Chapter One
25th June, 2010
Sherlock Holmes is a man of many things. A man of science, first and foremost (though physics he has complete disregard for, Sherlock is certainly not a man of consistency), a man of unparalleled wit, a man of unfathomable taste in quite literally everything and most importantly a man of feeling.
John has long since moved from the Sherlock-is-a-psychopathic-emotionless-recluse party which is currently in power due its many number of followers to the Sherlock-is-Sherlock-and-that-will-ALWAYS-be-a-valid-explanation party of which the number of followers are...few to say the least.
Being a man of the medical profession, John is under no doubt that Sherlock has a mental illness. Perhaps more than one.
Alright, a fucking menagerie.
These are John's observations of Case Study #290110, Holmes, Sherlock:
1. Periods of silence and sulking on the sofa – Depression.
2. Combined with periods of hysteria, rushed speech and going days without sleep – Bipolar Disorder (most likely II – no chance of hyper sexuality).
3. A serious knack for deception and an impulsiveness that leads John to wonder how long Sherlock has been dealing with the devil for 'extra time' – Antisocial Personality Disorder. That's sociopathy to you, Anderson.
4. Serious lack of social skills, lack of emotional reciprocity but an abundance of obsessions. Clay Tobacco Pipes found along the River Thames, scalpels and although John was sworn to secrecy: makeup. Though this was relatively short lived and was of course for experimentation only – Aspergers Syndrome.
5. A dangerously absent relationship with food, and cheeks so hollow that although John thinks makes the man look almost celestial, the Doctor in him thinks – Anorexia Nervosa.
Of course it would be impossible for anyone to ever make a single diagnosis – not that Sherlock would ever allow it anyway – and so everyone had taking to silently calling it Sherlock Syndrome.
John had also realised that in the detective's world, showing no emotion was an emotion in itself and had since realised that his selective expression was exactly that. First of all, Sherlock does not do easy-to-read expressions. Along with every aspect of himself, he likes to make things complicated.
Sherlock does not do happy, he does placid.
Sherlock does not do sad, he does poignant.
And finally, Sherlock does not do lust, he does...well those who had experienced this little Wonder of the World were still waiting for the Oxford English Dictionary, or even Urban Dictionary to come up for a word for that.
John doesn't include anger, because for some reason Sherlock gets angry. All the time. Just like any normal person. But everyone seems to ignore this anomaly because they want to be consistent in their 'professional' analysis of the great Sherlock Holmes.
In exactly 327 days from today, on the worn out rug beside their sofa, John will see for himself just how big Sherlock's heart is, along with everything else. But until then he makes do with the otherworldly contortions of the Detective's face when anger or rather boredom hits him and the occasional glimpse of the man's taut, pearl stomach when his buttons randomly give way. The latter is very infrequent, and John thinks it should be considered as a National Holiday.
So, when John returns back from the shops on this particular day and finds that Sherlock is definitely within the flat, but not a) moping on the sofa, b) prodding that flattened rat that he had returned with last night – carrying it by the tail and looking slight manic and c) sloshing around in the bath, because he would have heard the racket out in the hall he can conclude that yes, something has changed.
There might as well be a red cross on Sherlock's door to warn John of entering. The Doctor only needs to take one look at it to know that Sherlock is in an ... unusual mood. The tie from his blue silk dressing gown is caught haphazardly in the door.
Usually Sherlock is very precious about this item of clothing. Obsessively so. The last time John spilt his tea all over the sofa the man had gone as far as leaping onto the coffee table, bunching up the dressing gown around his waist and refusing to come down until the sofa had been cleaned thoroughly. Sherlock storming into his room after a particularly pointless argument and slamming the door behind him, only to have to reopen it to release the tie from the door was also another memory of John's.
Nonetheless, he knocks on the door lightly, doesn't bother waiting for a reply from Sherlock because he won't get one, and opens the door just enough for him to slip into the room. He nearly trips over the dressing gown at his feet as he moves to sit on the corner of the detective's bed. Sherlock's bed.
The detective however chooses to ignore him, continuing to mumble under his breath.
"Trēdecim, quattuordecim, quīndeci... sēdecim-"
"This is new."
Silence.
John continues, "So come on then, what's so major that even the sofa isn't a good enough place to sulk?"
