Parts 5 and +2 of a Sherlock Fic With a Ridiculously Long Title
Title: Five Times Dr. John Watson Surprised Sherlock Holmes + Two Minor Occasions wherein Sherlock and John Deeply Disconcerted Mycroft
Rating: R (very light)
Spoilers For: The Great Game
Beta: The Right Honorable Porridgebird
Wordcount: 11,700ish
Disclaimer: No one in their right mind would entrust me with owning these characters. Oh, the things I would do to them.
Warnings: slash, obscure psychology bits, one scene-cut that blatantly avoids explaining the events shortly after the end of “The Great Game”
Summary: John is surprising in many ways: his courtship patterns, his recreational study of abnormal psychology, his selflessness, his gay-dar...
Sherlock - Five
Now, months later, standing beside a darkened pool with Dr. John Watson in front of him wearing an explosive vest, with his arm locked around a criminal mastermind’s throat, Sherlock felt an absurd number of his previous ruminations on the nature of his flatmate flood back into his head with sudden, startling clarity. He felt very foolish, and also terrified. Oh. God, no. It lasted perhaps half a second, as John bit out, “Sherlock, run!”
To an outside observer, it was possible to note Sherlock’s eyes widen in shock for a moment before his cold mask returned. His entire focus was on Moriarty: his own survival as well as John’s depended on it. He was, however, too frozen to quite react until he saw John’s eyes widen and Moriarty’s unpleasant grin grow just that much more gleeful. The look on John’s face was enough to tell him that there was yet another sniper to contend with.
John let go, and stepped back. The dot was again on him.
Sherlock showed no outward sign of the twisting, painful coil of panic in his stomach. It helped that cold, fiercely soothing rage held far more sway over him.
“Do you know what happens, if you don’t leave me alone, Sherlock? To you?”
The consulting detective was able to sound remarkably unruffled and unimpressed. “Oh, let me guess: I get killed.”
“Kill you?” Moriarty made a thoughtful, well, not quite sort of noise. “No, let’s not be obvious, I mean, I’m gonna kill you anyway, someday. I don’t wanna rush it, though. I’m saving it up for something special. No, no, no, no.” He shook his head. “If you don’t stop prying, I’ll burn you. I will burn the heart out of you,” he snarled, following it with an incongruously affable sort of look.
“I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one,” Sherlock said flatly.
“Oh, but we both know that’s not quite true.”
Neither of them so much as glanced at John. Sherlock, because his cold, predatory focus on Moriarty was the only thing holding him together at that moment--the need to destroy this small, barking mad mastermind who had brought them here--and Moriarty because he truly considered no one else to be of even trifling importance until they might be needed. And Sherlock was only important because he was a threat, and a particularly entertaining one. Moriarty had proven that earlier, letting John attack him. Sherlock logged that note away, and put it somewhere important.
Sherlock was so entirely focused on collecting future data that he hardly paid attention to their final parting words until Moriarty began to slip away. He stepped closer to John, still following the madman with the gun. “Catch. You... Later.”
“No you won’t!” came the final, sing-song words. And a door slamming shut.
Sherlock remained still for precisely three seconds. Then, after a quick glance, meeting John’s gaze, he was on the ground, ripping away the explosive vest. “All right?” Too many damned buckles. He began tugging on the jacket. “Are you all right?” he barked, his nerves evident.
“Yes. Fine. I’m fine.” John was breathless, not quite shaking yet.
Sherlock threw the jacket and explosives away down the length of the pool. Then, because he had to, he swooped to pick up John’s gun again and ran to check quickly on the door through which Moriarty had made his exit. When he returned, John was crouched, leaning back heavily against the wall of a changing booth, breathing hard, but not looking actually panicked. He rode the wave of neurochemicals, the fallout of having been strapped to explosives, with professional ease.
He looked up as Sherlock paced back and forth slightly. “You okay?”
“Me? Yeah. Fine. Fine.” He turned on his heel. The adrenaline was still flooding through him: restless, jittering, buzzing. It was distracting. “That, uh, that thing that you, ahm... that you offered to do....that was, uh-” thrilling, heart-rending, maddening, glorious, and more terrifying than anything I’ve ever seen “-good.”
“I’m glad no one saw that,” John muttered, his voice still flat from the stress and how hard he was breathing.
“Hmm?” Distracted, still scanning the room for further activity, still moving, but feeling that John would possibly be better at looking for this sort of threat: organized and militant.
“You, ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool, people might talk” John recounted wryly, still breathless.
“People do little else.”
For a moment, it seemed perfectly right, exchanging mad grins bleak with gallows-humor. Then, as John struggled to stand, a damned swarm of red spots interrupted them, followed shortly by the grating, painfully gleeful tones of Jim Moriarty, once more. “Sorry boys! I’m sooooo changeable!”
Sherlock glanced at John, at a convenient pause-point in Moriarty’s self-congratulations.
John, without even looking at him, acknowledged the thought with a nod. He was tensed, ready to fight. Sherlock turned and aimed the gun not at Moriarty, but the explosives at the other end of the pool.
~~ ~~
Some time later, in the dying light of the fires being put out by the fire brigade behind them, both of them still dripping wet, lightly scorched, and wearing familiar orange blankets, Sherlock glanced with relief at John, wearing a look that, for him, was more than a little too fond. On another man, it might have looked like mild interest, he granted.
John sensed his gaze and peered at him sidelong. He offered a reassuring smirk and his usual I can’t believe what the Hell we just did head-shake.
The moment was interrupted by Lestrade, who stood before them looking torn between outrage, exhaustion, and protective concern. “The lads with the blankets say you two are fit. How wrong are they?”
The pair exchanged glances.
“Not in the least, this time,” Sherlock granted, getting stiffly to his feet. “Right, Dr. Watson?”
John followed suit, wincing only slightly as his leg complained dully: a minor twinge, nothing enough to actually cause him to limp again. “Absolutely. That merely leaves the question as to where exactly we’re meant to go at this point.”
Lestrade’s eyebrows rose.
In his usual I-won’t-repeat-this rapid manner, Sherlock began, “The man responsible for this, as well as all of the other previous bombings, is a criminal mastermind of proportions that-”
“I know,” the inspector interrupted. “I could tell by all of the government men currently rustling about your flat in Baker Street.”
Had all of his energy reserves not already been used up, Sherlock might have instantly gone on a rampage of such intensity as to make the mountain of burnt-out architecture behind them seem like a molehill. “What. Men?” His voice had rarely sounded so vicious or so deadly.
“Really now, Sherlock. I think you know who it was who demanded I make sure you were safe,” Mycroft drawled, approaching them in his usual slow, not-quite-swaggering stride. He seemed to want to keep John between himself and his brother, but could not make it in time, as Sherlock’s own rarely-seen protective instincts were out in force and he quickly blocked Mycroft off, leaving John to peer around him. “In one piece, then. I am most relieved to see it.”
John politely turned to Lestrade. “Thank you, Inspector. I think you might be safest outside this particular blast radius.”
“And you?” Lestrade inquired, looking genuinely concerned.
