Chapter Text
The road and the night are black and straight and infinite, so Y/N only needs one hand on the steering wheel as she guides the car lazily through a light mist. The other sits on her thigh, and Sherlock glances at it.
He'd like to take it. To slip his fingers into the spaces between hers, maybe.
There's something on the radio but the words aren't making any sense.
The night isn't just black, Sherlock is realising; it's a patchwork of fields, blobs of old, leaning oaks, and clumps of hawthorn---they've made this drive before.
Yes, he thinks; when they’d visited his parents living in the Cotswolds. The drive wasn't long, but they'd left after lunch and it was dark by the time they reached the final stretch of winding country roads.
Y/N drove, because they'd rented a Land Rover---just in case there were leaves on the road, Sherlock had joked---and she wanted to ‘have a go at it’.
He let her, watching with an amused smile as she clambered up the little steps and made herself comfortable.
She looked comically small behind the wheel, and he remembers thinking she looked cute in her winter jumper.
She's not wearing a winter jumper now, though.
Sherlock thought it was a dress but, when he turns back to her, it's changed into a deep red top.
Her concentration on the windscreen, she leans over to open the glove compartment. Her neckline is low, and Sherlock's cheeks redden.
He could look away.
Her skin looks so soft---
He knows he should.
And the dainty white lace of her bra---
But he doesn't.
She notices, and he quickly turns back to the road, his hands embarrassedly clutching his jeans.
“You okay?” she asks.
If he looked at her face, he’d find a concerned frown.
“You've gone all red.”
“No I haven't,” he insists---too quickly.
“Yes, you have.” She's rummaging about in the glove box and seems to realise something. “Oh. Could you see down my top?”
Sherlock is suddenly overcome with the strong, intense need to clear his throat. “What?” He tries to chuckle, but it comes out strange, and he reddens even more. “No.”
There's a rustling of plastic as Y/N pops a Jelly Baby into her mouth.
On any other occasion, he would hope she hadn’t taken one of the green ones. She knows he likes the green ones---
But he's not thinking about that now. He’s got his head turned towards the night, so far his neck twinges, the back of his neck stiflingly hot. Could he wind the window down and stick his face out like a dog? Y/N is used to his nonsense, but---
Something warm slides onto his leg.
His breath catches in his throat.
It's gentle, yet almost…possessive. A slight grip between his knee and his thigh.
He shifts uncomfortably.
Well, comfortably. But the tips of his ears are burning, and he hasn't blinked in a while.
“You know…it's okay if you did, Sherlock.”
He moistens his lips. “What?”
“I said it's okay. I don't mind that you saw.”
“I didn't---” he gets the feeling that she's rolled her eyes.
The hand grips a little, and slides up, just an inch.
It’s not his face he needs to have cooled by the night, now.
Y/N finds one of his hands and eases it off his leg. Her fingers want to get between his.
He lets them.
Shyly, he grips back.
When Sherlock tries to meet her eyes, she finds her gaze back on the road. It remains there as, slowly, she raises their hands to her mouth.
“Y/N---?” he gasps as she presses a kiss to his knuckles. His heart thrums in his chest.
She's not stopping. Thank God she’s not stopping.
She continues her trail, caressing each knuckle, all the way round until she reaches his wrist.
When she reaches that sensitive patch of skin---his pulse fluttering below her lips---she parts them, and he wriggles in his seat.
He can't help it anymore, and turns his hand over, taking hers tenderly, gently, desperately---
When he draws it to his mouth, she smells of that perfume she wears---
And Jelly Babies. He kisses the soft, feminine row of her fingers, his jaw parting enough to taste her.
They’re dusted with powdered sugar and his lip twitches.
When he slides one into his mouth, she hums, and he groans roughly.
Before he knows what’s happening, they’ve pulled into a layby, and Y/N shoves the gearstick into park.
Sherlock barley noticed; his kisses are working their way up her arm, his whole body leaning from his seat to hers. He leans a little more, wanting to bury his nose in her neck---
To his amazement, his disbelief, his absolute delight, she turns her head.
