Some nice sexy times to get you through the weekend.

If smut isn't your cuppa, I suggest skipping this section. Otherwise, have at it!

I don't know what my muse got up to today. She was feeling a bit frisky. Probably thanks to reading Mirith Griffin's story, "Control, Alt, Delete," for the second time. Thank you, MG.

Sherlock reached across the seat for John's hand.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked roughly.

John let out the breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding. His chest felt tight, and he prayed that his eyes would look dry to Sherlock.

"John?" Sherlock looked up, concerned. "John? What is it?"

"I don't know if I can explain it, Sherlock."

"That's odd," Sherlock commented. The side of his mouth twitched. "You're usually the one who wants to talk about everything." They were arriving at the Hudson Hotel, and Sherlock reached into his coat to pull out a few bills for the cabbie, releasing John's hand. He took it up again when they were inside, the hotel's long escalator bringing them up to the lobby. It was a quick trip from the lobby to their room, and Sherlock did not let go of John's hand again until the door was shut behind them and Sherlock had led John to sit next to him on the sofa.

Sherlock positioned himself so that he could keep holding John's hand, while using his other hand to stroke the hair back from the older man's face.

"Are you having a flashback?" Sherlock asked with concern. He hadn't had to do this before, calm down John during a flashback. No, that's not true, the detective corrected himself. There was that night, oh when was it? March, that first year we lived together. I was out late – later than usual – and when I came back to Baker Street, John was screaming in his room. The sight: his body, wrapped tightly in his sheets and quilts, struggling to free himself from their bondage, rocking back and forth until I lay onto top of him, calming him with the weight of my body. He felt so warm and alive under me; I couldn't believe that he had been in the throes of terror just minutes earlier. And then he woke up, and pulled away from me, ashamed and scolding, shouting at me to leave, when I was the one who had helped him.

"Not a flashback, Sherlock," John said, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall of the sofa. Sherlock's chilly fingers, soft on his face and in his hair, were reassuring, if a bit uncharacteristic in their application. Sherlock was much likelier to use his fingers to probe, pinch, intrude, unwrap, prick, or squeeze; the comfort they now gave to John was unexpected.

No, not so unexpected, John thought, remembering how Sherlock had comforted Sarah, that night when they were kidnapped by the Chinese gang. He had seen Sherlock in that mode any number of times, but John had always dismissed it as another one of Sherlock's acts, the detective assuming the socially appropriate position whenever it behoved him to act the part of the concerned rescuer. Now, with Sherlock's fingers in his hair, John's thoughts went to that night, in his second month at Baker Street, when he had awoken from a vicious nightmare to find himself enveloped in Sherlock's coltish limbs, his body secured against the mattress by the firm pressure of Sherlock's torso against his back.

He knew how to calm me, then, John thought. And I pushed him away, frightened by his presence in my bedroom. I was wrapped in so many layers, but I had never felt so, so naked in my life. He saw everything. He saw right through me – saw my fear, my desperation, and then my anger and my arousal. I couldn't forgive him for it, and I pushed him off, swore at him, and he ran out of my room. We never spoke about it. Still haven't.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes, love?" John's breath caught in his throat again, hearing that word on Sherlock's lips.

"Do you remember the night when I had a nightmare and you came in and lay on top of me?"

Sherlock's smile had a trace of sadness to it. "Yes, I remember, John. Funny, I was just thinking of the same night."

"Hmmm." John rubbed his fingers over Sherlock's knuckles. "I misjudged you, then. And I think I've misjudged you, since." The detective raised an eyebrow at his words. John began again. "You were trying to help me that night. I know what you were doing: holding me down so that I wouldn't struggle any further and hurt myself in the process."

"You still had a limp at that point, need I remind you?"

"Right. The limp. And the shoulder. All of it – I was broken. And you held me as if you were swaddling me, damn it!"

"In diverse cultures – Inner Mongolia, for instance, as well as among the Quechua of Peru and Bolivia – infants are swaddled in order to simulate the close environment of the womb. They find it soothing."

"That's exactly my point. You knew what to do, Sherlock!"

"Of course I did." Sherlock gazed at John, cocking his head to one side in wonderment.

