Sherlock Fanfiction: Give Me Fire - Epilogue
Title: Give Me Fire - Epilogue
Author: saki101
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Slash
Word Count: ~2.7K
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
Summary: Sherlock finds a way to communicate with John during the Hiatus or maybe John finds a way to communicate with Sherlock. Upon Sherlock's return, there are many things to explain and explore.
An AU where the events following "Many Happy Returns" go very differently.
A/N: An epilogue to the story written for Come at Once: Round 6. 1electricpirate's evocative prompt, 'give me fire', took my brain on an unexpected journey.
Excerpt: The stitches were tiny and neat, reducing the cross-hatching of wounds to the thinnest of red lines.
Give Me Fire may be read on LJ here.
Both together are on AO3 here.
Give Me Fire
Epilogue
The stitches were tiny and neat, reducing the cross-hatching of wounds to the thinnest of red lines.
“I didn’t know this could happen." His hand hovered above the scored flesh, his eyes measuring each perfect angle, the length of every exact line. "How could this have happened?” He bent closer, his breath cool on the healing skin. “I am so sorry...although...it may have been this that saved my life.”
“Glad to help,” John said, turning his head. One eye was visible over the swell of the pillow. “I am so very glad to have been able to help.”
With a long exhalation, Sherlock stretched out by John’s side. He fit the hollow of his cheek to the curve of John’s shoulder, rested his forearm beneath John’s buttocks. “They had the last piece. I thought I could be in and out and gone before anyone realised I’d been there.” His fingers tapped patterns on the side of John’s thigh. “I got impatient.”
John hooked a foot over Sherlock’s shin.
“I had already made it to the woods when they started after me.”
John pulled Sherlock’s leg closer, rubbed the arch of his foot over the calf. “I heard a helicopter.”
Sherlock ground his forehead against John’s shoulder. “I had promised myself I would come back to you and we...” He sighed. “Seems I brought you to me.”
“The stone was cold,” John said.
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t breathe when I woke up. It was too dark in here. I wanted light.” John paused. “In the sitting room the fire had gone out.”
“Their interrogation technique was counterproductive.”
“You were unconscious,” John said.
“For a while.”
“You asked for fire,” John said.
Sherlock lifted his head. “Did I?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t get it to light.”
“What did you do?”
“I poured whiskey on the logs and shot at them.”
Sherlock laughed and propped himself up on his elbow. “I did come to with a jolt.” He brushed the hair off John’s forehead. “No one called the police?”
“I wrapped a towel around the barrel,” John said, pulling Sherlock’s hand down to his lips and pressing kisses to the ring of bruises around his wrist.
“Good thinking,” Sherlock said.
John tucked the hand under his chin. “So what happened?”
“My interrogator came back and I told him that he could catch his neighbour, the coffin-maker, and his wife in flagrante if he went home right then,” Sherlock replied.
“That could have got you a boot in the groin,” John said.
“Yes, it was a risk,” Sherlock admitted. “But he did leave.”
“And you got all that after just regaining consciousness?”
“I have missed your admiration, John,” Sherlock said, his eyes flickering over John’s face. “I had deduced the guard’s situation earlier, but it hadn’t been the right time to get the desired results from sharing it.”
“You needed to wait until his wife and her lover were shagging.”
“Precisely,” Sherlock said.
“How could you know that?”
“You know my methods, John.”
“I do. How long were you held?” John asked.
Sherlock brushed a finger over his chin. “Not quite two days.”
“Did you ever see the wife?” John asked.
“No.”
“How ‘bout the coffin-maker?” John pressed.
“No.”
“So you were able to deduce that two people that you had never seen were having sex at a particular time in a location at some distance from where you were?” John asked.
Sherlock pressed a finger against the corner of his lips. “Yes.”
“You overheard some gossip? Someone asking your interrogator about his wife in an insinuating tone? I’m guessing you understood the language,” John continued.
“No, yes and yes,” Sherlock replied. He bunched a pillow up and shoved it under his chin, his eyes still on John. “Where have you been honing your deductive skills, Doctor Watson?”
“I’ve been re-reading my notes on our old cases,” John replied.
Sherlock smiled. “Go on, then.”
“And the interrogator wore a wedding ring?” John continued.
Sherlock nodded.
“Anything else? A photo of her in a wallet that you glimpsed?”
