A/N: Came to me as I was watching To the Ends of the Earth. I have long since stopped being surprised by what Benedict can make sexy. I started this as a dialogue-only fic, but realised as I kept going that it wasn't going to work – if it seems too dialogue-driven at times, this is why. Enjoy, and please review - feedback makes me scribble feverishly!

-for you!


It wasn't at all what he was expecting to find when he opened his computer to check his blog.

He's going to be having serious words with Bill Murray, the friend from the army who sent him the email: John, my niece found these the other day. I thought you might be interested in a glimpse of what goes on behind your closed doors... We still on for the pub next Tuesday? Bill.

Well, he'd known from that alone that it wasn't going to be good. Had he been in an intelligent mood, he wouldn't have opened any of the links, let alone opened them all at the same time despite their rather unambiguous file names.

So it shouldn't have come as a surprise to him to find his and Sherlock's names in the two online links in the same sentence as other words he's never read in anything other than extremely graphic novels he read as a teenager. And the picture – he can't plead innocence on that one given the file name, but he opened it anyway. And he can't exactly blame himself for staring.

Whoever created it was very meticulous in their Photoshopping.

He knows they have fans, of course. A few of them comment on his blog from time to time, and he's stumbled across a fan community website before. But he had no idea they wrote… things like this. Why would anyone do this?

The photo involves a naked man with Sherlock's face, facing away from the camera with his head turned in profile, pressing a half-naked woman against a wall, his face half-buried in her barely-clothed breasts, her almost Edwardian skirts hitched up around her waist.

Do these people realise that he and Sherlock are real people? That their twisted writing exercises involve a man who's out there somewhere, on his knees in front of another man who was living a peaceful life until he discovered this, in a hospital morgue that really exists and that John will never look at the same again? Because if they do, this is… beyond sick.

And so it comes as something as a surprise for him to realise that after about ten minutes he still hasn't closed any of the files, and when he gets up to make another cup of tea his trousers don't fit like they used to around the crotch area.

He sits back down.

Well it's not altogether surprising. What he was trying not to read is essentially porn. Porn starring himself. And the arse in the photograph he can't stop ogling doesn't really belong to his flatmate. He's in the middle of justifying his arousal in this manner when said flatmate walks through the front door.

"John."

He's in the middle of jumping and moving to close the windows when he remembers there's no point. He's faced with Sherlock bloody Holmes – he's going to know anyway. Better to not act guilty about it. "John," Sherlock repeats, taking a few more steps towards him, peering at the laptop screen the way he looks at a particularly gruesome triple homicide. "Why are you looking at pictures of me naked?"

"Uh…" Well, it's a hard question, really. "I… it's not really you, is it?" he phrases it like a rhetorical question, but actually a flash of fear crosses his heart – there was so much time before he and Sherlock met. Who knows what the detective did with his time back then?

Sherlock bends over John and frowns at the screen. "Considering I've never been in that position with a woman, I would think not. However, that's quite the Photoshop job, so the question still stands – why were you looking at a picture that's clearly intended to be me mid-coitus?"

John looks at the photograph again. "There's no way I can claim I didn't realise what it was until it was open, is there?" he comments, quirking a half-smile. Sherlock quirks one right back.

"Given that the file name is 'Sherlock Holmes sexytimes'? No, I don't think so. What's that behind it?"

"Bill sent all of this to me," John says as he minimises the photograph. "His niece found them. Just so you know I don't Google this stuff in my free time."

His flatmate sends him a please expression. "John. I know exactly what you do in your free time. What is this? John stuffed a fist hastily into his mouth to try and stem the flow of obscene noises stumbling from his mouth under the ministrations of Sherlock's talented lips – John, who wrote this?"

"What, you think I know? I sure as hell didn't write it." He folds his arms and lets Sherlock skim-read the rest of the story. "Apparently, we have very bored, imaginative fans who think we should… well, you see."

"Mmn." Sherlock's gaze turns slowly from the end of the page to John's crotch. "And you were enjoying it, were you, Doctor Watson?" he teases, straightening up and taking a polite step back. John recognises the sentiment in the gesture – not crowding him out, not interrogating him. If he denies it, he realises it, Sherlock will probably let him pretend.

But he'll still know. "Well. It's personalised pornography, isn't it? I can't be fussy about my co-stars."

Sherlock grins, but raises an eyebrow. "What are you trying to say?" he asks, mock-insulted. John laughs.

