Just imagine like a year or two into their relationship, John and Sherlock come stumbling in the front door, high on adrenaline and giggling, and John presses Sherlock back into the wall, kissing him breathlessly through their laughter and eventually pulling away and saying “You’re going to marry me,” and Sherlock quirking an eyebrow, all cocky, and saying “Oh really? Who says?” And John just grinning and stepping back some and gesturing to the door, saying “The man at the door” and there’s a knock and Sherlock just stares at him for a second before he opens it and there’s Angelo with a huge grin and a small ring box held out in his hand, and he says “John texted me, said you’d be needing this.”
THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN. LIKE, ABOVE ALL OTHER CUTE PROPOSALS, THIS IS THE ONE.
Sometimes I get so embarrassed remembering how Sherlock’s show-off urges include showing off the fact that John hangs out with him. Like as soon as Sherlock shows up anywhere he’s like, “Hello, this man is WITH ME, did everyone hear that? He is my colleague, my friend, my partner; he is FAMILY so if you want to say something to ME you have to say it to HIM because we are ALWAYS TOGETHER. He thinks my life is worth preserving, so JOT THAT DOWN. He is NOT an old man with a mustache that ages him; his RATIOS are IDEAL and he WALKS like THAT for the REASON YOU THINK. He is PERFECT at everything and he chooses to spend his time being OBSESSED with me, so everyone who has ever doubted or criticized me can EAT SHIT. THIS is the caliber of person I attract, and I have ZERO need for ANY of you or ANY of your compliments because you could NEVER understand how little they mean compared to the ones I get — CONSTANTLY! — from this outstanding man.”
And everyone is always like “uh okay sure, anyway here’s the body we called you about”
This is the truest truth I’ve ever read in this fandom.
Their first kiss takes place at the bottom of the stairs, where their first laugh was. And, that’s where it starts, the ‘double-tap’, Sherlock calls it.
As John slowly separates their lips, he tugs Sherlock’s forehead down to his own and brings their temples gently together twice. Though Sherlock notices it happening, he has no urge at all to question it. Not when his mind is already spiraling after the first touch of John’s lips against his own. Foreheads be damned.
But, Sherlock notices the double-tap again. This time at night, in their bed. John’s holding Sherlock from behind, arms secured around the detective’s waist. Sherlock is drifting off into the milky feeling of sleep, when he feels a small ‘bump-bump’ against the bare skin along his spine – followed by a small puff of warm air as John sighs contently.
What was it? Why does John do that?
Sherlock applies some rather embarrassing internet searches to the topic of forehead-bumping your partners…but comes up with nothing but juvenile sites for teens venturing off into the ‘Exciting World of Relationships’, as well as sites that gives tips on executing a successful headbutt that will knock out an attacker in one go.
Neither of those help. So, Sherlock assumes it’s just a John-thing. Which is fine, because that means it’s going to be easier to figure out. Sherlock just needs to focus on it better.
Two and a half weeks into the Bump Study, and Sherlock’s not really gotten anywhere.
What originally Sherlock thought was an action done after kissing, turns out to be an action done before falling asleep, after saying hello, before saying goodbye, after an argument, after tea, in the middle of watching a film, etc.
What does it mean??
One day, Sherlock gets fed up with not knowing. He hates not knowing.
“What is that?” Sherlock asks, and in confusion, John looks down at the only thing he has currently.
John waves a hand toward his plate. “Toast with peach jam…?”
“Damn the jam, John.” Sherlock rubs the heels of his palms against his eyes. “The head thing, what is it?”
“Your skull…?”
“Oh, John. I envy you.”
John rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes. I know.” He says. “Lucky John gets to be an idiot, while I, the Sherlock have to lug the weight of my big brain around.”
Sherlock peeks up from between his fingers. “You take that back.”
“You probably only have curls to hide the massiveness of your head that your brain causes.”
“I just. Want to know. Why you bump me with your forehead.” Sherlock can’t believe the conversation they’re having.
“Oh,” John’s frozen for a moment, then he’s shifting about. “It’s just…”
Sherlock is quite literally on the edge of his seat. “Yes??”
John is blushing. “I do it for a lot of reasons.”
Sherlock’s mouth falls open, then snaps shut. “Goodness, John. Your ability to specify leaves our country forever indebted.”
“Prick,” John dry-laughs. “Anyway, it’s words, Sherlock.”
“…Words?”
