Archive of Our Own

Table For Two

John shuts off the water in the shower and steps out, towelling himself briskly dry. He brushes his teeth and spends a few moments leaning forward to peer at his face in the mirror. It’s a little better, he thinks. He doesn’t look quite as bad as he did before. The colour in his complexion has improved and now that he’s sleeping regularly, the bags under his eyes are not as deep. He stares at his reflection and for a moment wonders what on earth Sherlock could possibly see in him, but it’s hardly a new question. He used to ask himself that even before this. Whatever ‘this’ is meant to be, at any rate.

He supposes it’s a proper relationship, though neither of them has said. In light of everything else that was going on, discussing a definition for public usage hasn’t really taken priority. John rinses his mouth and toothbrush, puts the latter away and opens the bathroom door. For a split second he is disoriented, almost walking past Sherlock’s bedroom before remembering that he keeps his things in there now. That it’s somehow become ‘their’ bedroom without much prior discussion or official agreements.

After that initial thing at John’s old flat, Sherlock had called them a taxi – actually used his phone and called one – then gone into kitchen and carefully packed up the groceries he had bought. “We’ll get Mycroft’s people to come and do your packing,” he’d said when John had come to stand in the doorway behind him, watching. “Moving is so tedious. Just bring whatever you need for the next day or two.”

John had thought of arguing, but let it go. There was nothing about him or his flat that Mycroft Holmes didn’t already know, quite likely, so arguing for his privacy was a bit of a lost cause no matter what. He’d gone back to the bedroom and packed a bag with a change of clothes or two, his toiletries, the book he’d been trying to read. He heard Sherlock’s phone buzz from the sitting room and then Sherlock was there, telling him that the taxi was downstairs. He hadn’t asked, in the taxi. Where they were going, that is. Somehow, he’d already suspected, so it was only a slight surprise when the taxi left them at 221b Baker Street. Sherlock paid and hastily got out, his gaze just grazing John’s face on the way, only long enough for John to catch a fleeting glimpse of a small amount of apprehension on Sherlock’s face. Sherlock was actually worried about his reaction. That alone mollified him somewhat, and he’d got out of the taxi with his bag and stood there on the pavement looking at his former front door.

Sherlock had come to stand beside him. “Mycroft kept it empty for us,” he’d said quietly. “Shall we go in?”

“Yeah, all right,” John had said, clearing his throat. “I, er, I don’t have my – ” He’d stopped, feeling the press of a jagged metal object in his right hand, Sherlock’s fingers slipping away just as quickly. He’d looked down to find his own old house key and had to swallow to force the sudden lump in his throat away.

Sherlock had cast a quick, diagnostic look at him, then stepped forward and unlocked the door himself. “Come on,” he’d said, voice studiously even and conversational, but John had begun to deduce for himself that that meant that Sherlock was hiding some deeper uncertainty.

They’d gone in. Mycroft’s minions had arrived with John’s few possessions, neatly boxed and labelled, and disappeared again within five minutes. Clearly Sherlock had not authorised them to unpack, only to pack. (Perhaps this was meant to be some sort of consideration that John might want to decide for himself where to put his things. He didn’t know.) Neither of them had seemed to know what to do with themselves. They wandered from room to room at first, sort of separately, just looking things over, until Sherlock had called him to come and see the new worktop Mrs Hudson had had installed in the kitchen. Once the discussion of that died away, they found themselves just facing each other, both a bit apprehensive and uncertain as to what to say. John finally broke the silence. “Kettle?” he’d asked, and Sherlock had sprung into action.

“Wh – oh, yes, of course!” Instead of saying where it was (he couldn’t have known, judging from the way he’d clearly not been inside the house himself since he’d left, but he’d probably figured it out somehow, smudge of a thumbprint on a certain cupboard door or something), Sherlock went to the correct cupboard, extracted the kettle and teapot both and set about making tea. John had watched him and thought that he could point out that he could have made the tea, but this version of Sherlock who seemed so willing to do things like make tea and do the washing up was still novel enough to make John swallow his questions.

They’d had tea. John had unpacked his books and slotted them into the proper shelves in the sitting room, exactly where they used to be. Sherlock’s were all still there, slightly dusty (though Mrs Hudson had obviously been dusting regularly), but all in the same places they had been. John thought about the first time he’d unpacked his books here, careful to keep them separate from Sherlock’s until it became quite clear that Sherlock didn’t care whatsoever about whose books were whose. He had seemed like the sort who would be quite fussy about his possessions, but apparently he hadn’t been at all bothered by John’s things mingling with his. The lines between whose books were whose had got so fuzzy that by the time John had returned to pack and move his things out the day after the funeral, he’d stood there for long minutes of blankness, occasionally unable to remember whose books had belonged to whom. Some were obvious: he never would have owned a book called Moulds of Moravia or The Psychology of Pseudonyms, but others were less clear. One would have thought that the medical textbooks had all belonged to John, but Sherlock owned copies of several of them, particularly on pathology, his copies as well-thumbed and studied as John’s own. Others, such as A Complete Study of Amoebic Dysentery in the Colonies in the Eighteenth Century could have belonged to either of them. John had suspected it was Sherlock’s (he recalled having studied the spread of particular epidemics on ships and in certain colonies, but he doubted somehow that he would ever have needed to purchase en entire book on the subject), and he’d left it behind.

When supper time had rolled around, Sherlock had put his laptop aside, stood, and asked John where he would like to eat, and if he would prefer to order in or go out. He hadn’t asked if John was hungry and John had noticed, but kept his instinctive retort about Sherlock playing minder again to himself. Sherlock had added, less certainly, that he could also cook and that it was John’s preference. John had been reluctant to relinquish this newly-reclaimed territory, and besides which, he still felt un-presentable and not entirely willing to be seen in public with someone who looked as immaculate as Sherlock always did. Not just yet. He’d not said all that, of course, but said instead that perhaps they could order in, and when Sherlock pressed him for a culinary preference, he’d said Indian.

And much later, after they had eaten and retired to their respective armchairs with their laptops, John had felt Sherlock’s attention still hovering cautiously on him, though his eyes stayed mostly on the screen in front of him. But the instant John had yawned, Sherlock had got to his feet and said he was going to get ready for bed. John had agreed, then taken his bag upstairs to change into his pyjamas. When he’d got back downstairs to brush his teeth and all that, Sherlock appeared in the doorway of the bathroom in his pyjama pants and an old t-shirt, looking confused.

“Where did you go?” he’d asked, brow furrowing.

“Er – just upstairs to change?” John had said, feeling his own forehead creasing in confusion. (Where else would he have gone?)

Sherlock had continued to frown, watching him, and when John made to exit, Sherlock nodded toward his bedroom with his chin. He didn’t say anything explicit; there was no John, I was thinking that in light of our new status in terms of having become sexually involved with one another, perhaps you would care to form a new habit and sleep in my bedroom with me from now on or That thing that we did earlier at your horrible beige flat was rather nice and if you don’t mind, I’d fancy another round so why don’t you sleep down here tonight? or even a crude (and wholly uncharacteristic) John Watson, I want you in my bed, or a simple request I’d like if you slept here tonight if you’d be amenable. Just a jerk of his chin. In the end, John had sort of shrugged and acceded, Sherlock following him into his own bedroom and closing the door behind them. There were no sudden moves, no dramatic advances. Nobody threw anybody up against a wall and shagged him senseless. Instead Sherlock just went and got into bed, and after half a second, John went to the far side and got in, too. Sherlock had switched off the bedside lamp but lay on his side, facing John, eyes awake and reflecting the streetlight coming in through the window.

John finally had the wit to realise that Sherlock had no idea what he was doing or how things were supposed to proceed. His earlier willingness at John’s flat would suggest that he was interested and clearly he hadn’t wanted John to go sleep upstairs, but a first move might have to come from John. Only John was still full of roiling, unsettled emotions and hadn’t been sure if he could just lean over and kiss Sherlock, as though they were two regular people who shared a bed and a sex life and did this all the time. He’d stayed where he was, on his back, looking at the ceiling and trying to get his thoughts in order.

Eventually Sherlock had turned onto his back, too, and said stiffly, “You don’t have to sleep here, of course. If you’d rather not… I had just thought that, perhaps, you…” He’d trailed off, leaving John to wonder if he should try to suggest an ending to the unfinished sentence, but none of the things coming to his mind seemed right. Finally Sherlock had resumed. “I can certainly ask – ” He’d stopped, revising his original choice of words. “I can make up the bed in the upstairs bedroom. If you’d rather stay there. It’s quite all right. I apologise if I… presumed.”

He had presumed, hadn’t he? But then, given that John was the one who had lunged at Sherlock earlier, there on his bed at the old flat, that it was John who’d been the one to climb onto Sherlock and started rubbing themselves together, perhaps he had every right to think it only natural that John would want to sleep with him that night, in whichever sense of the term one cared to choose. “No,” John had said then. “It’s all right. I’ll stay.”

A beat had passed, then Sherlock exhaled and said, “Okay.”

He’d wanted to tell him, some part of John had wanted to say that it was going to be okay, that things were on the path to being all right again, that this was a miracle, that Sherlock was not only alive but back and that he actually did feel something like this for John, that it was all more than okay – and yet it was impossible to say any of that just yet. So John had released his own pent-up breath and moved closer to Sherlock. He put his hand on Sherlock’s cheek to turn his face, and kissed him. Sherlock had responded immediately this time, turning onto his side to face John again after a moment, a tentative hand coming to settle on John’s hip. And when, a few long moments later, John moved his hand from Sherlock’s bony hip to the not-entirely-soft flesh between his thighs, Sherlock had made a surprised sound. “Okay?” John had whispered then, breaking away from the kiss just long enough ask.

“I didn’t realise – that we would – again – never mind. Yes. Okay. Yes.” Sherlock had closed his eyes and shifted, giving John better access to touch him, and after a hesitant moment, his long fingers had found their way to John’s cock through his pyjama pants, and suddenly, at least for the moment, everything seemed like it really was going to be all right.

Now, two weeks later, John finds himself in Sherlock’s – in the bedroom – still having to think about which drawer he’d left his pants in. They hadn’t discussed it, John staying permanently in Sherlock’s room, but he’d deliberately put off unpacking his clothes specifically because he wasn’t sure what Sherlock wanted. Did he intend for John to retain his own room and just… come down and stay over for sex sometimes, or did he intend John to just move right in? The question had answered itself by the fourth day. John had stepped out to get milk, a newspaper, and for some reason Sherlock had asked him to pick up hemp seeds (experiment, John assumed) and when he got home, he found that the suitcases containing his clothes had disappeared from the sitting room. Sherlock was peering into his microscope at the kitchen table, so John just explored furtively and discovered that Sherlock had unpacked his things directly into the drawers and closet of his own bedroom, which seemed to settle the question of where he wanted John to stay. John had debated, then decided not to mention it, going back into the kitchen to make tea before Sherlock could realise what he was doing and leap up to insist that he do it, nicely but firmly taking things out of John’s hands and taking over. It was getting a bit exasperating, but then Sherlock always did overdo apologies those rare occasions that he made them at all.

