New fandom! New story! Not about comedians! *gasp etc*

[ukcalico]

Title: Memorandum

Summary: Four conversations Watson and Lestrade had about their stupid crushes on Sherlock, and the one time they both did something about it. - prompt by sheldrake and lazlet

Important details: NC17, 5645 words

Thanks: to inappropriately

Read on AO3


Memorandum
by Calico

John doesn't think he's behaving any differently when Lestrade notices. He's standing a foot behind Sherlock, as usual, trying to catch the slippery pearls of wisdom haphazardly hurled in his direction, as usual.

"She was teetotal," Sherlock declares, of the drunk-driving lawyer whose death they're investigating. "Obvious. Obvious!"

"But--" Lestrade starts, waving the witness statement that had her evidencing about six different signs of intoxication before she drove off.

Sherlock whirls around, putting his back to Lestrade and fixing John with a smile that is brilliant in its evenness. "Hadn't had a drink since her high school prom in '97 - the night she got the tattoo on her ankle."

"Tattoo?" John asks, but Sherlock's already sweeping past him, and John feels his stomach flip softly as the heat of Sherlock's body passes by. He rocks back on his heels, about to turn and follow him - as usual - when he catches sight of Lestrade's face. The look in Lestrade's eye is - well - avaricious.

In an instant, it's replaced with a professional blankness.

John swallows and looks down, somehow ashamed to have glimpsed what Lestrade almost certainly would rather was kept under wraps. Takes one to know one, though.

He glances back up, and is taken aback to see Lestrade now looking intently at him - more precisely, looking at where John's fingers are brushing against his own shoulder, unwittingly cataloguing the imprint Sherlock had made on his way past.

Ah.

Bugger.

It does indeed take one to know one.

Lestrade's gaze flicks back to John's face, and becomes opaque, like a smoke bomb set off before a mirror. "Oh," he says, and his lips twitch. His voice becomes almost apologetic. "You too."

He's disturbingly astute when he's cornered, John realises, belatedly. Disturbingly other things, too. John feels an honest wryness seep into his expression. Mutually assured destruction?

"And you live with him," Lestrade continues, shaking his head. "Ha. You poor bastard."

John's ears go hot. "Ah, well," he says, and fiddles with the button of his cuff. No point denying it, is there? Not to a copper. He'll be trained in lie-detection and all sorts. "You know how it is."

There's a pause, and then Lestrade coughs into his fist and studies his notebook. "Yeah," he says gruffly, and shuts it. "Right, well - best get after him."

Sherlock drops his hand from Lestrade's arm to brandish the hand-held glucometer instead, holding it aloft in triumph, then charges out of the room without another word.

John watches the last few inches of his greatcoat narrowly miss being trapped as the door swings closed, then rubs the back of his neck. "Well," he says. His voice sounds reedy in the sudden quiet. "That's that, then."

"Case effectively closed," Lestrade says.

He shuts his phone with a snap, and John glances at him, feeling like something's off.

Lestrade puts the phone back in his pocket and, apparently without thinking about it, massages the part of his forearm that Sherlock had been clutching. His lips twitch. "I suppose I should wait for him to confirm that Ms Smith was hypoglycaemic when she crashed," he says.

"For form's sake," John says.

Lestrade meets his eyes in resignation. "And then re-do the paperwork - again. If only there were a way to contain his brilliance within the thirty-five hour working week."

"Tell me about it. I mentioned the severed head in the fridge, right?"

Lestrade wrinkles his nose, looking amused and pained to equal degrees. "You did. And I told you about there being certain things I don't need to know about. The laws he breaks when he's not tying up my most-wanted for me, being a prime candidate."

"Received and understood," John says swiftly, trying not to smile. Don't tell his shrink, but talking to someone about Sherlock - even roundabout, even not naming names, and definitely not naming feelings - feels really fucking good.

"Although if I ever need to gain entry to 221B again," Lestrade says, with a pointed look that kindles something deep in John's chest.

John cocks his head. "I've got a key. You'd have to persuade me, though," he says, perfectly disingenuous. They both know he's not selling Sherlock out any day this lifetime.

Lestrade goes along with it, dropping his voice. "Believe it or not, I can be persuasive."

I bet you can. John presses his lips together, nodding slowly. He feels as if the room has got a fraction warmer, all of a sudden. "You'll wait up, then?" he asks, before he's had time to think about it. "Could be hours before he bothers to call."

