"And at any rate, it really doesn't matter what you think, you won't be here much longer," Sherlock inserted into his nearly-daily tirade on why John Watson a) is an Idiot b) Should Stop Touching Sherlock's Experiments and c) Really Ought to Stop Complaining About Privacy Because Science. Normally John tuned this lecture out, but now, now he was interested.
"Sherlock, what are you on about now? I'm not going anywhere," John said, setting his newspaper aside so he could study the detective. Sherlock had been pacing, ranting about some cultures John had evidently disturbed when he'd cleaned the bathroom –which wasn't even his fault, Mrs. Hudson had been the one to clean the bathroom, not John– when he'd dropped this doozy of a comment.
"Well of course you are, John, you've been here nearly a year. Frankly it's strange you haven't left sooner," Sherlock said, attempting to be cavalier, but if the past year had taught John anything, it was how to tell when Sherlock was hurting. And oh, how he was hurting now.
"What makes you think I'm going to leave?" John asked, scrunching his eyes shut in frustration. Sherlock continued his pacing, hands clutching at his hair and shirt buttons clinging on by sheer force of will.
"Because you have no reason to stay. Your limp is healed; you have other sources of adrenaline. What possible hold could I have on you?" Sherlock criticized, turning on his heel and walking the length of the living room once more. When John opened his mouth to argue, Sherlock forged ahead, his voice going faster and faster. "The only reason to remain with a person you no longer need is sentiment, and with someone like me, it would have to be quite a large amount of sentiment to balance out my idiosyncrasies, far beyond that of mere friendship or brotherly affection. As you have stated, we are colleagues, brought together by necessity and convenience. And as you have also stated, numerous times, you are not gay!"
They both froze, John with his hand halfway up in an interrupting gesture, Sherlock with his hands still clamped in his hair, chest heaving with exertion. Slowly, Sherlock lowered his hands, his breath still coming quickly while his eyes danced with a manic sort of fear. John knew his mouth was gaping open in surprise, the meaning behind Sherlock's words hanging heavy in the air between them.
"Did it never occur to you that I said that for you?" John finally gritted out. When Sherlock just stared at him, he elaborated. "After Angelo's… well, it was obvious you didn't do that sort of thing. And then, I saw how everybody treated you. I knew people would be even worse than you if they knew I liked blokes and women, so… it was just better if I was just your mate." John gave a shrug, trying for nonchalance, which, from the look on Sherlock's face, he missed by a country mile.
Sherlock froze, stunned into silence and confusion.
The detective flopped onto the couch, assuming his thinking position, the one that usually meant no-John-I'm-busy-don't-bother-me-with-the-mundane. This time, though, John wasn't letting Sherlock off so easy. He rose and crossed to the couch, crouching down and brining his face to the same level as Sherlock's.
"Open your eyes, Sherlock," John said lowly, adopting the authoritative Captain Watson voice that was more likely to get a response out of Sherlock than anything else, especially when he was having such a fine strop.
For a moment, Sherlock stubbornly squeezed his eyes even more closed, but a few seconds under John's steady stare was enough to make his eyelids flutter open. Green-grey eyes met blue, and a brief stare-down ensued, which for once, John won. Sherlock released his position and sat up, trying to put himself on higher ground than John.
The army doctor took this show of force in stride, merely rising to sit next to Sherlock on the sofa. Sherlock shifted, pulling his body away from John while his head rotated to face John.
This was precisely what John had been afraid of, this careful fear, the skittishness of a man uncertain of how he was going to be received. A Sherlock afraid of John's potential advances was a Sherlock John didn't want to see. He never wanted to look at Sherlock's face and see fear there, particularly if he was the reason it was present.
"Sherlock, you don't need to– I'm not going to jump you or anything," John exhaled in irritation. Sherlock made a derisive noise, and John glared at him. "I mean it, Sherlock. You don't do things like that, and that's fine. It's all fine," John said firmly.
At that Sherlock gave a laugh.
"Would you stop that? Quit laughing, or scoffing, or doing whatever it is Sherlocks do when they're stroppy. Would you just tell me what the hell is going on in that brain of yours?" John demanded. Without thinking, he reached to lay a hand on Sherlock's shoulder, but he was reminded of his gaffe when Sherlock flinched away. He lowered his hand uncomfortably. He had thought that perhaps Sherlock would be annoyed for having missed something so obvious, but not that he would be so… phobic. As if John had some sort of disease.
The detective gave a sigh, placing his face in his hands in an uncharacteristic gesture of defeat. "What's going on," Sherlock began simply, "is a shifting."
John waited for more elaboration. As Sherlock shifted under his searching gaze, he realized that he'd need to prompt the younger man.
