Chapter Fourteen – Alive Again
The detective in question had managed to persuade the officers either side of him that he was fine and wasn't going to attempt to murder Moran so he could go to John.
"Anything serious?" he asked, a little flippantly. John gave a ponderous expression as he appraised his wounds.
"Nah, just some bruising to the ribs. Nothing he hasn't done to me before," he said with a grim humour that Sherlock wasn't sure he liked quite yet; it would definitely take some getting used to. "You?"
"Nothing severe," he replied shortly.
"Yoohoo!" A coo came from outside the window. "Is everything sorted now?" It was Mrs Hudson shouting from the open window across the street. Lestrade signalled all was well and she smiled. "Tell those boys they owe me a big bottle of something special!" she said before retreating back into the flat and closing the window. Clearly not even this incident had dented her spirits.
Several days later when John and Sherlock had given their statements and had been thoroughly interrogated by several different officers about the whole incident, Sherlock was sitting in his old rooms feeling strangely peaceful. It meant a lot to him to be back and he was grateful that very little had changed; the fridge was empty save for a few bits of new food he had bought that day. Mrs Hudson had ended up not packing up his things when Mycroft had come to visit her, asking her to keep them the way they were as he did not want to 'let go' of his 'baby brother' yet. He promised to pay the rent on the flat and put on a sufficiently emotional show that she of course believed him and, in a fit of her own renewed tears, told him she would of course keep it as it was and would go into to dust around once a week.
There was a crucial element missing though, the thing that made home, Home; John's presence. He knew he had gone back to his room at Greg's house, even though the Yarder wouldn't be there, and Molly was keeping clear of John while he processed that she had systematically lied to him over the last three years.
Has Donovan stopped haranguing you yet? SH
It was a diplomatic opening to a conversation. While he was not one for idle chatter, he wanted to use the line of communication he was now allowed to have all the time he was in hiding.
Just got off the phone with her. Third call today. JW.
You should report her for harassment. SH.
She wants me to give a second statement, thinks I'm covering for you. JW
Come home? SH.
Sherlock didn't get a reply to the last text, he assumed Donovan had called him yet again, trying to salvage what was left of her anti-Sherlock theory by attempting to pit them against each other. She really was a moron; if John was going to turn against Sherlock he would have done it long ago. It would take more than Sally bloody Donovan to split them now.
Twenty minutes later Sherlock heard the knocker on the door being used and Mrs Hudson open the door. He had no wish to hear who was visiting her so he picked up his violin and drew the bow across the new strings, playing the composition he had made for John. He was delighted at how his hands and fingers so easily remembered the notes and chords for the composition. The music, a little jilted to begin with soon began to dance off the strings and he couldn't help a small smile as he played. He enjoyed playing this piece.
John stopped in the hallway as he heard beautiful music emerge from the old living room and he took a moment to savour it, knowing it would stop when he entered. He breathed deeply, realising he was getting quite emotional at the melodic sounds that were caressing his ears; it was more than Sherlock's music, it was his own unique piece, that song he had written for John. The music washed over him, his heart rose and beat with the sweet crescendo of notes, giving him a blissful peace he had craved for three bitterly long years and he leaned against the wall, listening and not realising he was shedding a few tears from how tranquil the music was making him feel.
It took John a few minutes to pull himself together and once the song had finished, he knocked on the door and entered. As he predicted, Sherlock put down his violin as soon as he was aware he was not alone and he turned from the window to greet John. The look on his partner's face was not what he had been expecting; it was clearly emotional, his eyes were red and there were tell-tale trails on the side of his face from tears.
"What is wrong?" he asked instantly.
"Nothing," John said, forgetting Sherlock would know he had been crying in an instant; he was used to being able to fob people off.
"That's clearly untrue," he replied.
"I just thought I would never hear that music again," he said truthfully. Sherlock nodded, as though accepting his excuse. "God, I'm so glad to be back here," John said after a few moments and he happily limped over to his chair.
