Fic: A Slowly Dawning Attraction 2/2

[mitsuruaki]

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Disclaimer: Belongs to ACD and BBC, not mitsuruaki. Still love you guys, though.

Title: A Slowly Dawning Attraction
Author: mitsuruaki
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Prompt: 5 times Sherlock and John nearly kissed at work, and 1 time they did. :D
Rated: PG-13/R
Words: 12,143



4.

“Belt up,” John snarled, pausing in his pacing to glare bloody murder at his flatmate.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and cast a bored gaze out the window of Lestrade’s office, watching the poor sods performing meaningless tasks in the outer area. Depressing existence, really. How could they stand it? Dull, just dull.

“I did what I needed-”

“You didn’t tell anyone,” John rode over him, raising his voice just enough to make the detective’s words inaudible. “You just took off with an idea and no plan!”

“I had a plan,” Sherlock responded, affronted. “I always-”

“Why didn’t you text me?” John demanded as he resumed his pacing, fingers twitching spasmodically at his sides.

“There wasn’t time, John, there wasn’t time, and you-”

“Lestrade had to call me at the clinic, Sherlock,” the ex-army doctor snapped, throwing him a dirty look, “to let me know you got shot. Wanted to know why I’d run off without you.”

“Are you going to let me finish a sentence?” Sherlock asked acidly. “Or are you simply looking to vent your grievances over my supposedly impulsive nature?”

John turned, crossed his arms, and wiped his face determinedly blank as he stared at him. Truly angry, then.

Sherlock heaved a long-suffering sigh and let his eyes focus on Donovan’s curly head on the other side of the glass. Clearly, Mrs. Anderson was out of town again. “Lestrade exaggerated.”

“You have a bullet hole in your arm, Sherlock.”

“It grazed my arm, John; it’s hardly anything to fret over. It’s just a flesh wound.”

For some reason John’s eyes narrowed and his glare sharpened into something one would give a particularly smart-mouthed child. “That’s not funny.”

Sherlock frowned, hackles rising at John’s unexpected reaction and sharpening his tone. “What?”

John evaluated him coolly before turning away and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Nevermind, Sherlock. I doubt you’ve seen that movie anyway.”

“What is this about, John?” Sherlock asked curtly, irritated tension humming along his nerve endings. He’d solved the case, for god’s sake, and nobody had died this time, so what was John on about now? A bandage round his arm was nothing, really. “Are you feeling left out, is that it?”

“This isn’t a game,” John hissed, taking a threatening step towards him. “You think this is a game? Just running around London, and whoever gets there the fastest in the cleverest way wins?”

Sherlock eyed his flatmate critically as small tendrils of disdain seeped into his voice. “That wouldn’t be a very thrilling game, John.”

John stared at him, utterly speechless, for a few short moments, but his recovery was swift. “You should have called me,” he stabbed an accusing finger at the detective, “or texted, or something.”

“So you could do…what, exactly, from your cozy little office?” Sherlock sneered. “Call 999? Discuss it with Sarin?”

“Sarah and I broke up last week,” John snapped, glaring. “And I know you already knew that. You should have called me because I’m a doctor.”

“That has noth-”

“They were smuggling kids!” John exploded, looking as though he’d like to shake Sherlock until he saw sense. Or possibly hit him. “They were half-starved and dehydrated and scared! I could have helped! You said the best time to find them was tonight, not now.”

“They were going to move them,” Sherlock said forcefully, frustration heavy in every fiber of his being. Why didn’t John understand? “They knew we were on to them and were going to split them up and spread them out, and I couldn’t let them do that! It’d take days, maybe weeks, to find them all again!”

“And that’s all that matters? I wasn’t there to back you up!” John yelled, more power than volume, and there was his military background poking through. “No one was there to back you up!”

“I don’t need backup,” he spat, feeling his face twist into an ugly snarl. “I don’t need the collection of imbeciles calling themselves Scotland Yard, and I certainly don’t need you!”

“And what if they’d decided to cut and run?” John bulled on stubbornly, steadfastly ignoring him and narrowing the gap between them. “Decided to do them in and take off! What then, Sherlock? How were you going to protect a bunch of kids on your own? What if that shot didn’t just graze you? A couple centimeters to your left and it’d have-”

“’What if’, ‘what if’!” Sherlock shouted, and he couldn’t even be bothered to rein in his anger when what he really wanted to do was throw a temper tantrum of previously unseen proportions. Why were they having this conversation? “If the world cared about what ifs, John, nothing would ever get done! There are no ‘what ifs’, that didn’t happen, none of it did, so why does it matter?”

“It matters because you don’t think!” John threw back at him, fury in the lines of his eyes and shape of his mouth. “Thinking is a conscious process, Sherlock, and your brain just runs on automatic, doesn’t it?”

No one had ever said that to him before, and certainly not as though it were a bad thing. As though it were a problem.

So when he had to actively push away the small sweep of defensive hurt invading his chest, he knew he was starting to unravel. It struck a nerve he didn’t know he had; it shouldn’t have but it did, and he didn’t know why.

“If it bothers you to this degree,” Sherlock said icily, his spine stiffening and chin rising, “I’ll be sure to exclude you from future automatically generated plans since they seem to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

John’s hands fisted in the lapels of his coat and slammed him back into the wall in one quick movement, pulling down hard on the fabric to yank his neck forward and even out the height difference between them. “No,” he said quietly, firmly. “You won’t.”

Sherlock couldn’t unscramble this thoughts fast enough to formulate a response to that, so he blinked instead.

“You’re not going to do this again,” John informed him calmly, keeping his voice low despite the fact there was no one else around to hear them. “I know you won’t, because you can’t call me your friend if you’re going to treat me like this, Sherlock. You can’t expect me to help with cases if you won’t let me know what you’re doing.”

