Chapter 11: In Which Sherlock, Erhrm, Yeah (cough)

He hadn't known kissing could be like this. Past experience—though admittedly very limited and almost exclusively utilized as a tool for manipulation—had never even hinted at the possibility that placing his lips to another human being's could inspire such satisfaction and simultaneously a craving for more. Nor would he have believed it possible, before now, that he could keep at it for quite a long time. Just this, two bodies lying alongside one another, sharing warmth and gentle touches, and kissing, long, slow kisses.

Sherlock's hand trailed lazily down John's side; his other wrapped under and around his body, holding him close. For his part, John rested against him, carding fingers through his curls, mouthing against his neck. Every sensation was paradoxical: wild and calming, fevered and cool, content and needy. His brain skittered between registering every feeling and losing itself in feeling everything. Nothing was as important as this, and yet John was more important than anything.

God, he was in love. Fascinating.

Last night had been exploratory, like learning a new language: finding out how their lips fit together, learning how to sneak breaths without breaking away, discovering how different bits of skin tasted, practicing and pleasuring and seeking permission. They had ended up on this very couch, sitting side by side, letting their mouths work and their hands rove until a late hour and timid blushes and shy goodnights had parted them. In the morning, they breakfasted together while Mrs Hudson puttered about, and their toes beneath the table continued what their mouths at the moment could not. But once the flat was theirs again, after a few minutes of uncertain hedging and stolen glances, they found themselves once again on the couch, continuing the rehearsal.

A simple case—Lestrade really was such an idiot—interrupted the day and stole their hours, but at the soonest possible moment, they returned to the couch, and this time, within a few short minutes, they found themselves horizontal, Sherlock's knee tucked between John's (for the sake of conserving space, of course), and kissing. Touching, and kissing, and kissing, and touching, and Sherlock was at this very moment lavishing John's neck with his mouth. At his ear, he heard John's sultry breaths of enjoyment. Intuiting that they were ready for access to a little more skin, Sherlock deftly popped the top button of John's shirt and gently pulled the collar to the side. His kissed, down, down, and over, and had nearly exposed John's left shoulder when—

"Uh!" John gasped, and he flinched against Sherlock, withdrawing a little, though his hand tightened around Sherlock's bicep.

Sherlock's head snapped up. "Sorry, too much?"

John's face had gone bright red. "It's not that. It's . . ."

"What?"

"Something I should probably mention."

A confession? Now? What could it be? That he'd never been with a man? That he wasn't sure this is what he wanted after all? That he had met someone else and had a secret Spanish lover and was moving out to start a new life in Barcelona and marry a matador and open a tapas bar and ¡Dios mio, no! John, don't go!

"Go on," he said, calmly.

"It's just . . . something happened to . . . my shoulder. And it's, well, quite ugly."

The bullet wound? Sherlock already knew about that. He had never seen it before, but he attributed that fact to John's inherent modesty, not self-consciousness or concern about the scar tissue from an unsightly war wound. John was a proud man, and proud to have been a soldier. So it surprised Sherlock a little that John would worry that such a thing would put Sherlock off. As if he didn't have a ceaseless fascination with scars! Time to assuage those fears.

"I'll be the judge of that," he said. Ignoring the flash of objection in John's eyes, he pulled back the shirt and revealed the scar: a dark pink ragged circle of slightly raised flesh, about the size of a fingerprint. It was a fascinating knot of gnarled skin, twisted but beautiful, and he longed to touch it. "Is it sensitive?" he asked, voice husky.

John nodded. "When I move too quickly, or put pressure there . . . I can feel it like it's new."

Gently, Sherlock brushed a thumb across it and watched John's face for a reaction.

"I can explain." John's face still registered worry.

"Only if you like." He honestly saw no need, but if John felt like talking through it, so be it.

John licked his lips, glanced down at his shoulder, took a deep breath, and said, "It happened so suddenly, I barely knew it was happening at all. One minute, I was walking across a bridge, absolutely fine, and the next . . . I was speared by lightning."

