Chapter Text
John's life doesn't change very much. He still spends a few days in the surgery being bored senseless, and dedicates the rest of his time to following Sherlock into what are mostly crime scenes, but occasionally turn out to be actual crimes. He does the shopping and the dishes, while Sherlock once a month dusts half-heartedly and calls it "cleaning the flat". They share the rent and they eat together whichever meal Sherlock eats that day, and Sherlock still mercilessly mocks John's typing.
They don't touch more than they used to, at least not that John's noticed. Kissing has become part of their means of communication, so there is a little more of that going on, but it's not like they've suddenly became interested in engaging in public displays of affection. Sex is still a once-a-fortnight, mind-bogglingly dirty, and intense affair. Nothing really changes, except Sherlock starts telling John he loves him. All the time. John doesn't think Sherlock has actually noticed just how much he says it.
"I love the way you make tea," Sherlock says, when John hands him the old trusty RAMC mug because Sherlock tends to refuse drinking from the posh new service from Mycroft.
"I love you best in real clothes," he comments absently when John dresses up for Clara's PhD graduation celebratory dinner.
"I do love you John, but you're being extremely stupid about this," when John suggests they wait for a postmortem for once.
"I love you," Sherlock whispers against his lips, kissing John one morning, sleepy and warm and perfect.
John doesn't mind being told. It's quite nice, really, to have the emotional-and-social-interactions-are-beneath-me Sherlock Holmes declare his undying adoration for John on a daily basis, but John hasn't yet managed to say it back and it sours the whole experience.
John wants to tell Sherlock he loves him, because he does love him, to some crazy extremes that apparently include murder and giving up on consulting for the RAMC, to name a few. But he can't force the words out of his mouth.
He spends one lunch hour in front of the mirror in the loo at work, looking at his own face and trying to say it out loud. Four simple words: I love Sherlock Holmes. Or even simpler: I love you, too.
"I…" he stares at his reflection stubbornly, "I. Love. Hmmm."
His mouth seals in a pout, refusing to cooperate, and John gives up and goes back to busy himself with flus and coughs and one broken wrist.
The only thing he can do now, John decides one day on his way home, is tell Sherlock he loves him while fucking. Which might be easier than saying it seemingly out of nowhere, considering John has tons of experience telling previous partners he loves them during sex. But that also means Sherlock would probably dismiss the declaration as John being overenthusiastic. Because apparently Sherlock would never 'hold John to any promise or declaration made in those moments', even if Sherlock himself insisted John can 'always rely on his own words being as truthful as if they were said any other time'.
"Why?" John asked, exasperated and somewhat hurt when Sherlock told him this.
"Because while I find sexual interactions of the kind we have a natural manifestation of the fact that I love you, you categorize them as sessions to be played at and that are nothing more than addenda to our life, not to mention you find it offensive when those patterns repeat in other aspects of our partnership," Sherlock replied absently, staring at his computer screen.
"I do not –" John tried to protest.
"I have to finish this, John," Sherlock cut across him. "I wasn't aware you were still oblivious to the way I see things, after the conversation we had when you accused me of treating you like a pet. But let me assure you that whatever difference of opinion we hold, it has no significance in reality. So I would appreciate it if you save the personal self-examination for later and let me work."
Sherlock stopped typing at that and turned to look at John, waiting. John sighed and nodded, defeated.
He spends most of that week annoyed that Sherlock seems to think he is more invested in their relationship than John, which is ridiculous because John has, and always will, put Sherlock in the centre of his whole existence. Even worse was John couldn't do anything about it, no matter how much he tried, because he's never really learnt how to verbalize the things he wants and feels.
Saying it during sex seems like a good enough start, if not the solution to his problem.
Only suddenly whenever they have sex, John's mouth is preoccupied (kneeling between Sherlock's legs, hands tied behind his back), or gagged (a handkerchief stuffed into his mouth, Sherlock holding him open, saying "harder, come on" as John's nails scratch at his own skin), or really busy trying not to let water into his lungs (Sherlock's hand gripping him by the hair, pushing his face into the bath again, and again, and again until John's desperate with it, shaking and screaming every time he's allowed oxygen until he's finally coming, glorious, and painful, and desperate).
In the quiet moments that always come after, John stares at Sherlock and wonders how it is Sherlock cannot see that it's just as real for John. He studies Sherlock's shoulders, his fingers, the pale skin of his thighs and thinks I love you, I love you, I'm yours, but stays quiet.
