Fic: Nothing Lasts Forever 6/?
Feb. 27th, 2011 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nickelsandcoatsTitle: Nothing Lasts Forever 6/?
Author: Sarah/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nickelsandcoats
Rating: R
Word Count: 1650 for this part
Pairings: Sherlock/John
Warnings: ANGST galore, Major character death
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Notes: For this prompt atsherlockbbc_fic: Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?
Some of the section headings come fromhehangs's amazing Sherlock/A Softer World remix, found here. The rest come from A Softer World.
This is a sequel to This Will Have Been Enough—you’ll want to read that one first.
part i || part ii || part iii || part iv || part v
vi. Through your bedroom window you look so sad at night and I imagine that I am what you need, but realize that’s crazy.
Sherlock fell in love with John like this:
After the case with the cabbie and the pills, there was a drought of cases. Sherlock was bored, so he started doing experiments.
John put up with the intestines and liver in the fridge. He did less well with the toes Sherlock put in the toaster.
John was, in nearly every sense, the perfect flatmate. He didn’t complain about Sherlock’s lazing about on the sofa all day (“I’m thinking, John”) or the skull, or the experiments in the fridge (although he did insist that Sherlock keep things in sealed containers and on the bottom shelves; Sherlock complied with an ease that startled him), or the violin concertos at two in the morning.
One of these concertos started early in the day while John was out for his therapy appointment. Sherlock had started plucking fitfully at the strings as John was leaving, and then finally took up the bow and started playing his favorites: Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart. He was lost in thought, body swaying slightly in time to the music when a noise startled him. He turned, bow frozen on the strings. It was John, back from his appointment already.
John was standing in the kitchen doorway, leaning on the doorjamb. He was looking at Sherlock as if he had never seen him before. His gaze was soft and steady, and there was some emotion Sherlock couldn’t quite identify shining in the back of John’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” John said quietly. “But that was beautiful. You play beautifully.”
John’s cheeks were stained red—he was embarrassed to be caught staring at me, Sherlock thought. Instead of pointing out the signs of John’s embarrassment, Sherlock found himself smiling back at his friend and gesturing to the chair John had made his own. “Sit, if you want. Playing helps me think.” He turned back to the window and heard John settle into his chair, cross his legs.
Sherlock drew the bow across the strings and let the music flow from him. When he stopped playing over an hour later, John was asleep in his chair, a smile spread across his face. Sherlock found himself fighting the urge to run a hand through John’s hair, to cup his cheek and kiss his forehead, his lips. He did none of these things. He put the violin back in its case and retreated to his room, but not before indulging in one long look at John sleeping in his chair. He looks so much younger and carefree when he sleeps. I shall have to play for him more often.
And as he shut his bedroom door, Sherlock suddenly recognized the look in John’s eyes as he had leaned against the kitchen doorframe—it was love.
Sherlock was surprised to realize that that knowledge didn’t repulse him as it normally did. He had loved once, and his lover had died. Love only led to heartbreak. But as he sat on his bed and reached for a book, he thought, but John is worth the risk.
*
After his realization that John loved him and that he just might possibly love John in return, John went and nearly burst that feeling.
Sebastian, smarmy git that he was, had just emailed Sherlock out of the blue, asking for his assistance in a robbery at the bank he worked for. Seb’s use of “buddy” in his email made Sherlock snarl and resolve not to help the bastard, but when John leaned forward and haltingly asked if Sherlock could loan him some money, Sherlock changed his mind. He wouldn’t help Seb for Seb’s sake, but it would help John because he could charge Seb for his time, and John could have that money. Mind made up, he swirled on his coat and swept off to the bank.
He made a special point of introducing John as his friend to Sebastian, his own petty way of showing Seb that he could make friends, that he wasn’t relying on Seb anymore. John’s quick correction of friend to “colleague,” stung Sherlock more than he cared to admit to himself. He didn’t miss Seb’s quick quirk of a smile at John’s defensiveness.
*
The case proved to be an interesting one. Whoever had spray painted the warning intended for Eddie van Coon was clever—that window was a long way up.
