Work Text:
It happens on a sunny day, three months after.
The after: his divorce.
The day: the tenth of June.
Sherlock has his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows and has just levered himself up from standing over a bloated corpse that rests on the fetid shore of the Thames. Quite downstream, really, very out of the way. Sherlock had complained the entire cab ride there but John could tell - from the gleam in his eye and the spring in his step - that he was positively giddy for it.
John, in turn, became quite giddy as well; it had been eons since they’d had a proper case (fail the burglaries and the forgeries and the adulteresses - and that last one Sherlock had insisted John take a shift at the clinic for, never he mind, get out) and the day was splendid for a trip to the river.
Gruesome crime scene notwithstanding.
John stands back with Lestrade and lets Sherlock do his thing, waiting for the inevitable moment when he will be called forth to assist with this or that, or just to simply marvel at one of Sherlock’s grand deductions. In the meantime, he turns his face up to the sun, just as Lestrade does, and enjoys the rays.
They both ignore the stench.
It’s easy enough, after all of this time.
When John flicks his eyes open - allowing for a period of pupil readjustment - he finds Sherlock staring at him, an oddly placid, tiny thing of a smile on his face. “So,” John asks, his voice meandering and lazy, just in time with the flicker of the breeze. “What’s the verdict?”
“Jumper,” Sherlock murmurs, and Lestrade’s eyes open as well, staring across the expanse of gravel-laden rock shore to where Sherlock stands. “Note, in his pocket, in a plastic bag. Suicide.”
Sherlock doesn’t say any of the things he usually says when the murder turns out to be a dull old suicide; he doesn’t say “Shame,” or “Blast,” or “Really, Lestrade, even the most rudimentary of police work would have ruled out murder.”
Instead he inverts his head towards Lestrade and bids him good morning, striding up to John and lightly taking him by the elbow in order to lead him away. John might think it strange, that something was amiss, but the day is too perfect and Sherlock is smiling and smells remarkably good, clean and spicy with just the barest sharpness of sweat.
John - quite frankly - can’t be arsed to care if anything at all is ‘not quite right.’
He allows himself to be led, up the rough, shale steps, back to the mossy pathway that leads to the sidewalk. Neither of them speak, but they fall into step like any two people who have been around one another for this long do. John’s one-and-a-half to Sherlock’s full stride, and they make their way the ten minutes back to the main road, where it will be easier to hail a cab.
John glances over to Sherlock, who glances back and then diverts his gaze to the cars that pass. John wants to mention things, to ask things, to tell Sherlock that the streaks of auburn in his hair are very, very apparent under the sun.
But all he says is, “That was quick.”
Sherlock responds lazily, with a drawn out, “Yes.”
They bask for a moment, in the warm morning sun, as they wait for the cross signal. “We could walk up to Trafalgar, go to that Indian place that you like,” John suggests. It’s two and a half kilometers, but he’s in comfortable shoes, and Sherlock has run blocks and blocks in his Ferragamos.
“Alright,” Sherlock says, and it’s the air in which its uttered, casually and carefree, that gives John pause. They’re halfway through the crosswalk and so he waits until they’ve arrived safely on the other side to voice his concern.
John slips his hands into his pockets - it’s nearly too warm to be comfortable - and slows the pace even further. “You’re different today.”
“Am I?” Sherlock asks, kicking at a bit of pebbles.
“Hmmm,” John hums and then his knuckles knock against the back of Sherlock’s and he stops moving, Sherlock having to pull up short and take a pace back to him. “You know you are; out with it.”
The right side of Sherlock’s mouth tips up and he looks out over the river, as though having a conversation with himself, a bit of ‘I know something you don’t know.’ When he gazes back down at John, his eyes glitter, twinkle, pick up all of the light shining off of the water and refract it tenfold. “I wanted to wait.”
“For what?” John inquires, feeling a bit off-kilter, a little bit unbalanced.
“Three months is long enough, yes?” Sherlock asks, biting at his bottom lip only the tiniest amount; if John hadn’t been watching his mouth, he wouldn’t have been sure it had actually happened.
John’s focus it still on Sherlock’s mouth when his brain supplies the words that his voice gives speech to, “For what?”
