A/N: This piece is for my dear friend johnsarmylady for her birthday – she is an amazing writer, an amazing person but most of all an amazing friend:)
Now she gave mattsloved1 three words – possessed, incandescent and breathtaking & I stole them – yes I did - with mattie's permission:P
This is a companion piece to my story Windows. Perhaps I will do other pieces about body parts – I am sure Sherlock would like that:)
I don't own – I just like to messy around with them;)
Touch
Sherlock watched John work. Watched with fascination the dexterity of his fingers and thumbs as they moved in the yellowish light from the floor lamp he had dragged over to Sherlock's chair, all the better to see what he was doing as he cleaned and stitched the cut on Sherlock's arm. The hairs on his arm from where he'd rolled up his sleeves caught the light and glowed, bright. He couldn't see the skin on John's hands; they were covered by gloves while he worked, but Sherlock, who had seen those hands in many different ways, doing many different things, knew them as well as his own and in some ways so much better.
John's hands weren't long or slender like his own. They weren't smooth but covered with calluses that expressed hard work and ability. Small, both hands could be held and treasured in one of Sherlock's, the fingers were shorter and blunt, but they were strong and clever, as the stitches were placed with precision, cleaning and wrapping skilfully. The cut he had received was long and shallow but at the end, where the knife had hooked, it was deeper, needed extra care. There would be a scar. He was fascinated by the thought of a scar. He listened to John's even breathing and observed how he sort of withdrew into himself, shut off the part that said friend, lover, partner in all things and spoke more of healer, caregiver, doctor. Sherlock wished John didn't have to wear protective gloves and that he could feel his skin on his own as he worked.
After finishing the last stitch and bandaging the rest of the cut, John cleaned up the mess he had made. Long ago he had given up trying to force Sherlock to the hospital for a procedure he could do himself. He would insist on him getting a tetanus shot tomorrow at the clinic just to ensure he was safe. Always Sherlock was made safe, even when he couldn't be bothered to do it for himself. John would check him, stop him, hold him back with those resilient hands.
Sherlock flexed his arm slightly, feeling the tug of the stitches and the bandaging. He winced. Back from the kitchen John came with some painkillers and a glass of water. The glass was offered and water rolled down the side from where it had splashed over the edge and trickled onto the fingers of the clamped hand. A hand was held out for the pills and John's fingers brushed the palm, a tremor flowed up Sherlock's spine at the simple contact. He popped the medicine into his mouth and took the glass. Sherlock enclosed the smaller hand, covered it and captured the hand against the glass and raised the water to his mouth. John chuckled and managed to wiggle his hand out from underneath, freeing it. Reaching out with his other hand, Sherlock grabbed John's hand again. He held it in his own, his thumb brushing the back and set the glass down. Then he brought the hand up and kissed the knuckles, caressing them with his lips. John smiled, a beautiful smile full of mischief and laughter, echoed in his fathomless eyes.
"You're hurt. You need to rest to heal."
Sherlock stepped into John's gravitational field, enclosed him with a long arm, spread his hand on his back, fingers at maximum stretch and drew him close. "Yes, but I also need you." He lowered his head and tempered his voice, pitched it the way John liked, secretive and shadowed, whispered, "I need you, John. I want your hands on me. I need you to feel me and connect us. Run your fingers up my spine, place your hands upon me, trace my ribs. I need to feel you tremble with want through your fingertips, and for you to sense me vibrate and shudder. I need you to hold me and work me open, one finger at a time, until I am begging for you to take me, hard and fast. Make me yours, stain me with the passage of your hands. Take my breath away."
John's mouth opened a little, his tongue poked out, his breath held, broken by words unspoken, which threatened to tumble out and spill through the air between them. Sherlock bent down and captured that tongue in his mouth, teased and drew it into his own. John groaned into that lush, made for sex mouth and Sherlock smiled, knowing that John was never more responsive than right after a case. It was never better.
Kissed, stroked, caressed, John led Sherlock into their bedroom, placed him against the foot of the bed and kissed him some more, feather light brushes of wings against his mouth. Fingers moved in a familiar proposition of what was to come. He beguiled Sherlock, arranged him with soft words and gentle sighs until he could reach the buttons on his shirt and slowly released them one by one. The shirt parted and hands were on Sherlock's ribs, nails scratched and teased. He tensed at first, but he relaxed as his skin was soothed, tamed, caressed lovingly, possessed eloquently, fingers up his spine. Sherlock's damaged arm was too sore to move but he used his free hand, tugged John's shirt and deepened the kisses, matched the ones John bestowed upon his mouth, nectar and honey. John gasped, laughingly, as that hand wandered to the front of John's trousers, "Steady there. Don't rush me. You want me to take you apart but if you keep doing that I won't last." Sherlock looked at him carefully, his incandescent eyes took in the flush of John's skin, could see the pulse under his skin, the tremors. And he lunged forward again, incessantly demanded, craved, thirsted to get as close to John as possible. Skin to skin, a different sort of kiss, not with mouths but with bodies, moved and summoned, slick with heat and sweat, tumbled onto the bed.
John's clever, clever hands, lover's hands, intimate, carnal, amorous touch, compelled and released, moved and grasped, breath stolen, breathtaking, the burn and stretch, the feeling of completeness, of being someone's entirety, brought him close and closer, backed away, surged forward until a rush and a cry, drifted down, and down and then he was in the bliss of after as John followed. Nestled under the warm embrace of being held and known, Sherlock smiled into the silky grey and blond hair, deep, calm, stilled.