“He had a kerchief of hers that he kept in his breast pocket. It was perfumed with an expensive French pefume. Apparently, beating people senseless pays well. I could smell the fragrance when he leaned in close to me,” Sherlock said.
“Nothing else?” John persisted.
Sherlock shook his head slowly. “Nothing else,” he replied.
“Then you could not have known that the interrogator’s wife was shagging the coffin-maker at the very time you were telling your interrogator about it,” John concluded.
“But I did,” Sherlock insisted, drawing his hand away from John to gesticulate with it. “I could smell how her perfume intensified when they began to sweat.” His voice grew quieter. “The coffin-maker loved her perfume. He would bury his nose in her hair, taking big, gasping breaths of it, while he thrust up into her, one of her legs on his shoulder, the other hooked around his waist. She made small sounds as she got closer to her climax and his arm around her waist would tighten. I could feel how he felt inside her. How he felt when he heard her sounds, how he thrust harder because he wanted to be deeper, as deep as he could be inside her.”
John’s hand slipped down between them to Sherlock’s thigh. “Thinking a lot about sex were you?” John asked. He brushed his hand over Sherlock’s erection.
Sherlock inhaled sharply and shut his eyes.
John stroked with his fingertips.
“When I was falling asleep…” Sherlock said.
John kept stroking, feather light. “Did you notice the candle on the dresser?” he asked.
Sherlock’s cheek rubbed against the pillow as he nodded.
“When the candle was lit, the dreams were clearer,” John said.
Sherlock lifted his head. “What dreams?”
“The ones I started having after you began appearing in candle flames and such,” John said. “When our backs heal, we can try more of those positions,” he added with a knowing smile. He rolled onto his side, his hand returning to Sherlock's skin.
“Are you suggesting that…”
"...you couldn’t come to those conclusions about the interrogator’s wife in your usual ways? Yes.” John’s hand stilled. “I think that information came to you along with your other deductions about this man, whom you desperately needed to manipulate, but that your awareness of his wife's affair came via this affinity with fire, which includes..." John trailed his fingertips over Sherlock's belly. "...the metaphorical fire of passion.”
Sherlock sat up and John's hand fell away.
“No. I overheard the guards joking about the coffin-maker needing to make an extra long one for me and the interrogator saying that he'd give him the message when he got home," Sherlock explained.
"Fine. That's how you knew the interrogator had a coffin-maker for a neighbour, but it doesn't explain knowing about the affair," John said.
"I could smell the scent of fresh wood shavings mixed with the fragrance of her perfume," Sherlock said, waving his fingers beneath his nose.
“And from that you could know how the coffin-maker felt when his mistress moaned as he made love to her?” John asked. He raised his hand and touched Sherlock’s cheek. “Or are you denying that you dreamt of me?”
“No, I’m not denying that,” Sherlock said, his brows drawing together.
“Are you saying that they weren’t dreams of passion?” John asked.
Sherlock stared at the wall.
“Don’t go to your Mind Palace now,” John said, rising up on his elbow and kissing Sherlock’s chin. “I have no complaints. I was waking up feeling better than I have in years. Regular orgasms will do that.”
Sherlock blinked.
“I’d stopped myself thinking of it after you…left,” John said.
Sherlock’s gaze snapped back to John. “You used to…”
John smoothed one hand over Sherlock’s curls. “You were rather hard not to think about.” He traced the curve of a cheekbone. “What with these and your coat collar turned up. God, all the different ways I thought about getting you out of that coat or having you in it.”
Sherlock’s eyes widened.
“Afterwards…yeah…I couldn’t help the occasional dream, but they usually ended with you on the edge of that damned roof.” John’s hand dropped to his side.
Sherlock leaned forward, tucking his knees under him. “Can you forgive me, John?”
John reached out for Sherlock’s shoulder with a sigh. “They were hard, bitter months. I thought I had died, but no one had bothered to bury me,” John said. He glanced away. “I would have chosen to go with you, but you’ve told me why you had to go alone and I understand.” His hand tightened on Sherlock’s shoulder. He looked back at Sherlock, pulled him close enough to kiss and held him there, with his hand tangled in Sherlock’s curls.
Sherlock’s eyes closed.
“And yes…” John said and paused. He leaned back and waited for Sherlock’s eyes to open again. “I can, and I do, forgive you.”
Sherlock looked down, blinking.
John rose to his knees, tilted Sherlock’s chin up and kissed his cheeks. He tasted salt when he kissed Sherlock’s half-closed eyes.
