Archive of Our Own ^beta

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John sat alone on his bed, head in his hands. He hadn’t thought he’d ever be at this point again, feeling so low, but he was. He’d managed to come back from it twice already. With Sherlock’s help, he had not only come back from it, but had felt better than he ever had in his life before. Then came the dark couple of years after Sherlock jumped, where every day he consciously made the choice to continue living, to leave the gun unfired, to refrain from visiting any more sorrow on Mrs Hudson.

Mary was the second person to help him come back from that black edge, day by day; a small smile and hello here, an understanding of his need for solitude there. One day he had been surprised to find himself smiling back at her; a month or so later, laughing at some small but very cheesy joke she had made. It had been a small step from there to a drink in the pub after a particularly difficult shift at the surgery, because of a patient who had been convinced that Google made her a better GP than John’s medical degree made him. A few pints later, and John had been snogging Mary furiously against the wall of the pub. The relationship had been easy to fall into after that, and slowly but surely, John fell in love. Sherlock’s loss became easier to bear, never completely going, but slowly fading back, until his wrenching loss was no longer the first thing on John’s mind when he woke up, nor the last thing on his mind before he closed his eyes at night.

That made what happened after Christmas even more difficult. Sherlock had returned miraculously after more than two years away, and after a small discussion between John’s forehead and the bridge of Sherlock’s nose, they had fallen back into their old ways, John leaving work at the drop of a hat to chase all over London with Sherlock. Then Mary had shot Sherlock, and John had nearly lost him again. Clinically dead for four minutes, the surgeons had told John, before his heart had inexplicably restarted, and Sherlock had begun the long journey back to health. He had told John that Mary had performed surgery; she had aimed to hit him in a spot that would not cause any complications. The fact that there had been complications, Sherlock said, was just bad luck; he’d moved the wrong way at just the right time. Sherlock hadn’t told John that the reality of the situation was somewhat different; Sherlock’s move had been what resulted in an accidentally dangerous shot, rather than a definitely fatal one.

Mycroft had managed to secure Sherlock’s return to London by the judicious use of a video seemingly heralding Moriarty’s continued existence, a mystery that was still unsolved, even by the genius himself. A month or so later, John had returned home unexpectedly one afternoon, after being vomited on by a small child in clinic and needing to change his clothes. Mary and David hadn’t been able to move fast enough, and shortly after she had packed her suitcase and left their flat, Mycroft had subtly sent John incontrovertible proof that the baby she was carrying was David’s, and not John’s. He had stopped trying to make things work at that point, packed up everything of value to him (which included precisely nothing that related to his life with Mary but every little thing that related to his life with Sherlock), and left immediately for Baker Street.

“It’s always been your home,” Sherlock had said, in response to the look on John’s face when he arrived on the doorstep, “of course you can come back.” John had been torn between feeling grateful that he didn’t have to say a word, and pissed off that he didn’t even have to say a fucking word. Sherlock had realised that John was angry, and had tried to be considerate, and that had inflamed John’s anger even more. He wished Sherlock would go back to leaving the milk on the side to curdle because the fridge had an entire sheep’s head in it, instead of buying milk every other day whether it was needed or not.

John just wanted life to go back to normal; he wanted people to stop tiptoeing around him as though he was a poor broken thing. Greg and the other Yarders had tried inviting him out for drinks down the local after a case had been closed, but he had sat in the corner moping into his pint, and then he had stopped accepting the invitations. After a while, the invitations had stopped coming, and John had felt increasingly insular. John had always been the one to encourage Sherlock to go out for dinner, and without his push, dinner became a takeaway - or more often, leftovers - as John didn’t eat much and didn’t have the inclination to cook anymore. Sherlock had made dinner once or twice, and while the food had been amazing – it was “simple chemistry, John,” after all – John had pushed his food around the plate a few times, then smiled a sad smile and gone to bed. Sherlock didn’t know how to make the effort after that, he didn’t know how to fix John.

John was sitting at his desk at work with his head in his hands when he noticed a paperback book peeping out from underneath it. He didn’t know how long it had been under there; he’d seen a record number of patients that day as Sarah had come down with the flu, but it could have been there since the day before, for all he knew. He picked up the book, and turned it over in his hands. “Yes Man”, by Danny Wallace. He recognised the author’s name; John scanned the blurb quickly, and realised he’d read the author’s first book, a funny bit of fluff about accidentally starting a cult. This one seemed to be in the same easy-going vein, except in this one Danny had decided his life was becoming stale; he’d been spending too much time staying in by himself, and a chance encounter on a bus resulted in him deciding to say “yes” to everything for a month. John thought ruefully that it sounded like his own life, so he decided on the spur of the moment to take the book home with him and read it. Little did he know how much his life was about to change…

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

John sat in his armchair, the book open in one hand, a cup of cold tea in the other. Sherlock had been gone for hours, muttering something about a sample of thighs that Molly was holding for him. John knew he was conducting an experiment on the effects of cold temperatures on the muscle – the freezer in the flat was too small for the number of thighs Molly had for him, so he had decamped to Bart’s.

John was fascinated by the book; it wasn’t the most literary tome he had ever read, but it was what his Dad would have called a ‘ripping yarn’, funny and fast moving enough that he went through it in a matter of hours. He left it in his bedroom when he went into work the next day, and found himself thinking it over in between runny noses, rashes and prescriptions for HRT. John didn’t have the luxury of a chance encounter on a bus to prompt him to change his ways, but (he reasoned) he was an intelligent man, capable of making up his own mind, and he was fed up with being unhappy. At twenty-seven minutes past three on a Thursday afternoon, John Hamish Watson decided he would say ‘Yes!” more. More specifically, he decided, he would accept every invitation he was offered for the next month, any time someone asked him if he could do something for them – providing it wasn’t illegal immoral going to cause harm to someone who didn’t deserve it – he would do it, and any time someone asked if he wanted something, he would accept it. He thought carefully about whether he would have any conditions to this acceptance, but figured that during his time helping Sherlock with cases, he’d broken any number of laws, and the amount of force he had used to subdue some of the criminals they’d caught was definitely immoral, so he didn’t think there was much point in excluding those now. No, he would accept any invitation or suggestion, and hope that it was enough to change his outlook on life.

Sherlock was bored. It had been three days now since the last case, and that had only been a three, a four at a push if you squinted and weren’t terribly fussy. He’d only taken it because there had been NOTHING for over a week, and he felt as though he was going mad, as though his brain was eating itself. He had already checked his sock index this morning, but since he had screamed at John the last time for filing his socks out of place, John had threatened to let Sherlock do his own washing. He hadn’t followed through on the threat, but now settled for upending the laundry basket on his bed and leaving him to file his own socks, so Sherlock had found nothing wrong. He had checked all of his experiments, but they were all at a stage were they needed time to be able to react. He had tried sulking for a while, but it wasn’t much fun without John there to watch. He had tried sorting the information in his mind palace, but he’d already done that the previous day, and the day before that, and there wasn’t anything left to be sorted. He threw himself down on the sofa, and decided the only thing for it was to go and explore John’s bedroom.

