This is for xinspiralx ( .com) and the prompt I used was 'Cold night, trail of blood'. It may have deviated slightly from the original prompt but when I started it just seemed to want to happen so I really hope you like it!
Cold Night, Trail of Blood. (Rating M)
Night fell like a silent shadow, drifting over the streets of London. It seemed to hide the iniquity and scum which lay in every crevice of the city. A complete illusion of course because it was still there, rotting and festering with the human rats that followed the same course everyday. Sherlock focused on the small drifts of snow that floated down from the inky blackness for a few more moments, letting the curtain slip through his fingers. The dirty glow of the street light flickered before it was extinguished by the stilling of the cloth. Upstairs all was silent, as it had been for thirty two days now.
The day John Watson had left Baker Street had not been a memorable one. There were no arguments or misunderstandings, no sense of betrayal or upset. Because that is what love is. It is watching someone walk away towards a purer sort of happiness and feeling better for it. Of being able to slip away the edge of your own sadness to appreciate that their life will be better for it. There was a hole, however. A dark pit, which for a few brief years had turned to light. It no longer shone, it writhed and buried deeper with each passing day. But it was secret and it was his.
He saw John every other day or so which was adequate, though he still talked to him constantly. The only difference was, when coming out of the trance like state, he could be sure that John had never been there to begin with.
Sherlock turned slowly, drifting through the flat just as the snow was drifting through the sky, mindless and destined to fade within a day or two. He took the stairs one at a time, remaining slow and purposeful as he travelled ever closer. When he opened the door Sherlock noted that the familiar scent still remained, as if it had been burned upon the air. Such a ridiculous notion that he almost laughed aloud to himself. Almost. Instead he stood stock still, staring at the lone single bed which was bare and unused. The empty space which he couldn't bring himself to fill. The certainty that it would never be full of that which belonged there. Sentimentality and he knew it. Disgusting. He may not have been able to laugh but he did sneer, stupidly off into the abandoned bedroom.
Clever, narrowed eyes roamed greedily over the space, picking up each minuscule sign, the only truths that remained that this room had ever had its perfect inhabitant. The slight scratch on the wall where John had dragged the bed around when he very first arrived, the pin that stuck in the far wall where some picture or another had hung. It struck him then just how little time he had spent in the room when John had been at Baker Street. For some reason it saddened him until he reminded himself that the right to despair was not his. His eyes flickered to the old splintering floor boards, picking up the lightest discolouration. Well fancy that, something he hadn't noticed before.
Sherlock dropped straight to his knees and crawled across to the splatter pattern. Ah. He lowered himself, breathing deeply and allowing his extensive memory to fill in what that dried, old substance should have smelt like. Blood. John's blood. Sweet and fresh and nothing like what it really was. Sentiment again. Blood was iron, it was bitter and the smell of it was rancid. But John's blood was desert sands and gun powder, antiseptic and tea. Sherlock let out the smallest of groans, resting his cheeks to the blood stained floor. The memory struck him without even having to search for it. It should have been some wild chase, not the simple act of a broken beaker on the kitchen floor. But there it was.
The day had been bright, mid summer, July twenty fourth and the first clue he had to John's discomfort was the loud string of swear words that echoed from the kitchen. Sherlock had hardly paid any attention, more interested in recording his findings than anything else. It wasn't until John hobbled out into the living room, grumbling for all he was worth, that Sherlock actually looked up from his papers.
"Something wrong?" He inquired curtly.
"Something…Something…Yes Sherlock. Next time you break something at least have the goddamn decency to clean it up."
And with that the man had hobbled off, but Sherlock had noticed the trail of blood that followed him up the stairs. Funny, how now it seemed to hold so much for him. That which had meant hardly anything at all.
He lay with his side now pressed to the floor, eyes closed as he pulled files and clips of memory from where they were hidden away, kept safe in that place reserved for his doctor and no other distractions. He had certain favourites of course, the dripping of the smallest water drop as it led a path from John's rain damp hair, down the hollow of his throat. Sherlock licked his lips in reality, yet in his head the tip of his tongue ran down the length of John's neck, stopping short of his collar. The skin would be warm, hot to the touch. John had always been hot, the brief moments in which they had contact. He had seemed so, human. Sherlock sighed and rearranged himself to lay on his back, a hand splayed out over the silk of his shit.
John would read with a furrowed brow, his lips pursed as if he had never taken in anything so interesting in his life. As if every piece of information was worth his attention.
Sherlock's hand crept down to line of his waist, flicking buttons as he went. The fly came open and he shucked them down to his thighs along with his cotton shorts. Not hard yet but that was John's way…or how he had imagined it to be. Slow and purposeful. No need to rush, Sherlock. In his head Sherlock agreed, running two long fingers over the growing length between his thighs. No need to rush at all. I'm not going anywhere Sherlock.
There was a look, one which only ever past between the two of them. A silent way of communication which travelled the line which connects them and would do so for the rest of their lives. That line that spoke volumes. 'Id die for you' or in Sherlock's case 'I died for you'. But bitterness had no place here.
Sherlock pushed the feeling aside, focussing instead on that smile, the glint in his doctors eyes. A soft moan fell as his spare hand fell flat to the floor, laying over the patch of blood that stained it. The other was working well, stroking up and down warm, hardening flesh. The pleasure that humans so often indulged in had escaped him for so long but now it gave him solace. He tightened the grip of his hand, bucking his hips up as he imagined the strength of the hands he wished were upon him instead. The way John's muscles would twitch and tighten as he hovered above Sherlock's body or the way he would look down at him with sparkling blue eyes and say something obvious or irrelevant.
He found himself quickly becoming a gasping, shivering mess. The memories he relied on becoming more flashes of colour and broken images as his mind seemed to crumble. The solid factor of John still remained in the soft edges of beige and blue, the scent which seemed to come from nowhere and only truly remained in his mind.
There was no stopping it now, his hand moving faster, body sweating, eyes rolling as he felt himself reach. A knot in his stomach forming into a tight ball of tension which threatened to snap at anytime. He found no pleasure in imagining those things he had no chance of experiencing. Johns's body in his own, the kisses, the desperate hands and animal grunts. They were not his and they never would be. But as he came he had the pleasure of hearing that which he had so many times before. From the depth of the beautiful garden, the silent flowers and flourishing trees which symbolised the space John had in his life, he heard that same whisper. The one that said 'I'm here' 'I missed you' and 'ill never really leave'. Yet in essence all it really was, was two syllables he had heard a thousand times throughout his life. A word which had held no true meaning before it fell from soft, caring lips. 'Sherlock'.