Chapter Text
“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
— Christopher Columbus
After dropping off their tanks at the diving centre, John and Sherlock are driven by Morgan to the ferry terminal. While John gives the Gozo diving veteran a recap of their Guatemalan expedition and listens to Morgan's griping about Maltese bureaucracy, Sherlock sits quietly in the back seat, water bottle in hand and shades on. He's startled when Morgan calls his name out.
"You enjoy your day out with John, then, Mister Holmes?"
"Couldn't have hoped for a better guide," he says and flashes on a cordial smile while removing his shades. "Thank you for making the arrangements."
"With John, all I need to do is tell him where to dive and when. Unlike some of these younger primadonnas, he's not afraid of hard work, always gives a hundred per cent."
"Shut it, you old fool," John chuckles. "You're embarrassing me."
"Malta sun's made me head go soft, you know. They'd lock me up for saying nice things to people back in rainy old England."
"I'm aware of John's many fine qualities," Sherlock comments, and his and John's eyes meet in the rear-view mirror.
________________
The sun is setting as the ferry makes its way across the strait between the mainland and Gozo. John had parked next to the Cirkewwa ferry terminal. He'd left his dive gearbox with the ferry attendants, and they recover it once the ferry's car deck has been emptied and the staff can get to the crates in the back.
They roll down the windows of John's banged-up jeep. Sherlock's curls are whipped around by the warm evening breeze. Once they get closer to the capital, streets get busier with tourists wandering around looking for restaurants and locals heading home or to a grocery store after work. As they drive past Mater Dei Hospital, John makes small talk, explaining the island's hyperbaric chamber system. Apart from that, the drive is spent in companionable silence. John wonders when Sherlock had flown in and why he'd picked a hotel on Gozo, but those questions can wait — right now, he just wants to relish the fact that Sherlock is here, with him, in his car. He'll have to spend the night, won't he, since he'll hardly want to catch a night bus to the ferry?John has a sense that Sherlock has not made many plans for this escape-slash-holiday.
They manage to find a parking spot on Triq Il-Karmnu only a block away from John's seaside flat on George Borg Olivier Street, and Sherlock helps him carry his gear. His own had been left with Morgan to be stored until his departure.
They close the door of the flat behind them just as the bells of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel behind sounding from across the small inlet separating St Julian's Bay from Exiles Bay. John gives his guest a very brief tour of the place since there isn't that much to see, after which Sherlock wanders around the living room, picking up and examining the sparse items John has put on the shelves. He's tried not to amass a whole lot of possessions; who knows, when an offer might appear that would take him across the globe for a year or two. The less he'd have to pack up, the better. "Malta is home, but not really home if you know what I mean," he comments sheepishly.
Sherlock peers into a small bottle with a ship inside crafted from cloth and wood. "A trireme. Surprisingly historically accurate."
"Picked that up in Kea where we dived the Britannic."
Sherlock's attention instantly jumps from the bottle to him. "The Britannic? How was it?"
Discovered by renowned nautical explorer and documentarist Jacques Cousteau, the wreck of the British WWI hospital ship sunk in 1916 into water 120 metres deep. The largest civilian shipwreck in history, the Britannic was a sister ship of and even larger than Titanic. It sank after hitting a German mine, but there were few casualties since it happened close to the coast, the air and water were warm, and there were plenty of lifeboats available. Only thirty perished.
"One of my best dives. An RAMC Captain who went down with it, John Cropper, was actually a distant relative. We managed to locate his cabin, and I got to recover some of his possessions. The Imperial War Museum's got them now."
"Who did this 'we' include?"
"Just a few tec instructor friends and Simon Mills, a guy who later brought the wreck from the Greek government. Greek authorities weren't being very strict in limiting access since so few people have the qualifications to do it, anyway. Mills bought the wreck for fifteen grand — mainly to protect it from being looted. If you want to dive it now, you need his permission. Our team had a permit from the government, which included bringing artefacts to the surface, which were then presented to the National Historical Museum before they let us export them."
"Have you any footage from the dive?"
