August 27th 2010
If anyone behaved the way Sherlock had done for the last two days, they wouldn't get away with it. There would be smothering by friends and relatives, perhaps appointments. But Sherlock is, well, Sherlock, and as John will say in the future 'he does all that anyway'.
You know, the not eating. The not sleeping. The sometimes-not-talking-for-days-on-end. The screeching and wailing of his violin, which is only an extension of himself, really.
So, nobody notices. John presumes Sherlock is just going through a dark phase, which does happen sometimes, he'll convince himself, lack of cases and all that. John continues to prepare meals, has 'conversations' with the Detective and leaves his bedroom door open a tad at night, just in case. All are well and truly ignored by Sherlock.
The man himself spends the hours festering on the sofa, drowning in thought. But it's not thoughts of a possible epidemic of the Chikungunya virus in New York that he read about a few days ago. It's not even on this week's alterations to the Underground and London's major road works – which he usually updates every Friday. No, his mind fixes on a rather different aspect of his life entirely.
It all comes to a head when John passes Sherlock a glass of water, and it slips right through his fingers and smashes onto the floor. Sherlock doesn't flinch. Hell, he doesn't even blink.
"Right, come on you," He sighs, helping Sherlock onto his feet, "Let's stop those thoughts, hmm?" He adds with a rather intriguing little grin that has Sherlock shuffling behind him towards the bedroom.
The first time Sherlock wakes up that night, its fine, it's all fine. Eyes creep open, and he's barely pulled back his arm from dangling over the edge of the mattress (it's just one of those...those human things isn't it? Not feeling comfortable with exposed body parts whilst trying to sleep) when he feels a hand bunch in the sheet atop his chest and John's head nuzzling his shoulder, mewing a little in protest at the fidgeting. Sherlock places his hand atop John's, smiles unintentionally, notices his pining and becomes annoyed with himself, before eventually drifting asleep again.
The second time Sherlock wakes up that night (technically its morning now, it you want to be picky, or you know, want to be Sherlock) it's more than fine. He either hears John first, or feels John first, he's not particularly sure. John is half on top of him, sucking at his nipple lazily, and his hand palming the skin around it.
"Mmmm, what're y'doing?" Sherlock slurs, voice thick with sleep.
John shrugs his shoulders, lips still latched onto skin but skimming downwards, sloppily kissing every rib and all the valleys in between.
"S'nice..."
After stretching a little, Sherlock cups the back of John's head to catch his attention. He gets a lazy smile in response before John - his eyelids still heavy and the blush of sleep blooming his cheeks - slips completely under the sheet.
Nothing else happens for a few moments after that, Sherlock knows John's lying on his stomach between his thighs based on the changed contours of the sheet (and the fact that he can feet hot breath through his pyjamas, against his right inner thigh that's enticing enough to keep him awake, cheers for that John) but the Doctor doesn't exactly seem to be in any rush.
This doesn't necessarily bother Sherlock, he's all for slow, languorous, (but in no ways half-arsed) explorations between the two of them. Like when John got hacked off at Sherlock's ability to write a 'novel length' email in just a matter of moments a couple of days ago, and decided to wretch one of his hands from the keyboard. John tickled Sherlock's palm with his tongue, pressed lips so firmly to his wrist Sherlock was sure he would feel a pulse and then proceeded to suck his thumb until it positively tingled all the way from his crown on his head...to well...the crown near his other head.
(Admittedly, Sherlock then had a bit of a strop because the email he had sent missed three apostrophes, two commas and one misplaced semi colon. According to him that made him sound like 'a moronic imbecile' and the sexual tension soon reduced to just tension, that only returned to its predecessor later that evening once John coaxed Sherlock into eating by passing food into his mouth from his own lips. That gets rather messy with Pavlova in case you were wondering, John will be sure to thank Mrs Hudson most enthusiastically when he next sees her.)
The point trying to be made is that Sherlock likes it when John takes his time. But taking your time is a damn sight different to not actually doing anything at all, which is what John's decided to do this very instant.
Thankfully, Sherlock's still in that heavy–limbed, 'wool-stuffed-head' place between asleep and properly awake, so buries his head deeper in to the pillow and-
"...Wakey wakey..."
Sherlock has just enough time to decipher the muffled sound from under the sheet, before he is thoroughly consumed by John's mouth - for the second time since they had come to bed. He breathes in air through his clenched teeth so sharply they sing with sensitivity and he suddenly finds that his body at least, is very, very awake.
