Rules of Unity [one-shot, split]
Title: Rules Of Unity
Fandom: Sherlock (2010)
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: NC-17
Summary: John doesn't really understand how a man who calls himself a sociopath is suddenly making elaborate plans for attending his university reunion. Plans that for some reason include wearing expensive clothing and sleeping at a hotel even when you only live fifteen minutes away. And him. Always him.
"Why would you even need this long? You never need this long in the bathroom."
Sherlock tried to open the bathroom door a fourth time, just to have it slammed in his face yet again.
"Well, do I normally have to dress up for one of your criminal chases?" John shouted on the other side. "Can we please get a key for this door? I am not done, Sherlock. It is your own fault for waiting until the last minute. You will wait until I'm finished and then you may have the bathroom."
Sherlock sighed exasperatedly.
"Is there anything I can do for you, loves? Is it okay to go there by cab? Maybe you should have leased---" The door opened a fraction.
"Mrs. Hudson!" John shouted and slammed it closed straight away, "I'm in a towel!"
"Don't worry, dear," she said a bit reproachfully, "I do have children, you know. Nothing on you I haven't seen. I dare say that's also true for our Sherlock here."
She giggled.
John let his head rest against the wooden door and tried to breathe evenly.
"Okay. Okay, okay, I get it."
He came marching out of the bathroom, suit in one hand whilst securing the towel around his waist with the other.
"There, go ahead, all yours!" he shouted, and did not miss the look of surprise on Sherlock's face.
"Are you sure you won't be needing anything? I could give your stuff a final iron over, just a very quick one," Mrs Hudson tried, but John yelled "no!" so loudly that he heard the flat door slam shut only a few moments later.
After putting everything on except for the suit jacket and tie, John began to rummage through a cardboard box of things he had brought to Baker Street with him but had never felt the need to unpack, and inside that box he found a set of shaving facial and shaving creams and an aftershave, a gift box like the ones you could buy at Boots, an old Christmas gift from Harry.
John eyed it for a moment, especially the expiry date, and then looked at the clock. If he had to wait for Sherlock to finish in the bathroom...
He went back and knocked at the door.
"How far are you, Sherlock? I forgot to shave and I..." he trailed off, suddenly doubtful.
"It's okay," came Sherlock's deep voice from the other side of the door, "you can come in."
When John came in, Sherlock was in his boxers and in the process of towelling his hair dry, his dark curls hanging low in his face and obscuring his eyes.
John swallowed dryly.
"Now that I think about it... I only shaved the other day..."
Sherlock grabbed him by the wrist before he could leave.
"It's okay," he said and rolled his eyes at John. "I have to do your tie, too, haven't I?"
John stole a tiny glimpse at him. For someone who spent most of his time lying on the sofa Sherlock had a well toned body. John wondered where the muscles came from.
"The tie, John." Sherlock said and the other snapped back to reality with a small gasp, then went to get it.
"Last time you went to meet Mycroft Mrs. Hudson tied it for you, didn't she?" Sherlock asked, and John almost believed to have heard a hint of amusement in his voice.
"We really ought to teach you how to do that."
John inhaled deeply when Sherlock pushed the knot upwards.
"Just one more thing."
Sherlock reached for a plastic tube on the bathroom counter and squeezed something from it into his palm before mussing John's hair with it.
"Sherlock!" John protested, "I was just done! You do remember what you said about men who put product in their hair, right?"
"Not a word," Sherlock answered and gave such a blank expression that everyone but John would instantly have believed him.
John glanced at himself in the foggy mirror. He would never have admitted it to Sherlock, but he actually liked his hair better now. It had grown quite a bit over the past, and mussing it a bit made him appear slightly younger and somehow more relaxed.
He hung his head. Sherlock Holmes, who didn't know the earth went around the sun, Sherlock Holmes who wouldn't have been able to name a sunflower had he tried, Sherlock Holmes of all people was superior to him in hairstyling matters.
Even though he now knew Sherlock wouldn't mind him using facial cream, John shaved quickly and then used the cream and aftershave in his room.
Both of them emerged their respective rooms at the same time, met in the middle of the living room and just looked at each other until John remembered what being this fascinated actually said about him.
They had agreed on not taking their coats so they wouldn't have to pay for a cloakroom. John didn't have to borrow a coat and Sherlock went without his trademark, an act that struck John as very unusual especially since once out in the street, every pair of eyes turned to look at them in their really quite eye-catching attire.
The cab arrived and they sat down, but the moment John had settled and closed the door it hit him what kind of situation he was in.
This was probably the first normal thing he and Sherlock had ever done, aside from eating perfectly normal food in a normal Chinese restaurant not owned or frequented by smugglers.
This wasn't a cover, there were no murderers to catch, no immediate mortal peril to prevent, there was nothing at all adrenaline-inducing in it for him, and still... when Sherlock called, he came.
Moriarty was right. John was a dog.
It wasn't the right time to talk about this musing, otherwise John might have, but the nagging feeling it left him with wouldn't vanish no matter how hard he tried to distract himself.
He needed to find a time and a place to define who Sherlock was, and why he was with him at all.
John had killed a man a few months ago without so much as thinking about it. Back in Afghanistan his morals, the weight of possibilities and guilt that followed each of his actions had made it ever so difficult to pull the trigger.
It never felt quite so pressing to define anything about Sherlock, about them, but John remembered the way his stomach lurched when Sherlock had touched his thigh, knowing quite well what a reaction it would produce, and right at this moment in a cab roaming the unusually dry London streets, John was staring at him again, and their knees were brushing, and he felt alive.
If he hadn't believed the reunion to be Sebastian's doing, by the time they approached the magnificently lit hotel there was no doubt about it; there was an actual, honest-to-goodness red carpet.
An incredibly dull-looking woman with freckles, copper hair and oversized glasses crossed Sherlock's name off a list in tiny font, which was either to obscure invented names or fit the long guest list onto one sheet of A4.
They had only so much as set foot in the foyer when Sebastian pounced, striding across the hall with an air of purpose - or obnoxiousness.
"Well, well, well, if that isn't the good old Sherlock. So you really did come."
John wasn't one for getting angry on other people's behalf, but it seemed like inviting Sherlock had been more like a bet, or a bad joke, and even though it was Sherlock they were talking about there were certain limits to what was acceptable even if you thought your former course-mate to be a sociopath.
"Oh, and Doctor Watson, never thought I'd see the day!" the banker went on. "All dressed up, so fancy."
John found that he rather sounded like Mycroft all of a sudden, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at him.
"It's not---" he tried, "You know we're only---"
"Yes, yes, yes." Sebastian interrupted him, ushering him along, and with a sudden spark of clarity John noticed how much he hated being interrupted, and also that was a thing Sherlock never did, even if he called him an idiot afterwards.
Somehow John ended up at the buffet alone while Sebastian was showing Sherlock around like a trophy, introducing him to people he clearly had no interest in, by the way how rigidly he stood in their presence.
There he stood, with a plate in his hand, feeling useless in his fancy suit after mere minutes. He grabbed for weirdly shaped appetizers without so much as looking at them, thinking absent-mindedly that they were vastly different from Mrs. Hudson's 'nibbles' when someone bumped against his shoulder.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I hope I didn't spill any champagne on you."
She was petite, with a curly brown mane, slender legs and a blinding smile, John was pretty sure whoever saw her without feeling exactly the way he felt at that moment had to be either blind, dead or... Sherlock.
"Hello," John said and smiled, trying to give his confidence a slight push in the right direction. He was good at flirting, he knew he was.
"Hi," she said and flashed him another smile, "I'm Emma. I don't think I remember you..."