John curled his arm behind Sherlock’s neck and pressed his face against Sherlock’s hair. “I realised when I shot the fireplace, that I would do anything for you, forgive you everything.” He waited until he caught Sherlock’s eye. “Don’t take that as encouragement.”
Sherlock shook his head and started to fall backwards.
“No,” John said and grabbed Sherlock’s shoulders, held him upright. “Not yet. I can wait for that pleasure. Be patient.”
“Let me try to relieve the tedium,” John murmured. “Come here.” He wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s neck.
Sherlock’s hands rose to John’s shoulders, clutched at them.
“Patience,” John hummed.
Sherlock kneaded the muscles of John’s arm, eyes squeezed shut. “Tell me the dream you liked best, then,” Sherlock said, drawing back.
John chuckled and loosened his hold. “That, you already know. Lucky for me, it was one we could manage in our current condition.” He ran his palms down Sherlock’s arms, paused with them splayed on Sherlock’s thighs.
Sherlock huffed. “Second best, then.”
“So you are admitting that you were dreaming about me?” John said, leaning in and closing his lips around a rosy nipple.
Sherlock settled onto his heels.
John’s mouth recaptured the nipple, his thumbs rubbing along the inside of Sherlock’s thighs.
Sherlock spread them apart. “I suppose daydreaming would be the more accurate term.”
One of John’s hands closed around Sherlock’s balls. “Better and better,” he said and bowed until he could draw the head of Sherlock’s cock into his mouth.
Sherlock exhaled noisily, bracing himself on one hand and clutching John’s forearm harder with the other. “Can you guess mine?” Sherlock asked, his breath failing at the end of the question.
John suckled leisurely and Sherlock let his head fall back.
He rolled it along his shoulders, as John’s fingers slipped behind his balls. Sherlock raised his hips.
John opened his mouth, gave a farewell lick before he sat up. “Your favourite will have to wait until we’re healed.”
“A lot of them fit that category,” Sherlock said, catching his breath and eyeing John. “How can I be sure you really know which one it is?”
John stretched towards the nightstand. “Because you told me,” John said, grabbing the slim bottle there, “and I was listening.” He poured oil into his cupped hand, slathered it over his abdomen, down under his balls and up his cock. He darted a glance at Sherlock, settled back on his heels and poured more oil over his hand. “My arm around your waist would not be a pleasant thing right now.” John rubbed the dripping oil over his thighs and back up over his cock. “My hands on your hips though…” John patted his thighs. “Care to come closer, Mr Holmes?”
“I’m not sure I recognise this one,” Sherlock said, shifting forward on his knees.
“Not yet,” John said and stretched towards the nightstand again. This time he clicked off the light before sitting back on his heels facing the head of the bed.
“I was enjoying watching,” Sherlock complained.
John grasped at Sherlock’s hip with an oily hand and guided Sherlock closer. “Just feel it for a while,” John said as Sherlock settled astride his thighs.
Holding the lip of the bottle against his palm, John poured more oil. It dripped between them. He rubbed the rest over Sherlock’s chest, circling each nipple before slipping lower.
“Hmm,” Sherlock murmured, relaxing against John, head on John’s shoulder, a hand curved around John’s neck.
John oiled Sherlock’s sides, rubbing low around his hips and kneading his buttocks.
Sherlock brushed through the short hairs along the nape of John’s neck. “Tactile enhancement due to visual deprivation.” His lips found the skin of John’s neck. He drew it between his teeth and suckled.
John’s fingers clung to the firm flesh they held. “Beautiful,” he whispered.
Sherlock smiled against John’s skin.
John dragged his fingertips over Sherlock’s hips, pausing to stroke the tops of Sherlock’s thighs and edge his thumbs into the crease of his groin.
Sherlock responded with his teeth, biting at the base of John’s neck.
John answered with his hand at the base of Sherlock’s cock, squeezing once and sliding higher.
“I want to see,” Sherlock said, rolling off John’s shoulder and tucking his chin to stare into the darkness between them.
“Light the candle,” John replied, squeezing and stroking in an ever tighter rhythm.
“I don’t want to get up now,” Sherlock said.
“Don’t, then,” John said, reaching out with his thumb to grasp his cock as well. They slipped against one another in his oily grip.
Sherlock held his breath.
John pressed their cocks close, and closer still, skimming his thumb across the heads at the apex of each stroke, clenching his hand at the base on his descent.
