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It was strange, how close they’d become over the past year. John was usually a very private person, but Sherlock brought out a frank sort of honesty in him, and they regularly discussed and did things that flatmates—even close friends—typically wouldn’t. John felt that it was because Sherlock was a genius, and regular social taboos meant nothing to him (John had brought it up once, but Sherlock didn’t seem to have an opinion on the subject). Either way, their relationship was somewhat more personal and open than most people’s.
‘I’ve got a spot on my shoulder-blade that I can’t reach,’ Sherlock would say, for example, ‘and it’s driving me mad. I think it may need your professional attention.’
And to further explain, ‘Hey, Sherlock, have you been using my toothbrush? I don’t mind, I just wondered because it tastes like your toothpaste.’
And, ‘Mind if I sleep in your bed tonight? The radiator in my room’s still acting up.’
And, with a bit of something on the end of one finger, ‘Here, John, lick this and tell me if it’s sour, I’m out of litmus paper and my mouth still tastes of coffee.’
And, ‘That, Sherlock, is how you undo a trouser button with your teeth! Useful, isn’t it?’
And, ‘I’m going round the laundrette, do you want me to wash your pyjamas? They’ve got come on them.’
And, in the dark hours of the early morning, I had another nightmare, need a hug. Come up? –J
Also, after a long day of casework, ‘God, I need a furious wank and a nap.’
And, ‘Holy fuck, it’s freezing out here. Could I put my hands under your coat for a bit?’
Similarly, ‘Ever wondered if a victim was good in bed, even if you’ve only ever seen them as a corpse?’
And, ‘You’ve got lint on the back of your trousers—there, I’ve got it.’
Likewise, ‘I wonder if I’m a good kisser.’
And, ‘What’s it like, being high?’
And, ‘Please tell me to eat something, John. I haven’t eaten in ten days and I just don’t bloody want to, but if you force me I might.’
And, ‘Do you think there’s a connection between people’s kinks and their social preferences in non-sexual contexts?’
And, ‘Mmm, you smell really good today.’
And so forth.
It wasn’t surprising, therefore, that when Sherlock walked in on John having one off the wrist (John had thought Sherlock’s errand would take several more hours, and he hadn’t felt like going back up to his room when the urge struck him), Sherlock didn’t turn immediately and leave the room. Instead, he sat down on the sofa, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and watched.
‘Er, hi,’ said John. ‘Should I stop?’
‘No,’ said Sherlock off-handedly, ‘but that technique will tire your hand far quicker than other methods.’
John, who, now that he thought about it, usually did have to change angles several times before he was done, looked contemplatively down at his hand. ‘How so?’
‘Here,’ said Sherlock, getting up, ‘let me show you.’ He changed the position of John’s hand, curling his wrist slightly, spacing his fingers just so. ‘See, if you keep your wrist rigid like you have been doing thus far, there isn’t that pleasant range of motion along with the strokes.’ He demonstrated, moving his hand over John’s for the span of three caresses. ‘It’s much better when your cock moves as well as your hand; you want your arm to be as flexible as possible.’
‘Right,’ said John, smiling. ‘Thanks.’
Sherlock went back and sat on the sofa, opening his laptop and tapping in the password.
‘Er, Sherlock?’ John piped up after a moment. ‘Could you tell me to do other things?’
‘Do the washing-up,’ Sherlock joked, deadpan. ‘It’s starting to get out of control.’
John laughed. ‘No, you twat, I meant...’ he gestured vaguely into his lap, ‘in this general area.’
‘All right,’ said Sherlock affably, now typing at full-speed, not looking up. ‘Run your thumb in circles over the head, anti-clockwise, until I tell you to stop.’
‘How fast?’
Sherlock smirked. ‘As fast as you want.’
John obeyed, and he was just starting to get into a proper rhythm when Sherlock said, ‘Now clockwise.’
So John switched directions, sighing at the slight change in the sensation. And again, just as he was getting used to it, Sherlock said, ‘Anti-clockwise.’
This went on for some minutes, and John got a little frustrated. ‘Can’t I do anything else?’
‘Yes,’ Sherlock told him, hitting backspace several times. ‘Stop, and run the backs of your fingers along the underside of your cock, as gently and slowly as you can stand.’
