Fic: the beat and beating heart (love that too) (2/2)
Title: the beat and beating heart (love that too)
Rating: R
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Word Count: 3,636
Summary: John dreams of heartbeats, more often than not. In which John has a few questions, after his flatmate decides to tongue at his carotid pulse. (Part II of the Cardiophilia Sequence; Follows suddenly your heart showed me my way)
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title credit to Toni Morrison.
Author's Notes: For my dearest togoboldly. My thanks to the unutterably brilliant speak_me_fair for the Britpicking and beta-work that tightened this up ever-so-nicely.
Part One: the beat and beating heart (sweeter still)
the beat and beating heart (love that too)
John dreams of heartbeats, more often than not.
There’s the desert, of course: there’s adrenaline and fear and exertion and running, and the way his feet would pound the ground out of sync with his blood and oddly, that was often the only thing he remembered once his finger left the trigger.
There’s the surge of life against his fingertips as it struggles, as it seeps out between the cracks and fades when he’s not fast enough, not strong enough to hold the red inside the veins with his own two hands, not good enough to save anything, in the end.
There’s the tactless beep of the ECG: patients lost and saved because of him, and both haunt him in the night, somehow-that’s probably wrong, really; there’s something a bit off about that.
There’s the memory of his hands around wrists: his father’s, finding nothing; his sister’s, finding something sluggish and tense. There’s the dramatic telltale beat that lies in the negative space when he free-falls, when he flees from the chasing, nameless dread in the dark.
There’s the wet rush of blood over an ultrasound that gets caught around his ankles and brings his dream-self down, drives his chin in the mud; but then there’s the strong, not-quite-steady but comforting pump that echoes around him, warm-he doesn’t know who it belongs to, but it’s a dream, that doesn’t matter, and it feels so fucking safe.
So yes. John’s intimately familiar with the human heart.
His own, for instance, in this moment, in the now: it’s a beast, really-a wild, aimless creature, rattling its cages; longing to get out.
To reach.
Steady, John thinks, whispers wordless; this isn’t the first time it’s felt like this.
It is the first time, though, the catalyst, the trigger: the reason for the thrumming and the shortage of air inside the room is so close. It’s the first time his heart’s been sucked to the surface by the lips that have teased it since that first glance in the lab.
“What the bloody hell was that?”
He breathes it, forces it from his lungs because that’s the only choice, the only option he’s got. It’s already seeped too deep in the other places, the starker places: the parts of him that mean more.
It’s had longer to settle, to set up shop, in the other places.
And Sherlock, of course: Sherlock blinks at him, owlish, with eyes that are narrow and wide all at once, bright and cold, calculating, a little bit lost and yet still so fucking superior John has to rein the urge to punch him, throttle him, put hands on his neck and touch, and stroke; maybe mirror, maybe reenact the suction, the lilting pulse of Sherlock’s tongue thrusting out against his throat with passion and purpose, frightening and thrilling and new-
Distracting.
Sherlock’s still blinking. John still hasn’t got a response.
He’s pretty sure they both know that the question he’s asking isn’t the one he wants answered. Not really.
“Fine, well, right,” John concedes, swallows, sucks in air again and Sherlock’s not gone from the inhale: it’s oxygen and pheromones and that chemical-curried scent that overlays the cool menthol, the earthen sweetness Sherlock exudes, that sends John’s heart thumping full when he catches it, unannounced. “Belated maybe, but still,” he clears his throat, and Sherlock’s on his tongue still, too: musk and bitters, ginger and iron-the coarse sort of sugar that falls off sweets and settles at the bottom of the bag.
Jesus.
“What in god’s name was that all about?” And John’s breathless, very; and his chest stings, feels too small. And yes, okay-yes: he can admit in his own head that what he’s really asking is something else, is more along the lines of Tell me that’s what it felt like, tell me I can read you by now, tell me I’d know an experiment when I saw it, when it was licking down my neck, and tell me I’m right when I say that this wasn’t, this isn’t.
He can admit that. Because when you’re John Watson, you’ve got to maintain a certain level of self-awareness. You’re only allowed a certain level of uselessness by the universe at large, and with a tremor and a limp; with a sore shoulder and a sister and fuck, but he’s tempting fate if he goes about adding wilful delusion to a list like that. At the very least: if he’s going to feel just a little bit faint where he sits and grasps the arms of the chair and feels motion where there is none, because his heart's rocketing that fierce beneath his ribs, well; if he’s going to get dizzy and draw blood from his palms with his own sodding fingernails, the least he can do is recognise why.
