Disguise, part 4/6
:: previous part ::
By the third stop on their crime solving marathon, John is distinctly unsettled. The night club at Farringdon was one thing (not that John hasn't been to night clubs since 1992, but standing next to Sherlock in the middle of one had brought back far too many tangled memories). The stop in one of the classrooms at St. Bart's (John has, quite literally, not stood in one since he was a student) was a bit uncomfortable, but standing in the middle of the pavement in the same bloody neighbourhood that Sherlock's flat had been in 1992 (where they'd been naked and gasping against each other for hours) is downright disconcerting.
It has to be a coincidence, though. Murders happen at nightclubs more often than people admit, and the fact that one of the victims had been a student at St. Bart's is statistically likely to happen at some point.
John steps away for a moment, breathes through his mouth. It's not the night club, or St. Bart's, or even the neighbourhood, really. It must be the combination of all three that's making John's head swim. He has got to either get away, or distract himself somehow.
So he walks over to Sergeant Donovan and offers a few of his observations, to which she frowns, then nods, and tells him that he'd best be utilised where he can 'keep the freak reined in as much as possible.' Taking a deep breath, John walks over to where Sherlock is questioning one of the suspects. He pays only the very barest of attention to what Sherlock is asking, instead letting his mind go soft for a moment.
Sherlock had been eagerly restless in the cab on the way here, had looked at John with his eyes bright and his smile deliriously wide. "John, this is brilliant! A serial killer who leaves Shakespearean clues on body parts."
Which, really, should make things better. There had been absolutely no Shakespeare involved in their, er -- god, what does he even call it? -- tryst in 1992. No romantic sonnets quoted while lips tickled soft skin. No comparing hair colours or sparkles in eyes to summer's days or any of that rot. No, it had just been slippery bodies pressed together, whispered desires in the heat of passion. It had been everything John hadn't known he'd wanted until he found it in the arms of a complete stranger.
He sighs, then shakes his head and tries to pull himself together. He tunes back into the conversation Sherlock is having with the witness.
"No, mate, it weren't all them," the bloke is saying to Sherlock. John can see Sherlock bristle at the reprehensible grammar, but surprisingly he says nothing. "Only Jamie went to Bart's, the rest of us aren't even gone to school."
"Obviously."
John grins to himself. One of London's finest, clearly.
"Nah, he were the smart one of us. He went to public school, then when he got in here we all teased 'im like it weren't his business. Smart bloke like him, gonna be a doctor, still hanging with the likes of us."
Sherlock nods at him.
The witness sighs. "Jamie were the smart one. He were gonna be something. It just isn't - fair." His voice trembles a little, so John steps forward, places his hand on his shoulder. Presses his lips together in a sympathetic smile.
Sherlock taps his fingers on his knees impatiently, clearly waiting for that particular display of emotion to be over.
"We were just havin' a lad's night out, yeah? Jamie wanted to see us, so we came in here, picked him up and we went to the club. It weren't until there was a bird flirting with him and they disappeared for a bit that we even noticed something was wrong."
"Who found him?"
"...I done it." He pauses a moment. "I came out to have a smoke and went into the alleyway so no coppers would see me--" he looks panicked for a moment, so John reassures him that he won't be in trouble for it.
"Yeah, so then I saw him... just laying there all unnatural-like with those words on 'im." He shudders.
Sherlock nods at him, presses his palms against his thighs and stands up, then his coat swirls and he walks away.
"You were really brave to do something, to call the police," John says quietly. "We'll let you know if we need anything else."
The witness (John doesn't even know his name) smiles sadly. "I just hope they find her, the one that done it."
"They will," John assures him. With Sherlock Holmes on the case, it's a near certainty.
~*~
Twenty minutes later they've spoken to Lestrade twice, Sherlock has attacked his Blackberry with ridiculously fast fingers, and has also managed to offend two other witnesses with his questions.
He steps away, ignoring John, Lestrade, and the entirety of Lestrade's team as he works furiously at his Blackberry. After a tense few minutes, Sherlock looks up.
"Of course!"
He strides over to Lestrade, and shows him something on his screen triumphantly. When Lestrade looks at him blankly, Sherlock turns to John.
"Do you see?"
"Just tell us, Sherlock," John says gently. "I suspect you're the only one that sees the pattern."
"All of the murders two streets apart; two men, then two women, then two men again?" Sherlock looks around at them, then sighs. "I don't know how you all manage to get yourselves dressed in the mornings. Rhyming couplets! Everything is in twos. The murderer has chosen a Shakespearean couplet and is choosing his victims based on that."
John listens as Sherlock continues the explanation, marvelling (again) at his brilliance, at his ability to look at everyday, ordinary things and see so far into them and be -- almost always -- so spot on in his deductions that it's almost ridiculous.
And yet, he can be so spectacularly ignorant of things that are right in front of him.
John's phone buzzes, so he sighs and steps away to look at the text. It's Harry. Drunken texting again. He shuts his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to compose a relatively innocuous reply.
After replying, John is assaulted by an overly familiar smell. There must be a similar restaurant nearby, because something about the mix of everything around him has triggered his sense memory and John is back in 1992: tangled with Brad, kissing and kissing and kissing, their bodies and breath mingling as John tries to climb inside the feeling that envelops him.
November 1992
"John, oh god ... John."
John shifts their bodies again, pulls Brad up until he's sitting, then climbs upward, kneeling to straddle Brad's lap and wrap his arms around his back. Brad's body is warm (so warm) against him and John's mind works against itself to find enough poetic adjectives to describe the idyllic sweetness that courses through him.
They kiss again and again until John can't tell the difference between them, he can only taste the flavour of the two of them mingled together on his tongue like a delicate fruit.
John rocks up onto his knees, then down slowly, Brad's body a silky pressure against his. They are touching in so many places; John can barely separate the feel of skin and sweat and hair. He arches into the sting of nails digging into his buttocks and drags their cocks together deliberately. Brad's eyes seem to roll back in his head for a moment; his eyelids flutter rapidly.
"John, John, oh god ... you're so good."
Good.
All his life people have called him that: good student, good at sport, a good lad. Good, good, good. John hasn't rebelled against it, not really, but hearing it fall from Brad's (glorious) lips makes John actually want to match it. It finally feels like something he can do.
John leans forward and kisses Brad's sweaty temple. He drags his lips over the wet skin as though his only way of recording memory is through skin. "We're good," he breathes, right into his ear, then nips his earlobe gently.
"We are," Brad agrees, sucking on John's lower lip. "So good."
~*~
After a moment, John blinks, embarrassed. He can't imagine what his face must have looked like just now. He had been miles away. Glancing over at Sherlock, he sees him frozen on the pavement, a few feet away.
Sherlock's nose is in the air; he has clearly caught the scent of something. Sherlock spins once, looking around, then he pauses again, his body strangely immobile.
As John watches, he can see Sherlock's eyes broaden. Sherlock gasps out loud then closes his eyes for the briefest moment. When he opens them he searches for John. Their gaze catches and holds until John can feel it stretching a taut line between them. Desire ignites under his skin and John wants to ignore all social convention. Sherlock looks at John hungrily, takes a step forward.
God.
John feels more exposed now than he had at the end of that (brilliant, unfortunate) night in 1992.
"You remember," he says quietly to Sherlock.
"I do now."
John nods, licks his lip, shifts from one foot to the other. He wants... well, he doesn't know quite what he wants, just that he does want. Badly. He just doesn't know what to do about it.
"Sherlock," he says, his voice steadier than he would have believed possible. "Sherlock, I--"
But Sherlock holds up his hand, shakes his head. His eyes are wide, vulnerable, and he swallows more than once.
"John, I don't know what you--" his voice cracks, John hears him clear his throat. "John... I. I can't."
The lights of the police cars flash over his face, making it seem even paler whenever a light blinks off. His nose flares for a moment and his lips look darker than John's ever seen them.
John doesn't move.
After a few long seconds, Sherlock wraps his coat more tightly around himself, turns on his heel, and strides down the road.
John watches him walk away, something he feels like he's done far too much today, but he will give him one thing: even though he just blatantly turned John down (again) Sherlock never broke John's gaze.
Not once.
~*~
John doesn't go back to the flat right away. He can't. It's been, possibly, the strangest, most fucked-up day of his entire life and John has absolutely zero desire to walk into Baker Street and let everything burst back into his consciousness again.
And yet.
It's as though he can't get away from it, no matter where he goes. His mind reels backward into the past, against his will.
God, and the whole bloody night in 1992 had been so romantic, so tinged with soppy, rose-coloured lenses that John is almost embarrassed to remember. In some ways, he barely recognises the John Watson from that night. He had been so unintentionally guarded back then: going through relationships, through one night stands in what he'd always thought was the right way, the way everyone did.
And then Brad.
Brad had pulled down his invisible defences, had ripped John open until his heart was exposed and beating, a lascivious exhibitionist for Brad's affections. Brad had pulled all of John's emotions to the surface with a single kiss, with a few appreciative words, with his blinding smile, his overarching acceptance. John had opened for him completely, he'd let Brad inside: into his blood, his heart, his bones... until even their breath existed in tandem.
And it had all been for shit.
John sighs heavily, walking without direction, turning corners at random.
The John Watson after that night had been quite intentionally guarded. John can't remember seeing anyone -- even for a single one night stand -- for a good eighteen months after that. He just - couldn't. It was easier to get himself off when the need demanded it than try to put himself through something that might shatter him again.
He knows this. He's not that stupid. John knew it before he'd started seeing a therapist. He'd even been accused of such conscious distance by several short-lived partners afterward: brilliant, gorgeous women (and men) to whom he could never open up more than a little, who pitied him because (they said) he could never let himself feel anything more than the most surface-level of emotion.
John shakes his head, turns another corner and bumps headlong into another pedestrian. He apologises profusely to the woman, briefly noting her smile, the confident way she walks, but he can't really focus when he's this far in his head. The night breeze is harsh here, and the chill pulls his mind back into the present. He looks up; half a laugh huffs out his nose when he realises that he's standing at the end of Baker Street.
Of course. All of his paths, every journey keeps leading him back to Sherlock.
Here he is now, forty-one years old, with the first person in more than seventeen years that excites him, that pushes him constantly, that makes him feel so gloriously unseated... and it's the same damn person that it was all those years ago.
~*~
John doesn't go inside. He walks past the door to 221b, past all of the places they've hailed cabs, down the pavement they've run innumerable times before. John walks and walks and tries to let his mind wander to something -- anything -- else.
But when he really thinks about it, why should he? His life is so full now... yeah, of course he'd like to be a bit more employed than a few shifts here and there at the surgery, but every corner with Sherlock is something new, something different. John feels necessary again. Necessary in a way that doesn't feel like it's a load of polite bollocks.
In another block he passes the laundromat where he'd met Brian and stops for a moment. The memory is still clear: smiling, flirting, lips over skin against the door of the loo.
He keeps walking, turns another corner. There's barely anyone on the pavement this time of night; it's so late. In another twenty steps, John is in front of the coffee shop where he met Kate.