An unasked question hovered in the air, it had been looming over them since their reunion and now they were alone together without threat of a police officer entering imminently the tension grew exponentially. Sherlock wanted to know what John was feeling (yes, that despicable word), specifically with reference to their romantic relations before his sojourn out to Europe and Moriarty's people. He had never stopped having feelings for the doctor, John was the main reason he went after all, but he knew that emotional connections often changed and diminished when the partner is assumed dead. Molly had always referred to it as 'moving on'; she used to report that John didn't seem like he was 'moving on', or maybe given time he would 'move on' as though it was a good thing. Sherlock had found out that it was supposedly the healthy thing to do and judging how John had never returned to Baker Street, he wondered if he was only here out of friendship. Not that their friendship was worth less to him, Sherlock didn't want to think about what it would have been like if John had rebuffed even that, the basis of their whole relationship and dynamic. But did John still wish to be 'with' him? He wanted to ask the question bluntly like that, but he thought that it defied convention and John would admonish him for it.
John knew that both of them were feeling completed inside; he could see it in his partner like a radiance. They had sunk naturally into their old places in the flat and Sherlock was clearly happy: he had smiled when John entered the room. John had been told that he had had to accept Sherlock's death and come to terms with it, which he had managed to some degree. He had begun functioning how he thought he might carry out the rest of his life; a professional man who, whilst living alone, spent much time with his friends (Greg and Molly) and would enjoy life that way. He had been unable to stomach the thought of finding a new partner, no matter how many times Greg had told him that he should get back on the dating scene. Suddenly it made sense now why Molly had defended John's reticence since she knew there would one day be a reunion of this nature. Sherlock had gone forth and taken out his revenge, as well as his probable boredom, out on the Moriarty network , he had utterly destroyed it and it had taken him three long years to do it. He had quite clearly been successful and able to take care of himself and his Work without John and the doctor wondered if that was something that was going to continue. He could have easily retreated back into his shell whilst travelling and closed off his need for John's support, either in a professional or emotional capacity.
The tension was not something John wanted to sit and suffer through all evening, though he thought he should probably leave Sherlock to approach the subject seeing as his intimacy issues were far more pressing than John's. He saw Sherlock's eyes flicker to just beneath John's eyes and he knew the other man was looking at his scar. It stood out bright white against his skin and was something that every person who glanced at him could see like a giant neon sign that told them that something nasty had happened to him. His mind darted to the thought of his other scars from those two weeks and he suddenly felt quite ill; he had come to terms with them, he no longer had a violent reaction whenever he saw them in the mirror and he could once again shave shirtless after a shower (which was great news for all his shirts which had been stained by shaving foam and blood from having cut himself). But when he thought of the possibility of restarting his relationship with Sherlock and the possibility of him seeing the multitude of scar tissue that now marred his body he felt ill.
"Tea?" he asked as a way of getting out from the tension for a few minutes.
"You have no idea how good that sounds," Sherlock said and leaned his head back in his chair happily, hiding his mild anxiety well.
John found all the tea things in the old places, easily able to slip into autopilot as he worked through feelings that had only really occurred to him in the last few minutes. It wasn't that he felt ugly or deformed by the physical remnants of his incarceration, but he was afraid that now whenever Sherlock saw them there would be a sort of tension that would never go away. He didn't want every night (if they were to share a bed as they had been doing previously) to turn into a sour visit down memory lane and should they ever become intimate he really didn't want it to be ruined by any bad memories or guilt-trips.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't realise Sherlock had followed him into the kitchen; his partner had read the tension and apprehension in his body and come to investigate, not wanting to wait before the mystery was revealed. He approached John but kept his distance, for aforementioned reasons.
John nearly jumped when he saw the tall dark figure looming behind him, watching his slightly crooked fingers wrap around the teaspoon and shovel two sugars into Sherlock's tea and suddenly he felt self-conscious. 'This is ridiculous!' he suddenly snapped to himself. 'I'm not going to be as I was before Moriarty, I shouldn't be ashamed of what happened, it wasn't my fault,' he thought fiercely to himself and with this renewed confidence turned to face his curious-looking partner. The confidence also made him bold enough to make the first move to solving the question hanging between them. Tentatively, he slowly held out his hand, not as in to shake hands, but a far more intimate touch. His insides liquefied into a trembling mess as he saw Sherlock slowly move out his own hand to take it, his eyes eloquently communicating the need to be together in again, to re-establish the relationship they had before the his absence.
