In The Days That Followed

by hifunctioning

Sequel to "Form and Function," in which the boys first did the deed. John thinks nothing much will change now that they've had sex. Sherlock is skeptical. But he finds his ignorance on the subject intolerable, so of course he has to investigate. Mostly smut, a little angst, and a bit of fluff. What do you call that? Smuffst?

"twink gets fucked BB and cum shot in face"

"uncut latin cock uses both my holes"

"bear amateur VERY hot facial"

"str8 boy fuck horny after gym"

Sherlock opened all four videos, tiled them across the screen, and played them simultaneously. He had no idea how this could make anyone hard. He found it tedious in the extreme, but it seemed the best course of action at the moment. He needed data, fast.

Mycroft was certain he was a virgin and Sherlock had never attempted to disabuse him of this notion, mainly because the fleeting joy of correcting his brother was just slightly outweighed by the sustained pleasure of knowing he was wrong. But Mycroft was never far off the mark. It was, in fact, an area in which Sherlock had conducted little research.

John, on the other hand, apparently had the impression that Sherlock was experienced, when in fact there had only been Victor (and just a few times with him, including that confusing night they'd brought the Italian home from the club), and a couple of unsatisfying, anonymous encounters in alleys.

What he knew he'd learned from Victor's more experienced hands and mouth. His imagination had filled in the gaps quite capably. Or so he thought. But John had introduced heretofore unknown elements, and thrown his calculations all off. More experiments were called for, and he'd need more data to perform them correctly.

He had to see this through; he'd started it, after all. And not very well, as it turned out.

The scientific process necessitates unexpected deviations from time to time, but he realized now that his baseline assumptions had been off. He hadn't seen it coming, had been propelled along by the thrill of his game and the promise of something new until suddenly he found himself lying on the floor, naked, the semen of his flatmate and only friend (comingled with his own) drying on his stomach, and John was standing and clearing his throat awkwardly and mumbling, "Just gonna clean up," and then Sherlock was blinking stupidly at the sight of John's bare ass walking away and there was the sound of the shower at the other end of the flat and Sherlock was curling up on his side feeling the tension creep back into his body and wondering what his next move was supposed to be.

That was last night.

They slept in their own beds. Why wouldn't they?

And then Sherlock stayed in his room all day, working out the constants and variables and conducting secondary research.

He switched windows, entered the relevant notations into a spreadsheet, and selected four more videos.

This research would be far more productive if he knew what he was looking for. He decided it would be wise to reexamine to the premise. To consider the possibility that this had all been a mistake in the first place and was better forgotten. He could delete it if he had to.

Sherlock stood, pulled a sheet off the bed, threw it around his shoulders, and met his own eyes in the mirror. He pushed down the quivering feeling in his stomach, raised his chin, and spun on his heel to march out into the flat.

John was in his armchair, reading a book. As Sherlock marched past him to his own armchair, he heard John straighten up and felt his eyes raking over him. It was comforting. John's attention on him was always an anchor. He curled up in the chair, a tangle of limbs twisted up in a sheet, rested his chin on his knees, and stared across the chasm between them. John stared back.

Finally he set his book down on the side table and cleared his throat.

"Should we talk about it then?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"Right." John seemed to be expecting this. "You're making me do all the work. Well, I'll tell you what I think. I think it's fine. I think it's bloody bizarre, and that's par for the course for us. I'm not worried, if that's what you want to know. I'm not sorry. And I…" John's voice cut short, and Sherlock just caught it, the beginning of a tremor in his voice, but when he spoke again it was gone, and he sounded sure and calm. "I hope you're not."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "The question," he said brusquely, "is this. What will change?"

"Ah." John's shoulders relaxed. "Good question. Well. I think… I think maybe not much. If we…" He cleared his throat and bit the inside of his bottom lip. "If you want to… if we keep having sex, that is. Seeing as everyone already thinks we are, and they always have, I think perhaps we already were that way and just didn't realize it."

Sherlock raised both eyebrows. This was a possibility he hadn't considered.

John chuckled. "Yeah, that might've escaped even your powers of observation. If that's right, maybe nothing changes. Maybe we are just the same, only… with orgasms. And that's better. Isn't it?" His face was hopeful, open, begging for Sherlock to agree.

