Other Firsts
The first time John realized how damn sexy Sherlock's voice is to him happened to be the first time he heard Sherlock cry out in pain.
The sound of that man, not so much screaming, but almost... almost cooing, in agony, went straight to several places inside the good doctor:
-First and foremost: his mind, since he was a doctor, and he desired to heal and make pain stop.
-Second: right into his heart. While he had already come to terms with the fact that he cared for Sherlock in some sense, he hadn't really appreciated how much he cared for Sherlock until...
-Third: the sound went right to his groin. That was the first time he'd ever been hard at the thought of Sherlock.
It happened so fast, he did not have time to catalogue all those feelings, because the Doctor part of his mind took control; a reflex from years as an army doctor - always fix the injury first. Everything else could be dealt with later.
He was out of his chair and into the kitchen and onto his knees were Sherlock was on the floor, staring at two, rather nasty burns on the palms of his hands. He'd somehow managed to burn himself good.
John placed his hand on Sherlock's shoulder and looked into those green-grey-blue eyes, that were welled with tears, already coming down those perfect, hollow cheeks. But he was still quite lucid, in spite of the pain. Sherlock was a better man than that, and John was impressed, as he forced Sherlock to his feet and guided him by his shoulders to the sink where John turned on the cold water and thrust Sherlock's hands into the stream.
"You're going to be alright," he told the detective, "alright." For a moment, John thought maybe the detective had been so keen on John moving in because he had a tendency to hurt himself so having a doctor around would be good decision.
Sherlock stared down at his burning hands, the water running over them. He'd have gotten there eventually, after he peeled his mind out of the pain and back into the logic. (The only thing that could always take a hold of his mind, fully, at least for a moment, was pain. That is, it was the only thing that could take full hold of his mind until John bedded him). But he was glad to have the doctor helping him make the pain stop quicker than he ever would have.
That and the way John stood over him, left hand firmly on Sherlock's left shoulder, other hand on the sink so his hand draped across Sherlock's back, part of him pressed against the taller man, was rather comforting.
John knew better than to get an injured man drunk. He really did. But having applied ointment to his hands and wrapped them up tightly, and gone upstairs to errr... have a cold shower (or maybe it was a good wank, hard to tell with John Watson), being injured had made Sherlock insufferable.
John, who so far in Sherlock's life, had proved to be the only one able to at least half keep-up with him, also the only one willing to try to keep up with him (at least, the only one willing to deal with Sherlock without a stiff drink or a pistol every day), had now discovered that being injured made Sherlock Holmes the most obnoxious man in all of London, maybe in all of England. And if he didn't shut up sometime soon, or at very least, change his hostile body language, John was going to strangle him (and Lestrade would probably shake his hand before taking him into custody, and Sally and Anderson would probably carry him out of the flat on their shoulders).
Instead of acting upon his homicidal urges, he poured Sherlock a glass of brandy. Which he naturally refused to drink.
John sat across from him, watching Sherlock (with his hands looking like bunny paws in all that white gauze), stare at the glass of brandy he held in two fingers of his right hand.
"Did you know," John began, swishing his own glass around, trying to look as thoughtful as possible, "That when Lord Nelson was killed, they brought his body back in a barrel of brandy?"
Sherlock, who did not know this fact for whatever reason, was about to ask, why not rum? Thought better of it and downed the glass.
If it was good enough for Lord Nelson's body, it was good enough for an injured, sourly-mooded Sherlock.
Now Sherlock is drunk. Very drunk. John's a little tipsy too, but he's been in the army and Sherlock clearly never drinks, so John's holding it together a bit more than Sherlock.
Sherlock who is currently lying on the floor looking up, and for once in his life, not speaking, not complaining about how much his hands hurt, or how hard it is to pick anything up with that much gauze on his hands, and why, John, why does there need to be so much gauze?
John is just tipsy enough to think about Sherlock's voice, how he cried out in pain, but it sounded almost like... John drops the thought and just looks at the man, he seems angelic now. His tongue poking out, just a little bit, at the corner of his mouth, between his teeth, he's thinking, and John can actually see how labored it is. How his brilliant mind is trying to paddle through the alcohol, upstream, without the proper equipment, and then he does it, Sherlock opens his big mouth again.
"So is this what you people feel like all the time when you think?"
(That arrogant jerk). John kicks him in the ribs. Not hard.
Hard enough that Sherlock begins to laugh, and rolls over to his stomach so he is out of John's kicking range. "Hey, I'm injured enough already, you bastard," Sherlock says. John's never heard him curse. Apparently, brandy makes Sherlock curse (and John finds it kinda hot. That expansive vocabulary and that pretty mouth and he'd resorted to cuss word that was more an insult to one's mother than oneself).
Sherlock stops laughing and (a silence).
He lays, flat down on the living room floor, his hands up by his head, breathing evenly and looks up at John.
John looks down at Sherlock. The room is tense, and quiet, and somehow (strangely) comfortable.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sherlock asks, seeming suddenly almost sober. (A stupid question, yet again, from the great detective).
"Probably not," John says dryly. He's never thinking the same thing as Sherlock.
Sherlock rolls back over. John cringes, aware that he is going to spend the next few weeks constantly putting gauze on Sherlock's hands, because, heaven forbid Sherlock be still when he's not high on nicotine. Why, with is injury, he couldn't just lie peacefully on the couch, rest and get better like a normal person, is beyond him.
"I'm thinking," Sherlock is so intoxicated his voice goes high and shrill and John wants to laugh but doesn't.
Instead he cuts him off, "Time for bed."
Sherlock, drunk, scoffs (it makes him look like an adorable, little kid), "Already?"
Later on, when he's sober (and less annoyed with Sherlock), John will be embarrassed and confused by what he does next. He picks up Sherlock, throws him over his shoulder and fireman carries him to his bedroom.
He kicks the door open and drops Sherlock into the center of his bed, rather roughly and pulls off his shoes, almost entirely in one, fluid movement.
"Get some sleep," he orders the man.
Sherlock, inebriated, injured, drowsy (and turned on, but John was going to pretend he didn't feel that), picks at his shirt, looks like he might cry, throws his head back and begs, "John, help me!"
For the first time of many yet to come (though he doesn't know it), John helps Sherlock undress. But he is clinical about it. A doctor. Unbuttoning mauve shirt and helping him out of it without tearing the gauze off his hands, then, trying very hard not to think anything uncouth, pulled off Sherlock's belt and yanked off his pants carefully, leaving Sherlock's scrawny body on top of the covers in his undershirt and boxers. Yes, Sherlock Holmes wears white and blue stripped boxers over his perfectly smooth, pale legs, and John won't get the image out of his head for weeks.
He pretends not to notice how Sherlock stares up at his face while he undressed him, a small smile on his lips (tongue barely peaking out at one corner) and a much wider smile in his eyes.
John tells him, once again, "Go to sleep," and leaves Sherlock's room to return to the bathroom for a cold shower. Again.