Nocturne in Tempo Rubato
part sixSherlock was brilliant. In his coat, his gloves, his cashmere scarf, with his retractable pocket microscope and his manic, gleeful deductions full of bite and wit, Sherlock was at the top of his game with no glass ceiling above to stop him. Petty crime had never seen such a hit as a bored consulting detective driven to prove once more that he was everything he thought himself to be. This time no one could doubt him. It took one afternoon to solve the three small cases he was contractually obligated to solve. It whet his appetite but could not satiate him. He grabbed every cold case file he could get his hands on and within a week had cleared out an entire drawer in a filing cabinet with a few arrests to accompany new answers. When he grew tired of sitting at home with files and details, he took on small-time robberies and domestic cases for the chance to shout at people and work among a crowd. The officers hated him, god they hated him, but to John they smiled and waved and joked about Sherlock's snide and less amicable quirks. They asked John out for drinks and invited him to friendly dos and clapped him on the back for having the strength to put up with the man. John never heard anyone utter the word 'freak' so long as he was around and he was by Sherlock's side every step of the way. Instead, now and then, he heard the odd word 'lovers' whispered between the other officers--always as a whisper and always behind cupped hands.
Brilliant Boffin Holmes and Confirmed Bachelor John Watson made the papers with growing irregularly and the tabloids quite frequently. Candid shots of them shopping at Tesco together or smirking at crime scenes side by side often carried the caption "Are They or Aren't They?!". They even had their own celebrity couple name: Johnlock. John's blog often got comments from people thanking him and Sherlock for doing so much for the gay stereotype. John kept his new blog posts short, to the point, and concise and turned off the ability to receive comments. Now he received e-mails instead.
Harry called and texted him a lot. His mother never asked but she always seemed to steer the conversation to Sherlock as though hoping to trigger a confession. John was often far too busy to talk very long to either. Calls from his dad he somehow always conveniently seemed to miss.
Paperwork, at the very least, gave John something to distract himself with. It was more tedious and dull than he had expected it to be, each case causing him several hours of forms to submit to Lestrade or whomever's jurisdiction they found themselves under. He rather enjoyed plopping a bold 'N/A' in a good deal of the more standardized sheets. He'd taken to carrying a Dictaphone to get Sherlock's deductions as linear and correct as they had been at the time. The MP3s were often used as evidence or played for suspects to bring about confessions. Transcripts of them were still up to John to provide. He was seriously considering hiring it out though a certain someone had left him a pamphlet for a typing course.
Life was good for all its oddities. So long as they were home, life was bliss. So long as the whispers and the cameras and the e-mails and the phone calls could be shut out, life was perfect.
And then there was Mahler.
Eyes locked on the screen with Sherlock's voice playing over and over again in the same twenty-second span of a two minute rant, John hardly noticed when Sherlock entered their shared living space, nearly floating to his side on silent feet as he pressed his hands to his shoulders. John jumped only slightly, scowling at him with a turn of his head as he stopped the recording once more.
"Did you need something?" he asked, wary of his friend's bright eyes and smile.
Sherlock shook his head, one hand running its fingers along John's hair, delving down in the side swept, short strands and brushing against the grain. "Wanted to see if you'd be needing any of the hot water. Your hair's clean, though, and you smell nice. A quick shave for that stubble and a dash of cologne and you should be ready."
John held his breath to keep from stuttering over the casual touches, holding himself perfectly still to lessen his chances of leaning into his hands which usually teased or aided but hardly lingered or caressed. He felt the back of his friend's fingers trail down his cheek to his jaw, judging the harshness of his evening growth in needless assessment. All perfectly reasonable reasons to pet another human face or head but still so strangely tender from hands that did not normally reach out for such. John ducked just slightly away, feeling his face growing warm. "Ready for what exactly?"
