He collapses in your arms as he comes apart in you. His face is anything but lustful when he's trying to find his release. If it were truly in your hands, you would have kept away from him the day you realised that this was becoming something you should rather not venture into. You would've been a come-and-go, for him, even though he wouldn't have been the same for you.
And then, you see the pain he is in, and you know you're tied to him. If there's anything you will do for him, it will be to alleviate it. Pain to alleviate pain. For him, you'd be the battlefield.
"I want to hear you," is all you pant. All the while, he is looking into your eyes as he thrusts into you. How strange, a person inside another, you think as he breaks eye-contact only to kiss you. He smells like the dinner you had—oil, glass noodles, mushrooms—and his aftershave, and the deeper musky pheromones that belong to him alone. His lips are chapped. He does not drink enough, and his habit of running his tongue over his lips does not aid the situation.
You simply wrap your arms around his neck, his strong arms cradling your head. He holds you like he's drowning. You drag him down into a vast expanse. If he wants to drown, you'll drown with him. His teeth against your skin draws blood.
Pain to alleviate pain.
His tongue wraps around yours, and you can do nothing but press firmer against him. You don't care that you're not following the rhythm he's set so studiously. If there's anything you hate about the part where you have to set a rhythm, it is to separate yourself from the touch of his body.
He takes the hint and joins his chest to yours, still not breaking the rhythm. You never want to be apart. You have a strange dilemma. You want to look into his fathomless blue eyes and you want to stay like that. But you don't want to be apart from him for one second. He's looming over you, has blocked the world for you. There's nobody but him. There's no Mary Morstan. There's no Abigail Gabaldon. There's no 'Moran'.
Only John Watson and you.
He's silent, he doesn't take your name. His body is slick with sweat, his mouth open, scrap of pink tongue that you've tasted on many occasions peeking out just so slightly. You know you're mirroring his expression.
He doesn't take your name. You want him to, but then you're not sure what name you would want him to take when he comes apart inside you, when he fills you with him. Would he like Abigail Gabaldon more than Mary Morstan? If you had the two women in front of him, who would he choose?
You sink your fingers into his hair and press yourself flush against him. You never want to spend yourself. You want this to go on. There's nothing like this that you've felt till now. You allow him to mark you. His blunt nails scrape against your skin, as if holding on to his release. His intentions clear in the welts he's put on your body.
You don't know what to make of it.
You always thought that John Watson would be just as smooth in bed just as he usually is in the clinic. Turns out, that is just a facade. A facade like you cultivate every day, like he builds up too. He isn't upset, he isn't weak. British soldier, if only ex, he can't be weak.
You let him be weak in bed. You let him start. You let him touch you. He never jokes the way he usually does. He usually jokes when he is uncomfortable. You derive satisfaction at that.
The room is dark, the light from the street filtering through blinds and falling like quicksilver on his body. Brighter light refracting through the glass, slowed by the curtain and obscured by blinds, drifts across his face and shoulders. Liquid silver. Alien when his muscles move in quick, efficient bursts against your skin and the lights respond. The army still lives in his blood, whispering commands in his ear.
His arms are still around you. He has you like a captive, pressing into your body, not melting. This touch is foreign, and painful. But you don't resist. This is healing him, you see. You let him abuse your body, knowing that you'll have his apologies the next day. He'll say he didn't mean to, and you know that he meant to. Through the intimacy he's only trying to express to you what he's been through. He's only telling you what he has fought and what he has endured. He can never vocalise it. This is the only way he'll ever say those unspoken things. It's up to you to interpret them.
"John," you moan softly. You hear the sounds of flesh slapping against flesh. You're not aroused at that. You're aroused at the knowledge that here, John Watson has taken you to bed finally. His bed.
He doesn't reply. He never replies. You can do nothing but protest against the silence with silence as he leads you in the oldest dance known to man.
The look on his face is not of bliss, or of the relief that he has finally gotten into your pants. You've never seen that look on anyone. You didn't know that it existed.
"I'm close, John," you say, and you hate yourself for saying it, for being the first one to surrender, but he speeds up his thrusts, and your head is swimming. You don't tell him that it hurts, that you're not as young anymore. But this isn't libido, you see. This is what John Watson has kept in himself for all these months. It's the pain, the poison, and you, his antidote.
Within moments, he's close too, you can see the movements becoming urgent, his need for release frantic. You hold on for him, he holds on for you, and even if this is your first time with him, you both spend yourself together. You don't know what to say. You don't know how to describe it. He's your anchor, and you his, that's all you know. Pleasure is nothing compared to the knowledge that it is indeed John Watson. You don't feel his seed inside you. You wish you did.
You cup his face, you wipe the sweat away. He's trembling in your arms, he can't get used to being light instead of the prolonged feeling of the heavy weight which has lifted off him. You run your thumb over his lower lip and you hug his face, running your hands freely over his body. You're afraid to kiss him. If you close your eyes for one precious second, he might slip away again.
Your mind screams at you to run away. The closer you get to John Watson, the more you'll hurt him. If you could only save him from yourself, you'd do that. But you can't stay away. You tried to, but you simply couldn't.
