Fic: A Matter of Life and Death - Sherlock/John - 4/5
Title: A Matter Of Life and Death
Rating: NC-17
Category: Sherlock/John
Length: ~8000 words in total
Disclaimer: The show Sherlock and that incarnation of its characters belong to the BBC, the show's writers and its actors.
Warning: Rated for naughty bits. Post-Reichenbach.
Summary: Sequel to A Matter of Convenience and A Matter of Affection, wherein Sherlock and John became lovers.
Sherlock is supposed to be dead. John is supposed not to know. But as Moriarty once pointed out, Sherlock has a heart after all.
Continued from Part 3
They kissed gently for a moment before Sherlock broke away to bury his head down against John’s shoulder, hugging him tightly. John returned the embrace. It was hard to remember why he’d been so angry.
“What do you want to do?” he asked softly, breathing in the scent of Sherlock’s warm, thin T-shirt.
“I want to have sex with you,” said Sherlock without hesitation, moving his hands down to John’s hips. “I hated the thought of never seeing your penis again.”
John cleared his throat and backed away, laughing. “Much as my, um, penis and I appreciate that, I meant what do you want to do in general. Are you staying or leaving, or what?”
“I should go,” said Sherlock with a reluctant sigh. He wiped his cheek impatiently, trying to get back to his usual unemotional self. He looked towards his bedroom. “I’ll need some clothes. My case is either on its way to Dusseldorf or sitting in lost property at Heathrow. Either way, I’m probably better off not getting it back. I left my spare coat at Mycroft's but the rest of them should be here. I can probably find something inconspicuous.”
“Your spare coat,” repeated John. “Trust you to have a spare coat.” He rolled his eyes and tried not to be too put out by Sherlock’s sudden interest in leaving just after his uncharacteristic expression of love. “Mrs Hudson may have given your clothes away to a charity shop, you know. She gave away your equipment.”
“Yes, I know about the equipment. Mycroft’s people got most of that back. Anyway, Mrs Hudson didn’t give away my clothes. Too intimate. She wanted you to do it.” Sherlock turned to his right, towards his bedroom. “You’d better keep packing the books. The bookseller will be here at three.”
“How did you know I would be here anyway?” asked John, still standing in the kitchen.
“Still no good at picking unhackable passwords, John. Or original ones.” Sherlock looked over his shoulder and winked at John as he headed for his bedroom. “No matter how ‘sherlocked’ you might be.”
“You... Bastard,” said John, though he couldn’t suppress a grin. Quite why he found Sherlock’s blatant disregard for his privacy charming, he would never know, but the conversation left him feeling happy that some things never changed.
“Pack up the books, John, it’ll give the press something to talk about!”
John hesitated a moment, but then did as he was told. Sherlock was right about the need to carry on doing what he would normally have done. On the other hand, he was also right about how hard this was going to be. If Mrs Hudson and Mycroft were the only people who knew, John was going to have to lie to a lot of people. All his own friends and family, his work colleagues, the numerous well-wishers who contacted him through the blog, and, through the journalists who doorstepped him every few days, the entire country. John considered the burden of secrecy that Sherlock had now placed on him as he packed away the books, not even bothering to sort them anymore.
After a while, it occurred to John that Sherlock was taking a long time to pick a few clothes, given his usual habit of either chucking some underpants and a pair of pyjamas into a bag, or more often than not, simply getting John to pack for him. John decided to investigate. When he heard no sound coming from Sherlock’s room as he approached, John thought with a sinking heart that Sherlock must have left without saying goodbye. Though that was a disappointing thought, at least he knew Sherlock was alive.
“Sherlock?” he said as he pushed the door open, expecting to find an empty room.
He didn’t, though. John smiled. Sherlock was sprawled out on the stripped bed, fast asleep. John approached to get a better look, half afraid that the sight of Sherlock unconscious on his back might bring back the memories of the death that hadn’t been. John had been haunted by the sight of Sherlock in his familiar coat, his dark curls matted with blood, his pale eyes open and staring. He assumed that Sherlock was either a very convincing actor or had dosed John with the kind of psychotropic drug they’d been making at the Baskerville facility. Probably both, to make him see such a vivid image of his lover lying dead on the pavement.
