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John left it alone all winter and all spring. He left it alone when the heavy coat started staying at home and Sherlock switched to fitted cashmere jumpers or simply stole John's jacket. It was a size too large for her, but she made it look ten times more stylish than John ever had.
He left it alone, even though at home, in pajamas and bare feet, she drove him mad on a daily basis. That was his issue, and she had a right to do as she liked in her own flat.
It wasn't until summer that he snapped.
Snapped was a good word, in fact. It was the two PCs snapping pictures of her with their mobiles that did it.
She wore a thin, white, silk blouse. It was immaculately tailored and had probably cost about a hundred pounds. Right now it was approaching invisibility from a combination of humidity, sweat, and sheer delicacy of weave. John thought he might be able to see her nipples through it.
Not that he was looking.
But he was certainly the only one putting in that kind of effort, and he was going to have to say something to her when they got back-- No. When the case was over, if he wanted to have any hope she'd listen.
*
John had never been so glad to see the end of a case. London was in the middle of a heatwave that had arrived like an unwelcome aunt and now far outstayed its welcome to smother the city between sweaty bosoms.
John lay on the floor with an icepack behind his neck and an electric fan sweeping the room with intermittent relief. He wore cotton boxers and nothing else. Normally he'd attempt a little more in the way of modesty if only to set an example, but he was too hot even to read, and he was beginning to consider whether air conditioning might be a medical necessity.
Sherlock was also wearing cotton boxers (John's, if he wasn't mistaken) and barely anything else. Clingy white t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Sweat gathering along her spine, making the fabric cling to her skin. Another cut at the throat that split it to a V that reached halfway down her chest.
Not that he was looking.
Except he was. Too lazy in the heat even to wrench his eyes away.
Sherlock paced in time with the oscillation of the fan. She held a magazine up to her face, folded back, obscuring the cover.
"What are you reading?" he asked.
"It's I'm Not Wearing a Bra Quarterly. I'm sure you'd find it fascinating."
He somehow managed to choke briefly on air. "Sherlock!"
"You've been staring for twenty minutes. You've been not staring since you moved in, so this is a minor improvement, but I don't see the attraction. They're tiny. A bra is both uncomfortable and unnecessary."
"I am not-- They were taking photos at the last crime scene! Did you not see?"
"Did I not see. John. Please. Did you seriously just ask me that? For each time you present a reasonable facsimile of intelligence, there are a dozen others when I swear--"
"Do you not care then?" he cut in.
"Why would I?"
"They could-- I don't know. Put them online or something."
"Well? I walk around like that in public all day, seen by dozens if not hundreds of people. My horrible sister has millions of surveillance photos. Why would I worry about PC Plod's Facebook album?"
"It's not right!"
She raised one eyebrow. "My breasts are morally dubious? Try harder, John."
He was really staring now. It was as if the word breasts had abruptly sucked every last ounce of willpower from him. They were quite small; she was right about that. Small, a bit bouncy when she walked, tight nipples pressed against the worn cotton of her shirt. They must be quite dark for someone with such pale skin because he absolutely could see them, just a hint of color through the fabric. He tried hard not to imagine what they'd feel like in his hands and failed utterly.
He shut his eyes. If he didn't, she'd have something to stare at too in a second, and his boxers would hide exactly nothing.
"I have never understood this," she said, from much closer, and then a hot weight settled over his hips. Her legs pressed against the outside of his thighs as she straddled him. "They're a minor inconvenience at best, unless one has a child to feed, and yet men treat them as the dominant sexual feature of a woman's body. Even you. No one goes into raptures over a beautiful vulva. Explain. Is it simply cultural conditioning?"
"I-- Ah--" John tried not to stare and tried to remember to breathe, both in and out, and to not thrust up against the arse pressed right down over his cock. He was getting hard already, and surely she could feel it.
"Breasts have been used to sell everything from lager to to cars to Mallorcan holidays, but that essentially means that breasts get a lot of advertising, presentation as positive and desirable. And the average human mind is so easy to shape. What do you think?"
"Right now, really very little. Sherlock, will you please get off of me? I'm trying to do the right thing here and--"
"You will always do the right thing, John." She leaned back against his bent knees. "I have complete faith in you. Now answer the question."
