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John braced for the cutting deduction they day they met at Bart’s and Sherlock said “Afghanistan or Iraq?”
Six months on, it still hasn’t come.
He must not know. If he knew, he would’ve said. When had he ever kept quiet when he could be showing off? John didn’t fool himself into believing it was because of Sherlock’s request for his privacy, not from a man who casually prized out secrets for sport. So he couldn’t know.
Could he?
John’s been full-time for—God, nearly twenty-five years. He successfully lived more or less stealth the whole time he was in the army, and he’s consistently been read as male since uni. In short, passing: John does it. But how could Sherlock, with all his preternatural powers of observation, fail to notice the signs of chest reconstruction? Or, hell, miss the four or five packers buried in John’s underwear?
Irene knew. Her sharply-cut blue diamond eyes bored straight through his lumpy jumpers and second-day stubble. She said nothing, but John recognized the gleam of discovery and the small smirk of knowledge quietly kept.
John’s got no doubt Mycroft knows. If he has John’s medical history, he knows. Greg didn’t know, but found out after a particular long night at the pub during which there were many pints had, confessions made, crap sisters slandered and soon-to-be-ex-wives disparaged. Mike knows, because for the first year of uni John was a baby-faced mezzo-soprano.
Barring Harry, that’s everyone who knows. That puts Sherlock’s knowledge of the subject at the same level as Molly Hooper’s, or Anderson’s.
Maybe he thinks it’s not important, John thinks one night as he’s getting changed for bed. And it really isn’t. Still, it’s not like Sherlock to miss such a golden opportunity to look clever. It’s definitely not out of a sense of courtesy. Sherlock has never met courtesy.
He shimmies his boxers onto the floor. The trousers he lets sit. He’ll pick them up in the morning with the rest of his clothes. The silicone packer, however, he scoops out of his shorts and deposits in the middle drawer of his dresser, burying it under a mound of underwear. It wouldn’t stand up to any real search, but it makes John feel better.
He’s just pulling up his pyjamas when Sherlock bursts through the door.
“John! I’ve gotten us onto the—” He frowns. “Why aren’t you dressed? We’ve got a train in eighty minutes. Hurry up.”
John checks the clock. Quarter past eleven. “Sherlock,” he says patiently. “When you told me about this, was I, in fact, in the room?”
Sherlock doesn’t even give the question a token consideration. “What does it matter? There’s been a kidnapping in Surrey. We’ve been called.”
“You’ve been called,” John mutters. “I’ll be down in five.”
Sherlock nods and shuts the door behind him looking entirely unsurprised, as if anyone would want to drop their night to help him solve a kidnapping. John sighs and drops his pyjamas.
He long ago perfected the art of packing in ten minutes or less. In exactly eleven, he’s pitching a suitcase into the back of a cab and racing off.
———
Things go south within two days.
They find young Nathan Darbiger in a rubbish skip inside of sixteen hours. He’s alive, but only just. It turns out that Nathan’s Uncle James is not his Uncle James, but a convicted child molester with recently acquired forgery skills. They catch him in the hospital morgue. John goes for his gun. James Winters gets his out first.
There’s the crack of a shot, a flash of light, and a sharp pain in John’s leg. He goes down.
“NO!”
Sherlock snatches John’s gun up. James Winters is frozen in shock at the sudden roar of fury. Sherlock slugs him across the face with the gun, knocking Winters to the side. Sherlock strikes again, one hard clout to the back of his skull with the butt of the pistol, and Winters drops.
“Are you all right? John, are you all right?”
Sherlock drops to the floor. John looks up and stops cold.
Sherlock looks stricken. His eyes are wide and his hands on John’s leg are trembling. John has seen him concerned, even frightened. But he’s never seen Sherlock this…unraveled. As he blinks himself out of his daze, John can’t help but think it’s worth a little soft tissue damage to see the heart of Sherlock Holmes.
“John?” Sherlock says.
John shakes his head a little. “Yeah, um, he only just clipped me.”
Sherlock lifts John’s hand up to see. The tension ebbs from his posture, and he breathes a sigh of relief. “Yes. Entirely superficial.”