But this time, Sherlock’s small eyes were closed and the curls were shorn and free of gore. He looked beautiful. Then Sherlock roused himself and his eyes fluttered open. He gave John a bleary smile when he noticed him standing by the bed.
“Eating and sleeping?” said John with a chuckle, coming to sit next to Sherlock. “I can tell you’re not on a case.”
Sherlock reached over to take John’s hand, tangling their fingers together. John thought about how miserable he had been earlier and lay down beside Sherlock. They kissed again, lying face to face on their sides. After a while, Sherlock lay on his back and gave John such a blatantly inviting look through half-closed eyes that John couldn’t help laughing.
“Oh, all right, you can get reacquainted with my penis since you missed it so much.” John rolled over in the opposite direction and sat up. “I’ll be right back.”
Sherlock’s bedroom was connected to the windowless bathroom by a frosted glass door; after John had realised that Sherlock fancied him, he had sometimes wondered if Sherlock had ever used that to his advantage when John was naked in there. Nothing had been moved in the bathroom since John had left three weeks earlier and the small room smelled damp and unhealthy. John got the lubricant out of the cupboard and returned to the bedroom.
“Get out, I’m not ready,” exclaimed Sherlock before John could fully enter the room. He was struggling to remove his jeans and underwear, his bare genitals bouncing as he hopped on one foot to get them off. “Out!”
Laughing, John closed the glass door again. He noticed a flannel curled into a little dry ball on the side of the avocado bath; he wet it and wrung it out to make it damp. If Sherlock had to leave again, he needed to make the most of this and he didn’t want to be interrupted by hygienic considerations.
“All right,” Sherlock called out. “I’m ready now.”
Sherlock was lying naked on the bare mattress. He wasn’t quite posing dramatically, but he was on his side and leaning up on one arm so that his front was entirely exposed. Holding the flannel and lubricant in one hand, John paused in the doorway to admire his lover’s lean body.
“God, I’m so glad you came back to tell me you were alive,” he said softly. He stripped rapidly and kneeled down on the bed beside Sherlock.
“Yes. I’m very glad I did too,” said Sherlock in a matter of fact voice, leaning up a bit higher to stroke John’s chest. “I realised that if I ever wanted to have sex again, I’d have to find another partner.”
John frowned, though Sherlock’s hand was slowly moving downwards. “Right. Because you wouldn’t be able to just not have sex until you came back.”
“I like sex!” Sherlock was looking down at John’s groin, where his long fingers were performing a thorough investigation. “And you don’t like being alone without someone to have sex with either, so you would probably have found someone else by then, which means that even if I did hold off, I still wouldn’t get to have you back.”
Sherlock dipped his head down to John’s lap. He sniffed deeply which John had always found vaguely disturbing, but also a mark of how much Sherlock liked every aspect of him.
“You, ah, you might have found someone else too,” pointed out John. “Like you said, you’d just need to find other partners.”
“Hmm,” said Sherlock vaguely; not that John’s mind was particularly on the conversation either.
John ran his hands over Sherlock’s bent back, stroking the soft, snow white skin speckled with light moles. Although they’d used a condom for anal sex in the early days, they’d always done this unprotected, which had bothered John’s sense of responsibility as a doctor; at least until Sherlock had randomly come home with blood test results which proved that amazingly, despite his chronic disregard for his own safety, he hadn’t contracted any nasty diseases.
John ran his fingers through Sherlock’s short hair and found that he missed the mass of curls that had almost made Sherlock look like a girl from some angles. But Sherlock wasn’t a girl. He was a beautiful, strong man and John loved him. John shifted his hips back and cupped Sherlock’s chin. Though he looked puzzled, Sherlock took the hint and straightened up, kneeling up on the bed to allow John to kiss him deeply.
“You look so different,” said John, leaning back slightly to look at Sherlock, trying to memorise every faint crease, mole and freckle.
