[Disclaimer: The Sherlock characters belong to Moffat and Gatiss, the BBC, Arthur Conan Doyle.
A/N: My thoughts while writing this: Oh god, oh god, I've never written smut before. Not once. This isn't even good smut, either. OH GOD. WHAT IS HAPPENING.
Which is to say, I hope you enjoy.]
Heat
In the shower, Sherlock is overwhelmed with heat, so much so that he can't determine the difference in his body temperature before and after he strokes himself to hardness. Normally he can tell the difference. In his bed, late at night, with the cool air of London seeping in through a window with too-thin glass, there he can feel a difference.
Would it be different still in his cold cold bed if next time the hand touching him wasn't his own?
If the hand was Irene's, that's easy enough to consider, Irene who wanted to touch him in every way, Irene who would get him off but never try to steal his heart, yes, he can imagine her so easily…
Or if the hand were Jim Moriarty's, what about that. Moriarty's hands are small and light, like the rest of him. Rather feminine, actually. Girls aren't really Sherlock's area. Never have been. But Moriarty would be vicious, unrelenting. Sherlock would finish, one way or another, even if Moriarty had to swallow him whole.
John would have a fit, knowing Sherlock tossed off to thoughts of Jim Moriarty, but Sherlock must consider all possibilities in any given situation. That's how you determine what Scotland Yard misses: you must consider what others would never dare to consider. And Sherlock would let Moriarty touch him, if it would bring an end to everything. If it would please Moriarty, if it would distract him and stop him from ever touching, ever hurting, John. Sherlock's body is just transport. He can do with it what he likes. Besides. He might even enjoy it.
Besides, John would like Sherlock thinking of Moriarty better than the alternative, wouldn't he? Sherlock considers all possibilities, after all, so his thoughts always wind around to the other option. The one John would not prefer. Sherlock tugs harder, twists his wrist, wonders how much warmer his skin grows, the shower makes it impossible to tell.
His thoughts always go here, every time, go to another pair of hands, small and male and rough with the scars of war. It's inevitable that his fantasies will all diverge to the same point. It's ironic, because in actuality the possibility of Sherlock and John together is anything but inevitable. It's impossible.
Perhaps that's why Sherlock's always thinking of John when he comes.
Perhaps it's all the impossibility and the chase. Perhaps Sherlock is always drawn to what he cannot have. John is special, but perhaps there's nothing special about Sherlock wanting John. That's a safe thought, isn't it? Sherlock is just like everyone else, every other man attracted to the chase. A disgusting thought, to be sure, thinking of himself as ordinary—Sherlock avoids sex because it's so commonplace. Nothing exciting, biological, it's all transport anyway. But it's safer than the other option, than chronicling the warmth in John's eyes when he thinks Sherlock isn't looking. It's safer than keeping a database of what gets John off in order to determine how Sherlock might embody those things.
He leans his arm against the shower wall, leans his head against the arm. He lets the water beat down his back.
Hope you enjoyed! And I also hope it wasn't too angsty? I love feedback, either way, so let me know!