"I didn't study at Cambridge." John replied and pushed his plate away to walk with her, even managing to smoothly hand her a fresh flute of champagne when someone with a tray walked past. She giggled in delight; a wonderful, wonderful sign.
"So you're here with someone?"
Damn.
"A colleague," he said slowly, "In case he gets bored of how terrible and fat everyone has become in the last ten years."
It was a really bad joke to cover for the appallingly weird situation he was in, but Emma laughed none the less, which was astounding. Downright amazing.
"I'm John, by the way."
"Hello, John."
She shook his hand warmly.
"I read history." Emma went on, perhaps purposefully not enquiring after John's colleague. It seemed to go great. "Not sure whether it was worth my time, I don't really remember why I did it, either..."
"So what do you do now?" John asked, trying to keep the conversation going without having to tell too much about himself, seeing as the only interesting things he could talk about, the army and Sherlock, were potentially bad topics for small talk with someone you had just met.
"I work for an auction house, estimating the value of items."
"Wow, that's..."
From the corner of his eye John could see Sherlock looking for him, slowly turning into the right direction. Fearing Sherlock would put a sudden end to his good time, as he had a habit of doing, John began to scramble for words.
"That's really something."
Emma suddenly gasped. John furrowed his brow at her.
"There, that's Sherlock," she whispered, gripping his biceps in excitement.
"God, he looks even better than he did ten years ago... not that we ever saw him much, he was supposedly mostly holed up in the university labs but... I mean, just look at him!"
John suppressed a sigh. Good times were definitely over.
"What a shame," Emma whined, digging her fingernails a bit more into John's arm for emphasis.
"What is?" John asked, even though at that point he was sure he didn't want to know.
"Rumour has it that---"
"John!"
Sherlock had spotted him.
"John, I need a break."
He looked honestly exhausted, John had to give him that.
"Get me some food."
"The food is less than five steps away from you, and I'm not your servant, by the way. Get it yourself."
Neither of them noticed how Emma stood between them and gaped without so much as closing her mouth.
"You're--" she stammered and even pointed a finger at John, "You're John!"
"So I said," John replied, suddenly testy, and by the proud glimmer in Sherlock's eyes he must have pulled off sounding just like him for a moment.
"No, I mean... You're that John, John, you and Sherlock..."
It took all of John's willpower not to swear and shout at both of them right then and there. He just left Emma standing, determined to get back home because if the first quarter of an hour of a party turn out like that it was best to get away with dignity still intact.
Sherlock was beside him in an instant.
"Did you spread it?" John asked simply, without sparing him so much as a glance.
"Pardon?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe you're conducting some kind of grand-scale research by telling everyone we're a couple, or you're waiting to see if it's possible for my repressed libido to rip me apart, I don't know!" John barked and yes, he did raise his voice a bit, and he even threw his hands up in exasperation even though he'd tried hard not to.
"Even though that sounds as if it might comfort you if I confessed to something I haven't done, I have to disappoint you," Sherlock replied blandly, and John became aware that Sherlock was staring at him with eyes narrowed.
"I believe it was Sebastian who got a bit overexcited at the prospect of me turning up with a friend."
The way he put emphasis on the last word was unsettling when really, it was all fine. If there was perhaps one, just one thing John thought he ought to learn from Sherlock it was probably that people talked because people did little else, and that it was best not to bother with things that weren't worth the time.
If they were nothing but rumours in no way spread or encouraged by Sherlock however, John wondered why a hand belonging to a certain consulting detective appeared at his lower back, gently pushing him forwards when someone called them over to join the conversation.
"Sherlock! Meet my wife," someone called, and they joined a small circle of people.
The man who had called them was almost as tall as Sherlock. He wore a rumpled shirt under a suit that looked as if he normally wore it to the office, and his stance was relaxed. His hair was short but stylishly cut, probably by an expensive coiffeur, and John thought that his had to be the kind of popular person who had friends because he was actually liked, who had effortlessly climbed the social ladder and could turn up at a reunion party without having to lie about his income and number of children.
John couldn't imagine him ever having been even so much as acquainted with Sherlock.
"John, this is Stephen Walther," Sherlock said, never once moving his hand from its position at John's back even though the other tried his best to glare at him.
"He was one of the students on my course, and is now a well-respected professor of chemistry at Cambridge."
Sherlock sounded like a page out of "How to make successful conversation"-Holmesian style.
"I remember him as always being partial to a drink, attending parties of all sorts and becoming activities officer for the student's union."
Alcoholic. Sherlock's eyes said.
"I'm also delighted to see that his girlfriend from our university days, Penny Highmoore, is now his wife."
Sherlock smiled at them, but the smile didn't reach his eyes, not that it often did.
John remembered, then, the times he had seen Sherlock's genuine smile.
He must have shivered without noticing it, because Sherlock's hand pressed against his back ever so slightly, and John found the feeling comforting even though he knew he shouldn't have.
"Pleased to meet you, John," Stephen said and shook his hand, as did Penny and the other people in the circle whose names John forgot as soon as Sherlock had uttered them.
"I don't know if anyone's ever told you, but Sherlock was a terrific student.”
“No,” John said sincerely, “People don't tend to mention the nice things first when they tell me what he used to be like.”
The awkward silence that followed was kind of satisfying.
“Well,” Stephen went on to bridge the gap, his recovery quick and surprisingly smooth, “Naturally all of us are curious what became of him thence... If there was any fairness in the world Sherlock would have become a chemistry professor, he did always love his research after all...”
John looked at Sherlock long enough for him to notice and return the gaze. Suddenly he hated that him and everyone else seemed to talk about Sherlock as if he wasn't present, even though Sherlock was probably used to it. That didn't make it any less impolite.
“Sherlock,” John said softly, but the other man didn't seem inclined to answer the question himself, so John decided to do it for him.
“He is the world's only consulting detective.”
John left it at that, ignoring all the baffled faces and turning his attention back to Sherlock and the way he stared at him. It was the curious sort of look only Sherlock seemed to be able to pull off, part amused and part confused, as if he wasn't quite sure what John had intended with the statement, but approved nevertheless. He did hate explanations after all.
John had always been more clever than him regarding social matters, at least those that did not require manipulating others, and John couldn't remember being criticised for it since their fight about the lives Moriarty had put at stake.
He liked the idea of them having two different areas of expertise, instead of it being him just trailing alongside Sherlock for the sake of it.
He could almost see the question marks above everyone else's heads and smiled, thinking that this might be the feeling Sherlock often experienced upon realising no one had an idea of what he was talking about.
Maybe Sherlock wasn't meant to be understood by anyone but him, his intricate personality like a secret that was only shared between the two of them, something other people should, just like John once had, take the trouble to slowly unravel.
“So I take it the two of you live together?” one of the women asked.
“We do,” John said, knowing what she, what everyone else had implied by that question and the expectant looks that followed it.
John didn't particularly feel like indulging anyone, but he thought the more he tried to deny it, the more people would believe in him and Sherlock being a couple anyway. He couldn't win, but he could learn to ignore it instead.
He began to talk at length about living with Sherlock, about the limbs in the fridge and test tubes in the oven, and people laughed at his stories as if they were something extraordinarily hilarious, or maybe because they didn't believe a word he said. It was rather likely thought that their lives made for something hilarious if you were not the person leading it or involved with it in any way.
“I just really hoped he would help in the house a little,” John sighed, and all the women nodded vigorously and tutted enthusiastically.
It was when one of them said “You know, my Geoffrey here's just the same, in fact most men are!” that John realised he had somehow, over the course of one conversation, become the woman in their somewhat imaginary relationship.
