Chapter Text
It isn’t the first time John has seen Sherlock’s skin, he’s cleaned enough cuts, seen enough of Sherlock’s bare arms as he works at the kitchen table. John decides that it must have been the sheet, that expanse of skin, so pure that it was an extension of the sheet. Making Sherlock look like a Greek statue, carved of marble.
He knows what people will think, if they knew that the sight of that skin had made his fingers twitch. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but not for the reasons they would think.
John starts drawing between patients at the surgery, on the back of Tesco’s receipts and while he is waiting for Sherlock to give statements to Greg. He draws the chemical formulas for nicotine and adrenaline. Various combinations of the skull, violin and guns. A little white pill; hoping it might teach him humility. A taxi, 221B, and SH in every font he can think of. He draws a pin up girl with Irene’s face and watches as it burns in the fireplace. He’s sure Ella would have words to say about that if he still saw her.
He contemplates tribal, Japanese, vintage and modern styles. He’s not sure he put this much thought into his own tattoos, he draws until his fingers ache and he is sure Sherlock will notice.
He catches himself walking back and forth through the kitchen, extra trips through Sherlock’s space to steal glimpses of Sherlock’s nape as he bends over the microscope. It would be a waste to slap random bits of flash onto Sherlock’s perfect blank canvas. His skin demands a work of art, John chews his lip as he draws. The more he draws the farther away he feels from Sherlock, feels that he only knows the surface of the man. There is so much he doesn’t know about the man before... they never speak about the drugs. Sherlock may have even deleted it.
John smiles and sketches the solar system, the constellations, and the phases of the moon.
It was only a matter of time before Sherlock catches him at it, “I didn’t know you could draw.” He’s offended, as though John has been hiding it from him. That’s fair because John had been hiding it from everyone. He hadn’t told Ella, because he was afraid she would make him try art therapy and he didn’t want to have to explain that his medium wasn’t paint and canvas but ink and skin, electricity and blood.
He’d shown promise in school, his art teachers had been supportive, letting him work in a variety of styles. He just didn’t have the patience for flat art... there was something about the irreversible nature of tattooing that had appealed to him immediately. He quirks his lip, now he sees that it is obviously an extension of his adrenaline addiction. His hand perfectly steady as he carved images into skin. He’d started his apprenticeship in his first year at uni, working unpaid at first, learning the trade and practicing his line work on bananas and oranges. By med school he had his own chair, and an impressive client list.
He’d needed more so he’d joined the army, more excitement, more adrenaline, more danger. He’d taken his machine with him. Snuck it into the sterilizer in the field hospital whenever one of the unit worked up the courage to ask for some ink. His reputation had grown through word of mouth until he’d had to turn away more clients than he took. Ink was impossible to get in the desert, he’d rationed it as best he could.
The bullet wound had ruined his shoulder piece, scar tissue fused with ink and torn flesh. He’d packed up the machine and thrown away the ink, deciding to forget. Until Mycroft put his foot down and revealed an irresistible blank canvas.
Now John laughs in the face of Sherlock’s indignation, “Like you don’t have secrets, Mr. Plays the Violin when he’s thinking.” He went back to his drawing, a folded paper lotus, he has a whole collection of clues from old cases shoved in a shoebox under his bed. Trophys from cases solved, but nothing personal to Sherlock. And he can’t bring himself to ask.
The more he drew the more he realizes that Sherlock does not have preferences. The books on his shelf are wide ranging, but lack anything approaching a pattern for John to discern. The skull on the mantle and the skulls on the walls are the only things that held in terms of decor. John draws several depictions of the Grim Reaper, before deciding that it is too obvious. He draws the cow skull with its headphones, adds that one to the collection of things he thinks Sherlock might like. Adds a simple yellow happy face pocked with bullet holes while he is at it, he doesn’t think he could use that one. He isn’t sure, but he thinks colour would be garish, Sherlock’s pale skin is perfect for black and grey.
Then there is a case, the suspect identified by a visible tattoo. Sherlock expounds at length on the futility of devoting yourself to a life of crime and adding identifying marks to your skin. John lets him rant, and when he runs himself down asks, “You’ve never wanted a tattoo?”
“Don’t be absurd John, why would I....” The crease above his eyes that indicates true confusion and surprise is going to become permanent at this rate. John purses his lips and waits for Sherlock to ask, “John, you have tattoos.” He poses it as a statement, but there is the barest hint of an uplift on the last syllable.
John warms, he’s managed to keep something truly to himself in the presence of Sherlock Holmes. He’s confident he’s one of a very small group that can lay claim to that, “I do. Paid for a good chunk of school working in a tattoo shop.” He smiles because Sherlock is completely taken aback by this declaration.
He’d gone quiet after that, John expected him to ask to see them. Instead he disappeared into his mind palace, fingers steepled under his chin and eyes roving over invisible information. If John thinks about it too much he is staggered under the weight of the implication. Sherlock saves information about John, deleted the cosmos and stores every bit of trivia about John in that massive brain of his. John purses his lips and lets the thought slide past him, that he could be the most important thing in Sherlock’s universe, and they had only known each other a year.
Later, in a break between cases but before boredom sets in, “The drawings are for me.”
“Yes.” No point in trying to evade or distract. He knew Sherlock has been through the box upstairs, he’ll know what each one meant.
“You don’t have any ink.” Sherlock has found the machine then.
