Chapter Text
xxvii.
Two days after, Jim blows in like a gale force wind, tossing his tailored jacket over a chair and singing out a greeting at the top of his lungs. “Hel-lo, darling!” He swings John into a warm, energetic kiss and pulls off with an exaggerated mwah!. “I hope the help’s treating you all right?”
John processes the well-worn fit of Jim’s body to his own, the familiar cologne filling his nostrils, and skips from startlement to fury in two seconds. It’s as though the past three days of deliberate stress-release haven’t happened. “We’ve had wild shags in four rooms so far,” he snarls against Jim’s mouth, ignoring Moran’s strangled cough from the sitting room. He’ll have to buy the man a good bottle of apology whiskey, later.
“Only four?” Jim chirps. “Can I watch you christen the rest?”
“Don’t tempt me.” John sets his hands on Jim’s shoulders and pushes him away. Surprisingly, Jim goes without a fuss. “Are you out of your bloody mind?” John hisses, lowering his voice even though they’re well past caring whether Moran hears them fighting. “Blowing up bits of London? Really?”
Jim just chuckles, bouncing on his heels, thoroughly pleased. “My opening act. Suitably dramatic, I thought, considering.”
John stares at him, aghast. “Jesus, that wasn’t—opening act? Meaning, what, you’ve got more bombs set?”
It gets him a sweet smile, the kind that crinkles Jim’s eyes. “That would be telling,” Jim tuts, reaching for John’s hands. “Oh, honey, it’s going to get so much better before I’m done. Just you wait.”
Christ. It’s like having a cat—right down to the hissing, clawing, and dropping dead things at John’s feet like Father Christmas on delivery day. John wraps his fingers around Jim’s and squeezes hard, trying to get his attention. “Jim, please. Will you listen to me? Whatever game you’re playing, for whatever reason, you know I don’t care, just don’t do anyth—”
Jim stops him with a kiss. It’s rubbish, just a quick mash of lips with no finesse. John splutters to an awkward halt mid-word, surprised and annoyed, even more so when Jim chucks him gently under the chin. “You really are adorable when you worry about me,” he confides. And, to Sebastian: “Isn’t he just?”
Moran’s on his way out, bag slung over his shoulder. He shoots a dry look at John as he passes by. “Adorable,” he deadpans. Somehow, it’s not quite an insult. “Later, Doc. Jim.”
The door closes, and Jim’s already sliding one arm around John’s middle, swaying them both whimsically to music that isn’t playing. Light fingers trace the bruises stamped into John’s jaw and neck. “I like your new paint job,” Jim murmurs fondly. “Did you make him choke you out? My little tiger; you never stop fighting, do you?”
John swallows hard. He’s angry, still. Jim’s taking too many risks, erasing lives, hurting innocent people—and John can’t even claim he’s more concerned for those strangers than he is for his idiot husband. “I hate it when you’re reckless,” he mutters. “Nobody gets to you, isn’t that what you’ve always said? What happened to the ghost in the wires?”
“Mm.” Jim hums noncommittally. He slips his foot between John’s, scrapes his short stubble over John’s cheek and whispers warmth into his ear. “Do I feel like a ghost, Johnny?” His palm splays at the base of John’s spine as he nudges them into motion, backing John with intent toward the nearest wall. “Maybe I am. I’d haunt you, you know.”
John rolls his eyes, exhaling irritably through his nose. “That really isn’t funny.” He flattens himself against the wall and picks at Jim’s tie, ignoring the slow rub of Jim’s groin at the hollow of his hip. “What happens to me if you really do get caught? Or if somebody gets in a lucky shot?” He unravels the half-Windsor with a few short, frustrated tugs. “Does that factor in at all?”
Jim huffs in amusement and pushes John’s hands away, plucking his collar and cuffs loose himself. “Someone’s in a mood, hm?” He tugs his sleeves up halfway and crowds John into the wall, forearms braced to either side of John’s head, hips grinding more insistently at the top of John’s thigh. “Shh, lovely,” he breathes distractedly. “Everything’s going exactly to plan.”
It’s more aggravating than arousing. Jim must’ve been simmering at half-mast before he got in, if he’s this wound up already. John turns his face to one side, resting loose hands at Jim’s shoulders and doing nothing whatsoever to contribute. He can’t stop his prick taking an interest, but he’s really not in the bloody mood for this.
Fortunately for Jim, he doesn’t seem to need much in the way of encouragement. He smears hot, aimless kisses over John’s cheek and the corner of his mouth, hands skating from John’s shoulders to his waist to his arse. John hisses despite himself as he’s hitched into the rhythmic grind. His cock is filling out now, trapped in his jeans and beginning to ache with the rough stimulation. “Any day now, James,” he growls.