The storefront is deserted, mostly dark. Gentle lights from the pastry case and the fire exit door give it a warm glow inside, but it's clearly been closed for hours. John stands there for a long time. This was the first (of many) places Sherlock tried to fool him with one of his disguises.
Try as he might though, John can no longer muster the anger, the frustration over Sherlock's attempts at deceit with his disguises. Instead, and as usual, John amazes at Sherlock's talent, his ability, his sheer bloody brilliance. He looks inside the darkened coffee shop and feels... fortunate.
He runs his thumb along the pads of his fingers and wonders: what if? What if he'd taken the flirtation with Kate even further? What if he'd ignored the familiar tickle in his brain when Brian stopped humming In My Life? What if he'd done exactly what was running through his mind and kissed him deeply?
John can imagine it: slippery, bruising, perfect. Time would slow down; he'd feel every inch of the kiss. It would fill the room until it squeezed all of the air out in its stead. They would gasp and clutch at each other, pressing together until there wasn't a bit of space between them anywhere.
He closes his eyes and sighs. He's torn between wanting his ignorance back, between wanting to do something to shock Sherlock into some damn action, between wanting somehow to mend this chasm inside him that John's been trying to hold together for so bloody long now.
If a genie were to appear now, right now, John can't decide what he'd request from any of his three wishes. But he knows that all of them would somehow include--
"John."
Sherlock stands there, a silhouette against the streetlight, his shoulders rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He must have been running.
John looks at him, doesn't say anything.
"Let's go home," Sherlock says.
~*~
John doesn't think to look at the clock as they walk in, but it's got to be well past three o'clock in the morning. Somehow though, Sherlock seems to define time in his own terms; John doesn't feel tired at all.
A few hours ago, Sherlock had been quizzing him mercilessly about their night together in 1992, a time that Sherlock remembered only in small bits. But now...
Turnabout is fair play, John thinks wryly to himself. He sits down and looks at Sherlock earnestly.
"So, tell me about 1992."
Sherlock pauses, presses his palms together and looks over John's shoulder for a long moment. His eyes flicker to the journals that are still stacked on the floor at his feet, then back to John.
"A lot happened in 1992. Things came to a bit of a - peak."
"Well," John can't decide if he wants to hear all of it, or have Sherlock keep his speech focused on the events of their night together from that November. "Do you want to tell me all of it or just, uh, just the part with me?"
Sherlock looks at him for a long moment, looks him up and down. He's obviously deducing something from John's appearance, but John has no idea what.
"You want me to start with that night."
"I really have no idea what I want, Sherlock."
"Well, that's not entirely true."
"Sherlo--"
"Fine." Sherlock begins to list things in that dizzying way he has of speaking, that anyone else might simply tick things off on their fingers.
"I went to a club to find someone for a quick sexual encounter. I found you. I brought you home with me; I disrobed entirely and helped you do the same. I kissed you in approximately forty-six places on your body until my lips were sore; I listened to every word that came out of your mouth that night. We engaged in several forms of frottage, fellatio, and hand stimulation, but never had penetrative sex. I didn't censor any of the things I said to you. Once we'd both finally achieved release I let you sleep in my bed and then I fell asleep right next to you, as close as I could get."
Sherlock frowns. John watches him, tries to read his face, but Sherlock has closed it off again. Even his eyes are flat.
"You said that I didn't fit your pattern."
"None of what I previously stated fit my pattern, John."
Something warm alights inside John's abdomen; he wants to move forward, to touch Sherlock... anywhere.
"You didn't do that with anyone else?"
"Of course not, John. It was all an experiment, all data gathering."
"What did you do, then?"
"I studied the police logs, read the newspapers, got involved in whatever the police would let me in for -- which was very little," Sherlock frowns a little. "More than thirty percent of all crimes committed in London have a sexual nature to them. If I were to understand, to learn more about the acts themselves, the physical prowess involved, the reality, then I'd have that much more data at my disposal."
"No, I meant what did you do with the other people? The ones that you-- well, fucked."
"Oh," Sherlock looks surprised. "The usual, I guess: got high, went on the pull, found a person that didn't disinterest me, had a sexual encounter with them in the loo, made an excuse and left, updated my notes, got high and started again."
A 'sexual encounter.' Trust Sherlock to keep everything so clinical. John smiles to himself, but freezes a little when he sees Sherlock's cocked head.
"You want to know what I did with the subjects."
"Um, not really, Sherlock. No, I wasn--"
But Sherlock ignores him.
"Fellatio, sodomy, mutual masturbation, all those things, John. I needed a wide selection of experiences from which to draw the data, obviously."
"Obviously." It hasn't escaped John's notice that Sherlock referred to them as subjects. That he, too, had been a goddamn subject, someone from whom Sherlock could draw data.
"I gathered a lot of data that year, John."
"So why the disguises, then?"
"Research. It served two purposes. I was gathering data on sexual activity, but it also gave me the chance to observe others unnoticed, to try out different personalities that might help me in talking to other people. You may be aware," Sherlock says, looking at John, "but people aren't always that forthcoming to me when I ask them questions."
"Really," John says wryly. "I hadn't noticed."
"Well," Sherlock actually grins at him, "I've got better. If you can believe it, I used to be a lot worse."
"On the contrary. I find that remarkably easy to believe."
They don't say anything for a moment, but the silence is real, companionable. John scrubs his lip after a minute, then asks another question.
"So, the disguises I really do understand. You could go back to the same place night after night and always be a different person, gather a wealth of... erm, data, that way. But - why the drugs?"
"John, the drugs let down my defences, allowed me get through a night like a normal person, my mind focused on feeling, sensation ... it didn't get bogged down with too much extraneous analysis. Then afterward I could record everything, delete it from my working memory with another dose, and have a clear mind for the next subject."
"In a manner of speaking."
"Mmm?"
"A clear mind?" John says. "I'm not sure I'd choose that phrase exactly to describe what the drugs would do for your mind."
"No, John it was. It was wonderful. I didn't have too much cluttering up my mind; everything was streamlined, focused into just what mattered."
"So, alright, then." But Sherlock is still talking all around what happened with John. He's tired of this level of detective work. It's bloody exhausting. "But, what happened with me, Sherlock?"
Sherlock swallows, glances up to the ceiling, to the floor, even over to the fireplace. He refuses to catch John's eye.
"I didn't think, John. Me. I just fell blindly into your captivating smile and I didn't think about it for a minute. I couldn't stop kissing you, didn't want to stop kissing you; everything about you fogged my mind completely. Always before that I had been in complete control, even with the drugs. There were things I wouldn't do: parameters and protocols I set up for myself to make sure every set of data was reliable."
He pauses for a long moment, still doesn’t look up. "I broke every one of them with you."
Realisation dawns sharply inside him; John takes a slow breath before he speaks.
"You - liked it."
"God yes, every minute." Sherlock finally looks at him, his eyes wide, exposed. "I liked you."
Jesus.
"I liked you so much that I couldn't - think." Sherlock looks undone by this idea, that there might actually be something in the world that could get in the way of his mind, of his deductions.
"So then why did you-" John swallows, his voice goes quiet. "Why did you make me leave?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"What? Sherlock, no. You can't just - stop."
"Of course I can. What good is this conversation accomplishing anyway? There's no mystery, no clues to deduce. We both know what happened; there's no need to discuss it further."
"No, Sherlock, that's not--"
"Don't act like there's some deeper, significant meaning here, John. You know what happened."
"No, Sherlock, I don't." John pushes himself out of the chair and glares at him. He paces across the room for a moment, then comes back and grips the back of the seat tightly. "I know that we had a good -- a damn good -- night. I know what you felt like against me, the way you kissed, what it did to me when you looked at me with those soft eyes. I know what it felt like to fall asleep next to you, content, for one of the only times in my life--" he doesn't know why all of these words words words are spilling from his lips, but it's almost as if something has erupted inside him. He can't stop.
"What I don't know, Sherlock, is what changed between the time I made you come," John knows he's being crass now, but he doesn't care, "and the time we woke up tangled together and you kicked me the fuck out of your flat. With no explanation. Apparently you can ask me all the questions you want, but as soon as it's my turn all bets are off. Well, congratulations, Sherlock. For the world's only consulting detective, you're bloody awful at deducing anything about yourself."
"John."
But John is the one to hold up his hand this time. He can't. He walks out of the sitting room silently, through the kitchen and down the short corridor to the loo. Gripping the sink, John looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes are wide, the skin under them discoloured; he needs sleep. He is in desperate need of a shave and he's rather a bit paler than usual.
Switching the water on and letting it run, John plugs the sink and reaches for a towel that he tucks into his waistband. When the sink is about half full, he dunks his face into the water, the cold shocking his system and numbing the apprehension inside him for just a moment. He keeps his face submerged in the water for far longer than necessary, until he really needs to take a breath, then pulls his face out, twists off the water, and scrubs the towel over his face roughly.
His face is reddened from the coarse fabric and he looks back at his own wide eyes in the mirror.
"So," he asks his reflection desperately, "what in the bloody hell do I do now?"
~*~
After a few (long) moments, John takes a deep breath and pushes away from the mirror. He hangs up the towel, straightens a few things around the room, doesn't look at the door. He's obviously looking for reasons not to go back through the kitchen, through the sitting room.
So he doesn't.
John drops the toilet lid down, sits down heavily, and breathes. All of Sherlock's words are still spinning in his head. He is still stuck on the fact that Sherlock had liked their time together, that the desperate feelings John had felt between them in 1992 hadn't been only in his imagination. The realisation that, for Sherlock, John had been something new, something more than just a convenient fuck for data gathering purposes.
Well, and what if he had? What if John had been a quick fuck, something without the range of intensity involved, but just a quick one off in the loo? Would he still have been so wrecked by the entire thing? Was it the fact that it was his first time with a man that had thrown things into such a tailspin?
Or was it that it had been with Sherlock?
Was that it? Was it the feelings involved, the intensity of what they were together and the subsequent (inexplicable) rejection that threw his life into such a dizzying spiral? Was it the rejection of something he thought could be more?
The thing is, though... John knows exactly what it was. For the first (for the only) time in his life, with Brad, he'd felt something greater, something deeper that he couldn't explain. He'd never before realised the magic in need, the truth in desire. For the first time in his life, John had fallen in love. After only a few bloody hours.
He bites his lip, shakes his head in disbelief.
Who does that?
~*~
Eventually he does stand up, does open the door.
He knows his own reasons, but still doesn't know Sherlock's. Now, even after Sherlock has confessed to his own perception of that night, John is still terribly confused by why Brad (Sherlock) had made him leave. If what Sherlock said were true, he had felt so many of the same things John had during that night. It hadn't been an act; it had been real.
So, why then, why had he made him leave? It seems so incongruous to the hours preceding that moment. John understands so much more now: what Sherlock had been doing back in 1992, why Sherlock had been at the club, why everything between them had felt the way it did. But, and for the life of himself, he cannot figure out what changed between the warm, sated moments when they drifted to sleep tangled together and when they awoke later to Brad (Sherlock) twigging out completely.
