Title: Of Wit and Warm Water
Author: Jocinda
Pairing: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Raiting: K-11
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Genre: drama, (a tiny bit of) romance
Disclaimer: This is all based on BBC's wonderful tv show called
Sherlock which is written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. I own nothing. (And if I did, John and Sherlock's relationship would be even less platonic than it already is.) Unlike Moffat the Life-ruiner and Godtiss, I get absolutely no money for this.
Summary:
"Sometimes I wish I had a normal life instead of having dead strangers’ heads in the fridge and solving murder mysteries with a violin-playing sociopath. But how could I leave 221B Baker Street now that my home, my job and my best-friend-or-whatever-he-is-to-me are all here?"A/N1: Okay, so... This is an extremely plotless fic. I apologise for that. I just had these certain scenes in my head, and they really needed to be written. Otherwise my head would have probably exploded. Johnlock is one of my favourite pairings of all time, and BBC has made the whole thing ridiculously obvious. The slash pretty much writes itself... Now I'm going to stop this pointless babble and proceed to the actual story. This is the first English fic I've actually put up here and the first Johnlock fic I've ever written, so be gentle.
This fic takes part in the
Slash10 2.0 challenge.
Of Wit and Warm Water
“John, do something! We’re losing him!” I can hear one of my mates shouting, but the explosions make the origin of the sound hard to locate. I start running towards the place where I think the shout came from. I need to turn back after a few steps because another yell cuts the air and I realise I’m running in the wrong direction.
Grenades and mines shake the ground, making my head spin as I run. I haven’t eaten properly in over two days and it’s starting to affect me. I fasten my pace when the shouting voices seem to get closer, even though something tells me I’m already late…
“John, hurry the fuck up!” Paul cries. I can recognise him now as he’s kneeling beside someone with his hands all bloody. “He’s barely breathing!”
I run to the man who’s lying on the ground and try to keep my head cold. Somewhere in the back of my head a tiny voice whispers a name, a name which belongs to the dying man. I know it’s Jeremiah, the youngest of the soldiers. I just can’t afford to think about it now. But when I drop on my knees next to the almost motionless body, there’s something wrong…
The guy is not Jeremiah. I can see dark curls instead of his blonde sleek hair, and the familiar pale eyes. The man looks weird in a soldier’s uniform since I’m so used to seeing him in a long, dark coat with its collars turned up.
I know there’s nothing left to do. The game is over. When the last breath escapes from his lips and his usually so lively eyes turn glassy, my mouth opens into a voiceless scream. Then I’m suddenly falling, falling through the ground and time and space…I wake up gasping for air, almost paralysed with terror. It takes a while before I realise it was all just a dream. My heart keeps racing when I turn on the lamp on my bedside table with shaky fingers.
This is the third dream of Sherlock dying in the war this week. I’m used to having nightmares about the war. I’ve seen too much to
not have them. The thing is, I’ve seen all those horrible deaths and heard the last pleads of my mates in my night-time prisons, but nothing has gotten as deep under my skin as this.
I know why, of course I do. It’s because of the immensely arrogant, annoyingly ingenious show-off who goes by the name of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, who has somehow lured his way under my skin and sailed through my veins all the way to my heart.
When the loud beating in my ears has finally subsided, I can only hear cars driving on Baker Street and wasted people coming out of pubs. Sometimes I wish I had a normal life instead of having dead strangers’ heads in the fridge and solving murder mysteries with a violin-playing sociopath. But how could I leave 221B Baker Street now that my home, my job and my best-friend-or-whatever-he-is-to-me are all here? I’ve been falling down ever since I met Sherlock, and the fall feels endless like that ridiculously long staircase I had to climb during our very first case. My
life is here now. There’s no denying that.
I’m positive that there won’t be any sleeping tonight. I sigh heavily and try to think of something to do when there’s suddenly a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I offer, rubbing my temple and expecting to see a fussing Mrs Hudson entering the room. Shock runs through my body when Sherlock steps inside, holding a glass of water.
“I was awake and heard you waking up after that nightmare of yours. I thought you might like some water,” he explains.
I blink slowly. There’s no use asking him how he knew I was having a nightmare, I’ve learned that much. Sherlock walks to my bed and sits down by my legs, eyeing me disapprovingly.
