Fic: Elsewhere Come Morning - 1/7 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Elsewhere Come Morning
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 3.8k this part, 34.3k overall
Betas: vyctori and fogbutton
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: On second thought, flirting with an alternate reality version of his flatmate may have been a bad idea. (John-centric AU, follows directly on from The World on His Wrist)
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven
It takes John the better part of a week to catch Sherlock awake.
Sherlock, lucky prat that he is, spends those two days sleeping and watching crap telly in their hospital room.
“About time you woke up,” Sherlock remarks in his usual bored drawl. Sitting upright, the back of his bed cranked up to support him, he might as well be lounging on an overly large sofa. It’s a hospital gown rather than the robe and jimjams, but beyond that, this is Sherlock in a classic slump of boredom. Unwashed hair tousled in frustration, an untouched plate on a tray before him, the dismissive scowl; all par for the course. There’s a laptop open on the table between their beds and John is utterly unsurprised to see that it’s his, not Sherlock’s.
He is possibly the most reassuring sight John has ever seen.
Between operating in Chelmsford, serving in Afghanistan, and resting from events in his other London, John has had more than enough time to think of what to say to this man. There are demands, insults, questions, threats. What the hell had Sherlock thought he was doing? Calling Moriarty out, going alone, handing over the missile plans - how is this man meant to be a genius?
John knows exactly how he’s going to pick this fight, but when he opens his mouth, he has a sudden realization.
“Sherlock, I- That little bastard. Moriarty stole my jacket!”
Sherlock looks at him. “You- ‘Moriarty stole your jacket’,” he echoes.
“I liked that jacket,” John protests. “I had things in it.” Second jacket he’d lost that week. At least they hadn’t been the same one.
“Like what?” Sherlock asks, face perfectly twisted in incredulity.
John can’t keep down his smile. “Things,” he insists.
“He strapped a bomb on you and you’re annoyed at losing your pocket detritus.”
“The bombs were everywhere, I saw that coming. No one said anything about stealing my jacket.”
Although Sherlock isn’t actually gaping at him, it’s the closest he’s ever come to it.
John’s not sure who starts it, but once they start laughing, it’s wholly possible they’re not going to stop. Stress and painkillers. It’s all stress and painkillers, and it takes some time for it to subside.
“I thought I was dead,” John says when the laughing ends. “I just spent- I don’t even know how long. I thought I was dead.”
“I’m reasonably certain it doesn’t work that way, John,” Sherlock tells him.
“Of course it does,” John says. “You go to Essex when you die, don’t you know that?”
Sherlock’s face can’t seem to decide what it wants to do. His mouth is still smiling, still on the verge of a laugh, but his eyes scan John’s face in what might be alarm, or even concern. “What dosage did they give you?”
“It’s not that much. Just for the shoulder and the almost drowning.”
Sherlock’s smile is long gone at that, replaced by a degree of seriousness that suits him poorly. The expression doesn’t suit his face, doesn’t quite fit, as if the emotion has never had enough practice sitting upon his impossible features.
Something in John shifts and warms and unfurls. Sociopaths don’t know remorse, but Sherlock does.
“What?” John asks.
“In the pool,” Sherlock says, picking his words with uncharacteristic deliberation, “it took me a moment to realize the bomb hadn’t gone off. What with the flashbombs Mycroft’s men used, it was very loud and bright. The water was cold enough that I couldn’t- that I didn’t register the lack of a proper explosion.” Sherlock’s eyes wander a bit, here and there, darting towards John and away.
“Okay,” John says. “That makes sense. Why are you telling me this?”
“Well, I responded to the situation as if there had been an explosion,” Sherlock said, very much not looking at him.
John pieces it together.
Then he pieces it together again, just to be sure.
“Sherlock,” John says.
“Yes, John.”
“Did you hold me underwater? While I was unconscious.”
“...yes,” Sherlock admits. “A bit.”
“You almost drowned me.”
“If we could focus on the ‘almost’-”
“Christ, are you serious?” John asks, his grin so wide. “Everything I’ve done for you and you almost kill me twice in a minute.”
“John, I-”
“No,” John says. “It’s fine. I mean it, it’s all fine. You can never so much as think of doing it again, but it’s fine.” He feels so justified right now. All the panic, all the fear: fully justified. One of the few things worse than terror is feeling like an idiot for being terrified. John had rediscovered that very quickly with Mycroft. Hearing this, John feels.... John feels better.
Sherlock watches him with wary, guilty eyes and John can only smile.
“I was going to yell at you a bit more,” he says, “but I think you’ve got it on your own.”
“You’re still going to yell,” Sherlock tells him. “You’re sorting through relief right now, and then you’re going to be angry.”
“I’m sure I will be,” John agrees. That’s how he feels: agreeable.
“I’d like to be home before then.”
“Tomorrow.” If he’s kept track of this timeline as he ought, Sherlock should be permitted to walk on that leg in a day.
“Yes. Once we’re there, Mycroft wants to put us under lock and key.”
“Kind of him.”
Sherlock huffs.
John may never stop smiling.
It’s another day in Chelmsford and John is furious.