Sherlock rubbed his head. “Yes, the haircut is a bit butch.” John laughed, because even with the short hair, ‘butch’ was not how he would describe Sherlock. “You like the long hair better,” said Sherlock, eyes narrowed as he observed John thoughtfully. “Your girlfriends always had long hair.”
“No,” said John. “The one with the dog had short hair. I think it was the one with the dog.” He kissed a mole on Sherlock’s shoulder and rested his lips on his skin. “And I don’t care about your hair. You’re beautiful. Strong and manly and beautiful.”
Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment but John felt him tense beneath his lips. “Am I supposed to compliment you too?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” said John, trailing kisses up Sherlock’s long neck. “I know you like me.”
“I do want to. I just can’t think of anything to say.” Sherlock tentatively stroked John’s back and ran his fingers into his grey hair, then nuzzled John’s cheek. “I can’t live without you anymore, John.”
“See, that will do fine,” murmured John, hugging him close.
“You also have a very attractive penis,” continued Sherlock in exactly the same almost reverent tone. “And yes, I know I’m not supposed to say things like that,” he added almost immediately, pulling back slightly and rolling his eyes.
John chuckled and kissed Sherlock’s cheek. “Now is pretty much the only context you can say things like that.”
The grief John had felt since Sherlock jumped came back to him inexplicably and he lay back, pulling Sherlock down with him. He wanted this to be special.
“Do you want to go on top?” he murmured.
“No!” said Sherlock, his tone suggesting that he thought that was a ridiculous idea. He rolled them both over so that John was on top.
“Lazy sod,” laughed John, though he was a little relieved that Sherlock hadn’t taken him up on his offer.
He reached for the lubricant and made sure the flannel was nearby too. Sherlock was half hard now; John leaned down to kiss and lick him to full arousal, swallowing deeply until the tip of his nose was buried in the wiry, sandy hairs of Sherlock’s groin. A year ago, John would have scoffed at the idea of ever doing this to a man -- it was after all one of those things the lads used to joke about down the pub -- but he enjoyed the effect it had on Sherlock. The erstwhile detective was sprawled diagonally across the bed, his stomach and pectoral muscles rippling as his body tensed with the building pleasure.
“John, lie down on me,” he demanded, grabbing John’s shoulder.
John had usually asked Sherlock to turn around at this point, or Sherlock had done so without comment. But this time, Sherlock didn’t move from his prone position and John didn’t ask him to. He reached for the tube of lubricant and positioned himself between Sherlock’s thighs to lie on top of him as instructed.
For some reason John couldn’t fathom just now, they’d never had sex face to face like this. Sherlock had once remarked that John must find it easier to imagine he was a woman from behind. It was certainly hard to ignore Sherlock’s masculinity from the front, and maybe that had bothered him once upon a time, in that oddly carefree time before Sherlock died and John’s entire world fell to pieces. Now it just felt natural to be like this, making love to the love of his life.
Still moving slowly, savouring the moment, John ran his hands up Sherlock’s body, from his very prominent erection to his flat, lightly muscled chest, and further to his long neck, where his Adam’s apple bobbed as Sherlock swallowed. Sherlock’s pale eyes were fixed on John’s face, his hands on John’s shoulders.
“John, you’re very good looking and I want to live with you for the rest of my life,” said Sherlock seriously.
John laughed. “See, you can give compliments. Though now would actually be a better time to mention my penis.”
“It is -- ah -- an impressive penis.” Sherlock’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Definitively your best feature. Especially right -- oh -- now!”
Sherlock closed his eyes and groaned with pleasure as John sped up the rhythm. John kept his eyes on Sherlock as he moved, committing every expression on his face to memory, conscious that Sherlock would have to leave when this was over and, judging by what he had said, might not come back for months, maybe even years. Oddly, at the moment when the pleasure was most intense, John remembered how miserable he had been without Sherlock and tears rose to his eyes. He buried his face against Sherlock’s shoulder as he came, hips wedged between Sherlock’s hairy thighs, stomach pressed to his still tense erection. Sherlock just held him loosely while John waited for the moment to pass.
