Mama always told me, papa always warned me: don't hang around boys like you.
Chapter Thirteen:
Sherlock could hardly believe that he was standing in the freezing cold, wrapped up in half of the clothes he owned, in the middle of a soggy playing field when he could have been wrapped up in bed with In Cold Blood and a cup of tea. It was madness.
No, this was football. And Redverse parents took their football very, very seriously. Or so the furious yells and dismayed moans around him seemed to suggest. It certainly suggested that Redverse was playing unusually badly.
Not that Sherlock could see much more of the pitch than an obscure green square from where he was standing. He had arrived late and the only space left was either behind the rabble of Redverse parents or with the Redverse students sitting on the grass. Personally, Sherlock preferred to suffer the Redverse parents' self-satisfied comments than those of their children.
But Sherlock hadn't come to the game to get a lesson in football. He didn't understand the rules beyond the most basic awareness that goals, which felt like they happened about once every few hours if you were very lucky, were the highlight. There had only been one goal tonight and that had been the opposite team's.
He could occasionally see a flash of flaxen hair through the maze of various elbows and shoulders but he had no idea if it was John. He could imagine that John looked pretty good in his football uniform about now. He felt it was pretty masochistic of him to come to the football game and then deprive himself of the only perk- his boyfriend in shorts. But he'd catch a good glimpse of him at halftime.
He didn't know how else John had even convinced him to come to witness this slow torture. Oh right, yes he did. It was John's last game before the school holidays and he'd promised. More accurately he just couldn't stand John's hangdog expression any longer. John had been moping about for days, refusing to tell Sherlock what was wrong and evading all his attempts to wrangle the truth out of him.
Naturally, he hadn't done a particularly good job of it and Sherlock had quickly realised that it had little to do with football and a lot to do with the upcoming holidays. It didn't take a genius, well, much of a genius, to guess that John's constant bouts of dejection every time the subject of Christmas was raised were not unrelated.
The thought of having John all to himself for Christmas was delicious, but Sherlock wanted to be careful. He didn't know how John would react to his asking him to stay. John was skittish when it came to their relationship at the best of times. Besides that, Sherlock's own home life was hardly the stuff of fairytales. Especially since his parents had decided to remove themselves completely and retreat to Bath to avoid the onslaught of relatives. Leaving their two sons to entertain a multitude of Holmes relations. Sherlock dreaded it more than death.
"Oh! For God's sake!" someone howled into Sherlock's ear.
He turned to see the anguished expression of a dumpy woman behind him. He realised that she wasn't the only one crying out in disbelief. There seemed to be an unending chorus of "I don't believe it!"s and "what the hell was that!"s.
Sherlock untangled himself from the mass and walked around to where the younger students were seated on the grass. It was a lot easier to see the pitch from here. The first thing he saw was John walking away from the goal, gripping his forehead.
Sherlock's eyes wandered past him and past the goal to where the opposing team's goalie was walking back to the pitch with the ball tucked under his arm. Sherlock looked back at John. Close behind him one of the players from the other team was wearing a sneer that Sherlock did not like. Half a second later, Sherlock saw him say something and it was clearly aimed in John's direction. There were smirks from his team-mates and furious snarls from the Redverse players. John jerked around, his face very red.
But he didn't have time to retaliate. Billy Pip ploughed past him and yanked the boy up by the front of his shirt. He then landed a punch to his jaw that would have floored an averagely sized man. The boy crumpled to his knees, blood pouring from his nose and his eyes widened in bewilderment. He didn't seem to know what had hit him.
"Ref!" someone cried out, Sherlock didn't see who.
There was chaos as the referee went charging towards them, whistle blaring. The Redverse students dragged Billy off the smaller boy with some difficulty. Sherlock watched in mild interest while the referee hollered at the top of his lungs into Billy's face and then produced a red card, holding it up in the air like a standard. The other boy had limped off the field, averting his eyes from John's calm gaze.
There was a furious wave of 'boos' from around Sherlock as they realised what had happened, and triumphant claps from the parents of the opposing team, safely clumped into a corner on the opposite side of the pitch.
The game continued, though Sherlock got the feeling that Redverse wasn't going to recover from its humiliation. John certainly looked very pale, despite the swift retribution dealt to his oppressor. Sherlock couldn't help wondering what the boy had said to make John go so red.
"What the hell are you doing here, Holmes?"
Sherlock glanced at Anderson. The boy was wrapped up in an expensive looking trench coat that was so large on him that it only served to accentuate his rattish features.
