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“The Short version, not dead.” Sherlock said folding his hands together in front of him and lowering his eyes to look at John. It hadn’t been what he’d thought he’d say when he saw him but he was running out of ideas.
The woman sitting across from John was saying something. It sounded like she was trying to calm John down. Which was silly John was always calm. He was the face of calm.
John stood shaking slightly, his eyes watering. Sherlock reached out to steady him but pulled back as John’s hand took grip of the table. This was to be the moment John threw his arms around him and they hugged, but John didn’t move. He looked upset, he looked angry, and his left hand was balled into a fist.
Sherlock watched as John's fist pulsed, open then closed, squeezing tight with each movement. It looked like it hurt and Sherlock didn’t like that. He reached out without thinking and seized his hand to make it stop.
At the same time, Sherlock gave a slight flinch to the shaky intake of breath John took right before he slammed his other fist against the table.
“John.” The woman Sherlock had forgotten about whispered reaching for him. Sherlock didn’t enjoy her interference. This was about them, not a woman he didn’t know, trying to do his job.
He wanted to move them, to pull John away but John seemed rooted to the spot so he settled for working his hand into John’s. Gradually, John let him have his hand, and as he did Sherlock lead John into him. John’s date long forgotten.
When Sherlock felt John relax he pulled him to him, dipped him like in the films he’d watched and kissed him. He placed one hand at the small of John’s back the other on his neck to support him.
It started out as just a soft press of lips. Sherlock wanted John to be able to push him away to break it off if he wanted but John gripped back. Placing one of his hands in Sherlock’s hair and the other on Sherlock’s back.
The kiss deepened as mouths opened and tongues touched for the first time in two years. They kissed for a long time, longer than they should have in public, in a restaurant, in front of John’s date. But Sherlock couldn’t find it in himself to let John go.
He missed John’s smell, his taste, and the feel of him close. Holding him close like this made Sherlock feel like he could finally relax. The tickle of the mustache was not something he felt was an improvement but he would have it off John in no time.
There mouths separated but they stayed dipped with their faces close. John had a look of bewilderment on his face like he thought he was dreaming. Sherlock smiled and he smiled back. He removed the hand from Sherlock’s hair and moved it to his upper lip.
“Your mustache rubbed off.”
“To bad yours doesn’t. We’ll have to get rid of it soon, it’s not like you’re going to keep it.”
John was supposed to smile. It was funny. But instead the hand that had been touching his lip pulled back and hit him in the mouth and nose. Sherlock tried not to collapse but the pain and shock caused Sherlock to lose his footing.
They fell to the ground in a heap Sherlock tried to protect John’s body. He landed on an injury and let out a gasp of pain, which he attempted to bury in John’s arm. He felt John’s fingers in his hair again but refused to move his face. He didn’t want John to see him in pain.
Sherlock then realized John was talking. He wasn’t angry or not as angry. He was trying to get Sherlock off the floor. Sherlock looked up and saw John’s date standing with several waiters and a woman who was unmistakable the owner. John helped Sherlock to his feet. They stood awkwardly side-by-side while being glared at and asked to leave. Sherlock held onto the bottom of John’s sleeve as they made their way to the front of the restaurant.
Outside John’s date hailed a cab and stood waiting for John to get in.
“I need to take care of this first Mary.”
So her name was Mary.
Mary stared at John then sighed. She walked back to him and fixed the collar of his jacket. “You do what you need to do alright. Just keep your temper and remember I’ll be at home if you need me.” She smiled and for a moment Sherlock thought she might lean in and kiss John on the cheek. She didn’t. She walked away head held high into the cab not turning back once to look at either of them.
Sherlock wanted to put his hand in John’s but he also didn’t want to get hit again.
“Come on lets get you cleaned up.” Sherlock looked at John as he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed first at Sherlock’s lip, then pressed it under Sherlock’s nose. Sherlock watched while John cleaned the blood off his face.
“Where are you staying?”
“Thought I’d go back to the flat.” Sherlock let it hang in the air, the flat their home.
“Going to give Mrs. Hudson a heart attack. Really Sherlock you can be so unkind.”
Sherlock knew there was more to the statement then John let on but ignored it. This time he did reach out to John. He gripped John’s arm and held onto it. “I want to go home.”
They watched each other for a while neither giving anything away then John sighed. He’d done a lot of that. “Alright but I’m starved so we’re going to get some food first.”
