Archive of Our Own ^beta

John is floating.

The sea is warm and blue, crystal clear. He closes his eyes and inhales the salty water deep into his lungs. He could stay here forever just like this, perfectly warm and content and weightless and free.

There is a tapping sound and he opens his eyes. One small black and white striped fish hovers in the water before him, dorsal fins arched high in warning. It swims into his face mask over and over again, its tiny eyes wide with fear and determination.

"What is it?" he asks, his voice strangely clear despite the water in his lungs.

The fish gestures with one small fin. John sees nothing, but the sense of dread remains and he flails, thrashes his arms and legs, and swims as hard as he can for the surface. He breaks through it, leaping high into the air, and lands on his sofa.

The world rights itself slowly, but the tapping remains, persistent and rhythmic. John opens his eyes.

The door. Who would be knocking on the door of 221B Baker Street on a Tuesday afternoon? He doubts it's a reporter; they haven't bothered him for weeks now, not since the day he punched one in the jaw. He crosses to the window and parts the heavy drapes. The afternoon light streams in, harsh and sharp, and it takes his eyes a moment to adjust. He looks down.

A young man is standing on the pavement, looking anxiously up at the door. He knocks again and turns to look up at the window. The moment he catches sight of John is clear: he waves his arms frantically and points down the street. His frayed jacket opens with the movement and John's eyes fix on the black and white stripes of his shirt beneath.

The sense of dread from the dream fills his head, and he bolts down the stairs.

"Doctor Watson?" the man says, nearly vibrating with anxiety. He's a boy, really, now that John has got a closer look at him.

"Yes."

"It's Mr. Sherlock Holmes, sir. He's in terrible danger. You must come with me at once."

John looks at him disbelief for a moment before anger sparks in his chest, bright and hot. "I don't have time for jokes." He begins to close the door, but the boy jams a foot inside.

"Please, it's not a joke. He told us to fetch you if anything happened, and it has, so I'm here, just like he asked, and -- please."

John clenches his jaw, glares back at the boy with all the restraint he can muster. "Sherlock Holmes is dead."

The boy looks up at him with wide, dark eyes, and shakes his head, his expression undeniably earnest. "He ain't dead sir. Not yet."

John stares back at him, and the blood drains from his face.

*****

"You called?"

"My love, my dearest, my darling." Jim Moriarty studies his reflection in the full length mirror as he straightens the black tie at his throat. "I have a job for you."

Sam frowns and folds her arms across her chest. "Yeah, I figured."

Jim's hands smooth down the perfectly tailored jacket and fasten the buttons closed. His eyes meet Sam's in the mirror. "I need snipers, the best you've got."

"How many?"

"Three. And you, of course."

"How soon?"

"A week." Jim turns to face her, his smile simultaneously sweet and menacing.

Sam resists the urge to look away. "I can have three of the best in the world in London as early as the day after tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that expense is not an issue."

"The best assassins are such divas, aren't they?" His voice shifts to a mocking lilt. "I'm the best, Daddy always flies me first class!. I just adore hired killers, don't you?"

Sam forces a smile. "Of course."

He steps forward and tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear before leaning in close, hot breath brushing against the shell of her ear. "You're my favorite, though. Shhh, it's a secret." He steps back, and she schools her expression into something as close as neutral indifference as possible. "I've saved the very best job for you, my pet."

Sam's eyebrows lift at that. "You want me to kill Holmes?"

Jim's expression darkens, and his lips form a pout. "Darling, I'm disappointed. You know that Sherlock is all mine." He takes her hand in his and presses it against his hip, uncomfortably close to his groin. "Just like you."

She smirks and lets her fingers slide across the fine fabric of his trousers to trace the soft outline of his penis beneath.

He pushes her away with an annoyed scowl. "Oh, honestly, is that all you ever think about?"

"Not all." She leans back against the doorframe and laughs, relieved that he didn't call her bluff this time. "Sometimes I think about all the trained killers I can round up with a single phone call."

"Be a dear and text me when they arrive."

"Of course." Her mind is already spinning, working out details, logistics, sorting through the files in her head. "Anything else?"

He turns back to the mirror and directs a selachian smile at his reflection. "It's showtime. How do I look?"

"The fairest of them all, as always." She stands at ease and waits to be dismissed. She's learned the hard way not to turn her back on Jim Moriarty.

