AN: So I checked a moment ago, and guess what? 10,000 hits on this story. I'm chuffed, really I am. You all are awesome.
And if you've noticed that updates have been a bit slow the last week or so, don't fret, I haven't abandoned you, I just finished up my exams this week and my work schedule has been similarly unforgiving, but Christmas break is here, and you shall have more!
It had been four bloody hours, and John had had it.
Sherlock's brain was going at near light speed, and as a matter of consequence, so was his body. He couldn't be still when he had a lead to pursue, he craved elucidation during a case the way most people craved orgasm during sex. Right now, he was aching, physically aching with the strain of waiting around for it, doing nothing. He had started with pacing random patterns around the sitting room, then he had fetched his violin and scraped erratically at it as he continued to pace. Within an hour he had begun talking to himself as he pounded around the flat, and as if the fidgeting and the screeching weren't bad enough, after a while the snarling and muttering were finally too much for John to tolerate.
"Sherlock…" he pleaded, head buried in his hands.
The detective in question paid him no mind, dragging out a long, keening note and growling "…goes hand-in-hand with pyromania."
"Sherlock!" He bellowed finally, "shut the hell up!"
He paused, flourished his bow dramatically like a fencing foil, and dropped the violin to his hip. "Problem?" He demanded, voice dripping with resentment.
"Yes, it's a problem, you're driving me absolutely bloody mad!" John fumed, pressing his hands to his ears.
"Oh really?" He spat "Welcome to the inside of my brain," He plucked defiantly at the strings and spun in a circle on the spot, feet veritably twitching with agitation.
"Sit down!" He shouted, pointing to the chair as if he were putting a child in time-out.
"I don't want to sit down!" It was a full-blown shouting match now.
John leapt to his feet and crossed the room, drawing himself up as much as possible, hoping that his determination would match Sherlock's considerably superior height. "I will sedate you, Sherlock, so help me God!"
"You just try it." Sherlock snarled, bending down slightly to force the challenge into John's face.
John clenched his teeth, and Sherlock braced for a firm punch across the face, but what John actually did was not quite what Sherlock had expected.
His hands shot up and his fingertips clamped to either side of the detective's head, locking him in place, and then began to gyrate in slow circles.
Sherlock froze, bristling like a feral cat, and everything in him screamed to pull away, but he was arrested in that impulse almost immediately. His cheeks burned right down to the roof of his mouth, but that odd little circular motion was so…soothing. He stood motionless and John's hands kept working, thumbs on his temples, the rest of his fingers splayed through his hair, massaging his brain. He had never thought that he was susceptible to hypnotism, he had defied a number of psychiatrists in such attempts, but now…now…this…ungh…
He sank, slowly, smoothly, to his knees and his head, through no fault of his own and entirely without his intention, tipped heavily against John's left thigh. The doctor balked and began to stammer a protest, but his hands didn't stop, and Sherlock didn't respond except to exhale loudly. He couldn't have said with any certainty how long he remained there, his forehead soaked with the warmth radiating from John's leg, pleasurable tingles lapping at the corners of his overworked brain, but he could say definitely, absolutely, how badly it hurt when John's knee jerked reflexively and cracked him in the chest as the doctor jumped and gasped "Christ, Mrs. Hudson!"
Sherlock coughed painfully and rocked back onto his heels, glaring murderously upward.
"Mrs. Hudson, I –" he stuttered, his face flushing bright pink, "this is definitely not what it looks like."
Their interloping landlady was trying very admirably to hide her giggles behind the hand pressed to her mouth. "Oh it's no business of mine, dears," she snickered, waving the comment off like so many flecks of dust, "but do remember to close your door if you need a moment." She made a great show of "whispering" the last word, though if anything it was louder than the rest of the sentence.
John could only tilt his head back and sigh in exasperation.
"I've just come up to drop off your mail, the postman confuses A and B at least once a week," she brandished the handful of advertisements defensively as she crossed the room to set it on the coffee table.
"Yes, erm, thank you…" John rarely combined the throat-clearing tell and the lip-moistening tell, but he must have been rather seriously embarrassed, because he employed both. As if the flush in his neck and face wasn't enough.
"I'll just leave boys you to it then," she offered, backing out of the room and shooting them one last amused look as she shut the door.
John turned to Sherlock immediately and threw out his hands. "Sherlock, why didn't you say anything to her?" He hissed, lacing his fingers behind his head and taking a step back.
Sherlock straightened up and brushed himself off indignantly. "Oh, excuse me, I was busy having the wind knocked out of me." He growled.
"Yes well…sorry...but I don't see why you had to…" he trailed off, looking down awkwardly at his thigh and groaning slightly.
"What would I have said in your defence?" Sherlock demanded, "Beg pardon, Mrs. Hudson, the good doctor was just rubbing me a bit. I found it very relaxing. Does that really sound better? Besides, her opinions regarding the nature of our relationship were determined the day we moved in, nothing either of us says or does will change that."
"Oh, god…" John sighed, dropping his hands to his sides again.
"Oh, what does it matter?" Sherlock snapped, "Your fear of my Y chromosome is, frankly, ridiculous."
"It's not that! I just…" he forced an exhale through his teeth and shifted his weight. There were a few tense seconds in which he said nothing, but to Sherlock's surprise, he smiled and began to chuckle slightly. "It just occurred to me…" he muttered, planting one hand on his hip and pressing the other over his eyes.
"What?" Sherlock sneered.
"As a matter of consequence," he qualified, "and in a purely circumstantial sort of way, you and I have slept together. Twice."
"Problem?" He repeated, brows furrowed.
