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flawedamythystChristmas Ficlets Part Two: Sherlock (1/2)
Various bits betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
saltnburnbaby and sapphic85.
Forbulldogscram:
Title: Respect And Affection
Pairing: Asexual!Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,097 words
Prompt: sherlock/watson (bbc) mistletoe :).
A/N: Set in the Horse And Carriage 'verse. Masterlist is here.
Two elements that coexist with difficulty: respect and affection, because when they love you they don't respect you and when they respect you they don't love you. - Shakira (Yes, really.)
Mrs. Hudson was putting the mistletoe up when they came home from Scotland Yard after a dull afternoon of witness statements, but Sherlock didn't take much notice to start with. Hewas very much looking forward to getting upstairs, where John would doubtless make him tea without needing to be asked and let him explicate the precise reasons why being forced to document every step of an investigation at the level Lestrade insisted on was the most mind-numbingly boring thing ever.
John grinned when he saw it. “Hoping to get lucky, Mrs. Hudson?” he asked.
“Oh, you,” she said, stepping back to admire it. “My niece gave it to me – she's got a tree growing in her garden.”
“Parasite,” corrected Sherlock. “Mistletoe is a parasitic plant, not a tree.”
Mrs. Hudson frowned at him but before she could reply, John swooped on her and kissed her cheek soundly.
“Cheeky!” she exclaimed, and John laughed.
“Just make sure you're not standing under it when the postman calls,” he said. “Come on, Sherlock. I'll make you a cup of tea.”
Sherlock followed him upstairs, taking care to avoid the mistletoe and thinking to himself.
He and John had been married for just over five years now, and for the last two, John had given up any pretence that he was looking for a woman at all. Sherlock had begun to wonder if maybe he should make some gesture to express his appreciation that John had not only gone along with his plan in the first place, but had committed himself to it in a way that meant that it was now fairly obvious to everyone that they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. Perhaps the mistletoe would give him the chance he'd been looking for.
John knew exactly where Sherlock stood when it came to the physical aspects of love, and had never pushed for more than Sherlock was willing to give. Sherlock wasn't even sure that John would want to – he'd never shown any sexual interest in men, and he seemed just as happy to draw the line at snuggling on the sofa as Sherlock was. The only exception was that he would press a careful kiss against Sherlock's forehead when he thought he'd fallen asleep, but Sherlock didn't read any more into that than a gesture of affection.
A few of the times when a case had called them away from London, Sherlock had managed to get them a room with only one bed, claiming that all the doubles had been taken, or that there had been some mix-up with the booking. John had never looked wholly convinced by the excuses, but he'd never been uncomfortable about sleeping with Sherlock, seemingly perfectly content to wrap an arm around him whenever he draped himself over his chest whilst feigning sleep.
Still, the fact remained that John was a sexual man and that he had given that up for Sherlock. It felt like Sherlock should give him something in return, even if it was just a token to show that he knew and was appreciative.
Sherlock hated kissing. He'd tried it a couple of times when he was a lot younger, just to be sure he wasn't missing out on something, but it became clear very quickly that the whole thing was just messy and wet and invasive, and an extremely odd way to want to spend your time. It was those experiments that had made him decide not to even attempt sex – if that was just more of the same, why on earth should he bother? A mistletoe kiss, though – that had clear boundaries attached to it, and it was hardly going to physically harm him to do it just once.
He could remember watching his mother wrap up a truly hideous scarf for his great-aunt's birthday when he was a child. He'd expressed his opinion on the garment, and his mother had told him that sometimes you gave presents that you didn't like, because what mattered was that the recipient liked it.
John would like a kiss. Sherlock could give him one, and it could say everything he'd been thinking about without him actually having to go through all the tedious business of finding the words for it. It really was the perfect solution.
****
It took a couple of days for Sherlock to be able to manoeuvre John under the mistletoe without giving away his intention. He took his chance as soon as he saw it, grabbing hold of John's shoulders to keep him in place, and kissing him firmly, but hopefully with enough tenderness to convey his message. John's lips were warm under his, and it was a lot less unpleasant than he remembered, although he still wasn't sure he'd want to try it on a regular basis. There was something about it that made his spine itch uncomfortably.
When he pulled back, John's eyes were wide with shock, and Sherlock almost wondered if he'd gone too far, then his face relaxed into a warm, pleased smile that Sherlock couldn't help returning. Exactly right, he thought with triumph.
“Thanks,” said John softly.
Sherlock shrugged and gestured upwards. “Mistletoe,” he said and turned back towards the front door, eager to be on his way now that the thing was over with.
“Right, of course,” said John, sounding as if he knew better. He followed Sherlock out of the front door, and watched while he hailed a taxi. “You know,” John said casually, hands in his pockets and the smile still lurking around the corners of his mouth, “if you ever wanted to come up and sleep in my room, you're always welcome. I know your bed can get pretty cluttered.”
Sherlock turned back to him, searching for any sign that he was asking for, or expecting, more than Sherlock was willing to give, but the only thing he could see was the same comfortable affection that they'd always shared. He smiled back. “I might well take you up on that,” he said, then pulled open the cab door and gestured inside. “Come on, this corpse won't wait forever.”
John ducked inside the cab and Sherlock followed him, reaching out to take John's hand at the same time as he gave the address to the driver and feeling the familiar brush of John's wedding ring against his fingers. This marriage really had been the best idea he'd ever had.
****
Next Part of this 'verse: Sleep And Understanding
Forladyofthelog:
Title: He Who Gives Himself
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,008 words
Prompt: I want to know how Sherlock feels about Santa and how John feels about the Church of England. More gay always..
A/N: Santa Claus is anyone who loves another and seeks to make them happy; who gives himself by thought or word or deed in every gift that he bestows. - Edwin Osgood Grover
“...absolutely ridiculous to expect children to believe in something so completely illogical, and yet they do! How anyone, even a child, could accept the existence of a man who can visit every household in the world in one night...”
John sighed, tuning out of the rant. Clearly, mentioning Father Christmas on Christmas Eve had been a mistake, even if it had only been a joke. But then, how was he supposed to know that it would set Sherlock off like this?
“...lying to children about something so patently absurd just encourages them to disbelieve everything that a parent says from then on. And they wonder why teenagers are such hard work! After a betrayal like that, how can they expect...”
Suddenly, John had a flash of inspiration that made him laugh, cutting Sherlock off. Sherlock paused mid-sentence and glared at him. “You waited up for him, didn't you?” said John. “And saw your parents instead.”
Sherlock looked caught out. “It was the logical thing to do,” he said stiffly. “If some elderly alcoholic – and he would have to be, the amount of sherry he's purported to consume in one night - was going to break in to our home, of course it made sense to stay awake and keep an eye on him.”
“Of course,” agreed John, still giggling. Sherlock huffed and turned away.
“The whole thing's ridiculous,” he declared, picking up his violin. He started to play while John was still laughing, something loud, fast and completely unchristmassy. John let his amusement subside and settled back to listen.
****
The next morning, Christmas morning, Sherlock was still locked in his bedroom, presumably sleeping, when John left. John had wondered if he should go through with his plan in light of last night's outburst, but ended up hanging the stocking on Sherlock's door-handle anyway. Finding enough small items that Sherlock wouldn't immediately declare to be useless rubbish and keeping them all hidden safely away had been far too much work for John to abandon the project now.
