A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Anon – without your comment, I wouldn't have taken the time to update today. Thank you for reviewing! :)

oOo

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Chapter 3: Eating (1)

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The shower took much longer than expected.

Sherlock sulked for about thirty-two seconds because his hair was wet, before John effectively silenced him by besieging his neck and ears with fondles and kisses as he dried it. Then John had to stitch up his wound, and Sherlock insisted that he should stay. John accepted, provided that he kept still and quiet.

Stitching up your own wound wasn't a pleasant thing to do, especially when its location made a mirror necessary. Luckily, it was the left shoulder, and John was right-handed. When he started stitching, Sherlock shivered, and wondered why this kind of pain didn't turn him on.

Every time the needle went through John's skin, he winced more than the doctor himself. John was observing his reflection in the mirror, was trying to distract himself from the pain by revelling in his partner's nervous expression. But at one point he had mercy upon him.

"Sherlock, you can wait outside if you want."

Sherlock shook his head silently, his eyes never leaving the wound. John realized he must have sounded quite patronizing and slapped himself for it mentally. Maybe Sherlock was a child but the whole point was to show him he still had control over his life and wasn't – never would be – worthless. Treating him like a kid wouldn't help.

But if John was sometimes good at noticing this kind of things, he usually put them into practice quite poorly.

"Sherlock, why don't you go and prepare breakfast while I finish?"

Sherlock scoffed.

"But John, I never cook or prepare food outside of my experiments, remember? I thought you wanted to have something edible this morning."

John rolled his eyes, smiling fondly at Sherlock's sulking face in the mirror. Another 10 minutes of suffering and winces later, the stitches were done and John was disinfecting the needle and putting away his first aid kit. When he turned to his partner, Sherlock's eyes shifted from his stitches to his face.

Slowly, he walked up to him, and leant forward tentatively until his lips were brushing against his right shoulder. John shivered and his eyes widened. Gingerly, Sherlock was tracing with butterfly kisses an imaginary wound, symmetrical to the one that had just been stitched up.

John closed his eyes and rested his head against Sherlock's voicelessly.

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"You have to eat something."

"I'm not hungry."

"Come on Sherlock, you haven't had anything since last... wait, when was the last time you ate?"

"Don't know. Don't keep track."

"Sherlock."

"It doesn't matter, John!"

"Yes it does! You've got to flesh out a bit!"

Sherlock's face fell but John didn't notice. When he turned back with toast, he only saw an inscrutable gaze fixed on him thoughtfully.

"Here. Just a piece."

"I don't want to."

"Sherlock..."

"I said no!"

John frowned, not understanding why his friend was snapping.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Do I have to answer that exhaustively?"

Sherlock averted his gaze so he wouldn't see his friend's pained expression.

"Fine."

John put the plate on the table and walked out of the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Sherlock asked, not even bothering to hide the panic in his voice.

"To my room," John replied heatedly. Then on second thought, in a quieter tone: "I'm not leaving."

Sherlock swallowed and clenched his fists as he heard the door close behind his friend. He glared daggers at the toast, as if it were responsible for upsetting John.

"Don't you feel any remorse? Do you even realize your very existence is an insult?" he told it venomously.

"Hello boys! Are you up yet?"

Sherlock continued to glower at the toast as Mrs. Hudson entered their flat.

"Oh, Sherlock, dear. Where's John?"

"Up," he answered sullenly.

"Up?"

"Yes, up, Mrs. Hudson, as in upstairs."

She blinked, then shrugged and started fussing around the kitchen, grimacing at the various remains of Sherlock's experiments.

"Isn't he usually up by this time of the day?"

"Yes, up."

She tilted her head to the side.

"I meant awake, Sherlock."

"Yes. He's awake."

"Are you all right, dear?"

Then she saw the toast and stared.

"You made toast," she remarked, disbelieving.

"Yes, the toast!" he cried, suddenly jumping to his feet.

"Sherlock!"

"It's the culprit," he growled, sitting back heavily.

"Oh dear," Mrs. Hudson murmured, fleeing, scurrying along back to her quarters.