John pulls on a pair of socks now, gets a clean shirt from the closet, a well-worn pair of jeans from one of the dresser drawers, and pads into the kitchen to explore the possibilities of breakfast. His appetite has slowly begun to return, and he appreciates that Sherlock has kept his comments about that strictly to himself, even if he still watches John eat with a little too much deliberate observation, no matter how casually he tries to disguise it. John knows very well that it’s not as simple as not having had much of an appetite; he’s a medical professional for God’s sake and he knows the signs and symptoms of what he’d been going through. He also knows that while it’s not a question of an overnight turn-around, having the primary reason for said affliction removed could go a long way toward fixing things. He prefers not to think about it too much. Truth be told, he’s slightly afraid of the entire topic; he and Sherlock haven’t spoken about it since the day John moved back in and John would sort of prefer to keep it that way. One day, he supposes, he’ll want to know the details. A day when he’s certain he can handle them without the entire topic sending him back into that downward spin. Not today.

Sherlock is sitting in the kitchen with a newspaper and a cup of tea. He sees John and looks up, closes the paper and folds it, tossing it toward John’s side of the table. He’s been out already: their delivery subscription hasn’t kicked in yet, so one of them has gone to buy the paper from the newsagent’s on the corner every morning. (John has also noticed that Sherlock scrupulously disposes of the previous day’s paper the instant the new one is in the flat. He is suspicious that Sherlock thinks he must have a newspaper collecting neurosis or fetish or something, when the truth is simply that John had let himself get incredibly messy and couldn’t be bothered. It’s another thing he’d just rather not talk about.) “Morning,” Sherlock says, looking up at him. “Tea?”

John goes over and bends to kiss him on the lips. “Yeah, but I’ll make it,” he says. “Thanks for getting the paper.”

Sherlock waves this off. “Of course. Breakfast?”

“You don’t have to cook for me – ” John starts, the argument building in his throat raising the pitch of his voice, but Sherlock cuts him off.

“I wasn’t going to.” Sherlock’s hand is on his arm, placating. As though trying to soothe a wild animal.

John instinctively jerks his arm back. He doesn’t need to be mollified and soothed and consoled, damn it. “What?”

Sherlock gets to his feet in one swift, graceful motion, one of those many enviable traits of his and smiles. “I thought maybe we could poach eggs. Together,” he clarifies.

John frowns in return. “I’m terrible at poaching eggs. They always fall apart.”

“I know,” Sherlock says affably. “Hence the doing it together part. I happen to be rather brilliant at poaching eggs. You like poached eggs. Therefore – ” he gestures expansively – “I thought it might be nice? Besides,” he adds, some of the breeziness fading, a fractional amount of uncertainty seeping into his voice, “isn’t that what people do? Make breakfast together?”

John stares at him for a moment. “People like who?”

Sherlock bites his lower lip. Actually bites it, like a character from a second-rate novel. The gesture makes him look suddenly much younger and less sure of himself. But then he recovers, brain whirring and clicking visibly. He takes a few steps toward John with a light that’s somewhat predatory in his eyes, getting right into John’s space. His voice lowers and it’s seductive as hell. “People who… take each other’s penises into their mouths and suck each other to orgasm, the way we did last night.”

Heat floods John’s cheeks in a rush. Though he normally finds it strange and endearing and slightly hilarious (though completely unsurprising) that Sherlock never, ever uses euphemisms for anything to do with the body or its acts, at the moment he’s completely turned on by it, and by the audacity of referring to it so plainly, so unveiled and blatant right here in the kitchen, bright with daylight. With the exception of brief kisses like the one they just exchanged, Sherlock usually confines any sort of sexual activity to the realm of night time and the bedroom, rarely even making mention of the fact that it’s something that they do during the day. John doesn’t know if this is because Sherlock finds it embarrassing or simply unnecessary to talk about, but it’s fine with him. Either way, it makes this all the more surprising, and the fact that Sherlock is standing close enough to him to touch, for John to be able to catch a trace of his unique scent, his breath warm from his tea, makes it all the more arousing. He has just enough presence of mind to realise that Sherlock has also very neatly sidestepped the dangerous territory of labels and What They Are. John is grateful and slightly impressed with this bit of navigational dexterity on top of being turned on. He gets a little closer to Sherlock and tilts his mouth up toward his. “Okay then,” he says, mouth hovering just over Sherlock’s. “Teach me how to poach eggs properly.”

Sherlock lowers his head just perceptibly. He will rarely initiate kissing but seems to like it when John kisses him. This inclination of his head may be as close as he’s got yet to actually expressing a desire to be kissed. John lets him have it (oh, who is he kidding? He’s letting himself have it as much as Sherlock), putting his hands on Sherlock’s narrow waist. After, he doesn’t step back right away, still standing close enough to Sherlock for that heady rush of their proximity to swirl around him like a cloud. Sherlock’s eyes flutter open again and for a moment he looks disoriented. Then his never-ending, constant stream of thoughts clicks on again and he says, “Eggs. Yes.” He takes a large step away as though steadying himself and gets a large pot out of one of the lower cupboards. Clearing his throat, he beckons John over and starts to fill the pot. “The first step is water, obviously. We’re going to boil it and then add a bit of vinegar.”

“Vinegar?”

“Yes, it helps keep the eggs together so that they don’t fall apart.” Sherlock is studying the water, as though watching it will make it boil faster.

John decides to get out the vinegar while they’re waiting. “Do we need anything else?”

“Is there sea salt in there?” Sherlock asks, getting out a medium-sized clear bowl.

John searches and finds it toward the back with the other spices. “Yeah, it’s here.” He brings it over to where Sherlock is standing. “Now what?”

There are four eggs sitting on the table. “Don’t worry,” Sherlock says, catching his eye and unspoken thought at the same time. “They’ve only been out of the fridge for about half an hour, just to take the chill off. They’ll cook faster this way. We’re going to put them all in this bowl and then slide them into the water at the same time. They’ll separate on their own in there.”

“Okay,” John says. He privately thinks that so far Sherlock is doing well at explaining without being condescending – not an easy task for him, as John has many exasperated reasons to recall – and he appreciates it. And apparently he’s never had even a vague notion of the right way to poach eggs. He’d given up after a few disastrous tries that resulted in pots of boiling egg murk and stuck to boiling or frying them ever since. During those eighteen months they had lived together before, Mrs Hudson frequently made breakfast for all three of them. John doesn’t know if Sherlock has said something, but Mrs Hudson hasn’t been around much since they moved back in. She’d come and said hello, of course, her eyes resting too long on John’s face, filled with what John devoutly hoped wasn’t pity, and had made herself scarce ever since. Perhaps this is Sherlock’s idea of tact, letting John have some space from the world while he sorts himself out. Perhaps Sherlock just wants some privacy while they attempt to establish themselves in this new reality, let their private world stabilise before letting the rest of the world in. Either way, it feels right and John appreciates whatever it is Sherlock has done to ensure that they’re left alone. Even Mycroft hasn’t been by.

“Would you break them into the bowl?” Sherlock asks politely, going to the fridge and getting out the bread.

Somehow it’s wrong, him being this polite and accommodating, but John is still of two minds about whether he really wants that to change. He imagines that once Sherlock stops worrying that he’ll fly into a temper and move out again, the customary rudeness will be back and it will be business as usual. He thinks this on the surface, but deep down he isn’t sure. Sherlock is different. Is it all because they’re trying to have a romantic whatever-it-is now? (John hates the thought that it’s because Sherlock is still worried about him.) Either way, it’s all completely new ground: they’re not even trying the difficult task of re-establishing the former status quo; they’re breaking altogether new ground – even more so for Sherlock, whom John is certain has never been in a relationship before – and it’s bound to be a bit tenuous at first. Never mind that for now: poaching eggs is the order of business. John picks up an egg and pulls the bowl closer. “I’m a bit rubbish at cracking eggs without breaking the yolks,” he admits. “Any tips?”

“Get a good break on the first try or else you’ll have to pry the shell apart with your thumbs, which is when the yolks are most likely to break,” Sherlock advises. “Then ease it gently into the bowl, try not to drop it. Don’t worry, there are lots more eggs if some of them break.”

John shakes his head to himself. Sherlock had always cooked before, though almost always only when prodded to do so, and produced perfectly acceptable meals, but rarely showed signs of advanced culinary knowledge. Although he had always poached eggs for John on occasion, always unannounced or explained. Just when the mood struck him, John supposed. He’d always just accepted it without argument; a strategy he’d adopted early on that frequently made life with Sherlock Holmes a little easier. He breaks the first egg quickly and cleanly and is pleased to see it slip undamaged into the bowl.

“Good!” Sherlock says, sounding satisfied. “Do the others now.” He turns away to turn down the now-boiling water. “We want the water hot but not boiling,” he explains. “The eggs will still cook and the bubbles won’t break them apart.”

Ah. Another thing John had got wrong, then. He brings the bowl over. “Now?”

“First we’re going to add the vinegar – ” Sherlock pours in a small amount, probably about a tablespoon, into the water – “and then we want to make a bit of a funnel in the water to draw the eggs to the centre just before we pour them in. I’ll stir, you add the eggs. Get the bowl as close to the water as possible and then just tip them in.”

“Got it,” John says, eyes on the water. Sherlock gives it a vigorous stir and John gets the eggs in without mishap. The same cloudiness is happening, but much less so. He can already see that all four yolks are enveloped in their own whites, huddled together near the bottom of the pot. “Look at that,” he says, peering at them. “It’s working!”

“Of course it is,” Sherlock says, sounding slightly amused. And possibly fond?

John steals a look at him: yes, he’s smiling, eyes gentler than usual. Sherlock turns his head and their eyes meet. This time Sherlock lowers his face much more deliberately than he has yet done, and John doesn’t hesitate to respond. As they kiss, something warm begins to uncurl in the tightness of John’s chest. He gets closer and puts an arm around Sherlock’s silk dressing-gown-covered waist and presses his torso against Sherlock’s. Yes, he thinks: making breakfast together was a good idea on Sherlock’s part. Something to show that they’re different now, that they are people who make breakfast together. It’s more romantic than just passing the butter and making tea as roommates. It’s a subtle difference but John feels it and knows that Sherlock meant him to, and it counts.

Sherlock breaks away from him, picking up a slotted spoon and nudging the eggs gently in their pot. “Just to make sure they’re not sticking,” he says, but he sounds just a bit breathless, which John likes.

“Should I make toast?” he asks, and Sherlock acquiesces. John goes to the toaster and puts in four slices of bread. Sherlock comes to stand near him, plugging in the kettle, and smiles at him. And there it is, another morning begun and nothing has gone wrong. They eat their perfectly poached eggs on buttered toast at the kitchen table and drink a pot of Earl Grey with it. Sherlock has moved the microscope aside and – miraculously – he doesn’t seem to have any other apparatus set up. (Another thing that will surely change after this interesting grace period, but John doesn’t even mind that any more, anyway.)

