When John sees the sprawling ink on Sherlock's arms for the first time, he isn't sure what to think.
He has an outline of a small triangle, scarred into his index finger on his right hand. There's a small circle on his ring finger, and a thin line wrapped around his thumb.
When Sherlock takes off the other glove, John can see half the petals of what looks like a sunflower, scrawled in black ink.
John wonders what the rest of it looks like.
"What is it?" Sherlock asks, and John's breath hitches in his throat, caught.
"Your tattoos," he stammers out. "I didn't know you had any."
Sherlock sighs, deep in his stomach. "I have a few," he says, and leaves the room.
John nods, and feels the aching loss of Sherlock's presence, and turns the kettle on for tea.
*
The next time John sees them, it's because Sherlock throws something across the room hard enough to lodge it firmly into the wall. "Christ," he mutters, and looks around for something else.
When he throws another book, his shirt lifts up enough for John to glimpse the outline of a geometric creature sketched out along his ribs.
"An otter," Sherlock says briefly, and hurls a copy of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
John wonders why is so defensive about his tattoos, but then he sees Sherlock reaching for Watership Down, and he stops.
"That was my book," John grumbles, and passes Sherlock a book in French called Bisous: un Guide Pour L'amour. Sherlock grabs it, but sees the title tosses it gently on the couch instead.
"Not that one."
"What? Why not?" John asks, and goes to retrieve it. Sherlock is there first, and he plucks it out of John's hands.
"Because it's mine."
"The first book you threw was yours, too," John reasons. A part of him wants to push Sherlock against a wall when he acts like this.
He was still yet to decide whether that was to kiss or to throttle him. At the moment, it was the latter.
"This ones different," Sherlock replies loftily.
"You're an arse," John responds.
*
When John makes tea for Sherlock as the morning light filters through the window, he wonders about the tattoos. He wonders why they'd never even been mentioned, but then John remembers that Sherlock is an enigma, and that a lot of things were yet to be mentioned.
John likes them, he decides.
A sleep-deprived Sherlock arrives into the kitchen with a false grandness, and flops on a chair. His hair is like midnight, and there are violet circles under his eyes. "No sleep?" John asks, but he doesn't hear the answer because the sheet Sherlock had lazily wrapped himself in has fallen off his shoulders in favour of pooling around his waist.
On Sherlock's right forearm, a stylised drawing of the solar system is scrawled, like it was put there as a reminder.
'The earth orbits the sun, the earth orbits the sun,' it seemed to sing.
It was intricately and beautifully done. John wonders where Sherlock got the money, but then he decides he'd rather not know.
Just below his elbow is the sun in black ink, with dotted lines indicating the trail the planets track around it. The planets are placed in varying positions, small black circles symbolising the trepidation of the spheres.
John can see a map of what looks like London under Sherlock's arm, and tucked underneath his collarbone, folding out to his shoulder is a honeycomb tattoo. It trails along down his bicep, where it breaks off into hexagons.
God, John thinks. He hadn't known how despairingly beautiful they would make Sherlock look. Moonlight skin studded with ink. God.
"Are you looking at me, or the tattoos, John?" Sherlock asks, eyes closed and hands steepled under his chin. His bed sheet is threatening to slide off, too low for John's comfort, and he can feel heat rising up his cheeks.
"Uh," he says. "You're not - I mean, you are, um, you should - fuck - I am," he stumbles. "The tea's ready."
Sherlock smiles sadly. "I didn't know you'd like them," he murmurs. "If I had I would've let you see earlier."
He sighs, and then looks at John. "I did them myself so there is slight error. It's remarkably hard to tattoo under your own arm."
John splutters for a moment. "Yourself?"
"Yes. You don't have to lecture -"
"They're brilliant, Sherlock."
"You really think so?"
John nods, and steps forward so he can trace the honeycomb on Sherlock's shoulder. "Remarkable."
He can feel Sherlock's muscles tense up in disagreement, so he begins to pull his hand away, but Sherlock catches it in his own. "John," he says. "You really shouldn't be so obvious."
"What, that I like them?"
Sherlock shakes his head, eyes twinkling in mirth. "Do you want to see the rest?"
John's forgotten to close his mouth, and he's wondering what Sherlock's asking. "You have more?" he flounders, avoiding his gaze. "You said you only had a few." He's trying not to look at Sherlock's skin, and how it shimmers like moonlight next to the gold of the morning sun. The tattoos contrast the silver, and he can see one snaking its way down Sherlock's hipbone. "Jesus," he murmurs.
"So?" Sherlock prompts, stepping forward so John has to wrench his eyes up from the jutting bone underneath his waist. "More?"
"Uh," John says, but Sherlock is whispering in John's ear, and John can't make it out because he's distracted by the air between Sherlock's lips and his neck, but he thinks he knows the general gist of his words.
And then he's certain he does, because Sherlock's hand is reaching up his jumper, and it's cool, and soft, and his nails are dragging along John's belt.
"Sherlock," he breathes, but his eyes are closed and he knows Sherlock won't heed the warning.
"John," Sherlock responds, and tilts John's face up to meet his own. "Did you end up saying you wanted more or not? I can't say I was listening."
Sherlock looks like the human version of lust. Or, maybe John is seeing things, but he doesn't think so because he can see what Sherlock's about to -
*
When Sherlock kisses John, he tastes like mint-flavoured-cigarettes. And the rain. And hand-made tattoos.
John thinks he could drink it.