Concluded in Part 5
Rating: NC-17
Category: Sherlock/John
Length: ~8000 words in total
Disclaimer: The show Sherlock and that incarnation of its characters belong to the BBC, the show's writers and its actors.
Warning: Rated for naughty bits. Post-Reichenbach.
Summary: Sequel to A Matter of Convenience and A Matter of Affection, wherein Sherlock and John became lovers.
Sherlock is supposed to be dead. John is supposed not to know. But as Moriarty once pointed out, Sherlock has a heart after all.
Continued from Part 3
They kissed gently for a moment before Sherlock broke away to bury his head down against John’s shoulder, hugging him tightly. John returned the embrace. It was hard to remember why he’d been so angry.
“What do you want to do?” he asked softly, breathing in the scent of Sherlock’s warm, thin T-shirt.
“I want to have sex with you,” said Sherlock without hesitation, moving his hands down to John’s hips. “I hated the thought of never seeing your penis again.”
John cleared his throat and backed away, laughing. “Much as my, um, penis and I appreciate that, I meant what do you want to do in general. Are you staying or leaving, or what?”
“I should go,” said Sherlock with a reluctant sigh. He wiped his cheek impatiently, trying to get back to his usual unemotional self. He looked towards his bedroom. “I’ll need some clothes. My case is either on its way to Dusseldorf or sitting in lost property at Heathrow. Either way, I’m probably better off not getting it back. I left my spare coat at Mycroft's but the rest of them should be here. I can probably find something inconspicuous.”
“Your spare coat,” repeated John. “Trust you to have a spare coat.” He rolled his eyes and tried not to be too put out by Sherlock’s sudden interest in leaving just after his uncharacteristic expression of love. “Mrs Hudson may have given your clothes away to a charity shop, you know. She gave away your equipment.”
“Yes, I know about the equipment. Mycroft’s people got most of that back. Anyway, Mrs Hudson didn’t give away my clothes. Too intimate. She wanted you to do it.” Sherlock turned to his right, towards his bedroom. “You’d better keep packing the books. The bookseller will be here at three.”
“How did you know I would be here anyway?” asked John, still standing in the kitchen.
“Still no good at picking unhackable passwords, John. Or original ones.” Sherlock looked over his shoulder and winked at John as he headed for his bedroom. “No matter how ‘sherlocked’ you might be.”
“You... Bastard,” said John, though he couldn’t suppress a grin. Quite why he found Sherlock’s blatant disregard for his privacy charming, he would never know, but the conversation left him feeling happy that some things never changed.
“Pack up the books, John, it’ll give the press something to talk about!”
John hesitated a moment, but then did as he was told. Sherlock was right about the need to carry on doing what he would normally have done. On the other hand, he was also right about how hard this was going to be. If Mrs Hudson and Mycroft were the only people who knew, John was going to have to lie to a lot of people. All his own friends and family, his work colleagues, the numerous well-wishers who contacted him through the blog, and, through the journalists who doorstepped him every few days, the entire country. John considered the burden of secrecy that Sherlock had now placed on him as he packed away the books, not even bothering to sort them anymore.
After a while, it occurred to John that Sherlock was taking a long time to pick a few clothes, given his usual habit of either chucking some underpants and a pair of pyjamas into a bag, or more often than not, simply getting John to pack for him. John decided to investigate. When he heard no sound coming from Sherlock’s room as he approached, John thought with a sinking heart that Sherlock must have left without saying goodbye. Though that was a disappointing thought, at least he knew Sherlock was alive.
“Sherlock?” he said as he pushed the door open, expecting to find an empty room.
He didn’t, though. John smiled. Sherlock was sprawled out on the stripped bed, fast asleep. John approached to get a better look, half afraid that the sight of Sherlock unconscious on his back might bring back the memories of the death that hadn’t been. John had been haunted by the sight of Sherlock in his familiar coat, his dark curls matted with blood, his pale eyes open and staring. He assumed that Sherlock was either a very convincing actor or had dosed John with the kind of psychotropic drug they’d been making at the Baskerville facility. Probably both, to make him see such a vivid image of his lover lying dead on the pavement.