“I mean, he can't even cook,” John continued, suddenly enjoying the way Sherlock's eyebrow had started to arch.
“Oh please,” Sherlock finally said, as if he had decided this was as good a moment as any to restore some his dignity, and sighing as if his adamant resolution not to participate in the conversation had just been broken,
“It's hardly like our kitchen appears in the Michelin Guide for your cooking.”
“Oh, so the food that I make and that you have so willingly eaten every day is in reality not good enough for you?”
More tutting from the sidelines.
In reality John knew full well that Sherlock probably just wouldn't eat anything at all if it wasn't for his cooking, at least nothing apart from buttered toast, but cooking had become a habit of John's, a habit Sherlock knew he wouldn't break.
“You could try cooking for a change.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, a gesture clearly indicating that something as mundane as cooking was definitely not on his list of priorities and was in no way considered worth his time.
“You know I'm busy with other things.”
“That's what they always say!” another woman cried and finally, finally John laughed, overwhelmed by the situation he himself had created, and by the utter ridiculousness of it all, and he was rewarded by Sherlock's hand drawing little circles on his back.
“I try to... compensate in other areas,” Sherlock said and shot John a look intense enough to make the other man blush and hate himself for it.
“Excuse me,” John rasped and fled to the outside terrace.
Once outside he breathed in deeply, wondering how much time had already past. His stomach rumbling belatedly reminded him of how he had abandoned his meal earlier, but that alone wasn't a strong enough motivator to make him go back in, at least not just yet.
The night was crystal clear and the view was great.
If he was completely honest with himself, John did like London a lot. It didn't feel like home to him, no place ever did, but when he came home from Afghanistan, faced with the choice and the ability to go just about anywhere, this magnificent city, diverse and exciting as it was, had drawn him in as it had so many before him.
It had seemed like the right place to start a new, equally magnificent and exciting life.
Well, he'd got what he wished for.
Normal people wouldn't enjoy the way he led his life, John knew as much, but then again he probably wouldn't enjoy what those presumably normal people did within the confines of their everyday lives.
Somehow even John's boring day-to-day life without cases still included spending thousands of pounds, eyeballs and jars and explosions that turned the kitchen table into a pile of ash.
Whatever Sherlock did, John went along with it some way or other, and somehow it had become something he didn't want to part with.
Maybe that was what defined their relationship, Sherlock set the pace, a pace made for John to follow.
To outsiders it may not have sounded great, but it was a working concept both of them had over time become comfortable with.
When John eventually went back inside, more than ready for some food, he didn't see Sherlock anywhere in the hall, but, knowing the man's tendencies to hide, didn't think much of it.
The less John needed to get involved, the better.
He had just reached for a new plate when a sound startled him enough to almost drop it.
Sherlock was laughing.
It wasn't the quiet, nearly audible laugh he sometimes shared with John, it was a booming, rich sound of happiness.
It made John look for Sherlock, and he found him in the foyer, that now that most guests had arrived was nearly deserted.
Sherlock was talking animatedly with a woman.
John knew the difference between Sherlock who was just making pretend and Sherlock who was enjoying himself by now, and with no little surprise he witnessed Sherlock smile and gesture like he had never seen him do before.
She was really short.
There was probably a greater height difference between her and Sherlock than there was between Sherlock and John, which satisfied him even though she was a woman and sporting a rather impressive set of heels.
Her dress was just as impressive, black and heavy looking with lots of lace, but without looking as cheap as one might expect.
Her hair was drawn back in a bun, and her make-up was dark, but not thickly applied.
She too, looked comfortable in Sherlock's presence. It was eerie.
This woman seemed to be one of a category John didn't know existed, people who liked Sherlock instead of just tolerating him, and if that was really the case he wondered why they had never met before. At that precise moment he wasn’t too sure that he wanted to meet her at all, but she saw him first - their eyes met and she smiled. Now that fleeing back outside was no longer an option, John boldly stepped forward.
“Hello,” she said, her voice as dark as her eyes and as firm as their grip when they shook hands.
Not “Sherlock has told me so much about you!” or something similarly exasperating, just a smile and a handshake, and she did exude a certain no-nonsense air that helped John see why she and Sherlock might be friends.
Suddenly John was sure she already knew much more about him than he would have liked her to.
“John, this is Irene.” Sherlock said, but John avoided his eyes, avoided the smile.
“Another chemistry student, I assume?” John asked her, but Irene shook her head.
“English literature,” she replied, her tone amused.
John frowned at her.
“So... How did you meet?”
“Oh, Sherlock changed cafés for lunch so he wouldn't run into anyone he knew, changed them daily, but... he did run into me.”
John's frown didn't disappear.
“You chatted him up?”
She did look a bit embarrassed at that, but more so because she might have felt that was the appropriate look for having been found out, and not because she was actually embarrassed. It reminded John of the thing Sherlock used to do when he wasn't sure what emotional response was required of him in certain situations.
John realised that the two people looking expectantly at him were probably... rather alike.
“Well, uh... lovely to meet you,” John said, suddenly feeling hot under the collar, and left.
The next hours brought food he didn't enjoy and conversations he didn’t want to have, because they centred mostly around his life rather than Sherlock's. They didn't seem to serve for quite as many good jokes and left him feeling like he had just made a fool of himself, and John began to wait for a cue to be able to go home - something he had expected several hours ago if he was honest with himself.
If this party really meant something to Sherlock (which John doubted highly) and was actually enjoyable for him then John would have been glad. He should have been.
What he was however, was annoyed and bored enough to consider watching Strictly Come Dancing at home an improvement to his current situation.
“No wonder people believe you’re a couple with the way you look at him.”
John turned his head and came face to face with Irene, who nudged him and handed him a pint of lager he was suddenly very grateful for.
“I didn't want to give you the wrong impression, you know.” she said softly, but kept her eyes on Sherlock just like John did. “I am willing to admit that by now you probably know him better than I do.”
“You really don't have to say that.”
“You know I wouldn't say that just to please you.”
Somehow John did.
“The way you keep looking at him tells me a lot.”
“Then you, just like everyone else, have come to the wrong conclusion.”
“Or you are saying that because you refuse to come to a conclusion at all. Look, I know what you're thinking. I would have dated Sherlock, but all his intelligence and his good looks don't help over the fact that sometimes you have to be prepared to come second, and back then I wasn't.
If Sherlock is smitten with someone, he will make that very hard to see, and I wanted to be adored.
You on the other hand, no matter how many things about Sherlock you have learned over time, you seem to be very blind to this. When we were talking he was all 'well John thinks this' and 'John thinks that' to just about anything I voiced my opinion on. Obviously your opinion means a lot to him, at least more than mine. I don't know if the two of you have enough in common for a relationship to work, but you've got a chance.”
John looked at her once more and nodded, not sure whether he was grateful.
Still the feeling of wanting to go home and think things over had intensified, and thus he went to tell Sherlock he was leaving.
“You don't have to,” Sherlock said, “We have a room booked in this hotel.”
John sighed.
“Sherlock, we live fifteen minutes by cab and you don't like drinking so there was clearly no danger of us getting smashed, so why would you go and book a room?”
Sherlock briefly shifted his eyes away.
“That's because I didn’t. It's on Sebastian.”
John didn't stop a beat.
“Right, that's it, I'm out of here.”
Sherlock however, grabbed him by the wrist.
“Why are you---” he said, but John's patience was wearing thin.
“For you it's just a night in a hotel bed, but for me it is practically everyone in this room goading me into something of a relationship that requires more from me than just putting up with your dirty dishes and your moaning about humankind! It's about everyone telling me what I supposedly want and me starting to believe I actually want it!”
