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The worst part of it all, John muses, is that there isn’t even enough content to make an adventure out of this.
Sherlock’s hands are in his hair, their teeth continuing to clack as he tries, and fails, to find a proper kissing angle. They’re pressed up against the wall of the club, a piece of decor digging into his back as they angle themselves away from the path to the toilets. Sherlock’s still got his bloody monogrammed ear defenders on.
And he can’t even put it in the podcast.
He imagines the quippy cold open, how he could spin it.
He could put in one of those record scratch sound effects. Or just make the noise with his mouth. Yup. That’s me. John Hamish Podcast Watson. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.
That’d be funny. The listeners would love it, for sure.
But Sherlock had solved this one in less than 48 hours—a mystery that had seemed knotted enough to center an episode around, instead unraveled in a day and a half by the same deft hands currently stimming against his scalp.
Yes, this was, indeed, a fucking disaster.
“There’s a body,” Sherlock announces, Mariana entering the room as he stands from the sofa.
“So you got Lestrade’s email?”
“No, she’s texted.”
“Does she have to text you before I can even give you the details?”
“And the details would be?” John adds, refusing to move from the sofa until someone can give him a little more information.
“She’s simply sent me the crime scene photos so that I’d be able to examine at eye level. And zoom in. Also, their Google Drive is struggling with sending emails that contain multiple large file attachments.”
Mariana groans. “Are these people one thousand years old?”
“Is anyone going to elaborate on the crime?” John groans. Archie snorts. John takes that as proof that someone agrees with him.
“No one at New Scotland Yard is over the age of seventy-one,” Sherlock says, clicking once. Archie immediately makes his way over to nuzzle at Sherlock’s calf.
Fucking traitor.
“Crime, Sherlock. What’s the deal with the body?”
Sherlock cocks a head at him, like he’s suddenly remembered that John is in the room. He does not take it personally. It’s not as if Sherlock had been snoozing on his thigh less than half an hour ago. Whatever.
“A man’s been found stabbed to death in a back corridor of Sandy’s—gay club in Soho. Multiple stab wounds, consolidated primarily around the chest,” Sherlock hums, standing up to pace. Annoyingly, Archie follows. “Primary suspect is the victim’s former partner, since it’s his own pocketknife that’s missing, but Sandy’s was filled to the brim at the time of death. Many are unwilling to cooperate with police to provide additional information.”
“So they’re covering for the former partner.”
Sherlock shakes his head, frowning. “No, he didn’t do it.”
John doesn’t even bother to ask, simply confirms that his microphone is recording. It is—it always is.
“I doubt they’re covering for anyone but themselves,” Mariana says, still clearly scrolling through the email from Lestrade. “It’s not as if the police have always presented themselves as the most trustworthy demographic where gay clubs are concerned. Lestrade says she thinks we’ll have more luck.”
Sherlock hums in agreement, having dropped down to a crouch behind the sofa, turning his phone on an angle to examine one of the photos. Archie dotingly hovers, flopping over onto his back.
“The initial stab wound was directly under the right pectoral,” he says, rubbing at Archie’s exposed belly before poking him somewhere in the chest. “Would have been more than enough to incapacitate, if not ending the man’s life within seconds. There’s visible streaking of the blood from where the blade was removed, and bruising around where the rib would’ve broken. All of the other stab wounds are more superficial. No struggle. A delay in the subsequent attack.”
He pokes along Archie’s stomach, drawing wounds with the tip of his index finger, brows furrowed as his brain almost visibly whirrs. John can hear himself huff.
“Can you please stop using my dog as a stand-in for a murder victim?”
“Archie doesn’t mind.”
“Oh, have you asked him then?”
“Archie,” Sherlock starts, and there’s a snort in response. John doesn’t know if it’s from his dog or Mariana. “May I please use your belly to better visualize a gruesome stabbing?”
In answer, Archie lolls his tongue out to lick Sherlock’s palm.
Sherlock winces, wiping the slobber off on Archie’s own stomach, but pats the dog’s head in thanks.
“See? He is very pleased to be included, Watson.”
“Whatever,” John groans. “What’s the deal, then, detective? If it wasn’t his partner, who? He got stabbed in some corridor, right?”
“The one that would exit out onto Broadwick,” Sherlock nods. “It’s en route to the bathrooms but extends and cuts southwest to a proper exit closer to one of the bars.”
“You think somebody killed him ‘cause he was holding up the queue to piss?”
“Doubtful.”
“Sherlock,” Mariana interjects, mouth pinched. “Do you think it was, like, a hate crime?”
Sherlock shakes his head again, eyes shut tightly. “No. The first wound was lethal. The future hits shallow. No passion.”
John watches as Sherlock snaps and taps his fingers against his thigh, having clearly blocked himself off from him and Mariana for the time being. When he shoots Mariana a glance, she just shrugs.
“There’s more to this,” he finally says, going back to the crime scene photos on his phone and dropping from his crouch to sprawl across the floor.
“Would you like to elaborate?”
“Not at the moment,” Sherlock murmurs, chewing at his lip.
Mariana lets out a resigned sigh. “We should go and see the scene, right? I know that you can deduce southwest bathroom corridors from a single photo in a Google Drive, but it might be helpful if we can all see the space.”
“No deduction necessary. I know Sandy’s well.”
John smirks. “So that’s your local haunt, Sherls?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “It’s where I meet Langdale for details. Kissing potential witnesses on mic is your department.”
“For the last time, she kissed me!” John exclaims. “And she was, again, eighty years old!”
Mariana waves off Sherlock’s laughter. “Will Langdale be there tonight? Lestrade said Sandy’s closed everything off yesterday but it’ll reopen in a few hours. They might have information.”
“Or they might be performing,” Sherlock says. “They’re not going to have much free time, if that’s the case. And we’ll attract attention.”
Mariana shrugs. “Not necessarily the wrong kind.”
Therefore, the plan to go undercover is Mariana’s idea.
“They’re not talking to the police, right?” she hums, hours later, twisting some of her hair around a curling wand. “That means they’ll be even more suspicious if we walk in blabbing about our detective agency and true crime podcast.”
John frowns, picking at the hole in his jeans. According to Mariana, they were the most “bear” pair of trousers he owned. He didn’t ask any follow up questions, but perhaps he should’ve.
“Gay people like true crime podcasts.”
Mariana laughs, the sound devolving into a hiss when she bumps her knuckle against the iron. “Since when?”
“A gay person is quite literally the namesake of our podcast.”
“And does the gay person in question actually like our podcast?”
“Depends on the day, really,” comes Sherlock’s voice. He’d been out for the afternoon—gallivanting around London and apparently following up on leads—and had locked himself in his room upon returning to Baker Street.
John doesn’t really know what he was expecting from Sherlock in preparation for their undercover operation, one that he’d initially seemed vaguely uninterested in, but he looks…well…
“And who are you trying to impress?” Mariana whistles, poking Sherlock’s arm as he sits on the floor beside her chair, making himself comfortable in her bedroom.
“I should be asking you that question, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock says, scratching at the inside of his elbow where he’s rolling his shirtsleeve up. “That eyeshadow is new and you’re wearing fragrance.”
She flicks his forehead for the name-calling and grins. “You two are the ones going undercover,” she says, twisting a strand of Sherlock’s hair around her finger. “I’m just coming along for the fun of it. Why are you wearing cologne?”
“I’m supposed to be ‘blending in’ with the average patron, yes?” He makes air quotes in front of his face, and John is tempted to make fun of how aggressively he crunches his fingers, but the polish on Sherlock’s nails gives him pause.
Mariana also takes notice, holding Sherlock’s long fingers in her own hand, unplugging her curling iron. “Yes, but you look above average with your hair done and clothes that fit. You’re wearing a belt!”
“Should I change?” he frowns.
“No,” John answers, way too quickly, and Sherlock cocks an eyebrow at him. It could just be a trick of the light on the dark frame of his glasses, but there’s a dusting of what looks like eyeliner along his waterline. It makes his gaze sharper than usual.
“The better we look, the more people that will approach us, right?” He scratches at his cheek. “We’ll get the most information if we split up and just start offering to buy people drinks and conversation.”
“Please do not blow the month’s budget on drinks for hot people,” Mariana whines.
