Chapter Text
“John,” Sherlock said from his perch on the armchair.
Perched was the best way to describe it, John thought, as he looked up at the other man from the medical journal he was reading. He was squatted with his feet on the seat of the chair, elbows resting on his knees, and his chin resting against his steepled fingers. He managed to look both like someone who was in a pose for meditation and like panther, albeit a gangly one, ready to pounce. But then John supposed that being anything but a contradiction at all times would be far too boring for Sherlock.
“Yeah,” John responded lazily, looking back down from Sherlock to his reading. There was a report on new advances in skin grafting. The advances were mostly cosmetic, nothing about the time it takes to heal, lowering the chances of graft-versus-host disease developing, or anything else that would seem more medically pertinent. But John knew that people, of course, did care about their looks, and skin grafts that looked more like there had never been a graft at all would mean a lot to burn victims, and the quality of life they would feel that they could have after their injury. John had to admit that if the scars he bore could have been healed so there were no traces of them, he’d be more than glad to not have to unearth unwanted memories every time he looked in the mirror.
But of course, even if the scars were gone, it wouldn't fix the underlying damage.
“John, are you listening to me?” Sherlock snapped, pulling John back out of the report.
“You’ve carried on for days without me around before,” John replied tersely.
“But John, this is important. And it involves you, although I don’t see why,” Sherlock’s voice trailed off and he seemed to retreat back into his mind, but John was now curious.
“What shouldn’t involve me?”
“Moriarty.” John felt his body turn to ice at the mention of the name. “I can’t understand why he took you,” Sherlock continued on. “I suppose it is the obvious choice, but it’s almost too obvious. Moriarty likes surprises, he likes twists and turns like he’s choreographing ice dancers rather than organizing a criminal network.”
“Ice dancing? Since when does anyone know anything about ice dancing, especially you?” John replied, choosing to ignore the more important bits of what Sherlock had said.
“Mrs. Hudson had me watch some with her ages ago, I don’t know why I haven’t deleted it,” Sherlock muttered. “But that is not the point, John!” Sherlock chose that moment to leap up from his chair and begin pacing. “Why did he choose you? Do you honestly think that you’re the most interesting person that he could have chosen?” Sherlock sounded exasperated, and John was growing to be rather upset as well. His temper had always been short, but since the incident it had been even shorter.
Being around Sherlock had frankly just become too difficult.
“Well who do you think, dare I ask, would have been a more interesting choice?” John slammed down the medical journal onto the table between them.
“I don’t know, John. That’s the point. It’s not something that I’m supposed to be able to know! I should have shown up and been completely flabbergasted at the perfection of it all, with a criminal like Moriarty. Instead, it was just you. Anyone would know to take you, John.”
John ground his teeth, the way Sherlock kept saying his name, almost like it was a curse word, was setting him on edge.
“Have you, perhaps, considered that there is no one else besides me, Sherlock?” John stood up and began to pace as Sherlock was. “You do realize that, don’t you? You don’t have friends, Sherlock, besides me, or at least I thought but suddenly I’m not so sure. Why did he take anyone that day, the old woman, the child, they didn’t mean anything to you, did they? Maybe that’s what Moriarty was getting at when he chose me! Who should he have taken, anyway, Sherlock, in your expert opinion? An enemy of yours perhaps? Or do you have some jilted lover from university that no one knows about but who you secretly harbor feelings for but broke up with anyway because you’re a stubborn arse who thinks he’s above things like love, but yet you expected Moriarty to somehow know about? What, Sherlock, could have possibly been enough for you?”
John stopped pacing and turned to look back at Sherlock expectantly. Sherlock was standing still and staring back at him with wide, surprised eyes.
“We already know that I’m not enough for you, of course. That much has been made clear many times.” The words fell out of John’s mouth without him thinking. They seemed to be the only words that could have possibly filled the silence.
Sherlock took a hesitant step towards John and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
John shrugged the hand off. He hated when Sherlock did things like that. There was no part of Sherlock that would ever naturally try to comfort someone. It just wasn’t who Sherlock was. What he was doing instead was imitating, giving John something he thought he needed, that he thought would make him respond in the way that would be least inconvenient to himself. He was doing something he thought normal people did.
