Fic: The Rules
Title: The Rules
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4700
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: In which there are rules, and John breaks them.
AN: Sequel to The Definition of Insanity, last part in the Thermodynamics series. Huge thank you to sgrio for the beta, which made this so much better.
One morning John is just going to wake up and there'll be a mad genius sprawled over his back, and he won't find that strange at all.
He'll completely miss that strange, disorienting moment in the middle of the night when Sherlock invades his room muttering about something incomprehensible and claims himself half, two thirds, sometimes three quarters of the bed.
"You smell like watermelon." John can't help pointing out in the darkness. Because that usually means there will be a sad collection of abused fruit in the living room, the latest messy victims of Sherlock's blunt force trauma experiments.
He'll be scraping it all off the walls tomorrow.
Sherlock makes a noise somewhere behind him, which suggests his results haven't sent him into cartwheels of joy tonight, or possibly this morning? The clock's too far away to tell for sure. Normally Sherlock enjoys abusing the helpless watermelons. John secretly thinks he finds it therapeutic, though Sherlock would strenuously deny it.
He's fairly sure the excuses from Sherlock have been getting thinner.
Three weeks ago it had been 'possibly dangerous chemicals' in the living room.
Two weeks ago it had been an inability to concentrate in the 'clutter.'
Three days ago it had been something to do with Brahms. John hadn't been listening, he'd been mostly asleep.
Tonight -
John's not sure what the excuse is tonight. Watermelons don't generally make Sherlock restless and irritable. Watermelons don't normally require bed-sharing. Or at least he wouldn’t have thought so. He suspects that maybe his bed has become not so much of a last resort as simply where Sherlock comes when he needs to sleep.
John thinks he should probably stop it. He should protest that they'd talked about this when they made ground rules.
Boundaries.
Sherlock steals the warm space between his legs in one slithering movement and John holds his breath for exactly as long as it takes Sherlock to get comfortable. That's when John knows, he absolutely knows that they have a problem.
No, that's not right.
He's the one that has a problem.
He definitely has a problem.
God damn it.
*****
Sherlock's already out when John finally gets downstairs. The living room looks like someone was actually murdered in it. There's melon pulp everywhere. Which isn't exactly comforting considering the nightmare he'd been having when he woke up.
John's halfway through the crime scene clean-up when Sherlock returns, excited in a way that only murder, mystery and mayhem can ever explain. John glares at him from the edge of the couch. A glare which is completely ignored in favour of some rambling about cobblestones and drag marks that he's probably going to be told off for not remembering later. He thinks about complaining that he doesn't enjoy climbing on the furniture to scrub fruit off the walls, but he suspects the pain of it would be lost on Sherlock while he's in one of those moods.
"I dreamt I was a watermelon and you were doing experiments on me," John provides instead, possibly through a simple childish need to puncture that obvious excitement.
Sherlock's expression from the kitchen is completely ludicrous.
"Well, I hope the results were worth it at least," he offers, before peeling his coat off.
"It was horrible," John says honestly.
"Perhaps I should worry about you empathising with the fruit in the future."
"Technically a watermelon is a berry," John grumbles. But Sherlock has already wandered off to save the world via fingerprints and types of pollen and maps of the west country.
Three hours later the flat still smells like watermelon, even if there is no evidence of it. John makes himself a coffee and makes Sherlock one too, since he can tell by the enthusiasm that there's crime-solving going on in some capacity. He uses the last of the sugar, and since he's not sure where the strange sachets in the cupboard actually came from, he's fairly sure the best thing would just be to buy some more.
Sherlock meets him at the door, coat already half-on and they end up two miles from where John intended to be in a Chinese restaurant.
Sherlock spends the entire meal talking about decapitation and getting horrified looks from everyone within hearing range.
John forgets to buy sugar.
*****
John's not sure what the excuse is three nights after that.
He's not sure there is one. Sherlock certainly doesn't bother to voice one.
John's awake, or half-awake, somewhere that the distinction is important enough.
He's rolled over in the night and curled a hand round Sherlock's narrow waist. He always seems to be on some strange quest to make sure Sherlock isn't doing anything dramatic in his sleep. Even though the man himself has always felt too long and too wild for John to hold on to for very long. Too much for anyone to hold on to he'd wager.
Not that Sherlock would ever let anyone.
John's just breathing against the back of Sherlock's neck, long flares of warmth, while his much longer hair tickles his nose and his upper lip.
His mouth, just briefly, presses against the curve of Sherlock's neck, just for a second, not long enough to be anything incriminating, anything other than him moving if anyone asks, if anyone accuses.
The muscle under his hand is still shifting, slowly, on every breath. But he doesn't think Sherlock's asleep. He's getting better at being able to tell.
John thinks he's getting far too used to this.
He completely forgets to complain about him not having any excuses the next morning.
One of Sherlock's knees is pressed into the back of his thigh in a way that demands attention.
"Make me a coffee." Sherlock's voice vibrates all the way through his back and John's fairly sure that's not an accident.
He frowns into the pillow, because he's barely awake. He's not even close to awake enough to deal with Sherlock and his sudden and often completely irrational needs.
Didn't anyone ever tell him 'no' as a child?
"Make yourself a coffee," he grumbles. Though he's not entirely sure it comes out as actual words.
"I'm sleeping," Sherlock complains.
John drags his legs out of prodding range. But Sherlock still has irritatingly long legs.
"Then clearly you don't need a coffee, you're supposed to be the clever one."
"I am the clever one," Sherlock says. "And I need coffee."
"No, you've already used up all your 'making me do things' privileges this week."
Sherlock's laughing, he can feel it, the slow steady vibration of it.
"Shut up. Sleep," John tells him.
Sherlock doesn't ever do as he's told but John can't stop himself from making the effort anyway.