“I’ll try and get Langdale alone early,” Sherlock assures. “They have some performance slots tonight, but they’re bound to have a few leads.”
“And if you get to them too late, they might be too distracted by your outfit to focus.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Langdale’s attraction to me would not supersede their assistance in seeking justice for a murdered man. I’ve discussed this with them.”
John pulls his eyes away from where they’d been lingering on Sherlock’s collar. “Sorry—what?”
“We should get going,” Mariana interrupts, grabbing a tube of lip gloss from next to her eyeshadow and slipping it into the front pocket of Sherlock’s shirt. “We’ve got game in our feet, or whatever it is you say.”
It’s not that John hasn’t ever been to a gay club. Swindon isn’t overflowing with them, to put it mildly, but he’d had a wide array of friends and acquaintances at uni who’d dragged him to lots of places.
He knew, for example, that gay clubs tended to have a heavier hand when it came to pouring liquor. At one point, before he and Carrie had moved in together, she and her friends had dragged him along for a pub-and-club crawl, specifically seeking out good deals. He didn’t remember most of the night, but he remembered a bartender squeezing his bicep and giving him two shots for the price of one.
He also knew they often had entertainment. Most of his other experience in the world of gay clubs came from Stammo and Nadia, roping him into themed music nights, watching the two of them get drunk and sing songs from old musicals in each other’s faces.
He’d even been to clubs with Sherlock and Mariana, following up on leads or trying to corner witnesses, shoving tips at Langdale as often as they de-escalated robberies.
It’s never been like this, though.
Sandy’s is decently sized—multiple dance floors and bars, DJs and drag acts, a cramped little upstairs area—but not as packed with people as John would have expected from a Friday night. There’s still tape blocking part of the corridor where the victim was found, which is…well, horrifying.
Despite the relatively-fresh crime scene, the patrons seem mostly unfazed. They drink and laugh and dance, Mariana having made herself comfortable from the second they walked in, leaving he and Sherlock to “do the real investigating” while she was “rewarded for a week of keeping the company in business.”
John feels distinctly out of place, Sherlock having similarly abandoned him to get closer to the crime scene, and he orders himself a beer simply so he’ll have something to do with his hands. Langdale is nowhere to be found at the moment, so he’s going to have to actually talk to people.
Great.
He approaches four objectively fit men who clearly have no interest in the crime or him, and he’s left waffling until they take pity on him and return to the dance floor. He definitely makes the wrong impression on a couple who seem to think he wants to be their third. Most mortifying of all, a tipsy teenage lesbian decked out in rainbows buys him a drink, telling him not to give up and that he’ll have better luck as the night goes on. None of them, even if interested in sleeping with him, have any information on the stabbing.
The first person to accept his offer of legitimate conversation is admittedly very drunk, to the point that he feels almost guilty passing over the spritz, but the bartender seems aware, the glass mostly full of soda water. He brings up the murder as casually as he can, but his companion—Max—is instantly tearful. They’re tall and slender, but curl in on themself when their lip wobbles.
“S’awful what happened to Andy,” they sniffle. “Just horrible.”
John perks up. “Did you know him well?”
“Me ‘n Will—Will’s his boyfriend since uni—we used to play football together…back when we were kids. D’ya know they arrested him? Took him outta here in cuffs ‘n everything. But there’s no way he did it. No way.”
“They had a good relationship, you mean.”
“The best. I mean, they fought sometimes. Everybody does. But they were for real for real. Like, wanted marriage and shit. Andy sold his house ‘n they were gonna go out to the country. They’re sayin’ that last fight—the one that caused the stabbin’—was about whether or not to sell the house. But they always knew they were gonna.” Max wipes their eyes, sipping at their drink, and John watches as their gaze moves from their spritz to his chest.
“‘M’not really the marriage type myself,” they laugh, moving closer. “Just the one night’s fine with me.”
Max is really quite tall, and their fingers are clever where they’re playing with the hem of John’s jacket and, honestly, if he were a little drunker and Max was a little less drunk and he and Sherlock were not in the middle of a murder investigation…
John only just manages to escape in the direction of the toilets after getting Max a glass of water, trying to catch his breath on the outskirts of the dance floor. What has he even gained from the last thirty minutes? Sherlock already knew that the victim’s partner was innocent.
Speaking of, Sherlock himself seems to be a lot better at this than he is. He’d spotted him a few times during his earlier failures, face serious and discerning as he gathers information, only to break into an easy smile when he’s received his intel. He wears his ear defenders as he slithers between groups of people, wincing if he ends up too close to the DJ booth, but lets them sit around his neck like headphones when he engages in close conversation.
Most irritating of all is that every time John seeks him out, he’s with a different guy. Some of them accept his offer to buy a round of drinks, but most of them approach Sherlock first, looking him up and down as if he’s some piece of meat. John can see when their too-familiar touches grate on Sherlock’s nerves and sensory boundaries, but he knows that, to a stranger, he’d look relatively confident in it.
Currently, there’s a pale man yapping away near Sherlock’s ear, one of his hands sliding dangerously between his hip and thigh. Shockingly, Sherlock seems genuinely unbothered by this touch, but when John finds his eyes, it’s clear that whatever information he’s receiving is worth the discomfort. Sherlock gives him a small smile and nods.
When the man leans in to attach his lips to Sherlock’s neck, however, John can feel the press of his fingernails in the palms of his hands. Sherlock shakes him off easily, slinking near the staircase and gesturing for John to follow.
“Well he was handsy,” John says, once they’re in relative privacy. His voice comes out much fiercer than he intends. He probably shouldn’t have had the second pint.
Sherlock seems surprisingly amused. “My honor remains intact, Watson,” he drawls. “What have you learned?”
“Everyone I talked to was useless!” John hisses, feeling his cheeks heat. “Only one person knew our victim. Just told me what you already know, basically.”
Sherlock frowns. “So nothing on Eli?”
“Who the hell is Eli?”
A deeper frown. When he takes off his glasses to rub underneath his eye, John can see his fingertip is indeed stained black. “What exactly did you hear?”
John huffs. “That Andy and his boyfriend were super in love. The person I met grew up with Will and said there’s no way he killed him. Andy sold his house so they could get some country plot for their future babies, or whatever.”
Sherlock’s eyes refocus. “He sold the house?”
“Yes?”
“We need Langdale.”
They find Langdale approximately six minutes before they’re scheduled to be on stage. The dressing room isn’t large enough to fit all three of them, but they try.
“My love, this needs to be quick,” they greet, scratching at the uncomfortable-looking lacefront of their wig.
“How much did Eli Simmonds offer Andrew for his home?”
Langdale smirks. “I wasn’t aware that he made any official offer.”
“But he wanted it.”
“He wanted the land.”
“And Patrick promised it to him.”
John is exceedingly lost. “Who the fuck is Patrick?”
Thankfully, Langdale looks similarly confused. “Patrick McKinney? He’ll be here tonight. He’s performing in the final slot.”
Sherlock beams. “Thank you very much, Langdale. We’ll take it from here.”
“But what does he have to do with any of this?”
“I’m about to find out.”
Langdale sighs, and John feels a deeper kinship with them than he ever has before. “Please try and actually enjoy yourself after this all shakes out,” they groan. “I go on again at 1:30.”
Sherlock barely waves them off before John feels himself being dragged out of the dressing room and back onto the dance floor.
“Slow down Sherlock, please.”
“Patrick is the final act of the night,” Sherlock says quickly, and John can tell he’s fighting the urge to jump because he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet. “If he doesn’t go on until two, he’ll arrive soon. I already saw Eli near the bathrooms. He’s waiting too.”
“Sherlock.”
This seems to break the spell, whether it’s the frustrated tone of voice or the way that John feels himself grab at Sherlock’s forearms, squeezing him.
“Ah,” Sherlock says, and he lets out a breathy laugh. “You are confused.”
“Yes.”
Sherlock nods and tugs him back in the direction of the staircase, this time leading him up it and into the quieter area. There’s no dance floor up here, but couples occupy booths and tall stools. Sherlock is on high alert, gaze raking over the occupants in their vicinity before deciding that they’re safe. He tugs John down by the hand and all-but sprawls on his lap.
