Fic for ykyapril: Someone Else's Heart
Title: Someone Else’s Heart
Recipient: ykyapril
Author: [to be revealed]
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Summary: A crime scene, a rainstorm, and something they should have known all along.
Someone Else’s Heart
John has been fighting with the door for ages, trying to get the heavy key to open the Victorian lock, turning his back to keep me from seeing. (Of course I see.) Frustrated. Not his fault; he's shivering, his fingers still half-numb from cold.
"Would you like some help with that?"
I mean it genuinely--John cold and frustrated is hard enough to see under any circumstances--but I can tell it's come out wrong by the way John's shoulders tighten beneath his sodden shirt. He thinks I'm mocking him, his patience--with the situation; more than that, I realise with a pang, with me--stretched past its breaking point.
"Maybe if I hadn't let myself be dragged all the way out here to the middle of nowhere--scratch that, the edge of nowhere--while you run around some sodding moor in the rain--"
The lock finally gives; he shoves the door open triumphantly. He deposits his kit heavily on the other side, still keeping his shoulder angled to me. There's a line of water coursing down the back of his neck to disappear under the collar of his shirt; my fingers itch to chase it against his skin. I busy them with the buttons of my jacket instead.
"It wasn't raining when we left London."
He drops to one knee, fingers tangling in the mud-cased laces of his boots. He gives me a wry look (blue eyes framed by pale lashes; cold-reddened cheeks). "In. The. Rain. Like you didn't know precisely what we were getting ourselves into."
I didn't; it hadn't occurred to me to check, caught up in the excitement of a new case. Not really the point. I don't argue.
I strip my jacket down my arms, the fabric heavy with water, hang it on a hook by the door. Smooth the fabric down with my hand. The left shoulder and back are caked with mud from my slide down the embankment; likely ruined. Annoying.
We hadn't planned on an overnight, didn't bring anything. I'll have to arrange for something to wear tomorrow. For John as well? I turn to face him. He's managed both boots and is standing in bare feet (pale with chill against the dark carpet), holding a sodden sock in one hand. No; his clothes are just soaked, not muddy. Salvageable. He hadn't been the one to slide down the hill on his back, though he'd clambered after me quickly enough. (His leg performing admirably, under the circumstances.) Still, he'd appreciate something warm and dry; easy enough to arrange.
John is staring at me; ah. I’m staring at him. Of course I am. Stupid, I tell myself; I must be tired myself; I’m usually more guarded than this. But he's annoyed, frustrated; worse, he knows he'll be embarrassed by it later. Fine. I bend to attend to my own laces and he breathes out a sharp sigh.
"I get the first shower."
He doesn't quite slam the door to the en suite, but it's near enough. Squeal of ancient pipes covers the sound of him undressing; I do the same, my own fingertips warming as I undo the buttons on my shirt. I could go in there, I think; could open the door to find John in the shower, the water warm against the skin of his back, coursing across his--
I shake my head to clear it. John doesn’t want that (obviously; no, not obviously. Possibly. I’ve made a study of human response but not of appetite; not this sort, at least. Not enough data). Better that he doesn’t, perhaps. (Because-- yes, perhaps he does. I’ve seen dark flashes of something in his eyes when he looks at me.) John likes danger. (Am I dangerous to him? Yes; John likes me.) He already throws himself in harm’s way on my behalf (is that me as well? Am I harm’s way? Yes, perhaps that too). John is always so reckless with himself, so careful with me. Better not to add romantic entanglement to everything else.
I wrench my thoughts back to the matter at hand. Two robes in the wardrobe; thick, warm enough. I carry one with me to the bed, toss the other over the back of the chair for John.
My trousers are smeared with mud all the way up the back of one thigh to the hip, the fabric slimy and unfamiliar to the touch. It clings to my skin; sharp pain when I peel it away. Ah, yes; I'd scraped against something in my slide, the injury promptly forgotten when I'd found the tip of the suspect's walking stick embedded in the mud at the bottom of the hill. There's a slice in my outer left thigh, roughly following the ilio-tibial tract. A minor annoyance, but the drying blood had stuck to my trousers (hadn't even noticed the torn fabric, a good four inches along the thigh) and I've opened it again.
All the towels are in the bath with John, of course. Don't want to disturb him, provoke him into further annoyance (I inspire guilt frequently; it’s never bothered me so much as it does with John). I'll do as I am. I wrap the robe around my shoulders (a lost cause, my skin smeared with mud and grit); dig my phone out of my pocket and sit on the edge of the bed (one bed; did John notice?).
Wad the hem of the robe beneath my thigh to stop the fresh welling of blood. I can’t think about the bed, about what will be required of me soon. Perhaps I can avoid it altogether; go back to the crime scene, but my suit is still ruined. First things first, then. Who to ask about clothes? We're hours out of London; probably best to ask Lestrade.
A drop of rainwater falls from my hair to the screen. I shove my fringe back irritably; drying mud has spiked it into peaks that trap my fingers. Useless.