“You’re wrong,” Sherlock said. John couldn’t tell if Sherlock was doing that mind reading thing he sometimes did or if he was referring to the comments that John had actually made out loud, or a combination of both.
“Oh, of course I’m wrong, says the genius. Tell me something new!” John snarled and threw his arms up in the air. He was eager to break the stillness that had fallen over the room. It was far too serious, and he couldn’t bear that right now. It felt like it did when occasionally Sherlock was going to say something that was far too raw and actually mean it. Those moments were rare, and while John usually cherished them, he couldn’t handle one of them right now, not after everything that had just happened.
But Sherlock, rather annoyingly for the self-proclaimed master deductionist, didn’t seem to understand John’s queue to change the tone, or was ignoring it. But the implications of that latter possibility were even more horrifying.
“I just thought, John,” Sherlock’s voice was softer now, and John’s name on his lips now sent a shiver down John’s spine. “That Moriarty, for all he claims to be, would manage to know something I didn’t know. I know that I care for you, John, which something that I have been informed of enough times now that I acknowledged it as the truth a long time ago. But I imagined a mastermind like Moriarty would be able to come up with something a little less cliché than kidnapping a targets partner to upset them," Sherlock said gently with a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
John was reeling. Sherlock hadn’t said much, but it was certainly more than he’d ever said before. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. It wasn’t fair to either of them.
“I need to get some air,” John said quickly before turning and rushing out of the flat before Sherlock could say another word.
He found himself a few minutes later wandering through Regent’s park. It was a very grey day and had been raining on and off, so the park was quiet, besides a few stubborn joggers and dog walkers. He found dryer looking bench and sat down to try to think, but the thing that he needed to think about most hurt too much to even consider. What had happened with Moriarty was too much, it took everything in him to pretend to be as fine as he had been for Sherlock. But now it seemed like Sherlock was finally asking for something that John couldn’t give him. Not for the reasons that he’d used before, no, something much, much worse. But he couldn’t help but want it, still, none the less.
But wanting Sherlock was something that didn’t get thought about, because Sherlock wasn’t like that and John had no problem not being like that either. And now, after what had happened, it was imperative that he stay as far away from Sherlock as possible without raising suspicion. Over the past week since the incident with Moriarty, John had come up with excuses to not go with Sherlock out on as many cases as he could get away with. He’d spent most nights out with women, any woman that would have him, in order to get out of the flat.
He was also keeping himself very busy at the surgery, electing to cover all of the shifts of another doctor who had to go on maternity leave a bit earlier than originally planned. When he did spend time with Sherlock, it had been the times when Sherlock needed a sounding board and John could sit and read and ignore Sherlock while he babbled incomprehensibly about things John would have a hard time following even if he could bring himself to try. That’s what this afternoon had been, or was supposed to be. It had been a few hours with Sherlock put in so Sherlock would not grow suspicious of John’s avoidance. Spending any more time than that with Sherlock right now was too painful and too dangerous. They were not meant to be anything more than they were, and John wasn’t so sure any more that they were even meant to be that much.
No, jjust because his stomach had twisted awfully when Sherlock had rejected him the night they met, and had twisted just as bad every time since he had to brush off a joke or a misunderstanding about their partnership since then, it did not mean that he and Sherlock could ever be anything more. Just because his denials were growing increasingly terse and violent out of frustration of seeming to have to repeat it all the time, did not mean they were destined to be together.
And now, particularly after what had happened, he and Sherlock very definitively could never and would never, ever, be anything more, because of the thing he couldn’t think about.
“John,” a voice came softly from above him and then someone sat down beside him.
“Sherlock, now is really not a good time,” his voice sounded far more desperate and pleading than he had meant it to.
“I don’t understand why you’re acting this way. None of this information is new, nothing has changed.”
