Chapter Text
“Sit still.”
“I am.”
“No, you are fidgeting. That is the opposite of still.”
Sherlock, perched upon the closed lid of the toilet, slumps his bare back against the cold tank. His legs are flung out to the sides as he straddles the bowl, his flannel pajama pants pulled tight. He growls but grips the edges of the porcelain with his toes to cease the rapid jiggling of his limbs.
“You’re lucky you’ve no permanent damage, you know.”
“I know.”
“You could’ve been burned.”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve gotten this shit in your eye.”
“Yes.”
“So why are you still fussing like a child?”
“I’m not!” A few moments of silence, then a moderately contrite mumble. “The explosion was reasonably contained. Minimal damage, I’m sure. Why is this taking so long?”
John smirks. “Just hush and be patient.” He works the acetone-soaked rag with deliberate strokes over a clump of Sherlock’s hair, matted with a sticky substance he cannot identify. “You want to tell me what happened here?”
“No, I’d prefer not to.”
A dry chuckle. “Well, Bartleby, why don’t you give it a try anyway?”
Sherlock sighs, eyes rolling closed. “Oh, please, must I relive the humiliation?”
“Ah, yes, you must, because when I’m done here, I’ll be scraping down the countertop and a few cupboard doors, and it would be smashing to know why I’m doing that instead of eating noodles and watching football as I had planned to do.”
John presses gently with two fingers and Sherlock tilts his head to the right so that John can work on the hair over his temple. “Merely a small side project. I got a bit too free with the borax is all.” John leans forward to angle over Sherlock’s long torso, prompting the detective to slouch forward to accommodate him and lean his cheek against John’s warm chest. “If it hadn’t been for the addition of the cyanoacrylate, I could’ve easily shampooed my hair and been done with it. I wouldn’t have needed to bother you.”
“It’s no bother, love.”
Sherlock can feel his mouth pulling up in an unwilling smile despite the situation. Like his hands, John’s voice is steady and soothing. When the beaker had stuttered and shot froth in a giant arc, Sherlock’s agonized howl of “Bloody hell!” had sent John tearing to the kitchen, ready for triage or tourniquets or whatever would be necessary. But as the doctor’s efficient eyes had catalogued no missing limbs nor gushing blood, instead taking in Sherlock’s elegant fingers gripped into useless fists, flung out from his sides in mute rage, while fat globs of goo foamed over his scalp and plopped onto the front of his grey t-shirt, John’s alarm had quickly distilled to reluctant amusement, a grin rippling across his face before he could clamp it down enough to ask Sherlock soberly if he was quite all right.
A few minutes pass before Sherlock huffs, “It’s not worth all this! Let’s just chop it all off!”
John sucks in a breath. “Bite your tongue, Sherlock Holmes,” he clucks softly. While his left works the rag carefully, his right hand slips into the untouched ring of hair at the base of Sherlock’s skull, massaging, working the strands through his fingertips. “These curls are just about my favorite things in the world and are, therefore, totally worth saving. Besides, you’re lucky.” He tilts backward a fraction to catch Sherlock’s eye. “If this gorgeous dark color were from a bottle, our little clean up here could turn you ginger.”
Sherlock sucks in a breath, eyebrows twisted together. “Good lord, John! You’ll give me nightmares!”
John giggles and gives his neck a playful squeeze.
Suddenly, Sherlock is keenly aware of John’s proximity, his strong arms hovering on either side of him and the barest hint of his aftershave tantalizing his nostrils. He loves John like this, though he’d never willingly admit to it. John’s competence, his caring and protective instincts, are some of his most enthralling (and sexiest) attributes for Sherlock to witness. But when those attentions are lavished upon Sherlock himself, the doctor is all but irresistible.
“Just about?”
“Hmmm?”
“You said ‘just about’ your favorite.” His hands skim up John’s thighs and settle around his waist. “Tell me, Doctor, what is your favorite thing?”
John snickers, “Wouldn’t you like to know,” and continues dabbing with the cloth.
But Sherlock notices John has swayed an almost imperceptible inch closer, so Sherlock dips his fingers just into the waistband of John’s faded jeans, kneading the flesh of his lower back with tender presses. “Could it be my hands, John?”
John’s motion stutters—barely a tremor, but Sherlock can feel it—and he clears his throat, “Nope. Forget it. I’ll never tell.”
Sherlock needn’t raise his head; he can hear the smile lilt in the music of John’s voice. He slides his fingers around to the doctor’s belly. “Perhaps I can deduce it…very, very carefully.” He looks up then with an arched eyebrow.
John’s darkened eyes are on him, and as Sherlock moves his fingers to the fabric of the untucked plaid button-down, John licks his lips. “Give it your best shot,” he murmurs. He resumes his inspection of Sherlock’s scalp.
Oh, John, challenge accepted.
With deliberate fingers, he undoes one translucent button.
And another.
And another.
Only because he is so close to him does Sherlock hear a small gasp from above. John says nothing, but somehow, his knee has come to rest on the lid in front of Sherlock’s hips, moving him even closer.
Sherlock slides his hands up to part the flaps of the shirt, closing slowly around John’s ribcage. He feels the strong muscles contract under his palms. He strokes his thumbs, up the fine line of hair that runs John’s middle. Absently, he notes that the assault on his scalp has stopped.