As soon as he’s verified John’s safety, Sherlock whirls back to his feet, stalks over to James Winters on the ground, hauls him up by the lapel collar and slams him onto a dissection table. He groans, conscious but dazed.
“Now, Mr. Winters,” Sherlock hisses, “I hope you’re grateful for your poor aim.” Winters looks hazy. Sherlock shakes him once, very hard. His teeth are sharp and white and bared. “If you had murdered John Watson I would leave you longing for a death so quick as a bullet.”
Something twinges in John’s stomach. He’s not sure if it’s the murder threat or the sentiment behind it. Frankly, it might be both.
Sherlock cuffs Winters to the table, punches out a text message, tosses his phone aside and offers a hand to John. John takes it and hauls himself to his feet with a wince.
“Really, Sherlock, I’m—”
Sherlock darts forward and kisses him.
John is too stunned to react at first. Slowly, by measures, he relaxes. Sherlock keeps ahold of his shoulders, kissing him shyly with soft, tender lips.
John blinks and smiles. “Well then.”
Sherlock shakes his head, looking irritable. “I—that wasn’t supposed to—adrenaline is a powerful—”
John laughs, high and bubbly and a little giddy. “Suppose I’d better get shot more often.”
Sherlock looks so stricken by the sudden joke that John nearly kisses him again, but then the police arrive and they spring apart.
Neither of them is keen to head back to Baker Street at this hour, so they get a hotel room. Sherlock immediately heads for the bed. Now they’re off-case, he’s liable to sleep for most of the next day. John bites back a grin.
“I’ll just be a minute,” says John.
“Mm,” says Sherlock.
John brushes his teeth and changes into his pyjamas in the bathroom. When he emerges, he finds Sherlock apparently dead to the world.
As it turns out, he’s not quite. “Oh, get in,” Sherlock says, voice muffled by the pillows. “It’ll be much warmer.”
John gets in. “What, angling for a cuddle?”
“It’s warmer this way. The cold aggravates your shoulder.”
“Ah, yeah, of course.”
There’s a moment’s pause.
“Of course, more intimate physical contact has also been found to have a beneficial effect—”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”
John scoots in closer, and throws an arm over Sherlock and cuddles in close. Sherlock relaxes.
Within minutes, they’re both fast asleep.
———
When John wakes, he finds that Sherlock has taken up the position of “big spoon.” John nestles in and sighs contentedly. Behind him, Sherlock stirs.
“Good morning,” John says.
“Mm,” says Sherlock, and pulls John in that little bit closer, bringing his hips flush with John’s arse.
John lets his eyes drift back shut and enjoys. “Nice to see everyone’s happy to see me.”
“Please, John. It’s a natural biological response.”
“Well, thanks.”
“For what it’s worth, it does seem to like you.”
John bursts into a fit of laughter. Sherlock scowls.
“What?”
“Your prick,” John giggles. “Like a person. In a little—blue scarf and coat—”
Sherlock sighs tragically.
“Making deductions about—bums—”
“Are you quite finished?”
“Shercock Holmes.”
“I can feel every shred of sexual desire I have ever felt for you evaporating with each further word that leaves your mouth.”
John’s mouth spreads into a wide grin. “Oh,” he says. “So, there is something.”
Sherlock purses his lips. “Was.”
“Huh. Well then, if hope is lost…” He starts to roll out of bed.
Sherlock reaches out and catches his arm.
“Well,” he says slowly. “There may be…some potential for…rekindling.”
John smiles and lies back down.
———
They catch a cab back to Baker Street just after lunch. John sits too close to Sherlock. Sherlock isn’t paying attention; he’s texting. But he rests a hand on John’s thigh, which is nice. John hides his smile. He savors the warm tingling in his stomach, the lightheaded feeling of new love.
The realization washes over him in a cold rush, the old fear of exposure and rejection, the messy answer to the big question: “does Sherlock know?” The pleasant hum of excitement fouls.
John pulls away, scoots closer to the window and lets Sherlock’s hand drop to the seat of the taxi. Sherlock frowns. John looks at the window and doesn’t say anything.
