sherlockbbc_fic | Prompting Part XXXIV

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Prompting Part XXXIV

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In the grey light bleeding into the living room through the half-open curtains, the downy wisps of Willa's hair seemed as pale as spun glass where the soft, warm weight of her head was resting on top of John's sternum. Crisp white pages lay strewn like autumn leaves across the surface of the coffee table beside the sofa.

  Patient went into cardiac arrest at 23:21.

  John swallowed. Blinked. Huffed out a long, stuttering breath, then heaved in a fresh lungful of Willa's talcy scent.  

CPR was performed for approximately five minutes. Patient did not respond.  

Willa's feet stirred against John's stomach. Her tiny fist curled tighter around his index finger. He couldn't help smiling despite the numb, hollow feeling in his chest, the chill dread creeping through veins with every thud of his heart.

  Cardiac monitor indicated spontaneous return of heartbeat at 23:26 as surgical team were clearing OR.

  Five minutes. Two years. Any span of time was too long for his daughter's namesake to be torn from his life.

**

John carefully poured steaming-hot water into the two mugs on the counter and set the kettle down on a cork trivet. Once the water was a deep, earthy red-brown, he scooped the teabags out with a spoon and put them in the bin.  

"No sugar for me this time," Mary called from the other room.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, John flattened his palms against the counter, trying to quiet the trembling of his hands. Molten fury roiled in the pit of his gut. Had been secretly simmering within him for months and months.  

You killed my best friend.

  He wanted to storm out of the kitchen and scream these words in Mary's face. To clamp his hands around her wrists, yank her up off the sofa, and shake her, the way his father used to do to his mother when she mislaid his pub money. To betray the promise he made to himself to never become the sort of man his father had been.

  You looked him in the eye and you shot him in cold blood and he flatlined.  

The ping of an incoming text suddenly knifed through the silence. Reaching down into the pocket of his jeans, John extracted his mobile, read the waiting message with a sense of overwhelming relief.

  John quickly went to the foyer and pulled on his raincoat. Mary drifted up behind him a moment later. Turning around, he offered her a strained smile and said, "Sherlock says there's been a break in the case."

**

  Sherlock's head lifted from the microscope at the familiar thud of footsteps ascending the stairs. He turned in time to see John step into the kitchen, his wet fringe plastered to his forehead, his green anorak soaked through.

  "Molly texted me earlier," Sherlock announced. "Lord Ainsley was definitely a victim of arsenic poisoning."

  John's jaw flexed, his mouth compressing into a hard, thin line. For a moment, he simply held Sherlock's gaze, letting the silence hang leaden between them, then at last he swallowed and said, "You died on the operating table." 

Something tightened in Sherlock's chest. Choked the breath out of his lungs. "Yes," he confirmed quietly.

  "Your heart stopped."  

"Only for a few minutes."

  "She killed you."  

"She saved my life, John." Sherlock cracked a tentative smile. "I daresay she's an even better shot than you."  

"Don't," John hissed, his face a thing of solid granite. "Your brother sent me the medical report."  

"I'm alive," Sherlock assured him. "Magnussen is gone and your family is safe. That's all that matters."

  "No, it's not!" John snapped, shaking his head sharply. Then he closed the distance between himself and Sherlock. Framed the seated man's face with small hands still chill from the rain pouring down steadily outside.  

"John," Sherlock faltered, tipping his head up to meet the fathomless blue eyes staring down at him.  

"You don't get to decide what your life is worth, Sherlock. Understand?"

Sherlock's hands flew up like birds suddenly released from a cage and molded around the back of John's head. Heart hammering wildly against his ribs, he carded his fingers through the soft, rain-damp thicket of John's hair.

  Dipping his head down, John sealed his lips over Sherlock's, coaxed them into a gentle dance. The kiss grew progressively more intense, until John, emboldened, pushed his tongue into Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock groaned, a deep, rumbling sound which vibrated pleasantly through his tongue as it lashed against John's.

  "How long have you known the shape of your feelings?" Sherlock asked when they finally broke apart.  

"Far too long," John replied, sweeping Sherlock's blue dressing gown off of his shoulders. "You?"  

"I don't know," Sherlock admitted, fumbling down the zip of John's coat. "I didn't allow myself to know for a long time."  

John abruptly grabbed two fistfuls of Sherlock's white shirt. Hefted him up off the stool and guided him down the hall. With desperate hands, they peeled off the remainder of their clothing, until they were standing face to face in the yellow lamplight suffusing Sherlock's bedroom, the truths of their bodies bared to each other's eyes.

  Sherlock let John press him back onto the bed. Settling on top of him, John trailed a line of sloppy, eager kisses from the hollow of his suprasternal notch to the tender pink knot of the scar marring the centre of his chest.  

"I need to have you," John said, breath gusting warm across Sherlock's kiss-damp skin.  

Eyes fluttering shut on a gasp, Sherlock nodded against the pillow, murmured, "In the bedside drawer."

  John worked Sherlock open patiently, thoroughly, sure surgeon's fingers unknitting him body and soul. "Have you done this before?" he hazarded after what seemed a small eternity, pulling back to look down at Sherlock's face.