"I wouldn't have expected it of you. Or, I believed that even if you knew about such a thing, that your knowing about it and your putting that knowledge into practice were two different things altogether. But that's where I've been wrong. This is what I'm trying to explain, if you let me finish. You knew how to make Sarah feel better when you rescued us from Madame Chan. You knew what to do when you found me, about to shit myself, in the cage at Baskerville. You knew how to wake me from a nightmare without ending up with a punch to your face or dislocating my shoulder. You knew all of this, Sherlock, and I never acknowledged it!"

"John." Sherlock leaned towards John until their foreheads were touching. His hands came up to cradle John's face, and before John could say another word, Sherlock had deposited a tender, fleeting kiss on John's open mouth. John pushed into the kiss, grabbing at Sherlock's coat sleeves as the detective pushed him down onto the cushions, until John was lying flat on the sofa, his shod feet dangling off one end, and Sherlock's legs were twined between his.

"Fuck, our shoes!" John said, laughing. Sherlock eased one shoe off with the toe of the other, and John followed suit. Their shoes fell to the floor, followed by two pairs of dark socks. Then they were kissing again, Sherlock's body heavy against John's chest, and John had wrapped his hands around Sherlock's narrow hips, bringing their groins together until he could feel the detective's building erection nudging against his own.

"Are you swaddling me now, Sherlock?" John asked with a cheeky grin, pulling back from Sherlock's kisses so that he could look at his lover's face. Sherlock's hair was mussed, his lips red and chapped and swollen, and both of them were buried under the soft folds of the Belstaff, as if Sherlock had kept it on to ward against a phantom gale.

"This is not what one does to an infant," Sherlock said meaningful, grinding his hips against John's thighs.

"No, but it does feel a lot like what you did that night, after I had the dream. God, Sherlock, do you know how much you startled me, when you lay down on me like that?"

"I thought that I was helping you." Sherlock bent down to kiss John's neck. His lips traced a light path from John's right ear to his Adam's apple. John smelled of disinfectant, and the night air, and pine-scented shampoo. Sherlock unbuttoned the top of the other man's coat and slid the zipper down as far as it would go, his hand grazing over John's stomach before wandering up to rest on his chest, over the jumper.

"Geez, you might have helped me more —" John began, "— if you weren't so bloody attractive."

Sherlock shrugged off his coat and flung it over the side of the sofa. He returned to John's lap, gently dropping his head down again so that it rested against the older man's neck. He began to suckle at the smooth skin underneath John's chin, his tongue moving upwards until he found the rough expanse beneath John's mouth, and then Sherlock's mouth was on his again, and John felt a jolt of heat in his chest as their tongues found each other.

Sherlock kissed him eagerly, loudly, his lips smacking and biting and tugging at John's mouth as his hands ran up and down John's chest, looking for the edge of his jumper so that he could work his hands up and under. He clenched John's shirt, pulling it out of his trousers, until the younger man's cool fingers were trailing a line upwards, following the path of hair that led to the centre of his chest.

"Get – this – off," Sherlock muttered, urging John to sit up so that he could pull the jumper off of him. Then he cradled John's face in his hands and led him down, settling him once more against the cushions of the sofa. His hands went to work immediately on the buttons of his shirt, and then he asked John to sit up again, and tugged at the sleeves until John was bare-chested, then laid him back down again. Sherlock hovered over him, his thighs spread wide around John's hips, and he examined the body of his lover.

The scar caught his attention, like it did every time they were together. Once they got back to Baker Street, Sherlock thought he might ask John to walk around the flat without his shirt, make it a regular habit of his. It would be such a nice way to start the day, if John were to come down to the kitchen – Sherlock always pictured himself rising before John – wearing nothing but his pyjama bottoms and slippers. And Sherlock would be sitting at the table, perusing the day's newspapers, pretending not to notice John until the doctor padded across the room to open the refrigerator. Then Sherlock might sneak up behind him, and envelope John's naked chest in his arms, and kiss the back of his neck, and press him against the counter, or the door of the refrigerator, reaching his hands downwards to untie the string on John's pyjamas, until –

But first, he would lavish attention on John's scar. As he was about to do.

His fingers grazed over the taut skin of the cicatrize, pale and unnaturally smooth. John jerked his shoulder, at once wanting to turn away from the sensation and push into it, too. A titanium plate was still in John's shoulder, though the two ends of the clavicle had long since knit back together. Whenever John gave the word, it would be removed, but he hadn't done so yet; this omission interested Sherlock. Did John want the metal in his body? Did John wear it as a badge of pride, the foreign object a reminder of his time in foreign lands? There would still be a scar to mark the wound, once the plate was removed. So why doesn't John take it out? Sherlock wondered, not for the first time.

