Fic: The Prize 10/16
Title:The Prize
Author: trillsabells
Beta: jupiter_ash
Rating: NC17
Length: This Chapter 6300, overall nearly 100k
Spoilers: None
Summary: On 29 January 2010 an unknown Event wiped out 98% of the population. This is the story of the survivors, four months on. Based on this prompt here
Warnings (for entire fic): Starts with the death of over 6 billion people and goes downhill from there. Death, destruction, disease, violence, fire, plane crashes, slavery, graphic sex and serious consent issues
Author's Note: Please note the ratings change. Next chapter Tuesday.
Chapter 1 : Chapter 2 : Chapter 3 : Chapter 4 : Chapter 5 : Chapter 6 : Chapter 7 : Chapter 8 : Chapter 9
They had collected all their samples and were heading back to the Enclave when Sherlock heard the sound of a distressed pickup with a clunking engine. Within seconds he and John were ducked down an alleyway and pressed up against the wall while he stretched above John’s head to keep a watch out.
The pickup went past at surprising speed, weaving around the larger blocks in the road while running over the lighter debris. As it went past he caught a glimpse of four men sitting in the back in military uniform.
John stepped out of the alleyway just as the pickup rounded a corner and said, “Was that Seb?”
A small subsection of their military team, in a vehicle that wasn’t their own and in an awful hurry?
“Come on,” he said and took off for the other end of the street where there was a side road which contained an alley which led to another alley which held a staircase which went up to the roofs where, with John at his heels, he could cut across several streets until he got to another staircase which led to another alleyway which took them down onto a road, right in front of a crashed car which the pickup would have to slow down to get around and would, therefore, be going slow enough that they wouldn’t hit him when they stopped.
The soldiers looked less than happy to see him. Furious would be the word he would use which he thought was rather unjustified.
“Holmes-“ the colonel started
John appeared, panting a little, next to him and their attitude changed immediately.
“Doc, are we glad to see you!”
“Seb, what’s happening?”
John jogged round to the rear of the vehicle and the colonel immediately helped him up. Sherlock only just had time to hop in after him before the pickup started moving again.
There was an injured soldier in the back of the pickup. Strictly speaking there were three injured soldiers but only one of them was bad enough to be lain down on the floor, swamped by badly applied bandages and the contents of at least one first aid kit.
John set to work immediately and with a professional efficiency that Sherlock found he quite admired. As he watched on intently, the doctor barked orders which the surrounding soldiers jumped to obey, improvised with the small amount of medical equipment he had at his disposal, including at one point using his hand to hold the soldier together on the inside, then demanded a phone to bark more orders at the Enclave for when they got back. Throughout, John had the same calm and collected expression that Sherlock had seen every time the other man had held a gun. It was the first time he truly understood just how closely knitted soldier and doctor was inside this man. He had seen John take life away and now he was seeing him give it back and it was all terribly… distracting.
Being in the open air with the pickup rushing so quickly through the streets must have been making him a little light headed.
He attempted to demand the story out of one of the soldiers but they seemed to be having the same trouble tearing their eyes away from John as he did. Eventually Private Fisher ended up telling the tale. By the time they reached the Enclave he had heard all the details about how the team had been scouting out a depot when they had come under fire. These six soldiers had been separated from the other half of the team and forced to abandon their vehicle. From the sounds of it they were lucky only one man was seriously injured.
When they entered the embarkation bay at the Enclave three nurses and an awful lot of equipment were waiting for them. He tried to stay out of the way as John had his patient transferred to a gurney, properly medicated, sedated and given blood and then finally managed to regain his hand. The doctor then left the patient in the hands of the nurses and turned his attention to the other two injured soldiers. Apparently there was nothing too serious wrong with them so he sent them through to decon.
Pushing the patient himself, John then charged through to the long route decon area and Sherlock, along with everyone else it seemed, followed as if pulled in the doctor’s wake. He wished John wasn’t being so damn magnetic because even without the two other soldiers it was too crowded so he couldn’t see anything, despite manoeuvring everybody out of his way. He didn’t dare get too close to the doctor and the patient though, the memory of John banishing him and Mycroft from the Infirmary for being in the way being too strong in his memory.
They pushed straight through the examination room, changing room and shower room but stopped in the penultimate room. Sherlock immediately found himself pleased by John’s cunning. Sterile without breaking decontamination and the inbuilt sinks combined with the changing room next door filled with scrubs meant that John could scrub up and begin immediately, wasting no more time.
None of the other soldiers seemed to want to leave so Sherlock stood with them and watched as John began to operate.
He wished there was a mirror or a camera above the gurney come operating table. That way he could see every slice through flesh, every organ within the body and every deft movement of John’s fingers. Instead he watched John’s face. Despite being obscured by a surgical mask and goggles, the doctor still had a very expressive face. Sherlock could almost tell how well the operation was going by the elevation of John’s eyebrows. The eyebrows finally settled as John closed up with a,
“Well, we’ll have to watch and hope.”
John looked up then appeared momentarily astonished at the audience before he nodded and said,
“Right, I think it’s well past time we all went through decon.”
Unfortunately, since they had just managed to contaminate decon, this involved a transfer to the short route and a small pause while the extra chemicals were set out in the showers. Less than an hour later, Sherlock was hurrying after John who was striding ahead to go see his patient. The four soldiers were following closely behind and they all entered the medical room together.
Mycroft was there, looking severe with his hands folded in front of him just dying for an umbrella to be propped up between them. There were two MI5 men, the kind chosen for brawn rather than brain, standing behind him.
What was going on? There was only one reason why Mycroft would be there and bring the goons. But surely they wouldn’t be taking Fisher in now. Not for one lost vehicle and one injured soldier.
“Private Fisher, could you come with us please?”
Sherlock took a step forward, trying to telegraph to Mycroft his desire to know everything. To find out exactly what the bigger situation was. Beside him John’s eyes slid shut. Fisher looked confused, turning to his colonel for support. ‘Seb’, as John had called him, demanded,
“What’s going on?”
“Private Fisher, now.”
Fisher walked towards Mycroft and despite being as tall as the two MI5 men seemed almost swamped by them as he was led away. Mycroft followed without a backwards look. Not willing to let his brother get away that easily, Sherlock chased after them.
~
“Fifty terabytes of data they say he had,” Seb said, staring into the untouched coffee cup on the table in the canteen the next morning. “That’s not exactly a memory stick, that’s a hard drive. Several hard drives. Add that to the samples and you can see why he had to give them the vehicle.”
“No, you can’t,” John said, raising his own mug to his lips, then put it down once again without touching it.
“No, you can’t,” Seb said sadly. “Except… They’ve got his brother. I mean… wouldn’t you do anything for your sister? I know I would.”
“I wouldn’t turn my back on my buddies,” John said firmly. “Couldn’t he have asked for help?”
“Yeah,” Seb snorted, “as if Mycroft Holmes would mount a full on rescue for one deadbeat kid. You might as well ask the sea if it wouldn’t mind being a little bit drier, please, thank you.”
They stared at their cups in silence for a moment.
“What will happen to him?” John asked.
