Title: The Wrong Kind of Snow
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: R
Length: 6074 words /o\
Warning: Sex, crimes against tea brewing by people who should know better, and discussion of consent issues.
Content Notes: Asexual!Sherlock Johnlock.  Sequel to Carpooling, part 2 of the Transport series.  Title from the British catchphrase denoting a pathetic or euphemistic excuse, particularly with respect to a public transport stoppage.  Many thanks to thesmallhobbit for the speed-of-light beta!


It was time for the next step.

The kissing had been going barely a week, but Sherlock could easily deduce—the tension in John's muscles when he pulled away, the flush that accompanied the sidelong dilated glances, the half-taken breaths before he changed his mind about saying something—that he was ready for more.

He’d followed John’s search history to investigate a number of videos online, as many as he could stand, but the obvious falsity of the actors—the drug problems and interpersonal conflicts and petty criminality that he couldn't help but see behind the moans and gasps—was distracting.  Although not as offputting as the occasional method actor who genuinely enjoyed their work.

John’s tastes seemed to be fairly generic.  Obviously female.  Breast-focussed, which was a pity.  Sherlock could have worked with legs, or arses.  Everyone had those.  Or hair.  Sherlock had fantastic hair.

John did appear to have looked up some male only videos in the weeks before attempting to introduce his tongue into Sherlock’s mouth, but hadn’t lasted more than a minute after the clothes came off with any of them.  And there were some basic guides to gay sex in his history, which Sherlock read with a dubious eye for their unscientific, romanticised content.  John was a doctor; surely he understood the mechanics of the act; stimulate erogenous zones, acheive sexual response and eventual release.

It all seemed relatively straightforward.  One thing he’d learned from the videos was that it wasn't necessary to have a good time to be convincing enough for John to enjoy himself.

Sherlock was a gifted actor.  And sex didn’t alarm him.

So it was all fine.  Obviously.

***

It was the end of a case, again, when it happened for the first time.

John had been following Sherlock around town for almost two days without sleep.  There’d barely been time to remember to let him have a chance to get the occasional sandwich to eat as he ran, let alone to give him a break to go home and take care of... personal matters, according to his usual routine.

“You were so brilliant, Sherlock. Amazing,” repeated John as they climbed the stairs back to the flat together.

When he glanced at Sherlock from the corner of eyes glassy and slightly delirious with lack of sleep, his pupils were more than usually dilated.  They’d already eaten, surfing the post-case high and gorging themselves on a full English breakfast on the way home.  They usually went out to eat, after a case.  The way John looked at him then, euphoric and admiring, always made Sherlock want to celebrate—and to make the moment last.

“It was obvious,” said Sherlock, opening the door to the living room and drawing John in after him by the expedient of continuing the conversation.  “A hate crime would have targeted the bar in the busiest part of the night, not barely an hour after opening.  It was obviously for the insurance.”

“God, the way you worked it all out before they could even hit their real target, you’re incredible.”

As soon as the door was closed, John’s arms were around him again, kissing him again in the now-practiced half-open kiss that worked for both of them.  Feeling John’s post-case enthusiasm against his face, Sherlock quickly realised, was even better than seeing it.

He could let John go upstairs alone, he knew.  He’d go up to bed, spend a few minutes aimlessly stroking himself and then throw the dirty tissue in the bin before falling asleep.  Bed time ritual, as much as the shower was in the morning.  It seemed like a waste of energy, but at least he was tidy about it.

Still, this would be a good opportunity to try something out; John would be too tired to make much of a fuss however it went.

He crowded closer against John, pushing him backwards without breaking contact until he hit the wall behind.

John blinked up at him, confused at the sudden change of direction, but went along as trustingly as he always did with Sherlock’s half-formed plans.  His defences were even further down than usual in the state of dreamlike unreality that came along with having been awake for too long and then abruptly cut loose from any immediate task.  Sherlock’s body didn't dare try to enter that state for four or so days, but forty-eight hours seemed about right for John.