Send the newest uniform for coffee, scones, and two sets of men's clothing. SH
Check the weather while I wait for the reply; the rain should stop in a few hours. John will be glad to know.
Already over budget on your room. You're on your own. You eat scones?
I shake my head. Not for me, of course; for John. I’m still deciding whether to be annoyed at Lestrade for being so unobservant or pleased at my own lack of transparency when the second text comes in.
Scratch that, I'd rather you not show up starkers. I'll send some with the car in the am. Loan only.
If Lestrade doesn’t see perhaps John doesn’t either. No, of course he doesn’t; if he did, no reason not to take. The art of disguise is to hide in plain sight. So easy not to be seen.
(No, not easy at all.)
I set the phone aside. He'll realise soon enough that there's no one on his squad with either of our measurements. I imagine Mrs Hudson opening the door early tomorrow morning to a request to pack a bag. Shame we won't be there to see her face.
John is just emerging from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his hips, newly-clean hair still damp, skin scrubbed pink and glowing with warmth. A cloud of steam curls in the air behind him.
"Shower's all yours." His tone is deliberately mild; now that he’s warm again, he’s feeling guilty for his earlier annoyance with me. (It's fine, but I won't tell him so.) I wave a hand at the spare robe on the chair and he tugs it on, scrubs the towel through his hair.
He bends to catch a droplet of water running down the back of one calf, and his robe gaps. My eyes skitter away from the flash of skin. There's dried mud on my left forearm; I scrape absently at it with a thumbnail. "Lestrade's currently labouring under the absurd belief--"
John's fingers clamp onto my shoulder; a surprise. "What did you do?"
There's a note of fear lurking below his voice, incongruous. It makes a nervous flare skitter along my own spine. What did I--
Ah. My thigh; of course. Twist to look over my shoulder and, yes, there: a bright shock of red soaked into the white robe. On the quilt, as well. The Met will complain about the bill. (Lestrade will hear about it regardless, but solving the case before he notices means he won't pester me.)
It's nothing, and I try to tell him so, but he's already kneeling behind me. His fingers are warm and still slightly damp, one hand pushing the robe up to prod at my thigh with his fingers. Efficient, assured movements. His fingertips skim lightly across my skin. I imagine the catch of individual skin cells against one another; swallow and fist my hands in the fabric of my own robe. Light catch of his fingertips against a rough patch of dried blood. I tense; don't pull away, though part of me wants to. (Part of me needs to; part of me needs to do precisely the opposite.)
"It's fine." It comes out sharper than I intend, which is better than the alternative.
He makes a low noise in his throat like a laugh. "It's got dirt in it." More prodding, near enough to the wound that it throbs--with my pulse; can he feel it?--across skin so thin I nearly shiver. "Rather a lot of dirt, actually. Why didn't you say something?"
Why, indeed? Come on, John; you know me. (He does.) I turn my shoulders to catch his eye, quirking my lip; he catches my glance, his expression shifting from concern to a sort of wry amusement.
"When you fell. Right before you found the-- right. So you got distracted. Of course you did."
My cheek twitches up into a smile. Clever, John. His grip on my thigh loses some of its urgency. "Well, it's not serious, but best be sure." His hand drops away; I miss its warmth immediately.
He straightens, dragging his gaze over my face and down. Deepening creases at the edges of his eyes; blue irises glinting with amusement. A clump of wet hair has escaped to lie across my cheek; he pushes it back. Draws his hand away; looks at his fingers wryly.
"You're a wreck. Go get warm, clean yourself up. Do the best you can with that, then I'll take a look."
He has his kit; of course he does. He's followed me hours out of London with nothing else, but he brought that. (Brought it instinctively; his instincts, as ever, in my favour rather than his own.) John, wearing his priorities on his sleeve.
His priorities; me. He’ll never see what a mistake that is.
The mirror in the en suite is still fogged over. I swipe my hand across it. See myself as John did, a sort of narcissistic empathy: my own face, pale; smear of mud over one cheekbone; my hair wild. Apart from the blood the robe is still fairly clean; beneath it my skin, striped with mud and plastered with bits of grass, still faintly thrumming where sensation where John’s fingers have been.
Too much, I think; this is too much.
I turn the tap as hot as I can stand it, step under the water, an overwhelming slam of sensation. If I can think of nothing else, I try to think of nothing all; stand under the spray and watch my feet turn red, letting the heat work its way through to my bones.
Dirt from my skin swirl over the cheap chrome plating of the drain, and it hits me: Aarons wouldn't have climbed down only to climb back up again, not with that limp. (In memory: John's initial reluctance to take the upstairs bedroom; the pride with which he'd later claimed it.) The Met have the wrong suspect; Aarons is telling the truth about there being a second man, someone who'd dropped the cane down the hill and chased after it, retrieved it thinking it belonged to the victim--
By the time I turn off the taps, I’ve worked it out. I dry myself and pull on the robe; hesitate at the door. Consider sending Lestrade a text. Consider what would follow; John pulling on his sodden clothing, following me back out onto the moor.
