Maintaining a Personal Life

Chapter Eighteen

John hadn't been aware of drifting off, or for how long, but when he opened his eyes again it was to the distinct feeling of being watched. Upon turning his head, John was wholly unsurprised to find Sherlock propped up on one elbow and scrutinizing him closely.

"What time is it?" John asked muzzily, stifling a yawn as he scrubbed a hand over his face. The bedroom was still dark, but Sherlock's face was dimly backlit with the city lights from the window.

"I'm in love with you," Sherlock said abruptly, his voice grimly pained as though he were announcing a terminal illness. John blinked.

"And what time is that, exactly?" John replied with a quirk of his mouth upward, unable to help being struck by the utter ridiculousness of Sherlock's timing. Of course Sherlock would just blurt something like this out with no warning or context whatsoever. Of course he would. And never mind that it made John feel as though the room had just tipped sideways, because if there was one phrase he thought he would never hear pass Sherlock 'Love is a Disadvantage' Holmes' bowed lips, it was that.

"The symptoms have been present for some time, but I've only just diagnosed it properly."

"Diagnosed—Sherlock, it's not a disease," John said with a soft chuckle that was infused with a great deal of affection for this beautiful, brilliant idiot that he'd somehow managed to find his life tangled up with. John shifted over onto his side to face Sherlock. It was difficult to make out the exact expression on his shadowed face, but Sherlock's entire demeanour was troubled and John regarded him with a thoughtful frown as realization dawned upon him. "Is this what's got you so worked up?"

"I'm not worked up," Sherlock said with a petulant scowl that John could hear in his voice, and a smile bloomed brightly across John's face as he looked at Sherlock. "You're smiling. What are you smiling for?"

"Come here," John murmured, reaching out to slip his hand behind the back of Sherlock's neck and draw their mouths together. He wasn't sure that he would ever get over the thrill of being able to kiss that mouth whenever he wanted, to press those plush lips against his own after years of staring at them wantonly every time Sherlock wet them with his tongue or caught them absently between his teeth. John ran his tongue greedily over Sherlock's full bottom lip, waiting until his lips parted in invitation before delving deeper.

He could feel the tension begin to bleed out of Sherlock slowly as John kissed him, the rigid line of his shoulders relaxing by increments. John's fingers steadily kneaded the back of Sherlock's neck and gradually slipped up into his hairline. Sherlock breathed out a low hum of something a bit like contentment, before drawing away just a fraction.

"You don't mind, then?" Sherlock asked in quiet voice that was laced with uncertainty, that subtle poison of doubt that always found a way to taint everything if left to linger too long.

"Of course not," John said with a frown, and Sherlock's uneven breath was hot against John's lips where his mouth still hovered.

"If it bothers you, I suppose I could—"

"Sherlock—" John cut him off, peering up at Sherlock incredulously. "You really don't know?"

John could almost sense rather than see Sherlock blinking rapidly in that way he had when he was particularly flummoxed. Goddammit, he was going to make John say it.

He used to think that this brilliant magician of a man, who could read John's whole life in the way John carried himself and the marks on his phone, would one day take one look at John's face and coolly deduce that he was a lovesick idiot. But despite his otherworldly intellectual powers, Sherlock was only human and had proved time and again to have a blind spot a mile wide when it came to John. It was as though the depth of what John felt for him escaped Sherlock's comprehension completely, despite the several occasions upon which John had already tried to make it clear.

John swallowed hard and shut his eyes briefly, because somehow in the absolute darkness behind his eyelids it was much easier to admit certain things. The sentiment that he always found such difficulty giving voice to finally scraped past his lips in a hoarse whisper, "I love you, you blind git."