[ it takes him a moment. a moment filled with taking that glass, tipping the bottle. but the pieces, obscure as they are, come at least in some small part together. they may not fit in their entirety, not just now, not with the night still filling up his head and the wine helping - he doesn't see the full picture so much as an out of focus snapshot, blurred on the way by. or something quite developed yet.
what he does see clearly enough is the part in the foreground. John sets the bottle down, Freddie's glass still in hand as he steps out and around, coming in to perch beside him. a shift and he's fished his own phone out of his pocket, fumbling with it one-handed until he's got the camera up. then it's a tilt of his head, beckoning Freddie closer. ]
Come on, then.
[ John's got a small collection of Freddies on his phone, Freddie a few Johns. if there's going to be a file, best start stockpiling cross-referenceable evidence.
[Perhaps it's not the response Freddie expected, or perhaps it's remarkable in ways entirely its own but it takes longer than it should for Freddie to respond - to move - abandoning his drink to push himself a little further along the counter and just a little further back John, the perfect position to lean into his shot.
His chin on John's shoulder, he reaches to guide his arm to a better angle with the expert touch of a practiced selfie taker.
Less poised, though, is the shot John actually gets, when his finger taps the screen. In the freeze frame Freddie's missed the camera completely, looking across at John with the corner of his mouth and the dip of a hollow in his cheek the evidence that he's smiling.]
[ he doesn't get to see it straight away. not until he's relaxed to open up their messaging window and find it to send Freddie's way as an addition to both their collections - and it has his stretched camera smile soften then branch out into a grin.
it's enough to prompt him into something, the whole of it coming out in one slightly sheepish but easy stream. ]
Sorry I got a bit intense earlier. That's how Sherlock— [ there's not a word that fits here anymore, so he doesn't try for one, moves over and on. ] He fell. Off the roof at Bart's.
[ it doesn't have to be huge. not all the time. and, apparently, not right now, when he's just captured the image of something more real and more immediate than falsehoods from years ago. he does laugh though, amicably if at his own expense, down at his feet. ]
Apparently that's still hanging around. Better luck next time, Ella.
[ his poor therapist really never did stand a chance with this particular lost cause ]
[The truth of most people is that they could pinpoint every moment in their history when they've ever been afraid, given the right stimulus. Nothing sticks in the mind like fear. It doesn't go. People just learn to store it further back in their minds until it almost feels forgotten about.
Until a word, or a place, or a face sends it spilling out again. Freddie would never be explicit about it - doesn't think his experiences match up to a man who's been to war - but he knows fear. And that it's not a place to dwell.]
Bloody idiot. [He could mean John or Sherlock, or himself, but his voice is warm. And maybe this is where he'd say sorry.
If he ever said sorry.] Probably shouldn't go out there on my own.
[It's an alternate offering. And something given in return for John's admission - perhaps part of what's needed to curb his inclination toward shitty life choices is to see how they effect someone else.]
[ a quirk at the corner of his mouth - the not quite thank you to Freddie's not quite sorry. the glance that goes with it is grateful too, and the rest is just, ] No. Probably not.
Nicer with company, anyway.
[ it's a sort of question, but not one that presses to be asked or answered enough that he gives voice to it: wine doesn't force itself into the hand, and he's never really known Freddie to be the sort to enjoy drinking in his own company to get drunk. maybe that part was an accident, or maybe it's just the sort of thing that happens when he slows down enough to create a space full of sketches stuck over walls. but if John can dump his shit on Freddie's doorstep in select circumstances with this warm a reception, the invitation is now extended, both here with this vague insinuation and very literally with a key pressed into the younger's back pocket, to do the same.
it's even welcome over the threshold.
then something in his face changes, some hitch of his mouth or tic around his eyes that leaves him looking comically close to baffled and he offers something else into the space in between them ]
... I'm not sure when I started wanting to kiss you all the time.
[ an observation. John Watson is perhaps, with weight off his chest and the first traces of wine meeting what's left of the whiskey in his gut, a little easier to come out with all kinds of things. ]
[Nicer with company. This rule is 50 percent of the way Freddie lives his life. Nicer with company, so long as it's not permitted to overstay its welcome. There have been, are, will be warm starlit nights where sprawling in the easy, temporary companionship of two-dozen people John would think of as barely old enough to babysit was, is, will be Freddie's choice. He's not good lonely, but that old routine's barely a veil to keep it out.