As gently and slowly as John could stand was pretty damned delicate, and his fingers whispered across his skin, tortuously unhurried. ‘God, Sherlock, you’re evil.’
‘Quite possibly.’ He carried on typing for awhile, almost as if John wasn’t even in the room. ‘Now stop.’
‘Arrrgh,’ John groaned, squirming.
‘Take your hand away.’
‘Bastard.’ But John did as he was told.
‘Do you think about anything while you masturbate?’ Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow as he worked.
John made a neither-here-nor-there noise. ‘Nothing in particular.’
‘No fantasies? Memories that you revisit?’
‘Usually it’s a sort of...’ John frowned, a little self-conscious for the first time since Sherlock had come in. ‘It’s a utilitarian thing. Get it over with, you know?’
‘Hence not employing a technique that maximised your pleasure,’ Sherlock observed, finally looking up, setting his laptop aside and leaning forward to eye him steadily. ‘But that aside, I completely understand what you mean.’
John almost laughed, so relieved was he that Sherlock didn’t think he was... weird. ‘Do you?’
Sherlock nodded. ‘I used to feel that way, as well. But then I realised, if I’m going to do it anyway, why not try to enjoy it?’
‘Makes sense,’ said John, shifting a little in his chair, his cock bobbing against his abdomen, just below the hiked-up fabric of his shirt. ‘What do you think about?’
‘You,’ said Sherlock instantly, but frowned at himself as soon as he had spoken. ‘Er, not in a... I’m not obsessed with you or something, don’t get me wrong. You’re the only person I would trust enough. Do you see?’
John nodded, feeling a blush unfurl across his chest, creeping up his neck as notions he’d (surprisingly) never entertained flashed across his thoughts: pinning Sherlock against the sofa, kissing, biting, ‘Yeah, I...’ scratching, struggling, bodies taut with anticipation like coiled springs, ‘I understand. Sort of feel that way too, lately, to be honest.’
Sherlock got up and went to sit in the armchair directly across from John’s. ‘What about Sarah?’
John shrugged. ‘Nothing doing. Wrote it off to performance issues. Can I touch my cock again, please?’
‘Yes,’ said Sherlock, a wicked little smirk sparking his features before it faded to a neutral expression, ‘move as I showed you earlier, but this time I want you to imagine things. Can you do that?’
But John’s mind was already crowded fit to burst with deliciously tempting concepts, so he nodded at once. ‘Sure. Yeah.’
‘And,’ Sherlock added, ‘I want you to tell me what you’re thinking, in explicit detail. Take me through the steps.’
A hot flare of want struck John—not attraction, not sexual desire, just want—making his hips jerk a little as he started to stroke himself again, just as Sherlock had instructed him.
‘Let your mind wander,’ Sherlock told him as if he were walking him through the scientific process, and John closed his eyes to better concentrate. ‘Wait until it settles upon a scene, and then tell me what you see, what you’re doing. If you have trouble, I’ll ask questions to lead your fantasy.’
John sorted through the endless possibilities that had begun to occur to him, but then something leapt out at him: what if, one night when he’d had a nightmare and Sherlock had obligingly come upstairs to hold and comfort him, what if they had...?
‘Right, so we’re in my room,’ said John, his voice low, a slight frown creasing his brow, his hand moving languidly as he spoke, ‘I’ve had flashbacks again, and asked for a hug like I do sometimes, and you decide to calm me down in a different way.’
‘That’s a very cursory explanation,’ said Sherlock with a little huff of amusement. ‘Go deeper, John. Am I the aggressor?’
John’s frown smoothed for a moment, and then returned, his eyes shut tight. ‘No, not really. We’ve done it before, this scenario’s common with us, and you’re sort of... following unspoken orders, does that make sense?’
‘Yes,’ Sherlock answered quickly, sounding eager. ‘Yes, it makes sense. Go on. What am I doing?’
‘You’re...’ John drew a blank, the flow of the fantasy hitting a snag, and he had to decide what Sherlock was doing. ‘Er...’
