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The country road James was walking on, was empty, he was deep in thought, still reeling from what happened earlier. His thoughts wandering from one end to the other and how moving forward was the only available direction now. Yet his mind was questioning that decision every step he took on this damn road.
James heard the hoofs coming.
But he didn't slow his step nor did he look back, he knew it was Sherlock. He decided to wait to turn his head until the horse was alongside him. Soon the figure in his periphery atop the horse materialized into Sherlock.
Sherlock wasn't entirely sure what he was going to say now having caught up to James. He had rehearsed nothing, having ridden out on the pure hope that James walking away was reversable after having finally uncovered the partial truth of the extent of his father involvement in this whole case.
Sherlock dismounted the horse quickly and fell into step beside him, leading the horse by its reins, and for a moment neither of them said anything.
"Whatever the truth may be," Sherlock said finally. "I need to know."
James stopped walking.
He turned. Looked at him with an expression that was carefully composed. "Is that your idea of an apology?"
Sherlock held his gaze. "Well?"
"Well," James said. "It doesn't sound like an apology."
"I apologise." Sherlock tried again.
A pause.
"Is that all?"
"I sincerely apologise."
"Still think you can do better." James challenged.
Sherlock breathed in once before he said. "I, Sherlock Holmes, sincerely apologise to you, James Moriarty."
Something shifted in James's face, not a smile yet, but something close to it. "Oh. Well done." He turned and began walking again, back to the direction of which he came from and after a beat, "I rather enjoyed all that."
Sherlock took note that James seemingly rather fast accepted his apology after all, yet he turned the horse around and followed him. They walked together, the road stretching ahead with the Holmes estate somewhere in front of them and the village somewhere behind them and nothing in between except the ever-changing weather and the sound of their footsteps.
No words were said between them, however their hands were swinging dangerously close next to each other, just shy of almost touching.
Sherlock looked at James's profile. Analysing him from his tight looking jaw to the strand of hair that was loose and was pushing across his face.
"I mean it," Sherlock said quietly to fill the silence. "What I said. My apology I mean."
James didn't answer immediately. "I know," he said at last with an indescribable undertone.
"It's not..." Sherlock stopped, before starting again. "I know it's not enough. I know that saying my apologies doesn't excuse me punching you...I..."
An awkward pause.
The sentence had no clean ending, he just didn't know what to say more about his actions, so he just continued with something else. "You were right. About my father. About all of it. And I knew you were right even in that moment, I had some suspicions, but they seemed so outrageous and I..."
"Sherlock." James tried.
"I hit you."
"You did," James agreed. "But you have a decent right hook for a thinker."
"That isn't funny." Sherlock trying to be serious.
"It is a little funny." James said with a little smirk. Knowing exactly which buttons to press to vex Sherlock.
Sherlock felt the corner of his own mouth move traitorously, so he quickly pressed it flat. His gaze was flickering over James's face and to the strand of hair falling across his temple, not thinking at all he reached for it. He tucked the hair back slowly, fingers grazing James from his cheekbone to the curve of his ear before slowly dropping his hand. Meanwhile James had gone completely still, he even stopped walking, so, Sherlock halted his step to.
Their faces, now very close, permitted Sherlock to look directly into James's eyes. They had something dark in them. Sherlock felt he could see the past couple of hours reflected in them, the darkness was like a bruise, in the early stages of forming.
"I am sorry," he said again. "James. I am genuinely sorry."
James looked at him for a long moment, taking him in and Sherlock hoped that his own face showed the sincerity of his words and that that was enough.
James still didn't respond verbally, however what he did was lean in. His hands found the collar of Sherlocks jacket, gripping it, beckoning him closer, before he kissed him.
Sherlock was honestly a bit surprised by this. It wasn't a soft kiss, there was an underlying determination to it, as if James was trying to prove —test something. Sherlock's free hand quickly curved itself back alongside his jaw, trying to reciprocate the kiss. He was trying to convey everything the formal apology may hadn't quite managed.
When they broke apart, they were both breathing heavily.
James glanced up and down the empty road, when he saw a gap in the hedgerows behind them, where a couple of trees pressed close creating a half-sheltered clearing, invisible from the road in both directions.
Sherlock followed his line of vision, seeing it, the intention becoming clear. He quickly went and bound the horse a few steps away from there around a tree. When he came back, James took his hand and led them to disappeared into the clearing.
