Memorandum Of Understanding And Experience, Mr Holmes.

Chapter One - Deductions

There are two obvious deductions to be made about the man standing in front of me – need a clue?

Deduction A. It's two o'clock in the morning and he's just walked in the house like he owns it, or at least owns something inside it (which I guess he does). He's not actually said anything since he arrived and woke me up from my slumber on the sofa; yet his mouth keeps opening and closing like there are words he's trying to say. He's swaying, just slightly, in his oversized boots. And then there's the whisky on his breath and the tremor in his hands and the slight glazed look about his eyes.

Deduction B. Those eyes, deep blue, are very wide and very dark and trying to look anywhere but me whilst simultaneously capture me in some sort of trap. He's been standing still for a while, he took a taxi here, he hasn't done anything that can be described as exercise, yet his breathing is short and sharp; I can practically hear his heart rushing. His thumbs are looped into his belt, his slender fingers making a downwards V to a heavy, delicious, weight.

Those deductions are elementary, what's more interesting are the reasons why now. Why after ever so politely using Molly to remove me from his life; and then that haunting letter. Leaving me in silence and darkness, not even granting me with an accepted phone ring; suffocating me in my misery for months. Why now is he suddenly in our flat, my flat, at two in the morning. Why is he standing here staring at me, wordlessly thinking so loudly I wish I could shut him up.

Ok so yes, deduction A – the drunken anger, I do deserve that. I've caused it so I should take it. I will stand here and let him beat me into submission as he screams at me if that's what he wants, at least it would be easier than the silence of the world without him.

But I'm much more interested in deduction B. Who's responsible for that emotion, and what does he want me to do about it?

"John," I start talking first, mainly to put him out of his misery, also because I'm bored of just looking at him.

"Sherlock," he slurs.

Great, I'm not sure we're going to get anywhere if we just say our names out loud.

"You're… here."

"Yes, there's things I need to say, things that…" He starts so well, so indignantly, almost prepared with a speech of disappointment and hatred but as his eyes lock to mine he loses his words. "Things that need to be said-" his words start slurring some more through drink. His body makes a tiny almost imperceptible lean towards my own. Ah so maybe he does want me to do something about deduction B.

Things have happened before, you know deduction B things. Usually they were drink fuelled, and usually quick and hurried. Of course, I wanted to as soon as I met him. I'd had a pleasant dream about a science lab and the size and shape of test tubes and it couldn't have been a coincidence that I'd met such a man in the lab only a few days later. But he seemed so heterosexual, into the social construct of boyfriend and girlfriend and I almost didn't bother. Until his drunken hand made contact with my knee and his eyes locked to mine and we were against the couch before many deductions could be made; his hands fumbling with my belt buckle as mine buried deep in his unnecessarily small boxers. That happened a few times, always after drink, never spoken of. And then of course there was Moriaty and his network and what John and I had was necessary collateral. There's still a pang in my heart as I consider those months, if there had been any other way. But there wasn't so I left him free, and free he was to meet Mary.

"You, you killed my wife!" He yells now, having found his words.

"Actually Vivian Nor-"

"Oh don't twist my words Sherlock, That bullet was meant for you," he said thrusting a finger at me. "She took that bullet for you. And regardless you made a vow to us Sherlock, you made us your first and last vow."

"I know."

"You, Sherlock." That finger, that was jabbing at me with judgement, has found a rest against my chest.

"She saved me, John" I say stepping forward, closer to him, I need him to listen to me, I need him to stop with the silence that's more deafening than the bullet was.

His eyes darken and widen and there's so many things left unsaid.

"You took her away from me!" That finger is trailing around my neck now, taking my pulse, making it rush. "Do you even understand?"

"Help me to, please."

"And in doing that you" he coughs, "you took you away from me."

I step closer, purposefully, I need him to know I am where I always am, right here.

"Oh God, Sherlock, I've missed you – I've…"

His hand cups my chin, his finger ghosts across my lips. A taxi drives past lighting up the otherwise darkened house and his wedding ring glints with guilt.