*****

Sherlock stares up at the dank cement above his head and shifts uncomfortably on the thin blanket. Sleep is impossible under these conditions, but he supposes he shouldn't complain. Not even Mycroft could have kept him as well hidden as he's been this last week. Hell, Mycroft doesn't even know where Sherlock is at the moment – and that's how it must be, at least until Sherlock is certain.

There is a snore in the darkness to his left, and somewhere beyond that is the unmistakable sound of skin-on-skin, accompanied by soft panting. Sherlock rolls his eyes and says nothing; Lewd told him to fuck off the last four nights, and he has no reason to expect it to be any different tonight.

A shadow moves across the wall beside him and he turns onto his side, one hand already wrapped around the handle of the pistol he keeps hidden under his coat. A dark form drops into a crouch a few feet away, and waits.

"Mr. Holmes, you awake?"

"What is it?"

Solicitous looks back over his shoulder, and then turns back to Sherlock. "She's been spotted again, not far from here."

Sherlock pushes to his feet and tucks the gun into the waistband of his trousers, then pulls his coat on. "Where?"

"Edge of the park. I think someone saw you, tipped her off."

"Who?"

Solicitous swallows, his face ghostly pale in the dim light. "It wasn't one of us, if that's what you're thinking."

"I wasn't." Sherlock shoots him an annoyed look. "I'll slip out the back."

"No, come with me." Solicitous gestures toward a side tunnel, one that surely leads even deeper into the sewer.

Sherlock's eyes narrow as he peers into the darkness. He trusts these kids, as distasteful as it feels to acknowledge it. They know how to hide, how to evade the authorities. They've kept him well hidden so far, and they know these tunnels far better than he does. He pulls the gun from his trousers and hefts the handle against his palm. Its weight is reassuring, even if the smell emanating from the tunnel is not. He nods.

Junkie and Paranoid awake as they step carefully past, and they scramble to their feet to join. Sherlock shakes his head, points back to the tunnel entrance, and they nod. They'll play the part should the sniper come looking, and stall her long enough to allow Sherlock to escape.

Twenty minutes later Solicitous pushes up a grate and they climb out into a dark alleyway.

"I know a place, a safe house." He pauses, frowns. "Well, safe enough, anyway."

Sherlock glances up and down the alleyway. "Let's go."

*****

Sherlock stares down at the handkerchief clenched in his fist, still wet with blood that is not his own, and exhales. "She saw."

Mycroft sighs and settles the delicate porcelain cup back into its saucer. "You're certain?"

"Yes. I'm not sure if she was placed there to alert the others when I'd jumped, or if she was the sniper trained on John, but I know she saw my escape."

Mycroft sifts through the photos in the file, lips pursed. "Could you identify her?"

"Possibly. I only saw her for a few seconds." Sherlock frowns and focuses on the memory. It shifts, dissolves again, and he closes his eyes. "Caucasian, short blonde hair, five-five at the tallest, slight build. She was dressed in black that day, carried what appeared to be a Winchester Magnum, and her lips were very, very red."

Mycroft raises an eyebrow. "An assassin who wears lipstick?"

Sherlock opens his eyes again. "Apparently."

Mycroft places half a dozen photos on the table between them, turns them around so they're oriented in the right direction. Each is a field shot of a woman's face, some clear, others grainy. Sherlock's eyes slide over them one by one, and then stop.

"That one. That's her."

Mycroft sits back in his chair, steeples his fingers. "Samantha Moran. Canadian, recruited to the Royal Marines, completed special training, was discharged following a classified incident in Fallujah in 2004. She disappeared shortly after, and became a person of interest to the government again in 2008."

"And to Moriarty as well, I assume." Sherlock stares at the photo, committing it to memory. "She knows I'm alive. And, I assume, that Moriarty is dead."

"So the question is, what will she do with this information?" Mycroft's eyes narrow. "I'll put a team on her, bring her in for—"

"No, not yet." Sherlock pushes the photo back across the table. "She may yet lead us to the remains of Moriarty's web."

"She may also use John to get to you."

"Perhaps, but I think she'll try to find me first. If I make her chase me, let her get close enough, then maybe—"

"Oh for God's sake, Sherlock. You're using yourself as bait?"

"Give me a month. I'll find out what she knows." He stands, plucks his coat from the chair on which it was draped. "Keep an eye on John, will you?"

Mycroft sighs heavily. "At least let me help you."

Sherlock's smile is cool. "I'll need a gun."

*****

"You were advertising all the way through the trial. You were showing the world what you can do."