"Thinking of trying out for the team?" Anderson chided, following his gaze to the pitch. "I don't know if they'd want you. They need someone they can trust in the changing rooms, as well as on the pitch-"
Sherlock looked at him so sharply that Anderson almost took a step back. He muttered something unintelligible and scurried away. Sherlock turned his attention back to the game. The referee's whistle suddenly blasted for halftime. Sherlock watched John slow down where he was and stop. He was breathing hard. His hair was damp with sweat and he was flushed pink. Sherlock couldn't help having the carnal thought that that was what he would look like after they eventually made love.
He watched John walk over to the benches with his team. Billy was already slumped at the end of one, looking like a saggy red bag of flour from where Sherlock was standing. He said nothing to any of his teammates and they said nothing to him. In fact, they seemed rather disinclined to say anything at all. John was the only one speaking. Being the captain, Sherlock supposed it must have fallen to him to try and patch up his team for the second half. It seemed a fairly hefty task going by their moody expressions.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw someone walking across the empty pitch. He was a shortish man in a suit, with mustard coloured hair that looked familiar in its neat, boyish cut.
Sherlock watched him approach the Redverse team, his head bowed as though he was speaking in a lowered tone to just one of the assembled group. A moment later, he walked away and John was following him. They went some distance, the man's hand wrapped around John's forearm. The rest of the team seemed too wrapped up in their impending defeat to care what John was doing.
As soon as they were alone, the man began speaking to John in a rapid, agitated stream. Sherlock was standing some fifty yards away but he had enough experience to know when someone was extremely angry. His grip was tight on John's arm and he jabbed the air with such violence that Sherlock thought he might accidentally hit himself across the face.
John didn't look up once and it was difficult to tell whether he was listening or not. The man's conversation gradually got more animated, more irritable until John finally yanked himself from his grip and marched back to the rest of the team. The man stood motionless where he was for a few minutes and then turned and rejoined the crowd.
Sherlock barely paid attention to the second half of the game. It was already clear by the ill expression on John's face that they were going to lose, and forty-five minutes later they did. For the first time in many years, Redverse lost a game. The only thing that seemed to rescue them from a defeat of humiliating proportions was the Redverse goalie who rebuffed at least five attempts by the opposite team to score.
Sherlock arced around the gaggle of parents and spotted John some ten yards off, walking with the same suit clad, mustard haired man as before. His back was hunched, his bag was hanging limply from one hand. He was still panting from the game.
He saw him glance over his shoulder towards his team amongst the rabble. Sherlock looked over as well and saw that Marty seemed to be the only one still with the ability to talk. The other team were swallowed amongst a group of triumphant parents at the opposite end of the pitch. The Redverse parents were beginning to make their separate ways back to their cars, most of them seemed to have nothing to say to their offspring.
Sherlock could understand their disbelief. After a lifetime of merely expecting victory and always getting it, it must have been a shock to realise that their sons- and their captain were not infallible.
Sherlock was close enough now that he could hear their conversation. Well, John's father (it was fairly obvious now who he was) was talking in an almost constant stream but John didn't seem inclined to respond. Sherlock was vaguely aware that he was eavesdropping and that John would not have wanted him to overhear this but his curiosity outweighed his conscience. As it often did.
"Just completely disappointing, John..." John's father was saying, with a glance over his shoulder towards the dispersing parents. "What the hell got into you? I've never seen your footwork so clumsy. Have you been practising at all this week? You're the captain, John. You know it's your responsibility to ensure that the team has all the practices they need. Maybe you need to have a practice every night-"
"Dad, if we had a practice every night we'd have no time to study and we'd all fail school," John said patiently, in a voice Sherlock had never heard him use.
"That's what life is like!" his father said agitatedly. "You have to learn to balance things, John. Do you think that I can just neglect my duties because I might not have time for something else? It's not the way it's done, son."
John was silent. His hand was twisted so tightly around the strap of his bag that his knuckle had gone white.
"You had just better be careful," his father said heavily at length, realising that his son had nothing else to say. "They want a dedicated, competent captain. If you neglect it now, you may never-"
John looked at him. "Dad, where's mum?"
His father's hand slipped off his shoulder.
"She's not feeling well, John," he said gruffly, tugging at the collar of his coat. "If you have an away game a bit closer to home maybe she'll come down to see you. It's just too far for her to travel."
He gave an uncomfortable cough and glanced around again. This time his eyes landed on Sherlock. His pale eyebrows rose. He leant down and said something into John's ear that Sherlock overheard clearly as: "friend of yours?".
John jerked around. He stared at Sherlock with a mixture of uncertainty and embarrassment. His father was staring at him as well. John seemed to recover himself and hastily came over to him.
"What are you doing here?" he said quietly, looking uncomfortably over his shoulder to where his father was watching them.