His eyes really weren’t just blue, were they? Sherlock thought, gaze darting from one to the other. From a distance they looked rather dark, very misleading, but up close like this they were definitely blue…and was that brown at the center surrounding the pupil? Blue and brown, an unusual combination, how fascinating-

“You’re not going to pull this sort of stunt again,” the doctor continued with even self-assurance, “because if you do, I’ll stop helping you with cases. Not a huge deal, I realize, but you like having me follow you around, having someone to explain your thoughts to, and tell you how brilliant you are. And I like following you around, listening to your reasoning, and telling you how brilliant you are.”

It was true, very true, Sherlock had to admit. It was more than a bit nice having someone on your heels telling you what a genius you are, even if he already knew that, because not even he was inhuman enough to refuse genuine praise. John wasn’t stingy with it and he didn’t overdo it either, which was a refreshing change from the rest of the population, sort of like the colour of his eyes, and he was fairly certain he’d never seen this shade of blue-brown-gray anywhere else-

“So really,” John’s words were decisive and soft, with a gentle brush of breath against his face. “It’d be in both our best interests if you didn’t repeat this, Sherlock. Understood?”

Sherlock stared at him, hearing the words but preoccupied with the eyes in front of him. Those eyes warranted further study, intensive further study, and with John’s face so close it was difficult to concentrate on anything other than the nearness and shivering of eyelashes and steady breathing, an unspoken request for permission John didn’t even know he was asking for.

The fists in the front of his coat tightened marginally in warning, pulling harder. “Sherlock? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Sherlock breathed, and with a thrill of terror he realized his answer had nothing to do with John’s words.

He wasn’t hallucinating, he definitely wasn’t imagining things, but John’s head was tilting fractionally to the right at the same time the breath on his lips became a very real, unimagined presence. It wasn’t his breath, because he’d stopped breathing about five seconds ago when his heart decided imitating a malfunctioning EKG was a grand idea, and his visual field had mysteriously, dramatically narrowed…Oh, not mysteriously, since those were his eyelids lowering at the same rate as John's, his fingertips tentatively skimming the hem of John's jacket-

“Good,” John exhaled, the word lingering in the miniscule distance left between their mouths like a promise.

The door banged open with unnecessary force, making them both startle badly and separate like they’d been dashed with ice water. Anderson poked his head in.

Sherlock had never hated the man more than he did at that moment.

“If you two are done making a scene in here,” Anderson said with overly false politeness, throwing a nasty look at the detective, “you need to give your statement. And then leave.”

John coughed into his fist and glanced at Sherlock, his hand not quite hiding the extra colour in his face. “Well, I’ll just…I’ll just let you wrap it up here, Sherlock, shall I?” he asked, moving for the door without waiting for answer. “I’ll meet you back at the flat.”

Anderson turned to watch him leave, a frown on his face, before fixing Sherlock with a suspicious glare. “What was that all about?”

Sherlock scowled, his mood plummeting to dangerously low levels. “Do shut up, Anderson. Shouldn’t you be more concerned about your wife’s affair with her doctor? I suppose you two aren’t so different after all.”

With a vicious smile, he swept out of Lestrade’s office and left the other man sputtering indignantly in his wake.

5.

There was only one person in the world who could ratchet his irritation up to absolutely inane levels, and that person was Mycroft Holmes.

Laid out on the couch, eyes closed and fingertips pressed together under his chin, Sherlock focused all his not inconsiderable energies into ignoring his brother.

“I have a proposal for you.”

“Not interested,” Sherlock drawled, unmoving.

A short disapproving sigh. “Really, Sherlock. I thought you’d have moved past all this by now.” The rustling of fabric and soft squeak of furniture told Sherlock that Mycroft was lowering himself into an empty armchair. John’s armchair. Again.

Sherlock cracked open an eye and glowered. “Moved past what? All I see is a pompous, insufferable man invading my flat and deliberately boring me.”

Mycroft leaned his umbrella against the arm of John’s chair. “This is a matter requiring the utmost discretion.”

“Dull,” Sherlock said shortly, closing his eyes again. “I already have a case, I really can’t spare any time for you.”

He could feel his brother’s eyes boring into him.

“How is Dr. Watson faring?” Mycroft asked after a pause.

“Fine, I’m sure,” Sherlock said, uninterested, as he caught the sound of the door opening downstairs. “You can ask him yourself in a moment.”

John’s distinctive tread on the stairs halted any further conversation until he reached the top. Shopping bags crinkled under his hands.

“You know, Sherlock, it probably wouldn’t kill you if-” his flatmate’s voice abruptly stopped as he laid eyes on the two men in his sitting room. “Oh. Hello, Mycroft.”

Sherlock was secretly pleased at the wariness in John’s voice.

“Hello, John,” Mycroft said pleasantly in a way that made Sherlock want to grind his teeth. “Good to see you again. You’ve been well, I hope?”

“Just fine, thanks,” John responded. A self-satisfied smile settled on Sherlock’s face. “But I’m sure you already know that.”

No one said anything for a few drawn-out moments, the silence stretching uncomfortably to the point where Sherlock waited for his friend’s fallback method of dealing with awkward situations in their flat.

John cleared his throat, the shopping bags crinkling further as his grip tightened. “Tea?” he asked finally, making his way into the kitchen.

“That would be very kind of you, thank you,” Mycroft accepted, his right hand tapping on the armrest.

Sherlock’s eyes flew open to glare at his brother. “You do not need tea, Mycroft,” he snapped, pushing himself to his feet.