And Sherlock had been right in his deduction that John would like this plan.

“Oh god,” John gasped, clinging to him, pressing his whole body against Sherlock’s and starting up a faint unconscious undulation between the pressure of the wall behind him, and the pressure of Sherlock’s body in front.

Sherlock pressed back and matched it, amplifying the motion.  It wouldn’t take long.

Two days ago, when he’d got the call from Lestrade about the second bombing of a gay nightclub with the threat of a third, he’d dragged John out of bed and hustled him out of the flat with no time for anything but a piece of bread snatched from the end of the loaf.  No time for a shower or John’s usual morning habits; it had been at least fifty-six hours since he could have indulged himself.

Sherlock slipped a hand between them, worming down into the front of John’s trousers.

It wasn’t unpleasant.  Steel within soft warmth, just like the rest of John.  That was a relief.  He’d wondered about that, after the kissing incident.

John groaned like he’d been shot at the touch to his bare skin, and helpfully thrust against Sherlock’s hand enough that he could catch that rhythm of that, too.

“I’ve missed you,” he babbled, his arms still tight around Sherlock’s neck, breath hot on the side of his jaw, arching up on his toes to press closer in to Sherlock’s hand while his eyes rolled back in ecstasy.  “I didn’t expect, not while you were on a case, not really, and you were fantastic, you’re always fantastic, but I didn’t think I’d miss you, Sherlock, Sherlock, oh Sherlock!”

John went rigid.  There was a series of hot, liquid pulses against Sherlock’s palm, and then he slumped, shaking, against the wall behind him.  There was a long, silent moment, where John’s head lolled back, and then he opened his eyes to meet Sherlock’s with a happy, vacant smile.

“Give me a minute,” he said limply, “and I’ll return the favour.”

“No need,” smirked Sherlock, deliberately raising his eyebrows to make the innuendo clear as he extracted his sticky hand from John’s pants.  Ugh, that was a little unpleasant, but hardly worse than some of the things he’d experimented on, and his hand would wash easily enough.

He leaned his other elbow on the wall beside John’s head and leaned in to catch the startled smile against his lips, just as it turned into a giggle, feeling the changing emotion pull at and rearrange the muscles on John’s face.  So open, with every thought that crossed his mind.

“And to think I was embarrassed at how short that was,” laughed John when they separated again, looking half-drunk with the combination of the post-case high and oxytocin.  Yes, this was precisely what John had been missing.  “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining,” said Sherlock, releasing him.  “Now go to bed, you’re exhausted.”

He started towards the bathroom to wash his hand, then changed his mind and looked for a slide to wipe some of the residue onto first.

“Like you aren’t,” said John, watching Sherlock load slides without losing the silly, soppy grin.  “Come up with me.  And next time, we can do this properly.  Clothes off and everything.”

“Mmmm,” said Sherlock, applying a drop of stain before delicately settling a slide cover on top.  Sleeping with John did sound like a convenient way to fill his human contact quota.  “If you like.”

***

Sherlock woke up to find John’s erect penis pressed discomfitingly against his backside.

He’d changed into pyjamas and followed John upstairs to bed—post orgasm, John had been silly and happy, the way he’d always been after dates that had gone particularly well, but with the volume turned all the way up.  He was half asleep already when Sherlock slipped under the covers next to him, and reached out an arm to pull him close without any of the usual self consciousness that usually accompanied physical contact.

“Still can't b’lieve it,” he’d slurred into Sherlock’s neck, half asleep already and speaking directly from his subconscious.  “S’weird, w’tha man, but s’just you.  Just more’f you.”

He was all the way asleep before Sherlock could calculate a response.

John was still asleep, if only barely—the pattern of his breathing against Sherlock’s pyjama-clad shoulder, the faint tension in his muscles, the shift in the light announcing it was nearly 5 p.m. and they’d slept most of the day away—but any move that Sherlock made to pull out of his arms would wake him the rest of the way.

John’s casual invitation for ‘next time’ felt suddenly like a threat.  And an expectation.

