Chess

Eventually, John caught her breath enough to slump into a boneless heap. She stayed in Sherlock's arms, slapped her cheek against her bony shoulder and huffed. "He was supposed to be normal. My one normal thing."

Sherlock pulled her hand up John's back and slid it across her damp face, pushing the loose hairs down and pulling at the hairband almost all the way free. "I thought it was obvious, John. We are not normal people."

"No, you're not normal, Sherlock." John sighed and closed her eyes, hugging her close. "You're extraordinary. Above the masses."

"You-" Sherlock awkwardly patted John's head, "-have caught not only the attention of an evil, twisted, cow of a woman intent on making the world her plaything and killing anyone who bores her, but also the attention of her arch nemesis, the world's only Consulting Detective. To the point where she wants you around so desperately that she will belittle the masses just to keep you at her side. It takes an extraordinary person to do that."

John's eyes filled with fresh tears and her hands fell to Sherlock's waist. "You belittle the masses anyway."

"It's special with you."

John shook her head, wiping her fresh tears against Sherlock's skin. "I don't understand why."

Sherlock tipped her forehead against John's and rested it there. "Then it will be my pleasure to show you."

Time ticked by, enough where John knew she should pull back but she could not bring herself to do so. Even when her muscles started to pulse she could not take herself away.

It was Sherlock who shifted them so their heads were at a better angle, foreheads still stuck together. John's eyes were out of focus, being so close. Her gaze dropped to the only thing she could make out without trouble, Sherlock's curving cupid's bow lips. Cupid would make her go blind. John's lips trembled into a smile and she closed her eyes, leaning into the embrace.

"Do you want a drink?" Sherlock suddenly asked and ripped her body back.

John fell into the suddenly vacated space with a grunt. "Huh?"

"Water or scotch?" Sherlock practically ran to the kitchen to pull down glasses.

John pulled her arms around her body and twisted from one side to the other, stretching out her abdominals. She stared at Sherlock curiously. "Both?"

Sherlock nodded once and ran around the kitchen gathering glasses and alcohol and cards. She forgot the water, but John was not about to mention it.

"What do you want to play?" John asked, gesturing to the deck.

"Chess?" Sherlock asked.

John frowned at the cards. "Chess?"

Sherlock stared at the cards as if they were the magic kind and had suddenly appeared out of thin air. "We could... play something else."

"Chess is fine," John chuckled. "But can you put the fire on? I'm a bit chilly."

Sherlock nodded, started the fire, and found the chess pieces and board as John continued to stretch.

John had never played Sherlock in chess before. It was going to be very interesting, she was sure. After all, it was not every day she had a sleepover with Sherlock so she could forget about her dumb ex-boyfriend. All they were missing were their diaries and makeup kits.

An hour and plenty of drinks later, Sherlock was on her stomach, eye level with the board, the closest expression to confused she could muster scrunching up her face. "You're good at this!"

"Yes I am, thank you very much!" John laughed, taking one of Sherlock's rooks. "In the army, sometimes you have free time. And sometimes you spend that free time playing chess. So either I picked up a few things, or you are awful at chess."

"I am not awful at chess!" Sherlock yelped and threw her rook at John, nearly hitting her almost full glass of scotch.

John took a swig and made another move. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Sherly." She adjusted herself closer to the fire and tilted her head back against her chair. Being on the floor was not helping her aching back, or aching side, or aching arse.

"You never did stretch your legs," Sherlock said, sipped from her glass and casually eyed the board. "Did you want help?"

A smile stretched over John's warm, pink face. "You want to help me stretch?"

"Aftercare, John." Sherlock said simply, as if John would know what that meant in her inebriated state.

"Don't tell me," John laughed and crawled away from the board to the middle of the warm room. "You learned this- this Tibetan technique while working a case for someone in- Venezuela and became an expert in- in- in acupuncture rock therapy, or something."

Sherlock snorted, set down her glass and followed. "I'm fairly certain that was both ludicrous nonsense and a bit racist, Doctor Watson."

John blew her a raspberry and swallowed another large gulp of her drink before setting it down. "Alright. Make my pain go away, Doctor Holmes."

Sherlock scrunched up her face.

John flopped to her back and groaned. "Don't tell me your brother has a doctorate or something."