"Sure." John starts digging around a drawer below his TV. Mills had sent him the tapes as digitised versions a few years prior.
Soon, they are watching as John, in full tec gear, enters through the massive, gaping hole in the ship's side where the mine explosion had torn through the hull.
"I never was quite aware of enjoying the process of tec diving. It was just a means to an end. Now that I can no longer be a part of that, it's…" Sherlock trails out. "Maybe I feel a loss of certain aspects of it. Diving today made me feel it more acutely than I did back home after the expedition."
"Small submersibles are being used now to explore deep wrecks, and wearable camera systems you can give your team are developing all the time. You'll feel less and less like you've been benched, and if you keep up with improving your hypo situation, regular scuba might well be possible." John wonders if a part the melancholy Sherlock is expressing stems from the stubborn, independent man's petulant anger at being told no. Then again, who wouldn't love what they'd seen and experienced together today and feel a bit bitter for losing it, albeit temporarily. Maybe Sherlock is right, and he had enjoyed some of it — he just hadn't been aware of that until it was taken away.In the future, he might be able to he can scuba dive within reasonable limits and without entering overhead environments. Plenty of opportunities in that for a marine archaeologist.
"Now that I can't dive, I do need someone to be my eyes and ears. Preferably with a GoPro; we're experimenting with a direct satellite link that would allow me to follow the dive in real-time."
"Does that mean you'd finally use a radio?"
Sherlock looks thoughtful. "Maybe. There are three projects in development now with the BBC, one of them a documentary series. I would li––" he trails out, swallows, splays his fingers nervously on the coffee table. "I would love to work with you again. I know you enjoy living here, and that you appreciate your professional freedom and the… hunting grounds here," he adds with obvious disdain.
"They're not going anywhere," John dismisses. Something about Sherlock bringing all that up grates on him. "Having to leave Malta never stopped me before. I wouldn't mind another expedition lead by you."
Sherlock nods towards his bed. "Do you mind if I…?" He's been sitting on the floor since John only has one armchair. He'd offered it to his guest, but Sherlock had waved him off and arranged his sprawly limbs on the rug to watch the diving footage.
"No, go ahead," John encourages. "When did you fly in?"
"Two days ago. Haven't been sleeping very well."
"Yeah, no, I'm not surprised."
Sherlock sits down on the bed, and they continue watching the exploration of the wreck in silence. The next time John glances at his companion, he's scooted down to lie on his side on the bed and closed his eyes. By the time the video ends, Sherlock seems to be asleep.
The last few weeks must have been so exhausting, John thinks. With the court case and the imminent media storm… and even with the new BBC stuff, Sherlock probably worries about the Centre once the shit hits the fan in the press about Moriarty.
Three hours later, Sherlock is still snoring quietly on the left side of John's bed. John fetches a giant beach blanket he keeps on the balcony and spreads it on him. When the long hand of the clock hits half-past eleven, he slips into bed next to Sherlock, covers himself with just a sheet since the night is warm and the air-conditioning is still broken and drifts off.
__________________
"I must apologise," comes a sleep-hoarse baritone from the kitchen doorway the next morning. "I really didn't mean to monopolise your bed." Sherlock, wrapped in the sheet John had left on the bed after getting up, yawns and rubs at his eyes.
John closes the fridge door that's blocking his view to the man. "Don't worry about it. You looked like you needed the rest." The man had stayed up all night every night on the boat until John had put his foot down had now slept for fourteen hours straight. Sherlock's hair is a curly mess that's sticking up in every direction, and the look he gives John is lethargically bleary.
Nobody gets to see him like this, John realises. Well, except… but that's over, now. It has to be.
"There's coffee and fruit and some ftira," he says, nodding towards the two-person table by the window. He'd picked the Maltese pastries up less than thirty minutes prior from a hole-in-the-wall shop in the corner; they're the best on the island in his opinion. Flaky pastry filled with fish, meat or vegetables, a ftira is a quick and filling meal.
Sherlock takes the seat offered, arranging the sheet around him so it won't limit his arm movements. "It's not my habit to fall asleep in other people's residences like this. I'm also aware you may have had other plans for yesterday evening."
