Don't Explain 9/9 - COMPLETE
Title: Don't Explain, 9/9
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: John/Mary, John/Sherlock
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 5,900 this chapter, 45,400 in total
Warnings: Spoilers for season two, explicit sex
Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Summary: Three years later, John had a girlfriend, a new job, and a new life, and just because his ex wasn’t dead didn’t mean they were going to go right back to the way things used to be.
A/N: Here it is: the last chapter, and the last time you have to hear me apologize about the long wait.
Thank you once more to thisprettywren and breathedout. Between the two of them, they reassured me about the things that were working, made me fix the things that weren't, kept everyone's emotional progress in check, and caught my typos. Any writer should be lucky enough to have such great betas.
And thank you to everyone who stuck with this in WIP form. It means a lot.
On AO3
Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight
Don't Explain
Chapter Nine
The week passed sluggishly, the days coming and going without purpose like mud through an hourglass. John felt as though he were pushing through each minute in slow motion. It was exhausting. If not for work, he wasn’t sure he’d even muster up the energy to leave bed, but his job was the one thing he had left, and he wasn’t about to lose that as well.
He tried not to think about Mary, or Sherlock. He tried not to think about anything, really. The only way he could face the tedious progression of time was to shut down his thoughts, and ignore the heavy weight of grief in his gut. He felt like half a person, going about his business because he had nothing better to do, but he reminded himself that getting dumped wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever endured. He figured if he just kept at it, eventually his life would feel normal again.
Either that, or something would finally give, and he’d have to face how miserable he actually was.
He slid his key in the lock, and ignored the thought. Tonight was not the night for self-reflection. This evening, he expected, would be like all of the others this week, like all of his evenings in the foreseeable future. He would come home to an empty flat from an uneventful day at the surgery, remove his coat, and place his keys on the kitchen table. First he would make tea. Then he would check his email, watch something mindless on the telly, and probably go to bed early. Wake up, go to work, and repeat.
But he had only been home for a few minutes and he was still filling the kettle when there was a knock at the door. He nearly dropped the kettle in surprise.
He prayed that it wasn’t Sherlock. He wouldn’t mind a quiet chat with Mrs. Hudson, but he wasn’t ready to face Sherlock again. He hadn’t seen the man since the day of his breakup, which made him wonder if Sherlock were avoiding him purposefully. If so, John was grateful. He had nothing to say to him. And he was fairly certain that just the sight of Sherlock’s face right now would be painful.
He shuffled to the door and opened it slowly, afraid of what he’d find. Sure enough, there were Sherlock’s short, dark curls and soft lips. He was wearing a fitted blue shirt today, and his eyes were wary. John’s stomach flipped to find his former lover standing in his doorway, and he might have let a grimace play across his face.
John opened the door fully, and tried his best to assume a stony expression. “What is it?”
He could see Sherlock’s eyes dancing over his face and posture, before moving over his shoulder to examine the flat. John tensed his back, knowing he couldn’t hide what a shitty week he’d been having from Sherlock’s penetrating gaze, but hoping he could project that it was none of Sherlock’s business. Sherlock kept his eyes just to the left of John’s face when he spoke.
“There’s a case: a woman who expects to be murdered before her wedding. Likely to be dangerous. I’m traveling there tomorrow to investigate.”
John crossed his arms. “And?”
Finally Sherlock met his eyes with that uncertainty he’d been carrying around since his return. “Want to come?”
For a minute or two, John stared at him, processing the invitation and everything it implied. Of course he wanted to come. It was a part of him he would never be able to shut off, he realized, that desire to stand in harm’s way and watch a mystery being solved. But he couldn’t do that anymore. Why did Sherlock keep offering? Didn’t he understand that John was trying to move on, and would have to turn him down? Why make this harder on both of them?
And yet, he was glad that Sherlock had come. He was grateful that Sherlock still wanted him around, even though John had treated him like shit these past few weeks, and even though he had nothing to offer on a case other than admiration and company. John kept pushing him away, and still Sherlock was offering his olive branch, and that brought on a humiliating wave of relief.
Sherlock shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyebrows drawing a bit closer as he waited for an answer. Then he swallowed. John’s eyes slid to his pale, moving throat, and it suddenly hit him like a freight train-Christ, he wanted him.
He dropped his arms to his sides, staring. The emotion he’d been suppressing these past several days erupted as a wave of lust, lighting up his skin. He wanted to lick that throat, lick up into Sherlock’s mouth, then kiss his way back down his torso. He was so sick of feeling miserable and conflicted and sorry for himself. He wanted to feel something new, wanted to put his hands on Sherlock’s skin and his cock, wanted his own cock pressed into something hot and slick, wanted to be fucked and abused and taken apart until everything else slipped away. He was tired of being empty, and he ached to be filled with something, anything. He wanted Sherlock to fill him.
John found himself stepping forward without giving it much thought, and his hand seemed to wrap around the back of Sherlock’s neck of its own accord. He closed the distance between their lips, and had just a moment to see Sherlock’s eyes go wide in genuine surprise before they connected, the taste of Sherlock’s mouth recalling a thousand tiny moments of love and anger and desire, combined with the unfortunate taste of his cigarettes. John stood on his toes and forced his tongue against Sherlock’s own, feeling more than hearing the answering hitch of Sherlock’s breath.
At first Sherlock seemed to pull away, but a moment later he was kissing him back, eager and desperate, barely allowing enough pauses for breathing between attacks. John’s head swam with the sensation, already panicking over the foolishness of this, but it was too late to back out. And anyway, he had nothing left to lose. John was starting to get hard, his legs weak and on fire with anticipation, so he pressed up against Sherlock’s hip to let him know. Sherlock grabbed John’s arse and pulled him closer in response.
Yes, of all the bad decisions he’d recently made, this was definitely the worse. But he tried not to give a shit, focusing instead on sucking at Sherlock’s lower lip. If he didn’t do something to relieve the tension building in him minute by minute, he would explode. And anyway, it was just a fuck. Just two bodies fulfilling a physical need, and if anyone understood separating the physical from the emotional, it would be Sherlock.
Somehow they managed to stumble backward into the flat, and John kicked the door closed with his foot. This wasn’t romantic, it was about getting off, so there was no preamble before he reached for the buttons of Sherlock’s expensive shirt. Sherlock, predictably, pushed his hands away and began unbuttoning it himself. He always lost patience with John’s fumbling. John found himself smiling wistfully before snapping back to the moment.
He stepped away in order to pull his jumper over his own head, then hesitated with the fabric bunched around his chest. He found that he didn’t want to let Sherlock out of his sight. He had to imagine pressing his fingers against Sherlock’s exposed skin before he closed his eyes, letting the haze of his desire shroud the idiocy of what they were doing. Once the jumper came off, and the shirt underneath, John looked to Sherlock and discovered that he had stopped unbuttoning halfway down, his fingers frozen in the process. Sherlock was frowning and staring, not at John’s chest, but at his face.
“I don’t understand,” said Sherlock slowly.
