Uh oh, y'all. I got impatient, and flew without my betas on this one. So all inelegance and glaring errors are my own. (They always are anyway, of course!) The amazing, heartbreaking art for this chapter is by the very talented Kayjaykayme, so go show her some love. Also, the brilliant Jill of JillandSarah has done yet another picture, that I've put at the bottom of Chapter 5, so hop over there and check it out (NSFW, my lovelies!).

Warnings: This chapter contains references to past rape.

Chapter 9: Gratitude and a Bit of History

When they walk into the flat, John removes his coat with a shiver and moves immediately over to the radiator to turn the heat back up. He hears the soft shirring of fabric behind him, and turns to see Sherlock whipping off his scarf, pulling his gloves off lightly, finger by finger. He's unfairly beautiful, looks like he's in the middle of a glamorous photo shoot, and John swallows against the sudden flood of want in his mouth. He leans back against the warming radiator, possibly because his knees are weak, although he'd never admit it.

Sherlock tosses his gloves and scarf onto the bed, and undulates out of his coat. John tracks his movements, noting that everything about the genie is length, strength, power and grace. For all his harsh lines, he does not come across as rugged or sharp, instead reading as sleek, the blunt, expansive planes of cheek and jaw oddly rendering him soft and smooth when combined with his exuberant hair and glowing skin.

Sherlock stretches, arms outflung, and arches his back. John licks his lips, suddenly ruefully aware of how distressingly average he is, the wrinkles on his face, the lack of elasticity to his figure since returning from the Army; the scars, one still red and shiny, devastatingly written across his chest and back.

Sherlock shimmers, and when the air resettles, he's once again dressed in his his genie garb, complete with jewelry, curling slippers and henna tattoos.

John makes a concerned face. "It's still pretty cold in here, Sherlock-"

Sherlock just shrugs and drifts forwards until he's right in front of John, eyes bright turquoise now, and intent. "John," he says, and reaches up to rest two fingers very lightly on the hinge of John's jaw. "John. I just want to say... I'd like to tell you..."

John waits, holding his breath, world narrowed down to eyes like tropical seas and two featherweight gentle points of warmth on his face.

"Today was... something different. It was... good."

John rests his own hand on Sherlock's wrist and he cannot stop himself from tracing the hard cords of forearm muscle, looking down to see dizzying lines of henna disappear under his own unadorned hand. He wets his lips again, viscerally aware of new a new tension between them. "You were amazing, Sherlock. I've never seen anyone do what you can do. Really -"

His words trail off as Sherlock steps closer, deliberate and confident, and curves down until he is so close that tendrils of his breath comb through the evening stubble around John's jaw. John waits, motionless but buzzing with anticipation.

"Thank you." It is no more than an exhale against John's lips. And then Sherlock kisses him. And words are something John can no longer recall.

Sherlock's lips are cool on John's damp ones, and a bizarre contrast to the warm metal that supports him. They merely rest against his own, improbably soft and enticing; the fingers at his jaw barely touching... applying no pressure. Mouths evanescently adjoined, they stare at eachother for a moment longer, turquoise and navy and all the depth and meaning of the universe, pitching and reeling and intoxicating.

John closes his eyes before he falls down, and inhales, slow and slight, as if air drawn in will work as a vacuum and pull Sherlock harder against him. His hand skates around Sherlock's elbow, climbs his arm until it catches and lingers on the tooled leather cuff around his bicep.

Sherlock stirs at last. He slips his fingers around the point of John's jaw, under the ear, drawing little trails of sparks on his skin, until they burrow into his hair, stabilizing his head so that Sherlock can lean in harder; and his mouth begins to move, and for all John is aware of the room, he could be floating in outer space.

They brush their lips together, back and forth, and John echoes the motion with his fingers on stiff leather and supple skin. Sherlock begins to nibble, just a tiny hint of teeth, of warm moisture, as delicate as the designs that adorn his body. John reciprocates with nips of his own, tentatively draws the lavish angles of Sherlock's top lip into his mouth, with quick, light licks, tiny pulses of suction.

Sherlock makes a sound, almost inaudible, and the muscles under John's hand jump.

For long moments, they don't step any closer, joined at only those three points, focused only on lips – no invasion yet; just superficial flexing of muscles, dancing with tongue-painted outlines, ephemeral flashes of teeth. John is straining forward from his seat against the radiator, and Sherlock curls around him, breathes into his mouth.

John hums, a combination of need and delight, and Sherlock responds, a breathy acknowledgment and shifts to clasp both his hands around John's neck, long fingers spreading to engulf the entire back of his head, and tilts it slightly to the side, to fit them better together. And then he presses his thumbs against John's jaw, coaxing his mouth open, and finally, finally!, the rough-smooth texture of his tongue is inside John's mouth, winding around his own, sinuous in an echo of the fluidity of Sherlock's body when he moves.

