Work Text:
Mike had known that something good would come out of this stupid Anonymous Confession Wall, and now he had proof.
Amongst all the I spent thirty-two hours watching a tv show for seven-year olds last weekends and the If you’re reading this, go to the corner of the boys bathroom on the third floor near the chem labs and the cute doodles, there was the smallest, shyest, and most interesting confession.
I’m gay and hopelessly in love with the rugby captain
It was a cramped and basically illegible sort of writing, almost as if it had been written by the non-dominant hand. And even though Mike had called everyone on the team except for John to the top floor to examine it, no one could identify the writer.
They all loved John, and he had recently come out as bisexual.
The entire team was buzzing around Mike’s phone in the locker room at the next practice, and just seemed to disperse when John asked what was going on.
He found out soon enough, though, when there was a flyer with a picture of someone’s confession posted in the hallway.
John stopped to look at it, despite that it would probably make him late to chemistry. (Which he hated; he liked to spend as much time as possible in chemistry.)
His cheeks flushed with an uncomfortable heat when he saw the type over it (he couldn’t read the actual writing so quickly, even enhanced), something about someone having a crush on him? His brain wasn’t focused on it.
The bell rang again, letting John know he’d definitely be late now, even if he ran, so he stuffed the flyer in his bag and jogged up the stairs.
They’d already gotten started with the lab in chem, meaning his coming in late wasn’t a big deal, thankfully. He just nodded at the teacher and mouthed a ‘sorry,’ then headed for the desk that he and his partner shared in the spacious room.
John dropped his bag on the floor next to the black table and pulled out his stool.
“What held you?” came a soft, deep voice from the microscope.
John looked over at the mess of black curls, who had moved a little upon hearing his abrupt arrival. “The hallways weren’t busy. You were … looking for something? No,” he said, removing his eyes from the petri dish and fixing them on John, which the latter was unprepared for.
John felt his cheeks flush as Sherlock Holmes stared at him, skin glowing and eyes sparkling with the light flooding in through the windows. “Looking at something. What was it?”
John just looked at him blankly. Sherlock had never talked this much, especially to John. He had heard rumors, of course, of the one time Sherlock had raised his voice, apparently to yell at a teacher about how it didn’t matter what the Earth revolved around.
(John wished he’d been there.)
Sherlock shifted, eyes suddenly downcast. He seemed to think he’d overstepped. Get so panicked that he isn’t here for ten minutes that you forget to turn off your mind.
“Just, just something in the hallway,” John finally answered, also averting eye contact. Sherlock was so smart, he’d be sure to figure out why John was acting the way he was. “Hey, don’t you need goggles? That could be dangerous.”
Sherlock just slipped his pen from behind his ear and fiddled with it, then leaned over the microscope again.
“So, what’s the lab?”
Sherlock turned around slowly, a rosy pink flush on his neck and cheeks. “I don’t know.”
“Well, what are you doing?”
“I’m studying this bacteria culture and how it reacts with various chemicals. I think they’re,” Sherlock nodded up at the rest of the class, not even bothering to look at them, “doing something with plant cells,” he said quietly.
John smiled at this. Sherlock did this often, like he had both no interest in the class and no regard for rules or possible consequences.
He was so enamored with his shy but brilliant lab partner that he couldn’t care less about getting into trouble for not doing work.
“Do you … need my help?”
“Yes.”
Sherlock didn’t elaborate.
“What for?”
“Get me fifty milliliters of digoxin. And a clean dropper, if you will. Also, twenty-three milliliters of mercury, if you can find it.”
“Isn’t mercury dangerous? Like, fatal-dangerous?”
“Yes.”
John swore his voice never rose above a murmur.
He left the table then, sifting through bottles in the cabinet to try and find what Sherlock was requesting. He smiles and shook his head at himself as he realized he’d never question Sherlock, even when he was dealing with dangerous substances.
There was a noise irritating Sherlock, boring through his ears into his brain. He looked around near the floor, where the noise seemed to be coming from. He didn’t see the source, but there was a crumpled-up piece of paper on the floor, seemingly from John’s bag, which was lying only centimeters from it.
Sherlock knew he probably shouldn’t look at something that wasn’t his — that would be invading John’s privacy.
He picked it up right after having that thought. He wouldn’t let his moral compass rule him.
With steady fingers, Sherlock uncrumpled the paper. His heartbeat jumped into his throat when he realized what it was.
It was his message. The message he’d left on that wall. That stupid, stupid wall.