Since John had moved in again a couple of months previously, Sherlock had respected his boundaries. He hadn’t been through his papers, or taken any of his hideous jumpers to experiment on. He hadn’t barged into his bedroom at six in the morning demanding John accompany him to a crime scene, and it had been positively hateful. Sherlock opened the door, and the clean scent of just John wafted out of the room, untainted by anything else. It was the only place in the flat were Sherlock couldn’t smell himself overlaying everything, so he stopped momentarily, eyes closed, allowing the scent to fill his lungs before stepping over the threshold. As usual, the room was neat, simply furnished with no clutter to be seen. The bed was tidily made, with as close to hospital corners as could be achieved with a duvet. The top of the chest of drawers was empty, no clothes spilling untidily from the drawers. The only thing that gave any clue at all that the room was lived in at all was a book placed neatly on the bedside table. Sherlock picked it up and scanned the cover, dismissing it almost immediately as another one of John’s trashy novels. He noted almost in passing that it wasn’t his usual fare, there was no sensational crime to be solved, or stereotypical action hero’s adventures to be followed, but then again, John hadn’t been his usual self lately, so it stood to reason that he wouldn’t be doing the things he normally did. Sherlock sighed, and decided it would be best not to upset John at the moment by poking around in his things, so he left, closing the door behind him.

Greg Lestrade started writing a text to send around to the usual suspects; they’d had a great result in court that afternoon, with one of their collars being banged up for 15 years. He felt that they should go out and celebrate; it had been a gruelling trial, what with the defendant fighting every piece of evidence the team had carefully gathered. When the jury had unanimously agreed that the lying little toerag was guilty as charged, it had sent a sigh of relief round the team. Greg finished writing the message, hit the ‘send’ button, and then groaned as he realised he’d sent it to the group that included John. He didn’t think he could stand another message refusing an invitation with a lame excuse. To his immense surprise, one of the first messages he received back was from John, and was asking where he should be and at what time. He replied back quickly with the pertinent details, then got his head down, tackling the huge pile of paperwork that would hopefully lead to another conviction in the next week or so.

John had received the text from Greg, and found himself automatically responding in the negative before he remembered his new vow. He deleted the message and started over, sending a simple acceptance, and checking where and when. There was no time like the present to start changing his life.

At ten thirty that evening, John and Greg were the only ones from the team still left in the pub. Everyone else had left one by one; after long days in court they were all ready to sleep for a week.

“Do you want another?” Greg asked, hoping against hope that John would say no; he knew John had a shift at the clinic early the following morning as he’d said as much. With any luck, John would turn him down, and they could both go back to their homes and crash.

“Yeeeppp!” John replied, slurring his words slightly. It’d been a long time since he had been drinking like this; Sherlock had removed all the alcohol from the house the day after he had moved back in, shades of Harry prompting his decision, John was sure.

Twenty minutes and another three pints later, Greg was starting to become seriously concerned. He’d switched to mineral water, but John was still steadfastly drinking pints, as though his life depended on it. Greg had never seen him drink this much, even when he’d tagged along on a boozy evening out with John’s army mates home on leave one night. He had always been sensible, alternating pints with mineral water to limit the hangover. Greg knew John was in for a world of pain in the morning, but he wouldn’t stop. He called a cab, knowing he’d had far too much to drink to be able to drive home safely; he could drop in on the way to work to collect his car.

John knew he’d had far too much to drink, unfortunately for him, whenever anyone spoke to him it had been to ask, “do you want another pint?” If only they’d asked, “do you want another drink?” he lamented to himself, the hangover tomorrow was going to be legendary.

“Look mate, I need to get going, I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow. Do you want to share the cab back? I’ll be going past Baker Street on the way home, so it’s no trouble…” John slurred something Greg chose to interpret as a yes, and between the two of them they managed to get him out of the pub and into the taxi. A few very long minutes passed as Greg desperately hoped John wouldn’t vomit on him, but eventually they arrived at Baker Street. Greg asked the cab to wait for him while he helped John extricate his keys from his pocket and get the door open. They staggered up the stairs and into the flat, where John collapsed in a snoring heap, facedown on the sofa. Sherlock looked up from his experiment, his favourite blue dressing gown round his shoulders, goggles pushing his curls into a wild halo around his head, and a look of absolute shock on his face. Greg moved into the kitchen, coming to stand next to Sherlock and speaking quietly, despite the fact that John was oblivious to the world and would remain so for some hours to come.

“I’m worried about John, Sherlock, he wouldn’t stop drinking! Pint after pint, every time anyone said anything about another round, he went for it! I’ve never seen him drink like that, has something happened?”

Sherlock managed to placate Greg with promises to find out what had happened and a reminder that he had a taxi waiting outside, and shooed him out of the flat. He sat with his hands steepled beneath his chin, and thought for a while. He wasn’t aware of anything that had happened; he would have seen it on John, the man was ridiculously easy to read. His thoughts drifted to the book he had seen on John’s bedside table. It had been something about saying yes to everything, Sherlock remembered, and just like that the answer came to him. John had decided to adopt the same tactic. Sherlock smiled to himself; the next few weeks should be fun.
 

Chapter Text

Sherlock was grinning. He knew he was grinning, and he couldn’t help it; he’d have to get a handle on it soon or even John might work out something was going on. They were currently walking down a street in a sleepy little Home Counties town they’d been to on a case; it had been solved in the early hours of the morning, after which they had crashed in the shared room of the one bed and breakfast in town. John had awoken around one in the afternoon to the sound of Sherlock’s gentle snoring. He had managed to shower, dress and make himself a mug of instant coffee before Sherlock had risen like Sleeping Beauty, demanding coffee of his own. It was now half past three, and John had driven Sherlock out in search of food.

Sherlock smirked as he spotted an independent organic food store a little further up the road; he suspected it might offer him just the opportunity he’d been looking for. It was they type of place opened by middle class yummy mummies whose children were away at school all day, and who were convinced they were starting the next big thing, whilst simultaneously forgetting they had absolutely no talent whatsoever. Sherlock managed to steer John inside without him realising what had happened. Eyes flicking rapidly around, Sherlock spotted what he was looking for – an enthusiastic young lady with a stand filled with a variety of samples. Grabbing John’s elbow, Sherlock dragged him over to the stand, saying, “you told me you were hungry John, would you like to try these samples?”

Of course, John had to agree, and before he knew what was going on, he found himself with a mouthful of the foulest thing he’d ever tasted. He thought to himself later that he should have known it would be awful; the girl had dreadlocks, and was wearing a tie-dyed skirt in a muddy brown colour and a necklace that had obviously been hand woven. John’s naturally genial manner ensured he didn’t just spit the whole mouthful out onto the floor, but it was a close run thing. Sherlock didn’t give John any chances to refuse more samples, but kept grabbing the next pot from the stand and shoving it at him, saying, “Try this one next, John!”

After about ten minutes of this, John had tried every one of the samples, each of them tasting worse than the one before. He was starting to feel decidedly ill, and his appetite had gone. With a final triumphant grin, Sherlock turned to John and asked, “Are you going to buy some to take home?” John grinned weakly and said, “yes…”

Forty-five pounds later, John lugged the jute bag full of jars along the street behind Sherlock. The jars were all recycled from other products; jam jars, curry paste jars and pickled onion jars were among the ones Sherlock had spotted, and he was certain that the ghosts of their previous contents would make their presence known in the taste of the current ones. The jars themselves had yellowed paper stuck to them with handwritten descriptions of the contents, whoever had written them had tried to make the descriptions cute and appealing, but had missed the mark by quite some way. They came off as having been over-thought, and as a result, both condescending and slightly desperate.

