Chapter Text
The sun is burning low in the sky, a vibrant orange that slants through the sitting room windows and sends a beam in a brilliant arc down the hall, through the open door, and across a single, long, bare foot that peeks out from under the edge of the duvet.
“You look utterly debauched,” John whispers approvingly, nuzzling into the damp curls at the back of Sherlock’s neck. He shivers when Sherlock shudders and tightens his body down on John’s cock.
“A bit—oh—a bit premature for that description, isn’t it?” Sherlock pants. He pushes back until he can’t go any further, John buried inside of him as far as he can physically go.
John grunts, grips Sherlock’s hip more tightly. He loves the position they’re in: lying on their sides allows him to see all the way down Sherlock’s long, graceful body, the grey duvet still barely covering his legs.
“It really isn’t,” John says, and wraps his hand around Sherlock’s erection and strokes and pulls and fucks until the flash fire of orgasm overwhelms them both and they sink into oblivion in a late summer sunset.
…………………………………..
“Meant to ask you earlier,” John says, admiring the way Sherlock’s biceps flex under smooth skin as he towels off after his shower the next morning. “Where’d you end up yesterday? I would have met you—I was sent home a bit earlier than I expected.”
Sherlock finishes drying and tosses his towel on the floor. John tries hard not to roll his eyes and reminds himself to pick it up later.
“Camden,” Sherlock says, slipping on a pair of pants. “Suicide. Well, not suicide, murder obviously, but you know the Yard. Useless, mostly, but at least one of them thought something was off and called for me.”
John blinks. “Did they, now?” That was rather odd—no one called Sherlock in on cases except Lestrade and sometimes Dimmock, if he was feeling particularly needy or hopeless. “Must have been new. How did that go over?”
“Yes, relatively new, but a bit older than the typical PC. Career change. Previously a middle manager at a Sainsburys. Possibly Tescos. No, Sainsburys.” Sherlock slips on his trousers and begins to fasten them, and John can’t take any more of the reverse strip tease. He kneels up on the bed and catches Sherlock by a beltloop and reels him in to press kisses to his chest, flicking his tongue over a nipple. “Oh Christ, John,” Sherlock gasps as he arches into John’s touch. “I—you were at the clinic, sorry, wasn’t sure if—“
“Don’t really give a damn,” John says, and palms Sherlock’s cock until he can feel him starting to get hard under the fabric. Christ, Sherlock’s gorgeous, and if John thought he was in danger of being overwhelmed before, adding spectacular sex to the mix has left him floundering, unable to pull himself free. “Anything on this morning you couldn’t let drop?”
Sherlock dips down to capture John’s lips in a deep, filthy kiss that lasts until Sherlock’s mobile chirps insistently from the bedside table.
“Shit,” Sherlock mutters as he pulls away. Reluctantly, John notes with satisfaction. Sherlock flips over the mobile and his lips twist with irritation. “Those cretins have managed to bungle up even something so simple as a search of a dead woman’s flat. I’m sorry John, but I—” Sherlock looks beseechingly at the door and John chuckles, even as his erection throbs a bit with neglect.
“As if I’d ever stop you,” he says, and shakes his head affectionately as Sherlock throws on a shirt and bolts for the door. “D’you need me?” he yells as Sherlock clatters down the stairs.
“Not yet,” Sherlock answers, and the door slams behind him.
John sighs. He knew when this started Sherlock would be a bit flighty to have any sort of relationship with, but frankly, the sex is amazing enough to make up for it. Sherlock had thrown himself into it with the same sort of reckless abandon he shows to most things, and John has been thrilled to go right along. Even if frequent interruptions for cases or evidence or sudden epiphanies about murders does give John blue balls more often than ever before in his life.
The Work is first, John reminds himself as he shoves his hand down his shorts and has a rather unsatisfactory wank before his own shower.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Turns out Sherlock does need him, after all, if for nothing else than to hold evidence bags and take notes and be a willing audience for the dressing down Sherlock gives a couple of the forensics techs unfortunate enough to be on the duty roster that day.
John is leaning against the worktop in the kitchen when Lestrade walks in, the strain of having Sherlock running down his forensics team evident in the set of his shoulders.
“Cheers,” John says. “Didn’t realize you’d been assigned.”
“Are you kidding?” Lestrade asks, and sits down in a kitchen chair. “Noone else would have him on a murder case. Anyway, figured you’d have known that. How was Camden, by the way?”