“No, it’s fine,” John said from the kitchen, setting the groceries on the counter. “I’ll just get the kettle going-”

“He doesn’t need tea,” Sherlock repeated, long strides carrying him to where John was rummaging through the cabinets. He forced the door closed.

John peered at him in bemusement. “I know, he wants tea,” he said calmly.

“He doesn’t,” Sherlock said impatiently, leaning harder on the cabinet as John’s eyes darted back to it. “He wants an excuse to spend an unnecessary amount of time here spying on my person-”

“I don’t need an excuse to do that, Sherlock,” Mycroft said nonchalantly from his seat.

Sherlock ignored him. “-because he can’t resist being the nosey parker he is, and something on his surveillance has peaked his curiosity. He’s not verifying a suspicion because his presence wouldn’t be necessary for that, so that means he thinks something’s off, but he doesn’t know what. Isn’t that right, Mycroft?”

His brother didn’t miss a beat. “What sort of tea do you have, John?”

“You’re not getting tea,” Sherlock hissed, twisting to glare fiercely at the back of the older man’s head.

“Right,” John said with a sigh, maneuvering around his flatmate to pick up the kettle. “Well, I want tea, so I’m getting tea. Can you move-” he cut himself off as he lifted the lid and stared into the container.

The detective turned and raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”

“Sherlock,” John said slowly, raising his eyes and adopting his best ‘not good’ expression, “why are there fingers in the kettle?”

“They were an-”

“If you say they were for an experiment, I’ll throw them at you,” John interrupted, glaring at him. “It’s the kettle, Sherlock, you don’t put body parts in the kettle, ever. Why aren’t they in the bloody refrigerator, where they belong?”

“They were in the refrigerator, John, but I was using them when Mycroft rudely interrupted-”

“So you put them in the kettle?” his flatmate said as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“It was conveniently nearby and would keep them heated for far longer than a cup or jar,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly. “Of course, Mycroft can’t do anything quickly except start wars and kidnap people, so they’ve long gone cold by now, I expect.”

“Why couldn’t you put them back on the tray they were already on?” John asked, clearly struggling to control his anger.

“That’s where the rest of them are,” Sherlock retorted, not bothering to keep the obviously out of his voice. “Back in the fridge. I couldn’t put them together because that would contaminate the rest.” Honestly, how did John not know this?

John stared into the depths of his kettle, quietly deliberating. Then he slammed it on the counter and pushed past Sherlock, heading for the refrigerator. “I think you’re finished experimenting with fingers, Sherlock.”

“On the contrary, I need those-”

“No,” John decided firmly, crossing to the stainless steel appliance, “you really don’t. Not if it’s going to cost me my tea.”

“John-”

“Sherlock-”

Both hands planted themselves on the stainless steel surface on either side of John, trapping the doctor between his body and the side of the refrigerator, and Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten there.

“John,” he said carefully, deliberating over how to defuse the situation because he really did need those fingers. “They’re essential to supporting or refuting Mrs. Forrester’s alibi.”

“So your fingers are more important than my tea kettle?” John asked, staring up at him neutrally.

“What sort of question is that? Of course they’re more important than your kettle,” Sherlock replied, frowning at the idiocy of the very idea it could be the other way around. “Why on earth-”

“Wrong,” John snapped, crossing his arms and glaring. “Wrong, Sherlock, wrong. In this kitchen, nothing is more important than my tea kettle. Do you understand me? Nothing.”

Sherlock stared at him objectively, gaze darting over his face. “John, I think you’re attaching an unrealistic amount of value to-”

“Kettle. Mine,” John enunciated slowly, leaning as far forward as his restricted space allowed. “Very important. Do not delete.”

Grey eyes examined every aspect of the familiar face in front of them, taking in the set of his jaw, the wrinkles in his forehead, the narrowed eyes. Clearly, John prized not necessarily the kettle itself but instead what the kettle symbolized-the option of making tea whenever he felt the need for it. Using the kettle to hold his experimental appendages had effectively destroyed that option, leaving John feeling as though his liberty had been violated. To rectify the situation, and save his fingers, he would have to find a way to restore John’s liberty by presenting a satisfactory, alternate way to make tea since John considered their current kettle unusable.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Sherlock said suddenly.

John blinked and leaned back as though to see him better, plainly not expecting that response. “Sorry, what?”

“A kettle,” Sherlock clarified, monitoring John’s expressions. “I’ll buy a new one. Is that acceptable?”

“You’re going to buy me a kettle?” John asked dubiously, confusion sneaking through his eyes. Then they narrowed in mistrust. “Are you just saying that so I won’t bin your fingers?”

“Well, yes,” Sherlock concurred.

John scowled.

“However,” Sherlock continued, leaning forward so John couldn’t decide not to look at him. “I understand your tea is…important to you, and I did not take that into account when I prematurely concluded my experiment. It was not my intent to…contaminate…the kettle, nor maliciously deprive you of its use. It was merely a…lapse of judgment, per se.”

John watched him silently as he evaluated his words, and Sherlock hoped he realized that was the closest he was going to get to an apology.

“Alright,” John said quietly. “So I won’t bin your fingers and you’ll buy me a new kettle, is that it?”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed as the tension drained from his shoulders, pleased that a potentially messy situation been avoided.

“And no more body parts in the kettle,” John said pointedly, trying to repress a small smile.

“No?”

“No.”

“No more fingers?”

“No more fingers.”

“Toenails?”

“No toenails.”

“Eyeballs?”

“Sherlock, if I find eyeballs in my kettle,” John started sincerely, moving forward slightly so his forehead touched Sherlock’s, “you will need to do more than buy me a new one. Okay?”

“I suppose the terms are tolerable,” said Sherlock, staring at the blue-brown-grey of his flatmate’s eyes and tentatively brushing his nose against John’s. “You’re not angry?”