Moriarty smiles at him, catlike. "And you were helping. Big client list: rogue governments, intelligence communities, terrorist cells. They all want me." He pauses and lifts a slice of apple to his mouth, balanced precariously on the edge of the knife. "Suddenly, I'm Mr. Sex."

Sherlock watches him, taking it all in, every nuance, every tiny gesture. He has to keep Moriarty talking, for as long as possible. "You don't want money or power – not really. What is it all for?"

Moriarty grins, almost leers, and leans forward in his seat. His voice lowers to a stage whisper. "I want to solve the problem – our problem; the final problem. It's gonna start very soon, Sherlock. The fall."

He whistles then, a single note falling, and then Sherlock is stepping off the roof of Bart's, stomach twisting sickeningly as he plummets toward the pavement. Above him Moriarty watches, gleeful. His lips do not move, but Sherlock hears the words all the same: I will burn the heart out of you.

Sherlock's eyes fly open, adrenaline coursing through him. He's tucked under his coat on the filthy sofa in the safe house, surrounded by the hapless kids of the Homeless Network who've taken it upon themselves to protect him these last two weeks. He's not oblivious to the danger they've put themselves in, of course, and he's done his best to repay them with information, skills, and the occasional bit of adult perspective that they're all sorely lacking.

The sky is growing light even now, the nights far too short in the middle of summer, and he half-sits. Across the room, Lewd is already getting started on a morning wank.

Paranoid sits up, pulls her jumper over her head, and casts Lewd an annoyed glance. "Oi, can't you do that in private?"

"Fuck off."

Dull sits up next to her and fans at the air in front of her face. "You lot are disgusting, you know that?"

"It wasn't me this time." Flatulent's muffled voice comes from somewhere to Dull's left, and she scowls in his general direction.

Sherlock laughs softly, unable to help himself. These mornings are strangely reminiscent of his boarding school days. He'd made no effort to learn the names of his classmates then either, had just given them names based on their most annoying characteristics.

At least this time, he doesn't say the names aloud – John wouldn't approve. He closes his eyes as warmth spreads through his chest at the thought of him. Just a bit longer and he'll have this mess sorted, and he can go home to John again, can repair the damage he's done, that Moriarty has done.

There is a shuffling sound as several of the kids dress and head out of the house through a doorway that leads into the narrow alley behind. Off to make their way in the world one more day, to hustle and score and do whatever it is they do to survive, all while keeping an eye out for Moran.

"Off to the mines," says Fatuous. "Laterz."

Sherlock snuggles back down under his coat, hoping to get a bit more sleep, but it's no use. His brain has been switched on, and there's nothing to do but start the day. He shifts into a more comfortable position and stares up at the ceiling of the abandoned row house, his home for the last week. So far, it's been surprisingly secure.

Too secure. He frowns and sits up. Solicitous is at his side a moment later, his permanent expression of worry threatening to etch lines into his face.

"It's been too quiet," Sherlock says. "I'm going out."

Solicitous makes a sound like a groan. "Let me look around for you. If anyone sees you—"

"Perhaps I want to be seen." Sherlock fishes on the floor for the bottle of water he keeps there, and gives his mouth a rinse. "She'll think I've left the country soon."

"Why didn't you?"

"I could have done." Mycroft had the papers ready, had arranged for transport to somewhere in Sweden. Sherlock shakes his head. "But while Moran is out there, John is in danger. I have to finish this here, now. I can't go abroad and wait for it to fade from public memory."

Solicitous nods, looks away. "Does he know?"

"That I'm alive? No, I don't think so." He pauses, swallows down the memory of John standing in the graveyard. "And he can't, not unless it's absolutely necessary." He turns his head to see Solicitous watching him again, and wonders for a moment if he answered the correct question.

"I'll follow you today. Just in case."

Sherlock starts to protest, but then thinks the better of it. "Just in case."

*****

Sam watches the scene unfold through the scope of her rifle. The two figures on the roof opposite nearly seem to dance; they circle each other more like Tangueros than mortal enemies. She looks away briefly, surveys the street below, the rooftops nearby, but there is no sign that anything unusual is about to happen. In fact—

The crack of the gunshot startles her, but her training kicks in and she has the sight trained on the figure on the roof once more. There is only one man standing now, though, and he is pacing rapidly, distraught. It's Holmes, and she can't see Moriarty at all. Her finger presses the trigger of the rifle just slightly, enough to disengage the safety, and she waits.