"How… how are you feeling about all of this?" he ventures tentatively.

The consulting detective looks at him for a moment, then shrugs and spreads his arms. "Observe."

So John does. Sherlock would only ask me that if he was confident of my being able to answer. So it's something he's done in front of me before, a process he's explained to me before. How could he be feeling? Angry, frustrated, betrayed, disgusted… His cheeks are pink. Pupil dilation. Is he breathing faster than normal? Oh, God, he is. He's aroused, too, isn't he? "Flushed face. Dilated pupils. Accelerated breathing. Give me your hand, I want to feel your pulse."

Smirking, Sherlock reaches out a hand for John to close his fingers around the pulse-point. Sure enough, it gallops and frolics under his fingertips. "Elevated heart rate. You're aroused, too."

"Brilliant deduction."

Slowly, on a whim, John brings Sherlock's hand to his mouth and licks a long, wet stripe from the pulse-point down to the web between thumb and index finger. The pulse stutters and trips. John grins. Sherlock blinks a few times. "And you wonder why people think we're together," he comments idly, making no move to reclaim his hand.

John drops it anyway. "Put the kettle on, would you?" he asks, sitting back down and turning back to the computer. He closes the first window, but leaves the second pointedly open; after all, he hasn't read it yet. He watches the slight sashaying of Sherlock's walk as he flounces into the kitchen.

He's never thought about being attracted to Sherlock before. Well, yes, he has, but not like this. He's closer to Sherlock than he's ever been to anyone else; their casual touches go beyond the 'platonic' quite often and he doesn't question it. It doesn't seem strange – they're completely comfortable with each other, and so John's thought about Sherlock being attractive and even sexy without it really meaning anything. He frowns as his flatmate comes back into the room and collapses sulkily on the couch. He'd even considered the possibility that Sherlock could be attracted to him before dismissing it.

Now?

He takes another experimental look at the photo and then turns on the television, sitting on Sherlock's feet until he moves them enough for John to sit down properly. There's nothing on, but Notting Hill is still in the disc drive from where he'd meant to bring a date home but hadn't managed to keep her past Sherlock's third text, so he turns that on without thinking.

"A romantic comedy. What are you trying to imply, John?" Sherlock teases, smirking.

John snorts. "That I'm too lazy to get up and put something better on? Unless you want to do it?"

The consulting detective heaves a gargantuan sigh. "No, this is fine." In a final attempt at ridicule, Sherlock readjusts his position until he's curled up in the other direction, leaning tentatively against John. He plays the game, opening his arms, letting his friend in until they're doing what can only be described as cuddling. On the settee. In front of a Hugh Grant rom-com.

He expects Sherlock to grow bored with the position and move away, but he seems perfectly comfortable, his head resting on John's shoulder, hands curled innocuously in his lap. Absentmindedly, not really thinking about what he's doing – in his defence, it's a film he's only ever watched before with women he was attempting to be romantic with – he picks up the detective's spidery hand and strokes the palm in his fingers, turning it over and gently caressing it. If Sherlock notices, he doesn't say anything, and so when John realises what he's doing he tries not to panic, not to break rhythm.

So when the credits roll and his fingers are still languidly playing with his flatmate's hand, Sherlock stretches indolently but doesn't remove his hands.

John eyes the top of the detective's curly head with eyes narrowed critically. Had Sherlock been aroused by the photo, before, by the image of himself conducting amours with some faceless blonde woman, or by the idea of himself on his knees in front of John? Or even by the way John himself had been so obviously aroused by it?

Slowly, he brings Sherlock's hand to his mouth and kisses it; the detective turns his head sharply to look at him, so with their eyes locked, he inserts Sherlock's index finger into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue. He thinks Sherlock's pupils might be dilating, but he's not sure; as he gently pulls off the finger – it tastes of vinegar, and he suddenly thinks that he should have checked what Sherlock had been touching first – he hollows his cheeks and sucks.

This time, triumphantly, Sherlock's arousal is obvious. His pupils expand like an ink blot and his pretty, pale mouth falls open. Pleased, somehow, John releases his friend's finger, giving him back control of his hand, and leans back on the cushions. The theme music from Notting Hill is still playing in the background.