“Nope,” John confirmed, gently brushing back. “You’re going to buy me a new kettle.”

“Hmm,” hummed Sherlock, eyes sliding shut as he took refuge in the warmth of John’s skin pressed against his own, their breathing soft and unhurried between them.

John’s gaze was on his mouth when he reopened them. The knowledge was heady and intoxicating, that he could have this kind of power over another person. And this time it wasn’t quite the same-it didn’t feel magnetic and involuntary, there was no inescapable force driving his actions. There was a choice, this time, and he wanted to, because now there was no reason not to and John wanted just as much as he did.

It felt natural to slide his fingers under John’s chin, pressing with the barest hint of pressure, feeling the corners of his mouth quirk up as his friend’s eyes met his with a smile. John slowly uncrossed his arms and placed both hands lightly at Sherlock’s waist. He didn’t stop the smirk that curled his lips as he brushed their noses together one last time and lifted John’s chin up a little more, tilted his own head to the side and moved in.

“Well, I believe it’s time for me to be going,” Mycroft said casually, standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

Sherlock choked on his own breath as he stumbled away from John, eyes wide and horrified when they whipped over to stare at his brother and oh god, how had he forgotten about Mycroft? It was like Mummy had walked in on him snogging his not-yet boyfriend, but worse, because it was Mycroft, and he saw Mycroft far more often than he saw Mummy.

He was stunned to feel his face heating, made worse by the fact Mycroft could see it; it reminded him of being eight years old again and caught in the act of doing something wrong, and like always, it only made him angry.

Mycroft’s expression was artfully dispassionate, but his eyes were the most amused Sherlock had seen them in a long time. “Do think about what I said, Sherlock,” he said calmly, twirling his umbrella. “I admit I was a little…”-his mouth thinned as he debated his word choice-“…uneasy, at first. Understandable, of course.” Shrewd eyes moved from him to John and back. “But I see everything here is under control.”

Sherlock glanced at John, standing with one arm braced against the wall and staring out the narrow kitchen window with his back to Mycroft. He didn’t look uncomfortable or embarrassed, but the half of his countenance Sherlock could see was dark and withdrawn. Sherlock didn’t like it.

He turned a full-fledged glare on his brother. “What?” he spat. “What are you on about, Mycroft?”

Mycroft just smiled with that enigmatic crook to his mouth that told Sherlock he knew something Sherlock should already know, really. “I’ll see myself out. Good day, Sherlock, Dr. Watson.”

His brother’s carefully measured tread retreated down the stairs, pausing as Mrs. Hudson accosted him at the bottom, followed by a final-sounding click as the front door closed.

John didn’t look up as silence permeated the flat, just ran a hand down his face that settled over his mouth.

Sherlock snarled in wordless frustration and stalked through the kitchen to the sitting room, snatched up his laptop, and vanished into his room. He slammed the door hard enough to shake the walls.

+1

It was ten twenty-three at night and according to Sherlock’s internal clock, John has been missing for exactly eleven hours, thirty-seven minutes, and fifteen seconds. Sixteen. Seventeen.

Eleven hours, thirty-seven minutes, and eighteen seconds, and if John is not here in this warehouse where he knows John should be, if they’ve moved him, again, Sherlock is going to burn the whole fucking place to the ground. And then he’ll track down every last one of those presumptuous, thieving bastards and inflict every torture method he has stored in his hard drive on their sorry, sniveling flesh-and there’s over four thousand of them, not including the ones he’s come up with himself. He could write a series of encyclopedias on the subject, because if there’s anything Sherlock Holmes knows, it’s how to hurt another human being. He makes a study of the subject on a daily basis, after all; it’s his job.

He’ll drag it out for at least a week, see how high their pain thresholds are, just make an experiment out of it really, and they won’t be sorry. Oh no. They will be begging for amnesty and redemption from an enraged god that doesn’t know the meaning of the word mercy.

Sherlock hauled open the large warehouse doors with a viciousness that betrayed his thoughts, ignoring the heavy scrape of metal over concrete. No one should be here; the little band of thieves should have moved on to their next rendezvous point, the location of which he had already dictated to Lestrade. The near-tangible darkness of the building didn’t surprise him, but it didn’t do anything to improve his spirits, either.

“John?” Sherlock called, immediately dissatisfied with the way his flatmate’s name failed to echo in a way that would have been useful. The warehouse was at least nine thousand square meters, but it was also stacked to the ceiling with crates and boxes that effectively limited the range of his voice.

John wasn’t dead, of course he wasn’t; while the men had clearly escalated from stealing to kidnapping, Sherlock was positive none of them were ready to take a step up into murder. If he was a dull-witted thief with little to no imagination and even fewer guts, where would he dispose of a hostage he hadn’t intended to take?

He ran for the back of the warehouse, using his phone to light his way between rows and rows of metal shelving, none of which ran parallel to each other for more than a couple meters at most. It was practically a bloody maze, and he didn’t have time for this.

Crawling and squeezing through any shelving space he could contort himself proved faster than any roundabout running. Maneuvering between a wooden crate and the sheet of metal above it, he fought back the pulse that pounded in his ears, that tried to obliterate his auditory faculties without any regard for how necessary they were at present. The clenching, shivery feeling in his stomach was only growing worse the longer he thought about how very wrong John’s absence felt, and he was chilled in a way that didn’t feel remotely physical, but that didn’t make any sense at all, did it?

Sherlock straightened up, straining his ears for even the most remote sound, yet he couldn’t catch the faintest whisper of anything. Frustration swept over him as he cast his gaze toward the ceiling, spinning a full three hundred and sixty degrees while checking every shelf he could see in the narrow circle of light projected by his phone. Nothing but more containers of unimportant things, and even less important things in the spaces beyond that, and where the hell was John?