Something stirred in Sherlock. "You're surprisingly poetic, John," he said, and with refreshed desire he reclaimed John's mouth. John moaned into him, gripped him more fiercely, spread his knees and let Sherlock press more insistently against him.

When he surfaced again, John said, "It doesn't bother you?"

Sherlock returned hungrily to his neck. In between kisses and latherings, he said, "No"—lick—"why should it"—suck—"bother"—kiss—"me?"

"It's what—uhhng—you know, changed me."

Sherlock stilled, his eyes on the scar. Slowly, he moved closer and kissed it sweetly. Then he lifted his head, cupped John's face, and said, "It's what brought us together. Call me selfish, but I wouldn't change that for anything."

"Really?"

"Really."

John's smile didn't have time to linger before they were locked together again, knees and groins and stomachs and mouths, and the lazy, painstaking kisses were gone. The slow exploration was over. Sherlock wanted John, and he wanted him badly. His desire was the sum total of months, more accurately years, of pent-up, ignored, all-consuming longing. Heat was coursing through his body like his blood was petrol and John was a struck match, and low in his gut (and another low place), he felt the stirrings of something desperate.

And against his thigh, he felt that John felt it too.

With the abruptness of a startled rabbit, John gasped and launched his body off of Sherlock's, rolling inelegantly, and crashing to the floor.

"Sorry! Sorry!" he muttered, scrambling to find his feet while simultaneously cupping himself like a little boy who needed to use the loo, as if he could possibly hide his arousal. "I wasn't expecting . . . That is, I didn't know it would . . . feel . . . like this."

Bemused, Sherlock too arose.

Spluttering, John tried to explain: "I've never done it like this before, you know? I'm not sure how, erm, how everything is supposed to work."

Ah, so it was true, then. Sherlock was the first man he'd ever been with. Of course he was, or John wouldn't have needed the pamphlets. Having it confirmed, though, made him feel . . . special. Privileged. Thrilled. And though Sherlock had always imagined (not that he had really spent time imagining, not until very, very recently) that John was a master in the bedroom, it seemed that the prospect of being with his own sex had rendered him shy.

"Nor am I," said Sherlock, placatingly. "Beyond a clinical understanding, that is. Come, John. You don't think me any more experienced than you, surely. Not with that." He indicated John's crotch, unabashedly, and smirked when John's already red face became a darker tomato. "Are you opposed to joining me in the bedroom and figuring it out together?"

"This doesn't turn you off?"

"Quite the contrary. As ever, you see but do not observe." He indicated his own tent.

John tried to hide his smile behind pursed lips, but he nodded eagerly.

"Then let's not delay another moment."

He seized John by the wrist and dragged him out of the room, through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bedroom where he wasted no more time divesting himself of his shirt and assisting John with the same before they toppled together upon the bed. There, they took a few more minutes to explore the sensations of newly exposed skin. Sherlock found new ways to make John squirm, and John awakened in him new pleasure centers that left him gasping. He still found it all incredible, that he was holding John like this, that the closeness they had shared for so long had found a new and exciting manifestation, and that for the first time in his life, he was desperate to engage in what so many lesser mortals took as a given—and all because of John. Only John.

At last, he snapped the top button of John's trousers, and as reflex, John lifted his hips, allowing Sherlock to slide a hand down his backside and in one fluid motion pull both trousers and underwear to the knee, ankle, and ultimately to the floor, and John was entirely naked beneath him. Sherlock trembled. John trembled. He took a moment to run his hand down John's side, chest to waist to thigh, admiring every inch of him. John's breath was coming faster now, more needy, and Sherlock could hear his own heart thumping in his ears.

"You too," John whispered.

Yes. Yes of course. He jumped off the bed and unzipped his trousers, quickly shucking them and tossing them in a corner with no embarrassment whatsoever, not until he returned to the bed, upright on his knees, and saw John's expression: it was fixated on his obvious interest, and his mouth had gone slack as he stared in disbelief. Sherlock didn't know what to make of it.

John's eyes snapped up to Sherlock's face as he asked, "You too?"