This was… not good.

And strange, because John’s penis had not bothered him last night, nor had his sexuality.  As John had mumbled, half asleep, it was just more of him.  Like grabbing his hand on the run from the police.  Like catching his face as a visual aid.  Like touching his shoulder as he pulled him out of a cage.  Touching John wasn’t unpleasant.  Well, the wet kiss had been.  Ugh.

Did people really enjoy that?  Did John?

Why hadn't he?  And why was the pressure against his left buttock making his skin crawl like he was in withdrawal, when John was right here?

No.  If his body wasn't going to obey logical rules, he was going to have to figure out the pattern before he could take any further steps.  Sometimes the only path forward was a strategic retreat.

He rolled away and forcibly relaxed his body into feigned sleep, curled with his arms and legs spread over the newly opened up stretch of bed between them like a demilitarised zone.  John was going to wake up any moment, and Sherlock needed time to think, not be forced to engage in a complicated conversation with uncertain rules and unclear consequences.

He heard John wake up the rest of the way, felt the bed move as he shifted, felt the warmth of a hand stretched out towards his face and then drawn back.  Knew, rather than sensed, John’s affectionate smile as he settled the covers back into place over Sherlock’s body—he’d always liked seeing Sherlock asleep, always taken a minute longer than necessary to carefully arrange a blanket over his body when he found him passed out on the couch, made sure the fringe hung straight as though John usually even noticed that sort of thing—then rose and padded off to the bathroom to take care of himself.

Once he was gone, Sherlock opened his eyes and frowned at the warm, empty rumple of sheets where John had lain.

Why?

***

He spent the evening examining slides as though the secret of his own body could be found at a microscopic level.  He responded to John in no more than monosyllables, but was relieved to find that he didn’t push for the conversation Sherlock didn’t know the answers to.  And that the casual brushes of fingers to his shoulders or of lips to his temple felt as warm and unproblematic as John always was.

Eventually, Sherlock decided that he wasn’t going to be able to theorise past the lack of data.  Besides, the bacteria on the kidneys needed a couple of hours to develop before he could take another sample.

“Hello,” John said to him, when Sherlock came into the living room at last.  “Are you back out of your head again?  I got us some Chinese.  And a bottle.”

Some time ago, it seemed.  The takeaway needed reheating and the wine was mediocre, but it did the trick.  They ignored the plates John had set on the coffee table by unspoken consent, eating from the boxes and drinking a wine that would have done better to be left a few more years until it could make an acceptable vinegar.

John was clearly fortifying himself, silently muttering something that Sherlock couldn’t quite read off his lips but could tell included the word ‘gay’.

When John eventually set down his empty second glass with a decisive click, Sherlock set down his own so it wouldn’t get spilt, and observed with interest.  John was used to seducing women, of course, and allowing him to control the pace would likely help with the apparent heterosexual near-crisis.  Sometimes the best way to get the information he needed was to let the witness do the talking.

The move when it came was controlled and careful.  John rested his left hand on Sherlock’s thigh, locked eyes, and moved in.  The fingers of his right hand slid into the hair at the base of Sherlock’s neck to draw him in, and Sherlock let him.  They kissed, more slowly than usual but for long enough that Sherlock began to wonder if John had lost his nerve.

He needn't have worried.

John didn’t pull back when their lips separated, resting his forehead against Sherlock’s, nuzzling against the side of Sherlock’s nose, panting lightly for breath into his mouth.  He kept his hand cupped around the back of Sherlock’s neck.

“Bed?” he said, against Sherlock’s lips.

“Yes,” said Sherlock.

***

Of course John had plans.  Plans that had had them both stripped off and lying side by side in John’s bed to resume kissing and increasingly intense full body contact.  Despite his apparent inner conflict, John hadn’t flinched at the sight of Sherlock, or at the touch of his body, his pupils wide and getting wider.