John sighs, unsure of what he should do right now. He knows he can't hide in the bathroom any longer. He walks into the sitting room, sees Sherlock in the exact same position he was in when John left.
Sherlock looks up as he walks in.
"Mycroft."
"What?"
"The answer to your previous question. Mycroft."
John has to rewind a little bit. It's been a good half hour since he was out here talking to Sherlock and it takes him a moment to catch up.
"Wait, what? Mycroft didn't make me leave."
"No. I made you leave because of Mycroft."
"Christ, Sherlock, can't you ever just answer a direct question?"
"I am answering, which you would see if you'd stop your inane interruptions and assumptions."
"So I asked you why you made me leave and you're telling me that the answer is Mycroft?"
"Precisely."
"That makes absolutely no sense at all."
John frowns at Sherlock. Sherlock looks back at him, takes a deep, almost sarcastic breath.
"Mycroft had no need to know."
"Okay..." John walks around the chair and sits down across from Sherlock. He tries to follow Sherlock's line of thinking, where he could possibly be going with this. "So you told me before that you and Mycroft used to argue about--" what was it? John has to think back. "You argued about predicting behaviour and aliens and emotions... was that it?"
A slow smile spreads across Sherlock's face. "Something like that."
"Well, so, what was it, then?" John's been deducing Sherlock's behaviour and reasoning at different times all night. He's not quite sure he's capable of continuing at -- he glances at the clock -- nearly half four in the morning. "I'm rather certain there were no aliens around during that night in 1992, so that's right out."
Sherlock nods.
"So which one, then? Emotions or behaviour? You've got to give me something here, Sherlock. It's either far too late or far too early to be having this conversation, really."
Sherlock frowns. He presses the tips of his fingers together under his chin, then crosses and folds them, biting on his thumb. That's quite odd, actually. Reminds John of something he might do.
"So I told you before that I'm able to predict human behaviour."
"Well, yes. But we didn't actually agree on whether or not you can."
"Well, Mycroft and I, back in 1992 had had that argument countless times over the course of the previous six years. I'd been in a lot of positions to observe, to predict, but it had only been that year that I'd been able to directly experiment and determine whether it was, indeed, the case. I was in a position to gather a fair amount of data in so many areas that year." His eyes seem to shine with the memory.
John thinks about that for a moment. "Oh, alright, yeah. You hadn't lived on your own before that?"
"Correct."
"So?"
"Well, at that time, Mycroft was besotted with a woman he'd met through the office, constantly calling her, purchasing flowers and other trinkets for her, copying poetry onto fine stationary for her," Sherlock purses his lips. "Generally, being entirely revolting about the whole thing."
John smirks. He's not quite sure whether he can imagine Mycroft in love -- or whether he even wants to.
"Well, his behaviour was quite different than it had been in the past, which brought up a new debate for us: could one separate emotion from behaviour, indeed, could someone keep their emotions from influencing their behaviour? Mycroft said it wasn't possible. I told him he was full of - well," Sherlock grins for a moment, his eyes amused in memory.
"Well, I said something quite off-colour, shall we say. I used far less refined language back then."
John laughs aloud. "Wish I'd been there to hear it. And see his reaction."
"It wasn't quite what you might have expected. He was used to my 'gauche street language' by then. It barely fazed him."
"Well, so what, then? I do realise this sibling rivalry has probably been going on since you were born, but I don't see how that would--"
Sherlock's look is barely restrained exasperation, most likely with John's ability to 'see' but not to 'observe.' But, well--
"Dammit, Sherlock, it's late. Just. Explain."
Sherlock glances up at the ceiling for a moment, then over John's shoulder, then back at him. "For months, I kept detailed notes on my subjects, as you know. Even with those for whom I felt an attraction, I had no problem remaining detached from the experiences: I was able to record, delete, and start again, sometimes even within the same night."
Sherlock absently picks up one of his leather bound journals. "I was even able to make some mental predictions of the behaviour of those whom I could tell might have some strong potential emotion toward me. And I was right. Every time."
"How... er," John isn't sure he wants to ask this question, but he does. "How many in all?"
"One hundred forty-seven."
"Christ, Sherlock, that many?" The doctor in him shudders. "I hope you were safe, used protection. Especially back then. God, it's a wonder you didn't..."
"Of course I was safe. I was collecting data, John. Not sexually transmitted diseases." Sherlock thumbs idly through his journal, not looking at it, just touching the pages at random. "So now do you see why I felt wholly confident in my conclusions?"
"I can see why you felt confident, yes, not that I agree with your deductions, though."
"Yes, John, we've already established that."
"Actually, Sherlock, we've established a lot of things so far tonight. Probably more than I ever thought two people could establish in such a short period of time," he sighs. "And yet, it's been nearly an hour since I asked you a relatively simple question and you've done nothing but talk around it the entire time."
Sherlock looks wounded. "Is there a problem?"
"A problem?" John is incredulous. "You know, Sherlock. I put up with a lot; I really do. I do the washing. I do the shopping. I make food. I tidy up the place as best I can with your infuriating experiments cluttering every surface, including some of the more unbelievable ones. I do it because I like you, because we're friends. And because I don't -- well most of the time I don't -- mind doing it."
He stands, paces across the room. "I like following you around, helping you on cases, being a sounding board. I've learned so much from you in the past months; you always surprise me with how much you see, but... Christ, Sherlock, I asked you one bloody question, and you can't even answer it. What's wrong with you?"
"Wrong?" Sherlock's eyes flash. "What is wrong with me? I wasn't the one who threw all of my data into the toilet, John. I didn't saunter into the club back in 1992 with my tight jeans and my flashing smile and dance without a care in the world."
Sherlock is still talking, but John can't move.
"I didn't singlehandedly discount one hundred forty-six pieces of carefully collected and organised data with a single look, with a grin that made me think that my brain had fogged indefinitely, John. I didn't pull my clothes off and kiss me everywhere and make me forget everything I'd been working on except for the glorious vision of what was right in front of me."
Sherlock pushes out of his chair, stands to his full height.
"Why do you think I made you leave? I wasn't about to throw away months of carefully collected research, admit to my brother I'd been wrong," Sherlock's lip curls in distaste, "and all because some bloke in a club one night distracted me, got under my skin, made me forget everything I'd been doing?"
"So you - you made me leave because you... felt something for me?" John is incredulous. "What the hell?"
Sherlock's voice lowers. "Of course I made you leave. I couldn't have that happen again."
John's hand itches, clenching and unclenching. What he wants, what he wants more than anything right now, is the satisfying crunch of his fist hitting flesh. He wants to rush across the room, grasp Sherlock's arms, wants to shake him bodily until he's as angry as John. He wants to wound, to hurt... something, anything to take the sting out of the fury that churns inside him.
"John."
"Fuck you."
"John."
"No. Fuck you, Sherlock." John throws up his hands. "I'm done here. I do hope you enjoy your carefully constructed tower of stunted emotion. It's clearly where you live best."
John turns on his heel and slams the door to the sitting room behind him. He treads heavily up the stairs and slams his bedroom door as well, the sound nowhere near as loud as he means it to be.
Fury curls inside him, deeper, tighter than it was before. He feels betrayal painted all over his skin. All those years ago. All that pain, that doubt, that uncertainty. It hadn't been anything he'd done. How many times had he gone over that night in his mind, trying to find where he'd bollixed everything up, the mistake he'd made that had suddenly turned Brad's switch from hot to cold.
It hadn't been anything he'd done. Well, nothing other than finding the one bloke in all of London who was afraid of his goddamn feelings.
John tears off his shirt, pulls off his shoes, socks, and trousers. His skin is hot; it feels like it's crawling with dust, piled with inches of regret. John switches off the light and slides into bed in his boxers. He doesn't want to think about a proper pair of pyjamas right now; all he wants is to go to sleep and forget this bloody night ever happened.
If only he were able to delete things the way a certain infuriating someone was able to.
~*~
John dreams again.
It doesn't take long for him to realise that this time is a dream, and god, he doesn't want to wake up. Not from this.
Brad smiles down at him, his fingers tangled with John's above his head. Leaning down, he nuzzles under John's ear, licks his neck, and blows across the wet line.
"Tell me how that feels."
"It feels like... god, Brad, it feels bloody amazing. Every part of you against me." John rocks up again, the shock of pleasure spreading through his spine. "God, I could do this forever."
Brad pulls his head up, looks down at John again with soft eyes.
"Alright," he says quietly. "Let's."
~*~
The next dream isn't fully formed, fuzzy around the edges. John watches Brad sleep, sees the gentle rise and fall of his chest, keeps his hand on the warm skin of Brad's waist.
John is ridiculously content. In a few minutes, Brad opens his eyes, blinks two or three times, then smiles broadly when he sees John watching him.
"Morning," he says huskily.
"Morning," John whispers.
"What time is it?"
"Just after five. I have to go in an hour or two, get my books. I have class this morning."
"And after?"
John smiles. "Well, that - depends."
"On?"
"On what you're doing."
"I'll be here."
"I have to revise a bit. Got an exam coming up."
"I'll help."
"You - will?"
"Definitely."
John beams at him. "Yeah, alright, then. I'll come back after."
"But for now..." Brad slides closer. "You said you don't have to leave for another hour."
A rush of affection slides through his abdomen and John licks his lips. "Oh? What did you have in mind?"
Brad grins at him. "Oh... lots of things."
John sort of can't wait to find out.
~*~
When John wakes the sun is high. It must be well past noon. But after being up for most of the night it doesn't bother him. He's curled around his pillow, the duvet tucked between his knees. This isn't John's normal sleeping position. He's a light sleeper, usually on his back or right side, rarely uses pillows, and can wake and be alert almost immediately.
But the slow spread of dreams is still fresh within him and John closes his eyes to hang onto the feeling. Only with Brad had John ever slept close, their bodies pressed together from knees through chest.
John tucks his chin into the fluff of the pillow and sighs. Reality threatens to spread around him; John wills it away for a few more minutes. If anything, he wants to stay in the warmth of muzzy sleep, secure in the knowledge that someone desperately wants (well, wanted, past tense) him.
His body stirs at the thought, and John rolls onto his back. Immediately Brad is there above him, smiling that crooked soft smile and pushing his thumb along John's hairline. John smiles back, throws off the duvet, and arches up against him.
He reaches for Brad's face, touches his lips, the line of his jaw. In front of his eyes, Brad's hair changes: darkens deeply and adjusts its shape. The curls spread in a cloud across his forehead, framing his paling face. When John gasps, Brad's eyes slide from a dark green into the familiar iridescent green that John knows so well, his face thins a bit, his cheekbones becoming more prominent and his lips shifting into that familiar heart shape.
"Oh god," he whispers.
The face above him -- so recently familiar -- smiles, then nods at him.
"You want this."
"I do," John breathes.