“What are you doing?” John hisses, his hands coming up instinctively to hold Sherlock’s waist, half-afraid that he’s going to roll out of the booth.
“If anyone asks, we’re a couple.”
John’s face feels exceedingly warm all of a sudden. “Why ?”
Sherlock is also very warm in his lap, sweating a little from running up stairs and ducking into dressing rooms that are too short for his stature, but he still smells like the fancy cologne Mariana pointed out.
“Eli knows that I’m here,” he says, as if John has any idea who the fuck Eli is. “He’s going to be on high alert. I have to be able to blend in more, at least until Patrick properly arrives. I can’t be seen on my own, and I can’t continue to be approached. Therefore, I am already spoken for. You understand the optics of romance much better than I do, Watson, so this should be quite easy.”
John drops his forehead to Sherlock’s shoulder, taking a deep breath.
“See, you’re already getting it!”
“If you do not explain the basics of this case to me in the next three seconds, I am going to throw you on the ground.”
He can hear Sherlock frown. “We can’t break up yet.”
“Sherlock Holmes.”
“Fine,” he groans, and John can feel as he maneuvers around to sit properly in his lap, their noses close to touching. His own breath catches a little, but Sherlock doesn’t seem to notice, lowering his own to a whisper.
“Two men conspired to kill Andrew Lopez. One of them is a real estate developer desperate to gain control of the land Andy’s home is on. The other….may have had a way to guarantee that his conspirator got what he wanted. I still need to figure out his motive.”
“And the real estate developer,” John swallows. “That’s Eli? He’s here?”
Sherlock nods. “He is himself moving about on the dance floors. But he’s waiting for Patrick. If we can keep our eyes on them, we may be able to piece together the rest of it.”
“Why would they return to the scene of the crime directly after committing a murder?” John frowns, but Sherlock must spot Eli underneath them, because his face is quickly pressed against his neck.
John tenses.
“Relax,” Sherlock chides. “That is what I’m trying to find out. There may be trouble in paradise.”
“So we just…wait for Patrick to get here?”
“And follow them,” Sherlock nods, pulling his face free. “But we must remain inconspicuous. We can no longer afford to look as if we are snooping. We are simply a happy couple here to enjoy our night.”
He takes another deep breath. Sherlock seems confident in this plan, despite John’s obvious hesitation, but his eyebrows do knit together slightly as he dissects whatever expression currently sits on his face.
“We do not have to partake in any of the…common romantic gestures,” he quickly assures, sweat visible on his brow. John finds the sudden nervousness oddly charming. “We simply must prevent others from inspecting us too closely. Does that sound…er, agreeable?”
John snorts, lifting Sherlock off of his lap and standing from the cramped booth, offering out a hand. “Alright, darling, let’s head back downstairs.”
The next few hours go as smoothly as they can. Patrick arrives soon after they return to the main dance floor, Sherlock expertly hiding his face behind John’s third pint.
They locate Mariana eventually, just drunk enough to be completely unfazed by wherever they are in the investigation, grinning and pointing at John’s hand where it rests on Sherlock’s hip.
“I love you guys,” she slurs, pinching John’s cheek, and he rolls his eyes at her.
They tail Eli and Patrick slowly, the two men seeming to orbit each other just as he and Sherlock orbit them. They haven’t spoken just yet, but Sherlock braves the center of the dance floor to get as close as they dare. Other men don’t exactly stop in their pursuit of Sherlock, but they definitely slow, especially once John links their fingers together. Sherlock bounces on the balls of his feet again, so they must be getting closer.
“You want some poppers?”
It’s a young person, clearly eyeing Sherlock up, even if the offer is extended to both of them. He fights the urge to tell the kid that Sherlock is at least ten years older than them and not available, thank you very much.
“No, thank you,” Sherlock shrugs. “I don’t enjoy sudden, loud noises, even when in control of the mechanism itself. Additionally, the streamers emitted are wasteful and often uncomfortable to touch.”
A laugh. “Not a party popper. Poppers.”
Sherlock cocks his head at the presented bottle. “Ah! Of course! Amyl nitrite. Popular in nightlife for inducing feelings of euphoria and for its properties as a muscle relaxer. The head rush and general warming sensations are pleasurable, but it can often exacerbate sensory inputs and interfere with my ability to self regulate. If I inhale amyl nitrite, I can be more likely to experience meltdown if the room suddenly becomes too loud or bright. I much prefer oxy—”
“Gen!” John interjects, digging his fingernails into the back of Sherlock’s hand. “Oxy-gen. Prefer to keep that big brain of yours chock-full of the old O2! Right, mate? Or, er…babe. I—oh, look! Our good friends, right over there. I think they’ve bought us drinks and everything. We really…really should be going. Nice to meet you!”
One of these days, Sherlock Holmes is going to give him an aneurysm.
Thankfully, he allows John to tug him to the bar, still tapping incessantly and distractingly against his thumb.
“Again, can we please refrain from bringing up the opioids.”
“They were the ones offering me drugs, Watson.”
John pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, sex drugs! Not heroin.”
“Again, can we please refrain from calling my legally acquired oxymorphone heroin,” Sherlock mimics. “And what do you mean sex drugs? Amyl nitrite isn’t just a sex drug.”
“You—you’re the one who brought up the fact that it’s a muscle relaxer!”
Sherlock rolls his eyes, opening his mouth to retort, but all John receives is a squeeze of his hand. Sherlock’s gaze has moved behind them, and John would bet that Eli and Patrick have finally collided.
“Don’t look now—”
“Obviously, Sherlock.”
A huff. “They’re heading back toward the crime scene, but they’re moving slowly. We need to…make it seem as if we’re vaguely moving in the direction of the toilets.”
John is mostly flying blind, letting Sherlock effectively lead him backwards, one wide hand on his hip and the other nearer to his shoulder. It’s hard to act as if they’re dancing, directionless, but it’s not long until he can hear a man’s low voice crystalizing, Sherlock having shuffled them into the alcove between the rear bar, the crime scene, and the toilets. It’s a whisper, but it’s there.
“You’ve had some dumb fucking ideas, Pat, but this takes the cake.”
“I’ve had some dumb fucking ideas?” Another voice spits, slightly higher in pitch. “I told you explicitly that I would only help you with this if it was done quietly. I fucking work here, Eli.”
The first voice—Eli—snorts. “You perform here a few times a month,” he says, voice derisive. “You can find some other place to sing your showtunes. Or, you can quit altogether. You’ll have a million pounds soon. It wasn’t even worth the risk for me to come back here tonight.”
“I can’t quit this job if I’m in jail,” Pat hisses. “Nobody believes Will did it. You told me everyone would think that Will did it.”
“Will got arrested! They were screaming at each other before he came back here. It was Will’s knife that I used. You weren’t even here last night. I told you—you’re completely fucking set, man.”
“Maybe I’m set, but you’re not. You said fucking Sherlock Holmes is here. And if we’re connected financially, it will all come out.”
“The house can stay in your aunt’s name for all I care,” Eli groans. “Hell, make it look like she sold out her own kid because he wouldn’t get over his idealistic dream of selling the shithole to some little family. She hired some hitman to off him, sold the land to me, and gave you some under the table. I don’t give a shit.”
“I won’t be able to convince her to sell it. She has to transfer it into my name, especially when she learns that Andy didn’t legally own the property. Eli, this is a fucking nightmare.”
“Relax,” comes Eli’s voice. “Listen. I have a contact high up at Eurostar and one who manages a hotel in Paris. If someone were to come to my hotel room tomorrow and ask, I’ve been staying there since Monday. You’re welcome to join me on the 6:15.”
“I have the show tonight…”
“And an alibi for last night. Pat, we’re fine.”
There’s the sound of hugging, someone crying softly, and John instantly tenses.
“Sherlock, we need to leave,” he whispers.
“I need to see his shoes.”
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“I won’t get another chance to inspect them.” He can hear Sherlock pouting.
“He’s not going to throw out his shoes.”
“Not the shoes, Watson. He is leaving in the morning. You heard him. The trip planned in advance of the murder, staged to appear as a crime of passion to be pinned on Andrew’s partner. Eli stoked their argument about the property. If the style and sole of the shoe-print match the development pictures on his website, I can all-but guarantee it.”