“One hundred and thirteen,” Sherlock murmurs, apropos of nothing-and that’s the best word for it, murmurs, because it’s low, rough, choked, a susurration like the rush of blood: amplified, untainted.
“It’s not a fucking maths problem, you prat,” and John curses himself, curses biology and the circulatory system and the endocrine system and his fucking libido and everyone from Servetus to Freud for the way his whole body clenches and tingles and burns, for the way his words are gasping, panting, even as he sits there, even as it’s just the image and the proximity that’s having an effect.
“I asked what you think you’re playing at by,” John lets out a long breath, raises his hand to gesture appropriately, except he can’t, he doesn’t know how to properly mime attacking me with your mouth out of nowhere. “By the,” he swallows hard as he flaps his hand ineffectually at his own throat, his Adam’s apple working against the stray side of his hand in the process, and he shivers at the contact of his own skin against itself, the brush making him recall the lips, the teeth, the tongue, and fuck, fuck.
He shakes his head once, twice, closes his eyes. “And,” he starts, looks up and Sherlock who’s still zeroed in on John and John alone, those eyes unwavering, that attention fixed, and there goes John’s pulse again, fuck; not at that much faster, but harder-too hard.
“And the kissing,” he forces out, because Sherlock’s not moving, not saying anything; is responding to nothing, and John doesn’t know if he’s getting through, if he’s hallucinating, if he’s finally lost it entirely and Sherlock’s just observing, Jesus Christ-
“One hundred and twenty-one.”
“Goddamnit, Sherlock, enough with the numbers,” John wants to yell it, to shout it at him, to be angry as he has every right to be but for all of that, all he can manage is to let the words out on an exhale, something caught between a breath and a moan.
“Shh,” Sherlock frowns at him, eyes wide as he steps in, as he steps close again and leans into John where he sits; hesitates, as he reaches, but finally frames John’s face with his hands, those elegant fingers, rough skin on the palms and smooth at the wrists.
“Relax, John, please,” and he says it like a prayer, almost, and John doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand and doesn’t like being shushed and can’t think over the pounding in his chest that’s really far too hard and fast for the circumstances, isn’t it, because it’s just Sherlock and his violin and his lips and his hands and his taste-
“Please?” Sherlock asks, and John looks at him now, looks at his eyes and the fear in them, the concern and the way his pupils are enormous, inking into the grey-blue that’s not cool, just then, but vibrant, like the sky where the sun drains some of the colour as if shines too bright, and one-twenty-one, one-twenty-one: John breathes slowly, with purpose and watches something loosen in Sherlock’s gaze-the jump beneath his skin at the collarbone, and the neck receding: the one John hadn’t been watching but notices in his peripheral vision as soon as its gone.
Something in Sherlock gives way, then, and he stands straight to make up for it, to recoup the loss.
“Looking,” he says, softly, and John furrows his brow; doesn’t get it.
Not that that’s new.
“I was looking,” Sherlock says again, impatient, but not irritated with John’s dimness, as he’d normally be. John can’t fight the quick stab of concern that shoot through him, unlooked for; much as he tries.
“I don’t know, John,” Sherlock shakes his head, tries again; spins on his heel and paces back toward John, hands steepled at his chin, head bowed.
“I don’t understand,” and that’s the lynchpin, that’s what sheds light upon this entire anomalous, ridiculous encounter, at last. Sherlock Holmes does not understand.
John wishes he could feel just a little more flattered at that: at the fact that he, apparently, has stumped the great Detective himself. Mostly, though, he just feels sick in his gut and frustrated with the way he’d let himself hope, for just a moment under Sherlock’s mouth; the way his chest tightens and his heart rate drops a bit more, unfulfilled-retreating.
“I tried to understand, of course I tried,” Sherlock continues, babbles, rambles, moves back and forth with a mindless grace even as he’s coming apart at the seams. “I tried to grasp it, to dissect the layers, to parse the significance,” he swallows hard, so that John can hear it, can see it work down the line of his neck through the gap between his folded hands. “But I couldn’t, so I had to step back, I had to observe more carefully, find a case that I would solve.”