Sherlock takes on a case, trying to prove to a very young, very pretty Violet Merville that her seemingly amazing, handsome boyfriend, Albert Gruner, is actually only interested in her trust fund. Sherlock wouldn't have deemed it remotely interesting enough, of course, if Gruner hadn't been suspected of murdering a previous girlfriend in Italy a year ago.
"The Italian authorities said it was an accident," Sherlock tells John, who missed the day's events, working double shifts all week while covering for Sarah, who was off in the south of France on her honeymoon. "The report states the polizia found him crying over her naked body. She was asphyxiated, of course. Not really much to doubt there."
"How can you be sure?" John asks, quietly.
"I read the file."
John stares at Sherlock's figure, sitting in their bed and reading through a book while watching John change for bed, completely unfazed. "Was… Did he strangle her with his hands?" John asks, tentatively.
"Oh no, he used a collar," Sherlock answers, calmly turning back to the book.
John gets under the covers, exhausted and confused, lying with his back to Sherlock, and falls asleep almost immediately with the soothing sensation of Sherlock's fingertips against his nape. He wakes up in the middle of the night, alarmed and breathless for reasons that have already slipped away from him and finds the bed empty.
"How is the case going?" John asks when he sees Sherlock next, getting out of his morning shower two days later, and kisses him lightly on the lips.
Sherlock blinks at him, kisses him again, harder, mouth slightly open and demanding, his hand curling around John's bare hip. John smiles against him, taking a step back.
"Work," he says apologetically when Sherlock hums in disappointment.
"Boring," Sherlock quips, sighing dramatically and John grins at him.
"Tell me about Gruner," he asks, crossing the room to Sherlock's wardrobe.
"He's smart," Sherlock frowns, "very handsome, and extremely charismatic. He meets women and charms them into having a relationship. He chooses girls who're ready to be submissive, but aren't daring enough to try alone. He plays the part of a hedonist, only what he wants is actually to break them." He waits for John to turn and meet his eyes before he continues. "Gruner makes them depend on him, adore him so much they're crushed when he leaves them. The ones he doesn't kill, anyway."
John nods, silent. Sherlock needs an audience more than he needs conversation, and John doesn't really know what to say. Everything seems daft, or insulting, and Sherlock would surely find anything John asks irrelevant. It's strange how he never noticed that Sherlock and he never discuss their sexual habits, but it's glaringly obvious now. And any question he has seems too intimate to discuss for the first time in relation to a case.
"She thinks she's in love with him," Sherlock continues, sounding annoyed. "And she's young enough that any danger she is aware of seems romantic. It's so stupid, John, she doesn't think at all." He stays silent after that, retreating into his own head.
John kisses the mess of hair on top of Sherlock's head, getting an appreciative noise in return, and leaves for the surgery. He can't help wondering what Sherlock sees when he looks at John.
When John is back, Sherlock is lying on the sofa, still dressed in his coat, obviously sulking.
"Tea?" John asks and Sherlock nods miserably.
"Gruner told her everything," he tells John later. The two of them are sitting on the sofa, Sherlock's head resting on John's good thigh, the fingers of their left hands entwined. Sherlock's taken off his coat and opened his shirt collar as well as removed John's jacket and shoes. "He made her think people were judging him because of his tastes."
It's not something John thinks they usually do, sitting together like this, having a real conversation while touching. But Sherlock obviously needs the comfort, gravitating nervously around John, and it is oddly comfortable.
"They probably were," he says and Sherlock tenses. "Every good lie needs some truth to make it believable," John reminds him.
Sherlock sighs. "He is good at that. She believes nothing, but what he tells her."
Sherlock's fingers curl around his wrist lightly, thumb pressing on John's pulse and then drawing it against his lips, kissing John's wrist.
"Why does this bother you?" John asks.
Sherlock grazes his tips against John's skin. "I love how you taste," he says instead of answering.
Lying in bed that night, John finds everything about that case makes him uneasy, makes him look at Sherlock, his warm body wrapped around John, and wonder if maybe he's been brainwashed and conditioned as well. He doesn't think he would leave if anybody came up to him and told him Sherlock was going to kill him. He remembers Sally Donovan's warning that first night, remembers Sherlock's hands tightening impossibly around his neck. 'Someday it's not going to be enough' and then one squeeze too much, one second too long, and John would stop breathing, vision going black, and never wake up. He doesn't think he'll ever believe it, but even if he did, maybe, someday, he doesn't think he could leave anyway.
John wonders if Violet is having trouble falling sleep as well, held in Gruner's arms the way he is held in Sherlock's , and has the same thoughts running through her head.