"Could be," Lestrade allows. He seems to have scented the change in the air, also. His eyes are very direct.

John wets his lips. "Want some company?"

John's phone buzzes obnoxiously before Lestrade can answer that.

He glances down and busies himself with it, finding his fingers are slightly clumsy on the buttons.

Lucozade in her bag - the plot thickens. Come home, bring urinary dipsticks. SH

He looks up to see Lestrade watching him; no clue as to what his answer would have been, but John has a strong inexcusable unsubstantiated feeling that he would have said yes.

"Forget I said that," John says, and waves the phone in explanation.

"Consider it forgotten," Lestrade says, and John doesn't believe him for a moment.

Midnight comes and goes, then one A.M., two, two-thirty. Sherlock's sleeves are rolled down, but John fancies he can sense the nicotine's chemical wizardry at work, glueing up receptors, sharpening that knife-edge brain. Sherlock's pacing, hair wild, rapping his own forehead with his knuckle.

"Why?" he keeps saying, flinging the word at the wall like a rubber ball, bouncing it off the fridge, the lampshade, John's useless head. "Why, why, why why why why why?"

John's lost track of what the question was. "Accident?" he tries.

Sherlock waves dismissively, and John can almost see vapour-trails following the movement, he's so tired.

"Too obvious," Sherlock says.

John's phone buzzes. Anything? L.

John feels an odd flutter in his chest as he replies: We're at the ranting and raving stage. Breakthrough undoubtedly imminent. J.

Thirty seconds pass, then it buzzes again. A small warm dart of adrenaline goes through him, and he wets his lips and glances at Sherlock before opening the message.

If he gets hysterical, you know what to do. L.

John smirks, and Sherlock rounds on him, finger quivering. "Sloth," he barks. "Wrath, greed, pride, lust, envy, gluttony."

"...The seven deadly sins?"

"The seven greatest motivators known to man," Sherlock declares. "Of which lust is the most powerful, the most toxic. The most-- blinding."

Not half, John thinks. "Would have thought you'd say pride."

For a moment, Sherlock smiles, almost wickedly; it makes John's heart beat foolishly faster. "A close second. But in this case, lust is clearly the culprit. It was someone close to her, someone who knew her insulin dosage. That's intimate knowledge, John. Intimate."

John ignores the frisson that goes through him at hearing Sherlock hiss the word intimate. "The ex-husband?"

"Impossible. She was driving to meet him - he was seen reading in the lobby from ten-fifteen, thirty-three minutes away. He can't have been in two places at once."

"The new boyfriend?"

"Maybe," Sherlock says, tapping his lips with his thumb. "He seems too stupid, though. Too stupid and insufficiently brave."

That makes John roll his eyes. "Yet again you attribute murderers with all the best qualities."

"Not all murderers," Sherlock says sharply. He catches John by the shoulders, putting their faces close, and his voice becomes rich with entreaty. "But this one had to know how much insulin to give her to bring on hypoglycaemic confusion; they had to know how to administer it without arousing suspicion; they had to know to fill the Lucozade bottle with carbonated water and saccharine so that when she starts to feel faint she thinks she's correcting her blood-sugar but actually isn't-- and they had to be brave enough to do it all just as she was about to get in her car."

John realises he's holding his breath. It would a matter of a head-tilt to bring their mouths into such an alignment that even Sherlock couldn't fail to notice the possibility of kissing him. Alarmed lights flash in the corners of his vision, and he almost sways; he clears his throat to steady himself. "It could be the new boyfriend," he repeats. "Greed's a classic, when it comes to motivators. And she was hardly short of assets."

Sherlock looks thoroughly disappointed - with John's suggestion, with John's very presence, indeed with various hapless items of nearby furniture. He stalks off and kicks the sofa, then throws John a reproachful look. "I doubt it very much," he says. "It's too obvious, and I tell you, that boy wouldn't know the sharp end of a needle if you stuck it in his eye."

"Someday you're going to meet a thick murderer and walk straight past them," John says. "He could have looked it up on the internet."

Sherlock makes a rudely dismissive noise. "The internet," he scoffs. "With which search terms, precisely? Diabetic girlfriend plus inconspicuous plus murder?"

