Work Text:
Inspired by the extremely lovely art by Johix because I saw it and fell in love with it.
John kisses Sherlock for the first time on a Thursday morning. The rich smell of coffee still lingers from breakfast, the flat is cast in hazy shades of gold. It’s the sort of daylight that beams through the windows, illuminating the dust motes that float about like so much microscopic debris. Sloughed off bits of John’s and Sherlock’s skin, dancing midair. Sherlock doesn’t like when Mrs. Hudson sneaks into the flat to disturb the dust. He lets it sit and sit, wrapping the tops of books and baubles in a grey film. It annoyed John to start, but somehow through the power of subconscious suggestion, John has given up taking a toothbrush to the floorboards. John leaves trailing fingerprints on top of Sherlock’s things, later Sherlock will look at the streaks and know that John had his way with them.
Sherlock sits straight-backed in his chair at the dining room table, the microscope’s condenser concentrating the light, beaming it into Sherlock’s eyes. He’ll need spectacles one day, John is sure of it. He imagines Sherlock’s temples streaked with silvered hair, coarser, but curly like the rest. John wants to be there, see it happen, watch time take Sherlock with it in the most human of ways.
John is going to kiss him.
Just to see, just to have that question answered in some way that John can accept. What’s the worst that could happen? Rejection? That’s nothing. He watched Sherlock jump off a rooftop and die. (Sort of.) John grew up with a mean drunk for a dad. John survived medical school. Survived Afghanistan and a bullet burning hot, tearing through his flesh like it was flimsy tissue paper.
“John, while I am flattered by your interest, I consider myself married to my work. Still.” That’s honestly not so bad, in the scheme of things.
John sighs, drops his cup in the sink and walks over to the dining room table. Sherlock doesn’t look up, and that’s okay. John hooks his ankle around a chair leg, slides the thing up next to Sherlock, and sits waiting, he can be patient. Has been, for ages now. Let Sherlock look at his staph samples, John has plenty of time, it’ only just gone sunrise.
John presses the flat of his palm against the side of Sherlock’s upper thigh, feels the heat of his skin through the soft pyjama bottoms. John doesn’t move his fingers at all when he feels Sherlock’s muscles twitch and react, Sherlock’s eyes slide down, connecting the touch to the sight of John’s hand resting against him. John watches Sherlock’s mouth fall open just a little, enough to hear that sweet, quick catch of his breath. It’s only an inhale, but the sound of it makes John’s heart race in his chest, thrum like the wings of a hummingbird.
Sherlock turns his legs out, shins bumping even with John’s so that they’re facing each other. The hand on the thigh, turns into John’s hand cupping a knee, first the one, then the other hand reaches out greedily. Sherlock’s knees fit perfectly into John’s palms. Sherlock’s eyes are widened, a lovely spectrum of greens and blues, John leans in toward him, chin tipped up in offering. Sherlock quickly closes the gap and John immediately has plush lips caressing softly over his own. The kiss is so light, so tentative that it makes John ache. Something holed up so deep in the pit of John’s gut bursts, uncoils, heats up at the first simple feather light brush of Sherlock’s mouth.
The kiss doesn’t deepen, rather it expands, bursts bright like sun over the horizon to envelop them both in tender heat. John presses into the kiss and a noise escapes his throat when Sherlock opens his mouth to lick against John’s tongue. It goes on for ages, the give and take of pushing forward, pulling back, learning what makes the other gasp and shuffle farther onto the edge of their seat, closer and closer and closer and closer.
Sherlock has locked his ankles around John’s ankles, and John is nearly sitting in Sherlock’s lap when the need for oxygen slips in between them. They pant together, John can’t stop brushing his lips against the line of Sherlock’s jaw. Sherlock fingers are spread out across John’s nape, and neither one of them seem willing to afford any more space than that.
When the heaving in John’s chest weakens, he nudges their foreheads together. He feels the way he always feels with Sherlock; some enthralling cocktail composed of opposites. Safety and danger. Calm and overcome. All tied together into something John wants, something he identifies as only Sherlock’s.
Sherlock sighs against John’s lips, whispers, “Finally.”
-------
They’ve abandoned their spot at the dining room table, Sherlock leads John into his bedroom, two of John’s fingers grasped in Sherlock’s palm as he tugs him inside and shuts the door. The window is unlatched, daylight filtering through the gauzy curtains. When John moves to shut it, Sherlock grabs him around the waist, winds him in long arms and begins kissing the thin, sensitive patch of skin under John’s ear.