He’s long since resigned himself to Marta thinking he’s crazy, but today doesn’t take the cake: it’s stolen the bakery.
Because that was worse than waiting for a hangover, infinitely worse. Sherlock fucking Holmes nearly killed them both. Doing it John’s way, John’s sane, careful way, was clearly the better option. What is wrong with contacting the police? Where is it cheating to call in for back-up?
Before John fell asleep in the hospital, he’d sent Sarah an email from his laptop. Which is a shit way of breaking up with someone, but it had seemed important at the time, except he clearly shouldn’t be permitted to make life choices right now.
I realize I’m turning out to be a very poor emotional investment, he’d written. The way things have been going recently - and are likely to in the near future - I think it would be best if we stayed friends.
Actually, no, that was a good life choice. That life choice should be applied across his entire life right now, all four of it.
It’s another day in Afghanistan and John is functioning.
It’s not quite autopilot, not quite bad, not quite fine. Not numb. Tired.
Drained.
John is good like this in Afghanistan. John knows how to go and keep going. What he doesn’t particularly know is how to stop. Waiting is different, isn’t the same as stopping. He isn’t fast or slow; his life is. John himself is constant, content to be so.
Sherlock, on the other hand....
Sherlock is something else. John isn’t sure what it is, but he thinks of being without it and that’s not a thought worth having.
He expects to wake in his flat but instead blinks awake in a hospital bed. It’s still a London, though.
Turning over onto his side, his right side, his relatively unbruised side, he looks through the dim morning light to Sherlock’s sleeping face. By all rights, John should hate him. He shouldn’t... this. But he doesn’t and he does, and he’ll simply have to live with that.
He plans to.
When Sherlock wakes, John’s already been on his laptop for half an hour or so, checking his emails and confirming that, yes, he is single once more. He has his own watch back on and everything feels a bit more normal, probably more than it should.
“John?” Sherlock asks softly.
John closes the laptop. “Let’s go home. I haven’t been home in weeks.”
“Four days,” Sherlock says.
“Hyperbole,” John answers. “Let’s go home.”
They do.
Sherlock on crutches is a nightmare. He’s wobbling and hurt, frustrated beyond measure, and they haven’t even tried getting him up the stairs yet. If it were a full leg cast, it would be hopeless. As it is, the below-the-knee cast is barely manageable. If the tibia had been hit dead on rather than clipped - thank god for the sniper’s bad angle - John doesn’t think either of them would survive the recovery process.
Before Sherlock can do something else stupid, John urges the crutches out of Sherlock’s hands and tucks himself against the man’s left side. Sherlock’s arm around his shoulders is immediate and warm. John slides his arm around Sherlock’s waist in return, gripping hard at the hip. Sherlock’s hand goes to the railing.
Up they go, all seventeen steps.
“This is stupid,” Sherlock huffs, strain clear in his voice.
“At least your injury is real.”
“I’d rather it wasn’t.”
John’s answer is his continuing assistance, his shoulders beneath Sherlock’s arm, hand on his hip. At the top of the stairs, John is sure to move him away from any danger area, positioning him next to a wall before pulling back.
Sherlock catches him, keeps him close. “Where are you going?” Almost alarmed.
“Left your crutches downstairs,” John reminds him.
“They can be left against a wall. I can’t.”
“Sofa, then?” John asks.
“Bed,” Sherlock corrects.
He might have hesitated to say it.
He might not have.
John doesn’t hesitate in getting him there.
Sherlock’s room is uncharted territory, the sort that defies all attempts at cartography or navigation through sheer, overwhelming chaos. This is a room for the truly bloody-minded, in more senses of the term than one. If he can trust his nose, he’d say there’s nothing rotting in here, but this is Sherlock. John can’t imagine there isn’t some severed body part somewhere.
With very careful steps and some creative shuffling, he manoeuvres Sherlock to the side of the bed that doesn’t have a pile of books looming over it. He wonders, distantly, how many of those belonged to Lukas or Van Coon - he recognizes far too many of them for it to be coincidence - before trying to help Sherlock sit.
“Yes, doctor, I do know how to sit down.” He simply refuses to do so. Sherlock’s arm lifts from his shoulder as the man shakes off his long coat. Underneath, his shirt is white, stretched tight over his back, not quite properly tucked into his trousers. It catches John’s breath, the possibilities in that shirt. Pulling it up, tugging it out, and letting his hands venture where they would.
John touches, a fingertip of contact to the base of a long spine.
Unsteady, Sherlock turns, left hand on the footboard, right hand fisted in John’s remaining black jacket. John’s hand drags across tight silk, the slide less smooth when sweaty palms are involved.
Grey eyes pierce his face.
John lifts his chin, an offer and a show of defiance both.
He expects Sherlock to laugh at him or kiss him, but not the two at once, not a throaty rumble against his lips, into his mouth. The sound makes something in John stop, some ever-weary, ever-vigilant piece of him that’s forgotten how to lie down and curl up, some piece that’s never before learned.