Why does he keep offering me an out, providing me with opportunities to tell him to piss off?
"Nope. No plans. I enjoyed the company. It's not often people stay the night," he says with a smile that appears so easily in Sherlock's company. "Seems a bit, I don't know, beside the point after the fireworks have gone off if you catch my drift."
Sherlock looks like he really doesn't. "Is that truly all you think about? You don't find any worth in intimacy beyond sex? Is that the only framework within which you evaluate human connection — whether your penis was involved?"
"Really not my point," John says tiredly. He gets so aggressively defensive so easily. His focus has been on having fun and relationships aren't something he's been longing for, but last night and their night on the boat had been… different in a very good way. He wants Sherlock to know that, but clearly, it's a hard sell. "I meant it when I said I liked that; you, being next to me. Just like on that last night of the trip. I don't judge you, Sherlock. If anything, I find your approach…" he tries to search for a word, "…refreshing."
"Sounds condescending." Sherlock's long fingers snatch a ftira off the plate.
John wishes he was better at talking about these bloody things. He'd woken up briefly in the middle of the night and just listened to the sound of Sherlock's breathing, feeling an odd pride swell in him for being the one who'd managed to facilitate a restful night for the haunted man. He'd been tempted to reach out, to shift a curl off a brow, to stroke an arm, to press himself to Sherlock's back and hold him, and he'd been surprised to find he wasn't aroused. He didn't want the way he usually wanted; no, this was different. Somehow, the familiar white noise of longing in his bones was being fulfilled just by Sherlock's proximity. It wasn't urgent and compulsive such as the desire he felt with those he'd brought to his bed before. It was… comfortable. Comforting, even. He hadn't wished for more at that moment — he was content with what he had. He felt lucky, privileged in a way none of his passings-in-the-night in the last few years had brought on.
He shrugs. "Maybe I need some new definitions, then. I'm sure a man of your verbal prowess can help. All I know is that I'm happy you're here, as long as you want to stay."
"I don't have a ticket booked back yet. I will go back as I must; I have my duties with the Centre, of course, but there is no telling how long it will take until the media storm blows over. I would prefer to… not be in England while that happens. My testimony has been taped beforehand; there's no reason for me to appear in court. They granted me special court measures," he phrases with what sounds like self-disgust.
"There's no reason for you to have to face this creep ever again. It's good that they offered that to you. You've got a good lawyer?"
"I am borrowing my brother's legal team, yes."
"Good, that's… good."
"I was reluctant to ask for his help. He… he'd heard rumours. About Moriarty. He tried to warn me in the early days of James' involvement with me, in fact. I had no desire to hear Mycroft's told-you-sos. He can act so snidely superior."
The edge of John's mouth twitches up a bit. A bit like his little brother?" What does he do? How would he know the guy?"
"Mycroft occupies what he calls a minor position in the cogs of the government. Gives him access to closed circles. In those circles, any scandal can be killed, and silence bought. He may have brokered such deals, for all I know. Apparently, Moriarty is a return customer if not for him, then some others who have power over the media. That was another reason I went to the Irish press. The people who have assisted Moriarty in getting away with… things have less influence there."
"You think he has other v–– exes?" John corrects. Sherlock wouldn't want to be called a victim, would he? No, he's got himself out of this. If anything, he's a survivor.
"It's likely. I do wonder how they managed to… leave."
"So, your brother told you getting involved with Moriarty wasn't a good idea. Still, did it really have to go this far before you'd go to him?"
"I didn't want to involve him because he's been lecturing me for years that in order for someone to put up with me, I'd have to make concessions, compromises. As it turns out, this is not what he meant. I've never quite seen him so… apologetically concerned." Sherlock grimaces. "His pity leaves a particularly vile aftertaste."
Sherlock puts down his pastry and licks the tips of his greasy fingers, which John watches with rapt attention.
His shoulders deflate, and he sighs. "What is this, John? What are we?"
"I thought you didn't care much about labels and definitions."