*****
John gets his room back for five days during The Case of The Hanged Man (or at least that's what he's calling it.) Not that he does a great deal of sleeping at night, mostly there's running through the streets of London and some being shot at, and a very unpleasant fall into the Thames.
All of which, it's turning out, is exactly the sort of excitement you probably shouldn’t start to consider 'business as usual.'
The bed's cold, even though it's May, and there hasn't been snow on the ground for more than three months. He sleeps like shit, and not just because his leg doesn't appreciate the running or the falling, or the getting soaking wet. He keeps waking up staring at the ugly ceiling.
Before finally waking up facedown in the pillow like his brain just doesn’t want to stare at the room anymore.
******
When John wakes up the next morning, there's a mad genius sprawled over his back, snoring.
He stares at the ugly wallpaper and is so stupidly, ridiculously relieved that he can't breathe for a half a minute.
Sherlock grumbles something incoherent into his hair, possibly because of the not-breathing. Which suggests Sherlock actually is capable of making deductions while he's asleep.
"I'm not dead," John reassures him.
"I'm so glad to hear it," Sherlock mumbles and John thinks that's the first time he's ever heard Sherlock sound somewhere between asleep and awake. He wasn't sure his brain was even capable of half-speed.
John rolls onto his back and Sherlock doesn't even bother to move, he simply resettles himself wherever he falls. John can't help but wonder when it will be too much, when his brain will just snap and he'll just tell him.
"Why not now?" Sherlock says quietly. "Whatever you're thinking, why not tell me now?"
John bites down on that horrible feeling of exposure, that spike right where it hurts. Sometimes he hates Sherlock and his ability to know everything, to see everything. Sometimes before you did. John had thought that they were ignoring it, letting it lie and not speaking about it. He'd thought they were leaving it alone. This thing where John is human, where he needs things, like people do.
John scowls and stares at the ceiling, which really is horrendously ugly.
"John."
"No."
Sherlock sighs in irritation. "You're being unnecessarily difficult."
"Why bother asking? You already know," John says, and it comes out hard, something close to genuinely angry, or maybe that's not right, maybe it's frustration. Maybe it just feels like anger.
Sherlock doesn't move, expression still carefully bland. He gives John nothing, absolutely nothing, and he doesn’t even know why that's suddenly more than he can handle.
"Yes, ok, fine, is that what you want? Yes, I think about you like that, sometimes, fleetingly." John hopes that comes out grudging, though he worries that it doesn't.
He can tell by Sherlock's face that it wasn't anything close.
He tries to turns over, because nothing ends a conversation faster than turning your back on someone and ignoring them. He's not prepared for Sherlock's sharp fingers to catch his arm and prevent the movement, not just preventing it but stopping it and tugging him back the other way.
"Jesus, Sherlock, you can't just -"
Sherlock's legs move, slide up and press down and the words crack and stop completely because Sherlock is lying on him. And John's absolutely bloody helpless to stop the air that rushes in between his teeth and the way he reacts almost instinctively to the pressure. There's no way to protest against that much evidence.
"Fleetingly?" Sherlock says slowly, like he's tasting the word and how it was perhaps the wrong one to use.
"Sherlock -"
"Fleetingly," Sherlock says again. "I think we can do better than that."
He's so damn smug, so clever, John's hands dig into the sheets.
"Fine, all the time, all the fucking time," he says, and there's far more air and bite there than he intends.
But Sherlock smiles like he approves, like John has been clever. He's so infuriating, always so infuriating and John can't help lifting a hand, can't help the way he pushes his fingers into Sherlock's hair. It's soft and thick and it crushes in his palm when he tightens his hand and pulls.
It's far easier to kiss Sherlock than it should be allowed to be. His mouth is half-open and it's warm and if John had ever thought this wasn't what he wanted the idea is now buried, permanently. Because at this moment in time this may be the only thing he wants.
He lets Sherlock go the moment he realises exactly what he's doing.
His hands fall away, because it feels like he's done something utterly scandalous, something that he's going to get ripped to pieces for, heart rate suddenly twice what it was, waiting for Sherlock's reaction, waiting for his voice. Which he knows far too well can cut like a knife.
"Finally," Sherlock says, quietly, and John's not expecting that at all.
He's so surprised that all the air rushes out of him.
"What?"
"Your self-control is remarkable, pointless under the circumstances, but remarkable nonetheless."
John swallows and his throat is far too dry.
"I'm confused," he says awkwardly.
"That isn't exactly a unique phenomenon," Sherlock allows.
John glares at him.
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "John, we've been in a relationship for four months, you just haven't noticed."
"What?" he says again.
Because that's ridiculous.
"Don’t be stupid," he adds.
"You haven't needed permission to kiss me for a considerable amount of time now," Sherlock offers.
John blinks at him, irritation warring with bewilderment. Until the pieces fall together in slow but undeniable clarity.
"You didn't think maybe you should have told me, that maybe I needed to know?" He says, a fraction too loudly.
Sherlock's weight shifts, just a little. "I thought you'd find it easier to accept if you stumbled into it at your own pace."
John very tempted to push him off, very tempted, but he just can't.
"I didn't even know you wanted a relationship. I just assumed since you were -" John tries to think of a subtle way of putting it, before remembering that it's Sherlock and subtle is unnecessary. "I assumed you were completely uninterested, in any of that."
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "'Any of that' is a rather broad and sweeping generalisation."
"Well, relationships, sex, other people in general. I assumed you were pretty much asexual."
"I'm interested in you," Sherlock says, and though John looks for something grudging in the sentence he finds nothing.
"Sherlock -"
"You can protest about my interest, or not, in sex until you're satisfied with the results of our conversation, or you can shut up and kiss me," Sherlock says flatly.