Sherlock is still agitated next morning, pacing back and forth in the living room.
"Is this because you think you're like him?" John finally asks him.
"In what way, exactly, am I like him?" Sherlock stops and turn to, his eyes focused on John, studying him.
"A." John coughs, uneasy, and looks at the floor. "A sadist."
Saying the word out load is more frightening that it should be. It hangs between them, heavy and dangerous. When he looks up again, Sherlock's jaw is clenched tight and his hands are fisted, he looks like he's going to hit John, but his voice is steady and cold when he speaks. "Why," he asks, taking a step closer to John. "Afraid I'm going to kill you?"
"No," John answers quickly, but there's something in his voice that makes Sherlock's face twist in disgust.
"Your self-loathing is really quite pathetic," he tells John snidely and moves dangerously closer, backing John into the wall, in a few short steps. "You do. You think I might just push a little too hard and kill you someday. Do you think about it and touch yourself?" He whispers in John's ear, voice low and breathless. "A masochist with a death wish, of course, how could I miss this?" Clever fingers trace John's hardening cock through the trousers and John closes his eyes as Sherlock lips whisper in his ear. "Tell me, John, do you dream of an orgasm that kills you? Do you dream of my cock up your arse and my hands around your throat and dying like that?"
"I… No." John mutters, because that's the right answer. It has to be.
Sherlock laughs, short and bitter, and goes to his knees so fast it makes John's head spin, making quick work of John's trousers and pushing everything down. John stares, breathing hard. He doesn't know what he wants. He feels small, too small for everything to fit inside himself.
Sherlock's hand is tight and perfect on his cock, twisting with every upstroke. "Come on, John," Sherlock tells him, moving it faster. "Show me you can come like this. Just my hand, come on, prove me wrong."
John whines. Sherlock knows his body and in a matter of minutes he's close, too close, to coming. And it's an impossible, perfect pleasure, sweet and uncomplicated and it's not enough, it never was for him.
"Please," He gasps. "Please, please. God, Sherlock."
Sherlock's hand moves faster, tighter. "Please what?"
John bites his lower lip, his nails dig into his palms and he concentrates on that. One small scrape of pain and it's still not enough. He's impossibly close to orgasm, hanging desperately on edge, and he needs.
"More," he growls, barely coherent. "More, please. I want you to. Make me."
Sherlock's thumb slides over the slit, spreading John's precome over the glans. "Just this, show me you can," he whispers.
But John can't, he really can't. He needs Sherlock now, needs him like he always does, to take, to own, to hurt. John opens his eyes and looks down. Sherlock's eyes are wild, dilated and desperate, his free hand digging into his own thigh, and John is in awe at how much in control he is.
He can see everything Sherlock's even done to John in his white knuckles, every way he's ever hurt him or made him beg, every way he loves John, every way John loves him back.
"I need you," John says, looking in his eyes. "Please, Sherlock, please hurt me."
Sherlock growls, his hand tightening even further on John's cock, and he bites, sharp teeth piercing the skin of John's bad thigh. John shouts as he comes, the pain and pleasure perfect, shattering John as he slides down to the floor, gasping.
Sherlock pushes himself back, still on his knees. His shirt collar and throat are covered in John's come, and the wet patch on his own trousers in obvious.
Both of them stay long minutes on the floor, sweaty and dirty and breathing hard, staring at one another. Neither of them says a word.
Sherlock gets himself into the A&E that very night. Apparently Gruner did not appreciate the interest in his affairs and sends a warning in the shape of three broken ribs and concussion.
"You careless bastard," John tells Sherlock's unconscious body. "You're too brilliant to act like this."
Sherlock hums and turns in his sleep and John sighs.
When two days later John finds himself alone with Gruner in his flat, very much involved in a case he'd tried to stay away from, just because Sherlock, looking miserable and restless in his hospital bed asked him to help, it really shouldn't come as a surprise Sherlock doesn't do the one and only thing John asked him. Namely – stay in bed and rest.
Gruner is standing in the middle of the room, aiming a knife at John. "I'm going to carve your face so nobody knows it's you," he tells John, "You're not as pretty as I'm used to, but I'm still going to enjoy it."
John braces himself, pulls all his weight to his left side so he'll be ready to jump Gruner the moment he's close enough. He breathes fast and hard, trying to make Gruner think he's more hurt than he really is when a shot rings through the air and Gruner's body slumps on the floor.
John looks right to see Sherlock standing in the door leading to what he thinks is the garden, holding John's gun.
