A/N: This took time, I know. This was just so... different, I've never written stuff like this, but then, I'm glad to start.

Also, this story isn't merely about Sherlock and John, this is also my own tribute to Titanic, and how John and Sherlock react to the disaster... so there'll be some scenes of the ship officers etc, juxtaposed with their story.

Can't wait to do the sinking!... Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that! I mean yeah, I'm totally gonna cry but... jeez, whatever!

Unbeta'd work means typos, typos, typos! Point 'em out if you find 'em please! :)


"Yeah... okay, I'll draw only you."

Sherlock looks down, exasperated. John was making this extremely difficult for him. He had hoped that he would understand in one sentence, but...

"Maybe I wasn't being clear. Draw me like one of your French girls."

"I got..." John trails off, finally understanding the request, "Oh."

A monosyllable is all that manages to roll off his tongue. He knows the anatomy but he has never drawn nude men. Of course, he wouldn't. What sort of Alpha would flash his naked body for artistic purposes, even for a bit of quick money? He gapes at Sherlock for longer than deemed normal, his mind trying to picture the tension in the room if he agreed to it: the awkwardness, the constant rebellion inside him to surrender to his hormone-fuelled desires and take Sherlock then and there.

It would have been easier if he had not been in Heat. He could feel the pheromones in the room, diffusing from Sherlock's skin into the atmosphere, and the whole idea started to look like an impossibility without forcing himself on him.

"John?" Sherlock touches him on his shoulder, looking a little concerned about the effect of his words on him.

He releases a lungful of breath that he doesn't realize that he had been holding till now. The room, however big, seems small and stuffier now. John swallows and manages to avert his eyes from Sherlock, only to meet them fleetingly.

"Yeah... I mean - you sure about this?" During Estrus remains unspoken but implied.

If any other person had asked this question and under any other circumstances, Sherlock would have flipped out in a second. However, upon seeing the surprised and alarmed look on John's face and the frantic pulse point in his neck, he decides to cut him some slack.

"As sure as I can be."

John had always managed to detach himself from subjects of his study, be it figures of nude women, or anything else. But... this was personal. It was Sherlock.

For one split second, a beam of light comes down from the Heavens and he draws in a deep breath giving him a curt nod of agreement. If Sherlock wanted him to do this, he certainly would, "I'll, ahem - make my preparations," he declares in a very much normal voice, "Should I turn-?"

"I'll be five minutes," says he, trying to be very mature, the sharp black cut of his leonine body stiff as he retreats to his room, closing the door behind him. For a minute, Sherlock remains stuck to the door, his heart pumping furiously at the thought of being nude in front of John, just within a few feet, just within the reach of his fingers.

It gives him a sort of a perverse thrill, not very unlike the elation he had felt at the bow or the short spell of excitement he had experienced while outrunning the seamen or even during that night in Colonel Moran's stateroom.

He reaches out, plucking at the top button of his shirt, willing but uncertain. Fingers brush against his bare skin, and he tries his best to control himself. John was right. There was no point doing this during Estrus. If he wanted a sketch, he should wait till it was over.

No, if John could do this, so could he.

Meanwhile, in the sitting room, John looks around at his surroundings, feeling a little intimidated by the proper fireplace, electric lighting and what not. He decides to light the fireplace. Sherlock would feel cold and he certainly wanted his model to be at his best.

He thinks about Sherlock's pose, how he would stand or sit, but finds himself painfully distracted by the thoughts of... John stops himself before he can think any further. He lays out his pencils like surgical tools, sharpening them to points, to perfection. Some blank sheets lie in front of him, waiting to be filled.

But what he's more nervous about was would he be able to do proper justice to Sherlock? The Omega was, as Mike had said very rightfully, a God among mortals, an answer to an artist's prayers, an Adonis in flesh. The blade slips through his fingers as he sharpens his pencils, narrowly avoiding a cut. John swallows and folds his legs. Everything had to be perfect.

Just then, the door opens, with Sherlock in the doorway, smirking playfully at him, or trying to, with nervousness quite clear on his face. John stops whatever he was doing as his attention is jerked upright at him. He is in his royal blue silk dressing gown, looking at him expectantly.

"Now, Mr. Watson," he growls in a sultry voice, causing John to shrink away, his whole face lighting up with surprise, "I expect you to be completely professional about my sketch. I'll not have you brooding over me for more than it is necessary. Is that in any way unclear?"

