Chapter Text
Chapter Forty-Three
John’s mother and sister were both in John’s hospital room when Sherlock walked past the bodyguards flanking the door. Sherlock had been expecting them, but they still gave him an awkward moment’s pause. What he wanted to do was crawl into bed with John and put his ear over his heart and listen, but he didn’t think that he was allowed to do that with an audience in the room. Not that he cared, but he thought John might care, and John had enough to be furious about, what with his near-death experience and everything.
Sherlock spared only the briefest glance for John’s mother and sister and instead took in everything about John’s condition with a sweeping glance. His heartbeat was strong and regular. That was a good sign, thought Sherlock. He’d apparently asked for him. Another good sign. Sherlock walked carefully over to the side of the bed and peered down at John, whose eyes were closed. Sleeping? Sherlock catalogued the paleness of John’s skin. To be expected. He’d improve, Sherlock thought. He leaned, trying to catch a glimpse of John’s shoulder under the blanket pulled up to John’s chin, and John must have sensed him, because he blinked his eyes open and Sherlock froze, waiting for him to say something.
“Sherlock,” said John, and gave him a flickering smile, a shadow of his usual one. “Where have you been?”
“I don’t know,” answered Sherlock, feeling too confused to think about where he’d been. “With Mycroft. How are you feeling? Are you in any pain? Nauseated? Is the tip of your nose itchy? That could be the anesthesia.”
John shook his head with a weakness that Sherlock found alarming because he was finding everything about John being in a hospital bed alarming. “My nose is fine. You look terrible.”
This offended Sherlock. “Do I?” he retorted. “And I’m not even the one who jumped in front of a bullet like an idiot, so you can imagine what you look like.”
John smiled, smaller than usual but genuine. The look in his eyes was the look he almost always had in his eyes, that unbelievable you’re fantastic look. Sherlock thought of never seeing that look again and needed to touch him, needed to reassure himself, needed the data of his all-right-ness.
“Sorry,” said Sherlock, “I just have to…” and then leaned his head down, into the curve of John’s uninjured shoulder, burying his face against him. He was warm, alive, solid.
“I’m fine,” John told him. “I really am.”
“You’re such an idiot,” Sherlock mumbled against him. “You are such an idiot.”
“I know,” John agreed. “I know.”
“We should go,” he heard John’s mother say.
Sherlock couldn’t quite read her tone. Resentful? Resigned? Embarrassed? Annoyed? Sherlock found he didn’t care. He kept his face against John and said, “Good,” which probably didn’t help his relationship with John’s mother.
The door opened and closed and John said, “I see you’re turning on the charm for my mother.” Sherlock ignored him and straightened and said, earnestly, “I love you. I know I never say it to you, but I love you. I love you so much it seems stupid to say it to you, because it comes nowhere near to being accurate, it’s…I love you.”
John looked confused. “I know that. I’ve always known that. I told you. Were you worried I didn’t know that?”
“If you knew how much I love you, then why would you do that?”
“Do what?”
“This.” Sherlock swept a hand toward John’s shoulder. “I find this whole thing unacceptable.”
“And I found the alternative unacceptable. Let’s agree to disagree. I’m too exhausted to fight with you right now.”
Sherlock sat anxiously in the chair next to John’s bed. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Tell me exactly how you feel.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“How did you do this, when it was me in the hospital bed? How did you bear it?”
“I suffered in silence,” said John, in the tone of a long-suffering martyr.
“I’m serious. I don’t know how to do this.” Sherlock felt swallowed up with terror. John was fine, he was fine, but he had never seemed so fragile to Sherlock. Sherlock looked at him and saw the vulnerability of his skull, the accessibility of his carotid artery, the collapsibility of his windpipe. John Watson was a bundle of exposed deaths, waiting to happen, and Sherlock in response felt like a bundle of exposed nerves.
John looked at him and said, “No one does.”