If he wants to fight, let him do that. if he wants to kill, let him. If he wants to hurt you, let him. He's a doctor who went to war. Why would a doctor go to war? Why do men aim for peace through war? Why does a hurt man punch the wall to forget what happened?
Pain to alleviate pain. If hurting you heals him, you'll become the battlefield.
He collapses in your arms as he comes apart in you, his warm sweaty weight above you. His face is anything but lustful when he's trying to find his release.
You had always wondered how it would be like, seeing John Watson at his most vulnerable. The scars on his body, the demarcation of the tan line between shirt and skin, the soft golden hairs on his chest, the warm creamy tone of it. You've never even seen him shirtless, but you know it. It's a conviction. He was a soldier. He followed commands, throwing himself into danger without thinking twice. He killed for his detective. Killing people was a swift, terrible decision for him. He lives and dies with those decisions. It's not to his amusement to completely crumble a fellow being's desire and will to exist. He's not a sadist. He's anything but a sadist.
There's nobody in the world who can make you think of your past more than he does. Even if one of your mission buddies or your ex-boss appeared in front of you, they wouldn't remind you of your past as much as John Watson does.
He is still inside you. You don't dwell on that. You wrap your arms around his body, running it soothingly over his back. It's like an explosion every time you hold him. It's still a wonder that he returns your affections. There's nothing you wouldn't give away to touch him everywhere you want to, but you're careful. He's more guarded that clams guarding a pearl. He'll go shut if you prod him much.
He doesn't ask about your scars. He doesn't comment wryly on how bad a doctor could be to do an appendicitis operation with that sort of end results. You don't have the opportunity to smile at that. He doesn't have an opportunity to give you an ointment for that. You wonder why you've never used that cream yourself. If you had, John Watson would never had kissed the scar over your appendix.
You might not have gripped his head. You might not have wanted the way you want him. He wouldn't have taken your breath away.
You want to give everything of yours away to him. There's nothing you wouldn't do for John Watson. You'd kill for him. You wonder if he'd kill for you.
You never want that day to arrive.
You hoped that you'd find solace in John Watson's arms, that you'd physically put your life behind you, and that now John Watson would complete the process by kissing it away. His sweat trickles from his neck and falls on your chest and moistens the drying ejaculate on your body. You don't mind it. You're lying underneath him, quiet, docile. It was your first time with him.
You've never felt anything like that.
You've had sex with many men, over the past, as a vague way of entertaining yourself, but mostly it was out of need. Stealing plans, killing men in sleep, slitting throats. You've done horrible things to people who deserved them. You had once had an assignment to kill a woman six months pregnant. You waited till her water broke, you drugged her chauffeur, let the baby born and the next day, the woman died mysteriously of morphine overdose.
You don't try and think what John Watson would think of that.
He's not looking at you. His face is buried into the crook of your neck. He's breathing there, breathing you in. His fingers circle a nipple, but otherwise don't seem to make any progress. You let him. Anything for him.
There's something wet on your neck, and when you shift, you realise that he's weeping into your skin.
You are encased in silence, shock, and finally the dawning realisation that you must not speak. It will break him. He's not used to weakness.
He pulls out of you, grabs a robe and walks from the room as fast as he can. You've made a grave miscalculation. There's only one person in John Watson's life who is allowed to be his battlefield.
You wish, for the millionth time, that Sherlock Holmes were still alive.
He's taken to cigarettes. No, not smoking. Just holding the cigarette and playing with it, as if it somehow comforts him. It's hurts you that he still has to go to Sherlock Holmes for comfort.
He doesn't believe in Heaven, and yet he looks upwards. He believes his friend is still there, hidden behind a star, playing hide-and-seek with him. He tries to find him, hoping that maybe the cigarette will get him to come down, come back.
Dead men are not that easily persuaded.
You put on your clothes, and you watch him peeping out of the window. His face is cleaner, he doesn't look like he's been crying.
"John," you whisper, insecure. He turns around to look at you. He's in another world. You don't exist for him. Nevertheless, he comes in and kisses you.
"I am sorry," he says, the touch of his hands on your waist lingering, "I couldn't—I wasn't—"
You roll your eyes. You can't see him broken. You can't see your soldier like that. Therefore you can't be broken, "Oh, don't be absurd! Don't tell me you're impotent after that round of wonder, Captain."
He smiles a little, much more genuine than the ones you have seen, "Well, I always knew. . . I was good. . . "
You smirk, "I will break up with you if you give me that attitude," you say playfully, "Well, then. . . it's late so I better get going—"
"No," he says and you're surprised by the denying. You thought he wanted alone time, "I was. . . I was—well, if you'd like to—?" He gestures towards his bedroom, "come to bed with me. Spend tonight here. With me," he clarifies.
You smile, no pretences this time. He glances at you, and gives you a kiss. His teeth sink into your lips again.
You let him undress you again. You let him hurt you sometimes. It heals him. And then, you see the pain he is in, and you know you're tied to him. If there's anything you will do for him, it will be to alleviate it.
Pain to alleviate pain. For him, you'd be the battlefield.