Fic: A Matter of Affection - Sherlock/John - 1/3
Title: A Matter Of Affection
Rating: NC-17
Category: Sherlock/John
Length: ~9000 words in total
Disclaimer: The show Sherlock and that incarnation of its characters belong to the BBC, the show's writers and its actors.
Warning: Rated for naughty bits. No significant spoilers except a mention of Irene Adler's profession and some vague season 2 foreshadowing.
Summary: Sequel to A Matter of Convenience, wherein Sherlock and John became lovers. While John and Sherlock are (mostly) okay with the sex, they find other aspects of their changed relationship more of a challenge.
Beta: The ever amazing 01cheers who doesn't even like Sherlock and his cheekbones. ;)
ETA: A big, big thank you to rranne for creating the banner above.
Sherlock was doing his Thing. Strutting around the crime scene, observing minute scratches on items John hadn't even noticed, sniffing apparently random objects -- even the victim's tights, much to Anderson's visible disgust -- and climbing up onto the narrow window sill to look at the room from a different angle. John watched his small, shrewd eyes surveying the scene and felt a familiar surge of awe and admiration. Even after all this time, all the crime scenes they had visited together, John loved watching Sherlock in action.
Sherlock let out a sigh of irritation and jumped down from the window ledge. He strode straight out of the victim's bedroom, flicking a finger at John as he passed.
"John, come."
John was amazed Sherlock didn’t pat his thigh, as one would when calling a dog. Lestrade gave him a sympathetic look as he followed his annoying flatmate into the hallway outside.
"John, I can't concentrate," said Sherlock in a low voice, apparently unnerved, even though he had seemed his usual self in the victim's bedroom. "I can't stop thinking about last night."
"Oh." John couldn't suppress a wide grin. "Yes, yes, that was pretty good."
"You were amazing," insisted Sherlock, and that bit of unselfconscious flattery almost made up for all the humiliations of living with someone so stubborn and insensitive. "I can still feel it inside. I don't mean that literally," he added at John's raised eyebrow.
John swallowed. "No, well. I was just concerned you might be, um, sore."
Sherlock stared at him as if he had never been sore in his life. "That's not the point. I can't focus. How do people do this? How can they do their normal work when they're also having sex with someone?"
"They compartmentalise. Think about the amazing sex when they're on a break or something," said John, trying to keep a straight face. He cleared his throat and continued as quietly as he could, conscious of the many people milling around the crime scene. "It gets easier. We've only been doing this for a few days and this is the first new case you’ve been involved in. You just need to take things slowly and get used to the idea of what, well, what we’re doing. And right now, Lestrade and his people are waiting for you, so try to put the sex aside like you normally do everything else, and go back in there and do your Thing.”
“Right. Yes.” Sherlock looked intensely at John’s lips for a second, as if considering whether to kiss him.
“Go!” ordered John, because he really couldn’t trust Sherlock not to act on his impulses, and much as he might fancy a snog -- or indeed a repeat of last night -- John didn’t want the news about them to be broadcast all over Scotland Yard.
Sherlock turned on his heels and stalked back into the bedroom with a swish of his long coat. Amused by the whole incident, John followed him back in. It seemed that Sherlock had taken John’s advice on board, because it only took a moment longer for his eyes to light up and a torrent of words to escape his mouth.
“The victim’s parents say she locked herself in this room after an argument and they heard a commotion. This led them to think that she had been abducted like previous victims of the Clapham Kidnapper as our glorious press likes to call him. I should have realised this immediately, of course -- too distracted thinking about sex with John to see the obvious until now. There is no victim here! It is a very straightforward case of a young girl wanting to run away from home and seizing a headline story as her escape route. It should have been immediately apparent even to you, Lestrade, and certainly something that Donovan should have noticed, even though her mastery of the art of makeup leaves much to be desired. This girl is wearing makeup in all the photographs we have seen of her. And yet, where is it? Where is her makeup bag? Sometimes it is as important to observe what is missing as what you can see--”
John had long since stopped listening to Sherlock’s exposition of how bloody brilliant he was. Judging by the fact that everyone else in the room was staring at him rather than the detective, John surmised that no one else was listening either. He fervently hoped his cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.
“Erm, I’ll-- I think I’ll just go and get some lunch,” he muttered to no one in particular, rushing out of the room before anyone could talk to him.
When he returned, a thin plastic bag dangling from his fingers, he found Anderson and Donovan standing in the doorway to the building, no doubt waiting for the DI to wrap things up so they could go back to New Scotland Yard.
“Hello there, lover boy,” said Donovan with a laugh. “Freak finally made an honest man of you, did he?”