"A shifting of what?" John asked.
Sherlock looked up from his hands, as if just realizing John was still in the room. "Of mind. This changes things, John, surely you realize that," he said. A small amount of anger and a large amount of hurt started to boil under John's skin.
"This changes nothing, Sherlock. I am exactly the same man I was twenty minutes ago," John insisted, hating how his voice seemed to plead with Sherlock to see, to observe, to know that John had not actually changed.
"Well, of course you are. You don't think that's what this is about, do you?" Sherlock asked, clear shock and annoyance dancing across his face, same as it always did when John made an erroneous assumption at a crime scene.
"No…?" John said slowly, feeling as if something very obvious was going on, if only he was clever enough to see it.
"You do. Oh. Oh. Oh!" Sherlock exclaimed, jumping up from his seat and kneeling in front of John with his eyes wild and almost… concerned. His hands fluttered, as if he didn't know what to do with them, and if that wasn't ridiculous enough, when he finally settled his hands, he clasped them both firmly around John's. At first John was going to move his hands, but after a moment, he gave up.
What was the worst that could happen?
Then Sherlock placed a soft kiss to John's fingertips, and John froze.
"Sherlock–" John started, but was soon cut off by Sherlock kissing his fingers once more.
"John, don't be dull. I didn't mean –would never have meant– that your sexuality had any bearing on our friendship. It only makes this a great deal simpler," Sherlock explained, raising his eyes from their previously almost-demure position to stare John in the face.
"Makes what simpler?" John asked, feeling rather like one of Sherlock's specimens beneath a microscope. Sherlock rose from his heels to lean into John's personal space, hands still clasped between them.
"Obvious," Sherlock murmured, then pressed their lips together.
It was chaste, soft, not at all what John had imagined it would be –not that he'd spent time fantasizing about kissing his flatmate. Except that he completely had. And this was somehow… better. Superior in every way to the imagined fits of anger or jealousy that had always sparked the pretended kisses.
Sherlock pulled back, a surprisingly serene smile on his face. His eyes were half-closed, and seemed tranquil, not half-mad or frantic as they usually did between cases. "Acceptable?" he asked quietly, seeming at once in control and incredibly vulnerable.
"I think we can do a sight better than acceptable," John half-growled, freeing one of his hands to draw Sherlock in closer and slant their mouths together again.
Where the first kiss had been soft as rain dripping onto a pond, the second was a deluge in the desert. John drank Sherlock in, swallowing the small sounds he made when John parted his lips with his own tongue, insinuating himself inside the cupid's bow he'd admired for so long, meeting Sherlock wetly with lazy rolls and lapping gently at the roof of his mouth. He wanted to taste every part of Sherlock, certain that this would be his only chance, his one opportunity to claim some small portion of this incredible man.
The madman moved closer, clambering into the doctor's lap, folding his long legs around John's waist and pressing closer. John rocked his hips up, brushing their cocks together in a slow drag. The soldier couldn't remember the last time he'd been this painfully turned on and not certain where things were going to lead. With Sherlock, though, John knew he would take anything and everything the detective would freely give.
Their bodies continued the slow grind, their tongues dueling for dominance, each trying to touch as much of the other as possible. Sherlock's shirt was soon lost in the mad scramble for skin, and John's jumper and button down soon joined it in a rumpled heap on the floor. Immediately Sherlock pressed against John, skin to skin, trailing light fingertips and scratching nails gently down light tan of his skin from where he'd worked in the garden shirtless over the summer.
Not that Sherlock had in any way been ogling him as he worked.
Not even a little.
John's mouth brought Sherlock back to the moment, whispering sweet nothings across his skin, trailing fire down his neck and over his protruding collarbone until his lips brushed over Sherlock's nipple. Sherlock arched his back with a sharp gasp, and he could feel John grin against his bare skin and that thought shot through him like he'd stuck a fork in a light socket –and yes he did in fact know what that was like, and no, it had not been Mycroft's idea, despite what Mummy to this day thought– lighting every nerve in him ablaze.
A damp heat enveloped one nipple, and Sherlock glanced down to see John mouthing gently at it. A moment later, he felt a brief flash of teeth and the smooth laving of tongue, making him writhe and forcing strange, aborted sounds from his throat. When John moved his mouth to work the other nipple, Sherlock pulled back with a damp gasp.
"If we keep this up," Sherlock said, his voice noticeably deeper, "We should at the very least move to the bed."
For the briefest second he was terrified John wouldn't answer, or worse, would come to his heteronormative senses and spring away from Sherlock with stammering excuses of "not gay", but after a splitsecond pause, John answered, voice gravelly and absolutely wrecked.
"Oh God yes."