John sighs. "Sherlock, what the hell have I told you about using my laptop? For God's sake, yours is right over there!"

Sherlock doesn't respond, instead keeping his lips shut and his eyes glued to the screen.

John walks behind him with a cup of coffee in his hand to see what in the world is so interesting to the detective, and his breath hitches when he sees the pictures on the screen. Sherlock is sifting through the photos of their engagement party again. Over and over. There aren't that many pictures for him to look at, they aren't a particularly photogenic couple, but Sherlock doesn't seem to mind looking at the same poses over and over again. Remembering. Trying to remember. Trying to make it all click. Remember. Remember John. Remember who they were together.

"Sherlock…" John whispers sympathetically, placing a reassuring hand on Sherlock's shoulder and squeezing a bit, in a comforting sort of matter. "You don't have to try so hard."

There's a moment of silence. Sherlock moves on to the next picture. In this image, they're standing together, their attention not on each other but on other people. Sherlock seems engrossed in a conversation with Mrs. Hudson while John is talking to-who is that? Lestrade-but Sherlock has his arm unconsciously possessively tightened around John's waist, joining them at the hip. Even after seeing this photo ten thousand times, Sherlock is still taken aback. He did this? Even to himself he didn't seem like the most romantic person in the world. John, on the other hand, Sherlock had deduced to be a nearly hopeless romantic. Opposites. Complete opposites. How in the world had they turned out being a couple in the first place?

"John?"

"Hmm?" John finds himself nonchalantly rubbing Sherlock's shoulder, not that Sherlock seems to mind of course.

Sherlock swallows hard, as if all the moisture had been vacuumed from his throat. "Were you happy?"

"What?"

"With me, I mean. I seem to be a bit of an arsehole. I can't imagine many people like me."

John gives a sort of half-smile and slinks his arm around Sherlock's clavicle. "Most people don't. You do tend to be a massive arsehole."

"Did we fight?"

"Oh sure. But that's what all couples do, don't they?"

"I wouldn't know."

John presses his lips together firmly. Sherlock really wouldn't know. He doubted Sherlock had ever had a real, proper relationship before he came along. Even when they first came out as partners, Sherlock had seemed oblivious to everything. He didn't like being touched very often. Even an act such as this, with John practically hugging him from behind, Sherlock would have pushed him away in an instant. It's nice, John thinks to himself, this new Sherlock. This new Sherlock that seemed to not only not mind John's ministrations, but welcome it.

John can't help himself from leaning forward to press his lips on the tip of Sherlock's ear, but the moment he does, Sherlock shuts the laptop and abruptly stands, startling John. "It's been exactly an hour," Sherlock states, completely unfazed. "I need to check my experiment."

He shuffles away from John and into the kitchen, leaving John standing there to recollect his thoughts. They were having a rather domestic moment. But alas, Sherlock could get so distracted by his scientific investigations. He was the one who would actually leave straight in the middle of sex to check on a chemical substance he was heating, leaving John incomplete and utterly frustrated behind belief.


John collapses into his armchair, pulling Sherlock down onto his lap and crashing their lips together.

Both of them gasp simultaneously. John's hands firmly grasp Sherlock's hips and Sherlock's fingers snake around John's shoulders, steadying himself on John's lap.

The kiss is ravenous and nothing they had ever shared since the accident. Wild and animalistic, shoving their tongues down each other's throats and biting each other's lips like they were going to eat each other.

Moaning around Sherlock's mouth, John has to wonder how they had gotten into such a compromising situation. After all, moments ago they were at each other's throats-and not in the sense of what they were doing right now.

It was a case. Terrorist attack. Sherlock had nearly gotten himself blown up. A huge fight had erupted, Sherlock had called John pitiful and weak, John had retorted with a "you're such a dick!" before the suspect got away. Still massively fuming at each other, they made a run for it, down the London streets and nearly getting run over by all sorts of passing vehicles. John was the one who tackled the criminal to the ground, but when Lestrade came around Sherlock absorbed all the credit and John had actually punched him square in the jaw. Lestrade had to physically separate them and sent the both of them home, still fuming with each other.

The cab ride home hadn't helped at all. They bickered all the way to Baker Street, much to the dismay of the cab driver.

After angrily paying the cab, they walked briskly up the stairs shouting insults at each other until Sherlock blurted out "I hate you" to which John had grabbed Sherlock by the coat collar, yanked him down abruptly, and smashed their lips together in response.

And so here they were.

John presses his hips against Sherlock's and lets out a delightful groan into Sherlock's mouth. Their teeth clack together, almost painfully, if it wasn't for their state of pure euphoria. Sherlock's response is to roll his pelvis into John, aligning their crotches for some magnificently delicious friction, despite all the layers of clothes between them.

"John," Sherlock rasps, his voice low and damn right sexy.

"Mmm," John moans against Sherlock's lips.

"We should stop."

"Yes we should."

But they don't.

It's too hot, in more than one sense of the word. Sherlock helps John shrug off his jacket, and John untucks Sherlock's shirt from his trousers, neither of them seemingly willing to break the heated kiss. Sherlock's hands are on John's neck now, long fingers dancing across the skin and making John's hair practically stand on end.

