"Wow, you're beautiful."
"Clearly you're not."
"Hello, gorgeous."
"Did you say something?"
"Hey there, tall drink of water."
"Is that the best you can do?"
...
Sherlock never was good at compliments. Not that the anti-social genius got many, but for awhile he did get them. He doesn't any more.
The problem was Sherlock didn't understand this kind of praise, which always seemed predicated on lies. After all he can see as well as anyone, he knows what he looks like.
So over the years, every time Sherlock got a compliment on his looks he deflected it with arrogance and pique. After awhile no one complimented him. Which was fine by Sherlock.
And then came John.
Maybe it helped that John's first compliment had been about Sherlock's brain. Maybe it helped that Sherlock wasn't so young (and hyper-sensitive) any more. Maybe it helped that by this time Sherlock wanted to believe a few lies.
"God you're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen."
Though from John they didn't sound like lies. They never had.
The good doctor grinned down at his lover, who sat prim-as-you-please on the closed lid of the toilet, fingers laced together, hands in his lap.
Cupping Sherlock's bristly chin John turned the detective's head left, right. "It's like you're made of light and angles and my fever dreams." John shook his head, pushed a curl from Sherlock's eye. "You're a fairy tale. Sitting in a loo. With a ginger beard and a glower that says you're going to start calling me idiot any minute now."
Sherlock's brows hoofed it upward and he shook his head. No, he almost said, that's not it at all. Yet he said nothing, still unused to saying thank you, still not quite understanding his part in this dance.
"Lift your chin."
Sherlock did.
At least he'd learned the bit about letting his partner lead.
"So, take it all off? Leave sideburns? Want a moustache? How about a goatee?"
Sherlock squinted one eye closed. "You can try them all. And then take everything off. I will not emerge from this room with inspired facial hair."
Along with rudimentary steps in this dance, Sherlock was learning to make jokes that didn't sting. It was harder than it looked.
"You're giving me carte blanche then."
Sherlock tilted his head…
"For the next little bit."
…and gave John a side-long glance…
"To do anything."
…then lifted his chin…
"To you."
…and lowered it. Twice.
He had just given John permission. To…everything.
And suddenly, just like that, Sherlock Holmes felt like a damn dandelion puff. Yes, like something light, weightless, damn near floaty. And while that should have felt like nausea and fear, confusion and pique, in this small space with this small man, it felt like freedom, like the unknown stretched out into the distance. Like god damn dancing.
Yet all he was doing was sitting on a toilet lid, pale eyes looking up into dark ones, and saying yes for maybe the first time in his life.
"You're…beautiful."
He won't say it very often. But sometimes he will. And right here, right now? This was the time to say it, while the tap dripped and the pipes in the walls knocked as Mrs. Hudson filled her kettle downstairs.
John chuffed out a small, surprised breath. "No one's ever said that to me before."
Sherlock lifted his chin, looked up at John and down his nose at the same time. "Idiots." Then, far more softly. "They see, but they don't observe."
Nothing obvious happened in that loo for the next eleven seconds, though below ground, behind skin and bones, in hearts and minds, great tectonic shifts started taking place. Old habits were suddenly retired. Defenses lowered. Fears examined and found powerless.
And what began to emerge in the drip-drip-drip of that afternoon shadow was a force to be reckoned with. An ex-Army doc and a fragile genius uniting in a way that would not only be recognized in their lifetime, but would be spoken of after, remembered by those who'd seen it, revered by those who hadn't. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes had perhaps just taken the first steps in their unexpected journey toward legend.
Legends that had no clue how to fix a dripping tap, but there you go.
"It's time," Sherlock said softly, and maybe he was referring to a ginger beard in want of shaving or maybe to finally growing up and learning to move in the world instead of burn through it, John didn't know. What John did know was that yes, it was time.
The small man leaned over, the taller rose up and they kissed gently—because this was the time for gentle, in that grey afternoon light, in the still silence.
When John pulled away there was a suspended second where Sherlock was still there, eyes closed, face lifted toward him as if to a warm sun. And then Sherlock smiled, opened cloud eyes and—one long-fingered hand sliding from John's thigh up to his hip—gentle changed to something else.
Sherlock's still mapping John. With all the tools he has—the palm of his hand, the tips of fingers, with tongue and lips and teeth—he's still learning John's curves and angles, the spots that tickle, the places that hurt. He's a quick study, is Sherlock, but here he's slow, here he wants to be unhurried, to dawdle, meander, wander aimless, learning the parameters of John's elbows one weekend, the curve above his bum another.