(John, always so careless with himself on my behalf. Allowing him to become more deeply involved would be an act of pure selfishness.)
The solution will keep until morning.
(I would not have thought myself capable of being selfless. And yet.)
John is waiting for me when I emerge, his kit open on the bed. He's hung his jumper and jeans from the curtain rod to dry, pants and socks slung over the radiator. I imagine the thoughtful crease in his forehead as he decided whether that was appropriate (for this room, with its one bed; for us); don't look at them directly.
He gestures to the bed; I lie down on my side, pillowing my head on my forearms. The mattress dips as he settles behind me. I’m aware, abruptly, of my own pulse. At this angle, he can likely see its flutter in my throat. I wonder if he’s watching.
"It's not Aarons," I say, because I need to say something. It’s not the the best of the available options; not the worst, either. I close my eyes.
Drag of cloth as he slides the robe up until he can press his fingers lightly to the skin of my thigh. "Still some dirt in here," he says. Slight increase of pressure at his fingertips; reassurance. (Would it be there for another patient? Assuredly so. And yet.) "Hold still." He tears open a packet and drags a swab along the cut, pressure to expunge embedded grit. I focus on the sting to avoid thinking about his other hand still steadying my leg. "Sorry. Does it hurt?"
"No." It's a lie, nearly; it doesn't matter. I never mind when it's John.
He squeezes my hip lightly in apology. Too close, John. Too close, and he doesn’t even know. His own thigh is resting lightly against my mid back; I tighten my muscles in response, so tightly it’s difficult to breathe.
"Well, that's the worst over, at least. You can relax now.” I don’t laugh only because I’m not sure I can. “So if not Aarons, who was it?"
He works while I explain, rummaging in his kit and making thoughtful humming noises. Sharp sting as he swipes the wound with TCP; not a surprise but I can't help the way my leg jerks away. His fingers are strong, steady, flexing into my muscle. The evaporating antiseptic leaves a stripe of prickling chill on my skin.
It feels good to talk; helps me focus my mind on something other than his touch and the way my body is betraying me. I finish telling him about the case before he finishes his work; drift into silence. Once the bandage is on he sets his hand lightly above my knee, curls his thumb against the sensitive skin behind it; leaves it there.
Whatever control I’d managed to regain through speaking spirals away.
I curl my own hands into fists and squeeze my eyes shut, my whole world narrowing to the weight of his hand and the hammering of my pulse in my ears.
Neither of us move.
Surely there's an acceptable length of time for this sort of thing.
Surely it's passed by now.
Finally I rouse myself, pressing up onto my elbows to peer down the length of my side. I swallow; it feels thick in my throat. "What do you think, doctor? Will I walk again?" It's an unforgivable joke, really; too much. I recognise it as soon as the words are out.
John doesn't seem to notice. He's staring down at his own hand on my leg. Looks up at me with a twist of his mouth, blue eyes glinting. "I suspect I'll be chasing after you for a while yet." He still hasn't moved his hand; does he realise?
There; he draws back, not looking at me. Stacks his supplies neatly in his kit. The robe hides the smooth glide of muscle in his upper arm, but I can visualise it, can almost feel the bunch of the fibres under my palm. It’s a relief when he goes to wash his hands, meticulous as ever.
I need to do something; need a distraction. My mobile is the table by the door. As soon as he’s out of sight I press myself to standing (don't even test my leg; it's fine, obviously so), move to retrieve it.
John emerges from the en suite and smiles crookedly at the sight of me. His hair has dried into haphazard whorls and I grip my mobile tightly against the sudden urge to smooth it with my fingers. "We'll never hear the end of this," he says, looking pointedly from me, to the bed; back to me, "if word of any of this got back to the yard. The two of us, in our robes, with our single--"
He stops talking. I realise I’m watching his lips; slide my gaze up to his eyes, find they’re locked on mine. He's caught me off guard. Stupid, careless; what had he seen? What had I--
"Oh." His tongue darts out to touch his lip. He isn’t looking away. His forehead creases into a frown; he touches his tongue to his lip again. I can hear, as though from a distance, my own breath; it’s entirely too loud. His eyes lighten in sudden understanding (what was the question? was there a question). I’d be able to work out what it was, I think, if I could breathe properly. He’s moving toward me.
"Oh,” he says again, “you idiot."
Yes, I think. He doesn’t even know the half of it. I open my mouth to tell him--tell him what? something, anything. “John--”
He kisses me.
His mouth against mine is very warm, very hungry, and entirely impossible. It takes my brain ages--an absolute tragedy of wasted seconds--to even process what's happening.
(And it’s immediately obvious: Impossible to involve him further than he already is, than he has been all along. I've been terrified of taking something he'd given as a gift months ago; something I couldn't even see.)
He pulls away, frowning at me again. "Okay?"
He's worried. Wrong. I can't think. My head is spinning; if I open my mouth I'll say something absurd, or worse; bite him, swallow him whole. The soft, warm press of our mouths has made too many things suddenly possible.
