For sevenpercent, as promised, for her support and encouragement.
A STUDY IN CLICHES
Sherlock shuddered as his hand wrapped around John's hard heat. He gasped as it lay hot and heavy in his hand. Not unlike John himself, it was short, compact. It was warmer than he expected. That should not have been surprising—the Sig-cum-Browning had just been fired. In one fluid motion, John's clever fingers tugged at the pistol barrel in Sherlock's clever fingers.
"I'm. Not. Gay." John said, enunciating...each...word, his pupils blown wide. A single tear rolled down his cheek.
Sherlock didn't even pretend to misunderstand him.
Sherlock froze him in place with his blue, green, grey, grey/green, ice, silver, seafoam eyes, his pupils blown wide. Sherlock released the breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
He took off his coat and draped it on his shoulders, putting one hand on his hips. Sherlock rolled his eyes at the pronoun confusion.
He frowned.
The pronoun confusion continued.
Thunder could be heard in the distance.
Oh. Oh.
They both knew it was inevitable that passive voice would appear.
John ducked his head. He wasn't sure why.
"Did you hear that?"
"The susurrus?" Sherlock said, referencing a word no one had used until one brilliant writer used it and now everyone did. "You listen but do not hear. Or is that you hear but do not listen?"
"Not the susurrus, Sherlock. The frisson."
Sherlock rolled his eyes yet again. "You can't hear a frisson, John. Neither can you have a frisson of warmth, as some seem to think possible. Frisson, John, from the French frisson."
"You machine!"
Sherlock frowned.
John smiled his John-smile. "That was a compliment, Sherlock. You're a wonderful, well-oiled machine."
John's words elicited visions in Sherlock's mind of being slick with oil, lying pliant beneath him. He felt a frisson of warmth in his groin.
John's hand fell to his lap. "Oh!" he panted. "I'm close… I'm so close!"
Sherlock's attention was fully on his groin until he realized that John was working on the last unfilled word in the crossword puzzle on his lap.
John stood up. "I need–"
"–Some air," they said simultaneously.
John huffed out a breath. "I'm going to Tesco's." I've challenged the pin and chip machine to a best-of-five, John thought. "If I'm not back in an hour, if Mycroft kidnaps me again, or I get drugged by Moriarty…will you come for me, Sherlock?"
Sherlock gasped, breathless. All he heard was will you come for me? His pupils dilated. No wait, they were already dilated. He couldn't get his mind out of the gutter. Curb? Kerb?
"John, you are a conductor of confusion."
"Uh, right. Hamish. My middle name, if anybody's interested. So? Milk? Tea? Crisps? Jam?" John asked, wondering why they never ran out of bread.
"Obvious. Anything else would be…boring."