John’s heart pressed against his ribs. Someone who didn’t know Sherlock wouldn’t understand the significance of that statement, how it revealed a human side of him that so few people got to see. John suddenly wanted to explain everything: that Sherlock hadn’t done anything differently. He had simply waited a month, the time it took for John’s resolve to snap.
But no, John wasn’t about to tell him that-this whole situation was shameful enough as it was. Instead of answering, John popped open the button on his jeans, making sure there was no doubt about where this was headed. “Stop analyzing and strip.”
Sherlock appeared at a loss, but he took a deep breath and focused his confused look on his fingers as they flew over his shirt’s remaining buttons. He made short work of the rest of his clothing. As he uncovered his body, John allowed himself to savor the sight of his thin shoulders, the muscles of his chest, the sharp protrusion of hips over the waist of his pants which soon gave way to long, pale legs. He’d thought about this body for years, and he wanted to memorize every plane before he marked it with his touch. This might be his last chance to see it like this. And besides, staring at Sherlock’s body was easier than looking him in the eye.
They were both left in their pants when John grabbed him again around the waist, burying his face against Sherlock’s neck to lick and bite, harder than he intended, because he didn’t know what to do with the tension and desire coiling under his skin. Sherlock tilted back his head, but otherwise remained frustratingly tense and still. Something more than John’s initial lust was building inside of him. It propelled him to shove his hand past Sherlock’s waistband to grab his erect cock, radiating heat. Sherlock’s quiet breathing stopped, and he canted his hips, just barely. It was enough to make John reel, and moan, and he knew that he needed Sherlock inside of him.
“Upstairs,” he croaked, annoyed that lube and condoms were so far away.
He practically dragged Sherlock by the wrist, looking straight ahead, trying to ignore the surprise and confusion on Sherlock’s face. Once inside his room, he spun them around so he could push Sherlock down onto his bed and crawl on top of him. His body knew exactly what to do, but his brain had almost forgotten this. He had fantasized for so long about how it used to be, but he had forgotten the exact angles of Sherlock’s torso. The taste of Sherlock’s sweat and the light hairs across his chest had faded from his memory, an unbearably sad thought. Now, with Sherlock’s limbs wrapping around him as though designed for the purpose, John couldn’t imagine ever forgetting again. He was practically shaking as he pressed another sloppy kiss to Sherlock’s mouth, the need for more still building in him, intensifying every touch, making everything feel urgent and frightening.
John ground his cock against Sherlock’s and whispered, “I want you to fuck me.”
Sherlock rarely spoke during sex, but he squeezed his eyes shut and let out a shuddery breath in response. He rolled them over with little effort so that John was on his back, then pinned his biceps to the mattress as if to say, don’t move.
John went still and let his brain click off. He closed his eyes as Sherlock leaned down for another kiss, taking control this time, sucking on John’s tongue with certainty, with the confidence he’d once exhibited in everything. It was like John could feel Sherlock coming alive above him. It made him want to thrash and take and melt into the sheets all at once.
The kiss broke, and a moment later Sherlock’s heat was replaced by cold air washing over his skin. When John opened his eyes, he found Sherlock rifling through his side table. Of course Sherlock would remember precisely where he kept the lube. John was a man of habit, and nothing had really changed in three years: not the location of the lube, nor John’s brand of boxers, nor the unrelenting pull he felt whenever Sherlock was in the room. No, he didn’t want to think about that. He closed his eyes and thought about Sherlock’s clever tongue, his perfect arse bent over the bedside drawer, his long fingers and what they could do inside of him.
A moment later there was a tug at his pants, and John lifted his hips so Sherlock could slide them off. The snap of the bottle was loud in the room, and John shuddered even before Sherlock wrapped a slick hand around his cock.
“Fuck,” John moaned, the fire burning through his veins completely out of proportion with the light touch on his dick. He fisted the sheets to keep himself from reaching out blindly and desperately for Sherlock, then cracked his eyes open to see those long fingers wrapped around him. But what stole his breath was Sherlock’s gaze, which wasn’t focused on the handjob, but on John’s face, studying him intently. There was no greater aphrodisiac than Sherlock’s attention, and John’s cock jerked in response.
Sherlock seemed to take that as his cue. He swallowed, then started to roll John over bodily. John got the message, scrambling onto his hands and knees. He waited there, ready and impatient, but at first there was only a cautious touch to the small of his back that he couldn’t quite interpret. The touch withdrew, and for a moment there was nothing. John gritted his teeth in frustration. Then came a single finger which traced along his arse and eased inside. Finally. He tried to push back against it, but he had little leverage, and all he could do was grunt, “More,” because this was no time for a slow build. He’d been waiting years for this.
More fingers followed, already sending John to a different mindset. John knew his body well enough to know that it would ache without a bit more prep, but he wanted the slight pain with the pleasure. He wanted to overload himself with sensation, in the hope of drowning out the ache in his chest, the need for something that wasn’t quite physical.
“Do it,” John said. “I’m ready.”
Sherlock’s fingers paused before slipping out entirely. Two hands came to rest on John’s arse, and he nearly shook in anticipation. But just before Sherlock could press inside, before John’s brain went entirely offline, he remembered what was missing. “Wait,” he said, looking over his shoulder, even though his eager body ached in protest. “Condom.”
Sherlock blinked and frowned, as though it were a strange thing to suggest. True, they had stopped using condoms in their previous life together, but that was a long time ago. Things were different now, no matter how familiar they felt.
“Did-” Even on that one syllable, Sherlock’s voice was rough. He stopped to clear his throat, than continued in a tone that was softer, but strained. “Did you contract something?”
Now it was John’s turn to be confused. “What? No, no of course not, but…” That wasn’t the point, was it? He wasn’t sure-he wasn’t thinking quite clearly at the moment.
Sherlock tilted his head to the side. “You assume I’ve had other sexual partners?”
John could only blink in response. Did Sherlock mean to say-oh god. The thought of Sherlock waiting for three years without sex, saving himself for John, really shouldn’t have been such a turn on. But John couldn’t help the shiver that went through him, or the arousal that shot up his spine. The doctor in him knew not to take Sherlock as his word, but he was far from being a doctor in this moment. He was just a needy, broken man, and he still trusted Sherlock with his life. He gritted his teeth, and turned back to the mattress. “Oh, fuck. Just-go. Now.”
Sherlock adjusted behind him and entered slowly. It burned as predicted, but with a cleansing fire that made everything else vanish. The room fell away until it was just John and Sherlock and nothing else, and John wasn’t even sure of his own presence. He was a ball of sensation, love, and arousal, and the only thing that convinced him he was still physically there was being impaled on Sherlock’s slick cock.
The first thrust brought out a moan and a series of unconscious swears from John’s lips. Sherlock could be as silent and contained as he liked, because John was more than capable of making enough noise for the both of them. He twisted his fingers into the sheets, opening his vocal chords to turn every exhale into a grunt or a sob. When Sherlock’s hand wrapped back around his cock, giving his erection new life, John cried out, “Fuck, fuck, oh god, please.” He tried to press back and forward at once, but Sherlock was holding his hips steady with a one-handed grip that would likely bruise. John felt pinned, like a specimen being studied.