When skin finally touched skin John stopped breathing, though he didn't realise it. He had suffered when he thought of how he would never touch those pale slender fingers again and now it was happening in a reality that was far stranger than a dream. Sherlock's fingers ghosted down John's crooked ones, feeling the textures of his hand until they were intertwined. John couldn't hold himself back any more and without realising he was doing it and with no regard for Sherlock's feelings on personal space, he pulled himself and the taller man together for a crushing embrace. He took a frantic gasp of air and breathed in the realness of his partner, the living scent of him and the feel of his form around John's own. Sherlock was tense for a moment but allowed himself to sink into the embrace, also realising how much he had missed it. John was clinging to him for dear life and both felt that they had woken up from a long, horrible nightmare which they had not been able to escape from. In that moment, John felt alive once more and Sherlock felt real again. He had hated having to do it, to leave John in the state he did, to trick him and go away for so very long but that embrace suddenly made the whole three years not only worth it, but meaningless in terms of time. He could have been away for three weeks and still felt like this. This wasn't just a reunion after a long period of separation, it was the realisation that the person he cared about so much it scared him when he thought about it too hard was safe and they would be at liberty to enjoy each other's company once more without that threat looming on the horizon.
John visited Sherlock every day after that wonderful reunion and they would be together from early in the morning until late at night delighting in each other's company, after all, they had a lot of catching up to do. Three years' worth of stories and adventures were not going to fit into a couple of evenings, or days, or weeks, or… John had ended up staying the night several evenings in a row. He had usually fallen asleep on the couch as they had talked until he literally dropped with exhaustion and he woke up the next morning with cramp. Last night Sherlock had demanded he get some sleep.
"It's 2 in the morning, if memory serves you quantify this as an 'unsociable' hour. You should get some sleep," Sherlock said, noting the signs of tiredness in his partner on the opposite armchair.
"But I want to hear more about your time in Paris," he protested, but he was betrayed by a fat yawn at the end of his sentence. Sherlock smirked, but not unkindly and rose, indicating the doctor should do the same. He did follow, but he was so unsteady on his feet, the detective wondered if he would be safe to get down the stairs, let alone home. "I don't wanna go…" John said, slurring with tiredness. Sherlock couldn't help but feel slightly endeared by the man and guided John into the hall and around through to the other kitchen door (he didn't want to risk an unsteady John near his chemistry things) and urged him in the direction of his bed. He would have sent John to his old room, but there was no duvet or sheets on the mattress up there and his room was closer; it wasn't as though he was going to sleep tonight anyway. John realised instantly he was on a bed and immediately curled into the pillow, pulling the covers around him. Sherlock didn't miss how the doctor took a deep breath of the scent on the pillow and instantly fell asleep, a look of utter contentment on his face.
Sherlock returned to the living room and sent a text to Lestrade that John was staying in Baker Street again.
Dammit, it's 230. Why are you texting now? GL
So the police officer was still awake; Sherlock suspected Molly was round, the couple taking advantage of John's absence in Greg's house, otherwise he would not have replied since the man seemed to sleep through every other late night phone call from the consultant.
Early the next morning Molly appeared at the door to Baker Street with a bag. She looked tired, but radiated happiness, Sherlock noted that she had put effort into her physical appearance with hair and make-up and he surmised things must be going well with Lestrade.
"I packed a few things for John," she said, holding up the bag.
"Thanks," he said shortly, but not without a small measure of sincerity.
"Have a good day!" she chirped and practically skipped off to the tube station and off to work. Sherlock shut the door and wondered if the morning after intercourse provoked the same chirpy reaction in everyone. John had always seemed cheerier the days after staying the night over with some of his old dates and reasoned that the hormone rush extended to the morning after, hence all the grinning.
He took the bag upstairs to the living room and resumed his meditative position on the sofa, returning to his weekly maintenance of his mind palace. He was currently sifting through everything that that had happened in the last week about the arrest of Moran, the destruction of the final piece of Moriarty's network, the numerous police interviews and the return of John to Baker Street. Technically John was only visiting, but he was there so much that he might as well have moved back in. Yet, his things were still back at Lestrade's house and he hadn't even spoken about moving back in. Sherlock had assumed that once they had straightened out their relationship and been forgiven for his deception that John would be returning full-time to their flat and it annoyed the consulting detective that he hadn't done so.