Sherlock whips around, agitated, uncontrolled, eyes burning and mouth open and his chest heaving and his skin slick in the low light and John feels the stirring at his groin growing ever more insistent, undeniable, despite how skilled he’s become at hiding it in moments like this, in the company he currently keeps.
Because fuck, he’s only human, and his heart’s a bloody masochistic mess. He can’t help but imagine those eyes, that skin, that chest, that mouth in the same throes of disarray, under rather different circumstances.
“But John,” Sherlock whines, almost whimpers, and the fight drains out of him and pools to the floor, taking the brightness away, sluicing it off from the top on down. “John, there’s no case.”
John just blinks, and stares, because even with the light drained out of him, Sherlock’s a beacon, a sight to behold.
“There’s so much,” Sherlock hisses, hateful and vengeful and a little bit terrified, John can hear that in him too and that unsettles John more than anything else because what frightens Sherlock Holmes is largely unfathomable.
“There too much and it’s impossible, it’s all impossible and there’s nothing improbable to fall back on so it’s just looking, just taking it in and recording and making nothing of it yet and that’s all there is,” he finally breaks for breath, gasps it in, and fuck what Sherlock says: watching his body move with the expansion of his lungs, watching his lips part: that’s not boring.
It’s not boring at all.
“That’s all that’s left, John, and it’s not making any difference because every time I think I’ve solved it, every time I think I’ve grasped the whole of you there’s more,” and Sherlock stops, frozen as he pauses mid-step, as his eyes flicker to John and all of him ceases, stills, and John has to wait a moment, has to process the information and do what he does best: try to find the simple route, the paths of least resistance that stretch beneath the notice of such a massive intellect, such a brilliant brain.
So John ponders touches, ponders contact and the numbers and the way a heart pumps; he thinks of Sherlock’s eyes and watching them, taking them in as discreetly as he dared for so many months, since almost the very start. He thinks of boring breathing and the way Sherlock’s would sometimes still, sometimes catch. He thinks of dilated pupils and the brush of fingers as he passes tea. He thinks being wrapped up in explosives like a bloody gift basket, thinks of the pick of Sherlock’s voice and the thrum of him so close as he’s torn the bombs away. He thinks of a warehouse and Sherlock’s face against his neck, chin dug just above John’s sternum, and how hard it was to pry him off, even many minutes after they were safe.
The routes he finds are madness, longing: John can’t be sure he trusts them yet.
But the evidence, a voice in him whispers: traitorous, tempting. The evidence; the evidence can’t lie.
And John thinks maybe he gets, in a rudimentary sort of way: gets how it’s more than just a sound or a rhythm or the first indication of life versus death. No, he thinks he sees it starting to come together: it’s evidence, indicative. It suggests pathologies, or their absence. It implies a warm reception or a cold shoulder, gives testament to a great shag or...not.
“Sherlock,” he starts, but there’s something in his tone, he knows it as soon as Sherlock’s expression darkens, twists; as soon as a snarl lets loose from those lips, that tongue and he surges forward, a force of nature.
“Observe, goddamn you!” And then John’s hand is in Sherlock’s hand, clutched; and then John’s palm is on Sherlock’s chest, warm.
And then he feels it; feels it before he touches, even, it’s that vibrant. That strong.
And there it is, there it is: that’s the centre of the great Consulting Detective under his fingertips, awake at his touch. That’s the world’s only heart of a madman, a genius; an idiot, a fiend and a friend. That’s the only heart in the universe that John would kill for because he needs it, that John would die for, just so it could simply be, just because John can’t imagine life without it’s infuriating, impossible, undeniable thrum. That’s the heart John aches for.
That’s the heart, unsteady-strong and safe-that plays and pumps, that dances in his dreams, and it is deeply, forcefully, frantically throbbing in time, in sync with John’s own.
John can’t breathe.
And it’s funny, how it’s all so clear where it was muddled before, sharp where it was grey; it’s funny how it comes together so quickly, so easy now that his hand is held still, tight against the muscle as it moves.
John’s heart leaps and speeds just a little bit more, dangerous, overwhelmed, and Sherlock’s races immediate to follow, to match him, to keep him close and John’s eyes widen as his fingers clench at Sherlock’s sternum, look to grasp what’s already, impossibly, incredibly his.
“Right,” John whispers, nods, because it’s starting to come together, now, the lines are forming shapes at last. “Right.”