There was the sound of the armchair across from him being abandoned, a rustle of fabric, and when Sherlock spoke, his voice came from about armrest-height, in front of John. ‘I’m sucking you off,’ he said, his hot breath ghosting over John’s cock, over his hand; his breath, and nothing more. ‘I’m taking your cock between my lips, applying a gentle suction.’
John’s breathing hitched in his chest, and he tightened his grip just a little, picking up the pace. ‘God, Sherlock.’
‘But you want more than that, don’t you?’ Sherlock purred, and it felt like his lips were inches from John’s cock, he could feel the vibration of his words. ‘I lean forward, taking it further, deeper, until the head bumps against the back of my throat.’
A prickling shiver charged across John’s skin, making him gasp. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, ‘please don’t stop.’
‘And I pull back again,’ Sherlock told him, sounding breathless, himself, his voice low and dark with possibility, ‘but you won’t have that, will you? You fist your hands in my hair and pull, thrusting back into my mouth, down my throat—’
‘Fuck, Sherlock, please—’ John moaned, not knowing, out of all the things he wanted, what he wanted just then.
‘Please what?’ Sherlock teased him. ‘I thought you were in charge, John, why are you begging me?’
‘I’m not,’ said John, only realising it as he said it aloud. ‘I’m not, you’re in control, I’m helpless.’
‘How helpless?’ Sherlock pressed, and John could almost feel his lips brushing against the back of his rapidly jostling hand, almost. ‘Are you strapped down, chained, cuffed, blindfolded, suspended? Come on, John, go deeper.’
As each prospect paraded across John’s imagination he felt more and more dizzy, his chest rising and falling quickly, dangerously close to the edge. ‘You’ve got me pinned down by my hips.’
‘Of course I have,’ said Sherlock, almost growling. ‘You’re not going to get away this time, John, you’re trapped.’
‘Yes,’ John whispered, biting his lower lip, eyes clenched tightly closed.
‘You can’t keep tempting me and expect me to just ignore it,’ Sherlock went on, and John, elated, felt Sherlock’s fingers drift over his wrist, curling over John’s fingers from the opposite angle, moving as he moved. ‘I’m going to make you come, John, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
John let his head fall back against the chair, a series of desperate sounds escaping him as the combined strokes of Sherlock’s hand and his own shot him far over the edge into screaming bliss.
Instantly Sherlock’s hand moved away, and John, groggily forcing his eyes open, saw Sherlock licking John’s come from his fingers.
‘You should probably clean off,’ Sherlock told him pleasantly, getting to his feet and fetching a tea towel from the kitchen.
‘God,’ said John, still shaking, the room spinning around him as he got his breath back. ‘God, that was amazing.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Sherlock in his off-hand way, already back on the sofa, already typing again.
John sighed happily, content until his mind gave rise to sensible thoughts again. ‘Wait,’ he said, shaking his head as if to clear it. ‘That was... we just had sex, didn’t we?’
‘No,’ said Sherlock. ‘It was only pretend-sex.’
‘But what about what you said, that I was tempting and—’ John, embarrassed, didn’t know where that sentence was going, so he decided to dispute something else. ‘Really, Sherlock, pretend-sex?’
Sherlock shrugged. ‘You should know, John, I’m not gay. I’m not technically anything. Are you?’
John rubbed his eyes, sighing hard. ‘Well now, thanks to that, I have no bloody idea.’
‘John,’ Sherlock eyed him with concern, ‘is this one of those need-a-hug times?’
John, irritated, started cleaning himself off with the tea towel. ‘No, Sherlock, this is one of those oh-merciful-fuck-please-don’t-let-this-be-a-personality-crisis times.’
‘Pfft,’ Sherlock noised amusedly, ‘psychology. Just ignore it.’
John glared at him. ‘Ignore it?’
He nodded. ‘It’s that simple. Nothing’s changed between us, right?’
John examined his mental conception of Sherlock, of their relationship, and realised that, as usual, Sherlock had a point. ‘Right. Nothing’s changed.’ He shook his head, laughing at himself. ‘Except that now we’re pretend-gay for each other.’
‘Are we?’ Sherlock mused. ‘Does that mean this is going to happen again?’
‘Well,’ said John reasonably, ‘it’s only fair if I reciprocate.’
‘Oh,’ said Sherlock, and across his face broke a beautiful smile.