"Sherlock, we don't have to do this if you don't--"
No, wrong. Worse than wrong; intolerable. "John, don't." His eyes darken with concern. Poor choice; try again. "It would be-- unacceptable." I swallow. "To stop now."
An entire lifetime condensed in the space of two heartbeats, the time it takes for John's face to break into a grin.
Well. That's just fine, then.
John kisses like he does everything else: honestly, patiently, without guile. (His priorities, as ever, right there on his sleeve; on the tip of his tongue where I can taste them.) He's pulling me toward the bed, opening his mouth to let me inside. When the back of his thighs meet the bed he sits abruptly. I nearly fall on top of him, trying not to break contact.
(John. John. I’m drowning; no, I’m parched, and I can’t get enough.)
"Well, then," he laughs into my mouth. "Isn't this fast."
"I've been waiting months." The words no less true than they were an hour ago, but suddenly absurd. My fingers skitter across the skin of his neck, down to his shoulder. They’re shaking. "This is slow."
There's a little breathy sound from his throat; his hand clenches against my hip. "You didn't have to."
I tighten my fingers into his skin reflexively, a sickening jolt in my stomach at the thought of all those wasted moments. (I don’t want to think about it, not now, when I have John here in my hands; wrench my thoughts back to the present.)
"Please." Let me have this, I mean. I press my lips to the thin skin over the pulse point on his neck; his head tips back with an endearingly needy gasp, the sound pooling dark and liquid at the base of my spine.
"Right," he says, breathless. "Kiss now, tease later. Got it."
Somehow we end up on the bed. He's pliant under my touch, his fingers skimming and bumping across my skin. Careful; he's so careful with me.
I’m greedy, half-starved, wanting more, and he lays himself bare, shuddering beneath my hands. My name shatters in his mouth, against my tongue on his.
His pupils dilate when I wrap my fingers around the heat of his erection, pulling and twisting and sliding my thumb just there. I press my mouth to the underside of his jaw and drag my teeth along the sensitive skin at the inside of his wrist to feel the changes in his pulse, scrape my teeth along the long tendon of his throat to feel him shiver.
It doesn't take long before he stiffens and comes, his release coating my fingers. I stroke him through it, echoing the way he's shuddering in my own body, with my pulse. When he falls still I bring my fingers to my mouth, exploring the taste of him; the taste of my own skin, immediately after it's been wrapped around his.
"Sherlock." I open my eyes to find him watching me. "Christ."
He surges up, wrapping a hand around the back of my neck, drawing me in to press our mouths together. I part my lips to let him in.
"I can taste myself in your mouth.” He sounds nearly as amazed as I am.
He slides his hands down to my hips and grips there, guiding me onto my back, aligning his body over mine. He slides his body down and I arch up into him, seeking contact, twisting my hands into the sheets. He scratches one hand down the inside of my thigh; presses it up and away, bending my knee. The injured one. Obvious. Oh, John.
There's a moment of anticipation while his head hovers, a puffed exhale that shivers across the exposed head of my cock. Then he takes it in with one smooth slide, an overwhelming slam of sensation; wet, hot, close, so perfect I can't even breathe, his hands sliding along my thighs.
John’s skin on mine (arm, rib, thigh). Individual bursts of sensation lighting up my nerves; afferent neurons, ganglia, a chain of sparks all the way to my brain. John.
Distantly, I hear someone making an urgent, whining sound. It might be me.
"Please, John." I'm not sure what I'm asking; not sure what I want except more, more of whatever he's willing to give me. (Has that ever been a question? Everything. More of this; more of him. I’ve been such an idiot not to see.) I can't seem to settle my hands; John grabs one and brings it to rest on the back of his head.
(John. Careful; be careful.)
I'm drowning, I'm lost; I don't care. Someone is saying John's name, over and over. My awareness fractures into individual points: a hand pressing down against my outturned knee, a finger against my perineum, John's mouth, his tongue, Christ, John, and I can't breathe, I can't--
My climax leaves me abruptly, thoroughly shattered; gasping as John swallows around me. I want to pull him to me; my hands are shaking. (Arms, too, and legs. Chest, heart, spine.) Reduced to bone and tendon, hard jumbled angles and elastic connection; no driving force.
I’m still drifting on sensation when John slides in behind me, pressing his chest to my back. He wraps his arm around my waist and somehow I organise my own limbs enough to twine our fingers together, pulling our joined fist up toward my chest. I can feel the rise-fall of John’s chest behind me, the faint thud of the pulse in his wrist, counterpoint to my own.
“Well,” he whispers, his breath warm against my shoulder. “Figured it out, then, did you?” His voice is heavy with impending sleep, curled through with affection. I hum my agreement.
“That’s good,” John says, his lips curling into a soft smile against my shoulder. “You always were... clever.”
I can already feel his breath evening toward sleep; I’m not far behind. John’s patterns of sleep; just another thing I’ll learn about him, now. I look forward to exploring his body in detail.
Tomorrow, I think. It fills my chest with a heavy, pleasant warmth. I fall asleep listening to the rain still falling outside, with my fingers still wrapped around John’s wrist, over his pulse.