Sherlock is warm, surprisingly so. He’s no warmer than most, but that’s the shock of it, the recurring shock of the man’s humanity made tangible through skin. He is no ghost or statue, no phantom or marble man. His arms go around John’s shoulders, leaning more heavily on John’s right. John lets him lean, relishes it, secure and steady in a position of support.
He tugs the shirt out from those trousers, has his hands half up it in some inapplicable breast-seeking instinct. He catches the mistake in time and splays his hands across too prominent ribs. Sherlock sucks on his tongue, pulls him closer, and John’s hands slide around to his back. He tells his fingertips they are absolutely not looking for a bra strap there.
They shuffle closer, fit together as best they’re able. When Sherlock starts shoving at John’s jacket, the unstable man nearly falls over, backwards onto the bed, and John thinks that’s a worthwhile idea. Sherlock is unfairly tall.
“You said you knew how to sit,” he prompts, nipping at that jaw.
Sherlock counters with a hand on the back of his head, holding him in place, groaning when John can’t resist his need to lick and suck. “Your timing is atrocious.”
“My timing is fantastic,” John counters.
“I’m going to be in this cast for months.”
John sucks on his neck as he speaks, the vibrations shaking out against his lips and tongue. The stubble’s a bit odd, but not off-putting. “Just the two. And that’s your bad timing, not mine.”
“Shut up and take my trousers off.”
“Christ, you’re going to be demanding, aren’t you?”
Another low rumble, this against John’s ear. “You have no idea,” Sherlock replies, and John can’t undress him fast enough. Sherlock leans on him as John fumbles with the fastenings, navigating the button and zip with more difficulty when there’s a bulge beneath. There’s a tongue at John’s ear, behind his ear, flicking, distracting. All hesitation vanishes.
Pants and trousers around his knees, Sherlock sits, gripping John and the footboard. John kneels, guiding the clothing down one leg, then the other, careful as he can when Sherlock’s cock is right fucking there, dark with blood and bobbing with the impatient movements of Sherlock’s hips.
“Hurry up,” Sherlock whinges.
“Hold on, hold on,” John urges, untying shoelaces, removing a sock, easing off trousers and pants. That done, he looks, simply looks, and feels himself lick his lips. Sherlock’s prick twitches, jerking upward with a sudden shock of racing blood, and John groans before Sherlock does.
He doesn’t realize what he’s moved to do until Sherlock slips his thumb into John’s open mouth. John sucks, touches himself through his own painfully tight trousers. Sherlock’s cock is still right there, precum leaking, begging for a good lick, and for a second, John doesn’t know if he’s going to come or gag, blissfully choking on the finger fucking his mouth.
“After,” Sherlock tells him, eyes blown dark. His other hand grips John’s hair. “If I don’t finish, yes, anything you want. Suck me dry, just fuck me first.”
John whines around his thumb, actually whines. He pulls off with a pop and a nip. “Your leg.”
“You’ll be careful.”
“I’ve-”
“The drawer, John. Bedside table, top drawer.”
“Sherlock-”
“How long are you going to make me wait?” Sherlock demands. There’s something in his face, in his voice, something so far beyond impatience that it hurts. John has no choice in it, in rising up, in kissing him hard and dirty, in the hands that pull at him, catch him.
“Top drawer?” he asks into Sherlock’s mouth.
“Top drawer.” Sherlock pulls back, pushes him. “Before this ends in frottage, go.”
John hurries about it, leaving Sherlock to remove his shirt, wiggling about on the duvet. John opens the drawer and oh god. “You have four dildos!”
“It’s called variety, John. There’s also lube. I assume you still have that condom in your wallet.”
“What? Yeah.” Fuck. Four.
Then he hands Sherlock the lube and can’t breathe for another reason entirely.
It’s not the nudity, although, yes, of course it’s the nudity. That’s the good piece, the half of this sight that makes his cock throb. The other piece, the half that makes his hands fist so tightly, it’s the mottled bruising up Sherlock’s right side, the distinctive marks of the Golem’s fingerprints around his neck.
John opens his mouth and words almost come out.
I killed the man who did that to you, one of him. The man who sent him, I got one of him killed too. Other you, he’s untouched. No bruised body, no grazed tibia, no surgery, no cast. It should be the other way around, I want it the other way round. I should use his life to protect yours, but I don’t think I can. I’m sorry, Christ, I am.
“Stop that,” Sherlock gasps, easing a long, pale finger inside of himself. John watches each knuckle disappear. “Less guilt and fewer clothes. And put a pillow under my hips while you’re at it.”
John shucks his jumper, unbuttons his own shirt. He pulls off his dog tags rather than let them dangle. Sherlock’s eyes are hungry across his chest, possessive over the bruising along John’s left side, their mirroring injuries, simultaneously sustained on impact. The destructive power of surface tension.
He fumbles with his shoes, yanks off his socks. Trousers down, pants off, and then he has to sort through the pockets to find his wallet, that condom, half frantic for it. He did this in the wrong order.
“Sherlock, are you-” No, only two fingers up his arse. That can’t possibly be enough. Except, no, Sherlock clearly knows what he’s doing. The lube makes wet, filthy sounds. Fuck, but that’s- God.