Sherlock wasn't sure he could agree. He'd had orgasms with another person before. It wasn't like this. Victor had been the least irritating person Sherlock knew at the time, and the only one who didn't seem to despise or fear him. He didn't mind Victor's company, occasionally preferred it to solitude, even did little things to please him now and again. But he never worried about him, never changed his own behavior for him, and when Victor had had enough and didn't return, Sherlock missed him for a short time but never gave a thought to bringing him back. The idea of John walking out the door of 221B and not returning, however, was unbearable.

"I don't need orgasms," he explained impatiently. "I've lived without them quite well for some time. I understand that you want to, but it's not at all clear that we should be having them together. I'd need to collect more data. But if my experiments go awry, I'm not sure that the degree of risk is acceptable. You haven't thought this through. What you want may not be advisable or even feasible."

John seemed to consider this for a long moment. Then he smiled. "You," he said fondly, to Sherlock's confusion. "You think you know all about what I want. But how much do you know about what you want?"

Sherlock could not recall the last time he'd had absolutely nothing to say.

John reached out to trace one finger along Sherlock's cheek. "I think…" he mused, running his thumb across Sherlock's lower lip, "Speaking of experiments… I think that you owe me a blow job."

Sherlock jerked back with a huff. John was unfazed. "Yes," he continued. "I remember quite clearly you describing what you would do. I think we should test that."

Sherlock glowered. "I remember quite clearly telling you that it would never happen."

"Yes. I remember that too." John's voice was a quiet challenge. "I remember wondering what you were afraid of."

"John, please. As if I'm going to fall for some juvenile reverse psychology..."

"No, no. Nothing of the sort. It's a reasonable question, isn't it? Why would you be so adamant about that, I wondered. That's all. Don't you think that question is worth an investigation?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "This is the most pathetic request for a blow job I have ever heard."

"Oh, it's not a request." John's voice was suddenly very low, and Sherlock realized he was leaning forward to hear him. "I'm not asking you. I'm telling you." In spite of himself, Sherlock felt a shiver through his whole body and prayed it wasn't visible, but it was too late, there was a hand on the back of his neck pulling him forward and he could have stopped it, of course, but he let himself be pulled and now he was on his knees, between John's legs, the sheet slipping off his shoulders and pooling around his waist. He stared ahead of him at John's hands slowly undoing his belt buckle, unzipping his fly, at his half-hard cock straining against his pants.

He placed his hands on John's knees and ran his hands up the inside of his thighs. Above his head, John exhaled and leaned back.

Sherlock's hands traveled up, under John's shirt, across the warm skin of his belly, glancing across his nipples, noticing the sharp inhalation in response. He shifted forward and trailed his fingers back down towards John's crotch, skirted around to his hips, down the outside of his legs, back up the inside of his thighs. John squirmed just slightly, and his fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. Sherlock shifted his body forward, hovering with his face just a couple of inches above John's crotch, and lifted his eyes to see John's eyes fixed on him as if he were the only thing worth seeing in the universe. Without breaking eye contact, Sherlock opened his mouth.

John moaned and Sherlock felt a surge of power. This was something new. This was something he hadn't known before. The heady thrill of control, of making John respond before he even put his mouth on him, this was something worth learning.

He placed his hands firmly on John's hips, closed his eyes and slowly bent his head until his lips were just barely grazing the cotton of John's pants. He bent down just a little further, so that his open mouth wrapped around the shaft of John's cock, and felt it grow and stiffen beneath his lips.

He'd never done this before. Never had another man in his mouth. Never wanted to. That wasn't how it worked. He hesitated. Then he felt John's hips rise to meet his mouth, and he heard John's voice, low and gruff. "You want this."

Was it already true and then John named it? Or was it true because John said it? It didn't matter. It was true, and that meant he didn't have to think about it anymore, didn't have to decide.

