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“I don’t think this is happening any time soon,” says John, and Sherlock bites down on a groan of frustration.
This is all so nearly perfect. How close they are, open-mouthed, sharing breath. His legs spread wide beneath John’s touch. Bare skin on bare skin. Sherlock knows that John has never been ashamed of the physical marks left by his injuries—only of the uselessness he once thought they represented. (Unselfconscious on the rare occasions when he’s needed to remove clothes in front of other people; ever-reluctant to ask for help with a task.) And now, naked before Sherlock, his smile is sweet and wicked; the colour in his cheeks not embarrassment, just surprise at being wanted so very much.
And Sherlock does want. This, and so much more beside.
He breathes in, deep and shuddering, and lets his head fall back. Concentrates upon the gentle crook of John’s fingers inside him—not entirely comfortable, but new and present in a way that arrests his attention, keeps him aware of his body, of how he breathes and feels in it. The twitch of John’s cock against his hip, hot and insistently hard, sheathed in skin whose particular papery softness reminds Sherlock of raw silk.
What they could be doing right now. He’s ready; has never been readier for anything in his life.
And John should know this. Should’ve worked it out earlier, when he whispered, “Fuck me, you’re gorgeous,” into Sherlock’s ear and got a murmured, “I was rather hoping it would be the other way around,” by way of response.
But John is so calm. So still. Just stays where he is, stretched out beside Sherlock. Works his fingers in, millimetre by millimetre, and out again, steady and slow. It makes Sherlock want to scream.
“You need to relax a bit more,” John says.
“I am relaxed.” Sherlock’s voice comes out low and thready. His thighs tremble with need. John doesn’t dignify his lie with a response; just mouths at Sherlock’s jaw, kisses him open-mouthed and tender for long minutes.
John’s breathing is rapid; his pupils dilated; his erection leaking pre-ejaculate. How is it, then, that he sounds so composed? How can he bear to be patient?
Sherlock lacks data; has nothing to which to compare this. Perhaps what he’s feeling can be put down to first-time nerves—but he doesn’t think so. He isn’t nervous, only desperate. And this evening—the first life-or-death situation they’ve faced together since his return—reminded him of other occasions when he’s been (much less pleasantly) desperate. Had guns pointed at his head and thought he might not make it back. Struggled not to imagine John forever without him, never knowing that he hadn’t died on that pavement. And there were still things that John didn’t know, still things they hadn’t done together, and that was suddenly unacceptable. And here, now, all of it has coalesced into an urgency that Sherlock thinks might choke him if John doesn’t do something about it soon. I need to have you inside me. Feel you. Keep you. I need to give you me.
“Oi,” John is saying. “Come back. Look at me.”
Sherlock does, and finds John’s gaze focused on his face. John’s free hand moves slowly over his hipbone. “We’ve got time,” he says.
“But I don’t want time, I want—John, I want—” All of it, all at once, now. Juvenile, really; impossible, and it’s the petulance in his own voice that makes Sherlock break off, flushing. He has no problem with being thought sulky and unreasonable, most of the time, but he can’t afford to sound childish right now. It might remind John of his inexperience; might give him second thoughts. John is not allowed to have second thoughts.
But, “Yeah,” John says in his ear. “Yeah, I know.” And then: “Do you want to know what I want right now?”
He presses in deeper as he speaks, curls his fingers so that Sherlock’s “Yes” (all he can manage—can’t even predict the answer—oh, he’s far gone indeed) comes out a gasp.
“I just want to see your face when you come.” His mouth is at Sherlock’s neck. “I want to see you undone, and I want to know I did it.” He pauses. “Is that alright with you?” John’s breath, the vibration of words spoken against skin—unbearably intimate, all Sherlock can bear. He makes a low, helpless noise that’s meant for assent, and apparently John understands it as such, because then he takes Sherlock’s cock in his hand and gives him a slow, experimental stroke.
His touch is light—teasing; unpredictable; attention-claiming—and, caught between his hands, Sherlock feels suddenly dislocated. Decentred. Sensations collide inside of him. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to focus, but it’s too much, it’s everything, it’s overwhelming—
Tension in his face or his body must give him away, because then John stops what he’s doing, stills the minute movements of his fingers. It’s a relief but it’s a loss, too, and Sherlock opens his eyes to search John’s face.
John is looking at him. Considering. Making no attempt to hide the turning of the cogs inside his head, or to look as though he already has the answer. And then he reaches for Sherlock’s hand where it’s fisted in the sheets, coaxes it loose and guides it down to close around his cock in place of John’s own. “Here,” he says, and there’s just a little waver in his voice, now; a hint that desire might be about to crack his calm. “Just let me watch. God, I’ve—”
He breaks off as Sherlock’s hand begins to move under his; as Sherlock begins to stroke himself. Tentative, at first—but yes, that’s just right, the balance between the stretch from John’s fingers inside him and the firm, steady pressure of his own palm. He closes his eyes, lets his head fall back. Thrusts up into his hand, and is rewarded with John’s ragged exhale against his collarbone.
“There. There, see? We’ve got time. All the time in the world for me to fuck you ‘til you see stars.” John’s voice drops on that last utterance, rough and needy, and it’s a shot straight to the base of Sherlock’s spine.