Arousal zings through John's abdomen, which he valiantly ignores. Instead, he pushes his tongue back against Sherlock's rubbing until he can feel the bumps of tastebuds, poking at the delicate webbing at its base, wandering to the side to explore teeth then palate.

John has dropped his hands down to Sherlock's hips, he is not even aware of when he did it, and pulls him in closer, spreading his knees to pull Sherlock between them.

And all the time he is aware of getting shorter and shorter of breath, breathing having become unimaginably dull, and kissing such a better expenditure of his time. They've developed a rhythm now, like a dance, back-and-forth-and-suck-suck-suck. John slides his hands around Sherlock's waist, feeling for the dimples at the base of his spine, drowning in the extravagance of acres of taut, living skin. And.

And Sherlock straightens. He slips his hands from John's hair and lets one rest on his shoulder, the other dropping to his side with a soft clatter of bracelets.

The look at each other for a moment, faces still close, eyes still vague, heavy and heated. John licks his lips, tasting of Sherlock, and twists half his mouth into an uncertain smile. "Right." He has to scramble to recall what Sherlock had last said, since entire civilizations had been built and fallen during the unexpected kiss. "You're welcome?"

Sherlock doesn't respond to the words. But his cheeks are pink, and his lips as well, shiny with moisture and well-used. John looks at his sternum, exposed by the cropped vest, and twining veins of henna tremor with his thudding heart.

Sherlock backs up and whirls away, sweeping the laptop off the desk as he does so. He flings himself onto the bed and opens it up.

John fingers his own swollen lips. Evidently that's it, then. "Pot noodles?" he asks. It's evening now, and he's hungry. "Toast? Beans?"

Sherlock looks up with a hastily erased expression of disgust and shakes his head. "Not hungry, John." There's a significant pause, as he goes back to the laptop, then he looks up and belatedly says, "Thank you."

"Yes, well. I know it's not much -"

"Pfft," Sherlock both indicates his boredom and dismissal of the topic.

John potters about as he waits for the kettle to boil, and eventually settles in the straight-backed chair with his noodles. He eats without speaking, and stares at Sherlock. He sighs, and picks up the sole paperback in the flat, deciding that rereading it is the best use of his time. But he keeps sneaking glances past the covers, assessing the man on his bed, and thinking, giddy as a teenaged girl, He kissed me! Oh my god, he kissed me!

Sherlock is thoroughly sunk into surfing. Studying. He is very intent about it, eyes darting back and forth as he reads with fervor, almost desperation. After several hours, having got himself ready for bed, John finally says, "You can take a break, you know. It'll all be there in the morning."

Sherlock glances up, eyes assessing, and a frenetic feeling emanates from him. "Perhaps. But at some point, I won't be here any more. I do have a deadline, John."

John is quiet for a minute and Sherlock goes back to his reading. "I'm not kicking you out anytime soon," he offers gently.

Sherlock flicks his glance back to John. "When you make your wish, John. I return to the lamp. There is no predicting how much time will pass before I can come back. Nor how much time or freedom I'll be given when I do." And with this cool, emotionless assessment, he is immediately reabsorbed in the laptop.

John sucks in slow breath, as the magnitude of that offhand statement sinks in. If he were to accept Sherlock at face value: What kind of hell would it be, condemned to a formless, gray, half-awareness. Called forth randomly, briefly, to serve the will of a stranger. To supply their greedy, selfish desires, and then be banished again. For years. Tens of years. Centuries, perhaps. John has never asked Sherlock how old he is. If Sherlock has any interests... how can he pursue them? It was teasing on a magnitude John had never considered. Taunting with an entire life. Here, here's a subject/person/place/philosophy that fascinates you. Ha! You don't get to explore it! Back to the ether. It was exquisite torture, this level of slavery.

"What are you reading up on?" he asks.

"Forensics, right now. Anatomy. Chemistry. Well-known, unsolved crimes." Sherlock answers while still reading.

John licks his lips, then rolls them in, biting at the flesh between his teeth. "How old are you, Sherlock?"

Sherlock looks up again. "That depends entirely on how you calculate it, John."

John waits, but Sherlock doesn't add anything. "Right. Ok. How do you calculate it?"

"I was 34 when it happened," he says. "That was... November of 1781; so 231 years, 3 months and 17 days of being a genie, making me approximately 265 years old."

John stares, aghast. "Two hundred... Oh, Sherlock." There's a long pause, in which Sherlock switches his attention back to the laptop, but his eyes don't move, and his face is strained. "You said this morning that an alchemist did this to you."

"I was arrogant," Sherlock mutters to the glowing screen. "I was a fool. I allowed myself to be... manipulated. Trapped." He twitches his hand and now holds a cigarette, trailing smoke hanging weightless around his fingers. He pulls deeply on it, holds smoke in his lungs like an old friend, before reluctantly letting it escape, to thin into the still air of the flat.