Van Coon was dead, not surprising. The message at the bank was obviously a code, one that meant something to van Coon, but what was it? John was gone, out looking for a job (dull), and Sherlock, having perused the news sites while waiting for John to come back and act as a sounding board, found another murder, a journalist this time, who died in similar circumstances to van Coon.
When John did return, he had a worrying swagger. He’s found some woman, must have a date, Sherlock thought in disgust. “How was it?” he asked to confirm his suspicions.
“Great, she was great.”
Sherlock’s heart sank a bit. “She?” he asked, lip curling in an involuntary sneer.
“It,” John corrected lamely.
Sherlock pushed his anger deep inside him as they ran all over London searching for more graffiti, more data. You were the one who told him you were married to your work, is it any wonder that he thinks he can’t pursue you, even if he does feel something for you?
It took everything in him not to lean down and kiss John at the railway tracks after he gripped his friend’s head in his hands and spun him around, trying to help him remember what he saw. John disentangled himself and pulled out his mobile, showing Sherlock the picture he had taken of the wall before the graffiti had been painted over.
*
They hit a dead end with the books. Even after staying up all night to sort through Lukis’ and van Coon’s libraries, they still were no closer to cracking the code Soo Lin had helped them with. When John returned from shift at the surgery, Sherlock announced that they were going out. When John countered with his date that night, Sherlock scoffed. “Isn’t that what we do?” he asked in answer to John’s definition of a date.
“No, it isn’t,” John answered. But he looked a little wistful as he said it. Sherlock filed that information away. Take John on a date, he noted, one where there aren’t discussions of crime scenes or ones that aren’t actually stakeouts.
He suggested the circus for their date, and while John had initially shot down the idea, he and Sarah showed up anyway. Sherlock made a point to reserve the tickets under his own name, just to show Sarah that she was the interloper here. To help make that impression clearer, he loomed over her during the date, making sure to lean down and whisper into John’s ear.
While he wasn’t exactly sure how he wanted a relationship with John to proceed, he knew one thing: John was his and he was John’s, even if neither man could admit it yet.
*
Sarah proved to be annoyingly helpful (the woman smashed someone over the head with a stout chunk of wood, for heaven’s sake) in helping to crack the code left at the railway tracks.
When Sherlock ran off to go to the museum to find the book Soo Lin used, John and Sarah were kidnapped by Shan’s thugs. Sherlock never made it to the museum—a tourist couple triggered a revelation—the book was the A-Z! Stupid! Sherlock chastised himself. Of course everyone’s going to have the A-Z. How could I have missed this? He ran back up the stairs to tell John the good news and to show him the translated message. When he burst into the sitting room and saw the gold paint on the window, his heart nearly stopped. He ripped his copy of a London map off his bookshelf and raced off to find John at the black tramway.
*
When it was over, and John and Sarah were untied and helped into a cab, Sherlock was relieved to see that Sarah was throwing off signals of breaking it off with John. He needs the danger and the excitement of the chase just as I do, and she can’t understand that, he thought as he left the two of them downstairs. He heard John call her a taxi, and then heard his feet tread heavily on the stairs.
“We broke it off,” he told Sherlock.
“Ah,” Sherlock said, fighting off a smile of triumph.
“Ah? That’s all you can say after we were kidnapped and nearly died? No, wait, why am I surprised at that. It’s very you.” He stormed off up to his room.
Sherlock just smiled. Now that John would no longer be distracted by a woman, Sherlock could move in. He pulled his violin and played some of John’s favorite pieces as an apology and to ward off the nightmares he knew John would have after his trauma that evening.
When John came down to the kitchen the next morning, Sherlock was hunched over a Petri dish. John brushed a hand over Sherlock’s shoulder in a subtle bid for his attention. “Thanks for playing that, last night.”
Sherlock just smiled.
*
Lestrade stared at his phone. Warehouse? There were thousands of warehouses in London. Typical Sherlock, always cryptic even when hurt.
Which warehouse? I need a bit more than that.
GL
There was no response.
Lestrade let a small sliver of panic creep in. Sherlock always answered texts, especially when he needed something from Lestrade. Something was wrong.
“Donovan!”
“Sir?”
“Get the CCTV feeds pulled. Find out where Sherlock went. He’s at a warehouse somewhere—I’d start at Baker Street and follow him from there. And hurry, he’s hurt and not answering his texts.”
