The Fourth Sin
Title: The Fourth Sin
Author: Livia_Carica
Characters: Sherlock/John
Rating: Um, 15. Ish..
Summary: Lust is a thief that steals away while we are sleeping.
Disclaimer: I have finished with them, you may have them back now.
A/N: Full prompt here.
The heating is broken; the high ceilings pull the remaining heat away from the two bodies sleeping below, making blankets and duvets treasured commodities. Still, they are not touching, each on his own side of the bed, facing away from each other.
The pub had been John's idea; he'd been bouncing off the walls all evening, unable to settle. Sherlock had acquiesced for a bit of peace, tables turned for once. He hadn’t done anything as pedestrian as get drunk.
When they had left to walk home, he’d turned his collar up against the encroaching cold. The way he would remember, it wasn’t sudden, but gradual; John was just there and then he was close, oh God, so close, too close. Then rough hands were grabbing at Sherlock’s hair, pulling him down. John was icy skin, whisky and warm lips; it took Sherlock an eon to respond, to work out what was going on. Still, John kept going, didn't move away, and didn’t offer platitudes and apologies. Instead he tenaciously pulled at a lower lip, doggedly pursued the relaxing of Sherlock’s wire tight body and he smiled into what was not quite a kiss as taut muscles finally shifted under the thick coat.
God knows, he had wanted to pull away. But the same God knew he craved John and when a serpentine fate offers you an apple, surely it’s rude not to take a bite? He’d failed many tests of temptation in his lifetime and he knew he was about to fail this one. He brought his gloved hands up to John's jaw, grasped the back of his head, and from then on it was instinct. He bent his head to get closer to the warm mouth pursuing his own and pushed his leg between John's thighs, capturing the resulting groan. There were people coming out of the pub, just around the corner, he could hear them, and here he was rutting in an alleyway like a dog in heat. He knew John had been taken aback by the aggression of his response, knew he should pull back, but he couldn’t stop now if he wanted. Lust is a deadly sin for a reason.
Sherlock shifts in his sleep. The London morning pushes its way in through dirty blinds that have never quite worked properly, never managed to quite shutter everything out. Outside, the city is unfurling, frost rimed and pink tinged; soon church bells will start ringing. Downstairs, the cafe owners are getting ready for the day; Sherlock finally opens his eyes to the distant sounds of clinking crockery and the buzz of the traffic report on the radio. His shoulder is freezing where the blankets have slipped off. He expects to be alone, but he knows he isn’t. A bubble of regret rises in his belly.
They hadn’t made it as far as the hallway before they were pulling at coats, scarves, gloves, between messy kisses. They’d at least made it upstairs before everything else was removed. John was all too recognizable and alien at the same time. The sweater Sherlock pulled off John felt familiar, it smelled of him even, but he was tugging at it now, discarding it, caught up with the urgency to satisfy the pressure that was building.
They’d only just made it to his bedroom, where he had taken all the others, but John wasn’t the unknown that they had been. When he claimed John’s body, a body he knew every inch of, from the scar to the mole on the right side of his ribcage, he was already onto his third sin of the night. There had been promises and curses, whispers and screams and when Sherlock finally reached his release, it was a well worn name on his lips.
They had fallen asleep in silence and bodily fluids, too exhausted to do anything about either. They had drifted apart during the night.
Sherlock stares at the wall, unsure what to do next. Has he ever really had the morals to stop doing this? It was usually quick, mostly painless; this bed has seen its fair share of single night occupants fucked and then sent on their way. They slip back into the noise and movement of the city unnoticed, especially not by their erstwhile bedfellow. He just pulls on a suit in an empty room and faces the day with no apologies made to himself or anyone else.
But John is a different matter, because John does matter. He can’t do it again. There is no way he can watch John be swallowed up and taken away like the others. The bubble in his belly ascends to his throat. He’ll leave, driven away by the mess Sherlock has made of the whole situation, because lust is a thief that doesn’t stay around to clean up after itself. It has broken the locks on Sherlock’s defenses that had been loosened by John and now...
He feels John stir, and turns over to find himself looking into a sleepy pair of eyes. He is surprised and more than a little hopeful that they are not filled with the empty recognition that he usually finds.
John is smiling. He shuffles to Sherlock’s side of the bed and wraps an arm around a narrow waist. Sherlock puts his arm gently around a scarred shoulder and even though John can’t see him, he tentatively smiles back.