John tries not to sound exasperated. "Well, no, of course not. But perhaps dangers plus hypoglycaemia?" he suggests, although he can see that Sherlock has veered off in a different direction already, his steepled fingers pressed thoughtfully to his mouth, his gaze skipping from clock to window.

As John watches, Sherlock murmurs something against his knuckles, then frowns and dismisses it again.

John's tired enough that he doesn't try to push his point. He stares at the flattened bitten-pink curve where Sherlock's lips are pressed against the sides of his fingers, and it occurs to him that he can't actually imagine a chain of events in which Sherlock would be more interested in him than some nasty piece of work. Not a single one.

"Of course, ketones are also smelled in starvation," Sherlock announces, apropos of nothing. "Like acetone, like pear drops - could be mistaken for vodka."

John massages the inner corners of his eyes with his index fingers, hard. Vague tendrils of dormant memory unwind from years ago; you don't get many anorexic soldiers. "You're barking up the wrong tree," he says, his voice a despondent half-yawn even to his own ears. "Ketoacidosis, that's, er, high. High blood glucose. Chronic." Spots are swimming in his eyes, but it feels good to keep rubbing. Fuck, he's over-tired. "She had a Type I diabetic hypo."

"Well yes, I concluded that hours ago," Sherlock says, and spins on his heel, strides off towards the carved wooden box on the sideboard like a nicotine-seeking missile. "Never hurts to revisit one's earlier assumptions," he calls back, over his shoulder, tugging up his sleeve.

No indeed, John thinks, looking down at his phone, forgotten in his hand. He realises it's been several minutes since he received the text. He imagines Lestrade glancing at his own phone, waiting for his response.

Don't be stupid, John tells himself, a moment later. Of course he won't be.

He looks back at Lestrade's last message - If he gets hysterical, you know what to do. L. - and types out a quick reply, trying not to think too hard about it. It's only a text. Just two men, up too late at night, trying to keep their eyelids apart while the cogs in Sherlock's brain grind faster and faster.

He sends: Don't tempt me. J.

For a moment he feels gleeful; then, as he watches the little envelope graphic fire off into the electronic ether, a prickle of dread begins to build, lingering and swelling as the envelope vanishes and the impassive pulse of long silent seconds begins.

"But-- John," Sherlock says loudly, startling him. He's back, sleeve rolled down again. "You aren't paying me any attention. And you're smiling," he accuses, gaze dropping to the phone in John's hand, then back. His eyes narrow. "You're very distracted. Who are you flirting with?"

"Guess," John invites.

"It isn't that woman," Sherlock says immediately. "Responsible job, up at six each morning, box of peppermint teabags on her desk - out like a light at eleven. It isn't family. It isn't the nurse, you don't look this excited when you hear from him. That rugby player only contacts you at the weekend." He folds his arms. "It's my brother or Lestrade."

"It's Lestrade," John says. "When did you see Sarah's desk?"

"Not important," Sherlock says, and his eyes seem to glitter. "What does he say?"

"Lestrade?" John asks, and shrugs. "He wants to know if there's any progress."

"You like him."

"I, er," John says, and opts for the best defence: "What makes you say that?"

"You like him," Sherlock repeats. He doesn't look happy about it. "You like hearing from him, it pleases you, it makes your mouth all - pleased," he says abruptly, and glares. "Your mind's not on the case."

Since when do you watch my mouth? John thinks, but that's ridiculous: Sherlock watches everything, always. He's not taking a special interest.

"It's nearly three in the morning and you keep saying my suggestions are obvious," John points out, trying to steer Sherlock away from this alarming conversational direction. "My mind's as on the case as it can be."

John's phone buzzes again, and this time he sticks it in his pocket without looking.

Sherlock's eyes track the movement. Then he half-nods, apparently mollified, and within seconds something else visibly occurs to him.

John watches, waiting in case his opinion is asked, but Sherlock is apparently keeping this one to himself: pondering, eyes bright, mouth curved. He's dishevelled by the drag of the hours - they both are - but Sherlock remains lit from within with his tactless enthusiasm for crime, buoyed and protected by his effortless disregard for anyone else's sense of propriety.

John finds him heart-stoppingly appealing, and it's hard to look away. When he does, he finds his phone is back in his hand. He... doesn't remember getting it out, actually.

He checks it, and a furtive warmth goes through him.

