Facilitateur
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By: Akiko, Keeper of Sheep
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Chapter Nine: Embrassant
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Sherlock Holmes wanted to kiss John Watson.
It had come as quite a shock to the lanky detective, who couldn't honestly remember the last time he'd been attracted to someone in any way, shape, or form. He had certainly never craved a kiss before, but now it was all he seemed to want, and it seemed (though this was a tentative hypothesis) that he was sexually attracted to John.
The realization was an strange one. It was somehow both shocking and easy. There was no change in how Sherlock felt, no cosmic shift in his perception of the universe. Nothing changed from one second to the next. It was like waking up one morning and suddenly realizing that you had green eyes. You had lived with it for so long that the epiphany, while a bit disorienting, was not earth-shattering. It simply was.
The reason Sherlock had experienced one such epiphany was due to his newest obsession, and the origins of said obsession were no mystery, as they had been something of an epiphany, as well.
Sometime between chasing an escaped convict and catching him, John had pulled Sherlock out of the street and thrown him up against a wall just as a bus rumbled over the spot Sherlock had previously occupied. The doctor had grumbled at Sherlock, his eyes (free of eyeliner, sadly) narrowed and his lips pressed into a pale, thin line, and out of nowhere, the urge to kiss John punched Sherlock in the gut. It was a craving the likes of which Sherlock had never felt, all other needs and wants paling in comparison, and only the sight of their quarry lunging at them with a machete stopped Sherlock leaning in and catching John's worried words on his tongue.
It was the beginning of the most torturous two weeks of Sherlock's life.
Suddenly, all he could think about was kissing John. When John bit into his toast and licked the jam (jamjamjamgod, will I ever overcome this addiction?) from his lips, Sherlock wanted to kiss him. When John whistled along to Franz Ferdinand, Sherlock wanted to kiss him. When John giggled, frowned, smiled, sighed, pouted, hummed, whistled, breathed, existed, Sherlock wanted to kiss him.
He tried to overwhelm this new jonesing for a fix by indulging in every other addiction he had. He bundled himself up in John's jumper every night, built a bubble machine and filled his room with bubbles, drew his eyeliner on thick and dark and danced too-close-too-warm-too-tight with Simon to the pulsing beat at Sugar's. He poured glitter in front of John's electric fan until every surface of their sitting room was coated in the stuff (the skull had never looked so lovely before).
John shouted at him for a bit, and Sherlock wanted to kiss him.
When immersion in his various vices didn't help, Sherlock turned to his first and most faithful love, The Work, to satisfy him. He threw himself into each case with manic vigor, talking perhaps a bit too loud and much too quickly and gesticulating so wildly he hit Lestrade in the nose once. He snarked at Sally and made horribly insulting references to Anderson's parentage.
John called him incredible and ran after him into the night, and Sherlock wanted to kiss him.
It was time for a different approach. First (because Sherlock wasn't such a fool that he'd risk his partnership with John if there were other alternatives), he would have to see if his need for kisses was limited to John.
Molly had not been willing to be part of his experiment, and had slapped him when he leaned in and had run from the room in tears. Still, he had been close enough to know that kissing her would have been awkward and unpleasant, and he crossed her off his mental list. He didn't tell John, and he was certain Molly hadn't, either, because he knew that if John found out that Sherlock had made Molly cry, again, he would be cross.
He had managed to press his lips to Simon's before he realized that he was not a satisfactory alternative either. Simon had giggled and tried to kiss Sherlock again, but the detective simply tipped his shorter (drunker) companion into Rob's lap and left. John had frowned at him all night, and Sherlock wanted very, very much to kiss him, but the thought of John slapping him like Molly had held him back.
Quite desperate at this point, Sherlock found himself cornering Sally at a crime scene and requesting (not begging, never begging) that she allow him to test whether or not kissing her would be an acceptable substitute for kissing John. She hadn't even managed to say something rude to him. She was laughing too hard. Sherlock had huffed and walked (not stomped like a child, never ever ever) back past the yellow tape to where John was waiting with a bemused smile. He didn't have to know what Sherlock had said to Sally to be tickled silly by her reaction.
It was late, quite late, on a Sunday night when Sherlock slipped up the stairs and into John's bedroom. He paused by the bedside, not quite sure if he should wake John up for this. He thought again of John slapping him, or running away, or laughing at him, and decided that perhaps it would be best for John to never know about this experiment. So Sherlock crouched down beside John's bed, brushing the tips of his fingers over John's lips (a test, of course, to ensure that light pressure would not wake him). Then he leaned over and, ever so lightly, touched his lips to John's.
Tingles spread from his mouth to his toes. Heat blossomed in their wake as they ran over his cheeks, and his fingers trembled and clenched around John's blanket. Breathing out shakily, Sherlock leaned back only a few centimeters. Then, very sure that once would not be enough, he leaned back and pressed their lips together again.
Perhaps he had been too enthusiastic the second time, because when he pulled back again, John's eyes opened and he peered at Sherlock blearily.
"Wha'smaddr?"
Heart in his throat, Sherlock stood and left the room.
He waited all night for John to storm downstairs and demand an explanation, or shout at Sherlock for making advances on him while he slept, or something. Seconds melted into hours, and Sherlock watched the gray light of dawn creep across the floor, and still John did not appear.
When the doctor did stumble into the sitting room around midday, the tingling had finally subsided, and the craving had not. Hair rumpled and sleepiness still clinging to his features, John yawned, and Sherlock wanted to kiss him.
"Morning."
"Good morning, John," Sherlock said quietly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But John was turning away and shuffling towards the kitchen. "I had the oddest dream last night," he was saying. "Toast?"
"Yes. And jam."
John never told Sherlock about his dream, but the detective could guess what it had been about. He didn't go into John's room again, and even though the constant ache for his fix was amplified by those brief doses, he knew he could never, ever indulge himself in that again.
He could not risk losing John.
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To Be Continued...
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A/N - Who doesn't want to kiss John?
Okay, so, we're dangerously close to The End of Facilitateur. Oh noez! What will happen to our darling, clueless Sherlock?
I don't know why I asked that, I already know what's going to happen. Bwahahahaha!
Haha.
Anyway, one more chapter to go! Woohoo!
Song for this chapter: 'My First Kiss' (3OH!3 feat. Ke$ha)
Reviews are the only thing that could come close to comparing to kissing John Watson. Only not, because he's just yum.
Peace.
Akiko