John blinks. “What are you talking about?”
“Melinda Barry. The woman found murdered yesterday? I could have sworn PC Andrewes said you were there.”
John shrugs. “Not me,” he says. “Must be mistaken.”
Lestrade pauses, and his forehead wrinkles in a way that looks like he’s about to say something uncomfortable.
“Look, John, I don’t…I don’t know quite how to say this, but the PC yesterday was sure, said Sherlock was with a small, blonde man. Said they were chatting and getting on like a house on fire, so she assumed it must be you. I mean, she’d never met you, but…”
“She assumed, knowing Sherlock Holmes’ reputation, that the only person he could be friendly with, especially someone who fits that description, would be me.”
Lestrade looks a bit pained. “Well, yes. And she said, well. Sherlock had his arm around him.” This last is said in a rush and Lestrade flinches a bit and looks down at the floor.
John prides himself on his poker face. He can’t outright lie worth a damn, but he’s incredibly good at schooling his face into utter impassivity, and it takes all of his will to do so right now, to not betray a hint of confusion and small flutter of panic in his stomach.
“I’m finished with this lot of idiots,” Sherlock announces as he sweeps into the room, startling John enough he almost stumbles. Sherlock gives him a look but doesn’t say anything. “It’s not a total loss,” he adds, turning to Lestrade, “but it could have been. Come, John.” Sherlock turns, the movement setting the stacks of papers on the kitchen table fluttering and John just stands there for a moment.
“I’m sure she was simply mistaken,” John says, and leaves before he can see any sympathy in Lestrade’s eyes.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
John watches Sherlock out of the corner of his eye the entire way home, but absolutely nothing seems amiss. He’s absorbed in his phone, as always, but otherwise seems completely normal. He even leaves John to pay for the cab, the berk, although John’s fairly sure the cabbie knows Sherlock and probably even owes him a favor.
John shakes himself a bit and tries to forget what Lestrade told him. Probably just a mistake, like he said, and besides, they’d never actually had a discussion about being exclusive, though John thought after almost three months of rather regular shagging it was a bit implied. John is hesitant to put a name to it, but he knows there’s more than affection in the twist of his heart when he catches Sherlock’s eye across a room, in the fierce protectiveness with which John defends his life.
The trouble is, despite the enthusiasm with which Sherlock shares his bed, John’s not exactly sure what Sherlock is feeling. It’s a bit like trying to hold on to a shadow—and dropping something solid and sure into the middle would destroy it utterly.
“So, how was Camden yesterday?” John asks as he pushes the windows open as wide as they’ll go. The heat really is getting oppressive, sticky and warm, and the late afternoon sun is pouring into their flat.
Sherlock’s eyebrows twitch. “How was it? I haven’t the faintest. I was there for a case, John, not a grand tour.”
John tries to busy himself with getting a beer from the fridge so he doesn’t have to look Sherlock in the face. Rubbish liar, rubbish liar, he thinks. “Oh, Lestrade just said the report around the nick was that you’d gotten on well with a PC there. Well, they thought it was me, actually; not sure how that could have happened, with the uniform and all.” John turns around and leans against the worktop and takes a deep pull from his beer.
“Ah, yes, PC Taylor. He does rather look a bit like you, come to that. He’s the one who called me, actually. Found the body. She was a neighbor of his. He was off-duty,” Sherlock adds, the narrows his eyes. “You’re not…you’re not jealous, are you, John?” Sherlock has a bit of a smirk on his face, and John knows there’s no sense in denying it, but a bit of deflection to protect the softer parts of his heart is absolutely necessary. He puts his beer down and crosses his arms over his chest.
“So what if I am, a bit? I don’t recall being asked to share.”
Sherlock’s smirk turns into a feral grin, and he stands in front of John with his perfect posture, head slightly tipped, and hooks a single finger into the notch of John’s collar.
“That’s because noone is going to,” Sherlock says, and slithers down John’s body until he’s on his knees, his bright blue eyes the last thing John sees before his own close from sudden, swift, and bone-deep pleasure.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
The next morning John’s just lacing on his boots when Sherlock flies into the sitting room.
“There’s been another murder in Camden,” he says, and hops a bit as he tries to tie his own shoes while still standing. “You’re coming this time,” he adds, and snatches a pastry from John’s plate and stuffs it in his mouth before John can protest, winking and swinging his hips a bit as he strides for the door.
