everything you won't tell me (1/2), John/Sherlock, NC-17
Title: everything you won't tell me (is mapped in your scars) (1/2)
Rating: NC-17
Length: 15,100 words
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Warnings: BDSM, kink
Summary: It's never felt like this before, like wanting to say, “I'd rather not, but if you wanted, I'd get on my knees for you.” Because John is a dom, and Sherlock is a dom, and John wants him anyways. Except, one of these things is not quite true.
Notes:BDSM!AU, for the kinkmeme, prompted here, pulling inspiration from helenish's Take Clothes off as Directed and aris_writing's Directed!Verse. Set in the same verse as you need someone and it's easy.
John -- John is not a sub, but he is a doctor (doctor first, and soldier second, his dominance expressing itself as he forces patients to hold still and relax).
And at a base where there are no subs, things happen between the doms -- “I'll let you hold my wrists and fuck my face, but only if you let me do the same to you”. John's not inexperienced, in those regards. He's tried subbing (uninteresting), and he's been attracted to other tops before, and he'd tried that out too -- “Okay, neither of us subs, we'll just... do something else” (a little more kinky than he'd prefer).
And it had been fine. A good way to relieve sexual tension, and usually better than taking care of things on his own.
It's never felt like this before, like wanting to say, “I'd rather not, but if you wanted, I'd get on my knees for you.”
Because Sherlock is... brilliant, really. And arrogant and confident and devastatingly sexy. He does what he wants, when he wants, and looks good while doing so. John's not sure what to do about that -- he wants -- he's not sure what he wants.
--
When he meets Sherlock, Sherlock tells John more about himself than he'd ever thought someone else would know -- he'd known about Harry, for Christ's sake. But then, he'd missed the part where she was his sister, and a sub, and that she and Clara had both been subs.
Same-role marriage has been legal for almost three years, but it's still not commonplace.
--
“No sub, then?” John asks, while they wait for a murderer to show.
Sherlock's hair is a bit on the long side, for a top, just long enough to tease at submission -- but he hasn't any bracelets on his wrists or makeup on his face, and John's fairly sure the impeccable cut of his suit is more from vanity than any urge to look beautiful (no, that seems to be unconscious). And he moves like a dom, all long strides and looking people in the eyes and looming over them with his height.
“Not really my area,” Sherlock says, dismissively. He is watching John eat. He hasn't ordered anything himself.
“Oh. Do you, uh... prefer topping other doms, then? Which -- would be fine. There's nothing wrong with that.”
“I know there's nothing wrong with that,” Sherlock says, and raises an eyebrow at him.
“I mean, I've done it before, from both sides, and it's -- it's okay. I don't mind --”
And then John loses control of the conversation in the sort of disastrously humiliating way he thought he'd grown out of when he'd stopped being fifteen and spotty, and Sherlock is turning him down when he hadn't been asking in the first place.
It is all very awkward, made worse by the thought that touches, lightly, in his mind.
I've no idea why you don't. You'd be good at it.
--
Lestrade tells Sherlock to get rid of John (Sherlock scoffs, and orders a man named Anderson to stop polluting the crime scene), but his irritation eases when John stays at Sherlock's side to keep an eye on him, right until the point where Sherlock ditches him to do... whatever it is he does.
Solve everything, John suspects.
“You know, he's actually a sub,” Sally Donovan says, while John is trying to figure out how to flag a cab to get home. She hasn't got a collar on, nor the bracelets, but her thick black hair falls past her shoulders and she hadn't denied it when Sherlock had accused her of spending the night at Anderson's. “He can't keep a dom, because he tries to top them, and he can't keep a sub because he wouldn't know what to do with one if he had one.”
“Right, thanks for letting me know,” John says, but what he thinks is, Pull the other one. It's got bells on. The serial killer comment had been more believable.
--
“Stop!” John snaps, pushes command into his voice. “Kneel,” he says, and their killer -- jilted ex-lover who'd stabbed his ex's new sub to death, drops to his knees with the clumsy suddenness of someone who doesn't realize they're doing it.
There are tricks to dominance, to pulling power over himself like a cloak, to pulling obedience out of someone who hasn't considered obeying him. He knows them all, because he'd been doctor to a handful of overaggressive, sexually-frustrated doms, and somehow managed to keep them still long enough to stitch and medicate them.
It's all in the confidence.
“Hands behind your back.” And then, with a little bit of a growl, “Good boy. It's okay now,” he says, and walks closer. “I've got you.”
Common parlance is that subs are overly emotional, in need of dominance to keep themselves under control -- John's not sure how much of it is true, and how much of what's true is true only because subs have been told their whole lives that that's how they are.
All he knows is that it's easy to take control from someone's feeling trapped and desperate, to offer himself up as safety, to take away their choices until all they have to think about is his voice, drawing the path for them.
And it's much, much easier to do it to someone who wants it, who's guilty and regretful and wants to be punished because they know they've done wrong.
“Give me the knife. Hilt first,” and Gabriel hands him the knife; his hand is shaking, and John doesn't push him away when he buries his face against John's thigh. He strokes his hand through Gabriel's hair, scratching the scalp lightly, and the trembling slows.
Crisis averted.
“Where's Lestrade? Did you call him yet?” And when John turns his head to look for Sherlock, Sherlock is on the ground, looking confused and lost at finding himself on his knees.
When they make eye contact, Sherlock glares at him and stands defiantly, back straight. John can see the bulge of his erection at his groin, and when Sherlock catches him looking, he spits out, “No. I haven't.”
It sounds like a challenge.
“Can you call him?” John asks mildly, careful not to phrase it as an order -- doms can get violent when John pulls the voice thing on them, and Sherlock does not look pleased.
“Give me your phone,” Sherlock orders.
John tugs, lightly, on Gabriel's hair. “Fetch it for me. It's in my pocket,” he says softly, and the man fishes it out for him, face still pressed into his thigh. “Good boy,” John says approvingly when Gabriel presses it into his palm, and Gabriel sighs, tension leeching slowly out of his body.
He offers it to Sherlock, and Sherlock takes it without letting their fingers brush. A moment later, he gives it back. “I changed my mind. You call him.”
John passes the phone to Gabriel. “He's under L for Lestrade,” he says, pulling Gabriel's head back by his hair, with just the right amount of pain (eyes unfocused, mouth slightly open, relaxation stealing up on him). “Call him and tell him where we are.”
--
Afterwards, when they are back in the flat, John says, “It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know.” At Sherlock's questioning look, he explains, “By the time I got invalided, I could order down half my unit.”
The tension in Sherlock's shoulders rackets up a notch. He doesn't say anything, and John is at a loss.
“I wasn't trying to top you,” he tries, and Sherlock glares at him.
“I'm not stupid. I could see that,” he says, and takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks like he's starting to get a headache, and John wants to sit him down and give him a paracetamol and hold his head in his lap and stroke his hair and.
And Sherlock would probably knock his head off if he tried.
“Right.” John holds up his hands. “Sorry.” He tilts his head upwards a little, lets his eyes skitter across Sherlock's cheekbones (sharp -- he wants to press his thumbs against them) instead of making direct eye contact, angles his shoulders just slightly. “Is there anything I can get you?” He asks, and makes his voice soft, and just a little bit higher than it normally is.
He can't do it all the way, can't be sincere about it, but he can fake the beginnings of submission just fine, enough to soothe an upset top.
It doesn't work.
Sherlock takes a half-step backwards, expression working if he's not sure whether to be disgusted or intrigued. After a moment, he settles on uneasy. “Please don't do that,” he says firmly. “I -- I really don't want --” He makes a vague motion with his hand that encompasses everything between them. “Don't do that.”
“Sorry,” John says in his usual voice, and drops the act.
--
Her name is Natalie, and her neck is bare. Her wrists are decorated prettily with bracelets (both wrists, so she's not seeing anybody yet), and her hair falls halfway down her back. She is only slightly shorter than him, but when he smiles at her, she ducks her head to look up at him bashfully.
“Come to dinner with me. Tonight,” he says on Friday, and she smiles back.
“What do you want me to wear?”
He ends up bringing her home with him. Sherlock's in, but he doing something in the kitchen that John refuses to think about about. He barely glances up when John greets him.
And then, carefully and methodically, he takes Natalie apart.
It's an art form, finding the right direction to push and the right amount of force to use, taking the precious gift of trust a sub gives him and using it to strip them bare, laying pieces of themselves out in a way they'd never be able to do on their own.
He goes down on her until she's oversensitive and crying, and her eyes are begging for him to stop. He ties her wrists to his headboard and puts clamps on her nipples, then teases her until they're red and she's biting her lip with the effort not to scream. He sticks his fingers in her mouth when he fucks her (“Don't bite me,” he warns, “Or I'll stop.”), then pulls out and slides off the condom so he can come on her breasts (she turns red and looks away, and sucks in her lips to keep from biting down on his fingers).
When he's done, he cleans her up. He unties her and rubs lotion on her wrists. He kisses her nipples and the spot on her shoulder where he'd bitten her, and strokes her hair and tells her she's been a good girl, that he's proud of her, that of course she's welcome to stay the night if she wants to fall asleep with him.
He lets her fall asleep on his chest, and pulls the blankets over them when she kicks them off and starts to shiver from the cold.
He hasn't been able to fall asleep while sharing a bed since Afghanistan, so he dozes lightly and wonders if Sherlock's still awake, then brainstorms what he'll write his next blog post about. When the morning comes and she starts to stir, he watches her wake slowly, and squeezes her when she opens her eyes.
“Morning,” he says.
“Mnng.” She rubs the sleepiness from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Were you watching me sleep? How long have you been awake?”
“Only a few minutes,” he lies.
She dimples at him, charmed. “That's sweet. Do you want breakfast?”
