“Oh,” Sherlock agrees, eyes never leaving John’s face as he greedily absorbs every little piece of information he can gather from the widened eyes and parted lips. Pupils dilated with surprise. Sherlock thanks whoever there is to thank that John’s eyes are just dark enough to make noticing that a challenge. Interesting. Exciting. All of this is. The little brush of tongue over lower lip indicates nervousness, as though the jump in pulse weren’t enough, as though the way his breathing has changed weren’t enough. Subtle, maybe, but Sherlock was made to notice subtlety. Where John’s concerned, he’s insatiable for it.
It’s in his eyes, in the way they flick over John’s features. Dip down here to catch the flick of tongue to wet his lips, bright and intense and green, iris nevus very visible now. One point of asymmetry. The rest of Sherlock’s face remains initially distant, distracted, intense in the tightness around the eyes and the lowering of the brows, brows which shift as the rest of Sherlock’s face shifts in response to each new bit of input. For a while they’re a feedback loop, the both of them more honest than they’ve been yet, John in the extent of his surprise and Sherlock in the depth of his ardent fascination.
What he said; it isn’t a bit good, and maybe there’s nothing else to say besides that. He suspects he could write it all up on blackboards, in the margins of some textbook, lay it down in golden inks, in blood, with the finest quills on the finest paper and the result would still only be ‘oh’.
The worst of it, of course, the unspeakable worst is that he wants to trace it all out in invisible little lines – or nearly invisible, but not quite, where his fingernail drags – over John’s skin. That guiltily he thinks he’d like to form an invisible signature with the trace of a forefinger at the base of John’s neck; in his moments of greatest grandeur, he knows he might come to suspect that canvas of bone and muscle and skin to have been crafted solely to bear his mark. And even the invisible marks are only the worst that Sherlock permits himself to entertain; below that something sinks its teeth into supple skin.
Even lower than that, and even more insistently, his own skin itches for incisors and canines. Some sort of sign, even if it’s vicious, marking the pathway of affections. Or attention, at least. Someone, once, someone as brilliant and improbably as John Watson liked him, appreciated him in some fashion. Cerebral is good. Cerebral is better than good. But oh, what might it be like if it were visceral?
Those are all idle thoughts, of course; lesser roads down which his thoughts meander, but they’re driven there by the overarching need to know. Everything, he’d said. Absolutely everything, the extent of which only the single word can’t begin to express. It’s not hyperbole.
“I already know the worst about you,” he says quietly, uncertainly. “My favourite bit. So. Not terribly good at doing things properly either, I suppose.”
He bites at his lower lip, eyes turning away, though he knows they won’t be able to stay there for long.
“Think I know the worst. Maybe I’ve missed it. Doesn’t matter; I’d like it all the same.” His brow clouds and he inhales audibly, eyes downcast as he frowns. “I won’t… you know. Hurt you. If you’re worried. Not unless you ask, anyhow. But you should... know. I expect."
no subject
It’s in his eyes, in the way they flick over John’s features. Dip down here to catch the flick of tongue to wet his lips, bright and intense and green, iris nevus very visible now. One point of asymmetry. The rest of Sherlock’s face remains initially distant, distracted, intense in the tightness around the eyes and the lowering of the brows, brows which shift as the rest of Sherlock’s face shifts in response to each new bit of input. For a while they’re a feedback loop, the both of them more honest than they’ve been yet, John in the extent of his surprise and Sherlock in the depth of his ardent fascination.
What he said; it isn’t a bit good, and maybe there’s nothing else to say besides that. He suspects he could write it all up on blackboards, in the margins of some textbook, lay it down in golden inks, in blood, with the finest quills on the finest paper and the result would still only be ‘oh’.
The worst of it, of course, the unspeakable worst is that he wants to trace it all out in invisible little lines – or nearly invisible, but not quite, where his fingernail drags – over John’s skin. That guiltily he thinks he’d like to form an invisible signature with the trace of a forefinger at the base of John’s neck; in his moments of greatest grandeur, he knows he might come to suspect that canvas of bone and muscle and skin to have been crafted solely to bear his mark. And even the invisible marks are only the worst that Sherlock permits himself to entertain; below that something sinks its teeth into supple skin.
Even lower than that, and even more insistently, his own skin itches for incisors and canines. Some sort of sign, even if it’s vicious, marking the pathway of affections. Or attention, at least. Someone, once, someone as brilliant and improbably as John Watson liked him, appreciated him in some fashion. Cerebral is good. Cerebral is better than good. But oh, what might it be like if it were visceral?
Those are all idle thoughts, of course; lesser roads down which his thoughts meander, but they’re driven there by the overarching need to know. Everything, he’d said. Absolutely everything, the extent of which only the single word can’t begin to express. It’s not hyperbole.
“I already know the worst about you,” he says quietly, uncertainly. “My favourite bit. So. Not terribly good at doing things properly either, I suppose.”
He bites at his lower lip, eyes turning away, though he knows they won’t be able to stay there for long.
“Think I know the worst. Maybe I’ve missed it. Doesn’t matter; I’d like it all the same.” His brow clouds and he inhales audibly, eyes downcast as he frowns. “I won’t… you know. Hurt you. If you’re worried. Not unless you ask, anyhow. But you should... know. I expect."