"You wanted me to come," Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow. "Is that your father?"
"No-I mean yes, he is... I-" John stammered.
Sherlock looked over at him. "Good evening, Mr. Watson. I'm Sherlock."
John's father hurried over to him and stuck out a thick and slightly callused hand for him to shake. "Nice to know you... eh, Sherlock. You a friend of John's? Good to hear. Sorry to run out on you, but I have to go." He said all of this without taking his eyes off John for a moment.
John looked very briefly at him. "Bye."
Mr. Watson gave his son's shoulder a quick squeeze and marched away across the wet grass. Sherlock stared after him, the curiosity refusing to simmer down inside of him.
Presently, he felt John's hand grasp his arm. Sherlock looked at him as he was steered back towards the school and away from possible onlookers.
"What are you doing?" John hissed.
"I was waiting for you," Sherlock said calmly. "So that was your father?"
"Yes," John said irritably. "I think we've established that. Why were you spying on me?"
"I wasn't spying," Sherlock replied. "I happened to be within earshot. Besides," he added, when he saw John's agitated expression, "I didn't hear anything." It was a lie, but Sherlock was beginning to regret stirring this amount of distress in John.
John looked at him as though he didn't know whether to believe him or not. They had reached the stairs. They both stopped and looked back. The distant red figures of John's teammates were illuminated by the floodlights.
"I should probably go back and see the team," John said with a sigh. "They're not happy, to say the least." He gripped his forehead with a hand. "Fuck, if I hadn't screwed that goal... We could have at least equalized."
"What did that guy say to get you so upset anyway?" Sherlock said, studying John's face.
John opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Nothing much. I couldn't really hear him," he said, looking away.
Sherlock decided not to push the subject when John was already so strung out. "Alright," he said. "I'll see you later then."
"Bye."
Sherlock stood by the base of the stairs and watched him walk back. He didn't look over over his shoulder and Sherlock got the feeling that he was already rehearsing his consolation speech in his head.
...
John couldn't sleep. He had felt tired when he'd put his head on the pillow some two or three hours beforehand but now he could do nothing but toss and turn, making himself increasingly sweaty under the covers.
The first loss of his life had hit him harder than he had thought it would. He hated football. He shouldn't have cared whether he won or lost, but the disappointment of his teammates and their misdirected anger towards Billy and the referee and the opposite team had affected him more than he had anticipated.
He turned onto his stomach for easily the hundredth time that night and stared across to Billy's digital clock on the windowsill. It was well past midnight. He buried his face into his pillow with a frustrated growl.
His father's attempts to critique his failure had been the icing on the cake. He might as well have just told John to his face that no matter how hard he studied it didn't mean shit because the only reason Redverse had taken him in the first place was because he made their school look good. He had seen the sour expression on Principal Harvey's face as he had shaken the opposing team's captain's hand. It was the expression of a man who thought he had fixed the race to win but had just watched his horse jump the barrier into the crowd.
John couldn't stand it. He kicked the covers off of him and crawled down the bed to his desk. He snatched his phone up and unlocked it. No messages. He felt a disappointed pang. More than part of him had hoped Sherlock would message him out of the blue, maybe just to see if he was ok. Unfortunately, Sherlock didn't really do spontaneous texts, unless they were a set of instructions for where and when they were going to meet next. He hadn't seen Sherlock since the football game. He didn't know how much Sherlock had overheard of John's and his father's conversation, but he felt uneasy. Part of him dreaded what Sherlock would think of him if he knew the extent of John's weaknesses. He didn't know half of it.
He took his phone back to bed and pulled the covers over his head. He opened a blank message. He hesitated, staring at the slowly blinking line over the words Type to Compose. He couldn't explain anything in a text, so he wrote something different.
Coming down to see you. Can't sleep.
He dropped his phone and hastily slipped out of the covers. He gave a compulsive shiver against the cold and grabbed his cardigan from his desk chair. He glanced down at his lower half. He was only wearing a pair of grey boxer briefs, his pyjamas were in the wash. He considered changing into jeans, but then decided against it. Sherlock wouldn't care. To say the least.
He quietly passed Billy's snoring form. Outside in the corridor the silence was thick, the slightest creaking of the plumbing seemed to echo around the narrow walls. All he could see in front of him was an endless trail of faint, orangey lights disappearing eventually into complete darkness.
He waited every moment for a floorboard to creak and betray him, but the treads were unusually kind to him and he crept silently up to Sherlock's door. He remembered too late that he had forgotten to bring his phone with him but he was confident that Sherlock was too prudent to message him back in the middle of the night and risk waking his roommate.