He'd agreed to go to church with Mrs. Hudson as soon as she'd asked, ignoring the disgusted snort that Sherlock had answered the request with. He'd never really been religious, but his parents had always made him and Harry go to church on both Christmas and Easter, and it felt familiar to sit through the service, singing along to the carols and trying to remember the words to The Lord's Prayer. Besides, he'd prayed several times this year, all some variation on 'please God let me live' or 'please God let my ridiculously idiotic flatmate live', and God had been good enough to keep them both alive every time, so going to church seemed the least John could do in return.
When John got home, Sherlock was sat on the floor of their sitting room, surrounded by wrapping paper and presents. The test tubes that John had wrapped separately – Sherlock was always blowing them up, it was an easy guess that he'd need new ones – had been carefully lined up in size order on the carpet and the Rubik's cube was set next to them, already completed. So much for keeping Sherlock amused in the absence of a case. The chocolate money and satsuma – included both because they were traditional and in an attempt to get Sherlock to eat something – were piled next to the box of nicotine patches. John hadn't been sure of that one, considering how Sherlock usually abused the things, but patches were still better than cigarettes, and it had bulked out the stocking.
Sherlock was wrapped in his dressing gown, wearing the gloves that John had got when the last pair he'd owned had been covered in blood at a crime scene that turned unexpectedly messy, and he was carefully writing something in the book that John had been unable to resist buying the moment he'd seen it.
“Merry Christmas,” said John, taking his coat off.
Sherlock's head came up with a start, as if he'd been so deep in concentration that he'd not realised that John had come in. He looked completely taken aback, eyes large and wide as if he'd been given some form of electric shock. John couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.
“I see Father Christmas decided to come,” he said, trying to keep the mood light in case Sherlock was about to rip into him for giving in to something as juvenile as Christmas tradition.
“You bought me presents,” said Sherlock in a careful, even tone.
John shrugged slightly uncomfortably. “It's Christmas,” he said.
Sherlock nodded and looked back down, eyes passing over the collection that he'd surrounded himself with. “It's...” he said eventually, then cleared his throat. “It's, uh, good.” There was another long pause, then he added, “Thank you,” in the careful, awkward manner of a child who's been prompted by their mother.
“You're welcome,” said John, then he walked over to sink down onto the sofa. “What are you doing to that book, anyway?” he asked, desperately trying to pull them out of the awkward, emotional moment.
Sherlock looked back down at the book - The Little Book Of Bunny Serial Killers, each page a different cartoon of rabbits murdering each other in increasingly unlikely and violent ways. “I'm noting down all the evidence that would be available at the crime scene,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world to do. “I've come to the conclusion that the rabbit version of Scotland Yard is even more incompetent than the human one.”
John laughed, unable to stop himself. “You're deducing cartoons?” he asked. Sherlock looked up at him, affronted, and John shook his head slowly. “Of course you're deducing them,” he said, half to himself. “What else would you do?”
Sherlock looked back down at the book, then pushed it aside and turned to face John, leaning forward. “I've deduced some other things from this as well,” he announced.
John raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?” he asked rhetorically.
Sherlock held up a finger. “Firstly, that you managed to buy me all the things I would have got myself.” He glanced down at the book again. “Well, almost all. So, you know me very well.”
John shrugged, unease trickling down his spine at the turn the conversation had taken. “We've lived together nearly a year now,” he pointed out.
Sherlock kept going without acknowledging that. “Second,” he said, holding up another finger, “you somehow managed to keep all this from me. You must have picked up some of my methods, which means you've been paying close attention to me, and you must have worked hard at it – so this was important to you.” He was in one of his rapid-fire monologues by then, but he paused for a moment to add, in a slightly lower voice, “Surprising me for Christmas was important to you.”
John's unease grew. He should have known that Sherlock would be able to read far too much into it. “It's just a stocking,” he said, trying to downplay it.
“I'm not finished,” said Sherlock. He pulled his hand out of his dressing gown pocket, where it had been fiddling with something as he spoke. John saw that it was the last of the presents he'd put in the stocking, the one that he'd personally counted as his 'real' present to Sherlock.
“And then there's this,” continued Sherlock, finally looking away from John in order to look down at the gift, thumb smoothing over the surface. It was a palm-sized magnifying glass, designed to fold snugly into a circular silver case, and the moment John had seen it, he'd known he had to get it for Sherlock. It was the right size to be kept in one of his cavernous coat pockets and a lot more suited to him, somehow, than the little plastic one he had now.
“It gives away rather a lot more than you intended it to,” he said in a low voice, his thumb still tracing the engraving that John'd had done almost on a whim when the salesman had asked him. He hadn't been sure what to put – everything he'd come up with had seemed either too flippant or too revealing. In the end he'd just settled for:
SH,
Christmas 2010,
JW
But it seemed that even that had been too much, if Sherlock's carefully assessing gaze was anything to go by.
John shrugged again. “It just seemed to suit you,” he said. “You like it, right?”
Sherlock's face lit up. “It's perfect,” he pronounced, and knelt up in a quick movement that left his face merely inches away from John's. “And it means this,” he added, then put a hand on the back of John's head and pulled him down into a kiss.
Shock stilled John's mind for a moment, then the warmth of Sherlock's lips reawakened it and he leant into the kiss, grabbing hold of Sherlock's shoulder with his hand and sliding off the sofa to kneel in front of him.
When Sherlock pulled back, he was grinning triumphantly. John searched his mind for something to say but turned up nothing more intelligent than holy shit, what the fuck? which he thought Sherlock might mock him for.
“I have a confession,” said Sherlock, running his hands down John's back to pull him in closer, tracing over the line of his spine and the planes of his shoulder-blades with proprietorial fingers.
“I think,” said John, then stopped and cleared his throat when it came out in a dazed-sounding voice, “I think that you've already made it.”
Sherlock smirked. “Not that,” he said. “That was merely the logical action following a series of deductions. No, this is far more serious.”
“You've put something horrible in the fridge again,” guessed John. “Oh, no, you've done something horrible to the food I bought for today.”
“No, and no,” said Sherlock. “Although you might want to avoid the top freezer drawer.”
John already had been, but it was nice to hear that his hypothesis regarding the odd, lumpy-looking cling film parcel was correct.
“John,” said Sherlock in a serious voice, and John pulled his mind away from the possible contents of the parcel to focus on him. “I don't have a present for you.”
John blinked at him, then let out a laugh. “I really didn't expect you to,” he said.
“Nevertheless, I have a suggestion,” continued Sherlock as if he hadn't spoken, “We could adjourn to my bedroom, where I will endeavour to repay you for your presents in kind, although I'm rather afraid that would be as much, if not more, a present for me than for you.”
John didn't even have to think about it. “That sounds like a brilliant idea,” he said. “That would be one of the best presents I've ever had, I think.”
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “One of?” he repeated in a disbelieving voice.
Smug bastard, thought John with affection. “Well, I did get Tracy Island when I was a kid,” he said. “With all the Thunderbirds and Lady Penelope's car.”
It was clear from Sherlock's blank eyes that he had no idea what that was but before John could wonder how to enlighten him, he stood up, pulling John with him as if unwilling to let him out of his arms. “This will be better than any island,” he said in the voice of a man accepting a challenge and dragged John off towards his bedroom.
****
Forkali1967:
Title: A Friendship Like Love
Pairing: John/Sherlock bromance, past John/OMC
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,633 words
Prompt: Sherlock, Sherlock/John, something winter-y.
