Secretly I Think You Knew

The Historical Holmes Household

"Got some punch in your hair?" Sherlock asked with a little laugh. John groaned, pulling down the sun visor and checking his hair in the mirror.
"Yep, blood." John agreed, scratching it from his scalp in disgust. "I'm going to have to really wash tonight."
"John you've got a little bit of Mycroft in your hair." Sherlock pointed out with a laugh.
"Ew, when you say it like that..." John muttered, sliding the mirror shut and brushing the flakes out off of his lap in disgust.
"So, I suppose we're not going to tell your parents then." Sherlock muttered. John sighed heavily, nodding as if embarrassed of his cowardice.
"Ya, I guess, I don't know, I kind of wanted to break the news to both at once. And seeing my mother so desperate, I don't want to make her think that I disappeared for a day and came back a new person. Maybe I'll wait a little bit, a week, maybe, just to let her get settled back in." John decided.
"That's a good idea; don't want to go throwing two major emotional blows at once." Sherlock agreed.
"It's not...major. I mean, I'm pretty sure they're going to accept me, accept us." John assured.
"You think?" Sherlock asked hopefully. John shrugged, not looking entirely sure about himself.
"Ya, they usually trust my decisions, and if I decide that I want to spend my life with you, then they're sure to accept that." John decided.
"Spend your life with me? John, we haven't even been together for a day." Sherlock pointed out.
"Yes we have, we just weren't allowed to confirm it. Our hearts have belonged to each other for a while now; there was a silent agreement that even though we couldn't be together in person, our souls were already intertwined." John insisted.
"That's something straight out of one of the English poetry books." Sherlock decided.
"You agree though, right? We're made to be together, and even if we've only been officially together a day, we've both kind of, decided on each other." John insisted.
"I love you John, and yes, my heart says that I would love to live with you forever. But my heart's so weak, inexperienced, it would fall for whoever shows it an ounce of kindness, after being ignored, beaten, pushed to the side, I feel like I might just latch onto whoever loves me back." Sherlock insisted. John nodded, tapping rather awkwardly on the dashboard and taking very quick looks over at Sherlock, as if not sure how to respond.
"So, you're not willing to spend your life with me?" John muttered nervously.
"I never said that John." Sherlock assured. "I would propose right now, if it were socially acceptable." John just laughed, a small, doubtful laugh. But Sherlock didn't think he doubted Sherlock's intentions, or his wild fantasies. In fact, Sherlock thought that John rather doubted himself.
"And I'd say yes." John muttered.
"Then we should just wait, see if you would still say yes in about three years, once we're out of high school, once we've had a taste of the real world and not just a taste of each other's lips." Sherlock decided.
"When you put it that way it just sounds weird." John decided.
"When you really think about it, kissing is really weird. I mean, to show affection you..." Sherlock started, but John rose up a hand to stop him, looking rather disgusted.
"Sherlock, you're ruining it for yourself, don't go all sciencey on me and ruin kissing." John insisted. Sherlock nodded, laughing a little bit and closing his mouth.
"I don't think anything on this earth could ever ruin kissing you." He assured, blushing a little bit because he heard John laugh next to him.                                                                                                                     

              John POV: The love John felt for Sherlock right now was nearly unimaginable. It wasn't just how he looked (which was breathtakingly beautiful, by the way, his face deserved to hang in an art museum), it was his very being, his soul itself. Sherlock Holmes had never loved another person before, at least, that's the impression John got. He didn't know Sherlock's whole past, he didn't know what was going on with Victor Trevor before he died, but Sherlock had said that he hadn't kissed anyone before and John had to believe that. Sherlock had this sort of youthfulness to him, this childlike love, like a boy that had just learned to walk and was still stumbling over his own two feet. Sherlock had no idea what he was doing, he didn't know how to talk, he didn't know how to act, he thought that every complement he paid John was weird and inappropriate and he was so flustered by even the slightest touching of fingers. Of course this was John's first real relationship as well, but John kind of had an idea of what to do, he's watched movies, TV shows, heck he's even read a book or two where characters fall in love. And nothing any author or any director could possibly come up with would justify this blind, passionate love that flowed between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. You might say it was almost unhealthy, but maybe it was just the first day of a relationship. When you're finally allowed to love each other after so many days of hiding it, it was the best feeling in the world. John never really understood why crushes were supposed to be hidden, when someone saw potential love in someone and was too scared to admit it. Maybe they had never felt love from someone who was almost forbidden. Maybe they didn't know the sweet, sweet victory that came along with finally kissing someone who you haven't kissed before, who's never been kissed before, see them finally accept their feelings as well. And as John saw Sherlock, who was still sneaking small looks at him in the passenger seat, he wondered why the two of them ever hid their true feelings at all. Sherlock pulled into the driveway a short time after, parking the car in the garage and closing the garage door, leaving the two in a semidarkness before he opened his door, making the little light go on overhead.