There in the clearing, the world was being reduced only to them. James was leaning against a tree trunk and Sherlock pressed in close, their mouths finding each other again and again with an urgency that steadily had been building. Building since their fight that morning, actually since the days before the fight even. Everything had been getting tighter, more stringent in that house, suffocating them him towards some inevitable —unfortunate breaking point.
James's hands were in his hair and Sherlock's were at his waist. His mouth, moving without a particular plan, driven only by the need to cover ground, explore every inch, to make up, again to apologise through every available means, still somehow feeling that his words hadn't proven to be sufficient.
Sherlock thoughts were also occupied by him wondering about the nature of their friendship. Societal implications and a tiny voice rambling on about how this —them ought to not happen between two men straining heavy on his mind. Yet despite all of that, all Sherlock felt was blind panic at the prospect of potentially losing James forever.
After some time and a lot of roaming of hands, he felt James against him. His growing member, pressing through his trousers, that knowledge evoked something in him. He himself was in a similar state, equally undone by whatever this was between them, which was its own kind of relief. Thinking at least James's body still responded to him even though he still felt a certain wall between them.
Sherlock's hand moved between them.
He found James through the fabric, pressing his palm to him, which had him exhale sharply against his mouth. Encouraged by this little reaction and driven by the need to finally explore James fully.
When not now, when else? I could've never had the chance to do this, he thought to himself.
So, his fingers went to the buttons of his trousers, slowly working them open and once he was done, he got his hand inside, bypassing his undergarment directly, skin on skin.
James made a sound against his mouth which Sherlock felt going directly down to his groin.
Raining himself back to the sensation of him, he gave a timid first stroke. Then another one slow, learning the weight of him, the shape, the way James's breath changed with each tiny variation in pressure he started to try out.
"Wait..." James pulled back slightly and lifted Sherlock's hand out from his pants and lifting it to his mouth. He held Sherlock's gaze as he licked his palm. Deliberate and entirely without shame (making a meal out of it) and then guided Sherlock's hand back, and the difference was immediate, the glide of it, and Sherlock nearly forgot what he was doing for a moment.
He recovered as James's head tipped back against the tree. He went to kiss his exposed jugular, peppering kisses along it's way up and down.
"Mhmm," James hissed, somewhat breathlessly.
James's hands started to move down to Sherlock's fly, fiddling to open the buttons.
"No." Sherlock caught his wrists. "No."
James looked at him puzzled.
This needs to be about you, Sherlock thought, his mind moving quickly through the problem with complete seriousness. Words had been insufficient (established by his feeling of that wall between them). Equal reciprocity now, felt like evening a score, not fixing something.
"I need to..." Sherlock started. "What I did...there has to be a way to..." He was looking at James as he rambled on. James was looking back at him, at his mouth.
Sherlock noticed and stopped talking.
Oh, he thought.
His next step clicked into place like a mathematical formula, once seen, it was totally obvious. His brain reverting to approached based in logic realizing his exclaimed apologies could never balance the equation. The negative value of his fist landing on his face was too heavy, he needed an exponential multiplier, a miracle, of immense input where result grew rapidly with an outcome that would dwarf minimize his earlier error.
"I need to give you more pleasure, in fact the more I give you, the more exponentially —the faster it balances....yeah?" he said quietly. "That is simply the mathematics of it."
James stared at him.
Then something crossed his face, something that was almost a laugh, not unkind, sounding more like wonder at the peculiarity of such a statement and his expression softened.
"Only you," James said quietly, "would approach absolution like an equation."
At that Sherlock said nothing. He held his gaze and waited. hoping
James lifted one hand and brought it up to his face. Touched his jaw briefly, before his thumb slowly traced his lips before it settled in the middle of his bottom lip.
"Kneel," he said.
Sherlock's gaze is best described as shocked. "What?"
"Kneel." James said quieter yet still firm, but not like a command, more like a unexplained offered lifeline in a test where one either took it or left it, type of way. "Just kneel, Sherlock."
A pause.
Sherlock went down.
The earth was cold through his trousers, and he felt his knees getting damp, but he didn't care, not even slightly. He slowly pushed James's trousers down and James's hand came to rest in his hair. Not directing him, just as a presence.
Sherlock looked up at him taking in James Moriarty leaning against a tree in a half-sheltered clearing, looking undone like he's never seen him before.
I would do absolutely anything to see you like this again, he thought, having stopped pretending otherwise.