Whether or not he knows, John is going to have to tell him, and soon. Circumstances being as they are, Sherlock is going to…be in the vicinity of the relevant area. Less delicately, he’s going to have his hand down John’s pants. When that moment comes, John finds it’s generally more pleasant for everyone if they’re all on the same page beforehand.
It’s not that he thinks Sherlock’s going to recoil in horror and demand he move out. He’s more afraid of the less overt types of rejection—the microaggressions, the cringeworthy insinuations he’s not “real,” or worst of all, pronoun slip-ups. He swallows a lump of nervousness and stares determinedly at the grey London skyline.
They don’t talk as they get their things from the boot of the cab, and they don’t talk as they carry their bags up the stairs, and they don’t talk as John takes his up to his room and Sherlock drops his in the sitting room and hangs up his coat.
Sherlock finally corners him at the stairs. “John. I find myself, ah—thrown by immediate developments in our—”
John throws up a hand. Incredibly, Sherlock shuts up. “Look. There’s, um, something we should discuss before—”
Sherlock rolls his eyes with greatest melodrama. “Don’t tell me you’re concerned I’ve got some sort of ridiculous hang-up over your genitalia,” he says disparagingly. “God, how tedious.”
John’s mouth hangs open. He’s fighting the conflicting urges to sock Sherlock in the arm and skip for joy. “I—what?”
“Honestly, there are much more relevant things to be concerned about, though I suppose it does mean my immediately relevant sexual experience is negligible—”
“Sherlock! How long have you—”
Sherlock shoots him a disparaging look. “Please. You’re good, but you clearly had chest surgery prior to your gunshot wound. And your penis—”
“Yeah, I’ve got it, thanks.” John pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jesus.”
Sherlock looks elsewhere. “Also, your sister sometimes uses the wrong pronouns.”
John sighs heavily. “God, she can be a twat. Never quite got it. Couldn’t understand why I’d need to be a boy to get girls.”
Sherlock winces sympathetically.
“You never said,” John says.
“Was I wrong? After all your nattering about privacy, I thought—”
“Not at all, I just…wondered. Generally when you know things, you want everyone else to know you know.”
Sherlock frowns. “I don’t know what you mean.”
John snorts. “You absolutely do.”
“I really, really don’t.”
John shakes his head. “Look, that’s…I’m asking you why you respected my privacy on this one thing. You…don’t always.”
Sherlock looks abashed. “It seemed…incorrect,” he says hesitantly. “I thought it would be best to leave you the opportunity to tell me in your own manner. There are secrets that should be exposed, and yes, I enjoy exposing them. Exposing this, about you…” He ducks his head. “It seemed…discourteous.”
John feels unexpectedly warm. The lightheaded feeling is creeping back in, and the tingling in his stomach.
He ruffles up the back of his hair and shuffles his feet. “Anyways, I just wanted you to know what I’m—ah—dealing with. Before—yeah.”
Sherlock moves in a little closer. “But you are…amenable?”
John smiles. “Um, yeah, I’d say so. Maybe even enthusiastic.”
Sherlock quirks an eyebrow. “Oh?”
John’s grin widens. “Yeah. Depends.”
“On?”
“How good,” he steps deliberately closer, putting himself in Sherlock’s space, “are you really?”
Sherlock crowds in close. “Unimaginably,” he rumbles. John’s heartbeat accelerates. “When’s the last time you’ve had it?”
John licks his lips. “Had—”
“Cock.” Sherlock enunciates the terminal consonant with explicit clarity.
Blood thrums through John’s dick. He swallows.
But he’s not quite done talking just yet. There’s still the other situation he’d considered, and he needs to rule it out before they proceed. He puts a hand on Sherlock’s chest.
“Hold on a—hold up.”
Sherlock halts. He doesn’t look pleased, but he does.
“This isn’t just some sort of…experiment, is it?” He’s been an experiment before. It’s never ended well.
Sherlock sighs, long and put-upon. “People aren’t experiments, John, they’re subjects. As for the sex…now, that’s always an experiment.”