Recipient: ykyapril
Author: [to be revealed]
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Summary: A crime scene, a rainstorm, and something they should have known all along.
Someone Else’s Heart
John has been fighting with the door for ages, trying to get the heavy key to open the Victorian lock, turning his back to keep me from seeing. (Of course I see.) Frustrated. Not his fault; he's shivering, his fingers still half-numb from cold.
"Would you like some help with that?"
I mean it genuinely--John cold and frustrated is hard enough to see under any circumstances--but I can tell it's come out wrong by the way John's shoulders tighten beneath his sodden shirt. He thinks I'm mocking him, his patience--with the situation; more than that, I realise with a pang, with me--stretched past its breaking point.
"Maybe if I hadn't let myself be dragged all the way out here to the middle of nowhere--scratch that, the edge of nowhere--while you run around some sodding moor in the rain--"
The lock finally gives; he shoves the door open triumphantly. He deposits his kit heavily on the other side, still keeping his shoulder angled to me. There's a line of water coursing down the back of his neck to disappear under the collar of his shirt; my fingers itch to chase it against his skin. I busy them with the buttons of my jacket instead.
"It wasn't raining when we left London."
He drops to one knee, fingers tangling in the mud-cased laces of his boots. He gives me a wry look (blue eyes framed by pale lashes; cold-reddened cheeks). "In. The. Rain. Like you didn't know precisely what we were getting ourselves into."
I didn't; it hadn't occurred to me to check, caught up in the excitement of a new case. Not really the point. I don't argue.
I strip my jacket down my arms, the fabric heavy with water, hang it on a hook by the door. Smooth the fabric down with my hand. The left shoulder and back are caked with mud from my slide down the embankment; likely ruined. Annoying.
We hadn't planned on an overnight, didn't bring anything. I'll have to arrange for something to wear tomorrow. For John as well? I turn to face him. He's managed both boots and is standing in bare feet (pale with chill against the dark carpet), holding a sodden sock in one hand. No; his clothes are just soaked, not muddy. Salvageable. He hadn't been the one to slide down the hill on his back, though he'd clambered after me quickly enough. (His leg performing admirably, under the circumstances.) Still, he'd appreciate something warm and dry; easy enough to arrange.
John is staring at me; ah. I’m staring at him. Of course I am. Stupid, I tell myself; I must be tired myself; I’m usually more guarded than this. But he's annoyed, frustrated; worse, he knows he'll be embarrassed by it later. Fine. I bend to attend to my own laces and he breathes out a sharp sigh.
"I get the first shower."
He doesn't quite slam the door to the en suite, but it's near enough. Squeal of ancient pipes covers the sound of him undressing; I do the same, my own fingertips warming as I undo the buttons on my shirt. I could go in there, I think; could open the door to find John in the shower, the water warm against the skin of his back, coursing across his--
I shake my head to clear it. John doesn’t want that (obviously; no, not obviously. Possibly. I’ve made a study of human response but not of appetite; not this sort, at least. Not enough data). Better that he doesn’t, perhaps. (Because-- yes, perhaps he does. I’ve seen dark flashes of something in his eyes when he looks at me.) John likes danger. (Am I dangerous to him? Yes; John likes me.) He already throws himself in harm’s way on my behalf (is that me as well? Am I harm’s way? Yes, perhaps that too). John is always so reckless with himself, so careful with me. Better not to add romantic entanglement to everything else.
I wrench my thoughts back to the matter at hand. Two robes in the wardrobe; thick, warm enough. I carry one with me to the bed, toss the other over the back of the chair for John.
My trousers are smeared with mud all the way up the back of one thigh to the hip, the fabric slimy and unfamiliar to the touch. It clings to my skin; sharp pain when I peel it away. Ah, yes; I'd scraped against something in my slide, the injury promptly forgotten when I'd found the tip of the suspect's walking stick embedded in the mud at the bottom of the hill. There's a slice in my outer left thigh, roughly following the ilio-tibial tract. A minor annoyance, but the drying blood had stuck to my trousers (hadn't even noticed the torn fabric, a good four inches along the thigh) and I've opened it again.
All the towels are in the bath with John, of course. Don't want to disturb him, provoke him into further annoyance (I inspire guilt frequently; it’s never bothered me so much as it does with John). I'll do as I am. I wrap the robe around my shoulders (a lost cause, my skin smeared with mud and grit); dig my phone out of my pocket and sit on the edge of the bed (one bed; did John notice?).
Wad the hem of the robe beneath my thigh to stop the fresh welling of blood. I can’t think about the bed, about what will be required of me soon. Perhaps I can avoid it altogether; go back to the crime scene, but my suit is still ruined. First things first, then. Who to ask about clothes? We're hours out of London; probably best to ask Lestrade.
A drop of rainwater falls from my hair to the screen. I shove my fringe back irritably; drying mud has spiked it into peaks that trap my fingers. Useless.
Send the newest uniform for coffee, scones, and two sets of men's clothing. SH
Check the weather while I wait for the reply; the rain should stop in a few hours. John will be glad to know.