“Yes, sir.”
Outside, it started to rain.
part vii
Author: Sarah/
nickelsandcoatsRating: R
Word Count: 1650 for this part
Pairings: Sherlock/John
Warnings: ANGST galore, Major character death
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Notes: For this prompt at
sherlockbbc_fic: Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?Some of the section headings come from
hehangs's amazing Sherlock/A Softer World remix, found here. The rest come from A Softer World.This is a sequel to This Will Have Been Enough—you’ll want to read that one first.
part i || part ii || part iii || part iv || part v
vi. Through your bedroom window you look so sad at night and I imagine that I am what you need, but realize that’s crazy.
Sherlock fell in love with John like this:
After the case with the cabbie and the pills, there was a drought of cases. Sherlock was bored, so he started doing experiments.
John put up with the intestines and liver in the fridge. He did less well with the toes Sherlock put in the toaster.
John was, in nearly every sense, the perfect flatmate. He didn’t complain about Sherlock’s lazing about on the sofa all day (“I’m thinking, John”) or the skull, or the experiments in the fridge (although he did insist that Sherlock keep things in sealed containers and on the bottom shelves; Sherlock complied with an ease that startled him), or the violin concertos at two in the morning.
One of these concertos started early in the day while John was out for his therapy appointment. Sherlock had started plucking fitfully at the strings as John was leaving, and then finally took up the bow and started playing his favorites: Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart. He was lost in thought, body swaying slightly in time to the music when a noise startled him. He turned, bow frozen on the strings. It was John, back from his appointment already.
John was standing in the kitchen doorway, leaning on the doorjamb. He was looking at Sherlock as if he had never seen him before. His gaze was soft and steady, and there was some emotion Sherlock couldn’t quite identify shining in the back of John’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” John said quietly. “But that was beautiful. You play beautifully.”
John’s cheeks were stained red—he was embarrassed to be caught staring at me, Sherlock thought. Instead of pointing out the signs of John’s embarrassment, Sherlock found himself smiling back at his friend and gesturing to the chair John had made his own. “Sit, if you want. Playing helps me think.” He turned back to the window and heard John settle into his chair, cross his legs.
Sherlock drew the bow across the strings and let the music flow from him. When he stopped playing over an hour later, John was asleep in his chair, a smile spread across his face. Sherlock found himself fighting the urge to run a hand through John’s hair, to cup his cheek and kiss his forehead, his lips. He did none of these things. He put the violin back in its case and retreated to his room, but not before indulging in one long look at John sleeping in his chair. He looks so much younger and carefree when he sleeps. I shall have to play for him more often.
And as he shut his bedroom door, Sherlock suddenly recognized the look in John’s eyes as he had leaned against the kitchen doorframe—it was love.
Sherlock was surprised to realize that that knowledge didn’t repulse him as it normally did. He had loved once, and his lover had died. Love only led to heartbreak. But as he sat on his bed and reached for a book, he thought, but John is worth the risk.
*
After his realization that John loved him and that he just might possibly love John in return, John went and nearly burst that feeling.
Sebastian, smarmy git that he was, had just emailed Sherlock out of the blue, asking for his assistance in a robbery at the bank he worked for. Seb’s use of “buddy” in his email made Sherlock snarl and resolve not to help the bastard, but when John leaned forward and haltingly asked if Sherlock could loan him some money, Sherlock changed his mind. He wouldn’t help Seb for Seb’s sake, but it would help John because he could charge Seb for his time, and John could have that money. Mind made up, he swirled on his coat and swept off to the bank.
He made a special point of introducing John as his friend to Sebastian, his own petty way of showing Seb that he could make friends, that he wasn’t relying on Seb anymore. John’s quick correction of friend to “colleague,” stung Sherlock more than he cared to admit to himself. He didn’t miss Seb’s quick quirk of a smile at John’s defensiveness.
*
The case proved to be an interesting one. Whoever had spray painted the warning intended for Eddie van Coon was clever—that window was a long way up.
Van Coon was dead, not surprising. The message at the bank was obviously a code, one that meant something to van Coon, but what was it? John was gone, out looking for a job (dull), and Sherlock, having perused the news sites while waiting for John to come back and act as a sounding board, found another murder, a journalist this time, who died in similar circumstances to van Coon.