“That'd be lovely. Make me something.”
--
He naps for an hour, then forces himself out of bed, roused by the scent of fresh coffee and frying bacon. He showers and shaves, then wanders into the kitchen; there is a plate prepared for him already -- toast, eggs, bacon, and a mug of coffee. Natalie kneels at the side of his chair, which has been pulled out for him.
She starts to rise when she sees him, but at his look, settles down again.
“This looks amazing,” he says, and pets Natalie's hair when he sits down. He turns to look at Sherlock, who seems to be engrossed in some sort of book. “Sherlock, there's plenty of food here, do you want some?”
“Day?” Sherlock turns a page.
“Saturday.”
“Hmm. I'm good until dinner,” he replies, after a moment's pause.
“When did you last eat?”
Sherlock glances at him and gets a decidedly guarded look on his face. He looks away and doesn't answer.
“Sherlock. Tell me.”
“Thursday evening.”
“That was over twenty-four hours ago,” John points out, and Sherlock glares at him, as if insulted that John thought it needed to be said aloud. “Sit. Eat.”
Sherlock's eyes dart to the table, then to John, then to Natalie, then back to John. Then, he glances at his book and closes it with a sigh. “You're kneeling in the wrong place,” he says to Natalie, as he loads a plate and sits in the other chair.
Natalie raises her head slightly from John's thigh. “What?”
Sherlock uses his fork to point at John's hand; he hasn't yet taken a bite of his own meal. “John is left-handed. You're seated on his left side. While the traditional position for an established sub is on the left, that's because the majority of the population is right-handed. For John, you should be on the right, which would allow him to eat and fondle your hair at the same time.”
Natalie looks up at John, confused. “Should I move?”
“No, you're fine where you are,” John says, even though Sherlock's right, and he'd been wondering exactly what he was supposed to do about it, and if Natalie had expected him to hand-feed her.
He ends up not hand-feeding her, because he doesn't know her that well. Sherlock steals a bite of egg off his plate when he runs out of his own, and John retaliates by stealing the rest of Sherlock's bacon (Sherlock looks smug, but he's no idea why; he hopes it hasn't been poisoned).
“Where did this bacon come from, anyways?” He asks, just to make sure it isn't part of an experiment he'd rather not know about.
“She went to the shops. I gave her your credit card to use,” Sherlock replies.
John frowns and reaches for his wallet; it's there, and his ids and cash are there, but his credit card's missing. “When did you steal my credit card?”
“Two days ago -- you used cash when paying for dinner for you and your date last night, so you likely didn't notice it was gone.”
“Right. Well, it's mine. Give it back.” John holds his hand out and Sherlock places the card in his palm. At his side, Natalie sits up, and starts patting her pockets.
“I thought I had it,” she says.
“It wasn't yours,” Sherlock points out to Natalie without looking at her (her head's below the table, so she's out of sight except to John). “So I lifted it off you while you were unpacking the groceries.”
They eat the rest of the meal in silence, though Sherlock gets bored after a few minutes. He brings his plate to the desk, and eats in front of his laptop.
When John's done, Natalie does the washing up and leaves, giving John a kiss goodbye. When she's gone, Sherlock snaps the lid of his laptop closed and says, “If you see her again, she'll expect you to collar her within a month, two at the most.”
“You think?”
“Yesterday was her first date with you, and today she bought groceries, cooked breakfast, and knelt on the floor while you ate,” Sherlock says, and raises his eyebrow as if to say “Are you blind?”
“Did she clean the table too? Only, the last time I looked at it, you had beakers of stuff all over it.”
Sherlock smirks, just a little. “She did. She screamed a bit when she found the fingertips.”
John smothers a giggle. “I thought I told you not to leave those out.”
“I didn't. They were in the vegetable crisper, in the fridge.”
And then they're laughing together, giggling really, over Sherlock's crazy experiments.
He ends up losing Natalie's number, but by the time he realizes it, there are two bodies in the morgue and Lestrade sends Sherlock a text asking him to help, so it doesn't really matter.
--
John resigns himself to people thinking he and Sherlock are involved -- they aren't, of course, but it's easier to let them think so, because he and Sherlock live together and Sherlock takes him on his cases and, admittedly, they do spend an awful lot of time with each other.
And he has nothing against people thinking he's a top-who-likes-tops, even though he doesn't, he isn't; whatever he feels for Sherlock isn't about orientation, because he's not like that. Even when Sherlock tells him what to do, he doesn't feel the pull to obey (but he usually finds himself doing it anyways).
Sherlock seems to take it all in stride.
He smiles and says thank you when Angelo brings them a candle for their table, and he doesn't correct people when they refer to he and John as a couple.
“Does it bother you that everyone thinks we're together?” John asks, when he hangs up the phone after another call from Harry -- who, of course, gleefully asks when he's going to tell their parents that she's not the only queer one in the family now.
Sherlock is staring at the ceiling again, and from the way he's flexing his arm, John wouldn't be surprised to see nicotine patches (probably two or three, since he doesn't seem to be too intently focused) on the pale skin if Sherlock rolled up his sleeves.
“Not especially.”
--
After Natalie, John dates Jason, and after three weeks of dating Jason, John takes him home with him. John blindfolds him and ties his hands behind his back and fucks his mouth and leaves him hard and wanting, then sends him back home in a cab. If John doesn't push too hard on his subs, they don't need to be taken care of as much, which means he gets to sleep.
Sherlock glances at him when he comes down for a drink of water. He's doing something at the microscope (John does not know why they have a microscope, but he's learned it's best not to ask). “You sent him home because you have work tomorrow and can't sleep when someone else is in the bed with you.”
“Yes,” John says. He's found that the simple response is usually the best response when Sherlock starts deducing him.
“You could have just made him sleep on the floor,” Sherlock points out.
“Subs don't like it when their doms have nightmares,” he admits. “It's not exactly reassuring.”
“You're back from years in Afghanistan after getting wounded in action. And of course you've killed people. They should be more distressed if you didn't have the occasional nightmare.”
--
After another week -- long enough for them to consider this an actual relationship, Jason gives John the bracelet he wears on his left wrist. It indicates to the world that he's taken, and that anyone who wants him will have to go through John, first.
Sherlock knows instantly, of course.
“Your sub's offering you exclusivity,” he says, and nods at the bracelet on John's left wrist. “But you have it on the wrong wrist. It's supposed to go on your non-dominant hand.”
“If I had it on my right wrist, everyone would think I was the sub. I get enough of that just hanging around you; I don't want to encourage it.” He fiddles with the clasp, then frowns when he can't get it open with one hand. He offers his wrist to Sherlock. “Give me a hand with this, will you?”
With two hands available to manipulate the clasp, Sherlock's easily able to open the bracelet, and the the thin golden chain falls into his palm. But that's not what John notices; what John notices is Sherlock's fingers, holding his wrist in place, warm and gentle and slightly calloused. Sherlock lets go as soon as he notices John's attention, and he holds his other hand out, dangling the bracelet between his fingers. “You'll want this back.”
John opens his hand and Sherlock drops it onto his palm. “Thanks. I'll probably leave it in my nightstand or something, so I don't lose it.”
“You're not going to wear it?”
“I wasn't planning on it.”
Sherlock looks pleased, but John can't imagine why.
--
The inevitable breakup goes like this:
They are on a date, at a decent restaurant. Jason's head is in John's lap, and John is feeding him bites from his plate. Jason is talking about his family, about his younger brother who is 16 and still hasn't decided if he's a dom or a sub, and about his submissive parent, who is proud that Jason is dating a doctor.
John is making appropriately polite noises to sound interested when he receives the text.
The text is from Sherlock, as most of his texts are. Sherlock wants to know where John put the scalpels. While John is typing his response (box under the coffee table, and had Sherlock been using one to spread butter?), Jason shoves himself up angrily, off of John's lap, bumping his phone in the process.
“Do you have to text him while we're on a date?” Jason does not like Sherlock. The feeling, unfortunately, is mutual -- the last time Jason had come over, Sherlock had wrung screeches from his violin that had sounded like a cat being slowly tortured to death.
“It'll only take a few minutes,” John says, and puts a hand on Jason's shoulder, pushing lightly.
Jason shrugs it off. “That's what you said last time too,” he hisses angrily, “And then you safeworded and left.”
“We'd barely started, and it was a matter of life or death. I told you, sometimes we help the police with their investigations. We caught a killer that day. It was important. ”
“I'm supposed to be important. I'm supposed to be yours. I don't want you to just treat me like some toy you take out when you've got nothing better to do, that gets put back as soon as he wants you. You're supposed to be my dom, not his sub.”
“Oh my god, I'm not subbing for him,” John says, for what sounds like the thousandth time. “I'm not subbing for him because I'm not a sub. It's not like that between us.”
“Are you sure? Because every time he says “jump”, you ask “how high”,” Jason says, and starts to put on his coat.
John grabs Jason's wrist, wrapping his fingers around it. “That doesn't mean anything. It's just work. Come on,” he says, coaxingly, “Don't cause a scene.”
“I'll cause a scene if I bloody well want to!” Jason shouts at him, and now people are turning to look at them. John feels the hot flush of embarrassment against his cheeks. “You have to choose. Right now. You can't have us both, John. I didn't agree to that. Either you're his, or I'm yours. Right now. Say it.”
Something in John twists painfully, then eases. “I'll drop your things off at your place tomorrow, then,” he says, and Jason's face crumples with surprise and hurt, before he storms out.
“It's okay,” the dom at the adjacent table says to him. “I had that happen to me when I was exploring my submissive side too.”
--
The inevitable post-breakup conversation with Sherlock goes like this:
By the time John gets home, he's angry. Angry at Jason for dumping him in the middle of a crowded restaurant, angry at Sherlock for interrupting his dates, angry at the world over the fact that everyone seems to think he's either gay or subbing for Sherlock.