Sherlock would give this study a lifetime if he could, but he can't imagine that…John here, with him, beyond today, maybe next week. He's no prize, he doesn't even know how to pretend to be, so he expected nothing and figured he wouldn't be surprised if that's what he got. So though he wanted, needed, loved to do nothing but focus on one small part of John for long minutes, hours, he was a man who was pretty sure the buffet will be taken away soon so he better fucking eat up now.
It's that man who reached for John's hip, the one who was so hungry for this he couldn't see straight, and so Sherlock tugged John close by his belt loops and pressed his face against his lover's belly and moaned already because he needed this so badly it made him shake.
"John?" It was an open-ended question—what can I have, do, take? What will you give me? What do you need?
It was also permission: Do whatever you want, because I want it too.
So John did.
And the first thing he did? The very first thing? He pretended to be ticklish.
As Sherlock's fingers dug into his hips again, as that face smooshed into his belly, the good doctor twitched away and giggled, and big-time lied, "That tickled," because that tiny room? It had already filled up with Sherlock's angst and desperation and if there's one thing John was going to teach this strange genius who knew far too little and a great deal too much it was that sex and love could (should) be fun. And messy. Silly. Unexpected. Fast. Slow. And now. Very much now.
"Now, now, now," John whispered and before he'd even said it the second time Sherlock's hands were flying over the buttons of his shirt and tugging it from his jeans. Those hands moved so fast they'd already undone his belt and button and zip before John could so much as take a second breath.
Slow down, he nearly said, then did nothing to curb his lover's progress, instead he stepped from his trousers and pants when Sherlock tugged them down.
With a soft sigh Sherlock wrapped his arms around John's waist and again he pressed his face against John's belly only this time he nipped skin playfully with teeth and so of course John pretended it tickled, which made Sherlock lock his arms tighter…and bite harder.
"Oh…" The soft sigh was John's this time. The wet scrape of teeth and tongue across his hip sent a sweet jolt damn well everywhere, if everywhere consisted of his cock, his balls, and—nope, just his cock and balls.
John pressed his mouth to the top of Sherlock's head, murmured, "Do that again," into the messy mop and was immediately rewarded with another bite, freighted with a growl.
And then he was off and running, this erratic man who three months ago had never done what he was doing now, but yes he was a quick study this one, devoted quite expressly to studying exactly this: What pleasured John.
His tongue in John's belly button: Sherlock knew the good doctor liked that.
Bowing his head so he could run his tongue up the underside of John's cock: Nails scraping across his scalp told him John liked that, too.
And the very straight-forward act of opening his mouth, looking up at John, and then engulfing his cock with that wet, hot mouth? Yes, without a doubt—it's the shallow little thrusts accompanied by the panting little breathes—Sherlock could say John was pretty chuffed with that one, as well.
Fast or slow, hard or soft, later on Sherlock will have a great many sexual preferences, predilections, and peccadilloes, but these are the early days, almost the beginning, and so right now he'll do John any damn way he's told. And so John tells him.
"God, I love that."
That was Sherlock's nails scraped soft-hard down the back of John's bare thighs as he thrusted. The first time Sherlock did it John shuddered and gooseflesh bloomed over his belly and legs. The second time John put his hands on Sherlock's shoulders, arched against him, and said he loved it. The third time Sherlock scratched at John's skin—instinctively running nails over the same abraded spots as before—the good doctor groaned at the oh-so-very-good pain.
Then John's rocking hips slowed way down and quick-study-Sherlock knew that meant his lover was ready for something more and so more is what Sherlock gave him.
"Yes…"
This time it was teeth against the sensitive skin of John's cock and maybe Sherlock had already developed a thing for biting because John liked to be bitten, or maybe Sherlock liked to bite because he wanted his lover to bite back. In about three years from this day Sherlock would actually start studying sexual kinks—his and John's—testing just how easy it was to get them…and give them.
Right now, perched on the loo, palms pressed flat against the back of John's thighs as the good doctor stood between his legs, Sherlock did not give one hot damn for anything but this, John here, murmuring soft, nonsensical sounds as Sherlock sucked on him softly, and bit at him softer still.
"Oh god."
An experiment-scarred, long-fingered, only slightly-shaking hand cupped John's balls—already tight, drawn up close to his body—and squeezed. John's legs trembled.
This would change for John later too, all of this. He'll calm down later, slow down, plan a little more. But right now being with Sherlock has the good doctor on a hair-trigger, everything intense, sharp, so damn good.
Sure, he hadn't been with a man in four years, five, maybe six John wasn't sure, but that wasn't why everything felt so exquisite, why just a little blow job in the afternoon (in the loo for god's sake; John has no idea right now how often they're going to have sex in this toilet, but it's going to be far more often than makes any sense whatsoever) made his knees shake.