Holmes moves to the edge of the roof, raises his mobile to his ear, and appears to be speaking into it. She watches him for a moment through the scope, and then realizes he's looking down at the ground, at something – someone. Watson is standing below, looking up, mobile at his own ear, shaking his head.

She scans the area quickly, uncertain if the sniper on Watson is here. She presses a button on the headset in her ear, but before she can say a word, there is a shout from the street and Holmes is falling, falling. He falls out of her sight, behind a large lorry parked in front of the hospital, and the crowd on the street reacts, recoils, scrambles into action.

She sits back on her heels and exhales, and presses the button on the headset again. "It's done. Stand down."

She looks to the roof again, waiting for Moriarty to appear, gloating from his position above it all. He doesn't, though, and dread begins to fill her gut. He wouldn't have missed this, the sight of Holmes leaping to his death like a puppet. She climbs up onto a chimney to get a better look. There is a dark shape on the roof, motionless, and she nearly loses her grip on the bricks at the realization. She swings her rifle around, heedless of who might see her from here, and aims it toward the body on the roof. Through the scope she sees him, skull blown open, blood splattered across the concrete.

Her heart is pounding now, her brain spinning. This wasn't the plan. She has no idea what to do, how to proceed. She turns back to the scene below and sees a dark figure dash around the corner, just out of her view, and she freezes in disbelief.

He couldn't have done. It's not possible. She just saw him plummet from the roof of a six-story building, and yet – she dashes across the roof and leans over the side of the building to get a closer look. It is indeed Holmes, alive and well, and glancing around the corner to where a crowd of people are still gathered, still shrieking about what they'd seen.

He looks up then and sees her, and without even thinking she puts the rifle to her shoulder and aims.

And just like that he's gone again, sprinting to the other side of the street where she can't get a clear shot. She can only hear the sounds of shoes pounding the pavement as Sherlock Holmes runs away.

*****

John is running, his heart in his throat.

The boy is running in front of him, and John wonders why he didn't think to hail a taxi. No time, anyway, and to his surprise, they turn down a narrow alleyway not a quarter of a mile from the flat. John's lungs are burning and his knees will be killing him when the adrenaline wears off, but for now he focuses on putting one foot in front of the other.

He tries not to think about what he will find when he stops.

*****

Moran is in the bar, has been for an hour. Sherlock and Solicitous sit on the pavement outside, cardboard sign on the ground in front of them declaring them a homeless father and son. Sherlock has left his trademark coat behind at the safe house, instead wearing Junkie's military surplus overcoat. He has the hood pulled up over his head and sunglasses on, and he and Solicitous sit and wait.

Every now and then one of them risks a glance inside to where Moran sits at a corner table talking to a man with a shaved head.

"This is exciting shit, you know." Solicitous tries unsuccessfully to tamp down his grin. "Always liked this sort of cops and robbers thing. Me dad used to watch it on telly. It's the only thing I remember him ever smiling about."

Sherlock gives him an appraising glance. He can't be much older than 16, but he's clever and resourceful, and Sherlock trusts him as much as any adult he's ever met.

"I don't remember my father smiling much either."

Solicitous takes this as an invitation. "I'm guessing yours didn't spend every other year in prison. Unless it was a posh sort of prison, anyway."

Sherlock shakes his head. "My father is dead."

Solicitous turns to look at him. "Mine too. Drugs, they said. Left me mum with five kids and not a penny to do a thing with any of us." He pauses as a couple walks by; the woman gives them a sympathetic look, but nothing more. "I reckoned she'd be better off with one less to look after, so I took off the day after I turned thirteen."

"Have you spoken with her since?"

Solicitous half-laughs. "I rang her up when I first got to London. She asked if I'd come back at Christmas. To visit."

Sherlock parses this bit of information, unable to prevent himself from thinking about what he was doing at that age. Rather advanced academic work, certainly, but he was in no position to take care of himself. He could barely do that as an adult. Not until John, anyway. He quashes that train of thought. "Did you?"

"Nah."

The door of the bar swings open and Moran's drinking companion exits, his back to them as he walks away. They duck their heads and wait, but Moran doesn't follow. After a minute, Sherlock risks a glance into the bar, only to find the table empty.

"Maybe she went to the loo?" Solicitous says, craning his neck for a better view.

"I don't think so. C'mon." Sherlock stands and heads around the corner, down an alleyway towards the back of the bar.

*****

Sam sits on the floor of the shower and lets the hot water rain down over her head.

Dead. Moriarty is dead, and Holmes is alive, and Samantha Moran is lost. She turns her face up toward the spray and opens her mouth, lets the hot water run over her tongue and teeth for a moment before spitting it out again.