“I’m alright. I’m used to explosions--and this variety is increasingly familiar. Have a good night, Lestrade.”
“Best of luck, Dr. Watson.” Lestrade made his hasty escape.
He heard “mummy” mentioned at least twice, once in scolding tones by Mycroft, and then in defiant ones from Sherlock. By the time John turned again to face the brothers Holmes, it was to see Sherlock seize his brother by the coat-lapels and growl, “Your men. In my home,” with such violence that John instinctively placed a hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him back.
“Sherlock,” he said quietly.
The detective made a low sound like a snarl, and even Mycroft looked a little unnerved, but then Sherlock took in a deep breath, deliberately loosened his grip on his brother’s jacket and leaned back slightly, showing less teeth as he continued, “I want them out. I have put up with your surveillance. I have not destroyed more than a third of your more intrusive recording devices near Baker Street, and even that was more to sooth mummy’s worries than to serve any of your purposes-”
“Tonight, we have disabled a total of seven well-hidden explosive traps in and around Baker Street, under the police station, and in a number of your other frequent haunts, Sherlock,” Mycroft bit out, suddenly furious. “This little game of yours with a criminal leader has escalated. We do not need any further questionable explosions in London, these days, or it will be you who starts two wars before supper!”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, and he took another deep, calming breath. He could feel the warmth of John’s hand, now on his back, less visible, but still strangely comforting. The doctor knew that he did not like to be touched, but then, he was a doctor: this was bedside manner. Even those nervous, or averse to touch needed on occasion to be steadied. Sometimes John Watson was far more perceptive than most people gave him credit for.
“Fine,” said the detective, through clenched teeth. “You may keep us under watch, and keep your best and most intelligent assassins waiting in every alleyway wherever we go. So long as you do not intrude upon my activities unless bombs or kidnappings are involved.” Perhaps, Sherlock found himself direly hoping, it will keep that bastard from again getting his claws on John.
Mycroft’s expression changed for a moment; surprise, concern, and a hint of awe. “I see. That is, assuming that they can keep up with you.”
“If they lose track of me, then let them be clear on the fact that it means I am working, and not to be hunted down loudly, scaring away the very creatures I’m chasing. I will not be prevented from hunting James Moriarty.”
Mycroft nodded, once. “My resources are at your disposal.”
It was Sherlock’s turn to appear more than a little surprised. “My disposal.”
“Between you and Dr. Watson, I am sure that a small army can be handled efficiently, and covertly in an urban setting. I do not need the media or the general public further speculating about foreign origins for all of these disasters, Sherlock. My business is with these national matters--not with hunting mere localized criminals, however uncommon they may be.”
Sherlock nodded. “A truce, then, for now.”
Mycroft allowed a faint half-smirk to tug at his lips. “I am sure that it shan’t last. Goodnight, Sherlock.” Mycroft turned on his heel, striding away toward a nondescript black car.
When another, similar car pulled up to meet them at the curb, neither John nor Sherlock blinked.
The electric window rolled down, revealing one of Mycroft’s nameless men at the wheel, and Anthea in the passenger seat. Without glancing up at them, she said, “We’re to take you both home.” Even she, however, seemed to show signs of faint concern, in the form of a small line between her brows.
The two men entered the car and settled heavily on the seats.
John was both exhausted utterly, and more awake than he had ever been in his life. He could sense that Sherlock’s anger and frustration were still keeping him from feeling the usual exultation they both tended to share post-disaster. To get his attention, John elbowed him. “In case you’d forgotten, I know a thing or two about urban warfare. It wasn’t all just barren desert out there. Don’t keep me in the dark on your plans, if only this time; you need me for this.”
Sherlock’s eyes fell open slowly, but he did not glance at John. “An army is more difficult to coordinate than one, or even two men. I could-”
“No, you couldn’t,” John muttered.
“You don’t even know what I planned to say,” Sherlock bit back.
“No, but I know what you’re thinking, for once.” John rubbed his eyes, feeling that familiar form of exasperation: one-third deeply annoyed, one-third honestly a little offended, and one-third inexplicably fond. “He won’t chase you, or follow you out of the country, you can’t distract him from where you’re vulnerable. He knows that if his game escalates enough, he can take London from you, make it so you can’t work here anymore. He knows London is in your blood and that the best way to ‘burn’ you would be to keep his destruction here, instead of outside the country.” John had an inexplicable mental image of a large waterfall somewhere in Switzerland and shook his head as if to clear it of the equally mysterious thought, not this time.
Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “How did you deduce that?”
“Your feet were shifting like you were about to bolt, but you had a particularly vicious look of irritation on your face suggesting you were feeling both defiant and reckless, it would only make sense for you to be thinking about trying to leave London both to escape working with Mycroft’s men and Mycroft’s sort of tactics, and to try and incite Moriarty to chase you. It wouldn’t work. Maybe in a less digital era when he’d be forced to follow you himself, but what good would being in another country do you at this point, if he could still call your phone with a hostage here in London?”
And Sherlock had little doubt who that hostage would end up being. They had both too well shown their hands in that regard tonight. He remained silent until they reached Baker Street and stepped stiffly out of the car, which pulled away quietly. Sherlock then grabbed John’s shoulder before the other man could step inside. The flat was now doubtlessly bugged with various listening and recording devices. “I could always take you with me.”
John considered this, but could not quite follow. “What?”
“If I leave, after tonight, and vanish as I’m sure you know I am capable of, but bring only you along--after he has threatened to burn the heart out of me...”
For a strange moment, John’s face wore a military sort of mask that Sherlock himself could still scarcely read any reactions behind. Then John looked away, but did not move from Sherlock’s grasp. They had to look ridiculous: the both of them only half-dry, their clothing lightly scorched and their faces smudged with traces of smoke and soot, standing like this in front of the flat contemplating quasi-legal international war tactics to use against a criminal mastermind.
John took a deep breath and met Sherlock’s gaze with his own: a hint of something stoic and flinty in his dark eyes. “You can vanish. Can the both of us?”
“It may prove more difficult, but not impossible,” Sherlock murmured.
“The flat’s bugged, you think?”
“Of course it is. We can, however, still access certain necessities.” He took a slow, deep breath. “Nothing digital in the house is unmonitored,” he hissed, as though it were a stream of expletives.
“No paper-trail, then. I’m assuming you’ve cash hidden somewhere.”
“Of course.”
“Me too. Not much, but enough for an airline ticket out of the country.”
Sherlock raised his eyebrows at him.
John only smirked. “Never knew if I’d have to pay some extortionate bail money to get you out of someplace. Or, looking at how things normally seem to work out, I’d have to call you and have you use it to bail me out of the trouble you’d gotten me into.”
With a low chuckle, Sherlock shook his head. “Why you tolerate it is sometimes a mystery to me.” He squeezed John’s shoulder. “You don’t have to follow me. You can escape somewhere else entirely, if you would prefer. It would be far safer, and we might devise a way for Mycroft to send you a message when it is safe again in London.” It was more painful an offer to make than he had anticipated, and his hand unconsciously tightened on John’s shoulder. Only then did he notice, belatedly, that his hand had not yet moved. He let John go, shoving his hands into his pockets and clearing his throat.