He could have sworn he wasn't hard, and he could have sworn he wasn't naked. In a moment's clarity where John stills, Sherlock notices the distinct pressure of the waistband at the front of his trousers tucked just under the base of him, pressing and rubbing with just the slightest movement from either of them. John may be still half asleep, but even Sherlock knew that this particular arrangement of his clothes was intentional.
John's less cautious this time around, whether from it's from his half-conscious state or not, Sherlock isn't particularly sure and he doesn't particularly care, because at that precise moment he feels his cock hit the back of John's throat and the hum of his larynx rippling across his glans and this, this right here, is all that could ever matter.
"Uhhhhhhhhhh..." Somebody groans loudly, muffled by the back of a hand.
Then Sherlock stills for a moment, because it was him making that shameless sound (although now his cheeks are prickling a little) and John's not disgusted and he's certainly not stopping. Sherlock pinches John's head between his thighs this time around, as he feels a warm, deliciously sweaty palm around his base, an heir for John's mouth on the upstroke and an ancestor for the down stroke.
John pulls away for breath, with a long lingering suck on the head and Sherlock's cock sways a little from the enthusiasm, slapping against John's lips. It's one of those rather –awkward – yet – stupendously – arousing – at – the – same – time kind of things. Like finger sucking. Or that string of saliva that sometimes happens when you pull away from a kiss.
With lips barely pouted around the head, simply lingering to test Sherlock's sturdy-as-a-triple-bond restraint, John reaches his hand downwards and cups Sherlock, holding him more firmly in his mouth as the Detective squirms from the added stimulation.
Sherlock rocks his hips then, mind still drugged with being forced out of Stage 4 sleep but his body thoroughly awake and John eagerly responds to the cock pressing against his lips by swallowing it once more.
And oh God, it tingles. With one hand buried in his own hair and the other clutching at the sheet, he pants quietly to himself as that eloquent tongue curls around him, John beckoning him to the brink.
It's doesn't feel like the pair of them are simply entwined together, in the early hours of the morning, with linen sheets to keep them warm and wandering hands to keep them hot. The pair of them so lethargic and inebriated in sleep it almost feels like a scene from a parallel universe.
Well, that's according to John, and his interest in that genre. In the past, Sherlock had wasted no time in showing his displeasure by bunching up his face and scoffing 'Science Fiction? Is that not just the quintessential oxy-moron? Surely the main concept of science is that it is concrete.' John retaliated by commenting on Sherlock's multiple chins. It's didn't go down well.
Sherlock on the other hand, feels as though he is replaying a scene from the chasms of his mind palace, an inferior mirage with the bed as his great oasis, the fata morgana only allowing him blurred visions of the Fleur de Lis ceiling wallpaper and his own knuckles clenched white in the sheet.
The pair of them are in fact so stunningly half conscious that in the morning they'll both pretend it never happened. Or perhaps wonder if it ever actually happened at all (John, with a frown of perplexity maintained through all of the morning). Or maybe know that it happened but refuse to own up to it, due to their rather scandalous groans of abandon (Sherlock, who dramatically flourishes the paper in front of his face when he makes eye contact with John from across the table).
With time John finally find a rhythm, slow and teasing, with lovely thin lips firm and unyielding. It's somewhat the same time as last time, Sherlock notices. There's the involuntary muscle twitching, the groans that he barely acknowledges have passed his lips, the firmness of John's grip versus the looseness of his tongue, that addictive feeling of clandestine and intimacy, it's all the same but it's in no way monotonous.
There is no Habituation here; there is no way to get used to this.
"Ohhhh John, think I'm-" Sherlock says, or thinks he says.
John replies in his own, non – vocal way, increasing the pace, adding more pressure with his fist until Sherlock's orgasm hits him so hard he's unloading John's name from his lips, his back from the mattress and something else entirely down John's throat.
As his collapses back onto the bed, he immediately reaches for the man who has emerged from under the duvet, flushed and aroused himself he imagines. He doesn't know for sure – his eyes are already drooping from fatigue.
Fumbling for the waistband of John's boxers is somewhat difficult, especially when he feels the firm grip of John's hand around his wrist.
"S'alright," The body next to him mumbles, moving Sherlock's hand to his hip so he can lie against him once again, "Y'not ready. Let's wait."
Sherlock rumbles his protest/approval/retort (it depends on the position of his eyebrow's and it's too dark for John to notice), and places a sloppy kiss to John's forehead before falling into unconsciousness, his legs still burning with lactic.
The third and final time Sherlock wakes up, his eyes thrust open so quickly there are white dots dancing in his vision. He suspects – going by his breathing rate and perspiration – that he would have found himself sitting upright if it weren't for the weight of John's arms strung across his stomach holding him down.