“We have a confession, you stupid fucking genius. Why would his shoe print even matter—”
“What was that?”
Footsteps. The clearest path of escape is walking toward Eli and Patrick, but Sherlock seems utterly unfazed. They’re absolutely fucked, moments away from being caught eavesdropping by a man who knows who they are and has killed in cold blood.
Instead of ducking back into the bar, or hitting the deck to crawl to safety, or jumping out the window near the toilets, or doing anything to avoid being caught, Sherlock kisses him.
It’s so sudden that their foreheads come close to smashing, and John can’t even get a sound of surprise out before it’s swallowed. Sherlock clearly has zero idea what he’s doing, almost more tongue and teeth than lip, but there’s not an ounce of hesitation behind it.
“Ah, sorry lads!”
Eli’s voice. Someone wolf whistles.
Of course.
Sherlock snakes a hand into his hair and pivots their faces from the noise. Sherlock’s ear defenders are the only real giveaway of their identity, but when John taps them weakly, he simply drops his hands down to John’s own waist, dragging hands up to cover them. He taps lightly on his scalp.
“No handies in the corridor,” Patrick teases. His voice is quieter, further away. It’s slightly rough with tears, but he’s covering it well.
They’re on their way out.
Sherlock is still kissing him.
Frankly, he’s terrible at it. John thinks of himself as pretty good at kissing—he’s never had any complaints, nor has anyone ever raved about him—but he’s starting to believe that Sherlock’s purely going off of what he thinks kissing is, or what it looks like.
It’s not John’s job to teach him. They’re on a case. It’s not even like he knows how to properly kiss men. It can’t be too different from kissing women. Probably. Christ, Sherlock is bad at this.
Eli and Patrick are still audible, so John forces them to slow down a bit. If Sherlock keeps trying to eat his mouth, it’s going to start looking fake. They’re trying to sell it, aren’t they?
Sherlock, unsurprisingly, is not immediately receptive to the wordless criticism of his kissing skills, but he lets John lead once he gets his toe stomped on, hissing against John’s lips in a way that’s almost funny. Once he kills the faux-enthusiasm, it’s much easier for Sherlock to be coaxed in the right direction. It definitely looks more realistic now.
For the murderers. Who very well could still be watching.
He moves his hands from Sherlock’s ear defenders down to his neck, tilts his head just slightly, and feels himself backed a little more deliberately into the wall. The kissing is more chaste now, at least in the tongue department, and Sherlock is, annoyingly, a quick learner.
The kissing is also markedly gentler now, and Sherlock is grabbing at the back of his jacket in the way he sometimes does when he’s gone too long without a hug.
Oh. Oh . This is much worse than when the kissing was horrible.
He pulls away quickly, searching the corridor for Eli or Patrick, but there’s no sign of them. There are two men nearer to the bathroom, shrouded in darkness, but their accents don’t match when John listens in. They’re being rather…audible in their…whatever they’re doing.
John averts his eyes back to Sherlock, which also proves to be a terrible idea. His lips are still wet, and the skin of his chin and cheeks are slightly irritated with stubble burn, even though it’s hard to see the redness against the dark shade of his skin and the shadows of the corridor. His eyelids look heavy, like he’s drunk off three sips of the fruity cocktail he’d ordered. John’s own stomach twists into a knot that he does not have the time or bandwidth to currently dissect.
“They’ve gone,” Sherlock says, unfazed other than a slight roughness in his voice. When he licks his lips, John fights the urge to lean back in.
“We should—I mean, should we—” His own voice is embarrassingly scratchy. He can still taste remnants of the stupid fruity cocktail and whatever Sherlock’s last cigarette was. This is a disaster.
“We should bring whatever you just recorded to the police,” Sherlock says, tapping at the microphone where it sits tucked into his jacket pocket.
John flinches at the touch, Sherlock’s fingers too close to his sternum and the exposed skin of his chest. Damn Mariana and her stupid chest hair tirade. The universe cuts him one singular bit of slack, since Sherlock is completely distracted, smiling to himself as he peers down the corridor.
Eli and Patrick are nowhere to be found, but John watches as Sherlock finally allows himself a few proper jumps, digging his phone out of his jeans. John shoves his hands into his pockets and fights the urge to slide down the wall until he hits the floor
He’s still thinking about the kiss when they meet Lestrade around the corner from the club, Sherlock having texted her an update somewhere between John’s brain melting and restructuring itself.
He’s still thinking about the kiss when they get word that, despite bin collection having been that morning, they’ve used Sherlock’s predictions to intercept the knife in time. It’s covered in the remnants of discarded drinks and used tissues, along with a significant amount of Andrew’s blood, and while it is, indeed, Will’s missing pocketknife, there’s a matching slice alongside Eli’s pinky.
He’s still thinking about the kiss when Sherlock thanks Langdale for their intel after their final lip sync. They don’t have Sherlock’s eye for deduction—no one does—but John watches their eyes move from Sherlock’s stubble-burnt chin to his own lips and their grin is positively devilish. There’s no doubt in his mind that they’ve worked it out.
He’s still thinking about the kiss when they finally locate Mariana, locked in a kiss of her own near the bar, her hands buried in the short, sandy hair of a person who seems quite keen to get their hand up her shirt. She barely comes up for air long enough to wave them off and John’s stomach twists uncomfortably at Sherlock’s genuine amusement.
He’s still thinking about the kiss when they stumble into 221B at 3:12 in the morning, Sherlock still riding the high of the case and Lestrade’s approval. One of his sleeves has fallen open around his wrist, the other still tucked into his elbow, and any effort that had previously gone into his hair has been strong-armed into submission by drizzle, the wind, sweat, and John’s own hands.
“Hello, Archie,” he grins, already attempting to tug his still-buttoned shirt over his head.
Sherlock is clearly overstimulated, more concerned about getting into comfortable clothing than keeping the button-up in one piece. On any other night, John would offer to help. It’s not as if he hasn’t helped Sherlock undress before. Hell, he and Mariana have had to physically drag him to the shower on more than one occasion.
Now, John feels frozen to the spot, caught between staring at the smattering of scars around Sherlock’s abdomen and the sweat shining on his collarbones. He hears a few buttons pop, Sherlock laughing as Archie chases after them, and he only manages to pull his eyes away from Sherlock’s navel once it’s covered by the jumper he’d left in the living room.
Sherlock looks more comfortable now, having entered the subdued kind of wired state that he lives in at home, but this fact does not stop John’s brain from going back to the kiss. Instead, it forces him to imagine what it would be like to kiss him again, now, with Archie smushed next to them on the sofa. He’s washed the hoodie Sherlock’s wearing enough times to know exactly what the fabric would feel like under his hands and now his horrible brain knows exactly how Sherlock would react.
He’s still thinking about the kiss when he manages to abandon Sherlock in the living room with the flimsy excuse of getting ahead of the edit, getting only a quirked eyebrow in response. He scrubs his hands over his face once the door is closed, plugging the mic into his laptop and physically shaking his head a few times.
And he does try to put together a rough draft. He’s already got the intro, Sherlock and Mariana bickering, and quite a bit of audio from the first few men he’d talked to. Him making an absolute fool out of himself would make the listeners laugh.
But it is impossible not to think about the kiss when he scrubs through Eli and Patrick incriminating themselves, only to land on the sounds of rustling and heavy breathing and— whimpering? Upon scrubbing back three seconds and confirming that yes, he had in fact whimpered while being kissed terribly within an inch of his life by Sherlock Holmes in the corridor of a gay bar, John shuts his laptop.
No handies in the corridor, Patrick had said.
Unfortunately, he’s also still thinking about the kiss when he fixates on this point – the words of a literal murderer, mind you – and pushes a hand down the front of his pants, not bothering to take his jeans off. That would make it a proper wank session, but he’s still drunk. That’s why this is happening. He’s still a bit drunk and he hasn’t slept in almost 24 hours and he hasn’t gotten laid in two years. This is all very normal.
A wank will make it go away.
A wank does not make it go away. Unfortunately, a wank makes it much, much worse.