John’s still nodding, a little bit dazed, when Sherlock pulls away, agitated, unhinged; when he starts to pace and run shaking hands through his curls. John clasps his own hands together, for a moment, and feels the echo of the motion, the momentum in his chest as it shivers out to hid fingertips, and he wonders-sentimental-if it’s recollection or recognition, if it matter’s which heart’s in which chest, really, when it feels like this.
“You’re everywhere,” Sherlock tells him, declares it like the atomic mass of plutonium or the fact that Anderson is an irredeemable moron. “You’ve spread, you’ve sieved and soaked and percolated like a virus,” and John’s stung by that, frowns automatically, but it’s not stated with malice, not meant to cut: it’s bewildered and there’s a sharp edge to the words that John recognises, now, as fear. It’s liquor shivering in a glass and sweat at the hairline, and Sherlock’s heartbeat at that long porcelain throat, and John wonders when it started, how long it’s been: wonders when his world started humming, his self started vibrating at the same frequency as Sherlock fucking Holmes.
“You’ve multiplied,” Sherlock’s still at it; “you’ve insinuated your very essence into everything I know and everything I am,” and John’s listening, but now he’s watching too; now he’s studying, looking, observing even, because for all the brilliance he lacks, John’s bright, got a good head on his shoulders. And there are so many things in this world that he can piece together in an instant, can understand without much fuss that Sherlock can’t quite see through the haze of everything else.
“You’re the work, and you’re the music,” Sherlock’s eyes are wild, the colour of the skyline, just at the horizon, just before the sun sneaks back after rain. “You’re morning tea and triple homicides and you’re not clever, really, but you’re cleverness, and that’s absurd, John, that’s absurd.” Sherlock is breathless, and John’s breathless too, and his heart’s not just a drum in his chest, it’s a mallet, it’s a hummingbird, it’s a child in the cold and it’s desperate and keening and ready to burst, and it’s frightened and fragile but it’s so fucking strong.
It’s strong, he’s strong, and John watches Sherlock tremble just beyond noticing; and John himself can’t see it but he feels it in his veins, and he wants to reach out but not yet, not yet; if he closes his eyes he can feel, imagine, touch and taste the added depth, the resonance of each beat with something else, something other, something vibrant that splits him in half just to remake him whole.
“You’re the way my lungs work and you’re the blood cells and the marrow,” Sherlock chokes, whispers, and he’s stopped, arrested mid-quiver and John’s balanced on the brink of all the world’s longing as he sucks in air, deliberate, scarce; as he inhales and exhales and thinks of Sherlock, stares at Sherlock while his lungs fill so full they ache, while his heart beats the CO2 out in sloppy, arterial spurts.
“You’ve permeated,” Sherlock tells him, steps closer again and says it like a secret, a confession to a god that’s more the divinity of belief; that’s all things and unending, that is destruction and derision and heartened-hateful-hope. “You’ve leached the whole way through and it’s too late, and I don’t, I don’t,” Sherlock flails, starts to diminish, and John won’t have it, he can’t.
He’s on his feet and his hands are on Sherlock’s hands within an instant; their shaking at matching intervals, their fingers seeking-simultaneous, unasked-for the radial pulse.
“You don’t what?” John asks, voice soft, hesitant, and god, please let this be true.
“I don’t-” Sherlock shivers when John runs his fingers, just a lilting touch across the veins of his forearm, the median, basilic, cephalic, just a touch, and he feels the rush of heat, trails his flesh against the pulse as it deepens, quickens, rises, and yes, yes, he gets it: evidence.
“The words, John,” Sherlock breathes out, the syllables shaky, and John’s close enough to feel it. “The words are dreadfully inadequate.”
“It’s fine,” John tells him, assures him, because it is, all of it, and it always was even before this, even before John’s heart is aching and pounding for a whole host of new reasons, overfull with yearning and feeling and a passionate need he’d been so sure would never know release.
“How?” Sherlock asks, and it’s more than it seems, it’s How is it fine? and How can you know? It’s How are you here? and How is this real? and If there are no words, if the words don’t fit, how can you be sure that you understand what it is that’s here in me, keeping me, killing me, driving me mad? and John is grateful, he’s so fucking grateful, because he hears it all, he reads it all in Sherlock’s eyes and the spectacular, incomparable swell of his heartbeat at the throat, and John doesn’t fight it anymore, slides a gentle thumb along the beat as he leans up and presses Sherlock’s mouth against his own.
