A/N As always, thanks to my gorgeous and attentive betas, snogandagrope and ScienceofObsession.

Art for this chapter is by the amazing MindPalaceofVersailles, who (along with me) has been having WAY too much fun with henna!

Go give them all some love! (You can find links and art on my AO3 page)

Chapter 4: Be Careful What You Wish For

John wakes suddenly the next morning. He does not twitch, nor does he gasp. He holds his breath, waits to see what triggered him. He is momentarily baffled to realize that he hasn't had a nightmare. No shaking, no sweating, no pounding heart and residual fear. There is a soft rustle of fabric to his left, and a deep, mellifluous voice says, "John."

John's eyes snap open, and immediately focus on the man hunched on his bed. "No need to fear, John," the man continues firmly, with very posh inflection. "It is only I."

John blinks. That's rather grandiose grammar for first thing in the morning. "Ahem," he coughs. The man is sitting sideways on his bed, leaning against the wall, balancing John's laptop on his knees. His legs are bent over John's, bridging his calves. Between the two of them, there is no extra room in the tiny single bed. John pulls himself to sitting, hitching up pyjama bottoms as they threaten to drag down.

"Sherlock," he says, recalling the unreal night before. His voice is thick and rusty with sleep. "What are you doing in my bed?"

Sherlock looks mildly exasperated. "The chair was beginning to numb my posterior," he explains, as if this should be obvious. "Hence, the mattress." He looks back to the screen open in front of him.

"Have you been reading that all night?" John asks.

"Of course." Sherlock responds.

John shakes his head, and scrubs his hands over his face. "Okay," he concedes. He scratches his neck, and stretches, deep and efficient. "Okay." He can't think of anything else to do, so kicks Sherlock's feet aside, and swings out of bed. It is only when he reaches the bathroom that he realizes he hadn't made use of, or even needed, his cane. He attends to the typical ritual of morning ablutions, and then shaves around a bemused smile.

The next two days are rather slow and dull. Sherlock hangs around the bedsit devouring lord-knows-what-and-sundry on the laptop. John becomes mildly bored, and finds he's trudged off to the Tesco Express around the corner more often than usual, licking his lips until they're chapped worrying about the budget. But he has to stock up on the rapidly depleting supply of tea and milk (no Englishman could live without it). In spite of continually consuming tea, Sherlock hasn't eaten any food yet, for which John is both grateful and worried. His meager budget is not meant to handle this kind of strain. He continues to use his cane on the trips outside, although he finds his leg is paining him less than usual.

Sherlock is sitting in his preferred location, crouched against the wall on John's bed, laptop balanced on his knees. John makes a couple mugs of tea. (He makes it much more frequently, now that he has someone to share it with.) He's had to buy another mug, bought at the same antique shop where he found Sherlock's lamp. (Which was unnecessarily sentimental, but there you have it.) But this not eating thing has him edgy.

"Sherlock!" John says, finally, holding the fresh mug of tea just out of reach. Sherlock, not looking up from the laptop, grabs for it ineffectually several times before huffing in exasperation.
He looks up at John with narrowed eyes, blazing with impatience. "What?"

"Take a break. I want to check my email. I have an appointment tomorrow, so I have to have made a blog entry, or the whole hour will be one long lecture. And you. You need to eat something. Don't you?"

Sherlock shrugs. "Not hungry. I'm catching up. There's a lot to catch up on. Particularly the sciences. I've read your blog. It's possibly the dullest thing on the internet." A sarcastic inflection infuses that chocolate baritone, "Nothing happens to me. Look, I've made an entry! Walked through Regent's Park today. Drinks with old mates. Pedestrian! Why do you bother?"

"I have to. It's a condition of my therapy." John stops and presses his lips close together. "Never mind. It's none of your business. But... eating is! It's been over two days, and all you've had is tea-"

Sherlock pins him again with a flat gray stare. "I told you, you should stop seeing that therapist. She doesn't understand the first thing about you." He leans forward while John is distracted, and snatches his tea.