John’s heart throbs. Sherlock half-smirks.
“The formulation of hypotheses, correlating action and reaction. Thorough testing. Conclusion, implementation.”
John is fairly certain he isn’t imagining the fine tremor in his hands. “Like?”
The corner of Sherlock’s lip twitches into the shadow of a smile. “My—research proposal?”
John grins. “If you will.”
Sherlock’s hands curl around John’s upper arms. He leans in and puts his lips to John’s ear, making John’s hair stand on end. “If I ordered you to strip,” he says, in a voice that could melt iron, “you would do so unquestioningly.”
John licks his lips. “Maybe one question.”
Sherlock arches an eyebrow, small smirk coloring his expression. “Oh?”
“Just one.”
“Do tell.”
John dares to reach up and brush the backs of his knuckles over Sherlock’s jawline and then down the curve of his neck. Fuck, this is gonna be good. He raises his eyes to meet Sherlock’s.
“Bedroom,” he says, “or...right here?”
Sherlock inhales, nostrils flaring. He blinks slowly once, then twice.
“Bedroom, I think.”
“God, yes,” John sighs, and crushes their mouths together for another long kiss.
He whines when Sherlock pulls away. Sherlock laughs. John nearly protests, but then Sherlock is backing away down the hall, towards his room, and undoing the button on his purple dress shirt one at a time.
Step. Button. Step. Button.
John follows.
Sherlock hangs his shirt over the door and his trousers over the doorknob. At the foot of his bed, Sherlock hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his pants and peels them down his legs. John inhales and flexes his hands.
“That’s…” He’s not actually sure what it is, but the boundless, giddy desire in his chest demands some kind of acknowledgment. “Nice.”
Sherlock laughs. He steps up and settles his hands on John’s shoulders. “May I?”
John nods.
Sherlock bends to kiss him. They’re already getting the hang of it, like they’ve always been meant to do this. John takes Sherlock’s waist and squeezes. Sherlock makes a little pleased sound into Sherlock’s mouth and gets to work on the buttons of his shirt.
John almost pulls away to hide the scars. But then he remembers—this is Sherlock. Of everything he’d ever worried might put him off, he’d never given a second thought to his scars. So he sheds his shirt without trepidation. Sherlock breaks the connection of their lips, reaches out and curves a hand around John’s ribcage. He bites his lip and thumbs over a nipple. The shock arcs through John’s chest and straight to his groin.
John takes a step back for the next part. No matter how much he tells himself it’s fine, it’s okay, he’s safe, he can’t quite shake the nerves.
Well, it’s now or never.
He shucks off trousers and pants and packer in one go, kicks them out of the way, and straightens, head high and defiant. A part of him still expected to meet Sherlock’s eyes and find revulsion, or cold, calculating scientific curiosity.
But another part hoped for—wanted badly to believe in—this, the unabashed avarice, the undisguised want, the shiver-inducing, knee-weakening, heart-tremblingly immense lust that possesses Sherlock as he eyes John’s bits.
“Tell me what you want,” he orders, basso profundo.
John really does shiver at that. The sight of it seems to inflame Sherlock. He strides forward and grips John’s waist.
“I’ll do it,” he says. “Whatever it is. Anything.”
John looks up at him in wonder. God, he means it. The knowledge rolls down his throat like a sip of hot tea.
A question was posed. He blinks hard and brings himself back into the world of rational thought.
“I want it all,” he says. The words are slow and thick. “As for tonight—I’d really, really like you to fuck me.”
Sherlock’s breath catches. John is unaccountably pleased.
“In—”
“Yeah.”
And, bless him, he doesn’t ask if John is sure. He just pounces.
John crumples, falls backward onto the bed and pulls Sherlock down with him. Sherlock smears his lips and teeth and tongue down John's throat. John tips his head back to give him room, but Sherlock is already moving back to his ear. Oh, fuck, his ear. John clutches at Sherlock's shoulders and focuses on pulling in breaths that keep coming out shaky.
“Sherlock. Jesus, Sherlock.”