Because some things exceed words, John knows; but the feeling more than fills the gap.
Rating: R
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Word Count: 3,636
Summary: John dreams of heartbeats, more often than not. In which John has a few questions, after his flatmate decides to tongue at his carotid pulse. (Part II of the Cardiophilia Sequence; Follows suddenly your heart showed me my way)
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title credit to Toni Morrison.
Author's Notes: For my dearest togoboldly. My thanks to the unutterably brilliant speak_me_fair for the Britpicking and beta-work that tightened this up ever-so-nicely.
Part One: the beat and beating heart (sweeter still)
the beat and beating heart (love that too)
John dreams of heartbeats, more often than not.
There’s the desert, of course: there’s adrenaline and fear and exertion and running, and the way his feet would pound the ground out of sync with his blood and oddly, that was often the only thing he remembered once his finger left the trigger.
There’s the surge of life against his fingertips as it struggles, as it seeps out between the cracks and fades when he’s not fast enough, not strong enough to hold the red inside the veins with his own two hands, not good enough to save anything, in the end.
There’s the tactless beep of the ECG: patients lost and saved because of him, and both haunt him in the night, somehow-that’s probably wrong, really; there’s something a bit off about that.
There’s the memory of his hands around wrists: his father’s, finding nothing; his sister’s, finding something sluggish and tense. There’s the dramatic telltale beat that lies in the negative space when he free-falls, when he flees from the chasing, nameless dread in the dark.
There’s the wet rush of blood over an ultrasound that gets caught around his ankles and brings his dream-self down, drives his chin in the mud; but then there’s the strong, not-quite-steady but comforting pump that echoes around him, warm-he doesn’t know who it belongs to, but it’s a dream, that doesn’t matter, and it feels so fucking safe.
So yes. John’s intimately familiar with the human heart.
His own, for instance, in this moment, in the now: it’s a beast, really-a wild, aimless creature, rattling its cages; longing to get out.
To reach.
Steady, John thinks, whispers wordless; this isn’t the first time it’s felt like this.
It is the first time, though, the catalyst, the trigger: the reason for the thrumming and the shortage of air inside the room is so close. It’s the first time his heart’s been sucked to the surface by the lips that have teased it since that first glance in the lab.
“What the bloody hell was that?”
He breathes it, forces it from his lungs because that’s the only choice, the only option he’s got. It’s already seeped too deep in the other places, the starker places: the parts of him that mean more.
It’s had longer to settle, to set up shop, in the other places.
And Sherlock, of course: Sherlock blinks at him, owlish, with eyes that are narrow and wide all at once, bright and cold, calculating, a little bit lost and yet still so fucking superior John has to rein the urge to punch him, throttle him, put hands on his neck and touch, and stroke; maybe mirror, maybe reenact the suction, the lilting pulse of Sherlock’s tongue thrusting out against his throat with passion and purpose, frightening and thrilling and new-
Distracting.
Sherlock’s still blinking. John still hasn’t got a response.
He’s pretty sure they both know that the question he’s asking isn’t the one he wants answered. Not really.
“Fine, well, right,” John concedes, swallows, sucks in air again and Sherlock’s not gone from the inhale: it’s oxygen and pheromones and that chemical-curried scent that overlays the cool menthol, the earthen sweetness Sherlock exudes, that sends John’s heart thumping full when he catches it, unannounced. “Belated maybe, but still,” he clears his throat, and Sherlock’s on his tongue still, too: musk and bitters, ginger and iron-the coarse sort of sugar that falls off sweets and settles at the bottom of the bag.
Jesus.
“What in god’s name was that all about?” And John’s breathless, very; and his chest stings, feels too small. And yes, okay-yes: he can admit in his own head that what he’s really asking is something else, is more along the lines of Tell me that’s what it felt like, tell me I can read you by now, tell me I’d know an experiment when I saw it, when it was licking down my neck, and tell me I’m right when I say that this wasn’t, this isn’t.
He can admit that. Because when you’re John Watson, you’ve got to maintain a certain level of self-awareness. You’re only allowed a certain level of uselessness by the universe at large, and with a tremor and a limp; with a sore shoulder and a sister and fuck, but he’s tempting fate if he goes about adding wilful delusion to a list like that. At the very least: if he’s going to feel just a little bit faint where he sits and grasps the arms of the chair and feels motion where there is none, because his heart's rocketing that fierce beneath his ribs, well; if he’s going to get dizzy and draw blood from his palms with his own sodding fingernails, the least he can do is recognise why.