Sherlock raised his brows at him.
“And what would that be?”
The answer just required one word, but it was a word John didn't dare to say.
“You look tired, John,” Sherlock said, took him by the hand and lead him away without another word.
**
“It's the bloody honeymoon suite!” John said when they even so much as stepped out of the lift and onto the corridor their room supposedly lay in.“It's got to be!”
When their search revealed a room with double doors, there was nothing Sherlock could say to suggest John was wrong.
He pushed the key card into the device next to the door, and John pushed it open and marched right in.
“Who would need an entire living room in a hotel?” he said, and from Sherlock's position by the door it sounded as if he was very far away already.
“Want some tea?”
Sherlock closed the door and didn't answer.
“If this is the honeymoon suite you know what that means,” he said slowly, following the sound of John rummaging for the kettle that was a standard to nearly every hotel room.
“Does it help if I get worked up over it?”
“It certainly hasn't kept you before.”
John stopped going through the various cupboards in search of the kettle, straightened and sighed.
“I'm tired, Sherlock. Not really in the mood for arguing anymore.”
“What did you to talk to Irene about?”
John would have denied it, but that had never worked before, telling Sherlock to mind his own business hadn't either, so he just tried to be vague.
“You.”
Sherlock didn't ask further, but he narrowed his eyes at John as if trying to find out the answer he wanted the usual way - without having to ask for it.
“You're disappointed,” he concluded, “But not with me, it's with yourself.”
He stepped closer.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don't want to.”
“John.”
Sherlock took another big step towards the doctor, right into his personal space, face to face, and John couldn't help dropping his gaze to his shoes.
“John,” Sherlock said again, and his breath was warm on the other man's face, “John, I have come to a few very interesting conclusions this evening.”
“Is that so,” John rasped, still not looking up.
“You compliment my appearance by staring at me, you get aroused by me doing your tie, you do not mind me seeing you naked, at least not from the waist upwards. You willingly play the part of my lover, and allow me to touch you in ways that do not seem to serve a higher purpose. You are wary of my female acquaintances, at least that one, and you like to keep an eye on me. To what conclusion do you think I came?”
John swallowed dryly, mustering up the last remains of both his courage and pride.
“So does that mean we have spent a lot of money just so you could put me to the test when you could've just---”
Sherlock's long and slender fingers touched the base of his throat and all words died on his lips.
“I will conduct one final experiment, if you would like me to call it that.”
The fingers ghosted over John's cheekbones before Sherlock's hand finally came to rest on his neck. He spread his fingers over the nape, making John shiver visibly.
“Something you think you might actually want, was it?” Sherlock said softly, his voice as thick and heavy as honey.
He placed the first kiss on the corner of John's mouth, just a quick press of lips to skin, something delicately promising. He hummed in approval when John closed his eyes.
The second kiss was little more than a dry peck, a quick promise of more, and John already leaned into the touch, turning the third kiss into a longer, less chaste one.
“We have to talk about this.” John gasped between kisses four and five, but Sherlock just said “Oh do we now?” and bit his bottom lip.
John's mouth opened in a gasp, an opportunity Sherlock used to slide his tongue into John's mouth, deepening the kiss, a strange experience for both of them, with the need to taste more and touch more slowly intensifying, settling low in their stomachs.
John broke the kiss, his eyes wide.
“We really need to talk.”
“About what?” Sherlock asked, and John was taken aback by the faint tinge of pink on his cheeks.
“Things like why me, since when, how, and what are you actually intending to happen?”
“You are going to find out if we keep this up,” Sherlock breathed, and such kind of desperation was so unlike him that John instinctively grabbed him by the shoulder and brought some distance between them.
“I just don't know if this is what people say it is.”
There they stood, like strangers in their expensive suits, and John realised that compared to what he was doing right at this moment, trying to untangle all the things the had done for Sherlock instinctively, putting them in order, he thought that compared to this, catching murderers was really just a game, nothing but child's play.
“You're not even the relationship type,” he said. “This could be Sebastian's very elaborate joke, payback for all the years you ruined his sex life.”
“It would have been a joke had you rejected my advances, I believe. Then again it's something I wouldn't have fallen for because you may have noticed I'm rather good at reading people.”
Sherlock's quick smile made John blush.
“Then what am I thinking?”
“That I'm a risk. You on the other hand, have always loved risks. John...”
Sherlock stepped closer gain, but he was scrutinising the other man now, taking his time.
“Why are you so intent on naming things?”
Because it was scary, John thought, and it must have been scary for Sherlock, too, when he realised that there is no logic in simply wanting something, that it was a fact that sometimes the outcome was not predictable.
Just then however, he was willing to take a risk.
“You know what the doctor said about your hand,” he whispered, but Sherlock just waved it dismissively before unwrapping the gauze.
They were kissing again, languidly this time, and John was trying to find anything to hold onto that wasn't Sherlock just yet, running his hands up and down the heavy fabric of the suit instead until Sherlock huffed and stilled his hands.
They stumbled through the rooms, limbs knocking into door frames and ankles into furniture, and when they found the bed Sherlock just had to give John a small push to make him fall heavily.
Sherlock was now leaning over him, kissing his exposed throat, and John pushed at the other's jacket, the skin underneath Sherlock's shirt surprisingly hot to the touch.
Sherlock shook his jacket off and began to unbutton John's shirt, leaving a trail of kisses on his now exposed chest.
John fisted a hand in Sherlock's hair to pull his head upwards, and met his lips in a messy kiss that left both of them breathless.
He then rose from the mattress just long enough to slide out of his jacket and shirt and after a moment of hesitation where his breathing slowed and his eyes met Sherlock's, he began to fumble with his trousers.
Sherlock stood and all but stumbled out of his clothing, a movement so graceless it made John laugh.
Suddenly there they were, tangled up in each other, John's arms around Sherlock's back, Sherlock's hands framing his face, and the brush of their erections through their boxers made Sherlock hiss so loudly that John would have been surprised had he not been occupied with suppressing a similar noise himself.
Sherlock began to move at a steady rhythm and John's legs went numb with Sherlock's surprising weight and the sharp press of bony thighs, so he just decided to turn them and straddle Sherlock's hips.
Sherlock had gasped in surprise, his hair now splayed over the pillows, his eyes wide and so blue, or were they grey? John couldn't tell, but he knew he wanted to kiss those lips again, to share his breath with the man who had completely reduced him to his instincts.
They built up a rhythm, hips moving against each other slowly, both of them determined to savour this moment, the present that would lead to such an uncertain future.
Finally John had enough courage to remove his boxers and so did Sherlock, and the sensation of flesh on flesh, their bodies now touching in their entirety, was almost unbearable.
John watched Sherlock through the haze of his pleasure, trying to commit the flutter of his eyelashes to memory, the way he seemed to be overwhelmed by his own high, once in his life without the control that was so important to him.
John came first, his whole body seizing up, his muscles stretching taunt, spilling onto Sherlock's body, and while he helped the other man follow him over the edge, their kisses grew careless with the exhaustion that slowly settled in.
He didn't want to think about it then, how he really wanted the feeling deep within him to grow into something more, into the word he was still afraid of. He didn't need to name it now.
**
“I would be very happy if you remembered to put the milk back into the fridge just once in a while,” John said and opened the fridge door, sighing.
Sherlock appeared behind and pressed a small kiss to his neck.
“I try to compensate in other areas,” he said, his smile audible.
“The more my frustration grows, the harder you will have to try to compensate it,” John shot back, but Sherlock just laughed soundlessly.