He had the thought that this was completely unlike being with Mary. Not because a real cock was so very different from her dildo-although John had forgotten the heat of it, the hard and softness that a toy could never quite emulate-but because it was Sherlock, his very flesh inside of him. Not a toy at all. Not even latex to separate them, their bodies pressed together.
Sherlock changed his angle, forcing John down onto his elbows. John cried ah, and opened his eyes, not remembering having closed them, and not understanding why they felt damp. Even though he hated doing this sort of thing on his back, he so wished he could see Sherlock’s face in this moment, just to remind himself of who was doing this to him. “Sherlock,” John gasped against the sheets. He imagined he could hear a harsh answering exhale at his back.
His orgasm was fast approaching now, much too fast. Sherlock, as though sensing it, slowed his hips, but picked up his speed on John’s cock. John groaned in protest. He didn’t want this to end. He tried to hold back, but Sherlock was relentless, urging him toward the crest. Fear suddenly clawed at John’s chest, the realization that this would soon be over, and then he would be alone again. He couldn’t go back to that. It hurt more than any physical pain, more than the sharp agony of arousal building between his legs.
“Don’t,” he said, burying his head against the mattress, his voice muffled and halfway to another moan. He was so close. “Don’t leave me again. I love you, you fucking bastard.”
The hand around him jerked. Lost its rhythm. Then it came back with a sharp tug at the perfect angle. John shattered, and for a blissful period, all that mattered was his body, alight and humming, the euphoria being milked from him in pulsing waves.
The come down was fast. Far too fast. John wanted to hold on to his sexual haze, enjoy himself while he could, but it drained from him rapidly, leaving him exhausted and humiliated. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to the sheets. Several thrusts later, he felt Sherlock shudder and reach his own climax behind him, and John remembered that: the way Sherlock’s breath caught in his throat when he came, and then that small noise, low and choked, a hint of what might be below the surface. Like the iceberg tip of a moan. It used to mean the world to John to hear it. Just a tiny vocal admission that Sherlock could never quite hold back.
Hearing it now, and imagining Sherlock’s contorted face as he released inside of him, only served to feed John’s depression. He would give everything to this man, over and over again, whether he liked to or not. And that’s all he would receive in return: some adventure, an orgasm, and if he was lucky, that tiny noise in response.
Sherlock pulled out carefully, and John collapsed onto his stomach. He felt the mattress dip next to him, but he turned his head the other way, staring at the wall and trying to figure out why he had brought himself to this point. There was no going back from this, he supposed. Maybe if he had kept his damn mouth shut he could have pretended it was just a shag, but now-now he had thrown away his last line of defense. The truth was out in the open. John was in love, possibly had been since the day they first met, and it was up to Sherlock to decide what to do with that. John felt foolish and exposed.
He also felt sticky; his body had been the recipient of most of their semen. He leaned over to grab a tissue from the side table, and wiped himself off as best he could. When he rolled onto his back to lob it toward the bin, he noticed that Sherlock, curled on his side, was staring at him with intent.
“What?” asked John, defensive and uncomfortable under that scrutiny.
Sherlock looked focused, as though trying to transmit his thoughts directly to John’s brain. But John couldn’t interpret the look in those eyes, now grey in the fading light. He couldn’t fathom what Sherlock was thinking. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, anyway.
Sherlock licked his flushed lips and breathed softly. Then he said, “It’s possible that I love you as well.”
John stared, not knowing how to react to that statement. On the one hand, the word “love” in Sherlock’s voice was more than he’d ever expected. He wished he could isolate it and ignore the sentence that surrounded it, preserve it in amber and carry it around with him. But no, of course things couldn’t be that simple. Sherlock’s love was just a possibility, then, an abstract hypothetical, a potential that may or may not ever be filled. Sherlock would never feel this gnawing, unconditional love that John couldn’t escape, even when he tried. God, he’d tried so fucking hard, and here he was: once again giving everything to a man who only “possibly” loved him back. Could he really live like that? Maybe the better question was whether he could live without it. John scrubbed a hand across his face, miserable at his situation.
“Fantastic,” he grumbled, too exhausted to inject much bitterness into his sarcasm. “I’m glad it’s possible.”
A look of frustration passed over Sherlock’s previously uncertain face. “Well, I can’t prove it,” he complained, pushing himself off of his side and sliding off the bed.
John watched him pace to the far wall of the small room, and dared to wonder if he had misjudged. Maybe it was more than just “possible.” Sherlock had been away too long, and John had lost some of his ability to interpret him. In any case, Sherlock was clearly agitated, with his shoulders hunched and his eyebrows drawn. Normally Sherlock had a way of appearing naked and armored at the same time, so to see him like this-upset and almost vulnerable-was a shock. John wanted to crawl off the bed and wrap his arms around him, kiss some comfort into him. Instead, he pulled himself up to a sitting position, propped against some pillows, and brought his knees to his chest, waiting. Longing.
“There’s no standardized definition of love,” said Sherlock after a moment. He sounded angry, perhaps angry at the entire concept of love, and his pale hands gestured violently in the air. “So how can anyone be expected to accurately qualify their experiences? It’s not as though measuring my own oxytocin levels would be conclusive, so all I have left is this useless empirical evidence.”
His voice grew and shook on the word “useless.” John remained silent, his chest aching. It’s not that complicated, he wanted to say. It’s so simple. Either you love me, or you don’t. Either you’ll stay, or you’ll leave me again. For fuck’s sake Sherlock, just tell me. Which is it? And yet he still wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. Besides, would it matter either way? John would still follow after him, like a sick puppy, regardless.
Eventually Sherlock’s restless movement stilled, and then he was standing nude and gorgeous, his arms crossed in front of his chest and his eyes on his feet. “Feigning my own death was supposed to be a temporary solution,” he said. “Then later, when…” His voice trailed off, and there was a brief pause. “I knew your absence would take some-some getting used to, but I didn’t-” He broke off again and frowned. He was speaking quietly now, as though talking to himself, though his tone was still angry. A handful of seconds ticked off on John’s bedside clock, and when Sherlock finally continued, he seemed to curl in on himself even further. “I’m used to working on my own. I’ve done it my entire life. I didn’t expect that being alone would be…difficult.”
John had stopped breathing at this point, the weight of the moment resting on his lungs. “And was it?”
Finally, Sherlock looked up, and their eyes locked. In Sherlock’s face, John could see confusion and pain, mixed with a silent plea. If he hadn’t already been in love, he was sure he would have fallen then and there.
“Yes,” said Sherlock.
And in the end, John discovered that was all he needed to hear. He suddenly didn’t care about declarations of love. What did those labels matter? Hearing Sherlock confess that their years apart had been as painful for him as they had been for John, and not just hearing it, but seeing it in Sherlock’s wounded eyes, sensing it in his strained voice-that mattered. John had thought about forgiveness, abstractly, and the idea of rebuilding what they once had, but he hadn’t actually felt it until this moment. Now forgiveness was a warmth spreading through his chest, filling some void he hadn’t been able to name. It was still tinged with bitterness and hurt, but he understood that in time he would let that go, and then they could start over again. Somehow, that seemed okay now. It seemed almost easy. He could hardly remember what had been holding him back before.