Sherlock moans against John's skin. John squeezes his legs together. He’s so wet and hard and wanting.
“Oh, yeah. You’re so good. Oh, fuck—”
Sherlock pushes up on his hands. His lips are red and wet, his hair tousled, his pupils dilated. He looks like an offering to some hedonistic god. John squirms.
“Do you want me to—”
John lies back and spreads his legs. Sherlock’s face smoothes. He catches his lip in his teeth.
“At this point?” John says, low and dark. “How about that ‘anything’ you talked about?”
Sherlock sits back on his heels and sets his hands on John’s knees. He gently spreads them wider, then gets down on his elbows.
“Er…” Sherlock says, “…communication would be mutually beneficial.”
John bites back a laugh. “Oh, I’ll communicate.”
Sherlock nods very seriously and bends to his task.
He spreads John open with his thumb and licks a stripe over his hole and to the side, just missing his cock. John twitches. He is trying to measure his breathing. Sherlock tries the same trick on the opposite side. Another twitch, and John is struck by the urge to hook his legs over Sherlock’s shoulders and grind down. Sherlock responds enthusiastically, kneading at the backs of John's thighs with his free fingers.
Sherlock is experimenting, John realizes. Trying long, slow sweeps and quick, short ones, everywhere but where John needs it. He realizes he’s getting lightheaded and pauses to get in a deep breath. It comes out shaky.
“Sherlock,” he says, and it comes out shakier. “Jesus, Sherlock, please.”
Sherlock lifts his eyes and not his mouth. John lets out a noise like he’s been punched in the gut. Sherlock raises his eyebrows, an obvious “please what?”
John flings the back of his arm over his eyes. “Christ, just fucking suck me, you bastard.”
Sherlock laughs right up against John’s core, and John’s toes curl. But then Sherlock licks straight down the center and up John's cock, and John is too busy hanging on for dear life to think of much else.
It’s a little thing, even after years of hormones—no surgery there for him—but he’s proud of it. He likes the way it looks, glistening and properly hard, likes to see it disappear between a partner’s lips. Sherlock sucks him like he’s being paid, takes his cues from John’s twitches and gasps and flinches. John likes it slow and hard, and Sherlock doesn’t disappoint.
When the first sigh of pleasure escapes, John has to stop himself from biting the pillow to shut himself up. Was it too high? Too ugly? Too unsexy? Jesus, what was he thinking, throwing himself at Sherlock bloody Holmes? He’s practically a sex god, and then there’s…John. Ordinary at best. Sufficient.
Before John can panic right out, Sherlock moans, and it’s like the fucking siren’s song. He moans so deep and primally it makes John’s hair stand on end and his teeth ache with how badly he wants to hear that sound again, and again, and again. With a jolt, John realizes that Sherlock has shifted. He’s not spreading John wide. One hand is planted on the mattress for support. The other—well. John doesn’t need to be a consulting detective to recognize that sound.
He’s wanking. While eating John out.
Blood rushes south. His hands fly to Sherlock’s hair and he pushes his head down, writhes and gasps. Sherlock moans his encouragement, and that finishes him.
Sherlock holds John’s hips down, licking him through the orgasm. John tries to keep from kicking Sherlock in the side and not shout so loud the neighbors hear, and mostly succeeds.
When he’s gotten too sensitive to stand it, he gently pushes Sherlock’s head back and squeezes his shoulder. “Come on,” he rasps. “I was promised a fucking.”
Sherlock’s head comes up. He sits back, and without opening his eyes, runs his tongue over his lips. Slowly.
John’s cock twitches.
Sherlock’s eyes flick open. “Yes.”
John spreads his legs and holds out his hands. “Come here.”
Sherlock comes.
John brings him down into a kiss, reaches down, and strokes his cock, just once. Sherlock inhales sharply.
“Just giving you a hand,” John murmurs.
“No, I—let me.”
He pushes up, holds his cock at the base, and slips the head just in.
“Yeah,” John whispers. “That’s it.”
Sherlock bites his lip and slides in further. John arches his back and takes another inch by aiming his hips down. Sherlock gasps, alarmed. John covers his mouth and giggles. Sherlock scowls.