But mostly he's angry at himself, because -- because he doesn't know why. Because he wants Sherlock and Sherlock's not interested in tops, because Sherlock is so tied up in his life by now that anyone John's involved with will have to accept him too, because a part of him thinks if he told you to kneel for him, you wouldn't want to, but you'd do it anyways. Because it's Sherlock.
John slams the door shut when he gets home, and throws his jacket at the coat rack (he hits it, and it wobbles, but the hook doesn't catch and his jacket lands on the floor).
Sherlock looks at him, taking in everything about John in an instant. “The breakup went badly then,” he says, and puts away the violin.
“That's an understatement,” John says, and flops down on the sofa. “Subs are so much work. I don't know why I bother.”
“Sexual gratification. Predictable,” Sherlock says.
John sighs heavily, feeling his anger recede. “We had a fight during dinner. He basically accused me of not taking good care of him and stormed out in front of everyone.”
Sherlock studies him, as if John's another one of his experiments. “There's more to it than that. He gave you a choice, and you picked the wrong one.”
John frowns. “How do you know that?”
“You're angry at yourself, which means you feel the breakup is partially your fault. But whatever you said, you don't regret it, because you're here now rather than chasing after him, even though your sub is fond enough of you that you could make up for it if you tried.”
“He told me to choose between you and him,” John admits, and looks away. His mouth feels suddenly dry. “He didn't like that I help you with your cases.”
“So you chose me,” Sherlock says, softly. There is something in his voice that John can't identify, and on someone else he'd almost call it awe.
“I don't need a sub,” he says. But I need you, I need what we have.
Sherlock beams at him.
--
The disastrous, post-breakup rebound offer goes like this:
John has had a few beers (well, five or six, but that's not bad, spread over a couple hours) at the pub, and he still feels a little bit miserable. And he has had a few offers, but he's turned them down because -- he doesn't remember why anymore; because it hadn't seemed like a good idea, because he didn't want to deal with them in the morning, because it's not safe to top someone if he's tipsy, because he'd rather go home and sulk.
So he goes home, and Sherlock is there, in his dressing gown, curled up in the armchair with a book with a small smile on his face. He's in a good mood, and he looks -- cozy. He looks warm and soft and comfortable, and John just really wants to tuck himself against Sherlock and take it all into himself.
So John walks over and when Sherlock looks up at him in polite inquiry, still smiling, John leans forward and presses their mouths together.
He knows that this is a bad idea, that this is possibly one of the worst ideas he's ever had, because Sherlock is his friend and his flatmate and a dom and John doesn't even really want to top someone who doesn't want to be topped. There is no way it could possibly work out. But he does it anyways, because for a moment, he doesn't think about any of that.
Sherlock's lips are warm, soft, and parted slightly, and John licks his way into Sherlock's mouth, tasting him curiously. Sherlock's hand comes up to John's shoulder, then hovers there, barely touching.
“John, you've been drinking.” Sherlock says, when John realizes Sherlock isn't kissing him back and pulls away. His hand closes on John's shoulder.
John closes his eyes, lets their foreheads touch. “I'm not drunk.”
Sherlock sniffs his breath. “You're a little drunk.”
“Liquid courage,” he says, and takes a deep breath. He fights the urge to bury his face in Sherlock's neck and breathe in his scent. Actually, scratch that -- he does it anyways, tucks his head in the spot right below Sherlock's jaw and inhales deeply. “I just wanted to let you know,” he murmurs against soft skin. “I'd sub for you, if you wanted.”
“I know,” Sherlock replies, and curls his fingers around John's left wrist. John starts to jerk it away automatically, then stops, looks at Sherlock's fingers encircling his wrist, holding him there like a tether, suddenly unsure. Sherlock's other hand pushes on his chest, and he lets go of John's wrist. “But I don't want you to be my sub. Go to bed,” he says firmly.
John goes.
--
Before he falls asleep, he jerks off to the feel of Sherlock's fingers pressed against his pulse-point and the way Sherlock's breathing had caught, just for a moment, as John had kissed him.
--
The awkward let's-pretend-last-night-never-happened part goes like this:
They don't talk about it in the morning, but there is a tension between them that wasn't there before. John had offered, and Sherlock had turned him down, and now he's not quite sure where they stand with each other.
Except that, well -- logically, they are still friends (still colleagues), and frankly, he'd be surprised if Sherlock hadn't known before he did that John was attracted to him. The only thing that's changed between them is that now John knows what Sherlock's mouth tastes like. The only thing that's changed between them is that Sherlock has said no.
“Oh, come off it,” Sherlock complains, when John is still thinking about it in the evening, staring at the blinking cursor on his screen and wondering what to write for his blog. “You don't even want me to top you.”
“Well, no,” John admits.
“So if I'd taken you up on your offer, I'd be unhappy and you'd be unhappy.”
“Probably.”
“You're also relieved that I turned you down. So why are you...?” Sherlock makes a vague gesture with his hand that seemed to represent John's entire emotional state.
Because I want you, and I don't know how to have you, he thinks, but what he says out loud is, “You know, I'm not sure,” and Sherlock laughs, and the tension cracks, fades.
It's just a stupid crush, and it'll disappear eventually, now that he knows for sure that Sherlock's not interested and they're not compatible.
John's never been one for false optimism.
--
Except that everything changes like this:
John has been living with Sherlock for just over four months, and they have managed somehow not only to not kill each other, but also to not get killed while chasing serial killers and smugglers and all sorts of criminals.
It is a quiet sort of weekend -- the kind where neither of them can be bothered to go outside because it's raining, and they are both perfectly content to stay at home and read, or watch the telly, or go online.
For dinner, John orders takeaway because there is nothing edible in the fridge (he'd thrown out a good number of things earlier, as they'd been covered in a suspicious red gel). When it arrives, John realizes he's left his wallet in his other trousers, upstairs. “Sherlock, I left my wallet upstairs. Can you get the takeaway?”
“No, this reaction can't be left unsupervised,” Sherlock responds distractedly, attention focused on a bubbling beaker. “I have cash in mine. Use that.”
“Where is it?”
“Inner coat pocket.”
Sherlock's coat is on the coat rack. John fishes the wallet out and answers the door. The deliveryman is a youngish sub, long hair falling to his shoulders; he has a bracelet on his right wrist, but not the left, and is holding their Chinese. He looks vaguely bored to be there. “Delivery for Watson?”
“That's me, thanks.” John trades a couple bills from Sherlock's wallet for their dinner, and catches sight of Sherlock's driving license before he can snap it shut -- in his photo, Sherlock's hair falls to his chin. Too long for a dom, and before he realizes it he's taking out the card and looking at it.
Sherlock's a sub.
Or, well, his driving license says he's a sub, which isn't always the same thing, and Sherlock doesn't look any different, aside from the hair. He's got the same look in his eyes, and the same tilt to his lips that he always does, the one that says “I'm smarter than you and I know it”.
Sherlock has pushed aside the books on the coffee table to clear space for the takeaway, and is in the process of shifting the beaker of who-knows-what (still bubbling) into the oven with a pair of tongs. “You probably don't want to know,” he says.
“You don't even know what I was going to ask.”
“You were going to ask why it was going in the oven. Considering your reactions to my previous experiments, you probably don't want to know,” Sherlock says, and, like a guided missile, unerringly finds the takeaway box that holds the pot stickers. He makes a pleased hum, and smiles when John passes him a pair of chopsticks.
“So, you didn't tell me you were a sub,” John says.
Sherlock goes still, but only for a moment. “No, I suppose I didn't.”
“Is it true?”
Sherlock looks at him blankly. “Why would I lie about that? Society favors dominants, so if I were to lie about my role, I'd best gain by claiming to be a dom. Well, I'd lie about it for a case, obviously, but if I were doing that, I'd use a fake name as well.” Sherlock hasn't answered his question, which he realizes a moment after John does. “Oh, and yes. I am.”
Sherlock returns to eating -- and he does eat, just like a normal person, though it usually takes a day of skipping meals and John sticking a plate right in front of Sherlock's face before he can be bothered to do so. After a moment, he says, “You're still staring at me.”
John jerks his eyes away immediately. He hadn't even noticed, but he had been, trying to catch hints of Sherlock's submissive nature in his wrists, or the curve of his spine (he hadn't seen any). “Sorry.”
John tries to focus on his food -- he really does, except that Sherlock's a sub. Sherlock likes being tied up and hurt and has probably been on his knees before, open and vulnerable. And suddenly John wants to see that, wants to see what's left of Sherlock when everything else is taken away, what he is when he's pushed into subspace. He wants to know if anyone's ever seen him like that, and if so, how they could have possibly let him get away.
“Yes,” Sherlock says, and steals a bite of noodles from the takeout box in John's hand.
“What?”
“You were working yourself up to ask if I'd ever subbed for someone before. Yes. I have. Yes, I enjoyed it.”
“But you're single now,” John says, and can't stop the glance at Sherlock's bare wrists and throat. No tan lines where the bracelets would have been -- but Sherlock's not tanned at all, really.
“Obviously.”
“When was the last time you --”
“Last time I had sex? About six months ago.”
And, because John is apparently a masochist, he says, “So, when I -- when I kissed you, and you turned me down. That was because you're a sub.”
“Among other things.”
“And,” he asks, cautiously, “if I'd asked to top you instead?”
“I'd still say no.”
--
And the thing is, there's nothing wrong with being rejected. John's okay with being turned down. Sherlock treats him exactly the same as he's always had, because John hasn't told him anything new. He doesn't act uncomfortable around John, or avoid him, or try to sit him down to talk about their feelings (he's still Sherlock, after all).
But something is still changed.
