{ TW: reference to torture. Mycroft says Vogon Poetry. My god I hope its not *that* bad!}

Sherlock lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, acutely aware of John moving around him. Shifting patterns of light and darkness, sounds, the warmth of breath. He found he was willing himself to stay present-- not mentally retreat to compare and contrast-- in favour of just observing sensation. Feel. Feel John's lips against his forehead. Tender and soft. Not at all the move he expected John to make first. Then further down his nose, this time more of John's lips, his mouth, against his skin. He opened his eyes to find John simply gazing at him. "Beautiful."

Sherlock grinned, his eyes closing again. "Awkward. Unpleasant. Acerbic."

John placed a kiss on his jawline. "Brilliant." His neck. Sherlock let out a tiny puff of breath. "Exceptional." John repeated the kiss, dragging his lips against skin, headed to the hollows of his collarbone, and ran his hand down Sherlock's side. "Amazing." He brushed it forward, to where he must have expected to find a growing erection, but hadn't. John shifted back slightly. "It's good. Kissing you. I didn't before. It's probably true, what they say about prostitutes not kissing."

"John?"

"Slaves don't have that autonomy." John shifted back some more, until he was barely on the edge of the bed. "We just do whatever you ask. Do whatever you want."

"John!" Sherlock sat upright, alert.

"It helps. Thinking this is why I'm doing this, doesn't it? Does it feel like penance? It's fine. I still want to." He glanced down at his hand, still resting upon Sherlock's thigh. "Even though you don't want me, I'll still take a pity fuck. I just figured it might help you feel more noble, to be reminded of that. That I do understand why you are agreeing to this... and that I'm desperate enough not to care."

Sherlock reached out and grabbed both sides of John's face, tilting it up until he could see his eyes. He knew his own were shimmering as he held his emotions firmly in check.

"That has nothing to do with this. I'm not doing this out of guilt. It's... my nature. My focus is in here," he tapped his head, just above where John has kissed him. "It doesn't mean I am doing this out of a sense of guilt, or charity. It means... that I take some time to react. To shift focus. I still need to lead myself there."

Sherlock stopped a moment and shifted gears. His voice taking on a deeper, richer quality. "I confess, if I were exploring you, it would be far easier. Right here is where I'd start." He gently placed his fingertips on John's Adam's apple. "Right at the hollow under your laryngeal prominence. The neck is our most vulnerable spot. Like all mammals, to expose it to anything, to a mouth, to teeth... I wouldn't think you'd let me do that, John. Given your complete free will. After what it led to, my not letting you know I had a plan to survive Bart's that day is rather unforgivable. After letting you grieve, never quite sure if any of the messages I tried to convey were all only in your mind. I couldn't do it. Couldn't trust you with our lives, and I couldn't simply because I am something you are not. A manipulative liar who doesn't deserve this sort of trust and honesty. And yet, you followed me. And suffered so much trying to get me back home. I'd been captured, John."

John broke away from his stoic stance to look more thoroughly at Sherlock's body. "Captured and beaten twice. Bones reset as best as possible. I have a system for such things, a place within my Mind Palace to retreat to. I perfected it in Tibet," Sherlock chuckled, darkly. "Thought not at the feet of some mystic in a Buddhist monastery, but rather at the end of a burning cigarette from a thug on the Bhutan border."

John's eyes darted to any visible skin. "Where?"