When John came back downstairs an hour later, Sherlock was on the couch, his violin by his side, holding a cup of yellowish liquid and drinking through a straw, empty-faced. As John entered the room, his eyes lit up. The doctor sent him a weak smile and Sherlock scoffed. He put his glass down and picked his violin, pulling the strings tentatively, faking confidence.

John sighed and went to the kitchen. He froze. On the plate where he'd left two slices of toast, only one remained.

"Sherlock."

"Hum?"

"You've eaten."

"No. Mrs. Hudson did."

"Mrs. Hud... What?"

He came to sit next to him on the couch, a smirk on his face.

"So... Mrs. Hudson came up to eat our toast?"

"Your toast. Not mine," Sherlock replied grumpily.

The doctor leant in and kissed him on the cheek just as Mrs. Hudson came in.

"Oh dear! I'm sorry for interrupting."

John blushed furiously and bolted up, while Sherlock remained sitting, unblinking.

"I was just coming to bring you that jam we talked about the other day, because I thought it might help with the toast..."

"... which you've eaten."

"What?"

"The toast, Mrs. Hudson, the toast!"

Completely lost, she turned to John with a puzzled look. He rolled his eyes.

"Thank you for the jam, Mrs. Hudson."

"I'll give you the recipe if you like it!" she chimed.

"Oh yes, please do," Sherlock insisted.

They both stared at him. He sent them one of the eerily sweet smiles he usually used on witnesses and suspects.

"Don't forget to lend him an apron. I'm sure jam can get quite sticky."

John gaped, and Mrs. Hudson wondered what had got into them.

"Right, dear. Well, I'll do just that. But don't forget, I'm your landlady, not your housekeeper!"

Once she'd left, Sherlock pointedly avoided John's stare, and stood up nervously, pacing back and forth like a tiger in a cage. John sat at the table and opened his laptop. It almost felt like any other non-case day. Except...

"So... you want to see me in an apron?" John said as if he were asking about the weather, eyes on his screen, typing his password.

"I'm not sure it's worth you making me eat the jam afterwards."

They exchanged poorly concealed amused glances, and broke out laughing.

"Oh? And tell me, what exactly would be worth it?"

"Eating jam? Nothing. It's just sticky sugar, how can people even eat that?"

"Well let's see... Because it's sticky and sugary?"

They chuckled as Sherlock went back to the couch. He felt restless, and had absolutely no idea what was coming next. In fact he was quite nauseous, because he really hadn't wanted to eat anything, and swallowing the toast had been quite a feat. That, and...

"Sherlock, what's this?"

John was eyeing the empty cup with the straw suspiciously.

"An empty cup, John."

"Yes, thanks. What did you drink?"

Sherlock didn't answer. Had he done something wrong? He didn't want to upset John. Quite the contrary. This is ridiculous.

"Was this milk? With... sugar?"

"Whole milk. With honey."

John goggled. Then it hit him. 'You've got to flesh out a bit!'

"Oh Sherlock..."

"Stop right there."

"But–"

"I don't know what you're going to say, but your voice is already so full of sympathy. I don't want it."

"I wasn't saying that to imply you were too thin! Well, you are, but..."

Sherlock glared, and John gulped.

"No, listen! I was talking as your doctor, not as your..."

He let the sentence hang in the air, at a loss. What was he supposed to say? Friend? Flatmate? Lover?

"... partner."

Sherlock snorted.

"How's that different?"

Leaving his laptop and dropping the act, John went up to him and slid an arm around his waist.

"Why did you want me to go to the hospital this morning?"

"Because you had a wound that needed stitches."

"Yes. Did your remark imply I was now unattractive and that if I wasn't stitched up..."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Sherlock cut in, trying to sneak away.

"Who's being ridiculous?" John retorted, holding him firmly in place.

Sherlock swallowed and started fidgeting.

"Let go."

"You can push me away."

No I can't, he thought as he began to shake. You'll be disappointed. You won't want me anymore.

You'll leave.

Distraught, Sherlock leant in and kissed John with desperation. Please. The trembling got worse as he was reminded of a very similar situation in which his every move could mean either Moriarty's contentment and John's safety, or the madman's dissatisfaction and John's demise. With a range of torture techniques in between.

"Please," he murmured.