John couldn’t work out quite how he’d managed to end up with all of the jars, he was quite certain he didn’t like elderflower, and even more certainly not when made into a jam with bananas. Sherlock couldn’t stop giggling, he had enjoyed forcing the progressively more revolting concoctions on John, but the icing on his cake had been making him actually pay to take a whole bag full home with them – he wondered how long they would actually stay in the flat before John offered them to Sherlock for experimental purposes… or maybe he would just dump the whole lot in the bin and not bother taking it back at all? Sherlock was looking forward to finding out!
 

Chapter Text

As John followed Sherlock across the dance floor of the club, he started to reflect on exactly how he’d gotten into this situation. It had started the day before, when Lestrade had called them in on a case; three bodies had been discovered, one on each of the preceding three days, and the Yard had come up against a dead end as far as the investigation was concerned. Sherlock had spent some time examining all of the crime scenes, roundly berating Anderson for everything he had missed, including the vital piece of evidence as far as Sherlock was concerned – a faded but still legible UV stamp on the hand of one of the men that indicated he had been to a club the night he had died. One of the other men had a coaster from the same club on his coffee table, and when Sherlock examined the third man’s wardrobe, he declared unequivocally that it was obvious – to him, at any rate, although neither John nor any of the Yarders could see it – the man had attended the same club, and had in fact been something of a regular there.

Sherlock had explained his conclusions, which didn’t help in the slightest; John and the Yarders still couldn’t understand why having a pair of tight leather trousers and a sheer black shirt meant Simon Eltisley had been a regular attendant at Mungo’s. Sherlock rolled his eyes, making a disparaging remark about the number and efficacy of the brain cells collectively powering the Yard, and dragged John off to the nearest main road, where he magically summoned up a black cab.

“So that’s it then?” asked John. “We tell them the victims all went clubbing at the same place, and then we go home? That’s not like you, Sherlock.”

“Obviously not, John,” Sherlock replied, furiously texting on his mobile. “It’s only seven thirty in the evening though, the club won’t be open for another couple of hours. We’ll go along when it’s open, and see if we can spot anything. I have a good idea of how the suspect will behave; he’s a repressed homosexual - that much was obvious from the viciousness of the wounds. He resents these men for being so at ease with their sexuality when he can’t be; it’s a result of his strict Catholic upbringing. He’s trying to throw off the pressures of his early childhood by picking up men, but it’s too strong for him, and when the guilt kicks back in, he blames the victims. Now come along John, we need to go shopping.” So saying, Sherlock leapt from the cab outside a small, but trendy looking, men’s boutique. John sighed, but paid the driver, and followed Sherlock out onto the pavement.

As Sherlock approached the door of the boutique, it opened, and a young man with a large bushy beard and neatly trimmed blonde hair opened the door and embraced Sherlock, who stepped back quickly.

“Sherlock, it’s great to see you!” the man squealed, clapping his hands together and pulling John and Sherlock inside the boutique. “I have some fabulous pieces that would look great on you, I’m so glad you’re going to let me dress you at last!”

Sherlock cleared his throat. “Ah, Rob,” he said, “you’re going to be dressing John here. I have some suitable pieces already, from the last time I called in.” He indicated John as he spoke, then turned to him, explaining, “This is Rob, I helped him prove to his boyfriend Iain that he wasn’t cheating on him with another man, rather that he’d been arranging a luxury holiday for the two of them in the Maldives. Of course, he left Iain just after they got back from the holiday anyway, but I did my part.”

Rob looked John up and down, pouting as he did so. “Bitch was flirting with all of the waiters in the hotel! I wouldn’t have minded but I got back to the room early after a massage one afternoon and found Iain with a mouthful of cock and it wasn’t mine! I’ve been after Sherlock to let me dress him ever since, but he insists on choosing his own stuff. It’s a crying shame, the man has the body of an Adonis, and insists on keeping it all safely covered…”

“Ah, it’s kind of you to open up for us this late,” John said awkwardly. He wasn’t really sure how to respond to Rob’s comments about Sherlock’s body; it wasn’t as though he had never noticed, after all. The amount of times Sherlock had been injured while they were running all over London ensured that at one time or another John had seen pretty much everything Sherlock had to offer, and he had to admit, the view was more than a little enticing, even for John.

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Rob replied easily, “anything for Sherlock… And I live right upstairs, I won’t be getting ready to go out for another hour or so myself, so I have the time.” He stood back, and examined John critically up and down for a moment. He stepped closer again, undoing John’s jacket and tugging it down off his shoulders, then pulling his jumper over his head to reveal his slim fitting t-shirt.

“Hmm… Nice figure, John, you’ve got some lovely muscles under here, why do you keep hiding them behind those baggy jumpers?” Sherlock smirked at Rob’s words, and John could see from the glint in his eyes that he agreed with Rob. It was a conversation they had had on a few occasions, mostly when Sherlock was trying to distract John from the results of another failed jumper experiment.

Rob scurried over with an armful of clothes. He shoved a pair of trousers and a top into John’s arms, then spun him around and pushed him towards the changing room – not so much a room as a small cubicle with a baggy curtain sagging from a rope strung across the front. John sighed and went inside, pulling the curtain across after him. It was a little too small, and he spent a moment or two trying to get it to fit all the way across, before giving it up as a bad job and starting to undo his jeans. Sherlock could see a glimpse each time John moved; the cubicle was too small for him to turn easily in, and there was a lot of movement in the curtain. Fairly soon, John declared in a loud voice, “I’m not wearing this!”

Sherlock yanked open the curtain, dragging John out into the shop. He stalked his way around John, examining him from all angles. The tight black t-shirt fitted snugly around John’s muscular biceps and pectorals, and although his waistline was a little softer than it had been in his army days, it too looked good. The soft black leather trousers clung to John’s arse and strong thighs, and Sherlock felt his mouth begin to water.

“I am NOT wearing these!” John glared at Sherlock before stalking back off to the cubicle to undress. Sherlock moved quickly around the room, grabbing a white crop top and tight pair of baby blue hot pants with numerous zips and ties on them. He handed them to Rob with a wicked smile, and turned back to the clothes. He knew there was no way on earth that John would agree to the outfit he had picked out, so he moved quickly to select the next one.

“Here you go John,” Rob sang through the curtain, taking hold of the edge as though to open it and reveal John in all his (mostly naked) glory, but John was too fast and snapped it shut again before Sherlock had the chance for a proper look. Less than ten seconds later, the clothes sailed back out of the cubicle, over the top of the sagging curtain.

“I’m not wearing that, I was a soldier!” John growled, and Sherlock stuffed the next outfit over the curtain – tight pink camouflage trousers and a baby pink t-shirt with a sequinned heart over the chest. “Sherlock,” John said, warningly.

