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i.
It was dark, and John was drunk. He thought, I ought to turn on the light. But he didn't, and he kicked something in the dark, perhaps a violin case, perhaps the leg of the chair or coffee table, and it made a loud rattle and clatter. "Fuck!" he said, even though he was wearing his shoes and it didn't really hurt and it didn't sound as if anything had broken. "Fuck!" was just what came out.
"John?" Sherlock's pale face loomed out of the darkness.
"Go 'way."
"Ah." The pale face hesitated. "Sarah broke up with you."
"Shut up," John snarled. "I don't even care how you know that, now is not the time, I am--"
Sherlock seized John's hand in his, and John was shocked. Every time Sherlock touched him--gripping him by the wrist as they bolted from a suspect's house, getting his attention with a brush of fingers against the back of his hand--he was surprised by how warm Sherlock was. He looked as if he ought to be marble to the touch, but in reality he was as warm and pliable as any other human being.
"John," Sherlock said, low and urgent. "I." He stopped.
John was just contemplating punching Sherlock in the face to make him let go when Sherlock leaned in and pressed his lips to the corner of John's mouth. John jerked away and stared, but Sherlock's face was now so close that he could see little more than one impossible cheekbone. "What--"
"Come here." Sherlock tugged, and John followed, still limp with shock, as Sherlock guided him around the obstacle course of the sitting room. He let Sherlock push him down onto the couch and continued to stare as Sherlock slithered down onto his knees on the floor. "Do you want this?" Sherlock asked. John nodded, even as he thought, want what? But Sherlock always knew what John wanted, even when John knew he shouldn't want it: things like crime scenes and chases and gunfire.
Sherlock opened John's trousers with the same methodical efficiency he used when he inspected a corpse, set up his chemical equipment, or read the newspaper. John clutched the cushions and gasped at the ceiling as Sherlock sucked him in. He wouldn't have thought Sherlock knew how to give a blowjob--but then, he'd never said boys weren't his area. Sherlock had hidden stores of knowledge on various esoteric subjects. Who said oral sex couldn't be one of them? Why was he even thinking about this? He was receiving the sweetest, messiest blowjob of his life, and fuck Sarah anyway. Sarah couldn't possibly give head as well as this.
He came in about four minutes, which should have been embarrassing, but wasn't considering how drunk he was and how good that'd been. He lolled his head about on the back of the couch, still panting, while Sherlock stood up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. For some reason that was the hottest thing John had ever seen.
He must have said it out loud, because Sherlock gave a brief twitch of the lips, and said, "Thank you."
And then he tucked John back in and left. Just like that.
John woke up the next morning in his own bed. His head hurt, but other than that he actually didn't feel too bad: just thirsty, and he needed to piss like a racehorse. The combination of the two seemed unfair. He swung his feet out of the bed and made his way downstairs, hanging onto the banister the whole way in case his head fell off.
Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. His coat was gone from its hook. John shuffled into the bathroom to take his much-needed piss. The act of unbuttoning his trousers brought back a memory of long, pale fingers doing the same, and John had to take a moment to reflect. Had that really happened? Now, in the broad light of the day, it seemed so unlikely. It seemed like something his drunk-addled mind came up with to taunt him: Sarah Sawyer doesn't want you, so you might as well get laid by your mad flatmate. Pathetic.
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ii.
"I'm not asking for a lot," said John.
Sarah sighed, creating a burst of static in the phone. "This isn't going to work, John. You're not going to stop chasing Sherlock around, and showing up late to our dates, that is, when you show up at all, and--it's just, why bother? Why bother, if it's not going to work?"
John remembered being a boy in his childhood home, talking to a girl in his class, trying to ask her out, leaning up against the wall and working the telephone cord in his fingers. He felt like that now, only there weren't any telephone cords anymore. "Well, that's like saying, why bother to live if you know you're going to die someday? Look, we both know this isn't going to end in marriage. But why not keep each other company?"
"John Watson, are you seriously asking to be friends with benefits?" He couldn't tell if she was angry or amused. He hoped it was amused; she had a pretty good sense of humour, really.
"No, no," he said with a placating grin that she couldn't see. "Nothing like that. Let's just. . . you know, let's just see where it goes."
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iii.
"Is she sleeping with you yet?"
"What?" John had just been reading an article about Amy Winehouse and for one sickening moment thought Sherlock was asking him a question about necrophilia. Then he realised that Sherlock probably didn't even know who Amy Winehouse was. He let the newspaper drop into his lap and craned around to look at Sherlock, who was sitting at the kitchen table, ostensibly doing some kind of scientific experiment but maybe just waiting until he could ask a question to the back of John's head.
"Sarah," Sherlock clarified. He said "Sarah," the same way some people might say "The Queen" or "Victoria Beckham." "You went on a date last night, so presumably you're back in her good graces."