When John did return, he had a worrying swagger. He’s found some woman, must have a date, Sherlock thought in disgust. “How was it?” he asked to confirm his suspicions.
“Great, she was great.”
Sherlock’s heart sank a bit. “She?” he asked, lip curling in an involuntary sneer.
“It,” John corrected lamely.
Sherlock pushed his anger deep inside him as they ran all over London searching for more graffiti, more data. You were the one who told him you were married to your work, is it any wonder that he thinks he can’t pursue you, even if he does feel something for you?
It took everything in him not to lean down and kiss John at the railway tracks after he gripped his friend’s head in his hands and spun him around, trying to help him remember what he saw. John disentangled himself and pulled out his mobile, showing Sherlock the picture he had taken of the wall before the graffiti had been painted over.
*
They hit a dead end with the books. Even after staying up all night to sort through Lukis’ and van Coon’s libraries, they still were no closer to cracking the code Soo Lin had helped them with. When John returned from shift at the surgery, Sherlock announced that they were going out. When John countered with his date that night, Sherlock scoffed. “Isn’t that what we do?” he asked in answer to John’s definition of a date.
“No, it isn’t,” John answered. But he looked a little wistful as he said it. Sherlock filed that information away. Take John on a date, he noted, one where there aren’t discussions of crime scenes or ones that aren’t actually stakeouts.
He suggested the circus for their date, and while John had initially shot down the idea, he and Sarah showed up anyway. Sherlock made a point to reserve the tickets under his own name, just to show Sarah that she was the interloper here. To help make that impression clearer, he loomed over her during the date, making sure to lean down and whisper into John’s ear.
While he wasn’t exactly sure how he wanted a relationship with John to proceed, he knew one thing: John was his and he was John’s, even if neither man could admit it yet.
*
Sarah proved to be annoyingly helpful (the woman smashed someone over the head with a stout chunk of wood, for heaven’s sake) in helping to crack the code left at the railway tracks.
When Sherlock ran off to go to the museum to find the book Soo Lin used, John and Sarah were kidnapped by Shan’s thugs. Sherlock never made it to the museum—a tourist couple triggered a revelation—the book was the A-Z! Stupid! Sherlock chastised himself. Of course everyone’s going to have the A-Z. How could I have missed this? He ran back up the stairs to tell John the good news and to show him the translated message. When he burst into the sitting room and saw the gold paint on the window, his heart nearly stopped. He ripped his copy of a London map off his bookshelf and raced off to find John at the black tramway.
*
When it was over, and John and Sarah were untied and helped into a cab, Sherlock was relieved to see that Sarah was throwing off signals of breaking it off with John. He needs the danger and the excitement of the chase just as I do, and she can’t understand that, he thought as he left the two of them downstairs. He heard John call her a taxi, and then heard his feet tread heavily on the stairs.
“We broke it off,” he told Sherlock.
“Ah,” Sherlock said, fighting off a smile of triumph.
“Ah? That’s all you can say after we were kidnapped and nearly died? No, wait, why am I surprised at that. It’s very you.” He stormed off up to his room.
Sherlock just smiled. Now that John would no longer be distracted by a woman, Sherlock could move in. He pulled his violin and played some of John’s favorite pieces as an apology and to ward off the nightmares he knew John would have after his trauma that evening.
When John came down to the kitchen the next morning, Sherlock was hunched over a Petri dish. John brushed a hand over Sherlock’s shoulder in a subtle bid for his attention. “Thanks for playing that, last night.”
Sherlock just smiled.
*
Lestrade stared at his phone. Warehouse? There were thousands of warehouses in London. Typical Sherlock, always cryptic even when hurt.
Which warehouse? I need a bit more than that.
GL
There was no response.
Lestrade let a small sliver of panic creep in. Sherlock always answered texts, especially when he needed something from Lestrade. Something was wrong.
“Donovan!”
“Sir?”
“Get the CCTV feeds pulled. Find out where Sherlock went. He’s at a warehouse somewhere—I’d start at Baker Street and follow him from there. And hurry, he’s hurt and not answering his texts.”
“Yes, sir.”
Outside, it started to rain.
part vii
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