John waited until Sherlock again looked him in the eye, then grinned. “You’re an idiot. I’m coming with you.”
Sherlock smiled back, inexplicably relieved even as the answer made his life that much more complicated. “If we’re careful, we might not even need to run as far as I had first anticipated, but we shall keep a number of potential escape routes open. Shall we?” He opened the door to 221B, and held it for John before following him in.
They spent the next three hours very quietly working their way through various books, one of them an atlas. Two pots of tea later, Sherlock found himself uncommonly distracted by another inexplicable loose-thread thought: John had not been on a date or a tryst in two months. Firmly pulling himself away from that line of contemplation, he inquired, “Do you speak any foreign languages?”
“Aside from conversational phrases in a couple of dialects from Afghanistan, you mean?”
“Yes.”
John made a thoughtful sound, staring at the ceiling. “Spanish.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows raised.
“I was studying to be a doctor. Spanish is close enough to Latin that it didn’t take too much effort to learn. I got into the habit of speaking a more bastardized form of it while working with Americans in Afghanistan, but I still slip into Castilian a lot when it’s more than just idle conversation.”
“Very good.”
“I assume you’re multilingual.”
“Spanish, French, German, Italian...”
“You’re the bloody EU,” John muttered into his tea.
Sherlock snorted. “Hardly. I’m far more decisive.”
John shook his head, but made a small sound of amusement.
“At least you’re currently unattached,” Sherlock murmured. “As I understand it, these matters would be difficult to explain to a girlfriend.”
John cleared his throat. “Yes, I suppose so.” There was something just a little too offhand about the reply. Usually when his dating life came up in conversation, John got at least a bit defensive or blustering.
Sherlock stared intently at the too-casual look on his flatmate’s face, and the way that blood had visibly risen closer to the surface of his skin along his cheekbones: barely there, but still detectable. John-the-soldier could hide damned near anything behind a mask, but it required an effort to conjure, an effort Sherlock would have noticed, as he did before during their quick planning session outside the flat. It had been natural in that situation, speaking of waging a war. John-the-soldier did not fit into a casual mention of romance in the flat, and thus Sherlock could suddenly see a glimmer of something very interesting, now unhidden.
“John?”
“Hm?” Avoiding eye contact.
After a moment’s further contemplation, Sherlock snapped his book shut and got to his feet. Three long strides had him in front of John, leaning in just a bit too close for normal convention, but still relatively normal by Sherlock-standards. He was peering very closely at John’s face.
John glared at him, mask beginning to slip into place.
“No,” Sherlock hissed, gripping John’s shoulder. “I can tell this is important. Why is it important? Don’t hide like that.”
“Hide like what?” John growled.
“You are again wearing that look that you use on those memorable occasions whereupon you shock everyone at a crime scene by barking orders at members of Scotland Yard when they are being exceptionally offensive or useless: that military one. Normally, I appreciate it, especially when you once managed to use it successfully on Lestrade, surprising all of us; however, do not try to use it on me just now, John.”
John’s eyes fell shut for a moment, but now he only wore a slightly different mask: one that he used when a patient was under the sort of sedation that made them say painfully inappropriate things. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you were blushing. Not with irritation, either.”
The mask cracked, but with a look of anger directed at himself. “It’s not important,” he insisted.
“Apparently it is,” Sherlock insisted right back, but there was a strange edge to his voice, almost nervous.
John opened his eyes and stared right into Sherlock’s with no attempt to hide his expression, but it still seemed strangely unreadable: determination and soldierly grit with a storm of something intense and unfathomable behind it, fueling it. “Fine.” He took a deep breath, and then explained in terse and forced-calm tones, “It’s just that I’ve been trying not to fall in love with you for the past two months, and certain, recent events have led me to the realization that I’ve failed utterly.” He looked away then, seeming to expect some kind of reprimand or scathing comment, but the lines at the corners of his eyes showed more pain than Sherlock would have ever been capable of intentionally exacerbating in one Dr. John Watson.
Feeling suddenly unsteady, Sherlock knelt beside John on the couch, hand still on John’s shoulder. “You...” He trailed off, speechless.
John fidgeted, but shot him a strange look. “You really had no idea?”
“It-” Sherlock’s voice sounded oddly broken. He steadied it, pulling together the remains of his composure and clearing his throat. “It doesn’t exactly fit any of your previously established patterns.”
“Patterns?”
“Of courtship.”
John made a face which indicated that he was both disturbed and yet unsurprised to hear that Sherlock had made a study of his “courtship patterns.” He then shook his head. “You mean the ‘courtship patterns’ wherein I’ve been involved with people who showed genuine interest instead of claiming to be married to their work and displaying an utterly celibate lifestyle during the entirety of my acquaintance with them?”
Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Awkward as this is, I think that a picture of the look on your face at the moment would make me a fortune if I offered to sell posters of it at Scotland Yard.”
Snorting, Sherlock snapped his eyes shut. “Stop it. I’m thinking.”
“I know. It’s very loud,” John muttered, and Sherlock could hear nervousness and not-quite-panic prickling behind the attempt at humor.
This was precisely why Sherlock found romantic entanglements so damned ridiculous. How could he possibly proceed from here? He had judged the terrain so incorrectly before, what was to stop him tumbling down a cliff and ruining it all here and now? The answer, when it occurred to him, was absurdly simple. “John?”
“Yes?”
“I need your help with something.”
John’s brow furrowed, worried and confused both. “With what?”
“I am unsure how exactly to explain... You know that I have been hostile toward your dating women. I have also been inexplicably jealous of your few past trysts with men in the month after you moved in, which you haven’t known. I have been convinced, for the most part, that all of this was due to my own egotism, as I am very possessive and as you have become part of my work...” Sherlock cleared his throat. “That said, I had never been more terrified in my life than when I saw you wearing that damned explosive vest.” Sherlock swallowed thickly, a faint sense of still-fresh horror making his stomach twist. “That was, until you offered... what you-” Sherlock covered his eyes with his free hand, the other now gripping John’s shoulder very hard indeed. “I came to the conclusion that I have been an idiot.”
John seemed to have stopped breathing. His eyes were very wide.
“I have no idea what to do about it without making things wor-” He was cut off by John making a move startlingly reminiscent of a pounce, sending Sherlock sprawling back along the couch. When they landed, John hovered over him, their legs tangled distractingly and John’s hands pinning his shoulders down, but what most arrested Sherlock’s attention was the half-wary, half-hopeful look on John’s face.
“Are you okay with this?” John asked, his breathing already a little uneven.
Feeling the heat and closeness of John’s body, Sherlock was starting to show more than a few signs of a parallel affliction. “Oh, God, yes,” he said, in familiar tones.
For a moment, John grinned brilliantly, then he leaned in and Sherlock’s eyes instinctively fell shut as John’s mouth... Oh, his mouth.