"Oh," said John. Then, wondering why he continued to encourage Sherlock's breaches of his privacy by answering his invasive questions, "No, she hasn't. She might not. We're just. . . seeing where it goes."
"Ah." Sherlock went back to titrating something, or whatever it was he was doing. John waited a few seconds, then went back to reading his newspaper. He finished skimming the article about Amy Winehouse and went on to one about William and Kate. Sherlock said, "Do I give better head?"
John wasn't sure how he managed to choke and sputter the way he did, considering he wasn't drinking anything, but Sherlock always found a way to make the impossible possible. "What?"
Sherlock put down his pipette with an impatient click. "You didn't drink enough that night for memory loss and I happen to know that my blowjobs are memorable. It's a simple question."
John twisted around to gape at Sherlock properly. Sherlock glowered at John and tapped his fingers against the table. John swallowed and said, "I don't know. She's never, er, done that. For me."
Sherlock blew out a breath between his lips. It had the endearing effect of rattling his fringe. "Then why continue to date her?"
John's eyebrows hiked up to his hairline. "Someone's given you a terrible idea of dating."
"You're not long term material," Sherlock pointed out. "That much is obvious. But you're not having sex, either. Then why go out at all? You're wasting your time."
"It's not wasted," John protested. "Sometimes people date because. . . I don't know, because we're lonely. We get along, we're friendly. It's not a waste of time just because we're not getting married or having sex. It's company. I do like her, you know," he added, softly.
Sherlock fell silent. John waited a few moments more, but when nothing seemed forthcoming, he went back to his paper. Eventually the clink of glassware continued behind him.
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iv.
"You're drunk again," Sherlock observed. "It must not be working out with Sarah."
"Fuck you." John reeled and found the armchair next to him. Good armchair. Sturdy to lean on. "I dunno how you know these things."
"Not a night out with the boys, or you would have mentioned it," Sherlock said. "You shaved this afternoon and applied aftershave. So, date. Last time it went poorly with Sarah, you got drunk and came home. One might call it a pattern." His words were like a relentless rain of nails. John wished he'd stopped talking. He hadn't actually wanted an answer. He just really wanted to sit or lie down. Or maybe throw up.
Sherlock yanked the armchair away from John, causing him to reel and pitch. John cursed, but Sherlock swiftly rearranged the armchair so that John could sit down in it. He felt better immediately. Sherlock snatched a cushion from the other armchair and threw it on the floor, then bent his knees upon it. He said, quietly, "Would you like the pattern to further itself?"
John nodded, because while it's difficult for a sober man to resist a good blowjob, it's even more difficult for a drunk one.
"I like her, y'know," John said to the ceiling. "She's nice. She's pretty. She knows, she's, she's a good doctor. An' I'm, I'm not a bad catch, 'm I?" He put his fingers in Sherlock's hair. It wasn't soft, but it wasn't coarse either. Mostly it was light and fluffy. He petted it. "S'just you. You. . . iss not going to work out, 'cos I've got to go with you. God, I don't make sense." He covered his eyes with his other hand. "S'ry. I'm drunk. I dunno what I'm saying."
Sherlock made no reply. John came a few minutes later with a choked gasp. Sherlock swallowed, but he held John in his mouth for a few moments longer before pulling away. But instead of standing up and leaving as he had last time, Sherlock remained kneeling, his forehead pressed against John's knee. John realised his hand was still in Sherlock's hair. He untangled his fingers with a mumbled apology. Sherlock didn't move.
It took John some time to realise that the silence had become awkward. Sherlock's spit on his cock had cooled and was starting to feel uncomfortable, so John carefully tucked himself back in and buttoned up his trousers. That seemed to rouse Sherlock, who unfolded himself onto his feet with frankly unfair grace. John remained sitting.
"Feel better?" said Sherlock. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.
"Yeh," said John. "Much. Thanks."
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v.
John blinked awake in his own bedroom again. Same headache, same thirst, same raging need to pee. But he lay in bed thinking this time, because once was a fluke, but twice was. . . well, twice was some kind of pattern. And what did it mean, when every time he came home drunk after a fight or talk or this-isn't-working-out with Sarah, Sherlock gave him a blowjob? Was that how Sherlock reacted to flatmates in a crisis? With oral sex? That was. . . that was weird, was what it was. And not on. At all.
He needed a piss and a glass of water, or he was never going to be able to deal with this.
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vi.
"Have you been taking advantage of me?"
No, that wasn't the way to begin.
"Is there some reason you've been sucking me off whenever I have a fight with Sarah?"
That wasn't it either.
"You really do give excellent head."
No, no, no.
Finally, John settled for, "Er, Sherlock? Can I talk to you about last night?"
Sherlock didn't even look up from John's laptop. "I don't know, can you?"
John sighed. "I'd like to talk to you about last night."
