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It was a Tuesday afternoon, and John and Sherlock were snogging in the kitchen.
John wasn’t particularly sure how the snogging started. Things like that just seemed to happen these days. Sherlock had been milling about the flat, not doing anything in particular, and John had sauntered into the kitchen on the hunt for a mid-afternoon snack. The next thing he knew, Sherlock had him pressed against the refrigerator, assaulting his mouth as if he might never get another chance again.
That said, John had absolutely no complaints to lodge about the situation. It was just over a month after the two of them managed to stumble their way together after a truly criminal number of years, and John still couldn’t believe he got to do any of this, to wrap his arms around Sherlock, to sink his fingers into Sherlock’s curls, to have Sherlock’s lips—full and soft—move against his own, to feel Sherlock’s cock hardening against his hip. The refrigerator hummed at John’s back and Sherlock rumbled at John’s front and it all felt a bit like a dream, one from which John was wholeheartedly opposed to ever waking up. Instead, he pulled Sherlock closer, kissed him harder.
Suddenly, Sherlock separated from him. It was only an inch—their arms still wrapped around each other, panted breaths dancing across their lips—but it was too far away by miles.
“Would you still love me if I was taller?” Sherlock asked. He was a bit breathless, but still managed to sound far more put-together than John felt at the moment.
“What?” John asked. He was largely preoccupied by the fact that Sherlock’s lips were no longer on his.
“Taller,” Sherlock said. “Would you still love me if I was taller?”
“You’re already quite tall,” John said.
“Much taller,” Sherlock said. “Towering above you. Would you still love me then?”
“Of course I would,” John said. He pressed upwards on his toes, chasing after Sherlock’s lips.
Sherlock dodged, keeping his mouth just a few infuriating inches away from John’s reach. “What if I were shorter?” he asked. “Much shorter. Shorter than you.”
“Are you Alice in Wonderland in this scenario?” John asked. “Eat the wrong cake? Drink the wrong potion?”
“It’s a hypothetical,” Sherlock said. “And one I’d very much like you to answer.”
“Of course I’d still love you,” John said. “I’d have a few questions about all the growing and shrinking, but I’d still love you. Now. Can we—” He nudged forward once more.
“What if I was very short?” Sherlock said. “Barely the size of a child. Would you still love me then?”
John sighed. He could’ve expressed it better that first time, the love bit. In truth, it came out of him like an explosion, a volcano lain dormant for far too long, ready to wreak havoc on the surrounding city. The two had been dancing around each other for months—years, really. Since the moment they met, if John was being honest. It had gotten increasingly unbearable, and John was starting to sense that Sherlock felt the same. They’d been fighting more and more, getting into rows over the kind of trivial nonsense that only served to irritate the cracks in a broken heart—that is to say, everything. On that particular day when it all became too much, they had been shouting at each other over which one of them managed to accidentally dye half the laundry a strange shade of avocado green when Sherlock very loudly demanded John to tell him exactly what in the hell is the matter with you, you bleeding idiot.
YOU, you twat, John shouted back. I’m in love with you and I can’t bloody stand this.
The words seemed to perform some sort of immediate wipe of Sherlock’s motherboard. He froze, the human equivalent of a blue-screened computer. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, barely even blinked for a full five minutes, while John busied himself with trying to breathe through a panic attack and mentally calculating exactly how long it would take him to pack his newly avocado-colored clothes and head to Harry’s.
Then Sherlock sprung to life and John’s ability to think of anything else was immediately superseded by Sherlock’s hands, body, tongue, cock. Somehow, they made it onto a bed. John could only guess that it was Sherlock’s. He was seeing far too many stars to properly tell.
After—long after—Sherlock lifted his head from John’s chest and studied with him the most perplexed expression John had ever seen on his face.
You love me? he asked.
So today, this entire line of inquiry only seemed to be an extension of that first question. A whittling down into specifics. Operationalizing the whole ordeal. If John looked hard enough, he could still catch traces of that perplexed expression, although it was masked behind several layers of an expression John referred to as drilling-the-witness.
“I’d still love you if you were the shortest man in the world,” John said. “Record-breaking levels of shortness. I’d take you to all your meetings with the other world record holders. Protect you from all the other disgruntled short men you’d kicked out of the winning spot.”
Sherlock didn’t look particularly convinced.
“Can we go back to kissing now?” John asked. “I’d really like to kiss you some more. Before you start with all the growing and shrinking, that is.”