He knocked very quietly on Sherlock's door and waited. He couldn't help glancing over his shoulder into the gloom and giving a shiver. He thought it would be too late for teachers to be skulking about but since Harvey's outburst concerning the school dumpster, the teachers seemed to have taken it upon themselves to police the boys' every move. They patrolled the corridors until midnight and anyone caught out of bed was given a week's worth of detentions and a lecture about responsibility.
John knocked again, a little louder. He knew that if Sherlock didn't answer, he wouldn't be able to do anything but go back to his own room. He couldn't risk calling to him at this time of the night. He felt his heart sink. He had really been counting on Sherlock answering. He thought if he had learnt anything, it was that Sherlock didn't consider sleeping a particularly important past-time.
Feeling miserable, he turned to go back to his room. Almost at the same time he heard the door open behind him. He jerked around and found Sherlock peering out at him, wearing a grey jumper and pale purple pyjama trousers. He looked pale and half of his hair was sticking up, suggesting he had been lying down before John interrupted him. He wordlessly motioned to him.
John hastened inside and Sherlock closed the door behind him.
"What's the meaning of thi-"
Sherlock broke off as John forced himself into his arms. He nestled his head into Sherlock's jumper, breathing in his smell like perfume. He felt Sherlock awkwardly put his arms around his shoulders.
"What's wrong?"
John broke away just as he felt Sherlock's arms tightening around him. "I just couldn't sleep," he said with a shrug.
He stared around the room. The covers of Sherlock's bed were not pulled back but there was a Sherlock shaped incline on the covers and an open book lying upside down on the floor beside the bed. His phone was on top of it.
"Did I wake you?" he asked, knowing what the answer would be or he wouldn't have asked it.
"What's wrong, John?" Sherlock said quietly, ignoring his question and going to sit on the bed.
John turned back to him, feeling a tightness in his chest that he couldn't explain. "I just needed to see you," he said desperately, wishing Sherlock didn't have to demand an explanation for everything.
Sherlock leant his head against the wall and gave him a very wry smile and said nothing. John fidgeted where he was. He saw Sherlock's eyes stray down his chest to his lower half. John suddenly felt very self-conscious in the grey boxer briefs. They really left very little to the imagination.
"So what? Did you just come here to give me a show or what?" Sherlock said through a yawn. "Not that I'm complaining-"
"Sherlock," John blustered, going to the bed just to shake off the sense that Sherlock was tracing the shape of his junk with his eyes. He sat between Sherlock's legs, his back to Sherlock's chest.
"H-hey!" Sherlock chocked. "Careful!"
John ignored him and concentrated on not concentrating on the sensation of Sherlock's thighs against his and his spread legs against the base of his spine. There was silence. Sherlock's heart was beating into his shoulder blade.
"Since when did you turn all needy?" Sherlock mumbled into his hair at length. John suddenly found his hands on his hips and tried not to squirm as all the heat in his body seemed to glide southward.
"I'm not needy," John muttered.
"Are we still playing that game where you sulk and I try to guess what's wrong?" Sherlock said flatly. "Because I'm tired of it."
"I don't sulk," John said stiffly, looking away.
"Then what to you call this business of refusing to talk to me?" Sherlock said. John could almost sense his raised eyebrows.
"Look..." John hesitated, staring down at Sherlock's slender hand against his waist. "I'm sorry about earlier on," he finished abruptly. "I was just... disappointed."
Sherlock, consciously or unconsciously, held him tighter against him. "Losing was a bigger shock than you thought it would be?"
"Yeah," John mumbled.
He wanted to add something more but he couldn't think of anything to say.
"I've heard it said that "winning isn't everything". Though I admittedly haven't been able to test that theory myself," Sherlock said mildly.
"It just feels like I'm not earning my keep when I'm not winning," John said very quickly, feeling his cheeks burn at his own candidness. "That's the only reason I'm here. They all know it. My father certainly knows it." He laughed bitterly. "They honestly wouldn't care how badly I did in my studies, because someone else- someone cleverer will pick up the pieces."
"Well, brains aren't everything," Sherlock said complacently.
"Sherlock!" John spluttered.
"Oh, you know you're not stupid," Sherlock said exasperatedly. "If you hate football so much, just quit."
"I can't!" John retorted.
"Why?"
"Because... because..." John let out a slow breath. "I just can't."
Sherlock was silent.
"Look," he said finally, "my parents... ah..." He cleared his throat. "My parents will be away for Christmas. I'll be stuck with Mycroft all holidays and I might shoot myself in the head if I don't have someone to suffer along with so..."