Sherlock blinked, befuddled. "I did tell you." Slowly, he lay himself down alongside John's body, cupped his jaw to keep John's attention on him as he said, "Only for you, John. This wouldn't happen for anyone but you."

"I . . . I always knew our bond was strong. I just never realized . . . We really were meant for one another, weren't we?"

In answer, Sherlock drew his head closer, and their lips touched, almost chastely. And in that kiss, Sherlock tried to communicate what he couldn't find the words for. As John began melting into the sheets, Sherlock followed, tucked a bare leg between John's knees, and pressed their hips together. John moaned and wrapped his arms more tightly around Sherlock's torso, and they remained as close as though they were fused together, even as the heat built and pleasure spiked and the shockwaves left them gasping and crying out each other's names.

John stayed the night and slept long and deep. But Sherlock couldn't sleep. Instead, he watched John's sleeping form by the soft light of the window, waiting for every wrinkle of the nose or twitch of the lip, imagining that John was feeling as content as he was and wistfully wishing that he would never leave this bed. Everything seemed perfect. His best friend had become his lover, and both of those designations were things Sherlock never expected to have as counterpart. He had never desired either. Now, he couldn't imagine giving up either one. The very thought was a knife to the belly. Or a lightning bolt to the heart, as John might put it. So he was perfectly happy to lie in the dark with John, his John, and revel in this new state of being.

xXx

Except . . . something felt . . . off.

He couldn't say what, exactly, and so on the whole, he ignored it. It was just little things, things Sherlock couldn't even name, fleeting thoughts he couldn't pin down when John moved a certain way or said a certain thing or laughed at a pitch that was for a flash of a moment unfamiliar—but then the moment would pass, and Sherlock couldn't understand why he had this niggling feeling in the back of his mind. So he stamped it down and ignored it.

That first week, they made love every night. ("It's kinda nice, you know?" John said. "Not having to wait every forty-one days," to which Sherlock replied, "That would be preposterous. And oddly specific." John laughed.) Sometimes it was slow and tender, other times frenzied and hot. ("It's like I'm discovering my body all over again," said John. "Everything's new. Including the scent." To which Sherlock leaned in, put his nose to John's neck, and said, "To me, you smell divine." John giggled.) Sometimes facing each other, sometimes not. John had been quick to get on his knees, though he seemed less keen to do it the other way around, which disappointed Sherlock, who wanted to give it a go. But everything was still so new, and he didn't want to pressure John into doing something he was uncomfortable doing. Although, when he thought about it, John's discomfort at topping didn't make a lot of sense to him. Given John's sexual proclivities in the past, Sherlock had simply assumed he would take the more dominant role, and frankly, Sherlock had rather been hoping to be the student, in this area of their relationship at least.

But never mind. Things were wonderful, new, and exciting.

Until those little things began to stick, like food between his teeth.

xXx

Sherlock popped the cork and poured two glasses. John, who had been holding his breath, released it in a rush as Sherlock handed him the wine glass.

"To first drinks," said John, a hint of excitement that sounded a bit like nervousness in his voice.

Sherlock conceded with a shrug. It was true: everything they did together now felt like doing it for the first time. "To all sorts of firsts," he agreed.

They clinked glasses and drank.

John choked.

The rest of the evening became, in memory, a drunken blur of making out and making love and making it first to the bathroom to throw up. John won that one.

xXx

They were out on a case. Sherlock hadn't truly expected things to go south, but he had accounted for the possibility and snuck John's gun out of the flat just in case. Unless he anticipated danger, John usually preferred to leave it safely secreted away, from Sherlock as much as anyone (particularly the police, who had been known to make the occasional sweep). He didn't quite appreciate Sherlock's past filching and excuses like "target practice" and "bored." But Sherlock always found it. John was terrible at hiding his things.

Weighting down his right coat pocket, the gun bounced against his hip as he ran at breakneck speed, John huffing behind him. The art thief was making his escape on a bicycle. But with the large-framed first panel of a Francis Bacon triptych tucked under his arm, his was a wobbly escape at best. Still, he was faster on the bike than Sherlock on foot. Desperate, hating to lose, especially to a thief on a bike, Sherlock went for the gun.