It started out slow and warm, just for a few moments, until Sherlock’s hands gripped John’s waist and pulled him closer, and Sherlock’s tongue darted out opportunistically when he felt John’s lips part in surprise. Then John made a sound like a low growl, ever-so-slightly adjusted the angle of Sherlock’s chin with his thumb, and deepened the kiss, eradicating any lingering hint of chasteness in it: hot and wet and it send a spasm through Sherlock’s stomach straight to his cock. The breathless moan it drew from him made John shudder.
It was all a tangle of limbs and mouths and tugging at clothes, until John’s hands were abruptly forced to move out from under Sherlock's hastily-opened shirt to grip the back and arm of the couch and thus prevent their increasingly fervent movements against each other from tumbling them off the furniture and onto the rug. Smirking against John’s lips for a moment, Sherlock thought, Why, what a marvelous idea. After surreptitiously pushing the coffee table further away from the couch with one foot, Sherlock then pulled at John’s t-shirt, tugging it over his head and forcing John’s arms up. Quickly throwing it aside, Sherlock twisted about and shoved, so that they hit the floor with a decisive clatter.
John stared up in amazement, his pupils blown as he watched the detective shrug out of his shirt, tossing it up onto the recently evacuated couch. “Good God, Sherlock.”
“Hm.” Sherlock was running the edge of his thumb curiously along the scar at John’s shoulder, seemingly fascinated. “I did admit to egocentricity, but I do not actually consider myself a g-ODchrist” he hissed as one of John’s hands gave his erection a firm, exploratory stroke through the fabric of his trousers. John’s fingers were quite staggeringly talented.
“Feeling more religious than usual, yourself, hm?” John smirked at him, and it was almost like the smirk he’d given that other damned soldier months ago, but much better because it was focused and there was fierce affection behind it: all for Sherlock Holmes, who gave a low, growling moan in response and immediately set about systematically driving John Watson to distraction.
Mycroft - One and Two
If only Sherlock had been around to see it, the look on Mycroft’s face as he slowly took in the small disaster-area of the flat’s main room might have been number two on the list of things that made the morning of the day-after-Moriarty-and-the-pool explosion a very good morning indeed for Sherlock Holmes. Top on that list had been a tie between waking up still entangled with a naked Dr. John Watson, and finding himself sharing a shower with the same man shortly afterward.
“I see,” Mycroft said to himself in low, uneasy tones that suggested that he could see far more than he ever wanted to from just a single glance at the sofa, coffee table, rug, and scattered clothing. The word “consummated” crossed his mind, and Mycroft sincerely wished it hadn’t, but then, his brother had spent most of his life honing his abilities to annoy Mycroft. This was simply one of his more well-executed examples.
At least one hundred different airline tickets that belonged to people with names other than John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, had by some “glitch” been printed under the names of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Both men were now missing. All of Sherlock’s various mobile phones were piled on the kitchen counter, along with John’s. Sherlock had left some of his theater make-up and spirit gum out in plain sight. There had also been several homeless vagabonds making irregular visits to the apartment, in the two hours before dawn; Mycroft could still smell traces of their more usual habitats lingering in the air of the apartment, and wrinkled his nose accordingly.
One glance at the books scattered across the desk told Mycroft that Sherlock had planned a trip out of the country. Several of them, in fact, each more convoluted than the last. Mycroft felt a headache starting in the base of his skull.
Mycroft picked up the skull on Sherlock’s mantle, and heard a faint sound that he should not have: a rattle. He peered into the eye sockets and saw one of his smaller and more unobtrusive little cameras there. The camera had originally been on the bookshelf, pointed toward the couch. Mycroft’s scowl deepened, but he picked up the camera nevertheless. It had been disconnected, which his security network had mysteriously not detected. It had also been carefully dissected and put back together again with something slightly too lightweight inside of it.
Some hours later--once Mycroft had removed and carefully unfolded the hand-written note, magnified his brother’s tiny and frightfully precise handwriting, and translated the complex combination of three different ciphers Sherlock had entangled the message in--the elder Holmes brother felt a startlingly novel sensation: a mixture of one-quarter pride at his younger brother not being quite such a fool on this occasion, one-quarter wounded pride that he had needed this note to clarify his brother’s plans for him, one-quarter surprise, and one-quarter pure annoyance.
Two weeks later, after a dramatic final rooftop meeting, wherein it was startlingly revealed that Sherlock and John had been hiding in London the entire time after all, Moriarty fell to his death, and Sherlock Holmes very nearly went with him. To several witnesses, it looked very much as though he did, and rumors furiously circulated that the infamous consulting detective was dead. He nearly was, in fact, so much so that the expression on John Watson’s face following the incident frightened Inspector Lestrade almost to death.
When questioned on the matter, Dr. John Watson’s painful silence was interpreted to mean the worst. Then, within four days, the duo appeared reunited and victorious, delivering under citizen’s arrest a man called Moran to Scotland Yard, neatly tied up and ready for disposal. Moran had worked with a partner, and the Yard knew it, but not a trace of the other man or his body was ever found. When the police dropped unsubtle hints concerning Moran’s partner into their usual follow-up questions, Sherlock seemed bored and uninterested, while John Watson wore a mask of polite interest and a slightly furrowed brow that seemed to make it clear he had no idea what on earth people were asking him about. The matter was reluctantly dropped.
When the pair were at last returned to Baker Street, they promptly did not make contact with the outside world (except to order takeaway) for three straight days, wherein every available surface in the flat not occupied recently by any particularly dangerous or unsanitary experiments was used as a location for a good shag.
Mycroft’s follow-up visit to the flat was painful in many regards as a result. It was also as brief as he could possibly make it, much to Sherlock’s delight.
“You did that intentionally,” John accused after the elder Holmes had made his hasty retreat. “You bastard.”
“Tell me it wasn’t worth it for that look on his face.” Sherlock was still grinning.
John’s face was still red, and he really was a bit irritated, but he still had to resort to another sip of tea in order to hide his smirk behind his mug. “Maybe.” He shot Sherlock a look that was not nearly so annoyed as it should have been, by rights.
Sherlock hummed in a self-satisfied manner, leaning in to kiss the skin just below John’s ear and enjoying the way that John became only further flushed in response. “Do you know something, John?”
“Which something, specifically?”
“Hm. Just that I love you,” Sherlock murmured and kissed John’s neck in time to feel it against his lips when John’s breath caught in his throat.
John’s voice grew suddenly rougher, “Sherlock...”
“Hm?”
By way of repy, John set his tea down on the coffee table with a perfectly steady hand, then sharply yanked Sherlock down into his lap, and kissed the consulting detective senseless. “If I didn’t love you just as well, we’d have some real problems.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Your ideas for hiding bodies were surprisingly good; mine were only a little bit better.” Then Sherlock’s breath escaped him in a ragged curse as John leaned back for the leverage to roll his hips in the most Sherlock-maddening fashion ever devised by mankind. “Fuck, John!”
“That’s rather the idea, darling,” John countered, grinning. “Do keep up.”
With a wide, wicked grin, Sherlock panted, “I never do get your depths.”
