Lestrade's nerves were obvious to Sherlock in the way he stood as he waited by the window while John got ready. Slightly hunched but never quite still. Given he was going to meet a known criminal with the implicit understanding he was willing to be bribed it could actually work in his favour.
He had wanted to talk to him about the casework he had left but even someone with Sherlock's lack of social graces could see now was not the time. He knew from experience that being undercover was uniquely stressful - if exhilarating when it went to plan.
The omega appeared in the living room doorway fiddling with his cuffs, left hand twitching for the gun he had no doubt been told he was to leave at home. Dr Watson did scrub up well. The new shirt looked good with a fitted grey suit. Quite a change from the shapeless jumpers that he normally wore.
'Ready?' John said to Lestrade. Grabbing his keys and phone as he moved towards the door.
'Aren't you forgetting something ?' Sherlock looked at them sharply.
'I don't think so.' John said.
'He needs to scent you John. You are supposed to be engaged.' Sherlock was rather pleased with the momentary tense silence he created.
'He's right.' Greg said finally. 'I hadn't thought but - we should try and -you know- smell right.'
'Of course, OK...how do you want to...?' John blushed to the roots of his hair.
' If you sit down in the chair...' Greg began but was cut off by the detective.
' If it's to be convincing you both need to be wearing as few clothes as possible. Use my room .' He sat back, opening a book at random in a futile attempt to look indifferent. The next five minutes were excruciating as the scenting silently took place out of his sight. When they emerged , looking flustered, he crossed the room to sniff the omega. Trying not to flinch at the strength of Lestrade's scent on him.
'That's better, smelling like him is best in the circumstances.' Sherlock said regretfully, breathing against John's neck closer and longer than the bizarre situation called for. He heard John's breath catch and he had the urge to mark John as his with scent, tongue and teeth. Covering every trace of Lestrade with himself. As he pulled away the policeman was watching him carefully.
'I'll look after him.' Lestrade said, grinning weakly.
'He doesn't need you to. Do you Captain?' John looked at him for a few beats.
'Well, I hope we can look after each other.' He said finally.'Try not to do anything too disgusting or, you know, burny while I'm gone - and for god's sake eat something. You can't live on shortbread.'
With that they left and Sherlock occupied himself with a small experiment concerning the effects of acids on plastics.
############
The awkwardness of the cab journey was cut through by anxiety about what they were about to do and John replaying the way Sherlock had said captain in his head-but that could wait.
'I meant to ask, what are you comfortable with physical contact wise?' Greg said quietly.
'I dunno, I suppose whatever you would do in public with your ex will be fine.' John replied.
'OK, as long as you don't do the same in public as she did we should be ok.' Greg said with a wry smile.
Bugger.
John had forgotten the former Mrs Lestrade had the habit of doing things she shouldn't with young alphas and not even bothering to be discreet.
'Sorry mate - I didn't think.'
Lestrade waved it off, they were arriving anyway. There was a queue outside, groups of young people under-dressed for the weather.
'Student night.' Greg explained as they got out the cab and moved towards a side door. John was surprised, in spite of their conversation, when Greg gently took his hand.
The door opened at a light tap and Lestrade nodded to a beta bouncer, bulky and watchful, who showed them through a short service corridor and into the club proper, which was, bizarrely, heavily scented with patchouli. Greg had been right, they were both far too old for this place. Though he noted that Greg attracted a few admiring glances from omegas half his age.
The mezzanine overlooked the dance floor but heavy velvet curtains and glass partitions meant it wasn't as loud. John recognised Graeme straight away from the papers. Just under six foot with close cropped receding hair and the glow of a man who can afford to spend half the winter in the Caribbean.
Melissa Graeme was a petite, immaculately groomed, brunette. As they were introduced she gushed about how nice it was to meet him and how lucky Greg was. John got the feeling he was on the business end of a well-rehearsed performance.
She squeezed John's arm as she introduced him to the others. The two alphas who worked with Graeme, Richard and George, were polite but reserved. John noticed that while the Graemes were drinking wine they stuck to lime and soda. There was also a young omega, Joe. He was introduced as Melissa's cousin but glances that passed suggested he was or had been involved with Richard, the younger of the two alphas.
They sat down. John, not quite sure what to do when he felt the eyes of the group on him, casually rested a hand on Lestrade's thigh, to his relief the alpha smiled reassuringly.
More wine was produced and poured, they chatted. Films, holidays, Graeme' s charity work. Nibbling delicately round the edges of the reason they were really here. The two lime and soda drinking alphas stayed observant, barely talking. Regularly wandering off to take phone calls.