Already over budget on your room. You're on your own. You eat scones?
I shake my head. Not for me, of course; for John. I’m still deciding whether to be annoyed at Lestrade for being so unobservant or pleased at my own lack of transparency when the second text comes in.
Scratch that, I'd rather you not show up starkers. I'll send some with the car in the am. Loan only.
If Lestrade doesn’t see perhaps John doesn’t either. No, of course he doesn’t; if he did, no reason not to take. The art of disguise is to hide in plain sight. So easy not to be seen.
(No, not easy at all.)
I set the phone aside. He'll realise soon enough that there's no one on his squad with either of our measurements. I imagine Mrs Hudson opening the door early tomorrow morning to a request to pack a bag. Shame we won't be there to see her face.
John is just emerging from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his hips, newly-clean hair still damp, skin scrubbed pink and glowing with warmth. A cloud of steam curls in the air behind him.
"Shower's all yours." His tone is deliberately mild; now that he’s warm again, he’s feeling guilty for his earlier annoyance with me. (It's fine, but I won't tell him so.) I wave a hand at the spare robe on the chair and he tugs it on, scrubs the towel through his hair.
He bends to catch a droplet of water running down the back of one calf, and his robe gaps. My eyes skitter away from the flash of skin. There's dried mud on my left forearm; I scrape absently at it with a thumbnail. "Lestrade's currently labouring under the absurd belief--"
John's fingers clamp onto my shoulder; a surprise. "What did you do?"
There's a note of fear lurking below his voice, incongruous. It makes a nervous flare skitter along my own spine. What did I--
Ah. My thigh; of course. Twist to look over my shoulder and, yes, there: a bright shock of red soaked into the white robe. On the quilt, as well. The Met will complain about the bill. (Lestrade will hear about it regardless, but solving the case before he notices means he won't pester me.)
It's nothing, and I try to tell him so, but he's already kneeling behind me. His fingers are warm and still slightly damp, one hand pushing the robe up to prod at my thigh with his fingers. Efficient, assured movements. His fingertips skim lightly across my skin. I imagine the catch of individual skin cells against one another; swallow and fist my hands in the fabric of my own robe. Light catch of his fingertips against a rough patch of dried blood. I tense; don't pull away, though part of me wants to. (Part of me needs to; part of me needs to do precisely the opposite.)
"It's fine." It comes out sharper than I intend, which is better than the alternative.
He makes a low noise in his throat like a laugh. "It's got dirt in it." More prodding, near enough to the wound that it throbs--with my pulse; can he feel it?--across skin so thin I nearly shiver. "Rather a lot of dirt, actually. Why didn't you say something?"
Why, indeed? Come on, John; you know me. (He does.) I turn my shoulders to catch his eye, quirking my lip; he catches my glance, his expression shifting from concern to a sort of wry amusement.
"When you fell. Right before you found the-- right. So you got distracted. Of course you did."
My cheek twitches up into a smile. Clever, John. His grip on my thigh loses some of its urgency. "Well, it's not serious, but best be sure." His hand drops away; I miss its warmth immediately.
He straightens, dragging his gaze over my face and down. Deepening creases at the edges of his eyes; blue irises glinting with amusement. A clump of wet hair has escaped to lie across my cheek; he pushes it back. Draws his hand away; looks at his fingers wryly.
"You're a wreck. Go get warm, clean yourself up. Do the best you can with that, then I'll take a look."
He has his kit; of course he does. He's followed me hours out of London with nothing else, but he brought that. (Brought it instinctively; his instincts, as ever, in my favour rather than his own.) John, wearing his priorities on his sleeve.
His priorities; me. He’ll never see what a mistake that is.
The mirror in the en suite is still fogged over. I swipe my hand across it. See myself as John did, a sort of narcissistic empathy: my own face, pale; smear of mud over one cheekbone; my hair wild. Apart from the blood the robe is still fairly clean; beneath it my skin, striped with mud and plastered with bits of grass, still faintly thrumming where sensation where John’s fingers have been.
Too much, I think; this is too much.
I turn the tap as hot as I can stand it, step under the water, an overwhelming slam of sensation. If I can think of nothing else, I try to think of nothing all; stand under the spray and watch my feet turn red, letting the heat work its way through to my bones.
Dirt from my skin swirl over the cheap chrome plating of the drain, and it hits me: Aarons wouldn't have climbed down only to climb back up again, not with that limp. (In memory: John's initial reluctance to take the upstairs bedroom; the pride with which he'd later claimed it.) The Met have the wrong suspect; Aarons is telling the truth about there being a second man, someone who'd dropped the cane down the hill and chased after it, retrieved it thinking it belonged to the victim--
By the time I turn off the taps, I’ve worked it out. I dry myself and pull on the robe; hesitate at the door. Consider sending Lestrade a text. Consider what would follow; John pulling on his sodden clothing, following me back out onto the moor.
(John, always so careless with himself on my behalf. Allowing him to become more deeply involved would be an act of pure selfishness.)