John grinds his teeth. "And you're such an expert after squatting in my bedsit for all of two days?"

Sherlock fluidly rises to his feet, tossing the laptop carelessly towards the pillow. "Yes, obviously. I watch you while you sleep. I know what you dream about. I know your fears," he pauses, complacent. "I know the desires that shame you."

John can't help it. Blood begins to rise in his ears, he can feel its heat. Oh, god. He knows. Knows that John can't stop thinking about his skin, how smooth and warm it was under his hand, that first night, when he was allowed to 'touch'. The quickly suppressed impulses he has to grab the man, and just. just. rub him everywhere on John's body like some sort of human flannel. Until every part of his anatomy has touched every place on John's. Until their every nerve thrums from the caress of skin on skin. Just. Not even sex. That, too, of course. But just. Touching. John finds his hands are often balled into fists, to prevent himself from touching. His skin crawls in longing for it. How long has it been? Since he was touched in any way but the cool, impersonal guidance and healing of doctors and psysio? Years. Three, four five, he can't even remember.

And the sexual fantasies. Well. How could he not? John's never been actively bisexual, but he's long been aware that he fancied men more than most. Here's the most attractive man John's ever been around. Lounging about his flat. Sprawled on his bed. And nearly naked, dressed only enough to accentuate his graceful frame. For goodness sake, half of what's covering him up isn't even clothing, but only patterns of henna. John wants to trace those trails with his tongue. Press into them with his thumb. Pull aside the barely-there trousers and see how far down the designs extend. Do they curl and swirl around the patch of pubic hair John's imagined? Idle over his hips and down to the globes of his arse? If John were to follow them with his mouth… how close would he get to Sherlock's cock? To his center? What noises would he make, feeling that warm, wet tickle? Jesus Christ, John. Drop it. Stop!

Sherlock moves even closer, until there's scarcely room for a sheet of paper between them. He ducks his head down and says, not even lowering his voice, so that it rumbles and shivers through John's body, somehow more arousing in it's matter-of-fact presentation than it would have been if he'd whispered, "You dream about me at night. I can watch it happening. You dream so loudly I can hear you. I know what you're ashamed of. You want to bend me over and take me, don't you? Bite me, claw me, spill your seed across my skin and in my mouth, hold me down until you've taken all you desire." He pauses for a moment, and John stares back, riveted and dazed and shocked to his core. "You want to hear me gasp, and moan, and grunt with the fullness of you…."

Fucking hell. Those were… visceral words. John wasn't aware of thinking these precise things, but he sure as hell is now. Holy… hot, hot oh Jesus, what is he supposed to do? Sherlock's saying all that, and there his body is, mere inches from John's eyes. He can see the lift and fall of Sherlock's chest, the subsidiary quiver after each steady beat of his heart. A pink nipple beckons at eye level. Now the frangible bones of his wrists seem to solicit restraint. John has a flashing vision of the ivory form, whipping beneath him, straining and intense; green eyes sparking… but never free.

There is no blood in John's head anymore. It's all dropped straight down to his cock, leaving him dizzy and prickling. He sucks in air and pushes Sherlock away, resisting the urge to hunch over and sidle off to hide by standing stiffly at attention. He tears his eyes away and stares resolutely beyond Sherlock's arm at the flat beige wall. "No!" he chokes. "I don't—"

"Shame is a ridiculous waste of time. Energy, as well. That's another thing your therapist is failing to communicate to you." Sherlock says as an aside, and then continues, "I can deduce your character: good." He almost spits that out. "It's why you haven't forced me out of the flat, or called an asylum for someone to fetch me." He smirks at John's expression. "I know you've thought about it. And I know your life is so lonely and empty that you don't really want to.

"You have no friends. You have no Work. Before I came, you were close to ending it all, weren't you? You don't just clean your gun. You dream of using it, don't you? On yourself? It's your last escape. You hook your finger around that trigger regularly. Before I came, you probably did it daily, didn't you? (A ritual, perhaps? Those seem to comfort you.) And you'd wonder if you were going to pull it."