He is slender and ethereal lounging there, very nearly naked and skim-milk-blue in the light of the screen. He's a fucking fantasy made of moonlight and sin, and John licks his lips again. He cannot take advantage. He can not take advantage. Spontaneous kisses aside.

John rises and moves to sit on the foot of the bed, closer and more comfortable... but not too close. "Can you tell me more about it?"

"In my time, I was a student of alchemy. The new sciences. Mathematics and physics. I... became too proud. Too confident. I made enemies, and I did not take them seriously. One such was James Moriarty, who was deeply involved the occult as well as alchemy. He was ever after me to join forces with him. He thought that together, with our superior intellect, we could make undreamed of breakthroughs. I had no interest in his unrealistic goals." Sherlock fidgets and shivers, and his free hand rises to his curls, tugging inattentively. His eyes dart around the room, fall back to his cigarette, and he pulls in another lungful of smoke. It seems to calm him. John waits for him to continue.

"He challenged me one day. His terms were that I be the subject of his latest experiment. A man of hard sciences myself, I scoffed at his conviction that he could wreak magic through ceremony and ritual. So I agreed, certain that his public humiliation would be my reward. He had been a thorn in my side for some time, claiming that the focus of alchemy was to prolong the natural span of life, to transmute the basic nature of things rather than, as I believed, to further the study of the world that already existed around us."

Sherlock pulls furiously at the cigarette, and his other hand is clenched, white-knuckled, in the bedclothes by his thigh. Gold bangles twist and glint in the light, clatter as they slip down towards his elbow, then back to his wrist as he drops his arm. He carelessly taps the ash to the floor over the edge of the bed. John disapproves, but doesn't comment. He edges closer, facing Sherlock, pulls up one leg and props himself on the other hip, resting his weight on his uninjured shoulder.

"So he designed his ritual, and I mocked him openly in front of his followers. I even helped him acquire some of the more obscure ingredients, so certain was I of his failure. He asked me what it was I feared the most. And like the thrice-damned fool that I was, I told him." Sherlock sets the laptop to the side, snapping down the lid, and pulls his legs up, tightening himself into a rigid oval of a man. He drops his head to rest on his knees, and looses a soft sigh.

Without the glow of the laptop, it is dark in the room, save for the yellow light falling through the window onto the desk. The cherry of ash hovers, glows and bobs, and John thinks that Sherlock's hand is shaking. And because he is a doctor and a caretaker, and a decent human being, in addition to being a broken soldier, John lays his hand against against the nape of Sherlock's inclined neck, feeling stretched skin, and the bumps of vertebrae under his fingertips. He imagines comfort flowing across the point of contact, and sweeps his hand up and down a few times.

"What did you tell him?" he asks quietly.

"Slavery. Bending to the will of another. To have to follow the rule of an inferior mind." He laughs hollowly, and lifts his head to look at John. A briefly snarling smile flashes across his face. "And that's what I got. Years - " his voice breaks off.

John brushes his hand to the ball of Sherlock's shoulder, and clenches briefly before sliding down the slender arm, catching on the leather band, clinking through bangles, and then taking hold of Sherlock's long fingers. He squeezes his hand. "I'm sorry," he says. It's utterly inadequate.

Sherlock stares at their joined hands, and the squeezes back, very lightly. "I set myself up for it."

"So what happened?"

"I don't remember very well. I was smug. Moriarty was jumping around, doing his parody of an incantation, and his followers were all stoned off their heads. I thought I would be leaving soon. And then... I don't remember. Then it all disappeared, for a long time, I think. And then he called me out. Out of the lamp. His wish. So predictable! His wish was that I be his slave, for the remainder of his natural life. Then he would pass me to his followers."

John chews on the inside of his cheek and shakes his head. He says, trying to conceal his shock and disgust, "Oh. Sherlock. I don't even. I don't-"

Sherlock slants him a glittering look in the faint light. "It was only for a number of years. He never wished that I wouldn't kill him. Only one wish, you know. You must be careful how you phrase it. He was usually excessively cautious, but I watched very closely for an opening, of course. I poisoned him with his own lead: painted my body with it.

"After that, I was passed around within that cult for, oh, perhaps 140 years."

"Christ. Sherlock. I'm so sorry." John's chest feels tight, with pity and adrenaline, and anger at an injustice he cannot right.

Sherlock straightens up, dropping his legs to sit tailor fashion, back straight and long. "It does no good to rail against Fate, John. It is a waste of time and energy. I learn what I can, whenever I'm able, and that's the best I can do."

John's brain catches up with him a moment later. "You painted your body with it?"

Sherlock looks desperately, ferally defensive. "Yes," he says shortly.

"He – . You – . He was ingesting it off of your skin?"

"He liked to bite."