He curled his fingers around the band of John's pants, felt him lift his hips again, and pulled his pants and trousers down below his ass. John's cock came free, bobbing before him, swollen and red, and Sherlock reached for it. As he slowly traced his fingers up the shaft, John shuddered and sighed, a small, lovely sound. Sherlock's fingers reached the tip and he lazily rolled his palm around it, then circled his fingers around to pull back the foreskin. He parted his lips, his tongue between his teeth, and paused, listening to John catch his breath and hold it. Then he leaned forward and flicked his tongue across the slit of John's cock to pick up the bead of fluid there. John whimpered. A new sound. Sherlock licked his lips, cataloging the salty taste, the taste of John, he mused, considering the fact that might be thousands of John flavors he'd been ignorant of until now. So much research to do.

He closed his eyes and opened his mouth to take in just the head, swirling his tongue around it and then back across the slit. John rocked his hips and groaned, another distinct sound. Sherlock repeated the motion with his tongue, swirling and licking, allowing John's little thrusts into his mouth, listening with interest as the groans grew more intense.

He pulled his mouth off and licked a long line down to the base of John's cock, cupped one hand around his balls, wrapped the other around the base, and licked another line straight up and over the head, then, without pausing, swirled his tongue, opened his mouth and gradually took it in a little deeper, then repeated it all again, a long lick down to the base, another all the way to the top, over, around and then open, and a little deeper still.

The third time, he took it all the way down. Although he was clear on the mechanics of the act, he wasn't sure he'd be able to do it on his first try, but it was working, the pharyngeal muscles obeyed and relaxed and he heard helpless gasping sounds as he felt John's cock slide against the back of his throat. He pushed himself further and felt pubic hair against his lips and nose and inhaled John's musty scent. Neurons lit up across his brain with the thrill of triumph and his own cock stiffened as he paused, feeling John writhe above him.

"Show off," John said breathlessly.

Sherlock smirked as he pulled off and took a deep breath. He reached up, found John's hand, and placed it on his throat; now that he knew he could do it, he was absolutely going to show off. He repeated it again: lick down, lick up, over, around, open, relax, open, and swallow it all down. It was mesmerizing, almost meditative; convincing his body to let John in like this required a physical concentration that blocked out almost everything else. Everything except the scent of John's arousal, the fingers lightly stroking his neck, the fullness in his mouth, the firm, smooth contact at the back of his throat, and the increasingly desperate sounds above his head. He lost count of how many times he'd repeated the pattern, just focused on perfecting each movement and gliding it into the next. Then, as he lowered his head again, opening his throat, he felt John's other hand at his temple, fingers carding through his hair, and he hummed with pleasure. He hadn't planned to hum just when he had John all the way in, vibrating against the head of his cock, but that was what happened, and so John's fingers spasmed in his hair, yanking it so hard it made his eyes water. It also made him painfully hard.

Without thinking, he moved one hand down to his own cock and when he touched himself it broke his concentration, so that he had to pull off, out of rhythm, and catch his breath. He frowned in irritation – he'd been doing so well – but was distracted by the fingers on his throat, tracing up under his chin and gripping his jaw, and then there was John's mouth, his lips pressing hard against Sherlock's and his tongue pushing inside, and Sherlock's mouth fell open to welcome it and he found himself thrusting into his own hand to the slow, steady pace set by John's tongue.

The pressure was building inside him but he wasn't done showing off. He pulled away from John's mouth, wrapped one hand around the base of his cock, pushed his other forearm across John's pelvis to pin him to the chair and began sucking him off with the same intensity and urgency that he did anything he cared about. John's fingers curled and twisted in Sherlock's hair, sending small shocks of pain straight down to his cock. He sucked harder, hollowing his cheeks and John managed to choke out, "I'm… oh… almost…" Sherlock appreciated the warning, it was more than he would have given, but it was unnecessary. He knew John's heart rate at rest and in sleep, when he was angry, when he was injured, when he was exhausted, when he was laughing hysterically, when he was in danger, and now, when he was about to come. He'd felt the tightening in John's balls and the tremor in his hands, and was not about to stop now. He began moving his hand together with his mouth, making sure that John's cock was wrapped in fingers and lips and tongue at every second and then – he'd been saving this – he opened his eyes and looked up.