“Well, he can’t exactly stick around, can he? We’d never be able to trust him again, even if he wasn’t on a team, not while they’ve still got his brother. They can’t let him go; he knows where all our entrances are. He could go out into the city and tell everyone and we wouldn’t be able to cope if all the scavengers in London started knocking on our doors demanding food. They can’t lock him up, that would be a waste of food for feeding him and resources for guarding him and that big a waste is pretty much the stuff that makes up Mycroft Holmes’ nightmares. That’s if he sleeps. I reckon he hangs upside down like a bat. Anyway, so he can’t stay, he can’t go and he can’t be locked up.” Seb finally raised his eyes to meet John’s. “What do you think will happen to him?”
John looked away from the cold expression in Seb’s eyes. “God.”
“Haven’t heard from Him lately. Have you?” Seb shook his head. “This place is just… Fisher is- was just a kid. This life would push anyone down the wrong tracks. I just wish…” Seb looked around as if nervous then leaved forward. John followed suit. “I wish it wasn’t a choice between this place, the collectors and the street. There’s gotta be another option. Another… way of living- of surviving.” Seb sat back again. “You’ve heard the rumours though, haven’t you? Places out in the countryside, far enough away from the cities for the collectors to not notice. Everyone equal and hidden away. But that’s all fairytales. Wishful thinking.”
“Sounds like it.”
Seb grinned. “Be great if it was true though, wouldn’t it?”
“Bit late for Fisher, though.”
The grin faded. “Yeah. Poor bastard.”
John sighed and stared at his coffee. He was exhausted. Between his patient and Sherlock getting the sudden urge to monologue for a couple of hours, he hadn’t actually managed to get any sleep the night before. He desperately needed caffeine if he planned to stay up any longer and he had worked so hard not to be nocturnal. But the thought of eating or drinking anything made him feel sick.
In the end he pushed the mug away, said goodbye to Seb, then went back to his room for a nap, being sure to set the alarm on his phone so he wouldn’t sleep more than a few hours.
He was so exhausted he fell asleep immediately and didn’t even dream. For the next two weeks that was the last peaceful sleep he managed to have.
The nightmares came back with such vengeance that John was left wondering what he had done to make his subconscious hate him so much.
He found the only way to combat the dreams was to work himself to exhaustion, that way he would fall into too deep a sleep to remember anything. But he had to make sure he wasn’t too out of sorts in order to still do his work. He found he was able to fine tune it like an art form. He didn’t always get it right. There was that one time at football practice where Jack had tackled him and he went down then stayed down because it took too much effort to get up. Needless to say Tom had not been happy about that. He had been ordered to get some rest before their big game against the Met team on Saturday evening and he had fully intended to. Then Sherlock had demanded his attention.
So, on Saturday afternoon, it occasioned that instead of resting after thirty-six hours of being awake he was in Sherlock’s lab when the incident happened.
~
John was falling asleep. The other man had one elbow propped up on the table top with the fist of that hand the only thing stopping the doctor’s head from dropping forward and destroying the experiment he had worked so hard to put together.
He knew he should send the doctor away; it wasn’t as if the man was any good to him in this condition, but he found he enjoyed the simple proximity of the other man. John had a reassuring presence, even when half unconscious. There was nothing attractive about it, cheek distorted against the fist, eyes drooping and mouth slightly open, but the notion of having John near was somewhat appealing.
Besides, if John did fall asleep perhaps he would finally have the opportunity to witness a nightmare taking place. The aftermath of the one two weeks previously had been downright fascinating. To be present when one was happening would be intriguing.
John started slightly, as if just catching himself from falling asleep, and then settled back down onto his hand, watching Sherlock through half lidded eyes.
Sherlock quickly turned back to his experiment. If this worked there should be a small puff of smoke….
He let one drop of acid drop into the experimental substance he was working on. A cloud of smoke exploded from the vial.
Well that was unexpected, he thought as he coughed and waved the smoke away from his face. An even stronger reaction than I predicted. Excellent! If I could-
His thoughts were scattered into a wave of shock and an ache of pain as a fist slammed into the side of his face and knocked him off his stool. He grabbed the table to remain on his feet, madly scrambling to think how the attacker had got into the lab without either himself or John noticing. His thoughts as to whether John was okay lasted only a second before he was met with the startling revelation that John was his attacker as, through the smoke and the streams of tears from his irritated eyes, the ex-soldier launched at him.
He was knocked face down on to the floor, John landing heavily on top of him as in the background he heard a smash followed by a very bad sizzling noise. More smoke billowed. Darker smoke; extremely bad. The alarm went off.
He attempted to throw John off without hurting him but couldn’t move. John wouldn’t let him move. What was he doing? What was wrong? He bucked more violently, lashing out with his arms but the ex-soldier only responded by pressing a knee so sharply into his back it sent pings of pain all the way up his spine, then tugged his hand up behind him so he gasped in shock and choked on the smoke. John was shouting something in his ear but he couldn’t make out the words with the alarm and the ringing in his ears from inhaling too much of the smoke. He tried to shout at John, to persuade the other man to back off, that they needed to get out of there but he only coughed in the smoke. John’s only response was to hold his arm tighter then twist his wrist until he cried out in pain.
This wasn’t John, what was he- Oh hell.
Well he’d wanted to see a nightmare and now it was going to kill them both.
Suddenly the doors swung open, letting in light and letting out the smoke as four hazmat suited technicians charged in. There was an instant lightening of the pressure on his back and he threw himself upwards and twisted to look for John. The other man was seated on the floor a couple of feet away appearing dazed and confused. Their eyes met and a look of absolute horror crossed John’s face.
He reacted instantly, jumping to his feet and pulling John to his. Clutching the hand John had twisted to his chest he held on tightly to the doctor’s arm with his other hand and dragged the other man forcibly out into the corridor.
Once they were around the corner he took a deep breath of the clean air and leaned against the wall without letting go of John’s arm. The other man was breathing heavily through his nose with one hand pressed up against his mouth. There were some mumbled squeaks which sounded vaguely like they were supposed to be,
“Oh God, what did I do?”
Before the doctor grabbed hold of his hand and looked at it.
“I think this is sprained but you need an x-ray to make sure I didn’t- I didn’t-“ John raised one hand and touched Sherlock’s cheek gently. “Oh god, you need some ice at least and-“ John sniffed. “Oh god.”
The doctor turned away and tried to pull out of his grip but he just slipped his hand down so it was encircling John’s wrist and held on tighter. He knew that John could probably still break out of it but not without hurting him. He was sure that, given what had just happened, that would be the last thing the other man would want to do.
John buried his head in his arm and mumbled words like, “Please,” and “Sorry,” and “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” between gasps for air that could well have been sobs.
He tried to see John’s face, tried to stop John from hiding from him, tried to pull John back to face him. After all, he had wanted to see a nightmare. He had kept John with him when he should have sent the other man to bed. It was his fault more than John’s. It wasn’t as if the doctor had any control over himself. And now he was hating that John was so upset, hating that the strong doctor and solider had turned into a snivelling wreck and he wanted to see John’s face.
He pushed his injured hand in between John and the arm the doctor was using to cover his face and twisted the man around. John fought but he pulled and levered the offending limb away until it was by John’s side and the other man was practically up against his face, looking at him with an expression of sheer misery.
“It’s okay,” Sherlock said in an effort to make the horrible look go away while at the same time letting his eyes trace over it, examining every facet and storing it away in his John folder. “I’m okay.”