"I assume my performance was satisfactory." Tippity tappity type. One of Sherlock's hands spanned nearly the entire width of John's tiny keyboard. John wondered--no, he didn't wonder about anything at all, nothing to do with those fingers.
"It was." John swallowed. "I was just--er--I just--um, I was just wondering about. . . why?"
Sherlock's fingers stilled. He looked over his shoulder at John. "Why do you care?"
It wasn't peevish at all. Sherlock sounded like he genuinely wanted to know the answer. John was a little flabbergasted, but he managed to pull himself together enough to say, "Well, I care because I, I just do. I want to make sure it's, um, that you're, that it's okay."
"Why wouldn't I be okay?" Now Sherlock sounded confused, and John felt like an idiot. "I initiated the act. You acquiesced. Is it a matter of consent? It's true that legally, consent given while inebriated--"
"No, no, no," John said hastily. "It's not--I just--I just want to know why you're doing it. Do you, is it, I mean--are you getting something out of it?" Good God, he could not believe he was having this conversation. Or that he was having it standing up. He sank down onto the couch.
"Of course I'm getting something out of it." Sherlock was now somewhere between amused and disdainful, which John found strangely reassuring.
John rolled this around for a bit. It's true that Sherlock rarely, if ever, did things altruistically. Unless Sherlock had been wanking off in his room afterwards, which didn't really seem like him, but the mental image was. . . something. "Well, it's not like, I mean, I haven't, you haven't been getting off."
The needle crept towards disdainful. "You of all people should know that it isn't solely about 'getting off.'"
He did know. "But don't you want to? And I. . . want you to."
Sherlock cocked his head. "Are you offering to get me off?"
"I am," John said, and from the look of surprise on Sherlock's face, there-and-now-gone, that was the right thing to say.
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vii.
It wasn't actually cheating on Sarah. After all, they weren't serious. They'd made it very explicit that if something more long-term came along, for either of them, they'd break it off and remain friends.
And besides, this was Sherlock. Girls weren't his area; he'd rebuffed John the second day they met, and John hadn't even been chatting him up; he barely even understood dating; and besides all that, he was married to his work. Maybe that meant Sherlock was cheating.
It was a rather good arrangement, actually. John went out with Sarah perhaps once a week. They ate dinner, saw a show, perhaps flirted a little. They went on walks and held each other's hands. Once, John went shopping with Sarah and held her purse while she tried things on in the fitting room and asked his opinion. Sometimes they kissed; nothing too sloppy or serious, just a quick peck as they parted ways for the night. It made him feel very boyfriend-y. Something came up once or twice--once, memorably, Sherlock sent John a series of frantic texts exhorting him to COME HOME NOW URGENT because he couldn't find his violin bow--but John was always able to text or email her well in advance that he wouldn't be able to make their date.
Things with Sherlock were good in an entirely different way. Sherlock was fantastic in bed; John had no idea how, since Sherlock never gave any sign of having a past relationship and this wasn't exactly the sort of thing you could learn from reading a book and watching a couple of YouTube tutorials. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more he didn't really want to know.
So the sex was fantastic, if sporadic: John succeeded in initiating sex maybe one out of the three times he suggested it. Innuendo was no good, he learned that right away; one asked Sherlock Holmes for sex by straight-up asking him for it. A lot of the time, Sherlock said, "Not right now, I'm busy." But sometimes he said yes, and then it would be another one of those fantastic blowjobs on the couch, or an excellent handjob whilst standing up and leaning against the wall. Occasionally, if the timing was right, they could go to bed and do it properly, with Sherlock on his front, clutching a pillow while John fucked him.
Other than that, things were as they always had been. Sherlock was acerbic and exasperating and brilliant. He refused to eat when he was on a case, played his violin at all hours, and sometimes filled the kitchen with noxious smells. John cleaned up his messes, cooked meals that Sherlock barely tasted, and followed him out on cases, sometimes with his gun tucked into his waistband at the small of his back. It made him feel very. . . well, he didn't know how it made him feel, really. But it was good.
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viii.
"You're drunk," said Sherlock. "But it's different this time."
John kicked off his shoes and sat heavily down on the couch. After a moment of thought, he flung his feet up on the armrest and arranged his hands on his chest. He thought about steepling his hands, the way Sherlock did. "She's found someone else."
"Ah." Sherlock perched on the armrest.
"Paediatrician by the name of Williams." John rubbed his face with both hands. "He's got a daughter from a previous marriage. Two years old. Her name's Sarah, too."
"Ah."
John let his hands fall back to his chest and stared at the ceiling. "He's a nice bloke. Stable. Good career. She's always wanted children, and she and Sarah--the other Sarah--get along like a house on fire, from what she's told me."
"Do you want children?" Sherlock queried.