Which was fine, apart from the fact that it meant arousal had clearly progressed quickly for John, without terribly much similar response from Sherlock’s body.  Unfortunate, because John would never be satisfied with a one way exchange.

Perhaps it didn’t just happen.  Perhaps he had to make it happen, somehow.

His hand was touching John.  John’s hand was touching him.  Their lips were touching.  Knees.  Their other arms were awkwardly bound up between them, brushing one another but unable to get leverage for much else.  It wasn't particularly comfortable, but neither was it particularly uncomfortable.

Sherlock tried to concentrate, but there were too many inputs; he couldn’t focus.

He broke the kiss, closed his eyes and rested his forehead on John’s scarred shoulder.  There had to be a physiological reaction there somewhere that he could use to facilitate the appropriate response in his body.

His hand on John… no, too much input again.  John’s hand on him, just his hand, the calluses well known but lighting up the nerves with vivid awareness.  The tingle.  Yes, that was it.  Imagine it moving, spreading, descending. That was working.

Then John’s thumb brushed the side of Sherlock’s nipple and everything abruptly went cold again.  He’d grabbed the offending hand before he realised, and moved it away to his waist, which was better.  Except that then the hand independently continued the downward trajectory, which was… not good.  Worse than the tongue.  How had John liked that the previous night?

And how was this supposed to work if Sherlock couldn't tolerate stimulation to actual erogenous zones?

He gripped John’s shoulders and rolled onto his back, pulling John on top so he’d have to use his hands to support himself.  There.  That was better.  He’d been wrong: John’s penis was much better than his hand.

Which was a strange data point in the circumstances.

Sherlock let John’s smaller form cover him, mimicking his gasping and rutting, moving with him and letting the blunt stimulation work to maintain his erection while his mind drifted off towards the next stage in the kidney experiment.  The incisions he'd made in the surface membranes weren't a perfect analogue for a stab wound, but the bacterial colony should be doubling every hour at room temperature.  Once he'd ascertained the baseline, he could manipulate the variables to see how it affected growth.

He let his thighs spread outside John’s, and stroked his feet down John’s calves to caress their arches together.  There were lots of nerve endings in the soles of the feet; necessary for the delicacy of bipedal balance.  Not as intense a sensation as in the genitals.  Not as dexterous as in the hands.

Another strange data point.

It was pleasant, in its way.  Tingly and close, just on the edge of suffocatingly too much.  Like when he’d experimented with ecstasy, before deciding cocaine was more effective and had less embarrassing side effects.  Nice.  Yes, that was the word.

Although, if it didn’t wrap up within the next ten minutes, he was going to have to duck out and check on his experiment.  Perhaps there was something he could do to speed the process along.

He reached to take a double-handful of John’s arse, and was rewarded with a sound he’d never heard from John before.  He squeezed, stretching the other man’s buttocks apart before pushing them back together, and managed to extract the sobbing moan again.

“God, Sherlock,” gasped John, pupils enormous, and the movement of his hips began becoming sharper in Sherlock’s palms.  His face was barely an inch away, his elbows supporting his weight in a bracket around Sherlock’s shoulders, his fingers buried in Sherlock’s hair.  “Are you close?  I’m nearly there.”

His arousal was mostly gone with his focus returned externally.

“Yes, nearly there,” said Sherlock, making it a deep groan and arching up against John.

He drank in the look of wonder on John’s face, the one that said ‘Brilliant’ but without words.  Last time he’d thought it was just because of the recency of the case, but John had stayed high all day, perhaps it was related to this.  Had he been making that face—Sherlock’s face—at his girlfriends all this time?

What an extraordinary waste.

“Come on, John,” he moaned, opening his eyes wide to examine him properly in the dim light.

The half choked cry John made as he came was intriguing, and the mess he made over Sherlock’s stomach was enough for both of them.  Fortunately, John’s room was well supplied with tissues.

It hadn’t been a bad way to spend between-case time.  Better than being forced to watch one of John’s dreadful TV programs.