“John?” he yelled again with more volume. “John, answer me, I know you’re here!”

There.

Sherlock whirled in the direction of the noise because that was human speech; he couldn’t distinguish the words but it didn’t matter since it couldn’t be anyone other than his flatmate. The minute it took to get to John may as well have been a lifetime and a half, and with every breath he cursed thieves of all sorts the world over.

“John?”

He needed more light, is what he needed, except he hadn’t seen a light switch or consumer unit anywhere.

“Sherlock,” John answered, and god, even with his hoarse breath hitching oddly like that, his voice was still the most brilliant thing Sherlock had ever heard. “Jesus, Sherlock, can you-get me the fuck down from here now.”

The sudden glare of the phone’s light made the doctor recoil, but it lit up the man and his surrounding area well enough to let Sherlock observe everything in a single glance.

His jumper was gone, the long-sleeved shirt underneath torn messily in several places, and gray eyes followed the line of his body straight up where both arms had been strung above his head. Both wrists were shackled in handcuffs, the narrow sequence of links separating each cuff supported and divided by a larger, heavier chain that looped around it and vanished back up into the shadows. The chain, however, had been intentionally shortened so it forced John onto his toes with no way to reduce the strain on his arms, obviously intended to exacerbate a tenuously healing wound. Like the one from Afghanistan, the one in his-

“Sherlock, my shoulder-” His voice broke before John could finish the sentence and for a split second the only thing in Sherlock’s mind was rage. An inexpressible fury that someone would do this to John, who was a war veteran and a doctor and a loyal friend and his.

Then he was chest to chest with John, arms outstretched and working by feel on picking the locks, simple really, until moments later the left cuff clicked open. John gasped when his feet dropped flat against the floor, first the left, then the right, as the weight of his unsupported right arm dragged the handcuffs over and off the gently swaying chain. Sherlock snagged his wrists before gravity could fully reclaim them.

“Careful, John,” Sherlock said quietly, keeping both now-unlinked limbs extended over their heads. “Gradual re-introduction of blood circulation is important in order to prevent further damage to your arms.”

John’s huffing laugh was choked with a scrambled combination of pain and unbridled relief. “I don’t need you to tell me that; I’m a doctor,” he said, resting his head awkwardly against the detective’s neck. “But I don’t think I have the muscle strength to hold them up myself yet, either.”

Sherlock frowned, eyes darting uselessly in the dark because he couldn’t hold his phone and pick locks and hold John’s limbs simultaneously with any efficiency. “Alright, well, I can remove the other one when we’ve finished with your arms.”

“What?”

“Nevermind. Hang on.”

Close to ten minutes passed in silence while Sherlock steadily lowered John’s arms at periodic intervals, naturally re-establishing blood flow into his extremities. Neither of them said anything. He could feel the doctor’s arms gaining strength little by little, progressively taking on more and more of their own weight.

“You can walk, yes?” Sherlock asked finally, feeling John’s wrists pull away from him.

“Yeah, I’m…fine. Sherlock, I’m fine,” John answered, his footsteps moving away from him across the floor . “Can we just-”

“You are most certainly not fine,” the detective interrupted, retrieving his phone and activating…that button that gave him more light, that torch app, or whatever it was called. Not important. Light flared from the screen. “Being strung up from the ceiling is not fine, John. That they deliberately exploited your shoulder is not fine. That they even took you in the first place is not fine. What definition of ‘fine’ are you using, John?”

“Alright,” John retorted, spinning around to glare at him.

Sherlock took note of what he could see of John-the ashen, pinched expression on his flatmate’s face, the irregular breathing, the way he cradled his left arm to his chest while pressing his other hand to his shoulder-and tried to clamp down on his own ire. Which was increasing. Exponentially.

“I’m not fine then; I’m tired and hungry and it feels as though someone took a red hot poker, jabbed it straight into my scar, and dug around for an hour or so. Is that what you want to hear, Sherlock? Does that make you feel better?”

Pale eyes narrowed even as the hateful fire raging his head fought to escape its prison, followed by the strong, lingering desire to set something alight. “There’s no need to lash out. I understand you’re in pain-”

John snorted and turned away at what he undoubtedly considered an atrocious understatement.

“-and that increases irritability. But your misguided attempt to downplay your condition is poor at best, and entirely unnecessary,” Sherlock continued shortly, jaw clenching. “Even if your physical state wasn’t blatantly obvious, I do not need coddling. As a medical man, you should be able to appreciate the importance of giving an honest answer.”

“I don’t need a lecture-”

“Give me your hand.”

“No.” It was reflexive and petulant because his shoulder was hurting and now he was angry, Sherlock reminded himself.

He scrutinized his friend’s back, making an effort to keep his tone neutral. “So you’d prefer to keep the cuffs on, then?”

John’s head tilted down as he stared at his right hand, the metal links clinking as his arm moved. “…ah.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and stepped over to him, gingerly taking John’s hand and allowing him the opportunity to refuse. John didn’t look at him, but he didn’t fight him either.

“Sorry,” John muttered.

“That’s not…oh shut up,” he snapped heatedly, taking his frustration out on the lock. “That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want your meaningless apology.”

John looked away, studying the shelves over the detective’s shoulder.

“Don’t pretend with me, John,” Sherlock said, his voice low. “I prefer you honest than socially correct. You know that.”

He could feel John’s eyes on him as the handcuffs opened and clattered to the floor.

“I do,” John replied quietly.