"You seem to need one in order to operate in this relationship."
Sherlock using the R-word should make John splutter in protest since he's spent years avoiding ending up in one. Yet this time, it brings on a flutter in his guts he quite enjoys. "Do you have any suggestions?"
"I would like to start out as friends. I cannot promise more, but I would perhaps be amenable to some exploration."
He's not just talking about filming shipwrecks with the BBC, John realises. "Sherlock–– I hope you're not saying that because you think I have expectations."
Sherlock schools his disappointment into nonchalance. He's gripping his water glass hard, fingertips drumming the glass surface nervously. "I understand if what I am willing to give isn't what you're looking for. It's clearly not for you, being without regular release––"
John encloses his fidgeting fingers in his hand, covering them on the glass. "I know that life, and I've enjoyed it for twenty years. But here I am, living alone, and one day it'll probably start getting pretty damned lonely. Maybe it's time to… explore something different."
"I have no interest in being your experiment."
"Not what I meant. What I was saying that maybe it's time for something that might last. And I know those things aren't built on sex. It can be a part of that, but I don't want you to think you're the only one who has to stretch their boundaries here. I never slept with anyone who hesitated, never anyone who didn't want it as I wanted it. I just never knew what to do with them the next morning; maybe that's something Ineed to learn. The last thing I'd want is to pressure you to anything. I know talking about such stuff so soon after James––" if pity is a flavour Sherlock hates, then this guy's name feels like acid on John's tongue, "––the timing is not good. But I can't not say it, Sherlock."
"Say what?"
There's a question in Sherlock's eyes that doesn't need to be spoken out loud. Would you know what to do with me the next morning?
The next morning after… what? John wonders. Then, he realises he doesn't have to know. Maybe it would be a morning after they had just slept in the same bed, maybe entangled together, maybe not. Maybe having kissed goodnight, maybe not. For the first time in twenty years, John doesn't know what the rules are, what to expect from someone he has chosen to be intimate with. Suddenly, that word has gained a thousand new meanings besides the old, simple, stale one of sex.
He doesn't know what's going to happen, and he's astounded that it excites him more than any promise of orgasms.
Sherlock is still looking at him expectantly. "Say what, John?"
"That I want you to be here. What do you want to do today? I haven't got anything on," he side-rails the topic. This is so fucking hard."Could do some sightseeing, find a nice secluded cove somewhere."
"Not keen on anything involving lots of people. I came here to avoid attention from everyone except you."
Except you. Those two words make John's heart somersault a little. Stop looking for a definition, for decisions, for something certain or predictable. Just be with him, he tells himself.
"Right," he says, standing up and switching off the coffee maker. "We need wine, water, some food, and I know just the place for a day trip."
____________
There is another chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Il-Fawwara, rarely if ever visited by tourists. A forty-five-minute walk from the car park meanders down to the southwestern coast. Sherlock had not brought hiking boots, but his boating shoes are fine to navigate the dry, worn path down to a narrow sandy beach wedged between worn limestone cliffs. Red rocks rounded by water and wind over thousands of years line the white sand like a giant's broken pearl chain.
"You have to know some locals to find a beach that's not all packed with people. Sandy beaches aren't very common here," John explains.
"Lucky me, then, to be taken to your special spot." Sherlock is standing close to the water's edge, arms crossed. His statement is joyless.
"Hey," John says gently, putting down the basket he'd been carrying. He carefully, gently wraps an arm around Sherlock's shoulders and is relieved to feel him lean against his chest. "What's going on?"
"It's frustrating not to know how things are advancing. I've tried not to read the papers; I hardly want to see my name plastered all across them, but it's hard to not be on top of things. It's not all just going to go away by the time I go back, is it?"
"I'm long overdue for a trip back. What if I came home with you?"
Sherlock regards him with a sad expression. "I don't want you on James' radar, and frankly, that's a bit too much at this stage, John."
"Not like that," John corrects. It seems they are both guilty for reading too much into things and not knowing how to interpret the other. "I just want you to have someone you can talk to."