Now there is a different tension between them -- something sexual, something that sparks between them when Sherlock looks up from a book or experiment to catch John watching him, and John holds his gaze for a moment, acknowledging it, before looking away.
Or Sherlock will touch him -- casually, a hand on his arm, or their shoulders pressed companionably together, and it will be there between them -- I want you, not an offer, not anything that needs a response, just a calm, simple statement of fact.
It doesn't have to be anything more than that. He doesn't mind it not being anything more than that.
It gives him its own, different type of enjoyment. Because even if it never goes anywhere, there is still the simple, straightforward pleasure of I want him and he wants me too.
--
Come home. I'm dying, Sherlock texts him, so John takes the rest of the day off work and rushes home. While he's in the cab, he calls Lestrade to figure out what's happened, half-frantic with worry.
“I didn't send him any cases,” Lestrade says, sounding not especially concerned -- he'd been concerned, when John had opened with “Sherlock's dying,” but it had disappeared when John had read the contents of the message aloud. “Have you tried Lemsip?”
“Lemsip? What -- You think he's just got a cold? If he's making me leave work because he has a cold, then he's really going to be dying, because I'm going to kill him.” But he tells the cabbie (sub, blond, with a tight, golden band around his throat) to drop him off at the Tesco's nearest the flat.
“Sherlock,” he announces when he gets home, “You had better actually be dying, because if you've called me off work for a lark, I'm going to kill you.”
“In here, Doctor Watson.” It's Mycroft, standing a few feet away from a bundle of blankets on the sofa that must, then, hold Sherlock in there somewhere. He is resting the tip of umbrella on the aforementioned bundle of blankets, but Sherlock has not yet thrown it off.“He prefers the capsule versions,” he says, without turning to look at John.
John drops the Tesco's bag on the coffee table. “Well, that's too bad. He should be grateful I took off work and called Lestrade to find out he was sick rather than, I don't know, bleeding out in the kitchen or something. 'I'm dying' isn't what I'd call descriptive.”
There is a disgruntled rustling from the Sherlock-sized nest on the couch.
“Let me guess: 'Come home. I'm dying'? He gets like this when he's sick.” Mycroft turns to look at him now, and for all that John's seen Mycroft before, this is nothing like that.
Before, Mycroft had been familiarly antagonistic towards Sherlock in the way of siblings, and politely tolerant of John. But there is something dangerous and assessing in the way he looks at John now, reminiscent of the way Clive Ross's dominant mother had looked at John when John had first been introduced as his dom. Reminiscent in the sense that a full-grown grizzly is reminiscent of a teddy bear.
John takes a half-step back before he even realizes it.
Mycroft's smile is full of teeth. “I'll leave Sherlock in your capable hands, doctor. If you need any help, just go to the window and wave. The surveillance team will assist you. They'd love to have something to do.”
John smiles tightly and tries not to look cowed by the threat. “I'll keep that in mind.”
Mycroft taps Sherlock with the umbrella. “I've leave you to Doctor Watson, then,” he tells his younger brother, and strides out of the flat, to a black car whose door swings open for him when he approaches. John watches it until it's out of sight.
John breathes out shakily. “Your brother is terrifying.”
No response.
He peels back the layers of blankets -- one is Sherlock's, and the one underneath that is his. Sherlock cringes away from the light. His forehead's warm and his face flushed, and he's shivering slightly. John's anger dissipates, replaced by concern.
“You've got a fever,” John says. “Does your head hurt? Did you take anything yet?”
Sherlock shakes his head, and closes his eyes again. “Tired,” he says. “Cold. Bored. Can't sleep.”
He tucks the blankets a little more tightly around Sherlock. “Just rest,” he orders, and goes to the kitchen. By the time he returns with the steaming mug of Lemsip, Sherlock has escaped from his blanket nest enough to sit upright, and is looking at something on his phone.
“Drink this.” John offers it to Sherlock, but Sherlock ignores him, so John snatches the phone out of his hand -- it's much easier when Sherlock's reflexes are dulled from being sick.
Sherlock glares at him. “Give it back.” His voice is hoarse, and he winces a little when he speaks. Sore throat; John should add honey to the Lemsip to help soothe it (except that they haven't any honey, because Sherlock had stolen the last of it to do something involving larvae).
John drops the mobile in his trousers pocket and presses the mug into Sherlock's hand. “No. Drink it,” he orders again, this time in the firm tone he uses on his patients who are subs. Sherlock's eyes drop and he takes a sip. “That's good,” John praises, but it is apparently not the right thing to do, because Sherlock slams the mug down with an angry thump.
“You -- You can't --” Sherlock pauses, looking momentarily lost, then forges on, shoulders hunched protectively. “Don't tell me what to do.”
“I'm a doctor, and you've got the flu. You called me off work, so the least you could do is drink the bloody Lemsip,” John points out with an irritated look -- it wouldn't normally work, but he thinks Sherlock's too tired to fight him, because he takes another sip.
“I prefer the capsules,” Sherlock says petulantly. “And I want my phone back.”
John sits down next to Sherlock, and rubs the back of his neck; after a moment where Sherlock tenses and John wonders if he's crossed some invisible line he doesn't know about, Sherlock relaxes into the touch. “No phone. You'll give yourself a headache trying to reach the screen.”
“You don't have to treat me like this,” Sherlock mutters against the lip of the mug. “I'm fine.”
“I'm your flatmate and, I like to think, your friend as well.” John moves his hands to the back of Sherlock's shoulders, rubbing at the knots of tension -- he's not the best at giving a massage, but he knows the basics. Sherlock tries to twist out of the way, but when John tightens his hands warningly, he goes still.
By the time Sherlock finishes the Lemsip and John has finished rubbing the tension from Sherlock's shoulders, Sherlock is swaying slightly. “I think it's time for bed, yeah?” John suggests.
Sherlock shakes his head. “I won't be able to sleep. Too boring. I want to read.”
“You'll strain your eyes.”
“I'll die of boredom.”
“I'll sit with you until you fall asleep.”
“Or die of boredom?”
“Or die of boredom,” John says. “Get in bed. Lie down.”
There is a moment where Sherlock turns to his bedroom and rises, automatically obeying, followed by a long pause where he stops and looks at John levelly as if he's considering refusing for the sake of refusing. But then it passes, and John follows Sherlock into his bedroom. It is surprisingly neater than he'd expected -- books on the nightstand, papers on the desk, but no clutter.
Sherlock lies on his stomach on the bed, and he stretches, arms out over his head, rubbing his cheek against his pillow like a cat. John's mouth goes dry from the swift, unexpected rush of desire that hits him, as if a switch has been flipped, changing Sherlock from patient to something else -- something he wants. He notices, suddenly, that Sherlock's wrists are close enough to the headboard to handcuff him to it.
But then Sherlock coughs, his whole body shaking, and starts to curl in on himself, and the doctor part of John's brain takes over. John settles the blankets over him, and brushes his knuckles over the back of Sherlock's head. His hair is damp with sweat. “Better?”
Sherlock shakes his head.
“Tired?”
A nod.
“Throat still hurt?”
Another nod.
John sits on the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to stay here with you?”
Sherlock's still for long enough that John wonders if he's begun to fall asleep, but then he shakes his head.
John crosses his fingers behind his back for luck, and says firmly, “Well, I'm staying until you fall asleep.”
Another pause, then a shrug.
John puts his hand on the back of Sherlock's neck again, lightly rubbing the skin. Done in front of someone else, it'd be a possessive touch, a claim of ownership. Done to his sub, it'd be the same. But with Sherlock it's -- it's not, because he knows Sherlock would never let John claim him.
Sherlock's fingers start tapping against the pillow. Then he sighs, and turns over on his back, protecting his eyes from the light with his forearm. John starts counting. When he gets to nine, Sherlock rolls onto his side and curls into a ball. He holds that position for barely two seconds before returning to his stomach with another, more frustrated sigh. The fingers start tapping again.
“Bored?” John asks mildly.
Sherlock makes a noise against the pillow that sounds an awful lot like a growl, and hits him weakly on the side. “Dying. Of boredom.” His voice is muffled.
“Well, at least you're not dying of influenza. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Sherlock rolls onto his side again, and looks at John. “I'm cold,” he says, and his eyes flicker away. “You could share your body heat with me.”
So John slides under the covers next to Sherlock, and Sherlock presses his ice-cold bare feet against John's ankles. He twitches, and then Sherlock is right there, twining around him like a vine, entangling their limbs and tucking his head awkwardly under John's chin. His fingers, where they touch the skin just above the small of John's back, are cold.
“Feeling better?” John rubs small circles over Sherlock's back.
“Stop talking,” Sherlock complains against the base of John's throat, so John falls silent.
Sherlock goes still and peaceful against him. His breathing evens out, and his muscles relax, and soon he is asleep.
--
John sneaks out once Sherlock is asleep, and goes about his day as normal -- he goes online, talks to Harry, and sends a text to Lestrade to let him know Sherlock has the flu and is actually not dying, but may not be available for any cases that involve running around London after dark.
He tries, and fails, at not thinking about the feel of Sherlock in his arms, or the way he had gone limp and trusting in sleep. Or the way his fingers had curled in the back of John's jumper, or how his forehead had been hot against John's throat. Or how Sherlock had obeyed, more or less without question, when John had taken control of his care.
He goes to bed alone and wakes up in the middle of the night, flailing, when someone knees him in the side. Sherlock deflects the clumsy punch aimed at his face. “It's just me,” he murmurs, climbing under the covers. He tucks himself against John's side. “Go back to sleep.”
He does.
Sherlock stops sleeping in John's bed after the third night, when his fever breaks. Three days after that, Sherlock starts skipping meals again and playing the violin at four in the morning, which is as good a sign as any that he feels alright.