***

Because of all this domestic contentedness, John summons his nerve and broaches something with Sherlock that he’s meant to ask about for, well, about two weeks now. There’s a small stack of these questions and he’s not sure how many he’ll be able to manage at once, in terms of hearing the answers, but he feels better about trying now than he has yet, so that’s something. Sherlock is sitting across from him in his chair, reading something long and hardbound and entirely uninteresting, at least from John’s perspective – something to do with minerals found in the Outer Hebrides – and John is having a go at reading his book again.

“Sherlock,” he says, breaking the quiet in the room. Sherlock looks up. “Can I ask you something?”

Sherlock manages to gesture vaguely and shrug at the same time. “Of course.”

John hesitates, then gets it out. “When are you going to tell people you’re alive again? I mean, it’s not public yet, is it?”

Sherlock puts the book down on his crossed legs and focuses on John. “No. I suppose it isn’t.”

He’s holding back, John thinks, debating what to say and what to keep to himself. He’s known that particular expression for years now, that distinct look of calculation, evaluation. And he hasn’t answered the question. “So – when are you going to tell them?” he repeats. “I mean, obviously your brother knows. But what about Lestrade and them? Molly? Are you going to start consulting again?”

Sherlock smiles slightly, as though to himself. “Took you a bit to ask about that,” he says lightly. “To answer your questions, no, Lestrade does not yet know. I haven’t made any effort to go public, if you will, with my return. I am hoping to start the work again soon. As to when, I haven’t quite decided yet.”

One of John’s suspicions about this is looking more and more plausible. “Why not?” he asks, fearing the answer.

Sherlock’s hesitation confirms it. “John…” he begins, then stops, that internal debate continuing.

“It’s because of me, then?” John asks bluntly.

Sherlock looks at the fireplace for a moment, obviously choosing his words with some care. “I don’t think it’s what you think,” he says after a moment, his face masked with that same careful politeness. “I just thought it would be… good… to have a bit of time on our own before getting back into all of that.” He glances at John, then holds his gaze and goes on when John doesn’t argue or respond immediately. “This is new, for us, this… our new… this. What we are now. We’re not re-establishing something old and familiar. Even if we were, I imagine it might be a bit difficult, considering…” He stops again for a moment, then finishes quietly. “I just thought it might take a bit of time to get ourselves sorted. I thought it was worth taking the time for.”

This is surprising and John finds himself cautiously pleased and a bit touched by it. He’d thought Sherlock was going to say something about him not having been in a good condition or fit for that kind of potentially-traumatising work yet or something like that. Which may have been true, which is all the more reason why John doesn’t want to hear it. But this is more than he had expected Sherlock to say and comes closer to addressing their new relationship than they’ve previously discussed. What sort of thing they are is obvious; it’s something where they can both reasonably expect to be allowed to kiss the other, where they share a bed every night, and so far not a night has gone by wherein something specifically sexual has not occurred in said bed. Obviously they’re together, in that way. But they haven’t talked about it and John doesn’t necessarily need or want them to; he just doesn’t know how he’ll be expected (allowed?) to refer to Sherlock in front of other people. But he can’t quite leave his suspicion alone. “And Mrs Hudson?” he asks. “She’s barely been up here since we moved back. Did you tell her to stay away?”

Sherlock blinks a little too quickly, the debate intensifying. He won’t lie, John thinks, not now. He’ll give a painful truth over what he suspects John wants to be told when asked directly like this. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Sherlock just barely winces. “She… Mycroft mentioned that you hadn’t been… entirely yourself. He – and I – thought that a bit of space would be good. Same as before, really. She’s just giving us a chance to settle in.”

John’s pulse has increased; he is slightly upset by this. The last thing he wants is everyone treating him like he’s made of glass, damn it. He makes himself breathe slowly, not looking at Sherlock and thinking about how to word his next bit. After a moment or two he starts. “I know that you’re just concerned about me,” he says through forced calm. “And I don’t really want you to be, but I can see that that’s not going to change. I appreciate that it’s only because you care about me. I realise that there’s a lot you would do to keep me from – ” No, that’s not quite it – “to make me happy,” he amends. “So, I have another question.”

Sherlock’s expression becomes guarded, his light eyes narrowing slightly. He waits, not saying anything.

John feels awkward about asking this. It sounds like an accusation even just within his head, but it’s got to be asked. He has to know. “This,” he says, gesturing between the two of them, “are you just doing this to make me happy?”

Sherlock frowns and closes his book. He looks genuinely bothered. “No,” he says, his entire brow creasing, particularly at the bridge of his nose. “Why would you ask that? Have I ever been the sort of person who does things just to please other people?”

“No,” John says, possibly too quickly to be tactful. “But that’s what I mean – you do care about me, so I could understand if you were just – if you just wanted me to be happy. Stable. All of that.”

The frown deepens and Sherlock actually looks a bit insulted. “You think that I would honestly involve myself in a relationship of a romantic/sexual nature that was entirely feigned, only to humour you?”

When he puts it that way, John can hear how ridiculous it sounds. “No,” he allows. “I just… I don’t know. I suppose I just wanted to confirm. That you really want this, for us to be like this. In a romantic relationship.” There, they’ve both said it out loud now.

Sherlock responds with another question. “Have I been lacking in apparent enthusiasm in any respect?”

“No,” John admits. It’s true enough. So far they have traded any number of hand jobs, blow jobs, or just lain together and rubbed their cocks against each other’s, all of which Sherlock seemed equally ready to do, provided that John was the one to initiate the activity. “But it’s good to have things said expressly, sometimes.”

Sherlock still looks annoyed at the very least. He opens his book again and doesn’t look at John as he speaks. “I am interested in being in this relationship. Satisfied?”

John feels rebuffed, but he supposes he deserves it. Sherlock, in his own, hidden way, must have been a bit hurt that he’d asked. (But it’s Sherlock. Of course he had to ask.) “Okay,” he says, his voice small. Then, “Thanks.”

Sherlock makes a non-committal sound and doesn’t look up.

“I’m sorry,” John adds under his breath a few heartbeats later.

Sherlock waves this off and turns a page in his book. “It’s quite all right.”

(Is it, though?) John stares at the page of his own book unhappily for a few minutes, then gives up a bit later and goes to put the kettle on.

***

That evening, they’re sitting on the sofa watching crap telly, some sort of quiz game show. The remnants of takeaway (Thai, from that place around the corner) are scattered on the coffee table and there is a comfortable sort of silence between them. After a bit, Sherlock gets up and takes their plates to the kitchen and John hears the sound of the water running. He’s about to call to Sherlock to not start the washing up but then Sherlock is back, so perhaps he was just washing his hands. He sits down next to John again, but closer this time, and after a moment he shifts and drops an arm casually over the back of John’s shoulders. John immediately stops being able to pay attention to the programme. Sherlock has never done this before. They don’t cuddle except for any incidental cuddling that might follow sex of one form or another. They do sleep together, after all, and at night it seems that most limitations disappear. But this, just in the sitting room in front of the telly, never happens. It’s ridiculous: John feels like he’s a teenager again, only back then he would have been the one getting his arm around some bird and hoping she wouldn’t slap him for it. Sherlock’s body is relaxed where it’s leaning against his, but John can feel the slight constraint between them. Somehow it’s also a bit arousing, knowing that Sherlock is just a touch unsure of himself about this. His heart begins to beat a little faster.

“What is the name of the mountain range that separates Italy from Switzerland?” the game show host asks one of the candidates.

“The Alps,” Sherlock says, before the contestant can respond. He always used to do this, answer all of the questions right before the players could. Sometimes, if it was a category John knew, he’d try to compete, but Sherlock nearly always got them all right, unless the subject was popular culture or astronomy of any kind.

“Obviously,” John agrees. The candidate guesses the Apennines and Sherlock snorts derisively.

The next question is about the pH balance of human saliva. “It’s alkaline,” Sherlock says. “It ranges, depending on the person. Six point seven-five to seven point zero would be approximately normal.”

According to the quiz show, the answer is six. “Close,” John says, snickering. “You almost had it.”

“They’re idiots,” Sherlock says, but his voice is low and soft and his mouth is rather close to John’s ear. “I’ve studied saliva in depth, as you should remember.”

“Yeah, the skull in the fridge would be hard to forget. You’re sure that six point seven-five to seven isn’t the pH balance only after death?” John is deliberately provoking him, but his mind is much less on the joke at Sherlock’s expense than it is on the proximity of Sherlock’s mouth. This is brand new, he can’t help but think. They’ve never snogged in front of the telly before.

“Perhaps we should test it ourselves,” Sherlock suggests, that silky voice a centimetre from John’s ear.

If that isn’t the most Sherlockian pick-up line John has ever heard, he will – never mind that. He turns his face and before he can even make a move, Sherlock’s mouth is on his, the arm on John’s shoulders tightening. The kiss is heated, Sherlock’s tongue pushing against his unhesitatingly. Normally he starts kisses slowly, following John’s lead and tempo, but has never yet made the first move to go deeper, to open his lips to John’s before John has initiated it, and he has never kissed John like this outside the bedroom before. Just the fact that Sherlock has boldly, deliberately started this, here on the sofa, is incredibly arousing and does much to ease John’s earlier questions. Which he has the wit to realise was likely the point, but it doesn’t feel at all like Sherlock is just trying to reassure him. Not when he’s hooking a leg over John’s knees like that, half-twisting to climb onto him. After a bit, John finds himself on his back on the sofa with Sherlock stretched out on top of him. He can feel Sherlock’s hard-on through both layers of their trousers, his own jutting unabashedly up into it.

Sherlock doesn’t stop, but spends a moment kissing along John’s jaw line, nose nudging into the sensitive place behind his ear, tongue swiping over his Adam’s apple before his mouth descends onto John’s again. Bloody hell, he’s getting the hang of this, then, John thinks weakly, hips fighting upward get more friction against Sherlock’s body. Their legs are tangled together, Sherlock pushing a knee into the sofa to get more leverage as he presses himself against John. John can hear himself beginning to groan as the feeling starts to build, but suddenly Sherlock is getting to his feet. He extends a hand to John and says abruptly, “Let’s go to bed.”

It’s only nine-thirty or so, but John doesn’t need a gilded invitation. He switches off the telly with the remote and allows Sherlock to drag him by the hand to the bedroom. This time, after John closes the door behind them, he grabs Sherlock by the front of his shirt, which is so tight that there’s barely any material to hold onto, so he takes hold of Sherlock’s ribcage instead and pushes him against the nearest available wall. Sherlock makes a surprised oof against John’s mouth and then they’re kissing again. John’s hands are wild, yanking Sherlock’s shirt out of his trousers and pushing it up, wanting to touch him properly, going to the buttons and fumbling at them in lust-fuelled haste. How many times he’d thought of doing exactly that, before… thinking that one day it was bound to happen somehow – they’d get home from a case, laughing and still riding the adrenaline high, and one of them would just turn to the other and it would finally happen. But time had run out before it could. Tonight John doesn’t want to think about that; he only wants to think about Sherlock, here in his – their – bedroom, and Sherlock has just put his long-fingered hands on John’s arse and hauled him closer, sagging at the knees a little to adjust their height difference. His eyes are gleaming with interest and what John rather hopes is an immoderate amount of desire, his mouth open, lips wet and looking thoroughly well-kissed.