A/N: A friendship like love is warm; a love like friendship is steady. - Thomas More
221B Baker Street had one major drawback (other than the body parts scattered throughout the kitchen, but John didn't think he could blame that on the flat) - the heating was appalling. Even when it was working, which was rare, it barely put out enough heat to even warm the radiators. Mrs. Hudson tutted about it and told them she was going to get it replaced in the summer, once she'd put enough by to afford it, but until then there was nothing to be done but endure it. John lived in multiple layers of jumpers and tried not to spend too much time thinking about the Afghan summer with longing.
Sherlock seemed to suffer even more than John. He took to wearing his coat at all times and pulled an endless array of blankets of all shapes, colours and varieties out of his room to wrap around himself while he huddled on the sofa and complained bitterly.
“Don't you have any jumpers?” John asked eventually, after noting that for the fifth night in a row, Sherlock was wearing nothing under his coat but a thin jacket and a shirt.
Sherlock hunched over tighter, wrapping his second blanket more firmly around his shoulders. “No,” he said in a scathing voice, as if the very idea was ridiculous. It probably was – why on earth would Sherlock own anything as practical as a jumper?
John sighed and stood up from his place at the desk, where he was trying to type despite the incipient frostbite in his fingers. He went upstairs to his room (which was even colder than the sitting room. Christ, going to bed was going to be fun), dug out the largest, thickest jumper he could find and brought it back down again.
“Put this on,” he told Sherlock, holding it out to him.
Sherlock regarded the jumper with a distasteful look, as if John was offering him a dead cat. Actually, he'd probably be more appreciative of a dead cat. “That's yours,” he said.
“I'm lending it to you,” said John patiently. “It will still be mine, though,” he added, “so you don't get to set it on fire, or drop acid on it, or harm it in anyway.”
Sherlock reached one hand out of his nest of blankets and took the jumper. “I never intend to do any of those things on purpose,” he said.
John snorted and went back to his laptop. He was trying to write up their last case, but it was hard to think about how to explain why it had seemed like a good idea to follow Sherlock down into the sewers when all he wanted to type was 'holy fuck, it's so cold, how is this even allowed in a civilised country?'
Sherlock struggled into the jumper, trying to keep under his blankets and coat as much as possible while he did so, although he did discard his jacket once he'd pulled on the jumper and rearranged all his other layers. He curled back up around his book – some massive tome on the decomposition rates of bodies – and John was allowed some blissful peace from sulky grumbles for a while.
Not forever, though. The night was getting colder and Sherlock's nest was clearly starting to fail at its job. Sherlock started to pull the blankets tighter and tighter around himself, then tucked his feet underneath his own legs in a weird, contorted position that John was pretty sure anyone else would have to be a yoga master to manage. Eventually, though, he returned to the grumbling.
“Bloody stupid season,” muttered as he pulled part of his third blanket up to cover his head. “Surely the government should be able to do something,” as he shrunk in closer to his book, trying to pull it under his blankets with him while still being able to read the text. “I'm sure Mycroft is behind it all – just trying to spite me.”
John let out a long sigh at that. Hearing a constant monologue about the temperature was not making it any easier for him to ignore his own chilly limbs, or the increasing ache in his shoulder. His bullet wound was even less appreciative of the weather than Sherlock was, and the combination of cold and pain was beginning to make John lose his patience.
Sherlock glared at him as if the weather was his fault. John stared back, trying not to look as if he was contemplating setting Sherlock on fire for the twin benefits of some blessed heat and some peace and quiet.
“Come here,” Sherlock demanded suddenly.
“Why?” asked John warily, not moving. Obeying Sherlock's orders without asking for further information was never a good idea, but Sherlock didn't bother explaining, of course. He never did.
“Bring your laptop,” was all he added.
“You're not using my laptop to get revenge on the government for the weather,” said John firmly. “I think my IP address is probably on too many watch lists already.”
Sherlock looked at him as if he was an idiot. “The laptop's just to keep you occupied,” he said. “Come here.” He was beginning to sound petulant in the way that meant he was only a step away from a full-on sulk, so John picked up his laptop and walked over to the sofa. Sometimes it just wasn't worth arguing.
“What now?” he asked.
“Sit,” commanded Sherlock, moving over slightly so that there was enough room for John against one of the arms of the sofa. “There's no sense in you providing all that body heat if you're on the other side of the room.”
John considered refusing for half a second, but Sherlock really did look truly miserable, and it probably did make the most sense. He sat down with a sigh, setting his laptop on his lap and trying to ignore the way Sherlock immediately curled into his body.
Over the next ten minutes, Sherlock slowly, carefully, insinuated himself completely into John's personal space. He wrapped various blankets around them both as if it was John's temperature he was concerned with, then wriggled various limbs under John's thighs to warm them, finally pulling himself close enough to practically climb into John's lap, his head resting against John's shoulder. It should have been a horribly uncomfortable position, but somehow Sherlock made it look both relaxing and perfectly normal.
John let out a long-suffering sigh. “I can't type now,” he pointed out.
“You weren't writing anything of any interest,” said Sherlock, not moving.
“Sherlock,” said John, trying to work out how to remind him, for the thousandth time, that he had to allow for other people rather than just rearranging the world for his own comfort. It wasn't so much that he minded Sherlock's body heat slowly seeping through his layers, or that he could really be bothered about how they would look right now to an outside observer, he just felt that one of them should at least attempt to stick to the usual social boundaries.
“You're much warmer now too,” said Sherlock, as if that had been his sole aim. “You were thinking about putting gloves on before – you wouldn't have been able to type then, either.”
John had been wondering if he'd be able to get away with gloves. Typical that Sherlock had known that without him saying anything.
“And your shoulder's been hurting,” added Sherlock. “Always does in the cold, but it's been particularly bad tonight.” Also true. Damn him. “Not your leg, though,” Sherlock added in a quieter voice.
“Well, no,” said John with resignation. Sherlock clearly wasn't going to move without a lot more energy than John was willing to expend, so he just gave up and accepted that he was going to spend the evening huddled on the sofa with his flatmate. “It's psychosomatic.”
“So there was never any injury there at all?” asked Sherlock in the casual way that meant he'd been dying to know about it all along.
“No,” said John, and it came out firmer and more forbidding than he'd meant it to. There was silence for a few minutes as John allowed himself to feel every place that he and Sherlock were touching – feet buried under his legs, head resting on his shoulder, the long curl of Sherlock's body contorted against his side – and compared it to the last time he'd been this close to another person. There was a hand looped around his waist that was keeping Sherlock in place, and for a moment it felt like a very different hand, in a very different situation. Dan had always draped his hand like that when they were lying together and trying to find the will to separate before they were missed.
“Not on me, anyway,” he added finally and knew the moment he said it that he was going to have to tell the whole story now. It was too much to expect Sherlock to ignore a hint like that.
Well, maybe it was time to let the truth out into the open. He probably should have told his therapist – he'd known that at the time, but somehow the idea of explaining it to her calm and understanding gaze had made his throat close up until all he could manage was small talk and meaningless polite phrases.
Sherlock kept quiet, prompting for the whole story with nothing more than an expectant air.
“In Afghanistan, I knew a man called Dan Willcox. He was the anaesthesiologist on my team,” started John in as steady a voice as he could manage. Just saying Dan's name again was like pulling a shard of shrapnel out and he could feel the memory of a distant, thumping pain in his leg start up. “We were close. More than close. We were-” he stumbled over how to describe it. “Lovers, I suppose. I don't think either of us would have called it 'boyfriends', or even if it would have continued once we were back home.” He'd hoped, though. He'd had vague thoughts of a flat together in London, but it had seemed so far away - even the idea of London seemed unreal amongst the dust and blood – that he'd never really got any further than that.
