Working on the Edges

Chapter Thirteen

Sherlock walked back to the skating house with his gold medal in his pocket, his hand wrapped around it. When he walked in, Irene was sitting up, reading, with a bottle of wine by her side.

Sherlock paused, feeling the inevitability of the conversation. Irene stood immediately, walking over to him, willowy and lithe, like a panther as she moved. Sherlock held his ground and Irene paused in front of him and almost smiled.

"This whole time," she said, "you were playing a completely different game. And you won that one. So congratulations." She leaned over and very gently kissed his cheek before murmuring in his ear, "But I won't pretend I'm not extremely disappointed I never convinced you to take me to dinner."

"I seldom eat," said Sherlock, deliberately obtuse.

"Exactly," replied Irene, and drew back, and she was smiling now. "Go on, he's waiting for you."

Sherlock gave her a tight smile and walked up the stairs carefully, thinking very hard about what he should say. He had to say something perfect, for all of the perfect things that John had said to him.

He opened the door to his bedroom, and John smiled at him from the bed, where he was reading a terrible mystery novel. He was dressed in jeans and a hideous jumper; his hair was delightfully mussed, and Sherlock wondered if he'd done that for him purposely.

John tossed his novel aside, rolled off the bed, and walked over to him, beaming brightly. "Well? Where is it?"

Sherlock took the medal out of his pocket and handed it across to him.

John regarded it closely, then looked up at him, still grinning. "It's gorgeous. Not quite as gorgeous as you, of course, but it does come close, don't you think?" John draped it playfully around Sherlock's neck, pressed his hand over it where it rested on Sherlock's chest. "Congratulations."

Sherlock lifted his hands up and cupped John's face and studied it carefully, locking every bit of it into his mind palace. He never, ever wanted to forget anything about John Watson.

John, after a moment, lifted his hands up to rest loosely around Sherlock's wrists. "Hey," he said softly. "What's all this?"

"I love you, too," Sherlock said, before he lost the nerve to say it. It had been the only thing he could come up with to match the perfection of John's speech, to steal his words and parrot them back to him. Sherlock had wanted to come up with something more, but he had reached the conclusion that there was nothing more than that in the entire universe: those three words, said by this particular man. Sherlock would have flung the gold medal out into the night if John had asked him to. There was nothing more important than keeping John, forever, however he might manage to do that. He was simply going to give it his very best try.

John smiled at him, then leaned forward and kissed him, soft and gentle. Sherlock imagined that if the kiss could talk, it would say, I love you, and Sherlock loved that about the kiss. Sherlock wanted to kiss John back that way, tried desperately to get the point across to him. I love you, too, and I won a gold medal tonight, but the more important thing was that you said that you loved me, and maybe you'll stay. Maybe you'll stay.

The thought made Sherlock kiss John back harder. John made a noise, half-surprise, half-approval, and Sherlock kissed him a bit more desperately, tugging the jumper up over his head.

In the half-second when Sherlock's mouth was off of his, John said, "I—" muffled against the wool, but Sherlock captured his mouth with a kiss again, his hands now working on John's jeans, and John closed his hands in Sherlock's hair and concentrated on returning the kiss, so apparently whatever he had been about to say hadn't been that important.