Chance would be a fine thing. L.

It's four AM, and sleep deprivation sings through the back of John's head like the cessation of bad violin music.

A sugar-saturated double-strength black coffee in an all-night American cafe is undoubtedly going to improve things.

Ensconced in a wipe-clean corner booth, John regrets how surrounded by primary colours he suddenly is: the red cracked laminate table-top, the fat yellow mustard pot, the blue of his sleeve sweeping across the near distance as he stirs his coffee. His arm looks otherworldly, like it belongs to someone else. Absently, he wonders if he's dreaming, if Sherlock's about to wake him with a thump between the shoulder-blades and a hearty "At last, a breakthrough - grab that gun of yours!"

Knowing his luck, some bastard's just slipped him some ketamine.

He sips the coffee gingerly, and waits.

What does improve things: a warm shoulder next to his, a firm pressure of dusty suit linen against cardigan.

"He come up with anything else, then?"

John is methodically tearing strips off one of his empty sachets of white sugar. "No," he says, and glances at Lestrade, who looks irritatingly well-rested, considering. "He's positive it's homicide, but I've been banished while he works out how. Apparently my breathing disturbs his train of thought."

John expects a sympathetic eye-roll but instead he gets a disconcertingly knowing smirk.

"Heavy, was it?" Lestrade says. It sounds filthy.

John opens his mouth in outrage, then shuts it again. "Nothing of the sort," he says primly, after a moment.

Lestrade's still smiling, now more openly at John's protest. "Course not."

John makes an attempt at rallying. "Oh, right - it's like that, is it? I take it when he moans about the police breathing down his neck, he's not just talking figuratively, then."

Lestrade snorts. "As if he'd notice. I could be slap bang in his lap or fifty feet away - so long as I'm holding up the yellow tape for you two to duck under, it's all the same to him."

"There might be something in that," John allows, his brain dancing around envisioning Lestrade slap bang in Sherlock's lap. He's not sure he'd be able to un-imagine it, once envisioned. He has a feeling they would look very, very good together - Lestrade anchoring Sherlock's whipcord restlessness, holding him firmly still and kissing him until he paid attention - and that sort of thought isn't good for a man, in public, this late at night. Or early in the morning, or whatever the hell time it's reached while he's not been paying attention.

Lestrade heaves a sigh with a chuckle under it, and rests his head back against the padded seat. His eyes are closed, and for a moment John just looks at him, mapping the bones and angles of his face, the soft jut of wry lips, the traces of frustration and exhaustion and amusement around his eyes.

John thinks - suddenly, dreamily - about kissing him.

"Go on then," Lestrade says lazily, and John freezes, heart jumping, until Lestrade continues in that same soft voice: "torture me with it. What's the closest you've come to telling him?"

John pretends to think about that for a moment, collecting himself. "I haven't."

"Closest he's got to guessing, then."

John's lips twitch. "Sherlock doesn't guess."

Lestrade opens his eyes, regards John evenly. "Does he know?"

"God," John says vehemently, and scratches his hand though his hair. "Probably? On some level? He doesn't exactly miss much."

"But he's never mentioned it."

John feels an embarrassed warmth at his persistence. Lestrade's pushing, and John - John sort of likes it.

"Matters of the heart," John says, picking his words and trying to layer them with the peculiar crispness of Sherlock's voice, "are of no more interest than any other mundane physiological reaction - which is to say that they may be key to solving a case, and therefore must be borne in mind."

Lestrade's eyes darken, like recognition. "He acknowledges it's physiology, then. Not controlled or-- decided."

"It's boring to him, is what it is. It's a - what did he call it? A motivator. Like all the other deadly sins."

"Mm. And what's it motivating you to do?"

John shakes his head, laughing under his breath. "Wait hand-and-foot on a man whose selfishness is exceeded only by his genius?" he says, giving Lestrade a rueful look, inviting him to laugh along with him.

Lestrade doesn't smile. His voice is careful as he says, "Anything else?"

John's laughter peters out as he realises, with a dawning sense of having known it already, that Lestrade's leg is resting against his beneath the table.

"Oh, well," John says quietly, after a moment. "That'd be telling."