Sherlock glanced at him and cleared his throat as he returned his lockpicks to their hiding place. “Your arm needs to be looked at, and ah…Lestrade should be here in just a moment when-”

Approaching sirens drowned out the rest of his words, making the doctor turn towards the sound.

“Yes, about time,” Sherlock said derisively, and he’d be secretly relieved if the idea of being so weren’t completely ridiculous, because he had no reason to be. “We should go before our favorite Detective Inspector decides storming the building is a good idea.”

He didn’t give John a chance to say anything else as he spun around, leading the way back to the front doors with the aid of his phone. They were within sight through the shelves when a familiar face stepped through them, walkie-talkie at the ready and movements cautious.

“Ah, Sally. Late as always, I see,” Sherlock greeted her as he approached, examining her coldly in a way he knew she hated.

“Freak,” she returned, her eyes sharp and darting to take in the immediate area. “Did you find-”

“Obviously,” Sherlock cut her off impatiently, watching her gaze settle over his shoulder. “What were you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

Donovan narrowed her eyes into a glare and tightened her grip on the portable radio, her dislike of him seeping through her expression. “Detective Inspector Dimmock-”

“Of course, I should have known,” he stated acerbically, sweeping past her and out of the warehouse. “At least tell me he had the good sense to bring an ambulance with him.”

A police perimeter was already being set up, the night air filled with flashing lights and officers running from place to place. The ambulance had already arrived, sitting with the rear doors open as the medical personnel kept an eye out for when they were needed.

Sherlock raised an arm to grab their attention, sort of like flagging down a cab, then looked back at John. He was talking to Donovan, looking increasingly ill and bad-tempered as he pulled his arm closer to his body. A sharp spike of something shot through him, tempered with a few more recognizable feelings: anger, possessiveness, and the desire to increase the distance between his flatmate and the policewoman as much as possible.

He slid between John and Sergeant Donovan while she was mid-sentence, ignoring her affronted stare that told him he had just violated another social rule of absolutely no importance.

“Hey, Freak,” she began, the aggressive intonation of her words matching her unforgiving body language. “I’m a bit busy-”

“Impeding John’s ability to seek medical attention, yes, I can see that,” Sherlock drawled, letting the pointed, sarcastic quality in his tone tell precisely how little he thought of her. He pressed a palm to the small of John’s back to get him moving. “Well done! London is certainly in safe hands tonight. Come along, John.”

The doctor glanced over at Donovan and wordlessly let Sherlock steer him away from the conversation. The paramedics met them halfway, firing a volley of questions when they crossed into hearing range.

“Sherlock!”

He whirled around at the exclamation to see Lestrade striding towards him, wearing his usual expression of exasperated weariness. Clearly, he was looking for an explanation to something ridiculously obvious and he wanted it now. He glanced at John. Their eyes met for a less than a second, before the shorter man inclined his head almost unnoticeably and allowed his medical brethren to herd him off to the ambulance. He shifted his attention to Lestrade.

“Good to finally see you, Lestrade,” Sherlock replied, slipping his hands into his coat pockets.

Lestrade ignored him. “Why the bloody hell didn’t you wait? I told you I’d get a car for you!”

“And yet I still somehow arrived here before you. Strange, isn’t it?”

“You could have just said ‘no’ and been done with it, instead of just taking off! I asked you to wait for one sodding minute, Sherlock!” Lestrade fumed, his frustration boiling over as he crossed his arms.

Sherlock tilted his head to the side slightly and gazed up at the dark sky in a parody of thoughtfulness. “I do vaguely recall you mentioning something about needing to waste time,” he agreed brightly, meeting Lestrade’s gaze with a false smile.

He let the DI rant at him about the difference between being a police detective and a consulting detective for a minute, allowing his overactive mind rank the conversation as a lower priority and instead taking in the activity of the surrounding area. His thoughts kept skittering back to John-how he’d been left suspended in the dark for over an hour, the pain carved into his features, the undisguised relief at his arrival. How severe was the damage to his shoulder? Was it irreversible? Would it have made a difference if he’d gone to rescue John before going to Lestrade, despite the risks involved?

“Are we done here?” interrupted Sherlock, once he’d decided the Detective Inspector didn’t have anything significant to say.

Lestrade paused, giving his consulting detective a flatly incredulous look. “No, Sherlock, we’re not-”

“I think we are,” Sherlock said curtly, refocusing his attention on the other man’s face as it furrowed into a frown. “I’ll be down at the Yard first thing tomorrow, since I’m sure you’ll want an accurate version of events. Yes, I’ll bring John if he’s up to it, and no, your delightful little speech doesn’t actually make a difference although it improves every time you say it. Anything else?”

Hands on his hips, Lestrade resignedly eyed him as though he wasn’t even sure what to do anymore and sighed.

“Fantastic. See you in the morning, Lestrade,” the detective concluded, pivoting on his heel and walking away.

John was sitting on the back steps of the ambulance when Sherlock returned, watching the Yard’s finest scurry around and inside the warehouse. One of the paramedics had deposited a blanket over his bare shoulders, his shirt most likely lost to a pair of scissors, and his left arm tied up in a sling. His flatmate glanced up as he came to a stop in front of him.

“Very fashionable,” he said after a moment.

John rolled his eyes. “Have you got a spare shirt, then?”

Sherlock hesitated for a fraction of a second before carefully unbuttoning and shrugging off his coat. He watched, intrigued, when John froze while he draped it across his shoulders.

“Sherlock, what…what are you doing?” asked John, staring at him.

Raising an eyebrow, Sherlock replied, “It’s a little chilly to be wandering around shirtless, don’t you think? And at this point, if I remove my shirt, I’m sure Lestrade wouldn’t hesitate to arrest me for public indecency.”