The solution will keep until morning.
(I would not have thought myself capable of being selfless. And yet.)
John is waiting for me when I emerge, his kit open on the bed. He's hung his jumper and jeans from the curtain rod to dry, pants and socks slung over the radiator. I imagine the thoughtful crease in his forehead as he decided whether that was appropriate (for this room, with its one bed; for us); don't look at them directly.
He gestures to the bed; I lie down on my side, pillowing my head on my forearms. The mattress dips as he settles behind me. I’m aware, abruptly, of my own pulse. At this angle, he can likely see its flutter in my throat. I wonder if he’s watching.
"It's not Aarons," I say, because I need to say something. It’s not the the best of the available options; not the worst, either. I close my eyes.
Drag of cloth as he slides the robe up until he can press his fingers lightly to the skin of my thigh. "Still some dirt in here," he says. Slight increase of pressure at his fingertips; reassurance. (Would it be there for another patient? Assuredly so. And yet.) "Hold still." He tears open a packet and drags a swab along the cut, pressure to expunge embedded grit. I focus on the sting to avoid thinking about his other hand still steadying my leg. "Sorry. Does it hurt?"
"No." It's a lie, nearly; it doesn't matter. I never mind when it's John.
He squeezes my hip lightly in apology. Too close, John. Too close, and he doesn’t even know. His own thigh is resting lightly against my mid back; I tighten my muscles in response, so tightly it’s difficult to breathe.
"Well, that's the worst over, at least. You can relax now.” I don’t laugh only because I’m not sure I can. “So if not Aarons, who was it?"
He works while I explain, rummaging in his kit and making thoughtful humming noises. Sharp sting as he swipes the wound with TCP; not a surprise but I can't help the way my leg jerks away. His fingers are strong, steady, flexing into my muscle. The evaporating antiseptic leaves a stripe of prickling chill on my skin.
It feels good to talk; helps me focus my mind on something other than his touch and the way my body is betraying me. I finish telling him about the case before he finishes his work; drift into silence. Once the bandage is on he sets his hand lightly above my knee, curls his thumb against the sensitive skin behind it; leaves it there.
Whatever control I’d managed to regain through speaking spirals away.
I curl my own hands into fists and squeeze my eyes shut, my whole world narrowing to the weight of his hand and the hammering of my pulse in my ears.
Neither of us move.
Surely there's an acceptable length of time for this sort of thing.
Surely it's passed by now.
Finally I rouse myself, pressing up onto my elbows to peer down the length of my side. I swallow; it feels thick in my throat. "What do you think, doctor? Will I walk again?" It's an unforgivable joke, really; too much. I recognise it as soon as the words are out.
John doesn't seem to notice. He's staring down at his own hand on my leg. Looks up at me with a twist of his mouth, blue eyes glinting. "I suspect I'll be chasing after you for a while yet." He still hasn't moved his hand; does he realise?
There; he draws back, not looking at me. Stacks his supplies neatly in his kit. The robe hides the smooth glide of muscle in his upper arm, but I can visualise it, can almost feel the bunch of the fibres under my palm. It’s a relief when he goes to wash his hands, meticulous as ever.
I need to do something; need a distraction. My mobile is the table by the door. As soon as he’s out of sight I press myself to standing (don't even test my leg; it's fine, obviously so), move to retrieve it.
John emerges from the en suite and smiles crookedly at the sight of me. His hair has dried into haphazard whorls and I grip my mobile tightly against the sudden urge to smooth it with my fingers. "We'll never hear the end of this," he says, looking pointedly from me, to the bed; back to me, "if word of any of this got back to the yard. The two of us, in our robes, with our single--"
He stops talking. I realise I’m watching his lips; slide my gaze up to his eyes, find they’re locked on mine. He's caught me off guard. Stupid, careless; what had he seen? What had I--
"Oh." His tongue darts out to touch his lip. He isn’t looking away. His forehead creases into a frown; he touches his tongue to his lip again. I can hear, as though from a distance, my own breath; it’s entirely too loud. His eyes lighten in sudden understanding (what was the question? was there a question). I’d be able to work out what it was, I think, if I could breathe properly. He’s moving toward me.
"Oh,” he says again, “you idiot."
Yes, I think. He doesn’t even know the half of it. I open my mouth to tell him--tell him what? something, anything. “John--”
He kisses me.
His mouth against mine is very warm, very hungry, and entirely impossible. It takes my brain ages--an absolute tragedy of wasted seconds--to even process what's happening.
(And it’s immediately obvious: Impossible to involve him further than he already is, than he has been all along. I've been terrified of taking something he'd given as a gift months ago; something I couldn't even see.)
He pulls away, frowning at me again. "Okay?"
He's worried. Wrong. I can't think. My head is spinning; if I open my mouth I'll say something absurd, or worse; bite him, swallow him whole. The soft, warm press of our mouths has made too many things suddenly possible.