John, like some sort of mechanical toy that had short-circuited, made the executive decision to simply walk in a tight circle and look up at the ceiling before repeating. "Is it a problem?" He sighed, "I guess it isn't. I feel like it should be, but it isn't, for some reason, because when anything is applied to you, Sherlock, ordinary rules just…pfft." He flung his hands out dismissively.
"So" Sherlock concluded for him, as the doctor retreated to drop heavily onto the sofa, "regardless of what you might say, Mrs. Hudson will likely continue to assume that I was…" he waved his hand absently, "attempting to fellate you - " John groaned something that sounded like another "oh god," but he did so quietly " – but considering that that certainly wasn't the case, you will do well to stop concerning yourself with it."
"I suppose I might as well," he moaned, pressing his palms to his face. "I have a strange feeling that this won't be the last…sexually ambiguous situation we find ourselves in…"
"It certainly isn't the first," Sherlock reminded him.
John giggled through his hands and Sherlock couldn't help but smile, resting his hands on his hips and tapping his bare foot.
"I need tea," John decided, dropping his hands to his knees and giving Sherlock a look that told him he needed tea as well.
"Please." Sherlock agreed with a smile, turning to collapse into the grey chair and tilting his head back.
Well, he thought, watching John putter around the kitchen, whatever that was, it worked.
It had been eight hours, and John was on edge.
"Ugh, change it over, I hate when they do that." He snatched the remote control from Sherlock's thigh before the detective could even make a move toward it and poked rather viciously at the buttons.
Sherlock did not protest, but he tilted his head carefully to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that John found so objectionable before the channel flicked out. He had been paying exactly no attention to the programme until that exact moment.
"You hate...medical dramas," he extrapolated, glancing over as John skimmed vacantly through the few remaining channels, "because, as a doctor, you find them frustratingly inaccurate."
John paused, pursing his lips. "Well, in general, yeah, they're annoying, but I specifically hate it when writers decide that the easiest way to initiate shagging between sexy male lead A and sexy female lead B is for someone to collapse or drown or have a fit, then the other somebody has to give the first somebody mouth-to-mouth. And then suddenly it's snogging and carrying on..." He trailed off and took a placating sip of long-cold tea, realising that his fervour was perhaps a bit misplaced.
"It's a trope. People are shallow, people will sexualize anything." Sherlock said dismissively, returning his attention to the telly. A subtle stillness fell over him as the bluish artificial light flickered over his pale face.
John distracted himself with his mug, not quite taking his lips from the rim for a moment. "It's not...sexy," he murmured, suddenly grave as he cleared his throat and lowered his cup, "In real life, it's...it's terrifying. You're there with someone who's blue and...motionless...and dead, effectively, and you're desperately trying to...to breathe life back into them. And if you fail, it's over...it's your fault. You couldn't save them." His hand was shaking so violently that he had to lower his mug to his thigh to keep from spilling it. He set his jaw and refused to look directly at Sherlock. Sherlock didn't remember, of course, he had been unconscious, there's no way he could have been aware of that moment John had spent frantically reviving him, but John remembered vividly enough for the both of them, and Sherlock certainly wasn't stupid enough not to realise. The disquiet radiating from him was enough to soften even the detective's penetrating gaze.
Dozens of men had died under his hands, and he felt some measure of guilt for each one, he carried it with him even now, but in his head he knew that none of them had truly been his fault. He had done his best, done everything he could, but their wounds or their illnesses had beaten his expertise and care. He had accepted this each time, with resolve and with dignity. But now, now he shook as he sat beside his warm, living, breathing friend and could think of nothing but if he had died, it would have been my fault.
"John?" Sherlock invited, barely a whisper, as he turned his gaze to the floor.
He swallowed. "Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Slowly, John nodded. Breathing deeply, he gradually collected himself, adjusted his grip on his mug and glanced encouragingly at his eccentric friend. "I suppose it would have seemed a bit less serious if I had just pretended you were some, I dunno, daytime drama actress." He dared to smile slightly and was relieved when Sherlock did likewise. "Although I'm sure you would have preferred that I was the sexy actress, seeing as I ended up in your bed all night."
Sherlock made perhaps the most mirthful snorting sound John had ever heard and tipped his head back onto the sofa, smiling broadly.
"Oh, right," John remembered, slightly embarrassed, "women...not your area."
"That's not what I said," Sherlock insisted, "I said girlfriends are not my area."
John was slightly taken aback. "So...what the hell does that mean?"
Sherlock was silent for a moment. "Let's just say," he decided, "that if I ever met a woman half as interesting as you, I would marry her immediately. And then I would wake up from the ridiculous dream I was having."
John wasn't sure if he should feel flattered or uncomfortable, but what he did feel - in spite of himself - was mostly flattered. "I'll make you a deal then," John grinned, still eager to lighten the mood a bit. Sherlock lifted his head from the cushion and looked at his friend dubiously. "If we make it to...let's say sixty," he continued, "no, sixty-five, just to be safe. If we both make it to sixty-five and we're both still...peculiar, bachelor flatmates, I'll marry you just to see the priceless looks on the faces of the Yarders."
"You're three years older than me," Sherlock pointed out, apparently completely unfazed.
"Yes, and that gives me three years of technicality space to get out of that agreement if I reach sixty-five and realise what I've done with my life."
Sherlock chuckled. "What makes you so sure I'd have you?"
"Oh, will you shut up! I'm just making an effort to be nice to you, not that you deserve it."
Sherlock giggled uncontrollably and John couldn't resist a broad smile as he sighed.
"For the record, John," Sherlock added, "I will consider your proposal carefully..."
"Stop that, it wasn't a proposal!"
"Would our relationship then necessitate physical intimacy? Because I must warn you, I'm a rather violent sleeper..."
"Christ, this is the last time I make a joke at my own expense for the sake of the world's only consulting detective."