"No," Sherlock said, crawling next to her. "I do. But I don't like to be reminded of it."

"Too pedestrian?" John joked and snorted again, coughed, and then lost herself to laugher. She needed to roll to her side to breathe again.

"Something like that, yes," Sherlock smiled and held out a hand, palm up. "Give me your leg."

"Is that where you learned to stretch people's legs? In your doctorate program?" John lifted both her legs in the air and dropped one of them into Sherlock's waiting hand.

"Honorary doctorate." Sherlock shook her head. "Ludicrous things." She shifted in between John's legs and started kneading at the flesh of her calf, moving up to the thigh.

John swore she could smell honey and beeswax but for the life of her she could not figure out where it was coming from.

Sherlock continued, "I hated uni. I dropped out."

"So it's not even a real degree?" John asked, lost looking at the ceiling. It was hard to focus on the orange and yellow lights flickering above her. Then it suddenly became hard to breath when Sherlock's hands cupped close to her bum and her fingers trailed next to her inseam.

"Hon-or-ar-y!" Sherlock enunciated for her.

"Alright!" John laughed.

Those hands pulled back up to John's knee and held as Sherlock tucked her shoulder under the bend. Sherlock shifted her weight forward and pressed against John's knee until it was bobbing near her shoulder, her hovering face blocking the fuzzy lights. "I learned to do this in a book."

John smiled softly and reached up to move Sherlock's stubborn hair away from her eyeball. She knew just how annoying that could be and it was nice to return the favor for once. "Why did you drop out of uni?"

Sherlock froze and dropped John's leg, quickly moving on to repeat the same process on the other. "Too many people."

"Hmm." John shifted as Sherlock's fingers danced towards her inseam once again.

Then Sherlock was back to bobbing above her, pulsing the leg as she hovered, her body stretched over John's full length, her movements quick and shallow, her body another blanket of heat in the already blazing room.

A part of John's hamstring stretched in just the right way and a small moan escaped. Her eyes darted to the empty glass of scotch accusingly.

"Your necklace is still on." Sherlock's arm wriggled around Jon's leg as she touched the suede rope circling at the base of John's neck.

John's fingers jumped to the knots resting between her collar bones and looked up at Sherlock, her vision blurring. She tried to trace the bone structure of Sherlock's sharp jawline but it was not helping her focus. "Did you want it back?"

Sherlock shook her head. "This one suits you better."

John snorted. "Is that 'cause it's manly or 'cause you made it?"

Sherlock's fingers tickled between the ropes and gently tugged at one of the knots. "I like it when you wear one."

John shifted her leg until it fell off Sherlock's shoulder and thumped to the floor. "Why?"

"Momentarily," Sherlock tilted her head and ducked closer to inspect the way the fibers clung to dried sweat. "I get to be yours."

John shook her head and reached up to move that stubborn hair from Sherlock's eye again. She had to hold it back against her ear to keep it from being a problem. "I thought it was the other way around."

Sherlock smiled softly and rolled her shining red lips. "As per usual, Doctor. You see but you do not observe." Her finger tucked under the necklace and skimmed around the rim. "When you wear this. I am completely at your mercy. Even now, the safeword is still available."

"You are?" John asked dumbly, focusing on the way Sherlock's lips formed vowels.

"I am." Sherlock's head sunk closer still, the smell of liquor thick in the air between them. "In our tête-à-têtes, you always hold all the cards."

John shifted her other arm around Sherlock's shoulder to help her keep from falling. "I thought we were playing chess?"

Sherlock's eyes did not flicker to the board. "It's your move."

John's heart was absolutely pounding, her fingers trembling against Sherlock's ear. Sherlock's brow twitched and curved her lips up into the firelight. She was close enough now that their noses rubbed, her body pressed against John's torso and between her legs.

John swallowed and her mouth fell open. Her bottom lip slipped against Sherlock's velvety smooth skin, passing across the corner of her mouth and smudging her lipstick. John licked her lips and ended up doing it again, pressing her bottom lip into Sherlock's and gently skimming down. With one breath, her lip slid back up into the gap and enclosed over Sherlock's top.