John's mouth dropped open, his eyes widened – whatever he saw when he looked at Sherlock, whatever it was that amazed him so much, he certainly saw now – and the sound he made was wordless, pleading, beautiful. Sherlock held his stare and worked his hand up and down, and swallowed, savoring this new taste, taking in the long, shuddering notes of John's cry, all the way through his orgasm. When he was sure John was done, he let go, leaned his head against John's thigh, and took hold of his own leaking cock.

"Can I…?" John was trying to speak, still catching his breath. "Let me…?" Sherlock shook his head, shut his eyes tight, pressed his face into John's leg, dug the fingers of his free hand into John's hip, let the sensation come on like a flash flood, washing his mind away, and he was coming, groaning through gritted teeth.

"Jesus fucking christ," John breathed at last. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"A man I knew at Cambridge," Sherlock answered, sitting up straight and massaging his jaw with curiosity. "The internet. And you."

"Me? How?"

"As you said. I know what you want."

John chuckled. "Arrogant git." He leaned forward and planted a kiss on Sherlock's cheek. Sherlock winced in alarm, but John kept leaning past him, grabbed a section of Sherlock's sheet, and began cleaning himself up. "Does that mean you're game?"

Sherlock looked up to fix him with an iron stare. "You are my only friend, John. I am not going to risk that for orgasms."

"No." John's voice was soft. "No, neither am I." He cleared his throat and stood up to pull his jeans back on. "I think…" he continued, "I really think, nothing much changes. I think whatever might change… already has done. D'you know what I mean?"

Sherlock did not know what he meant. He hadn't the faintest idea. And that ignorance was intolerable. Obviously, he had to find out.

In the days that followed, it gradually became evident that John was wrong.

On the surface, it appeared that he was right. Nothing much changed at 221B, at least not at first. They bickered and joked, solved crimes and blogged about it, went about their lives separately and together (mostly together) just as they had before. John was still injured and mostly ensconced on the sofa, though Sherlock was sure he was healing faster now. Sherlock continued to be grumpy about it, dragging him along on whatever work he could and harping and whining when he couldn't. In short, they were the same, plus orgasms.

Not that many. Their bodies collided randomly like atoms in a particle accelerator: twice in the kitchen, once in the sitting room, once on the stairs. Each time it wasn't entirely clear who started it or why, just that suddenly they were rubbing up against each other, John backed up against the counter, or straddling Sherlock's lap, or under him on the sofa, or a step above him, too close to Mrs. Hudson's door, bending down to kiss him and slide a hand into his trousers. There were orgasms. Afterwards, they cleaned themselves up and continued on with whatever they'd been doing when they collided.

But then three distinct incidents established, conclusively, that John was wrong.

One:

Sherlock came home around dawn one morning covered in the mud and sludge of the Thames. No thrilling chase down the riverbank, just evidence collection. A job that would have been more enjoyable with John (whose leg couldn't have handled that slippery, uneven terrain). Sherlock hadn't found what he was looking for and he was sullen as he walked into the flat, slamming the door behind him.

John was sitting up on the sofa; he'd been sleeping, had woke when he heard the door downstairs. Sherlock glared at him for a long moment, hating him for being injured, for being human. Then he stomped off to the bathroom.

The shower helped. He was working through the facts of the case again, reorganizing them into different wings of his mind palace as the hot water beat against his face when suddenly the door creaked and the curtain flew open, bringing in a rush of cold air and a naked John Watson.

Without a word, John placed his hands on Sherlock's shoulders, spun him to the side, and pushed him, face first, against the wall. Sherlock felt a flash of anger, but it was almost immediately cancelled out by a much more unusual emotion: he almost laughed with joy, because John had surprised him again, and there were few things more delightful than that. He bit his lip and waited to see what would come next. He had five ideas.

The first was correct: John's left hand reaching around to slowly stroke Sherlock's hardening cock. Sherlock pushed against the hand and groaned encouragingly. But the hand was pressing against his pelvis, pulling him back, and John's right hand was soapy and slick between his legs, pushing them apart. The next thing was not on the list of five ideas: a finger starting at the base of his balls, sliding up his perineum, to his entrance, pausing there.

