This one's a short fill for THIS prompt over at the Kinkmeme. It just ran away with me back when I filled it and I figured I'd better archive it here.
Title: The Spaces Between
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: G
Category: Contemplative? Internal dialogue maybe? WHo knows!
Length: Short. 502 words of my trying to be concise and economic
Summary: John has found a new life and it's odd, but it's his and it's right.
A/N I actually liked this. Which is odd, because I usually DON'T like my writing. But this... this I'm kinda proud of.
The prompt was "The space between Sherlock's fingers are right where John's fit perfectly."
The Spaces Between
John's existence has become a repeating cycle of molding himself into the nooks and crannies of someone else's life--Sherlock's life.
It sounds bloody awful when he thinks about saying it aloud. Yet somehow John doesn't mind. Oh, he minds the body parts in the fridge... The microwave that smells like an abattoir... Lestrade's periodic insistence upon looking for drugs he'll never find until the very day Sherlock wants him to. He even minds Mycroft and his revolving rank of prying eyes upon them.
But fitting himself into the life Sherlock never quite makes room for him in...he doesn't mind that at all.
Because John knows it's not that Sherlock doesn't want him there. It's perhaps a bit because Sherlock is an uncompromising prat. Truthfully though, John suspects it's mostly because no one ever tried hard enough, never understood the test before them well enough to even realize that's what it was. Sherlock won't make room for anyone because he doesn't want someone with him that he has to change for. John doesn't need him to change. John just needs Sherlock to keep allowing him to pry himself into the interstitial spaces of Sherlock's existence. If John were a romantic he'd say it was very much like weaving himself into a length of fabric, embellishing the pattern without altering it.
It turns out that Sherlock didn't really need him to pay for half the flat. John should have guessed that from the beginning. But Sherlock did, in fact, need him. Sherlock needed him to bulldog his way into the detective's lonely life when no one else would. And John continues to surprise himself with how good he is at it...how right it feels. A cab for one, a meal for one, a whole life meant for one, with two lives crammed in. It should be stifling. But it's not. It's like breathing.
He missed the military, where he was a small part of a greater whole. One piece among many, all tightly fit into place in the grand puzzle of service to queen and country. Once he was healed and discharged, John's life was so large, so open, so featureless. Now he's part of a greater whole again, he has a purpose and a place--one that means even more because he's carved it out himself. John fits into the world again, in this new life with its sleepless nights and manic flights of sudden danger and desperate collapses in the aftermath of triumph. He fits in right and tight, sardined next to the man to whom this life used to singularly belong.
And of late, John's come to realize he fits the man himself. Like every part of his new way of existing, he'd had to commandeer this too--his role as lover. And like every part of this, of Sherlock--that he'd staked a claim to--Sherlock had let him have it without contest once John had definitively made his move.
The bed too narrow for two bodies, the nook under Sherlock's chin, the space between Sherlock's fingers, right where John's fit perfectly... It's where he lives now. In all the spaces between.
John wouldn't change it for anything.
Title: The Spaces Between
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: G
Category: Contemplative? Internal dialogue maybe? WHo knows!
Length: Short. 502 words of my trying to be concise and economic
Summary: John has found a new life and it's odd, but it's his and it's right.
A/N I actually liked this. Which is odd, because I usually DON'T like my writing. But this... this I'm kinda proud of.
The prompt was "The space between Sherlock's fingers are right where John's fit perfectly."
The Spaces Between
John's existence has become a repeating cycle of molding himself into the nooks and crannies of someone else's life--Sherlock's life.
It sounds bloody awful when he thinks about saying it aloud. Yet somehow John doesn't mind. Oh, he minds the body parts in the fridge... The microwave that smells like an abattoir... Lestrade's periodic insistence upon looking for drugs he'll never find until the very day Sherlock wants him to. He even minds Mycroft and his revolving rank of prying eyes upon them.
But fitting himself into the life Sherlock never quite makes room for him in...he doesn't mind that at all.
Because John knows it's not that Sherlock doesn't want him there. It's perhaps a bit because Sherlock is an uncompromising prat. Truthfully though, John suspects it's mostly because no one ever tried hard enough, never understood the test before them well enough to even realize that's what it was. Sherlock won't make room for anyone because he doesn't want someone with him that he has to change for. John doesn't need him to change. John just needs Sherlock to keep allowing him to pry himself into the interstitial spaces of Sherlock's existence. If John were a romantic he'd say it was very much like weaving himself into a length of fabric, embellishing the pattern without altering it.
It turns out that Sherlock didn't really need him to pay for half the flat. John should have guessed that from the beginning. But Sherlock did, in fact, need him. Sherlock needed him to bulldog his way into the detective's lonely life when no one else would. And John continues to surprise himself with how good he is at it...how right it feels. A cab for one, a meal for one, a whole life meant for one, with two lives crammed in. It should be stifling. But it's not. It's like breathing.
He missed the military, where he was a small part of a greater whole. One piece among many, all tightly fit into place in the grand puzzle of service to queen and country. Once he was healed and discharged, John's life was so large, so open, so featureless. Now he's part of a greater whole again, he has a purpose and a place--one that means even more because he's carved it out himself. John fits into the world again, in this new life with its sleepless nights and manic flights of sudden danger and desperate collapses in the aftermath of triumph. He fits in right and tight, sardined next to the man to whom this life used to singularly belong.
And of late, John's come to realize he fits the man himself. Like every part of his new way of existing, he'd had to commandeer this too--his role as lover. And like every part of this, of Sherlock--that he'd staked a claim to--Sherlock had let him have it without contest once John had definitively made his move.
The bed too narrow for two bodies, the nook under Sherlock's chin, the space between Sherlock's fingers, right where John's fit perfectly... It's where he lives now. In all the spaces between.
John wouldn't change it for anything.