Why had John not moved back in? It was evident that they were once again in a romantic relationship and they had wanted to spend as much time as possible together (as evidenced by John's refusal to leave at a sensible time last night), so what was stopping the doctor from making the move? Surely he didn't have so many things at Lestrade's house that it would be a great mission to move his belongings from one house to the other; Sherlock had noticed John had left some of his things behind at Baker Street those years ago as though he subconsciously knew he would be moving back in. Now he was distracted from his thoughts about the investigation and he opened his eyes in frustration, fixing his irritated glare upon the direction of his room where he knew John was sleeping.
A couple of hours later, Sherlock was quite wound up about the issue of John's living arrangements and the aforementioned army doctor came in through the kitchen, very bleary eyed and wearing one his partner's dressing gowns which seemed to swamp him considerably.
"Hope you don't mind. I hate sleeping in my clothes," he said around a yawn. Sherlock wanted to fix him with a glare for having caused him confusion and vexation for the whole morning (even if the doctor didn't realise he had done anything) but the sight of John in his dressing gown immediately swept away his irritation and replaced it with an as of yet unnamed feeling. A feeling besides amusement, as the sleeves almost covered his hands and the bottom hem of the garment trailed along behind him like a king's robe.
"Hey, is that my bag?" he said, recognising the satchel on 'his' armchair.
"Molly brought it over this morning," Sherlock replied distantly. He poked around inside, secretly relieved there was clean underwear in there, though he wasn't sure what irked him more: having to ask Sherlock to borrow some or Molly going through his underwear drawer. He came to the conclusion that if he didn't think about it all would be well and he zipped the bag up again.
"Do mind if I use the shower?" John asked, shouldering the bag and making for the bathroom already.
"Why would I?" Sherlock snapped and stormed out into his bedroom, slamming the door shut with some force. John raised his eyebrows and wondered what he had done wrong. Then again, when he thought about it, Sherlock's mood swings were hardly news to him when they were living together, so he should have expected them to make a reappearance upon his return. In many ways, the doctor counted himself lucky that he had not been subjected to one before now. He figured he should best leave the man to it for now and grab a shower before trying to pull him out of the sulk with a cup of tea and a funny story.
Sherlock threw himself on his unmade bed and growled in frustration He was unable to quantify the feelings he had had in regard to John and it was driving him mad; he had thought that once he was back together with John that his emotional state would calm down, but if anything else they had got more out of control and it was burning a hole in his mind. He was unable to concentrate on the investigation about the faking of his death and the evidence he had gathered about the Moriarty network and this was simply unacceptable. Perhaps the time gap had left their relationship with the need for 'work' i.e. John needed to remember he should take care of Sherlock's emotions and they would be fine. There were no words to describe how much he had enjoyed their new time together, the happiness and relief had come even more powerfully than he had thought they would but those feelings were not going away now when he wanted them to and he didn't know what he should do.
It did not help that new and unfamiliar feelings were being introduced into the mix; he had no idea how to label what he had felt when John had come in wearing one of Sherlock's dressing gowns. He felt a strange mixture of pleasure, satisfaction and anticipation that he had no idea how to place. It was times like this that he wished he had a guide, or that John was around to recognise them and tell him what it was.
He fell backwards and immediately could smell John on his pillow. That was home, the smell of his lover in their flat, that was everything to Sherlock's small, infant heart. It soothed his racing mind for a moment and brought him comfort. Then he wanted to know why John wasn't permanently installed in Baker Street already and the vexation began anew.
John, on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying the shower. The hot water felt great against his skin and he felt so relaxed that he thought he might just sit in the bath with the water running over him for a while. But he wasn't going to do that so he got on with lathering up the shower gel and scrubbing the sleepiness of the previous night off of himself before working Sherlock's shampoo into his hair. He was so glad to be back that he didn't want to leave again. He wondered if he would be ok to take up his old room again upstairs, after all, they had sunk into their old life so easily that he almost thought last night that he was already back. Baker Street truly meant 'home' to him and while living with Greg had not been a bad experience, this flat was his home and he wanted to be here. Not to mention that would leave the lovebirds free to use the house for late night dates and other liaisons that he was pretty certain was going on whenever he was out of the house. Or sometimes when he was home and they thought he was asleep, but at least they tried to be quiet unlike the couple next door.