John's heart had already shot up about five inches in his chest, but he contained himself. He wanted Sherlock to say the words. He quietly waited.
"I was thinking... do you want to come back to mine for Christmas?" Sherlock said very quickly and with an almost audible blush.
John sat up, wrenching Sherlock's hands off of him and struggled around to face him. "You bastard!" he burst out. "When were you going to ask me exactly? Were you going to wait until the last moment? The last day before the holidays?"
He could almost have hit Sherlock for all the misery he had put him through these past few weeks, making him think all this time that he would have to spend all Christmas with his father.
"You could have said something," Sherlock said, bewildered and looking mildly concerned that John would hit him. "I'm not a mind reader."
"Don't pull that crap with me," John hissed. "You knew I didn't want go back there! You were just biding your time, seeing how desperate you could make me before you asked."
Sherlock didn't reply. He watched John very closely. At length, he reached out a hand and gently touched John's chin with his fingertips. John tried to pull away but Sherlock's fingers tightened around his chin, keeping him firmly in place.
"You shouldn't say things like that," he said evenly. "Even in anger."
John flushed and looked away. "I know," he said.
They looked at each other in embarrassed silence.
Sherlock cleared his throat and dropped his hand from John's chin. "Well, that's settled then. I'll email to my brother and let him know you're coming. He won't have any objections, and even if he does it hardly matters."
John nodded vaguely, staring at Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock seemed to see the direction of his gaze for he leant forward and planted a brief kiss on John's lips. John watched him as he broke away, his eyes drinking in every smooth, pale line of his face and the clash of his dark hair against his skin. John felt a faint stirring in his stomach. He traced the line of Sherlock's slender chin to the exposed white of his chest inside the V of his jumper.
Sherlock looked perfect all wrapped up in his shabby maroon jumper. John leant forward and experimentally parted Sherlock's lips with his. Sherlock didn't protest. John licked the inside of Sherlock's bottom lip and then, when Sherlock's mouth began to react to his, he caught it as gently as he could between his teeth and gave it a careful tug. He felt Sherlock go rigid against him, his hands becoming a little stiff on John's hips.
John took this as encouragement and kissed lower. He kissed the corner of Sherlock's mouth and then his smooth chin and then, with his breath shaking, he kissed Sherlock's neck. Sherlock's neck was slender and pale, almost feminine. He had wanted to kiss that neck for a very long time. More than that, he had wanted to see it tremble with pleasure.
"John..." Sherlock said softly, a hand sliding through his hair and caressing his scalp with his fingertips.
John kissed the smooth, pale flesh beneath his mouth and then, struck by a sudden bold thought, licked the curve from the arch of Sherlock's collarbone to the dell behind his earlobe. Sherlock's body arched against his. He felt it and knew he had given Sherlock pleasure. More than merely arousing him, he had given Sherlock real pleasure.
He lowered his mouth to Sherlock's collarbone. He pulled back Sherlock's intruding jumper and licked along the trembling edge of bone. He was amazed to see that goosebumps had erupted on Sherlock's skin. He was even more amazed to see the two hard nubs protruding through the material. He lifted a hand to one and gently rolled it between his fingertips. Sherlock let out a whimper that sent red hot pulses down John's stomach to his crotch.
"You like that?" he said softly, glancing up at Sherlock's face. It wasn't supposed to be a taunt, but when it left his dry mouth it sounded very much like one.
A jolt went through his stomach when he saw how flushed Sherlock's features were. His eyes, which were usually so firm and steady, were hazy with lust. Sherlock's lips moved but no sound was emitted.
John cocked an eyebrow teasingly, enjoying this small taste of what felt close to dominance. "What was that?" He let his hand wander down past the taller boy's chest to his flat stomach.
Sherlock stared at him without the trace of a smile or a frown or anything that would betray what thoughts were bubbling beneath the surface of his delicate features. "Yes," he said at length.
John was far from satisfied by the calm, collected manner in which that "yes" was delivered. Sherlock still sounded so composed. He slid his hands under Sherlock's woollen jumper and urged it upwards. Sherlock obligingly raised his arms and John tugged it over his head and deposited it beside them on the bed.
Underneath, Sherlock was wearing a striped grey t-shirt, loose and made of cotton. It fell low on his chest and was stretched from use. The neckline hung so low on one side that it exposed the entire plain of his pale right shoulder.
John didn't know why but he felt compelled to touch the smooth, round sphere of Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock made no sign that he had felt John's cold fingertips press against his flesh but John, who was staring intently into his face, noticed a slight flutter of his eyelashes.
