[khayal]

No Title No.1

Author: milk is love
Beta: нужна
Fandom:Sherlock BBC
Characters: John, Sherlock, Jim, Sebastian, minor Sarah, Irene, John's shrink, whats-her-name-again
Categories: slash, het
Genres: agsty
Warnings: ALIEN ENGLISH, male on male, het, mentions of cunt, my men are emo
Word count: 1811
Challenges: none
Summary: pre- and post-Reichenbach
алсо, у меня плохо с цифрами, я не помню, сколько Уотсон служил, посему присунула пять лет

blame [J]виски танго[/J] for this

ffuu

Captain John Watson is used to having second best. Never demanding anything, always grateful for whatever small miracles god sends his way. There are good days and bad days, though, the latter being particularly memorable because of his wrecked quadricep pulsing and throbbing underneath the too-tight skin, sending sharp tremors all over his tired body. At days like that he's too busy cussing the nameless bastard who got away carrying a pack of shotgun cartridges identical to the little bitch that tore his thigh. In no way is he capable of celebrating the ability to breathe when the only thing he wants is to chew on a gun barrel.
Then, somewhere between one restless hour and another, comes the thought of losing what little he has, like watching a random war movie and puking his guts out, following with barks of laughter that leave him hollow and blessedly blank, pushing on his throbbing knee to call Harry and ask if she wants to go get a tea shot with him.
The fear of waking up to the sound of bullet broaching his insides somehow dulls the physical ache, and John immediately finds himself thankful for any turn of events that eventually led to him being what and where he is, even if it means waking up on sweat-soaked sheets, panting like a fucking marathoner.
It never occurs to him that he could survive Afghanistan without getting extra holes. He's not that lucky, after all.
Sometimes, touching himself in the cramped warmth of shower cubicle, he thinks of a random woman he saw on the street, imagines his hand sliding up the inside of her thigh, curving his callused fingers in the moist heat of her cunt, and wonders if this is happiness. He's afraid to find out it is.

When Sherlock Holmes brings his mundane life to a halt, it's not a process, more like an afterthought, a second after avalanche stops its absorbing pace. A wonderful, ringing silence with just a hint of irrevocability. John finds himself hoping for something of a higher class possibilities, and he doesn't do that kind of hoping. The little alarm in his head, the one that saved his life more that once during his five-year right of way, goes crazy, and for the first time in his life he shuts it down without second thoughts.
Sherlock is everything John Watson isn't. Tall, lithe, all lean muscle. Confident, arrogant, prissy. Gifted to the point of genious.
And extremely, dangerously unadapted.
It is the last one that bones him, the mere thought of someone so exceptional getting actual benefits from having John Watson around makes him giddy in all sorts of happy ways, not that he's ready to acknowledge.
John stitches his cuts, sets his joints, makes his tea - additional sugar, no point in keeping warm as it seldom gets its way to the core of one consulting detective's being anyway. John is not delusional enough to believe Sherlock won't be content without him sticking, except maybe he is. Proclaimed functional sociopath learned the basis of social functioning, knows a moment to drop some reassuring remark to make John believe he's in need of established human interactions. In need of friendship.
John gets this chill every time he sees the chance to claim their undying affection, and his stomach sort of clenches when Sherlock glances his way, silent, smirking without actually moving a muscle, and not denying anything.
Sometimes John Watson wonders when he'd become such a fucking wuss.
The first time he thinks of a man while engaging in his usual shower routine has nothing to do with Sherlock himself. Like, at all. He's beat, his mind is confused, he's had a very long day in the company of Lestrade and his retards - John stops himself to rethink, clenching his balls with a start almost violently, then drops his hand with a suffered moan and turns the water off. He's sure he won't survive a cold shower right then, but some time later, still painfully hard, he squeezes his eyes shut and almost regrets his cowardice.
The next time he deliberately thinks of Sherlock right in the middle of a tight stroke, imagines his high-curved ass and grabby fingers, recalls his lips and makes them pout, then part. Sees the edge of teeth glistening, tongue darting to moist them, and comes, cupping himself so he wouldn't spatter the tile.
Some time later he wraps a towel around his hips, noticing them become wider without much motor activity, goes downstairs and makes tea for two. When he enters the adjacent bedroom, gingerly navigating two steaming cups, still wearing nothing but a towel, Sherlock stays silent. In fact, he doesn't even look up, engrossed in whatever he finds on John's laptop, so his teacup ends up on the nightstand, not once acknowledged, and John covers the short path to his own room for the second time that evening. He's relieved. No one could tell he didn't try.