This was all riding on the fact that Sherlock wanted him to move back in, but he couldn't think of any reason why he would be averse to the idea. It would just take a little time for the paperwork to go through and notify everyone necessary that he was changing residence again. Then again, he thought as he rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, the investigation into Moran and Sherlock's disappearance was about to blow wide open once the press got a hold of the information that not only was the consulting detective still alive but that rumours of his fraud had been greatly made up and propagated by one Jim Moriarty. He knew the press reaction would be either muted, all of them too embarrassed to admit they were suckered right into the lie, or proclaim that they supported the genius all along. John suddenly thought to all those pieces of graffiti he had seen around the city and in the news recently. All those people who believed in Sherlock, Raz and his lot spreading the word and voicing the feeling that most people had in their guts that their instincts couldn't quite bring themselves to trust 'Richard Brook'.
The wash had left him feeling good and his skin felt warm. He dried off and changed into the fresh clothes Molly had brought for him, comfortable jeans and an old shirt that was perhaps a little tighter on him than he would have preferred. He was suitably warm enough after the shower to forego the jumper for now and after he brushed his teeth he cheerily made his way out into his home. Hopefully the worst of Sherlock's brooding would be over now and tea would make things ok again; he still wanted to hear about his partner's trip to Budapest. Alas, the younger man was not to be found in the living room, though John did notice a small pile of newspaper had been kicked over and thought the mood had not yet passed.
Cautiously, he made his way back into the bedroom that he had emerged from only half an hour previously and knocked on the door. Without waiting for a response he knew he would not get, he opened the door slowly and went inside. He was met with the sight of Sherlock lying rigid on his back in the bed with the worst sort of petulant scowl on his face that John thought he had ever seen.
"What's the matter?" he asked, wondering what could have happened while he was in the shower to have triggered this kind of tantrum.
"Why haven't you moved back in yet?" Sherlock demanded with almost childish force. John couldn't hold back the laugh that erupted from him.
"What? It's been less than a week since you've been back and we've been so busy catching up Molly's had to bring me a change of clothes because I haven't gone back to Greg's!" he said, sitting on the side of the bed next to his partner.
"Greg's? You said Greg's," Sherlock said, fixing him with a complete stare of wonder.
"Well, it is his house," John rebuffed, not sure where this was going. Sherlock's scowl melted away into a smile that suddenly turned into laughter and John was getting rather afraid now.
"You didn't call it home. You said 'Greg's house', not 'home'," he said between his chuckles of laughter.
"And why is this funny?" John asked, smiling a very confused smile.
"I'm not sure," Sherlock said with utter confusion. Understanding dawned on John and he grinned.
"I think that's relief. I didn't realise you wanted me back so much." Sherlock reached, grabbed John's arm and with an unexpected yank, pulled his partner down to lie beside him. Arms instinctively reached over each other and soon they were laying nose-to-nose on the large bed, the smell of the shower foam hanging between them.
"It's been a long three years," Sherlock said in his defence, running his hands down John's bare arm and slipping his fingers between those of the doctor. John simply nodded in agreement and shifted slightly closer to the detective. The younger man stared deep into John's eyes, checking his face and expression from what he remembered about his lover before he left. The pain had aged him a little more than three years should have, there were a few wrinkles around his eyes which brought Sherlock's attention to the little white line on the soft part of the flesh under John's right eye. He brought up his free hand to touch it very gently, to feel the realness of the reminder of what Moriarty did to them. John immediately looked slightly uncomfortable.
"This was the last scar he gave you," Sherlock said, running his finger very gently over the white line again.
"I hate it," John confessed with a whisper. Sherlock gaze him a questioning look. "You exchanged your life for that one," he said. "I don't particularly care that it's visible, but it's what happened after I got the cut that I hated." There was nothing else to be said to that and Sherlock realised that things could never go back to how they were before Moriarty because of what had happened in between, the torture and the fake death. This scared him at first because he loved what he had, and that was one of the main reasons he did everything he did over those three years he was away. Perhaps, though, they could salvage something, after all, their friendship was quite clearly intact, as was their relationship judging by the intimate position they were both in.