John shook his head.
“I am,” Sherlock said insistently.
“How is this anywhere near okay?” John choked.
“You think I haven’t been punched before?”
John didn’t smile but he did take a few slow deep breaths. Sherlock could feel every one against the length of his body. The other man looked away and straightened out his chin.
Sherlock moved his head to recapture eye contact but John pointedly dropped his gaze away from all efforts.
“If we-“ John paused to swallow thickly and take another deep breath. “We need to get you to the Infirmary and clean you up.”
Sherlock nodded then, without letting go, he stuck his head back around the corner to see how the clean-up team was doing. They were probably ruining the inside of lab, completely destroying several important experiments. He knew he should really be in there, sorting them out. Instead he checked that everything was under control - as in nothing was liable to explode at that very moment - and went with John.
~
Every wrap of the ACE bandage around Sherlock’s arm was like a stab to the gut. He had done this. He hadn’t even been fully asleep, he had been dozing and then- oh god- and then he had finally caught one of the insurgents planting those IEDs and had been trying to restrain them when they had struggled against him and- oh god what was wrong with him? He wanted to smack himself. He wanted Sherlock to punch him. Then at least they would be even. But the other man was being so bloody calm about it. It was infuriating because he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. Surely Sherlock wouldn’t want him around after that. Why hadn’t the other man asked for a different doctor? But Sherlock had insisted that he be the one to apply the ice pack to Sherlock’s swelling left cheek and the sling to the thankfully not broken right wrist.
He felt sick and he suspected that wasn’t just from the fumes he had inhaled.
Sherlock was watching him with that dissecting stare. He cringed inwards, knowing he was being judged, knowing he deserved whatever was going through Sherlock’s brain but not knowing what that was. Didn’t a condemned man deserve to know his punishment? Why wasn’t Sherlock saying anything?
Then Mycroft walked in.
Oh god, they had been waiting for Big Brother, hadn’t they? Here it came.
“I’m fine, Mycroft,” Sherlock said, glaring in the direction of his brother. “You can take your nannying elsewhere.”
“How bad are his injuries, Doctor Watson?”
He couldn’t have snapped to attention faster than if the almost humiliatingly deferentially phrased order had instead been ‘Watson, report!’
“The bruising to the right cheek is superficial and should go down in a couple of days. The wrist is more serious. It will need to be kept elevated for at least forty-eight hours and I would recommend keeping it rested as much as possible for the next week. So no violin playing for a while and he should recover completely.”
He was almost proud of the professional tone he managed with those words.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Mycroft’s face was unreadable. “Now if you come this way, I believe we need to have a discussion.”
John swallowed reflectively. A discussion, right. There were probably a couple of muscle behind the door ready to drag him outside and shoot him like the dog he was. Like Fisher. Maybe if he could get away, overpower them somehow, he could escape. They could just let him out into the city; he wouldn’t tell anyone.
Or maybe Mycroft really did just want to discuss something. Before getting out the blue mind control serum….
Suddenly there was a hand on his chest, pushing him backwards, away from Mycroft, and Sherlock stepped in front of him.
“Mycroft.” It was said warningly and low enough to send not wholly unpleasant chills the length of his spine. “No.”
“Sherlock-“
“I said no, Mycroft. You lay a finger on him and there will be trouble.”
Mycroft tipped his head slightly, almost appraisingly. “I don’t doubt that. But you have to understand the seriousness of the situation.”
“Leave it to me.”
“You were attacked,” said quietly as if he wasn’t supposed to have heard it.
“It won’t happen again.”
“Sherlock, the safety of this facility and all of its inhabitants is my primary concern.”
Sherlock took a step forward and raised his voice. “I will take full responsibility, you can lay the blame on me.”
“There are precautions that have to be adhered to-“
“He’s mine,” it was almost a growl. “I found him, give him to me.”
Mycroft sighed dramatically and John could almost see Sherlock rolling his eyes in response despite only being able to see the back of his head.
“You do realise it’s not possible to give him to you.”
“Of course it is. I’ll fix everything.”
“You can’t.”
“Of course I can.”
“Sherlock-“
“Please.” The look of shock on Mycroft’s face was enough to tell John that Sherlock didn’t normally beg like this. “Just don’t, Mycroft. Please?”
There was a silent impasse for fully three minutes before Mycroft finally tipped his head slightly as if in concession then left as swiftly as he had arrived.
Sherlock spun round to look at him, triumph obvious in all his features. John felt like his brain was chugging along with a few cogs loose because he couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened. He seemed to have lost control of his jaw as well and it took a moment to reconnect to the muscles that allowed him to close his mouth. He fought down the urge to shout, “What the hell just happened?!” because you weren’t supposed to yell at people who saved your life, were you? Sherlock had just saved his life. Sherlock?
What were you supposed to say to people who save your life?
Oh yes.
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
His voice came out sounding about as lost as he felt.
Sherlock merely smirked and said, “I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me.”
~
Sherlock paced up and down the corridor, four steps one way followed by a smooth turn and four strides the other way so that his pacing never exceeded the length of the room behind the door he occasionally hesitated mid pace to stare at but never touched. The door blocking him from the object of his deliberations. John’s door. John’s room.
John.
After the doctor had finished patching him up, he had ordered John to bed to catch up on some much needed rest and he had gone back to his lab to see how much damage had been done. He had spent a few hours shouting at the clean-up crew, tidying up the mess and recording his results, but he couldn’t stop one corner of his mind from dwelling on what had happened with John. Specifically, his own reaction.
He had begged. Him. He never begged and certainly not to Mycroft, that was a downright foolish thing to do and would only result in fuelling his brother’s superiority complex, which would never do. But he had. Because he had needed to. Because the idea of Mycroft taking John away, of John not being around, was intolerable.
Why was it intolerable?
Although an assistant in the lab was always helpful he was perfectly capable of doing without one. And when he needed an extra set of hands there were always volunteers available. Often it was quite difficult to persuade the same one to come back twice but there were plenty more where they came from; he understood he was considered a rite of passage to more senior levels within the research group.
He didn’t actually need companionship at dinner. Food was just fuel after all; he had always treated it as such before. While it may take time to readjust back to his old way of pit-stop eating he could certainly manage it. There would be more time for work.
And what did it matter to him if the doctors had to work a little harder to cover all the shifts. They had managed fine enough before and there had always been a doctor available whenever he needed one. That matter hardly affected him. True, it was useful to have a doctor outside of the Enclave for emergency treatment but it was hardly likely Mycroft was going to let John out again anytime soon so that was no longer relevant when considering the benefits of one Doctor John Watson.
All in all anything John could do, anyone could do, and anything they couldn’t, he could live without - he had lived before after all. He didn’t need John.
But he wanted him, all the same.
He wanted John’s smile, he wanted John’s laugh, he wanted John’s kindness and good nature and the way John seemed to like him for no apparent reason. He wanted John’s fierceness, he wanted John’s teasing, he wanted John’s quietness and steady hands. He wanted John’s… he wanted John. Everything. Every breath, every thought and tiny movement he wanted. And he wanted more, all of it, to keep, to hold, to cherish, to be his own.
He stopped and stared at the door. It was blocking the way between him and everything he desired. He hated it.