John clearly thought so too.  He’d gone even more silly and affectionate in the aftermath, twining his body around Sherlock’s when he made to check on his experiment, showering him with ridiculous kisses and stating an intention to follow him wherever he went.  Perhaps the tiredness had actually dampened his mood the previous time.

In the end, after a brief visit downstairs to shift the kidneys into the fridge while John brushed his teeth, Sherlock had slept easily beside him again, his body quiet for once of the clamouring complaints that usually drove him out of bed in search of something to occupy his mind.

Although this time, he’d made sure to separate their bodies before falling asleep.

***

Things settled into a pattern.

Not the data.  That had grown to require a password-protected spreadsheet to correlate the confusing and variable reactions of his body to various seemingly equivalent stimuli.  He’d been hoping it would be easier, but at least it was a puzzle.  But….

Things with John, settled into a pattern.

John was happy again, mostly fulfilled by the convenient incidental touches and bedsharing, and by the kind of quick encounter which didn’t trigger his internalised homophobia and didn’t take too much more time than refuelling his body with tea and toast.  Sherlock had even, on one of the occasions when John had been insistent on ‘doing it properly’, managed to pass the time by turning his focus far enough inward to achieve a real orgasm himself.

Sherlock still couldn’t quite see a particular reason anyone would be driven to the kind of passion that sex-inspired crimes tend to boast.  The whole thing might have been more trouble than it was worth, if it weren’t for the surprising lightening of his mental processes that was not having to worry about how to fix John anymore.

***

It was almost a month later when Sherlock came home to find signs of Mycroft in the alignment of the doorknocker and in John’s manner.  The direction of John’s frowningly pensive glances—towards Sherlock, and towards the wall beside the door, the kitchen table, the stairs up to his bedroom—made the subject matter of the conversation obvious.

He prowled the flat looking for more evidence.  The horrifying mug Molly had given John for Christmas one year as a joke (or at least Sherlock hoped it was a joke) sat in the sink beside John’s RAMC mug.  There was a stained ring near the top: Mycroft hadn’t stayed to drink it, hadn’t wanted to risk running into Sherlock after his tête-à-tête with John.  Prudent of him.  Only one teabag the right age in the bin.  Small vertical tannin stain on the rim of the Mycroft’s mug.  Hah.  And oh.  There had been that, too.  Angle of the chair across from the door.  He grinned, unable to help it.  John’s capacity to stand toe to toe with his brother was never going to get old.

Even if it did seem Mycroft had got through, at least on some level.  John had clearly been too upset by the implications of what he’d heard to collect and tip out the cup for at least an hour after Mycroft’s departure.

The conversation had gone like this:

“I understand felicitations are in order,” Mycroft had said, at his most pretentiously insincere as he came inside uninvited.

“Felicitations?” John had asked, falling automatically into a military posture as he sensed an impending interrogation.

“You.  And my brother.”

“Ah,” John had said, looking Mycroft up and down and deciding that he was probably here to stay until he’d said his piece.  “Yes, I suppose they are.  Tea?  I was just in the middle of making some.”

“Please,” Mycroft had said, and followed him into the kitchen.

“So,” John had prompted him as he flicked the kettle on to come back to the boil, “are we doing the hurt-him-and-you-die thing?  Because I sort of feel we’re past that point.”

“Not at all, John.  Not at all,” Mycroft had said, and left a meaningful pause before continuing.  “I just wanted to be… certain… that you’re fully aware of Sherlock’s situation.”

“Mmm,” John had said, back to Mycroft and on his toes as he rummaged in the top cupboard for another mug.  He had to push aside several inoffensive ones before he finally found one at the back of the shelf, and set it on the bench beside his own.  The revolting brownish-grey kitten painted on the side of the mug stared out at Mycroft with soulful eyes.  “I’m not sure how Sherlock’s private life is any of your business.  I know mine certainly isn’t.”