That last sentence echoes in John's head. His erection precipitously recedes, and John can feel can feel the cold prickle of fear and humiliation, knows his face is white and stiff, and his heart pounds, ineffectually, double-time. Sherlock frowns at him, and looks a little uncertain for the first time. "I'm not judging you, John. I'm just proving that I know you better than your therapist."

John clenches his fists. Do not panic. Do not panic, he shouts into the rushing static of his mind. Oh, god, what the fuck kind of timing is this? He dreads it, the debilitating pandemonium of fear and useless adrenaline that his therapist attributes to his PTSD. And now in front of a witness! What a stupid thing to set him off. Although this is the first time he's been so intensely aroused, just by a few words, and then so utterly shredded immediately after.

He feels short of breath, but forbids himself from hyperventilating, tries the deep breathing his therapist taught him for these panic attacks. He digs his fingernails into his palms, counts the eight little crescents of pain, tries to ground himself. His internal voice is tiny and weak: You are not under attack. You are not in danger. God, he hates this, the overwhelming fear. The desire to fight. Or flee. Being filleted inside while all his external casing is shaking and wired. He straightens his shoulders. Fight it. Fight it. It's nothing but the endocrine system gone haywire. Not real. He tries to pace, to work off the frantic overload of adrenaline, but his body's too shaky to command. He sits on the bed, but pops back up again, unable to rest.

John's eyes are wide open, but have ceased sending signals to his brain. He only registers the buzzing, jittery light of the overhead fluorescent, so bright it's like sandpaper on his awareness. He jolts prodigiously when Sherlock lightly touches his shoulder, and sucks in a gasp that falls just shy of a scream.

Sherlock snatches his hand back. "I-," he hesitates uncharacteristically. "Not good?"

John blinks, and blinks, fighting with everything he has. He breathes slowly. Sherlock's eyes are wide in front of him, and John focuses on that, the little twist of fear and compassion in that face. He keeps breathing, in and out, fixed on the crystalline gaze in front of him, balling and relaxing his fists to release the adrenaline. Almond eyes, mossy green at the center, transforming into dark-ringed blue, and the smallest spot of brown, like a misplaced freckle. The world slowly fades back in as he looks up at Sherlock, who hovers nervously before him. He straightens out his fingers deliberately, and takes in a long, silent breath. "Bit not good, yeah," he agrees quietly, a little hoarse. He turns away and takes the few steps to the desk, looking blankly through the window at the drizzly street below. His skin is clammy and disgusting. He wipes his palms on his thighs, and wishes for privacy.

"I just wanted to-" Sherlock begins.

"Enough." John says. "Stop. I don't need to hear all of your deductions. Some things... There are some things you just don't need to say."

Sherlock frowns a little, and then makes a scoffing noise. "Well, it's all true. And it's not like you're contemplating suicide today-"

"Sherlock!" John rebukes. "Enough!" He jams his trembling left hand into his pocket and turns toward the kettle, pouring hot water over dried noodles. "Just. Shut up and eat." He shoves the cup at Sherlock, plastic spoon stuck inside.

Sherlock hisses and fumbles the hot plastic, so John quickly hands him a stack of takeaway napkins for a buffer. Sherlock looks at the dried noodles with a certain degree of horrified fascination. "This is food? Usually things improve with decades of change. But this-?"

"Shut up and eat," John repeats. But the remains of the panic attack lurch away, and he has to conceal a smile at Sherlock's expression. He beats Sherlock to the bed and snatches up the laptop. "No more Internet until you've eaten your soup."

"Who are you to say so?" Sherlock grumbles under his breath. But he sits next to John on the bed and begins to tentatively poke his spoon into the cup, body radiating astonished indignation.

John checks his email.

Sherlock reads shamelessly over his shoulder.

John tilts the laptop away, and Sherlock shifts slightly closer, wedging himself against John's side in order to read.