She's been made a fool, by both of them. Moriarty used her to carry out his plan, perhaps all the while knowing he might not come down off that roof. He'd neglected to mention that detail, filling her head instead with the plans he had for the two of them after. The world would be theirs, he'd said.

And then there was Holmes, still skulking about, taunting her with his survival. He could have left the country, could have disappeared. He crafted the perfect opportunity for himself, and he didn't even have the decency to follow through.

Her name is shit now, and she knows it. She'll get the blame for this, and no one will hire her again. It's hard enough being a woman in this warped world, but a woman who stood by and watched as her employer was killed, and still didn't get the job done? She shakes her head and groans, and pounds her fists into the tile beneath her.

She has to finish the job. Holmes has to die, and she has to be the one to do it. If she can do that, every assassin-for-hire in the world will have to respect her, will know that she is not to be fucked with.

She has to kill Sherlock Holmes.

*****

Sherlock flattens himself against the brick side of the building and listens. He hears nothing at first, and then footsteps, light ones, brisk – like a slight woman running away. He motions for Solicitous to wait behind the rubbish skip, and starts around the corner, gun in hand.

The sound of the gunshot is the first thing he hears, and the pain in his shoulder doesn't register until he's on the ground. She's on top of him by then, leering, her brown eyes sparkling with menace.

"Lest you think I'm a bad shot," she says, holding up a hypodermic needle, "that was only meant to incapacitate you. This is what's going to kill you. I'm led to believe it's a most unpleasant way to go." She tears at his shirt in search of an injection site; the force of it wrenches his arm and sends waves of pain through his body. He twists beneath her, but despite her size, she has no difficulty restraining him. She bares a shoulder and jabs the needle into the flesh of his uninjured arm, and he grits his teeth.

"Gerroff!!" he hears, and a blur of raggedy boy flies over him, knocking Moran off to the side. It gives him just enough time to aim the gun at the wrestling pair of them, rapidly becoming blurry.

"Toby!" he shouts, the name coming to him from some corner of his brain, and Toby rolls aside, leaving him with a clear shot at Moran.

He aims for her knees.

He misses and hits her right hand instead.

She howls in pain, and the world begins to turn dark. He stumbles, pulls the syringe from his arm, and looks at it. He only got a small dose, but even that could be lethal. He has to think now, but he can't; the world is twisting, pulling itself out from under his feet, and the only thing that comes to his mind is John, that John will soon stand by his real grave, and will hate him for dying twice.

He blinks up at the face hovering above him. "John."

*****

"Don't be scared. Flying's just like falling, except there's a more permanent destination." Moriarty's smile is smug, indecent.

Sherlock stares back at him for a moment before deciding he's had enough. "I never liked riddles."

"Learn to, because I owe you a fall, Sherlock." Moriarty's eyes glow nearly red, and he holds out his hand, opens it to reveal an apple, bright red and shiny, far too perfect to be real. "I owe you."

Sherlock looks at the apple, and he finally understands. He smiles then, laughs, and takes the apple as Moriarty stares at him in disbelief, holds it up to the light. He looks back at Moriarty, whose face is twisted into an expression of slowly dawning horror. "No, Jim. You don't owe me anything."

Sherlock raises the apple to his lips and takes a bite.

*****

John rounds the corner to see Sherlock lying on the ground behind a rubbish skip, pale and still. He doesn't think or feel or pause even for a moment; he simply acts.

He first checks breathing and heart rate, and both are present. The gunshot wound to the shoulder isn't as bad as it first appears; it passed straight through and miraculously seems to have missed bone and major blood vessels. There isn't enough blood loss to explain Sherlock's apparent loss of consciousness, though: he needs more information. And he needs help.

He whirls on the boy who brought him here, and holds out his mobile. "Ring 999 and tell them we have a gunshot victim who is unconscious." The boy blinks at him for a moment and John shouts, "Now!"

The boy complies, tapping furiously at the buttons of the mobile, and then practically shouts into it. John doesn't hear the words spoken, doesn't process much beyond the fact that Sherlock is lying here on the ground, clinging to life right before him. Sherlock, who ought to be a cold corpse in the ground; Sherlock, whose grave John has visited a dozen times in the last few weeks, whom he's cried over and grieved for, and here he is, right in front of John, and not dead.

Yet. The word hangs heavy in the air around him, palpable in its near-certainty, and John looks around, frantic. He sees it then: a syringe on the ground, filled with golden liquid. He picks it up, examines it, but hasn't a clue what it could be.