“I think that can be arranged.”
Fandom: Sherlock (2010)
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: NC-17
Summary: John doesn't really understand how a man who calls himself a sociopath is suddenly making elaborate plans for attending his university reunion. Plans that for some reason include wearing expensive clothing and sleeping at a hotel even when you only live fifteen minutes away. And him. Always him.
"Why would you even need this long? You never need this long in the bathroom."
Sherlock tried to open the bathroom door a fourth time, just to have it slammed in his face yet again.
"Well, do I normally have to dress up for one of your criminal chases?" John shouted on the other side. "Can we please get a key for this door? I am not done, Sherlock. It is your own fault for waiting until the last minute. You will wait until I'm finished and then you may have the bathroom."
Sherlock sighed exasperatedly.
"Is there anything I can do for you, loves? Is it okay to go there by cab? Maybe you should have leased---" The door opened a fraction.
"Mrs. Hudson!" John shouted and slammed it closed straight away, "I'm in a towel!"
"Don't worry, dear," she said a bit reproachfully, "I do have children, you know. Nothing on you I haven't seen. I dare say that's also true for our Sherlock here."
She giggled.
John let his head rest against the wooden door and tried to breathe evenly.
"Okay. Okay, okay, I get it."
He came marching out of the bathroom, suit in one hand whilst securing the towel around his waist with the other.
"There, go ahead, all yours!" he shouted, and did not miss the look of surprise on Sherlock's face.
"Are you sure you won't be needing anything? I could give your stuff a final iron over, just a very quick one," Mrs Hudson tried, but John yelled "no!" so loudly that he heard the flat door slam shut only a few moments later.
After putting everything on except for the suit jacket and tie, John began to rummage through a cardboard box of things he had brought to Baker Street with him but had never felt the need to unpack, and inside that box he found a set of shaving facial and shaving creams and an aftershave, a gift box like the ones you could buy at Boots, an old Christmas gift from Harry.
John eyed it for a moment, especially the expiry date, and then looked at the clock. If he had to wait for Sherlock to finish in the bathroom...
He went back and knocked at the door.
"How far are you, Sherlock? I forgot to shave and I..." he trailed off, suddenly doubtful.
"It's okay," came Sherlock's deep voice from the other side of the door, "you can come in."
When John came in, Sherlock was in his boxers and in the process of towelling his hair dry, his dark curls hanging low in his face and obscuring his eyes.
John swallowed dryly.
"Now that I think about it... I only shaved the other day..."
Sherlock grabbed him by the wrist before he could leave.
"It's okay," he said and rolled his eyes at John. "I have to do your tie, too, haven't I?"
John stole a tiny glimpse at him. For someone who spent most of his time lying on the sofa Sherlock had a well toned body. John wondered where the muscles came from.
"The tie, John." Sherlock said and the other snapped back to reality with a small gasp, then went to get it.
"Last time you went to meet Mycroft Mrs. Hudson tied it for you, didn't she?" Sherlock asked, and John almost believed to have heard a hint of amusement in his voice.
"We really ought to teach you how to do that."
John inhaled deeply when Sherlock pushed the knot upwards.
"Just one more thing."
Sherlock reached for a plastic tube on the bathroom counter and squeezed something from it into his palm before mussing John's hair with it.
"Sherlock!" John protested, "I was just done! You do remember what you said about men who put product in their hair, right?"
"Not a word," Sherlock answered and gave such a blank expression that everyone but John would instantly have believed him.
John glanced at himself in the foggy mirror. He would never have admitted it to Sherlock, but he actually liked his hair better now. It had grown quite a bit over the past, and mussing it a bit made him appear slightly younger and somehow more relaxed.
He hung his head. Sherlock Holmes, who didn't know the earth went around the sun, Sherlock Holmes who wouldn't have been able to name a sunflower had he tried, Sherlock Holmes of all people was superior to him in hairstyling matters.
Even though he now knew Sherlock wouldn't mind him using facial cream, John shaved quickly and then used the cream and aftershave in his room.
Both of them emerged their respective rooms at the same time, met in the middle of the living room and just looked at each other until John remembered what being this fascinated actually said about him.
They had agreed on not taking their coats so they wouldn't have to pay for a cloakroom. John didn't have to borrow a coat and Sherlock went without his trademark, an act that struck John as very unusual especially since once out in the street, every pair of eyes turned to look at them in their really quite eye-catching attire.
The cab arrived and they sat down, but the moment John had settled and closed the door it hit him what kind of situation he was in.
This was probably the first normal thing he and Sherlock had ever done, aside from eating perfectly normal food in a normal Chinese restaurant not owned or frequented by smugglers.
This wasn't a cover, there were no murderers to catch, no immediate mortal peril to prevent, there was nothing at all adrenaline-inducing in it for him, and still... when Sherlock called, he came.
Moriarty was right. John was a dog.
It wasn't the right time to talk about this musing, otherwise John might have, but the nagging feeling it left him with wouldn't vanish no matter how hard he tried to distract himself.
He needed to find a time and a place to define who Sherlock was, and why he was with him at all.
John had killed a man a few months ago without so much as thinking about it. Back in Afghanistan his morals, the weight of possibilities and guilt that followed each of his actions had made it ever so difficult to pull the trigger.
It never felt quite so pressing to define anything about Sherlock, about them, but John remembered the way his stomach lurched when Sherlock had touched his thigh, knowing quite well what a reaction it would produce, and right at this moment in a cab roaming the unusually dry London streets, John was staring at him again, and their knees were brushing, and he felt alive.
If he hadn't believed the reunion to be Sebastian's doing, by the time they approached the magnificently lit hotel there was no doubt about it; there was an actual, honest-to-goodness red carpet.
An incredibly dull-looking woman with freckles, copper hair and oversized glasses crossed Sherlock's name off a list in tiny font, which was either to obscure invented names or fit the long guest list onto one sheet of A4.
They had only so much as set foot in the foyer when Sebastian pounced, striding across the hall with an air of purpose - or obnoxiousness.
"Well, well, well, if that isn't the good old Sherlock. So you really did come."
John wasn't one for getting angry on other people's behalf, but it seemed like inviting Sherlock had been more like a bet, or a bad joke, and even though it was Sherlock they were talking about there were certain limits to what was acceptable even if you thought your former course-mate to be a sociopath.
"Oh, and Doctor Watson, never thought I'd see the day!" the banker went on. "All dressed up, so fancy."
John found that he rather sounded like Mycroft all of a sudden, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at him.
"It's not---" he tried, "You know we're only---"
"Yes, yes, yes." Sebastian interrupted him, ushering him along, and with a sudden spark of clarity John noticed how much he hated being interrupted, and also that was a thing Sherlock never did, even if he called him an idiot afterwards.
Somehow John ended up at the buffet alone while Sebastian was showing Sherlock around like a trophy, introducing him to people he clearly had no interest in, by the way how rigidly he stood in their presence.
There he stood, with a plate in his hand, feeling useless in his fancy suit after mere minutes. He grabbed for weirdly shaped appetizers without so much as looking at them, thinking absent-mindedly that they were vastly different from Mrs. Hudson's 'nibbles' when someone bumped against his shoulder.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I hope I didn't spill any champagne on you."
She was petite, with a curly brown mane, slender legs and a blinding smile, John was pretty sure whoever saw her without feeling exactly the way he felt at that moment had to be either blind, dead or... Sherlock.
"Hello," John said and smiled, trying to give his confidence a slight push in the right direction. He was good at flirting, he knew he was.
"Hi," she said and flashed him another smile, "I'm Emma. I don't think I remember you..."