Sherlock's body tensed. Victor had tried this once and Sherlock had simply kicked him away, put on his clothes and walked out. The next day, on his knees in the chem lab, Victor had apologized, Sherlock had fucked his mouth and come down his throat, and that was the end of it.

But this was not Victor.

A foot kicked at his right ankle, and then his left, pushing his legs farther apart, and Sherlock let it.

The tip of that finger was pushing against him again, and his body tensed up again in response. He waited to see what John might do.

The fingers of John's left hand began tracing lazy circles and figure eights around Sherlock's balls and in a moment he was completely hard. He reached down to touch himself but John grabbed his hand and slammed it back against the wall. Sherlock caught his breath and waited for him to explain, but John still said nothing

John's left hand slid back down Sherlock's arm, over his ribs and across his stomach, and landed at the base of his cock. Sherlock bit his lip and waited until finally he felt John's hand grip around him again and slowly begin stroking his length. He sighed and melted into the sensation, gradually losing himself in it, the hot water streaming over the right side of his body, the heat building inside him, the steady rhythm of John's hand, strong and sure. Sherlock began rocking his hips and the movement pushed his ass back so that the tip of John's finger nudged in a bit more. He gasped and bit down harder on his lip.

He thought about stopping this, it was on the verge of too much, but the hand around him tightened just slightly, the finger inside him drove in a bit deeper, and the pleasure building in his cock mingled with a burning pain and the new pressure inside him and all the wires crossed and his brain flailed in futile attempts to sort out and decipher all the signals. For a horrible moment, he was lost, and then the finger was moving, stroking, curling, exploring, running across all his nerve endings at once, and then suddenly it all collapsed to one point deep inside him. Sherlock's knees buckled but John, with reflexes as fast as usual, let go of his cock and wrapped one strong forearm around his waist – his left arm, Sherlock thought foggily, the one attached to the rest of him by his left shoulder, the shoulder with a gunshot wound, the wound that sent him home from Afghanistan, the gun that brought him to me.

He leaned forward, letting his weight rest against that arm and his own hands on the wall, and John was touching him again, pressing inside him with little rhythmic circles gradually growing in intensity. He understood the physiology of the gland, its functions and geography, but he did not understand this, the way lightning was shooting from that center to the rest of his body, he tried desperately to grasp onto any of it, to hold it and analyze it, but the next wave was on him before he realized it and then the next and he was pounding his fist against the wall in frustration, in desperation, trying to force his brain to catch up, but it was useless against the barrage of sensations. He heard himself whimpering and tried to stop, biting his lip until he tasted blood, but then John's hand was wrapped around his cock again, stroking fast, while the lightning bolts came brighter and stronger and closer together; it didn't seem possible that the feeling inside him was made only by John's finger, it was so much more, it was as big as he was, bigger, exploding through him, until he was nothing but the space in between.

John kept stroking him through his orgasm, until he stopped convulsing and his voice died away. And then John let go of him, pulled his finger out, and placed one hand on his ass. He heard ragged breathing behind him, a choked moan, and felt hot semen across his ass and back, immediately rinsed away by the shower. Then lips pressed for a moment between his shoulder blades, and a gust of cold air as the shower curtain opened, and Sherlock was alone, leaning his forehead against the wall, trembling.

When he emerged from his bedroom fully dressed, he still felt like his body was humming, reverberating from the inside out. John was on the sofa watching telly.

Sherlock stood in the kitchen doorway and studied him, looking for any clue he could understand. The man on the sofa looked like John. Ordinary, extraordinary John. Plus orgasms.

Two:

John was sleeping in his bed, due to a small mishap that evening. (Sherlock generally tried to keep his experiments out of the sitting room, only because the amount of detritus there threatened to interfere with the controls, but this was a particularly complicated experiment and every surface in the kitchen was occupied. Long story short, sheep bile spilled all over the sofa. It had seen worse.)

In the middle of the night, Sherlock reached a point in his experiment that required it to sit for several hours. He had several other projects he could turn to. Or he could play his violin, wander the city, or even sleep. But instead, to his surprise, he found that his mind drifted upstairs, to John. Not to annoying him, provoking him, or studying him, but to touching him and being touched by him. This was new. Not a vague, itchy desire for release, but a yearning focused on a singular subject, sharpening and fixing onto a particular point above his head and about four meters to the right.