“But I’m Sherlock Holmes,” said Sherlock, almost desperately. “I know everything.”
“Come here,” said John, after a moment, shifting to make room for him on the bed.
Sherlock needed no further invitation. He’d been practically holding his breath, hoping that John would suggest it. Sherlock clambered onto the bed and plastered himself against John. John winced a bit, and Sherlock said, “Am I hurting you? I’m sorry,” but didn’t move away, because he needed this, needed this closeness, and John said, “No,” even though he probably was hurting him, because John knew he needed it, too.
John spoke eventually, his voice soft. “I want to spend the rest of our lives watching you try to figure out how to do this.”
Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut, breathed John in, and silently agreed.
***
John had progressed to the point of sitting up in bed. He was making Sherlock read his schoolwork to him, because he tired easily enough still that it was trying, and also because Sherlock complained about it a lot and John liked to hear him complain. Sherlock complaining was his natural state, it was comforting, and John loved the rhythm of Sherlock complaining. Sometimes John tried to imagine a future for himself with less complaining, and such a thing seemed like a terrible, gaping void.
His mother and sister stopped by daily, and both seemed to be doing so well that John was almost pleased that he’d gone and got himself shot, if it had given them a wake-up call. Harry plainly didn’t know what to make of Sherlock, and it didn’t help that Sherlock usually curled in a sulky ball whenever they were in the room and radiated a possessive displeasure. John was going to have to call Sherlock on that eventually, but he figured Sherlock had had enough of a scare recently that he was allowed some moments of possessiveness toward him.
John thought his mother didn’t know what to make of Sherlock either, but seemed to be leaning toward disliking him. John thought his mother was probably hoping this whole thing was a phase. Probably, at a certain point, John would have agreed with her. It had never entered his mind before meeting Sherlock that the love of his life would turn out to be a man. He thought it more likely than not now that it was definitely true. He wasn’t entirely sure he was gay, but he was sure that he loved Sherlock, that, so long as Sherlock wanted him, he intended to spend the rest of his life with him, keeping him safe so that he could keep complaining. And his mother would just have to learn to accept that.
John hadn’t seen much of Mycroft. He knew Mycroft was probably pulling strings for him all over the place, because Mycroft was always pulling strings, but he stayed mostly out of the way, which was why, when he knocked on the hospital room door a week after everything had happened, John was surprised to see him.
Sherlock was half-sprawled next to him on the bed, one foot on the floor because there wasn’t quite room for him, The Interpretation of Dreams open in his hands. He paused in reading aloud from it to say to Mycroft, “Did you want something?”
“What are you reading?” asked Mycroft, coming into the room.
“The Interpretation of Dreams,” answered John, while Sherlock scowled over their happy cocoon being invaded.
“How…romantic,” said Mycroft.
“It’s dreadful,” said Sherlock, fervently.
Mycroft chuckled and sat in the chair by John’s bed, setting his omnipresent umbrella next to him. “I wanted to talk to the two of you.”
Sherlock eyed him suspiciously. “This cannot possibly be good.”
Mycroft ignored him, looking at John. “I hear you’ve received an offer from UCL.”
“Yes,” said John. “Conditional, of course, but yes.”
Sherlock was descending into sulking mode next to him, which he always did when the topic of John’s university plans came up.
“Congratulations,” said Mycroft, easily. “But I thought, recent events being what they have been, you might be interested in a bit of a break. A gap year.”
John looked at him in confusion. “A gap year?” The thought had never occurred to him. He couldn’t really afford a gap year. “Doing what?”
Mycroft shrugged. “Whatever you like.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Everywhere. I would pay, of course.”
John stared at him, trying to add up the cost of an open-ended gap year like the one Mycroft was proposing. “I… No. I couldn’t possibly accept—”
“Fine,” interrupted Mycroft, sounding bored. “Don’t think of it as a present then. Think of it as payment for preserving for me a most treasured object.” Mycroft’s eyes flickered to Sherlock.