"Mahler, John," Sherlock said as he stepped away, talking as he strode towards the windows with his hands firmly clasped behind his back. "I've asked Mrs. Hudson to pick up our suits for us from the cleaners. Yours were all old so I threw them out and had Mrs. Hudson go out and buy you a new one. Single breasted with a vest. You don't mind, do you? You look good in layers. Couldn't find that tie pin from the kidnapping case so I had to get you one from the shop. Square topaz gemstone--reminded me of toast. Should be fine even though Mrs. Hudson informs me mixing brown and black is frowned upon. Was it your idea to get her that Connie Prince colors book? Never seen her more pleased than getting a chance to dress you up. I think she rather suspects I'll let her have a go at my clothes next. Not likely; I've seen a few pages of that book of hers. She'll have me in pastels before you can say tetramethyldianinobenzhydrylphosphinous."
John leaned back in his chair, half smirking at the idea of Sherlock in cyan while the rest of his brain tripped over the further details. He'd been listening to Sherlock talk on his Dictaphone for too long, mixing past mystery with current involvement. "No, yeah.. uh, that's fine... Thanks?" He wasn't entirely sure why he ended it as a question. He looked back at his computer screen, eying the clock for the first time that night.
"I thought dinner at the Royal Garden Hotel. I have reservations but if you would like something else we can cancel."
John's eyes were as large as their prices, poisonous thoughts making his mouth taste sour. "The Royal Ga-...A little, uh... conspicuous, don't you think? Dinner for two at a place like that? I mean-"
"People might talk," Sherlock finished for him. He looked at him flatly, the setting sun casting him in a warm glow, following every contour of his hair, his face, his neck. He frowned, brow low in consideration. "It still bothers you this much?" he asked, with little uncertainty behind it. John imagined his posture broadcasting very clearly the discomfort he felt.
He rubbed his palms against the denim of his thighs, eyes boring into the desk in an attempt to avoid the sting of the other's stare. "I just... don't like people getting the wrong idea."
"So if it was the right idea, it'd be okay?"
John froze, his left hand twitching. "Sorry.. are you asking me out on a date?"
"I suppose so." Sherlock replied, hands gesturing to his sides in obvious acceptance. It wasn't obvious to John, though. Sherlock could say the damnedest things without even the slightest idea what it meant sometimes. The boyish innocence of his face made it doubtful he had even the slightest idea what the magnitude was of his words.
"A proper, romantic date," John reiterated, expecting his friend's face to purse in distaste and his head to roll back in laughter.
Sherlock nodded once, still smiling. "Yes," he said with a voice rich and thick.
John clench his jaw shut, his deep breath failing him as it caught on the way out, forcing a nervous cough from his throat. His heart was banging so strongly he could feel it in his toes. His body ached with the force of his pulse and he curled his fingers against his palms to try and squeeze the pooling blood back out of them. "Sorry,.... no," he said at last, hating the way the words tasted.
Curiosity made his gaze steal towards the window over the top of his laptop, his body cold despite the rush of blood that pounded in his ears. Sherlock looked... lost. The nuances and finite aspects of his expression were too raw to inspect, easier to link to similar times when his deductions were failing him, when his careful measures were falling through, when a block of flats and twelve innocent people were destroyed in a sudden and avoidable catastrophe; lost and undone. "Oh," he said, turning away, body moving in anxious leans as he shifted and puzzled. "Well, right then.... Always something..." Something missed, something overlooked, something forgotten--yes, yes and yes. "It's just... well, I thought... Mixed signals?"
John would have loved to have had that been it. It would have been so much easier to have just said he didn't feel that way, that the distant kiss they had so fairly never mentioned had been a one-off and meant nothing, to pretend of the many reasons why he always chose Sherlock in the end had nothing to do with the way it felt to be needed and respected by such a human being as him. So much easier but only for himself. For a man who prided himself on being right, on observing everything around him and very seldom being wrong, for that same man who had never felt loved, he deserved much more than a coward's response. John lowered his eyes, feeling his chest fill with air and making himself conscious of every breath, every rise and fall till everything became rhythmic and even and far more likely to obey. One more look at the crestfallen face and that careful concentration would be undone, though. He looked to the laptop screen instead, falling lower to the keyboard and the crumbs caught between the keys.
"No. You... you probably got it right. Sherlock. It's just no."
