Author's Note: I tamed down the smut scene in this chapter (and I'll probably edit the one in the last chapter as well) so that it isn't quite as intense of a violation of 's guidelines. If you want to read a more detailed/explicit version, look me up on Archive of Our Own. My user name on there xstarxchaserx, and the story has the same title. Thanks a bunch, loves :)

I realized that when I took Sherlock Holmes to bed (or, I guess in this instance, when he took me to bed), there might be some complications. I imagined awkward conversations- or lack thereof- and days spent browsing the classifieds looking for a new flat. I expected him to kick me out of bed, tell me that it wasn't important, that it was just for science or some fucked up shit like that. I expected him to tell me that it was my fault, that he was just doing it to make me happy, because it was expected.

I did not expect him to ask me to shower off with him. I did not expect him to ask me to sleep (naked, as he specified) in his bed. I did not expect to wake up to gentle caresses and lips pressing against my neck and those beautiful hands roving lower over my back and down to cup my ass. I did not expect to hear that amazing voice, dropped just another octave or two lower, still gravelly with sleep, ask me to roll over because he would really rather kiss my lips. I smiled and gave in after very little protests for my comfort.

He kissed me long and deep and slowly, cataloging the way each caress of his lips and tongue and teeth made me feel. There was a lingering bit of awkwardness, working out the mechanics, but I was more than a willing test subject.

"Sherlock..." I all but growled when he nipped at my bottom lip, sending shocks through my body. I needed him, badly.

When he only smirked and went back to kissing me, I flipped him over on to his back, surprising a small, almost undignified squeak out of him. I let myself explore his mouth with as much intensity and focus as he had explored mine.

"John." It came out as half a breath, half a whine, and it was so unlike anything I had ever heard come out of his mouth, I had to stop and stare at him for a moment. "What?" he eventually asked.

"You are amazing," I said. "That's all."

He was going to question me on what he did, what made me say that, how could he get me to say it again, but instead, I kissed all questions off his lips, undoing him more with gentle caresses of my fingertips down his ribs. I traced the line of his collar bone with kisses, moved my hand lower to where I could feel his erection pressing against my thigh. There was a drop of moisture already beaded up at the tip and I found myself once again momentarily struck by the fact that I was the one making Sherlock Holmes respond this way. I felt humbled and extremely proud all at the same time.

Well, that is until he wrapped his hand around mine and made it clear he wanted me to stop. I pulled away quickly, the fear settling back into my stomach that he was already over the whole thing and that he'd be asking me to leave.

"I thought I told you last night to stop that."

I blushed and ducked my head so I could plant a kiss on his neck. "Sorry."

"I was stopping you because I don't want to come like that. I think... I rather think I would enjoy it if you..." he cut himself off, huffed at his loss of words. "This shouldn't be nearly as hard as it seems to be."

I held myself up on on elbow so I could see his face. "Just be frank. It's what you're best at."

He met my eyes, opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and looked away again. I gave him a moment, and just when I was about to tell him that he didn't have to say anything if he didn't want to, he spoke. "John. I think I would like to feel you inside of me."

"Are you... are you sure? Have you ever-?"

"Yes, I'm sure, and... yes. I have. It's been a long, long time though."

It took me almost no time flat to imagine precisely what Sherlock could have been doing on those filthy mattresses in the house where we found Jeremy Brenner, and almost as short a time to realize I wanted very much to erase the memory of every single person who had ever laid their hands on him and mark him for my own.

"Okay. Do you have lube and condoms down here? We probably should have thought of condoms last night come to think of it. Damn it. I'm sorry."

He pushed me lightly so I moved enough for him to roll over and dig in the drawer of his night table. He pulled out a paper and handed it to me before going back to searching. The paper was his test results, as of two weeks prior.

"I'll understand if you still want to use protection, but I know you're clean as well, so it's not a priority..."

"Why did you get this done?"

"The routine check up excuse wouldn't work on you would it?" I shook my head no and he sighed. "The truth, then. John Watson, I've been thinking about shagging you since that first night, after we chased the taxi through the streets of London. I just spent a rather inordinate amount of time trying to push those desires out of my mind because, well... I didn't want to be the reason this," he made a vague motion between the two of us, "to go away."

I didn't know what to say in response to something like that, so I kissed him instead. I poured every ounce of frustration, residual anger/sadness, and pure, unadulterated joy into it. Soon, he was melting back into the mattress. I took the lube from where he was still clutching it in his hand and set it next to us while I situated myself between his legs. I kissed lower, down his chest, until I was able to wrap my lips around him. The taste was sharp and sweet all at once in my mouth. I managed to maneuver myself so I had my chest on the bed, propping myself up on my elbows so I could keep him in my mouth as I opened the lube and liberally coated my index and middle fingers. I went gently, using my mouth as a distraction, slowly guiding first one, then a second, then a final third finger into him.

"Please, John... Please. God. I need you. Please. Don't make me wait any longer."

I eased off of him, both with my hand and mouth, and slicked myself up.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes. Please..."

I pulled him closer, tilting his hips up just a bit, and guided myself into the gloriously tight heat of his body. I went slowly, for both of our benefits, and when I was buried inside of him completely, I rested their for a moment before giving my hips an experimental roll that drew a deep, throaty moan from Sherlock. It was the most deliciously sinful thing I had ever heard in my life and I had to resist the urge to pound into him. I dropped down, instead, so that I could kiss him as I rolled my hips again. His legs wrapped around my waist, and soon, his hips were moving up to meet mine thrust for thrust. I wrapped one arm around his neck, cradling his head there, as I held myself above him with my other. I gradually turned up the pace. His arms came up to wrap around my back, and on a particularly rough thrust, his nails dragged across my skin and pulled a growl from my chest.

