A/N Warning: This chapter contains a little dub con and a bit of porn. If that bothers you, just skip it. Otherwise, I invite you to dive in!
Thanks to all of you who are following, commenting, favoriting and kudosing (that's a word, isn't it? It is now!) and in general making me feel blissful and motivated about writing down and sharing my stories. I love you all! And even though I've been falling a little behind on answering comments, please know that each one gives me great pleasure.
As always, my betas snogandagrope and ScienceofObsession are brilliant. I've tried betaing recently, and it takes a lot of time and thought and commitment, and I'm just impressed and grateful that they are always so willing and available. I'm very lucky to have them.
Chapter 5: Skin Hunger Impels a Moral Man
John wakes up, nose twitching. He irritably turns his head a little to the side, and gradually realizes that it's hair, soft against his skin, teasing the sensitive flesh of his upper lip. Each breath puffs a curl away, which returns on the inhale to catch in his stubble and invade his nose.
He lies very still for a moment, cataloging sensations. It has been, well, honestly, years since he's been in this situation. A warm body is pressed close to him.
Obviously Sherlock succumbed to sleep at some point in the night. John is surprised it hadn't woken him up. Clearly he'd ripped the sheets and duvet out from where they'd been tucked against the wall, and made a nest for himself underneath them, curled up, perforce, tightly next to John.
John looks cautiously at the foot of the bed. One elegant, henna'd foot is exposed by the wrecked blankets. That, and the feathery shock of curly black hair against his skin are all that is visible.
Humid air flows rhythmically into the pocket of his neck, Sherlock's chin propped companionably against John's shoulder. He has an arm and a leg thrown over John, who woke up mirroring that position, so they are quite entangled. John knows that, as a decent human being, he should slowly withdraw, and give the man some space to sleep. And John is a decent human being.
But he is also very lonely.
All these years, covered in skin that has only known the clinical, impersonal touches of doctors and PTs. A tiny net of goosebumps skims over him and he licks his lips, beset by conflicting desires. His nostrils flare as he sucks in Sherlock's unique smell: warmth and dust, sandalwood and smoke.
Sherlock's impatient dissection of his lust the day before flashes through his mind. He does. Oh, he does want this man. His skin craves touch so much he can almost feel it as pain, can feel shaking need inside so intense and roiling that he finds he's repressing nausea and shivers. He recalls med school days, and the psychology class where they'd covered skin hunger and 'failure-to-thrive' syndrome. Having a name for it, however, doesn't change the ferocity of his compulsion to touch. To be touched.
John holds his breath, and smooths his hand slowly under the duvet, feather-light, around Sherlock's gently canted shoulder, and ghosts down the sensual line of that beautiful, warm, vital body until his hand is wrapped around the narrow blade of Sherlock's hip, thumb barely stroking in the hollow of it, fingers resting on the fleshier rise of his arse.
John turns off his brain, very deliberately. All the thoughts about what he's doing, and why, are shoved down deep, wrestled into confinement, choked in isolation so that none can spill over. Right now, he will only feel.
John turns his head and gluttonously, cautiously, buries his face fully in thick, cool hair. His erection is hot, pounding with the increasing rhythm of his heart. He can feel the individual cells in his blood, surging into his cock like whitewater until flesh is taut, near splitting with the pressure.
He savagely smothers the internal voice crying, Stop! What are you doing? This is molestation!
But he doesn't stop, instead turning a little bit more, until his cock brushes the curve of Sherlock's hip. Ah! Fuck. Oh god, jesus. He shudders, feels the rough brush of Sherlock's embroidered waistband against the tender skin of his cock through the twisted opening of his pajama bottoms. He licks his lips and freezes for a moment. One of Sherlock's hairs is now caught between his lips, and he tongues it in a little circle in his mouth before pushing it back out. God, he wants to consume the man. Assiduously blank, he stealthily moves his hand away from Sherlock's hip, rolls away enough to slip his fingers into his pajama bottoms, pulls his cock out. He gasps silently at the touch. Yes, that is good. Yes. His hand stays still, Don't move, don't move, don't wake him. John has no plans, it is only that his ethics have gone blind and mute, swallowed in the tsunami of cravings too long repressed.
