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The following afternoon, Sherlock opens the refrigerator to check an on-going experiment. On the shelf above it is a small box with a yellow post-it on. Stiff paper, the sort from a bakery, and tied with ribbon. The post-it reads: For Sherlock.
The handwriting is unequivocally John’s.
Sherlock knows what’s in the box. He’s the furthest thing from stupid - of course he knows what’s in the box. He closes the fridge door. Countless minutes later, he realizes he forgot his experiment.
He opens the fridge door.
He looks at the box and the post-it with John’s handwriting.
He takes out his experiment. Half an hour later, he puts it back.
He looks at the box. His mouth is watering, his stomach empty.
There are implications here.
There are implications to taking a frankly phallic length of pastry and opening his mouth wide. There are ramifications in the burst of creme against his tongue, eased out lick by lick and swallowed. And certainly to sucking off the chocolate.
Sherlock takes the box and startles at the first touch. He opens it and finds it not quite as empty as the negligible weight would imply. A second post-it lies inside. Just a thought, it reads.
Sherlock’s mouth waters. What for, he’s not sure.
When at long last John returns from the surgery, Sherlock is on the sofa, restless and strange. John wanders in, shrugs off his jacket and tosses it on his armchair. He doesn’t look at Sherlock, merely pads into the kitchen and opens the fridge.
Sherlock hears him close the fridge. He shuts his eyes at the sound. He must lie serene and undisturbed. This isn’t an issue. This is what John wants. Sherlock, frankly, couldn’t care less. Like all matters of transport, it doesn’t matter.
John doesn’t return to the sitting room. Sherlock waits, but John doesn’t come back. Is John checking the box? No, it’s obviously been opened, why would he take this long to see that? He wants to shout, but that would involve John looking at him.
Because Sherlock has a will of titanium and John one of mere iron, John gives in first. John pads into the sitting room, empty box in hand. “What do you think?” John asks. The question is jarringly casual.
Sherlock twists to look at him, also casual. He rattles off the name of the bakery, the name of the head pastry chef, and twenty-seven unnecessary details.
John answers, “No, I was actually talking about baked goods. And, y’know, eating them. If you like.”
Sherlock gazes at him levelly.
“Then you’re offering,” Sherlock concludes. Not a question.
“Suppose so,” John replies.
Sherlock pretends that he has not spent the previous three hours and forty-six minutes considering this possibility. He considers ten seconds longer. “All right.”
John smiles, crosses the sitting room in the wrong direction and picks up his jacket. “C’mon, then.”
Very slowly, Sherlock blinks.
Pulling on his jacket, John strides to the door and looks at Sherlock expectantly. “You are coming, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Sherlock replies. One syllable, full of dignity and grace. He is not remotely flustered. Nor has he been caught off guard. Because John wasn’t, John was not talking about a pastry. John could not be talking about a pastry. Because he wasn’t.
All the same, Sherlock stands up and puts on his coat. Even so, Sherlock follows John down the stairs and out the door. Nonetheless, he makes vague sounds while John makes idle comments about his day at work. They walk for blocks, side-by-side.
Sherlock works out the destination before he sees it. John holds the door for him, a bell chiming. Sherlock walks inside, automatically cataloging the contents behind the glass display, the scents in the air, the number of small tables and chairs.
He waits for John’s hand at the small of his back. He waits for John to say something or do something. Something besides what he does, besides going up to the display without a glance to his flatmate, hands clasped behind his back.
This isn’t right.
Sherlock joins John at the display, not looming or crowding. He looks down through the glass and sees John’s reflection lick its lips, eyes meandering across tarts and flakes of pastry pretending to be more than conveyors of lush, dripping chocolate.
“Still want that eclair?” John asks, head tilted toward him.
“Yes,” he answers. His timing is entirely respectable. His voice is its usual low pitch. Everything is fine.
“Right,” John says, “I’m still trying to decide. Lot of options here.”