Sherlock keeps staring at him, his eyes dark, looking thoroughly bewildered. John wonders if maybe he should have given him some warning. And yet… he does look beautiful like this. He wonders, suddenly, if anyone else has ever seen him like this, has ever bothered to try to create this state in him.

He knows a moment before it happens that Sherlock is about to lunge for him, and so he reciprocates the movement; they collide halfway in a desperation John was previously sure only happened in movies. He thinks he might have bruising on his lips in the morning because they come together a little harder than necessary, but Sherlock's hand is in his hair and on his waist, tugging him sharply closer, and John can't think anything besides ohGodSherlockyesplease and how hot and accommodating his mouth is, the slide of his tongue and the huff of his breath shooting too fast out of his nose as they both struggle to control their breathing.

The kiss is frantic, desperate, like they need each other to breathe, like Sherlock is trying to consume him until John is overwhelmed by it. The detective is pushing, trying to get John to lie down on the settee and cover him with himself. He slides his thigh between Sherlock's legs and feels him, half-hard and hot and throbbing, and Sherlock groans and pushes forward firmly against John's thigh, stretching out on top of him –

"No."

Sherlock stops abruptly as John rebels, sitting up, pushing his flatmate away and sitting up, tugging his clothes around his own erection. "John?" the detective asks, uncertain, his eyes clouded with lust.

John levels his eyes at the other man. "Against the wall. Like the photo."

He can see the look in Sherlock's eyes, the unspoken pledge of oh, God, yes, and simultaneously they reach for each other – again, this definitely doesn't happen like this in real life – and tug each other off the settee, scrambling to rid each other of clothes and still keep the point of hot, squirmy contact between their urgent, needy mouths.

When they hit the wall, they hit it hard, John's bare back bouncing against Sherlock's warm, pale chest, his hands briefly rising to stop himself from hurting the other man before quickly returning to the black fabric of Sherlock's trousers. The consulting detective pants and licks long, wet stripes up John's neck, dipping to taste the line of his collarbone, his hands struggling with the button and zipper mechanism of the doctor's jeans.

"John," Sherlock pants. Hearing his name like this sends shivers through the hairs on his chest and stomach right down to his cock. "We need…"

"My bedroom, top drawer of the bedsit – do you want me to –"

John watches as Sherlock's already running, frantically undoing his own trousers on the way. "No. Undress. I'll be quick."

The sight is somewhat ludicrous, the World's Only Consulting Detective shaking his leg like a dog over a bush to rid himself of his suit-pants, vaulting the stairs two at a time in his hurry, and John can't help but wheeze a quiet laugh to himself. When Sherlock's out of sight, John can hear him fumbling a step and almost falling down the stairs.

Then he realises. This is happening. He's about to have sex with Sherlock Holmes, consulting genius and flatmate from hell; after he's done this there'll be no going back. Is this really what he wants? He's never been aware of wanting it before.

He glances over at his laptop; the picture is still open on the screen and he shivers with lust. That's about to be him, pinned against the wall – John's always had a kink for being trapped between his lover and a hard surface – with Sherlock's head buried in his chest and his cock buried in his arse.

Oh, dear God.

Whether or not he's ever imagined having this before he sure as hell wants it now. And after… well, they can deal with that after. He drops his trousers and pants, hissing a breath through his teeth at the stirring of air around his cock, erect and very interested in the proceedings.

On the way back down Sherlock does fall down the stairs, tripping at the second-to-bottom and stumbling gracelessly. John feels irrationally proud that he managed to make the detective do something as clumsy as trip. Stark naked, pale and glorious, the violinist straightens, John's bottle of lube clutched tightly in his hand, and his eyes fall on John.

"Oh, John…" he breathes, his erection dark and heavy and visibly twitching between his legs. "You're… I…"

John gulps in air like it's just been announced the world's stopped producing it. "Just come here," he gasps. Sherlock stumbles obediently closer, his hands gently mapping out the planes and hillocks of John's body before his lips join the doctor's again.

The bottle of lube is cold in Sherlock's hands. He looks up at John, his grey-green eyes serious. "Are you sure you want to do it like this? We can swap… you know, if you want."

John rolls his eyes. "I'm sure. Like the picture."

Sherlock's pale lips turn up in a wry smile. "Are you jealous? You know that wasn't my body in the picture, right?"

"Just do it," John snaps, trying and failing to look annoyed. The detective smiles and presses his closed mouth against John's, gently, placing his free palm against the doctor's chest, soft and warm with tiny golden tangles of hair that long, thin fingers can get lost in so easily.

