Fic for horologists: Normal Life
Jun. 7th, 2013 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
holmesticemods posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
holmesticeTitle: Normal Life
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
horologists
Author:bivouack
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock, John/Mary
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, post-Reichenbach
Summary: “Tell me what you need.”
Sherlock’s lungs contract. He flops onto his back and John’s left hand rests briefly on his knee, drifting down to the damp crease of his thigh.
“Tell me what you need,” John says again.
“Nothing,” Sherlock murmurs.
Notes: Beta thanks toswissmarg. horologists, this is shorter than I was aiming for, but I hope you like it nonetheless!
“It wasn’t a hissy fit.”
The side of John’s mouth twitches.
“It wasn’t a hissy fit,” Sherlock repeats. His gaze lingers on the unlit eyes of the windows across the street. There are a few people in the park, standing or sitting down, leaning away from their late afternoon shadows, anchored against the racket of dead leaves. “It was a low grade outburst. You don’t want to see my hissy fits. Ask Mycroft.”
“I’d really rather not.” John moves in front of him, crotch at eye level, and Sherlock looks up, squinting, as John offers him his hand. “It’ll be okay.”
Platitudes normally give him a headache, but John doesn’t make them sound so vulgar. Sherlock reaches for him.
*
They stand under a sign advertising discount holidays. Wait until it clears, John says. Stand with me here a moment. Cold drills into Sherlock’s bones. John notices. He notices before Sherlock notices.
Sherlock trembles when John takes his hands and folds them inside his coat.
“You’re wearing one of my t-shirts,” Sherlock says. He doesn’t want it to stop raining. He doesn’t want to move. It would mean taking his hands off of John.
“Am I? I wasn’t sure. Nothing else was clean.”
“I don’t mind,” Sherlock says after a moment.
*
John plies Sherlock with food and Sherlock plies John with wine. It is night-time in late October. The air smells faintly of iodine. This far inland, John says. The Shard is dazzling in the failing golden light. It’s hard to look at. A mist descends as they walk back to the flat, and their breath lingers in the air, vaporous.
“I feel even more terrorised when you behave,” John says.
“Why?”
“You know why. It means you’re planning something awful or have already done something awful that I’ve yet to find out about.”
Sherlock bites the inside of his cheek and John slips his arm around his waist. Regards him mildly. “Listen. Before you disappear next time I’d like more than a text.” It’s not a request. John’s voice is soft.
“It was a very well-composed text.” Sherlock doesn’t mean to test him, but John leans away, only a little, and it’s a horrible thing. It’s the worst thing. He’s wearing that chilling, meditative expression.
“Do you trust me?” John says.
“Yes, but I wonder if you trust me.”
John is quiet. Their footsteps echo back from the tenements.
“Well,” Sherlock finally says, “at least you’re being honest. I’d expect nothing less.”
“I wish you’d tell me—more.”
“That would be opening the crypt.”
John looks at him. “Don’t smile like that.”
*
“—you don’t know what you can take on and what you can’t,” John says into his mouth, one hand on his arse, the other on the wall behind Sherlock’s head. “You don’t know how to make that distinction. In your brain. It’s like there’s—”
“—can we not—not,” Sherlock gasps as John shoves up—hard—between his legs.
“I worry about what’ll happen to you,” John pants, stripping off Sherlock’s jacket. He drops it on the floor then sweeps his hands up Sherlock’s torso. “You mean dying,” Sherlock groans, arching into John’s firm, hot palms.
“Shut up,” John mutters. Sherlock takes his wrists and steers him deeper into the room. He watches John watch the flex of his throat when he swallows.
“I worry about what’ll happen to you if I’m not there, Sherlock. What if I can’t be there?”
*
“Fuck,” John exhales, limp and very nearly awake, fingers sliding shakily through Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock lifts his head fractionally to lick John from root to tip, up and down, pulling his foreskin back to mouth at his glans: wet and long and generous. John hardens in his mouth, muttering incomprehensibly, and Sherlock touches the tip of his tongue to his frenulum, delicate, before sinking down around him.
“Sherlock, God,” John moans, body hitching into the abrupt slide of heat. His thumbs trace shivery lines along Sherlock’s temples, and he works his fingertips into Sherlock’s scalp, coaxing his head up. Sherlock makes a broken sound when John’s prick slips out of his mouth.
