Chapter Text
The noise. His third opening ceremony, and somehow he’d forgotten about the noise. The music of the ceremony outside, echoed by the sound coming from the live telecast screen for the athletes inside. And the noise from the athletes – a constant anticipatory buzz punctuated by laughter, shouts and the occasional shriek echoed through the cavernous backstage area. A sea of blue and white coats surrounded him – this, then was team GB, practically bouncing off the walls and eager to get started.
John snapped a quick photo on his phone before putting it carefully back in his jacket. Stamford, Murray and Knight to his left, chatting animatedly and gesturing up to the big screen where the dancers looked to be creating sculptures with big ribbons? Or elastic bands? The commentary was impossible to hear clearly, so no help there. Anderson didn’t seem to be with them though, which was always a worry.
The rhythmic gymnastics team was standing in a tight huddle. Molly was there, one down, excellent. Sarah and Mary next to her, phones out above the crowd. Soo Lin looking collected, Anthea staring at the screen of her phone; five from five, then.
The women’s artistic team in a loose group – and John cursed himself for not trying with their names, instead having mentally catalogued them as the one with the hair (Tessa? Gemma?), the one with the nose (Louise?), the one with the spots (was that Gemma?), the one with the freckles, and the flirty one (Jeanette). Well, they all seemed to be there, at any rate.
Christ, there was Anderson – shadow boxing whilst unsuccessfully attempting to look subtly over at – was it spots? Freckles? No, he was looking at Sally. Sally?? Surely, the woman had better sense. You didn’t get to the Olympics without a good sense of self preservation, especially in a brutal sport like gymnastics. Surely, she wouldn’t look twice at Anderson poncing around like the terrible, horrible lovechild of Sly Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Please, God, let her not, thought John fervently. No-one wants to hear about that.
“Oh my GOD Anthea look!! LOOK!! It’s him! Isn’t it? Michael Phelps!!!”
John looked up at the sound of Sally’s screeching, getting up on his toes to peer over the heads of his teammates to look for the American superstar.
“Not tall enough,” was the disinterested response from Anthea, barely glancing away from her Blackberry.
“Was that a reference to me? Because I’ll have you know I’m bigger than I look,” said John, eyebrows waggling.
“Not tall enough to spot Phelpsy though are you mate?” said Stamford with a clap on his back and a “No chance there mate, I heard she and Soo Lin have a thing going on” muttered in his ear.
“Really? God, people train overseas and you miss out on all the goss.”
“Not to worry Johnny… plenty of talent here,” reassured Murray with a speculative look out over the crowd.
“Haha yeah! Three Continents Watson, isn’t it!” exclaimed Knight. “I heard it’s because in the London village you pulled someone from three continents in a single day! Is that true??”
Bill and Mike smirked at John as he tried to formulate an appropriately professional response. But Knight was still going – “and I heard they just have condoms lying around in bowls on the tables? And you just grab them? Is that true? And I heard people have sex in the ice baths? And in the…”
John’s mind was suddenly filled with images of two blue-lipped athletes attempting to have freezing, shivery sex in an ice bath. An ice bath?! Think of the shrinkage! My God, thought John dazedly as he listened to Knight carry on, was I ever this young?
John looked up to the telecast screen. Some guy in a CGI airplane was flying past the statue of Christ the Redeemer, which seemed an appropriate message, considering, John thought gloomily.
“Henry!” John interrupted with no small degree of desperation. “Think of that after the comp, right? Focus! And yes, safe sex! Look!” he flailed an arm at the screen, desperate to distract from the dissection of his sex life by a kid just out of school, “Gisele Bündchen!”
Looking at everyone swaying to “the Girl from Ipanema,” it would have been easily to think he’d got away with it, smiling as he saw Mike sweep Molly into a small dip at the song’s finish. But no such luck.
“Well, I bet I can get someone from all eight continents by the closing ceremony. Show you a thing or two, old man,” chipped in Anderson.
“Er, pretty sure there’s only seven continents actually,” said Knight helpfully.
“Well, all seven then.” The man really was an idiot.
“And I’m quite certain Antarctica doesn’t field an Olympic team,” came a deep, posh voice from behind John’s ear.
“Well then all four!” Honestly, he must never be allowed to do any interviews, it would be bad for the team.
“Anderson, don’t talk out loud. You lower the IQ of the whole stadium,” said the plummy voice. John struggled not to snort.
John turned and struggled again, this time to keep his jaw from falling. The man was gorgeous. Tall, a head taller at least than John. The uniform’s white shorts left his calves exposed – pale skin that seemed to go on forever, his calves long and lightly muscled. Every male athlete, John included, was sporting the navy blue uniform coat – but on this man, the coat was something else. He’d popped the collar – the strong angles of the coat echoed in cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself on them. John’s eye helplessly followed the collar’s lines to where the coat nestled under a cascade of dark curls. Used to the utilitarian cuts of his male teammates or the slicked back hair of the women – achieved with some dark, ozone depleting art no doubt – the man’s wild curls seemed somehow indecent, and John’s hands closed involuntarily, imagining how they might feel under his fingertips. His eyes, a piercing blue even in the dim light of the backstage hall. And those lips – that defined Cupid’s bow – oh, God. But, Oh God! The lips John was mooning over were moving and John had missed everything being said and now this long tall drink of gorgeous was looking at John expectantly. John’s brain kicked back in. Or made some sort of attempt, anyway. “Stunning! Er, the ceremony I mean! Amazing, isn’t it? So, welcome to Rio! To the team, I mean.”
God, really, brain? This is the best you can do??
“Yes, well, thanks?”
John suddenly noticed the noise level increasing – the athletes must have started to march out. John looked up, trying to quash a sudden flurry of nerves. “So, uh, what’s your name? Are these your first games?”
The man made a vague hum of agreement, looking above John’s head at the crowd as it wound through the serpentine barriers, slowly being funnelled out to the stadium floor. “Rings or the High Bar?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Your injury. Which was it, rings or the high bar?”
“Rings, but…”
“I play the violin when I’m thinking and when I’m sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? As Captain, you should know the worst about your charges.”
John’s brain finally showed signs of life as they jostled around a corner. “Ah, you must be Sherlock Holmes! Good to meet you, finally!” he was nearly shouting to be heard over the crowd. The noise – God, it got into the body and echoed around the hollow spaces inside. You could feel the noise in your bones. Sherlock look pleased – a small smile quirked up the side of his mouth.
“But you don’t know any of my dark secrets – that’s hardly fair, is it?”
Sherlock’s breath was hot on John’s ear as he bent down, his voice low and fast. “I know you’re an artistic gymnast and you were injured in a fall from the rings. Left shoulder. You’re a medical student, not yet graduated because you can only study part time, at either Bart’s or Imperial. Thinking about the army after graduation but you’re not sure what to do with your life. You’ve got a brother, but you won’t go to him for advice, because you don't approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know these will be your last Olympics before retirement and you feel like you’ve got something to prove here. That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?”
Sherlock straightened up and stepped away. Dazzled, John’s eyes followed as Sherlock vanished into a sea of blue and white jackets. John followed him into the stadium, into a cacophony of applause, into a dazzle of camera flashes and mobile phone screens, into the beginning of the end of his career. The Games of the 31st Olympiad were on.