John felt some tension slip from his shoulders. Maybe he had misunderstood what Sherlock’s opening up had meant. Maybe he was just projecting his feelings for Sherlock onto him. Of course Sherlock admitting that he cared for John didn’t mean anything more than that. He had already known they were friends. That’s probably all Sherlock meant. John was just so wound up about Moriarty that he was expecting the worst when it wasn’t even coming. Sherlock was right, none of this was new information. Sherlock may have never said it, but it was obvious that if a man with a reputation like Sherlock's kept someone around for as much time as he kept John around, Sherlock was at least a little fond of him, even if the reasons Sherlock was fond of John might not be any of the normal reasons one person liked another.
“Right. I’m sorry, I guess just the mention of Moriarty made me go a bit mental, you know,” John made excuses, trying to back pedal.
“Of course. It was my mistake to not realize how the incident with Moriarty might have affected you. I understand how people react psychologically to trauma and it was too optimistic of me to hope that you’d be completely fine. You are after all just a person.”
The rage flashed for a moment. John did his best to stamp it down, but his comment was still far too bitter, and it was a comment that John would come to deeply regret.
“Yes, of course, I’m just a person. Nothing like you. You know what, Sherlock, I think maybe I need to take a break from this, from all of this. Maybe, maybe I’ll go see if Harry’s in one of those rare clean periods and is feeling generous enough to let me crash on her couch. Or is pissed enough not to notice, doesn’t really matter. I just feel like I’m slowing you down. ”
“Oh, John.” The tone of Sherlock’s voice caused John, who over the course of the afternoon had worked himself into a toxic cocktail of emotion, to let out a strangled gasp that sounded much too much like a sob. There was so much pity and sadness in Sherlock’s voice, John couldn’t bear it.
“Please, don’t. Whatever you're going to say, don’t,” John choked.
John could feel Sherlock’s eyes on him, calculating. Trying to find an answer. After a silence that felt like an eternity, Sherlock spoke.
“This isn’t about Moriarty, is it? This is about me.”
John tried, he really did, to brush him off. He had planned to say something like “About you, you arrogant git?” but instead he said nothing. He couldn’t make anything come out of his mouth. Everything had gone so horribly wrong.
“You care for me as well,” Sherlock said far too simply. The implication of his words hung in the air though, and suddenly London felt so small, like it was closing in on him.
“What would it matter if I did? It doesn’t matter,” John finally found his voice, but it of course betrayed him, saying exactly the wrong thing.
“John, I think we may have both been very dishonest with each other recently and it has put up a barrier in our relationship that I think is crucial we tear down in order to be able to move on with the Moriarty case.”
John considered getting angry at Sherlock again for rationalizing taking a huge never before mentioned leap in their relationship because it was convenient and because it was getting in the way of his work. But John’s mind instead turned to mush as it echoed another thing that Sherlock had said.
“We’ve been dishonest?"
“Yes. Both of us. Unless I’m misunderstanding the situation, but I am, as you’ve stated, a genius after all," Sherlock grinned at John, but his smile did't quite reach his eyes. "But there is a criminal mastermind, although apparently one who is much more boring than I initially anticipated, loose in London imminently causing chaos so I really think that it would be best if we stop being held back by repressed emotions.”
“Repressed emotions?” John squawked, still hoping to sound scandalized but instead just sounding pathetic.
“Oh, John.” There it was again. That tone of voice. John couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t stand this anymore. This couldn’t be happening. Not this, not now. But before his mind could spin itself in any more frantic circles, Sherlock’s lips crashed into his and suddenly John could think of nothing else.
It was everything he had hoped it would be, in those few moments when he let his mind wander to consider what it might be like to be with Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock’s tongue was in his mouth and he couldn’t remember ever granting entrance. Nor could he remember ever considering denying it. And god, was it an amazing tongue. John had a fair deal of experience snogging, but this was something else entirely. John had never imagined that Sherlock had a lot of experience with kissing, but either Sherlock’s genius extended to all things or he’d been keeping some things from John.
But none of that mattered really. Because Sherlock was kissing John. And it was brilliant. And John was kissing back.
It was over much too quickly and John was dropped back into reality, panting as Sherlock pulled away. Though Sherlock’s lips were no longer on his, he was still close to him, head nuzzling the crook of his neck.
