Here we go again, this time: winter! I thank all of you who have read, appreciated, reviewed, 'alerted', and 'favorited' me or my stories about Retired Johnlock. And by pure accident, now that I look back, it seems every season story was tinted with that particular feeling many associate with those times. I mean, the summer one had romantic, happy Johnlock; the autumn dealt with melancholy, nostalgia, but also warmth. And so, here comes winter. With coldness, somberness and yet there will be humor and indoor activities. Hope you like!
Defying the cold, looking for you
They could have played a game. Watched TV while snuggling next to each other. Snogged in the bed.
All that was made impossible thanks to the impossible Sherlock who had disappeared.
John sat upright in their bed and rolled his thumbs restlessly before looking out the window again. Outside was the incarnation of the word winter, with thick darkness and snow heaps. More snowflakes were falling down and swirled around the cottage when the wind took hold of them.
John had thought Sherlock would just go down to the village and buy some milk in the evening. His husband was delayed. By hours.
John knew his husband; knew that everything was most likely perfectly fine. However, that didn't stop horrifying thoughts from seeping into his mind and replace his content with worry. When the wind began to howl particularly loudly, John decided he would go down the road and find Sherlock.
Throughout the procedure of changing from pajamas to warm clothes and going to the hall to bundle up, he swore at his absent man who was keeping him from going to sleep.
After John had locked the door, he shivered at the cruel wind and the low temperature in the air. But he had a mission. So he went down to the gate and on the way glanced at the quiet beehives that had snow on the roofs. It was a force of habit; to check on them, even during the winter to see that everything was in order. Because Sherlock loved his bees. And John loved Sherlock.
"Not so much now, though," John grumbled to vent his growing frustration with his hopeless husband. He didn't want to think that it actually was fear he felt: fear of finding Sherlock in a ditch every time the white road took a turn.
Some while later, as John pressed on, the cold wind hardened and made icy flakes sting his face even though he had pulled down his hat over the eyebrows and the scarf over his mouth. The hood on his winter parka kept flying back so he stopped trying to cover his head with it. Some people would call the weather a snow storm. John however had seen worse, but that didn't mean this experience was pleasant.
Suddenly he stumbled when his steady sole slipped on a bit of packed snow but John regained his balance in the last second and continued, although a bit more wary of where he stepped. The air he breathed was freezing and he was slowly drained of his energy. He was old, tired and should be in a warm bed after an eventful day. But Sherlock was missing.
His clothes felt heavier. John was reminded of his days in the army when he wore all his gear in the field and marched alongside the common soldiers.
"Where the hell did you go?" he growled in the darkness and touched his left shoulder with his mitten. The damn shoulder began to tense and throb due to the piercing wind.
Eventually, John reached the quiet village but by then, he couldn't feel his toes and wiped his nose on his mitten, too tired and cold to care about elegance. Every shop was closed except the pub in the local inn so John figured that would be first place he tried.
He entered the pub and brushed off the snow from the parka the best he could before removing his mittens with stiff fingers. Then he noticed the large crowd that huddled in the large room. In front of the half-circle, by the fireplace, stood his husband, tall in his suit and with red cheeks. His greying but still unruly curls reflected a golden shine which came from the fire that also illuminated the ceiling above him.
The people before Sherlock was holding onto every word he emitted with a sharp tongue and dramatic gestures. Sherlock was performing, showing off, being handsome. And he pissed John off.
"…really horrendously comical that Scotland Yard had arrested the lady of the manor when all my deductions, of which you've heard by now, pointed out her father-in-law as the true…"
His Majesty happened to glance at the door where John stood and then his words stopped.
"You bastard!"
As one, the assembled people turned their heads his way but John was beyond caring about an audience of curious villagers and tourists hungering for drama.
"Not a single text to me…! It's winter! I fucking waited for you and your bloody milk, and you never came home, and I got so worried while you were here all the time entertaining strangers!"
Sherlock shrunk by the fire and panic flashed over his features after John's outburst. Then the detective frowned and searched John's face over the crowd, from the other side of the room. Sherlock's eyes were still eerily keen and perceiving. All of a sudden, the tall man was on the move and pushed his way through the throng with alarming determination before coming to a halt in front of the exhausted John.
"You walked here at this hour. John, for God's sake; it's cold!"