When he wakes on Saturday morning, a bit closer to Saturday afternoon, if he’s being honest, he does not feel better. He’d taken his clothes off before crawling into bed, at least, but his laptop is still discarded at the foot of the bed, mocking him.
He opens the edit, The Adventure of the Evil Cousin, or something, and tells himself that everything is fine. They were on a case, playing pretend like they had with Irene Adler in the middle of A&E. The kissing had been acting and the wank had been a drunken fluke.
His cursor is still hovering over the audio that includes the kissing, the wave clearly peaking where the mic was smushed against Sherlock’s chest. He moves it intentionally to the beginning of Eli and Patrick’s conversation, cutting it up and adding it to a new window, exporting it out to Lestrade. She’ll need it. Everything after that can just…get deleted.
“We have a confession, you stupid fucking genius. Why would his shoe print even matter—”
“What was that?”
And then Sherlock had kissed him. It’s clear as day in the audio, in case John wanted to try and convince himself that the entire night had been some dream. Sherlock initiating the kiss is audible, because he hears himself make a surprised sound, Sherlock trying to muffle it with his own humming. The mic picks up Eli and Patrick teasing them, distantly, shoved in John’s pocket, but the rustling of fabric is the loudest sound.
He’d been so overwhelmed by Patrick’s handjob comment and the mortification at his own sounds that he hadn’t even really bothered to scrub through and give it a proper listen. He should do that. For the sake of the edit.
As it turns out, he is not the only one who is audible. The clearest sound from Sherlock is a hiss and a laugh, preceded by the clear sound of John stomping on his foot, but there’s also a low, keening sound that follows. There’s a muffled groan after John’s embarrassing whimper, and after John hears himself pull away, breaking the kiss, there is a distinct panting that is too far away to be coming from his own mouth.
He is not going to jerk off to his own fucking edit twice in twelve hours. He isn’t.
Instead, he takes Archie for a long run, takes the coldest shower of his life, and makes brunch.
Sherlock emerges from his room in the early afternoon, eyeliner still present. He looks content, despite the black smudges under his eyes, and he’s tapping away on his phone with occasional glances in John’s direction.
“I sent Lestrade the full confession audio this morning,” John offers, setting Sherlock’s plate of food next to him on the sofa.
“She told me to thank you for that,” he hums, dropping the crust of his toast into Archie’s waiting mouth. “But Patrick gave another full confession at the station.”
John makes himself busy with Archie’s water bowl, the air in the living room feeling thick with something. “How exactly was he supposed to be getting a million pounds out of this?”
Sherlock laughs, and John spills a bit of water onto the counter, cursing under his breath. “The house that Andy and his partner were living in legally belonged to Andy’s mother, meaning that she had final say over its sale and, in the event of Andy’s death, she could decide who would next receive it.”
“And that would’ve been Patrick.”
“Andy’s cousin,” Sherlock hums. “Their mothers were twins—one child each—so, in the event of Andy’s untimely death, he was set to inherit everything his aunt owned.”
“But the house would still be in Andy’s mother’s name. She’s still alive.”
“For now.”
“You think Eli would’ve killed her next?” John balks.
“No,” Sherlock shrugs. “Listen to the confession in full again.”
John has no desire to elaborate on just how deeply he cannot listen to the confession in full again, so he gives Sherlock a confused glance. That usually does the trick.
Sherlock sighs. “Patrick says that Andrew’s mother doesn’t know the house is in her name. According to one of his friends at the club, Andy had upset his mother by insinuating that he didn’t want to have children in London, instead wanting to move on to greener pastures. His mother thought that Andy was pocketing the money from the sale of the house and using it to move away. Instead, he wanted to give the money back to her so that she could choose where their new family settled.”
“Well that’s sweet. Carol would love it if I gave her that much power.”
Sherlock laughs again. “Patrick’s hope was that, after Andy was gone, she’d learn of his unfulfilled plans and regret never knowing that the home wasn’t in Andy’s name, therefore immediately transferring it to Patrick. Then, he’d sell it to Eli for luxury-flat-building, and take a cut of the profits.”
“Jesus Christ,” John whistles.
“Indeed.”
“Wait—why did he fight with his boyfriend, then? Eli said that they decided to sell to a family, as opposed to some developer.”
“My guess is that Eli told Will about how much Andy’s mother would be involved in discussions on where they settled down,” Sherlock clicks. “It’s unclear if Will even knew that the home wasn’t in Andy’s name.”
“That’s a fucking mess,” John sighs, scrubbing his hands over his face. “But I guess it would’ve been a good motive. For Will, I mean. In Eli’s big plan. And the shoes?”
Sherlock hums, finishing up his brunch plate and stretching out on the sofa. “There was half of a shoe print in one of the photos from Lestrade’s drive—in Andy’s blood. I went to Mayfair yesterday and found similar prints inside one of Eli’s developments. He’s wearing them in a picture on his website and had a matching pair on last night.”
“I can’t believe you’re real sometimes,” John shakes his head.
Sherlock visibly preens at the praise and now that the case is all laid out and tucked away, the thickness is back in the room. Sherlock’s jumper is riding up on his stomach—the same one he was wearing last night—but now he’s only in boxers and socks.
It’s an outfit he’s seen his flatmate in hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. He’s also seen him in a lot less. They’ve lived together for years. But it’s also different now. Because they’ve kissed. And then John had listened to an audio recording of that kiss and jerked off. And then thought about doing it a second time.
When he stands abruptly from his armchair, Sherlock glances up at him from underneath sleepy eyes that narrow slightly. He’s being weird, and Sherlock knows that he’s being weird.
He makes inane chatter about the football scores, pops into the Discord for a distraction, and tells himself that he is communicating with Sherlock by asking him questions that are posed to him by the listeners. Sherlock’s responses are predictably dry, but his mouth is more pinched than usual.
The tension remains, and John feels genuinely itchy, flinching a little when Sherlock tosses a leg over his lap and hearing the caginess in his own voice when Sherlock asks about the adventure.
Mariana breaks the mounting tension when she strolls in to help with dinner, later in the evening, Archie greeting her as if she’s saved him from hours of torment. She crouches down and lets him kiss her face, cooing at him.
“You have some competition for Mrs. Hudson’s affection, Archie,” Sherlock says, turning his attention to Mariana and tilting his head. “I’m glad you enjoyed your night of intercourse whilst Watson and I solved a murder.”
John snorts. Mariana throws two pieces of uncooked penne at him. Sherlock smiles at them both.
“You and John drank enough to tilt our business expense budget and recorded a singular conversation that the murderers happened to be having within earshot,” Mariana huffs. “And who says we had intercourse? Stop doing—stop deducing me!”
“I’ve not deduced anything. I can, if you’d like, though I’ve been told that providing details from sexual encounters during which I was not present can be…disconcerting.”
“Do not do that.”
“He’s not lying about the first bit,” John adds, trying to rid his brain of the knowledge that Sherlock would be able to read the details of a one night stand in his fucking belt loop, or something. “Don’t have to be a Mister Sherlock Holmes to read the signs. No deduction necessary.”
Mariana rolls her eyes. “What? Am I glowing? Less high strung this evening?”
“Massive love bite under your ear, actually.”
“I hate you both so much.”
The next week brings no new cases, and, therefore, no new distractions. Sherlock mediates a mostly-successful interaction between Archie and Graham, they attend a Pub Quiz night at The Volunteer, and John successfully masters a recipe from Mariana’s mother.
But it’s still tense.
They haven’t talked about the Sandy’s case (The Adventure of Sandy’s and Andy?) more than superficially, and it’s usually only brought up because of Lestrade. No mention of the kiss, no mention of the edit that John can’t stomach without needing a cold shower.
Sherlock is markedly less touchy with him, clearly hesitant to drop his head down against John’s shoulder or thigh. He spends more time in his room, sometimes scratching away on his violin into the early hours of the morning. If it was the dull, repetitive staccato of when they’d first moved in together, John’s nights would be even more sleepless than usual. Instead, they’re slow crooners, vaguely haunting, and John isn’t sure if they’re the score of an arthouse film or Sherlock’s own compositions.
Carol mentions it, vaguely, over the phone, asking if lovely Sherlock is alright. She sounds perturbed by the fact that she can’t hear him rustling around on the other end of the line, blowing up the kitchen with chemistry experiments or calling out a hello.