John's so surprised by the demand that he's doing it before he thinks properly about whether he should.
By then it's far too late.
Sherlock has learned this very well, the way they fit together, the way to make it hungry without losing anything. There's a bright edge of teeth, and brief moments where they separate, and John can manage his name, breathless and half disbelieving. John can feel it all the way under his skin, the steadily growing tension of it. The slide and catch of his own fingers where they've lifted to find Sherlock's waist above his own, thumbs skidding, almost accidentally, over the low waistband of his pyjama pants.
John wants so badly to touch him. He'd gotten so used to the fact that he couldn't, and now it's hard to swallow around the thudding of his own pulse.
"Can I -"
"I believe that's the point," Sherlock says, which is as close to calling John an idiot as he can probably get right now.
"You don't mind?" he asks, for clarity.
"I don't mind." It's almost a growl. Sherlock really does hate to say anything twice. But God, John wants to be sure, everything slippery and strange and not entirely real. He's been protesting forever that they're not this, protesting that they're not together. He's been protesting so hard he's half-convinced himself they couldn't be.
That maybe they weren't supposed to be.
No matter how much he might have wanted it.
Sherlock's waist is smooth and warm, twitching and shifting under his fingers. John's still half convinced he's not actually supposed to be touching him, that they're not supposed to do this. Because they've done everything the wrong way round. But - God - Sherlock's heavy in a way that isn't uncomfortable at all but feels intent and meaningful and suddenly undoubtedly sexual. In a way that leaves John hissing through his teeth at every slide of contact, every press into the solid ache his dick is fast becoming. John's pulling Sherlock's head down and kissing him again before he really thinks about it.
Sherlock's fingers know exactly where to go and how hard to push, and John has his legs open, Sherlock pressed all the way down against him before he can fully process.
"Oh, God, how are you so good at this?" John doesn't think it's fair.
"A lack of interest doesn't mean a complete lack of competency, I do have a knack for experimentation, as you've no doubt noticed by now."
"Still, this can't be very interesting for you," John says, feeling strangely awkward. "There are probably a million things that require your attention at this very second." He could kick himself for it the moment it comes out.
"I'm sure there are, but they can't have it, since my attention is currently yours," Sherlock says simply.
John's swallowing reflexively at that. He isn't sure quite what to say. It feels like the sort of thing he should have something to say to. But Sherlock is investigating the skin over his ribs, the edge of his nipple. His touch is curious but focused, and it's hard to think of something that will be appropriately intelligent.
He wants so much to just -
"Sherlock."
"Yes," Sherlock agrees, like John's said more there than just his name.
John does lay his hands on him then, firmer than before, pulling in a way that he's not going to feel guilty about. Sherlock's lets him, with only the briefest huff of amusement. He lets John dig his fingers into his hair and kiss him until his mouth is sore. It leaves him dizzy, this permission to touch, like this is something he's always been allowed to do. That's been on offer all along.
"Are you going to get hard?" John asks.
"Possibly," Sherlock offers, throwaway, like it doesn't matter.
It's too tempting not to slide one of his hands down under his pyjamas, to curl through hair and find where he's soft and strangely vulnerable.
Sherlock smacks his hand away.
"Stop distracting me," he says, and his hand is sliding in under the waistband of John's boxers and it's more than he knows what to do with.
"Sherlock, I have to - stop that - I can't think when you do that -"
"Much as I usually find your babbling incoherence irritating I think this time it's the whole point of the exercise. Do try and keep up." Sherlock's fingers curl into the waistband of his boxers and pull them down his thighs, and it's so efficient John doesn't have time to protest, or question, before they're being dragged over his feet and tossed away. John has never felt more naked in his entire life.
There's a knee, pushing at his own and Sherlock is sliding down the bed.
"Sherlock -"
Sherlock shoves his legs open, drawing one up over the curve of his shoulder, John can feel the way his heel drags on Sherlock's skin, the way Sherlock's breath flares over the inside of his thigh. John's shaking, just a little, which is embarrassing and a little confusing. But Sherlock's fingers are finding all the places where he didn't even know he was sensitive, thumbs curling and pressing in where his hipbones are close under the skin.
Sherlock's breath is a flare of heat that curls and brushes exactly where he wants it most, close and obscene and John's shivering under it. He can't quite make himself believe Sherlock's going to do it. Not even when he does, when the world narrows down to the inside of his mouth and the curl of his fingers.
John's inhale catches in his throat and stays there.
He doesn't miss the way Sherlock's fingers dig into his thighs, just a fraction, when he makes a quick, abortive thrust with his hips at the shock of it. This is too raw, too sharp, too visceral to be Sherlock. There's no clarity in the tight, wet slides of his mouth, slow and then quick, too deep to focus. John loses all the air in his lungs on the shaky syllables of his name, over and over. He sounds so surprised.
He has to look, has to see.
It nearly ruins him completely. There's the dark fall of Sherlock's hair, the long line of his nose and his mouth - God - his mouth, stretched open and wet and filled and there isn't enough air in the room. John's fingers scratch desperately at the sheets, gathering tangled fistfuls of it, heel digging in somewhere hard on Sherlock's back.
Sherlock knows what he wants before he does. Always three steps ahead, there's no need to ask for it, all he has to do is survive it.
John tries to garble out some sort of warning, something coherent. But instead it's just a noise, shattered, something close to worship.
He falls apart, in unsteady, broken shudders.
It takes a long count before he relaxes, all at once, like he can't hold himself together anymore. He's staring at the ceiling, breathing, feeling sweat crawling down the back of his neck. There are thready little aftershocks twitching through him that make the room seem too warm. He's muttering under his breath. It sounds like quiet, messy blasphemy. His leg's a dead weight over Sherlock's shoulder, and that's probably impolite, can't be comfortable. He moves it, carefully, lets it fall to the side.