  "No," Sherlock whispered, letting his knees fall wider apart. Watching John squeeze a coil of lube into his palm and and then lower his hand to coat his prick, he added, "I thought of you every time. Tried to approximate your touch."  

At this, John smiled, a wistful stretch of his lips that made the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes crinkle. Then he moved into position between the cradle of Sherlock's thighs, nosed into the crook of Sherlock's neck as Sherlock threw impossibly long legs around his waist, crossing his ankles over the small of John's back.  

The consuming burn of the initial breach shocked Sherlock, ripped a tiny, mewling noise out of him.

  "Just breathe, Sherlock," John encouraged in a ragged hush. "Breathe for me."  

Sherlock's screwed-shut eyes snapped open. He clutched at John, tangled trembling fingers in his short, bristly hair. "John," he choked out between steady pants, blood thundering in his ears with the frantic beat of his heart.  

John sank deeper, slowly melting into Sherlock's body, until at last they were dovetailed tight against each other. Claiming Sherlock's mouth in a hungry kiss, he withdrew, then rolled his hips forward again. Sherlock moaned deeply and arched up off of the mattress, his hands smoothing across John's shoulders, riding down John's spine.  

"Jesus," John gasped after only a minute of slow, lazy thrusting. "I'm close. I'm so fucking close."  

"I know," Sherlock told him, just a thin ghost of a whisper.  

Sneaking a hand between their sweat-slick bellies, John gripped Sherlock's straining cock, pumped it fast and even. "I've got you, love, I've got you. Just let go. Come for me, Sherlock. Let me see you come for me."  

Sherlock's eyes slammed shut. For me. The words surged through his veins. Flooded the chambers of his racing heart. He cried out, overtaken by the force of it, clinging to John like a drowning man, his whole body quaking.  

John stiffened and stilled above him a few seconds later, groaning, "Oh, Jesus, Sherlock."

Gorgeous. Simply gorgeous.

Thank you so much for your kind words! <3

When Sherlock finally found his breath, he peeled his eyes open, noting the wet trails streaking both sides of his face. His right hand slid up the column of John's neck from between his shoulders and cupped the back of his head.

  "God, Sherlock, what do we do?" John wondered. "Where do we go from here?"

  "I don't know," Sherlock replied, massaging John's scalp. "You weren't supposed to find out."  

John nuzzled into Sherlock's neck. Scraped his lips over Sherlock's pulse-point. "I needed the truth."

  "This is true. Whatever else it may be, John, it's true. I've never known anything with such absolute clarity before."

  Pushing himself up on one hand, John eased out of Sherlock, then clambered off the bed. Sherlock watched him pad through the frosted-glass door into the bathroom, heard the squeak of the tap and the loud, rattling bang of the pipes. John returned a moment later, moist flannel in hand, and gently guided Sherlock over onto his stomach.  

"Jesus," he ground out, lightly grazing the fingertips of his right hand over the thin silver scars on Sherlock's back. With his left hand, he swept a warm, soothing line up the cleft of Sherlock's arse with the flannel.  

I went to hell and back for you. I willed my dead heart to beat again for you. I'd do it a thousand times — for you.  

Sherlock wanted to confess this John, but his tongue felt too thick in his mouth, his chest too constricted by emotion. Instead, he flopped over onto his back, met the concerned gaze bearing down on him and said, "It's nothing."

  "No, it's torture," John countered. "Jesus, Sherlock, how much don't I know? How much have you kept from me?"  

The mattress squeaked as Sherlock levered himself upright. "Only what was in your best interest to conceal."

  A pained look crossed John's face briefly, then he firmed his jaw, disappeared into the bathroom once again. Sherlock heard the crackling creak of the wicker hamper being opened and then the muted thump of its lid falling shut. Re-entering the room, John went back to where Sherlock was perched on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap. Stooped so that his forehead pressed against Sherlock's, his breath puffing across pale skin in warm, uneven bursts.  

"I can't go back, Sherlock. I can't stay married to a lie."

  Sherlock swallowed against the dry lump lodged like a stone in his throat. "You must. For your daughter's sake."

  "I won't," John declared with a kind of finality that Sherlock didn't dare question.

**

  The dull thud of the front door closing behind John seemed deafening in the stillness shrouding the house. "Oh, hello," Mary offered from her place on the sofa, her eyes lifting from paperback novel in her hands.

  John just stood there, dripping rain onto the laminate, jaw tight and hands curled at his sides.

  Mary's brow furrowed. "Something wrong?" Rising, she walked toward John, clutching the sash of her housecoat. "If it's Sherlock being...well, Sherlock...I can have a talk with him, if you'd like, try to bring him around."  

"Did you know that Sherlock flatlined?" John asked without preamble. "After you put a bullet in his chest?"

  For an instant, Mary looked stricken, but then she schooled her features into an impassive mask. "No."  

"Five minutes. His heart stopped for five whole minutes. They actually gave up on him."

  "John," Mary said, part warning, part plea. "I thought this was settled."  

