Author: tigersilver
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: S/J
Word Count: 1,500
A/N: Angst bath, here. Like all relationships, they either end or they don't. John knows it. And Sherlock Holmes doesn't seem to mind it, one way or another. Based loosely on 'Love, Actually', this is a sort of a cross-over. And this is John, realizing it's over, the fling thing. Christmas isn't always the happiest or gayest of seasons, is it?

"Hey, Sherlock?"

"Mm."

It's two days to Christmas and tomorrow's the last scheduled day of filming before the film they're in is wrapped up for editing. Canned.

It's two days to Christmas and they're caught up in a tangle of limbs on the ancient disreputable sofa in Sherlock's flat. Mrs Hudson—who is notSherlock's housekeeper, no matter what he says, the arse—had brought them tea again after an early supper of carryaway Chinese. Sherlock's old telly is tuned to some silly holiday musical programme, and all John can hear echoing in his head is the refrain 'feel it in my fingers, feel it in my toes', over and over, playing low. Some outrageous male singer is cavorting round the festive set of a variety revue, but John's not really paying much attention. Sherlock has his eyes closed and his head tucked on John's shoulder; he's not minding what's on screen at all when usually he'd be tearing it apart, criticizing with an acid tongue and a whole slew of multisyllabic denouncements. Not much patience, has Sherlock, does he?

It's ever so warm despite the faint chill of the flat, sprawled naked half-beneath a weird bright orange rug Sherlock must've been given (John can't imagine him ever purposefully buying an orange blanket for himself; he can't imagine Sherlock buying much of anything, as the fellow despises shopping unless its for clothes), and it's oddly peaceful. John's feeling very comfy. He can maybe see days and days on end of this same sort of behaviour, this…cuddling.

He's never been much for cuddling, or even a lot of touch, random or deliberate, outside of work. Likes his privacy, John does. But Sherlock's different, just as he's different in so many other ways.

John's well aware Sherlock's different, but he sets his teeth and comes out with it, despite that. It's—well, it's worth a go, isn't it? Just one more go. One more. Maybe there'll be a miracle?

"Sherlock. Look, I know you don't like it much, the socializing, the gadding about, but I've got this school panto I absolutely must make an appearance at, tomorrow. Tomorrow evening, actually, and I was wondering—I was wondering…Well, it's Harry's daughter, you see, my own niece, and I'm obligated. I mean, it's not like I don't want to go, but….but."

He falters, because it's not what Sherlock does, school pantos.

People do, of course, but Sherlock Holmes doesn't. Decidedly not.

"John?"

That sex-voice is a low rumble against John's chest, half-muted and very sleepy. But it still recalls to John's strained ears the same curious tone his lover had employed just a little bit back, when his cock was buried deep in John's arse and thrusting methodically: 'John, John, John', repeated like a prayful chant in his hair, against his nape, with Sherlock nipping down on John's straining shoulders now and again. 'John, John, John," as if John's very name is a lucky charm of sorts, and the man had to say it again and again to get off. 'John, John, John,' sometimes desperate, sometimes triumphant, always a tad bit questioning, as if Sherlock needed to assure himself it is John Watson heaving up his bum and spreading his legs as wide as he can manage on the uneven cushions, meeting each pulsing plunge with equal abandon. Frantically turning his chin so Sherlock can lay sloppy kisses along the length of his jaw and down his neck. Shagging each other rotten, as if the whole world depended upon it.

'John, John, John.'

But…it doesn't. Either.

He's given up, to be truthful, John has. On doing this normally, properly—this relationship. Not that he can even really call it a 'relationship'. There's no future. Sherlock never says a word about what will happen when Paul's opus is finished. He's never given the slightest indication he'll be wanting to continue this affair, after, and John knows for certain he's another film in the works. Beginning in the new year, and to be shot well out of Town, in some ghastly little backwater in Portugal. It's another love story, the new flick, and apparently Sherlock's git of an agent, Sebastian, has finally managed to come through for him in a very grand manner, because Sherlock's to be starring in a legitimate big-name Hollywood romance flick this time 'round, and it'll be touted as the next great hit since 'French Lieutenant's Woman' or 'The English Patient'. And he'll be co-starring with an actress reliably known to pull in the droves. He'll be raking in the funds, too, and it won't be cheap Chinese noodles in his future, it'll be Michelin-star dining and all expenses paid. He's set, then, Sherlock Holmes is, for the next great thing in his professional career, and John's not likely ever to be a part of it. Not like this, not as it has been, this particular Christmas season. Not again.

Not that Sherlock's not a brilliant actor—he is. John had almost been completely convinced a few times during filming of the veracity of the trite, over-used words Sherlock's memorized about 'love'; that the scripted sentences, they were the real thing, coming out of that gorgeous mouth of his, tumbling off that beautifully pouty lower lip. That the damp in those amazing eyes of his was the sign of real tears, honest emotion, when they played the inevitable 'break-up' scene, just to Paul's liking. That Sherlock really, sincerely felt just that way about John, in his heart of hearts. That it was love, all this. All this crap.

But it's only a film, only 'a fantasy made up for the puling idiotic masses', after all, just as Sherlock's pointed out to John numerous times. Is all, isn't it? In the end.

John's got another job lined up himself; he's not been slacking. Or rather, Harry hasn't. She and Clara have been bustling about on John's behalf, in the background, and as soon as Christmas is done and over with, he'll be flying out of the country and halfway round the world, to play a starring part in some overgrown kid's novel about elves or some such.

John's not really certain; he's not been paying much attention to Harry recently. It's been all about the man draped half over and half under him, and how he smells and sounds and looks—what he feels like.

What John feels like, inside, when he looks at him, Sherlock Holmes. Really stares at him, taking every little detail in that he can manage, his gaze greedy. As if this is it, this chance out of a million to get it right, first bat, and he's utterly terrified he's about to fail—they're about to fail, miserably. Muck it up, royally. Take a swing and it'll all be over, just like that. Just like that. A memory. On-set fling, and just another two blokes, two people, passing in the night. It's not an opus, what Paul's gone and had them make together, it's a bloody fucking travesty.

Brief, brilliant, and brutally hard to bounce back from.

He'd not mentioned it to Sherlock, about his next gig. And, if Sherlock knows, he's not said. Though John's pretty certain he must be aware. It's hardly been a secret, what with all the paperwork a new contract generates and all the couriers back and forth after Harry finally tracked John down at 221B. She's even sent him one of the new mobile phones, a great brick of a thing, to carry, claiming John was 'too inaccessible, John! And am I not your bloody family? For Christ's sake!'

Harry had even rung him up, to tell him about his niece's role in the holiday panto, and would he come? Please?

School pantos; right—that. No wonder the words fail him, sitting bitter on the tip of John's tongue. Not exactly the milieu of a Holmes. Not when the man can't even be budged to go out and buy the milk for Mrs Hudson's teas. Together, with John, doing the shopping. Not a chance.

Oh, gawd, but it's still terribly good, being entangled with a Holmes, though. It's fantastic, and has been. That's a fact. It's just, it won't continue forever and there's an end, right around the corner, maybe even tomorrow. Likely tomorrow, actually. Yes, tomorrow.

"…John?"

"It's nothing, forget it. Forget it, Sherlock; never mind."

John shuts his eyes firmly upon the sight of the flamboyant singer and really feels it, feels it in his fingers and feels it in his toes. And straight through his aching chest, where it's tight and nasty, like he's been harpooned. Struck through and left to bleed out, all across Sherlock's strange orange blanket and his horrid divan. Unnoticed.

"Never mind." He swallows. Yes, it's bitter, the truth of the matter. "...Me."