He can feel the warm contours of Sherlock's skin against his stomach, it's a rush of electricity like no other, like their skin was crafted in a laboratory this way on purpose, designed to perfectly complement and arouse the other.
"I want this too... you know I do."
He's so hard. It's slow now, deliberate, these rocking, sweaty movements. John can't tear his eyes away from the face, the eyes, above him. When he shifts, Sherlock shifts back against him, bodies colliding, mouths leaking enthusiastic murmurs. It's everything he wants and it isn't -- it can't be -- a dream.
A few short moments later, he feels Sherlock jerk above him, his eyes widening, then shutting in pleasure, and John follows him over, throwing his head back and gasping the name that is always, always in his mind.
Sherlock.
~*~
Sherlock doesn't talk for days.
It's rather disconcerting that it lasts this long. Since their 'talk' (John has taken to calling it that, with the ironic air quotes), John's had two empty days, followed by long shifts at the surgery with no conversation at all at night. Tonight he'd trudged up the stairs, carrying a curry and a Tesco's bag, and looking forward to sitting down with a couple of medical journals he's been ignoring over the past months. The other doctors at the surgery are competent, but none of them seem all that interested in discussing some of the more recent developments in surgical techniques, which, he supposes, is to be expected. They're all GP's, so he can understand. But, really, he's keen to read some of the newer research out there.
And here he is, at their overlarge desk with the remains of supper on his plate and only the dregs left of what had been a piping hot cuppa. John finishes the last article and shuts the journal with a nod. He has a few ideas about some things he'd like to bring up with Sarah and his mind hums with medical contentment. He grins to himself; he loves the challenge of new learning.
Sherlock sits across from him, his eyes scanning the laptop in front of him rapidly. The plate John fixed for him sits, uneaten and cold, to his right.
John watches him for a moment: the rigid posture, the slight purse of his lips, the flicker of his eyes from left to right. Then he skims over Sherlock's features: the dark, mussed curls that frame his frown, the visible skin through his open collar, the dark tangle of his eyelashes.
John's mind slides into fantasy... what their fingers might look like tangled together, how Sherlock's breath would feel on his neck, the weight of his body pressing John into the mattress. It's an amalgam of memory and fantasy: heavy breaths, bodies slick with sweat, tender lidded eyes.
When Sherlock sucks in a sharp breath, John twitches in shock. Did his body language, his facial expression, somehow belie his most recent thoughts? But... no. Sherlock's eyes still focus on the screen, his brow purses in concentration. It's clear his mind is working at its regular, dizzying pace.
John pushes his chair out, gathers his dishes, and brings them to the kitchen. When he comes back into the sitting room, Sherlock still hasn't moved.
"Sherlock, can I help?"
Nothing.
It's one thing for Sherlock not to speak for several days, but really, it's another thing altogether for him to all but ignore John completely. And now that he thinks about it, John can't remember Sherlock acknowledging John's presence at all: no nods, no eye contact, no heavy sighs at him being in the way... nothing at all.
With a flourish and a nod, Sherlock closes his laptop, pushes back from the table, and hurries down the stairs without a backward glance. John stands, forgotten, in the middle of the room, his mind whirling over familiar moments with Sherlock heavily investigating and John shut away from it all.
"Why won't you let me in?"
He doesn't know if he said it aloud.
~*~
There have been five days of silence.
John sits in his chair, flipping channels aimlessly on the telly. He had a short shift this morning because one of the other doctors was off sick. Now he's eaten, paid a few (not overdue) bills, and has been trying to concentrate on the all important crap telly he watches. It's not working.
Sherlock has been in the kitchen in front of his microscope ever since John returned. He hasn't heard a thing out of him, other than the familiar rattle of petri dishes and the clink of slides.
The silence between them pulls at John, slides into the space between his cells and spreads outward. It's worse than the hours of silence he endured in his old bedsit. Baker Street has always housed so much more than that. John slides his eyes toward the window; it's just started raining. Heavy, pounding rain that comes and soaks everything through. The sky darkens immediately, almost without warning. It feels heavily apropos for how he's feeling.
John stares out the window from the chair for a long moment, the stillness of the flat at odds with everything rolling in turmoil inside him. Rain is supposed to cleanse, to wash away. Perhaps this rain is exactly what he needs. He stares, his vision blurry with thought, not aware of anything inside the flat for a moment.
Then, something on the telly captures his attention and John breaks out of his reverie and turns to look. The announcer is speaking in the falsely eager tone of those paid to get the public excited about the most ridiculous novelties. John squints at it for a moment... why is it familiar?
Leopold George Duncan Albert
It's... oh, right. Queen Victoria's youngest son. It's the advert for the commemorative plates honouring each of Queen Victoria's nine children. Images flash back at him: the coffee shop, Kate the barista (Sherlock in disguise), John's ridiculous attempt at flirting, and the embarrassing conversation back in Baker Street after the fact.
John laughs aloud, then glances toward the kitchen to see Sherlock watching him. He grins automatically, because it's Sherlock. Sherlock, his friend. Sherlock, who doesn't look behind him, doesn't wait for anyone, but yells for John to keep up. Sherlock, who drives him mad sometimes. Sherlock, who is ridiculously brilliant and notices things that only a remarkable genius could. Sherlock, who is probably the best thing in John's life.
When John looks at him, Sherlock's face breaks into a wide smile, all the way to his eyes, and John feels some of the tension bleeding out of him.
Maybe silence isn't such a bad thing.
~*~
Sherlock leaves the kitchen after that, and John goes to have a shower. He'd been roused early from bed for his shift, and hadn't time for a shower beforehand.
When he steps back into the kitchen afterward, John looks around. The flat feels empty. The petri dishes and slides have been moved to the side of the demilune table in the kitchen, the microscope in between. Sherlock's door is closed, but John doesn't hear any noise behind it.
The sitting room is empty of everything but clutter. Sherlock must have left on some data-gathering mission that only makes sense to him. John huffs a smile to himself and climbs the stairs to his bedroom.
John finds himself whistling as he towels off his hair. The shower must have cleared his head quite a bit. He dresses in a shabby pair of jeans and a dark blue button down. They're both rather old and worn, but clean and very comfortable. His mind works slowly as he fastens each button. He can't stop thinking about Sherlock's smile. It had been full, real, not the false smile he puts on in the middle of a case because it fits the part he's playing for a witness.
It's a smile that John has only ever seen Sherlock use for... well, for him.
And, there. There it is. Somehow everything slides back into perspective for John. This past week has shaken up everything for him, has brought back memories and feelings he'd long buried. But before Sherlock had walked into their kitchen as Brad, John had been happy. He likes his life -- their life. He likes watching Sherlock's wild mind work, likes reining him in from his fanatical investigation, likes the adventure and uncertainty that living with Sherlock brings for him.
He likes Sherlock.
And if that is all he can have, no matter what he might want or choose for himself, then...
John buttons the last of his buttons and looks at the rain sliding down the window. He smiles to himself.
It is enough.
~*~
Hours later John stands at the window in the sitting room, watching the rain slick down the panes of glass. The street outside blurs into dark lines of cars and steadier, slower lines of pedestrians hurrying to get out of the rain. He has half a mind to grab his jacket and go outside himself, to let the water wash over him and pull out the memories he needs to let go of.
A floorboard creaks and John starts. He'd thought he was alone in the flat. He turns around toward the sound, then freezes.
"Brad," he whispers.
It's not Brad, of course. He knows that. It's Sherlock, with shorter, ginger hair, fuller cheeks and a different, easier posture. He pulls the door shut behind him, steps closer to John. John steps forward, then stops again. He doesn't - what is he supposed to do?
Brad (Sherlock) looks him over hungrily, his gaze stopping at the open collar of John's shirt, then piercing his stare.
Sherlock as Brad walks forward, holding John's eyes the entire time. When he's directly in front of John, he stops, his eyes flicking down to John's lips before returning to his eyes. John can't move. He can barely think. The world has ground to a halt around them, all sounds extinguished, all life around them frozen.
"John." The voice is greedy, full of want.
Then a warm hand cups his cheek, fingertips sliding over his jawline. John feels like time has stopped, that this moment could somehow stretch into the entirety of his lifetime and he would have no idea.
"John, I-" the voice breaks, and then,
and then...
then, oh god, Sherlock is kissing him. Sherlock kisses all of the sounds of the world back around them, cups John's skull with his hands and kisses John desperately. Sherlock kisses him until John finally kisses back, opening his mind to take in every bit of this, in case it's about to end soon. Sherlock kisses with strength, with assurance. It's the perfect deduction bled into a kiss.
John throws his arms around Sherlock and presses his body fully into the kiss. He slides palms over smooth cotton, cups Sherlock's buttocks and opens his mouth to Sherlock's tongue.
God, oh god, oh god.
He walks them backward, pushing Sherlock against the door and pressing against him in a slow arch of hidden skin and too many clothes. John's mind swims with words: wet, wonderful, perfect; he holds onto each one. He doesn't think but to want this. When John presses his tongue into Sherlock's mouth, the flavour bursts through his senses and he pushes far deeper, tasting every bend and ridge of Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock moans low in his throat, the sound tickling down John's spine.
Sherlock twists them around, pushing John back against the door and scraping his teeth over the skin of John's throat. John arches against him, opening his throat to... to... god, to whatever Sherlock wants to do. His breath is barely normal now, he's overwhelmed and drowning in what he thought he couldn't have.
"Christ, you feel good," John gasps, "s'been so long."
Fingers are on his buttons now, cool, clever fingers, unbuttoning three buttons and sliding fingertips over John's collarbone, investigating down over his sternum. He almost shivers with the touch, shutting his eyes for a moment and focusing on Sherlock's fingertips tracing his skin. It feels different over every different surface of his chest: the pleasant sweep of skin on skin, the slight scratchy brush when he touches the hair on his chest, the electric shock when his fingers slide over John's nipples.
Oh, god.
John trembles, opens his eyes and reaches for Sherlock's face, cupping it between his hands and pulling their lips together. John's insatiable, desperate to feel every plane and angle of Sherlock's body. This kiss is relentless: harsh pulls and teeth bruising lips, but every moment of it settles down inside him and spurs him on, better than the one before.
Sherlock licks over his bottom lip, bites it, then opens his eyes and looks right at John. Sherlock's eyes are dark in the shallow light, deep and hungry, and John's pulled right inside.
"Christ, Sherlock," John says, reaching upward and tangling his fingers in the ginger curls, "you're just--"
And then everything stops. Sherlock's eyes widen, then cloud over; his hands drop to his sides and he steps away. In another moment Sherlock is out the door, striding down the steps, and John hears the front door close behind him.
John steps away from the door in a daze, blinking more than once to try to clear his vision. He scrubs his hand over his face, presses his fingertips into his eyes. What in the hell just happened?
He takes a few slow breaths, then buttons his shirt reluctantly back up, looking backward at the door for a moment. John is ridiculously confused. God, what was that? Almost as suddenly as it had started, it was over. And is it actually... over?
What in the world had he done?