Sherlock thrust into John’s grip and moaned. “I want to see what we look like together.”
The candlewick smoked and sparked. The flame bloomed. It was doubled in the mirrors, glinted off the metal and the glass.
John’s hand gleamed as it stroked, the shadows on the wall shifting as his wrist moved.
“I dreamt it like this,” Sherlock whispered. His hips tilted forward, up into John’s grasp and back and away.
John stroked faster. “One of us did,” he said, the fingers of his other hand digging into the side of Sherlock’s thigh.
Sherlock’s shoulders hunched, his thighs tensed. He groaned.
“Beautiful,” John panted as Sherlock spilled over his hand.
Sherlock groaned again.
“Feels beautiful,” John gasped. His hand stroked and grasped and stroked again. The flex of his thighs lifted them both to their knees.
***
“Just open your legs a little wider.”
“I could do the bottom half myself,” John said.
“You’d end up splashing at least the stitches on your lower back trying,” Sherlock said, rinsing the flannel and hanging it on the towel rail. He tapped John behind the knee.
John stretched out an arm for balance and lifted his foot to the rim of the bath.
Sherlock lathered his hands and started washing the inside of John’s thigh.
“You just like doing this,” John concluded.
Sherlock slipped his hands under John’s balls and soaped them thoroughly. “And you don’t?”
John closed his eyes for a moment as his perineum was thoroughly cleansed. “But I’m your doctor,” he offered weakly.
“And I want to make sure Mike’s meticulous handiwork isn’t damaged by careless bathing,” Sherlock said. He rinsed his hands and lathered them anew.
“How do you know it’s Mike’s handiwork?" John asked. He peeked at the top of Sherlock’s head between his legs and closed his eyes again.
“He stitched me up a few times before I had a doctor in residence,” Sherlock said. “What did you tell him had happened to you?”
“I didn’t,” John said, “and he didn’t ask.”
“The soul of discretion, Mike,” Sherlock said, taking the flannel and running it under the tap. He wiped the soap off John, rinsed the flannel once more and wiped again. “I think you should turn around for the next part,” Sherlock said.
“Yes, nurse,” John replied and turned.
“Bend forward a little,” Sherlock said.
John complied.
“Perfect,” Sherlock said.
***
Author: saki101
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Slash
Word Count: ~2.7K
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
Summary: Sherlock finds a way to communicate with John during the Hiatus or maybe John finds a way to communicate with Sherlock. Upon Sherlock's return, there are many things to explain and explore.
An AU where the events following "Many Happy Returns" go very differently.
A/N: An epilogue to the story written for Come at Once: Round 6. 1electricpirate's evocative prompt, 'give me fire', took my brain on an unexpected journey.
Excerpt: The stitches were tiny and neat, reducing the cross-hatching of wounds to the thinnest of red lines.
Give Me Fire may be read on LJ here.
Both together are on AO3 here.
Give Me Fire
Epilogue
The stitches were tiny and neat, reducing the cross-hatching of wounds to the thinnest of red lines.
“I didn’t know this could happen." His hand hovered above the scored flesh, his eyes measuring each perfect angle, the length of every exact line. "How could this have happened?” He bent closer, his breath cool on the healing skin. “I am so sorry...although...it may have been this that saved my life.”
“Glad to help,” John said, turning his head. One eye was visible over the swell of the pillow. “I am so very glad to have been able to help.”
With a long exhalation, Sherlock stretched out by John’s side. He fit the hollow of his cheek to the curve of John’s shoulder, rested his forearm beneath John’s buttocks. “They had the last piece. I thought I could be in and out and gone before anyone realised I’d been there.” His fingers tapped patterns on the side of John’s thigh. “I got impatient.”
John hooked a foot over Sherlock’s shin.
“I had already made it to the woods when they started after me.”
John pulled Sherlock’s leg closer, rubbed the arch of his foot over the calf. “I heard a helicopter.”
Sherlock ground his forehead against John’s shoulder. “I had promised myself I would come back to you and we...” He sighed. “Seems I brought you to me.”
“The stone was cold,” John said.
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t breathe when I woke up. It was too dark in here. I wanted light.” John paused. “In the sitting room the fire had gone out.”
“Their interrogation technique was counterproductive.”
“You were unconscious,” John said.
“For a while.”
“You asked for fire,” John said.
Sherlock lifted his head. “Did I?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t get it to light.”