Encouraged by the fact that Sherlock didn't yawn at him or suggest John might feel more comfortable lying down; he leant forward and caressed it with his lips. Sherlock's skin was warm. From looking at it John assumed it would be cold like stone. John would have made a teasing comment about it but he couldn't bring himself to speak and break the spell of Sherlock's silent compliance to his touches.
Without moving his mouth from Sherlock's skin, he slid a hand underneath his old shirt, slowly gliding it over the rising and falling plains of his stomach and chest. Sherlock's skin trembled under his touch but he did not complain of John's cold hands. John grew sufficiently courageous enough to snake out a tongue and lick the knoll of white skin beneath his lips. He felt Sherlock move abruptly underneath him and moved, thinking he had at last succeeded in repelling Sherlock with his naive attempts at pleasure.
He sat back on his heels and watched in mingled relief and apprehension as Sherlock tilted his head to one side and exposed the entire right side of his neck. Underneath the dark clumps of his hair John could see a delicate white ear, the rounded lobe clinging to the rounded edge of his prominent jaw line.
John placed a hand carefully on the mattress exposed between Sherlock's parted legs. Sherlock wasn't looking at him now; his eyes were staring past him to the opposite wall. John felt vaguely foolish leaning over him, one hand pressed into the mattress and the other against the wall to steady himself. He wobbled forward and pressed his mouth clumsily to Sherlock's ear. Before he could become self-conscious, he ran his tongue down the soft edge and let his lips tumble down to the exposed arch of Sherlock's neck. He hesitantly held out his tongue and licked a wonky line down to Sherlock's collarbone. His saliva left a glistening snail's trail on Sherlock's neck.
He pressed his lips to the moisture and gently suckled. There was a shuddery moan and John felt Sherlock's hand grasp his hair. It wasn't painful; in fact it seemed to intensify the arousal that was surging in violent spurts through him. He tilted his head with a barely suppressed gasp, tightening Sherlock's grip on his scalp. Sherlock's Adam's apple quivered against his lips.
Sherlock's free hand, which had been clinging loosely to the covers, now crept up and rested against John's waist, and then his hips. His fingers were teasingly close to the sensitive incline just below but he said nothing and made no sign that he intended to go lower. John's knee was shaking almost uncontrollably on the bed and more than once he felt he was about to lose his balance, but somehow he managed to keep upright.
He could see Sherlock's chest rising and falling out of the corner of his eye. When he was able to distinguish anything outside of the pounding in his own ears, he could hear Sherlock's breathing. He could feel his own breathing hitching in his chest and his heart beating with heavy, forceful pumps against his ribs. He leant back on his heels, releasing Sherlock's skin from his mouth.
Sherlock straightened up and looked at him; there were two splotches of pink on either of his cheeks. There were red marks on his neck and chest.
John touched the thinning material of Sherlock's shirt, twisting it gently around his fingers. His eyes lingered on the protrusion between Sherlock's legs. The flimsy pair of purple pyjamas were very thin and his erection could hardly have been more obvious if he had been naked.
John's fingers lingered under the hem of Sherlock's shirt. His heart was pumping faster and faster in his chest. Every time he and Sherlock became intimate the first thought that came into his mind was, inevitably, sex. He felt foolish at times, like a blatant cock-tease at others.
"What's wrong?" Sherlock said suddenly.
John jerked upright. He realised he had been staring at Sherlock's erection for slightly longer than what was perhaps polite.
"Sorry," he said, blushing.
"You don't look very comfortable," Sherlock remarked, eyeing John's legs.
"Huh?" John said, panic-stricken. Surely Sherlock couldn't have read his mind. He wasn't that good.
"You're sitting on your legs; you'll give yourself pins and needles," Sherlock said, nodding to John's thighs.
John glanced down and then rearranged himself so he was sitting to one side with his legs tucked beside him.
"Isn't that how girls sit when they're wearing short skirts?" Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow.
"How would you like me to sit then, tosser?" John said, giving him a gentle shove.
Sherlock put his hands around his waist and pulled him onto his lap. John's fingers tightened around Sherlock's shirt and he gasped softly as his erection was pinned against Sherlock's.
"You were doing so well," Sherlock murmured into his ear. "Why did you stop?"
"It's just kissing," John said awkwardly.
Sherlock licked his earlobe. "You're good at it. You shouldn't be so bashful."
"I'm not bashful," John said, pulling away. "I just feel..."
He cut off. He didn't know how to word it. He didn't know how to tell Sherlock that he needed a little bit longer. It always seemed to be a little bit longer. He dreaded the day when Sherlock told him he'd waited long enough.
He stared at Sherlock's pale collarbone, the thin material of his shirt clinging to the erect nubs of his nipples.