Sherlock sighs a little. Shifts minutely, and his waistband again brushes the head of John's cock. He can feel everything. The stiffened fabric. The raised threads of the embroidery. The cool, glassy discs that are tiny mirrors, sewn into patterns. So much texture. John sneaks his hand onto Sherlock's waist, holding him lightly, feeling the heat, the resistance of living flesh under his hand.
He squeezes his thighs together, just a tiny bit, and feels the drag of knurled fabric across the vein on the underside of his cock. In spite of being hard enough to hammer nails, the most sensitive parts of his length are still covered by stretched foreskin. He shivers with the need to slide it down fully; to feel that dry, sensual slither, the fireworks burst of acute pleasure that will come when it's fully retracted and he can access... he needs to... He presses just a little harder, uses the pressure to help shift the frustrating veil of skin, exposing his frenulum to the tickle of cloth and thread that catches on the corona and teases his glans.
Yes! Again, Yes.
He nearly chokes, shaking, trying to hold in the outward huff of air that will dispel some of the accrued tension. His hand closes more tightly on Sherlock's waist, rocking it a little, but not pulling him around to meet John, belly to belly, because that would wake Sherlock up, and John is fairly sure he doesn't want Sherlock to wake up. You're twisted! you're twisted, his brain shouts. But it cannot be heard over the roaring in his ears, and the flood of sensation, the heat of the man next to him, the gentle tackiness of bodies that have been pressed together under heavy blankets for some duration, the combined smell of the two of them, den-like, that puffs out of their blanket huddle whenever John moves.
His fingers trail down, creep slowly downward, gently surfing the crest of Sherlock's hip, reveling in the smooth resilience of human skin. In a journey of mere inches, John experiences years, savoring and exploring, and his hand opens up as it reaches the swell of luscious arse. It ends up shamelessly nestled in the crease under Sherlock's bum, fingertips aiming at the meridian which hides his center.
John breathes in lightly, and nudges his cock again against Sherlock's hip. He tilts his head downwards and buries his face in Sherlock's hair. The exotic residue of incense and remaining smoke, clinging after his cigarette last night, fill his nose, and he knows that the potential for this smell always making him hard in the future is inevitable and dangerous. John's skin is becoming flushed, and light sweat begins to dampen his body. He wants to groan, but stuffs it back, limits himself to infinitesimal movements of his hips, eyes tightly closed as if in denial, trying to repress the rippling frisson of pleasure that ricochets through his body.
Stop it. Stop, he tells himself. But he cannot control it. His brain tries to rationalize; to say Well, Sherlock climbed into bed, and tangled his limbs around me, it must therefore be ok. And he's appalled at himself for such a sick justification. But the electricity sparking from his cock is too overwhelming to ignore.
Sherlock sighs deeply, moves his head, and John feels momentary dampness, as if the inside of his lip scraped across John's shoulder. And oh. Oh! John comes back to himself with a jarring drop. What is he doing? He can no longer ignore the trust and vulnerability implicit in being relaxed enough to drool a bit on your partner. It is an innocent and captivating notion, and John can admit that he is violating that confidence in the most basic and despicable of ways. He cringes back and rolls over, suddenly frantic to get out of bed, to get away from what he's been doing.
Exiting the bed is a production, however, because the space he's allotted is so tiny, and he has to do a three point turn. Just as he lifts the duvet, in order to slip out, Sherlock makes a grumpy, throat-clearing noise behind him. He mutters something unintelligible, and strikes out to grab John high on his ribs. John freezes.
Sherlock growls again, and tugs John back until they are nestled together. "Subtlety is not your forte, John," Sherlock husks, head tilted up so that his breath curls around John's ear. "You're quite impossible to ignore. Your ethical agonizing has awakened me. Guilt! What a useless thing." He budges John down a bit, until his head is tucked under Sherlock's chin, and his bum settled unmistakably in his lap.
John gasps, draws in a long breath, for protest, for explanation, for the purpose of bolting, he doesn't really know. Sherlock cuts it off via the simple action of slipping his hand down to John's crotch and casually fisting his cock.
John sucks in a sharp gasp and then chokes on his own saliva.
"Might as well complete the thing, John. Or you'll be useless all day."
"Oh, god, Sherlock. I'm so sorry-" he wheezes.
"Shh!" Sherlock hisses. He snakes his other arm under John's neck, fumbles for a moment, and then presses his palm firmly across John's mouth. "Be quiet."