“All the better to keep you interested.”
Sherlock bit at the side of John’s neck hard, tearing a gasp from him. “Always.”
Back to Parts 1-4
Rating: R (very light)
Spoilers For: The Great Game
Beta: The Right Honorable Porridgebird
Wordcount: 11,700ish
Disclaimer: No one in their right mind would entrust me with owning these characters. Oh, the things I would do to them.
Warnings: slash, obscure psychology bits, one scene-cut that blatantly avoids explaining the events shortly after the end of “The Great Game”
Summary: John is surprising in many ways: his courtship patterns, his recreational study of abnormal psychology, his selflessness, his gay-dar...
Sherlock - Five
Now, months later, standing beside a darkened pool with Dr. John Watson in front of him wearing an explosive vest, with his arm locked around a criminal mastermind’s throat, Sherlock felt an absurd number of his previous ruminations on the nature of his flatmate flood back into his head with sudden, startling clarity. He felt very foolish, and also terrified. Oh. God, no. It lasted perhaps half a second, as John bit out, “Sherlock, run!”
To an outside observer, it was possible to note Sherlock’s eyes widen in shock for a moment before his cold mask returned. His entire focus was on Moriarty: his own survival as well as John’s depended on it. He was, however, too frozen to quite react until he saw John’s eyes widen and Moriarty’s unpleasant grin grow just that much more gleeful. The look on John’s face was enough to tell him that there was yet another sniper to contend with.
John let go, and stepped back. The dot was again on him.
Sherlock showed no outward sign of the twisting, painful coil of panic in his stomach. It helped that cold, fiercely soothing rage held far more sway over him.
“Do you know what happens, if you don’t leave me alone, Sherlock? To you?”
The consulting detective was able to sound remarkably unruffled and unimpressed. “Oh, let me guess: I get killed.”
“Kill you?” Moriarty made a thoughtful, well, not quite sort of noise. “No, let’s not be obvious, I mean, I’m gonna kill you anyway, someday. I don’t wanna rush it, though. I’m saving it up for something special. No, no, no, no.” He shook his head. “If you don’t stop prying, I’ll burn you. I will burn the heart out of you,” he snarled, following it with an incongruously affable sort of look.
“I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one,” Sherlock said flatly.
“Oh, but we both know that’s not quite true.”
Neither of them so much as glanced at John. Sherlock, because his cold, predatory focus on Moriarty was the only thing holding him together at that moment--the need to destroy this small, barking mad mastermind who had brought them here--and Moriarty because he truly considered no one else to be of even trifling importance until they might be needed. And Sherlock was only important because he was a threat, and a particularly entertaining one. Moriarty had proven that earlier, letting John attack him. Sherlock logged that note away, and put it somewhere important.
Sherlock was so entirely focused on collecting future data that he hardly paid attention to their final parting words until Moriarty began to slip away. He stepped closer to John, still following the madman with the gun. “Catch. You... Later.”
“No you won’t!” came the final, sing-song words. And a door slamming shut.
Sherlock remained still for precisely three seconds. Then, after a quick glance, meeting John’s gaze, he was on the ground, ripping away the explosive vest. “All right?” Too many damned buckles. He began tugging on the jacket. “Are you all right?” he barked, his nerves evident.
“Yes. Fine. I’m fine.” John was breathless, not quite shaking yet.
Sherlock threw the jacket and explosives away down the length of the pool. Then, because he had to, he swooped to pick up John’s gun again and ran to check quickly on the door through which Moriarty had made his exit. When he returned, John was crouched, leaning back heavily against the wall of a changing booth, breathing hard, but not looking actually panicked. He rode the wave of neurochemicals, the fallout of having been strapped to explosives, with professional ease.
He looked up as Sherlock paced back and forth slightly. “You okay?”
“Me? Yeah. Fine. Fine.” He turned on his heel. The adrenaline was still flooding through him: restless, jittering, buzzing. It was distracting. “That, uh, that thing that you, ahm... that you offered to do....that was, uh-” thrilling, heart-rending, maddening, glorious, and more terrifying than anything I’ve ever seen “-good.”
“I’m glad no one saw that,” John muttered, his voice still flat from the stress and how hard he was breathing.
“Hmm?” Distracted, still scanning the room for further activity, still moving, but feeling that John would possibly be better at looking for this sort of threat: organized and militant.
“You, ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool, people might talk” John recounted wryly, still breathless.
“People do little else.”
For a moment, it seemed perfectly right, exchanging mad grins bleak with gallows-humor. Then, as John struggled to stand, a damned swarm of red spots interrupted them, followed shortly by the grating, painfully gleeful tones of Jim Moriarty, once more. “Sorry boys! I’m sooooo changeable!”
Sherlock glanced at John, at a convenient pause-point in Moriarty’s self-congratulations.
John, without even looking at him, acknowledged the thought with a nod. He was tensed, ready to fight. Sherlock turned and aimed the gun not at Moriarty, but the explosives at the other end of the pool.
~~ ~~
Some time later, in the dying light of the fires being put out by the fire brigade behind them, both of them still dripping wet, lightly scorched, and wearing familiar orange blankets, Sherlock glanced with relief at John, wearing a look that, for him, was more than a little too fond. On another man, it might have looked like mild interest, he granted.
John sensed his gaze and peered at him sidelong. He offered a reassuring smirk and his usual I can’t believe what the Hell we just did head-shake.
The moment was interrupted by Lestrade, who stood before them looking torn between outrage, exhaustion, and protective concern. “The lads with the blankets say you two are fit. How wrong are they?”
The pair exchanged glances.
“Not in the least, this time,” Sherlock granted, getting stiffly to his feet. “Right, Dr. Watson?”
John followed suit, wincing only slightly as his leg complained dully: a minor twinge, nothing enough to actually cause him to limp again. “Absolutely. That merely leaves the question as to where exactly we’re meant to go at this point.”
Lestrade’s eyebrows rose.
In his usual I-won’t-repeat-this rapid manner, Sherlock began, “The man responsible for this, as well as all of the other previous bombings, is a criminal mastermind of proportions that-”
“I know,” the inspector interrupted. “I could tell by all of the government men currently rustling about your flat in Baker Street.”
Had all of his energy reserves not already been used up, Sherlock might have instantly gone on a rampage of such intensity as to make the mountain of burnt-out architecture behind them seem like a molehill. “What. Men?” His voice had rarely sounded so vicious or so deadly.
“Really now, Sherlock. I think you know who it was who demanded I make sure you were safe,” Mycroft drawled, approaching them in his usual slow, not-quite-swaggering stride. He seemed to want to keep John between himself and his brother, but could not make it in time, as Sherlock’s own rarely-seen protective instincts were out in force and he quickly blocked Mycroft off, leaving John to peer around him. “In one piece, then. I am most relieved to see it.”
John politely turned to Lestrade. “Thank you, Inspector. I think you might be safest outside this particular blast radius.”
“And you?” Lestrade inquired, looking genuinely concerned.
“I’m alright. I’m used to explosions--and this variety is increasingly familiar. Have a good night, Lestrade.”