“I wanted to make you come like that,” Sherlock says, sleep-scratchy, bleary-eyed and rumpled. He parts his lips against the slow press of John’s tongue, smoothing his hands across John’s shoulders and upper arms, tensing as John licks the sharp edge of his jaw, licks his Adam’s apple and the hollow of his throat and the flare of his collarbone.
“Tell me what you need.”
Sherlock’s lungs contract. He flops onto his back and John’s left hand rests briefly on his knee, drifting down to the damp crease of his thigh.
“Tell me what you need,” John says again.
“Nothing,” Sherlock murmurs, flinching at the cold smear of lube. Relaxing as John’s fingers breach him. “Nothing.”
Sherlock folds his legs as John cants his hips, prick sliding across Sherlock’s backside before sinking in.
“God, you’re lovely,” John breathes, low and hot against his ear. “How much can you—?”
“All of it,” Sherlock grits. “I’m close. I’m already there.”
“Jesus,” John laughs breathlessly, and there’s a flicker of awe in his voice as he fucks Sherlock in deep, rhythmic strokes. Sherlock’s breath ripples out of him, and he lets his legs fall open as John leans back, splaying his hands just under Sherlock’s ribcage. “Oh,” Sherlock whispers, eyes glassy. He fondles the head of his cock, breath catching as his face crumples and come slicks across his belly. John lets out a gusty little whine, and Sherlock wraps his legs around him, almost boneless under the sweet wash of endorphins.
“It’s all right. Come on, John, please. Come on.”
*
Sherlock blows smoke rings and tells John about his first corpse.
“Mycroft arranged it,” Sherlock says. “It was a young woman. I remember her black hair, spread out around her face. Mycroft said, ‘I’ve shown her to you because she’s beautiful, and children should see what is beautiful.’”
John stretches and props himself up on one elbow, looking down into his face. “That’s bloody gruesome.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
2 years later
“Yeah, hold on,” John says when someone tells him he’s got a call on line two. He’s backlogged, more behind than usual. It’s Tuesday. Spring. He grabs the wrong file, realises it when he’s at the end of the hallway, and goes back.
He stops in his office and picks up the receiver. The line clicks, clicks, clicks.
“Hello?” John repeats, shoulders rounded, hair streaked grey, but whoever’s on the other end hangs up.
*
He’s taken to bicycling to work. It has more to do with diversion than exercise. He can choose a longer route home. He can choose to walk when the thought of a dark, lustreless, empty flat is worse than anything else.
The cat meets him at the door. Tail at half-mast. He refills her food bowl and pours himself a drink, standing in the middle of the kitchen, and jumps when the phone rings. A piece of ice sloshes onto the floor. When he picks up the line goes dead. From the hallway, his mobile starts to ring.
“Who is this?” he says, breathless, nauseous.
Mary’s huff of laughter crackles. “Bad day?”
“Not anymore,” he says quickly, tripping to catch up. “You left your jacket here. And a bunch of books that I tried to read but couldn’t understand.”
“I know,” she says indulgently, “but right now I’m starving and I don’t feel like eating alone tonight.”
“Good. What’re you thinking, then?”
“Anything. Everything. Order something; surprise me.”
John smiles. “Risky.”
*
He keeps Sherlock’s phone, puts it in a drawer, takes it out again. Plugs it in to charge, waits, waits.
John carries it around like a talisman. Sometimes he checks for messages he knows aren’t there, always in public, because facing down that kind of emptiness isn’t something he can do on his own.
Sherlock’s absence is unnatural. It’s wrong. Time passes, and it remains wrong, offensive, unsettling. John keeps his room tidy; he’s forgot whether or not Sherlock would appreciate it. He does it anyway. Clean sheets folded with care and precision.
*
Mary glitters, hair up, sharp and playful. He eats until he’s full and she makes him laugh until he can’t breathe, hot-faced, aching.
“Fourth-century monks had a word for it,” she says much later, in his bed, already drifting. Pillow talk with a historian. “Acedia. ‘Weariness or distress of the heart.’ Wanting to exist in a different place and a different time, tired but restless, unable to escape either body or mind.”
John looks up into the dark. Beneath the covers, he gently takes her hand, and her breathing deepens, evens out. The taste of her lingers in his mouth. He wonders what they would have in common, these two people who will never meet: both of them preoccupied with the dead.
Recipient:
horologistsAuthor:
bivouackCharacters/Pairings: John/Sherlock, John/Mary
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, post-Reichenbach
Summary: “Tell me what you need.”
Sherlock’s lungs contract. He flops onto his back and John’s left hand rests briefly on his knee, drifting down to the damp crease of his thigh.
