Molly was cuddled down against the soft fabric of the sofa, an old Afghan covering her knees and her head resting against the canvas feel of a pair of khaki trousers. It had been almost two weeks since she had the chance to see Jim, and she was reveling in their quiet moment together on his sofa as they watched a marathon of a cooking show.
As she lay there, Jim idly stroked his fingers through her hair, and hummed a quiet tune that she didn't recognize.
"Is there anything else you'd like to do today?" Jim asked his brogue cutting through the air.
Molly shifted her head against his thigh, and closed her eyes for a moment; content. "No. This is just fine for me."
"Are you sure? We could still catch a film or get some fish and chips..."
"No really, I'm fine right here." She smiled, and rolled over onto her back, so that she was looking up at him. He smiled wide; flashing his teeth at her, and looked down so that their eyes met.
"I'm fine right here too." He said.
Molly reached for his hand that had fallen from her hair to her side, and slipped their fingers together. She couldn't remember the last time that she had felt so good in a relationship. Not that Jim was perfect; he had a temper, and she didn't get to see him nearly as often as she would have liked, and sometimes, in the bedroom, he requested strange things of her- not strange, she had justified, but not things she had ever done before, nor imagined herself doing. But, she found telling Jim Brook no was a bit difficult.
She sighed, and pressed a gentle kiss to the side of his index finger before sitting up and looking out the wall of windows behind them out at London.
"Although," she started, "If you wanted to get some take-away, I wouldn't object."
"That's a lovely idea. I'll get the menus."
Jim slid himself from the sofa, leaving Molly alone in the expanse of his living room. She often wondered if she could see herself there, in what she could only describe as a museum with all of the art that hung from the walls and set on the tables. It was a stark contrast to the man she had been dating for the last three month. He liked to slip into old worn out denim, and white t-shirts after being stifled up in a suit all day at the bank, making trades across the ocean. He liked to eat take- away straight from the containers, and drink wine from a plastic cup. Molly supposed, it was just another facet of his personality; one she would come to learn in time, and one she was content to learn about in time.
When Jim came back from the kitchen with a stack of paper menus, Molly had pulled her hair into a ponytail, and was sitting with her legs tucked underneath her like a little girl, which most people took to assumption that she was, despite the fact that she was thirty years old. She was sometimes disappointed that they lived in the kind of world where innocence and wonderment wasn't mean for anyone over the age of twelve anymore.
Jim seemed to appreciate it though; always smiling whenever she did, as though he couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to, which Molly suspected that he didn't.
"I'm in the mood for Thai." He said, handing her the menus, "But I'll eat whatever."
"No, Thai sounds good." She opened the menu he had set on the top, and searched for something that sounded good. When she had found it, Jim pulled out his mobile and called in their order.
As they waited, they cuddled down into the couch again, watching the same program on the telly, his fingers immediately finding purchase in her hair once again.
"Is this what you do when I'm out of the flat?" Sherlock asked. He was leaning against the frame between the kitchen and the living room, an amused smile playing over his entire face as he watched John, in only his pyjama bottoms, tap his hips and his feet along with the music nearly blaring over their old stereo system.
John turned a wooden spoon in his hand, and a smile of his own along his lips. "Everytime." He said.
Sherlock gracefully pushed himself away from the wall, and crossed the kitchen until he was standing in front of John
"Mmm" he rumbled against John, snaking his arms arguing his waist, and pressing his nose into his neck, "remind me to ask my brother for his CCV tapes then."
"Your brother has cameras in our flat?!"
"Yes."
"So he's-"
Sherlock smirked, "seen you bent over your chair with my cock in your arse? Yes."
"Oh God."
"He's seen you say that too."
"Sherlock!" John pushed him away.
"It's no big deal, John; not like he watches it."
"Either you get him to take them out, or no more sex."
"At all?" Sherlock asked, near desperation in his voice.
"God no, just not in the living room."
"Or the kitchen, then."
"Fuck, the kitchen too?" John laughed. He couldn't do anything other than. "Your brother is a sick bastard."
"Unnecessarily over protective." Sherlock said, waving his hand dismissively in the air.
"Let's give him .something special to watch, yea?"
John asked quirking up an eyebrow. He reached out for Sherlock's hands and tugged him into his body, crashing their chests together. John set the rhythm to the changing song, their hips close, their arms tight around each other. Sherlock rolled his eyes, as if dancing with John was beneath him, but he smiled none the less, and he didn't let go, but rather indulged him as John pressed his lips against the skin underneath Sherlock's ear, and sang the lyrics, almost absent mindedly.
I'm so caught up in you
You're the one that's got me down on my knees
So caught up in you
That I never wanna set myself free
It was beyond true. In a matter of weeks, Sherlock had become nothing short of John's reason to breathe. He was still in awe as to how he never knew that he wanted him; wanted that had been creating so badly. Now that he had it, it seemed impossible to let go.
John swept his lips across the skin of Sherlock's face until he found his lips, and lazily kissed him, as the music changed once again around them. John was more than conent to stay just as they were for the remainder of the day, for the remainder of their lives. If he could survive solely on Sherlock's kisses, then he would.
"You're ridiculous." Sherlock said, breaking their lips apart.
"You love me just the same."
Sherlock laughed, "Maybe so."
It was John who heard the door first, the awful creak broke through Sherlock's rare and beautiful laugh, and John pushed him away. The sudden loss of contact left John feeling cold, and almost empty without Sherlock in his arms, without his breath hot against the skin of his neck. John tried his best to smile an apology to Sherlock, who was in the process of setting his face back from that of rejection. It was only there for a fleeting moment, but John caught it, and it broke his heart just a little.
"John, are you home?" Mary's voice came through the flat, shouting to be heard.
