alright, tell all. You're having a conversation to yourself, and not a mild one at that."
William's eyes darted around the room, before sighing. "Alright. Fine." He readjusted himself in his seat, getting himself comfortable. "I have…found myself having more and more thoughts of a specific person."
Louis nodded. "So…you've been thinking about a certain person a lot?" He paused. "Do I know them?"
William's pause was answer enough. Louis leaned back in his seat, contemplating. "Someone I know…and someone that you know well enough that you have been thinking about them, quite extensively I'd say…"
A smile stretched over William's face, the man almost looking devious. "What?" Louis asked. "Nothing, nothing," William mused, eyes firmly looking out the window to the gardens below, bringing one hand up to rest his face on.
It was as the blond did so that Louis noticed the ring on his pointer finger, engraved with a small heart on it. "Where did you get that?" he asked, confused. William was loath to wear any sort of jewelry, saying that it interfered with his marking too much.
Louis thought that if William was wearing the ring on his actual ring finger, it would have looked like an engagement ring - or at the very least a promise ring.
William twisted the ring back and forth on his finger, smile softening. "I got it myself," he said with a hint of pride in his voice. "It finished being made about a week or so ago, but I've been so busy that I've kept forgetting to wear it." Louis nodded. "It looks beautiful. Could I take a closer look at it?"
William looked down at the band, and after a moment he slid it off, stepping across the room to hand it to Louis. The younger man took it carefully, giving his brother a nod as he adjusted his glasses to take a better look at the ring.
It was simple, by most people's standards. The ring was made out of a gold metal - though not pure gold. Louis knew that his brother wouldn't bother to spend good money on something that would warp and bend so easily. An alloy of some sort, perhaps.
It was engraved with a small, simplistic love heart - the kind that young women would often sign off their letters to their friends with. Around the rest of the band there were small, almost miniscule gems of alternating blue and red.
"Are these sapphires and…rubies?" Louis asked, squinting as he brought the ring up to the light to take a closer look. The way that they sparkled gave him conformation, but the nod that William gave him when Louis' eyes darted over solidified it further.
"Liam, this is gorgeous," Louis breathed as he got up to bring it back over to his brother. William smiled, sliding it back onto his pointer finger. "Thank you, Louis. I'd been thinking about getting this made for some time."
"What inspired it?" Louis asked as he resettled himself. William ran his thumb over the heart, eyes seemingly fixated on it. "Just…well, you know. Everything."
Louis gave his brother a look. "That's not an answer, Liam. What was the inspiration for it?"
At William's lack of response, Louis' eyes narrowed, mind spinning. "Oh, no. No, no, no." He shook his head, trying to get the thought out of his head. "William, are you being serious? Him? Of all the people in this city, in this country, in this world - you had to go and pick him! Liam! Have some taste, for crying out loud!"
William raised his hands in mock surrender, laughing a little at Louis' realisation. Louis, on the other hand, was as serious as a gun. "Dear God, William. And with his ring you chose the opposite metal, gold and silver-and the gems! Of your eyes and his eyes! William!"
Louis leapt to his feet, starting to pace back and forth in front of William. "First of all, Liam, you're meant to tell me if you're having these kinds of feelings for someone. I'm your brother. I'm meant to vet who you are interested in to make sure that they're good enough."
The blond groaned, running a hand over his face. "Secondly, you're not meant to hide the fact that you are romantically involved with another person from me. Again, I'm your brother! I should be one of the first, if not the first person!"
William , who had been sitting quietly through the majority of this interrupted Louis. "We're not romantically involved."
Louis' pacing abruptly ceased, stopping dead in his tracks, turning to stare at William. "Liam. You mean to tell me that you got an entire wedding ring-" "-It's not a wedding ring, Lou-" "I'm not done talking! You got a wedding ring commissioned that has jewels on it the colour of your eyes and his. And-and it even has a heart! And you mean to say that you haven't even begun to court?"
William bit his lip, looking a little sheepish. "...no?"
Louis rolled his eyes. "You're hopeless, Liam. Invite the man around for dinner or something next week. That'll be a good opportunity to get to know him." William nodded, going quiet.
"...William?" Louis asked after a moment. "Are you alright?"
The older man nodded. "Yes, I'm just a little surprised that you're so…accepting of my affections for Mr Holmes."
Louis huffed. "I think that he is overly familiar and has a tendency to make irrational decisions that make situations worse, even though he is a supposedly acclaimed detective. But," he sighed. "I think that at his center, he is a good man. And so therefore, I'm not overly fussed. But I still need to check. So he must come around. We will have something nice."
William nodded jerkily. "I more meant about him being a man." Louis stared at him. "William, I don't care that he's a man. I care that he has a tendency to act rather buffoonishly."
William looked at Louis for a long moment before nodding. "Alright then." Louis picked up his book again, shaking his head, muttering to himself. "Not even confessed to each other and already getting wedding rings made. Hopeless."