and i am not looking for wreaths or for bells

Title: (I don't want) happiness by halves
Characters: Sherlock/John
Rating: R
Word Count: 3000
Summary: John Watson is the king of second best.
Notes: Written for trope_bingo for the free square I am dubbing "Pining+" and betated by the inestimable tiltedsyllogism




When John is seven years old, his best friend is James Wilshire. They always end up next to each other in classrooms and queues that are organised by alphabet, and it seems natural, after that, to become friends.

They do all the usual best friend things: competing on the swings to see who can go higher; making sticks into guns and rocks into hand grenades; climbing trees; playing football. Their teachers say to them things like, "It's as if you're brothers" and "I know if one of you's in trouble, the other one's not far behind."

Then, when they're both eight years old and in their third year of primary school, a new student enters their class. His name is Ryan Whitman. He blocks John's view of the blackboard and stands between him and James when they queue up for class. He brings to school a remote-controlled aeroplane, pocketfuls of small die-cast toy cars, and extra candy bars packed in his lunch that he is always happy to share. During recess he uses a long, pointed stick to draw lines in the dirt that transform into roaring lions, howling wolves, lunging tyrannosaurs, and giant robots punching other giant robots.

John is, at first, just as enamored as everyone else, but eventually his thoughts turn to a tree behind the school that begs to be climbed. He and James have been trying to get to the top, but always after a certain point they get called inside, or one of them becomes frightened. He tugs on James' shirt as the other boy kneels in the dirt.

"Not right now," James says, shrugging off John's hand. "He's going to draw a pterodactyl next."

"But I need your help to get to the third branch," says John.

"Ask someone else," says James.

John does not ask anyone else. Everyone is gathered around Ryan Whitman, watching as he scratches a long, leathery wing in the soil. John goes home, and is quiet at dinner, and does not ask James to play again.

-----

When John is 16 years old, he asks Cynthia Eckhart to the winter formal. She is blond and medium-breasted, with a pretty smile and a cute laugh.

"Oh," she says, tucking a golden curl behind her ear. "Let me think about it."

John swallows, stammers out something like "Okay" or "Thanks," he doesn't remember later, and tries not to look as if he knows that his ears are red. They go on their separate ways to class, and all through Maths all he can think about is the shape of Cynthia's mouth, her sweet smell, and how she'll feel pressed up against him when they slow-dance at the formal.

After school, Danny Shipton ribs him and says, "Did you hear? Cynthia Eckhart asked Terrence Hudson if he was going to take her to formal. Wow!"

John's thoughts freeze. He swallows and says, "Really? What did he say?"

He thinks it must have come out all wrong, but Danny only says, "Turned her down; he'd already asked Sarah Ludgate." Danny clucks his tongue against his teeth. "I might ask her myself. Think I've got a chance?"

"No idea, mate," says John, but Danny is taller than John, and fitter, and has more money.

The next morning, Cynthia says to John that yes, she'd love to go to formal with him. John is genuinely elated; after all, Cynthia is very pretty, and he doesn't really have anyone else in mind.

-----

When John is 21 years old, he hurries home from the bus stop, ducking his head in the rain, and walks in on his girlfriend snogging with his sister on the couch.

He can't quite decide if he wants to yell Harry's name or Clara's, and so the strangled cry that comes out of his mouth is some combination of both and neither. The two women spring apart with guilty expressions and hunched shoulders. Clara's mouth is bruised red around the edges; she tucks her hair behind her ear and won't meet John's gaze. Harry clutches the back of the couch until her knuckles go white.

John looks from one to the other and then back again, and then he turns and leaves.

He lets his feet take him down darkened streets, past noisy, gold-lit pubs and quiet, tree-shadowed parks, until his socks squish in his shoes and he fears he won't be able to find his way back. Only then does he retrace his steps to his parents' house, where Harriet and Clara are nowhere to be seen. He sheds his sodden clothing, takes a long, hot shower that does nothing to ease the cold lump in his heart, and goes to bed, where he closes his eyes but does not sleep.

Harry apologizes the next day. Clara is not there. John asks if Harry loves her; Harry replies that she does. Harry says that Clara makes her want to be a better person. Harry says that she thinks Clara's the one. Harry says that she hopes John will forgive her, someday, but she understands if he doesn't.

John asks if Harry will excuse him and does not wait for her response.

Two years later, Harry and Clara marry, or rather, have a civil ceremony, same-sex marriage not yet being legal in England. John smiles and raises his glass. He does not say: actually, Clara was mine first. He does not say: Remember that time I came home and found you two snogging on the couch, and Clara was actually my girlfriend at the time?

Instead, he says, "I can't think of two people that I want to be happy more."

-----

When John is 27 years old, he exchanges handjobs with a young man in the supply tent, among the penicillin and boxes of nitrile gloves. They exhale through open mouths, eyes closed, and afterward exchange a single, unexpectedly tender kiss. Then they button their trousers and leave, John going first, and the young man counting 'til 100 and following after.