"Why you?" Sherlock asks, genuinely perplexed. John realises he isn't asking him but asking himself. "You are everything I never understood, you represent all the things I have dismissed as pointless and base, things I thought I should rise above."
"Thanks," John chuckles. "Nice view from up there on that horse?"
Sherlock leans his temple against John's shoulder. "It was infuriating, the way you kept returning to my thoughts on the boat. Intolerably distracting."
"I've kept thinking of you, too." John takes his hand and leads him down to a pair of smooth rocks perfect for sitting on. He digs out the bottle of rosé they'd bought from a supermarket. It's hardly cold but should still taste alright. Plastic cups are not exactly the height of romance, but it seems that not doing things the usual way is the staple of the two of them. The hallmark of John and Sherlock.
"I have baggage, John. I can't promise I won't be reminded of him— a lot. And I can't promise you won't notice. The lessons he thought he could teach me were the wrong ones, and I don't know if further education can unravel them."
"I don't want to change you. If Moriarty thought he could do that, he was looking at the whole thing from the wrong angle. If he wanted a different you, he didn't want you."
I don't care if you have baggage. I don't care about any of it. I just want to be with you.
"He said I was his project, just like the Foundation was. He took what showed promise and changed it to his liking."
"Well, I'm glad you're proving him otherwise."
"I doubt I can change his thinking any more than he could change the fundamentals of mine."
Yeah, I doubt sadistic arseholes are good at mending things and becoming nicer. No wonder Sherlock bites people's heads off when the conversation turns to sex. It's got to be one hell of a mess to unravel that Moriarty's put in his head of what it should mean to be with someone.
Sherlock rises to his feet and moves from the shadow to sit on the sunlit sand. John joins him, placing their glasses on a small rock. He scoots closer, pressing his lips to Sherlock's sweaty neck. He does it not with the intention to make it foreplay, but just because the rush of affection he feels needs an outlet. "Is this alright?"
"I will tell you if you do something I don't enjoy. I'm not the way I am because of him, and I won't break into pieces from such things, John. If I change my mind about something, I am capable of saying no."
"I know." Smiling, John dares to press another kiss to his neck, wraps his arms tight around Sherlock. I'm never nervous like this. Look what you bloody do to me, Sherlock Holmes. He almost hopes for the man to pick up on it so he'd feel less wrong-footed about all the physical stuff. "You have to be honest with me. I don't want anything you don't want."
Sherlock is right in that he is analysing and second-guessing, trying to stay carefully attuned. He has to get close by keeping his distance, to approach slowly to ensure the other is not just grinning and bearing it.
"I detest that this is now something you're constantly trying to analyse when it comes to getting to know me. That's how people always see it: like I'm some exotic creature to be housetrained." He leans forward as if to pull away and stand up. "Maybe I shouldn't have come here."
John rests his palms on his shoulders and is relieved when this is enough to keep Sherlock from pulling away. "I'm glad you came. You have no idea how glad."
"And that is precisely the problem. I've come here with no intentions, no promises, with nothing to offer. I'm just imposing on your time and your hospitality. It's obvious you're interested, it's obvious you want… things, and that's what he always accused me of, pretending something was on offer by not denying it, told me I was a damned tease. I was surprised you didn't lose interest after I rejected you on that first night. I should have left things at that, having made the right decision then."
John runs a nervous hand through his hair. How does he even begin to dismantle all those lies and assumptions? "Was it the wrong decision, becoming friends? Was it the wrong decision, spending that final night together? I didn't feel deprived of anything then, Sherlock. If anything, it was the nicest night I've had in years. Felt good. Comfortable. Wasn't it like that for you?"
"It was, and that's why I'm here!" Frustration is straining Sherlock's vocal cords.
"I want to be here; you want to be here together. Maybe not analyse it any further?" God knows I've tried to pick it apart, and it doesn't work.
Sherlock settles back against his chest, and John inhales the scent of his sun-warm hair. He has a nape curl which coils every which way and bounces when his head moves. He has soft, almost translucent hairs on his pale, creamy-soft skin under his halo of dark curls which stand up as John lets his breath ghost there. Funny, how I never used to notice these things on people. I guess I never stopped to look, being on a rush to get on with things in bed.