Langdale texts him, which is baffling, mostly because he didn’t even know that they had his number.
15:48 sherlock’s ok right?
15:48 sometimes he just goes ghost but rn he’s going extra ghost
15:50 this is langdale btw lol
As the week comes to a close, he even gets a call from Lestrade. Their conversation starts off easily enough, discussing the charges filed against Eli and Patrick (The Adventure of the Greedy Gay People? ). Soon enough, though, her voice has completely changed in tone, and she’s sighing quietly to herself.
“How is he?”
“Will?” John asks. “I think Mariana reached out to him and Andy’s mum to see if there was anything we could do.”
“Oh,” Lestrade hums, sounding genuinely surprised. “I was asking about Sherlock.”
He gives them all the same answer. Yes, Sherlock is fine. He eats at least two meals a day, sleeps a few hours every night, and even offers to walk Archie himself sometimes, donning a pair of sunglasses and forcing himself to get some fresh air. Yes, Mum, he got the biscuits you sent. Yes, Langdale, he’s viewing and liking your Tiktoks. Yes, Lestrade, his arms are clean of needlemarks.
Mariana’s filling out paperwork and processing payment from an old case when she finally brings it up. John is lounging on the couch where they greet clients, scrolling through old emails and picking at a sandwich.
“Is there a reason you and Sherlock are being weird? In my defense, I told him not to give Archie the penne leftovers.”
“We’re not being weird,” John snips defensively. “Why is everyone acting like we’re being weird?”
Mariana just tilts her head at him. John huffs. They’re not being weird. Everything’s normal. Except for…
“Wait—is that why his farts are so rancid recently? I told him to stop doing that.”
Mariana snorts, going back to her filing. “You’re very clearly being weird. You haven’t edited in the living room in, like, a week. You keep avoiding Sherlock when he tries to get you to play mobile games with him.”
“I just—you know I don’t like that solitaire game. He moves too fast for me to ever participate.”
“And yet, you usually indulge him anyway.”
John pinches the bridge of his nose and sets his sandwich aside. Sherlock was asleep, finally, curled up at the end of his bed like a cat with Archie on his ankle. John had gone upstairs to check on him earlier, only to be so overwhelmed by the urge to touch his hair that he’d almost locked Archie away in Sherlock’s bedroom with him.
Maybe he needed help with this, actually.
“Okay, fine, yes, we’re being weird,” he relents, picking his sandwich back up. This will be easier if he has something else to focus on. “Eli and Patrick caught us when I got them on tape talking about their deal.”
Mariana narrows her eyes. “They both seem pretty sure it was the police who figured them out. I know that Patrick mentions Sherlock in that recording, but neither of them have mentioned you since.”
“Yes, well,” John coughs. “We were in a dark corner, and Sherlock decided that the best course of action to hide us would be to kiss me, so I don’t think they ended up putting two and two together.”
Mariana claps. “That’s brilliant, actually.”
“It was absolutely not brilliant.” It wasn’t. The kiss was bad. He’s been thinking about it so frequently because it was objectively horrible.
“Two men making out in the hallway of a gay club are the least likely to be eavesdropping on your conversation.”
John groans. “Fine, whatever. Maybe it was a smart decision in the moment.”
“But you’re…mad at him for it?”
“I’m not mad at him.”
“You’re avoiding him. I think it’s making him a bit mopey, to be honest.”
“Ugh,” John tugs at his hair, abandoning his sandwich again. “Everyone is acting like he’s absolutely miserable and asking me to check on him but he definitely doesn’t want me to check on him because we’re weird right now. I don’t know what the fuck is happening.”
Mariana looks up from her paperwork then, finally focusing her full attention on him. It makes John feel a bit like one of the fruit flies she catches in her kitchen traps before she tosses them in the bin.
“To be clear, I also don’t know what the fuck is happening.”
“Did you miss the part about Sherlock and I kissing?”
“You’re very fixated on that point.”
“Well, obviously!”
“You’re acting as if you’ve never kissed him before,” Mariana laughs.
John balks at her until her smile drops. She blinks twice.
“Had you…had you actually never kissed him before?”
“No, Mariana, I had not kissed our flatmate before.”
“But you two are so…you know!”
John puts his head in his hands. He can feel Mariana move across the living room to sit next to him on the sofa.
“Sorry, I’m just…recalibrating everything I thought I knew about you two,” she adds, like that makes it better. “But kissing him isn’t going to, like, ruin your whole relationship. It’s just a kiss.”
“He put his tongue in my mouth, Mariana.” His voice sounds mortifyingly weak.
“Being mildly attracted to the guy you spend your life attached to is bound to happen,” she shrugs, and he can feel her rubbing his shoulder. “I can promise you that he’s not having a crisis about it.”
“Well no, he’s not fazed by anything. It’s Sherlock! He’ll do anything for the case. And he’s—well, he’s gay! Or…queer. Whatever he is. Of course he’s not having a crisis. Why would he have a crisis?”
“Why would you have a crisis?“
“Because I’m not! Right? You know me. I’m not—I’d know if I was gay, Mariana.”
When Mariana mirrors his previous position, putting her own head in her hands, he doesn’t know whether to panic further or put his hand on her back for comfort.
“You’re telling me that you’ve never kissed Sherlock and you didn’t know you liked men. Until now. Like, right now?”
“When have I ever expressed to you that I like men?”
Mariana narrows her eyes. “Would you like an itemized list? I could probably go through the episode transcripts that you yourself have uploaded to the internet and find at least ten instances. That doesn’t even count all the times that you, off mic, have whined about how handsome so-and-so celebrity is or why you can’t be as good looking as Anthony the postman.”
“So what?” John flushes. “Anthony the postman could be a bloody Vogue model. I’m not allowed to objectively acknowledge when men are attractive? This is practicing non-toxic masculinity, Mariana!”
Mariana takes the remnants of his discarded sandwich, picking at it like a bird. “What was kissing Sherlock like, then? Were you just objectively acknowledging his skills?”
“What skills?” John immediately laughs. “He was kind of terrible at it, to be honest. If we’re being objective and impartial.”
He thinks about Sherlock bouncing on the balls of his feet, laughing against John’s lips as he gets his toes stomped on. He thinks about Sherlock’s muffled groan when John had whimpered and quiet panting after he’d pulled away. He thinks about a tall frame hovering over him, thin fingers curling into the material of his jacket and pulling him closer, as if into a hug.
“But it was also Sherlock, y’know?”
He hears Mariana snort again. “Yeah, I get it.”
“You do?”
“John, I just watched your pupils dilate in real time.”
He throws a pillow at her.
“You should talk to him, I think,” Mariana says, simple as anything, stealing his prosciutto.
“Ugh,” John groans again. “It’s going to be weird.”
“Can’t be weirder than whatever’s going on right now.”
It should be weird for John to ease the door of Sherlock’s bedroom open, the man in question still wiping the sleep out of his eyes, scrolling through his phone in the way he does when he’s understimulated. John can see his heel bouncing under the weighted blanket, Archie eyeing it like it’s a toy. When Sherlock hums in warning, his dog trots up to lie down on Sherlock’s hip.
Instead, all of it is disgustingly cute.
“Watson,” Sherlock says stiffly, and Archie slobbers on the weighted blanket, having clearly taken his side.
So he’s not been forgiven for the awkwardness. Great.
“Mariana wanted me to ask you if you want any other fruit for next week. She’s already going to restock the oranges.” It’s not a complete lie.
“If she truly wanted the answer to that question, she would come and ask me herself. So either she is using this request as a front to coax you into speaking with me, or you are using the question as an excuse to initiate conversation unrelated to why you’ve been avoiding me.”
John groans.
“Which is it?”
“It’s the second one.”
“Of course,” Sherlock hums. “You’d most likely ignore her if it were the former.”
“Do you want blueberries or not, mate?”
Sherlock reaches down to scratch Archie’s forehead, seeming to genuinely consider the question.
“If I say yes, will you leave?”
To the untrained ear, Sherlock’s voice sounds bored. Monotonous. As if he’s hoping for an answer in the affirmative so that he can be left alone to his mobile games and bulldog cuddles.