John crawled forward on his knees and held out his hand. “Come here,” he whispered.
Sherlock took a step forward, still unsure, and John moved over the sheets to meet him at the edge of the bed. He placed his hands against Sherlock’s cheeks and kissed him, not urgent like before, but soft and slow. There was so much John wanted to say, so much he’d needed to say since Sherlock reentered his life, and he tried to say it now with his lips and searching tongue. Sherlock was tense as first, but soon melted into it. His fingers skittered against John’s skin, exploring as though this were their first kiss. In some ways, it felt like their first kiss. It was cautious and exploratory and long overdue. It was simultaneously so familiar, and unlike any of the kisses they’d shared before.
They managed to fall back onto the bed, and pressed their mouths together until they were no longer kissing, but just lying there, breathing each other’s air. John wanted to fall asleep like this, with their lips touching, his hand curled around the back of Sherlock’s neck and Sherlock’s fingers tracing around John’s hipbone, but there was still a conversation they needed to have.
John pulled back reluctantly, and tucked his head against Sherlock’s chest. “So why did you leave me?” he asked. The question had very little anger left in it. He just needed to know. And he finally felt like he was ready to hear the answer.
Sherlock went rigid against him, and there was a long silence before he answered. “On the roof of St. Bart’s, Moriarty gave me a choice.” He paused, perhaps to see if John would protest, then continued after John remained silent. “My life, or-”
“Or mine, yeah,” John interrupted. “I got that part.” He understood it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Sherlock had acted without asking, without giving John any warning or any choice. He’d lied.
“Or the lives of you, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock corrected.
John pulled back and his eyes went wide in shock. “Jesus.” He hadn’t considered that others might have been in danger. Nausea spread through his stomach at the thought. He’d only been thinking about himself, and he felt suddenly conceited to have assumed that this was between him and Sherlock, and no one else. John would have given his own life if he’d been in Sherlock’s place. And to think he’d told Greg that Sherlock’s reasons didn’t matter-shit.
Sherlock continued, with his usual objective tone when recounting a past case. “I had already assumed that Moriarty would target anyone that I remotely cared about. Mycroft was the exception, having been placed under increased protection, but I didn’t know that at the time. That’s why I was forced to turn to Molly for help.”
John tried to imagine what that must have been like, and then shook his head with realization. “You didn’t actually tell her that, did you?”
“Of course I did,” said Sherlock, clearly not seeing the problem.
“Of course you did,” John repeated. He made a mental note to apologize to Molly Hooper. “Okay then, so you jumped off the roof, somehow survived, and-what? Decided that you were better off on your own?”
Sherlock gave him one of his many you’re-being-an-idiot looks, which was somehow comforting, and was accompanied by soft fingers that came up to stroke John’s cheek. “You were still being watched, John. Your survival depended on mourning convincingly.”
It was sick, and John closed his eyes against the bile rising in his throat. Was Sherlock saying that his grief had been captured in the sightlines of snipers? He wasn’t sure what was more upsetting: the pain he had gone through without understanding why, without consent; or the thought of his lowest moments being surveyed and analyzed by those prepared to kill him. It brought home the fact that he’d spent the last three years as a pawn in someone else’s game, without seeing the moves, without even seeing the players. It was hard to blame Sherlock, knowing there were other lives at stake. Most of his anger rested squarely on Moriarty’s corpse. But there was something he still didn’t understand.
“You could have contacted me somehow. You could have, I don’t know, slipped me a note or something without them finding out. You, of all people.”
Sherlock continued to stroke the side of John’s face, a warm, comforting gesture, and let out a small sigh. “You’re a terrible actor. If you knew I was alive, it would have been obvious.”
That was a bullshit excuse. John wrapped a hand around Sherlock’s wrist to still it and tried to look him in the eye, though Sherlock was focused just off to the side. “Maybe at first, yeah, but I didn’t mourn you for three years. You didn’t have to lie to me for three fucking years.”
There was a period of silence before Sherlock answered. “We would have had to meet face to face, which would have been dangerous, and nearly impossible considering I was rarely in London. And-it would have been too risky to maintain contact afterward.” John watched him press his lips together and swallow. “By the time you stopped mourning, it was easier if you continued to believe I was dead.”
John’s indignation was a reflex, and he spat out, “Easier for who, Sherlock? You or me?”
Sherlock didn’t answer, but a shadow passed over his face, and his raised eyebrows made it clear that he hadn’t considered the question before now. It was all the response John needed, really. Sherlock’s motives for maintaining the lie had been selfish, he was right about that, but it was a selfishness born of sentiment and self-preservation. John felt his brief flare of anger dissipate like smoke.
He pressed his face back against Sherlock’s chest, and curled up along the warmth of his skin. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Sherlock’s arm draped across his shoulder, and John felt oddly protected, nestled against his-boyfriend? Yes, he supposed they were boyfriends again. No matter how hard he fought it, this was where he belonged; he could feel in his bones. And maybe it was the sleepiness creeping up on him, but he felt okay with that. More than okay. For the first time in the last month-maybe the last three years, but he’d examine that statement later-John felt happy.
He breathed in Sherlock’s scent and frowned. “You’ll have to quit smoking again,” he said.
“Easy,” Sherlock replied, and John snorted. He’d be saying something different in a week or two. Dear lord, John did not want to be around for that.
“I’m not leaving my job,” he warned.
“You detest full-time employment,” said Sherlock.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll need some time away from you.” He always felt like that was one of his mistakes from before. Nothing but blogging and crime solving, living out of Sherlock’s pocket-that wasn’t him. He needed his own life. Even if he also needed Sherlock to be a part of it.
“Fine.”
John hesitated before stating his last condition, because maybe they needed a longer period to ease into this. Then again, they had lost too much time as it was. Why wait on a decision that John was now certain about? “And you can’t keep living in that bloody awful flat,” he added.
The arm around his shoulder tightened, and John felt warm breath across his temple. “Of course not.”
There was surely a lot more that needed to be discussed, but this felt like a good enough start. Everything else could wait until morning. Sleep was creeping up on John, and he blinked heavily, remembering one more thing that he needed to stay awake for. “Okay, last thing I have to know,” he said, his eyes falling shut. “How the hell did you survive that fall?”
And then Sherlock was launching into his explanation, pride and boasting soon seeping into his tone. It was terrifying and brilliant, and John’s head swam with awe, already mentally drafting his next blog post. He might have mumbled an incredible here and there. When Sherlock finished, the low rumble of his voice continued without pause into the story of dismantling one of the most elaborate crime networks in Europe. John knew he’d be asleep for the good bits, but he couldn’t wait to hear Sherlock repeat everything in the morning.
Just before he finally drifted off, John realized how new this felt. Falling asleep in Sherlock’s arms, being talked to, feeling loved: that wasn’t the way things used to be. So maybe they weren’t going back to the way things were before. Maybe they were going to build something new. Something better. John liked the sound of that. And the next time Sherlock wanted to do something idiotic, John would damn well make sure that he was right there beside him.