And lucky for him, Sherlock complied.
* * *
3:42pm
Would you still love me if I set the kitchen on fire? SH
3:43pm
IS the kitchen on fire?
Hypothetical. SH
Answer the question. SH
Sherlock, I saw you take your blow-torch out before I left for work. Is the bloody kitchen on fire?
Not yet. SH
Just asking. SH
Before I start this experiment, that is. SH
Sherlock.
Please.
I beg of you.
Do not set the kitchen on fire.
Do not do anything that might set the kitchen on fire.
If you think there is even a chance that what you’re doing might set the kitchen on fire, take it elsewhere.
Mycroft’s flat, for example.
But would you still love me? SH
3:45pm
John? SH
Yes, of course I’d still love you.
But I’ll be very, very unhappy with you.
Okay. SH
4:01pm
Just to confirm, you WOULD still love me if the kitchen was on fire? SH
I’m coming home.
* * *
“Would you still love me if I were a serial murderer?” Sherlock asked.
“Um,” John said. It wasn’t necessarily the content of the question that made him uncomfortable, but more so the dozen Metropolitan police officers standing in close proximity to them just in front of several pieces of the most recent victim of a still-at-large serial murderer Sherlock had been tasked with helping identify, many of whom were now eying Sherlock with more than a little suspicion.
“You know,” Sherlock said, “the sort of person who compulsively and ritualistically murders other people.”
“Yes,” John said quickly, mostly to the officers. “We all know what serial murder is. Maybe we can talk about this later?”
“Now seems as good a time as any,” Sherlock said.
John stared at the various limbs arranged into a sort of shrine in front of them and disagreed.
The two of them hadn’t had any official sort of announcement when they became a couple, largely because they didn’t need to. Sherlock apparently lacked any concept of a boundary between his personal and public life, and John quickly learned that his previous assumption that Sherlock would be averse to public displays of affection was grossly inaccurate. John reasoned that everyone they were reasonably close with knew that he and Sherlock were together within forty-eight hours of them becoming an official couple, and the remainder of London learned just a few days after, when a newspaper decided to interview Sherlock about a high-profile case he recently solved and Sherlock decided he would much rather talk about the impact of caffeine intake on the taste and consistency of semen. John’s semen, specifically.
Guess you’re out of the closet, Harry had texted him afterwards.
Guess so, John had replied, still listening to the faint sounds of Mrs. Hudson in her flat below, guffawing over the paper’s choice of headline.
Lestrade ambled up to the two of them, eying all the suspicious-looking officers. “Perhaps we could focus?” he asked.
“I’d still love you if you were a serial murderer,” John said to Sherlock, knowing that any requests to get him to focus would likely fall on deaf ears. “Which you aren’t, though. Of course. And maybe stating that explicitly right now might—”
“Would you still love me if I was a serial murderer who utilized murder as a grand romantic gesture?” Sherlock asked. “Leaving corpses in all the places we’d been together when we fell in love to serve as a means of sullying them forever? So their former beauty would be ours and only ours?”
“Um,” John said. “That’s awfully specific.”
“You know,” Lestrade said, “that Peter bloke who asked all those questions at the last crime scene mentioned being in a recent relationship. Do you think he’s—”
“The murderer?” Sherlock asked. “Of course he is. Do keep up, Lestrade.”
“Bloody hell,” Lestrade muttered, trotting off to yell some directive or another to an officer, something about find that Peter bloke and bring him in for questioning. And figure out what his last name is, for the love of Christ. Some of the officers drifted away after them, but they didn’t exactly look any less suspicious of Sherlock.
“Did you know Peter was the murderer before this body turned up?” John asked. “Or…”
“Answer the question, John,” Sherlock said.
John sighed. “Of course I would still love you,” he said. “Although as grand romantic gestures go, I’d prefer flowers over murder.”
Sherlock frowned. “No you wouldn’t,” he said.
“Yes I would,” John said. “I really, really would.”
Lestrade walked back over to the two of them. “Sherlock,” he said, “you didn’t happen to catch the last name of—”
“McEwen,” Sherlock said, not even glancing at Lestrade. “Would you still love me if I was caught? If I was tried for my crimes and sentenced to a life in prison?”
Lestrade narrowed his eyes at John. “What’s he on about?”
“Don’t ask,” John said.
“Would you visit me in prison?” Sherlock asked. “Conjugal visits aren’t permitted, but perhaps we could make something work.”