Sherlock hailed a cab and snuggled close to John. He watched while John put in an order to one of the takeaway places near Baker Street, then texted Mary that he didn’t know if he was going to make it home.
They picked up their food then walked the two blocks to the flat in silence. Sherlock could tell John was thinking. Thinking about what he should say, how he should react.
John went inside first, almost getting hit over the head with a frying pan. He had Mrs. Hudson sitting down before Sherlock appeared. She screamed a little, cried, and demanded answerers. Then suddenly she stopped. She looked between Sherlock and John and smiled.
“You boys look like you have a lot to talk about.” She hurried them to the stairs then pulled Sherlock back a little to whisper in his ear. “Go easy on him dear he’s not the man you left.” Sherlock was puzzled and it must have shown on his face because Mrs. Hudson smiled, then her smile faltered. “He’s had anger issues, drank a bit.” Sherlock looked up the stairs. “Of course you can see all that.”
Sherlock nodded absently and headed up after John.
The flat was covered in dust but everything was there, everything that was Sherlock’s at least. Sherlock took off his jacket and hung it up next to Johns, remembering how good that felt. Together they cleaned off the kitchen table and sat down across from each other.
They sat in silence for a while just eating, then John threw his fork down and the questions began. He was less interested in how Sherlock had survived and more interested in how Sherlock could have let him think he'd died.
John was hurt. He struggled to keep himself calm and took to yelling several times. Learning that Molly, Mycroft, and a number of Sherlock’s homeless network had known made things worse. Sherlock watched as John lunged at him several times, then stopped to breath deeply and sit down again. They went on yelling and Sherlock calming John down for two hours. By the end of it John’s voice was soft from overuse.
“One word Sherlock that’s all I would have needed.”
Sherlock stared at the table. John had said that several times and no matter how much Sherlock said it was for his own safety. That he worried that John would give something away. That last bit had made John so angry he’d thrown his glass across the room. John’s repetition of the statement made Sherlock wonder if John might be right.
“We were supposed to be a team.”
Sherlock looked at John and watched his mouth open a close twice before he found surety in his words.
“When you love someone you don’t do that.” John stopped breathed and continued. “You were my partner, I thought you could trust me more than anyone.” John looked older suddenly and tired.
“I thought I knew what was best for you.”
John laughed. It was a hollow sound that filled the room and made Sherlock feels sick. He looked at the food between them and realized despite John saying he was hungry he had hardly eaten.
“So what now? Do you know what’s best for me now?” John looked at him, bit desperately and cruelly.
“I want to think I do.”
When the food was all packed up and both had paced the floor to the point of exhaustion, they realized sleep was the only thing they could do. John was still angry but he couldn’t think of anywhere else to sleep but next to Sherlock in their old bed.
They striped down to their pants and vests and climbed under the dusty sheets. They lay apart at first but slowly they moved so they were sleeping against each other.
When John woke in the morning he was on his side with Sherlock’s arms wrapped around him. He hadn’t felt so calm and so alive since… Sherlock had fallen.
Sherlock woke alone. He checked the flat but other than a used razor and the hair left in the sink there was little prof John had been there. His day was not idle and by the end of it he had pulled John out of a bonfire. Relief flooded him when he held John and horror when the woman, Mary, swooped in and disappeared with John to their shared living space.
It wasn’t until they’d stopped the terrorist attack that things finally settled. Apologies had been made and accepted. But even in the aftermath, with the train, John had gone home and not to Baker Street, again.
Sherlock was dealing with the very real idea that John might have moved on. With this woman Mary who was small, blond, and female everything he wasn’t.
To relax Sherlock filled the bath and laid in, though he skipped the candles John had always been partial to. He was trying not to think about the way Mary had look at him, as she had driven off with John passed out in the passenger seat of her car.
Smug, angry, amused, and perhaps a bit sad he’d read her at the restaurant and she seemed perfectly normal. The door to the flat opened and something fell to the ground. Sherlock listened at shoes fell and the familiar tread of John’s feet clad only in socks passed the bathroom.
The door to the bedroom opened and he waited watching the shadowy form of John with his hands on his hips standing outside the door to the bathroom. The door opened and John sighed.
"There you are.” John pulled off his jumper and began to unbutton his shirt.
“I didn’t expect you.” Sherlock said watching in anticipation as John stripped in front of him.
John looked up from where he was depositing his vest with the rest of his clothing. “Really? Thought it was obvious.”
“Not to me.”
John smiled as he shucked his trousers and pants at the same time. “How does it feel to be the one in the dark?”
