Title: I don’t care if we don’t sleep some night
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,290
Warning: none
Summary: They catch a criminal and later celebrate Christmas in their own way.
a/n: thank you to my wonderful beta
devikun. It was written for
morelindo as a part of
221b_slash_fest exchange.
They were close, so close; John could see it in the way Sherlock pushed himself to the limit - his breathing was irregular, laboured, and he didn’t even pretend that he could run with his mouth closed anymore. Their footsteps echoed in the dark, empty street, and a glimpse of Sherlock’s face as he passed under a fitful streetlight showed John that he wasn’t wrong. Sherlock’s upturned mouth, the clench of his fists, told John that he was ready, that he knew what to do and that the man he chased was in his hands already in all senses but the most mundane.
They turned right on Hanson Street, took sharp turn on the left right after St. Charles cathedral and then - John got distracted when he met with a loud crowd of teenagers coming the opposite way - he lost sight of Sherlock until he saw a tall figure running across the street. He cursed under his breath and dashed right after Sherlock, making sure that he avoided being hit by a car; that was the last he needed right now. The first thing as to follow Sherlock -where was he again - he stopped on the pavement, breathing harshly and looked every direction, and then he noticed the start of a street. Sherlock must have gone there.
He wasn’t wrong, he saw Sherlock, shadows bouncing off the brick walls as he ran and John set right after him. The street turned out to be short and they ended up on
What’s written there?
John tried to figure out as they stopped at a crossing. Ah -
But he had no time to mull over what he just read (Riding House Street, wasn’t it?) when they were already running across the street, and there they stopped after a few steps. John looked up, confused and out of breath and where is that fucking criminal? And saw a rather large white building he thought he had vaguely seen somewhere and only then his mind caught up with what he was staring at.
Middlesex Hospital.
“What are we doing-” John started to say in a rather embarrassingly loud voice but Sherlock shushed him with a finger on his lips - it tingled but John didn’t dwell on that - and a glare. John wisely shut up and, satisfied that he wasn’t going to try to say anything else, Sherlock determinedly turned on the right, walking down Nassau Street this time, along one side of the Hospital. John knew that he - no, they’d be in trouble if he said a thing.
As they rounded the corner, there the man was, by the backdoor (at least John thought it was the backdoor, what else such a plain-looking door be?), franticly trying to pick the lock but by the look of it, unsuccessfully. Sherlock stopped a few feet away from him, looking down at the crouched figure with disgust.
Then the man - dressed in an oversized jacket, black hat, and jeans - saw them and froze. John frowned because there was nothing worth freezing over about them except...
John turned to Sherlock -
Except Sherlock was holding his gun quite confidently, looking cold and deadly. What John really wanted to know was when and how the hell he got it. He didn’t have time even to get carried away in his thoughts when Sherlock spoke.
“Tell me - how you did it”
John frowned. Was this the right time and place to start an interrogation? Sherlock had the weirdest of concepts about such things. He had half mind to say that out loud when a warm had slipped into his between their bodies, and he looked up, startled. Sherlock didn’t even glance in his direction but the hand squeezed his, and then a thumb caressed the inside of his palm; John suppressed a shiver.
“Did what?” the man asked back, ending on a slightly high note, giving away the fact he was scared. When silence followed he babbled on, “The murder? It was all easy and simple; so easy to get him drunk and then tell him that he’s forgotten his hat in the car.” He was talking on and on like he feared that if he stopped Sherlock would shoot him. John was certain that he wouldn’t.
It seemed that Sherlock had gotten bored of his rambling as well. He glanced at John, and then slowly leaned closer to his ear and whispered in a low voice, “Call Lestrade.”
And John did.
-
When it was all over - the criminal taken by the police and everyone else gone -, Sherlock pushed John against a cold wall and, while they both were still high on adrenaline, kissed him senseless.
They knew they wouldn’t sleep tonight, and when Sherlock whispered in his ear, “let’s go to the flat.” John gladly agreed to the suggestion, not only because he wanted it desperately but also because he was tired of the merciless teasing Sherlock had suggested him to; first, as they had been answering to Lestrade’s questions, and then as they watched the police take care of the criminal and drive off; his hands had been anywhere, John could swear, though not being obvious about it.
And later when John asked about it, lying beside him, Sherlock answered that it had been an experiment and John may or may not have murmured out loud - did you ask for my permission first? - before he drifted off to sleep as the first rays of the sun filtered through the curtains.
-
That was the last case before the Christmas. John was fairly certain that Sherlock had turned Lestrade down once (he had heard Sherlock arguing over the phone one night), and he felt oddly proud to be someone that Sherlock cared enough to put before his work.
The next day, John decorated the living room - the skull got Santa’s hat on its head and he put green and red Christmas lights all around the windows - and went to fix himself a cup of tea and maybe read a newspaper and wait for Sherlock to get home -
The outdoor slammed shut and footsteps ran up the stairs.
In retrospect, John should have predicted that Sherlock wouldn’t like the lights, not talking about the hat on the skull (seriously, John, what were you thinking), but he didn’t; it all turned into an argument until Sherlock walked in the kitchen and saw what John had done with the table - he cleaned a bit and made place for more experiments, because he had felt that generous and they never ate there. He expected another outburst. He was ready for it but nothing came; Sherlock turned instead and smiled; he fucking smiled and there was no storm in his eyes.
John frowned.
And Sherlock kissed it away. John sighed in the kiss.
-
The whole affair of the Christmas was rocky and strange (remember - Mycroft and Harry) and they didn’t even celebrate it properly (no Christmas tree and definitely no lights), though there was sex - lot of it and some experiments and puzzles (apparently, Sherlock loved to see him solve them) and definitely texting. And dates and -
-
As it turned out they got along more amazingly when they were on a case (not that they didn’t on regular basis) but when they did things together - as a team -, chased after a criminal or like now when John just smelled the clothes of the victim - a man in his thirties, found dead in a backyard of his house - and simply came to the conclusion as Sherlock.
“He died from smoke inhalation.”
And Sherlock turned to him, snow in his dark hair and his open coat swishing, and strode right up to a confused John and kissed him squarely on the mouth.
The end