“And why exactly are you going to prison?” Lestrade asked.
“Don’t mind him,” John said. “He’s just been sort of…” he waved a hand, “doing this. These little hypotheticals. Since he and I…you know.”
“Ah,” Lestrade said. Oddly enough, he looked as if he understood.
“It’s…” John said, “confusing, actually.”
“You haven’t answered any of my most recent questions,” Sherlock said, frowning. “Am I to interpret that to mean you would stop loving me if these events transpired?”
“Jesus Christ,” John said. “Of course I’d still love you. But let’s not make any of that a goal, yeah?”
Lestrade glanced at Sherlock, then back at John. He gave a little smile. “Not that confusing at all, really,” he said. “Seems to me he’s just a bit worried. Insecure, perhaps. Happens to the best of us.” He grinned. “It’s sweet, actually. Nice to know he cares about someone.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Lestrade. “Would you still love me if I punched Lestrade in the face?” he asked John.
“Yes,” John said. “But I wouldn’t be very happy with you about it.”
“Nor would I,” Lestrade said.
Sherlock lifted an eyebrow at John. “I would still love you if you punched Lestrade in the face, you know.”
“We should probably be on our way,” John said to Lestrade.
* * *
John’s hands shook as they clutched the sheets.
It was the middle of the afternoon—as good a time as any, really—and the two of them had once again made their way to a bed. John had started out on his hands and knees but dropped to his forearms when his strength gave out on him, his forehead grinding into the mattress. He was near hyperventilating, his whole body tight and dripping with sweat. Sherlock was just behind him, pumping into him so perfectly John thought he might actually lose consciousness from it.
Sherlock’s hands were nearly large enough to cover the whole of his arse, and his palms were drifting across John’s lower half—spreading him open, stroking down his cleft, grasping at his hips and pulling him in. John didn’t need to see Sherlock’s face to know that Sherlock was currently studying him with an intensity he usually reserved for the most magnificent of crime scenes.
“Would you love me more if I was bigger?” Sherlock asked. How he managed to sound so composed when he was currently turning John inside out with his cock was a genuine mystery.
“I thought,” John managed, barely finding words in between all the gasping for breath, “we’d been over this. I’d love you if you were tall. Or short. Anything. Don’t stop.”
“Not that,” Sherlock said. “Bigger. This.” He thrust forward with punctuating force and John hoped no one else would ever hear the sound he made over it.
"No,” John panted. “You’re perfect. Perfect. God, Sherlock. Like that.”
The physical part of their relationship had fallen into place easily. The period of initial awkward fumbling was so short as to be nonexistent, and the two moved together as if they’d been doing this all along, making John wonder why in the hell they hadn’t been. It might’ve been Sherlock’s preternatural ability to figure things out about John that John didn’t even know himself or John’s unbridled enthusiasm to do absolutely anything with this man provided they had their hands on each other, but whatever it was, it worked and it worked well. It almost made up for the fact that information regarding the variations in taste and consistency of John’s semen had been published in multiple newspapers now. Almost.
“What if I were smaller?” Sherlock asked. “So small you could barely feel me? Would you still love me then?”
It was hard for John to imagine that particular scenario, because at the moment Sherlock felt huge inside him, his cock filling him up just right, stroking all the right places. It felt just a millimeter shy of too much, and John bloody loved it.
“Yes,” John said. “I’d still love you then. I’d still love you if you were big or small or you had some sort of detachable cock you screwed on and off you and had to wash in the sink. Just please. Fuck me.”
And Sherlock, the bloody bastard, slowed down. Sherlock tipped forward, his lips brushing John’s ear, John’s sopping hair dragging along his face. “Would you still love me if I stopped right now?” he whispered. His breath against John’s ear was enough to make John’s cock pulse. “Just pulled out and left you like this? Hard and empty and aching for me?”
“If you test it,” John growled, “I’ll bloody kill you.”
“But would you still love me?” Sherlock asked. John could hear the bloody grin on his face.
“For fuck’s sake,” John snapped. He shoved his hips backwards, knocking Sherlock off his knees and onto his arse on the mattress. John came with him, landing in Sherlock’s lap, still impaled, and started a quick rhythm immediately. He bounced himself on Sherlock’s cock, adjusting his hips until he was hitting that perfect angle over and over and over again. He tipped his head towards the ceiling and let out a cry that echoed across the walls.