Jim jerks against him with a desperate sound and tugs John’s thigh up over his hip. “God, I want you,” he bites out. “Later.” He scoops up John’s other leg, takes him off the floor entirely and shoves him back into the wall, bracing them both while John scrabbles for purchase. “Later.”
Thrown off-balance, John digs his fingers into Jim’s shoulders and clamps his legs around his waist. Jim’s rocking them both quickly now, filthy swivels of hip and spine. He doesn’t mean to last. Definitely doesn’t mean to get John off, either, the bastard. John can’t stop the groan bubbling in his throat, the layers of fabric denying him anything more than a taunting pressure behind his balls as Jim ruts up into him. Jim’s going to come just like this, panting and wrecked in his thousand-quid trousers. Under other circumstances, John would be dazed with lust at the thought.
Something twists in John’s chest. He tangles his hand in Jim’s hair and bucks his pelvis forward, riding Jim’s thrusts spitefully. It’s gratifying, the way Jim’s breath gusts out in a shaky gasp. He loses his rhythm almost immediately, frantic shudders giving way to sharp, staccato shoves. The noise he makes when he comes is undignified, almost startled. John bites his tongue before he can voice anything like was it good for you?, because really, it always is.
Jim lets John down slowly, still breathing hard through the aftershocks. He nuzzles, drops kisses across John’s lips and nose and cheeks, and utterly ignores the swell of John’s erection against his front. “Sweet Jesus,” he murmurs huskily. “My John. Don’t know how I get on without you.”
John closes his eyes and allows the affection for a few moments. It’s nice to be missed, he supposes. He sets his hands on Jim’s chest, pushing gently to separate them and then cupping Jim’s face in his palms. “I am so fucking furious with you,” he says, low and serious. He kisses Jim’s mouth once, brief but deep. “Go have a shower.”
xxviii.
When Jim finally comes back downstairs, John is already installed on the sofa, staring down at a library book. He’s ignored his erection into soft submission, and managed to stamp out the hottest bits of his temper. An uncomfortable knot remains coiled low in his gut. “Dinner’s in the fridge if you’re hungry,” he says, without looking up from the page.
Jim hums agreeably and pads off toward the kitchen. A few minutes later, he wanders back to the living area with a carton of cold Chinese and two glasses of wine. His hair is damp, and he’s wearing only his dressing gown. In for the evening, then, or at least part of it. He passes John one of the glasses and sinks down beside him, slouching and sighing in the manner of a man who hasn’t relaxed in a week. “If anyone calls me in the next three hours, you’re dealing with it,” he grouses.
John snorts, clinking his glass to Jim’s out of habit. “Right. ‘Jim Moriarty’s phone, John speaking. Sure, Operation Fence That Rubbish is a go. No, Mr. Moriarty’s indisposed, hasn’t even got any pants on, do you really want me to bother him?’”
Jim starts laughing somewhere around fence that rubbish. He leans over to kiss John’s cheek firmly. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t trade you for ten good fences right now, and believe me—I could use a few of those.” He digs his chopsticks into the carton. “What else did you get up to? Aside from shagging Sebastian rotten.”
“Not much.” John sets his book aside, hiking an elbow up on the sofa arm and watching Jim eat. “We played poker, watched some telly. I had to call off a shift and turn down another.” His lips take on a slightly sour tilt. “I’ll be annoyed if I lose my job, you know.” He’s lucky Sarah’s a forgiving employer.
“Mm-hm.” Jim deftly offers him a szechuan shrimp. “Can’t be helped. I’d be more annoyed if you put yourself in harm’s way.”
Which is rich, coming from Jim, but John knows there’s no point in wasting his breath. He nips the shrimp tidily from Jim’s chopsticks and washes it down with a swallow of wine, changing the subject. “You said you weren’t finished with whatever you’re doing. Should I bother stripping the guest bed?”
“Save yourself the effort.” Jim sips his wine and licks a stray drop from the rim. “I’m mid-move. I’ll call Moran off in a day or two, once the loose ends are snipped.”
John watches Jim’s chopsticks for a minute or so, black lacquer working with the quick efficiency of a hungry spider. “Sebastian doesn’t seem very happy with what’s going on,” he offers quietly. “I thought he had your ear.”
Jim quirks an indulgent smile and feeds John another bite. “Daddy still makes the rules. Don’t bring it up again tonight, all right?”
John eats his shrimp.