He climbed the stairs silently and paused in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. He'd stood here so many times, memorizing John's sleep patterns, monitoring his subconscious, or just watching for a moment before waking him for a midnight excursion. That was not what Sherlock wanted now.

John was a terribly light sleeper. PTSD or army training, hard to tell which, and Sherlock had never asked. Whatever the reason, he'd learned from hard experience that waking John too suddenly could be perilous.

He cleared his throat.

John sat up, blinking in the darkness.

"Sherlock? Are you alright?"

"Fine."

"What're you…? Do I need to get up?"

"No, I just… No, John, go back to sleep."

John grumbled incomprehensibly and flopped back down on his side, curled up with his back to the door.

Sherlock sighed. What should he have said? John was quickly slipping into sleep pattern one, mostly asleep but just hovering on the edge of consciousness. Sherlock took a long stride to the bed, lifted the covers, and slid beneath them all in one smooth motion. Before he had time to second guess himself, he curled around the other man's body, just as he'd done one cold, damp night in the basement of an abandoned house, but then he'd only been trying to protect them both from hypothermia; his intentions tonight were quite different.

He wrapped his left arm around John's waist and pulled his body against his own, at the same time moving his hips forward, pressing himself against John's ass.

John hummed sleepily and arched his back. "Is that what you wanted?" he mumbled, and Sherlock could hear the smile in his voice.

He murmured into John's hair, "No… I want a bit more than that."

"Ah." John found Sherlock's hand on his stomach and moved it down. He wasn't hard yet, but Sherlock rocked his hips slowly and rubbed his hand against John's cock, gently at first, then more firmly, and felt it growing quickly under his touch. Sherlock's own cock hardened in response and he noted with amazement how much pleasure he got from knowing what John was feeling. He'd never cared about that with Victor. John was grinding against him in earnest now, pressing Sherlock's hand tightly against him as he rubbed his ass up and down against Sherlock's erection through the thin fabric of his pajamas.

"Tell me what you want," John whispered.

"You," Sherlock answered honestly, and his voice sounded raw and strange to his own ears. He racked his brain, trying to remember more specifically what he wanted, surely there was something he'd wanted to do, maybe something from one of those videos? But all he could think of was the pressure and heat of John's body against his, the rhythm and friction as they moved together, the smell of him and the sound of his breathing.

"Oh, is that all?" Sherlock could hear the smile in John's voice again, and marveled at how simple this all was for him.

John reached behind him, tugging at the waistband of Sherlock's pajamas. After a moment of fumbling they were both kicking their legs free, and there was the sound of the drawer in the bedside table, the click of the lube bottle opening. Sherlock gasped as John's hand covered his cock with lube and guided it between his thighs. They groaned together, Sherlock pushing into the tight, wet heat there, rubbing against John's perineum and balls, wrapping his hand around John's cock. He pumped his hips and hand, slow at first, then with growing urgency, tasting the sweat on John's neck, scraping his teeth against the vertebrae as John bent his head and curled his back. John's voice, low and insistent, pulled him forward, "yes, yes, like that, god yes…" as he squeezed Sherlock's cock between his legs. Sherlock tried to make it last, tried to keep the rhythm of his hand steady, but he couldn't make his own muscles obey, his hips were stuttering and there was a heat radiating through him, washing over him, flooding him from the inside, his body stilled in defiance of his brain and he let go to drown in it.

He recovered quickly, aware that John was still thrusting into his hand. He began stroking again, rolling his thumb across the tip, and propped himself up on his other elbow so that he could lean down and suck on John's neck. He'd would have to wear a scarf if he left the flat (which was unlikely; he hardly ever left the flat these days). John arched and groaned; his right hand grabbed the edge of the mattress and his left flew behind him, clawing blindly at Sherlock's thigh. Sherlock picked up his speed with his hand and sucked harder and then John's cock was pulsing, he was making those sounds again, quietly this time, but still so beautiful, as he spilled over Sherlock's fingers.

