I just wrote this. I was talking about a sequel ages ago (to Like Impossibly Thin Glass) and it seems to have finally happened. You probably don't have to read it, but reading the first part of this story will make it more linear. But you do you.
It simple to own something. It is easy to have it, to keep it. To wake up and know that it is there, to exist in the early hours of the morning, and be sure that it exists in close proximity to you. In the next room, in the kitchen, beside you.
However, when that thing that you claim ownership of is a man, when it is a human being that lives and breathes and makes its own choices.
It is then that things become difficult.
When a person feels entitled to share in the life of another person, it is fair to say, that their life is shared in return.
Sherlock Holmes is unsure about this whole thing, especially when it is clear that certain choices that he makes could easily result in choices that John makes. Some of which are blatantly idiotic and pathetically brave.
John settles further into the couch, tea resting softly on the coffee table. A fist clenches - John's. Very deliberately not reaching to brush along the white of the bandage that brings a stark contrast to the heat of his forearm. Knife wound, roughly four inches.
Sherlock traces, fingertip to fingertip, the smooth web between the swell of knuckles, and the press of bones under flesh.
He knows now, the weight of John's hand over his and that John is inexplicably still here, in front of him. Sherlock bends and straightens each finger softly, revelling in the way they alter the particles in the air around him, the way that he can move them and John will let him, let Sherlock bend his pale neck, arch his back to place his lips to calluses, let his breath mist over the intricacies of the whorls of his fingerprints.
The muscles tense slightly as Sherlock drags a kiss over the inside of John's thumb, but he doesn't dare look up in case John's expression tells him to stop.
He continues up, lips smearing over the thenar, the occasional dip of wetness. A tentative kiss, lips parted, to the heel of the palm, lingering just above the smooth heat of skin, the ghost of a breath echoing against it.
John hasn't moved. He has stilled on the couch, Sherlock nestled on the floor at his feet, trying to watch the joints move under his flesh, and his blood, and his muscle, and his skin.
"You can't do that anymore." Sherlock doesn't meet John's eyes as the words scatter in the air to weigh down his skin.
"Do what?" John's thumb moves the incremental distance in the heat of space between them, and caresses the plush indent at the corner of Sherlock's lps.
A breath. A kiss to the rough skin of fingertips. All of Sherlock's energy is focused on the form that is John, and the heat of him, and the scent, and the white bandage that will need to be changed in twenty two hours.
"Get hurt, follow me. You can pick your answer, they both mean the same thing." He finally looks at John, at the line of his jaw, at the tilt and curl of his lips, at the sunlight that drags through dust mites and the thick air, to throw itself into the strands.
"Sherlock, I can make my own choices, thanks. I'll stop following you when you stop dashing off at idiotic times without proper backup." His smile is easy, but the words are strong.
Sherlock glares.
John softens the gaze with his own. His fingers are like light breaths, brushes against Sherlock's own as John intertwines them. Sherlock does not usually particularly enjoy holding hands, but the weight of it does not allow for the mistake of John not being there.
"And you mean more to me than getting a bloody stab wound. You know that."
Air in Sherlock's lungs is difficult to exhale, so he holds if for a moment until it calms and the shudders it threatens, pass.
"Unacceptable," says Sherlock.
"Not up to you," challenges John. The hand pulls away from its tangle, and Sherlock's begging fingers. Not a retreat or a defensive movement, but something softer. He cups Sherlock's chin with a presence that sinks into the marrow of his jaw. "If I'm not allowed to go chasing after you, then you're not allowed to go chasing after criminals." John holds Sherlock's' gaze. "And God knows you'll need that until you do drop dead, probably from exhaustion, or malnutrition. But I won't let it be because no one was there to block up any loopholes that your brilliant buggering idiocy left." John's thumb traces the skin just under Sherlock's ear, and the heat of it keeps Sherlock's eyes to his, unblinking. "And I need it too, Sherlock. Don't forget that. You can't forget that. We're both bloody adicts. And your addiction is no more important than mine."
John grins widely, and his laughter sighs into the pores of Sherlock's smile.
"Careful, then. That's all I need, John."
And then Sherlock crouches up and presses his knees to the edge of the couch, bracketing John's legs, and rests his elbows on the back of the couch to nudge their smiles together.
"I'll be just as careful as you are."
Kisses are sweet and taste of tea and the light of adrenaline in brightened eyes.
Here we go again... (that's a good thing)