Oh, Jesus. What is this, every wet dream he's ever had? Sherlock presses John's head back against his chest, knobs of his collar bones poking into John's skull; and John can feel his own teeth, under the squashed slide of his lips. Sherlock insinuates a thigh between John's, propping his legs open, and walks his fingers down the shaft of his cock, slips inside the pajamas and teases across his bollocks, lifts and warms each testicle. John tries to groan, his mouth opens, and Sherlock slips two fingers inside, pressing down on his tongue. "Shh," he says again, but it doesn't sound as irritated this time. "I'm going to finish you off. Shouldn't take very long."
John is humiliated, but doesn't actually say Stop. Sherlock closes his hand around him again, and John wildly jolts. He can hear Sherlock's smirk. Long fingers squeeze almost painfully, but don't move for a minute. The fingers in his mouth stroke his tongue, and John automatically closes his lips and tries to suck. They are big, though, and he can't get a good enough seal for strong suction. Sherlock's fingers have no flavor, but he can feel their dry texture, their strength, their impatience, through all of his mouth.
He jerks again, can't prevent the arch of his back, pushing his arse back for more contact. He loosens his thighs, and allows Sherlock to open him up a little more, leg heavy and hot, gauze of his trousers silky between his own. His instinct is to press back even more, to spread his knees wide, push back until his arsehole is exposed to Sherlock's consideration; to push until it stretches open from tension alone. Before he can do more than have that single, horrified thought, Sherlock yanks his hand up, sliding the sensitive foreskin around the glans, pinching it lightly across the tip for a minute, before pulling it all rather roughly back down.
John keens, writhing, and his arm flies backward, flailing, until it lands on Sherlock's hip and grabs tight. Sherlock rubs his fingers across the sharp edges of John's bottom teeth and digs his chin into the top of his head. He repeats the maneuver. John starts to breathe in short, gasping pants. Oh, god, he's close. It's so hot, his skin cannot contain the conflagration, it will peel away, leaving only nerves; and he can feel every cell of smooth flesh, each fiber of muscle, each filament of hair against his back. Sherlock pulls on his foreskin again, and John begins a nonverbal, babbling moan. It's been so long, so long, and he hasn't even had any fantasies this good in many years.
He bites and sucks helplessly at Sherlock's fingers, tongue desperate to get involved, and thrusts his hips as much as he's permitted, within the confines of Sherlock's body and tight fist.
But there is an alarm going off in the back of his head. Something isn't right. What? Wait...
But Sherlock tugs, and twists, and forcefully wrests the foreskin down and rubs his thumb hard across the glans, and John can't hold on to rational thought at all anymore, he's shaking and incandescent and almost... almost...
Sherlock drags his fingers out of John's mouth, pulling his bottom lip open as they move down, and grabs his jaw hard enough to leave finger-shaped bruises on either side, and leans up to breathe into John's ear, hot, wet tongue plunging unceremoniously inside, and his knee jerks up to push against his bollocks, and John comes explosively.
He's a gasping, shaking, gibbering mess, is what he is. When he does finally regain the ability to speak, all he says is, "Oh,god. Oh, god. Sherlock! Oh, god. Fuck." And molten aftershocks of pleasure shake him, and he has to roll his lips in very tightly to prevent the lump in his throat from turning into tears. Or, worse, sobs. He can't do that: can't let go to that extent, must shove it down lest his walls break irreparably.
Sherlock retrieves his limbs and pulls away, wiping his hand on the sheets before rolling over to his back.
And the 'wrong' thing clarifies in John's mind.
"You're not hard," he says, stupidly.
"No, John. I'm trying to sleep." Sherlock replies irritably.
"But... But, that means. Oh, my god. You're not-"
"It means nothing, John. Your moral crisis was tedious and loud enough to keep me awake. Now you are happy, I am happy, and I can go back to sleep while you shower. We all win."
John can't even turn around, he's so mortified.
Sherlock pushes him out of the bed. "Go! John. Get in the shower. It's fine."
John staggers a bit to gain his balance, and turns around. But Sherlock has closed his eyes. He looks completely peaceful, insofar as his expressionless face gives that impression. He cracks an eye and rolls it. "Tedious, John. Shower." He gives him a half smirk, and flops over again. He sleeps solidly for the next 2 hours.