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: John/Mary, John/Sherlock
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 5,900 this chapter, 45,400 in total
Warnings: Spoilers for season two, explicit sex
Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Summary: Three years later, John had a girlfriend, a new job, and a new life, and just because his ex wasn’t dead didn’t mean they were going to go right back to the way things used to be.
A/N: Here it is: the last chapter, and the last time you have to hear me apologize about the long wait.
Thank you once more to thisprettywren and breathedout. Between the two of them, they reassured me about the things that were working, made me fix the things that weren't, kept everyone's emotional progress in check, and caught my typos. Any writer should be lucky enough to have such great betas.
And thank you to everyone who stuck with this in WIP form. It means a lot.
On AO3
Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight
Don't Explain
Chapter Nine
The week passed sluggishly, the days coming and going without purpose like mud through an hourglass. John felt as though he were pushing through each minute in slow motion. It was exhausting. If not for work, he wasn’t sure he’d even muster up the energy to leave bed, but his job was the one thing he had left, and he wasn’t about to lose that as well.
He tried not to think about Mary, or Sherlock. He tried not to think about anything, really. The only way he could face the tedious progression of time was to shut down his thoughts, and ignore the heavy weight of grief in his gut. He felt like half a person, going about his business because he had nothing better to do, but he reminded himself that getting dumped wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever endured. He figured if he just kept at it, eventually his life would feel normal again.
Either that, or something would finally give, and he’d have to face how miserable he actually was.
He slid his key in the lock, and ignored the thought. Tonight was not the night for self-reflection. This evening, he expected, would be like all of the others this week, like all of his evenings in the foreseeable future. He would come home to an empty flat from an uneventful day at the surgery, remove his coat, and place his keys on the kitchen table. First he would make tea. Then he would check his email, watch something mindless on the telly, and probably go to bed early. Wake up, go to work, and repeat.
But he had only been home for a few minutes and he was still filling the kettle when there was a knock at the door. He nearly dropped the kettle in surprise.
He prayed that it wasn’t Sherlock. He wouldn’t mind a quiet chat with Mrs. Hudson, but he wasn’t ready to face Sherlock again. He hadn’t seen the man since the day of his breakup, which made him wonder if Sherlock were avoiding him purposefully. If so, John was grateful. He had nothing to say to him. And he was fairly certain that just the sight of Sherlock’s face right now would be painful.
He shuffled to the door and opened it slowly, afraid of what he’d find. Sure enough, there were Sherlock’s short, dark curls and soft lips. He was wearing a fitted blue shirt today, and his eyes were wary. John’s stomach flipped to find his former lover standing in his doorway, and he might have let a grimace play across his face.
John opened the door fully, and tried his best to assume a stony expression. “What is it?”
He could see Sherlock’s eyes dancing over his face and posture, before moving over his shoulder to examine the flat. John tensed his back, knowing he couldn’t hide what a shitty week he’d been having from Sherlock’s penetrating gaze, but hoping he could project that it was none of Sherlock’s business. Sherlock kept his eyes just to the left of John’s face when he spoke.
“There’s a case: a woman who expects to be murdered before her wedding. Likely to be dangerous. I’m traveling there tomorrow to investigate.”
John crossed his arms. “And?”
Finally Sherlock met his eyes with that uncertainty he’d been carrying around since his return. “Want to come?”
For a minute or two, John stared at him, processing the invitation and everything it implied. Of course he wanted to come. It was a part of him he would never be able to shut off, he realized, that desire to stand in harm’s way and watch a mystery being solved. But he couldn’t do that anymore. Why did Sherlock keep offering? Didn’t he understand that John was trying to move on, and would have to turn him down? Why make this harder on both of them?
And yet, he was glad that Sherlock had come. He was grateful that Sherlock still wanted him around, even though John had treated him like shit these past few weeks, and even though he had nothing to offer on a case other than admiration and company. John kept pushing him away, and still Sherlock was offering his olive branch, and that brought on a humiliating wave of relief.
Sherlock shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyebrows drawing a bit closer as he waited for an answer. Then he swallowed. John’s eyes slid to his pale, moving throat, and it suddenly hit him like a freight train-Christ, he wanted him.
He dropped his arms to his sides, staring. The emotion he’d been suppressing these past several days erupted as a wave of lust, lighting up his skin. He wanted to lick that throat, lick up into Sherlock’s mouth, then kiss his way back down his torso. He was so sick of feeling miserable and conflicted and sorry for himself. He wanted to feel something new, wanted to put his hands on Sherlock’s skin and his cock, wanted his own cock pressed into something hot and slick, wanted to be fucked and abused and taken apart until everything else slipped away. He was tired of being empty, and he ached to be filled with something, anything. He wanted Sherlock to fill him.
John found himself stepping forward without giving it much thought, and his hand seemed to wrap around the back of Sherlock’s neck of its own accord. He closed the distance between their lips, and had just a moment to see Sherlock’s eyes go wide in genuine surprise before they connected, the taste of Sherlock’s mouth recalling a thousand tiny moments of love and anger and desire, combined with the unfortunate taste of his cigarettes. John stood on his toes and forced his tongue against Sherlock’s own, feeling more than hearing the answering hitch of Sherlock’s breath.
At first Sherlock seemed to pull away, but a moment later he was kissing him back, eager and desperate, barely allowing enough pauses for breathing between attacks. John’s head swam with the sensation, already panicking over the foolishness of this, but it was too late to back out. And anyway, he had nothing left to lose. John was starting to get hard, his legs weak and on fire with anticipation, so he pressed up against Sherlock’s hip to let him know. Sherlock grabbed John’s arse and pulled him closer in response.
Yes, of all the bad decisions he’d recently made, this was definitely the worse. But he tried not to give a shit, focusing instead on sucking at Sherlock’s lower lip. If he didn’t do something to relieve the tension building in him minute by minute, he would explode. And anyway, it was just a fuck. Just two bodies fulfilling a physical need, and if anyone understood separating the physical from the emotional, it would be Sherlock.
Somehow they managed to stumble backward into the flat, and John kicked the door closed with his foot. This wasn’t romantic, it was about getting off, so there was no preamble before he reached for the buttons of Sherlock’s expensive shirt. Sherlock, predictably, pushed his hands away and began unbuttoning it himself. He always lost patience with John’s fumbling. John found himself smiling wistfully before snapping back to the moment.
He stepped away in order to pull his jumper over his own head, then hesitated with the fabric bunched around his chest. He found that he didn’t want to let Sherlock out of his sight. He had to imagine pressing his fingers against Sherlock’s exposed skin before he closed his eyes, letting the haze of his desire shroud the idiocy of what they were doing. Once the jumper came off, and the shirt underneath, John looked to Sherlock and discovered that he had stopped unbuttoning halfway down, his fingers frozen in the process. Sherlock was frowning and staring, not at John’s chest, but at his face.
“I don’t understand,” said Sherlock slowly.