“I want to have sex with you,” John says spontaneously.

Sherlock blinks and the interest doesn’t waver. There a moment before he responds, but then all he says is, “Let’s take our clothes off.”

John can’t help his slightly-hysterical laugh at this. It’s half relief that Sherlock didn’t just stare him down and tell him not to be ridiculous or something. “That might help, yeah.”

Sherlock gives him an odd, sidelong look as he steps carefully out of his trousers and lays them over the back of a chair. The shirt is next and then he stops, standing there, body milk-white in the streetlight. He waits for John to finish struggling out of his clothes, kick his pants in the general direction of the laundry hamper, then says, “I might need you to be a bit more specific.”

He looks uncertain again, John realises first, then thinks that probably ‘sex’ was fairly vague, if they consider everything they’ve done so far as sex. And suddenly, on the other side of the room from Sherlock, he’s a bit loath to repeat himself, feeling a bit embarrassed about it. That had just slipped out, there. “Er. Let’s get into bed,” he proposes, going to his side.

Sherlock hesitates a moment longer, then strips off his pants, his cock bobbing awkwardly as it’s released from its confines. He joins John in bed, sliding over, his eyes making their question marks at John under a slightly-worried brow.

Action first, John decides, and gets closer, a leg pushed between Sherlock’s slim thighs, a thumb pressing to a sensitive nipple. He kisses Sherlock’s chin and neck and runs his hand down to the firm curve of Sherlock’s arse – his incredibly delectable arse, John can’t help but think for the millionth time. Just the fact that he’s allowed to touch it now still fills him with inordinate amounts of disbelief and glee and things much darker than glee. Sherlock lifts his chin, a silent request for John to kiss his throat again. He likes that, John has discovered, his neck and ears exquisitely sensitive. John obliges, then says, lips against Sherlock’s skin, “I meant that I’d like to fuck you. If you’re amenable, that is.”

He can’t possibly miss Sherlock’s shiver, nor does he miss the fact that Sherlock’s cock is still hard. He deliberately put himself where Sherlock would be spared being looked directly at while being asked this, in case he wants to refuse. John thinks that perhaps he should retract it or assure him that they can certainly stick to known territory if Sherlock would rather, but he’s curious, so he waits.

Sherlock swallows, Adam’s apple moving under John’s mouth. “I’m amenable,” he says, voice a little strained. “Provided you don’t mind that I’ve never…”

John pulls back and looks up. “Never?”

Sherlock gives a small shake of his head. “No.”

“But – ” John thinks back to their first time, back in the old flat. Sherlock’s hands certainly seemed to have enough of an idea of what to do with his cock, and his first blow job was more than convincing. He’d assumed there’d been past experience, based on the skill set in evidence.

Sherlock sighs minutely. “I had a very small amount of experience. In university. Mostly experimental.”

“Mostly?” John repeats.

Nod. “I was drunk,” Sherlock offers by way of explanation.

John frowns. “Every time?”

It may just be the streetlight, but he could swear that the colour has risen in Sherlock’s cheeks. “It was only twice. Evening and morning, same person.”

John’s disbelief is at the point of rudeness but he can’t help himself. “Seriously? You’d only ever been with one person before this?”

Sherlock blinks. “Problem?” His voice is slightly defensive.

“No! Not at all!” John says hastily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean… I just thought… you were so good already, the first time. I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“What about you?” Sherlock asks, letting it go. “I know you’ve been with women, of course, but…?”

His delicate question trails off and John finds his own suppressed history tingling like the wrong nerve touched. He clears his throat. It’s only fair; Sherlock has said, so now it’s his turn, isn’t it? “Uh, there was a bloke – or two – in uni, and then that was it, until…” It’s hard to finish, to admit this, when he’d always claimed so assiduously, occasionally in front of Sherlock, that he was entirely straight.

“Afghanistan?” Sherlock asks quietly. He catches John’s unsuccessfully-hidden reaction and adds quickly, “It makes sense. High pressure situation. Adrenaline. Lack of appropriate alternatives.” Then, to John’s confused look, “Women. No women, so you all made do, when necessary. Makes sense.”

“It was only once every now and then,” John says, the heavy secret still uncomfortable. “I wasn’t proud of it. They were usually married men. There weren’t many of them. Four, maybe, over the years. Yeah. Four.”

“And you… had sex with them?” Sherlock looks dissatisfied with his own wording, yet he’s shown considerable reluctance to use John’s cruder vocabulary (normal vocabulary, John thinks) to describe sexual acts. It seems he’s stuck here, though. “You fucked them?”

The word fuck coming from Sherlock Holmes’ lips, the k formed perfectly in his long white throat, does evil things to John’s libido. “One of them,” he admits. “I’d rather not talk about it, though, if that’s all right.”

“Of course,” Sherlock says immediately. He blinks. “But you want to fuck me?” That same, fawn-like delicacy to the question, the k so delicate it’s almost obscene, the way his soft palate meets the back of his tongue deep in his throat, the k echoing through the resonance of his long, graceful neck. John wants to chase after those ks with his tongue or possibly something else, just to feel them being formed.

Some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “I do, rather.”

“Okay,” Sherlock says obligingly. “Tell me what to do.”

John stares at the gorgeous creature in front of him for a moment and wonders if he’s hallucinating again. (No: that was only a brief, nightmarish phase. Long past. This is real. Sherlock is naked in bed with him – again – and offering to let John fuck him.) He swallows. “I’ll have to prepare you for it,” he says, voice going husky.

Non-comprehension. Sherlock thinks he means mentally or something. “Prepare me?” he repeats, not understanding.

This is always the unsexy part, the technical talk in sex. John leans forward and brushes his mouth against Sherlock’s. “With my fingers,” he says, trying to make it sound seductive rather than clinical.

It works: Sherlock shivers again. “All right,” he says, his pulse increasing visibly in his throat.

“Lube,” John says, and Sherlock finds it under a pillow. As he warms it in his fingers, he asks, “Do you ever… you know… put your fingers inside when you masturbate?”

Sherlock is studying him with the same focused interest and intent that he normally reserves for particularly fascinating crime scenes. It’s very intense. “I don’t masturbate all that often,” he says. “So perhaps I haven’t been very creative. No. I’m afraid I haven’t tried that.”

“I’ll be gentle,” John promises.

Sherlock smiles at him, the uncertainty in it so subtle that one could blink and miss it. “I know you will.”

John kisses him again, letting it stretch out and get involved, with a lot of tongue. Sherlock relaxes against him, probably unaware that he’d got tense during their conversation. As it goes on, John slips his hand down to Sherlock’s cock and begins to stroke it, which makes Sherlock arch his back and exhale hard through his nose, pushing into John’s fist. After a bit of this, John breaks away and says, “Put your leg over mine.” He pulls at Sherlock’s thigh to show him, and Sherlock understands and raises it about as high as it could go, knee nearly in John’s armpit. “Yeah, just like that,” John confirms. “Okay. I, er, haven’t done this in a long time, and I wasn’t exactly sober myself, so, uh…”

“It will be fine,” Sherlock says, and the fact that he’s the one about to be fucked and is reassuring John is all wrong. That’s precisely what he doesn’t want, for Sherlock to be doing this to reassure him, to humour him. He wants him to enjoy it, damn it. Wants him to dream of it all day long after this, counting down the minutes until they can do it again, beg John to take him to bed and ravish him, hungry for it, those odd silver-blue eyes narrowed in exquisite, tortured ecstasy because of it.

John sets his jaw and determines to make Sherlock like it, make his first experience worthwhile. He gets his fingers back past Sherlock’s balls until the tip of his middle finger is resting against Sherlock’s hole. “Okay so far?” he asks, checking, massaging the entrance to Sherlock’s body gently.

Sherlock opens his eyes and nods, wordless.

“How does it feel?” John presses.

“It feels – odd,” Sherlock admits. “But not unpleasant. Not at all. It’s interesting. Keep going.”

At least he’s being honest, John thinks. There was that moment, the first time – that look of surprise in Sherlock’s eyes, like he didn’t know until that exact minute that it was something he could want. So much for John’s private fantasies of Sherlock having been pining for it in secret all that time. Still, though – he hadn’t refused at any point. On the contrary, he had seemed more than willing, just a bit unsure of himself. Not knowing where to put his hands, if it was all right to arch forward into John, make sound, talk during it, any of that. But he was always a walking contradiction, wasn’t he? The first time he’d put his mouth of John was incredible and John had assumed he’d had rather a lot of experience in that area, just maybe not accessed it for a long time. But his hands, once they were off in the right direction, were always as skilled as the rest of him, knowing instinctively how to touch him. Or maybe, John has begun to realise, maybe that was just Sherlock’s acute ability to read people, especially him. Maybe it’s enough that he’s willing to try this. John does realise that it speaks volumes that Sherlock is allowing him to do this at all, letting himself be this inexperienced and thereby vulnerable in front of John. Or maybe he’s just curious. Maybe he’s got a taste for sex now and wants to explore all of the possibilities. In any case, John is just as or even more interested in exploring those. He pushes his finger into the heat of Sherlock’s body with a bit of a twist. It’s so tight, despite that he can feel Sherlock actively trying to make himself relax, and John can’t help but think that this is unexplored territory, that he’s the first one there, to touch Sherlock like this. The thought makes him harder than anything else could possibly do. “Still okay?” he asks, a bit breathless.

Sherlock opens his eyes, pupils dilated enormously. His pulse is fluttering in his throat and he nods, still silent. John glances down and sees that Sherlock’s cock is nearly flat up against his stomach – he likes it, he realises. He likes it a lot. (Thank God.) His body is trembling and he’s breathing though his mouth, but he’s also moving a little, pushing himself subtly further down onto John’s finger. John takes it as encouragement and goes deeper, searching. Thinking of proctology exam practise is the least sexy possible thought he could have, but… aha. There. Sherlock’s entire body tenses and the tops of his cheeks flush visibly as he gasps. “John – !” It’s tight, almost panicked.

John stops moving his hand. “Okay?” he asks, concerned. He doesn’t want it to over-stimulate Sherlock, either. Too much could be just as bad as not enough. “Is it too much?”

Sherlock clenches his jaw and eyes both, breathes hard for a moment, then shakes his head. “No. You can – do that again – if you want.”

John feels his face relax, relieved. Instead of saying anything, he does as he’s asked, pressing lightly into Sherlock’s prostate. Another glance southward shows that Sherlock’s cock is shiny with moisture where it’s touching the pale skin of his abdomen and John’s mouth waters, looking at it. Suddenly he’s too impatient; he’s waited so long for this. Sherlock is still so tight around his single finger but he thinks he might be ready anyway. His cock certainly is, if nothing else. “Turn round,” he says, his voice even more breathy and a bit too keen, but he can’t help it. He removes his finger from Sherlock’s hole so that he can move.