John shrugged. "Maybe. Thought I did. Wouldn't say no. But, well, the way things are. . ."
"It might not work," Sherlock suggested. "He's been divorced once already. Statistically--"
"Don't." John held up a hand, and like magic, Sherlock fell silent. That was a neat trick. He ought to look into duplicating it. "It's, it's nice of you. I guess. But it's. . . not going to work out, with us. I knew it from the beginning, and I've just got to accept it." He sighed and used his hands to push himself into a sitting position. The world didn't tilt around him and his stomach stayed a leaden lump, which was good. He hadn't had that much to drink, after all. Mostly he just felt heavy and sad.
Sherlock slid onto the couch beside John and turned John's face towards his with a hand on his jaw. The kiss was gentle, almost sweet, not much tongue: one of those kisses that longtime lovers give each other. Sherlock almost never kissed him, and certainly never like this. It was nice. John let his eyes close.
"Come to bed," Sherlock murmured against his cheek.
John meant to say Not now, but what came out instead was, "Okay."
They went to Sherlock's bed, which was unusual. Usually they did it in John's room, and Sherlock left afterwards. Maybe it was just because it was closer. Sherlock certainly did have a larger bed. Sherlock pulled the sheets and covers aside, then he laid John in the middle and crawled over him to kiss him some more. John reached up and pulled him down so that he could feel them pressed skin to skin, then realised that they were still dressed. So he unbuttoned Sherlock's shirt. They took each other's clothes off piece by piece and tossed them on the floor, and for once Sherlock didn't comment on wrinkles in his Italian silk.
Once they were naked, Sherlock turned John on his side and got behind him. John heard the slick sounds of lubricant being dispensed and felt Sherlock's fingers probe the crack of his arse. He tensed a little without meaning to--he didn't have anything against bottoming, really, it'd just been a long time and he'd never done it with Sherlock--but Sherlock only kissed the back of his neck and rubbed a soothing circle against his belly. John forced himself to relax.
Sherlock went slowly, so slowly that John was whining, his head soaked with pleasure. Finally he heard the crinkle of a condom wrapper, and then Sherlock pressed in. He held John to him with one arm around his chest, the other somewhere on the pillow above John's head. He stopped once he was all the way in, to let John adjust. When John pushed back against him, he drew out a little and started thrusting: a slow, easy rhythm.
John felt covered all over with Sherlock: Sherlock's breath in his hair; Sherlock's arm around him; Sherlock's legs tangled with his. He reached one hand back and groped for Sherlock's hip, something to hang onto. Sherlock made a noise and held John tighter, until John almost couldn't breathe. This felt too good. Something bubbled up in his chest, like there was something he wanted to say, but he didn't know what.
"I want to see your face," he gasped. Sherlock shook his head: John could feel the movement against the back of his neck. "Please," he said. "I want to look at you."
Sherlock reached down to pull at John's erection. John gasped and wriggled as every nerve in his body lit on fire. He pulled at Sherlock's wrist with his free hand until Sherlock stopped. Then Sherlock stopped entirely, not even thrusting anymore, not moving, just lying there wrapped around John with his nose buried in John's occipital bone.
This is making love, John realised. Sherlock is making love to me. He tested Sherlock's arm around his chest; it fell away a little as he pulled, and he was able to turn around enough so that he could look at Sherlock properly. Sherlock turned away a little and slipped out, but John couldn't care about that now. He brushed Sherlock's hair out of the way and Sherlock glared at him defiantly.
"Oh my God," said John. "You love me, don't you?"
Sherlock let go of John. "Shut up. I don't need your pity."
"I'm not--" John lunged and managed to grab hold of Sherlock's waist before Sherlock got himself out of bed and walked out of the room and, probably, John's life. "I just, I didn't know, Jesus Christ. I didn't know."
"And now you do," said Sherlock. He tried to sit up, but John just tightened his grip. Sherlock bared his teeth. "Let go."
"I love you too," John blurted out. Sherlock froze. John didn't dare look up. He spoke to a spot on Sherlock's chest. "I do."
"That's not the impression I was under." Sherlock sounded strangled.
John loosened his grip a little. "I didn't know. I was--these past two months, they've been great. I've been happy. I thought--but it was what I wanted, all along, I just didn't know it. But you, you've always known what I want."
Sherlock was silent. John continued to stare steadfastly at the center of Sherlock's chest. "I'm not a doctor," Sherlock said, quietly. "I can't give you children. And either of us might, at any moment, be killed."
John looked up then. Sherlock's gaze looked a little sad. God, what had he done to this man? "You're a bloody good detective," he said. "And I don't want children. I can't even look after a houseplant. And you said it was dangerous, and I came." And he dared to touch Sherlock's face, feel one of those ridiculous cheekbones with his fingers.
"John," Sherlock said, in a very small voice.
"Now finish what you started," said John, and he kissed him.