A/N: I want to give all of you who have favourited, followed and/or reviewed this fic a HUGE cyber-hug. You guys rock haha! It makes me so happy to see so many of you guys are enjoying this! I'm really sorry this took so long, but I made this chapter a bit longer than the average 1100 words to make up for it!
Mini story: You might or might not have noticed that every chapter title has a 'p-word' in it - no, get your mind out of the gutter you dirty-minded mole! I was looking up unusual ones because I want every chapter's title to have one and was lacking inspiration. I found this word: 'parasuicide.'
It basically means 'an apparent attempt at suicide.'
GUESS WHO IT MADE ME THINK OF OMFG. Sherlock totally committed parasuicide and apparently succeeded and John still thinks it was real and I just - it's still too soon for me, okay. *hugs knees and rocks back and forth* Gah. Alright, on with happy things now. Tell me what you think of this chapter pleeeease? (That was me emulating Moriarty by the way.) Or respond to this note, I don't mind I just love hearing from ya'll! Constructive-criticism is more than welcome too. Sorry, this note is terribly long. Hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 4: The Pararthria
John wakes up the next morning with a disheartening thought: Damn, I have work.
Being a soldier who has regained his equilibrium, John's supposed sleeping schedule entails going to bed at around 11 and then waking up at around the crack of dawn. In reality, however, it's much more unpredictable, as would be expected when one lives with a slightly mad genius. So this peaceful awakening of his, unlike the foghorn incident, is relatively strange in its normality.
For all he appreciates the sweet absence of something trying to bash his eardrums into a pulp, he still awakes with an uneasy feeling. It's absurd, but there it is. Though if being a soldier has taught him one thing, it's that sometimes the gut knows better than conscious thoughts. In the battlefield, sometimes it comes down to split-second decisions, life-or-death situations - all one can count on is the training hard-wired into one's brain manifesting itself in the form of a gut reaction.
John feels ridiculous and on-guard at the same after thinking about this particular gut feeling, because he's conflicted. There doesn't appear to be any danger at all, and yet ...
He shakes it off and heads downstairs.
John finds his flatmate in his leather arm chair, back curved where the seat of the chair meets the backrest, jiggling one leg up and down so his foot thumps on the floor. All of this with an air of elegant, posh arrogance. Only Sherlock Holmes could manage something so ridiculously contrary. He's texting, eyes fixed steadfastly to the small luminous screen of his Blackberry above him as his fingers push furiously at the keypad. John catches himself musing that Sherlock texting is somewhat entrancing.
Huh, John thinks and shakes it off, shuffling into the kitchen to make his morning cuppa.
When the water finishes boiling, Sherlock materialises at the entrance to the kitchen and says, "The date is set for Tuesday."
John takes a moment to make the connection. After all, he simply can't be expected to function properly without his morning cup of tea - that would be like asking for toast without a spread - against the laws of the universe.
"As in, the wedding is on Tuesday?" John double-checks as he goes to the fridge for milk.
"Yes," Sherlock drawls, drawing the word out long enough that it plays on John's already tightened nerves.
John shoots him a 'I have a gun and I will use it' look.
Then a thought occurs to him and he asks, "How did you manage to get a date so soon anyway? I've heard there's usually quite the waiting list."
Sherlock's ice-laser-sharp eyes flick away and over John's head, "It wasn't too hard to pull a few strings. It's for a good cause, after all."
John hums noncommitally, gaze rapt on the mug of heavenly drink he is concocting.
Sherlock clears his throat. If John had to guess, he'd say Sherlock is having one of his I'm-out-of-my-depth moments.
"You have work today," he comments.
"Yes, I do," John replies, a hint of a question mark tailing his words.
Sherlock pauses for a heartbeat and then strides away. John watches him go in bewilderment, then turns his attention back to making breakfast.
His day at the clinic turns out to be even more dull than usual. He likes helping people, certainly, but compared to all that's happened and is still happening to him: Afghanistan, Sherlock - the clinic is just a tad mundane. He berates himself for thinking that way, because it isn't what a doctor is meant to think about his patients, no matter who they are or what their ailment or injury is. Maybe he should come to terms with the fact that he's an adrenaline junkie and let it rest at that.
Washing his hands after tending to his last patient for the day, he gets a text from Sherlock requesting his presence at St Bart's immediately. John can't help but feel his heart rate pick up. Almost definitely a new development on the case.