John could imagine that the whole of Scotland Yard had heard about Sherlock’s slip of the tongue by now. Trust Sherlock to make sure everyone they knew was informed of the fact they were shagging before the first week was out. Sherlock had told Mrs Hudson that he’d had “his brains shagged out” the morning after their first night together, and now he’d told everyone they worked with in the Metropolitan Police. John imagined that Molly Hooper and Mycroft Holmes would receive their own version of the Sherlock “yay, we’re shagging” greetings card before long.
He sighed. Oh well. They were mature adults enjoying a physical and emotional relationship -- inasmuch as Sherlock could be said to have any emotions -- and John had nothing to be ashamed of. Since Anderson and Donovan didn’t taunt him by gleefully declaring that Sherlock had wandered off without him, John assumed his partner was still inside. He held his head up high and pushed past the two officers.
“I wonder which one of them takes it up the arse,” said Anderson as John passed him. “Must be the freak. You can just tell he’s a raving queen.”
Approximately twelve seconds later, John's fist was throbbing with pain and his face was pressed hard against the wall.
“John Watson, I am arresting you for assaulting a police officer,” said Donovan, forcing John’s hands behind his back and securing them with a pair of handcuffs.
John was pretty certain handcuffs were unnecessary under the circumstances, but although he knew he’d be more than capable of overpowering Donovan if he put his mind to it, he decided against adding ‘resisting arrest’ to the crimes she was no doubt itching to charge him with.
"What the hell is going on here?" demanded Lestrade, coming down the stairs with Sherlock skulking behind him.
Sherlock glanced around the scene with detachment. "Anderson obviously made some remark about me. A homophobic one I should imagine given what you say I said earlier." He looked at the DI with narrowed eyes as if suspecting him of pulling a fast one on him. "I wouldn't worry about it, John," he added airily, striding past them all with his turned up nose high in the air. "They hate me. They'd make racist remarks if I were black."
"Hey!" protested Donovan.
"Besides, Lestrade, whatever Anderson said must be true or John wouldn't have hit him so hard." And with that, Sherlock stalked out of the house.
"Let Watson go, Donovan," said Lestrade with a long-suffering sigh. "As for you, Anderson, I'll throw the book at you if you pull a stunt like this again. Now go and get that nose seen to."
Freed from Donovan's cuffs, John picked up his carrier bag and hurried after Sherlock, who was already halfway down the street.
"...whereas the kidnapper is obviously toying with the police..." Sherlock was saying. "We will need to return to the place where this all started. We'll do it tonight at the same time the first kidnapping happened. Which is what I should have done in the first place instead of letting Lestrade take me on a wild goose chase. Don't you agree, John?"
"You know, Sherlock, conversations work better when both participants are present," said John, puffing a little from the effort of running after him.
"Where were you anyway?" asked Sherlock, still striding along rapidly.
"Uh, Donovan was arresting me, remember?"
It was possible that Sherlock genuinely didn't remember. After over a year of living with him, nothing would have surprised John.
He nearly ran straight into Sherlock as the amateur detective stopped abruptly at the edge of the pavement, scanning the horizon for a taxi.
"John, do you think I'm weird?" he asked.
"Yes!"
"I mean do you think I'm weird because I enjoy what you did to me last night?"
"No! No, of course not. I don't think that's weird."
Sherlock observed him with curiosity. "But you wouldn't do it yourself."
"Well, um..." John cleared his throat. "I think... we just like different things. Which under the circumstances is a good thing."
"Damn, not a cab in sight. Let's go further up." Sherlock headed up the street. "Is it because it's unhygienic? That's why you use a condom."
"No, Sherlock,” explained John patiently, keeping his voice as quiet as possible so no one would overhear. “We use a condom because you're a former intravenous drug user and I was waiting to see how things went before breaking it to you that you need to be tested for hepatitis, HIV and various other nasties you might have picked up."
"I didn't share needles. It wasn't bloody Trainspotting." Sherlock said it in such a posh, disdainful voice that John had to smile. He was also amused that Trainspotting should be one of the rare contemporary cultural references Sherlock knew off the top of his head. Amused and, to be fair, a little worried.
"So if I had a clean blood test, we would stop using condoms. Would you prefer that?" Sherlock stopped again, forcing John, who had continued walking, to turn back and face him. "But it would still bother you. You don't think you should be buggering me at all."
"No, it wouldn't. It isn't a big deal either way. And don't--" He decided that telling Sherlock not to use the word would just lead to a long conversation about why 'buggery' bothered John. He could tell Sherlock's hyperactive mind was worrying away at something and tried to guess what it might be. "Look, Sherlock, it isn't unhygienic. Well, maybe a bit, but I've done that before, without a condom, and it's fine."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "I thought you'd only ever had girls. Why would you need to bugger a girl?"