John’s heart pressed against his ribs. Someone who didn’t know Sherlock wouldn’t understand the significance of that statement, how it revealed a human side of him that so few people got to see. John suddenly wanted to explain everything: that Sherlock hadn’t done anything differently. He had simply waited a month, the time it took for John’s resolve to snap.
But no, John wasn’t about to tell him that-this whole situation was shameful enough as it was. Instead of answering, John popped open the button on his jeans, making sure there was no doubt about where this was headed. “Stop analyzing and strip.”
Sherlock appeared at a loss, but he took a deep breath and focused his confused look on his fingers as they flew over his shirt’s remaining buttons. He made short work of the rest of his clothing. As he uncovered his body, John allowed himself to savor the sight of his thin shoulders, the muscles of his chest, the sharp protrusion of hips over the waist of his pants which soon gave way to long, pale legs. He’d thought about this body for years, and he wanted to memorize every plane before he marked it with his touch. This might be his last chance to see it like this. And besides, staring at Sherlock’s body was easier than looking him in the eye.
They were both left in their pants when John grabbed him again around the waist, burying his face against Sherlock’s neck to lick and bite, harder than he intended, because he didn’t know what to do with the tension and desire coiling under his skin. Sherlock tilted back his head, but otherwise remained frustratingly tense and still. Something more than John’s initial lust was building inside of him. It propelled him to shove his hand past Sherlock’s waistband to grab his erect cock, radiating heat. Sherlock’s quiet breathing stopped, and he canted his hips, just barely. It was enough to make John reel, and moan, and he knew that he needed Sherlock inside of him.
“Upstairs,” he croaked, annoyed that lube and condoms were so far away.
He practically dragged Sherlock by the wrist, looking straight ahead, trying to ignore the surprise and confusion on Sherlock’s face. Once inside his room, he spun them around so he could push Sherlock down onto his bed and crawl on top of him. His body knew exactly what to do, but his brain had almost forgotten this. He had fantasized for so long about how it used to be, but he had forgotten the exact angles of Sherlock’s torso. The taste of Sherlock’s sweat and the light hairs across his chest had faded from his memory, an unbearably sad thought. Now, with Sherlock’s limbs wrapping around him as though designed for the purpose, John couldn’t imagine ever forgetting again. He was practically shaking as he pressed another sloppy kiss to Sherlock’s mouth, the need for more still building in him, intensifying every touch, making everything feel urgent and frightening.
John ground his cock against Sherlock’s and whispered, “I want you to fuck me.”
Sherlock rarely spoke during sex, but he squeezed his eyes shut and let out a shuddery breath in response. He rolled them over with little effort so that John was on his back, then pinned his biceps to the mattress as if to say, don’t move.
John went still and let his brain click off. He closed his eyes as Sherlock leaned down for another kiss, taking control this time, sucking on John’s tongue with certainty, with the confidence he’d once exhibited in everything. It was like John could feel Sherlock coming alive above him. It made him want to thrash and take and melt into the sheets all at once.
The kiss broke, and a moment later Sherlock’s heat was replaced by cold air washing over his skin. When John opened his eyes, he found Sherlock rifling through his side table. Of course Sherlock would remember precisely where he kept the lube. John was a man of habit, and nothing had really changed in three years: not the location of the lube, nor John’s brand of boxers, nor the unrelenting pull he felt whenever Sherlock was in the room. No, he didn’t want to think about that. He closed his eyes and thought about Sherlock’s clever tongue, his perfect arse bent over the bedside drawer, his long fingers and what they could do inside of him.
A moment later there was a tug at his pants, and John lifted his hips so Sherlock could slide them off. The snap of the bottle was loud in the room, and John shuddered even before Sherlock wrapped a slick hand around his cock.
“Fuck,” John moaned, the fire burning through his veins completely out of proportion with the light touch on his dick. He fisted the sheets to keep himself from reaching out blindly and desperately for Sherlock, then cracked his eyes open to see those long fingers wrapped around him. But what stole his breath was Sherlock’s gaze, which wasn’t focused on the handjob, but on John’s face, studying him intently. There was no greater aphrodisiac than Sherlock’s attention, and John’s cock jerked in response.
Sherlock seemed to take that as his cue. He swallowed, then started to roll John over bodily. John got the message, scrambling onto his hands and knees. He waited there, ready and impatient, but at first there was only a cautious touch to the small of his back that he couldn’t quite interpret. The touch withdrew, and for a moment there was nothing. John gritted his teeth in frustration. Then came a single finger which traced along his arse and eased inside. Finally. He tried to push back against it, but he had little leverage, and all he could do was grunt, “More,” because this was no time for a slow build. He’d been waiting years for this.
More fingers followed, already sending John to a different mindset. John knew his body well enough to know that it would ache without a bit more prep, but he wanted the slight pain with the pleasure. He wanted to overload himself with sensation, in the hope of drowning out the ache in his chest, the need for something that wasn’t quite physical.
“Do it,” John said. “I’m ready.”
Sherlock’s fingers paused before slipping out entirely. Two hands came to rest on John’s arse, and he nearly shook in anticipation. But just before Sherlock could press inside, before John’s brain went entirely offline, he remembered what was missing. “Wait,” he said, looking over his shoulder, even though his eager body ached in protest. “Condom.”
Sherlock blinked and frowned, as though it were a strange thing to suggest. True, they had stopped using condoms in their previous life together, but that was a long time ago. Things were different now, no matter how familiar they felt.
“Did-” Even on that one syllable, Sherlock’s voice was rough. He stopped to clear his throat, than continued in a tone that was softer, but strained. “Did you contract something?”
Now it was John’s turn to be confused. “What? No, no of course not, but…” That wasn’t the point, was it? He wasn’t sure-he wasn’t thinking quite clearly at the moment.
Sherlock tilted his head to the side. “You assume I’ve had other sexual partners?”
John could only blink in response. Did Sherlock mean to say-oh god. The thought of Sherlock waiting for three years without sex, saving himself for John, really shouldn’t have been such a turn on. But John couldn’t help the shiver that went through him, or the arousal that shot up his spine. The doctor in him knew not to take Sherlock as his word, but he was far from being a doctor in this moment. He was just a needy, broken man, and he still trusted Sherlock with his life. He gritted his teeth, and turned back to the mattress. “Oh, fuck. Just-go. Now.”
Sherlock adjusted behind him and entered slowly. It burned as predicted, but with a cleansing fire that made everything else vanish. The room fell away until it was just John and Sherlock and nothing else, and John wasn’t even sure of his own presence. He was a ball of sensation, love, and arousal, and the only thing that convinced him he was still physically there was being impaled on Sherlock’s slick cock.
The first thrust brought out a moan and a series of unconscious swears from John’s lips. Sherlock could be as silent and contained as he liked, because John was more than capable of making enough noise for the both of them. He twisted his fingers into the sheets, opening his vocal chords to turn every exhale into a grunt or a sob. When Sherlock’s hand wrapped back around his cock, giving his erection new life, John cried out, “Fuck, fuck, oh god, please.” He tried to press back and forward at once, but Sherlock was holding his hips steady with a one-handed grip that would likely bruise. John felt pinned, like a specimen being studied.