“Will you try them on John, for me?” Sherlock replied quickly. He heard John’s sigh of exasperation before the response came, and knew he was reminding himself of his vow.

“Yes, okay then,” John replied, and the curtain began to bulge once more.

“I need to see you,” Sherlock said once the movements stopped, “will you come out here, please?” John ripped back the curtain and stepped out of the cubicle.

“I swear to God, Sherlock-“ John stopped abruptly at the sight of Sherlock standing with his phone pointed at John, and the huge grin on the man’s face. The “click” of the camera shutter sounded before John came to his senses and shot back behind the curtain.

“I am not going out dressed like this!” John yelled. “Find me something else – something I’ll wear – or you’re going by yourself!”

“Even if it might be dangerous? And I might get hurt?”

“Even then,” John replied evenly. Sherlock handed over the outfit he actually wanted John to wear – a tight pair of black jeans that would hug his arse, and a plain white t-shirt. A form-fitting black leather jacket finished the ensemble, and a pair of black biker boots bought the look together. As John finished dressing and came out of the cubicle, Rob made an appreciative noise, and started to smooth down the fabric wherever he thought he could get away with it. John slapped away his hands, as Sherlock swallowed; John looked even better than he had thought he would.

They left the shop after thanking Rob profusely for his time – “no, Sherlock, it was my pleasure, really, and your money’s no good here!” – and Sherlock magicked up another black cab. They returned to the flat, where Sherlock changed into a pair of skinny jeans and a scarlet net t-shirt. He fiddled with John’s hair, adding product to it and making it look like more of a youthful style; John knew there was no way he’d ever be able to reproduce it on his own. When John looked again, he could see that Sherlock appeared to have pierced nipples – he didn’t remember seeing the piercings the last time he had patched Sherlock up, and that had only been a week or so ago. It was obvious that they were fakes, somehow, but John couldn’t believe how realistic they looked, and he couldn’t stop himself from staring at them.

Finally they were both ready, and grabbing wallets and keys, they left Baker Street, heading for Mungo’s, and an eventful evening to come…

Chapter Text

Mungo’s was crowded, for the most part the clientele were exclusively male, despite the fact that Mungo’s was not a gay club. There was the odd sprinkling of female couples, and even fewer hetero couples. John parked himself at the bar and ordered a pint, Sherlock asked for a white wine spritzer. John couldn’t help thinking that if Sherlock was deliberately trying to imply that they were a couple, that drink was a pretty fast way of doing it.

“There are a lot of guys here,” John said to the spiky haired tattooed girl behind the bar, “am I missing something?” She grinned as she finished pulling his pint.

“That depends,” she smirked, “how many of them have you eyed up so far? I’d have thought the one you brought with you was enough, but what would I know? I’m a ladies' girl!” She winked at him as she set his pint down on top of the bar and moved to grab a wine glass.

“No, seriously, I didn’t think Mungo’s was a gay club?” John sipped at his pint, looking round the room.

“It’s not,” she replied, setting down Sherlock’s drink, “but we have an LGBT night every week, it’s pretty popular.” John handed over a twenty-pound note and waited for his change. Sherlock had already picked up his drink and was scanning the crowds. “Oh, I see,” replied John. “Is it the same night every week? I suppose it must be, or how would people know?”

“It changes every week,” the bartender answered, while grabbing a couple of bottles of flavoured cider for the next customer. “The DJ announces when the next night will be at the end of his set, it’s a bit of a ploy to get people to stay drinking later then they might have otherwise.”

“So someone who is a bit of a loner wouldn’t know when to come again unless he stayed here until the end?” cut in Sherlock, sharply.

“Well…. No, I suppose not, unless he just came in every night..?” the girl replied, her head on one side. Sherlock was already scanning the room again, so John grinned apologetically and raised his pint in a kind of salute, as the bartender was already moving off down to another customer at the other end of the bar. She smiled and waved him off as she took the customer’s order.

“So what are we looking for?” asked John, realising he hadn’t got a clue what their perpetrator looked like.

“We’re not, I am,” said Sherlock shortly.

“Then what’s the point of me being here, dressed in this ridiculous outfit?” John’s voice was beginning to take on that long-suffering quality that Sherlock was well used to; he was never sure quite what he kept doing that John had to suffer, but apparently it wasn’t anything too awful, since John was still living in Baker Street and hadn’t been to see his therapist since his return.

“Your job is to sit at the bar and look pretty, you’re the right type, especially in such a stereotypical outfit – although the crop top and hot pants would have been better, I really don’t know what your objection was to them, John. With any luck he’ll come and find you, and we can take him down before anyone else gets hurt.”

“What are you going to be doing while I’m over here being bait?” John was used to this kind of plan, he just hoped that Sherlock wouldn’t get too far ahead of him this time, the outfit he had only didn’t really leave much room for anything useful, such as a first aid kit, loaded weapon or contingent of armed back up from the Met… He had only just got room for his wallet and phone, so he took a moment or two to send a quick text message to Greg, warning him of what they were up to and where, in case he needed to send help urgently. Once it had sent, he composed another message, short and sweet: “SEND BACK UP NOW!!” which he kept in the text window without sending. He figured that it wouldn’t take a moment to send without distracting him from whatever was going on that he might need backup for.

“I’ll be over on that table,” Sherlock indicated a small table tucked into a dark corner nearby, “keeping an eye out for you. Try not to pull without me,” he added, in a withering tone of voice, then picked up his drink and stalked over to the table.

After about an hour, John had struck up a temporary friendship with the bartender, Kelly. It was quite freeing, he thought, to be able to talk to a girl when you already knew you weren’t going to get anywhere with her, and so you could just talk about things that interested both of you without having to watch every word or try to impress her. They’d already discovered a mutual love of music, and John was currently trying to convince her to give Paul Weller a try, rather than the grunge that was her usual fare. As Kelly wandered off to serve another customer, John turned to look out over the crowd, and realised he had company. A smartly dressed young man was looking at him with a lop-sided smile, and spoke when John registered he was there.

“Well hello sailor, I wondered when you’d realise I was here!”

John smiled back. “Soldier, actually, if you don’t mind,” he winked. The man gasped, placing his hand on John’s knee.

“Really?!” he asked, with a look of surprise. “I’ve always loved a military man, I bet you’ve got some lovely muscles under that jacket…” He slid his hand up John’s arm and squeezed his bicep. John laughed at the man’s boldness; he was well into his third pint, and feeling a little more relaxed that he thought he would be. “I’m Simon,” the man said, sticking his hand out for John to shake.

“John,” the man in question replied, shaking the proffered hand. “So you like a military man, eh?”

“I’ve nearly got the whole set,” Simon responded, “I took a Marine home last week, my last relationship was with an American airman based at Mildenhall, and my first lover was a sailor in the Navy…. You could help me complete the set!” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at John, who let out a loud belly laugh.

“I’m afraid I’m an ex-soldier,” he said, apologetically, “invalided out a few years ago. So I wouldn’t quite do, would I?”

Simon smiled good naturedly, and said, “Well it was worth a try, you can’t blame me, can you? How about a kiss instead, and we’ll call it done?”