There will be nights when he pitches up at John's door, affecting airs to make his presence feel like a favour.
And, given the problem of choosing between familiar company (dangerous) and unfamiliar (hollow) sometimes there's only himself.
So tonight he didn't go to a party. Tomorrow he might. Save the new faces for a day when one he knows better preoccupies him less. All this won't be said, of course, it's a more thorough personal analysis than Freddie's comfortable either subjecting himself to or sharing.
But mostly, it won't be said because of what John says next. Because there's an easy answer to that and it comes with the old cocky smirk that's so much a part of Freddie's veneer - but also a part of him now: the boy he's taught himself to be.]
Me either.
[He steps down from the counter with more fluid grace than anyone part-of-the-way to drunk who's just fallen ankle deep in a roof has any right to manage. Steps down and turns and is pressing John to the counter before he pauses.]
Ages after most people, though. You've got a lot of catching up to do.
[ and so he allows himself one, just the one, leaning in to press mouths and linger for only as long as he can before either of them moves to press in closer and then somehow finding it in him to pull back. reach his arm out along the counter and take Freddie's glass, steal a swallow.
because there's no catching up to do where this is concerned. he's not racing nameless faces to a checkpoint, he's kissing a young man who still clings in so many places to the life of a boy and to do that at John's age either smacks of unmoored hunger or, ages after most people, with time to learn and know and only then to start to want in earnest, something else.
it's dangerous, this. and if he were to think about it in any real detail, what he's doing to himself and to the both of them, it might be enough to slow him down. so he doesn't. his thoughts keep toward the immediate and rarely ever ahead, he asks as few questions of himself as he can and he meets Freddie Baxter's cocksure comebacks with a bright glint in his eye.
a hand up, fingertips pushing into the hair at the base of Freddie's skull. John's head tilts and he rests his mouth close, a request for another kiss. ]
[A request barely granted at first, beyond the lightest brush of Freddie's mouth to his. His eyes dip closed, dusty eyelashes vanishing pale against his cheek, then blink open again to refocus. For all else he might be, he pays attention: even acts of ignoring someone are considered and deliberate. But he watches John like he's trying to learn him. He brings his hands up to splay across the topography of his jawline like he's studying the pathways of his bone structure.
His eyes are still open as he leans into that kiss, claims it gently, by degrees. Sometimes what passes between them is enough to bruise. This is rarer and somehow just as intense. It builds, until Freddie's fingertips give way before they leave bruises and fist at John's collar instead. Until his lips are parted, eyes closed.
Until one hand strays and there's a sudden burst of light, like a crack opening in stormclouds. And Freddie pockets his phone again. He'll share that photo the same way John did, later.]
Well. [He'd sound almost still put-together as he breaks the kiss, if he weren't so breathless.] We have got all night.
[ John laughs with what's left of his breath as they separate for Freddie to speak, only belatedly processing that bright flash, the event behind it. his mouth curls and his eyes open to fall on Freddie's lips, his face, find traces of what he looks like after all that. it doesn't last over long - a push forward and guiding hands at Freddie's hips indicates his readiness to move. ]
And three bottles of wine.
[ best to get on with it if I'm to drink any more of this before I get too distracted ]
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no subject
what he does see clearly enough is the part in the foreground. John sets the bottle down, Freddie's glass still in hand as he steps out and around, coming in to perch beside him. a shift and he's fished his own phone out of his pocket, fumbling with it one-handed until he's got the camera up. then it's a tilt of his head, beckoning Freddie closer. ]
Come on, then.
[ John's got a small collection of Freddies on his phone, Freddie a few Johns. if there's going to be a file, best start stockpiling cross-referenceable evidence.
he's got nothing to hide. ]
no subject
His chin on John's shoulder, he reaches to guide his arm to a better angle with the expert touch of a practiced selfie taker.
Less poised, though, is the shot John actually gets, when his finger taps the screen. In the freeze frame Freddie's missed the camera completely, looking across at John with the corner of his mouth and the dip of a hollow in his cheek the evidence that he's smiling.]
no subject
it's enough to prompt him into something, the whole of it coming out in one slightly sheepish but easy stream. ]
Sorry I got a bit intense earlier. That's how Sherlock— [ there's not a word that fits here anymore, so he doesn't try for one, moves over and on. ] He fell. Off the roof at Bart's.
[ it doesn't have to be huge. not all the time. and, apparently, not right now, when he's just captured the image of something more real and more immediate than falsehoods from years ago. he does laugh though, amicably if at his own expense, down at his feet. ]
Apparently that's still hanging around. Better luck next time, Ella.