He captures her lips with a grateful moan.
…
Sherlock blinks and his dream dribbles away like sweet tea poured down a sink.
A lurid beam of sunlight is falling across his face---obnoxiously bright for the season. It's slicing into his eyelids, lighting them up pink, and he turns onto his back---with some difficulty. His brain feels like it's hardened into a dense, solid little marble and it's rolling around his skull, bumping into the backs of his eyeballs.
Cursing Lestrade, he presses his fists into his eyes---
Then blinks at them.
His dream flashes hot as a lick of fire in his mind; Y/N drawing a chain of kisses along each ridge of bone, her hand sliding through his hair, calling him handsome, undressing him---
No.
Dressing him.
Helping him climb into pyjamas, dragging his faded old t-shirt over his head---
He knuckles his eyes again with a silent groan, so hard that lights explode, blossom, and dance.
They're still there when he lets his arms flop back down onto the duvet cover.
No, they're coming from something else; a reflection.
Wincing as he turns his head, his mouth twitches with a soft smile.
A box of Paracetamol and a glass of water has been left on his bedside table, lit up and set glowing by the sun. A post-it note has been stuck to the glass, Y/N’s handwriting scribbled across it in black ink:
For your hangover
xxx
…
The painkillers take a stupidly long time to take effect, and it's nearly two o’clock before Sherlock peels himself from his mattress.
He dithers by his door, his hand reaching for the handle and retreating again.
Maybe Y/N went out today?
Maybe he could sneak to the kitchen, grab a handful of BabyBells, and spend the rest of his days barricaded in his room?
Mrs Hudson bakes them shortbreads every now and again; maybe he could get them rerouted to his bedroom door and live off those?
Eventually, he reluctantly stumbles into the kitchen, his eyes and mouth somehow both like sandpaper.
Y/N’s nose is wedged in a book, but she looks up at the sound of his uneven footsteps. A smile twitches the corner of her lips. “Well, hello, sleeping beauty.”
In response, Sherlock presses a bony knuckle into one eye.
“Look at you,” she's saying, her smirk widening into a teasing grin. “I don't think you've ever looked more attractive.”
“Shut up.”
“No, really. You've got the stubble going on, the hair, the bewildered expression. You walked in here like you've borrowed your body for the weekend and haven't figured out how it works yet.”
With a groan, Sherlock crumples into a chair, his spine slumping heavily over the kitchen table. His body sort of takes on its shape; long, narrow limbs folding in on themselves, his head dangling over the backrest.
Pressing a bookmark between two pages, Y/N pads over to him with a chuckle. “I take it drinking isn't really for you?”
“No. I told George---”
“Greg.”
“Whatever. I told him, I don't like---”
“Pubs, I know, you keep saying. And football. And Brexit and ‘Love Island’ and organised religion.”
A raw pinkness smudges the detective's eyes, his dark lashes scribbled on like ink.
Y/N’s smile falls sideways and, without thinking, she finds her hands on his shoulders.
He stiffens at the touch.
Even so, she kneads a gentle little circle.
Slowly, he loosens.
“What…are you doing?”
“Sorry, I thought it would help.”
“...It is helping. Don't stop.”
It is. It's sympathetic and comforting, and he decides he very much likes it.
She sighs, but continues anyway---because of the way he'd said it.
And what he'd said last night.
And because his face is all curves, close up; pink lips, thick, charcoal black brows, arching cheekbones. His jaw is prickled with the first onset of stubble, strangely dark against his milky skin.
“You should eat something,” Y/N says, and she's surprised by how gentle it sounds. “You'll feel better.”
“Impossible.”
“Let me make you something.”
Her hands leave his shoulders with the intent of whipping something up---perhaps bacon and eggs---
But he catches her before she can turn towards the fridge.
To Y/N’s surprise, he lets his forehead fall against her middle.
She blinks down at the head of chocolate curls. She can feel his pointy nose and the weight of him, slumped against her like a child having a tantrum.