John swallowed hard at that, it was all very well deciding to say yes to everything that was asked of him, but that was a very intimate thing to be asked. He drew in a deep breath, and said, “Yes.” Simon immediately grabbed his lapels, dragged him forward from his seat at the bar, and planted his lips on John’s. There was a moment of shocked surprise from John, and then he almost immediately found himself responding. Simon’s lips were so different from Mary’s; John had put off getting himself back out into the dating world because he didn’t want to be reminded of the disaster his marriage had been, but Simon was definitely male. He had a little stubble around his mouth that John could feel rubbing on his skin, and his scent was very masculine indeed. John recognised it as the same aftershave he himself wore, and there was something… intriguing about it. He closed his eyes and started to lean into the kiss, and was suddenly dragged off the stool backwards by an angry Sherlock, whose eyes were glaring daggers at Simon.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Sherlock yelled, and Simon backed off immediately, throwing his hands up in the air in a conciliatory gesture.

“I’m sorry mate, I didn’t know he was with you, I didn’t mean anything by it!” he said, all the while backing off, until he judged himself to be at a safe distance, then he turned and disappeared into the crowd. In the meantime, John had picked himself up off the floor and dusted himself down; he’d landed on his side, mobile phone in his pocket digging right into him. That was going to leave a nasty bruise, he was sure, but right now, John was more concerned with Sherlock’s behaviour than anything else.

“Sherlock, what the hell..?!”

Sherlock didn’t understand quite what had happened; he had brought John along to act as bait, and to be fair to him, that was exactly what John had done. He’d kept an eye out, both on John and the crowd, and suddenly John was kissing another man and Sherlock had seen red. Before he knew what he was doing, he was standing next to that ridiculous man and saving John from his clutches – protecting what was Sherlock’s. It suddenly hit him quite how important John was to him, and now he didn’t know what he should do next. He went for his default position of fury and sarcasm.

“You were supposed to be helping me out John, not getting laid! I thought I made that clear when we got here, or are you incapable of remembering anything I say once you get a bit of alcohol into you?” Sherlock paced in tight circles, venting his energy. There was a fairly wide space around the two of them, considering how busy the bar was, and it was rapidly getting wider.

“I think you mean ‘Sorry John, for pulling you off a seat for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON’!!!” John spat back, rubbing at his hip where he’d hit the floor. His fingers brushed against the mobile phone in his pocket, and he thought he ought to check to make sure he hadn’t damaged it, since he’d landed with a fairly hefty slam. He pulled it from his pocket, thumbed one of the buttons to light up the screen, and stared in shock at the message the screen displayed – MESSAGE SENT.

“Oh shit…” At that moment, all hell seemed to break loose. The doors to the street burst open, and Lestrade charged through, followed by half of Scotland Yard, including Donovan, Anderson and Dimmock.

“John?! Are you okay? What’s going on, where is he?” Lestrade rushed up to John, throwing questions at him, while Sherlock stared, open mouthed.

“You called Lestrade in?! Because I pulled you off your chair?!” Sherlock demanded of John, arms waving wildly.

“No Sherlock, I had a go message set up ready to send, and it got sent accidentally when I landed on my phone when you PULLED ME OFF MY CHAIR!!”

“You were snogging a man instead of helping the investigation!” Sherlock looked round at the sudden silence; Greg was gasping like a fish out of water. John groaned, and buried his face in his hands, his face slowly turning redder and redder. He only felt grateful that none of the other Yarders were close enough to have heard Sherlock.

When Greg had finished laughing, he spoke. “You sent a help text with your arse because Sherlock didn’t like you snogging another man? That’s priceless! Don’t worry, I won’t let them know,” he indicated Donovan and Anderson, standing a little way off and trying to work out if any of them were actually needed. “Do you do other magic tricks too?” His eyes twinkled as he asked John the question.

“Um… yes?” John replied, uncertainly.

“What, seriously?” Greg asked in surprise.

“Yes,” John repeated, already knowing there was another disaster on his horizon.

“Great, I need a magician for the girls’ birthday party, can you do kid’s magic?”

Chapter Text

The case had been wrapped up fairly quickly after that, the man was in custody and, according to a Lestrade who had spent the weekend watching too many old Noir private detective movies, “singing like a canary”. Sherlock had rolled his eyes, while John and Greg had started talking in what they liked to think of as their gangster voices, and coming up with as many stereotypical gangster-style phrases as they could. They had had a fun fifteen minutes, and the fact that it annoyed Sherlock was a bonus, they felt.

John had gotten his own back on Sherlock for yanking him off the chair and interrupting what he privately admitted had been a very hot snog, by serving up the vile concoctions he had been forced to buy at the health food shop for dinner that night. Sherlock was always too tired to move and ravenously hungry after a case ended, and since he had given his card to John weeks ago to do the shopping, he had no way of ordering a takeaway. He was forced to shovel down the disgusting stuff as John refused to cook anything else – “I’m not wasting perfectly good food, Sherlock, you can cook for yourself if you don’t like it!” – and Sherlock knew that if he reminded John of his own abilities in that area, he would be forced to help out in the kitchen more often, and that was more trouble than it was worth. John just smirked at the look on Sherlock’s face, claiming not to be hungry, and Sherlock’s mood darkened even more when he remembered that John had eaten a very large lunch just as Sherlock was finishing up his deductions in Lestrade’s office. In hindsight, he realised, John had engineered the whole situation, and he had to admit he was amused and even a little impressed at how John had managed to get his own back without even knowing he had anything to get his own back for.

Two weeks later, John found himself standing nervously in front of Lestrade’s twin daughters, a dozen or so other six year olds, and various parents who had stayed to help – or so they said; John was sure they were staying to watch his total humiliation. Even Sherlock had agreed to come along, feeling slightly guilty for causing John to be in the situation in the first place. If anyone had asked him, however, he would have said the situation was entirely of John’s making; it had been his own idea to say yes to everything, not Sherlock’s.

Lestrade nodded encouragingly at John, who started his routine. He’d spent ages looking up card tricks and other small magic tricks on the internet, and thought he could just about manage to pull a few off, especially since his target audience was only six years old. He had tried to find a few other tricks he could manage, but as hard as he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to succeed with any of them. He’d managed to tell Lestrade that he couldn’t do anything too fancy as he didn’t have the right equipment, and Lestrade had assured him that would be fine; six year olds didn’t have a very long attention span so he wouldn’t need to do anything too complicated. He took a deep breath, and began.

The first trick was a total disaster. He’d managed to get as far as secreting the coin up his sleeve without anyone noticing apart from a few of the parents, but when he waved his ‘magic wand’ – in reality a piece of dowel from a DIY store that he’d painted black and white – the coin had flown from his sleeve across the room and he’d been completely unable to find it. The children were in fits of giggles, as were most of the parents, and John was beetroot with embarrassment. The second trick was just as bad, the little boy John had chosen to help him had helpfully pointed out that John had just slipped his card onto the bottom of the deck, rather than into the middle as he’d said he was going to, so John was forced to push the card into the centre of the deck where he promptly lost it. All of the children found this extremely funny, while John just felt more and more humiliated. Fifteen minutes later, and John was sat at the kitchen table, with a gaggle of small children hanging from his arm, begging him to do another funny trick. The Lestrades finally managed to get him a little space by starting a game of pass-the-parcel in the living room, and John was finally able to relax a little.