But this time, Sherlock’s small eyes were closed and the curls were shorn and free of gore. He looked beautiful. Then Sherlock roused himself and his eyes fluttered open. He gave John a bleary smile when he noticed him standing by the bed.
“Eating and sleeping?” said John with a chuckle, coming to sit next to Sherlock. “I can tell you’re not on a case.”
Sherlock reached over to take John’s hand, tangling their fingers together. John thought about how miserable he had been earlier and lay down beside Sherlock. They kissed again, lying face to face on their sides. After a while, Sherlock lay on his back and gave John such a blatantly inviting look through half-closed eyes that John couldn’t help laughing.
“Oh, all right, you can get reacquainted with my penis since you missed it so much.” John rolled over in the opposite direction and sat up. “I’ll be right back.”
Sherlock’s bedroom was connected to the windowless bathroom by a frosted glass door; after John had realised that Sherlock fancied him, he had sometimes wondered if Sherlock had ever used that to his advantage when John was naked in there. Nothing had been moved in the bathroom since John had left three weeks earlier and the small room smelled damp and unhealthy. John got the lubricant out of the cupboard and returned to the bedroom.
“Get out, I’m not ready,” exclaimed Sherlock before John could fully enter the room. He was struggling to remove his jeans and underwear, his bare genitals bouncing as he hopped on one foot to get them off. “Out!”
Laughing, John closed the glass door again. He noticed a flannel curled into a little dry ball on the side of the avocado bath; he wet it and wrung it out to make it damp. If Sherlock had to leave again, he needed to make the most of this and he didn’t want to be interrupted by hygienic considerations.
“All right,” Sherlock called out. “I’m ready now.”
Sherlock was lying naked on the bare mattress. He wasn’t quite posing dramatically, but he was on his side and leaning up on one arm so that his front was entirely exposed. Holding the flannel and lubricant in one hand, John paused in the doorway to admire his lover’s lean body.
“God, I’m so glad you came back to tell me you were alive,” he said softly. He stripped rapidly and kneeled down on the bed beside Sherlock.
“Yes. I’m very glad I did too,” said Sherlock in a matter of fact voice, leaning up a bit higher to stroke John’s chest. “I realised that if I ever wanted to have sex again, I’d have to find another partner.”
John frowned, though Sherlock’s hand was slowly moving downwards. “Right. Because you wouldn’t be able to just not have sex until you came back.”
“I like sex!” Sherlock was looking down at John’s groin, where his long fingers were performing a thorough investigation. “And you don’t like being alone without someone to have sex with either, so you would probably have found someone else by then, which means that even if I did hold off, I still wouldn’t get to have you back.”
Sherlock dipped his head down to John’s lap. He sniffed deeply which John had always found vaguely disturbing, but also a mark of how much Sherlock liked every aspect of him.
“You, ah, you might have found someone else too,” pointed out John. “Like you said, you’d just need to find other partners.”
“Hmm,” said Sherlock vaguely; not that John’s mind was particularly on the conversation either.
John ran his hands over Sherlock’s bent back, stroking the soft, snow white skin speckled with light moles. Although they’d used a condom for anal sex in the early days, they’d always done this unprotected, which had bothered John’s sense of responsibility as a doctor; at least until Sherlock had randomly come home with blood test results which proved that amazingly, despite his chronic disregard for his own safety, he hadn’t contracted any nasty diseases.
John ran his fingers through Sherlock’s short hair and found that he missed the mass of curls that had almost made Sherlock look like a girl from some angles. But Sherlock wasn’t a girl. He was a beautiful, strong man and John loved him. John shifted his hips back and cupped Sherlock’s chin. Though he looked puzzled, Sherlock took the hint and straightened up, kneeling up on the bed to allow John to kiss him deeply.
“You look so different,” said John, leaning back slightly to look at Sherlock, trying to memorise every faint crease, mole and freckle.