There are words, he's sure there are. He can't quite grasp any of them.
Sherlock's sliding back up the bed, all long lines and pale skin that make John sort of wish he hadn't just come. Because he's half suspicious that he's not going to be allowed to touch him again.
And he wants to.
Sherlock's watching him from the other side of the bed, mouth lifted in something that's far too smug to be a smile. It's slightly red, the curve of it, and John stares at it, can't help himself. He can't help thinking about what he just did, what Sherlock just did.
He thinks about what it would be like, to do that for Sherlock. He thinks it would be just a little bit obscene, but his skin goes hot at the thought of it.
"You're not going to let me do that to you, are you?" John says quietly.
"I don't need it," Sherlock says, though he doesn't seem particularly worried about it. Also, that isn't exactly a no, John's learning that wording is important with Sherlock.
"Still, I feel like I should do something," John says, because reciprocation is the point. It's always been the point. He's not the sort of man that's comfortable with the idea of...not doing anything.
But Sherlock snorts like the idea is ludicrous.
"Unnecessary. You let me sleep all over you. You let me be me. I think we have a fine grasp of compromise in our relationship."
Sherlock stretches out a leg, and slips it over John's. Like he has no intention of leaving. Like he can hear John's strange internal cynicism and is trying to quiet it, in his own way.
John thinks it's that, more than anything, that finally convinces him that they are in fact in a relationship, whether he likes it or not. It feels strange that no one asked him if he wanted to be. That at no point did they discuss it, or make any decisions about it, or have any of that strange awkwardness you're supposed to have when you start a relationship.
"You should have told me," John says again, quietly, he wishes he remembered how to be irritated. He's probably entitled.
"I was rather enjoying the anticipation." Sherlock looks genuinely amused, mouth canted up at the edge.
John wants to kiss him again, but he's not entirely sure if Sherlock wants him to.
Sherlock rolls his eyes as if to say 'you're going to be so much effort' and leans down just far enough to lay warmth and pressure against his mouth. It's - God - it's nice. More than nice.
And then Sherlock is looking at him again, all pale eyes and unmanageable hair.
"Idiot," he says, and that may be the first time there's been something behind it that wasn't mockery or derision.
"So you're alright with this?" John asks, even though he's fairly certain that Sherlock almost never does things he isn't sure of.
"I believe it should be me asking you that, under the circumstances."
"Alright would be - well that would be one way of putting it." John thinks he'll probably think of a better word later, when he feels like making sense again. When his brain catches up to Sherlock's. He's hoping that will happen eventually.
Maybe in a week.
It's going to change -
It's going to change almost nothing, John realises.
Everything else changed weeks ago and he never noticed. It's only the very simplest and intimate sort of things that are going to be different now. Like wondering if he needs to put condoms on the shopping list.
"Yes," Sherlock says. "We can have sex if you like."
John frowns at him.
"How on earth did you know - no, you know what, I don't even want to know."
He thinks about it for a minute. Isn't sure if he should ask.
"Can you actually?"
"Yes," Sherlock says, voice still lazy. "Though I have very rarely achieved orgasm. It's tedious, repetitive and hideously boring."
"I'm not sure I know what to say to that," John admits. Because he's still sensitive. He can still feel it, almost, like ghost echoes of pleasure.
It makes him feel greedy and human.
"Oh, don't feel guilty about your own desire," Sherlock says. "No matter what I may say, in a moment of frustrated irritation. I've found your quietly simmering interest in my own body...intriguing. More than intriguing."
"You did insist on laying it all over me at every opportunity, and you're heavier when you're sleeping than your dramatic heroine posturing suggests," John accuses
Sherlock scowls at him.
"I'm not going back to my room, my room is cold and full of sharp things," he says flatly. Like that's a non-negotiable part of the relationship, the one that John didn't even know they had until today.
John can feel it rolling in from the back of his head, the idea of it.
He doesn't like it one bit.
"You don't have to do anything, you realise, if you want to stay. I won't ask you for anything, if you really don't want to."
Sherlock rolls his eyes at him, like now he's just being insulting.
"John, the number of people that I'm willing to do this with - that I want to do this with currently consists of exactly one. Now stop being hideously self-sacrificing and feel special, because you quite obviously are."
John's honestly not sure whether he's just been told off or paid a compliment. Possibly both. Probably both.
He's still thinking about it when Sherlock shoves in close, all long thighs and warmth and John's whole body tightens. He knows he's currently physically incapable but that doesn't stop him from wanting it.
"You're going to use this against me constantly, aren't you?" John says.
"I have been told I'm ruthless," Sherlock agrees.
John knows the stillness isn't going to last. Because Sherlock is awake and he's incapable of being still unless he's sulking, or thinking complex thoughts.
Neither of which John thinks he's doing right now.
"Where's my phone?" Sherlock asks not fifteen seconds later.
John sighs and drops a hand over the edge of the bed, feels around on the floor until he finds it, then passes it over.
Sherlock slides close enough that he can balance it on John's chest, thumb working on the screen.
"Who are you texting?" John asks suspiciously.
"Lestrade, he's going to ask for my help in a hour and I don't feel like waiting."
There's a short, dramatic noise and then Sherlock's shifting out of the bed taking his phone and his warmth and half the sheet with him.
"I suppose you want me to come?" John thinks he means it to sound resigned, ill-used, but there's more than a touch of hope in the words that he can't quite hide.
"John, I almost always want you to come, you make the world significantly less boring."
Sherlock's already slithering his way into his clothes with a completely unfair amount of elegance and ruthless sexuality.
"Besides, you know you wouldn’t miss it for the world."
"I wouldn't," John says honestly. "God help me I wouldn't."
