More Than I Am

One day, it happens. He kisses Sherlock Holmes. And the world doesn't end. Angels don't wreak havoc upon the earth. The four horsemen of the apocalypse don't gallop into the flat. The dead don't crawl out of their graves. He just kisses Sherlock Holmes. And Sherlock Holmes kisses him back. It's just a kiss. Countless people have done it countless times before. It's unremarkable, unexceptional. And it just feels like this is fine. Like this is good. Like this is how they're supposed to be.

Five things that John Watson never thought he would do –
Meet someone he couldn't stop thinking about.
Solve crimes with a consulting detective.
Actually write something in that bloody blog.
Play Cluedo until 4am on Boxing Day.
Fall in love with a man.
(But he did them all. Sherlock Holmes had a way of changing things.)

It's not that things suddenly change between them. Because they don't. It's that they've been headed in this direction for a long time. They've been coming closer, slowly gathering momentum, and now it's happened, like it was always going to, one way or another. It could have happened a thousand times already. When Sherlock dragged John halfway around London, and they came home laughing, and John could have pushed him up against the wall and kissed him there in the hallway, breaths heavy. When Sherlock first saw Sarah, and John saw the way he looked at her, mouth tight, pupils constricted, and he could have pulled him into the stairwell, whispered, "I was only trying to make you jealous," and wrapped his arms around him. When Moriarty looked from Sherlock to John to Sherlock, said, "Wrong day to die," and slunk out, and John could have groaned and dragged Sherlock into the locker room, said, "Fuck, Sherlock," and shoved his hands up under his shirt.

It could have happened then. But it didn't. Because John's been lying to himself, desperately lying to himself, trying to pretend that he's not in love, that he hadn't fallen for a madman the day they met, the day Sherlock Holmes first looked at him with those winter morning frost sky eyes and asked "Afghanistan or Iraq?" and it's mad, he's mad, but he's brilliant, so, so, brilliant, and John just can't stop himself from falling for him. Sherlock doesn't look at John, he looks into him, and he sees everything, and that is ten kinds of terrifying and one kind of wonderful. And John gets used to being scared.

John's not John and Sherlock's not Sherlock, because they're SherlockandJohn, and they have been for a while. It means being something more than they are. Something tangled up. Something whole.

Mrs Hudson's the first to know. They have a few days of just them, just SherlockandJohn and everything that means – really, everything, and it's pretty bloody amazing. And then Mrs Hudson brings them crashing back to earth. Sherlock says it's John's fault for leaving the door open, John says it's Sherlock's fault for being loud, Mrs Hudson says it's her fault for coming in to see if burglars were making all that noise, and they all seem to agree on that. Then John puts his trousers back on and makes them all a cup of tea.

They stand in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil.

"If anyone could," says Mrs Hudson quietly, glancing over at Sherlock, who's sitting in his chair, knees drawn up to his chin, "If he – ever had anyone. I thought it'd be you. You're the only one he – he's better, with you."

John nods, smiles, half-understands her. The kettle boils.

"But you – you need to take care of him. I don't think he's ever – had anyone. And if it doesn't – if you don't – he'd be broken. Because – he has you. Just you. You are everything to him."

John spills the hot water, scalding his hand.

"Shit," he swears, dropping the kettle.

His hand's stained red, the burn blooming over his skin.

"Oh dear," says Mrs Hudson, picking up the kettle to make the tea, which is definitely the priority in this situation.

Then Sherlock's at John's side, grabbing his wrist and shoving his hand under the cold water tap.

"It's fine," says John.

"Interesting observation for a doctor," says Sherlock, raising an eyebrow.

His fingers move a little across John's wrist, tightening, his other hand wandering up to John's shoulder, holding him there.

"Really, Sherlock –"

John tries to move but Sherlock holds him a little tighter.

"Basic First Aid. Cool the burn for ten to thirty minutes with cool or tepid water."

John rolls his eyes, but Sherlock rubs his shoulder, his neck, and he relaxes, body sagging against Sherlock's. He'd be embarrassed but Mrs Hudson's already seen far, far worse today. They stay like that for a bit, no words, because they don't need them, with Mrs Hudson clattering around getting hold of the few clean mugs and cups and saucers she can find and pouring the tea.

"Here you are, boys," she says, pushing two mugs towards them.