Sherlock recovered from the change in position and had his hands on John within moments. He guided John against him, thrusting his hips upward, turning the rhythm rough. John moved faster against Sherlock, each pounding thrust nearly knocking the breath from him. His vision was blurring out at the edges. He was dripping sweat down onto the certainly-ruined sheets. His cock was livid and leaking, and when Sherlock wrapped a hand around him John nearly lost all capacity for voluntary movement. Sherlock’s grip was near-surgical. John wouldn’t have been surprised if Sherlock knew exactly the number of strokes it would take to get him there. As it was, John didn’t have the ability to count anymore, because Sherlock’s cock was unforgiving inside him and his hand was tight and twisting and John dropped his head back against Sherlock’s shoulder and came so hard he forgot his own name.
Somewhere in the melee, Sherlock shoved the both of them back into the mattress and finished with a shout, his arms wrapped tight around John’s chest as John moaned into the blankets. John barely even noticed as Sherlock pulled out and rolled off him. He was a bit too preoccupied with the fact that there seemed to be no oxygen remaining in the room.
“Just as I thought,” Sherlock said next to him, still sounding appallingly composed. “Your love does have limits.”
John barely had the cognitive ability to reply.
* * *
The kidnappers only had John for a little while, really. Barely even a full day this time. If John really thought on it, it possibly ought to be concerning that he’d grown a bit accustomed to getting kidnapped over the years. He chose not to think on it too much.
This all came about because Sherlock was investigating some drug-smuggling operation run by a group of people who fancied themselves a proper gang, something that was apparently pissing off the wannabe gang members enough that they decided to try to teach Sherlock a lesson. However, they weren’t particularly dangerous, really—just feisty. They had some half-cocked plan to hold John hostage until Sherlock agreed to back off his investigation, but they hadn’t really worked out the details beyond just that. They also hadn’t figured out that Sherlock had apparently placed some sort of tracking device in the fabric of John’s coat some time ago. In their defense, John himself learned that particular fact around the same time the kidnappers did. John considered that he ought to have a conversation with Sherlock about the dubious role covert surveillance played in a healthy relationship, but it didn’t seem as if he had a leg to stand on, seeing as the tracker may or may not have saved his life.
The kidnappers hadn’t done any serious damage to John—nothing that required a level of medical attention they would’ve been unequipped to provide—but they’d certainly roughed him up a bit. They wanted him to look hurt and haggard for the photographs they’d taken of him and sent to Sherlock to further illustrate their point that they weren’t to be trifled with. As such, John’s face was battered and bruised, with two black eyes and quite a bit of blood crusted down his chin. He certainly looked like shit, if the pale expression on Sherlock’s face the moment he laid eyes on him—bound up and barely conscious in his little cell—was anything to be believed.
Sherlock spent much of the ambulance ride he’d bullied his way onto crouched at John’s side, clutching at his hand and generally irritating the paramedics.
“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said, his eyes wide and lips shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
John had absolutely no idea what Sherlock was apologizing for. He hadn’t kidnapped John, after all. And judging by what he overheard had happened to the kidnappers in the short period of time between when Sherlock arrived at their hideout and the police finally caught up to him, Sherlock possibly ought to have apologized to them.
Still, John was discharged in no time—no worse for the wear other than the bruising, some dehydration, and a mild concussion. He was sent home with instructions to take paracetamol and take it easy for several days. He wondered if any of that was in the cards for him. Sherlock walked him into a cab as if he was some sort of toddler at perpetual risk for tripping over his own feet and kept his eyes locked on John for the entirety of the ride, his lips pinched between his teeth and his skin pale.
Sherlock gave John what might’ve been a bit too much assistance in getting up the stairs and back into the flat. He led John into the loo, scrutinizing the scratches along his face, cleaning away little invisible traces of blood that he swore the nurses missed. John watched a frown tug low on Sherlock’s face with each second he laid eyes on John’s injuries. John tried to wrap his arms around Sherlock, to stroke at his sides and let him know John was still there, still all right, but he was a bit too tired for all that.
Finally, Sherlock led him back into his bedroom—their bedroom, really, as this was where John spent his nights now. It hadn’t been an explicit decision that either of them made—John was simply invited back more often than not, and eventually simply chose to stay. It seemed to make the both of them happy, even if John had woken up to Sherlock seemingly wide awake and staring at him while he slept more times than he cared to count. And it also just so happened to be the only place in the world John wanted to rest at the moment.