“I have never been the object of anyone’s amusement mid-coitus,” he says, miffed.
“More’s the pity,” says John, and laughs more. “Your face—”
“Is that so?” Sherlock says smugly.
John doesn’t have time to process what’s about to happen until it does, as Sherlock pushes forward and swiftly gets himself seated. John gasps. Sherlock’s eyelids drift shut and he lets out a long, satisfied sigh.
“Different,” he says through heavy-lidded eyes.
“Adequate?” John says, mouth twitching into a nervous smile.
Sherlock’s lips part on a little sigh. He rocks back and forth in small, experimental movements. “Exceptional.”
John’s heart flutters. He tucks his feet inside Sherlock’s knees and rocks against him.
Sherlock is frowning. Concentrating. John brushes a hand over his cheek.
“You all right?”
“Yes. Fine. Absolutely fine. Why would I not be fine?”
John bites his lip and smiles. “Of course. Yeah, I’m—fine, too.”
He shifts, angles his hips down a little more, and gasps as Sherlock scores a solid hit on John’s sweet spot.
Sherlock immediately stills. “Are you—”
“Good, fine, fucking brilliant if you do that again.”
Sherlock smirks. “Happy to oblige,” he downright purrs, and sets to work trying to replicate the movement.
John just lets him go after that. Sherlock’s a quick study. He doesn’t take long to learn the language of John’s body, the nuances of his breathy cries. John follows Sherlock’s lead in this as in all things, and trusts him.
Sherlock kisses him hard and deep as he pounds in, quicker now, more desperate. John tries to leverage himself and push back, to take him that extra bit deeper. The sensation builds more quickly than before. He finds himself holding back, trying to draw it out. This is the only first time they’ll have. He never wants it to end, even as he’s panting hot breaths and writhing and so fucking close to coming. He wonders how long he can stay like this. He wonders how long Sherlock can. From the look of it, not much longer. The pink flush along Sherlock’s cheekbones has spread down his chest. He’s biting down on his lip and squeezing his eyes shut, barely holding himself together.
John wants to see him come apart.
Sherlock winces. “John—please—”
It’s all the temptation John needs. He just grabs Sherlock’s hand and drags it to his dick. One or two strokes finishes him. He comes again, longer this time, deeper and more profound.
As he’s letting out a breath and relaxing, Sherlock’s eyes go wide. He draws in a quick breath.
“John.”
“Mm,” says John.
He lets his eyes drift shut and his mind float away into postcoital bliss. Sherlock stiffens with a strangled shout. John cracks his eyelids and sighs.
“Yeah, just like that.”
After, Sherlock spends quite some time just doubled over John, breathing. John enjoys it immensely, but at some point it occurs to him that perhaps Sherlock should get his dick back.
He swallows. His mouth is very dry. “Sherlock.”
“What.”
“Your, um, that is to say, my—”
“Oh.”
Sherlock pulls out with a revolting wet sound. John wrinkles his nose.
“Eugh, I’m leaking on the sheets.”
Sherlock looks interested, the pervert. John shoves him.
“Budge over, you filthy sod.”
Sherlock budges over. John rolls out of bed and pads off into the bathroom.
After he cleans up, he regards himself in the mirror. He catalogues the old scars and marks on his skin: insurgent bullet, appendicitis, bicycle injury, hysterectomy, keyhole top surgery. Then he looks over the new: James Winters’s gun, love bites, finger-shaped bruises. He smiles.
Sherlock approaches from behind and sets possessive hands on John’s hips. “What are you doing?”
John reaches back and touches his face. He looks at the two of them together in the mirror. “Feeling lucky.”
“Why?”
John shrugs. “No reason. Feelings things.”
“Eurgh.” He kisses the top of John’s head.
John’s always been a little self-conscious of his height, but at the moment he finds he’s glad of it. Another inch, and he’d have no idea what it’s like to have Sherlock Holmes kiss the top of his head. It feels…cozy. Right.
Sherlock kisses it again. “Come back to bed.”
Still smiling, John does.