John felt a little exposed, he hadn't wanted to bombard Sherlock with the emotional trials he had suffered, but now it was being teased out of him, perhaps unwittingly, by the man opposite. Sherlock leaned forward, his hand still touching John's face and laid his lips upon John's in a sweet, shy kiss. John was so surprised he didn't respond at first, but surprise soon gave way to bliss as he realised that those soft beautiful lips on his was a sensation he thought he would never have again. Sherlock broke away, disheartened by John's lack of response and wondered what he had done wrong, but these thoughts were soon thrown out when John kissed him back fiercely, crushing their lips together, his hand squeezing Sherlock's tightly. The younger man hadn't expected this as John had always been very careful to let Sherlock take the lead, but he found that he wanted this desperate acknowledgement of their attraction as much as John and pushed back with equal ardour.
John was feeling such a rush of euphoria, he was lost in the feel of Sherlock moving beside him, the smell of his living person, the sound of his heavy breathing rushing in and out of his lungs so alive that he felt he would explode with feeling. Hastily, but not forcefully, he pushed Sherlock onto his back on the bed, not parting their lips for a second so he loomed protectively and possessively over the taller man, his hands unable to stop themselves from roaming over the pulse points of his detective; his fingers touched the white wrists which had told him the worst news three years ago, and joyfully found the pulse which affirmed his life. His hands ghosted over the wonderful throat which danced with the rapid beat of Sherlock's heart and finally, his hand came to rest over the man's chest, feeling the thump of the cardiac muscle beneath it as well as the inflation and deflation of the lungs.
"Yes, John, I am very much alive," Sherlock smirked underneath him. He had never allowed someone to pin him down before, but there was no threat from John and it seemed as though his partner had needed this; tactile connections were important, he reminded himself. He felt John smile against his lips and they continued to kiss, enjoying the feeling of his lover's hands running happily over his thin body. John's hands pulled up Sherlock's shirt a little so he could touch his partner's skin and he felt the stomach muscles flutter inside as he continued to log the feeling of the younger man's body beneath his.
At some point in the proceedings John's hand must have flitted too close to Sherlock's waistband because a thin hand darted down and grabbed his wrist hard, and pulled it up. John pulled away apologetically.
"Sorry," he mumbled, but Sherlock simply took the wrist in his hand and use it to swap their positions so he was now pressing John into the bed. He didn't say anything, but he was sure John got the message that while the action had made him uncomfortable, Sherlock was not averse to exploring this new world of sensations as long as he could lead for a while. John happily submitted and enjoyed being pressed into the mattress by the lean body of his lover who seemed as though he was determined to make up for three years of missed kissing in a single sitting. Curiously he ran his tongue over Sherlock's bottom lip and the younger man gasped and went rigid for a second, but John knew it wasn't a negative reaction from the positively pornographic moan that escaped his lover in that moment. The detective had never felt the warm thrill of a soft tongue on his lips, telling him to open his mouth and he couldn't help the reaction that came from him. He was a rather embarrassed by the sound he had made but when John kissed him harder and gripped his arm, he knew the doctor had found it rather arousing. Cautiously, Sherlock allowed John to kiss him deeply, the sensation of another tongue in his mouth being a strange and very alien one, but his lover was stimulating him in ways he had never been stimulated in before, feelings strangely pleasurable he would never have assumed felt good before.
"You know we're like two teenagers," John mused between breaths. "Sitting here making out on your bed." Speaking was difficult with Sherlock's rather insistent mouth claiming John's at every moment between deep breaths. Eventually John had to break away in order to breathe properly and happily he pulled Sherlock into a close embrace.
"I didn't do all the snogging you speak of when I was a teenager," the detective mumbled. John looked down at him, looking down at the swollen tender lips as they moved to speak. "Looks like I have lost time to make up for," he said with a mischievous smirk. John took another deep breath.
After a while Sherlock got up and sat over John, straddling his legs (carefully avoiding their pelvic areas John noticed) and his nimble fingers had unbuttoned half of the doctor's shirt before he realised what was going on.
