Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Glass Mask
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Challenge: Glass
Rating: PG
Length: 1436
Summary: John has just overheard an... interesting story.
A/N: Johnlock romance.  Follows directly on from my story Johnderella and the Glass Cane, and this one will make zero sense without having read that first.  (Also, I solemnly swear that my inspiration was "glass".)

Quietly, John stole back down the stairwell, making sure to skip the squeaky steps—although it was difficult to tell the success of his escape with his heart pounding louder in his ears that it would have drowned out a herd of elephants pounding down with him.

He’d gone upstairs when he got home unexpectedly early from his late shift at A&E, just barely in time to give Rosie a goodnight kiss—but he’d paused on the stairwell half-way up, upon hearing the word Johnderella, and he’d frowned. He’d stood, one hand on the rail, poised to burst in on the inappropriate, insulting faux-fairytale that cast John in the role of a fairytale princess—told to his daughter of all things! Surely even Sherlock could tell that was a bit not good.

As John listened, only a little enthralled at the rhythmic tones of Sherlock’s voice, his tone deep and open, caressing the ear in a way he only usually only expressed through his violin, he realised that the story that was not at all as he had first assumed but was a rather unvarnished account of their first case together, albeit embellished with fairytale vernacular. It was, for Sherlock, remarkably honest. Sentimental. And… sweet. God, Mike was going to grin his head off if John ever told him that Sherlock had cast him as the fairy god-friend. And Lestrade would roll his eyes in agreement at the idea Sherlock considered the whole of Scotland Yard his court.

John had barely breathed, as Sherlock finished the story with a deeply flattering portrait of John—at least the parts of him Sherlock liked—and worked his way through a number of other fairytales, incorporating the evil King Moriarty—yes, John was all too familiar with him—Princess Mary—oh, Sherlock, how had John ever blamed him for her loss?—and….

Well.

Interesting.

That was very interesting indeed.

And so, realising that Sherlock was nearly finished—and that Rosie was asleep anyway, making his intention to kiss her goodnight a matter that could be attended to at a time that wouldn’t embarrass anyone—carried on the swift, silent feet of a coward, John stole away downstairs to the kitchen.

Mechanically, he opened the fridge, peeled back the cling film and scooped a portion of the casserole Mrs Hudson had left them yesterday onto a plate. He took the cup of teeth out of the microwave and stowed it carefully on the ‘Experiments’ shelf, well out of three-year-old Rosie’s reach even now she’d learned to drag a chair wherever she wanted to go, and set his dinner to reheating.

Sherlock’s account had been, if not entirely accurate, then at least recognisable.

At least most of it had been.

John was fairly sure he would have remembered that last story no matter how metaphorical it had become in the retelling.

He heard the footsteps on the stairs while he was busy with the cutlery draw, heard the door swing open—heard Sherlock’s stride hitch for a good half a second before he continued into the room and seated himself without acknowledging John.

When John turned around again, Sherlock was settled at his microscope. His shoulders were tense and a hint of colour limned those ridiculous cheekbones.

John set a knife and fork at his place at the table, which now boasted a perpetually clear space in front of the booster chair and the chair on either side, thanks to Sherlock’s research into the importance of mealtimes conversation to language development.  There was generally more space on the table now anyway, since Sherlock had moved any potentially dangerous experiments down into 221C to ensure they remained undisturbed.

Rosie’s presence at Baker Street had changed a lot of things. Restored a lot of things. Other things were… much as they always had been.

John had been able to see through Sherlock’s masks for years, even if for a time after the fall he’d lost his faith that what he was seeing was any more than the romanticism Sherlock had always accused him of. John thought he’d seen through all of Sherlock’s masks.

He’d never seen through this one before.

But never let it be said that John lacked for bravery.

On his way back to check on the microwave, John rested a casual hand on Sherlock’s shoulder as he passed and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, lips firm through the soft, clean-smelling curls. No different to a goodnight kiss he would have pressed to Rosie’s sleeping forehead, if he’d made it all the way up the stairs.

Sherlock tensed at his microscope, and then visibly, deliberately, relaxed, still without moving an inch.

“You swapped the second half of your shift with someone who had a date later in the week,” he said eventually, without lifting his face from the lit eyepieces.

There was, John noticed, no slide clipped to the stage on his microscope.

“Caught a good connection on the tube, and a cab the rest of the way here.”

“Brilliant,” said John amiably and, eyeing the bubbling of his dinner through the glass window, cancelled the microwave’s run a little early.

“All so you could came upstairs to say goodnight to Watson before she fell asleep,” accused Sherlock.

“Mmm.”

“But then,” Sherlock said, “you didn’t come in, because you heard the story. I should have realised—I thought I saw the moisture of a hand mark on the rail. You stood there for quite some time, listening.”

“I’m sorry I missed saying goodnight to Rosie,” agreed John, “but she wasn’t expecting me to be home in time anyway.”

Sherlock lifted his face from the microscope to eye him. “She wanted me to make something up,” he protested. “She said all the stories in her room were boring.”

John snorted, and swallowed quickly. “I wonder where she learned to express that opinion.”

He took another bite, chewing it carefully before speaking again.

“It was a nice story. Not exactly made up, though. At least, most of it wasn’t.”

Sherlock was silent for a moment, before quietly saying: “She was asleep well before the last bit. If she’d been awake to hear it, I would never have implied that anything like that…”

John smiled at him crookedly, and he desisted.

“Probably would have been cart before horse,” John admitted. Then, after a few moments: “But I heard it.”

There was silence.

John chewed, and thought of the way Sherlock had never, ever corrected people. Not since the very first time he’d corrected John. At least, Sherlock hadn’t corrected anyone, until Rosie started asking questions about parents and families and Sherlock would take down the photos of Mary from the mantelpiece and sit with her, calmly explaining all the things that the skilled eye could deduce about Mary and her love for John and Rosie.

John ate his way through the last two forkfuls of the casserole and scraped up the gravy, feeling strangely calm. That same calm that came with a desert-hot day when the air was still and the dust was settled, but you could feel the eyes watching the convoy, just waiting for the trap to spring shut. The same calm that came with facing off with a murderer over the barrel of his Browning, the calm that came when Sherlock had frozen in place a bare moment before his eyes went large and he began talking very quickly about how stupid he’d been not to have seen it before. That very same calm that came with, “God, yes.”

John put down his fork.

“God, yes,” he said, non sequitur.

Sherlock frowned faintly into his empty microscope, and then raised his face, eyes still narrow, judging John’s intentions.

John stood, and walked around to him and took that ridiculous face in both hands. Sherlock let him, warm and pliant to the touch, and John ran his thumbs over the sharpness of those cheekbones, marvelling at the fine texture of lines that had developed over the time they’d known each other, and at the wideness of Sherlock’s pupils as they adjusted from the brightly lit scope to the ambient light of the kitchen and studiously avoided John’s gaze.

“Did you mean it?” John murmured.

“It was only a story,” returned Sherlock, his voice equally hushed. “This is real life. John, I wouldn’t want you to—”

“Did you mean it, Sherlock?”

Sherlock closed his eyes, but didn’t try to pull away from John’s hands.

“God, yes,” he said, and opened his eyes again, pale irises wide open, his face utterly transparent.

“Good,” agreed John, and kissed him.