"I want to know everything about you, and this just happens to be an unusual thing we've got," he reassures Sherlock. "I don't know the rules here, and it's bloody refreshing. You've knocked me off balance, which you should take as a compliment: I kind of find everything about you confusing and interesting."
"Confusing is somehow good, all of a sudden?"
John exhales thoughtfully, leans his forehead on the luscious curls in front of him. "I thought I had my life all worked out, but then you barged into it."
"I don't barge––"
John laughs. "I thought I knew how it all worked, sex and all, and maybe, maybeit was getting a bit paint-by-numbers. You opened a door I didn't know existed."
He feels Sherlock's shoulders relax a little. "Oh."
________________
Sherlock doesn't go back to his hotel that night. There is no discussion about it, he simply does not request John to take him back. They stay up late, talking over another bottle of wine. When conversation wanes and yawning begins, clothes are discarded down to underwear, and they slip into John's bed just as they had been the night before: John on the left, Sherlock on the right.
John is content just to be, to relish the presence of another person in the room. He's close to dozing off, when an arm reaches across his torso, pulls him closer.
"Can we just… this," Sherlock explains, sounding frustrated.
"'Course we can. Whatever you want, we can," John whispers. Maybe it is good that they are unlikely ever to reach John's hard limits. It means Sherlock can approach him at his own pace without fearing rejection, without fearing there's something wrong with what he wants or doesn't want.
He clasps Sherlock's hand in his own, and rests them on his hip, slips his own shorter fingers between long, lithe ones. It's dark, but he can make out the boundaries of Sherlock's body and where his hair fans out on the pillow.
"Just this," Sherlock whispers.
John can't tell if it's a question, but he answers with a squeeze of his hand all the same.
_______________
In the early hours of the morning, something makes John surface from sleep. After a moment of disorientation, he can make out Sherlock's dark form against the moonlight streaming through the window. He's sitting up.
"You okay?" John asks.
There's no reply.
"Did you…" John swallows, lets intuition take over, "…have a nightmare?"
Sherlock mutters something, then slips out of bed. Soon John spots the glowing red spot of a cigarette as he settles into a chair to smoke. John doesn't like people doing that in his flat, but this once he doesn't hesitate to let it slide.
John gathers himself up off the bed and goes to sit on the coffee table, facing Sherlock as he leans his elbows on his knees. "What's wrong?" He asks bluntly.
"You'd moved to the other side of the bed, and I wanted…" he mutters something John can't quite decipher, "––but you would have woken up, perhaps assumed too much about where I wanted things to go."
It's frustrating, how wary Sherlock is of him physically, but John reminds him it's also entirely logical. "Do you often assume you have to take over thinking for other people?" He asks quietly.
"I find people often don't do that for themselves."
John's lip quirks up. "Maybe your problem's more the opposite. That you overthink things."
"You keep making promises of no expectations, but in the light of your lifestyle, I find that hard to believe."
"Can people change, do you think, Sherlock?"
"Why would anyone do that for me?"
John's heart clenches a little bit. That he would have so little confidence about why anyone would want him. No wonder that creep put him under some fucking spell. He watches the younger man inhale deep, luxurious drags from the cigarette until it's just a stub. John then grabs a used tea mug from the table and offers it as a makeshift ashtray; Sherlock drops it in.
"Do you want to come back to bed?" John asks.
"Yes."
John spreads the sheet over them; it's a very warm night. In his many years of spending time in bed with other people, he cannot remember it ever feeling this naked or this brittle. Emotional attachment, relationship, all that used to make him want to run, but what's there to run away from in Sherlock? John wants him close, wants to protect him with a fierceness that is as novel as it is intense.
They're facing each other, their facial features only barely visible in the low light. "What did you need?" John whispers. "Before, when you woke up? What did you want to do?"