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4700
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: In which there are rules, and John breaks them.
AN: Sequel to The Definition of Insanity, last part in the Thermodynamics series. Huge thank you to sgrio for the beta, which made this so much better.
One morning John is just going to wake up and there'll be a mad genius sprawled over his back, and he won't find that strange at all.
He'll completely miss that strange, disorienting moment in the middle of the night when Sherlock invades his room muttering about something incomprehensible and claims himself half, two thirds, sometimes three quarters of the bed.
"You smell like watermelon." John can't help pointing out in the darkness. Because that usually means there will be a sad collection of abused fruit in the living room, the latest messy victims of Sherlock's blunt force trauma experiments.
He'll be scraping it all off the walls tomorrow.
Sherlock makes a noise somewhere behind him, which suggests his results haven't sent him into cartwheels of joy tonight, or possibly this morning? The clock's too far away to tell for sure. Normally Sherlock enjoys abusing the helpless watermelons. John secretly thinks he finds it therapeutic, though Sherlock would strenuously deny it.
He's fairly sure the excuses from Sherlock have been getting thinner.
Three weeks ago it had been 'possibly dangerous chemicals' in the living room.
Two weeks ago it had been an inability to concentrate in the 'clutter.'
Three days ago it had been something to do with Brahms. John hadn't been listening, he'd been mostly asleep.
Tonight -
John's not sure what the excuse is tonight. Watermelons don't generally make Sherlock restless and irritable. Watermelons don't normally require bed-sharing. Or at least he wouldn’t have thought so. He suspects that maybe his bed has become not so much of a last resort as simply where Sherlock comes when he needs to sleep.
John thinks he should probably stop it. He should protest that they'd talked about this when they made ground rules.
Boundaries.
Sherlock steals the warm space between his legs in one slithering movement and John holds his breath for exactly as long as it takes Sherlock to get comfortable. That's when John knows, he absolutely knows that they have a problem.
No, that's not right.
He's the one that has a problem.
He definitely has a problem.
God damn it.
*****
Sherlock's already out when John finally gets downstairs. The living room looks like someone was actually murdered in it. There's melon pulp everywhere. Which isn't exactly comforting considering the nightmare he'd been having when he woke up.
John's halfway through the crime scene clean-up when Sherlock returns, excited in a way that only murder, mystery and mayhem can ever explain. John glares at him from the edge of the couch. A glare which is completely ignored in favour of some rambling about cobblestones and drag marks that he's probably going to be told off for not remembering later. He thinks about complaining that he doesn't enjoy climbing on the furniture to scrub fruit off the walls, but he suspects the pain of it would be lost on Sherlock while he's in one of those moods.
"I dreamt I was a watermelon and you were doing experiments on me," John provides instead, possibly through a simple childish need to puncture that obvious excitement.
Sherlock's expression from the kitchen is completely ludicrous.
"Well, I hope the results were worth it at least," he offers, before peeling his coat off.
"It was horrible," John says honestly.
"Perhaps I should worry about you empathising with the fruit in the future."
"Technically a watermelon is a berry," John grumbles. But Sherlock has already wandered off to save the world via fingerprints and types of pollen and maps of the west country.
Three hours later the flat still smells like watermelon, even if there is no evidence of it. John makes himself a coffee and makes Sherlock one too, since he can tell by the enthusiasm that there's crime-solving going on in some capacity. He uses the last of the sugar, and since he's not sure where the strange sachets in the cupboard actually came from, he's fairly sure the best thing would just be to buy some more.
Sherlock meets him at the door, coat already half-on and they end up two miles from where John intended to be in a Chinese restaurant.
Sherlock spends the entire meal talking about decapitation and getting horrified looks from everyone within hearing range.
John forgets to buy sugar.
*****
John's not sure what the excuse is three nights after that.
He's not sure there is one. Sherlock certainly doesn't bother to voice one.
John's awake, or half-awake, somewhere that the distinction is important enough.
He's rolled over in the night and curled a hand round Sherlock's narrow waist. He always seems to be on some strange quest to make sure Sherlock isn't doing anything dramatic in his sleep. Even though the man himself has always felt too long and too wild for John to hold on to for very long. Too much for anyone to hold on to he'd wager.
Not that Sherlock would ever let anyone.
John's just breathing against the back of Sherlock's neck, long flares of warmth, while his much longer hair tickles his nose and his upper lip.
His mouth, just briefly, presses against the curve of Sherlock's neck, just for a second, not long enough to be anything incriminating, anything other than him moving if anyone asks, if anyone accuses.
The muscle under his hand is still shifting, slowly, on every breath. But he doesn't think Sherlock's asleep. He's getting better at being able to tell.
John thinks he's getting far too used to this.
He completely forgets to complain about him not having any excuses the next morning.
One of Sherlock's knees is pressed into the back of his thigh in a way that demands attention.
"Make me a coffee." Sherlock's voice vibrates all the way through his back and John's fairly sure that's not an accident.
He frowns into the pillow, because he's barely awake. He's not even close to awake enough to deal with Sherlock and his sudden and often completely irrational needs.
Didn't anyone ever tell him 'no' as a child?
"Make yourself a coffee," he grumbles. Though he's not entirely sure it comes out as actual words.
"I'm sleeping," Sherlock complains.
John drags his legs out of prodding range. But Sherlock still has irritatingly long legs.
"Then clearly you don't need a coffee, you're supposed to be the clever one."
"I am the clever one," Sherlock says. "And I need coffee."
"No, you've already used up all your 'making me do things' privileges this week."
Sherlock's laughing, he can feel it, the slow steady vibration of it.
"Shut up. Sleep," John tells him.
Sherlock doesn't ever do as he's told but John can't stop himself from making the effort anyway.