~*~
:: next part ::
By the third stop on their crime solving marathon, John is distinctly unsettled. The night club at Farringdon was one thing (not that John hasn't been to night clubs since 1992, but standing next to Sherlock in the middle of one had brought back far too many tangled memories). The stop in one of the classrooms at St. Bart's (John has, quite literally, not stood in one since he was a student) was a bit uncomfortable, but standing in the middle of the pavement in the same bloody neighbourhood that Sherlock's flat had been in 1992 (where they'd been naked and gasping against each other for hours) is downright disconcerting.
It has to be a coincidence, though. Murders happen at nightclubs more often than people admit, and the fact that one of the victims had been a student at St. Bart's is statistically likely to happen at some point.
John steps away for a moment, breathes through his mouth. It's not the night club, or St. Bart's, or even the neighbourhood, really. It must be the combination of all three that's making John's head swim. He has got to either get away, or distract himself somehow.
So he walks over to Sergeant Donovan and offers a few of his observations, to which she frowns, then nods, and tells him that he'd best be utilised where he can 'keep the freak reined in as much as possible.' Taking a deep breath, John walks over to where Sherlock is questioning one of the suspects. He pays only the very barest of attention to what Sherlock is asking, instead letting his mind go soft for a moment.
Sherlock had been eagerly restless in the cab on the way here, had looked at John with his eyes bright and his smile deliriously wide. "John, this is brilliant! A serial killer who leaves Shakespearean clues on body parts."
Which, really, should make things better. There had been absolutely no Shakespeare involved in their, er -- god, what does he even call it? -- tryst in 1992. No romantic sonnets quoted while lips tickled soft skin. No comparing hair colours or sparkles in eyes to summer's days or any of that rot. No, it had just been slippery bodies pressed together, whispered desires in the heat of passion. It had been everything John hadn't known he'd wanted until he found it in the arms of a complete stranger.
He sighs, then shakes his head and tries to pull himself together. He tunes back into the conversation Sherlock is having with the witness.
"No, mate, it weren't all them," the bloke is saying to Sherlock. John can see Sherlock bristle at the reprehensible grammar, but surprisingly he says nothing. "Only Jamie went to Bart's, the rest of us aren't even gone to school."
"Obviously."
John grins to himself. One of London's finest, clearly.
"Nah, he were the smart one of us. He went to public school, then when he got in here we all teased 'im like it weren't his business. Smart bloke like him, gonna be a doctor, still hanging with the likes of us."
Sherlock nods at him.
The witness sighs. "Jamie were the smart one. He were gonna be something. It just isn't - fair." His voice trembles a little, so John steps forward, places his hand on his shoulder. Presses his lips together in a sympathetic smile.
Sherlock taps his fingers on his knees impatiently, clearly waiting for that particular display of emotion to be over.
"We were just havin' a lad's night out, yeah? Jamie wanted to see us, so we came in here, picked him up and we went to the club. It weren't until there was a bird flirting with him and they disappeared for a bit that we even noticed something was wrong."
"Who found him?"
"...I done it." He pauses a moment. "I came out to have a smoke and went into the alleyway so no coppers would see me--" he looks panicked for a moment, so John reassures him that he won't be in trouble for it.
"Yeah, so then I saw him... just laying there all unnatural-like with those words on 'im." He shudders.
Sherlock nods at him, presses his palms against his thighs and stands up, then his coat swirls and he walks away.
"You were really brave to do something, to call the police," John says quietly. "We'll let you know if we need anything else."
The witness (John doesn't even know his name) smiles sadly. "I just hope they find her, the one that done it."
"They will," John assures him. With Sherlock Holmes on the case, it's a near certainty.
~*~
Twenty minutes later they've spoken to Lestrade twice, Sherlock has attacked his Blackberry with ridiculously fast fingers, and has also managed to offend two other witnesses with his questions.
He steps away, ignoring John, Lestrade, and the entirety of Lestrade's team as he works furiously at his Blackberry. After a tense few minutes, Sherlock looks up.
"Of course!"
He strides over to Lestrade, and shows him something on his screen triumphantly. When Lestrade looks at him blankly, Sherlock turns to John.
"Do you see?"
"Just tell us, Sherlock," John says gently. "I suspect you're the only one that sees the pattern."
"All of the murders two streets apart; two men, then two women, then two men again?" Sherlock looks around at them, then sighs. "I don't know how you all manage to get yourselves dressed in the mornings. Rhyming couplets! Everything is in twos. The murderer has chosen a Shakespearean couplet and is choosing his victims based on that."
John listens as Sherlock continues the explanation, marvelling (again) at his brilliance, at his ability to look at everyday, ordinary things and see so far into them and be -- almost always -- so spot on in his deductions that it's almost ridiculous.
And yet, he can be so spectacularly ignorant of things that are right in front of him.
John's phone buzzes, so he sighs and steps away to look at the text. It's Harry. Drunken texting again. He shuts his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to compose a relatively innocuous reply.
After replying, John is assaulted by an overly familiar smell. There must be a similar restaurant nearby, because something about the mix of everything around him has triggered his sense memory and John is back in 1992: tangled with Brad, kissing and kissing and kissing, their bodies and breath mingling as John tries to climb inside the feeling that envelops him.
November 1992
"John, oh god ... John."
John shifts their bodies again, pulls Brad up until he's sitting, then climbs upward, kneeling to straddle Brad's lap and wrap his arms around his back. Brad's body is warm (so warm) against him and John's mind works against itself to find enough poetic adjectives to describe the idyllic sweetness that courses through him.
They kiss again and again until John can't tell the difference between them, he can only taste the flavour of the two of them mingled together on his tongue like a delicate fruit.
John rocks up onto his knees, then down slowly, Brad's body a silky pressure against his. They are touching in so many places; John can barely separate the feel of skin and sweat and hair. He arches into the sting of nails digging into his buttocks and drags their cocks together deliberately. Brad's eyes seem to roll back in his head for a moment; his eyelids flutter rapidly.
"John, John, oh god ... you're so good."
Good.
All his life people have called him that: good student, good at sport, a good lad. Good, good, good. John hasn't rebelled against it, not really, but hearing it fall from Brad's (glorious) lips makes John actually want to match it. It finally feels like something he can do.
John leans forward and kisses Brad's sweaty temple. He drags his lips over the wet skin as though his only way of recording memory is through skin. "We're good," he breathes, right into his ear, then nips his earlobe gently.
"We are," Brad agrees, sucking on John's lower lip. "So good."
~*~
After a moment, John blinks, embarrassed. He can't imagine what his face must have looked like just now. He had been miles away. Glancing over at Sherlock, he sees him frozen on the pavement, a few feet away.
Sherlock's nose is in the air; he has clearly caught the scent of something. Sherlock spins once, looking around, then he pauses again, his body strangely immobile.
As John watches, he can see Sherlock's eyes broaden. Sherlock gasps out loud then closes his eyes for the briefest moment. When he opens them he searches for John. Their gaze catches and holds until John can feel it stretching a taut line between them. Desire ignites under his skin and John wants to ignore all social convention. Sherlock looks at John hungrily, takes a step forward.
God.
John feels more exposed now than he had at the end of that (brilliant, unfortunate) night in 1992.
"You remember," he says quietly to Sherlock.
"I do now."
John nods, licks his lip, shifts from one foot to the other. He wants... well, he doesn't know quite what he wants, just that he does want. Badly. He just doesn't know what to do about it.
"Sherlock," he says, his voice steadier than he would have believed possible. "Sherlock, I--"
But Sherlock holds up his hand, shakes his head. His eyes are wide, vulnerable, and he swallows more than once.
"John, I don't know what you--" his voice cracks, John hears him clear his throat. "John... I. I can't."
The lights of the police cars flash over his face, making it seem even paler whenever a light blinks off. His nose flares for a moment and his lips look darker than John's ever seen them.
John doesn't move.
After a few long seconds, Sherlock wraps his coat more tightly around himself, turns on his heel, and strides down the road.
John watches him walk away, something he feels like he's done far too much today, but he will give him one thing: even though he just blatantly turned John down (again) Sherlock never broke John's gaze.
Not once.
~*~
John doesn't go back to the flat right away. He can't. It's been, possibly, the strangest, most fucked-up day of his entire life and John has absolutely zero desire to walk into Baker Street and let everything burst back into his consciousness again.
And yet.
It's as though he can't get away from it, no matter where he goes. His mind reels backward into the past, against his will.
God, and the whole bloody night in 1992 had been so romantic, so tinged with soppy, rose-coloured lenses that John is almost embarrassed to remember. In some ways, he barely recognises the John Watson from that night. He had been so unintentionally guarded back then: going through relationships, through one night stands in what he'd always thought was the right way, the way everyone did.
And then Brad.
Brad had pulled down his invisible defences, had ripped John open until his heart was exposed and beating, a lascivious exhibitionist for Brad's affections. Brad had pulled all of John's emotions to the surface with a single kiss, with a few appreciative words, with his blinding smile, his overarching acceptance. John had opened for him completely, he'd let Brad inside: into his blood, his heart, his bones... until even their breath existed in tandem.
And it had all been for shit.
John sighs heavily, walking without direction, turning corners at random.
The John Watson after that night had been quite intentionally guarded. John can't remember seeing anyone -- even for a single one night stand -- for a good eighteen months after that. He just - couldn't. It was easier to get himself off when the need demanded it than try to put himself through something that might shatter him again.
He knows this. He's not that stupid. John knew it before he'd started seeing a therapist. He'd even been accused of such conscious distance by several short-lived partners afterward: brilliant, gorgeous women (and men) to whom he could never open up more than a little, who pitied him because (they said) he could never let himself feel anything more than the most surface-level of emotion.
John shakes his head, turns another corner and bumps headlong into another pedestrian. He apologises profusely to the woman, briefly noting her smile, the confident way she walks, but he can't really focus when he's this far in his head. The night breeze is harsh here, and the chill pulls his mind back into the present. He looks up; half a laugh huffs out his nose when he realises that he's standing at the end of Baker Street.
Of course. All of his paths, every journey keeps leading him back to Sherlock.
Here he is now, forty-one years old, with the first person in more than seventeen years that excites him, that pushes him constantly, that makes him feel so gloriously unseated... and it's the same damn person that it was all those years ago.
~*~
John doesn't go inside. He walks past the door to 221b, past all of the places they've hailed cabs, down the pavement they've run innumerable times before. John walks and walks and tries to let his mind wander to something -- anything -- else.
But when he really thinks about it, why should he? His life is so full now... yeah, of course he'd like to be a bit more employed than a few shifts here and there at the surgery, but every corner with Sherlock is something new, something different. John feels necessary again. Necessary in a way that doesn't feel like it's a load of polite bollocks.
In another block he passes the laundromat where he'd met Brian and stops for a moment. The memory is still clear: smiling, flirting, lips over skin against the door of the loo.
He keeps walking, turns another corner. There's barely anyone on the pavement this time of night; it's so late. In another twenty steps, John is in front of the coffee shop where he met Kate.