No, the reason it was all so sharp—Sherlock's nails again, digging into the back of his thighs, right over the already-tender, scratched flesh; John closed his eyes, dug fingers into Sherlock's shoulders—was that it was Sherlock for fuck sake, the rampant genius, the untouchable beauty, the sarcastic arse, and John was god damn in love with him.
"Oh fuck yes."
And apparently a little sweary.
Lips slick with saliva and probably pre-come, Sherlock looked up at John, who looked down at him and swore some more. "God damn it I can't believe you," he said hoarsely, brushing a thumb over Sherlock's mouth, and how could a mouth, just a mouth look debauched and so sexual that John barely even needed friction to feel his orgasm building.
That question would be a mystery for the ages—or quiet-night contemplation—and barely wasn't quite the same as none. Sherlock, a man like other men in many ways, knew John needed some contact and so he stopped massaging John's sac—pressure just hard enough to arouse, to keep John's heart thrumming, but not quite enough—and instead licked his palm with a slow swipe of a broad, wet tongue.
"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," prayed the good doctor, watching, then he darted in for a groaning kiss and a careful bite at one perfect pink and tender bow.
When he felt Sherlock's fingers wrap around his cock John straightened, tilted back his head and was absolutely positively silent and still waiting…waiting…waiting for what he knew was coming but which he knew would take its own sweet time…waiting…
…hand barely fisted, barely touching, hardly moving, Sherlock started to stroke.
"Noooooooo."
It was John, talking to himself, or the universe, or his cock, asking and telling all of those things that no, no way, absolutely this couldn't feel this fucking good, that at nearly forty it was impossible for the sensations to feel this new, this painfully perfect, so right that he was about to put someone's eye out with how hard and how ready he was.
Pretty, pretty fingers—even Sherlock's hands make John crazy—loosened even more, not touching John's spectacular prick quite a bit more than they were touching, and it finally happened, one of John's knee actually gave out and he had to drive his nails into Sherlock's shoulders and hold on or he was going to fucking fall down with the crazy intensity of needing wanting needing wanting so badly needing wanting to come and yet…not…quite…coming.
"Oh Sherlock…"
At the sound of his own name whispered by John, the good detective stroked a little faster.
No idiot, John got the picture and kept talking.
"…I can't…"
Wrong time to pause, because those two words had Sherlock's grip loosening and slowing way down.
John's other quite-strained knee begged for reinforcements or a hastening of the proceedings or something please, and so John talked more, faster, softer.
"…this feels…so good…I can't…hold on…"
"Mmmmmm," was Sherlock's relieved reply; just that, a little hum, an agreement, encouragement. But he still didn't tighten his grip around John's hard-on. Instead he said, "Mmmmm," again but this time as he lapped at the very tip of John's prick, thinking a little abstractly that he'd sort of like to taste John in the morning, in the afternoon, at night, see if his come tasted different depending on the time of day.
It was just a flicker of a thought really, filed away for another time. Now was for looking up at John again, at the curve of his throat, it was for tightening his left hand at the back of John's thigh while loosening—yes god damn loosening—his right hand around John's straining cock until John did what Sherlock so badly wanted him to do: Talk, tell, guide, beg, demand.
"Oh fucking god Sherlock," the doctor hissed up at the ceiling, head thrashing a little, voice husky, "I need…"
Maybe John meant to say something else, but he didn't say anything else, just that, over and over and that was enough, more than enough, for one dark-haired man waiting patiently it was everything.
"I need…need…I need…"
Sherlock bowed his head, licked his palm again, this time very fast so that he barely broke rhythm, and he started stroking John's cock, fingers fisting around hard flesh more tightly. It was almost enough, almost, almost, almost.
"…need…need…need…"
Sherlock's breathing ramped up, his hand sped up, but he knew John needed more, just a little more but he didn't give it to him, no, he would wait just a little more, just bring his lover higher, just a little higher before—
"…I…need…need…Sherlock…"
At the sound of his own name, said just then and in that way, Sherlock's fingers clamped reflexively around John's erection and John's body said fucking hell thank you and the good doctor started coming hard, really hard, pretty much everywhere, that is until Sherlock—shot in the eye thankyouverymuch—fastened his mouth around that orgasming member and swallowed every last bit of everything, like a starving man finally fed.
And here I thought this would be a two-chapter fic, but not only do we still seem to have a completely bearded Sherlock, but Livia Carica, that evil, brilliant creature, has asked if this fic will include Sherlock shaving John. I think that perhaps, after the whole straight razor, 20 questions, John-shaving-Sherlock scene that's still pending, it just may have to. What do you think?