John enters Bart's and quickly finds his way to Sherlock's usual lab. With the amount of times he's been here, both before Afghanistan and with Sherlock, he could probably make it there with his eyes closed. He pushes the doors open to find Sherlock staring off at some invisible-to-everyone-else computer screen conjured up by his brain, with fingers steepled, brow furrowed and obviously thinking at a million miles an hour.
John says tolerantly, "So what's up?"
"Impeccable timing, John," Sherlock prevaricates without a glance in his direction, "You must have come almost as soon as you received my text."
John tries not to feel like a dog and fails. He crosses his arms and shuffles his feet, "Right. What's so important you needed me here right away?"
Sherlock looks at him and John is immediately wary. He knows that look. That look is usually followed by something like jumping out into the open to distract an amateur gunman or taking a dip in the Thames in the middle of winter.
"Sherlock," John says slowly in warning, "Whatever it is you're thinking of doing, don't."
Sherlock's eyes are fixed on John's as he stands, steps regally from his lab stool and begins advancing in a frankly terrifying manner. John finds himself backing away until he collides with a bench. They both stop and freeze, both of their breathing audible in the still, quiet laboratory.
They're less than a foot away from each other.
Sherlock peers down at him, eyes flicking over his face in steadfast scrutiny, a focus usually reserved for corpses and crime scenes, and John finds his insides squirming under the intensity.
The scariest part of all isn't all the warning bells going off in John's head being the subject of Sherlock's gaze. It's the fact that John can't tell if he wants to flee, or wait and see what Sherlock does next.
"Sherlock, what are you -" John starts.
"Shut up, I'm thinking," Sherlock interrupts shortly, irritably.
John's mouth shuts with a click. He feels light-headed, but that could be the adrenaline. No, that's not right. Adrenaline sharpens all the senses.
Sherlock's eyes are still roaming over John's face, picking up God knows what. His eyes are narrowed, his jaw is visibly clenched and his lips are pursed and John shouldn't have looked at his lips because now he can't stop staring. They's blush pink and supple and John's stomach is falling.
John senses Sherlock shift, or maybe he doesn't, but something makes him look up into pale grey-green-blue eyes and hold. Sherlock seems to shake himself and then opens his mouth and says -
Nothing. Instead, he takes John's head in his hands and kisses him square on the mouth in less time than it takes to form a coherent protest.
John lets out the most embarrassing squeak ever and immediately wants the world to swallow him whole. But he also doesn't, because damn it, he's not the one in the wrong here!
Sherlock's lips move and press and tug at John's still ones. Warm, heady... insane.
Sherlock is kissing him.
Sherlock is kissing him.
John has no idea what is happening. His brain has flat-lined. Doctor's diagnosis. He doesn't remember how to breathe. And his heart is racing a mile a minute despite this.
Passing out is looking probable.
It's a mere 10 seconds, but it feels like a decade has passed before John starts to notice things. Like how Sherlock's lips are softly coaxing and gentle moving against John's loosening ones, how his eyes are closed, how his breath smells like peppermint, how his hands are massaging his scalp in an entirely soothing-but-really-not-and-oh-god-what-is-happening kind of way. Yes, passing out from confusion is looking more and more like a possibility.
Then the doors to the lab burst open and startle John into pushing Sherlock away.
"- wasn't sure how old you wanted them, so um, I just grabbed a couple and - oh."
Molly. It's Molly.
Christ, as if this couldn't get any worse. John pinches the bridges of his nose for a moment and thinks, Lord give me strength before looking up to survey the damage.
John stares at Molly in mute horror - a subtler mirror of her expression. She takes in Sherlock and John's much-closer-than-usual proximity and faces. It wouldn't take a genius to work out what they'd just been doing.
John feels like a turd. Molly's obviously had a huge crush on Sherlock for quite a long time, and right now she looks like she's holding back about a gazillion emotions.
"Molly, wait -" John starts, but Molly is already gone, door swinging shut behind her.
Damn. He feels sorry for her, but he also really needs to tell her that this needs to stay between the three of them.
He glares at Sherlock, who has a distant contemplative look on his face.
"Sherlock," John begins, slowly and ever so carefully enunciating his words, "What was that?"
That little white box isn't there for nothing you know ;)