The Yearly Revolution (Summer)
Title: The Yearly Revolution (3/4)
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~910
Summary: Sherlock walked smoothly through the seasons, without noticing them, without endorsing them. Busy Sherlock, unseasonal Sherlock. Until John Watson arrived in his life. To revolutionise it.
A/N: Once more, thank you so much to Sophie, my amazing beta. She makes everything better, she inspires me and encourages me and she's a fucking genius. And thanks again to my readers and tumblr-followers; hope you enjoy this chapter! <3
Winter is here.
Spring is here.
Summer
Summer relegates jumpers, cardigans and long sleeved shirts, and unfolds, before Sherlock’s surprised eyes, an unwrapped, unjumpered, unadultered John. Sherlock discovers that, in summer, John enjoys going for a run in Regents Park in the morning, walks barefooted in the flat, and tans very fast, which makes his hair seem blonder and his smile look wider.
Maybe his smile actually is wider in summer. Sherlock can’t be sure. He’d want to be allowed to measure John’s smile. To establish the exact distance from one corner to another. To ascertain the precise depth of the light dimples in his cheeks, the number of teeth he shows everytime, the number of wrinkles around his eyes. Sherlock would do it with his fingertips, light touches, methodical, tender, feather touches; counting under his breath; mentally noting the texture, the dimensions, the bounds, the relief, the coordinates, the scale of the map. Sherlock’s John Map. And he’d want to compare John’s smile when he’s smiling at Sherlock with when he smiles at everyone else. Because Sherlock would guess (if he guessed); he would bet (if he bet, if he bet his heart for John, only for John and the width of his smile), he would say that John smiles wider when it’s Sherlock that caused him to smile. But Sherlock can’t be sure.
In summer, John wears jeans and t-shirts, and there’s a red t-shirt that will be Sherlock’s favourite for one day, until the next morning when John wears a blue one that definitely suits him better. But all that is before Sherlock sees that grey t-shirt, with the Barts School of Medicine logo written across its front, that seems to wrap John in boyish anticipation and sweet, tempting strength, and enhances his tanned skin. His skin.
John’s skin. The infinite textures, the undetermined bounds, the fascinating unevenness. John’s moles, that burn in his right wrist. The hair of his forearms, the hair that Sherlock feels stand on end under his knuckles, when one day, totally unintentionally (well, maybe not so totally unintentionally) they slightly rub the underside of John’s right elbow when they are getting into a cab. Sherlock’s brain registers the reaction, and it also registers John’s responsive look, but it stops there. Coward, Sherlock’s coward heart, is making his brain clumsy and imprecise and so he is putting the data away, in a box, on the top of a wardobre in his mind, as John had done with his jumpers in his room. It’s too early. But save the data, Sherlock, you’ll need it. When your heart is prepared, you’ll need the data so that your brain can say now.
Sherlock’s brain buzzes at night. He can’t sleep. And when he can’t sleep, he climbs the fourteen steps to the upstairs bedroom, and looks at John sleeping through the ajar door. Sherlock dives into John’s sleep patterns like one would into the ocean, and lets John’s breath rock him, drifting slowly, feeling John surround him, feeling John. So, when John has a nightmare, Sherlock suffers too, and he’d want to wake him, rescue him, bring him back. But he can’t. And if John’s breath is steady and smooth, Sherlock is lulled by its murmur, until he nearly falls asleep against the door, dampening the wood with hot breath. But he can’t. He always walks down the fourteen steps, noiseless, wrapped in sadness and want. He always goes back his bed at some point, whether it be after minutes or hours, because he can’t allow himself be found out. Because he can’t allow himself to miss John.
Sherlock knows is not right to look at John in his sleep. And he knows it is certainly not right to look at John in his sleep in summer. Because, in summer, John sleeps naked over the covers, and the moon, the same moon that was alone with John in the desert, that moon that met John before Sherlock, is now his accomplice, and for Sherlock (its partner in crime) it draws and details John’s body with obscene accuracy. Narrow ankles and wrists, broad shoulders and thighs, the profile of his nose, the shape of his cock, the blond halo of his eyelashes, of his hair slightly stuck to his forehead by sweet sweat. Solid, edible John. Dreaming, dream John.
Sherlock rests his left cheekbone against the doorframe, and gently pushes the bedroom door, just a few inches, with his nose. He does this, though he knows logically that it makes no difference; he knows that doesn’t make him closer to John, to John’s body. He knows he will never cross the threshold. He knows the mattress will never sink under the weight of their two bodies joined, and the moon will never draw Sherlock’s back, tensing and relaxing in a languid, intimate pace, John’s hands running over it, knowing it, knowing him, leading him harder, faster, deeper, closer, closer, closer, ohgod. And he will never lick the sweat from John’s temple while his orgasm is sweeping away the buzz, the fear, the loneliness, the nightmares. Sweeping everything away.
That’s what Sherlock thinks, with his mind clouded by fear; with his heart hurting, frustrated, burning; with the desire burning and begging under his skin. Ah Sherlock, be patient, don’t be afraid. Wait, like the moon has waited all this time. Wait, like the moon waits every day to light John, for you, every night. Wait and breathe deeply, Sherlock. Be prepared for the revolution.
[Autumn is here].