“You are a wicked one, aren’t you?”
Sherlock ghosts the warm pads of his thumbs over John’s nipples at the same moment his tongue delves into dark crevice of John’s navel.
The rag drops to the floor.
“Oh, are you finished now, doctor?” Sherlock asks innocently, feeling the bite of two sets of fingernails dig in his shoulders. “Good.” John’s abdomen undulates as Sherlock’s lips and tongue work their way around, punctuating their path with dragging hints of his teeth. “Could it be,” he drawls, “that my mouth is your favorite thing about me?”
John exhales a shuddering breath. “It could be.” He runs his right hand across Sherlock’s trapezius and up the column of his throat, lifting his flushed face with a single index finger under his jaw. He fits his lips against Sherlock’s, and the detective is the one to moan gratefully, relishing the strength, the taste of John, the skill with which he reduces Sherlock down to a grasping, malleable lump of clay. He follows John’s lead, eagerly mirroring the waves of his movements as the tails of his opened shirt tickle Sherlock’s skin to complete the bloom of gooseflesh that covers him from the top down. When John finally pulls back panting, his eyes stay on Sherlock’s swollen red lips. “But it’s not.”
“Pity.”
Sherlock surges forward and captures John’s mouth again, running his tongue around his upper teeth and probing every one of its silken corners. He uses one heel to press the back of John’s knee to collapse his standing leg and bring him down with a grunt onto Sherlock’s lap. At last. Long fingers press into John’s spine and circle into the golden feathers of his hair, clutching him as tight as he can in the small space.
One hand feels blindly for the button of John’s jeans. “Sherlock…” he breathes, lifting his hips to assist.
But before Sherlock can twist his fingers, they both hear a shrill, “Woo hoo!” from the sitting room door.
“Not now, Mrs. Hudson!” Sherlock bellows.
“Got your mail here, boys. And some chocolate biscotti from a new recipe. You must give me your honest opinion!”
John rests his forehead against Sherlock’s and sighs. “Just one moment, Mrs. Hudson,” he calls, pushing himself up to a standing position.
Sherlock’s arm reflexively darts out to stop him, but John bites his lip and evades his reach. “Wash your hair,” he scolds softly, buttoning and tucking in his wrinkled shirt, then adjusting himself awkwardly in his pants, “before I scandalize myself in front of our landlady.”
He takes one last look at Sherlock, eyes sweeping him up and down like a physical touch, and disappears through the door.
By the time Sherlock emerges from his shower, John is brushing crumbs from his face. “—as excellent as the lemon poppyseed, Mrs. Hudson, really.”
She claps her hands together. “My, that’s lovely, John! Thank you, dear!” As he rounds the corner, she pegs Sherlock with a stern finger. “And what have you been up to, young man? What’s all this, then?” She wags the finger in a circle around the goo that remains affixed to the cabinetry.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “That’s nothing you need worry about, Mrs. Hudson. I’ve a terrible virus is all,” he replies coolly, reaching for the kettle, “and nary a tissue in the place.”
She jerks her hand back. “Oh, that’s vile, Sherlock.”
“Perhaps, but…” He slaps a dramatic hand to his nose, features pinched, and she takes several cautionary steps backward. “But…oh…I feel another…one…” He stumbles toward her, wheezing. “A…a sneeze…coming on…it’s…right…right…NOW!”
As he shouts hoarsely and splutters into his palm, Mrs. Hudson squeals and skitters out the door. Sherlock flicks the door closed with a smirk and takes a satisfied sip of his tea.
John shakes his head. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Sherlock’s eyebrow arches. “Should I?” He takes a deep breath and looks to the ceiling, as if considering the idea. After two seconds, he shrugs. “Nope. I’ve got nothing,” and swallows down more Earl Grey.
John slides off his stool. “God above, what have I gotten myself into?” he murmurs. He reaches up to lay a kiss on Sherlock’s cheek as he passes by, flopping down on the sofa to pick through the mail.
“Anything interesting?”
He tosses envelopes one by one. “Let’s see…Save the Coasts wants donations…you’ve been pre-approved for a Visa—I won’t tell the good people at Save the Coasts that…Carpet World has end-of-season offers…” He picks up a small package, a brown cube of cardboard absent of any writing, turning it around in his hand. “What’s this? Think Lestrade has decided to return the lip balm that you used to—?”
Sherlock snorts, “I certainly hope not. That unfortunate tube belonged to Sergeant Donovan, and if he were even marginally observant, he’d have realized I would never purchase an item with the word ‘dazzleberry’ on it.”
John flicks the lid open with his thumb.
“John?”
The doctor’s face has drained, even his lips turning a stark white. He instantly appears a frozen corpse, and the box totters out of his grip onto the coffee table.
Sherlock skids over. “What? What is it? Tell me what’s wrong.”
John’s dead eyes stare at the box.
Sherlock leans over to peek at the contents. Inside is a single wrapped candy, a crinkled gold foil with a man’s portrait on it, a man in period costume. “Is that—?“
“Mozart.” John’s voice is a wisp.
Sherlock’s brain churns:
Mozart and candy. So, Mozartkugeln, then.
Austria.
Vienna? No.
Salzburg.
Oh, God.
“He’s found me, Sherlock.” John finally turns his empty eyes toward him. “Bajzath has found me.”