Sherlock opens his eyes again and turns over with his back to John without protesting. “Like this, or… on my front?”

He sounds uncertain of himself and John hastens to reassure him. (Finally.) “On your front would be great, yeah. Just like that,” he says, as Sherlock repositions himself.

“On my knees, or – ?”

John considers. If Sherlock is all the way up on his knees, their height difference could be problematic. “Keep your face down on the pillows,” he says, “and spread your legs a bit.” (Oh God, he just told Sherlock Holmes to spread his legs for him. And Sherlock is actually doing it. This is real, isn’t it? He would really hate for this to be a hallucination.) Sherlock obediently moves his knees apart and John positions himself in the space he’s made. He runs his hands over the smooth, muscled expanse of Sherlock’s back, at least what he can reach from there, then squeezes the curve of that ridiculously beautiful arse. It’s like a Rodin sculpture, only the marble of Sherlock’s body is warm and pliant. He fits the head of his cock against Sherlock’s entrance. “Tell me if it’s uncomfortable,” he says, voice gone over husky with straight-up lust. There’s no other word for it. Every cell of his body is aching to fuck Sherlock so badly he could cry. “Okay?” he says, waiting for confirmation.

“Okay,” Sherlock says, voice muffled by the pillows. He’s face down, arms bent at the elbows.

John pushes inside slowly, achingly slowly, thinking that it’s the first time he’s ever done this sober and certainly the first time with someone he cared about. He refuses to think of those boys in Afghanistan; the memories are blurred with time, trauma, and liquor anyway, and he never did like thinking of it. This, though, he will always remember. It’s tight, so tight that if he doesn’t come before he’s all the way seated it will be a small miracle. Tighter than any woman he’s been with, and it’s Sherlock. The very thought of it, that he’s fucking Sherlock, inside him, is enough of an aphrodisiac to keep him going for years. He looks down, watching himself disappear slowly into Sherlock inch by inch and he can hear himself panting. He can see Sherlock’s long fingers clutching at the pillow, white-knuckled. Once he’s all the way in, John stops. “All right?” he asks, hardly able to speak. (Focus, Watson. Control.)

Sherlock doesn’t respond right away, but then he nods, face still downward.

“You sure?” John asks, concerned.

“I just – it’s – big,” Sherlock gets out.

John grins. “Thanks, I think. But really, are you okay? Is it – too – ”

“Just give me a moment. If that’s all right.”

Sherlock sounds a touch embarrassed, but more than that, he sounds uncomfortable. “Of course,” John says quickly, hoping with all his might that Sherlock won’t change his mind about this now. If he does, John will have to pull out and then sit there right on the bed next to Sherlock and yank his cock into orgasm right then and there. He’s so far gone already that it would take all of his willpower to make himself stop anyway.

That doesn’t happen, though. Slowly but surely, Sherlock’s body begins to relax and after a minute or two, he says, “All right. You can move. Just – go slowly.”

“I will,” John breathes, like a promise. He starts with very small movements, just rocking in and out a little, letting Sherlock’s body get used to the intrusion. He reaches around and finds Sherlock’s cock, the erection somewhat wilted but not entirely. It hardens again even as John begins to touch him, forming a circle with his palm to stroke over Sherlock’s sensitive flesh. He is enough in control of himself that he can experiment, angling to find Sherlock’s prostate again. He knows the moment he gets it – Sherlock’s reciprocal movements change from cautious to massively responsive in a heartbeat. He’s pushing back against John, cock throbbing in John’s palm. His hands splay out, clutching handfuls of sheet, pillow, whatever they can reach. He’s moaning, his voice hoarse and raised, louder than he’s ever been in bed so far. It’s all so intensely arousing that John can hear himself groaning, completely unable to hold it back at all as he plunges himself as deeply as he can into Sherlock over and over again. He’s going to come, he can feel it coming over him unstoppably, but he wants to make sure that Sherlock gets off first. He speeds up his hand on Sherlock’s cock, jerking him off harder than he’s dared before, letting go his worry about being too rough. Sherlock’s spine is arching and he’s actively throwing himself backward onto John’s cock like it’s the only thing in the world he wants. His cock pulses in John’s hand, come arcing upward and catching himself in the chest and getting all over John’s hand, his extended wail of utterly wanton pleasure breaking the last of John’s control. His hips slam forward into Sherlock, sending tiny shock waves through the pale, firm flesh of his arse and all the sound in the room disappears except for his heartbeat as he comes, his body emptying itself into Sherlock in clenching floods.

When it’s over, he pulls himself free and crashes down onto the bed, where Sherlock pulls John’s limp form against himself, John’s back to his front, and wraps a long leg around John’s thighs. He’s kissing John’s neck and shoulders and murmuring something about how brilliant John is. John can feel the semen sticking his back to Sherlock’s chest but there’s no way he can be bothered to go and clean off before he falls asleep.

***

He’s alone when he wakes, but the door is open a crack and within five minutes of waking, Sherlock is shouldering through the doorway with a mug of tea which he brings around to John’s side of the bed. He puts it down on the table beside the bed and sits down next to John, his weight pulling the blanket tight over John’s hips. “Morning,” he says solicitously.

John remembers the whole of the previous night at once, starting with Sherlock’s uncharacteristic initiations on the sofa, remembers the conversation partway through, remembers pounding into Sherlock. The memory of it sends a tingle shivering down his spine and heat to his cheeks. “Morning,” he says, both aroused and feeling stupidly morning-after shy. This is silly; they’ve been sleeping together for two weeks already, though never like that.

“Yes,” Sherlock says, keen eyes narrowing as he takes in John’s elevated colour and likely even managing to observe his quicker breathing. “My thoughts precisely,” he adds, though John hasn’t said anything.

He bends partway over then stops, as though second-guessing himself, but John guesses that he was leaning in for a kiss and reaches for him. “Come here,” he says, voice scratchy with sleep, pressing his mouth to Sherlock’s. Sherlock’s mouth is warm and tastes of tea with milk and far too much sugar, like always. Their morning kisses are usually fairly tame, just a quick exchange, a you’re-still-there-and-I’m-still-here-and-everything’s-all-right sort of things, lips against lips, then off to the paper or the kettle or the shower. Sherlock let his lips fall open just before John’s mouth touched his, though, so John’s kiss lands on his upper lip. Sherlock’s full lower lip catches John’s and it’s incredible, even after two weeks of kissing him. John has already firmly decided that he doesn’t need to kiss a mouth other than Sherlock’s ever again and thinks now that he will never tire of it. It’s incredibly likely that Sherlock will, but curious that two weeks of kissing John has miraculously not yet become boring to him.

The tea is forgotten. The kiss has become involved, a drawn-out affair, both parties breathing hard. Sherlock’s long fingers are gripping the back of John’s head, his arm clamped around John’s shoulders so that John can feel the flex and slide of his bicep. John’s palm is pressed to Sherlock’s right pectoral muscle, the nipple peaking under his hand, his other hand buried in Sherlock’s post-shower damp curls. Sherlock unwittingly groans into John’s mouth, which is all it takes to convince John to pull him down against himself. Sherlock comes willingly, aligning himself over John with the blankets between them, the kiss continuing uninterrupted. John reaches down to fill his palms with overly-clothed arse and Sherlock doesn’t quite flinch, but his twitch is enough to make John withdraw his hands just as quickly.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, opening his eyes, concerned. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Sherlock says, denying it immediately. Then he concedes and admits it. “I may be a little sore.” He seems embarrassed to say it.

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” John says, feeling wretched. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Sherlock says firmly. “It was for a good cause, wouldn’t you say?” He puts his mouth back on John’s and John has the sense to know that it’s mostly to shut him up; Sherlock clearly doesn’t want to discuss this, and yeah, maybe that’s fair, that the state of Sherlock’s arse after his first rogering might be a touch personal, so he lets it go. He worries that it will put Sherlock off wanting to do it again, which would be a serious shame considering how bloody fantastic it had been. But then, as though Sherlock can hear his thoughts, he lifts his head and says, “We’ll have to do that again sometime. Perhaps just not tonight.”

He’s smiling a bit and John feels a little better. “Sure?” he asks.

“Very sure.”

John relaxes. “I wanted to wake up with you,” he says instead, then worries instantly that it sounds too clingy.

Sherlock looks a touch discomfited. “Oh,” he says. There’s a pause as he thinks this over. “Every morning?” He sounds a bit uncomfortable; clearly this is something he would prefer not to do. He’s more reluctant about this than he is about repeating last night.

“Not every morning,” John says, suppressing an internal sigh. “But after a night like last night, it could have been nice. That’s all. It’s not mandatory or anything.”

The tiniest flicker of annoyance comes over Sherlock’s features and John thinks that he must have just frustrated Sherlock enormously. Obviously Sherlock has picked up that John wished he would initiate more, so he did and it still wasn’t enough, because John is still complaining, still questioning it. He wishes he could take it back, but Sherlock responds before he can, the annoyance hidden so quickly he’s not even positive he saw it. “How can I make it up to you?” he asks, voice dropping into the range that makes him sound like something of the panthera genus.

For someone who only recently started being regularly sexually active, to put it as clinically as possible, he certainly knows how to be seductive, John thinks weakly. Sherlock’s long, lithe form is stretched out over his, the blankets a too-thick wall between them, trapping John’s helpless erection against his stomach. He loses track of how to speak somewhere between his mouth and Sherlock’s face, inches above his, those eyebrows quirked meaningfully. “Er – ”

“Never mind; can deduce,” Sherlock says with a smirk, and yanks the blankets out from between them, already halfway down John’s body.

John’s almost embarrassed about the way his cock is already poking up out of the waistband of his pyjama pants and says, “You don’t have to… I didn’t mean that, I just...oh. Oh God.”

It’s too late; Sherlock’s pushed the pyjama pants down and fixed John’s erection with one hundred percent of his intent focus, his mouth sliding over the head of it before John can finish whatever pointless thing he was trying to say. If Sherlock’s trying to prove he’s interested, he’s doing it well. Once again, John wonders how long this interest will last, but he supposes he might as well take it while he can get it. That mouth is amazing. Sherlock always scoffs at the word amazing, there’s a stray memory in there of him saying how susceptible the general populace had become if they were constantly being amazed by every mundane thing they witnessed, but there’s no other word John’s useless brain can provide at the moment: it is amazing. He can hear himself already, moaning unabated as his cock leaps into Sherlock’s mouth, those lovely lips framing it in a way that makes John’s very balls ache to see it. He’s not had this much sex in ages – he can’t remember a girlfriend who was so regularly into it. It’s been what, sixteen days since John moved back into Baker Street, and so far they’ve had sex of some manner every single day – though not usually in the morning, so there’s the tantalising possibility of it happening again tonight, if Sherlock is up for it. It’s rather blissful. He closes his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer; he’s too close, and soon enough he’s gritting his teeth together, his hands fisting the sheets to keep them from grabbing onto Sherlock’s head and shooting right down his throat. It feels so good it’s almost painful, his balls tight and high, then finally spilling over as the climax hits hard. Sherlock always swallows, no matter what John’s tried to say about safe sex. Sherlock claims it’s a non-issue, since it’s been so long for him and frankly, so long for John, too. John hadn’t argued all that hard; it made sense and he’s quite content to be monogamous for as long as Sherlock is willing to keep doing this with him.