“Each tap is usually a word, and sometimes it’s a single word with two syllables.”
“Tell me. Which words?”
“Okay,” John says. “Warning though, this is very sappy.”
“So be it. Sap on.”
“The words are: ‘thank you’,” John gets out of his chair. “’Need you’, ‘want you’, ‘love you’, ‘hate you’…” He stops in front of Sherlock, leans down until he’s close enough to softly bring their foreheads together twice. “’Sher-Lock’.”
John breaks the name into its two separate sounds to show how it fits into the double-tap.
i see sherlock as fire and john as water… john calms sherlock from burning out of control and self destructing, and sherlock excites john and fills his life with passion (like boiling water)… together they… why they can make a cup of tea
Can we talk about the deleted gay bar scene from TSoT…?
You know, the one that was Martin and ben’s “favorite to shoot” and the one that they were disappointed when it got cut??? 🤨 and how there were loads of shirtless men walking around and and and…. 😳
i’m just gonna leave this here as a reminder that “hitting bottom” doesn’t mean “staying on bottom for the rest of your life and dying as a piece of crap”
I will never, ever, not reblog this.
*huggles RDJ* Anyone on here who loves him, someone posted an amazing story about him when he was younger. I wish knew where the link was so I could share it. Instead, it’s just cut and pasted below. If I find the link, I’ll replace it with that.
I will also say that I have read this several times now and it still makes me cry.
“True story: His Name is Robert Downey Jr.” by Dana Reinhardt
I’m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with drug addicted celebrity bad boys.
Mine does.
His name is Robert Downey Jr.
You’ve probably heard of him. You may or may not be a fan, but I am, and I was in the early 90’s when this story takes place.
It was at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. My stepmother was the executive director, which is why I was in attendance without having to pay the $150 fee. It’s not that I don’t support the ACLU, it’s that I was barely twenty and had no money to speak of.
I was escorting my grandmother. There isn’t enough room in this essay to explain to you everything she was, I would need volumes, so for the sake of brevity I will tell you that she was beautiful even in her eighties, vain as the day is long, and whip smart, though her particular sort of intelligence did not encompass recognizing young celebrities.
I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasn’t Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?
The afternoon’s main honoree was Ron Kovic, whose story of his time in the Vietnam War that had left him confined to a wheelchair had recently been immortalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.
I mention the wheelchair because it played an unwitting role in what happened next.
We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.
We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.
The volume of blood was staggering.
I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?
Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.
He ordered someone to call an ambulance. Another to bring a glass of water. Another to fetch a blanket. He took off his gorgeous linen jacket and he rolled up his sleeves and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg, and then he took that jacket that I’d assumed he’d taken off only to it keep out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream colored linen turn scarlet with her blood.
He told her not to worry. He told her it would be alright. He knew, instinctively, how to speak to her, how to distract her, how to play to her vanity. He held onto her calf and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were.
She said to him, to my humiliation: “My granddaughter tells me you’re a famous actor but I’ve never heard of you.”
He stayed with her until the ambulance came and then he walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. “Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,” he said. “We’ll do lunch.”
He was a movie star, after all.
Believe it or not, I hurried into the ambulance without saying a word. I was too embarrassed and too shy to thank him.
We all have things we wish we’d said. Moments we’d like to return to and do differently. Rarely do we get that chance to make up for those times that words failed us. But I did. Many years later.
I should mention here that when Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for being a drug addict (which strikes me as absurd and cruel, but that’s the topic for a different essay), I thought of writing to him. Of reminding him of that day when he was humanity personified. When he was the best of what we each can be. When he was the kindest of strangers.
But I didn’t.
Some fifteen years after that garden party, ten years after my grandmother had died and five since he’d been released from prison, I saw him in a restaurant.
I grew up in Los Angeles where celebrity sightings are commonplace and where I was raised to respect people’s privacy and never bother someone while they’re out having a meal, but on this day I decided to abandon the code of the native Angeleno, and my own shyness, and I approached his table.
I said to him, “I don’t have any idea if you remember this…” and I told him the story.
He remembered.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.”
He stood up and he took both of my hands in his and he looked into my eyes and he said, “You have absolutely no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”
I’m crying now, too. And I believe it if he said that he needed to hear that. Being in the spotlight is hard, and the internet is not kind to people in the spotlight. There’s way, way more negativity than positivity and it’s totally toxic for most of them. He probably really did need to hear that. What a beautiful story this is. <333333
Bootsrcool 