“I don’t—” John began.
“And, of course, you must accept, because I simply cannot allow Sherlock to take a gap year entirely on his own, he’d get into all sorts of trouble. At least if you’re along with him I can be assured that he’ll be slightly less careless with his well-being than he might otherwise be inclined to be.”
Sherlock straightened on the bed, pouncing before John could react to that. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“Something the headmaster said to me when you were having your melodramatic brush with pneumonia,” remarked Mycroft. “You’re more than capable of taking your A-levels now. As it is, you’re barely attending any divs at all. Why shouldn’t you take a gap year next year? Especially as you have no intention of subjecting yourself to the whims of idiots and attend university the way stupid people like John and I do.”
“Are you serious?” said Sherlock. “You’re not going to fight me on that?”
“No,” said Mycroft.
“Why not?”
Mycroft sighed. “Because we’re on the same side, Sherlock. No catch. A gap year for the two of you. That’s what I’m proposing. Greg would keep taking care of Gladstone, in case you’re worried about him.”
“And what about Moriarty?” said Sherlock. “You’d never let us do this if Moriarty—”
“The issue of Moriarty has been addressed,” Mycroft cut him off, simply, and then stood. “Think about it. There’s no rush. I just thought you might want to be considering all of your options, John, as you try to make decisions about next year.”
John watched Mycroft leave, thinking. He’d never really considered the possibility of taking a gap year. Now it seemed…like a pretty fabulous idea. A gap year, to see the world. All of the places he’d never really thought he’d ever get to see. See the world with Sherlock, instead of going off to university without him, and then come back and start down the path of being a doctor.
“What do you think?” Sherlock asked.
“What do you think?” John countered.
“I think we should do it.” Sherlock sat up suddenly, practically bouncing in his enthusiasm. “I think it sounds brilliant. I’ll get out of Eton, and you won’t have to go to London yet, and we’ll be together. Do you know how much we could see? We could go to all those hot, sunny places you thought about as a child. We could go to Bohemia. And Sumatra! We could go to Switzerland; I’ve always wanted to see the Reichenbach Falls. We could even rent a yacht and see if we could find pirates!”
“Pirates?” echoed John, in bewilderment.
“I wanted to be a pirate, you know.”
“A pirate?”
Sherlock ignored him. “Then we could come back and get a flat in London. I could solve crimes for people, and you could go to university.”
“How very domesticated we sound,” said John, smiling.
Sherlock tossed The Interpretation of Dreams off to the side and rolled carefully onto him. “I’ll keep severed heads in the fridge,” he promised.
“That’s better.”
Sherlock kissed him. “I’ll play the violin at all hours and keep you up.”
John kissed him back. “I’d expect nothing less.”
“Mmm. Sometimes I won’t talk for hours on end.”
“Because you’ll be snogging me?”
“Possibly.”
“Well, this all sounds heavenly.”
Sherlock grinned, his kisses deepening, and John prepared to settle into the sort of lazy, extended snog that Sherlock adored. Except that Sherlock suddenly lifted his head, turned to look at something John couldn’t see.
“What?” asked John.
“Mycroft left his umbrella,” Sherlock said.
“So? Oh, are you afraid he’ll come back to get it? Go and take it to the nurses’ desk for him.”
“No.” Sherlock sounded strange. “Mycroft never forgets his umbrella. He…” Sherlock looked down at John. “He forgot his umbrella.”
John was confused. “Are you…worried he’s, what, sick or something?”
“No.” Sherlock smiled suddenly. “No, actually I’m not worried at all. Now. Where were we?”
“I think we were about to become flatmates and solve crimes together.”
“Ah, yes. It’s going to be so fabulous that people will talk of it for centuries to come.”
“Oh, really?”
“Well, yes, because you’re going to document everything.”
“I’m going to leave out all the shagging we’ll be doing.”
“That’s so Victorian of you, Dr. Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes, and kissed him.
THE END.