John swallows and shakes his head, terribly turned on by the mixture of the pheromones and the strict and dirty baritone voice. He realises that he's sweating badly, wondering if it's too late to go and douse the fire.

"Good." He steps back, parting the gown as the smile slowly disappears from his face, the true emotions of anticipation and apprehension come through and take dominance over his features. A creamy expanse of chest and skin is revealed and then the gown drops to the floor without any prior warning.

John is speechless.

He is so stricken that he wishes he were dead. It takes him every ounce of his self-restraint not to throw away the papers and the pencils and take him then and there. It's just hormones and the damning Estrus scent, he tells himself. He stares up at his face resolutely, not looking at anywhere below the waist.

Sherlock looks into his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching up at John's discomfort and yet eyes screaming 'what do you think of this?'. Upon seeing his amusement, John clears his throat a tad too loudly, and announces in a businesslike tone, "Standing or sitting: what do you think?"

His voice is crisp, but underneath Sherlock could perceive the desperation and the raw aching in his voice. John's face doesn't give his discomfort away at all. He tries his best to blink the arousal out of his eyes.

"The divan. I'll lie down."

"Not standing?" says he, thinking about a more dominating pose for Sherlock.

But he confirms his own choice with a slight bob of the head and settles down like a cat into a lazy, submissive position. John shifts into a more comfortable position and directs him how to place himself before he can find the correct pose to suit him.

Sherlock wanted to look like he was submitting to him. He tries not to smile at that thought. Not that thoughts come to him all that much anyway.

"Uh... fold your arm a bit, so your fingers rest against your cheek," he studies the pose before making some more amends, "and lower your head."

It's a wicked feeling in him, being obeyed like that by Sherlock. There's a fond smile on his lips at seeing his artist so absorbed in his work.

"Eyes to me," he points at his own, "Always on me," John's eyes narrow as he visualises the final sketch in his mind and whether it will be able to convey the proper message every time he saw it.

"Try to stay still."

He exhales a breath as he commits himself to the paper in front of him. John starts to sketch. He drops his pencil and Sherlock stifles a laugh. He clears his throat in embarrassment, but manages to speak properly, "No laughing."

His strict voice combined by his comically stricken look manage to make him laugh again, but as he sees John's stern eyes over the sketchpad, he relaxes himself with a sorry.

His fingers grip the nub of the charcoal a little harder than usual as he drags it along the page to create a vague outline of the divan. No props, he tells himself. This picture was about Sherlock, and how he saw him through his eyes.

He draws a couple more breaths before the nervousness starts to slowly wilt away and the artist comes through. He starts with the outline of his whole figure, like the study of some subject, where you start from the scratch and plunge deeper into it. He places Sherlock's head between his arms, just like the real life man was, who was watching him with keen scrutiny. He goes down and down till his neck and his chest are hazy outlines too. His fingers gently caress along the body, and thinking about the parallelism distracts him again, but he determinedly shoves his thoughts away.

It was otherworldly, drawing Sherlock, immortalising him on paper with charcoal. For the first time, John wishes he had learnt working with paints too.

The only props he allows is the pillows over which he settles. The rest is Sherlock. All of his attention and observation are focussed onto him, and Sherlock finds it dizzyingly erotic. He lets himself revel in the uncomplicated but powerful feeling of raw lust towards the man's fingers stroking his length gently, provocatively...

From the creamy, muscled chest, John moves down to his firm-looking stomach and the outlines of his torso and the symmetrical arches of the hipbones. One of the lamps flicker behind him, throwing shadows and lights all over Sherlock's body, creating an optical illusion to behold. It is the highest honour anyone could have bestowed upon him, to allow him to praise his physical beauty through the way he is best in.

The feeling of apprehension is still there, but unlike that of a lusting Alpha, it's more like the concern and the search for perfection in an artist. This was important to him, and more so, it was important to Sherlock.

His fingers go down to the his crotch, cocooned by a nest of dark curls. John wonders for a moment whether to leave the lower half in shadows later, or detail them like a map.

Sherlock, meanwhile notices where John's gaze rests and his heart starts pounding even stronger. It was like a competition between the two of them: who got up first, and they both were unwilling to back down. For one second, his imagination conjures the partial sketch John must have done on the paper now, just hazy outlines in the five minutes.

Five minutes and it already feels like an hour to him.