Sherlock makes a vague humming sound from the back of his throat. John moves away abruptly, going to the next display over, the open one, and fetching a bottle of water. He moves to the till after and says a few words to the woman behind it, smiling.
Sherlock stares very hard at the bakery display. Twenty-three seconds later, there’s a nudge at his upper arm. John. John with a plate in one hand and a water bottle in the other. On the plate is a chocolate eclair with a snowfall of powered sugar.
“You’re having one too?” Sherlock hears himself ask.
“No,” John says, “this is for you.” John hands him the cool plate of fake china.
“You’re not having anything?” Sherlock asks. Two stupid questions in a row, what is wrong with him today?
John shrugs, his expression a blend of pursed lips and ambivalence. “Think I might get something to take away, after. Had a bigger lunch than I thought. Sit?” He nods toward a small table by the window, or rather the window of a wall. Sherlock nods.
John fits in the small space. Sherlock doesn’t, his legs either crammed beneath the table and between John’s feet or straddling it, thighs spread wide. Or both, one foot into John’s space, the other leg a stretched barrier between John and the room.
Sherlock settles on this third way. Despite the treat before him, his mouth is dry. John uncaps the water bottle and sips, eyes distant over Sherlock’s shoulder, but John is still going to watch. To see, certainly, as Sherlock eats. Oddly terrifying.
There are so many ways for an eclair to go wrong. The creme leaking through, spilling over fingers and onto hapless trouser legs. A poorly timed inhale turning powered sugar into a coughing fit. Traces of chocolate discovered across the face.
John is looking out the window, sipping his water. Sherlock is being ridiculous. He steadies himself - needlessly, obviously, as there is nothing to steady himself for - and picks up his pastry. Which John did pay for, didn’t he? That doesn’t matter.
The pastry has heft. The warm scent of it brings his tongue to his lips for all the eclair itself is chilled. He balances it in his hand, keeping his fingertips out of the chocolate. Eyes downcast, not looking at John, he opens his mouth wide.
The first taste is always the trickiest. Bite too hard, hold too tightly, and the eclair can burst. It’s a messy indulgence, this. Gently, just so, the first burst of creme eased into rather than sought headlong. The eclair is thick, overstuffed.
After the first swallow of pastry comes the entertaining bit, flicks and licks of tongue to tease out the filling. He adjusts his grip, angling the eclair slightly downwards, the better to guide into his mouth. And chocolate, the chocolate now.
It’s gorgeous. Rich and cloying, almost sickening with the sheer amount of sugar hitting his system at once, yet pastry and creme and chocolate reach a balance against his tongue, taste and texture soft and smooth. And John is watching.
Sherlock doesn’t dare glance up from his endeavor, but John is surely watching. Why else do this? Why else bring him here and buy him this? Why else plant the box in the first place? John is watching, must be; Sherlock can feel blue eyes on his face.
He’s expecting a word or a touch, something, anything. Beneath the cramped table, their legs aren’t so much as touching, this when John could be doing so much. There’s no drag of a shoe up his trouser leg, no teasing pressure against knee or toe.
This complete and utter lack, it isn’t like John. Except for the ways in which it is. Deliberate or accidental? No contact, a table of this size? Deliberate, must be. Or unconscious, John’s very body believing that Sherlock is not to be touched.
But surely John is watching. John must be watching, why else would…. There’s nothing else for it. Sherlock will have to look up. Sherlock will look at the only person who can stand him months on end and hope not to look like a fool. Sherlock looks.
John is staring. More precisely, John is staring out the window. Quite fixedly. His expression is one of dumb fascination, though it changes to amusement as Sherlock watches. What can possibly be more important than Sherlock, than Sherlock right now?
Sherlock glares out the fucking window, out at pedestrians and cars, buses and taxis, and there is nothing, there is nothing remotely important or out of the ordinary out there. No one is being vulnerable or idiotic- No, they’re all idiotic.