He didn't want to shoot the man, just take out his ride, so he quickly passed it off to the better marksman between the two of them.

"Take it, take it!" he shouted, thrusting the gun into John's hands even as they kept on in hasty pursuit.

"What?" cried John, nearly dropping the weapon.

"Not him, the tires! The tires!"

"Sherlock, I can't!"

"Now, John, we're losing him!"

"Sherlock!"

"Now!"

John skidded to a halt, pointed the gun down the street, and screamed as he fired off two rounds with eyes closed. The first scraped into the ground like a plane coming into for a terrible landing; the second ricocheted off the brick wall of a building, off the side of a metal skip, and sank into the thief's thigh. With a shriek of pain, down he went, both man and bike scraping pavement while the painting rolled like a cartwheel, splintering the expensive frame but leaving the painting itself miraculously whole.

Sherlock reached the man first and cuffed him with handcuffs he'd filched from Lestrade some weeks before, leaving him on the ground crying and bleeding, though not mortally wounded. Breathing hard, he stood and wiped his nose, turning around just in time for John to catch him up. He was holding the gun upside down by the handle, the way one would pick up a hair from the bottom of a drain—one part wariness, two parts revulsion—and passed it back to Sherlock, saying, "Take it take it take it."

"Are you okay?" asked Sherlock, alarmed. He'd never seen such a dismal performance. Not from John. Certainly not when it came to firearms. He slipped the gun back into his pocket and took John's arm. "You're positively shaking."

"Fine fine yeah I'm fine," said John in a rush. Then he glanced down at the man writhing and gripping his thigh. Blood oozed between his fingers, and John went green. Quickly, he turned away to redirect his eyes.

"You shot me! You shot me!"

"Sorry, mate," John muttered, staring at the ground beneath his shoes, shifting his weight guiltily.

"It was . . . effective. Eventually. But we should probably do something about that," said Sherlock, blase.

"You think?" cried the man.

"Maybe a tourniquet."

"I'm dying!"

"You're not dying," Sherlock spat, then turned his back on him to face John squarely. "What do you think, John? Makeshift tourniquet? Or just apply pressure directly to the gunshot wound? I don't suppose it's wise to try to extract the bullet."

"Dyyyyiiiing!"

John's eyes were wide enough for Sherlock to see two full moons reflected back at him. For a while, he seemed as mute as a fish. Then he said, "Call 999?"

But at that precise moment, sirens sounded in the distance. John sighed with relief and distanced himself a little more from the foiled thief. The police and ambulances arrived to sort out the man, and while they were loading him into the ambulance (all while reading him his rights) and safely removing the stolen painting to a secure vehicle, Sherlock gave his report to Lestrade. But he kept John in the corner of his eye. His brain was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't understand what.

xXx

He ran into Sarah Sawyer at the supermarket where he was deciding between a chardonnay and a sauvignon blanc, as John hadn't seemed to care much for the red wine he'd brought home last time. Although, Sherlock could have sworn he'd seen him imbibe the pinot noir with relish in the past.

"Oh. Sherlock," she said with barely masked displeasure. "It's you."

"Dr. Sawyer," he said in return.

She sighed, and it seemed they were both resigned to exchange the necessary pleasantries dictated by social decree before moving on. "You're looking well," she said.

"Smashing. Your practice is going well, I expect."

"Recovering," she said tightly. "It's been a bear trying to find someone to replace John. Could have done with a little forewarning. That's your doing, I suppose. Thanks for that."

He set both bottles back on the shelves. "Pardon?"

"I said, you're the reason he quit, am I right? I should have known. The medical profession always did come third with John, right behind crime solving with you and, well, you."

"John quit?"

"I believe his exact words were 'Stop calling me, woman.' Charming, that. I figured you had coached him."

She didn't give him a chance to reply, but took her kumquats and left. Possibly she had been expecting one of his acerbic retorts, but if she thought fleeing was sparing her a nasty insult, she was mistaken: he had nothing to say. He had effectively been rendered mute—stunned into silence—and he disliked the feeling very much.