The storefront is deserted, mostly dark. Gentle lights from the pastry case and the fire exit door give it a warm glow inside, but it's clearly been closed for hours. John stands there for a long time. This was the first (of many) places Sherlock tried to fool him with one of his disguises.
Try as he might though, John can no longer muster the anger, the frustration over Sherlock's attempts at deceit with his disguises. Instead, and as usual, John amazes at Sherlock's talent, his ability, his sheer bloody brilliance. He looks inside the darkened coffee shop and feels... fortunate.
He runs his thumb along the pads of his fingers and wonders: what if? What if he'd taken the flirtation with Kate even further? What if he'd ignored the familiar tickle in his brain when Brian stopped humming In My Life? What if he'd done exactly what was running through his mind and kissed him deeply?
John can imagine it: slippery, bruising, perfect. Time would slow down; he'd feel every inch of the kiss. It would fill the room until it squeezed all of the air out in its stead. They would gasp and clutch at each other, pressing together until there wasn't a bit of space between them anywhere.
He closes his eyes and sighs. He's torn between wanting his ignorance back, between wanting to do something to shock Sherlock into some damn action, between wanting somehow to mend this chasm inside him that John's been trying to hold together for so bloody long now.
If a genie were to appear now, right now, John can't decide what he'd request from any of his three wishes. But he knows that all of them would somehow include--
"John."
Sherlock stands there, a silhouette against the streetlight, his shoulders rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He must have been running.
John looks at him, doesn't say anything.
"Let's go home," Sherlock says.
~*~
John doesn't think to look at the clock as they walk in, but it's got to be well past three o'clock in the morning. Somehow though, Sherlock seems to define time in his own terms; John doesn't feel tired at all.
A few hours ago, Sherlock had been quizzing him mercilessly about their night together in 1992, a time that Sherlock remembered only in small bits. But now...
Turnabout is fair play, John thinks wryly to himself. He sits down and looks at Sherlock earnestly.
"So, tell me about 1992."
Sherlock pauses, presses his palms together and looks over John's shoulder for a long moment. His eyes flicker to the journals that are still stacked on the floor at his feet, then back to John.
"A lot happened in 1992. Things came to a bit of a - peak."
"Well," John can't decide if he wants to hear all of it, or have Sherlock keep his speech focused on the events of their night together from that November. "Do you want to tell me all of it or just, uh, just the part with me?"
Sherlock looks at him for a long moment, looks him up and down. He's obviously deducing something from John's appearance, but John has no idea what.
"You want me to start with that night."
"I really have no idea what I want, Sherlock."
"Well, that's not entirely true."
"Sherlo--"
"Fine." Sherlock begins to list things in that dizzying way he has of speaking, that anyone else might simply tick things off on their fingers.
"I went to a club to find someone for a quick sexual encounter. I found you. I brought you home with me; I disrobed entirely and helped you do the same. I kissed you in approximately forty-six places on your body until my lips were sore; I listened to every word that came out of your mouth that night. We engaged in several forms of frottage, fellatio, and hand stimulation, but never had penetrative sex. I didn't censor any of the things I said to you. Once we'd both finally achieved release I let you sleep in my bed and then I fell asleep right next to you, as close as I could get."
Sherlock frowns. John watches him, tries to read his face, but Sherlock has closed it off again. Even his eyes are flat.
"You said that I didn't fit your pattern."
"None of what I previously stated fit my pattern, John."
Something warm alights inside John's abdomen; he wants to move forward, to touch Sherlock... anywhere.
"You didn't do that with anyone else?"
"Of course not, John. It was all an experiment, all data gathering."
"What did you do, then?"
"I studied the police logs, read the newspapers, got involved in whatever the police would let me in for -- which was very little," Sherlock frowns a little. "More than thirty percent of all crimes committed in London have a sexual nature to them. If I were to understand, to learn more about the acts themselves, the physical prowess involved, the reality, then I'd have that much more data at my disposal."
"No, I meant what did you do with the other people? The ones that you-- well, fucked."
"Oh," Sherlock looks surprised. "The usual, I guess: got high, went on the pull, found a person that didn't disinterest me, had a sexual encounter with them in the loo, made an excuse and left, updated my notes, got high and started again."
A 'sexual encounter.' Trust Sherlock to keep everything so clinical. John smiles to himself, but freezes a little when he sees Sherlock's cocked head.
"You want to know what I did with the subjects."
"Um, not really, Sherlock. No, I wasn--"
But Sherlock ignores him.
"Fellatio, sodomy, mutual masturbation, all those things, John. I needed a wide selection of experiences from which to draw the data, obviously."
"Obviously." It hasn't escaped John's notice that Sherlock referred to them as subjects. That he, too, had been a goddamn subject, someone from whom Sherlock could draw data.
"I gathered a lot of data that year, John."
"So why the disguises, then?"
"Research. It served two purposes. I was gathering data on sexual activity, but it also gave me the chance to observe others unnoticed, to try out different personalities that might help me in talking to other people. You may be aware," Sherlock says, looking at John, "but people aren't always that forthcoming to me when I ask them questions."
"Really," John says wryly. "I hadn't noticed."
"Well," Sherlock actually grins at him, "I've got better. If you can believe it, I used to be a lot worse."
"On the contrary. I find that remarkably easy to believe."
They don't say anything for a moment, but the silence is real, companionable. John scrubs his lip after a minute, then asks another question.
"So, the disguises I really do understand. You could go back to the same place night after night and always be a different person, gather a wealth of... erm, data, that way. But - why the drugs?"
"John, the drugs let down my defences, allowed me get through a night like a normal person, my mind focused on feeling, sensation ... it didn't get bogged down with too much extraneous analysis. Then afterward I could record everything, delete it from my working memory with another dose, and have a clear mind for the next subject."
"In a manner of speaking."
"Mmm?"
"A clear mind?" John says. "I'm not sure I'd choose that phrase exactly to describe what the drugs would do for your mind."
"No, John it was. It was wonderful. I didn't have too much cluttering up my mind; everything was streamlined, focused into just what mattered."
"So, alright, then." But Sherlock is still talking all around what happened with John. He's tired of this level of detective work. It's bloody exhausting. "But, what happened with me, Sherlock?"
Sherlock swallows, glances up to the ceiling, to the floor, even over to the fireplace. He refuses to catch John's eye.
"I didn't think, John. Me. I just fell blindly into your captivating smile and I didn't think about it for a minute. I couldn't stop kissing you, didn't want to stop kissing you; everything about you fogged my mind completely. Always before that I had been in complete control, even with the drugs. There were things I wouldn't do: parameters and protocols I set up for myself to make sure every set of data was reliable."
He pauses for a long moment, still doesn’t look up. "I broke every one of them with you."
Realisation dawns sharply inside him; John takes a slow breath before he speaks.
"You - liked it."
"God yes, every minute." Sherlock finally looks at him, his eyes wide, exposed. "I liked you."
Jesus.
"I liked you so much that I couldn't - think." Sherlock looks undone by this idea, that there might actually be something in the world that could get in the way of his mind, of his deductions.
"So then why did you-" John swallows, his voice goes quiet. "Why did you make me leave?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"What? Sherlock, no. You can't just - stop."
"Of course I can. What good is this conversation accomplishing anyway? There's no mystery, no clues to deduce. We both know what happened; there's no need to discuss it further."
"No, Sherlock, that's not--"
"Don't act like there's some deeper, significant meaning here, John. You know what happened."
"No, Sherlock, I don't." John pushes himself out of the chair and glares at him. He paces across the room for a moment, then comes back and grips the back of the seat tightly. "I know that we had a good -- a damn good -- night. I know what you felt like against me, the way you kissed, what it did to me when you looked at me with those soft eyes. I know what it felt like to fall asleep next to you, content, for one of the only times in my life--" he doesn't know why all of these words words words are spilling from his lips, but it's almost as if something has erupted inside him. He can't stop.
"What I don't know, Sherlock, is what changed between the time I made you come," John knows he's being crass now, but he doesn't care, "and the time we woke up tangled together and you kicked me the fuck out of your flat. With no explanation. Apparently you can ask me all the questions you want, but as soon as it's my turn all bets are off. Well, congratulations, Sherlock. For the world's only consulting detective, you're bloody awful at deducing anything about yourself."
"John."
But John is the one to hold up his hand this time. He can't. He walks out of the sitting room silently, through the kitchen and down the short corridor to the loo. Gripping the sink, John looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes are wide, the skin under them discoloured; he needs sleep. He is in desperate need of a shave and he's rather a bit paler than usual.
Switching the water on and letting it run, John plugs the sink and reaches for a towel that he tucks into his waistband. When the sink is about half full, he dunks his face into the water, the cold shocking his system and numbing the apprehension inside him for just a moment. He keeps his face submerged in the water for far longer than necessary, until he really needs to take a breath, then pulls his face out, twists off the water, and scrubs the towel over his face roughly.
His face is reddened from the coarse fabric and he looks back at his own wide eyes in the mirror.
"So," he asks his reflection desperately, "what in the bloody hell do I do now?"
~*~
After a few (long) moments, John takes a deep breath and pushes away from the mirror. He hangs up the towel, straightens a few things around the room, doesn't look at the door. He's obviously looking for reasons not to go back through the kitchen, through the sitting room.
So he doesn't.
John drops the toilet lid down, sits down heavily, and breathes. All of Sherlock's words are still spinning in his head. He is still stuck on the fact that Sherlock had liked their time together, that the desperate feelings John had felt between them in 1992 hadn't been only in his imagination. The realisation that, for Sherlock, John had been something new, something more than just a convenient fuck for data gathering purposes.
Well, and what if he had? What if John had been a quick fuck, something without the range of intensity involved, but just a quick one off in the loo? Would he still have been so wrecked by the entire thing? Was it the fact that it was his first time with a man that had thrown things into such a tailspin?
Or was it that it had been with Sherlock?
Was that it? Was it the feelings involved, the intensity of what they were together and the subsequent (inexplicable) rejection that threw his life into such a dizzying spiral? Was it the rejection of something he thought could be more?
The thing is, though... John knows exactly what it was. For the first (for the only) time in his life, with Brad, he'd felt something greater, something deeper that he couldn't explain. He'd never before realised the magic in need, the truth in desire. For the first time in his life, John had fallen in love. After only a few bloody hours.
He bites his lip, shakes his head in disbelief.
Who does that?
~*~
Eventually he does stand up, does open the door.
He knows his own reasons, but still doesn't know Sherlock's. Now, even after Sherlock has confessed to his own perception of that night, John is still terribly confused by why Brad (Sherlock) had made him leave. If what Sherlock said were true, he had felt so many of the same things John had during that night. It hadn't been an act; it had been real.
So, why then, why had he made him leave? It seems so incongruous to the hours preceding that moment. John understands so much more now: what Sherlock had been doing back in 1992, why Sherlock had been at the club, why everything between them had felt the way it did. But, and for the life of himself, he cannot figure out what changed between the warm, sated moments when they drifted to sleep tangled together and when they awoke later to Brad (Sherlock) twigging out completely.