"Am I alright now, Mr Holmes?" John asks.

Sherlock softens, smiling slightly.

"Should be fine."

He pulls a roll of clingfilm out of a cupboard, wraps some around John's hand, pulls him closer by the collar and kisses him. John blushes and grabs a mug of tea, avoiding Mrs Hudson's eyes. Because he knows that she's right. He is Sherlock's best friend and flatmate and colleague and lover and that's a lot of things for one person to be. He doesn't want to do any of them wrong, but he's scared that one day he might and then it's all gone, Sherlock's gone, SherlockandJohn's gone, and nothing's worth that, nothing.

"What did she say?" Sherlock asks later, when they're collapsed on the floor, half-dressed. (The minute Mrs Hudson finally kissed them each on the cheek and left, Sherlock grabbed John by the shoulders and finished what he started earlier.)

"Hmm?" John mumbles distractedly.

"Mrs Hudson. She said something. It made you burn yourself."

"Oh. Yes."

"What was it?" Sherlock asks, lazily drawing patterns on John's skin with his long fingers.

John shuffles uncomfortably.

"She, uh, made a comment about your backside."

Sherlock frowns.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"I'd – rather not repeat it."

Sherlock gives him a look, then starts laughing. John laughs too, but it's dry and hollow. He doesn't like lying. Least of all to Sherlock.

Sherlock scares him. He scares him so much. He scares him when he gets into one of his moods, when he doesn't talk, sleep, eat, for days, and John thinks that one day he'll actually kill himself. He scares him when he says something brilliant, when John wonders why someone so intelligent wants him, wonders why Sherlock would possibly be interested in his lonely little life. He scares him when he hugs John from behind when he's doing the washing up and leans over to talk into his ear, when John's sitting on the sofa and Sherlock drapes himself over him, head in his lap, legs dangling over the edge of the couch, when John suddenly thinks Oh God Sherlock, I love you. I fucking love you, do you even know that?

But that's what life's like with Sherlock. It's scary and random and fun and mad. It's about as far from perfect as they make it, but this is fine. This is good. This is how they're supposed to be. When John wakes up, he doesn't know if Sherlock's going to kiss him good morning, shout, "St Paul's. Ten minutes," and pull him out of bed, or just sit silently wrapped in the duvet he stole while John was sleeping, contemplating his latest case. (John likes the kissing best.)

They stumble along like they always have done, but it's different now. They kiss in back alleys and fall asleep together on the sofa and brush knees under the table and send inappropriate texts during family functions and have sex in every room of the flat and make out in the back of taxis and sometimes, sometimes it's fucking brilliant and John wonders why they haven't been doing this every day since they met. John Watson is in love with a madman. And the madman is in love with him. (He thinks.)

They have six months like this. Six months of late night takeaways in bed and watching bad TV and running around London and lie-ins and early mornings and bodies and thefts. Six months before Sherlock says something stupid. It's Thursday evening. The windows are an empty black, dotted with blinking London lights, car headlamps, brake lights, streetlamps. John's making dinner, because Sherlock's being an unhelpful git today. He's been in a dark mood for nearly a week, which has thoroughly pissed John off, though that's mostly because he's worried about him, and now he's just lying on the sofa, a flat line, eyes shut, hands clasped together as if in prayer. John rolls his eyes as he rifles through the kitchen cupboards, searching for something to eat.

"Sherlock, where's the pasta?"

No reply.

"Sherlock!"

John sighs and sticks his head into the lounge.

"Are you even awake?"

Sherlock opens his eyes and glares at John in answer.

"Well don't look at me like that," says John, folding his arms, giving Sherlock a look that says I hate you, I love you but I hate you, "I'm the one trying to do something useful and make us dinner."

Sherlock shuts his eyes.

"Not hungry."

John sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying very hard not to go over there and strangle him.

"It's not real, you know."

He says it suddenly, offhand, like it's not important.

"What?" says John tiredly, rubbing his forehead.

"Love."

John looks up suddenly.

"What?"

"I said that love's not real. Not really. It's just human biology. Hormones, endorphins. We just call it love to make ourselves feel better about it."