“I think it may be best, John, if we continued this conversation somewhere more private,” Sherlock whispered in John’s ear in between gentle kisses along his jaw.
“Yes,” John moaned, tipping his head back to give Sherlock better access to his neck. Unfortunately though, Sherlock’s lips left his neck as he moved to stand up, grabbing John’s hand and pulling him up after him.
The walk back to the flat felt so impossibly long. The warm of Sherlock's hand in John's own was wonderful, but it wasn't nearly enough. However, the second they made their way up the stairs and crossed the threshold into the flat, Sherlock’s lips crashed back into John’s and the journey home wiped itself from John’s memory and he was no longer sure anymore exactly how they had gotten to this point.
Sherlock left John’s lips again in favor of his neck, and John took the opportunity to gasp as Sherlock’s hands slipped themselves under his jumper, those marvelous fingers dancing along his stomach and then to his back along his spine.
“Fuck, Sherlock,” John groaned.
“Only if you want to,” Sherlock murmured against John’s pulse point.
It was such a clever thing to say. Well, in fact, out of all the things that Sherlock had ever said, it was probably one of the least clever things he’d ever said. But yet, it still seemed like the most quintessentially Sherlock thing to have ever been said. And it left John's mind spinning.
He wanted to so, so badly. For so long he had wanted this. But not now, dammit. It was too late now. But being so close to Sherlock felt so wonderful, and he didn’t want it to end. They’d already gone so much farther than John should have allowed anyway, what would it matter if they took it a bit further? Just this once. Just to know what it was like, so he wouldn’t wonder forever. It was all going to fall apart so spectacularly soon, maybe he could just have this one good thing. Everything else had gone so bad, he just needed this one good thing.
John suddenly realized the absence of Sherlock’s lips on his body and he opened his eyes to see Sherlock staring at him. He realized that Sherlock had taken his hesitation was a withdrawal of consent. John realized that Sherlock was giving him a way out. He could reject Sherlock right now. They'd be embarrassed, but Sherlock would probably take the strategy of pretending nothing had ever happened and avoiding John for a while. Which was of course exactly what John would need in the coming weeks. But he couldn’t, not now. Not after wanting this for so long. And the raging erection that had developed somewhere along the way wasn’t helping. He was only human after all.
So John stepped forwards, grabbed Sherlock and kissed him. Sherlock eagerly returned the kiss. After a few moments John decided it was his turn to go exploring, and he began to undo the buttons of Sherlock’s shirt and run his hands slowly down Sherlock’s pale chest. Sherlock shrugged the shirt off, and it fell to the floor. John continued to let his hands roam.
He pulled back from Sherlock and looked him in the eyes.
“Ask me again?” John queried. Sherlock didn’t miss a beat before he responded.
“Do you want to—,” but before he could finish, John responded with a grin.
“Oh, God, yes.”
And then they were kissing again, and John carefully guided Sherlock backwards towards Sherlock’s room, trying to keep their mouths locked together while also avoiding tripping over the carpet, or chair, or random pile of books, or anything else that could lead John to spending the afternoon with Sherlock at A&E with a concussion instead of in his bed.
Eventually, the back of Sherlock’s knees hit the bed and he fell backwards onto it, pulling John with him so that he landed directly on top of Sherlock, sandwiching him in between his body and the mattress. John erupted into a fit of giggles, and Sherlock chuckled as well. John noticed the look in his eyes was so soft, so fond, that John felt his stomach twist and his laughter stopped. Sherlock was going to be so hurt when he found out about the thing John couldn’t think about. But John wanted this. When was the last time he had been so selfish? Did he deserve to be so selfish, considering what he’d done? No, probably not. Definitely not.
“John?”
John looked down at Sherlock who was gazing up at him with confusion.
“What,” John paused, trying to figure out how to phrase the question without saying more than he could. He couldn’t do this unless Sherlock had at least a little warning. “What if this doesn’t work out?”
“John, I’m not proposing to you. I realize that statistically plenty of sexual relationships end, and sometimes badly. But we can’t continue any other way, can we? I’ve explored every other option, considered all the possibilities. This is the best one for us, I think.”