He's still smiling as he sinks gently to his knees, his hand turning almost rough and scraping fingernails down John's chest and along the soft 'v' of muscle leading down to his erect prick. John tries to breathe as his flatmate looks up at him, coating three fingers in lube, and then leans in and rubs his cheekbones against the length of John's cock. "John", he breathes against it.

"Nggh," John replies, which Sherlock takes as his cue to take John as far into his mouth as he can, one hand reaching between his legs, which spread under his touch. John yelps and bucks his hips forward helplessly, throwing Sherlock's questing fingers off the trail for a moment and making the younger man gag and withdraw slightly. "Sorry."

Sherlock's lips stretch into something that might be a smile if there wasn't a cock in the middle of it. Before John's mustered the breath or the brainpower to say anything else, one of the detective's long, thin, slick fingers slides into his arse.

"Oh, fuck!"

It's not good exactly. Actually it hurts quite a bit, but he's never done this before. Sherlock seems to understand, and stills, pulling off his cock gently and looking up at him. "We don't have to keep going, John," he says nervously. The doctor growls in response.

"Don't you dare stop. Just… go gently, yeah?"

Sherlock smiles diplomatically. "Of course. Thank you."

The finger feels alien and strange, circling gently inside him, but it's not a bad sort of strange. After the initial pain it's quite interesting, the scrape of violinist's calloused fingers around the walls of a place he'd never even imagined being touched. Sherlock takes him back into his mouth as he tentatively inserts another finger, and in tandem it feels amazing; the burn and friction around his opening, and the warm, welcoming pressure on his cock.

Then Sherlock looks up at him and crooks his fingers just so and God, that must be his prostate – why did no-one tell him it would feel like this? He would have done it years ago if he'd known. Too soon, he can feel a pressure building in his abdomen, but it can't end like this so he tugs on Sherlock's hair until the detective pulls off and stands up.

"Are you ready?" John asks, his voice a frightening sort of snarl.

Sherlock looks utterly nonplussed, as though no-one's ever asked him that question before and he doesn't understand what it means. "Of course. It's you I'm –"

"Good." John doesn't know for certain if he's ready, if it's enough, but he does know that if Sherlock keeps toying with him like that then he isn't going to last, and he can't coherently express how much he wants this to last. "Can you take my weight? Just push me against the wall."

The consulting detective gives him the sort of smile he's used to seeing after he's tried and utterly failed to be clever at a crime scene. Oh, John. Bless you. "Don't worry, John," Sherlock tells him, and so he wraps his arms around those strong, pale shoulders and jumps slightly until he is entirely in Sherlock's arms, his back pressing hard against the wall and his legs wrapped around the detective's waist in a way that forces their straining cocks together, a mesh of delicious friction that completely takes away John's ability to speak. "Oh," Sherlock moans, thrusting forward slowly, his curly hair tickling at John's cheek. "Oh, John."

"Just get inside me," John snaps impatiently, because if they don't get down to it very soon then he knows with growing certainty they're not going to get down to it at all. Luckily, Sherlock seems to be experiencing a similar urgency, and neither of them stops to check the other this time as the taller man trails his hands down to John's arse and gently guides himself inside.

It hurts. John bites his lip until he tastes blood and feels his eyes water – he hadn't been prepared for just how big Sherlock would feel, and what had been a gentle sort of burn with two fingers slowly stretching him feels like it's ripping under Sherlock's girth. The detective, though, notices, and stops. "John? Do you want to stop –"

"No!" He can feel his fingernails scratching his flatmate's back in his attempt to keep him close. There's no way he's stopping now; when Sherlock stopped moving the sharp pain began to dull down, and now the throbbing ache allows him to feel Sherlock, the feel of the detective's cock inside him, and the fullness is… well, it's nice. He breathes deeply a few more times. "Keep going."

So Sherlock does, slowly, hesitantly, and he begins to wonder if it wouldn't be better to just plunge in, get it over with like ripping off a sticking-plaster, but as soon as he's decided to say it Sherlock stills and he can feel his friend's curly pubic hair against his arse. The detective gives another shaky moan into John's shoulder; the doctor's cock, which lost interest slightly when it started to hurt, shivers and rises to attention again.

