Chapter Text
He’s still there when she opens her door the next morning, is sitting cross-legged on the floor and facing her bedroom when she steps out and Joan is startled once again.
His eyes are red, with deep, dark circles around them and he’s still in the clothes he wore yesterday, sitting in what looks like a small pool of confetti.
“You were right, of course,” he says, by way of greeting. And as he stands, hundreds of pieces of folded paper slide from his lap onto the floor.
“Have you been here all night?” Joan asks, leaning against her doorframe with a sigh. “And are those origami hearts?”
“When it comes to matters of the metaphorical human heart, you usually are,” Sherlock continues, and gestures vaguely to the colourful little shapes. He shifts his weight back and forth and Joan can sense his discomfort, the pins and needles evident in his legs.
Sherlock looks down at the floor, at his socks and her bare feet and his voice is thick now, layered with meaning. “It’s important that you know, Watson, that I find our friendship fulfilling unto itself and not as a means to any other end,” he says.
And his hands are trembling now, fingers covered with little paper cuts are twisted around each other almost painfully as he speaks. “But yes, as of late, I have found myself indulging more than once, the possibility of us including a, um — ”
“Sexual component?” Joan suggests, arching one eyebrow.
“A romantic component, as it were,” he corrects. “Into our existing arrangement.”
She inhales sharply at his confession.
“I can’t say when it happened exactly, perhaps after I discovered your plans for adoption, or the news of my brother’s passing. Nor can I completely reconcile it myself, only that it seems clear to me now, clearer to me than anything else.”
And he scrubs his face roughly with one hand as he meets her gaze now, his eyes shining and red.
“I do want more from this relationship. From you, I want — I want more from you, Joan— ” His voice breaks at her name.
“Okay,” she says then, suddenly.
Sherlock stops his postulating, his ruminating to frown at her. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Joan says again. “You can kiss me.”
And it is his turn to jump now, to move away from her. He is shaking his head in protest. “Watson, I hope you know, I should never intentionally want to cause you any discomfort, nor was my admission an attempt to impress upon you anything that you weren’t—“
Joan cuts him off as she moves closer to him in the little hallway, as she reaches softly for his face. He flinches at her touch, at the tentative fingers now stroking against the stubble of his cheeks, his chin. “Shh, Sherlock,” she says. “I know.”
And with her heart hammering in its cage, she follows the lines of his face with soft thumbs, with soothing, circular motions until his jaw begins to slacken and his eyes flutter to a close. Slowly then, Joan pushes onto her toes, presses her lips lightly to his and kisses him for a long, encouraging moment. And as she lands back on her heels, he takes a deep, trembling breath, clears his throat heavily.
“So," she whispers. "What do you think the outcome of the experiment will be?”
“Hm?" Sherlock says, distractedly. His eyes are dark now, and his nose is tenderly nudging hers. "Ah yes, the conclusion," he agrees.
But Joan sees only a flash of his red cheeks and the soft line of his mouth before he is kissing her, really kissing her with his warm, wet mouth against hers. Thorough now, like in everything he does, he kisses her fully, continues his tender investigation with his tongue sliding between her lips, and his hands mapping out her shoulders blades, the ridges of her spine.
And as he extends his inspection to her jawline, to her neck, Joan hears him mutter to himself. "Results are almost certainly inconclusive due to experimental bias."