"It was her, the sniper," the boy says, kneeling down beside John now. "We was tailing her and she gave us the slip, and Mr. Holmes, he said we had to look around back, and he went first, and she shot him." The boy pauses, clearly frantic with worry. "She jabbed him with that and I knocked her off him and he shot her, shattered her hand. She ran off that way—" He gestures toward the street curving around the building. "—and he called for you. All I could think of was to run and fetch you. I know I should have gone for an ambulance, but—"

"No, it's fine, you did fine." John examines all the exposed skin he can see, and finally locates a puncture wound in Sherlock's upper arm. "Whatever the hell this was, it packed a punch. It doesn't seem like he got very much of it." He presses his fingers to Sherlock's neck again. The pulse feels weak, but it's there, and that, God, that — it hits him all over again that this is Sherlock and he is alive, and might even be fine.

The emotion wells up within him then, spills over, and he gathers Sherlock's torso up in his arms and pulls him against his chest, and presses his forehead against Sherlock's hair. Sherlock's skin is warm, and he definitely needs a shower and a shave, but John doesn't care.

"Sherlock, can you hear me? Wake up, Sherlock, come on. Stay with me. Help is coming, and I'm here, and you're going to be fine, do you hear me?" He brushes dark hair off of Sherlock's pale forehead and drinks it in, the sight of the face he never thought he'd see again.

Sherlock is so warm and real and there, and something possesses John at that moment: he presses his lips against Sherlock's and holds them there, still.

This is real. Sherlock is alive. And John will do everything he can to keep him that way.

The lips beneath his move and fingers tighten against his sleeve, and John draws back in surprise. Sherlock's eyelids flutter and then open and he blinks up at John as if awakening from a dream.

"John?"

"Oh, God," John says, and buries his face in Sherlock's neck. The paramedics arrive a few moments later, and they have to pry John's arms off of Sherlock to get at him. John rides in the ambulance with him, as does the boy, and they both watch anxiously as the paramedics work. John reaches out to take Sherlock's hand briefly, and Sherlock squeezes his fingers.

*****

One month later…

John looks up from the paper as Sherlock emerges from the bedroom, yawning. He's been sleeping well recently, not that John has much to compare it to. Until the last few weeks, he'd slept alone, after all.

"There's tea."

Sherlock grunts in response; to John's delight he's rather grumpy after a proper night's sleep. A few minutes later he emerges from the kitchen with a steaming cup and settles on the sofa next to John. He leans heavily against John's shoulder and eyes the paper.

"Anything?"

"Nothing that would make a good case, though I'm not finished reading it yet."

Sherlock sighs and slides down into the cushions a bit. He rolls his injured shoulder and raises his mug to his lips.

John watches the line of his throat as he swallows. "I did find this headline rather interesting, though: MI5 Captures Female Assassin with the Help of Homeless Teen. Gallick, 16, is being hailed as a hero after helping MI5 agents track down suspected assassin Samantha Moran, who is wanted for murder in eight countries across Europe. Mr Gallick, who has lived on the streets since the age of thirteen, was apparently recruited after personally assisting the infamous private detective Sherlock Holmes during his recent disappearance, during which the world and most of Mr Holmes' own friends believed him dead." John pauses and clears his throat.

Sherlock snorts into his mug. "If you're fishing for another apology—"

"I'm not." John turns to look at him. "I've told you, I'm not angry anymore."

"You've a right to be." Sherlock's eyes remain fixed on the floor in front of him. "And I wouldn't blame you for it."

John swats him with the folded paper and tosses it aside. "Okay, that's done it. Who are you and what have you done with my flatmate?"

"Flatmate?" Sherlock looks up at him, his expression quizzical.

"Yes, well, I didn't think you'd like 'boyfriend'." John leans forward and kisses him, and then finds himself pulled down onto the sofa.

"You're right, I despise it," Sherlock replies, and then captures his lips again. John presses against him and Sherlock groans, and they're both lost in the bliss of it for a few moments.

"You are," John says, and pauses to kiss him, "quite possibly the most amazing man I've ever known. I'm fine, and we're fine, okay?"

Sherlock exhales. "Okay."

"And I'm tired of having this non-argument with you. Can we put it behind us and get on with the happily ever after part?"

Sherlock has to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning like a lovesick twit. John understands, and Sherlock has never felt happier in his entire life.

"Yes."

*****

~ fin ~