“I love you,” Sherlock murmurs conspiratorially, but bounces up onto the balls of his feet with energy, grin smeared across his face. He’s incandescent; it hurts to look at him. “I’ve been waiting for - oh you know, all of the websites say there’s a right time, after what you’ve been th - but I love you. There.” Sherlock frowns, purses his lips and considers. “Three months too soon, surely but, there you have it and-”
“I’m sorry, says who?”
Sherlock’s pulled up short by this. “By, th- what?”
“Who says it’s too soon?” John asks, feeling just as incandescent as Sherlock looks.
“Oh,” Sherlock thinks for a moment, face falling, forehead creasing. “Everyone, all of the dating sites and the divorce,” he gives the word a withering little sigh, “forums.”
John looks up into the sun and it stings. It takes a few moments for him to come to terms. Sherlock had said it at his wedding, so long ago, with a voice so sincere and heartbreaking that John felt as though he’d been split right down the middle with the force of it. Now, now he wagers that Sherlock means something entirely different, something more. Maybe he’d meant it then, too.
“How can you want this?” John breathes, finally dipping his chin and reengaging their gaze. “How?”
“Excuse me?” Sherlock asks, thrown for a loop the second time in as many minutes. It’s delightful to see him so out of his element; John cherishes it for a guilty, stolen moment.
“I just don’t, after all of this time.” He breathes in, breathes out, feels pain, elation and fear all warring for dominance in his chest. “How can you want me?”
The scoff Sherlock spits is loud and John’s eyes blow wide at the heartiness of the sound. “Please do not speak so derisively of yourself in front of me.”
It’s an instant thing, the way John’s head tilts back and he barks a laugh, hearty, from the gut. “No, no, I think I’m great. It’s just, you’re just... you. Look at you. Sherlock Holmes. All these years and you’re-”
Sherlock is up on the balls of his feet again, all excitement and spastic kinetic energy. “And you’re John Watson,” he says, voice breathy with awe and intent, like he’s reiterating something that John just does not understand.
John stands back, leans against the railing. Below him is the Thames River, above him the sky, in front of him, the hustle and bustle of London traffic. “Sherlock?”
“Mmmmmmmm,” he hums, attention suddenly caught by a cab that blows through a red. He torques his face back towards John, “Yes!”
“What in bloody hell took you so long?” He’s all smiles, a thousand, a million watts. “No, I’ve no right to ask that,” John considers after a moment.
Sherlock’s voice is low, sad, an ember that is burning out. “No.”
“Sherlock,” John tries again.
“Yes?”
“Are you going to kiss me?” It’s a playful tone he’s taken, but he’s entirely serious. He wants Sherlock to confirm it, wants the man to growl “Yes,” before he ducks in and takes.
Sherlock bites his bottom lip, hard, and a bit of the mirth seeps out of John at the sight of it. “I don’t want to take a misstep here, John. I’m not entirely certain I know what to do.”
Near them, a car horn blasts and they both cringe at it. John considers some more, a bit lost himself. “But you always know what to do. Always.”
“I can’t be wrong about this.” The auburn in his hair flashes and John watches it as Sherlock’s voice dips, so serious. A hand reaches out and John remembers not to flinch away, instead relishing as Sherlock’s thumb strokes down the length of his right cheek.
“Sherlock,” he adopts his most firm, Captain Watson tone, and with a judicious, lightning-fast nod of his head, instructs, “kiss me.”
So Sherlock does, dipping his head, in plain view of a God neither one of them believes in and all of London. It lands off-center, teeth clip lips and it’s not romantic or poetic or good at all because they’re both grinning like utter idiots.
Another car horn bleats; they can’t be sure if it’s at them or at someone’s poor driving etiquette.
Sherlock pulls back and John presses at his slightly-tender lip with the pads of his fingers. “Right, yeah, let’s try this while we’re not smiling like loons?”
Sherlock tries to look all business, straightens his shoulders and thrusts them back, wipes imaginary dirt from the fabric covering his torso and regards John in what John knows is an attempt to look collected and in full control of his faculties. “Quite right.”