“What did you do?”
“I poured whiskey on the logs and shot at them.”
Sherlock laughed and propped himself up on his elbow. “I did come to with a jolt.” He brushed the hair off John’s forehead. “No one called the police?”
“I wrapped a towel around the barrel,” John said, pulling Sherlock’s hand down to his lips and pressing kisses to the ring of bruises around his wrist.
“Good thinking,” Sherlock said.
John tucked the hand under his chin. “So what happened?”
“My interrogator came back and I told him that he could catch his neighbour, the coffin-maker, and his wife in flagrante if he went home right then,” Sherlock replied.
“That could have got you a boot in the groin,” John said.
“Yes, it was a risk,” Sherlock admitted. “But he did leave.”
“And you got all that after just regaining consciousness?”
“I have missed your admiration, John,” Sherlock said, his eyes flickering over John’s face. “I had deduced the guard’s situation earlier, but it hadn’t been the right time to get the desired results from sharing it.”
“You needed to wait until his wife and her lover were shagging.”
“Precisely,” Sherlock said.
“How could you know that?”
“You know my methods, John.”
“I do. How long were you held?” John asked.
Sherlock brushed a finger over his chin. “Not quite two days.”
“Did you ever see the wife?” John asked.
“No.”
“How ‘bout the coffin-maker?” John pressed.
“No.”
“So you were able to deduce that two people that you had never seen were having sex at a particular time in a location at some distance from where you were?” John asked.
Sherlock pressed a finger against the corner of his lips. “Yes.”
“You overheard some gossip? Someone asking your interrogator about his wife in an insinuating tone? I’m guessing you understood the language,” John continued.
“No, yes and yes,” Sherlock replied. He bunched a pillow up and shoved it under his chin, his eyes still on John. “Where have you been honing your deductive skills, Doctor Watson?”
“I’ve been re-reading my notes on our old cases,” John replied.
Sherlock smiled. “Go on, then.”
“And the interrogator wore a wedding ring?” John continued.
Sherlock nodded.
“Anything else? A photo of her in a wallet that you glimpsed?”
“He had a kerchief of hers that he kept in his breast pocket. It was perfumed with an expensive French pefume. Apparently, beating people senseless pays well. I could smell the fragrance when he leaned in close to me,” Sherlock said.
“Nothing else?” John persisted.
Sherlock shook his head slowly. “Nothing else,” he replied.
“Then you could not have known that the interrogator’s wife was shagging the coffin-maker at the very time you were telling your interrogator about it,” John concluded.
“But I did,” Sherlock insisted, drawing his hand away from John to gesticulate with it. “I could smell how her perfume intensified when they began to sweat.” His voice grew quieter. “The coffin-maker loved her perfume. He would bury his nose in her hair, taking big, gasping breaths of it, while he thrust up into her, one of her legs on his shoulder, the other hooked around his waist. She made small sounds as she got closer to her climax and his arm around her waist would tighten. I could feel how he felt inside her. How he felt when he heard her sounds, how he thrust harder because he wanted to be deeper, as deep as he could be inside her.”
John’s hand slipped down between them to Sherlock’s thigh. “Thinking a lot about sex were you?” John asked. He brushed his hand over Sherlock’s erection.
Sherlock inhaled sharply and shut his eyes.
John stroked with his fingertips.
“When I was falling asleep…” Sherlock said.
John kept stroking, feather light. “Did you notice the candle on the dresser?” he asked.
Sherlock’s cheek rubbed against the pillow as he nodded.
“When the candle was lit, the dreams were clearer,” John said.
Sherlock lifted his head. “What dreams?”
“The ones I started having after you began appearing in candle flames and such,” John said. “When our backs heal, we can try more of those positions,” he added with a knowing smile. He rolled onto his side, his hand returning to Sherlock's skin.
“Are you suggesting that…”
"...you couldn’t come to those conclusions about the interrogator’s wife in your usual ways? Yes.” John’s hand stilled. “I think that information came to you along with your other deductions about this man, whom you desperately needed to manipulate, but that your awareness of his wife's affair came via this affinity with fire, which includes..." John trailed his fingertips over Sherlock's belly. "...the metaphorical fire of passion.”
Sherlock sat up and John's hand fell away.
“No. I overheard the guards joking about the coffin-maker needing to make an extra long one for me and the interrogator saying that he'd give him the message when he got home," Sherlock explained.