"You're supposed to be in bed," he tells Sherlock, as he gets up and goes to Gruner, checking for pulse.
"If I had stayed in bed, there would be nobody here to save you," Sherlock answers, smiling faintly as he leans back against the wall, pain evident in his face.
"I would manage," John scoffs, goes to Sherlock and pushes up his shirt, ignoring the wince when he presses on the bandage around Sherlock's torso.
"I know," Sherlock says, sharp eyes looking down at John, taking in every small detail. "But I couldn't bear to think about him touching you. Also, you forgot your gun at home."
"I wasn't planning on shooting anyone," John sighs, kissing the underside of Sherlock's jaw.
"Well, obviously, that was stupid of you." Sherlock answers as the sounds of sirens grow stronger.
Sherlock tells Lestrade one of Gruner's previous girlfriends shot him, and when John checks the ballistics report the bullet is found to match another gun.
"Mycroft," Sherlock answers simply from his sick bed on the sofa, when John asks him about it.
"So you could go on a killing spree and Mycroft would just cover it up?" John asks, curious.
"Yes," Sherlock grins and then cocks his head, expression softening. "Well, to a certain limit, of course. Had you taken that job offer, he'd probably ask for your help."
John snorts and leans back in his armchair. "I tidy up after you enough as it is."
Sherlock smiles indulgently. "You do."
John smiles back, wants to say things like I love the way you hurt me and I'll never be able to leave you. But Sherlock has three broken ribs and John's not ready.
"I'm going to tell you," he promises Sherlock instead.
Sherlock nods and doesn't push.
A month after Sherlock shot Gruner, John's still waiting.
He's coming home rather late one evening from the surgery, and discovers Sherlock sitting on the sofa, holding a collar. Holding a thick, black leather collar. John gulps audibly and Sherlock smirks at him.
He's ready to sink to his knees, crawl over and beg for it, whatever it actually is, but he can't. Can't move, can't breathe, the world seemingly goes quiet, focuses on Sherlock's fingers caressing the leather. The revelation is like a slap. No, like being run over by a bus, sudden and brutal. He thinks he should have known this about himself, about them. He always thought that someday Sherlock would cross that line, the one that will break John. But he figures there is no line. There's no going too far with this, because he doesn't know where what Sherlock wants stops and what he's willing to do begins. Everything is blurred together, inseparable. They fit together, broken, and twisted and perfect.
"Your ribs?" John asks breathlessly.
"Are fine," Sherlock answers. "Come here."
And John does, moving fast to stand in front of Sherlock, who smiles wide and pulls him into his lap. John straddles him, knees spread on either side of Sherlock's thighs, and presses his mouth against Sherlock's. Close, but barely touching, breathing together and then Sherlock kisses him, deep and soft, his free hand twisting in John's hair.
"Do you still want to –"
"Yes," John moans, "Yes, I –"
"Shh," Sherlock silences him, pressing one last peck on his lips. "Put this on me." He hands John the collar, and John stares at it, heavy and unfamiliar in his palm. He looks up at Sherlock's eyes, and just breathes, overwhelmed and slightly unbalanced.
"Okay?" Sherlock asks, and John nods.
John's fingers deftly place it around Sherlock's throat and close the buckle with a surgeon's capability. John makes sure Sherlock can breathe comfortably and then caresses the band, just for a second. It's striking, dark against Sherlock's pale throat, the colour matching his hair and his pupils. He's gorgeous, and John's in awe.
"Tell me now," Sherlock whispers, covering the hand still on the collar with his own. "Tell me like this."
"I –" John begins and stops, touches with his thumb across the leather and then up across Sherlock's skin. "I love you." He can feel himself smiling. "I love you because you're impossible. I love you because you saved me from myself. I love you because you want me, and because you love me back," it comes out in a rush, easy and freeing, and the best thing John ever said. "I love you when you kiss me, and when you fuck me, and when you hurt me. I love you because you forgive me and I am yours because I don't want to be anything else. You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Sherlock. I love you, I love you, I love you."
He grins, breathless and exhilarated, and Sherlock grins back, brilliant and stunning, and all his. John kisses him, deep and happy, and opens the buckle, removing the collar and giving it back to Sherlock, who throws it away.
Sherlock kisses him back, open and wet, and then pushes John to the floor, covering him with his body.
"I love you," John whispers between kisses. "You're all mine and I love you."
Sherlock bites his lip playfully. "I love you, too. Now be quiet."
Nothing really changes after that, except everything does.