*****
John gets his room back for five days during The Case of The Hanged Man (or at least that's what he's calling it.) Not that he does a great deal of sleeping at night, mostly there's running through the streets of London and some being shot at, and a very unpleasant fall into the Thames.
All of which, it's turning out, is exactly the sort of excitement you probably shouldn’t start to consider 'business as usual.'
The bed's cold, even though it's May, and there hasn't been snow on the ground for more than three months. He sleeps like shit, and not just because his leg doesn't appreciate the running or the falling, or the getting soaking wet. He keeps waking up staring at the ugly ceiling.
Before finally waking up facedown in the pillow like his brain just doesn’t want to stare at the room anymore.
******
When John wakes up the next morning, there's a mad genius sprawled over his back, snoring.
He stares at the ugly wallpaper and is so stupidly, ridiculously relieved that he can't breathe for a half a minute.
Sherlock grumbles something incoherent into his hair, possibly because of the not-breathing. Which suggests Sherlock actually is capable of making deductions while he's asleep.
"I'm not dead," John reassures him.
"I'm so glad to hear it," Sherlock mumbles and John thinks that's the first time he's ever heard Sherlock sound somewhere between asleep and awake. He wasn't sure his brain was even capable of half-speed.
John rolls onto his back and Sherlock doesn't even bother to move, he simply resettles himself wherever he falls. John can't help but wonder when it will be too much, when his brain will just snap and he'll just tell him.
"Why not now?" Sherlock says quietly. "Whatever you're thinking, why not tell me now?"
John bites down on that horrible feeling of exposure, that spike right where it hurts. Sometimes he hates Sherlock and his ability to know everything, to see everything. Sometimes before you did. John had thought that they were ignoring it, letting it lie and not speaking about it. He'd thought they were leaving it alone. This thing where John is human, where he needs things, like people do.
John scowls and stares at the ceiling, which really is horrendously ugly.
"John."
"No."
Sherlock sighs in irritation. "You're being unnecessarily difficult."
"Why bother asking? You already know," John says, and it comes out hard, something close to genuinely angry, or maybe that's not right, maybe it's frustration. Maybe it just feels like anger.
Sherlock doesn't move, expression still carefully bland. He gives John nothing, absolutely nothing, and he doesn’t even know why that's suddenly more than he can handle.
"Yes, ok, fine, is that what you want? Yes, I think about you like that, sometimes, fleetingly." John hopes that comes out grudging, though he worries that it doesn't.
He can tell by Sherlock's face that it wasn't anything close.
He tries to turns over, because nothing ends a conversation faster than turning your back on someone and ignoring them. He's not prepared for Sherlock's sharp fingers to catch his arm and prevent the movement, not just preventing it but stopping it and tugging him back the other way.
"Jesus, Sherlock, you can't just -"
Sherlock's legs move, slide up and press down and the words crack and stop completely because Sherlock is lying on him. And John's absolutely bloody helpless to stop the air that rushes in between his teeth and the way he reacts almost instinctively to the pressure. There's no way to protest against that much evidence.
"Fleetingly?" Sherlock says slowly, like he's tasting the word and how it was perhaps the wrong one to use.
"Sherlock -"
"Fleetingly," Sherlock says again. "I think we can do better than that."
He's so damn smug, so clever, John's hands dig into the sheets.
"Fine, all the time, all the fucking time," he says, and there's far more air and bite there than he intends.
But Sherlock smiles like he approves, like John has been clever. He's so infuriating, always so infuriating and John can't help lifting a hand, can't help the way he pushes his fingers into Sherlock's hair. It's soft and thick and it crushes in his palm when he tightens his hand and pulls.
It's far easier to kiss Sherlock than it should be allowed to be. His mouth is half-open and it's warm and if John had ever thought this wasn't what he wanted the idea is now buried, permanently. Because at this moment in time this may be the only thing he wants.
He lets Sherlock go the moment he realises exactly what he's doing.
His hands fall away, because it feels like he's done something utterly scandalous, something that he's going to get ripped to pieces for, heart rate suddenly twice what it was, waiting for Sherlock's reaction, waiting for his voice. Which he knows far too well can cut like a knife.
"Finally," Sherlock says, quietly, and John's not expecting that at all.
He's so surprised that all the air rushes out of him.
"What?"
"Your self-control is remarkable, pointless under the circumstances, but remarkable nonetheless."
John swallows and his throat is far too dry.
"I'm confused," he says awkwardly.
"That isn't exactly a unique phenomenon," Sherlock allows.
John glares at him.
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "John, we've been in a relationship for four months, you just haven't noticed."
"What?" he says again.
Because that's ridiculous.
"Don’t be stupid," he adds.
"You haven't needed permission to kiss me for a considerable amount of time now," Sherlock offers.
John blinks at him, irritation warring with bewilderment. Until the pieces fall together in slow but undeniable clarity.
"You didn't think maybe you should have told me, that maybe I needed to know?" He says, a fraction too loudly.
Sherlock's weight shifts, just a little. "I thought you'd find it easier to accept if you stumbled into it at your own pace."
John very tempted to push him off, very tempted, but he just can't.
"I didn't even know you wanted a relationship. I just assumed since you were -" John tries to think of a subtle way of putting it, before remembering that it's Sherlock and subtle is unnecessary. "I assumed you were completely uninterested, in any of that."
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "'Any of that' is a rather broad and sweeping generalisation."
"Well, relationships, sex, other people in general. I assumed you were pretty much asexual."
"I'm interested in you," Sherlock says, and though John looks for something grudging in the sentence he finds nothing.
"Sherlock -"
"You can protest about my interest, or not, in sex until you're satisfied with the results of our conversation, or you can shut up and kiss me," Sherlock says flatly.