"Fine. That's how you knew the interrogator had a coffin-maker for a neighbour, but it doesn't explain knowing about the affair," John said.
"I could smell the scent of fresh wood shavings mixed with the fragrance of her perfume," Sherlock said, waving his fingers beneath his nose.
“And from that you could know how the coffin-maker felt when his mistress moaned as he made love to her?” John asked. He raised his hand and touched Sherlock’s cheek. “Or are you denying that you dreamt of me?”
“No, I’m not denying that,” Sherlock said, his brows drawing together.
“Are you saying that they weren’t dreams of passion?” John asked.
Sherlock stared at the wall.
“Don’t go to your Mind Palace now,” John said, rising up on his elbow and kissing Sherlock’s chin. “I have no complaints. I was waking up feeling better than I have in years. Regular orgasms will do that.”
Sherlock blinked.
“I’d stopped myself thinking of it after you…left,” John said.
Sherlock’s gaze snapped back to John. “You used to…”
John smoothed one hand over Sherlock’s curls. “You were rather hard not to think about.” He traced the curve of a cheekbone. “What with these and your coat collar turned up. God, all the different ways I thought about getting you out of that coat or having you in it.”
Sherlock’s eyes widened.
“Afterwards…yeah…I couldn’t help the occasional dream, but they usually ended with you on the edge of that damned roof.” John’s hand dropped to his side.
Sherlock leaned forward, tucking his knees under him. “Can you forgive me, John?”
John reached out for Sherlock’s shoulder with a sigh. “They were hard, bitter months. I thought I had died, but no one had bothered to bury me,” John said. He glanced away. “I would have chosen to go with you, but you’ve told me why you had to go alone and I understand.” His hand tightened on Sherlock’s shoulder. He looked back at Sherlock, pulled him close enough to kiss and held him there, with his hand tangled in Sherlock’s curls.
Sherlock’s eyes closed.
“And yes…” John said and paused. He leaned back and waited for Sherlock’s eyes to open again. “I can, and I do, forgive you.”
Sherlock looked down, blinking.
John rose to his knees, tilted Sherlock’s chin up and kissed his cheeks. He tasted salt when he kissed Sherlock’s half-closed eyes.
John curled his arm behind Sherlock’s neck and pressed his face against Sherlock’s hair. “I realised when I shot the fireplace, that I would do anything for you, forgive you everything.” He waited until he caught Sherlock’s eye. “Don’t take that as encouragement.”
Sherlock shook his head and started to fall backwards.
“No,” John said and grabbed Sherlock’s shoulders, held him upright. “Not yet. I can wait for that pleasure. Be patient.”
“Let me try to relieve the tedium,” John murmured. “Come here.” He wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s neck.
Sherlock’s hands rose to John’s shoulders, clutched at them.
“Patience,” John hummed.
Sherlock kneaded the muscles of John’s arm, eyes squeezed shut. “Tell me the dream you liked best, then,” Sherlock said, drawing back.
John chuckled and loosened his hold. “That, you already know. Lucky for me, it was one we could manage in our current condition.” He ran his palms down Sherlock’s arms, paused with them splayed on Sherlock’s thighs.
Sherlock huffed. “Second best, then.”
“So you are admitting that you were dreaming about me?” John said, leaning in and closing his lips around a rosy nipple.
Sherlock settled onto his heels.
John’s mouth recaptured the nipple, his thumbs rubbing along the inside of Sherlock’s thighs.
Sherlock spread them apart. “I suppose daydreaming would be the more accurate term.”
One of John’s hands closed around Sherlock’s balls. “Better and better,” he said and bowed until he could draw the head of Sherlock’s cock into his mouth.
Sherlock exhaled noisily, bracing himself on one hand and clutching John’s forearm harder with the other. “Can you guess mine?” Sherlock asked, his breath failing at the end of the question.
John suckled leisurely and Sherlock let his head fall back.
He rolled it along his shoulders, as John’s fingers slipped behind his balls. Sherlock raised his hips.
John opened his mouth, gave a farewell lick before he sat up. “Your favourite will have to wait until we’re healed.”
“A lot of them fit that category,” Sherlock said, catching his breath and eyeing John. “How can I be sure you really know which one it is?”