“You really should stop writing notes for your blog when you’re supposed to go to sleep. I bet your uncultured writing gives you nightmares…”
“How did you know that I do that?” I ask before I can stop myself. Damn it, I just
need to know. I thought my writing habit was something Sherlock wasn’t aware of.
I bite my lip as Sherlock gives me one of his extremely common
how-can-you-breathe-with-so-much-idiocy-in-your-lungs look. I swear if he says something about
observation next, I’m going to punch him in the face.
“Well, it’s quite obvious, isn’t it?” he says instead, reminding me why
obvious is my least favourite word right after
observation.
“You have little ink stains on your fingers, and there are some on your forehead too, because you’ve been rubbing it. That means you’ve been writing something before you went to sleep, and you never write anything else than your blog on the computer or notes for it in a little black notebook which you’ve clearly put in the top drawer since it’s ever so slightly ajar. Leaving the drawer ajar also indicates that you trust no one will come here and read it, which you really shouldn’t do because I’m quite sure there are some questionable things in it which don’t even end up on your blog. Like calling me a
“humongously arrogant self-adoring bastard” and saying that
“even a deep-frozen gargoyle would have more feelings than him”.
Humongously isn’t even a word, by the way. You should know that.”
“You’ve been reading my—“
“Of course I’ve been. Take your water,” Sherlock says nonchalantly and hands me the glass he’s holding. I notice my mouth has fallen open at some point of Sherlock’s incredible babble. I close it just to open it again as I raise the glass to my lips.
“The water is warm,” I point out, knowing that Sherlock has a witty explanation ready but not really caring about that.
“Yes, I would suppose so. After all, I did stand deliberately outside your door for several minutes after I’d heard you gasping and turning in your sleep, which clearly displayed you were having a nightmare. No one would make that kind of sounds during a pleasant dream.”
I’m about to remark that there
are certain kinds of good dreams that make people gasp and turn in their beds, but this is
Sherlock I’m talking to and he wouldn’t understand what I’m trying to imply in a million and one years.
“I also had to wait for a bit after you had woken up to see if you’d fall asleep again,” Sherlock carries on with his analysis without noticing I was ever going to say anything. “You didn’t do that, so here I am with a nice glass of water, and you’re
complaining.”
“Sorry,” I say without being sorry at all. The wonderful glass of water from higher heavens gets placed on the bedside table.
“Apology accepted,” Sherlock says even though he knows there never was one, not really. The sides of his mouth quirk into a smile which I return without a second of thinking.
Silence lands between us, but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s more like a warm, safe blanket which we’re both used to. Sherlock seems to be lost in his thoughts. He’s staring at the opposite wall like it could whisper him all the great mysteries of life. I study his face in the pale moonlight which makes him look somehow far away. The weak light softens his sharp cheekbones while his eyes shine extraordinarily bright. After a while, which could have taken a lifetime, Sherlock turns his face back to me. Our eyes lock, and usually it would feel awkward since I stared at him for so long, but he’s Sherlock and nothing including him is ever usual.
“What were you dreaming about, then?” the dark-haired man asks, catching me by surprise. The question is extremely personal, coming from Sherlock, and therefore a very rare one too.
“The war,” I reply shortly, without wanting to go to the details. I try to avoid his eyes by lowering my gaze to my hands which are fiddling with the brim of the blanket.
I expect Sherlock to tell his theories about my nightmare, but he stays silent. In the matter of fact, he’s quite tactfully looking away from me, giving me time to continue at my own pace. Sherlock is rarely tactful. In fact, he’s
never tactful. But he’s doing it now… For me.
When I realise this, I feel a sudden rush of affection towards the peculiar man who has somehow become the most important person in my life. All the cases we’ve solved together, all the times we’ve quarrelled like an old married couple, all the times he’s made me feel alive in a way I already thought impossible… Everything flashes before my eyes, and I comprehend the overwhelming truth of how much that nuisance of a man really means to me.
Sherlock finally turns his face to meet mine, and that’s when the image of him dying in the dream hits me.
I can now see his bloody chest in my mind, and his pale eyes staring into the distance without seeing anything. Now, of all times, I start to think about living without him. The mere idea knocks the air out of my lungs. For my great terror I can feel tears starting to gather in my eyes.
“John, are you all right?” Sherlock asks, frowning. I can hear the worry hovering over his voice, and my brain refuses to come up with an answer.