“Pillow,” Sherlock reminds him. “Under hips.”
“Right,” John says, grabbing it. “Right. Lift up.”
It takes some arranging, but not much, the pillow at the edge of the bed, Sherlock’s waiting arsehole above it, slick with lube, almost dripping. Sherlock spreads his own legs, hands beneath his knees as he stares into John, eyes too demanding to be called desperate. John has to stop, has to turn away and breathe before he rolls the condom on. Sherlock nearly ruins it all, shouting at him, low and rough and aggravated, as if John’s the one doing something terribly unfair.
John returns to him, mindful of the cast around calf and shin, and Sherlock wraps his good leg around John’s hip.
“Hurry up.”
“Maybe if you weren’t humping my stomach-” He breaks off into a groan as he gets it, as he finds the spot and pushes in and fuck fuck fuck that’s too tight, that can’t be, fuck that’s good, oh god, that’s barely the first inch. “Sherlock.”
“More.” The response immediate. “More. Now.”
“You’re too tense, I’ll, I-”
Sherlock shifts, snapping his hips upward, pulling at John. “Doesn’t matter,” he pants. “Give me a minute. Doesn’t matter.”
John sinks farther into him, into tight, endless heat, but it’s Sherlock who melts, who turns soft and pliant with a wordless moan, jerking around John’s prick. John touches him, pumps him, the angle almost familiar. Sherlock swats at him, tugs John’s hand to his side, pressing his fingers against mottled skin.
He takes the hint as he finds his rhythm, digs fingertips into bruises and Sherlock makes such a noise. John’s hand travels upward. To the ring of marks around that pale throat. He looks and sees and the anger hits, absolute fury.
“You idiot, you fucking- You don’t do that, do you hear me? Never. Fucking. Again.” Hard, slapping thrusts. If John weren’t sodding him, he’d be spanking him.
“John.”
Bending him in half, forcing those legs up, cast against his shoulder. “You can die, Sherlock, you can be dead.”
He pushes Sherlock past coherency, past anything but lying here, head lolling, taking it up his arse and mewling for more, and it almost undoes him entirely. Pale skin flushed and sweating. Sherlock clenching around him, hands securing John’s grip on his hips. As if John is the one who might leave, could leave, could run off to his death without him.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” John pants. His balls slap against Sherlock’s bum with each hard word, each sharp thrust.
“Thought I- I could-”
“You can’t! Not alone!”
“Would have killed you,” Sherlock gasps between his groans.
“Don’t care.” Tugging his cock, a hard grip and pull, sweat and lube and skin. “Not the point.”
Sherlock grabs at him, grabs at John’s shoulder, left shoulder, reaching up between his own knees. Sherlock’s thumb digs into his scar and, “Yes, it is,” and John comes, John comes so hard he goes blind.
He doesn’t know where he is, just for a moment, if this is Afghanistan or Chelmsford, Grant Road or Baker Street. Vision returns, sensation consumes, and that low groan is Sherlock Holmes mid-orgasm.
John pumps him harder, faster, pushes him through it. Sherlock clenches around him, spasms, and it’s too much, not enough. John wants him again, as soon as his body can stand it. He wants to see Sherlock make that face again, see his head tilt back, mouth twisting open. The tremble and shake of his hips. He can’t believe he just- they really just did that.
There is another man’s semen cooling across his stomach and John is surprisingly all right with this.
He stands there, panting, trembling a bit himself, and yes. Very much all right, better than. Still angry, bit dizzy, but fine. When Sherlock takes his hand to lick his fingers, John shoots right up to mindbendingly fantastic. Excellent beyond comprehension. Absolutely brilliant.
“You realize you’re saying that out loud?” Sherlock asks him, very mildly for someone with a prick still up their arse.
John chokes only to see the gleam in Sherlock’s eyes. He pulls out more roughly than he should, the best sort of tit for tat. “Liar,” John says, easing Sherlock’s legs down. His thighs tremble under John’s hands.
“You might as well be,” Sherlock counters, once he’s recovered. He props himself up on his elbows, scooting lengthwise across the bed, getting his legs up on it. Each wince is a shudder of delight. It’s a sight to behold, as compelling as it is bizarre. “You’ve a very expressive face.”
“Go on then,” John says. “Read my mind.”
“You’re wondering where the bin is, which is over there, under the window, next to the desk. You’re concerned about my leg, which is as fine as it’s going to be. You’re mildly disappointed you didn’t see the start of my orgasm, which is also fine, because you’re going to see a great deal more. You weren’t worried about this being a one-time thing, which is why you broke up with Sarah via email last night, less for her sake and more for mine. Appreciated but unnecessary - I don’t have much in the way of qualms.”
“I noticed that,” John remarks, crawling onto the bed with him after disposing of the condom. “Anything else?”
Sherlock shifts onto his side, his bruised right side. He swings his left leg over John’s hip, the cast weighing down the contact. “You’re experiencing an overwhelming desire to kiss me.”
“No, I’m not.” Not overwhelming.
“Yes you are, come here.”