"Right," Lestrade says, and glances away, back across the deserted cafe. His expression is artfully casual, and for a moment it feels like they're on a stake-out, alert and poised, pulses racing, everything externally still. Lestrade's really quite handsome, John thinks, feeling that flutter back deep in his chest; and then he's consciously relaxing his legs, letting them splay open, pushing gently but firmly against Lestrade's knee.

The pause only stretches a small eternity before he feels a hand move onto his thigh, discrete below the table.

John takes his cue from Lestrade's face and gazes away, at a framed picture of Marilyn Monroe on the wall, gaudy and nonjudgemental. There's a dreamlike sense of having no idea how he's got here, to this technicolor-surreal booth, to this tentative four AM grope by a copper who, John realises belatedly, can't possibly have been on duty all this time.

John lets his own hand meander vaguely sideways; when it encounters the warm bulk of trouser fabric, it falters.

Lestrade shouldn't want him, he thinks. He's nothing like Sherlock, and Lestrade definitely wants Sherlock - John's fairly sure Lestrade's never looked after John with that greedy look.

There again, lust's not exclusive, is it? Sherlock's not the one John's been sitting here thinking about kissing.

Lestrade's hand moves down, slowly mapping the bend of John's knee, curving against the round of it. Then it drags back up, palm heavy and warm, Lestrade's thumb smoothing over the line where John's leg presses against the stuffed plastic cushion.

John shivers, his mouth going dry. Lust's not exclusive and it's been too long since he felt the steady pressure of a masculine hand. Still not speaking, still not looking, he moves his own hand up onto Lestrade's thigh. He lets it drift up, over, fingers light but deliberate, and it's so fucking good to feel the warmth of skin through clothes. Lestrade's leg is muscular, even relaxed. Sherlock would feel like a whippet, John's often thought: fever-hot and altogether rapid beneath him. Lestrade feels powerful by imagined comparison.

Lestrade's fingers flex, and John's breath escapes him, a soft involuntary sigh that is almost, but not quite, a noise. He's getting hard, the heat of Lestrade's hand too sweet for his body to ignore. They're in a cafe, they haven't spoken in long moments, this probably hadn't occurred to either of them yesterday - and he's getting hard. Something's gone wrong somewhere.

John decides he doesn't care. His thoughts are slipping and dissipating as impulse takes over, the air becoming loaded with unmistakable intent. He slides his hand on down between Lestrade's legs and finds a firm bulge, and thinks abruptly, obscenely, of ducking down under the table and taking him in his mouth. He wants sex, suddenly: enough dawdling, enough dancing, enough of Sherlock's neutral touches and inescapable, implacable scrutiny. John wants to suck, to be sucked, to be explored and gripped and noticed.

He closes his hand firmly, rubbing though the fabric, his breath catching as Lestrade reacts with a tight low noise-- and then Sherlock's bursting into the cafe, scanning for them and making for their table at speed.

"The boyfriend and the ex-husband are having an affair," Sherlock declares, looking from one to the other. He looks wind-blown, his cheeks pink, and the sight of him is like a stab in the chest.

There is a pause, in which John prevents himself saying It's not what it looks like only via military-level discipline. His hands are back in his own lap, and steady as a rock.

"Right under her nose? Can't imagine that," Lestrade says, his voice utterly perfectly normal, and Sherlock's lips form a tight line.

"You'd be amazed."

It's six-thirty AM and Lestrade's pushing John against the wall of the hallway in 221 Baker Street, kissing him as he shoves one hand down the front of his trousers.

"Fuck," John mutters, both hands clenched behind the back of Lestrade's head, arching against him. He feels almost drunk with exhaustion, strung out on caffeine and sugar, and the only thing that's kept him going this last couple of hours has been the anticipation of precisely this, read in Lestrade's dark sidelong glances.

Sherlock's upstairs already, having scurried ahead. He'll be on the internet by now, doggedly trawling through the ex-husband's search history: something that could easily be left for tomorrow's admin staff, but Sherlock sees no reason not to do it today.

Like this, John thinks, bucking against Lestrade's grip and scratching his hands down his back, panting. This could be left for tomorrow, for sobriety, for second-thoughts-- but he's sliding his hands lower as even he thinks that, pushing under Lestrade's jacket, tugging him closer still. He needs to get it out of his system. If he goes upstairs to Sherlock, this aroused, this clumsy with tiredness, he's going to give himself away. This is better, this crazy risk; they're on the same page.