John sunk down onto the side of the bed that was now officially his and let out a sigh as his head hit the pillow. He was worn out and exhausted and didn’t even have the energy to work his trousers off himself. He simply let his eyes slide shut, feeling as if sleep was mere seconds away.
Sherlock knelt by his side. Even with his eyes closed, John could feel Sherlock’s hands on the mattress, timidly close to him. He could hear Sherlock’s breathing come through the room, louder than usual and not quite steady. He cracked open his eyes and found Sherlock staring at him with a wavering version of the expression he’d had nearly all day—gaunt and terrified and gently shaking, the thinnest of glass panes wavering in the wind.
“I still love you,” John said.
Sherlock’s face shattered. He tipped forward, burying his head into John’s stomach with such force that John wasn’t certain how he was able to breathe. He grasped at John’s vest with quivering fingers.
“Why?” he wailed.
* * *
“Not him,” Sherlock said as John shone his light into the face of yet another beleaguered homeless person.
The two were currently making their way through an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city. It used to be some sort of warehouse, but now it was largely a hip hangout spot for the city’s homeless population and resident drug users to stay for the night without getting bothered by the police. John didn’t particularly want to be bothering them either, but he and Sherlock were hunting down a money launderer who was attempting to hide himself away amongst the homeless. Sherlock was convinced that the man would be in the building tonight and insisted that he and John locate him. He also insisted that they accomplish this task at one in the morning, when the man would be most likely to be caught off guard. So, unfortunately, was the rest of the building’s population.
“Nope,” Bill Wiggins said. “That one’s Larry.”
Sherlock had insisted that Wiggins accompany them, as he likely could identify the portion of the building’s population with whom Sherlock was unfamiliar and, through his presence, contributed a sort of credibility to traipsing around a hangout spot to which they were distinctly uninvited. Whatever kept them from getting their arses kicked, John figured.
“Sorry Larry,” John said, shining his torch away from the cursing man who had previously just been trying to sleep. The two moved onward, Sherlock darting around a bit, trying to peer into the faces of the mostly-sleeping occupants of this portion of the building, while John tried to be as unobtrusive as possible for a man currently going around shining a light in everybody’s faces. John had a feeling that, even with Wiggins there, they were only moments away from getting very justifiably jumped.
“Would you still love me if my skin went orange?” Sherlock asked. Their location hadn’t done much to stop this particular train of thought of Sherlock’s. The most it had done was put brief pauses into it while Sherlock ruled out whole rooms of people who were not the criminal they were looking for.
“Yep,” John said, shining a light into another sleeping bloke’s face as quickly as possible. “Still love you. I’d just be a bit worried about the skin thing. A very, very bad case of jaundice, perhaps.”
“Carrots,” Wiggins said. “Too many carrots, I hear. Can do that. The orange thing.” He pointed at a man Sherlock was currently studying. “Not him. That’s Binkie. He can’t count well enough to launder any money.”
Sherlock hummed, moving away from Binkie. “What if I suddenly lost the ability to speak?” he asked. “Would you still love me then?”
“That sounds fantastically impossible,” John said, following just behind him.
“But would you still love me?” Sherlock asked.
“In that very rare, hell-freezing-over situation,” John said, “yes. I would still love you.” He glanced around at their surroundings. “I think this area is clear.”
Sherlock started them towards a different section of the warehouse, looking as if he was only partially attending to anything around him. “What if I suddenly transformed into Mycroft?”
John paused, blinking at him. “You mean, what if you magically transformed into a completely different person?” he asked. “A person who is, on an intrinsic and biological level, not you? But is, however, Mycroft?”
Sherlock considered. “Bad example, perhaps.”
“Very bad example,” John said, moving his torch onto the next disgruntled person sprawled atop a mattress. There seemed to be twice as many sleeping people to disturb in this portion of the warehouse. At this rate, John figured the two of them would piss off several dozen homeless people by the end of the night.
“Could be a Freaky Friday situation,” Wiggins said. “You know, those body-swapping things?”
John sighed. He rather wished that Wiggins was not involving himself in this particular conversation. However, John wished that quite a bit was different about his current situation, so it all evened out, he supposed.
“Let’s say I was suddenly impaled through the head with a railway spike,” Sherlock said.
“Let’s not say that,” John said. “That sounds like an objectively bad thing to happen to you.”
“I survived, of course,” Sherlock said.
”Of course.”