Muscles tense in Sherlock's face and John realises this is about as much emotion as he's going to get from him at this stage. Sherlock pauses and finally opens his eyes to acknowledge the man sitting opposite him. "I have a ...date."
"A date?"
"Yes John. A date." He says impatiently.
"But I thought you were married to-"
Sherlock exhales sharply, crossing his arms. "It's for a case."
"Well what's the problem then? You're a bloody good actor Sherlock, i'm sure you can at least pretend to show interest in someone, especially if it's for-"
"I show interest in you John."
John knows that Sherlock means this in a completely platonic form, but it's such a rare moment of humanity that he feels the pull on his chordae tendinae. He turns his attention to the quilt on Sherlock's bed, his fingers running over the ripples in the silk caused by Sherlock's fidgeting legs, anything to avoid the man's burning gaze.
John hears the bed creak and then feels the warmth of a body kneeled against him as Sherlock mumbles, "Need help John."
"Hmm?"
Sherlock presses the back of his hand to his mouth and clears his throat. John adores these almost subconscious moments of decorum: the rigid poise with which he holds himself at the table when eating (or when watching John eating), the time the man takes every single day to polish his shoes, of and the almost meticulous way that he laid out of the cutlery for Mrs Hudson's birthday dinner, making sure the napkins were folded just so that give him a glimpse into Sherlock's luxurious upbringing that the man refuses to own up to.
"I need some help."
John frowns at this, his bottom lip jutting out, "What could I possibly help you with?"
"I'm going to need to show affection. As you know this is not my area." Sherlock sighs with contempt, before his voice takes on a much softer, innocent tone "I was rather hoping you might help me."
Although Sherlock had haphazardly thrown the curtains together, the slight gap between them allows a narrow slit of sunlight that suddenly intensifies as the clouds pass over, giving the pair of men the first real chance to scrutinise each other.
The Doctor sees light that sculpts the mans cheekbones, shadow falling into the hollows of his cheeks and contrasting with skin so white he can see the blue ribbon of the detective's external jugular vein run perpendicularly down the pillar of his neck before disappearing near his clavicle, and he wants to trace it to his fingers to covert to it haptic memory and not just visual memory because its more reliable and he's terrified he may forget.
He tries to count his eyelashes, because he doesn't understand why they don't clump together with sleep like his do, and how they manage to frame his somewhat small eyes to become something rather extraordinary. They are recessive; Sherlock's eyes, along with many of his features – straight hair line, attached earlobes, lack of freckles, his adorable inability to roll his tongue and one that John only found out recently, left handedness. But more on that another time.
What John meant was that Sherlock was obviously a glitch in natural selection, a survival of the non fittest, 'the runt of the litter' as Sherlock himself had even claimed.
Yet Sherlock had a genome that would have left Da Vinci, Freud, Watson and Crick and Darwin speechless, 46 chromosomes of skewed perfection that created something John had only read about it in the Bible or in post apocalyptic novels.
"Staring, John."
Sherlock half smiles and John notices no dimple in his cheek. Another recessive quality. "So are you."
"You never stare."
"You always stare."
They both chuckle silently, but continue to analyse as the light fades and they are both covered in a dull amber glow, as thought the pair of them were encased in a cocoon of percale sheets, velvet throws, silk cushions and cotton drapes together awaiting their metamorphosis.
And it all begins with a touch. A surprisingly warm, graceful hand cupping a man's jaw, a hitchhiker's thumb (recessive) pressed on dry lips and said lips pursing to return the touch.
Sherlock hears the slight sound that comes from this movement, the wetness, the suction and sighs sharply, "You kissed me."
John turns his head so that his lips are now pressed against Sherlock's hand, though his eyes are still on the man kneeling beside him, replying with a muffled "Did I?"
Sherlock hears that wonderful 'muah' sound again, and though he can't see, he can feel lips and teeth and tongue and...
John's reminded of when he returned from Lauriston Gardens to find Sherlock groaning as the patches released the Nicotine into his system, his hand was clenching then, and his hand is clenching now, at the back of John's neck to beckon him closer.
He rests his forehead against Sherlock's, coping his movements, only reaching his fingers deep into the curls he finds there.