Oh. Sherlock," John's eyes sting at the thought. "He -" he doesn't know how to finish that thought.

"Of course he used me sexually. Don't be naïve. What better way is there to demean your enemy? And by the wish that I myself had granted him... I had to submit."

"I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry, Sherlock. I didn't know. Please, tell me that was the only time."

Sherlock snorts. "There have been more than a few, who wished for me before they thought better of it. I am, however, a double-edged blade."

John turns Sherlock's hand over in his own, and drags his forefinger along the life line. His hands move up, with a doctor's knowledge and sorrowful confidence, to stroke over tiny pinprick scars at the inner elbow, not entirely obscured by henna'd designs.

At his quick, sidelong glance, Sherlock scowls. "It was not always frowned upon, John. And was the only escape I could employ."

John sits, cringing internally with guilt at his carnal fantasies, at the selfish liberties he had taken only this morning. The thought that other people, nasty, dirty, immoral occultists who already had reason to hate Sherlock, had compelled him to... what had Sherlock said earlier? "...Bend me over and take me, bite me, claw me, spill your seed across my skin and in my mouth, hold me down until you've taken all you desire. You want to hear me gasp, and moan, and grunt with the fullness of you..." and at the time, he'd thought it was the hottest thing he'd ever heard. Now, in this new light, it's a nightmarish recitation of forced sex, and he's sick, just sick.

Silence falls, thick and uncomfortable. John takes his hand off of Sherlock's arm, wondering if what feels like intimacy to him is interpreted as domination or abuse to Sherlock.

Sherlock snags the laptop back up and opens it. He quickly loses himself again in the stream of information, face blank and intent. He is clearly finished with the conversation.

John gets up, a little stiff from the awkward position he'd been sitting in, and pads to the bathroom, more for something to do to stem his anguish than out of necessity. He spends long minutes leaning on the sink, head dropped down and eyes shut tight against the pressure behind them.

When he returns, Sherlock slides towards the end of the bed, leaving room for John to climb in and lie down, which he does. He lies still beneath the blankets, arms crossed under his head. He watches Sherlock through slitted eyes, taking in his concentration, the leashed energy of him, the desperation to acquire information before it is all snatched away again, and his heart wants to break.

"Sherlock," he begins. He's going to make a promise, he thinks. Something other than another apology. Some romantic drivel about forever, and sacrifice, perhaps.

"Tchshh!" Sherlock cuts him off with a hissing, impatient sound. "Go to sleep, John. I'm reading."

And that is that. But John is awake for a long time, watching the beautiful enigma curled at the foot of his bed. His body is a lean whip, shadowed with trailing vines of henna, highlit here and there with the muted flash of glowing stones. He has shed his vest, and the horizontal lines of arm bands, bracelets and trousers segment his body, emphasizing breathtaking physical beauty.

And John despises himself for gazing at the pale chest, pink nipples casting tiny shadows from the glow of the screen.

But when he sleeps, that is what he dreams of. Of rescuing Sherlock from a dark, evil shadow, and bringing him back to his bedsit. Of soothing healing ointment over broken skin and dark bruises, until Sherlock arches beneath him. Of tracing marks of restraint with gentle hands, and then lips and tongue; feeling the heat under his mouth where milky skin blooms red. And the heartbeat below him speeds in time to his own, the body shifting and rising, head tilted back, light eyes closed and vulnerable throat arched, yielding, desperate.

He dreams of pushing his body down against Sherlock, whispering panted promises, trying not to add to the bruising as he holds down those fragile wrists. Laving his way up the proffered column of neck, teething the lobe of his ear, flicking the amber ear-drop with his tongue. And dreams of Sherlock gasping into his hair, babbling blurring acquiescence, legs spreading to capture his thighs, until the heat of their erections mingle and rub. "You're mine. You're mine. I'll always keep you safe-"

Sherlock looks up from the article he's reading, when John starts to mumble and twitch. He licks his lips repeatedly, and his hands fist in the covers. He's protesting, expounding on something, but the syllables are too slurred to comprehend. Sherlock nudges him sharply with his foot several times, and John eventually rolls over and settles back down.

In the very small hours before dawn, Sherlock shuts the laptop for the last time, yawning tremendously. He's been awake for too long, slept for mere hours last night, and even he needs a catnap now and again. He scoots up the bed and pulls the covers back enough to slip in between John and the wall. It's a tight spot, but Sherlock is slender, and John is small, and they can fit.

He stares at the ceiling, as warmth from John seeps slowly into his cool skin, the smell of him stronger when it escapes the confines of the blankets. Sherlock wiggles onto his side, and John falls toward him, drawn to the dent in the mattress. Carefully, bemused by himself, Sherlock weaves their bodies together, until they fit like puzzle pieces. John is warm, and feels strangely like security in his arms. Sherlock sighs, and goes to sleep.