7B
After a moment of pleasantries and knowing looks from the pleasant older lady who answered Sherlock's knock, they are first shown around her flat then led upstairs to the one on the second floor. Mrs. Hudson unlocks the door and opens it wide, allowing them both to see inside simultaneously.
John takes a long look around the room, noticing the coating of dust on what furniture is there, the antique wallpaper and the ceiling that could do with a fresh coat of paint. Three bookcases, one tall, two short still have a few old looking books on them. Even so, it seems too nice of a place to be empty. A stray thought occurs to him then.
"Why would the spirits be up here?" he asks, turning to face Sherlock who seems deeply interested in examining an old leather bound book on the shelf closest to the window. No one breathes for a second and John can clearly make out the muted sounds of traffic on the street below them.
"That, John, is an excellent question." Sherlock gently returns the book to its former resting place and grasps John's shoulder. "How long has it been since you moved from up here? Never mind, I'd say at least…" here he reaches out with his index finger, running it through the layer of dust on the window sill. "…three months. And you haven't cleaned up here?" Sharp eyes scan the interior of the room, seeing the minutia that John can only aspire to. Spinning on the balls of his feet, he drops his gaze to Mrs. Hudson's face as she clasps her hands tightly together.
"You hit the nail right on the head, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson looks so dreadfully uncomfortable that John wants to take her back to her flat and make her a fresh pot of tea.
Sherlock says nothing, else, however; the tightness in his jaw as he glances about again gives John the impression that he's tightly reining himself in. With a curt nod, he stalks towards the back of the place.
"Mrs. Hudson, we will take your case," his voice booms from an unseen room.
John agrees, though he's not exactly sure how much help he's going to be. "Do you mind if we hang out here a bit?"
"Not at all," Mrs. Hudson informs him as she pulls a set of keys from the pocket of her purple dress. "Here, there's two sets there and if you need anything, I'll be downstairs."
John accepts the key ring that she drops into his open palm. He smiles, hoping to reassure her. She thanks him and makes her way downstairs. John watches her and waits until her door closes before closing and locking the door to this flat. He picks his way through the sitting room, pokes his head into the small kitchen then follows the sound of muttering to a large bedroom.
"…and what did you see?" Sherlock is asking, body angled away from the doorway. He's crouched down, running a hand beneath the bed. Early morning sunlight weaves its way from the bare window to gracefully highlight the amber tones deep in Sherlock's raven curls. John blinks in an effort to hide the image from his own mind.
"I'm sorry?"
"John, haven't you be listening? Stop woolgathering and tell me what you saw in the kitchen." Sherlock commands, dropping to his stomach and scooting beneath the mattress. The dark soles of his leather shoes stick out, the toes rubbing against the carpet as he speaks. "Go on."
John frowns, wondering exactly what it was he should have been looking for.
From under the bed, Sherlock huffs, sounding entirely too petulantly composed for a person in his position, which really is quite ridiculous by John's standards, anyway. "Just tell me what you saw in the kitchen."
"How do you know I was even in there?"
An exasperated sigh is answer enough.
"Alright. Fine. But it was only for a second. It looked normal enough, small range, fridge—which I did not open by the way—wooden table with two chairs."
"…."
Irritated with the lack of an answer to his description, John settles himself on the end of the mattress. He thought he'd been getting better at this observing things business, perhaps not. Sherlock's shoes begin to slide away from him and he watches, more fascinated than he'll admit, as the man himself slowly slithers up so that he is kneeling between John's legs. And oh my god, isn't that a sight? John's heart decides to start a new rhythm and he swallows around a tongue that suddenly weighs a ton.
Sherlock levels his gaze at him, and John realizes he's been staring. A faint wash of pink stain colours Sherlock's sharp cheekbones and a thrill of heat runs up John's spine, despite the coolness of the air in this empty bedroom. The silent flat seems to offer permission by remaining mute on the subject altogether. Neither man moves, each simply watching the other as if waiting to see who's going to make the first move. Slowly, Sherlock leans forward to balance himself with his palms on John's thighs. Something new, something like the static in the air during a lightning storm crackles in the short distance between them. John decides to ride it out, gently grasping the back of Sherlock's neck with one hand and bringing the other up to the side of his face, absorbing the heat of his slightly stubbly skin.
There's a short bit of possible rejection here, but only for a second because Sherlock leans in even closer and swipes at his bottom lip with the neat pink tip of his tongue. In that instant, John throws all caution to the wind and decides that chasing that tongue with his own is the best idea he's had in ages.
And then Sherlock is right there, long fingers digging into the denim covering John's thighs, lean body pushed against John's chest and their lips together somewhere in between. John grunts under the suddenness of Sherlock's shift in movement, raising both hands to cradle the back of his head, fingers tangling in the soft ringlets there.
o-o-o-o
Sherlock takes John's groan as permission and pushes inward even more until they wind up with John on his back and Sherlock above him, their hips aligned and hands now everywhere. He can feel John's hands smooth down his back from his head until they come to rest on his waist just above the swell of his buttocks. He wants to tell John he can touch but unless they stop kissing, he will be unable to do that, and stopping this is beyond him at the moment.
John's tongue probes at his mouth and Sherlock opens up, letting him in, though the cost to his own psyche is greater than he will ever let on. Images pop behind his closed eyes and he fights against the knowledge that perhaps John isn't ready to share these memories with him. They've never discussed the past beyond short snatches of conversation here and there, because mostly they've only been working together.
Sherlock knows that is a lie, even in the deepest recesses of his own mind. Reluctantly, he pulls away and stares down at the beautiful sight of John's blue eyes grown dark, his well-shaped mouth red from kissing. John's lips twist upward in a smile while his hands finally grasp Sherlock's arse, firm and somehow gentle at the same time.
Sherlock clears his throat, stops himself from going back to the kissing and instead rolls his hips a little, eliciting another groan from John, who bucks upward in order to meet Sherlock in the middle.
"We haven't really been working together, have we?" John asks softly into the charged atmosphere.
"In the beginning." Sherlock pauses, pushes a stray hair off the top of John's ear, feels the heat in his face and knows he's blushing like an idiot but says it anyway. "Though I do believe many people would consider us to have been dating since the third or fourth case."
John actually laughs and Sherlock wants to taste it. "Why haven't we done this, then?"
Before he can say it out loud, Sherlock finds their positions flipped, John's thighs bracketing his hips, straining erections pressed together. The pull of desire between them is the full force of the electromagnetic spectrum, a stop in time when crucial decisions are made.
Sherlock decides to trust his intuition and raises his legs, circling John's waist with them and hooking his ankles together to firmly align their bodies together. It is almost too much, almost painful and certainly not enough.
"I don't know John, but I really don't think we should stop. The kissing, it is rather enjoyable." Though 'enjoyable' is a weak term, not expressing the full range of Sherlock's thought on the subject. As if to add a full stop to his sentence, Sherlock reaches down to where they are so close he can't see anything and deftly unzips John's jeans.
"Oh my god," John says, voice entirely too clear for this situation.
Sherlock tilts his head back and finds himself staring into the soulless dark eyes of an apparition that has absolutely no business being where it is.