Irrational. It was John causing all this; he should hate John, not the door. No, he shouldn’t hate anything. He should go back to logic because there was still something he needed to work out.
He resumed his pacing.
Four steps one way, another four steps the other.
Why would John want him? John couldn’t possibly want him as much as he wanted John. He felt like he might explode from it and John showed his emotions far too much, he would have seen, wouldn’t he?
Had he?
His mind threw up flags, every time he had caught John staring, every time John’s breath had hitched when he had gotten too close, every sign of attraction it was possible for a human to put out unconsciously, he had evidence of them all. John had even said that he belonged to Sherlock. He had had all the evidence but he hadn’t made the connection until his observations of himself. Oh stupid!
But he needed to be certain his conclusions were correct; this was far too important a matter to leave to theoretical musings, he needed an empirical experiment to test his hypothesis.
He stopped level with the door and turned to face it.
Yes, the perfect test. There was some risk to rejection, admittedly, but he was sure John would understand if he explained it was an experiment. Besides, John would enjoy it. Everyone enjoyed it; even if they couldn’t stand him.
He took a deep breath, steadying himself, placed a perfectly dry palm on the handle, gripped and turned.
~
It was the door creeping open that woke him.
Blinking blearily in the sudden light, he saw the unmistakable silhouette of Sherlock Holmes entering his room before the door was shut leaving only the tiniest crack of light coming through underneath. Curious, he propped himself up on his elbows as he felt more than saw Sherlock step across the tiny gap towards the bed. He could hear the other man breathing loudly in the silence of the room as Sherlock stood by the bed. Assuming he was wanted for something - some mad experiment that would revolutionise the way honey was produced but which could only be done at two in the morning no doubt - he pushed back the covers but before he could swing his feet out Sherlock was suddenly in the bed on top of him, rolling him fully onto his back and pulling the covers back over them both.
He stopped breathing.
Sherlock was knelt so he was straddling his waist with both hands braced either side of his arms. He felt the mattress dip slightly as Sherlock shifted his weight and raised one hand to hover just above his face.
He let out the breath he had been holding in an exhale that was far shakier than he had intended.
Sherlock’s fingers touched lightly against his cheek and the hand cupped his jaw. The mantra of ‘What’s he doing? What the hell is happening?’ that had been going round and round in his head was instantly silenced as the slightly coarse rough of the bandage there offered the answer.
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me.”
Sherlock hovered above him, silent and unmoving but for the tingling caress of the other man’s fingers across his cheek.
He suddenly wished he could see Sherlock’s expression, whether it was lustful or logical like when the other man was looking at an experiment. Tentatively, he reached out a hand into the darkness. It met with sharp cheekbones, soft overhanging curls and the silky sensation of Sherlock mouthing his thumb as soon as it was within reach of the other man’s lips. John gasped at the contact which seemed so unreal in its intimacy and Sherlock appeared to take that as a signal. The other man descended, laying his weight across John. The bandaged hand moved up his shoulder and pulled his outstretched arm around Sherlock’s neck. A knee forced its way between his thighs, compelling him to spread his legs and a gentle kiss was placed on the edge of his jaw. More kisses followed along his jaw line and on his neck, each one with growing intensity. The feel of another man’s stubble rubbing against his skin for the first time in nearly eight years wasn’t as unpleasant as he had been expecting. When Sherlock discovered the sensitive spot just behind his ear and sucked forcefully, unpleasant was very much not the word. He gasped at the shock of pleasure, then tipped his head back and tightened his arm around Sherlock’s neck involuntarily
Sherlock pulled away.
A flash of anger sparked through him. Had this all been a joke? An experiment? An attempt to humiliate him and show just how much power the Holmes brothers had over him?
Then Sherlock’s hands seized the bottom of his T-shirt and tugged it upwards and he knew that for whatever reason Sherlock had decided to have it all. This was happening. He wondered briefly whether he could argue. He decided to stop thinking. Lifting his arms he arched his back to let Sherlock pull the T-shirt over his head. He stared up at the ceiling as the other man started to lavish attention on his chest and simply gave himself over to the sensations. This proved to be easier than he suspected when Sherlock’s questing fingertips managed to find two more of his most sensitive erogenous zones, one of which he hadn’t even know he had.
By the time Sherlock’s slowly descending hands met the waistband of his pyjamas he was panting and more than half hard.
He felt Sherlock’s body, which had been sliding down the bed along the same route as his hands, push back up until their heads were level again with Sherlock supporting himself on one elbow. The other hand stayed down at John’s waist so John brought one of his own arms up to steady the other man and slipped the other downwards towards Sherlock’s own trousers in readiness for the no doubt expected reciprocation. Sherlock rested his forehead against John’s as his hand plunged downwards. John had to contend with buttons to undo so by the time he had pulled Sherlock’s trousers and underwear away, Sherlock had already exposed his cock and tightened fingers around it.
The noise John made was closer to a whimper than anything else but was still the loudest sound either of them had made since the moment Sherlock had walked in the door.
Sherlock started to lazily stroke him from base to tip and he tried to follow suit but found it difficult to keep a steady rhythm. Sherlock’s breath was hot against his face, so close that he felt as if the only air he was breathing was that which came from Sherlock. His own gasps grew more and more ragged as the other man pushed him further and further towards the edge. Sherlock started making little groans in the back of his throat and the way the other man pulsated under his fingers let him know Sherlock was close. He felt the bed sheets move as Sherlock’s grip on them tightened and then, with a low moan, Sherlock came across his hand and stomach.
The rhythm against his own cock stuttered for a moment, but only a moment, before Sherlock continued to stroke him with renewed force, adding a little twist that made his toes curl. He could feel himself getting closer and closer like an onrushing train and then, with a soundless cry, he came, adding his own outpouring to the swiftly cooling liquid on his stomach.
He realised his fingers had tightened against Sherlock’s shoulder and he relaxed his grip but kept his arm there so that the other man wouldn’t collapse on top of him. Neither of them moved for a moment, just lay against each other, breathing each other’s air. John could feel Sherlock’s heart beating through his chest, slowing down from a race. His own followed suit.
Then Sherlock tilted to one side and reached out from under the covers for something over the edge of the bed. The other man returned with a piece of cloth John could guess was his own T-shirt and mopped both of them up with it. The mattress dipped as Sherlock started to untangle himself from John and got off the bed.
John didn’t move, just stared at the ceiling and tried not to think, to dwell on what had just happened. He could hear the sound of clothing being rearranged and briefly wondered whether Sherlock was going to say something cliché like, ‘We should do this again sometime,’ before he fiercely clamped down on his imagination.
He was actually taken by surprise when the other man leaned back over the bed and gave him an extremely tender kiss to the lips which John found himself returning before he realised it, one hand raising to cup Sherlock’s cheek. It was only the lightest of caresses between lips and lasted just two seconds but somehow seemed the most intimate thing to take place between them that night.
When it was over Sherlock withdrew so fast John could have sworn he felt a breeze across his face. The door shut quietly but firmly behind him.
John pulled up his pyjama bottoms and rolled on his side. He didn’t want to touch his T-shirt so he wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about what had happened, what would happen in the morning and definitely whether or not it would happen again. He tried to go back to sleep.