Forgetting why he had even come to the supermarket to begin with, Sherlock headed straight home, and although he didn't have a clearly formulated question, he nevertheless felt like he and John ought to . . . talk. How mundane.

But even that thought fled the moment he stepped up to his front door: by the look of the knocker, Mycroft was there.

He groaned. Even more reluctant now, he twisted the knob and trudged upstairs, hoping that John hadn't let the cat out of the bag that they were sleeping together now. Though to be fair, he probably didn't need to say a word. John had never been the most subtle of individuals, and Mycroft's deductive computer brain ran on a slightly faster CPU than his own (he was loath to admit). Sherlock didn't quite know what he was in for, so he prepared himself for all possibilities.

He found his brother sitting in his own chair, one leg crossed over, sipping tea. That meant he'd been there at least ten minutes already. Had he asked John to make tea? Certainly John hadn't offered. He never offered Mycroft tea, a sign that he need not stay a while. It was an unspoken rule between them: never prolong a Mycroft visit.

"Ah, Sherlock. How good of you to join us," said Mycroft. Sherlock saw through the affability at once: Mycroft was mocking him. With a cat-like grin, Mycroft pointed to the spread. "Tea?"

John was coming in from the kitchen, bearing a fresh cup. He smiled at Sherlock and wordlessly poured him a new cup.

"What is it this time, Mycroft?"

John didn't take his own seat. He moved aside as though to offer it to Sherlock, and retreated to the kitchen where he began . . . sweeping.

"I did come on a business matter," Mycroft said, setting his cup into his saucer and setting the saucer aside. "My, he makes a good tea. Has he always made such good tea?"

"Get to the point."

"A case, you see. A matter of national—"

"—importance, yes, it always is. And as always, I'm rather full up at the moment."

He wasn't. But it was the game they always played. Mycroft sought his help, Sherlock declined, Mycroft insisted, Sherlock got pouty, Mycroft threatened, Sherlock shrugged, Mycroft promised rewards, Sherlock rolled his eyes, and at last he accepted. He was just going through the motions.

Until Mycroft changed the dance. "Indeed, you are. So I retract my request."

Sherlock blinked. "What?"

"We'll deal with this little gem of a brain teaser ourselves. And so, this has just become a purely social visit. Say, John."

John appeared at once. "Yes, sir."

Sir?

"These biscuits, they're fine, but do you have any of those ginger nuts? They're my favorites."

"Oh." John winced. "I'm afraid not."

"Be a good lad, run down to the corner market, pick me up some?"

"Absolutely."

"John!"

John froze halfway to the door and twirled back. "Jaffa Cakes, Sherlock? Right you are, I shan't forget your favorites as well. Be back in a tic. Cheers."

And he was gone.

"What the hell, Mycroft!"

"Oh? Notice something funny, did you?"

Here it came, the censure, some rubbish about sentiment and getting involved and succumbing to baser temptations that would override his mental circuitry. He'd heard the lecture before (granted, he was thirteen and Mycroft, at twenty, had just broken up with his first serious girlfriend at uni and was in a rather vulnerable but highly logical state), but it was wisdom to live by, and both had embraced the sound logic of it. Now, however, Sherlock wasn't so sure.

"No need for me to spell it out, surely: the uncharacteristic affability," Mycroft was saying, like checking boxes on a list, "the air of confusion, delayed response to questions, apparent amnesia, complaining that scents aren't as strong as they once were . . ."

"What are you saying?"

"How long has he been behaving this way?"

For a moment, Sherlock thought he would feign ignorance. But he knew Mycroft would see straight through it. "It's been," Sherlock shook his head quickly and flung a dismissive hand into the air, "a strange couple of weeks. Hectic."

"Couple of weeks," Mycroft sighed. "You idiot, Sherlock. That man needs to be taken to hospital. He's displaying clear signs of concussion."

"Concussion! He doesn't have a . . ." But he trailed off, trying to fit Mycroft's explanation with the oddities in John's behavior, from quitting his job to the spectacular misfire to forgetting his laptop's password (even Sherlock hadn't been able to crack it) to getting queasy at the zoo to . . . falling in love with Sherlock.

