Based around Chapter 59
Love has its own gravity. It is not a calculation, not something that equations could ever answer. There is no mathematical law that could calculate the free fall of love, the logistics of it, no nine point eight meters per second of rationality that you could scribble and solve on newspaper margins on a damp morning of dewy roses in your garden; there are no diagrams and there are no numbers. Which is why William had never anticipated this. This had never been a part of his equation or his consideration, it was a variable unaccounted for, in the physics of his plan; another body, the weight of arms around him, the hand cradling his head, the anomaly termed Sherlock Holmes.
Nothing had prepared William for a fall like this where the laws of physics surrendered themselves to an intensity of devotion as this, the fall of an angel in pursuit of a devil. Do you know what the touch of an angel feels like? William would tell you, years later, that getting touched by an angel isn't unlike the touch of a man. It is warm, and soft, and somewhat soothing; it is a touch that heals, stitching up your heart as you're drowning in rivers of your sorrow long after you've been saved.
He would tell you, that his touch is in the breeze that caresses your face, as you sit on a bench staring at an unfamiliar skyline, spilled over by the golds and reds of a sun disappearing behind the buildings and pathways he has yet to discover his way around. So strange, and beautiful is the body that sits beside him now, in silence; no longer an angel, but not a devil either. White wings stained with a dark red. Of blood, or passion, he doesn't know. He supposes both.
Well, here they are then. In the in-between. Hanging in the middle of death and existence, hell and heaven, a day that hasn't yet ended, a night yet to come. This is their purgatory. The birds chirp in the distance, the sun tethers to edges of the horizon, clinging to the last remnants before it too falls off, drowning in the dark.
There are no words exchanged. They have too much to say to another, and too few words to choose from. He turns to look at him, Sherly, his Sherly, and a silent tear rolls down his eye. He doesn't know what he mourns, the failed calculations of his own fall, or his inability to presuppose or nullify the effects of the added variable. Sherlock turns to look at him, and a smile so sincere, so gentle, so bittersweet, pulling a wrecked sob from William's chest; and he finally, finally, allows himself to feel. Be overwhelmed by the surge of his conflicting emotions he can't yet comprehend or quantify. His body bends forward, under the weight of all his sorrow, his relief, the guilt tearing at his flesh; he falls again, and Sherlock catches him, again. This time Liam holds back. Clutches at the fabric of his suit jacket, fisting it in the palm of his hands. The arms around him are familiar, he would but recognize them in his dreams, even blinded, by touch alone would he recognize the way they wrap around him, not saving him, but sharing his fall; he would know them even in death.
Theirs is a shared weight of existence. It is in the weight of two teacups on the table as they leave stains on the newspaper kept in the middle, reminding them that they are alive, and will be well.
Sometimes, Liam watches Sherlock sleep, and in those moments, and though he would not admit to Sherlock yet, for vulnerability is still a scary concept, he feels overwhelmed by his existence. I almost lost you. And so, it is in the way he leans down and presses a small kiss on his head to release the wave of affection that threatens to drown him, his small liberty.
Liam stands in front of the mirror sometimes, his fingers tracing the scar down his face through his eye socket, his hands trembling, and it is in the way Sherlock says nothing but picks up the eye-patch pinched between his fingers, brushing back ever so tenderly Liam's hair, placing the eyepatch over his eye, securing a knot at the back of his head slowly, reverently, as if performing a sacred ritual, moving to kiss over his scar at the side of his face.
William doesn't say, but he has nightmares, and in them he sees himself covered in splashes of blood, and he hears children screaming, accusing, he sees corpses that grab at his feet from beyond their graves, burning his flesh with their touch and dragging him down to where they are. And so, it is in the way he wakes up to Sherlock cradling his face, running fingers through his hair, whispering assurances and sweet nothings into his ear. William clings to Sherlock's words, holds on to his lingering touches. It's all he can do some days.
"Liam", Sherly mumbles, rubbing his eye awake in the warmth of late mornings, and it is in the way William looks up from the book he's reading, and gets up to fix him a cup of coffee as Sherlock rests his head upon his forearms sitting on the kitchen table. Sherlock almost dozes off by the time Liam comes with coffee, smiling affectionately down at him before kissing his cheek over and over again, until he wakes up wrapping his arms around Liam and bringing him to sit on his lap.
Billy comes over sometimes, and Sherlock converses for the both of them, William still hesitant and cautious. Slowly, he grows used to his loud presence, grows used to the thrill of solving cases with Sherlock by his side, to the way the wind whips against his face as they chase after a criminal. He is no longer the Lord of Crime, only Liam. He discovers he likes being Liam better than he ever liked being William James Moriarty.
It is not to say he doesn't miss his brothers. But now, as he lives, he knows that in the waters of the seas that separate them, there is an unsaid promise floating amidst the waves, a promise to return and see them again, whenever fate wills, whenever the time is right.
One day Liam comes back, a small smile on his face, to Sherlock neglecting the paperwork regarding a case they have to hand in, in favour of mixing chemicals (again).
"Sherly", he says, the name filling his mouth leaving it sweet as honeysuckle and the warmth if a summer day in his chest, and it is in the way Sherlock turns around from his work to Liam putting a box upon their table. Sherlock stares, and languages leave him with the emptiness of overwhelming emotions that cannot be articulated because the box- it can be nothing else, the shape of it gives it away, a violin, it can be nothing else, and it is but a stretched second before he finds himself walking to Liam, pressing his lips against his, and they kiss, definitely and thoroughly. Sherlock kisses the way a flower opens up in a graveyard, and Liam kisses him like he is the grave. Under the covers, they make music from their love.
"You and I, we have begun to blur."
Sometime later, as they lie wrapped in an embrace, Liam says, "I let you in. I let you know me. I let you see me."
"You wanted to be seen."
"By you. A rare gift I've given you."
"And I will cherish this gift until you'll have me."
"Forever then?"
"Forever then."