"Sherlock, we don't have to do this if you don't--"
No, wrong. Worse than wrong; intolerable. "John, don't." His eyes darken with concern. Poor choice; try again. "It would be-- unacceptable." I swallow. "To stop now."
An entire lifetime condensed in the space of two heartbeats, the time it takes for John's face to break into a grin.
Well. That's just fine, then.
John kisses like he does everything else: honestly, patiently, without guile. (His priorities, as ever, right there on his sleeve; on the tip of his tongue where I can taste them.) He's pulling me toward the bed, opening his mouth to let me inside. When the back of his thighs meet the bed he sits abruptly. I nearly fall on top of him, trying not to break contact.
(John. John. I’m drowning; no, I’m parched, and I can’t get enough.)
"Well, then," he laughs into my mouth. "Isn't this fast."
"I've been waiting months." The words no less true than they were an hour ago, but suddenly absurd. My fingers skitter across the skin of his neck, down to his shoulder. They’re shaking. "This is slow."
There's a little breathy sound from his throat; his hand clenches against my hip. "You didn't have to."
I tighten my fingers into his skin reflexively, a sickening jolt in my stomach at the thought of all those wasted moments. (I don’t want to think about it, not now, when I have John here in my hands; wrench my thoughts back to the present.)
"Please." Let me have this, I mean. I press my lips to the thin skin over the pulse point on his neck; his head tips back with an endearingly needy gasp, the sound pooling dark and liquid at the base of my spine.
"Right," he says, breathless. "Kiss now, tease later. Got it."
Somehow we end up on the bed. He's pliant under my touch, his fingers skimming and bumping across my skin. Careful; he's so careful with me.
I’m greedy, half-starved, wanting more, and he lays himself bare, shuddering beneath my hands. My name shatters in his mouth, against my tongue on his.
His pupils dilate when I wrap my fingers around the heat of his erection, pulling and twisting and sliding my thumb just there. I press my mouth to the underside of his jaw and drag my teeth along the sensitive skin at the inside of his wrist to feel the changes in his pulse, scrape my teeth along the long tendon of his throat to feel him shiver.
It doesn't take long before he stiffens and comes, his release coating my fingers. I stroke him through it, echoing the way he's shuddering in my own body, with my pulse. When he falls still I bring my fingers to my mouth, exploring the taste of him; the taste of my own skin, immediately after it's been wrapped around his.
"Sherlock." I open my eyes to find him watching me. "Christ."
He surges up, wrapping a hand around the back of my neck, drawing me in to press our mouths together. I part my lips to let him in.
"I can taste myself in your mouth.” He sounds nearly as amazed as I am.
He slides his hands down to my hips and grips there, guiding me onto my back, aligning his body over mine. He slides his body down and I arch up into him, seeking contact, twisting my hands into the sheets. He scratches one hand down the inside of my thigh; presses it up and away, bending my knee. The injured one. Obvious. Oh, John.
There's a moment of anticipation while his head hovers, a puffed exhale that shivers across the exposed head of my cock. Then he takes it in with one smooth slide, an overwhelming slam of sensation; wet, hot, close, so perfect I can't even breathe, his hands sliding along my thighs.
John’s skin on mine (arm, rib, thigh). Individual bursts of sensation lighting up my nerves; afferent neurons, ganglia, a chain of sparks all the way to my brain. John.
Distantly, I hear someone making an urgent, whining sound. It might be me.
"Please, John." I'm not sure what I'm asking; not sure what I want except more, more of whatever he's willing to give me. (Has that ever been a question? Everything. More of this; more of him. I’ve been such an idiot not to see.) I can't seem to settle my hands; John grabs one and brings it to rest on the back of his head.
(John. Careful; be careful.)
I'm drowning, I'm lost; I don't care. Someone is saying John's name, over and over. My awareness fractures into individual points: a hand pressing down against my outturned knee, a finger against my perineum, John's mouth, his tongue, Christ, John, and I can't breathe, I can't--
My climax leaves me abruptly, thoroughly shattered; gasping as John swallows around me. I want to pull him to me; my hands are shaking. (Arms, too, and legs. Chest, heart, spine.) Reduced to bone and tendon, hard jumbled angles and elastic connection; no driving force.
I’m still drifting on sensation when John slides in behind me, pressing his chest to my back. He wraps his arm around my waist and somehow I organise my own limbs enough to twine our fingers together, pulling our joined fist up toward my chest. I can feel the rise-fall of John’s chest behind me, the faint thud of the pulse in his wrist, counterpoint to my own.
“Well,” he whispers, his breath warm against my shoulder. “Figured it out, then, did you?” His voice is heavy with impending sleep, curled through with affection. I hum my agreement.
“That’s good,” John says, his lips curling into a soft smile against my shoulder. “You always were... clever.”
I can already feel his breath evening toward sleep; I’m not far behind. John’s patterns of sleep; just another thing I’ll learn about him, now. I look forward to exploring his body in detail.
Tomorrow, I think. It fills my chest with a heavy, pleasant warmth. I fall asleep listening to the rain still falling outside, with my fingers still wrapped around John’s wrist, over his pulse.