John says nothing. The silence is thick, heavy. Like someone's thrown a dustsheet over the world. Sherlock opens his eyes, looks at John. Then he sees it. The hurt spreading like a bruise over his face. John's looking at Sherlock like he's just betrayed him. Like he's just taken the most complicated and fragile thing in the world, and broken it. Carelessly dropped it, watched it smash into a thousand splintered pieces. And walked away. Because he doesn't care. He just doesn't care. Sherlock takes a breath.

"John –"

"You don't love me."

The words fall out of John's mouth, sharp and hard, and hit the floor. They lie there, and Sherlock doesn't pick them up, doesn't try to fix this.

"You just – don't."

John takes a long, shuddering breath in.

"Right. Fine."

Sherlock can see John pulling himself back together. He does it hastily. Taking the broken bits of himself and putting them back in place. He's holding himself together with string and glue and twisted paperclips.

"I don't – I don't know why I thought you did."

He smiles, all blunt edges and open cuts.

"It's not like you would love someone. It's not like you do that kind of thing."

He shrugs, looks down.

"It was stupid of me."

John shakes his head, mutters, "Stupid, stupid," under his breath, like a secret he wants to throw away.

He looks up, meets Sherlock's eyes.

"I'm going out," he says, his voice barely level.

Sherlock nods, because he can't think of anything else to do. John nods back and leaves. He forgets his coat. It's a cool June evening, the wind ruffling his hair. He leans heavily against the door and breathes, just breathes, looking up at the blank sky. He feels like crying. But he doesn't dare let himself do that. This hurts enough already.

When John goes, Sherlock screams. He screams and throws himself at the wall, nails and teeth cutting into the wallpaper. Because he's broken something, and he doesn't know how to make it better. He can't treat it like a burn. There's no simple way of fixing it. It's just there, this ugly hole between them. And he doesn't know what to do.

Five things that Sherlock Holmes never thought he would do –
Meet someone he couldn't stop thinking about.
Solve crimes with an army doctor.
Be written about in a strangely successful blog.
Play Cluedo until 4am on Boxing Day.
Fall in love.
(But he did them all. John Watson had a way of changing things.)

He never thought he'd have someone else. It's terrifying. John scares him. He scares him so much. He scares him when he gets angry at one of Sherlock's moods, when Sherlock wonders why anyone would want him, why John would possibly put up with him, with his lonely little life. He scares him when he's working something out and John looks at him like he's something special, like he wants to hold him close and kiss him until they fall asleep, and Sherlock knows that he doesn't deserve him, not one bit. He scares him when he leans up on tiptoe to kiss him before he leaves the flat, when he crawls into his lap and curls up there, when Sherlock realises that they fit, they fit each other perfectly. And then he wants to say stupid things like I love you. And it's stupid because he doesn't. He doesn't love John because he can't. Because love's not real. He can't pretend it is. He can't lie.

John doesn't come back. Not for a while. Not for days. But he does come back. He comes back because he can't not be with Sherlock. Because if a world exists where they don't belong to each other, he doesn't want to be a part of it. Because once he knew how to be without Sherlock, but he's long since forgotten. Because he loves Sherlock Holmes, even if he doesn't love him in return, and if he has to live unloved, it will be with him, and that will be enough. It will have to be enough. He comes back, and Sherlock's broken. More than he can say. John's his best friend and flatmate and colleague and lover, his one person, his. He's better with John. He makes him more than he is. Something tangled up. Something whole. And he can't be without him.

John lets himself in on Monday night. Sherlock's lying on the kitchen floor. He's spread-eagled, pale arms stretched out on the cool tiles. There's stuff scattered around him like fallen leaves, papers and clothes and books and broken plates. His eyes are closed.

"Where have you been?"

The words are flat and quiet.

"Sarah let me stay for a few days."

"That was good of her."

"She wanted to make sure I was alright. I was a bit of a state when I turned up on her doorstep."

"You were hit by a bus."

"Yeah. I was a bit."

Sherlock cracks an eye open. He looks at John, for a second. At the torn jacket, the sling holding his arm, the black eye, the scuffed shoes. Analysing him. He shuts his eyes again.

"You look dreadful."

"You don't look so great yourself."

Sherlock shrugs.

"I've been on my own."

And that's it. In three seconds, this is all going to fall apart. They're going to fight and scream and hurt. And Sherlock doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to fight John. Because he couldn't bear to lose him.

"I missed you."

He opens his eyes. Sits up on the dirty kitchen floor.

"I missed you too," says John.