A frantic search for the threads of his dream prove fruitless and so Sherlock untangles himself from John, swings his legs over the side of the bed and undergoes his second most common activity ('Ugh breathing. Breathing's boring.' Boring perhaps, but really rather necessary in the whole 'staying alive' scenario), Sherlock thought.
He did a rather good job of it, for about two minutes, until he realised his crotch was cold. A glance down leads to a rather furrowed brow and an audible 'tut' as Sherlock tucks himself back into his pyjamas, before standing up, grabbing his phone (05:07 am) and heading for the door.
Somewhere between waking up and leaving the room, Sherlock pauses and leans down to press a kiss against John's shoulder, lips lingering to feel the quiver of the trapezius muscle from the sensation. He indulges himself, and adds another couple of kisses that lead up to John's nape pausing only when he feels a little flutter in his chest. He isn't about to go telling anyone about it.
There is an eerie stillness in the flat: no cries from the violin, no ominous light source from a microscope looming in the darkness of the kitchen and no movement from neither post – nightmare ex-Army Doctor nor self induced insomniac of a Detective.
As Sherlock huffs out a sharp breath of impatience, he wonders once again if this moment of existence is tangible. London is quiet, or as quiet as it could possibly get – the occasional van driving past (milk float, waste disposal truck and Ford Transit Van in that order) and the light breeze causes the lace window shades to quiver and billow.
Seeing the city at this time always reminds him of his first trip to the Capital with his father, confined to The Queen Victoria suite at the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, crawling under the floor length, 'duck egg blue' silk curtains in pinstripe pyjamas to press his palms up against the bay window and watch the city break from its lull as his Father was stuck in the boarding room.
He wrote tally charts of the composition of the traffic crawling past for twenty minuets every hour, on the hour. Later, his father joins him in their den of silk and tells him of Mann Whitney, Wilcoxon and Spearman. This memory is almost a salvation to Sherlock, when he feels particularly resentful to Siger Holmes.
In the living room at 221B, there is a few seconds of life, in the form of a harsh whisper.
"What did you take?"
The floorboard creaks and the light padding of feet stops in pause.
"What. Did. You. Take?"
He's leans against the fireplace now, a hand braced on the dark wood mantle piece, worrying his top lip to stop himself from losing his temper (but not swearing, never swearing).
Pulling the phone from his ear and instead holds the speaker against his mouth, lowering his voice so much so that it sounds more like the rumbling of a cumulonimbus, he speaks again: "It took little under two weeks. Amorous inner-city teenagers could take longer to receive results!" He spits, slamming his hand against the wall, "I was not graced with patience, now tell me, what did you take?"
Waits for an answer, spots the hardback copy of A Catcher of the Rye at the corner of his vision and frowns his distaste. It's in fact Reproductive and Perinetal Epidemiology, with R..D Salinger's cover on the front so as to defer John. This is due to Sherlock's uncharacteristic obsessing over both books. His usual habit is to just to flick to the chapter that he desires and take what he needs, even with fiction – except The Catcher in the Rye. He'll press the open book across his heart and claim it's his vice. Has been since he read it under his bed sheet, torch in his mouth in just one night when he was fourteen.
"Gonadotrophins?" He sighs dramatically down the phone and runs a hand through his bed curls. Listens again. Sniffs in displeasure. "You should have brought this to my attention Molly."
So, Sherlock can read up on the biology of pregnancy and get away with it, and with John being such a bloody romantic, will smile a little to himself at Sherlock indulging in his favourite book from his adolescence.
"I couldn't possibly deduce that you had started taking fertility medication when you decided to disappear to your Mothers' for six weeks. Don't be absurd."
Everyone's happy.
Sherlock moves to lean against the table and bites the nail of his thumb. "The time it might take was never an issue for me. You do realise there is a 10-20% of multiple births?" A squeaky little voice can be heard from the phone, and Sherlock rolls his eyes, "You've had one ultrasound! One! It's hardly enough to confirm the number of foetuses!"
Paranoia gets the better of him, and he checks that the bedroom door is still firmly shut before replying again, this time donning a mocking tone that is usually used to mock John, and even then only on special occasions. "Oh, I can see it now! John, hope you don't mind, I've impregnated Molly Hooper, and what's more it's triplets, isn't that wonderful?"
...Everyone's...happy...?
His face is rather maniacal and he takes to pacing once more, "Molly, you can't even dress yourself in the morning, last time I saw you the buttons of your cardigan were done up incorrectly, how you'd manage with more than one I have no idea..."
Grabbing his copy of, ahem, Catcher in the Rye, he perches himself on the edge of his leather seat and flicks to the index, "HcG levels? And you've been taking urine samples for how long?" He asks, his index finger scanning the pages, "Oh well weren't you prepared? What else?"