"Well, are you going to get out?" Sherlock asked, one leg out of the car and one leg in, as if he really couldn't decide what he was going to do either. John nodded, pushing his door open and getting to his feet, a slight chill going down his spine as he returned to the house, the house where so many things happened, good and bad, all in the same threshold.
"Are you going to be okay?" John muttered, going around the back of the car and meeting Sherlock at the door.
"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked.
"You know, alone, in this house, will you be alright?" John asked. Sherlock shrugged, putting his hands on John's shoulders as if they were going to slow dance at the school prom.
"I don't know. It depends on what my options are." He said with a smile.
"I could stay with you, if you need company." John offered. Sherlock just laughed, dropping his arms and walking to the door, stepping into the shadowy house and turning on the light.
"I know you would, but you can't. Your parents have been worried sick about you, and there's no point in worrying more. Besides, what story might you make up this time?" Sherlock wondered.
"I've been getting awfully good with making up lies. I assume I'll have to get a bit better though." John shrugged, closing the door and leaning against it, looking around the house as if expecting Mycroft to still be lingering in the shadows. The record player sat silent, the chairs untouched, Mycroft's glass was still sitting on the coffee table, waiting to be refilled. The house hummed with the ghost of Mycroft, his life, still dancing on the dust, never to be satisfied.
"I'm worried about you." John admitted.
"Why would you be worried? I've spent nights here alone, I think." Sherlock muttered, not looking so sure of himself.
"You don't have to be alone. I can tell my parents that your brother's away on holiday; you can come sleep upstairs in my room." John offered.
"I'll be fine, what's to worry about?" Sherlock asked, walking closer and looking rather concerned.
"I'm afraid that you'll be...afraid." John muttered, almost embarrassed to suggest something like that.
"I won't be if you stop putting thoughts into my head." Sherlock insisted with a smile.
"Do you have something to eat?" John asked.
"Of course I do. I can make myself some pasta." Sherlock suggested.
"I can help, somehow." John insisted.
"Can you make pasta?" Sherlock asked doubtfully, a smile creeping on his beautiful lips.
"No, but I can try." John insisted. "Let me stay, at least for dinner."
"What would your parents think if you stayed two nights for dinner? You haven't been home since yesterday, you need a change of clothes, you need rest, you need a shower." Sherlock insisted.
"I don't smell, do I?" John asked worriedly.
"You have blood flakes in your scalp; aroma is the last thing you need worry yourself with." Sherlock assured, taking both of John's hands and kissing his forehead lightly.
"I need to worry about you, not so much myself." John insisted.
"You don't need to worry about me either; I'm perfectly able to function by myself, to live without my brother." Sherlock assured. "All he did was hang above me, threatening to hurt me if I step out of line, I lived for myself, mostly, except he cooked, and did the shopping, and the laundry, and the chores...alright he did some things, but I felt alone all the same."
"If you need anything Sherlock, anything at all, I want to help. You can come over for mother made meals; I can bring you a cup of sugar, or do your laundry, clean your windows and vacuum the rugs. I don't care, just to give you some company, just to be in your presence." John muttered.
"I have an odd feeling that you'll be spending a lot of your time here John, whether you like it or not." Sherlock guessed. "Let me go get your shirt." With that Sherlock let go of John's hand, walking down the hall somewhere and leaving John to stand by the door, unsure of what to do with himself. So he wandered into the living room, observing the family photos, all of these frowning brown tinted people, looking as if the last thing they ever wanted to do with their life was take a family photo. John saw the relationships between them and Sherlock, he saw that some older person that had to be Sherlock's grandfather had the same curly dark hair as he had, and his grandmother had extremely sharp cheekbones. His mother's eyes gleamed with the same bright, confusing colors as Sherlock's did, his father had a rather long nose and cupid bow lips, all of these factors, all coming together and by some sheer chance, with one in an infinity chances, Sherlock Holmes was created. This beautiful boy, this flawless, gorgeous human being that deserved nothing more than to be loved, to be appreciated. He was born and he suffered for so long, all of these traits and genes passed along by his most distant relatives, and to think that they might never have been appreciated if Mycroft had lived. Sherlock was the only living Holmes, in all of these family photographs, every single one of them was dead. Even the two smiling, youthful parents, even their tiny, seven year old child with a large grin and some missing teeth, he was dead as well. Grown into a monster, adapted for survival and molded into a sociopath, this little boy sat on the freezer door with a knife, stabbed in his heart, just where John had left it. The only person that lived was the small child, wrapped in a little white blanket, his confused little face looking at the camera, not knowing what he was going to get himself into when he grew up.