The food is good, even chilled, and they finish it in no time. John puts both the carton and Jim’s mostly-empty wine glass to the side. “Come on, then,” he says, shifting to the end of the cushion and patting his leg. “Lie down and have a kip while it’s quiet.”
Jim swells up and then sighs it out like a tired puffer fish. “I can’t. I’ve got a stray corpse and a deadline for making it creatively unrecognizable.”
Of course he does. John snorts. “Just blow it up.” He can’t help cracking a smile at the side-eye Jim gives him, as if James Moriarty has room to judge anybody else’s weirdness. “It was a story Molly told me. Some nutter with a mad Victorian name who visits her in the mortuary and explodes corpses for science.”
Jim considers in silence for a moment. His palm is warm on John’s cheek as he leans in for a thoroughly appreciative snog. He tastes like spices and wine. John isn’t too surprised by the sudden affection; Jim’s softened over much stranger things than talk of exploding corpses.
“You marvelous, marvelous thing,” Jim says lowly when he lets John go. His eyes are strangely intense. “My dear Doctor Watson. Hardly brilliant, not even terribly clever, but somehow you’re my best catalyst.” He grins, sharp and bright. “All right. I’ll blow it up, just for you.”
John wrinkles his nose, parsing the compliment. Catalyst. Brilliant, now he’s Jim’s crime muse. “Wonderful. Now that’s settled...” He taps his leg again with a pointed lift of his eyebrows. “You’ll get a headache if you don’t sleep, and you always go out like a light with me. Come on.”
Jim just chuckles, catching John’s mouth for another szechuan-spicy kiss. “I suppose I could stand to spend more time in your lap,” he murmurs, rubbing their noses together. He curls up on the cushions, yawns and nuzzles his cheek against John’s thigh. “Mm. Dynamite, maybe. Classic. Like a clove orange, only with fuses.”
John retrieves his book and strokes his fingers over his husband’s cheek, rubbing the nape of his neck soothingly. “Go to sleep.”
Jim’s snoring before John turns the next page.
xxix.
Somehow, Jim looks smaller when he sleeps; years younger and softer. Younger than John, these days. He looks so normal, like this, as if humanity is just a retractable skin he puts on and pulls off to suit himself.
John pets Jim’s sleek hair till it dries, and generally fails to read his book. Seventeen people are dead, and the perpetrator is sleeping like a baby in his lap. Mourning anyone these days feels hypocritical, though. John can hardly pretend he hasn't made his choices.
Three days of waiting, and John still doesn't know anything beyond what Moran’s told him: Jim is missing. Not that anyone has to tell John the odds, when he’s seen so much of the arena Jim commands. There’s every chance that Jim’s dead by now. Maybe in literal pieces. He can’t decide whether he’d give anything to know, or anything not to.
He’s been wound tight, waiting for the phone to ring, but when it does, he nearly bangs his head off the hanging pot rack.
“We found him,” Moran says. “Get a medi-kit together and be ready when your ride gets there. Ten minutes.”
The ride is a blur of street lights and traffic. When they arrive, John is escorted through the muted chaos of an operation wrapping up, heavily-armed ranks of hired killers parting before him with a few grunts of recognition. He hears the low murmurs as old hands educate new meat. Whether he’s the doctor or the bitch, he doesn't really care.
Standing sentry at a nondescript door, knuckles and faded sleeves speckled with other men’s blood, Sebastian Moran cuts a dangerous figure. He nods in acknowledgement as John approaches. “Doctor Watson.” He jerks his chin toward the room behind him. “Haven’t had time to move him. Figured you’d want to check for internal damage anyway.”
It’s vaguely reassuring that someone thought to keep Jim still. He squares his shoulders and ducks past Moran, trying to steel himself for the worst.
It’s not the worst, but John’s breath still catches. Slumped in a heavy wooden chair, arms dangling limp at his sides, Jim’s stripped down to his trousers, cold white toes and the soft, vulnerable folds of his belly on display. His hair is a clumped mess of stale sweat and grime.
“Jim.” John barely registers the pain as his knees hit the hard floor. His palm cradles Jim’s bruised jaw, ginger fingers instinctively finding the beat in his neck. “Jim, talk to me.”
Jim’s chest rises and falls—harsh, tired, but Jesus, alive—and one dark eye finally peels open, the other too swollen to follow suit. He blinks blurrily down at John. “Mm?”
It’s a hoarse, hurting sound, but John can’t help a tiny smile. “That’ll do. Hey.” He leans up and presses his lips to Jim’s mostly unmarked left temple. “Hi,” he breathes again, more shakily. “It’s all right now. I’ve got you.”