It’s John’s turn to laugh into his flatmate’s mouth, but Sherlock doesn’t seem to mind.
next
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 3.8k this part, 34.3k overall
Betas: vyctori and fogbutton
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: On second thought, flirting with an alternate reality version of his flatmate may have been a bad idea. (John-centric AU, follows directly on from The World on His Wrist)
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven
It takes John the better part of a week to catch Sherlock awake.
Sherlock, lucky prat that he is, spends those two days sleeping and watching crap telly in their hospital room.
“About time you woke up,” Sherlock remarks in his usual bored drawl. Sitting upright, the back of his bed cranked up to support him, he might as well be lounging on an overly large sofa. It’s a hospital gown rather than the robe and jimjams, but beyond that, this is Sherlock in a classic slump of boredom. Unwashed hair tousled in frustration, an untouched plate on a tray before him, the dismissive scowl; all par for the course. There’s a laptop open on the table between their beds and John is utterly unsurprised to see that it’s his, not Sherlock’s.
He is possibly the most reassuring sight John has ever seen.
Between operating in Chelmsford, serving in Afghanistan, and resting from events in his other London, John has had more than enough time to think of what to say to this man. There are demands, insults, questions, threats. What the hell had Sherlock thought he was doing? Calling Moriarty out, going alone, handing over the missile plans - how is this man meant to be a genius?
John knows exactly how he’s going to pick this fight, but when he opens his mouth, he has a sudden realization.
“Sherlock, I- That little bastard. Moriarty stole my jacket!”
Sherlock looks at him. “You- ‘Moriarty stole your jacket’,” he echoes.
“I liked that jacket,” John protests. “I had things in it.” Second jacket he’d lost that week. At least they hadn’t been the same one.
“Like what?” Sherlock asks, face perfectly twisted in incredulity.
John can’t keep down his smile. “Things,” he insists.
“He strapped a bomb on you and you’re annoyed at losing your pocket detritus.”
“The bombs were everywhere, I saw that coming. No one said anything about stealing my jacket.”
Although Sherlock isn’t actually gaping at him, it’s the closest he’s ever come to it.
John’s not sure who starts it, but once they start laughing, it’s wholly possible they’re not going to stop. Stress and painkillers. It’s all stress and painkillers, and it takes some time for it to subside.
“I thought I was dead,” John says when the laughing ends. “I just spent- I don’t even know how long. I thought I was dead.”
“I’m reasonably certain it doesn’t work that way, John,” Sherlock tells him.
“Of course it does,” John says. “You go to Essex when you die, don’t you know that?”
Sherlock’s face can’t seem to decide what it wants to do. His mouth is still smiling, still on the verge of a laugh, but his eyes scan John’s face in what might be alarm, or even concern. “What dosage did they give you?”
“It’s not that much. Just for the shoulder and the almost drowning.”
Sherlock’s smile is long gone at that, replaced by a degree of seriousness that suits him poorly. The expression doesn’t suit his face, doesn’t quite fit, as if the emotion has never had enough practice sitting upon his impossible features.
Something in John shifts and warms and unfurls. Sociopaths don’t know remorse, but Sherlock does.
“What?” John asks.
“In the pool,” Sherlock says, picking his words with uncharacteristic deliberation, “it took me a moment to realize the bomb hadn’t gone off. What with the flashbombs Mycroft’s men used, it was very loud and bright. The water was cold enough that I couldn’t- that I didn’t register the lack of a proper explosion.” Sherlock’s eyes wander a bit, here and there, darting towards John and away.
“Okay,” John says. “That makes sense. Why are you telling me this?”
“Well, I responded to the situation as if there had been an explosion,” Sherlock said, very much not looking at him.
John pieces it together.
Then he pieces it together again, just to be sure.
“Sherlock,” John says.
“Yes, John.”
“Did you hold me underwater? While I was unconscious.”
“...yes,” Sherlock admits. “A bit.”
“You almost drowned me.”
“If we could focus on the ‘almost’-”
“Christ, are you serious?” John asks, his grin so wide. “Everything I’ve done for you and you almost kill me twice in a minute.”
“John, I-”
“No,” John says. “It’s fine. I mean it, it’s all fine. You can never so much as think of doing it again, but it’s fine.” He feels so justified right now. All the panic, all the fear: fully justified. One of the few things worse than terror is feeling like an idiot for being terrified. John had rediscovered that very quickly with Mycroft. Hearing this, John feels.... John feels better.
Sherlock watches him with wary, guilty eyes and John can only smile.
“I was going to yell at you a bit more,” he says, “but I think you’ve got it on your own.”
“You’re still going to yell,” Sherlock tells him. “You’re sorting through relief right now, and then you’re going to be angry.”
“I’m sure I will be,” John agrees. That’s how he feels: agreeable.
“I’d like to be home before then.”
“Tomorrow.” If he’s kept track of this timeline as he ought, Sherlock should be permitted to walk on that leg in a day.
“Yes. Once we’re there, Mycroft wants to put us under lock and key.”
“Kind of him.”
Sherlock huffs.
John may never stop smiling.
It’s another day in Chelmsford and John is furious.