"No one told me," John continued, his voice breaking. "I've been playing at domestic bliss with a woman who murdered my best friend, because even if it was only for five minutes, his heart stopped beating. You know what it did to me, thinking he was dead for two years, and yet you pointed a bloody gun at him and pulled the trigger."  

"You know I had no choice," Mary stated.  

"Did you think giving me a child would make up for taking Sherlock? Hmm? That it'd square things with God?" Screwing his jaw so hard his molars gnashed, John tore his eyes away from Mary, headed for the stairs.

"You can't go, John," Mary said, an edge of panic finally creeping into her voice.

  John wheeled around. Braced his hand atop the finial crowning the last post of the balustrade. "Or what, Mary?"

  Mary met his gaze sadly, her mouth a small, pinched line. "Or everything I did was for nothing."  

Fingers clenching around the finial, John simply shook his head, drew a long, steadying breath through his nostrils. Then he turned he turned his back toward his wife and trudged up the stairs to the nursery.

**

  In those first few tense, transitional weeks at Baker Street — so long ago it almost seemed another lifetime — Sherlock had crept into John's bedroom one night and hovered over his bed out of idle curiosity. He'd learned that John slept like a soldier: flat on his back, stock-still, silent save the occasional low, night terror-induced groan.

  Now, with John lying beside him on his own bed, Sherlock marvelled at the profound depth of his ignorance. Dawn was blue-white light edging the side of John's face, time the slow, shallow rise and fall of John's chest.

  Seized by a sudden impulse, Sherlock reached over, skated a knuckle along the stubble-rough line of John's jaw. John's eyelids fluttered open. Turning his head, he looked at Sherlock, his lips quirking into a muzzy smile.  

"Mary texted me," Sherlock revealed softly. "About an hour ago."

  John's smile instantly dissolved, and he bolted upright, his eyes zeroing in on the mobile on Sherlock's bedside table.

Sherlock's fingers closed around John's forearm and squeezed gently. "Everything is fine."

  "No, it isn't," John hissed.  

"She told me to take care of you. Both of you. Nothing more."  

"I don't care what she bloody well told you. I don't ever want to see or hear from her again. I made that very clear to her."  

"Don't be ridiculous, John," Sherlock said. "Mary would never do anything to harm you or Willa. It isn't in her nature."

  "It's not us I'm worried about, Sherlock," replied John. "She shot you once. She could do it again."  

"Mycroft texted earlier to inform me that she's been taken into custody."  

"What's your brother got to do with this?"

  "Do you think he doesn't know who shot me? He makes it his business to know everything. I persuaded him not to have her arrested for your sake, but I suppose now that your marriage has run aground, he considers her fair game."  

"Fair game?" John echoed, the note of alarm in his voice not escaping Sherlock's notice.  

"I believe he intends to offer her protection in exchange for working for MI6."  

John opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Willa unleashed a shrieking wail from the living room. Sighing heavily, he rolled out of the bed and bent to pick his boxers off the floor, tugging them on quickly. By the time Sherlock finally peeled himself off the bed and staggered over to the dresser to retrieve a clean pair of pants, John had already thrown on the rest of his clothes and was clattering about the kitchen, preparing a bottle.  

Belatedly, Sherlock remembered his experiment with the alcoholic tramp's brain, and called out, "Don't open the microwa—!"  

"Jesus Christ!"

  Too late.  

Sherlock hurriedly pulled on his dressing gown. Rushing out into the kitchen, he found John holding a large, silver pot under the running tap and Willa quiet in the baby carrier that was serving as a makeshift cot.  

"I hope you haven't used this to boil the flesh off a skull," John remarked, setting the pot on the cooker.  

"I'm sorry," Sherlock blurted, sounding uncharacteristically sheepish. "I should've warned you." Motioning toward the equipment-strewn table in the middle of the room, he added, "I'll talk to Mrs. Hudson about moving all this into 221C. And I promise we'll get a proper cot. We can put it in your old bedroom. Assuming you're moving in again, that is."

  John turned around. His gaze, as it lifted to meet Sherlock's, was oddly soft. "Of course I am. This is my home."

This would be perfect if there was only more of it!

I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to want to see more! <3 I won't rule out a continuation, but I've got a number of other fic ideas rattling around in my brain, and seeing those to fruition is my focus right now.

Edited 2014-04-11 18:02 (UTC)

OP

Whoa, I hadn't checked this prompt in ages... and lo, when I finally came back to it, a fresh fill!

This was good-achey and sweetly understated. I love that Mary didn't know the whole story, either, and that you didn't vilify her. Thank you, dear author. <3

My personal opinion on Mary is conflicted. On the one hand, I find her to be a fascinating, complex character and love her for it, but on the other, I don't find her all that sympathetic for a number of reasons. But I tried to keep the portrayal of Mary in the fill neutral and open-ended, since you didn't explicitly request that she be portrayed a specific way. The text message she sends to Sherlock is also meant to imply that she's figured out that John and Sherlock have fallen for each other.

Anyway, I'm so glad that you liked this fill, and that my posting of it fortuitously aligned with your checking up on your prompt. :)

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