"I didn't study at Cambridge." John replied and pushed his plate away to walk with her, even managing to smoothly hand her a fresh flute of champagne when someone with a tray walked past. She giggled in delight; a wonderful, wonderful sign.
"So you're here with someone?"
Damn.
"A colleague," he said slowly, "In case he gets bored of how terrible and fat everyone has become in the last ten years."
It was a really bad joke to cover for the appallingly weird situation he was in, but Emma laughed none the less, which was astounding. Downright amazing.
"I'm John, by the way."
"Hello, John."
She shook his hand warmly.
"I read history." Emma went on, perhaps purposefully not enquiring after John's colleague. It seemed to go great. "Not sure whether it was worth my time, I don't really remember why I did it, either..."
"So what do you do now?" John asked, trying to keep the conversation going without having to tell too much about himself, seeing as the only interesting things he could talk about, the army and Sherlock, were potentially bad topics for small talk with someone you had just met.
"I work for an auction house, estimating the value of items."
"Wow, that's..."
From the corner of his eye John could see Sherlock looking for him, slowly turning into the right direction. Fearing Sherlock would put a sudden end to his good time, as he had a habit of doing, John began to scramble for words.
"That's really something."
Emma suddenly gasped. John furrowed his brow at her.
"There, that's Sherlock," she whispered, gripping his biceps in excitement.
"God, he looks even better than he did ten years ago... not that we ever saw him much, he was supposedly mostly holed up in the university labs but... I mean, just look at him!"
John suppressed a sigh. Good times were definitely over.
"What a shame," Emma whined, digging her fingernails a bit more into John's arm for emphasis.
"What is?" John asked, even though at that point he was sure he didn't want to know.
"Rumour has it that---"
"John!"
Sherlock had spotted him.
"John, I need a break."
He looked honestly exhausted, John had to give him that.
"Get me some food."
"The food is less than five steps away from you, and I'm not your servant, by the way. Get it yourself."
Neither of them noticed how Emma stood between them and gaped without so much as closing her mouth.
"You're--" she stammered and even pointed a finger at John, "You're John!"
"So I said," John replied, suddenly testy, and by the proud glimmer in Sherlock's eyes he must have pulled off sounding just like him for a moment.
"No, I mean... You're that John, John, you and Sherlock..."
It took all of John's willpower not to swear and shout at both of them right then and there. He just left Emma standing, determined to get back home because if the first quarter of an hour of a party turn out like that it was best to get away with dignity still intact.
Sherlock was beside him in an instant.
"Did you spread it?" John asked simply, without sparing him so much as a glance.
"Pardon?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe you're conducting some kind of grand-scale research by telling everyone we're a couple, or you're waiting to see if it's possible for my repressed libido to rip me apart, I don't know!" John barked and yes, he did raise his voice a bit, and he even threw his hands up in exasperation even though he'd tried hard not to.
"Even though that sounds as if it might comfort you if I confessed to something I haven't done, I have to disappoint you," Sherlock replied blandly, and John became aware that Sherlock was staring at him with eyes narrowed.
"I believe it was Sebastian who got a bit overexcited at the prospect of me turning up with a friend."
The way he put emphasis on the last word was unsettling when really, it was all fine. If there was perhaps one, just one thing John thought he ought to learn from Sherlock it was probably that people talked because people did little else, and that it was best not to bother with things that weren't worth the time.
If they were nothing but rumours in no way spread or encouraged by Sherlock however, John wondered why a hand belonging to a certain consulting detective appeared at his lower back, gently pushing him forwards when someone called them over to join the conversation.
"Sherlock! Meet my wife," someone called, and they joined a small circle of people.
The man who had called them was almost as tall as Sherlock. He wore a rumpled shirt under a suit that looked as if he normally wore it to the office, and his stance was relaxed. His hair was short but stylishly cut, probably by an expensive coiffeur, and John thought that his had to be the kind of popular person who had friends because he was actually liked, who had effortlessly climbed the social ladder and could turn up at a reunion party without having to lie about his income and number of children.
John couldn't imagine him ever having been even so much as acquainted with Sherlock.
"John, this is Stephen Walther," Sherlock said, never once moving his hand from its position at John's back even though the other tried his best to glare at him.
"He was one of the students on my course, and is now a well-respected professor of chemistry at Cambridge."
Sherlock sounded like a page out of "How to make successful conversation"-Holmesian style.
"I remember him as always being partial to a drink, attending parties of all sorts and becoming activities officer for the student's union."
Alcoholic. Sherlock's eyes said.
"I'm also delighted to see that his girlfriend from our university days, Penny Highmoore, is now his wife."
Sherlock smiled at them, but the smile didn't reach his eyes, not that it often did.
John remembered, then, the times he had seen Sherlock's genuine smile.
He must have shivered without noticing it, because Sherlock's hand pressed against his back ever so slightly, and John found the feeling comforting even though he knew he shouldn't have.
"Pleased to meet you, John," Stephen said and shook his hand, as did Penny and the other people in the circle whose names John forgot as soon as Sherlock had uttered them.
"I don't know if anyone's ever told you, but Sherlock was a terrific student.”
“No,” John said sincerely, “People don't tend to mention the nice things first when they tell me what he used to be like.”
The awkward silence that followed was kind of satisfying.
“Well,” Stephen went on to bridge the gap, his recovery quick and surprisingly smooth, “Naturally all of us are curious what became of him thence... If there was any fairness in the world Sherlock would have become a chemistry professor, he did always love his research after all...”
John looked at Sherlock long enough for him to notice and return the gaze. Suddenly he hated that him and everyone else seemed to talk about Sherlock as if he wasn't present, even though Sherlock was probably used to it. That didn't make it any less impolite.
“Sherlock,” John said softly, but the other man didn't seem inclined to answer the question himself, so John decided to do it for him.
“He is the world's only consulting detective.”
John left it at that, ignoring all the baffled faces and turning his attention back to Sherlock and the way he stared at him. It was the curious sort of look only Sherlock seemed to be able to pull off, part amused and part confused, as if he wasn't quite sure what John had intended with the statement, but approved nevertheless. He did hate explanations after all.
John had always been more clever than him regarding social matters, at least those that did not require manipulating others, and John couldn't remember being criticised for it since their fight about the lives Moriarty had put at stake.
He liked the idea of them having two different areas of expertise, instead of it being him just trailing alongside Sherlock for the sake of it.
He could almost see the question marks above everyone else's heads and smiled, thinking that this might be the feeling Sherlock often experienced upon realising no one had an idea of what he was talking about.
Maybe Sherlock wasn't meant to be understood by anyone but him, his intricate personality like a secret that was only shared between the two of them, something other people should, just like John once had, take the trouble to slowly unravel.
“So I take it the two of you live together?” one of the women asked.
“We do,” John said, knowing what she, what everyone else had implied by that question and the expectant looks that followed it.
John didn't particularly feel like indulging anyone, but he thought the more he tried to deny it, the more people would believe in him and Sherlock being a couple anyway. He couldn't win, but he could learn to ignore it instead.
He began to talk at length about living with Sherlock, about the limbs in the fridge and test tubes in the oven, and people laughed at his stories as if they were something extraordinarily hilarious, or maybe because they didn't believe a word he said. It was rather likely thought that their lives made for something hilarious if you were not the person leading it or involved with it in any way.
“I just really hoped he would help in the house a little,” John sighed, and all the women nodded vigorously and tutted enthusiastically.
It was when one of them said “You know, my Geoffrey here's just the same, in fact most men are!” that John realised he had somehow, over the course of one conversation, become the woman in their somewhat imaginary relationship.