Sherlock touches the corner of his mouth as he sits up, cheeks flushed but otherwise looking as impeccable as ever, and reaches for John’s cup of tea. He sips it and passes it to John with a lopsided smile. “Here,” he says. “It’s not that hot any more.”

“I don’t care,” John says, still a bit short of breath. He takes a sip, then another, and glances at Sherlock’s tailored trousers. Yes: he’s hard, though he’s apparently not going to say or do anything about it; he never asks for it. John puts the tea down and sets about fixing that.

***

Breakfast is rather late that morning. John relents and allows Sherlock to make breakfast while he showers, then sits down with him in the kitchen to eat it. There are still no experiments on the kitchen counter and John makes a mental note to address this. Another of the potentially dangerous questions to bring up, all variants of, essentially, When are you going to start acting normally again? He leaves it for now and eats the perfectly-cooked omelette that Sherlock has made for him. He was permitted to make the tea, at least, so he doesn’t feel like a complete cad. Sometime he is going to have to explain that being in a relationship isn’t supposed to mean subjugating oneself to the other party at all times. It can’t possibly last forever anyway, if Sherlock keeps doing this, attempting to wait on John hand and foot, either in an attempt to prove his ability to be good at the relationship thing, or else in never-ending apology for the faking his death thing. But just now, John can’t bear to risk upsetting the boat, not when he’s feeling this content and well-looked-after and post-coitally satisfied with life in general and Sherlock in particular.

He should have known better than to think things would just stay that calm, though, he thinks later. He’d just gone to pick up some bread and milk, then thought that perhaps a bottle of wine would be nice, and maybe a couple of pastries from the French pâtisserie further south on Baker Street, below Dorset. Sherlock had always liked it and had been known to be susceptible to their goods even at his least hungry. Despite the previous night not having been their first, it still feels like the first step into a new level and John sort of wants to buy Sherlock flowers or something, but doesn’t know if this would be at all appreciated. He knows nothing whatsoever about dating a bloke, much less when said bloke is Sherlock. At worst, the old version of Sherlock would scoff at such an offering and call him a romantic sop, while the new one would like accept them, blinking in polite cover of his utter bafflement at being presented with a bouquet of flowers and saying carefully appropriate things and doing his best to mask his impatience with John, or worse, pity. John stops in the middle of the pavement, unaware for the moment of the people bustling by him on both sides. Is this fair at all? Maybe Sherlock would like flowers. He likes plants. Well, he likes micro-horticulture, at any rate, preferably in the form of moulds and bacteria. Would he be touched by flowers or think John completely ridiculous? John has no idea. So: wine and pastries it is.

He carries his shopping home and climbs the steps, hearing the low sounds of Sherlock’s voice in the flat. Something makes John feel cautious, so he slows and lightens his gait, not wanting to listen in, but Sherlock hasn’t spoken to anyone other than food delivery people since John moved back in and he’s curious. Besides which, Sherlock sounds unhappy or annoyed, maybe. Is he on the phone? John listens but so far it’s only Sherlock speaking. He creeps across the landing and listens, his bags forgotten in his hands.

“You should have told me sooner,” Sherlock says, now sounding angrier than John’s heard him before – not snappish or petulant, but genuinely furious. “Spare me the part about ‘distracting me from the mission’ rubbish – you said yourself, the day he was taken to the hospital that you were worried about him. Were you just going to sit back and watch him – I don’t know – fade away?”

John shrinks back from the door. Sherlock is clearly talking about him.

“What did you expect me to do?” Mycroft’s voice retorts. “You and I both know that he couldn’t know that you were alive as long as the mission remained unfinished. You have only yourself to blame that it took you so long. If you had let me help, on the other hand – ”

“Then it would have taken even longer,” Sherlock fires back.

Mycroft heaves a deep sigh. “I’m sorry I brought it up, in that event,” he says peevishly. “I thought you might want to know.”

Know what, John wonders, but he’s more intent on listening.

“It’s private information,” Sherlock says, and it sounds like it isn’t the first time he’s said it. “He wouldn’t want me to have seen this. You have no right seeing it, yourself. Do you have every shrink in the city on your payroll? It’s unethical.”

“Oh, and you’re so concerned about ethics,” Mycroft returns sneeringly. “Only when it doesn’t suit your purposes – which this does, if you’d care to consider. You’re determined to keep him shut in and protected while you put him back together again, and all that’s going to do is make the adjustment to normal life more abrupt when it happens.”

“I am not ‘keeping him shut in’,” Sherlock snaps back, angrier than ever. “This is a temporary period. He’s out right now, obviously – you make it sound like he’s my prisoner or something. I just want to give him some space while he… gets better.”

“Space that you occupy ninety-eight percent of the time,” Mycroft counters. “You cannot be an entire world to him. Don’t make him dependent on you, Sherlock. His mental state is delicate at the moment.”

John realises that his ears and face and neck are all flaming. He’s heard as much as he can take. He puts the shopping bags down, pushes the door to the flat open and takes in the Holmes brothers, sitting in the two armchairs (Mycroft, as always, is in his chair, which he resents). “He is actually capable of making up his own damned mind,” he says, voice as level as he can keep it, jaw clenched.

Sherlock is on his feet, his face is agitated, clearly upset that John has overheard the conversation. “John,” he begins, sounding wretched, but John shoots him a jagged look that shuts him up promptly before he turns to Mycroft.

“What, precisely, did you bring for Sherlock to see?” he asks, aiming for the tone of controlled anger, disciplined with military calm. It doesn’t work; his voice comes out bumpy and uneven, and he can still feel his face burning in rage. He suddenly finds that he hates Mycroft Holmes more than he can stomach. Smarmy, smug Mycroft Holmes, always playing his political games and finding people’s weak spots. He knows damn well what Mycroft has. He hasn’t seen a psychiatrist in a year and a half, yet somehow Mycroft has her notes. Anne. That was her name. He should bloody well sue her.

Mycroft purses his lips carefully, and nods at a small, hardbound notebook on the side table. “Case notes,” he says briefly, as though knowing better than to prevaricate or lie.

John forces himself to breathe. He can hear it nearly whistling through his nose with force but doesn’t care at the moment; he’s so angry. “You have exactly one try to tell me why you brought that here to show Sherlock. I don’t even want to know how you got your hands on it.”

Mycroft gives him a deprecating look, hands folded together primly in his lap. “As someone who has taken over responsibilities as your primary legal caregiver, I thought it best that Sherlock be informed of the… details of your case,” he says, as uninflected as he can.

Primary legal caregiver. The words hit John in the face and stun him. Is that what Sherlock is? His eyes go to Sherlock’s. They meet his, looking guilty and miserable. “Get out,” John says to Mycroft, eyes not leaving Sherlock’s, and there it is at last – the low-pitched danger, breathed out from between his teeth.

“John – ” Mycroft tries.

“Now.” John’s fists have balled. “Get. Out.”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock says quietly, and that does it. Mycroft gets silently to his feet and leaves without another word.

Once the door closes downstairs, John says the words out loud, eyes still drilling into Sherlock’s. “Primary legal caregiver?” he says, the words underscored, his jaw clenched so tight he can barely force them out. “Is that what you are to me?”

Sherlock winces as though John has physically struck him. “John,” he says, pained, “I – no. I mean, yes, as far as Mycroft is concerned, but no. You can’t think that I – ”

Still more dangerous territory. “I can’t think what, precisely?” John breathes, the anger white-hot and sparking off him. So now they’re telling him what he’s allowed to think?

Sherlock looks still more upset. “They would only let you stay out of the hospital because Mycroft told them that you weren’t going to stay by yourself. That’s entirely secondary to me. That’s not at all what I – that’s not how I see you, or me. I mean, not what I would call myself – for God’s sake, I’m absolute rubbish at this!” he expostulates, both hands raking agitatedly through his hair.

John’s jaw muscles twitch. “Then what are you to me, then?” he wants to know, terse, his entire body drawn tight about feeling as though it’s about to snap.

Sherlock takes his fingers out of his hair and gives John a look which is plain, open, and wrenchingly naked. “Your… lover, I thought,” he says.

The word is so foreign-sounding coming from Sherlock’s mouth, and so unexpected after the rest of what John’s just heard that just being startled takes a lot of the wind out of his sails. So much for not putting names to this, then. That was plain enough. The hospital bit isn’t Sherlock’s fault. Still, though. John jerks his chin roughly at the hardbound notebook. “Did you read that?” he demands.

Sherlock’s lips tighten a bit, but he meets John’s gaze steadily. “Mycroft read or summarised some of it,” he says quietly. “I didn’t ask him to, and I didn’t know he had access to it himself. I didn’t want to hear it.”

“Yet I heard you tell him that he should have told you sooner,” John shoots back at him. Sherlock isn’t going to try to deny that, is he?

Sherlock looks frustrated, but makes a visible effort to remain calm. “I meant that he should have told me while I was still away that you weren’t… doing well. Not the details. He and I discussed that at the hospital. He told me, while you were still unconscious, about the lengths of his concern for your health. I wanted to know then why he hadn’t intervened, not that I thought that you would have wanted to have any contact with him, but I was angry that he hadn’t let me know.” He pauses. “I still am.”

John gesticulates at the hateful black notebook. “So, what,” he says, still belligerent. “Now you know what a wreck I was back then. Are you happy?”

“No!” Sherlock says, louder than he meant to, maybe, because even he looks startled by it. “John, I never asked to know this! Hence the argument you just walked in on. And I wouldn’t have kept it from you that Mycroft told me.”

“No, not when you know that I have ‘acute trust issues, exacerbated by my best friend’s suicide’”, John paraphrases loosely. His fists are still curled tightly, his bitten-off nails managing to dig into his palms. He’s facing Sherlock confrontationally. “What with everything else, I’m sure knowing all this on top of it makes me just a prize in your eyes, unless that’s what you wanted, to play the hero who fixes me, puts me back together after having smashed me to bits in the first place – or is all this just your guilt?”

He can hear the angry, ugly words spilling out of his face faster than he can even think to keep them in, but the anger is spiking out of him in every direction and he can’t seem to prevent himself from lashing out and it’s horrible; he’s being completely horrible and just lending weight to his own argument that there is no possible way that Sherlock could actually want to be with him. Sherlock stands there and absorbs the battery of his words and blinks rapidly, taking them all in. His mouth opens once and he inhales as though to speak, then reconsiders and starts over again. “No,” he says sharply. “You already asked me that just the other day, and I thought you were satisfied with my honest answer then. I – understand that it must be difficult to trust me in particular, in light of – of what I did. But the rest just isn’t accurate, John.”

