He is a fallen angel, I realise, as he looms over me. He is the epitome of anger and of lust. I bow in his presence, falling graciously to my knees in defeat. Or weakness, I cannot seem to distinguish emotion any more. His eyes are red coals that burn and scorch the earth in their wake; I too, fall to them. It is my own imagination that fuels the fire, and I suck in a breath, harsh and ragged, lungs constricting as if they seek to hide away.
He has hair that writhes like snakes, darker than night and blacker than coal. His thin frame is contorting, folding in half, bending down to take my hand and haul me bodily back up to my feet. I can feel the earth turning beneath me, its spin slowing, slowing for this moment. Sherlock is pale in the half light of a dull lamp, but his eyes are still dark pools of something I cannot comprehend. My shaking hands - so long have they plagued me - finally still their earthquake motions.
I do not remember when I last saw him. He is a spectre, a shadow. He is not real. He cannot be. It is illogical, it is stupid - some blasted miracle this is. I watched him fall, this angel; he died in my arms, blood staining my skin as if it is his only chance at being a part of me. His dead weight on the pavement, the milling of nurses and sickeningly curious passersby's, his empty eyes of glass cracked beneath my gaze.
I close my own eyes, furiously thinking of it as a bad dream and I scold my brain for tricking me before I open them again. He is still there. His hands are still holding mine. I shudder, gripping him tightly as though he may fly away again, smoke on a breeze; that ghost I am never quite able to catch up with.
His hands release mine, his proximity too close. I cannot breathe. He suffocates and intoxicates in equal measure. He places himself back on my person, slowly. One sinuous hand touches the back of my neck, the other cupping my chin. I breathe, finally, feeling light headed. Of all the things I came to associate with Sherlock Holmes, this was not one of them. I was not a hormonal teenager, I was a man. I was under my own control.
Funny then, that another, younger man can control me with the lightest of touches, the flicker of eyes on me, the hint of a smile in the darkness. We are all creatures of that darkness, but we come together. We always do. No matter how many times we try to part, gravity and magnetism always brings us back together, always to this moment. We had fallen into this strange 'relationship' by complete accident.
In the months after Moriarty had me suited up with Semtex in the pool, Sherlock had taken every precaution to keep an eye on me, lest I get kidnapped again. But I was too clever to fall for those tricks again. And then, one Adler showed up and put a rift between us. The jealousy I had come to understand tore me apart, separating my brain from my heart as if her red nails were a cleaver; her grin the very dagger that befell my own death. And yet, somehow, Sherlock Holmes, the man of mystery and ice and that heated hellfire, had turned to me in his hour of need and we had clicked, and everything we ever knew had changed. I took the time to memorise his frame and the tenacity of his lithe fingers as they pressed to my hips, a calefaction in their own way. He spent eternity and infinity kissing my skin with worried salutations of unsurety, the little butterflies giving way to bird feathers as he learned the maps of my flesh. It is a dance we still know well.
I do not fight my hands as they go to intertwine with his hair, nails brushing scalp, bringing our bodies closer. I can feel his heat, his heartbeat against mine.
My words stumble in my mouth, scrabbling to stay inside but I need to say them. I need to get them out, so he knows – he knows -
I had not realised how much I missed this proximity. He has the scent of earth around him, a landscape of smells I knew and some I did not. Most of him remained unchanged. But there are the little differences; the shadows of time under his eyes, the stress lines like train tracks against simple ground. But he is here. He is real.
"Sherlock," I whisper, feeling the lump in my throat, "Sherlock."
He understands, and grips my chin tighter.
Then his lips touch mine, and I am a sailor lost at sea. I drown in him, pressing my own lips to him as if he is a wine I have not yet tasted, and I have missed him so. He is delectable and divine and rapturous and I wish to ravish him like a man who has been starved. I feel like I have never been kissed before; at least, not like this. His mouth is searing my own, carving memories into my shut-down brain. My hands move, from where they rested easily on his shoulders – vague references of memory - to holding the man's hips. He pushes against me; a well danced waltz, and we tumble into the kitchen stepping on each other's feet before we rest against the table. Strange how easily I submit to his will. But it is something I had always done, and would continue to do. He is my rock, and I am the water that flows around him.
I feel his tongue press insistently to my sealed lips and I part for him, greedy for the taste that is he and no one else. I grow possessive with my hands; I want no one else to touch him, to smell him, to even see him. I want him locked with me here forever, like it should have been; just the pair of us, carnal lust driving us through life like leaves in the wind in autumn.
We fight with our tongues and our mouths and our teeth clack in our exuberance, hands clawing at clothing as if we are twigs snatching on free cloth. I am particularly violent with the buttons on his shirt; he scratches my skin accidentally, removing his mouth from mine to lick at the wound on my clavicle in apology. I grow even hotter, and moan for him, wrapping legs around his thighs as if it was my only lifeline.
Our joining is rough, unabashed, and nervous like two lovers who give each other everything for the first time yet passionate as if emancipated from our time apart. When were we last like this? When did we last have the leisure of each other's skin? I cannot bear to think about it. It has been too long. He has been away, playing dead, and I am John. Plain and simple. I have not changed. I surrender everything to him as he conquers me; the world, his brother and his interdeterminate inspector lover all extra components in what makes us 'us'. He is an enigma the world cannot escape from. But he is my world, my universe, my macrocosm.
I do not wish to escape him. I am willingly trapped by him; my centrepiece, his epergne to my nef.
We rest on the table in the kitchen when we are spent, glass shattered around us on the floor, discarded experiments cleaned that once belonged to Sherlock. I had neither the effort nor the will to remove them from their proud vigil on the kitchen table.
We do not care about the mess, for it will be cleaned later. I touch his face again, calm now, more sure that he is real as he rests inside me, unwilling to leave. To do so would mean the end of our activities. He smiles once, the disarming smile that had come to haunt my dreams and I crumble. The tears march from my eyes without hesitation, unbidden, staining wood underneath me where they drip from my temples. I begin to feel cold, even as my legs rest around his awfully waif-like frame, ankles crossed to lock me to him. His hands, large and comforting, press to my chest.
Please don't leave. I beg. I do not know what I would do without you.
He brushes my tears away with despondent understanding as I silently howl, crushing myself to him, arms around his neck as I pull him down to me. It has been too long, Sherlock Holmes. I was almost beyond repair. A broken toy, a crushed thing.
Sherlock, in the darkness of the kitchen, holds me, gentle for once, just for me. I am the only person allowed to see this side of him.
His hands work quickly, repairing me, putting back my circuits and my screws, buffering away the dents from being thrown. He repaints me from the bottom up, restoring me like an antique piece. I find myself forgiving him too easily, but it doesn't matter.
I may be the toy, but Sherlock is the toymaker. He values me too much to harm me again.
We simply lie together cold and naked on the kitchen table, and wait for the ephemeral sun to rise.
And if I wake in his bed when the sun has risen, his body curved around mine, I don't complain.
It's been three years, Sherlock, but we haven't changed.