“My brother,“ said Mycroft, undeterred from his busybody purpose by John’s prickliness, or by the loud jumper the kitten was wearing, “has never shown any real interest in a sexual relationship.  The few times it seemed he might, there turned out to be an ulterior motive.  He is… naive.  I wouldn’t wish to see him destroy the best thing ever to happen to him in a misguided attempt to save it.”

John had blinked at that, unsure for a moment how much to be insulted.  “You think he’s shamming me,” he’d said.  “Like he did with Janine.  That’s ridiculous.”  Yes, definitely insulted.  He pulled his hand away from the box of tea and instead flipped his own soggy teabag out of his mug, into the kitten one, topping it up to give Mycroft the bitter back end of the bag.  God, Sherlock loved this man.  “He doesn’t fool me.  I've seen him play enough roles on cases that I know his tells.”

“I think it has been well established at this point,” Mycroft had said with the superior, knowing look he’d worn in every photograph with Sherlock since the ones at the hospital, a worldly-wise seven year old clutching a bundle of blankets with a shock of dark hair, “that when you are the intended target—when he perceives his actions are for your own good—he does fool you.”

John clenched his teeth and added milk to Mycroft’s tea without waiting any longer for it to brew.

“And what possible reason,” John said, sitting at the table with his own mug and sliding Mycroft’s tea, still with the teabag in it, across the table without the merest flicker of remorse on his amiable face, “would he have to do that?”

“Thank you,” Mycroft had said and grimaced at the weak kitten tea with overtly appalled politeness.  “You’ve been alone for some time now, Dr Watson.  And you’ve been known to choose your partners unwisely.  Of course, I’m sure Sherlock would be the least likely candidate to make a… sacrifice... if he developed the notion it was necessary for your sake.”

John had taken an unhurried sip of his tea and then carefully set it down on the table, exquisitely controlled as he pushed his chair out and rose to his feet.

“You need to leave, Mycroft.”  He’d smiled tightly.  “Now.  Before I have to find you a bag to carry your teeth.”

“Think about it,” Mycroft had said, leaving the ghastly mug of tea untouched and heading out the door at the sight of that terrifying smile John only brought out when he was pissed off beyond all endurance.  “Think about Sherlock.”

Clearly, John had been thinking about it.  Still was.  There went the round of glances again: Sherlock, wall, table, stairs, Sherlock.  Wall.  Table.  Stairs.  Frown.  Ugh.  They were going to have to talk about this.  And it had all been going so well.

“You wouldn’t be able to tell,” Sherlock agreed, because that was a matter of pride.  “Not if I didn’t want you to.”

John looked up from his laptop, then closed it and his eyes, apparently fast-forwarding through the preliminaries of the argument and not reassured by the fact that Sherlock had instantly known the topic of Mycroft’s chat.

“Theoretically,” Sherlock added, too late.  Possibly that hadn’t been the wisest opening salvo.

“Theoretically,” said John slowly, and opened his eyes again to stare at Sherlock.  “But you wouldn’t do that, would you?  Because,” he said.  “Because. Theoretically speaking, Sherlock, sex that only one of the participants wants, that’s, that’s... not good.”

“Ugh,” said Sherlock.  “Boring.”

“Sherlock.”  John opened his mouth to continue, apparently changed his mind, and licked his lips before pressing them together for a few moments.  “I’m going to ask you a question, and it’s very important that you give me an honest answer.  This is a question where I will be very upset, Sherlock, if I find out later that you’ve lied to me.  And I will find out, eventually, because not even you can fake something all the time.  Here’s my question.  Do you, in fact, want to have sex with me?”

“Yes,” said Sherlock, because clearly sex with John was the whole point of this exercise.  Did John think that he’d somehow been taking off all his clothes and getting into bed with him by accident?  “Obviously.”

“Right,” said John, still watching him carefully, as though he could have told if Sherlock had been lying.  Then he nodded to himself, satisfied.  “All right, then.”

And he turned on his heel to go and make them both some tea.

***

But it wasn’t all right.  Of course it wasn’t.  It was hard to kill an idea.