Sherlock holds out his hand, stretches his fingers towards John.

"John," he says simply, "Please."

John looks at him for a minute. Sherlock's almost childlike, sitting there, eyes wide and expressive, holding out his hand. John crosses the room, takes his hand, stands there, looking down at him.

"I swear to God, you'll be the death of me," he says, voice barely a whisper.

Sherlock looks up, lips twisted into a small smile. John laces their fingers together, tangles them up in each other.

"I'm sorry," says Sherlock, "I'm scared."

John frowns.

"What's scaring you?"

Sherlock fixes him with those soulful grey eyes. He doesn't look at John, he looks into him. Ten kinds of terrifying. He says one word.

"You."

He blinks, bites his lip.

"You make me more than I am. You make me whole. And I don't know how to be if you're not there."

John kneels down in front of him, moves his hand to touch his face. Wonders why Sherlock can't just love him. Why it can't be that simple. Why it can't be SherlockandJohn until they stop breathing.

"And is that – is all that – just hormones? Hmm?"

Sherlock shakes his head.

"No. It's real. I don't understand this. But it's real."

John pushes his hand into Sherlock's hair, the way he did when he first kissed him.

"Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it can't be beautiful."

He shakes his head.

"Why do we do this, Sherlock? We must be mad. Why can't we just be?"

Sherlock covers John's hand with his own.

"We could make a start on that."

John smiles. It's not an I love you, and he doesn't know if he's ever going to get one of those from Sherlock, but it's something. Something real.

And Sherlock puts a hand on the back of his neck and kisses him, and somehow they end up sprawled on the kitchen floor, amongst papers and clothes and books and broken plates, and John's arm is broken and Sherlock doesn't love him and this is as far from perfect as they make it, but they're together, they're home, and this is the way they're supposed to be. Sherlock holds him close and kisses him until they fall asleep. He swears to himself that he is never going to be without John again. It's funny, the promises we make, thinking blindly that we will be able to keep them.

The next day, Mrs Hudson hugs John and says, "I'm so glad you're back, dear." Then John puts his trousers back on and makes them all a cup of tea.

Life goes on. Sherlock gets everyone to sign John's cast, which is intensely annoying, because everyone wants to join in, and honestly, you're meant to be forensic analysts, shouldn't you actually be analysing forensics, and it's only when he finally gets the damn cast off that he sees Sherlock's written SH + JW inside a heart on it. Harry comes over to visit and she gets a little drunk and eyes up Molly Hooper and asks Sherlock if his intentions towards her brother are honourable and tells John to love him because no-one else does. Sherlock starves himself for a week working on a case and John spends that week worrying and the next force-feeding him tomato soup and telling him he's an idiot and kissing him. Molly smiles and looks at them like she wants to hug them both and asks John when his sister's back in London. Sherlock changes his answerphone to, "The number you have called is not available, because he is trying to have sex with his boyfriend. You can leave a message, but I'm not going to listen to it. Goodbye," and Lestrade threatens to do another drugs bust if he doesn't change it. Harry calls when they're in Tesco's and John grabs the phone from Sherlock and shouts "I can't believe you fucked Molly! Do you have any self-restraint?" in the middle of the deli aisle and doesn't understand why the shop assistant escorts him off the premises. Sherlock plays the violin for John one evening and it's far too beautiful for him to understand.

And then, one day, it happens. He tells Sherlock Holmes that he loves him. It's been a year since they first kissed. It's silly, really. They both know it anyway. Even if Sherlock said he didn't. John still kept hoping that he did. He just had to give him time. He just says "I'm in love with you". And Sherlock says it back. It's just three little words. Countless people have said them countless times before. It's unremarkable, unexceptional. It's a wet morning in January, and Sherlock presses him up against the kitchen table and kisses him thoroughly.

"Whatever happened to love's not real?" asks John.

"John Watson happened. He changed things."

"So you were wrong."

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"What do you want me to say?"

He kisses him some more, which is enough to distract him for a while. Until John pulls away and holds him at arm's length.

"I want you to say that you love me, and I love you, and we're going to love each other until we die."

Sherlock takes his hands and kisses them.

"John," he says, "Always."

John Watson is in love with a madman. And the madman is in love with him. And that is enough. It is more than enough. It just feels like this is fine. Like this is good. Like this is how they're supposed to be.