BBC Sherlock fic: Cold

John opens his eyes when he feels the bed dip. Sherlock swings one immaculately naked ivory leg over his hips and stretches out luxuriously atop him, a heavy, living weight of muscle and bone.

He is cold as winter marble.

John can’t move, except to reach up and wrap his arms around Sherlock’s frigid shoulders. The chill soaks into him till he’s wracked with shivers, but Sherlock’s eyes are so warm when they meet John’s with a teasing smile, and his lips are the perfect soft kiss of the first winter snowfall as they brush at John’s with gentle desire. Even though John knows what comes next, he can’t bear to turn that affection away. He’s wanted too badly for too long, aches too deeply, and Sherlock knows it.

They kiss langorously, mouths moulding and tasting, in just the way John never believed he could have. And when John’s lips part under Sherlock’s coaxing tongue, Sherlock’s breath pours into him, a gelid tendril creeping down into his lungs. John can feel it there, the frost piercing the blood-air barrier of his lungs to invade his bloodstream, feasting on his heat to multiply in his veins and spread through his body.

He wakes up alone, chest aching with the cold. Every night, it seeps a little deeper. John doesn’t know whether to love or dread sleep.