John’s casual touches for the rest of the day were more hesitant, his eyes more watchful.  And he didn’t approach Sherlock that evening, even though he was clearly twitchy and in need of physical reassurance and a renewed release of bonding hormones.  He ensconced himself in solitary pursuits in his armchair.

Well, his usual deference to John’s heterosexuality crisis aside, Sherlock wasn’t having that. Not because of Mycroft.

“Sex, John,” he said, standing over him.  “Now.”

John’s looked up at him, with the repressive, this-isn’t-normal-Sherlock frown that Sherlock hated.  “Sherlock?”

“Come on, John.  Sex.  I want to have it.  With you.”

“Really,” said John noncommittally, but he put his book aside and stood.

“Yes,” said Sherlock, and kissed him, reaching around to grab John’s buttocks and pull their bodies flush against each other.

“Good,” growled John, and kissed back, grinding against him, taking a fistful of Sherlock’s hair and pulling it tight to lock their lips together.  Sherlock gasped into his mouth, unprepared for the sensation.

John reached down to adjust himself—an innocuous motion that hardly registered through the distraction of the hair thing, because that… that was going in the spreadsheet—and then wrapped his hand around Sherlock’s semi-interested cock through his trousers.

With John still on the lookout, Sherlock’s flinch away was all too obvious.

John reeled back, stumbling on his armchair and then escaping around it.  He stared at Sherlock, pupils narrow and the flush receding from his cheeks.  All signs of arousal were gone from his posture.

“Sherlock!” he said, through clenched teeth.

“I want to, John!” snapped Sherlock.  “Mycroft is a cake-eating busybody who should have kept his interfering nose out of this, and he’s wrong.  I’m not jumping off a building for you here!”

John’s face.  Too soon after Mycroft’s barbed remark.  Perhaps it would always be too soon, even without the reminder.

“Sorry,” muttered Sherlock sullenly, wondering if he’d be paying for saving John’s life for the rest of his own life.  “You’re worried I’m making a big sacrifice because I think you’ll find another Mary and leave if I don’t.  Don’t be.  Mary was an aberration—and I know you won’t leave.”

“A hundred percent?” asked John, with a sardonic twist of his lips..

Sherlock glared at him, remembering the reference, and glanced, slowly enough for John to follow at least some of the deductive chain, at the empty tan-line on his finger, at his shoes, at his phone on the desk, at his laptop beside it blinking with a half-written blog entry.  Then he looked John straight in the eyes again.

“Yes,” he said.  “A hundred percent.  You’ll always choose me, if I let you have the option.  That’s why I had to push you so hard back at her.  You’d never have forgiven her, otherwise.”

John gave a short, pained smile.  “Because she shot you,” he said.

“She shot me a bit,” admitted Sherlock, aware that this was the most they'd talked about her since John had turned up back at Baker Street with a single suitcase and visible determination not to explain.  “And she made you happy.”

“Sherlock…” said John.  He was blinking too quickly, like he did under high stress.  “Mary’s gone.  She’s never coming back.  This is my home. You’re my home, we don’t have to have sex just because that was part of my relationship with her, just because you and I are… whatever we are.  I don’t need it, and I’m not gay.  It makes it as much awkward as it does—”

Sherlock let a frustrated sound escape from between his teeth and strode around the armchair, right into John’s suddenly ridiculously large personal space.  He wasn’t going to let John use that excuse.

John didn’t back up, sufficiently upset that he wouldn’t trustingly follow Sherlock’s every move right now.  That was okay; Sherlock had expected it.  He reached up, pinched the collar of John’s shirt between his finger and thumb and ran them along the edge, starting small, letting the backs of his fingers brush against John’s collarbone.

“Sherlock…” said John warningly.  He stood fast, stiffly allowing the contact as a deliberate act of will.

“Not gay, yes, I heard you.”  Sherlock let his fingers slip inside the collar of John’s shirt, then spread them delicately over John’s warm shoulder, holding the fascinating map of scar tissue in his hand.  The map that had brought John to Sherlock.  He took John’s other hand, slid his fingers over the wrist and took his pulse as John stared stubbornly back at him.  One hundred and fourteen.  Possibly the adrenaline, but John would know it wasn't.  “You keep telling everyone that.  But the way you've always looked at me makes the lie obvious.”