“I mean, he can't even cook,” John continued, suddenly enjoying the way Sherlock's eyebrow had started to arch.
“Oh please,” Sherlock finally said, as if he had decided this was as good a moment as any to restore some his dignity, and sighing as if his adamant resolution not to participate in the conversation had just been broken,
“It's hardly like our kitchen appears in the Michelin Guide for your cooking.”
“Oh, so the food that I make and that you have so willingly eaten every day is in reality not good enough for you?”
More tutting from the sidelines.
In reality John knew full well that Sherlock probably just wouldn't eat anything at all if it wasn't for his cooking, at least nothing apart from buttered toast, but cooking had become a habit of John's, a habit Sherlock knew he wouldn't break.
“You could try cooking for a change.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, a gesture clearly indicating that something as mundane as cooking was definitely not on his list of priorities and was in no way considered worth his time.
“You know I'm busy with other things.”
“That's what they always say!” another woman cried and finally, finally John laughed, overwhelmed by the situation he himself had created, and by the utter ridiculousness of it all, and he was rewarded by Sherlock's hand drawing little circles on his back.
“I try to... compensate in other areas,” Sherlock said and shot John a look intense enough to make the other man blush and hate himself for it.
“Excuse me,” John rasped and fled to the outside terrace.
Once outside he breathed in deeply, wondering how much time had already past. His stomach rumbling belatedly reminded him of how he had abandoned his meal earlier, but that alone wasn't a strong enough motivator to make him go back in, at least not just yet.
The night was crystal clear and the view was great.
If he was completely honest with himself, John did like London a lot. It didn't feel like home to him, no place ever did, but when he came home from Afghanistan, faced with the choice and the ability to go just about anywhere, this magnificent city, diverse and exciting as it was, had drawn him in as it had so many before him.
It had seemed like the right place to start a new, equally magnificent and exciting life.
Well, he'd got what he wished for.
Normal people wouldn't enjoy the way he led his life, John knew as much, but then again he probably wouldn't enjoy what those presumably normal people did within the confines of their everyday lives.
Somehow even John's boring day-to-day life without cases still included spending thousands of pounds, eyeballs and jars and explosions that turned the kitchen table into a pile of ash.
Whatever Sherlock did, John went along with it some way or other, and somehow it had become something he didn't want to part with.
Maybe that was what defined their relationship, Sherlock set the pace, a pace made for John to follow.
To outsiders it may not have sounded great, but it was a working concept both of them had over time become comfortable with.
When John eventually went back inside, more than ready for some food, he didn't see Sherlock anywhere in the hall, but, knowing the man's tendencies to hide, didn't think much of it.
The less John needed to get involved, the better.
He had just reached for a new plate when a sound startled him enough to almost drop it.
Sherlock was laughing.
It wasn't the quiet, nearly audible laugh he sometimes shared with John, it was a booming, rich sound of happiness.
It made John look for Sherlock, and he found him in the foyer, that now that most guests had arrived was nearly deserted.
Sherlock was talking animatedly with a woman.
John knew the difference between Sherlock who was just making pretend and Sherlock who was enjoying himself by now, and with no little surprise he witnessed Sherlock smile and gesture like he had never seen him do before.
She was really short.
There was probably a greater height difference between her and Sherlock than there was between Sherlock and John, which satisfied him even though she was a woman and sporting a rather impressive set of heels.
Her dress was just as impressive, black and heavy looking with lots of lace, but without looking as cheap as one might expect.
Her hair was drawn back in a bun, and her make-up was dark, but not thickly applied.
She too, looked comfortable in Sherlock's presence. It was eerie.
This woman seemed to be one of a category John didn't know existed, people who liked Sherlock instead of just tolerating him, and if that was really the case he wondered why they had never met before. At that precise moment he wasn’t too sure that he wanted to meet her at all, but she saw him first - their eyes met and she smiled. Now that fleeing back outside was no longer an option, John boldly stepped forward.
“Hello,” she said, her voice as dark as her eyes and as firm as their grip when they shook hands.
Not “Sherlock has told me so much about you!” or something similarly exasperating, just a smile and a handshake, and she did exude a certain no-nonsense air that helped John see why she and Sherlock might be friends.
Suddenly John was sure she already knew much more about him than he would have liked her to.
“John, this is Irene.” Sherlock said, but John avoided his eyes, avoided the smile.
“Another chemistry student, I assume?” John asked her, but Irene shook her head.
“English literature,” she replied, her tone amused.
John frowned at her.
“So... How did you meet?”
“Oh, Sherlock changed cafés for lunch so he wouldn't run into anyone he knew, changed them daily, but... he did run into me.”
John's frown didn't disappear.
“You chatted him up?”
She did look a bit embarrassed at that, but more so because she might have felt that was the appropriate look for having been found out, and not because she was actually embarrassed. It reminded John of the thing Sherlock used to do when he wasn't sure what emotional response was required of him in certain situations.
John realised that the two people looking expectantly at him were probably... rather alike.
“Well, uh... lovely to meet you,” John said, suddenly feeling hot under the collar, and left.
The next hours brought food he didn't enjoy and conversations he didn’t want to have, because they centred mostly around his life rather than Sherlock's. They didn't seem to serve for quite as many good jokes and left him feeling like he had just made a fool of himself, and John began to wait for a cue to be able to go home - something he had expected several hours ago if he was honest with himself.
If this party really meant something to Sherlock (which John doubted highly) and was actually enjoyable for him then John would have been glad. He should have been.
What he was however, was annoyed and bored enough to consider watching Strictly Come Dancing at home an improvement to his current situation.
“No wonder people believe you’re a couple with the way you look at him.”
John turned his head and came face to face with Irene, who nudged him and handed him a pint of lager he was suddenly very grateful for.
“I didn't want to give you the wrong impression, you know.” she said softly, but kept her eyes on Sherlock just like John did. “I am willing to admit that by now you probably know him better than I do.”
“You really don't have to say that.”
“You know I wouldn't say that just to please you.”
Somehow John did.
“The way you keep looking at him tells me a lot.”
“Then you, just like everyone else, have come to the wrong conclusion.”
“Or you are saying that because you refuse to come to a conclusion at all. Look, I know what you're thinking. I would have dated Sherlock, but all his intelligence and his good looks don't help over the fact that sometimes you have to be prepared to come second, and back then I wasn't.
If Sherlock is smitten with someone, he will make that very hard to see, and I wanted to be adored.
You on the other hand, no matter how many things about Sherlock you have learned over time, you seem to be very blind to this. When we were talking he was all 'well John thinks this' and 'John thinks that' to just about anything I voiced my opinion on. Obviously your opinion means a lot to him, at least more than mine. I don't know if the two of you have enough in common for a relationship to work, but you've got a chance.”
John looked at her once more and nodded, not sure whether he was grateful.
Still the feeling of wanting to go home and think things over had intensified, and thus he went to tell Sherlock he was leaving.
“You don't have to,” Sherlock said, “We have a room booked in this hotel.”
John sighed.
“Sherlock, we live fifteen minutes by cab and you don't like drinking so there was clearly no danger of us getting smashed, so why would you go and book a room?”
Sherlock briefly shifted his eyes away.
“That's because I didn’t. It's on Sebastian.”
John didn't stop a beat.
“Right, that's it, I'm out of here.”
Sherlock however, grabbed him by the wrist.
“Why are you---” he said, but John's patience was wearing thin.
“For you it's just a night in a hotel bed, but for me it is practically everyone in this room goading me into something of a relationship that requires more from me than just putting up with your dirty dishes and your moaning about humankind! It's about everyone telling me what I supposedly want and me starting to believe I actually want it!”