He’d known there would be negative repercussions if he actually wrote something. And he hadn’t just written anything; no, he’d just gone and bloody outed himself and confessed his undying love for someone who would in no universe reciprocate any such emotion.
His heart sank. That must’ve been what all the rugby players were talking about. He’d overheard them at lunch. They were talking about finding out who it was.
Well, Sherlock knew that wasn’t going to happen. He’d written it with his wrong hand, and in a completely different script than normal. There was no way they’d make the connection.
But Sherlock was still kind of sad. John had recently come out as bi, and if he knew it was Sherlock who had written that, maybe they could become something.
“Stop fantasizing,” he scolded himself verbally. The people at the tables around them didn’t even turn around: by this point, they were used to the weirdo in the back sitting with John Watson talking to himself.
“What’re you fantasizing about?” John’s voice came before Sherlock could gather himself. He felt another flush making its way across his face when John saw him with the flyer.
“Oh, that. I found that in the hallway. I think … I think it’s from the wall. Y’know, the —” he cut off, seeing Sherlock nod. “Yeah, my teammates made those. It’s sweet, and all, but y’know …” He cut off again, turning redder than Sherlock, whose face had gone slack and shy once again.
“You know what?”
“Well, you’re the first person I’ve told this, but my heart belongs to somebody else,” John said, almost as quietly as Sherlock. Their eyes met for the first time, John trying his best to tell Sherlock through eye contact It’s you.
And he really couldn’t see it, but Sherlock’s façade was falling apart. John’s eyes were sending Sherlock a message that was clearly It’s not you.
It’s somebody good, somebody pretty, somebody intelligent, somebody normal.
Somebody else.
He felt crushed; the first time he’d allowed himself to have feelings for someone.
Mycroft was suddenly sitting on Sherlock’s bed, shaking his head at his younger brother, who had just met another kid for the first time, and been pushed away and called a freak.
“Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock. They’ll never truly understand you. So why let them try?”
Sherlock felt a hand on his arm and shook himself out of his mind palace. He hadn’t revealed that part of himself to anyone except Mycroft, and he didn’t need John thinking he was any stranger.
“Are you okay, Sherlock? You look a little … green.”
Sherlock waved his arm aimlessly in John’s general direction, then walked out of the classroom slowly. He bumped into several people on the way, but didn’t pay them any mind. They weren’t important. Right now it was just Sherlock. (Well, and John. The John in his mind palace.)
John kind of stared after him, wondering what he’d done wrong. Every time he tried to convey some fraction of his feelings to Sherlock, he seemed to either not notice them, or ignore them. This was the most direct he’d been in a long time, Sherlock had run away. If that wasn’t a you-should-give-up-now-this-isn’t-healthy sign, he didn’t know what was.
But as he replayed how Sherlock had looked with rosy pink scrawled across his cheeks and his curls splayed out over a microscope and his limbs that were too long to be graceful and were instead endearingly awkward, he couldn’t ever see himself giving up.
At first, he’d thought the message on the wall could have been from Sherlock, but that was just his mind letting him fantasize. First off, Sherlock’s handwriting was different than that of the note. It was messy, as if his mind moved too fast for his hand (which it did) and he couldn’t be bothered to care (which he couldn’t).
And the idea of Sherlock Holmes actually loving him too was just unrealistic. Sherlock Holmes was a thing that happened in John’s dreams, the dreams where you wake up with a tingling feeling from the imaginary contact that felt so real but was all in your head.
Another day.
He’d get there, eventually. No matter how long it took.
Sherlock went on as he was, building his wall back up. Every time he saw John, he imagined who his heart belonged to. The somebody else.
They’d be stunning, of course. Crisp in a suit or a gown and somehow just as gorgeous in pajamas with nothing shiny. And funny. And interesting. John Watson was someone who valued interesting things — he liked to collect strange objects he found, and wrote a backstory for them in one of his many journals.
Some days, Sherlock was surprised John didn’t scoop him up and write him a backstory.
This went on for a while, until John plucked up courage to finally get out his Sharpie, which he’d kept in his backpack since the day he’d met Sherlock (over two years ago now), and put it to the use he’d imagined for so long.
Sherlock did a double take when he realized there was something new.
He knew everything on that board, despite it being something sentimental, and therefore something Mycroft would advise deletion of.
There was one more Sharpie scribble, and it was very near the small, irrelevant corner Sherlock had written his in, hoping to go unnoticed.