He had the thought that this was completely unlike being with Mary. Not because a real cock was so very different from her dildo-although John had forgotten the heat of it, the hard and softness that a toy could never quite emulate-but because it was Sherlock, his very flesh inside of him. Not a toy at all. Not even latex to separate them, their bodies pressed together.
Sherlock changed his angle, forcing John down onto his elbows. John cried ah, and opened his eyes, not remembering having closed them, and not understanding why they felt damp. Even though he hated doing this sort of thing on his back, he so wished he could see Sherlock’s face in this moment, just to remind himself of who was doing this to him. “Sherlock,” John gasped against the sheets. He imagined he could hear a harsh answering exhale at his back.
His orgasm was fast approaching now, much too fast. Sherlock, as though sensing it, slowed his hips, but picked up his speed on John’s cock. John groaned in protest. He didn’t want this to end. He tried to hold back, but Sherlock was relentless, urging him toward the crest. Fear suddenly clawed at John’s chest, the realization that this would soon be over, and then he would be alone again. He couldn’t go back to that. It hurt more than any physical pain, more than the sharp agony of arousal building between his legs.
“Don’t,” he said, burying his head against the mattress, his voice muffled and halfway to another moan. He was so close. “Don’t leave me again. I love you, you fucking bastard.”
The hand around him jerked. Lost its rhythm. Then it came back with a sharp tug at the perfect angle. John shattered, and for a blissful period, all that mattered was his body, alight and humming, the euphoria being milked from him in pulsing waves.
The come down was fast. Far too fast. John wanted to hold on to his sexual haze, enjoy himself while he could, but it drained from him rapidly, leaving him exhausted and humiliated. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to the sheets. Several thrusts later, he felt Sherlock shudder and reach his own climax behind him, and John remembered that: the way Sherlock’s breath caught in his throat when he came, and then that small noise, low and choked, a hint of what might be below the surface. Like the iceberg tip of a moan. It used to mean the world to John to hear it. Just a tiny vocal admission that Sherlock could never quite hold back.
Hearing it now, and imagining Sherlock’s contorted face as he released inside of him, only served to feed John’s depression. He would give everything to this man, over and over again, whether he liked to or not. And that’s all he would receive in return: some adventure, an orgasm, and if he was lucky, that tiny noise in response.
Sherlock pulled out carefully, and John collapsed onto his stomach. He felt the mattress dip next to him, but he turned his head the other way, staring at the wall and trying to figure out why he had brought himself to this point. There was no going back from this, he supposed. Maybe if he had kept his damn mouth shut he could have pretended it was just a shag, but now-now he had thrown away his last line of defense. The truth was out in the open. John was in love, possibly had been since the day they first met, and it was up to Sherlock to decide what to do with that. John felt foolish and exposed.
He also felt sticky; his body had been the recipient of most of their semen. He leaned over to grab a tissue from the side table, and wiped himself off as best he could. When he rolled onto his back to lob it toward the bin, he noticed that Sherlock, curled on his side, was staring at him with intent.
“What?” asked John, defensive and uncomfortable under that scrutiny.
Sherlock looked focused, as though trying to transmit his thoughts directly to John’s brain. But John couldn’t interpret the look in those eyes, now grey in the fading light. He couldn’t fathom what Sherlock was thinking. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, anyway.
Sherlock licked his flushed lips and breathed softly. Then he said, “It’s possible that I love you as well.”
John stared, not knowing how to react to that statement. On the one hand, the word “love” in Sherlock’s voice was more than he’d ever expected. He wished he could isolate it and ignore the sentence that surrounded it, preserve it in amber and carry it around with him. But no, of course things couldn’t be that simple. Sherlock’s love was just a possibility, then, an abstract hypothetical, a potential that may or may not ever be filled. Sherlock would never feel this gnawing, unconditional love that John couldn’t escape, even when he tried. God, he’d tried so fucking hard, and here he was: once again giving everything to a man who only “possibly” loved him back. Could he really live like that? Maybe the better question was whether he could live without it. John scrubbed a hand across his face, miserable at his situation.
“Fantastic,” he grumbled, too exhausted to inject much bitterness into his sarcasm. “I’m glad it’s possible.”
A look of frustration passed over Sherlock’s previously uncertain face. “Well, I can’t prove it,” he complained, pushing himself off of his side and sliding off the bed.
John watched him pace to the far wall of the small room, and dared to wonder if he had misjudged. Maybe it was more than just “possible.” Sherlock had been away too long, and John had lost some of his ability to interpret him. In any case, Sherlock was clearly agitated, with his shoulders hunched and his eyebrows drawn. Normally Sherlock had a way of appearing naked and armored at the same time, so to see him like this-upset and almost vulnerable-was a shock. John wanted to crawl off the bed and wrap his arms around him, kiss some comfort into him. Instead, he pulled himself up to a sitting position, propped against some pillows, and brought his knees to his chest, waiting. Longing.
“There’s no standardized definition of love,” said Sherlock after a moment. He sounded angry, perhaps angry at the entire concept of love, and his pale hands gestured violently in the air. “So how can anyone be expected to accurately qualify their experiences? It’s not as though measuring my own oxytocin levels would be conclusive, so all I have left is this useless empirical evidence.”
His voice grew and shook on the word “useless.” John remained silent, his chest aching. It’s not that complicated, he wanted to say. It’s so simple. Either you love me, or you don’t. Either you’ll stay, or you’ll leave me again. For fuck’s sake Sherlock, just tell me. Which is it? And yet he still wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. Besides, would it matter either way? John would still follow after him, like a sick puppy, regardless.
Eventually Sherlock’s restless movement stilled, and then he was standing nude and gorgeous, his arms crossed in front of his chest and his eyes on his feet. “Feigning my own death was supposed to be a temporary solution,” he said. “Then later, when…” His voice trailed off, and there was a brief pause. “I knew your absence would take some-some getting used to, but I didn’t-” He broke off again and frowned. He was speaking quietly now, as though talking to himself, though his tone was still angry. A handful of seconds ticked off on John’s bedside clock, and when Sherlock finally continued, he seemed to curl in on himself even further. “I’m used to working on my own. I’ve done it my entire life. I didn’t expect that being alone would be…difficult.”
John had stopped breathing at this point, the weight of the moment resting on his lungs. “And was it?”
Finally, Sherlock looked up, and their eyes locked. In Sherlock’s face, John could see confusion and pain, mixed with a silent plea. If he hadn’t already been in love, he was sure he would have fallen then and there.
“Yes,” said Sherlock.
And in the end, John discovered that was all he needed to hear. He suddenly didn’t care about declarations of love. What did those labels matter? Hearing Sherlock confess that their years apart had been as painful for him as they had been for John, and not just hearing it, but seeing it in Sherlock’s wounded eyes, sensing it in his strained voice-that mattered. John had thought about forgiveness, abstractly, and the idea of rebuilding what they once had, but he hadn’t actually felt it until this moment. Now forgiveness was a warmth spreading through his chest, filling some void he hadn’t been able to name. It was still tinged with bitterness and hurt, but he understood that in time he would let that go, and then they could start over again. Somehow, that seemed okay now. It seemed almost easy. He could hardly remember what had been holding him back before.
