Thank you to wiggleofjudas for late night beta services. *mwah*.
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Sarah doesn't see John very often, despite them working at the same place. She's mostly on weekdays during the day and ends up trapped in her office, buried with more administrative duties than she'd like, and he nearly always ends up covering shifts at the last minute, usually in the evening or on weekends. She hasn't seen him for three weeks when she knocks on his office door and enters when he says, "Come in."
"Hello, stranger," she greets with a smile, and she is surprised by how disproportionately glad he seems to see her.
"Oh, dear. Rough shift, was it?" she asks. It's obviously more than that, but she gives him a way out if he isn't in the mood to share.
"Oh. Er. Rough life," he grumbles. He tries to shake himself out of it. "Sorry. What's up?" he asks.
"Paperwork," she answers apologetically. "You forgot to sign a couple things."
"Ah, sorry. Too many late nights," he says.
He looks exhausted, but more than that, he looks sad. She smiles a little. "More 'book events'?" she teases gently.
"Ha," he says, though he smiles. She walks around to his side of the desk and he scoots his chair over so that she can lay the folders open on his desk.
"Where the red arrows are," she says, pointing. There are rather a lot of them.
"Christ. Sorry."
"It's all right," she says, and without thinking, sinks her fingers against his scalp and ruffles his hair.
He freezes, pen hovering over paper.
"Oh, sorry!" she is saying, embarrassed and retracting her hand. She takes a step back, but then he is standing.
"It's fine," he says, and his eyes are strangely intense. "Please don't be sorry."
He seems on the edge of something, and she has to ask. "Are you . . . is everything all right?"
"Yes," he answers, but she's not convinced. "Yes."
She raises her eyebrows.
"Okay, not exactly. Pretty sure I'll never have sex again. But other than that," John says, running his hands over his brow in mortification.
So he's seeing someone. Was seeing someone.
"Sherlock marking his territory again?" she asks, trying very hard to keep the bitterness from entering her voice.
He looks up at her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said."
"No," she shakes her head. This is going all wrong. "No, I shouldn't have pushed-"
"God, that's not-no," John rushes to say. "You can ask me anything, always. Always."
She stops trying to move away, and wonders if this is true. She knows John means it, but there are hard questions bubbling in her throat.
"So. Nothing's changed. With him," she asks tentatively.
"No."
"And nothing's changed with you."
"What do you mean?" John asks, a hint of defensiveness entering his voice.
"You give him whatever he wants. Every time," she explains, her voice quiet. His face has gone a bit hard at that, and she can see him misunderstanding her.
She puts a hand on his arm, and his eyes flick down to it.
"It's all right for you to ask for what you want." Her other hand comes up to his cheek, and he inhales sharply. "You deserve to have what you want," she whispers.
And she seems to have set him off with her words, with her hands, because he huffs out a breath and his blue eyes are dark and shining at her like she has unlocked something inside him.
He leans into her arms, and she's half sure he will kiss her, and completely sure that she'll let him, but instead his face comes to rest against her neck. He makes an anguished sound and goes to pull away, but she slips her arms around to hold him, and then they're so nearly kissing, faces sliding and nuzzling, breaths coming fast, lips parted but not meeting. He presses his cheek against her chin, and she bares her neck to him. Her body remembers him, remembers how good they are at this.
She thinks as loudly as she can, If you need me, if you ask me, I'll say yes.
But then, that's the problem-the asking.
His hands slide around to hold hers, and he's stopping, and when she looks up at him again, he looks guilty.
"This," he says, clearing his throat. "It's . . . not fair to you," is all he can say.
She squeezes his hands. "It's not fair to anybody."