The detective noticed the smile skirting the edges of John’s mouth as the other man glanced away, tugging the coat around himself with his right hand. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, I’m sure. But, uh…thank you. This is…it’s rather nice of you.”

Sherlock raised his eyes to study the inside of the ambulance, lingering on and mentally identifying the machinery. “I can’t have my blogger running around without all his clothes on, John. People will think I don’t take care of him.”

There was that odd sensation again, the inherent knowledge that John’s eyes were on him, that made him lower his gaze back to his friend. If he catalogued John’s smiles, which he didn’t but if he did, this would probably be his favorite-the one where he tried hard not to show his amusement because he thought it was something he really shouldn’t find funny.

“What?” asked Sherlock, thoroughly fascinated by the tingling in the pit of his stomach, because he had caused that smile.

John let the full smile break free even as he tried to stay serious. “You’re right. People would think that.”

Silence fell for an instant, both of them simply watching each other.

“What does my blogger think?” he heard his voice ask without permission, sounding bizarrely detached to his own ears. The question was almost sentimental in nature and the realization almost made him cringe. He didn’t care about anyone else’s opinion, honestly, but John’s, to a degree, was important. John was important.

Momentarily surprised by the question, John’s eyes raked over his visage, searching. “I think everyone else can piss off,” John said quietly, holding his gaze. “That’s what I think.”

Sherlock couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face, wide and utterly contagious and real. This was why John was still in Baker Street, why he was invaluable as a partner, why it was okay to need him. John knew exactly what to say when it mattered just by being himself, and honest, and he believed every word that came out of his own mouth.

It never failed to catch him by surprise, how John could warm him with the smallest gesture from his fingertips to his chest to his toes. The way his internal organs, particularly his stomach, tended to frequently vanish and reappear, the pseudo-vertigo that for no logical reason at all always gave him a thrill when John got close, an electricity that passed between them at any sort of contact at all, and if he kissed John, right now, would it feel exactly the same?

He caught himself just before he started to lean forward, saved by a rush of self-awareness and common sense. John hadn’t even had a chance to go to hospital yet. With only one good arm and an unknown amount of muscle damage, having himself looked at took precedence. John’s well-being came first, and with his unremarkable knowledge of human anatomy, there wasn’t much he could do to help.

Sherlock tore his eyes away, settling on the two Detective Inspectors talking by the warehouse doors. “You should…” he nodded vaguely at John’s sling, “go get that checked at Bart’s. You’re not particularly useful with your dominant trigger finger out of commission.”

John didn’t reply although Sherlock could feel blue eyes on him.

“Text me when you get results back. I’ll be at the Yard; the last thing we need is our local police force-”

“Sherlock.”

A hand at his hip ground his turning motion to a halt, strong fingers clenched in the waistband of his trousers. Gray eyes flitted to the grip on his clothes and up to John’s determined expression, his narrowed eyes. John ran his tongue over his bottom lip in his nervous thinking habit, but Sherlock still found himself following the movement.

“Sherlock, we’ve had more than a few…almosts, I guess you could say, whatever you want to call them, lately,” John began, visibly trying to order his thoughts the way he wanted them. “Lestrade, Sally, Anderson, your brother-”

“You’ve kept track of them?” interjected Sherlock, giving John a piercing stare.

John stopped and stared back. “I…oh god. That’s a bit not good, isn’t it?”

“Bit not good, John,” Sherlock agreed with him, suddenly aware of that memorable attraction creeping over him again. “But as you know, I’m a bit not good myself.”

Someone moved, probably him because he had to bend down to meet John, but in the next instant there were lips against his own. It was quick and chaste, lasting only seconds before they both separated.

Sherlock met John’s eyes and saw his own surprise mirrored back at him. He’d gotten so used to never quite getting there and poorly timed entrances that the lack of interruption felt…abnormal. Not abnormal enough to stop them, however.

The weight at Sherlock’s hip disappeared as a hand slid into his hair and drew him into another kiss. John’s mouth was warm and giving against his own, the sensation immediately jumpstarting the now familiar side effects of rapid heart rate, shallow breathing, and temporary lightheadedness. Curiosity heightened by anticipation, he allowed John to take the lead because the man had experience, obvious experience, and unlike Sherlock, he clearly knew what he was doing.

He brought his hands up to frame John’s face, mimicking the soft pressing movements of the other man’s lips. Sherlock had always been a quick study and now was no exception as he matched John in-

Teeth. John’s teeth scraped gently at his lower lip, catching on the sensitized flesh, and Sherlock couldn’t suppress a strangled sigh. Fingers relaxed and tightened at the back of his head, making his breath hitch when John teasingly repeated the motion without teeth this time, effectively parting his lips. Eyes sliding closed to focus on the incoming barrage of sensory information, he let his mouth open against John’s in a silent demand for more, exhaling as the faintest tremor passed along his spine. The low noise it drew from John, rather than the fleeting touch of dampness at his bottom lip, surprised him, though both actions ignited an addictive heat that flared in his chest and rapidly spread outward. The doctor’s hand untangled itself from Sherlock’s curls, brushing by his ear, settling firmly on his jaw.

So strong, the feeling that ripped through him as John’s tongue flicked briefly against his, powerful and all-consuming and he wanted John like he had never wanted anything in his life. He wasn’t even sure what that meant, what and how much it entailed exactly, just that this man needed to stay right here where he was, with him, and Sherlock thought for a fraction of a second that if he suddenly lost everything else at that moment, well, that was okay. It was fine. John was here and had his tongue in his mouth and that was exactly where he should be. Then he stopped thinking for a bit because thinking was boring.

“John…” Sherlock murmured thickly, his voice intense and heavy to his own ears, slightly deeper than usual.