"John," it takes so much to say his name, I want to pull him to me and sink into him, but this isn't right, not now.

"John" I say again as he leans up, his warm lips slightly damp, slightly parted.

"John, we said we weren't going to – not again."

We'd made a promise, the night of the stag do. The night of no more. And I can't take when he's this intoxicated.

His mouth is almost against my own, I can almost taste him. But my words make him stop, he shakes his head as his eyes suddenly clear. He takes a step back.

"Yes." He nods and coughs, "yes quite right. I'm sorry I don't know what-"

"You're grieving."

He stares at me, blinks hard, he's questioning how I can understand that grief makes you do stupid things like crave the affection of others. He doesn't realise I'm also grieving, but the person I'm grieving for is standing right in front of me.

Suddenly my face is thrust to the right, my cheek stinging with the implant of his hand.

"That's what I came here do to," is his explanation for the slap.

I instinctively bring my hand up to my cheek, soothe the burn. My mind must be slowed from the almost kiss as I don't notice his hand coming up to assault my other cheek. My best friend barrels into me with both fists and I can only stand still. This physical pain is no less than what I deserve. When I think of the pain I caused Mary in her final moments, the pain I've caused John and Rosamund every day for the rest of their lives. Any pain he could give me pales in comparison.

And it's John, my John that's doing this, his fists that are tormenting me. Here in my flat, our flat, he's standing with me, his hands are on me. I breathe him in and accept him, I feel parts of my psyche relax.

Then I notice his hands trembling, but not with anger. And I notice his eyelashes drop as his gaze becomes heavy. He's crying. I gather him to me, pull him against me. He resists, of course, physically fighting my hugging arms. I keep a distance between his legs and my own. I don't want him to know how his anger has affected me. Violence has always been my undoing, triggers a dark place inside.

"Sherlock, are you…" his brows knot in a furrow of confusion as he pulls away, stares at my face, and then down. "You're getting off on this." He says driving backwards out of my embrace.

"John-"

"Save it!"

He storms towards the door and doesn't turn around until he's there.

"I," there is so much disgust on his tongue, in his eyes, and then he lands on the phrase he must know is going to scar. "I don't understand you."

I have been told that statement more times than I care to remember. I've been doubted, blamed, called names by people I thought friends - Freak, weirdo. But not by him, not by the person that matters. His words floor me so it takes me a few moments to chase him down the stairs.

"John, wait!"

He looks almost menacing in the dark of the stairway; but his body looks so weak, all I want to do is protect him.

"How are you getting home?"

He doesn't grace me with a response - taking two stairs at a time now.

"Stay with me tonight..in your old room, leave first thing in the morning if you must just don't go when you're in this state."

He accepts with finality. He treads both sets of stairs to his bedroom without a word, slams the door. I pace into mine, using my mind palace and mediation techniques to relax enough to strip and get into bed.

I've heard the rumour that I'm asexual, and that's partly correct, I need more than sex to get me there. Pain and Pleasure - the only way my mind can still for long enough to care about getting off. It's lame to admit that it was at University where I was awoken. It was there, at 17 years of age, that I was taught in the ways of eroticism, and BDSM. I don't conform to the stereotypes of modern relationships, I don't care for the lives we're supposed to lead with others. I have always been my own best keeper, but when it comes to sex I'm more experienced than they would believe; and there's so few people who look beneath the surface. He did though, I know he did. I know he deduced and understood.

My dreams are filled with half remembered fantasies and endeavours. In the boudoir of my mind palace there are several corridors, tonight each hallway leads back to him. The way the taste of mint seems to permeate his lips. The look in his eyes as he reaches oblivion inside my hand. The softness of his hesitant touch against my hard heat. My dreams are all of him, My memories of him and my memories of others do the thing that dreams do - twist and meld - until its John with the whip and the beads. John who's hands are around my neck as he pummels into me, turning pain into pleasure. John who's weight presses into mine as he stretches my hands into cuffs.

It's the WOOSHCRACK of the whip against my back that alerts me that maybe I'm more awake than I realise.