Serotonin floods into synaptic clefts, binding to receptors, making Sherlock feel so weightless he may as well have wings sprouting from his shoulder blades and John develops what can only be a proboscis in this pupa of sensuality and sense because Sherlock can feel something trailing down his neck and not only is it too long and wonderful to be simply a muscle for swallowing, but because of a 9 year old petit Sherlock, who spent a good seven months being obsessed with both Lepidoptera (which has long since passed – and that's butterflies and moths to the common folk) and Latin (still a glorious love affair).
And so because of this, because of that first Red Admiral that had landed on the little detective's nose, spreading its wings to enjoy the spring rays and causing him to go nearly cross-eyed in fascination, his family cooing at the scene so much Mycroft had a strop because nobody cared about him at his birthday garden party, Sherlock knew.
Proboscis, which comes from 'pro' – forth, forward, before and 'bosko' – to feed/nourish.
And in a typical twisted Sherlock way, he understood, because there was something before him and it nourished him. He was pretty sure that he was feeding John too, because he was sounding extremely...satisfied. So he decided to reciprocate.
Taking the skin of the Doctor's pulse point between his lips, he sucks a little, looking at John from the corner of his eye. He needn't have bothered as he could simply have followed the heartbeat as a metronome and deduced that it was pleasurable to the man before him, but he wanted to see everything change.
"Best not to do this on a first date..." John mumbles, and Sherlock would expect this as a caution, but he feels a hand in the back of his head again and he wastes no time in lapping at the skin again.
A wonderful heat surrounds them both, and Sherlock doesn't know if it's just the increased respiration, the lack of ventilation in their cocoon or more likely the hormones, but he pulls closer, even though they are both perspiring a ridiculous amount and Sherlock's a bit OCD about his personal hygiene and...
John's head is tilted back now, Sherlock placing his tongue flat on his laryngeal prominence and moving up, slowly, slowly, until he ends at the edge of his chin with a flick, leaning back slightly to admire his work as though he had just marked his initials, "We are nothing but unconventional, John."
Some form of super scaled mitosis occurs in the next few moments, with spindle fibres – or in this case pale, gangling limbs and tanned, muscled ones entwining, fusing and pressing. If one body breathes, the other must arch to accommodate, if one beckons, the other follows, but if one moans then they have to stop.
Because neither wants to cross that bridge yet. Or rather neither of them wants to cross that minefield yet. That's a whole other land of variables and what-ifs and emotions that neither of them can yet bare thinking about.
Besides Sherlock is currently experiencing a lot of firsts right now – first nagging thought at the back of his head to either kiss John or run from the room, first fucking fantastic shiver as John grabs Sherlock's hands and puts them on his hips so he can feel them flexing as he rocks into him and thereby leads to the first feel of what he concludes are 8.3 inches of warm, solid John.
And so Sherlock Holmes bursts forth from his chrysalis, an embodiment of testosterone and dopamine and fabled, infant wings that cause him to fall back into the silken sheets bringing his John with him. He is an imago now and wastes no time in testing his 'wings'.
"John" Sherlock pants, because whatever it is, the man that rocks himself between his thighs isn't doing it.
John stops himself and lifts himself up on his arms, "There is something I want to do-"
"Yes John."
John chuckles at Sherlock's impatience, before leaning down slowly so he is nestled against him once again, "But," He begins, his lips brushing against Sherlock's.
"Kiss me John." He manages to mumble in the small space between their mouths, just as John takes his bottom lip and pulls and sucks...
"You sure?"
Sherlock nods. Rubs their noses together for further confirmation.
And so with innocent smiles between them, John kisses Sherlock, and although John has cramp in his arms to hold off some of his weight, and Sherlock is pretty sure he can taste the nasty sugar residue of Coca-Cola, John knows that from now on the air at the top of his lungs will be saved for Sherlock. For just his name alone.
And Sherlock knows that John can no longer have a meagre chamber in his mind palace, that he'll have to build an entirely new memory map, Fort Watson, and it'll have a moat of milky-luke-warm-tea-with-two-sugars and he'll make sure it revolves around the sun and has a moon because sharing lips and sighs and oxygen with John Hamish Watson is dazzling.
As a consequence the old chamber that now lies in the palace is collecting dust, with damp now growing in the corners, the floorboards beginning to rot and the Prime Minister knocking on the door beginning to come in and fill it along with trashy block-buster movies and 'what's hot' this season, is refurbished. Sometimes it has calming pastel walls and luxurious Berber carpet and sometimes there is a blackness trickling down the wallpaper and the light flashes erratically.