“That was brilliant,” said little Archie’s dad, “I’ve never seen anything so funny in my life! The way you managed to mess up every single trick you tried was hilarious, I thought Archie was going to be sick he was laughing so hard!”

“Thanks,” said John with a fixed grin, “I’m glad they enjoyed it.”

“How much do you charge? It’s Archie’s birthday next month, I’m sure he’d love to have you at his party!” Just as John opened his mouth to reply, Sherlock stepped in.

“I’m afraid John doesn’t do this any more, today was a special favour for Lestrade to apologise for calling him out unnecessarily a few weeks ago. I can’t possibly spare him, he is vital to my work.” John gaped in surprise at Sherlock’s praise, then managed to smile and shrug at Archie’s dad, who said something about it being a shame, then wandered off to see if there was any jelly left – there wasn’t; Sherlock had finished it all. Greg came in, having left his wife to supervise the parcel passing.

“John, that was brilliant mate, you didn’t tell me it was a comedy magic act! Where did you learn all that? I thought I was going to have a heart attack from laughing when you dropped all the cards, including one in Simone’s ice-cream!”

“Yes, yes, thank you Graham,” Sherlock said, grabbing John by the arm and pulling him up out of the seat. “It’s time we were going, I have an important experiment to check.” Without another word, he dragged John from the kitchen, grabbing his coat on the way out of the door.

“What did you do that for?” asked John as Sherlock stuck his arm out into the road to catch the attention of a passing taxi.

“Really John? You wanted to stay there with all the children, attempting to do magic again for the second time in your life? Oh don’t look like that, I know you don’t know how to do magic, what on earth made you agree to do the party?”

John shrugged; he couldn’t explain to Sherlock what was really going on or the man would take advantage of him mercilessly. “I thought it would be something different to do, that’s all.” Sherlock decided to be kind, climbing into the taxi without another word. There would be time to wind him up later, Sherlock was sure.

Later that evening, as John sat in his armchair, engrossed in the British Medical Journal article he was reading, Sherlock spoke again. He was laying lengthwise on the sofa, hands steepled beneath his chin, blue silky dressing gown wrapped around his lithe body. “John, will you answer a question?”

“Hmmm?” John replied, his mind still on the latest genetic discoveries with regard to Autistic Spectrum Conditions.

Sherlock sat up abruptly. “I said, will you answer a question? Truthfully?”

John looked at Sherlock, he knew he had to answer yes, but he was nervous about what Sherlock was going to ask. “Yes,” he said quietly.

“Why were you kissing that man in Mungo’s?” Sherlock couldn’t look John in the eye as he asked the question, instead darting flicking glances between John and his own knees.

“I wasn’t, he was kissing me!” John replied, blushing.

“It looked very much as though you were kissing him back,” Sherlock responded, finally bringing his eyes up to meet John’s.

“Well…. You told me I was bait, I was just making sure I didn’t stick out… I mean, I didn’t know if he was the guy we wanted or not, did I?”

Sherlock snorted, “I would have thought that was obvious John! I told you the man we were looking for was a repressed homosexual, yet it was obvious that man you were kissing had had at least two long term relationships with men, and a fair number of one night stands as well, a number you were not far from increasing at the rate you were going!”

“I.. I..” John spluttered. “I would never have gone home with him, Sherlock, he wasn’t my type!”

“Would you have gone home with me?” Sherlock asked quietly.

John giggled nervously. “I already did, Sherlock, the day after I met you, remember?”

Sherlock looked John straight in the eyes. “Then would you kiss me too?”

John swallowed nervously. “Yes,” he said without hesitation. They met in the centre of the room, John’s journal discarded carelessly on the floor next to his chair, so close to the open fire that the edges of the cover were starting to curl and smoke. Sherlock brought his hand up to the back of John’s head, curling his fingers into the short grey-blonde hair. He bent his head downwards, and John stretched his neck up to meet him. Their lips touched, and John sighed, gripping Sherlock’s dressing gown in his fists and pulling the taller man towards him. The kiss became more passionate, John’s tongue licking at the seam of Sherlock’s lips, his eyes closing as Sherlock granted him entry. The taste was delicious; John thought that he had never tasted anything quite so amazing before. It was a combination of tea and cigarettes, with an underlying sweetness and synthetic strawberry flavour. He kissed into Sherlock’s mouth as though his life depended on it, Sherlock responding in kind. He was vaguely aware of a soft “flump” sound from behind him, and then Sherlock was pulling away, pointing at the fire.

“John, your journal!” John spun around, seeing that the journal had finally caught alight, and was burning merrily on the carpet next to the hearthstone. He rushed over, stamping on the journal to put out the flames, then grabbing it up off the floor to examine the damage to the carpet. Luckily the flames hadn’t penetrated the entire journal, and the carpet was only a bit sooty. He made a mental note to get some carpet cleaner next time he went to Tesco, threw the journal into the basket of firewood – it was beyond repair, and he would have to see if he could borrow Sarah’s copy to finish reading the article – and turned back to Sherlock… who was no longer there. The faint slam of his bedroom door told John where he had gone, but he had no idea why.

Sherlock sank down onto his bed, his head in his hands, fingers scrubbing through his hair. What the hell had he done? He had just manipulated John into kissing him, because he knew what John was doing, and John didn’t know that he knew. Sherlock felt sick to his stomach; what if John decided to leave now? He wasn’t gay, goodness only knew he spent enough time telling everyone, and now, in the space of a few weeks, he’d had two gay kisses, and they’d both been Sherlock’s fault. What would he do without John?

John stood in the centre of the living room, staring blankly through the kitchen, in the direction of Sherlock’s bedroom. What had he done? He knew Sherlock was not very experienced sexually, and he had just snogged the face off the man. He’d probably frightened the life out of him, and now Sherlock had run for it, escaping to his bedroom – what if he told John to leave? How could he fix this?
 

Chapter Text

Sherlock and John had avoided each other for two days now, both dreading what the other might say. Sherlock managed to stay in his room until after John had left for the surgery, then he went out, not returning until the early hours of the morning, well after John had retired to bed. John knew this was when he returned, because he was still lying awake in his bed fretting, and he heard the squeak of the door to the flat. John, in turn, stayed out late after work, choosing to eat in the pub, or join various friends for coffee, not returning until he was sure Sherlock would have left.

At five-thirty, he finally gave up and got out of bed, heading for the shower. Today was an unexpected day off; John had covered Sarah’s shift for her last night at the late night clinic because her niece was in a school concert, and Sarah’s sister had been caught in a traffic jam and couldn’t attend. John decided he would get dressed and go for a long walk, to see if he could clear his head at all. He finished getting ready, shaving and cleaning his teeth, before heading downstairs and into Speedy’s for some breakfast and a cuppa before heading off to Regent’s Park. He was just coming out of Speedy’s when he bumped into Mark, one of Mrs Turner’s married ones from next door, and his enormous Great Dane, Jilly, who jumped up at John, her huge paws landing on his shoulder as she sniffed at his hairline. John staggered slightly under her weight, and tried to avoid the slobber falling from her mouth as he pushed her off.