He thinks about John's warm fingers grazing along the lines and the contours of his body and he can't help but sigh quietly at the sweltering eroticism, at the thought of John's fingers grazing his whole body, at the thought of what they could do to him. But John is so absorbed in his work that he hardly notices it.

Sherlock remembers a dozen things about his body that were wrong and imperfect like his angular jawline, his toes and what not. A peek over at John's eyes tell him that the artist is doing nothing but worship, pouring all his adoration and reverence and love onto paper.

Most artists didn't bother with faces on the sketches that they made. The same was not the case with him. His sketches capture the very essence of being human and eternal at the same time. After the whole frame is outlined, he settles with detailing it. Despite his nervousness, he marks the paper with sure strokes, setting Sherlock across a black charcoal background, just like he sees him, mysterious, ethereal and untouchable, like blinding, brilliant light in total darkness.

He pays close attention to Sherlock's face, the way his tousled curls lie nonchalantly on his forehead, the way his piercing eyes shine with suppressed elation and fire, the way his lips tremble as he, not quite himself, fantasises John's fingers running up and down his whole nude portrait. Sherlock tries to cough the feeling away, only to receive a pained look from John. Every small sound is like a new-cut fingernail crawling over his spine, cutting into the soft flesh.

John inhales sharply and looks over his sketchpad at Sherlock, with the mindset of an Alpha hell bent on bonding far away in some deep corner of his mind. It's an image that the both of them will always keep fresh in their minds.

His fingers graze lovingly over Sherlock's face, smearing a little charcoal over his forehead to bring out the contrast between the light and the shadows falling across his face. It resembles him in many aspects and yet much different from what he really is. His cheekbones are carved out perfectly, and his eyes radiate the wild pagan spirit within and the feeling of omniscience comes out as he leaves his eyes greyish, outlining a fine detail such as his irises just so that their translucency comes through, even though they actually were completely dark and blown now.

John remembers the feeling when he had kissed Sherlock for the first time and how soft and supple his lips had felt, and shades them on the basis of that single memory. He masters the detail of his elegant fingers resting lazily against his dark curls, bothering as far as to even drawing the manicured nails. He draws some from his own memory, the way his fingers felt when they were intertwined in his on the bow rail.

Every now and then, Sherlock utters a purr, making the heat find its way back between John's legs. He wonders if Sherlock is doing that on purpose or if even he feels... turned on. His eyes trace their way back to his crotch and this time he can't help himself when he sees him half-hard. Sherlock follows his gaze halfway, only to flash a smirk at the man sitting across him. The air between them practically vibrates with excitement and arousal, laced with those tantalising pheromones and John can't help but inhale the treacherous scent again, the scent that was calling to him, rendering the Alpha in him howling in his mind within seconds. Calling for an Alpha's knot, calling for him.

"John," Sherlock's voice is breathless and strained, owing to the hormones that John's body secretes as a response to Sherlock's presence. His eyes beg to him to take him then and there, "Please," he whispers, pouring everything he feels into that one word and holding it up to John.

"The... portrait," he manages to wheeze, his nostrils flaring, his voice too husky for an artist.

Sherlock gives him the weakest of smiles and settles back into the position John had ordered him into before. He attacks the pale, slim column of his neck, fingers deftly shading through the tendons and the bobbing Adam's apple, drowning a part of it in mystifying darkness. He imagines his lips and his tongue grazing through and adds several other details accordingly, feeling the imaginary sensation of Sherlock's neck between his teeth as he makes his way down uninterrupted to the collarbone and the hollow of the suprasternal notch.

He looks up at him for reference again and Sherlock looks back determinedly. John's gaze itself feels like a caress against his skin, like innumerable minute points of electricity lighting up inside him. Sherlock has never felt so naked before, so vulnerable and yet like a demigod.

Then slowly, the minutiae of his chest come out into the image, the scanty chest hair, the marble white skin along with his shapely and toned arms. John watches his chest rise and fall in rapid succession and smiles to himself at the rush it creates within him to see Sherlock panting with effort.

"What?" he manages to croak.

John doesn't reply. It's all too beautiful, so intimate and he doesn't want to lose the opportunity to capture the rare sight by simply babbling away. He simply shakes his head as he darkens the nipples, teasing the firm-looking belly and the slight dip ending at his navel, spending an infinite amount of time there. There's not a blemish on his chest. It lies pale and marble-like in its expanse like still water.