Lestrade sucks breathlessly on his lower lip and closes his fingers around John's erection, and John grunts, heat flowing through him in dizzying waves. Fuck, yes, like that. He needs this, he thinks: quick and dirty, just blood and testosterone, the cold hard wall behind him and the warmth of Lestrade's grip and weight and mouth. It's been too long since he's been touched properly, and the urgency is intoxicating; there's no subtlety or intrigue to this, no second-guessing. It's a blunt instrument of a fuck, a hand-job in a hallway. Exactly what he's needed for weeks, John thinks, grinding forwards and swallowing a moan, abandoning his investigation of Lestrade's lower back in favour of clinging onto his jacket and panting hard.

"Shh," Lestrade says hurriedly, shoving closer, stroking him faster. His other hand is getting John's belt open, pulling his trousers down. His movements are rough but efficient, and more confident than John had expected, undoing him by glorious increments as the world flashes into white noise and ecstasy.

John laughs under his breath, adrenaline mingling with sensation, cutting off as Lestrade kisses him again, grinning wildly as he sucks on Lestrade's tongue. This is more everything than he'd expected, and he's really fucking enjoying it; he likes rough, he likes being shoved and manhandled, he likes being pushed around. He gets off on risk, and nothing could feel riskier than this right now, rocking himself feverishly against Lestrade's warm strong palm while Sherlock pecks away at the laptop upstairs.

Lestrade makes a low noise and breaks the kiss, ducks in to suck his throat instead. John shudders against him, his eyes closing at the feeling of Lestrade's mouth on his neck, working - not hard enough to leave a bruise, but the skin will be pink, wet, hyper-sensitive, noticeable.

John gasps out, "What are you doing?" but also tips his head back, baring his throat to him, thinking, yes, yes.

"Sending him a message," Lestrade mutters, and John doesn't understand, the hand on his cock making his brain foggy.

"And what am I doing?" John asks, trying for light-hearted, but his voice breaks at the scrape of stubble against his jaw, a bright exciting tingle of pain that makes him ache and shiver at the same time.

"The same," Lestrade says, and runs his teeth over John's skin even as he squeezes hard enough to make John see stars.

"Uh," John manages, feeling the end hove brilliantly into view.

"If there was a bed," Lestrade whispers, against his throat, a savage suggestiveness in his tone.

John nods blindly and says, "Yeah, yeah--"

"--Maybe next time," Lestrade says, and John keeps nodding, moving frantically now, feeling his face screw up as he gets closer, so fucking close, nearly, nearly--

"Fuck," he whispers - warns - and Lestrade kisses him hard and then drops to one knee, leans in and takes John's cock in his mouth, catching him as he begins to go over.

"Fuck," John hisses, the heat of that making all other heats feel insubstantial, and he stares down at Lestrade's bent head, the shadowed smudge of his closed eyes, his cock disappearing between spit-shiny lips, and fuck. Months of pent-up frustration take over, and it's all he can do not to cry out.

He claps one hand over his mouth, biting hard on the heel of his thumb, and buries the other hand in Lestrade's hair, tugging him greedily onto his cock. Lestrade goes with it, making soft cut-off noises as he sucks, working the base of John's cock with both hands now-- and that's it, that's fucking it, John's coming right this fucking instant. It spikes through him, hot and raw as he shoves against Lestrade's tongue. He'd be thrusting deep, but as he goes for it Lestrade moves both hands onto John's hips, slamming him back and holding him rigid against the wall, sucking and moaning as John jerks and shivers for what feels like a fast-forwarded eternity.

"God," John says, slumping back against the wall, as soon as he can make words again. His ears are ringing, his hand is throbbing, and the inside of his lip stings with fresh blood. The leg's never felt better. "That, uh..." He swipes his tongue over the inside of his lip and tastes salt. He finds himself grinning, still giddy with aftershocks.

Lestrade's on his feet again and fastening him back up; John can feel his hands shaking. "Sorry, I--"

"Sorry?" John interrupts, only just remembering to keep his voice down, fighting a burgeoning prickle of hysterical laughter. "Sorry?"

"Didn't let you get a word in edgeways," Lestrade says gruffly, stepping back.

He's still hard, John realises, taking an involuntary step forwards, reaching for him again. "Let me--"

"Not here," Lestrade says quickly, pushing him back against the wall. He's remembering to keep his voice hushed.