“Best of luck, Dr. Watson.” Lestrade made his hasty escape.
He heard “mummy” mentioned at least twice, once in scolding tones by Mycroft, and then in defiant ones from Sherlock. By the time John turned again to face the brothers Holmes, it was to see Sherlock seize his brother by the coat-lapels and growl, “Your men. In my home,” with such violence that John instinctively placed a hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him back.
“Sherlock,” he said quietly.
The detective made a low sound like a snarl, and even Mycroft looked a little unnerved, but then Sherlock took in a deep breath, deliberately loosened his grip on his brother’s jacket and leaned back slightly, showing less teeth as he continued, “I want them out. I have put up with your surveillance. I have not destroyed more than a third of your more intrusive recording devices near Baker Street, and even that was more to sooth mummy’s worries than to serve any of your purposes-”
“Tonight, we have disabled a total of seven well-hidden explosive traps in and around Baker Street, under the police station, and in a number of your other frequent haunts, Sherlock,” Mycroft bit out, suddenly furious. “This little game of yours with a criminal leader has escalated. We do not need any further questionable explosions in London, these days, or it will be you who starts two wars before supper!”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, and he took another deep, calming breath. He could feel the warmth of John’s hand, now on his back, less visible, but still strangely comforting. The doctor knew that he did not like to be touched, but then, he was a doctor: this was bedside manner. Even those nervous, or averse to touch needed on occasion to be steadied. Sometimes John Watson was far more perceptive than most people gave him credit for.
“Fine,” said the detective, through clenched teeth. “You may keep us under watch, and keep your best and most intelligent assassins waiting in every alleyway wherever we go. So long as you do not intrude upon my activities unless bombs or kidnappings are involved.” Perhaps, Sherlock found himself direly hoping, it will keep that bastard from again getting his claws on John.
Mycroft’s expression changed for a moment; surprise, concern, and a hint of awe. “I see. That is, assuming that they can keep up with you.”
“If they lose track of me, then let them be clear on the fact that it means I am working, and not to be hunted down loudly, scaring away the very creatures I’m chasing. I will not be prevented from hunting James Moriarty.”
Mycroft nodded, once. “My resources are at your disposal.”
It was Sherlock’s turn to appear more than a little surprised. “My disposal.”
“Between you and Dr. Watson, I am sure that a small army can be handled efficiently, and covertly in an urban setting. I do not need the media or the general public further speculating about foreign origins for all of these disasters, Sherlock. My business is with these national matters--not with hunting mere localized criminals, however uncommon they may be.”
Sherlock nodded. “A truce, then, for now.”
Mycroft allowed a faint half-smirk to tug at his lips. “I am sure that it shan’t last. Goodnight, Sherlock.” Mycroft turned on his heel, striding away toward a nondescript black car.
When another, similar car pulled up to meet them at the curb, neither John nor Sherlock blinked.
The electric window rolled down, revealing one of Mycroft’s nameless men at the wheel, and Anthea in the passenger seat. Without glancing up at them, she said, “We’re to take you both home.” Even she, however, seemed to show signs of faint concern, in the form of a small line between her brows.
The two men entered the car and settled heavily on the seats.
John was both exhausted utterly, and more awake than he had ever been in his life. He could sense that Sherlock’s anger and frustration were still keeping him from feeling the usual exultation they both tended to share post-disaster. To get his attention, John elbowed him. “In case you’d forgotten, I know a thing or two about urban warfare. It wasn’t all just barren desert out there. Don’t keep me in the dark on your plans, if only this time; you need me for this.”
Sherlock’s eyes fell open slowly, but he did not glance at John. “An army is more difficult to coordinate than one, or even two men. I could-”
“No, you couldn’t,” John muttered.
“You don’t even know what I planned to say,” Sherlock bit back.
“No, but I know what you’re thinking, for once.” John rubbed his eyes, feeling that familiar form of exasperation: one-third deeply annoyed, one-third honestly a little offended, and one-third inexplicably fond. “He won’t chase you, or follow you out of the country, you can’t distract him from where you’re vulnerable. He knows that if his game escalates enough, he can take London from you, make it so you can’t work here anymore. He knows London is in your blood and that the best way to ‘burn’ you would be to keep his destruction here, instead of outside the country.” John had an inexplicable mental image of a large waterfall somewhere in Switzerland and shook his head as if to clear it of the equally mysterious thought, not this time.
Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “How did you deduce that?”
“Your feet were shifting like you were about to bolt, but you had a particularly vicious look of irritation on your face suggesting you were feeling both defiant and reckless, it would only make sense for you to be thinking about trying to leave London both to escape working with Mycroft’s men and Mycroft’s sort of tactics, and to try and incite Moriarty to chase you. It wouldn’t work. Maybe in a less digital era when he’d be forced to follow you himself, but what good would being in another country do you at this point, if he could still call your phone with a hostage here in London?”
And Sherlock had little doubt who that hostage would end up being. They had both too well shown their hands in that regard tonight. He remained silent until they reached Baker Street and stepped stiffly out of the car, which pulled away quietly. Sherlock then grabbed John’s shoulder before the other man could step inside. The flat was now doubtlessly bugged with various listening and recording devices. “I could always take you with me.”
John considered this, but could not quite follow. “What?”
“If I leave, after tonight, and vanish as I’m sure you know I am capable of, but bring only you along--after he has threatened to burn the heart out of me...”
For a strange moment, John’s face wore a military sort of mask that Sherlock himself could still scarcely read any reactions behind. Then John looked away, but did not move from Sherlock’s grasp. They had to look ridiculous: the both of them only half-dry, their clothing lightly scorched and their faces smudged with traces of smoke and soot, standing like this in front of the flat contemplating quasi-legal international war tactics to use against a criminal mastermind.
John took a deep breath and met Sherlock’s gaze with his own: a hint of something stoic and flinty in his dark eyes. “You can vanish. Can the both of us?”
“It may prove more difficult, but not impossible,” Sherlock murmured.
“The flat’s bugged, you think?”
“Of course it is. We can, however, still access certain necessities.” He took a slow, deep breath. “Nothing digital in the house is unmonitored,” he hissed, as though it were a stream of expletives.
“No paper-trail, then. I’m assuming you’ve cash hidden somewhere.”
“Of course.”
“Me too. Not much, but enough for an airline ticket out of the country.”
Sherlock raised his eyebrows at him.
John only smirked. “Never knew if I’d have to pay some extortionate bail money to get you out of someplace. Or, looking at how things normally seem to work out, I’d have to call you and have you use it to bail me out of the trouble you’d gotten me into.”
With a low chuckle, Sherlock shook his head. “Why you tolerate it is sometimes a mystery to me.” He squeezed John’s shoulder. “You don’t have to follow me. You can escape somewhere else entirely, if you would prefer. It would be far safer, and we might devise a way for Mycroft to send you a message when it is safe again in London.” It was more painful an offer to make than he had anticipated, and his hand unconsciously tightened on John’s shoulder. Only then did he notice, belatedly, that his hand had not yet moved. He let John go, shoving his hands into his pockets and clearing his throat.