“Nope.” John wasn’t sure he knows where this is going, “I’d probably need new needles too. And it needs to be sterilized.”
“You’d do it.”
“Sherlock, are you asking me to tattoo you?” He needs this, has needed it since the Palace. His fingers twitch, suddenly demanding the vibration of the machine. And he thinks about the crystal ashtray, how he could bring it to life on Sherlock’s skin. The thing that started it all, black and grey and white on pale skin. He can practically taste it, offers a tiny prayer that Sherlock isn’t serious. John doesn’t think he would be able to stop once he began this, not until Sherlock’s skin is drenched in symbolism and John’s ink.
“I want them all.” Sherlock’s eyes are sharp and clear, his face is glowing. John’s never considered facial tattoos a good idea, but suddenly he wants to shave Sherlock’s hair, hide secrets there, so close to his mind.
John closes his eyes, turns his head away. His heart pounds in his chest, because this is too much. He wanted it, needed it even. Once offered it is overwhelming and he has no idea where to begin. Except for the part of his brain that is already making lists of necessary supplies: Ink, needles, a photocopier (should he buy one or can they use one at Bart’s? definitely not at the Yard), a new motor, transfer paper, surgical gloves. He wonders if it would be easier to reach out to a tattoo shop. He still has connections in the tattoo world, he could find a shop that would let him work privately. He’s not looking for clients, he only wants Sherlock’s skin.
God. He wants Sherlock’s skin.
He licks his lips, “You are sure.”
“John.”
Of course he is sure, he never says anything that he isn’t fully committed to. John lets his head hang down between his shoulders, he speaks to the space on the floor between his shoes part rug, part hardwood, the edge of his chair just visible in cross-section, “I... the box... that wouldn’t be the end of it.” John means that he can’t stop thinking of new things to put on Sherlock’s skin. Even now he is thinking of music, wrapped around Sherlock’s bow arm like the column of Trajan. He plans scale, he’d have to be sure the entire piece of music would fit on the arm. Something Sherlock has composed or the work of another? He’d do it slowly, wrapping each bar around Sherlock’s wrist, work his way up to the elbow. His mind crashes to a halt over the skin of Sherlock’s elbow, the lines too delicate to transverse the wrinkled skin. Impossible to just break the flow of the music, his head snaps up, desperate to see the skin again.
“I need to see.”
Sherlock stands, the distance between their chairs has never seemed small before. John’s head snaps to the side, checking the door to the sitting room is closed against Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock’s never been modest before, and he’s fairly sure Mrs. Hudson has been treated to a free show on more than one occasion. This is different, John needs to see every inch of Sherlock. He needs to know where every one of Sherlock’s marks are, the texture of his knees and elbows.
Sherlock is neat and efficient, his motions clipped and almost formal. He turns at the waist as his shirt slips over his back, tossing it onto his chair. John’s breath snags in his throat at the sight of his skin, pulled taut over the muscles and bones of his chest. He’s not worthy of this, he can’t be worthy of this skin. John knows that he is lost, he’s never needed something this much. He shouldn’t need to be able to map every freckle from memory in order to apply a tattoo properly.
He’s lost and it has already begun. He doesn’t know if it started when Sherlock said his name, the single syllable that managed to convey Sherlock’s need for this. His agreement in the form of needing to see his skin. He’s lost and it started with a helicopter ride.
Sherlock’s fingers were swift and sure on his shirt, they flutter and pause over the flies of his trousers, “John.” This time Sherlock is asking permission, asking if it is alright for him to give John everything.
“It is fine Sherlock, it is all fine. Please.”
Sherlock’s movements are mechanical, fluid, more graceful than he has any right to be stripping down until his bare skin glows in the afternoon sun of Baker street. John rejects the image of circuitry, or gears. Sherlock is not a machine, no matter his claims to the contrary, “Turn.”
Sherlock displays himself, turning every inch of his skin towards John’s eye. Lifts each of his legs in turns and lets John look, shows him hamstrings and groin. The soft core of his armpit, places no one sane would consider tattooing. But then neither of them are fully sane.
John sits in his chair, his fingers digging furrows into his thighs. Forces himself only to look, to overcome the twitching in his fingers. The need to catalogue every texture of Sherlock’s remarkable skin. His fingers already know so many of the small spaces on Sherlock’s body.
There is a new measurement of time, he can’t remember what it is to count time in minutes and hours, there is only the amount of time that it takes John’s eyes to travel the distance around Sherlock.
“John.” It is broken this time and brings John back to his own skin.
“I have pens, we can work on placements. We need so many things first Sherlock,” John’s voice breaks, tortured by the expanse of time that must pass before they can truly begin.
There is an abortive motion of Sherlock’s head, and the smallest noise in the back of his throat. It might as well be a roar, go now, I need it, please John, I can’t... But some part of Sherlock’s mind must know that it is not as simple as running down to Tesco for more milk.
John is out of his chair and sprinting up the stairs before the curls on Sherlock’s head settle. The box of drawings, his pens and his digital camera. So he can take pictures, he can’t type worth shit but he managed to learn enough photoshop to move placements around. He forces a deep breath into his diaphragm before he goes back downstairs.
Sherlock is statue still, glorious in his skin in the centre of the sitting room. For all his concern John has left the sitting room door open, “Shit, I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know if he is apologizing for the door or for not having started yet.
He pulls Sherlock down onto the floor, sits cross legged next to him and pulls his bow arm close to begin the music.