John gives another breathless laugh. "Don't tell me you want to go upstairs..."

A pained flash goes through Lestrade's eyes, but he glares amicably enough. "Yeah, that's what I want, that'll go well," he says, voice thick with sarcasm, then shakes his head and pulls his coat around himself. "I'm going to go."

"You just--" John starts, alarmed. Stroked me off in my hallway, he thinks. Expertly. He doesn't understand how they've veered off-course. His brain's spluttering like a guttering candle-flame, ill-equipped for nuances right now. "You can't just go."

Lestrade favours him with a sharp grin. "Anything else would be asking for trouble." His gaze flits up the darkened stairway, then back, and he adds, smirking, "You might be one of those silent types, but I know I'm bloody not."

"I'll come with you."

Lestrade's already shaking his head again. "He'll have solved it within the hour," he says. "He'll want you upstairs."

"Not like you want me," John says recklessly.

"You don't know that."

John opens his mouth to say, Unfortunately I think I do.

"Not now," Lestrade adds quietly, and gives him a significant look that seems to say Come on, sunshine, join the dots.

John goes still. For the first time, he's thinking about Sherlock's reaction, and fuck. Maybe this is the chain of events in which Sherlock becomes more interested in him than the case. Maybe not in a good way. "Maybe he won't notice," he says, feeling a shivery twinge at the thought of being read by that quicksilver gaze.

In lieu of answering Lestrade lifts his hand, brushes two fingertips against John's neck. Like pulling a trigger, John remembers a flash of wet heat descending over his skin, suction followed by that delicious scrape of teeth. Now he thinks about it, it's gently throbbing.

He tongues his lower lip again, revisiting the small metallic-tasting split. It's probably swollen. It's also starting to throb.

"Ah," John says, and now he's noticing the grooved marks of his own teeth at the base of his thumb, as well.

"I give it three seconds from when you walk through the door, tops," Lestrade says, and there's a blunt lack of apology in his voice that makes something else flick into John's memory.

"Sending him a message," John says slowly. "I thought you meant that you were sick of waiting around - but you didn't, did you? You meant-- I'm the message."

Lestrade gives him a long look, then nods. "Just putting the ball in his court," he says. "He can pretend not to notice. Or he can actually not notice," he says, wryness taking over his voice, "which would be all the answer either of us needs. Or he can hit it back to us - one way or another."

"Oh great," John says, swallowing. The burgeoning hysteria is back. They hadn't been on the same page after all, and they haven't veered off course either: this is what Lestrade's been aiming for all along.

"You know," John hears himself say, "I don't think I've ever gone this rapidly from orgasmic to nauseous before?"

Lestrade smiles. "Good night, Watson," he says, and reaches for the front door. Something flashes through his eyes, and he hesitates. "If he doesn't react," he says softly, "you could come over, finish what we, uh, started." Now he has the grace to look diffident. "If you like. Or you can tell me to go to hell."

John's words have dried up.

Lestrade seems to realise this, and clears his throat. "If I don't hear from you," he says, eyes shadowed again, "I'll assume it went well."

He walks out into the street. John holds onto the door for a moment, looking after him as he walks steadily away, hands deep in pockets, an incongruous figure in the fresh dawn light.

It occurs to him that actually they had been on the same page, of sorts, apart from the reasons they'd sought each other out: John trying to find a practical solution to their shared predicament, Lestrade devising something altogether more desperate. The idea of desperation seems wholly disproportionate - but Lestrade's been locked in Sherlock's orbit a lot longer than John, and maybe it's just a matter of time.

For a moment, John wonders if this is how the late Ms Smith's stupid, insufficiently brave new boyfriend had felt, a key player in a scheme not of his own devising.

He swallows and closes the door.

He hadn't been lying about the nausea. It coils in his belly as, holding himself carefully upright, he begins to climb the stairs. He can still feel Lestrade's mouth on his neck, his breath soft and fast, his fingers picking out unseen patterns on John's skin. John feels like it's written all over him, what they've done, how hard and fervently they've done it. To Sherlock, it probably is.

He stands in the doorway to the living room and clears his throat.

Sherlock glances up from the laptop screen, mouth shifting into a curious smile.

One. Two.

Sherlock looks abruptly away, as if slapped.

Three.