"Oh, fuck yes," he said. "Harder, John, please."

I obliged and his nails pulled across my skin again. It was a delightful, sweet kind of not-pain. I felt myself getting close and moved up again so I could wrap my hand around his cock to push him over with me. I timed the movements of my hand with the thrusting of my hips, felt the flutter of his muscles, and picked up the pace of my motions.

"Let go, Sherlock. Just let go," I found myself saying, and he did. I watched as his eyes fluttered open and drifted closed again in a moment of surprise at how quickly his orgasm had sneaked up on him, then I watched him come apart- this time under the pale, early morning light- and something about the look on his face combined with the way he all but cried my name as his body tightened around mine threw me over the edge.

I could only lay there, my head resting on his chest, still buried inside of him, until the lights stopped dancing in front of my eyes. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, the sentiment of it making my skin flush for an entirely different reason. I eased out of him, quickly apologizing at the wince I saw dance across his features.

"No, don't apologize. That was... quite amazing, actually."

"No need to sound so surprised," I said, only half faking the hurt tone.

"That's not what I meant at all. My previous encounters with such acts were... rushed, unpleasant, painful. The fact that it could be gentle, that someone could be gentle with me, and still enjoy themselves was a bit of a surprise."

I kissed him, lightly, first on the lips, then on his forehead. "I don't understand why anyone would ever rush with you. Watching you slowly come apart is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life, and I swear to you, Sherlock," I tilted his chin up so he was looking at me instead of having his eyes down cast, "I am nothing like anyone you have ever been with."

His expression grew thoughtful and intense, like it does when we work a particularly confusing case, then softened. He ran his fingers through my hair and pulled my head down so my forehead was resting against his. "No, John, I don't think you are."

The next two days were blissful and tense all at the same time. There was the joy of being able to freely look, touch, and taste whenever we wanted. It was something we took quite a bit of advantage of, spending almost as much time in bed as we did in the rest of the flat.

Tense because the only time Lestrade texted me was to say that he didn't have any new information.

The bliss soon gave way to the tension. Sherlock resumed alternating between pacing the flat, playing the violin, and laying on the couch lost in the depths of his mind palace.

"I need some air," he finally said one night, after I had finally got him to eat some take-out.

"Alright. Give me a few minutes to change-."

"No, I want to walk and think. I won't be good company for you, John."

"You shouldn't be going out by yourself, Sherlock. Moran's still on the loose, and we don't know what he's up to."

"I don't need a body guard."

"No, but you do need someone who can keep an eye out for you while you're wandering around your mind palace."

"I'm sorry, John, I want... I want to be alone. You're distracting. It's a beautiful, wonderful distraction, don't get me wrong, but I need to be away from you for just a little while so I can separate my thoughts of you from where they're intertwining with every other thought I'm trying to have."

"I don't like this, Sherlock. What about Lestrade?"

"Gods, no. Please, John. I'll only be an hour at most. I promise. I'll take my phone with me."

A thought came, unbidden into my mind. "Can I see your phone, actually?"

He handed it over. "I'm not making any plans without you. I learned my lesson the last time I did that, but feel free to look. There's also a way to figure out the last time anything was reset if you think I may have deleted anything."

I wanted to hand him back his phone, to tell him that I trusted him, but I knew he'd appreciate the honesty more. I found nothing in his phone to incriminate him and sighed deeply. "Okay. After an hour, I'm coming after you."

"I would expect nothing less."

I stood as he got on his jacket and I walked over to my own coat, looking for just a moment before I found what I was searching for. I went over to him and kissed him, bring my hands up so I could slip the chain around his neck. His hand wrapped around the dog tags and he looked down at them for a moment before looking back up at me.

"What's this for?"

"I can't be with you at all times, so this will have to do instead. They helped you when you were away, so-."

Whatever justification I was about to ramble on about what cut off when he kissed me. "What am I going to do with you, John?" he said with a chuckle.

"Oh, I can think of about a million things. Perhaps after you've sorted your thoughts out, we can explore a few of them."

He smiled- a genuine smile- and kissed me again. "I'll be back within an hour."

I nodded and opened the door for him. "Don't do anything stupid, Sherlock, or I swear I will hunt you down and kill you myself."

"Stop worrying. I'll be fine."

When he was gone, I poured a glass of brandy. The truth was, I was happy for a bit of space myself. I had thoughts and emotions that I needed to sift through, and having the flat to myself would help a bit, of that I was sure.

It took about 15 minutes for those thoughts to be sifted through and the panic to set in. I thought about texting him, but I didn't want to be clingy. There was nothing that Sherlock hated more than sentiment.

Though that wasn't entirely true. Ever since he came back from his mission, he had been showing more emotion than I thought he was capable of ever expressing. Perhaps he wouldn't mind if I texted him, just to check in on him. It had been 20 minutes, and knowing him, he could get into a world of trouble in that time.

I reached for my phone just as the text message alert went off. My heart lit up for a minute, seeing his name on the screen and realizing that he had taken the initiative to text me first. Sentiment was something he was really, really good at.

I should have known better, of course, because when I opened the message it was picture and a single line.

The picture: Sherlock with a piece of cloth tied around his head acting as a gag, his lip busted open, his hands tied behind his back, face down on the floor of a van.

The text: Come and play, Doctor. - SM