After he's maneuvered James's trousers halfway down his thighs he leaned forward, familiarity kicking in and pressed his face into his groin. Nosing from one side over the other, his undergarment still being in the way. So, he let his mouth wander over the hardened shape of him protruding from underneath until he's his lips found to the tip of him. First, he just peppered slow kisses but soon daring more, he sticked his tongue out and slightly sucked him through the fabric. He felt James's fingers curl gently in his hair, he looked up and was met with an unfamiliar expression, but he deemed it to be approving.
Then with careful hands he removed the last layer separating them, guiding that undergarment down to where his trousers were.
His member now free, Sherlock saw what he felt moments earlier, James was flushed pink and surprisingly very hard. While one hand stayed on his thigh his other came up and touched him at his base, his thumb underneath guiding him. He pressed forward deciding to like his tip, mixing the precum with his salvia making him glisten and Sherlock thought this is one of the prettiest things he's ever seen. He wanted more sensation, so he guided his wet tip all over his lips.
James exhaled above him, it sounded like something releasing that had been held in for too long. This was Sherlock's cue and so he opened his mouth again but this time swallowing him past his tip, halfway down his length.
"Ahh" found his way out of James. He guided his mouth back up again, all new sensation yet somehow familiar and by the small tremors in his thigh, the tightening of his hand at his nape, it felt like more than sufficient instruction. So, he found a rhythm.
"Jesus," James breathed after a while. Then lower, barely a word at all. "Christ."
Both his hands having a slight grip in Sherlock hair now, not rough. Their eyes also haven’t left each other, their look was completely reverent in a way Sherlock felt through his whole body, down to his own stirring member in his too tight trousers.
He decided to try more so next swallow he went further, and that even more until he reached his fingers at the base of him. Tears were stinging in his eyes, but he didn’t blink them away, what if he missed a micro expression on James's face.
"Sherlockk...Sher....ahh" James gasped when his tip was hitting the back of Sherlock's throat. Sherlock felt the tremor building in James, felt him trying to hold it, now in a slight hunched position one hand on his shoulder the other still on his nape, he felt the exact moment all self-control left him and simply gave himself over.
"Hey...hey...I'm going too....co..." He didn't finish the sentence.
Sherlock knew he was very close, something primal overcame him and he thought to press his lips together to create more friction and James came undone with a sound Sherlock had never heard from him. Hot liquid filled his mouth, he swallowed it down and it tasted slightly salty but there was also something to it that he assigned must be purest form of what James smelled like, the literal essence of him. And now he knew that which felt incredibly intimate for some reason. Something that was just between them, it also felt like the closest thing to absolution he had ever been given. He thought about when one is in the confessional booth at church on one’s knees repenting waiting for a positive sign so there was one less burden weighing them down. Today—here it seemed he'd been given said answer and judging by the blissed-out look covering James's face he has one less sin to atone for.
He rose slowly. James's hands came to his face at once, tilting him up, and James looked down at him with eyes still glazed and unfocused and full of something not nameable, and then he kissed him. Slow and deep and without any hesitation whatsoever, tasting himself in Sherlock's mouth, on his lips without care, without shame.
When he pulled back, both gasping for air his forehead came to rest against Sherlock's. They stayed like that, breathing quieting down and letting the energy of the nature around them wash over them. Letting calmness in again.
"Well," James said, after some time. His voice was strained yet still sounding like himself. "That was..."
"Yes," Sherlock answered roughly. He knew exactly what he meant.
A pause.
"Sherlock."
"Mm." Sherlock hummed.
James seemed to decide that finishing whatever sentence he'd begun was either unnecessary or impossible. He exhaled instead and pressed his forehead more firmly against Sherlock's.
Sherlock understood perfectly.
They put themselves back together with a certain amount of mutual assistance, but Sherlock's hair was beyond rescue, as well as his trousers, the knee stains were very visible from the damp ground. James looked at them for a moment but then brushed it away without comment.
They emerged from the clearing back onto the road and just stood for a moment in the afternoon light looking at each other. The rawness present that came from what just transpired between them, still lingering. Unsurprisingly the wound that caused all of this was still somehow there but signs of fibrin —of it clogging up emerged, giving hope.
Sherlock cleared his throat. "I do have a thought," he said, "as to how we might gain access to my father's financial records."
James looked at him for a moment intrigue shining through.
"Of course you do," he stated, and fell into step beside him. Their hands swung close as they walked back up the road toward the tethered horse, and when their knuckles brushed, neither of them moved away.