He got off of Sherlock's lap and knelt on the bed in front of him. Sherlock stared at him, one hand still clinging to John's hip.
"Lay down," John said.
Sherlock sent him a strange look but surprisingly obeyed. He lay against the pillow, his eyes still fixed on John's face. John let his eyes wander down Sherlock's slender figure. His eyes paused between his thighs.
Feeling incredibly foolish, he held out a hand and palmed Sherlock's sex between his fingers.
Sherlock gave a taut groan. "J-John-"
John took heart and slid it further between his thighs. He could feel the full length of Sherlock's straining cock through the material. He rubbed it beneath his palm, teasing Sherlock with the softest touch possible. He slid his other hand underneath Sherlock's shirt, tugging it upwards so that the older boy's flat, pale stomach was exposed. He stroked down from the rim of Sherlock's navel to the sensitive skin just visible above the band of his pyjamas.
He hadn't given anyone such intimate attentions before but he could tell from the increasingly rough rise and fall of Sherlock's chest that he was enjoying it. Sherlock tilted his head back further against the pillow. John felt a twinge of glee and moved his fingers underneath the band. He could feel a rough patch of Sherlock's dark pubic hair.
His heart gave a nervous flutter in his chest. He hadn't ever seen Sherlock completely unclothed before. He felt a foolish stir of anxiety. He had seen other boys undressed in the change rooms, but that was different.
He took an unsteady breath and gently peeled down the band of Sherlock's pyjamas. He couldn't look away as Sherlock's skin was revealed inch by inch. A pair of pale white boxers were revealed. He slid his fingertips underneath and tugged them away. Sherlock made a small, breathless sound as his bottom half was exposed.
John bit his lip and felt a surge of arousal pulse through his crotch. He hesitate for a moment, just drinking in the beauty of Sherlock's pale, delicate thighs. The crown of Sherlock's sex was already glistening.
John held out a hand to it and then hesitated. He glanced down at the front of his boxer briefs. Sherlock propped himself up on his elbows. John adored it when his hair stuck up like it was. It made Sherlock look so different to the self-controlled youth that he was in class. John pitied anyone who didn't have the pleasure of seeing Sherlock Holmes when he was glowing with arousal and happiness. All of his features were softened and his eyes seemed to lose some of their hardness and sternness.
But John was the only person in the entire school who got to see this side of him. Somehow that made him feel wildly gratified.
John forced away the goofy smile that was threatening to creep onto his lips and slid a leg over Sherlock's lap to straddle him. Their erections were pressed against each other and John had to throw a hand to his mouth to muffle himself. Sherlock moaned in unison with him but didn't have time to muffle the sound. Goosebumps erupted over John's skin. The hairs on his arms stood violently on end.
He didn't think he had ever heard such an erotic sound. He rocked his hips, purely from the hope of hearing it again. Sherlock made a strangled noise and bucked his hips up to meet John's.
The friction was amazing but John wanted more. He paused and hastily tore down his boxer briefs to his thighs. He hadn't ever been less self-conscious about revealing himself. Sherlock gave a small whimper.
"J-John... Oh..." he said weakly.
John lowered himself against Sherlock's thighs and his weeping sex. He clamped his bottom lip viciously in his teeth to keep from screaming as they were pressed together, naked flesh on naked flesh.
"Sherlock. G-God," he stammered, throwing his head back and pressing a hand to Sherlock's stomach to steady himself.
Sherlock's fingers were twisting tighter and tighter into the covers. His back was arched on such an acute angle that John couldn't believe it didn't hurt his spine.
John grinded his hips downward and was rewarded both by a violent twinge of pleasure and Sherlock's throaty cry.
"John," he said thickly, tossing his head to one side.
John gritted his teeth to keep from moaning in response and rubbed himself harder against Sherlock's thighs. The sensation was wet and slippery and hot all at the same time- and just blindingly pleasurable. His cock ached from it.
He began to roughly rub himself against Sherlock. It became more of a half-rub, half-roll of his hips as the sensation took hold of him.
"Ah-" he exclaimed, almost against his will.
He could imagine what he looked like. He could feel his shirt was soaked through with perspiration. His thighs were wet with sweat and so were Sherlock's. He thought they could be in danger of serious chafing if they kept up the same level of friction but there wasn't a nerve in John's body that intended to slow down.
Sherlock untangled one hand from the covers and pressed it around their erections, pinning them together. John moaned aloud and was certain he saw a momentary flash of triumph go across Sherlock's features. A moment later he thought he must have imagined it, Sherlock's face was damp and arranged in a taut expression that left no room for any disguised emotion.