“One hundred and thirteen,” Sherlock murmurs, apropos of nothing-and that’s the best word for it, murmurs, because it’s low, rough, choked, a susurration like the rush of blood: amplified, untainted.
“It’s not a fucking maths problem, you prat,” and John curses himself, curses biology and the circulatory system and the endocrine system and his fucking libido and everyone from Servetus to Freud for the way his whole body clenches and tingles and burns, for the way his words are gasping, panting, even as he sits there, even as it’s just the image and the proximity that’s having an effect.
“I asked what you think you’re playing at by,” John lets out a long breath, raises his hand to gesture appropriately, except he can’t, he doesn’t know how to properly mime attacking me with your mouth out of nowhere. “By the,” he swallows hard as he flaps his hand ineffectually at his own throat, his Adam’s apple working against the stray side of his hand in the process, and he shivers at the contact of his own skin against itself, the brush making him recall the lips, the teeth, the tongue, and fuck, fuck.
He shakes his head once, twice, closes his eyes. “And,” he starts, looks up and Sherlock who’s still zeroed in on John and John alone, those eyes unwavering, that attention fixed, and there goes John’s pulse again, fuck; not at that much faster, but harder-too hard.
“And the kissing,” he forces out, because Sherlock’s not moving, not saying anything; is responding to nothing, and John doesn’t know if he’s getting through, if he’s hallucinating, if he’s finally lost it entirely and Sherlock’s just observing, Jesus Christ-
“One hundred and twenty-one.”
“Goddamnit, Sherlock, enough with the numbers,” John wants to yell it, to shout it at him, to be angry as he has every right to be but for all of that, all he can manage is to let the words out on an exhale, something caught between a breath and a moan.
“Shh,” Sherlock frowns at him, eyes wide as he steps in, as he steps close again and leans into John where he sits; hesitates, as he reaches, but finally frames John’s face with his hands, those elegant fingers, rough skin on the palms and smooth at the wrists.
“Relax, John, please,” and he says it like a prayer, almost, and John doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand and doesn’t like being shushed and can’t think over the pounding in his chest that’s really far too hard and fast for the circumstances, isn’t it, because it’s just Sherlock and his violin and his lips and his hands and his taste-
“Please?” Sherlock asks, and John looks at him now, looks at his eyes and the fear in them, the concern and the way his pupils are enormous, inking into the grey-blue that’s not cool, just then, but vibrant, like the sky where the sun drains some of the colour as if shines too bright, and one-twenty-one, one-twenty-one: John breathes slowly, with purpose and watches something loosen in Sherlock’s gaze-the jump beneath his skin at the collarbone, and the neck receding: the one John hadn’t been watching but notices in his peripheral vision as soon as its gone.
Something in Sherlock gives way, then, and he stands straight to make up for it, to recoup the loss.
“Looking,” he says, softly, and John furrows his brow; doesn’t get it.
Not that that’s new.
“I was looking,” Sherlock says again, impatient, but not irritated with John’s dimness, as he’d normally be. John can’t fight the quick stab of concern that shoot through him, unlooked for; much as he tries.
“I don’t know, John,” Sherlock shakes his head, tries again; spins on his heel and paces back toward John, hands steepled at his chin, head bowed.
“I don’t understand,” and that’s the lynchpin, that’s what sheds light upon this entire anomalous, ridiculous encounter, at last. Sherlock Holmes does not understand.
John wishes he could feel just a little more flattered at that: at the fact that he, apparently, has stumped the great Detective himself. Mostly, though, he just feels sick in his gut and frustrated with the way he’d let himself hope, for just a moment under Sherlock’s mouth; the way his chest tightens and his heart rate drops a bit more, unfulfilled-retreating.
“I tried to understand, of course I tried,” Sherlock continues, babbles, rambles, moves back and forth with a mindless grace even as he’s coming apart at the seams. “I tried to grasp it, to dissect the layers, to parse the significance,” he swallows hard, so that John can hear it, can see it work down the line of his neck through the gap between his folded hands. “But I couldn’t, so I had to step back, I had to observe more carefully, find a case that I would solve.”
Sherlock whips around, agitated, uncontrolled, eyes burning and mouth open and his chest heaving and his skin slick in the low light and John feels the stirring at his groin growing ever more insistent, undeniable, despite how skilled he’s become at hiding it in moments like this, in the company he currently keeps.