John doesn't ask the man his name or age or affiliation; he doesn't ask if they'll do this again, whether he'll see the man around sometime, or for any contact information. He probably has a girlfriend waiting for him at home. A lot of them do.

-----

When John is 37 years old, he meets Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock guesses--no, deduces--John's past, cures John's limp, and gets into more trouble than a man is generally worth. But John knows that Sherlock is worth everything, so he aims and fires without a second thought, and afterward sleeps the sleep of the morally untroubled.

Sherlock thought John was flirting, that first dinner; he wasn't, but message received nonetheless. And so for the next few years, John goes on meaningless dates, insists to Irene Adler that they're not a couple, and hides Sherlock's cigarettes. He receives no medals, no honors, and is a blurry figure in the background of most of the photographs. When the Scotland Yard detectives ring his phone, they're never looking for him. John prefers it that way. He's not a genius; he doesn't require an audience.

Somewhere in the middle of that, Sherlock kisses him. It's not aggressive, or clumsy, or any of the ways John might ever have imagined that Sherlock might kiss, if he ever imagined Sherlock kissing. It's matter of fact, like this is something Sherlock knows he gets to have. It lasts exactly long enough, and then Sherlock pulls away while John blinks up at him, dazed.

"Acceptable?" Sherlock says.

John licks his lips. "Yes," he says, hoping that means he'll get to kiss Sherlock again, and he does.

Sherlock's self-assurance applies to the bedroom as well, and afterward John lies sweaty and drowsy in the sheets and says, "I thought you said you were married to your work."

"I did say that," Sherlock agrees.

John opens his mouth. He closes it. Then this is? he could ask; So have you changed your mind? is another. But he doesn't ask. He draws the pillow closer under his head and closes his eyes. Sherlock does not ask him to leave, and so he stays.

-----

When John is 42 years old, he punches Sherlock in the face.

He's not trying to minimize damage this time, and Sherlock's head snaps back, leaving blood on John's knuckles. Before John can get in another blow, Sherlock catches John's wrist in one hand and brings his forearm up to strike against John's elbow. John finds himself flung against the doorframe, and then Sherlock wraps both long arms around John's body and John goes limp. Sherlock hauls them both inside, locks the door, sees John to his chair, and retires to the bathroom to clean up his face. John sits and tries to contain all the feelings welling up inside of him.

Sherlock emerges damp-faced from the bathroom and goes to the kitchen. He stands with his hands on his hips, surveying the cupboards, and opens the one to the left of the sink and gets down two mugs.

"What are you doing?" says John.

"I'm making tea," says Sherlock. "I'm dying for a proper cup of tea." He checks the water level in the kettle and sets it to boil.

Then Sherlock stands in the kitchen, leaning one hip against the counter, drumming his fingers against the top. He's dressed in a ratty grey hoodie and skinny jeans and black trainers. His nostrils are still pink around the edges. John wonders if he's dying. Oxygen deprivation can cause hallucinations.

The kettle clicks. Sherlock pours the water. He waits approximately one minute before fishing out the teabags, adding sugar to one of the mugs, and bringing them into the sitting room. He gives one--the sugarless one--to John and takes a seat in the one wooden chair. There are only two chairs in the entire flat: a wooden one that goes with the small table, and the armchair that John is sitting in now. A man living alone does not need more chairs than that, generally.

Finally, Sherlock opens his mouth and words spill out: about his clever magic trick that day, about seventeen countries, about crooked card games and gun-running operations, about stowing on a cargo ship from China to Seattle, about severing the last quivering strands of a web spun by the spider Moriarty. John thinks, too late, that he ought to be taking notes, so that he can blog about it later, but he can always ask Sherlock for the details again later, can't he? Sherlock will still be here tomorrow, won't he? And the day after that? And all the days after?

Night falls, and Sherlock is still talking; they've ordered out for Chinese, and it's almost like old times, Sherlock recounting the details of some fantastic case, the air redolent with greasy smells and Sherlock gesturing with his chopsticks. John's heart is too full. He grabs Sherlock by the wrist and feels for the pulse there, strong and certain under his fingertips. Sherlock looks startled at first, but his gaze soon softens, and he turns his hand so that their fingers intertwine.

And John never asks but what about me? Did you ever think about me?

-----

When John is 59 years old, he nearly dies.

He used his body up when he was young, and now he has nothing left but aching joints, a cracked and stitched-together shoulder that throbs in cold weather, and innumerable scars. His eyesight is still good, for his age, but that's all; his hearing's been damaged by years of close-quarters explosives and gunfire, and it's his hearing that nearly costs him his life.