He’s long since resigned himself to Marta thinking he’s crazy, but today doesn’t take the cake: it’s stolen the bakery.
Because that was worse than waiting for a hangover, infinitely worse. Sherlock fucking Holmes nearly killed them both. Doing it John’s way, John’s sane, careful way, was clearly the better option. What is wrong with contacting the police? Where is it cheating to call in for back-up?
Before John fell asleep in the hospital, he’d sent Sarah an email from his laptop. Which is a shit way of breaking up with someone, but it had seemed important at the time, except he clearly shouldn’t be permitted to make life choices right now.
I realize I’m turning out to be a very poor emotional investment, he’d written. The way things have been going recently - and are likely to in the near future - I think it would be best if we stayed friends.
Actually, no, that was a good life choice. That life choice should be applied across his entire life right now, all four of it.
It’s another day in Afghanistan and John is functioning.
It’s not quite autopilot, not quite bad, not quite fine. Not numb. Tired.
Drained.
John is good like this in Afghanistan. John knows how to go and keep going. What he doesn’t particularly know is how to stop. Waiting is different, isn’t the same as stopping. He isn’t fast or slow; his life is. John himself is constant, content to be so.
Sherlock, on the other hand....
Sherlock is something else. John isn’t sure what it is, but he thinks of being without it and that’s not a thought worth having.
He expects to wake in his flat but instead blinks awake in a hospital bed. It’s still a London, though.
Turning over onto his side, his right side, his relatively unbruised side, he looks through the dim morning light to Sherlock’s sleeping face. By all rights, John should hate him. He shouldn’t... this. But he doesn’t and he does, and he’ll simply have to live with that.
He plans to.
When Sherlock wakes, John’s already been on his laptop for half an hour or so, checking his emails and confirming that, yes, he is single once more. He has his own watch back on and everything feels a bit more normal, probably more than it should.
“John?” Sherlock asks softly.
John closes the laptop. “Let’s go home. I haven’t been home in weeks.”
“Four days,” Sherlock says.
“Hyperbole,” John answers. “Let’s go home.”
They do.
Sherlock on crutches is a nightmare. He’s wobbling and hurt, frustrated beyond measure, and they haven’t even tried getting him up the stairs yet. If it were a full leg cast, it would be hopeless. As it is, the below-the-knee cast is barely manageable. If the tibia had been hit dead on rather than clipped - thank god for the sniper’s bad angle - John doesn’t think either of them would survive the recovery process.
Before Sherlock can do something else stupid, John urges the crutches out of Sherlock’s hands and tucks himself against the man’s left side. Sherlock’s arm around his shoulders is immediate and warm. John slides his arm around Sherlock’s waist in return, gripping hard at the hip. Sherlock’s hand goes to the railing.
Up they go, all seventeen steps.
“This is stupid,” Sherlock huffs, strain clear in his voice.
“At least your injury is real.”
“I’d rather it wasn’t.”
John’s answer is his continuing assistance, his shoulders beneath Sherlock’s arm, hand on his hip. At the top of the stairs, John is sure to move him away from any danger area, positioning him next to a wall before pulling back.
Sherlock catches him, keeps him close. “Where are you going?” Almost alarmed.
“Left your crutches downstairs,” John reminds him.
“They can be left against a wall. I can’t.”
“Sofa, then?” John asks.
“Bed,” Sherlock corrects.
He might have hesitated to say it.
He might not have.
John doesn’t hesitate in getting him there.
Sherlock’s room is uncharted territory, the sort that defies all attempts at cartography or navigation through sheer, overwhelming chaos. This is a room for the truly bloody-minded, in more senses of the term than one. If he can trust his nose, he’d say there’s nothing rotting in here, but this is Sherlock. John can’t imagine there isn’t some severed body part somewhere.
With very careful steps and some creative shuffling, he manoeuvres Sherlock to the side of the bed that doesn’t have a pile of books looming over it. He wonders, distantly, how many of those belonged to Lukas or Van Coon - he recognizes far too many of them for it to be coincidence - before trying to help Sherlock sit.
“Yes, doctor, I do know how to sit down.” He simply refuses to do so. Sherlock’s arm lifts from his shoulder as the man shakes off his long coat. Underneath, his shirt is white, stretched tight over his back, not quite properly tucked into his trousers. It catches John’s breath, the possibilities in that shirt. Pulling it up, tugging it out, and letting his hands venture where they would.
John touches, a fingertip of contact to the base of a long spine.
Unsteady, Sherlock turns, left hand on the footboard, right hand fisted in John’s remaining black jacket. John’s hand drags across tight silk, the slide less smooth when sweaty palms are involved.
Grey eyes pierce his face.
John lifts his chin, an offer and a show of defiance both.
He expects Sherlock to laugh at him or kiss him, but not the two at once, not a throaty rumble against his lips, into his mouth. The sound makes something in John stop, some ever-weary, ever-vigilant piece of him that’s forgotten how to lie down and curl up, some piece that’s never before learned.