John sighs, unsure of what he should do right now. He knows he can't hide in the bathroom any longer. He walks into the sitting room, sees Sherlock in the exact same position he was in when John left.
Sherlock looks up as he walks in.
"Mycroft."
"What?"
"The answer to your previous question. Mycroft."
John has to rewind a little bit. It's been a good half hour since he was out here talking to Sherlock and it takes him a moment to catch up.
"Wait, what? Mycroft didn't make me leave."
"No. I made you leave because of Mycroft."
"Christ, Sherlock, can't you ever just answer a direct question?"
"I am answering, which you would see if you'd stop your inane interruptions and assumptions."
"So I asked you why you made me leave and you're telling me that the answer is Mycroft?"
"Precisely."
"That makes absolutely no sense at all."
John frowns at Sherlock. Sherlock looks back at him, takes a deep, almost sarcastic breath.
"Mycroft had no need to know."
"Okay..." John walks around the chair and sits down across from Sherlock. He tries to follow Sherlock's line of thinking, where he could possibly be going with this. "So you told me before that you and Mycroft used to argue about--" what was it? John has to think back. "You argued about predicting behaviour and aliens and emotions... was that it?"
A slow smile spreads across Sherlock's face. "Something like that."
"Well, so, what was it, then?" John's been deducing Sherlock's behaviour and reasoning at different times all night. He's not quite sure he's capable of continuing at -- he glances at the clock -- nearly half four in the morning. "I'm rather certain there were no aliens around during that night in 1992, so that's right out."
Sherlock nods.
"So which one, then? Emotions or behaviour? You've got to give me something here, Sherlock. It's either far too late or far too early to be having this conversation, really."
Sherlock frowns. He presses the tips of his fingers together under his chin, then crosses and folds them, biting on his thumb. That's quite odd, actually. Reminds John of something he might do.
"So I told you before that I'm able to predict human behaviour."
"Well, yes. But we didn't actually agree on whether or not you can."
"Well, Mycroft and I, back in 1992 had had that argument countless times over the course of the previous six years. I'd been in a lot of positions to observe, to predict, but it had only been that year that I'd been able to directly experiment and determine whether it was, indeed, the case. I was in a position to gather a fair amount of data in so many areas that year." His eyes seem to shine with the memory.
John thinks about that for a moment. "Oh, alright, yeah. You hadn't lived on your own before that?"
"Correct."
"So?"
"Well, at that time, Mycroft was besotted with a woman he'd met through the office, constantly calling her, purchasing flowers and other trinkets for her, copying poetry onto fine stationary for her," Sherlock purses his lips. "Generally, being entirely revolting about the whole thing."
John smirks. He's not quite sure whether he can imagine Mycroft in love -- or whether he even wants to.
"Well, his behaviour was quite different than it had been in the past, which brought up a new debate for us: could one separate emotion from behaviour, indeed, could someone keep their emotions from influencing their behaviour? Mycroft said it wasn't possible. I told him he was full of - well," Sherlock grins for a moment, his eyes amused in memory.
"Well, I said something quite off-colour, shall we say. I used far less refined language back then."
John laughs aloud. "Wish I'd been there to hear it. And see his reaction."
"It wasn't quite what you might have expected. He was used to my 'gauche street language' by then. It barely fazed him."
"Well, so what, then? I do realise this sibling rivalry has probably been going on since you were born, but I don't see how that would--"
Sherlock's look is barely restrained exasperation, most likely with John's ability to 'see' but not to 'observe.' But, well--
"Dammit, Sherlock, it's late. Just. Explain."
Sherlock glances up at the ceiling for a moment, then over John's shoulder, then back at him. "For months, I kept detailed notes on my subjects, as you know. Even with those for whom I felt an attraction, I had no problem remaining detached from the experiences: I was able to record, delete, and start again, sometimes even within the same night."
Sherlock absently picks up one of his leather bound journals. "I was even able to make some mental predictions of the behaviour of those whom I could tell might have some strong potential emotion toward me. And I was right. Every time."
"How... er," John isn't sure he wants to ask this question, but he does. "How many in all?"
"One hundred forty-seven."
"Christ, Sherlock, that many?" The doctor in him shudders. "I hope you were safe, used protection. Especially back then. God, it's a wonder you didn't..."
"Of course I was safe. I was collecting data, John. Not sexually transmitted diseases." Sherlock thumbs idly through his journal, not looking at it, just touching the pages at random. "So now do you see why I felt wholly confident in my conclusions?"
"I can see why you felt confident, yes, not that I agree with your deductions, though."
"Yes, John, we've already established that."
"Actually, Sherlock, we've established a lot of things so far tonight. Probably more than I ever thought two people could establish in such a short period of time," he sighs. "And yet, it's been nearly an hour since I asked you a relatively simple question and you've done nothing but talk around it the entire time."
Sherlock looks wounded. "Is there a problem?"
"A problem?" John is incredulous. "You know, Sherlock. I put up with a lot; I really do. I do the washing. I do the shopping. I make food. I tidy up the place as best I can with your infuriating experiments cluttering every surface, including some of the more unbelievable ones. I do it because I like you, because we're friends. And because I don't -- well most of the time I don't -- mind doing it."
He stands, paces across the room. "I like following you around, helping you on cases, being a sounding board. I've learned so much from you in the past months; you always surprise me with how much you see, but... Christ, Sherlock, I asked you one bloody question, and you can't even answer it. What's wrong with you?"
"Wrong?" Sherlock's eyes flash. "What is wrong with me? I wasn't the one who threw all of my data into the toilet, John. I didn't saunter into the club back in 1992 with my tight jeans and my flashing smile and dance without a care in the world."
Sherlock is still talking, but John can't move.
"I didn't singlehandedly discount one hundred forty-six pieces of carefully collected and organised data with a single look, with a grin that made me think that my brain had fogged indefinitely, John. I didn't pull my clothes off and kiss me everywhere and make me forget everything I'd been working on except for the glorious vision of what was right in front of me."
Sherlock pushes out of his chair, stands to his full height.
"Why do you think I made you leave? I wasn't about to throw away months of carefully collected research, admit to my brother I'd been wrong," Sherlock's lip curls in distaste, "and all because some bloke in a club one night distracted me, got under my skin, made me forget everything I'd been doing?"
"So you - you made me leave because you... felt something for me?" John is incredulous. "What the hell?"
Sherlock's voice lowers. "Of course I made you leave. I couldn't have that happen again."
John's hand itches, clenching and unclenching. What he wants, what he wants more than anything right now, is the satisfying crunch of his fist hitting flesh. He wants to rush across the room, grasp Sherlock's arms, wants to shake him bodily until he's as angry as John. He wants to wound, to hurt... something, anything to take the sting out of the fury that churns inside him.
"John."
"Fuck you."
"John."
"No. Fuck you, Sherlock." John throws up his hands. "I'm done here. I do hope you enjoy your carefully constructed tower of stunted emotion. It's clearly where you live best."
John turns on his heel and slams the door to the sitting room behind him. He treads heavily up the stairs and slams his bedroom door as well, the sound nowhere near as loud as he means it to be.
Fury curls inside him, deeper, tighter than it was before. He feels betrayal painted all over his skin. All those years ago. All that pain, that doubt, that uncertainty. It hadn't been anything he'd done. How many times had he gone over that night in his mind, trying to find where he'd bollixed everything up, the mistake he'd made that had suddenly turned Brad's switch from hot to cold.
It hadn't been anything he'd done. Well, nothing other than finding the one bloke in all of London who was afraid of his goddamn feelings.
John tears off his shirt, pulls off his shoes, socks, and trousers. His skin is hot; it feels like it's crawling with dust, piled with inches of regret. John switches off the light and slides into bed in his boxers. He doesn't want to think about a proper pair of pyjamas right now; all he wants is to go to sleep and forget this bloody night ever happened.
If only he were able to delete things the way a certain infuriating someone was able to.
~*~
John dreams again.
It doesn't take long for him to realise that this time is a dream, and god, he doesn't want to wake up. Not from this.
Brad smiles down at him, his fingers tangled with John's above his head. Leaning down, he nuzzles under John's ear, licks his neck, and blows across the wet line.
"Tell me how that feels."
"It feels like... god, Brad, it feels bloody amazing. Every part of you against me." John rocks up again, the shock of pleasure spreading through his spine. "God, I could do this forever."
Brad pulls his head up, looks down at John again with soft eyes.
"Alright," he says quietly. "Let's."
~*~
The next dream isn't fully formed, fuzzy around the edges. John watches Brad sleep, sees the gentle rise and fall of his chest, keeps his hand on the warm skin of Brad's waist.
John is ridiculously content. In a few minutes, Brad opens his eyes, blinks two or three times, then smiles broadly when he sees John watching him.
"Morning," he says huskily.
"Morning," John whispers.
"What time is it?"
"Just after five. I have to go in an hour or two, get my books. I have class this morning."
"And after?"
John smiles. "Well, that - depends."
"On?"
"On what you're doing."
"I'll be here."
"I have to revise a bit. Got an exam coming up."
"I'll help."
"You - will?"
"Definitely."
John beams at him. "Yeah, alright, then. I'll come back after."
"But for now..." Brad slides closer. "You said you don't have to leave for another hour."
A rush of affection slides through his abdomen and John licks his lips. "Oh? What did you have in mind?"
Brad grins at him. "Oh... lots of things."
John sort of can't wait to find out.
~*~
When John wakes the sun is high. It must be well past noon. But after being up for most of the night it doesn't bother him. He's curled around his pillow, the duvet tucked between his knees. This isn't John's normal sleeping position. He's a light sleeper, usually on his back or right side, rarely uses pillows, and can wake and be alert almost immediately.
But the slow spread of dreams is still fresh within him and John closes his eyes to hang onto the feeling. Only with Brad had John ever slept close, their bodies pressed together from knees through chest.
John tucks his chin into the fluff of the pillow and sighs. Reality threatens to spread around him; John wills it away for a few more minutes. If anything, he wants to stay in the warmth of muzzy sleep, secure in the knowledge that someone desperately wants (well, wanted, past tense) him.
His body stirs at the thought, and John rolls onto his back. Immediately Brad is there above him, smiling that crooked soft smile and pushing his thumb along John's hairline. John smiles back, throws off the duvet, and arches up against him.
He reaches for Brad's face, touches his lips, the line of his jaw. In front of his eyes, Brad's hair changes: darkens deeply and adjusts its shape. The curls spread in a cloud across his forehead, framing his paling face. When John gasps, Brad's eyes slide from a dark green into the familiar iridescent green that John knows so well, his face thins a bit, his cheekbones becoming more prominent and his lips shifting into that familiar heart shape.
"Oh god," he whispers.
The face above him -- so recently familiar -- smiles, then nods at him.
"You want this."
"I do," John breathes.