The knife is already wet with blood by the time Sherlock comes tearing around the corner. John doesn't see what happens to the thug, though he can guess from the scuffling sounds, the ring of a blade against the pavement, the wet, heavy thuds. Then Sherlock comes and touches John's face and says, "They're coming. Just hang on."

John focuses on breathing, and on the feel of Sherlock's fingers against his cheek. He can still feel them, when the ambulance comes wailing into the night.

When he wakes in hospital, Sherlock is by his bed, looking pale and grave. He has John's hand in his.

"We can't do this anymore," Sherlock says.

John nods. The effort exhausts him, and he closes his eyes. There will be weeks of recovery and rehab after this, perhaps months. He's gotten slow in more ways than one. Too slow to keep up with Sherlock, who though he must suffer the same aches and pains as John does, still sparkles with wit and brilliance that John never possessed. John's the body man, the one who has his back in a scuffle, or was.

"Do you want to stay in London?" asks Sherlock. "Or we can move to the countryside. Or to another city."

John opens his eyes. He shapes "What?" with his mouth but no sound comes out.

Sherlock's hand tightens around his fingers. "I'll be too tempted to work, if we stay in London, so I'd recommend a move out of the city."

John stares.

Sherlock looks down at their joined hands. "Quite right. We'll wait 'til you're home to discuss it."

-----

When John is 61 years old, they move to Sussex.

They find a cottage that's set back from the road quite a ways, so they have a feeling of privacy, but isn't so far from the nearest town that it'll be a chore to get eggs or milk or bread, or that emergency services won't be able to respond in a timely fashion. (Sherlock is not going to give up his scientific endeavours, after all.) Their closest neighbour, a sheepherding gentleman by the name of Ben Hurst, lives a kilometre away, and all around there seems to be little more than green fields and country lanes.

Those first few weeks, John wanders 'round the cottage in disbelief, even though those are their books on the shelf and Sherlock's scientific paraphernalia set up in the second bedroom and both their names on the deed. He wakes every morning expecting Sherlock to be gone, or expecting to find himself back in the hostel, and all of Sherlock--every infuriating, brilliant, maddening second of him--to have been a dream.

But Sherlock is still there. He composes violin sonatas, teaches Ben's sheepdog new tricks, and examines soil samples from around the neighbourhood. He keeps bees, of all things; he names the hives Wagner and Beethoven and Mendelssohn and plants a garden of mint and lavender for them to feast on.

And he does, in fact, take cases. They have wireless put in the cottage, with Skype always on, and takes calls at just about any hour of the day or (unfortunately) night. Most of them he sends away with a curt word, and some he solves after a simple recitation of the facts. The few that require extra effort--legwork, as Sherlock calls it--are dealt with on a case by case basis.

"Will you come?" Hopkins demands. Lestrade has retired to easier, less dangerous pastures, and this new generation of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed detectives exhaust John just to look at them.

"It's almost certainly Pryor," Sherlock murmurs, plucking at his lower lip, his eyelids at half-mast. "And if it's Pryor, then Killick isn't far behind."

The names are not unknown to John. Pryor and Killick are rising stars in the fields of forgery and fraud and thuggery; less elegant than Moriarty, but no less willing to use violence. Killick in particular is a bear and a butcher of a man. John would have had no fear of him twenty years ago, but that was twenty years ago. Now it's winter, it's raining out, his shoulder aches, and his aim is not as steady as it used to be.

Sherlock's gaze darts to John. "What do you say? Do you want to go?"

John struggles to sit up straight in his chair. The fire is warm. "Sure. If you want to. Sounds like a lark."

Sherlock keeps looking at John, as if John has not yet answered. He blinks once, slowly, and turns back to Hopkins. "You're on your own."

"Wait--but--"

"Bring enough men and lie in wait for them in the basement of the First Bank, and you'll catch them in the act. You hardly need me there for that." He shuts the laptop.

John stares. "What?"

Sherlock stands with a crackle of his knees and stretches, his back letting out a cacophony of pops. He comes to loom next to John's chair and holds out his hand. When John does not immediately take it, he shakes the hand a little with an imperious, "Come."

John takes the hand and lets himself be heaved out of his seat. "Where are we going?"

"To bed."

They make love that night with a slow intensity, and John lies sprawled on his back afterward, reminded of something, some time. It comes to him after a few minutes, and he says, "You said, once, that you were married to your work."

"Mmm? Oh, yes, I did say that," Sherlock agrees, his eyes closed.

John opens his mouth. He closes it. He rolls to face Sherlock.

Sherlock opens his eyes, drowsy at first and then sharp. A tiny line forms between his eyebrows. "Are you asking me to marry you?"

"No," John says, but he knows he took too long to say it.

Sherlock gives him that long, slow look again. "We can do," he says, quietly. "If you'd like."

"Yes," says John. He sighs out a breath and realises he is grinning. "I think I would. Very much."

---end---