A/N: Here is the second part to the 'Senses' mini-series! Hope you enjoy!
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Warning:This series has adult content of a sexual nature... you're welcome ;D
Part Two – Sight
There was a time in Sherlock's life when he didn't notice every little thing, every stain or scratch. A time when things just were; they only had a present and not a past to deduce or an easily predicted future. A time when he watched in silence as the world sped on, a never-ending film stuck in fast-forward. Everything just passed him by.
In truth, he couldn't remember such a time.
He merely assumed it existed; no infant was that smart, even if that infant was a young consulting detective.
Now, as Sherlock watched the kitchen with owl-sharp eyes, there was nothing that slipped past the man, not a speck or scar, not a cut or crutch. Certainly not a sleepy eyed, well-muscled, nicely mussed, jumper clad doctor who was cooking eggs and bacon on the stove; all the while sipping sour tea and humming some silly tune to himself.
It should have been boring; completely and utterly, entirely and infinitely boring. Mundane. Tedious. All that and more. But it wasn't; it was fascinating, novel and somehow almost erotic.
Fingering through his internal dictionary, which centered in the great library of the Mind Palace, Sherlock studied up on the word he knew little of.
Erotic is defined as an adjective "pertaining to sexual love," yet, to the great detective whose knowledge of sex was limited to readings and observations – one had to be informed, as a detector of criminals, of all crimes motives – this was an untrue definition. It wasn't that watching this short ashen-haired man who had nightmares (though as of late they had been few and far between) of desert lands, who enjoyed excessive amounts of jam on toast, who lectured him on the evils of nicotine and starvation, who… it wasn't like watching this man cook eggs and bacon was a sexual experience, or that it should have been. It wasn't really, it was simply…
It simply was something unexplainable. It made him want to approach that serenely domestic man and kiss him till they smelled burning or smoke or both. He wanted to make John Watson forget about food, about burning their flat down, about everything except the sight of his flat-mate a bit too close to breathe properly, pushed against the counter, tasting oh so sweet…
The fact it seemed like such a doable thing should have truly worried Sherlock. Instead it just heightened his already peeked fascination.
No, it wasn't an erotic sight. But there was something surprisingly sexual in the way Johns hands stirred the yoke and vegetable scramble, on the verge of ironically graceful. How his fingers gripped the wooden spoon with a sort of delicacy, like it was a scalpel and he was preforming open-heart surgery. It made the studious man in the leather chair wonder, if only for a briefly indulgent moment, what it would be like to feel those hands, those fingers, on his skin and body. It made him want to never stop looking.
It was true, John was a master of cuisine. At least, in Sherlock's mind, he was. He didn't need to cook any aphrodisiac to make eating or cooking an erotic experience, it just was; John seemed to be an aphrodisiac completely in his own right.
As if by some law of transferable feeling, the sights which were computed and processed in his eyes were sent through the nerve endings in his body. He could feel it all, if only via his mind. That skin on, in, against his own with a fine layer of sweat sprinkling out of their pores; they would be, could be, clouds watering whatever had begun growing between, sustaining something real. At least, in the great depths of Sherlock's being, this was possible. But not in reality; the great detective knew that and accepted it as a fact of life. John wasn't going to feel the same, could never know enough of this terrible sentiment boiling low in his flat-mates gut to ever feel the same. Even so, the younger man could look. And look he did.
What the not-so-completely-stupid doctor did know was the tingling of those little hairs at the nape of his neck, the way his humming was more off-key than usual, the way his eyes hurt from trying to stare at that ethereally beautiful man – who had been and was continuing to stare at him carnivorously – using only his peripheral vision. Trying desperately not to burn his bacon or the house, John was having honest troubles concentrating.
That stare was toxic, breaking down his I'm-not-gay defenses and rebuilding them, ironclad and gold decorated, to include the stipulation: Unless-You're-Sherlock-Holmes.
It was damnably predatory, bloody hot and it felt like it was turning him into a puddle; he was wax and those multicolored eyes were the flame. All the blood seemed to melt downwards and pool, then harden uncontrollably all below the belt.
Though John could never deduce or observe in such a manner as the detective himself, he knew he wasn't entirely oblivious to things around him. Over the course of many years, John was proud to say he had been subjected to many a stare or two from a lover who had wanted him. Often they ranged from "I need you," to "please take me." He was used to these stares, reveled in them, loved how he could put them there on woman's faces.
This was not one of those stares.
As another shiver went down his back, John thought of different ways to describe the particular scrutiny. He narrowed it down to somewhere between "fuck me till we're both left in a coma for decades," and "I want you more than I want to discover the next element." There was no logical explanation to why that categorization made John want to walk over there and snog the senses out of that sharply defined face, watch those eyes close slowly because the weight of sensation was too overbearing, watch that mouth gasp out his name like a promise.
John decided cooking was soon going to be hazardous if this continued.
He turned off the stove and filled two plates with unsteady hands – whether or not Sherlock would eat was a mystery all its own but it never hurt to prepare – staring at the food for a few quick seconds before chancing a glance at his friend.
Staring straight into those eyes was a mistake. A terrible, awful, exhilarating, suffocating, lust-filled mistake.
Neither man could have anticipated the flooding of electricity as their eyes met fully, sinking into the sort of taught line of wire connecting the two almost painfully, neither said a word, neither could breathe.
There was a sexual vibration that could almost be seen, as easily as the dark blue eyes could see those pale pink lips, those slashingly shadowed cheekbones... that slender neck exposed lushly under fine silk…
Sherlock decided immediately the sight of John cooking was not erotic; it was tame as a kitten compared to this look of unabashed hunger he was privy to now. If only for a few blissfully unadulterated seconds, Sherlock felt he was being undressed and devoured with eyes alone.
John decided simultaneously he was indeed a goner. Hook-line-and-sinker, there was no point in hiding from himself and his friend any longer. Whether it was love or lust, there was no denying it now. He knew how he was staring, knew completely and fully how Sherlock looked back; the two mirrored each other with raw want and almost animalistic need.
Suddenly John's phone buzzed. With a slight jump – when had he lost the ability to hear, the ability to think, the ability to do anything but look? – he checked. Surgeon needed, internal bleeding, immediate assistance required. Duty battled desire and after a tough, uphill battle, the sense of duty won over; it was a tragic victory.
When John looked up, on his way to apologizing or something like that, he found an empty chair. For a few seconds he stood there, a new battle raging inside him; had he imagined all that, or had there truly been a distressingly sexual Sherlock in front of him a moment ago?
With an exasperated sigh he walked briskly out the door, grabbing his coat on the way out. Walking to surgery with a fucking hard-on was going to be an adventure for sure.
From inside the bathroom, where he was in the middle of running fingers over his own throbbing prick, Sherlock heard the door slam shut. In his hazy, desire drugged mind he registered the fact he was alone. But when he closed his eyes he could still see John, like he was permanently sketched into his eyelids. Could almost hear that gasp as their eyes met, like a small sign of acceptance, like he had finally realized what all those compliments, those failed relationships, those calls and texts and insults were meant to convey: I want you I need you, touch me, love me, feel me take me just see me don't look, observe and you'll know…
The final strangled moan erupting from his throat as his vision went red and white and blinding… it sounded a bit too mono-syllabic, a bit too much like a name.
Sherlock crawled into a bed which was not his own and fell into steady breathing with John's smell in his lungs and the sight of that naked desire bright and alive, replaying on a loop. Before falling into the hazy cloud of unconsciousness, he made himself a promise:
He would see that look again, and next time he wouldn't run.