“Like that Phineas Gage fellow,” Wiggins said.
“However,” Sherlock said, “the injury to my brain was such that my personality was completely transformed. The qualities that make me me were suddenly gone, and I was the polar opposite of myself.”
“So,” John said, “the type of person that wouldn’t drill me with insane hypothetical situations to test whether or not I’d continue to love you while simultaneously disturbing the sleep of every person in this particular abandoned building?”
“Exactly,” Sherlock said. “Someone who watches telly, perhaps.”
“Well,” John said, sweeping his torch over a row of sleeping bodies while Wiggins shook his head at each one. “I suppose I’d still love you. But I’d miss you. The madman with the hypotheticals and the penchant for traipsing around abandoned buildings.”
“That’s nice,” one of the homeless people said.
“Get that bloody light out of my face,” another one said.
“What if I were a dog?” Sherlock asked.
“Okay,” John said, walking further down the row of not-quite slumbering bodies. “I’m officially not going to answer these anymore.”
“Perhaps not a dog specifically, then,” Sherlock said, “but what if I developed a rare genetic condition that causes my hair to—”
Before John could even guess where that particular scenario was heading, a man burst up from the ground just a few bodies ahead of them. He took to his feet immediately, stumbling on his oversized trousers and sprinting towards the door.
“That’s him,” Wiggins said.
John cursed and took off after the bloke. Sherlock followed, soon jumping in the lead. The man was fast, but he didn’t have a good sense of the building’s layout and was clearly unused to running around in his baggy homeless-person costume. They two were gaining on him, but he would likely still make it to the door first.
Sherlock grabbed John’s hand and dragged him to the left, cutting through a room John didn’t even know existed. Somehow, Sherlock managed to cut the man off just as the man was about to reach the door, sticking out a foot and sending him flying to the ground. The man tried to clamber to his feet, but John was atop him before he could even get his hands under him, shoving him to the ground and wrenching his arms behind him. The bloke started up an attempt at hollering and struggling, but it wasn’t even the first time John had to hold a criminal down this month, so it was really no bother.
He glanced up at Sherlock. “Time to phone the police, yeah?”
Wiggins sauntered up towards the two of them, hands in his pockets. “You got him, then?”
John wasn’t sure exactly what sort of help Wiggins had ended up being in the end, and he rather hoped that he would do that thing where he disappeared right before the police arrived. Provided Sherlock actually phoned the police eventually, that was. John nodded towards Sherlock. Police?
Sherlock didn’t move. He was studying John with an expression that looked equal parts fond and heartbroken. “What if my mind went?” he asked. “If I didn’t have my wits about me anymore? If I couldn’t reason, couldn’t think?” His gaze dropped to the ground. “Couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Would you still love me then?”
John frowned. He watched Sherlock—watched his mouth twitch as it struggled to remain impassive, watched his eyes fix on the ground because he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at John while he answered—and felt that if he were any more in love it might break him. He considered letting the bloke free just so he could go over to Sherlock and wrap him up in his arms, preferably never letting him go.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course. Of course I would still love you.”
“That’s just lovely,” Wiggins said, smiling.
“Shut up, Wiggins,” John said.
* * *
It had been a fairly successful meeting with the press, all things considered.
Sure, Sherlock had openly insulted the family who simply wanted to publicly thank him for returning their kidnapped child. Sure, John had to physically prevent Sherlock from once again talking about the correlation between diet and semen taste and consistency no less than three times. And sure, one reporter had cried. All that, however, constituted improvement.
The two were riding in a cab, already partway back to Baker Street. Sherlock was glowering on his side of the back seat, staring out the window and pouting over the fact that he was even made to go to the press event in the first place. Even his pout, however, was less pronounced than usual. After all, he didn’t even have to wear the hat, seeing as he had set the thing on fire back with the kitchen. John knew that Sherlock would be over the whole ordeal by nightfall, likely after spending an hour or two with the violin, and definitely if a new case rolled in. The latter was probable; after the two got a bit of publicity, the website was usually booming.
John glanced across the cab, taking in the edges of Sherlock’s profile, lit by the glow of the city that passed by. Even frowning, the man was striking, and John liked that he could estimate approximately what percentage of Sherlock’s strop was due to the fact that he wasn’t permitted to discuss John’s semen publicly anymore. John reached across the cab, brushing his hand against Sherlock’s where it sat between them. Sherlock’s hand shifted, and he wrapped his pinkie around John’s with a little squeeze. Something about the act still had a petulant quality to it.