He couldn’t.
Chapter 11
Author: trillsabells
Beta: jupiter_ash
Rating: NC17
Length: This Chapter 6300, overall nearly 100k
Spoilers: None
Summary: On 29 January 2010 an unknown Event wiped out 98% of the population. This is the story of the survivors, four months on. Based on this prompt here
Warnings (for entire fic): Starts with the death of over 6 billion people and goes downhill from there. Death, destruction, disease, violence, fire, plane crashes, slavery, graphic sex and serious consent issues
Author's Note: Please note the ratings change. Next chapter Tuesday.
Chapter 1 : Chapter 2 : Chapter 3 : Chapter 4 : Chapter 5 : Chapter 6 : Chapter 7 : Chapter 8 : Chapter 9
They had collected all their samples and were heading back to the Enclave when Sherlock heard the sound of a distressed pickup with a clunking engine. Within seconds he and John were ducked down an alleyway and pressed up against the wall while he stretched above John’s head to keep a watch out.
The pickup went past at surprising speed, weaving around the larger blocks in the road while running over the lighter debris. As it went past he caught a glimpse of four men sitting in the back in military uniform.
John stepped out of the alleyway just as the pickup rounded a corner and said, “Was that Seb?”
A small subsection of their military team, in a vehicle that wasn’t their own and in an awful hurry?
“Come on,” he said and took off for the other end of the street where there was a side road which contained an alley which led to another alley which held a staircase which went up to the roofs where, with John at his heels, he could cut across several streets until he got to another staircase which led to another alleyway which took them down onto a road, right in front of a crashed car which the pickup would have to slow down to get around and would, therefore, be going slow enough that they wouldn’t hit him when they stopped.
The soldiers looked less than happy to see him. Furious would be the word he would use which he thought was rather unjustified.
“Holmes-“ the colonel started
John appeared, panting a little, next to him and their attitude changed immediately.
“Doc, are we glad to see you!”
“Seb, what’s happening?”
John jogged round to the rear of the vehicle and the colonel immediately helped him up. Sherlock only just had time to hop in after him before the pickup started moving again.
There was an injured soldier in the back of the pickup. Strictly speaking there were three injured soldiers but only one of them was bad enough to be lain down on the floor, swamped by badly applied bandages and the contents of at least one first aid kit.
John set to work immediately and with a professional efficiency that Sherlock found he quite admired. As he watched on intently, the doctor barked orders which the surrounding soldiers jumped to obey, improvised with the small amount of medical equipment he had at his disposal, including at one point using his hand to hold the soldier together on the inside, then demanded a phone to bark more orders at the Enclave for when they got back. Throughout, John had the same calm and collected expression that Sherlock had seen every time the other man had held a gun. It was the first time he truly understood just how closely knitted soldier and doctor was inside this man. He had seen John take life away and now he was seeing him give it back and it was all terribly… distracting.
Being in the open air with the pickup rushing so quickly through the streets must have been making him a little light headed.
He attempted to demand the story out of one of the soldiers but they seemed to be having the same trouble tearing their eyes away from John as he did. Eventually Private Fisher ended up telling the tale. By the time they reached the Enclave he had heard all the details about how the team had been scouting out a depot when they had come under fire. These six soldiers had been separated from the other half of the team and forced to abandon their vehicle. From the sounds of it they were lucky only one man was seriously injured.
When they entered the embarkation bay at the Enclave three nurses and an awful lot of equipment were waiting for them. He tried to stay out of the way as John had his patient transferred to a gurney, properly medicated, sedated and given blood and then finally managed to regain his hand. The doctor then left the patient in the hands of the nurses and turned his attention to the other two injured soldiers. Apparently there was nothing too serious wrong with them so he sent them through to decon.
Pushing the patient himself, John then charged through to the long route decon area and Sherlock, along with everyone else it seemed, followed as if pulled in the doctor’s wake. He wished John wasn’t being so damn magnetic because even without the two other soldiers it was too crowded so he couldn’t see anything, despite manoeuvring everybody out of his way. He didn’t dare get too close to the doctor and the patient though, the memory of John banishing him and Mycroft from the Infirmary for being in the way being too strong in his memory.
They pushed straight through the examination room, changing room and shower room but stopped in the penultimate room. Sherlock immediately found himself pleased by John’s cunning. Sterile without breaking decontamination and the inbuilt sinks combined with the changing room next door filled with scrubs meant that John could scrub up and begin immediately, wasting no more time.
None of the other soldiers seemed to want to leave so Sherlock stood with them and watched as John began to operate.
He wished there was a mirror or a camera above the gurney come operating table. That way he could see every slice through flesh, every organ within the body and every deft movement of John’s fingers. Instead he watched John’s face. Despite being obscured by a surgical mask and goggles, the doctor still had a very expressive face. Sherlock could almost tell how well the operation was going by the elevation of John’s eyebrows. The eyebrows finally settled as John closed up with a,
“Well, we’ll have to watch and hope.”
John looked up then appeared momentarily astonished at the audience before he nodded and said,
“Right, I think it’s well past time we all went through decon.”
Unfortunately, since they had just managed to contaminate decon, this involved a transfer to the short route and a small pause while the extra chemicals were set out in the showers. Less than an hour later, Sherlock was hurrying after John who was striding ahead to go see his patient. The four soldiers were following closely behind and they all entered the medical room together.
Mycroft was there, looking severe with his hands folded in front of him just dying for an umbrella to be propped up between them. There were two MI5 men, the kind chosen for brawn rather than brain, standing behind him.
What was going on? There was only one reason why Mycroft would be there and bring the goons. But surely they wouldn’t be taking Fisher in now. Not for one lost vehicle and one injured soldier.
“Private Fisher, could you come with us please?”
Sherlock took a step forward, trying to telegraph to Mycroft his desire to know everything. To find out exactly what the bigger situation was. Beside him John’s eyes slid shut. Fisher looked confused, turning to his colonel for support. ‘Seb’, as John had called him, demanded,
“What’s going on?”
“Private Fisher, now.”
Fisher walked towards Mycroft and despite being as tall as the two MI5 men seemed almost swamped by them as he was led away. Mycroft followed without a backwards look. Not willing to let his brother get away that easily, Sherlock chased after them.
~
“Fifty terabytes of data they say he had,” Seb said, staring into the untouched coffee cup on the table in the canteen the next morning. “That’s not exactly a memory stick, that’s a hard drive. Several hard drives. Add that to the samples and you can see why he had to give them the vehicle.”
“No, you can’t,” John said, raising his own mug to his lips, then put it down once again without touching it.
“No, you can’t,” Seb said sadly. “Except… They’ve got his brother. I mean… wouldn’t you do anything for your sister? I know I would.”
“I wouldn’t turn my back on my buddies,” John said firmly. “Couldn’t he have asked for help?”
“Yeah,” Seb snorted, “as if Mycroft Holmes would mount a full on rescue for one deadbeat kid. You might as well ask the sea if it wouldn’t mind being a little bit drier, please, thank you.”
They stared at their cups in silence for a moment.
“What will happen to him?” John asked.