“Leave it open,” Sherlock murmurs, pushing John back and back, until the pits of his knees hit the lip of the bed. He strips off John’s shirt and they collapse in heap onto the mattress, a tangled mess of limbs and Sherlock’s dressing gown ties, fingers reaching out, holding and keeping what skin they can touch. Sherlock rolls, goes flat on his back, the deep ochre of curls riotous against the simple blue-striped pillow. John strokes his fingers through that hair now, as he’s wanted to do so many times, before he knew he was allowed. All those years of staying his hand from reaching out, now John takes hold and crushes the silky weight of those curls in his palm. John keeps his eyes open, marvelling at how Sherlock’s mouth opens to sigh, how he arches into every stroke.
Sherlock writhes slowly underneath John’s body as hands peel off Sherlock’s clothes, piece by piece. Dressing gown and shirt flutter off the side of the bed, slide onto the cold wood floor where John will have to retrieve them later for the wash. The pale skin of Sherlock’s chest, the long lines of his legs, muscled from foot chases through serpentine alleys, John wants to kiss and nuzzle every fair inch. Wants to set into and steep himself in whatever elemental thing that makes Sherlock Sherlock, and tether himself. John pushes his fingers under the waistband of Sherlock’s pyjama bottoms, thumb stroking over the ridge of his iliac crest, he works them gently down Sherlock’s thighs. John’s hands slip behind the small of Sherlock’s back as he bows upward to allow the garment to be slid past the swell of his arse. Sherlock kicks the pyjamas away, and John allows himself to look. Oh. John smooths his hands over the tops of Sherlock’s legs, then back up to grip into his trim waist.
“You’re just so bloody gorgeous,” he sighs helplessly, eyes possessive over Sherlock’s chest, the rosy tumescence of his arousal. Sherlock’s cheeks take on a healthy flush, lids hooded as he smiles crookedly.
“Come here,” Sherlock reaches his arms up to receive John.
John lowers his body down onto Sherlock’s, they both gasp at the first real hint of friction as their cocks align and push heatedly together.
“Christ,” John says quietly, hips dropping to rut softly. “Christ, Christ,” his words inexplicably caught into a loop as Sherlock reaches down to grip John’s bum, helping them undulate together.
“I know,” Sherlock bites his bottom lip, already glossy and swollen from kissing. “Please, John.”
He lengthens his body, deposits his lips onto Sherlock’s, kisses him, let’s the longing and desperation and love seep into the hollows of their mouths.
“Whatever you want,” John whispers against Sherlock’s parted lips, “Anything. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you, okay?” Anything. Anything.
John nuzzles into Sherlock’s collarbone, a kiss fitting perfectly into the suprasternal notch. Lips find a pale nipple, he licks gingerly over the peak, nudges his nose in a caress down Sherlock’s chest. Hands graze over the curves of Sherlock’s ribs, John feels the cage of it expanding and contracting with every lovely breath. An early summer breeze gusts through the open window, it’s balmy against John’s bare skin, halcyon and fresh.
Sherlock’s eyes close as John licks and kisses his way down that lithe body, long fingers trace up and over John’s shoulders, cupping over his ears. John rests his chin above Sherlock’s navel. “Tell me what you need, love.”
Sherlock’s thumb brushes the fine hair above John’s temples. “Slowly,” he breathes.
It’s all the instruction John requires.
John nods and descends, pausing only to suck a small, pink bruise into the crease where Sherlock’s thigh meets his pelvis. Sherlock spreads his legs, one knee coming up in a bracket, both hands still resting on the top of John’s skull.
Sherlock gasps at the first slick touch of John’s tongue against his cock. John kisses once over the weeping slit and lick his lips when Sherlock bites back something that sounds so much like a whimper. “Shh, I’ve got you,” John murmurs, taking the head into his mouth and suckling softly.
He does as Sherlock asked, mouth working down the shaft an inch at a time before pulling back up to the tip to swirl his tongue. It’s been over seven years since John has held another man’s cock in his mouth, but he’s always loved going down on partners. Women, men, there’s something about bringing pleasure to another person with his mouth, tasting their arousal with every firm press of his tongue, the powerful intimacy of it when their thighs tremble around his ears as they come. Lapping up the taste of what exactly John did to take them apart.