He drew closer, and read what it said.
I’m bi and hopelessly in love with my lab partner
It had been written by someone’s non-dominant hand. Rather neat, suggesting an even neater print with the dominant hand, but rushed, as if the writer was keen to avoid attention. So someone popular. Obviously something this sentimental (why was everything suddenly sentimental? It was disgusting) would get popular people teased and questioned, no, they’d want to avoid that. The Sharpie was almost out of ink. Age, not overuse. It had dried up from being in someone’s backpack for a little over … a year? No, two years.
Sherlock took out his phone and snapped a photo, to see what else he could glean from it at home, in a comfortable environment.
It couldn’t be a coincidence — it had been added directly underneath Sherlock’s in the same style in the same irrelevant corner. Someone was replying to his message. Someone understood this particular emotion he was experiencing.
That thought, that someone could understand at least a little piece of him, was both comforting and insulting.
Mostly insulting.
But still not worth his time.
He flipped up his coat collar and fluffed up his scarf, though it really needed no such adjustment.
He knew the anonymous writer was bi.
John Watson was bi.
And the only people allowed to use the chem labs at the school were juniors and seniors.
John Watson was a senior.
And it had been written by a person using the wrong hand, their right hand.
John Watson was left-handed.
Sharpie.
John Watson always had a Sharpie on hand if Sherlock needed one.
Popular.
John Watson was popular.
And yet …
It couldn’t be him. It was somebody else. Somebody else … why would you say “somebody else” if you were looking at the somebody else?
No, it wasn’t John Watson.
And John Watson (or his relentless rugby team, which was for some reason invested in the situation) would never find out that it was his lab partner who wrote that message.
Sherlock really couldn’t resist a challenge. And the reply to his message seemed to be smirking at him from that wall, as if it knew something he didn’t.
So he remained after school, until everyone was gone and no one would see him writing on the wall again.
Right under the other person’s note, he wrote Unrequited love, eh?
It was something he’d never say out loud, meaning it was perfect for this wall.
The last thing he’d expected was a response.
But there it was, in that some old dry Sharpie.
Really is the worst
And Sherlock did something he’d never thought would be a result of this ordeal: he smiled. He smiled, and wrote back to the person.
News spread around the school about the boy who liked John Watson and the person in love with their lab partner and their budding conversation.
Suddenly Sherlock was the subject of the school’s conversation.
Well, his anonymous persona was.
And suddenly it was getting harder and harder to write back to his friend, seeing as there was always a crowd of people surrounding the wall, talking about who the people could be.
John was beginning to wonder if his teammates would ever figure out who wrote the messages. Even though he wished they’d asked his permission before making such a big deal out of someone having a crush on him, it didn’t make any such difference.
He’d only had eyes for one person for ages. And he felt it really was bittersweet, but he was fine like this. At least he had a vent. Talking to someone who didn’t know who he was (and therefore that he was the recipient of their affections), but knew what he was feeling was incredibly therapeutic.
The school had started calling the two of them the Unrequited Lovers, and John’s entire rugby team talked about them often.
John imagined how they’d react if they knew he was one of them.
I’m gay and hopelessly in love with the rugby captain.
I’m bi and hopelessly in love with my lab partner
Unrequited love, eh?
Really is the worst
Looking at someone and knowing they’ll never be yours.
Yeah, well, we make do, don’t we
The other boy’s response was just a little doodle of John, which was adorable and spread color across his cheeks. It was rather sweet, after all.
That’s so cute
Yeah, if only he would see me
I’m sure he does John had to admit, it had felt a little weird writing about himself from another’s perspective, but he couldn’t just say I bet I do
Maybe so, but definitely not in the way I’d like.
And that was the pausing point of their conversation. John hadn’t really known how to respond to that.
He was at the wall now, and he’d taken out his Sharpie.
I have the same problem
Because no matter how much he dropped to help his best friend, however much effort John put into everything Sherlock-related, no matter how many reassuring smiles John offered when Sherlock seemed anxious, he never thought it was anything more than John just being friendly.
He sighed, and slipped the cap back onto the Sharpie.
“John?”
John turned around so quickly he hurt his neck, despite already knowing who it was. How could he not? He’d heard that voice everywhere.
Sherlock seemed to be paralyzed, which was exactly how John felt right now.
He realized that although he wasn’t the most socially involved at the school, Sherlock knew what was going on. What those messages said.
“You wrote those messages?”
John felt extremely uncomfortable, but decided to just bite the bullet and give Sherlock the truth as it was.