John stretched towards the nightstand. “Because you told me,” John said, grabbing the slim bottle there, “and I was listening.” He poured oil into his cupped hand, slathered it over his abdomen, down under his balls and up his cock. He darted a glance at Sherlock, settled back on his heels and poured more oil over his hand. “My arm around your waist would not be a pleasant thing right now.” John rubbed the dripping oil over his thighs and back up over his cock. “My hands on your hips though…” John patted his thighs. “Care to come closer, Mr Holmes?”
“I’m not sure I recognise this one,” Sherlock said, shifting forward on his knees.
“Not yet,” John said and stretched towards the nightstand again. This time he clicked off the light before sitting back on his heels facing the head of the bed.
“I was enjoying watching,” Sherlock complained.
John grasped at Sherlock’s hip with an oily hand and guided Sherlock closer. “Just feel it for a while,” John said as Sherlock settled astride his thighs.
Holding the lip of the bottle against his palm, John poured more oil. It dripped between them. He rubbed the rest over Sherlock’s chest, circling each nipple before slipping lower.
“Hmm,” Sherlock murmured, relaxing against John, head on John’s shoulder, a hand curved around John’s neck.
John oiled Sherlock’s sides, rubbing low around his hips and kneading his buttocks.
Sherlock brushed through the short hairs along the nape of John’s neck. “Tactile enhancement due to visual deprivation.” His lips found the skin of John’s neck. He drew it between his teeth and suckled.
John’s fingers clung to the firm flesh they held. “Beautiful,” he whispered.
Sherlock smiled against John’s skin.
John dragged his fingertips over Sherlock’s hips, pausing to stroke the tops of Sherlock’s thighs and edge his thumbs into the crease of his groin.
Sherlock responded with his teeth, biting at the base of John’s neck.
John answered with his hand at the base of Sherlock’s cock, squeezing once and sliding higher.
“I want to see,” Sherlock said, rolling off John’s shoulder and tucking his chin to stare into the darkness between them.
“Light the candle,” John replied, squeezing and stroking in an ever tighter rhythm.
“I don’t want to get up now,” Sherlock said.
“Don’t, then,” John said, reaching out with his thumb to grasp his cock as well. They slipped against one another in his oily grip.
Sherlock held his breath.
John pressed their cocks close, and closer still, skimming his thumb across the heads at the apex of each stroke, clenching his hand at the base on his descent.
Sherlock thrust into John’s grip and moaned. “I want to see what we look like together.”
The candlewick smoked and sparked. The flame bloomed. It was doubled in the mirrors, glinted off the metal and the glass.
John’s hand gleamed as it stroked, the shadows on the wall shifting as his wrist moved.
“I dreamt it like this,” Sherlock whispered. His hips tilted forward, up into John’s grasp and back and away.
John stroked faster. “One of us did,” he said, the fingers of his other hand digging into the side of Sherlock’s thigh.
Sherlock’s shoulders hunched, his thighs tensed. He groaned.
“Beautiful,” John panted as Sherlock spilled over his hand.
Sherlock groaned again.
“Feels beautiful,” John gasped. His hand stroked and grasped and stroked again. The flex of his thighs lifted them both to their knees.
***
“Just open your legs a little wider.”
“I could do the bottom half myself,” John said.
“You’d end up splashing at least the stitches on your lower back trying,” Sherlock said, rinsing the flannel and hanging it on the towel rail. He tapped John behind the knee.
John stretched out an arm for balance and lifted his foot to the rim of the bath.
Sherlock lathered his hands and started washing the inside of John’s thigh.
“You just like doing this,” John concluded.
Sherlock slipped his hands under John’s balls and soaped them thoroughly. “And you don’t?”
John closed his eyes for a moment as his perineum was thoroughly cleansed. “But I’m your doctor,” he offered weakly.
“And I want to make sure Mike’s meticulous handiwork isn’t damaged by careless bathing,” Sherlock said. He rinsed his hands and lathered them anew.
“How do you know it’s Mike’s handiwork?" John asked. He peeked at the top of Sherlock’s head between his legs and closed his eyes again.
“He stitched me up a few times before I had a doctor in residence,” Sherlock said. “What did you tell him had happened to you?”
“I didn’t,” John said, “and he didn’t ask.”
“The soul of discretion, Mike,” Sherlock said, taking the flannel and running it under the tap. He wiped the soap off John, rinsed the flannel once more and wiped again. “I think you should turn around for the next part,” Sherlock said.
“Yes, nurse,” John replied and turned.
“Bend forward a little,” Sherlock said.
John complied.
“Perfect,” Sherlock said.
***