“Not good.” He mumbled.
John shed his socks and stepped towards the tub. He looked at Sherlock for a bit then Stepped in so he was straddling him, then sank down so he was sitting on Sherlock’s thighs.
Sherlock watched John keeping his body stiff not letting himself touch no matter how much he wanted to.
“I went home with Mary the other night because I needed to talk to her.” John sighed and lifted the flannel off the edge of the tub and began washing Sherlock’s chest. “I knew it was over between her and me when I woke up next to you but I was afraid to say it at work when I saw her. I thought maybe I could run away from it, maybe I should let you go. Then I found myself outside the flat and,” John paused.
“I almost died and all I knew was that I had a second chance. We had a second chance.”
Sherlock’s hands found their way to John’s back. He gripped him tight and pulled him close against him. “Your mine.” The sound of something dropping in the hall must have been a bag. So John had gone back to his and Mary’s to pack.
John nodded. “Have been for a very long time.”
Sherlock leaned his face into John and kissed him. They touched their lips together tentatively at first but John licked at Sherlock’s mouth and suddenly there was no holding back. The water in the tub slushed around them, as they pulled at each other desperate to touch and kiss and bite at any bit of surface they could find.
Sherlock reached lower down John’s back then gripped his arse. John shuttered and pushed his hardening cock against him. They let their bodies’ slip together trying to create friction in the small space.
Sherlock reached lower still and let his fingers slip between the cleft of John’s arse. John moaned and jerked trying to widen his legs but met the edge of the tub. Sherlock soothed him pressing open mouth kisses to his chest, nipping at his skin.
John tangled his fingers in Sherlock’s hair and raised his arse to the hand that held it. Sherlock’s finger slipped in. The moment Sherlock had his finger inside he knew John hadn’t had a male lover since him.
Without lube the process of opening John was difficult. The water in the bath kept rushing in with his fingers and that added another sensation on top of things. Sherlock only felt comfortable putting two fingers inside John without something to aid him now that John was so tight.
He looked around the shower and saw nothing very good for the human body.
“John I’m going to get you off like this.” It was the only thing he could do other than move and Sherlock didn’t want to move.
“No.” John bellowed.
“You're too tight.”
“Above the sink-” John broke off with a moan as Sherlock hit his prostate. He glared at Sherlock and started untangling himself.
“Don’t get up it’s fine we’ll do it later, this is good.”
“Sherlock I have been in need of this orgasm for a very long time and a swear if you deny…”
Sherlock got up and out of the bath. He reached into the cupboard over the sink and located what John had mentioned. It wasn’t lube but it would work. John was standing behind him and they pulled at each other almost falling on the now wet floor.
John pulled Sherlock down with him and pushed Sherlock on his back. He finished opening himself and sank down onto Sherlock crying out as if he was in pain.
“John?”
John sank lower onto him, slowly working Sherlock into his trembling body.
“I haven’t had a proper orgasm in years.” Their eyes met as John sank the last bit down. “Go on flip us.” John smiled and leaned down grabbing hold of Sherlock’s shoulders.
The fit was tight but Sherlock managed to flip them. He sank even farther into John; he hoisted John’s legs up and began to fuck him. They were both too hard, so in need of release that it didn’t take long. John took hold of himself as Sherlock sped up. There bodies met each other’s as Sherlock thrust down, John pushed up. It was hot and fast and all too soon they were both coming, panting, and thrashing against each other.
When Sherlock felt his mind return to him, he pulled out of John and watched the mix of emotions play across John’s face.
“Your not allowed to do it again.”
Sherlock looked at him wondering what he meant. It must have showed because John sighed again.
“If you leave me for any reason. I won’t be here for you to come back to.”
Sherlock knew it was true. John would only forgive him so much. He had gotten away with things this time but he wouldn’t again.
John pulled away and looked around the bathroom. Sherlock already knew what he was searching for. The water from the tub was partially on the floor where they had both left their clothing. There was now also a collection of body fluids swirling around them.
“We need to clean this up.” John said
“Yes.” Sherlock helped John up, trying not to think about the bruises that were forming on John arse from being fucked on the floor. They half-heartedly cleaned up the floor, and then got in the shower together to rinse everything off.
When they were dry and both clad in pajamas, they laid down on their old bed. They weren’t tired they just wanted to be close. Sherlock put his arms around John and he told him how much he wished he’d been there, how much he’d missed him, and how glad he’s hadn’t seen the things he had.
This was how Sherlock and John moved on.