Moving down, he shades the area between his legs slightly darker than the rest, just like the meagre amount of dark pubic hair and the shadows combine to make him look like.

"Don't be shy, John," Sherlock has forsaken all the breathlessness from before, and his voice is playful again. John chuckles, "I'm not the one with an erection here, am I?"

Sherlock bites his lip, smiling provocatively, and almost on the verge of blushing, "You do know how to charm poor innocent Omegas like me, don't you Doctor?"

John rolls his eyes and continues wordlessly. He draws a vague outline of his genitals, letting his fingers roam over them for sometime before proceeding downwards to his inner thighs and to his long legs, his endless and graceful long legs. They looked like they had never been out in the sun, just as white and ethereal as the rest of his body. They were muscled too, with veins and tendons standing out like whipcord. John details the toes as well, every single of them, and then gives Sherlock a winning smile, informing that they were nearing the end as he adds finishing touches.

The hair on his head becomes more curly and tousled and the sketch actually looks like it is radiating light. John adds one or two more trifling details, smudging some areas with his shirt instead of his blackened fingers, and darkening others coal black. He inspects his handiwork, satisfied and blows the remaining charcoal away. He fidgets in his chair as Sherlock finally sits up and cracks his knuckles. John lets out an involuntary groan quickly followed by an apologetic glance.

"What's the time?" he blurts out.

Sherlock pauses and then speaks, answering the real question, "You've been hunched over for an hour and thirty seven minutes, to be precise."

That long? John usually took a little over an hour to complete his drawings. He takes a final glance at the drawing and closes the sketchpad shut, keeping it on the side-table beside him. Sherlock stretches his full length once again and stands up, leaving John to wonder how a person with so much energy within him could stay still for that amount of period.

"May I see?"

John grins at him, not really caring that a very nude Sherlock Holmes stood in front of him, waiting to be...

He hands him the sketchpad, scratching the nape of his neck. The intense creative marathon has left him completely devoid of reticence and inhibitions. Sherlock scoops up his dressing gown on the way and drapes it over his shoulders, as he accepts the drawing from him. He opens it and gazes at it for several moments, running his eyes all over his counterpart on paper. John really has X-rayed his soul. He wonders if this was how he saw him, the bold, the free and the authoritative man lounged on the red brocade as opposed to the "indoor posh Omega" he had always been forced to be.

"Something wrong?" John inquires.

Sherlock simply smiles and hands it back to him, leaning over his shoulder, "Date it, John. I want to always remember this night."

He does: 4/14/1912. JW, and gives it back to him, "I want you to have it." It's the only thing that I can give you.

Sherlock smiles, his face soft and tender as he plants a gentle kiss on John's lips, "Thank you." You've given me everything I've ever wanted.


On the starboard side bridge, Captain Smith peers out at the blackness ahead of the ship. The Titanic glides across an unnatural sea, black and calm as a pool of oil. He watches the ship's lights mirrored almost perfectly against the black water. The sky is brilliant with stars. A meteor traces a bright line across the heavens.

Q Hitchins brings him a cup of hot tea with lemon. It steams in the bitter cold of the open bridge. Second Officer Lightoller joins him, staring out at the sheet of black glass that the Atlantic has become.

"Clear."

"Yes. I don't think I've ever seen such a flat calm, in 24 years at sea."

"Like a mill pond," he smiles, "Not a breath of wind."

Lightoller hesitates before placing his qualms with the captain, "It'll... make the bergs harder to see..." he looks at Smith pointedly, "with no breaking water at the base."

Creases appear on Smith's forehead as his expression tightens, upon reconsidering his Officer's words. He nods absentmindedly, stirring the tea. He looks like he's just about to order the ship to stop for the night in the wake of the repeated iceberg warnings as Mr. Andrews and the Holmeses come to his mind. His eyes are resolute as he remembers the part about 'Retiring with a bang', "Well, I'm off. Maintain speed and heading, Mr. Lightoller."

Lightoller looks a little concerned, but he cannot give orders against the captain, "Yes sir."

"And wake me, of course, if anything becomes in the slightest degree doubtful."


In the Wireless Room, sparks fill the gap of the Marconi instrument as Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips rapidly keys out a message. Junior Operator Bride looks through the huge stack of outgoing messages swamping them.