Nonetheless, John moved a hand to Sherlock's shirt and yanking it upright. He could hardly keep his balance as it was but he determinedly moved his free hand to Sherlock's left nipple and took it between his fingers. Sherlock's eyes widened, his lips parted on their own accord as he gaped up at him. It was not an expression John had ever seen on Sherlock's face before. He was fascinated.
He rolled the erect nub between his fingers, teasingly soft and adoring the soft, breathless sounds it drew from his boyfriend's smart mouth. He almost forgot that his own groin was burning with a searing need to climax. His eyes widened as Sherlock's hands slid up his cock and grasped the sensitive crown. John looked down and saw Sherlock's pale fingers tease the glands, so casually that he could have been sharpening a pencil.
"Sher-lock-" John panted, almost grinding into Sherlock's thighs in search of the friction he seemed to need more and more of as every second went by.
Sherlock tilted his head up and, to John's astonishment and disbelief, flashed him a smirk. Then he slid his hand downwards, down the slick shaft of John's sex and down further still.
Then John saw stars.
"Oh my Go-" was the extent of John's dialogue before he orgasmed with a violence he hadn't thought himself capable of. "Oh my God!" he sobbed into his hand.
He felt his seed burst across Sherlock's stomach. His eyes fluttered open. He saw Sherlock staring at him with widened grey eyes. The smirk was gone. His teeth were gritted and there was an expression of something approaching complete anguish.
"S-Sherlock-" John whimpered, feeling like he may pass out.
Sherlock threw his head back against the pillow and turned his head to one side. John didn't know whether it was to hide his face from John's view or to muffle the strangled cry as he came. John saw the orgasm tear violently through Sherlock's body. Both hands were buried back in the covers of his bed, but now they were clawing so violently into the material that John thought he might tear it in two.
John jerked back just in time to avoid being hit square in the face with Sherlock's ejaculate. Something that he could only thank his football reflexes for. He tumbled backwards on the bed and stared at Sherlock, hardly able to control his violent breathing.
Sherlock struggled upright. John noted that his hands were trembling slightly. In fact his legs seemed to be trembling slightly too. He stared at John in silence, his chest heaving in the same uncontrollable fashion as John's.
John suddenly realised that he still had his underwear around his thighs. He hastily yanked them up. He was glad that he didn't feel physically capable of blushing while his body temperature was still at its current level.
Sherlock followed his lead and dressed. His shirt didn't seem to have gained much benefit from their ministrations. It was very damp and was stretched even more violently out of shape.
"You need new pyjamas," John noted, before realising that he had just broken their afterglow with a fairly mundane observation.
"Golly, can you teach me to notice small, minute details like that?" Sherlock said sarcastically.
"Shut up," John grumbled. He lay on his back, staring blearily at the ceiling. "What the fuck was that anyway?"
"That is called an "orgasm", John," Sherlock said slowly. "Need me to demonstrate it for you again?"
He leant over John, his eyes glinting.
"No," John said, laughing. "You'll kill me, you nutter."
"Aw, poor little virgin," Sherlock said fondly, stroking a finger down the slightly upturned tip of John's nose.
He lay down next to him, graciously not saying anything about being crammed next to the cold wall in his own bed until John finally noticed and shifted over for him.
"Sherlock," John said at length, when he sensed that Sherlock might be in danger of nodding off.
"Mmm?" Sherlock said, with his head resting against John's shoulder.
"Do you care that I'm..." John rolled the word around in his mouth. "A virgin?" he blurted out.
Sherlock was silent and still for a minute. John thought for a moment that he'd upset him, but then he rolled onto his side, peering at John with an expression difficult to read. "Why would I?" he said, frowning. "Does it bother you?"
"No..." John said hesitantly. "It's just... you seem... sort of-"
"I'm not a virgin," Sherlock said bluntly. "But that doesn't mean I'm some sex-crazed maniac who's only dating you for a quick fuck."
"No! I know," John said hastily. "I... I don't know how to word it..." He felt increasingly foolish, gazing up at Sherlock's intelligent features. Sherlock must have thought he was such a dunce.
Sherlock rested a hand on his chest. "I'll wait for as long as you need," he said.
John nodded offhandedly, averting his eyes to the wall behind Sherlock's head so he didn't do something embarrassing like turn bright red. "I just need a little more time..." he said softly. "You won't be waiting forever. I promise-"
"Don't promise me you'll be ready soon," Sherlock said abruptly. "There's no sense in it."
John looked at him with a slight frown. Sometimes he got the feeling he was hiding something about himself that he was still not able to share with John. But John supposed that if Sherlock could wait, so could he.
End of Chapter Thirteen