They lay in silence for a moment. At last John sighed happily and groped around the floor next to his bed until he found his pajama bottoms, which he used to clean himself up and wipe Sherlock's hand. Then he rolled over onto his back with a satisfied yawn.

"You're bloody brilliant, you are," he mumbled.

"Of course," Sherlock agreed, though it seemed like a non sequitor.

"Mm, thanks for waking me," John continued sleepily. "All those times we slept together… and didn't fuck… gotta make up for…" He was silent, and in a couple of minutes, lightly snoring.

Sherlock lay awkwardly next to him. He felt better now, much better. He could get up and do all those other things now – the research projects, the violin, the city. Or he could sleep. With John. All those times we slept together, he thought, and didn't touch. Why would they have? Why should they now?

Sleeping with John when another bed was available was stupid. Illogical. But it seemed very cold downstairs now. And Sherlock had taken off his pants and didn't feel like putting them back on.

He curled on his side, placed his hand on John's left shoulder, felt the outline of the scar through the worn cotton of his t-shirt. Heat rises, and John's room was warmer than his own. He pulled the covers up to his chin and closed his eyes.

Three:

John was reading the obits (a habit he'd picked up from Sherlock) at the sitting room table. Sherlock wanted to read them too, so he stretched his arms out on either side of John's chair and peered over his shoulder as he'd done countless times before – critiquing John's grammar as he wrote in his blog, mocking the mindless fiction he enjoyed so much, reading whatever John was reading as part of his ongoing interest in monitoring everything that entered or exited John's consciousness. There was nothing new or notable about this tableau.

"What about this one?" John asked, rattling the right side of the paper to indicate a society debutante who had perished in a car crash. "Foul play, do you think?"

Sherlock opened his mouth to answer (yes, obviously), but for some reason, before he realized what he'd done, he leaned further forward so that his chest was pressed against John's back, and wrapped both his arms around him tightly. His throat constricted in surprise. He'd had no idea how badly he wanted to do this until the moment he'd done it.

His mother had held him like this once. (Once that he could remember.) It was the day his father died. Hearing the news, he had known he should feel something but he felt nothing at all, nothing except perhaps a vague sense of relief. In his room, studying calculus, he had heard her footsteps climbing the stairs (she'd just got off the phone with Mycroft at school). Then she was standing behind his chair, wrapping her thin arms around his chest, pressing her lips hard against his temple. He had frozen, his whole body rigid and hard, counting the seconds until it was over. He didn't breathe until she left the room.

John put the paper down and placed his left hand over Sherlock's right. Then he lifted it to his face and kissed the knuckles, one by one.

Was that it? Was that what you were supposed to do when someone you liked touched you like this? He would never have thought of it. But it felt correct. It felt perfect.

"You were wrong, John."

"We're not still talking about that car crash, are we?"

"No. She was murdered. Probably the stepfather."

John nodded curtly and, without letting go of Sherlock's hand, picked his mobile off the table to type out a text with his free hand:

SH says K. Tuttle murdered. Invest. stepdad. SH avail. for case if needed.

He hit send and leaned back again. "So what was I wrong about this time?"

Sherlock inhaled, feeling his lungs fill with John, pressing his chest against John's back.

"This. Us. Something has changed." John tensed slightly, almost imperceptibly.

"And what's that, then?"

Sherlock tightened his arms. "I can do this now."

John relaxed. "You could always have done this."

Sherlock smirked. "No, I couldn't. Evidently you needed all these years and my death to come to terms with your attraction to me and to loosen your stubborn grip on your heterosexual identity. You would've punched me in the face."

John chuckled. "Maybe you're right."

"Always."

"But if faking your suicide was your way of hitting on me, you've got a lot to learn."

"It appears I have a lot to learn anyway."

The look of surprise on John's face was priceless.

Sherlock stood up, dragging his hands across John's chest to rest on his shoulders. They were so solid, so strong. No amount of bullet holes could change that. He was struck by the thought that he could, if he needed to, collapse on them right now and they would hold his weight without hesitation. But he didn't need too.

"Let's go," he barked, spinning away. "Lestrade will be looking for cut brake lines when it was obviously poison. And they haven't even found the other body yet."

John stood – too slowly, but he stood – and followed right behind.