consultinggalpals:

“What about this one?” John’s fingers trace a long line starting from Sherlock’s sacrum and ending at the pointy bit of his  right shoulder blade.

“Fishing knife. The wielder wasn’t too pleased with me deducing that he was embezzling money from his boss’ drug cartel.”

“Jesus Christ,” John whispers.

They’re lying in bed, with Sherlock’s limp body draped over John’s. It’s quiet and soft in the late afternoon. There is nowhere to go, no case to solve. There isn’t any of the frantic passion that would otherwise engage them either; it’s that blissful moment right after, coming down floating from blinding brightness into each other’s arms, relishing the weight and warmth of each other’s skin pressed close, clammy and still tingly.

One of John’s hands comes to rest on Sherlock’s hip, on a ridge of jagged flesh, and the unspoken question lingers between them.

“I believe that was where the leaden pipe that chipped my hipbone broke the skin. It didn’t heal well, I’m afraid.” Sherlock’s voice is low, breathy, but it still has a detached quality to it. A clinical assessment that he would give when faced with any other body on a slab.

John doesn’t know how to respond to that. He had always thought that his own single round bullet scar was an impossible and unacceptable addition to the topography of his body; he had grown to despise it, to pile on it all the bitterness and anger and unresolved pain that he had carried back from Afghanistan. For John, a scar was merely a sign of his weakness and cowardice, the final proof of his worthlessness in the eye of men.

Now, letting his fingers trail along Sherlock’s back, John is filled with awe. The resplendent reality of Sherlock’s love is etched into Sherlock’s skin for everybody to see, but only for John to understand. He wants to cover each of the scars with his lips, wants to cherish each of them, worship Sherlock’s body and leave him breathless. He never wants Sherlock to associate those spots on his skin with anything but dizzying pleasure. And there’s regret lodged in his throat as well; that he didn’t realise this sooner, how deeply and utterly Sherlock was willing to give himself up for John.

The silence stretches, heavy with meaning, and Sherlock notices; he raises his head from where it was tucked against John’s neck to meet his eyes.

“I don’t regret any of them, you know,” he murmurs against John’s jaw. “They were necessary to guarantee your safety and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

John’s arms tighten around Sherlock’s waist reflexively. He doesn’t trust his own voice at the moment, so he just buries his face in Sherlock’s curls and inhales deeply. The smell of Sherlock’s shampoo is grounding, familiar and it makes breathing a little easier for John.

“I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for that,” he says before placing a row of small kisses along Sherlock’s hairline.

Sherlock sighs, hiding his face once again in the crook of John’s neck. His voice is muffled when he says, “I don’t need any other compensation than this–you, us…”

John smiles against Sherlock’s forehead.

“No,” he says. “Me neither.”

(insp.)