“Well, he can’t exactly stick around, can he? We’d never be able to trust him again, even if he wasn’t on a team, not while they’ve still got his brother. They can’t let him go; he knows where all our entrances are. He could go out into the city and tell everyone and we wouldn’t be able to cope if all the scavengers in London started knocking on our doors demanding food. They can’t lock him up, that would be a waste of food for feeding him and resources for guarding him and that big a waste is pretty much the stuff that makes up Mycroft Holmes’ nightmares. That’s if he sleeps. I reckon he hangs upside down like a bat. Anyway, so he can’t stay, he can’t go and he can’t be locked up.” Seb finally raised his eyes to meet John’s. “What do you think will happen to him?”
John looked away from the cold expression in Seb’s eyes. “God.”
“Haven’t heard from Him lately. Have you?” Seb shook his head. “This place is just… Fisher is- was just a kid. This life would push anyone down the wrong tracks. I just wish…” Seb looked around as if nervous then leaved forward. John followed suit. “I wish it wasn’t a choice between this place, the collectors and the street. There’s gotta be another option. Another… way of living- of surviving.” Seb sat back again. “You’ve heard the rumours though, haven’t you? Places out in the countryside, far enough away from the cities for the collectors to not notice. Everyone equal and hidden away. But that’s all fairytales. Wishful thinking.”
“Sounds like it.”
Seb grinned. “Be great if it was true though, wouldn’t it?”
“Bit late for Fisher, though.”
The grin faded. “Yeah. Poor bastard.”
John sighed and stared at his coffee. He was exhausted. Between his patient and Sherlock getting the sudden urge to monologue for a couple of hours, he hadn’t actually managed to get any sleep the night before. He desperately needed caffeine if he planned to stay up any longer and he had worked so hard not to be nocturnal. But the thought of eating or drinking anything made him feel sick.
In the end he pushed the mug away, said goodbye to Seb, then went back to his room for a nap, being sure to set the alarm on his phone so he wouldn’t sleep more than a few hours.
He was so exhausted he fell asleep immediately and didn’t even dream. For the next two weeks that was the last peaceful sleep he managed to have.
The nightmares came back with such vengeance that John was left wondering what he had done to make his subconscious hate him so much.
He found the only way to combat the dreams was to work himself to exhaustion, that way he would fall into too deep a sleep to remember anything. But he had to make sure he wasn’t too out of sorts in order to still do his work. He found he was able to fine tune it like an art form. He didn’t always get it right. There was that one time at football practice where Jack had tackled him and he went down then stayed down because it took too much effort to get up. Needless to say Tom had not been happy about that. He had been ordered to get some rest before their big game against the Met team on Saturday evening and he had fully intended to. Then Sherlock had demanded his attention.
So, on Saturday afternoon, it occasioned that instead of resting after thirty-six hours of being awake he was in Sherlock’s lab when the incident happened.
~
John was falling asleep. The other man had one elbow propped up on the table top with the fist of that hand the only thing stopping the doctor’s head from dropping forward and destroying the experiment he had worked so hard to put together.
He knew he should send the doctor away; it wasn’t as if the man was any good to him in this condition, but he found he enjoyed the simple proximity of the other man. John had a reassuring presence, even when half unconscious. There was nothing attractive about it, cheek distorted against the fist, eyes drooping and mouth slightly open, but the notion of having John near was somewhat appealing.
Besides, if John did fall asleep perhaps he would finally have the opportunity to witness a nightmare taking place. The aftermath of the one two weeks previously had been downright fascinating. To be present when one was happening would be intriguing.
John started slightly, as if just catching himself from falling asleep, and then settled back down onto his hand, watching Sherlock through half lidded eyes.
Sherlock quickly turned back to his experiment. If this worked there should be a small puff of smoke….
He let one drop of acid drop into the experimental substance he was working on. A cloud of smoke exploded from the vial.
Well that was unexpected, he thought as he coughed and waved the smoke away from his face. An even stronger reaction than I predicted. Excellent! If I could-
His thoughts were scattered into a wave of shock and an ache of pain as a fist slammed into the side of his face and knocked him off his stool. He grabbed the table to remain on his feet, madly scrambling to think how the attacker had got into the lab without either himself or John noticing. His thoughts as to whether John was okay lasted only a second before he was met with the startling revelation that John was his attacker as, through the smoke and the streams of tears from his irritated eyes, the ex-soldier launched at him.
He was knocked face down on to the floor, John landing heavily on top of him as in the background he heard a smash followed by a very bad sizzling noise. More smoke billowed. Darker smoke; extremely bad. The alarm went off.
He attempted to throw John off without hurting him but couldn’t move. John wouldn’t let him move. What was he doing? What was wrong? He bucked more violently, lashing out with his arms but the ex-soldier only responded by pressing a knee so sharply into his back it sent pings of pain all the way up his spine, then tugged his hand up behind him so he gasped in shock and choked on the smoke. John was shouting something in his ear but he couldn’t make out the words with the alarm and the ringing in his ears from inhaling too much of the smoke. He tried to shout at John, to persuade the other man to back off, that they needed to get out of there but he only coughed in the smoke. John’s only response was to hold his arm tighter then twist his wrist until he cried out in pain.
This wasn’t John, what was he- Oh hell.
Well he’d wanted to see a nightmare and now it was going to kill them both.
Suddenly the doors swung open, letting in light and letting out the smoke as four hazmat suited technicians charged in. There was an instant lightening of the pressure on his back and he threw himself upwards and twisted to look for John. The other man was seated on the floor a couple of feet away appearing dazed and confused. Their eyes met and a look of absolute horror crossed John’s face.
He reacted instantly, jumping to his feet and pulling John to his. Clutching the hand John had twisted to his chest he held on tightly to the doctor’s arm with his other hand and dragged the other man forcibly out into the corridor.
Once they were around the corner he took a deep breath of the clean air and leaned against the wall without letting go of John’s arm. The other man was breathing heavily through his nose with one hand pressed up against his mouth. There were some mumbled squeaks which sounded vaguely like they were supposed to be,
“Oh God, what did I do?”
Before the doctor grabbed hold of his hand and looked at it.
“I think this is sprained but you need an x-ray to make sure I didn’t- I didn’t-“ John raised one hand and touched Sherlock’s cheek gently. “Oh god, you need some ice at least and-“ John sniffed. “Oh god.”
The doctor turned away and tried to pull out of his grip but he just slipped his hand down so it was encircling John’s wrist and held on tighter. He knew that John could probably still break out of it but not without hurting him. He was sure that, given what had just happened, that would be the last thing the other man would want to do.
John buried his head in his arm and mumbled words like, “Please,” and “Sorry,” and “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” between gasps for air that could well have been sobs.
He tried to see John’s face, tried to stop John from hiding from him, tried to pull John back to face him. After all, he had wanted to see a nightmare. He had kept John with him when he should have sent the other man to bed. It was his fault more than John’s. It wasn’t as if the doctor had any control over himself. And now he was hating that John was so upset, hating that the strong doctor and solider had turned into a snivelling wreck and he wanted to see John’s face.
He pushed his injured hand in between John and the arm the doctor was using to cover his face and twisted the man around. John fought but he pulled and levered the offending limb away until it was by John’s side and the other man was practically up against his face, looking at him with an expression of sheer misery.
“It’s okay,” Sherlock said in an effort to make the horrible look go away while at the same time letting his eyes trace over it, examining every facet and storing it away in his John folder. “I’m okay.”