The room keeps being renamed, the door continually repainted to cover previous attempts. Sometimes it's Molly (mint green). Sometimes baby (the purest white). Occasionally it's Fatherhood (the purest black), responsibility (a looming violet) or the unknown (gold).
The sound of John's voice stops Sherlock mid-promenade through his palace, "-wasn't for a case was it?"
"You got me." Sherlock sighs, raising his hands slightly in mock defeat.
"Yeah I have." John says, "I really have got you haven't I?" He repeats to himself breathlessly.
The pair roll onto their sides and Sherlock wastes no time in capturing John again, his hand cupping the doctors face, because he has barely touched for years and needs to make up for it. Big time.
Approximately nineteen minutes later Sherlock complains that he can't feel his lips anymore and so they reside to innocent petting, still entwined on the bed.
John runs a finger down Sherlock's cheek and nuzzles closer to his body, "Y'ever going to tell me what this was really for?"
Sherlock frowns, "What makes you think I didn't want this?"
John doesn't reply to that because he can't find one speck of evidence in the pants from Sherlock's lips or the somewhat involuntary clenching of his thighs from earlier that he didn't respond in kind.
"Alight," John begins, sitting up now so that he can breathe deep, clear air and not Chanel No. Sherlock and tries the question from a different angle, "Why were you brooding in here?"
The Consulting Detective snuggles deeper down into the blankets, burying his face somewhat into the pillow, "Can't tell you."
"Will you ever?" John persists, pushing a stray curl that falls in front of Sherlock's doe eyes.
"Sooner or later I'll have to."
John raises his eyebrows, "Is it bad?"
Sherlock turns violently onto his back, "No. Just new." He takes one look at John, a look of don't persist, please, please, for now, let it go. Let. It Go. "Just very, very new..."
"What do you mean a proposition?" Molly says, her fingers paused in buttoning her coat.
Sherlock doesn't reply at first, because he is revelling too much in the pretend obliviousness of one Molly Hooper, because she damn well knows what he's asking, she isn't that simple a woman.
"Must I spell it out?" Sherlock sighs. Write it in those quavers she insists on getting from the vending machine every lunchtime? Sing it with a musical accompaniment from his violin? Tazer it into the cadaver on the trolley? Ooh that's not a bad idea...
"I don't know-"
"I wish to father your child, Molly."
Oh. Oh.
Why am I leaning against the workbench? Why is my face wet?
She hears her name being called and flutters her eyes open "Molly? You fainted." Sherlock states matter-of-factly, kneeling beside her, a beaker of water in his hand.
"Did I just dream that?" She mumbles, wiping a few drops of water from her face.
"Depends," Sherlock begins, moving to sit against the workbench too, "What you mean by that. If you mean that I just offered to impregna-"
"Oh God." Molly flushed, running a hand over her face; the man had to be joking.
"-Then no, you didn't 'dream' it."
"Fine. When?"
"Well I know you ovulate between the 25th and the 3rd so, wait what?"
Molly's been spoon fed the fairy tale romance her whole life, she has stacks of Heat and Ok! all over her flat and enough soppy, trashy romance DVD's to make even a teenage girl nauseous. She shouldn't be so easily persuaded. She should want the marriage proposal, the semi detached house with a husband , two kids and a Renault Megane on the drive. Instead she's choosing well...this.
And now that Sherlock feels John lean down and kiss him comfortingly is way that means alright, let's stop talking and just lay here and respire he knows that not every single detail has to be mapped out right there and then.
He has kissed John. He would, at some point, like very much to do so again. He had arranged to have a child with Molly and would, at some point (in the not too distant future, in fact, four days from now, in this very bed) find himself half naked and pressing into her and feeling sick because it was all too mundane and too 'normal' and not. His. John.
But for now, he lies against the doctor, pulling out his phone when it buzzes in his pocket.
Cold Feet? Molly x
John dozes against his shoulder, a hand clutched in his shirt and Sherlock knows he is standing at the edge of a precipice and he has to jump because it's too good not to. He just hopes John is on the ground waiting for him, watching him in case it goes wrong.
Never. Let's do this. – SH
Question: Should i make this Sherlock and John or Sherlock and Molly in the characters section? Hmm.
Thanks so much to reviews/favourites/alerts :)