(A/N): I was bored, so this happened. This is my first songfic, so I apologize in advance if it seems clunky in any way. It was inspired by Florence + The Machine's "Drumming Song," a piece which I have always thought harbors heavy elements of Johnlock.
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[There's a drumming noise inside my head that starts when you're around]
...
It's been eight months and Sherlock still gets breathless when John Watson walks into the room.
Which is odd, because there is nothing obviously remarkable about John. He is five foot seven inches tall. He takes his tea without sugar. He prefers to wear muted colours and plain clothing. He makes his bed each morning. He has a pension for mediocre television programmes. He is right-handed.
He is, by all accounts, perfectly ordinary.
The hot, clenching pulse Sherlock experiences each time he lays eyes on the army doctor seems illogical.
But it isn't. Because.
Because John can obliterate someone with his gun and smile afterward, because he can maintain a flawless poker-face while wrapped in explosives, because can heal wounds with astonishing efficiency, because he cannot be intimated by anyone or anything, because he can tame Sherlock's wildest strops with a few soft words and tilt of his head. Because he cannot move a millimetre without throwing light everywhere.
Sherlock has always been attracted to dichotomy and the simple truth is that he has never encountered one as impeccable as John Hamish Watson.
So is the pounding John elicits in his skull and veins and arteries really such an irrational sensation?
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[There's a drumming noise inside my head that throws me to the ground]
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John, with his laugh lines and tartan socks and greying hair and impatience.
It will be the death of Sherlock.
He sits in his obsidian armchair, eyes flickering from John's eyes to his lips to his nose, gripping the armrests and biting his tongue, repeating the same mantra over and over in his head: I will not, I will not, I will not, I will not, I will not, I will not, I will not—
He already has.
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[Louder than sirens, louder than bells, sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell]
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It happens when they are arguing.
John is screaming at him to stop being such a selfish bastard and Sherlock is screaming back, spewing a foul litany of invectives, looming over John like some over-sized temperamental toddler. He steps forward, crowding his flatmate against the gleaming pallor of the refrigerator, but apparently this is something John won't stand for because he seizes Sherlock around the around the biceps and shoves him backward, asking who the hell he thinks he is.
And then.
And then.
The blazing beat starts throbbing in Sherlock's solar plexus, searing and vicious and there, and goddammit he wants to push John against the wall and kiss him so hard it stings.
He doesn't, of course, because John is storming off to his bedroom in a whirl of halcyon fury, yelling something about invading Afghanistan and murdering consulting detectives in their sleep.
Leaving Sherlock alone in the kitchen while silence screams for his blood.
...
[I ran to a tower where the church bells chime. I hoped that they would clear my mind. They left a ringing in my ear, but that drum's still beating loud and clear]
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"Pick one. Any of them. I don't care. Just choose one."
"Sherloc—"
"I am sick of being imprisoned in this flat with nothing to do but watch bacteria cultures develop and dismember frozen body parts. I'm asking you to free me from this hellish boredom."
"But why can't you—"
"I'm sure your…whatever-her-name-is…can wait two minutes for you to send that text. Now pick a case, John. Must I beg?"
"Fine. How about that one with the illusionist and the trick knee?"
"As you wish."
...
[As I move my feet towards your body, I can hear this beat. It fills my head up and gets louder and louder]
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"Could be dangerous," Sherlock murmurs, again and again, exhilarated because John always follows, because he can't not follow, because this is what they do, this is what keeps the thrum of adrenaline running through their veins, this is what makes all the chases and gun shots and blood and bruises worth it. John, pressed at his side, panting and pointing the barrel of his Browning into the darkness, their breaths mingling dizzily together.
This and this and this and this and this.
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[It fills my head up and gets louder and louder]
...
Sherlock exhales a lungful of smoke, which briefly obscures the stars before a chill wind sweeps it away again.
"I wish you wouldn't," says John, eyeing the cigarette between his pursed lips.
"I know."
Sherlock grinds the burning embers into the bricks behind them.
He disgusts himself for indulging in such an unpleasant habit, but anything to stop the hammering in his head, his chest, his heart.
...
[I run to the river and dive straight in. I pray that the water will drown out the din, but as the water fills my mouth it couldn't wash the echoes out]
...
The needle goes in easily.
The chemical miasma that follows is bliss.
Quiet.
Everything is so goddamn exquisitely quiet.
Until John comes in with his hair all dark gold from the rain, eyes darkening with a terror Sherlock will never understand, grabbing the detective's jaw and turning his face toward the light so he can peer into the bloodshot grey irises with their pupils like twin black holes.
That's when Sherlock realises that the pounding has not died. Brought to a lesser pitch, yes, quieted to a dull arrhythmic patter, absolutely, but killed off entirely?
Not at all.
He isn't surprised. It did beat too brilliantly to be extinguished the first time.
Panic comes roaring in, clawing and ripping at Sherlock like some cadaverous beast.
God help him.
...
[I swallow the sound and it swallows me whole til there's nothing left inside my soul. I'm as empty as that beating drum, but the sound has just begun]
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John.
There's only ever been John, this person, this one flawed being who has somehow managed to pull Sherlock Holmes—an impossible planet—into his orbit, and stabilize him with perfect gravity.
Or, if not stabilize him completely, impart in him the longing to do so. The ache to be a better man.
Sherlock lays on the sofa, listening to John scrub ineffectually at a blood stain on his second best jumper. He closes his eyes, bringing his fingertips together beneath his chin, and finally the world doesn't spin anymore.
...
[As I move my feet towards your body, I can hear this beat. It fills my head up and gets louder and louder. It fills my head up and gets louder and louder]
...
The gun's blast splinters in the air around them and the man falls, dead before he meets the pavement.
It was a perfect shot and John knows it. He's staring at Sherlock like he's never seen him properly, grinning like a maniac, chest heaving as he drags in breath after breath of oxygen that tastes of gun powder and thrill. And there it is, that drumming noise in Sherlock's head that starts when John is around. It grows in intensity as they look at each other, bruised all over but very much alive, eyes wide and open and unfathomable.
"John—"
It's too much to look at him, to look at all that light.
"I want—"
What does he want? He wants John. Wants his humour and his daring and his dependability and his firm mouth and his core of steel.
So he takes John's face in his hands, bracketing his skull with trembling palms, and kisses him.
It's just flesh against flesh, but Sherlock's whole body is tingling from it, thoughts whirling around like birds freed from their cages, smoldering against the pliant heat of John's skin. Fingers catch in his curls and tug, pulling him closer and Jesus, it feels like the very ground has opened up beneath their feet and left them at the mercy of the fall, twisting and tumbling though an infinity of space, plunging so quickly they leave a trail of bright flames in their wake. John is pulling Sherlock impossibly close, traversing the surface of his lips in a giddy waltz of lips and teeth and tongue and my God, Sherlock wants to rip his roaring heart right out of his chest and bury it in John's flesh, because that is where it belongs, where it has always belonged.
"John," he says, when they pull away.
"I know," says John.
And that is so much more than enough.