He paused and took a deep breath. “There was an ambush and we were sent in to deal with the wounded while the bullets were still flying. There was a man down that we couldn't get to – he was cut off from us by sniper fire, but Dan, he- well. He was a bit of a maniac, really. He was always getting me into all sorts of scrapes by just diving in feet first and expecting me to follow. He ran out to get to him and I went after him.”
The next part was hard to remember, and harder to fit words around. John took a careful breath in through his nose and shifted his leg slightly in an attempt to ease the growing stab of pain, then carried on with determination.
“I was shot. Single bullet to the shoulder, knocked me down and incapacitated me. Dan had made it to where the soldier was sheltering, but he saw me go down and came back for me.” John wasn't sure how he was managing to keep his voice so calm and level, but he had to pause for a moment then. “He was shot before he could get to me. In the leg – right through the femoral artery. He was too far from me to do anything, and I couldn't get to him. Every time I tried to move, the snipers fired – trying to finish us off, no doubt.
“Dan was bleeding out. I could see the blood pumping out of his leg, and he wasn't even trying to hold it in. He was dazed, probably mostly out of it with shock and blood loss, but he was awake. His eyes were open – he was looking at me.” John can still remember his eyes, warm brown flooded out by the black of his pupils and fixed so hard on John that he thought he should have been able to feel it branding his skin. “He didn't look away at all – I'm not even sure he blinked. I could see his wound and how serious it was, and I knew he was dying. I couldn't feel my shoulder at all – I'm not sure I even remembered then that I'd been shot.”
Even the sounds of gunfire had been drowned out by the look in Dan's eyes. There'd been nothing John could do but look back, hold onto his gaze in the hope that it would help.
“It usually takes ten to fifteen minutes for someone to bleed out through the femoral artery. I have no idea how long it took for Dan. It felt like far longer than that.” He could still remember the moment when the light in Dan's eyes had gone out and his eyelids had slumped. He wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to forget it – it certainly haunted his dreams still.
He cleared his throat. “It took them a while longer to be able to reach us – me – with medical assistance, and all that time all I could see was Dan, and the wound that had killed him. I suspect that the shock of my own injury, combined with the trauma, prompted a psychosomatic response. My mind created a phantom pain in order to deal with the emotional one.”
He stopped there. There was little else to tell – Dan's body was sent home to be buried by his family and John was invalided back to Britain, where he bought himself a stick and was unable to explain to anyone why being shot in the shoulder had left him with a limp.
Sherlock hadn't moved or reacted in any way throughout the entire story, and John was just resigning himself to the fact that he'd poured out the most traumatising experience of his life to a man who had fallen asleep, when he finally spoke.
“I think that if I were dying,” he said in a contemplative voice, “I should very much like to be able to see your face.”
Before John could even form a thought on how to react to that, Sherlock was moving again, shuffling around in his blanket nest until his back was pressed against John's chest instead of his head. He dragged one of John's arms around him and settled back with a satisfied noise.
“Comfortable?” asked John, wishing he felt more annoyed about being used as just another piece of the furniture.
“Perfectly,” said Sherlock without a hint of apology. John gave in and shifted to pull Sherlock closer against him, moving his laptop out of the way. After all, if they were going to snuggle on the sofa, he might as well be as comfortable as possible.
Finally letting the story of Dan's death out from where it had been trapped inside his chest had somehow made him feel lighter, and he settled himself around Sherlock's possessive sprawl with a sense of contentment. His shoulder still ached, but the cold was losing against the combined body heat that he and Sherlock had trapped under the blankets, and the pain in his leg was already fading. He'd had winters that were a lot worse.
****
Forcellophanepage:
Title: The Cellars Of Gladstone House
Pairing: Gen (Yeah, sorry, couldn't find any place for the slash.)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 630 words
Prompt: BBC sherlock/john how they came into guardianship of gladstone..
The cellar of Gladstone House went on a lot further than John had been expecting. Sherlock hurried down the dank corridors, checking each door as they came to it. If he was right, then there was a teenage girl down here somewhere and possibly an unknown number of kidnappers. John had one hand in his coat pocket, resting on his gun as he followed Sherlock, and kept a close eye on the corridor behind them, just in case.
Sherlock threw open another door and then paused for a fraction of a second. “Ah,” he said quietly.
“What is it?” asked John.
“Not the girl,” said Sherlock, shutting the door and continuing on to the next door.
John scowled at his back and opened the door to see for himself.
It was just an empty concrete-floored room like all the others, except that in the middle was a shoebox containing what looked at first glance to be a pile of old cloth. “What...” he started to say, then his eyes managed to make sense of the shapes and a litter of puppies came into focus. “Oh god,” he said, hurrying forward and crouching down to check on them.
There was no sign of their mother and no way for her to get in or out of the room in any case, so John was not overly surprised when he realised that most of them were already dead. Sickened, but not surprised.
“Who would do something so horrible?” he asked. They must have been shut in here and abandoned, left to starve or freeze to death.
“The same people who would imprison a girl just to get their hands on a jewel,” said Sherlock, who had come back and was now hovering in the doorway. “There's nothing you can do, John.”
There was a faint movement in the box, so tiny that John thought for a moment he'd imagined it. “This one's still alive,” he exclaimed, moving aside tiny, limp bodies to find the one that was still barely breathing.
“I doubt he will be for long,” said Sherlock. He glanced back down the corridor. “Come on, John, we need to find the girl before the kidnappers find us.”
John carefully picked the puppy up in his hands and it weakly twitched, reacting to the warmth of his body. “Give me your scarf,” he demanded.
Sherlock stared at him. “What on earth for? You can't mean to bring that with us – what on earth would we do with it?”
“Keep it alive,” said John firmly. He cradled the puppy to his chest with one hand and held out his hand towards Sherlock. “Scarf. Now.”
Sherlock made a disgusted noise, but took his scarf off. “I like this one,” he said petulantly. “I don't particularly wanting a dying puppy all over it.”
“It's not dying,” said John, carefully wrapping the puppy in the scarf to keep it warm. The puppy was moving slightly more now, coming back to life, and he couldn't resist running a gentle finger over its head. “It's okay, little guy,” he said to it. “We're going to take good care of you.”
“'We'?” repeated Sherlock pointedly, then sighed. “Come on, John, there really isn't time for this.”
John stood up carefully with the puppy snuggled against his jumper. “I'm ready,” he said. “Let's go.”
Sherlock let out a long-suffering sigh as if John had only rescued the puppy to inconvenience him, then continued on down the corridor. John followed him, one hand holding on to the puppy, and one resting on his gun.
****
Ficlets continued here.
*
Various bits betaed by
saltnburnbaby and sapphic85.For
bulldogscram: Title: Respect And Affection
Pairing: Asexual!Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,097 words
Prompt: sherlock/watson (bbc) mistletoe :).
A/N: Set in the Horse And Carriage 'verse. Masterlist is here.
Two elements that coexist with difficulty: respect and affection, because when they love you they don't respect you and when they respect you they don't love you. - Shakira (Yes, really.)
Mrs. Hudson was putting the mistletoe up when they came home from Scotland Yard after a dull afternoon of witness statements, but Sherlock didn't take much notice to start with. Hewas very much looking forward to getting upstairs, where John would doubtless make him tea without needing to be asked and let him explicate the precise reasons why being forced to document every step of an investigation at the level Lestrade insisted on was the most mind-numbingly boring thing ever.
John grinned when he saw it. “Hoping to get lucky, Mrs. Hudson?” he asked.
