Chapter Text
It all starts, as most things John-related do, with the conclusion of a case.
He and John are pressed together in a tiny booth in a pub across from Scotland Yard’s finest and Sherlock is frankly appalled that he allowed himself to be subjected to something as asinine as drunken conversation. Anyhow, John is laughing at something Lestrade’s said, face lighting up in a way that Sherlock cannot help but find delightful. He has an expressive face, his John, and his eyes gleam midnight blue in the dim pub lighting. Sherlock can’t look away.
“Right, Sherlock?” John’s turned to him now, placing a hand on his arm. Sherlock blinks, baffled, and John laughs.
Their thighs are pressed together underneath the table and Sherlock privately thinks that spending time in this hovel might just be worth it for this sort of proximity. Not that he’ll admit it, of course. He’ll be complaining the entire way home; not even the Christmas spirit and its dubious existence could persuade him otherwise.
Home, because that is where John belongs now. Sherlock has never been particularly prone to flights of fancy, but he swears that even the flat looks brighter with John around. Dust motes caught in the sunlight across the living room carpet have never looked more delightful than when John is lounging in his chair beside them, his hunt-and-peck typing adding to the domestic ambience.
It feels right that he’ll be here for Christmas. Sherlock isn’t sure if he can suffer through another holiday with nothing but the skull for company.
He watches John’s profile as he downs another drink. John’s been doing something with his hair lately, slicked it back with a little swoop, and something flutters in Sherlock’s stomach at the sight of it.
John leans closer. “You alright? You’ve been awfully quiet tonight.”
“I’m fine,” he says, and takes a ginger sip of his beer as proof. It tastes like chlorine. “Having the time of my life.”
John snorts. “Forgive me if I find that slightly hard to believe.”
“You also found it hard to believe that the woman in the green dress was the killer, yet here we are.”
John had spent the entirety of the interrogation staring at her in what he thinks is a subtle manner but is really about as inconspicuous as a neon sign declaring his heterosexuality, interest and availability.
John shrugs, unrepentant. “To be fair, you were the only one who even suspected her.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “That’s because everyone else was too busy admiring her figure.” Does he sound jealous? Possibly. Oh, dear. Bit Not Good, that.
Thankfully, John is probably the most oblivious man Sherlock has ever met, at least in this sort of situation. He can determine whether or not a woman is single within seconds and then proceed to sweep her off her feet, oh yes, but the minute a man enters the equation, he’s slapped on the back and offered a pint before he can so much as drop a hint. Sherlock would know. Not from personal experience, mind- no, he’s had the misfortune of witnessing a few too many of their male clients flirt with John for his liking. John, naturally, has remained unaware. His suitors tend to give up rather soon, though, after John’s staunch heterosexuality becomes evident. And for the slightly more persistent ones, after a bit of prodding from Sherlock. Which is just as well- whoever ends up with John ought to be willing to fight for him. (Which Sherlock is. But that’s neither here nor there.)
Sally Donovan returns to the table with a clattering tray of refilled glasses and Sherlock winces at the noise. She’s clearly inebriated, judging by the Santa hat that has made its way onto her head, and the old Sherlock would have made a comment but Sherlock now keeps his mouth shut. She’d apologised after his return, sincerely and profusely, and it appears that the word “freak” has been left in the now-distant past. In return, he saves his snipes about her love life. They acknowledge each others’ competence and professionalism and sometimes Sherlock wonders if he’s taken this whole maturing thing a bit too far.
There are still giggles at crime scenes, though, and he still pokes fun at John's horribly alliterative blog titles. There are still lazy rainy days indoors with John’s awful movies and lazy nights after adrenaline-fuelled cases with takeaway and tea. Some things don’t change, and Sherlock supposes that it is he himself who has come back different, he who is stiller now like a lake smoothed out after a storm.
But he has his life back now, he has John back, and even if their relationship isn’t exactly what Sherlock wants, he is more than happy with friendship again.