And John, stupid John, John makes this sound like a snort turned into a cough. It’s an ugly, horrid sound, matched only by the fact that John is grinning and trying not to grin, but nevertheless amused at the goings-on outside the fucking window.
Sherlock follows John’s line of sight, still glaring, and after a long moment of aggravation, John shifts his leg and steps lightly on Sherlock’s foot. Sherlock’s eyes refocus on the window, the window itself, and John’s reflection therein.
John gazes back at him, transparent in the glass, transparent in so many ways. Sherlock’s stomach drops. He’s dizzy, his circulation confused as blood attempts a dual rush to his face as well as below. He drops, no, places the eclair onto his plate.
Though John is immediately in front of him, there is no looking directly at him. Sherlock wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, clearly the reaction of a man who has no plan of action whatsoever. He should look away. He can’t look away.
Yet John can. His eyes focus on some point across the street. He presses down on Sherlock’s foot just slightly harder, a firm pressure, and brings the water bottle to his lips. The bottle is half empty. John swings it up, head tilting, neck bared.
It should be crass and obvious. Crude. It should be any number of things that would put Sherlock off immediately. There’s no posturing or eye contact. No deep swallows or hums of pleasure. There’s no licking or hollowed cheeks, no droplet escaping.
There’s John, drinking water. Perfunctory, direct, no nonsense. The angles of his hand, the bottle and his neck are all necessary. His swallows are slow and even, though - he assumes - not carefully timed. John finishes with a small exhale, a sigh.
John lowers the water bottle to the table, plastic uncrinkling. In the window, John’s reflection catches his eye. The corners of his mouth pull up. Sherlock’s stomach reports the presence of far too much rich food. It is absurdly hot in this bakery.
The smile ends, John looks away, and nothing happens. Sherlock is fully prepared to fall out of his chair. There’s dizzy, and there’s aroused, and apparently, there is also dizzy-and-aroused, and this is a problem the likes of which he hasn’t known.
Slowly, achingly, his problem fades. His mouth is dry. He might be experiencing internal tremors. When he looks down at the contents of his plate, he can’t comprehend the act of eating or of wanting to eat. He doesn’t want the eclair any longer.
“Are you going to finish that?” John asks, as if the answer weren’t clear across Sherlock’s flushed face or in the dilation of his eyes. Sherlock knows the signs. He knows he must be obvious. Though but a blank book, he’s open all the same.
Curt, Sherlock shakes his head rather than trust his voice. John looks at him across the table but Sherlock continues to watch the window. Direct is too direct.
“Water?” John offers, pushing the bottle across the table. “That was a lot of chocolate.”
Sherlock takes the bottle and chugs. Simply throws his head back and finishes it off. No finesse, all rush, and he gasps at the end as the sweetness in his mouth begins to fade. The empty plastic bottle goes on the table. John’s foot is still on his.
It takes Sherlock a moment, but he does meet John’s gaze. As if this signals the end of some unheard conversation, John briskly says, “Right then, I’ll get you a box for that, shall I?” He gets up and goes to the counter, unimpeded by errant biology.
John returns with the box. The remainder of the eclair goes in the box. John waits for Sherlock to stand. Sherlock does, grateful for his long coat regardless of the heating issue. John opens the door on the way out, the box in his other hand.
They walk without talking. John seems to be fine with this. The box is in John’s right hand and his left swings free between them. Is that an offer? It might be an offer. Does John hold hands? Does Sherlock hold hands? He doesn’t think he does.
The longer they walk, the more Sherlock reconsiders. It can’t be that difficult. He didn’t put his gloves back on after the bakery, his fingers too sticky for them. That wouldn’t be good, would it, holding hands with sticky fingers? Best not.
They reach Baker Street, still without a word. Quietly, secretly, Sherlock begins to experience something vaguely akin to panic. Was this a date? Did they just have a date? Did Sherlock just miss a date that he was actually there for? This is absurd.