John waited until Sherlock again looked him in the eye, then grinned. “You’re an idiot. I’m coming with you.”
Sherlock smiled back, inexplicably relieved even as the answer made his life that much more complicated. “If we’re careful, we might not even need to run as far as I had first anticipated, but we shall keep a number of potential escape routes open. Shall we?” He opened the door to 221B, and held it for John before following him in.
They spent the next three hours very quietly working their way through various books, one of them an atlas. Two pots of tea later, Sherlock found himself uncommonly distracted by another inexplicable loose-thread thought: John had not been on a date or a tryst in two months. Firmly pulling himself away from that line of contemplation, he inquired, “Do you speak any foreign languages?”
“Aside from conversational phrases in a couple of dialects from Afghanistan, you mean?”
“Yes.”
John made a thoughtful sound, staring at the ceiling. “Spanish.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows raised.
“I was studying to be a doctor. Spanish is close enough to Latin that it didn’t take too much effort to learn. I got into the habit of speaking a more bastardized form of it while working with Americans in Afghanistan, but I still slip into Castilian a lot when it’s more than just idle conversation.”
“Very good.”
“I assume you’re multilingual.”
“Spanish, French, German, Italian...”
“You’re the bloody EU,” John muttered into his tea.
Sherlock snorted. “Hardly. I’m far more decisive.”
John shook his head, but made a small sound of amusement.
“At least you’re currently unattached,” Sherlock murmured. “As I understand it, these matters would be difficult to explain to a girlfriend.”
John cleared his throat. “Yes, I suppose so.” There was something just a little too offhand about the reply. Usually when his dating life came up in conversation, John got at least a bit defensive or blustering.
Sherlock stared intently at the too-casual look on his flatmate’s face, and the way that blood had visibly risen closer to the surface of his skin along his cheekbones: barely there, but still detectable. John-the-soldier could hide damned near anything behind a mask, but it required an effort to conjure, an effort Sherlock would have noticed, as he did before during their quick planning session outside the flat. It had been natural in that situation, speaking of waging a war. John-the-soldier did not fit into a casual mention of romance in the flat, and thus Sherlock could suddenly see a glimmer of something very interesting, now unhidden.
“John?”
“Hm?” Avoiding eye contact.
After a moment’s further contemplation, Sherlock snapped his book shut and got to his feet. Three long strides had him in front of John, leaning in just a bit too close for normal convention, but still relatively normal by Sherlock-standards. He was peering very closely at John’s face.
John glared at him, mask beginning to slip into place.
“No,” Sherlock hissed, gripping John’s shoulder. “I can tell this is important. Why is it important? Don’t hide like that.”
“Hide like what?” John growled.
“You are again wearing that look that you use on those memorable occasions whereupon you shock everyone at a crime scene by barking orders at members of Scotland Yard when they are being exceptionally offensive or useless: that military one. Normally, I appreciate it, especially when you once managed to use it successfully on Lestrade, surprising all of us; however, do not try to use it on me just now, John.”
John’s eyes fell shut for a moment, but now he only wore a slightly different mask: one that he used when a patient was under the sort of sedation that made them say painfully inappropriate things. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you were blushing. Not with irritation, either.”
The mask cracked, but with a look of anger directed at himself. “It’s not important,” he insisted.
“Apparently it is,” Sherlock insisted right back, but there was a strange edge to his voice, almost nervous.
John opened his eyes and stared right into Sherlock’s with no attempt to hide his expression, but it still seemed strangely unreadable: determination and soldierly grit with a storm of something intense and unfathomable behind it, fueling it. “Fine.” He took a deep breath, and then explained in terse and forced-calm tones, “It’s just that I’ve been trying not to fall in love with you for the past two months, and certain, recent events have led me to the realization that I’ve failed utterly.” He looked away then, seeming to expect some kind of reprimand or scathing comment, but the lines at the corners of his eyes showed more pain than Sherlock would have ever been capable of intentionally exacerbating in one Dr. John Watson.
Feeling suddenly unsteady, Sherlock knelt beside John on the couch, hand still on John’s shoulder. “You...” He trailed off, speechless.
John fidgeted, but shot him a strange look. “You really had no idea?”
“It-” Sherlock’s voice sounded oddly broken. He steadied it, pulling together the remains of his composure and clearing his throat. “It doesn’t exactly fit any of your previously established patterns.”
“Patterns?”
“Of courtship.”
John made a face which indicated that he was both disturbed and yet unsurprised to hear that Sherlock had made a study of his “courtship patterns.” He then shook his head. “You mean the ‘courtship patterns’ wherein I’ve been involved with people who showed genuine interest instead of claiming to be married to their work and displaying an utterly celibate lifestyle during the entirety of my acquaintance with them?”
Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Awkward as this is, I think that a picture of the look on your face at the moment would make me a fortune if I offered to sell posters of it at Scotland Yard.”
Snorting, Sherlock snapped his eyes shut. “Stop it. I’m thinking.”
“I know. It’s very loud,” John muttered, and Sherlock could hear nervousness and not-quite-panic prickling behind the attempt at humor.
This was precisely why Sherlock found romantic entanglements so damned ridiculous. How could he possibly proceed from here? He had judged the terrain so incorrectly before, what was to stop him tumbling down a cliff and ruining it all here and now? The answer, when it occurred to him, was absurdly simple. “John?”
“Yes?”
“I need your help with something.”
John’s brow furrowed, worried and confused both. “With what?”
“I am unsure how exactly to explain... You know that I have been hostile toward your dating women. I have also been inexplicably jealous of your few past trysts with men in the month after you moved in, which you haven’t known. I have been convinced, for the most part, that all of this was due to my own egotism, as I am very possessive and as you have become part of my work...” Sherlock cleared his throat. “That said, I had never been more terrified in my life than when I saw you wearing that damned explosive vest.” Sherlock swallowed thickly, a faint sense of still-fresh horror making his stomach twist. “That was, until you offered... what you-” Sherlock covered his eyes with his free hand, the other now gripping John’s shoulder very hard indeed. “I came to the conclusion that I have been an idiot.”
John seemed to have stopped breathing. His eyes were very wide.
“I have no idea what to do about it without making things wor-” He was cut off by John making a move startlingly reminiscent of a pounce, sending Sherlock sprawling back along the couch. When they landed, John hovered over him, their legs tangled distractingly and John’s hands pinning his shoulders down, but what most arrested Sherlock’s attention was the half-wary, half-hopeful look on John’s face.
“Are you okay with this?” John asked, his breathing already a little uneven.
Feeling the heat and closeness of John’s body, Sherlock was starting to show more than a few signs of a parallel affliction. “Oh, God, yes,” he said, in familiar tones.
For a moment, John grinned brilliantly, then he leaned in and Sherlock’s eyes instinctively fell shut as John’s mouth... Oh, his mouth.