John can hear the genuine curiosity, though. His eyebrows are furrowed, his body curled around a spare pillow and half-cocooned under the blanket.
He looks sad.
He’s sad. Because John’s been avoiding him. Because he can’t handle just talking about his feelings like a normal person.
“No,” John sighs, sitting down on the edge of Sherlock’s bed and waiting for any indication that Sherlock is uncomfortable with the proximity. He barely shifts, still scratching at Archie’s head, continuing to peer at him through narrowed eyes.
“I won’t leave unless you ask me to, mate. And, I mean, wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“I’m not going to ask you to leave,” Sherlock frowns. “I’m not angry with you.”
“I’m not angry with you either.”
Sherlock’s frown deepens. “Then why has the atmosphere been so tense? I have done something to cause discomfort, but where you would typically correct my missteps, you have remained silent.”
John rubs his hands over his face, wincing at the truth in Sherlock’s words, and searches for the right thing to say.
I haven’t been able to get my head on straight since we kissed.
Mariana thought we were already dating and had to be the one to tell me that I’m attracted to men.
I’m afraid to go back to how we used to touch because it all means more now.
I think I might actually be in love with you.
“This is causing you distress,” Sherlock says, when he’s been quiet for too long.
John actually laughs. “Yeah, it is.”
Sherlock sits up properly in bed, tugging his weighted blanket up around his shoulders. He’s hesitant when he reaches out with plastered fingers, so John meets him halfway to link their fingers. They know how to do this bit. It’s fortifying.
“I’ve been…thinking about things. Since the case at Sandy’s.”
“Ah,” Sherlock hums. “The Adventure of the Mayfair Developers.”
“Fuck off,” John groans. “How is that better than all of my ideas? Maybe you can name this one.”
Sherlock is smiling slightly now, but there’s still hesitation in his gaze, tapping rhythms onto John’s knuckles.
“I should have asked for your permission in the corridor,” he says quickly, nodding once. “I apologize for kissing you without warning. I’ve made you uncomfortable, even if you are not angry with me for crossing the boundary. I was clear when I stated that we would refrain from romantic gestures.”
“Sherlock—”
“I can promise you that it will not happen again. It is as I said in regards to Langdale, one-sided attraction remains independent of personal or professional relationships.”
For a second, John feels like his stomach drops out of his arse. Has Sherlock known this entire time? Is he annoyed that John is allowing his unrequited attraction to color their “professional relationship?” Christ, has he heard him over the last week?
Instead, Sherlock continues, face flushed. “I understand if this changes your level of comfortability where physical touch is concerned.” He can feel Sherlock squeezing his hand gently. “But you need not worry. I am more than capable of keeping those feelings removed from our everyday camaraderie.”
John blinks. “What?”
“My attraction to you can remain separate from the rapport we’ve built,” Sherlock says, slowly, in the same tone of voice that he uses when he’s on his third round of explaining the relevance of a piece of evidence.
“Your attraction to me.”
“Yes.”
“You’re attracted to me?”
Sherlock frowns. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Of course I’m not!” John huffs. “I’m just trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.”
Sherlock is still holding his hand, but his palm is getting a little sweaty. He’s wearing a shirt that’s three sizes too big for his wiry frame, falling off one of his shoulders, with half of the periodic table acid washed against the front of it. Archie leaps off of the bed to inspect Graham’s cage.
“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” is all John can think to say, afraid that Sherlock can feel how aggressively his pulse is thumping. “I just—Sandy’s made me think about a lot of things. And people.”
“Like Max,” Sherlock nods.
“Ye—wait, what? No, not Max. How did you know I talked to Max?”
Sherlock disentangles their fingers, twisting at a tag on the seam of his blanket. “I was monitoring you and Mariana, of course,” he says. “They seemed very interested in you.” He’s averting his eyes now, gaze flicking between Archie on the floor and an experiment abandoned on his desk. John feels his pulse quicken again.
Sherlock sounds almost…jealous. Sherlock is doing his nervous stimming on his knees. Sherlock is attracted to him.
“They were drunk,” John says, weakly. “It took, like, ten tries to get someone to give me the time of day. You didn’t have that problem.”
Sherlock’s gaze flicks back to him, his brain obviously whirring again. Yes, John was watching him too, back at Sandy’s, surrounded by people who wanted him. Yes, John is, currently, staring at his mouth. He wants to give Sherlock time to do his mental calculations, so clearly factoring in what he believes John will and won’t be comfortable with, but he also feels like he’s going to climb out of his skin.
When Sherlock opens his mouth to speak again, John cuts him off by pressing their mouths together, and the speed at which he melts is genuinely overwhelming. There’s that keening sound again, the one that John has replayed over and over, both in his head and in his earbuds, fingers wrapped around himself at three in the morning. Sherlock’s hands are grabbing at the back of his t-shirt, and there’s suddenly too much teeth and too much tongue again, but John can only laugh, bringing his hand up to cup a soft cheek.
It’s nothing like it was in the corridor. He has to take the lead again, yes, strong-arming Sherlock into a slower pace, but the bed and blanket are soft and comfortable under his hands. Sherlock’s enthusiasm is dizzying, and being at the center of that sheer magnitude of focus makes his breath catch. He’s shaken off his weighted blanket at some point, and John can feel their chests press together when Sherlock reaches up to grab at his hair. It’s as if he’s trying to seek out how many sensations he can experience at once.
Sherlock shifts at one point, trying to maneuver himself impossibly closer, and John shoots an arm around his waist to keep him from tumbling off of the bed in his haste. In response, Sherlock lets out a sound somewhere between a moan and a hiss and crawls into John’s lap. There’s a flicker of a memory, Sherlock sprawled across him in an upstairs booth at Sandy’s, cheeks flushed and pupils dark in the absence of overhead light.
He’s been quite enormously stupid, he thinks.
When John pulls his lips away from his mouth, there’s a familiar panting and haziness in Sherlock’s eyes, the crystal-clear intensity of the sleuth-hound replaced with an incredibly satisfying heavy-lidded blurriness. Sherlock smiles dopily at him, and the fondness in his chest is so fierce that it’s almost painful.
To avoid waffling, mid-makeout love confessions, he attaches his mouth to Sherlock’s neck. The great detective seems to have remembered the existence of their neighbors, since his next groan is muffled by a thin bottom lip, but it’s still loud enough to ring in John’s ears. It’s indescribably better to listen firsthand. There’s a clear roll of Sherlock’s hips somewhere, and John can feel his own twitching, but it’s only when Sherlock pulls his stupid periodic table shirt over his head that John’s head clears a little.
Had it really only been a week since he’d been staring creepily across the living room at Sherlock’s collarbones and navel? Now, he’s got his nose to his best friend’s sternum, face-to-face with the thin strip of scar tissue bisecting a patch of sparse, black hair. A wound he’d stitched himself, for a strange stranger. His hands are trembling slightly where they’re resting on Sherlock’s thigh and hip, but there’s also a faint wobble in Sherlock’s own breathing.
“We are both nervous,” Sherlock says, sounding relieved. His voice is even deeper than normal, and John has to press his forehead to Sherlock’s breast to keep his hips from jumping again.
John laughs weakly, rubbing his thumb over the visible outer cage of Sherlock’s ribs, tracing a scar on his side. The skin of his torso is covered in them, scars and moles and needlemarks and freckles, and he’s so unfairly beautiful that John swallows his own fear and presses a kiss to the first one his eyes had landed on. He can feel Sherlock drop his cheek to the top of his own head, shakily exhaling into the half-hug.
“What—” John cringes at the sound of his own wrecked voice, clearing his throat. “What do you want?”
When Sherlock picks his head up, John chances another glance at his face. He’s still grinning, dark waves stuck to his temples with sweat, cheeks clearly flushed. “Well, we are both aroused,” he says, stating the obvious.
“Thank you, master of deduction.”
“You’re welcome,” Sherlock grins, and John pulls him down to kiss him again, growing slightly addicted to the humming sound he makes when John splits the seam of his lips with his tongue. Sherlock’s hips roll again, though, and John forces himself to pull away.
“Do you…I mean, do you want to—?”