Sherlock unlocks the door. It would be the perfect moment for John to do something. Or this, here, going inside. Up the stairs. Into the sitting room. Coats off. Into the kitchen. Box into the fridge. Back into the sitting room. Any moment now. John?
Sherlock doesn’t realize he’s said the name aloud until John turns, unhunching from where he’s picking up his laptop. “Yeah?” John asks. His tongue comes out to taste the word.
Sherlock forces out words of his own: “What was the occasion? For today.”
John shrugs with one shoulder, the right. “Nothing really. I guess I just like watching you enjoy yourself.” He smiles a little, as if this isn’t important, as if this sort of statement is an example of normalcy. He sits and opens his laptop.
Sherlock stands there for a blank moment before turning on his heel. He goes to the loo and runs the tap. He dries his hands thoroughly. He returns to the sitting room and says, “John.”
John looks up, careful and calm and terrifyingly his. He closes his laptop and sets it aside. Sherlock sits beside him, aimed at the smaller man, one leg folded beneath his body. John sets his hand upon Sherlock’s thigh, a warm palm upturned. Sherlock fits his fingers there, watching as he does so.
When he looks up, John’s eyes have changed. They’re dark and shining deep. It’s not a smile. There isn’t a word for this.
“I’m going to kiss you,” John states. A fact. A declaration of the inevitable.
“True,” Sherlock confirms.
Threading their fingers, John lifts their hands. John ducks his head, drops his mouth, drops touches of lips against skin. There’s a shout in Sherlock’s throat, irritation that never fully forms. He feels, then observes and so he doesn’t quite react.
The instinct to challenge is there, ready to rise, to demand that John go forward, move faster, push harder. He wants to shout that he isn’t fragile, nor is he weak or somehow broken for his inexperience: he is unquestionably a man, grown and proud.
And then he observes. John’s focus. The difference between reverence and care, the extreme gulf between being placed upon a pedestal and being savored. John kisses his hand and nips his fingers and, god, this. Just this. This and more.
He means to pull, winds up tugging. His mouth to John’s hand now, the same motions, a sharper attention to detail. Both of his hands, his fingers encircling John’s tan wrist, and drawing a solitary digit into his mouth earns him copious praise.
He sucks, gently at first, then cheeks hollowing. He watches John’s face. He has known for years that there is power in this, but he has never before felt it. Not until John’s mouth is open, his eyes hooded. Enraptured. This is the word.
He releases John’s hand to reach for better. In an instant, a palm cups his neck. John’s back is solid beneath his hand, warmth and wonderment. This is what the human body feels like when it is alive and meant to be touched. He hadn’t known.
John can aim. He guides them in and tilts them together, noses brushing rather than bumping. Breath against his lips. Lips against his lips. They’re chapped. Sherlock waits for the inevitable touch of John’s ever-peeking tongue and there, it happens.
This is wet and warm and utterly indulgent. He nudges into John’s mouth, jumping towards control, and John pulls him closer. John lies back and Sherlock presses him down, lies on top, and oh. Oh. This is what the fuss was about.
They kiss until their lips are bruised, until Sherlock’s forearms fall asleep from the weight upon his elbows. They break apart for air, only for that. John’s hands never leave his back and Sherlock hopes to be found as solid as the man beneath him.
There should be something to say, Sherlock thinks when he lays his head down upon John’s shoulder. The right shoulder, uninjured. They breathe into each other, chests rising and falling in the gaps left by the other. Slowly, he finds the words.
“Do you want the rest of the eclair?” he asks.
The fingertips tracing his spine slow, circle, then resume their former speed. “That sounds nice,” John answers. The rumble of his words travels through their skin, sound transformed into warmth.
Flexing sleeping fingers, Sherlock settles his cheek against John’s jumper. Nothing is urgent or pressing. Even the experiment in the fridge can wait another hour. Until then, he thinks he’ll simply stay here, being happy.
John clearly agrees.