"Look at this one," says Bride, slapping the piece of paper down, "he wants his private train to meet him. Bloody idiots! We'll be up all night on this lot!"

Meanwhile, Phillips starts to receive an incoming message from a nearby ship, the Leyland freighter S.S. Californian, which jams his outgoing signal. At such close range, the beeps are deafening.

"Christ! It's that idiot on the Californian," says he cursing, as he furiously keys a rebuke.


In the Wireless shack on the S.S. Californian, the ship nearest to Titanic at the moment, Wireless Operator Cyril Evans pulls his earphone off his ear as the Titanic's spark deafens him. He translates the message for Third Officer Groves.

"Stupid bastard," he curses, "I try to warn him about the ice, and he says 'Keep out. Shut up. I'm working Cape Race.' "

Groves heaves an exasperated sigh, "Now what's he sending?"

" 'No seasickness' ," he recites the routed greetings and messages that the passengers on Titanic were sending through to Cape Race to all of America, " 'Poker business good. Al'. Well that's it for me. I'm shuttin' down!"

As Evans wearily switches off his generator, Groves goes out on deck watching with ever-alert eyes as the ship is stopped fifty yards from the edge of a field packed with ice and icebergs stretching as far as the eye can see.


John feels the wind attack his skin cruelly as he leans out of the windows of the promenade, staring into darkness, wondering where they were exactly. When the cold becomes too much for him, he walks inside, rubbing his palms together to generate some friction.

"What are you doing?" says he as Sherlock, now dressed in only a shirt and trousers, locks the sketchbook away and rolls a piece of paper, inserting it into his engagement ring. He holds it up for John to see.

"First useful purpose it has served."

"For what?"

" 'Keep this as a reminder of my utmost love for you, my darling ' ," he recites, " 'Not all Alphas jump at the first Omega in Heat.' " He tucks it away into a safe and closes it with a clunk.

There are no words to express how proud John feels of himself when Sherlock says those words. He simply smiles, "What now?"

"Whatever we want it to be," Sherlock leans in and presses his mouth to John's, their tongues melting together instantly, drawing a moan from the Alpha's throat as he feels Sherlock's tongue entwining with his. John's fingers, which had been caressing only Sherlock's sketch till now, reach out to trace Sherlock's body, from the curls of his hair to his neck and to the strong sweep of his shoulders. He breaks away breathlessly as he pins Sherlock to a wall, grazing his mouth and his tongue hungrily over the skin, tasting those pheromones, if they even had a taste. At this point, they were salty and distinctively Sherlock.

Sherlock throws his head back, exposing his neck to John, almost whimpering at his touch as he pins his head to his neck, a shiver running through his spine. A strangled moan escapes his lips as John softly bites into his skin and returns to his lips. There's a wicked pleasure in surrendering to John in the same cabin where Victor had attempted to take him the previous day.

They hear a key turn in the lock and Sherlock and John break apart, completely flushed and panting, probably wondering why someone always gatecrashed into them while they made out.

"Gregson," Sherlock whispers, tugging at John's hand, "We have to move."


E/N: I hope I didn't do a bad work of this. I sort of know the feeling that Rose had had because there was this one time when I was in 7th grade and my first crush had sketched me out (not nude, of course). It was sort of a class assignment that we sketch out our classmates, 14 in total.

I had completed mine, so this teacher made me sit as a model and he was there, right in front of me, smirking up at me and trying to make me laugh. I pointed out that his sketch would go wrong if he did that (he was also a very good artist), and so he stopped.

Now, the assembly was still going on downstairs and then all of a sudden, the national anthem blared out and we all gotta stand. I remember him begging me not to move, but the teacher was on one side and he was on the other and I just sort of half-stood! LOL I still remember the priceless look on his face, his anguish that the sketch was gonna go all wrong!

As for the sketch, I don't know what happened to it... I forgot to ask him, but I do remember posing for him and it's such a wonderful feeling to be sketched by someone you like.

And, then I got to see Titanic, I was the last of my friends to see the movie, and then when this nude portrait scene arrives and the look on Jack's face, all I can remember is him sketching me and the look in his eyes. It's a wonderful feeling to have his eyes notice all the small details about you and it's sort of exhilarating and you feel so self-conscious all the time. To tell the truth, I'd love to pose for him again, if I ever got the opportunity! 3

Sorry, I'm rambling, I'll just shut up now! x