John shook his head.
“I am,” Sherlock said insistently.
“How is this anywhere near okay?” John choked.
“You think I haven’t been punched before?”
John didn’t smile but he did take a few slow deep breaths. Sherlock could feel every one against the length of his body. The other man looked away and straightened out his chin.
Sherlock moved his head to recapture eye contact but John pointedly dropped his gaze away from all efforts.
“If we-“ John paused to swallow thickly and take another deep breath. “We need to get you to the Infirmary and clean you up.”
Sherlock nodded then, without letting go, he stuck his head back around the corner to see how the clean-up team was doing. They were probably ruining the inside of lab, completely destroying several important experiments. He knew he should really be in there, sorting them out. Instead he checked that everything was under control - as in nothing was liable to explode at that very moment - and went with John.
~
Every wrap of the ACE bandage around Sherlock’s arm was like a stab to the gut. He had done this. He hadn’t even been fully asleep, he had been dozing and then- oh god- and then he had finally caught one of the insurgents planting those IEDs and had been trying to restrain them when they had struggled against him and- oh god what was wrong with him? He wanted to smack himself. He wanted Sherlock to punch him. Then at least they would be even. But the other man was being so bloody calm about it. It was infuriating because he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. Surely Sherlock wouldn’t want him around after that. Why hadn’t the other man asked for a different doctor? But Sherlock had insisted that he be the one to apply the ice pack to Sherlock’s swelling left cheek and the sling to the thankfully not broken right wrist.
He felt sick and he suspected that wasn’t just from the fumes he had inhaled.
Sherlock was watching him with that dissecting stare. He cringed inwards, knowing he was being judged, knowing he deserved whatever was going through Sherlock’s brain but not knowing what that was. Didn’t a condemned man deserve to know his punishment? Why wasn’t Sherlock saying anything?
Then Mycroft walked in.
Oh god, they had been waiting for Big Brother, hadn’t they? Here it came.
“I’m fine, Mycroft,” Sherlock said, glaring in the direction of his brother. “You can take your nannying elsewhere.”
“How bad are his injuries, Doctor Watson?”
He couldn’t have snapped to attention faster than if the almost humiliatingly deferentially phrased order had instead been ‘Watson, report!’
“The bruising to the right cheek is superficial and should go down in a couple of days. The wrist is more serious. It will need to be kept elevated for at least forty-eight hours and I would recommend keeping it rested as much as possible for the next week. So no violin playing for a while and he should recover completely.”
He was almost proud of the professional tone he managed with those words.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Mycroft’s face was unreadable. “Now if you come this way, I believe we need to have a discussion.”
John swallowed reflectively. A discussion, right. There were probably a couple of muscle behind the door ready to drag him outside and shoot him like the dog he was. Like Fisher. Maybe if he could get away, overpower them somehow, he could escape. They could just let him out into the city; he wouldn’t tell anyone.
Or maybe Mycroft really did just want to discuss something. Before getting out the blue mind control serum….
Suddenly there was a hand on his chest, pushing him backwards, away from Mycroft, and Sherlock stepped in front of him.
“Mycroft.” It was said warningly and low enough to send not wholly unpleasant chills the length of his spine. “No.”
“Sherlock-“
“I said no, Mycroft. You lay a finger on him and there will be trouble.”
Mycroft tipped his head slightly, almost appraisingly. “I don’t doubt that. But you have to understand the seriousness of the situation.”
“Leave it to me.”
“You were attacked,” said quietly as if he wasn’t supposed to have heard it.
“It won’t happen again.”
“Sherlock, the safety of this facility and all of its inhabitants is my primary concern.”
Sherlock took a step forward and raised his voice. “I will take full responsibility, you can lay the blame on me.”
“There are precautions that have to be adhered to-“
“He’s mine,” it was almost a growl. “I found him, give him to me.”
Mycroft sighed dramatically and John could almost see Sherlock rolling his eyes in response despite only being able to see the back of his head.
“You do realise it’s not possible to give him to you.”
“Of course it is. I’ll fix everything.”
“You can’t.”
“Of course I can.”
“Sherlock-“
“Please.” The look of shock on Mycroft’s face was enough to tell John that Sherlock didn’t normally beg like this. “Just don’t, Mycroft. Please?”
There was a silent impasse for fully three minutes before Mycroft finally tipped his head slightly as if in concession then left as swiftly as he had arrived.
Sherlock spun round to look at him, triumph obvious in all his features. John felt like his brain was chugging along with a few cogs loose because he couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened. He seemed to have lost control of his jaw as well and it took a moment to reconnect to the muscles that allowed him to close his mouth. He fought down the urge to shout, “What the hell just happened?!” because you weren’t supposed to yell at people who saved your life, were you? Sherlock had just saved his life. Sherlock?
What were you supposed to say to people who save your life?
Oh yes.
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
His voice came out sounding about as lost as he felt.
Sherlock merely smirked and said, “I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me.”
~
Sherlock paced up and down the corridor, four steps one way followed by a smooth turn and four strides the other way so that his pacing never exceeded the length of the room behind the door he occasionally hesitated mid pace to stare at but never touched. The door blocking him from the object of his deliberations. John’s door. John’s room.
John.
After the doctor had finished patching him up, he had ordered John to bed to catch up on some much needed rest and he had gone back to his lab to see how much damage had been done. He had spent a few hours shouting at the clean-up crew, tidying up the mess and recording his results, but he couldn’t stop one corner of his mind from dwelling on what had happened with John. Specifically, his own reaction.
He had begged. Him. He never begged and certainly not to Mycroft, that was a downright foolish thing to do and would only result in fuelling his brother’s superiority complex, which would never do. But he had. Because he had needed to. Because the idea of Mycroft taking John away, of John not being around, was intolerable.
Why was it intolerable?
Although an assistant in the lab was always helpful he was perfectly capable of doing without one. And when he needed an extra set of hands there were always volunteers available. Often it was quite difficult to persuade the same one to come back twice but there were plenty more where they came from; he understood he was considered a rite of passage to more senior levels within the research group.
He didn’t actually need companionship at dinner. Food was just fuel after all; he had always treated it as such before. While it may take time to readjust back to his old way of pit-stop eating he could certainly manage it. There would be more time for work.
And what did it matter to him if the doctors had to work a little harder to cover all the shifts. They had managed fine enough before and there had always been a doctor available whenever he needed one. That matter hardly affected him. True, it was useful to have a doctor outside of the Enclave for emergency treatment but it was hardly likely Mycroft was going to let John out again anytime soon so that was no longer relevant when considering the benefits of one Doctor John Watson.
All in all anything John could do, anyone could do, and anything they couldn’t, he could live without - he had lived before after all. He didn’t need John.
But he wanted him, all the same.
He wanted John’s smile, he wanted John’s laugh, he wanted John’s kindness and good nature and the way John seemed to like him for no apparent reason. He wanted John’s fierceness, he wanted John’s teasing, he wanted John’s quietness and steady hands. He wanted John’s… he wanted John. Everything. Every breath, every thought and tiny movement he wanted. And he wanted more, all of it, to keep, to hold, to cherish, to be his own.
He stopped and stared at the door. It was blocking the way between him and everything he desired. He hated it.