“Um,” he coughed. “Yep. I wrote them.”
“Wait …” Sherlock looked confused, a new expression on his face. “But … I’m your lab partner. Why would you —”
“Yeah, Sherlock. You are.” John shifted on his feet, hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t get why Sherlock hadn’t known it earlier.
He still looked confused, but John met his eyes and conveyed the message correctly this time.
It’s you.
Sherlock’s cheeks glowed and he seemed to fold in on himself. Being so tall, it was surprising how small he suddenly looked.
Neither of them knew how to act.
Until suddenly, Sherlock opened his mouth and blurted out, “Well, it certainly is convenient that I wrote the other messages, then, isn’t it?”
John stared at him for a couple of minutes.
He was staring at the ground, face and neck so red John could practically feel the warmth radiating off of him.
Sherlock lifted up his eyes shyly and slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket with the ghost of a smile.
John just couldn’t keep the grin off his face any more. He practically skipped in place, before bouncing over to where Sherlock was standing, standing on his tiptoes, and kissing him on the cheek, before starting down the hallway.
Sherlock stood there for a minute, stunned at what had just happened, before his mind poked at him.
He’s leaving. He’s leaving, and this could be your best chance.
For once, Mycroft was silent about Sherlock’s foolish feelings. It was blissful.
Sherlock spun around and grabbed John’s arm, yanking him back. He leaned down and connected their lips, wrapping his arms around John as tightly as was possible.
John’s noise of surprise was stifled as he slipped his own arms around Sherlock’s neck, trying to let his mind capture every detail: how Sherlock’s hands felt like they were burning through his shirt, and how the curly hair at the nape of his neck was so easy to tangle his fingers into, how John’s nose squished a little bit against Sherlock’s cheek.
Sherlock broke away first, blushing furiously and leaving John’s head spinning. He grabbed Sherlock’s hand and intertwined their fingers, partly because he thought he might actually fall over, but mostly because he’d thought so much about finally holding his hand.
“Would you,” Sherlock shook his head, “possibly want to be my boyfriend?”
John felt heat finally come to his face as he nodded forcefully. “I’d like that quite a bit, Sherlock.”
A smile of relief about what happened and disbelief that it had happened fell over both of their faces as Sherlock leaned down again and pressed their foreheads together.
News spread quickly around the school, especially that concerning everyone’s two favorite Unrequited Lovers.
John’s rugby mates all shouted when they saw Sherlock walking John to the gym, holding his hand.
In chemistry, their stools were so close their shoulders were touching.
Sherlock had taken to wearing John’s rugby jacket and going to all the practices. (Which he did anyway, but now he could sit where John could see him.)
And by the time senior prom came around, well, that was quite the experience. Half the school seemed more excited about Sherlock and John going than themselves.
John’s heart had warmed so much he was surprised it hadn’t melted when Sherlock had shown up at his locker with a bouquet of lilies and a blush, mumbling a shy “Prom?”
Sherlock always seemed a little surprised whenever John showed affection, especially around other people, but John was working on that.
They had chosen to meet directly in between their houses and walk up to the school together. It was a warm night, and the stars were brilliant. The moon hung low and glowed golden, mingling with the yellow tinge on the street lights to cast a truly gorgeous light over John’s features, Sherlock observed.
Fingers interlaced, they walked past the quiet houses and into the bright, noisy vicinity of the school. Sherlock winced when he heard the loud music.
“Is this too much?” John breathed, squeezing his hand.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Don’t say that. I know there’s a lot of propaganda surrounding the ‘perfect prom,’ but you should have fun.”
“But you want to go inside.”
“I don’t care about where I am, Sherlock, really. I care about who I’m with.”
“Well, then, meet me back here in seventeen minutes.”
John didn’t have time to bluster out a reply before he was gone, now a whisper. He decided to go inside and talk with the others before Sherlock returned.
They spent the rest of that night in the school’s courtyard, breathing in the honeysuckle and moonlight, John leaning into his boyfriend’s warm side, allowing the music he made to permeate his brain, leaving a soft static in his ears.
Sherlock had run home to get his violin, and sprinted back in exactly seventeen minutes. Now John felt so content he could fall asleep. And he might have, had be not been so determined to remember everything about this night.
After a while, though, his lacklustre attempts to keep his eyes open when the wonderful sound of the violin was lulling him to sleep failed, and the morning after he only remembered Sherlock’s arms picking him up.