John tells himself that it shouldn't feel like a loss (but it does).
Part 2
Rating: NC-17
Length: 15,100 words
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Warnings: BDSM, kink
Summary: It's never felt like this before, like wanting to say, “I'd rather not, but if you wanted, I'd get on my knees for you.” Because John is a dom, and Sherlock is a dom, and John wants him anyways. Except, one of these things is not quite true.
Notes:BDSM!AU, for the kinkmeme, prompted here, pulling inspiration from helenish's Take Clothes off as Directed and aris_writing's Directed!Verse. Set in the same verse as you need someone and it's easy.
John -- John is not a sub, but he is a doctor (doctor first, and soldier second, his dominance expressing itself as he forces patients to hold still and relax).
And at a base where there are no subs, things happen between the doms -- “I'll let you hold my wrists and fuck my face, but only if you let me do the same to you”. John's not inexperienced, in those regards. He's tried subbing (uninteresting), and he's been attracted to other tops before, and he'd tried that out too -- “Okay, neither of us subs, we'll just... do something else” (a little more kinky than he'd prefer).
And it had been fine. A good way to relieve sexual tension, and usually better than taking care of things on his own.
It's never felt like this before, like wanting to say, “I'd rather not, but if you wanted, I'd get on my knees for you.”
Because Sherlock is... brilliant, really. And arrogant and confident and devastatingly sexy. He does what he wants, when he wants, and looks good while doing so. John's not sure what to do about that -- he wants -- he's not sure what he wants.
--
When he meets Sherlock, Sherlock tells John more about himself than he'd ever thought someone else would know -- he'd known about Harry, for Christ's sake. But then, he'd missed the part where she was his sister, and a sub, and that she and Clara had both been subs.
Same-role marriage has been legal for almost three years, but it's still not commonplace.
--
“No sub, then?” John asks, while they wait for a murderer to show.
Sherlock's hair is a bit on the long side, for a top, just long enough to tease at submission -- but he hasn't any bracelets on his wrists or makeup on his face, and John's fairly sure the impeccable cut of his suit is more from vanity than any urge to look beautiful (no, that seems to be unconscious). And he moves like a dom, all long strides and looking people in the eyes and looming over them with his height.
“Not really my area,” Sherlock says, dismissively. He is watching John eat. He hasn't ordered anything himself.
“Oh. Do you, uh... prefer topping other doms, then? Which -- would be fine. There's nothing wrong with that.”
“I know there's nothing wrong with that,” Sherlock says, and raises an eyebrow at him.
“I mean, I've done it before, from both sides, and it's -- it's okay. I don't mind --”
And then John loses control of the conversation in the sort of disastrously humiliating way he thought he'd grown out of when he'd stopped being fifteen and spotty, and Sherlock is turning him down when he hadn't been asking in the first place.
It is all very awkward, made worse by the thought that touches, lightly, in his mind.
I've no idea why you don't. You'd be good at it.
--
Lestrade tells Sherlock to get rid of John (Sherlock scoffs, and orders a man named Anderson to stop polluting the crime scene), but his irritation eases when John stays at Sherlock's side to keep an eye on him, right until the point where Sherlock ditches him to do... whatever it is he does.
Solve everything, John suspects.
“You know, he's actually a sub,” Sally Donovan says, while John is trying to figure out how to flag a cab to get home. She hasn't got a collar on, nor the bracelets, but her thick black hair falls past her shoulders and she hadn't denied it when Sherlock had accused her of spending the night at Anderson's. “He can't keep a dom, because he tries to top them, and he can't keep a sub because he wouldn't know what to do with one if he had one.”
“Right, thanks for letting me know,” John says, but what he thinks is, Pull the other one. It's got bells on. The serial killer comment had been more believable.
--
“Stop!” John snaps, pushes command into his voice. “Kneel,” he says, and their killer -- jilted ex-lover who'd stabbed his ex's new sub to death, drops to his knees with the clumsy suddenness of someone who doesn't realize they're doing it.
There are tricks to dominance, to pulling power over himself like a cloak, to pulling obedience out of someone who hasn't considered obeying him. He knows them all, because he'd been doctor to a handful of overaggressive, sexually-frustrated doms, and somehow managed to keep them still long enough to stitch and medicate them.
It's all in the confidence.
“Hands behind your back.” And then, with a little bit of a growl, “Good boy. It's okay now,” he says, and walks closer. “I've got you.”
Common parlance is that subs are overly emotional, in need of dominance to keep themselves under control -- John's not sure how much of it is true, and how much of what's true is true only because subs have been told their whole lives that that's how they are.
All he knows is that it's easy to take control from someone's feeling trapped and desperate, to offer himself up as safety, to take away their choices until all they have to think about is his voice, drawing the path for them.
And it's much, much easier to do it to someone who wants it, who's guilty and regretful and wants to be punished because they know they've done wrong.
“Give me the knife. Hilt first,” and Gabriel hands him the knife; his hand is shaking, and John doesn't push him away when he buries his face against John's thigh. He strokes his hand through Gabriel's hair, scratching the scalp lightly, and the trembling slows.
Crisis averted.
“Where's Lestrade? Did you call him yet?” And when John turns his head to look for Sherlock, Sherlock is on the ground, looking confused and lost at finding himself on his knees.
When they make eye contact, Sherlock glares at him and stands defiantly, back straight. John can see the bulge of his erection at his groin, and when Sherlock catches him looking, he spits out, “No. I haven't.”
It sounds like a challenge.
“Can you call him?” John asks mildly, careful not to phrase it as an order -- doms can get violent when John pulls the voice thing on them, and Sherlock does not look pleased.
“Give me your phone,” Sherlock orders.
John tugs, lightly, on Gabriel's hair. “Fetch it for me. It's in my pocket,” he says softly, and the man fishes it out for him, face still pressed into his thigh. “Good boy,” John says approvingly when Gabriel presses it into his palm, and Gabriel sighs, tension leeching slowly out of his body.
He offers it to Sherlock, and Sherlock takes it without letting their fingers brush. A moment later, he gives it back. “I changed my mind. You call him.”
John passes the phone to Gabriel. “He's under L for Lestrade,” he says, pulling Gabriel's head back by his hair, with just the right amount of pain (eyes unfocused, mouth slightly open, relaxation stealing up on him). “Call him and tell him where we are.”
--
Afterwards, when they are back in the flat, John says, “It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know.” At Sherlock's questioning look, he explains, “By the time I got invalided, I could order down half my unit.”
The tension in Sherlock's shoulders rackets up a notch. He doesn't say anything, and John is at a loss.
“I wasn't trying to top you,” he tries, and Sherlock glares at him.
“I'm not stupid. I could see that,” he says, and takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks like he's starting to get a headache, and John wants to sit him down and give him a paracetamol and hold his head in his lap and stroke his hair and.
And Sherlock would probably knock his head off if he tried.
“Right.” John holds up his hands. “Sorry.” He tilts his head upwards a little, lets his eyes skitter across Sherlock's cheekbones (sharp -- he wants to press his thumbs against them) instead of making direct eye contact, angles his shoulders just slightly. “Is there anything I can get you?” He asks, and makes his voice soft, and just a little bit higher than it normally is.
He can't do it all the way, can't be sincere about it, but he can fake the beginnings of submission just fine, enough to soothe an upset top.
It doesn't work.
Sherlock takes a half-step backwards, expression working if he's not sure whether to be disgusted or intrigued. After a moment, he settles on uneasy. “Please don't do that,” he says firmly. “I -- I really don't want --” He makes a vague motion with his hand that encompasses everything between them. “Don't do that.”
“Sorry,” John says in his usual voice, and drops the act.
--
Her name is Natalie, and her neck is bare. Her wrists are decorated prettily with bracelets (both wrists, so she's not seeing anybody yet), and her hair falls halfway down her back. She is only slightly shorter than him, but when he smiles at her, she ducks her head to look up at him bashfully.
“Come to dinner with me. Tonight,” he says on Friday, and she smiles back.
“What do you want me to wear?”
He ends up bringing her home with him. Sherlock's in, but he doing something in the kitchen that John refuses to think about about. He barely glances up when John greets him.
And then, carefully and methodically, he takes Natalie apart.
It's an art form, finding the right direction to push and the right amount of force to use, taking the precious gift of trust a sub gives him and using it to strip them bare, laying pieces of themselves out in a way they'd never be able to do on their own.
He goes down on her until she's oversensitive and crying, and her eyes are begging for him to stop. He ties her wrists to his headboard and puts clamps on her nipples, then teases her until they're red and she's biting her lip with the effort not to scream. He sticks his fingers in her mouth when he fucks her (“Don't bite me,” he warns, “Or I'll stop.”), then pulls out and slides off the condom so he can come on her breasts (she turns red and looks away, and sucks in her lips to keep from biting down on his fingers).
When he's done, he cleans her up. He unties her and rubs lotion on her wrists. He kisses her nipples and the spot on her shoulder where he'd bitten her, and strokes her hair and tells her she's been a good girl, that he's proud of her, that of course she's welcome to stay the night if she wants to fall asleep with him.
He lets her fall asleep on his chest, and pulls the blankets over them when she kicks them off and starts to shiver from the cold.
He hasn't been able to fall asleep while sharing a bed since Afghanistan, so he dozes lightly and wonders if Sherlock's still awake, then brainstorms what he'll write his next blog post about. When the morning comes and she starts to stir, he watches her wake slowly, and squeezes her when she opens her eyes.
“Morning,” he says.
“Mnng.” She rubs the sleepiness from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Were you watching me sleep? How long have you been awake?”
“Only a few minutes,” he lies.
She dimples at him, charmed. “That's sweet. Do you want breakfast?”
“That'd be lovely. Make me something.”