At the words ‘for us,’ John’s hesitancy melted away.
“Toe off your shoes?” he said as he kicked off his own, signaling his willingness to move forwards.
Sherlock smiled and John felt Sherlock’s hips shift under him as he mimicked John’s actions, ridding his feet of his shoes. This also caused Sherlock’s erection to grind against John and he groaned at the friction.
“Hold that thought,” Sherlock said and John was momentarily confused until Sherlock pushed against John, rolling them across the mattress so they lay parallel to the length of the bed, also leaving it so Sherlock was now on top.
“Better?” John asked, quirking an eyebrow as he looked up at Sherlock.
“Much,” Sherlock drawled before attacking John’s mouth, his hands quickly back under John’s jumper.
John considered for a second taking another pause, as much as he hated the concept, to remove some more clothing, but then felt Sherlock’s hand dive through the slit in the front of his pants and grasp his cock, causing John to gasp. When Sherlock had gotten his trousers unbuttoned John wasn’t sure, but he didn’t care.
John was left immobilized at the friction Sherlock’s hand was providing, his back arched off the mattress, his mouth open and face contorted as he moaned.
"Sorry I'm a little eager. I've just waited so long for this," Sherlock whispered and it took all of John's self control not to come right then.
He came back to his senses when he realized that Sherlock was grinding himself against his hip as he pleasured John. John was a very proud man, and he was far too proud to leave Sherlock to get off by dry humping him like a teenager, doing all of the work on his own. He managed to get between Sherlock’s groin and his hip, and Sherlock obliged to stop rutting against him for long enough for John to undo his trousers and shove his hand down his pants to grasp his cock.
Once he had his hand wrapped around Sherlock, he realized he did not know how to make his touch have as much finesse as Sherlock’s seemed to. But as he felt his orgasm begin to build, he realized that he had no time to be delicate if he wanted to have any chance of getting Sherlock off. He began to tug frantically on Sherlock’s cock. He worried that he wasn’t going to be able to make Sherlock feel as good as he was making him feel and that he should have left him to the rutting, since jerking Sherlock off with this level of ferocity and deftlessness was probably just as juvenile as dry humping, but then Sherlock began making the most wonderful noises.
The groans that came from deep within Sherlock’s chest seemed to vibrate through John and all at once he was pushed over the edge. John tried to keep pumping Sherlock as his orgasm coursed through him, but he couldn’t get his limbs to cooperate. Thankfully, Sherlock seemed to understand, or was just too close to tolerate John’s complete uselessness, and began to thrust his hips, fucking John’s fist until he came, collapsing on top of John.
After they both caught their breaths, Sherlock rolled off of John and curled up into his side, nuzzling his head into the crook of John’s neck. John heard him sigh contentedly. He wanted to wrap his arm around Sherlock and pull him closer, to stroke his back while murmuring ridiculous endearments praising the other man, but he realized his hand was covered in Sherlock’s come, and the waistband of his pants own pants felt sticky.
He sighed, hesitant to move, but slowly sat up, causing Sherlock to fall away from him with a whimper. He shushed Sherlock comfortingly as he lifted his hips and tugged his trousers and pants the rest of the way off, using his pants to clean up himself and Sherlock before tossing them across the room. He thought about taking off his jumper, feeling unbalanced fully dressed from the waist up but completely starkers from the waist down, but apparently he’d already taken enough time, because Sherlock growled and pulled him back down onto the mattress, quickly reclaiming John’s shoulder as his pillow.
John sighed in defeat and managed to shimmy the thoroughly mussed duvet down far enough that he could slide his bare legs and hips under it.
John lay still under the covers, with Sherlock curled into his side, feeling the other man’s breath against his neck. He felt heavy with contentedness, and allowed his eyes to fall shut. He quickly forgot about the fact that he was still wearing his jumper, that Sherlock was still wearing his trousers, that he was caked in sweat and desperately in need of a shower, and the fact that it was likely about dinner time and he shouldn’t let Sherlock get away with skipping yet another meal. Instead John drifted to sleep.