“Not a lie,” said John, still staring at Sherlock: his jaw set, his pupils huge.  He licked his lips.

“No,” agreed Sherlock, and released him.  “You’re an idiot if you think it’s that simple.  For either of us.  We spent years with you having sex with every woman who’d put up with only half of you, obviously we could go back to that.  Or you could spend the rest of your life wanking twice a day like the regular little clockwork soldier you are.  But I want to be the one.  You’ve always been attracted to me.  Lots of people are.  It doesn’t matter to me, but I want to give you that.  I want to be the reason that you’re not so lonely any more, and I want you to make that face at me, the one when you’re about to come that says I’m wonderful, and I want to have all of you!”

Sherlock realised abruptly that despite explicit instruction, his body hadn’t released John after all and he was still standing over him, gripping him hard, almost shaking him, shouting in his face.  Deliberately, he uncurled his hands from John’s wrist and shoulder, breathing hard, but couldn’t make himself let go.  It was too much.  Not good.  John was probably going to punch him now.

“Right,” said John, still blinking fast and close.

Was it a reflex?  Making sure that if something happened, his eyes would be clear and ready? At his sides, his hands were steady as a rock right now, of course—the only one of Moriarty’s hostages who’d never been a sobbing wreck—but when this was over, when he’d faced the worst of it and come out the other side, he was going to collapse.

Sherlock wanted to feel that happen, feel the way John’s body followed so closely after his mind when it had dealt with the immediate threat, the two so seamlessly connected inside him that they could produce a psychosomatic ailment or an orgasm without calculated intent.

“Right,” John repeated.  “So that’s.”  He licked his lips again.  “Um.  That's a better reason than I thought.  I’m, I think, I’m….  Um.  I think I might actually be okay with that.  If you actually want… something.”  He made it a question, glancing up worriedly again.

“I keep saying to you,” said Sherlock.  “Yes.”  Then he smirked, noticing the little tells of adrenaline starting to withdraw in the wake of John’s relief.  “Your legs are about to give out,” he said, and kissed John as they did, just a little wobble of the knees that wouldn't have been noticeable if he hadn't been right there to feel it.  Definitely another advantage of this arrangement.

John glared at him, finding his balance again immediately.  “We will never speak of that,” he growled.  “Ever.”

Then they’d had to have a boring conversation, in which John had repeated himself a lot.  Eventually, Sherlock had shown him the spreadsheet.  John had smiled the nuclear smile when he saw some points, and probed for clarification.  And had glanced at Sherlock with a half-disbelieving affection that was almost worse at the sight of others.

And then he’d asked Sherlock to keep the master copy onto John’s laptop, so that he could keep an eye on it.

And then he’d taken a deep breath, let it out through his nose, settled into a military posture, and asked what Sherlock needed for his next data point.

Which had resulted in a return to the bed, and definite scientific progress.  And the discovery that, with an appropriately placed pillow, there was no need to separate before falling asleep.

The arrangement was obviously less normal than John had expected.  But that was the point.  John’s dogged pursuit of the illusion of normality had always puzzled Sherlock, as though it mattered.  John had never been normal, even if he was closer than Sherlock, and that was fine.

Normal people didn't run around town after a crime-solving sociopaths, or shoot serial-killing cabbies through two windows for a man they'd just met.  Normal people--apparently--didn't forgive people for committing suicide in front of them and then coming back from the dead.  Normal people didn't even try to call someone whose loss had sent them so far off the edge that they'd grown a dire, grief-stricken moustache and proposed marriage to an assassin, their 'best friend'.  Normal people didn't live in 221B Baker Street.

Really, there'd been no reason at all for John to worry.  Or for Mycroft to interfere.

Normal was boring.

So it was all fine.  Obviously.