--
He naps for an hour, then forces himself out of bed, roused by the scent of fresh coffee and frying bacon. He showers and shaves, then wanders into the kitchen; there is a plate prepared for him already -- toast, eggs, bacon, and a mug of coffee. Natalie kneels at the side of his chair, which has been pulled out for him.
She starts to rise when she sees him, but at his look, settles down again.
“This looks amazing,” he says, and pets Natalie's hair when he sits down. He turns to look at Sherlock, who seems to be engrossed in some sort of book. “Sherlock, there's plenty of food here, do you want some?”
“Day?” Sherlock turns a page.
“Saturday.”
“Hmm. I'm good until dinner,” he replies, after a moment's pause.
“When did you last eat?”
Sherlock glances at him and gets a decidedly guarded look on his face. He looks away and doesn't answer.
“Sherlock. Tell me.”
“Thursday evening.”
“That was over twenty-four hours ago,” John points out, and Sherlock glares at him, as if insulted that John thought it needed to be said aloud. “Sit. Eat.”
Sherlock's eyes dart to the table, then to John, then to Natalie, then back to John. Then, he glances at his book and closes it with a sigh. “You're kneeling in the wrong place,” he says to Natalie, as he loads a plate and sits in the other chair.
Natalie raises her head slightly from John's thigh. “What?”
Sherlock uses his fork to point at John's hand; he hasn't yet taken a bite of his own meal. “John is left-handed. You're seated on his left side. While the traditional position for an established sub is on the left, that's because the majority of the population is right-handed. For John, you should be on the right, which would allow him to eat and fondle your hair at the same time.”
Natalie looks up at John, confused. “Should I move?”
“No, you're fine where you are,” John says, even though Sherlock's right, and he'd been wondering exactly what he was supposed to do about it, and if Natalie had expected him to hand-feed her.
He ends up not hand-feeding her, because he doesn't know her that well. Sherlock steals a bite of egg off his plate when he runs out of his own, and John retaliates by stealing the rest of Sherlock's bacon (Sherlock looks smug, but he's no idea why; he hopes it hasn't been poisoned).
“Where did this bacon come from, anyways?” He asks, just to make sure it isn't part of an experiment he'd rather not know about.
“She went to the shops. I gave her your credit card to use,” Sherlock replies.
John frowns and reaches for his wallet; it's there, and his ids and cash are there, but his credit card's missing. “When did you steal my credit card?”
“Two days ago -- you used cash when paying for dinner for you and your date last night, so you likely didn't notice it was gone.”
“Right. Well, it's mine. Give it back.” John holds his hand out and Sherlock places the card in his palm. At his side, Natalie sits up, and starts patting her pockets.
“I thought I had it,” she says.
“It wasn't yours,” Sherlock points out to Natalie without looking at her (her head's below the table, so she's out of sight except to John). “So I lifted it off you while you were unpacking the groceries.”
They eat the rest of the meal in silence, though Sherlock gets bored after a few minutes. He brings his plate to the desk, and eats in front of his laptop.
When John's done, Natalie does the washing up and leaves, giving John a kiss goodbye. When she's gone, Sherlock snaps the lid of his laptop closed and says, “If you see her again, she'll expect you to collar her within a month, two at the most.”
“You think?”
“Yesterday was her first date with you, and today she bought groceries, cooked breakfast, and knelt on the floor while you ate,” Sherlock says, and raises his eyebrow as if to say “Are you blind?”
“Did she clean the table too? Only, the last time I looked at it, you had beakers of stuff all over it.”
Sherlock smirks, just a little. “She did. She screamed a bit when she found the fingertips.”
John smothers a giggle. “I thought I told you not to leave those out.”
“I didn't. They were in the vegetable crisper, in the fridge.”
And then they're laughing together, giggling really, over Sherlock's crazy experiments.
He ends up losing Natalie's number, but by the time he realizes it, there are two bodies in the morgue and Lestrade sends Sherlock a text asking him to help, so it doesn't really matter.
--
John resigns himself to people thinking he and Sherlock are involved -- they aren't, of course, but it's easier to let them think so, because he and Sherlock live together and Sherlock takes him on his cases and, admittedly, they do spend an awful lot of time with each other.
And he has nothing against people thinking he's a top-who-likes-tops, even though he doesn't, he isn't; whatever he feels for Sherlock isn't about orientation, because he's not like that. Even when Sherlock tells him what to do, he doesn't feel the pull to obey (but he usually finds himself doing it anyways).
Sherlock seems to take it all in stride.
He smiles and says thank you when Angelo brings them a candle for their table, and he doesn't correct people when they refer to he and John as a couple.
“Does it bother you that everyone thinks we're together?” John asks, when he hangs up the phone after another call from Harry -- who, of course, gleefully asks when he's going to tell their parents that she's not the only queer one in the family now.
Sherlock is staring at the ceiling again, and from the way he's flexing his arm, John wouldn't be surprised to see nicotine patches (probably two or three, since he doesn't seem to be too intently focused) on the pale skin if Sherlock rolled up his sleeves.
“Not especially.”
--
After Natalie, John dates Jason, and after three weeks of dating Jason, John takes him home with him. John blindfolds him and ties his hands behind his back and fucks his mouth and leaves him hard and wanting, then sends him back home in a cab. If John doesn't push too hard on his subs, they don't need to be taken care of as much, which means he gets to sleep.
Sherlock glances at him when he comes down for a drink of water. He's doing something at the microscope (John does not know why they have a microscope, but he's learned it's best not to ask). “You sent him home because you have work tomorrow and can't sleep when someone else is in the bed with you.”
“Yes,” John says. He's found that the simple response is usually the best response when Sherlock starts deducing him.
“You could have just made him sleep on the floor,” Sherlock points out.
“Subs don't like it when their doms have nightmares,” he admits. “It's not exactly reassuring.”
“You're back from years in Afghanistan after getting wounded in action. And of course you've killed people. They should be more distressed if you didn't have the occasional nightmare.”
--
After another week -- long enough for them to consider this an actual relationship, Jason gives John the bracelet he wears on his left wrist. It indicates to the world that he's taken, and that anyone who wants him will have to go through John, first.
Sherlock knows instantly, of course.
“Your sub's offering you exclusivity,” he says, and nods at the bracelet on John's left wrist. “But you have it on the wrong wrist. It's supposed to go on your non-dominant hand.”
“If I had it on my right wrist, everyone would think I was the sub. I get enough of that just hanging around you; I don't want to encourage it.” He fiddles with the clasp, then frowns when he can't get it open with one hand. He offers his wrist to Sherlock. “Give me a hand with this, will you?”
With two hands available to manipulate the clasp, Sherlock's easily able to open the bracelet, and the the thin golden chain falls into his palm. But that's not what John notices; what John notices is Sherlock's fingers, holding his wrist in place, warm and gentle and slightly calloused. Sherlock lets go as soon as he notices John's attention, and he holds his other hand out, dangling the bracelet between his fingers. “You'll want this back.”
John opens his hand and Sherlock drops it onto his palm. “Thanks. I'll probably leave it in my nightstand or something, so I don't lose it.”
“You're not going to wear it?”
“I wasn't planning on it.”
Sherlock looks pleased, but John can't imagine why.
--
The inevitable breakup goes like this:
They are on a date, at a decent restaurant. Jason's head is in John's lap, and John is feeding him bites from his plate. Jason is talking about his family, about his younger brother who is 16 and still hasn't decided if he's a dom or a sub, and about his submissive parent, who is proud that Jason is dating a doctor.
John is making appropriately polite noises to sound interested when he receives the text.
The text is from Sherlock, as most of his texts are. Sherlock wants to know where John put the scalpels. While John is typing his response (box under the coffee table, and had Sherlock been using one to spread butter?), Jason shoves himself up angrily, off of John's lap, bumping his phone in the process.
“Do you have to text him while we're on a date?” Jason does not like Sherlock. The feeling, unfortunately, is mutual -- the last time Jason had come over, Sherlock had wrung screeches from his violin that had sounded like a cat being slowly tortured to death.
“It'll only take a few minutes,” John says, and puts a hand on Jason's shoulder, pushing lightly.
Jason shrugs it off. “That's what you said last time too,” he hisses angrily, “And then you safeworded and left.”
“We'd barely started, and it was a matter of life or death. I told you, sometimes we help the police with their investigations. We caught a killer that day. It was important. ”
“I'm supposed to be important. I'm supposed to be yours. I don't want you to just treat me like some toy you take out when you've got nothing better to do, that gets put back as soon as he wants you. You're supposed to be my dom, not his sub.”
“Oh my god, I'm not subbing for him,” John says, for what sounds like the thousandth time. “I'm not subbing for him because I'm not a sub. It's not like that between us.”
“Are you sure? Because every time he says “jump”, you ask “how high”,” Jason says, and starts to put on his coat.
John grabs Jason's wrist, wrapping his fingers around it. “That doesn't mean anything. It's just work. Come on,” he says, coaxingly, “Don't cause a scene.”
“I'll cause a scene if I bloody well want to!” Jason shouts at him, and now people are turning to look at them. John feels the hot flush of embarrassment against his cheeks. “You have to choose. Right now. You can't have us both, John. I didn't agree to that. Either you're his, or I'm yours. Right now. Say it.”
Something in John twists painfully, then eases. “I'll drop your things off at your place tomorrow, then,” he says, and Jason's face crumples with surprise and hurt, before he storms out.
“It's okay,” the dom at the adjacent table says to him. “I had that happen to me when I was exploring my submissive side too.”
--
The inevitable post-breakup conversation with Sherlock goes like this:
By the time John gets home, he's angry. Angry at Jason for dumping him in the middle of a crowded restaurant, angry at Sherlock for interrupting his dates, angry at the world over the fact that everyone seems to think he's either gay or subbing for Sherlock.