No, I’m not okay. I see you dying all over again in my head, and I just can’t stop it. I drop my gaze so Sherlock can’t see my tears. I open my mouth half a dozen times to say I’m fine, but the words just don’t come out. The scene of Sherlock’s death keeps playing in my mind. It’s torturing me, eating me up inside, and I simply
can’t stop the sobs from shaking my body.
When I carefully lift my teary gaze, I see that Sherlock is staring at me, utterly lost as he can only be while trying to understand sentiments. For a moment I see him as that little, ignorant child he truly is on the emotional level. Then Sherlock does something I’ve seen him do on extremely rare occasions.
He leans a bit forward and pulls me into a hug.
Sherlock is certainly not a fan of physical contact. I’ve only seen him hugging Mrs Hudson a couple of times, and she is clearly a special case. For a moment I’m so thoroughly shocked I forget to be upset. Sherlock holds me clumsily in his arms, like a person who has no idea what he’s doing. Which is probably true in this case. Slowly, I put my arms around him and bury my face in his shirt. Tears are still streaming down my face, but I’ve already stopped shaking. It’s curious how a person who’s absolutely rubbish at emotional stuff is also the only person who can calm me down this quickly. I can feel Sherlock’s heart beating. It makes my breathing easier.
For some minutes we do nothing but sit on the bed while silence wraps itself around us. Sherlock holds me just tight enough to make me feel secure. I can smell the unusual scent of his hair. It has probably something to do with the bizarre things he uses in his experiments. The material of Sherlock’s favourite purple shirt feels surprisingly soft against my cheek.
“Don’t fool yourself by thinking I’ve turned into some sentimental simpleton just because of this,” Sherlock suddenly remarks. I can’t see his smile but I can definitely feel it. “I just saw people comforting each other like this on the telly.”
A shaky burst of laughter escapes my lips. Even though I would never admit it aloud, I love Sherlock’s quirky sense of humour. His flippant remarks may irritate other people, but I often find them highly amusing. At least when they have nothing to do with me.
“As if I would ever imagine anything like that… You’re just the same high-functioning sociopath as ever,” I say in a hoarse voice. I smile slightly, knowing that Sherlock will sense my expressions just like I sensed his earlier.
Sherlock chuckles at my remark. Then he retreats a bit so we can disentangle our embrace. I feel ashamed of my watery face and try to swipe it dry with my blanket. Sherlock watches my hopeless antics with an odd look in his eyes. I can’t quite decipher it, though I have a feeling I’ve seen it previously too. Before I can build a deeper interpretation, Sherlock clears his throat and points at the glass of water on my bedside table.
“You should probably drink some more,” he states and points at the glass. “I think it would be good for your voice and throat.”
I accept Sherlock’s request by taking the glass and lifting it to my mouth.
“The water is disgustingly warm,” I say only to annoy Sherlock. Sometimes it’s just way too easy.
“I think some God from the Heaven of Average People has given you the magnificent gift of stating the obvious,” he says dryly, clearly trying not to roll his eyes. Too bad I already know he enjoys this just as much as I do.
“And I think
that is a horrible way of trying to make me feel better,” I remark, trying to sustain the smile that’s sneaking around the sides of my mouth.
“Oh, pardon me. Maybe I should just continue the hugging, like normal people do in their lovely touchy-feely lives.” I can tell by the tone of Sherlock’s voice that he’s supressing a grin too.
Sherlock catches me off guard when he really
does hug me again. He pulls me closer to him and wraps his arms protectively around me. This time it’s a bit less clumsy. I soon find a comfortable position and rest my head against his chest. When I look up to meet Sherlock’s eyes, his breath tingles my face ever so lightly. An unbearable desire to kiss him fills me while I observe his light-coloured eyes, but I don’t surrender to it. I keep the little distance between us instead of closing it. For a moment I wonder how I could thank Sherlock for everything he’s done for me. When he tightens his embrace a bit, I know I don’t need to say anything. He already knows.
So we merely sit in silence, while Sherlock holds me in a way that’s everything and nothing I’ve ever wanted.
A/N2: That's it. Don't kill me for this, please. All kinds of comments are totally my division. You can write them in English, in Finnish, in Armenian... Whatever you like. (All the people who comment this will get a piece of delicious cake
which has been stolen from Mycroft!)
~Joci