“Oh, you,” she said, stepping back to admire it. “My niece gave it to me – she's got a tree growing in her garden.”
“Parasite,” corrected Sherlock. “Mistletoe is a parasitic plant, not a tree.”
Mrs. Hudson frowned at him but before she could reply, John swooped on her and kissed her cheek soundly.
“Cheeky!” she exclaimed, and John laughed.
“Just make sure you're not standing under it when the postman calls,” he said. “Come on, Sherlock. I'll make you a cup of tea.”
Sherlock followed him upstairs, taking care to avoid the mistletoe and thinking to himself.
He and John had been married for just over five years now, and for the last two, John had given up any pretence that he was looking for a woman at all. Sherlock had begun to wonder if maybe he should make some gesture to express his appreciation that John had not only gone along with his plan in the first place, but had committed himself to it in a way that meant that it was now fairly obvious to everyone that they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. Perhaps the mistletoe would give him the chance he'd been looking for.
John knew exactly where Sherlock stood when it came to the physical aspects of love, and had never pushed for more than Sherlock was willing to give. Sherlock wasn't even sure that John would want to – he'd never shown any sexual interest in men, and he seemed just as happy to draw the line at snuggling on the sofa as Sherlock was. The only exception was that he would press a careful kiss against Sherlock's forehead when he thought he'd fallen asleep, but Sherlock didn't read any more into that than a gesture of affection.
A few of the times when a case had called them away from London, Sherlock had managed to get them a room with only one bed, claiming that all the doubles had been taken, or that there had been some mix-up with the booking. John had never looked wholly convinced by the excuses, but he'd never been uncomfortable about sleeping with Sherlock, seemingly perfectly content to wrap an arm around him whenever he draped himself over his chest whilst feigning sleep.
Still, the fact remained that John was a sexual man and that he had given that up for Sherlock. It felt like Sherlock should give him something in return, even if it was just a token to show that he knew and was appreciative.
Sherlock hated kissing. He'd tried it a couple of times when he was a lot younger, just to be sure he wasn't missing out on something, but it became clear very quickly that the whole thing was just messy and wet and invasive, and an extremely odd way to want to spend your time. It was those experiments that had made him decide not to even attempt sex – if that was just more of the same, why on earth should he bother? A mistletoe kiss, though – that had clear boundaries attached to it, and it was hardly going to physically harm him to do it just once.
He could remember watching his mother wrap up a truly hideous scarf for his great-aunt's birthday when he was a child. He'd expressed his opinion on the garment, and his mother had told him that sometimes you gave presents that you didn't like, because what mattered was that the recipient liked it.
John would like a kiss. Sherlock could give him one, and it could say everything he'd been thinking about without him actually having to go through all the tedious business of finding the words for it. It really was the perfect solution.
It took a couple of days for Sherlock to be able to manoeuvre John under the mistletoe without giving away his intention. He took his chance as soon as he saw it, grabbing hold of John's shoulders to keep him in place, and kissing him firmly, but hopefully with enough tenderness to convey his message. John's lips were warm under his, and it was a lot less unpleasant than he remembered, although he still wasn't sure he'd want to try it on a regular basis. There was something about it that made his spine itch uncomfortably.
When he pulled back, John's eyes were wide with shock, and Sherlock almost wondered if he'd gone too far, then his face relaxed into a warm, pleased smile that Sherlock couldn't help returning. Exactly right, he thought with triumph.
“Thanks,” said John softly.
Sherlock shrugged and gestured upwards. “Mistletoe,” he said and turned back towards the front door, eager to be on his way now that the thing was over with.
“Right, of course,” said John, sounding as if he knew better. He followed Sherlock out of the front door, and watched while he hailed a taxi. “You know,” John said casually, hands in his pockets and the smile still lurking around the corners of his mouth, “if you ever wanted to come up and sleep in my room, you're always welcome. I know your bed can get pretty cluttered.”
Sherlock turned back to him, searching for any sign that he was asking for, or expecting, more than Sherlock was willing to give, but the only thing he could see was the same comfortable affection that they'd always shared. He smiled back. “I might well take you up on that,” he said, then pulled open the cab door and gestured inside. “Come on, this corpse won't wait forever.”
John ducked inside the cab and Sherlock followed him, reaching out to take John's hand at the same time as he gave the address to the driver and feeling the familiar brush of John's wedding ring against his fingers. This marriage really had been the best idea he'd ever had.
Next Part of this 'verse: Sleep And Understanding
For
ladyofthelog: Title: He Who Gives Himself
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,008 words
Prompt: I want to know how Sherlock feels about Santa and how John feels about the Church of England. More gay always..
A/N: Santa Claus is anyone who loves another and seeks to make them happy; who gives himself by thought or word or deed in every gift that he bestows. - Edwin Osgood Grover
“...absolutely ridiculous to expect children to believe in something so completely illogical, and yet they do! How anyone, even a child, could accept the existence of a man who can visit every household in the world in one night...”
John sighed, tuning out of the rant. Clearly, mentioning Father Christmas on Christmas Eve had been a mistake, even if it had only been a joke. But then, how was he supposed to know that it would set Sherlock off like this?
“...lying to children about something so patently absurd just encourages them to disbelieve everything that a parent says from then on. And they wonder why teenagers are such hard work! After a betrayal like that, how can they expect...”
Suddenly, John had a flash of inspiration that made him laugh, cutting Sherlock off. Sherlock paused mid-sentence and glared at him. “You waited up for him, didn't you?” said John. “And saw your parents instead.”
Sherlock looked caught out. “It was the logical thing to do,” he said stiffly. “If some elderly alcoholic – and he would have to be, the amount of sherry he's purported to consume in one night - was going to break in to our home, of course it made sense to stay awake and keep an eye on him.”
“Of course,” agreed John, still giggling. Sherlock huffed and turned away.
“The whole thing's ridiculous,” he declared, picking up his violin. He started to play while John was still laughing, something loud, fast and completely unchristmassy. John let his amusement subside and settled back to listen.
The next morning, Christmas morning, Sherlock was still locked in his bedroom, presumably sleeping, when John left. John had wondered if he should go through with his plan in light of last night's outburst, but ended up hanging the stocking on Sherlock's door-handle anyway. Finding enough small items that Sherlock wouldn't immediately declare to be useless rubbish and keeping them all hidden safely away had been far too much work for John to abandon the project now.
He'd agreed to go to church with Mrs. Hudson as soon as she'd asked, ignoring the disgusted snort that Sherlock had answered the request with. He'd never really been religious, but his parents had always made him and Harry go to church on both Christmas and Easter, and it felt familiar to sit through the service, singing along to the carols and trying to remember the words to The Lord's Prayer. Besides, he'd prayed several times this year, all some variation on 'please God let me live' or 'please God let my ridiculously idiotic flatmate live', and God had been good enough to keep them both alive every time, so going to church seemed the least John could do in return.
When John got home, Sherlock was sat on the floor of their sitting room, surrounded by wrapping paper and presents. The test tubes that John had wrapped separately – Sherlock was always blowing them up, it was an easy guess that he'd need new ones – had been carefully lined up in size order on the carpet and the Rubik's cube was set next to them, already completed. So much for keeping Sherlock amused in the absence of a case. The chocolate money and satsuma – included both because they were traditional and in an attempt to get Sherlock to eat something – were piled next to the box of nicotine patches. John hadn't been sure of that one, considering how Sherlock usually abused the things, but patches were still better than cigarettes, and it had bulked out the stocking.