John crawled forward on his knees and held out his hand. “Come here,” he whispered.
Sherlock took a step forward, still unsure, and John moved over the sheets to meet him at the edge of the bed. He placed his hands against Sherlock’s cheeks and kissed him, not urgent like before, but soft and slow. There was so much John wanted to say, so much he’d needed to say since Sherlock reentered his life, and he tried to say it now with his lips and searching tongue. Sherlock was tense as first, but soon melted into it. His fingers skittered against John’s skin, exploring as though this were their first kiss. In some ways, it felt like their first kiss. It was cautious and exploratory and long overdue. It was simultaneously so familiar, and unlike any of the kisses they’d shared before.
They managed to fall back onto the bed, and pressed their mouths together until they were no longer kissing, but just lying there, breathing each other’s air. John wanted to fall asleep like this, with their lips touching, his hand curled around the back of Sherlock’s neck and Sherlock’s fingers tracing around John’s hipbone, but there was still a conversation they needed to have.
John pulled back reluctantly, and tucked his head against Sherlock’s chest. “So why did you leave me?” he asked. The question had very little anger left in it. He just needed to know. And he finally felt like he was ready to hear the answer.
Sherlock went rigid against him, and there was a long silence before he answered. “On the roof of St. Bart’s, Moriarty gave me a choice.” He paused, perhaps to see if John would protest, then continued after John remained silent. “My life, or-”
“Or mine, yeah,” John interrupted. “I got that part.” He understood it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Sherlock had acted without asking, without giving John any warning or any choice. He’d lied.
“Or the lives of you, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock corrected.
John pulled back and his eyes went wide in shock. “Jesus.” He hadn’t considered that others might have been in danger. Nausea spread through his stomach at the thought. He’d only been thinking about himself, and he felt suddenly conceited to have assumed that this was between him and Sherlock, and no one else. John would have given his own life if he’d been in Sherlock’s place. And to think he’d told Greg that Sherlock’s reasons didn’t matter-shit.
Sherlock continued, with his usual objective tone when recounting a past case. “I had already assumed that Moriarty would target anyone that I remotely cared about. Mycroft was the exception, having been placed under increased protection, but I didn’t know that at the time. That’s why I was forced to turn to Molly for help.”
John tried to imagine what that must have been like, and then shook his head with realization. “You didn’t actually tell her that, did you?”
“Of course I did,” said Sherlock, clearly not seeing the problem.
“Of course you did,” John repeated. He made a mental note to apologize to Molly Hooper. “Okay then, so you jumped off the roof, somehow survived, and-what? Decided that you were better off on your own?”
Sherlock gave him one of his many you’re-being-an-idiot looks, which was somehow comforting, and was accompanied by soft fingers that came up to stroke John’s cheek. “You were still being watched, John. Your survival depended on mourning convincingly.”
It was sick, and John closed his eyes against the bile rising in his throat. Was Sherlock saying that his grief had been captured in the sightlines of snipers? He wasn’t sure what was more upsetting: the pain he had gone through without understanding why, without consent; or the thought of his lowest moments being surveyed and analyzed by those prepared to kill him. It brought home the fact that he’d spent the last three years as a pawn in someone else’s game, without seeing the moves, without even seeing the players. It was hard to blame Sherlock, knowing there were other lives at stake. Most of his anger rested squarely on Moriarty’s corpse. But there was something he still didn’t understand.
“You could have contacted me somehow. You could have, I don’t know, slipped me a note or something without them finding out. You, of all people.”
Sherlock continued to stroke the side of John’s face, a warm, comforting gesture, and let out a small sigh. “You’re a terrible actor. If you knew I was alive, it would have been obvious.”
That was a bullshit excuse. John wrapped a hand around Sherlock’s wrist to still it and tried to look him in the eye, though Sherlock was focused just off to the side. “Maybe at first, yeah, but I didn’t mourn you for three years. You didn’t have to lie to me for three fucking years.”
There was a period of silence before Sherlock answered. “We would have had to meet face to face, which would have been dangerous, and nearly impossible considering I was rarely in London. And-it would have been too risky to maintain contact afterward.” John watched him press his lips together and swallow. “By the time you stopped mourning, it was easier if you continued to believe I was dead.”
John’s indignation was a reflex, and he spat out, “Easier for who, Sherlock? You or me?”
Sherlock didn’t answer, but a shadow passed over his face, and his raised eyebrows made it clear that he hadn’t considered the question before now. It was all the response John needed, really. Sherlock’s motives for maintaining the lie had been selfish, he was right about that, but it was a selfishness born of sentiment and self-preservation. John felt his brief flare of anger dissipate like smoke.
He pressed his face back against Sherlock’s chest, and curled up along the warmth of his skin. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Sherlock’s arm draped across his shoulder, and John felt oddly protected, nestled against his-boyfriend? Yes, he supposed they were boyfriends again. No matter how hard he fought it, this was where he belonged; he could feel in his bones. And maybe it was the sleepiness creeping up on him, but he felt okay with that. More than okay. For the first time in the last month-maybe the last three years, but he’d examine that statement later-John felt happy.
He breathed in Sherlock’s scent and frowned. “You’ll have to quit smoking again,” he said.
“Easy,” Sherlock replied, and John snorted. He’d be saying something different in a week or two. Dear lord, John did not want to be around for that.
“I’m not leaving my job,” he warned.
“You detest full-time employment,” said Sherlock.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll need some time away from you.” He always felt like that was one of his mistakes from before. Nothing but blogging and crime solving, living out of Sherlock’s pocket-that wasn’t him. He needed his own life. Even if he also needed Sherlock to be a part of it.
“Fine.”
John hesitated before stating his last condition, because maybe they needed a longer period to ease into this. Then again, they had lost too much time as it was. Why wait on a decision that John was now certain about? “And you can’t keep living in that bloody awful flat,” he added.
The arm around his shoulder tightened, and John felt warm breath across his temple. “Of course not.”
There was surely a lot more that needed to be discussed, but this felt like a good enough start. Everything else could wait until morning. Sleep was creeping up on John, and he blinked heavily, remembering one more thing that he needed to stay awake for. “Okay, last thing I have to know,” he said, his eyes falling shut. “How the hell did you survive that fall?”
And then Sherlock was launching into his explanation, pride and boasting soon seeping into his tone. It was terrifying and brilliant, and John’s head swam with awe, already mentally drafting his next blog post. He might have mumbled an incredible here and there. When Sherlock finished, the low rumble of his voice continued without pause into the story of dismantling one of the most elaborate crime networks in Europe. John knew he’d be asleep for the good bits, but he couldn’t wait to hear Sherlock repeat everything in the morning.
Just before he finally drifted off, John realized how new this felt. Falling asleep in Sherlock’s arms, being talked to, feeling loved: that wasn’t the way things used to be. So maybe they weren’t going back to the way things were before. Maybe they were going to build something new. Something better. John liked the sound of that. And the next time Sherlock wanted to do something idiotic, John would damn well make sure that he was right there beside him.