Work Text:
Things SH is good at:
1. Solving crimes
2. Playing the violin
3. Not respecting my privacy
I know you’ve been through my room you complete arse.
JW
Is that an affectionate complete arse? Like an affectionate spectacularly ignorant? Or are you really angry?
SH
Both.
JW
Things JW is good at:
1. Making lists
2. Folding laundry neatly
3. Remembering my birthday.
Thank you. I love it. I promise not to shoot the walls. You know it’s illegal, right?
SH
John really was good at folding laundry neatly. Army. He was good at piling the clothes neatly on the sofa for Sherlock to take to his room. Sherlock was good at ignoring the piles of clothes until there was no place to sit.
Right. John heaved a sigh and picked up a pile of socks and underwear. He’d never actually been in Sherlock’s bedroom before but he didn’t feel bad about invading Sherlock’s privacy. His own privacy had been invaded often enough.
The smell hit him first. It overpowered the scent of freshly laundered clothes. It wasn’t a bad smell. It was rather homey and comforting, like a used bookstore had exploded in Sherlock’s inner sanctum. There was paper everywhere. Books were piled knee deep by the side of the bed. Half a dozen of them were splayed out with their spines broken on the rumpled sheets. They overflowed the bookcases that lined the walls. Sheaves of sheet music spilled from a chair. Diagrams, maps, and photographs lined the walls. Crumpled notes littered the floor.
John smiled. Walking into Sherlock’s room felt oddly like walking into Sherlock’s brain. He sighed and opened the top drawer of the dresser. Most people kept their underwear in the top drawer of their dresser.
Sherlock didn’t. The drawer was stuffed full of photographs. John would have closed it again but his eyes caught on a picture of his own face. He pulled out the print. It wasn’t a photograph he’d posed for. He was in his pajamas at the breakfast table. He looked tired. John looked back at the drawer. Many versions of his own face stared back at him. Though, not really, he was never looking directly at the camera. Sherlock had caught him each time unaware.
John set down the clothes on the bed and went back to the bureau. All the photographs were of him. There were hundreds. He was cleaning, cooking, drinking tea, smiling, frowning, at the market, at work, on a date, asleep on the sofa. John turned this one over.
John, worn out.
He turned the other pictures over. John, busy. John, annoyed. John, relaxed. John, happy.
There was a picture of him with his cane, standing outside of St. Bart’s after his first meeting with Sherlock.
John, broken.
There was a picture of him in his bed. Asleep. There were tears on his face. Sweat on his brow. He was clearly having a nightmare.
John’s hands trembled. He turned the picture over.
Sherlock, broken.
“Right,” John said.
He took the lot of them and put them on Sherlock’s laptop. He put the pictures of the nightmare and the first meeting on top.
He went to the pub, drank more than was good for him and wandered the streets until it was dark. He stood in the shadows of Baker Street until he was sure Sherlock had come home. He watched his tall form cast shadows on the windows.
His phone pinged.
~It’s cold. Come inside.~
John didn’t reply.
His phone pinged again.
~Are you angry?~
John stood in the shadows. Sherlock came to the window and looked out. John could only see the silhouette of him. He didn’t know how much Sherlock could see.
~Angry really? Or just annoyed? I can’t tell the difference. It muddles me.~
John sighed and relented.
~I don’t know.~
~Please come in.~
~I hate you. I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid for you. I love you.~
There. That was clear enough. Sherlock left the window. After a few minutes the door to the flat opened and Sherlock was in the street without shoes or socks or a coat. John stepped out of the shadows.
“What the fuck is that, Sherlock? What. The. Fuck. Is. That?”
Sherlock looked lost.
“Data?”
“Why?”
Sherlock shrugged. “I don’t know.” It took him a lot to admit that. John could read it on his face. He didn’t care.
“You? You don’t know?”
Sherlock shivered and brought his feet up one by one to rub them against his calves. He must be freezing. John stamped down the urge to bring him inside and draw him a bath.
“I can read people. They’re so simple. I can pull their strings like they’re puppets. Not you. Not always. I can’t figure you out.”
John laughed. “Come on, you knew everything there is to know about me at St. Bart’s. From a sentence I uttered and my limp and my fucking phone.”
Sherlock shook his head.
“You shot someone for me. You risked your life for me. You admire what I do. You’ve stayed. I can’t understand it.”