John's so surprised by the demand that he's doing it before he thinks properly about whether he should.
By then it's far too late.
Sherlock has learned this very well, the way they fit together, the way to make it hungry without losing anything. There's a bright edge of teeth, and brief moments where they separate, and John can manage his name, breathless and half disbelieving. John can feel it all the way under his skin, the steadily growing tension of it. The slide and catch of his own fingers where they've lifted to find Sherlock's waist above his own, thumbs skidding, almost accidentally, over the low waistband of his pyjama pants.
John wants so badly to touch him. He'd gotten so used to the fact that he couldn't, and now it's hard to swallow around the thudding of his own pulse.
"Can I -"
"I believe that's the point," Sherlock says, which is as close to calling John an idiot as he can probably get right now.
"You don't mind?" he asks, for clarity.
"I don't mind." It's almost a growl. Sherlock really does hate to say anything twice. But God, John wants to be sure, everything slippery and strange and not entirely real. He's been protesting forever that they're not this, protesting that they're not together. He's been protesting so hard he's half-convinced himself they couldn't be.
That maybe they weren't supposed to be.
No matter how much he might have wanted it.
Sherlock's waist is smooth and warm, twitching and shifting under his fingers. John's still half convinced he's not actually supposed to be touching him, that they're not supposed to do this. Because they've done everything the wrong way round. But - God - Sherlock's heavy in a way that isn't uncomfortable at all but feels intent and meaningful and suddenly undoubtedly sexual. In a way that leaves John hissing through his teeth at every slide of contact, every press into the solid ache his dick is fast becoming. John's pulling Sherlock's head down and kissing him again before he really thinks about it.
Sherlock's fingers know exactly where to go and how hard to push, and John has his legs open, Sherlock pressed all the way down against him before he can fully process.
"Oh, God, how are you so good at this?" John doesn't think it's fair.
"A lack of interest doesn't mean a complete lack of competency, I do have a knack for experimentation, as you've no doubt noticed by now."
"Still, this can't be very interesting for you," John says, feeling strangely awkward. "There are probably a million things that require your attention at this very second." He could kick himself for it the moment it comes out.
"I'm sure there are, but they can't have it, since my attention is currently yours," Sherlock says simply.
John's swallowing reflexively at that. He isn't sure quite what to say. It feels like the sort of thing he should have something to say to. But Sherlock is investigating the skin over his ribs, the edge of his nipple. His touch is curious but focused, and it's hard to think of something that will be appropriately intelligent.
He wants so much to just -
"Sherlock."
"Yes," Sherlock agrees, like John's said more there than just his name.
John does lay his hands on him then, firmer than before, pulling in a way that he's not going to feel guilty about. Sherlock's lets him, with only the briefest huff of amusement. He lets John dig his fingers into his hair and kiss him until his mouth is sore. It leaves him dizzy, this permission to touch, like this is something he's always been allowed to do. That's been on offer all along.
"Are you going to get hard?" John asks.
"Possibly," Sherlock offers, throwaway, like it doesn't matter.
It's too tempting not to slide one of his hands down under his pyjamas, to curl through hair and find where he's soft and strangely vulnerable.
Sherlock smacks his hand away.
"Stop distracting me," he says, and his hand is sliding in under the waistband of John's boxers and it's more than he knows what to do with.
"Sherlock, I have to - stop that - I can't think when you do that -"
"Much as I usually find your babbling incoherence irritating I think this time it's the whole point of the exercise. Do try and keep up." Sherlock's fingers curl into the waistband of his boxers and pull them down his thighs, and it's so efficient John doesn't have time to protest, or question, before they're being dragged over his feet and tossed away. John has never felt more naked in his entire life.
There's a knee, pushing at his own and Sherlock is sliding down the bed.
"Sherlock -"
Sherlock shoves his legs open, drawing one up over the curve of his shoulder, John can feel the way his heel drags on Sherlock's skin, the way Sherlock's breath flares over the inside of his thigh. John's shaking, just a little, which is embarrassing and a little confusing. But Sherlock's fingers are finding all the places where he didn't even know he was sensitive, thumbs curling and pressing in where his hipbones are close under the skin.
Sherlock's breath is a flare of heat that curls and brushes exactly where he wants it most, close and obscene and John's shivering under it. He can't quite make himself believe Sherlock's going to do it. Not even when he does, when the world narrows down to the inside of his mouth and the curl of his fingers.
John's inhale catches in his throat and stays there.
He doesn't miss the way Sherlock's fingers dig into his thighs, just a fraction, when he makes a quick, abortive thrust with his hips at the shock of it. This is too raw, too sharp, too visceral to be Sherlock. There's no clarity in the tight, wet slides of his mouth, slow and then quick, too deep to focus. John loses all the air in his lungs on the shaky syllables of his name, over and over. He sounds so surprised.
He has to look, has to see.
It nearly ruins him completely. There's the dark fall of Sherlock's hair, the long line of his nose and his mouth - God - his mouth, stretched open and wet and filled and there isn't enough air in the room. John's fingers scratch desperately at the sheets, gathering tangled fistfuls of it, heel digging in somewhere hard on Sherlock's back.
Sherlock knows what he wants before he does. Always three steps ahead, there's no need to ask for it, all he has to do is survive it.
John tries to garble out some sort of warning, something coherent. But instead it's just a noise, shattered, something close to worship.
He falls apart, in unsteady, broken shudders.
It takes a long count before he relaxes, all at once, like he can't hold himself together anymore. He's staring at the ceiling, breathing, feeling sweat crawling down the back of his neck. There are thready little aftershocks twitching through him that make the room seem too warm. He's muttering under his breath. It sounds like quiet, messy blasphemy. His leg's a dead weight over Sherlock's shoulder, and that's probably impolite, can't be comfortable. He moves it, carefully, lets it fall to the side.
