Work Text:
The needle bites into John’s arm with a bright, precise sting.
He watches the artist’s gloved hand move, listens to the electric buzz, and feels each puncture spark beneath his skin. Pain blooms, fades, returns. Tiny flashes travel up his nerves, making his fingers curl against the chair.
Every spark becomes Sherlock.
A kiss pressed beneath his ear while London rain dried on their coats. Teeth grazing his lower lip after a case. Sherlock’s mouth finding his in the kitchen at three in the morning, impatient and certain, because John had nearly been shot and neither of them could bear another unsaid thing.
The design takes shape: a memory translated into ink, fixed where John can carry it. Can see it when he's not home. It's not a monument to danger or grief, but proof of survival. Proof that they found each other, lost each other, and chose each other again.
His phone vibrates on the tray beside him.
I will bestow 221 kisses on your body. I love you forever. SH.
John reads it twice.
The needle touches down again. Another spark catches under his skin, and this one spreads warmly through his chest. John smiles, already imagining Sherlock counting each kiss, losing count somewhere around his ribs, and beginning again from the very first kiss. Until John cannot breathe.