“Tell me what you need,” John says again.
“Nothing,” Sherlock murmurs.
Notes: Beta thanks to
swissmarg. horologists, this is shorter than I was aiming for, but I hope you like it nonetheless!“It wasn’t a hissy fit.”
The side of John’s mouth twitches.
“It wasn’t a hissy fit,” Sherlock repeats. His gaze lingers on the unlit eyes of the windows across the street. There are a few people in the park, standing or sitting down, leaning away from their late afternoon shadows, anchored against the racket of dead leaves. “It was a low grade outburst. You don’t want to see my hissy fits. Ask Mycroft.”
“I’d really rather not.” John moves in front of him, crotch at eye level, and Sherlock looks up, squinting, as John offers him his hand. “It’ll be okay.”
Platitudes normally give him a headache, but John doesn’t make them sound so vulgar. Sherlock reaches for him.
*
They stand under a sign advertising discount holidays. Wait until it clears, John says. Stand with me here a moment. Cold drills into Sherlock’s bones. John notices. He notices before Sherlock notices.
Sherlock trembles when John takes his hands and folds them inside his coat.
“You’re wearing one of my t-shirts,” Sherlock says. He doesn’t want it to stop raining. He doesn’t want to move. It would mean taking his hands off of John.
“Am I? I wasn’t sure. Nothing else was clean.”
“I don’t mind,” Sherlock says after a moment.
*
John plies Sherlock with food and Sherlock plies John with wine. It is night-time in late October. The air smells faintly of iodine. This far inland, John says. The Shard is dazzling in the failing golden light. It’s hard to look at. A mist descends as they walk back to the flat, and their breath lingers in the air, vaporous.
“I feel even more terrorised when you behave,” John says.
“Why?”
“You know why. It means you’re planning something awful or have already done something awful that I’ve yet to find out about.”
Sherlock bites the inside of his cheek and John slips his arm around his waist. Regards him mildly. “Listen. Before you disappear next time I’d like more than a text.” It’s not a request. John’s voice is soft.
“It was a very well-composed text.” Sherlock doesn’t mean to test him, but John leans away, only a little, and it’s a horrible thing. It’s the worst thing. He’s wearing that chilling, meditative expression.
“Do you trust me?” John says.
“Yes, but I wonder if you trust me.”
John is quiet. Their footsteps echo back from the tenements.
“Well,” Sherlock finally says, “at least you’re being honest. I’d expect nothing less.”
“I wish you’d tell me—more.”
“That would be opening the crypt.”
John looks at him. “Don’t smile like that.”
*
“—you don’t know what you can take on and what you can’t,” John says into his mouth, one hand on his arse, the other on the wall behind Sherlock’s head. “You don’t know how to make that distinction. In your brain. It’s like there’s—”
“—can we not—not,” Sherlock gasps as John shoves up—hard—between his legs.
“I worry about what’ll happen to you,” John pants, stripping off Sherlock’s jacket. He drops it on the floor then sweeps his hands up Sherlock’s torso. “You mean dying,” Sherlock groans, arching into John’s firm, hot palms.
“Shut up,” John mutters. Sherlock takes his wrists and steers him deeper into the room. He watches John watch the flex of his throat when he swallows.
“I worry about what’ll happen to you if I’m not there, Sherlock. What if I can’t be there?”
*
“Fuck,” John exhales, limp and very nearly awake, fingers sliding shakily through Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock lifts his head fractionally to lick John from root to tip, up and down, pulling his foreskin back to mouth at his glans: wet and long and generous. John hardens in his mouth, muttering incomprehensibly, and Sherlock touches the tip of his tongue to his frenulum, delicate, before sinking down around him.
“Sherlock, God,” John moans, body hitching into the abrupt slide of heat. His thumbs trace shivery lines along Sherlock’s temples, and he works his fingertips into Sherlock’s scalp, coaxing his head up. Sherlock makes a broken sound when John’s prick slips out of his mouth.
“I wanted to make you come like that,” Sherlock says, sleep-scratchy, bleary-eyed and rumpled. He parts his lips against the slow press of John’s tongue, smoothing his hands across John’s shoulders and upper arms, tensing as John licks the sharp edge of his jaw, licks his Adam’s apple and the hollow of his throat and the flare of his collarbone.
“Tell me what you need.”
Sherlock’s lungs contract. He flops onto his back and John’s left hand rests briefly on his knee, drifting down to the damp crease of his thigh.