John nudges him with an elbow, bringing him out of his reverie. “I don’t suppose you need a refill?”
Sherlock looks down at his mostly-full glass. “As always, you have a knack for asking questions with obvious answers,” he says, but there’s no heat to it. It’s a running joke at this point- he pokes fun at John and John feigns annoyance for two seconds before laughing with him.
“Git,” John says good-naturedly, and drinks half his glass in one go. He’ll be leaning on Sherlock by the end of the night. (Brilliant.)
“Anyone up for a drinking game?” Lestrade calls. He’s a loud drunk. Sherlock mentally bangs his head against the table and delays his estimated time of departure by an hour.
“Never have I ever?” Donovan suggests, and there are nods of assent around the table.
“I’ll start,” the new desk sergeant says, possibly over-eagerly (wants to impress Donovan, good Lord), and giggles as she flicks her ponytail over her shoulder. “Never have I ever gone skinny dipping.”
Lestrade drinks, unsurprisingly- the man has a dark past- as does John and another of the officers whose name Sherlock has forgotten.
“Never have I ever Googled someone before a date,” says the officer, and Sherlock tunes everything out after that. He hadn’t needed to Google John. Although they aren’t dating, so the point might be a moot one.
He eyes John’s drink and wonders if it tastes any better than his. Probably. There’s no way even someone with taste like his would drink this rubbish. Anderson probably poisoned his glass.
“You’re such a lightweight,” John says close by his ear all of a sudden, and Sherlock realises that his glass is mostly empty and that his vision is slightly blurry.
“‘M not drunk,” he retorts, and to his horror his words are slurred. “Not drunk,” he says again, emphasising the “t” and “k” consonants. John laughs and slides a hand into Sherlock’s hair to ruffle it, and Sherlock’s brain goes offline for two blissful seconds. He’s aware that he’s goggling at John like an idiot, even after John retracts his hand, because this is not something they do. John does not just give out casual hair-ruffles and Sherlock does not casually receive them. Yet here they are, post-ruffle, and John is smiling in Lestrade’s direction again and he does not seem to have grasped that this is a momentous occasion for Sherlock. Why isn’t it a momentous occasion for John, too?
His scalp is tingling and so are his lips for some reason and God he really needs to stop staring at John’s. He tears his eyes away.
Lestrade is looking over at him with a suspiciously smug expression so Sherlock schools his face and studiously does not take another sip of his chlorine-beer. He wonders when he finished the glass.
“Never have I ever kissed someone of the same gender,” Lestrade says with A Look between him and John, and Sherlock is uncomfortably aware of eyes on him as Donovan and the desk sergeant drink.
(Sherlock is frankly surprised that Lestrade himself has never kissed a man, given his inordinate interest in Mycroft, of all people. Oh, God. Not a mental image he needed. He shudders. Delete.)
Take that, Lestrade. He hasn’t drunk and neither has-
“Fuck you, Greg,” John laughs, ruddy-cheeked. He drinks.
The ensuing beat of silence is the longest Sherlock has ever felt.
“Well,” Lestrade says brightly. “Whose turn is it?”
But Sherlock barely hears him over the white noise in his head. John has kissed a man. John, for whom being not gay is as much of his personality as tea and jumpers. John and a man who is not Sherlock.
He grits his teeth, fingers curling into the worn seats of the booth.
Sholto.
♡
Sherlock turns the matter over and over in his head as he and John bid the Yard farewell and climb into a cab. There is something like curdled milk in his stomach despite the (thrilling) way John is leaning against him in the backseat, and he internally curses Lestrade for bringing up the subject.
Not Gay. Apparently something’s happened to that self-definition because the John Watson of two years ago- hell, the John Watson of two months ago would never have freely admitted to having kissed a man.
Sherlock had picked up on his latent bisexuality years ago, that was true. But he’d always thought that, if John ever chose to pursue a man, it would be him.