Sherlock raised his brows at him.
“And what would that be?”
The answer just required one word, but it was a word John didn't dare to say.
“You look tired, John,” Sherlock said, took him by the hand and lead him away without another word.
**
“It's the bloody honeymoon suite!” John said when they even so much as stepped out of the lift and onto the corridor their room supposedly lay in.“It's got to be!”
When their search revealed a room with double doors, there was nothing Sherlock could say to suggest John was wrong.
He pushed the key card into the device next to the door, and John pushed it open and marched right in.
“Who would need an entire living room in a hotel?” he said, and from Sherlock's position by the door it sounded as if he was very far away already.
“Want some tea?”
Sherlock closed the door and didn't answer.
“If this is the honeymoon suite you know what that means,” he said slowly, following the sound of John rummaging for the kettle that was a standard to nearly every hotel room.
“Does it help if I get worked up over it?”
“It certainly hasn't kept you before.”
John stopped going through the various cupboards in search of the kettle, straightened and sighed.
“I'm tired, Sherlock. Not really in the mood for arguing anymore.”
“What did you to talk to Irene about?”
John would have denied it, but that had never worked before, telling Sherlock to mind his own business hadn't either, so he just tried to be vague.
“You.”
Sherlock didn't ask further, but he narrowed his eyes at John as if trying to find out the answer he wanted the usual way - without having to ask for it.
“You're disappointed,” he concluded, “But not with me, it's with yourself.”
He stepped closer.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don't want to.”
“John.”
Sherlock took another big step towards the doctor, right into his personal space, face to face, and John couldn't help dropping his gaze to his shoes.
“John,” Sherlock said again, and his breath was warm on the other man's face, “John, I have come to a few very interesting conclusions this evening.”
“Is that so,” John rasped, still not looking up.
“You compliment my appearance by staring at me, you get aroused by me doing your tie, you do not mind me seeing you naked, at least not from the waist upwards. You willingly play the part of my lover, and allow me to touch you in ways that do not seem to serve a higher purpose. You are wary of my female acquaintances, at least that one, and you like to keep an eye on me. To what conclusion do you think I came?”
John swallowed dryly, mustering up the last remains of both his courage and pride.
“So does that mean we have spent a lot of money just so you could put me to the test when you could've just---”
Sherlock's long and slender fingers touched the base of his throat and all words died on his lips.
“I will conduct one final experiment, if you would like me to call it that.”
The fingers ghosted over John's cheekbones before Sherlock's hand finally came to rest on his neck. He spread his fingers over the nape, making John shiver visibly.
“Something you think you might actually want, was it?” Sherlock said softly, his voice as thick and heavy as honey.
He placed the first kiss on the corner of John's mouth, just a quick press of lips to skin, something delicately promising. He hummed in approval when John closed his eyes.
The second kiss was little more than a dry peck, a quick promise of more, and John already leaned into the touch, turning the third kiss into a longer, less chaste one.
“We have to talk about this.” John gasped between kisses four and five, but Sherlock just said “Oh do we now?” and bit his bottom lip.
John's mouth opened in a gasp, an opportunity Sherlock used to slide his tongue into John's mouth, deepening the kiss, a strange experience for both of them, with the need to taste more and touch more slowly intensifying, settling low in their stomachs.
John broke the kiss, his eyes wide.
“We really need to talk.”
“About what?” Sherlock asked, and John was taken aback by the faint tinge of pink on his cheeks.
“Things like why me, since when, how, and what are you actually intending to happen?”
“You are going to find out if we keep this up,” Sherlock breathed, and such kind of desperation was so unlike him that John instinctively grabbed him by the shoulder and brought some distance between them.
“I just don't know if this is what people say it is.”
There they stood, like strangers in their expensive suits, and John realised that compared to what he was doing right at this moment, trying to untangle all the things the had done for Sherlock instinctively, putting them in order, he thought that compared to this, catching murderers was really just a game, nothing but child's play.
“You're not even the relationship type,” he said. “This could be Sebastian's very elaborate joke, payback for all the years you ruined his sex life.”
“It would have been a joke had you rejected my advances, I believe. Then again it's something I wouldn't have fallen for because you may have noticed I'm rather good at reading people.”
Sherlock's quick smile made John blush.
“Then what am I thinking?”
“That I'm a risk. You on the other hand, have always loved risks. John...”
Sherlock stepped closer gain, but he was scrutinising the other man now, taking his time.
“Why are you so intent on naming things?”
Because it was scary, John thought, and it must have been scary for Sherlock, too, when he realised that there is no logic in simply wanting something, that it was a fact that sometimes the outcome was not predictable.
Just then however, he was willing to take a risk.
“You know what the doctor said about your hand,” he whispered, but Sherlock just waved it dismissively before unwrapping the gauze.
They were kissing again, languidly this time, and John was trying to find anything to hold onto that wasn't Sherlock just yet, running his hands up and down the heavy fabric of the suit instead until Sherlock huffed and stilled his hands.
They stumbled through the rooms, limbs knocking into door frames and ankles into furniture, and when they found the bed Sherlock just had to give John a small push to make him fall heavily.
Sherlock was now leaning over him, kissing his exposed throat, and John pushed at the other's jacket, the skin underneath Sherlock's shirt surprisingly hot to the touch.
Sherlock shook his jacket off and began to unbutton John's shirt, leaving a trail of kisses on his now exposed chest.
John fisted a hand in Sherlock's hair to pull his head upwards, and met his lips in a messy kiss that left both of them breathless.
He then rose from the mattress just long enough to slide out of his jacket and shirt and after a moment of hesitation where his breathing slowed and his eyes met Sherlock's, he began to fumble with his trousers.
Sherlock stood and all but stumbled out of his clothing, a movement so graceless it made John laugh.
Suddenly there they were, tangled up in each other, John's arms around Sherlock's back, Sherlock's hands framing his face, and the brush of their erections through their boxers made Sherlock hiss so loudly that John would have been surprised had he not been occupied with suppressing a similar noise himself.
Sherlock began to move at a steady rhythm and John's legs went numb with Sherlock's surprising weight and the sharp press of bony thighs, so he just decided to turn them and straddle Sherlock's hips.
Sherlock had gasped in surprise, his hair now splayed over the pillows, his eyes wide and so blue, or were they grey? John couldn't tell, but he knew he wanted to kiss those lips again, to share his breath with the man who had completely reduced him to his instincts.
They built up a rhythm, hips moving against each other slowly, both of them determined to savour this moment, the present that would lead to such an uncertain future.
Finally John had enough courage to remove his boxers and so did Sherlock, and the sensation of flesh on flesh, their bodies now touching in their entirety, was almost unbearable.
John watched Sherlock through the haze of his pleasure, trying to commit the flutter of his eyelashes to memory, the way he seemed to be overwhelmed by his own high, once in his life without the control that was so important to him.
John came first, his whole body seizing up, his muscles stretching taunt, spilling onto Sherlock's body, and while he helped the other man follow him over the edge, their kisses grew careless with the exhaustion that slowly settled in.
He didn't want to think about it then, how he really wanted the feeling deep within him to grow into something more, into the word he was still afraid of. He didn't need to name it now.
**
“I would be very happy if you remembered to put the milk back into the fridge just once in a while,” John said and opened the fridge door, sighing.
Sherlock appeared behind and pressed a small kiss to his neck.
“I try to compensate in other areas,” he said, his smile audible.
“The more my frustration grows, the harder you will have to try to compensate it,” John shot back, but Sherlock just laughed soundlessly.
“I think that can be arranged.”