Doppler heartbeat count, no extreme fatigue or morning sickness, not to mention the ultrasound...
Sherlock sighs heavily and leans back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his noise, "All right, all right. You have justified yourself rather thoroughly, thank you. When are you-?"
The pair of them stays silent on the phone for a few minutes, Sherlock still in the leather seat even though the morning sun is already beginning to prickle the back of his neck, "What did you just say?"
[I said... I wonder if he'll have your hair?]
And there it is again, the dream. Sherrie with his café au lait (more like Mycroft) corkscrew curls (more like Sherlock), hand outstretched, with little pink fingers clasping and unclasping and whimpering in frustration : "Let me, let me, let me!"
"Alright, alright, breathe. Here, look." Sherlock says, getting down on one knee to gesture his bare arm to the little boy who now has fat tears now rolling down his cheeks.
The little fingers clasp around the wrist, and Sherlock watches with eyebrows raised as his brother's fingers linger on the skin, little body bopping up and down with anxiety.
"Fast too."
Sherlock hums in approval, the slightest nod.
Sherrinford's face scrunches up, "Velvet. He sobs, stomping his foot hard repeatedly against the concrete.
Sherlock hold's his brother's leg still with a warning glance. They'd both been working on reducing the self – injury for some time now and admittedly with little progress from the younger of the two brothers.
"I know, I don't like the velvet either."
Sherrinford begins pulling at his hair, screaming, "Was horrid 'Lock!", gaining a few odd looks from the members of High Society that were taking a turn about the grounds during the annual Holmes Midsummer Garden Party.
"No Sherrie," Sherlock sighs, immediately grabs his brother's hands and pulling them from his hair, "What did we say about hurting ourselves?"
The little boy pouts, still struggling a little against Sherlock's hold.
"And," Sherlock adds, talking to the top of Sherrie's head, their lack of eye contact really did need to be worked on... "What did we say about our volume, hmm?"
"I'm too loud." Sherrinford's sighs, as though he has repeated the sentence a hundred times (probably has). "But you are too quiet! Mumble, mumble, mumble..."
"I'm getting better though, aren't I?"
Sherrinford nods a little before gasping in surprise, finally letting go of his brother's wrist and reaching under a perfectly trimmed hedge beside them. He pulls his arm back, holding a ball that he had kicked up a fuss about losing just a couple of weeks ago. He beams brightly and so Sherlock does too, watching him bounce it on the patio.
"You can stop looking at me now; your eyes are hurting me."
Sherlock laughs a little at that, "Apologies, ma chérie."
"Sherrie. Chérie. Sherrie. Chérie..."
Sherlock pulls out his weathered copy of A Catcher in the Rye from his blazer pocket, and sits cross legged on the patio, adoring the innocence of his little brother and holding back thoughts of a woman in a velvet, plum-colored shawl, who seemed unable to take her eyes of his father.
At that point, the bedroom door creaks open and John shuffles into the kitchen, smiling a little at Sherlock before filling up the kettle.
"Have to go." Sherlock states, "Text me." ending the call, throwing his phone onto the sofa and jumping out of the armchair so quickly his curls bounce on his head, book still in hand.
"Up long?" John slurs, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth to hold back a yawn and leaning up against the kitchen counter.
Sherlock shrugs and falls into a chair, meeting John's eyes through his fringe.
"I believe you fellated me last night."
"Hmm, yeah think I did."
"And then you woke me up by doing so again."
"Yup."
"Feel free to...repeat that."
"Oh I intend to Sherlock."
The kettle clicks and John clears his throat awkwardly, turning to pour the water into the two mugs. Sherlock makes an effort to caress John's fingers when he hands him his cup of tea. After taking a sip, he reaches for his book and buries his head in it.
"That thing again? How often do you read that?" John exasperates, glad for a chance to remove some of the lingering tension.
Sherlock takes a moment to notice John reaching for his own book, on the top of a rather high pile on the corner of the kitchen table and rolls his eyes, "Oh, says the one..."
John smirks, feigning innocence as he opens his own worn copy of A Clockwork Orange, giggling a little when his toes tickle Sherlock's foot under the table.
"Phony." Sherlock mumbles, his foot now sliding up John's leg and riding up the pyjama trousers.
"Hmm. Nadmenny bratchny."
Sherlock and John look blankly at each other, feet still playing under the table, before bursting simultaneously into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
Nadmenny bratchny – Arrogant Bastard (From a Clockwork Orange)
Ma chérie - My darling / dear
Oh, and I'm still taking prompts!