"Sherlock?" he asked, wanting to know what the darker haired man was thinking. He had kept his hair short during his travels and John found himself missing the way his curls would hang over his eyes, making him look even more mysterious in half-light like this. The fringe just didn't quite cut it. The detective didn't reply and simply continued with his task to undo the rest of the buttons and push the fabric apart, exposing John's chest to the warm air of the room. His pale eyes sharpened as he became analytical and they darted over his skin. It took a few moments to twig, but John realised that the man was cataloguing his scars from his incarceration. Light touches followed his visual inspection of each blemish and the warm haze of arousal and heady emotional rushes cleared as John began to feel more and more exposed.
This was exactly what he had been afraid of, how any physical intimacy would bring reminders of what he had gone through and it was a distinct turn off. Those lips were moving, he was muttering how each wound was acquired as he went through them.
Thick messy lines on his ribs from the final torture, the incision and salting of aggravated intercostal muscles. Faded lines from the abrasions caused by Moran's fists which were never attended to during the incarceration leading to light scarring. Pink, shiny flesh on his side from burns. Mottled skin on wrists, most likely from zip ties. He held up the wrists for closer inspection.
"There are several layers of these. They used cable ties for every binding. Lacerations closest to the hands indicate a serious attempt to free yourself…" he said to himself, inspecting every little one of the thin white lines around the tan arm.
"I almost got free on the roof, but…" John didn't want to continue that line of thought. This was supposed to be a joyous reunion, but now they were dwelling on the past he wasn't sure he wanted to face quite yet. He had thought that he could put it all behind him until a week ago when Sherlock returned and kind of set him back several months in therapy. Sherlock then saw something that completely diverted his interest. A messy spiderweb of scar tissue on the shoulder of the soldier; the entry wound from the bullet that nearly killed him in Afghanistan. His fingers traced the shape of it, the texture of the skin, fascinated by it. This was what had brought John to Sherlock. Without this, John would never have been in London at the same time as an old school friend and he would never have been introduced to Sherlock. The detective found himself bereft at the thought of his life without the man beneath him; aside from probably being dead several times over if not for John, he would be back in that cold place he used to be. Alone and isolated from the world, thinking that he was ok with that and only now, having experienced something of what John was making him feel, realising that that was a half life.
John's mood lifted a little when Sherlock began his investigation of the bullet wound because it meant that his partner was not just fixating on the things Moriarty had done to him. The inspection continued and the detective stumbled across a very old scar on his side, low down near his belly.
"Old, at least twenty years, childhood scar," he rattled off as his deductions about the size, colour and shape of the scar moulded into coherent sentences. "Odd location, looks like a stab wound, but line too large to be a knife. A glancing blow perhaps? No, too messy…"
"I fell out a tree," John said, putting Sherlock out of his misery. The detective scowled at him for telling him the answer without giving him sufficient chance to work it out. The doctor afforded him an apologetic look. Sherlock continued to examine the map of John's exposed torso when the silence was broken by a loud gurgle; John's stomach was protesting the lack of breakfast noisily.
"I think you're hungry," Sherlock said and his face split into laughter.
"Well observed," John returned and joined in the chuckle. They looked at each other, asking with a look if each other was agreeable to getting food and they both realised that the heated moment from earlier was now gone. Sherlock swung his legs off of John and he breezed ahead into the kitchen, banging cupboards and the fridge open and closed in his search for food. The only thing he had was toast and marmalade and considering jam on toast was the only thing Moran gave John to eat while he was being tortured he didn't think it would make the most sensitive breakfast.
"Don't tell me, we need to go out?" John asked, emerging from the bedroom, buttoning up his shirt. That strange feeling rippled through Sherlock again thinking he would like to see more of John emerging from his bedroom half clothed. He began to wonder if that feeling was sexual desire, he certainly felt it during their heated kissing earlier and he thought that perhaps he could feel such baser experiences comfortably when he thought he never could before.
AN: Hello, another update. Fluff ahoy! I'd like to shout out to It's-Teatime-Somewhere for leaving me such a great review detailing exactly what you liked. This is so helpful and I'm glad to know that all the bits I was worried or unsure about have been well received :D Next update will be Monday/Tuesday as I'm off larping for the weekend starting tomorrow (Woo!) Thank you to everyone who was reviewed, I really appreciate knowing you like what I've done with my story :) *sentimentals everywhere* x