Work Text:
John Watson stares up at the ceiling. There’s still an hour before his alarm is due to go off but he’s woken up early, torn from sleep by another nightmare. The sound of guns and screams fill his head when his mind is quiet and vulnerable, expanding like a bubble until the pressure gets to be too much and the resulting pop jolts him awake, his breath sounding too loud in the darkness.
He’d thought he was improving. Perhaps that was too much to hope for.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, John sighs quietly and reaches out for his cane. He might as well start his morning early and get some tea.
---
Sherlock Holmes stares up at the ceiling. He’s unbelievably bored. His last case was an entire week ago and he feels like there is too much noise in his head, the edges of his mind palace threatening to spill over as a consequence of having nothing to focus on. He fidgets on the couch, his eyes darting around the room, looking for something - anything - that might provide a distraction. Books? No. Violin? No. Laptop? No.
He scrambles to his feet with a huff of frustration and stomps over to the window, watching the sky glow orange with the rising sun.
Dull.
The ringtone draws his head sharply towards the desk and Sherlock snatches up his phone. Lestrade. His mouth quirks up in a smile before he reaches for his scarf and coat.
---
John freelances for work, typically rotating between three clinics located near his tiny flat just outside of London. The tremor in his hand prevents him from going back into surgery and the hospitals are hesitant to hire him for on-call shifts with his limp slowing him down.
An old colleague asked for a favour last night - his clinic in London is short on staff and he could use an extra hand for a day. So John jumps onto the tube and heads into the city.
His therapist continues to tell him to write in his blog. He doesn't. She tells him time and readjustment to civilian life will help ease his psychosomatic limp. It hasn't, at least not yet.
He enjoys what he does, after all it keeps him helping people, but John sometimes wonders if this is all there is for him. There is a thought he doesn't like to dwell on, one that makes him uneasy because it doesn't seem normal or proper, but if he's honest with himself, John sometimes wonders if he misses the army. Not just the camaraderie... but everything else. It's a bit contradictory, given his nightmares, but there have been moments that support it. Over the past year, John's witnessed or come across five accidents and every time an odd sort of thrill runs through him, like a low thrum of electricity. Every time, he forgets his leg and his hands are steady as he reaches out to the victims to check their condition while the ambulances sound in the distance.
Exiting the station, John spots a coffee shop on the corner. He still has half an hour before he's supposed to be at the clinic so he decides to pop by for some caffeine.
---
Sherlock is a freelance detective. A consulting detective, to be more exact; he invented the job.
He sits in 221B Baker Street with his hands pressed together under his chin in thought. It had been an excruciatingly simple murder the previous day, a single trace of paint on the victim's hair incriminating the best friend whose house had recently been painted, though they did their best to cover it up with various scents. A dispute over something minor and uninteresting… unrequited romance, was it?
Despite the elementary nature of the case, his mind still feels calmer, subdued, like he's had a dose of an opiate, but the buzz of noise is there in the background. Solving cases gives Sherlock a minor reprieve from the constant barrage of thoughts running through his head. He lives for the puzzle - the more elaborate, the better. Serial killers are the most interesting. Finding the pattern is easy whereas finding their mistake is occasionally more difficult.
The phone rings and Sherlock takes out his phone to glance at the screen. Mycroft. Not interested. His brother has been hounding him to look into some missing documents but he has better things to do. Besides, it was obvious where they'd gone and surely Mycroft has come to the same deduction but is simply trying to entice him with a case out of "brotherly concern". He doesn't need any of that and frankly, it's a little insulting to his intelligence to assume he'd need to investigate something so menial.
Sherlock can hear his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, puttering about downstairs - baking shortbread cookies, from the smell of it. She gives him a special deal on rent for his previous help regarding her husband and he will admit he’s rather fond of her. He's tried to find a flatmate; none of them lasted more than a few hours. One had walked away the second after Sherlock had deduced he was cheating on his girlfriend, though perhaps it was less walking away and more walking after said girlfriend who had promptly stormed out. No matter, they would just distract him from his work anyway.
A text notification grabs his attention and his mood brightens a little when he sees it's Molly notifying him of a new body in the morgue. Sherlock dons his jacket and scarf and sweeps down the stairs, opting to stop for coffee on the way to St. Bart's.
---
John waits in line for coffee, staring at the menu and contemplating adding a muffin to his order. He peers past the shoulder of the man in front of him, whose head is bent down and focused on his mobile, to see how much longer things might take.