Sherlock rubbed his head. “Yes, the haircut is a bit butch.” John laughed, because even with the short hair, ‘butch’ was not how he would describe Sherlock. “You like the long hair better,” said Sherlock, eyes narrowed as he observed John thoughtfully. “Your girlfriends always had long hair.”
“No,” said John. “The one with the dog had short hair. I think it was the one with the dog.” He kissed a mole on Sherlock’s shoulder and rested his lips on his skin. “And I don’t care about your hair. You’re beautiful. Strong and manly and beautiful.”
Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment but John felt him tense beneath his lips. “Am I supposed to compliment you too?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” said John, trailing kisses up Sherlock’s long neck. “I know you like me.”
“I do want to. I just can’t think of anything to say.” Sherlock tentatively stroked John’s back and ran his fingers into his grey hair, then nuzzled John’s cheek. “I can’t live without you anymore, John.”
“See, that will do fine,” murmured John, hugging him close.
“You also have a very attractive penis,” continued Sherlock in exactly the same almost reverent tone. “And yes, I know I’m not supposed to say things like that,” he added almost immediately, pulling back slightly and rolling his eyes.
John chuckled and kissed Sherlock’s cheek. “Now is pretty much the only context you can say things like that.”
The grief John had felt since Sherlock jumped came back to him inexplicably and he lay back, pulling Sherlock down with him. He wanted this to be special.
“Do you want to go on top?” he murmured.
“No!” said Sherlock, his tone suggesting that he thought that was a ridiculous idea. He rolled them both over so that John was on top.
“Lazy sod,” laughed John, though he was a little relieved that Sherlock hadn’t taken him up on his offer.
He reached for the lubricant and made sure the flannel was nearby too. Sherlock was half hard now; John leaned down to kiss and lick him to full arousal, swallowing deeply until the tip of his nose was buried in the wiry, sandy hairs of Sherlock’s groin. A year ago, John would have scoffed at the idea of ever doing this to a man -- it was after all one of those things the lads used to joke about down the pub -- but he enjoyed the effect it had on Sherlock. The erstwhile detective was sprawled diagonally across the bed, his stomach and pectoral muscles rippling as his body tensed with the building pleasure.
“John, lie down on me,” he demanded, grabbing John’s shoulder.
John had usually asked Sherlock to turn around at this point, or Sherlock had done so without comment. But this time, Sherlock didn’t move from his prone position and John didn’t ask him to. He reached for the tube of lubricant and positioned himself between Sherlock’s thighs to lie on top of him as instructed.
For some reason John couldn’t fathom just now, they’d never had sex face to face like this. Sherlock had once remarked that John must find it easier to imagine he was a woman from behind. It was certainly hard to ignore Sherlock’s masculinity from the front, and maybe that had bothered him once upon a time, in that oddly carefree time before Sherlock died and John’s entire world fell to pieces. Now it just felt natural to be like this, making love to the love of his life.
Still moving slowly, savouring the moment, John ran his hands up Sherlock’s body, from his very prominent erection to his flat, lightly muscled chest, and further to his long neck, where his Adam’s apple bobbed as Sherlock swallowed. Sherlock’s pale eyes were fixed on John’s face, his hands on John’s shoulders.
“John, you’re very good looking and I want to live with you for the rest of my life,” said Sherlock seriously.
John laughed. “See, you can give compliments. Though now would actually be a better time to mention my penis.”
“It is -- ah -- an impressive penis.” Sherlock’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Definitively your best feature. Especially right -- oh -- now!”
Sherlock closed his eyes and groaned with pleasure as John sped up the rhythm. John kept his eyes on Sherlock as he moved, committing every expression on his face to memory, conscious that Sherlock would have to leave when this was over and, judging by what he had said, might not come back for months, maybe even years. Oddly, at the moment when the pleasure was most intense, John remembered how miserable he had been without Sherlock and tears rose to his eyes. He buried his face against Sherlock’s shoulder as he came, hips wedged between Sherlock’s hairy thighs, stomach pressed to his still tense erection. Sherlock just held him loosely while John waited for the moment to pass.
Concluded in Part 5