Fiction: Comfort and Care
Title: Comfort and Care
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: John/Sherlock
Warnings: Some mild slash but nothing below the belt.
Word Count: 1,076
Summary: Sherlock takes care of John who has been injured while helping on a case. Sherlock cannot stop worrying, but, with John's help, finds a way to calm himself down.
Comfort and Care
The blows rang in his ears, loosened his teeth, scraped at his skin, and it wasn't even he who was getting hit. It was John, his John, the one that no one touches but him and certainly not like that.
When the fog of rage finally lifted, Sherlock could see that John, though bleeding, would be OK. Not so for the pulpy mess that had been his assailant. Still, the words "excessive force" and "reconstructive surgery" along with the rest of the tedious interview with Lestrade made no impact on Sherlock, left him feeling neither satisfaction nor remorse. Now neutralized, the petty thief was nothing to him, less than the dirt under his feet. There was only John, injured and exhausted, patiently standing by the cab, ready to go home and receive the kind of comfort and care that only Sherlock could give.
John lay on the couch-Sherlock had insisted. John, he had argued, would be easier to observe there than in his bed, their bed. And, although the paramedic had checked John over thoroughly and found only abrasions and contusions, Sherlock was not satisfied until he saw for himself.
Sherlock went over John with a fine-toothed comb. He checked John's pulse, listened to his heart, felt his bones (all 206 of them) one by one, and examined his pupils for signs of shock. John could not help but enjoy the attention, but after the second cognition test offered up a half-hearted protest.
"I'm fine, Sherlock. Just need some rest."
But Sherlock would not, could not stop. His restless hands kept checking and testing and probing. They fluttered from John's forehead (cool for now) to his feet, removing forgotten shoes, to his carotid artery, where John's pulse seemed to quicken beneath his touch. Seeing Sherlock's eyebrows knit, John smiled.
"It's you, love. Your hands."
This made sense. Sherlock knew about how closely John watched his hands. He'd observed John tracking them from the early days of their relationship, far before they had become intimate. His hands were how John kept tabs on Sherlock's mood. Agitated, Sherlock's hands flitted about, fingers stretched into the air like filaments of spider webs feeling for faint vibrations. When Sherlock was happy, serene, his hands curled loosely, gracefully, often around a violin bow or sometimes around the nape of John's neck as they sat together in the evenings on the couch. And when Sherlock was concentrating, he tented his hands before his mouth as if trapping the thoughts inside so they could fully gestate before escaping his lips to dazzle the world.
And to John, Sherlock's smooth ivory-colored hands, large but sensitive, explored the world like two bold and curious creatures with minds of their own. And when he experienced these curious creatures exploring his person, in bed or tonight upon the couch, he found them to be incredibly erotic.
But tonight, Sherlock's hands were also worried, fretful, working the atmosphere into a lather. John's eyes were getting heavy with sleep, but those hands, so sensual in their grace yet so full of tension, would not let him rest.
"Please, Sherlock, relax," he wanted to say, but John was so tired that all he could manage was a low moan of exhaustion.
The sound struck Sherlock stock still. His breath shallowed as he gazed upon John's mouth, those familiar lips parting ever so slightly as John began to relax into sleep. Looking from his own hands to that sweet mouth, Sherlock's brilliant mind made a connection.
Sherlock perched himself gingerly upon the edge of the couch and extended his right hand until it was just a centimeter from John's lips. He could feel John's warm breath tickle the near-invisible hairs on his hand. Wanting more, he moved his hand in whisper close. John, eyes closed and half-asleep, responded by drawing in a sharp breath as his mouth opened a fraction more. Sherlock waited. An exhale followed, a heartbroken "oh" of disappointment, and Sherlock's fingers, heeding the call, entered, sliding slowly across the yielding lower lip and tips of teeth, and across that warm wet expanse of tongue, John's active and curious equivalent to Sherlock's hands.
Slowly John closed around Sherlock's fingers in a tight embrace, his tongue rising up to cradle and stroke. A deep rumble, originating in Sherlock's throat, rippled through him, causing tiny pulses to escape his fingertips. Thus stimulated, John's tongue began rutting against those long smooth digits as he sucked them in greedily, then allowed them to slide out a fraction before claiming them again.
Sherlock had never thought of his own fingers as anything other than tools, admittedly his most important ones (along with his eyes and brain), but tools none the less. But now, seeing John partake of them like a rare delicacy, then relinquish them just a wee bit so he could repeat the act, consuming Sherlock over and over until Sherlock's fingers became loose and compliant over his kneeding tongue, Sherlock's body and brain no longer tense with concern, his fingers no longer completely his but shared, mutually savored, Sherlock was more than a little aroused. But, no, he would hold that thought; because tonight that talented mouth and tongue were doing something more impressive still. John had found a way, via Sherlock's fingers, to making a direct connection to Sherlock's brain, soothing it, reassuring it. Even injured, exhausted, and nearly asleep, John was taking care of him.
Sherlock rose, careful not to disturb the blissful ministrations to his hand, climbed onto the couch, and positioned himself behind his lover. Now fully asleep but still sucking away, softly, tenderly, John rolled on to his side to spoon. Sherlock closed his eyes but stayed awake a good hour, logging and classifying all the new sensations for future use, perhaps tomorrow in their bed where he now longed to once again watch his own fingers disappearing into John, or perhaps on a hatefully boring day when he found himself alone and needing to remember how lucky he was to have someone who cared. With John's heartbeat thudding through his ribcage and the rhythmic sucking of John's mouth beginning to slow, Sherlock drifted off to sleep, the sleep of the loved.
-fin-
Note: The above story was inspired by a series of provocative still photos of Martin Freeman in the TV drama Men Only. http://static.diary.ru/userdir/5/7/8/7/578741/62069114.jpg