“Tell me what you need,” John says again.
“Nothing,” Sherlock murmurs, flinching at the cold smear of lube. Relaxing as John’s fingers breach him. “Nothing.”
Sherlock folds his legs as John cants his hips, prick sliding across Sherlock’s backside before sinking in.
“God, you’re lovely,” John breathes, low and hot against his ear. “How much can you—?”
“All of it,” Sherlock grits. “I’m close. I’m already there.”
“Jesus,” John laughs breathlessly, and there’s a flicker of awe in his voice as he fucks Sherlock in deep, rhythmic strokes. Sherlock’s breath ripples out of him, and he lets his legs fall open as John leans back, splaying his hands just under Sherlock’s ribcage. “Oh,” Sherlock whispers, eyes glassy. He fondles the head of his cock, breath catching as his face crumples and come slicks across his belly. John lets out a gusty little whine, and Sherlock wraps his legs around him, almost boneless under the sweet wash of endorphins.
“It’s all right. Come on, John, please. Come on.”
*
Sherlock blows smoke rings and tells John about his first corpse.
“Mycroft arranged it,” Sherlock says. “It was a young woman. I remember her black hair, spread out around her face. Mycroft said, ‘I’ve shown her to you because she’s beautiful, and children should see what is beautiful.’”
John stretches and props himself up on one elbow, looking down into his face. “That’s bloody gruesome.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
2 years later
“Yeah, hold on,” John says when someone tells him he’s got a call on line two. He’s backlogged, more behind than usual. It’s Tuesday. Spring. He grabs the wrong file, realises it when he’s at the end of the hallway, and goes back.
He stops in his office and picks up the receiver. The line clicks, clicks, clicks.
“Hello?” John repeats, shoulders rounded, hair streaked grey, but whoever’s on the other end hangs up.
*
He’s taken to bicycling to work. It has more to do with diversion than exercise. He can choose a longer route home. He can choose to walk when the thought of a dark, lustreless, empty flat is worse than anything else.
The cat meets him at the door. Tail at half-mast. He refills her food bowl and pours himself a drink, standing in the middle of the kitchen, and jumps when the phone rings. A piece of ice sloshes onto the floor. When he picks up the line goes dead. From the hallway, his mobile starts to ring.
“Who is this?” he says, breathless, nauseous.
Mary’s huff of laughter crackles. “Bad day?”
“Not anymore,” he says quickly, tripping to catch up. “You left your jacket here. And a bunch of books that I tried to read but couldn’t understand.”
“I know,” she says indulgently, “but right now I’m starving and I don’t feel like eating alone tonight.”
“Good. What’re you thinking, then?”
“Anything. Everything. Order something; surprise me.”
John smiles. “Risky.”
*
He keeps Sherlock’s phone, puts it in a drawer, takes it out again. Plugs it in to charge, waits, waits.
John carries it around like a talisman. Sometimes he checks for messages he knows aren’t there, always in public, because facing down that kind of emptiness isn’t something he can do on his own.
Sherlock’s absence is unnatural. It’s wrong. Time passes, and it remains wrong, offensive, unsettling. John keeps his room tidy; he’s forgot whether or not Sherlock would appreciate it. He does it anyway. Clean sheets folded with care and precision.
*
Mary glitters, hair up, sharp and playful. He eats until he’s full and she makes him laugh until he can’t breathe, hot-faced, aching.
“Fourth-century monks had a word for it,” she says much later, in his bed, already drifting. Pillow talk with a historian. “Acedia. ‘Weariness or distress of the heart.’ Wanting to exist in a different place and a different time, tired but restless, unable to escape either body or mind.”
John looks up into the dark. Beneath the covers, he gently takes her hand, and her breathing deepens, evens out. The taste of her lingers in his mouth. He wonders what they would have in common, these two people who will never meet: both of them preoccupied with the dead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-03 07:39 am (UTC)so glad you enjoyed it :)
no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 02:32 pm (UTC)John carries it around like a talisman. Sometimes he checks for messages he knows aren’t there, always in public, because facing down that kind of emptiness isn’t something he can do on his own.
I love that moment, and the suspense created by the hang-ups. I love who Mary is, that John could be with her after Sherlock's death.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-07 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-08 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-12 07:06 pm (UTC)*rolls around in the unresolved tension*
*roots around in the subtle imagery and perfect word choices*
no subject
Date: 2013-06-17 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-23 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-14 10:30 pm (UTC)