thewhitelily

Sherlock is beautiful.

It’s not a word you’re supposed to use about a man, but there it is, and sometimes John can’t help thinking it.

He’s standing on the other side of the shop thinking: his arms crossed, the translucent material of his shirt stretched so tight over the sinuous curve of his spine that John is amazed it doesn’t burst a seam, completely absorbed in whatever it is he can see out the far window, whose light spills around him in a stream that sets him aglow.

John wonders, briefly, if it’s possible fall any harder in love with this man than he already is. But then. He’d wondered that yesterday, too. And the day before that.

Sherlock had brought them here for a purpose, looking for—John still doesn’t know, something to do with a cold case Sherlock wasn’t really taking very seriously, although that hadn't stopped him leaping about inspecting cabinets and pacing out distances—but now he's gone still. Lost inside that enormous mind of his, apparently unaware of the outside world at all, and John could stare at him like this all day, except…

Except he doesn’t have to.

Contentment creasing his lips, John threads his way through the scattered passers-by heading to the escalator, until he’s close enough. Then he wraps his arms around Sherlock, looping his arms under the other man’s elbows, lacing his fingers against his stomach. He feels the natural bow-string poise carried in Sherlock’s body soften against him at the well-known touch, moulding them tighter together.

It’s still new, this, at least out in public. It’s still a thrill to know John’s allowed to reach out whenever he wants, that it’s not just the fact that Sherlock’s distracted by whatever’s caught his eye, but that he actually welcomes John’s touch. And that John’s… okay with that, too.

More than.

“There’s a row of identical stickers on the outside corner of the window,” murmurs Sherlock, almost inaudible.

“Mmm?” says John, turning his nose into the white column of neck beside him, nuzzling at the dark curls at its base, inhaling the scent of him: linen starch and spice and sandalwood shampoo. The scent lingers on John’s pillow in the mornings, now. When he wakes alone, as he often does because Sherlock’s sleeping habits have never been regular, and feels the momentary pang of fear that perhaps it had all just been an incredibly realistic, wonderful dream, he buries his face in the pillow beside him and breathes until he’s so surrounded by Sherlock that he knows it’s true, knows it surely enough to risk emerging from the burrow of blankets to search the other man out.

“Small and round and coloured. John, are you listening to me? Do you see them?”

“Lanky git,” mutters John, pressing his forehead against the back of Sherlock’s neck and exhaling softly into the top of his collar, savouring the sharp intake of breath he receives in response, “I can’t see a thing over your shoulders.”

“You’re not that short,” scoffs Sherlock softly. His posture has melted further, muscles turned lax and yielding. “Your eyes are closed. I felt your lashes go down.”

“So they are,” agrees John, not opening them, and not surprised that even while absorbed in something else he’d been deducing John. “Are the stickers interesting?”

“Probably not,” admits Sherlock. “A smoker who likes to bring an apple along on her break. Peels them off and lines them up; institutionalised behaviour. Most likely recently released from jail.”

“Do you need to send her back for anything?”

Sherlock lifts one one slender shoulder in profound indifference, making the taut shirt fabric strain under John’s chin. “It is minor vandalism. Or littering, depending on how easily they peel off. Potentially a parole violation. It’s a slow week, and this case Lestrade dug up isn't going anywhere soon.”

Then he turns in the circle of John’s arms, and John looks up at him properly.

“I could be distracted,” Sherlock says, and smiles with just his eyes. “I’ve got everything I need here.”

John smiles, too, ignoring the looks he can feel burning into the back of his neck from people heading past them to the escalator, the way he can feel them wondering. It doesn’t matter what they think, and that’s new for John, too, the fact that he can’t imagine caring whether they have the right idea or wrong.

“Yes,” he agrees. “So do I.”