The queue shifts forward and John idly stares at the back in front of him. A wool, Belstaff coat with the collar popped up. Hair that is ridiculously curly. Sirens scream past the shop outside and John's attention turns outside with a frown, watching the ambulance speed by. When he turns back around, it's his turn to order so he asks for a medium coffee, carefully picking out the change from his wallet.
At the coffee station, the man is there again, putting two heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his paper cup and John's mouth twists into a grimace - no sugar in his coffee, thank you very much. He limps over to place his cup down on the counter, bumping into the man's shoulder by accident.
"Oh, sorry--"
Piercing eyes meet his own and time seems to slow.
Sherlock glances over the shorter man quickly (former soldier from his stance, Afghanistan or Iraq; psychosomatic limp and intermittent hand tremor; a doctor from the edge of a prescription pad visible in his jacket pocket, Dr. John H. Watson printed on the top). His gaze settles back onto the other man's - John's - eyes and Sherlock frowns slightly. His face is like an open book and something creeps into John's expression that he doesn't quite understand and it stirs several thoughts in his head.
John feels the heavy gaze analyze him and unconsciously straightens his back, old army training reminding him of superiors checking that everything is in order. When the eyes lock back onto his own, the pain in his leg vanishes and his left hand is perfectly still as John stares into a face that carries an air of danger, marvelling at how his body relaxes in response. The eyes are sharp, intelligent, yet there's a hint of confusion as they watch him. John wonders who the man is to cause such a response in him, wonders why he looks at him like that. It almost looks akin to hope.
Sherlock's phone rings once, twice, and he answers it. "Sherlock Holmes."
Lestrade's voice grabs his attention and he tears his gaze away to stare out the window as the details of a new case are relayed to him. Sherlock's so preoccupied he doesn't notice how John seems startled by the break in contact, his hand reaching out to the coffee station for stability; he's so distracted that he even leaves his full cup sitting by the sugar as he exits the coffee shop, leaving John to stare after him in wonder.
---
John reaches his home after a long day at the clinic and sits heavily onto the couch, looking down at his leg with a small sigh. He wonders if he imagined it, the disappearance of the pain in his leg, because it's back now like nothing had happened. He wonders if his mind is playing tricks on him because surely a single glance from a random person couldn't fix everything that's wrong with him. But despite all his doubts, there's one thing that's a glaring moment of confirmation: his hand has been fine all day.
What that means, John doesn't know. Who is Sherlock Holmes? That's even more of a mystery.
There's a knock on his door and John feels his heart leap into his throat and he admonishes himself for reacting in such a way. Surely it wasn't him - what reason would he have to be here? And why can't he stop the small pebble of anticipation as he limps over to the door?
Opening the door, John pauses then smiles politely at his neighbour who is asking him if he can look after their flat while they're away for the week. He pushes away the pebble to be forgotten, reasoning that a one-time encounter means nothing, just a chance meeting, and finds validation in his conclusion when his hand trembles a little on the door handle.
Sherlock Holmes is nothing more than a stranger.
---
Sherlock sits at the kitchen table, examining a sample of botulism borrowed from St. Bart's under the microscope; he suspects it will help support something he noticed at the crime scene Lestrade had called him to earlier. He only realizes now that he'd left his coffee that morning, so eager to be out on a new, interesting case.
For a moment, he's brought back to the coffee shop and to John Watson standing before him. Sherlock leans back from the microscope with a frown, recalling the look on the man's face again. It was acceptance and loyalty and it had triggered a possibility Sherlock had long since buried in his mind. John wouldn't mock or taunt, John wouldn't leave in disgust, and maybe, just maybe, John Watson would be a friend.
He remembers with a jolt that in that moment, his mind had been quiet. It had been clear like the rare moment after a particularly complex case, uncluttered by stray thoughts and entirely focused on one John Watson. He reasons that it was simply the intrigue of the doctor, a case in itself. Who is John Watson? Sherlock looks out into the living room and can picture John sitting on one of the chairs cross-legged and barefoot, head bent over a laptop as he pecks away slowly. He looks up and smiles an easy smile at Sherlock.
Sherlock blinks and it's gone. He stares a little longer at the empty chair before locking away the possibility again, deep in his mind palace. A ridiculous notion, he thinks, turning back to the microscope.
After all, John Watson is nothing more than a stranger.