John can’t look at him. He’s ashamed of himself, still wanting to punch something or someone very hard, still feeling the angry words bubbling up and threatening to spill out, wanting to believe Sherlock so badly but just not quite being able to make ends meet over the gap of his mistrust, hating that Sherlock knows about his trust issues and all the other stuff between those pages. That notebook covers the very darkest times, when he fell apart so spectacularly at the clinic, destroying that one room the way he had (they’d called the police, but no charges had been pressed on the condition that John resume therapy sessions, which was how he’d ended up as Anne’s patient). When the eating stuff started and the hallucinations and nightmares were at their worst. He doesn’t know how much Sherlock knows, but he certainly knows about the trust issues he just finished referencing, however well-intended. John can’t even bear to know if Sherlock knows the rest. He can’t seem to find something to say, just stands there, fists working, hating himself and everything around him, sort of including Sherlock and a lot definitely not including him at all. He feels terrible.

Suddenly Sherlock is there in front of him. He doesn’t say anything, but puts his arms around John’s shoulders, either intentionally or unintentionally pinning John’s arms down, his face dropping into John’s hair. He’s very close and holding John very tightly.

His mouth is only just clear of Sherlock’s shoulder but he can barely move his chin because of how tightly Sherlock is holding him. “Don’t fucking coddle me, damn it,” he says, still prickly and exuding toxicity and violence.

“I’m not,” Sherlock says, his voice muffled in John’s hair. “I just needed to – do this.” After a moment wherein John hasn’t spoken or moved, he speaks again. “This isn’t just you. This is our issue. This is us. You’re my lover and I’m yours. I’m here and I’m not leaving you.”

Sherlock somehow, for all his tactless, rude ways, has found the very words that are able to creep past John’s spiky defences and crawl into his heart, and without warning he feels himself deflate. Worse still, a swamp of tears wells up and overflows before he can gain control of himself. He’s weeping, arms clinging to Sherlock’s back and it’s the worst thing he can think of. Being angry and hateful would have been better than going to pieces like this, but he was trying to maintain his dignity, damn it, and now the cat’s out of the bag, all of his ugliness shown in the uncompromising daylight, examined and prodded at by Mycroft Holmes and his ilk, and Sherlock – with whom he was successfully maintaining a decent cover of stability and mental health (and it’s not just a cover; he is better, damn it – unrecognisably so) – now Sherlock knows about it, too. How can he possibly respect John, knowing what he knows now? Yet he is still here, a reasonable-sounding voice points out in John’s head. He is standing here and holding John as though it’s he who needs comforting right now, and doesn’t seem at all inclined to let go. “I’m sorry,” John says miserably, sniffing wetly and feeling like the most disgusting lump of humanity on the face of the earth.

“Unnecessary.” Sherlock’s voice is low and a bit raw. Relieved, though, John thinks.

“I hate that that book exists, and that Mycroft saw it. That you know what’s in it.”

“I don’t,” Sherlock says. He kisses John’s head. “I could tell you what Mycroft told me, if you like. I can say that it wasn’t all that much. Nothing in detail. And I don’t want to know. I have no right to know, and no interest in finding out. As for the book,” he goes on, letting go of John, “there’s an easy solution for that.” He turns away, picks it up, and goes to the fireplace. The fire is lit and burning low. Sherlock puts another pine log on it and pushes the notebook into the heart of the flames. He steps back and puts his arm around John’s shoulders and they both watch it burn in silence. When it’s mostly gone, Sherlock turns his head and kisses John on the temple. “No one need ever know of your demons,” he says, his voice low and intense and gentle all at once. “Not even me. And what I know, I will keep to myself. Know that I will never think any less of you for it. Never, John.”

John stares into the flames, trying to will the tightness to leave his shoulders, to concentrate instead on the feeling of Sherlock’s lips, pressing kisses against his hair again. “Did you mean that?” he asks after a long while. “What you called us?”

Sherlock turns, coming around to stand in front of him now. “When I called us lovers?” he asks, eyebrows high. “It seemed an appropriate term, I thought. Problem?”

John rakes his eyes over Sherlock’s face for a long moment, searching for any sign of doubt, of humouring him, and finds none. “No,” he says.

Sherlock smiles and ducks his face to kiss him. “Good,” he says, and after that neither of them speaks for a long time.

***

There are good days and bad days, but the good days definitely outnumber the bad days. Sherlock has started being – intentionally, John feels – less careful, which in a way is still too careful in and of itself. He just wants Sherlock to behave normally again. He wants to stop feeling like Sherlock is silently monitoring him, or God forbid, those deadly words that Mycroft uttered – playing his primary legal caregiver. (He wants to die every time he remembers those words, realised what he was, at least in Mycroft’s eyes.) Sherlock, to be sure, seems much more interested in John’s mouth and cock than he does his mental health, and the two are quickly becoming one and the same. The better things work between them, the more normal and happy John feels. There are whole days when he doesn’t remember that dark period. Later that day, after Mycroft had come, Sherlock had gone out and found John’s shopping, the milk still cool and the pastries undamaged – their discovery procuring a crow of genuine delight from Sherlock, and they’d had a quiet, rather lovely evening despite John’s complete meltdown, the wine unwinding the last of the tension until finally, sometime past midnight, Sherlock had looked meaningfully toward the bedroom and they’d tacitly got up and gone to bed together. They’d lain together, kissing and stroking each other off and it had been perfect.

And since then, the sex has grown more frequent. Just yesterday, they’d made breakfast together – frittata with potatoes rissolées – and when John had said something about starting the washing up, Sherlock’s eyes had taken on that particularly green gleam and he’d wrestled John out of his chair and onto the floor and they’d ended up having sex right there, Sherlock’s long legs flung over John’s shoulders as John had fucked him between one of the kitchen chairs and the spindly legs of the table where the toaster sits. After, they’d lain in a sweaty heap, giggling foolishly and comparing the merits of butter versus Sherlock’s expensive conditioner as lubricant. And when John had finally got to the dishes, Sherlock had come and stood behind him, arms under John’s, ineffectively ‘helping’ him wash the dishes, which made John laugh still more, which in turn made Sherlock kiss his neck and ears all the more. It had been a good day. A very good day, even. So tonight, John brings up the thing he’d been meaning to mention more or less ever since Mycroft’s unwelcome visit.

The news is on but neither of them are really paying attention to it, Sherlock sprawled on the sofa and John lying back against his chest, Sherlock’s legs cradling him, their fingers tangled messily on John’s belly. “Sherlock?”

“Mmm?” Sherlock’s tone is lazy and content, a frame of mind John doesn’t think he ever saw him in, in the years before. Maybe something verging on it after a case wrapped up and they’d eaten staggering amounts of take-out, but not like this. It’s good for him, too, John thinks. After his years of isolation, Sherlock needs this as much as he does. It makes him feel better, like it’s not as one-sided.

“When are you going to get around to telling everyone you’re alive again?” John keeps the question quiet. He doesn’t want to start a fight or anything. He just wants to know what Sherlock is thinking on that score now.

Sherlock is still for a moment, then nuzzles into John’s hair with his lips. “Why?” he asks. “Are you getting bored?”

“No, but aren’t you?” John asks frankly.

Sherlock responds by sliding a long-fingered hand down to cup John’s bits. “Hardly,” he says, voice muffled and turning smoky, as John privately thinks of it. “With you here to entertain me?”

It feels good, but John doesn’t want to be put off. “No, but seriously, Sherlock,” he says. “Don’t you think it’s about time?”

Sherlock makes a sound that’s neither positive nor negative, obviously more interested in John’s body than his question.

John sighs. “All right, then, is it that you think I’m still not ready? Tell me honestly.”

Sherlock’s fingers stop moving. “No,” he says, without lifting his mouth from John’s hair. “I don’t think that. Honestly, I’ve just been… rather enjoying this.”

John smiles and tips his head back onto Sherlock’s shoulder so that Sherlock can kiss him, which he does. “I am, too,” he says afterward. “I feel like it’s time, though. I’m ready for the real world again. And you must miss the work.”

He can feel Sherlock’s slight shrug. “There will always be crime. It’s already been three years. What’s another few weeks? I just wanted to be sure that it was still something you even wanted to do.”

“I do,” John assures him. “Course I do. It’s our work. It’s what we do.”

“It’s not all we do,” Sherlock says, tendrils of dark desire insinuating through his tone, and his fingers start to move again.

John gives in and starts to arch up into it, enjoying it. Sherlock has an unerring gift for knowing exactly how he most likes to be touched, and right now his fingers have slipped past John’s loose waistband and are playing lazily with his foreskin as John hardens in his hand. He unbuttons his trousers to make it easier for Sherlock and twists his head back again to bare his throat to Sherlock’s mouth.

Just before it descends, Sherlock says, “Tomorrow, then. I’ll call my brother and have him arrange the press.” Then his head drops, tongue and lips working, and John stops trying to converse.

***

The press conference is scheduled to be in two days’ time, with Mycroft to make a statement on behalf of Sherlock. John has agreed to be there at Sherlock’s side, though neither of them plan on saying anything, themselves. Sherlock may say something vague and fatuous about being glad to be back or something but John plans to just stand there and show the world that the Holmes-Watson duo is back in action, as it were. The day before, Sherlock says casually over brunch that he needs a new suit.

John stares at him. “Are you serious?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Yes. I lost of bit of weight while I was away and I thought, with the press conference…” He turns a page of the newspaper. “Would you come with me? It’s so boring, going alone.”

John shrugs in turn. “Sure.” It’s not as though he’s got anything better to do. He thinks suddenly of his own suits (all two of them) and of how loose they’re bound to be. Sherlock hasn’t commented on his own weight loss so far and he’s been relieved, though since Mycroft’s visit he supposes that it might as well be acknowledged. Maybe he should be the one to do it. Obviously Sherlock has seen his body and knows exactly how his clothes fit him. “I, er. Should I wear a suit for the press conference?”

Sherlock is studiedly neutral. “If you like,” he says, turning another page. He picks up his tea and takes a sip.

“It’s uh, it’s just that mine might both be…” John trails off, finding it more difficult to admit than he thought, after all.

Sherlock’s eyes flick up to meet his without moving his head and John can see instantly that Sherlock knows exactly what he’s having trouble saying. “A little loose?” he fills in, with a merciful absence of over-understanding. He smiles a little. “We might as well get you a new one too, then.”

John hesitates, then asks it. “Is that what you had in mind all along when you asked me to come with you?”

“Of course not,” Sherlock says airily. “Suit shopping is tedious.” But the corner of his mouth is twitching.

John flicks a bit of tea at him. “Liar.” But he’s smiling, a bit grateful at Sherlock’s surprisingly tactful handling of the subject and the stupid tension has left his gut.

Sherlock gets up, comes around the table and plants his mouth on John’s, stooping to bend over him. After, he says, “It really is tedious. That’s not a lie. Which is why I have every intention of insisting that you come into the dressing rooms with me to make sure that my trouser inseams have been properly measured.”

