persian-slipper asked prettyarbitrary:

John/Sherlock. Valdemar.

Full disclosure: it’s been a reaaaaally long time since I read any of the Valdemar books.  I’m making up anything I don’t remember, and if I do think I remember it, I might be making it up anyway.  Also, these keep getting longer.  Ah well!

John feels with his healer’s gift along Sherlock’s body, sinking his awareness into the tissues to find them abused, battered, swollen.  ”This isn’t new damage,” John tells him almost accusingly.  This is old, unrepaired, neglected by a man who doesn’t eat or sleep enough. No wonder the K’Vala scout leader sent Sherlock to him.

Sherlock simply huffs, lip twisting into a contemptuous curl that should not be as appealing as it is.  John closes his eyes as the disdain washes through him, hot and oddly elegant. 

~He doesn’t take care of himself,~ Sherlock’s owl grumps.  ~It’s boring, he says. Says his mind gets too busy if he lets himself get distracted.~  John can feel her piled-up irritation, her prickly sarcasm directed at Sherlock like a barb, shiny and well-worn, and mimic-perfect like a mirror image of what’s rolling off Sherlock where he sits.

“My mind needs to stay busy,” Sherlock says, as if even bothering to speak is a mighty concession.  “Yours may plod; mine races.  It needs problems that will occupy it, not…”  He flaps a graceful, sharp hand.  “Trivialities.”

Good lord.  Mages.  John scratches the owl behind her head, and then turns back to Sherlock.  ”Trivialities, eh?”

Sherlock lifts a cocky, ascerbic eyebrow.  ”Do you have a prescription for an overabundance of intelligence, kestra’chern?  A rock to the head, perhaps?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”  John grins wickedly and slides in to straddle Sherlock’s lap, tugging the collar of his robe open.  “I have just the thing to occupy that overactive mind.”