John returned his gaze back out his window, watching the bustle and light of the city whiz by around them. Somewhere, a crime was being committed, and he and Sherlock were likely to hear about it soon. Before that, however, they’d be home, sinking into the comfortably odd little life they had made just for each other.
“For the record,” John said, “my love for you doesn’t have any limits.”
“We’ll see,” Sherlock said.
* * *
It was a relatively quiet night, one of the rare ones.
John was reading a book in bed, winding down for a night of what had about a fifty percent chance of being uninterrupted sleep, and by some miracle, Sherlock had decided to join him. It was anybody’s guess if Sherlock was actually planning to sleep, however. Thus far, he seemed to spend most of his time in bed alternating between poking mindlessly on his phone and tossing and turning in a disgruntled manner, likely upset that nothing mysterious was happening at all. Finally, he simply tossed his phone to the side and nudged against John, pressing the whole of his body along John’s side and making a whining sort of noise.
John chuckled, marking his page and setting his book on the bedside table, and turned his attention to Sherlock. So they were doing this, then.
Sherlock tugged John down until he was half on top of Sherlock, kissing him in a lazy, unhurried manner. John followed his lead. It was unclear if Sherlock was feeling amorous or was simply bored and wanted some attention—it could go either way, really, not that John was complaining. Either way, he got to have his hands and mouth on this gorgeous man, got to feel him moan and sigh beneath him. It was better than whatever the hell was happening in his book by far.
Sherlock withdrew from John slightly, studying him with an expression that John couldn’t quite deduce. John stroked his hair, pushing it back from his face. Whatever was going through Sherlock’s mind, he’d tell John eventually. It was his way.
Sherlock’s gaze flickered downwards. “Would you…” he started. He swallowed. “Would you…”
John chuckled. “Whatever you’re about to say,” he said, “the answer is yes. I’d love you.”
A tiny smile flickered across Sherlock’s face, but his gaze remained lowered. “Would you still love me if I was a bastard?”
John’s brow furrowed. “A bastard?” he asked. “As in, your parents were unmarried? I can’t imagine why that would—”
“No,” Sherlock said. “A bastard. An arsehole. A person so fantastically off-putting that all who met him were immediately repulsed.”
“Sherlock…” John started.
“Would you still love me if I were some unendurable thing?” Sherlock asked. “Someone who never quite knew when to shut his mouth?” His mouth twitched. “Someone who was brilliant, but only in a manner that served himself?”
John frowned. He kept his hand in Sherlock’s hair, stroking slowly. “I—”
“Would you love me if I kept odd hours and questionable habits?” Sherlock asked. “If I conducted inadvisable experiments in the kitchen and never cleaned up? If I attracted all sorts of undesirables into my orbit? If I was always dancing just on the edge of sobriety?” He swallowed. “If I played the violin when I’m thinking? If I didn’t talk for days on end? Would you still love me then?”
John felt something start to tear inside of him, a sharp ache. “Jesus, Sherlock,” he said. “Of course I would.”
“You’re sure?” Sherlock asked. His eyes were still elsewhere. John could only peer into the curve of Sherlock’s eyelashes.
“Of course I’m bloody sure,” John said. “How can you even ask me that, if I would still love you through all that? Of course I would, Sherlock.”
It was slight, but John could just make out a tremble in Sherlock’s lower lip. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible.
“Nobody else has,” he said.
Whatever had been starting to tear inside of John finally worked itself in two. He made a little noise, something that sounded as if he’d been lightly stabbed. Sherlock carried on not looking at John, but John could see him all the same. He saw the brash, brilliant man who never meant any harm but never could shut his brain off, never cared to learn the niceties of social interaction just to please the meaningless throng around him, never once had anybody stick around long enough to realize, even for a moment, that if there was ever a person most deserving of wholehearted, unconditional love, it was Sherlock.
John curled his hand around Sherlock’s cheek, tipping Sherlock’s face upwards until Sherlock’s glistening eyes met his. “I love you,” he said. He pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s mouth, slow and sweet. “I love you,” he said again, their lips brushing together. He kissed at Sherlock’s cheeks, his chin, his nose, each of his eyelids. “I love you,” he said with each kiss. “I love you. I love you.”