"Yea-yea, in the kitchen." He answered, still looking at Sherlock, whose face was impossible to read, but was looking right back at John, his bright eyes searching.
It wasn't that John was ashamed to be with Sherlock. It was just the opposite, in fact. He was proud of Sherlock; always had been, and he was amazed that such a beautiful and intricate man wanted to be with him. But, how could he tall his friends; his family?
How could tell the people he had so easily let assume he was straight for his entire life, that that wasn't entirely true? And how could he tell them, that of all the men he could have a relationship with, he chose Sherlock Holmes?
It wasn't just the fear of being who he really was holding him back, however. It was also the thrill of secrecy. John enjoyed the tingle of risk that flitted through his body every time they dare kiss in the foyer, coming home; every time they cuddled on the couch and left the door unlocked; every time one screamed the others name when they were fucking. It was addicting keeping Sherlock his secret, and he didn't want to give that up yet; didn't want to face reality.
Mary popped her head into the kitchen and smiled at them both, though mostly to John. Sherlock nodded his head in acknowledgement of her, and then coolly slipped passed her into the living room.
"In a mood again?" She asked John.
"He's just tired. Was up early running some errand."
"I see." John reached at the counter behind him and turned down the radio. He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, covered in sheet music and whittled down pencils.
"What's up?" He asked Mary, as she sat down across from her.
The smile on her face was hesitant, and what than it normally was, and she cried her hands in front of her on the table. She wanted a favour.
"Natasha, the new technician, was looking at the pictures on my desk, and she thought you were really cute, and despite me warning her off, she brought forced me to set you two up."
"Mary-"
"I would have just said no and left it at that, but she really seems your type, honest, John."
"I can't." he said, quickly and smoothly.
"Can't? You mean you won't."
"Right. I won't. I'm sorry."
"Please. She's very cute and she isn't eighteen..."
"I don't dare eighteen year olds."
"She likes football, and knows all the national rugby players. She's never been married, doesn't smoke-has a yellow lab..."
"Why are you so keen on this?"
Mary reached a hand across the table and grabbed into John's, "because I hate seeing you alone I hate seeing you de-value yourself, and enter a relationship you know isn't going to work out. You're a great man John, and if you don't want to be with me anymore, you deserve to be with someone else-not alone."
John could have told her right then that he wasn't alone. That the man in the sitting room, idly plucking at his violin and pretending not to listen to her and Mary, the last man John had ever expected to care for anyone, let alone him, kept him very un-lonely.
But he wouldn't.
"It's a nice thought Mary, and she sounds lovely-"
"She is! John, honest."
"I'm not interested. In anyone right now. Taking a break."
Mary sighed, and pulled her hand away from his, "if you change your mind."
"I'll let you know."
"No date with Natasha?"
John carefully picked Sherlock's fingers away from their loose grip on his violin, and set it down on the desk behind them. He smiled, and climbed on top of Sherlock, so that his knees were bent and slotted in between Sherlock's thighs and the leather of the chair. He set his hands out to rest on Sherlock's pectoral muscles.
"She didn't sound my type." He said, his voice low and even.
"No?"
"No."
"Likely of Russian descent; blonde hair, green eyes. Perhaps she's tall and curvy."
"Perhaps she is." John started absently skimming a thumb against the fabric of Sherlock's shirt, "but I've recently discovered that I go in for something different these days, like; dark hair, and blue eyes. And while I do still appreciate height, I'd rather have flat planes and sharp angles than soft curves."
"Oh really?"
Sherlock shifted in the chair so that his hips lifted just slightly off, and pressed his groin into John's. John's lips parted at the sweet surprise of contact, and he sucked in a sharp breath, automatically rocking back against Sherlock.
"Come to the bedroom with me." John whispered, sliding a hand up Sherlock, over his shoulder. He tickled his fingers against his neck, and traced them over his lips.
"I can't." Sherlock answered.
"Another mystery errand?"
"It was hardly a mystery. I was having coffee with Mycroft and the committee members for the benefit."
"Oh."
"It was tedious."
John laughed. He could imagine Sherlock quietly seething as a bunch of well to do art patrons still living off their trust fund laid out a list of pieces they wanted Sherlock to play, mostly pieces that he would never even think about touching. But he did anyway, every year, for just one night, because they let him send half the proceeds to the charity of his choice; The Homeless Network, and for as cold as Sherlock often came off, he did have a heart, and he did care about the world beyond the walls of Baker Street.
"So, I take it you'll be practising these next few days, and I'll be dutifully ignored?"
"I'm afraid so."
John sighed, "the price I pay for sleeping with a musical genius I suppose." He leaned down and pressed his lips into Sherlock's.
He meant for it to be quick, just a chaste peck, and then he would get up and leave Sherlock to his vices for the rest of the day, but he felt Sherlock's hands snake around him and cover his bare back. His warm fingers against his cool skin, made John shiver. Sherlock deepened their kiss, plunging his tongue, rather erratically, into John's mouth, and digging the tips of his fingers into John. John ran his own fingers through Sherlock's curls, tugging a little as he let Sherlock fuck his mouth with his tongue. No one had ever kissed John the way that Sherlock did, and he was certain no one ever would again.
Sherlock straightened in the chair, pulled John's chest against his, and while still trying to keep their lips together, slid his hands underneath John's arse and scooted him as close as he could get to his body. John cursed as his erection met with Sherlock's.
"I thought you didn't have any time." John said, their mouths now sloppily sliding against one another.
"I may have a few minutes available."
John laughed, "you just can't get enough of me, can you?"
Sherlock suddenly pulled their lips apart. He regarded John seriously for a moment. He brought one hand up to his cheek, cupped it gently, and ran his thumb along John's jaw line. "No, it seems that I can't." He said, and brought John's mouth onto his once again.