Lips moved as slow as humanly possible with only the gentlest pressure caused by the ups and downs of breathing alone. Time slowed with them. Limbs frozen. Only three slides of mouth were made before John pulled back with a gasp, air locked in her throat.

In the moment between breaths there was a general feeling of confusion and panic muddling up John's mind but no actual thoughts to communicate their origins. A part of her was fighting for some sense of direction, somewhere to put that feeling, but it was hard to hold onto any wisps of thought.

Wet heat pressed at John's bottom lip and any resolve she had clinging to that last piece of sobriety rope snapped and fell to pieces. John's shaky exhale shattered the space between them. They crashed into each other with body and mouth, teeth clacking together as arms wrapped around any body part they could reach. They fumbled against each other, pressing and moving on two different wavelengths.

John pulled at Sherlock's hair as Sherlock's teeth scraped against her bottom lip. Their hips thrust together, legs slotting between one another. John was not in control of herself when her arm slapped against Sherlock's dress and fisted in the fabric, pulling Sherlock's body against her as her hips ground up. Sherlock shoved back into her, somehow still graceful and fluid as her body rolled.

John sucked in a breath through her open mouth as her back arched. Her limbs were numb from drink but the pulse of curling heat tugged from every direction. Her mouth sloppily returned to Sherlock's as their hips lurched and grinded together.

Sherlock's exposed thighs were turning red against John's camouflage trousers, but she only moved faster, meeting John's desperate pace as the tension inside every nerve wound tighter. John curled arms up Sherlock's back and grabbed her shoulders, squeezing her closer in a bruising grip.

Sherlock fumbled her arms out from under John's as she pushed herself into a better angle, gripping at John's tank top and pulling it with her as her hand fell back to the floor. Manicured nails scraped over John's belt and scratched the soft curves of exposed stomach until they brushed her sports bra. Sherlock fisted into the bottom of the fabric and tugged it tight against John's hardened nipple, sparking a small cry from John as her body jerked up and down, unsure of which direction it wanted to go.

John hissed and threw her head back as her body continued to frantically squirm. Her hair pulling behind her shoulder only just dragged her attention enough for her to notice. Sherlock was there in an instant, wrapping her hair up and around her arm, pulling her in for another wet kiss. John pushed her tongue sloppily inside Sherlock's mouth, trying to focus as the world spiralled in a whirl of heat and bright colors, the familiar taste of scotch blooming to the forefront of it all.

John slapped her hand around Sherlock's naked thigh and pulled her up, grinding harder as the teasing pleasure demanded her full attention. They stopped kissing and started breathing into one another, faster and faster.

Sherlock's forehead fell to John's jaw and her mouth fell to the choker, biting down on the ropes. John groaned and her center pulsed, thrusting even harder, her sore body pushing its limits as the barrier broke and blissful waves ebbed and flowed from the tips of her toes up to her head and back down where they burst from her stomach with a final cry. Sherlock was with her the entire time, grunting into John's neck, collapsing onto her only after it was over.

Loud pants were all that filled the room. Neither able to move.

They just turned from sexual without the sex, to dry humping like a couple of uni kids. John had not come from that in… well since uni. It was not a very practical way to do so and usually took an hour of fumbled grinding, figuring out the angle and pressure that could perfectly affect her clothed clit. Partners usually screwed it up on their part. There was really no point to it when sex was always a better option.

John eyed the nearly empty scotch bottle warily.

"We are very drunk," John tried to laugh and her arms fell around Sherlock's back in a half hug.

Sherlock grunted sleepily against her neck, suede still caught in her teeth.

John sucked in a breath and tried to find a clock. "We need bed. Doctor's orders. And water. And painkillers."

"And vitamins," Sherlock mumbled.

"Sure," John nodded, knocking her head against the floor. "I guess you're a doctor too."

Sherlock huffed and managed to push herself off with a pout. She sat up and stared down at her exposed chest and thighs quizzically. She started to shift the fabric but the strap around her arm caught the rest of her dress. She gave up and reached around for the zip, undoing it and stripping to nothing but her pants. Clearly the exposure of her breasts did not bother her as she stretched in front of the open window and sauntered off to her bedroom.

John got up in her own time and slowly made sure the fire was out before making it to the stairs, chugging the rest of her drink on the way. It was going to be one hell of a hangover.