Sherlock was wrapped in his dressing gown, wearing the gloves that John had got when the last pair he'd owned had been covered in blood at a crime scene that turned unexpectedly messy, and he was carefully writing something in the book that John had been unable to resist buying the moment he'd seen it.
“Merry Christmas,” said John, taking his coat off.
Sherlock's head came up with a start, as if he'd been so deep in concentration that he'd not realised that John had come in. He looked completely taken aback, eyes large and wide as if he'd been given some form of electric shock. John couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.
“I see Father Christmas decided to come,” he said, trying to keep the mood light in case Sherlock was about to rip into him for giving in to something as juvenile as Christmas tradition.
“You bought me presents,” said Sherlock in a careful, even tone.
John shrugged slightly uncomfortably. “It's Christmas,” he said.
Sherlock nodded and looked back down, eyes passing over the collection that he'd surrounded himself with. “It's...” he said eventually, then cleared his throat. “It's, uh, good.” There was another long pause, then he added, “Thank you,” in the careful, awkward manner of a child who's been prompted by their mother.
“You're welcome,” said John, then he walked over to sink down onto the sofa. “What are you doing to that book, anyway?” he asked, desperately trying to pull them out of the awkward, emotional moment.
Sherlock looked back down at the book - The Little Book Of Bunny Serial Killers, each page a different cartoon of rabbits murdering each other in increasingly unlikely and violent ways. “I'm noting down all the evidence that would be available at the crime scene,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world to do. “I've come to the conclusion that the rabbit version of Scotland Yard is even more incompetent than the human one.”
John laughed, unable to stop himself. “You're deducing cartoons?” he asked. Sherlock looked up at him, affronted, and John shook his head slowly. “Of course you're deducing them,” he said, half to himself. “What else would you do?”
Sherlock looked back down at the book, then pushed it aside and turned to face John, leaning forward. “I've deduced some other things from this as well,” he announced.
John raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?” he asked rhetorically.
Sherlock held up a finger. “Firstly, that you managed to buy me all the things I would have got myself.” He glanced down at the book again. “Well, almost all. So, you know me very well.”
John shrugged, unease trickling down his spine at the turn the conversation had taken. “We've lived together nearly a year now,” he pointed out.
Sherlock kept going without acknowledging that. “Second,” he said, holding up another finger, “you somehow managed to keep all this from me. You must have picked up some of my methods, which means you've been paying close attention to me, and you must have worked hard at it – so this was important to you.” He was in one of his rapid-fire monologues by then, but he paused for a moment to add, in a slightly lower voice, “Surprising me for Christmas was important to you.”
John's unease grew. He should have known that Sherlock would be able to read far too much into it. “It's just a stocking,” he said, trying to downplay it.
“I'm not finished,” said Sherlock. He pulled his hand out of his dressing gown pocket, where it had been fiddling with something as he spoke. John saw that it was the last of the presents he'd put in the stocking, the one that he'd personally counted as his 'real' present to Sherlock.
“And then there's this,” continued Sherlock, finally looking away from John in order to look down at the gift, thumb smoothing over the surface. It was a palm-sized magnifying glass, designed to fold snugly into a circular silver case, and the moment John had seen it, he'd known he had to get it for Sherlock. It was the right size to be kept in one of his cavernous coat pockets and a lot more suited to him, somehow, than the little plastic one he had now.
“It gives away rather a lot more than you intended it to,” he said in a low voice, his thumb still tracing the engraving that John'd had done almost on a whim when the salesman had asked him. He hadn't been sure what to put – everything he'd come up with had seemed either too flippant or too revealing. In the end he'd just settled for:
SH,
Christmas 2010,
JW
But it seemed that even that had been too much, if Sherlock's carefully assessing gaze was anything to go by.
John shrugged again. “It just seemed to suit you,” he said. “You like it, right?”
Sherlock's face lit up. “It's perfect,” he pronounced, and knelt up in a quick movement that left his face merely inches away from John's. “And it means this,” he added, then put a hand on the back of John's head and pulled him down into a kiss.
Shock stilled John's mind for a moment, then the warmth of Sherlock's lips reawakened it and he leant into the kiss, grabbing hold of Sherlock's shoulder with his hand and sliding off the sofa to kneel in front of him.
When Sherlock pulled back, he was grinning triumphantly. John searched his mind for something to say but turned up nothing more intelligent than holy shit, what the fuck? which he thought Sherlock might mock him for.
“I have a confession,” said Sherlock, running his hands down John's back to pull him in closer, tracing over the line of his spine and the planes of his shoulder-blades with proprietorial fingers.
“I think,” said John, then stopped and cleared his throat when it came out in a dazed-sounding voice, “I think that you've already made it.”
Sherlock smirked. “Not that,” he said. “That was merely the logical action following a series of deductions. No, this is far more serious.”
“You've put something horrible in the fridge again,” guessed John. “Oh, no, you've done something horrible to the food I bought for today.”
“No, and no,” said Sherlock. “Although you might want to avoid the top freezer drawer.”
John already had been, but it was nice to hear that his hypothesis regarding the odd, lumpy-looking cling film parcel was correct.
“John,” said Sherlock in a serious voice, and John pulled his mind away from the possible contents of the parcel to focus on him. “I don't have a present for you.”
John blinked at him, then let out a laugh. “I really didn't expect you to,” he said.
“Nevertheless, I have a suggestion,” continued Sherlock as if he hadn't spoken, “We could adjourn to my bedroom, where I will endeavour to repay you for your presents in kind, although I'm rather afraid that would be as much, if not more, a present for me than for you.”
John didn't even have to think about it. “That sounds like a brilliant idea,” he said. “That would be one of the best presents I've ever had, I think.”
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “One of?” he repeated in a disbelieving voice.
Smug bastard, thought John with affection. “Well, I did get Tracy Island when I was a kid,” he said. “With all the Thunderbirds and Lady Penelope's car.”
It was clear from Sherlock's blank eyes that he had no idea what that was but before John could wonder how to enlighten him, he stood up, pulling John with him as if unwilling to let him out of his arms. “This will be better than any island,” he said in the voice of a man accepting a challenge and dragged John off towards his bedroom.
For
kali1967: Title: A Friendship Like Love
Pairing: John/Sherlock bromance, past John/OMC
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,633 words
Prompt: Sherlock, Sherlock/John, something winter-y.
A/N: A friendship like love is warm; a love like friendship is steady. - Thomas More
221B Baker Street had one major drawback (other than the body parts scattered throughout the kitchen, but John didn't think he could blame that on the flat) - the heating was appalling. Even when it was working, which was rare, it barely put out enough heat to even warm the radiators. Mrs. Hudson tutted about it and told them she was going to get it replaced in the summer, once she'd put enough by to afford it, but until then there was nothing to be done but endure it. John lived in multiple layers of jumpers and tried not to spend too much time thinking about the Afghan summer with longing.
Sherlock seemed to suffer even more than John. He took to wearing his coat at all times and pulled an endless array of blankets of all shapes, colours and varieties out of his room to wrap around himself while he huddled on the sofa and complained bitterly.
“Don't you have any jumpers?” John asked eventually, after noting that for the fifth night in a row, Sherlock was wearing nothing under his coat but a thin jacket and a shirt.
Sherlock hunched over tighter, wrapping his second blanket more firmly around his shoulders. “No,” he said in a scathing voice, as if the very idea was ridiculous. It probably was – why on earth would Sherlock own anything as practical as a jumper?