“I would like for us both to reach orgasm, yes,” Sherlock nods, and the matter-of-fact way that he says it should not be as attractive as it is. When he reaches down to pull on the hem of John’s shirt, tugging it over his head, he feels slightly faint. There’s an easy confidence to his movements that makes John’s hands shake where they come to rest on Sherlock’s ribs, and the dichotomy between this and the kissing is giving John whiplash. He has to ask.
“Have you done this before?”
Sherlock blinks, lips wet and bitten. “Sexual intercourse?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
John swallows. “Recently?”
Sherlock giggles. “No.”
They’re both overcome with laughter for a second, and John forgets that he’s supposed to be self-conscious now that his shirt is off. He’s supposed to be self-conscious about his torn-up shoulder and the ruined tissue where shrapnel embedded itself. He’s supposed to be self-conscious about the fact that he’s bigger now, the solid muscle of his early adulthood buried underneath a soft belly and chest. Hell, he’s supposed to be self-conscious over how long it’s been since he last got laid—he has no idea where his stamina lies and can’t imagine that his past experiences with women translate exactly into this new field.
Instead, Sherlock is staring at him like he can’t believe his luck. If the men in Sandy’s had looked at Sherlock as if he was a piece of meat, John feels like a very treasured piece of meat, okay? One that has been purchased from an overpriced butcher, marinated in fancy sauce, grilled on one of those rich-guy, outdoor, stainless steel grill sets, and plated with nothing but a piece of thyme on top.
John doesn’t know what sounds he’s making when Sherlock drags his tongue across his nipple, gripping his good thigh with clever fingers. He’s probably moaning when Sherlock starts rutting against his stomach, very likely whimpering when he feels a bony knee pressing between his legs. He knows that he’s saying Sherlock’s name at some point.
He’s very glad that he doesn’t have the mic right now.
All of the fears in the back of his mind about translating Sex-With-Women into Sex-With-Sherlock end up wholly unnecessary. Sherlock successfully gets him out of his jeans, but is himself still wearing boxers and socks when he attaches his mouth to John’s again, crawling over him and bringing their hips together. John doesn’t know when they got horizontal, but it’s beyond good, the simplicity of feeling Sherlock hard against him enough to get him quite embarrassingly close. As it turns out, forced proximity to Sherlock’s flaccid penis while trapped in a helicopter is not comparable to the sensation of an erection pressing against his own.
Thankfully, Sherlock doesn’t last very long at all. He’s as confident in seeking pleasure as he is in almost everything else, and John’s head swims with it, hearing himself bite off swears as Sherlock’s hips slightly pick up the pace. He isn’t kissing as much as he’s panting into John’s mouth now, and when John moves a hand to his spine, slipping a hand down the back of his boxers to urge him on, he tips over the edge almost immediately.
John digs the nails of his free hand into his leg to hold himself back, holding Sherlock close and watching the tight knit of his brows melt into a lazy smile. He gasps a little through his orgasm, and John can hear his own name interspersed between the “yes” and “good,” of it all. Sherlock recovers so quickly that it’s almost inhuman, but the relaxed set of his shoulders and the way he peels off sticky boxers gives him away.
“Thank you,” Sherlock smiles, as if John’s just given him a cookie. He’s still got his bloody socks on.
John thinks he makes some sort of sound. He must, because Sherlock kisses him deeply again, slower now, and manages to get his boxers down to his mid-thigh. Sherlock checks in, John knows, because he hears an “okay?” and he must make some other sort of sound because there’s a chuckle and Sherlock’s hand is on him, out-of-practice and slightly dry, despite the fact that he’s leaking, which is mortifying. It can’t matter all that much, really, because—
“You’re close,” comes Sherlock’s voice, and he sounds both surprised and pleased with himself.
It’s the stupid fucking plasters that do it, in the end. The sensation of one of them, wrapped around a ring finger, rubbing just so against the head of his cock. It’s so deeply Sherlock that it hits something at the core of him, and the mental image of spilling over Sherlock’s fingers is guaranteed to be seared into his brain for the rest of his life. He’s kissed through it, which is comforting, even though he’s pretty sure it’s also to shut him up.
He vaguely registers Sherlock wiping his hand off on John’s boxers, tugging them fully off of his legs and tossing them into whatever dimension his own had disappeared to. There’s a warm body next to him, a sweaty, plastered hand seeking out his own. Sherlock can be cuddly with him and Mariana, but John isn’t sure if the post-coital aspect will be overstimulating with its tacky skin and lack of fabric barriers.
Instead of saying anything, he wraps an arm around Sherlock and pulls him into a loose grip, pressing a kiss to his temple and giving him room to escape. He can feel Sherlock relax into the hold almost immediately, and it makes his throat feel tight. There’s a gentle breathing pattern puffed against his neck as Sherlock curls up against his chest.
“I’m glad we’ve found the source of our tense atmosphere,” Sherlock yawns, after a few minutes of comfortable silence.
John snorts out a laugh. “Just the good old sexuality crisis, mate.”
Sherlock makes a sound of confusion. “Sexuality crisis?”
“Er…yes?” John looks down to meet Sherlock’s eyes, his face content but curious. Some deductions are quickly pieced together, and as fascinated as John typically is to watch them play out, he’s wary when they concern him.
“Did you not know that you were bisexual?”
“Why am I the last person to find this out?” John whines.
Sherlock huffs out a laugh somewhere near his nipple, wrapping an arm around his middle. “Your bisexuality being referenced by listeners in the Discord is a daily occurrence, Watson.”
“No it’s not!”
“They have a sticker that is simply the word JONK in the colors of the bisexual flag.”
“No they—wait, those are the colors?”
Sherlock giggles again and John tugs on his hair.
“Selfishly, I’m glad this was the result,” Sherlock says, shoving John’s fingers away from his scalp.
John hums, tracing his finger down a scar near Sherlock’s scapula. “Did you actually think I was avoiding you because I found out you were attracted to me?”
“It was the most likely conclusion when considering the data. I knew the kiss had rattled you immediately, and then you seemed uncomfortable with our everyday manner of touching.”
“And you didn’t consider the alternative at all?” John snorts. “That I was uncomfortable because I’d realized that I was attracted to you?”
He can feel Sherlock shrug. “It seemed less likely.”
John frowns. “So you knew that I was attracted to men, even when I didn’t, but thought that me being attracted to you was unlikely.”
“Yes?”
“The guy that I follow around 24 hours a day with a microphone? The guy that I named a podcast and a company after?
He can feel Sherlock’s skin heating more than he can see any flush.
“Exactly,” he argues. “You know more undesirable things about me than any random person would. Someone at Sandy’s may like the fact that I am tall, per se, but they do not know my eating habits, hyperfixations, or propensity to meltdown. Struggling with the social niceties necessary for intimate relationships is excusable in casual settings, but causes conflict in the long term. It is true that attraction can grow between those who learn each other’s idiosyncrasies, but those personal deficits can also prevent development in that direction.”
John frowns, tightening his hold. “You don’t have personal deficits.”
“Well, I—”
“Sometimes you get on my last nerve. So does Mariana. My Mum usually does. That doesn’t mean you have any bloody personal deficits. It means we’re all annoying and you put up with the people you love, even when they make you want to throttle them.”
He hears Sherlock laugh, quietly, tucking himself back into his chest.
Later, after a nap and load of laundry, they resign themselves to a frozen pizza for dinner. In actuality, John resigns himself while Sherlock excitedly rattles on about the pizza, but he’s too tired to properly complain.
It’s hard to complain at all, really. There are conversations still to be had, of course, but nothing feels as if it’s massively changed—Sherlock still gets distracted by one of his textbooks and almost burns the pizza, Archie farts so badly that they have to open all of the windows, they argue over how often they should switch channels between the football match and a program on Discovery UK about the history of industrial fans, and John edits.
But Sherlock squeezes his hand tightly when he passes over John’s slice of extra-crispy pizza. When John opens the window in the kitchen, Sherlock kisses him against the countertop until they’re both laughing at the absurdity of it all. After the game, there’s a second program about how bubblegum is made, and John stays up to watch it until Sherlock is asleep against his shoulder.
When he opens his laptop later that night, he moves The Adventure of the Mayfair Developers out of the active edit and saves it to a separate folder.
The listeners can do without this one.