John was appalled at what he'd done.

"Sherlock. Sherlock! Stay with me. What were you thinking just now? Please tell me what you're thinking."

"Nothing, John. It's nothing."

But John knew. He'd been on the receiving end of that kind of kiss before and it meant only one thing: Please don't leave me, I'll do anything, anything at all, but please, please don't leave. What had he said? Where had he gone wrong? As he was replaying the dialogue in his mind, it suddenly dawned on him.

He couldn't push me away.

"Oh God I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sherlock."

He stepped back, letting go. Sherlock felt cold at the loss of contact, but didn't say a word. John bit his lip. He couldn't let this happen. He wouldn't. There was only one thing he could think of.

If he's low, get lower than him.

Swallowing his pride, which didn't matter in the least at the moment, he slowly fell to his knees.

"Please forgive me."

Sherlock's eyes widened but John, from his submissive position, couldn't observe his face. He didn't see it fill with surprise, nor turn into a frown. Sherlock was puzzled, because he wasn't even aroused by the situation. He expected to feel either nothing, or at least a little bit of excitement from the power play. But he didn't.

While was trying to figure out how this was any different from when John had been on his knees in the bathroom this morning, his flatmate was waiting apparently stoically but actually overwhelmed with dread. He was treading on thin ice and he knew it. Not only was Sherlock a rape victim, but he'd never been very sociable even before the event – not a sociopath, certainly, but probably mild Asperger's syndrome (of course, Sherlock had found high-functioning sociopathy more appealing than high-functioning autism). John didn't need to put him into defined medical categories though, and really didn't care. All that mattered was that now even more than before, Sherlock would be hypersensitive to every word, every facial expression, every gesture... More than that: with his deducing skills, he'd be hypersensitive to pretty much anything, things ordinary people wouldn't even notice. Yes, he was broken, but his intellectual capacities hadn't been impaired, even if he didn't realize it himself. Now, as ever, it would be impossible to lie to him.

It took Sherlock about thirty seconds to understand: it wasn't arousing because John felt miserable. His stance was one of guilt, and not of pain, humiliation and so on, from which one could derive pleasure. Sherlock wasn't the one who'd made him kneel down: I'm low, so he got lower.

"I don't enjoy this kind of begging," he quoted smugly.

John looked up at him, bewildered. He was amazed to see the detective smirking down at him.

"What did I miss?"

"Oh, nothing particular. Just the most important thing."

John arched an eyebrow, and it looked quite silly with him still kneeling on the floor.

"Which is?"

Sherlock ignored him and went into the kitchen. John heard him fumbling around and soon he was back with the plate on which the last toast lay, along with the jam Mrs. Hudson had brought earlier.

"You haven't eaten yet."

John blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Nope. You'll be excused once you've eaten your toast."

Spreading jam all over the bread, Sherlock didn't notice the little smile on John's lips. Cold toast isn't really good, but oh well...

Sherlock held his arm down until the toast met his friend's lips.

"Eat."

"Can't I stand up?"

"I never said you couldn't."

"But you brought this here."

"John, there are a number of situations in which I'd see you as very... stimulating, but you on your knees eating toast in the middle of our living-room isn't one of them," Sherlock cut in, something like impatience in his voice.

John laughed and stood up, biting in the toast. Sherlock eyed him suspiciously.

"What's so funny?"

"You are."

"Oh, so I'm too thin and now I'm funny. You really must have bad taste," he remarked as he fell back on the couch, obviously vexed.

John smirked, swallowing the rest of the toast.

"You're such a tosser."

He came and straddled his sulking flatmate.

"Well, I'll add that to the list."

"Insufferable."

"Thanks."

"Posh."

"That's not an insult, you know."

"Candid."

"I'm not..."

Sherlock squealed as his protest was muffled with a kiss.

"Insatiable," John murmured against his lips.

"You kissed me!"

"Brilliant deduction," John commented sarcastically. But Sherlock saw the flash of doubt and fear in his eyes, and he added sullenly:

"You've just had jam. I thought I made it perfectly clear that I don't–"

This time the kiss that interrupted him was much deeper than the previous one, and Sherlock felt his entire body melt again. John's fingers were in his hair, pulling his head back slightly, his other hand in the crook of his back, his groin pressed against Sherlock's. The taste of the jam didn't even bother him anymore. His pupils dilated and he fluttered under John's grip until the lack of air made them break the contact, panting.