“Hang on a minute then,” John grouses, and finishes his boots before taking the other pastry from the box and follows Sherlock down to catch a cab, grumbling the entire way. Sherlock’s such a bastard sometimes, but all he has to do is flash that smile and John’s lost. And oh, does he know it. John sighs with disgust at his own weakness and locks the door and climbs into the cab.
“Oh, there was blueberry?” Sherlock says, eyeing John as he tries to eat quickly without making himself sick. Christ, he’s not even had tea. His headache later is going to be spectacular.
“Piss off,” John says. “You had a chance to choose, and you chose poorly. So what’s the story?”
“Madeline Burke, age 53, same general neighborhood, same presentation of the body, same shove out of a window. How people are being pushed out of windows and no one sees or hears anything at all, even in the dead of night, is beyond me.”
“If people reported every single strange noise they ever heard you’d be complaining of how stupid they all are.”
“True. But at least people would be observing something. Data, John. I need data.”
“Well, you’re about to get it because we’re here.”
John can feel the shift in his brain, the call to action that sends a jolt of adrenaline to cascade over his nerves and leave him twitching. The cab pulls up next to a block of rather dreary industrial-looking flats, all looking about the same shade of dull brown-grey, stark and grimy against the blue summer sky. A few look as if they’d been spruced up at some point, painted and with pots of flowers on the steps, but in general the entire neighbourhood is just a bit shabby.
“There you are,” Lestrade says, leaving a knot of officers stationed next to a curtained off space on the pavement and meeting them halfway, near some emergency vehicles.
“Precisely where we are supposed to be. Imagine that,” Sherlock snarks. “Same neighborhood as before. Is PC Taylor here?” Sherlock asks, while pulling on a pair of gloves.
“Yeah, he’s around somewhere, I’ll have him called.” Lestrade says, and lifts the curtain aside and follows Sherlock inside. John steels himself for a moment, pausing with one hand against the side of an ambulance. He breathes, tries to calm his racing heart, and will himself into not having any unfortunate flashbacks.
“It is pretty messy in there,” a voice says behind him. John turns quickly to see a PC standing behind him—middle-aged, blonde, close to John’s height and can only be PC Taylor.
“Obviously,” John says, and winces internally at the Sherlockian sneer in his tone. God, he’s not even seen the body and this case is getting to him already.
“Yes, well, she did fall seven stories. It’s too bad, really. Glad Sherlock’s here—I’m sure he’ll sort it quickly. He’s so brilliant.” He smiles and John shifts uncomfortably on his feet.
“Well, I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you that,” he says, and feels the urge to be where Sherlock is, even if that is a rather shocking and grisly crime scene.
PC Taylor doesn’t really catch the hint and starts walking with him, John remembering too late that he’d been called to the scene as well. “Listen,” Taylor says quietly. “You’re a good friend of Sherlock’s, yes?”
John can hear the male conspirator tone in his voice and wants to both laugh hysterically and throw up. “Yeah. Yeah, you could say that.” The distance between the ambulance and the blue privacy curtains never seemed so far apart and John keeps his head down and manoeuvres around a pair of emergency workers, who are chatting and killing time until the body is released.
Taylor doesn’t seem to be deterred by John’s pace. “Well, we…we seemed to get on last time, and I know that a crime scene is a hell of a place to meet someone, but. Well. Do you think he’d mind if I called?”
“He prefers to text,” John says as he lifts the curtain and steps inside, barely even blinking at the sight of Sherlock dipping his gloved finger into Madeline Burke’s blood and smearing it on a slide.
“Ah, John, there you are. Hold this, will you?” He hands John the slide and John shakes out a clean handkerchief to lay across his palm. Sherlock drops the slide onto it and turns back to the body.
“Quiet. Knitter. Had a budgie or other small bird. Spent weekends in the country, usually horseback riding. Knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head and then shoved through a window.” Sherlock stands and squints upward in the midday sun. “Her own window. Her flat is right up there.”
John breathes a sigh of relief, finds that the sight of Madeline’s twisted body has slipped into clinical detachment, and crouches down next to Sherlock, bumping against his shoulder in the process. Sherlock raises his eyebrows, but John doesn’t care in the slightest. He’s being utterly ridiculous. This case is really getting to him.