John sighed and stood up from his place at the desk, where he was trying to type despite the incipient frostbite in his fingers. He went upstairs to his room (which was even colder than the sitting room. Christ, going to bed was going to be fun), dug out the largest, thickest jumper he could find and brought it back down again.
“Put this on,” he told Sherlock, holding it out to him.
Sherlock regarded the jumper with a distasteful look, as if John was offering him a dead cat. Actually, he'd probably be more appreciative of a dead cat. “That's yours,” he said.
“I'm lending it to you,” said John patiently. “It will still be mine, though,” he added, “so you don't get to set it on fire, or drop acid on it, or harm it in anyway.”
Sherlock reached one hand out of his nest of blankets and took the jumper. “I never intend to do any of those things on purpose,” he said.
John snorted and went back to his laptop. He was trying to write up their last case, but it was hard to think about how to explain why it had seemed like a good idea to follow Sherlock down into the sewers when all he wanted to type was 'holy fuck, it's so cold, how is this even allowed in a civilised country?'
Sherlock struggled into the jumper, trying to keep under his blankets and coat as much as possible while he did so, although he did discard his jacket once he'd pulled on the jumper and rearranged all his other layers. He curled back up around his book – some massive tome on the decomposition rates of bodies – and John was allowed some blissful peace from sulky grumbles for a while.
Not forever, though. The night was getting colder and Sherlock's nest was clearly starting to fail at its job. Sherlock started to pull the blankets tighter and tighter around himself, then tucked his feet underneath his own legs in a weird, contorted position that John was pretty sure anyone else would have to be a yoga master to manage. Eventually, though, he returned to the grumbling.
“Bloody stupid season,” muttered as he pulled part of his third blanket up to cover his head. “Surely the government should be able to do something,” as he shrunk in closer to his book, trying to pull it under his blankets with him while still being able to read the text. “I'm sure Mycroft is behind it all – just trying to spite me.”
John let out a long sigh at that. Hearing a constant monologue about the temperature was not making it any easier for him to ignore his own chilly limbs, or the increasing ache in his shoulder. His bullet wound was even less appreciative of the weather than Sherlock was, and the combination of cold and pain was beginning to make John lose his patience.
Sherlock glared at him as if the weather was his fault. John stared back, trying not to look as if he was contemplating setting Sherlock on fire for the twin benefits of some blessed heat and some peace and quiet.
“Come here,” Sherlock demanded suddenly.
“Why?” asked John warily, not moving. Obeying Sherlock's orders without asking for further information was never a good idea, but Sherlock didn't bother explaining, of course. He never did.
“Bring your laptop,” was all he added.
“You're not using my laptop to get revenge on the government for the weather,” said John firmly. “I think my IP address is probably on too many watch lists already.”
Sherlock looked at him as if he was an idiot. “The laptop's just to keep you occupied,” he said. “Come here.” He was beginning to sound petulant in the way that meant he was only a step away from a full-on sulk, so John picked up his laptop and walked over to the sofa. Sometimes it just wasn't worth arguing.
“What now?” he asked.
“Sit,” commanded Sherlock, moving over slightly so that there was enough room for John against one of the arms of the sofa. “There's no sense in you providing all that body heat if you're on the other side of the room.”
John considered refusing for half a second, but Sherlock really did look truly miserable, and it probably did make the most sense. He sat down with a sigh, setting his laptop on his lap and trying to ignore the way Sherlock immediately curled into his body.
Over the next ten minutes, Sherlock slowly, carefully, insinuated himself completely into John's personal space. He wrapped various blankets around them both as if it was John's temperature he was concerned with, then wriggled various limbs under John's thighs to warm them, finally pulling himself close enough to practically climb into John's lap, his head resting against John's shoulder. It should have been a horribly uncomfortable position, but somehow Sherlock made it look both relaxing and perfectly normal.
John let out a long-suffering sigh. “I can't type now,” he pointed out.
“You weren't writing anything of any interest,” said Sherlock, not moving.
“Sherlock,” said John, trying to work out how to remind him, for the thousandth time, that he had to allow for other people rather than just rearranging the world for his own comfort. It wasn't so much that he minded Sherlock's body heat slowly seeping through his layers, or that he could really be bothered about how they would look right now to an outside observer, he just felt that one of them should at least attempt to stick to the usual social boundaries.
“You're much warmer now too,” said Sherlock, as if that had been his sole aim. “You were thinking about putting gloves on before – you wouldn't have been able to type then, either.”
John had been wondering if he'd be able to get away with gloves. Typical that Sherlock had known that without him saying anything.
“And your shoulder's been hurting,” added Sherlock. “Always does in the cold, but it's been particularly bad tonight.” Also true. Damn him. “Not your leg, though,” Sherlock added in a quieter voice.
“Well, no,” said John with resignation. Sherlock clearly wasn't going to move without a lot more energy than John was willing to expend, so he just gave up and accepted that he was going to spend the evening huddled on the sofa with his flatmate. “It's psychosomatic.”
“So there was never any injury there at all?” asked Sherlock in the casual way that meant he'd been dying to know about it all along.
“No,” said John, and it came out firmer and more forbidding than he'd meant it to. There was silence for a few minutes as John allowed himself to feel every place that he and Sherlock were touching – feet buried under his legs, head resting on his shoulder, the long curl of Sherlock's body contorted against his side – and compared it to the last time he'd been this close to another person. There was a hand looped around his waist that was keeping Sherlock in place, and for a moment it felt like a very different hand, in a very different situation. Dan had always draped his hand like that when they were lying together and trying to find the will to separate before they were missed.
“Not on me, anyway,” he added finally and knew the moment he said it that he was going to have to tell the whole story now. It was too much to expect Sherlock to ignore a hint like that.
Well, maybe it was time to let the truth out into the open. He probably should have told his therapist – he'd known that at the time, but somehow the idea of explaining it to her calm and understanding gaze had made his throat close up until all he could manage was small talk and meaningless polite phrases.
Sherlock kept quiet, prompting for the whole story with nothing more than an expectant air.
“In Afghanistan, I knew a man called Dan Willcox. He was the anaesthesiologist on my team,” started John in as steady a voice as he could manage. Just saying Dan's name again was like pulling a shard of shrapnel out and he could feel the memory of a distant, thumping pain in his leg start up. “We were close. More than close. We were-” he stumbled over how to describe it. “Lovers, I suppose. I don't think either of us would have called it 'boyfriends', or even if it would have continued once we were back home.” He'd hoped, though. He'd had vague thoughts of a flat together in London, but it had seemed so far away - even the idea of London seemed unreal amongst the dust and blood – that he'd never really got any further than that.
He paused and took a deep breath. “There was an ambush and we were sent in to deal with the wounded while the bullets were still flying. There was a man down that we couldn't get to – he was cut off from us by sniper fire, but Dan, he- well. He was a bit of a maniac, really. He was always getting me into all sorts of scrapes by just diving in feet first and expecting me to follow. He ran out to get to him and I went after him.”
The next part was hard to remember, and harder to fit words around. John took a careful breath in through his nose and shifted his leg slightly in an attempt to ease the growing stab of pain, then carried on with determination.
“I was shot. Single bullet to the shoulder, knocked me down and incapacitated me. Dan had made it to where the soldier was sheltering, but he saw me go down and came back for me.” John wasn't sure how he was managing to keep his voice so calm and level, but he had to pause for a moment then. “He was shot before he could get to me. In the leg – right through the femoral artery. He was too far from me to do anything, and I couldn't get to him. Every time I tried to move, the snipers fired – trying to finish us off, no doubt.