John’s tongue pushed forward past his lips and teeth, hot and wet and everything he’d never thought he’d crave, stroking experimentally in a way that left him breathless. He responded instinctually, fascinated by the slick slide of muscle and saliva, the easy push-and-pull give-and-take the act required from both of them. Sherlock trailed his hands lazily down the warm column of John’s neck, remembering the arm sling at the last minute as he brushed over the straps and continued down, carefully shoving his coat out of the way before smoothing over the right side of-

Oh. Oh. Mmmm, shirtless John. He’d have to remember to thank the paramedics later.

Very little compared to the rush of having bare skin under his palms; another living body he had permission to touch. John shuddered under his hands and moaned quietly into his mouth, causing a flash of smugness to diffuse through the haze in his mind. The hand at his jaw moved abruptly back to his hair and yanked, eliciting a small spike of pain as it tilted his head a little more to the side, and that hurt, why would…ah.

John was more forceful now, thrusting his tongue deeper with the change in angle and god that was perfect, right there, just like that, that was brilliant. If he said anything, made any sound at all, he didn’t notice, too busy concentrating on the feel of it, trying to commit it to memory. Then he started pushing back, and it took a second before the doctor realized what he wanted.

Sherlock took his time mapping the inside of John’s mouth, tracing along the edge of his teeth, curling around his tongue, excruciatingly aware of John’s patience as he experimented with action and reaction. Bracing a hand on the metal flooring of the ambulance, he let it take his weight as he leaned forward into the kiss, his other hand returning to the short hair at the base of the other man’s skull.

At the periphery of his hearing he caught the muffled steps of someone’s approach-a steady tread with minimal scuffing that belied confidence, and a swift pace that indicated irritation levels were higher than average-before they ended some yard and a half away.

“Mr. Holmes.”

The Detective Inspector’s brisk tone made John start in shock; Sherlock could sense him tensing to pull away and no, that wasn’t acceptable, because this wasn’t over until he said it was. He followed the anticipated retreat without pausing at all in his love affair with John’s lips and teeth and tongue, since John would have to stop soon enough. The doctor didn’t have a great deal of room to move, after all, and Sherlock swiftly seized his chin in his left hand to keep them together, simultaneously throwing out his right with the index finger extended in the universal sign for please hold, making out with my John now.

Their intruder huffed crossly at being put on hold but Sherlock wrote him off as insignificant, along with all the other eyes he could feel on them, concentrating on the far more intoxicating feeling of John taking back control, reclaiming his own mouth with gentle insistence. He went without too much of a fuss, his flatmate nipping sharply at his tongue several times in warning, but Sherlock was nothing if not stubborn and prolonged the contact as long as possible. Even when John’s skillful mouth finally closed he returned to the same methods from the beginning of the kiss: a firm, moving pressure of lips on lips that made John smile against him and loosen his fingers in Sherlock’s hair.

Darkened gray eyes opened moments before the two drifted apart, immediately locking on deep blue irises centimeters away.

“Mr. Holmes.”

He looked over at Detective Inspector Dimmock’s dark countenance. Offended annoyance and frigid self-control branded every inch of his features, stoked by the common, casual disrespect the detective usually showed him, and Sherlock couldn’t have given any less of a fuck than he did right then.

Dismissively returning his attention to his friend, he observed the healthy flush of heat across his cheeks and bridge of his nose, the intense red tint to his mouth, bare-chested, hair in disarray, and felt a powerful surge of satisfaction as his fingers lingered at John’s jaw.

“I’m a bit busy here, Inspector, as I’m sure even you can see,” Sherlock announced evenly, refusing to acknowledge him in any way other than verbally. To his glee, the colour of John’s face intensified in reaction to his voice, which was still deeper, rougher than normal. He smirked. “Whatever you want, make it quick.”

“First off, Doctor Watson needs to go to hospital,” Dimmock said curtly, although there was an underlying current of discomfort in his words. “Unless you’d prefer him to stay in an arm sling all night. And you need to stop holding up my crime scene and explain what the hell happened here.”

Sherlock’s gaze narrowed at the implication that he’d rather John stay in pain than leave, but the doctor must have noticed instantly because his right hand promptly tugged at his shirt.

“He has a point,” John conceded, although he threw a glare at Dimmock despite his agreement. “I should go. I can’t take anything until we know how much-if there’s any damage.”

A cursory glance at John’s carefully supported arm made Sherlock straighten slowly while he assessed the visible injuries. Other than the obvious, there were a few scratches that were superficial at best and chaffing from the handcuffs around his wrists. Nothing too serious, there.

“Very well,” Sherlock replied when his evaluation was complete. “Text me.” He readjusted his coat over his friend’s shoulders again, taking a little longer than strictly necessary just to have the excuse to keep touching.

John rose from his seat on the steps and discreetly grasped his hand, squeezing briefly, before turning back into the ambulance. The paramedics glared at both of them, evidently disapproving of their patient’s prior activities. One of them assisted John as the other came over to secure the rear doors.

Sherlock grabbed the second door at the last second, holding it open so he could see the young woman while Dimmock shifted impatiently behind him.

“I just wanted to thank you,” he told her.

John’s head jerked up to frown at him, disbelieving.

“I-sorry?” she asked, taken aback.

“For removing his shirt,” he continued as though it were obvious, ignoring the sputtering coming from his flatmate. “Easy access is incredibly hard to come by due to his usual style of dress, and it actually made things much easier for me. Next time though, I should like to do it my-”

“Sherlock!” John cut him off loudly, flushing brightly in embarrassment.

Sherlock grinned past the two staring paramedics, wide and self-satisfied. “I’ll see you back at the flat, John.” He winked and let the door slam shut.