John fingers chart the skin over Sherlock’s hips, nails scraping lightly against his flanks, relishing in the full body tremor that goes through Sherlock when he flattens his tongue to lick at the fraenulum. John’s own arousal is secondary, a delicious throbbing deep in his spine that he can succumb to later. Sherlock moans as John eases in a steady pace, lips wrapped tenderly around his erection. The wet sucking noises of saliva being dragged up and down the hot jut of flesh only serve to entice John further.
Fingers tighten in John’s hair, “God, John,” Sherlock’s voice nothing but gravel, “Don’t stop, just--just--” and there it is. Sherlock’s thighs begin to quiver, his fingers curl, flex, and curl again. John lets Sherlock’s thrust up a bit between his lips. “How do you-- Ah,ah,” Sherlock pants, unable to articulate. “I’m going to,” Sherlock’s heads whips side to side, teeth dug into his lip and eyes shut tight.
John bobs his head, takes as much of Sherlock into his mouth as possible.. He feels Sherlock’s cock grow thicker, firmer against his tongue. John hears Sherlock’s breath spiralling up, up, high into his chest as he holds it. The warm body underneath John goes rigid for the span of three second, everything is still aside from Sherlock’s fingernails scraping frenetically through John’s hair and holding him there, legs spreading farther apart.
A grunt that sounds much more similar to grateful sob punches out of from deep in Sherlock’s throat, and he’s coming in John’s mouth. John’s eyes shutter closed as the bitter tang of semen pulses across his tongue, he swallows it away without a thought, then opens his eyes to watch Sherlock gasp and twitch in the aftershocks. It’s probably the most beautiful thing John has ever seen. The flush high on Sherlock’s cheeks, red like a valentine, fanned out onto his chest, alive and burning, and John’s.
He holds Sherlock in his mouth until his breathing evens, until he softens on John’s tongue. When John lets his mouth slip away, Sherlock trembles. He fits himself back over Sherlock, kisses his swanny throat while tapered fingers pet between John’s shoulder blades.
“Show me how you like it,” Sherlock murmurs, kissing John, “Show me.”
Sherlock presses his tongue between John’s teeth, and John knows Sherlock must be able to taste himself as they lick together. He reaches for Sherlock’s hand and lowers it into the heat rising up at the apex of John’s legs. Sherlock wraps his fingers over John’s as he begins to move his fist. John shows Sherlock that he likes the rough press of a thumb dragging from the fraenulum, all the down to the base. He grabs Sherlock’s hand, opens it up to the flat of his palm, and runs it over the leaking slit. Sherlock takes over, gauging John’s gasps, his needy moans, as Sherlock works, repeating all the moves John showed him just a moment ago.
Sherlock buries his face in the crook of John’s neck, chin lifting to trace the whorl of John’s ear with his tongue. John whimpers embarrassingly when Sherlock quickly removes his fingers, licks sloppily against his palm, and lowers it once again onto John’s cock.
“Fuck my hand,” Sherlock whispers, voice sensual and low in John’s ear.
“Oh, ffuu--” and John hips begin snapping into the wet, tight trap of Sherlock curled fingers.
It doesn’t take long, John’s orgasm is as inescapable as the universe itself, “God, I love you, I love you, I love you,” John can’t stop saying it as Sherlock licks his lips and nods. Eyes simultaneously bright and dark and consuming John like the rising tide. Sherlock must be able to feel it happen, feel the pressure coil into every thrust, and he catches John’s open mouth with his lips and tongue as John spills hot over Sherlock’s fingers.
“Brilliant,” Sherlock says in amazement, cradling John’s forehead against his chest. He uses the corner of the duvet to clean them both off as John collapses off to the side and tries to regulate his breathing.
They strain against each other, growing comfortable and even in the bed. The open window relays the sound of traffic and pedestrians on their way to the shops. Below them, a woman laughs.
“It’s only morning,” John yawns, eyes falling closed, he feels peaceful and whole.
“I know,” Sherlock murmurs against John’s shoulder, “We’ll just lie here for a moment.”
John giggles, still a bit breathless, “Until the afterglow wears off?”
“Mh,” is Sherlock’s muffled reply, arms wrapping across John protectively, one hand settling casually over his bum. John smiles. Sherlock lips caress the nape of John’s neck, restarting some machine deep inside of him, constantly recalibrating all the little wheels, slowly reeling and speeding, leaning. Music rising up inside of John, like the massive dawn lifting on the other side of the world.