Because fuck, he’s only human, and his heart’s a bloody masochistic mess. He can’t help but imagine those eyes, that skin, that chest, that mouth in the same throes of disarray, under rather different circumstances.
“But John,” Sherlock whines, almost whimpers, and the fight drains out of him and pools to the floor, taking the brightness away, sluicing it off from the top on down. “John, there’s no case.”
John just blinks, and stares, because even with the light drained out of him, Sherlock’s a beacon, a sight to behold.
“There’s so much,” Sherlock hisses, hateful and vengeful and a little bit terrified, John can hear that in him too and that unsettles John more than anything else because what frightens Sherlock Holmes is largely unfathomable.
“There too much and it’s impossible, it’s all impossible and there’s nothing improbable to fall back on so it’s just looking, just taking it in and recording and making nothing of it yet and that’s all there is,” he finally breaks for breath, gasps it in, and fuck what Sherlock says: watching his body move with the expansion of his lungs, watching his lips part: that’s not boring.
It’s not boring at all.
“That’s all that’s left, John, and it’s not making any difference because every time I think I’ve solved it, every time I think I’ve grasped the whole of you there’s more,” and Sherlock stops, frozen as he pauses mid-step, as his eyes flicker to John and all of him ceases, stills, and John has to wait a moment, has to process the information and do what he does best: try to find the simple route, the paths of least resistance that stretch beneath the notice of such a massive intellect, such a brilliant brain.
So John ponders touches, ponders contact and the numbers and the way a heart pumps; he thinks of Sherlock’s eyes and watching them, taking them in as discreetly as he dared for so many months, since almost the very start. He thinks of boring breathing and the way Sherlock’s would sometimes still, sometimes catch. He thinks of dilated pupils and the brush of fingers as he passes tea. He thinks being wrapped up in explosives like a bloody gift basket, thinks of the pick of Sherlock’s voice and the thrum of him so close as he’s torn the bombs away. He thinks of a warehouse and Sherlock’s face against his neck, chin dug just above John’s sternum, and how hard it was to pry him off, even many minutes after they were safe.
The routes he finds are madness, longing: John can’t be sure he trusts them yet.
But the evidence, a voice in him whispers: traitorous, tempting. The evidence; the evidence can’t lie.
And John thinks maybe he gets, in a rudimentary sort of way: gets how it’s more than just a sound or a rhythm or the first indication of life versus death. No, he thinks he sees it starting to come together: it’s evidence, indicative. It suggests pathologies, or their absence. It implies a warm reception or a cold shoulder, gives testament to a great shag or...not.
“Sherlock,” he starts, but there’s something in his tone, he knows it as soon as Sherlock’s expression darkens, twists; as soon as a snarl lets loose from those lips, that tongue and he surges forward, a force of nature.
“Observe, goddamn you!” And then John’s hand is in Sherlock’s hand, clutched; and then John’s palm is on Sherlock’s chest, warm.
And then he feels it; feels it before he touches, even, it’s that vibrant. That strong.
And there it is, there it is: that’s the centre of the great Consulting Detective under his fingertips, awake at his touch. That’s the world’s only heart of a madman, a genius; an idiot, a fiend and a friend. That’s the only heart in the universe that John would kill for because he needs it, that John would die for, just so it could simply be, just because John can’t imagine life without it’s infuriating, impossible, undeniable thrum. That’s the heart John aches for.
That’s the heart, unsteady-strong and safe-that plays and pumps, that dances in his dreams, and it is deeply, forcefully, frantically throbbing in time, in sync with John’s own.
John can’t breathe.
And it’s funny, how it’s all so clear where it was muddled before, sharp where it was grey; it’s funny how it comes together so quickly, so easy now that his hand is held still, tight against the muscle as it moves.
John’s heart leaps and speeds just a little bit more, dangerous, overwhelmed, and Sherlock’s races immediate to follow, to match him, to keep him close and John’s eyes widen as his fingers clench at Sherlock’s sternum, look to grasp what’s already, impossibly, incredibly his.
“Right,” John whispers, nods, because it’s starting to come together, now, the lines are forming shapes at last. “Right.”