Finally, in a slight lull in the conversation Graeme sat back looking pleased with himself.
'Joe, why don't you show John round a bit. Take him up to the flats, these two will likely be looking for a bigger place soon.' The alpha grinned at them. It was the sort of presumptuous, overly personal statement that would have pissed John off even if it wasn't coming from someone who was coldly exploiting John's kind for profit, possibly even just a few feet away. He steeled himself and smiled meekly.
'I'd like that.' He said, getting up to follow the younger omega. As he left Greg squeezed his hand affectionately - as a warning.
No going solo.
Joe took him back down the way they'd came in then out the main entrance, they went back in through a temporary looking padlocked door fifty feet further down the street and up four floors in a lift. The building looked almost habitable when Joe flicked a switch that turned on a string of temporary lights. Unfinished wiring and plumbing was neatly taped up but otherwise it looked ready to move in. The finish looked expensive, marble worktops in the kitchen and solid wood flooring.
'You can't see it now but you get a little bit of a river view during the day and lots of light.'Joe had wandered to the window.
'So, you work for Jim ?' John said, making conversation.
''For the last few years, didn't know what I wanted to do when I left school. I'm going to uni in autumn, chemistry. Should have started last year but I deferred.'
John almost began saying his flatmate was a chemist but stopped himself.
'You took a year out?'
'Sort of, I erm- I have erratic heats.' The younger omega turned and walked away a few paces, fidgeting with a hanging coil of cable .
'Sorry I didn't mean to pry- you're getting treatment now though? It helps if you've got a sympathetic alpha.'
John felt genuinely sorry for him. He had treated a few omegas with the same problem and it made normal life impossible. Heats that came with no warning and followed no timetable. They could last as little as a few hours or as long as a week. In one case he had admitted someone to hospital for dehydration after a five day heat, despite his distraught alpha's best efforts to care for him.
'Yeah I'm on the injections. My alpha works with me so we're ok that way. Not that we're bonded or anything.' Panic flicked across Joe's eyes when he realised he'd said too much.
' Don't worry,I'd worked it out anyway. The way you look at each other.' John smiled and Joe fought back his own grin.
'I assume you're keeping it quiet?'
'Missy knows but she pretends not to. Jim-he likes to keep work and family separate. We're careful, you know, scents wise. We better get back.' Joe said finally. He led John back inside but took him the opposite direction round the main dance floor and past the bar.
'Cellar's down there.' He said pausing a moment as he fiddled again with his phone. Just as John was wondering why he was bothering to tell him this an external door opened further down the corridor. Joe gently pulled John back out of sight. Two more bouncers appeared arms firmly round the shoulders of two omegas, one female one male. They led them in and through another door that seemed to go into the body of the building. They weren't just guiding them John realised, they were holding them up. He briefly caught a glimpse of the male's eyes, gone, just like Greg had said. The patchouli now made sense, without it the brothel would be obvious to anyone in the street, let alone the club.
Joe glanced at John once then turned and disappeared into the thronged dance floor. John following with difficulty.
When they made their way back to the main stairs Greg was waiting for him at the bottom, chatting with Richard.
'The licensing sergeant turned up, he's talking to Jim now. Reports of selling alcohol to minors apparently . Think we should make ourselves scarce.' Greg said,sliding his hand around John's waist.
'Thanks Richard, I'll phone tomorrow.' Greg shook the other alpha's hand. Smiling at Joe as they moved away. John gave the other omega as reassuring a look as he could muster.
When they got into a cab outside John was rattled. He needed to tell Greg what he'd seen but he was suddenly paranoid. He felt the cab driver was looking at them far more often than necessary. Finally he curled himself round the alpha, whispering the story in his ear. After that performance, for the sake of appearances, he gave him a lingering goodnight kiss as he left the cab.
He opened the door as quietly as possible. Sherlock must be having what counted as an early night for him given it was just past one. The flat smelled faintly, but not unusually, of melted plastic.
He sent Greg a text given what had just passed.
Sorry, thought you'd want to know and not sure about cabbie .JW
The reply was immediate.
don't worry about it- most action I've had in months;-) -thanks again. GL
He had planned to go straight to bed but now realised that he would stink of Lestrade and that aside , the whole thing had made him feel decidedly grubby. He got fresh pyjamas from his own room and went for a shower. Lathering and rinsing repeatedly under water as hot as he could stand.
Not feeling quite like sleeping yet he moved to the living room and poured himself a modest measure of Sherlock's neglected Highland Park. He didn't bother to turn the lights on as he went and stood at the window.