"Fuck," John swears as he inhales, shutting his eyes tight and throwing his head back as pleasure from inside his trousers shoots up his spine. This breaks the kiss and gives Sherlock the opportunity to attach his lips to John's neck, sucking and biting with a primal instinct he didn't even know he had.

John slips his hands beneath Sherlock's shirt, sliding them up the thin torso and around the bony back to pull their bodies closer together as they continue to grind against each other. Sherlock lets out a heated moan across John's throat, cause John to exhale sharply and swear again.

"Sherlock," John croaks in a way that he's sure is the complete opposite of sexy, his entire body shuddering in pleasure as Sherlock licks a long trail down his neck and to his shoulder. His fingers, still under Sherlock's shirt, dig into the skin of Sherlock's back. This only causes Sherlock to bite down on John's shoulder in retort.

They're so vocal. Sherlock moans loudly, something he would never have done a year ago, and it sends shudders down John's spine and straight to his crotch, his cock now straining painfully against his pants. He bucks his hips up to meet Sherlock's, knowing that if he doesn't get some sort of relief, he's going to go crazy.

He slips his hands out from under Sherlock's shirt to grasp Sherlock's hips again, fingers hooking under the waistband of the detective's trousers.

Sherlock doesn't even seem to notice John unbuckling his pants, or if he does, he doesn't seem to want to stop it. He only grinds their pelvises together again, reconnecting their lips in another heated kiss. Sloppy, not at all perfect. He bites down on John's tongue, and John gives out a little cry, but not a pained cry, exactly. John seems to like pain. Sherlock makes a mental note at the back of his head.

John undoes the belt holding up Sherlock's trousers and unzips the fly as quickly as possible. He wraps his hands around Sherlock's lower back to tug them closer together again before resting his palms against Sherlock's flat abdomen. He can feel it contract with each of Sherlock's labored breathes, rugged and uneven and without a real pattern.

Sherlock lets his hands travel down to John's chest, desperately tugging at the buttons. He pops one, and then another, his fingers practically trembling as he moves down further and further. Unbuttoning a shirt should not be this difficult. But it is.

Having successfully unbuttoned the last button, Sherlock pulls the shirt apart in a ravenous matter, hands immediately settling on John's bare chest. They finally break their kiss for air, both gasping as if the entire room has been deprived of oxygen. John slips his fingers underneath the waistband of Sherlock's pants, and Sherlock throws his head back in pleasure and thrusts his hips against John's particularly hard.

"Dammit," John hisses between his teeth, reaching down Sherlock's pants to grasp his already rock hard erection. Oh, the strained whine that comes out of Sherlock's throat as he's very nearly overwhelmed with pleasure is music to John's ears.

Sherlock digs his fingers into John's torso, clawing at the flesh and involuntarily bucking his hips up to meet John's hand. He can't remember ever feeling this good and dear lord it's a wonderful feeling.

Neither of them can think straight. John strokes Sherlock underneath his pants, his hand practically shaking around Sherlock's length. This causes Sherlock to grind their crotches together again and they groan simultaneously. Sherlock lets his forehead fall to John's shoulder and chokes back a pleasured sob as John fists him at an increasingly faster pace. Beneath them, John's armchair creaks back and forth, threatening to break if they continue their ministrations, but neither of them care. They rock in unison, John's hands on Sherlock's cock, and Sherlock's hands randomly roaming John's chest, once every while resting his palm against John's chest and feeling his heart try to rip itself out of John's ribcage.

And then there's a knock on the door.

Both John and Sherlock are suddenly turned to stone. Frozen in time. Not a muscle moved, not a breath breathed.

"Boys?" Dear lord, it's Mrs. Hudson. And she sounds concern. "Boys are you okay? You're not fighting up there, are you?"

Fucking fuck shit fuck holy goddamn fucking shit shit dammit fucking hell fuck

"We've settled it," John calls out, pretty sure his voice cracked thrice between those three words like his throat is parched.

Neither of them even breathe until the footsteps go away and they're in the clear. Then reality smacks them both in the face. Whatever they had just done, it wasn't supposed to happen. This was not taking things slow. It might have been consensual, but it certainly wasn't the proper thing to do.

John lets out a giant sigh of relief, but hitches his breath yet again when he comes face to face with Sherlock's expression. At first, the detective looks absolutely disgusted, horrified even. He opens his mouth slightly, as if to say something, and then he goes emotionless, his jaw clenched and his perfectly shaped lips pressing together in a tight thin line.

That's when John realizes he still had his hand down Sherlock's pants, fingers wrapped around a slowly softening erection. What a fucking mood killer. He lets go of Sherlock awkwardly and clears his throat.

Sherlock's response is to rebutton his trousers and buckle up his belt in silence before slowly getting off John's lap. He doesn't take one glance at John as he tucks his shirt back into his trousers and heads off towards his bedroom, leaving poor John half-naked, completely disheveled, and hard as hell. Anybody could see the obvious differences in them. Sherlock walked away dignified, nobody could look at him and even guess what he had just done, while John was slumped in his chair looking like a complete mess. Tragic, really.

John chews on his bottom lip, right hand twiddling with the golden band around his left ring finger as he finds himself engrossed in thought. Perhaps this could be considered a leap backwards. Maybe the both of them had just destroyed everything they'd been working on. Things might just have been absolutely ruined.