Only Sherlock could say something like that and make it sound immensely provocative, John thinks, but he hasn’t lost his silly grin, either.

***

The press conference is as much of a circus as Mycroft promised, though he directed his comments at all times to Sherlock only – a wise precaution, given John’s current feelings for him – and somehow they get through it. In the next couple of days, Sherlock shows him every newspaper and online article he can find that has their picture in it in their new suits. He’d made good on his promise to drag John into every cubicle with him, most memorably the one where they’d bought John’s new (grey, single-breasted, single-button) suit. There hadn’t been time for bespoke tailoring so they’d both shopped off the rack (to Sherlock’s private distaste, not that he looked any the worse for it, in John’s opinion), where Sherlock had apparently found the fit of John’s trousers so acceptable that he’d demanded the immediate removal of said trousers and dropped to his knees at once, to John’s simultaneous mortification and gratification.

In the end, Sherlock concedes to answer a few questions after all, and naturally the personal ones come up. As discussed, he steers clear of them all, though he does confirm that he and John are living together at Baker Street once again. Following that question, he cuts his eyes to Mycroft, who swiftly brings the conference to a close.

Lestrade calls within the hour, as Sherlock predicted. John can hear his raised voice over the phone quite well from where he’s sitting and grins at Sherlock across the space between their chairs. When Sherlock can get a word in edgewise, he explains a bit, then reluctantly apologises, which he immediately follows with some appropriately snarky remarks, and (some time later), agrees to a drink with bad grace. He looks quite self-satisfied as he hangs up, and when he quirks a brow at John, John puts down his laptop and crawls into Sherlock’s lap. Sherlock kisses him for a bit, then says, “He is so irritating sometimes. I’d forgotten how annoying he could be.”

“Twat,” John says, biting at Sherlock’s ear, liking the shiver that produces. “He’d say the same for you, and be quite right.”

“Hmm,” Sherlock says neutrally, but it seems he’s thinking about something else. John’s right: after a moment, Sherlock says, “I’m better, though, aren’t I? I mean, since I’ve come back?”

There is no way on earth John can possibly deny this. “You are,” he agrees quietly, not looking Sherlock in the eye. “I guess you sort of had to be. With me, I mean…” he trails off uncertainly, not sure how much more he wants to admit on that score. It’s quite true, though, and John winces to think that he was in such a bloody awful state that Sherlock Holmes was reduced to washing the dishes and cooking in his alarm over it, in his attempts to suddenly learn how to be accommodating and caring and attentive for the first time in his thirty-seven years.

Sherlock tries to shrug off John’s embarrassment. “It was overdue,” he says, meaning himself. He turns John’s face to his again, then says afterward, “Only for you, though. You’re the only one who merits such efforts.”

John manages to laugh at this, as Sherlock obviously intended him to (not that John doubts he means it quite sincerely). “Lestrade and the rest would probably fall over in shock if they could see you like this,” he says, and he sort of likes that. Though it could be nice for them to see exactly how far Sherlock’s regard for him goes that he’s extended himself this far out of his usual range of behaviour for John’s sake. “So, are they going to call us for the next big case?”

Sherlock makes an affirmative sound. “There’s one on now, in fact. Lestrade wants us to have a drink with him and look over what they’ve got. It’s a cold case that seems to have warmed up again and apparently we’ll need to have the background first.”

John likes that Sherlock keeps saying we. In the old days he would have said I and assumed that John was going to tag along. A conscious shift? It must be. “When?” he asks, meaning the drink.

“This afternoon,” Sherlock tells him. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” John says. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath, aware that Sherlock can feel it. It will be fine. It’s Lestrade. He knows and likes Lestrade, and Sherlock will ensure that any forays into unwelcome subject areas are swiftly curtailed if necessary. (He hates that it could be necessary, but Sherlock is managing to make him feel less self-conscious about it, which is a small miracle in and of itself.)

The mid-afternoon drink turns out to be fine. It’s unexpectedly great to see Lestrade again, and maybe he’s learned a thing or two about tact, too, because he doesn’t say a word about John’s thinness or how much greyer his hair has got, or anything about the past three years at all, in fact. Everyone speaks strictly about the present. Lestrade asks about them living at Baker Street again, and the beer relaxes them all. The photos from the cold case are interesting enough that Sherlock doesn’t seem to mind being kept from going straight to the crime scene – though of course, as soon as all of the information has been exchanged, that’s exactly what they do.

Donovan is there, though Anderson isn’t, and a few other officers that John hasn’t seen before. At one point Donovan says something to two of the officers and all three of them snigger, looking at him and Sherlock. John feels his cheeks begin to heat, but swallows down his anger and goes to catch up with Sherlock, who is examining a shell casing several metres away.

***

Sherlock solves the case later that night, which involves a rather lengthy chase through a seedy network of tunnels John never even knew existed (never wanted to know, for that matter). Sherlock has the killer pinned to a slimy tunnel wall and has to ask John to extricate his handcuffs from an interior pocket of his coat as he crossly chastises the killer to hold still. They march him back to the point where they left Lestrade and the rest behind and hand him over, and if Sherlock seems particularly smug, no one has the heart to comb him down, not even Donovan. They catch the first cab they can find and go home.

“You hungry?” John asks in the taxi.

“Yes, but I want to – we should shower first,” Sherlock says, the bridge of his nose creasing in distaste. “We both smell like the tunnels.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” John admits. “Then after? Should we order in? Go out?”

Sherlock turns his head, looks at him for a moment, then says, “Your choice.”

John grits his teeth but doesn’t say anything until later. First they get inside, stripping off their clothes in the bedroom and getting into the shower. Showering together is something John never liked in the past – too much of one person never quite getting enough of the hot water, but somehow with Sherlock it works. He never hogs the water and seems to have developed a taste for washing John’s hair. John’s scalp has always been very sensitive and he enjoys it probably even more than Sherlock does, which often results in some form of shower sex – another thing about which his attitude has changed considerably. Sherlock’s fingers are massaging his scalp now and John is moaning, exhaling through his nose. He’s got one hand on Sherlock’s hip to steady himself, his eyes closed in enjoyment, while the other lazily strokes Sherlock’s cock. He’d no idea before all this that Sherlock could be this sensual, could enjoy physical intimacy this much, but it’s clear that he does. And John thinks that this can’t just be for his sake, or only because Sherlock knows that he likes it. It must have woken something in Sherlock that had gone unsatisfied for too long, another hunger he’d chosen to ignore for expediency’s sake, but now that he’s tried it, he’s found he likes it quite a lot.

Sherlock backs him into the wall, thrusting hard into John’s fist and comes a moment later, his breath creating little clouds of steam. He goes still for a moment, panting against John’s forehead, then turns them around, getting John under the water to rinse the shampoo out of his hair, bending to kiss him, rivulets of warm shower water mingling in their mouths where they’re pouring over John’s face, and it’s exquisite. Sherlock takes his fingers out of John’s hair and John opens his eyes and smiles. “Your turn,” he says. “Kneel down.”

Sherlock is on his knees before John’s finished forming the words. They’ve done it this way before and they both like it, so why not? John gets a large amount of Sherlock’s expensive shampoo in his hands, then starts rubbing it into Sherlock’s water-flattened curls, careful to keep the suds from running into his eyes. Sherlock lets him get started, then leans forward and takes John into his mouth. John likes it like this, with both of them having something to do – it makes him feel less self-conscious about his bony hips, his scar. He can hold onto Sherlock for balance even as he washes that luxuriant hair, Sherlock’s hands holding and massaging his arse. When he comes a few minutes later, Sherlock swallows, kisses his way up John’s belly and chest to his mouth, John taking a step back to pull Sherlock’s head under the spray to rinse his hair. It’s all so perfect in a way that John almost hates to say anything to spoil things, but it needs saying.

He waits until they’re both on their feet again, washing themselves and each other, Sherlock slicking conditioner through his hair, then says, “So, when are you going to start being normal again? I mean it – like, really normal. Messy experiments. Forgetting me at crime scenes. You telling me where we’re going for dinner. All that.”

Sherlock has his eyes closed, rinsing out the conditioner, and for a few minutes he doesn’t answer. John’s mostly finished, so he just watches Sherlock and waits. Sherlock opens his eyes and says, “I didn’t think you necessarily wanted to go back to that. Things have changed, haven’t they?”

“Of course they have,” John says, frowning. “I just keep waiting for this magical honeymoon period to be over or something, though. I guess I feel like you’re just being this nice to me all the time because you’re still being, I don’t know, too gentle with me. Because you think I can’t handle you the way you used to be or something.”

Sherlock sighs. “Come here,” he says, pulling John under the water with him, arms coming around his shoulders. “Stop thinking that everything I’m doing is about your state of health. It has very little to do with that and quite a lot to do with the fact that we’ve become something else. I didn’t think you wanted things to be the way they were.”

“It’s not that I do,” John says, feeling like he’s an idiot for objecting to Sherlock’s attentiveness. “I just want you to stop going so far out of your way to accommodate me. It makes me feel like a total prick.”

Sherlock puts his forehead against his. “I thought that was how it was supposed to work,” he says. “You always spent so much time taking care of me, making sure I took care of myself, and when I came back and found you the way you were, it made me think that someone should have been taking care of you. I thought we’d found the middle ground, though. Do you really feel like it’s too much?”

“No,” John admits, still feeling like a heel. “Okay. Maybe sometimes. You’re still allowed to assert yourself, you know. Do what you want. I don’t expect you to be mindful of me every second of every day. I want you to feel like you can be yourself and do what suits you, and accommodate me a little bit.”

Sherlock pulls back so that he can study John closely for a few moments, the water still running over his face. “All right,” he says, sounding a touch uncertain. “But you’ll tell me if I – if it’s not right? I hardly need tell you I have no prior experience regarding relationships like ours. I’m just… trying to do it justice, I suppose. I’m not trying to manage you. I just find myself wanting to do things for you in a way that I never did before. I don’t know what you’ve done to me, John Watson. But the last thing it could be is pity. Stop thinking that.”

John finds himself rather moved by this. “Okay,” he says, his throat tight. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’ll try to stop complaining about it, then.”

“You did everything,” Sherlock says, his voice low and almost shockingly tender. His long thumbs come up to stroke John’s cheeks, forehead touching John’s again. “You were still here when I got back. That was all I wanted. So let me do this with you. Be your lover. Take care of you. The way you always took care of me.”

And damn it, if that didn’t cause tears to prickle behind his eyes. Good job they’re already in the water. John pulls Sherlock’s mouth to his and kisses him for a very long time after that, Sherlock’s arms coming around his torso, mouth opening readily to John’s, and it’s good. It’s really fucking amazing, honestly, John thinks, and feels something in his chest loosen and stay loosened for weeks and months to come.

And later, after they’ve extricated themselves from the shower, Sherlock complaining about his pruny skin, he looks at John and announces, “Get dressed, we’re going for Chinese.”

John doesn’t stop grinning all the way there.

*