[ his poor therapist really never did stand a chance with this particular lost cause ]
no subject
[The truth of most people is that they could pinpoint every moment in their history when they've ever been afraid, given the right stimulus. Nothing sticks in the mind like fear. It doesn't go. People just learn to store it further back in their minds until it almost feels forgotten about.
Until a word, or a place, or a face sends it spilling out again. Freddie would never be explicit about it - doesn't think his experiences match up to a man who's been to war - but he knows fear. And that it's not a place to dwell.]
Bloody idiot. [He could mean John or Sherlock, or himself, but his voice is warm. And maybe this is where he'd say sorry.
If he ever said sorry.] Probably shouldn't go out there on my own.
[It's an alternate offering. And something given in return for John's admission - perhaps part of what's needed to curb his inclination toward shitty life choices is to see how they effect someone else.]
no subject
Nicer with company, anyway.
[ it's a sort of question, but not one that presses to be asked or answered enough that he gives voice to it: wine doesn't force itself into the hand, and he's never really known Freddie to be the sort to enjoy drinking in his own company to get drunk. maybe that part was an accident, or maybe it's just the sort of thing that happens when he slows down enough to create a space full of sketches stuck over walls. but if John can dump his shit on Freddie's doorstep in select circumstances with this warm a reception, the invitation is now extended, both here with this vague insinuation and very literally with a key pressed into the younger's back pocket, to do the same.
it's even welcome over the threshold.
then something in his face changes, some hitch of his mouth or tic around his eyes that leaves him looking comically close to baffled and he offers something else into the space in between them ]
... I'm not sure when I started wanting to kiss you all the time.
[ an observation. John Watson is perhaps, with weight off his chest and the first traces of wine meeting what's left of the whiskey in his gut, a little easier to come out with all kinds of things. ]
no subject
There will be nights when he pitches up at John's door, affecting airs to make his presence feel like a favour.
And, given the problem of choosing between familiar company (dangerous) and unfamiliar (hollow) sometimes there's only himself.
So tonight he didn't go to a party. Tomorrow he might. Save the new faces for a day when one he knows better preoccupies him less. All this won't be said, of course, it's a more thorough personal analysis than Freddie's comfortable either subjecting himself to or sharing.
But mostly, it won't be said because of what John says next. Because there's an easy answer to that and it comes with the old cocky smirk that's so much a part of Freddie's veneer - but also a part of him now: the boy he's taught himself to be.]
Me either.
[He steps down from the counter with more fluid grace than anyone part-of-the-way to drunk who's just fallen ankle deep in a roof has any right to manage. Steps down and turns and is pressing John to the counter before he pauses.]
Ages after most people, though. You've got a lot of catching up to do.
no subject
[ and so he allows himself one, just the one, leaning in to press mouths and linger for only as long as he can before either of them moves to press in closer and then somehow finding it in him to pull back. reach his arm out along the counter and take Freddie's glass, steal a swallow.
because there's no catching up to do where this is concerned. he's not racing nameless faces to a checkpoint, he's kissing a young man who still clings in so many places to the life of a boy and to do that at John's age either smacks of unmoored hunger or, ages after most people, with time to learn and know and only then to start to want in earnest, something else.
it's dangerous, this. and if he were to think about it in any real detail, what he's doing to himself and to the both of them, it might be enough to slow him down. so he doesn't. his thoughts keep toward the immediate and rarely ever ahead, he asks as few questions of himself as he can and he meets Freddie Baxter's cocksure comebacks with a bright glint in his eye.
a hand up, fingertips pushing into the hair at the base of Freddie's skull. John's head tilts and he rests his mouth close, a request for another kiss. ]
no subject
His eyes are still open as he leans into that kiss, claims it gently, by degrees. Sometimes what passes between them is enough to bruise. This is rarer and somehow just as intense. It builds, until Freddie's fingertips give way before they leave bruises and fist at John's collar instead. Until his lips are parted, eyes closed.
Until one hand strays and there's a sudden burst of light, like a crack opening in stormclouds. And Freddie pockets his phone again. He'll share that photo the same way John did, later.]
Well. [He'd sound almost still put-together as he breaks the kiss, if he weren't so breathless.] We have got all night.
no subject
And three bottles of wine.
[ best to get on with it if I'm to drink any more of this before I get too distracted ]