Sherlock gave a little noise and wrapped his arms around John and then their mouths were pressed together once more. Sherlock pulled John atop him, practically wrapping the whole of his body around him. His lips parted and the kiss took on a hint of desperation, as if the time to kiss was rapidly ticking down to zero. John had absolutely no intention of ever letting the clock reach zero.
“I love you,” he panted. Sherlock was growing hard against him, and he couldn’t quite stop himself from grinding his hips down, feeling the warm press of Sherlock on him. “So much, Sherlock. I’ve always loved you. Always.”
“John,” Sherlock mumbled. He had his legs locked around John’s lower back, his fingers tight in John’s hair. John couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a glint of moisture on Sherlock’s cheeks. The two carried on kissing, John taking whatever seconds he could find to whisper sentiments into Sherlock’s mouth, each one pulling a sound from Sherlock that seemed as if he was breaking.
Eventually, clothing disappeared. John hadn’t a clue where it all went. Sherlock was slick and warm beneath him, guiding John’s hands, his fingers, his body where he wanted them to go.
“I love you,” John panted into Sherlock’s neck as Sherlock pulled him in, pulled him home. Sherlock’s head tipped back and he let out a moan that John felt rumble against his lips. Everything was warm and tight and slick and shaking, and when John started moving, Sherlock moved with him, his hips rocking in a rhythm like the ocean, taking John in.
“Promise me,” Sherlock panted. “Promise me you won’t stop.” And John knew he wasn’t talking about what they were doing just now, bodies joined and rocking.
“I promise you,” John said. The world had faded to black and all there was in front of him was Sherlock, not that it was any different from the way the world usually was, now that John thought on it. “I will love you as long as I’m alive. Longer.”
Sherlock didn’t respond, only tipped his head back and gave a little cry, moved himself faster, faster. He held onto John like his life depended on it, as if John were the only thing keeping him afloat, keeping him alive. And then he made a sound like he was dying all the same and John swallowed it up, murmuring all he felt into Sherlock’s lips until he couldn’t quite speak anymore.
The two collapsed together, bodies slick and sheets a bit ruined. They were still joined, and John had no intentions of going anywhere. Sherlock’s arms draped limply over John’s back, and he breathed as if the act hurt him. John could feel the both of their hearts pounding in their chests, and the thrumming almost sounded like its own language—love you, love you, love you.
“You promised,” Sherlock said. “You promised. And you can’t go back on a promise, you know.”
“Trust me,” John said, “I won’t.”
* * *
Later—much later—the two were in the loo, attempting to wash the evening off each other. Showers together were never particularly productive—the day John was able to keep his hands to himself when he was within touching distance of a naked and glistening Sherlock would be the day he had somehow lost both of his hands—so after a perfunctory sponging off John hopped out of the shower to wash the rest of himself in the sink, where he could actually hope to get clean. Sherlock remained in the shower, the rich notes of his shampoo drifting through the steamy room. He hummed a little tune in a low voice, something John hadn’t heard before. John wondered if he was composing—if John might hear the little tune later, coming from a violin. The thought made him smile, and he considered hopping back in the shower and completely negating the concept of getting clean.
John swiped a palm over the fog of the mirror, catching a glance at his own reflection. He shook his head at himself, nearly gobsmacked that this—this impossible situation—was his life. Somehow, against all odds and anything that seemed right and fair in this world, he had ended up here, at Baker Street, sharing the loo with the most mad, infuriating, brilliant arsehole of a man who he somehow had the privilege of loving, and—odder still—actually had the privilege of being loved by in return. It all seemed impossible, some sort of miracle John would have never even thought to expect. His eyes flickered over his own reflection, keenly aware that nothing he’d ever done, absolutely nothing about him, was deserving of such a miracle, and if he had a brain in his skull he would be on his knees daily, thanking the universe for the dumb luck he managed to stumble his way into.
John dipped his head low. He cleared his throat. “And what about me?” he asked. “What if I were a crotchety old doctor who was always a little pants at saying exactly what he felt? What if I was a soldier invalided home from Afghanistan with a wrecked shoulder that aches when it rains and a psychosomatic limp that pops back up when I’m feeling lost? What if I’m never even half as brilliant or amazing or extraordinary as the cleverest man in London?” He swallowed. “Would you still love me?”
Sherlock popped his head out of the shower. His curls were wild and white with soap. He blinked. “Of course, John,” he said, his expression incredulous. “What an idiotic question.” With that, he disappeared back into the shower.
John grinned into the mirror. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”