"Trust me, he does." Without bothering to finish his tea, Mycroft arose and buttoned his jacket. "You'll make my excuses for me, I'm sure. Tell him thank you for the tea." He started for the door. "Oh. And Sherlock."

Sherlock didn't move from his spot in the chair but just continued to stare straight ahead at the lovely spread. Most un-John-like.

"I do hope you've not been taking . . . advantage? He's in a rather delicate state, I dare say. It would be a shame to spoil whatever it is between you because he's not in his right state of mind."

So he knew. Oh God, he knew. But Sherlock remained stock-still and didn't react; he wouldn't give Mycroft that satisfaction. He didn't move at all until he heard the front door close and Mycroft was gone. And when he did, it was only to drop his head into his hands and moan.

xXx

When asked, John said he didn't think he had hit his head that hard. He had fallen, about two weeks ago. Slipped while walking in the rain, he said, and thought he had blacked out for a moment, just a moment, and when he came to, his head throbbed a little, but the pain went away after a short while.

Two weeks. Sherlock pinpointed it to the day he had found John in his bedroom. He thought he was going to be sick.

He was first given a neurological examination (testing his vision and hearing, the sensations in his limbs, the strength of his grip and ability to lift weighted balls, his coordination and balance, his reflexes) and passed with flying colors. He sat a cognitive examination (concentration, memory, and ability to recall information), and though Sherlock wasn't in the room to witness it himself, he was later informed that everything seemed sharp there as well. But because Sherlock wasn't satisfied, he insisted John request a CT scan. The results came back negative for concussion.

To mask his uncertainty on the drive back to Baker Street, Sherlock asked for silence so he could think, and without any complaint whatsoever, John acquiesced, opting instead to lace his fingers together with Sherlock's and cuddle up next to him, resting his head on Sherlock's shoulder and dozing. For his part, Sherlock remained stiff. He didn't put him off, but nor did he exactly welcome the affection. He had allowed his emotions to overwhelm him of late, at the expense of his mental faculties; now, he flipped those switches to their opposite settings.

Sherlock entered his mind palace and carefully, painstakingly, began to examine the last fourteen days.

xXx

He had a plan. It began and ended with Harry Watson.

Contact your brother
SH

It was three hours before she bothered to text back.

What the fuck for?

Charming, as always. He grit his teeth as he typed:

You haven't talked
to him in ages.

This time, the response came more quickly.

So what? Is he dying?

From where he sat at the desk, Sherlock glanced quickly to where John sat placidly in his chair, doing a crossword. He was still feeling badly about last night. John had been feeling amorous and tried to initiate more intimate activities, but Sherlock put him off; and although John didn't exactly sulk (he was not the sulking type), Sherlock could tell he was a little wounded. But his guilt extended only so far: he had a suspicion, and he was looking for ways to prove it.

Just do it.

She must have stewed on it for a while, because it was a long, quiet ten minutes before John's phone vibrated on the table next to him. Sherlock was now riveted, scrutinizing John's every movement, breath, expression, everything. But, as it turned out, he didn't need to be so vigilant in his scrutiny. John was hiding nothing.

When he read the screen, he smiled warmly.

"Who is it?" Sherlock asked innocently.

"Just Harry," said John, then he clicked to read the text. "Asking how I'm doing." He chuckled to himself; a look of fondness had come over him. "Such a mother hen, that one."

Sherlock's jaw locked; his nostrils flared. He felt a burning anger in his sinuses. But he was the very model of composure as he rose to his feet, straightened his jacket, and stepped directly in front of where John sat in the chair. With perfunctory efficiency, he extended a hand for John to shake.

"Hello," he said. "I don't believe we've met properly. My name is Sherlock Holmes."

John quirked an eyebrow, eyes registering confusion, and he slowly took Sherlock's hand. Sherlock didn't let it linger. He dropped the stranger's hand, straightened his back into an even more rigid rod, and glared down at the impostor in his friend's chair.

"Tell me," he said. "What the hell have you done with John Watson?"