My eyes jolt open and I realise I'm splayed on my front, my arms pulled taught above my head into thick cold metal clasps, my feet attached to the footboard with scarlet ties. But I'm not scared, I'm not angry, I feel John's impression upon my back and I'm already melted into the heat of him. Knowing that he is straddling me, his boxer clad form pressed against my naked one, is almost enough to rip me from reality. And God I hope it's those red boxers.

There's another wooshcrack against the curve of my back, bringing the delirious sting, before his lips tend to the mark. Is this really John…my John Watson?

The soft warm heat of his mouth follows up, and up until they ghost around my ear.

"I can't sleep," he whispers, the huskiness of his voice streams into my ear, "lying in your house is too bloody distracting."

"John? Are you…" I start thinking that the only possible explanation for any of this is that he's drunk more since we said goodnight; if he has tomorrow he could blame me for taking advantage and I couldn't cope with any further distance between us.

His hand slaps against my arse, and I feel myself spring to his attention.

"Stop thinking," he orders.

His hand trails in between my legs, snags at the hair, as he teases me and knows me.

Our heart beats match.

"I lied," he whispers, his voice wrapped in heat. "I understand you. I know what turns you on. I've seen you, with Moriaty, with Adler; yes maybe nothing ever fucking happened with them, ones a psychopath and the others a lesbian but I still lost you to your room for a week every time you saw them, lost the shower to the smell of you. And every time you saw them something would happen between us a few weeks later. You didn't know it, but you'd only use me to calm your libido, your mind would be elsewhere…"

I rush to correct him but his fingers of his left hand ghost around my lips as the fingers of his right trace the edges of my balls; and he slowly robs me of my mind.

"Oh yeah, I know what turns you on... and maybe there is something a little erotic about it Sherlock... Lord knows I've dreamed of this, of doing this to you... Do you know what I'm saying? I'd get into the shower, smell your spunk and dream of doing this to you."

I snap my head around to stare at him. I still can't believe these words are coming from him, a half thought enters through me that maybe he's joking. But his blue eyes are so fucking dark they're black, and there's beads of sweat forming just beneath that greying hair, and then there's the pressure of his cock on my back.

"But I'm so fucking angry at you, Sherlock." He snarls. He leans his torso up as with a strong bicep-bulging arm he presses my head further into the pillow. "I was quite happy before, being heterosexual, wanting the idea of a girlfriend; a normal and uncomplicated life; and normal and uncomplicated sex."

"Boring, John." I say, teasing him now I can hear the sincerity in his voice. The fact he's really here with me is like a fire breathing snake inside my libido. "You mean boring."

He coughs, my voice has broken his reverie for a second. But I see the curve of his lips and know he doesn't want to be anywhere else.

"And then you had to come along and start making me feel like…. Like this." He says and he presses his groin further into my arse, his cotton clad cock dips into the crack. "Like I need to control and own and fuck every inch of you."

Even the way he says that expletive pumps blood straight to my dick.

"And then as soon as you've completed that, making me feel like that, making me feel that fucking high, you fucking die on me! So... I pick myself up and meet Mary, a woman I can love and lead a simple, normal and uncomplicated life with. But you even have to fuck that up. And you fuck it up in such a way that means that I not only lose my wife but I lose you as well. I loose my best friend."

"I'm here-" I start to tell him but he grasps at my face with more fury, smothering my mouth with the palm of his hand.

"Shut up!" He says his words sharp as crystals. "I don't want you tonight, I want Sherlock Holmes."

If I could, I would tell him that his words were ultimately flawed but his hand is so forcefully pushing into my face I feel almost delirious.

There's a breath. Then he's sitting on his haunches again, his weight pressing into my butt, and there's the whisper of the whip down my spine.

"And I'm going to fuck Sherlock Holmes' special mind into oblivion," he promises before drawing the whip back down on me.

My first Sherlock fanfic (although definitely not my first fanfic!) please be kind. Bare with me on John's characterisation I get a little closer I think - remember he's drunk right now and people don't act themselves when they're drunk. Already working on the next fic so any con/crit and comments will be very welcome.