Sherlock knew that, underneath the plate, there was also a cluster of slender wires connecting the coracoid process to the scapula, lines invisible to his eyes or fingers. He imagined what it must have looked like, when the surgeons had opened John's shoulder to extract the bullet, and had found shards of bone and shredded tendons and sinews, all an impossible tangle. Yet someone had put him back together, had drilled the screws through the plate and into the collarbone while John was sleeping the blessed sleep of morphine. Someone had rolled his bed out of the surgical theatre, back to his room in the army hospital – a nurse or orderly, perhaps? He wished, suddenly and irrationally, that he had been the one to care for John, in what must have been such long and lonely months, before the discharge.

It troubled Sherlock that so much had happened to John before they had known each other. Will there never be a time when I know all about you? Sherlock asked. Or will I forever be catching up on your scars, your bruises, all of the foreign objects that have passed by and through and inside your body?

His fingers lingered over the shoulder, light touches so as to not trigger the response that, he knew by now, could so easily bring the pain back to John's face. That had happened, a few days ago, when they were lying in bed together after sex, and Sherlock's nails had brushed too firmly against John's scar, and John had wrested his body away from Sherlock's, cursing as he did so.

Now, underneath him, John looked so peaceful, and yet so vulnerable, too. Sherlock had never before had a body – a living body, that is – so thoroughly at his disposal. It made him feel heady and powerful and oh so very much alive, to know that he was about to make this kind, unassuming man come undone with only his hands and his mouth.

Sherlock reached for John's belt and fly, opening the gray trousers just enough to ease his hands between the rough sides of the zipper. John's cock was full and heavy underneath his pants, and Sherlock easily found the slit in the cloth that permitted his hands to slide inwards and around John's erection, soft skin on impossibly soft skin.

John gasped. "Sherlock!"

"Yes, love," Sherlock murmured. "Let me take care of this for you. Lie back. Relax. Imagine what would have happened if I had done this to you, after the nightmare. Imagine how that night might have ended."

"It couldn't have ended that way," John panted. "Not that early."

Sherlock's eyes grew wide before he bent close and took John's mouth in his own. His right hand stroked up and down the length of John's shaft, finding a rhythm that was not quite metronomically sound but which seemed to arouse John into even further franticness.

"Let me have my fantasy," Sherlock breathed into his mouth. "Let us imagine what it would have been like, that night, if instead of you throwing me out of your room, you have spread your legs for me—yes, John, pull off your trousers. Yes! Like that. The pants, too." He removed his hands from John's cock so that the other man could divest himself of his clothing.

"What were you saying, Sherlock?" John asked. Now he was spread out under Sherlock, his legs urging themselves more widely apart as if he wished to expose every centimetre of pale skin to Sherlock's inspection.

"As I was saying, my dear Watson," Sherlock continued. "How might things have been different for us, if instead of unceremoniously dumping me on the floor, you had invited me into your bed?"

"Were you thinking of that, then?" John asked.

"What do you think?"

"You're –" John gasped as Sherlock's fingers, now wet with saliva, slowly stretched his foreskin. "You're – having me – on."

"Now, why would I do that?" the younger man drawled. He ran the pad of his index finger over John's glans, pausing when he came to the leaking hole at the apex of his penis.

"Because you want to fuck me," John said. He put his hands over Sherlock's, willing the detective to stop his motions. Sherlock rose up slightly, creating a few inches of space between the two of them as his eyes darted back and forth, now passing over John's face, now his groin.

"And what does that mean to you?" Sherlock asked breathily.

"I – Sherlock, God, you know I'd let you – but not tonight. Not now. I –"

"Shh," Sherlock said, kissing John into silence. "I know what you are going to say, and I don't want you to say it. I don't want you to tell me no, so I'll stop you before you go any further. I want you to tell me yes. Yes to me loving you, yes to my hands and my foot and my arm and my face and any other part belonging to a man – you can have it all. Todo lo que tengo, yo te lo entrego. Hasta la más médula de mi ser, hasta el dolor que llevo adentro, todo lo que es mío también te pertenece a ti. No me lo niegues. Yes to you inside me, like you were the other night. Yes to all of it, John, and before you can say no –"

Sherlock sat up, and John scarcely had time to protest his absence before the detective had shed his clothes and had lain back down on John, stretching his long body over the doctor, as if by covering every inch of John Watson's body with his body, Sherlock Holmes might stave off whatever negation he feared from his lover.