"Here you are." Sherlock muttered, coming back down the hall to see John gazing at the photograph.
"Not looking at those dusty old things again, are you? I should take them down, they're hideous. This whole house is hideous, it's depressing." Sherlock insisted.
"You have a lovely house Sherlock; I wish I could have such a house all to myself." John sighed.
"I can't even legally be here, I'm not eighteen, I ought to be shipped off to an orphanage." Sherlock laughed.
"You'll be eighteen soon, and if the authorities find out about you, they're certainly not sending you to an orphanage." John muttered.
"Prison, yes. I don't think that would be fit for me." Sherlock decided with a sigh.
"I won't let you go to prison." John insisted. "It was self-defense." Sherlock just smiled, looking a bit amused by John's optimism.
"If you had killed him then maybe, and if you had reported it then maybe, but no. I killed him, in fact, I was going to kill you as well, and I turned on him and kept him in the freezer. And that's just Mycroft, not Victor, or my uncle." Sherlock sighed.
"Your uncle? Is that the other body down there?" John wondered. Sherlock nodded, skimming the family photographs and pointing to a little boy next to a little girl, obviously his mother and her brother when they were much younger.
"He shared my brother's knack for discipline; he took us in after our parents died. Mycroft had to do what he could to survive, just as I had to do. He was nine years old." Sherlock muttered. John nodded solemnly, trying to imagine a kid that young commit murder.
"You've got a pretty messed up family tree." John decided. Sherlock just laughed, nodding and tapping the picture of his father, tapping his head with his index finger nail, as if trying to decapitate him.
"Oh, you have no idea." He muttered. John sighed, checking the clock and seeing that it was nearly four thirty already, his mother probably had dinner on the table.
"I should probably go, you're sure you'll be alright, there's nothing you need?" John asked, taking the shirt gently from Sherlock's arm.
"I'm fine John, honestly." He assured.
"Do you have my number, just in case?" John asked.
"No, I don't, I can get a pen though, hold on." Sherlock assured, disappearing into the kitchen for a moment and reappearing with a pen and paper. John took the pen and scrawled down his home number and his cell phone, just in case one of them didn't work.
"You need anything, anything at all, from a cleaning lady, to a home cooked meal, to company, you just call, alright? I'll see you later, tomorrow, please Sherlock, be safe." John begged.
"John you sound like your mother, I'll be fine. I've been fine before, I can manage it again." Sherlock assured.
"Alright then, I better get going, I'll be murdered if I come home late again." John decided.
"Please refrain from using that word." Sherlock muttered. John just nodded, kissing Sherlock for a moment and contemplating whether or not he really should go. It was very nice just standing here, kissing Sherlock without worry. Unfortunately though, it was Sherlock who pulled away, a dazed little smile on his face.
"Goodbye John, I'll see you tomorrow." He decided, obviously urging John to get home before he got in more trouble.
"Bye Sherlock, I love you." John agreed, starting to walk off before actually realizing what he had just said. Obviously Sherlock had understood that it was the first time he said those three words, because he was too speechless to even mumble a response, letting John walk off out the front door to his car without another stunned word. When John walked into his front door his mother was waiting with another desperate hug, still in her bathrobe and looking extremely relieved. Somehow though, she looked older, maybe it was the stress, or the lack of makeup, but for some reason Mrs. Watson looked more like Grandma Watson.
"Mom, I'm fine, I said it before, and I'm still fine." John insisted.
"Oh, I see your shirt's back." Mrs. Watson said, snatching it out of John's hands and examining it. She sighed; it was still soaked in very mysterious looking red stains.
"What type of punch were you drinking? It looks like blood!" she insisted. "Were you having dinner with vampires?" she added with a laugh, throwing the shirt back to John as if it were a very funny coincidence.
"There was no blood, and no, they're not vampires. It was some sort of fancy punch, not just that Hawaiian Punch crap that you buy." John grumbled.
"You used to love that punch, you'd drink it by the gallon!" she insisted. John groaned, examining his shirt and deciding that it was probably unwearable. Oh well, at least he'd always remember the time he watched Sherlock kill his own brother and then kissed in his blood. Not really scrapbook worthy, but memorable all the same.
"I'm going to go upstairs and shower; it's been a long day." John admitted.
"Alright, but I want the full story alright? So many secrets." Mrs. Watson sighed.
"They're not secrets, I just haven't told you everything yet, you haven't asked. I'm not keeping secrets." John lied, running upstairs to find that, for once, the bathroom door was actually closed. So Harry was up and about, prowling the upstairs hallway on her annual bathroom trip, occurring every five hours after whatever show she was watching on Netflix was over. Oh, sorry, researching colleges.