John wiggles his arse experimentally; he's not sure what he was expecting it to feel like, but this sort of tingling of anticipation wasn't it. His every miniscule move creates a new and interesting kind of friction through the walls of his passage, and he can so easily imagine what it will feel like when Sherlock starts moving in earnest. "Sherlock," he murmurs, his hand braving the journey from where it was holding him anchored at the detective's shoulder to rub the nape of his neck. "Move. Please, move."

Sherlock's head rises off John's shoulder to look him in the eye, his own grey-green orbs shining with something that would almost be tenderness if it weren't half-mad with suppressed lust. "John," Sherlock says one more time, before pressing their lips together and rocking his hips forward. John yelps at the friction – God, that feels good – and groans when the detective takes advantage of his open mouth to roughly plunder it with his tongue, the movements of his hips quickly becoming less refined and gentle and more desperate. The temperature of the few pockets of air between them hitches up a few degrees.

The tongue in his mouth is frantic, taking without asking, claiming him, and from this John can tell Sherlock's holding back, substituting his tongue for what he'd really like to be doing with his cock. "Harder," he urges, because he doesn't want any holding back between them; he wants everything.

Sherlock pulls his mouth away from John's, looking at him as though gauging how earnest he was being, then carefully withdraws almost all the way out before slamming back in. John cries out, almost a scream; it feels… it feels…

When the detective mouths harsh, possessive kisses down John's collarbone and thrusts in again, he does scream, and suddenly spares a thought for Mrs Hudson – she'd mentioned that she was going away one night this week, was that tonight? He hopes so, for her sake, because he knows he couldn't keep quiet if he tried.

It's easy to wonder, when they're like this and it feels like this, why they've never done this before. How can he not have always wanted this? Sherlock grunts in desperation, his hips moving faster, little moans of exertion and pleasure escaping his perfect lips. John becomes aware as the detective dips his head again, the tip of his strong nose trailing the tops of John's pectorals, that they're covered in sweat, that his muscles are aching with the effort required in keeping him upright and that Sherlock must feel even worse, given that most of his weight is resting around those thin hips, but the tiny sparks of pain only make the pleasure more pronounced, so much so that John doesn't think he's ever felt this good in his life.

"John," Sherlock murmurs, his voice barely even audible over the little breathy almost-screams John hadn't realised he was still making. "John – ah! John!"

One thin-fingered hand works its way between them to wrap around John's swollen cock; at the same time, Sherlock leans forward slightly, pushing John harder into the wall, and thrusts again, slamming past John's prostate. "Sherlock! Sherlock!"

When Sherlock's thumb traces the head of John's cock he can't hold it back any longer, and comes with a long, drawn-out scream, spilling himself over Sherlock's hand, feeling it squelch uncomfortably between them; the detective's noises rise through a messy scale before he's coming too, staggering backwards with the force of it until he almost falls, and John has to quickly let himself down, whimpering as Sherlock slips out, and grab at him to keep them both on their feet.

Panting, Sherlock staggers back to the settee, his fingers clutching at John's back to pull him along until they both collapse, a sticky tangle of legs, sweat and semen, over the settee.

"How had we never done that before?" John gasps after a moment.

Sherlock chuckles tiredly. "Had you ever wanted to do that before?" he asks, wrapping his arms around John and pulling him close.

John sighs. "Not really. I wish I had – I can't believe I didn't know." Sherlock doesn't have to ask what he means: I love you has always hung in the air between them, and apparently John was the only one stupid enough not to see it. His flatmate leans forward to press a gentle kiss to his temple. "You knew, didn't you?" he asks.

"Yes. But it… it wasn't important enough to risk our friendship. I could have quite happily lived out my life with you the way we were. This is just… it's almost too perfect. Almost."

John makes an exhausted sort of noise and leans into Sherlock like a child cuddling on an adult's lap to fall asleep. His eyes fall on the laptop, still open but blank-screened. He chuckles. "Well, whoever the Photoshopper was, they got your arse so wrong. You can't Photoshop perfection."

Sherlock laughs openly, and John can't help but smile because he may have only heard that sound once or twice before and it's beautiful. "You should tell them," the detective comments idly. "Send them an email and detail what they've got wrong."

"I can go one better than that," John laughs in response. He sits up, mock-serious. "You know what we should do? We should post our own nude picture as a response to theirs."

He's joking, of course, but Sherlock's face slowly splits into a mischievous smile. "Where's the camera?"