'I would take one of those.' Sherlock's voice startled him from his thoughts. The alpha came in and sat down in his chair, a shaft of light from the street cutting across him.
'How did it go?'
'Interesting. It looks like his omega's cousin might be useful. I saw something.' John crossed the room to pour another measure of the spirit and brought Sherlock the glass. He sank to the floor at his side, head next to the alpha' s knees.
He told himself it was because it was the only light spot in the room but since their impromptu embrace John had taken every excuse to get close. He couldn't help it, it was hard wired. For his part, Sherlock hadn't objected or pulled away but then, that was hard wired too.
'That was lucky.'
'No, I was meant to. He showed me them bringing in omegas, doped to the eyeballs by the look of them. Walked me past a door at just the right time.' John tossed back the rest of his drink with less reverence than good malt deserved.
'It upset you.' Sherlock said, a hand coming to touch his shoulder. John sort of wanted to shrug the placating gesture off but didn't.
'Bloody right it did.' He arched into the touch instead and Sherlock moved his hand to John's hair. He realised he didn't really want to talk about it.
'What did you do while I was out? Other than try to burn the place down?'
'Mycroft's home from his travels, he visited.'
'Did he bother to bring fruit, chocolate? You know, like you usually would to a recuperating relative?'
'Hardly, he wanted me to do some boring job for him.' The alpha continued to absently stroke his hair, the pressure pleasant against his scalp.
' What was so boring about it?' John shifted to get comfortable, the mix of pheromones and alcohol was making him pleasantly drowsy and he was fighting the urge to nuzzle Sherlock's thigh.
' Something about stolen documents at the Berlin embassy. It's not a detective he needs it's human resources.' John smiled at Sherlock's obvious distaste.
'I'm surprised he even bothered trying with something like that.'
'Well, he was off his game a little I think. Trying to break in a new minion.'
'What happened to Anthea?'
'Nothing that I know of, I suppose he just likes the idea of a spare. Apparently I should have known him, son of one of my parents friends.'
John stiffened. 'An omega?'
'Yes, Mycroft's very progressive in that way at least. No interest in gender as long as they're happy to do as their told for queen and country.'
John seethed. Sherlock might not rate Greg as a detective but he'd worked the Holmeses out well enough. They didn't waste any time.
Jealous alphas were expected, were even considered a little romantic. Omegas though, on the right day, could give them a run for their money. As a naive young medical student in Bart 's A&E he'd treated a few who'd fought tooth and nail over alphas, literally. He'd never thought he'd feel like becoming one of them-until now.
'John is something wrong?' Sherlock shifted in his seat. John realised his arm had wrapped around Sherlock's leg and his fingers were digging into the flesh.
'Fine just a bit...' As he looked around the expression on the alpha' s face had changed, eyes wide, almost anxious. He realised (too late) that he was likely firing off all sorts of chemical signals that would make any sort of verbal reassurance he gave pointless. Chemical signals that Sherlock was replying to-with bells on. His scent, which John was getting used to as a constant, pleasant background buzz had gained an extra dimension.
'You're jealous.' The alpha almost whispered.
'Of course I'm jealous.' John replied,confident, since his body had already given him away. 'You're barely a week off suppressant and your brother's trying to pair you off.'
'I already told you, I'm not interested.'
The omega turned to face him properly, a hand resting on each knee.
'John.' The alphas tone was warning.
'Shh, don't say anything-it's all fine.'
John, holding his gaze, climbed into the alphas lap. Straddling him, but careful about where he rested his weight for fear he damaged the healing ankle. He ran surgeon's hands, precise and gentle, briefly over his face just because, for the first time, he could.
He pressed his mouth to Sherlock's and for a few seconds it felt wrong. The alpha stiff and barely responding. He almost gave up, thinking he'd got the wrong idea somehow. Then though, Sherlock shifted forward, taking the balance of John's weight on to his hands. His tongue pressed into the omega's mouth tentative at first but with exquisite sensitivity once he found his rhythm. The position was uncomfortable but the sensation of being wrapped around warm alpha for its own sake, not just as precursor to relieving the agony of his heat, was too good for John to want to change it. Sherlock finally pulled away with a sigh.
'Can we move..? Sherlock began, as he held John carefully. Fingers spread across his back as if he had been handed something of great value. 'Only if you want to - it's just because...' Sherlock stopped and glanced down at his injury.
John laughed a little. 'Of course we can. You're adorable when you're inarticulate.' He pecked the alpha on the lips again before carefully getting up. He had the urge to lead Sherlock by the hand to the bedroom in some grand romantic gesture but that obviously wasn't going to work. Instead he walked ahead, switching on the lamp and turning down the bed.