"This is what I am going to do, John," Sherlock panted, still looking down into the doctor's dark eyes. "We are going to move to the bedroom. You are going to lie down on the bed, just as you are right now. Not a jot different. And while you lie there, I am going to get the lube and –"

"Stop!" John grunted, trying to sit up. "And let's go in there already!" He shoved Sherlock aside, bounding off of the sofa and across the room in one smooth movement, leaving Sherlock behind to follow him with his eyes.

Sherlock unfolded his long limbs and ran after John, who quite obediently had resumed his previous posture and was lying, his legs spread wide, on the large bed.

Opening the drawer at the nightstand, Sherlock found the bottle of lube and a condom.

"Just the lube," John said, noticing what Sherlock had in his hands. Sherlock gave him a quizzical expression.

"But it's—I thought you might not like – it can get messy, afterwards."

"We're both clean, aren't we?" John asked. "Just grab a towel."

Sherlock threw himself off the bed, darting to the bathroom and returning with a fluffy white towel.

"Up," he said, motioning to John to lift his hips. John eagerly obliged, and Sherlock spread the towel under him.

"Are you going to – are you going to let me come in you?" John asked. He worried, for an instant, that it might all be over too quickly, if they didn't use the condom. But then again, he was a man of a certain age, and it had been a long time since he had lost control of himself like that. He trusted that he'd survive this next encounter.

"Yes," Sherlock admitted, throwing himself over John once more. John had not thought that it was possible to spread his legs any wider, but there were Sherlock's hands, urging them apart, and his lover's mouth had found his left testicle, and was that – yes, it most certainly was Sherlock's finger, rubbing at the outside of his anus.

"I am going to put my finger into your arse—can you feel where my hands are right now?" John reached down to feel Sherlock's hand; they were where Sherlock had said they would be, at the base of his perineum, sliding ever lower.

"Gggrrr."

John wanted to beg for Sherlock to take his cock into his mouth again; he wanted to feel the wet warmth of those lips, curled around his glans. But Sherlock continued to nibble at his balls, pulling gently at the hair that surrounded them, as one slick finger found its way into John's tight entrance.

"That is so fucking strange, Sher, and I can't say what it feels like, but if you stop, I swear I am going to—" He could feel his muscles clench around the finger inside him, and he still felt that it was strange, as if the finger shouldn't be there, but it was so smooth and persistent, throbbing up and into him with such a constant rhythm, that John began to anticipate it, and almost despite himself, he began to move against it, marvelling at the unusual sensations produced by Sherlock's hands, inside and out.

"Now I want you to squeeze some lube into your hands," Sherlock directed him, sliding up and taking John's cock into his mouth again. John groaned but when Sherlock pulled away with a clinging 'pop,' John filled his palm with lubricant and waited for his next instruction.

"Now," Sherlock continued, lifting his mouth away from John, who felt the loss intensely, before coming to kneel over him once again. "I want you to prep me. Like you did before. Reach up between my legs-oooh, yes yes yes. Fuck it, YES. John. I—" But then Sherlock was babbling incoherently, because John's finger was in his arse, and Sherlock had forgotten, in the novelty of having a little part of himself inside John, what it had felt to have John inside him. John's fingers, those brilliant, steady hands, thought Sherlock, Yes, you darling man, yes, that's it, yes, thick fingers, thick cock, yes, exactly so, you are a quick study. I knew you would be. Sherlock leaned forward, his chest grazing against John's as he supported himself on his forearms and let John continue his persistent exploration of his sphincter. The good doctor learned, in a scant minute, that Sherlock enjoyed a wandering, erratic touch just on the inside, in that soft first centimetre of tissue. John ventured another finger inside, along the first, and Sherlock jolted forward in surprise before pushing back against John again.

"Keep doing—" Sherlock panted, droplets of sweat forming at his temple, "—what you were doing. Very soon I am going to impale myself on you."

John felt his cock twitch in response to Sherlock's words. "It had better be soon," he said huskily.

It was almost too soon, for before John had finished speaking, Sherlock had risen up and off of John's fingers, and John felt the other man's hands around his cock, leading it into position.