“Dan was bleeding out. I could see the blood pumping out of his leg, and he wasn't even trying to hold it in. He was dazed, probably mostly out of it with shock and blood loss, but he was awake. His eyes were open – he was looking at me.” John can still remember his eyes, warm brown flooded out by the black of his pupils and fixed so hard on John that he thought he should have been able to feel it branding his skin. “He didn't look away at all – I'm not even sure he blinked. I could see his wound and how serious it was, and I knew he was dying. I couldn't feel my shoulder at all – I'm not sure I even remembered then that I'd been shot.”
Even the sounds of gunfire had been drowned out by the look in Dan's eyes. There'd been nothing John could do but look back, hold onto his gaze in the hope that it would help.
“It usually takes ten to fifteen minutes for someone to bleed out through the femoral artery. I have no idea how long it took for Dan. It felt like far longer than that.” He could still remember the moment when the light in Dan's eyes had gone out and his eyelids had slumped. He wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to forget it – it certainly haunted his dreams still.
He cleared his throat. “It took them a while longer to be able to reach us – me – with medical assistance, and all that time all I could see was Dan, and the wound that had killed him. I suspect that the shock of my own injury, combined with the trauma, prompted a psychosomatic response. My mind created a phantom pain in order to deal with the emotional one.”
He stopped there. There was little else to tell – Dan's body was sent home to be buried by his family and John was invalided back to Britain, where he bought himself a stick and was unable to explain to anyone why being shot in the shoulder had left him with a limp.
Sherlock hadn't moved or reacted in any way throughout the entire story, and John was just resigning himself to the fact that he'd poured out the most traumatising experience of his life to a man who had fallen asleep, when he finally spoke.
“I think that if I were dying,” he said in a contemplative voice, “I should very much like to be able to see your face.”
Before John could even form a thought on how to react to that, Sherlock was moving again, shuffling around in his blanket nest until his back was pressed against John's chest instead of his head. He dragged one of John's arms around him and settled back with a satisfied noise.
“Comfortable?” asked John, wishing he felt more annoyed about being used as just another piece of the furniture.
“Perfectly,” said Sherlock without a hint of apology. John gave in and shifted to pull Sherlock closer against him, moving his laptop out of the way. After all, if they were going to snuggle on the sofa, he might as well be as comfortable as possible.
Finally letting the story of Dan's death out from where it had been trapped inside his chest had somehow made him feel lighter, and he settled himself around Sherlock's possessive sprawl with a sense of contentment. His shoulder still ached, but the cold was losing against the combined body heat that he and Sherlock had trapped under the blankets, and the pain in his leg was already fading. He'd had winters that were a lot worse.
For
cellophanepage: Title: The Cellars Of Gladstone House
Pairing: Gen (Yeah, sorry, couldn't find any place for the slash.)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 630 words
Prompt: BBC sherlock/john how they came into guardianship of gladstone..
The cellar of Gladstone House went on a lot further than John had been expecting. Sherlock hurried down the dank corridors, checking each door as they came to it. If he was right, then there was a teenage girl down here somewhere and possibly an unknown number of kidnappers. John had one hand in his coat pocket, resting on his gun as he followed Sherlock, and kept a close eye on the corridor behind them, just in case.
Sherlock threw open another door and then paused for a fraction of a second. “Ah,” he said quietly.
“What is it?” asked John.
“Not the girl,” said Sherlock, shutting the door and continuing on to the next door.
John scowled at his back and opened the door to see for himself.
It was just an empty concrete-floored room like all the others, except that in the middle was a shoebox containing what looked at first glance to be a pile of old cloth. “What...” he started to say, then his eyes managed to make sense of the shapes and a litter of puppies came into focus. “Oh god,” he said, hurrying forward and crouching down to check on them.
There was no sign of their mother and no way for her to get in or out of the room in any case, so John was not overly surprised when he realised that most of them were already dead. Sickened, but not surprised.
“Who would do something so horrible?” he asked. They must have been shut in here and abandoned, left to starve or freeze to death.
“The same people who would imprison a girl just to get their hands on a jewel,” said Sherlock, who had come back and was now hovering in the doorway. “There's nothing you can do, John.”
There was a faint movement in the box, so tiny that John thought for a moment he'd imagined it. “This one's still alive,” he exclaimed, moving aside tiny, limp bodies to find the one that was still barely breathing.
“I doubt he will be for long,” said Sherlock. He glanced back down the corridor. “Come on, John, we need to find the girl before the kidnappers find us.”
John carefully picked the puppy up in his hands and it weakly twitched, reacting to the warmth of his body. “Give me your scarf,” he demanded.
Sherlock stared at him. “What on earth for? You can't mean to bring that with us – what on earth would we do with it?”
“Keep it alive,” said John firmly. He cradled the puppy to his chest with one hand and held out his hand towards Sherlock. “Scarf. Now.”
Sherlock made a disgusted noise, but took his scarf off. “I like this one,” he said petulantly. “I don't particularly wanting a dying puppy all over it.”
“It's not dying,” said John, carefully wrapping the puppy in the scarf to keep it warm. The puppy was moving slightly more now, coming back to life, and he couldn't resist running a gentle finger over its head. “It's okay, little guy,” he said to it. “We're going to take good care of you.”
“'We'?” repeated Sherlock pointedly, then sighed. “Come on, John, there really isn't time for this.”
John stood up carefully with the puppy snuggled against his jumper. “I'm ready,” he said. “Let's go.”
Sherlock let out a long-suffering sigh as if John had only rescued the puppy to inconvenience him, then continued on down the corridor. John followed him, one hand holding on to the puppy, and one resting on his gun.
Ficlets continued here.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-26 07:19 am (UTC)Nope, it's the rescued puppy one. Awwww!
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Date: 2010-12-26 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-26 08:57 am (UTC)MORE WIN!
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Date: 2010-12-26 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-27 03:19 am (UTC)But my alltime favourite is always gonna be 'Laugh, I nearly died'. Seriously. That is just stuck in my head for ever and ever!
Together with 'Swoosh' and 'Bad Wallpaper'.
*rofls*
no subject
Date: 2010-12-28 02:16 am (UTC)<3!
Date: 2010-12-27 07:04 am (UTC)Over the next ten minutes, Sherlock slowly, carefully, insinuated himself completely into John's personal space.
Re: <3!
Date: 2010-12-28 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-27 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-28 02:22 am (UTC)Thank you!!
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Date: 2010-12-28 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-29 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 07:31 am (UTC)Bwah! Perfect.
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Date: 2011-01-01 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 01:37 am (UTC)This sentence....don't try and tell me Sherlock is a sociopath, not if he can come out with a statement like this!
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Date: 2011-01-02 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 07:36 am (UTC)*Giggle* Only Sherlock. :D
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Date: 2011-01-02 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 10:26 am (UTC)“I've come to the conclusion that the rabbit version of Scotland Yard is even more incompetent than the human one.”
is possibly the greatest line ever written in the history of fanfiction. Bravo!
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Date: 2011-01-04 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-04 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-04 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 06:50 pm (UTC)Also, the living room of 221B Baker Street has an open fire.
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Date: 2011-01-18 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-26 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 06:49 pm (UTC)I immediately thought of the fact that anyone set on fire would probably be yelling and screaming and running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. And then I thought of Sherlock doing that while wearing his coat in the flat with John standing off to the side, with a pleased/contented look about him. Oh god the image that makes.
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Date: 2011-11-21 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-17 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 12:02 pm (UTC)