Jim is shaking, too, little hitches in his shoulders and middle. John looks up, alarmed, and only recognizes the horrible little sounds when Jim lifts his arm to stroke stiff fingers over John’s hair. Jim’s laughing. “That face, sweetheart. Were you worried?” His voice is a mushy slur of baffled pleasure.
Christ almighty, John thinks, and dabs away the fresh bead of blood from Jim’s lip. Apparently he should have worried more. Only near-death could bring Jim that close to a human emotion.
Jim doesn’t speak again until much later, after he’s clean and patched-up and lying on a safehouse sofa, his head propped on John’s thigh. John strokes his shower-damp hair and fails to keep his eyes open. He’s not been able to rest since Jim went missing. He can’t remember the last time he was so tired.
He’s nearly asleep when Jim’s hand presses against his abdomen, medical tape catching on the soft, well-washed jumper. “You were worried,” Jim murmurs roughly. “Johnny? Let’s have a baby.”
xxx.
John’s got less than an hour left at the surgery. It’s been a day of sniffles, aches, and one unmentionable rash. He won’t be sorry to get home. One more vague stomach complaint to go, and then he’ll have to find some other distraction for the rest of the day.
He’s needed distracting, lately. His fertile period started yesterday, and Jim hasn't shown his face since he took off three days ago. He should be glad. He is glad, he supposes grimly, except he nurses the niggling worry that he’ll be made to pay for this bit of good luck.
Like hell he’s going to text Jim, though. Proof of life can wait another day or two.
A blur appears in his periphery: his gastrointestinally distressed patient at the door. “Excuse me, Doctor?” Tall bloke. Dark fabric. Voice so spectacularly unassuming that it takes John a moment to focus. “The receptionist said to come in.”
“Yes, take a seat, Mr Hudson.” Putting his mobile away, John stands to offer his hand, taking in his patient’s dramatic profile and peaky skin tone at a glance. “My husband has a coat just like that,” he remarks. “Only he wears the collar turned down.”
The man smiles like he doesn't know how his face works. “It was a gift.”
Something about him strikes John as familiar. Those cheekbones would be hard to misplace, at least. He nods at the coat rack. “All right. Coat off, please, and we’ll see what we can see.”
Hudson drops onto the exam table, long legs dangling, and suffers himself to be manhandled, prodded, and strapped into a blood pressure cuff while he answers John’s questions about his digestive history. “You seem a bit young for a doctor,” he comments as John steps in close to check his eyes and throat. “Have you been practising long?”
He quirks a wryly polite smile and cups a hand to that long neck. “A few years, yes. Open your mouth, please.” He doesn't look that young. Is Hudson flirting?
Fucking hormones. He always runs warm this time of the month. The stupidest things turn him on like a light switch. He can’t help noticing how strong and warm Hudson’s thighs are through his thin dress trousers. Or the thick, dark curls nestled behind the man’s ears, tickling John’s fingertips. Get a grip, Watson.
Something like annoyance or confusion flickers briefly at the corners of Hudson’s lips, but he obeys. John shines a light in his mouth, then palpates his throat, firmly ignoring the knees splayed wide to either side of his hips. John tilts his head gently to the right to check his glands, and then pauses. Between that not-quite-expression and the angle, it’s obvious. He does recognize those cheekbones.
It’s the toff from the newspaper. The one who’d been standing with a police inspector—at the site of Jim’s bombing. Christ.
“Um,” he says after a still, silent second. He quirks a polite smile and straightens up, his mouth moving automatically as his mind races. “Why, worried about my expertise?”
“Oh no.” Hudson flashes him another bright, shallow grin. “It’s just that you have a good touch for a young doctor.”
“Ah. Well. Thank you.” John turns to poke at his computer, ostensibly checking the man’s medical history while he very, very quietly panics. It could be a coincidence. It has to be a coincidence. Except that this bloke’s expression seems to slip like a mask, and John’s surgery is nowhere near Baker Street.
Coincidence or not, John hasn’t survived this long by taking chances. He loops his stethoscope back over his neck and pastes on an apologetic smile, turning back to his patient. “You know, Mr Hudson, you may be right. I might suggest a more experienced doctor for you. Possibly a GI specialist.”
As John voices his lies, Hudson’s smile fades to something harder, and his eyes narrow. It’s a more natural look on him. “I’m afraid there isn’t another doctor in the world quite so qualified as you are, Doctor Watson.” A pause. “Or is it Watson-Moriarty, properly?”