But mostly he's angry at himself, because -- because he doesn't know why. Because he wants Sherlock and Sherlock's not interested in tops, because Sherlock is so tied up in his life by now that anyone John's involved with will have to accept him too, because a part of him thinks if he told you to kneel for him, you wouldn't want to, but you'd do it anyways. Because it's Sherlock.
John slams the door shut when he gets home, and throws his jacket at the coat rack (he hits it, and it wobbles, but the hook doesn't catch and his jacket lands on the floor).
Sherlock looks at him, taking in everything about John in an instant. “The breakup went badly then,” he says, and puts away the violin.
“That's an understatement,” John says, and flops down on the sofa. “Subs are so much work. I don't know why I bother.”
“Sexual gratification. Predictable,” Sherlock says.
John sighs heavily, feeling his anger recede. “We had a fight during dinner. He basically accused me of not taking good care of him and stormed out in front of everyone.”
Sherlock studies him, as if John's another one of his experiments. “There's more to it than that. He gave you a choice, and you picked the wrong one.”
John frowns. “How do you know that?”
“You're angry at yourself, which means you feel the breakup is partially your fault. But whatever you said, you don't regret it, because you're here now rather than chasing after him, even though your sub is fond enough of you that you could make up for it if you tried.”
“He told me to choose between you and him,” John admits, and looks away. His mouth feels suddenly dry. “He didn't like that I help you with your cases.”
“So you chose me,” Sherlock says, softly. There is something in his voice that John can't identify, and on someone else he'd almost call it awe.
“I don't need a sub,” he says. But I need you, I need what we have.
Sherlock beams at him.
--
The disastrous, post-breakup rebound offer goes like this:
John has had a few beers (well, five or six, but that's not bad, spread over a couple hours) at the pub, and he still feels a little bit miserable. And he has had a few offers, but he's turned them down because -- he doesn't remember why anymore; because it hadn't seemed like a good idea, because he didn't want to deal with them in the morning, because it's not safe to top someone if he's tipsy, because he'd rather go home and sulk.
So he goes home, and Sherlock is there, in his dressing gown, curled up in the armchair with a book with a small smile on his face. He's in a good mood, and he looks -- cozy. He looks warm and soft and comfortable, and John just really wants to tuck himself against Sherlock and take it all into himself.
So John walks over and when Sherlock looks up at him in polite inquiry, still smiling, John leans forward and presses their mouths together.
He knows that this is a bad idea, that this is possibly one of the worst ideas he's ever had, because Sherlock is his friend and his flatmate and a dom and John doesn't even really want to top someone who doesn't want to be topped. There is no way it could possibly work out. But he does it anyways, because for a moment, he doesn't think about any of that.
Sherlock's lips are warm, soft, and parted slightly, and John licks his way into Sherlock's mouth, tasting him curiously. Sherlock's hand comes up to John's shoulder, then hovers there, barely touching.
“John, you've been drinking.” Sherlock says, when John realizes Sherlock isn't kissing him back and pulls away. His hand closes on John's shoulder.
John closes his eyes, lets their foreheads touch. “I'm not drunk.”
Sherlock sniffs his breath. “You're a little drunk.”
“Liquid courage,” he says, and takes a deep breath. He fights the urge to bury his face in Sherlock's neck and breathe in his scent. Actually, scratch that -- he does it anyways, tucks his head in the spot right below Sherlock's jaw and inhales deeply. “I just wanted to let you know,” he murmurs against soft skin. “I'd sub for you, if you wanted.”
“I know,” Sherlock replies, and curls his fingers around John's left wrist. John starts to jerk it away automatically, then stops, looks at Sherlock's fingers encircling his wrist, holding him there like a tether, suddenly unsure. Sherlock's other hand pushes on his chest, and he lets go of John's wrist. “But I don't want you to be my sub. Go to bed,” he says firmly.
John goes.
--
Before he falls asleep, he jerks off to the feel of Sherlock's fingers pressed against his pulse-point and the way Sherlock's breathing had caught, just for a moment, as John had kissed him.
--
The awkward let's-pretend-last-night-never-happened part goes like this:
They don't talk about it in the morning, but there is a tension between them that wasn't there before. John had offered, and Sherlock had turned him down, and now he's not quite sure where they stand with each other.
Except that, well -- logically, they are still friends (still colleagues), and frankly, he'd be surprised if Sherlock hadn't known before he did that John was attracted to him. The only thing that's changed between them is that now John knows what Sherlock's mouth tastes like. The only thing that's changed between them is that Sherlock has said no.
“Oh, come off it,” Sherlock complains, when John is still thinking about it in the evening, staring at the blinking cursor on his screen and wondering what to write for his blog. “You don't even want me to top you.”
“Well, no,” John admits.
“So if I'd taken you up on your offer, I'd be unhappy and you'd be unhappy.”
“Probably.”
“You're also relieved that I turned you down. So why are you...?” Sherlock makes a vague gesture with his hand that seemed to represent John's entire emotional state.
Because I want you, and I don't know how to have you, he thinks, but what he says out loud is, “You know, I'm not sure,” and Sherlock laughs, and the tension cracks, fades.
It's just a stupid crush, and it'll disappear eventually, now that he knows for sure that Sherlock's not interested and they're not compatible.
John's never been one for false optimism.
--
Except that everything changes like this:
John has been living with Sherlock for just over four months, and they have managed somehow not only to not kill each other, but also to not get killed while chasing serial killers and smugglers and all sorts of criminals.
It is a quiet sort of weekend -- the kind where neither of them can be bothered to go outside because it's raining, and they are both perfectly content to stay at home and read, or watch the telly, or go online.
For dinner, John orders takeaway because there is nothing edible in the fridge (he'd thrown out a good number of things earlier, as they'd been covered in a suspicious red gel). When it arrives, John realizes he's left his wallet in his other trousers, upstairs. “Sherlock, I left my wallet upstairs. Can you get the takeaway?”
“No, this reaction can't be left unsupervised,” Sherlock responds distractedly, attention focused on a bubbling beaker. “I have cash in mine. Use that.”
“Where is it?”
“Inner coat pocket.”
Sherlock's coat is on the coat rack. John fishes the wallet out and answers the door. The deliveryman is a youngish sub, long hair falling to his shoulders; he has a bracelet on his right wrist, but not the left, and is holding their Chinese. He looks vaguely bored to be there. “Delivery for Watson?”
“That's me, thanks.” John trades a couple bills from Sherlock's wallet for their dinner, and catches sight of Sherlock's driving license before he can snap it shut -- in his photo, Sherlock's hair falls to his chin. Too long for a dom, and before he realizes it he's taking out the card and looking at it.
Sherlock's a sub.
Or, well, his driving license says he's a sub, which isn't always the same thing, and Sherlock doesn't look any different, aside from the hair. He's got the same look in his eyes, and the same tilt to his lips that he always does, the one that says “I'm smarter than you and I know it”.
Sherlock has pushed aside the books on the coffee table to clear space for the takeaway, and is in the process of shifting the beaker of who-knows-what (still bubbling) into the oven with a pair of tongs. “You probably don't want to know,” he says.
“You don't even know what I was going to ask.”
“You were going to ask why it was going in the oven. Considering your reactions to my previous experiments, you probably don't want to know,” Sherlock says, and, like a guided missile, unerringly finds the takeaway box that holds the pot stickers. He makes a pleased hum, and smiles when John passes him a pair of chopsticks.
“So, you didn't tell me you were a sub,” John says.
Sherlock goes still, but only for a moment. “No, I suppose I didn't.”
“Is it true?”
Sherlock looks at him blankly. “Why would I lie about that? Society favors dominants, so if I were to lie about my role, I'd best gain by claiming to be a dom. Well, I'd lie about it for a case, obviously, but if I were doing that, I'd use a fake name as well.” Sherlock hasn't answered his question, which he realizes a moment after John does. “Oh, and yes. I am.”
Sherlock returns to eating -- and he does eat, just like a normal person, though it usually takes a day of skipping meals and John sticking a plate right in front of Sherlock's face before he can be bothered to do so. After a moment, he says, “You're still staring at me.”
John jerks his eyes away immediately. He hadn't even noticed, but he had been, trying to catch hints of Sherlock's submissive nature in his wrists, or the curve of his spine (he hadn't seen any). “Sorry.”
John tries to focus on his food -- he really does, except that Sherlock's a sub. Sherlock likes being tied up and hurt and has probably been on his knees before, open and vulnerable. And suddenly John wants to see that, wants to see what's left of Sherlock when everything else is taken away, what he is when he's pushed into subspace. He wants to know if anyone's ever seen him like that, and if so, how they could have possibly let him get away.
“Yes,” Sherlock says, and steals a bite of noodles from the takeout box in John's hand.
“What?”
“You were working yourself up to ask if I'd ever subbed for someone before. Yes. I have. Yes, I enjoyed it.”
“But you're single now,” John says, and can't stop the glance at Sherlock's bare wrists and throat. No tan lines where the bracelets would have been -- but Sherlock's not tanned at all, really.
“Obviously.”
“When was the last time you --”
“Last time I had sex? About six months ago.”
And, because John is apparently a masochist, he says, “So, when I -- when I kissed you, and you turned me down. That was because you're a sub.”
“Among other things.”
“And,” he asks, cautiously, “if I'd asked to top you instead?”
“I'd still say no.”
--
And the thing is, there's nothing wrong with being rejected. John's okay with being turned down. Sherlock treats him exactly the same as he's always had, because John hasn't told him anything new. He doesn't act uncomfortable around John, or avoid him, or try to sit him down to talk about their feelings (he's still Sherlock, after all).
But something is still changed.