Sherlock is warm, surprisingly so. He’s no warmer than most, but that’s the shock of it, the recurring shock of the man’s humanity made tangible through skin. He is no ghost or statue, no phantom or marble man. His arms go around John’s shoulders, leaning more heavily on John’s right. John lets him lean, relishes it, secure and steady in a position of support.
He tugs the shirt out from those trousers, has his hands half up it in some inapplicable breast-seeking instinct. He catches the mistake in time and splays his hands across too prominent ribs. Sherlock sucks on his tongue, pulls him closer, and John’s hands slide around to his back. He tells his fingertips they are absolutely not looking for a bra strap there.
They shuffle closer, fit together as best they’re able. When Sherlock starts shoving at John’s jacket, the unstable man nearly falls over, backwards onto the bed, and John thinks that’s a worthwhile idea. Sherlock is unfairly tall.
“You said you knew how to sit,” he prompts, nipping at that jaw.
Sherlock counters with a hand on the back of his head, holding him in place, groaning when John can’t resist his need to lick and suck. “Your timing is atrocious.”
“My timing is fantastic,” John counters.
“I’m going to be in this cast for months.”
John sucks on his neck as he speaks, the vibrations shaking out against his lips and tongue. The stubble’s a bit odd, but not off-putting. “Just the two. And that’s your bad timing, not mine.”
“Shut up and take my trousers off.”
“Christ, you’re going to be demanding, aren’t you?”
Another low rumble, this against John’s ear. “You have no idea,” Sherlock replies, and John can’t undress him fast enough. Sherlock leans on him as John fumbles with the fastenings, navigating the button and zip with more difficulty when there’s a bulge beneath. There’s a tongue at John’s ear, behind his ear, flicking, distracting. All hesitation vanishes.
Pants and trousers around his knees, Sherlock sits, gripping John and the footboard. John kneels, guiding the clothing down one leg, then the other, careful as he can when Sherlock’s cock is right fucking there, dark with blood and bobbing with the impatient movements of Sherlock’s hips.
“Hurry up,” Sherlock whinges.
“Hold on, hold on,” John urges, untying shoelaces, removing a sock, easing off trousers and pants. That done, he looks, simply looks, and feels himself lick his lips. Sherlock’s prick twitches, jerking upward with a sudden shock of racing blood, and John groans before Sherlock does.
He doesn’t realize what he’s moved to do until Sherlock slips his thumb into John’s open mouth. John sucks, touches himself through his own painfully tight trousers. Sherlock’s cock is still right there, precum leaking, begging for a good lick, and for a second, John doesn’t know if he’s going to come or gag, blissfully choking on the finger fucking his mouth.
“After,” Sherlock tells him, eyes blown dark. His other hand grips John’s hair. “If I don’t finish, yes, anything you want. Suck me dry, just fuck me first.”
John whines around his thumb, actually whines. He pulls off with a pop and a nip. “Your leg.”
“You’ll be careful.”
“I’ve-”
“The drawer, John. Bedside table, top drawer.”
“Sherlock-”
“How long are you going to make me wait?” Sherlock demands. There’s something in his face, in his voice, something so far beyond impatience that it hurts. John has no choice in it, in rising up, in kissing him hard and dirty, in the hands that pull at him, catch him.
“Top drawer?” he asks into Sherlock’s mouth.
“Top drawer.” Sherlock pulls back, pushes him. “Before this ends in frottage, go.”
John hurries about it, leaving Sherlock to remove his shirt, wiggling about on the duvet. John opens the drawer and oh god. “You have four dildos!”
“It’s called variety, John. There’s also lube. I assume you still have that condom in your wallet.”
“What? Yeah.” Fuck. Four.
Then he hands Sherlock the lube and can’t breathe for another reason entirely.
It’s not the nudity, although, yes, of course it’s the nudity. That’s the good piece, the half of this sight that makes his cock throb. The other piece, the half that makes his hands fist so tightly, it’s the mottled bruising up Sherlock’s right side, the distinctive marks of the Golem’s fingerprints around his neck.
John opens his mouth and words almost come out.
I killed the man who did that to you, one of him. The man who sent him, I got one of him killed too. Other you, he’s untouched. No bruised body, no grazed tibia, no surgery, no cast. It should be the other way around, I want it the other way round. I should use his life to protect yours, but I don’t think I can. I’m sorry, Christ, I am.
“Stop that,” Sherlock gasps, easing a long, pale finger inside of himself. John watches each knuckle disappear. “Less guilt and fewer clothes. And put a pillow under my hips while you’re at it.”
John shucks his jumper, unbuttons his own shirt. He pulls off his dog tags rather than let them dangle. Sherlock’s eyes are hungry across his chest, possessive over the bruising along John’s left side, their mirroring injuries, simultaneously sustained on impact. The destructive power of surface tension.
He fumbles with his shoes, yanks off his socks. Trousers down, pants off, and then he has to sort through the pockets to find his wallet, that condom, half frantic for it. He did this in the wrong order.
“Sherlock, are you-” No, only two fingers up his arse. That can’t possibly be enough. Except, no, Sherlock clearly knows what he’s doing. The lube makes wet, filthy sounds. Fuck, but that’s- God.
“Pillow,” Sherlock reminds him. “Under hips.”