John’s still nodding, a little bit dazed, when Sherlock pulls away, agitated, unhinged; when he starts to pace and run shaking hands through his curls. John clasps his own hands together, for a moment, and feels the echo of the motion, the momentum in his chest as it shivers out to hid fingertips, and he wonders-sentimental-if it’s recollection or recognition, if it matter’s which heart’s in which chest, really, when it feels like this.
“You’re everywhere,” Sherlock tells him, declares it like the atomic mass of plutonium or the fact that Anderson is an irredeemable moron. “You’ve spread, you’ve sieved and soaked and percolated like a virus,” and John’s stung by that, frowns automatically, but it’s not stated with malice, not meant to cut: it’s bewildered and there’s a sharp edge to the words that John recognises, now, as fear. It’s liquor shivering in a glass and sweat at the hairline, and Sherlock’s heartbeat at that long porcelain throat, and John wonders when it started, how long it’s been: wonders when his world started humming, his self started vibrating at the same frequency as Sherlock fucking Holmes.
“You’ve multiplied,” Sherlock’s still at it; “you’ve insinuated your very essence into everything I know and everything I am,” and John’s listening, but now he’s watching too; now he’s studying, looking, observing even, because for all the brilliance he lacks, John’s bright, got a good head on his shoulders. And there are so many things in this world that he can piece together in an instant, can understand without much fuss that Sherlock can’t quite see through the haze of everything else.
“You’re the work, and you’re the music,” Sherlock’s eyes are wild, the colour of the skyline, just at the horizon, just before the sun sneaks back after rain. “You’re morning tea and triple homicides and you’re not clever, really, but you’re cleverness, and that’s absurd, John, that’s absurd.” Sherlock is breathless, and John’s breathless too, and his heart’s not just a drum in his chest, it’s a mallet, it’s a hummingbird, it’s a child in the cold and it’s desperate and keening and ready to burst, and it’s frightened and fragile but it’s so fucking strong.
It’s strong, he’s strong, and John watches Sherlock tremble just beyond noticing; and John himself can’t see it but he feels it in his veins, and he wants to reach out but not yet, not yet; if he closes his eyes he can feel, imagine, touch and taste the added depth, the resonance of each beat with something else, something other, something vibrant that splits him in half just to remake him whole.
“You’re the way my lungs work and you’re the blood cells and the marrow,” Sherlock chokes, whispers, and he’s stopped, arrested mid-quiver and John’s balanced on the brink of all the world’s longing as he sucks in air, deliberate, scarce; as he inhales and exhales and thinks of Sherlock, stares at Sherlock while his lungs fill so full they ache, while his heart beats the CO2 out in sloppy, arterial spurts.
“You’ve permeated,” Sherlock tells him, steps closer again and says it like a secret, a confession to a god that’s more the divinity of belief; that’s all things and unending, that is destruction and derision and heartened-hateful-hope. “You’ve leached the whole way through and it’s too late, and I don’t, I don’t,” Sherlock flails, starts to diminish, and John won’t have it, he can’t.
He’s on his feet and his hands are on Sherlock’s hands within an instant; their shaking at matching intervals, their fingers seeking-simultaneous, unasked-for the radial pulse.
“You don’t what?” John asks, voice soft, hesitant, and god, please let this be true.
“I don’t-” Sherlock shivers when John runs his fingers, just a lilting touch across the veins of his forearm, the median, basilic, cephalic, just a touch, and he feels the rush of heat, trails his flesh against the pulse as it deepens, quickens, rises, and yes, yes, he gets it: evidence.
“The words, John,” Sherlock breathes out, the syllables shaky, and John’s close enough to feel it. “The words are dreadfully inadequate.”
“It’s fine,” John tells him, assures him, because it is, all of it, and it always was even before this, even before John’s heart is aching and pounding for a whole host of new reasons, overfull with yearning and feeling and a passionate need he’d been so sure would never know release.
“How?” Sherlock asks, and it’s more than it seems, it’s How is it fine? and How can you know? It’s How are you here? and How is this real? and If there are no words, if the words don’t fit, how can you be sure that you understand what it is that’s here in me, keeping me, killing me, driving me mad? and John is grateful, he’s so fucking grateful, because he hears it all, he reads it all in Sherlock’s eyes and the spectacular, incomparable swell of his heartbeat at the throat, and John doesn’t fight it anymore, slides a gentle thumb along the beat as he leans up and presses Sherlock’s mouth against his own.
Because some things exceed words, John knows; but the feeling more than fills the gap.