He can feel the warm contours of Sherlock's skin against his stomach, it's a rush of electricity like no other, like their skin was crafted in a laboratory this way on purpose, designed to perfectly complement and arouse the other.
"I want this too... you know I do."
He's so hard. It's slow now, deliberate, these rocking, sweaty movements. John can't tear his eyes away from the face, the eyes, above him. When he shifts, Sherlock shifts back against him, bodies colliding, mouths leaking enthusiastic murmurs. It's everything he wants and it isn't -- it can't be -- a dream.
A few short moments later, he feels Sherlock jerk above him, his eyes widening, then shutting in pleasure, and John follows him over, throwing his head back and gasping the name that is always, always in his mind.
Sherlock.
~*~
Sherlock doesn't talk for days.
It's rather disconcerting that it lasts this long. Since their 'talk' (John has taken to calling it that, with the ironic air quotes), John's had two empty days, followed by long shifts at the surgery with no conversation at all at night. Tonight he'd trudged up the stairs, carrying a curry and a Tesco's bag, and looking forward to sitting down with a couple of medical journals he's been ignoring over the past months. The other doctors at the surgery are competent, but none of them seem all that interested in discussing some of the more recent developments in surgical techniques, which, he supposes, is to be expected. They're all GP's, so he can understand. But, really, he's keen to read some of the newer research out there.
And here he is, at their overlarge desk with the remains of supper on his plate and only the dregs left of what had been a piping hot cuppa. John finishes the last article and shuts the journal with a nod. He has a few ideas about some things he'd like to bring up with Sarah and his mind hums with medical contentment. He grins to himself; he loves the challenge of new learning.
Sherlock sits across from him, his eyes scanning the laptop in front of him rapidly. The plate John fixed for him sits, uneaten and cold, to his right.
John watches him for a moment: the rigid posture, the slight purse of his lips, the flicker of his eyes from left to right. Then he skims over Sherlock's features: the dark, mussed curls that frame his frown, the visible skin through his open collar, the dark tangle of his eyelashes.
John's mind slides into fantasy... what their fingers might look like tangled together, how Sherlock's breath would feel on his neck, the weight of his body pressing John into the mattress. It's an amalgam of memory and fantasy: heavy breaths, bodies slick with sweat, tender lidded eyes.
When Sherlock sucks in a sharp breath, John twitches in shock. Did his body language, his facial expression, somehow belie his most recent thoughts? But... no. Sherlock's eyes still focus on the screen, his brow purses in concentration. It's clear his mind is working at its regular, dizzying pace.
John pushes his chair out, gathers his dishes, and brings them to the kitchen. When he comes back into the sitting room, Sherlock still hasn't moved.
"Sherlock, can I help?"
Nothing.
It's one thing for Sherlock not to speak for several days, but really, it's another thing altogether for him to all but ignore John completely. And now that he thinks about it, John can't remember Sherlock acknowledging John's presence at all: no nods, no eye contact, no heavy sighs at him being in the way... nothing at all.
With a flourish and a nod, Sherlock closes his laptop, pushes back from the table, and hurries down the stairs without a backward glance. John stands, forgotten, in the middle of the room, his mind whirling over familiar moments with Sherlock heavily investigating and John shut away from it all.
"Why won't you let me in?"
He doesn't know if he said it aloud.
~*~
There have been five days of silence.
John sits in his chair, flipping channels aimlessly on the telly. He had a short shift this morning because one of the other doctors was off sick. Now he's eaten, paid a few (not overdue) bills, and has been trying to concentrate on the all important crap telly he watches. It's not working.
Sherlock has been in the kitchen in front of his microscope ever since John returned. He hasn't heard a thing out of him, other than the familiar rattle of petri dishes and the clink of slides.
The silence between them pulls at John, slides into the space between his cells and spreads outward. It's worse than the hours of silence he endured in his old bedsit. Baker Street has always housed so much more than that. John slides his eyes toward the window; it's just started raining. Heavy, pounding rain that comes and soaks everything through. The sky darkens immediately, almost without warning. It feels heavily apropos for how he's feeling.
John stares out the window from the chair for a long moment, the stillness of the flat at odds with everything rolling in turmoil inside him. Rain is supposed to cleanse, to wash away. Perhaps this rain is exactly what he needs. He stares, his vision blurry with thought, not aware of anything inside the flat for a moment.
Then, something on the telly captures his attention and John breaks out of his reverie and turns to look. The announcer is speaking in the falsely eager tone of those paid to get the public excited about the most ridiculous novelties. John squints at it for a moment... why is it familiar?
Leopold George Duncan Albert
It's... oh, right. Queen Victoria's youngest son. It's the advert for the commemorative plates honouring each of Queen Victoria's nine children. Images flash back at him: the coffee shop, Kate the barista (Sherlock in disguise), John's ridiculous attempt at flirting, and the embarrassing conversation back in Baker Street after the fact.
John laughs aloud, then glances toward the kitchen to see Sherlock watching him. He grins automatically, because it's Sherlock. Sherlock, his friend. Sherlock, who doesn't look behind him, doesn't wait for anyone, but yells for John to keep up. Sherlock, who drives him mad sometimes. Sherlock, who is ridiculously brilliant and notices things that only a remarkable genius could. Sherlock, who is probably the best thing in John's life.
When John looks at him, Sherlock's face breaks into a wide smile, all the way to his eyes, and John feels some of the tension bleeding out of him.
Maybe silence isn't such a bad thing.
~*~
Sherlock leaves the kitchen after that, and John goes to have a shower. He'd been roused early from bed for his shift, and hadn't time for a shower beforehand.
When he steps back into the kitchen afterward, John looks around. The flat feels empty. The petri dishes and slides have been moved to the side of the demilune table in the kitchen, the microscope in between. Sherlock's door is closed, but John doesn't hear any noise behind it.
The sitting room is empty of everything but clutter. Sherlock must have left on some data-gathering mission that only makes sense to him. John huffs a smile to himself and climbs the stairs to his bedroom.
John finds himself whistling as he towels off his hair. The shower must have cleared his head quite a bit. He dresses in a shabby pair of jeans and a dark blue button down. They're both rather old and worn, but clean and very comfortable. His mind works slowly as he fastens each button. He can't stop thinking about Sherlock's smile. It had been full, real, not the false smile he puts on in the middle of a case because it fits the part he's playing for a witness.
It's a smile that John has only ever seen Sherlock use for... well, for him.
And, there. There it is. Somehow everything slides back into perspective for John. This past week has shaken up everything for him, has brought back memories and feelings he'd long buried. But before Sherlock had walked into their kitchen as Brad, John had been happy. He likes his life -- their life. He likes watching Sherlock's wild mind work, likes reining him in from his fanatical investigation, likes the adventure and uncertainty that living with Sherlock brings for him.
He likes Sherlock.
And if that is all he can have, no matter what he might want or choose for himself, then...
John buttons the last of his buttons and looks at the rain sliding down the window. He smiles to himself.
It is enough.
~*~
Hours later John stands at the window in the sitting room, watching the rain slick down the panes of glass. The street outside blurs into dark lines of cars and steadier, slower lines of pedestrians hurrying to get out of the rain. He has half a mind to grab his jacket and go outside himself, to let the water wash over him and pull out the memories he needs to let go of.
A floorboard creaks and John starts. He'd thought he was alone in the flat. He turns around toward the sound, then freezes.
"Brad," he whispers.
It's not Brad, of course. He knows that. It's Sherlock, with shorter, ginger hair, fuller cheeks and a different, easier posture. He pulls the door shut behind him, steps closer to John. John steps forward, then stops again. He doesn't - what is he supposed to do?
Brad (Sherlock) looks him over hungrily, his gaze stopping at the open collar of John's shirt, then piercing his stare.
Sherlock as Brad walks forward, holding John's eyes the entire time. When he's directly in front of John, he stops, his eyes flicking down to John's lips before returning to his eyes. John can't move. He can barely think. The world has ground to a halt around them, all sounds extinguished, all life around them frozen.
"John." The voice is greedy, full of want.
Then a warm hand cups his cheek, fingertips sliding over his jawline. John feels like time has stopped, that this moment could somehow stretch into the entirety of his lifetime and he would have no idea.
"John, I-" the voice breaks, and then,
and then...
then, oh god, Sherlock is kissing him. Sherlock kisses all of the sounds of the world back around them, cups John's skull with his hands and kisses John desperately. Sherlock kisses him until John finally kisses back, opening his mind to take in every bit of this, in case it's about to end soon. Sherlock kisses with strength, with assurance. It's the perfect deduction bled into a kiss.
John throws his arms around Sherlock and presses his body fully into the kiss. He slides palms over smooth cotton, cups Sherlock's buttocks and opens his mouth to Sherlock's tongue.
God, oh god, oh god.
He walks them backward, pushing Sherlock against the door and pressing against him in a slow arch of hidden skin and too many clothes. John's mind swims with words: wet, wonderful, perfect; he holds onto each one. He doesn't think but to want this. When John presses his tongue into Sherlock's mouth, the flavour bursts through his senses and he pushes far deeper, tasting every bend and ridge of Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock moans low in his throat, the sound tickling down John's spine.
Sherlock twists them around, pushing John back against the door and scraping his teeth over the skin of John's throat. John arches against him, opening his throat to... to... god, to whatever Sherlock wants to do. His breath is barely normal now, he's overwhelmed and drowning in what he thought he couldn't have.
"Christ, you feel good," John gasps, "s'been so long."
Fingers are on his buttons now, cool, clever fingers, unbuttoning three buttons and sliding fingertips over John's collarbone, investigating down over his sternum. He almost shivers with the touch, shutting his eyes for a moment and focusing on Sherlock's fingertips tracing his skin. It feels different over every different surface of his chest: the pleasant sweep of skin on skin, the slight scratchy brush when he touches the hair on his chest, the electric shock when his fingers slide over John's nipples.
Oh, god.
John trembles, opens his eyes and reaches for Sherlock's face, cupping it between his hands and pulling their lips together. John's insatiable, desperate to feel every plane and angle of Sherlock's body. This kiss is relentless: harsh pulls and teeth bruising lips, but every moment of it settles down inside him and spurs him on, better than the one before.
Sherlock licks over his bottom lip, bites it, then opens his eyes and looks right at John. Sherlock's eyes are dark in the shallow light, deep and hungry, and John's pulled right inside.
"Christ, Sherlock," John says, reaching upward and tangling his fingers in the ginger curls, "you're just--"
And then everything stops. Sherlock's eyes widen, then cloud over; his hands drop to his sides and he steps away. In another moment Sherlock is out the door, striding down the steps, and John hears the front door close behind him.
John steps away from the door in a daze, blinking more than once to try to clear his vision. He scrubs his hand over his face, presses his fingertips into his eyes. What in the hell just happened?
He takes a few slow breaths, then buttons his shirt reluctantly back up, looking backward at the door for a moment. John is ridiculously confused. God, what was that? Almost as suddenly as it had started, it was over. And is it actually... over?
What in the world had he done?
~*~
:: next part ::