For an instant, John feared that Sherlock was too tight, that he hadn't given himself enough time to get ready, but then, as Sherlock eased himself onto John, he realized that Sherlock must have wanted it a little rough. If anything, he managed to think before the blood left his brain, if anything, he held back because of me, to give me the time I needed to get used to this again. This wildness, this incredible intimacy. It's too much for me, all at once. So he paced me. He led me. He let me—

Then John could not think any more, or if he thought, his thoughts were sensations and perceptions, preverbal consciousness, no words at all, for Sherlock was indeed impaled on him, and apparently quite determined to ride him for all he was worth. The sight of Sherlock over him, urging them both onwards, the long cock of his lover dangling between the two of them, almost pushed John over the edge. He could feel the orgasm building at the base of his pelvis, and he willed it to stay there for just a few seconds longer, so that he could reach his hands up to Sherlock's face, and turn it towards him, and see Sherlock's eyes blown wide with arousal and amazement.

"Fuck me, John," he pleaded.

John reached a hand between the two of them, wrapping his fingers and palm around Sherlock's ruddy penis.

"Like this?"

"Like that. Yes, John. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

"I am fucking you, Sherlock," John said, laughing. "I am fucking you and in an instant you are going to come all over both of us, and then I am going to come inside you, and I am a fucking fool, Sherlock. I love you." The doctor gave another push, more gently, so as to not tear Sherlock apart, but Sherlock did not like his lover's reticence, and he protested by pushing more firmly down against John.

"You said you were going to fuck me," Sherlock said in a low voice. "So fuck me already. Fuck me like you mean it. Fuck me like you love me."

"I'm going to hurt you, Sherlock," John protested.

"You won't."

"Then you deserve what's coming to you." In one determined motion, John pressed more deeply into Sherlock, and when he was in to the hilt, he grabbed his lover's hips and pulled him even closer, so that he could spin Sherlock around. Now on top, John looked down at Sherlock, who was gazing up at him with an expression of shock.

"You didn't expect that, did you?"

"No," Sherlock panted.

"I am going to fuck you," John repeated. "Like you said. Hard." He accentuated that final word with a violent thrust that caused Sherlock to whimper beneath him and roll his head to the side.

"Like that," he said. "Just like that. Don't stop, John, just – touch me while you're doing that?"

John reached between them and took Sherlock in his hand, pulling on his shaft as he watched his own cock move in and out of the younger man. The sight was spectacular, watching them join and move and come together and pull apart and come together again. It was spectacular, and over far too quickly, for Sherlock wanted to be overcome by John's will just as much John wanted to mould Sherlock into something of his own.

When the little death came upon them, in successive turns, Sherlock first and then John, they were both reminded of that other death, the one they had first known together, the first night that John had helped Sherlock to solve a crime.

Still entwined together, with John now pulling careful out of Sherlock, neither would voice that thought. Rather, they clung more tightly to each other, more desperate after orgasm than before the release, desperate to hold each other and kiss each other and touch each other's damp, messy hair, to prolong the touch and the desire and the union before both of them were pulled, hungry yet exhausted, into sleep.

Thank you to all of the kind comments thus far from syncsister, SeenaC, skyfullofstars, Mirith Griffin, leew1, Dark Knightress, NivalKenival, Zarra Rous, Aubre Rose, raven612, power0girl, Terrier, murdoke, Lady Ginger, haveacreamteaonme, thedaringkurtsie, , tsukinoblossom, TearfullPixie, ineedthegooddoctor, crazycookBekah, YaoiFreak4Life, Cumberbitch99, Elphie21, dioscuri2, Baow, daysofstorm, khorazir, bluegirl, Soapiefan, LexeeTee, thisisforyou, woooo, NebulousBlender, ladyunebarton, bandnerd21, The Last Mile, I-am-the-Wolf, CarefulSteps, ContntlBreakfst, CKerased, Blue TARDIS Everdeen, Pilikia18, I'llbeyourPatronus, CaptainBetty, RosiePaw, R, Staycalm, thesullengiraffe, Hannah, Heartinator, Violet, Auntiesuze, vector-nyu, as well as all of you who have left kudos on my work.

I am so thrilled by the responses from you, and I try to write back to every review I get, because it is that amazing to me that this fandom is so encouraging and so supportive.

Thank you.

Emma