he is nothing. he is nothing but skin and bone; flesh and blood; a walking bag of tangled thoughts and suppressed desires and tea and deductions and arrogance. Sherlock Holmes, on a normal basis, is a mush of molecules and science...
except when he's with John.
he is in motion; he is heaven and hell; earth and sky; angel and demon; desire and disgust; he is everything and nothing, all at once. he is in motion; furious, precise, and brimming with the nectar of life, which he dinks in through tanned, sweating skin, breathless kisses, soft sighs, and gentle caresses.
he is on fire; a divine force driven by deep blue eyes, a pointed nose, and a sweetly exasperated smile that greets the words that pour from his mouth like the carbon dioxide he expels. he is reaching hands meeting soft skin and cropped hair; he is probing fingers sliding against a soft jumper; he is a full mouth meeting a thin one in a sweet embrace; he is a smile exchanged as hands are brushed, walking through streets with sparkling wet pavement and idle passerby.
he is a purple shirt, the sleeves rolled up; he is bare feet in the morning; he is nicotine patches dotting an arm; he is long legs stretched out on the sofa; he is a violin bleeding music at the window. he is deductions and reasons and sarcasm and precisely cropped emotions. it is all in a days' work: thinking and speaking and holding back and breathing. but when he is with John, there is no effort.
there is no trying. there is no wondering if he is doing it right. it just is, and it is natural and beautiful and breathtaking.
he is full lips parted in a soft sigh as warm, rough hands are run over his sensitive skin; he is eyes closed in complete surrender; he is fire coursing through veins; he is goose pimples dotting flushed skin. he is sweet words whispered from a trembling mouth to a tingling ear; he is he is he is he is he is.
he is whole.
completely, beautifully, fulfillingly whole. all of his missing pieces are put into place with a single whispered word. with a touch to his hand. with a kiss pressed to his mouth or neck or cheek or stomach or hand or eyes. cracks are filled and patches are made; broken pieces fused together and becoming whole again with one glance.
and all at once, it is his undoing; he is falling apart and coming back together at the same time as deep blue eyes penetrate his own light ones; and something breaks and becomes whole within one split second as his name leaves that mouth; as those touches and kisses and words and sighs are exchanged between them. as warm fingers are run through wild curls; as buttons are done and undone; as soft 'i love you's are whispered in ears. broken and whole; broken and whole; he is nothing and everything, all at once.
it a madness that grips him as he stares; as he is filled with emotions. not the carefully cropped and held-back skeletons of things that he displays for the world outside- emotions that are real and full-bodied and beautiful and alive, filling his insides with warmth and fear and beauty. it is a raging tidal wave of everything, crashing through his insides all at the same time. a wild inferno, searing his insides and leaving him scorched in the most beautiful way imaginable.
he is a man in love.
it is not something he ever thought could be possible; this need. this beauty. this aching, all-consuming desire for the man who sits across from him, laptop on, tea in hand, writing a blog about their adventures. who wears all of those silly, usually hideous jumpers, and who scolds him like a child whenever he's misbehaving. who is not afraid to tell him when he's wrong, and who will never go gently.
he is a hard drive full of images of smiles; sound bites of laughter and soft sighs; the memory of cashmere against fingertips. he is arms around a trembling body, shaking with nightmares. he is tender kisses to the back of a neck or the top of a head. he is a head resting on a lap, book in hand, as fingers are run through a mess of hair.
he is. he is not. he is his own. he is John's. he is. he is.
and he always will be.