“Right,” John says, grabbing it. “Right. Lift up.”
It takes some arranging, but not much, the pillow at the edge of the bed, Sherlock’s waiting arsehole above it, slick with lube, almost dripping. Sherlock spreads his own legs, hands beneath his knees as he stares into John, eyes too demanding to be called desperate. John has to stop, has to turn away and breathe before he rolls the condom on. Sherlock nearly ruins it all, shouting at him, low and rough and aggravated, as if John’s the one doing something terribly unfair.
John returns to him, mindful of the cast around calf and shin, and Sherlock wraps his good leg around John’s hip.
“Hurry up.”
“Maybe if you weren’t humping my stomach-” He breaks off into a groan as he gets it, as he finds the spot and pushes in and fuck fuck fuck that’s too tight, that can’t be, fuck that’s good, oh god, that’s barely the first inch. “Sherlock.”
“More.” The response immediate. “More. Now.”
“You’re too tense, I’ll, I-”
Sherlock shifts, snapping his hips upward, pulling at John. “Doesn’t matter,” he pants. “Give me a minute. Doesn’t matter.”
John sinks farther into him, into tight, endless heat, but it’s Sherlock who melts, who turns soft and pliant with a wordless moan, jerking around John’s prick. John touches him, pumps him, the angle almost familiar. Sherlock swats at him, tugs John’s hand to his side, pressing his fingers against mottled skin.
He takes the hint as he finds his rhythm, digs fingertips into bruises and Sherlock makes such a noise. John’s hand travels upward. To the ring of marks around that pale throat. He looks and sees and the anger hits, absolute fury.
“You idiot, you fucking- You don’t do that, do you hear me? Never. Fucking. Again.” Hard, slapping thrusts. If John weren’t sodding him, he’d be spanking him.
“John.”
Bending him in half, forcing those legs up, cast against his shoulder. “You can die, Sherlock, you can be dead.”
He pushes Sherlock past coherency, past anything but lying here, head lolling, taking it up his arse and mewling for more, and it almost undoes him entirely. Pale skin flushed and sweating. Sherlock clenching around him, hands securing John’s grip on his hips. As if John is the one who might leave, could leave, could run off to his death without him.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” John pants. His balls slap against Sherlock’s bum with each hard word, each sharp thrust.
“Thought I- I could-”
“You can’t! Not alone!”
“Would have killed you,” Sherlock gasps between his groans.
“Don’t care.” Tugging his cock, a hard grip and pull, sweat and lube and skin. “Not the point.”
Sherlock grabs at him, grabs at John’s shoulder, left shoulder, reaching up between his own knees. Sherlock’s thumb digs into his scar and, “Yes, it is,” and John comes, John comes so hard he goes blind.
He doesn’t know where he is, just for a moment, if this is Afghanistan or Chelmsford, Grant Road or Baker Street. Vision returns, sensation consumes, and that low groan is Sherlock Holmes mid-orgasm.
John pumps him harder, faster, pushes him through it. Sherlock clenches around him, spasms, and it’s too much, not enough. John wants him again, as soon as his body can stand it. He wants to see Sherlock make that face again, see his head tilt back, mouth twisting open. The tremble and shake of his hips. He can’t believe he just- they really just did that.
There is another man’s semen cooling across his stomach and John is surprisingly all right with this.
He stands there, panting, trembling a bit himself, and yes. Very much all right, better than. Still angry, bit dizzy, but fine. When Sherlock takes his hand to lick his fingers, John shoots right up to mindbendingly fantastic. Excellent beyond comprehension. Absolutely brilliant.
“You realize you’re saying that out loud?” Sherlock asks him, very mildly for someone with a prick still up their arse.
John chokes only to see the gleam in Sherlock’s eyes. He pulls out more roughly than he should, the best sort of tit for tat. “Liar,” John says, easing Sherlock’s legs down. His thighs tremble under John’s hands.
“You might as well be,” Sherlock counters, once he’s recovered. He props himself up on his elbows, scooting lengthwise across the bed, getting his legs up on it. Each wince is a shudder of delight. It’s a sight to behold, as compelling as it is bizarre. “You’ve a very expressive face.”
“Go on then,” John says. “Read my mind.”
“You’re wondering where the bin is, which is over there, under the window, next to the desk. You’re concerned about my leg, which is as fine as it’s going to be. You’re mildly disappointed you didn’t see the start of my orgasm, which is also fine, because you’re going to see a great deal more. You weren’t worried about this being a one-time thing, which is why you broke up with Sarah via email last night, less for her sake and more for mine. Appreciated but unnecessary - I don’t have much in the way of qualms.”
“I noticed that,” John remarks, crawling onto the bed with him after disposing of the condom. “Anything else?”
Sherlock shifts onto his side, his bruised right side. He swings his left leg over John’s hip, the cast weighing down the contact. “You’re experiencing an overwhelming desire to kiss me.”
“No, I’m not.” Not overwhelming.
“Yes you are, come here.”
It’s John’s turn to laugh into his flatmate’s mouth, but Sherlock doesn’t seem to mind.
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