Hesitantly, Sherlock scoots closer, turns onto his side — nearly on his stomach, and rests his cheek where the front of John's shoulder meets his chest. John reaches out to stroke his hair down towards his neck — but when he reaches the shoulder, Sherlock tenses.
"Too much?"
"No, it's… it's just sore?"
John's brows dip into a V in confusion. He pushes Sherlock's head away from him a bit as he turns it and reaches out his other hand to click on the reading light.
There's a dark bruise underneath the curls and skin close to his hairline. Sherlock only barely aborts a hiss when John presses on it with his fingertips. The sheet has slipped off Sherlock's hip; his boxers are riding low, and there's a row of yellowish-green, fingertip-shapes bruises on his hip which cannot be older than a few weeks. "You went backto him?"
John releases his gentle grip on the back of Sherlock's head.
"I saw him once, to make sure he didn't suspect anything."
"But this is… it needs to be fucking documented!"
"It was," Sherlock replies in a calm, collected, distant tone. "The photographs you took did not include the damage from my last encounter, so the police insisted on an exam and documentation by their own photographer with the forensic physician, as requested by the detective. If I was to go to the press, there needed to be tangible evidence so that Moriarty's lawyers couldn't tear the case to shreds before it even got to court."
"You used yourself as bait?" Perhaps that's not the word, and it isn't really entrapment, but it's the middle of the night and John is severely upset by his discovery.
There's a shudder of a shrug. "It's just pain. It doesn't mean anything."
I think it means a hell of a lot, but maybe you're not ready to admit that. Would you be here if it didn't?
John realises that it's the most important question, really: what happens when this blows over? Sherlock came to him because he needed someone, a place, a safe haven. That makes John want to be immensely careful about not reading too much into what goes on between them. But why choose him of all people? He'd mentioned a brother who was helping him with the court case. Why not go to family?
He's in your bed, John tells himself. That has to mean something, too.
Sherlock shifts a little, presses himself closer to John, splaying the fingers of his right hand on John's chest on top of the sheet.
You wanted this, just this, and instead, that arsehole just… what? Fucked you instead? Suddenly, John feels a tremendous need to make sure Sherlock knows that is not him. That it will never be him. That respect is what he feels more for Sherlock than some animalistic lust.
"I was chatting someone up a few days before you showed up," John tells him. "But I kept… this is going to sound mad; I kept hearing youin my head. Things I imagined you would have commented like some bloody narrator of a nature documentary. Here we see John Watson exhibiting his usual mating behaviour––"
He feels Sherlock's belly clench against his chest as he chuckles quietly.
"I'll admit that you've been in my thoughts occasionally."
"Only occasionally?" John teases.
"That first night… you may assume I shot you down because nothing about the offer enticed. That premise is patently wrong because I have eyes, John," he insists. "No, I did not want your company on that night, and later I would not encourage your interest because I just knew it would be too complicated. I would have had to provide a lengthy explanation, and you would have been disappointed. But that doesn't mean I didn't want your company later, once I spent more time with you."
"You haven't disappointed me. What you've done is make me think differently."
"On the occasions when the fact that I am different from the norm has been underlined, it has never been in a positive light."
"Let this be the first time, then. You have to understand this: I'm not James. Hurting people is not what I'm about."
He presses a kiss to the crown of Sherlock's hair, strokes a gentle hand down his long back muscles. He's so beautiful. John realises he'd never done this before, just slowed down to appreciate the way someone looked and felt under his hands. He'd chased a high, a release, and when that was gone, he assumed the next reward would equal a second orgasm.
It can't ever be about teaching him to enjoy sex. Maybe that's what that fuckwit thought he was doing. It can't ever be that, because Sherlock doesn't need to change. Not for me.
But maybe I do.It doesn't mean he doesn't want Sherlock — he desires the man in a way that makes the hairs of the back of his neck rise up and makes his skin prickle with anticipation. He wants, but it's interspersed with a different longing — that Sherlock would want to be with him, and that can't happen unless John respects who he is.
"I will never hurt you. Not ever," he whispers and feels a nod against his chest. "Stay. Stay as long as you need, Sherlock."