Title: An Inactual Reality
Author: LimpBiskit
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Pairing: John/Sherlock-ish
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Slash. Graphicness. Imagery.

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Wasn't that what everyone said, wanted to believe, hoped was so-

But John Watson knew better, knew it was a lie with every flutter of the heartbeat beneath his palm, every slow breath in-and-out that slipped over the skin of his throat as he lay alongside the only one in the world who might have understood just how much a falacy it was, understood and would have mocked the rest of humanity for their foolish wishful thinking..

It was action that led to their attraction, that spark of being there, being needed and ready for the rest of the world with this person, being alive alive, oh God they almost hadn't been, he almost hadn't been but there really were such things as miracles and by his side even when there was nothing but peaceful silence..

He lived, they lived, but the quiet was too heavy a weight and he thought to break it down, make it something that the other would understand and acknowledge- And what would be better than to say the words, to speak the truth that he wanted so very badly to be true, surely he could have what he wanted just this once because he loved so much more than he ever had in his life-

But the words he knew were such lies, there was nothing in the sand or even in those wildflowers, there was only the world tucked within coltish arms and heaven in those lightning-colored eyes that saw and spoke and sometimes lit the night with their own promise of an hour's eternity if he could only bear the heat of those hands-

And he could. Did. Offered up blood-and-tear sacrifices for those instants of stolen kisses and words so honeysweet that they burned his tongue like acid, the marks carried in a place so sacred that none but this deity himself could see..

It was nothing like melting, or crumbling, or even falling, mundane terms fled in shame before the nature of this, the thing that arced from stormlight to denimblue in a single glance-

But the foolish words the brunette uttered, they were like wine spilled across the ground, wasted when they were so very needless, how he always, always took in precious air to give voice to a proven fact that they both knew by heart-

"Ple...ase, love me, love me.."

And how ridiculous, because of course he did, what else was there to do when this beautiful creature lay almost supine atop the night-dark sheets of their bed, those always-steady hands sunk into the material as he arched and pleaded like a man gone mad, shaking with the frantic beat of his secreted heart.

Though he was no clairvoyant, the blond knew what would certainly be next, those slender hips leaving the bed as he gasped and cried oh god John, please oh now please John please come-

No matter how he ever tried, there was no stopping or denying that desperate entreaty, not when he wanted it, needed so much and the detective needed it just as much, every long muscle drawn tight at the first sensation of liquid heat spent deep inside him as he clawed the sheets and mewled like some feline creature as he came-

There was never any hope of resisting, only surrender and breathless clinging to each other as if life and limb depended on the sound of a gasp or the slick sensation beneath or between them as they lay together in that stifling darkness that had always been so achingly lonely..

And strangely enough, the silence was nothing to fear, not now and never again because it left room for steady heartbeats beneath still-sweat-dampened palms, low murmurs of faith and hope and love that burned away damaged hearts and replaced them with incandescent devotion-

It was an experiment in reality, a thing that pushed and molded and shaped what was, had been, could always be and never not have been into a living form, something tangible and whole made of two imperfectly perfect spectres of past hurt and craving, merging them into a single watermark on the pages of some eternity that neither planned to lose-

How could they, when they were the ink, the words, the pages, bound with the thread of fate as surely as if they had always been so, and hadn't they? One here, one there but gravity drawing together the halves of something like a soul split by something so petty as Earthly distance?

And the both of them knew it, breathed it in and laughed it out because honestly, what else was there but to laugh in the face of the world's greatest crime?

But it was one they solved over and over, never tired of the chase or the code or even the roundabout way it took to get them to where they lay in the unlight together, it had all been nothing but a momentary diversion from this caring lark that sang like a phoenix abed in ashes-

And for one inhale-hold-and-exhale of the universe, it was theirs.