They lay down side by side, the alpha, quickly taking the lead again, alternated between greedy plundering kisses and a sustained but somehow delicate assault on his neck. Normally an alpha paying this much attention to his neck would make him nervous, but with Sherlock it felt right. If they did nothing else, John thought, he was fairly sure he could get off eventually just from what the detective was doing to the sensitive spot beneath his ear.
In his hazy state, drunk on pheromones, he didn't realise Sherlock had stopped and was looking at him pensively. His fingers ghosting over John's hip maddeningly close to where he wanted to feel them most.
'You know I've never been with anyone properly.'
'I thought - Victor? When you said you'd never spent a heat together. I didn't realise..' He stopped the motion on John's hip and visibly withdrew.
'We were intimate of course but I was never inside him like that.'
The omega moved closer to him on the bed. Picking up his hand and pressing it back to his hip. Hooking a leg over the Alpha's thigh for good measure.
'Look at me.' John shuffled around using his leg as leverage to force the embarrassed alpha to meet his eye.
'There's no hurry. Just lie here with me and we'll see how it goes. For a start we've got too many clothes on.' John had his own pyjamas off in seconds and couldn't help but smile at the way the alpha looked at him, hungrily but still slightly anxious as he straddled his still clothed hips.
'Will I do the honours?' John slid his hands under Sherlock's t-shirt thumbs brushing the waistband of his pyjamas. The alpha nodded, sitting up and shifting around to allow John to peel off the clothes which were quickly tossed to the floor.
John lay beside him and gently ran a hand from chest to navel. The alpha's hips twitching just a little into the movement. John already knew that Sherlock was nothing like the broad heavily muscled alphas he usually went for. His lean, pale elegance was different, exotically different almost. Sherlock was doing his own appraisal, almost covertly, out of the corner of his eye.
'You can look you know.' John lay back, hands above his head so he was covering nothing for a few seconds and Sherlock's gaze was every bit as focussed, as probing as as he'd thought it would be. He let him have a good long look before rolling over, pressing his arousal into the alpha's hip and running his fingers lightly around his hard cock. It was warm and smooth and heavy in his hand. He felt himself get harder as his fingers traced the skin that would swell into a knot and he could well imagine the white explosion of pleasure as the alpha stretched him - plenty of time for that later.
Though he had barely began to stroke him, an exploration really, Sherlock's breath was catching. Not too surprising if he hadn't came with someone else in years. John wasn't much better and he was making tiny unconscious thrusting movements with his own hips, trying to get friction. He moved to rest between Sherlock's thighs, lining up up their erections and taking them loosely in hand.
He began to mouth at Sherlock's throat as they rutted together. It turned out the alpha had a sensitive neck too and Sherlock gasped and held the omegas hips with a pleasantly bruising pressure as John worked across the pale skin. John knew he'd been marked and he didn't care, but he felt the need to return the favour. Just in case Mycroft brought any more pretty, posh things round. John Watson's do not touch.
He soon felt muscles twitch and tense below him and he pressed their mouths together again, smothering Sherlock's cry, as the alpha came apart, covering both their stomachs. The slick warmth against John's cock was enough to pull him over the edge too. He bonelessly collapsed on top of Sherlock. Violinists fingers brushing up an down his back as they both recovered.
'Well, that happened.' John said finally, propping himself up on his elbows on Sherlock's chest.
'It did.' The alpha brought his hands up to stroke John's shoulders and then pulled him into a hug. It was warm and safe and felt absolutely right. Apart from the stickiness.
'Cleanup time I think.' John reluctantly rolled off and wiped off the worst with one of the T-shirts before going to the bathroom and coming back with flannels wrung out in hot water. He wiped them both, thinking that strangely, cleaning Sherlock was almost more intimate than what had just passed and realising that he'd never felt the inclination with any other alpha.
Twenty minutes later, both were resettled in bed with tea.
'So, do you have to do anything today?' John was looking forward to a day off of doing very little. Except possibly spending more time naked with Sherlock.
'I have to have blood taken in the afternoon and I should really see Lestrade at some point.'
'Well, I think after that it's fair to suggest that your hormones are going back to normal, don't you?' John said smirking. 'Anyway, you never did tell me. What got you so excited in that alley the other day?'
'That's what I need to talk to Lestrade about. His cold case. The victim is his grandfather.' Sherlock looked suddenly serious.
'Oh so...the murderer could be his grandmother.'
'Exactly, except it's not. Which should be a relief but..it may be his father.'