“John! Just the man! Could you do me a massive favour? I haven’t managed to walk Jilly yet, and I’ve just been called into work! I didn’t manage to give her a proper walk yesterday either… She’s champing at the bit to get out…. Could you take her? Please?” John swallowed nervously, but he couldn’t refuse…

“Of course Mark, I was planning to go for a walk anyway, won’t be too much trouble to take Jilly with me! What do you want me to do once I’ve walked her?”

“Oh you’re a life saver, thank you! If you just knock on Mrs Turner’s door, she’s got a key to our place and she’ll let Jilly back in.” Mark handed over the lead, shaking John’s hand as he did so. He turned and rushed indoors again, flying back out of the door thirty seconds later with a briefcase in his hand. Jilly stood outside the door happily with John until Mark returned again, rushing off down the street. Jilly decided she should go to work with her owner, and started to gallop off down the street after him. John found himself jerked rudely from his feet, before regaining his equilibrium and starting to run off down the street after her. When Jilly caught up with him, Mark was just disappearing into a taxi which then took off down the street, and Jilly slumped down with a look of disgust on her face.

“Come on Jilly, let’s go for a walk, eh?” John said to her, giving a tug on her lead. She refused to budge, having decided that if Mark had disappeared from that spot, it was obviously where he would return to, and therefore the best spot to wait for him. John tried again, using a firmer tone of voice. “Jilly! Come on, walkies!” Jilly just looked at him, flopping her head down on her paws and huffing a big sigh. “Oh come on Jilly, I promised Mark I’d walk you!” He tried pulling on her lead, and got nowhere; Jilly was a large dog, strong and heavy, and despite his own strength, John couldn’t shift her. He spotted Mrs Hudson coming the other way down the street, having popped to the corner shop for biscuits to go with Sherlock’s morning tea.

“Hello John, what are you doing with Jilly?” At the mention of her name, Jilly jumped up, headed off down the street towards Mrs Hudson, and started snuffling in amongst her bags. John found himself pulled along the street, rapidly heading back in the direction they had just come from. Mrs Hudson gave Jilly a good fuss before saying goodbye to John as she entered number 221. John found that once the dog was moving, she seemed quite happy to carry on going, so he herded her in the direction of the park. The first hour or so was good fun, the two of them walked round the park at a fairly quick pace, and John found that trying to keep control of the big dog meant that he didn’t have enough time to start thinking and worrying. He was just considering turning and heading back to Baker Street, when a small Jack Russell ran across the park in front of Jilly, and she was off like a shot after it. John was immediately jerked off his feet, landing flat on his face on the grass behind her, his hand still through the loop of the lead. It slowed her down a little, but not much; she dragged John off across the slippery grass, with him shouting her to stop as they went. Something snagged on his jeans, and ripped a large gash in the material, exposing his muscular thigh and knee, which soon became stained green from the grass. John was just thankful that he’d put a belt on with his jeans, or they might have come off altogether. Jilly was moving so fast that John was unable to get his feet underneath him, so resigned himself to being dragged round the park, hoping a rip in his jeans was the worst he would have to suffer.

Despite John’s rather unconventional trip around the park, everything was fine until the Jack Russell ran straight across one of the paths that ran round the park, and John ended up with some rather nasty gravel rash. Both of his exposed arms were scraped from wrist to elbow, his face and his thigh were scraped also. As Jilly rounded a curve, John was swung round, twisting so he was pulled along on his back, extending the gravel rash around to the back of his thigh as the gash in his jeans ripped open even wider. The Jack Russell jumped through the bars of a railed fence, into a bush and disappeared; Jilly was too big to fit through, so she stood milling about on the pavement. John was able to struggle to his feet, and with the help of a couple of giggling students who were walking through the park was able to make it back to Baker Street with Jilly. He dropped her off with Mrs Turner, grimacing as the ache really started to set in, and made his way back to number 221b.

Sherlock was stretched out on the sofa, thinking about what he could do to resolve things with John. He jumped a little when the door to the flat opened and John staggered in, Sherlock had assumed he was at work – John’s schedule had the day down as a work day, and Sherlock didn’t know he’d now got the day off as they hadn’t been speaking. The moment Sherlock saw John’s face, he leapt up from the sofa, his face radiating concern. “John! What happened, did you get attacked?” John struggled to his chair and sat down with a thump, his face grimacing with pain as he landed on his scraped skin. Sherlock knelt quickly between his thighs, gently taking John’s face between his hands and turning it to better catch the light. He winced at the scrapes on John’s face, and without speaking, fetched a bowl of warm water from the kitchen, a glass of water and the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink. He returned quickly to John, handing him two paracetamol and the glass of water, then began dabbing at the scrapes on his face with a piece of gauze that he’d dampened with warm water and antiseptic. He worked quickly and quietly, cleaning the edges of the grazes, picking out small pieces of gravel and cleaning the rest of the dirt out of the wound and dressing it.

When he had finished with John’s face, Sherlock turned his attention to the wounds on his arms, diligently cleaning and dressing them. John sat quietly, allowing Sherlock to work, as the pain medication began to kick in. Once Sherlock had finished dressing John’s arms, he looked at his thighs. “John, I’m going to need you to take your jeans off, this wound is going to be really hard to get to.”

John looked up at that, blushing a little. He couldn’t take his jeans off in front of Sherlock; as unlikely as it seemed, he was already starting to get aroused at Sherlock’s gentle ministrations, and taking his jeans off would only make that worse. John couldn’t bear the thought that Sherlock would be faced with evidence of John’s desire so quickly after being scared off, so he decided the only thing for it would be to clean the wound himself.

“Sherlock, I’ll clean it, I’m the doctor, after all!” He stood, continuing to speak. “Thank you for what you’ve done, but I can manage now.”

He attempted to pick up the bowl and first aid kit, but hissed in pain when he put pressure on the dressed wounds on his forearms. Sherlock stood immediately, grabbing the bowl and kit from John. “Don’t be silly John, you’re in no state to do it. Take your jeans off, I’ll get some clean water.” He laid the kit down on the coffee table, and went to refresh the water. John quickly stripped off his jeans, and sat back in the chair, covering his lap with a cushion and wincing again when the graze on his thigh rubbed on the coarse fabric of the chair. Sherlock returned again, setting the bowl on the coffee table next to the first aid kit.

“John, that’s not going to work, I won’t be able to get to you properly. Come and lay down on the sofa, that’ll be easier.” John groaned inwardly, but realised Sherlock was right, so he got up from the chair, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t embarrass himself. The hope seemed to be enough to calm his arousal enough for him to make it to the sofa. He lay face down; the graze covered right around the back of John’s thigh, and he thought the time laying on his stomach might be enough to give him time to cool off altogether. Sherlock sat on the floor right next to the sofa, his head at the same height as John’s legs, and began to clean the wound. He sat so close to John that he could feel Sherlock’s warm breath on the back of his legs, and to John’s dismay, his cooled arousal started to warm up again. Sherlock leaned close, picking out the last of the gravel and cleaning the graze out.

