Fear, John thought, was a curious emotion.
It was something others had often associated with him; his ability to deal with fear, in the face of failure, danger, death (that of others and his own). Yet for his ability to overcome fear, he could not define it.
Others defined fear by the feeling of one's chest constricting, or their knees weakening. Perhaps their voice failed or their eyes stung. Rapid breaths. Racing heart.
These things others described John associated with anger. In anger he lost control; of his body, of his voice, of himself. It was a Watson failing, a lurking anger, quick to rise. But fear...
No.
Fear is calm. Fear is a moment. Fear is understanding that failure is possible, and in so doing letting go of false hope to instead do what must be done.
Fear is stillness and surety. It clears his mind. It gave him the capability to shoot a cab driver with unfaltering accuracy. It made him lunge for Jim Moriarty and know that if he were to die in a ball of fire, he could at least make the world a little better as he did so.
John looked down at his hands.
This isn't fear, he told himself. Why should I feel fear?
He and Sherlock had only been home a few minutes. After Moriarty had walked away and the laser sights of the snipers vanished, Sherlock had called Lestrade. The Met were quick to arrive and after promising to make a visit to New Scotland Yard the next day to give their statements rather than do so at that present moment, John and Sherlock had been allowed to go home. Or perhaps more accurately, Sherlock had simply walked away and Lestrade knew better than to make a fuss.
An eerily quiet cab ride followed.
Upon arriving at the flat, John made straight for the kettle. Routine had always served him well in the past.
Sherlock had vanished, presumably to get changed.
Christ, he could still smell the chlorine on his clothes.
So there he stood, in front of the kitchen counter, watching his hands as they shook ever so slightly. Both hands, not just the left.
He hadn't noticed when the kettle had clicked off, but by the time he heard Sherlock move somewhere behind him he realised it had already come to the boil. He dreaded to think how long his friend had been stood there watching him. Analysing.
John dared not reach for their mugs and give Sherlock a clear view of his traitorous hands, so he remained as he was as Sherlock moved closer to stand but a couple of feet away from his back.
"Are you alright?"
It was quiet and soft and so completely not what John had expected.
He tried to be blithe, but could not even force a laugh, and so settled for avoidance.
"Do you know how many times you've asked me that tonight?"
Silence answered him.
"Just an adrenaline reaction. Coming down from the high, you know?" Lying to Sherlock was almost pointless in that he could spot one from a mile off, but it had the effect of communicating 'I don't want to talk about it' without having to say the words, which Sherlock was beginning to pick up on very well.
John heard a noise of assent and presumed the tactic to have worked, before a pale arm appeared to his left, on the edge of his periphery, with the sleeve rolled up to the elbow (he hadn't changed clothes, then) and the whole appendage trembling barely noticeably but more than enough.
"I know" Sherlock said.
John couldn't react beyond looking Sherlock in the eye. He had no words, no explanation. He didn't know what this was, but in that moment he was sharing something with Sherlock that they hadn't had before. Where there had been a pull towards one another prior, there was now a bond.
Sherlock turned away and headed once more for his room.
John could do nothing but follow close behind.
Just past the fridge, barely within the short hallway leading to Sherlock's door, the detective stopped and faced John, the hint of a question in his eyes.
John couldn't decide whether the question was 'What are you going to do?' or 'Are you going to do it?' Nor could he answer until it was already done, until his right hand was resting on Sherlock's waist, by which point the end was inevitable, the momentum unstoppable.
He raised his left hand to mirror his right before lowering his gaze and looking at their placement.
He'd never touched Sherlock like this before. It wasn't intimate, but it was beyond anything that had come previously. They'd shaken hands, clapped one another on the back or shoulder, accidentally or unavoidably brushed arms or legs. But this, this sturdy grasp, was full of purpose and intent.
John shifted his hands minutely, feeling the contours of Sherlock's mid-drift, familiarising himself to the notion of being able to touch.
Then he pursed his lips and began undoing the buttons of Sherlock's shirt deftly and with efficiency.
Sherlock exhaled and lowered his head, brushing the top of his cheek against John's temple. It was a motion of acquiescence. As was his legs moving to guide them into his bedroom.
As they crossed over the threshold, Sherlock's shirt hit the floor and John moved onto his belt.