There are words, he's sure there are. He can't quite grasp any of them.
Sherlock's sliding back up the bed, all long lines and pale skin that make John sort of wish he hadn't just come. Because he's half suspicious that he's not going to be allowed to touch him again.
And he wants to.
Sherlock's watching him from the other side of the bed, mouth lifted in something that's far too smug to be a smile. It's slightly red, the curve of it, and John stares at it, can't help himself. He can't help thinking about what he just did, what Sherlock just did.
He thinks about what it would be like, to do that for Sherlock. He thinks it would be just a little bit obscene, but his skin goes hot at the thought of it.
"You're not going to let me do that to you, are you?" John says quietly.
"I don't need it," Sherlock says, though he doesn't seem particularly worried about it. Also, that isn't exactly a no, John's learning that wording is important with Sherlock.
"Still, I feel like I should do something," John says, because reciprocation is the point. It's always been the point. He's not the sort of man that's comfortable with the idea of...not doing anything.
But Sherlock snorts like the idea is ludicrous.
"Unnecessary. You let me sleep all over you. You let me be me. I think we have a fine grasp of compromise in our relationship."
Sherlock stretches out a leg, and slips it over John's. Like he has no intention of leaving. Like he can hear John's strange internal cynicism and is trying to quiet it, in his own way.
John thinks it's that, more than anything, that finally convinces him that they are in fact in a relationship, whether he likes it or not. It feels strange that no one asked him if he wanted to be. That at no point did they discuss it, or make any decisions about it, or have any of that strange awkwardness you're supposed to have when you start a relationship.
"You should have told me," John says again, quietly, he wishes he remembered how to be irritated. He's probably entitled.
"I was rather enjoying the anticipation." Sherlock looks genuinely amused, mouth canted up at the edge.
John wants to kiss him again, but he's not entirely sure if Sherlock wants him to.
Sherlock rolls his eyes as if to say 'you're going to be so much effort' and leans down just far enough to lay warmth and pressure against his mouth. It's - God - it's nice. More than nice.
And then Sherlock is looking at him again, all pale eyes and unmanageable hair.
"Idiot," he says, and that may be the first time there's been something behind it that wasn't mockery or derision.
"So you're alright with this?" John asks, even though he's fairly certain that Sherlock almost never does things he isn't sure of.
"I believe it should be me asking you that, under the circumstances."
"Alright would be - well that would be one way of putting it." John thinks he'll probably think of a better word later, when he feels like making sense again. When his brain catches up to Sherlock's. He's hoping that will happen eventually.
Maybe in a week.
It's going to change -
It's going to change almost nothing, John realises.
Everything else changed weeks ago and he never noticed. It's only the very simplest and intimate sort of things that are going to be different now. Like wondering if he needs to put condoms on the shopping list.
"Yes," Sherlock says. "We can have sex if you like."
John frowns at him.
"How on earth did you know - no, you know what, I don't even want to know."
He thinks about it for a minute. Isn't sure if he should ask.
"Can you actually?"
"Yes," Sherlock says, voice still lazy. "Though I have very rarely achieved orgasm. It's tedious, repetitive and hideously boring."
"I'm not sure I know what to say to that," John admits. Because he's still sensitive. He can still feel it, almost, like ghost echoes of pleasure.
It makes him feel greedy and human.
"Oh, don't feel guilty about your own desire," Sherlock says. "No matter what I may say, in a moment of frustrated irritation. I've found your quietly simmering interest in my own body...intriguing. More than intriguing."
"You did insist on laying it all over me at every opportunity, and you're heavier when you're sleeping than your dramatic heroine posturing suggests," John accuses
Sherlock scowls at him.
"I'm not going back to my room, my room is cold and full of sharp things," he says flatly. Like that's a non-negotiable part of the relationship, the one that John didn't even know they had until today.
John can feel it rolling in from the back of his head, the idea of it.
He doesn't like it one bit.
"You don't have to do anything, you realise, if you want to stay. I won't ask you for anything, if you really don't want to."
Sherlock rolls his eyes at him, like now he's just being insulting.
"John, the number of people that I'm willing to do this with - that I want to do this with currently consists of exactly one. Now stop being hideously self-sacrificing and feel special, because you quite obviously are."
John's honestly not sure whether he's just been told off or paid a compliment. Possibly both. Probably both.
He's still thinking about it when Sherlock shoves in close, all long thighs and warmth and John's whole body tightens. He knows he's currently physically incapable but that doesn't stop him from wanting it.
"You're going to use this against me constantly, aren't you?" John says.
"I have been told I'm ruthless," Sherlock agrees.
John knows the stillness isn't going to last. Because Sherlock is awake and he's incapable of being still unless he's sulking, or thinking complex thoughts.
Neither of which John thinks he's doing right now.
"Where's my phone?" Sherlock asks not fifteen seconds later.
John sighs and drops a hand over the edge of the bed, feels around on the floor until he finds it, then passes it over.
Sherlock slides close enough that he can balance it on John's chest, thumb working on the screen.
"Who are you texting?" John asks suspiciously.
"Lestrade, he's going to ask for my help in a hour and I don't feel like waiting."
There's a short, dramatic noise and then Sherlock's shifting out of the bed taking his phone and his warmth and half the sheet with him.
"I suppose you want me to come?" John thinks he means it to sound resigned, ill-used, but there's more than a touch of hope in the words that he can't quite hide.
"John, I almost always want you to come, you make the world significantly less boring."
Sherlock's already slithering his way into his clothes with a completely unfair amount of elegance and ruthless sexuality.
"Besides, you know you wouldn’t miss it for the world."
"I wouldn't," John says honestly. "God help me I wouldn't."