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Sherlock felt divine against him.
John really shouldn’t be thinking about that but, unfortunately, he was. In his defence, there was not much else he could do, being sandwiched between a wall and the perfectly flat expanse of sinewy chest that belonged to his flatmate. Never mind that between said chest and himself were many layers of clothes. John was painfully aware of Sherlock’s muscles as they tensed and flexed, battle-ready, his right arm raised and almost half-embracing John as it effectively kept him in place.
The alley in which they were hiding was narrow and brief. It had only taken three strides—Sherlockian strides, anyway—to bump with the unmoving brick wall that had trapped them like rats. Likewise, it had only taken a graceful twist of the consulting detective’s torso to pin John against a wall and trap him in a world of Sherlock.
Not for the last time, he tried to shy away. Sherlock reacted by pressing closer.
Goddammit. “Sherl—”
Sherlock hushed him. “Be quiet, John.”
“Move a bit.” John whispered. It sounded obscenely pornographic. For his own sake, he clarified, “Back. Move back a bit. I need space—”
“For God’s sake, John,” Sherlock rolled his eyes and lowered his face until their foreheads were brushing. He was obviously trying to be dramatically intimidating, but was achieving to make John feel things he shouldn’t be feeling. “There’s a place and time for everything and this is certainly not the place or time to be whinging about personal space, so do shut up.”
Nagging done, Sherlock looked over his shoulder. John couldn’t picture what he was glaring at with such intensity. The thought of Sherlock glaring at sundried clay was just dumb. Inhaling sharply, Sherlock moved closer still, something John had thought was impossible because Sherlock was already close enough to merge their atoms into one entity.
John drowned a whimper. He was having a heart attack. They had been chasing murderous lunatic twins and their minions for the past hour or so and John was, with Sherlock acting as a human shield and crowding him so thoroughly against a wall, feeling really bi-curious at the moment. He wanted to blame it on the adrenaline rush. It always made him feel hot and bothered at the worst of times.
Sherlock’s jaw clenched and unclenched. John fixed his eyes on the small movement, the massater muscle that connected jaw to cheekbone contracting and creating a lovely little lump in Sherlock’s complexion. He wanted to trace that small lump with his fingertips.
A noise, distant enough to mean no imminent threat, made his living shield tense and swallow. John’s eyes drifted down to Sherlock’s apple. It was only natural that they fluttered to the graceful curve of the carotid then, which pulsed with Sherlock’s life and exhilaration. John felt something in the pit of his stomach coil, hot and primal in its urgency to ravish, conquer, own.
“I’m so done,” he said, feeling like gelatine in the middle of an earthquake.
“We won’t die, John. Stop fussing.”
He wanted to giggle hysterically at that. Death was the least of his concerns right at that moment. He was having an identity crisis because he may be a straight Londoner bloke, but when it came to Sherlock he was apparently the biggest poof to have ever hidden in a closet. And he didn’t want to come out of the closet because he wasn’t a hundred per cent sure yet, not really.
But Sherlock was still pressed against him and he radiated warmth and smelt like experiments and milk tea and John could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed and please, God better help him because he was getting a boner just by thinking all these things. And the obvious natural response of his body to being excited wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Sherlock was flush against him and was sodding well going to notice he was hard and what that entailed.
John continued to quietly freak out inside his mind. He tried to shift his hips to make his erection as unnoticeable as possible, to press it between his thighs or angle it so that Sherlock didn’t accidentally brush it, but it obviously ended up being the worst decision he ever made because at that point Sherlock decided to shift as well—and froze in bafflement. John looked away awkwardly.
Sherlock looked down at him, impressed. “Didn’t know you brought your gun.”
That was it. This was the brilliant consulting detective that sassed at police officers and stared down his nose at royalty. This was the intrepid man who solved crimes and disbanded mafias every day without batting an eyelash. This was the genius who couldn’t tell an engorged penis from a British Browning L9A1.
John knew then and there that his life was one big, bloody joke.
“I didn’t,” John snapped. His face felt like a bonfire.
At first, nothing happened. There was a short silence in which he dared a glance at Sherlock’s face. It was slightly furrowed in incomprehension. Then it clicked and his eyes, two drops of liquid crystal, flew open in shock. Sherlock’s mouth shaped into a small “o” for a few long seconds and then he went back to being calm and collected. But his face was twitching and his cheeks had turned an angry pink that contrasted terrifically with his pale skin.
John wanted to crawl into a hole and die, or travel back in time and get killed in Afghanistan. Anything but this level of awkwardness. Embarrassments as big as this were supposed to happen when you were young and stupid and then leave you well alone after you turned thirty. Twenty-five if you were mature. Forty if you had Peter Pan Syndrome.
“Well,” started Sherlock, staring at a point somewhere above John’s head. The lack of eye contact was both a blessing and an insult. John wanted to deck him in the face. “In that case, I deduce—”
“Shut up!” he interrupted. “Just shut up, Sherlock!”
For Christ’s sake, he didn’t need to hear it. Not from Sherlock or anyone. He just needed Sherlock to remain stoic and detached and aloof as usual and just brush off his irritably human and carnal reaction, not fucking blush and mumble about it. John could feel his face burning a thousand shades of red and he squirmed against Sherlock at his outburst, which only made him feel like his skin had caught on fire in the places where their bodies made contact.
Suddenly, they heard the stomping of feet getting closer. John covered his mouth with a hand and shut his eyes. How stupid of him, to lose his temper like that and put both of them in danger. Yelling in a narrow alley, where his voice would echo and sound ten times louder. He felt like the idiot Sherlock always accused him of being.
Angry men shouted at each other as they tried to find them. John tried to shove Sherlock off and do something, maybe find an object and wield it as a weapon, but his face got cupped by two hands gloved in leather and suddenly all he could see was Sherlock and his piercing eyes.
John made to pull away, a strangled growl in the back of his throat, and jumped in surprise when he felt soft lips brush against his. A wiry hip rubbed his side and, in spite of the layers of fabric separating their skins, John felt Sherlock’s erection. His throat went dry and his eyes fell to Sherlock’s lips, pale and elegant as they curled into a wanton grin.
“Later,” Sherlock promised.
“God, yes.”