"Alright. That's... Sorry to have made things awkward." Sherlock paced closer to the window for a moment, drawing back towards his chair until pulled again by invisible strings to his spot along the curtains. Sherlock was a gloriously dexterous man but could so quickly deteriorate into an uncoordinated mess. "As friends, then. If the Royal Garden Hotel is too much then we can go somewhere else. Or no where. I'm not especially hungry."
John shook his head, "No, I mean... No to everything. I can't go tonight."
Sherlock was very quiet. John poked at a few keys, typing in some nonsense word to fill the void, trying not to spell 'Sherlock' even as his fingers plunked out the first four letters.
"You'd said you would go with me before," the lonely baritone said.
"That was before."
"Before what?"
John had never wanted Mrs. Hudson to walk in uninvited so much in his entire life. Anything to give him distance and let him stand without the certainty he'd sink back against the stiffness of his leg. "I just can't. Alright? We're too much in the public eye and I don't want to be reading about our night out in the daily paper."
"And that's more important, is it?"
"Don't, Sherlock." John made himself look, forcing the sternness in his eyes to hold still against the hurt confusion in his friend's. If it weren't for the hint of accusation and anger burning behind the ice blue gaze, John might have thought the expression forced to play him. "I'm serious. Look, this--whatever this is--isn't just about me being okay with it or understanding it or accepting it. This isn't even about me being okay with my friends or my family knowing that this is even a possibility. Because of you, because of the media and everything that surrounds you, this is now about me having to be okay with everyone and all of their assumptions being given the hint of truth that they are so desperate for. I'm not doing that. We're not. "
Sherlock looked away, shifting and pacing with strange staccato. He turned to the fireplace, fingers trilling over the mantle as he seemed to dance between one thought and the other, mouth working on two different sets of words without the distraction of sound to muddy them. The more frazzled he seemed, the safer John felt. A distracted Sherlock might miss the small admissions and fail to call him on their certainty. A perplexed detective might not pry into where the line was drawn between friends and whatever words best described what they were moving towards.
He seemed to settle on something, though, and turned the space between the desk and the fireplace into a minefield. He moved closer to the chair, fingers splaying against the arm, as he smiled just slightly, that small, manipulative little grin, that could pretend to forget everything else that had come before. "I love you, John," he said with a certainty that made John numb. He extended his hand towards him, a simple gesture with his heart on his sleeve. "Will you please come out with me tonight?"
John trembled, the shiver raising the hair along his arms. "... That's not fair, Sherlock."
"I have asked you for nothing but this one thing."
"I'm sorry." And he was. Under so many other circumstances he'd have not given it a second thought--the admission of love, yes, but the request for his presence, no. It was like canceling Christmas; some things were just done regardless of personal beliefs or feelings. Some things just were.
Sherlock kept his hand out, head tilted in bewilderment. "I said I love you," he repeated, as though the words could open doors.
John hated feeling like a marionette pulled along on Sherlock's whims. "Do you want a prize?" he asked, failing to keep his frustration in check. "You don't automatically get everything you want just because you say that."
His fingers curled in against his empty grasp, arm falling to his side as he stood column like with his eyes unwavering in their hollow stare. "You know it makes no different to me if you do not feel the same but I do rather expect at the very least that nothing should change for the worse. I find I've been wrong a lot today. Far out of my depth. You would tell me if I had done something wrong, yes?"
"Nothing's wrong, Sherlock," John assured him, trying to look hopeful and failing in the attempt. Anything less than stoic grief was an insult to the pain worn naked across Sherlock's face.
It was a lifetime ago that he had felt sure he would have thrown everything away for the chance to spend another day in the detective's light, arms holding close to feel his beating heart and living breath against his own skin, lips parted against his lips and unashamed of their shared anatomy.
In his wildest fantasies he was brave enough to stop caring and seize what instinctively he could not stop himself from growing closer to. The reality was painfully different. For all the want and need to stay by Sherlock's side, John Watson was terrified.
And for all the want and need to be wanted and needed, Sherlock stood silently, broken, in the center of the Great Baker Street Minefield.