Something in her melts a little.
“Aw, come on, it can't be that bad,” she soothes, wrapping her arms about his head.
He seems to appreciate the darkness because his hands find her waist and he tugs her a little closer.
From squished against her belly:
“It's terrible,” he mumbles,
“It's not terrible, it's just a hangover. It'll go.”
“No, not that.”
“Well, what?”
“The stuff I said.”
She’d let her hands submerge in his hair, giving it soft little strokes---
But she stops. She didn't think he'd remember. Carefully:
“...What stuff?”
“You know.”
“I don't think so.”
“Don't make me say it.”
“Look, Sherlock, it's okay. People say all sorts of things when they're drunk.”
“It's not okay.”
“It is. I don't mind, really.”
Stubbornly, he says nothing.
“Come on, come out,” she prompts. “...Sherl.”
“I don't want to, I like it in here.”
“You can't live in there forever.”
“Yes I could. I'll stay here, you stroke my hair, and every now and we’ll eat crisps for sustenance.”
Y/N chuckles and he can probably feel it against his face. “Come on, there's nothing to be embarrassed about, really. You just mumbled a bunch of nonsense.”
He seems to still, as if thinking.
Then, tentatively, he surfaces. Some colour has returned to his cheeks, and he blinks at her, puzzled. “I did?”
“Yeah. Now, do you want toast or crumpets?”
“Crumpets. But…I thought I said some stuff about…”
“About what?” She wants to hear him say it, she realises. She wants to hear it again, those words, that voice, so deep, so gravelly and masculine yet so needy---
But he's not giving it to her.
“I thought…I made you uncomfortable. Saying I wanted to…” he sucks in a breath. “Look, you're a very attractive woman, and I wasn't in my right mind. I'm really sorry. Can you forgive me?”
“You don't need to be sorry, you didn't make me uncomfortable. You just wanted me to sit with you while you fell asleep.”
“Oh.” He looks puzzled. “I thought I---?”
“Hm…?”
“Well…” his fingers fumble about the air as if words keep slipping through them. “I thought I might have…”
Y/N fetches the crumpets from the bread bin, turning her back to him. “Yeah, well…you also may have asked me to take your virginity.”
His pallid skin flushes crimson and he burrows it into his palms as if wanting to crawl into them and disappear. “God, Y/N, I’m so, so sorry. Really---”
“Don't be.” She turns to him and he’s puzzled to find she's smiling.
It's a small smile---just a flickering of something at one corner of her lip---but a smile all the same.
He blinks at it.
“Sherlock…if you wanted me to do that…why have you never asked me before?”
He suddenly seems transfixed by a crack in the table. “It's not…it's not something you can just ask someone.”
“Why not?”
“It would be betraying your trust---or something. I didn’t want you to think I got to know you and asked you to move in with me just so I could seduce you.” He spits the word as if it disgusts him. “And anyway, what was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Y/N, I know we’re best friends and it would be really awkward if you said no, but could I possibly take you to bed’?”
“I think, actually, yesterday, you wanted me to seduce you.”
“This isn't funny, Y/N,” he snaps, and she stifles a smirk.
“Then what is it?”
He shakes his head. His shoulders have wilted damply, like he's sheltering from a drizzle. “I don't know. But it's not good.”
“Sherlock, you hit on me. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Y/N, losing your friendship would be the end of my world.”
She laughs, and his dark brows furrow.
Offronted:
“It's not funny! I meant it!”
“I know you did, I know, I'm sorry. It's just…”
Something warm touches his head. She's stepped up being him, and he freezes as she gives the top of his head a quick kiss.
“…you're such a drama queen.” Another kiss, her voice close to his ear. “I'm not going anywhere. Honestly…last night I was…flattered.”
He shakes his head. “You don't have to say that.”
“I'm not, I meant it. You're a very attractive man.”
A frown darks his features. “Then…” He manages to pick a biscuit crumb from the table with his nail, and flicks it away. “...why did you turn me down?”