There’s always something.
“That was fun, wasn’t it?” John asks, and Sherlock’s heart stutters in his chest when he turns to look at him. John’s eyes are bright through that lazy half-lidded gaze Sherlock secretly loves (just like the stag night, oh God), and Sherlock’s fingers curl against the seat again, this time not out of anger but simply to stop himself from reaching out.
“If that was your idea of fun, I shudder to think what your idea of punishment is,” he says, injecting his characteristic snark into the sentence, and as hoped, John laughs. It’s a crystalline sound, and Sherlock wishes he could bottle it up and keep it forever.
“You had fun, admit it. You even got drunk.”
Sherlock scowls. “I don’t get drunk. The beer tasted horrible, by the way. I hope you made Gavin pay.”
John collapses onto his side with giggles. Sherlock likes happy-drunk John. Happy-drunk John acts the way Sherlock imagines he would if the two of them were lovers, all unintentionally flirtatious looks from beneath his lashes and lopsided smiles that make his eyes shine like sunlight on an ocean.
He leans in closer. “We can’t giggle, it’s a taxicab.”
And that sets them both off, for some reason, and all at once they are years younger, gasping with laughter against the walls of 221B.
I love you, Sherlock thinks, but the words form a noose around his throat. So he thinks them in silence as London blurs past and the silver moonlight falls lovingly across John’s face in an invisible caress.
♡
Lestrade calls them in the very next day. There’s been a murder, a grisly case involving a dead man, barbed wire and a singed letter still enclosed in his fist. It’s a seven at the very least, and Lestrade wants their help interviewing the solitary witness.
“You’d think the bloody criminals would cut us some slack just before Christmas,” John grumbles as he shrugs into his coat. “My head is fucking killing me.”
Having anticipated John’s hangover, Sherlock hands him a steaming mug of tea. John blinks down at it suspiciously. “You made tea?”
“No, John, it’s not poisoned,” Sherlock says exasperatedly. “If I really wanted to poison you, I’d use a method you wouldn’t anticipate.”
John squints. “Is that meant to be reassuring?”
“Yes,” Sherlock says pointedly. “Now drink, I’m calling a cab.”
He can feel the beginnings of adrenaline pump through his veins, and judging by the look on John’s face as they get in the cab, so is he. They’re both desperate for excitement, it seems, despite the gruelling case they’d just wrapped up yesterday.
Lestrade is waiting for them by the interview room, a cup of coffee in hand. He looks worse for wear; he clearly stayed out well after them last night, not having anticipated a murder the day before Christmas Eve. His crooked tie is the same rusty red as Mycroft’s favourite; Sherlock can only hope that the universe is, for once, lazy enough for a happy coincidence.
Lestrade nods at them in greeting and hands them the case file. “Witness is in there. Next-door neighbour to the victim. He found the body. Donovan’s the primary interviewer; feel free to interject, ask additional questions et cetera.”
“Got it,” John says, and Sherlock can almost feel the energy vibrating from him. He hides a smile.
“Lead the way, Gerard,” he says, just to make John snicker, and Lestrade gives him an exasperated look before pushing open the door.
The sandy-haired man opposite Donovan looks up as they enter, and both Sherlock and John freeze. The man is wearing a stylish black turtleneck rather than a military uniform and his hair has grown out from its harsh cropped cut, but his identity is unmistakable.
“James,” John breathes, and, to Sherlock’s chagrin, his face shows nothing but open delight.
“John,” he returns warmly, pale blue eyes fixed on John as though nothing else exists, and God damn it, his chiselled features are more accentuated than ever by his new haircut. He looks relaxed, confident, and poised, and Sherlock is almost afraid to look John in the eye for fear of seeing longing there.
Last night’s revelation returns to the forefront of his mind, conjuring image after horrifying image, and Sherlock curses James Sholto for the second time in twenty-four hours.
He comes to the conclusion that he is at an all-time low.