Confused at Sherlock's alarmed expression, John didn't have time to react before the man took him by the hand and winced at his icy fingers. A strong arm wound itself around John's middle and Sherlock half supported, half dragged him to the counter where the pub-owner was tapping up a beer.
"A generous glass of brandy immediately, send up another one in ten minutes. We will take the room facing west."
Sherlock talked rapidly and slammed, although, John dizzily acknowledged it's hard to slam banknotes, a couple of £20 onto the wooden surface. Silently, John took in how tight Sherlock's jaw was. Suddenly the transaction that had happened was noted by the doctor, just when Sherlock received his glass and the key.
"Hey," John barked but couldn't help the clattering teeth, "we're going home, because the only reason to why I came here was to get your pretty arse home!"
"You are cold, John. As a doctor, you are well aware of the risks at wandering kilometers in the night at this season. Particularly if you're over sixty. We need to get you warm quickly."
John remained angry with Sherlock but reconsidered about the long hiking home through fresh snow heaps because he was shuddering and tired. The thing was, he had wanted to go to sleep with his husband in their own bed. After over twenty years of marriage, that surely wasn't too much to ask for. Especially since John was unsure if he even could fall asleep nowadays if Sherlock wasn't beside him.
The man in question shoved the brandy in John's hand, fussed with the zipper on his parka, and escorted him towards the stairs, not even bothering to bow at his new fans when he walked up the stairs behind John.
Once they were in the room, Sherlock ushered John into the bathroom and was on the verge of soaking him in the shower stall while he was still dressed until John intervened with common sense. Although, Sherlock stayed in the room. The detective leaned against the sink with his arms crossed as he watched John through the blurred glass. John ignored him but exhaled heavily in the hot, humid air while he scrubbed himself warmer and wriggled his toes when they started to itch from the returning blood. The muscles in his shoulder relaxed.
A calm feeling settled and neither of them spoke. John allowed Sherlock to dry him with gentle strokes and drape a dressing gown over him. When they left the bathroom, the brandy arrived and Sherlock stubbornly insisted with his erratic body languages that John should down in immediately, to which John didn't really find an argument against.
Later, as they sat on the bed, Sherlock on the right, John on the left, as always; John tugged off the dressing gown and Sherlock stripped, too. They got into bed naked, and shifted to face each other. Both of them knew this was a basic way of heating up a freezing person.
Sherlock bravely inched closer and he grimaced when John tangled his legs with his long ones and made sure to jam the toes in the warm and smooth space on the back of Sherlock's knee in beneficial revenge.
"You should look after yourself," Sherlock mumbled and eyed him seriously.
"I'm busy looking for you," John whispered back before he had a short but hoarse coughing fit. Sherlock visibly tensed in the bed and encircled John's neck with his large hand to feel the temperature as well as the pulse.
"Promise you'll take better care of yourself. I'm not worth getting a cold for. You need to be with me longer, my dear John."
John turned his solemn eyes to Sherlock and at once, the detective knew what was expected of him. The two of them ended up kissing gently, and when John coaxed Sherlock's mouth open and shared his brandy-scented breath, Sherlock hummed in content and closed his eyes.
At last figuring that his now not so hopeless man provided desirable warmth, John began to fumble under the cover for Sherlock's hand, and fumbled some more and lower because he found something equally as warm and started to fondle it which made Sherlock hiss and get a delicious wrinkle between his closed eyes.
John heard him moan softly, and his breath hitched when the arousing musky scent from under the cover washed over them. Then John let go, feeling the detective deserved some teasing for his antics, and found the hand and brought it up between their chests like nothing had happened. Sherlock took a ragged breath and opened his luminescent eyes. John quirked an eyebrow.
The protest died on Sherlock's lips and instead, he gained control over their joined hands and used it to expose John's red knuckles to his soothing lips.
John held his breath.
Sherlock took hold of one of John's fingers, licked it lavishly, and guided it down again. Down and under, between spread thighs.
"Forgive me, John. I'll take care of you. I'll make you warm. I'll put this in a warm place," he mumbled in a husky voice and John groaned at the image of what his husband was planning on doing to apologize.
He gasped when he touched Sherlock in that place and bucked against the audacious man.
"Oh God, Sherlock. I love you."
In the end, John warmed up to him, both emotionally and physically.
Indoor activities, in every sense of the word ;). I thought they needed an intimate moment after John's hardship and worry. But what did you think of this chapter? Review if you are kind. Stay tuned for the last spring chapter!