“Okay, turn up on to your side facing me,” Sherlock instructed as he turned back to the bowl to dampen another fresh piece of gauze. John took a deep breath; there was nothing else for it, he was going to have to turn over and expose his arousal to Sherlock. Sherlock turned back to John, and came face to… face… with John’s erection, which was currently tenting the front of his underwear. Sherlock drew in a sharp breath, and quickly turned his attention back to the graze on John’s leg, starting the process of cleaning the wound again. John felt mortified; he’d been staying out of Sherlock’s way for exactly this reason; his attraction to the younger man was growing day by day, and he was determined not to push Sherlock into a relationship he wasn’t ready for. Now it appeared he was stuck in exactly the situation he’d been trying to avoid.

Sherlock’s hands were gentle, and that wasn’t helping John’s problem. He almost wished Sherlock would be rougher, as that would help him focus more on the pain of the injury, rather than the ghosting touches that did nothing more than make John’s cock rock hard. Sherlock had finished cleaning all the grazes, but continued to gently dab at John’s thigh, cleaning non-existent dirt from his wound. Finally he looked up at John, his eyes heavy-lidded, pupils dilated, and in a gravelly voice asked, “John, can I… can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” breathed John, and immediately Sherlock knelt up, hands rising to gently grasp John’s face as their lips met. Sherlock clambered up onto the sofa next to John without disengaging their lips, both kissing the other frantically. They pressed towards each other, hips meeting and grinding their cocks together, Sherlock’s just as hard as John’s. John’s hands gripped Sherlock’s hips, pulling them roughly towards John’s, as though he were trying to combine the two bodies as one.

“Please…” gasped Sherlock into John’s mouth, although if he’d been asked, Sherlock wouldn’t have been able to say what he was asking permission for. John started to pull away, thinking that Sherlock wanted to stop, but Sherlock followed his movement, nipping desperately at John’s lips with his own. “John! Don’t stop, please don’t stop, touch me,” he begged, his voice ragged with desire.

Sherlock’s movement and words unlocked the realisation in John’s brain – Sherlock wanted him back! “Yes, oh god yes,” said John, one had moving up to grip Sherlock’s hair, while the other pulled the purple shirt he loved out of Sherlock’s trousers and finally touched his skin. Sherlock scrabbled frantically at John’s underwear, grabbing his cock in his large hand and stroking. John threw his head back, eyes closing automatically as a groan left his throat, and his hand returned to Sherlock’s trousers, undoing the button and zip to free his cock. He took Sherlock in his hand, gripping firmly, and they both began to pump their hips, cocks sliding in the firm grip of each other’s hands. The kisses became even more frantic, until with a sharp cry, Sherlock spilled over John’s hand, his thigh and his shirt. The sight of his face, eyes screwed tightly shut and mouth open was enough to push John over the edge, and he followed Sherlock into orgasm, coating his expensive trousers with his seed.

Chapter Text

John lay on the sofa, breathless and panting, just watching Sherlock. He looked younger like this, relaxed, his walls down in a rare, unguarded moment. He opened his eyes, focussing on John, and smiled. Then he seemed to come to some sort of realisation, and John could see the walls going back up; the look of pain on his face worrying John.

“Sherlock?” John asked, gently. “What is it, love? What’s wrong?” Sherlock turned away, making as though to get up from the sofa, but John laid his hand on Sherlock’s hip, staying his motion. “Sherlock? Please tell me, love…”

Sherlock turned back to John, his eyes brimming with tears. “John, I… I know what you’ve been doing.” John’s brow crinkled, he couldn’t think of anything Sherlock might possibly be referring to. “I know about saying yes, John, and I know that’s the only reason you kissed me…” His eyes dropped from John’s and closed; the sparkling tear that had been threatening to fall dropped over the bottom lid, sliding slowly down his cheek. John couldn’t help himself, he laughed, pulling Sherlock close to his body and wrapping his arms and legs around Sherlock’s body.

“I should have realised you knew after the health food store,” he giggled, and Sherlock looked up at him in confusion. “Sherlock, you’re right, I was saying yes to everything, although goodness only knows how you found out! I was saying yes to everything, but only for a month… and that month was up the day after that bloody kids party. Everything I’ve done since then… everything we’ve done together today, I did it because I wanted to do it… because I want you!” At his words, Sherlock’s mouth dropped open, and John could see that he was having difficulty processing what John had said.

“Sherlock, it wasn’t until after… after the rooftop… that I realised just how much you meant to me. And then when you came back, I was caught up with Mary, and I couldn’t just drop everything with her, I had to do right by her… Lot of good that did me in the end though…”

“John, I…”

“No Sherlock, please, let me finish… After it all went tits up with Mary, I came back here, back to you, and I had no idea how you felt… You do feel something for me, don’t you? I’m not imagining things, am I?”

“No, John, you’re not imagining things…”

“I felt so down, I’d lost a wife and a baby in one fell swoop, and I was living here with you and didn’t know I could ever be happy again… If I had known how you felt, I’d have had something to live for, something to lift my life… I’m not saying I’d have jumped into your arms, of course not, I needed time to grieve for what I lost, but I’d have had something there… Do you understand what I’m saying, Sherlock?”

For the first time, Sherlock looked John directly in the eye, a small smile on his face. “John, I can’t tell you how happy I was when you came back to live here… I knew I loved you since the moment I started planning how things would go down on the rooftop… I couldn’t bear the idea that you would have to see me die, and that was when I realised how I felt… But I didn’t know I wanted you until that night at Mungo’s.”

John smiled ruefully, the bruise from his phone had lasted a good couple of weeks, turning various shades of purple, green and yellow before finally fading. “So what do we do now?” he asked, taking hold of Sherlock’s hand. “I love you Sherlock, but I don’t want to rush into this, it’s too important to get wrong.”

“How about starting with dinner? Angelo’s?”

Chapter Text

Two months later…

Sherlock and John walked hand in hand through Regent’s Park, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. Ahead of them, Jilly was snuffling in a flowerbed, her lead being held by Sherlock after John had steadfastly refused to be – as he had put it – “tied to that tank on legs ever again”. Around them, other couples were walking, chatting, enjoying picnics. A group of students from a nearby university campus were simultaneously arguing philosophy and playing ultimate frisbee. John admired their energy, he didn’t ever remember having time to run around outside in the fresh air while he’d been studying medicine at Bart’s. He reasoned medicine was probably a heavier workload than philosophy – at least he hoped it was!

As Sherlock and John approached the group, John could hear a particularly enthusiastic argument taking place, unfortunately the two young men doing the arguing were paying too much attention to the argument, and not paying enough attention to the frisbee… but Jilly was, and as it sailed off into the distance, she darted after it. Sherlock found himself galloping across the park, his long legs flying as he tried desperately to stay on his feet. John collapsed in a heap, laughing a deep belly laugh at the sight of the man he loved abandoning all attempts at dignity in return for not making a complete arse of himself. He managed to pick himself up from the ground and started to trot after Sherlock and Jilly, who he found together in a pile on the grass a little way up the park. Sherlock was sporting some bright green stains on his knees, evidence that he had lost the fight with his balance, and Jilly was sitting with a mouthful of Frisbee, wagging her tail and looking very pleased with herself.

“Come on Sherlock, let's get you two home… We can drop Jilly off with Mrs Turner, and I can get your trousers off… You might have all kinds of injuries under there…”