Irrational. It was John causing all this; he should hate John, not the door. No, he shouldn’t hate anything. He should go back to logic because there was still something he needed to work out.
He resumed his pacing.
Four steps one way, another four steps the other.
Why would John want him? John couldn’t possibly want him as much as he wanted John. He felt like he might explode from it and John showed his emotions far too much, he would have seen, wouldn’t he?
Had he?
His mind threw up flags, every time he had caught John staring, every time John’s breath had hitched when he had gotten too close, every sign of attraction it was possible for a human to put out unconsciously, he had evidence of them all. John had even said that he belonged to Sherlock. He had had all the evidence but he hadn’t made the connection until his observations of himself. Oh stupid!
But he needed to be certain his conclusions were correct; this was far too important a matter to leave to theoretical musings, he needed an empirical experiment to test his hypothesis.
He stopped level with the door and turned to face it.
Yes, the perfect test. There was some risk to rejection, admittedly, but he was sure John would understand if he explained it was an experiment. Besides, John would enjoy it. Everyone enjoyed it; even if they couldn’t stand him.
He took a deep breath, steadying himself, placed a perfectly dry palm on the handle, gripped and turned.
~
It was the door creeping open that woke him.
Blinking blearily in the sudden light, he saw the unmistakable silhouette of Sherlock Holmes entering his room before the door was shut leaving only the tiniest crack of light coming through underneath. Curious, he propped himself up on his elbows as he felt more than saw Sherlock step across the tiny gap towards the bed. He could hear the other man breathing loudly in the silence of the room as Sherlock stood by the bed. Assuming he was wanted for something - some mad experiment that would revolutionise the way honey was produced but which could only be done at two in the morning no doubt - he pushed back the covers but before he could swing his feet out Sherlock was suddenly in the bed on top of him, rolling him fully onto his back and pulling the covers back over them both.
He stopped breathing.
Sherlock was knelt so he was straddling his waist with both hands braced either side of his arms. He felt the mattress dip slightly as Sherlock shifted his weight and raised one hand to hover just above his face.
He let out the breath he had been holding in an exhale that was far shakier than he had intended.
Sherlock’s fingers touched lightly against his cheek and the hand cupped his jaw. The mantra of ‘What’s he doing? What the hell is happening?’ that had been going round and round in his head was instantly silenced as the slightly coarse rough of the bandage there offered the answer.
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me.”
Sherlock hovered above him, silent and unmoving but for the tingling caress of the other man’s fingers across his cheek.
He suddenly wished he could see Sherlock’s expression, whether it was lustful or logical like when the other man was looking at an experiment. Tentatively, he reached out a hand into the darkness. It met with sharp cheekbones, soft overhanging curls and the silky sensation of Sherlock mouthing his thumb as soon as it was within reach of the other man’s lips. John gasped at the contact which seemed so unreal in its intimacy and Sherlock appeared to take that as a signal. The other man descended, laying his weight across John. The bandaged hand moved up his shoulder and pulled his outstretched arm around Sherlock’s neck. A knee forced its way between his thighs, compelling him to spread his legs and a gentle kiss was placed on the edge of his jaw. More kisses followed along his jaw line and on his neck, each one with growing intensity. The feel of another man’s stubble rubbing against his skin for the first time in nearly eight years wasn’t as unpleasant as he had been expecting. When Sherlock discovered the sensitive spot just behind his ear and sucked forcefully, unpleasant was very much not the word. He gasped at the shock of pleasure, then tipped his head back and tightened his arm around Sherlock’s neck involuntarily
Sherlock pulled away.
A flash of anger sparked through him. Had this all been a joke? An experiment? An attempt to humiliate him and show just how much power the Holmes brothers had over him?
Then Sherlock’s hands seized the bottom of his T-shirt and tugged it upwards and he knew that for whatever reason Sherlock had decided to have it all. This was happening. He wondered briefly whether he could argue. He decided to stop thinking. Lifting his arms he arched his back to let Sherlock pull the T-shirt over his head. He stared up at the ceiling as the other man started to lavish attention on his chest and simply gave himself over to the sensations. This proved to be easier than he suspected when Sherlock’s questing fingertips managed to find two more of his most sensitive erogenous zones, one of which he hadn’t even know he had.
By the time Sherlock’s slowly descending hands met the waistband of his pyjamas he was panting and more than half hard.
He felt Sherlock’s body, which had been sliding down the bed along the same route as his hands, push back up until their heads were level again with Sherlock supporting himself on one elbow. The other hand stayed down at John’s waist so John brought one of his own arms up to steady the other man and slipped the other downwards towards Sherlock’s own trousers in readiness for the no doubt expected reciprocation. Sherlock rested his forehead against John’s as his hand plunged downwards. John had to contend with buttons to undo so by the time he had pulled Sherlock’s trousers and underwear away, Sherlock had already exposed his cock and tightened fingers around it.
The noise John made was closer to a whimper than anything else but was still the loudest sound either of them had made since the moment Sherlock had walked in the door.
Sherlock started to lazily stroke him from base to tip and he tried to follow suit but found it difficult to keep a steady rhythm. Sherlock’s breath was hot against his face, so close that he felt as if the only air he was breathing was that which came from Sherlock. His own gasps grew more and more ragged as the other man pushed him further and further towards the edge. Sherlock started making little groans in the back of his throat and the way the other man pulsated under his fingers let him know Sherlock was close. He felt the bed sheets move as Sherlock’s grip on them tightened and then, with a low moan, Sherlock came across his hand and stomach.
The rhythm against his own cock stuttered for a moment, but only a moment, before Sherlock continued to stroke him with renewed force, adding a little twist that made his toes curl. He could feel himself getting closer and closer like an onrushing train and then, with a soundless cry, he came, adding his own outpouring to the swiftly cooling liquid on his stomach.
He realised his fingers had tightened against Sherlock’s shoulder and he relaxed his grip but kept his arm there so that the other man wouldn’t collapse on top of him. Neither of them moved for a moment, just lay against each other, breathing each other’s air. John could feel Sherlock’s heart beating through his chest, slowing down from a race. His own followed suit.
Then Sherlock tilted to one side and reached out from under the covers for something over the edge of the bed. The other man returned with a piece of cloth John could guess was his own T-shirt and mopped both of them up with it. The mattress dipped as Sherlock started to untangle himself from John and got off the bed.
John didn’t move, just stared at the ceiling and tried not to think, to dwell on what had just happened. He could hear the sound of clothing being rearranged and briefly wondered whether Sherlock was going to say something cliché like, ‘We should do this again sometime,’ before he fiercely clamped down on his imagination.
He was actually taken by surprise when the other man leaned back over the bed and gave him an extremely tender kiss to the lips which John found himself returning before he realised it, one hand raising to cup Sherlock’s cheek. It was only the lightest of caresses between lips and lasted just two seconds but somehow seemed the most intimate thing to take place between them that night.
When it was over Sherlock withdrew so fast John could have sworn he felt a breeze across his face. The door shut quietly but firmly behind him.
John pulled up his pyjama bottoms and rolled on his side. He didn’t want to touch his T-shirt so he wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about what had happened, what would happen in the morning and definitely whether or not it would happen again. He tried to go back to sleep.
He couldn’t.
Chapter 11