Now there is a different tension between them -- something sexual, something that sparks between them when Sherlock looks up from a book or experiment to catch John watching him, and John holds his gaze for a moment, acknowledging it, before looking away.
Or Sherlock will touch him -- casually, a hand on his arm, or their shoulders pressed companionably together, and it will be there between them -- I want you, not an offer, not anything that needs a response, just a calm, simple statement of fact.
It doesn't have to be anything more than that. He doesn't mind it not being anything more than that.
It gives him its own, different type of enjoyment. Because even if it never goes anywhere, there is still the simple, straightforward pleasure of I want him and he wants me too.
--
Come home. I'm dying, Sherlock texts him, so John takes the rest of the day off work and rushes home. While he's in the cab, he calls Lestrade to figure out what's happened, half-frantic with worry.
“I didn't send him any cases,” Lestrade says, sounding not especially concerned -- he'd been concerned, when John had opened with “Sherlock's dying,” but it had disappeared when John had read the contents of the message aloud. “Have you tried Lemsip?”
“Lemsip? What -- You think he's just got a cold? If he's making me leave work because he has a cold, then he's really going to be dying, because I'm going to kill him.” But he tells the cabbie (sub, blond, with a tight, golden band around his throat) to drop him off at the Tesco's nearest the flat.
“Sherlock,” he announces when he gets home, “You had better actually be dying, because if you've called me off work for a lark, I'm going to kill you.”
“In here, Doctor Watson.” It's Mycroft, standing a few feet away from a bundle of blankets on the sofa that must, then, hold Sherlock in there somewhere. He is resting the tip of umbrella on the aforementioned bundle of blankets, but Sherlock has not yet thrown it off.“He prefers the capsule versions,” he says, without turning to look at John.
John drops the Tesco's bag on the coffee table. “Well, that's too bad. He should be grateful I took off work and called Lestrade to find out he was sick rather than, I don't know, bleeding out in the kitchen or something. 'I'm dying' isn't what I'd call descriptive.”
There is a disgruntled rustling from the Sherlock-sized nest on the couch.
“Let me guess: 'Come home. I'm dying'? He gets like this when he's sick.” Mycroft turns to look at him now, and for all that John's seen Mycroft before, this is nothing like that.
Before, Mycroft had been familiarly antagonistic towards Sherlock in the way of siblings, and politely tolerant of John. But there is something dangerous and assessing in the way he looks at John now, reminiscent of the way Clive Ross's dominant mother had looked at John when John had first been introduced as his dom. Reminiscent in the sense that a full-grown grizzly is reminiscent of a teddy bear.
John takes a half-step back before he even realizes it.
Mycroft's smile is full of teeth. “I'll leave Sherlock in your capable hands, doctor. If you need any help, just go to the window and wave. The surveillance team will assist you. They'd love to have something to do.”
John smiles tightly and tries not to look cowed by the threat. “I'll keep that in mind.”
Mycroft taps Sherlock with the umbrella. “I've leave you to Doctor Watson, then,” he tells his younger brother, and strides out of the flat, to a black car whose door swings open for him when he approaches. John watches it until it's out of sight.
John breathes out shakily. “Your brother is terrifying.”
No response.
He peels back the layers of blankets -- one is Sherlock's, and the one underneath that is his. Sherlock cringes away from the light. His forehead's warm and his face flushed, and he's shivering slightly. John's anger dissipates, replaced by concern.
“You've got a fever,” John says. “Does your head hurt? Did you take anything yet?”
Sherlock shakes his head, and closes his eyes again. “Tired,” he says. “Cold. Bored. Can't sleep.”
He tucks the blankets a little more tightly around Sherlock. “Just rest,” he orders, and goes to the kitchen. By the time he returns with the steaming mug of Lemsip, Sherlock has escaped from his blanket nest enough to sit upright, and is looking at something on his phone.
“Drink this.” John offers it to Sherlock, but Sherlock ignores him, so John snatches the phone out of his hand -- it's much easier when Sherlock's reflexes are dulled from being sick.
Sherlock glares at him. “Give it back.” His voice is hoarse, and he winces a little when he speaks. Sore throat; John should add honey to the Lemsip to help soothe it (except that they haven't any honey, because Sherlock had stolen the last of it to do something involving larvae).
John drops the mobile in his trousers pocket and presses the mug into Sherlock's hand. “No. Drink it,” he orders again, this time in the firm tone he uses on his patients who are subs. Sherlock's eyes drop and he takes a sip. “That's good,” John praises, but it is apparently not the right thing to do, because Sherlock slams the mug down with an angry thump.
“You -- You can't --” Sherlock pauses, looking momentarily lost, then forges on, shoulders hunched protectively. “Don't tell me what to do.”
“I'm a doctor, and you've got the flu. You called me off work, so the least you could do is drink the bloody Lemsip,” John points out with an irritated look -- it wouldn't normally work, but he thinks Sherlock's too tired to fight him, because he takes another sip.
“I prefer the capsules,” Sherlock says petulantly. “And I want my phone back.”
John sits down next to Sherlock, and rubs the back of his neck; after a moment where Sherlock tenses and John wonders if he's crossed some invisible line he doesn't know about, Sherlock relaxes into the touch. “No phone. You'll give yourself a headache trying to reach the screen.”
“You don't have to treat me like this,” Sherlock mutters against the lip of the mug. “I'm fine.”
“I'm your flatmate and, I like to think, your friend as well.” John moves his hands to the back of Sherlock's shoulders, rubbing at the knots of tension -- he's not the best at giving a massage, but he knows the basics. Sherlock tries to twist out of the way, but when John tightens his hands warningly, he goes still.
By the time Sherlock finishes the Lemsip and John has finished rubbing the tension from Sherlock's shoulders, Sherlock is swaying slightly. “I think it's time for bed, yeah?” John suggests.
Sherlock shakes his head. “I won't be able to sleep. Too boring. I want to read.”
“You'll strain your eyes.”
“I'll die of boredom.”
“I'll sit with you until you fall asleep.”
“Or die of boredom?”
“Or die of boredom,” John says. “Get in bed. Lie down.”
There is a moment where Sherlock turns to his bedroom and rises, automatically obeying, followed by a long pause where he stops and looks at John levelly as if he's considering refusing for the sake of refusing. But then it passes, and John follows Sherlock into his bedroom. It is surprisingly neater than he'd expected -- books on the nightstand, papers on the desk, but no clutter.
Sherlock lies on his stomach on the bed, and he stretches, arms out over his head, rubbing his cheek against his pillow like a cat. John's mouth goes dry from the swift, unexpected rush of desire that hits him, as if a switch has been flipped, changing Sherlock from patient to something else -- something he wants. He notices, suddenly, that Sherlock's wrists are close enough to the headboard to handcuff him to it.
But then Sherlock coughs, his whole body shaking, and starts to curl in on himself, and the doctor part of John's brain takes over. John settles the blankets over him, and brushes his knuckles over the back of Sherlock's head. His hair is damp with sweat. “Better?”
Sherlock shakes his head.
“Tired?”
A nod.
“Throat still hurt?”
Another nod.
John sits on the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to stay here with you?”
Sherlock's still for long enough that John wonders if he's begun to fall asleep, but then he shakes his head.
John crosses his fingers behind his back for luck, and says firmly, “Well, I'm staying until you fall asleep.”
Another pause, then a shrug.
John puts his hand on the back of Sherlock's neck again, lightly rubbing the skin. Done in front of someone else, it'd be a possessive touch, a claim of ownership. Done to his sub, it'd be the same. But with Sherlock it's -- it's not, because he knows Sherlock would never let John claim him.
Sherlock's fingers start tapping against the pillow. Then he sighs, and turns over on his back, protecting his eyes from the light with his forearm. John starts counting. When he gets to nine, Sherlock rolls onto his side and curls into a ball. He holds that position for barely two seconds before returning to his stomach with another, more frustrated sigh. The fingers start tapping again.
“Bored?” John asks mildly.
Sherlock makes a noise against the pillow that sounds an awful lot like a growl, and hits him weakly on the side. “Dying. Of boredom.” His voice is muffled.
“Well, at least you're not dying of influenza. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Sherlock rolls onto his side again, and looks at John. “I'm cold,” he says, and his eyes flicker away. “You could share your body heat with me.”
So John slides under the covers next to Sherlock, and Sherlock presses his ice-cold bare feet against John's ankles. He twitches, and then Sherlock is right there, twining around him like a vine, entangling their limbs and tucking his head awkwardly under John's chin. His fingers, where they touch the skin just above the small of John's back, are cold.
“Feeling better?” John rubs small circles over Sherlock's back.
“Stop talking,” Sherlock complains against the base of John's throat, so John falls silent.
Sherlock goes still and peaceful against him. His breathing evens out, and his muscles relax, and soon he is asleep.
--
John sneaks out once Sherlock is asleep, and goes about his day as normal -- he goes online, talks to Harry, and sends a text to Lestrade to let him know Sherlock has the flu and is actually not dying, but may not be available for any cases that involve running around London after dark.
He tries, and fails, at not thinking about the feel of Sherlock in his arms, or the way he had gone limp and trusting in sleep. Or the way his fingers had curled in the back of John's jumper, or how his forehead had been hot against John's throat. Or how Sherlock had obeyed, more or less without question, when John had taken control of his care.
He goes to bed alone and wakes up in the middle of the night, flailing, when someone knees him in the side. Sherlock deflects the clumsy punch aimed at his face. “It's just me,” he murmurs, climbing under the covers. He tucks himself against John's side. “Go back to sleep.”
He does.
Sherlock stops sleeping in John's bed after the third night, when his fever breaks. Three days after that, Sherlock starts skipping meals again and playing the violin at four in the morning, which is as good a sign as any that he feels alright.
John tells himself that it shouldn't feel like a loss (but it does).
Part 2