"Jesus, Sherlock. Do you have no concept of personal space at all?" John laughs, secretly reveling in the warm press of flesh against his arm and hip. He smells of skin, and heat, things John hasn't been exposed to in too long. He is also uniquely redolent of spices and oil, tantalizing and pungent.

Sherlock looks at him blankly. "What is that?" he asks.

John tosses his head back with a gusty sigh, and then holds his other arm out in demonstration. He swings it in a half circle. "See? From here to your fingertips. That's your personal space. Other people can't barge in on it. It's primary school stuff, Sherlock."

Sherlock drew in his eyebrows. "What about mating? I'm quite sure you mortals have to-"

"You have to be invited in, Sherlock. Christ. And what's this about 'mortal'?"

Sherlock shrugs, and John can feel the ripple of his body from shoulder to knee. "I am not 'mortal', therefore I needn't abide by your more arbitrary social strictures."

Since John doesn't actually want Sherlock to move, is soaking in the body heat and taction of their arms and thighs, he just rolls his eyes and turns back to his computer. "Of course you're 'mortal', Sherlock."

Sherlock ignores him and takes a reluctant swallow of the pot noodles. He shudders delicately, and John grins again. "No Internet..." he reminds him. Sherlock slides his eyes sideways until he's staring obliquely at John. The emotion in them is equal parts resignation, fondness and fury. John grins back, begins to giggle, and a slow smile breaks out on Sherlock's face, starting in his eyes, twitching one corner of his mouth, and gradually lighting his whole demeanor.

John is breathless with laughter (and something else he will not name). "Oh, god. Oh, god. I've found it. How to keep you in line. Withholding Internet privileges. Your kryptonite."

Sherlock's small smile fades into blank incomprehension. "My what?"

"Never mind. Just eat your soup and let me catch up here." John looks back though his recent email, feeling inexplicably contented. The horror and disgrace of his secret lust and suicidal ideation being exposed is pushed deliberately into a dark corner of his mind. He scans through spam, deleting patiently, until he arrives on a note from his sister. He opens it. "Oh, shit. I completely forgot," he mutters.

Sherlock cranes his neck, the nosy git. "Your brother wants to meet tomorrow?" he murmurs.

"Not my brother," John grumps. "But. Yeah, I agreed to it last week. I'd forgotten."

"Harry Watson isn't your brother? What? A cousin?" Sherlock seems discombobulated. "I thought the phone must have been from a brother..."

John gives Sherlock his own sidelong, amused glance. "What? You never get anything wrong?"

Sherlock looks stiff. "Rarely."

John grins. "You weren't far off. Harry is short for Harriet."

"Your sister?" Sherlock snorts. "Huh. Always something."

"Don't let it keep you up nights," John comforts, tapping out a reply for Harry.

"May I come?" Sherlock asks, uncharacteristically tentative.

"What? For coffee with Harry?" John is surprised. "I swear, it won't be interesting at all."

"Getting out will be interesting."

John leans away a little and runs his eyes from Sherlock's bejeweled locks down to his bare, hennaed feet, unable to prevent himself from lingering over lean pectorals and faintly ridged abdomen. He licks his lips. "You can't go outside in that get up," he says. "For one thing, you'd freeze. You'll never fit into any of my clothes. I might be able to get something for you to wear at Oxfam, if you need it," he offers hesitantly.

"No need," Sherlock replies. "I can deal with that. Not a problem."

"Yeah? Got a wardrobe in the lamp, have you?" It's the first time he's mentioned it in two days, the topic being so bizarre and uncomfortable. He actually doesn't want to know if the gorgeous man next to him is lying.

Sherlock shrugs again, and John watches pale skin move across rangy muscle. "It doesn't work exactly like that. But I can dress appropriately."

"Well, in that case, you're welcome to come with."

John's blog entry for the week is, "Be careful what you wish for." Sherlock snorts, and reclaims the laptop after pitching the empty polystyrene soup cup in the room's tiny bin, expressing his disgust with theatrical abhorrence.