"I want to try something," Sherlock said in one breath.

"An experiment?"

He nodded. John closed his eyes.

"Fine. What do you want to do?"

"I want to cover you in jam and see if I can eat it."

Silence. John blinked.

"... You want to what?"

Sherlock pulled one of his sweet smiles, trying to look reassuring, but John found it rather wolfish.

"You're joking."

"Of course not."

"Where did that come from?"

"Just now... I didn't find it disgusting."

"Well good, I'm glad you don't find me disgusting when I kiss y–"

"Don't be daft, John. I hate jam. Yet it didn't bother me when it was... on you," he finished, for lack of a better phrasing.

Then he cocked an eyebrow and sent his partner a questioning look.

"So? Can I?"

"This is such a waste..." John groaned.

"We'll see about that."

"Are we doing this on the couch?"

Sherlock tilted his head to the side.

"My bed, then?"

John sighed dramatically and stood up, quickly walking to Sherlock's room.

"Fine! But hurry up before I change my mind!" Then to himself: "God, this is ridiculous... this is definitely the most ridiculous thing I've ever done, and I've done quite a few thanks to..."

"Are you talking to yourself about me, John?"

The ex-soldier sent him his most imposing glare, but Sherlock was so excited about the bloody jam he didn't pay attention at all. John stripped swiftly before he could think too much about what he was doing. He'd played with honey before, but he had been doing the licking, except for the... well, blow job. But obviously Sherlock wanted him covered in jam and that felt more like being an offered meal than anything.

"Are you going to use the whole jar?"

"It's probably not going to be enough, but I used the other one to keep fingers in," he grumbled miserably.

God help me, I'm in love with a madman, John thought as he lied on the bed and closed his eyes.

"Is there any spot you'd like me to start with?"

"Don't ask," John growled, feeling more stupid by the second.

Sherlock shrugged.

"All right. Close you eyes. I don't want you to open them until we're done."

John stared.

"Would it help if I tied you up?" Sherlock added innocently.

"You are not tying me up!"

"Fine, fine... Just close your eyes."

John took a deep breath and complied. A few seconds later, he felt Sherlock's hands on his throat, spreading jam all over his neck and under his ears. This wasn't what he'd expected. Nor had he expected Sherlock's first kisses to be on his eyelids either: a silent 'thank you'.

The next moment he was licking tentatively the very sensitive skin under his ear, and John moaned. This seemed to be a good enough encouragement for Sherlock, who nibbled the lobe merrily. From then onwards he seemed much more at ease, smothering the exposed throat with nips, licks and kisses, sending shivers throughout John's body, electrifying his skin. He was quick and precise and John was feeling positively besieged and couldn't help but squirm and moan under the attack. Sherlock's ministrations were so uncommon that they were new to John and wonderfully thrilling. He no longer felt stupid, and only knew he wanted more.

Sherlock sucking the skin near his jugular vein sent a jolt right to his groin, and John realized that he was getting aroused because he felt vulnerable. Sherlock could have killed him in a bite. The neck and throat were such sensitive zones, yet he only felt safe enough to let his sexual partners touch there when they were very soft, gentle women. Harmless.

There was nothing harmless about Sherlock.

Sherlock meant danger and adventure and near-death situations.

Sherlock couldn't live without the thrill, and neither could John.

Sherlock was reckless and got off by putting his life on the line to prove he was clever.

And that's why you're so addictive, John thought.

He squealed as Sherlock's body brushed against his erection and moaned at the loss of contact. It was such an unnerving experience, not to know where he would be touched next. He knew Sherlock would tease, and obviously wouldn't touch him where he most wanted to be touched right now, but he wondered if he'd be merciful enough not to delay it too much.

Suddenly he felt a tongue lap up the sole of his right foot, while a jam-coated hand palmed his left one.

He yelped and bit his lower lip fiercely, desperately trying to muffle his moans.

Not merciful, then...

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tbc