"Because she had her period or we had no contraception or she just wanted to try it out or... Look, the point is that it doesn't bother me.” John could tell he wasn’t making any headway in getting his friend’s mind unstuck from the problem. “Sherlock, what has brought this on? Did you hear what Anderson said, is that it? You know he's a prick."
"Yes, I do and no, I didn't hear it. I'm just wondering why you're uncomfortable about us being lovers, that's all. You're the one who was watching gay porn."
"I'm not uncomfortable!" protested John, though he glanced nervously about.
"You left the room when I mentioned it. You overreacted to whatever Anderson said. And right now, you’re talking in a low voice and looking around to make sure no one can overhear us,” said Sherlock, talking loudly and focussing only on John. “And you don't like it when I make noise. You never make noise. You don't really let go. You're not comfortable with having gay sex with me."
John blinked and coughed a little. "I... God, where do I start? I'm not..." He noticed a little old lady giving them a strange look as she hobbled past. "Look, do we have to have this conversation here?"
Sherlock crossed his arms. "Yes."
"Oh for goodness' sake. It's like being involved with a two-year-old. I knew this was a bad idea," he exclaimed, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t weighed down by the carrier bag. "I knew you'd throw a tantrum the minute something didn't go your way. That's why I didn't want to go through with it. But no, you had to seduce me with your cheekbones and your, um, taking your clothes off and, er, stuff..." He swallowed, remembering their first night together. "Listen, I am not..."
He realised that telling Sherlock he wasn't uncomfortable was a waste of breath. It wasn't as if Sherlock would believe John's assessment of his state of mind over his own deductions. He sighed.
"This is all new to me too, okay?” he said more softly. “Maybe it is a bit strange. It's not that I don't like you making noise, but you were really noisy! We were in your room, which means Mrs Hudson was probably trying to sleep directly under us. Which, well, I was maybe a bit put off by the idea she might be listening. The thing is, you have to remember that our neighbours want to sleep at that time of night. They don’t want to hear shooting or explosions or, um, loud exclamations about, well, how good I am,” he said, adding the last part in a low voice even though he couldn’t help grinning. “And I do 'let go'. I'm just concerned that I might hurt you if I ‘let go’ too much.”
"I wouldn’t necessarily object to a little pain, you know,” said Sherlock, and although it sounded like another of his Sherlock-doesn't-understand-the-real-world things, John could tell that Sherlock knew exactly what he was saying. John's stomach lurched and his mind went momentarily blank. This conversation was making John's head ache. And some other parts too.
Sherlock waved his arm imperiously at a passing cab, but its hire light was off and it sped away.
"We might as well walk home," said John, seizing the opportunity to change the subject. He still wasn't comfortable with one-mile journeys that cost £20. "Or we could just take the bus."
"No need for a bus. We'll walk."
Sherlock sped up so John followed. In a bizarre way, it was sometimes quite relaxing to be with Sherlock. His personality was so overwhelming that there were occasions when John could just blindly follow him, reasonably confident that Sherlock would get them wherever they were going and John's lack of attention would go unnoticed. And if Sherlock got things wrong, it was his responsibility, not John's.
They’d only had sex four times - twice the first night, then once on Monday and once the previous night - but it looked as if Sherlock was as pushy in bed as he was in life. Which suited John fine too, especially given Sherlock’s interest in, well, buggery. It was from John’s point of view a perfect combination of worshipping the genius he lived with while performing an act that was not a million miles away from what he’d done with his many female lovers. In fact, John was thinking what a good arrangement this was on many levels when Sherlock stopped again. This time, he turned around and before John could react, Sherlock's lips were on his.
Now, by the age of 39, John had been kissed a lot. Quick snogs behind the bicycle shed at King Edward's Grammar School, drunken kisses at medical school parties, romantic kisses with girls he'd fallen in love with, deep kisses during sex when his tongue mimicked his prick and he was lost, drowned in the moist warmth of his lover's body. But he could safety say that he had never been kissed by surprise in the street.
Girls didn't usually initiate kisses; at least not the ones he'd been with. They'd lean their head on his shoulder and sigh, or lick or touch their lips suggestively, or smile and stare at his mouth, but he was always the one who bridged the gap to give them what they wanted. He liked it that way too; Harry said being manly with his girlfriends was his way of compensating for being a short-arse. Which he wasn't, so she was wrong.
But this was new and, once again, a bit scary. He was so surprised that his first instinct was to push Sherlock away, especially when he heard laughter somewhere nearby and a clearly audible "poofters" from elsewhere. Mostly, though, the kiss gave him a rush of adrenaline; the kind of rush he was addicted to, the rush that was the reason he put up with Sherlock in the first place. So instead of pulling away, he raised his free hand to the back of Sherlock's long neck, parted his lips and kissed his insane, maddening, irresistible... lover back.
Continued in Part 2