It started out slow and warm, just for a few moments, until Sherlock’s hands gripped John’s waist and pulled him closer, and Sherlock’s tongue darted out opportunistically when he felt John’s lips part in surprise. Then John made a sound like a low growl, ever-so-slightly adjusted the angle of Sherlock’s chin with his thumb, and deepened the kiss, eradicating any lingering hint of chasteness in it: hot and wet and it send a spasm through Sherlock’s stomach straight to his cock. The breathless moan it drew from him made John shudder.
It was all a tangle of limbs and mouths and tugging at clothes, until John’s hands were abruptly forced to move out from under Sherlock's hastily-opened shirt to grip the back and arm of the couch and thus prevent their increasingly fervent movements against each other from tumbling them off the furniture and onto the rug. Smirking against John’s lips for a moment, Sherlock thought, Why, what a marvelous idea. After surreptitiously pushing the coffee table further away from the couch with one foot, Sherlock then pulled at John’s t-shirt, tugging it over his head and forcing John’s arms up. Quickly throwing it aside, Sherlock twisted about and shoved, so that they hit the floor with a decisive clatter.
John stared up in amazement, his pupils blown as he watched the detective shrug out of his shirt, tossing it up onto the recently evacuated couch. “Good God, Sherlock.”
“Hm.” Sherlock was running the edge of his thumb curiously along the scar at John’s shoulder, seemingly fascinated. “I did admit to egocentricity, but I do not actually consider myself a g-ODchrist” he hissed as one of John’s hands gave his erection a firm, exploratory stroke through the fabric of his trousers. John’s fingers were quite staggeringly talented.
“Feeling more religious than usual, yourself, hm?” John smirked at him, and it was almost like the smirk he’d given that other damned soldier months ago, but much better because it was focused and there was fierce affection behind it: all for Sherlock Holmes, who gave a low, growling moan in response and immediately set about systematically driving John Watson to distraction.
Mycroft - One and Two
If only Sherlock had been around to see it, the look on Mycroft’s face as he slowly took in the small disaster-area of the flat’s main room might have been number two on the list of things that made the morning of the day-after-Moriarty-and-the-pool explosion a very good morning indeed for Sherlock Holmes. Top on that list had been a tie between waking up still entangled with a naked Dr. John Watson, and finding himself sharing a shower with the same man shortly afterward.
“I see,” Mycroft said to himself in low, uneasy tones that suggested that he could see far more than he ever wanted to from just a single glance at the sofa, coffee table, rug, and scattered clothing. The word “consummated” crossed his mind, and Mycroft sincerely wished it hadn’t, but then, his brother had spent most of his life honing his abilities to annoy Mycroft. This was simply one of his more well-executed examples.
At least one hundred different airline tickets that belonged to people with names other than John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, had by some “glitch” been printed under the names of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Both men were now missing. All of Sherlock’s various mobile phones were piled on the kitchen counter, along with John’s. Sherlock had left some of his theater make-up and spirit gum out in plain sight. There had also been several homeless vagabonds making irregular visits to the apartment, in the two hours before dawn; Mycroft could still smell traces of their more usual habitats lingering in the air of the apartment, and wrinkled his nose accordingly.
One glance at the books scattered across the desk told Mycroft that Sherlock had planned a trip out of the country. Several of them, in fact, each more convoluted than the last. Mycroft felt a headache starting in the base of his skull.
Mycroft picked up the skull on Sherlock’s mantle, and heard a faint sound that he should not have: a rattle. He peered into the eye sockets and saw one of his smaller and more unobtrusive little cameras there. The camera had originally been on the bookshelf, pointed toward the couch. Mycroft’s scowl deepened, but he picked up the camera nevertheless. It had been disconnected, which his security network had mysteriously not detected. It had also been carefully dissected and put back together again with something slightly too lightweight inside of it.
Some hours later--once Mycroft had removed and carefully unfolded the hand-written note, magnified his brother’s tiny and frightfully precise handwriting, and translated the complex combination of three different ciphers Sherlock had entangled the message in--the elder Holmes brother felt a startlingly novel sensation: a mixture of one-quarter pride at his younger brother not being quite such a fool on this occasion, one-quarter wounded pride that he had needed this note to clarify his brother’s plans for him, one-quarter surprise, and one-quarter pure annoyance.
Two weeks later, after a dramatic final rooftop meeting, wherein it was startlingly revealed that Sherlock and John had been hiding in London the entire time after all, Moriarty fell to his death, and Sherlock Holmes very nearly went with him. To several witnesses, it looked very much as though he did, and rumors furiously circulated that the infamous consulting detective was dead. He nearly was, in fact, so much so that the expression on John Watson’s face following the incident frightened Inspector Lestrade almost to death.
When questioned on the matter, Dr. John Watson’s painful silence was interpreted to mean the worst. Then, within four days, the duo appeared reunited and victorious, delivering under citizen’s arrest a man called Moran to Scotland Yard, neatly tied up and ready for disposal. Moran had worked with a partner, and the Yard knew it, but not a trace of the other man or his body was ever found. When the police dropped unsubtle hints concerning Moran’s partner into their usual follow-up questions, Sherlock seemed bored and uninterested, while John Watson wore a mask of polite interest and a slightly furrowed brow that seemed to make it clear he had no idea what on earth people were asking him about. The matter was reluctantly dropped.
When the pair were at last returned to Baker Street, they promptly did not make contact with the outside world (except to order takeaway) for three straight days, wherein every available surface in the flat not occupied recently by any particularly dangerous or unsanitary experiments was used as a location for a good shag.
Mycroft’s follow-up visit to the flat was painful in many regards as a result. It was also as brief as he could possibly make it, much to Sherlock’s delight.
“You did that intentionally,” John accused after the elder Holmes had made his hasty retreat. “You bastard.”
“Tell me it wasn’t worth it for that look on his face.” Sherlock was still grinning.
John’s face was still red, and he really was a bit irritated, but he still had to resort to another sip of tea in order to hide his smirk behind his mug. “Maybe.” He shot Sherlock a look that was not nearly so annoyed as it should have been, by rights.
Sherlock hummed in a self-satisfied manner, leaning in to kiss the skin just below John’s ear and enjoying the way that John became only further flushed in response. “Do you know something, John?”
“Which something, specifically?”
“Hm. Just that I love you,” Sherlock murmured and kissed John’s neck in time to feel it against his lips when John’s breath caught in his throat.
John’s voice grew suddenly rougher, “Sherlock...”
“Hm?”
By way of repy, John set his tea down on the coffee table with a perfectly steady hand, then sharply yanked Sherlock down into his lap, and kissed the consulting detective senseless. “If I didn’t love you just as well, we’d have some real problems.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Your ideas for hiding bodies were surprisingly good; mine were only a little bit better.” Then Sherlock’s breath escaped him in a ragged curse as John leaned back for the leverage to roll his hips in the most Sherlock-maddening fashion ever devised by mankind. “Fuck, John!”
“That’s rather the idea, darling,” John countered, grinning. “Do keep up.”
With a wide, wicked grin, Sherlock panted, “I never do get your depths.”
“All the better to keep you interested.”
Sherlock bit at the side of John’s neck hard, tearing a gasp from him. “Always.”
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