John understood it. He had tumbled down a rabbit hole when he’d met Sherlock. It had saved him. He hadn’t understood until know that Sherlock had tumbled down a rabbit’s hole of his own when he’d met John.
“I’m your friend, Sherlock. I’ve stayed because I’m your friend.” And you saved me from blowing my own brains out in a lonely room, and cured my limp, and lent me money, and made it abundantly clear that I’m not the only lost and fucked up person in world.
“Fuck. I’m sorry. That’s seriously creepy, mind you. But I’m sorry.”
Sherlock looked so lost and confused that John had to laugh.
“Get inside. You’re freezing.”
“You’re coming too?”
“Yes. Of course. Come on.” John started to walk towards the open door of 221B. Sherlock didn’t move.
“You’re my friend? You always say colleague. Which is fine, by the way. I never have friends.”
John frowned. Turned back. Took Sherlock’s hand.
“You do now. Come on.”
Sherlock allowed John to lead him back inside.
“I should ask before I take pictures of you.”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
“I can’t ask if you’re sleeping.”
John sighed. He went to the desk and found the nightmare picture. He held it up.
“Why do you want this?”
“It’s you.”
“I’ve read the back.”
Sherlock went into the kitchen. He started fiddling around with test tubes.
“It breaks me if you’re broken. I don’t understand it, but I want to be broken if you are. I am broken if you are.”
John sighed. He had the look on his face. The one that Sherlock wanted to capture in a photo and keep forever. He resisted.
“What does that mean, John?”
“It means we’re friends, Sherlock. “
~*~
Unrelenting boredom under an unrelenting sun. There had been nights in Afghanistan, star-spangled, deep, velvet nights, but John only remembered the harsh sun. Gun fire. The odd of feeling of training kicking in, like he’d been programmed. He had been programmed. No thoughts then for personal safety. He remembers the sweat running down his back and dust in his face, and the hope that they would clean him before they sent his body back to Harry, and if not, that she would forgive him for coming home dirty.
There was a long time of running and the first startling shower of blood on his face. It was Peters, rolling like a dog in the dust. John grabbed and held him. Peters was nineteen and he cried for his mother. Called for his mother as blood bubbled from his mouth. Gun fire. John leaned over him. The shot grazed his hip, entered his shoulder, this foul thing, invading his body against his will, violated.
“You can’t,” John said. “No.” Watched his blood spill onto Peters’ dead face.
Woke. Awake. Awake. Awake. Sherlock.
Sherlock kneeling by his bed. Tears on his face.
“You can’t cry if I’m not crying. You weren’t there.”
“You are crying. You talk in your sleep. I was there.”
John brushed the wetness from his face. He was sweating, dirty. Sherlock wouldn’t care if he was dragged back from hell dirty. He pulled back the covers.
“Come here.”
Sherlock climbed into the bed and John put his head on Sherlock’s chest.
“Peters died?”
“Yes. He grew up not far from here. Spent Sunday afternoons in Regent’s Park. Liked the rain. Died on a dusty patch of earth far from home. A patch of earth we made muddy with our blood.”
“Could you have saved him if you hadn’t been shot?”
John trembled. “No.”
“Someone saved you. Who? I’d like to thank him.”
“He’s still there. The war’s not over.”
Sherlock nodded. He’d find out. He’d write.
~*~
Lestrade shook Sherlock’s hand. It didn’t seem to be enough. The man leaned in and hugged him. Sherlock responded awkwardly. He suddenly seemed to have too many hands and feet.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Sherlock said.
Lestrade laughed. Sherlock looked for John. John had that look on his face, the one that Sherlock had tried and failed to capture in hundreds of photographs.
“He’s proud of you,” John whispered.
“I do this all the time. I don’t understand.”
“You saved a child.”
“You have that look on your face. It’s the look I was trying to put in the drawer. To keep.”
John’s face still had the look. Intensely.
“It means I love you. You can take my picture if you want.”
Sherlock’s hand went to his pocket for his camera. He hesitated.
“No. It’s a look I have to earn. I’ll earn it again.”
John’s hand tightened on Sherlock’s shoulder. He leaned into him, tilted his head up, stood on tiptoe.
“Should I kiss you?” Sherlock asked.
“Yes,” John said.
Lestrade took the photo.