Focussed on his task though he was, John was very aware of the heavy breaths rushing past his ear and the heaving chest drawing his eyes away from the motion of his hands.
Sherlock's arms, which until that point had hung limply by his sides, raised and came to rest on John's shoulders. This brought them closer still and put John's face almost into the crook of Sherlock's neck.
John expected a heady cologne to fill his nose; instead all he smelt was skin.
With the belt undone John moved on to trousers as Sherlock walked them back slightly further, closer to the bed, stepping out of his shoes and somehow sliding out of his socks in the process. He finally put his hands to use as well, undoing and removing John's cardigan and shirt in the time it took John to unfasten Sherlock's trousers and let them fall to the floor, along with his boxers.
He'd had enough of the preliminary activities. Sherlock lay on the bed at John's push against his hip and shoulder; head on the pillows, legs bent and spread wide. John knelt between those long, pale legs and with one hand lowered his trousers and pants enough to free his hard prick, whilst he licked the palm of the other until it was sufficiently wet and gave himself a couple of firm strokes.
With barely a glance at Sherlock's face, with barely a chance to reconsider, John licked his palm once more, lowered himself to rest on one arm and lined up his aching cock with the one below him, before wrapping his damp hand around the both of them and started grinding his hips downwards.
Sherlock groaned. It was a sound that had clearly been wrenched from his throat. An unexpected sound brought from not knowing what he wanted, but finding it regardless and unable to express that feeling of relief in any other way.
The desperation of it lit John up on the inside. He shifted his knees apart so that his hips were tucked under Sherlock's knees, and picked up the pace.
The noises that filled up the room – the creaking of the bed, the shifting of the linen, the squeaking sound of taut denim as John's jeans pulling across his thighs – were like an explicit soundtrack to what they were doing. But nothing was as filthy as the surprised whimpers Sherlock let slip from his mouth every time John got his movements just right.
It was amazing, that such a sound could come from that man. Such needy, shocked sounds.
John wanted more. He wanted Sherlock to cry out, to scream. He wanted so much noise it could drown out the memory of everything that had happened that night. He wanted to forget the smell of chlorine and the shrillness of a psychopath's taunt, and the little red dot that threatened to wipe out everything John needed.
He wanted his hands to shake from the exhaustion of the most powerful orgasm of his life, not from a foreign feeling he could place.
John upped his pace from quick to rough and drove forwards with the end in sight.
When Sherlock – moans becoming louder and more wanton all the while – wrapped his legs around John's middle, that was it. John came onto the other man's stomach with a choked cry, senses flooded with the sounds of ecstasy and the sight of detectively hands clenching the sheets. He couldn't have stopped himself if he tried and for a moment it seemed as though it would never end.
When he did eventually come back and realised that those moans beneath him hadn't stopped, nor reached their peak, he pulled his hand away from himself and wrapped it solely around Sherlock, pumping vigorously. It lacked finesse, but Sherlock was far beyond caring.
With the narrow drive of lust cleared from John's mind, he watched in reverence as his friend fell apart. Sherlock's eyes were firmly shut and his mouth wide open. His brows were angled in such a way as to make him look stunned, as if he'd never expected this, as he'd never...
The noises trailed off as Sherlock too came down and back to himself. And then they were left in silence and their own mess, locked together by the vice grip of Sherlock's legs.
There was nothing John could possibly say, or so he told himself during those stretching seconds of silence. These things that seem so right, so irrefutable in the moment, always seem so different after the fact.
Gently, John plucked himself out of the grip of Sherlock's legs and stood by the bed, tucking himself back in whilst the other man stared at the ceiling; mouth shut once more, and overall painfully silent.
As he reached down for his other clothes, John considered searching for tissues in Sherlock's bedside table and cleaning them up, but decided against it. Any further interaction, even silently done so, seemed... inappropriate.
So John moved to the door without a word nor a glance.
Once on the other side of the doorway he heard the faint shuffle of movement behind him, and risked one last peek into the room. Sherlock had rolled over onto his side, facing away from John, with his legs tucked up to his chest.
Something in John froze and solidified at the sight.
He turned back into the hallway and made his way up to his room.
And somewhere in the back of his mind he absently noted that his hands weren't shaking any more.