John made three very large mistakes that afternoon. The first was exploding at Sherlock and threatening to leave him, sparking Sherlock’s decision to take drastic measures by journeying to previously avoided territory. The second was giving into his desire and allowing their relationship to be taken to that new level. And the third and probably biggest mistake was to fall asleep afterwards.
Darkness surrounded John, he seemed to be floating in some sort of void. After an unmeasured moment he realized he was lying against something hard and cold and there was a heavy and unfamiliar weight on his chest. His hands reached out, groping nothing but what he realized was a tile floor, which he was lying on.
“Johnny-boy, are you awake? I was getting so tired of waiting. We’re going to have company soon!” a far too chipper voice sang in his ear. John’s hands flew to his head, and he realized he was wearing an earpiece.
“What do you want?” John said coldly. He didn’t want to sound afraid. He was a soldier,he was trained for situations like this. But his mind was racing as he tried to piece together what was going on.
“Oh, ever the stoic one, aren't you Johnny-boy! Is that why Sherlock is so fascinated with you? I’d have hoped it would take a bit more than foolish bravery to win the loyalties of Sherlock Holmes.”
John couldn’t think of anything to say, but the man through the earpiece, who John realized was likely Moriarty, seemed perfectly willing to keep talking.
“But for whatever reason, Sherlock seems to be quite smitten with you, and because of this, I need something from you, Johnny-boy.” John cringed with the repeated use of the horrible and condescending nickname and he felt his blood begin to boil.
“What makes you think I’d do anything for you?” John spat, using the rage surging through him to heave himself off the floor and into a seated position.
“Oh, Johnny-boy, so stubborn. I have plans, and since I doubt I could get you out of the way without breaking my favorite new toy, I’ve decided to incorporate you into them. See, I was worried at first that you’d get in the way. But after watching you and Sherlock together, I realized that using you will be sooo much better.” Moriarty spoke in a sing song pattern that to John felt like the textbook definition of insanity.
John opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, Moriarty continued.
“Don’t bother, Johnny-boy. While I can think of lots of things you could use that mouth of yours for, we don’t have time for them now. There’s nothing that you could possibly say to stop me! You see, I’m going to tell you my plan for you and when I finish, you’re going to nod and get up, and walk out the door that’s to the right of you. I’m going to leave you speechless!”
Then suddenly the floor seemed to fall out from under him, and Moriarty’s face appeared above him, contorted with mad laughter.
John woke up, a scream tearing from his throat. He tried to thrash, but he couldn’t move.
“John,” a panicked voice called to him. “John, it’s okay. It’s okay,” the voice repeated over and over.
John got his eyes to focus, and he realized that Sherlock was sitting on his waist and had his arms pinned on either side of his head in order to prevent John from thrashing.
“Sherlock,” John choked.
“It’s alright John. I should have known. I’m so sorry I didn’t know.”
John felt another wave of panic run through him. How did Sherlock know? Had he talked in his sleep? Sherlock wasn’t supposed to know. It wasn’t a part of the plan.
“I had heard you having nightmares all week, and I thought that it was just a return of your PTSD because of the stress. But Moriarty said something to you, something that you didn’t tell me, didn’t he? And you’ve been keeping it from me, haven't you? You foolish, stubborn man! Why do you always have to be so brave?"
John cringed at the word ‘brave,’ but felt the panic dissipate. Sherlock didn’t know, not really. He had only deduced that his mind wasn’t in the desert while he was dreaming.
“It was nothing. Just threatened me a bit. It didn’t seem relevant. I had hoped if I ignored it, I would be fine,” John admitted hesitantly.
“Oh, John,” Sherlock sighed. "You’re safe. I won’t let him hurt us, do you understand? He'll be nothing by the time I'm through with him.” Sherlock babbled reassurances, but John couldn’t bring himself to listen to them. He smiled weakly at Sherlock, but he felt nauseated.
“I’ll never let him hurt us,” he heard Sherlock repeat.
Oh Sherlock, John though, it's not Moriarty you need to worry about there.