He swallowed and tried to rally his few remaining functional brain cells. "Maybe that's part of it, sure. But it's also the most prominent outward difference between male and female bodies, so if you're attracted to women, it just makes sense you'd find that...attractive." There was probably more he could say about the history of breasts in art, pre-advertising, something about fertility symbols dimly remembered from long ago school days, but he just wasn't up to it.
She made a dissatisfied noise. "And you are, and you do. Even mine. Do you want to touch them?"
"Yes," John said, before he could bite his tongue off, which would've been infinitely more sensible than letting his mad flatmate know he wanted to feel her up.
"All right." She laid her hands on her thighs and shifted forward. "Do it."
"Christ. I really don't think this is a good idea."
"This is not a particularly convenient moment for you to start pretending you're capable of saying no to me. Get on with it. I want to know how it feels."
She wanted to know--
No one had ever--
Little thought fragments blew around in John's mind and left him in some danger of blowing his load in his boxers like he was sixteen, a situation not helped by the fact that Sherlock seemed unable to keep still.
"Do you want my shirt off?" she said.
"No! I don't think..." He met her eyes, and her gaze was cool and intent and curious as always, and it undid him completely. "Yes. God. Yeah, please."
She stripped if off and tossed it away.
He put his hands cautiously to her waist and slid them up. She got a cross expression and squirmed as his fingers moved too lightly over her ribs.
"Sorry," he murmured, and then, yeah, smooth soft curves under his hands, the dark peaks of her nipples. He rubbed his thumbs over them, flicked lightly with one nail.
She made a faint sound and shifted on top of him. He could see her toes flex against the bare floor. He did it again and felt that nipple harden, rolled it slowly between his thumb and forefinger. She shifted again, and her thighs tightened on either side of him. His cock was fully hard and starting to ache, and it was very very difficult not to think how it would feel to sink into her, hot and wet and fucking tight.
He slid his palms over her tits, one scant handful each, squeezed lightly, kept himself from grinding his hips up. It was harder every second, but she'd as good as said she trusted him and damned if he was going to betray that.
Her cheeks were flushed faintly pink with more than heat. Messy curls stuck to her cheeks and neck. She was all pointy elbows and knees and long fingers that dug into her own skin, body barely curved and always too thin and not at all what he normally found attractive, and absolutely the most beautiful person he'd ever seen in his life.
He squeezed just a shade harder, licked one thumb and brought it back wet to rub slickly over one nipple. He heard her breath catch and felt her hips move in one quick, abortive thrust. She caught his wrist.
They stared at each other.
He moved his other hand, stroked down over the hollow of her stomach, back up her side to cup her breast again. He pressed his nail down against her nipple, rubbed the pad of his thumb roughly over it, watched her lips part. His cock twitched, and his belly and balls tightened just from watching her.
"That's enough," she said.
It was physically painful to stop touching her, a burn that gathered in his back and shoulders as if acute sexual frustration was somehow equivalent to muscle strain. He spread his hands flat on the floor and concentrated on keeping them there.
She stood. "I imagine you want privacy, and I was going to take a shower anyway." She glanced at the painfully obvious tent in his boxers. "I can't think it'll take longer than ten minutes, and then we can get some dinner. Somewhere with air conditioning."
She stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back at him. "I wouldn't mind doing that again if you wanted to. Just ask."
John couldn't even wait till she was out of sight. He shoved his hand into his boxers and grabbed his cock, stroked himself off fast and hard, staring at her retreating back and then, when she was gone, at the space where she'd been. He imagined asking for it. Sherlock, can I touch your tits, can I make you gasp like that again, can I make you blush, can I make you fucking come, god, please? He imagined her saying yes, letting him back her against some alley wall ten feet from a crime scene, pushing her shirt up, putting his hands on her, his mouth on her.
His cock jerked and pulsed, and he came so hard the world disappeared momentarily into the roar of his pulse and lights behind his eyes.
He probably had five more before she was done and he had to peel himself off the floor and try to look presentable. He spent it contemplating how utterly fucked he was and smiling at the ceiling like a fool.