A considerable amount of weeks passes by, he finds himself in bed with Sarah, staring her down, buried deep within her contracting hole, inches from a tiny pool of sweat between her breasts, and then, abruptly, thinking about buying three packs of milk for two. It wouldn't pass for a dirty metaphor in a better universe. Sarah wriggles her hips, he resumes moving, thinking of nothing in particular.

When Irene Adler, The Woman, comes, he doesn't hate her. She's gorgeous, if a bit worn out under all that lush, but that, John thinks, comes with the job.
Apart from being striking, she's plainly smart, which, on a woman of that calibre - yes, gorgeous. Too much, even. She kind of... strokes John's fancy, but as soon as she opens her mouth, dusting a rim of well-groomed teeth with all shades of blood, he stops desiring her and starts apprehending.
Sherlock, he notices with a sinking feeling, is confused, and he's never confused. That woman is so sure that she's the prima donna of every twisted fantasy a man could have whatsoever, that it seriosly starts to affect. Again, maybe she is.

It appears in no time that Irene Adler is not the only prima, alpha or whatever in this story, and, sensing her perplexity, he feels smug on Sherlock's behalf and slowly, carefully approves of her.
Then she dies, and he's grateful for no trace of relief among the sadness he feels.

Then it's Sherlock who's dead, and that's just. No. John's mind doesn't compute, revolving around the thought with all the helplessness in the world. After two years of abstinence he calls his shrink and finds that she's no longer a grounding presence, more like a blurred target he wants to lard with grapeshot. He takes calming breaths instead and forces himself to talk, regainig his military bearing with every passing hour just to have something to hide behind.
One day he absently notices she's attractive. Five minutes in he goes down on her, removing a heap of lace to find a barely stained sanitary pad, smelling like untreated wound. After licking her out and wiping sticky fingers with one of the tissues she's keeping for particularly intense baring he heads home and finds out they'd been robbed.
He's laughing so hard it feels like crying, and barely flinches from a hand landing on his injured shoulder. He knows it's Lestrade, who else would it be, so he doesn't turn and, for a change, lets himself hope and demand all at once, just for a little while.



Colonel Sebastian Moran is too busy taking what he wants to consider hoping. Refusal is just not an option, and he makes sure to plaster a little reminding note to the forehead of every bastard who has an opinion on the matter. Sometimes with a bullet. He's not that good at talking, see.
He's used to taking the small favours when they come his way without questioning any of them, as long as nothing rubs his spidey sense. Point is, everything seems suspicious in one way or another, but life is just more fun that way.
This little jumpy twink who wags his ass under Moran's nose for two weeks in a row and somehow manages to escape the scene seconds before he's an ounce heavier is plain disturbing, so when he finally grounds the bitch and instead of killing him skins the wriggling feeble naked, he blames the general mess of the last few days and a sprinkle of something akin to satisfaction in goggled eyes in front of his own. Two holes that suddenly lose their spooked deer gauze and tear his ribs out.
He extends two fingers, spits on them, almost missing, and shoves his palm behind bitch's lukewarm balls, baring his teeth at the pained intake of breath. Squint forces an "easy, tiger" between heavy pants and gets a well-earned punch in the gut. The next thing Moran knows he's sitting with his hands chained to a pipe, naked except for a Leicester Tigers t-shirt. Squint sits in front of him, looking perky and unabashed, and that's how Sebastian Moran meets Jim Moriarty.

People seem to think Jim has some kind of evil plan. The truth is he doesn't. He sort of goes with the flow. That's the raw beauty of it, he likes to say, a room for improvisation. When he realises no one's really into this sort of dancing he gets this stricken expression of a man who suddenly finds himself the last sentient being on either side of Milky Way. Before meeting Jim he never fully gets the concept of being lonely. That is one of the few things he learns from a person who isn't really willing to teach him anything.
The second thing Moriarty teaches him is a pleasure of submission. There's nothing humiliating in obeying someone superior, he says, putting an ice cold barrel against Moran's sack. And there's always someone superior, he adds, with that mix of malice and dreaminess only he manages to pull off.
So when Moriarty orders him to watch, he obeys. Not once does his gun sight waver, but this one time the familiar weight of warm steel leaves him faintly sick to stomach. When a mess that used to be Jim's nemesis is picked from the pavement, he starts to pack, calm as ever, his sight never leaving the ground.

The only thing that makes Moriarty look at him twice is his limited exceptionality. It partially countervails the fact that he is as ordinary a psychopath as one can be. It makes him bearable, but it doesn't make him sufficient. So not once does Moran think Moriarty will stay.
It's hope he once allows himself between a random sally and a ragged four-hour sleep that damages him in the end.