“Why would I want to see stars?” he manages in reply, the question broken by a shudder but true nonetheless. Because he doesn’t want to see them, he wants to feel them: constellations of desire mapped out on skin by hands and mouths, delineated in sweat and semen and saliva.
“Figure of speech, you silly git,” says John, and his words are undercut by a tremor of want, too. “You know what I mean.”
“Mmm.”
Sherlock knows. We’ve got time—it’s a promise, and it tugs loose something tightly-wound inside him; something whose existence startles him slightly.
If this is just the beginning, is only the first exposition of a theme upon which there can be infinite variations—well, that means John has no intention of entertaining second thoughts. Of turning from him in fear of a further betrayal.
It means he’s forgiven.
He lets out a soft breath of—what? relief? (happiness?)
“Sherlock? Are you—?”
“I’m fine.” And then: “Tell me.” If there’s forgiveness, if there’s a future, he wants it, all of it. He’ll give himself up to it. To John. It will not escape him.
“What?”
He shifts his hips; grinds down against John’s hand. “What you’re going to do with all the time in the world. More—oh—more specifically, what you’re going to do to me.”
John’s eyelashes flutter against Sherlock’s cheek. John draws a sharp breath. And then he says, “Okay.”
There’s a brief pause, and in it Sherlock thinks that perhaps John’s conventionality has got the better of him; left him unable to articulate what he really wants.
Really, though, he ought to know better.
Because then John is pressing closer to him, cock against thigh, and he slides his fingers out slowly—so slowly—and Sherlock is pressing back down against them, a needy little moan escaping him before he can stop it.
“I’ll start like this,” John says, in his ear. “Tease you.” And his fingers are doing exactly that. Circling Sherlock’s entrance; promising to press back inside and then retreating.
“John—”
“Sh. You wanted to know.” John just carries on. Gentle. Unhurried. (All the time in the world.) “I’ll tease you until you’re desperate for it. And then—” He starts to slide them back in, fraction by fraction. It’s perfect, it’s excruciating, and it’s all Sherlock can do not to whimper. “I’ll take it slow. Keep my eyes open, because I want to see you. I want to see you feel all of it.”
John’s hips jerk forward as he speaks, his cock rubbing against Sherlock’s thigh. He stills right away, and Sherlock can feel the effort it’s costing him in the tautness of his body, the way it trembles.
“John,” he says. “Don’t—you don’t have to stop.”
“You don’t mind?”
Sherlock fixes him with a look. “You’re not the only one who wants to see.”
At that, John grins. He pushes his fingers in all the way, this time, and just—holds them there. And he’s not saying anything, and God, that’s frustrating, and after a moment Sherlock finds himself wriggling, making undignified noises, desperate for sensation.
He hears a breath, half arousal, half laughter. John is still grinning down at him.
“Yeah,” he says, “that’s what I’ll do. Just stay there for a minute until you’re squirming on my cock. Until you beg me to fuck you.”
“And what—what makes you think I will?”
“I can see your face right now.”
Sherlock opens his mouth to protest and John stops him with a kiss. It’s drawn-out and deliberate and lazy, and by the end of it John still hasn’t moved, and it’s all Sherlock can do not to say, ‘please.’ He settles for glaring, instead.
“Don’t worry, it won’t be long. The way you feel inside—” John crooks his fingers and Sherlock finds himself clenching around them, thrusting up into his own grip, free hand clutching at the sheets. He’s close now, God, so close. “—I won’t be able to resist fucking you for long.” He’s doing just that with his fingers, then, slow and deep; hips jerking forward as he rubs his cock against Sherlock’s thigh; breathing rapid. “Draw it out, though. I don’t want it to be over too soon. Give me—oh, fuck--just give me one chance and I might get addicted. God, you’re—”
Sense appears to fail him, then, and he’s jamming his fingers in hard, burying his face in the crook of Sherlock’s neck and whispering, “Oh, God, Sherlock, fucking hell,” all thoughts of holding back apparently forgotten. And he’s shuddering and coming with a groan, and it’s that loss of control—promise laid bare as need—that does for Sherlock. John is as lost as he is—and John is his—and John is still fucking him with his fingers—and—and—and—
* * *
“Mmph?”
“You can’t go to sleep yet. You have promises to keep.”
John looks up sleepily, then smirks. “And orgasms to give before I sleep?” A pause. “It’s from a poem. Well, not those words exactly, but—”
“I know. Poetry may not be useful, but that doesn’t prevent it being something I can appreciate.” Sherlock sniffs. “That weak attempt at humour, however, falls into neither category.”
John’s smirk, which had widened, vanishes abruptly. Sherlock rolls his eyes.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’ve got better things to do than play at being offended.”
“Yeah.” John’s fingers are travelling down toward his hipbone, now. Slowly, though. “Yeah, I suppose I have. In my own time, of course.”
Sherlock makes an impatient noise somewhere in his throat. John just looks at him.
“Like you said. I made a promise, and I’m going to keep it. To the letter.”
Until you beg me to fuck you. “I hate you.”
He feels John’s smile against his skin. “Not as much as you’re going to.”